Casters Series Box Set

by Norah Wilson

  “Soon,” she said. “After Connie reunites with her body, before we call the police, I’m casting out. After today, I need it.” She’d battle Brooke over it if she had to, but knowing Brooke, Maryanne didn’t think too much arm-twisting would be involved.

  What if Connie couldn’t reunite with her remains? What then? That intrusive thought was never far away, but she couldn’t think of it now. They’d deal with it when the time came, if they had to.

  Maryanne sat down on the basement stairs with her back to the door above her, and the grave off to her left. The old wood of the coffin planks now lay beside Connie’s grave. She shuddered as she looked at one heavy nail poking through the wood. Thank God, Alex hadn’t run into that when she’d slid her cast down there! It would have been very draining, slowing her down while she was under the earth. That would have been a nightmare.

  Maryanne arched her back. It was just beginning to feel the stiffness settling in, while her shoulders had been feeling it for a good hour now. Though nervous about being down in the basement, at least she could rest. At least it was quiet. Too quiet. Scary quiet. And as she did so often, she broke the silence with the sound of her own voice. “Here I am, in this angry basement with a corpse.”

  Way to break the silence, Maryanne! Not!

  Usually Harvell House was filled with noise—too much of it. What she wouldn’t give to hear someone shouting right about now in the kitchen above her. Or pots clanging as Mrs. Betts started supper. Wow, even the phone ringing would be a welcome intrusion.

  But then Maryanne did hear something, and the noise was far from welcome and comforting. Fear of a different kind rode through her.

  A door creaked open, and slammed closed. Boots thumped on the doormat. Automatically she turned and looked toward the basement door as someone crossed the kitchen floor above her. Maryanne jumped to her feet.

  Brooke? It couldn’t be. No way in heck could she have gone to get Connie and returned that fast—not even at caster speed. And Brooke would be coming down the stairs from the attic when she returned, not walking in through the kitchen door! Was it Mrs. Betts? John Smith? One of the girls? If Alex used to stay in town and party while pretending to be home in Halifax on holiday weekends, what’s to say one of the other girls wouldn’t do the same?

  Maryanne’s hand flew over her mouth as she gasped. Oh crap! What if it was the man who’d attacked Alex? Here to find another victim... A line of light shone through the crack below the basement door, as the kitchen light snapped on and the footsteps fell again.

  Heart pounding, pulse hammering, Maryanne raced away from the stairs to the other side of the basement. She didn’t just take a wide berth around the grave now, but in a wild, fleeting, fear-fueled fantasy, pictured herself in it. Dammit! There was no place to hide! Palms tight to the hard stone, she pressed herself flat against the basement wall furthest from the stairs. And, she realized too late, far away from the shovels that lay mockingly out of reach at the edge of Connie’s grave. Crap! She didn’t even have a weapon!

  The crack of light spilled further down as the basement door slowly opened. She heard the sound of footsteps thumping, then suddenly stopping. Fear rose up in her throat as she saw the booted feet on the step. And the horror nearly consumed her completely, as those feet again started descending down into the basement.

  Chapter 39

  Going Home

  Brooke

  Brooke thought finding Connie would be the easy part. Not so much. Perhaps the caster had grown tired of looking for them night after night and gone back to her solitary haunts. Brooke could all too easily imagine how she felt. After having grown accustomed to hooking up nightly, she’d be feeling abandoned all over again. That sucked. But how could she not? It had been days and days since they’d been out, thanks to Mrs. Betts’ watchful eyes, and the snow, not to mention the long hours spent at Alex’s bedside, relieving Alex’s exhausted mom.

  Oh, crap. They hadn’t been out since before the attack on Alex. Which meant the task of telling Connie would fall to Brooke. Great. Add that to the things she was ill equipped to do, like persuading Connie to come back to the house.

  Maryanne should be here right now. She’d be so much better at this. But no way was Brooke gonna give in. No way would she hang around that dirty basement standing guard over something that was already dead.

  Sighing, Brooke called Connie’s name again, as she had been doing for the last fifteen minutes. And why not? No one else could hear her but Connie. Unless there were other casters out and about... Oh, man, wouldn’t that be neat? What if there were others like them who—“Brooke? Is that you?”

  Brooke whirled to see Connie floating toward her across the meadow, the same one the three girls had chased that moose across so many weeks ago.

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “Alex?” Connie asked, coming to a stop a few yards away. “Maryanne?”

  “Maryanne’s back at the house. But about Alex... Connie, there’s something I have to tell you.”

  Connie shot forward until she was practically right up on Brooke. “What’s wrong with Alex?”

  “She’s in the hospital. In a coma, actually.”

  Connie fell back as though stricken. “Coma?”

  “They think she’ll recover,” Brooke hastened to assure. “Probably. I mean, with any luck. But the longer it goes on, the trickier it gets. We’ve been sitting by her bedside these evenings, talking to her and trying to get a response.”

  Connie made a small, wounded cry.

  “Don’t worry,” Brooke said. “I’m sure she’ll be all right. Apparently her head injuries aren’t as bad as we first thought when we found her.”

  “Head injuries?” Connie zoomed close again. “Tell,” she commanded. “Everything.”

  Brooke shrugged. “There’s not a helluva lot to tell. One night last week—actually, the last night we’d come out to see you—Alex cast out again, this time by herself, after Maryanne and I had gone to bed. She snuck up to the attic and cast out on her own. At least that’s what we think happened. That’s where we found her, anyway. At first, we thought she just hit her head, you know? From the force of casting back in. But then we saw the bite mark on her shoulder, we knew—”

  Before Brooke could get another word out, Connie started keening. Not Heller shrieking, but wailing, as in weeping and moaning.

  Great.

  “It’s okay, Connie.” Brooke laid a clumsy hand on Connie’s back, feeling the strange solidity and weird heaviness of the other caster’s form beneath her own hand. “He didn’t rape her, if that’s what you’re thinking. She fought him hard. Hard enough to wake us up with the noise of the struggle. I think we might have scared him away when we came to investigate, but damned if I can figure out how he got out of there without going down the stairs. There’s only one door.”

  “Dumbwaiter,” Connie said dully.

  Brooke’s eyes widened.

  “For sending things up and down.”

  “Crap! Of course! That’s the noise we heard as we climbed the stairs. We had no idea.”

  “I’m going to the hospital,” Connie said. “Brooke, show me the room with Alex.”

  Brooke shook her head. “She’s comatose, Connie. She’d never be able to hear or feel you. Besides, it’s too risky. Her mother stays in that room every night, and you’d never get there in the daytime. Even if you could, there’s so much traffic—nurses coming and going, testing her reflexes and writing on charts. Therapists who come to do stuff to her muscles.”

  Connie was silent a moment as she absorbed this. When she spoke again, she said, “The attic... not safe.”

  “Yeah, we pretty much got that memo,” Brooke allowed. “No more going up there alone. No casting out alone.” Unless you really, really need to.

  “That whole house... not safe.”

  “Ah, speaking of the house,” Brooke said. “That’s why I’ve come. To bring you back. We’re ready, Connie. It’s time to come back to the h
ouse.”

  Connie shot away, as if Brooke might handcuff her in iron and compel her to come.

  “Hey, wait,” she called. “Hear me out. Remember Alex talked about you casting back in?” To Brooke’s relief, Connie stopped her retreat. “We’ve unearthed the body... your body. It’s time to try.”

  “No.” Connie shook her head vigorously. “Don’t want to go back to that house. It’s a bad place. I... I can’t go back without Alex. I can’t! Alex said no one would hurt me. And if she’s not there... I can’t!”

  Dammit! Maryanne would know what to do here. What to say to ease her worries. But Maryanne wasn’t here, was she? It was up to Brooke.

  “It’s okay,” she said in her most soothing voice. “We can’t wait for Alex to get better, Connie. That may... that may take some time. But the house is safe. The house is empty. I promise. Everyone has gone away for the American Thanksgiving weekend. The students, the house mother, Mrs. Betts. The caretaker, John Smith, only comes twice a day, and he’s due at 7:30 or so. Even that old futz C. W. hasn’t been puttering around.”

  “C. W.?” Connie’s voice was sharp. “Charles William? Billy?”

  Brooke shrugged. “Could be. He’s just C. W. Stanley to me.”

  Connie’s form stiffened. “Where’s Maryanne?”

  “Funny you should ask. She’s standing guard over your open grave right now.”

  “Quick!” Connie cried the word from over her shoulder as she sped off toward Harvell House. “We have to get back there, now!”

  Oh, crap. This could not be good. Not if it upset Connie enough to make her voluntarily return to her own personal house of terrors.

  Back in the attic, Brooke’s arm flopped spontaneously in panic as she heard the door downstairs open and close with a bang.

  Something was wrong!

  Brooke put on a surge of speed, catching Connie before they cleared the meadow.

  Hang on, Maryanne. We’re coming!

  Chapter 40

  Unearthed

  Maryanne

  Maryanne held her breath, waiting for the owner of Harvell House, C. W. Stanley, to speak first. Silently, he picked up Maryanne’s gloves from where she’d left them on the stairs. He turned them over in his hands, almost sadly, studying the dirt worn into them. C. W. looked over at Connie’s grave, the planks of wood, the shovels—both of them—and then turned his head to rake the entire area. Finally, his eyes fell hard on Maryanne. She didn’t know what to expect when he finally opened his mouth to speak. Shock at the scene he’d found, certainly. Anger over the digging, no doubt. But the last thing Maryanne expected when he opened his mouth were the words that spilled forth.

  “You found the diary.”

  It wasn’t a question, and she met his statement with silence.

  “I always suspected Connie kept one, hidden somewhere in this old house. I couldn’t find it in the attic where Father kept her. But years ago it hit me—maybe that mother of hers wasn’t so spineless after all. What if she let Connie out at night? That damn diary could be anywhere.”

  Cold swept through her.

  “I’ve looked for it all over the place. Moved back to Mansbridge and paid too much for this damnable house, just so I could find it! Today I thought I’d give it one more try, while the house was empty. I just came down here to grab the keys to the rooms. Imagine my surprise to find you here, Miss Hemlock. ” He turned bitter eyes on her. “So where is it now? Where’s the diary?”

  “I... I don’t know what you’re talking—”

  “Yes you do. Don’t even try to pretend otherwise.”

  Maryanne shook her head. “I don’t know where the diary is. Alex hid it. I’m not even sure it’s still in the house. She may have even burned it.” How much she was making up, and how much was the truth, Maryanne wasn’t sure. But even if she did know where Alex had hidden Connie’s diary, she’d never tell. Not anyone, but especially not C. W. It was more than a niggling feeling, one she had to listen to. “Alex might have even gotten a safety deposit box,” she lied. “She said she was going to do that.”

  “Damn it all to hell!” He cursed in pure frustration, pure anger. A full minute later, C. W.’s shoulders slumped inside his trench coat. He sighed as if in resignation, and nodded at whatever thoughts he held, as if the conclusions were inevitable.

  Maryanne watched him under the dim yellow light of the basement. The shadows under his eyes deepened as he stood there. His eyes seemed to darken, and he clenched his shaking fists tightly as he stood before Maryanne.

  Oh Dear Lord, she thought. He’s insane.

  Maryanne had to get out of there. She had to talk her way out.

  “Mr. Stanley, I—”

  “We had to kill Connie Harvell,” he said coldly. “Father and I. We had no other choice. The little whore threatened to tell.”

  Maryanne’s words came out in a gasp. “You’re Billy.”

  “Billy.” He almost chuckled and tossed the gloves aside. “I haven’t heard that name in years. Not since I left this little town almost fifty years ago. I worked the oil fields in Alberta, back then, saved money. I started going by C. W., short of course, for Charles William.” His sadistic smile rose slowly. “But you can call me Billy.

  “I came back. I just couldn’t stay away from Mansbridge—from this old house. Too many memories. Too many secrets. I had to have it back.”

  C. W.—Billy—took three steps forward to stand at the edge of the freshly-dug grave. “We should have buried her deeper. I told Father that. But the old man never listened to me!” Gazing down at the grave, C. W. continued. “Your friend... Alex Robbins. She reminded me a lot of Connie. Spirited. Same gray-blue eyes, dark hair. And so... helpless. Weak. At least the first time.”

  Maryanne felt her knees weaken. “The first time?” she whispered.

  C. W. looked up at Maryanne. “Girls like her, like you... all the girls in this house. Rejects on ‘Reject Row’—I know that’s what they call you. The fallen ones. Drinking and causing trouble. The ones no one wants to bother with. The whores who’ll always, always, reap what they sow!”

  “The helpless ones,” Maryanne said, anger overriding her fear, at least for the moment.

  “Yes.” He smiled. “That’s why I drugged your little friend Alex.”

  “You drugged her?” Maryanne couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  “I like them to lie still. Still as the grave.” His lips twisted in a smile of genuine amusement.

  Dear God, he really was mad! This was a nightmare.

  “She’d come back to Mansbridge before any other students. I found her out drinking alone. I gave her some whiskey I’d laced with GHB, brought her back to the house and up to the attic by that old dumbwaiter. Then I gave her what she deserved.”

  Maryanne thought she was going to be sick. That was the reason for Alex’s profound sadness. For the agitation that absolutely screamed from her when Maryanne had first met her. That was the fear she’d seen in those pale eyes. That was the horror.

  “You raped her!”

  C. W. scoffed. “You can’t rape whores! You take. You teach. You mete out justice. And whores suffer their due at the hands of the righteous. They reap just what they sow.” With his left foot sliding sideways, he kicked earth down into Connie’s grave. It rattled down on her bones. “But the second time I came for Alex... she wasn’t so helpless. I thought she was when I found her on the attic floor. I wasn’t even looking for her. I’d just been roaming the house as I do. Sometimes, I just watch the girls. Sometimes... sometimes I do more. And this second time I found Alex, it was like she was waiting for me. She reminded me even more of Connie that time. Of how Connie had been so often when I took her. Barely moving. Barely there, somehow. But then something happened. The little bitch suddenly grew strong. Incredibly strong. She knocked me across the room.” He looked at Maryanne, incredulous. “Imagine. Fighting back!”

  Maryanne’s heart stormed in her chest as C. W. took a step toward her. H
e was insane. Truly and completely mad. Truly and completely dangerous. She had to keep him talking. “So you tried to kill her? Because she fought back?”

  He stopped his advance. “From what I hear, I came pretty damn close. They’re transferring her to Halifax. Did you know that? I stopped in at the hospital before I came here to see her poor mother, ask if there was anything I could do. I shook her hand, tipped my hat, and expressed my deepest concerns.” C. W. laughed as he gave a little, gracious bow. When he straightened, he’d pulled an object from the depths of his trench coat pocket.

  The candleholder!

  Connie’s heavy silver candleholder! He held it menacingly.

  “And soon enough,” he said, “I’ll be expressing my deepest sympathies to your parents, Miss Hemlock.”

  Wielding the candlestick, he advanced on her slowly, his arms outstretched, his hand high, ready to strike her. He was going to kill her. Take her life from her, like he’d tried to take Alex’s. Like he’d already taken Connie’s! The evil bastard was going to take Skip and Kelly Hemlock’s last child from them. The madman was laughing now as the tears rolled down Maryanne’s face.

  “Like hell,” Maryanne grated. She wouldn’t make it easy for him. She wouldn’t be an easy victim.

  She took a step toward him and his laughter was replaced by a look of shock.

  But a second later, both of them held perfectly still when they heard the thumping way, way above them, coming from the attic.

  C. W. threw down the candlestick and pulled a gun, small but deadly looking, from his pocket.

  Oh, crap!

  Chapter 41

  Connie’s Justice

  Brooke

  It was all Brooke could do to keep up with the other caster on the mad rush back to Harvell House, but she wasn’t worried. She figured there’d be hesitation on Connie’s part once she actually reached the stained glass window. Some gathering of courage or careful focusing of thought before the attempt was made.