It was late when I picked a motel for the night, located next to a truck stop with a restaurant. “This looks like a good spot,” I told Rand. “What do you think?”
He looked around, appearing to catalogue everything before nodding. “Before I was in the service I used to travel a little bit now and then. If I just wanted a clean place to just shower and sleep for a bit before continuing on my way, these were high on my list for being dependable. This is a good combo. Truckers always know where to go for good food at good prices.”
I was able to get a room on the first floor facing the truck stop, where I could park the Jeep right outside the window. One perk of traveling with a ghost—at least I got the single room rate. They did charge me more for Toby, but I had expected that.
After walking Toby just beyond the parking lot, I went inside and showered and changed clothes—in the bathroom—definitely not a perk of traveling with others, even if they are a ghost. “I’m going to walk over and get some dinner. Toby, you stay here and be a quiet boy.”
“We’ll be fine,” Rand assured me. “I’ll stay here with the boys. Take your time and have a good meal.”
For good measure, I put on both the protection ring and my Power Ring before going out. Just because I was a woman traveling ‘alone’, didn’t mean I wanted to take any chances. Plus, I remembered Elmer mentioning running into Others when he and Birdie had traveled, not that I had seen anything out of the ordinary so far.
***
After taking my time enjoying the fish and chip basket I’d ordered and filling myself to my eyebrows with sweet tea while people-watching, I decided to head back to the room. It was dark outside now, except for the light cast by lamps in the parking lot, and the evening was pleasantly warm. Night sounds mixed with the drones and rumbles of the big rigs parked in the lot behind the building, or fueling on the opposite side. Surprisingly, the smell of diesel blended with the aroma coming from the kitchen grill vents wasn’t bad at all. Wrapped up in my own head with all of it, I didn’t see the small group of raccoons gathered near the dumpster when I crossed to the motel parking lot. “Oh! You startled me,” I told them as I turned to create more distance between myself and them for safety’s sake. Raccoons could carry rabies, couldn’t they? I don’t have time for a trip to the hospital, right now, I thought, shuddering at the memory of my last hospital stay.
I’d only made a few steps in my new direction when I heard a young female voice say, “Where y’all headed all by your lonesome?”
Startled, I spun around to see who’d spoken. I was positive I hadn’t seen another person out here. The raccoons were nowhere to be seen. In their place, there were now three girls ranging from teens to mid-twenties and two boys, also in their mid-twenties, all dressed in dark colored clothing. They appeared to have been drinking or something. The youngest girl was giggling for no reason I could see. They all began walking in a direction that would put them between me and the motel.
“The lady should know better than to be out walking around by herself after dark in a strange place,” the smaller of the guys said to the giggling girl. The rest all muttered their agreement.
Alarm bells went off in my head. I’d been careless, and was now in trouble—of some kind. Without hesitating, I screamed as loud as I could, “Rand! Jake! Toby! Help me!”
“Give us your purse, stupid lady,” one of the girls demanded, as they all closed in on me at once. I heard a metallic click, and realized the girl speaking had a rather large knife in her hand. My stomach did a flip at the sight of it, and a funny buzzing feeling engulfed my whole right arm. I thought, I sure am glad it’s my right arm feeling like this and not my left one. Having a freaking heart-attack on top of all this is all I’d need!
Pointing at her, I said with more confidence than I felt, “Stay back, and put that knife away—now!”
She laughed, and made a drunken lunge at me, which turned out to be a big mistake on her part. What happened to Michelle when she’d thrown that glass vase at me was minor compared to what happened here. When the girl was within nearly five feet of me, a bright flash of what looked and felt like lightning erupted from my finger with a crackling whoosh, just as a wave of heat flashed through me! As it hit her body she was encased in a ball of light for half-a-heartbeat before she flew at the dumpster. She crashed into it hard, falling to the ground in a heap. Everything went silent. None of the others moved. It took me a moment before I realized they were like frozen in place—not moving a muscle or making a sound.
I stood there in shock as Rand appeared suddenly at the scene with Jake right behind him. The big dog immediately placed himself between me and the immobilized group, growling fiercely.
“Stop Jake,” I told him firmly. “Good boy. Stay right there. Don’t touch them.” The heat I had felt was slowly starting to dissipate, but I still wished I had something to fan myself with. This was not a good time to have a major hot flash.
Rand was off to my side, ready for action himself. The man—or ghost, I should say, looked like he was ready to kill. “You stop, too!” I told him in a rush. “Don’t touch them. I’m not sure what I’ve done. I think I electrocuted them, and they might still be . . . electrified or something.”
The four youths had looks of pure horror on their faces, their eyes wide and mouths open in protest, or defense of their friend, who still lay where she’d fallen, limp. Rand approached the largest of the two young men and walked all the way around him, as he looked him up and down, shaking his head. He repeated this with all of them. When he saw the girl by the dumpster, he walked the short distance over to where she lay, still not moving.
“Be careful! She had a switchblade,” I warned. “I guess they planned to mug somebody tonight, and I was the lucky somebody.”
He looked around on the ground, searching, and then bent over and picked up a wicked looking knife. He did something to it, folded the blade back down, and brought it over to me. He held it out on his palm to me. In the back of my mind, I was reminded of the rose he gave me. This was a lot heavier, I was sure. I took it tentatively, holding it like it was going to bite. When nothing happened, I dropped it into my purse. I realized I could hear Toby going crazy inside the room, making all kinds of noise. “C’mon, let’s get out of here and go quiet him down before he draws too much attention to this,” I said, motioning at the would-be muggers.
The three of us hurried back to the motel room as fast as we could, reassuring Toby I was fine, until he calmed down. Turning all the lights out inside the room, I peeked out through the curtains over to where the group of kids still stood. “I hope I didn’t kill that girl,” I whispered, feeling terrible. “I didn’t know that was going to happen, but she attacked me with that knife and I just reacted. What are we going to do now?”
“I’m not sure,” Rand said. “Um . . . what do you do when you send Rosemary and Elmer’s grandma back to the other side?”
“I just think what I want to happen,” I told him. “But, this is different, I think.”
“Is it?” Rand gestured at my rings. “Try it and see what happens. What’s there to lose?”
What did I have to lose? I focused on them and thought about how they had looked as raccoons and hoped they were all right, even the girl who’d had the knife. I pictured them ignoring us and going somewhere else.
In unison, they all shifted back to raccoons, even the girl by the dumpster, who promptly got up and started scampering towards the darker area at the back of the parking lot. The other four followed closely behind her.
“Did I do that?” Awed, that was all I could manage.
Rand stared at me, amazed. “What kind of badass are you becoming, Roxanne Bonacci?” he asked. “Anybody else would’ve been toast out there. How did you freeze them like that?”
“I. Have. No. Idea,” I told him honestly. “Grandmam was right, I’ve got to find Stella, if she’s still alive, and figure all of this out before I kill somebody.”
“Hey, it would’
ve been justified if you had, you know,” he said.
“Yes, but then I would have to live with that, and that’s not something I need on my conscience.” Fanning myself with my hand, I needed to turn the air on.
“Why don’t you lie down and get some rest. We’ll leave the lights out and I’ll keep watch to see if anything else happens,” he suggested.
That sounded like an excellent idea to me, so that’s what I did.
Chapter 9
The rest of the night was uneventful after those kids ran off into the darkness. I didn’t know where they went and I didn’t care, as long as it was away from me. Remembering the knife, I fished it out of my purse and turned it over in my hands studying it. It was proof the whole ordeal had been real and not some crazy dream, like it seemed. I had come precariously close to being mugged by five raccoon shifters but I’d turned it around on them instead. Was Rand right? Was I becoming some kind of a badass now? Was this what Grandmam had meant about my magick being so different and stronger than it should be?
The following morning, I was sure I had never gotten ready so fast before in my life. In the harsh light of the motel bathroom, I was surprised to see the large streak of grey in my hair looked more pronounced. I pulled it back in a messy updo and tried to downplay it as much as possible, not really having time to think about it.
After looking for the kids through the drapes—not suspicious at all—we made a beeline for the car to put some miles between us and the whole unpleasant experience.
“Did you see what I did to those kids last night, Rand? It looked pretty severe from where I stood.”
“I did. When I heard you scream for help, Jake and I both ghosted through the door, not taking time to open it. That left Toby out of it, and you heard how upset that left him. As soon as I came through the door was when you unloaded on them. Severe doesn’t really do justice to what I saw! The girl with the knife looked like she’d been struck by lightning or something. Roxie, it looked like it came from your hand. Her whole body was engulfed in a ball of blue fire—is the best way I can describe it. I’m not even sure how she managed to survive it.” When he paused, I took my eyes off the road just long enough to glance over at him and see him studying me curiously. “How did you do that?”
Shaking my head, I thought about it again before answering. “I don’t know. I didn’t do or even think anything that I remember. Somehow, when I’m wearing any of the Items of Power, it’s almost like they link up with me or something. Or maybe become a part of me? It’s as if there were two different kinds of magick—one that fired at the girl and the other immobilizing the remaining four, um, people at the same time!”
He considered that for a few moments. “Did they attack you because you let on that you recognized them as shifters?”
“No. They didn’t seem concerned with me seeing what they were, either. I wondered all night whenever I’d wake up why I didn’t recognize them for what they were immediately. The only answer I can come up with is that it was my first time seeing shifters in their animal form first. Now I have to figure out how I’ll know a regular animal from a shifter.”
“Then I’m afraid they weren’t concerned with you telling anyone about them for a—reason,” he said hesitantly.
“What, you mean you think they planned to kill me?” That chilled me more than seeing the knife had. He just nodded his head. We drove along in silence for miles after that, digesting all of it.
By the time we approached the easternmost end of Lake Pontchartrain, I was the only one awake and present. When we began passing inlets and water with boats of all kinds tied off at docks, or cruising along slowly, loaded down with partiers or fishing charters—my pulse noticeably picked up. The houses here were way up on stilts, with tall staircases leading up to them from the ground. I’ll bet that wreaks havoc on the knees of people my age or older . . .
“We’re only a couple of miles away, gang!” I announced excitedly. “Check out this causeway across Lake Pontchartrain! How beautiful!”
Toby woke up. Rand reappeared next to me. Jake reappeared next to Toby. Everyone was yawning. Really?
“Sorry, I was recharging a little before we got there,” Rand said. “Never know what we’re in store for. Look! There’s the sign. Old Crow’s Landing. A Haunted Marina and RV Park.” The faded sign in the distance had surely seen better days. “Looks like we need to cross that channel and then turn right on France Road to get over there to it.”
He was right. The sign on Hwy 10 had been painted so many times without being sanded in between that it would’ve looked bad even with fresh paint. The raised wood letters were flat brown hanging on a beige background, a few loose on one side and hanging crooked. Someone had made a poor attempt at painting white sheet type ghosts around the words. It looked more like something a child had done.
Everything at the resort, though—and that’s what it really was, by the looks of it—was spectacular! The place appeared to be immaculate and brand-spanking-new. “This is amazing!” I exclaimed, as I turned the Jeep onto the drive, stopping after a couple of hundred feet, in front of an absolutely huge swimming pool surrounded by palm trees, umbrella tables, and loungers. I didn’t see any children anywhere. The infinity wall on the far side made it look like the pool blended in with the deep-water channel in the distance, where yacht after yacht was moored. I suspected that every one of those things cost more money than my house back up in Michigan had sold for. Beyond them was a tall, modern, stucco bar/restaurant building with glass walls and a green metal roof that practically dripped money. “Are we in the right place?” I asked Rand.
“The sign back there said we were. This sure doesn’t look like any campground I’ve ever seen before, though!” he said, trying to look everywhere at once.
We continued down the drive a little further until we could finally see the campers and RVs. The waterfront lots here overlooked the same channel, but had smaller-than-a-yacht boats on the other side, and there was a boardwalk along the channel on both sides where people not on a waterfront lot could stroll.
“I don’t think I’ve seen anyplace quite this lovely in my entire life,” I told Rand. “Did you notice the office anywhere?”
“I think we passed it back where the campers started. Across the street from them. We were both staring at the water is why we probably missed it.”
I followed the street in a loop and until we wound up right back at the now obvious two-story building. Most of it appeared to serve as a general store, but we parked in front of a door on the left side marked Office. Rand stayed with Toby and Jake in the Jeep, which I left running with the air conditioning on, as I went inside.
I could see the Jeep parked just outside the mirrored glass windows that overlooked a cobblestone sidewalk leading to a small open area of the peninsula that contained the marina, the bar/restaurant, and the beginning of the boardwalk. There was nobody in the office so I stood there patiently for a few minutes before calling out. “Hello?”
Still nothing. Maybe I’d have to go over to the store. I looked around for a bell to ring or something. Nothing. Just as I turned to head for the door, movement caught my eye. A woman much younger than me, obviously a ghost, stuck her head through the wall separating the office and the store. Seeing me, she smiled mischievously.
“Hehe! Looky-looky. Woo Hoo! I’m about to have me some fun. Five bucks says she lights outta here like her tail feathers are on fire before Jeremy gets in here,” she said as she turned her head back through the wall, effectively disappearing except for part of her long straight blonde hair.
What the heck? I wondered.
Right beside her, a head and chest belonging to a scruffy, biker-looking guy poked through as she turned back to me. “No, no, no. Thees one—she don’ look like that. Je prends ce pari!” he said.
“You’ll take that bet, you say? You are going to be sorry about that then, honey,” she told him, as she stepped through the wall. Well, mostly through . . . “Hey!
Let go of me you—”
“Excuse me?” I said, putting my hands on my hips, not sure whether to laugh or be insulted. “I’m right here for goodness sake! I know you can see me.” Her head whipped around until our eyes met. Hers got really big as I continued. “Do you work here?” That would make sense if it were a haunted campground, I guess.
“JEREMY!” she yelled, jumping back through the wall in a panic.
I saw her run across the front of the building just outside the windows, yelling the whole while. I threw my hands up in exasperation, expecting Rand to see me do it. He didn’t. I’d forgotten about the mirrored glass. Becoming more than a little creeped out by all this, I headed out the door toward my Jeep. Then it dawned on me . . . She just won that bet!
She ran right up to a short, dark complected, weasley-looking man with impossibly black hair and thick black eyebrows who was hurrying my way. She ran around behind him and up to his right side, yelling in his ear, “There’s a customer in your office and when I went to scare her, she looked at me—you know, like she could see me plain as day!”
The man appeared startled briefly by her voice, but quickly regained his composure and resumed his rush in my direction.
“Yeah, not only can she see you, she can hear you, too!” I retorted, making eye contact again. That startled her and stopped them both in their tracks once more. Turning my gaze to the short man, I pointed at her. “Does she work here?”
“Who?” he asked, doing his best to sound innocent.
“Her,” I said, pointing again.
“Yas’m. In a way she do. She claim to, anyway. My name be Jeremy Crow and dis is my place. How can I be of service?”
Seeing Witchy Things Page 8