I groaned to myself as I crossed into Warwick. I didn’t exactly get the warm and fuzzy feeling of a town that would welcome a new person. One of things I’d learned since joining the coven was to trust my intuition.
With witches, that intuition was more than just a gut feeling.
As I pulled into the cemetery, a bolt of lightning hit the ground in the middle of a group of mourners. Didn’t look like anyone had been hurt, but a branch stuck out from the front of the car.
A lone, young, blonde stood next to a casket. Not another mourner in sight. Well… there was a man nearby, but they didn’t look like they were together. My heart sunk. Was there really not a single person who would want to be there for Miranda?
She turned at the sound of my motorcycle. The look of sheer sadness pulling all of her features toward the ground tugged at my heart even more.
Chapter Two
Miranda
She was dead.
And I was running in the rain. It hadn’t been raining when I left the house ten minutes ago. The sky didn’t even look like it was threatening a drizzle. I wasn’t in workout clothes. And I hated running.
But I couldn’t be in that house anymore. The memories… they were getting worse. So I decided to get some air. Went out in jean shorts and a tank top. But then I began walking faster until I was full-on running and let my emotions guide me.
Just days ago, my grandmother died and left me all alone in the world.
I wasn’t sure whether to be grateful that she hadn’t spent months suffering from an unbearable illness, wasting away until there was nothing left, or angry that I never got the chance to say goodbye.
Her death had come out of nowhere and now I didn’t know what I was going to do.
My feet hit the pavement, cutting through a small puddle that formed. The water splashed up my legs.
“I don’t know what to do next,” I screamed aloud, raging at the crying sky.
We had no money other than the very small income I made at the flower shop in town. They were the only business who’d hire me and they paid next to nothing for the pleasure.
“Everything’s going to be all right,” the youngest officer had told me two days ago as he patted my shoulder.
A crack of thunder broke above me almost causing me to fall to the ground.
I didn’t understand then how that officer could say such a thing when clearly nothing would ever be the same again.
My grandmother was dead. How would anything be all right? Then I’d reminded myself I’d been through this before.
I’d found my grandmother ashen and cold. Obviously dead. In her bed… I thought. I couldn’t be sure now, which was unsettling beyond belief. How could I not remember where I’d found her dead?
As grief ate away at my soul, I began to wonder… if I’d gotten to her quicker, would she still have been alive? Could I have somehow saved her? I’d never get an answer to that, but I sure as hell hoped not.
And that was the reason I was running.
Logic told me that as cold as she was when I arrived, there never had been any hope of saving her.
“What you need to do is contact a funeral home,” the officer said, “talk to the director, and they’ll guide you through the process. It’s what they do.”
In a town the size of Warwick, I should’ve recognized this officer yet I didn’t. Given his age, maybe twenty-five, he could’ve been new but still, if he was from here, I should’ve been able to at least place his face. Perhaps another casualty of grief—my memory.
I nodded and blinked at the information he gave me because, at that point, it was the only thing I knew how to do.
But now, the more I thought about it, the more finding her in bed didn’t seem right, but it was the one thing I remembered, so I had to believe it was real.
I came to a stop just outside of my dark, empty house. The rain was stopping but I stood there dripping with my chest rising then falling rapidly.
I really hated running.
The hours after finding her had passed by in slow motion. Time moved quickly, but everyone moved slowly, as if underwater. The paramedics came, even though I’d told the emergency operator she was already dead. Protocol, she’d said. The police also came. Standard. They asked me some questions, but I overheard one telling another that it seemed cut and dry.
Quiet voices predicted she died of natural causes after her nighttime walk. Everything they said sounded logical yet something was off and I didn’t know what.
It was almost as if my brain was trying to figure out a mystery that no one knew existed.
I’d spent the last two days discussing arrangements with the local funeral home and planning with the funeral director as he offered his condolences time and time again.
And then, picking out clothes for my dead grandmother. Do you put underwear on dead people? She’d been pretty clear on all of her arrangements, unbeknownst to me, which didn’t leave a lot for me to think about other than that damn outfit.
It wasn’t hard to choose but the pressure of deciding someone’s last outfit was crushing.
Two days ago… Something happened but the details of what grew fuzzier with each passing hour. The funeral director in town said it was likely my grief and I’d remember little by little later on.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
After the house had cleared out that morning, I found a document in her room with some very specific instructions on what she wanted when she died. It was sitting on her bed and it was the first thing I saw when I went in, as if it had called out to me, drawn me to it. I was relatively sure that envelope hadn’t been there the day before.
Once the initial shock passed, her death left me agitated, feeling too big for my skin, like I was about to burst forth and shed my Miranda skin to become something else. A phoenix rising from the ashes, perhaps. Something stronger, hopefully. Something that could handle going through the boxes and boxes of memories left in Grandma’s huge dilapidated gothic-style house that sat on a hill in Warwick.
Just… something other than me.
Some called the house creepy. I called it home.
I loved the old place, but it needed so much work. Work we could never afford to have done. There was so much to do. But now that would include figuring out what I was going to do with it after I went through box after box of whatever my grandma had decided to keep over the years. Or hoarded over the years. Depended on how I looked at it.
My biggest hurdle to getting started would be finding the key to the series of rooms she’d locked me out of my entire life. I’d never even been allowed a peek inside her inner sanctum and now worried what’d I’d find in there. What the big secret was.
She’d been a strong little old lady type. Appeared frail but could cut you at the knee if she needed to. There literally could be anything in that unknown territory of the house and part of me worried that I wouldn’t be able to handle what I found.
When my parents had died in a plane crash, Grandma took in this sad three-year-old and done her very best to raise me, even with her limited funds. Though her becoming my guardian had meant I had to move to Warwick. I couldn’t have known at the age of three just how awful a place could be.
I’d been here sixteen years and hadn’t made a single friend. The town wasn’t exactly… welcoming or kind.
I swallowed the old memories back as I went into the house to get myself ready to bury my last family member. Shower first to wash off the rain which had suddenly ended as soon as I’d gotten back. Then I took my time blow drying my hair and got dressed.
I only owned one black dress and couldn’t remember why I’d even bought it. Actually, now that I thought about it, I didn’t remember buying it. I for sure had never worn it before. When I put it on, it fit perfectly, and I slipped my feet into a pair of black flats hidden in the back of my closet.
There was zero expectation that anyone would attend that afternoon and I’d be fine with that. Being alone suited me. Wi
th Grandma gone, there wasn’t anyone in this town I’d want to see anyway and no one would chance reaching out even if they had given a crap. They couldn’t be seen talking to us. To me.
Teased, taunted, and bullied until I’d cried or hidden myself away, begged to be homeschooled. Begged for us to move.
She’d never gone for any of it. Said it would build character. I hadn’t wanted character. I’d wanted someone to play with who didn’t hate me for no reason. But the kids at school had seen me as an outsider, even though they couldn’t possibly remember a time when I hadn’t been there.
But today was sad enough without adding the memories of my tortured youth to it.
Right after I slid in behind the wheel of my car, the sky opened up again. Fitting, in my opinion. Rain seemed appropriate for a day like today. It shouldn’t be sunny and no one should be happy on the day I was putting my last family member in the ground.
The rain said the things I couldn’t.
As I drove to the cemetery not far from my house, I realized that I’d be able to see her grave from the attic window. If I ever got into the damn attic.
I pulled the car to a stop on the side of the dirt road in the cemetery hear where her casket sat on the lowering device. Mahogany. Just as she’d requested. Grandma had never had particular tastes, yet for her casket, she’d wanted mahogany with silver hardware and a navy-blue liner.
The rain coming and going would probably add to the stagnant humidity of the day, but while it fell, it gave some relief. When I stepped outside, I pushed the umbrella open and ran a hand over my black dress, releasing the creases that had formed from sitting in the car.
“Hello, Miranda,” Mr. Holmes, the funeral director, said when I walked up. He was dressed in a dark suit. One that looked far too nice to be getting wet in the drizzle. At least he didn’t reach out to me in any way.
The rain stopped completely right then.
There was no funeral service and at this point I wished Mr. Holmes would just put her in the ground and save me the words he’d insisted had to be said.
Honestly, I couldn’t even cry. There was nothing left inside me to give. I’d become a hollow shell of my former self and felt like it, too.
I wasn’t the only mourner at the cemetery that day, though the only one for my grandma.
Reverend Mather’s death prompted a large gathering of people to mourn him, though I’d only known him to be incredibly judgmental with a sharp tongue. He also died the same day as my grandmother. His daughters, Ashley and Taylor Mather—my most dedicated tormentors—were the twin terrors of the high school. Graduating had done nothing to dampen their popularity and they still thought they ran the town.
At one point, I’d overheard Ashley say that she blamed her mother that she and her sister weren’t identical. I could barely tell them apart but even still… how would that be their mother’s fault.
The biggest difference between them and me while we were in the cemetery was that Ashley and Taylor had a support system. Former classmates of mine gathered around them, hugging the girls, their mouths moving as they probably uttered words of condolence.
Against my better judgement, I raised a shaky hand to wave at Ashley and Taylor, hoping to convey the fact that we were all in the same boat. It took so much effort to do, my arm felt like it weighed about a thousand pounds which made me realize that I hadn’t eaten in days.
True to form, they looked back at me with disgust. Their lips pulled up, each showing off a sliver of teeth as if they were actually growling at me.
“I’m so sorry for your loss, Miranda,” the fifty-something funeral director said to me as he took my hand.
He’d used the same words each time I’d seen him and I was tired of hearing it.
When I’d come in to take care of arrangements and pick out the casket.
When I’d come back with the money to pay for it.
And now when he was about to commit my grandmother to the ground. We weren’t religious and there was an obvious shortage of ministers in town anyway, so I’d asked him to do it for me.
“Thank you,” I said back, then dropped his hand.
The attendees from the minister’s burial began walking to their cars as the funeral director began my grandma’s service. I watched the other mourners load up into their limos and drive slowly by.
“She probably died to get away from you!” one of the sisters yelled out at me, though I couldn’t tell which.
They’d said the same thing about my parents more than once starting in elementary school. Obviously, their minister father had done a bang-up job teaching them manners.
Someone else called out to me right after, but I couldn’t make out what they said or who’d said it.
The rage building up inside of me, the pounding of my heart in my ears, drowned out everything else. My harassers. The funeral director. My vision tunneled as I glared at that car full of lifelong tormentors.
Thunder cracked above our heads with a bolt of lightning following right behind, coming from nowhere and striking the Earth.
The tree closest to their limo split off and a limb fell onto the hood of the car with a deafening crash that made even me jump. I blinked in confusion as the pounding subsided. They screamed and then six people jumped out of the car.
It didn’t look like any of them had been harmed. I wasn’t sure if that made me happy or not.
Another crash of lighting struck right in the middle of their six-person circle. They all jumped back. Ashley stumbled, then fell to the ground. Taylor ran over to help her up. Ashley didn’t even sway once she was back on her feet.
They all looked shaken but unhurt. Close call.
Yet it was like that outburst from mother nature called that fury inside me. I was still angry. Of course, I was angry but was much less stabby.
Then a different kind of rumble roared behind me. I spun quickly to find a motorcycle pulling up behind my car. I didn’t know anyone who rode a motorcycle.
The rider, male, pushed down the kickstand, then swung his jean-covered leg over the seat, his muscles straining against his black T-shirt. Then he pulled his helmet off and a tuft of dark curls spilled out over his forehead as this stranger leaned against his bike and stared at me.
His gaze was like a physical touch against my skin at a time when I didn’t want to be touched. Yet his touch, no matter how imaginary, I welcomed.
Chapter Three
Miranda
The man sat back on his bike, muscles testing the strength of the black ,cotton T-shirt he wore and continued to stare at me with such intensity that Ashley, Taylor, and the lightning were momentarily forgotten, even though the girls were still shrieking behind me. I wasn’t sure what I should do, what I wanted to do.
The stranger had stopped by my car. He didn’t pass it to go toward the other burial taking place, which had already ended, actually. And he was looking at me. Something inside of me urged me to go to him. This feeling of being pulled by a metaphorical rope around my chest almost gave me no other option.
That was not going to happen. I wasn’t about to approach a stranger, even if he had the most swagger of anyone I’d ever seen before. Even if he was looking right at me, drawing me to him.
No. My grandma would’ve wanted me to stay right where I was.
His face pinched in concern, as if he knew me and what I was going through. Or maybe he just read my body language really well. Since I’d never seen him before in my life, there was little chance of him knowing my grandma or being aware of her death.
So why was he here?
Grandma didn’t have friends over to the house ever. Hadn’t gone out much. It’d been just me and her for so long that I wasn’t even sure either of us knew how to communicate with the outside world anymore. Isolation meant that I should’ve known anyone she knew, and I didn’t know this man on the bike. I would’ve remembered the dark hair, intense eyes, strong jaw, and shoulders.
I would’ve remembered someone looki
ng at me as if I mattered.
For a reason that I didn’t understand, I was drawn to this stranger. Something pulled me to him, made it so I wasn’t afraid of him or the way he was looking at me. He calmed me to the degree where some of my grief dissipated.
And he did all of this from thirty feet away.
He was tall from where I was standing, but everyone was tall compared to me. I was only five-feet-two inches and given how perspective worked, I’d have guessed this man was closer to six feet. Strong arms hung to his sides.
Everything about him had me intrigued. But not enough to go to him.
Maybe it was the motorcycle. I’d always had a taste for danger—or at least that was what my grandmother claimed my entire life. I climbed too far up the trees. Always rushed when I should’ve walked or stopped all together. Doing those things that she deemed dangerous was my answer to the years of being bullied.
She’d accused me of being oblivious to my surroundings and that may have been true sometimes. But right now, right here in the cemetery, I was acutely aware of him.
The funeral director, Martin, kept talking even as I stared at the stranger near my car. Two lightning strikes not far away and close together hadn’t fazed him. Here I was burying my grandmother and I hadn’t heard a word Martin said.
No matter. Martin hadn’t known my grandmother, so whatever he said couldn’t have been personal or meaningful. I didn’t think I’d missed much.
Finally, he stopped talking and gestured for me to act.
I reached down and took a clod of drippy mud and tossed it on the coffin, then winced at the sound of the splat when it landed. It was almost as if it echoed for eternity but probably only in my ears.
Witch of Warwick (Dark Coven Book 1) Page 2
