Witching Time (The Wild Hunt #14) - Yasmine Galenorn Page 0,29
by paranormal things, but Marigold… Mom’s just…the past few years she’s been afraid of things like that.”
“And yet she’s pagan?” That didn’t make sense to me. Human pagans believed in magic and were often witches.
“Well, she’s changed over the past couple of years. What Dray didn’t tell you—because I don’t think he knows—is that this land has some really odd things that happened here. I think our parents tried to keep it from him, but I know because I’m the one who first found out about it.”
That caught my attention. “What are you talking about?”
“This land was owned by a family of earth witches, but they weren’t the best of neighbors.”
“Earth witches? That makes sense, given it’s a farm. Tell me more.”
Evie glanced over her shoulder. “Marigold would smack me if she knew I was telling you this. Well, she wouldn’t hit me but she’d be really pissed. She’s afraid that if word gets out, it would stir up old rumors and ruin the farm.”
“That sounds ominous. I promise I won’t tell her you told me.” I was getting more and more intrigued by the moment.
“I don’t know a lot, but I do know that the daughter of the family disappeared and was never heard from again. And the father also vanished several years later. The girl was a teenager and there were a lot of questions, but the police never found anything definite, so they just labeled her as a probable runaway.”
“Two missing people and the cops never did anything? That sounds about right.”
“Well, the father didn’t go missing until later on, and the wife said that he ran off and left the family. As I said, I don’t know all the details—and what I do know is sketchy. But there were kids at school who, when they found out that we bought this place, said that it was haunted. I asked why but they didn’t know.”
“Did you buy this farm from the original family?”
Evie shook her head. “No. I gather the wife sold it and took the rest of her kids and moved away. We got it on foreclosure from someone else.” She looked uncomfortable. “I feel bad, because Marigold is so adamant about not telling anybody the history. The stuff that happened was a long time ago, forty or fifty years, I think.”
That left a lot of possibilities wide open. I took a deep breath and turned to her. “Listen, I’ll look into things on the side. But I want you to tell me if you’ve ever had any weird experiences out here.”
“All right,” Evie said. “Dray and I have talked about what we’ve seen. There are a lot of little things and they seem to be happening more frequently. I woke up one night a few months ago, and I got up to go to the bathroom. As I passed my window, I looked out and saw a white figure running toward the barn. It was misty, like a fog, but it looked like a person.”
“And you’re sure it wasn’t somebody illuminated by moonlight?”
“I wish,” she said. “Before it reached the barn, it vanished. Just…poof. We moved in three years ago, and during that time, I’ve heard strange noises in the barn, in the house, in some of the outbuildings. Now, some of them, when I checked them out, sure enough, were squirrels, raccoons, things like that. But I also swear I heard footsteps. Especially in the barn, I would hear someone walking around in the hayloft. I snuck up there, thinking maybe it was some kid or something goofing around, but there was nobody there.”
“You shouldn’t do that,” I said, scolding her. “What if some pervert was hiding up there? Next time, you should call the police.”
“My mom would kill me if I did that. I may be seventeen, but I’m not an idiot. If Marigold got mad enough, she’d kick me out. It’s like she’s become obsessed with this place and it means more to her than I do, more than Dray does, and I think even more than Rain does. You should talk to Rain privately—she’s more open, I think. I know that Mom’s personality has changed since we moved here, and all of us notice it. I heard her and Rain arguing a month or so ago about it.”
Evie looked worried, and I felt for her. It never helped when your parents were at odds, and add to that, psychic activity, and it just made things that much more tense.