by K. J. Emrick
She felt Gilbert’s boot plant itself down on her back, and she was pressed against the floor again.
“No, no,” he told her in a sing song voice. “You’re my guarantee that I get out of this town and have a chance to disappear. I’ll let you go later. Promise. When I know I’m safe. For now, I’m putting you in the car and we’re getting out of—”
There was a loud banging on the closed overhead garage door. It made the frosted windows rattle. Darcy couldn’t see out, and the person knocking couldn’t see in, but she didn’t need to see him to recognize Jon’s voice.
“Gilbert! We know you’re in there. Come out peacefully. Let’s end this!”
Knowing that he was there, that he was that close, unleashed a wave of panic in her chest. He was here, and yet she couldn’t get to him, and he couldn’t get to her. They might as well be a million miles apart.
Gilbert had her pinned down. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t get away.
“Don’t come in here!” Gilbert shouted back to Jon. “I have weapons with me, Chief, and we wouldn’t want your wife to get accidentally hurt, now would we?”
The panic started to overwhelm Darcy when she heard the scream of the circular saw fire up, the very same scream that she’d heard last time she was here. Gilbert was clearly unstable. He might do anything if Jon started coming through that door. Anything Jon tried to do to save her could be the very thing that got her hurt. Or worse.
“Gilbert,” Jon yelled over the terrible noise, “if you do anything to her, you’ll answer to me!”
“Don’t push me, Chief! I’m in control here. You want your wife back safe, you’re gonna do things my way!” Darcy’s heart leapt into her throat when Gilbert fisted a hand into her hair and wrenched her head upwards. The razor-sharp blade of the circular saw filled Darcy’s view as Gilbert brought it down near her neck, the scream of it was deafening this close to her ears.
There was no way this ended well. Darcy knew it, as surely as she had ever known anything in her life. Gilbert was going to hurt her. Maybe just enough to let Jon know he was serious, but it was going to happen. She couldn’t stay here. She couldn’t.
“Okay, Darcy. We’re leaving now and you’re going to be a good girl and cooperate, aren’t you?” Gilbert leaned in close and spoke into Darcy’s ear, over the screaming of the saw.
In that moment, Darcy’s gift made her future as clear to her as it ever had. Gilbert wasn’t just going to hurt her. If she got in that car with him, she was going to die. Darcy Sweet was going to die.
She desperately tried to push herself up, out from under Gilbert’s heavy foot, but he was too strong. She reached out with one hand, trying hopelessly to get away. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t do anything.
“Help me!” she screamed out. “Help me!”
The words echoed through her mind, and suddenly she understood.
Her dream came back to her in a flash. The same one she’d had over and over. The dream where she saw herself, reaching out desperately, on the point of death, calling for help.
Help me…help me…!
This was the dream. This was the instant in time where the dream came from. She could feel it resonating outward from her, a sort of psychic scream that had scattered itself across time, casting itself out like ripples on a pond after a stone had been violently thrown into peaceful waters.
Ripples spreading out, backward through the days, reaching her and touching her gift before it had happened. A message she had received, but not understood.
It had been her, all along, panicked and scared and looking at her own death.
Desperate.
Terrified.
Calling out to the only person who could help her.
Darcy Sweet.
Was it possible? This was something she had never experienced before. Her sixth sense had been reaching out for assistance this whole time, just as surely as her arm was reaching out to grab at the empty air in front of her. She was crying out for help.
Something answered her call.
From the corner of the garage, shadows detached themselves and flew across the room. It was the shape of a person, a woman with darkness flanking her like the wings of some massive, dreadful bird. It swooped at them with a speed that startled Darcy.
The phantom from the shadows had a face that was etched in lines of inky blackness. Her mind couldn’t accept what she was seeing.
Willamena Duell, the witch woman’s ghost, was coming to Darcy’s aid.
“What in the world…” Gilbert rasped. “No, no! Get away! Get aw—!”
It was all he had time to say before the ghost swept into him, swept through him, and out the other side sending the circular saw clattering to the floor and into silence.
There was a sound like a distant shriek, something Darcy didn’t so much hear as feel in her bones, and then Gilbert was being yanked off of her, off of his feet, off of the floor, and up into the air.
Darcy scrambled to her feet just as soon as she was free and twisted herself around to watch the man fall the distance from the ceiling to the concrete floor. He landed on his back, his head bouncing with a sickening, wet crack before he went still. He didn’t get up.
Darcy looked, watching him closely, until she could see his chest moving up and down. He was alive. Just beaten and unconscious and…well, whatever the term was for having a ghost push its way through you.
Just like that, it was over.
Willamena’s ghost sat up on top of Gilbert’s workbench, crouched on the edge with one knee up, and her other foot dangling over the edge. Her dark dress swirled around her. The smile on her face was fierce. The shadows formed their dark wings behind her, misty and ethereal.
And then she simply faded away.
“Darcy?” Jon called in, his voice full of strained concern. “Darcy, what was that noise? Are you all right?”
It was another moment before Darcy could collect herself. Her dream—her nightmare—had come true in this moment. She had almost died, but she had called out for help and that had saved her. She had called out to herself, across time and space.
When the room stopped spinning, she went to the overhead door, and pressed the button to send it rolling up on its track.
Jon swept in, gun in hand, followed by Grace and Wilson Barton and several other members of the police force. Jon quickly took in the form of Gilbert Fischer lying on the floor. He didn’t check to see if he was still alive, like Darcy had. In fact she got the impression that he couldn’t care one way or the other.
He put his gun away and pulled her into his arms and held her there like he was never going to let her go. She could feel him trembling. Or maybe that was her. She didn’t know. Maybe, she thought, it was both.
“It’s over,” she told him. “He’s unconscious. You can take him away, and then I think I’m going to sleep for a week.”
“You’re all right?” he asked in a panic. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yes. I’m fine. It’s just…”
“What? What is it?”
“I never want to think about trophies again.”
He laughed with quiet humor. “I don’t blame you. Not one bit.”
Chapter 10
A very long day turned into a very restless night for Darcy.
Dreams came and went. Some of them were part memory, and most of them were filled with worries that came sweeping at her in the shape of half-formed shadows with ragged wings and horrible, dead faces.
She woke more than once. Each time she did Jon was there to hold her and tell her she was all right. He hadn’t stayed at work tonight, leaving the mountain of paperwork to Grace and Wilson Barton to finish. He’d come straight home with his wife instead, just like he’d promised, and he hadn’t let her out of his sight until they had both closed their eyes to chase sleep.
Each of her dreams slipped away from her, leaving her with shadowy impressions and tickling shreds of terror, leaving only relief behind. She was h
ome with Jon. She was in her own bed. She was safe.
“Well, safe is a relative term at best, sweet Darcy…”
She opened one eye to glare over at the corner of her room, by the windows, where Willamena Duell sat on her gilded throne with her legs tucked up underneath her. She was playing with the thick links of her necklace and smiling like the Cheshire cat had smiled when Alice fell down the rabbit hole. Like she knew something that no one else did. Like she was laughing at some cosmic joke with a punchline that only she understood.
At the same time, it was becoming very hard to hate this woman.
“I suppose,” Darcy said grudgingly, “that I should thank you.”
“Yes, mon cheri,” Willamena drawled. “You should. I saved your life today.”
Darcy pushed up onto one elbow, looking over to Jon’s side of the bed to find he wasn’t there. She knew he hadn’t abandoned her. He just couldn’t follow her into this dream she was sharing with the ghost of a distant ancestor. One who, just like she said, had saved Darcy’s life today.
With a heavy sigh she got out from under the blankets and put her feet flat on the floor. “Are you sure I can’t have Great Aunt Millie here instead?”
“Hmph. This is the thanks I get?” The ghost said, with a tsk of her tongue. “Your aunt is busy. She will return soon enough. For the moment, you have me. Aren’t you glad you do? I have been trying to tell you all along what it was that you were seeing in your dreams. It was you all along. Of course it was you.”
Darcy started to tell her that she had figured that one out on her own, thank you very much, but then she thought back over the things Willamena actually did say to her. In the past few days, maybe longer, she had been trying to lead Darcy toward an answer that she didn’t want to hear. She was still resentful for what the witch woman had done to Colby, and that anger had been blinding her. In fact, just the other night when she’d been dreaming in her bedroom, and the ghost had tried to break through her closet door, Willamena had told her to open it up, and find the answers she needed.
If she’d listened then, or any of the times that Willamena had tried to help, maybe this whole thing could have been avoided somehow.
Well. Imagine that.
“Fine, you’ve been trying to help me, Willa. Is that what you want me to say?”
“Hmm. That, and I want you to admit that you needed someone today, and I was there for you.”
“For Pete’s sake. Yes, you were there for me. But tell me…why did you do it, Willa? You’re not exactly someone who’s known for being altruistic.”
Willamena gasped dramatically. “Why would you ever say such a thing about me?”
“Seriously? Maybe because you tried to kill my daughter.”
Willamena waggled her finger at Darcy. “Non, non, non. Not kill. I tried to use her body, I will admit that, because she is my descendant and she is a powerful, powerful witch. I wanted to feel that again. The connection to my own life’s blood made it possible.”
“My daughter,” Darcy said in a level voice, “is not a witch. Our family has a gift. We have abilities that other people don’t. That doesn’t make us witches. Let’s get that settled for the last time, all right? No spells. No dancing around naked in the light of the full moon.”
“Mmm. I would not knock that until you have tried it, sweet Darcy. It can be very liberating, I assure you.”
Darcy wrapped her robe closer and tied it at her waist as she got up from the bed. “Why did you save my life? You never did answer my question.”
The other woman shrugged, her shade flickering like the light of a dying candle. “I saved you, Darcy Sweet, because you reached out across time with your power. I have felt you calling me from that point in your life for longer than even I realized. I think, possibly, it was that cry for help which drew me from my native home in France, back when I was alive, all the way to this side of the world. Yes. I thought I was coming here to gain power. Little did I know the power I felt was you, Darcy Sweet, calling out to me for help. All this time, I have been coming here to help you.”
Those words stunned Darcy. She had felt the power running through her when she called out for help in Gilbert’s garage. She had been close to death so many, many times before in her life. Never, perhaps, closer than this. Trapped and alone, with no way to help herself, she had used her family gift to call out for help…and Willamena Duell had answered.
The question was, how?
“I didn’t know…” Darcy had to swallow back a lump in her throat. “I didn’t know the gift could do that. I didn’t realize it had that kind of…power.”
“Oh, it does. That, and so much more. Think about your own daughter. Colby is so powerful with her gift, even now. She is stronger than you were at her age. Possibly stronger than you are now. Possibly stronger than anyone in the entire Sweet family line, myself included. Think of the things she will be able to do when she grows up and comes into her own. She will be a force to be reckoned with.”
“She’s only a little girl,” Darcy protested. “I want her to have her childhood. I want her to be proud of her gift, of everything she is and everything she ever will be, but I won’t turn her into a monster like you would have.”
Willamena frowned. “I know.”
“Wait…what?” Darcy had expected another argument like she usually got from the witch woman. Having her agree with anything at all was a new experience. “What do you mean, I know? Is that your version of an apology?”
In a small voice, the ghost said, “C’est de ma faute.”
Darcy didn’t speak much French, but she didn’t think she had to in order to understand that one. It was her fault, Willamena was saying. Her mistake. She really was apologizing. Darcy didn’t know how she felt about that. “You know I wanted to kill you for what you did to my daughter.”
She snorted. “You can not kill a ghost, dear.”
“There are things worse than death.”
“Yes,” Willamena had to agree. “There are. I was in a place worse than death, to tell the truth. I was trapped within myself. I did terrible things to people because I wanted what they had. I wanted power. I wanted all the power, for myself. I had corrupted my soul. It was dark as the pits of Hell, and colder than the ice trapped in the heart of a dead star. I was lost. I was evil. I admit this, and you will not argue with me.”
“You got that right. No arguments from me at all.”
The ghost’s smile came and went. “But I have changed. I have become more than I was. It was not easy. It was not…comfortable.”
“Then why did you change? A leopard doesn’t change its spots, you know.”
“But people do. Even, sometimes, from beyond the grave. Your Great Aunt Millie told you again and again that you needed me in your life, Darcy Sweet. She told you we were connected. We are. And it was for this moment.”
“For you to save my life? Well, I guess that’s a good enough reason.”
“Perhaps, but it was not only that. This was a teaching moment between us. You see now that your gift is not just what you thought it was. You have learned that there is a power within you that you have never even dreamt of. The family gift, as you put it, can do so much more than you know. Dwell on that, Darcy Sweet. Think on that, and understand.”
Darcy couldn’t help but notice Willamena’s choice of words. Dwell on it, she had said. Dwell. It sounded so close to the woman’s actual last name, Duell, that she couldn’t help but wonder if Willamena was putting some secret meaning into her words.
Maybe they had ended up in each other’s lives for a reason. Trapped in that silver box of hers, or worming her way through her daughter Colby’s soul, she had been there to save Darcy when she needed it. And she was right about the gift, to be sure. Using it the way she had, to call out for help, had been a totally new experience.
What else didn’t she know about this gift she had lived with since birth?
As much as she hated to admit it, Great Aunt Millie had been ri
ght. She did need Willamena Duell.
“Thank you,” she said again, meaning it sincerely now. “I suppose you aren’t as vile as I thought you were.”
The ghost unfolded herself from her pretentious chair and held out her hand languidly to Darcy. “Thank you. That is the nicest thing anyone has said to me in over a century. I will miss you, Darcy Sweet.”
“Miss me? Why would you miss me?”
A shadow already, Willamena Duell faded further until she was just an outline in the gloom of Darcy’s dream. When she smiled, it was as intangible as a rainbow on a rainy day. “I will be leaving now. That is the reason I will miss you.”
“What? Why?” It surprised Darcy that she even cared. It wasn’t that long ago she had been threatening to do an exorcism to get rid of the witch woman.
“It is how it must be,” Willamena told her. “My time on Earth was done years and years ago. I knew that, and yet I clung to life any way I could. Using people, like your daughter, to extend my time. It was wrong, and I see that now, but it was who I used to be. Now…I am done. I have fulfilled myself in ways I never considered before meeting you. You did this for me, Darcy. You helped me. As much as this moment in time was for you, it was for me as well. You have saved me, as I have saved you. Darcy Sweet, you are a far better vessel for our family gift than I ever was.”
“I’m not a witch,” Darcy felt the need to point out, maybe for the last time.
She felt the ghost’s hand slip into hers, warm and tingly. “No. You are not a witch. You are more than that. Be well, Darcy Sweet. Enjoy your life.”
Darcy blinked, and she was gone.
The last day before then end of the winter break from school dawned early with a clear blue sky. The temperatures promised to rise into the high forties today, unseasonably warm for Valentine’s Day.
Darcy planned on enjoying it to the fullest.
Thanks to the miracle of two-day shipping, Jon woke up to find a brand-new ergonomic leather chair sitting in the living room, wrapped in a red bow. It was from the Executive Manager’s selection, and quite nearly a thing of beauty. Darcy was sure she saw tears in her husband’s eyes when he saw it. He spent the next twenty minutes giving their two children merry-go-round rides in the spinning seat.
