“What if we can’t?” Keith asked.
“I think there will be more and more of them. They feed off dreams. They make people have bad dreams, and then worse dreams. The more awful the dream, the better they taste. I think that’s why all the fights and violence are spreading. It’s already out of control. If we can’t shut this... this gateway, I don’t know what will happen. I just know it will be awful.”
Keith exhaled through his nose, studying the deep cave. “I’m not sure we can fill it. It’s too bad we can’t just cover it with something. Will that work?”
“I don’t think so.” Nann didn’t know for sure, but some inner voice said no.
He moved the flashlight to the stakes. “Well, there was something here before. It’s hard to make out with the flash. You can see dead grass.”
Nann squinted. Sure enough, she could tell that something lay on the grass long enough to kill it. A skinny board, or a big rope, maybe.
“It wasn’t a tarp, or there’d be a big patch of white,” Keith said.
She stared for a while, trying to figure it out.
“Too bad we can’t hang up a big dream catcher over Cemetery Street.” Keith backed away from the cave. “You know, like we do with the Christmas banners.”
“A big...” Nann’s eyes went wide. The words made her think of her upturned vase, wrapped with willow fronds. It resembled a three-dimensional net. And a dream catcher, well, that pretty much looked like a net, right? Or a spider web. What better to catch yicky bugs than a great big web?
“You okay, Nann?” Keith’s features bent with concern.
She ignored him. The lines on the parchment. Nann thought they were drawn to connect elements on the page. But what if the whole thing was one complete drawing? In the most abstract sense, the geometric shape could be perceived as a spider web.
Day-glow orange ribbons at the end of the stakes flapped in the predawn breeze. Nann had seen others. Slowly, she faced the door to the dog run.
What had Nick said about Perkins? It’s the kind of thing all human witches do—summon creatures to do their bidding. But what if that was wrong? What if the Somniumites were the ones doing the bidding? Could you train dogs with dreams? Could you train them to hide out in the woods, guarding the house? Could you train them to...?
“Where are you going?”
Nann opened the side door. The dog run was long and low, constructed of two-by-fours and chicken wire. It ran from the shelter to the back porch. She looked at the chewed tangle of rope on the floor. Ducking down, she moved closer to the ropes. Fumbling through, she came up with a twist of orange ribbon. It was the kind of stuff that surveyors used, woven plastic of some kind used to mark boundaries. The marking tape was tied around a loop of heavy hemp rope. It looked like it had been placed there on purpose, to mark something.
Like maybe a place to attach the loop to a stake.
“What is this?” Keith’s voice sounded behind her.
Nann pulled, trying to drag the snarl of heavy rope. “I think it’s a dream catcher.”
“Let me.” The deputy sidled past Nann. “Looks like it’s been chewed on.”
“I think the Somniumites were using Perkins to get a foothold in this world. He thought he summoned them, controlled them. But really, they just wanted to get out of that cave, feed and spread. Maybe they dreamed up the idea to use dogs. Perkins believed he was feeding the things with dog dreams. But the Somniumites were using the dogs to bust out.”
“You’ve totally lost me.” Keith heaved the rope out of the dog run.
Once he got it into the shelter, Nann helped pull. “I’m barely figuring it out myself. But these little orange tape flags on the loops—”
“Match up with the tape flags on the stakes,” he finished.
They got the twisted net out the back door. With only a yard of space, it took time to untangle the web and spread it out. “What time is it?” Nann asked.
Keith glanced at his watch. “Quarter of six.”
“Oh. My. Gawdess. We’ve got like twenty minutes to get this in place.”
The deputy grabbed a marked loop. He looked at the slope of the ridge. Nann thought it was too steep to climb. But Keith put a foot on one of the lower stakes. Grunting, he pulled the loop up and over the top post. Nann grabbed a loop at the bottom. Stretching the net, she managed to hook the diagonal corner in place. She could see that the dead grass mirrored the placement. This was how the net had hung before.
They switched sides, Keith attaching the other top loop while Nann stretched the web tight and snagged the bottom stake. Both of them stepped back, although there was only a single step before their backs hit the dog shelter.
“It doesn’t look like much,” Keith said. And it didn’t. A bunch of ropes tied together in what appeared a haphazard manner. It was not even like a net, or sequential like a spiderweb, but the roughly twelve-foot square easily covered the cave, and then some. “What now?”
Nann took out her phone to look at the time. It was six-fourteen. Sunrise. She heard a pop. The net vibrated. There was a little shower of powder, like dry fireworks.
Keith hadn’t noticed. “Do you hear that? It sounds like killer bees.”
Nann listened. A deep, buzzing hum filled the air, growing louder. It sounded too low to be bees. Overhead, there was a hiss in the leaves atop the ridge. Nann felt no breeze. For a moment, she fought rising panic, remembering the root network in that other dimension. She took a deep breath. Steadied herself. Squinting in the low light, she saw nothing.
“Holy—”
Nann saw the uneven net of the dream catcher bow inward toward the cave, an invisible pressure against it. There was a pop, and another. Little showers of dust exploded. Like the end of a dull fireworks show, the tiny explosions peppered the ropes.
“Like popcorn,” Keith whispered.
Nann heard angry, whiny little death screams. Even though she couldn’t see them, she knew the Somniumites were dying against the dream catcher. Though the sound was awful, she felt a satisfying sense of triumph. Pew! Pew! Pew-pew-pew! Like moths on a bug zapper. The dying monsters left behind a scent of flowers and ozone.
Looking a little green, Keith opened the back door of the dog shelter. “I guess it’s working. But I’ve had enough.”
Nann had too. They left the straining, bouncing net behind and walked back to the front yard. “I think this is the end of a long nightmare.”
Chapter 23
Nann frowned at Cricket, the yellow-green paint marred by bite marks, the front bumper hanging, the bald rim, the shredded canopy top, the gooped up glass. She gave the car a pat on the hood. “Poor girl.”
“Looks like your car got eaten.” One of the women from Animal Control walked by, leading a sleepy dog to her truck.
“Almost,” Nann didn’t mean to say out loud.
Keith was talking to another deputy. “If these dogs weren’t all fixed, I’d suspect a puppy mill. Didn’t we remove a half a dozen dogs from this place already?”
A tow truck rolled down Old State Road and backed up to Cricket. “Tinker’s Auto?” the truck operator asked.
“Yeah,” Nann said, hoping Tink would be on speaking terms with her again.
Keith moved beside her, watching Cricket getting towed away. “Need a ride?”
“Looks like.”
“I still don’t get the dogs and the invisible bugs thing.”
Nann faced him. “You know Arthur Perkins escaped from an asylum, right?”
He nodded. “That did come to our attention.”
“Then we’ll never know what his motives were. I’m thinking that he got a hold of something and lost control. Or maybe he never had control in the first place.”
“Control of invisible bugs?”
“I know, right?” Nann said. “A crazy idea to begin with.”
“Once again, I see it, but I don’t believe it.”
The Animal Control guys called out that they were done. Keith waved the
m on. “I hope they find homes for those dogs.”
“They take to training well,” Nann said. If a bunch of invisible bugs could get them to pull down a heavy dream catcher, who knew what else those dogs could do? She thought of Primrose, the dog Tink adopted. Was Perkins on his way to adding that sloppy, floppy animal to his pack? Maybe she was a little leery of the giant puppy, but it gave her a shiver to think of the big guy in the hands of Perkins—and his swarm of dream eaters.
“What happened to that slick guy, Nick O’Broin?” Keith asked.
Nann had almost forgotten about him. Would he manage to heal himself in his mind-blowing dominion? She had a feeling he would. “He’s home now.”
“Is home close to here?”
Nann shrugged a shoulder. “Hard to say. He lives in an adjacent dimension. Why? Are you jealous?”
“Adjacent dimension.” Keith shook his head. But answered in the affirmative. “Yeah, I was a little jealous when I saw you talking to him in the store.”
“Wow.” Nann frowned, impressed. “That’s kinda nice.”
“You’re supposed to say that I don’t need to be jealous.”
“You don’t. He’s getting married.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Nann suppressed a smile. “You meant that you don’t need to be jealous, because you’re the only guy I’m interested in?”
“I was hoping for something like that, yeah,” Keith nodded.
Nann felt like giggling. She suppressed this, too. “I do have a great deal of fondness for you.”
“That’s—a start, I guess.”
She gave herself a moment, sorting through her thoughts. “Y’know, I’ve always kinda liked you. But I’ve kept my distance. I had to. I didn’t want you to see all the bizarre-o magic stuff I deal with all the time. It didn’t seem right. You’re so... Normal?”
“Nice of you.”
“But you’re also a huge dork. You’ve been playing along all this time. I’ve been really busy hiding my talking pig. If you had dropped a hint that you knew about all this stuff...”
Keith leaned closer. “What?”
“Shut. The truck. Off. We could’ve at least been on a date by now.”
He thought it over. “Your pig talks?”
Nann’s jaw dropped. She backhanded his arm. “Shut up!”
“I’ve got a ton of paperwork to file, a huge caseload to work through. But I’m off next Sunday. You close the shop on Sundays, right?”
“Deputy Keith Schwenk, are you asking me out?”
He nodded. “I am.”
Nann went a little tingly. And then bit her lower lip. “Okay, yes. But first, how about an awkwardly silent ride to Tinker’s Automotive?”
A FEW DAYS LATER, ZINNIA walked into the store before noon.
“Okay, so I’m so freakin insecure that some stupid dreams made me angry at you. Forgive me?”
Nann bobbed her head from side to side, as if weighing her thoughts. “Sure. If you’re buying lunch, we’re square.”
“Margie’s?”
“Is there anyplace else?” Nann smirked.
Zinnia raised her brows. “Actually, yes, there’s a diner that just opened on Fifth Street.”
Calamity Corners was slowly coming to life, Nann thought. “Let’s give it a try.”
Tink was installing a new top on Cricket, so they took Zinnia’s red truck. “Y’know, I totally get why you got so jealous. You’re the most insecure person I know.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“But Tink? She always seems so calm, so self-possessed.”
Zinnia had to wait to make a left on Fifth. There was actual traffic on Cemetery Street. Once again, Nann thought that the town was getting back on its feet. Or maybe its knees.
“You gotta cut Tink some slack, Nann. I think Manuel is her first real boyfriend.”
“Tink already apologized. She offered to fix up Cricket for free. I settled for a crappy loaner instead. Insurance covered the rest.”
Zinnia shook her head. “I don’t get you, Nann. If you were really angry at me because of some dumb dreams, I wouldn’t be so quick to forgive.”
Nann knew that those dumb dreams were much more than that. But she didn’t let on. “Actually, the thought that you and Tink think I’m smokin hot enough to snag guys who obviously care about you, well, that just inflates the heck out of my self-esteem.”
Zinnia side-eyed her. “Put it that way, maybe I’m still mad at you.”
“Well, it’s not just you. Even Keith thought I was hot enough to snag a movie-star looking guy like Nick O’Broin. Talk about getting all jelly.” Nann had dreamed of Nick. Not a naughty dream. He spoke to her in rhyme, telling her that he was fine, the gateway was closed from the Twih side. This was good to know, but she would’ve been okay with naughty, too.
“You really like that cop.” Zinnia pulled into a parking lot. A silvery, old-school dining car diner sat in the center of the blacktop. More than a few cars were parked.
“I do kinda like him.”
“Kinda like him? Oh, admit it, Nann. You’re all googly over that guy.”
Nann stepped out of the truck. “Okay, I admit it.”
“Ha!” Zinnia exited the truck, stuck her tongue out. “I knew it! Should I sqee?”
“Not yet.” They headed for the door.
“Well, when?”
“Maybe when I tell you that he asked me out. We’re going on a date Sunday.”
Zinnia’s eyes popped. “Really?”
“Yep.”
“Now can I sqee?”
“Squee away.”
Zinnia squeed.
Get the next Calamity Corners Witch Cozy Mystery Book:
A Cauldron of Witch Tricks
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Catalog of Books
Lilith Blackward Cozy Witch Mystery Series
What the Hex
Hex to the No
To Hex or Not to Hex
CALAMITY CORNERS COZY Witch Mystery Series
Calm Before the Witch Storm
The Witch is in the Details
Better the Witch You Know
A Witch Axe to Grind
TRIPLET WITCH SISTERS Mystery Series
Two’s Company, Three’s a Coven
Resting Witch Face
Bewitched and Bewildered
Triple Toil and Trouble
WITCH DETECTIVE SERIES
Payback’s a Witch
Come Witch or High Water
Witch Boots on the Ground
THE WITCH SISTERS OF Stillwater
Hoodoo and Just Desserts
A Shade of Murder
That Ol’ Black Magic
A Whole Lotta Witchin Goin On
The Beast Cometh
Secrets and Sorcery
THE LUCKY DILL DELI Mystery Series
A Yuletide Wallop
Haunted Homicide
The Leprechaun’s Loot
THE SINISTER CASE SERIES
Mirror, Mirror Murder Them All
A Wicked Enchantment
A Scorching Spell
THE GRUMPY CHICKEN Irish Pub Series
A Frosty Mug of Murder
Treachery on Tap
A Highball and a Low Blow
Cursed With a Twist
A Whiskey Sour Wipeout
OLD SCHOOL DINER COZY Mysteries
Murder at Stake
Murder Well Done
A Side Order of Deception
Murder, Basted and Barbecued
Murder Ala Mode
The Candy Cane Killer
The Blue Plate Slayer
THE CURIOSITY SHOP Cozy Mysteries
The Curious Case of the Cursed Spectacles
The Curious Case of the Cursed Dice
The Curious Case of the Cursed Dagger
The Curious Case of the Cursed Looking Glass
The Curious Case of the Cursed Crucible
WITCHY WOMEN OF COVEN Grove Series
THE WITCHING ON THE Wall
A Witching Well of Magic
Witching the Night Away
Witching There’s Another Way
Witching Your Life Away
Witching You Wouldn’t Go
Witching for a Miracle
TEASEN & PLEASEN HAIR Salon Series
A Hair Raising Blowout
Wash, Rinse, Die
Holiday Hooligans
Color Me Dead
False Nails & Tall Tales
CAESAR’S CREEK SERIES
A FROZEN SCOOP OF MURDER
Death by Chocolate Sundae
Soft Serve Secrets
Ice Cream You Scream
Double Dip Dilemma
Melted Memories
Triple Dip Debacle
Whipped Wedding Woes
A Sprinkle of Tropical Trouble
A Drizzle of Deception
SWEET HOME MYSTERY Series
Creamed at the Coffee Cabana
A Caffeinated Crunch
A Frothy Fiasco
Punked by the Pumpkin
Peppermint Pandemonium
Expresso Messo
A Cuppa Cruise Conundrum
The Brewing Bride
A Witch Axe to Grind Page 11
