“I guess it doesn’t matter much,” he shrugged, seeming to relax. “I had planned on having them missing for longer, but three dead teens works just as well.” His teeth shown bright white as he smiled on the word dead. “Either way, not even twenty four hours in and our new Sheriff has her hands full, wouldn’t you say?” Mulberry didn’t bother to respond, the very words churned his stomach. He wished for a way out, but he couldn’t see one. The lack of response didn’t bother Brown as he continued on. “With no way to solve these murders, the town will turn their back on her the first chance they get.”
“They only found the one,” Mulberry reminded him, in some attempt to undercut Brown’s bragging. It didn’t change the fact that there were three bodies to find, and even if they weren’t they would still be missing. Either way, it was a tragedy and the town would most likely have no one to blame except for Fern. Three lives lost because of a jealous, bitter man who had never lost anything in his life.
“They’ll find the others,” Brown replied, and Mulberry knew that it was an order.
“What if they don’t?” Mulberry retorted, implying that maybe he wouldn’t uncover them. Fern might be able to bounce back from the disappearances. If there was hope for the other two, the anger from the town wouldn’t be so strong. Regardless, Mulberry wanted to have some semblance of agency, though he knew he’d have to comply to anything that Brown ordered him to do.
“Oh I think they will,” he sneered threateningly. “You’ll lead them right to the other two, just don’t make it obvious.” There was the order, wording that Mulberry could not get around or ignore. He would have to do it now.
“Is that all?” Mulberry said with gritted teeth.
“So long as you remember who’s the top dog,” Brown grinned before slipping smoothly out of the car. Mulberry worried for a moment that someone might see, but there was no one else in the parking lot. Even if there had been people in the lot, no one would have noticed him. He moved so quickly, it was like he disappeared. Mulberry sat in the car for a moment, wishing that there was a way out of this even though he knew there wasn’t.
Chapter Twelve
Before all the search parties could clear out I heard Becky shout frantically for me. It wasn’t shouting out loud, but a much stranger sensation of hearing her shout for me in my own mind. Fern was with the parents of the boy we had found, and I hoped desperately that she could not hear Becky as well. It was a terrible enough job as it was, without hearing voices in your head.
“Mazie!” Becky shouted in my head, dispelling my fear that she was also shouting in Fern’s head the same way. “I found another one, they’re alive, but only just. I need your help.” My blood felt as though it had frozen in my veins. This is what we were training for, and I felt completely and entirely unprepared. Becky’s call pulled me in the right direction. I thought that Becky had been with Hazel, but if that were true then she wouldn’t need my help. I was at the campground, the original crime scene, and at this point most people had cleared out. They were focusing on the new crime scene and rounding up the search parties. Given the fact that there wasn’t much of an audience, I decided that it wouldn’t be too suspicious if I ran in the direction of Becky’s call.
This was some kind of new magic that Becky had learned from Hazel. She had the added benefit of spending more time with her than the rest of us, they had only just found out they were related. Becky was a quick study, so I wasn’t surprised that she already knew more than I did. Part of me wished that Fern was available and hearing all this as well. She had been so much better than me at healing. In the end Becky had done a better job than I had as well. I ran my fingers on my now scarred palm as I begged for more power from our ancestors to help me save this child.
“You heard,” Becky said as I stumbled through some branches. She hadn’t been too far off from where the campsite or where Danny was located. She was well hidden though, and if she hadn’t said anything I might have kept on walking past her. She and a raspy breathing girl were situated near the bottom of a mini ravine, with large trees all around hiding them from view on the main trail.
“I heard,” I confirmed as I carefully slid down the side of the ravine to meet them. I could see instantly that the girl she was with was in dire straits. Upon closer inspection, she hadn’t been mauled or attacked as bad as Danny. A large gash pierced clean through her side and she had bloody tinted lips. Healing cut palms and healing torn apart organs were two entirely different things.
“What’s your name?” I asked her, mainly because I didn’t know what else to do.
“Morgan,” she coughed out, a spattering of blood punctuated her name. Becky’s own hands were stained pink with blood, and she had a streak across her forehead from touching it without realizing what was all over her hands.
“Help me,” she said desperately, her eyes begging. She could feel everything that Morgan was feeling, which might help in saving her.
“Do you think we can heal this?” I asked in a panic. I spread my hand over the open wound feeling each artery, each vein that whatever it was had torn through. I had barely been able to heal a flesh wound, let alone internal damage. Still, I wasn’t going to not try and I called upon Morgan’s blood as a conduit for my magic. Becky placed her hand on mine, her other hand still firmly grasping Morgan’s. Our magic combined was more powerful and I could feel it start to work, sticking together the hole left in Morgan.
“We have to try,” Becky said, there were beads of sweat dripping from her forehead with the effort.
“Where’s Hazel?” I asked, though I should have been giving all my energy to the spell. If Hazel were here this spell would probably have already been done and Morgan wouldn’t even have a scratch on her. I wanted to yell with frustration at Hazel’s terrible ability to never be around when we needed her most.
“She thinks she has an idea of what we are up against,” Becky forced out through gritted teeth. “Something about being out here jogged her memory and she seemed to remember something new about last time.” That made me feel a bit better, not knowing what did this was worse than anything. If we knew what it was then maybe we could stop it. I still wished that Hazel was with us though as I could feel the magic failing.
“We can’t save her,” I said with regret. She had already lost too much blood, we didn’t have anyway for our magic to be effective. I felt it wane, growing weaker as more blood leaked from Morgan’s body. Becky looked at me with horror stricken eyes, still using futile effort to save the girl. I could already feel that she had slipped away, slipped right between our fingers while we were trying to heal her. Hazel and Fang both must’ve felt the same thing all those years ago. Becky continued trying, saying the chant louder and louder until I had to grab her hand in mine to distract her.
“Sorry,” she said with tears brimming in her eyes. She had started to get too loud. If someone was too near they could have heard and now with the girl dead, it would look even worse than before. “I thought we could do it,” she said in a small voice sounding defeated. “I thought we could save her.”
“Sometimes magic can’t even bring a person back,” I said, though I also felt defeated and angry.
“Am I dead?” I jumped and would have fallen over had Becky not still been holding my hand. The voice was soft and my reaction to such a small sound would almost be comical in other circumstances. I turned to face the ghost of Morgan, wondering again what makes someone a ghost or not a ghost. “I am aren’t I?” She asked staring down at her dead body. “That sucks,” Morgan added matter of factly.
“I’m so sorry,” Becky breathed out. “We tried.”
“Yeah, you did,” Morgan said with a grimace and a shrug. How anyone could be so nonchalant about seeing their own dead body merely moments after their death, I didn’t know, but she certainly didn’t seem to mind too much. Maybe that was just a piece of the detachment that came with being a ghost. “What about the others? Danny and Tina?” She asked her expression changi
ng, more concerned for the lives of her friends than her own.
“Danny didn’t make it either and we haven’t found Tina yet,” I responded wondering if I should have been more tactful when her face twisted in agony. “I’m sorry,” I added.
“I knew already, I just hoped.” Silver colored liquid streamed from her eyes as though she was crying. “They were already dead when I was attacked. I was able to run away, much good that did me.”
“Did you see what or who attacked you?” Becky asked when I didn’t say anything else. I was too lost in Morgan’s eyes and I had been frozen by the fear I knew she had felt the night before. It was unlike me to get caught like that, it was far more likely for that to have happened to Becky, but here we were, roles reversed.
“There were four of them.” This comet didn’t just bring one monster, but four? I shuddered at the thought. I guess there was one for each witch.
“Who were they?” I asked. Morgan shook her head as though she was confused for a moment.
“The better question is what were they,” Morgan responded gravely.
Chapter Thirteen
Officer Cal Mulberry wasn’t sure why he found himself pacing outside of Fern’s office, but there he was. He knew that no matter how much he wanted to, he wasn’t going to be able to tell her anything about the former Sheriff or the others. All he knew for sure was that he needed to lead her to the other bodies in the woods, without drawing suspicion. He also knew that he wanted nothing more than to go on a date with her.
“Office Mulberry, is there something I can help you with?” Fern said opening her door briskly. She had clearly seen him pacing through the glass and wasn’t in the mood to wait for him to decide to come in. He didn’t blame her, this would be a hard time for the Sheriff, let alone one that hadn’t even been Sheriff for a full day.
“Yes, could I speak with you for a moment?” Cal asked tentatively. He still hadn’t figured out exactly what he was going to say to her or why he was even compelled to. Fern sighed but it wasn’t in annoyance, only exhaustion and nodded. She opened her door wider for him to follow her inside.
The office was still very much like the previous Sheriff's, considering that Fern had barely had time to be in the office at all yet. It was dark with heavy furniture and odd trinkets that Brown had cultivated over the years. Mostly, it was adorned with animal carcasses and taxidermy from his many hunting expeditions. None of it was Fern’s style and she felt like a child playing in their father's office, pretending to be in charge. She had already broken the news to Danny’s parents and Mazie had just called to tell her they found Morgan. It was a hard line to walk, between hope and realism, and she had hoped that she didn’t give Morgan’s family too much hope as they would soon be dashed.
“I don’t have all day, Officer Mulberry, they found Morgan,” Fern said brushing some flyaways off of her face. “I have to notify her parents and I need to set a curfew.”
“They found another one?” Mulberry replied he hoped that his surprise was enough to cover for his relief. That meant he only needed to guide them in the direction of one body, not two. That would be easy without drawing any suspicion at all. The Sheriff ordered him to hide the bodies, and he had been able to get around the order because Morgan hadn’t been dead when he saw her last. He had seen her run and fall down into a ravine. Officer Mulberry hoped that she had survived and wanted to help her, but he worried that if he had gotten any closer he would end up succumbing to the orders of the Sheriff and do more harm than good. “Who found her?” He asked, his own suspicion nagging at him.
“I think it was Becky. She had been on her way back from the search party and somehow got herself lost. I guess it was just luck that she stumbled upon Morgan,” Fern said bitterly, she didn’t mention that they found her alive or that she had turned into a ghost after dying in Becky and Mazie’s arms. Office Mulberry seemed to relax a bit, which Fern noted as odd. He was only happy that his hunch about Mazie might not be true considering that she hadn’t found Morgan. “What was it you needed to speak with me about?” Fern asked, remembering that there was another purpose for Mulberry’s visit.
“You said something about a curfew?” He asked instead.
“Yeah,” Fern sighed with a nod. “I don’t want anyone out past sundown. There’s too much risk until we get whoever, whatever did this.” She thought about the fact that there were actually four who or whatever’s out there behind the deaths of the three teens but didn’t mention it. There was no way for her to know this based on evidence other than the word of a ghost, which isn’t exactly permissible in court.
“Is it a whoever?” Mulberry asked. He was fishing to find out how much Fern knew, though he knew that she was holding information from him regardless. “I mean, is it a person? I can’t imagine a person being capable of all that.”
“The reports are still coming in from the coroner, but the damage to the camp, the personal effects and then the notes written suggest it was a person. The injuries are consistent with some kind of animal though, like a dog or a coyote.” Fern’s brows knitted together in concentration for a moment. “Maybe it was a guy with a rabid dog or something,” she suggested with a shrug.
“Or a wolf,” Mulberry offered darkly. That much he could say.
“Or a wolf,” Fern conceded, though she looked at him through slightly narrowed eyes. “Regardless, there’s a human being behind this and that’s what we have to focus on. Catching them to keep our town safe.”
“I agree,” Mulberry said enthusiastically. Though Fern was clearly exhausted, she was even more determined than she was tired. She’d have to run off those fumes for a while. “The town isn’t going to love a curfew.”
“I know, but I can’t really care about that. If this is all I end up doing as Sheriff and they throw me out afterwards, that’s okay as long as no one else gets hurt or killed. As long as I get the bastard who’s behind it,” she said with gritted teeth. Mulberry smiled softly at her. He wasn’t used to someone who actually cared about justice in the Sheriff’s position. Someone who cared more about putting the bad guys away than their job.
“I gotta say that’s a refreshing take,” he said honestly.
“Thanks,” Fern said almost sarcastically. She wasn’t sure if he really meant it in the first place, and even if he did it was still a pretty sad commentary on the state of their department. “You had something you wanted to talk to me about?” She said rounding the conversation back to its beginning.
“Oh, uh, nevermind that,” Mulberry replied waving his hands. He had gone in there with two purposes, the first was to figure out how to lead her to the other bodies, but now that there was only one to worry about that would be as easy as canvasing and stumbling upon it himself. The second was to ask her out, which felt highly inappropriate for a myriad of reasons. She was his superior now, not to mention she was in the middle of a multiple homicide investigation that he knew a lot more than he was telling her about.
“You sure?” She asked with a brow arched. “Seemed pretty important, you were pacing outside my office for a good couple of minutes.”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” he said with a good natured smile. Fern felt on guard for some reason, she didn’t trust Mulberry as far as she could throw him. Noting her suspicion and wanting to throw it off him as much as possible he decided that there was only one way out of it. “I was going to see if you wanted to get dinner with me.”
“Dinner with you?” She scoffed. “I can’t even eat dinner with myself, I’ve got so much to do.”
“That’s what I was worried about,” he responded with a shrug. Smoothly covering for himself, hoping to make it seem less like he was asking her for a date and more like he was only looking out for her. “You’ve got to eat sometime. You don’t want to pass out from hunger, that wouldn’t exactly inspire confidence.”
“I’ve got to be at the emergency town meeting in ten minutes, but I can eat after.” She looked at him, her expression a mix of suspicion,
annoyance and gratitude. “Here, in my office, take out from Hazel’s. Tell her I want my usual.” Mulberry nodded with a smile. He was glad that she took him up on the offer, even though she had made it far less like a date and more like coworkers eating together. He was even a little grateful for that, feeling guilty that he was deceiving her for the former Sheriff though he didn’t have a choice.
“You got it,” he responded. Fern nodded curtly, his cue to leave which he did. Fern gathered her papers up as organized as she could and headed out after him. She had already handled one set of grieving parents and would soon have to face another. First, she would have to face an angry, and scared town.
Chapter Fourteen
The town meeting went well for what it was. People seemed to accept the need for a curfew, though a few were angry about it. Fern took note of who, wondering if the person behind the attacks was in the room with them. Mostly it was just parents angry that their teens would miss some after school activities. Fern gently reminded them that play rehearsal and football practice weren’t worth their children’s lives and safety. She had expected an angry mob, but had gotten an understanding and mournful town. This wouldn’t last long, if she didn’t catch the guilty party within the next few days, an angry mob was a guarantee.
Fern buried her head in her hands waiting for Mulberry to get to her office with her dinner. Ever since he had mentioned dinner to her, she had been starving, realizing that she hadn’t eaten anything since the previous day. She had barely been able to get through talking to Morgan’s family without her stomach rumbling, which she was grateful to have avoided. Fern was ready to radio Mulberry to see where he was, as she had been back from the meeting for almost an hour now.
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