Murder for the Holidays

by B. T. Lord

  Pond water was notoriously murky. Unable to see through the darkness, she had no choice but to reach down with her fingers and blindly attempt to pull the slimy weeds off her.

  Dara gave a start when the temperature of the water abruptly changed. It had been cool when she’d entered, but now it turned icy cold. Out of the corner of her eye, she felt rather than saw something coming up rapidly from the depths of the pond. Her mind tried to make sense of it. She wasn’t that far out. The water here had to be only about 6 feet deep. Yet whatever was coming up was accelerating as it came towards her.

  At that moment Dara knew she had to get out of the water. Fast.

  She tried to swim up to the surface but whatever was holding onto her ankle refused to let go. She kicked frantically, but whatever it was remained tightly wound around her ankle.

  Knowing she was about to run out of air, and trying hard not to panic, Dara leaned forward in the water and grabbed her ankle.

  And touched a cold hand wrapped around her skin.

  She screamed, the bubbles from her expelled breath obscuring her vision. She felt the water, now frigidly cold, enter her lungs. She fought desperately to pry the hand off her ankle as her chest threatened to burst.

  I’m drowning.

  No! Her mind yelled back. She would not give up that easily.

  She kicked one last time and somehow managed to dislodge the grip. Swimming furiously towards the surface, she was about to break through – and to breathe in the blessed air – when a figure suddenly appeared and blocked her way. Determined to push past whoever it was, Dara came within view of its face. And screamed a second time.

  The bloated features of a lifeless girl stared back at her. Her long blonde hair floated like the tendrils of a jelly fish as her arms and legs lifted gently up and down in the current.

  Please keep me company, Dara. It’s cold and dark down here and I’m so alone. Why can’t I see? Why can’t I speak? Help me.

  Dara’s air was gone. She opened her mouth to breathe and felt the ice-cold water rush into her lungs, choking her, extinguishing her life.

  Just like the girl next to her.

  It was then she’d awakened with a start.

  Dara buried her face in the afghan and gave a shuddering sigh.

  What was she going to do?

  It was getting worse. These visions, or dreams, or whatever the hell they were torturing her. Refusing to leave her alone. Demanding to be heard.

  She glanced across the room and although she couldn’t see it, she knew a framed photo of her mother and grandmother stood on the bookshelf. Before she could stop herself, she cursed them under her breath.

  She’d inherited their ‘gift’, though to her it was a curse. At first, she’d used it to make extra money, doing tarot card readings for tourists. Everyone pretty much had the same questions – will I meet my soulmate? Is my boyfriend cheating on me? Will I win the lottery? It was mindless, though she’d gained a reputation, like her mother and grandmother before her, of being eerily accurate, guaranteeing her return customers.

  If they only knew she really didn’t need the cards. She had the ability to see into people’s hearts and minds without the deck. She only used it for their benefit. Both her grandmother and mother said her gift was stronger than theirs had ever been. If she was smart, she’d take that gift and get off the island and never look back.

  She could make something of her life. Her family had been treated with suspicious wariness by the locals. She too had felt the sting of their ignorance.

  Her mother and grandmother wanted something better for her. But Dara had not only inherited their gift of the second sight, she’d also inherited their cowardice.

  She’d die here just as they had.

  However, this was new. She had no idea how to deal with it. She was terrified of going to sleep. Of seeing dead faces begging her for help.

  She felt as though she were going crazy.

  Why was this happening?

  Before her emotions escalated, she took a long deep breath and let it out slowly. As her mother always said, there’s a reason for everything. There had to be a reason for this.

  The light from the window shone on the table, illuminating her deck of tarot cards. Although she didn’t need them to read for other people, it was difficult to be objective when it came to her. Maybe the cards could tell her what was going on. She bent over and grabbed the deck. Shuffling them, she intoned the prayer she always used before doing any reading.

  Let only the information of the highest intention and for the highest good for both the reader and the person seeking answers be allowed through. So mote it be.

  Dara shuffled a few more times until she felt it was time to stop. She didn’t know exactly what to ask, how to frame the question that would give her the information she sought. She therefore silently asked that she be provided with whatever the Universe felt she needed to know at that moment. She then flipped over the first card. It was the Nine of Wands. Dara knew it meant a test of her faith was coming. She flipped over a second card. It was the Wheel of Fortune. A turning point was coming up in her life – a situation she had no control over. She hesitated over the third card. Drawn to the middle of the deck, she withdrew a card and flipped it over. She stared at it for a long time. Despite what people thought, each card could be interpreted several different ways. It was like putting a story together, the other cards helping shape the narrative. Whenever this card came out, she hurried to soothe the client.

  “It doesn’t mean what it looks like. It’s actually a good thing. It’s telling you a transformation is coming. The old is dying and something new is coming in.”

  However, her heart clenched as she slowly put the card down on the table. This time the card meant exactly what it said.

  The Death Card was bringing death.

  But whose?

  It was two days after Dara’s awful dream. Deputy Ellis Martin, unaware of the young woman’s torment, unaware even of her existence, steered his Boston Whaler alongside the dock on Eagla Island.

  For the past two weeks, he’d been prevented from making his rounds because of the ocean storms that ravaged the islands at this time of year.

  There were four isles that made up the Coffin Islands, located two hours from Portland, Maine. He made his home on the largest– Sarke Island. Eagla was the second largest, followed by Neddy Point and the smallest, Redemption Island. Because of the distances, he’d decided when accepting the job that he’d make weekly visits to the islands to reassure the locals he was on duty and available for any and all law enforcement issues.

  He quickly realized it was pretty much a waste of time.

  Despite his position as the only law enforcement officer on the Coffins, a job he’d held for almost a year now, he knew if a matter came up that wasn’t outright murder, the locals quietly took care of it. It was the way they’d handled things since the founding of the islands back in the mid-1700’s, and it was the way they would continue to handle things. He’d had no choice but to learn to live with it since he had no desire to make himself persona non grata in a place where, because he wasn’t a native, he was already treated with polite mistrust. It didn’t stop him, however, from making his weekly visits and quietly making his presence known.

  Because of the unsettled weather for the last two weeks, he’d been going stir-crazy. There were only so many times he could drive around Sarke, telling himself he was keeping an eye on things rather than facing the truth that if he had to spend one more hour indoors, he’d go stark raving mad. When a break finally occurred in the storm pattern, he practically ran down to the dock where he climbed aboard his small police patrol boat and quickly pulled away from shore.

  The temperatures were frigid, and the sky was overcast, but he was grateful to be on the move. He’d taken this job fully knowing it would be slow. After a career as an NCIS investigator, he’d desperately needed the change after an event that forced him to re-evaluate his life. However, he
had to admit he was still trying to adjust to the almost comatose pace during the winter months when the tourist season was non-existent, and it was too cold and raw for the locals to be out and about for any length of time.

  By the time he reached Eagla an hour later, he felt invigorated and re-energized. Reaching the dock, he pulled in and was just finishing up securing the boat when he felt a presence at his shoulder. He turned and found a young woman standing next to him.

  She was short and slightly chubby. She wore a natty multi-colored coat, with black leggings, hiking boots and a knitted hat shoved down over long jet-black hair that hung down her back. She wore no make-up and her face was pale with a few freckles sprinkled around her nose.

  “Are you the new deputy?” she asked when he came up.

  Although he was going on ten months on the job, he was still considered new to many of the locals.

  “I am. I’m Ellis Martin.”

  “I’m Dara Clemons. I really need to talk to you.”

  “Of course. Let me finish tying up the boat. Then we go down the street to a small office I just opened where we can get out of the cold and talk.”

  She shook her head. “I prefer to talk out here.”

  He noticed her shivering, but her stubbornness was plainly evident. Wondering why she preferred to freeze to death, he quickly finished up with the Boston Whaler before turning back to her. At that moment, a gust of wind came up and pummeled them both with icy fury.

  “Are you sure you won’t go to my office? It’s only about a five minute walk.”

  Dara shook her head. He had no idea how hard this was for her. She’d spent the last two days agonizing over whether she should say anything. But each time she convinced herself she’d only end up looking like a fool, the girl’s face appeared in her mind’s eye. She needed to get this over with before she lost her courage completely.

  “I—um—I’m not sure how to begin.”

  “How about at the beginning?”

  Ellis was trying to be patient, but the wind coming off the ocean was blowing right through his clothes. He wanted nothing more than to get to his tiny pseudo-police headquarters where he could warm up.

  Before he could try once more to convince her to get out of the cold, she blurted out, “I don’t expect you to believe this, but I see things.”

  “See things?”

  “Uh huh. I’m what you’d call a psychic medium. I hate to use that old cliché I talk to dead people, but sometimes I do.”

  Ellis stood still, careful to keep his face neutral. “Okay, Ms. Clemons, you see things.”

  “Please, call me Dara. And I do. See things, I mean. And I’m here to tell you I had a dream two nights ago. I saw a girl with long blonde hair. She was in the water. She was dead. And…and—" She looked up at him, her dark brown eyes brimming with tears. “Both her eyes and mouth were sewn shut.”