Wand, Part One

The wand looked as if it had been made by gluing white string in a winding stripe around an ordinary No. 2 pencil, up to the eraser, then wrapping the end of the string around the top like a crown. 

            “It was next to him when I found him dead.” Catherine Yount lit a cigarette.  

            I moved a saucer across the table. I don’t smoke—anymore—but I like clients to feel comfortable when we meet in my apartment. “Your husband?”

Richard Yount. He’d died of unexplained causes a week ago.

            She blew smoke into the air and pushed the wand across my dining room table. “I’ve seen those before. But we never had one in the house. He left that group a long time ago.”

            “What group?”

            She stared at me. “They say you specialize in . . . unusual cases.”

            I managed not to sigh. If I had a nickel for every client who led off with that, I’d have—maybe not enough nickels to retire on, but enough to pay my cable TV bill for a month.

            Me? Tom Jurgen, private detective, ex-reporter. And yeah, my cases do cover territory that includes the supernatural and the paranormal. It’s a living.

            “It’s called New Sun.” Catherine Yount, in her forties, had silvery-blond hair and a blunt nose. “They dabble in . . . magic.” She seemed embarrassed. “I was never involved in it, but Rick was when I met him. That was 10 years ago.”

            “What kind of magic?” Making wands out of pencils didn’t sound particularly ominous.

            She shook her head. “I don’t really know. He talked about levitation and alchemy, but I wasn’t really interested. He did manage to lift a cup of tea once with his mind, but then it fell and broke, and I got mad. It was an heirloom.” She bit her lip and looked ready to burst into tears. Not because of the heirloom.

            I picked up the wand. “So you think this is somehow connected to your husband’s death?”

            “I don’t know.” She pulled a handkerchief from a skirt pocket and blew her nose. “There just wasn’t any reason for—that to happen. He was in good health, worked out, ate healthy—the doctors couldn’t come up with any that might have—done it.”

            A meaningless death with a connection to magic—yeah, that was up my alley, for better or worse. “May I keep this? I’d like to show it to someone.”

Rachel lives upstairs from me. She’s got red hair and hazelnut eyes, and she’s my girlfriend. She’s also psychic, which comes in handy on my cases.

            “Can you get anything from this?” I held out the wand.

            She tilted her head to stare at it. Three seconds passed.

            Then she knocked it out of my hand. “Get that thing out of here!”

            I’ve seen her angry enough to slap demons and determined enough to swim Lake Michigan from one side to the other, but I’ve never seen her scared. Not like this. I picked the wand up. “What is it?”

            “I don’t know, but it’s evil. Burn it, lock it in a box, throw it in the lake—just get rid of it.” She shuddered.

            “Okay.” I reached for the door. “I’ll call—”

            “Wait—where’d you get it?”

            “A client. Her husband’s dead. This was near his body.”

            Rachel clenched her jaw. “Okay. Stay here. Just keep that thing away from me.”

            I left it near the door, Rachel brought coffee. I wanted a beer, but my anxiety medication wouldn’t let me drink. I’d have to talk to my doctor about that.

            I told her what I knew. Which wasn’t much.

            She sipped her coffee. “Okay. I’ve never heard of New Sun. But I’ve never heard of a lot of fringe groups and wannabes. But that thing . . .” She pointed a long finger. “It’s radiating something. Bad.”

            I nodded. “I’m not sure what to do. I’ll have to ask the client if I can destroy it.”

            “Whatever you do, don’t keep it too near you.” Rachel shivered again. “I’ve never felt anything like that.”

           

I called Catherine Yount, and she gave me permission to destroy the wand. “I don’t ever want to see it again.” Her voice trembled.

            So I took a few photos of the wand, and then broke it into little pieces and dropped them down the garbage chute. I hoped that would end whatever power it had.

Then I ran a search on New Sun.

            I found two companies with the same name, along with half a dozen books with that title on Amazon, two punk bands, and four movies. Then I found what I was looking for. I hoped.

            “NEW SUN: Take Charge of Your Destiny.” The banner made it sound like a self-help website, with an image of a fiery sun and a long heavy sword—but in the corner I spotted what looked like the wand next to Rick Yount’s body.

            The site didn’t offer much information to outsiders, though. There was an email link to a membership page, where you could apply for access. Other than that, nothing.

            Using some tech tricks Rachel had taught me, I saw that the site hadn’t been updated in two years. That didn’t necessarily mean the group was dormant, of course—membership might send me to an active site.

            So I used an alternate email address and a fake name on a different web browser to apply for membership. Then I switched back to my main browsers and used my real name and email address to ask for more information—mentioning Rick Yount name.

            After a cup of coffee, I had a response to my first email—the one I’d used a fake name for. Holding my breath, I clicked on the link it offered.

            The link took me to a questionnaire. I had to type in my (false) name and (alternative) email address, and then answer 30some questions, like:

Have you ever felt the presence of a force beyond your control?

Has that power ever controlled you?

Have you ever controlled it?

Did you ever lose consciousness while in the grip of a power beyond your control?

Have you had a near-death experience?

And so on.

            I clicked “yes” to most of them. I didn’t claim to have used any power to influence other people, and I checked “no” to the question about whether the power had affected my sex life. I also pleaded “no” to questions about aliens and demonic possession, even though I actually had experienced both. I figured those were there to weed out people who just said “yes” to everything in hopes of joining a cool club.

            They didn’t ask for my address, and they didn’t ask for money. I figured that was coming next. So I hit “submit” and went to get myself a Coke.

            Then I spent the rest of the afternoon on normal detective work. No vampires or werewolves, just employment background checks and identity searches. At least I didn’t have to tail any cheating spouses right now.

            Late in the day Rachel came down for dinner. We were in the middle of a tofu stir fry—Rachel’s a vegetarian—when my phone buzzed. “Tom Jurgen speaking.”

            “Mr. Jurgen? This is Michelle Garfield. I’m the website administrator for New Sun.”

            That was fast. “Hi! Thank you for calling back.” I waved to Rachel to stir the wok. “I just had some questions about one of your former members, Richard Yount? He died recently, and his wife found some materials related to New Sky that she’d like some information about.”

            “What kind of materials?” I heard her tapping a keyboard.

            “A wand. I can send a picture if you’d like.”

            Long pause. “I don’t see that name on our membership list.”

            “This was maybe 10 years ago.”

            “Our list doesn’t go back that far. I’m not sure what I can tell you—”

            “Is the wand valuable? Does it have any kind of special significance?”

            She hesitated. “I’d have to talk to Mrs. Gore before discussing any of that with you. She’s taken over the leadership of the group since Kenneth.”

            “Who’s Kenneth?”

            “Ken Gore. He passed away two weeks ago.”

            I resisted the temptation to ask if a wand had been found near his body. “All right. If you could pass the message along—”

            “I’ll do that.” She seemed in a sudden hurry to get me off the phone. “Thanks for your interest.” She hung up.

            “You’re going on with that wand thing?” Rachel added some vegetables and curry to the stir-fry.

            I looked at the picture I’d taken of the thing. “We’ll see.”

The next morning I got a call from Mrs. Gore. Her voice was guarded. “I’m not sure how much I can tell you. Information on our members is confidential.”

            “Can you tell me anything about the wand?” I sipped my coffee. “I sent a picture to Ms. Garfield.”

            “Some of our members make them as hobbies. They’re harmless.”

            “I see.” Rachel said otherwise, and I trusted her more. “Well, thank you for your call. By the way, I’m sorry for your loss. Ms. Garfield mentioned—”

            “Yes, that was a—a shock.” Her voice quavered. “Very unexpected.”

            “Had he been ill?”

            “No. Nothing like that. It was . . .” She hesitated, remembering that she knew nothing about me. “That’s all, Mr. Jurgen. Have a good day.”

            I was getting nowhere. I’d spent some time looking for New Sun across the internet. No disgruntled ex-members, no legal issues, no new stories. New Sun ran a tight operation.

            But not that tight. Two hours later I got an email inviting me to a preliminary meeting for prospective members. Tonight. 8:30.

            The interview would assess my “potential.” If I was approved for membership, though, the initiation fee would be $2,000. Monthly dues after that were $700.

            I supposed it was one way to keep out the riffraff. I called Mrs. Yount.

            She was understandably hesitant. “Do you really think there’s anything about them?”

            I chose my words carefully. “I know that there was something wrong with that wand. Beyond that—I can’t really say. It’s a fishing expedition, but I if I don’t find anything out at the first meeting, I can drop it.”

            Mrs. Yount sighed. “I really want to know. But . . . all right. Tell me if you find anything.”

            “I will.”

            I called Rachel to Then I went back to work.

            At 5:30 I knocked off for the day and called Rachel. She was working and she couldn’t come down for dinner, so I let her know where I was going and promised to call her when I got home. Then I made myself a sandwich and sat in front of the TV to watch the latest episode of Black Mirror. Rachel didn’t like it, so it was safe to watch without her.

            I sipped a Coke and lay back. It looked like an interesting episode.