Going Home (Cedar Valley Hauntings Book 1)

by Renee Bradshaw

  “You can’t always put the blame somewhere else.”

  “I’m not.” I rubbed my temples.

  “I don’t know everything about everything,” Cecelia said, her eyes looking heavier by the second. “But I do know a little about everything. Magically speaking. We can call her down. We just need to call Aunt Dee down and you won’t be having these problems. Then you’ll want to stay. You’ll see.”

  “It’s not just Aunt Dee, there are others out there. If it was just Aunt Dee, I could talk to her. I think. Something’s wrong with her, and there are others hiding out there too. I’m not staying.” I opened the door, welcoming the fresh air. “You should open your windows. Let some of the sickness out.”

  “Meg?” she said as I stepped outside and shut the door. I waited two beats before I pushed it back open and leaned in. “What if you leave, and she follows you anyway?”

  “It’s her memory, and her memory stays here.”

  “What if the other things follow you?”

  “They never have before.” The easy lie slid off my tongue, and she didn’t question it. I closed the door and stepped around the plants. The air had turned hot and sticky again. Another storm on the way.

  The clouds burst as I pulled out of the trailer park, the sheet of water covering the windshield was thick and unrelenting. I had twenty miles to the house, and the clouds grew darker by the second. Headlights did little against the pelting rain.

  I needed a place to wait out the storm, and when a diner appeared on my right, I pulled in. I shouldn’t spend money on eating out, but they had a smoking section, and a 2.99 special for a cup of coffee and a day-old slice of pie advertised on the marque.

  I pulled my hoodie over my head and dashed across the parking lot and up the wheelchair ramp. A thick in the hips waitress held the door open for me as I hopped over the threshold.

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem, hon. The weather sure has been loopy this week.”

  I made a quick order and sat down in a corner booth, flipping idly through the newspaper I grabbed on my way in. A waitress with a septum piercing brought over my coffee and banana cream pie. I scraped the white cream from the top, then ate the center, thinking about what Cecelia had said.

  Magic. Blood magic. Coming from the dirt. Born over and over again.

  These were some of the stories I had been raised on. Fairy tales from Mama and Dee’s home in West Virginia. Had Cecelia just tried convincing me they weren’t stories, but fact?

  There was no way. Still...

  Aunt Dee drowned in the river. She’d been dead for over ten years now. Yet...I kept seeing her. I know what I told Cecelia. Aunt Dee wasn’t really here, instead she lived in my head.

  Jordan, Angela and Dad — they’d seen once. Out at the house, Dad with the blow torch. There had been something, and they’d seen it with me. Maybe I wasn’t really alone.

  I told Cecelia that Aunt Dee wasn’t going to follow me out of town. And I wished it, sure. I wanted to leave Aunt Dee behind. Wipe her from my sight and memory once again. But it wasn’t possible anymore, was it?

  I was the only one left here. Fear told me Aunt Dee would leech herself onto me and follow, like she had always been at my side. I tilted my head back and caught my reflection in the copper colored lamp hanging over the table. My face contorted into Cecelia’s, and she spoke.

  “Aunt Dee would follow your mama to the ends of the earth.” Cecelia’s face morphed back into my own.

  Aunt Dee followed Mama across the country. And when Mama disappeared, she followed her right down where she believed she had gone. Crossed on over onto the other side. Or, at least tried to cross over.

  What if Mama hadn’t run off to find a better life, but had died? It wasn’t the first time the thought had passed through my head, but it was the first time I let it sink all the way in.

  Mama was dead and Aunt Dee followed her to the ends of the Earth, passing over onto the other side with her. Was that why Dee drowned herself?

  But then, what was Aunt Dee doing here?

  I lifted my mug and took a sip of the bitter coffee, feeling the warmth ride through all of my bones, that had been chilled by the dampness of the storm. I set it down and looked at the windows. The rain raged against the glass, blurring the world behind it down to splashes of color. I lifted my cup again.

  Like someone had taken control of my hand, the coffee dumped into my mouth. Soothing warmth became a memory. My head uncontrollably tipped back, and I made eye contact with my frightened reflection in the lamp. The coffee burned, running down my throat and the sides of my mouth, puddling in my lap.

  I struggled to release the cup, to turn my head, to scream for help. Anything. I was powerless as my breathing slowed. Air bubbles gurgled and popped in my mouthful of steaming coffee. The bottomless cup didn’t care I was running out of breath. The scalding liquid burned me from the inside out, my throat and stomach might as well have been on fire. Pain ripped deeper as my neck melted open, and fiery liquid poured down my chest.

  As quick as it begun, the nightmare ended. The full coffee mug rested on the table. My hands flew to my neck to inspect for damage; the hole had healed, taking the pain with it.

  “Don’t forget again,” a graven voice said. I jumped, looking at a woman across from me. The woman looked like me, and she didn’t. Her sliced cheek moved in with each breath through her bruised and bloody lips. Dirt caked clothes dripped when she leaned forward, putting her thin and rotting hands on the table. “Never forget who’s in charge.”

  “Who are you?” I whispered.

  “You’ve stayed too long already,” she said. I looked around to see if anyone else noticed her. No one seemed to notice the dead woman, nor me talking to myself. Only one couple was within earshot, and they were busy looking at their phones. “Megalorsaurus, as soon as they empty Rodney’s house and give you a check, you get on a bus.” I watched in horror as a worm slid from the corner of her eye, and down the bridge of her nose. “Get out of this town. Never contact anyone here again. Never return.”

  “That’s the plan,” I said, my voice shaking.

  “Rodney ain’t done with you yet.”

  “My dad?”

  “The one and only.” She laughed a hoarse sound.

  “He’s basically the only person I haven’t seen around.” I forced a laugh, then my eyes darted over to the nearby table to see if the couple looked at me. They didn’t. I’d give my subconscious a chance to explain herself. “What does my dad want?”

  “He’s coming for you.”

  “And who the hell are you?”

  She stared at me, her fingers intertwined, something bubbling underneath the skin. A worm crawled out from one nostril and into the other.

  “Are you me?”

  Still no answer. More worms crawled over her skin.

  “Do you know my Aunt Dee? Do you know why she’s coming after me?” Still no answer. “Are you really there? Am I seeing things?” Her skin crusted and crumbled, turning entirely into worms. Her neck squashed out to the sides as her head fell into her chest.

  Then, she was only dirt and worms. A man yelled. Two waitresses appeared at my booth. “What in the heavens?”

  They stared from the pile of dirt across from me, and up to the ceiling. A hole had formed and rain poured through, turning the dirt to mud.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Safe was not available anywhere. If a dirt woman followed me into a restaurant, would I really find a place where safety was more than an illusion?

  I sat in my car, staring at the diner, smoking and chewing at my thumbnail. Dirt monsters that no one else saw until they crumbled. Monsters could show up at any time; nothing to do with the house anymore.

  I was fucked.

  This should have been quick and easy. Clear out, clean up, and sell. Say goodbye once and for all when I left this place in the dust. Now...what was happening? Could Cedar Valley follow me?

  Follow me right into an insan
e asylum.

  “Shit!” I punched the steering wheel. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” Ash stung as it fell from my cigarette and onto my bare leg. I held the horn down as I thrashed my head one way and the other, then I threw it back against the headrest.

  A woman with a high ponytail and a tight purple tank top walked by, holding a small boy’s hand. They jumped and hugged the far edge of the sidewalk.

  “Sorry!” I shouted through the small opening in my window.

  The mom shot a glare over her shoulder, and her son raised a hand in hello. I smiled at his t-rex shirt, then looked up at his face. I slammed back into my seat as far as I could press myself into the lumpy foam.

  Solid black circles sat in place of his eyes, moving as if smudges rubbed on by tiny invisible fingers. His mom tugged on his arm, and the blackness steamed from his eyes like a tornado, shooting up to the sky and out of sight. A second later, the twosome disappeared inside the restaurant.

  “What the hell was that?” I looked up at the ceiling, my body shook. His eyes. “I’m a weird shit magnet.”

  Cecelia’s words ran through my head again. Nope. “I’m a witch. Ha.”

  The rain let up on the drive home, something to be grateful for. After the manager apologized a dozen times about the hole in the ceiling, he said they had more rain in the past week than in the past four months combined. Structural damages had been happening all over town. Including the flooded roadways under the bridges – forcing me to take the long route home. I stopped myself, not my home. Dad’s home. Aunt Dee always said as soon as you called a place home, the land gained power over you.

  “Could Aunt Dee have been a certified witch? Not just a kooky old hippie?”

  “You’d be surprised.” Aunt Dee’s voice came through the speakers over Fleetwood Mac’s Rhiannon, and I swerved, darting into the opposing lane. The large truck coming towards me blared its horn, and I moved back to my lane as he blew by me.

  My hands shook, and I wanted to pull over on the side of the road, but a tickling at the back of my mind told me to keep moving. I shakily asked, “Aunt Dee?” but only Stevie Nicks answered.

  Another moment of imagining, but just in case I turned the volume all the way down.

  Something was off when I pulled into the driveway. Nothing felt right since the minute the bus pulled into Cedar Valley and passed the damn iron horse. Something didn’t look right now.

  I couldn’t put my finger on it until I stepped on to the porch and found the screen door open, as though the wind had pulled it off its settlement, yanking out the top screws. Holes slashed through the screen, like claw marks on flesh.

  Something else was wrong. The rain was the wrong temperature, or the ground too dry, or the house shorter, or the trees taller. No, none of those were right.

  When I pushed the interior door to the house open, I solved the mystery.

  Aunt Dee’s collectible tins were strewn across the floor, dented and opened. Their odd contents from the years life breathed through this house, dumped out like trash. The refrigerator had been turned on its side, coils ripped off the back and liquid pooled on the floor.

  Linoleum dragged up in places revealed sagging wood. The eye-watering sting of canned peppers saturated the air, the jars smashed against the walls and floor. The front glass of the oven had been caved in.

  Stunned, I wandered from room to room, finding similar scenes in each. Torn apart like a frat party from hell, it no longer resembled a home. Not even one where a family could have been so tortured and sad. Every stream of spray paint, every crack of glass, and every turned over knickknack and end table was a violation. A kick to my gut.

  Not a piece of furniture left unturned. Not a glass left unbroken. The mattresses and cushions had been tossed around. My stomach sank as I thought of Wolfy and what state I would find him in. And that dread made me pass by my closed bedroom door three times before opening it.

  My room with the least value had been left untouched. I crouched on the floor next to Wolfy, and the door closed behind me. Stoic and still, Wolfy looked over the scene. A high-pitched whine emanated from his chest as I rested my head against him.

  “It’s okay, boy,” I whispered, patting his back. I didn’t look at him as his chest moved in and out, breath starting up inside of him. Why hadn’t he stopped whoever had done this? I saw the claw marks on the back of my door and realized he had tried. They hadn’t come in my room because there had been a live beast scratching at the door. I closed my eyes.

  He crumpled to the floor, and at first, I thought the foam inside of him had finally given way and deflated. But his head rested on my knee. His tail thumped on the floor. Still too scared to open my eyes, I ran my hand down his fur, soft and dusty from years in the garage.

  “Who did this?” I asked, loss sinking into my bones. The money. All gone. Unless they hadn’t touched the garage. I might salvage the auction if they hadn’t gone into the garage. I couldn’t make myself stand. The violating thought weighed down on me like a ton of bricks.

  They ruined my chance. They ruined my new life. They came and destroyed everything. They ruined my chance of getting money. The only thing left for my life was crumbs. If I was lucky to have crumbs fall from someone to my lap.

  I had no money to go nowhere with.

  It wasn’t fair. My brothers and Angela all got to run off and see the world. The military and the oil fields. Perfect callings for kids like us. Too screwed up to make our own future, we’d hop into a pre-programmed setting for someone else’s. A one size fits all kind of life.

  I never told any of them, but I hit my low point two years ago. Between jobs, yet again, I came home to an eviction notice on my apartment door. My roommate had already broken in and taken all of her stuff worth taking. I called Angela for help, and she told me where it waited.

  The nearest recruiter’s office.

  Ready for them to drop me into a pair of boots and send me off to get lost in a line of people who looked just like me, I presented myself as the nothing I was. They turned me away. With two ways to fix it. I needed to gain fifteen pounds, and I needed to pay off twelve thousand dollars in outstanding debt, or at least get current on payments.

  I guess the military wasn’t desperate enough to take a girl with a stained credit report and an abysmal appetite. There really was nowhere to go. As if Wolfy sensed my painful memory, he licked my hand.

  I had already been in my rock bottom for two years. But, surprise. Another rock bottom layer waited further below the surface.

  I never told my siblings that the recruiter turned me away, but I would have to tell them about this. They’d listen in silent told you so fashion to how I ruined the chance to get rid of Dad’s house. How I squandered the opportunity to have money of my own to move on to a real life. A new life. Something of my own.

  I opened my eyes and looked at Wolfy, but somewhere in that split second he went still. A statue and in his original form Dad placed him in all those years ago.

  “Mr. Wolf, how many rock bottoms does it take to get to the center of hell? Is there something below it? Magma or something? Am I at magma?”

  He didn’t answer, but looked straight ahead at the wall. I turned and looked too. The words ‘donkey face’ had been scrawled across, carved into the Strawberry Shortcake wallpaper in places. Dad’s old nickname for me.

  Dad? That dirt lady at the diner, she warned me. Dad was back. Not done. Dad was—

  No. The nickname wasn’t a secret, anyone could have written it on the wall. In fact, Bobby used it a time or two when I’d piss him off enough.

  Bobby. Who else? He was mad at me for the other night. When the invisible girl pushed him into the road. The girl only the two of us saw. The girl who looked like me. Pissed off, and he came here and— What? Destroyed my house?

  That seemed like a huge step. Too much ambition, even for him. Too much revenge. Did destroying a house and my chance of getting out of town equal tossing someone into ongoing traffic?

&nb
sp; In Bobby’s head, it probably did. I grabbed the car keys.

  My actual plan had been to go to Bobby’s place, but by the time I reached the first intersection, I realized I had no idea where he lived. My hands shaking, I ended up at the police station instead. I chain-smoked in my car for ten minutes before I decided to speak to a cop.

  As luck would have it, Ken walked out of the old brick building just as I walked in. He had been smiling, a protein shake in one hand, his keys twirling on the other while he spoke with a female officer. She looked young with brunette hair pulled back into a tight bun. They both saw me and froze.

  Ken realized it was me, and his shoulders softened as he sighed. I’d met him three or four times by then, and each time I looked a little crazier. I’d long let go of making a good impression.

  The girl cop’s hand moved to rest at her hip just over her gun. An overreaction, certainly, but then I caught my reflection in the dark window behind them. Ratted hair, dirt on my check, holey sweatshirt hanging past the hem of my shorts.

  “Megan?” Ken asked. The other officer’s hand relaxed, but did not drop. Maybe my name held familiarity; she had heard explicit details about me and my life. I could hear Ken now, I found my boyfriend’s hallucinating ex-best friend, sleeping outside of our house.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but a terrible sob came out. I ran the back of my hoodie sleeve over my eyes, and stood there for a second, getting my bearings. No one made a move to comfort me. I was fine with that. If I smelled anything like I looked, they were better off.

  “Can I call someone?” Ken asked.

  “There’s no one,” I said, dropping my sleeve. If I was going to do this, I needed to get it over with. Do it on my own. My life. My responsibility.

  “What about Cecelia?” He pressed his lips inward. “Or Jordan?”

  “Bobby—” I managed before I let out another sob.

  “You want me to call Bobby?”

  “No.” I squeezed the ends of my sleeves in my balled-up fists. Ken and the other officer exchanged glances. “Bobby took away everything. He took it, bashed it all up, and now I got nothing.”