by Helen Harper
‘There’s so much of it! Honestly, Ivy, there are so many applications for this kind of plant. The possibilities are endless. In fact…’ he looked up at me, suddenly remembering why we were here. He stilled and searched my face. ‘Have you seen any spirits?’
‘Nope. It’s spooky but there’s nothing here that I can see.’ I glanced round. ‘And I can’t see where on earth you’d hide a dead body either. Can you imagine lugging one all the way out here without being noticed?’
‘It certainly wouldn’t be easy,’ Winter agreed. He swung his backpack off his shoulder and stuffed the bilberry inside it before reaching for my hand. ‘Come on. I’ve got something with me that’s going to make you squeal.’
I grinned. ‘Sounds kinky.’
‘Oh,’ Winter purred, ‘this is better than kinky.’ He delved inside the bag and withdrew a flask.
I gasped. ‘Is that…?’
He winked at me. ‘Hot chocolate.’
Winter was right; I did squeal. ‘That’s not all,’ he said. He reached into his bag of tricks again and pulled out a plastic box. With a flourish, he lifted the lid to reveal two sandwiches, clingfilm-wrapped to within an inch of their lives.
I wrapped my arms round his neck. ‘You’re brilliant.’ And he was. I’d stayed in bed an extra ten minutes and Winter had got up to make snacks.
‘Careful!’ he warned. ‘You’ll squash them.’
‘I’m sure they’ll taste just as good.’ All the same I pulled back. There was something suspicious about the sandwiches. I frowned and looked a little closer. ‘Winter,’ I said, slowly. ‘Did you, uh, use a ruler to cut the bread?’ It looked oddly perfect.
‘Don’t be silly,’ he said. ‘It was a set square.’
His expression was so deadpan that I decided he was serious. Rather than look a gift horse in the mouth – my stomach was rumbling, after all – I gratefully took one of the sandwiches.
‘There’s a more sheltered spot over there,’ I suggested. It wasn’t exactly warm or dry, even in the shadow of the great gnarled oak, but there was less wind and the worst of the rain was shielded by the twisted branches overhead.
Winter nodded and we traipsed over. I plonked my bottom on some damp moss and wriggled around to get comfortable. Amused, Winter sat beside me and poured two small cups of steaming hot chocolate. I carefully laid my half-unwrapped sandwich to one side then took the cup from him, curling my fingers round it to get the full benefit of its heat. Then I dipped my head, took a sip and groaned.
‘Raphael Winter,’ I breathed. ‘You might be the best man in the entire world.’
He glanced at me, obviously pleased. ‘There’s no “might” about it, Ivy Wilde.’ He smiled. ‘Nice moustache, by the way.’
I ran my tongue round my lips before smacking them loudly. ‘Mmm.’ I reached for the sandwich again. ‘If I ever start taking you for granted, bring me back here and throw me in that puddle again.’ Then I took a bite and choked.
The surface of the bread was coated in something dry and dusty which tasted highly unpleasant. ‘What are you trying to do?’ I asked. ‘Poison me?’
He blinked. ‘Huh?’
There was a loud tut. I didn’t need to look up to know that one of Grenville’s ghostly buddies had finally decided to show. Where there was a tut, there was bound to be a spirit waiting to castigate me. It was about time.
‘It’s not his fault,’ a woman said. She was wearing a high-necked white robe with frills that seemed at odds with the barbed-wire tattoo snaking up her neck. ‘You’re the one who put your lunch in the middle of my remains.’
My mouth stopped working as I looked at where I’d laid the sandwich. There wasn’t a large pile of ash but there was enough. I sprang to my feet and spat out what was left. Dead people. I was eating dead people.
Chapter Five
I flung the sandwich away from me. Unsurprisingly, Winter was disturbed. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
‘Goodness,’ the ghost said, ‘he’s really rather charming, isn’t he? It’s been a long time since I had a man of that calibre jumping to my defence.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Actually, I’m not sure it’s ever happened.’ She walked over and peered into Winter’s face. He, of course, was blithely unaware of her presence.
‘Get away from him,’ I snarled with more venom than was probably necessary.
Winter jumped. The ghost ignored me. ‘Are those contact lenses? He can’t possibly have eyes that blue. They’re quite extraordinary.’ She leaned into him and raised her hand, trailing her fingernails down his chest as if in a caress.
A strange sound emitted from deep in my throat. It took a moment or two for me to realise that I was growling. ‘Look,’ I said through gritted teeth, ‘get away from him or we are walking out of here and leaving you to this place.’
She turned round. ‘My, you’re a bit touchy, aren’t you?’ She looked at me more closely. ‘It must be a new relationship,’ she decided. ‘He’s not had the chance to let you down yet. Don’t worry. He will.’
That was where she was wrong: Winter had already had every chance to let me down and he hadn’t taken any of them. I wasn’t here to get into a discussion about him though; all I wanted was to ensure that she left him alone and to find out what the hell was going on here. I hadn’t met any ghosts yet who were able to touch anyone or anything living – but that didn’t mean they didn’t exist. I wasn’t going to permit even the faintest whisper of danger brush against my Winter.
Winter waved his hands curiously in front of him. His fingertips barely grazed the apparition’s back. ‘Is there a ghost here now?’
She wriggled. ‘That tickles.’
I narrowed my eyes. ‘You can feel him touch you?’ I stepped forward, itching to take a swing at her to find out.
She grinned. ‘Nah. Not really.’
Winter tilted his head. ‘Is everything okay, Ivy?’ he asked softly. ‘You look … fierce.’
The ghost laughed. ‘He has your measure, hasn’t he?’
I glared at her but answered Winter. ‘There is a woman here,’ I said. ‘But I’m not sure she wants our help. She seems more interested in passing judgment on us.’
The ghost held up her hands. ‘Hey, there’s no need to get upset. I do want your help but you can’t blame me for having a little fun. I’ve been stuck here for ages and the others aren’t exactly a laugh a minute. They were bad enough when they were alive. Now they’re dead…’ She dropped her voice. ‘They’re mean to me. You wouldn’t think a ghost could be bullied but that’s what’s happening to me.’ Her eyes went round. ‘It’s awful.’
Without warning a man appeared, hovering up the slope behind her. There was a large bloodstain across his chest, although it was clear his pained expression was more to do with his ghostly companion than any lingering physical hurt. ‘It’s your fault, Karen. Don’t start laying the blame on us.’
‘How is it my fault? I didn’t know what would happen! Besides, would you really be content if that bastard had killed us and got away with it? What about your family? They’d think you’d just run off. They’d never learn the truth. Now we have her,’ she said, flinging a hand out towards me, ‘we have a chance of justice and our families will know what really happened.’
I flicked my gaze from her to him and back again.
‘You shouldn’t worry about them,’ murmured a voice at my back. ‘They were even worse when they were alive. I always thought they had the hots for each other and it was suppressed sexual tension but I’m not so sure now. Maybe they just hate each other.’ She sighed. ‘I do wish they’d give it a rest.’
I spun round, my eyes landing on a young woman. Unlike the other two, she had several painful-looking bruises and open wounds on her body. She caught me staring and explained. ‘I woke up and fought back. It would have been easier if I’d been asleep like the rest of them. Although at least I didn’t do what Karen did. She woke up at the last moment with no time to do anything except curse our entire cove
n with her dying breath.’
I must have looked confused because Karen piped up to explain. ‘I wasn’t cursing us, I was cursing him! I didn’t know we’d end up trapped here, did I?’ She glanced at me. ‘I told him we wouldn’t rest until he got what he deserved.’
‘And here we are,’ the male ghost muttered. ‘Not resting.’
Finding my voice, I looked round. ‘How many of you are there?’
‘Seven.’ She looked sad. ‘One man killed our entire coven.’
I quashed my rising horror – it wouldn’t help any of us right now. I had to focus on the details and find out what had really happened. I looked at the three of them, taking in their matching robes. They were white, not red, and even in ghostly format the material seemed to have a homespun quality.
‘You’re non-Order witches,’ I realised. The fact that their disappearance had gone unremarked was starting to make sense. Not a lot of sense, admittedly, but a little.
The man threw himself down the small hill, ignoring the trees in his path, and planted himself in front of me with a bullish stare. ‘You’re in the Order? The one person we can communicate with and they’re in the bloody Order?’ He threw his hands up in disgust. ‘She won’t help us. We’re damned for all eternity.’
I counted to ten in my head. ‘First of all,’ I said calmly, ‘I’m not in the Order. My name is Ivy Wilde.’
Phantom Karen jerked. ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard of you. You were kicked out for assault.’
‘And cheating,’ I added. ‘Don’t forget the cheating.’
‘I heard other covens approached you to join them but you told them to sod off.’
I shrugged. What could I say? ‘I’m sure it would be lovely having other witches to talk to. But non-Order covens have to work hard and the results are never that…’ I paused, trying to think of the right word. This lot were grouchy enough as it was without me insulting their abilities. ‘Never that successful. I’m not much of a worker bee.’
She snorted. ‘She sounds just like your kind of person, Amy.’
The other female witch, Amy, looked irritated but she didn’t rise to the bait. ‘And how can you see us?’ she asked. ‘How can you talk to us?’
‘I absorbed the magic from a kid who was playing around with necromancy. By doing that, I stopped half of Scotland from exploding.’
All three jaws dropped simultaneously. ‘No way,’ the man breathed.
‘Yes, way.’
‘That’s so cool.’ He danced around from foot to foot. ‘So you must possess necromantic magic now. You can raise us up! You can let us return to our families and—’
Amy cleared her throat. ‘There’s just one small problem,’ she said. ‘We’ve all been cremated.’
For a moment the man’s brow furrowed and he stopped moving, then he shrugged as if his lack of a body were a trivial matter and returned to bouncing backwards and forwards. He was making me dizzy. ‘I’m sure that won’t be a problem. This woman is clearly a strong witch, just like we were. She’ll find a way around that.’
I shook my head. ‘I can’t. And even if you’d been buried, I couldn’t raise you up. Necromancy is evil – not to mention impossible to control. The repercussions are potentially catastrophic.’
‘But you must be using necromancy now if you’re talking to us,’ he pointed out.
‘I am not.’ I was aware that my voice was overly loud.
Bored with the chatter, Karen wandered back to Winter who was watching me like a hawk. It must have been strange for him only hearing half of the conversation. She fell to her knees in front of him and appeared to examine his groin with great interest. ‘I’m never going to have sex again,’ she said sadly.
I’d just about had enough. ‘Karen!’ I barked. ‘Get over here and sit down. You,’ I said to the man, pointing at him as I obviously didn’t know his name.
‘Paul.’
I nodded. ‘Thank you. Paul, you sit next to her. Amy, you go there. I need you all to stop moving around, stop yapping and asking questions, and start telling me exactly who you are and how you ended up here.’ I looked around. ‘Not to mention where the other four members of your coven are. If they’re also dead, where are they? They must be here too, right?’
The three ghosts exchanged glances before Amy piped up, ‘We should start at the beginning.’ Finally someone was talking sense.
Paul nodded in agreement. ‘I was born in June. I was always told it was unseasonably hot for that time of year and my mother—’
‘For Pete’s sake!’ Karen howled. ‘Not that beginning, you nincompoop!’
I looked at Winter. ‘This might take some time.’
‘I was beginning to realise that,’ he said drily.
I sat down and stretched out my legs. I might as well get comfy and settle in for the long haul.
By the time the three ghosts had finished their tragic story and Winter and I were trudging back towards the car, the sky was darkening and it felt even colder. Now less concerned that he’d need to conserve his magic in case of an emergency, Winter conjured up a heat spell for us but the chill had already settled in my bones.
‘All seven of them are dead,’ I said. I shivered. Seven was supposed to be a lucky number; that was why there were seven members in their coven in the first place. Unfortunately, it wasn’t particularly lucky for them any more. ‘However, only three of them are in Wistman’s Wood. Every new moon, their killer comes and scatters another witch’s ashes. Until they arrive here, the last thing any of the dead remember is the night they were killed.’ My mouth flattened. ‘And yes, they were all killed at the same time and in the same place. They’d got together to try and perform a concealment spell. They were worried that the Order were after them.’
Winter grimaced. ‘Unlikely. Unless they were performing illegal or dangerous spells, I doubt anyone at the Order would care what they were up to.’
‘They were sure they were being followed. And if it wasn’t the Order tracking them…’
‘It was probably the killer.’ Winter rubbed his chin.
‘That’s what I was thinking.’ I hunched up my shoulders against the cold wind and plodded on. ‘Anyway, the spell exhausted them so they fell asleep after they cast it. At some point the killer appeared and stabbed them all, one after the other. He was – er – adept because only two of them woke up. One had time to mutter a curse. The other tried to fight back but the killer was too strong.’
Winter halted. ‘They both saw him?’
‘Yep. Karen, the one who made the curse that’s keeping them here, described him in great detail. A bushy black beard but no moustache, and a bald head. He had a stud earring of a skull and his skin was a mess, as if he’d had bad acne when he was a kid and the scars had never quite gone away. He was just over six foot and large. Not fat,’ I said, repeating verbatim what she’d told me, ‘but a large build and fairly muscular.’
Winter nodded approvingly. ‘That’s good. It gives us a lot to work with.’
‘Yep. Not to mention the fact that they were all cremated before they were left in the wood.’ I still felt a bit nauseous from the mouthful of Karen I’d eaten with my tuna sandwich. ‘The temperatures required to burn a body properly are too high for anyone to do it without professional equipment.’
‘Unless they’re a witch with a particular propensity for fire,’ Winter pointed out.
‘True,’ I admitted. ‘But even in that scenario it can’t be common to have that kind of skill. We’ve still got a good starting point. Whoever our murderer is, he must be keeping the other four bodies back then dumping them one by one when the moon is right. I don’t know why the coven members don’t remember anything until they’re left here, but there’s definitely a disturbing ritualistic nature to all this.’
Winter ran a hand through his hair. ‘Everything about this is disturbing. Has the killer done something to stop the spirits from moving on? Is that why they’re still trapped here?’
�
��As far as any of them can tell, they’re trapped in Wistman’s Wood because it’s an old pagan site. Magic lingers in the trees and prevents their souls from travelling anywhere else. I don’t see how the killer would know that, but at this point almost anything is possible. And the reason the ghosts haven’t moved on to the afterlife is because Karen woke up just before he slit her throat to tell him that their coven wouldn’t rest until he was brought to justice.’
‘They’re stuck until he’s stopped?’
I nodded. ‘Essentially. But he can’t know that their spirits are still around and talking to us. How could he? And we know exactly where he’ll be in less than two weeks’ time. He’ll return to this spot at the next new moon to scatter another set of ashes. When he does that, we’ll find him.’ I shook my head. ‘I don’t understand what his motives are but one thing is very clear.’ I gazed morosely into the distance. ‘Ipsissimus Grenville wasn’t making things up. He wasn’t even exaggerating. We’re dealing with a serial killer. He’s murdered at least seven witches in cold blood and no one has even noticed.’
A muscle jerked in Winter’s jaw. I was impressed he was managing to keep his fury at bay; I could virtually feel his body quivering with rage that someone was doing this.
‘We have another point in our favour,’ he said. He met my eyes. ‘He doesn’t know that we know. We’re on his tail and he doesn’t have a clue. This will be over before he even realises it because we have surprise on our side.’ He scratched his chin. ‘And, no, you don’t have to say it. We have to inform the Order. We can’t keep this to ourselves.’
I touched his arm. ‘They’ll want to help – in fact, they’ll have to help. But they’ll also want us to work with them.’
Winter nodded but he didn’t say anything else.
Chapter Six
It didn’t take much to persuade Winter to book a room in the pub where we’d parked. There weren’t many guest rooms – although the bar was packed – and we weren’t exactly in a bustling metropolis. This place wouldn’t even count as a village. Still, staying here would give us a chance to dry off, sort ourselves out and plan our next move.
