Dark Corner Read online

  “Terra.”

  “Yes, Pixel.”

  “Pixel miss supper?” he asked as we hurried our pace through the valley.

  “No, Pixel.”

  I stepped carefully into the woods. Too many lights danced in the woods at night. Some smelled of pure happiness, others smelled of death. It made me nervous.

  Whereas I with much less courage was afraid to be in these woods after dark, Pixel feared the fate of missing supper. I watched him from the corner of my eye as we ran and jumped through the woods. He, too, kept an eye to our flank. Pixel was protecting me from the night creatures that watched from the shadows. We reached the cabin in time to find Mrs. Twiggs serving up the beef stew.

  “Me favorite.” Pixel rushed to the table, pushing Tracker and me out of the way.

  All the ladies gathered around the table, smiling and making light conversation. “Pixel, wait your turn,” I told him. I looked around the table at the smiling faces that had no idea of what was coming, and I would leave it that way.

  Mrs. Twiggs placed bowls of food for Pixel and me. Tracker was not allowed on the table, but it didn’t stop him from snapping at Pixel. Pixel swatted him on the nose as he leaped onto the table. Pixel finished before me.

  “Terra. We keep Flutter safe,” he said.

  I looked up. “Who?”

  “Pixel friend, Flutter. Butterfly.”

  “Yes, of course, Pixel, we’ll do whatever we can to protect her.”

  “Good, Terra.” He gazed up at Mrs. Twiggs with Margaret Keane eyes begging for more.

  The ladies left early per my request. I did not want them traveling after dark. Mrs. Loblolly stayed behind because Mrs. Twiggs insisted they speak. Mrs. Raintree sat by the fire, finishing a dream catcher she was making for Charlotte.

  Strumming her guitar, Abigail sat with Charlotte on the porch. Charlotte stared at her phone. One of Abigail’s first incantations was a modified version of a spell to conjure voices over great distance to communicate with friends in times of danger. Prudence and I had used that incantation to talk at night between our houses. Abigail found a way to turn that into the internet in the middle of the Black Mountain woods without a cell tower within range. Charlotte had never questioned how she was able to use the Wi-Fi on her phone.

  “June, I asked you to stay because we need to talk about Mrs. Lund,” Mrs. Twiggs said.

  “Beatrice, I told you everything I knew. She contacted me about the colonel and told me she had additional information about him and his regiment.” Mrs. Loblolly paused. “I feel horrible. I told you I feel responsible. She came here because of me and died by my great-grandfather’s sword.”

  Mrs. Twiggs put her arm around Mrs. Loblolly. “It’s not your fault. She lied to you. She misrepresented who she was.”

  “But I donated the sword. I demanded that they pose the mannequin to appear as if he was charging into battle. How selfish of me. How careless. That sword was as sharp as the day the colonel rode into battle. I had it cleaned and polished for the display. I even had to bring it to a special swordsmith because the blade is pure silver. It was his dress sword.”

  “What?” I interrupted. “The blade was silver? Not just the hilt?”

  “Yes, the colonel appreciated things of quality. His uniforms were custom made and fitted, the buttons are gold, and he ordered that sword special from a swordsmith in England.”

  “What’s wrong, Terra?” Mrs. Twiggs asked.

  “Silver through the heart is a true death to a witch.”

  “Terra, are you saying Mrs. Lund was a witch?”

  “There’s only one way to find out for sure. We have to see the body. If she was a witch and she died by silver, her body will age to its witch years. If I was killed by silver, all you’d see is bones and dust. We have to leave now before dark.”

  “The mannequin holding the colonel’s sword was wearing a lieutenant’s uniform, not a colonel’s. If you spent so much money on restoring the sword, why not stage it with the colonel’s uniform?”

  “That can’t be right. I donated the colonel’s uniform and was insistent that it be displayed with his sword.”

  Pixel trotted by, his snowy belly flopping right and left along the floor of the cabin. He jumped into the windowsill as the sun was setting. He turned to us and solemnly said, “By the pricking of my thumb, something wicked this way comes.”

  I leaped onto the windowsill next to him, staring into the distance. I felt it too. “Pixel, are you okay?” I whispered, nuzzling up to him.

  “Me scared, Terra.” He put his paw around my neck and snuggled closer to me. I found his warmth comforting, his heartbeat next to mine soothing.

  I thought about the stirrings in the wood. “Mrs. Twiggs, it’s late. I think we should rest tonight. Mrs. Lund isn’t going anywhere,” I said.

  Chapter 25

  The Vine that Killed the South

  We darted outside as we heard the screams from the porch. Charlotte and Abigail were being dragged down the steps, their legs tied by a creeping green vine, pulling them toward the woods. The vine continued wrapping them into a cocoon until their screams were muffled. I heard Abigail gasping, trying to say incantations. Pixel and I jumped on the vine, gnawing and clawing at it. “Terra, nothing’s working,” Abigail said through strained breaths as the vine tightened around her.

  Mrs. Twiggs flew down the stairs, brandishing a kitchen knife. She cut at the vines, but as quickly as she did, they grew back.

  “Kudzu,” Mrs. Raintree yelled. “It’s the vine that killed the south. You can’t cut it. It grows back faster and stronger.”

  It wrapped around Mrs. Twiggs’s legs. She cut at it feverishly, scraping her legs with the knife. Mrs. Loblolly and Mrs. Raintree pulled at the vines, trying to free Mrs. Twiggs. Mrs. Loblolly fell to the ground, and the vine wrapped around her throat. She tugged at it, gasping for air. Tracker barked and jumped around the vines, trying not to be entangled. His sharp bark pierced the still night. Abigail and Charlotte disappeared into the woods. I leaped from vine to vine until it wrapped around my paw and pulled me to the ground.

  Pixel screamed. “No, Terra, no.”

  “Pixel, run,” I yelled. “Save yourself.”

  “No, Terra.” He jumped on the vine that wrapped around my legs, clawing and snapping at it. The vine reached for him, pulling me into the woods farther away from the cabin. Pixel stepped back, staring.

  Through the tight green vine, I saw Mrs. Raintree jump on the cabin railing as the kudzu wrapped its way around the post, searching hungrily for her flesh. Pixel turned and ran up to the porch. He crawled up her leg until she picked him up and held him. “You fix.”

  “What Pixel?”

  “You fix now.”

  She understood. The last thing I heard was Mrs. Raintree singing a Cherokee war dance song, the same one I had heard Agatha Hollows sing. The vine wrapped around my eyes, blinding me. I felt the air leaving me as my lungs collapsed. Elizabeth came to me. She was glowing white with silvery angel wings, her skin ethereal. She sat on the edge of Poinsett Bridge. She didn’t speak, motioning for me to come to her with open arms so she could embrace me. I gasped as my lungs filled with air again. The kudzu shriveled and fell off me. It took me a minute to capture my breath as I looked around. I was deep in the woods past the stream. I ran back to the cabin. Charlotte and Abigail were hugging Mrs. Twiggs. Pixel ran and tackled me. He licked my face and picked pieces of the dead vine off me. “Terra clean now,” he said.

  Wanda Raintree is a steward of the earth like her goddess foremother, Elinhino. She has the power to nourish the soil, to feed the plants and the trees. Somehow Pixel knew she also had the ability to extract those nutrients, starving the kudzu to death. “Thank you, my friend. You saved us all, Pixel. How did you know she could do that?” I asked him.

  “Me friend told me,” he said, running back into the cabin. I glanced around at the enchanted woods. How could the kudzu enter this sacred space? Only twice had the enchant
ment been broken. The last time was when the lieutenant came for Agatha Hollows.

  Mrs. Twiggs bent down and picked me up. She looked at me. There was no terror in her eyes. I could hear her heartbeat slow and steady. She was at peace. “Terra, I think we should go see about Mrs. Lund now.” I agreed.

  Chapter 26

  RIP, Mrs. Lund

  Mrs. Twiggs sped along the dirt road, descending Black Mountain. I sat in the passenger seat, my eyes darting back and forth. The trees crackled and closed behind our path, guarding the road to the cabin. I knew all would be safe there tonight. Mrs. Raintree blessed the trees that barred the way to the cabin. She had absorbed the magic left by Agatha Hollows. That magic combined with her bloodline from her Cherokee goddess mother increased her powers tenfold.

  We reached the Asheville city morgue where Mrs. Lund was being held pending the autopsy and police investigation. I hoped the autopsy had not been performed yet, because if it had and she was a witch, they would have found that she was a two or three or maybe five-hundred-year-old skeleton.

  Mrs. Twiggs politely knocked on the door. A young man wearing earbuds and a county morgue button-down shirt answered. “Yes, ma’am. What can I do for you?” he asked, removing one bud from one ear.

  She smiled and blew a little dust from the palm of her hand over him. He returned her smile and let us in. Then he walked back to his office chair, put his legs up on the desk, and picked up a graphic novel. We found our way to the holding room with a wall of cold chambers. Mrs. Twiggs and I gave our respects to the dearly departed who stood around the room. We said a little prayer. “Terra, can’t we help these poor souls?” Mrs. Twiggs asked.

  “They don’t know that they’ve passed yet. They’re still attached to their earthly vessel.”

  Mrs. Twiggs raised her hands. “Gentle souls release yourselves from this earthly plain. Join your loved ones as I speak your name.” Mrs. Twiggs walked in front of each cold chamber, each one labeled with a name. As she called off each name, they thanked her and disappeared. Finally we came to Mrs. Lund’s chamber.

  “Are you ready for this, Mrs. Twiggs?” I asked.

  “Yes, Terra dear.” When she pulled the drawer open, it was worse than I thought. There was nothing. The chamber was empty. “Where’s the body, Terra?”

  Mrs. Twiggs went up to the security guard. He pulled his earbuds out, his eyes still twinkling from the enchantment. “Dear, you’re missing a body. Mrs. Lund. Contact Detective Willows, and we were never here,” Mrs. Twiggs said.

  “You were never here,” he repeated, smiling before reaching for the phone.

  Mrs. Twiggs waved her hand over the surveillance monitors, erasing any record of us entering the building or leaving it.

  Chapter 27

  What About Albert?

  “She’s gone, Terra,” Mrs. Twiggs said with a bemused air.

  “She can’t be a witch, Mrs. Twiggs, or a human.”

  “Terra, that leaves a lot of choices in between doesn’t it, dear? I felt what you have, the awakenings in the wood and even in downtown Asheville. The good and the evil. We’ve thrown a pebble into the pond of magic, and the ripple has gone out. How do we find her, Terra?” Mrs. Twiggs reached in her cloak pocket and felt the leather pouch that Mrs. Owen had given her. “Terra, we have to try the premonition potion again. We have to know what’s coming our way, and we have to find Mrs. Lund.”

  We hurried to the Leaf & Page, which was ablaze with light. “That’s funny. I don’t remember leaving the lights on.” Mrs. Twiggs fiddled with her key at the door. She unlocked it and called out for Albert. She screamed in horror when she saw his picture shattered on the floor. “Albert,” she screamed again with no response. Then we glanced around the room to find it in complete disarray. Books were thrown off shelves, tables overturned. The only clue left behind was the smell of electricity, a burning copper taste in my mouth, a singed smell in my nostrils. The smell that a ghost leaves in its wake but not a friendly ghost. “How can this be, Terra? I enchanted the store. Albert kept watch. Where is he? Where’s Albert?” Mrs. Twiggs strained to hold back her tears.

  “They took him, Mrs. Twiggs. The ghosts took him.”

  “Why? Terra, he can’t defend himself. He doesn’t know he’s a ghost.”

  “Mrs. Twiggs, take me to the Fillmore.” I hoped that Bradley might have some answers.

  We rushed out the door and headed to the Fillmore. Bradley greeted us, never moving from attention as the guests, some alive some less than alive, walked into the hotel. “Little miss,” he said with a smile. “You’re back. And you brought a friend.”

  “This is Mrs. Twiggs. Her husband, Albert Twiggs is missing,” I said.

  “Yes, of course.” He nodded politely as a guest went by. “I’ve had occasion to exchange hellos with Mr. Twiggs. A fine gentleman, speaks the world of you, Mrs. Twiggs.”

  “Have you seen him tonight?”

  “No, little miss. I have not, then again I’ve been so busy with all the new arrivals,” Bradley said.

  I looked around, hoping to see Albert. I saw ghosts both new and old, more than I’ve ever seen, not just entering the Fillmore but strolling the streets around Pack Square. Some garbed in today’s wear, others in gilded-age finery. Across the street by the fountain I saw one such apparition in his evening coat, opening and closing his pocket watch. The rocking chair man, his soulless dark orbs staring through me from across the street. Mrs. Twiggs couldn’t see him. The ghosts couldn’t see him. Only I, a witch, could see him. He was a familiar from another world. Mrs. Owen had traveled to another world and brought him back. He snapped his watch shut after counting thirteen times. He smiled a toothless grin. Then he climbed up the side of the Jackson Building, crawling like a maleficent spider on all four appendages, a shadow darting along a serpentine web, and then he was gone.

  “Terra, what are you looking at?”

  “All the ghosts. I thought I saw someone I knew.”

  “Little miss, I almost had forgotten that soldier boy was back. I told him he might try the Leaf & Page to find you. I told him it was one of your favorite haunts,” Bradley said with a smile and wink.

  “Thank you, Bradley. Please let me know if you hear from Albert or the soldiers,” I told him.

  “Of course, little miss.”

  We turned and went back to the car. “It’s too late to go back to the cabin.”

  “Terra, I have to be at the store for opening.” Mrs. Twiggs’s way of dealing with tragedy was to stick to her routine. I respected that.

  “Mrs. Twiggs, are you okay? Are you okay to go back there?”

  “Yes, I hope whoever took Albert does come back,” she said with a steadfast look. I almost felt pity for the criminal who would have to deal with the wrath of Beatrice Twiggs.

  We spent the rest of the night cleaning up the mess at the Leaf & Page, Mrs. Twiggs doing most of the work. I did what I could. My first priority was making the store safe from intruders. I should have known better than to leave it unprotected with all the activity around Asheville. I underestimated the power of the black magic that was rising. Albert was no match for his captors, and they had broken right through Mrs. Twiggs’s enchantment spells. The only person that could have stopped them was Abigail, and she was in no state of mind to battle the apparitions that had taken over. She was not ready. She was still a girl. I walked along the top of the bookshelf, eying each spine until I reached the book I sought. It was a book on Appalachian folklore. The pages were worn and tattered, but they held the answers we so desperately needed. The mountainfolk had fought dark spirits for hundreds of years in the Carolinas. By trial and error they came across spells and potions that only the most advanced witches would know. Agatha Hollows knew the people living in these mountains understood the power of the woods. I grabbed the spine of the book with my teeth, pulling at it until it fell to the floor. Mrs. Twiggs turned around. “This is what we need, Mrs. Twiggs,” I said.

  She picked up the book and s
at by the fire. “With all the spell books and witches’ potions we have, you want us to rely on human folklore?”

  “Folklore is based in truth. The spirits we are fighting come from these woods. The creature that took the form of Mrs. Lund and the ghost that took Albert they’re from these woods. They have been dormant until we woke them with our white magic. They are as much a part of these mountains and woods as you and the coven are.”

  “Very well, Terra.” Mrs. Twiggs ran through the receipts, as the Appalachian folk called them. Following their advice, she gathered sage and burned it in each corner of the room. She laid salt at all the windows and doorsteps. When she had finished, she placed the frame that held Albert’s image and his ghost over the cash register. It was five thirty a.m. Friday, which meant muffins. Mrs. Twiggs let in the others, the stray cats and dogs from the alley. When they were done feeding, she opened the store for the humans. It was a slow day—some usual customers, a few out-of-towners looking for first editions and specialty teas. As we were about to close, Detective Willows pulled up and squeezed himself out of his unmarked police car. By his solemn look, I thought he was not here for pleasantries.

  “Oh, Detective, I was just closing,” Mrs. Twiggs said as he came in the front door.

  “Beatrice, I’m here on official business. We need to talk. Can we sit for a bit?” Detective Willows said, his face distressed.

  “Of course.”

  He sat at one of the small café tables in the dining room.

  “Can I get you anything? I think I have some muffins left or scones.”

  “No thank you.” He pulled out his notebook. “I have to ask where you were last night around ten p.m.”

  Beatrice Twiggs cannot tell a lie. It is not in her. Even at the risk of incriminating herself, she stared at Detective Willows. “What is this about, Butch?”

  “There was an incident at the county morgue last night. We checked the traffic camera on the street, and your car was parked out in front of the morgue. Were you driving it?”