Chapter 201

Ava

The knock on the door made us all jump, our hands breaking apart as we scrambled to our feet. Betty let out a terrified squeak, clinging to Fabian’s arm like a lifeline.

“I-It’s them,” she whispered, her eyes wide with fear and her finger shaking as she pointed at the door. “The demons are here! They heard us!”

I looked at Chris, who seemed torn somewhere between curiosity and caution. Fabian was frozen in place, his arm protectively around Betty and his brow furrowed.

“Demons…? I don’t know,” I muttered, scratching my head.

Suddenly, the knocking came again, more insistent this time as it echoed through the silent house. It was too solid to be a spirit, I told myself; and besides, all of this was nonsense.

Taking a deep breath, I straightened my shoulders and pivoted toward the front door. “This is ridiculous,” I muttered. “I’m answering it.”

“Ava, wait—” Chris started, but I was already striding toward the door.

With a swift motion, I yanked it open, ready to confront whoever—or maybe even whatever—was on the other side. To my shock, the fortune teller from town burst past me, her colorful skirts swirling as she rushed into the room. The fog trailed in after her, its tendrils curling and flowing into the room, and I quickly slammed and locked the door to keep it out.

“You fools!” she cried, making a beeline for our circle of candles. Dropping to her hands and knees, she blew hard and put all of the candles out before jumping back to her feet again with an unexpected amount of spyness for a woman of her age. “What in Luna’s name do you think you’re doing?”

Before any of us could answer, the fortune teller quickly pulled a small pouch from her pocket and began scurrying around the room, sprinkling what looked like salt under the doors and windows. We could only stand there, dumbfounded, as she did… whatever it was what she was doing.

“What are you doing?” I demanded, finally finding my voice. “Who are you, really?”

The fortune teller turned to face us, her eyes blazing with fury. “I am Madame Zara,” she declared, planting her weathered hands on her hips. “And I demand you all stop doing whatever you’re doing this instant—before you go and spoil all of my hard work.”

I blinked in shock, my eyes roaming the fortune teller’s body. Then, it hit me.

“You’re a witch,” I growled, pointing a finger at her. “Did you bring the fog here?”

“Bring it here?” Zara scoffed and waved a gnarled hand. “Luna, no, you dimwits. I’m your first line of defense against this fog.”

Betty gasped, her grip on Fabian tightening. “A witch? But... but…”

“Yes, a witch,” the fortune teller snapped in a mockery of Betty’s voice, her patience clearly wearing thin. “And you’re lucky I saw you all in my scrying glass, about to make this situation even worse with your amateur seance. Did none of you stop to think about the consequences of meddling with forces you don’t understand?”

Fabian stepped forward, his brow furrowed. “What do you mean, ‘make it worse’? What’s really going on here?”

The witch sighed, her shoulders sagging slightly. She suddenly looked tired, the lines on her face more pronounced.

“There is a trapped spirit living in this manor,” she said softly. “It has been wreaking havoc in the spirit world, causing all kinds of other spirits in the nearby area to become restless. And perhaps if people would stop burning my effigies, the town would feel safer.”

“That was you?!” Betty exclaimed, her eyes widening in recognition. “Those creepy dolls we found?”

The fortune teller rolled her eyes, exasperation clear in her voice. “Yes, that was me. Those are protective charms, you fools. You shouldn’t have burnt them. They were meant to keep you safe, to ward off the malevolent energies that have been gathering here.”

I shook my head, trying to process all of this information. It seemed that it was getting more and more difficult by the minute to debunk everything that was going on here as mere coincidence or pranks.

“I don’t understand,” I said, crossing my arms. “How can we be sure you’re telling the truth? This all sounds... well, crazy.”

The witch fixed me with a piercing stare, her dark eyes seeming to look right through me. “You saw the white figure, didn’t you? Felt the chill in the air? Surely you’ve seen the fog.”

With that, she marched over to the window and yanked the curtain open, and all of us shuddered collectively. It was dark outside, but the fog was so dense that it just looked… gray. And the way it undulated against the window, as if it were palpating the window frame with cold, misty fingers…

“This is no normal fog, and these are all signs of spiritual activity,” Zara said, snapping the curtain shut again and turning to face us. “I’ve been trying to contain it, but it’s not easy when the locals keep interfering with my work.”

I glanced at Chris, who looked both excited and overwhelmed. His earlier admission about having a secret guilty pleasure when it came to the paranormal was clear on his face. Fabian, on the other hand, seemed to be coming to a decision, his jaw set hard.

“Can you help us?” he asked the witch, pulling his shoulders back. “I want things to go back to normal in my pack. I want…” He glanced at Betty, his expression softening. “I want people to feel safe here again.”

Zara nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving Fabian’s face. “I can try. But it won’t be easy. We need to trap the spirit of the wailing woman in a glass bottle. But first, we have to find an item of significance to her. Something she was attached to in life.”

“The wailing woman,” Chris murmured, tapping his chin. “So that’s the woman we’ve seen—the one wearing white who cries in the hallways. She’s a trapped spirit?”

“Yes,” Zara replied with another nod. “I’ve been doing my research, and I believe she may be the spirit of a woman who lived in this house centuries ago. Her name was Maria.”

“Maria…” Fabian furrowed his brow as if trying to remember a long passed relative, but he seemed to come up short.”

“Her name may not be familiar to you,” Zara said. “She was kept in a room in this house, cut off from the rest of the world and erased from your family’s history because of a strange mental illness that she suffered from.”

“How cruel,” Betty mused.

“Because of that, her grief and anger have kept her bound to this place, and her presence is disrupting the natural balance of the land,” Zara finished. “The fog, the strange occurrences—it may all be connected to her.”

“But why now?” I found myself asking. “Why hasn’t this been an issue in Moonshine before?”

Zara merely shrugged. “I may know a lot of things, but I don’t know everything. Even spirits have their secrets.” She paused then, turning to Fabian. “If you want this to stop, we need something precious to Maria. I suspect that there may be something in this house.”

Fabian straightened up, smoothing down his shirt. “Alright, then we’ll find this item. Chris and Ava, you go together; I’ll stick with Betty. Be thorough, but careful. We don’t know what we might be dealing with.”

With that, Fabian and Betty took off into the depths of the house.

As Chris and I were about to head upstairs to begin our search, I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. This couldn’t be real… The afterlife wasn’t real. Spirits weren’t real.

Suddenly, before I could follow Chris, the fortune teller grabbed my wrist with a surprisingly strong grip. I turned to face her, startled by the intense look in her eyes. She leaned in close, her voice dropping to a whisper that only I could hear.

“Your mother lied to you, Ava; spirits are real. And it’s okay to be afraid.”