The Midsummer Murders

by Jill Nojack

  Cassie and Gillian set to work dragging furniture aside as Natalie pulled a few more items from the depths of her purse. She set several packets of herbs, and half a dozen small, colorful bottles of liquids next to the ornate metal plate she’d pushed to the side earlier. Then she brought out a black ceramic bowl and set it on a stand above a thick, short candle. She ticked off the items, checking the labels on the liquids against the list of requirements in her head. Everything was accounted for.

  “Time for robes and decorum,” she announced as she surveyed the space Cassie had created in the center of the room. She pulled her own robe over her shoulders and fastened it with the invisible ties inside the garment that kept it closed over her street clothes. After retrieving the athame from her belt, she pulled up her hood as the others did the same.

  There. They were anonymous to any outside observer now. They could be any Maid, Mother, and Crone who had ever come together to form the Triple Goddess. The individuals would disappear into the magic.

  Moving now at a solemn pace, she selected and placed five crows within the ritual space; the five corners of the pentagram were thus filled with symbols of Raven’s life. She walked around them with the tip of the athame pointed to the floor as she drew the circle.

  She didn’t need to direct Gillian. As an experienced witch, and one who had taken part in this ritual before, she knew her role. She rubbed the tip of a taper between her thumb and forefinger until it flamed. Then she followed Natalie around the circle, lighting the candles. When she was done, she placed the long taper at its center. Natalie silently closed the door she had left for Gillian’s exit from the circle after Gillian walked through it.

  Natalie then accepted Cat from Cassie. The cat’s sharp claws dug in to the back of her hand during the transfer, but she bit her tongue mentally as they all moved to their places around the ritual space, lowering themselves to sit. When she placed Cat in her lap, he settled into the fold of fabric created when she pulled her legs in to her body to sit cross-legged and relaxed with his eyes half closed but still focused on the largest of the stuffed birds. She had no doubt the ridiculous thing thought it was lulling its feathered prey into a false feeling of security before it pounced. She needed to stay on alert for a sudden leap toward the circle as the ritual began; that would be a dangerous move both for the ritual and for the cat.

  When everything was in place, she began the chant.

  ***

  Natalie sprinkled herbs onto the plate, counting the drops in her head as she added various potions, then set the lot ablaze. The blue flame burned hot as sparks leapt outward, dimming as they aged. Cassie and Gillian picked up the chant now in low, soft voices until they all ran together in a single, synchronized sound.

  Natalie felt it like a skipped heartbeat when the ritual space shifted toward the ethereal.

  It was time.

  “I call you, Raven Crain! I call you for the safety of all your sisters and brothers. Come when I call so that I might know what forced you beyond the veil.” The flame did not expand. It did not spark. She moved the cat to its place in front of the flame; the magic would now hold it there. It hissed and spit and tried to escape, but it stayed put. It had no choice.

  “Come, Raven. We do not have all of the night. Join us in our ritual. Your sisters and brothers have need of you.”

  The flame again did not respond. If there had been a connection with the spirit, it would have done something—expanded, sparked. The last time she’d used the ritual, the flame had burst outward in thousands of glowing embers that coalesced around the spirit, embracing it.

  She called again. “Raven Crain, we ask you to join us here in your home, where you spent so much time and comfort. We do not ask for ourselves but as the physical embodiment of the Maid, Mother, and Crone. Can you deny those that brought you so much strength in life the answers they seek from you in death?”

  Nothing.

  Natalie was tired of getting no return on her efforts. She raised her arms higher, reaching skyward. “Raven Crain, I implore you! If you refuse, then others may die. Break through the veil that divides us. Share with us your knowledge of what happened to you so that your brother and sister witches might be saved.”

  And there was still nothing; the flame didn’t expand as much as a hair’s breadth. It could not be!

  There was always a sign from the other side if the spirit had not yet moved on to another life, always—even if the spirit resisted. That’s what her grandmother, who’d had lengthy experience with the same ritual, had told her to expect. This lack of response was the same as she’d get if a spirit was no longer in the Summerlands. But spirits simply did not move on to a new life this fast. Raven should still be catching up with the ones who waited for her or exploring her new home to see if she wished to stay. The breaking-in period could last for hundreds of years—this was well documented by the death witches both inside and outside of her family who had come before her and by the rare souls who could remember their past lives and their time in the Summerlands. There was no reason to doubt them.

  She stood up, cut the circle with an angry slash of the knife, and unstuck Cat with a clench and unclench of her fist. He ran eagerly forward and pounced on the nearest raven, coming away with a mouth full of feathers as the delicate dead shell of the bird tore away from the wire frame beneath.

  17

  Stony silence emanated from Gillian’s SUV when it stopped at Natalie’s place and William opened it, offering her a helping hand as she disembarked. Natalie glared and ignored it. She clambered out of the vehicle under her own steam.

  “We don’t know why she’s upset,” Cassie said through a window. “The ritual didn’t go well. Basically, nothing happened. But we’ve had failed rituals before. I mean, it’s a setback, not finding out what’s causing all of this, but—”

  “A setback?” Natalie’s voice rose, and her eyes flashed fire. “A setback, is it? You have no idea what this means.”

  “Right you are. We don’t.” Gillian said, stepping around from the driver’s side, her voice soothing. “So if you told us now, maybe we could help you with whatever it is.”

  William moved to place a hand on Natalie’s arm, transmitting soothing with more than his voice. She pulled it away, furious.

  “How dare you! How dare you treat me like I need to be calmed like a child.”

  “I...I’m sorry. I...gosh, I just didn’t think...”

  “Exactly! You didn’t think. That’s your problem. It always has been. You’ve always assumed that I would want everything you offered. Well, I don’t. I want nothing from you. Not now. Not ever.”

  His heart fell into his shoes. But she was just angry, he told himself. Just angry.

  “I only wanted to help. Something’s gone wrong, I can see that. I made a mistake in how I went about it, but my intent was pure.”

  She moved to dart around him, her red purse swinging angrily across her arm.

  He moved toward her again, but a tiny shake of Gillian’s head warned him off. Then she said, “Nat, we obviously don’t understand what happened back there. So, we kept quiet all the way home, just like you asked. But if it’s bad enough that it could put you in this state, you have to let us in. Did you see something that only you could see? Something we didn’t know was there because we can’t see the dead?”

  Natalie broke down then, slumping to the rough asphalt of the driveway, her face in her hands. She was usually good at hiding her feelings. But not now. Her raw despair pulsed out of her like blood from an open vein.

  William knelt beside her, and this time, she let him hold her. He didn’t send a suggestion of calm; she wouldn’t want it. That, at least, she’d made clear. He hated that he couldn’t take away what was upsetting her.

  She slumped against his chest and he eased into a sitting position, never losing contact, sheltering her, giving her a warm, dry place against her personal storm. The only sound in the dark was the breathing of the people who loved her as t
hey waited for her to come back to them.

  Finally, she said, “It’s...I...”

  His hand stroked her upper back, and she moved closer to him, her face still half-hidden against his body.

  “There was no spirit to call. She wasn’t there.” Her voice was muffled by William’s starched uniform shirt where it had bunched up as he held her.

  “What do you mean?” Gillian asked, moving to stand where Natalie could see her if she wanted to look. “I don’t understand. Do you mean the spirit refused you? Or it had already moved on?”

  Natalie looked up, directly into her eyes, the intensity still there, but the anger had been extinguished by sorrow.

  “I mean that Raven Crain has been obliterated. She isn’t wandering the earth as a lost spirit. She isn’t feasting in the Summerlands. She’s simply gone. She might as well never have existed. That’s why there is no magical essence left when the witch passes. Don’t you see? Whatever this is, I believe it not only takes your life, it takes your afterlife. She will never reunite with the loved ones who waited for her on the other side. She’ll never come back for an encore. She gets nothing. Raven Crain has well and truly left the building.”

  ***

  “Gram. You okay?” Marcus asked as William led Natalie past the arch to the livingroom, her hand locked securely in the crook of his right arm.

  “I’m fine,” she replied. “I didn’t realize how exhausting the ritual I performed tonight would be. I only need a good night’s sleep.”

  But she didn’t look fine. She looked exhausted. She looked like she could barely move. It was clear Marcus knew it, too, as he looked to William for reassurance.

  “I’ll help her up to bed,” was all William said. Anything more was sure to upset her again.

  Natalie found a little energy at that. “You’ll help yourself to the exit. I’m not so tired that I can’t get myself up the stairs in my own home.”

  “Gosh darn it, Nat! I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

  “I’m fine. But you’ll forgive me if I don’t have time for your awkward attempt to join me in my bedroom.”

  “Aw, come on...that’s what you think? What have I ever done to give you such a low opinion of me?” William could feel his cheeks grow pink.

  As she put her hand on the stair railing and her foot on the first stair, she replied. “No. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. But I do mean that I need to be alone with my thoughts.” Without turning back, she said, “Goodnight, William,” and began her slow ascent.

  ***

  Natalie scrabbled through her bedside drawer, looking for the stash of ginseng and bamboo leaves she’d kept there years ago when she’d worked the midnight shift. It had been a convenient pick-me-up when she got up for work in the evening. The herb would be stale, but the magic she’d added should still be effective.

  Ah, there it was. She crumbled the ginseng between her thumb and forefinger into the bamboo leaf, before she lit a candle and held the cigarette to its flame as she sucked down a lungful of the stuff.

  It wasn’t pleasant. She resisted the temptation to cough as it stung the delicate membranes inside her throat and her nose filled them with mucous. But she had to wait it out. If she got rid of the smoke right away, it wouldn’t work. She had to to give it the time it needed.

  She held a hanky under her nose as it wept what she knew from experience would be a greenish, globby mess, snuffling it up, trying to ignore how unseemly it all was. Messing with this kind of magic at her age? This was more like a drug than a spell.

  But there was nothing to be done for it. She needed the help that was now rushing through her veins. She had work to do tonight. She couldn’t allow herself the luxury of sleep.

  She didn’t want to accept that this world was all there would ever be for Raven. And that it must have been the end of existence for Josie and Tildy, too. But there it was. Her ancestors had spent hundreds of years exploring the nature of the afterlife; if their magic did not work to draw a spirit, there was only one answer to this failure—that the victim was alive. But that could not be the answer here—she had seen the corpses, and the spirits had not had enough time to move on to another life. Nothing had prepared her for the experience of a spirit completing ceasing to exist.

  She couldn’t let this thing spread. Not to her friends. Nor even to her enemies. She wouldn’t wish it on any of them.

  She tried not to think about the possibility that the life she was living was the only one she had, that it was too late now to do things differently. She’d laid her path, and she had to walk it. But just like William had clung to the hope of being with her again even after he’d died, she knew that she now clung to the hope of being with him after her own demise.

  If she could find at Ling’s what she needed to keep the rest of the town safe—the thing that could guarantee her spirit would survive to prowl the town and remain near William even after her physical body packed it in, that hope might have a chance. This killer, whatever it was, had to be stopped. She would not allow it to have her afterlife.

  With her energy restored and the blissful relief of blowing her nose thoroughly and repeatedly accomplished, she sat restlessly in her bedside chair, pacing mentally until she heard Marcus’s bedroom door close and the bedframe that held his old but serviceable mattress creak as he settled into it.

  She gave it another fifteen minutes, then slipped down the stairs as stealthily as she could, hoping not to draw his attention. He wouldn’t approve of what she had in mind.

  She winced as her sedan’s engine turned over, much louder in the quiet night than it seemed during the day. She swiftly slid it into gear and backed down the drive, heading for downtown.

  ***

  Natalie parked behind Cat’s Magical Shoppe where none of the city’s small crew of night patrolmen and women—often only represented by one officer—ever went. The alley was narrow, and there was little action downtown at night. And even if Twink or Daria looked out back to see who’d pulled in, they wouldn’t think it was unusual for her to be there.

  But they would find it unusual for her to head down the alley instead of toward the shop. Before stepping out of the car, she peered carefully at each of the windows on the back of the building to make sure that there were no eyes peering back, and she waited an additional few minutes before exiting and making her break for the alleyway. She’d be out of sight soon enough.

  She hustled along as quickly as her knobbly knees and skinny ankles allowed. She’d been attacked once in this alley, but she pushed the memory aside. The threat that stalked the town this time wouldn’t be hiding behind a fence in a retailer’s back area. It was more insidious than that.

  At the far mouth of the alley, she leaned against the rough red brick of the building that bordered it as she caught her breath. She was within easy reaching distance of the shop now, picturing the consignment record book secure in its nook between the cash register and a display case that sat on the Ling’s Things sales counter. She slipped her hand into her purse and closed her eyes, reaching out with her magic and her mind.

  Nothing. The notebook wasn’t in its slot.

  She expanded her search to the surrounding counter. But there was nothing the right shape or size that she could sense with the groping fingers of her mental reach. Ling must have moved it. She didn’t have a choice. She’d have to enter the shop to locate it.

  She poked her head out of the alley cautiously. Good. The street was empty. A flick of her wrist toward the row of streetlights also assured that it was dark.

  Giles was fortunately a town where little crime occurred despite the recent murder count. The small-town shop owners had no need for expensive video security, although all of them had an alarm system of some kind. Cat’s had wards, which she and Gillian tended to on a weekly basis. Much more secure than the silly electronic system she’d noted was in place at Ling’s. For a witch as powerful as Natalie, getting past it would be easier than thrusting aside the strands of
a crushed spider’s abandoned web.

  ***

  Ling’s phone jangled an alert, and she sat up from where she snuggled against her husband’s shoulder as they watched TV in mostly silent companionship. There was motion in the shop, something that would be caught in the hidden CCTV setup installed in a mannequin’s eye socket. Somebody was creeping around when no one should be there.

  It was probably only Mindy, stopping in to pick up something she’d forgotten in the back while working. Anyone else wouldn’t have the codes for the door alarm, which would otherwise go off first. She swiped to start the video, wondering what her daughter was up to this time. She was supposed to be out with her boyfriend. She hoped they weren’t there looking for a private place. After all, she’d never told Mindy that what she did in the shop wasn’t private. Sometimes Mindy worked too hard to impress others; she might give the secret away without realizing it.

  But no, it wasn’t Mindy and her date.

  She smiled as she dialed the police.

  “Yes,” she said. “There is an intruder in my store. The alarm there has gone off. Ling’s Things downtown. Please send someone right away.”

  18

  The indignity of it bit into Natalie more deeply than the steel bands that pressed securely against her wrists.

  “There’s no call for this, Denton. I told you—the door to the shop was open as I was passing, and I was worried about a break in. I entered to investigate.”

  “I’m sure you did, Ms. Taylor,” Denton replied. “Imagine my surprise when I stopped to back up the officer on duty and found an upstanding citizen being taken into custody. I understand there’s video, so when Mrs. Li brings it into the station tomorrow, we can view that and get this all sorted out. Although we’re both aware that this is not your first offense. In the meantime, I’m sure you’ll enjoy your stay overnight as a guest of the city. No one could argue you weren’t caught red-handed.”