Old Salty was a sleeping ghost, which meant he was there, but not really. Kind of like a person who was in a coma.
So what happened to him?
The thought crossed my mind that maybe I should stop and sit on the bench to see if I could pick up any unusual feelings, but then I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Whatever it was that I’d seen, it was near the large gazebo at the center of the park.
I kept my eyes on the gazebo, waiting to see if it would reappear.
After a few minutes, I was beginning to think maybe it had been my eyes playing tricks on me. After all, the gazebo was at least fifty yards away.
But then it stepped into a patch of bright moonlight and my heart nearly stopped.
A werewolf!
It was a werewolf, but nothing like Elias.
When I’d seen Elias in his wolf form, he appeared to be an extra large wolf, but this creature looked like a real wolf man. He was standing upright, and had a long snout sticking out of his face. The creature’s clothes were shredded and hanging from its massive hairy body.
While I stood there, transfixed by what I was seeing, the werewolf threw its head back and let out an ear-shattering howl.
Falling on all fours, it started running in my direction.
That was enough to get my legs moving. The next thirty seconds seemed to pass in slow motion, though I was sure I was running faster than I ever had in my life.
Bursting through the doors of the Mermaid Inn, I ran straight through the crowded pub to the back staircase. Taking the stairs two at a time, I didn’t even slow down long enough to catch my breath until reaching the second floor.
Taking a page out of Julius’s book, I walked right into apartment three. Shutting the door, I rested my back against it. It took some immense concentration to slow my heart rate, and draw oxygen into my lungs.
All the lights were off, but there were a few candles burning. I could just make out music drifting from the stereo, but the volume was too low to tell what song it was.
Julius’s apartment was small. All there was to it was a tiny living room, and an alcove that passed for a kitchen, along with a bedroom and bathroom. All in all, it was serviceable, if one were extremely desperate for a place to stay.
Julius didn’t seem to mind it. Then again, I could well imagine that anything would be an improvement over Hell.
There was no sign of Julius, but I did see an array of women’s undergarments scattered throughout the living room.
“Julius!” I called out.
I caught the sound of a woman’s giggles coming from the bedroom just before the door opened. Julius stuck his head out. “You called?”
I have to admit. At that moment my feathers were a bit ruffled. I’d been running for my life from the wolf man, while the entity that was sent here to watch over me, was busy rutting with someone or another. Probably that murdering misfit Misty!
Putting both my hands on my hips, I took a deep breath, hoping to calm myself before I said or did something I might regret.
It didn’t work.
“Who’s in the bedroom?” I demanded.
Julius smiled. “Well now, love … I didn’t realize the two of us had nuptials … therefore, I would assume that is not your concern.”
“Missy!” I yelled. “Get your ass out here!”
A moment later, a not so bubbly blond bimbo stepped out of the bedroom. All she had on was a long white t-shirt, which I assumed belonged to Julius.
By the way I was acting, a casual observer might have thought I was jealous, which I wasn’t. I was furious that he’d been busy with the murdering hosebag, while I’d nearly been killed less than a block away.
Taking in another calming breath, I leveled my eyes on Missy. “You have about two minutes to get out of here, or I’m going to have you charged with murdering your husband,” I threatened.
Missy’s mouth fell open. “You wouldn’t dare!”
“Try me,” I responded, dropping my tone of voice to dangerously low.
The truth was, I so wanted to handcuff the bitch and commit police brutality, but I had more serous problems to deal with at the moment, therefore I was glad when she started gathering up her clothes.
Another realization hit me in that moment. Missy’s husband wasn’t hanging around.
Where had all the ghosts gone?
While Missy was in the bedroom dressing, Julius grabbed the robe that hung from the back of his bedroom door and slipped it on.
“Do you feel better now?” he asked.
“I was nearly killed tonight!” I thundered. “At Founder’s Park.”
A mocking smile touched his lips. “Well I take it you escaped that fate. You appear to be all in one piece.”
“You are supposed to be watching over me … not diddling around with the town’s biggest … so and so,’ I ranted.
Julius laughed. “I thought you were going to slip up for a minute there.”
Just then, Missy emerged from the bedroom and ran straight for the door. “I didn’t do it,” she tossed the words over her shoulder before slipping out.
“Why do you even bother with her?” I asked. “It’s not like she isn’t going to be spending an eternity with you in Hell.”
“You still have quite a temper problem,” he commented, as he was pouring some whiskey into a shot glass.
“Want a drink?” he asked.
A drink sounded pretty damn good about then, but I still had to drive home. The last thing I needed was to get into an accident. I could just imagine myself trying to explain a drunk driving death to Mister Grim.
I shook my head. “You haven’t answered me. Why aren’t you looking after me?”
Julius downed the shot and then leveled his dark eyes on me. “You still don’t get it. I am not here to look after you. I’m here to drag you back to Hell when your time is up, and you’ve failed at getting yourself redeemed.”
“Whatever!” I scowled. “I’m not going to fail.”
“Really?” he laughed, and for a minute there he did seem pretty wicked.
He’d told me this bit about dragging me back to Hell before, but just like always, I ignored him. Julius really did do a lot of looking after me, though I wasn’t sure if he was supposed to, or he did it out of boredom.
“What happened?” he asked.
Plopping down onto his ugly, retro green sofa, I told him about the wolf man and Annabelle’s disappearance.
To Julius’s credit, he really did appear concerned, as well as confused. “I have to agree with your grandmother. This sounds like a witchy thing to me. Witches can be so temperamental and wicked.”
“So you don’t think that thing was a real werewolf?” I asked, ignoring his insult to witches.
Pouring himself another drink, he shook his head. “You should know better than anyone what a real werewolf looks like, considering your fascination for that dog, Elias.”
I twisted my face into a menacing scowl, but said nothing.
When I didn’t rise to the bait, Julius continued, “What you describe sounds more like something out of the movies.”
That’s when it clicked. The thing had looked like the wolf man from the old black and white movies.
“That is exactly what it was like!”
Plopping down next me, Julius draped one large arm around my shoulders. “The question is … how is it possible? If you can figure that out, you’ll probably catch your killer.”
“I can’t even see ghosts anymore,” I frowned.
“Someone is sucking at the power on the island. Perhaps it is the island itself,” he suggested.
“Where would Annabelle be? We’ve looked everywhere?”
“Really? Everywhere?” he asked, his words laced with doubt.
“Well everywhere except …” My voice trailed off.
“Except the old Marsh estate,” he finished for me.
Just the thought of going near that place gave me a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Chapter Twelve
I tried not to have anything to do with the Marsh estate, not since the day I’d decided to take a short cut through the property to get to Roseland. It was such a long walk, and my feet were killing me that day.
Foolishly, I ignored the rumors and decided to take the easy way for once. Yes it was stupid, but thinking things through hasn’t always been my way of doing things. I’m much better at it now.
Being fifteen has its disadvantages, and not having a driver’s license is one of the biggies, but I had a plan. As soon as I turned sixteen, Mary Beth Brown promised she would give me an after school job at the library.
I was excited, and not just because having a job at the library would give me a chance to save for a car, but also because I’d be working with books. I loved to read, and so working at the library seemed natural enough. That was back before I trained to be a paralegal. To this day, I still wasn’t sure if that had been a mistake or not. It might have been safer to become a librarian.
The most direct route to Roseland is Luna Road, which is really an access road through the forest. If it were passable, it would cut at least two miles off the trip to the west side of the island, but no one used it anymore. The road was overgrown with weeds and impenetrable, unless you were on foot or using an ATV.
No one alive remembered exactly why Luna Road was closed, and since it had been that way for so long, no one bothered with it, except for local kids of course. This was probably how the old Marsh estate got the reputation of being haunted. Any abandoned house is going to seem spooky when you’re young, add that to the cemetery you had to pass through to get to Luna Road, and you had the perfect recipe for a haunt.
At fifteen, I’d convinced myself that all the stories connected to Luna Road and the Marsh estate, were nothing more than overactive imaginations. Besides, even if there were a ghost or two hanging around the old place, they’d be pretty harmless. That had been my experience with ghosts, at least up to that point.
There were only three cemeteries on the island. Grace Point Memorial Gardens was located on the north side of the island, and was the newest of the three. The people of Roseland had their own cemetery, and Luna Road went right through the third, Hope Grove cemetery. At one time, Luna Road continued west from Hope Grove, but in the early twentieth century, Mystique County put up a gate blocking the entrance to Luna road. Apparently that wasn’t good enough, as there was also a gate blocking entrance to the road from the west.
It would seem the powers that be were really were determined to keep people away from the Marsh estate.
The Marsh family had long since died out, at which time the county confiscated the property. For a hundred years it sat empty, and for the most part, undisturbed. All that changed the day I decided to take the shortcut.
Not being an islander, I hadn’t paid a lot of attention to the various spook stories I’d heard in the year I’d lived with Granny Stella. That’s the only excuse I have, but spooks and whatnots don’t care much about excuses.
The old cemetery is creepy enough. I’ve never been a big fan of cemeteries, or funerals either for that matter, but Hope Grove is creepier than most cemeteries. It has those huge gothic statues and headstones, along with several tombs. It reminded me of something out of a horror movie.
But the old cemetery was nothing compared to the Marsh house, or castle really. The family had actually replicated the castle they’d had in Europe. Some even claimed it was brought to Mystique Island and rebuilt, one stone at a time.
I had no idea about that, but the place sure was creepy enough.
After leaving the cemetery, Luna road continued, twisting and turning through the forest. The woods were so thick that I nearly missed it. If it hadn’t been for the raven, I probably would have.
I remember feeling as if I were being watched. Several times I stopped and looked around, sure that I’d see someone duck behind a tree. Once, when I had the sudden urge to look over my shoulder, I heard the flapping of wings.
Startled, I looked up just in time to see the raven take flight. As soon as the bird was out of my line of vision, I saw a castle tower.
Stunned, I stood there, rooted to the ground and staring for several minutes. Of course I’d heard the rumors about the Marsh place actually being a castle, but honestly, I’d believed it was probably an exaggeration.
Once I’d asked Granny about it. She’d looked me right in the eye and told me never to go near Luna Road. That’s all she would say about it.
With mischief being my middle name, there was no way I was going to walk past that castle and not check it out.
Getting to it was another matter all together. About a hundred yards down the road, I found a huge iron gate blocking the drive. It had a padlock on it that was nearly rusted through, but it was thick enough that breaking it open probably wasn’t an option.
Looking over my shoulder to make sure there was no one around, I used a little magic.
That was back when my witchy powers still worked. It took a few blasts from my index finger, but the lock finally fell to pieces on the ground.
With so many witches on the island, I wondered why no one had thought to do this before. I was soon to find out it wasn’t so much that no one had thought of it, they just didn’t want anything to do with getting near the place.
The long dirt driveway was a shadowy labyrinth that went off in all sorts of directions. The entire length was canopied with huge oak trees that barely let in a hint of sunlight.
Still, I wasn’t deterred.
The gnarly branches jutting from the encroaching forest didn’t make progress too easy, but I found that if I ducked low enough, I could get beneath them.
Obviously the dirt road had never seen a car, which made sense since it had been closed off since the time of the horse and buggy.
Finally the road gave way to a huge clearing, which from the looks of it, had once been the estate’s gardens. It was bigger than a city park.
Closing my eyes, I imagined what the gardens and castle would have looked like two hundred years ago.
There would have been a lovely manicured lawn, and stunning flower gardens. There was am immense pond in the middle of the property. Though it was crumbling now, there was a white marble statue in the pond.
Of course it was only a guess, but to me the statue looked like it was supposed to be Poseidon. I could well imagine how beautiful he would have been with water pouring from his hands to fill the pond.
The castle itself was magnificent, reminding me a little of Windsor Castle. Of course it wasn’t quite that large, but close, and it looked ancient. It was easy to believe they had actually brought it from Europe, a piece at a time.
What wasn’t so easy to believe was that it had been abandoned and left to fall into decay. Sure the old place was a wreck, but its potential was amazing.
Running to the entrance, I stood in front of the colossal wooden doors.
There was a pair of brass knockers, one on each door. Other than being very medieval looking and tarnished, they were in good condition.
All the sudden that feeling of being watched, returned. Freezing, I turned to look around. As far as I could tell, I was still alone. Turning back to the doors and the gargoyle knockers, I brushed the feeling aside.
Maybe it was just the freaky blank eyes of the gargoyles that had made me feel as if I were being watched?
That’s what I wanted to believe anyway.
After convincing myself that I was just suffering from a case of the jitters, I tried the doors. They were locked, and why wouldn’t they be?
If the county was going to go through so much trouble to block access to the estate, it only made sense they would also make sure the old place was secure.
So for the second time that day, I decided to resort to the old magic key.
Holding my hand in front of the lock, I hit it with a good jolt of witch juice.
The next thing I knew, I was on my back, several feet from the door, and suffering from vertigo.
This time using my witchery had backfired and I was zapped a good one.
It would seem the Marsh estate had some kind of protection spell to ward off witchcraft.
Feeling as if I’d been struck by a bolt of lightning, I struggled to my feet. It was time to accept that magic wasn’t going to get me in this time.
That would be my luck.
There was always the option of looking for another entrance, or breaking in via a window, but I was already running late. If I stayed any longer, there would be no time to go by the Moreland place and see Elias.
Just as I was ready to turn around and leave, the door opened right in front of my eyes. So I was a little freaked out, but still not to the point of running away.
Maybe when I zapped it, I’d managed to unlock it somehow.
It was always possible that some of my witch juice had managed to get to the lock mechanism. After all, with me being a late bloomer, I didn’t have as much control over it as I should have.
Since I was practically being invited in, I went ahead and pushed the door open. It took a long time for my eyes to adjust to the shadows, but when they did, I was in awe. I found myself in an immense hall, complete with family shields on the wall, a coat of arms, and paintings. If I hadn’t known better, I would have believed myself transported back in time.
Now if I’d been smart, I would have turned and left right then, before being terrorized to the point that to this day, I still suffer from
Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome
.
As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I noticed that there was a shadow at the far end of the great hall. It was distinct from the other shadows, because it was darker.
When the shadow moved, my heart nearly stopped. I was paralyzed, unable to tear my eyes away, let alone run.
It flew at me from the darkness. Something told me that if I didn’t get out that door, I would not live to see another day. The thought was almost enough to break my paralysis, but not quite. Before the message got from my brain to my limbs, the thing had a hold of my arms and was pulling me to the ground.
I must have blacked out because when I woke, I was back on the road in front of the iron gate, and it was night.
Now being on the track team, I was accustomed to running fast, but that night I ran faster than I ever had in my life. As soon as I made it back to Storm Cove, I found a phone and called Granny Stella.
Granny was understandably upset. Especially since she had the entire Mystique County Sheriff’s Department out looking for me.
I did tell Granny the truth, at least part of it … the part about blacking out. To this day, I have no idea what happened to me during the time I was unconscious. What I did know was that every time I thought about the Marsh place, it made me feel as if I were in the middle of being ravished by the stomach flu.
So no, I hadn’t suggested that we search Luna Road or the Marsh estate, but it was time to put on my big girl panties and do exactly that.
Annabelle was a pain in the ass, but she was my sister. Besides, butting heads with monsters is what I do.