Cursed: Paranormal Women's Fiction (Mid-Life Haunts Book 1)

by Nhys Glover

  “The Devil has taken his handmaiden home. The rest of you witches need to leave so we can clear the Devil’s taint from the land and resurrect this town!”

  For a small man, this preacher had a big voice, though it sounded enough like fingers on a chalkboard to make me cringe.

  “The problems out at Channing are not caused by a demonic force!” one of the scientists said impatiently, stepping up beside Hank and glaring at the preacher. “Only ignorant fools put anything they don’t understand down to the work of the devil!”

  Although I was grateful for the man’s support, I didn’t think he was doing our cause any good. Nobody liked to be called a fool.

  “You scientists think you’re above God!” the preacher shrieked like a banshee. “Yet have you any explanation for what is spreading ever closer to this town? No, you have not!”

  “Not yet! But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a rational reason for it. Science always finds answers, given enough time,” the scientist yelled back, his face now as bright red as the preacher’s.

  The man was probably in his late forties, with a tall, stocky body. Had he not had a pair of glasses perched on the end of his nose, he could have passed for a logger. He reminded me of a Great Dane, while the preacher was nothing more than a yapping Chihuahua.

  “Get out! Leave our town, you demons!” someone cried.

  This time I couldn't tell if it was a male or female voice. But it was enough to inflame the mob further.

  I looked anxiously to my dad and then to the other men in our small, sad group. No one seemed to know exactly what to do. The angry parishioners were between us and our cars. We couldn’t even get into them and drive away to put an end to the craziness.

  Resolutely, I squared my shoulders and stepped around my tall son so I could address the crowd. Michael’s hand snaked out to hold me back, but I wouldn’t be stopped. This was my problem. I was the only one who could fix it.

  “You think that if our family leaves the area it will stop the rot spreading?” I called out over the yells and screams growing even fiercer with every passing second.

  The placards waved around like flags, sometimes hitting another demonstrator nearby. They were so close to violence I could feel it.

  “You believe that we didn’t think of that? Why do you think my mom sent me away all those years ago? It was the only thing we could think of to do at the time. But it didn’t work. Nothing has worked! If you force me out again you are condemning this town, this county, maybe even the rest of the country, to whatever this thing is that has been unleashed on us all. I don’t believe it’s demonic, but I also don’t think it has a rational explanation either.”

  As I paused to draw in fresh breath to go on, I noted the noise had abated. Everyone was listening to me now. Everyone. And it was as creepy as hell.

  “I have come back to try to find answers. I have come to repair the damage. Force me out, and I will wash my hands of you all. See how long you’ll be able to stay here yourselves then! Give me a chance to make this right! That’s all I’m asking. Give me a chance to make this right!”

  As the mob mulled over my words, the sound of a siren filled the air. A Grand Haven police vehicle sped into the parking lot, scattering fanatics like birds before it.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. The cavalry had arrived at last. The cops would make the mob go their way and we could go ours.

  The siren turned off.

  When Mary and Hayley groaned, I started to wonder if I’d been too quick to believe the danger was past. Maybe the sheriff was a member of the congregation and had come to join the throng.

  A tall, uniformed figure climbed out from behind the driver’s wheel. The dark blonde hair that brushed the collar of his uniform was too long for the conservative position he held, yet it was beautiful hair, all the same. It had always been beautiful. It shone in the sunlight like a burning torch. My heart quivered in my chest.

  The sheriff turned to where we mourners stood on the steps to the crematorium. Bright green eyes found mine and a frisson of something passed between us, before his narrowed. Abruptly, he turned away, dismissing me as effectively now as he had a quarter-century ago.

  So much for Jake Killian ending up bald and overweight. If anything, the years had only improved his looks. Muscles that I doubted came from a gym rippled beneath the beige shirt as he turned to face the mob.

  Now the siren had been turned off you could have heard a pin drop in the crematorium parking lot.

  “Pastor Herbert, I assume you are responsible for this unlawful gathering?” Jake Killian drawled, his voice even deeper than I remembered.

  Had he taken up smoking? Was that how he got that odd, sexy rasp to the deep timbre of it?

  “It’s our first amendment right to assemble we’re exercising, Sheriff!” the preacher cried, trying to whip his parishioners back into a fever once more.

  “Not if you’re inciting imminent lawless action. Are you threatening these people, Preacher? From the look of some of those placards it looks like you are. I can arrest you for it. I don’t want to. I already have my cells filled with drunks from last night. It’d be a tight squeeze to fit you in. And my deputies haven’t cleaned up the vomit yet, so it won’t be pleasant. But if you…”

  “You should be arresting her!” yapped the Chihuahua. “She admitted the demonic force spreading out from her property is her responsibility!”

  “What she said,” Hilary cried, breaking free from Dad to take Mary’s place at my side. “...was that she has come home to try to fix the problem. That if you drive her out, drive all of us out, we can’t help stop this thing, whatever it is.”

  Michael nodded vehemently at my other side. My heart was lighter than air. My son was protecting me. My son was on my side.

  Again those bright green eyes turned to me. Jake’s lashes were darker than mine, more brown than blonde, so they framed those lovely eyes almost as well as Hilary’s dark ones did. It wasn’t fair that a middle-aged guy should look so good. Not someone like Jake, who should have peaked in high school.

  “You think you can fix it?” he demanded.

  I shrugged. “I plan to try. I do know for sure running away won’t fix anything.”

  He jerked a nod, as if agreeing with my sentiments. Then he turned that craggy, far too handsome face back to the mob.

  “Herbert, it’s up to you. Send these good people home or join the drunks in my jail. As far as I know, nobody has been able to find a solution for that toxic disaster out at Channing, so you might as well give Melody’s daughter a chance to try.”

  “You can’t arrest me! It’s...it’s unconstitutional!” bleated the pastor, although most of his steam was now gone.

  “Watch me!” Jake threatened, a devilish smirk forming on his well-shaped lips.

  The windbag lost the last of his air and he nodded grudgingly. “If she doesn’t fix it, then we will. We’ll exorcise that land of its evil. We’ll bring God back to Grand Haven!”

  “As long as you stay off private property and don’t resort to unlawful violence then I’m all for an exorcism. But if it was always as simple as that, why didn’t you do it long ago?” Jake sounded genuinely interested, as if he truly believed an exorcism of some kind might work.

  “While the devil’s handmaiden still lived, the demonic possession was too strong. We tried. Believe me, we tried.”

  “They tried to burn the place down!” Hank declared furiously. “They admitted as much just now. That fire took out half the mountain and cost the logging companies a small fortune!”

  Pastor Herbert took a guilty step back. “I… I did not condone any such action. I believe in remaining within the law.”

  “I heard one of these sorry excuses for men admitting to trying to burn Melody out!” Hank went on stubbornly.

  I didn’t think it was the time for determining who was responsible for illegal actions from the past. It would only incite the mob yet again.

  “Can we please
go now? We are having a wake for my mom and then I have to see Mom’s lawyer…” I said, addressing the man who had become my version of Satan all those years ago.

  Jake nodded, his lips thinning this time. “Yeah, you need to go. And these nice people are going to get off private property and let you.”

  As if the sheriff’s will was law, which of course it was, the parishioners began to drift away, mumbling under their breaths. Without his support team, Pastor Herbert became no more than a little man. Yet he lifted his chin and glared at me.

  “You better fix this, you godforsaken whore, or I will!” he declared so vehemently that spittle flew from his mouth.

  No one had ever called me a whore before. Other than me. And for this stranger to do it seemed an added insult. He didn’t know me. He had no right to call me names and threaten me.

  “There is only one person here that God forsook,” Hilary cried. “From the way I understand it, the God of Love turns his back on those filled with hate. That’s you, buster! You!”

  I placed a hand on her arm to shush her. The confrontation was over. She needed to let it be over. Yet she still had a head of steam. Hilary had never been one to blow up and then cool off just as fast. She held on to her resentments, sometimes for days at a time. I pitied Clay the fights they would invariably have in the coming years.

  “I’ve warned you!” Herbert snarled, before turning to stomp after his parishioners.

  “Well, hasn’t Grand Haven become a lovely little place since I left. Makes the LA smog and traffic snarls seem welcoming in comparison,” Dad said, keeping his voice upbeat.

  I sniggered, just so he knew I appreciated his attempt to lighten the mood.

  “Sorry those idiots caused you problems. If I’d gotten wind of their plans earlier…” Jake apologized stiffly.

  “You got here in time, Sheriff. We appreciate it,” Hank said, back to being his mild-mannered, aging self again.

  “You have more trouble with those crazies, just let me know. I don’t want mob violence in my town.”

  And with a sharp nod of his head, Jake climbed back into his patrol car and drove away. The silence that followed his exit was heavy.

  Finally, I turned to Mary, my eyes wide with the shock I still felt. “Jake Killian is the sheriff?”

  She shrugged and nodded. “Yeah. He went away to college and then went into law enforcement in New York City. When his dad got sick and the sheriff was ready to retire, it seemed only natural that he’d come back and become the head of law enforcement here. His dad died last year. I’ve heard tell he’s been trying to talk his mom into retiring to Miami. But Betty was never one to desert a sinking ship. Jake takes after her in that way. His brothers and sisters have all gone.”

  I wanted to ask if he was married and had kids of his own, but it would make it seem as if I was still interested. And I wasn't. Him looking better than he had at eighteen only made me hate him all the more. It wasn’t fair that he should have escaped, unscathed, from what he’d done.

  Did he know he was to blame for the problems on Channing? I wanted him to. Yet to tell him would mean admitting how devastated I was back then. How much he’d hurt me. And I wouldn’t give him that much power over me. Not again. Not ever!

  After a quiet lunch at Mary’s place, I thanked her and Hank for being there for us and made my excuses to go. Dad took the opportunity to leave with us.

  “You coming to hear the will?” Hilary asked him, without the antagonism she’d shown toward him earlier in the day.

  The fact he’d stayed at her side during the confrontation with the mob had obviously impressed her. Or maybe it was the moving and very heartfelt eulogy he’d given. Though I hadn’t felt my mom’s presence, I’d kind of wished she had been there to hear it. Everyone needs to know they were special to the ones they’d loved.

  “No, I have to get back. Kyle has a game this weekend, and I said I’d be there…”

  Instead of stiffening with offense, Hilary nodded and leaned up to kiss his cheek. “You did good today, Pop. You aren’t as bad as I thought you were.”

  “High praise indeed, Hilly. Let me know when the baby is born. The girl?” he checked.

  “Yep. My own little Beep. She’s impatient to be here, so I expect she’ll come early. I just hope Clay is back by then.”

  Dad moved on to slap Michael on the back before turning to me.

  “You still seeing those ghosties, kiddo?” he asked easily, as if the very mention of them didn’t freak him out.

  “Yep. Our gifts don’t just disappear, Dad. Although I’d have preferred a different one, I’m stuck with being the Ghost Whisperer while Hilly is the Baby Whisperer. Ah well, we are what we are.” I smiled with more ease than I had all day. “The eulogy was beautiful. Thank you.”

  Dad shook his head. “No need for thanks. It came from the heart. You have no idea how often I’ve beaten myself up for the choices I made back then. For my inability to be a stronger, better man.”

  I leaned up to kiss his cheek. “We all do the best we can. I’ve spent the last twenty-five years beating myself up because of Channing. But Hilary is right. I wasn’t the guilty one. Any more than the mountain is to blame for the blight on it. If anyone is to blame, it's Grand Haven’s sheriff. But I doubt he sees it that way.”

  “What happened? Nobody ever told me,” Dad asked, his expression troubled.

  “Didn’t Mom ever tell you the prophecy?” I asked in surprise.

  He shrugged. “Yeah. When she brought me home she said something about me tainting her innocence and bringing death to our door. But she said it so flippantly that I assumed she was joking. Just as I assumed she was joking when she claimed to be a witch who made potions. And of course nothing did happen then. No terrible curse.

  “It took years for me to realize that magic was real and that I’d married into a family of very powerful witches. When you started talking to ghosts, and your mom just shrugged it off as if it was nothing, it was… I don’t know… the last straw, I guess. I wanted to be your mom’s knight in shining armor, but I couldn’t, because she didn’t need one. The Channing witches were more capable of protecting themselves than I could ever hope to be. No man likes to feel irrelevant.”

  This was a new insight. I had never considered what it must have been like to live with Mom and Gran. And Lucy, back then, too. Because she didn’t move away for a few years after Mom came home. It was an all-female household capable of fixing their own roofs, changing a tire, and replacing washers on taps. Magic might just have been the excuse he used in his own mind for him leaving.

  “I always needed you, Daddy. I still do. Please find time to come back again…” I offered, hating how vulnerable this admission made me.

  But this was a day of revelations, and I needed this man I’d adored to know how much I cared.

  “Now I’ve retired I have more time. So, yeah, I’d like to meet my great-granddaughter one of these days. And I’d like to help out, if those nutcases get out of hand again. Really. I might not be good for much, but I can provide a little protection. You have Michael for the summer, but after that…”

  “Clay will be back by then,” Hilary reminded him, though I don’t think she meant to imply he wasn’t needed.

  It was just that we were very self-sufficient women. We always had been. Admitting we needed help was like handing in our Women’s Lib credentials.

  “I’ll let you know if they give me any more trouble. Thanks for the offer. It all feels a little overwhelming, I have to say. And I don’t know how long Michael will…”

  “I’ll stay for the summer. Now I know what you’re up against, I can stay for the summer,” Michael intruded, placing his hand on Dad’s shoulder.

  Tears stung my eyes yet again. Michael had never shown this much concern for me before. He’d always felt like Paul’s son. Paul’s mini-me. He’d even told me that if I’d made more of an effort with my appearance maybe his dad would have stayed. That had cut me to the quick.r />
  Now, though, Michael was stepping up. It felt… good.

  “About time you became man of the house,” Hilary joked, punching him in the arm.

  Rather than punching her back, as he would have done in his younger years and before Hilary got so obviously pregnant, he settled for rolling his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest in a manly fashion.

  “Okay, gotta get to the reading of the will,” I said hastily before round two started up.

  “We’re coming with you,” Michael said, coming to take my elbow as if he thought I was about to fall over. His words almost made me fall over.

  “I’m not sure there’ll be any mention of you… Mom didn’t think like that.” I told him, worried that he’d take it personally if Mom hadn’t left him at least something in her will.

  “I’ve got a trust fund, Mom. And Dad’ll leave me his company when he goes. Do you really think I want more from a grandmother I barely knew?” he scoffed.

  “Ahhh come on, Kid. You know he’ll leave the company to his favorite. That’d be me!” Hilary joked.

  Michael looked ready to argue but thought better of it. Yeah, he was definitely growing up.

  After saying our farewells again, my kids and I piled into the Prius and headed downtown. I was nervous, so nervous my stomach was ready to eject its contents. But this was just another hurdle in my path. Once I knew where I stood I would be better prepared for what came next.

  5

  “And to my eldest daughter, Cleo,” Mr. Mc Dowerty intoned in true lawyer fashion, “I leave Channing Manor, fifty-one percent of my business holdings, and any savings or investments I have at the time of my demise. The other forty-nine percent of the shares in the business shall be divided equally between Lucy, my sister, Casey and her children, and Cleo’s children. Lucy understands that she received her fair share from our mother’s will and that this is simply an acknowledgement of my affection for her and the important part she played in my life.