“Yes, but—”
“You have to consider the possibility of it, Morgan,” he interrupted, giving me a stern stare. “If Ronan somehow has access to magic, then he’s probably getting help from someone alive.”
“Dominic, I didn’t even know about this,” I protested, holding the diary up at eye level. “I’ve never seen this journal in my entire life. My mother probably didn’t even know it existed, and the coven isn’t in the habit of helping ghosts kill their wives. I’m the only one in the coven able to see Ronan anyway.”
He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “All right. I’m just making sure.”
I stood up, brushing dust from the front of my jeans. I tucked the journal beneath my arm and said, “I need to go. My mother should know about this. Teagan, too.”
“Should I come with you?” he asked, peering up at me from his seat on the floor.
“No, this is a matter for the coven to discuss,” I said. I swept my free hand through his hair, surprised with how comfortable I’d become with him in such a short amount of time. “I’ll call you later. We need to figure out a way to stop Ronan from drawing any more power from the tree.”
Dominic captured my hand in his and squeezed it. “I’m starting to think that I’m not as qualified as you to work on this case.”
I couldn’t help but grin. “Don’t worry. You’ll catch on.”
Back at the main house, I caught up with my mother. Cassandra, as the head of the coven, needed to know that our family’s power was being used for something other than its intended purpose. We sat down in the dining room together to discuss the possibilities of controlling the situation. My mother had steeped an enormous cup of steaming tea for me. It was a worrying shade of bright orange, and as I stirred a spoonful of honey into its depths, I wondered what spices or herbs my mother had used to concoct it.
“Well, we’ve always known that the original coven was a little overdramatic to say the least,” my mother commented as I filled her in on the information I had gathered at the library. She perused the pages of Mary Summers’s diary. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. They sacrificed witch hunters annually. It was only a matter of time before they turned to martyrdom.”
“Now the question is how to stop Ronan from using their power through the yew tree,” I said, blowing cool air across the surface of my tea. It smelled suspiciously like cayenne pepper, and I couldn’t seem to build up the courage to take a sip.
“Spells like that are usually done in tandem,” said Cassandra, swirling around the contents of her own mug. “If the original coven created a ritual to bind themselves to the tree, then it would take a similar number of witches to reverse the ritual.”
“Perfect,” I said. “You round up Malia, Karma, and Laurel. We can meet up later to establish a plan. Any ideas as to how we deal with this?”
She closed the journal, patting its cover. “Leave this with me. I’ll read through it. Maybe Mary Summers had more than one secret up her sleeve.”
I nodded, braved a sip of tea, and immediately regretted my decision. It was spicy enough to clear my sinuses. I pushed the mug away from me and asked, “Where’s Gwenlyn?”
“Taking your assignment a little too seriously,” said Cassandra, raising an eyebrow at me. “She’s been practically stalking Teagan to make sure Ronan doesn’t go near her. I don’t even think she came home last night.”
I laughed, glad to hear that Gwenlyn was channeling her extra energy into a constructive outlet. It was helpful to have another medium around, even if Gwenlyn was only sixteen. At least I didn’t have to stand guard for Teagan around the clock. In additional good news, Gwenlyn hadn’t reported any sightings of Ronan.
“Good for Gwenlyn,” I said. “I’m on my way to Teagan next. She should know what’s going on.”
“Tell Gwen to come home and eat at some point,” my mother said. “She’s just like you. Gets herself all worked up and forgets to take care of herself.”
I waved this observation away, abandoning the fiery tea to push my chair away from the table and stand up. “I take care of myself just fine.”
“Morgan?”
I paused, halfway to the door. “Yeah?”
“The yew tree already trusts you,” my mother said. She took one last swig from her own mug then reached across the table to claim my tea for herself. “If we’re going to do this, you need to accept the fact that the tree will most likely choose you again as its vessel.”
“I don’t know if I’m okay with that.”
Cassandra fixed me with a knowing smile.
I sighed. “Fine. I’ll try to be okay with it.”
“That’s my girl.”
On my way to see Teagan, I found Gwenlyn in the courtyard of the inn with her jeans rolled up past her ankles so that she could swirl her bare feet in the koi pond. The late-afternoon sun shone down on the back of her neck and shoulders, casting a pinkish hue across her skin. Storm clouds gathered in the distance, threatening to burst over Yew Hollow.
“You put any sunscreen on, kid?” I asked, tapping her on one reddish shoulder.
She glanced up at me. “I forgot. What are you doing here? Did something happen?”
“We found out that the yew tree is feeding Ronan strength,” I said. “It’s nothing for you to be worried about at the moment. How’s the guard watch going?”
“Fine. Teagan’s in her room.”
“No signs of Ronan, right?” I asked, just to be sure.
“Nope.”
“Mom says you haven’t eaten.”
One of the koi fish inspected Gwenlyn’s toes. She splashed it away, saying, “Teagan took me to lunch.”
“Well, it’s almost dinnertime,” I said, squinting across the courtyard in the direction of Teagan’s room. “Why don’t you head home? I’ve got Teagan covered.”
“You sure? I can stay.”
“Take a break, kid.”
With that, she extracted her feet from the pond, shaking the excess water off. Slipping back into her pair of worn-out sneakers, she stood up. “Can I ask you a question? It might be kind of personal.”
“Sure, but I reserve the right not to answer.”
“How’d you get those scars on your back?”
My whole body stiffened. Gwenlyn was talking about the gruesome angel wings that had been carved into my skin during the events of last fall. I wasn’t sure how she’d noticed them. Usually, I made sure to wear clothing that kept them covered. They weren’t exactly my pride and joy, and so far, I hadn’t found any kind of spell that would help to diminish their appearance.
“Why?” I asked warily.
She shrugged, avoiding eye contact with me, as though she knew that the question she had asked was a hard one to answer. “Just wondering. I have some too.”
Gwenlyn held out her arms to me. Tentatively, I leaned forward to examine them, feeling my heart sink at the sight of the series of jagged scars that ran from her wrists to her elbows. Without thinking, I reached out and pulled Gwenlyn into a tight hug. For a moment, she remained stiff and unresponsive. Then, as I rested my chin on top of her head, she relaxed.
Gwenlyn had always seemed so stoic. It was hard to think of her as vulnerable. I’d all but forgotten that she’d grown up without a single person to reassure her of her sanity. No wonder she was so hesitant to warm up to anyone. I was suddenly grateful that Cassandra had taken her in, and I promised myself to spend more time with her as soon as we took care of the Riley case.
“Go home,” I said, sniffling a tiny bit. I playfully ruffled her hair. “My mom wants to feed you. We’ll talk later. I’ll tell you my scar story if you tell me yours.”
She seemed to think about it and said, “Okay.”
I watched as she left the courtyard, making sure that she headed out in the direction of home. Hopefully, she could make it back to the house before it started pouring. The clouds had closed in, boxing the sun in. As a heavy raindrop plopped into the koi pond, I turned on m
y heel and headed for Teagan’s room. The door was propped open with an empty beer bottle. I picked it up and walked inside. I found Teagan at the table in the kitchenette, snacking on a cold bagel.
“I hope you weren’t drinking these with Gwenlyn,” I said, setting the bottle on the table next to her. “We don’t need a burgeoning alcoholic on our hands. Your dead husband is trouble enough.”
Teagan rolled her eyes. “It was left over from last night. And no, I wasn’t sharing with Gwenlyn. Thanks for assigning me a babysitter who’s young enough to be one of my students, by the way.”
“You teach elementary school.”
“You know what I mean,” she said. “I don’t need to be watched all the time.”
“Once you hear what I have to say, you might reconsider that,” I said. I went over to the mini-fridge, grabbed a beer for myself, and popped the lid off on the edge of the counter. Outside, the rain was picking up. I could hear its pitter-patter on the roof of Teagan’s room.
“Why, what happened?”
I pulled out the chair opposite Teagan and sat down. She batted my hand away when I tried to steal a nibble of her bagel. “Ronan’s been using the power inside the yew tree. That’s why he can touch things, hurt you, burn your house down, all of that.”
“What power?”
“We figured out that the original Summers coven buried themselves beneath the yew tree in order to protect the Hollow from danger,” I explained for what felt like the twentieth time that day. “Don’t worry about the details. My sisters and I are going to try and figure out a way to reverse the spell. That way, the yew tree won’t be able to use the original coven’s power anymore.”
“Cutting Ronan off.”
“Essentially, yes.”
“And then he’ll move on?” Teagan asked, brushing poppy seeds off the table and onto the floor.
“One can only hope,” I said. I took a sip of beer. “Even if he doesn’t, though, he still won’t be able to hurt you anymore.”
She sighed. “Don’t you have any spells to banish ghosts?”
“Nope,” I said. “When you mess with the dead, you risk crossing over into necromancy, which is a huge infraction in our world.”
The door to Teagan’s room suddenly burst open, slamming against the wall behind it. Gwenlyn rushed in, dripping rainwater on the carpet and panting hard.
“Morgan—” She gasped, bending over to rest her hands on her knees.
I shot up from the table and hurried over to her. “Shit, Gwenlyn. What happened?”
She could barely catch her breath. “Ghosts. In the town square. Not just Ronan. They’re wrecking the square. The tree—”
Without further prompting, I rushed out of Teagan’s room, with Gwenlyn hot on my heels. The clouds had finally broken, drenching me in seconds. Together, we sprinted through the courtyard, across the surrounding neighborhood, and toward the town square. My mind was spinning. I needed to see the square for myself. If what Gwenlyn said was true, we were in deeper than I had imagined, with no guaranteed solution to the issue. When we rounded the corner and the town square came into view, I stopped short, stunned by the spectacle before me.
The square was alive with spirits. Ghosts danced recklessly through the raindrops, spinning around the square so quickly that I could barely see their faces. I recognized some of them. They were victims of the mysterious deaths that Chief Torres had had me investigating all winter long, but there were more spirits than I could have possibly imagined occupying one space. They wreaked more havoc than a storm ever could—they yanked bushes and shrubs from the dirt, crashed through windows of nearby houses, overturned parked cars—but most horrifying of all, they surrounded the yew tree, pulling at its branches and stripping it of its leaves. It was mass hysteria, and there, standing on a stone bench near the yew tree and admiring the pandemonium around him, was Dominic.
Chapter Seven
In Which I Almost Feel Sorry For a Stupid Person
Without thinking, I ran at Dominic, splashing through deep puddles of rainwater. My chest felt like it was on fire, burning with the familiar feeling of betrayal. For the second time in my life, I’d put my faith in the wrong person. My heart tightened with the realization, but it wasn’t strong enough to temper the indignation I felt at, once again, getting the short end of the stick.
As I neared the bench that Dominic was standing on, he must’ve heard my shoes sloshing through the puddles, because he turned to face me. My breath caught in my throat. It was still Dominic, with his alluring smile and noble eyes. He stepped off the bench just in time to catch me in his arms, but I shoved at his chest and tried to push him away. He held me fast.
“I can’t believe you,” I huffed, forcing my palms against his rib cage in an effort to create space between us. Nearby, a spirit crashed through the windshield of a sedan parked on the curb. “Make them stop!”
Dominic laughed and hugged me even tighter. He was so tall that my head barely reached his chin, and his embrace, once comforting, now seemed to strangle me.
“Get off!”
“Morgan, relax,” he said, stroking my wet hair away from my face. I hated that, even in the rain, he looked as though he’d just stepped out of a designer cologne advertisement. Raindrops lengthened his eyelashes and darkened his hair, accentuating the briny blue of his eyes.
“Make it stop,” I said again, this time in a low growl.
All at once, the square fell silent. The spirits still circled, slower now, revolving around the yew tree like a strange fog. Behind me, I heard slow footsteps, and I remembered that I hadn’t come to the town square alone.
“Gwen,” I said firmly. I wrapped my arms around Dominic’s waist, if anything to prevent him from doing anything that could hurt Gwenlyn. “Go home.”
I heard the footsteps pause, and then Gwen’s defiant tone. “No.”
“No need to worry, Gwenlyn,” Dominic said over my shoulder. “She’s in good hands.”
“Like hell she is.”
“Gwenlyn, I swear, if you don’t go back to the house this second, I’m going to kick your ass from here to Christmas,” I said, tightening my grip around Dominic’s waist as I watched him peer at Gwen over the top of my head.
There were a few moments of silence as Gwenlyn contemplated her options before she said, “Fine.”
The tightness in my chest lessened slightly as I heard her footsteps fade away. Dominic returned his attention to me.
“That was very noble of you,” he said, smiling.
“Some of us actually care about the people around us,” I snapped back. Now that Gwenlyn was safely absent from the scene, I tried to separate myself from Dominic again. This time, he let me go.
“I care about you, Morgan,” said Dominic. The worst part of this declaration was that he was so convincing. There was nothing malicious in his expression or the tone of his voice.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, gesturing to the ghosts pivoting around the yew tree. “How are you doing this?”
He shrugged. “I’m a witch. Or a warlock, I suppose. That’s the masculine, right?”
“There are no male witches,” I growled. “Magic only travels through the female line.”
As if to prove me wrong, he twirled a hand through the air. A ghost broke free of the fog surrounding the tree, settling behind Dominic. It was Ronan. He bared his teeth at me.
“Bet you wish you’d just stayed out of it now, Summers,” Ronan said. He threw back his head and laughed, the muscles of his shoulders bunching under his shirt. “Where are you hiding Teagan?”
“Where you can’t get to her,” I said. I returned my attention to Dominic, poking him in the chest with my index finger. “You. Explain. Now.”
“Not here,” Dominic said, eyeing the destruction around us. None of the townspeople had bothered to come out of their homes to check out the source of the noise. Clearly, Dominic had somehow prevented them from doing so. “Let’s go.”
He took my han
d, trying to lead me away from the square, but I pulled him back. “Not until you send them away,” I said.
Dominic sighed heavily, hanging his head as if he were placating the petty demands of an upset child. He clapped his hands together. At once, the ghosts stopped swirling around the yew tree to give Dominic their full attention.
“Hang out,” Dominic said in a voice that was far too casual for the amount of wreckage in the square. “I’ll be back.”
With that one little command, the spirits vanished, leaving the town square looking as if a category-four hurricane had just breezed through Yew Hollow. Dominic lifted an eyebrow at me. “Satisfied?”
“Hardly.”
He grinned as though I were there for his entertainment. “Follow me.”
Reluctantly, I trailed after Dominic. He led me into the nearby park, following the path meant for bikers and joggers. We trekked in silence for a while, until the thickness of the trees overhead prevented the worst of the rain from coming down on us. As I shook water from my eyes, we neared a small pond, its surface rippling as the drizzle above connected with it.
“How?” I asked. “The last man who tried to take my family’s power ended up getting sucked into the pits of hell. How’d you manage it?”
He chipped a piece of bark from the tree behind him and tossed it into the pond. We watched it float for a second before it got sucked under the surface of the water. “I told you,” he said. “I’m a witch.”
“Bullshit.”
“Remember when I said that my mother and sister were killed in a car crash?”
“Yes. Was that a lie too?”
“No,” he said firmly. “They were witches. They were also their own coven. Just the two of them. Our family’s magic would have died out with them. In order to prevent that from happening, their combined witchcraft transferred to me, the last living person with the coven’s blood.”
“That’s impossible.”
Witch Myth Omnibus: A Yew Hollow Cozy Mystery Page 7