“it’s appeared to other people before. Or it’s a separate entity to worry about. The important thing is, you have to deal with the one attached to you, whether it’s the Mad Monk of legend or something else.”
I went to the kitchen table and sat down before my knees could give out. “You’re saying that this thing is tied to me and … what? It’s not going to go away? Ever?”
They exchanged looks of rare agreement. It figured they would finally see eye to eye when it meant that I was screwed.
“So, what do I do?”
“Well,” said Phin, “you told me last night that all these people—Mac McCulloch and the girl at the bar—want you to find out about the Mad Monk. So … maybe you should listen.”
Commit to the ghost hunt. My heart started pounding and a cold sweat prickled my skin. Defy Deputy Kelly and Steve Sparks and Ben. Go look for the freezing specter in the middle of the night—
Daisy interrupted my spiraling panic as if she could read it on my face. “Start small. What were you going to do today?”
“Go to the dig. Excavate some bones that might be related to the ghost.” The skull was found near where it had appeared, after all.
“That’s a start.” She downed the last of her Dr Pepper. “I can’t tell you how much I wish I could stay. I’ll come back as soon as I can. But right now I’ve got to get to San Antonio or the police are going to come after me.”
Daisy consulted for various police departments, something everyone kept on the QT. For some reason the local and federal law enforcement didn’t like it getting around that they occasionally called in a sixteen-year-old psychic for help solving crimes.
“Wait,” I said, following her to the living room. “You’re coming back?”
“Don’t bother on our account,” Phin called from the kitchen.
Daisy paused in the doorway. “Oh, from the look of things out on the highway, it’s about to get really interesting. I wouldn’t want to miss it.”
Then she was gone, scratching the dogs’ heads on the way to her Prius, parked just outside the gate.
I turned to Phin, who had come into the room when Daisy left. “What did she mean, the look of things on the highway?”
“How should I know? I’m not the clairvoyant.”
Phin liked things measurable and predictable—or as predictable as anything supernatural ever was. Spells and potions were chemistry and physics to her. And even though it wasn’t as simple as she liked to think, her way of doing things was less influenced by factors like emotions, bias, expectations … things that make us human.
I went to the box on the coffee table and pulled open the flaps. Inside were all the books and videos that I’d boxed up after the incident in Goliad. On the top was a trade paperback I didn’t recognize. Haunts of the Hill Country, by Dorothea Daggerspoint.
Fourth in the table of contents was “The Mad Monk of McCulloch Ranch.” This must be the book Mac had mentioned, the source of the nickname. The author did love alliteration. And purple prose—the chapter wouldn’t be quick to scan.
“You see?” said Phin, reading over my shoulder. I hadn’t heard her come over. “Even Mom thinks you ought to be investigating this ghost.”
I fanned the pages and dropped the book into the box to look at later. “Do you think Daisy could be right about its being two different events?”
She snorted. “Psychics.” Then, more helpfully, she told me, “The monk story and the bones in the pasture are what you have to go on. So that’s the best place to—”
The dogs interrupted her from out in the yard, barking to scare off the devil.
“Now what?” I groaned. With leaden feet I went to see who was at the gate. I really hoped it wasn’t Deputy Kelly. Or any Kelly at all, really.
But it was worse. It was the press.
I stood on the porch in my boxer short pajamas and bare feet, staring into a television camera. Long-distance, fortunately, since the crew didn’t want to come into the yard with the dogs going crazy and all. A woman with a big fat microphone yelled at me over their noise, “Miss Goodnight! Care to comment on your exciting find yesterday?”
“No!” Oh my God, Ben was going to kill me. And so was Dr. Douglas.
“Would you call off your dogs so we can talk to you?”
“No!”
“Would you care to tell us about finding the severed head?”
“For