by Nova Nelson
Crossing Over Easy
Eastwind Witches 1
Nova Nelson
Copyright © 2018 by Nova Nelson
All rights reserved. FFS Media and Nova Nelson reserve all rights to Crossing Over Easy, Eastwind Witches 1. This work may not be shared or reproduced in any fashion without permission of the publisher and/or author. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
* * *
Cover Design © FFS Media LLC
Illustration elements by Kerry McQuaide
Eastwind Witches #1 / Nova Nelson -- 1st ed.
Previously published as Crossing Over Easy: Witches of Salem, Nora Bradbury #1
www.novanelson.com
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
You’re invited …
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About the Author
Chapter One
The windshield wipers swished frantically as a million raindrops darted through the beams of my LED headlights. I’d bought the new BMW M4 because it road tested well in conditions like this, but mostly because why not buy a BMW? I’d always wanted one, and I finally made enough money for it. It wasn’t like I had any kids to spend my money on.
Or pets.
Or friends.
(Sad, I know.)
But not even my custom-upgrade headlights could make the long drive from New Orleans to Austin safe, even in dry conditions.
Going this slow on I-10 had to be illegal. Any second now, some dumb semi would come hauling tail behind me out of nowhere. The truck driver wouldn’t expect a car to be creeping along at a leisurely 35 MPH, and then…
It would be the end of Nora Ashcroft. My life would find itself at a hasty, gruesome conclusion.
I wouldn’t let that happen. I’d worked hard. Made something out of nothing. I’d put myself through culinary school, earned an MBA, opened one of Austin’s hottest fine-dining experiences, and to top it all off, I’d paid off my student loan debt last month. Not only did I deserve to live, I deserved a freaking medal.
Although, when I considered it, it would be just my luck to die on this trip. Finally free from the shackles of debt, and boom! I’m painting the pavement.
I hope you’ll excuse me if that seems a little doom and gloom. Behind the shiny veneer of business success, my life was nothing but doom and gloom. Or at least it was from the moment I got the devastating news about my parents, when I was only eleven, onward.
It was all about to change, though.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I berated myself. “I should’ve just stayed in New Orleans until tomorrow!”
But I knew I couldn’t.
I’d gone to visit my sometimes man, Neil. He was my sometimes man for a few reasons. First, he lived eight hours away in New Orleans. I had the money to fly out there to see him every weekend if I wanted, except I was scared of flying.
Oh yes, that irrational fear.
I was one of those dummies who says, “I’m scared of a plane crash!” but will get in a car and drive for eight hours through darkness and pouring rain while truck drivers managing to keep one eye open, thanks to the miracles of meth, whiz past me at a cool 100 MPH.
Yeah, that’s so much safer.
But fear rarely makes a whole heck of a lot of sense.
The second reason Neil was my sometimes man was that I could only tolerate him sometimes.
I wasn’t that into Neil. He was rich, beautiful, ran with a crowd of other rich and beautiful people, but sometimes he would do or say things that made me wonder if he had a soul.
Then he’d give a million dollars to charity, and I’d usually forget about the previous indiscretion because people with souls didn’t give that much to fight cancer or rebuild homes damaged by hurricanes, right?
But earlier that night, I’d reached the final straw. I was already a little on edge because of the voodoo woman we passed on Bourbon Street and what she’d said to me—I’ll get to that, don’t worry—so I just couldn’t with him and his random outbursts of being a jerk. Plus, he did it to the one sort of person who I absolutely will not tolerate any mistreatment of: our server.
There is a special place in hell for people who mistreat the waitstaff at restaurants. I waited tables from the moment a little taqueria would let me when I was fourteen (okay, thirteen and a convincing liar) until the day I finally opened Chez Coeur five years previous, when I was twenty-seven. Fourteen years of it. Heck, there were even days when I’d pick up a few tables at Chez Coeur so I didn’t lose touch with what the waitstaff was dealing with.
Plus, there was a slight thrill to waiting tables at my own restaurant. It felt like going undercover. No one ever guessed that the tall, fresh-faced, thirty-two-year-old woman was the owner (it’s still quite the boys club, the restaurant industry). If a patron was rude to me, I would tell them to leave. If they asked for the manager, I would summon that night’s the front-of-house manager. When the manager asked them to leave, the customer would ask to speak to the owner and bam! There I was, at their service.
The dumbfounded reactions I got from this were worth the mistreatment and then some. Once, a few of the nearby tables even applauded while I showed the rude, young couple to the door.
Neil was a trust-fund kid, though. Nothing against trust-funds—would’ve been nice if my parents had socked something away, though I guess no one plans to be murdered in their midthirties. But Neil had never worked a real job. He didn’t understand what it was like to be on your feet all day in slip-proof shoes, your knees feeling like bone-on-bone, your lower back aching constantly. He’d never survived the futile pressure of having to please one stranger after another, to make everything right, no matter if it’s your mistake or the customer is just having a bad day or they ordered something different than what they thought they’d ordered. Neil had never closed a restaurant at four in the morning, hurried home, flopped on his bed with his feet up on the headboard to give his swollen ankles and knees a break, then slept like the dead for three hours before waking up to open the next morning. He didn’t know about working doubles. He didn’t know about the creepy men who follow female servers to their cars. He didn’t know that, yes, one customer might have ordered something simple and straightforward, but if that server has two other ten-tops sat in her section, a simple order is the easiest one to overlook.
And that was the exact situation that unfolded at our dinner that night. It was the server’s mistake, sure, but she was clearly in the weeds with two massive parties where the guests were practically playing musical chairs. I watched the situation unfold from the calm of our two-top and already knew there was a good chance our order would take a while to come out. The poor girl could use a Xanax or thirty.
So when she brought over our entrees and forgot Neil’s parmesan roasted brussels sprouts, I was actually impressed. I thought she’d have botched
the order much worse than that.
Neil, however, was not impressed. He berated her. Asked her if his simple order was too much for her to remember. He suggested that next time she write it on a notepad. Better yet, work at a roadside diner where all the food looked the same and no one could tell if they got the wrong order.
The diner thing rubbed me wrong, but it also snapped me out of whatever persistent fugue state had kept me interested in him. I realized, even as the fragrance of foie gras filled my nostrils, that I couldn’t be with someone who didn’t appreciate the occasionally greasy diner food.
Not even as my sometimes man.
Neil, as it turned out, was the absolute worst.
And considering the voodoo woman had predicted my death in the next twenty-four hours (I didn’t buy it, but it made for good motivation), I would be a total moron to spend my last remaining time on earth with this jerk.
I stood abruptly, my chair legs screeching on the marble floors. Neil paused in his tirade, and both he and the waitress, Jenny (I learned her name because, you know, she’s a human being), stared at me, their mouths little round o’s.
“Neil. You’re garbage at being a human,” I said before I could stop myself. “To be honest, I’m starting to wonder if you’re actually a sociopath. I must be incredibly lonely if I’m spending time around you.” I grabbed my knee-length charcoal gray overcoat from the back of my chair and slipped it on over my white boat-neck tee and black trousers. “Oh, and before I forget, you’re a terrible golfer.”
I knew nothing about golf, but I knew that one would hit him where it hurt.
I pulled from my wallet whatever cash I had on me. Unfortunately, I’d decided on this grand gesture before realizing there were at least five hundred-dollar bills in the stack. But there was no balking now, not while Neil glared at me so disdainfully.
I held the cash out to our server. “Jenny, this is for you, because I know he won’t tip well, and God knows you put up with enough at a place like this.” I was losing my taste for fine dining with each passing second, which, as the owner of a fine-dining restaurant, was problematic for obvious reasons.
She took the money, and I left. I walked straight out of there feeling like a switch had been flipped, as if my priorities, long dormant, might have just reawakened.
It was a fresh start.
I didn’t know how true and untrue that was.
A loud horn pulled me from my memories and I refocused my attention on the slick road. There were flashing lights up ahead. Blue and red. Cop lights. And some dimmer orange ones. What was going on?
I welcomed the excuse to slow down even more as I approached.
The wind began to blow sideways and sheets of rain danced across my headlights like apparitions in the night.
Apparitions. The voodoo woman had mentioned those. She said they’d been around me my whole life. Part of me knew that was true. I’d lived alone since my aunt, who’d taken me in when my parents were killed, had passed away herself fourteen years before. I’d never had a roommate, never had time for a pet (though I’d wanted one), but I’d always sensed the presence of something else around me. Maybe many something elses. There were nights when I swore I glimpsed something light, misty appear then fade in the corner of a room, or a dark figure pass across a doorway.
But I could never indulge those feelings, those inklings. I didn’t have time for it, and besides, I lived alone. Accepting the idea that my condo might be haunted was too frightening to entertain. And work required as much attention as I could give it.
Oh yeah, and there was always the possibility that mental illness ran in my family. My aunt had hinted at as much. (She wasn’t a pleasant woman, so I can’t say I was especially torn up when she died.)
When your options are either that you see ghosts or possess a hereditary mental illness, you tend to want to opt out of the choice altogether.
What can I say? Denial has always been one of my strengths.
By the looks of the barricade, I-10 was closed and rerouted north for a while. I’d passed the sign for Beaumont just a few minutes before, so at least I had some idea of where I was.
But whose genius idea was it to reroute a major highway?
Well, I suppose it was the middle of the freaking night. Not exactly peak traffic hours. If it had to be done, the time was ripe.
The orange detour signs were hardly visible in the torrent, so I turned north and gave my phone the voice command to “take me home.”
“Okay,” replied my most loyal friend. (Sad but true.) “I am taking you home. You will arrive at home by seven forty-two a.m.”
“Thanks, Google,” I said before realizing I’d just thanked an electronic device.
I seriously considered following up with, “Okay, Google, how do I make friends?” but didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of the technology.
I took it slow along the farm-to-market road. I’d show that voodoo woman who was boss. I would not be “joining the spirits before sunrise,” like she’d said. Not driving twenty-five miles an hour, I wouldn’t. I could run straight into a tree and not even have whiplash at this speed. And besides, my expensive new car would never let that happen. It had more sophisticated accident avoidance mechanisms than I could count, to the point where it seemed engineered specifically for drunk drivers.
The car was idiot proof. I’d once spilled a hot latte on my lap and accidentally yanked the steering wheel to the left … except the car didn’t allow that. It beeped ferociously at me and the steering wheel didn’t budge an inch. Afterward, I was thankful, but also fully creeped out. I can’t let you do that, Nora, I’d imagined it saying in the voice of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
I passed a sign notifying me that I was now entering into Eastwind, Texas.
I’d spent my life in the Lone Star State, yet I’d never heard of this place. Where was I?
I snuck a quick glance at my phone, but the screen was dark. Shoot. I pressed the button to wake it up, but nothing.
“Okay, Google.”
No response. No cute beep to let me know it was listening, awaiting orders like a good little phone servant.
I turned my eyes back to the road, and shouted, “Okay, Google, quit playing. I don’t know where I am.”
Still nothing.
Crap. This wasn’t happening. How was I supposed to get home without my phone? I couldn’t stop at a gas station and ask for directions because it was the middle of the night, and this was not the type of town that had a gas station. Maybe an old-timey filling station with an attendant who’d served a little time but had a heart of gold. But no gas station. No Shells, no Exxons, no Chevrons.
Adrenaline got the best of me, and my lead foot acted up.
I may not have known where I was going, but I was going to get there quick. Ain’t nobody got time for being lost. Especially me. I had a meeting with an investor the following evening, someone who wanted to open a Chez Coeur in Dallas. I had places to be, and I wasn’t looking to wind up in some Deliverance scenario out here in the boonies.
As my pulse increased, so did my speed. I realized there were no other cars within sight. What had happened to all the highway traffic? Shoot, did I miss a turn in the detour? I must have.
The next split second dragged out for an eternity.
The dark figure in the road.
My headlights piercing right through it.
My dash lights going black.
My startled yell as I yanked the steering wheel hard to the right to avoid hitting whatever was in the road.
The jolt of the front tires over the dirt shoulder.
The complete absence of all the safety features I paid a fortune for!
My headlights shutting off.
At the very last moment, the sight of the thick tree trunk in the moonlight on a collision course for the front of my car.
And then the bone-crushing impact.
And then nothing.
Chapter Two
Someone
was giving my face a sponge bath.
No, wait. Was someone making out with me?
Yeah, that seemed more accurate.
They weren’t great at it, though. Sloppy technique.
I opened my eyes but couldn’t make sense of my surroundings right away.
Something big and fluffy hovered over me, but the only detail I could make out against the dark canopy of trees was the pink tongue.
“Stop it. I’m not that kinda girl,” I muttered through my haze.
It wasn’t entirely true. I’d kissed a few guys whose names I didn’t know (work hard, play hard), but none of them had ever been this hairy.
I pushed the thing off of me, and only after getting some distance did I realize what it was: a giant black dog. Actually, was that even a dog? I’d never seen a dog that big. It was the size of a pony, easily.
The animal backed off a few steps and stared at me with droopy yellow eyes as I propped myself up on my elbows. “Yuck,” I said, wiping the slobber from my face. “Thanks but no thanks.”
“Well, excuse me for helping,” replied the hound before he turned and trotted off into the darkness.
But no, that couldn’t be right. Dogs didn’t talk.
Hmm … Put a tally mark in the “mental illness” column.
Or maybe I’d just hit my head. Where was I? What had happened? How did I get here?
It started to come back to me—the detour, the black figure in the middle of the road … the tree.
But when I looked around, it didn’t add up. Where was my car? Where was the road?
All around me were tall trees stretching up toward a dark, starry sky I glimpsed through the canopy. I lay on soft pine needles in a tiny clearing.
