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

by Molly Milligan

  The actual effect was one of stomach cramps.

  “I am very sorry to be here in such a capacity,” she began.

  I tensed. Had someone been in an accident? Had someone – died?

  No. I, of all people, would have known. And Dilys would have known before the victim themselves.

  “I am pretty sure I haven’t been caught speeding,” I said. “What with not driving and all that. I can walk quite fast, though.”

  “This is not a joking matter. Someone has come to the station and made a complaint about you.”

  “Me?” I felt awful all of a sudden. I don’t think I’d ever experienced a proper cold sweat down my spine before, and I’ve dealt with some very odd things. I sat down. My knees had gone all wobbly. “Who?” I asked. “I don’t deal in anything dangerous,” I gabbled on. “If one of my medicines didn’t work, or caused a reaction, why didn’t they come to speak to me? I would have helped.”

  “What?” she said, losing her fake police-school-taught smile. “What isn’t dangerous?”

  “Nothing,” I said, “That’s the point. Although I rely on people being honest with me about the other things they are taking.” I shook my head. “Are they okay? That’s the main thing.”

  Polly pinched the bridge of her nose. “Right, no, look, a member of the public has come to us and told us that you are harassing them.”

  I burst out laughing.

  “This is serious!” Polly said.

  “No, me poisoning someone with belladonna would be serious. And highly unlikely,” I added quickly. “Honestly, Sergeant, I haven’t been harassing anyone. I wouldn’t know how to! Who is it? What are they saying I am doing?”

  “For obvious reasons, I can’t tell you who has made the complaint,” she said. “But she said – whoops, I didn’t say that – they said that you had been asking them, and their family, upsetting and intrusive personal questions. That you had targeted their own father – I mean, relative. And that they had pleaded with you to stop.”

  Rachel damn-her-eyes Harris.

  And yes, I could just about see where she was coming from.

  Of course, I had to deny everything, because that’s what you do in the face of such accusations, isn’t it? “Unless you tell me who it is, I can’t really answer you,” I said, trying to sound cool and blithe. I channelled my inner mobster. I didn’t think I had an inner mobster, but you don’t know until you try, right? “It’s all nonsense, anyway.” My acting got a little carried away as I waved my hand in the air and stared up at the ceiling, affecting nonchalance. “I am most categorically” – ooh, that sounded good, especially in my Welsh accent which pronounced each syllable very distinctly – “not targeting anyone nor am I asking anyone personal questions. Unless you have hard evidence, I suggest you look elsewhere. This is just a silly spiteful unfounded slur.”

  “Yeah but you are, though,” Polly said.

  Er, no, she was just supposed to accept my denial.

  “I am not.”

  “Yes, you are, see.”

  “Am not!”

  “You are, and you have to stop it.”

  We glared at one another across the table. Was this the height of interrogation techniques? This was modern policing, was it? No wonder Adam got so stressed from time to time.

  Although, as he had admitted, his colleagues – such as Polly Jones herself – caused him more hassle than the offenders he was dealing with.

  “I will take your advice on board,” I said stiffly. It sounded good even if we both knew it was meaningless.

  “Good.”

  Seven more seconds of staring.

  Then Harkin flashed into my mind. He was not far away and he was bringing me something that was both angry and injured.

  “Oh, not another badger,” I groaned.

  “I beg your pardon?” Polly said.

  “I’m sorry,” I told her. “I’ve got business to attend to.”

  “I see.”

  Three more seconds. Was she expecting me to break down in tears and confess all? Then she stood up. “Thank you for your time,” she said, and I showed her to the door.

  ***

  I stood in the utility room. Polly had been gone for five minutes. I checked on my animals. I was feeling stretched thin. I was doing as much healing work as I’d ever done, but now I was also dating – and worrying about dating – Adam. I was spending time with Maddie, which I really enjoyed. And I was trying to help the ghost of Robert Cameron. All these were great things to be doing, but I needed more hours in the day. When was the last time I’d walked alone on the hills? When was the last time I’d walked the Night Roads – barring that ill-fated quest for Robert Cameron?

  I could barely remember.

  I leaned against a white-painted cupboard and noticed it was scuffed and shabby. I had chores around the house to do, too. The garden still needed digging. Spring was coming, and would not pause to let me have a day off.

  Then my stomach rumbled and I realised I hadn’t even had my morning cup of tea, never mind any food.

  Harkin called into my mind again. I shook myself and stood up straight. I had a duty, a calling; like I’d told Adam, I had to use my gifts in honour of Those that had gifted them to me. It was no use complaining about it.

  So I threw a protection around myself, begged the spirits of place for strength and resilience, and opened the back door to let Harkin and his injured charge enter the house.

  I nearly closed it again.

  A very large, and very confused Rottweiler staggered in, bumped against my legs, and slithered to the floor in a six-stone heap of trembling dog.

  I had work to do. My breakfast would have to wait.

  Twenty-four

  I fell to my knees and watched the dog closely. I’d learned, the hard way, to take a few moments to observe what was going on. Reaching out to a distressed animals was an easy way to lose a finger, or worse.

  Harkin stood at the door and began to lick his paws.

  I tuned in to the dog. It was a male, and relatively young, and he was breathing. I half-closed my eyes and tuned in to the other senses. I could not hear whining. I could not smell anything rotten or bad. I wasn’t going to taste the dog, of course, but now came touch – very slowly and tentatively, watching the dog closely. I murmured nonsense as I worked, letting the dog know where I was, humming out a ceaseless calming litany. Gruffydd had once told me this was one of the secrets of the Horseman’s Word, the fabled way that a whisperer would have control over his animal.

  “It’s no secret,” he had said. “It’s plain politeness, that’s all.”

  “And that’s it?”

  Then he’d looked shifty. “It’s a part of it,” he had replied, and never mentioned it again.

  I suppose my magic was my own version of the Horseman’s Word. I rubbed at the dog’s ears and applied a firm sweeping massage from the base of his neck along his spine, mimicking the action of a mother dog licking her puppies to calm them. He responded, and within a few minutes he had nuzzled me with his nose and given me the tiniest lick on my hands. It was enough for me to see his lips and tongue were healthily pink and he did not seem to be in any immediate danger. It was possible that he was simply exhausted and lost.

  I sat back on my heels. Fluids, then, and some light food, and a safe place to rest. I could detect no pain or hotspots on him.

  Something smacked me on the back of the neck and I fell forward with a yell. The dog’s eyes opened and Harkin rose up, his back arching.

  I twisted my head around.

  There was nothing there.

  Nothing but the skin-prickling presence of the ghost of Robert Cameron.

  “Stop that!” I said very harshly and I heard the dog whimper for the first time. When I looked back at him, his eyes were showing white and he was licking his lips.

  He was terrified.

  Of my shout, or of the ghost?

  I got to my feet and tried to push the ghost back into the kitchen. Um,
yeah, so have you ever tried to apply force to something that you can’t see, and that does not have a corporeal body? So that didn’t work very well.

  “Get back in there,” I hissed to him, and plunged forward, through the disturbance and back into the kitchen. I hoped that he would follow me.

  Walking through the ghost was like swimming through slimy spikey cold seaweed. When I got into the kitchen, I turned and I could see from the slight mist that he had come in behind me.

  That was a new one. He was becoming visible now.

  The air was rippling like in a mirage.

  “I just want to get some breakfast!” I told him angrily. “And I’ve got a poorly dog out there that needs help. Won’t you give me a moment’s peace?”

  A chair fell over, its wooden back slamming onto the tiled floor.

  “Huh. Apparently you won’t,” I said.

  I grabbed a bread roll and started to butter it, but then the ghost was right up behind me and breathing on my neck. Not that he had any breath but the effect was the same. It’s fairly gross and unsettling when a live human does something like that, so you can imagine how delighted I was that a spirit of the undead was doing it. I shuddered and eventually I had to step away.

  “Leave me alone!” I summoned up as much protection as I could, but I was tired, and hungry, and energy can’t come from nowhere. My defences were wavering. I crammed some of the plain buttered bread into my mouth. “Let me sort the dog out and get a cup of tea, at least.”

  Another chair smacked onto the floor. Then the cold tap started to run. I grabbed it and twisted it tightly shut. “I know, I know!” I said, though I didn’t know a thing. “Give me a minute!”

  Abruptly the presence vanished.

  I stamped back out to the utility room where everything was panicking. Wings beat against cages, and there was a slithering hiss from the grass snakes who should have been oblivious to everything for a while yet. The dog still lay on the floor and there was no way I could lift him anywhere. I piled up blankets and cushions around him, hoping that he would get the energy to drag himself onto them. I put a bowl of water by his head and another bowl of plain cooked chicken and rice. It wasn’t the best food for a dog but it was good when they needed something light. The smell soon got his nose wrinkling. I hand-fed him a few chunks of meat and he was happy to accept the food.

  Then the ghost drifted through the room again, and there was another blow to the back of my neck. The dog half-growled and half-whimpered.

  I got to my feet in fury. “This is not fair!” I exploded, and ran out into the garden. “Follow me out here, then, where you can’t do any damage!”

  He did follow me. I ran up the uneven stone steps and onto the grassy area at the top. We called it a “lawn” but that was dreadfully optimistic. In February it was nothing more than a squidgy mud-bath where I’d scatter seed for the ground-foraging birds like thrushes and dunnocks.

  To my right were fruit bushes, now just bare branches and twigs with just the promise of new growth showing faintly on them. Ahead of me was a ragged hedgerow and also my willow cave. To my left the garden was more and more wild, ending at the churchyard wall where I’d first found the body amongst the shrubs and trees.

  The ghost tugged at the back of my jumper. I was suddenly aware that it was cold outside and I didn’t have a coat on.

  I turned around. Out here, his mistiness was harder to spot. I folded my arms and squinted but although I could feel his presence, I could see nothing against the backdrop of our long low house.

  A movement in a window caught my eye. It was Maddie’s bedroom upstairs. I could see her up there, watching me.

  I raised a hand. She waved back. But there were things around her, dancing in the air. She batted one away with an almost unconscious gesture.

  She really needed to come to terms with, and work with, her new-found tradition. Fairies, Faeries … I shook my head. I still couldn’t get beyond the idea of rainbow-winged flowery things.

  “Right, Mr Cameron,” I said aloud to the not-quite-empty air. “I know you’re getting desperate. I promise you I’ll find a way to help you, but you have to make more effort too. I need you to communicate with me. Throwing chairs around is all very well, but we have to look at a more effective way. Give me a little more time. Please?”

  “Sounds like a song.” Dean’s voice startled me, even more so for coming from behind me.

  “What are you doing in the hedge?” I said.

  “I’m not in it,” he protested, clambering over the stone wall and fighting his way through the bushes. “Well, yes, I am at the moment … ah. No, I was just walking up on the hill and I saw you in the garden so I thought I’d come and say hello. I took the most direct route. Aren’t you cold?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s February.”

  “No.” He flapped his long arms and looked slightly silly. “I mean, why are you in the garden without a coat on?”

  “The ghost chased me out.” I sighed heavily. “Oh, Dean, I don’t know what to do. He is getting worse, and Maddie is finding her path but it’s early days, and I’ve even had a visit from the police this morning because Rachel Harris says I’m harassing her. I’m going to get some kind of restraining order on me at this rate. What am I supposed to do?”

  He looked very sad. “I really have no idea,” he said. “This is not my area of expertise. Can’t you do a banishing spell on him?”

  “I don’t do spells. Nor do I do banishment,” I said. “You almost always end up sending things away that you need. Or attracting something worse to fill the void. I want to help him.”

  “You help animals and people. Maybe it’s not for you, helping ghosts as well. You can’t help everyone.”

  “Helping the dead is important, and part of what I do. And I have to do something. What’s the alternative? Do I put up with being haunted for ever? That’ll really attract the men, won’t it?”

  Dean flapped his arms again, his usual awkward gesture. “You don’t need to attract men. You’ve got Adam.”

  “I suppose,” I said, glumly.

  “Don’t let your own brain get in the way of a good relationship,” Dean instructed me. “He likes you very much. Stop being an arse.”

  “I am not! What about you, hey?” I dropped my voice. “I really don’t want to upset you, but I have noticed you are keen on Maddie, and…”

  “I like her,” he said, and his eyelids fluttered as his gaze slid away. “But I am perfectly aware that she doesn’t fancy me at all.”

  “Oh. Right. I am sorry…”

  “It’s fine,” he said, and shrugged. “I’ve had lots of practise.”

  “You’ll find someone,” I said.

  “I’ll keep looking.” He grinned at me. “Anyway, I’ll get on.” He turned around and headed back through the bushes and scrambled over the wall again.

  I called out after him. “Dean! You won’t find many women lurking in the fields and woods, you know. If you want to find someone maybe you’re looking in the wrong places.”

  “Not at all,” he said, from his perch atop the wall. “It is more unlikely that I’ll find someone out here, but it’s an awful lot more likely she’ll be just like me.” He waved at me cheerily and jumped down.

  I wasn’t sure that a woman just like him would be his ideal match.

  With a deep breath, I made my way back to the house. I was freezing cold now. As I entered the utility room, I found Maddie on the floor with the ill Rottweiler who had managed to drag himself into the nest of soft things I’d left for him. She was feeding him just like I’d done and he was accepting it willingly. When he noticed me, he thumped his tail on the floor and my heart melted.

  “Hey boy,” I said, letting him sniff my outstretched fist. “Who are you and where are you from?”

  “No collar, no nothing,” Maddie said. “Poor guy.”

  “I’ll call by the vets,” I said. “They have a handhel
d scanner thing. One of them can come over when they get a moment, and scan him to see if he’s microchipped. How are you?”

  “I’m okay. You?”

  “Yeah.”

  We looked at one another.

  “We’re not okay, are we?” Maddie said.

  I almost laughed. She was right. “I can barely stay in the house. The ghost is after me.”

  “Same here, with the addition of the Fair Folk who are stepping up their campaign,” she said.

  “Are you scared?”

  “Shitting myself,” she said, and I was shocked as she hadn’t used bad language before. “Oh my gosh, I am sorry.”

  “I’ve heard worse. What are you going to do?”

  “A crash course in Faerie Lore. The World Under the Hills is dangerous and I can’t do this by half measures. I keep thinking I wish I’d never discovered that this is to be my path.”

  “No, I wouldn’t have chosen it either,” I said, “but stick with it.”

  “I don’t have a choice! They are aware of me now, so there is no going back.”

  As if on cue, the door to the kitchen started to open and close.

  I leaped to my feet. “No!” I yelled.

  The only effect was on the animals who grew restless and startled again.

  “Come on,” I said. I grabbed an old gardening coat from the rack by the back door. “Let’s walk and shake all this off.”

  “We can’t. We will be followed wherever we go.”

  “Hmm. Follow me.”

  I led her out into the garden and headed to the back left hand side. “This is where you found him!” Maddie said.

  “Indeed. Keep coming.” I got to the churchyard wall. “Up and over.”

  We climbed over the wall. If I had seen someone out and about climbing a drystone wall I would have wanted to throw something at their heads. It was a terrible tourist crime and caused a lot of damage every year. Danger, even, as livestock could then get free of their fields and run across roads putting lives at risk.

  But as I was local I had always considered myself exempt from such countryside rules.

  “Now where?” she asked.

  “Right here,” I said. I led her into the centre of the graveyard and stopped by a mossy sarcophagus. The names had long since eroded away. “This is one of the safest places I know, in any tradition.”