Dad took a last sip of his beer and then got up from the table. “Ravens are typically on our side. Symbiotic with wolves in the wild, finishing off remains of the kills. Did you stop to consider maybe they were trying to warn you, not ask for help?”
“Oh,” I said, my throat suddenly tight. “Yeah, I didn’t think of that.”
As I got ready for bed that night, I wished I knew if Ms. Wilson’s ghost claims were true. I wished I could trust her. Because I didn’t want to think about what the ravens were trying to warn us about. Finishing off remains, cleaning up evidence of wolf kills—none of that sounded like a good thing.
***
The next day at school, a substitute filled in for Ms. Wilson. It didn’t surprise me—I figured she was still at home cleaning up the mess from the incident. No one made a big deal about her being absent. There’d been a pretty ugly cold going around. At the end of the day, as if to match the bleak sky, a light rain started to drizzle. I couldn’t wait to get to a hot chocolate and a comfy couch. As I headed out, I looked around for Rose and Fawn, but they must’ve still been at their lockers. I texted them to meet me at the truck, but then Fawn texted that Lewis was dropping them home later.
On my way to the parking lot, Alicia flagged me down. “I forgot to tell you—I found another folder of pictures from the Harvest Festival on the drive. I wasn’t the only one with a camera.”
“Oh, cool. I didn’t find what I was looking for yesterday,” I told her.
Alicia dug in her bag for her phone. “Well, this folder was stashed in a weird place, filed with pictures from homecoming. Someone must have saved it wrong.”
“Weird. Who do you think took them?”
“Tom’s the only other person with access to school cameras. I remember seeing him at the parade day, hanging out near his father’s store. Anyway, I’ll text you a link.”
“Okay, awesome,” I said, not sure exactly why Tom would have hidden a folder of photos, but maybe he’d dumped them into the wrong place by accident.
“Ladies!” Our friend Jeanie Yamada ran up, waving a little flyer. Her brown eyes were all lit up, just like her smile. “Did you hear about the bowling alley? They’re going to start having moonlight bowls and dance parties on Saturday nights. Finally something to do in this town.”
“Oh, man,” I said, glancing down at the flyer. “I can’t even begin to tell you how much I hate bowling.” Actually, I just hated the bowling alley, but I couldn’t say that to them.
Alicia hit me in the arm. “It’s not about the bowling. We could go as a group and hang out. You could bring Morgan, if he’s feeling better.”
“Yeah, let’s go this weekend,” Jeanie said, clapping her hands in delight.
“Um… I’ll think about it,” I said.
Jeanie and Alicia shared a look. “Hey, just ‘cause you have a dude, don’t forget us again,” Alicia said. “We’ve only got this last year together, right?”
“I heard the food’s really good there. The owner’s son is the chef,” Jeanie said.
“Nathaniel,” I murmured.
“Yeah, tall guy, kind of scruffy-cute,” Jeanie said. “I’ve seen him around town.”
“Wow,” I said, making a face. “Not a nice guy.”
“So he’s edgy,” Alicia said. “Kinda like Morgan.”
“Ugh, no. No, he’s not.”
They both laughed, thinking I was kidding. I motioned toward the truck. “Text me that link. I gotta go to the coffee shop.”
Alicia held up her phone. “I will, grumpy pants.”
As I drove out of the parking lot, I saw dark flashes moving along in the trees. An escort of ravens.
***
It was a typical night at the coffee shop: Workers on their way to the night shift at the lumber mill, stopping for Thermoses of coffee and pastries to go, a book group who parked themselves on the couches and loudly debated the theme of a historical romance novel, several kids from school studying, a mother and little son attempting a game of checkers but mostly having a standoff about chewing on the game pieces.
As I drove home after closing, it seemed as though the rain we’d had earlier in the evening had cleansed the air a bit. The fire stench, metallic and sharp, no longer dominated the air. I could almost smell the river again, and the scent of the evergreen forest above the pulp odor from the mill.
I pulled into Maggie’s driveway and parked. I’d made plans to see Morgan after work, but first I wanted some advice from the one person who might know about woo-woo stuff. Ms. Wilson and her visitation was on my mind. I knocked and waited, but didn’t hear anything. Then I tried again.
Finally, Maggie cracked open the door. “Everything okay at the shop?” she asked, wiping some flour from her cheek. Something yeasty and garlicky wafted in the air behind her.
“Yeah, I was wondering if you could give me some metaphysical advice. Maybe lend me a book or two.”
“That’s an intriguing request,” she said, opening the door wider.
“Whoa, smells good in here.” I followed her inside and took a seat at the kitchen island, which was covered with baking stuff. My mouth watered at the scent of pizzas resting on cooling racks.
“You’re just in time. I need test-tasters,” Maggie said, getting a plate from the cabinet. “Okay,” she added, laughing because I’d already started nibbling one of the cheese and pepperoni slices.
“Sorry,” I said around a mouthful. The slice was chewy, the sauce perfectly tangy with a touch of garlic and oregano. “Delicious.”
Maggie grinned and slapped a ball of dough on the counter. “It’s kind of top secret, so I didn’t want to bake these off at the shop. But if things go well, I may have a regular dough order coming in.”
I stared down at the slice in my hand, still not getting what she was saying.
Maggie stretched the dough ball into a round. “Frontier Lanes! They’re serious about expanding. Talking about delivery, too.”
“What? Ezra’s clan is going to be delivering pizza?”
“Clan’s a funny way to put it,” Maggie said, giving me side-eye. “It’s genius, right? No one delivers in this town. Heck, no one even sells hot, fresh pizza here.” She picked up the dough and gave it a twisting toss in the air, catching it and pulling. “I wish I would’ve thought of it myself!”
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” I said.
“You afraid I might get dough on the ceiling fan?” Maggie replied, with a laugh.
“No, I mean, doing more business with the bowling alley.”
“Huh? With the additional orders I’m going to need more production space. I could start a real bakery,” she said, tossing the dough again and catching it.
My mind was reeling from this revelation, but I took another bite of the pizza slice and chewed thoughtfully. Maggie doing more business with Ezra was a bad idea. In fact, I wanted to keep her really far away from them. “Do you have any books in your collection about spirits? You know, like hauntings and how to release ghosts?”
The dough fell with a splat to Maggie’s floured counter. “Who has a ghost?”
“I mean, definitely me. Maybe Ms. Wilson. I don’t have any real proof that what she experienced is real. But if it is, and there’s something I can do to release the spirit…”
Maggie frowned as she shaped the dough into a circle on a wooden pizza peel. “You shouldn’t mess with contacting the dead. Unless you know what you’re doing, you could end up getting the wrong spirit. That’s a butt dial you can’t take back.”
I winced at her joke. “I’m not calling it to come here. I want to kick it out.”
Maggie sighed. “I have a few books that talk about helping souls to the light. I could bring you a book or two tomorrow at work.”
“And some candles or salt or whatever?”
“Salt? You think this is some kind of Wiccan ceremony?” she asked.
“Maggie, you know what I mean. Whatever helps with the process.” I passed her the bowl o
f sauce and she ladled some onto her dough. “I swear I’ll be a good do-it-yourselfer and not invite any evil spirits from the past.”
“Okay. Speaking of the past, maybe you could help me with some historical society stuff tomorrow? I’d ask Morgan, but he’s got another job for Cooper.”
“Sure,” I said.
“If you’re headed upstairs, why don’t you stack some slices on a plate for him? I mean, if you haven’t eaten all of them.”
“You feed him like he’s your own—”
“Little brother,” Maggie finished the sentence as she sprinkled cheese over the layer of sauce. “Hunky little brother.”
“I was going to say that. Well, the brother part, not the other thing. You know how I feel about the word hunk.” I wrapped a piece of foil over the slices and then left Maggie to the rest of her extracurricular baking project.
The motion sensor light clicked on as I crossed the driveway and headed up the stairs to Morgan’s apartment.
He opened the door before I even knocked, taking the plate from me. “So that’s the heavenly scent that’s been torturing my senses?” He pulled a slice of pizza from under the foil. “Oh, sorry, love. It’s nice to see you, too.”
“Go ahead. Eat. It’s fine,” I said, with a laugh, kissing him quickly. “I had one—okay, two slices—downstairs with Maggie.”
I hung my coat and bag on hooks near the door. The apartment was cozy and clean and Morgan had made it feel almost homelike in the weeks he’d been in town. A few of his own books and keepsakes were mixed in on Maggie’s shelves. He handed me a napkin and we walked to the couch area, near the bookshelves and small TV on one wall.
I plunked down onto the couch. “It’s really good. You must’ve heard about why Maggie’s in pizza mode, though.”
Nodding, Morgan crunched into his slice. “Brilliant,” he said.
“Ezra’s pack delivering pizza? Finding the hunters that way. Ugh. The thought of them going into every home in Pioneer Falls with a delivery creeps me out.”
“No,” he said with a little laugh. “Maggie’s pizza’s brilliant. Ezra’s plan is just expansion. Another business to run.” Morgan got up from the couch and returned with two sodas from the small fridge in his kitchenette. He cracked them both open and handed one to me. “They’re sinking their roots deeper into Pioneer Falls financially.”
“Ugh.”
“Aye.” Morgan set his soda onto the table.
“You seem tired. It must’ve been a long day.”
“Not that long.” He leaned over and gave me a kiss. We laughed as we broke apart, the pizza flavor lingering on our tongues.
“You won’t believe this, but Cooper and I were putting in some security cameras for Ms. Wilson. And doing some closet work, installing new shelves.” He took a sip of his soda.
“She wasn’t at school today. How did she seem?”
“Distracted… Ah, there was something curious I wanted to show you,” he said, wiping his fingers on his napkin and grabbing his phone. He opened the photo app and held it out to me. An image of mesh wire and metal slats filled the screen.
“Cages? Rabbit hutch?”
“Something like that.” Morgan scrolled to the next picture, taken from farther away. Now I could see the cages were large and way off the ground. “An aviary.”
“For the ravens,” I whispered. “Where did you take this?”
Morgan took back his phone and set it on the table. “Ms. Wilson’s backyard. I only saw them when I took some debris from our work outside.”
“She didn’t see you taking pictures.”
“I don’t believe so,” Morgan said, after a sip of his soda. “Notice the cages are quite rusted, quite old.”
“Millicent,” I murmured, a chill rippling over my skin.
“That was my thought as well. Perhaps she cared for a raven or two.”
“Dad said that the ravens might be trying to warn us about general danger. But I know I saw her in that vision. She’s still here. What if the ravens are trying to get us to solve her murder?”
“Ravens don’t live that long,” Morgan said. “Life span about ten or fifteen years in the wild. Maybe double that in captivity.”
“So they’re not normal ravens. They’re doing a ghost’s bidding.” I took a sip of the soda and then rested my head on Morgan’s shoulder.
“I’ve never heard of a werewolf keeping ravens. Or a werewolf ghost.”
“Wait—how do we know Millicent was a werewolf?”
Morgan kissed the top of my head. “You said it, love. She and this Charlie bloke were killed the night of the Harvest Festival’s full moon in 1957. The old-timers were using the festival to draw out wolves, catch them changing.”
I sat up straight on the couch. “But she and Charlie were dressed up in costumes when they died. They weren’t transforming. We don’t know if either of them was a wolf. That’s all assumption without proof.”
“Perhaps someone believed she was a wolf,” Morgan said. “That’s all it would take. You really want to figure this out, don’t you,” He put his arm around me and pulled me close.
“I don’t want to be haunted by visions. Or by birds.”
“So it’s not your love of the truth?” he said, his smile quirking a little. “The need to find out what really happened?”
“I love a good ghost story.”
“You love a good story, period.” Morgan stroked his thumb over my cheek. “You’re a natural journalist. But maybe this isn’t your story to tell, love.”
“But if not me, then who? If this ghost has been restless for decades, doesn’t she deserve justice?”
“Aye,” Morgan said. “I see your point. I’ll poke around a little at Ms. Wilson’s when I’m over there next.”
I kissed him and said, “I’d value your intel.”
“Would you now?” He lowered his lips toward mine again and for the moment, I forgot all about ravens and ghosts. Morgan was everything to me. And nothing supernatural was going to keep us apart.
Chapter Seven
“How many more are there?” I asked Maggie as I shoved another white banker’s box into the back of our truck the next afternoon. She smelled like coffee with a hint of the carrot-cake muffins she’d baked for her Wednesday special. The scent was making my stomach growl.
Maggie hefted another white box into my arms. “This is the last one.”
I added it to the stacks and then closed the tailgate. All those record boxes smelled of dust and mildew. Judging by the layers of grit and cobwebs on the outsides, it didn’t seem as though anyone had touched those boxes for years.
When I’d agreed to help Maggie, I didn’t realize it’d mean getting things from the Town Hall basement. Apparently, old photographs, deeds, and a lot of other things that hadn’t ever been digitized were awaiting the new organizer of the historical society. I couldn’t wait to look through the boxes. There had to be something about Millicent and Charlie’s murder somewhere in the archives. Maybe a clue, or something to help me figure out how to send that spirit and her ravens to the light.
Maggie returned the hand truck through the doors of Town Hall, and Gus, the custodian, gave us a wave as he locked up the door.
I glanced up, noticing I wasn’t being stalked by ravens at the moment. The trees were bare. The sky was a swirl of dove-gray and white, the late afternoon clouds hanging low. I’d thought I’d felt a snowflake earlier. It would likely freeze that night, the forecasters were saying. Not unusual for November in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains.
As Maggie walked back, I climbed in and started up the truck. “I’m glad we didn’t bring your car. A few boxes was a full load for this thing.”
“I guess so,” Maggie said, wiping a little bead of sweat from her forehead, then smoothing some of the curls escaping her bun. “I definitely didn’t plan such a workout.”
“Now to Mr. Gray’s house?”
Maggie nodded. “We won’t be able to open until January,
but I think we should be ready for a fundraiser next month. It takes money to launch a non-profit like this.”
I headed down Main Street. “It’s kind of weird he left the house to the historical society when it wasn’t even up and running.”
“Probably his dream to see it open again someday,” Maggie said, rolling down her window and leaning an arm on the sill. “His gift may be the only good thing to come out of the tragedy. I still can’t believe he killed Rick Bowman.”
“He deserved it,” I said, gunning the gas a little, which made the truck lurch.
“Hey!” Maggie said, buckling her seatbelt in a hurry.
“Sorry… Rick Bowman championed the wolf-shooting ordinance.”
“Well, I don’t think anyone deserves to be killed with a two-by-four. It’s gonna take some good marketing to help people think of Mr. Gray’s house as the society’s home. Folks might feel odd coming to an event in a killer’s house.” She gave a little shiver and rolled her window back up. “Though maybe the notoriety would actually be a draw.”
I made the turn off of Main onto Larch. “People around town liked Mr. Gray. They know he was a good man.”
“Maybe. But one violent choice kind of erased all that,” Maggie said, sighing. “All those years of doing good obliterated in one night.”
I didn’t try to change Maggie’s mind. Bowman and his hunters had closed in on me and my dad, on Cooper. Mr. Gray had saved all of us. And he’d received a bullet as thanks. He’d been doing what was right—normal people just couldn’t know about it. But all the local wolves knew what he’d done that night.
“Well, a building is a building. Especially a free one,” Maggie admitted, as we pulled into the driveway of Mr. Gray’s tan Craftsman house.
The lights were off so it seemed a little lonely, but the yard looked maintained. The old man had been scrupulous about his manicured lawn and his tidy hedges. His flower beds were even mulched with red bark, ready for the cold weather.
A Light So Cruel (Pioneer Falls Book 3) Page 7
