The tiny village hummed with its usual busy rhythm. How could everything be normal? After the horrid crime and then encountering the murderer, both events apparently meant to serve her as an omen, the world had changed…or at least her world, and in strange ways she didn’t understand.
Along Bentbone’s six-block business district, Christmas decorations overflowed from the numerous artist galleries, almost hiding stoic limestone-fronted doctors’ offices and banks. Traffic and customers inundated the main street, alleys, and side streets lined with shops.
Esme searched for the sheriff’s office, although the explosion of decorations and artsy signage obscured it. At the far side of town, she turned around and made a second pass, slower this time, hands gripping the wheel. She’d never visited the sheriff and had only a vague remembrance that it stood on a corner. “Dove, let me know if you see the building,” she directed the cat but received only a stern look and a sweep of smoky tail in response. Esme spied the office behind heavy, garland-laced railings and pulled into angled parking off the side street.
She cracked windows for ventilation, left Dove in charge of watching the car, and wound her way between throngs of shoppers to the door. Inside she approached a glossy wooden counter manned by a handsome officer who looked to be in his mid-twenties.
“How can I help you?” The allure of his heavily lashed chocolate brown eyes repositioned words from the tip of Esme’s tongue to some distant recess in her mind.
“I’m Esme Underhill and I’ve just moved to Bentbone, um…”
The man leaned forward to extend his hand and thick waves of brown hair fell across his forehead. “Welcome! It’s a great place to live. My name’s Garrett Nesby.”
His fingers enveloped hers with a delicious warmth, and she replied, “Well, not exactly to Bentbone, but to the coven.”
His brows drew together. The grasp of his hand lightened before slipping away, as he drawled disappointed words, “You aren’t dressed like a member.”
“I’m sort of a member. I was born there, but moved away when I was seven. My Gram just passed, and I inherited her house.”
“I’m sorry.” His hand resting on the counter inched forward as if he’d pulled away from her too soon. “How may I help you?”
“Thanks. I need to report a crime I saw about an hour ago on the property behind Gram’s…my house.”
His mouth twisted to one side. “As a rule, we don’t handle coven issues. The sheriff doesn’t like dealin’ in magic. The coven council handles their own matters, much like how tribal reservations deal with law enforcement. But sometimes we offer additional support. Was it a serious crime?”
Heart hammering in her chest, Esme leaned close and whispered, “I think I witnessed someone hiding a murdered body.”
Garrett’s brows shot up. He set his square jaw and peered into an adjoining office. “Lemme see what I can do.” He stepped into the other room and spoke to someone in a conversation Esme couldn’t hear.
He brought with him another man whose erect posture, steel-colored crew cut, and piercing gray eyes contrasted with Garrett’s kindness.
“Hello, Miss Underhill. I’m Officer Graves and I understand you’ve witnessed what you think might be a serious crime on a property in Coon Hollow Coven. Is that correct?”
“Yes.” Unable to determine his intent, Esme fixed her gaze on the senior officer.
Without any change of expression, he continued. “I’m sorry. Our approved procedure is for matters there to be dealt with first through Coven Council. Have you reported it to them?”
“No…I tried.” Esme lowered her voice to a slight whisper. “But the councilman on duty was who I saw commit the crime.”
Only a tiny muscle in the man’s jaw twitched, while Garrett shook his head. Officer Graves said flatly, “You still must first report this to Coven Council, another member, before we can offer them assistance in serving the law. Our office doesn’t deal directly with individual coven members, only with the council.”
Esme’s hand moved to her throat, where the recent lump swelled with new pain. “You don’t understand. The council has already—”
“Beg pardon, but there’s nothing more to understand. I realize spending most of your life outside the coven has given you a different orientation to the law, but this is how we must proceed here. I’m sorry, Miss Underhill.” His expression unchanged, he returned to his office.
Garrett extended a hand along the counter toward Esme. “I’m sorry. I thought maybe…”
“Won’t all the council members support each other? The council has already withheld basic rights to me since I’ve been gone for so long. Why would they believe me rather than a councilman?”
“All you can do is try. Different sorts of folks belong to their council. If you don’t get any of them to follow through, lemme know.” Under his palm, he slid a business card to her and lowered his voice. “Call me if anyone frightens you or threatens to harm you.”
“Thank you.” She gave him a weak smile, secured his card in her purse, and left.
In the parking area, red-tinted puddles surrounded a Thirties-style sedan. A frozen film reddened the top of the car’s brown body to a mahogany hue. Like before, noxious vengeance stung her nose and eyes. From that smell, she wondered if the car was Oscar’s. The question ignited a spark of panic in her mind.
No frozen precipitation covered the other cars, pavement, or walks. The blood ice apparently fell only at the crime scene. Oscar hadn’t reacted to the strange ice there. Her guess that he couldn’t see it needed to be right. Otherwise, her car here with the same colored crystals could link her as a witness to his horrible deed.
She hugged her arms across her chest and scurried to her car, imagining the councilman paying off the sheriff to keep out of his business. Without the help of law officers, how would she protect herself?
***
Inside Holly Cabin, Esme slumped onto a chair at the kitchen table with Dove curled in her lap. Stroking his silvery fur, she considered all that’d happened on her first day there. Her original problem with denial of ceremonial status complicated the muddled mess of witnessing a potential murder. She needed folks to stand up for her, believe in her word as a witness, and convince new clients of her abilities as a trusted healer. Tomorrow morning she’d reach out to Gram’s close friends so they could spread a good word for her. They’d likely know which council members might help her with both of her situations.
Esme rummaged in her purse and found the sheriff deputy’s card as well as the council letter. The rumpled page contained a signature from Nathan Wells, the council secretary. Maybe he’d be helpful, or at least approachable. She rechecked the page for a personal phone number. No luck. Only the business number. At least she could call another day and discover which council person worked the desk. Anything to avoid another chance meeting with Oscar.
The thought of him sent a shiver through her. Maybe she should forget what she saw and stay safe. But could she? Reporting was the ethical thing to do. Standing up for justice signified a step toward her personal freedom, as much as her right to work at her chosen career as a hedge witch healer. Esme said to the cat purring in her lap, “Freedom isn’t free, is it? And probably why I haven’t found my independence yet. Like they say: no guts, no glory.” Again, she felt torn between the road ahead and the one behind. She sighed, facing the fact she needed to report the possible murder, even if it cost her the job she’d wanted since she was a child.
Her gaze lingered over Nathan’s signature, trying to measure his handwriting. No hints about his character emanated, although she hadn’t practiced enough with that art. She considered the deputy’s card. His offer of support comforted her, but the mutual attraction she’d felt caught her off guard. After recently escaping the clutches of a controlling boyfriend, she didn’t want to jump into another relationship yet. Not until she could stand solidly on her own two feet. Still, having someone to call in case of an emergency meant a lot.
As she tucked both his card and Nathan’s letter away in the guest room chest of drawers, bright sunshine streamed through the window. “I could use some of that. Let’s go outside, Dove.” She waved the cat through the front door into the warmth.
The garden smiled at her, its plants springing back to their original graceful shapes. The damp cobbles, slick when she’d returned home, now dried fast in the sunshine. Esme zipped her jacket to her neck against the brisk winter air. She sat on a hewn-log bench and lifted her face to the blue sky. A deep breath brought calmness, and she renewed her attempt to make sense of the jumble of panicked thoughts.
In this community, how could she make her voice heard? And valued? The crime she witnessed cut a gash in her soul, but left no visible mark on the world. The body had been concealed. No blood ice remained as proof. Only her word, trapped inside her. She lowered her chest onto her thighs, focus drawn tight within, gaze aimlessly following movements of insects at her feet. The tiny creatures paid no heed to her dilemma, only their final tasks of storing food for winter. She shared their urgency, and it percolated through her veins. She yearned to embrace her new life but resolved to address the obstacles in her path. And stay safe in the process. She needed to conjure some protection right away.
Determination pulled her to her feet to consult Gram’s spell notebooks. At that moment, a tinkling sounded close to the cabin.
Esme looked for Dove and spotted him several yards away chewing on a leafless catnip stem in blissful silence.
Another chiming of soft plinks turned her head around toward holly berries shedding the last bits of their icy coating. A dense row of the bushes protected the cabin’s foundation and gave the place its name: Holly Cabin. “We know it happened,” one holly seemed to whisper ever so faintly as its berries stretched on their stems into the sunshine.
Had she imagined the soft voice? She studied the bushes coming alive one by one as the sun’s path touched them.
More clumps of berries shook off ice and called the same message. “Esme, we know it, too.”
She rose and moved to kneel beside the bushes, her fingers rubbing a waxy, pointed leaf. “What did you see?” As a botanist she loved plants and knew them well. She’d spoken to many specimens and later found a leaf pushed into her usual path as if to be noticed. But she’d never once received a verbal response. Her head spun with the possibilities of this new type of interaction and the research she wanted to conduct. Esme now guessed the name Holly Cabin held a deeper meaning.
“The councilman killed her.” The nearest berry clump stretched toward her. “All The Other Crowd know this truth.”
Stymied at conversing with a berry, she stammered, “The Other Crowd?”
“Land spirits.”
“Oh. Yes. The Cousins.” Gram had maintained a strong working relationship with the spirits on her property and some from the nearby woods as well. Esme forgot she needed to continue her grandmother’s efforts. “I hope they’ll help me like they did Gram. I could sure use them right now.”
Esme rose and darted into the house to gather offerings for The Cousins. A while later she returned with a spade.
Dove trotted up to join her on the way to a large pitch pine in the lawn’s front corner.
From underneath, Esme gathered a handful of female cones, then scanned the property. “Where did Grammy leave her offerings?” she asked Dove.
He darted around one side of the cabin to a huge lilac.
“Yes. That’s right. Now I remember.” Esme followed and dug a small hole near the base. Into the depression she deposited a shiny new penny and a cone. “This should work. They loved my pinecones when I was little.”
She tamped earth on top of the gifts and looked over her shoulder to find Dove making a beeline for the large chestnut tree at the edge of the woods. The cat circled until he curled himself into a hollow where three knobby roots formed a triangle.
“Yep. Another good spot Gram used.” Esme gave Dove an appreciative stroke before scooting him aside to dig a small hole.
While she repeated her procedure, the cat explored the nearby woods. At the same time she added her pinecone offering, he gave a sharp cry and skittered through the leaf litter to cling to Esme’s bare ankle.
“Whatever happened to you?” Esme rubbed the cat while giving him a once over. After a quick push of her foot to fill the hole, she checked where he’d made such a ruckus. Among torn up leaves, she found a fallen hawthorn branch with smoke-blue fur wadded around several barbs. Frowning at the limb, she picked it up. A giddy smell of sharp spearmint filled her nose and flooded her mind like a drug. Without her control, a loud belly laugh erupted from her chest, rasping painfully against her still-tender throat. A wild mix of panic and suffering mixed with humor in her mind. Cold sweat broke over her skin.
Dove sprinted straight to the cabin’s back porch.
Esme flung the branch away and scanned the woods, her head wobbly from the lingering fragrance. Staggering onto the lawn, she gathered her spade and touched a hand to the chestnut’s trunk. Had she displeased The Cousins? And if she had, what might happen to her?
Chapter Three: Black Amber
Esme rolled onto something hard that poked her side. She sat up in Grammy’s fluffy double bed, the safe spot she’d chosen to read last night. A spell notebook flopped open onto Dove’s tail and revealed a page Esme had marked.
Dove fired a sharp meow and resettled himself into a tighter curl, claiming more than his share of the quilt.
Disoriented in her grandmother’s bedroom, in a new town, beginning a new life, Esme inhaled deeply of the soothing lavender-scented sheets. Gram’s memory gave Esme strength and courage to tackle the new problems. She lifted the spell book, which further jostled the grumpy cat into more rumbling growls of protest.
Esme frowned at him. “I must perform personal shielding morning and night until I’m certain all risks are gone.” She lengthened her spine and filled her lungs with a deep breath. Then she imagined raising a series of transparent multi-colored walls enclosing her in a huge jewel case higher than her head. The first, clear emerald, curved toward the white diamond wall on her right. Ruby in back and clear sapphire on her left completed the box. Mentally she connected the four walls to form an impenetrable protection, clear enough to gaze through. She peered through the blue wall at Dove, whose nose twitched though his eyelids drooped. “I see you pretending not to watch. You can’t come into my jewel case unless I allow you.”
The cat stretched out a paw, and she grabbed him into her lap. “But I choose to have you inside. Let’s go check our energy trap and see if The Cousins accepted our offerings.” She scratched the cat’s ears, then moved him aside to pry herself from the featherbed’s billowing fluff.
Esme held the jewel case in mind as she washed and dressed. She slipped into a shirtwaist dress, thick tights, and sensible walking shoes she’d kept at Grammy’s to wear in the coven during visits. Shopping was a priority since she only had a few acceptable outfits. In the meantime, she’d save those vintage-style dresses and skirts to meet neighbors and potential clients.
Driving an ancient car seemed like a greater hardship. She wasn’t about to get rid of her pretty ocean blue Prius, the first car she’d been able to purchase new. She’d keep it stored in the shed for occasional Indy trips to the botanical research company where she’d discuss her local studies.
Gram had updated the cabin every time the Council approved a new list of modern conveniences such as: electricity, indoor plumbing; steam radiators fueled by propane, and a refrigerator. The fridge excited her the most, providing a way to preserve delicate herbal healing concoctions. She even installed a freezer in the shed for that purpose. Too bad she hadn’t owned an old car Esme could use. Gram walked a lot and never had a driver’s license. Most clients wanted her bad enough to drive her to their place. Or they bought her homemade basic healing supplies from her booth at the Saturday market, a function Esme needed to start doing right aw
ay to prove herself and hopefully gain ceremonial status as a healer.
On the kitchen table, the energy trap’s jar candle still burned. At the center of a tin pie plate, the candle sat on three flat stones surrounded by two rings of salt. The first, of coarse grind, had a sprinkling of grains cast out from the tidy line she’d formed before bedtime. The outermost ring of fine salt looked as she’d left it. “Dove, it looks like a little bad energy was drawn into the candle and filtered through the first salt. I’m glad to see the trap working. Even happier to know there wasn’t much to be caught. Maybe I was right, that Oscar has no idea I saw him from the edge of the woods.”
Heartened, she put the kettle on the stove for tea and filled Dove’s food and water bowls. After a quick breakfast of toast and juice, she pulled on a warm down jacket and headed outside with Dove prancing alongside.
At the huge lilac, which occupied nearly the entire side of the cabin, the offering hole had been disturbed. Esme clasped her hands and held them to her chest. “The Cousins found it!” She searched the area for any signs or gifts left in return. Her initial elation plummeted upon discovering her pinecone offering smashed and smeared with excrement. The penny had vanished. Pale gray clouds blocked the sun, and she zipped her jacket against the chilly morning air.
Esme checked the second station and found the same, this time with both pennies stuck in the foul-smelling waste clogging the cone’s bracts.
Dove remained on the mowed lawn, a safe distance from the grand chestnut. The tree stood on the boundary between Holly Cabin’s property and the woods—the Hedge, as Gram called it—where woods spirits, the fae folk, could share common ground with wildwood mystics, root workers, mystic healers, hedge witches, or whatever name the witch healers called themselves.
Using a fallen branch, Esme whipped the foul response from The Cousins far into the woods. A frown dragged down the corners of her mouth, and she let the jewel case slip into a recess of her mind.
Coon Hollow Coven Tales 1-3 Page 66