Eclairs, Scares & Haunted Home Repairs

by Erin Johnson

  I shuddered.

  “I stole his keys, unlocked my shackles, and debated what to do next. I could have run off into the woods, but I had no money, no resources. No, better to blend in for a bit, take what I needed, then make my escape.”

  She paced in front of the fire… in front of Hank. Hang on, I mentally implored him. Please, hang on. His bloodshot eyes fluttered shut, but still his ribs rose with shallow breaths.

  “I’ve always been a keen observer—it’s what allowed me to pick my victims.” The witch, Chiyoko, nodded, and her bird skull necklace clattered.

  “I’d watched the people on the train coming and going, and knew this woman had boarded alone. She kept her chin up, as though proud, but I could tell by her threadbare clothing that she was on hard times. When I searched the dead woman’s belongings I found a one-way ticket. I knew she wasn’t planning on returning to the coast—so no one would be expecting her. I stole her clothes, her bags of crystal balls and tarot cards, and her identity. I became Madame Shi, the necromancer.”

  She clicked her long nails together. “But I was missing an eye.” She tapped the cloudy gray one, right on the eyeball.

  I shuddered. If she held Madame Shi’s in her hand, then whose eye was she wearing?

  She sucked air over her rotten teeth. “I’ve preserved it, you see? Like this one.” She lifted the cloudy eyeball the raven had brought me. “Lost my real one in prison. I couldn’t go around with just one eye, so I stole Madame Shi’s.” She cackled. “Her corpse wouldn’t miss it.”

  She held up the cloudy eyeball again. “I dressed her body in my prison uniform, magically sealed the shackles around her wrists, and with a missing eyeball—she passed for me. It would fool most anybody. It all went smoothly. Until I overheard the officers who escorted us back to Kusuri talking about calling that lawyer, Daichi, down to identify the body.”

  She sucked air over her teeth again and snarled. “He would know. We spent a lot of time in that courtroom together. I didn’t catch up with him before he made it to the morgue, but after he left I burned it down and followed him home. Followed him through that dark night, through the wind and the rain. I couldn’t let him spread the word that I was still alive.”

  55

  An Eye for an Eye

  “I took care of the real Madame Shi’s body in that fire at the morgue.” Chiyoko clicked her nails together, a sound that grated against my nerves and made me grit my teeth. “And that officer. He knew the truth—that it wasn’t my body lying on the cold, hard slab.”

  Chiyoko had been the one to set the fire. And Chief Abe was right, he’d heard the officer trapped inside sound the alarm that a killer was on the loose before the flames engulfed him. My head felt like it might explode, my jaw and temples aching. And these dark thoughts only worsened the pain.

  “No one could ever identify the body and recognize that it wasn’t me.” She sneered. “I followed the lawyer back to that charming house you’re all fixing up.”

  She ran a tongue over her black teeth. “I saw him crouch in front of that window, waving to be let in to the basement. I saw him catch those two, together.”

  She cackled. “His son and wife, cheating on him, together.” She snorted. “No wonder he was so distracted when he dashed inside, tearing up the kitchen, looking for a stiff drink.”

  Drool dribbled down her chin. “It was easy to sneak up behind him and smash him over the head with a log from the fireplace.”

  What a sick woman.

  “I didn’t want anyone to find his body and suspect a killer was on the loose, so I magicked him over to the graveyard and buried him in another’s grave. With all the heavy rain and felled trees, I knew no one would think twice about some disturbed earth.”

  Her expression grew dark, her eyes hard in the harsh flickering shadows cast by the fire in the fireplace. “It wasn’t until I’d laid him in the casket that I realized I’d lost the eye I stole from the real Madame Shi.”

  I frowned. She hadn’t noticed before then? I struggled to think against the pain of my headache. Maybe she didn’t notice because the eye wasn’t functional. Maybe it was enchanted to move and blink but she couldn’t actually see with it. It would explain her lack of depth perception.

  “I cursed the fates, but thinking quick, plucked the dead lawyer’s eye out and have been wearing it ever since.” She growled. “I retraced my steps that night, but couldn’t find the other eye. I had to seek shelter from the storm like everyone else.”

  She held up the cloudy eye to the light, the one the raven had brought me. “The trouble this small thing has caused me.” She sneered again, drool dribbling down her chin, streaking through the cakey white face paint.

  I fought to focus. So she hadn’t noticed she’d lost an eye right away, because she didn’t see with it. Maybe we could use that.

  I forced my throbbing eyes open and coughed. Then coughed again. Misaki, who’d collapsed in the center of the room with her hands clutching her middle, peeled an eye open. I lifted my brows, then glanced toward the witch, and then back at Misaki. “She can’t see out of her right eye,” I hissed. My voice sounded weaker and hoarser than I’d expected.

  Iggy’s eyes grew round. “Okay, so she has bad depth perception.” He rolled his eyes. “We need to figure out a way to get you guys out of here.”

  “That is the way.” I grunted as another spasm took hold of my stomach. “Maybe.”

  Misaki’s dark eyes narrowed, then widened. She nodded at me, then slowly turned her head toward the witch, who paced in front of the fireplace.

  If we could somehow attack her from that side, she wouldn’t see it coming and maybe we’d have a chance. If I could get the witch to face me, then Misaki would be in her blind spot. Maybe she could take her down, or break the spell on her weird poppets.

  I steeled myself and raised my voice as loud as I could. “Why are you telling us all this?” My chest heaved with the effort to get out those words.

  She turned to me, mismatched eyes narrowed. One of those eyes belonged to the man she’d killed. I shuddered.

  “It’s not like you’re going to tell anyone.” Her lips slid into a gruesome smile. “And watching you all die slowly is my favorite part.” Her voice turned husky. “It’s been a long time since I got to watch anyone waste away.”

  “This lady’s a real piece of work.” Iggy, his lantern still toppled sideways, shook his head.

  I needed to keep her distracted. I cast back through my thoughts. “Why—why did you plant the curse in the house?” It had to have been her.

  The witch rolled the eyeball around in her hand. It reminded me of those stress balls people used. So disturbing.

  “I kept going back to that house, in the middle of the night, searching, always searching for this.” She let out a shaky breath as she admired the cloudy eyeball.

  I gasped. “You’re the reason Emi and Haru thought the house was haunted. It was your footsteps they heard. It was you moving things around.”

  “I couldn’t find the eye. I had to get a better look. So I planted the curse to scare them away—and it worked. I searched that house high and low, night after night. The curse, and my little performance at the séance, did the trick—rumors spread that the place was haunted, so no one else ever went there. But after all these years, I never found the eye. I would’ve left long ago and lived far away from town, but I couldn’t let it go—knowing I’d lost one of my trophies.”

  “Oh. Is that what these are?” Iggy curled his lip at a taxidermied raccoon with the feet of a duck. “I guess one lady’s mangled corpse trash is another lady’s trophy.”

  “So I moved out here, deep in the wilderness to minimize run-ins with other people—people who might recognize me.”

  I grunted and clutched at my burning stomach. “Is that why you use the skull makeup? A mask?”

  She nodded and cackled. “After you’re all dead, which will be soon for some of you….”

  I struggled to lift m
y head and follow her eerie gaze. My heart stopped. “Hank!” He lay on his side, his eyes rolled back, body twitching.

  “He’s nearly gone… just a bit longer.” The witch cackled.

  Anger boiled hot inside my chest. My eyes blazing, I looked at Misaki and nodded. She gave me a grim look and nodded back.

  This wasn’t a great plan. We’d have moments at best to take the witch down, and I could barely speak. But it was our only plan, and I couldn’t just lie here, fear crushing my chest, and watch Hank die.

  The witch closed her gnarled fingers around the eye and whirled on me. “And after searching for years, you find it? Where? Where did you find it, you tricky little sneaks?” Her eyes darted from me to Rhonda. She bared her rotten teeth. “Tell me!”

  With the witch’s gaze locked on me, and her blind right eye angled toward Misaki, the guard stretched herself out, wincing. She reached toward the fireplace. The iron poker lay on the ground, just inches from her fingertips. The witch noticed where my attention was and half turned.

  I blurted the first thing that came to mind to keep her distracted. “If you kill us, you’ll never know where it was all these years.” I grunted as a spasm racked my body. “Right… under… your nose.”

  Chiyoko bared her rotten teeth and lunged closer to me. My stomach turned at the rotting stench as her white face leered over me. “Tell me, girl, or you’ll beg for a quick death.”

  I contorted with pain as another cramp took hold of my feet and calves and I struggled for breath. I squeezed my eyes shut tight. The witch’s wretched breath blew hot on my face.

  “Where did you find the eye, girl?” Her hoarse voice sent shivers up my spine.

  I barely dared to look, but forced an eye open. I looked not up toward the fearsome killer, but behind her. Misaki, a murderous look on her face, held the fire poker in her right hand. She knelt, one knee on the ground, her shoulders heaving with the effort to stand. We needed just another moment of distraction.

  I forced myself to focus on the witch’s face. A long tendril of her ratty black hair brushed across my cheek. I bared my gritted teeth. “Fine. I’ll tell you. Ugh!”

  I exaggerated my pain, scrunching my face up tight. “It—was in—” I lowered my voice to barely a whisper so that the witch had to lean even closer, her focus on making out my words.

  “Yes, girl,” she crooned in her raspy voice.

  I opened my mouth to speak just as Misaki lurched up behind Chiyoko and swung the fire poker at her head.

  56

  A Kind Unkindness

  Chiyoko must’ve caught a hint of movement, because she whirled as Misaki swung.

  She raised her gnarled fist and blocked with poker with a blast of magic that threw Misaki across the room. I cried out as she slammed against the far wall and lay in a crumpled heap.

  My chest tightened as I looked from Hank, who trembled and shook as though seizing, to Misaki, now motionless against the wall. Tears trickled down my cheeks and fell to the filthy, rough floor. That had been our only chance. Was this how it all ended?

  “Iggy?” I whispered, my voice hoarse and throat burning. “I love you, buddy.”

  He shook his head and sniffled. “Nope. You are not giving me a goodbye speech.”

  I pressed my trembling lips together and looked at my flame. I could barely talk, much less give a speech.

  “How dare you.” Chiyoko’s nostrils flared as she sucked in a breath, her mismatched eyes fiery. “You’ll pay for that.”

  She limped over to the magically hovering poppets and snapped her fingers. The curse, the ball of hair and teeth and bone, that hovered over Misaki’s doll dropped closer to it. My friend lurched back to consciousness, her eyes wide but unseeing, her mouth a round O of pain. “Aiiiiii,” she shrieked, clutching her stomach.

  “Misaki,” Maple whimpered from where she lay beside Wiley.

  I bit the inside of my cheek as I looked back to Hank, unresponsive, his convulsions weaker now. I wanted to scream. I’d do anything to end the pain and suffering of Hank and my friends—the people I loved.

  But I could barely talk. My chest felt tight as I gasped for breath, desperate to help, overwhelmed by panic.

  Misaki screamed again. My friend, who’d wrestled sea monsters and never appeared to fear anything, writhed in pain. I balled my hands into fists and dug my nails into my palms.

  If I could just get to my feet and— Another spasm wracked my body, and I curled in on myself. The pain shut out everything else for several moments.

  “Imogen?” Iggy’s voice rose with panic. “Imogen!”

  Chiyoko turned from Misaki, a manic sneer lighting up her face with ghoulish glee. “You’ll all pay.” She waved her hand toward the poppets, and I prepared to surrender to the pain, to the end. I didn’t think I could fight it much longer.

  Just as the curses began to drift lower, suffocatingly close to our poppets, a strange sound outside made the hideous witch pause. She looked toward the window above Misaki’s head, covered in boards. The sound grew louder—a rustling noise, like flapping wings.

  “Caw! Caw!”

  The ravens? There had to be hundreds of them outside, judging by the deafening cries and flapping of wings.

  Chiyoko snarled. “The black birds? At my hut?” She snarled and shouted at the window. “Leave! Or I’ll stuff all of you!”

  As if in answer, the boards over the windows splintered and exploded inward. I jerked in surprise and Chiyoko stumbled back, nearly tripping over a dirty frying pan and a stack of dusty books.

  A tornado of black wings and beaks surged in through the open window and descended upon Chiyoko. I bit my lip, a burst of hope surging through me.

  One of the ravens flapped away from the swarm that tackled the witch to the ground. In a whirl of black magic, the bird transformed into a man who strode over to the magically hovering poppets.

  My eyes widened and my cracked lips stretched into a smile. “Horace.”

  My brother conjured a bucket of water and held it below the poppets. With a wave of his hand, the dolls and the curses fell into the bucket with a splash and a sizzle. Poison-green steam curled up from the bucket, and my brother turned his head away, muttering words I couldn’t hear over the cries of the birds and the shrieks coming from the witch.

  The green mist dissipated and my chest rose, as though heavy bricks had been lifted off it. I pressed a hand to my chest, struggling to breathe, and then rose on a shaky arm. The rest of my lady friends did the same. I looked, panicked, to Hank. He lay still on the ground.

  I rose to my hands and knees and crawled toward him. As I did so, Misaki staggered to her feet, tilted sideways, then growled and launched herself onto the teeming mass of birds.

  They cried out and flapped away as Misaki pinned Chiyoko to the floor. Her strong hands closed around the witch’s throat. “I’ll kill you!” she shrieked. “I’ll kill you for what you did to Jun!”

  Nearly to Hank, I turned, fearful. While I wanted the witch to pay as much as anyone, I knew Misaki. Under her hard exterior was a soft heart, and I didn’t want her to have to live with having killed someone, even someone as odious as Chiyoko.

  My eyes found Horace’s. He’d been watching Misaki pummel the witch with a grin on his face. I flashed my eyes at him, and jerked my head toward my friend. “Please.”

  Horace rolled his eyes and pushed off the kitchen table he’d been leaning against. “Fine.” Cobwebs trailed from the back of his jacket as he strode over to Misaki and grabbed the back of her shirt with one hand.

  He pulled, and when she slapped his hand away and continued to strangle the writhing Chiyoko, my brother blinked in surprise. He grabbed her with both hands and leaned all his weight into dragging Misaki off the witch. As soon as he had, the birds descended again, and the witch shrieked as she disappeared under their flapping black wings and beaks.

  Misaki swatted at Horace. “Let me go.”

  He gave her a lazy blink. “You’re rather stron
g.”

  She slapped at him, but he held the petite guard at arm’s length. He jerked his head toward Jun, still prone on the ground. “Go to him. Let the birds deal with her.”

  She scowled at Horace, but when her eyes landed on Jun, her shoulders slumped and she stopped fighting my brother. She pushed away from him and dove next to Jun.

  She knelt over him, her eyes glistening with tears, and slid her hands around his cheeks. One of the lenses of his glasses had cracked. Her chin trembled until Jun’s eyes fluttered open. She let out a cry of relief.

  His pale, cracked lips slid into a grin as he looked up at her. “You beat up a serial killer for me.”

  She frowned as tears tracked down her cheeks. “Of course. I love you.”

  Jun’s face lit up. “Really?” He turned his head and coughed, a dry, rough sound, then looked back up at Misaki’s face. “I thought that maybe… this was just casual for you.”

  She leaned her face closer to his. “Just because I don’t buy you flowers and write you love poems like you do for me, doesn’t mean I don’t love you.” She bit her lip and lowered her voice. “But I’ll try to let you know a little more often.”

  Jun, still pale and seemingly unable to lift his head, beamed up at her. “How about right now?”

  Misaki rolled her eyes, which sent more tears trickling down her face. “I love you, you dummy, is that clear enough for you?”

  He lifted a trembling hand to the back of her head and pulled her into a kiss. I looked away and focused all my slowly regenerating strength on crawling to Hank. I hoped to the sea goddess that we’d have a happy ending, too. “Hank?” My dry voice cracked. “Hank?”

  57

  Progress

  I finally caught my breath and dragged myself the rest of the way to Hank. I collapsed beside him on my side, staring into his unmoving face. I lifted a trembling hand and brushed a strand of dark, wavy hair out of his face. His cold skin sent a jolt of panic through me. “Hank!”