Touch of Light: A Baylee Scott Paranormal Mystery (The Reed Hollow Chronicles Book 1)

by April Aasheim

  Though she wasn’t a caster by design, Vivi Bonds led a charmed life and was known around town as ‘The Queen of Happy Coincidences.’

  When I began school the following year, it was clear that everyone in town not only knew about my lineage, but delighted it. The stories became more wild and embellished with each telling, passed down from parent to child.

  My great-great-great grandmother was a restless witch. She used her magick to wreak havoc on the town, seducing married men away from their wives with cruel spells, causing earthquakes and floods through evocation, and stealing pets to keep as her personal familiars. Even the crack in the town’s church bell could be directly attributed to my ancestor.

  I heard the whispers as I wandered the school halls. Then, one day the whispers became a rhyme, chanted by my entire class during second-grade recess.

  Witch, witch, you make me itch.

  I’d like to whip you with a switch.

  Hope your broom lands in a ditch.

  Witch, witch, you make me itch.

  It was Jimmy Blake who started it. He tried to kiss me in the cafeteria. I told him to stop or I’d tell the entire class his father lost his job.

  Jimmy stopped chasing me, but the rhyme spread like a rash around the playground. Kids held their fingers up in the shape of an X, hissing at me when the teachers weren’t looking.

  The descendants of Salem’s witches may have sought refuge in Reed Hollow, but they’d never escaped being judged.

  The taunts lessened in later years, except among a group of girls who made it their mission to torment me. Alex tried to comfort me by telling me they were jealous of me. It was a kind attempt, but did little to lessen the sting.

  It was only when I went away to college that I finally discovered my place in the world. In the crowded university, I found the anonymity I could never find in Reed Hollow. Everyone was too busy with their own lives to worry about mine.

  During my sophomore year I met Ryan Scott, a charming amateur ghost hunter and the editor of our college newspaper. I applied for a writing position and Ryan became my mentor. I was entranced by the light in his eyes, and the way he spoke unashamedly about the spirit world, flying saucers, and conspiracy theories. Even witches. Ryan made it his mission to not only prove the existence of other dimensions and entities, but to educate the world as well through his online magazine.

  We married shortly before graduation, then spent the next six years happily investigating the paranormal world together - Ryan, out of a need to understand the universe; me, out of the need to understand myself.

  But time and tragedy have a way of bringing you home, and I returned to Reed Hollow on a winter’s morning with only two suitcases, leaving the rest of my belongings behind. Two suitcases that sat by my closet door, still unpacked - even after nine months. Some people create a new life in that amount of time; I spent it trying to hide from my own.

  “The day I leave can’t come soon enough,” I said, my eyes darting between the open ledger on my desk – which showed more losses than gains - and the alluring ring case.

  I should have put the case away, I realized. It was too distracting. But I couldn’t bear to sweep it into a drawer or a bin until I knew more about it and its mysterious contents.

  Sighing, I pushed the ledger away and took my father’s old magnifying glass out of the top drawer. As I held it over each ring, I realized I had no idea what to look for. I was a writer, not an appraiser. With a frustrated grunt, I tossed the tool back into the drawer.

  “I suppose I’ll need to take a class,” I said to myself. “Or hire out.”

  A clicking noise at my office window caught my attention. I looked up, half-expecting to see a squirrel holding a sock, but was instead greeted by a trio of older women, their faces pressed to the glass. They spoke amongst themselves, tapping on the window as they laughed.

  The witch returns!

  I marched to the window and rapped hard on the glass, then drew the curtains shut. If they wanted to see Vivi’s prodigal witch daughter, they could come inside and buy something like everyone else.

  Being a shut in didn’t help the rumors. “I really should get out more,” I thought.

  I blew my bangs from my eyes and returned to the rings, holding the case up to my desk lamp. Upon closer inspection, the stones appeared to be nothing more than colored glass. They were beautiful, but monetarily worthless.

  Still, there was that feeling of magick about them, so strong my gloved-hand trembled as I held the box. I set the case back down, uncertain if the magick was benign or malevolent. If it was harmless, I could market the rings as retro costume jewelry.

  And if it wasn’t harmless?

  I took a swig of my pumpkin-spiced coffee and shook the thought from my head.

  A sudden breeze sent a trail of shivers down my spine. I turned, expecting to see my mother manifesting, but it was only a gust from the open window in the adjoining cafe. My mother remained at her table, breathing so deeply that her image faded in and out with each inhalation. Spirits didn’t need to breathe, of course, but she claimed it helped her feel anchored, so she could find the guiding light if it ever appeared.

  As I put on my latex work gloves, I thought about the irony of my condition. I’d spent years studying the spirit world, only to end up living with an actual ghost. If Ryan were here, he’d be interviewing my mother constantly. Maybe then, she’d get the attention she felt she deserved.

  I picked up the first ring, a silver band encrusted with emerald-green stones. It was lovely, and sparkled like leprechaun’s gold. I returned it to the case and inspected the others in turn, rolling them between my palms and trying to sense their origin without touching them directly. But the rings weren’t giving up any of their secrets.

  “Quite curious,” I said, placing the last ring back in the case and closing the lid.

  I slid the box into my middle desk drawer and turned the key, vowing to keep it locked away until properly examined. None of the rings felt dangerous, but old magick was wild and often unpredictable.

  Leaving my desk, I stepped into the bright cafe for another cup of coffee. The spacious room had once been the living area when the house was built in 1882. Several interior walls had since been removed to accommodate the two businesses.

  The antique shop was snugger than the tea house, crammed with collectibles from around the country. Every inch of the walls was covered in shelves, lined with a hodgepodge of old books, toys, magazines, gadgets, clothes and art. In the shop’s glory days, it had been a pilgrimage for antique hunters.

  Today, there were a dozen similar shops in Reed Hollow, and two dozen more in neighboring towns. In short, The Aunt-Tea-Query was antiquated.

  I drank my coffee and strolled through the quiet house, wondering how we could save it. The cafe was the only thing keeping us afloat at the moment, and with the recent opening of the hip new coffee house next door, I wasn’t certain how much longer we could hold on. I could return to Seattle or even New York, but Alex would never leave Reed Hollow. Nor could Mother. She was bound to the area where she had spent her life.

  I returned to my office, pausing to inspect an 1800s cookbook a latexed hand. I rarely touched the objects in this room without gloves; they were too full of other people’s remembrances. I’d learned this lesson as a little girl: For weeks, I’d stared at a lovely doll with bright blue eyes and an alabaster face. It stared back at me from a low shelf, seeming to call out to me every time I walked by.

  Finally, I could no longer resist the doll’s allure and I brushed my fingertips across her smooth cheek. Feelings of love and family and warmth cradled me. I looked around to ensure my mother wasn’t watching, then picked up the toy, hugging it to my chest.

  As I made full contact with the doll, another emotion took hold – Fear! I saw flames rise up around me and felt the heat on my skin. I dropped the doll as my hands went to my throat, choking on smoke.

  “Mommy! Mommy!” A child’s voice cried out
. But the voice wasn’t mine.

  Ever after, I was always careful to wear gloves.

  “I wonder…”

  I unlocked the desk drawer and pulled out the case again. Then I removed my gloves.

  Gingerly, I picked up the emerald ring, squeezing it in my bare hand. There was still no response, nothing to hint at the ring’s origin. I repeated the process with the remaining rings without luck. Perhaps I had been wrong about their magick.

  I was about to put them away again when another idea occurred to me. I hovered a hand just above the open case. This time, I was rewarded with a small jolt and noticed a hazy yellow aura around the box.

  It was the case that was magick, not the rings!

  Sure enough, there was a subtle lump beneath the corner of the velvet lining. “Well, well, what have we here?”

  I carefully pried up the edge and was rewarded by yet another ring. It was smaller than the others, with an ornate gold band and a smooth milky-gray stone. Though the piece was not as striking as its peers, it felt very, very old.

  It also seemed to visibly pulse, radiating waves of energy I’d never sensed before.

  “How strange!”

  I snatched the ring out of the case, forgetting to psychically shield myself. In different lighting, the stone took on different hues - from cloudy white to pearlescent gray to muted black. There were silver flecks sprinkled across its surface. I had seen this type of stone before, but couldn’t place it off hand.

  “What are you?” I asked.

  In response, the ring pulsed between my fingertips like a baby’s heartbeat.

  My eyes widened, though it didn’t feel dangerous. In fact, there was a purity to it, an almost protective quality. Why had it been hidden away from the other rings? It was so mysterious, so beautiful, and so…alone.

  The ring wanted to be worn. In fact, it needed to be worn.

  The memory of the doll and flames returned to me, but I pushed it from my head. I was a grown woman now, not a child. I could handle any experience thrown at me. Plus, I told myself, I was only going to wear it for a moment. Just long enough to see what was hidden.

  But as I slid it on to my finger, I felt the sensation of slipping, as if falling down a deep well. Darkness closed in on me as the ring clamped around my finger, squeezing tight enough to hurt.

  I cried out then caught myself before Alex heard. There were no accompanying visions, good or bad, and I was both disappointed and relieved. A ring this powerful could have held the darkest of secrets.

  “What are you?” I asked again, trying to pull it from my finger. “And how did you find me?”

  “Knock, knock. You free?”

  I startled as Alex poked his head through the arch that separated our businesses, shuffling a stack of mail between his hands like a deck of cards. His mouth was drawn down and his eyebrows were knit together. I quickly closed the case and pulled on my gloves, smiling innocently as my brother made his way over.

  “I’m fairly free,” I replied. “But my dance card is filling quickly. Is it bill day, already?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, that’s something. We barely made it through our last bill day.”

  “Don’t get too excited. I found this in our mailbox.” My brother took a large envelope from the stack and handed it over.

  “There’s no return address on it, and no stamp either. And check out the handwriting.” He pointed to the broken scrawl across the front:

  Baylee Bonds.

  Urgent!

  Open Immediately!

  I nearly dropped the letter. The writer’s energy was desperate, frightened, and frantic. In fact, it was so strong that even my gloves couldn’t block it.

  “This day seems to be getting more interesting by the minute,” I said, now holding the envelope by the tip of a corner.

  “Want me to open it?” Alex asked. “If it’s bad news…”

  “I’m a big girl now, dear brother. If it’s bad news, I can handle it.”

  He nodded reluctantly.

  He was endearingly protective, but after the sheer volume of unfortunate events I’d been handed over the last two years, there wasn’t much that could topple me now. Even so, life had taught me to expect the unexpected.

  “Can you stay with me while I open it?” I asked.

  “You couldn’t pay me to leave.”

  Alex pulled a Victorian rocking chair up to my desk and I smiled gratefully. Then, I removed a letter opener from my drawer and sliced open the envelope, withdrawing a sheet of lined paper. I looked it over once, reading each word twice, then read it slowly out loud:

  There has been a string of disappearances in Reed Hollow. Soon, another will vanish, just like the others. You are the only one who can help. Meet me at Chips Diner. Friday at 2 PM. Time is short. L

  “I don’t like this, Bay,” Alex said, reading the letter over my shoulder. “I know you’ve had crazies write you before, but there’s something seriously creepy about this one.”

  I nodded. I had received my fair share of strange letters during the years I maintained our paranormal magazine. Most were email requests to exorcise a spirit or aid in closing a portal, but none felt so urgent, or were personally delivered. I shivered, feeling suddenly cold.

  “There is no signature on it, only an ‘L’,” I said, turning it over in my hands to search for further clues.

  “I’ll throw it away,” Alex said, snatching it from me. “I haven’t heard anything about any disappearances in Reed Hollow. It’s either a hoax or a very sick joke. I’d call the cops, except…”

  “Wait.” I stood, grabbing the letter back. What if this wasn’t a hoax and someone was in real danger?

  I smoothed it flat on my desk. After removing my right glove - the one without the ring – I pressed my hand against the paper and closed my eyes. A cord of golden light cut through the center of my mind, surrounded by swirling ribbons of lavender and pink. I trembled uncontrollably, fighting to maintain contact.

  Whoever wrote the letter understood psychometry – the ability to read objects through touch - and had purposely blocked me from looking deeper.

  I mentally pushed through the barrier, finding myself at a vortex that pulled in everything around it: light, color, sound. Soon, there was nothing left but utter blackness.

  The ring pulsed beneath my glove as the blackness deepened. It was so bottomless, so all-encompassing, I could hardly breathe. I tried to cry out, but the sound emerging from my throat was guttural and incoherent. There was no way out, just more darkness, each step blacker than the one before.

  “Baylee, are you okay?” Alex was shaking my shoulder, his contact breaking the enchantment.

  With effort, I nodded and forced open my eyes, looking for the clock. I’d only been gone a minute but it felt like hours.

  Alex hovered nearby, his eyes wide and afraid.

  “You were mumbling something,” he said. “I’ve never seen you do that before. It sounded like ‘don’t go, don’t go’.”

  “I was?”

  “Yes. We need to get rid of this damned letter.”

  “No.” I took a deep breath, wiping the perspiration from my forehead. “I’m alright now. Thank you. I have to meet this mysterious L.”

  Alex looked me over, massaging the bridge of his nose with his thumb, as if trying to smooth away his concern. “Of course, you do.”

  THREE

  The following afternoon, I left The Aunt-Tea-Query on foot.

  The white Colonial farmhouse with its wraparound porch and double doors stood at the end of historic Main Street, an anchor landmark that had been in our family for generations.

  Originally, it was a working farmstead. When my Great-Aunt Mimi took ownership in the 1930s, she converted the lower floor into a tea house, and sold the surrounding farmland to developers. Her niece, my grandmother Darla, added the antique shop in the 1950s. Mother then took it over when she returned from Hollywood, a married woman.

  To the
left of the farmhouse was Bend and Break, a remodeled Craftsman that was once a dentist’s office and was now a yoga studio; to the right stood The Mean Bean, a squat Victorian that had become the coffee shop for Reed Hollow’s university students, a hangout where they could enjoy political debate while siphoning free Wi-Fi.

  It would have been a nice grouping of businesses, if Alex wasn’t at constant war with the proprietors of both shops – The Mean Bean for poaching his customers, and Bend and Break for turning him in to the police.

  A lush forest served as the backdrop of the establishments, winding its way along the perimeter of town and the surrounding lakes. It was a deep and magickal forest where fairy and even Sasquatch sightings were not uncommon. It was my playground as a child, a place where Alex and I hid away from our overbearing mother, hunting frogs and playing hide and seek.

  I made my way north along the mile-long sidewalk, passing by the quaint shops and cafes that tempted pedestrians on either side of the street. I pulled down my hunter green beret to shield my ears from the wind, and refocused on my mission.

  Soon, another will vanish, just like the others.

  The cryptic letter had kept me awake most of the night. I had even tried counting sheep until I ran out of numbers.

  In fairness, sleep rarely came easy for me. My imagination was too active, and tended to sneak away from me when left unsupervised. During the day, I could keep a tight rein on my thoughts; but at night “the worries” bubbled up.

  There were just too many what ifs. What if Alex went back to jail? What if the roof leaked and we didn’t have the money to repair it? What if I had never allowed Ryan go hunting that weekend?

  I tossed and turned most nights, pondering unsolvable riddles of my own creation. And now there was a new one: What if the letter was real?