Going Home (Cedar Valley Hauntings Book 1)

by Renee Bradshaw

  “No, that’s not good enough.” I grabbed her waterlogged arm, and a hunk of her flesh slid off in my hands.

  “Did John bring you the necklace?” she asked.

  “He brought me a box.”

  “Wear the necklace. You won’t have to worry about using your gift before you’re ready.”

  “When will I be ready?”

  She didn’t answer.

  I asked louder, “What if I don’t want to be ready? Just want it gone.”

  Jordan and I didn’t speak as Aunt Dee glided over the ground to Bobby’s skin. We watched as she placed her hand on the bottom of the tree trunk, the forest alive and moving again. The wind picked back up. The trees branch moved, grasping at the pieces of Bobby’s skin, absorbing him. When he was no longer visible, Aunt Dee crumbled to the ground.

  We stood still for a moment, not talking, before I remembered Jordan’s injuries. He still stood hunched over, holding his stomach. I weaved my arm under his shoulders, and together we walked away from the pit, now sloped on all edges after the earth collapsed.

  “I’m okay,” he said. “What about you? That was a lot to process.”

  “We need to get you to the hospital,” I said, ignoring his question. I didn’t know how I was. I didn’t understand most of what Aunt Dee said.

  Jordan grunted when we reached the path, and out of nowhere my hands burned. I let go of him and stepped back.

  “What are you doing now?” he asked, staring at my fingers as he backed up. I stepped off the path and away from him, then froze. “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing, I swear.” White lines, thin and wobbly like cooked spaghetti, shot from my fingers and palms. Dozens of lines from each hand reached through the air, growing, until they reached Jordan and roped around his body, digging in. His eyes widened, fearful of me. What were these lines doing?

  Would they do what the vine had done to Bobby? No. I couldn’t even let myself think that way.

  “Meg, stop.” Jordan grunted and fell back.

  I closed my eyes, willing it all to stop, but had no idea how it was happening. My mind chanted, not like Bobby, not like Bobby, not like Bobby, over and over until I dropped to the ground when I heard snaps and cracks come from Jordan. He screamed, and I wrapped my arms around myself. My energy pulled back in. I slumped over, unwilling to look. Had I killed him?

  “Megan,” Jordan said, and I looked up. He stood, his back straight in front of me. His cuts were closed, the skin around his eye no longer black. Blood lined his forehead and under his nose, but the rest of his body looked right again. “I have way more questions now that I know you’re not a lunatic.”

  “Me too.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  After our showers, Jordan fired up the little camp-stove on the porch and opened two warm beers, while I picked up the vegetables that had scattered when Bobby arrived. Then, Jordan laid them in a grill basket.

  Adrenaline, dehydration and empty stomachs gave us a quick buzz. Sometime between the shower and my third beer, my fingers quit sparking, my blood stopped humming, and my mind stilled.

  We settled onto what was left of the porch furniture, an outdoor cushion and a plaid lawn chair with two woven straps missing from the back. Jordan drained his beer and poked at the vegetables with a stick. The evening was like an end to a long summer’s day of yard work. The sirens started.

  “I guess they’re coming for me.” I shifted in my chair, willing my mind and body to stay under control.

  “Chug.” He picked up my beer and tipped it towards me.

  “Yeah, it’s totally the best idea for me to be drunk when explaining to the police that I did not kill anyone, but my freaky magic and attention seeking mother who is swimming around in my body did.” I tore the tab off my can. “Not to mention my healing spaghetti noodles.”

  “Chill. Look at your fingers.” Jordan pointed. They steamed. “You calmed down earlier when you started drinking. So drink. We aren’t telling them anything. You don’t need to worry.”

  “Worry? Yeah, nothing to worry about as long as I stay drunk twenty-four-seven. Drink the world away?” Not that it was any different from what I had been doing in the years leading up to that day. At least in those years I’d been normal. Relatively. “What about all the other stuff?”

  “What other stuff?”

  “My mother. I mean,” I touched my forehead. “She’s in here, apparently. She what? Teleported into my head when my dad killed her.” That part seemed less real than all the other things happening that day. “Aunt Dee’s out there, watching us right now and—”

  Jordan poked my leg with the stick. “All things we’ll figure out later. Right now, we’re dealing with the police. And for that, you need to be drunk, and not shooting fireworks out of your fingertips.”

  I lifted the warm beer to my mouth and chugged. My upper lip curled in disgust as the warm drink passed my taste buds. Beer slid down from the corners of my mouth and rested in my clavicle.

  I dropped the empty can on the deck beside me, belched, and laughed. The world spun, or my head did. Either way, the trees climbed as tall as the mountain, thin as twigs, before shrinking to fat little logs. They reversed their process again. This time bursting into flames. Jordan seemed oblivious to anything happening, his eyes focused on the driveway. The fire disappeared and trees grew again in their place, foreign, and larger than the Redwoods themselves, their tops disappearing in the clouds. I closed my eyes, counted backward from five, then opened them. Everything was back to normal. I grabbed a bell pepper slice from the pan and set it on the rim of my empty can to cool down.

  “I might be drunk. Or have a fantastic buzz.” I narrowed my eyes. I would tell him about the trees later, or not. The sirens were close, and within seconds, tires rolled across the gravel driveway. “I can’t do this.”

  “Your hands stopped doing that thing, so I don’t think it was a mistake.” Jordan stood as the police cars crawled into the driveway, edging between the felled trees.

  Jordan folded his arms over his chest. Two police cruisers sat in the driveway, and two officers stepped out of each. Even from my seat on the cushion on the deck floor, I spotted their questioning glances at the back property past the vegetable garden. One officer had a hand on his gun, but the others appeared unconcerned.

  “Hey, Dave,” Jordan said, and the cop with curly black hair climbed up the porch. A wiry young cop followed close behind, his hand raised inches from his gun.

  “Jordan.” Dave nodded at two other officers as he ran his fingers down his thin attempt at a handlebar mustache. He nodded his head towards the valley. “Mind if we check it out?”

  “What’s that?” Jordan asked. “The garden? I’m sure Meg doesn’t care.”

  “Cool, whatever,” I said, hoping I wouldn’t regret it.

  Dave nodded towards the woods. “We’ll look around the property, some of the guys have been looking for a place to hunt. The mountain’s supposed to be good for it.” Dave pointed, and the two officers walked down to the valley. We all watched as they stepped onto the path, weapons drawn, and disappeared from sight around the curve.

  “Heard you might have had some trouble today,” Dave said, turning back to us.

  Jordan smirked. “Dave, what did Bobby do? Turn himself in? They didn’t even give me a chance to figure out if it’s worth it to file a report this time.”

  Dave moved closer as Jordan spoke, looking at the empty cans by our pathetic seats. The corn on the cob roasted on the grill, and my stomach growled. The young cop with his hand against his gun edged behind Dave, not taking his eyes off me.

  “They tell us Rodney’s kid here killed Bobby. Sliced him in half.” Dave gave me the What-can-you-do-scrawny-little-twerp look.

  “I’ve been harvesting and cooking.” I hiccupped at the end of my statement. “Oh, and it was an early drinking day. You know, it’s been a shitty week here? Someone broke into my house, and you guys can’t figure out who. My car got tagg
ed. Check out the awesome paint job.” I pointed towards the driveway. “Now I got trees on the road. Guess who’s responsible for those? Me. And who knows what I’ll find tomorrow? Woods full of termites? Won’t have to worry about selling then. The mountain’ll sink into itself.”

  I hiccupped again, this time it was fake, then offered Dave a beer. He shook his head, and I settled back into my chair, opening the beer and taking a big swig. Adrenaline had chased my buzz away, and my fingers felt warm. I heard a sizzle and hoped it came from the stove, but was too nervous to look.

  “Like father like daughter, huh, Jordan?” Dave asked. “She get that mean streak Rodney Z got? Seeking retaliation for what she claims Bobby did?”

  “Nah.” Jordan turned the corn on the grill. “She’s not like him.”

  “Hey, I’m not saying I don’t think Bobby’s been out here. Might have been him. Believe me, he’s more trouble than he’s worth. But we still have to do things a certain way. Go in order. Legalities. Justice. Can’t just go around the law and kill someone.”

  “Who killed who?” Jordan asked, and I had to give him credit. I almost believed he didn’t know what happened.

  “Megan, did you do anything to Mr. Benson?”

  Jordan stood up from the grill. “You believe she could kill someone. Want to? Sure. But look at the size of her wrists. How was she going to kill someone? There were three of them. What was she going to do against them? They’d snap her in half.”

  “What about you? I remember you two back when we were in junior high. Like ketchup and mustard. You didn’t want to retaliate for what he did to your friend?” Dave asked. “And you’ve had your own problems with Benson.”

  “Shouldn’t you try to find a body or something first before you accuse me of killing someone?” Jordan used the stick to flip over the corn on the cob.

  “I don’t want to see you get messed up in all of this, man. Ken’s got a good thing going for him down at—”

  “Are you threatening Ken?” Jordan asked, wheeling on Dave, stick clenched in his hand like a weapon. I tugged on his jean leg, willing him to sit down. I thought we were supposed to be keeping our cool?

  Dave held his hands up in surrender. “No way, man. Absolutely not. I’m just giving you a heads up. A little reminder. Peony Mountain families are nothing but a bunch of cultists and druggies.” He spoke pointedly at me, and I wasn’t sure if he expected a rise from me. Hey, I’d fled this place years ago. He was free to call these people whatever he wanted. Then his voice changed, like Jordan just solved the case for him. “I’m just saying, you don’t want to mix police families into this out here. You’re family, Jordan. You’re one of us.”

  Jordan didn’t answer, but he lowered the stick, and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “What might make more sense, when you think about the mountain folk, is revenge. Rodney Z was a friend to many in town, but out here, you never know. Makes more sense, don’t it, Meg? Maybe your dad screwed someone up here over and they came out to his house. Maybe he cut out a little revenge of his own.

  “You know, I’m hard pressed to meet a man who doesn’t think the world of Rodney, my brother-in-law included. I’ve been out here before to have him mount a few things. I’ll say this: you won’t find a better taxidermist in the whole county. But a better man?” He shook his head. “I’ve seen the darkness in him. And people with darkness like that, well, they tend to have an enemy or two.”

  He paused, looking at the woods again. It seemed like he had spotted something out of place, but he shrugged and turned back at us. “Bobby’s friends been on the radar for a while. Not playing with a full jar of sauce, those two. We pulled them over for speeding, sixty in a thirty-five, no good. They had quite a story to tell. What happened out here today?”

  “Not much happened except Bobby and his guys jumped me, then dumped me out here,” Jordan said.

  “Meg.” Dave looked down at me, and I struggled to my feet, accepting Jordan’s hand. “Don’t suppose you—” He glanced at a piece of paper in his hand. “Filleted Bobby like a fish, chopped his bits up in two seconds flat, and buried him all over the woods? Blowing like the big bad wolf and knocking over trees? Which I do see some downed trees.”

  I snorted, grateful for Dave’s big bad wolf statement, or else I probably would have answered the question in tears with mist shooting out of my fingertips. The other officers returned to the porch, and admitted to finding nothing of interest down in the valley, or on the path.

  “Right, well. Jordan, you want to come down and do paperwork for the attack?”

  “Nah, I’m going to sit here and enjoy a corn on the cob. Besides, they didn’t even leave a mark.”

  “I’ll meet you at the car in a second,” Dave said to the young officer. The three other officers got back into their vehicles. Dave nodded over Jordan’s shoulder at me. “Between you two and me, we found meth in the car when we pulled Perry and Donald over. If they’re high, I couldn’t guess how much of what they say they imagined, and how much was real. If I had to guess, I’d say little was real. You should have heard the story they told us.

  “It’s my opinion that Bobby and his pals aren’t above stirring trouble wherever they can.” I let out a sigh of relief that Dave misunderstood. “If we run into him again, we’ll be sure to let you know, give you a heads up. Can I get your phone number Miss Z?”

  “Zebenfaiger. And I don’t have one.”

  “Not house or cell?”

  I shrugged. “Costs money.”

  He muttered something I couldn’t hear to Jordan before stepping off the porch. Before they pulled out of the driveway, I closed my eyes and let the impending sleep fall over me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Judging by the change in daylight, I had napped a few hours on the porch. Return of the neck crick. I rubbed my eyes and looked around; we made it. The police were truly gone, and Jordan and I had not been arrested. Jordan sat on the cushion, eating a cheeseburger while he read a worn Louis L’Amour paperback.

  “You sleep like the dead. Trippy after today.” Jordan dropped his book and pushed a fast food bag towards me. “Ken brought us dinner. And my phone. Dropped it in the garage parking lot.”

  I grumbled and rubbed my forehead. French fried greasiness drifted from the brown bag into the air, making my stomach churn with hunger. The sun shot through the treetops, working toward a sunset. “Did you sleep?”

  “Are you fucking kidding?” Jordan balked. “With your dead, dripping Aunt walking around out in the woods?”

  “She was here again?” I asked, sitting straight up and looking around.

  “Nope. No Dead Dee sightings this evening. But, holy shit, Meg. That’s what you’ve been seeing? And you slept here? You slept knowing she was in your backyard? In your house?”

  “What’s that thing they say?” I closed my eyes, imaging Aunt Dee in my room, the foggy clearing, and the dirt woman. “You do what you gotta do.”

  “That’s about working at fast food when you have to. Not sleeping with a dead woman walking around your bedroom.”

  “Dammit.” I smacked my forehead as the rest of the world caught up.

  “What?” Jordan dropped his hamburger in his lap and looked around, as though expecting another ghost to appear.

  “Is McDonald’s hiring?”

  “Does that mean you’re staying?” he asked, opening the paper bag and handing me a cardboard box of fries.

  “No. I mean, I don’t know? Yes?” The last reason I had been afraid to stay was because of Bobby, something I didn’t want to admit out loud. “There’s no reason to leave now, is there?” I picked up a soggy fry, twisting it between my fingers until the skin opened and potato mash squished onto my fingers. I licked off the goo. “I mean there are a million reasons why I should leave. If I had a legal pad I’d run out of room. But I’m broke, and I have no one waiting to bail me out. Not this time. Not even Angela. Money’s tight all around. Especially when it comes to a sister you
’ve already pulled out of the fire a dozen times. I’m just going to stay here. Besides...”

  Besides what? Besides, I fantasized about a life in this stupid forest that spit out dead aunts and ate my ex boyfriends? Where my mother was murdered and spread out in chunks? My heart skipped a beat, and my fingers twitched.

  No, it was too soon to think about her. About what Dad had done.

  Instead, I imagined myself down at the weekly farmer’s markets selling Aunt Dee’s vegetables and herbs. Stay and pick up our friendship where Jordan and I had left off? Stay and get to know Cecelia for real? Not shove her away and pretend like we aren’t related. I would beg her to teach me to control my hands.

  “Cecelia knows.”

  “She knows what?” Jordan asked, stuffing the last bite into his mouth. “You gonna eat your burger?”

  I gagged at the idea of meat. “About my blood.”

  He pulled a second burger from the bag. “Make more sense.”

  The wind chimes played a quiet song against the leaves, and I concentrated on that, instead of the sound of Jordan tearing into ground beef. “The blood is supposedly what makes all this happen. The weird stuff. She tried to tell me, and I told her she was crazy.”

  With a mouthful, Jordan said, “You were seeing Aunt Dee, and you thought Cecelia was crazy?”

  I shrugged and stood out of the lawn chair to stretch, pinching my neck to work out the tight muscle. “She knows. She said her mama taught her how to work magic. She could teach me.”

  “Teach you what?”

  “There’s stuff, I guess, to control the sparking thing. And to do stuff when I mean to and not by accident.” Accidental murders. My head felt like it compressed, and I took a deep breath, expanding my belly and head felt a little better. I might not have been aware of my power, but when Bobby died, the word freedom had screamed through my head. Just like when Dad died. Only, I couldn’t admit it out loud this time. “It’s important to learn stuff. The good stuff.”