Witch Myth Omnibus: A Yew Hollow Cozy Mystery

by Alexandria Clarke

  Gwenlyn coughed, kicking her feet out as Ronan tightened his grip once more around her neck. She wouldn’t be able to stand it much longer. At my side, I felt Teagan shift nervously from one foot to the other.

  “My wife murdered me in cold blood,” he said in a dangerous whisper. “So, Morgan Summers, you’re very wrong. Teagan will die in this room today, but you get to decide if your little friend here survives or not.”

  He wrapped his other hand around Gwenlyn’s throat and squeezed.

  “No!” I yelled. I wrenched the knife free of the doorframe and hurled it at Ronan. At the same time, Teagan stepped out from behind me and launched herself across the room.

  The handle of the blade clocked Ronan in the forehead, stunning him enough to make him drop Gwenlyn. She crumpled at his feet, gasping for air, as Teagan put herself between Ronan and Gwenlyn.

  “Fine, fine!” she shouted. “I murdered you, I admit it! You were a bastard and a terrible husband, and I couldn’t take it anymore. Just don’t hurt them. They’re only trying to do what’s right.”

  In a flash, Ronan took Teagan by the hair and pulled her into a violent embrace. Gwenlyn scrambled away from the unhappy couple, backing up against the far wall of the small hotel room. I, on the other hand, stepped forward once again. Teagan’s confession was a shock, but it wasn’t up to Ronan to decide whether she lived or died.

  But then Ronan stooped to scoop up the abandoned butcher’s knife. He whirled Teagan around, her back to his chest, and pressed the knife to her throat. I stopped dead in my tracks. Time seemed to halt. For the longest second of my life, I stared at Ronan, and Ronan stared back, and Teagan shivered and wept, and the uneven gasp of Gwenlyn’s hoarse, damaged breathing was the only sound in the room.

  And then the knife flashed.

  Blood spurted, coating Gwenlyn. There was a dull thud as Teagan slipped from Ronan’s grasp and thunked to the floor. She convulsed, grabbing at the large gash across her throat, but it was too late. Ronan vanished without another word, and I rushed to Teagan’s side, the shock of the brutal attack pulsing through me. Gwenlyn remained frozen, the muscles in her arms taut as she pressed herself against the wall, away from Teagan. She’d been splattered with Teagan’s blood, and there was so much of it that I knew Ronan had gotten what he’d wanted.

  Teagan, her eyes wide and unblinking, was dead.

  Chapter Ten

  In Which the Dead Wake

  Paralyzed, all I could do was stare at Teagan’s ruined body. It wasn’t until Gwenlyn choked out a sob that I remembered she was there. I needed to grow up, to take responsibility for the things that I had done. Cassandra had been wrong. There was no way I could ever run the Summers coven. Ever since I’d returned to Yew Hollow, a dangerous cloud seemed to linger over the town, threatening to burst. There were only so many times I could handle a shit storm like this.

  I reached out to Gwenlyn without intention. I had no idea how to comfort her, drenched as she was in Teagan’s blood, so I let my hand drop, useless. My vision blurred, a fog taking over my mind. The room fell away, and I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the tacky feeling of blood between my fingers.

  “Morgan.”

  Gwenlyn’s soft voice only did so much to pull me out of my sea of remorse. I didn’t want to listen or return to the world, but I owed it to the teenager to at least indicate that I had heard her. “Mm?”

  “You can’t fall apart,” she said, her voice, still gravelly, a little stronger now. “I know you want to, but you can’t. You have to keep fighting. You have to go stop Dominic.”

  I covered my ears, leaning forward to rest my forehead on my knees. Gwenlyn’s hand closed around my wrist. She’d finally moved away from the wall, simply to pull me up from the floor. She was a walking nightmare at that moment, painted in red, but she was also the only level head in the room. I let her tug me upward and forced my knees and then my feet to carry my weight again. When she let go of me, a bloody handprint remained on my arm, a macabre indication of what had happened there. The image of it wrenched me back to reality, and I realized that, no matter my mistakes, I was still the only person in town who would be able to prevent Dominic from making things worse.

  “I need you to go back to the coven,” I said to Gwenlyn. She opened her mouth to protest, but I shook my head. “Keep them safe. Dominic still has a hold on them, and I won’t be able to take it if anyone else gets hurt.”

  Gwenlyn still looked as though she wanted to argue with me. I marveled at her unwavering determination, evident in her expression despite the coating of blood.

  “Please,” I said in a small voice. “Please.”

  She conceded with a graceful nod then led me to the door of the room. I glanced behind me for one last look at Teagan’s wasted potential. Her ghost had not appeared, which I was eternally grateful for. She was at peace, and Dominic would only have employed her spirit to join his ranks.

  Gwenlyn and I parted in the courtyard of the inn. We hugged briefly, exchanging no words. I couldn’t find anything appropriate to say, and Gwenlyn seemed to face the same issue, but as she left the courtyard in the direction of the house with her shoulders squared off, she seemed to transfer some of her fortitude to me. With a great breath, I left the courtyard, letting my feet carry me back to the town square.

  Dominic was waiting for me, leaning casually against the yew tree and chatting amiably with Ronan. Most of the other ghosts had vanished to who knew where. A select few lingered beside Dominic, as though waiting for further instruction. Ronan, whose wide, satisfied grin made me want to send him to a second death, saw me first. He nodded to Dominic, who glanced over his shoulder. To his credit, he looked appropriately concerned at the amount of blood on the knees of my jeans.

  “That’s not your blood, is it?” he asked, stepping away from Ronan to meet me at the edge of the town square. “I told Ronan not to hurt you.”

  “It’s Teagan’s,” I said, too emotionally exhausted to summon any more rage over Dominic’s complete lack of moral fiber. “And you don’t get to ask me if I’m hurt. Not after that. I’m hurt, you asshole.”

  He tried to sweep me into a hug, but I stepped away from his embrace. “You can bring her back, you know,” Dominic said.

  I scoffed, unable to wrap my head around his warped rationale.

  “You’re unbelievable,” I said. “You can’t pick and choose who lives and who dies. Don’t you get that, Dominic? Don’t you understand how screwed up it is?”

  “Morgan,” he said gently. “I’m only bringing two people back. That’s it. The only other people I’ll resurrect are those you ask me to.”

  “I won’t be responsible for wrenching people out of their eternal resting places,” I said. As I spoke, several spirits reappeared. Dominic had apparently sent them off to gather the ingredients he needed for his ritual, as the ghosts began to lay several items on the ground by the yew tree.

  “Helpful, aren’t they?” Dominic said, regarding the ghosts with an approving nod. “No dittany, though. Did you know it’s remarkably similar to oregano? We’re using that instead.”

  His conversational tone made it sound as if we were discussing a lasagna recipe.

  “Dominic.”

  He refocused on me, saw the look on my face, and said, “Listen, Morgan. I’m sorry about Teagan, okay? I was just trying to make a point. I need you for this ritual, and I want you to be willing to help me.”

  Get it through your thick head,” I said, poking Dominic in the chest. “I will never help you with this.”

  “At this point, I expected that response,” he said, sighing heavily. He legitimately seemed disappointed with my refusal to cooperate. I wished I had brought the butcher’s knife from Teagan’s room along with me. My unpracticed witchcraft wouldn’t put Dominic down, and there was no other humane way to dispatch him.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have any more time to brainstorm. Dominic gestured to his spirit army, which immediately surrounded me. I saw what was
coming about a second before it happened and tried to dart away, but the spirits boxed me in. They took hold of my arms and legs, lifting me and carrying me to the base of the yew tree. I kicked out hard, my foot connecting with the very solid jaw of one ghost, but to no avail. No matter how much I flailed, I couldn’t free myself from their mutual grasp. They went to work, binding my hands behind my back with a length of rope.

  My back scraped against the yew tree as the spirits forced me to sit against it. The last time I’d been forced to participate in a ritual, the yew tree had filled me with the power of the original Summers coven. Regrettably, that transference had only been temporary, as I hadn’t realized what was happening. I wished that I had figured it out sooner. The tree was empty now. Its remaining power lay only in its existence as a natural protection, which wasn’t something that would work like witchcraft and fuel my defense against Dominic. I could only sit there, restrained as I was, and hope that, by some miracle, Dominic’s ritual would fall through.

  Several yards away, Dominic began setting up his spell. He mixed the ingredients together in a small olive-wood bowl. A sweet and sharp scent swept over me, the result of his honey-and-oregano blend. He dabbed the mixture on at his pulse points. Then, with a bottle of red wine in one hand, he approached me. I watched dolefully, waiting for an opportunity to knock his ritual off balance.

  “Excuse me,” he said politely. He picked me up by the armpits and dragged me away from the yew tree, the wine bottle bouncing against my rib cage. He allowed me to lean against the nearby bench, facing the tree. Then he extracted a tiny switchblade from his pocket.

  I leaned away as he neared my throat.

  “Don’t worry,” Dominic said, tipping my chin back. “Just a prick.”

  Sure enough, I felt the sharp sting of the blade at my neck but nothing more. Dominic held the bottle of wine to my throat, and I heard the hollow plinking sound of my blood dripping into the wine. He swished the bottle around to mix it then took a swig. My stomach turned.

  Dominic plugged the mouth of the bottle with his thumb, restricting the flow of wine, and began to pour it delicately out onto the dirt near my feet. The ground did not absorb the liquid as it should have. Instead, the wine remained on the surface, glistening in the moonlight. Part of me couldn’t help but admire the artistry of Dominic’s hand. With every tip of the bottle, he created the large, detailed outline of a phoenix.

  A large part of our magic relied on the interpretation of symbols. This, Dominic clearly knew. The phoenix symbolized resurrection, what with the mythical bird’s ability to remake itself out of the ashes of its previous body. In combination with the yew tree, which was also known for rebirth, there was no doubt to Dominic’s intentions. A strange thought crossed my mind.

  “Quick question, Dom,” I said, feeling the cut on my throat dribble. “Where do you intend on housing your mother and sister’s spirits once you’ve raised them? Because I assume their bodies aren’t exactly in great shape after all these years.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Dominic said, now lighting candles and placing them at strategic points within the phoenix. “The ritual will allow them to create new bodies in their original image.”

  “That sounds too good to be true,” I muttered, wondering how Dominic managed to find such a convenient and organic spell to raise the dead. From what I understood, when the same thing had been attempted in the past, the rituals used had been infinitely more gruesome than some spilled wine in the dirt. “Did you know that people used to consume corpses in order to raise the dead? You aren’t planning to do that, are you? Because I don’t think I’d be able to keep my dinner down.”

  “Do you ever shut up?” Dominic snapped. A small smirk tugged at the corners of my mouth. Though he was skilled at hiding it, Dominic was stressed out. The enormity of his task must have finally hit him as he faced it head-on. That was good. I could work with stressed.

  “It’s true,” I pushed. “Necromancers believed that by consuming the flesh of the dead, their spirits would rise again. Crazy, right? Although, I hear cannibalism goes well with Chianti, so you’re halfway there.”

  “Shut. Up.”

  He crumbled the bay leaves, pulverizing them between the palms of his hands, and began to sprinkle the pieces along the outer edges of the phoenix.

  “Oh, and necromancers also believed that bodies had an expiration date,” I added, watching as Dominic’s back muscles scrunched in aggravation beneath the fabric of his cotton T-shirt. “One year after the death of the physical body. Kinda puts a dent in your ritual, doesn’t it? Your mother and sister are going to be fu—”

  “SHUT UP.”

  This time, the words were punctuated with a crisp slap across my face. My eyes watered at the sting of it, but inwardly I felt strangely pleased with myself. Dominic was nervous; that much was clear in his lack of emotional control and the shaking of his hands. The ghosts seemed to sense it too. They gave him a wide berth, as though afraid he would lash out at them should they float any closer. Dominic, however, seemed to have plans for his spirits to participate in the ritual.

  It turned out that Dominic had indeed gotten a hold of a set of handbells, which I assumed he’d thieved from the nearby church. He assigned each one to a spirit, instructing them to bridge the gap between the yew tree and the phoenix. They fell into two lines, forming a glowing, ethereal hallway from me to the tree.

  He began to direct them, pointing at each ghost when it was their turn to ring their bells. As they caught on to the rhythm, the music swelled, filling the night air with a surprisingly sweet melody. Dominic added his voice to the mix, singing passionately in Latin as he had during his earlier transference ritual. He knelt to the ground, tipped a candle on its side, and ignited the outline of bay leaves.

  The phoenix erupted in green flames, corralling Dominic within it. The blaze was so bright that I could only make out Dominic’s silhouette. He faced the yew tree, his arms outstretched as if to welcome someone into his hallway of spirits. The yew tree stretched and morphed before my eyes. Its trunk widened, splitting open to reveal a peculiar portal, from which spilled a great deal of bright white light.

  As Dominic continued to warble, summoning forth the souls of his lost ones, two figures appeared in the strange doorway of the yew tree. They seemed to struggle against an unknown force within the light, pushing and pulling at one another in the attempt to step out of the tree. With a great crescendo, Dominic called to them, his lips shaping the names of his mother and sister. The fire of the phoenix waved and surged around him, egging him on, and then, all at once, the two figures stepped from the tree and onto the earth in front of them.

  As soon as they emerged from the trunk, their physical features swam into focus. The tall, slender figure solidified first, evolving into an elegant young woman with the same piercing blue eyes as Dominic. The smaller figure coalesced slowly, but gradually became recognizable as one half of Dominic’s genetics. She was a petite woman, perhaps in her forties at the time of her death, but there was no mistaking the similarities between her and her children.

  Though the bells chimed on, Dominic had stopped singing. Either he had lost his voice, or the emergence of his family had overwhelmed him to the point of incoherence. With his back to me, I couldn’t tell which it was, though I assumed it was the latter. His shoulders slumped with something like relief, as though he couldn’t fathom the fact that his ritual had actually worked. I was similarly afflicted. In all of time, there were no success stories about raising the dead, and yet here was Dominic, reunited with the two people he claimed to love most.

  He stepped forward, abandoning the fire of the phoenix, moving quietly along the hallway of spirits. His mother and sister, both sporting expressions of both joy and great sorrow, walked from the yew tree toward Dominic. The family met in the middle. For a second, they only stared at each other. Then Dominic fell into the arms of his mother.

  Suddenly, I was yanked forward by an invisible force.
Something seemed to have a hold of my ankles, dragging me through the harmless green fire of Dominic’s phoenix and down the ghostly corridor. I yelled as my shirt rode up and my back scraped over roots and rocks embedded in the dirt. With alarming speed, the strange force swept me right past Dominic and his family. Dominic, wide eyed, reached down in an attempt to stop me, but he only caught a handful of my T-shirt before I was ripped away and rushed toward the open portal in the yew tree.

  “No!” cried Dominic, separating himself from his mother and sister to chase after me.

  The friction had freed my hands of the rope, and I flipped over in an attempt to grab something to hold onto before I was sucked into the depths of the portal. My legs slid into the abyss of blinding white light, but I managed to hook my elbow around one of the yew tree’s thick roots. The force pulled at me, my tendons stretching and popping. Dominic fell to his knees before me, trying and failing to yank me back into the real world. My arm slipped around the root, and my elbow hyperextended. I couldn’t hold on much longer. Pure panic, like a ship in a storm, blew through the high seas of Dominic’s eyes.

  With my lungs burning, I gasped to him, “You dumb bastard.”

  And then I let go.

  One moment, I was falling through nothing, and the next, I was lying on a dark, pebbled shore, listening to the sounds of water gently lapping at my jeans. I scrambled away from the inky water, which had already soaked through my clothing. Shivering, I looked around. The strange beach went on for miles in either direction, beneath a starless and utterly dark sky. Where was I?

  A light patter of footsteps approached me from behind, and I whirled around to meet the gaze of a very tall, very familiar figure.

  “Dad?” I asked breathlessly.

  “Hey, ace.”

  I remembered the nickname from his brief involvement in my childhood. He extended a hand, and I took it, letting him pull me to my feet. He brushed a few pebbles from the back of my damp shirt.