“Mrs. Riley, this is—” Torres began.
“Miss.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s Miss Riley,” she corrected, her voice hoarse with exhaustion. “Actually, call me Teagan. The only people who call me Miss Riley are under the age of eight.”
“All right, then, Teagan,” Torres said, dipping his head politely. “This is Morgan Summers. She’s got a way with, uh, your particular complaint.”
I extended a hand to gently shake one of Teagan’s bandaged limbs and asked, “Would you feel comfortable answering a few questions for me, Teagan?”
She nodded, so I pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down. Teagan stared at Torres as though she were challenging him to a silent contest. I ping-ponged between them for a few seconds before saying, “I got this, Chief.”
I could’ve sworn I heard him let out a sigh of relief as he exited the room and closed the door behind him. Teagan must have had quite a story to have already exhausted the chief of police. There was only so much talk about ghosts that one person could take. I cleared my throat.
“So, Teagan, Chief Torres told me that you think your husband is haunting you?” I asked. I leaned back in my chair and crossed my legs, knowing that if I appeared relaxed, it would ease the other party’s nerves.
“And you think I’m insane,” she stated bluntly, crossing her arms. “Who are you, the psychologist?”
“No, ma’am. I’m a psychic medium and Yew Hollow’s one and only paranormal detective.”
“Sorry?”
“I speak to dead people,” I clarified. I flicked open her file, perusing the report of Teagan’s attack from the previous evening and examining a few photos of her ruined house. “You’re a resident of Yew Hollow, right? Usually, everyone here already knows about the Summerses.”
“I’ve heard about your family, of course,” she said, adjusting a piece of gauze stretched across the palm of her left hand. “But we lived at the very edge of town. My husband wasn’t a people person. He liked his privacy. We only worked and ran errands in town then went straight home. I’ve never even been to one of those crazy festivals.”
“Lucky you.”
Teagan regarded me from beneath long eyelashes. Hesitantly, she asked, “So you don’t think I’m insane?”
“No, I don’t, Teagan, because if you’re insane, then I’m absolutely crazy,” I admitted. “Walk me through what happened.”
I listened intently as she recapped her night, taking notes on a spare sheet of scrap paper that had been buried in her file. Teagan’s terrifying evening had started with a bookcase unexpectedly toppling over and escalated from there. Apparently, the whole house had been possessed in its mission to kill Teagan. She’d dodged flying furniture, vases, pots and pans, and even walked through fire before she finally managed to escape through a window and run to town. The story matched her wounds. Her bruised, gashed head was a result of the falling bookcase. She’d fallen on her shoulder during her escape through the window. She explained all but one injury.
“What about your ankle?” I asked, gesturing to where she had elevated it on the cross leg of the table. It was so swollen that it looked like a softball wrapped in sports tape.
“This is where I sound even crazier,” she warned. She drummed her fingers on the table in front of her, as though exorcising some of her nerves through the movement of her hands. “I swear someone grabbed my foot with both hands and yanked. I was halfway through the window, and they tried to pull me back in, but when I looked back, there was no one there.”
It really did sound crazy, even to me. I knew for a fact that ghosts didn’t have the ability to touch or harm humans, except under a few bizarre circumstances. Not long ago, my mother and sisters had lent strength to a friend of mine before she passed over, just so we could say a proper goodbye. Teagan’s story, on the other hand, wasn’t as easy to check out. According to the report, there was nothing much left of Teagan’s house. By the time the Yew Hollow Fire Department had reached the scene, it had already burnt to the ground. Someone clearly had to have doused the house with some kind of accelerant.
“Teagan, can you think of anyone who might’ve wanted to harm you or your husband?” I asked, flipping through a few more Polaroids of the wrecked property that had been included in Teagan’s file.
She shook her head.
Tentatively, I asked, “And did you seek any kind of therapy after your husband’s death?”
“See, you do think I’m crazy.”
I winced. I was hoping to avoid a negative reaction, so I chose my next words carefully.
“The only reason I ask is because, to my knowledge, spirits can’t manipulate the physical world. Occasionally, they appear to humans, mostly children. They have an effect on the physical world to a certain extent, playing with the temperatures of rooms and the like, but the odds of your husband’s ghost wrapping his hands around your ankle are pretty slim.”
“I’m telling you,” she insisted. She shifted in her chair, jostling her ankle. With a grimace, she continued. “Something grabbed my foot, and when I kicked out, I connected with somebody’s face. No one was there. I’m not crazy. That’s just what happened.”
I sighed, unwilling to argue any further. It didn’t make any sense. Either Teagan was lying, or I didn’t know as much about the otherworld as I thought I did. I strongly suspected that Teagan just didn’t want to admit to something.
“Teagan, sometimes after we experience something traumatic, such as an unexpected death, the stress can cause all sorts of things to happen,” I said, trying to reassure her.
She made a motion as if to slam her fist on the table, then seemed to remember just how injured all of her extremities were. She settled for pointing a bandaged finger at my face. “Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m not trying to patronize you,” I assured her. “I’m trying to figure out what happened. You could be suffering from PTSD. Paranoia, flashbacks, nightmares. Any of that sound familiar?”
When she remained quiet, I realized that I had hit a nerve. She twisted her fingers together, picking at a hangnail until it began to bleed. I reached across the desk, separating her hands.
“When your husband was alive,” I began softly, “did the two of you get along? I know this is a difficult subject. I worked the case when it first came into the office. Do you know any reason as to why he would’ve wanted to kill himself?”
She shook her head, but a quivering tear wavered on her eyelashes.
“Teagan.”
She pulled her hand away from mine, tucking it close to her side. Staring up at the ceiling as if to control the moisture in her eyes, she finally said in a detached voice, “I can’t imagine why he would kill himself over this, since he never seemed to care while he was alive, but he used to hit me.”
“He was abusive?”
“Quite often,” she admitted. “It was awful. He threatened to kill me if I ever told anyone, but he’s dead now, so what’s the harm, right?”
Her nonchalance alarmed me, but I let it slide, hoping that it was only a coping mechanism. The abuse had not been documented in the Riley file, so this was obviously the first time Teagan had mentioned it to anyone within the force.
“You never told anyone at all?” I asked.
“No, but the other teachers at school more or less knew. Even some of the kids noticed.” She hugged herself tightly. “Makeup only covers so much.”
I made a note in her file. “Do you think he committed suicide out of guilt?”
Teagan scoffed and rolled her eyes. “I doubt it. Why are we talking about this? I thought you were Linda Blair.”
I tried not to chuckle, collecting the photos and other notes and putting them back in the file. “Not quite. I’m just trying to get all the information.”
“Well, you have it, so can you focus more on whatever demon tried to burn me alive, or shall I go hire a priest?”
“No, don’t worry. I’ll look into it,” I s
aid, standing up. “I need to do some research, but first, we need to find you a place to stay. I’ll walk you down to the inn in a few minutes. I just need to talk to the chief first.”
I waited patiently as she stood and balanced herself on the one crutch. Then I held the door open as she hobbled through.
“Wait for me outside,” I said to her as I flagged down Chief Torres. She made no indication that she had heard me, but I let her hop through the station anyway. For a woman who claimed to be continually abused by her husband, she came across as mightily independent. I had to admire her escape from the burning house. She was a fighter. That was certain.
“Summers?” Chief Torres prompted.
I handed him Teagan’s file. “I’m not convinced,” I said, keeping an eye on Teagan through the front windows of the station. “She says he used to abuse her, so I’d look into that. Question the other teachers at her school. See if she’s telling the truth.”
“And the haunting?”
“From what she’s described, it doesn’t seem likely,” I said with a shrug. “It doesn’t really sound like a ghost is hanging around. Besides, I didn’t see anything when I went out to the property.”
“So she’s lying?”
“Or confused,” I said, unwilling to put Teagan in such a small box. Terrible things had happened to her. If she was lying, she probably had a good reason. “Someone burnt down that house. We just have to figure out who.”
“What are the odds she just left the oven on?” Torres said, eyeing Teagan through the window. She was testing her balance without the crutch, one hand pressed against the window of the station to steady herself.
“Then how would you explain all the other crazy shit she said happened?” I asked. “Something weird is going on.”
“Weird is your area, Summers.”
“I know,” I said. “Give me some time to figure it out.”
“Get to it.”
Chapter Three
In Which I’m Considered Inept
I spent the majority of the afternoon helping Teagan settle into a temporary life at the local inn. I had no idea how Teagan had ended up falling into my hands—she certainly didn’t seem to want or welcome my help—but I argued with the lobby assistant on her behalf anyway, flashing my Yew Hollow Police Force badge to boot a family of tourists from their suite so that Teagan could at least have a kitchenette at her disposal. Teagan had lost everything in the fire, so I asked for her sizes and swung by a few boutiques, picking out a few outfits that I hoped she wouldn’t hate. Then I passed by the market to grab some essentials—toothbrush, deodorant, shampoo—before making my way back to her motel room.
When I knocked on the door to her suite, I got no answer. I dropped my haul in the hallway, knocked again, and called, “Teagan?”
Silence. Hesitantly, I pushed the door open. Teagan lay on the bed, splayed out as if someone had shot her. Her eyes were wide open, staring blankly at the ceiling. I waved a hand in front of her face, and when she still made no reaction, I prodded her good shoulder.
“Teagan!”
She blinked, then her eyes focused on me. “God, what?”
“You sleep with your eyes open?”
She sat up, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hands. “Apparently. It used to really freak Ronan out.”
“It’s pretty disturbing,” I agreed, wondering what other oddities Teagan was hiding. “I got you some stuff. It’s out in the hallway.”
I retreated to bring the bags in and dumped them on the bed. As I tossed the toiletries into the drawers of the bathroom cabinet, Teagan rifled through the pastel-colored bags of clothes.
“Everything okay?” I asked, watching Teagan in the mirror of the bathroom. She held up a pair of dark-wash jeans as if to inspect them.
She relinquished the pants and examined a three-pack of solid-color underwear. “What’s with the grandma panties?”
“Give me a break,” I said, going back into the bedroom. “I’ve never shopped for another woman before.”
“Would you wear these?”
“No.”
“Then why would I?”
I thought about it. “Touché.”
Satisfied, she tossed the pack of panties across the room. Her expression darkened suddenly, as if a shadow had passed over the room.
“What if he comes back?” she asked in a low voice.
“Who?”
“Ronan.”
“Your husband?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “Do you really think that he’s the one who’s after you?”
“Who else would it be?”
“I don’t know. Someone alive.”
She threw another set of underwear at me. She had good aim. They smacked me in the face and fell to the floor before I had a chance to react. “For someone who talks to dead people, you sure are a skeptical bitch,” she scolded.
“I’m not—” I started but then thought better of it. I sighed. “Let’s put it this way, Teagan. If Ronan really is the one causing all this mayhem, it means a lot more trouble for me. Can you blame me for trying to figure out a different reason for all this?”
“Why would it cause trouble for you?”
“Because a ghost affecting the physical world is something I’ve never seen or heard of before,” I said. I picked up a few blouses from where Teagan had strewn them across the bed and began to hang them up in the room’s tiny closet. “It means something big is happening in Yew Hollow, something that I have no clue what to do about.”
She seemed to think on this for a second, cocking her head to the side like a puppy hearing a strange noise for the first time. Then she said, “You know, you’re not a very good detective.”
The observation sounded more like a challenge than anything else. With my back to Teagan, I gritted my teeth, pretending to be absorbed in the process of organizing her closet.
By the time I’d finished getting Teagan settled in at the inn, the sun was already on its way back down to the horizon. As I strolled leisurely through town, enjoying the new pink-and-white blooms on the cherry blossoms that lined the sidewalks, I thought about Teagan’s case. In all honesty, I didn’t have much to go on. The only evidence of Teagan’s mistreatment was the state of her injuries, and that wasn’t enough to prove that one of Yew Hollow’s ghosts had up and grown corporeal hands. I would have to go back out to the ruins of Teagan’s house to investigate further.
When I reached the Summers house, I caught sight of two figures lounging in the swinging bench on the front porch. One was clearly my mother—it was impossible to mistake her cerulean aura—but the other figure was a stranger with a dark aura of shadowy forest green. As I neared the porch, the figure defined itself. She was a tall, broad-shouldered teenaged girl with long dark hair, shadows under her eyes as if she hadn’t slept in several days, and an apathetic glare to complete a face that seemed too mature for her. Though I couldn’t place her—I’d never seen her in Yew Hollow before—she was vaguely familiar to me, as if maybe we’d known each other in a past life. My mother flagged me down, so I hopped up the stairs onto the porch.
“Hi,” I said, approaching them somewhat warily.
My mother had supplied the teenager with a glass of lemonade, which she sipped through a pink straw with a judgmentally raised brow and an air of condescension. She was also wearing a faded grey T-shirt of mine, poked through with several ratty holes and a black-and-white picture of Dexys Midnight Runners on its front. As my mother stood, the teenager only eyed me over the lip of her cup. Oh boy.
“Morgan, I want you to meet someone,” Cassandra said. She waved the teenager to her feet. With a great sigh, as if the movement expended her every effort, the teenager stood. Cassandra clasped an arm around the teenager’s shoulders and thrust her toward me. “This is Gwenlyn Bennett. She’s going to be staying with us for a while.”
I extended a hand to shake the teenager’s. At first, it seemed as though she had no intention of meeting me halfway. Then she uncertainly r
eached out.
“Nice to meet you, Gwenlyn,” I said, squeezing her hand briefly before allowing her to reclaim the limb that she was so possessive of. “I’m Morgan.”
“I know,” Gwenlyn said shortly. “You’re a medium, right? Apparently, I am too. I was just wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”
I exchanged a loaded look with my mother. A new medium in town, especially one from another coven, was a complete surprise. I had never met anyone else with my ability before. The gift wasn’t necessarily rare. I just never made a habit of reaching out to unfamiliar covens in order to connect with other mediums. I wasn’t really a people person. Even so, Gwenlyn’s sudden, inexplicable appearance at the Summers house seemed questionable.
“Uh, sure… just one second,” I said to Gwenlyn. I took my mother’s arm and led her around to the side of the house. Then I asked, “Who is she? And why is she wearing my favorite T-shirt?”
“If that’s your favorite T-shirt, why did you leave it here when you moved out to the barn?”
“It’s not about the T-shirt, Mom.”
“Morgan, relax,” Cassandra said, reaching up to smooth my hair. I resisted the temptation to bat her hand away. My mother had never grown out of the habit of babying her children. “You know how Yew Hollow made all kinds of headlines last year. She read about you. She just wants to get to know you.”
“Why me? Where’s her coven?”
“She doesn’t have one,” my mother said solemnly. “She’s been in foster care for years. She had no idea that she was a witch. What if you were forced to grow up with no knowledge of your heritage?”
“She didn’t know she was a witch?”
“No,” Cassandra said, glancing over her shoulder to check that Gwenlyn was still solidly entertained by her glass of lemonade. “The poor girl has been seeing ghosts her whole life without understanding why. How would you feel if you thought you were clinically insane?”
“Pretty shitty,” I admitted and peered around my mother.
Witch Myth Omnibus: A Yew Hollow Cozy Mystery Page 2