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snow stung her
cheeks. “If you’re going to snow,” she spoke to the sky, “do it already. Stop
threatening with these flurries. They’re annoying me.”
    Finally, the lock gave and she entered the house, closing
the door behind her. The house smelled of cooking spices and she sneezed. When
Mindy cooked, which was next to never, she burned water. No one would ever call
her domestic.
    “Pepper.” She sneezed again. It had to be a pepper of some
kind. Her mother had cooked with it. Her father had accused her of trying to
kill the meat again by over-saturating it with spices. But he’d said it with so
much love her mother hadn’t been offended. She’d laughed and then chucked her
apron at his head.
    Mindy rubbed her eyes. When was the last time she’d thought
about that? These people didn’t keep their heat on very high when they weren’t
in the house or they had a higher tolerance for the cold than she did. Mindy
shivered and rubbed her arms.
    After she opened her bag and took her equipment out—sage, an
ashtray and a lighter—she walked to the center of the house. The Banes, who
owned the home she’d broken into, had let her inside willingly when she’d
wanted. They had known about the ghost problem in the neighborhood and even
went so far as to tell her about the noises they heard at night.
    Creaking footsteps when everyone was in bed. A loud bang
that would wake them from sleep. The feeling of not being alone.
    Mindy would rid them of their ghost and, if she had to,
she’d go to every home in the neighborhood and chase the thing around until it
finally left for good.
    She’d sage every house on the block.
    She lit the sage, letting the smoke fill the room around
her. In her left hand she held the ashtray. Some of this she had to make up as
she went along. Reading about ritual and doing a ritual were two different
things.
    The idea was to cover every inch of the house with the smoke
until there was nothing else left to touch with the smoke of the sage.
    Mindy had spent some time memorizing the words she needed to
say. “I call upon the elements. Please hear me. From the element of fire comes
smoke, which is air. From the element of earth I present this plant, which is
water. I call upon the elements and the blessings of spirit to please cleanse
this house. For the good of all.”
    She kept walking. Smoke went up, down and around the house. Room
to room she moved. Nothing happened, just the silence of the broken-into house
making her ears ring.
    Then she heard a sound. If she didn’t know things actually
went bump in the night—or in this case in the middle of the day—she’d think it
was just the house settling. But that’s not what it was.
    She’d gotten something’s attention. Mindy forced herself to
take a deep breath and then she continued to utter the words again. Over and
over again.
    A chair slid across the room in front of her. “Okay. I saw
that.” One of the books suggested letting the ghost know it didn’t belong in
the house, that it had no place there. “I banish you. I send you on.”
    “You can’t actually do that.” Jonah’s voice wasn’t above a
whisper, but she jumped whirling around.
    He held his hand out in front of him. She would have yelled,
but he shook his head. “Mindy.”
    His eyes were huge and she shivered. Even with everything
they’d been through, she’d never seen him scared.
    “Jonah?” The temperature dropped at least five degrees.
Maybe more. “What is it?”
    “Behind you.” He took a few steps into the room. “Neither
you nor I can banish this thing. We’re not equipped to do it.”
    She held up her sage. “I cover the house with this and then
I say the words I’ve been speaking. It will rid the place of the poltergeist.”
    “No.” Jonah shook his head, inching closer to her. “It’s
just going to piss off the entity.”
    “Why are you acting this way?” When he didn’t answer, but
continued to stare behind her she whirled around to