Dybbuk

“Where is it?” Lina looked at the objects, dumbfounded. Coins, hair, tokens. She tilted the box for Jeri to get a look. “Are these—”

“Things that tie the dybbuk to the box?” Jeri confirmed, “Yes, they’re the anchor.”

Lina took a second look.

The coins had dates, they looked like loons, actually. Cautiously, she reached in, brushing the surface of the coin. Anger. Fear. Hunger; but nothing else attaching them to the displaced soul. Not even a direction to go.

“Nothing.” She pulled her hand back, “I can feel its discomfort. Displacement, it’s need... but nothing else. I don’t know where to find this thing.”

Jeri put the shofar down, “Dybbuks are funny things.”

“Not really laughing.”

“Nor should you.” Jeri agreed, “I’m not surprised you can’t follow it.”

She made a face.

“It’s never happened before.” Lina rested on her heels, staring at the dybbuk box. It was well crafted, old, like most things of this nature and still she could glean nothing else from it.

Lina glanced at Jeri, “What do you mean, ‘I’m not surprised you can’t follow it?’”

Jeri didn’t answer right away.

Sometimes, she wouldn’t get an answer. Jeri, and those like Jeri, had the power of foresight and knowledge. Of everything that could be and was, sometimes they couldn’t answer because the person asking wasn’t ready for it. Or maybe they asked the wrong question.

“Lina, what you do it’s based on a deeper magic.”

“I don’t practice mag—”

Jeri held up a finger, “You don’t use spells or grimoires, sure—but you, sunder, you destroy the evil things to their very core. Your gifts, your strengths are based on older things and deeper natural magics than you really know.” He waved at the box, “Dybbuks, though, they are based on that Divine spark that has been corrupted. Which is why only a Seraphim can deal with it. Anything of a Divine or even unholy nature will have a better chance at tracking and sundering these things.”

As far as Lina was concerned magic was nothing but a meddler and trouble maker, which is why she never dabbled. The one time she decided too, she ended up sharing thoughts and feelings with a vampire. Even now, he was a distant knot of emotions in the back of her mind. Still, something about what Jeri said made a bit of sense.

“My wards,” Lina made the connection. “Is that why it could penetrate my wards?”

Jeri nodded.

“Then you can track it, right?”

“I can’t cross your Circle, remember? There’s also the little matter of that being a spiritual box trap. The kind where you can check in, but not check out.”

“Ah,” Lina frowned. “Right. Wait, you said beings of an unholy nature could track it?”

Jeri nodded again.

All Lina needed was a reading. A direction. Then she and Jeri could—

“No, I can’t” Jeri read her thoughts, “I only came here to help because it’s your shop and your shop, much like my café acts as a kind of neutral ground. I can’t help you track or sunder that dybbuk outside of those two places. It’s against my role as a one of the Seraphim and as a Shepard. There’s also the small matter of endangerment.”

“Endangerment?”

“Someone, or something has to be in immediate danger for me to help or intervene.”

Lina chewed the bottom lip, so many rules and stipulations came with being an angel.

No wonder so many Fell.

Jeri raised an eyebrow.

Right, mind reader.

“What if I brought it to you?” Lina asked.

“You’d have to take that with you,” Jeri pointed to the box, “It’s the only thing that will contain it. Recite Psalms ninety-one and call out its name.”

“Name? I don’t know its name.”

Gingerly, Lina placed the tablet, coins and lock of hair back into the music box as Jeri explained. “It’s under the mirror.”

Mirror? Lina slid loose the mirror top, just as before it was backed in gold and engraved. She stood and brought it over to Jeri, keeping it just inside the Circle.

“Mr. Weisman said it was a sacred verse. He wouldn’t share it with me.”

Jeri leaned over just enough to read the back of the mirror, and nodded.

“Yeah, it also has the dybbuk’s name.”

Lina flipped the mirror back over, “What?”

“Yeah, right there, Nadia Goldhirsch. Huh, that’s Yiddish for golden stag.”

He was right.

Lina read the prayer from left to right and just under it, a name:

Nadia Goldhirsch.

“That’s lying son-of-a-”

“Now Lina,” Jeri softly reprimanded.

“Ben curses all the time,” Lina walked back over to the dybbuk box and slid the mirror into place. “As a Shepard you need to stay neutral, unless something crosses the line and does evil things, right?”

“Yes.”

“My shop is like your café in its neutral-ness, which is why you can help, right?”

“Yes.”

“So, if I found the dybbuk and brought it here, you could sunder it?” Lina showcased her cuts and bruises, “I mean, because look at me.”

“Yes.”

“Great,” She stood and crossed the Circle, open the door, and called out across the shop, “Sio! I need you for a second.”

There was a scrape of a bench and a slow progress of footsteps.

“Lina, what are you doing?” Jeri asked.

Lina looked at him, “Exactly what you think I am.”

She opened the door wider, allowing Siobhan into the workshop. She stepped inside, careful to circumvent the Circle, which always impressed Lina.

“Did you do it?” Siobhan asked, “The store doesn’t feel any different.”

“It was empty.” Jeri answered.

“No way.”

“Yes way,” Lina nodded, “which is why I need you to read the dybbuk box.”

Siobhan raised an eyebrow, “I’m sorry, you want me to do what?”

“I need you to read the box,” Lina answered.

“The thing that crossed two wards and invaded your dreams?” Siobhan asked again, and then pointed towards Jeri. “Why can’t he do it?”

“The nature of the box itself,” Jeri answered before Lina could. “Think of it as a spiritual fly trap which is not good for the spiritually inclined.”

“Which is why I need you to read it,” Lina finished.

Siobhan hadn’t moved any closer.

“Lina…” Siobhan bit her lip. “Look, you know I like to help anyway I can,” she twisted the ends of her silvery hair, “but that thing scares me.”

“It scares everyone.” Lina answered softly, “That’s all the more reason I need your help. What should be held captive is free and probably scaring, harming an innocent person right now. I need to find it and stop it. I can’t risk having Jeri open it. I need his help for the sundering. And I need you to locate it.”

Siobhan tapped her hand across her thigh; Lina knew she did that when thinking. She also knew what she was asking of her friend. As a dream eater, Siobhan could sometimes be affected by the aftertaste.

“Okay.” Siobhan breathed out, “But you’ll have to bring it to me.”

Lina nodded, like Jeri, Siobhan couldn’t cross the Circle, which happened when one was either Divine or less so. Lina rolled up the Holy Scripture and stuffed it into her pocket. Picking up the box and its contents, Lina brought it over to the edge and took a breath.

She crossed the Circle and the small box grew heavier. Lina grunted as she hefted the thing towards her friend. Jeri took a step forward, but held off when she shook her head.

Lina didn’t want to put it down, fearing it would root itself to the ground. So she held onto it as Siobhan reached out hesitantly, made a fist than reached out again and laid her hand on the mirror. All sound ceased in the workshop, leaving a void, a vacuum where sound had once been and no longer was.

The light followed next.

The workshop and Jeri were gone, leaving only Lina, Siobhan and the box.

A pressure built in her ears, felt it crushing her head. Lina almost dropped the stupid box; but she held on. Then her ears popped, bringing back sound and the light.

They were in a bedroom.

It was dirty, but college kid dirty. Not this is the grossest person on the planet dirty. There was a desk, twin bed and clothes everywhere. The door slammed open and a kid, okay not a kid, a college student entered the bedroom. He walked around Lina and Siobhan, like they were really there but took no actually notice of them. He dropped the large box he was lugging on the desk. It looked as heavy as the music box in her hands. Someone else came in, a roommate maybe?

No way, Josh, you actually bought it? says the roommate.

Mason, how else am I supposed to prove this is bullshit? says Josh, we had a bet, remember? No nightmares the entire month of July and I get to live rent free for the rest of the semester.

He smiled like a goof, and then tore open the cardboard box, scooping out handfuls of packing peanuts and pulled out yet another box. This one was covered in arcane seals.

Lina shook her head.

She recognized those seals.

He tore that one open too. They both made a face, like it smelled, then he pulled it out. The music box. The same one Lina struggled to hold with all her strength.

Day turned to night, like someone pushed the skip button and it now was evening. The lid to the music box was open, playing its little discordant tune. Josh slept, tossing and turning fitfully as the little crystalline notes played out. They tugged at her memory. Then she remembered.

The dream.

The one invading her sleep, the one with the mansion and masked ball. Something else had been important in that dream… what had it been?

Siobhan sucked in a breath, and Lina turned to look at the music box in the dream. A black viscous smoke began to seep out from it, trailing down the side of the nightstand and slowly making its way towards the sleeping student. It crawled up the sheets and over the student’s body, trickling up his nose and dripping into his slightly open mouth. The smoke took the form of an antlered woman, slyly hooking a leash around Josh’s neck, cinching it tight.

Fast forward again.

The student suffers nightmares.

Fast forward.

He sees the dead.

Fast Forward.

Forgets his classes. Forgets his friends. Forgets to live.

His roommate, Mason is with him; they’ve closed the lid to the music box. They’ve placed it back into the small packing box covered in the arcane. Little good it would do now, since the seals had been broken. They search the net on their laptops. Looking, looking, looking for answers when they stopped. They landed on Espiridion’s website.

On the link with Benaiah the drop box.

Now they were outside the shop, in the dark. It took both of them to lift the tiny music box and drop it into the ground. They leap back as the seals to Benaiah begin to clank shut. They scribble a note and drop it in as the last seal closes.

Then they run.

Free. Free. Free.

Until they sleep.

The visions of the dead don’t stop. They become more intense. Terror, screams. Dreams of dark woods, fancy masked balls, and a waiting leash. Pain, cuts, bruises, never healing. Why won’t it stop? Why? Must make it stop. The student, he’ll make it stop.

Siobhan screamed as Josh stepped off the curb, into oncoming traffic. Sobbed as his body collided with a truck, covered her eyes when he got caught under the wheels.

The roommate, Mason saw it all. He carted away. He Can feel his dreams turning. He’s scared. Scared he’ll end up like his friend. His family is scared, scared he’ll end up like his friend. So they check him in. They wave their rights to him. Give him to the doctors. So over taken by grief. Sign, it’s still voluntary. He still has to sign. Mason Dwyer signs to give his life, his mind, his sanity to the doctors at Clear Waters Sanitarium.

That rushing wind is back, sucking away the sound, the light and just like that they’re back. Lina is shaking from the strain of holding the box. Siobhan collapsed onto the floor.

So heavy.

The box was so full of hate and misery that it weighed it down.

“Jeri,” Lina called out, “bring me the ark. The Cedar and gold one, second shelf.”

There’s a sound of moving things, when Jeri suddenly appears next to Siobhan.

“Put it on the floor, and open the lid,” Lina orders.

Jeri does it, and Lina slowly drops the music box in. It waivers to the left, to the right like opposing magnets. Lina didn’t care, shoving the damned thing into the ark. Jeri slammed on the lid and they both huffed.

“You have an ark?” Jeri asked.

“Like Moses is the only one allowed to have one of those?” Lina dusted off her hands.

“Well, no.” Jeri looked down at the ark, “But I think it’s a little blasphem—”

Siobhan screamed.

“Don’t!” Siobhan sat up, reaching out “Mason, don’t!”

Lina knelt, grabbing her friend by the shoulders, “Siobhan, wake up.”

“Maaaason!”

Lina slapped her across the cheek. She stopped screaming.

“Lina,” Siobhan whispered, between sobs. “You have to save him. Mason’s in trouble. The Dybbuk, Nadia, she wants him. Wants him bad. She’s gonna—” she hiccupped, “He’s gonna end up just like Josh. You have to go save him! Now!”