by Blythe Baker
A Sinister Spell in Faerywood Falls
Blythe Baker
Copyright © 2019 by Blythe Baker
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
Description
Newsletter Invitation
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Excerpt
About the Author
Living under an evil curse is bad ... but dying under one is worse.
Marianne Huffler is cursed – and not just with the ghastly middle name of Prudence. Until she can figure out the magic secrets of her past, she’s doomed to suffer permanent bad luck – and the occasional attempt on her life.
Leaving her hometown of Hillbilly Hollow, Marianne travels to the mountains of Colorado, where she hopes to find answers. What she doesn’t expect to find? Dead bodies!
But when corpses start popping up, Marianne gets drawn into investigating the mysterious deaths. With a cunning vampire, a good looking werewolf, and an angry spell weaver among the suspects, can Marianne catch a killer ... before the killer catches her?
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1
There was no sound except for the pounding of blood rushing through my ears. The air was stale and heavy, with particles of dust swirling, thick with ancient smoke. It coated the inside of my lungs like tar, clogging my sinuses and causing me to sputter and cough.
At least, it would have…if I could open my mouth at all.
Veiled darkness pressed in on my eyes, as if stretched across my face, attempting to blind me. I pried my eyelids open, willing them to catch a glimpse of any light, no matter how small.
Distant, echoing shouts made me stumble, stretching out my hands in front of me. My palms scraped against splintery boards and hot, sticky pain ran between my fingers.
“Ma…rianne…”
The voice was faint, as if it were navigating its way through a dense forest.
A light flared into life, revealing itself at the end of an old, narrow wooden corridor. It wavered and dimmed, and for a brief moment, I feared the light would disappear or that it never existed in the first place.
I dragged my leaden legs toward the light, willing them to move. I couldn’t stop. I had to reach that light, somehow, some way.
“Ma…rianne…”
I knew that voice. Only one person ever called me by my middle name of Marianne. To everybody else, I had always been Prudence. The pounding in my ears grew louder, rushing to remind me that I was living. Each beat of my heart was a reminder that I was still breathing.
My hands struck something hard and splintery. An old wooden door had appeared in my path, blocking the light. It was fastened with iron brackets and hinges, and the doorknob was imperfectly round. I grabbed it with tacky hands, and shoved my full weight against it.
I stumbled through the doorway and into a wide, shadowed room. Starlight streamed through a nearby window that revealed the night sky outside.
As I looked around, I realized I was in an old western-style fort. It was just how I remembered it, aside from the wavering colors and the haze only a few feet in front of me. Out the window, I could still see the canons in the yard. Inside, golden plaques adorned the walls, describing the surroundings for visitors.
A museum fixed forever in time, putting an old fort like this on pause. We had to cling to our past. We had to know it. We had to learn it and discover it. Without our pasts, we had no future.
As I looked to the sky out the window, it began to shrink, as if it was falling down toward me, and one by one, the stars began winking out of existence.
My heart raced. Where were they going? Didn’t they know I needed them? I couldn’t survive without them –
My foot struck something. I looked down. The floorboards were wide and even. I recognized them. But that wasn’t all I found. There was a man. A young man, really. He had a smooth complexion, with dark hair and brilliant green eyes that were turned toward the window, gazing out at the stars that weren’t there anymore.
“Ma…rianne…”
It was his voice. I knew it was. But his mouth didn’t move.
As I knelt down to touch his face, the tears falling from my eyes drenched the front of his jacket. Dark, swirling bruises coated his neck, like fingers stained in juices from autumn’s first blackberries.
His skin was as cold as the floor on which he was stretched out. The only light in his eyes was a reflection of the moon outside, which was shrinking like a dissolving mint.
Shadows rushed over him, a tidal wave of gloom. My fingers grasped at emptiness, striking the floorboards instead of cold flesh.
No…
I screamed and opened my eyes. A horn blared, and I gasped, my heart leaping into my throat.
Brilliant amber sunlight stung my eyes as I squinted against the sudden brightness. But it wasn’t just the sun. Two other orbs of light, tinted with blue, were shining in front of me.
My fingers tightened around the dense foam of the steering wheel I was gripping, and I yanked it to the side, veering out of the way of the bright blue lights.
Panting, I eased my foot off the gas, and grasped at my chest with one hand.
I’d dozed off like an idiot and swerved into the other lane of traffic.
My fingers trembling, I pulled my car off the side of the road. I put it in park and smashed the hazards button before letting my head fall into my hands.
I could have died. Even if that other car hadn’t been coming, I could have gone off the road, hit a tree, toppled over a cliff…
I focused on my breathing, trying to will myself to calm down. I took several deep, long breaths, holding them like my therapist had taught me to before releasing them.
It was only a dream. A dream that I definitely shouldn’t have been having while I was driving, but it wasn’t any more than that.
Not only that, but it was a dream I’d had way too many times.
It was always the same. It was dark, and I was terrified. I would wander along until I’d find my way into the big room. I knew that place in the dream, an old 19th century western fort in my hometown. It had been converted to a museum long ago. It was a place that I’d been to on field trips as a little girl, where volunteers from the local historical society always held an amazing fall festival every year, complete with a haunted tour of the fort where people would dress up and try to scare visitors.
But it wasn’t the fort that was so confusing. It was the man I inevitably found at the end. I always hoped I’d wake up before that part.
The man’s name was Jacob. I had loved him.
And he had been murdered at that very fort.
I hadn’t been the one to discover his body. I hadn’t even seen him until the funeral. The only way I had known about the strange circumstances around his death and the markings on his neck was because I had heard the facts from others. And the only reason his killer had ultimately been broug
ht to justice was, again, through the efforts of others, like my amateur detective friend Hannah Hooper. I had been able to do nothing for Jacob, a helplessness I hoped never to experience again.
I took another deep breath, and did my best to push the images from my mind. I couldn’t just sit there on the side of the road until it got dark out. I had to keep driving while I still had an hour or so of sunlight left, even if the trees on either side of the road were doing a good job of obscuring all but the brightest beams.
I willed myself to open my eyes, and peered between my fingers at my surroundings.
The Colorado wilderness was vaster than I would have expected. The trees were dense and stretched so far above me that I could barely make out the tops of them. I could only see the sky above the road, where there was a break in the tree line. The clouds were tinged in cotton candy pinks and blues, and they were moving slowly westward toward the sun.
I rubbed my hands over my heavy-lidded eyes, wondering if I’d strapped tiny weights to them. I tried to stifle a yawn, but my eyes were filling with exhausted tears anyways.
“I can’t keep going like this…” I muttered to myself, rifling around inside my glove box for a tissue to wipe my eyes with. I wasn’t sure if the tears were left over from my nightmare or were just a symptom of the exhaustion.
I grabbed my phone from my purse that was wedged between a lamp and a box full of mugs and plates, and checked the GPS for the third time that hour. I could really do with some coffee. Strong coffee. Enough to keep an elephant awake would have been just about perfect.
I was still following the right directions to Faerywood Falls, which was the name of the town I was heading toward. I just had to follow this winding road. The road that had been nothing more than trees and tarmac for the last three hours. I couldn’t remember the last gas station I’d passed, let alone seeing a hotel since the one I’d stayed at the night before.
It wasn’t the worst drive I’d ever taken in my life, but the roads were unfamiliar, and I’d taken a wrong turn more than once, hoping my GPS would just correct itself. Instead, all I did was drain my phone battery and tack on an extra two hours to my already excruciatingly long trip.
I sighed. My ETA was still a long time off, and I had nothing more than a few chocolate bars and some melted ice cubes in the bottom of my water bottle to keep me sated until I got to my destination.
I glanced over my shoulder at the overstuffed vehicle. When I’d purchased this SUV a few years back, I’d never imagined that I’d be using it to pack up all of my belongings and move across the country.
That was a sobering thought. It was like I’d swallowed a heavy weight, staring at boxes full of my books, my clothes, my most precious belongings.
I turned away, gazing back out the windshield. I was crazy, wasn’t I?
Yes, I definitely was crazy, but that didn’t mean I was doing the wrong thing. I was leaving my old life, taking only the parts worth keeping with me. I was even abandoning my stiff, formal ways in hopes of becoming a warmer person. I had left the practical Prudence behind and would carry the softer name of Marianne from now on. I wondered what Jacob would have thought of that goal.
I let out a heavy exhale before putting the car back into drive, and slowly pulling out onto the completely vacant road. The vehicle that I’d almost run into was the first car I’d seen in almost an hour.
The shadows between the trees were eerie, and so I drove slowly. More than one deer had bolted out in front of me during this epic trek, and I wasn’t eager to have my fender completely smashed before I even reached my new home.
Just as the last rays of red light sank beneath the backdrop of the forest, disappearing from sight, I drove past a sign letting me know that I was in Foxglove county. From what I’d read about Faerywood Falls, it seemed as if I was finally, finally, in the right place.
“I’m home…” I muttered.
A chill ran down my spine as I heard myself say those words. I stared around, and with a strange sensation, it was as if, for just a moment, I recognized where I was.
I blinked hard a few times, shaking my head.
“It was just de ja vu, nothing more than that,” I told myself. “I’m tired, and hungry, and my butt is going to stay permanently numb if I don’t stop and get out sooner or later.”
Even still, as I continued to drive along, following my GPS closely, I realized that I was relieved. It made sense, obviously. I’d been traveling for two days straight, of course I was relieved.
Suddenly, a flickering movement caused me to gasp again, and I slammed on my brakes.
Two or three dozen shapes burst out of the forest, across the street, and climbed up into the sky above, their tiny flapping wings only a shade darker than the night that was falling around me.
Bats. They looked like bats.
But there was nothing scary about bats. This was the time of night that they came out. I’d seen bats tons of times growing up in Hillbilly Hollow. Bats were good creatures. They ate bugs. And didn’t bite people. Bats were good.
“I really need to get a grip,” I said, taking another deep breath before easing my foot down on the gas, following the road in the direction that the bats had taken.
2
It was just my luck that in addition to the complete darkness that pressed in on my car from all sides, it started to rain big, fat drops. They splattered against my windshield, so loud that it was as if I was being pelted with rocks or ice. For a few seconds, I wondered if it was actually the end of the world, and I was about to get crushed underneath the weight of some falling mountain or something.
I hunched over my steering wheel, my nose nearly pressed against it as I stared out at the road, my two lonely headlights revealing just far enough ahead of me that I had barely enough time to see the abrupt turns and dips that the road was taking me on.
The GPS told me I was less than an hour away. As exhausted as I had been before, I was wide awake now, adrenaline pumping through me like I’d been hooked up to a caffeine I.V. This was the only way to drive. Fear was the very best stimulant.
Lights appeared as I took a sharp corner around a rather ominous looking tree that had branches spanning the whole road, and I saw a sign for a gas station glimmering in the darkness.
My heart leapt. I’d finally found someplace to stop. The gas gage had been making me nervous, and I knew all too well that not only did I not have any food to cook at my new place, I wouldn’t have the energy to prepare much anyway.
Microwave something or other it was going to have to be. And in that moment, I really couldn’t care at all.
I pulled into the station, which only had one gas pump. A solitary car was parked along the side of the small, brick building.
Hopping out into the chilly night air, I locked my car and headed to the brightly lit front door, some of the creeping fear washing away with the length of the shadows behind me. Cold, fat droplets pelted me as I hurried through the puddles, soaking my shoes all the way through.
A bell sounded when I stepped inside. It smelled of pine cleaning products and freshly grilled hotdogs. The rows were filled with vibrantly colored labels on all sorts of different kinds of candy, snacks and drinks.
“Be with you in one moment,” came a woman’s voice from the open door behind the long counter at the back.
“Okay,” I said back automatically. “I’m just going to use the restroom before I pay for my gas.”
“Sounds just fine, dear,” the voice replied.
I pulled my jacket a little more tightly around myself before heading between the aisles, my stomach rumbling at the sight of all the junk food.
The restrooms were at the far side of the gas station. These sorts of stops always made me anxious. I feared that touching anything inside those disgusting places was enough to make me contract something awful. But as I stepped into the ladies room, I was pleasantly surprised at how clean it was. The porcelain sink gleamed, the chrome faucet so shiny and polished that I
could see my reflection clearly in it. The floor was covered in tiles, and the grout was immaculate, completely mold free.
I even saw a little mason jar filled with fresh flowers sitting on the top of the toilet’s tank.
At the sink, I splashed water over my face, the images still stark in my mind from the nightmare. I tried to clear my thoughts completely of whatever was still hanging on in there.
The water was icy cold as it ran from the tap, and it felt rejuvenating just to hold my hands beneath its flow. Mesmerizing, almost. I let some pool in my palms before splashing it onto my cheeks. The shock of the cold stirred me, sending shivers down my spine as I blinked the water from my eyelashes. It felt good.
I didn’t even spare myself a glance in the mirror as I grabbed some paper towels to dry my face. I knew that I looked awful, that my eyes were bloodshot, that my skin and hair were greasy, and that my skin was flushed. I needed sleep and a hot shower before I gave my appearance any thought.
It was time to get food. And caffeine. I needed something to survive off of when I finally got to where I was staying.
Leaving the restroom, I walked along until I found the long line of refrigerated drinks and foods. There was every kind of soda I could ever want, along with juice, energy drinks, and bottled water. I grabbed some water and a half a gallon of milk, wondering if there was any cereal here that I could pick up. The idea of something familiar and comforting like that seemed ideal in the moment.
I also managed to grab one of those highly concentrated energy drinks, not really caring if it would keep me up for the next three days. I wasn’t so sure I wouldn’t just curl up there right on the floor of the gas station and fall asleep.
