Gabriel struggled to open his eyes.

 

Something was… “What the hell!”

 

Six inches from his face was a bearded apparition, looking angry, its mouth moving rapidly in silent fury.

 

Seeing Gabriel nearly jump out of his skin seemed to please him. The ghost straightened, revealing a bloodstained American Revolution uniform. He continued to shout soundlessly, as he jabbed his finger into Gabriel’s ribs.

 

“Holy Balls, Jedidiah! You know I hate it when you do this shit! You’ve got me cursing, and I promised myself I was going to stop. What the hell are you doing here? Can this wait until tomorrow night? “

 

Ghosts had an easier time manifesting after sunset. A good medium could talk to Jed during daylight hours. Gabriel wasn’t a medium. With Gabriel, it was evening only. He looked at his watch. Seriously? It’s 3:00 A.M.

 

Gabriel started to roll over in bed. Jed could wait. Sleep couldn’t. The clock on his nightstand began to rattle. Moving something in the material world, that was some level-10 ghosting. Gabriel groaned, rising from his bed.

 

“Come on, let’s go to my workshop.”

 

Jed disappeared through the floor.

 

“Meet you there,” Gabriel muttered. “I guess.”

 

In the 1920s, the workshop had served as a speakeasy. Now? It was still a secret location, but it was where Gabriel could do his work.

 

When Gabriel entered, he saw that Jed was pacing back and forth, gesturing wildly. When he saw Gabriel enter, he started speaking to him.

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Gabriel yawned, rubbing his eyes. “You know I can’t hear you until I cast a communication spell. Hold on.”

 

Gabriel pulled out a copper basin, poured in French Broad River water that he kept in a nearby container, and traced a small circle over the surface while intoning an incantation.

 

“Okay. Look into the basin and speak.”

 

“Something is wrong! There are two new people in the cemetery,” Jed shouted into the basin.

 

Gabriel stifled a yawn. “Probably tourists. Folks love old cemeteries. No doubt looking for ghosts. You should bother them and let me sleep.”

 

“No! NO! New dead people. There are two new ghosts.”

 

That cemetery didn’t have any new… residents in over one hundred years. Ghosts didn’t vacation at cemeteries that weren’t their own, like a snowbird from Michigan traveling to Florida for the winter.

 

“What are you talking about?” Gabriel was genuinely confused.

 

“Come with me! Bring your water!” Jed plunged through the wall toward his “home”.

 

Gabriel climbed the steps out of the cellar. From the lobby, he exited the Vagabond Moose Inn, water sloshing to and fro in the basin with each step. He was careful not to lose any water. The more that spilled, the weaker the enchantment.

 

Entering the cemetery, Gabriel could see several ghosts. It was true that Gabriel wasn’t a medium, but he was still somewhat attuned to the spirit world. He could see them clearly due to that mild attunement and the fact that the cemetery abutted the Vagabond Moose Inn. Over the years, he had developed the ability to perceive these spirits very easily.

 

Jedidiah was looking at a spot next to the old oak tree. He appeared to be in an animated conversation with a piece of dirt. Gabriel approached Jed.

 

“Who are you talking to? Have you lost your last remaining marble?”

 

“HERE. These two shouldn’t be here!” Jed shouted into the basin.

 

He was pointing to a spot near the tree. Gabriel saw two dimly glowing outlines in the direction Jed was thrusting his finger. As he focused, he was able to more clearly see that there were indeed two ghosts standing there. The more he concentrated, the clearer they became. Each of them was dressed in Civil War era Union uniforms.

“HA! You lunkhead coot! You see them!”, Jed accused. “Well! Fix it!”

 

Gabriel turned to the two new ghosts. He held up the basin that held the communication spell. “Who are you?” Gabriel queried.

 

They were attempting to speak with him directly. He peered toward Jed and could see him pointing to the basin as he continued to yell at them.

 

The first ghost ducked toward the basin. “I’m Private Ezra Longfellow of the Tennessee militia.” Somewhat disturbingly, he had a large bullet hole in his head.

 

“Why are you here, Private Longfellow?”

 

“I have been here for years. I have been trying to tell this swine just that.” Ezra stood straight, shooting ghostly daggers at Jed with his eyes.

 

“How did you die?” Gabriel directed at him.

 

“Well, sir! I died in the Battle of Dandridge, of course. Been here ever since!”

 

Gabriel glanced at Jed. Jed’s expression was so clear there might as well have been a neon sign above his head that read “SEE?!”

 

Gabriel turned back to Ezra. “There wasn’t a Battle of Dandridge.”

 

“Why am I here then?” he demanded.

 

That was a fine question. This seemed small. A ghost being where he shouldn’t. That just didn’t happen, though.

 

The Battle of Dandridge? There were, of course, Civil War battles nearby. But never one right here.

 

He turned to Jed. “I’ll look into it.”

 

Gabriel’s pulse thudded. He’d lived in this town much of his life. He’d have remembered stories of a battle, the cannons, the dead. But something in the air felt… off. As if the memory itself was trying to rearrange.

 

He returned to his workshop. He pulled out books on divination. Why was there now a “Battle of Dandridge”? Even now, two memories fought in his mind: one where Dandridge had burned, one where it had never known war. Both felt true.

 

After three hours and as many books, Gabriel had nothing. The mystery only deepened. He was able to confirm what he already knew. Something was amiss in Dandridge. The area seemed limited to the town of Dandridge, but the scope of the repercussions was disturbingly great.

 

He looked at his watch. Nearly 6:00 A.M., the inn’s cook would already be in the kitchen prepping for the day’s meals. Hopefully, he would have some coffee ready. Coffee, shower, breakfast, and off to see a witch about some strange evidence.

 

By 7:45, he was out the door. He boarded his Ford Bronco, started it, and took off to Jefferson City and Amelia Harper.

 

Amelia never did favors, not for friends, not for family, and certainly not for him. She used to draw up contracts for every request. These days, she didn’t bother with paper, but Gabriel suspected the ledger in her head was worse.

 

Gabriel was more of a handshake sort of guy.

 

He pulled into the parking lot of Harper Law. Amelia wasn’t good. Amelia wasn’t bad. Amelia was a shark. Dealing with a shark wasn’t easy, but she was always transparent with him. The truth was in her very nature.

 

Gabriel exited the Bronco and entered the office building. He approached the reception desk.

 

“I am Gabriel Rainer. I don’t have an appointment, but I need to see Amelia about an urgent matter.”

 

“I’m sorry. Ms. Harper doesn’t see anybody without an appointment. I can schedule something for two weeks from tomorrow. That is her next opening.” The receptionist was looking at her computer.

 

From a nearby doorway, Amelia called out to her receptionist. She had a Southern accent that hit like butter. Many were fooled. “I will see Mr. Gabe, Deb. My next appointment isn’t for another fifty minutes, and Mr. Gabe always has such interesting business matters for me.”

 

He stepped through the door, shutting it after him.

 

Amelia’s office was all custom-made furniture, a blend of local and exotic woods, each piece handcrafted with precision. Handcrafted joinery rather than having butt joints held together by pocket hole joinery. It looked stately rather than fancy. Amelia could afford whatever she wanted. Her preference was time-tested, hand-crafted furniture.

 

In the corner, there was a perch. On that perch was her barred owl. The owl’s name was Precedent. Because of course it was. It wasn’t what most people thought it was, though. Most thought she had an exotic pet. Precedent was her familiar.

 

Amelia was the most powerful diviner he had personally met. It was nearly impossible to keep secrets from Amelia. That made her one of the top attorneys in Tennessee. One of Gabriel’s skills was the ability to keep secrets. Amelia considered him a challenge. Always probing. He was certain she had performed many acts intended to learn Gabriel’s secrets. He didn’t give them up easily.

 

“How’s Percy doing?” Gabriel queried as he sat in a chair.

 

Amelia frowned momentarily. She didn’t like him calling Precedent, Percy. She also knew he did it intentionally to get a reaction.

 

This was the game they often played. The mandatory preliminaries. She was a shark. He was an Orca. She knew it. In general, they stayed out of each other’s way. They also had a mutual respect of each other.

 

“I may require your set of skills, Gabriel. I have a client with some powerful enemies. I may need to keep him shielded and possibly protected. His enemy has put out a call for someone with magical abilities to track my client down. “

 

She rose from her chair, took a live mouse from a nearby pen, and fed it to Percy.

 

She turned back to Gabriel. “If he finds someone with real abilities, I will need you.”

 

There it was. He got in so quickly without the usual games because she already had something she needed from him.

 

“I don’t know if that is a tit for tat with my request,” Gabriel responded.

 

“We shall see. What is it you need?” She demanded.

 

Gabriel spent the next several minutes summarizing the evening’s events. The ghosts, the battle that didn’t exist but now does, and his failure to discern what was the source of the issue.

 

Amelia pushed a button at her desk. “Deb. Reschedule the rest of my meetings this afternoon.”

 

“You have my attention, Gabe.”

 

She motioned for Precedent to perch on her shoulder and headed toward the door, motioning for Gabriel to follow her. She exited her office, walked to the end of the hall, and hit the down button to call the elevator.

 

“It looks like you get to see my inner sanctum, Gabe,” she smiled as she stepped into the elevator.

 

“Get in.” She punched a code into a keypad and pushed the basement button.

 

“Pretty good. You need a security code to get to your workshop,” Gabriel offered, making conversation.

 

“Yeah. Well. I don’t have the skills to place advanced wards on mine.”

 

They stepped off into a workshop as well-appointed and designed as her office. Everything was well organized and carefully planned. As she walked toward the far end of the workshop, she asked over her shoulder. “Do you have anything I can use to work, well, my magic?”

 

“I don’t. I have absolutely nothing.”

 

She grabbed a leather bag, turned, and headed back toward him. “I thought not. Hopefully, I have whatever I may need in here. Let’s go”

 

They returned to the elevator. She didn’t slow down as she exited, breezing past the front desk and out to the parking lot. She waited by the passenger door until he opened it for her. Percy quickly flew in and perched itself on the backseat.

 

“I’m still a Southern girl.” She laughed as she got in his Bronco.

 

It was about a thirty-minute drive from Amelia’s office back to Dandridge. Gabriel crested a hill that led into the small town. An audible gasp came from Amelia, sitting in the passenger seat. Precedent started making calls in the backseat.

 

Gabriel turned to her. “What is going on? What’s the matter?”

 

She didn’t speak immediately. Her breath was rapid. She leaned toward the windshield, clutching the dashboard. Gabriel had known Amelia for more than 10 years. He had never seen her as anything but cool and collected.

 

She looked terrified. Finally. “The whole of Dandridge is in upheaval. Imagine waves of heat emanating from the town, bigger than anything you have ever seen. The heatwaves are blurry images. I see images of burnt-out buildings. I see the entire town drowned in water. I see countless other images. They are all true at once.”

 

“What do you need?” That was all he said.

 

“You said it started in the cemetery. Get me down there.”

 

Gabriel pulled into his parking lot. Amelia paused to shut the door just long enough to let Precedent out. Precedent didn’t bother to perch on Amelia. He flew off toward the cemetery. Amelia wasn’t far behind.

 

Jed and company weren’t visible to Gabriel during daylight hours. Maybe they were resting. Who knew?

 

Amelia looked at him. “Which are the graves of the new ghosts?”

 

Gabriel pointed. “These ones.”

 

Amelia reached into her bag. She pulled out a jar, a small shovel, and a hammer. She dug some dirt from the grave, took off her Cartier watch, smashed it with a hammer, and put each into the jar.

 

She turned to him. “I need one more component that is core to the history of Dandridge.”

 

“How about river water?” Gabriel offered.

 

“Perfect. Be quick, please.” She looked back at her task.

 

Gabriel decided it would be quicker to retrieve what was in his workshop rather than trying to ascend the dike. Upon his return, Amelia took the container of water and poured some into the jar.

 

“Do you think we should wait a while or do this somewhere else?” They were making a bit of a spectacle, and a few people had taken notice.

 

“We can wait if you want Dandridge to burn down… or be drowned in water. I don’t know how long we have.”

 

Gabriel continued to look around.

 

“Well?” she demanded.

 

“I’m thinking. Yes. Yes. Get on with it.”

 

She performed a short incantation. The results were arrows that she said only the two of them could see. The arrows led them to the stump of a tree that had been cut down two days ago. It was an elm tree that was near death and was becoming a hazard.

 

She directed Precedent to the stump. She pulled out a mirror, breathed on the mirror, set it at the center of the stump, and intoned a quick incantation.

 

“I am using the mirror to look at the past that this tree has witnessed. No. Not witnessed. Influenced. During the Civil War, a witch cast a spell on this tree, using it as both a component and an anchor. She wanted the armies of the Union and Confederacy to not battle here. The spell worked. The armies that looked like they were going to converge here instead met in the Knoxville area. But the enchantment stayed on the tree. It continued to work even though its purpose had ended. In the late 1800s, a fire that would have consumed most of the town was put out by a sudden storm. A riot that almost happened during prohibition nearly broke out between federal agents and moonshiners. Just when it appeared the tinderbox was going to light, the tree itself quelled it using its enchantment. “

 

Amelia paused and looked at him. “Dandridge was almost drowned when the TVA authority was building the dam. Dandridge was the only town that survived when the people had a massive campaign to get Eleanor Roosevelt’s attention about their plight. It was this enchantment’s influence that set those wheels in motion and resulted in the decision to build the dike. There are dozens of incidents, big and small. Now that the tree is gone and the enchantment is gone, everything is being reset.”

 

She leaned back. Amelia took a deep breath and turned to Gabriel.

 

“I can’t fix this.”

 

She paused. “We don’t have much time.”

 

He knew what she was saying. They needed to flee or be drowned by the French Broad River when the dike disappears.

 

He took a deep breath. “I can fix it.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yeah. 100%” By 100% he meant 5%.

 

“Absolutely. Do you have some rope or twine in your bag?” As he was speaking, he went to the remains of the tree that was nearby. He picked up a branch, took the twine Amelia offered and tied it around the branch.

 

He set the result on the stump. “I’m going to create a binding spell in the reflection of your scrying spell. I will cast a binding that will hold together everything that has been the result of this tree’s enchantment.”

 

She looked at him with a shocked expression. “That will work?”

 

He looked back. “Yeah. Of course. 100%”. Maybe 2% or 3%. He wasn’t going to tell her that.

 

Gabriel began vocalizing a binding spell.

 

Amelia was looking at him. “I don’t see a difference.”

 

“Well…” He was about to fess up.

 

“Wait! Something is happening.” She looked around expectantly.

 

“It’s fading. The heat wave images are fading away.”

 

She seemed to hold her breath for several minutes. After what seemed like an hour but was really minutes, she let out a long breath.

 

“It’s gone. It worked.”

 

“I told you. Just another day in East Tennessee. Do you want to go into the inn? We can have a celebratory cocktail”.

 

She looked down at her wrist. She paused as if wondering what had happened to her several thousand-dollar wristwatch.

 

“Sure, Gabe. Lead the way. I need to talk to you about my client who needs protection, anyway.”

 

As they walked toward the Inn, the dike stood solid against the river, the town of Dandridge was exactly as it remembered itself to be.