He lost the smile pretty fast. “So you figured it out, eh? Phelan is Irish for wolf and we are our surname.”
“All of you?”
He was silent.
“Fair enough,” I said. I didn’t want to know all the secrets. “Liam, what can I do?”
“Convince Colin to sell. Da and Rory want that land,” he said. “Rory really wants it. The plan is to expand the dairy and there’s all that lovely pasture just lying there, waiting for Phelan milk cows to chomp on it.”
I thought of the only time Colin and I had been alone together since he and Lacey came home from their honeymoon. Momma was gone; she’d left for Aunt Maureen’s, just as she said she would. He’d come over that day to get some tool out of Daddy’s barn. His barn now.
Juniper, my usual visitor, was at the daycare so I was alone in the house, wearing my oldest, ugliest clothes and stirring lavender oatmeal soap in the kitchen. We’d stood close enough to touch but we didn’t. I still loved him and he still loved me but he was my sister’s now and a gold wedding ring weighed down his hand. “I tried, Liam. Colin’s stubborn. He insists Daddy wouldn’t have wanted him to sell to your father. He’s right but still... He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know what I know or he won’t admit there’s something...wrong.”
“Then take the kid and run, Ranalt. Run as fast and as far as you can from Carrick County.”
I shook my head miserably. “That would kill Colin. Not to mention a kidnapping charge would put me in jail and then what?”
“Rory is still seeing Lacey,” Liam said, fiddling with his fork.
Somehow that was no surprise. I didn’t know whose idea it had been to trap Colin into marriage but I could guess the end game. Eventually Lacey and her feminine wiles would wear him down and he’d sell to a phony buyer fronting for Rory and Patrick. I knew Colin didn’t really need the property or want it; he had admitted as much to me when we argued in the kitchen that day.
Liam lifted his cup to his lips then put it back down. Coffee sloshed over the side onto his hand but he ignored it. “Why don’t you come with me?” he said softly.
I stared at him, speechless.
“I’m leaving, no, I’m escaping. Today. My bag’s in the car. We could stop by your house, grab whatever you want to take with you, and just keep driving west. I’m sure I can find work in the oil fields. I’ll take care of you, Ranalt. If you want me to.”
The idea was tempting. I saw a vista opening up, the road ahead, the endless big sky. I had my own money now. Whoever or whatever he was, I didn’t fear Liam. And it sounded like maybe he cared for me and I could maybe learn to care for him. Perhaps there was a place for both of us, out of the shadow of his family.
“Just because I’m a Phelan doesn’t mean I’m a wolf at heart,” Liam added. He looked hopeful, holding himself like he was balancing on a tightrope.
I bowed my head to avoid his eyes and my gaze fell on the heart-shaped locket I wore. I touched it then looked up at Liam. The hope left his face, replaced with resignation.
We finished our pie and coffee in silence. There was nothing more to say.
Liam paid the bill and walked me out to my car. His was hidden at the back of the restaurant, where only the trucks were supposed to park.
“Are you sure you won’t come with me?” he asked.
“I wish I could,” I said gently. “But I can’t leave Colin and Junie.”
“Aren’t you forgetting somebody?”
I sighed. “I think I lost Lacey the day she met your brother.”
“I know Rory’s mad for your sister.”
“And vice-versa.” I remembered the barn and Lacey’s words.
Liam sighed. “That day we visited your farm—didn’t your da say something about blowing my head off and Rory’s too if we came around again? The suggestion was he had a gun loaded with, shall we say, very shiny bullets.”
I frowned. Don Perkins had given Daddy’s gun back to Momma, didn’t he?
“God forgive me for saying this but keep it nearby, just in case. The legends are true about that, you know. Silver and iron. They kill.”
“Let’s pray it doesn’t come to that.”
Behind him the sun was going down, red like roses, red like blood. We looked at each other for a long moment. Then I stood on my tip-toes, took his face in my hands, and kissed him on the mouth. “For luck,” I said. “Good-bye, Liam.”
He smiled sadly. “Good-bye, Ranalt.”
I didn’t leave the truck stop after Liam drove away. I couldn’t wait. I had to call my mother and ask her where Daddy’s gun was. The ‘special’ gun. She sputtered a bit but finally told me: the top shelf of the office closet. In a box marked Christmas decorations.
She didn’t ask why I wanted to know.
****
I almost didn’t see the little wicker basket at my door. Nestled on a mint green striped tea towel was a small glass jar of strawberry preserves and a folded pink paper. The note read:
Dear Sis,
I know you love strawberries so Junie and I made this for you from the last of them. We hope you enjoy it.
XOXO Lacey
That touched me. Despite everything that happened that summer, I missed Lacey. She was my sister, after all and you can’t just turn off your love for family so easily.
After two cups of coffee and a big piece of pie, I wasn’t really that hungry. And I needed to find that gun.
But homemade strawberry preserves... Mmmm.
I took a spoon from the cupboard drawer, wrenched open the lid and dipped in. The berries were a little too sweet and there was a curious slight aftertaste. Nonetheless, I finished the jar.
I didn’t feel anything until I stood up and a wave of dizziness assaulted me. I grabbed the back of the chair to steady myself. The obvious didn’t occur to me, not right away. I thought that truck stop waitress with the big boobs had slipped something into my second coffee because she wanted Liam all to herself. Or something. I wasn’t thinking very clearly then. But as I buckled to the floor, taking the chair with me, I remember thinking, Lacey, what have you done?
****
I don’t know how long I was unconscious. Long enough though to have Juniper leave three messages on my cell, all increasingly frantic. Papa doesn’t feel good. Papa is sick. Papa won’t get up.
I stuck my finger down my throat, vomiting down the sink whatever was left of the preserves in my stomach. Then I guzzled down cold water straight from the tap, splashed some on my face and drove as quickly as I dared to Colin’s house.
Juniper met me at the door, her face tearstained and blotchy. “I knew you’d come, Ranalt. Help!”
Colin was sprawled on the kitchen floor, a broken mug and a puddle of cold milky coffee by his hand. Juniper’s doll Meg lay nearby where she must have dropped it, running to her father.
“Please, God,” I murmured and felt for a pulse. It was there.
“Is Papa dead?”
“No, Junie.” I snatched my cell from my jacket and punched in 9-1-1.
“What is your emergency?” a tinny female voice asked.
“I need an ambulance. There’s a man unconscious on the floor,” I said then hesitated a heartbeat before adding, “I think he’s been drugged or poisoned.”
“Papa!” Juniper wailed.
“What is your location?”
“One-nine-six-two Trafalgar Road. Please hurry.”
As I turned off the phone, Colin’s eyes opened a crack.
“Wha-what happened?” he mumbled and struggled to sit up. “Help me to the chesterfield, Ranalt.”
Somehow we managed to get there. He fell back against the cushions, winced, and grabbed his head. “Don’t cry, Junie. Papa’ll be all right,” he told the frightened girl.
“You don’t look all right,” she sobbed.
She was right. Colin’s pallor was grayish-white, and a little blood trickled from a cut on his head, where he struck the table when he fell.
“I’ve c
alled the ambulance,” I told him. “Do you think you could vomit if I mixed up some mustard and water?”
He made a face. “That would make anybody throw up. But I think it’s too late, Ranalt. I was on my third cup when I passed out.”
“Just water then. It’ll dilute whatever’s in your system.” I hoped. I still felt kind of woozy. “Where’s Lacey?”
“At work,” Colin mumbled.
I got a glass of water and handed it to Juniper. She needed to do something. “Help your daddy drink this, sweetie.”
Then I called the restaurant where Lacey worked. As the phone rang and rang, I wondered if I was jumping to conclusions about her. Maybe someone else slipped the drug into the preserves and the coffee cream. When a nasally female voice announced, “Bonanza Grill,” I asked for my sister.
“Lacey Fitzgerald? She quit weeks ago.”
I clicked off without saying goodbye.
My treacherous sister.
“I have to get Daddy’s gun,” I told Colin. He nodded weakly.
“Junie,” I squatted down to look at her. “Lock the door behind me and don’t open it until I come back, unless the ambulance comes for Papa. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
The gun was exactly where my mother said it would be, and wrapped in Santa Claus paper. Despite the dire situation, I very nearly grinned. Oh, Momma.
It was fully loaded too. I stuck the gun into the back of my jeans and sped back, hoping the ambulance had arrived while I was gone.
It hadn’t. I banged on the door, yelling, “It’s Ranalt,” and waited a heart-stopping minute or two before Juniper came to let me in.
“They didn’t come,” she told me in a small voice.
I locked the door then stooped and hugged her. “It’ll be ok.”
Colin didn’t look any better. I took a red and gray afghan from the armchair and covered him with it. “How are you doing?”
“Hangin’ in.” He tried to smile.
“Where the hell is that ambulance?” I muttered, feeling for my cell phone.
It wasn’t there. Somewhere in my dashing back and forth, I’d lost it.
I went to the old-fashioned wall phone in the hall and called 9-1-1 again. The same tinny female voice responded.
“I called for an ambulance for one-nine-six-two Trafalgar Road. It hasn’t come yet,” I said, striving for calmness.
“Someone called back and cancelled it,” the dispatcher said.
“I—”
The line went dead.
“Where’s your cell?” I asked Colin.
“Lost it a few days ago.” His eyes fluttered.
“Papa keeps waking up and falling asleep,” Juniper said.
We had to get out of there.
I shook him gently. “Colin, do you think you could make it to the car? I’ll park as close as I can.”
“I think so.”
I felt for my keys, then realized in my rush to get inside I’d left them in the ignition. Stupid, stupid, stupid. A glance out the window revealed what I feared.
I made myself smile a little. “Junie, is poor Meg still on the floor? I bet she could use a hug.”
As soon as Juniper left, I whispered to Colin my car was gone.
“We can take my truck. It’s in the garage. The key is in the blue dish on the kitchen counter. If it’s not there, I’ve got a spare in the garage. On a nail under the window sill.”
Surprisingly, the key was in the dish. I squeezed it in my hand as I sprinted to the garage. Maybe our luck was changing.
Colin’s pickup was there. With three slashed tires.
“Oh God,” I whispered.
It was almost dark, the last streaks of sunset dying. And the moon was full tonight. Soon it would be the wolf’s time.
Now the distance between house and garage seemed like miles. I didn’t look around, afraid of what I might see in the shadows. I just ran.
It was getting too dim to see in the house but I didn’t dare flip on the lights. Instead I searched drawers until I found a flashlight and a book of matches. Then I lit the pine-scented jar candle on the table and took everything into the living room.
Juniper was hanging onto her dolly and sitting on a little stool next to her father. It looked like he hadn’t moved since I left. I gave Colin the flash and placed the candle on the coffee table.
He raised his eyebrows, questioning.
I shook my head slightly.
Somewhere nearby, a wolf howled.
Juniper shivered.
“Come here, Junie,” Colin reached out and drew her to his chest. He kissed her head and looked at me. “I love you,” he said. His eyelids flickered and he drifted into unconsciousness.
My family, I thought. I had to protect them. The gun wedged into my lower back was full of bullets. Silver bullets. “Stay with Papa,” I told Juniper.
I returned to the kitchen, removed my silver locket necklace and wrapped it around the knob of the inner door. The outer screen door didn’t matter. I didn’t bother locking either one. No supernatural creature could get past the inner door, not with the silver necklace wound around the knob.
That left the front door. The porch was where I’d make my stand.
For now, I knelt by the chesterfield, stroking Juniper’s soft hair with one hand and gripping Daddy’s gun in the other. It wasn’t long before I heard the faint rumble of a vehicle driving in. Juniper’s breath puffed rapidly in and out. I couldn’t hear Colin’s at all; it was so shallow.
A few moments later the screen door rattled as someone opened it. There was a pause then a rapping on the inner door.
“It’s me,” Lacey called. “Open the door. I don’t have my keys.”
“It’s unlocked,” I shouted back. “Come on in.”
I held my breath. There was a brief silence then a crash as the glass in the screen door shattered. “You bitch!” my sister shrieked. “Open the door, you stupid little bitch! Open it now!”
Beside me, Juniper whimpered.
“Stay here,” I told her. “I’m going out to the porch. If I don’t come back...” I hesitated, trying to think of the best course of action, “You run and hide.”
“I can’t leave you and Papa!”
“Yes, you can. He wants you to, just like I do. You hide and you don’t come out until it’s safe. Then you run as fast as you can to the Gauthiers’ house next door and ask them for help. Tell them to call Don Perkins or the police chief. Can you remember that?”
“Yes.” She sniffed.
It was a lot to put on a six-year-old girl but I had no choice. “Be brave, Junie. I love you, sweetie,” I whispered.
Cold with fear, I stood up, took a deep breath then walked out to the porch, closing the door softly behind me. The gun felt heavy in my hand.
Lacey appeared.
My sister had always been a pretty girl. But now, in the moonlight, she looked radiant, unnaturally beautiful. Her skin glowed like pearl, her hair tumbled richly around her shoulders. She wore a hot pink shift that clung to her curves and she was barefoot.
“Moonlight becomes you,” I said.
The corners of her lips curled up. “Colin certainly thought so that time he screwed me after Daddy died. Some tears, a few glasses of wine, a little snuggle and he was all over me like the proverbial cheap suit.”
She paused, waiting for me to say something. Or look hurt. But I’d already forgiven Colin and moved past that particular mistake.
“You should’ve gone to Victoria with Momma when you had the chance. What do you think you’re doing, Ranalt? Stealing my husband? You little whore.”
“Look who’s talking.” I held the gun so tightly my hand ached as badly as my heart. “Lacey, what’s happened to you?”
Her face twisted. “You stupid bitch! You’re not going to ruin everything!” She began breathing hard, gasping like a drowning woman for air.
I stared as my sister fell to her hands and knees, her hair obscuring her face. She c
rawled toward the steps of the porch, her body shimmering, the glittery lines blurring into something else.
“Lacey!” I cried. “Stop!”
The thing my sister was becoming growled low.
That sound jerked me from immobility. I raised the gun and fired.
She slumped down on her face without a sound, blood seeping around a very human body.
Inside the house Juniper began screaming, “Papa, Papa, wake up, wake up, Papa!”
My heart in my throat, I left my dead sister lying on the ground for those who were living.
I gently pushed Juniper aside and put my head to Colin’s chest. His heart was still beating but his breathing was thin.
“Papa’s not dead, Junie. He’s going to be fine.” I gave her a brief hug and then went back outside to my sister’s body.
She was gone. Clutching the gun tight, I looked under the porch and around the house and garage. Nothing. Only a puddle of blood where she fell, soaking into the lawn.
Off in the distance, I heard the whine of a siren. I returned to the house to hold Juniper as the sound came closer.
****
Juniper and I rode with Colin in the ambulance to the hospital. His stomach was pumped and he stayed there overnight for observation. The doctor had questions but I had no answers she’d believe. I just said I was a family friend who found Colin on the floor and begged her not to question his little girl; I didn’t want her scared all over again. The doctor was a mother herself. She understood. Or thought she did.
There was enough cash in Colin’s wallet to check Juniper and me into a cheap motel, with a little left to buy breakfast in the morning. The room we had looked like a relic from the Seventies, with orange shag carpeting, black velvet paintings and the ugliest yellow bedspreads I’d ever seen.
I locked the door, put the chain on, and shoved the room’s only chair under the knob before slipping into bed beside Juniper. She fell asleep almost immediately. I stared into the darkness, until I too, fell into an exhausted sleep.
****
I was debating whether I could take a shower before Juniper woke up when there was a knock on the door. I stiffened. Who could possibly know we were here?
“Colin?” I asked cautiously. “Is that you?”
“It’s Mary Phelan, Ranalt. Please let me in.”
Hauntings in the Garden, Volume One Page 14