by Roger Hayden
At once, my sisters began to protest. My mother, whose ethereal presence seemed wildly out of place within the station, only gazed around in what seemed like complete sciolism.
“It’s fine,” I said to my sisters, waving them off. “You all go home. I’ll be okay.”
“Are you sure?” Karma, the second eldest of our foursome, asked.
“Yes.”
“You’re coming home straight after, right?” Malia asked, reaching forward to squeeze one of my hands in her own.
“Where else would I go?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time you up and disappeared,” Laurel said.
I gave my youngest sister a light, playful smack. “Hush, you.”
Chief Torres cleared his throat in blatant impatience.
“Go,” I said firmly.
To my surprise, they listened. My mother, however, afforded me a long stern look before she followed them. I wrinkled my nose. The police interview would be nothing in comparison to the conversation I knew would occur between my mother and me later.
“Have a seat, Ms. Summers,” Chief Torres said, gesturing to one of the chairs in the interrogation room. “I’ll be right back.”
I did as told. Torres left the door to the room open. That was a good sign. If he really believed I was capable of murder, he probably would’ve locked me in.
A few minutes later, Torres returned, accompanied by a tall, thin man whose expression seemed to suggest he had just scraped something unpleasant off the bottom of his shoe. He peered at me through a pair of rimless glasses.
“This is Detective Johnson,” Torres said. “He’s just going to ask you a few routine questions about what you saw.”
“Ms. Summers,” Detective Johnson said, nodding at me. “I understand you were discovered at the crime scene.”
“Total coincidence,” I said. “I was just walking through the square.”
He pulled out the chair opposite me, placed a file on the desk, and sat down. Chief Torres stood near the door, his hands clasped behind his back. Detective Johnson scrutinized me from across the table.
“Are you new in Yew Hollow?” he asked.
“New? No, I was born here.”
“I don’t know you.”
“I moved away to go to college when I was eighteen,” I explained. “I haven’t been back since.”
“Summers…” he mused. “You belong to that family?”
“Obviously.”
“And are you a witch?”
“Unfortunately.”
“A yes or no answer will suffice, Ms. Summers.”
I resisted the impulse to roll my eyes again. Detective Johnson seemed to take his job a tad too seriously.
“I understand you found the body,” he continued. He shuffled a few papers around in the file before extracting a photograph and pushing it across the table. I glanced at it, felt bile rise in the back of my throat, and looked away.
“I can’t believe you already have photographs,” I said.
“The reputation of our force relies on our efficiency, Ms. Summers.”
“What reputation?”
Detective Johnson ignored the question and tapped the photograph impatiently. “Do you know this woman, Ms. Summers?”
“No.”
“You’ve never seen her before?”
“I just said I didn’t know her.”
“Just answer the questions, Ms. Summers.”
“No, I’d never seen her before.”
“You claim you found the body,” he said.
“Because I did.”
“There’s dirt on your hands.”
“I fell,” I said shortly.
Detective Johnson stared me down. I maintained eye contact. “When?” he asked.
“When I found her,” I answered, picking at the dirt beneath my fingernails. “I was scared. Finding a dead person tends to have that effect on a woman, you know?”
“And why didn’t you call for the police right away?”
I shrugged. “Shock? Besides, the whole town showed up about two minutes after I found her.”
“Did you see anyone else around?”
“There was a teenaged girl walking her dog. She was the one who screamed.”
Detective Johnson scribbled a note on his clipboard. “No one else?”
“Nope.”
“You said you haven’t been in Yew Hollow for several years,” Detective Johnson stated. “Why did you decide to return?”
“Is that relevant?” I huffed, less than eager to admit my appalling failure at adult life.
“It seems an unusual coincidence that you turn up in town the same day a local woman is murdered,” Detective Johnson said, pushing his glasses up to the bridge of his nose. “Add in the fact that you were discovered at the scene of the crime, and you’ll understand why we have to consider you a very likely suspect.”
Annoyed, I snapped, “Look, am I being arrested? Because, honestly, I spent the majority of the day on an airplane, and I’d really like the time to wash my hair tonight.”
“Speaking of which, what time did you arrive in town today?” Johnson asked, ignoring my aggravation.
“Shortly before five.”
“And where did you go when you first arrived?”
“My mother’s house. I dropped off my bags.”
“Who welcomed you home?”
“Nobody. Everyone was already gone for the town meeting,” I said. Technically, Wren had been home, according to my mother. I’d knocked on the door, having no key of my own, but no one had answered. I’d left my luggage on the front porch and headed into the center of town, hoping to track down one of my sisters for the key. If only I’d waited on the front porch for someone to come home. Then, I wouldn’t be dealing with this mess.
“Then where did you go?” Johnson prompted.
“I went to the town hall.”
“You were at the meeting?” Johnson asked, an eyebrow raised in disbelief.
“Briefly. I walked in just as that Parris dipshit was wrapping up. I left when my mother started talking about the reenactment.”
“Why did you decide to leave?”
“Because I already know the legend. I didn’t care to hear about it again.”
“And where did you go when you left the meeting?”
“Walked to the town square,” I said. “That’s when I found the body.”
More scribbling in his notebook. I waited for a few moments and then asked, “All done?”
“Far from it,” Johnson said.
“Oh, super.”
Chief Torres, still observing from the door, finally spoke. “Johnson, I think that’s probably enough for the young lady today. We can’t hold her overnight.”
Johnson threw a disgusted look over his shoulder at Chief Torres. I was surprised by Johnson’s lack of respect for his superior. Detectives were lower on the food chain than the chief of police, so Johnson’s disregard for Torres’s suggestion implied the hierarchy in Yew Hollow’s police force was a little skewed.
Despite Johnson’s insubordination, Torres maintained his firm demeanor. “Wrap it up, Johnson.”
Johnson cleared his throat. “All right, Ms. Summers, I suppose you’re free to go.”
I stood up quickly and moved toward the door before he could change his mind.
“Ms. Summers? Just remember that you’re at the top of my list,” Detective Johnson said, twirling his pen between his index finger and thumb.
“Get in line,” I said and strolled away.
Chapter Three
In Which Weird Crap Keeps Happening to Me
Once free of the police station, I took a deep breath. I’d managed to keep myself together in front of my family and the cops, but my emotional stability was only so strong. I’d never seen a body before. Dead-and-gone ghosts were one thing. Bloodied corpses were different. I leaned over, bracing my hands on my knees, and focused on maintaining a steady breath. When my racing heart slowed, I began the wa
lk back to my mother’s house.
The Summers house was quite legendary in Yew Hollow. It was one of the first to be built in 1693, when our ancestors first moved here, so it was considered a historical property. It sat at the top of a hill, lording over the town’s mortal occupants. The house was quite large, three stories, and had a wraparound porch with a swinging bench. Red, orange, and yellow trees hugged the property. The stars began to emerge, twinkling above me. Fireflies illuminated the yard and the porch. Had I not grown up in this house, I would’ve considered the scene picture perfect.
The front door flew open before I’d even set foot on the porch steps. My mother emerged from the house’s depths, her arms extended out to me in a gesture that was probably meant to be welcoming. However, as I allowed my mother to fold around me, I only felt a deep sense of uneasiness and guilt. She drew back and held me at arm’s length, her inquisitive eyes inspecting every inch of me.
“You look thin,” she said. “Gaunt, almost.”
“Wow, thanks, Mom.”
“I brought your things inside,” she said, taking me by the arm to lead me up the steps and into the house. “They’re in your bedroom. Oh, I’m so pleased you decided to come home.”
“I wouldn’t have if I could’ve helped it,” I said. “I ran out of money.”
As I stepped over the threshold, a shiver ricocheted off my spine. The house, like the town, seemed to be frozen in time. Nothing had changed. The same coatrack stood gallantly by the front door. The same mahogany table, a noble piece of furniture that could easily seat twenty people, still graced the spacious dining room. The same grand staircase led to the upper levels of the house. Above all, the same claustrophobic press of ancient witchcraft made itself present in my very being.
“We had an early dinner today because of the meeting,” my mother said. “I can heat up the leftovers if you like.”
“Sure, I’m starving. Where is everyone?” I asked, hoping that my sisters would rescue me from the one-on-one conversation my mother was bound to engage me in.
“I’ve asked them to give us some alone time.”
Crap.
I resigned myself to my fate, sinking into one of the high-backed chairs at the dining-room table. My mother disappeared into the kitchen for a few minutes. When she returned, she set down a steaming plate of steak, potatoes, and mixed vegetables in front of me. Then, she drew out the chair opposite me, sat down, and fixed me with a penetrating gaze that I remembered all too well from my youth.
“Just ask what you want to ask,” I said through a mouthful of potatoes and steak.
“Why did you leave?”
I glanced up from my knife and fork. It wasn’t the question I was expecting. In fact, it was the opposite. I thought everyone would want to know why I’d returned to Yew Hollow.
“I needed to,” I replied, at a loss for a better explanation. It was true. At eighteen, I felt suffocated in Yew Hollow, strangled by my family’s reputation. All I wanted was to experience a normal life, one that didn’t involve annual rituals and other peculiarities.
“You left us. No warning or anything.” Her tone bordered on accusatory.
“I told Karma I was going,” I said.
“Ah, yes, your partner in crime,” my mother said. As children, Karma and I had been the closest out of all our sisters, only a year and a half apart in age. We were best friends. “You knew Karma wouldn’t tell us until you were far enough away to consider your escape successful,” my mother continued. “You didn’t even bother to send me a postcard.”
“I kept in touch,” I said hotly.
“With your sisters,” she snapped.
Suddenly, the steak knife wrenched itself out of my grip and slid across the table toward my mother of its own accord. I looked at my mother in shock, breathing hard. Her aura had always been annoyingly serene, even in times of stress or chaos. Yet tonight it slammed into me like a truck, a rusty-red haze around her normally cool-blue presence.
“And Wren,” I said quietly.
My mother scoffed. “The boy, of course. You always adored him for his deficiencies. I never understood it.”
“He’s not deficient!”
“He’s not a witch.”
“He’s still your son,” I growled through clenched teeth. I envied Wren his normalcy but not his relationship with the rest of the family. As a boy, he wasn’t able to inherit any powers, making him obsolete in a coven of witches.
“What good did it do you to leave Yew Hollow, Morgan?” my mother pressed. “Have you found yourself? Do you feel fulfilled now?”
I remained silent, fuming. A few moments passed as I allowed the frustrating feeling of failure burn away in my stomach. I cleared my throat, attempting to level out my voice. “Please,” I said. “I just got home. Not to mention, I’m still getting over the terror of finding that woman.”
The atmosphere in the dining room shifted at once. The rage settled, and curiosity set in instead. My mother said nothing.
“Mom,” I said, venturing carefully. “Was it... was it one of us?”
Our glances met over the table. Often, my mother’s eyes betrayed her deepest of thoughts. At times like these, though, she exercised an uncanny control over her expression. It was a quality that contributed to her mysteriously powerful vibes. She seemed to collect the emotions of others to feed her own strength, without evincing a single snippet of her inner intentions.
Finally, she said, “No, I don’t think so.”
The uncertainty in her voice was obvious. She had to be wondering the same thing that I was. The murder, what with its location beneath the yew tree and the strange details of its execution, was clearly a sacrifice. Historically, witches and mortals alike had dabbled in dark magic—there was an innate obsession with the type of absolute power it was meant to afford you—but the consequences were dire, and no one in our coven seemed so negligent as to attempt it. Still, someone had sacramentally killed a woman, and her death was bound to awaken trouble.
Footsteps creaked down the stairs, interrupting my mother’s pensiveness. Karma wandered into the dining room, approached me from behind, and hugged my shoulders over the back of my chair. I closed my eyes, letting her celestial lilac aura wash over me. Karma had a way with peace. It was my favorite thing about her. That, and the eerily convenient connection that had been forged between us as soon as I’d been born. We understood each other in ways that didn’t make sense. Tonight, she’d come to my rescue, despite my mother’s request that my sisters remain upstairs.
As Karma settled into the chair next to me and stole a carrot from my plate, more footsteps descended. Malia and Laurel soon appeared. It seemed that all three of my sisters had been lying in wait. I imagined them sitting at the top of the stairs, listening to the conversation between my mother and I. My sisters were mature, but not beyond eavesdropping. Now, for the first time in over a decade, all five of the Summers women graced one room. If we were lucky, nothing would implode.
For several minutes, we sat in silence, acclimating to the feeling of so many auras in the same vicinity. I observed each of my sisters in turn. I’d scryed them over the years to keep an eye on them, since scrying was a simple spell that didn’t attract too much attention, but seeing them in person again was different.
Laurel, younger than me by a good eight years, was now twenty. She’d grown into a remarkably beautiful young woman, with long blond hair and my mother’s pale-gray eyes. Laurel’s ability was rare. She could commune with nature on an exceptional level. When she was younger, I often found her sitting outside in the dirt, speaking to the trees. She was a quiet, reserved creature, much better suited for Yew Hollow than I’d ever be.
Malia, who was nearing forty, was the practical sister. As the oldest, she’d always been the responsible one. When our mother was off performing difficult spells, Malia took it upon herself to care for her younger sisters. Her speciality was with objects. She could touch any inanimate thing and know everything about it: w
here it had been, who had used it, and what it had been used for. It made her incredibly difficult to lie to. She was honest and noble. Her personality, as well as her talent, often came in handy when controlling the rest of the coven.
Then there was Karma, of course. She was wild, though my mother never considered her as uncontrollable as me. Her gift was not only unique but also dangerous. She could create voodoo dolls for humans and animals. When we were young, we’d been careless, using her gift to play pranks on other schoolchildren, teachers, and even members of our coven. It had all been harmless fun, until one mischievous deed nearly landed an acquaintance in the hospital. After that, Karma became wary of her power and only used it if a situation absolutely demanded it.
Malia spoke first. “So, how do we address this?”
“Address what?” I asked.
“The kill,” she clarified. “Do we call in the coven for questioning?”
“It might not have been any of us,” Laurel piped in. “You don’t have to be a witch to use dark magic. It could’ve been one of the townspeople.”
“What’s the likeliness of that, though?” Karma asked. She pilfered another carrot from my plate. “You know the townspeople. Most of them are too scared of our witchcraft to attempt dark magic on their own.”
My mother spoke. “Are you all aware of who was murdered?”
The four of us shook our heads in unison.
“It was Leigh Lockwood.”
All three of my sisters gasped in shock. Malia put a hand to her heart, and Karma squeezed my arm so hard that I could’ve sworn she halted circulation.
“No!” Laurel said.
“She was always nice to us!” Karma added.
“Who’s Leigh Lockwood?” I asked, since none of them seemed to recall that I was no longer familiar with the inhabitants of Yew Hollow.
“She was a librarian,” Malia said. “Young. Maybe twenty-eight or twenty-nine? She was also the head of the Historical Preservation Society. She always helped us plan the reenactments.”
“I liked her.” Laurel’s voice quivered, her long eyelashes wet with tears. I reached over to her, holding one of her hands in mine.