by Tegan Maher
We walked around in the circle to the tune of Big & Rich songs until we'd both won a cake, then headed over to the food tent to check out our options. My stomach growled as grabbed a paper plate and pulled tinfoil off some mouth-watering dishes. The one thing about throwing a party in the South is that you never have to worry about running out of food. You don't even have to ask people to bring a dish, because it's just bad manners to show up empty-handed.
We pulled a couple of lawn chairs together and ate in silence for a few minutes, mostly because neither of us had eaten anything since the cookies earlier.
Hunter broke the silence. "Soo ... I noticed you ladies came out looking a little spooked—pardon the pun—when people started showing up. Anything I should be worried about?"
I about choked on my potato salad, then used the coughing fit to decide how to answer. He was looking at me expectantly, and I believe I've already mentioned that I'm a horrible liar.
I took a deep breath. In for a penny, in for a pound. "I don't know if you should worry, exactly," I hedged.
He wrinkled his forehead. "Out with it, Noe."
"Okay. There's a spirit running around loose—we think—and it's been trying to communicate with me all day. But it said, through the Ouija board, that we didn't need to worry tonight."
Wow. That sounded a lot more gullible than it had felt at the time.
He stared at me for a minute, digesting. "Oh. Well, if the Ouija board told you not to worry, then there's certainly no cause for concern, I'm sure."
"There's no need for sarcasm," I snapped. "What else were we supposed to do? People were already showing up. Short of throwing them out and locking the gates, we had no options."
"I'm sorry. That wasn't the best response. I'm trying really hard to absorb all this, but just when I think I've seen it all and can relax, some other supernatural thing happens."
I placed my plate on the ground beside my chair and sighed. The man had to reach his limit sometime, and every time some new hocus-pocusy thing popped up, I wondered if it was going to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
He reached over and pulled me onto his lap. "I know what you're thinking, so stop it. I'm not that easy to run off, but you have to give me some kind of coping mechanism. Sarcasm works for me. Now, let's talk rationally about this ... person."
I smiled. He was in default cop mode, which meant he was already working his way past the weirdness. I explained everything that had happened, starting with finding the pendant.
"So some girl found it on the beach right after a storm."
"Yeah, but not even counting the locals who might report it missing, there are thousands of tourists on that beach in the summer. That's not even needle-in-a-haystack odds."
He puckered his mouth sideways, thinking. "Maybe you're coming at it the wrong way, given the circumstances."
I'd been turning this over in my head all day, looking for a single thread to start picking at, but I wasn’t following his train of thought. "I don't get it."
"Well, you're dealing with a spirit who seems somehow attached to a necklace—"
"Crystal," I automatically corrected.
He waved a hand. "Whatever. A crystal that was found on the beach. You're assuming somebody lost it there, but what if it washed up?"
It took a few seconds for what he was suggesting to sink in, but when it did, it made perfect sense. "You think maybe the girl died on the lake, and that's why she’s attached to the crystal!"
"I'm new to all this, but yeah, that makes sense to me. More sense than some random stranger dropping a crystal with a spirit in it while she was on vacation." He tapped me on the nose. "Honestly, I'm surprised the four of you didn't come up with it right off the bat."
I shook my head; he was right. I had to find Rae and Addy. A blinding bolt of lightning raced across the sky, splintering into several jagged bolts as it hit land. I climbed off Hunter's lap and gathered our plates as the thunder rumbled several seconds afterward. The wind picked up and the temperature started to drop.
"We've got a few minutes, but we need to get ready." I dumped our plates in the trash can, and Hunter darted toward the wagon, which was returning from a ride. He and Shelby helped the kids off, while Cody unblocked the barn doors so they could get the horses and wagon inside.
Folks were coming toward the food tent to gather their dishes, and the few cakes left from the walk were carried into the house or claimed by their owners. That pretty much covered everything; the other games were waterproof. With kids and casserole dishes corralled, families headed toward their vehicles and we made it to the house just as the first fat drops of rain started to fall.
Cody and the rest of the teenagers were relaxing on the porch, picking through the Halloween candy and drinking punch, so I headed inside.
I had to tell Rae and Addy what Hunter had said, but when I turned around to call for them, I saw that all the after-party guests were gathered in the salon, including the ghosts. Anna Mae was chatting with Bobbie Sue, who was lighting the Sterno under the warming tray for her pulled pork.
Bobbie’s husband Earl was standing in front of my rifle case talking to Angus and to Bob, who owned the hardware store. His wife Marge was chatting with Coralee next to the punchbowl as they watched over her grandkids, but moved aside when Shelby came through with the punch.
Belle and Addy were arguing about something over by the fireplace, and Raeann had gone into the kitchen. I followed her, trying to catch Addy's eye as I went. She caught the hint and followed me in. Rae was alone, stirring a batch of mulled cider as it warmed. The smell of fruit and spices filled the kitchen and reminded me I still had to bake the peach crisp. She smiled at me, reading my mind. "I already put it the oven for you. It's been in for about twenty minutes."
"As usual, you're the bomb." She scooched to the side so I could open the oven door and check on it. It still needed another five minutes or so. I moved back so Rae could finish her cider and cleared my throat.
"Listen, you guys. I was talking to Hunter about our problem a little bit ago, and I think he hit on something."
All eyes were on me. "He thinks maybe—"
The kitchen door swung open and Marge and Coralee bustled in. Marge was sniffing the air. "Goodness!” she said. “It smells marvelous in here, ladies. Is that peach crisp I smell?"
I shrugged and widened my eyes at Rae and Addy, who were still staring at me. I couldn't exactly blurt out the problem in front of the town's two biggest busybodies, bless their hearts.
"We just came in to get some cups to put beside the punch bowl," Coralee said.
I reached into the pantry and handed Marge a sleeve of clear plastic punch cups, then reached into the fridge to pull out the rest of the h'ordeuvres. Coralee took each plate from my hands as I took them out and set them on the table behind her. Then she and Marge started pulling the plastic off the tops.
"Goodness, Noelle," Marge said, popping a cold sausage ball into her mouth, “you really outdid yourself on the food, dear.” She wiped her fingers, then continued: "Delicious, but the little olive eyeball on top was a bit creepy."
I rolled my eyes; there was always a "but" attached. I thought about asking them to take the trays out so I could talk to the girls, but that would have been rude. Instead, I stacked the platters along my arm and carried most of them out myself, with Marge and Coralee trailing behind me with the rest.
I returned to the kitchen just in time to pull the crisp out, but by then Rae was in the salon filling the other punchbowl with the cider. Finally, I managed to get her to come back in, an empty pot in hand, and Addy and Belle popped in. Before anybody else could interrupt, I filled them in on Hunter's hypothesis.
Rae shrugged. It seemed like somebody drowned or had a boating accident at least once a year, but we didn't know any of them personally.
Addy had filled Belle in on the situation, hoping for some input. Now they were strangely quiet, communicating silently between themselves. I turned my
gaze to them.
"Oh dear, Addy,” Belle said. “Do you think—"
Addy was nodding. "It could be, but that would be just awful."
"Um, excuse us," Rae said. "Mind filling in the rest of the class?"
Addy pulled in a deep breath, then released it. "Back when we were young, right after that picture on the mantle was taken, there was a horrible tragedy out on the lake. A girl whom we all called Trouble—"
Lightning crashed, causing the house to shudder on its foundation, and the lights flickered twice, then stayed out.
CHAPTER SIX
THE HOUSE FELL SILENT for a split second as we waited for the lights to come back on. When it didn't, people started scrambling.
Bobbie Sue popped into the kitchen and reached for the drawer closest to the sink. "This is still where you keep the candles, right?"
“Yeah,” I said, then heard a crash from the living room. I groaned. "Hold that thought, you two. Rae, we need to go make sure nobody kills themselves in there."
We went out to the living room; somebody had knocked off an empty cake pan that had held cupcakes. Rae started lighting the candles I'd put on the tables for decoration and the glow set the perfect ambiance for the occasion. I picked up the pan and smiled when I saw one of the girls in Shelby's group shining a flashlight up from under her chin.
"Ooh, you know what we should do?" she said, leaning forward in her chair. "We should have a séance!"
A couple of the other girls squealed. "Yes! Let's do it." They were already clearing a space around a large card table. Shelby stared at me, at a loss. I put my hand to my forehead as I felt the beginnings of a migraine. It wasn’t like I'd had an unknown spirit haunting me all day or anything. No, a séance wasn't a horrible idea at all.
I went back into the kitchen with Shelby and her best friend Emma—also a witch—hot on my heels.
"We can just fake it, right?” Shelby said. “I mean, we don't even know for a fact that whoever wrote on the mirror is still in the house, do we?"
I explained what had happened with the Ouija board earlier.
She collapsed into a chair and put her hands over her face. "What are we going to do?"
Emma shrugged. “We'll do exactly what you said; we’ll fake it. After all, they don't have a conduit, and we're not doing the actual ritual, so it'll be fine."
"What will be fine?" Addy asked.
"A couple of Shelby's friends have decided to have a séance."
She looked relieved. "Oh. That's no big deal. There's not a drop of witch blood in the lot of them. None of them could summon their grandmother even if she was alive and well and standing right in front of them. Besides, there's no conduit."
The girl who'd suggested the séance surged into the room and began to dig through the boxes on the kitchen table. "I know I saw a Ouija board in here earlier,” she muttered. “Have any of you—never mind. I found it." She rushed back out of the room carrying it under her arm.
Shelby, Em, and I looked back at Addy, hoping she was still feeling confident.
She shook her head. "Now we may have a problem, ladies."
Belle's gaze darted toward the salon as Shelby followed her friend, calling out to her to wait. I scraped the crisp into a warming pan, determined to wear my rose-tinted glasses until somebody knocked them off, then peeked out the door. The kids had the board laid out in front of them. Several candles were burning in a half-moon around it, but nothing out of the ordinary was going on. So far, so good.
Meanwhile, Belle and my aunt were deep in conversation. "Addy,” Belle said, “if it's who we think it is, we have to tell him. What if something actually happens out there? He needs to be ready."
I spun back around. "Tell who what?"
Addy opened her mouth to respond, but Hunter pushed into the kitchen with Angus right behind him.
"Evening, ladies." Angus paused to take a closer look, wrinkling his forehead in concern. "Is everything okay? Y'all look a little peaked."
Belle managed a small smile. "We're fine, Angus, but—"
One of the girls in the living room screamed, and the clanging of a metal lawn chair hitting the hardwood floor echoed through the room. Hunter pushed open the door. A blinding white light gushed in from the salon.
"Noelle!" Shelby yelled, panicked, as I leapt toward the kitchen door.
"Oh, no," Addy cried. "Angus, you need to stay in here for a minute. We need to talk."
I pushed past Hunter, who had dropped the napkins and was staring at the source of the light along with every other soul—literally—in the room, mouth wide open.
"Angus!" Belle barked one more time in an attempt to keep him in the kitchen, but it was too late.
The girl from the picture was glowing and hovering over the table where the other girls had gathered for their impromptu séance. Angus passed right through me, something a ghost just doesn’t do because, well, it’s rude to walk through people. He glided forward, entranced, until he was floating only a few feet from the table. I followed him, not sure what was happening or what I should do about it.
"Trouble?" Silvery tears slipped down Angus’s cheeks and he reached out to the glowing girl.
She looked down at him and smiled.
The lights flickered back on, and the moment was broken. In the few moments it took for my eyes to adjust to the light, both the girl and Angus disappeared. The teenagers were chattering a mile a minute, but the adults in the room didn’t seem so surprised. It seemed Rae and I were the only people over the age of twenty who didn't understand exactly what was going on.
We stepped into the kitchen, and the four ghosts were hovering over the table: Addy, Belle, Angus, and the new girl. Everybody was hugging and crying.
Angus stepped forward, his hat in hand. "Girls, I'd like for you to meet Sarah James—but we always called her Trouble, because it seemed to follow her."
Trouble smiled. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm sorry for hassling you like I did today—and I’m real sorry about your glass, Addy—but Noelle’s the first person who's been able to see me since my pendant washed up on shore.” She turned to me. “I think I was as shocked as you were when I saw you in the window, then I got so frustrated because I couldn't make you understand."
Angus couldn't seem to take his eyes off her. "Trouble and I were engaged back when we were about your age. I'd just gotten out of the military, and her family had a summer home on the other side of the lake." His voice cracked and he looked away.
Addy stepped in. "We were all supposed to go out on her father's boat to celebrate their engagement. It was storming something fierce that night, but we weren't worried; we figured we'd move the party somewhere else if there wasn't room inside the boat."
Trouble nodded, and gazed into the distance. "Except something went wrong. The skies were clear when we left, but a storm blew in out of nowhere. Lightning struck the boat, and we were taking on water fast. The radio was out. We had no way to call for help." She glanced at Angus. "I remember holding onto the crystal as I was thrown overboard, because I didn't want to lose it. My last thought as I went under was that I wasn't going to get to spend the rest of my life with him."
Angus was tearing up again. "I was devastated. I couldn't eat, but I sure could drink. And then I couldn't stop, because when I did it hurt too much. I never even got to say goodbye."
"So let me get this straight," I said. "You've been locked in the crystal for all these years?"
Trouble nodded. "Yes, because my body was never found. I've been in a kind of limbo since then. Time had no meaning. I was just ... stuck."
Rae shook her head, then picked up a ghost cookie and bit into it. "Well,” she said. “I don't know about the rest of y'all, but this is one Halloween I'll never forget."
"Me either," Angus said, looking into Trouble's eyes. "You girls have given me the only treat I ever wanted."
Other Books in the Keyhole Lake Witches Series
Sweet Murder
Murder to the Max
Connect with Me!
I LOVE TO WRITE, AND staying in contact with my readers helps me create characters and plots that you will enjoy too.
To receive notifications about new releases, deals, and other exciting news, join my exclusive readers group here. I’m a reader too, so if I come across a good deal by a great author, I may share in the weekly update, but I won’t spam you with salesy BS. I may include obscure trivia, though; you’d be amazed what I learn while researching!
If you’re not an email-list person, keep track of what’s going on by visiting my website, www.teganmaher.com, or by following me on Facebook or on my Amazon author page.
And don’t forget: if you enjoyed the book, please come back and leave me a review. It’s helpful to me and to others.
About Tegan
I was born and raised in the South and even hung my motorcycle helmet in Colorado for a few months. I've always had a touch of wanderlust and have never feared just packing up and going on new adventures, whether in real life or via the pages of a great book.
When I was a little girl, I didn't want to grow up to be a writer—I wanted to raise unicorns and be a superhero. When those gigs fell through, I chose the next best thing: creating my own magical lands filled with adventure, magic, humor, and romance.
I live in Florida with my two dogs. When I'm not writing or reading, I'm racing motorcycles with my tall, blond, and handsome half or binge-watching anything magical on Netflix.
I'm eternally grateful for all the people who help make my life what is today - friends, readers, family. No woman is an island.
Table of Contents
Bubble, Bubble, Here Comes Trouble
© 2017 Tegan Maher
CHAPTER ONE