“Where?”
She pointed a single finger to the back door, turning her head away and twisting a knot in her handkerchief. The back door was open. I looked out to see some wood decking and a single path leading to a wooden box.
“In the box?” I asked, standing to get a closer look.
A croaking hum of agreement broke from her throat.
Her garden had a small deck with a bench and two steps to the garden. There was a small single line of grass down the centre, it parted two areas boxed in the large garden by high fences. Early spring plants sprouted in the upturned soil.
I looked behind to see Maureen now at the door. “In the compost,” she said, waving the hanky in her gloved hand.
At the end of the grass was a large wooden box, painted blue, but chipped from years of rain damage. I stepped closer to it, the smell of decay was sharp and acid in my nose. I couldn’t begin to imagine the stench during the heat of summer.
A whimper broke behind me from Maureen. I turned slightly, offering a smile.
Caw. Caw.
Maureen yelped. “Is it there?” she asked.
I peered into the trees to see a large raven perched on a branch. It cawed again.
There was a foot of land between myself and the compost. I wanted to believe Maureen, but I didn’t want to see a body in there. I didn’t want to know what had upset her to the state she was in – I also didn’t want her to be seeing things.
One.
Pushing myself forward.
I’d done this before.
Looking into the crazy the world had to offer.
Two.
Two weeks out of the game and my nerves were giving out.
I clasped my hands together.
Three.
Caw. Caw.
FOUR
Nothing. I pressed my glasses up on my nose. There was nothing but dirt in the compost heap.
The raven flew away, dipping low over the garden, dropping a spot of white poop on the wooden porch.
“Well?” Maureen asked, her voice shaky.
“Nothing,” I said, raising my hands above my head. “Sorry.”
She ushered me back inside. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You’re not the first to look, I just wish someone else could see.”
That was my strongest asset, usually, I could see what most people couldn’t. Perhaps Maureen had untapped magic in her lineage. “How long did you say you’ve been seeing it for?”
“It?” she wafted air to her face with a hand. “A few weeks,” she said, resting in her chair at the table. “But it’s never the same. I only see it for a couple of seconds before I come inside. It turns my stomach.” She turned her face and nose in the air.
“And it’s a person?” I asked.
She nodded vehemently while rubbing her sore eyes. “I’m not going senile. I know, I just wish everyone else around here would believe me.”
The high fence around Maureen’s garden made it practically impossible for anyone to jump in and out fast enough for it to be someone messing with her. “Have you thought about getting security cameras installed?” I asked.
“On my budget?” she laughed. “I’m a pensioner, dear.”
Crack!
Maureen jumped, her knees thwacking the table. She squealed.
“It’s okay,” I said, looking behind myself over the garden once again.
Ding dong!
“I can’t get that,” she whined. “I need to rest.”
Ding dong!
I rubbed at the sleeve of her upper arm. “I’ll get it for you,” I said. “I should be going anyway.”
“Whoever it is, tell them I’m fine.” She blew at her nose. “I don’t want to be known as the crazy lady.”
I wanted to tell her she’d be fine, but I couldn’t offer someone that, especially if it was a lie. I hurried down the hall, leaving Maureen alone again.
Ding dong!
A tall man stood at the door. He was dressed in a beige dinner jacket and matching trousers with an off-white Panama hat, hiding his facial features in the shade. He tipped his hat up at me, looking at my face. He mumbled something.
“Sorry?” I asked, closing Maureen’s front door after myself, standing on her stoop.
He had a thick moustache covering his entire top lip. “Is Maureen okay?” he asked. “I’m Dennis.” He outstretched a hand for me to shake.
His touch was incredibly warm, perhaps from the thick layers he wore. I noticed a smashed garden gnome by his foot. “I’m Evanora.” I pointed to the mess of broken ceramic. “What happened?”
“A misstep,” he said, blowing air out from his pouted bottom lip. “I’ll have someone fix it for her.”
“It was nice to meet you, but—”
Dennis didn’t move. He stayed in front of me, looking me over. “You’re new,” he finally said.
I pinched my face at him, looking him over in the same manner. “I’ve lived in Cottonwood for years, actually.”
“Never seen you before,” he said.
“I live on Eden Road.”
He snapped his fingers and smiled. “That makes sense,” he said. “It’s a quiet street. You don’t really hear a peep from anyone there. Unless it’s Lorette.” He chomped his teeth together with a sharp snap.
“Well, I don’t think Maureen wants to be bothered,” I said, stepping forward.
Dennis stepped back, like some awful tango. “Oh, of course,” he said with a nod. “But between the two of us, she’s going around the bend and I want to know if she’s okay.”
I rolled my rings around on my fingers. “I think she’s going through some things right now.”
He scoffed at the comment. “Well—”
“Where did you say you lived again?” I asked.
“I didn’t,” he replied.
That was the cue for people to tell someone where they lived, or what business they had being at someone else’s house. Dennis didn’t tell me either of those things. He continued to smile at me, adjusting his hat, although it wasn’t particularly sunny on Crescent Road given the large trees on the pavement, shading entire houses in darkness.
“Come to think of it,” I began. “I’ve never seen you around here before either.”
“And you spend a lot of time here?” he asked.
He had me there. I felt it was a game of bluffs. “Absolutely.”
“I moved to Crescent Road six months ago,” he said. “Early retirement.”
Caw.
We both flinched, looking up into the trees.
“Filthy creature,” he sneered.
A long squawk startled me forward. Different to the raven.
I was met to the protest of Dennis stepping back only slightly.
A heavy thump hit the back of my knees, pushing me into Dennis’ chest.
FIVE
Dennis steadied my body as he pressed his hands against my shoulders. I hauled myself to my feet, swinging around to see what had caused me to fall with such force. With my hands clenched into fists, I was ready to cast out a spell, and that was unlike me, especially in public.
“It’s a bat,” Dennis said, crouching to the ground. He picked the thick furry muddy brown creature by the wing, holding it in front of my face.
It no longer writhed. “A bat?” I asked, examining the creature closer. It laid limp in the air, dangling from Dennis’ hand.
“Strange,” he said. “I’ll get rid of it.”
“Wait.” I held a hand at him, shaking my head. I pulled my glasses from my face, polishing them with the sleeve of my blouse before putting them back on. “You can’t, bats are a protected species in England.”
He smirked. “I’ll phone the RSPCA then.”
“Well, is it de—” the bat moved again, startling me as I took assurances stepping back. “I guess not.”
“Don’t you worry, I’ll make sure it gets the best care.” He flashed his teeth and tipped his head. “Trust me.” He turned quickly, walking away.
I sto
od for a moment in the path, looking back at Maureen’s house. Ravens and bats, in broad daylight. Although it wasn’t as sunny or bright in these parts. I’d seen worse, but that was usually when I was out there looking for it. It caught me off-guard, throwing me into a complete stranger’s arms.
Could bats have been confused by the shaded trees, mistaking them for darkness – or perhaps it was the cawing of the ravens messing with their echolocation. I didn’t know the logistics, but I knew bats weren’t blind, that was a common misconception. However, I knew they were attracted to abnormal entities of dark power.
“Curious,” I mumbled, tapping a finger to my chin.
Scanning Maureen’s house, I noticed no signs to indicate energy being pulled to it. The usual signs were magnetic. I glanced at the broken gnome on the ground. Poor thing. With a snap of my fingers, the gnome was back in shape.
“Fixed,” I said, dusting my hands on my jeans.
Back home, Ivory was still sleeping, and the kitchen was still very much as messy as it had been before I left, except now the pots I’d washed were dry and cluttering the draining board. I clapped my hands twice and the objects set themselves away in cupboards and drawers.
Ivory snapped about the noise, but it was quick to silence again.
In the entry hallway of the house, on the left side, there was a bathroom, a small bedroom that I was using for storage, and a storage closet I was using as Ivory’s home. Straight ahead led to the kitchen, and on the right-hand side, there was my bedroom and the living room – not connected.
I sat in the living room with my feet up on my coral pink plush ottoman as the news channel played in the background. My head was busy in my book of shadows. It was a thick book with an uncountable number of pages.
A book of shadows was unique to every witch, and it often documented their adventures and everything they knew and learnt. On the front of the book were two large embossed letters, E and L, for Evanora Lavender. At the bottom of the cover was the Witches Council crest; a pointed hat with two broomsticks over it – styled after the skull and crossbones, a warning not to cross a witch.
I’d spent the better half of an hour looking for information about dark energy spots and bats. Often these were abandoned places, nothing came about from a home with a well-maintained garden.
“What’s got you all worked up?” Ivory said, startling me from the book.
I slammed the book shut to see Ivory’s head bobbing around. “I didn’t hear you,” I said, quickly pulling my legs away from the ottoman.
“It’s because I know how to be quiet.”
“Okay, okay,” I laughed, glancing at my wristwatch. “I didn’t even realise what time it was.”
“Are you going to tell me why you were looking at your book with a face that looked like someone had hit it?”
I pulled my glasses away to rub at the uncomfortable soreness in my eyes. “I paid a visit to a neighbour today,” I said, “from a couple streets over, anyway. She’s been having a problem with dead bodies, but only they keep disappearing.”
Ivory hummed with intrigue. “Go on,” she said.
“Naturally, I was curious, but there was nothing. Shock, I know,” I said.
“It’s not too shocking if only she is seeing them.”
Partly true. “There were ravens too.” Well, one. “And a bat.”
Ivory scoffed. “Call the authorities.”
“I’m just saying, those are signs.” It might not have seemed like much, but if it was only the beginning, more could come, and then we’d have a pandemic on our hands. Moving back to Cottonwood might’ve been for the best.
“Well I’ll look for signs tonight when I’m out picking mice from the garden,” she said.
I hadn’t dared venture out into the wilderness I’d grown in my back garden, but according to Ivory there was an entire village of mice burrowed deep that she was pecking her way through. The thought sent shudders through my neck and spine.
“Well once you’ve dealt with the pest problem, I should be able to get Gregory over to survey the mess and tell me what he thinks,” I said.
Ivory laughed, snapping her short beak. “I might get a good day of sleep if you sort the garden out, and it would keep you busy.”
I rolled my eyes. I needed something to keep her busy with. For me, the thought of retirement was akin to the thought of a shark to stop swimming and die. I needed the call of adventure in my life.
“Perhaps we’ll travel,” I said, slapping a hand across the cover of my book of shadows. “Or, or—” I snapped my fingers. “I’ll take part in the mentoring program.”
“I don’t think I like the idea of having another witch and her familiar around.”
The mentoring program was mentioned in the monthly post the Witches Council sent out to all the witches across the country. Now that I’d retired, and there were several more investigators calling it quits in the coming months, they were looking for more witches to come aboard. I supposed I could at least volunteer my time and energy into helping a fledgeling witch.
“Well, if you think it’s a bad idea – I’ll write a letter tomorrow!”
SIX
The following morning, I went about my business, boiling the teakettle for my daily coffee. I was a tea person, but there was nothing like the first drink of coffee in the morning to get the day started. I toasted two slices of bread on the grill above the oven while humming away to myself.
The family at the newsagents had supplied me with my daily newspaper at the front door for a few days now. It was rare I had time to invest in the world outside of witchcraft and the paranormal. I took the paper and sat at the small dining table in the kitchen with my toast and coffee.
“No rain,” I said with a scoff, turning my head slightly to open curtain over the kitchen window, pulling the small wicker basket of condiments.
I buttered my toast, spreading a thin even layer of sticky sweet strawberry jam on top. My body ached to be doing more with my morning than just having breakfast and reading the headlines from a newspaper.
My mind wandered, the only other time I truly enjoyed breakfast was during a trip to France a couple of years ago. There had been fresh baguettes, creamed cheeses, and an assortment of drip coffees available. The thought pinched a smile on my rosy cheeks.
‘Attack on Homemakers’ in bold, a headline grabbed my attention. I scanned the full-length of the article, finding the pinching smile on my lips become a grin of incredulity. I couldn’t believe half of the nonsense being spouted out.
Pressing my glasses up on my face, I re-read a sentence to myself, trying not to laugh. “More women are now deciding against a life at home in favour of finding a career. If this trend continues, nobody will have children, and people will stop buying houses.” I traced a finger across the words. “Who gets paid to write this drivel?” My eyes rolled, and I folded the paper and swotted the end of the table with it.
A gush of wind blew the back door open, Ivory came in with it.
“Well—” I began. She extended her wings, revealing her impressive large wingspan. Ruffling herself for a moment while I watched. I waved a hand and closed the door behind her. “So? Where’ve you been?”
“Busy,” she snapped back. “My night was eventful.”
I pressed my mug of warm coffee to my lips, sipping to quench my thirst. “Go on.”
“I have a full stomach,” she rejoiced. “And you know, I might get used to this living situation we’ve got here.”
“You mean, retirement.”
She spun her head and clicked her claws on the ground. “I’ve only been in the garden and some of the trees since we got back,” she said. “But there’s so much more to living here.”
“Oh?” That was a pleasant surprise to hear. I nodded for her to continue.
“We’ve never been anywhere for longer than a few weeks, and everywhere starts to feel different after a while, but you know—you know this is actually really good for me here.”
>
“I’m glad you think so.” I picked at the crusts of the toast. “So, what did you get up to?”
“The garden is clean now,” she said twisting her head to the back door. “But there are an awful lot of bats and ravens in the area.”
I chewed on the toast for a moment, thinking about what had happened yesterday and anything else I could reference it with. After the first ten investigations, the rest of them blurred together into some twisted whirl. “I’m glad the garden is clean, I can call Greg over to see what we can do with it,” I said, still turning over thoughts of bats and ravens and how they manifested around bad energy.
“I saw a lot of nice gardens too,” she said, opening her beak widely in a yawn. “A lot of sheds.”
It was on my mental list of things to do now that this was our permanent place of residence. I had cleaned most of the house, perhaps I’d add some more colour to the place, the only piece of colour that gave the house life were the chartreuse curtains, and they were an eyesore. It still had the off-white cream and eggshell colour to the walls—albeit worn away.
“Is that a hint?” I asked.
“At what?” she snapped her beak in a laugh.
“You know that’s the goal,” I said. “I don’t want you cooped up in here, it’s no place for an owl to live.”
Clicking her clawed talons on the tile, she strutted out of the kitchen down the hall to her room. She reminded me of a certain boy who lived beneath the stairs, except we didn’t have any stairs, and she was an owl.
Brinng. Brinng.
It was a house phone.
But I didn’t have one.
“Loud already?” Ivory squawked.
I followed the ringing into the living room where to my surprise there was a landline telephone connected to the socket on the ground in the far-right corner. I must’ve connected it on a prior visit.
Kneeling, I picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
Thud. The call cut out.
SEVEN
Before I could pick myself off the ground and dust my knees, the landline phone rang once again. I grabbed the receiver, pressing it to my mouth.
The Curse of Crescent Road Page 2