Chapter 5 #2
“More or less. He made it pretty damn obvious he thinks I’m a suspect.”
“But it’s probably an animal attack.”
Olivia glanced over her shoulder at Deputy Hanson following along close behind her and then lowered her voice. “You and I both know that no animal could’ve done that.”
“I’m so sorry about this.” Louisa sighed as they walked side by side.
“It’s not your fault.” Olivia blew out a long breath. “I guess I expected the staring and the gossip when I came back. I was even prepared for it. What I wasn’t prepared for was being accused of murder. I’m not my father.”
Louisa grabbed Olivia’s hand, forcing her to stop and face her. “I know that you’re not,” she told her firmly. “And so does Jake. Don’t worry, we’ll figure this out.”
“I hope so.” Olivia sighed.
“I know so.” Louisa gave Olivia’s hand a little tug of solidarity. “Look, I’m sorry I can’t stick around, but I need a couple of hours’ sleep before my next shift.”
“It’s okay.”
“Happy Birthday, by the way.”
Olivia gave a small huff. “I didn’t think you’d remembered.”
“Are you kidding?” Louisa shook her head and began to walk backward toward her car. “You’re the only person I’ve ever known who was born on Halloween. We’ll celebrate properly later, okay?”
“Sure.” Olivia smiled and watched her friend walk away.
The sound of a throat being cleared behind her had Olivia turning her gaze back to the tall deputy, whose brows had risen impatiently.
“Alright.” Olivia sighed, rolling her eyes. “Let’s go before you add a body cavity search just for the hell of it.”
They returned to the house where Olivia endured the humiliation of having to strip in front of deputy Hanson, who bagged up her clothes and left her with the added inconvenience of no longer having a coat.
Cursing the Mercy Police Department, Olivia locked the door behind her unwelcome guest and headed straight for the shower.
With the water temperature as high as she could stand it, she scrubbed until her skin was raw, only to emerge from the shower pink and wrinkled, and still feeling like she’d rolled in something gruesome.
Throwing on some comfy clothes, she climbed into bed and tried to ignore the bright daylight filtering through the drapes.
Instead, she pulled the comforter up over her head and closed her eyes.
Twenty position changes later and she was still no closer to the sweet oblivion of sleep. She rolled over again, staring at the cracked paint on the ceiling. No matter what she did, she couldn’t get the image of Adam’s mangled body out of her mind, nor the Chief’s cool, accusing gaze.
She found herself frowning as she stared at the faded paint.
The whole crime scene had reeked of magic.
It was like nothing she’d experienced before, and she had the uncomfortable feeling that it was responsible somehow for Adam’s death.
She hoped she was wrong, knowing that it had to take some pretty heavy-duty dark magic to do something like that to a human body.
She absently rubbed her throbbing temple, glancing over as her nightstand began to buzz with the vibration of her cell phone.
“Hello,” she answered, not even bothering to check the screen to see who was calling.
“Olivia?” a smooth voice with a crisp British accent echoed through the line. “You’re not still in bed, are you?”
“Hey, Mags.” Olivia sighed and sat up, giving up on trying to sleep.
Much older than Olivia, Margaret Hale had been so much more than just her literary agent, she’d been Olivia’s friend and confidant, filling up all the little empty spaces in her life.
“Is everything okay?” Mags asked and Olivia could hear the concern in her voice. “You don’t sound like yourself.”
“It’s just been a stressful couple of days.” Olivia shook her head, even though Mags couldn’t see her. “It’s…” She broke off, trying to figure out what she wanted to say. “Being back is hard,” she admitted in a quiet voice.
“I know.” Mags’ voice softened. “That’s to be expected, but don’t be so hard on yourself. Give it time.”
“I suppose,” she murmured.
“Are you sure there’s nothing else bothering you?” Mags asked.
For a second, Olivia considered telling her the truth.
Mags had been one of the precious few constants in Olivia’s life for the past several years, but even as she opened her mouth, the words wouldn’t come.
This wasn’t a trivial worry about making rent, avoiding overshooting a deadline or the last-minute nerves of public speaking.
A man was dead, brutally murdered, and she was sure someone had used dark magic to do it.
As much as Olivia wanted to confide in her, she couldn’t.
This was a part of herself she’d never shared with Mags.
The solid and practical older woman had no idea witches were real, let alone that Olivia was not only descended from a long line of them but was a talented witch herself.
“I’m fine,” Olivia decided firmly.
“Well… if you’re sure,” Mags answered. “Anyway, the real reason for my call. Happy Birthday, Olivia.”
“Thanks.” Olivia smiled, the tension in her shoulders relaxing.
“I’ve sent something for you. It should be arriving sometime today,” Mags continued, and Olivia could hear her rustling paperwork around on her desk and someone speaking in the background.
“Anyway, I hope you like it. I think you’re going to need it.
I’m tying up a few commitments at the moment, but I’ll clear some time in my schedule to come and visit you in the next few weeks, okay? ”
“Sure,” Olivia replied. “Sounds good.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Olivia heard a muffled voice in the background. “I’m sorry, Olivia, I have to go. I’ll call in a few days.”
Olivia tossed her phone on the bed as the call disconnected. She pushed the quilt from her legs, and climbed out of bed, knowing that with so much going on in her head, sleep would continue to elude her, no matter how tired she was.
Pulling on an old hoodie, she grabbed her phone and left the room, her thick socks making no sound against the worn floor other than the odd creak and groan of the floorboards.
It was no surprise that, twenty minutes later, she found herself, once again sitting cross-legged on the library floor in front of the crackling fireplace, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and a mug of tea warming her hands.
She pulled Hester’s trunk in front of her and slowly opened the lid. Just as before, a secret little thrill trembled deep in her belly. Despite the lure of Hester’s journals, Olivia set them aside and found herself reaching for the drawings of the mysterious TB.
Opening the collection of sketches, Olivia leafed through the pages carefully so as not to damage any of them.
The ring on her index finger tapped out a mindless rhythm against the stoneware of her mug, making a small clinking sound that she barely noticed.
All her focus was riveted to the black-and-white drawings in front of her.
There was just something about them that drew her in. She shifted as she set her tea down and looked closer at the sketch in her hand. She could see a rocky mound surrounded by gnarled, misshapen trees with twisted branches, bare in the grip of winter.
Rain hammered down on a woman’s body as she hung by the neck, limp and buffeted by an unseen wind, her face hidden by the matted ropes of her pale hair and her dress stained with mud and filth.
Men gathered at the foot of the tree watching, all except one, and it was to him that Olivia’s gaze was drawn.
He was kneeling in the mud, his head bowed, his hands held to his face in grief, or perhaps shame.
Unlike the other men dressed in dark-colored jerkins and tall black hats, he wore only a thin linen shirt over his breeches, soaked through and plastered to his skin from the rain.
She tore her gaze away from him and glanced up to the top of the page, tracing the turbulent swirls of cloud and jagged slashes of lightning with the tip of one finger.
There was something about the whole picture that made her uncomfortable.
Her stomach clenched and her chest ached.
As a historian, especially one who specialized in the witch trials and the persecution of witches across Europe, she’d seen images like this a dozen times. But something about it disturbed her.
Her gaze was once again drawn to the man on his knees, and she felt a wave of empathy. It was like she could feel his pain through the page, it seeped through every jagged slash and pencil stroke.
Unable to look at them any longer, she set the sketchbook aside. Instead, she picked up the journal, although it had no name and no initials like the drawings. The writing was the same leading her to suspect they might have belonged to the same person.
Olivia skimmed her fingers across the cover, and once again, her heart began to beat a little faster.
She flipped through the pages, stopping abruptly at several ragged edges where several pages had been ripped out.
The barest hint of a scent wafted from the pages, and she lifted the book to her face, inhaling.
The pages were musty with age, but there was something else.
Smoke, maybe? She flipped back to the entry before the missing pages and began to read.
August 1695
I dream of her almost every night now, a torment I cannot escape.
The dreams even come to me while I wake, so beautiful, and the need I have inside me is painful.
I feel her skin, soft and warm and real.
I taste her mouth, the flavor of her dark and earthy and familiar.
Her body is naked beneath mine as I sink into her, and we move together lost to our passion.
But when I wake, she is not there, I am alone.
My body aches and my mind tells me it is a sin, that fornication in thought, if not deed, will still damn my soul, but what does it matter, when my soul is damned anyway.
It is not lust whiche drives me, but passion.
My heart belongs to her, has always belonged to her.
As I wake with the dawn, I feel the whisper of her lips against mine, her voice a breathless sigh upon the wind.
Perhaps this is my punishment, a slow descent into madness, tormented by the one thing I can never have.
Maybe she isn’t real, maybe she never was.
Nothing more than a dream, a wish, but this morning, as I awoke before the dawn, I felt that something had changed.
All day, a sense of urgency has come to me, waves of uneasiness grinding deep in my belly, and I wait.
It is the stillness before the onset of a summer storm, only this storm brings darkness with it.
The darkness is searching for her. I can feel it, and the need to protect her is almost overwhelming.
I must find her, and I pray that she will understand the burden I carry, and that she will not turn from me. Time is running out. It is coming for us, and may God have mercy on us all…
“Damn it.” Olivia swore as the entry trailed off, disappearing into the missing pages.
She returned to the start and read it through several times, tracing her fingers gently over the neat handwriting.
She could feel so many emotions in the words, as if the pages themselves were saturated with hopelessness, frustration, desire, and above all…
love. She could feel this person’s desperate love for whoever this woman was.
Olivia’s gaze slid over to the drawing of the woman hanging from the tree and then to the man bowed before it in grief. She couldn’t help feeling like the journal entries and the sketches were connected in some way.
Once again, she found herself trailing her fingertips over the words.
My heart belongs to her… has always belonged to her…
“Who are you?” she muttered.
Grabbing her laptop, she opened it up, resting it on her folded legs as she began to search through not only her own research files but the online resources too.
Given some of the things she’d read in his journal, coupled with the date and the fact that Hester herself had kept the diaries, it was probable that whoever this man was, he’d likely come from either Mercy or Salem.
Olivia spent the next few hours curled up in front of the fire searching through every resource she could find and trying to track down anyone from that time period and those locations with the initials TB.
Shaken from her thoughts by a loud and sudden banging on her door Olivia unfolded her stiff legs and pushed herself up from the floor. Padding out into the hallway she glanced through the peephole. It was a UPS guy holding onto a large rectangular box.
“Olivia West?” he asked as she opened the door and she nodded. “Sign here, please.”
She scribbled her name and took the package, closing the door with a soft click and once again locking it.
Wandering back into the library, she tore open the packaging and laughed when she saw the contents.
It was a thick, warm winter coat. Lifting it out of the box, she glanced down, catching a note as it fluttered from the folds of the thick material.
Happy Birthday. Enjoy the Massachusetts weather! Mags x
Olivia smiled widely with affection. Mags always seemed to have a knack for knowing just what she needed, and after having her other coat confiscated for evidence by Mercy’s finest, this one would definitely come in handy.
Holding onto her new coat her eyes fell on her abandoned laptop, she then glanced across at the journals and sketchbook laying alongside Hester’s open trunk, and her lips pursed as an idea occurred to her.
So far, her search had come up empty, but… Her eyes flicked to the small carriage clock upon the mantle quietly chiming the quarter hour, an idea forming in her mind... there was one other place she could try.
With her mind made up, she pulled the labels off her new coat and slipped her arms into the sleeves, marveling at its coziness.
Crossing the room, she tucked Hester’s trunk back out of the way and scooped up the mysterious TB’s journal and sketchbook, then she flipped down the lid of her laptop, sliding all three items into the backpack she usually used for her laptop.
“Out,” she commanded as she stared at the fireplace, watching as the flames extinguished themselves.
Heading into the hallway, she pulled her boots on, slinging the backpack over her shoulder and grabbing her keys, she slipped out the front door, locking it firmly behind her.
By the time she climbed into her car, excitement was building in her gut.
She knew just were to go to find out who the mysterious TB was.