Donn's Shadow

by Caryn Larrinaga

  “Everyone’s talking about it—Stephen, that little weenie Fang, everybody. It’s a small town. But they’re also all talking about who killed him. And spoiler alert: it wasn’t you.”

  “Hilarious.”

  He chuckled and leaned forward to pat my knee. “Lighten up, Mac.”

  “I’ll lighten up when the Sheriff’s Department stops telling me things like ‘don’t leave town.’”

  “I told you, you’ve got nothing to worry about. Everybody knows Raziel got in over his head with some girl. He was a total womanizer, and he didn’t concern himself with strictures like monogamy or the legal age. Know what I mean? Either a girlfriend got jealous of another girl in his life, or someone’s husband or dad decided enough was enough. So unless you were sleeping with him…” He raised an eyebrow. “Were you?”

  “No!”

  “See? You’re fine.”

  I leveled my gaze at him, unable to share his confidence. “So I guess that’s a ‘no,’ then?”

  He belched. “No to what?”

  “Teaching me how to spot a fraud.”

  “Waste of your time. And mine. Just do your thing. Make your show. It’s a good show, by the way. Keep being you, and let the cops figure out which part of Raziel’s love life did him in, okay?” He yawned and stood up. “Man, I am beat.”

  I took the hint and left the house, leaving my nearly full beer on the table, but my head was swimming with so many thoughts, I didn’t think to start the car. Instead I sat there, looking out over Donn’s Hill. From up here, the town looked so different from what I saw out my little turret window.

  Drumming my fingers on Baxter’s steering wheel, I took stock of my options. Not only was Nick unwilling to help me, he didn’t even see the point. Maybe he was right; maybe I had nothing to worry about.

  As I considered letting everything go and just heading back to Primrose House to while away the afternoon with Striker, Sheriff Harris’ mustached face loomed in my mind. He hadn’t seemed like he was just covering his bases, like Nick thought. He’d been deadly serious and downright hostile.

  I sighed. My bright idea had been a bust. It was time to stop procrastinating. I’d known from the beginning what I needed to do. Kicking the clutch to the floor and gunning the engine, I pulled out of Nick’s swanky neighborhood and headed back down Main Street.

  I had a spirit to summon.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Penelope waved me into her office when I knocked on the open doorframe. The room sat off the kitchen at the back of the house and was as organized as I imagined her closet to be, with binders, photos, and storage boxes arranged neatly on built-in shelves along all four walls. The space was a study in neutral colors, accented only by Penelope’s bold, lime green sweater.

  Her face registered zero surprise when I asked to rent the attic suite for the night. In answer, she opened a desk drawer, revealing a collection of dried sage bundles wrapped in Gabrielle’s trademark red string.

  “They’re from the hidden compartments on the second floor.” She handed one to me. “I suspected they might be useful someday.”

  “You’re sure you don’t mind me using the room?” I turned the bundle between my fingertips. “Nobody’s reserved it?”

  “Not yet, but I expect there to be a certain level of ghoulish curiosity about the room once the facts about his murder become public.” She sighed. “I already need to redecorate. We can’t have curtains with cords in any of the rooms. It’ll be too morbid.”

  “I’m guessing we’ll see the details on the news tonight, regardless of when Sheriff Harris wanted the public to know,” I said. “Everyone in town is already talking about it.”

  She nodded. “They were planning to hold off on the official announcement until after the funeral, but the press won’t wait. I expect plenty of people will want to stay in the room where the deed happened. We’ve pushed the supernatural history of this house from the beginning, and his murder will increase that draw.” She frowned. “Violence isn’t what I wanted us to be known for.”

  The last hotel she’d been associated with had—through no fault of her own—developed an unsavory reputation. I felt a sudden surge of affection for this woman who worked so hard to increase tourism to Donn’s Hill. She might not be psychic, but she had even more invested in the continued success of the Afterlife Festival than any of the intuitives here, especially any of the fake ones.

  “Don’t worry,” I told her. “You’ve done an incredible job with this place. It’ll be a draw for anyone, not just ghost hunters and Raziel nuts.”

  “Thank you, Mac. Now, I want to be sure future guests can sleep soundly in that attic.” She handed me an ornate, old-fashioned bronze key. “I liked Raziel, but I don’t want his spirit lingering here. If you can make sure the room is clear, your stay tonight will be on the house.”

  “Will do.” I stood and shouldered my bag.

  “Are you headed up now?”

  “No, I need to grab a few things from home.”

  “Park on First Street and sneak in through the yard when you come back.”

  That was exactly what I’d done before coming to see her, but I didn’t mention it. “Okay. Any particular reason?”

  “News of Raziel’s strangling isn’t the only gossip swirling around town. Several people have asked me if I know why Sheriff Harris brought you in for questioning.”

  I imagined the people of Donn’s Hill, many of them strangers, thinking I was capable of murder. Whispering about me behind closed doors. Pulling their children closer as I passed, just in case I snapped.

  The thought crushed me. I sank back down into the chair beside me and momentarily forgot to breathe.

  “Are you all right?” Penelope asked.

  My reply was a near-whisper. “What did you tell them?”

  “That you’re a well-known psychic who’s consulted on murder cases before, and that’s why you were at the station.” She folded her hands beneath her chin, her gray eyes boring into mine. “And I tell them, and anyone else who will listen, that you’re a kind and wonderful person and it’s preposterous to imagine you could harm anyone.”

  Any attempt my brain made to form a reply was immediately choked off by my heart, which ballooned in my chest to the point of pain. I could only stare at her through rapidly pooling tears and hope she knew how much her words meant to me.

  After a few moments, I cleared my throat. “Thanks, Penelope. I’ll do my best upstairs.”

  Then, resisting the urge to run around her desk and give her a hug, I left the inn and drove Baxter back to Primrose House. I had the sage I’d grabbed that morning, plus the bundle from Penelope, but I decided I needed a black candle. Raziel had called those “stage setting,” and I planned to use the memory of that argument to connect with his spirit. Anger, after all, was the strongest emotion I’d felt when I’d been around him.

  To my surprise, Striker jumped onto the driver’s seat as soon as I stepped out of the car in front of Graham’s garage.

  I raised an eyebrow at her. “Now you’re on board?”

  “Brrllll.” She rubbed her face against the steering wheel.

  It dawned on me that she’d refused to join me on my earlier outing, which had resulted in not one, but two time-consuming detours. Her meaning was clear: Next time, let me drive.

  The sun had already begun to set by the time I closed myself in Raziel’s former suite, casting the sky in an orange glow that filtered into the room through the curtainless dormer windows on both sides. I shivered, wishing I hadn’t let myself get so distracted earlier. This would have been a hell of a lot less creepy in the middle of the afternoon.

  As soon as I shut the door, Striker leapt out of my arms and rolled around the bearskin rug so vigorously that I second-guessed my initial assessment about it being fake. I lifted the corner to check the tag. The rug claimed to be made of polyester, but that didn’t stop my cat from gleefully pouncing from edge to edge and burying her nose in the soft pi
ling.

  I left her to her one-sided game of tag, trusting her not to scratch any of the furniture, and checked the suite for anything unexpected, like a murderer hiding behind the shower curtain. On impulse, I checked behind the folding screen by the wardrobe, half expecting to see Raziel’s prone body again. Thankfully, no part of him remained.

  A familiar sadness filled me as I gazed around the space. Those walls should have been dark and covered with heavy, embroidered tapestries. This room felt classy but cold without them, and I hated it. Then I hated hating it. Would I ever be able to think of Gabrielle without being overcome by this crippling cocktail of sorrow and shame garnished with a hint of anger? Yet again, I felt the urge to write her a letter. But I didn’t know what I’d say, and I had even less of an idea what I’d want to hear back.

  Shaking my head, I got down to business. The coffee table in the middle of the room felt like the best fit for me to work from. Shaped like a scalene triangle with each side a different length, it reminded me vaguely of a planchette from a Ouija board. I placed a black candle atop a laminated room service menu to protect the table’s polished wood top and lit the wick.

  Once the flame was burning steadily, I set the bundle of sage from Penelope’s office beside the candle. It was there, ready for the moment I might need to clear this space. I’d also brought bundles of my own from home, ones I’d wrapped myself, but it seemed right to use one of those Gabrielle had secreted away in the house. One Penelope had saved for me. Penelope, who had owned the motel where I’d first encountered the ghost of her husband and rediscovered my psychic abilities. I felt connected to the history of this place, tied to it by an invisible, red string that stretched to every corner of Donn’s Hill.

  I watched a white tendril curl away from the candle’s flame and let a love for this town fill me like smoke fills a jar. Striker climbed into my lap, and I stroked her back, allowing the rhythm to sync up with my heartbeat. My body was rooted to the floor, bound by my connection to this room, this house, this town. But my spirit was free, free to reach out and touch the flimsy curtain that separates our world from the next.

  “Raziel Santos,” I called in a clear voice. “If your spirit lingers here, please give me a sign.”

  The room was still. The candle’s flame burned straight upward, undisturbed by any movement.

  I tried again. “Raziel, this is Mackenzie Clair. Can you hear me?”

  To my left, a floorboard creaked. I jerked my head to the side, startled, and saw nothing. Striker purred gently in my lap. I glanced down; her eyes were wide, and she stared toward the closed attic door. The candlelight reflected off her huge pupils, making them glow in the gloom.

  “Raziel, if you’re here, I just want to talk.”

  Another creak sounded to my right. I whipped my head around, but nothing moved in the bathroom. All was calm.

  “I’m here,” a voice whispered beside my left ear.

  I jumped. Striker leapt onto the table with a low growl. Beside her, the candle sputtered.

  “Raziel?” I asked.

  I don’t know why I bothered; I knew in my gut the voice didn’t belong to him.

  In answer, the flame went out, plunging the room into darkness.

  Chapter Nineteen

  A pair of red eyes burned at me through the blackness. My hands went clammy; this was too close to my dream for comfort. I pinched my arm in case I’d fallen asleep, but the red eyes remained.

  Slowly, my vision adjusted to the darkness. From her hissing, I identified the blob in front of me as Striker, who had landed on the coffee table and puffed out to twice her normal size. Beyond her, lines coalesced around the pair of eyes to form a wide face below a smashed top hat.

  There was no mistaking it. The spirit from the cabin stood before me once again.

  Immediately, I tried to break off contact, centering myself and focusing on slamming mental barriers in place between my mind and the spirit world. My mind fuzzed. The connection refused to break. The spirit wanted to keep it open, and he was stronger than me.

  Much stronger.

  The more I tried to close myself off, the cloudier my mind became. I shook my head and scratched at my scalp, desperate to be back in the light and away from this apparition. Striker growled but didn’t move from her spot atop the table.

  “Don’t fight me, Mackenzie. Relaxsssssss…” He dragged out the last syllable into a long hiss, and his red eyes dimmed to a deep black.

  Slowly, my mind cleared. My arms dropped to my sides, hands tingling. It reminded me of the feeling after pushing myself too hard in gym class and hyperventilating. I sucked in deep breaths through my nose and let the air escape out my mouth. Hands shaking, I leaned forward, struck a match, and re-lit the candle. The room filled with a soft, flickering glow, and the spirit smiled, revealing a mouthful of shining, narrow teeth.

  “See? It’s so much easier when we just get along.” He stood just behind the opposite couch, his arms wrapped around his torso. His long, thin fingers gripped his shoulders, and his pale, pointed fingernails caught the candlelight. Like at the cabin, he wore a dark cloak, only now he’d pushed it back like a cape.

  My body shivered, but the logical part of my brain stepped in before fear could take over. I reminded myself that this was nothing more than a ghost. It just wasn’t the one I’d been trying to reach out to. The important thing to figure out was the type of spirit I was dealing with. I’d encountered two since discovering my psychic abilities: peaceful ones and poltergeists.

  The peaceful ones, like the girl I’d encountered at the library during my first investigation with the Soul Searchers, had been so solid and looked so alive that I’d been convinced she was a library patron. She hadn’t done me—or anyone else—any harm.

  The poltergeists I’d known had a tendency to make themselves heard before allowing themselves to be seen. Neither of them had been great conversationalists, either. Odds were, I was dealing with a peaceful spirit here.

  I hadn’t been a medium for long, but I drew comfort on falling into the routine I’d established while working with my team. With the bundle of sage in my hand, I asked, “Who are you?”

  “My name is Horace,” he said. Then he repeated his words from the last time he’d appeared. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “You found me at the cabin, didn’t you?”

  He grinned, flashing his teeth again. “I did. You were reaching out with such strength that you pulled me from here.”

  “From here?”

  He flickered in time with the candlelight, like an old movie playing on an ancient projector. “I’m bound to this house, but on rare occasions I’m able to… piggyback, you might say, through a powerful medium.”

  “You can do that? How?”

  “I’ve had many, many years to practice.”

  “Did you…” I’d been about to ask if he’d died here before remembering not all spirits are even aware they’re dead. I changed course halfway through the sentence. “… live here?”

  “No. I was visiting a cousin and had the unfortunate luck to die here. But you didn’t call out tonight to speak with me. You were trying to reach another. The man who was murdered here.” They weren’t questions. Just like the power in the room, he had all the answers.

  “Did you see it?”

  He nodded. “I see everything that happens in this place.”

  “Then you can tell me—”

  “Certainly,” he interrupted. “But the dead are not generous. Even we have a price.” He flashed that Bible-salesman smile again.

  “What can the living do for the dead?” I asked.

  “Many things. Remember us, honor us. But in my particular case, I have need of a more specific type of assistance.”

  I glanced down at Striker, who stared back at me with wide eyes. Her little body tensed, and every strand of fur stood on end, but she huddled immobile on the coffee table.

  My body mimicked hers. Tense. Unmoving. Graham’s concerns a
bout me attempting another summoning rang in my memory, but I didn’t have any mental space to feel guilty for doing exactly what he’d been worried I would do. My mind was wholly occupied by the task of processing this spirit’s words. He spoke to me far more clearly than any ghost I’d ever encountered, and the tingle in my spine warned me that wasn’t a good thing.

  “There’s a reason I’ve been trapped in this house for so long,” Horace said. “I tried to move on but found it impossible. I believe unfinished business is keeping me here. Once I rectify my last mistake, I hope to leave.”

  Good. He wanted to move on. That seemed easier than trying to force a spirit like Richard Franklin to leave this world behind against his will. “What was the mistake?”

  “Before I died, I stole something precious from my cousin: his mother’s jewelry box. It was so beautiful, carved from a single piece of alder, and contained her wedding ring. I traded it to a lumberjack at Cambion’s Camp.” His form flickered again. “In return, he gave me the gin that killed me.”

  The pieces clicked together in my mind. He’d stolen something, and his guilt over the theft tied him to this plane of existence. I immediately knew what had to be done. “The box needs to be returned, so you can make things right.”

  “If I have any hope of seeing the next world, yes.”

  “How long ago was this?” I wasn’t sure how long it took wood to decompose, but I suspected it was about the same amount of time it took top hats and cloaks to go firmly out of style. “And do you know where the lumberjack left it?”

  “Time moves strangely when you’re dead. I don’t know how long it’s been, but I do know the box is still at Cambion’s Camp. I feel it always, pulling at me. Never letting me forget what I did.” His pupils, which I’d thought were at their maximum size already, grew larger in his wide eyes. “Will you help me?”

  I hesitated. It seemed like a wild goose chase. I didn’t even know where this Cambion place was, and a jewelry box felt like a very small thing to survive the decades that must have passed since Horace stole it.