Going Home (Cedar Valley Hauntings Book 1)

by Renee Bradshaw

  Dee shot by me as fast as a forest-bred creature. Where was she going? I tried to find the moment, but Ruby flashed before me.

  I shut my eyes. Had I been talking to Ruby in a hospital bed? No, it wasn’t her, was it? We’d left Ruby in West Virginia, and hadn’t we got word a few years back that she’d been buried? Stubborn fool should have moved here with us when she was old enough. No, I should have brought her with me, instead of leaving her behind. I couldn’t shake the fact that the pale woman in the hospital bed looked identical to my little sister.

  Get up.

  A memory.

  Something about it wasn’t a memory. It wasn’t from all the pieces shelved in the back of my mind, but from elsewhere where the grasp eluded me. I picked up a loose clod of dirt from the ground and crushed it between my fingers. This. Reality crumbled around me, Earth. The memory was my end sneaking up on me. My mind melting and falling apart. This dirt was real. And I was in the woods for a reason.

  “Dee?” Where did she go?

  “Mama!” A scream came from deep in the forest. I remembered now.

  I caught up with Dee, running down the slope into the playing pit. The pit had been prepared as a housing foundation that was never laid for Rodney’s cousin. Now it served as the land of plastic shovels, toys retired from the house, and a half-built abandoned fort. A safety net from the real world. No rapists, killers, drugs, or teenage pregnancy here. The pit protected childhoods.

  Until that moment. Four children stood in the pit. One lay at an awkward angle. I followed Dee down the sloped side.

  “Mama,” Angela said around a sob. She ran towards me, snot dripping from her nose, dirt streaks and tears embedded in her face. “Meg fell. She didn’t come down the right way with us, but walked around the edge and slipped in the mud. She fell...”

  All four children spoke, words tumbling over each other, I wasn’t able to tell who was saying what. My eyes only focused on Meg. Dee squatted at her side, muttering and touching Meg’s forehead with her forefingers. Dee reached for Meg’s arm, lifting it inches from the ground.

  “Don’t touch her,” Todd demanded. He complained just last week he was too old to be babysitting his siblings in the woods. Maybe he hadn’t been old enough if this happened. His shaggy blond hair fell into his eyes and he grabbed Dee’s arm. “When Lea Martinez fell from the top of the stairs last year, the school nurse said don’t touch her ‘til the ambulance came. You can’t move their spine. They have to be able to move on their own.”

  Dee leaned forward, her hair falling over Meg’s face. “Go. Run. Call the ambulance.”

  Todd pulled at my arm. “Don’t move her, Mama. You can’t magic this away.”

  I nodded. “We’ll leave her be.”

  His eyes betrayed his doubt. He carried the distrust for magic that his father placed in his mind. Seeing he had no other way to get an ambulance out for his little sister, he turned and ran up the sloped side of the pit. He held onto thick tree roots on his way out, keeping his footing sturdy.

  The ground darkened underneath Meg’s head, like muddy clay. The direction was wrong, like the mud flowed up from the ground, instead of down with gravity.

  “Dee?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper, but the children stopped talking. Angela’s face buried against one of the twin’s stomachs. “Dee, look at me.”

  Dee had not taken her eyes off little Meg. Meg, whose lips paled even as I watched her. Dee whispered and touched her forehead, calling up creatures and lives from the old country. I recognized words from Granny Darling, though I didn’t know their meaning.

  Nothing happened. Meg did not move. Her chest did not rise or fall with tiny breaths.

  Dee stopped muttering and fell back to her rump. Silent tears streamed down her face as she looked at me.

  “There’s a rock, here.” She pointed at the side of Meg’s face by her ear. “She might have only broken a leg, or her arm, trying to stop herself from falling. But this rock, it’s right there. Where her head hit.”

  Dee turned Meg’s head to retrieve the rock. Her eyes closed in her already pale face.

  “We can’t move her. We have to keep her still for her spine,” I repeated Todd’s warning. The words came without feeling. Meg wasn’t in there anymore.

  “Spine’s not of any use now,” Dee said. “Her soul is ready to travel.”

  An inhuman sound filled the pit, and it wasn’t until later I realized it came from my throat. I picked Meg up and pulled her close.

  Dee’s squeezed my shoulder. I looked at the rock in her other hand. “I tried, but she isn’t made like me. I can’t be the one to fix this.”

  I shook my head, not understanding.

  Dee spoke again. “I tried to give her my essence to heal her. Her soul is ready to travel, but it’s lingering. She’s not completely gone. We can keep her. But I’m not like her. I’m not made up of blood magic like the lot of you.”

  “She’s never done magic,” I whispered, cradling her in my lap, tight to my chest. My baby. I saw it in her. The wonder. The excitement. The small creatures that came to life around her without her trying. She hadn’t performed magic, but magic lived in her, emanating when it chose. I thought of all my children, she would be most like me one day.

  “She hasn’t, but you know as well as I do, it clings to her from the air. It’s fading fast, but if you can give her a piece of your essence— You remember how Granny showed us?”

  One of the twins, I couldn’t look up and see if it was Ray or Duncan, moved to my side. “Should I get Daddy?”

  I shook my head. “No. He’s got a big load in the garage today. We can’t get him. Not until we know for sure.”

  “Mama.” The word tugs at me. The boys haven’t called me Mama since they were toddling around. One of them called me Mama, even if he didn’t have time for me yesterday. “We know for sure. Don’t we? Meg? She’s not moving, not breathing. She’s dead”

  The words slapped across my cheek and took me out of my stupor. “Go. All of you.” I looked at the other twin and Angela. “Back to the house. Wait with Todd for the ambulance. Go...go to my room. In the top right drawer of my dresser behind the socks, there’s a bag of chocolate. Go get it, and sit down in the living room, and eat till your tummies hurt. And don’t come back outside.” Angela sobbed, her thumb finding its way to her mouth.

  “Go!” Dee yelled. “Listen to your mama and get out of here.”

  They turned on their heels and ran out of the pit, grabbing onto roots and rocks as they scampered up the muddy incline. I turned my focus back to Dee.

  “I don’t remember the words,” I said.

  Dee reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out tiny, rusty scissors normally used for nothing more than snipping the ends of string when she was done with her embroidery. She grabbed my hand and pierced my forefinger, then slipped it into Meg’s mouth. Her tongue felt dry against my finger.

  “Repeat,” she said. “It is very important that you leave your doubts behind.”

  “I don’t have doubts,” I snapped, rocking Meg’s limp body against me as I yelled.

  I closed my eyes for a moment; it would not do to go into this angry. Not if I wanted to be successful. Not if I didn’t want to repeat mistakes. I took a deep breath. “I believe. I believe from here to the next that my little Meg will be back. Do you remember how though? We’ve only done this a handful of times. With animals and…” I trailed off, pushing the nightmarish reality of my mistake away.

  “We may have only done this a handful of times, but I’ve seen it hundreds of times.” She looked at me, calm falling over her face and wiping away the fear we both sat in, like water filling the pit. “Old as dirt, remember? Fill your heart with love instead of sadness and anger, to do this right. When we split off a piece of your soul to pull her back, you cannot be in the darkness.”

  My body filled with sadness the moment I saw Meg in the pit, still and lifeless. Dee wouldn’t let me down though. No. She loved
Meg, as though she were her own. She loved all my children that way. She was more of a sister than I ever could have hoped for.

  “I thank God every night for the morning I tripped over you on the way to start school.” I smiled at the memory washing over me of the day Dee had been brought into my life. She’d been brought to save me, in more ways than one. Now she would save my little girl.

  “God had nothing to do with it,” she said.

  “Yes, I know.”

  Dee nodded, and she spoke, slow and hushed, waiting every few words for me to catch up and repeat. By the time we moved through the mantra once, and onto the second time, I remembered and no longer needed her help. I repeated, believed and milked the blood from my finger onto Meg’s tongue, my hand behind her head keeping her held close to my chest. When the blood stopped flowing, Dee stabbed another finger, and I rubbed the blood on my darling daughter’s thin pink lips.

  I prayed to the goddess of mothers, the father of man, and the angels of retribution. I made thousands of promises in that day for things to come. For help to flow from me. To attend to the wishes of those who came before, and those who would come after. Anything to get my little Meg back. All the while I spoke the words, but felt no power surging through the pit.

  “Geraldine.” Dee’s stern voice shot at me over Meg’s still body. “Your mind is like a spilled plate of spaghetti. Concentrate.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Meg needs more than trying. She needs you to bring her back. Or, you can let her go.”

  I felt like Dee slapped me. Through gritted teeth, I said, “I will not let her go.”

  Sorrow coated Dee’s eyes as she gripped my shoulders. “Are you sure then? The day she was born I told you, her soul is young and not long for this world. She’ll come back again.”

  I let the thought mull over. Meg’s soul was indeed young, brand new almost. It was hard for a new soul to make it through the darkness of this world, pressing through fields of hatred laid down by centuries of mundane human ruin. Souls left early, only to return from the Summerland to continue their journey of completion. Meg would come back, but never the same as she woke that morning.

  “Not as my Meg. Not as mine.” My mind abruptly came to a halt as I successfully pushed all the worry and confusion away. “I am ready.”

  Dee nodded, and pierced another finger, and I rubbed blood across Meg’s lips before milking the blood into her mouth.

  I spoke the words again, but this time I let no fears or other thoughts muddle their meaning.

  “Goddess of Mothers, God of Fathers, hear me.”

  The blend of forest sounds quieted.

  “Great Ishtar, I ask you. Return what has fallen from me, before she completely crosses the threshold of the Summerland.”

  An electric current pushed through my body as a connection to the goddesses and the universe moved through me.

  “I bring the powers of the strong and steady rocks of the North.”

  A woman with dark hair held a flashlight in her shaking hand. She crept along a wall in a large cave, searching for the ones she had lost. When her hair rushed behind her in an invisible wind, for a moment forgetting her fear.

  “I bring the powers of the gentle and strong winds of the East.”

  A woman with dirty nails stood alone in a sterile apartment, a flask raised to her lips. She leaned against a large window, looking out over a city, and thought about throwing something heavy through the glass. She wanted to follow it down the fifteen floors to the ground, but a warmth fed through her body. She pulled the flask from her lips, for a moment forgetting her mistakes.

  “I bring the powers of the bright fires of the South.”

  A woman in a summery orange dress fed wood into an iron stove in her primitive kitchen. A beeping pulled her attention to a screen hidden behind a leather flap on the wall, and she pressed a few buttons before turning to a wooden bowl on the counter. A dough, soft and warm was abandoned when the air around her dipped, and for a moment forgetting all who she hid from.

  “I bring the powers of the cleansing and ever-changing waters of the West.”

  A freckled girl on the brink of womanhood slid her hands into wool gloves, stepping from the back of the back of a trailer and into the snow. She ignored the shouts of her brother behind her as she ran, wanting to quiet her mind if only for a moment. She froze in her spot as the world around her changed from white to green. For a moment, forgetting all the responsibilities on her shoulders.

  “Ishtar, I demand the spirit return!”

  A painful bolt shot through my chest, visible and painful. I stared into my daughter’s face, seeing four women stare back at me.

  “I demand it!”

  They each nodded in turn, and my body tore from Meg as I shot across the pit and slammed into the side of a tree.

  The wail of an ambulance cut through the tiny slice of our forest in the vast Oregon mountainside. The spell was broken. I had lost her.

  “Mama,” Meg whispered, then took in a loud and wheezing breath.

  “My stars,” Dee whispered.

  “It worked.”

  I crawled across the pit on my hands and knees, as Meg stirred and sat up. I reached her, and cradled her in my arms. The four other women were gone from her face. “I love you, my little Megalorsaurus.”

  She breathed, and she moved. No longer cold and still as she buried her head in my chest, hiding from the harsh light of day. Young soul be damned, fate could not separate my girl from me that easily.

  Dee said, “Geraldine, your aura. I know who the other girl in your head is.”

  But somehow, I had always known, since the day Meg formed in my stomach.

  “Stay my child,” I said, tears raining down my face. “Stay.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Stay. I stopped sweeping the porch abruptly.

  The word whispered through the forest as though the trees were alive themselves, begging me not to go anywhere. It had been Mama’s voice coming from the forest. A moment ago, I’d been with her there, a small child in her arms. Hurt.

  Stay.

  I shuddered, as the memory of Mama already started to fade, and warily answered, “I’ll think about it.”

  And think about it I did, as I finished sweeping the leaves and dirt from the porch. A possibility for my next major life step dwindled down to handouts from my siblings, and for the most part they were ignoring my calls. Angela had declared she was done with me, sure that I’d brought the problems with Bobby on myself.

  I leaned the broom against the stack of wood by the new mini fridge. The past week had been a blur. Gary cleared out the house and did the heavy lifting; a man more helpful than I deserved. He brought out a dumpster for free and a few men from his church helped clear debris from inside the house.

  Though the garage door had been taken off its hinges, nothing had been broken or stolen, as far as I could tell. I figured the eyes of all the animals in the garage would have been too much for Bobby and company while they destroyed my life. Things were different when you have witnesses. Even long dead ones.

  Jake had taken pity and declared me a charity case, tagging Dad’s tools onto another estate auction, commission free. We made almost three thousand dollars, surprising the hell out of me. Jake seemed sad when he handed me the check, saying it should have been more. None of the animals sold and were returned to the garage. Hey, I could reopen my childhood business charging five dollars a head to see the bodies.

  I grabbed a wicker basket from behind the pile of wood, catching sight of the lock box John had dropped off when I first came to town. A large green and yellow spider had taken up residence between the small box and a log, and I decided not to disturb its web.

  As I inspected the basket for signs of spider inhabitation, I was surprised to find it intact, knowing it had to have been bashed in days ago. I wouldn’t question how it had rewoven itself. I ran my fingers down the wicker strips, then traced the painted symbol; a crude w
eed, a line for the ground and squiggly roots diving underneath. The plant grew and stretched high into the sky towards a sun with beams of sunlight shooting all around.

  “The garden basket.” I remembered that basket, hanging over Aunt Dee’s arm as she came up from the valley with fresh vegetables for dinner. She always harvested so much rosemary. I would make myself dinner that night, something Aunt Dee used to make, vegetable stew with rosemary. I looped the basket over my arm and headed down to the garden.

  Stay or go. Strange how two short words provoked so much fear and stress. My mind refused to be made up without a good struggle. I knew deep inside I leaned towards staying, because I had spent a chunk of the money I’d made at the auction on paint, cleaning supplies, a camp stove, and a tiny refrigerator.

  The three thousand I hide in a plastic bag, buried in the back yard under an overgrown thyme bush. Just in case. In case of what? In case I decided to go. Each time I had run away, I had not made a slow decision with deliberate preparation. It had been the middle of the night, shoving clothes in a backpack and scrounging up money wherever I could find it. As much as I wanted to give Cedar Valley a chance, at least long enough to show Angela I had changed, danger threatened my peace.

  Ken helped me file a restraining order, but Bobby would have to believe in the power of a piece of paper for it to work. Bobby was my reason to go. The last time I’d left town, it had been because of him, but a different lifetime. This time, if he made me go, it would be to be as far away from him as possible. I worried all week about when he would appear on my porch and force me to decide. Because I felt certain it was not if, but a when. Gary took Dad’s shotgun to have it cleaned and serviced and told me it should be back tomorrow. I would feel better when I had tucked under my mattress.

  I filled the basket with a small harvest of vegetables and herbs to make dinner, pulling weeds and dead heads as I went. I didn’t know if I was more surprised the rules of tending to a garden had returned, or that Dad had bothered keeping the garden going. Though, now I started to wonder if it wasn’t Aunt Dee herself. I’d ask her if I ever saw her again.