Chance smiled at me in a way that reduced the whole world to just the two of us. He cupped my chin in his hands, and I melted into his skin like warm honey. He pulled me close, kissed me deep and sweet, and we held onto each other for an eternity, lost in the crinkled folds of the lifetime we’d spent learning each other, leaning on each other, loving each other.
He pulled away finally, got out of the truck and went around to open my door, but he didn’t ask me that question again and I was relieved.
Because the truth was, I didn’t know.
Chapter 37
Chance got busy making a pot of coffee, determined to keep me up all night even though I was feeling fine. I checked the cottage first to see if Ponyboy was there, but he wasn’t. Then I changed into a pair of gray drawstring pants and a sweatshirt, put my hair into a clip and slipped inside the Seeker’s Den.
I turned on the security cameras and did a quick check of the cottage perimeter. Nothing but soft white snow and twinkling lights. I fired up the Den laptop and clicked on the icon for the Council database. I thought maybe there would be something in the database about a previous generation of the Pentacle, and since I hadn’t reached my mother yet, it was the next best option for gathering information. If she had wanted me to know about this, she would have told me already, so a little digging might go a long way to figuring out what she was doing with Penny, Evelyn, Farrah, and my presumably dead uncle.
The Council database lit up, and I waited for the files to appear on the screen. I fired up my work laptop too and it winked to life so I checked my email.
There was a message from Derek, confirming he had received my initial piece on the truck. He also noted that Tony had examined the vehicle briefly, and that it looked to be in working order, but may have run out of gas. The last sticker on the plates was dated 1985. No signs of foul play. He had attached the pictures as well, and I perused them as I thought of the fate of the people in that old truck.
Had they been trapped there? Were they joyriding and got lost in the depths of the caverns? Maybe the earth had collapsed on top of them as it had that group of kids long ago. Derek closed the email by saying he was going to run with the piece as is. He added we should look into the archives for missing persons in that timeframe who may have owned that pickup.
I thought of Ponyboy’s style and love of eighties music. It had to be him inside that car, despite what he had told me about not driving through the caverns. He was a teenager after all, and human. It was possible he had lied to me. Ghosts do that as much as the living. He had appeared to me right after the truck’s discovery, so the timing matched. But who was the other passenger? The grandfather he mentioned? A classmate?
I shot Derek a quick email to let him know I’d be late to work. Then I put the laptop in sleep mode and turned my attention toward the Council computer.
I typed in my password and the screen immediately flashed: ACCESS DENIED. I typed it in again, hit enter and received the same message.
What the hell?
There was a locked drawer hidden under the desk where I stored the locket and kept my passwords. I dug through the drawer, rechecked the last code I had submitted and typed it in once more.
ACCESS DENIED.
I sat back and ran my hands through my hair. Either someone had broken into the Seeker’s Den and changed my password, or—more likely—Tabby had seen to it that my probation included blocking my account.
The scrying mirror was shining a light through the door of the tiny room where I had hung it. I went to see who had called. The mirror indicated four calls had come in, one from each of my team. The first message I played was from Ivy, the bubbly, fiery-haired teenage Warrior.
“What’s going on, Stacy? I got a strange message from Tabby saying you were suspended or something. Call me, okay?”
Next was John, the Guardian. He was a police officer in Chicago and looked and spoke every bit the part. “What the hell did you do to piss off the Council, Justice?” That was it.
The third call was from Blade, a high profile thriller author and the newest member, who had transformed the Four Corners into what we now call The Pentacle. “You know, I can’t finish my story if the protagonist bails in the first act,” he said. “Give me a call, witchy woman.”
The final call was from Ethan, my only challenger. “I thought my grandmother was finally off my back about this Seeker business. What could you have possibly done to get her knickers twisted?” he said in that Irish brogue of his.
I sighed and cut the connection to the mirror. I picked up my own laptop, locked up the den, and went to join Chance in the kitchen.
As he poured two mugs of coffee, I filled in the gaps of what I hadn’t already told him, leaving out the part about the goddess warning. I figured if I wasn’t going to die, why worry him, and if I was, well, he’d find out soon enough.
His mouth dropped when I told him about Uncle Deck. “No way. You have to be mistaken, babe. I can’t believe he’d do that to Cinnamon or Angelica.”
“Neither can I, but I’m telling you, if it’s not him, it’s either his twin or his doppelganger.”
Chance slid a glance my way. “Is that a thing?”
I laughed. “Most likely, but I can neither deny nor confirm.” I circled around the counter and pulled a platter from the cabinet to make us a snack.
Chance drummed his fingers on the counter and inspected the cottage with a sweeping gaze. “So this ghost, Ponyboy. Is he here now?”
“Not at the moment, but I wouldn’t walk around naked if I were you.”
“Damn, and I was hoping to play strip poker.” He gave me a sultry smirk and sipped his coffee. “Is there anything I can do?”
I thought about it. We had quite a bit of time to kill, and there was a lot of research that needed to be done. Maybe he could help. Even though I didn’t have access to the Council database, there was always the internet. We might not be able to find any of the old Amethyst newspaper clippings, but surely if a teenager had gone missing in 1985, it would be covered by a neighboring town.
I pulled out my laptop and handed Chance the tablet, lined up a couple of notebooks and some pens, and we got started.
“I wonder if your brother would know anything about it?” I said.
Chance had two brothers, one older, one much younger.
“Maybe. Too late to call him now though.” He took another swig of coffee. “My mother might know something. You know how gossipy she can be.”
Chance’s mother went to high school with mine, although she was older. Closer in age to Monique’s mother, who looked sixtyish, but was actually a few years younger.
I decided to switch gears for a minute, setting the mystery of the skeletons inside the car aside. “Did your Mom ever mention anything about a club she belonged to in high school?”
Chance took the plate of cheese and crackers from my hands, and I joined him at the breakfast bar.
“What kind of club?” He scooped up a chunk of cheddar and put it on a Ritz. Popped it into his mouth.
Would they have called themselves the Pentacle? Or was I simply projecting that label onto them because of the energy I felt from the group?
“A witchy club.” I helped myself to some grapes.
Chance looked at me. “You mean like a coven? My mother?”
“Right. Dumb question.”
Mrs. Stryker was as straight as an arrow. A lot like Chance.
He was surfing the tablet, looking for articles on missing children from Amethyst, when he said. “Holy crap.”
“What? Did you find something?” I scooted my chair closer to him.
“Did you know about this?” He tilted the tablet so I could get a better view. It was a blog written by none other than Gladys Sharp, my research assistant at the newspaper. It was titled, “Uncovering Amethyst.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Gladys lived across the street next to Bea Plough. She was a huge fan of the Geraghty Girls and longed to
be a part of their coven. I guess I didn’t know how much until just then. She was around Birdie’s age, and I briefly wondered how long she had been living in town. Was she a girl when she moved to Amethyst? I scrolled through the subject headings, noticing a whole lot of posts about my family. Some just covered the outrageous things the Geraghty Girls had done over the years, many of which landed them in jail, like dancing naked beneath the full moon. There were some articles on myself and my uncanny ability to stumble across a dead body every few feet. Others were about the paper and how much she enjoyed working there.
But it was her latest post that drew my attention.
The heading was The Yuletide Legend of Captain Gearson, a Pirate’s Treasure, and the Mysterious Miner.
The very legend I had mentioned in my article, although I didn’t realize it had happened on Yule. Gladys couldn’t have seen my piece yet, so maybe the fact that Yule was two days away had inspired her.
But what did that have to do with the Geraghtys?
I was about to find out.
Chapter 38
Amethyst is a town buried in secrets. Her legends span past centuries, past even time itself. This mystical little town in the middle of nowhere seems to draw the kind of people who protect her treasures, her mythos. Feeds off them, even. And if one isn’t too careful, she can get sucked into a mystery herself, become a part of the fabric that veils the city as if it were trapped in a web all its own. A web of murder, mischief, and mayhem. One such legend is the story of Captain Gearson and the mysterious miner.
Captain Gearson was a man of power and means. He was the kind of man who sucked all the air out of a room. A man whose presence invoked fear even in the bravest souls. The captain spent his life on the high seas and rivers alike. He was believed to be a shipping mogul, but rumors abounded that he was in fact, a river pirate.
Rumors that proved to be true shortly before his demise.
It was a time of great prosperity for Amethyst. A time when the city was producing eighty percent of the country’s lead. Miners were worked to the bone for pennies a day. While the owners got rich and fat, the workers withered and died. Class warfare raged. Among all the strife and turmoil, two men made a deal over a billiards game in the back room of a tavern.
Over a bottle of whiskey and expensive cigars, Captain Gearson convinced a destitute miner to stow a pirated chest deep in the mines of Amethyst for a handsome fee. The miner, who had a wife and a child on the way, agreed to the deal, but the story goes he had second thoughts when he discovered the contents of the chest. No one knows what was inside, but it was whispered that the chest could only be opened by one person who held a special key.
The miner searched and searched for the perfect spot to hide the chest, and when he finally found it and did the job, he emerged from the mine to discover that his wife had run off with the captain.
No one knows what really happened that dreary December day on the mighty Mississippi. Did a storm blow into town, killing the captain and the miner’s wife? Did the miner—whose name has mysteriously disappeared from any record—murder his bride and her lover? And whatever became of him? We will never know.
All that is certain is that every few decades around Yule, children are drawn deep into the mines to search for the infamous treasure, as if the earth itself beckons them to come and explore her depths. Does a war rage in the bowels of this town? A ghostly battle between a jilted miner who wants to reunite his family and an unscrupulous sea captain demanding his treasure back? And what of the children who never emerge from the caves?
Since that fateful day over a hundred and fifty years ago, every generation or so, a child of Amethyst succumbs to the legend. Thirty years ago, the Fontaine girl and a boy by the name of Leary went missing . The police decided they were runaways, but did they really leave willingly? Or were they taken by the old legend? Only time will tell if another curious teenager will be lured into the mines, enchanted by the seductive call of a buried treasure.
So what, you may be asking, does all of this have to do with a blog mostly dedicated to the Geraghty clan?
It is my belief that the miner was an ancestor of the Geraghty Girls. The child left behind after the disappearance of the miner was said to have been adopted by family members who travelled from the Emerald Isle and settled in Amethyst. Of course, birth records were not recorded until later that century, and adoption records were non-existent. But who else but a Geraghty would know one of their own was in trouble? There was no telephone, and international mail took weeks, if not months, to arrive at its destination. And who would have known how to reach the family? Could it be that the Geraghtys hold the key to the chest that lies beneath the streets of the town? Only they know for sure. And as readers of this blog understand, the Geraghtys guard their secrets close to their hearts.
-Gladys Sharp
The article had been posted earlier that day. I sat back, fuming. “I’m going to kill Gladys.”
Chance said, “Is any of this true? Was one of your ancestors a miner?”
“I have no idea, but I’d bet my sword that whoever tried to roll me earlier was looking for the stupid key to the treasure she was talking about.”
I went to retrieve the Blessed Book, then scoured the early pages for some history on my great-grandmother Meagan’s father and grandfather. I didn’t find any mention of them or any miner or even the legend itself. Nor was there any indication of an adoption. So it could be just a tall tale, like any that linger on in small towns. Or it could be that Meagan didn’t know. Many of her passages referred to the ancient high kings, warriors, and wise women. Mostly, she wrote about the female line of the family, and of course there were her predictions for the future. I flipped to the page that Cinnamon and I had found a while back.
The Seeker shall never be alone in the New World, for another child will join her. Together, the pair will battle inner and outer demons, loss and tragedies great and small. This child, born of two ancient families, will carry a great burden. For the child holds the key to—
Two ancient families. Was this about the baby? Were there any witches in Tony’s family? Any royalty?
And the key to what? The buried treasure legend? But if that was the case, then who had the key?
Chapter 39
I had finally convinced Chance to let me go to sleep around six am. Before I drifted off, I performed a spell on my sword that would allow me to carry it around like a pocket knife. With a flick of the wrist, it could expand and be ready for battle.
Battling what, I didn’t know.
It was dark when I finally woke up. Chance had left a note on the pillow next to me. It said simply, Kick some ass today, baby. I love you.
I padded into the shower thinking of what Gladys had written. Was the miner I’d seen in the belly of the earth below Evelyn’s house my ancestor? I couldn’t make out his features, but his eyes had glowed an angry red. Could I be related to a murderer? The thought of it sent shivers through to my core, like a thousand spiders crawling under my skin.
The names of the kids gone missing thirty years ago ran through my mind. The Fontaine girl, was she related to Monique? And the boy. Leary. A relation of Evelyn’s? Could he be Ponyboy? If that was the case, then I could only surmise that their little pow-wow had something to do with the legend, and that my mother believed it to be true. Were they trying to prevent another child from going missing? And what about my locket? What did it have to do with anything?
I turned the water off, checking to see if Ponyboy was lurking in the bathroom. When I saw it was empty, I stepped out, toweled off, and dried my hair. I slipped into a robe and put some makeup on, wondering if I should hunt down my mother first or head to the paper to give Gladys a tongue lashing, but when I looked at the clock, it was after five. Gladys would be gone.
I was afraid to check my messages because Derek was surely going to be pissed that I had completely missed work. I fired up my laptop and saw three emails from him.
The first was chastising me for being a lazy lump and leaving him to put the paper to bed himself. The second was him saying a woman had come to the paper looking for me, but she didn’t leave her name. That left me with another creepy-crawly sensation. The third mocked me for hiring Monique to work at Cin’s bar and for saying that he’d seen Chance at Muddy Waters coffee shop. He instructed me to stop getting shot at and hit in the head and to hurry up and get better.
I fought the urge to wear a diamond tiara paired with a sequined dress, and instead climbed into a pair of faded jeans and a turtleneck. As I pulled my boots on, tucking the athame in the side pocket and my newly disguised sword in my bra, I noticed the phantom quartz was glowing. I went to pick it up. It was hot and tingly in my hands, the base pulsating, trying to tell me something. I studied it for a while, struggling to glean information from it, but my mind was unfocused. Swirling around too many thoughts and theories about what had transpired the last few days. It felt like there was a circus in my head that wouldn’t stop performing. I needed a whiskey.
A gentle tune played from the living room, but I didn’t have a stereo. I kept my music on my smartphone which sat on my dresser, the battery dead because I forgot to charge it. “This world has let you down / Nearly broke your heart / But tonight’s the night / For a brand new start.” Another song from the old movie. I came out of the bedroom expecting to see Ponyboy, but he wasn’t there. I grabbed my bag and stuck the phantom quartz inside, thinking that I should probably head to Cinnamon’s and get Thor. I grabbed my phone, deciding to charge it in the car.
Phantom Quartz: A Stacy Justice Witch Mystery Book 6 (Stacy Justice Magical Mysteries) Page 17