Read Online A Summer of Fear: A True Haunting in New England by Rebecca Patrick-Howard - Free Book Online Page B

She also recommended I get some salt and make a line around my room, added protection to keep it from crossing over. The last thing she gave me, this item for free, was a book of candle spells. “Your energy,” she said confidentially as two young women dressed as Goths entered the store, “is being wasted. You have power and you don’t know it. White magick, the only real magick, is for you. Honor what’s inside of you. Train it. Cultivate it. It will make you stronger in mind and heart.”
     

    I t started raining on the drive back and once I crossed over the New Hampshire line the drops were so large I could barely see. I pulled over into the rest area, much like I had on my last trip, and waited it out. In the meantime, I called David and talked to him.
    “I’m scared,” I admitted. “I bought sage today and black candles and a white candle and some gemstones but I’m still scared. I don’t want to go back.” I found I was crying into the phone and it mortified me. The last thing he probably wanted to deal with was a crazy, emotional woman.
    “I know you don’t,” he said softly. “And I don’t like the idea of you being there alone. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks; there’s something there and it’s targeting you. You can’t live like that. I don’t think I’d be able to.”
    “I never thought I’d be this scared,” I sniveled. “You have no idea how much I don’t want to go back, how much I just want to leave everything and get on the interstate and start driving. The idea of pulling up to the house, getting out, walking up those stairs…I don’t know that I can do it!”
    He let me cry for several minutes and the two of us sat there in darkness together, both on opposite ends of the country but feeling close.
    “I can’t leave,” I said after the tears had slowed down. “I’m such a failure. I made a mess out of my last job. I’m making a mess out of this one. I haven’t made friends, my boss doesn’t like me, I’m miserable. I wanted this to work, I really did! I can’t go home. I can’t go home and face the fact that I can’t keep a job.”
    “But you weren’t fired from your last one,” he pointed out. “You quit. And it was the best thing to do. Anyone would’ve done it.”
    “Oh, I’d have been fired eventually,” I said darkly. “I just quit before they could do it. It’s ME, David, me.”
    “Maybe it’s too soon. Maybe you shouldn’t have worked so soon after what happened. You went up there feeling fragile, feeling emotional. You were already in a state.”
    “You think I’m just hearing things that aren’t there? Like some kind of manifestation of my thoughts and emotions?”
    “No, no,” he said hurriedly. “I just mean that maybe…maybe it came out because you were a little weak.”
    I sniffed again, new tears starting to form. Everything felt like my fault.
    “I wish I could come up there,” he said at last. “I’d like to visit. I’ve never been to New Hampshire. It’s someplace I’ve always wanted to go.” I knew this was his way of saying he’d like to see me.
    “I wish you could, too,” I said. “I wish someone else could hear and see these things. I feel terrible to be reacting like this but I just don’t know what to do. And you could also see my fabulous butt. Over the last year I’ve gained ten pounds and now I have a rear end to be proud of.” We both laughed and the mood was lightened.
    David didn’t treat me like I was crazy or overreacting; he believed me. So did my mother.
    “Just come on home,” she advised. “Don’t stay there if you don’t want to.”
    “I can’t, Mom, I have to stay. I need the money.”
    “I’ll give you some,” she all but pleaded. “We’ll figure something out. Just come back home for the rest of the summer. We can spend more time together before you leave.”
    But as I turned out of the rest area and started on the long drive back, I thought more about my reasons for