“Improbable,” he corrected, bending down to collect a few flat stones from the water’s edge. “I spent my life researching it. It’s rare, sure, but it happens. My mother was a medium, like you, and my sister had the convenient skill of manipulating those around her. These talents transferred to me as well.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? And what are you planning with those spirits?”
“I was going to tell you eventually,” he said. He tossed the first stone across the water. It skipped a few times before sinking. “As for the spirits, it was a test of my abilities.”
“Which abilities?”
A second stone went skittering across the pond. “I’ll take this opportunity to tell you that I arrived in town several months ago, Morgan. I knew about the yew tree. I knew that I could channel your family’s power through it. Ronan was my first experiment.”
“Months ago?” I said, incredulous. “I thought Chief Torres recruited you. Besides, how could you have known about the yew tree?”
“I convinced Torres to hire me in order to get close to you. Ever since my mother and sister died, I’ve been searching for a way to rectify the situation,” he said.
“Rectify—?”
“Let me finish,” he said. He abandoned his handful of stones in favor of making eye contact with me. “I found Mary Summers’s diary years ago. It wasn’t easy tracking it down. The original Summers coven took their craft very seriously. Do you even know how impactful your family was in the witching community? They pushed boundaries you couldn’t even dream of. When I met you, you seemed so incredibly insignificant compared to the originals. But you have such potential, Morgan, if only you saw the need to unlock it.”
“What have you done?”
“Hardly anything, yet,” said Dominic. I watched him warily as he approached me. “I’ve only been working with the tree to strengthen my hold on the spirits. You see, my real goal, the main reason I’m so interested in Yew Hollow, is this: I’m going to bring my sister and mother back to life.”
I stepped away, feeling my heel press into the trunk of the tree behind me. “I’m sorry. Run that by me again?”
Dominic smiled. “I know it sounds crazy, but with the yew tree’s help, it’s entirely possible.”
“Dom, you can’t raise the dead.”
“Don’t you see, Morgan?” he said, and with a snap of his fingers, a host of spirits surrounded us in an instant. “I already have.”
“It’s not the same,” I argued. I nervously watched as the ghosts neared me. The amount of control Dominic had over them scared me. Spirits, just like living people, had free will, but Dominic had managed to find a way to rob them of it. “Even if you do get your mother and sister back, it will only be the shadows of them. An idea. Not the real thing.”
Dominic pressed an arm to the tree behind me, pinning me against it. “That may usually be the case,” he said. “But with your help, we can channel enough of the original coven’s power to make it happen. I’ve already done the research. I know the ritual. It’s organic, Morgan, as if it were always meant to happen.”
“No.”
“Morgan, think about it. Wouldn’t you love to see the people you’ve lost again?”
My thoughts drifted away. The faces of past clients hovered in my memory, faded and blurry. When I lived in New York, I’d had a bad habit of forming emotional attachments with the spirits I’d helped. Many of them had not deserved to die. The possibilities…
“No,” I said again, before my mind could entertain any other ideas about reanimating dead friends. “It’s necromancy, Dom. It’s playing God.”
“It’s a loophole, Morgan.”
Determination shone in his eyes. It was sad, almost. Dominic’s only motive for wreaking havoc with the spirits was his desire to reunite with his family. I understood this. It was a terrible thing to be alone in the world, but it didn’t give anyone an excuse to toy with the laws of nature.
“Dominic,” I said gently. “It won’t work.”
His expression hardened, and he pushed himself away from me. “You won’t help me.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“There is no spell or power that can raise the dead, Dom.”
“And yet, I’m telling you that there is.”
I shook my head. “You’re talking about reversing the process of life. I know you’re hurting. I get it. But that doesn’t mean that you can put everyone in this town at risk just to make yourself feel better.”
“It’s not to make myself feel better, Morgan,” he insisted. “It’s to put things right. My mother and sister deserved to live. One day here, one day gone, at the hands of some idiot who wasn’t paying attention. They deserve to come back.”
“They deserve to stay at peace,” I shot back.
“They weren’t even meant to be at peace!” he argued, his voice rising.
“You can’t bring them back, Dominic.”
He took my hand again, surprising me with the tenderness of the touch. “Morgan,” he said. “I can do this on my own, but it would be far more effective if you helped me.”
“I already said no.”
“I’m hoping you’ll change your mind.”
“I won’t.”
He frowned, dropping my hand. “I thought you liked me.”
“I thought I did too, until you started coming up with harebrained schemes to reanimate the dead,” I said. “The whole reason Teagan’s in danger is because of you. The Riley case is your fault.”
“Not all of it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded.
“Ask Teagan. All I did was give Ronan the ability to seek justice.”
“Ronan was an abusive piece of shit,” I spat, disgusted with the direction in which this conversation was moving. “If Teagan really did kill him, he deserved it.”
Dominic tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. I shuddered but didn’t move away, frightened of what he might do if I made any attempt to flee.
“Morgan, you’ve just contradicted yourself,” he said with a silly smile. “You told me that I didn’t have the right to play God. Yet, here you are, giving Teagan a free pass to decide who lives and who dies.”
The ghosts had moved closer to us, illuminating the dark, damp clearing with their silvery light. Familiar faces floated by, leering at me. They were no longer the friendly citizens of Yew Hollow that had fallen to accidental deaths. They were Dominic’s sycophants, yielding to his every delight in the hopes that they would be returned to corporeal form. It was an impossible feat, despite Dominic’s dedication to the task.
“It’s not the same,” I whispered, closing my eyes as Dominic cradled my face in his hand and leaned his forehead against mine. His fingers brushed lightly across the base of my throat, almost like a lover’s touch, but the contact made me want to retch.
“I’m so sorry, Morgan,” he said, whispering too.
In one savage moment that I didn’t see coming, he clapped both palms to either side of my head. A burst of light flashed through my head, and then I blacked out.
Chapter Eight
In Which the Yew Tree Falls
“Morgan.”
I blearily opened my eyes, feeling the light tap of someone’s fingers against my cheek. The world swam above me, rain scuttling through the leaves of the trees. Gwenlyn’s concerned face came into view. A soft raindrop dripped off of her nose and onto my forehead.
“Why does this keep happening to me?” I asked no one in particular, noticing that my tongue felt cumbersome in my mouth. I tried to sit up, but a flash of pain struck the side of my head, and I groaned heavily.
“Careful,” Gwenlyn said, cradling my head in her lap so that I wasn’t lying in the mud. “He got you pretty good. I saw you go down.”
“You saw? Didn’t I tell you to go home?”
She gave me a look similar to the one Cassandra often afforded me when I had done something I wasn’t supposed to. “Did yo
u really think that I was going to leave you out here all alone with that psycho? I followed you into the woods.”
“He’s not a psycho.”
“You’re defending that creep?”
I made another attempt at sitting up. This time, I managed to at least prop myself up on my elbows. I squinted at Gwen. “He’s stupid, I’ll give you that. But he genuinely thinks he has a right to do this. He’s trying to bring his mother and sister back from the dead.”
“Can he do that?”
“No,” I said firmly. “Unfortunately, that won’t stop him from trying. I need your help.”
“Anything.”
Determinedly, I pushed myself up to a full sitting position. I dropped my throbbing head into my palms, willing the pain to go away. “We need to find Dom,” I mumbled.
“He disappeared after he knocked you out,” Gwenlyn said. She held out a hand to help me to my feet. I staggered upright, leaning weightily on her.
“We have to get back to the house,” I said, my arm wrapped tightly around Gwenlyn’s shoulders. “Dominic’s going to try and connect himself with the yew tree. The coven is our best chance at preventing that from happening.”
Gwenlyn hoisted me higher, helping me trudge across the muddy ground. “Let’s focus on getting you home first. Then we can figure out how to stop your lunatic boyfriend.”
“He’s definitely not my boyfriend.”
Gwenlyn had apparently given the Summers coven a heads-up to our arrival, because when we reached the house, the coven had already assembled in the dining room. As usual, when the entire coven got together, it was mayhem. Voices overlapped, as did auras, filling the house with a comforting chaos. As Gwen heaved me across the doorstep, Karma and Laurel took me off of her hands and helped me into a chair at the head of the dining room table.
“What happened?” Cassandra said, pulling out the chair next to me and sitting down. Malia emerged from the kitchen, ice pack in hand, and tended to the bruises on each of my temples. The other witches hovered, aunts and cousins, ready to take action against whomever was at fault for my injury. It was this dedication to each other that made the Summers coven so strong. We were a single entity, and at times of need, we were unstoppable. Dominic’s asinine attempt at necromancy wouldn’t stand a chance against the true power of Yew Hollow.
“Dominic,” said Gwenlyn tersely. “He’s going to use the yew tree to unleash the original witches’ power in order to bring his mother and sister back from the dead.”
“He’s controlling the ghosts of everyone who died recently in the Hollow,” I added, wincing as Malia pressed the ice pack to the side of my face. “That’s why those deaths earlier in the year were covered in witchcraft. Dominic was behind all of it. Ronan, too.”
“How is that possible?” Karma asked.
“It’s a long story,” Gwenlyn said, saving me from the hassle of answering the question. Undoubtedly, she’d heard Dominic’s version of the story when she had followed us into the forest. “He’s a bona fide witch, though.”
I raised a hand in protest. “That has yet to be established.”
Gwenlyn rolled her eyes. “The point is, Morgan needs the coven’s help to stop him. Right, Morgan?”
“Right,” I said, still fighting off the haze of being smacked over the head. I was starting to wonder if I had a mild concussion. “Can someone do a quick healing spell or something? Still feels like I’m underwater.”
“I got it,” Laurel said, disappearing into the kitchen to gather the needed ingredients. When she returned, it was with a small bowl full of thick orange paste, which she proceeded to smear across the bruises on either side of the head. The smell of turmeric invaded my nostrils, but as Laurel began to sing softly in Latin, my head finally began to clear. I sighed, relieved.
“Thanks,” I said. I propped myself up in the chair, determined to come up with a plan to stop Dominic from turning Yew Hollow into a living hell. “First order of business. I want a round-the-clock watch on the yew tree. If we’re there to stop him, Dominic won’t be able to pull off his ritual. Get down there and detain him.”
Cassandra pointed to a handful of witches, directing them to head out toward the town square right away.
“And then what?” Karma asked.
“Once we have Dominic in custody, it shouldn’t be too hard to put the ghosts down,” I said. I massaged the orange paste into my temples with the tips of my fingers. “Mom said that we need five witches to channel the originals’ power through the tree, but I’m thinking if we get the whole coven down there, we’ll have an even better chance of handling it. Who knows what’s going to happen when we disconnect from the tree. I’d rather we have more witches there to take it on.”
The coven murmured in agreement. Wiping the excess paste off my fingers and onto my pants, I stood up.
“Mom, did you find anything else about the ritual in Mary Summers’s diary?” I asked.
Cassandra snapped her fingers, and the small journal popped into existence from out of nowhere. “Indeed, I did.”
“Good. You can brief the coven at the town square,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Chairs scraped across the floor as the coven collectively moved out. Gwenlyn made to follow them, but I took her by the arm.
“Not you, Gwen,” I said, pulling her back. “I’ve put you in enough danger as it is.”
“There is no way in hell I’m staying here while the rest of you risk your necks trying to contain Dominic,” she argued and yanked her arm out of my grip. “I don’t care if you think I’m too young or whatever. I’m doing this.”
And without further discussion, Gwenlyn turned and followed the rest of the coven through the doorway. I sighed, hanging my head. Behind me, I heard my mother chuckle.
“What?” I asked.
Cassandra shook her head, still laughing. “When you were growing up, I constantly wished that you’d have kids who would challenge you the way you challenged me. Looks like I got what I wanted.”
I glared at her. “You know, Grandma used to say the same thing about you.”
“I guess mischievousness is genetic,” she said. She clapped me on the back as we left the house together, trailing behind the coven. “In all sincerity, though, you should know that I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the state of the coven.”
I kept an eye on Gwenlyn, who was deep in discussion with Laurel. “What’s wrong with the state of the coven?”
“Nothing, actually. That’s why I’m bringing it up.” She clasped our hands together. “Morgan, ever since you arrived back in town, the coven has come together in a way that hasn’t been possible before. The thing is… I think that you should take over as the head of the Summerses.”
I stopped dead in my tracks, stunned by this sudden proposal. “Are you sick?” I demanded. “Are you leaving?”
“Neither,” said Cassandra firmly, squeezing my hand tighter. “But eventually, my time here will pass, and someone will need to take care of the others.”
“Make Malia do it,” I said, as though taking over the coven was just another household chore that sisters were meant to fight over. I couldn’t fathom being the head of the Summers coven. I had barely begun to get a handle on my own life. “She can do it.”
“The coven trusts Malia, sure, but they listen to you,” Cassandra said. “You have the audacity to make hard decisions and the ability to get the coven behind you. Look at the way they followed your directions just now.”
“Well, it was either that or let Dominic take over the whole damn town,” I replied grumpily, kicking at a rock in the road.
“Even so,” said Cassandra. “You should consider it.”
I didn’t answer right away, but the thought of Cassandra stepping down to make room for me as the new head of the coven pervaded my mind throughout our entire walk to the town square.
As we rounded the town hall and the square came into view, a sense of foreboding came over me. Something had gone wrong. The yew t
ree was surrounded by spirits once again, but Dominic was nowhere in sight. The ghosts circled around the tree, like moths to a lantern, and the yew tree itself was barely visible through the spirits’ moon-like light. The majority of the coven had already reached the yew tree—I could see the various colors of witchcraft working itself into the air—but the witches looked worn down already. The craft was weak, sparks instead of fireworks, and it didn’t seem to have much of an effect on the ghosts at all. It probably didn’t help that the witches were working blindly, unable to see the spirits.
I let go of my mother’s hand to sprint into the square. Gwenlyn, having arrived several minutes before I did, lingered near the outer edge of the throng of witches and shouted instructions to the coven on where to place their spells.
“What’s going on?” I asked her as Cassandra caught up to us.
“It’s sapping our strength,” she said. In demonstration, she attempted to add her own power to the craft in there but only succeeded in producing a tiny flicker of dark green at the tips of her fingers before it flamed out.
Out of curiosity, I tried my own hand at a protection spell. As soon as the navy blue of my craft appeared, I felt a pull at the center of my chest, toward the yew tree. It weakened me immediately—my headache returned as if I were fighting a hangover—and I cut off the witchcraft out of pure fright.
“Shit,” I muttered, examining my fingertips.
Cassandra conjured her own spell, sending it toward the ghosts around the yew tree. She had better luck than Gwenlyn and I, producing a strong-enough spark to create a space between the spirits. A gap appeared, and a tiny part of the yew tree became visible. The rest of the coven focused on widening the rift, but a hollow laugh echoed from the edge of the woods. Distracted, the witches lost hold of their craft, allowing the spirits to close around the tree again.
“Having difficulty?” Dominic said, strolling out toward the square from out of the woods. He seemed to have no fear of the coven’s powers. In fact, he looked downright amused by our antics.
At his appearance, a few of the witches attempted to send attack spells at him, but with a flourish of Dominic’s fingers, several spirits broke away from the yew tree to hover around him. They absorbed each attack spell, preventing any harm from coming to him. Smiling, his soft eyes still deceivingly kind, Dominic walked out to the yew tree and sat on the bench beneath it. He patted the space beside him. “Take a seat, Morgan.”
Witch Myth Omnibus: A Yew Hollow Cozy Mystery Page 8
