I said nothing.

  “We’ll need your help, miss. He needs to be stopped before more people get hurt.”

  A firefighter called over from down the road, waving the cops over.

  I started up the truck.

  “You find him, you call us immediately, Miss. Krane, err, Holloway, or you’ll be considered an accessory,” Officer Quinton shouted at me as I backed up. He didn’t try to stop me.

  I had to find him. I had to hope I could stop him. I wracked my brain. Where would he have gone? Who else could he go after? That snotty waiter at his favorite steakhouse that was rude the last two times we went? The grocery store clerk whose line we usually tried to avoid because she was so darn slow but sometimes, she was the only register open? Who else had annoyed him enough that he’d murder them? Someone at the library? That teenager who was always on his phone at the gas station?

  Holden wasn’t a huge complainer, but I could tell when someone annoyed him. And what? Now he was out to kill everyone that annoyed him?

  “This can’t be happening. Please let this be a bad dream,” I said to no one as I drove to the steakhouse. It was closed, wouldn’t open until four o’clock. Good.

  I drove to the grocery store parking lot and went running through each aisle, not seeing him, and thankfully not seeing any blood. I saw that slowpoke cashier alive and well. But then I did see two ladies talking by the front desk and their eyes were on me. One was putting her phone to her ear.

  My scalp prickled.

  Was word getting around this fast? This was a very small town. People knew who Holden was, even though he’d only been here a year. They knew me because I taught all the second graders in town. And in this small town, we stood out too because we were relative newcomers.

  I knew by their faces that word was traveling. Holden Holloway was on a murdering spree. Would the police catch him before I found him? I whispered to pray that they wouldn’t hurt him. I couldn’t do what I wanted to do, which was to scream at them that this wasn’t his fault.

  I drove toward the water tower behind the school so I could take the shortcut home, not knowing where else to look, and hoping he’d gone back there.

  As I cut through the back parking lot of the school, I saw a whole lot of rain-drenched little kids heading back inside with the ring of the lunch bell. Ghosts. Superheroes. Princesses. Witches. Headless horsemen.

  Why were they even outside? A) it was still raining, and B) The school should’ve been in lock-down by now.

  Then it dawned. I was supposed to be on yard duty for lunch recess. Was no one else watching these kids all that time?

  I couldn’t imagine him hurting little children. Couldn’t fathom it. Then again, I couldn’t imagine he’d kill anyone, couldn’t fathom that about the man I loved, the man I’d spent the past year with.

  But, evidently, right now, he wasn’t the man I loved. He was like the ghost without a head that had chased people through the woods that he haunted, the woods we now lived in.

  7 – Now: The Intervening

  An old VW van was in my driveway and a redhaired woman sat on my porch swing, swinging, watching me pull in.

  Erica. As I approached, I spotted the witch hat that I’d left in the leaves up on the swing beside her.

  Her long, red hair curled and hung nearly to her waist. She wore a long and flowing black maxi dress with a jean jacket and black ballet flats. She had rings on all her fingers and a choker with colored stones around her throat. Heavy black cat’s-eye makeup. She definitely had a Nicole Kidman in Practical Magic vibe to her.

  She watched me rush to the house.

  “He-he’s gone crazy!” I told her.

  Her lips tightened.

  “I didn’t mean to do it. I found out I’m pregnant and I went, like… mental and couldn’t stop my mouth from running. I was stressing and worrying about this baby and mourning the baby I lost, and he just wanted to calm me down. He was just trying to calm me down and make me feel better. And we… well, then we talked about pretty-near everything because we’d already said a little and in for a penny, in for a pound, you know?”

  She didn’t reply.

  “And now people are dead, and I can’t find him. And it’s my… fault.”

  I raked my fingers through my hair for the hundredth time that day.

  “Aren’t you gonna say anything?”

  “Sit down. Breathe for a minute, Isabella.”

  “I can’t,” I practically screeched. “This is my fault. People are dead and it’s my fault.”

  “How was Holden with you?”

  I gave my head a shake in confusion.

  “How was he toward you? He didn’t try to hurt you?”

  “I… no. Of course not.”

  “Tell me everything about today.”

  She patted the spot beside her. I sat.

  “I was having a meltdown and we said stuff… so much stuff I can barely remember it all. But we were together, and I got your message and we knew it was bad, partly because the phone never works when he’s with me, but it worked. So, then we kept talking about all of it with no holds barred because it was obviously too late and there are so many things we’ve never been able to say to one another, so then we, um, spent time together upstairs,” my face flushed pink, “I fell asleep. When I woke up, he was gone. I went to look for him and found a trail of freaking blood and bodies all over town. Where is he now? I don’t know who he’s hurting now!”

  “The question is, did he not hurt you because it hadn’t fully settled over him yet? Would you be safe with him?” She tapped her lip with her index finger in contemplation.

  She looked so calm. How could she look so calm with everything I’d just said to her?

  “I need to get on a conference call. Have some tea; I made a pot. Go, get one, sit down, and breathe for a minute.”

  “But…”

  “Isabella, you need to pull yourself together so that we can look for a way to deal with this. Can you please try?”

  I nodded quickly and moved inside, walking past my little Fall display with the pumpkin sitting on top, feeling pain surge through me.

  ***

  There was a kitten curled in a ball and sleeping on the rug in front of the fireplace. There was a fire going and my tea set was on the coffee table. Erica had certainly made herself at home.

  I sat down. The little kitten opened its green eyes, yawned, stretched and moseyed over to me and then hopped up onto my lap.

  It was fluffy and pure black, except for its’ tail, which was orange at the tip with the face of a little boy cat. I blinked at him. He blinked at me and then did two rotations before finding a spot to settle in my lap.

  Images flashed through my mind. Deputy Chester. Cade Ryerson. Larry the mechanic. Blood. So much blood. All because of me.

  I didn’t pour tea. I didn’t do anything but stroke the kitten in my lap, watching Erica pace on the porch with a phone to her ear, her lips moving occasionally.

  ***

  The waiting was killing me slowly. She was on the phone for ages, now no longer on my porch but instead walking barefoot, slowly, staring at the ground as she took strange steps in the colorful dead leaves after having taken her shoes off.

  The phone was still to her ear. She sat at one point and leaned her head way back, so her face was aimed at the sky, eyes closed, speaking into the phone.

  If I didn’t know it was all true, I would think this was hokey as could be.

  Me? I was pacing my living room and kitchen. Dusting and wiping counters. Sweeping. Fiddling with things. More pacing.

  A police car pulled up and had two more cars behind it. My heart raced. I suddenly couldn’t see Erica. Where did she go? She’d just been under our massive oak tree.

  “I just love this tree. It has to be almost as ancient as—” I stopped talking, catching myself. I bit my lip. His eyes were alert. I knew he knew what I’d been about to say.

  The tulip tree.

  The oak tree was our picnic spot our first few months here. Holden and I had sat under it many times on a blanket on summer afternoons, before I went back to work when summer vacation ended. I’d bring lunch out in a basket and lay a blanket out and he’d come in from the barn or the fields and eat with me and then lay his head in my lap for a while before kissing me and going back to work.

  “It’s a great tree. Now, kiss your husband and send him back to work on the fields otherwise he might spend the whole day just staring at his beautiful wife while lying in her lap.”

  “What if I kiss him because I want him to stay with me all day while lying in my lap?”

  “Such a temptress I married,” he rolled his eyes. And then he rolled me and made love to me on that blanket under the tree.

  Two officers, one being Officer Quinton, came onto my porch, both with their guns actually drawn.

  They might kill him if they saw him. I was trembling.

  “This can’t be happening,” I whispered.

  I stayed put as Officer Quinton yanked my screen door wide, eyes on me, gun up in the air, rather than pointed at me. He was alert, as was the cop behind him.

  “I haven’t found him yet,” I informed.

  “He hasn’t called? Hasn’t been here?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I came back and I don’t think he’s been here.”

  “Whose bus is that?” The other cop gestured to Erica’s van.

  “My friend came to visit. She’s just gone for a – a walk, I guess. I don’t know. She was just out by the creek. Maybe she’s in the van.”

  “Your friend know your husband?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “We’re gonna need to search this house, ma’am.”

  I gave them a shrug. “Go ahead.”

  “Anyone else been hurt, since Larry at the garage?” I inquired.

  Officer Quinton stayed with me while the other cop moved through my house, moved through the house that Holden had lovingly built for us with the intent of arresting him. My heart ached at the notion.

  “Two more. One, your closest neighbor. Not dead. Injured badly. He managed to get to his gun. Shot at your husband. Got him in the leg.”

  My hand covered my mouth in horror.

  “The other, that young guy that lives in the apartment above the drycleaners. Found dead in the parking lot. Scuffle on the rooftop patio. Looks like his throat was slashed, then he either fell or was tossed through the greenhouse and either fell off or was thrown off that roof. “

  “Oh no. That’s our tenant.”

  Officer Quinton put a hand on my shoulder. “I know you’re upset. I’m sorry, Miss Kra-Holloway, but what can you tell us to help us find him? Any idea what set him off?”

  Our tenant had bounced the last two rent checks and we were getting ready to take measures to evict him. Holden had been patient at first, as the guy had a good sob story, but then Holden heard through the grapevine at the feed store that the young guy had a drug problem and that he sold drugs as well as used them.

  Another person dead. Gone. At the hands of the man I loved, the father of my baby.

  “I don’t know,” I told the cop.

  I had no idea why Holden tried to kill our closest neighbor, Mr. Hood. He wasn’t super close to us; it was at least a five-minute drive and we barely knew him. Holden had never had an argument with him that I knew of.

  This had to stop. They needed to stop him. He’d gone crazy. Maybe they could stop him before he hurt anyone else. Maybe they could restrain him, and we could… what? Have him committed for psychiatric help? God; life would never be the same. Ever. I was so distraught. I couldn’t handle it. I was falling apart all over again, just like this morning. I wanted to just crawl into bed and cry. I was feeling like I was having another meltdown.

  That meltdown led to this meltdown. I had to try to pull myself together.

  “Mrs. Holloway,” the other cop called out, coming back into the room. My eyes snapped to him. “Officer Quinton will be stationed outside your house, should your husband show up. I’m gonna assist the officers doing the search of your other outbuildings. If he’s not there, is there anywhere else you can think of?”

  I shook my head. “No. He’s a homebody. We don’t go out much. I…” I shrugged.

  “Any other people he might want to hurt? People who have wronged him? People whose place he might have gone to hide out?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where did he hail from?” Officer Quinton asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Hail from? You moved here a couple years ago, he moved here last year, correct? Where did he move here from? We ran him in the system and it’s like he showed up out of nowhere. What’s his backstory?”

  “I don’t…I don’t know,” I lied.

  “You know nothing about your own husband’s history?” The accusation in his voice didn’t surprise me. Of course it made no sense that I wouldn’t know where Holden had come from.

  “He didn’t like to talk about his past.”

  The two officers exchanged looks. They probably thought I was either a liar or a sucker.

  “Where did you meet?” Officer Quinton asked.

  Erica was coming inside. “Officers, my friend here is not feeling well. I asked her to lie down. She’s pregnant and it’s a high-risk pregnancy. Could I ask that you let her rest a while?”

  “If he calls,” the other officer let that hang.

  I nodded.

  “Thanks for cooperating,” Officer Quinton said. “I’m sure this can’t be easy.”

  I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself.

  Erica walked me upstairs. Her little cat followed us. I heard the front door swing shut as the officers went back outside. We went to my bedroom.

  “Erica, we have to find a way to stop him. What if he’s in town after school when they do the parade of costumes? Hundreds of children in costumes? I can’t imagine he would… but then again, I wouldn’t have been able to imagine the things he’s already done today. Where is he now? Who is he hurting? Can your magic tell you that?”

  “Breathe, Isabella. I’m sure the police have the school locked down by now,” she whispered, shutting my bedroom door behind her and sitting on my bed, patting it for me to sit beside her.

  I sat.

  “Okay. We need your help,” she said.

  I nodded. “Anything.”

  “It’s not known if he’s targeting enemies because he has to channel that rage somewhere. We know how much he loves you, Isabella…just absolutely adores you. If you can lure him to the tulip tree stump, we can potentially use part of the original spell to lock him in there. We won’t know if it’ll work until we try.”

  I blinked.

  She squeezed my hand and then kept talking.

  “If we’re right, he could be locked here as he was before you met him two years ago. Then he’s once again contained and can’t hurt anyone while we figure the rest out.”

  I nodded. “Okay. Until we can find a way to get him out of that state of mind?”

  She shrugged. “It could be permanent.”

  I blew out a breath. “What if it is?”

  “We might have to destroy him.”

  “No,” I snapped.

  “Isabella…”

  “No, Erica. This is my fault. He shouldn’t be killed because of something out of his power. If anyone should be killed, it’s me.”

  “But, it wasn’t you that was killed. It was a whole bunch of other people. The coven and I have agreed to try to contain him as a first measure. From there… they have to see what can be done.”

  “They? Who are they?”

  “My four sisters. And an elder from another coven. I’m bottom of the totem pole with this one. I’m under sanctions because of the meddling I’ve done by warning you.” She put her head down. “That’s just how it goes. We have rules. We take, we give. We pay back debts with interest. We give more than we receive. And when we break our own rules, there are consequences.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  She smiled. “I’ve got a history of bending rules. Especially for a good love story. I’ll be okay.” She waved her hand.

  “If you lock him in, he’ll be alone.”

  “Yes.”

  “Unless you lock me in with him?”

  She looked thoughtfully at me a moment.

  “I don’t want him to be alone.”

  “It could be too dangerous. But it could help to have you there at least at first so we can assess where he’s at. My sister, Jess, lost her connection with him, but you’re still connected to her.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “My sister Jessica is a medium. She uses a variety of methods including cellular lines to connect with supernaturals as well as those whose lives have been touched by our coven’s magic.”

  “Oh my God, that’s why my phone worked. She’s not connected with him because… because I broke the rule.”

  She gave me a tight smile.

  I thrust my hands into my hair. My eyes landed on the photo of Holden and I on our wedding day, which sat on my dresser in the crystal picture frame. We looked so happy that day. We were so happy that day.

  She looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’ll create a diversion to get the police out of our hair before sundown. When the sky goes dark, if you’re in the vicinity of where he first saw you, there’s a good chance, no guarantee – but a good chance that he’ll be there. Vivica, another sister who is clairvoyant and has the gift of precognition, she’s not positive, but thinks she sees you both there tonight.”

  “Then I should definitely be there.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Okay. Archie will be, too, and he’ll be our ears and eyes as well as a potential conduit.”

  I looked down at the little kitten who was washing his paws on my bed.

  “My great-great I don’t know how many times grandfather’s name was Archibald Krane.”

  “Mm.” She had a serious look on her face.

 

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