The sound stopped.
Even before Andrea lowered her arm, she knew something wasn’t right.
A figure blocked her view and she gasped, jumping back, ready to defend herself. Her heart pounded and she took several deep breaths. The man didn’t move. His limbs were frozen at a strange angle, as if he carried something that wasn’t visible to the eye.
She found herself standing in a foyer with a marble floor and gaudy chandelier. Behind the man, a grand staircase led to a second story. She couldn’t tell if this was a hotel or a home, but she knew this definitely wasn’t the motel bathroom.
The male statue appeared lifelike. He wore jeans and a t-shirt. He seemed familiar, as if she’d met the model before but she couldn’t place him. Aside from the strange arm positioning, he could have been anyone walking down the street. Since this was the only thing resembling human life, she crept forward and slowly touched his chest with the tip of her finger.
Heat radiated from him like he was a living being, but the ripples in the t-shirt material didn’t move. The flat spot against the muscles of his chest showed that he’d once held an item. She thought to detect a heartbeat inside his chest. A living statue? How was that possible?
For some reason, she wanted to call him a prince, though he hardly looked like the fairytale version of royalty. Handsome as sin? Yes. Princely? No.
“Mister?” She tapped his arm, watching his face. “Can you hear me?”
His eyes moved and she jerked her hand away. He stared at her. When she’d spoken, she hadn’t expected a response.
“Can I…?” She lightly touched his shoulder. His eyes darted toward her hand and then back to her face. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what this is. I don’t know how to help you.”
Even though the skin around his eyes didn’t move, she felt an urgency inside him. He stared at her, then to the right. She followed his gaze through a door to an empty dining room table.
She glanced around for a sign of why she’d been brought there. The front door was open. Where there should have been a yard, she instead saw the wall of her motel room.
She glanced up at the man, wishing there was a way to free him but she didn’t possess that kind of magick. This was surely born of dark intentions. Why else turn a man into a statue? She backed toward the door determined to run. “I’m sorry. I can’t stay. I’ll try to find—”
“Who are ya?” a woman’s voice demanded. Her Scottish accent was thick. “What are ya doing in my home?”
Andrea ran into her motel room. The dizziness of passing through the invisible barrier caused her to weave on her feet. She glanced back to see a woman holding a baby. The image faded into black shadows.
She pressed her hand to her chest, breathing hard. “What the hell was that?”
Chapter Four
Andrea opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling in confusion. A ring stained the cheap fiber panels of the drop ceiling indicating there had been a water leak at one point.
“Where am I?” she whispered, trying to remember. Her mind was hazy, as if still coming from a deep sleep. Numbness radiated through her limbs. The coldness that she kept locked away in her chest tried to leak out. The nightmares had been bad this time, trapping her back in the swamp. When the dreams started, she never knew which version she would get—the one that ended with a hand in her chest, squeezing the life from her, or the one where an unseen force swept her away from danger and she felt safe.
Naturally, she preferred to feel safe. The fact that the safety dream occasionally turned naughty where the rescuing force was a man with enough fire to fuel any single gal’s sexual fantasies, well, that was just a bonus—a hot, fiery, much-welcome, ache-inducing bonus.
Last night, it had been the cold hand in her chest and the pain of a thousand deaths as the world ended in ashen chaos.
A drop of water leaked from a faucet somewhere in the room.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
She turned toward the sound, seeing faded wallpaper and the ugly green floral print of the comforter she lay on.
Drip. Drip.
Thunder rumbled, and she looked to her left at the yellow and green curtains. Storms reminded her of Mama Cecile. No matter how much time passed, they always came back. Her days were borrowed. Death had already found her. It just needed to finish the job.
“Wisconsin.” She was finally able to answer her own question. “At a motel called Hotel.”
The words grounded her somewhat, drawing her from the lingering fear.
Her backpack rested close to her head, unzipped. Had she fallen onto the bed and gone instantly to sleep the second the brick dust was in place?
Andrea struggled to push herself up. She let her legs drop over the side of the bed and her shoes hit the carpet.
No. She wouldn’t have gone to bed wearing her shoes.
The bathroom door wasn’t visible from where she sat. What had happened didn’t feel like a dream, and she knew better than to dismiss it as such.
Andrea took a deep breath to steady her nerves. No one was coming to help her. Whatever this was, she was on her own to deal with it.
She went to the bathroom door. It stood partially shut, just as she remembered seeing it before. The shadows from within parted to the light from the room as she pushed it open with her fingertips. It cast over a sink and toilet. She hesitated before reaching around the wall to feel for the light switch. She flipped it and jerked her hand out of the room. The bathroom remained.
Her first impulse was to jump in her car and leave. With the sad state of her bank account, that would be difficult. She wouldn’t drive far on gas fumes and hope.
Andrea went to peek through the curtains. Morning light covered the parking lot. The skies were dark but the rain had stopped. There wasn’t much of a view but her car was where she’d left it.
She zipped her backpack, placed it on the floor, and shoved the metal room key into her pocket. Fletch had mentioned there would be breakfast in the lobby. Andrea couldn’t turn down free food.
She glanced down the sidewalk to check that it was empty before making her way toward the motel lobby. Mindful of the bells on the lobby door, she pulled it slowly to keep them from jingling too loudly. There was no reason to rouse the staff. As promised, a table had been laid out with a box of donuts, muffins in a plastic holder, and a coffee urn.
It had been over twenty-four hours since she’d had anything to eat and the hunger had moved past her empty stomach to her head. Her low blood sugar had manifested into dizziness.
Andrea waited to see if anyone would come to greet her through the door behind the desk. When they didn’t, she grabbed the box and turned. Technically, it wasn’t stealing. It just wasn’t sharing with the other guests either.
She left as stealthily as she’d entered, jogging once she’d cleared the jingling door. Holding the box edge against her chest with one hand, she reached for the key with the other. She slipped inside her motel room and prayed no one saw her embarrassing donut heist.
Still holding the box, she turned to shut the door behind her, only to come face to face with a familiar woman. They stared at each other for a long moment.
The night before the lady had been holding a baby.
“Thank ya for coming.” The woman glanced down at the threshold. She lifted her hand, gliding it over the doorway as if feeling the invisible barrier caused by the brick dust. “We’ve been expecting ya.”
“I think you have the wrong room,” Andrea said, knowing that the protection should keep any who meant her harm from crossing the threshold.
“Oh, ya shouldn’t have.” The woman reached inside and took the donut box of out Andrea’s hands. “Very kind of ya to bring breakfast.”
“I…” Andrea started to reach after the box. That was what she’d planned on eating all day.
“Grab your bag. I’ll make coffee to go with these.” The woman turned her back.
Andrea automatically glanced toward her backpack. The hotel ro
om had disappeared and the bag now rested against the steps leading up to the front door. The motel was gone, replaced by a house. She took a step back, seeing the length of the exterior wall. This wasn’t just a house. It was a mansion.
She looked down a hill. The motel was nowhere to be seen, though she still held the room key clutched in her fist. A town nestled in the valley below, accessible by a long stone driveway. There was a distant water tower, but it was too far away to read. Trees appeared to hug the sides of the home, though from her place, it was difficult to tell if it was a forest or just landscaping.
“Coming?”
Andrea shoved the key into her pocket and reached for her bag, realizing she had little choice but to play along. This could be the result of a portal in her motel room that wanted her at this mansion, or a past haunting that had her locked in its grasp as she lay on the hotel bed, unaware of where she was, or even a parallel world overlapping with her own that she’d accidentally stepped into.
Or, most terrifying of all, this was the curse that had been chasing her for two years.
Until Andrea knew what she was dealing with, she’d have to ride this strangeness out. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen supernatural mysteries at play and spells this strong took cleverness to break.
She felt her nose burn as tears threatened, not out of fear this time but from frustration. All she wanted was a normal life. She’d jumped in her car and ran to find it. And here she was, in Nowhere, Wisconsin, facing down a mysterious power.
If this was indeed still Wisconsin.
She stared through the front door at the foyer. The statue of the man was gone, but the stairs were the same.
The woman reemerged from within and arched a brow. “Well, then, come on.”
“How…?” Andrea whispered, again glancing around in hopes that the motel would reappear. For the time being she could see no way back to her room. “How may I help you?”
“That’s what we’re here to talk about, isn’t it?” The woman laughed.
Andrea forced her feet to step across the threshold. The woman led the way out of the foyer. If she were lucky, whatever this was would end soon and she’d be back at the motel.
“Hey, Ma, I have to go pick up Uncle Raibeart.” A man’s voice came from the same direction the woman had gone. “Cora found him passed out in the mass market paperback section of the library.”
“Not again,” the woman answered. “Bring an extra coat with ya. We don’t want him scaring the locals.”
Andrea peeked into the dining room. A man stopped his progress toward her and gave her an easy smile. “Oh, hello. I didn’t realize we had company.”
He wasn’t the same person she’d seen frozen in the foyer but looked as if he could have been related.
“I’m Euann MacGregor.”
“Andrea,” she answered, not taking the hand he offered.
“Pleasure to meet ya.” He moved past her, forcing her to step aside. “Excuse me. I’m expected downtown.”
Euann’s footsteps moved toward the front door.
Andrea studied her surroundings. The woman must have gone through the dining room to another part of the house. Seeing the box of donuts on the table, she hurried to pull out a glazed and stuffed it into her mouth, eating as fast as she could. She was in the process of grabbing a second helping when the woman reappeared in the dining room carrying a silver serving set. On it were two white mugs, sugar cubes, and creamer.
Andrea dropped a chocolate cake donut back into the box and closed the lid. Already she was beginning to feel better with food in her stomach.
“You’re younger than I’d thought you’d be.” The woman set the tray on the shiny wood tabletop.
“Who are you?” Andrea asked, wondering why the woman had thought about her at all.
“Margareta MacGregor.” She began pouring coffee into the mugs.
Andrea had already guessed by the accent that they were the mysterious family Fletch had gossiped about that had been buying up all the property in Green Vallis. At least that meant she was probably still in the same town.
“What am I doing here, Margareta MacGregor?”
“I assume you’re here about the job, Andrea.” Margareta gestured toward the serving set. “Cream? Sugar?”
“Black.” Andrea frowned. “How do you know my name?”
“Ya told my son, Euann.” Margareta smiled as she placed a mug on the table, as if unconcerned about the polished top. “Doesn’t take a psychic to eavesdrop.”
“Is that what you are? A psychic?” Andrea couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the statue man. What kind of magick was at work here? “Is that why you were expecting me?”
“The way ya say that,” Margareta said, her accented voice soft, “it wouldn’t surprise ya if I told ya I am.”
“There are things in this world that cannot be explained with logic and science.” Andrea found no reason for pretense. The sooner she figured out what they wanted, the sooner she’d be on her way. Her eyes strayed to the donut box, wishing she’d been given another minute alone with it.
“You’re talking about magick.” Margareta came around to the head of the table to stand closer. “The old ways.”
“I’m talking about the portal you created in my motel bathroom last night, and then again in my doorway.” Andrea leaned away, not wanting to stand too close to a magickal being.
“Portal? Motel?” The woman glanced around the room, confused. “Ya came to my house this morning.”
Shit.
If Margareta didn’t know what was going on either…
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Had she caused this? Andrea had never summoned such magick before.
What was going on in this town? Maybe she shouldn’t have dismissed Fletch so quickly when he said strange things happened here.
“Ignore me. Bad joke. I’m told I have an odd sense of humor. Yes. I’m here looking for a job.” Andrea knew it was a lame cover after she’d talked about portals and psychics.
“Do ya have experience with children?” Margareta asked.
Andrea shook her head in denial. “No.”
“But ya want to be a nanny to my granddaughter?”
A what? Andrea stiffened. She’d just assumed the job would be something like housekeeping or helping at one of the many properties this family owned in town.
“I… guess,” Andrea answered. Either Margareta had given birth at a very young age, or genetics had blessed this family with a youthful gene. “Are you just looking for someone to take her to school and ballet or soccer practice?”
“Jewel is two years old.” Margareta smiled, her eyes staying focused on Andrea’s face.
Crap. Of course. She’d also seen Margareta holding an infant the night before.
“And would this be for the infant as well?” Andrea asked.
“I only have one grandchild,” Margareta said. “Jewel is the only baby in this house.”
“Oh.” There were times when conversations just flowed naturally and easily. This was not one of them. Every word between them felt labored. None of this made sense. She might not know much about child development, but she knew the difference between an infant and a toddler.
Andrea tried to think of what to say next, but all she could come up with was, “I don’t know anything about two-year-olds.”
“I see.” Margareta nodded once. “Then perhaps you’re not the best person for the—”
The sound of a crying child erupted from another room.
“That doesn’t sound right.” Margareta frowned. She hurried through the dining room.
Andrea followed the woman past a kitchen to what looked like a combination library and home office. A child lay on a blanket in the middle of the floor, her limbs twitching. She was dressed in pink pajamas with cartoon bulldogs on them.
“Should I call an ambulance?” Andrea hadn’t lied when she said she didn’t know anything about children. She liked them, but she didn’t h
ave any experience with things like this. At most, she gave them cookies during family reunions and guiltily sent them back to their parents filled with sugar.
“For a tantrum?” Margareta dismissed, kneeling by Jewel. She stroked the child’s hair. “What are ya doing down here, wee one?”
Andrea wasn’t sure what to do. She stood in the doorway, wondering if she should help or leave.
“Can ya hand me the diaper bag?” Margareta asked.
Andrea retrieved the yellow diaper bag from the oak desk. As she handed it to the woman, the child’s hand smacked her foot.
The crying instantly stopped.
She felt movement against her shoe and looked down. Jewel stared up at her, babbling incoherent toddler words as she played with Andrea’s shoestrings.
“You’re hired,” Margareta said.
Andrea frowned. “What?”
“My son is a single father and he needs help. As much as I’d enjoy having this little lovebug with me, the MacGregor family businesses are not always conducive to having a toddler at my side.”
“Euann?”
“Kenneth” Margareta answered. “He’s my fourth out of six. He’s housebound. Children need light, and air, and socialization outside of the family. That is what you’ll provide.”
“Does he work for the MacGregor family businesses as well?” Andrea asked, staring at the little hand touching her foot. She wasn’t paying much attention to what she was saying. Something about the child mesmerized her.
“All my children work for the family businesses.”
“Do they all live locally?”
Margareta reached for a chair to pull herself to standing. “Erik, my oldest, lives just down the hill with his wife, Lydia. Euann stays here with his wife, Cora. Iain lives with his wife, Jane. They have a place near her garden nursery here in town. My only daughter, Malina, is in Las Vegas with her husband, Dar. And Niall, my baby, is nomadic. He travels with his wife, Charlotte. I do miss the days they were all under one roof, but I suppose children must eventually marry. Now I’m hoping for more grandchildren.”
Magick and Mischief (Warlocks MacGregor Book 7) Page 3