Starlight Web

by Yasmine Galenorn

  The wolf was bouncing around after something in the snow and I saw that he was chasing a mouse. Feeling suddenly protective, I yelled again and waded through the ankle-deep snow toward them.

  The wolf stopped in his tracks, staring at me.

  “You leave that little mouse alone! You don’t look hungry!” And he didn’t. He looked like he was just playing with the mouse.

  “Back off, buster.” I was so focused that I hadn’t noticed that I was shivering. The next moment, the wolf cocked his head, staring at me for a moment. Uh oh, I hoped he wasn’t going to head my way next. “Nice doggy, good doggy…just please get out of my yard, Fluffy.”

  The wolf let out an odd noise, then bounded back toward the fence, toward Killian’s lawn. He took the fence in one leap and vanished behind the wooden planks that formed the four-foot-high barrier. The mouse gazed up at me, wriggling its nose, then burrowed its way back into the snow and headed toward the tree line.

  A little bewildered over what had just gone down and incredibly cold, I turned and headed back inside. My slippers were soaked, and as I closed the door behind me, I glanced down. The ties on my robe had come loose and it was hanging wide open. The wolf and mouse had gotten a glimpse of me in all my naked, jiggling glory—jiggling, thanks to my boobs and thighs. While I was fairly proportioned for my size and had an hourglass figure, there was plenty of me to go around.

  “Well, I hope the critters enjoyed seeing my hoo-ha,” I muttered. But the scene kept playing out in my head and I couldn’t help but feel that somehow there was something odd about the wolf. He felt familiar, as though I’d seen him before.

  But my thoughts were cut short as I caught sight of the clock.

  “Oh hell, I’ll be late!”

  I had to get dressed and out the door if I was going to make it to work on time. I dashed upstairs and quickly changed into jeans and a warm tank top, over which I threw a lace overshirt. I buckled a silver belt around my waist and pulled on knee-high leather boots with nonskid soles, and then brushed my hair back into a thick ponytail. My hair was so long and full that if I didn’t pull it back into a ponytail, it would be falling into my face all day long.

  I grabbed my purse, made sure I had my wallet, phone, and keys, and headed out front to my car. I was about to unlock the door when I heard a “Hello!” from Killian’s driveway. I turned to see him leaning against his car, snow shovel in hand.

  “Hey,” I said, waving.

  “Morning,” he said. He was grinning, a light dancing in his eyes, and it struck me once again how handsome he was. “You want me to shovel your walk? I’m about to do mine and I don’t mind.”

  I glanced back at the walkway to my house. It was a mess. “Thanks, that would be wonderful.” I paused, remembering what Ari had said about the Winter Cotillion. While I wasn’t ready to ask him to that, I said, “Hey, Killian…the Winter Carnival’s going on this weekend. Most of the town shows up. Would you like…” I froze, suddenly tongue-tied. I’d been married for eighteen years and even though I was glad to be free of Ellison, I had no clue of how to actually ask a man out. But Killian saved me from my shyness.

  “I’d love to go with you—if that’s what you were asking,” he said, again flashing me the dancing smile.

  “Wonderful! Thanks.”

  “Where are you off to so early?” He straightened his shoulders, shaking the snow out of his hair.

  “I got that job I interviewed for! I’m headed in to my first day of work. Thanks again, about the carnival and shoveling my walk, I mean. I’ll see you later.” I scrambled into my car, stopping only a moment to text Ari that I had asked Killian to the carnival and that he had said yes. Feeling like forty going on fourteen, I eased into the street and headed for Conjure Ink.

  I stopped for coffee and a sausage muffin and still managed to arrive at work at eight sharp, only to find the others already there.

  “Am I late?” I asked as I walked in.

  “No,” Tad said. “Hank and I were here early, talking to a new client. We’re taking on a case, though I’m not sure what we’ll be able to do about this one. Caitlin arrived just before you did. I’ll be sending you out to do some fieldwork as soon as she finishes her preliminary research, but for the moment why don’t you get yourself situated at your desk.” He pointed to two other doors. “That’s the supply closet and archives room. The other’s the bathroom. Feel free to stock your desk from the supplies. Also, Caitlin will get you set up on your computer with a password and access codes. If you’ll excuse me, I need to make a few calls.” Abruptly, he headed back to his desk.

  Caitlin and Hank were discussing something. I felt left out, even though I knew it was just one of those awkward beginnings to any situation where you came in as the outsider and weren’t sure what to do.

  I took off my coat and hung it on the coat rack, then glanced in the desk drawers. Completely empty. I headed toward the supply closet, only to find I had mixed up the doors and I was staring into the bathroom. I noticed a shower in there, as well as five lockers. There were names on four of them—Tad, Wren, Hank, and Caitlin. I assumed the fifth was mine.

  Backing out, I turned to the other door and found myself in a room almost as large as the main office. The room was filled with shelving, and the shelves were filled with lidded boxes. There were several spare computers on the shelves, and three big cabinets labeled “Supplies” in big black letters. I opened the first and began loading up my arms with notebooks and pens and tape and whatever else I could find that looked useful.

  I headed back to my desk, feeling as though I had just successfully plundered a treasure chest. Like all writers, I had a thing about office supplies. I was just starting to put things away when Caitlin shouted and jumped out of her chair.

  “I found another one!” she said, turning around, her eyes wide.

  “Another what?” I asked, dumping the supplies on my desk.

  Tad moved forward, frowning. “You mean for this year?”

  Caitlin nodded. “Yeah, last week, old man, also found dead on the grounds. He was one of the regular drifters around town. Cops chalked it up to hypothermia, which yes, it could be, but otherwise the autopsy showed absolutely nothing wrong with him. He was known to frequent the shelters when the weather was too rough, so what the hell was he doing out in the middle of the woods, falling asleep under a tree?”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, frowning.

  Tad motioned for everyone to gather around the table in the corner. “Here’s the case we’re working on. Yesterday, a real estate developer called us and we met with them this morning. They are looking to buy a plot of land outside the edge of town. They want to turn the old asylum there into a new housing development. However, a woman was found dead on the grounds last evening. The autopsy can’t pinpoint a cause of death. There was nothing on the tox screen. No sign of blunt force, or anything like that. She was just…dead.”

  “I heard on the news last night. I knew her in high school—Arabella Jones,” I said. “So they decided she didn’t die of hypothermia?”

  “I’m sorry—I didn’t realize you knew who she was,” Tad said. “And no. Of course, she was frozen by the time they found her body, but the ME said that wasn’t what killed her.”

  “I hadn’t talked to her in years, but still…it was a shock to hear. Could she have gotten lost?”

  It didn’t seem likely, although the forested areas around the town were magical—especially the Mystic Wood. There were odd happenings in the forests around the city all the time and sometimes it seemed like the paths through the woods shifted and changed at will.

  “No, that’s doubtful. She was found less than two hundred yards from a street. Her car was found parked near the entrance to the building—the gate leading into the grounds was open. It’s usually kept locked. The lock didn’t look broken, and nobody knows who has the key. We’re talking about the Stellarview Institution for the Criminally Insane.” Tad paused.

 
I vaguely remembered mentions of it from my childhood. “I don’t know much about the history of that place. I barely remembered it existed,” I said.

  “Right, well, here’s a brief background: The institution opened in the 1940s, but by the 1950s, rumors were circulating that inmates were being brutalized and underfed. While these were hard-core criminals, they were also so mentally ill that it would be dangerous—for them and others—to house them among the general penitentiary population. However, it came to light that the owners of the institution dabbled in dark magic.”

  “Oh, lovely,” I said. “The most I remember was my mother telling me to stay away from it. By the time I was born, I think it had closed.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it was closed—while the building still stands, the institution has been out of commission since the early 1960s. But at one point, it was home to an inmate named Psy Schooner,” Caitlin said. “Psy was a seriously deranged killer. He had basically staged a home invasion and taken a family hostage. They lived out on Cambdon Road with no neighbors for a mile or so. Anyway, the family wasn’t all that friendly and they didn’t come into town often. They stuck to themselves—the mother, father, and three kids.”

  “I don’t think this has a happy ending, does it?” I asked.

  Hank snorted. “Not so much. One December, Psy was skulking around and he invaded their home at night. Before the father could fight back, Psy shot him point-blank. He also shot the mother. Then he tied them to chairs in the kitchen. The kids woke up and he forced them to sit at the table, and he tied them to the chairs, then proceeded to make breakfast for everybody, including the dead parents. He made the kids sit there and eat.”

  I shivered. “No wonder I never heard about this. My parents would never have told me that story. What happened?”

  “The next few days, Psy made the kids eat regular meals with him and the corpses of the parents. He only untied the kids for bathroom breaks. He never assaulted the kids, but he propped their parents up on the sofa, and he tied the kids up near there and made them watch TV with him, and forced them to play boardgames with him. He made them call him ‘Uncle Psy’ and pretend that they were all one big happy, albeit partially dead, family.” Hank sorted through some papers near his desk and pulled out several glossy black and white photos, pushing them toward me.

  I blinked. The photos were horrifying. They showed two very dead adults who were starting to decompose, propped up on the sofa. My stomach churned. “Please tell me the kids got away.”

  “Unfortunately not,” Caitlin said, joining us. “They tried to escape. Over the next couple of days, it’s thought that they hatched a desperate plan. Psy’s recollection could be false, but what he told police was that the little girl pretended to be sick, and the older son begged Psy to untie him so he could help her. Psy did, and the boy tried to attack him.”

  “Brave kid,” I said, worrying my lip.

  “He was, but Psy was just too strong. The twelve-year-old had no chance. Enraged that his ‘brothers and sister’ would ‘betray’ him, Psy tied the kids up by their parents and shot them. He made the mistake of doing so just as the mailman was bringing a couple packages to the door. The mailman drove off, flagging down the nearest police car he could find. He knew gunshots when he heard them.”

  I closed my eyes. “So they found Psy with the family?”

  “Yeah, and he had completely lost it by then. They took him into custody. All the time, he was crying, insisting that his father had killed everyone. When the cops looked into his background, they found out that Psy’s father had clubbed Psy’s mother to death. Psy was eleven when he witnessed the murder, which took place on Christmas morning. The father got the death penalty, but that morning forever warped the kid’s mind.” Hank shook his head, showing me a mug shot of Psy. The man looked haunted, like he was living in a different world.

  “He looks…” The man had demons torturing his memories, but they weren’t the demons that you summoned in. No, these demons were all created by his memories.

  “Yeah. Back then, they didn’t think a lot about PTSD outside of military cases. Psy was taken in by an aunt and uncle who lived in Seattle, but they didn’t want him, and he ran off when he was fifteen. He fell into heavy drug and alcohol addiction, but then he returned to Moonshadow Bay. He set out to create a new family for himself.”

  “And of course, it didn’t work. So, they committed him to the asylum instead of putting him in jail?” I asked, torn. On one hand, it was obvious he had a predilection for violence. On the other, if they had helped him when he was young, he might have lived to an old, easy age.

  Tad nodded. “Right. And he died in that asylum. On Christmas morning, the next year, Psy Schooner was dead. The administrator reported it as a suicide. Nobody paid much attention when inmates died. Back then, mental illness wasn’t understood and treated like the condition it is.”

  “How did he die?” I asked.

  Tad consulted his screen, scrolling through information. “The doctor on call recorded it as death by hanging—self-inflicted. However, the gravediggers who buried him got a look at the body when the lid to the coffin came loose. The diggers reported that his body had gashes all over it, as though he had been cut with a sharp knife. The cops ignored the report.

  “Since the asylum wasn’t officially within the boundaries of Moonshadow Bay, they sent the report to Bellingham, where it was probably tossed in the round file.” Tad frowned. “The next year, the feds came in and closed the asylum. The owners fled. They just disappeared.”

  “So…we have a shady institution, a bunch of criminally insane inmates, some of whom died under mysterious circumstances…what else?” I asked. “Where did the other inmates go?”

  “They were transferred to other institutions. But here’s the kicker, “Caitlin said. “Every December since then, the legend says that Psy Schooner returns to take people through the Veil to be part of his family. He kills them but leaves no marks, and there’s no sign of foul play. The one thing all his supposed victims have in common is that their bodies are found on the property that used to belong to the asylum.”

  I shuddered. “Whether Psy is haunting the land or not, it’s going to take a powerful witch to cleanse that land.”

  “I forgot to ask you yesterday, what’s your specialty?” Tad said.

  I shrugged. “Witch of all trades, I guess. My aunt specializes in herbal magic, my mother was skilled in making potions and reading the cards. I’m good with protection and cleansing magic, along with scrying. I’m actually planning on reopening my mother’s card-reading business on the side. She also created charms for people. It won’t interfere with my work here.”

  “Actually, that could come in handy,” Tad said. “That was one thing I was hoping for—that whoever we hired would be good at paranormal extermination, so to speak. It would be nice to have someone in-house to take over that job. But you’re right, the magic that would be needed to cleanse the old asylum is more than I think anybody in town could muster.”

  Caitlin cleared her throat. “By the way, Tad really didn’t give us thorough introductions yesterday. I’m Caitlin Tireal, bobcat shifter,” she said, holding out her hand with a big grin.

  I grinned. “Nice to meet you.”

  Hank pulled up a chair next to mine. “I’m Hank Warren. I’m a specialist in bilocation, in spatial displacement. I can travel out of body onto the astral realm, and I’m really good at blocking psychic attacks. I’m also an expert in martial arts.”

  Tad grinned. “As I told you yesterday, I’m about as human as they come, but I was a child prodigy. I graduated from college when I was thirteen, had my doctorate in psychology and parapsychology by the time I was sixteen.”

  “You said someone else is on vacation?” I asked.

  “Wren. Wren has a connection with birds. She can commune with them, she has a falcon for a familiar and she can see through the bird’s eyes.” Tad slapped the file folder on the table.

  “So, t
his is my first case?” I asked, staring at the mass of notes and pictures.

  “Welcome aboard,” Tad said. “We need to examine the asylum and the land it’s on, and then talk to the developer about how safe it is to begin building there.”

  I frowned. “So we have Arabella, found dead with no apparent causes, and a homeless man, also dead with no apparent cause. What are our goals?”

  “Find out if something paranormal was involved, specifically—the ghost of Psy Schooner. If it was, we need to ascertain whether we can do psychic cleanup on the area. The developer wants to move on this, so we need to jump right in,” Tad said. “Since you’re now our frontline investigator, you’ll go out first and scope out the area.”

  “I suppose we should also research ways in which to lay him to rest,” I said.

  “Yeah, except we should probably figure out exactly what we’re dealing with first,” Hank countered. “We could be dealing with something bigger than just a ghost. Some places are haunted just by their nature, and the Mystic Wood, which buttresses most ofMoonshadow Bay, is filled with oddball things and paranormal beasties.”

  Tad yawned and stretched. “However, we have to approach this objectively. For all we know, it’s all a scare story and these people’s deaths are coincidence. We don’t want to go in just assuming it’s paranormal in nature.”

  “Can someone get me a list of all the suspected victims over the years? When did they start keeping records?” I asked, turning back to my desk, my mind churning. I was already captivated by the story—in a gruesome sort of way—and was champing at the bit to look into it.

  “I can do that,” Caitlin said. “It will take me awhile, so why don’t you fill out your paperwork while I start researching. I’ll also get you a list of any names that were associated with the asylum, if I can find anybody still alive from then. There were, I believe, a couple nurses and maybe a doctor from Moonshadow Bay who worked there.”

  Tad handed me a bundle of intake papers for me to fill out. I began to sort through the forms, still thinking about the case. While ghosts could—and sometimes did—kill, generally they weren’t usually so violent. However, given dark magicians had owned the asylum, there was no telling what sort of mayhem they’d been up to. They could have empowered his ghost, or perhaps they stirred up something that had already been tied to the land.