Wiccan, A Witchy Young Adult Paranormal Romance

by M. Leighton

  Again, it felt like I’d just gone to sleep when I found myself back in the motel room with the dead girl, like I’d never left. I pulled the knife from between her ribs and took her bound wrists in my other hand. I put my thumb against her palm and pressed up at the base of her right forefinger. With a quick strike, I sliced off half her finger. It bled, but not as much as I would’ve expected. I assumed it was because her heart was no longer beating.

  I took her finger and dipped it in the pool of blood that was spreading across the sheets from her left side. I pulled the sheets tight and began to form letters, re-dipping the severed digit multiple times for more “ink”. When I was finished, I took a step back and surveyed my handiwork. IT’S TIME was spelled out in the girl’s blood on the sheets beside her head.

  The scene flickered again, like it had when it had begun the previous night, and then it disappeared, replaced by the restful nothingness of deep sleep.

  ********

  The next day, I felt a little more rested, but the dreams I’d had were bothering me in a way that I just couldn’t shake. It was more than just that left-over haunted feeling you sometimes have after a bad dream. It was like the dream had somehow planted a teeny, tiny dark seed somewhere deep inside me and it prickled like a splinter.

  I was lost in my own head on the way to school. And I still hadn’t picked a different route, so I’d decided to just cut through the woods sooner and avoid “the scene” by a couple hundred feet.

  When I came upon the sidewalk, I looked to my left. In the distance I could see the yellow tape that surrounded Lisa’s murder site. One piece had come loose and its tail was flapping lazily in the breeze. I was transfixed by the erratic movements of the tape as it was pulled and twisted by the invisible wind. I didn’t hear footsteps until they were upon me.

  “Mercy, right?”

  I whirled around. Jake was standing about three feet away, looking over the top of my head. He was staring at the cordoned-off area, too.

  “Yep. And you’re Jake, right?” As if I didn’t remember. Ha!

  Jake brought his attention back to me and smiled. “Right.” He held my gaze for a few seconds then looked back toward the rock where Lisa died. “Did you know her? Lisa?”

  I shrugged. “Not really. I had a class with her, ran into her a few times here and there.” Then, just out of curiosity, I asked, “Did you?”

  Jake looked down into my face. His eyes bored deep into mine yet I could tell he wasn’t really seeing me. He nodded slowly, sadly. “Actually I knew her very well. We’d been dating for almost a year.”

  I gasped. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” I hadn’t known the details, but I’d figured it was something like that. “This must be horrible for you.”

  He nodded again, his eyes once more finding their way to the bright tape down the way. “We were getting ready to break up. But I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that. His comment spawned several questions, but I doubted now was the right time to ask them so I said nothing.

  He continued to stare at the tape, fixated on it like I’d been a few minutes before. I wasn’t sure whether I should try to talk to him or just walk away or what I should do. I thought it would be nice if he would just offer to walk me to school so we could leave the yellow tape behind.

  Just then, Jake’s attention switched back to me and, much to my surprise, he did exactly that. “Why don’t I walk you to school? This can’t be a particularly pleasant trip for you either.”

  Without waiting for my consent, Jake took my elbow and steered me onto the grass, toward the quad. I was silent for the first little bit, marveling over the amazing coincidence of his offer. Then his words shook me from my musings.

  “Are you scared? To walk by yourself, I mean, after what happened?”

  I shrugged again. “I guess not. Now don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t walk this way in the dark, but during the day…”

  Jake looked down at me again, the crease of a frown marring his sweaty forehead. “You’re a brave girl, Mercy Holloway.”

  A chill skittered down my back, making me shiver. Something about the way he’d said that gave me the heebie jeebies. But then he grinned and it was gone.

  The rest of the trip to school was consumed by Jake’s litany of questions. He asked about my classes and how I liked them so far. He asked what I thought of college and if I’d been to any parties yet. He asked if any of my friends had stayed behind to come to University East and where the rest had gone. He asked if my parents were glad that I stayed close and if I’d found a boyfriend yet. Thank God that by the time he got into that, we’d arrived at Fisk Hall.

  “This is me,” I said stopping in front of the big double doors. “Thanks for walking me to school, making sure that no homicidal maniacs could drag me off into the woods to have their way with me.” I smiled, but when I saw the look on his face, I was immediately contrite. “Oh, crap! I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to say. I was just- I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  Jake’s expression softened and he said, “It’s alright. Don’t worry about it.” He took several steps backward, still facing me. “Adios, Mercy Holloway.”

  “Au Revoir, Jake Wheeler.”

  The grin he gave me could’ve stopped time. But it didn’t. He turned and jogged down the steps, hit the grass and disappeared across the quad.

  I made my way to my classroom, lost in thoughts of Jake Wheeler this time. I stopped in front of the seat I’d sat in last week, but all I could see was Lisa sitting in front of me so I moved all the way through the auditorium style aisle and picked a seat on the other side of the room.

  I was early, as usual, so I watched the students as they drifted in, picking up bits and pieces of conversations all around me. One in particular grabbed my attention right off the bat. It was between the three girls I’d heard on Wednesday, the ones talking about Lisa. And they were still talking about Lisa.

  “I didn’t know they were about to break up. I don’t think anybody did,” one girl said.

  “I did. Lisa told me everything.”

  “Then spill, Trinity. What was the deal?”

  “Well, Lisa never would say who, but she was seeing someone else,” Trinity said, lowering her voice.

  “I thought you said she’d never cheat on Jake.”

  “I wasn’t going to tell you. Lisa told me that in confidence.”

  “But she wouldn’t tell you who?”

  “Uh-uh. She took that secret to the grave.”

  “Trinity! That’s a terrible thing to say,” one girl said.

  “But it’s true. Makes you wonder if Jake or the other guy found out and…well, you know.”

  The two girls gasped in unison and looked at one another then back to Trinity.

  “You don’t really think that—”

  “Hey, I’m not saying that either one of them killed her. I just think it’s a pretty big coincidence that Lisa got killed when all this was going down.”

  Just then the teacher came in and the girls sat down, continuing to whisper quietly to one another. So quietly I couldn’t hear, in fact, and believe me, I tried. Their conversation had given me much food for thought, though.

  As Dr. Bradbury droned on through class, my thoughts wandered to Detective Grayson and whether or not he had learned the information that I’d just heard. Obviously Jake didn’t kill her, but what about this other person? Could it have been that Lisa was leaving Jake for that woman and she killed her? Or maybe she’d decided not to leave Jake and the woman killed her in a fit of jealous rage?

  I was itching to call Grayson, in part because telling what could be a vital piece of information was the right thing to do, but also to see if he’d tell me anything else he’d discovered. By the time I walked through the door to my house, I was already punching his number into my phone.

  “Grayson,” he answered.

  “Detective Grayson, this is Mercy Holloway.”

 
“Ms. Holloway,” he said. I could just see him leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. “What can I do for you today?”

  “You told me to call you if I thought of anything else, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you might already know this, but I overheard a conversation in class today. Did you know that Lisa was seeing someone other than Jake Wheeler?”

  I heard the squeaking of his chair and smiled; he probably really was leaning back in it, just like I’d pictured.

  “No, I didn’t. Who was she seeing?”

  “I don’t know. Neither do her friends apparently. But I was wondering if maybe it was a woman. You know, the woman that I saw kill her.”

  “We don’t know for sure that it was a woman that killed Lisa Bauer.”

  “But I saw—”

  “The red hairs that were found weren’t real. They were synthetic. Her killer was wearing a wig.”

  I’d thought it wouldn’t be long until the authorities found and apprehended Lisa’s killer. I mean, how many people could there have been with long red hair that she was involved with? But a wig? That changed everything. It could be anybody. Literally.

  Then I remembered something the girls had said last week. “Lisa might’ve been at a costume party. Maybe it was part of a costume, the wig I mean.”

  “Very good, Ms. Holloway. But do you happen to know what kind of costume party it was?”

  “No, but I could probably find out.”

  “No need. It was a Marvel Masquerade. Everyone was dressed up as a Marvel Comics character. Lisa was dressed as Tony Stark.”

  “Then what character would have long red hair? I don’t know much about—”

  “There are three. Medusa, Jackpot and Black Widow. Unless you count minor characters like Mary Jane Watson.”

  Obviously, they’d made much more headway with this case than I had. I was beginning to think cops got a bad rap on television. These guys were really on top of things.

  “So who attended the party dressed as one of those characters?”

  Grayson was so quiet all I could hear was the buzz of the open connection. When he finally spoke, his tone was cool. “We’re looking into that, Ms. Holloway.”

  I’d overstepped my bounds. Dad was right, he was playing things close to the chest and I’d asked too much.

  “Oh, sorry. I know you probably can’t talk about stuff like that with me. I was just- I thought I’d—”

  “I know you were just trying to help. And I appreciate it. I’ll look into Lisa’s other partner, see what I can find. Thank you for passing this along to me.”

  “You’re welcome. Anything I can do to help.”

  “Keep it up,” he said. His tone was so condescending, I wanted to reach through the phone and slap him. Instead, I cut the conversation short before I did end up getting mad.

  “Alright then. Bye.” I hung up without waiting for a response.

  I sat down on one of the barstools at the island in the kitchen to think. If I could somehow find out who went to that party and what character they dressed as, I could, in theory, narrow down the list of suspects to maybe just a few. Then I’d surely be able to tell who Lisa’s killer was. After all, I’d seen him or her…sort of. There was probably a fair chance that I’d be able to identify the person based on body language or some little thing that wasn’t registering with my conscious mind, but that my subconscious mind had picked up on.

  The ringing of my cell phone startled me. I looked at the screen and it said

  Belize. I don’t know why I had my best friend listed by her full name; everyone she’d ever known had called her Billie since we were kids.

  “Billie!” I answered excitedly. I hadn’t realized until just that moment how much I missed her.

  “Mercy!” She mimicked. “Why are you so happy on a Monday?”

  “I’m not. I’m just glad you called.” I hadn’t talked to her since she left for school almost a month ago. “Sooo, how’s it going up there?”

  “Eh, it’s still school, but let me tell you, there are some smokin’ hot guys in my western civ class. Whew!”

  “Western civ?”

  “Western Civilization,” she supplied.

  “Oh.” I’m sure she wanted to say Duh! “Wonder why?”

  “I don’t know. I guess ‘cause it’s required. Don’t know, don’t care. I just appreciate whoever’s doing the scheduling.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh at her. She’d been more anxious to get a new group of guys to choose from than any other aspect of college life. She’d dated the same guy since her sophomore year and she swears that it nearly ruined her life and tainted all other Arville men for her. Obviously, she has a tendency toward the dramatic.

  We talked for a nanosecond about our classes and then explored at great length Billie’s most promising suitor prospects. As excited as she was, it surprised me when she told me she was coming home this weekend.

  “Not that I’m complaining, but why?”

  “Trust me, it’s not because I want to. Now, don’t get me wrong. I miss the heck outta you, but the rest,” she paused, making a pshh sound. “I could do without. If I didn’t have to pick up all the stuff Mom bought for my dorm room, I’d just get you to come up here instead.”

  “Next time, I’ll come to you. How’s that sound?”

  “Like a plan, Mercury.” That was Billie’s affectionate nickname for me. She didn’t use it all the time, but when she did, it was definitely a term of endearment. “So,” she said. “Tell me everything.”

  I filled her in on all that had happened, minus the tiny part about my vision. She was duly impressed with that amount of action in our small town.

  “Alright, so you find us a party to go to this weekend and we’ll do some investigating while we get our freak on.” At the same time, Billie launched into her best Missie Elliott impression while I chimed in with the music. We both laughed. “Sound good?”

  I wasn’t much of a partier, but this was a special occasion. I really missed Billie. Plus, I could kill two birds with one stone, maybe identify Lisa’s killer. That was sure to make me feel a little bit better about handling the whole situation as badly as I had.

  “I’ll pencil you in.”

  “Pencil me in, huh? I will stab you…with your own pencil. I’m a girl on the edge, Mercury. College changes a person. Don’t push me, woman. Just don’t do it! Please—”

  I interrupted her theatrics, though not with a straight face. “Alright, alright, Daytime Emmy. You got a date.”

  “Super!” she squeaked happily then, in Billie’s truly abrupt fashion, “I’m out. See you Friday.” And the line went dead.

  I shook my head in exasperation, but I was still smiling. It was like surviving a tiny tornado. And I loved it. I really did miss Billie. My week felt brighter already, my mood more optimistic, just knowing that she was coming home. Her call was just what I’d needed.

  As I lay in bed later that night, thoughts buzzed around in my head like dozens of tiny bees. I desperately hoped that I wouldn’t have nightmares. I’d like to get a good, uninterrupted, non-terrifying night’s sleep just once.

  I also really hoped that I’d meet Jake on his morning jog and that he’d walk me to class again. Though it’s probably in the poorest taste ever, the fact that he just lost his girlfriend did not diminish his appeal to me, though respect for his mourning period probably should have.

  Maybe, with his help, I could find me and Billie a good party to attend this weekend, one where I could casually find out who had attended the Marvel Masquerade and how they were costumed.

  Those thoughts led me to Detective Grayson and his warm hazel eyes. They were circling through my mind, teasing me, as I drifted off to sleep.

  ********

  The next three days were bizarre, but in a really good way. Every morning when I got to the sidewalk where I crossed into the grass that led to the quad, Jake was there waiting for me. He said that he ha
ted to think of me having to walk all the way to school alone, what with a murderer still on the loose and all. I thanked him for his consideration, of course, but I really didn’t care what his reasoning was. I liked seeing him so it didn’t matter to me.

  I was learning a lot about him, too, like he’s an engineering major, the captain of the Chess Club and he’s a running back for the UE Talons. He’s originally from Baltimore and he’s a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon (one of the most elite fraternities at school, I’d heard), though he lives off campus in an apartment with two other guys from the football team. He’s as smart as he is good-looking and he’s as funny as he is nice.