Chapter 27 A House Disturbed #2
But before Jen could go find Carol they saw the journalist peek her head from around the wall, wearing thick black glasses that gave her face a cute scholarly look, in pajamas with cherries on them.
She looked unsure. It was mind-altering to see someone who their previous experience with had been nothing but bold, loud and uncaring showing up in a state of vulnerability.
"Hey," she said. Even her voice was soft.
Jen turned and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her to her side and into full view of the room where everyone was in various states of lounging. Carol looked awkward and stiff against Jen's tall intensity.
"Welcome to our weird little group. You want a couch that looks like it ate a garden twenty years ago or the floor? I'll go grab you some tea. You a chamomile girl or are you feeling mint?"
Carol, who looked much like a frightened animal, took stock of the room and finding it friendly relaxed the slightest. "Mint. Though I heard you mention sleepytime and that's my favorite."
Jen pointed at her. "You got it. Go relax. They don't bite."
Crystal patted the striped seat cushion next to where she was sitting. "Come here, darling. Grab a scone."
Once she was seated, Kelsea asked the group, "Do you think Ursula is doing okay? I don't feel great about leaving her there."
"She needs to be near her friend, honey. Being here with us wouldn't have felt great for her," Crystal said. Jen was back with tea for Carol and then she sat on the floor in front of a no-longer functioning fireplace.
"Okay, but what do you guys think is happening at the house right now?"
All eyes looked around at each other, uncertainty painting faces.
Then small smiles of hope and mischief were shared.
"What's going on?" Carol asked. Then their festivities at the graveyard came back to her. "Oh, right. Our uh, the..." she wiggled the fingers of her left hand, worry clouding her face and voice.
"Our hex," Kelsea said for her.
"Our lovely little trap," Jen added.
"Let's see what she thinks about us being silly and sad now," Tilly said into her cup.
Twelve minutes from The Crescent Inn, where five women were sleeping soundly, Cassidy made her move through darkness. She'd waited all day, as dark magic preferred the still of night.
Eight invisible souls flanked the woman who could not sense their presence and would have taken pause if she could. She would not find a friend among these souls.
Fern fronds curled in on themselves as she walked by.
The glorious moonflowers closed up their delicate white petals and the corkscrew willow tree that usually sat unbothered whipped one of its long branches at her, hitting her bare arm.
Cassidy pulled on the branch with an angry voracity that this house and its grounds had years ago cast out and not missed.
It had been like kicking out an angry spouse with a loud mind and a spiteful tongue.
When she lived here, the garden had not bloomed quite like this.
No, it gave her little sprites of dry grass and daisies took over garden beds where she had tried to cajole lilies and eastern bluebells.
Rose bushes gave her only thorns and buds that promised blooms but never delivered.
The hydrangeas she had mulched gave her unimpressive flowers the size of pennies.
But now?
She snorted in derision as she looked upon the verdant and lush life that grew without remorse and without permission in the way that wild things do.
She hated it.
"I will cut you all down to nothing. I will burn you for fires to keep me warm," she said to the willow.
A woman who used spite and anger to try and bring life would find little to none. A lesson Cassidy Parker could have realized sooner, in more than just her gardening.
But a lesson she was sure to learn this time around.
Once she put her hand on the doorknob of The Lost Souls House, she laughed as she turned to find it locked.
A whispered few words and the lock wiggled and then released.
She pushed and the door stuck. She frowned and pushed again, still not gaining purchase.
An annoyed hum came out of her mouth before she put her shoulder to the old wood door and she pushed with all her might, which hadn't been necessary as the door this time gave way easily, but with her extensive force she flew through the door into the kitchen, the sound of the door banging against the wall loud as it shattered a window.
She looked up from the floor where she held her throbbing shoulder.
"You are no less persnickety now than you were those many years ago, you old bat." She spat at the old house. "No matter. I will be the lady of this house again and you'll have no choice but to accept me."
She may have lost her handle on the magic she'd learned to harness before, but she'd found a way around that after years of searching. A darker way. Just in time to come back and set her plan into motion. That thought alone comforted her even as the house tried to put her in her place.
She got up, cursing at the bruise that would swell on her hip and looked around.
She took in the kitchen with its dark red cabinetry and whimsical copper handles of various forest creatures.
She looked at the overflowing potted ferns and the warm rugs of copper brown and green that matched the mossy green velvet bar chairs.
"Girl has good taste," she murmured appreciatively.
"You never did anything like this for me," she said to the house in bitterness.
What she remembered of this kitchen had ugly honey wood with white-grey walls.
There had been one lamp in the corner but she never plugged it in because it had a habit of shocking her.
She took a knife from the knife block and twirled it in her hand then sank it into the wallpaper of the hallway dragging it along with her as she walked. The copper velvet couch got a few strikes of the knife until padded stuffing was pouring out like a busted tin of biscuits.
The smell of the house was fresh, a hint of floral wrapped around vanilla bean that had been warmed in a pot.
When she had lived here, no amount of artificial scented candles or bowls of potpourri could mask the smell of old, dark wood covered in dust and musky corners that hadn't seen sunlight in decades.
She'd had a habit of spraying each room with room spray as she went, going through an unnatural number of bottles of lavender and basil each month.
She smashed a vase of fresh flowers and twirled one long stem white rose as she looked around about to make her way upstairs, eager to see what the house had given Ursula for the master suite when the crunch of tires on the gravel driveway stopped her.
She looked out the dark window and narrowed her eyes when she saw two police vehicles.
Biting her lip she thought quickly; were they here for her or Ursula?
They couldn't know she was here. No flashing lights so they must be here to bring Ursula in for questioning.
Regardless she realized that staying inside of the house wouldn't be wise as the house had made it clear she wasn't as welcome as she had hoped.
No matter. She could escape into the woods the way she had come and be cloaked by the protection spell she had cast for herself months ago.
She ran the knife through one of the long, lush velvet curtains with a bitter sneer then paused when she heard the back kitchen door open and close.
Her heart thumped. The officers must have split up.
She hid in the side hallway with all of the doors leading to bedrooms and listened.
She'd never been able to open these doors when she lived here, the wood of each room locking itself into the frame unbending.
An angry evening with an axe had done nothing against the magic rooms and eventually she had given up.
Someone rummaged around the kitchen. The sound of the refrigerator opening made her frown. Were the cops hungry? No one had come through the front door yet.
She wavered on what to do as she tried each door along the hallway finding all of them locked. Or impossibly shut to her by the stubborn old house. Had the house allowed dearest Ursula into these spaces?
She slowly, silently crept down the dark hallway until she peeked around the doorway into the kitchen, seeing a woman's slender hand on the handle of the refrigerator but the body hidden inside.
She calculated the distance to the back door and without another thought she made a run for it, the sound of her feet, though nimble and as quiet as possible, causing the mystery woman to whirl around.
She processed wide young eyes framed in a fringe of black hair, two long braids hanging over small shoulders.
The little niece of her cursed former lover. Her lips couldn't hide the sneer.
"Hey," the girl called, a mixture of shock, fear and alert confusion.
Cassidy raised a finger to her lips, pressing it there with a look of threat immediately letting the girl know she should settle on the feeling of fear.
Of course the door wouldn't budge. She considered throwing the large copper mixing bowl on the island through the window that wasn't broken but decided making any unnecessary noise would be unwise as she tried to flee.
"Who are you?" the girl stupidly asked.
"Shut the fuck up," she hissed. She muttered the same words she used to try and magic her way into the house to no avail.
The girl was thrown but then her stupid, young face morphed into anger. "You're the one hexing everyone," she said.
Okay, so she wasn't so stupid. Still. It would be smart of her to shut up.