by Olivia Swift
“You wouldn’t believe us,” the woman said.
“Try me,” Ben answered, and the woman took a breath.
“Stones that are cream-colored with marks on them. We think they are in your rock pile by mistake.”
“Sorry but I just have rock to build a miniature landscape and building stones for garden walls,” Ben said. “Why do you want them? Were they valuable?”
The man took a step forward and Ben heard Kat take a sharp intake of breath. The man held out a hand.
“I’m Art Melvich,” he said. “The stones belonged to a society that I am in because they are very old. We kept them in the old building by the falls and now they have disappeared.”
“Did you ask the building contractor?” Ben queried. The man nodded and said they had never seen anything like that.
“They said it was all done with big machines and put straight into trucks.”
Ben waved an arm and said that they could see that he had started to landscape the garden but there were only very rough pieces. The two people nodded and looked around.
“Sorry to bother you,” Art Melvich said. “We’ll leave you in peace.”
The sound of a motor racing toward them and Dex and Carly running up to help, stopped any further movement.
“Is everything okay?” Dex asked as he reached them. Ben nodded and said the visitors were just leaving. Carly came and stood beside Kat. The woman apologized for disturbing them and walked toward the car, but as the man passed the two girls, Carly felt Kat stiffen and grab at her hand. Then she felt what Katarina was feeling herself, and for a moment everything went black, then cleared again. The man walked away to his car and both girls let out a deep breath and looked at each other. Kat reached for Ben and he wrapped his arms around her.
“What was wrong?” he asked as he felt her tremble.
“I felt it as well, Kat,” Carly said. “There was something very black with that man. It was not a nice feeling at all.”
“Come into the trailer and have a coffee,” Ben said, “and we can tell you what happened.” He opened it up, switched on the lights, and they all felt better. As he made the coffee, he and Kat took turns telling the other two about Ada, Harris and Jinty’s gran.
“Well what an evening you had,” Dex said.
“And then we saw the car and turned around and surprised them.”
Ben put an arm around Kat’s shoulders and she admitted that Carly knew about her sixth sense thing.
“Carly does dowsing and stuff so she doesn’t think I’m weird.”
“You’re not weird,” the other three said in unison and then laughed. It made her relax, and Carly said that they were probably telling the truth about the society.
“But what society, and why keep the stones down there by the waterfalls?” Ben asked.
“Where are the freakin’ stones?” Dex queried, and Ben told him about burying them.
“We even added the one we took with us tonight, so there was nothing to see,” Kat told them. “I know this sounds absolutely crazy, but the stones seem to want to stay together.”
“The one being tumbled into beads is not complaining.” Carly said, laughing.
“We should be able to find out about societies locally on the web,” Dex suggested.
“And Google Art Melvich,” Carly added.
“How do you fancy a ghost hunt one night down by the waterfall? We might see mysterious lights and dancing demons,” Ben suggested. After they laughed, Dex and Carly said they were up for it.
“Thanks for rushing to the rescue,” Kat told Carly. Coffee finished, and plans to go ghost hunting in hand, Dex and Carly left them to lock up.
“You okay now?” Ben asked. She nodded and moved to put her arms around his waist.
“Just hold on to me for a little while,” she said. “That seems to make everything all right again.”
“At your service any time,” he said and pulled her close. From the position of feeling safe, she told him what she had felt as the man stepped forward.
“He has a feeling about him of threat. It’s as if he could knock you dead with his mind. I know that sounds mad but it felt really nasty. Like Carly said, he seemed surrounded by a black cloud. I think there is a very nasty person there with a clever cover over him.”
Ben took her over to the seat and flicked the remote to put something on the television.
“The door is locked and you have me. Just take a little bit of time to allow the darkness to disappear.”
He put his legs up on the long seat and held her in the fold of his arm.
“It’s an excuse for me to hold on to you for a little bit longer.” He smiled and kissed the top of her head.
“I could happily stay like this forever,” she murmured. She could feel him smile at the idea and guessed that he probably felt the same.
It was warm and the time was late. The television showed some program about cooking but the volume was low and neither of them watched it. Ben had dreamed of this situation for a long time; in fact, ever since Kat had walked into the crystal shop to help Carly out.
When he looked at her sleeping face again, it was several hours later and she was still breathing evenly in a deep sleep. He stroked some of the dark curls away from her cheek and placed a gentle kiss in their place. She stirred and smiled and he whispered that having her in his arms was all he ever wanted. Her eyes fluttered, and she smiled up at him.
“Just a perfect way to wake up,” she said and reached up to kiss his lips.
“You feel okay now?” he asked, and she said she was just feeling so good.
“Stones, trespassers, ghosts, and ghouls. Who cares?” she said. “Together, we can beat them all.”
“Together, I feel we could do anything,” he answered. “Ask me for the moon and I’ll go get it for you.” She smiled and said having him there was all she would ask for, and then she looked at her watch.
“Goodness,” she said. “It’s three o’clock in the morning. I’ll have to sneak in very quietly.” They reluctantly sorted themselves out and locked up the trailer. The car was still parked down the road and they walked through the darkness hand in hand.
“I will put some lights in soon, I think,” he remarked. “We need to see where we are going.”
They drove away.
She kissed his cheek and said she would call in the morning. He waited until she was safely inside the house then drove home with a smile on his face.
By the time she called him in the morning, she had brought her mom up to date about the people who had trespassed the night before, and when she said who the man was, her mother had actually shuddered.
“You don’t need to Google Art Melvich. He has that antique shop with the gold signs outside. He specializes in collecting anything to do with witchcraft and folklore, but the pieces are always very expensive. You would have to be a very rich witch to buy your ornaments from him.”
Kat passed on the information to Ben. He said that they had probably seen the last of Melvich if the stones were not there. She also told Carly when she reached the shop.
Ben was working on a client’s garden again and said that they had probably seen the last of Melvich if the stones were not there.
“I’m at the dig tonight,” Kat said. Ben thought he would work late at the garden he was making so it would be finished more quickly.
“Show Meghan the photo of the houses and see what she says,” he added, and said he would call her later.
The day was busy, but Dex and Carly had brought everyone up to date about the night before. Several of them had looked up Art Melvich on the Internet and the two sisters—Jazz and Kim—wondered if a trip into town and a look around the antique shop might be interesting. They popped into the crystal shop and asked Carly and Kat what they thought.
Both of the girls shivered when they thought about the feeling they had when Art Melvich had been close to them the night before, and said that Kim and Jazz were welcome to go and visit.
“Evan and Dex are busily looking up societies in this area,” Jazz said as they left on the investigative trip.
“You never think,” Kat said, “that just having a load of stones dumped in the garden could lead you to witchcraft and the devil.”
She finished out the day and then changed into work clothes appropriate for helping at the dig, then texted Ben to say that she was leaving. He answered to say that he would meet her at the dig when she finished, and then they could get something to eat. She sent back lots of kisses and smiley faces and set off to see what the archaeologists were working on.
As it happened, Simon assigned her to where Meghan was working, but before they started, she showed her photos to both Meghan and Simon.
“That is a fantastic record,” Meghan said. “I wonder if the gentleman would let me use them,”
“I’m sure he would. I’ll get his details from my mom.” She told them about the visitors in the dark and what they had found out about the scary stories.
9
“Wait a sec,” Simon said. He was normally a very calm person, so both Meghan and Kat looked at him in surprise. “That pricey antiques place in town?” Kat nodded. “He is a crook, plain and simple. He has artifacts that he has stolen from burial grounds and Native American holy places. He has a black market for collectors running behind that pricey shop front.”
“Oh, lord,” Kat said. “So, he could be covering for all sorts of things.” Simon agreed and told her to be very careful.
“He has some very dubious associates. Violence seems to come second nature to them.”
Kat told them about the ghost hunt planned for the next night, and suddenly it seemed to be not such a fun idea.
“I bet any money that there are no ghosts, but just bad people playing on superstition,” Meghan said. “Would you let me come along as well?”
“Of course,” Kat said. Then Simon allowed that he was curious, and another pair of eyes and hands might be very useful. Then he made them all get back to work and Kat had no time to phone anyone. She was on hands and knees scraping delicately away at the loose soil around a large, flat stone. Then the debris was swept onto a small shovel and kept in a separate heap in case it had to be gone through again. The stone they were uncovering was of gigantic size, and some of the diggers wondered if it had been a standing stone of some sort. Simon thought it was more likely part of a ground surface and whoever had lived there had just made use of a natural occurrence.
There were several other large slabs in the area and it was starting to look as if they were there naturally. The evening wore on so they packed up before the sun set. Kat saw Ben drive up in the truck and waved. She told Meghan and Simon she would phone with times for the next night, and ran over to where Ben was waiting. He held his arms out as if it was the most natural thing in the world and she was enclosed in a bear hug.
“Have to follow you in my car,” she said.
“Italian?” he asked, but she looked at her dusty jeans and asked for takeout instead. They bought burgers and fries and drove to his plot where they could eat and look at the view.
“Ta-da!” he said, as he showed her the bench and table he had bought.
“Wow. This is a great way to eat. Even as the light is going, the view is sensational.” After the dig, Kat found she was ravenously hungry and the food disappeared in no time. She told him about Simon and Meghan and the extra company for the following night.
“I got the impression that he has a bit of an ax to grind about this Art person and stolen artifacts but he never said any more about it.”
“We had better call Carly and Dex and let them know,” Ben said and pulled out his phone. While he was talking to Dex and they were making arrangements for where to meet so that the cars were out of sight, Kat wandered over to the place where they buried the stones. Then she stopped short and gasped, as there was a hole—but it was empty. She also knew in her head, that without a doubt, Art Melvich had been back in the garden—and she felt a shiver of fear.
Ben saw her look and she waved for him to come over. He was still on the phone and ran to where she was.
“The stones have been dug up and taken away,” Ben said into the phone. Dex told him to take photos and then come over for a coffee. He hung up and took Kat’s hand. She was shaking like a leaf.
“It was him. It was that Art guy. I can feel it as sure as anything.” He pulled her close and stroked her hair.
“It’s okay. He’s a nasty piece of work, but he’s not here.” He paused and then told her to leave her car here and they would drive to Chestnut Hall. “Dex said to take photos.” He snapped the empty hole from a few angles and then he took her hand and they climbed in the truck. The engine roared, the heater blasted away and with music playing, Kat was her old self by the time they reached the hall.
Carly, Dex, Evan, and Jazz were all waiting at the open door, and Carly wrapped her friend in a great big hug. Jazz handed her a glass with something alcoholic in it and told her to drink it down in one go. Kat laughed and did as she was told. It was so reassuring to be among this group of friends who were always there for you. She knew that Carly could feel the fear that was still lingering.
“I knew that he had been there. He left a sort of nasty feel about the place.” Kat told her.
“Come and sit and we’ll tell you about the antiques shop,” Jazz invited, and they all settled with drinks in hand.
Kim and Jazz had sauntered in and looked around. There was no sign of a man, but a woman was in charge.
“She was quite large and wore a huge floaty sort of floral thing with a scarf to match. She had blond hair tied up in a bun and lots of bangles on her arms.”
“Kim asked if there were any antique garden ornaments and she showed them to an outside area behind the shop,” Evan added.
“She said that she was only standing in for Mister Melvich who was away on business,” Jazz added.
“Maybe we know what that business was.” Ben showed them the photos of the empty hole.
“So, he figured that nobody would be there through the day and just drove up and took what he wanted,” Evan observed. “The man has a finger in a lot of pies, and in one of the societies I found online, his name popped up as chairman.”
“What was the society?” Kat asked, although she felt in her head that it would be something to do with witchcraft or the occult.
“Earth Magic,” Evan answered. Kat nodded and said that she knew it would be something to do with the occult.
“Earth Magic— more like Black Magic,” Carly added, and they looked at each other. Evan said that the website gave all sorts of recipes for healthy living and herbal cures for various simple ailments.
“It talked about green issues and saving the planet by going back to nature,” Evan added. He turned the screen so that the others could see it.
Then Jazz and Kim both spoke together: “That’s the woman from the antique shop.”
“Well that is Melanie Mandragora, the white witch who can offer spells to bring you happiness,” Evan told them.
“This is getting weirder and weirder. Fancy a load of old stone turning up at a witch’s coven just down the road,” Dex remarked.
“Thing is,” Ben said, “if he has the stones, he is welcome to them. Maybe that will be the end of it. I didn’t want them anyway. Best thing if he is happy with that and we never see him again.”
“These folks meet up and dance around naked, don’t they?” Jazz laughed. “You might get a front-row view tomorrow night,”
“Harking back to what the two old folks told you—it is actually a full moon tomorrow night.”
“Oh, lord,” Kat said.
“If they are ghosts and ghouls, they won’t show up on photos. It’ll be cameras at the ready at all times,” Dex put in.
“If you capture shots of ghosts, they will be worth a fortune.” Jazz laughed.
“But I bet it’s humans playing on the fear of the unknown,” Kat a
dded. They decided where to park the cars out of sight and phoned Simon to pass that on as well. Then Ben and Kat said they would meet them the next night and jumped in the truck to drive away.
“Back to Eagle’s Cry for my car,” she said. As they drove up to the trailer, she confessed that she was glad that the stones were gone.
“They were just too odd. The Earth Magic Society is welcome to them.”
Ben opened up the trailer and started to brew coffee.
“Wanted to ask you something,” he said, and she wondered what was coming. He unrolled some papers. “Three different plans that will all fit the foundation. Which one do you think would look best?”
“Oh, exciting,” she said and took the papers as he made the drinks. “But I thought the house was the last thing on the agenda.” He sat and brought the mugs of coffee across.
“I got one of those mortgages for building yourself and the first part came through. I can’t get the second money until I have completed a certain amount of the build.” She looked at all of the plans and then started again.
“They are all lovely in different ways,” she said and looked again. Ben stretched across and took the one that was on the bottom. He found the sketch of the front elevation and pointed.
“Balcony from the bedroom is above the front entrance. The place to sit and have breakfast.”
“Oh, that would be just lovely,” she agreed. “Is that the one?”
“I think so,” he said. “I just thought that it would be good to have somebody help me make the choices about things. If you don’t mind helping me out it would be better than just doing it all by myself.”
“I would absolutely love to be part of it.”
He told her that the plans were from a timber firm who made the walls in the factory and then put them in very quickly.
“If you use their plans like these, they have lots of the parts ready-cut.”
“So, you could start soon?” she asked with a smile, and he smiled back and nodded.
He took her hand.
“To have somebody do it with me just makes it something I really want to start on. I know what the garden plans are and I can work on that as I have the time. With this timber frame, I would not have to actually build the house myself. I must admit that building my own house was a bit hard to get my head around.”