Chapter 27 Ghost Stories
TWENTY-SEVEN
Ghost Stories
Curled up in bed, crying in the dark, felt more familiar than I wanted to admit.
I didn’t know how long my father waited for me to return.
He was a busy guy, so probably not long.
I knew he expected me to thank him, but I couldn’t.
I also knew he was an all-powerful fae being who didn’t really understand how what he did would destroy me.
I understood. I did. It didn’t help the misery I was drowning in, though.
Crying was exhausting, so eventually I nodded off.
I’m standing in the dark. Moonlight breaks through the trees, illuminating the abandoned camp. Wind howls and leaves begin to whisper. I glide between the cabins, like I’m floating rather than walking.
Fear has my brain working in starts and stops. I hate it here. A whack and a thud. I want to run in the opposite direction, but I glide toward the sound instead. My heart is pounding in my ears. I don’t want to see what’s happening. I don’t want to know.
When I move out from behind a rotting cabin, I see a car parked by the tree line. The trunk is up and the headlights are illuminating vines and bushes. Against my will, I glide closer, hearing that strange sound again.
On the ground, barely in the shaft of light from the car, a body lies crumpled on the ground.
He seems almost peaceful if you don’t look too closely at his face.
Skin blotchy, his eyes are wide open and sightless, his upper lip stained from a bloody nose.
The residue of foaming bile clings to the sides of his mouth. Poison this time.
He looks nothing like Aaron, the young man in the shelter. This one is wearing a suit with bloodstains on his white shirt. He looks to be in his thirties, with a good haircut and clean, short nails.
The strange sound cuts through the wind again. I look up and see someone inside the tree line hunched over. After a moment, the movement becomes clear. He’s digging. He’s hidden from the headlights and the moon, his silhouette black against shadow.
My scalp prickles with unease. Someone is watching me.
I feel it. There’s movement to the side and I flinch, gazing up.
A small boy is sitting on the tree branch above an ever-growing hole, his feet swinging back and forth.
He’s insubstantial, a translucent gray, and he seems to be watching the man dig.
An owl calls and the boy looks up. He has an ugly black mark around his missing eye. The one eye remaining holds judgment. It roots me to the spot as my heart gallops out of control.
Beside him on the branch, his legs dangling down, is Aaron, his face a dark bloody mess. On the child’s other side is the teenaged girl who was raped and killed by the pond. Her face is bloated and sad.
There are others around me. Some in the bushes near the killer, some standing outside the glare of the headlights. A few of them point toward the killer. One smiles and pantomimes shaking hands. All of them watch me, waiting for me to do something, to stop him.
My chest feels like it’s caving in. I feel the accusation. No one needs to say it. I feel it coming from all of them. If I hadn’t hidden behind a wall, maybe I could have done something before he’d killed so many.
Someone brushes their fingers over my cheek and I scream.
“Arwyn, stop. Sweetheart, stop. It’s me. You’re okay.”
I scramble closer, trying to bore into his chest.
“You’re shaking, love,” he rumbled. “It was a dream. Everything’s okay.” Declan was on his back, my head in the middle of his chest.
“It’s not, though,” I whispered, telling him what had happened with my father and then the dream. As I spoke, Declan’s body got more and more rigid, his arms crushing me to him.
“Put on your earrings and tell him to get back here and fix it,” he said, his voice strained. “I don’t care if he meant well or not, he can’t destroy what you’ve created to protect yourself. What the hell was he thinking?”
I shook my head. “What if the dream is right? Maybe if I hadn’t closed myself off, I’d have been able to help before there were so many of them.”
Growling, he said, “Damn it, Arwyn, you don’t owe the world your sanity or your life. This is not on your shoulders.” His big hand gently moved up and down my back.
Logically, I knew he was right, but it was hard to shake the judgment in the eyes of those victims.
“We need to cancel dinner tonight,” he said. “You can’t be around all those people.”
I popped up to my knees, feeling a little head rush, and turned to the clock on my nightstand. Four-thirty. “No. We have time.” I slid off the bed. “We need to plan and discuss. I’ll—I don’t know. I’ll try to stay far away from everyone.”
I jogged down the stairs, Declan at my heels. With a flick of my fingers, I opened the shutters. Light fell on the glass pieces on the worktable. “Oh, damn.”
“What is it?” Declan’s gaze fell on the table as well.
“Did something break?” He picked up one of the pieces, marveling at the brown glass.
“Wait a minute.” He stared at me, then back at the glass tubing branching off in different directions, the housing nestled in the middle.
“Is this the replacement light fixture for our dining room?”
I nodded. “I’d hoped to have it done for tonight. Bud, one of the guys on Bracken’s construction crew, was trying to help, but the housing wasn’t fitting properly, so he was getting frustrated. That’s when my dad showed up.” Dejected, I looked at what I had.
“How long will it take you to finish?” he asked.
“More time than we’ve got.” I took the glass from him and put it back on the table. “We should get going.”
“Unlike Bud,” he said, “you have magic. You stay here and work on this. I can make the potatoes. Or, no. I’ll do rice. That’s easier. Call me when you’re done and I’ll come back for you.” He kissed my forehead. “You need a win today. Create something beautiful and find some peace.”
I looked up at him and felt some of the tension draining out of me. “Yeah?”
“Absolutely. I’ve got this. I think we told them six. I have plenty of time.” He kissed me again. “I can’t wait to see what you create for our home.” His hand ran down my arm. “Okay, you get back to work. I’ll pick you up when you’re ready.”
Smiling, I picked up the glass branches and went next door. It was still pretty warm. I flicked my fingers, opening the doors, and went to the hot shop’s black tile worktable. I put down the branch tubes before going to the annealer to gather all the glass flowers I’d made.
Little by little, spell by spell, I remolded the metal housing so it fit properly, then attached the sockets to the ends of the branches.
Only a couple required the use of my blowtorch to get the fit right.
I’d given the branches a texture that looked like bark, so adding flowers was tricky, especially the large ones I used to hide the sockets.
I needed to leave enough room to screw in the lightbulbs, but I wanted the bulbs hidden behind colorful glass petals.
When I was done, joy had pushed out the hurt. It was beautiful. We’d have flowering branches glowing in our dining room. I checked the time. Five-thirty. Shit. I still needed to get cleaned up before people arrived.
I’d picked up the light fixture and took out my phone to call for a pickup when I noticed a shadow on the deck. I stepped out and found my father sitting on the bench we’d shared earlier. Cradling the flowering glass branches, I waited to get reprimanded for walking out on him.
He glanced over, then turned back to the ocean, his expression hard. “I’ve returned, daughter.”
“I see that,” I said. I was pretty sure he was waiting for an apology, but I didn’t have one in me to give.
Posture stiff, he said, “I made a mistake. If you’ll allow me, I’d like to repair what I have broken.”
When I didn’t move, he turned to me again. “I apologize, child. I thought I knew best. When I was hit with your grief and heard what that man was thinking…I realized what I had done. You’d gone in, though, before I could mend your mental wall.”
He went back to staring at the ocean, his strong jaw flexed as though waiting for a punch. “Your heartbreak…disturbed me. I’m not used to being wrong.”
I took a step closer to him. “I understand what you meant to do—and I appreciate it—but I can’t go back to hearing everything everyone is thinking.
It drove me mad. And I agree I should learn so I can stop experiencing pain in visions, but my life has changed.
I’m not puttering around in my abandoned cannery anymore.
I have people in my life, people I don’t want to give up.
I can’t live with their thoughts shouting in my head all day long. ”
He nodded, patting the seat beside him. The light fixture disappeared from my arms, appearing on the bench across from him, so I sat.
“It was my mistake trying to speed things along. I need to remember you’re part wicche. These things don’t come innately to you. We’ll go slow and have you learn how to ignore others’ thoughts a few at a time, without making you contend with everyone all at once.”
It felt like a hundred pounds had been lifted from my shoulders. “Yes. Thank you.”
He patted my knee, looked uncomfortable for a moment, then blurted out, “I’ll still get to see the babe, won’t I?”
I squeezed his hand. “Of course.”
Nodding decisively, he said, “Good.” He took both my hands, the gloves disappearing again. “I’ll close up the wall. Shall I leave a crack or two so you can practice?”
I wanted to say no, but he was right. I needed to learn how to tune them out. “One.”
He closed his eyes and I felt power zing through my body again before a bright flash blinded me. “There,” he said. “All fixed.”
I felt like my blood had been carbonated. My stomach fluttered and my hand reflexively covered it, protecting her.
He noticed, silently holding up his hand, asking to check on the baby. I nodded and his big hand was on my abdomen.
Eyes crinkling, he grinned down at me. “She’s strong. She felt that and is moving around.”
I put my hand over his. “Would you like to join us for dinner tonight? Mom, Elizabeth and her family, Bracken, and Hester are all coming over to discuss a wicche family who seems to have it out for us.”
“Us?” he asked. “You too?”
I nodded. “One of them tried to curse the gallery and our new home a couple of nights ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” He seemed to grow bigger with his anger.
“My wards are good. She couldn’t get past them. Unfortunately, she tried Elizabeth’s home too and now Mom’s Pacific Grove house.”
He stood, giving me his hand. “Yes. I will attend your meeting. I will help keep my daughter and granddaughter safe.”
“Great. We’ll need to hurry. They should be arriving soon, and I still need to clean up and install that light fixture.” I gestured to the flowering glass branches. “I’ll call Declan for a pickup.”