by K. J. Emrick
The trail started off easily enough, quickly becoming shaded by the thick branches overhead. Butterflies and smaller insects lazily crossed their path. All around them the wind rustled. Birds called to each other through the trees. Addie lifted her face toward the distant sky for a moment and let the beauty of nature fill her senses. It would have been perfect, if she didn’t know they were walking straight toward a dead body.
The woods around Shadow Lake were ancient. Where people often walked, like here on this trail, the trees were mostly newer growth but even some of these trees were a hundred years old or more. In other parts of the woods that people had forgotten about, places that were harder to find, the trees grew thick and gnarled with blacker bark and deeper soil. There were things in those parts that very few people had ever seen, let alone heard of.
Addie smiled to herself as they crested a small hill and started down the other side. The secrets in Shadow Lake ran deep. It was a big responsibility for a young woman like herself. She was glad she had her two sisters to depend on for help.
Not for the first time, she wondered what it would be like to be just a normal girl growing up in, say, Detroit. Or San Francisco. Or Timbuktu.
Donna stumbled over a dip in the path and reached out to a tree for support. “So. Um, Addie, how long have you lived in Shadow Lake?”
“All my life, actually.”
“Is the rest of your family here, too? Your parents?”
“No.” Addie said, as matter-of-factly as she could. “My parents are dead. It’s just me and my sisters.”
“Interesting. I grew up an only child. I never had any sisters. Brothers, either.”
“But you said you were going to visit family up north, right?”
“Mmm-hmm. Yes. Distant cousins. They’re in a town near the state border. Have you ever heard of Cherub Falls?”
“Heard of it, yes. I’ve never been there.” They were coming around a curve in the trail, the sunlight making speckled patterns through the leaves on the ground. “Is it much further to where you saw this, Donna? We’re pretty far in. Maybe you only thought this woman was dead?”
“No,” Donna said, her voice small among the wall of trees to either side. “We’re here.”
Addie felt it at the same time. The tremor through the ether that always resonated in places of death. It momentarily stopped her in her tracks. To her, the air tasted stale and fetid for the space of a half dozen breaths. She opened herself to the sensations of it, learning what she could of the woman’s death.
In the middle of the trail, a woman lay on her back, arms folded over her chest, eyes closed as if she were sleeping. The simple purple dress she was wearing was spread out perfectly over her legs, covering her all the way to the ankles of her bare feet. She had obviously been laid out this way on purpose. Nobody ever died this peacefully.
There were different ways to die, and each of them had their own feel, their own scent, their own experience. A feel of a natural death always reminded Addie of smoke drifting away on a summer’s evening. An accidental death had a metallic tang to it, and often times a cosmic sort of humor that was more ironic than funny. A sudden, abrupt death left her with the thick, cloying sensation of a scalding hot and putrid fluid cascading down her throat. She had seen a stillborn death, once, and she never wanted to repeat what her senses had experienced that day, not ever again.
This woman’s death made her feel like she had just plunged headfirst into icy cold water, while the heavy scent of sulfur filled her nostrils.
There was no water. There was no sulfur. It was all in her mind. Addie knew this feeling, too. What had happened here was plain.
Murder.
She looked more closely at the woman now, picking out details and making a catalogue in her mind of what she was seeing. The victim—since she didn’t yet have a name—had short curly hair, and a wide nose. She had the look of someone who kept mostly to herself. She wasn’t wearing any jewelry. Not even a wedding ring on those folded hands. No mark where one would have been, either.
There was no blood on the ground. No convenient weapon lying nearby that would point to the manner of death.
From behind her, Donna cleared her throat, putting a trembling hand up to her mouth. “I’m going… I’m going to wait out at the start of the trail for the police, if that’s okay? I can’t be here. With this. I just can’t.”
Actually, that would be perfect, Addie thought to herself. “I understand,” was what she said out loud. “That’s fine. I’ll stay here. Just tell the officers which way to go.”
Donna nodded, her pretty eyes wide and staring until she turned away to rush back down the path.
Addie waited, counting to fifty to be sure Donna was well out of sight. With the trees growing this close together, all around, the chances were slim that she would have seen what Addie was about to do after just five steps, but it was better to be sure.
At the end of her count, Addie reached into the pocket of her slacks and took out a folded bundle of felt held together with a leather cinch. It unrolled in her hands, revealing a row of seven pouches, each holding a small amount of a different herb. These were the ones she used most often, in different ways, and she liked keeping them close at hand.
The one she selected was from the pouch on one end. It was just powdered verbascum plant, available from almost anyone’s backyard, but if you knew how to use it properly then it became something much more than a common plant.
It had several uses, in fact. One of them involved simply taking a pinch of it, like this, and letting your Life Essence flow through it, like this, and then blowing it into the air with a little breath.
Like this.
She watched as the fine dust-like particles twisted into gentle loops and spun around themselves in shifting patterns that took them closer to the woman on the ground. They glided, skimming over the body, playing over the features of her face, and then sweeping up into the air again, spreading out in the air…
Forming themselves into the image of a woman, in a long purple dress, with a wide nose and short, curly hair.
This was the ghost of the dead woman, made manifest by use of a simple sort of witchcraft.
Most people’s souls stuck around for a while after death, until they got used to the idea it was time to move on. Addie was glad to find it was the same way here. The woman’s spirit blinked her eyes open. Her gaze fell on her own dead body, and her image wavered, shocked to see her lifeless form laying at her feet. She became fainter, the sunlight gleaming through her, before becoming more distinct again.
“Hello,” Addie greeted her gently. “Can you hear me?”
The ghost’s face turned her way, and she nodded.
“I know this is a lot to take in but please understand, everything will start making sense once you’ve crossed over to the other side.”
“…how do you know…?” The woman’s voice faded in and out, calling across the distances between the world of the living, and the world of the dead. “…have you ever been dead…?”
Addie nearly burst out laughing. Of all the ghosts she had ever called upon, this was the first one to ask her that question. “No. No, I’ve never been dead. I know what I’m talking about, though. Please trust me. For now, I need to ask you some questions. Do you think you can answer them for me?”
“…I can try…”
“Good. My name is Addie Kilorian. Can you tell me your name?”
There was a pause, like she had to search for the answer. “…Esmerelda… I’m Esmerelda Norris…”
Norris? Addie looked back at the corpse, then up at the mirror image of the woman’s spirit. “You mean, the Norris family on Highland Street? You’re part of that family?”
Esmerelda’s spirit nodded.
Addie knew the Norris family. Sort of. It was hard not to at least have a passing knowledge of them. They were one of the two richest family in Shadow Lake. The Norris’s and the Raithmores had been feuding since before Addie was bo
rn. They were always trying to one-up each other. Those two families owned most of the town, one way or the other, except for the State forests and some independent homes and businesses.
They didn’t own Stonecrest, either. They would never lay claim to the Kilorian family land.
The woman’s ghost was still watching, and waiting, and Addie knew her time was short. She had to get answers now. “So you’re Eleanor Norris’s daughter?”
“…yes… she’s my mother… oh dear Lord… does she know…?”
“That you’re dead?” Addie finished for her. “I don’t think so. Not yet. I’ll be sure that someone tells her, but in the meantime I need your help. Can you tell me how you died?”
“…someone killed me…”
Ghosts always had such a keen grasp of the obvious. “Who killed you, Esmerelda? Can you tell me who?”
There was another long pause. Esmerelda grew fainter again, and then snapped back into shimmering clarity. “…don’t know… didn’t see… so fast… I was walking… not here… then there was all this pain…”
She floated down to her body, and held her translucent hands around her own flesh and blood throat.
Addie knelt down with her, beside the body, and looked where those ghostly hands were touching the cold flesh. Now that she was closer she could see these bluish-black dots lined up in two rows, right in the middle of Esmerelda’s throat. It took her a moment to realize they were bruises from someone’s fingertips, just like Esmerelda was demonstrating. She’d been choked to death from behind.
“…dead…” Esmerelda moaned. The sound of it sent chills up Addie’s spine. “…came home… family needed me… came home… and… died…”
She floated up from the ground, hovering several feet in the air, light and shadows both streaking through her as she lifted her hands to her face and closed her eyes tightly. Her image trembled.
Then she screamed, a sound that ripped through every fiber of reality and left Addie shaking on her knees.
Then the ghost disappeared, drifting away with the breeze.
Silence reigned over the forest for a long, long moment. Addie held her breath until the sounds of birds and insects returned. “Well. That was about as helpful as a hot tub in Hell.”
The ghost had given her a couple pieces of information, at least. Esmerelda had not been killed here. She’d been killed somewhere else, and then laid out here for someone to find. That raised the question of whether she was put here for someone specific to find her. The second thing Addie had learned from the ghost was that Esmerelda had been strangled from behind.
Which led Addie to conclude… exactly nothing.
“Curse my Irish eyes,” she said to herself. It was one of her favorite sayings when things went wrong. “Why is it never easy?”
Folding up her herbs she stuffed them into her pocket again, and started scouting the ground around the body, careful not to step on anything that might be important, hoping to find another clue to help solve this mystery.
She was interrupted by the sound of someone approaching.
“Hello? Are you there?”
It was a man’s voice, and the way he was tramping through the woods he wasn’t out here for a pleasure trip. She stood up, wiping the dirt off her knees as she did. The ground was soft here, with no stones, and it stained her slacks. She was going to have to tell whoever was coming that this was a crime scene and they would have to turn back until the police got here. Why didn’t Donna warn her that someone was coming?
Around the bend in the trail, a man walked into view. He smiled at her, and it was a very nice smile. Tall and broad shouldered, he was obviously a police officer. He had that way about him. If the plain slacks and off-the-rack shirt and tie weren’t enough to give him away, his confident demeanor certainly was. His blonde hair was cut very short and swept to one side at the part, and she could see his cool blue eyes even from here.
“Hi,” he greeted her with a smile, but then he looked down and saw the body, and his expression sobered. “Well, well. Why don’t you come over here with me so we don’t contaminate the crime scene, okay? You are the one who called us, right? You’re Donna?”
“What? No.” Now Addie was even more confused. “My name is Adair Kilorian. I brought Donna back out here so we could show the police where the body is. She was supposed to be waiting for you at the trailhead. Didn’t you see her?”
Slowly, he shook his head. “There was no one there. If your car hadn’t been out there I wouldn’t have even been sure I was at the right place.”
Addie frowned. She was supposed to be keeping the secrets of Shadow Lake… well, secret. If today was any sort of indication, she was doing a horrible job.
The mysteries were starting to pile up.
Chapter 3
“Can I have you stand back here with me, Miss?”
His voice was kind, and strong, but there was no mistaking what he’d just asked of her wasn’t a request. Now that he knew there really was a murder scene here in the middle of Luna Moth Trail, he was all business. Addie barely kept herself from rolling her eyes at him. Dealing with the authorities was just something you learned to live with as a witch in the modern world. They had their job to do, and it was best to leave them to it so they could keep thinking they were the most important thing in their little world.
At the same time, she had a job to do as well. Her and her sisters were the sworn protectors of Shadow Lake. No way was she going to let this man—or any man—keep her from that task.
So she smiled, and she stepped further away from the body of Esmerelda Norris, over by the officer’s side.
He smiled at her in turn, but it was short lived. Addie didn’t mind. Very few people could smile around a dead body. There wasn’t much to smile about when you were face to face with a reminder that all things pass away… even you.
“Did you touch the body at all?” he asked her. “Um, Adair, was it? Did you move anything from the scene, Adair?”
“No,” she said simply. She wanted to tell him that this wasn’t the first dead person she’d seen in her life. It wasn’t even the first murder. But, since there was no telling what sort of questions that might lead him to ask she just let it go at a simple, “No, I left everything just like it was and waited for you. Officer…?”
“It’s Detective, actually. Detective Knight. Lucian,” he added hastily. “Call me Lucian.”
An odd sort of tremor tingled at the back of her neck, and Addie had to keep herself from shivering here in the warmth of the afternoon. His name had resonated through her senses. It was a witch thing, one of many she’d grown up with and hardly gave a thought to anymore.
All names had power. Names could tell you everything about someone in a single instant, just by how they were pronounced by the owner of the name. Important names struck a chord with her magics. When she heard them, she knew that she was looking at someone who would shape the future in some way.
Either the future in general, or more specifically… her future.
While this sensation would happen sometimes when she met random strangers destined to do great things someday—even if they themselves didn’t know it—that wasn’t the feeling she was getting here. This was the feeling that important events swirled around Lucian Knight, right here, right now. It was a much more intimate, much more immediate sort of feeling.
Interesting, she thought to herself. This one would bear watching.
“Are you all right?” he asked her as he took out his cellphone from a back pocket. “I know it’s hard seeing a woman like this. If it’s any consolation I don’t think she was killed here.”
That caught Addie’s attention. It was true, but Addie had only found out after she talked to a ghost. How did Lucian know? “What makes you say that?”
He pointed with his phone to the woman lying in repose right in the middle of the trail. “Her arms are crossed over her chest. She’s been posed. Probably killed somewhere else and then brought here to b
e found. There’s no blood—”
“She was strangled,” Addie said, and then quickly dropped her mouth closed before she said anything else.
He blinked at her. “Well. That would explain why there was no blood. Mind if I ask how you knew that?”
“Marks,” she answered quickly. “There’s marks on her neck. Bruises. I saw them just now, when I was, you know, looking at the body.”
Smooth, she told herself. Very smooth.
He looked past her at Esmerelda’s body, and saw what she meant. “Ah. Good catch. Do you have some training? Police? Private Investigator?”
“Nope. I just noticed it, is all.” She cleared her throat, wishing she hadn’t said anything at all. “I, uh, watch a lot of police shows.”
“Well, don’t believe everything you see on those shows. Murders usually take a while to solve. Now, the fact that the killer took the time to arrange the body is interesting. That could mean he knew her.”
“He?” Addie asked. “You’re assuming the killer’s a he?”
Now his smile slid over to one side, a crooked little grin. “Don’t worry, Adair. I live in the same world that you do, where women can be just as depraved as their male counterparts. Believe me, I’m not sexist. Strangling someone with your bare hands takes more strength than people realize. That points to a man being the killer, although it’s not definitive. Plus, it’s just a fact that most murders are committed by men.” He shrugged. “Guess it’s in our natures.”
She stared at him, amused at his little explanation and not really knowing why. Here they were, in the middle of a murder scene, and she found herself warming up to a guy whose name had sent a shiver up her spine. This was probably the worst place for flirting, she reminded herself. Especially with a guy she was likely never to see again.
“I’m going to call in a forensics team, and things are going to get pretty crazy here,” he told her. “But before I do that can you tell me how you found the body? Were you taking a walk, or something?”