Witching Moon

by Rebecca York

  “The owner is?”

  “Austen Barnette.”

  The answer sent a tingle of sensation along Adam’s arm. “That’s interesting.”

  “He rents the place out.” Delacorte paused for emphasis. “Right now Granville Pharmaceuticals has the lease.”

  As Adam absorbed that, along with the tight lines of the other man’s face, his mind made connections. “The cabin where Sara lives?” he asked, his voice low and gritty.

  “Yeah. So there could be a couple of other reasons for someone going after her. It could have to do with the location. Or it could have to do with Barnette.”

  “I thought everybody in town loved Barnette. Didn’t he make Nature’s Refuge into a major attraction, which brings in wads of tourist dollars?”

  “That’s true, of course. A lot of folks are grateful to him. But you can’t be the big fish in a little pond without gathering some algae. He’s had problems over the years.

  He’s done things for the community like build the library and the recreation center. But he insisted on having a say in the staffing of both of them. Some folks don’t appreciate that.”

  “He picked me to run Nature’s Refuge,” Adam pointed out.

  “The difference is, he owns this place.”

  The silence between the two men stretched again. Adam was thinking that it might not make a difference who owned the park. Some people were probably pissed off that the job of head ranger hadn’t gone to a local guy. Like Ken White, for example. Who’d been born and raised in Wayland and knew the Olakompa from childhood.

  He pulled his mind away from his own problems and back to the long ago murder. “There was mention of a little girl. What happened to her?”

  “She disappeared.”

  “You think she died in the fire? In the swamp?”

  “Her body was never found. My daddy said that someone might have gotten her out of harm’s way. Maybe arranged an adoption out of state when the smoke had cleared, so to speak.”

  “Who would have done that?”

  “Jenna Foster wasn’t married. But she had a daughter. The child’s father could have rescued her.”

  “And that would be?”

  “Whoever he was, he kept it a secret.”

  Adam absorbed that new detail, his own speculations taking wild leaps. “You think he’s still alive?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I told you, I like to walk around the area at night. I was over by Sara’s place, and I saw a guy hanging around there.”

  “A guy. Young? Old?”

  “The best I can say is that he was agile. He got away from me.”

  “I guess I should put some patrols on the house.”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  “Personally?”

  “Yeah,” Adam answered, his voice tight. He didn’t want to talk about his relationship with Sara. If he had a relationship with her. He couldn’t be sure of that. He was the one who had walked out the door last night.

  Delacorte stood up, and Adam thought the interview might be over. But after walking to a tupelo tree several yards away, he turned and came back to the seating area. He stood rocking on his heals, and Adam felt his heart start to pound. Delacorte had more to say. Something important. But it was obvious he was pretty uncomfortable about spitting it out.

  CHAPTER

  FOURTEEN

  ADAM WATCHED THE sheriff’s throat work. “You look about as comfortable as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs,” he observed.

  Delacorte laughed. “Where did you pick up that country expression, boy?”

  “Texas.”

  “Right. They’ve got some fine southern traditions in Texas. So do we. Like persecution of people. But I’m not just talkin’ about the Ku Klux Klan lynching uppity blacks.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Delacorte hesitated a beat before answering. “Going after people who have…talents that are out of the ordinary.”

  “I think you’re going to have to be a little more direct here,” Adam muttered.

  “Okay. I’m talking about the line in the bible that says, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’”

  The way Delacorte said the word made goose bumps rise on Adam’s arms. “Witches? Like Wiccans?”

  Delacorte stuck out his jaw. “No. Like evil old hags who go off by themselves in the swamp under a witching moon and cast spells that hurt people.”

  “You don’t believe in that stuff, do you?”

  “Some people around here do. That’s why they burned up the herb lady.”

  “She was an old hag?”

  “No. But she had…powers.”

  Adam made an exasperated sound. “An herb lady. That doesn’t sound so unusual.”

  Delacorte ran a hand over the tight curls that covered his head. “Boy, you’re not listening. Right, that doesn’t sound so strange. But I heard tell she could lay her hands on you and figure out what was wrong.”

  “You said they killed her because she made a mistake.”

  “Look, I’m just telling you the town legends. I never saw any of this stuff myself. One story I heard was about an old man. Old Man Levering. He was supposed to have the evil eye. He could put a hex on you if he didn’t like you.”

  Adam managed a nervous laugh. “You believe that crap?”

  “It doesn’t matter if I believe it. People in town believed it. And I’m not just talking about the black folks being into powerful superstitions. Everybody talked about Old Man Levering and a woman named Mrs. Gambrills, who had spells, and when she woke up she could tell you stuff that was going to happen. Like if you were going to get yourself eaten by a gator. Her daughter Emily could…could make things move without touching them.”

  Adam stared at the man. It was obvious that he’d heard stories of these people—and other “witches”—since childhood. And he believed them. And at the same time, he was embarrassed to be telling this to a stranger, someone who had lived in Wayland for only a few months.

  Jesus, suppose he found out that the stranger liked to go off into the swamp and turned himself into a wolf?

  He struggled to hold his voice steady as he asked, “You say there used to be people in town who could do this stuff. What happened to them?”

  “What usually happens to witches! Like in the middle ages. Or Salem, Massachusetts. Over the years the regular folks would gang up on them and kill them. The last one was the lady who was burned up in her house. The rest of them cleared out.”

  Adam stared at him, trying to take it in, trying to read between the lines.

  “So you’re saying that the problems in town now are somehow related to what happened in the past?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  “But the…um…the witches cleared out.”

  “I think some of them are back,” Delacorte said, his voice going thick with an emotion that sounded pretty close to fear. “And they’re angry about what happened to their daddies and mommas.”

  “And what do you base that on?” Adam demanded.

  “To start with…Ken White’s death.”

  “He was shot to death.”

  “That’s what people think,” the sheriff said.

  “And you’re saying it’s not true?” Adam felt the hairs on the back of his neck stir. “What do you think happened to him?”

  “The autopsy report said he died of a heart attack. He was shot after he died.”

  Adam struggled to take that in. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “That he was scared to death. Or that somebody hexed him to death. I don’t know how else to say it.”

  “Then why shoot him?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. To make it look like a conventional murder, so they wouldn’t be found out? Or maybe the witches thought they weren’t strong enough to kill him with mind power, so they brought along a gun.”

  “Or it was the other way around. He was trying to hex someone to death.
And they shot him.”

  Delacorte looked doubtful.

  “You don’t think so?”

  “I knew Ken White all my life. He was a pretty stick-in-the-mud kind of guy. I don’t see him as the witch type.”

  “He might have been hiding it. According to you, being a witch around here is dangerous.”

  The sheriff nodded.

  Adam was ready with another question. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this choice information when I first got to town? Or when we had our little chat the other day?”

  Delacorte gave him a direct look. “At first I was thinkin’ there was no point in bad-mouthing Wayland unless you were going to stay.”

  “That comes from loyalty to the town?”

  Delacorte scuffed his shoe against the ground. “I was born here. I grew up here. I have a responsibility to these people.”

  “Including lying to outsiders?”

  “I wasn’t lying to you.”

  “Not in so many words, but by omission.”

  “Well, now I’m telling you what I know. And I expect you to do the same.”

  “I have. I told you about the sex and drug party in the swamp.”

  “Uh…you mentioned drugs. You didn’t say anything about sex.”

  Now it was Adam’s turn to be embarrassed. “Yeah, well that was part of it.”

  “A witches’ sabbath.”

  “Oh, come on!”

  “On the night of the full moon.”

  “The witches around here did that kind of stuff?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Would they hold a grudge against Sara because she’s living in that cabin?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Okay, so the witches could be nosing around her place, because that’s where one of them died. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Somebody from town is going after people connected with the witches. And since she’s in the cabin, she makes a convenient target.” He fixed the sheriff with a piercing look. “So, are you going to give me a scorecard?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like who are the families who went after the witches? And who are the witches?”

  The sheriff’s gaze turned inward. “I’m checking out potential witches. As for the others…” He shrugged. “My father didn’t keep records on stuff like that.”

  “Too bad,” Adam muttered, wondering if it were true. Delacorte claimed he was coming clean on the “witch problem.” But apparently he was only prepared to go so far.

  “Are you willing to talk about Barnette?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why do you think he bought Nature’s Refuge?”

  “I think he wanted to show his faith in the town. I think he wanted to provide a source of income for people around here.”

  “Or atone for what happened at the cabin, since he owned it?”

  “That could be part of it.” The sheriff took a step back.

  Adam stood up. “I’ve got one more question before you leave.”

  Delacorte quirked an eyebrow.

  “Something I found in the swamp. Why don’t we go inside and have a look at it.” He kicked off his muddy boots, then stepped inside. Aware that the sheriff was staying several paces behind him, he went to the dresser where he’d put away the square of fabric with the herbs and chicken feathers and black gunk. The whole thing was inside a plastic bag. He brought it out and set it on the table, then extracted the cloth and the herbs.

  When he looked up, he saw Delacorte staring intently at the contents of the bag.

  “So, did the witches leave this as a calling card?” he asked. “Does it have something to do with the herb lady who was burned up?”

  The sheriff reached out and touched a sage leaf, which crumbled along the edge where his finger brushed it. “That’s a charm people used to ward off evil. I remember my granny making something like this,” he said, his voice thick.

  “Like a voodoo gris-gris?”

  Delacorte gave him a considering look. “You know about that stuff?”

  “I’ve read about it.”

  “I guess this could go back to African traditions.”

  “But I take it you didn’t leave it out in the park?”

  Delacorte snorted. “Not likely. I don’t protect myself with charms and spells. I don’t believe in stuff like that.”

  But he did believe in the witches. Interesting.

  As Delacorte ambled off, Adam propped his shoulder against a pine tree thinking about the campfire in the swamp. The drugging smoke. The naked figures who had come after him with murder in their eyes.

  He’d thought they’d shot at him. Had that only been an illusion? What if it hadn’t really been a shot fired from a gun. What if it had been some kind of mental energy bolt? And his mind had put it into conventional terms?

  He pondered that question for long minutes. It was a strange line of thought. Maybe he could go back to the firepit and look for bullets embedded in trees. Yeah, sure, when he had the time.

  He shook his head. Instead of worrying about witches hurling thunderbolts, he’d better go check up on his staff. But first, he’d better get cleaned up before he scared away the tourists.

  BY brute force, Sara managed to work most of the morning. Although she spent minutes at a time staring off into space, she was able to make several more plant extracts and start checking their antibacterial properties.

  But she’d awakened with a trace of the headache that had stabbed into her brain the evening before. And as the day wore on, it grew steadily worse.

  She took an over-the-counter remedy, but it didn’t help. Finally, after picking at the salmon salad she’d fixed for lunch, she stuck her bowl in the refrigerator and put the spoons and fork she’d used into a pan of soapy water.

  The throbbing in her head had made it impossible to eat. Now it was coming in waves that seemed to beat with the pulse in her temple.

  Her fingers clamped onto the edge of the drain board in a death grip. She stood there, unmoving, willing the agony out of her head, picturing it leaving her body and flowing away from her, as if the force of her will could really accomplish that goal.

  To her surprise, the technique seemed to work. Thinking she might as well wash the dishes, she lowered her gaze to the pan of water in the bottom of the sink.

  What she saw made her gasp. Small waves were rippling across the surface of the water, pulsing like the waves of pain that had been in her head.

  She froze in place, staring at the liquid in motion.

  Her first thought was that the wind was blowing it. But when she looked at the trees outside the window, they were perfectly still, the Spanish moss hanging limp and gray.

  It took a tremendous amount of effort, but she lifted her hand, then thrust it into the water. The waves didn’t stop, they beat gently against her skin, each little ripple hitting like a small electric shock as it brushed against her flesh.

  The strange feeling raised the fine hair on her arm, the sensation traveling upward to the back of her neck.

  She had struggled to force away her headache. It looked, felt like she had thrust it from her body and into the pan of water. Lord, was that possible?

  She made a small sound in her throat. She wanted to tell herself that nothing like that had happened to her before. But that would be a lie. She could remember times when she’d done it. Well, she hadn’t seen anything like this rippling water. But she remembered willing hurt away. Like the time when she was ten and she’d been riding her bike and hit a patch of gravel. The bike had tipped over, sending her sprawling, her leg badly abraded by the rough surface. She’d known she had to get home. And she’d thought the burning in her leg was so bad that she couldn’t walk the three blocks. But she’d gritted her teeth and forced the pain away. Somehow it had worked, at least until she’d staggered into the kitchen and into Mom’s arms.

  There had been another time, too. When Dad had been driving them home from a movie, and a station wagon had plowed into the rear of the
car. She’d been sitting in the back without a seat belt, and she’d been slammed forward so hard that she’d dislocated her shoulder.

  The agony had been almost more than she could bear. Even moving a quarter of an inch had made her feel like she was going to faint. But somehow she’d forced the terrible sensation away long enough for the emergency room staff to give her IV painkillers, so they could put the shoulder back into place. She had never really thought much about what she’d done on those occasions.

  But now the previous experiences came back to her with a kind of sharp clarity that gave them elevated meaning.

  She had done it again—today. But now there was a visual component, too.

  The water. The ache had moved from her head into the liquid medium in front of her.

  On the face of it, that idea was nonsense. Yet on some deep level of self-awareness, she knew it was true. And the realization was frightening. Her heart was pounding as she reached with both hands, seized the edge of the wash pan and flung it over, sloshing the water onto the wall and into the sink, pouring away the evidence, as it were.

  A film of perspiration coated her clammy flesh. She had never fainted in her life, but she had a good idea what the sensation must be like. Taking shallow breaths, she leaned over the sink and squeezed her eyes shut, telling herself a pan of water wasn’t evidence of anything—when she knew she was lying to herself.

  Finally, she raised her gaze to the window and stared outside, her eyes unfocused. She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, trying to make sense of something that she couldn’t fathom. Or didn’t want to fathom, she silently corrected herself.

  Then a stirring in the bushes caught her attention. The movement resolved itself into the figure of a man.

  Adam! It flashed into her mind that she’d been unconsciously waiting for him to come back.

  When she saw it wasn’t him, disappointment and relief surged through her.

  Then her mind took another leap to the night before, to the pickup truck and the people who had warned her moments before the truck came bearing down on her.

  Were they stalking her here? At the cabin where she lived?

  CHAPTER

  FIFTEEN