Witching Moon

by Rebecca York

  He thawed it in the microwave, then cut it into chunks and ate them, grinning as he thought about Amy’s reaction to feeding Big Jim. She might hate handling the alligator’s rations. He’d had evil thoughts about snitching some grub for himself. Of course, that might lead to the beast’s scarfing up another toy poodle, so he’d restrained himself.

  After dinner, he made sure he didn’t have any blood on his chin, then strode to his SUV.

  Exiting the park, he turned left toward town, slowing as he reached the Reduce Speed sign, since he knew from experience that Sheriff Delacorte or one of his deputies was likely to be hiding in the bushes waiting to hand out a speeding ticket.

  Straight from the wide-open spaces of Texas where he could easily push his SUV up to a hundred on the freeway, Adam had been caught in the speed trap the first time he’d come to Wayland. Seeing as he was the new head ranger, Delacorte had let him off with a warning. Since then, he’d vowed to keep from being hauled in.

  His destination was an old stone church a block off Main Street that now housed the Wayland Historical Society.

  He was always cautious when entering a new situation. So he climbed out of his SUV, closed the door softly and stood looking at the neatly tended graveyard that stretched away to his left, then at the gray stone building with its peaked roof and spire.

  From the outside, it still looked just like a house of worship, complete with a rounded stained-glass window over the doorway through which the interior light shone out.

  It was pretty, in a stylized sort of way. If you liked that sort of thing.

  After climbing the front steps, he paused inside the door and looked around at the interior. The Gothic roofline of the church was accented by high rafters and the old stained-glass windows depicting what he assumed were the usual Christian themes. With no light shining in from outside, it was difficult to make them out.

  The Marshall family hadn’t gone to church. Sometimes his mother had attended. But his father had seen no use for worshiping in an institution that undoubtedly considered him and his sons an abomination.

  Adam had followed his logic. He had been in few churches in his life, although a time or two, a colleague had gotten married and invited him to the ceremony, and he’d gone out of politeness.

  He didn’t like weddings any more than he liked houses of worship.

  Ironic that the historical society was housed in one.

  He could see clearly, though, that the pews and podium had been removed, replaced by wooden tables and bookshelves that lined the walls and divided up sections of the large room.

  Looking around, he saw only a few people in the building, chiefly a couple of wizened men with their noses buried in books. Not surprisingly historical research appeared to be a pastime of the older generation in Wayland.

  He had been standing just inside the door, taking it in, when a woman’s voice asked politely, “Can I help you?”

  He looked to his right and saw a narrow desk where a white-haired, round-faced woman sat reading a large leather-bound volume. She was probably in her late fifties, he judged. Her name tag identified her as Mrs. Waverly. No first name.

  He approached the desk and almost choked on the wave of perfume coming off the librarian. Still, he managed to give her a disarming smile before saying, “I’m the new head ranger at Nature’s Refuge.”

  She raised her head, looking him up and down. “Then you’re Adam Marshall. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  He didn’t bother to inquire how she’d come by his name. This was a small town, and he’d learned that the new guy in a closed community was always of interest. Particularly if he appeared to be an eligible bachelor.

  “I hope what you heard was good, Mrs. Waverly,” he answered easily.

  A flush came to her cheeks. “Oh yes, certainly.” She shuffled the papers on her desk. “What can we do for you?”

  “Well, when I start a job in a new area, I like to find out about the local history. I was wondering what reading you’d recommend.”

  “We have an excellent local history, written by a former member of the society. It was published in nineteen fifty-seven, but it will catch you up on everything up until then.”

  Nineteen fifty-seven. He stifled an inward groan. Probably some folks thought things here never changed. Still, he responded with another smile.

  “Actually, I’d like some more recent history as well.”

  “We have newspapers and other materials, but they can only be used in the building because often they’re one-of-a-kind items.”

  “Yes, I understand. Can you show me where to find the newspapers?”

  “Certainly.” She got up from behind the desk and bustled over to an area at the back of the room. He had expected to see a bank of microfilm readers. There was one reader and high shelves stacked with large, black-bound books.

  “We have local newspapers dating back to before the War of Northern Aggression,” she said.

  War of Northern Aggression? Oh, yeah, the Civil War, he mentally translated.

  “I don’t need to go quite that far back,” he allowed.

  Mrs. Waverly went into what must be a long-practiced spiel, her voice taking on a sing-song quality. “We started microfilming in nineteen ninety-seven,” she said, obviously proud of their modern equipment. “Before that, you’ll have to consult bound volumes.” She pointed to her right. “You can take them to this table over here.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he answered politely.

  “Don’t put them back because you may file them incorrectly,” she added sternly. “The staff will reshelve them after you’re finished.”

  “I understand.”

  “And we close at nine-thirty sharp.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He wasn’t sure where to start. But he figured the volumes from twenty-five years ago, the year Austen Barnette had bought Nature’s Refuge, might be interesting.

  He found January of that year on a low shelf, stooped to gather it up, and brought it to the table that Mrs. Waverly had indicated. It was a hefty volume, and he wondered who carted the heavy stuff around.

  Up until the early eighties, the Wayland Messenger had come out once a week, so it wasn’t difficult to thumb through the entire year. At first he didn’t encounter anything beyond births and deaths, routine police reports of robberies and traffic accidents, and feature articles on various people like the owner of the largest peanut farm in the area who had commissioned a batch of peanut recipes and the botany teacher at the local community college who was starting a new course on herbal remedies.

  Herbal remedies. That stopped him, and he read the article carefully.

  It was interesting, but it told him nothing besides the fact that a local guy was interested in old-time herbs.

  He kept looking for additional information. It was in one of the April issues that he found an article cut out of the paper.

  What?

  He guessed he’d find out because it looked like someone had put it back by folding it up and tucking it into the binding of the volume.

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  THE FOLDED RECTANGLE of paper was brittle, and he opened it carefully. When he had spread it out, he saw that the headline on the article read, “Woman Burned to Death in Cabin.”

  The story began: “Jenna Foster, a young woman living in a rural area on the old Wayland-Lanconia road, was found burned to death in her ruined cabin early this morning. Although the woman was unmarried, she was reported to have a daughter, Victoria. The girl was not found.”

  According to the article, Miss Foster was using a space heater that exploded, setting the cabin on fire. Sheriff Harold Delacorte claimed the heater had a faulty cord.

  There was more, but no other useful facts. Adam compared the hole in the paper to the folded article. They did, indeed, match. Then he thumbed through the rest of the bound volume but found no other mention of Jenna Foster.

  He started to put the large book ba
ck, then remembered that visitors weren’t trusted to return research material to the shelves. Instead he got up and fetched the next.

  As far as he could see, the fire and her death had been reported, but then nothing else. He found that startling. The daughter was missing, but there was no report that she had been found or that she hadn’t. He thought about the media furor that sprang up these days whenever a youngster went missing. Today, the child’s picture would be all over the national news channels.

  And the attention would be even more intense in the local media. There would be teams of people combing the swamp for her. But apparently that hadn’t happened twenty-five years ago in Wayland, Georgia.

  A woman had died, and her little girl hadn’t even registered as a blip on the local radar screens.

  Why? Hadn’t they cared? Or had some relative come and claimed her? He could easily picture that happening.

  But even if that were true, he would expect the fact that she was safe and cared for to be reported in the local paper. But there was nothing.

  It was as though someone had decided to erase Jenna Foster and her daughter from the local records, including cutting out the one story about her. Then somebody else had rectified the situation.

  He looked over toward Mrs. Waverly and found that she was watching him. When she realized he’d caught her staring, she glanced quickly down at the papers in front of her.

  Getting up, he carried the bound volume and the article to the desk.

  “I was hoping you could help me,” he said as he set the large book down.

  “Of course.”

  “I found an article cut out of the paper, then stuffed into the binding.”

  Her voice turned sharp as she stared down at the volume he’d set before her. “Cut out? How is that possible?” She sounded like she was accusing him of being the one to destroy historical records. Then she focused on the article he’d unfolded.

  “Where did you get that?” she demanded.

  “Like I said, it was tucked into the binding of the book.”

  “That’s trash,” she said, as she snatched it away and put it into her desk drawer. “Why were you looking at this particular volume anyway?”

  Her reaction was so out of proportion to what he expected that he considered his answer carefully, then said, “I came to Wayland to work at Nature’s Refuge, and I was curious about what was happening in town the year the park was acquired.”

  “Oh yes. Of course,” she agreed, her tone more controlled.

  “Naturally I was wondering about the woman and the child.”

  When Mrs. Waverly simply sat there staring at him, he asked another question, “Did some relatives come and claim the little girl?”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” the librarian said, her tone of voice making it clear that the subject was closed.

  Adam took in the shuttered expression on her face. She was looking decidedly less friendly than she had an hour ago.

  “Thank you for your help,” he murmured.

  She had the grace to flush.

  After waiting a beat, he turned and exited the building, then stood on the steps staring out at clouds turned pink and lavender by the setting sun.

  The natural beauty was a stark contrast to the article he’d been reading. Something ugly had taken place in Wayland, and he wondered what it was, exactly.

  Paul Delacorte had told him that a woman had been murdered in her cabin at the edge of the swamp twenty-five years ago.

  The newspaper story said that a woman named Jenna Foster had been burned to death in her cabin, the fire started by a faulty space heater. But what if that account wasn’t exactly accurate? What if the cause of the fire hadn’t been an accident at all?

  He thought back, recalling the details that Delacorte had given him. He’d said only that the woman had been killed. He hadn’t said how. But he’d been reluctant to talk about the incident, just like Mrs. Waverly had been reluctant to talk about the woman in the newspaper article.

  On the face of it, they didn’t sound like they had much in common, except the way both Waverly and Delacorte had clammed up. And then there was the startling fact that somebody had cut the article out of the paper—and somebody else had put it back.

  Well, he needed to find another source of information about the Jenna Foster death. But now that he knew he was stepping into a pool of swamp mud, he was going to be discreet about asking questions.

  STARFLOWER walked into the Road House bar. She didn’t have to look around to locate the group. She knew where they were. Not just because they always occupied the back left corner of the room. She could feel their presence because they were part of her, and she was part of them.

  And she loved the connection.

  In the regular world, she was nobody. A clerk at Great Greetings on Main Street.

  But with the clan, she was different. Strong and proud.

  She swept back her blond hair and stood in the doorway for a moment. Billy Edwards, one of the guys from town, was watching her. He’d had a yen for her since she’d moved to Wayland. He had a nice new pickup truck and a good job out at the farmer’s coop. She might have settled for a guy like him. But that was before Falcon had found her living in Macon and explained why she should come back to the community her parents had fled.

  At first she’d been skeptical and afraid, if you wanted to know the truth. She knew that her parents had been run out of Wayland when she was just a baby.

  But Falcon had told her it would be different this time. He’d taken her to meet Willow and Grizzly. And he’d brought a couple of gallon jugs of water from the Olakompa Swamp. He’d poured them into a washtub and made everybody join hands and breathe in the rich, rotting scent coming off the water. The water and the connection with the group had made her feel wild and potent.

  She’d craved that feeling ever since. Craved being with these people. Craved the power she felt growing within herself.

  Falcon looked up, saw her and waved. He wasn’t a handsome man. His nose was too big. His eyes were too close together. And teenage acne had pitted his skin. But none of that mattered.

  He was a natural leader, and she would follow him where he wanted to take her.

  He flashed her his killer smile, and a little frisson went through her as she suddenly remembered the thrill of feeling his even white teeth worry her nipple.

  His smile turned knowing, and she wondered if he was sharing the same memory.

  “Hey!” he called across the restaurant.

  “Hey.” She wove her way through the tables and chairs to where the group was sitting.

  The entire ten members of the clan only met on prearranged occasions. But six of them were present this evening.

  Willow moved over to make room for her on the banquette. Razorback’s gaze swept over her, settling for a moment on her breasts, tightening them.

  What a sexy bastard. She always made love with him when the group got together for one of their special sessions. And they’d had some fun on their own, a time or two.

  Too bad he was always pushing Falcon, making her wonder if the two of them were going to end up fighting it out for the leadership of the clan. That would be exciting. But she hoped they could work out their differences, because she’d hate to see one of them kill the other.

  She switched her attention to Falcon. “How’s the old homestead comin’?” He was a talented carpenter. When he’d come back to town, he’d found a job that used those skills. And he’d also started rehabbing the house out in the country that his parents had left standing vacant. First he’d made sure the structure was sound and weather tight. Then he’d begun adding rooms. When it was finished it was going to be a palace, where a lot of them could live.

  “Great. We’ve got two of the new bedrooms framed. And we got the spa tub into the new bathroom.”

  “Wow!”

  “Copperhead’s a big help.”

  Copperhead was shy and subdued, good at taking orders. No
w he smiled with pleasure at being complimented.

  She smiled at him. She was looking forward to moving into the house. The other women might not know it yet, but she was going to be the queen of the place.

  “So when are you gonna tell us why you invited us for a drink after work?” Willow asked.

  Falcon touched his finger to his brow. “Right now, honey.” He paused for dramatic effect. He was good at that. “I spotted a woman in town. Someone who would be an asset to the clan.”

  Starflower could feel the sudden energy flowing around the table. Being an asset to the clan meant something very particular. It meant that the woman was descended from the same stock as the rest of them, the early English settlers who had developed special powers living in the swamp or at its margin. She didn’t know what to call those powers. Falcon had said they were paranormal. He’d given her some books to read, but she wasn’t much on book learning. She preferred to think of herself as a modern day witch. And most of the rest of them did, too—when they talked about it among themselves.

  They were all here because Falcon had gone to a great deal of trouble, talking to his parents and some of the others who had moved away from Wayland. He’d come up with a list of people who had been shot, hanged, and burned up over the years. From that, he’d gotten a bunch of last names.

  “She’s from one of the families?” Greenbrier asked, her voice taking on a lilting sound.

  “No.”

  “Then how can she be one of us?”

  Before Falcon could answer, the waitress bustled up to ask if Starflower wanted anything to drink and if the others wanted a refill.

  The guys ordered more beer. Starflower ordered one, too.

  Falcon watched the server leave, then leaned forward and lowered his voice. “She doesn’t have to be on my list. We all know there’s intermixin’ in this town, between their kind and ours.”

  There were nods of agreement. The famous Jenna Foster was a case in point. As far as anyone knew, she hadn’t been married, but she’d had a child. Nobody knew for sure who the father was, but they did know he’d been ashamed to let the town know that he’d been consorting with one of those people. Of course, there was something else about Jenna Foster. She’d been known in the old-time witch community as the woman who had gone over to the other side. She’d shunned her own people. Which had made her a misguided fool.