by Isla Jones
Copyright © 2018 by Isla Jones
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission—this includes scanning and/or unauthorised distribution—except in case of brief quotations used in reviews and/or academic articles, in which case quotations are permitted.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, whether alive or dead, is purely coincidental. Names, characters, incidents, and places are all products of the author’s imagination.
ISBN: 9781973426004
Imprint: Independently published
CONTENTS
Blake Harper
Belle-Vue High
The Wolves
The Witch Hunt
Girl Code
The Grandmother
The Crazies
The Bayous
Girl, Interrupted
Madhouse
The Cabin in the Swamps
The Bloody Canvas
The Pact of Silence
The Witch and the Puppets
Motel California
The Element of Fire
The Swamp Witch
For those who supported me during trialling times of writer’s block and a hobby of staring at walls with chipped paint.
You know who you are.
Note: Previously titled “INTO THE BAYOU; THE SWAMP WITCH”
THE CRUEL COVEN
BOOK ONE
ISLA JONES
1
Blake Harper
Blake Harper managed to squeeze her crusty Jeep into a tight spot near Town Hall. She straightened out her plain black skirt and adjusted her denier black tights. Frank was a stickler for his employees’ appearances, and he could be as demanding as he wanted. There weren’t many places to work in Belle-Vue, Louisiana. Belle-Vue was over an hour away from Baton Rouge, and the swampy town was small with three thousand residents. Frank’s Diner was Blake’s only option in town to make money—legal money, that is.
Blake hurried up an alleyway that led to sun-scorched diner. Her white canvas shoes squeaked as she hurried up the steps and pushed through the door. The bell above the glass door betrayed her position as she took refuge in the airconditioned restaurant. Sweat had already begun to gather under her armpits from the muggy heat outside. Squares of red, black and white struck her vision. The checkered floors and walls had Blake squinting her eyes. She never got used to the brightness of the fluorescent lights bouncing off the shiny tiles.
A few customers were tucked into the booths. It was quiet between the lunch and dinner rushes. 1950’s rock music played from the rusty juke box against the far wall. Frank counted money at the cash register on the bar.
“You’re late!” barked Frank. He didn’t look up from the stacks of money. “Ten minutes. Consider it docked off your pay.”
Frank always tried to cut the staff’s paycheques. A few months ago, Blake had spilled a milkshake in the kitchens. He stole the cost of the glass and shake from her pay. He was one of the cheapest people she’d ever met, which was quite the feat in the small town.
“I’m early,” said Blake. “I don’t start for another fifteen minutes.”
He glanced up at the plastic clock above the door. “Well, since you’re here, you can get started on those dishes out back. We got hammered today.”
“Whatever,” she mumbled. Frank wouldn’t pay her for the early start, but if she declined he would slash her shifts. Biting her tongue, she dipped under the bench and pushed through the swing doors to the kitchen. The kitchen wasn’t much easier on the eyes than the diner itself. Where there weren’t red and black tiles blinding her, there were moss patches on the floor to be scrubbed, and stacks of dishes sloped in the sink.
The weekend cook, Jimmy, chopped vegetables on the metal counter. Flora, a middle-aged mother of three from the other side of town—the bayous—picked at stale chips by the lockers.
“What’s cooking, Jimmy?” Blake sniffed in the direction of a bubbling pot on the stovetop. “Smells good.”
“Shrimp stew surprise,” he said, flashing her a crooked grin. Most of his teeth had been lost over the years in bar fights. “Want some?”
“Maybe later.” As a waitress there, she knew better than to try anything with the words ‘shrimp’ or ‘surprise’ attached to it, unless she wanted to be curled over a toilet for days.
Before Blake could get ready for her shift, Flora rounded on her, hands on her plump hips, and a familiar sternness in her beady brown eyes. “And just what do you think you’re doing here?”
Blake raised her brows and stuffed her bag into a locker. “Working. What about you? Just hanging out?”
“Don’t sass me, girl. You start your senior year tomorrow.”
“So?”
“So, you should be out with your friends.”
Blake scoffed and slammed the locker door shut. “Doing what?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said sarcastically. “Maybe go see a movie? All the kids are headed to Moe’s drive-in tonight. You should join them. It’ll be good for you to get out and about.”
Blake smiled at her overprotective co-worker and tied her apron around her waist. “Got to make some money, Flora. You know how it is.”
Flora hummed. Her voice flattened into a stern maternal tone. “What I know is you work too much.”
Frank’s voice boomed into the kitchen. “Is it too much to ask for someone to do their job around here? Clean those darned tables!”
Flora made a rude gesture in the boss’s direction. Blake stifled a laugh. As Flora left to follow orders, Blake searched for the pink cleaning gloves. They were in the bin. She took them out and inspected them. Two holes pierced the fingers of the rubber gloves, she observed with groan. She began to clean the dishes with her bare hands, knowing her fingers would prune from the brown water. The thought almost made her shiver.
Jimmy’s eyes shadowed her every move. “What’s on your mind, pet?”
Blake crinkled her nose. She loathed patronising nicknames. Jimmy never called a boy ‘pet’, so why did he throw it around at her as if it were a form of affection?
“Not much,” she said, keeping her back to him.
He chopped chunks of onion, but kept his gaze on Blake. “I’ve worked with you long enough to know when something isn’t right.”
“It’s nothing,” she assured. “I’m just wondering when Bethany’s coming back, is all.”
His thick bayou accent softened. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she never came back to Belle-Vue.”
Blake’s scowled at the soapy dishwater. “She has to come back. Her whole life is here.”
“Not anymore,” he said, wagging the butcher knife in her direction. “Not after all that with her mum and dad.”
Scrubbing a frying pan, Blake ignored the drops of murky water that splashed back up at her. “Do you think she’ll stay with her grandma?”
“Those kids need a legal guardian. They can’t just live in that house alone. Gives me the heebie jeebies just thinking about it.” Jimmy put the knife down and shot her a steady look. “Would you want to go back if it were your dads?”
Her hand tightened around the metal scourer at the thought. Her dads—Abe and Jack—meant everything to her. Without them, she had nothing.
As the sharp edges of the scourer dug into her damp skin, she shook her head. “I don’t think I could come back,” she said, “if it were my dads…”
“Well then, how can you expect them do to the same thing?”
“I can’t,” she said. “You’re right. It’s just that I’ve known Bethany all my life. The thought of her staying in New Orleans with her grandma; it’s hard.”
“Life’s hard. And right now, it
’s hardest for those kids. Seeing your mum and dad like that—all minced up around their home, and the killer still hasn’t been caught?” He paused and shook his head, as if trying to toss the image from his mind. “It’s something they’ll never forget,” he said.
Blake placed the semi-clean frying pan on the dishrack. Jimmy wasn’t wrong. If Blake had returned to her own house after school to find her Abe and Jack in pieces, she’d never be the same again. Her dads were all she knew, all she’d ever known since they’d adopted her. Were they to ever leave her like that, taken too soon, she’d spiral into insanity without a doubt. And what would that mean for her? Abe and Jack’s own parents weren’t in Blake’s life. They were ‘hardcore bible-bangers’ according to Jack, and they didn’t agree with their marriage, or that they had adopted Blake. So if they died … Blake would have nowhere to go but back to the orphanage.
Blake wiped her pruned hands on a tea towel and leaned back against the sink. “Do you think they’ll ever catch who killed them?”
Jimmy’s big meaty fingers scratched against his beard. The vegetable preparations behind him went ignored, except to three flies buzzing around the brown onion slices. “I don’t know,” he replied. “Sheriff Cotton isn’t doing anything about it. I reckon it was one of the Wolves who did it. They’re a nasty bunch.”
“Maybe,” said Blake.
The Wolves were a gang from the bayous, out by the river Chene. If anyone in town wanted shady items, the Wolves were the ones to go to. Anything from drugs and guns to persuasion and theft, they specialised in. Though, Blake couldn’t see any connection between the Wolves and Bethany’s parents, the Prescotts. Mary-Jane and Maxwell Prescott had been model citizens of Belle-Vue their whole lives. Nothing odd or peculiar ever happened in their close-knit family. Until their deaths, that is.
Bethany and Zeke were wholesome, just like their parents had been. Bethany was a cheerleader, top of her classes; Zeke had been a science protégé, about to be offered a scholarship to Massachusetts Institute of Technology—or so he’d hoped. The twins were never seen without smiles on their faces, they were the mediators of their friend-groups, and Blake’s best friends.
No matter how hard she tried, Blake couldn’t even begin to imagine how the Prescotts could be connected to the Wolves. Much like every other townsperson, Blake supposed the attack was random.
There was no other explanation, nothing that made sense.
*
After the dinner rush, Flora took her break out back.
Blake counted her tips on the bar. She glanced around at the lingering patrons, checking to see if they needed refills, and chewed a mouthful of Yummy Tummy’s bubble-gum. Blake shifted her weight from one foot to the other. The soles of her heels had already started to ache, and she still had two hours to go until close.
The door chimed. Mid-count into her wad of dollar bills, Blake called out, “Be with you in a minute! Sit anywhere you like.”
Pairs of boots thudded against the cheap linoleum floor, drawing nearer to the bar. Blake didn’t look up, but flicked through the stack of bills faster than before. She smacked her tongue against her bubble-gum.
The scrape of a few stools told her that the customers sat at the bar.
“Sorry,” she said. “Be done in a sec.”
“Two Buds and a cup of joe.” It was a familiar rough voice, accented with traces of the bayou. She’d recognise it anywhere.
Blake’s fingers stilled on the dollar bills as she looked up, finding herself eye-level to dark chocolate swirls. Those coffee eyes bore right back at her, glinting with a spark of acknowledgement. Hunter Jackson, her classmate, sat on the stool opposite her.
Blake smirked and cocked her brow. “Do you have ID for those beers?”
“They’re for us,” said the older man seated beside him. By the caramel tone of his smooth skin, black curls, and matching dark eyes, Blake assumed he was Hunter’s dad.
The gruff man with them wore a leather jacket, like the others. They were Wolves.
“Coming right up.” Blake scooped up her tips and stuffed them into her apron pocket. “What kind of coffee?”
“Whatever’s already brewed,” he said. Hunter ran his fingers through his black locks. A few tendrils fell back into place over his forehead, and brushed over the arches of his sculpted brows. If he wasn’t a total jackass, Blake might’ve thought him handsome in a greasy sort of way.
Blake slammed the drinks on the bar, leaving damp circles on the surface. Next to the coffee mug, she placed a metal slab with the cheque secured to it, before leaving the bar to clean tables. But she kept a close eye on the bayou folk at the bar, just in case they decided to reach into the till.
Hunter and Blake weren’t friends, but she’d been partnered with him in biology last year. She’d done most of the work herself—Hunter tended to skip school a lot. Blake suspected that he’d gotten himself involved with the Wolves. He fit the profile—he was from the bayous, his dad was a Wolf, his friends were in fights all the time, he drove a motorcycle, and he was a walking cliché. Then again, the same could be said for everybody else in Belle-Vue, she thought. Even herself.
Blake Harper, she narrated, restless teenager, working hard to save money to fund her escape from the small town after graduation, but would never have the courage to leave.
The town itself was a cliché.
After she’d collected scrunched up napkins from beneath the tables, and had scraped off gum from the chairs, she returned to the bar and dumped the mess in the kitchen.
The Wolves stopped talking as she joined them at the bar.
Blake placed her hands on the edge of the counter. “Need anything else?”
Hunter’s response was to finish off the lukewarm coffee. He stood from the stool and tossed a few notes onto the cheque dish. “See you at school, Harper,” he said, tucking a stack of bills into the pocket of his washed-out jeans.
Blake smiled, a taut gesture, and watched the three of them leave. Before the door had swung shut behind them, her hand snatched the cheque dish and yanked it closer. Her brows shot upwards. Hunter hadn’t shorted her. He’d left twenty bucks on a ten-dollar tab. Drug money, she thought.
Flora poked her head out from the kitchen doors. “Everything ok, Blake?”
Blake glanced over her shoulder. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“The Wolves,” said Flora, concerned. “Are you sure you’re ok? You look a bit frazzled.”
“I’m fine, honestly. It’s just … Hunter left ten-dollar tip. I don’t think he meant to.”
Flora waddled over and checked the bill. “Don’t tell Frank. Keep it for yourself.”
Frank took a twenty percent cut of the tips at the end of the day. Blake smirked and slipped the two five dollar bills into her shirt pocket. The less that went into Frank’s pocket, the better for Blake.
“Why don’t you knock off early?” Flora dried her hands on a tea-towel. “Go meet your friends at the drive-in.”
“We don’t close for another hour and a half. Frank would have a fit—”
“Let me deal with Frank,” said Flora. “Off you go. Shoo!”
Hesitation passed through Blake’s green eyes as she bit her lip. After a brief pause, she sighed and untied her apron string. “Thanks, Flora.”
“Thank me by having fun,” she said. Flora took the apron and fished out the tips. Before Frank could catch her, Blake rushed to the lockers and grabbed her things. She managed to go unnoticed, other than a sneaky wave goodbye to Jimmy. He waved back with a knife that dripped with blood. The blood probably came from the raw mince and steaks that he cut up, but it washed Blake with relief; she was a vegetarian.
Flora handed her a lumpsum of the tips. “We did good today,” she said. “Sixty bucks a piece.”
“Damn.” Blake plucked the cash from Flora’s hand. “I’ll do Sunday dinner shifts more often, then.”
Flora narrowed her eyes. “If you like,” she said. “But if you curse again, I’ll ri
nse your mouth out with that cheap detergent Frank has out back.”
Blake grimaced. Flora held true to her threats. She’d seen her do it, once. When her eldest boy—Joey—acted up last winter, Flora stuck a dirty bar of soap in his mouth in front of the entire diner. Joey never lived it down.
Blake slipped on her denim jacket and left.
The drive-in across the parking lot was packed with cars. From the distance, Blake could see people standing on the hoods of their cars, enjoying the movie; and shadows moving past the windows, making out. Blake had no intention of joining them. Exhaustion clutched her tired muscles, grease soaked her limp hair, and food residue stained her dirtied clothes. Blake’s plans for the night involved a bubble-bath and a good night’s sleep. If she was feeling particularly wild, she’d even risk stealing a few candy bars from Jack’s secret stash in the shed.
The neon outside lights of the diner flickered and hummed. It pulled her from her thoughts, and she trudged down the steps. She took a right at the bottom of the stairs, nearing Main Street, where she’d parked. Even through the darkness, she could make out the faint yellow silhouette of her Jeep. It was almost ten o’clock, so her car was the only one parked on Main, but the moonlight was strong that night.
Blake huddled her arms around her body and rushed down the alleyway. She couldn’t explain it, but she had the oddest sensation halfway down the alley—the skin on the back of her neck prickled, and a shiver ran up her bones. Perhaps she should’ve gotten Jimmy to walk her to her car, she thought.
When she reached the pavement on Main Street, she faltered at the gutter. The suspicion that she was being watched overwhelmed her. Blake shuddered—the nights brought a ripple of unease to the town. There was a constant fear that a stray alligator would scurry out of a dark corner, or that Wolf business would leak into the better part of town.
Looking over her shoulder, her narrowed green eyes swept over the alley behind her. The lights of the diner flickered, and the noise from the drive-in carried in the gentle breeze. Her eyes spotted nothing out of the ordinary. She returned her attention to Main Street. A few streets away, she saw the faint lights of Harper’s Automobile Repairs and Services. It was her dad’s shop.