But still, I’m out here.
I wade into my terror, thick and deep. I move forward through the trees. I hear the squelch of a shoe in mud behind me, and I spin around, holding up my phone, trying to see in its dim light.
“Thea,” says a man’s voice.
I feel the breath rush from my lungs, and I realize I’ve come to the middle of the deep woods with no weapon of any kind, except my phone. I swipe the lock screen, bring up the keypad to dial 911.
“Thea!”
Jeremy Fisher steps in front of the Witch’s Throne. It towers behind him like a pet dragon waiting for command. Jeremy’s shadow is wrong. One of his arms is longer than the other. He steps forward, and as the light of my phone passes over him, I see that he holds an axe.
With a shaking hand, I dial 911 on the phone.
“What are you doing?”
Quickly he steps forward, and I shriek. I have nothing to defend myself with, and so I panic. I throw the only object I have.
My phone.
“Hey!” The phone hits his shoulder and falls to the mud. “Goddamn it!”
But I’m already running.
I hear him chase me.
A hand grips my upper arm, whips me around and pulls me back, then turns and slams me hard back against the tree trunk, so hard that pain shoots up between my shoulders blades into the base of my skull.
My legs are free, though.
I kick him hard in the groin, and he immediately releases my arm. While he’s bent forward, I kick him as hard as I can in the face, and he is flung back, hands flying up to his nose, crying out in pain.
When he drops them, his nose is bleeding.
“What the fuck!” he screams.
“I called the police!” I yell. “They’re on the way!”
He steps back, holding his hands up. Blood drains from his nose, down over his mouth and chin.
“The police are coming,” I whimper.
“Good,” he says, tilting his head back. He pinches his nostrils closed.
“Good?”
I notice then that the axe is on the ground. He dropped it, and he’s not moving to pick it up. He’s still pinching his nose shut.
“Wud da hell are you doing here?” he asks thickly.
“You called me. From George’s phone.”
I take a step toward the axe.
But he seems to have forgotten it. He’s groaning, bleeding, not attacking me. He looks pitiful.
And young.
I take another step toward the axe. It’s six inches from my foot.
He lowers his chin and tentatively takes his hand away. “I saw someone out here.” He sniffs gently. “I saw a person sneaking around, a shadow. I came down here to see who it was.”
“With an axe?”
He shrugs. “It was by the woodpile. I saw a shadow down here. And it’s…it’s day three.”
“You saw a shadow? Just a few minutes ago?”
“Yeah, but…did you say someone called you? From George phone? Who would have his phone?”
“I don’t know. You don’t have it?”
I see the realization transform his face from a confused scowl to a wide-eyed, raised brow shock. He steps back. He understands. “No, Jesus! Me? Why would you think that?”
“Because I don’t know what to think!”
We’re both yelling now in the middle of the dark woods after midnight.
“You think I lured you out here to axe-murder you?”
“You took my journal! His phone was right there, too! George had it when he died!”
I gasp. I understand now.
But it’s too late.
Because that is when Charles Donneville steps from the trees.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
He’s holding George’s phone. The lit screen shows a picture of the girls, Lydia and Juliet smiling, their faces close. They’re hugging each other, cheeks touching.
“Voice-recorded notes,” says Charles. “I never tried it. I hate talking out loud to myself, I guess. Makes me feel crazy.”
He taps the screen a few times, and George’s voice says, “Thea…help me.”
“I didn’t know he had his phone on him,” he says. “That witch at the bar was supposed to take it, hide it from him.”
“Sosie? She helped you?”
“She agreed to make sure he was at the Throne that night. We needed to scare him, make sure he didn’t write that book. This town depends on that legend. The festival, the tourism. But as for the phone, I think Sosie assumed I only wanted his notes from it.”
He steps forward. “Really, I needed to ensure he could not call for help.”
The hospital. I remember only small bits. Only flashes of memories. Officer Tims helping me to a couch in a small room with vending machines.
“Who can I call, Mrs. Drake?”
I gave him my parents’ number. I told him about the girls back in their room at the Apple, how I’d asked Mrs. Lowry not to wake them yet. I remember the deep frown on the officer’s young face and wanting to tell him I was okay.
But I couldn’t. Because that’s when I started to cry, and then all I remember is the damp scratchy fabric of the couch against my face.
A blanket was tucked around me. Pills were offered, then water, by a female nurse.
Officer Tims appeared again to tell me my parents were on the way, that my daughters were awake and asking questions.
“Don’t tell them yet. I’ll tell them.”
“Mrs. Drake, we can wait until this afternoon when your parents arrive.”
“No, I’ll tell them.”
I sat up and felt dizzy.
Beverly Donneville was standing in the doorway.
“Sosie was the one who told me you wanted George’s notes,” Jeremy is telling Charles, staring at him wide-eyed. “That’s why I came to you with the copy of Thea’s journal. I didn’t know about his voice notes.”
I cannot catch my breath. My thoughts churn, trying to put it all together.
Charles lowers the phone, holds it at arm’s length, regarding it as he would an archeological find. “I guess he did try to call for help, but he was so drunk, he hit the voice recorder instead.”
“You…killed him?”
“The curse killed him. I am merely its instrument, a soldier for Good in the eternal battle, the only battle. Good against Evil.”
“George wasn’t evil.”
“He sat on the Throne. He had to pay the price for that. Fear is essential. It keeps us safe from the corruption of evil. I fight evil, but I fear it all the same. I am wise enough to fear it. Your husband lost that fear. But you still have it, don’t you?”
“Why did you call me from his phone? Why did you want me back here?”
“When I saw your notebook, I understood. I, too, am the invisible half of a partnership. My wife is the public persona, the face of our purpose, but I am its source beneath.”
“That’s not how it was with me and George.”
“Wasn’t it?”
He tucks the phone carefully back into his shirt pocket, as a gentleman might tuck a handkerchief.
“You researched the history of Adeline Tenatree.”
I back up a step and Charles steps forward.
“You wrote the drafts of the book he was supposed to be writing.”
“No.”
“Thea.” He steps closer. “I read your journal. Who was really the writer?”
I back up and stumble over a tree root, falling back against the thick trunk.
“He did all the research.”
Charles merely raises an eyebrow to this.
“He talked to everyone, interviewed everyone involved. They were his books, his cases! He filmed himself on that damn Throne.”
“You also sat on the Throne.”
“I was trying to help him.”
“Yes, as I am helping my wife. Beverly suffered after your husband’s book. She suffered again after your speech today. Our most loyal foll
owers won’t believe you, but they saw you sit on the Throne. If you live, she suffers. If you live, Evil prevails. I cannot abide that.”
A shadow lunges in my peripheral vision. Jeremy leaps forward, swinging the axe.
I scream and fall around the base of the tree, dropping behind it.
Charles blocks the axe with a swipe of his arm against its handle in one deft move. With the flat of his opposite hand, he strikes Jeremy in the throat so quickly, I can hardly think it’s done any damage. But it has.
Jeremy drops the axe and staggers back, drops to his knees and falls sideways in the damp leaves. Hands to his throat, he struggles desperately for breath in dry, rasping gasps.
Charles stands over Jeremy. “My brother learned to kill at war. With his bare hands. And before he died, God delivered him back to teach me.”
He slips his belt from his waist, kicks Jeremy over onto his stomach, and with a few swift movements, binds his hands behind his back. Jeremy turns to his side, attempting to sit up, and Charles kicks him in the stomach. Jeremy falls again, face into the ground, still gasping hoarsely. Charles kicks the axe out of Jeremy’s reach.
Then Charles Donneville turns to me.
I turn to run, but his hand grips my arm.
Charles pushes me forward to the ground. My palms hit the ground, but my arms give way, and I fall on my stomach, roll onto my back as he kneels over me, planting a knee on each of the insides of my elbows. I scream in pain. Six feet away, Jeremy groans.
“They’ll know,” I gasp. “If you kill me, everyone will know who did it.”
“Yes, they will. This boy killed you because you exposed his uncle’s crimes.”
Jeremy groans.
I am useless. The worst kind of horror movie character who cannot save herself.
The trees rustle. I gasp, look over, but see only shadows. Jeremy is curled on his side twenty feet away, one hand to his throat, mouth open, struggling to breathe.
Another sound, a branch cracking. This time Charles looks up.
I struggle to sit, but he pushes me back down again. “What do you think, Thea? The ghost of your dead husband, come to save you?”
His mouth is stretched into a horrid smile. He doesn’t believe in any of it, I realize. He doesn’t think for one second that Beverly is communicating with George’s spirit. The Throne, the witchcraft, the legend, it’s all a story for him to manipulate his particular brand of righteousness.
His hands close around my throat, and he’s lifting me by the neck. My air is cut off. I open my mouth to cry out and a terrified gurgle is all that comes out. He stands, pulling me with him and drags me slowly toward the Throne.
If ghosts exist, I think, please, please, George...be here. Appear, right now. Save me.
Of course, he doesn’t. George is gone. We reach the Throne, and Charles stops dragging me. He holds my throat closed as my flailing, useless punches bounce off his shoulders, arms, back.
Jeremy has managed to belly-crawl a few feet toward us. He falls on his face in the mud and pushes himself back up.
“Thea,” he croaks.
Bright spots pop before my eyes. Charles stares at me with an intense, but unseeing, gaze. I don’t know what he sees before him, but it’s not me, it’s not a vision of himself choking an innocent woman. He sees a menace, a threat. He sees himself battling Evil—and winning.
Then his body jolts. His grip loosens, and I fall to the ground, the back of my skull bouncing painfully on a hard root of the Throne.
Charles Donneville’s eyes widen, his mouth falls open, and then he falls forward in the mud, the axe buried deep in the back of his shoulder.
Beverly walked in without saying a word. She crossed the room, sat next to me on the couch, and wrapped her arms around me. I fell against her and sobbed.
She said nothing but rubbed in a small circle on my back as I wept.
I saw movement at the doorway and looked up. Charles was standing there, and Officer Tims came up behind him. The officer froze when he saw me with the Donnevilles.
“Mrs. Drake,” said the officer. “We can leave now if you’d like. I have George’s belongings here.”
I clung to Beverly, sniffing, unable to speak. She helped me to my feet. Officer Tims struggled with the blue bag as he prepared to take my arm.
“Officer,” said Charles, “let me help you with that.”
Officer Tims nodded, and when Charles Donneville held out his hand for the blue bag, the officer gave it to him.
I watched the ground beneath my feet as we walked down the hospital corridors, across the waiting room, and outdoors where my family waited.
My father, stoic and dry-eyed, helped me into the van. As I collapsed into the far back with my crying daughters, I heard my mother thanking Officer Tims.
I held Lydia and Juliet to me, and as we pulled away from the curb, I looked out the window. The last person I saw was Beverly Donneville, alone, watching us drive away.
Beverly's face is ghostly white but calm. She steps over her husband and offers her hand to me.
I take it and stand up.
Charles roars in pain and anger. Beverly flinches. “We must go. My car is on the road. I’ve already called the police. They’ll be here soon, but we must go. Can your friend walk?”
I dash back to Jeremy and help him stand. He leans into me, hands still bound. Charles roars again. He’s up on his knees.
Beverly dashes back to the path. “Quickly!” she shouts.
“Just a little farther,” I murmur to Jeremy. He nods, and we limp after Beverly toward the road. As we pass Charles, he lurches his body toward us and falls face down.
“Beverly!” he bellows into the mud.
But she’s already in the shadows of the forest.
JOURNAL OF THEA DRAKE | NOVEMBER 18
2017 – George Drake
The last time I wrote in this journal, you were sleeping only a few feet away. It was the morning of the day you died. You were sleeping while I wrote, and you were still sleeping when I left. When I saw you again that night, you were drunk, we fought, and I never asked if you had found this journal.
Turns out, you did.
Maybe you woke up after I left with the idea about Allerton, but I’d rather believe this journal gave you the idea. Finding it on the laptop, knowing you could use it to trap Beverly. Either way, you came up with the idea, wrote the entry about Allerton, and then went to Martin Fisher’s.
Because you were running out of time. It was Day Three.
It was a good plan, betting on Martin passing information along to Beverly Donneville, and probably would have worked. You got lucky that Jeremy was there, desperate for money. You know people. You can read them. So, no doubt, you had a strong hunch that he would try to take the journal to sell it.
And when he did, you let him.
Maybe you weren’t as drunk as he thought you were. Maybe you were faking then.
Maybe you were also faking later at the bar when you caused a scene demanding your phone back from Sosie. You could read her, too. You suspected she was passing information on you to the Donnevilles for money, that she wanted them to win so the legend of the Throne could persist, that she couldn’t be trusted.
Sosie confessed that she helped Charles. She agreed to steal your phone. She arranged a meeting with you that night at the cemetery. She lured you out there.
She insists she thought Charles only wanted the notes from your phone, that she thought he only wanted to scare you into giving up the investigation.
Her interest in you seems genuine, though. She returned your phone. When you met her by the cemetery, she tried to convince you to leave, to go back to her place, even when you saw a light bobbing in the shadows around the Throne.
But you ran after it.
Sosie left, scared to be caught, scared of the Throne, scared of Charles, who knows.
Maybe she didn’t think Charles would really hurt you. Maybe she thought returning your phone had been enough, t
hat you could call for help.
You charged into the dark, no shoes, no shirt, only your phone to record the evidence.
Charles Donneville also confessed. Beverly put the axe into his shoulder that night and severed his collarbone, but he survived. He’s in jail now. Beverly is back at home. She hasn’t done any interviews...yet. I’m going to leave her alone for now. That is my thank you to her.
Charles told the story to police from his hospital room, and Officer Tims related it to me.
As you and I ate a silent, final dinner, Charles was showing his wife the copy of my journal. After Beverly had gone to bed to read it over, Charles went to the study on the top floor, a small room the Burnses provided for him to work. When questioned further about Charles’s alibi on the night of your death, the Burnses admit they had gone to bed after seeing a light beneath the closed door of this room. Knowing it was on the top floor, and that their open door was by the stairs, they trusted the fact that they had not been woken in the night by Charles leaving.
But he did.
Charles drove to Martin Fisher’s cabin. He collected the totems and called Sosie to make sure she was meeting George at the cemetery.
When you charged up to the Throne that night, Charles Donneville was waiting. He grabbed you by the hair from behind and bashed your skull at the temple against a sharp root at the base of the Throne.
You probably didn’t see him at all, didn’t know what was coming. I know you weren’t scared.
That’s what I choose to believe.
Charles said he waited for you to die. He watched your breathing slow, then stop. He swept the footprints from the area, left the totems he obtained from Martin Fisher, then left.
But he didn’t check your pulse.
You woke. You tried to call me from your phone, but you hit the voice recorder button instead.
I was asleep in our room at the Apple.
In the morning, when the Donnevilles and their film crew found you, you were holding your phone, and that’s when Charles knew he had to take it.
He waited for the opportunity. He couldn’t do it in front of the film crew or Beverly and arouse suspicion on himself. Instead, he went to the hospital, and his chance came.
The Witch's Throne (Thea Drake Mystery Book 1) (Thea Drake Mysteries) Page 23