Ghost Squad

In the four years since her mother left them, Lucely and Simon have become a well-functioning team. Today, she’ll pretend to be a ghost when Simon’s tour group visits the cemetery. After dark, she walks there and hides behind a crypt. Her father leads the tour to the crypt and explains that its occupants, the Varela family, had a mother who may have murdered her children, and they still call out to her. At that moment, Lucely presses a button on her phone that plays a child’s moaning lament on nearby speakers: “Maaaammmmááááá” (18). Some tourists scream.

One visitor, an elderly woman, stares right at Lucely, her eyes glowing white, her form flickering. Lucely cries out; her own Mamá Teresa appears and, looking frightened, warns the girl that “they’re coming.” Lucely drops her phone, and the artificial moans cease. She steps toward her abuela, and the visitors see her; the illusion is spoiled.

At that moment, Mamá Teresa moans loudly and defends herself from something that attacks her. Lucely screams and throws rocks at the mysterious assailant. Her grandmother flies into the air and drops into Lucely, who falls down. From the girl’s mouth, Mamá’s voice erupts: “A darkness is approaching. You have to run” (20). Lucely hears screaming tourists; her father is suddenly with her. She apologizes to him and faints.

Lucely wakes up in bed. Her father gives her an ice pack for the bump on her head that she got when she fell. Simon’s phone rings; he answers and assures the caller that everyone on the tour will receive a refund. He assures Lucely that it’s not her fault, but she feels guilty. She explains what happened with Mamá Teresa. Her dad asks if Lucely’s grandmother is OK, but she doesn’t know. She decides she must do something to help.

In the morning, Lucely sits on a branch of the willow tree as she always does before school. The tree contains many mason jars, each holding a firefly. The fireflies emerge and surround Lucely—all but her grandmother, whose firefly lies listlessly in its jar.

At school, Lucely meets her partly cool, partly dorky best friend, Syd Faires, the only other person who knows about the fireflies. Syd says she wants to flatten Mr. Vincent’s tires, but Lucely thinks that won’t help. In history class, Mr. Lopez announces the day’s topic, “Las Brujas Moradas” (28), the Purple Coven witches. Syd, who loves stories about magic, stands and explains that the brujas escaped the Spanish Inquisition and came to St. Augustine. Mr. Lopez adds that they may have buried a book of spells that’s never been found, which might contain a way to summon ghosts. One student says, “Ghosts aren’t real” (30); Lucely knows better.

Later, Syd suggests to Lucely that they search for the spell book so they can help Mamá. Lucely is skeptical, but it’s the only idea they have. The one person in town who might know more is Syd’s grandmother, Babette.

Lucely and Syd ride their bikes through a downtown festooned with Halloween decorations. They head to the north side, where Babette lives and has her occult store, Babette’s Baubles. From the road, a path through a copse of trees leads to a clearing and the house on an island in a lake. Visitors must cross a rickety footbridge or row themselves in a boat. Lucely and Syd opt for the boat.

House and store seem to sway in the breeze. Inside, three cats greet them. One, named Chunk, takes a liking to Lucely. The girl recalls from previous overnight stays that the house can be confusing, with doors that lead to unexpected places.

They enter the shop; it’s filled with potions, oddities, and books, some of whose pages turn by themselves. Babette appears, graying dreadlocks piled atop her head, her dark skin set off against a blue caftan. She seems to float into the room. In her strong, raspy voice, she asks why the girls are out of school; Syd insists they’re just there to visit.

Babette goes to make tea, and Lucely and Syd begin searching for the ancient book of spells. Syd asks where Lucely and her dad will go if they lose their house. Lucely doesn’t know, but she fears losing her connection to the fireflies. Syd hugs her and says she’s not alone and that together they’ll find something—a bake sale, maybe—to save Lucely’s home.

As they search, they accidentally cause a bookshelf to move aside, revealing a doorway. Cautiously they enter the room beyond. A low shelf contains books and a sign that warns against touching the merchandise. The sign reads, “AND THAT MEANS YOU, SYDNEY FAIRES!” (43). Buried among the dusty volumes is an ancient, fur-bound notebook filled with recipes for spells, much of it in a strange language. An early page contains a list of names, all crossed out except for the last: Anastasia.

They search every page for something to protect Mamá and the other fireflies. Toward the end, several sheets are torn out. Babette calls to them, offering a snack of leftover frog legs and chicken livers. Lucely shoves the notebook into her waistband; they exit the inner room and push the bookcase back into place.

Lucely admits to Babette that they’re doing research for a class project about the Purple Coven. Babette gives them a book on the history of the occult and magic. It includes the story of Las Brujas Moradas, whom Babette calls the greatest coven of all time. Syd says they’re supposed to be evil; Babette warns her not to believe everything she hears. She adds that she found the book in a cemetery: “What better place to bury the truth than with the dead?” (47).

After they leave, Lucely tells Syd that the McMaster family mausoleum in a nearby cemetery contains a casket with the belongings of a daughter, Anna—possibly the Anastasia listed in the notebook—who ran away and never was found. Perhaps the missing pages are there. Lucely remembers a set of skeleton keys at Babette’s; one of them might unlock the mausoleum. They sneak into Babette’s shop late that night to steal them.

At home, Lucely prepares a grilled cheese sandwich while the ghost of Manny, her cousin who died as a teen, sits on the counter and offers cooking advice. They talk about Mamá, and Manny admits he’s scared because lately, he can’t remember the old times when he was alive.

The room grows cold and shakes. Manny levitates. He says something bad is coming “with the rain” (52). Lucely reaches for him, but his eyes flash brightly. Suddenly Lucely is standing among trees under a dark sky. Nearby is the willow tree, but her house isn’t there. The ghost relatives appear and explain that she’s looking at something that happened in the past.

A huge, ghostly-white creature with holes for eyes and mouth attacks the willow tree, but it fends off the assault. The creature rushes around the tree in a circle until it’s a hurricane; the force blasts against Lucely, but she holds firm. A golden light emerges from the tree as voices command the monster to leave; the light hurls the creature into the bushes. Mamá Teresa appears; she’s huge, and she terrifies the monster. She tells Lucely that her family is one of two groups who, for centuries, have protected the city against evil spirits. Now, though, a new evil is coming, and they need Lucely’s help.

Lucely suddenly is back in her kitchen. Manny lies on the floor, out cold for several minutes. He comes to but looks scared, just like Mamá the previous night. Lucely promises she’ll find a solution.

Late at night, Lucely and Syd ride to Babette’s place. Lucely brings a mason jar with Macarena’s firefly inside. The two girls decide to walk the rickety footbridge in case they need a quick getaway. Holding hands, they nervously cross the bridge. On the other side, they find a hidden key Syd knows about and sneak inside.

Chunk, the cat, greets them, flops down on Lucely’s feet, wraps around her legs, and begins to howl. Lucely can’t move, so Syd hurries off to find the skeleton keys. Shortly she returns: Babette moved the keys, and Syd can’t locate them. Chunk immediately stops howling and saunters away. They hear Babette moving about upstairs.

The kids hurry from the house and hide in some bushes. Babette appears at the front door; she warns any intruders to leave. Thorny vines begin to wriggle out from the house. Lucely and Syd dash across the bridge and escape. On the other side, Syd pulls out a ring of skeleton keys. She figured the cat was a spy, so she lied about not finding them.

At the mausoleum, Lucely tries several keys before one works. They enter the tomb; it smells bad but is cooler than the outdoor heat and humidity. Their cell phones illuminate the interior. They find Anastasia’s casket and shove its lid aside enough for Lucely to reach around inside. She pulls out a roll of parchment and unfurls it. It’s in another language, perhaps Latin, but the words change before their eyes into English: “A Spell to Wake the Sleeping” (67).

Lucely compares the sheet to the notebook: It fits perfectly as one of the torn-out pages. Syd pulls a piece of chalk from her pocket and draws a pentagram on the floor. The two girls sit inside it and recite the incantation written on the page:

Lavender, lilies, blossom and bloom,

I call on the spirits to enter this room […]

Rotten and putrid

Beneath the trees,

I call on the spirits and let them roam free (68-69).

A chill breeze wafts through the crypt. Lucely wakes Macarena’s firefly, who flies out of the mason jar and assumes human form. The ghostly cousin yawns and stretches. Lucely asks if anything’s different in her realm; Macarena concentrates, says there’s no difference, and then returns to the jar.

Syd notices two initials on the page: “E.B.” They mean nothing to either girl. They give up and leave the tomb. Outside, they hear a noise and hide. Mayor Anderson appears. Tall and mustachioed, he enters the mausoleum. Shortly he reappears, his motions jerky and his body almost floating. His eyes glow green, and he stares directly at the girls.

The next day at school, a sleep-deprived Lucely struggles to stay awake. Syd meets her in the library and reads a passage from the book Babette gave them, “Magic and the Occult: A History” (73). The Purple Coven, accused of witchcraft, escaped their village in Spain and settled in St. Augustine, serving the locals' medical needs and protecting them “from dangerous and malicious spirits” (74). Reports of a book of spells circulated, but the book was never found.

Syd thinks they’ve found it, but Lucely says the spell didn’t work. Syd suggests they search for more of the torn-out pages. Lucely fears it will take too long, but they both realize they must keep searching.

The library’s windows burst open, and wind and rain streak in, followed by an eerie fog. Lucely gets a strange feeling and falls to the floor. She remembers Manny’s warning that something bad is coming “with the rain” (76). Syd looks terrified. The librarian hurries in, saying he’s never seen such a storm. He can’t close the windows, so he rushes out to find the janitor.

A voice whispers in their ears: “Lucely Luna.” They hear footsteps in the stacks and then moaning; next, a shelf collapses onto the floor. They try to escape, but ghostly specters surround them. The girls form a plan to distract the ghosts by switching on all the library computers at once. Lucely then dashes for the door, but she’s stopped by a ghost that calls to her and intones a lullaby just like the one Mamá sings. Lucely feels her spirit being pulled from her body. She’s overcome with drowsiness.

Suddenly all the computers play the Windows startup music at full volume. The shock pulls Lucely from her trance and distracts the ghosts. The girls escape the library and ride their bikes through the rain until the weather breaks. Lucely realizes they must have caused the storm and ghost attack.