Free Sparks by Laura Bickle Page A

sage, Sparky trotted into the kitchen. He paused, gill-fronds twitching. Fay and Vern hopped up on the counter near the sink, pressing their paws into bits of flour left behind from the mixing. Sparky sauntered beside Anya and looked soulfully up at her.
    "Can Sparky come play?" Anya asked.
    "Sure." Katie was pouring salt in a circle around the kitchen table, muttering invocations to the four elements. She lit a jar candle in each cardinal direction on the floor: north, south, east, and west. An extra candle in the center of the table was lit, for spirit. "Just keep him in or out of the circle. Doesn't matter to me which."
    Anya pulled Sparky into the circle Katie drew around her heels. Katie closed the circle, and Anya pulled out a chair. Sparky arranged himself in her lap, looking at his reflection on the glossy table surface.
    Katie sat opposite Anya. She took a plain stack of recipe cards and marked each one with a letter of the alphabet in Magic Marker. She arranged the cards in a semicircle around the table, and made three more cards that read yes, no, and goodbye.
    "That looks suspiciously like a Ouija board."
    "One of its forebearers. This type of spirit contact was in vogue when table-tipping, cabinet-knocking, and the like were parlor games in the late 1900s. The difference is, these tools are all consecrated and we're within the safety of a magic circle. And since we're not wearing corsets, we're unlikely to faint." Katie turned the glass goblet upside down on the center of the table. "May Goddess bless and guard our efforts."
    She placed her fingertips on the base of the glass, motioning for Anya to do the same. Her rings sparkled in the candlelight. Anya reached around the salamander's head and mimicked her. "Now what?"
    "We summon the spirit of Jasper Bernard to speak with us."
    "That sounds like a grand, ceremonial magick gesture." Katie was a kitchen witch--she improvised with whatever was at hand. Anya had seen her do high magick, but the witch's distinct preference was for enchanting the mundane.
    "It is. It goes something like this: Jasper Bernard, are you here?"
    Nothing happened. Anya and Katie stared at the goblet for a good five minutes. Sparky yawned and placed his head on the table.
    "Jasper," Katie said, in a more authoritative voice. "Please come to us."
    Anya whispered, "I think he responds better to 'Bernie.'"
    The glass jerked under her hands. It orbited in an agitated circle, moving faster and faster. Anya had difficulty keeping up with it. From her lap, Sparky sat up and pushed his gill-fronds toward the tabletop.
    "Bernie, is that you?"
    The makeshift planchette curled its way over to the recipe card marked yes. It stopped below it, circling like a beetle caught in the bottom of a jar.
    Katie whispered to Anya, "Ask it something to verify its identity. Something that no random spirit would know."
    "Bernie, we know you knew Ciro. Tell us about your time with him."
    The glass hesitated. For a moment, Anya was sure they'd caught a voyeur spirit toying with them, and her thoughts raced on plans to banish it. But the glass deliberately spiraled over to the alphabet of recipe cards. It spelled out: B-O-W-L-I-N-G.
    Katie nodded. "Very good."
    "Where are you, Bernie?" Anya couldn't help but ask. After seeing the spirit violently sucked out of the house like lint in a vacuum cleaner, she wanted to know.
    The glass turned in a figure-eight pattern, spelled out: V-E-S-S-E-L.
    "What kind of vessel? A boat?"
    The goblet curled around no. Its motion became jerky, erratic, and it zinged around the table, scraping random letters.
    "I think we're losing him," Katie muttered. "It feels like the communication is being interfered with."
    Anya leaned forward, knuckles white on the goblet base. "Bernie, what happened to you? We need to find out."
    The glass spun out of Anya and Katie's grip. It spelled out H-O-P-E before sliding off the edge of the table and shattering on the floor. Katie's cats fled the kitchen in