Kay, however, heard. “I wish that you make a story about someone who will die in the next few weeks anyway, without your interference.”
Emrys sighed, thinking. “And the person must have been physically able to commit the crime?”
“Yes,” Kay said.
There was a long silence. Emrys seemed to fade in and out of existence. Then he smiled and glanced at Taran, the filed teeth suddenly gleaming. “Your father’s heart is not well.”
“My father?” Kay asked.
Emrys looked back at her. “No, his father. The Rees man. His heart fails him and his spirit is not long for this world. A week. Maybe two.”
Kay sighed. Taran didn’t look at her, his heart hammering. His father was going to die? Was the creature accurate?
“Are you sure?” Kay asked finally.
“Of all the people in Corbin Meadow that may die, his death is the most certain, though now that you know and there are, perhaps, medical treatments that could save him, it changes the probabilities,” Emrys said. His eyes glanced from Kay to Taran. Taran wanted to look at Kay, beg her not to say yes, but he didn’t speak. He wasn’t sure if he could, his tongue felt thick and heavy in his mouth stuck to the roof of it.
“Who is the next most certain to die?” Zoe asked.
When Emrys ignored her, Kay repeated the question.
“The man you know as Frank Nilsson has a tumor in his liver that is growing rapidly. He may or may not already know. There are strange smells on him as if he’s taking medication. He probably won’t live too much longer, a few months, perhaps, unless he is taking medication and that helps him. If he were pushed or fell, he might die sooner.”
Taran felt as if his heart were bursting. If he hadn’t known, he could have lost his father and then, still raw from that death, he’d have lost Frank, a man who had been his boss and mentor.
But Frank. Frank who knew something wasn’t quite right and had refused to have the sheriffs in the first time, he would understand why, wouldn’t he? It would be easy to make it all fit. Too easy. Too neat. Taran wondered if the creature had named his father first to make sure they were willing to use Frank.
“I wish that this man could die a peaceful death that doesn’t cause him pain, after he has learned of his cancer, and he will be the prime suspect for the murders, though he will die too soon to have his guilt proved,” Kay said quietly and with dignity.
Kay had always liked Frank. She was probably reeling from the revelations every bit as much as Taran. Zoe was the only one who didn’t know the men as well, though she would know of them, probably had her own stories about talking to them, things they did to help her.
“Your wish,” Emrys said smiling, his teeth gleaming.
Kay’s hand fell from his. Taran reached to find it again, but then everything in his mind’s eye went black. The creature was gone, the ghostly willow was gone, the perfectly formed image of his yard was just not there. Taran tried to resurrect the picture but he couldn’t. He finally opened his eyes.
Kay was doubled over in the chair, as well as anyone could in the angled things, and she was beginning to sob. Zoe was patting her, carefully removing her hand and moving closer to Kay.
Taran wanted to help, in fact he wanted to sob himself, but he didn’t know how. Instead he got up and walked to the edge of the yard, looking out at it, wondering how the creatures existed at all.
Chapter 45
Zoe watched Taran leave the yard. She stayed with Kay as the other woman sobbed, again. What had it cost her to say it was okay to let another man die?
The smell of vanilla made Zoe’s nose itch and she brought up her hand to cover her face, but that caused a sharp stinging pain. She dropped it, turned her head and sneezed. Kay sobbed on.
In the dark, with only the sounds of her friend crying, Zoe felt very alone. She’d left her phone in the car and Kay had the keys. Taran stood at the edge of the yard. She couldn’t call anyone. Even if she wanted to leave, it wasn’t like Taran could take her home to her father given that Kay’s SUV was parked behind the police cruiser in the driveway.
Slowly the crying slowed and finally stopped again. “If I wasn’t damned before, I am now,” Kay said quietly.
“You asked for a painless death,” Zoe said. “It might be that that’s the best he can hope for.” She knew the statistics on liver cancer and it frightened her for the former chief of police.
“But I still asked for his death,” Kay said. “And this is my fault, isn’t it? If I hadn’t run, then maybe no one would have died. I brought this on. That’s on my soul. And now I’m condemning the name of a good man and that of his family because I wasn’t doing what I needed to be doing.”
Zoe didn’t know how to argue with that. “We didn’t ask for an airtight case. We asked for a story. After Frank’s death…” She choked a little on the words. How was she acting so normal? “After that…” Zoe couldn’t go on.
“The case will be dropped,” Taran said, returning to the backyard.
“But his name will be tarnished,” Kay said.
“I would have stopped you if I thought he wouldn’t understand,” Taran said. He stood at the edge of the patio, not getting too close to the women, perhaps ashamed that he’d walked away from his ex-wife as she cried about the loss of her soul or perhaps the loss of her innocence.
“What do you mean?” Kay was short with him, her voice sharp.
“Frank purposely didn’t call in the sheriffs last time because he believed those murders weren’t ordinary. He didn’t want to have to explain. He’d have understood the need for Blake to have a name to hang on the case, even if it can’t quite be proven.”
“Emrys seemed too happy about the wish,” Kay sniffed. “He’ll find a way to make Frank suffer, maybe have almost enough proof, but it will come just before Frank dies or something. The creature is evil.”
“I think the proof will go just far enough to make it look possible. It had to be a story, not the truth,” Taran said.
Kay sighed, leaning back in the chair. She put a hand to the side of her head like she had a headache.
“I hate to ask, but I really want to go see my father,” Taran said. “And your CRV is blocking my way out.”
Kay made a face. Zoe’s heart tightened for both of them, but she followed Kay to the car.
“Are you going to be okay to drive?” Zoe asked. “Maybe we should stay in town for tonight?”
“No,” Kay said. “I don’t want to be here when Frank is accused. I don’t want to think of it. And I do want to know what those creatures are and how I can destroy them.”
“Then let me drive for a while,” Zoe said.
Kay looked at her for a long moment and then nodded. They got out of the car and changed places. Taran was already in his cruiser, the brake lights splashing red across the drive like the metaphorical blood they had already spilled by consigning Frank’s life to the hands of the creature, Emrys.
In the car, Zoe set the mirrors, found the things she needed, and she backed out of the driveway, heading off to Johnson City, though she was fairly certain she’d only be comfortable getting as far as Boone. Hopefully they could stay at the hotel there.
“Maybe we should call and make a reservation in Boone?” Zoe suggested.
Kay nodded and pulled out her phone.
The last Zoe saw of Taran was the shining lights of the police cruiser as it headed the opposite way, towards the house he had grown up in.
Chapter 46
Taran arrived at his parents’ house, which wasn’t that far from Elaine Wilcox’s home, just around the corner and down the hill from the school. It had just been outside his range of interviews. It wasn’t at all like Elaine’s house though, because his parents’ house was on a corner lot that sloped so they had a walk-out basement and a drive that angled around and down to the garage.
The house, like all the houses of its era in Corbin Meadow, was red brick and long and low with their garage on the lower lev
el at the end of the house. The front door was on the long side of the house. With it being so late, Taran parked on the street in front. Getting out of the car, he looked around at the houses that mostly looked a bit like his parents’. A few looked newer due to remodeling and changes that had been made. As you continued up the street, driving uphill, on the next block there were mostly split levels that were a good fifteen years newer than his parents’ house, a sure sign that Corbin Meadow had expanded its borders at that time. But then it was about kids needing homes away from parents, not outsiders coming in.
Apparently that made a difference.
Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe it was just Dixie Fulton Pugh being in town and protecting it. Taran couldn’t think of a stranger protector than his ex-mother-in-law.
His parents had used the barbecue out back, and the smell of charcoal and hamburger reached his nose. His daddy loved cooking meat outdoors. If it was his heart, he’d need to stop. It would be hard to convince him to go to the doctor. Hopefully he’d be able to do so and his daddy would get treatment that could save his life, at least for now. Taran wasn’t ready to lose him.
Maybe tomorrow he could go see Frank and perhaps warn him, but then again, Kay had wished for Frank to be set up. Really, Taran thought, who were they to go picking and choosing what would happen to someone they loved?
No wonder Kay’s mother was always going on about protecting one’s immortal soul. With that sort of power it would be easy to corrupt it.
Lights were on inside and he imagined his parents talking and laughing. Perhaps his daddy being a bit short of breath—he had been lately, his mother had commented on it the last time he’d visited—was a sign of what was to come. Taran sighed. He didn’t want to go in but he couldn’t just stand on the cement porch.
He used to his key to unlock the front door, glad to note that his parents had finally listened to him and started locking the thing. He walked in, prepared to talk to his father about the doctor and dreading it. Now, if only he’d listen.
His cell phone rang as he was standing on the porch, his arm inside the house, the rest of him still outside. He saw his mother gesture and frown as he listened to Blake Fellows who was on the other end of the phone.
“It’s Frank Nilssen, damn it,” Blake said. “Got a hit on a partial print. No wonder he wasn’t willing to call us in.”
Taran sighed, seeing the world spinning too fast for him to take things in. Hadn’t Kay asked for some time?
“Have you brought him in?” Taran asked.
“All circumstantial right now,” Blake said. “But now I have a focus. Consider this a courtesy call. Because he used to be your boss, you’ll probably not be in the loop as much as you have been.”
“I appreciate the warning,” Taran said quietly. If he hadn’t known, hadn’t participated in Frank’s set up, would he have reacted so calmly? Or would he be fighting things?
“I appreciate your professionalism, which I hope extends to not telling Frank he’s under investigation. I wouldn’t want him to leave town,” Blake said.
“I’ll do what I can,” Taran replied, hanging up.
He looked up at his parents, at his father sitting in his favorite chair across from the television, the old recliner with the cushions imprinted with his body even when he left, and his mother standing there, waving him in because he was letting the cool air out.
After hearing from Blake, something he couldn’t talk to his parents about, he wasn’t sure how he was going to be able to have this conversation. And how much worse would it have been had his father been the one they pinned the murders on?
Taran sighed and entered the house, preparing to argue his father into seeing a doctor.
Chapter 47
It could have gone better, Taran thought, but it could also have gone worse. His daddy hadn’t wanted to see the doctor. His momma had immediately jumped on Taran’s concern and started in on her own. His daddy wasn’t pleased, but they had an appointment for the following day.
Taran sat in his driveway, staring off into space, eyeing his backyard. Were the creatures still there? Did they watch him now that Kay and Zoe were out of town, on their way to that university by Johnson City? Or did they follow Kay? From what he understood, he doubted they followed or left the town. This was their place. In that they were not unlike him, really. It was his town in all its Appalachian glories, the sometimes small-minded but always big-hearted people, the beauty of the mountains, the slow pace of conversation.
And monsters.
Taran doubted other towns in the area had monsters, not like Corbin Meadow.
He shook his head. He was cold, though it was still warm enough outside, but this chill came from inside him, a chill that came from too much change in too short of time. He’d found the answer to the murders, a way to get Sheriff Fellows off his back. He’d learned that his daddy might be about to die. Worse, his friend and mentor, Frank Nilsen, was also dying, and Taran had condemned him to lose his good name.
There should have been a better way.
The smile the creature had given them when he’d suggested Louella’s son as a suspect, the easy suggestion of his death in a car crash—that made Taran shiver. What were they dealing with?
He had so many questions and not many answers. Answers were all he wanted, really. And yet, in getting them, they’d gotten only more questions. Or maybe they all had just had time to begin to understand how much they didn’t know.
Taran slowly opened the car door and slipped out. He walked quietly to his side door, glancing around. The motion light turned on, burning with a slight hum. He used his key to enter, his hand feeling as if he carried a boulder it was so heavy. He took in a breath, having to work harder than he expected, as if he were being buried.
In a way, he was. Taran was being buried under pounds of sorrows and worry and fear. Even pounds of responsibility, because no matter that Kay had had to make that wish for Frank to be accused, he himself had not said a word. He’d listened to her making that decision, knowing it was the best one that could be made at the time, even if it meant not only Frank’s life but his reputation.
What kind of a friend did that?
It wasn’t the sort of friend Taran wanted to be. He headed inside, thankful that he had Dr. Pepper in the fridge. He wasn’t hungry but he wanted a drink. He eyed the beer, wanted the beer, but once again knew he’d not stop at one or even six. The way he felt, he wasn’t sure there was enough alcohol in all of Corbin Meadow to get him through the night. That was saying something considering the moonshine stills that remained hidden up in the hills.
He probably didn’t need the caffeine. It would keep him up all night. Not that it mattered, not really. He doubted he could sleep, wondered for a moment if he’d ever sleep again, not after what he’d done and what he knew.
Taran dropped into the square second-hand chair that seemed made for his body and set the can of Dr. Pepper on the table next to it. He sat there staring at the wall, thinking about everything that happened and the decisions he made, trying to decide if he could have done anything differently, knowing that there wasn’t anything that could be done.
Beyond all reason he’d solved these murders, had done what even Frank couldn’t have done. The problem came from the fact that the solution made no rational sense. So he’d come up with a solution to that problem. Despite the distaste he had for it, he could only live with the decision and try and ease the pain it was going to cause his friend.
Taran sipped at the Dr. Pepper, not tasting it, not even feeling the coolness running down his throat. He could live with this. But he was going to hate himself forever.
About
Bonnie Elizabeth could never decide what to do, so she wrote stories about amazing things and sometimes she even finished them.
While rejection stung her so badly in person, she spent most of her young life talking to cats and dogs rather than people, she was unusually resilient when it came to rejections on her writing, ra
cking up a good number of them.
Floating through a variety of jobs, including veterinary receptionist, cemetery administrator, and finally acupuncturist, she continued to write stories.
When the internet came along (yes she’s old), she started blogging as her cat, because we all know cats don’t notice rejection. Then she started publishing.
Bonnie writes in a variety of genres. Her popular Whisper series is contemporary fantasy and her Teenage Fairy Godmother series is written for teens. She had published in a number of anthologies and is working on expanding her writing repertoire.
She lives with her husband (who talks less than she does) and her three cats, who always talk back.
Stay in Touch
Also by Bonnie Elizabeth
The Whisper Novels
Whisper Bound
Taken by the Sound
An Air of Suspicion
Little Dog Lost
Death Interrupted
Down in Whisper
A Haunting Whisper
A Haunting Attraction
Secrets Not Whispers
Other Novels
One Bad Wish : A Teenage Fairy Godmother Tale
Sun Spot Magic: A Teenage Fairy Godmother Tale
Ghosts from the Past
Find them all at your favorite bookseller or check us out at MyBigFatOrangeCat.com
Souls Lost (Appalachian Souls Book 1) Page 18
