I strode home, brimming with courage and determination.
But, I thought as I got back to my house, how can she do this? Penelope is not magical. She used the Yow-Yows but she didn’t raise them herself. What was she going to do – a real-life, run of the mill, actual everyday assault? Maybe when the sprites said that Penelope wanted to raise the storm against me, they were speaking metaphorically. But I didn’t think so.
The answer came when Gloria hammered on my door, not long after I had put the kettle on to brew up some tea. She bounced into my kitchen with a very worried expression.
“You ignored me!” she said accusingly. “I was trying to tell you something!”
“Oh – sorry, this morning when I went out? I thought you were just waving to say hello.”
She fumbled in her bag and showed me a photo on her mobile phone. “What do you think to that, then?”
I squinted at it. There I was, leaving my house. And behind me, further down the street, was a dark blue sports car with the top down. A blonde woman with huge sunglasses was driving while another took photos with a rather nice and expensive-looking camera, one of those that the paparazzi use, with the long zoom lens. It was Sophia and her mother.
“Why on earth is Penelope taking a photo of me?” I said in astonishment.
Then I put two and two together. I stared at Gloria. “I know what she’s going to do with that photo,” I said. “The hyter-sprites said she was going to raise a storm against me, but she isn’t magical. That won’t matter though, with what she’s planning.”
“And that is?”
“She’s going to call up the Hurricane Curse,” I said, and I went cold even saying it aloud.
It didn’t matter where I went. I wouldn’t matter where I was. I could be in a nuclear bunker, deep underground, but the Hurricane Curse would find me and destroy me. It’s not the sort of magic I would do lightly, and it is not the sort of magic that Gloria would ever do. She didn’t even know what it was, and she was shocked when I explained it to her.
“Now she has a photo of me, she will burn it and put the ashes into a bottle with things like sharp stones and shards of glass – the sort of stuff that would do you serious damage if you were pelted with it. She’ll add rainwater and something of her own body like spit. She’d chant any storm-raising curse you like over it, while she shakes it, and the storm will…”
“Oh my god. The storm will rise around you and…”
“Exactly. She has to be stopped, before she gets a chance to begin…”
“Jackie!” Gloria said. “Look!”
I felt it even as she said it. A piece of paper blew past my feet. There was no wind in my kitchen – usually. Now I felt it starting to tug at the hems of my trousers. I leaped up. “I need to be outside,” I said. “If she does this in here, I’m going to be stabbed by my own kitchen knives.” The wind blew harder. A chair shifted, its legs scraping on the tiles. A book was pushed across the table and fell to the floor.
“What do we do?” Gloria wailed.
“It’s going to take me to the cliff-edge,” I said, almost gasping as the words were torn from my throat by random buffets. “She will want this to look like an accident, so she’ll get me to the sea and have me drowned. Can you hear them?” I clung to the worktop edge but the wind was pulling and pushing me, urging me to the open door.
Gloria was totally unaffected, and she went to the door and poked her head out. “The Yow-Yows are calling.”
“I have to undo this spell,” I said with gritted teeth. “But you have to undo Penelope. She will be out there, too. Will you go and get Bernie? Tell her anything, anything that you need, just to make her come.” The wind whirled around my legs and flattened my clothes to my body. “I can’t fight this in here.” A cookbook was hurled from a shelf and bounced off my shoulder. I lost my grip, and was flung towards the door. Gloria grabbed me but it was no use; I rested in her arms for a moment and then was torn away, and out into my back garden. “Go! Now!” I screamed. “Phone her as you go!”
She was already fumbling with her phone as she rushed away.
I needed to fight this for as long as possible, to give Bernie a chance to reach me. I grabbed onto the doorframe with one hand, and struggled with my other hand to try and bundle up my hair into a knot, while I chanted, “Tie up the wind, tie up the storm, let me pass free, bring me no harm.” It was a terrible rhyme and an even worse spell, because my hair was too straight and neat to stay in a messy knot, and I couldn’t do it properly with one hand, anyway. I lost my grip on the doorframe and was buffeted out into the garden. I grabbed the heavy metal patio table, and the feet scraped horribly across the stones as the winds grew in intensity, strong enough now to even shift garden furniture like this.
And then I remembered I had one more thing I could try. But I had to get into my study. I had a door that led straight from the garden into it, and I took a deep breath before letting go of the metal table and flinging myself towards it. I grabbed the door handle and plunged it, pressing myself forwards at an impossible angle as I tried to resist the wind.
There it was. The red cord, with three knots, dropped next to my computer where I had left it. But the wind was following me in here, as somewhere, Penelope was shaking and shaking that bottle. I made a dive for the cord and grabbed it as the maelstrom whirled up around me. I ducked a flying box file, was pelted by pens and hit on the side of the face by a tumbling hole punch, and it stung. I let the wind bounce me back out into the garden, and I was glad I had tidied up my gardening tools, so I was in less danger of being decapitated by a pair of flying secateurs.
Somewhere, out here, Penelope would be watching, I thought, as I clung on to a fuchsia that was protesting mightily. I let go before the roots began to come free of the sandy soil. I rolled almost like a circus act until I hit the side of my wooden shed, and I shielded my face with my arms while plastic plant pots rained down on me.
I couldn’t wait any longer for Gloria and Bernie to appear. I had to stop this storm now, before I was killed by a flying picnic table. The wind was like a roaring now, as it tried to circle around me and pry me away from the shed. I was sure I felt the shed itself shift but it was bolted down, or so I hoped.
“Penelope!” I roared with every ounce of energy that I had. “Penelope! You will need to see me with your own eyes if you want to finish me off!”
The words were torn from my mouth but they carried on the magical wind, and I heard a reply come back to me in the same way. “I’m bringing you out to me.”
The wind jabbed my side. I held the cord tightly in my hand and let myself be pushed out of the shelter of the shed, and now I was tumbling and stumbling along my long garden to the very end. To my right, there was my neighbour’s garden. To my left was open headland, scrubby grass, and in front of me there was a sheer drop as the cliffs took the edge of my land and tore it, year by year, into the sea.
I saw Penelope then, standing on the open ground to my left, and she was untouched by the wind. She had the jar in her hands and she stopped shaking it for a moment.
The wind around me stilled.
She laughed, tipped her head back and started to shake it even more violently than before. I threw myself to my knees, trying to get my centre of balance low to keep me stable, and I held the cord in front of me. I couldn’t raise my hands above my head, because the storm was too strong. Desperately I began to untie the knots in the reverse order that I had created them, while I chanted, “I untie this knot. I make it free. Be still the wind. So mote it be.” As the first knot came loose, the wind around me began to die down. Penelope screamed and shook the bottle even harder. I repeated the chant with the second knot. Now I could get to my feet again. And with the third knot, the storm ceased completely, and the jar slipped from Penelope’s hands and smashed on the ground.
I was stupid to think that this meant I’d won. She wasn’t going to give up so easily. She launched herself straight at me, bursting through the
spindly hedge that was no kind of barrier between my garden and the countryside beyond. She came at me with her hands outstretched and her long-nailed fingers curled like talons. She grabbed my shoulders and I fell backwards as she screamed a long list of rather inventive curse words at me. I tried to elbow her in the face, just to displace her, but she was full of fury.
Suddenly she squeaked and went rigid. She fell forwards and completely smothered me. She was hauled off me, like a sack of potatoes, and the sky was darkened by the figure of my sister. She was holding a Taser in her hands, and the two long curly wires were lodged in Penelope’s back.
“Whoa!” I said, impressed. And then, because I am still a journalist and this means I have an endlessly enquiring mind, “How is it that I didn’t get a shock?”
Penelope muttered and mumbled, and began to writhe and twitch. Bernie leant down and removed the Taser prongs, neatly handcuffing Penelope at the same time. “The current passes between the two points and finds the shortest route. Don’t make me do science. I need to read this lady her rights.”
I clambered to my feet, and then felt dizzy, and sat back down again. Gloria was at my side in an instant, suffusing me with fuzzy warmth.
I sagged against her.
“Thank you.”
Chapter Nine
“You again,” muttered the world’s most unfriendly desk sergeant in the custody suite of the local police station. “I don’t even need to take your details. We have a file on you now. It’s headed ‘suspicious woman keeps finding murderers’.”
“You ought to thank me,” I retorted. “In fact, I should be on your payroll.”
“Go and wait in there.” He nodded to a small side room.
“Aren’t you going to offer me a coffee?”
“I’m heartless and cruel, but not that bad.”
He had a point. The machine vended the worst kind of sludge.
Gloria was interviewed separately, and then it was my turn. We started formally, with the session being recorded, and then Bernie switched it off and the other police officer was sent off into the high street to buy a few cups of drinkable coffee.
“Tell me the actual truth,” she said.
When I had done, she filled me in on what had happened with Penelope. “She has confessed,” she told me.
“But why? I mean, yeah, I knew she was guilty right from the start – yes I did! – but why? That was the thing that confused us all. What was her motive?”
“Jealously,” Bernie said.
“You are kidding me.”
“Nope. Everyone loved Corey, right? That was the problem. Her daughter Sophia was getting older, and no one had proposed to her. Being the doting mother, Penelope couldn’t see that maybe it was bad luck – or Sophia’s rather less-than-winning personality – that meant she was single. Instead, she focused on Corey, who always stole the limelight at parties and events. Everyone flocked to speak to Corey, not Sophia or Penelope. She was eaten up with resentment, in the end.”
“Did Sophia and Alex know what she did? Were they in on it?”
“No, not quite. Sophia found out once you exposed Corey and Zach’s little sideline. She was all for prosecuting, remember? Then Penelope told her everything, and explained why the police could not be poking around at the manor. That’s why Sophia changed her mind. She tried to run, thinking she’d be arrested as an accomplice after the fact – but we’ve got her in custody now. She didn’t get far.”
“And Alex?” I asked. “I know he was a bit of a lothario but he was genuinely upset.”
Bernie nodded sadly. “He knew nothing. He is distraught, as you can imagine. He’s lost his wife, and now he finds out it was at the hands of his mother. He is going to need specialist help.”
“Oh, it’s just awful. And poor Corey. She might have had her faults, but she didn’t deserve to die.”
“Alex will move on, and she won’t be forgotten,” Bernie told me.
“Damn right she won’t,” I said.
But I didn’t mean what she thought I meant.
Gloria and I went out to the beech grove the next day, in the late afternoon, but well before it got dark. We staggered along slowly, because I was pushing a wheelbarrow full of items, and she was carrying three bits of driftwood and a bottle of Prosecco.
At first the woods seemed deserted. We didn’t mind. We placed the driftwood in various snug little places, nestling at the bottom of trees, half hidden by undergrowth and bushes. They were Corey’s old work, beach-combed wood that she had collected and polished and carved, ever so subtly. She had been inspired by the hyter-sprites so it seemed only right to bring them here.
The wheelbarrow was full of smaller sculptures. I hung them from branches and hid them in hedges.
“They’re here!” Gloria said suddenly, a fraction of a second before I felt their approach. We opened the Prosecco with a pop, and tipped some into little plastic cups that we’d arranged in a circle, with some small round loaves of bread that I had made. I’d baked gratitude and love into every one of them.
The long-limbed creatures surrounded us, and tugged us to the ground, where we sat on mounds of leaves and pine needles. They were hard to see directly, especially in the daylight, but with our eyes half-closed we could just about perceive the spindly fingers picking up the drinks, and tearing up the bread, and sharing the food around. We drank the alcohol too, and very soon the air was filled with tiny golden sparkles, and something was singing a song without words, and everything seemed all right.
I don’t know much about the afterlife and it’s not my path to walk, but I felt sure there was another presence with us that afternoon, and it was Corey. I raised a toast to her and the hyter-sprites responded, and I knew that wherever her soul was to wander next, she would not be alone.
The End
Want to read more about Jackie and her friends? Find her online here and discover other books by Molly Milligan – The Everyday Witches of Wildham-on-Sea, and The Celtic Witch Mysteries.
About Molly Milligan
Hi! I’m Molly Milligan and I write paranormal mysteries that are full of fun, magic, cats and … well, murder.
I currently have two ongoing series for you to explore. The Celtic Witch Mysteries are set in rural Wales, roughly around the county of Ceredigion. Wales is a country with a strong sense of identity – its own language, culture and history. Don’t ever call it part of England! I spent many happy years studying, living and working in Aberystwyth, West Wales, and these tales draw on my experiences there.
The other series is The Everyday Witches of Wildham-on-Sea, taking place on the Norfolk coast. Norfolk is a strange and rural county of Eastern England. These stories are warm, light and use the legends and tales of East Anglia as their base.
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A Tail of Merdur
Morgana Best
Summary
Australian journalist Misty Friday has several problems, not the least of which is her name. Misty's mean boss sends her to an island resort in the Great Barrier Reef to investigate one paranormal event, but Misty discovers more than she bargained for, like mermaids. And murder.
When Misty makes waves, she attracts the attention of the murderer and one mysterious stranger. Will Misty keep her head above water and solve the murder, or are there too many red herrings?
The author has used Australian spelling, so for example, realise instead of the US spelling realize, towards not toward; learnt not learned - and numerous others. These are not mistakes or typos, but correct Aussie spelling.
Chapter One
I liked my boss just fine, except she was evil and I hated her. My best friend and colleague, Melissa, and I called her Skinny. She was the devil incarnate, the worst boss I’ve ever had, and that was saying something. It was saying a lot, especially since my first job was at a fast food joint where the manager was arrested for murdering
his mother-in-law and making her the special ingredient in our hamburgers.
It seemed Skinny’s whole purpose in life was to make my life and the lives of the other journalists at Ghoulzette, the paranormal magazine where I worked, an utter misery. She was indeed the Boss from Hell.
A thin-lipped smirk spread across her face. I made a mental note to inquire after the health of her mother-in-law.
“I’m sending you on a holiday, Misty,” she announced.
I managed to find my voice. “A, a holiday?” I stammered. A cold shiver ran up my spine.
She shook her head and shot me her best sneer. “Did I say a holiday? No, I meant an assignment, but it is at a holiday destination. Whitehaven Island.”
I gasped. Whitehaven Island was in the Whitsundays, a group of islands on the beautiful Great Barrier Reef off the coast of North Queensland. It was an expensive tourist destination, possibly the most expensive tourist destination on the reef. “What’s the catch?” I said without thinking and then stuffed my fist in my mouth.
Skinny’s pencilled eyebrows rose high on her forehead, no doubt a difficult feat considering she spent most of her money on fillers and Botox. “Catch?” she spat. “This won’t be a luxury holiday for you, and don’t you forget it.” She rapped one of her French tipped fingernails so hard on the desk I thought it might snap off. “There’s a paranormal anomaly on the island, and you’re there to get to the bottom of it and report. And Misty, don’t slacken off.” Her expression turned dark.
Now I was really afraid. “An anomaly?” I said, trembling. “What is it? Are there reports of zombies? People vanishing? A deadly virus?” I shut my eyes tightly and did my best not to imagine anything worse.
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