Ghouls Gone Wild (24 page)

Katherine pointed to the seating area. “Make yourselves comfortable,” she said, and only arched an eyebrow when Gopher held his camera up to get a good shot of the surroundings. “We’re filming an episode of our television show,” he explained.

“So it seems,” she said with a chuckle. “I’ve already got the kettle on. Tea and bikkies will be just a moment.”

“What’s a bikkie?” Gilley whispered, sitting down uneasily on the edge of a wing chair and eyeing the fire in the hearth nervously.

“It’s slang for biscuit. Or cookie,” I said, my eyes and sixth sense roving the atmosphere for any sign of spooks. “You getting anything?” I asked Heath quietly.

“Nothing.”

I made a head motion at Gilley. “Anything on the meter?”

He pulled it out of his back pocket and looked at the dial, then shook his head. “Weird, right?” he whispered. “I mean, we should be getting something, shouldn’t we?”

I frowned. It was weird. I would have expected that this woman, if she was the person who called up the witch, would have one or two spooks lurking about. Katherine came back into the living room carrying a large tray with several beautifully decorated porcelain teacups. As she set the tray down, I noticed that no two were alike. “Choose your cup,” she told us before heading back toward the kitchen again.

I was reminded with a pang of the coffee shop back home that I was a frequent visitor to. Patrons were encouraged to choose from a huge display of one-of-a-kind coffee mugs. Mine, of course, was a Halloween-inspired cup, with a black cat and ghost for the handle.

Thinking I should choose something a little lighter, I went for a peacock blue cup with gold trim. Gilley looked troubled and did not select a cup. “Don’t like tea?” I asked him.

“What if she tries to poison us?”

The question was so unexpected that it actually made me laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, but immediately noticed that Heath and Gopher had set their chosen cups back on the tray.

I rolled my eyes. “I doubt she’d poison all four of us, guys. I mean, that could get a little messy, don’t you think?”

We had no time to discuss it further because Katherine came back into the sitting room carrying a large steaming pot of tea and a plate of cookies. “I have a variety of bikkies today,” she sang happily, setting the teapot in the center of the tray and handing the plate directly to Gilley.

He took it obediently and observed the arrangement. I knew it was really hard for him to pass up sweets. Gil loved his sugar. And sure enough, his hand wavered over one gooey chocolate and caramel creation while he licked his lips. “Go on, then,” Katherine encouraged as she sat down. “It’s not going to bite you, now, is it?”

Gil’s cheeks tinged a slight red and he took the cookie, placing it directly onto his plate. Katherine then poured tea into all the cups, both those still on the tray and the one I still held.

“Cream?” she asked us politely. I declined, but Heath and Gopher and Gilley nodded as one.

“Sugar?” she asked next. That won her the same reaction. And it also won us a laugh as she saw through everyone’s discomfort. “Now,” she said at last when the refreshments had been seen to. “What brings you by my humble home?”

I decided that the best approach was a direct one. “We’re looking for the person responsible for calling up the witch.”

Katherine’s eyebrows shot up. “The person responsible?” she said. “Why, the witch rises on her own, Miss . . .”

“Holliday,” I said. “M. J. Holliday. And that’s Heath Whitefeather, Peter Gophner, and Gilley Gillespie.”

Katherine sucked in a breath and stared hard at Gilley. “Gillespie?” she whispered. “Oh, no, sir, you shouldn’t be here on this side of Edinburgh at such a time as this!”

Gilley, who’d been ogling the still-uneaten cookie on his plate, looked up in surprise, and when he saw Katherine’s expression, he seemed to shrink in his chair. “Tell me about it,” he squeaked. “But I’m stuck here until I get my passport back.”

“Who’s got your passport?”

“The authorities.”

“Why do they have it?”

“Because our van hit Cameron Lancaster, and they’re not convinced yet that I didn’t have anything to do with his death.”

Understanding seemed to dawn on Katherine’s face. “Oh, aye,” she said, taking a bite of cookie. “But they’ll clear all that up soon, now, won’t they? As soon as they realize the witch is loose and where she flies, well, the dead bodies usually follow.”

Gilley audibly gulped.

“Which brings me back to my original question, Katherine. Did you call up the witch?”

She looked at me oddly, as if I’d just asked her a question she couldn’t really understand. “Now, why would I do that?”

I thought her choice of words was interesting. She didn’t deny calling up the witch; she simply turned the question back on me. “We know Rigella and her coven are thirty-five years early,” I said. “They always come in one-hundred-year intervals, and no one expected them to arrive here now, did they?”

Katherine appeared uncomfortable for the first time since we’d arrived. “I didn’t call her up,” she said, her eyes avoiding my own.

“But someone did,” I insisted.

“Perhaps,” she admitted, and seemed to want to say something more, but caught herself, and took a sip of tea instead.

I took a deep breath and pulled in my temper. “Who would be capable of calling her up, then?”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t know,” Katherine replied a bit too quickly.

I set down my teacup and fixed her with determined eyes. “Hypothetically speaking, then.”

Katherine sighed. “Three decades ago when I was very young and stupid, I was the head witch in a small coven of women who were quite enchanted with the legend of Rigella. Though she has been immortalized as an evil witch who placed a terrible curse upon our village, before that, she was a master healer and a keeper of great wisdom and knowledge.

“Most of the villagers reviled her, and yes, some even feared her. So, when the plague struck and she tended to those most loyal to her first, many of them survived, while so many others did not.

“That incited fear and panic and eventually rage against the very woman who was trying so desperately to save the village. She and her entire family were killed unjustly and by a terrible cruelty. So back when I was young and silly, I sympathized with Mistress Rigella and did not fault her for wanting to exact her revenge.”

“What changed?” I asked, seeing the regret in her eyes.

“I met Cameron,” she said simply. “I never thought I’d fall in love with a Lancaster, but I did. And although we never married—Cameron was against it because of the curse—we were certainly as close as any husband and wife could be. After I fell in love with him, I disbanded the coven and vowed to keep him and any of our children safe should the witch arise again. But Cameron and I were never blessed with little ones. No matter how much care I took, I was never able to carry a babe to term. It put a terrible strain on our relationship, and soon we drifted apart and our discussions became one terrible row after another, until we couldn’t stand the sight of one another. I left him for good eight months ago when I learned that the lass he’d been seeing behind me back became pregnant.

“I’ll admit, I cursed him then, but I had nothing to do with calling Rigella up early, and as much as I was hurt by Cameron carrying on behind me back, I would never use the witch to hurt him.”

“But the witch wasn’t used to hurt him,” I said to her. “She was used to cover up his murder.”

Katherine’s mouth fell open. “What lie is this?” she demanded.

“It’s no lie,” I told her. “Cameron was murdered, possibly several days before our van ran over him. During that time he was frozen, then thawed and placed in the street directly in the path of the van. I believe Rigella’s real target that night was Gilley.”

Katherine appeared genuinely surprised, and I stared hard at her face to see if I could detect any theatrics, and saw none. “Someone
murdered
Cameron?”

“Yes,” I said.

Katherine got up and began to pace. I knew she was withholding something, but what it was I couldn’t say for sure. Into the silence Heath said, “And now the witch is killing other people. As you well know. That maintenance worker down in the close, we’re pretty sure the witch scared him to death. And your landlord, Joseph Hill. We’re also convinced the witch got him to hang himself.”

Katherine’s expression turned to a scowl. “That’s no great loss, now, is it?” she muttered.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

She stopped pacing and regarded me. “Joseph Hill was a dodgy old bloke if ever there was one! He owned a great deal of property here in the village and was disliked by many people. He even turned against his closest friend, Fergus. The two had been chums since primary school, but in the past year, Joseph had become sullen and withdrawn and even avoided his oldest and closest mate.

“We had no idea what’d got into him until we learned that Joseph had a brain tumor and likely had less than a year to live. The cancer affected his mind, you see. He thought everyone was out to get him, so I wasn’t surprised to learn he’d taken his life, what with that for a prognosis and a few screws loose in the ol’ belfry.”

“So what happens now that Joseph is dead?” Gilley wondered. “I mean, will you have to leave your home?”

Katherine smiled in amusement. “I suspect not,” she said. “Fergus had told me privately after we learned of Joseph’s terminal condition that when his old friend died, he’d step in and buy the whole parcel. He didn’t want to see the property next to him be divided up into smaller sections with lots of noisy neighbors and his ghost tour has been a smashing success these past few months, so he can certainly afford it. I’m sure he’ll honor my rental agreement once he’s purchased the parcel.”

We were getting off track again so I said, “The thing is, Katherine, we need to find the person who unleashed Rigella’s ghost. You mentioned that you were part of a coven of women who used to worship her. If you didn’t call her up, could one of the others have done it?”

Katherine wrung her hands. “No,” she said. “Only one of that original group aside from me could have done that,” she said, her eyes thoughtful. “But it’s not possible that it was her.”

“Why not?”

Katherine merely smiled and said, “She’s not capable of that kind of malice, miss. Not capable at’all.”

“Are you?”

Katherine’s smile broadened. “Aye,” she admitted, and I felt my shoulders tense. “But as I’ve said before, I did not call up the witch.”

“Then it must be this other woman,” I insisted.

But Katherine was shaking her head. “No,” she said firmly. “ ’Twasn’t her.”

I sighed, exasperated by the conversation. We were going in circles. “Then who else could it have been?”

Katherine tapped her fingernails against the side of her teacup. “Rigella only communicates with her direct descendants,” she said. “Only someone from her bloodline could have called her from the shadows.”

My brow furrowed. “Hold on,” I said. “How could Rigella still have a bloodline? I thought her entire family was murdered.”

Katherine sat down again and lifted her cup. “One sister escaped,” she said. “Though just barely. Legend says that the youngest and fairest of Rigella’s sisters, Isla, was ravaged by several villagers, then left for dead. But we know that the poor girl survived. She was found wandering about the forest by one of Rigella’s loyal friends and taken to their home, nursed back to health, only to die eight months later in childbirth. The identity of the child was kept a strict secret and the babe was adopted into the family, which allowed Rigella’s bloodline to continue.”

“So who’s related to this child?” I asked gently. “I mean, you know so much about Rigella, Katherine, you must know all the members of that ancestry.”

But I could sense immediately that Katherine wasn’t about to tell me, and I wondered whom she was protecting. “I’m sure I don’t know,” she said in a way that said there would be no further discussion about it.

“Can you tell us about the brooms?” Heath said next. “M. J. and I were chased through the woods yesterday by three phantoms riding brooms. Exact replicas of the one you have on your porch.”

That seemed to trouble our host. “Chased?” she said, and her eyes fixed on Heath’s bruised face and broken arm. “Did they do that?” she asked breathlessly.

“They did,” I said. “And one of them very nearly took my life.”

“I’m terribly sorry,” Katherine apologized. Again I felt she was being genuine, but I also knew there was more to her than what I could immediately discern. “Rigella came to me in a dream several months ago,” she confessed. “I hadn’t seen her in decades. Since right before I disbanded the coven.”

“Hold on,” I said, putting my hand up in a stopping motion. “You dream about Rigella?”

“Often,” she said. “She first appeared in a dream to me when I was only nineteen. She said that I was her sister reincarnated, and that I was to play a key role in her return. She was quite mesmerizing, you know. She had this presence, this almost regal quality, that I found quite irresistible.”

“Oh, I know,” I agreed. “But tell me about this most recent dream.”

“It wasn’t long after Cameron and I separated,” she said. “I’d been having a rough go of it, and I’d just moved in here, liking the privacy afforded to me by living on Joseph Hill’s property. Not many people would tolerate him after he became ill, and I knew no one would come round to stick their noses in my business if I lived here.”

Katherine’s eyes were staring far off again, and I wondered where she went, when she seemed to pull herself from her thoughts and continued. “So, one night I was fast asleep, and Rigella appeared at the foot of my bed. She called me sister again, and asked a favor of me.”

“What kind of favor?” Gopher asked, his camera capturing the entire conversation.