Ten
Poppy
Dana held the key up for me as she stood on the porch. “You want to do the honors?”
“Nah. Go for it,” I said, meeting her in front of the large wooden double doors of the home. They had always seemed so warm and welcoming when I was younger. My grandmother had kept them adorned with various wreaths and other types of arrangements.
Neglect had left them feeling cold and foreboding. In fact, the entire façade of the home came off that way. As soon as I could, I’d see to getting a fresh coat of paint on it and repairing any of the old spindles and worn steps. I’d return the home to its former glory.
She was about to try the key when I noticed Marcy had gone eerily still down in the yard area.
My hand went to Dana’s arm, and I stopped her before she’d have put the key into the lock. “Marcy, are you okay?”
“What woodland creature is she playing with now? She’s going to end up with rabies,” said Dana.
My gaze slid past Marcy to the edge of the woods. I caught a flash of deep red hair and pale white flesh before it vanished. Instantly, I thought of Marla again.
The therapist I’d seen right after Thomas dropped his whopper of a truth on me would tell me some long and drawn-out explanation for why I was imagining my ex-husband’s girlfriend everywhere.
Glad I wasn’t seeing the therapist anymore since at this point I was pretty sure she might just label me crazy and save all the doctor speak. Then again, I might actually need to open up to someone about it all.
“You all right?” asked Dana.
I pressed against her side as we both faced the door. “Not sure. I think I saw Marla again.”
Dana knew all my secrets and oddities.
“Bitch is like a bad penny,” said Dana with a snort. “You’ve been through a lot, Poppy. The divorce, the fighting with Thomas about this property during it all, and the stress of uprooting your entire life to come across country. It would mess with anyone’s mind. Try not to look so freaked that you might be starring in the remake of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
She always had a way of cutting straight to the point in the best way possible. “You’re right.”
“I know,” she said, putting the key in and giving it a try.
Nothing happened.
She then stepped back and looked at me. “Maybe the giant creepy house has been waiting for you to be the one to open it.”
“Ha, ha,” I mocked as I tried the key.
This time, it worked. I stepped back fast.
So did Dana.
We just stood there staring at the door as if it might bite.
“That was unnerving,” she said, stealing my very thought. “Why am I picturing the spirit of your deceased grandmother standing behind the door, holding it shut when I tried, but moving out of the way while you did?”
Marcy chuckled from her spot down in the grass. “No. Silly. That was her grandfather. Not her grandmother. Oh look, Burgess is back. Poppy, meet my familiar, Burgess. He’s very excited that we’re here. But he says we need to be careful. He says not everything is the way it was. He also said Gilbert was a sign that your familiar will make itself known to you soon. Your familiar is a protector and that was kind of what Gilbert was trying to do for you—protect you.”
I glanced at Dana. “She gets weirder by the minute.”
“Yep. So your familiar is getting escorted to you by a giant drunk deer?” asked Dana.
“I have honestly given up trying to understand half of what she tells me. But if you would have asked my grandmother, she’d have told you that my familiar is a wolf.”
“Nice. Way better than a squirrel,” said Dana.
Marcy grunted. “You’ve offended Burgess.”
“How rude of me,” added Dana.
“Uh, you go first,” I said, bumping her lightly with my elbow as I stared in the open door. Inside was dark. Much too dark for the time of day, and while I’d been in the house hundreds of times in my life, it felt different now. “You like to hit things and I’m pretty sure your sheer presence can intimidate anyone. You’ll scare the freaky right away.”
“No way am I going first. You go first. It’s your house,” she argued. “And you grew up in it. You know your way around it.”
The door blew shut in our faces with a force that left a gust of wind lifting our hair. The key popped out of the lock and fell to the porch floor and nearly through it, as it landed between two boards.
Dana and I grabbed hands, and leaped back from the door, sucking in huge breaths as we did.
“What the ever-loving—” She stopped just before finishing what I was sure would have been a rather colorful sentence. “Did that just happen?”
I nodded, trying to find a rational explanation for it. “M-maybe a window in the back is broken or something? It would cause a vacuum in the house, right? So opening the front door could make a wind or something move through it, slamming the door shut.”
She stared over at me. “Is that what we’re going with in place of, gee, the house is haunted and clearly inhabited by a demon?”
“Yes,” I said fast. “I like my version better. Less scary.”
“True.” She nodded down to the key on the porch floor. “And this theory of yours explains how that got thrust out of the keyhole?”
“Erm, yes?”
It was then I realized Dana and I were still holding hands. I tried to let go, only to find her holding tighter to my hand. I was fine with that.
“So, um, did the door do that when you used to come for the summer?” she asked, sounding hopeful, as if that knowledge might make it all less scary.
“No.” I took a deep, calming breath. “Should we stop being giant chickens and go in?”
“Or, hear me out,” she said with her other hand up. “We could go buy a lovely house in Florida or something. You know, one that isn’t straight out of Amityville.”
I snorted. “First, let’s woman-up and go into this one.”
“Fine. But let the record state I’m sure a demon is in there,” she returned.
I did my best to keep from laughing more. “I didn’t know you believed in demons.”
“Uh, I’m Catholic. Of course I do. In fact, let’s go find a church and get some holy water. We can come back and have it with us when we go in. Sound fun?” she asked.
I tugged on her. “Let’s go. It’s just a house.”
We released hands and I bent, going for the key. I bumped it, and it slid in the direction of the welcome mat. I lifted the mat—and then stepped back with it in my hand, lifting it all the way up.
Where it had been was one word clearly written in what I could only hope was red paint and not blood.
“Leave,” said Dana, reading the word out loud. “Okay. The house wants us to go, I say we listen.”
“I’ve seen you brave the mean streets of New York City after dark without batting an eye,” I reminded her.
“Yeah. Demons aren’t running loose there,” she said.
Marcy exhaled wearily as she frowned. “Don’t be too sure of that.”
Dana lifted a brow, her gaze on me. There was a wealth of questions wanting to roll off her tongue, but I knew her well enough to know she’d save them up for later. “Our friend is a fruitcake.”
“Yes. But we love her.”
She tried the door. “It’s locked again. How is that possible?”
I cast aside the mat and retrieved the key. Swallowing loudly, I tried to get the lump in my throat to go away. It didn’t. It just sort of got stuck there.
With the key firmly gripped in my hand, I gathered my nerves and placed it into the keyhole once more. A part of me feared it would eject again, this time with some deep, dark, menacing voice shouting at us to go.
Thankfully, that didn’t happen.
I turned the key and heard the lock disengage. For some reason, I wasn’t thrilled by that fact. I put my hand around the door handle. I tried to turn it, bu
t it didn’t budge. I tried again. Still nothing. I pushed against the door with my entire weight, twisting hard on the handle, but it didn’t give.
I stepped back, breathless.
“Your turn,” I said.
With a groan, Dana took her turn. The door didn’t give an inch. “Oh goodie. The demon sealed the door shut. Looks like we should go with the Florida plan. Sure, it will be even hotter than here, but anything below Pennsylvania is the South and a sauna to me, so whatever.”
“We can do this. We aren’t giving up.” I put my hand over hers on the handle and our gazes met.
Suddenly, the handle gave and turned.
The door opened, and it felt as if a cinderblock was wedged on the floor behind it, making us have to work together to push it the rest of the way open.
Once we got it open, I realized nothing was there. That didn’t make sense. It had certainly felt as if something heavy and large had been wedged against the bottom of the door.
I swallowed hard. Her idea of getting holy water was sounding better and better.
Dana and I stood there, in the open doorway, staring in at the dark abyss, neither seeming to be in any hurry to go in, despite all the work we’d just put into gaining entrance.
Just then, Marcy pushed between us, strolling through the door as if she didn’t have a care in the world. She glanced back at me. “I need to get a damp washcloth. Someone will need it in a little bit.”
I just stared at her as she hummed a light tune, vanishing into the darkness. Marcy was deeper than she appeared to be. I knew a little of her past, of what it had been like for her prior to making it to college. She’d beaten a lot of odds. Then, after graduation, the world hadn’t exactly been her oyster. She’d been married for a period of time, but it had ended badly.
Far worse than even Thomas and myself.
I didn’t know all the details, but I did know when Dana had found out some of them, she’d gone after Marcy’s ex, wanting blood. And I know that I was called in as backup to get Marcy moved far from the man. That had been years ago, and as far as I knew, Marcy hadn’t gotten serious with any man since.
I was hoping that would change for her in Grimm Cove. That she’d finally meet someone who completed her and complemented her personality, which was colorful to say the least.
And he’d have to pass the best friend test.
I started to follow after Marcy, into the house, but Dana grabbed my arm. “No. Wait a minute. If it’s haunted, the ghosts can eat her first.”
I snickered. “I don’t think ghosts eat anyone. Plus, they’re not real.”
“Okay, but if you’re wrong and I end up on the dinner menu for some specter, or a demon, I’m going to be pissed,” said Dana, letting me enter the home. “And I’m going to come back and haunt you.”
“Duly noted.”
She followed so closely behind me that when I stopped, she ran into me.
I grimaced. “Can you maybe walk on your own feet?”
“I could, but why should I when I can step all over the backs of yours?” she asked playfully.
“You’re a forty-year-old child,” I said.
“Thanks. You’ll be forty tomorrow. You can join in the fun then with me, baby girl,” she said.
I groaned. “I’m not a baby.”
“You graduated high school when you were seventeen and college when you were twenty-one,” reminded Dana. “Makes you the baby of the group. Deal with it.”
“Bite me,” I said.
“Look, you’re already acting as mature as me in our old age,” she returned, making me laugh. “Wow. Was the inside of the house always this dark, dank, and spooky?”
“No.”
As I stared around the foyer at the high ceilings and ornate furnishings, the latter of which were draped with cloth, I arched a brow. While it was still the same, time had marched over it all, and it broke my heart to see it in such a state. My grandparents had taken great pride in their home. Seeing it like it was now broke my heart. Plus, it was kind of off-putting in a creepy sense. “Anyone else feel like they’re starring in an episode of Scooby-Doo?”
“It’s not just you,” said Dana. “I don’t care how many snacks someone offers me, I’m not accepting any dares in here.”
“It’s pretty safe to say no one is going to dare you to do anything,” I returned.
She shrugged. “You never know. Hey, where is Marcy? Did a demon get her? Did the spirit of your grandfather decide he didn’t want her in here?”
“I doubt it,” I returned, walking farther into the home. “He’d have loved her. She kind of reminds me of Grandma.”
“Explains why you have the patience of Job with her,” said Dana. “I’m trying to imagine this place in its heyday. I bet it was something to see.”
Off to the left was a large front parlor. It had a huge fireplace and a sofa and two chairs around a coffee table. To the back right of the front parlor was the baby grand piano that my grandpa used to play often when I was little. It was covered with an old sheet. A large grandfather clock was off to the left of the entranceway. Its sheet was pooled on the floor in front of it.
“Wow,” I said, completely in awe of the home and its ability to fill me instantly with so many loving memories of the past. “I can’t believe how much I missed this place. I should have come sooner. I could have had it fixed up again, like my grandparents used to have it. The house was always immaculate when they were here. This would have seriously broken their hearts to see.”
“Nothing a little elbow grease can’t fix,” said Dana before leaning in toward me, making the sign of the cross with her fingers. “And possibly an exorcism, or two, or three.”
A snort came from me.
The edge of something painted on the floor in red caught my attention. Only a small portion of it was visible from beneath the area rug. Boldly, I entered the front parlor fully with Dana hot on my heels. I bent and lifted the rug to expose the edge of a symbol painted on the hardwood floor that looked a heck of a lot like a combination of the ones that were under the flowerpots.
“This wasn’t here before either,” I said softly, still bent.
Dana joined me, crouching and surveying the symbol. “Is that blood or paint?”
“Paint,” I said before gulping. “I hope.”
“What kind of teens does this town have? Is Occults R Us not open here anymore? They get bored and find an empty house to channel the devil in?” she asked.
I stiffened as I recognized a mark my grandmother had always said meant evil. “Honestly, I don’t know anything anymore. I’m sorry. I really thought this was going to be perfect for us to start over.”
“It still will be perfect. We just need to invest in a lot of salt and holy water,” she said with a wink.
We stood slowly, remaining close.
The grandfather clock chimed loudly, echoing throughout the darkened room, startling us. We jolted in place, clutching tightly to one another before shaky laughs came from us.
“We’re acting like we’re thirteen years old at a slumber party and light as a feather just worked,” I said.
She chuckled, sounding nervous. “Right. Tits out, Proctor. We’ve got this.”
We released one another, composed ourselves, and turned around, only to be startled once again. This time by two men standing there when no one had been there a moment prior.
I gasped.
Dana didn’t. She reacted like she was starring in a kung fu movie, punching out with the pad of her hand, catching the man nearest her in the jaw.
His head flipped back and Dana spun, lifting her leg as she did.
When I realized who the man was in front of her, I cried out, “No! He’s a friendly! It’s Jeffrey! He’s not a demon or a ghost!”
Somehow, Dana managed to stop just shy of kicking him upside the head. Her booted foot remained in the air, next to his head.
He stared at her with wide royal-blue eyes and he rubbed his jaw.
&nbs
p; My gaze traveled over the man directly in front of me.
Brett stood there, looking afraid to move. As if he was worried about scaring us more than me kicking or hitting him.
Dana lowered her foot. “Sorry.”
Jeffrey stood there, still rubbing his jaw, his gaze never leaving her. He looked intrigued by her and, if I had to guess, kind of turned on despite just being punched in the face.
Typical Jeffrey.
Dana stood toe to toe with him. Even at six feet tall and with boots that gave her another two inches, she looked short compared to Jeffrey and Brett. That didn’t make her back down any.
Not that I thought it would.
“I split your lip,” she said to Jeffrey.
He nodded, not saying a word as he stared at her.
She glanced at me. “Does your friend speak?”
“He used to,” I said, easing closer to Brett. “Jeffrey? You okay there?”
“Yes,” he said in a low whisper, gazing intensely at Dana.
A tiny droplet of blood fell from his lip. It seemed to move in slow motion on its way to the floor. Suddenly, I became acutely aware of every tiny detail around us, down to dust particles suspended in the air. The moment was surreal, and I watched, captivated, as the droplet of blood went right for the symbol on the floor.
Don’t let it touch the symbol, Lil-Pop!
For a second, I was positive that I heard my grandfather’s voice next to me as if he was there, shouting at me plain as day.
One second I was standing there, in front of Brett, and the next I was bent with my hand out, catching the droplet of blood a second before it would have made contact with the floor.
Just then, everything seemed to catch up to normal pace, and I was overloaded by the sounds and flurry of movement around me.
Brett grabbed me, easing me up and against him. “Poppy-seed?”
My gaze collided with his, and I held up my hand, palm out, showing him the drop of Jeffrey’s blood. My brows met as I shook my head in confusion. Surely, I’d imagined hearing my grandfather’s voice, right? If not, did that mean I was going crazy? Had the stress of the last six months finally caught up with me, making me crack?
Cloudy with a Chance of Witchcraft: A Paranormal Women’s Fiction Romance Novel Page 9