What The Cat Dragged In (The Celtic Witch Mysteries Book 1)

by Molly Milligan

  Maddie was upon us by then, dodging around the flailing Polly. “Oh my gosh, CSI, like for real?”

  “Ah, well, no, CSI is really nothing like CSI,” Adam said. “I shall have to ask you to step back out of the garden, Miss … Ms …”

  “I’m Madison Grace, Bron’s cousin.” She thrust out her hand. “Call me Maddie. Bron, what’s going on?”

  “I’m cold. I’ll tell you everything in the kitchen.” I flashed a glance back at Adam. “I can tell her everything, can’t I?”

  “I am pretty sure there are literally no important state secrets currently revealed by the position of the body,” he said.

  “THE BODY!” Maddie squealed, half in fear and half in excitement, and I had to actually put out my arms to stop her hurling herself across the garden to take a closer look at what lay beyond the police tape.

  “Don’t panic,” I said. “Come inside …”

  Six

  We stayed up late that night, the three of us, talking about the body in the undergrowth. Maddie also wanted to talk about Adam, the “hot cop”, and that made Dilys laugh like a blocked drain.

  “They like each other,” Dilys said.

  “Oh my gosh, you’re, like, dating?”

  “Oh, no, that would be far too sensible,” Dilys said. “Both of them are stupider than a pig stuck in mud. Not a brain cell between them when it comes to romance.”

  “Maybe they need a little push,” Maddie said. Both of them were staring at me across the kitchen table, and I found it very unnerving.

  “Oh, I’ve pushed,” Dilys said with an air of disappointed resignation. “I’ve all but shoved them into a cupboard with a wedding magazine and a bottle of wine.” She shook her head. “Best to leave them be.”

  “I am here, you know. I can hear you. Do you mind?”

  “No, not at all,” Dilys said.

  Maddie was a little nicer. She patted my hand. “Don’t you worry,” she assured me. “I’ll soon straighten you out.”

  “I do not need straightening out!”

  “Do you have Sephora here?”

  “Is that a kind of food?”

  Maddie sighed as deeply as Dilys had just done, and glanced at my aunt, and shook her head very sadly, as if I was a lost cause.

  “Listen, the pair of you,” I said crossly. “There is a dead body in our garden. Dilys, when was that patch of land ever last cultivated?”

  “I can’t remember that it ever was. You’re the first in the family to be so connected to the soil,” she told me.

  And on the conversation went, in circles that got nowhere, and even after sharing a bottle of wine, we were no further on, and we all went to bed in a confused and dream-filled haze.

  ***

  I dreamed, of course, of the skeleton. He came to me walking upright and as he approached, his bones fleshed out and were covered once more by clothing, solidifying over him in layers – a dark blue tracksuit, and a grey marl t-shirt underneath. His hair was grey with brown flecks, and he grinned at me. As he got closer and closer, the flesh melted again from his bones until I was left with nothing more than a laughing skull a few feet from my face.

  I spent the rest of the night fitfully awake.

  Maddie had also slept badly. Her eyes were pink and she had a sagging crease to her face that spoke of tiredness. “Jetlag,” she told me, shortly, and I knew it was more than that.

  But, seriously, we had just turned up an actual dead, deceased, no longer living body in the garden – who wouldn’t have troubled dreams?

  Oh, Great Aunt Dilys, obviously. She breezed through the kitchen and demanded a full fried breakfast. “It’s cold out,” she informed us. “I will need my strength, isn’t it.”

  I obliged, slapping a variety of meats into the frying pan on the Aga. Maddie refused anything but a cup of strong coffee. “What do you need your strength for?” she asked.

  “Dragging this ancient body through yet another day of unremitting toil in the face of unending, uncaring ingratitude from those who are supposed to love me the most…” Dilys said in a plaintive whine.

  “She’s mad because I haven’t fried her an egg,” I told Maddie. “Look, Aunt, you have bacon and sausage here, and fried bread, and beans, and mushrooms, and I’ll do some toast.”

  “Eggs are an essential source of calcium. If I break a hip, who’s going to look after me?”

  “Oh, just put more milk in your tea,” I said, but I went to get an egg from the box in the utility room. “I’m more worried about the state of your arteries than the state of your bones…”

  My mumbled litany faded from my lips when I stepped into the coolness of the utility room. The animals in their cages rustled and came to the bars to peer at me. I’d already seen to them: they were fed first, as a matter of course. The injured mouse had been released, and so had the badger. The snakes were happily asleep, but the robins were fluttering and agitated. It was nearly time for them to leave me, too.

  But there was something else in the small room. I shivered. It was only attached to our house by one wall; the other three walls were half-glazed and it was a gloriously light room, but always cool as it was on the north side of the house. I wouldn’t put animals in a south-facing glass room. There was a big stone sink, the washing machine, and a pile of wellington boots that would never offer up a matching pair. There was nowhere for anyone to hide.

  Yet I could feel someone there. I couldn’t see anything so I closed my eyes and used my other senses. I heard nothing but the robins. I smelled nothing but the usual mix of hay, droppings, warm fur, soap suds and something earthy that always lingered in the corners.

  “Who is there?” I whispered, and a finger touched the back of my neck, lightly.

  I nodded in acknowledgment. “Hello. What’s your name?”

  “Maaaaadison,” said my cousin in a low voice and I whirled around.

  “Duw! Maddie, was that you touching my neck?”

  “Yeah, sure. How did you not scream? I woulda literally peed my pants.”

  “I didn’t know it was you.”

  “What, so you woulda screamed if you knew it was me, but because you thought it was a ghost or something, you were fine with that?”

  “I didn’t think it was a ghost. Well, not until you said that. But listen … stand still. Can you feel anything in here? A presence?”

  “Er – nope, no, nothing.”

  I looked down, and then I saw it. The floor had been clean and clear before, but now there was bird seed spilled across the tiles. If I squinted, they almost made letters, but not in any sensible order.

  “Was that you?”

  “What? The mess? No,” she said in a rush and bolted out of there without even looking back.

  “Huh.” I waited a moment longer but the feeling had gone.

  Was Maddie a witch who was scared of ghosts? That was nonsense.

  Had Maddie spilled the seeds? Was it all a joke at my expense?

  I shook my head and came back into the kitchen. The bacon was burning.

  ***

  Dilys had wanted a full breakfast because she had a stall in a nearby town that day. They were running a Mind, Body and Spirit Fair, and she often went to such things to tell fortunes. It was her “thing.” Now I know that sounds a bit hokey, but she really was good at it. She was as much a counsellor as she was a fortune teller. Plenty of folks had tried to catch her out, saying that she was just following a charlatan’s common cold-reading techniques, but I can assure you that she was the real deal. Anyway, she helped people, and that was what counted.

  She pottered off to catch the bus, swaddled in layers of skirts and shawls and cloaks, with a headscarf tied around her head. If you looked closely at the swirly patterns on the fabric, you’d see that the motif was made up of lots of tiny figures, making out. She took a tub with some ham sandwiches, and some of Alston’s cakes that Maddie had brought back from town.

  “What’s the plan today?” Maddie asked. “I mean, uh, what’s yo
ur plan? I don’t want to get in the way…”

  “You’ve told me you don’t want to get in the way about a million times,” I said, laughing as I stacked up the breakfast things by the sink in the kitchen. “I believe you! But I have to ask, and please don’t think me rude, but how long are you staying for?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Until I find myself?”

  “Sorted,” I told her. “You’re right there!”

  “Haha. Yeah. No, I know it’s a real cliché but I feel I need to travel and learn more about the world.”

  “You’ll not learn a lot in this patch of Wales,” I said.

  “Yeah, but it’s kinda scary, leaving home. I thought I’d start here, find my feet, and then make my way to London and then maybe even Europe.”

  That made sense and I was even a little jealous. I was about to make a joke about Wales actually being in Europe, a joke that probably wouldn’t have worked anyway, when there was a light rapping at the back door.

  “I know that knock. Put the kettle on, can you? It’s time to meet Dean, and the main thing about Dean is, he likes his tea.”

  Maddie fumbled with the kettle while I went to let Dean in. Most people around here just walked right into one another’s houses – back door, never the front – but Dean was a nervy sort and easily startled. He’d stumbled into Great Aunt Dilys during her “artist’s model” phase, and the incident had never been spoken of again, but he tended to knock and very deliberately wait outside, these days.

  He was a bespectacled man, mid-twenties, with a long narrow face and floppy dark Hugh-Grant-hair. He was wearing a Doctor Who scarf that could have doubled as a rope swing, and his sexy Sherlock-Benedict-Cumberbatch coat. He was also clutching a bag of Doritos.

  “I heard about your cousin,” he said, “so I thought I’d buy her these to make her feel welcome.”

  “Crisps.”

  “No, chips, see, she won’t understand you if you say ‘crisps’, not if she’s American, isn’t it,” he told me earnestly.

  “Oh, come in,” I said, and led him into the kitchen.

  “Hey there!” he said as soon as he saw Maddie, and I winced at his terrible attempt to be “hip.” “I brought you some, uh, chips. Crisps. Chip-crisps.”

  “Oh, hey yourself,” she said, smiling warmly. “Thank you. That is very kind.”

  He kept hold of the bag of crisps and started to gurgle.

  “Dean, this is Maddie. Maddie, Dean. Sit down, the pair of you. I’ll finish the brewing. So, Dean, what’s occurring?”

  “Uh, Doritos,” he said.

  “Dean, sit down!”

  He let his knees buckle and he sank onto a chair. I leaned my lower back against the rail that ran along the front of the Aga, and folded my arms. If Dean had been a cartoon dog, which in many ways he was, his jaw would have been on the floor and little animated bluebirds would have been circling around his head.

  Maddie simply smiled and sat down on one of the other wooden chairs. “So,” she said brightly, “Bron tells me that you’re a druid! Oh my gosh, that is so cool. So what is it all about?”

  He cleared his throat. “Well, I am a druid, see.”

  I plonked the cup of tea in front of him and snapped my fingers. “She just said that, bonehead.” I turned to Maddie. “I am so sorry. Let me apologise on behalf of my friend. Had a late night with the mushrooms again, did we, Dean?”

  I knew it would rile him enough to prod him out of his painfully lust-filled coma. “That is such a stereotype and you know it’s not true! Please don’t be spreading the usual lies to our newcomer.”

  I grinned and sat down. “I am so sorry,” I said with no humility. “I forget.”

  Dean ignored me and began to address Maddie very earnestly. While he wittered on about the history of druids, and neo-druids, and reconstructed druids, and cultural druids, and “proper” druids such as himself, I tried to sense if that earlier presence I’d felt had returned.

  My mind searched into the corners of the room. There was something hanging over Dean, but it was a warm, fuzzy brown shape which offered no malevolence. I’d detected it before and recognised it as some aspect of his particular art.

  Maddie was a different story. She fizzed, popped and crackled. I tuned in deeper, probing, and was immediately rebuffed, the protective jolt making me jump and sit up straight in my chair.

  But Maddie appeared to have not noticed.

  Whatever surrounded her, was doing so on her behalf – but without her knowledge.

  “So, hey, tell me about this skeleton that you found!” Dean said as his “Druidic Knowledge 101” lecture ended.

  “That’s why you’re really here, isn’t it? Who told you?”

  “I don’t know. I think Pol must have told Dai who told Jenkins who might have mentioned it to my mum and so here I am. And I thought I ought to welcome your guest, too.” He simpered again at Maddie, and I cut him off.

  “There’s nothing to tell. I found an old body and told the police, and they spent all night with a little tent up around it, taking photos, and now they’ve all gone.”

  “So who was it and why were they there?”

  Both Dean and Maddie leaned forward, eager to discuss it.

  I felt strangely light-headed. We’d talked it to death – eww, inappropriate choice of phrase – the previous evening. “We don’t know,” I said, snappily. “What’s the point of speculating?”

  A cold finger touched the back of my neck again, but this time, Maddie was sitting right in front of me.

  “It’s natural to speculate,” Maddie said.

  “I know, but there’s nothing to speculate about.” I stood up abruptly. “I need to check on the chickens.”

  “But-”

  “I am sure that Dean can tell you more about the local folklore here,” I said, and his eyes lit up.

  She glared at me but I was unrepentant. I left her in the capable, if slightly over-keen and damp hands of Dean, while I went outside to do absolutely nothing with the chickens except to avoid more uncomfortable conversations.

  Seven

  The presence came and went all that day. Sometimes it was a touch, and sometimes a light whispering in my ear, the words just out of comprehension. I had been followed by spirits before, though I never quite got used to it. Once, I’d been plagued by a playful Bichon Frise dog ghost for about three weeks. Every sock I owned had been stolen and hidden around the house. Finally he had found his way to the Rainbow Bridge, and I was still finding socks in odd places.

  The presence that followed me now did not seem to be animal. I could not help but connect its sudden appearance with the finding of the skeleton in the garden.

  I could only assume that once the police had done whatever they did with the body, and it had been identified, it would be laid to rest once more – the body, with the presence to follow it.

  I had to hope so. The spot on the back of my neck that it liked to touch was now remaining stubbornly cold.

  But then I thought about Maddie, and the seeds, and the mirror, and her strange energy, and I wondered if the strange things that were happening were all coming just from the ghost alone.

  After Dean left, I went out to visit a few people who had asked for my help lately. I called in to see my old friend Gruffydd too; he always grounded me – but he was out, his house and forge both empty and cold. It was a grey, damp day, and I bundled up well against the chill. Maddie stayed behind and I left her in charge of cleaning out the freshly-vacated animal pens. Infection control was as important as magic circles, I told her somewhat loftily.

  When I got back we had some lunch. Maddie seemed ill at ease. I wondered if she was already regretting her decision to come to Wales.

  I had to admit to myself that it was nice to have someone around to talk to. I suppose that I was actually revelling in my new role as “font of all knowledge”. It was making me look with new eyes at all the things I had taken for granted before.

  But I couldn�
�t ignore her jiggling leg nor her half-shadowed, darting eyes and heavy sighs. Eventually, I said, “Is something wrong? Is there anything I can help you with?” I didn’t add, “What strange and powerful magic have you not told me about?”

  “Yeah. No. Oh, I’m sorry. I guess that homesickness has just hit me, you know? I kinda expected it. I feel all adrift.”

  “You thought you’d feel more connected here, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, sure.” She shook her head. “But I don’t. I keep remembering what you said, or tried to say, when I went downtown for the first time, and you warned me that I’d be the only black person there. And you know, everyone was great and I think you were worried about the wrong thing. I just felt odd. I mean, I’ve been the only person of colour in situations before, but not that much, really, growing up in Oakland. Here, I’m, like, American and new and black. It’s a lot. I kept waiting on someone to say something and nobody did because they were all too polite. And not at all blunt like you had thought they might be.”

  Race was such a difficult thing to talk about. Or at least, it was to me. Maddie was saying things that made me uncomfortable and I didn’t even know why. Perhaps it was because it was all so far out of my experience. Yet this was my own cousin sitting here, and I couldn’t be a coward. “Can I ask you a question?” I said, hesitantly.

  She smiled and nodded. “Sure. Go ahead. Don’t ever be scared of wanting to know things.”

  “You called yourself black … well, uh, we’d say mixed race, here. Is it not the same in the US?”

  “Ahh, right. Dual heritage? Yeah. There’s a bit of a history in the states, you know, the whole ‘one drop’ rule. In some places, if you had any black ancestry at all, it was enough to condemn you. Like, literally condemn you. It was all very … uhh, well, black and white, you know?”

  “But now…”

  “Now, we’re still so influenced by then. Growing up, it was like, I was in situations where I had to make a choice. Like, who do I sit with? Who do I align myself with? Ugh, I don’t want this to turn into some kinda lecture, you know? But basically there’s a whole lot of resistance to the ‘mixed’ thing, like it’s diluting the solidarity of being black in a white-dominated world. And no one is ever gonna look at me and see anyone other than someone who isn’t white, so there’s that.”