The Middle House: Return to Cold Creek Hollow (Haunted Series)

by Alexie Aaron

  As soon as they were settled, Lorna lifted the reins and clicked with her tongue. The horses moved slowly until they eased the wagon onto an adjacent lane and headed north. As soon as the wheels found purchase, the horses took off.

  Mia lost her footing but was saved falling on her behind by Ted’s steadying hand. She pulled out her shotgun and took aim at the ghostly lookout positioned on top of the double angel statue. She fired, and the salt hit the watcher full in the chest. It withered as it disappeared. The sound of the shot echoed through the graveyard.

  “Don’t worry, spirits have lousy hearing,” Tonia said. “They will eventually zero in on us, but we may just make it. Nice shot by the way. Rock salt has its uses, but I find it scatters too much for my taste when delivered by a gun. She reached inside her jacket and came out with some strange white stars. She moved them around in her hand briefly and then shot them outward behind the fleeing wagon.

  Mia watched as each star brought down an emerging ghost. “Well, maybe their hearing is better than I thought. Mia, over there!”

  Mia turned and shot, taking down a nasty flying thing two feet from the wagon bed.

  Lorna urged the horses faster as the north gates appeared out of the rising fog. The horses gave it their all, and the riders were bounced around. Cid thought he was going to lose all his fillings before too long. The wagon did little to ease the jarring of hard wheels on blacktop.

  Tonia jumped off just as the wagon shot through the gates. She grabbed one gate as Mia fired cover. The gates were closed swiftly and locked before Mia could reload.

  The advancing ghosts stopped at the gates.

  “I don’t understand,” Cid said, squinting through the infrared goggles. “Why are they stopping?”

  “Iron. The gates aren’t just made of iron for the hell of it,” Lorna called over her shoulder.

  “Shit!” Mia exclaimed. “I left the south gates locked open.”

  “Already taken care of,” Lorna said, patting the seat beside her. “Come up here, we have to have a chat about graveyards.”

  Mia looked at Tonia who nodded. “Might as well face the music, Mia.”

  Ted looked at his wife, watching her stiffen her spine before joining the woman at the reins. He offered Tonia a hand up into the wagon. Cid smiled as the woman sat down next to him. Tonia patted the side of the wagon. “Lorna, take us home.”

  ~

  Murphy moved slowly up the ridge. Maggie sniffed the ground while she walked behind him. She’d never been allowed in the woods past dark. At night, there were so many different scents to take in. She wasn’t fond of the pungent odor of the black and white creature that scurried across the path. She almost took after it, but Murphy caught hold of her collar just as the idea crossed her mind.

  “One night of adventure equals days of stink,” he warned.

  Maggie wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but his tone said, no. She’d learned the hard way that when she ignored no, bacon treats weren’t forthcoming, and she had to cool her heels in the mudroom behind the Maggie gate.

  The female named Mia turned out to be the sternest of masters. She was small but quick to correct any misstep of the mixed-breed dog. “It’s for your own good,” she would say as she clipped the lead on Maggie’s collar. Mia never hit Maggie. No one at the farm did. Sure, she’d gotten yelled at, fingers pointed, and the speech that started off, “I’m ashamed at you,” but as she hadn’t learned all the words of the bipeds yet, she had to depend on tone. Maggie still made mistakes.

  Mia’s favorite correctional Maggie phrase was, “To err is human, dogs know better.”

  Murphy got down on his stomach and motioned Maggie to do the same. They peered out into the darkness together, watching the activity in the valley below. Men dressed in black were plodding through the undergrowth in pairs. They appeared to be walking some kind of grid, searching the forest floor for something.

  “Stay,” Murphy told the dog and disappeared.

  “Why can’t we wait until morning?” Squeak, the smallest of the group of four, asked.

  “Because whatever this flower is, it only blooms at night,” Metal, the leader, answered.

  “I’m a mercenary not a horticulture expert,” another complained. He was stuck with the moniker College because of his use of fifty dollar words.

  “It’s not the flower we’re after, but what is buried underneath,” Metal explained.

  “Are we on a freaking treasure hunt?” Sniper, the sharpshooter of the group, asked.

  “Is it valuable?” Squeak asked, his eyes lighting up.

  Metal held up his hand, stopping the questions. “We are on a retrieval mission. It’s only value is that we don’t get paid the bonus unless we find it.”

  “So let’s get this straight. Some moron buried something of value in the ground and marked the spot with a flower that only blooms at night. As I said, I’m no expert, but flowers are tricky things. They die, they reseed, they are…”

  CRACK!

  “What the fuck was that?” asked College.

  “Sounds like someone is chopping down trees,” Sniper said, clipping a night scope on his rifle.

  CRACK CRACK CRACK!

  “Damn, that’s giving me the creeps,” Squeak admitted.

  A limb fell from overhead, narrowly missing him.

  Metal watched his men ready their weapons. If he didn’t do something quick, they would probably shoot each other. He signaled for the other three men to come in closer. “Whatever this is, I don’t think we are prepared to deal with it tonight. Let’s head back.”

  CRACK! Murphy slammed his axe into a fallen tree for good measure.

  The men quickened their exit. He waited until they were out of hearing before whistling for Maggie.

  She came running down the hill, her feet sliding a bit on the rotting leaves as she made the entrance of the forest.

  Murphy squatted down and steadied the dog, waiting for her to calm down.

  She licked his face, wondering why this pale man always tasted like wood.

  “Come here, I want you to help me dig for something,” he said, guiding her to a small clearing. Murphy lifted the bark from the small mass of night-scented stock. He knew these as gillyflowers. This bunch seemed to bloom early despite the long, cold winter. Through his hundred or so year tenure haunting the hollow, Murphy always wondered about this particular clump of flowers. They didn’t seem to follow the natural path of their counterparts, surviving frosts that would kill a young maple tree. They were hardy, but he now knew that they were hardy because of magic.

  He took his axe and edged it below the surface just under the plant. He lifted the flower, roots and all, away from where it had called home.

  Maggie, catching the scent of vanilla, followed him, looking for a cookie or a slice of cake. She was disappointed at finding only the purple flowers.

  Murphy gently set them down across the clearing and returned quickly. He motioned for Maggie to join him. “Dig here,” he instructed.

  Maggie put a tentative paw down where the ground had been disturbed by his axe.

  “Yes, there, dig.”

  She didn’t need any further coaxing. Maggie loved to dig.

  Murphy stood back and admired the way a dog could make quick work out of the solidity of soil. While she dug, he kept an eye on the woods, willing whoever sent the black-clad men searching for the gillyflowers wouldn’t arrive anytime soon. It was magic that set the flowers there, strong magic. Dark magic he assumed.

  A high ping of claw upon metal sounded through the glade.

  Murphy rushed over to Maggie who had nosed out a small metal box. He reached over and pulled the box out of the hole. Setting it on the ground, he studied the markings on the side of the box. His mother would have called the arrangement of swirls and geometric lines, hex signs. He only knew to stay away from those wearing these upon their person.

  “Fill, cover, quick,” he instructed the dog.

  Maggie looked at h
im oddly.

  Murphy pushed some of the dirt back in the hole with his axe. “Fill…”

  Maggie turned around and began to move the dirt back into the hole she dug.

  Murphy returned the flower to its home, securing it with a few pats of his hands. He picked up the box and patted the side of his leg. Maggie joined him, and just before they left the forest to climb up the ridge, Murphy stopped. “Maggie stay,” he said, setting the box down. “Guard.” The dog inched forward covering the box with her body. He smiled and patted her head.

  Murphy returned to the forest and smiled when he spotted a male skunk. He lifted the surprised animal up and tossed it gently into the glade. The frightened creature opened up and fired scent. Soon the glade reeked with skunk. He joined Maggie and picked up the box. The skunk would cover the dog’s scent, possibly giving them the anonymity they would need to fool whoever wanted this box. He would hide it someplace safe, someplace not even Mia would venture.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mia padded down the stairs to the scent of frying bacon. Ted was still asleep, so it either had to be Cid in the kitchen or they were being haunted by a short order cook. Maggie was all but dancing around Cid as he stacked the drained strips on top of each other to cool.

  “Are those for me?” Mia asked saucily from the kitchen door.

  Cid turned around and shook his head. “Murphy roused me at sunrise, insisting that I cook up a slab of bacon as a reward for Maggie.”

  Knowing Cid couldn’t see Murphy, the ghost would have had to talk to the investigator. Murphy didn’t like to use many words. She assumed that it would have been quite disturbing to be woken up to the words cook bacon or whatever the ghost chose to say. “I’d give my eye-teeth to have been a fly on the wall when that happened,” Mia said, snagging a piece of bacon before Cid could slap her hand away.

  “What did you do to deserve this?” she asked the dog, breaking a piece in half and offering it to her.

  Maggie downed it without tasting it and waited for more.

  Mia gave up the other half and walked over to where the coffee pot was filling with black liquid. “Smells wonderful.”

  “It’s not Ted’s, but it’ll do,” Cid said.

  Mia took out a large cup from the cupboard and poured herself a cauldron of caffeine. She sat down and took a tentative sip and smiled. “Cid, don’t rat me out, but your coffee is…”

  “Is what, wife?” Ted asked from the doorway.

  Mia looked sheepishly over at him. He stood there wearing his customary uniform of jeans, tee and a backwards ball cap, his auburn curls hidden successfully. Ted held a square clothes basket.

  “Are those...” Mia started to ask.

  “My dirty socks, yes.”

  Mia got out of her chair and scrambled, putting the table between her and her husband.

  “Come on, they’re not that smelly,” he argued. He looked at his best friend who was making the sign of the cross with one hand and grabbing for a strand of garlic with the other.

  Ted passed through the kitchen commenting, “You never complain about my other laundry.”

  “Your other laundry doesn’t reek,” Mia said, holding her nose. “What happens bellow your ankles to cause that kind of smell is a mystery, but it’s bad.”

  Ted, who was too used to the smell, simply shook his head and walked into the laundry room.

  Mia walked back to her spot and sat down. Cid tossed a few pieces of bacon to Maggie who had hidden under the table, protecting her nose.

  “Hey, very funny guys,” Ted called out. He walked back into the kitchen carrying a small silver box imprinted with geometrical shapes. “Who put the hex box in my laundry basket? I almost washed it.” He looked at Mia and Cid who stared at him oddly. “You’re kidding, you two jokers didn’t do this?” He shook the box.

  Mia heard a strange sliding sound. She looked at Cid who said, “Is it just me or is that box sloshing?”

  Ted put it on the kitchen table. “So if you didn’t put it in my hamper who…”

  CRACK!

  Ted pulled his hand back quickly. Mia stepped back when Murphy motioned her away from the table.

  “Cid, Murphy doesn’t want us to touch it,” Mia explained. “So, Murph, this is what the bacon was for. You and Maggie are keeping secrets from us.”

  Murphy moved to explain.

  “Stay right there, fella,” Mia warned. “If you put this in Ted’s sock hamper, then you didn’t want me to find it. Why?”

  Ted, who was teetering between being annoyed at his odorous socks being used as a Mia deterrent and curiosity at what was in the box, spoke up, “Mia, back off and give him time to explain himself.”

  Mia reached over and snagged the egg timer from the shelf over the stove and set it on the counter saying, “You’ve got three minutes.”

  Murphy narrowed his eyes, letting Mia know that she didn’t scare him. She glared back. Well, maybe Mia scared him a little.

  “Bacon, boxes, out with it,” she ordered, pulling off her glove and thrusting her hand in his direction.

  Murphy took hold of her hand, held it for a few seconds and dropped it.

  Mia looked back at him, angling her head. “Now was that so bad?”

  Cid and Ted waited while the two finished squaring off.

  “Come on, share,” Ted insisted.

  Mia recounted Murphy’s and Maggie’s adventure, beginning with the retrieval of the mysterious box and ending with the tossing of a well-placed skunk. “And he thought he’d found the perfect place to hide the box. Somewhere I would never look.”

  “He didn’t remember it’s laundry day though,” Ted said.

  “Nope. Why didn’t you want me to see the box?” Mia asked her friend softly.

  “Dangerous. Evil. Dead heart,” he said, pointing to the three designs embossed into the silver of the box.

  Mia turned around and looked at the entrance to the kitchen. “Isn’t this the time Tonia appears and explains everything to us morons?”

  Ted couldn’t resist laughing.

  Cid smiled and added. “The girls are late.”

  Mia picked up the wall phone and dialed. “Audrey, I’ve got a mystery for you. Please. I’ll put some cookies in the oven. Sure. Bye.”

  “We don’t need Tonto when we have Nancy Drew,” Mia said, hanging up the phone.

  “I think I better put in a call to Burt and Mike and tell them about last night,” Ted said. “Cid, you mind if we borrow your vault for a while?”

  “If you are talking about my lead-lined comic book box, then no I don’t mind. But I’m not giving up my journal box.”

  “You keep your journal in a lead-lined box?” Mia asked.

  “Some people in this house are a bit too nosy,” Cid said, directing his gaze to where he thought Murphy may be standing.

  Mia looked over at the ghost and asked, “You’ve been reading Cid’s diary?”

  Murphy nodded.

  “Did you get to the part when he got caught with his hand…” Ted started.

  “Theodore Martin!” Cid exclaimed.

  “Seems I’m missing out on a hell of a Cid tale,” Mia said. She took a look at Cid’s mortified face and turned around and shook her finger at Ted and Murphy. “Shame on you two. Don’t let me ever catch you invading this man’s privacy again.” She walked over and patted Cid on the back. “With Ted around, I can see why you keep it under lock and key. And I suppose the lead keeps Murphy out, so I think you have all contingencies covered. It’s almost impossible to keep secrets in this household. Ted’s got a nose for gossip, and Murphy… well he’s very interested in us.”

  “Thanks, Mia,” Cid said and left the kitchen.

  Mia waited until she heard the screen door slam before asking, “His hand was where?”

  ~

  A loud growl sounded from Tom’s stomach, waking him up. He looked around the family room trying to put back together the night before. “Three beers!” he exclaimed, mortified by what a lightw
eight drinker he was.

  “How about orange juice instead?” his mother called from the kitchen.

  Tom put his hand on his forehead and moaned. “I don’t feel so well, Mommy.”

  “Nonsense, you’re just hungover,” she said, walking in the room and placing a cool hand on his brow.

  “Mia called to let us know why we may have found our law enforcement professional son passed out on the couch. She took all the blame and promises not to do it again.”

  Tom winced. “She did that?”

  “Yes, what she didn’t know was that we didn’t see you asleep here, and you would have gotten away with it.”

  “Oh.”

  “Well now that the cat’s out of the bag, spill it mister,” Susan Braverman demanded. “What’s got you all twisted up inside to cause you to drink on an empty stomach?”

  Tom thought about telling her it was police business so she wouldn’t press him for answers, but part of him thought that she, as a resident of Big Bear Lake Village, should be aware of the danger now threatening them all.

  “Mom, sit down. I’ve got a few things to tell you.”

  Susan didn’t like the tone in her son’s voice. She sat down and prepared herself to listen to whatever he had to say. Only then would she know what caused her happy child to be so pale and serious.

  ~

  Burt took his coffee out on the deck. The peninsula home that he rented from Mia was bathed in spring sunshine. He tugged the lid of his hat low over his eyes as he reclined in the Adirondack chair. John Ryan, his neighbor to the north, was standing out on his dock casting a line into the water. Burt observed the man watching the red and white bobber.

  Ted had called and reported on their adventure last evening. He asked Burt questions that he couldn’t answer. Such as, where did the women get the buckboard from? Or how did they get the pig to participate in their escape? Halfway through their conversation both men started laughing. Ted admitted that if this were on television, he’d have to cry foul. Burt agreed with him.