“We should be prepared for the worst,” she replied in a way that made it clear the conversation wasn’t going to go on in that direction.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Mulberry said under his breath. “I mean, everything is torn to shreds like there was an animal attack, but then there’s this?” He pointed at the carvings. “How does that make sense?”
“It doesn’t,” Fern said crossing her arms. It didn’t make sense, but when you add magic into the mix a lot more becomes possible. “Mazie, join the search party, okay? We’ve got a lot left to do here.” I nodded getting ready to leave when I could feel the start of another vision, as Hazel called them. I paused and gripped Fern’s arm. These visions were disorienting at best and on an uneven terrain I could imagine I might end up falling. Fern whipped around to face me, not knowing what was going on. My vision faded faster than it had before, but Fern was leading me off to the side. Moving me away from any prying eyes that were around us.
“What’s wrong?” Office Mulberry said, walking towards us.
“She just tripped,” Fern replied waving him off. I gasped in relief as my vision came back and made a show of reaching toward my ankle. There was nothing more frightening than the moment when my vision would go out and I couldn’t see anymore. Without a guarantee that my sight would come back, the moments of pitch black were harrowing. My ability seemed to manifest itself in two ways as I learned more about it. One being the vision sucking, nightmarish way that Hazel called a vision even though to me it felt like the exact opposite. The other was the more subtle inclinations in the pit of my stomach that I still couldn’t be sure if they were just regular old intuition or my ability. The first was a far worse experience to go through, but it came with the comfort of being totally and completely positive that what had been revealed to me was certain.
“I know where one of them is,” I said, fighting the urge to vomit. I had seen dead bodies before, more than I’d ever like to, and even though I wasn’t looking at one in reality I could see it perfectly in my mind. It was seared onto my eyelids and for a moment I wished that my vision was still gone. I knew exactly where he was and how he had died.
“Where?” Fern asked pretending to help me limp to a rock to sit down. Officer Mulberry looked like he was about to head over to us again. “Who?” She added with desperation.
“I don’t know who, a boy?” I said more as a question than a statement. Fern would be more able to identify him...I wasn’t as familiar with the missing teens as she was. I could barely remember their names, I had been given a brief rundown of the three teens that had gone missing from the search party. I had already forgotten though. I just figured if we ran across anyone not in the search party that would be enough. “As to where, I think I’ll have to show you.”
“Lead the —,” Fern started to say, but Mulberry had finally made his way over.
“How’s your ankle?” He asked, looking genuinely concerned. I rolled it around a couple times to demonstrate that it was fine.
“All better,” I said with a shrug. “Just twisted it a bit is all.” I stood up trying to prove my point.
“Glad it’s nothing too serious,” he said with a smile, but his eyes narrowed. He was a cop and a good one at that, whether I wanted to admit it or not. It was more difficult hiding secrets from people who were trained to figure them out. It was also becoming clear to me that Fern and I had never really been that great at hiding our secret in the first place, considering the fact that most of the people closest to us were in on it at this point.
“Nothing at all,” I said, sounding sickly sweet. I didn’t know how I was going to be able to lead Fern to the body with Officer Mulberry hanging around.
“Are you going to rejoin the search party?” He asked me.
“I was about to yes,” I replied.
“We’ve got everyone looking,” Fern said running her hand through her hair, a sure tell sign that she was stressed. “I think we need to call it off.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t want anyone’s parents stumbling on their kid's dead body.” It was a good point, now that we knew at least one of them was dead for sure. We couldn’t really tell Mulberry that fact though. I was still reeling from my vision, and couldn’t think quickly enough on my feet to say something that would get both Fern and I away from him and deeper into the woods. I wasn’t going to be able to stop myself from walking towards where I knew the body would be found. It was like when Hazel vanished and I just had to go into the kitchen where she disappeared. Last time it happened, I stayed blind the entire time, but this time I was just being pulled towards the body. It felt like someone had tied a rope around my waist and was tugging me to where the body was.
“We don’t want that,” Office Mulberry agreed. “If they are dead, that is,” he added though it seemed with every passing moment the doubt was getting stronger.
“Let’s get the parents off the search, at the very least,” Fern said quick on her feet. “Can you take care of that Mulberry?” She asked taking care of two issues in one move. Both making sure that the poor parents of the missing teens didn’t stumble upon the bodies of those teens and getting Mulberry off our case.
“Yeah, I can take care of that,” Mulberry replied with a genuine smile this time, happy to be given something to do other than sit around the campsite. I liked that he was happy to do his job. I’d have expected the exact opposite from one of Brown’s inner circle men. They all seemed too happy to get nothing done. “And, I told you, you can call me Cal.” If he were a bolder man or one that might not fully respect Fern’s authority I think he might have winked at her. He didn’t, though it was at least clear to me that he liked Fern. She only nodded in response, oblivious to the underlying meaning to his words. As soon as he walked away I grabbed Fern by the elbow and pulled her in the direction the body.
Chapter Ten
In the end we didn’t find him too far from the campsite. I was willing to bet than none of them had gotten very far, given the state that we had found Danny in. I learned his name from Fern as soon as we saw him.
“Danny,” she said, though it sounded more like a gasp than an actual word. His body was as torn as the tent back at the camp, but it was hidden. That’s why they hadn’t found him already even though he wasn’t too far from the site. He was underneath a large amount of foliage that was clearly put there purposefully. Seeing him in person was far worse than it was seeing him in my vision, though that was horrible too. His face was the worst part, frozen in terror, his eyes wide and mouth open in shock. He died quickly, not even long enough for the shock to wear of his face.
“Jeez,” I said looking away, though I knew that wouldn’t get the sight out of my head. I could hear Fern calling it in on her radio as I walked away from the body. I felt a mixture of horror and guilt. There was nothing that we could have done to stop this. There was nothing we could do.
“The others?” Fern demanded of me.
“What do you mean?” I asked, confused.
“Where are the others?” She practically shouted at me. She gripped my shoulders staring at me. “Are they alive?”
“I don’t know,” I said shaking my head.
“Can’t you figure it out with your intuition or whatever it is?” She asked releasing me. “I’m sorry,” she said immediately contrite. “I know you don’t choose when it happens.”
“It’s okay,” I said with a sigh, wishing that I did have control over it. “What about you?” I asked. “Any visions?” Often times she would have them just from being in proximity to a corpse, but clearly none had come yet. Sometimes she had to make contact. She leaned down and used the moment to close the boy's eyes. She paused holding her hand there for a moment. At first I thought that it was because she was having a vision, but then she looked up at me, confusion coloring her face.
“Nothing,” she said. That had never happened before.
“What do you mean nothing?” She shook her head. “That�
��s weird. We’ll have to talk to Hazel about it.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” If it was possible Fern seemed even more disturbed by this than about the body. I was momentarily taken aback by this response until I remembered Fang. His family had lost their magic, and they didn’t know why.
“Our magic is fine,” I said as gently as I could. She looked at me with a horrified expression on her face.
“Why didn’t I see anything then?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but what we do know is that magic is in family bloodlines, so if mine still works than yours does too,” I assured her. “Try something small.”
“Okay,” she said closing her eyes. A small flower started to grow near her foot.
“Look.” I pointed to the ground. Fern smiled with relief, but it fell once more almost as soon as it had come.
“Well, that’s something,” she said with a sigh. “We’ll have to figure out why I can’t see what happened to him.”
“Another mystery,” I groaned feeling overwhelmed. We had so many questions and so few answers. Each time we found something new, it only generated more confusion and more questions.
“You found a body?” Office Mulberry and a few other deputies showed up on the scene. Fern turned and nodded at them with a grimace. Then both of us moved out of the way so that they could see.
“We need to block off this area, and search it again. If Danny is here, the others might not be far,” Fern was sounding like a Sheriff again. A couple of the deputies nodded and went to complete the tasks. “He was hidden, purposefully.” She directed this at Mulberry.
“A person did all this?” He asked horrified. The gashes across Danny’s stomach to chest looked like claw marks, similar to the torn up tent and backpacks. It was hard to imagine that a person was capable of something like this, though I wasn’t convinced whatever did it was entirely human.
“That’s what it looks like.” Fern nodded. She looked at me and I knew that she had the same thought as I did. “Call off all the search parties. I don’t want anyone stumbling across this unless they are in uniform. I’m instilling a curfew, effective immediately.” Mulberry and another officer nodded. It seemed that everyone here had accepted her authority, at least for now and only the people here to witness how solid a leader she was.
“Makes sense,” Mulberry said with a nod. “If a person did this and not an animal then we need to make sure everyone is cautious. Keep people indoors, especially teens, campers, hikers, and the like.” As I spent most of my time redoing the same tour of an old Civil War Museum to tourists, I was impressed by how quickly they were able to react and come up with solutions. I helped Fern out on some cases, but I was no where near a detective or a cop. I was just a girl with really good instincts - supernatural instincts.
“I am going to have to notify Danny’s family,” Fern said quietly. I hadn’t looked back at Danny since we'd found him, but that didn’t make his presence any less pervasive. I wondered about why some people stayed behind as ghosts and others passed through. I had never wanted to bring up the topic with our trio, it seemed like a touchy subject. I didn’t think it was a choice they would or even could make. It could have been by chance, but I guess it made more sense if it was the age old unfinished business angle. I was glad that Danny’s ghost wasn’t there, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that if he was we would know what we were up against by now. If Fern’s visions had worked we would know as well. Fern’s statement was in lieu of a proper goodbye as she turned her back on the mangled body and stalked towards the clearing. I planned to follow her, not wanting to stay there a moment longer, but I couldn’t seem to get my feet to work.
“What about the others?” I asked, remembering that Officer Mulberry had not walked away yet either. He heaved a sigh that betrayed how exhausted he was, and paused. The pause told me all I needed to know and offered explanation for Fern’s abrupt leaving. They didn’t have much hope they’d find the other two teens alive.
“Hopefully no one else will stumble on one of them,” He sighed. “At this point, I think the best we can hope for is that none of their parent’s have found them already.” I shuddered at the thought and agreed.
“So you don’t think they’re alive?” I asked the obvious.
“No, I don’t see how they could be.” He sounded sure and he had good reason to be. I still couldn’t stop myself from hoping.
“Maybe one of them ran away?” It was more a question than a statement. Mulberry smiled at me with pity, indulging me in my hope.
“Maybe,” He nodded. Without having anything else to say, I turned to follow the direction Fern had gone in. I could feel Officer Mulberry’s eyes on me as I walked away...they felt accusatory and suspicious boring into me. I pivoted to face him, unsure why I had the feeling he was suspicious of me, but by the time I did, he was no longer looking at me and was once again facing the boy. A few officers had joined him with bright yellow tape to block off the area, and kits to mark evidence. Though, I knew whatever evidence they found would be of no help to them. Whatever did this was not human, nor an animal.
Chapter Eleven
Officer Mulberry stood staring at the young boy. He remembered very clearly how he had felt when he was his age - on top of the world, endless possibilities, practically invincible. It had been a long time since he felt like that and staring at the lifeless body before him he was sure it would be even longer still.
“Make sure you block off the whole area,” he said absently to the officers arriving with caution tape. It took him a moment to break his eyes away from the tragedy before him, but he needed to make sure they were making the perimeter large enough. In a setting like this one, thick forest, and a crime scene that clearly indicated a struggle, there was no telling how far evidence could have gone. It would be easy to miss things if they weren’t careful, hell, it would be easy to miss them even if they were. “A bit further,” Officer Mulberry shouted gruffly waving the officer further back and then holding out his palm to stop him from going any further. “There.”
“Alrighty,” the officer muttered. He was younger, newer to the force and had something of a chip on his shoulder. His annoyance was obvious at taking orders, something he’d have to get over if he wanted to be a good cop Mulberry thought to himself. The new officer was probably just annoyed that Sheriff Brown wasn’t the Sheriff anymore. He had been a new favorite of the man and enjoyed the perks of that. It reminded Mulberry of himself when he was a rookie on the force. He'd been eager to advance through the ranks, and hadn’t much cared about the way he did it. Over the last decade on the force he had all but sold his soul to the former Sheriff and didn’t have much hope that he’d hold out much longer on his soul until he found out that Fern was running for Sheriff.
She was competent, a good detective, stubborn to boot but most importantly she had never begged favor from the Sheriff. Where he preferred to sweep things under the rug or ignore the obvious to find the easiest path, she would spend the rest of her career on one case if that meant the right person would be brought to justice. She worked harder than just about anyone else on the force and already did most of the work the Sheriff was meant to do, including the paperwork, so it was only fair that she get his job. Mulberry was glad for the change, he had become too complacent and he liked Fern. Her sister, he wasn’t too sure about.
“I am going to make sure the search party is cleared out,” Officer Mulberry said to no one. The other officers were busy coming to terms with the horror that lay in front of them. The rookie who seemed full of himself a moment ago now looked pale and on the verge of vomiting as he stared at Danny’s body. Mulberry would have reacted in much the same way if he hadn’t already known what they were going to find, since he had been the one to shroud the body in the bushes. He hoped it would've taken a lot longer for them to discover the boy, and he was suspicious of the sister, Mazie. It had been too easy for her to find Danny...he had made sure it would be difficult.
“I don’t w
ant to do this,” he growled to himself under his breath. “I don’t want any of this.” Mulberry despaired as he walked towards his car. He had only said the search party thing as an excuse in case anyone wondered where he had gone to. The search party would be long gone by now, and Fern would be telling Danny’s parents that he was dead, then she would have to talk to the other parents. She’d have to walk on a knife's edge between telling them that their children were most likely dead and giving them too much hope.
With his newly heightened senses Mulberry already knew that the former Sheriff was waiting in his car to confront him.
“They found Danny,” Mulberry said after closing his door. There was no need to fake formalities with Brown, straight to business as usual.
“How did they find him?” He sounded nervous, and angry. He was in even worse shape than he sounded. His eyes were bloodshot with exhaustion. Mulberry’s would have been much the same had it not been for some eyedrops he'd found in his medicine cabinet. The redness of his eyes wasn’t the most alarming part of his appearance though, that honor belonged to the purely animalistic expression in them. They darted back and forth unnaturally, as if he was trying to locate some unknown enemy that was always just out of sight, living in the corner of his vision. It took Mulberry a minute to respond he was so caught off guard by the obvious deterioration in Brown since last he had seen him.
“Not sure.” He kept his answer short. Though he was suspicious of the sister and how she'd been able to find Danny with such ease, the last thing he wanted was to give the animal-like man in front of him a reason to go after her. At worst, Mulberry had thought of the former Sheriff as lazy, selfish and corrupt. By no means a good man, but still, only capable of the usual sins, the benign evil. It wasn’t until the previous night that he had seen what Brown was capable of, and he was no longer sure if there was anything the man wasn’t capable of doing. “They had search parties out all morning. It was only a matter of time before someone stumbled onto something,” he added after Brown looked at him with a glower.
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