by Willow Mason
“I hoped to find a nice witch who could help me.”
The low voice was such a surprise, I nearly dropped the poor cat on the spot. “You can talk!”
“Of course.” Barnaby stretched his head back, padding his paws against my bosom as though it was a pillow. “The surprising turn of events is that you can now listen. I’ve been Fenella’s familiar for the past eight years, just waiting for her to grow old enough to introduce her to the coven.”
Barnaby ducked his head down, ramming it into my shoulder and twisting back and fro.
“I’m sorry about your mistress.”
“If only I’d acted sooner, she would’ve had the protection of her sisters.”
“You can’t blame yourself.”
“Ha!” Beezley laughed. “As if it would’ve made a difference. What’s the coven done for us lately? Left us vulnerable and unable to communicate, that’s what.” He spat on the ground.
“Did Wilson kill your mistress?” I asked.
Barnaby jumped out of my arms, running a short distance away. “If you’re operating without protection, I’m better off on my own.”
“You’ll have my protection,” I said, letting the black magic surge up my arm to form a glowing ball of red fire in my hand. “I won’t let you come to any harm.”
“I don’t know.” Barnaby rubbed his paws over his eyes before twisting his head back to stare into the night sky. “All I could sense was from her body, after the accident. The family didn’t take me to the fairgrounds, so I don’t know what happened there.” He hunched over, the fur on his back standing on end. A puffer-cat warning away any predators. “When I snuck into the funeral home, she smelled different.”
“Probably the formaldehyde,” Beezley said in a pedantic tone. “They use it as part of the embalming process but if you get a full whiff of the stuff. Pew-wee!”
“It wasn’t a chemical.” Barnaby turned on the dog, hissing. “It was the lack of her soul.”
I stared at the cat, my head feeling light enough that it might blow away in the gentle night breeze. “He ate her soul?”
Barnaby let out a wail, piercing the heavens with his sorrow.
My vision grew dark. The black magic throbbed in my body and terror burrowed into my heart.
Chapter Twenty-One
It took Beezley snapping at my ankles to bring me back to myself. The horror of what Wilson had done sickened me, but I couldn’t let the knowledge stop me from acting.
“We need to alert the other witches,” I said, jogging around the side of the library once again, destined for the front door. “It’ll take a combined force if we have any hope of stopping him.”
With my new powers, the steel door no longer presented a challenge. I flicked off the locks and turned the handle in less time than it took to step inside and find it empty.
“Shouldn’t someone always be in here?” Beezley asked. “Since they’re meant to be protecting the goodies from thieves?”
“There should.” I drummed my fingers on the empty desk where Harriet should have been sitting. Only the direst coven emergencies required mandatory attendance from everyone. But that must be the case now. “The coven must be holding a meeting. It’ll be at the ley line convergence site in the woods.”
“And that is?” Barnaby stared at me through sardonic eyes.
“In the forest, not far from here.” I took a step towards the door, then stopped, frowning. On the floor of the library were small piles of dust. Inside me, the spells laughed with glee.
We’re free.
Or they were about to find I was a new jailor with a strict set of rules.
“If everyone’s meeting there, I don’t think I’ll get close enough to warn anyone of anything.”
“Maybe I should run ahead and tell them,” Barnaby suggested, weaving through my legs. “They’ll listen to a familiar with my experience.”
I hated to break it to the self-satisfied creature but there were far older and far wiser familiars in our coven who couldn’t rely on a welcome reception for their opinions. Harry the tortoise was on his third generation of witch and oftentimes the coven would disband while he was halfway through a sentence.
Of course, sometimes his full sentences used up half an hour. A cat was far quicker than that.
“Fine. Let’s give it a whirl. You go into the circle before us and try to speak to the group. If you fail, we’ll go onto plan B.”
“What’s plan B?” Beezley asked like a good boy scout.
“Something you only need to know about if plan A fails,” I said, shooing him along the path into the woods ahead of me. Hopefully, by the time we got to the coven meeting, I’d have thought of something. If not, plan B might just involve running away.
As the trees thickened, the path towards the meeting place became harder to navigate. I envied Barnaby’s ability to move lithely through all the branches, twigs, and other sharp things that wanted to poke into me. Even Beezley, squat body and complete disregard for noise control notwithstanding, had better luck trotting along.
“We’re nearly there,” I whispered as I caught sight of the first guard standing about ten metres distant. “Barnaby, if you go past that first witch stationed there”—I pointed at the woman in black with a broomstick at the ready—“it’ll lead straight into the circle. Try to get as close as you can to the centre before speaking and you’ll increase your odds.”
“I don’t need odds. I have a winning personality.”
The cat slunk off in the direction I’d pointed, following my instructions despite his confidence. Beezley and I tried to get in closer, too, but our efforts were far noisier, so after another metre we stopped.
Although I could tell from the modulating tones that Glynda was holding court in the circle, I couldn’t see her through the thick branches surrounding the clearing, nor make out precisely what she said.
I could have tried out my new magic skills to amplify the noise, but I wasn’t sure if the resulting glow would cast attention our way before we were ready.
A halt in Glynda’s speech pattern told me Barnaby had arrived, and I used the pause in proceedings to move still closer. Silla was on the outer edge of the group and strode into the middle when she saw the cat waiting there.
“Get rid of him,” she called out to Glynda. “I’ve had this cat around my house earlier today and he’s just spouting nonsense.”
“I have a warning for you all.”
Glynda turned her back on Barnaby, an attitude he hadn’t encountered before if his expression was to be believed. “What’d he come to see you for?”
“My fortune teller had dealings with the cat’s mistress before she died in a terrible accident,” Silla said. “I think the news has sent him around the bend.”
“I’m not mad.” Barnaby reared up, staring down his long nose with contempt. “How dare you cast aspersions on my mental health? I’m meow mew REOW!” Barnaby ran in a small circle while some nearby witches tittered behind cupped hands.
“Stop that,” Glynda said, wagging her finger at them. “It’s not kind. Someone show this cat out of the circle. What we have to discuss tonight will only add more worries to his stressed mind.”
A young woman stepped forward and grabbed Barnaby, holding him at arm’s length as he twisted, clawed, and hissed. When she was out of Glynda’s direct line of sight, she threw him down, hard. “Get out of here,” she whispered. “Scat!”
When Barnaby took a step back towards her, a firm kick aimed at his head convinced him to withdraw. He gave one last aggressive howl in protest at his eviction, then sauntered back to Beezley as though nothing had happened.
“Now what?” Beezley asked “Do you want me to try? I’m a detective sergeant, after all.”
“That witch took my tongue and turned it inside out,” Barnaby grumbled. “You’ll need more than a badge in a desk drawer to be heard.”
I closed my eyes, letting the new magic forces guide me. Again, they tipped me in the directi
on of the cemetery.
Glynda’s going to flip.
With a resigned sigh, I gave in to the demands and turned to my two companions. “I’m going to try something quite different, but I have to warn you, if things go wrong there’ll be sights you can’t unsee, no matter how much you want to.”
“You think I haven’t seen horrific things in my line of work?” Beezley asked, his chest puffing out. “Please. I’ve got a handle on the terrifying.”
“Nothing scares me,” Barnaby said in a tone of agreement. “You’d be hard pushed to shake my foundation. As I said, I’m quite an experienced cat.”
Even an experienced cat probably hadn’t seen an animated toad with its insides where its outsides should be. On a witch, the same sight would be a thousand, million times worse.
Swallowing became elusive. I couldn’t even stand the image of a body in one piece. If this didn’t work…
If it doesn’t work, Wilson will suck your soul from your body, and maybe every other witch in Riverhead besides. Is that what you want? Coward.
No. It wasn’t.
I took a deep breath and clapped my hands. “Alright, then. Let’s go to the cemetery.”
“I don’t like this,” Beezley said, a slight tinge of panic in his voice. “Perhaps I was too hasty agreeing with your Plan B. There’s a lot more alphabet left to consider.”
“Scaredy-dog,” Barnaby said, although his attempt at a grin faltered around the edges. “How about we all move up north? I’ve heard the beaches on the East Coast are spectacular at this time of year.”
“Until somebody comes along and turns you into a French bulldog,” Beezley muttered, then gave a long howl. With the graveyard as a backdrop, I could have sworn for a moment he was a lonely werewolf.
“Nobody’s going anywhere or being turned into anything,” I said firmly. Fake it until you make it. “Remember, this isn’t my first rodeo so I’m sure the incantations will work better this time.” Especially with a purpose-built occult spell nestling in my breastbone.
“I’m not sure having done something once before is the qualification for excellence.” Barnaby cleaned a patch of fur on his outer thigh, contorting his limbs so he appeared built of elastic. “Even twice seems like it might have room for more practice.”
“What I need is absolute quiet.” With doubts circling in my head already, a chorus from my two companions wasn’t helpful. “When I recite the incantation, there’ll be some movement from the graves in question, but don’t be alarmed. Most of all, don’t run. That might just inspire the awoken to chase you.”
I stood in front of Fenella’s grave, the newly turned earth marking it out from the wide stretch of neighbouring plots. Barnaby stood beside me but had also been tasked to keep an eye on Angus McClare’s burial site. Beezley stood a row farther over, keeping tabs on the last two remaining victims, Rosemary Weiss and Mandy Tilliman.
For a moment, I thought to double, triple, quadruple check that my team was on board with what was about to happen. But that was just a game of stalling. If I didn’t get on with it now, I never would.
The chant began low, the foreign words and phrases hard to sound out at first, then becoming easier and more mellifluous with each spoken syllable. By the time I reached the end of the first passage, the ground at the base of Fenella’s grave had stirred.
“Perhaps we—”
Beezley barked once to cut off Barnaby’s attempted protestation. The cat threw a foul glare in the dog’s direction before turning his worried gaze back on the grave of his mistress.
“Don’t worry. Fenella took good care of you in life. She won’t do anything to hurt you just because she’s moved on.”
“But it’s just her body.”
I began to speak the words for the ceremony again because I didn’t know how to answer Barnaby. No, she didn’t have a soul. The whole reason I was standing here, calling her forth from her grave was because of it. No being—human or otherwise—could rest easy after death when the greatest part of them was gone.
“Mandy’s grave is moving,” Beezley reported. His matter-of-fact tone was a relief from the cosmic awfulness of what we were doing. “Her coffin is coming up now.”
The incantation had another two verses, and I fought to stay calm as I recited them. The words pulsed and flowed, stronger than when I’d said them, half in jest. They floated out of me on a wave of crimson song.
Fenella’s coffin rose above the level of the grave as I spoke the final two words. Nothing moved for a second, then the lid slowly creaked open and the casket tilted to the side.
I wanted to close my eyes but the horrors in my imagination were equal to the scene unfolding in front of me. With a straightened back and squared shoulders, I stared at the dirty, mahogany box. A leg dropped out, then another.
The corpse inside wriggled a few times before jumping free.
With a sigh of relief, I realised the shadows I saw on the coffin were actually the gravestones from the next row over. Both the casket and Fenella’s body were see-through. Her corporeal remains were still safely entombed below ground.
Her ghost also appeared to be intact, her skin on the outside and her innards tucked safely away out of sight.
“Rosemary and Mandy are accounted for,” Beezley called out in a voice an octave higher than usual. “What am I meant to do now?”
“Please come to me,” I said, holding my arms out and asking the black magic to light them as a beacon to the dead. “We believe a great wrong has been done to you. With your help, we’d like to set things straight, tonight.”
“Won’t that call the entire graveyard forth?” Barnaby asked. His green eyes caught the light from a distant street lamp, intensifying it into a glow. “Shouldn’t you be more specific?”
“My mind is focused,” I assured him. “I’m only concentrating on the victims of Wilson Banner.”
“Um, guys?” Beezley had walked alongside his assigned victims as they slowly approached me, but now his attention was pointing in another direction. “Perhaps your thoughts weren’t quite clear enough.”
A ghost zipped past me, her head swivelling to take in everything about her. Her mouth hung open and her eyes were dazed.
“Uh, miss?” I called out, waving a hand to draw her attention. She ignored me, now searching along the line of new graves, floating right up to the stone to read their inscriptions.
“I guess she wants to make sure someone’s dead,” Barnaby said. “It’s what I’d check, too.”
The ghost reversed direction, darting down the rows to stand before the grave she’d emerged from. With one finger raised to my expected assembly, I jogged along the row until I stood next to her. She didn’t even turn her head.
“Madison Banner,” I read out, then snapped my fingers as I understood who our surprise guest must be. “She’s Wilson’s sister,” I called out to Beezley.
“Wilson.” Madison jerked her head around, putting her face right up to mine.
I averted my mouth, so I didn’t accidentally breathe her in. “He’s your brother, isn’t he?”
“I must find him,” she said, jerking her head again as Beezley trotted up to stand beside me. “Is he here?”
“In the graveyard? No.” I shook my head in case she wasn’t listening. Certainly, her attention was everywhere but on me. “He’s still very much alive.”
Madison tipped her head back and screamed, a banshee cry in the spooky setting. “I must find him. He’s mine.”
She flicked out of visibility in a second, leaving me and Beezley staring at each other. “I’ll go with her,” he said, surprising me. “If Wilson murdered her too, then I put a man away for dealing her the drugs that killed her, while the responsibility should at least be shared.”
I watched him go and sent a little dark magic spiral after him to lend him strength. In a confrontation with Wilson, the ghost and dog would need it.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Back to the plan,” I announced with a
clap of my hands, pretending confidence although most of it had eroded away. “Gather around, ladies. And gentleman,” I added with a nod to Angus. “We need your help to convince a coven their members are in danger, along with any hidden witches in this area.”
“Why are we here?” Fenella asked, staring at her translucent hand in fascination. “Why am I staring at the lid of a coffin underground instead of moving on to another plane?”
“Your soul’s gone,” Barnaby said, licking his paw and rubbing it over his ear. “Until we can get it back, you’re stuck here.”
Fenella’s expression transformed into one of joy as she reached out for her familiar. When her hands travelled through his fur rather than resting upon it, she cried out in despair. “I want to hug you.”
“You’re a ghost,” I informed her, then nodded to the rest of the group. “Your bodies still lie within their graves, but I’ve brought your spirits forth to provide testimony.”
“You know I don’t like all that physical stuff, anyway,” Barnaby informed his mistress. “I much prefer it when you just adore me with your eyes, instead.”
From what I could see, Fenella already had that covered.
“Follow me,” I told them. “We’re going to break into a coven meeting, and I’d like each of you to share your story. If I can’t get the witches to understand what’s at stake, then Wilson might get away with his crimes.”
“Wilson.” Angus snarled and made a growling noise in the back of his throat. “I went out for a day at the fairgrounds and ended it with my soulless body dying in a car.” He stared at his body with a sigh of distress. “Look at me. I could’ve kept this old thing going for another quarter century.”
Considering Angus had been eighty-three when he died, it seemed unlikely. Still, I was here to perform an important job, not argue with ghosts over their old ambitions to make it past a century.
