by K. J. Emrick
That meant a lot to Darcy. She’d grown up being called weird and spooky and different. Even now that she was an adult, her friends in town acted odd around her sometimes. She was used to it, but she definitely appreciated it when someone treated her the same as everyone else.
Smudge, her big tomcat, came tearing up out of the cellar just then, making enough racket to wake the dead. In Darcy’s world, that was a very real possibility but in this case it was just a figure of speech. A very appropriate one, considering the stairway to the cellar was in the living room and she could hear him all the way in here. Darcy nearly dropped her breakfast plate on the way to the table as he darted between her legs and then back through them again.
“Smudge!” He stopped and looked up at her with those luminous green eyes of his, twitching all along the white and black patches of his hair, from the tips of his ears to the tip of his long tail. His jaws were clamped tightly shut around something that fluttered with every pant. “For Pete’s sake, what are you doing? You’re going to topple me right over! What do you have in your mouth?”
As if he really could understand her, Smudge dropped the thing on the kitchen floor. Darcy was just glad to see it wasn’t a dead mouse. Her cat was a pretty good mouser. There hadn’t been a single mouse in her kitchen in years.
The thing he’d carried in to her was definitely not a mouse. It was a rectangular piece of yellowish cloth. No. Not cloth. Paper.
Setting her plate on the table, she knelt down next to Smudge, scratching between his ears while she examined his treasure. At first glance, it appeared to be blank. Then she saw that there was faint writing on it after all, written with broad strokes and looping penmanship. She couldn’t make out more than a few words. Here. Home. Mill. Time.
“Where did you find this?” Darcy asked him. He blinked a response, expecting her to know the answer already. “Thanks. You’re a big help.”
“What is it?” JoEllen asked.
“Not sure.” She sat down at the table, finally, and perused the piece of paper some more as she dug into her food. “It looks like a page from a book. Maybe a diary. It’s old and faded and watermarked. Hard to make out.”
“Well. I’m sure my favorite slightly psychic detective can figure it out after breakfast.”
“I’m not a detective.”
“But you are slightly psychic.”
Darcy rolled her eyes. “Fat lot of good that would do me with this. It’s not like I could talk to the paper like a Ouija board.”
JoEllen blinked. “You use those?”
“Only when my crystal ball is on the blink.”
“Take me with you.”
“Um, what?” The sudden shift in the conversation had her lost.
“When you go to visit your friend tomorrow. Take me and Connor with you.”
“JoEllen…”
“Ellen,” her friend sourly corrected Darcy. “We need to use that name. From now on. I’m not JoEllen anymore. That person is gone.”
Oops. “Sorry. Ellen,” she added quickly. “But are you sure you want to come? You won’t know anyone there and it’s a long trip.”
“Darcy, I’m bored out of my mind. I haven’t left this house in days, and the last time I did it was to take a walk in the middle of the night because I’m terrified that someone is going to recognize me and put my son in danger. A road trip is exactly what I need.”
Darcy knew Ellen wasn’t someone who was used to being a homebody. Darcy and Jon got to go to work every day. They had friends and family to talk to and visit. Ellen had no one but her, and Jon.
From the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, Jon cleared his throat. Darcy had been preoccupied with her thoughts and hadn’t heard him come in. He’d found the time to dress in jeans and that new blue sweater she’d given him for Christmas. She blushed again to think of what Jo…er, Ellen had just heard them doing.
“I think it’s a great idea,” he said. “Ellen and Connor can go with you and keep you company.”
“You’re not coming?” Darcy couldn’t help but feel disappointed.
“Sorry, Darcy. I just called into the office to check on the Radford case and it’s basically falling apart. You’ve got my full attention today, but tomorrow I need to be back in the office so the place doesn’t collapse without me.”
She gave him a measured look, but she knew he wasn’t exaggerating. The previous chief of police, Joe Daleson, had stuck around to help out for the first two weeks until Jon had the basics down, but then he had left things to the new chief. Jon was going to have to sink or swim on his own merits. Some days that would mean he had to be in the office no matter how much Darcy wanted him with her instead. On the other hand, it was nice that he trusted Ellen enough to go along with Darcy in his place.
At the same time, she had to wonder if Jon’s encouragement of her taking Ellen along didn’t have more to do with him being worried someone in town might see her and recognize her. Someone like intrepid local TV reporter Brianna Watson. She had covered his taking over as the chief of police pretty heavily when it first happened. Even though she’d tapered off now, there was no doubt in Darcy’s mind that Watson would dive right back into making Jon her lead story if she knew there was a wanted fugitive in their house.
Anything they could take to keep that from happening would probably be a good idea.
“Road trip it is,” Darcy declared, lifting a forkful of eggs with a big smile. “It’s a plan. You, me, and Connor. Sound good, Ellen?”
“That sounds fantastic,” she picked up her own mostly empty plate and brought it to the sink just as Darcy’s more than slightly overdone toast popped up. “I’ll let you two finish breakfast. Me and Connor have some packing to do.”
“Just don’t pack any of our stuff,” Jon said.
“’Kay,” Ellen answered back with a sarcastic tilt to her mouth. “Whatever you say, big guy.”
Then she was picking up Connor in the living room and spinning him around and getting the boy excited for their trip.
Darcy stood and folded herself into Jon’s arms. “I’ll miss you tomorrow.”
“I’ll miss you too, sweet baby,” he agreed, using her nickname, “but it isn’t like you’re going to be gone for weeks. It’s just one day, right?”
“Sure, but when has that plan ever worked?”
Jon thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Just keep me posted, all right?”
She promised him with a kiss to do exactly that.
From the corner of her eye she saw a shadow in a long black dress with a floppy-brimmed hat standing near the refrigerator. The shade stamped a foot down hard, the thump of it echoing silently in Darcy’s mind and making Smudge jump and scram away into the living room.
Great Aunt Millie. Well, her ghost, to be more specific. She didn’t seem too happy with Smudge, either. Darcy had to wonder what the poor cat could possibly have done to get Millie all worked up.
Over at the kitchen table, the yellowed piece of paper slipped sideways and fell to the floor.
Chapter Two
After a day and a night of heavy snowfall, the storm had tapered off. By the next morning, the snow had stopped altogether. The plows had cleared the roads and sanded and Darcy found that if she kept just under the speed limit then the car would hardly slip at all.
“I could have driven, you know,” Ellen said to her from the front passenger seat. “I know driving isn’t really your thing.”
Darcy shrugged, then stifled a yawn before she could answer. They had left for Birkenfalls early. Two hours’ worth of driving behind them and it was still before eight o’clock. “I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”
“Why don’t you own a car? Is it another thing like why you won’t own a cell phone?”
“Uh, no. Completely different. I’ve just never needed a car of my own. Everything I need in Misty Hollow is right there within walking distance.”
“Unless you suddenly need to go help
an old friend,” Ellen reminded her.
“Well, sure. Then I borrow my sister’s car like I did today. I might let you drive half of the way. I’m seriously tired.”
“Me, too.” She checked the backseat, where Connor was still asleep with a stuffed parrot tucked tight under one arm. “I still wouldn’t mind helping with the driving.”
“You don’t know where we’re going.”
“That’s why they invented GPS.”
“I don’t have GPS,” Darcy pointed out.
“Then you could always do things the old fashioned way like, you know, telling me the directions.”
The two of them laughed, and Darcy was glad that Ellen had come along.
“Tell you what,” she said, “I’ll pull over at the next gas station and we can get some snacks or something for breakfast, and I’ll let you take over driving then.”
“You’ve got a deal. Although, don’t know where you expect to find a gas station out here in the middle of a forest.”
She was talking about how the trees were growing tightly packed on both sides of the road. “We have a better chance of finding a gas station than we do of finding a restaurant to have breakfast in.”
There were a few small towns between Misty Hollow and Birkenfalls, smaller by far than Misty Hollow, and Darcy knew what was in each one of them. In a half hour or so they would find a gas station and convenience store that made its money off people just like them, travelling from one place to the other in the middle of nowhere.
“So tell me about this friend of yours,” Ellen asked after another few miles.
“We were childhood friends,” Darcy began, only too happy to talk about Sarah. “When I first came to Misty Hollow, I didn’t know anyone. I was feeling very alone and left out. Sarah Wessel was one of the first people I met there. She made it easy to be friends. Always taking me around to meet other people, showing me the sights—”
“There are sights in Misty Hollow?”
“Anyway,” Darcy said, very slowly. “By the time she had to move away we were best friends. Now we’re all grown up and both doing our own thing but we still keep in touch. She even knows a little bit about me having, you know, abilities.”
“Think that’s why she called you to come help with whatever this instead of, say, the police?”
Darcy rolled her eyes. “I don’t know that this has anything to do with a crime. Not everything that happens to me involves a murder.”
“It does when I’m involved,” Ellen muttered.
That was true enough. In Bear Ridge, where they’d first met Ellen, her fiancé had been murdered. Last month, when Ellen had come to Misty Hollow looking for help, a young woman had been murdered. Both times Jon and Darcy had solved the mystery of whodunit.
Murder. Theft. Danger. It was all getting to be very routine in Darcy’s world.
“Well, still,” Darcy insisted. “I do other things besides solve murders.”
“Like…?”
If this had been anyone else Darcy probably would have found some way to politely end the conversation. She knew Ellen was asking only because she really wanted to know. That made it easier to open up about it.
“Like, I can talk to ghosts. Even help them cross over to the other side.”
“They must be great conversationalists.”
“Sometimes,” Darcy answered seriously. “Sometimes not. Sometimes, there’s just a lot of screaming involved.”
“Uh-huh,” Ellen finally said, emphasizing each syllable. “So do you think Sarah asked you to come out there to talk to her great-grandfather and find out where he buried the family fortune?”
Darcy was shaking her head. “It doesn’t work that way. I can call out to people who are deceased, but it takes a lot of my energy and some equipment, usually. I didn’t bring any of that stuff with me. Ordinarily I just talk to the ghosts who are still here. The ones that are in pain, or confused, or just lost.”
“Someday you’ll have to explain to me how a ghost can feel pain.”
“All right, I will.” Darcy slowed for a turn onto a County road that didn’t seem to know it was supposed to be already plowed. That slowed them down even more.
Darcy tried to stretch in her seat while keeping both hands firmly on the wheel and the car in its lane. Having Ellen drive part of the way would be nice. That little store and gas station she had mentioned was only a few more miles away. Perfect. She needed coffee. Unless the place had changed since she’d been there last they would have homemade donuts as well.
From the backseat, Connor stirred and murmured in his sleep, almost a whimper. Ellen turned to watch him, resting both hands on the seatback and her chin on her hands.
“He doesn’t have the nightmares as often as he used to,” she said, not exactly talking to Darcy. It was more like she was talking just to hear the words spoken out loud. “He’s been able to put all of that behind him for the most part. Still needs his nightlight but all things considered, I really can’t blame him.”
The incidents at Bear Ridge had been an ordeal for all of them but especially so for that little boy, Darcy knew. Losing his father probably most of all. Darcy was glad to see things were getting better. For both him and his mother.
“Thank you,” Ellen said to her.
Those simple words caught Darcy off guard. “Hm? For what?”
“Just…everything. I was by myself for so long, depending on no one but me. Then I met Connor’s dad and I started to see how it could be to live a normal life and have friends and people to count on. After he died, I never thought I’d feel safe again. Anywhere. Now…yeah. Just, thank you.”
She turned her face toward the passenger window and didn’t say anything else.
Darcy smiled. Ellen really was a different person now than the woman they’d met up in Bear Ridge.
***
Birkenfalls was a community nestled into the comforting embrace of the surrounding foothills. The County road they were following rolled down toward the homes and businesses as Ellen drove, allowing them to see almost all of the town at once from the large brick factory set along the river on their side all the way to the bus terminal on the other. Parts of it were blocked from view behind tall stands of pine trees loaded down with last night’s snowfall, but Darcy knew there wasn’t much more to see.
“Nice place,” Ellen commented, and Darcy couldn’t tell from her tone if she was being serious or sarcastic.
“Give it a chance,” she offered. “Maybe it will grow on you like Misty Hollow did.”
“’Kay. Not really sure that Misty Hollow has grown on me. It’s just where I have to be for now.”
“Not for long,” Darcy promised. “You’ll be able to move away soon. I mean, if that’s what you want.”
The two of them shared a look that said everything they couldn’t say in front of Connor. They could move anywhere they wanted to, once they built up enough credit and personal history to make Ellen Gless look like a real person. She already had a driver’s license and a copy of a birth certificate that had never really existed in the first place. There was a still a long way to go, yet.
Connor bounced forward now, straining against his seatbelt to see the town as they got closer. Ever since the gas station and a can of chocolate YooHoo paired with two chocolate donuts, the kid had been a bundle of energy. “Wow,” he said. “There’s a river! Look at that bridge. Do we get to drive over that bridge? Really?”
“Really, really,” Darcy told him, amused at how excited he was just to see a bridge. It was kind of impressive, she had to admit, with metal support arches on either side and a long paved section over what was probably a hundred foot drop straight down to the rushing waters of the Oragatchie River below.
“Do you want to go swimming down there?” Ellen asked him.
“No! Are you crazy, mom? It’s too cold outside.”
“Oh, so you’d jump off that bridge if it was warm?”
“Only if my friends were all doing it,” he ki
dded, making the drumroll-cymbal sound effects.
Darcy saw the bright expression on Ellen’s face as she bantered back and forth like that with her son. She was a good mom. Darcy had always suspected Ellen was a good person underneath it all, too. She had a sense about people that wasn’t exactly tied to her paranormal sense. It had always been easy for her to see the good in people.
The bridge hummed under their tires and then they were passing by the big green and yellow sign that said “Birkenfalls Welcomes Our Friends.”
“Does the sign on the other end say goodbye to their friends?” Ellen wondered.
“I’m not sure,” Darcy had to admit.
“All right. Well, where does your friend live?”
“I’m not sure of that, either.” She read the street signs as they passed, or at least she tried. Most of them were unreadable under a coating of snow. Greens Avenue. She was looking for Greens Avenue.
“Seriously? You don’t have an address for Sarah or anything?”
“I have an address.” She pulled the folded piece of paper out of the front pocket of her jeans and waved it at Ellen. “I’ve just never been here before. Help me find Greens Avenue. Then after that we have to turn left on Shrivers Lane. That should take us to Huxley Street.”
“Um,” Ellen said, “how are we supposed to find anything with these street signs all covered over like this? Maybe we already passed Green Street.”
“Greens Avenue,” Darcy corrected, but she knew Ellen was right. They might have missed it already. Birkenfalls might not be all that large but they could spend the next hour driving around aimlessly before they found any of the streets or landmarks Sarah had given Darcy last night over the phone. “Maybe we should stop and ask for directions?”
“See, now there’s an idea you wouldn’t have heard from Jon.” Ellen thumped a palm against the steering wheel, already looking ahead of them down the street for a place to stop. “Guys never ask for directions.”
“We don’t?” Connor asked, confused.
“Remember when you put your Lego city together?” was all Ellen said.