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 my 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.
7
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 wit
ches,” 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 hand, 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.”
“Improbable,” he corrected, bending down to collect a few flat stones from the water’s edge. “I spent my life researching it. It’s rare, sure, but it happens. My mother was a medium, like you, and my sister had the convenient skill of manipulating those around her. These talents transferred to me as well.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? And what are you planning with those spirits?”
“I was going to tell you eventually,” he said. He tossed the first stone across the water. It skipped a few times before sinking. “As for the spirits, it was a test of my abilities.”
“Which abilities?”
A second stone went skittering across the pond. “I’ll take this opportunity to tell you that I arrived in town several months ago, Morgan. I knew about the yew tree. I knew that I could channel your family’s power through it. Ronan was my first experiment.”
“Months ago?” I said, incredulous. “I thought Chief Torres recruited you. Besides, how could you have known about the yew tree?”
“I convinced Torres to hire me in order to get close to you. Ever since my mother and sister died, I’ve been searching for a way to rectify the situation,” he said.
“Rectify—?”
“Let me finish,” he said. He abandoned his handful of stones in favor of making eye contact with me. “I found Mary Summers’s diary years ago. It wasn’t easy tracking it down. The original Summers coven took their craft very seriously. Do you even know how impactful your family was in the witching community? They pushed boundaries you couldn’t even dream of. When I met you, you seemed so incredibly insignificant compared to the originals. But you have such potential, Morgan, if only you saw the need to unlock it.”
“What have you done?”
“Hardly anything, yet,” said Dominic. I watched him warily as he approached me. “I’ve only been working with the tree to strengthen my hold on the spirits. You see, my real goal, the main reason I’m so interested in Yew Hollow, is this: I’m going to bring my sister and mother back to life.”
I stepped away, feeling my heel press into the trunk of the tree behind me. “I’m sorry. Run that by me again?”
Dominic smiled. “I know it sounds crazy, but with the yew tree’s help, it’s entirely possible.”
“Dom, you can’t raise the dead.”
“Don’t you see, Morgan?” he said, and with a snap of his fingers, a host of spirits surrounded us in an instant. “I already have.”
“It’s not the same,” I argued. I nervously watched as the ghosts neared me. The amount of control Dominic had over them scared me. Spirits, just like living people, had free will, but Dominic had managed to find a way to rob them of it. “Even if you do get your mother and sister back, it will only be the shadows of them. An idea. Not the real thing.”
Dominic pressed an arm to the tree behind me, pinning me against it. “That may usually be the case,” he said. “But with your help, we can channel enough of the original coven’s power to make it happen. I’ve already done the research. I know the ritual. It’s organic, Morgan, as if it were always meant to happen.”
“No.”
“Morgan, think about it. Wouldn’t you love to see the people you’ve lost again?”
My thoughts drifted away. The faces of past clients hovered in my memory, faded and blurry. When I lived in New York, I’d had a bad habit of forming emotional attachments with the spirits I’d helped. Many of them had not deserved to die. The possibilities…
“No,” I said again, before my mind could entertain any other ideas about reanimating dead friends. “It’s necromancy, Dom. It’s playing God.”
“It’s a loophole, Morgan.”
Determination shone in his eyes. It was sad, almost. Dominic’s only motive for wreaking havoc with the spirits was his desire to reunite with his family. I understood this. It was a terrible thing to be alone in the world, but it didn’t give anyone an excuse to toy with the laws of nature.
“Dominic,” I said gently. “It won’t work.”
His expression hardened, and he pushed himself away from me. “You won’t help me.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“There is no spell or power that can raise the dead, Dom.”
“And yet, I’m telling you that there is.”
I shook my head. “You’re talking about reversing the process of life. I know you’re hurting. I get it. But that doesn’t mean that you can put everyone in this town at risk just to make yourself feel better.”
“It’s not to make myself feel better, Morgan,” he insisted. “It’s to put things right. My mother and sister deserved to live. One day here, one day gone, at the hands of some idiot who wasn’t paying attention. They deserve to come back.”
“They deserve to stay at peace,” I shot back.
“They weren’t even meant to be at peace!” he argued, his voice rising.
“You can’t bring them back, Dominic.”
He took my hand again, surprising me with the tenderness of the touch. “Morgan,” he said. “I can do this on my own, but it would be far more effective if you helped me.”
“I already said no.”
“I’m hoping you’ll change your min
d.”
“I won’t.”
He frowned, dropping my hand. “I thought you liked me.”
“I thought I did too, until you started coming up with harebrained schemes to reanimate the dead,” I said. “The whole reason Teagan’s in danger is because of you. The Riley case is your fault.”
“Not all of it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded.
“Ask Teagan. All I did was give Ronan the ability to seek justice.”
“Ronan was an abusive piece of shit,” I spat, disgusted with the direction in which this conversation was moving. “If Teagan really did kill him, he deserved it.”
Dominic tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. I shuddered but didn’t move away, frightened of what he might do if I made any attempt to flee.
“Morgan, you’ve just contradicted yourself,” he said with a silly smile. “You told me that I didn’t have the right to play God. Yet, here you are, giving Teagan a free pass to decide who lives and who dies.”
The ghosts had moved closer to us, illuminating the dark, damp clearing with their silvery light. Familiar faces floated by, leering at me. They were no longer the friendly citizens of Yew Hollow that had fallen to accidental deaths. They were Dominic’s sycophants, yielding to his every delight in the hopes that they would be returned to corporeal form. It was an impossible feat, despite Dominic’s dedication to the task.
“It’s not the same,” I whispered, closing my eyes as Dominic cradled my face in his hand and leaned his forehead against mine. His fingers brushed lightly across the base of my throat, almost like a lover’s touch, but the contact made me want to retch.
“I’m so sorry, Morgan,” he said, whispering too.
In one savage moment that I didn’t see coming, he clapped both palms to either side of my head. A burst of light flashed through my head, and then I blacked out.
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