by Celia Roman
Epilogue
Early Christmas morn, I snuck out of a warm bed, leaving Riley snoozing peacefully under the covers. Last night, after an awkward visit with his family and a more pleasant one with mine, we snuggled up on the couch with only the Christmas tree lights for company. One thing led to another, but before it could get too far, his hip seized up on him and I had to put him to bed with pain pills.
I didn’t mind, even if he did. Our relations was coming along fast enough, thank you very much, and I weren’t in no hurry to rush ‘em.
Real quiet like, I tugged on warm clothes and my boots, then tiptoed into the kitchen and gathered together some of the Christmas cookies I made Henry. Out the door I went, being careful as I could not to wake Riley.
The morning was crisp under a gray sky. Rain later, maybe, which a body nigh on expected this time of year in the mountains. Too warm for snow, more’s the pity. If ever there was a time for a white Christmas, ‘twas this’un.
I bounced down the porch stairs and up the trail, and wallowed in the peace filling me. At Henry’s memorial, I squatted down in front of the little angel guarding his spirit and placed the cookies on a special holiday plate at its feet.
“Here ya go, baby,” I said. “I’m sorry for not visiting in so long. A lot’s been going on, ya know? And I—”
I shut my mouth over the words about to spill out, how I been seeing him in nightmares, bloody and twisted and bearing only a passing resemblance to the boy what’d been mine for too short a time, and how the warnings was piling up around me, warnings of the dangers of holding on too hard to the past.
That weren’t something to dwell on, not on this holiest of days, so I launched into a lively retelling of tracking down Spearfinger. When I was done, I pushed myself upright, intending to settle on the bench so’s I could share some more tidbits with him.
A cold wind blew up around me, swirling dead leaves along the ground, and a child-like voice whispered, “Mama.”
I closed my eyes and reached out to him, reached out to the spirit of my boy still lingering here on this spot where a monster claimed a life what shoulda been too sacred to take. “I’m here, baby. Mama’s here.”
The cold wrapped itself around me, burrowing under my skin into the ache resting heavy in my heart. “Don’t leave me,” he whispered, “Mama, please.”
His plea rode the wind digging into my bones, burying itself deep. “Henry!” I cried, and he answered in the only way he had, through the very air surrounding me. A gust hit my front, shoving me back a pace, and I stumbled along the ground. The first hint of fear pricked my heart. I whirled around, staring into the woods, searching for him or his ghost or something I could reason with.
The wind died down, and in its place, the forest fell silent and grim.
“Henry?” I said, real tentative. “You there?”
“Mama,” he whispered, only it weren’t my boy speaking. ‘Twas the voice of that devil what’d overtook Old Mother that day on the porch, when something dark possessed her and near about took my life with it.
My heart thumped into a hard gallop, and for the first time in my whole life, I was afraid of somebody I loved.
I backed away from the angel guarding what was left of my baby. Henry, dear sweet Henry. What’d he become?
I pivoted around and walked back to the trailer, too aware of the wind swirling around me and the hairs standing straight on my nape and the fear clinging to me where none had rested before. The trailer’s door opened as I bounded up the porch stairs, and there stood Riley dressed in naught but a pair of dark blue boxer briefs. Without a second thought, I launched myself at him and buried my face in his bare chest.
He held me to him and murmured soft, comforting words, then said, “What is it, baby?”
I swallowed around the knot lodged in my throat, shook my head against his chest, and managed something close to the truth in a thin, trembling voice. “I don’t know.”
“Hey, shh, it’s ok.”
He eased me inside, tugged my jacket off, led me down the hallway, and before I knowed it, we was back in bed, him curled around me. Little by little, the tremors melted away and I warmed as the fear faded into nothing.
What’d happened on the trail weren’t my imagination, not this time, but it was something best mulled over on another day, when I had my wits about me and could face whatever was going on with a clear head and a clearer heart. I rolled over to thank Riley for his patience and found him propped up on one elbow beside me.
“It’s too bad Missy’s expecting us in half an hour,” he said.
I arched my eyebrows. “Oh?”
He grinned real big and slid a hand down my side ‘til it landed on my hip over my panties. “Yeah, and too bad about last night, too.”
It took me a minute to piece together his meaning, then I laughed and smacked a kiss to his cheek and hugged him real tight. “Merry Christmas, you old goat.”
“Merry Christmas, Sunny.”
And it was.
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Witch Hollow
(Sunshine Walkingstick, Book 4)
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Thank you for reading Sunshine Walkingstick Omnibus One (Books 1, 2, & 3). If you enjoyed it, please leave a review for it here.
About the author:
Celia Roman is the pen name of author C.D. Watson. She lives in Western North Carolina in an historic farmhouse built by her great-grandfather. Find her online at:
www.celiaroman.com
The Sunshine Walkingstick Series
Greenwood Cove
The Deep Wood
Cemetery Hill
Witch Hollow
Omnibuses
Omnibus 1 (Books 1, 2, & 3)
Also available in this series:
Death Omen
Dreaming of a Dark Christmas
Sleeping Gods
Get Death Omen for free.
# # #
A sneak preview of Witch Hollow
January blustered into Persimmon like a grumpy old man hunkering down for the long haul.
I stepped outta the warm shower and into the bathroom’s cooler air, and shivered up a storm. Lordy, I was getting plumb fragile in my old age if that’s all it took to do me in.
I rushed through my morning ablutions, trying like the devil not to smile too big or too much. Last night, Riley’d done ever thing ‘cept tuck me into bed. Now, he’d left me all warm and tingly, just like a feller orta do with his best gal, and like the ham fool I was, I fell asleep dreaming on how some day he might be laying right there beside me in my bed.
That grin burst out against my better judgment, and I let it. I was growing mighty fond of my sunshine-topped oak tree of a man, I was, and weren’t put out about it a’tall.
Right as I was hopping around pulling a sock onto my right foot, a frantic series of thumps hit my front door. Well, dang it all. It weren’t even seven in the morning yet. Family woulda come on in, ‘cept Missy, and her knock was always as polite as the Queen of England taking tea. Probably work, then, and even though my coffee can savings was full to the brim, I weren’t so proud rich I could afford to turn down a good paying job.
Them thumps come again, louder this time, and I opened the bathroom door and hollered, “Hold your dang horses!”
A muffled male voice hollered back. “I’m a-holding ‘em.”
I grunted and yanked on t’other sock, shimmied into one of Daddy’s old sweatshirts, and hoofed it to the door. Soon as I opened it, I knowed I was in for a spell of trouble. There stood Terry Whitehead with his bare fingers tucked into the pockets of worn jeans under a heavy canvas work jacket.
All the happy drained right outta me and I scowled at the scoundrel what’d planted Henry in my belly right before he abandoned me to the hand fate’d dealt me.
“You got a lotta nerve showing up on my stoop,” I said, none too friendly.
Terry’s shoulders hunched up around his ears, from the cold or the chill in my voi
ce, I had no ken. “I need your help, Sunny.”
“You’re about a decade past getting it.”
I shut the door on that thin, mournful face of his and turned my back to it. Good riddance, far as I was concerned. I didn’t care none what had him standing out on my front porch while Old Man Winter grumped and groaned. A man what’d abandon his own young’un didn’t deserve no help of mine.
“My daughter’s gone missing,” he said, just loud enough for me to hear through the door. “Three days past. Just disappeared outta the yard. The police have give up on her already. Said if they didn’t find her in forty-eight hours—”
I yanked open the door and glared at him. “I don’t find missing young’uns, Terry, and you dadgum well know it.”
“Please, Sunny.” His lower lip trembled, and for a second, I thought he was gonna cry. “She ain’t but six years old. We searched ever where for her, just ever where, and can’t find hide nor hair of her.”
Sympathy shoved out some of the spitfire, softening my voice. “I wish I could help.”
“You could if you wanted to.” He yanked his ballcap off and resettled it over a buzz cut, and hot color tinted his cheekbones red. “Ever body knows you’re the best tracker this side of Memphis.”
Ever body ‘cept me, I reckon, since I knowed nothing of the sort.
“I never thought you was low enough to let a grudge stand in the way of helping an innocent kid,” he continued.
That fired me up but good. “Now you listen here, Terry Whitehead. I ain’t letting no grudge keep me from doing nothing. The minute you walked out on me was the minute I let you go, you hear?”
His head hung in a miserable slump. “Sorry, Sunny. I’m just worried about my young’un, is all.”
“Me, too,” I snapped, then inhaled real sharp like and let the breath and mad out in one big huff of air. Here we was arguing over water long under the bridge with a heavy sky threatening snow, all the heat leaking outta my open front door, and Henry’s half-sister missing to boot. “You might as well come on in and tell me about it while I put my boots on.”
“Thank ye, Sunny,” he said, real humble like, and that’s when I knowed it was serious as serious could be. Folks could say a lot of things about Terry, good or bad, but the one word I never heard in the same breath as his name was humble.
I stepped back and let him in, then shut ever thing firm behind him. “Sit tight. I’ll be right back.”
I left without seeing if he sat and walked down the hallway into my bedroom, grabbed my boots off the closet floor, and snatched up the chain holding Missy’s ring. Heat seared my hand and I nearly dropped it. I dropped the boots instead and held the ring up by its chain. The inset ruby glowed bright in the room’s dimness, throwing out a tiny, warm halo as it gently twirled ‘round.
Hunh. Never seen it do that before.
I slung it around my neck, dug my phone out from under a pile of Riley’s now-clean gym clothes, and called Missy. Soon as she said how-do, I said, “That ring of yourn is glowing something fierce.”
She was silent for a long time, then finally said, real soft, “I’ll be down in a minute.”
A bad feeling sunk down into my gut, dragging it about knee deep. I always suspected there was more to Missy’s ring than met the eye, what with the way she showed up outta the blue one day, claiming to be a lost hiker, and it being the most expensive thing on her person at the time. Far as I knowed, it never come off her neck ‘til that no good hussy Belinda Arrowood stole it.
And Missy told me real firm like to keep it close by, I thought to keep it safe, what with the stone being a genuine ruby and all. Now I had to wonder, though, more’n I ever wondered about Missy and that ring before. What was going on here, under the beatific surface my uncle’s best gal showed the world? And why was it the ring warmed and glowed when magic or trouble was a-brewing?
I shook my head, stuffed my feet in my boots, and stomped toward the living room and my unwelcome guest. Time enough for them questions to find answers. Right now, I had a more pressing concern on my plate in the guise of a beau I’d thought to never lay eyes on again.
Continue reading Witch Hollow now.