Autumn Thorns Read online

  “They came to me. And, Kerris, this town is a hotbed of secrets. We aren’t the only ones around—and there are those who really don’t like the Crescent Moon Society or the spirit shamans. There are those who would love to see the town fall to the forces we work against. There’s power here . . . my people have known about it for years. And power attracts those who would use it—be they for the light, or the shadow world.”

  “Sometimes the foul are actually fair.” I grinned at him. “Thank you, Trevor.”

  “For what?” He looked confused.

  “For being straight with me. Now, if you’d preorder a couple books for me, I’d appreciate it.”

  He laughed. “Not using BookShopStop.com? You can get anything on there and usually cheaper.”

  “Ah, but then I’d miss the chance to come in and browse around when they get here.” I wrote down the names of a couple of books I was eagerly awaiting, then sashayed out the door, feeling oddly lighthearted. Trevor had a way about him, and it occurred to me that he put a smile on a number of his customers’ faces just by existing.

  After Vintage Books, I wandered up to the Broom & Thistle for my second latte of the day. I had developed a high caffeine tolerance while managing Zigfree’s Café Latte and had no intention of scaling it back. I didn’t drink much, never smoked, and kept my consumption of junk food to a reasonably low amount, so I figured that coffee was my one vice and damned be the person who tried to convince me otherwise.

  The owners—Nelly and Michael Brannon—I recognized from school. I hadn’t known them very well, but they’d been nice enough and even back then, you could tell they belonged together. He had been the star of the fencing team and she had always landed the lead in whatever musical the school theater department was producing. Now, Michael sported a smooth ponytail and what looked like just as good a build as he’d had in high school, if not better. Nelly had long black hair to her midshoulders, with razor-straight bangs across the front. They moved behind the counter like well-oiled cogs, darting around each other with ease.

  I glanced at the menu. They had all the regular sizes—short, medium, and tall, but had added “Bigfoot”—a sixteen-ounce quad-shot drink, and Landa—after the lake monster—a twenty-ounce quad-shot drink.

  “I’ll have a Bigfoot mocha, and hello . . . it’s been a long time.” I waited to see if they’d recognize me.

  Michael gave me a vaguely familiar look, but Nelly—after a moment—let out a gasp. “Kerris Fellwater, as I live and breathe, you’re back in town.” Her surprise was real, with no affectation. She really hadn’t known.

  I nodded. “To stay, it seems.” As Michael made my drink, I chatted with Nelly for a few minutes, catching up and accepting the usual sympathies about my grandmother. I was trying to think of a polite way to ask who the town gossip was. “Hey, if I wanted to catch up on everything that’s happened since I left, who would I talk to? You know, get all the news in one fell swoop, so to speak.”

  Nelly snorted. “You mean, who dishes the juiciest gossip and keeps their nose in everybody’s business, don’t you?”

  Blushing, even though I really wasn’t that embarrassed, I nodded. “Yeah, so to speak.”

  “That would be Clinton Brady—the owner of the Fogwhistle Pub. You remember him, right?”

  I blinked. Clinton had been the owner of the pub when I was younger—he was my mother’s age and had taken it over from his father when the old man had a heart attack. I had forgotten all about him—and the pub. “That old place is still standing?”

  “That old place was brought over brick by brick from Ireland.” Michael, who had been listening, joined us as he wiped down the espresso machine. “Clinton’s great-grandfather had it dismantled from the shores of Eire and sent here via cargo ship. They rebuilt it exactly as it had stood in the old country. The pub is at least four hundred years old.” He straightened his shoulders. “The pub is older than any building in the United States, barring those that were here when the colonials came over.”

  The pride in his voice was evident and then I remembered, Michael Brannon was second-generation Irish himself. His parents had come over from Ireland and settled in Whisper Hollow when they were young, and while that wasn’t all that unusual nowadays, he acted like they had entered via Ellis Island with the great wave at the turn of the nineteenth century.

  “I suppose I should mosey over there and reacquaint myself with it. When I left town, I wasn’t legally able to go inside.” Even though I had sneaked in a couple times. Clinton had pretty much ignored Peggin and me, never carding us because we almost always bought one drink and stopped right there. I had my doubts that he would have sold us any more if we had asked.

  Michael slung his bar rag over his shoulder and glanced up—another customer had come in. “Welcome back, Kerris. Excuse me, I’ve got my work to do. So do you, Nelly.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him but gave me a wink. “He’s right. Busy morning ahead. A couple of the local groups always come in here on Wednesdays for their meetings—one in the afternoon, and one in the evening. I need to make certain we have plenty of pastries and supplies on hand.”

  As she moved off, I took my drink and headed to a table by the window. As I settled in, I pulled out my iPad and began to make notes about Trevor and Clinton and what I’d found out. It was nearing ten thirty, and I needed to do my shopping, then head home so I could start reading up in the journal before my appointment with Ivy. Staring at the overcast sky—a storm was moving in from the north, it looked like—I sipped my drink, trying to make sense of the whirlwind my life had suddenly become.

  * * *

  After stopping at Carter’s Market—the main grocery store in town—and also a quick visit to the Whisper Hollow Town Square, where there was a Bed Bath & Beyond, I headed home with my spoils. I’d found a comforter set in shades of dusky green and blue, and matching sheets, and I had stocked up on staples and coffee beans and cat food, along with a good selection of produce and meats. I had enough to keep me for a week or so. At the last minute, I’d added a garlic braid to the cart. Something told me I was going to need it, even though I didn’t like garlic all that much. I remembered that Grandma Lila used it for protection, and it seemed to me that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to hang it up in the kitchen.

  I arrived home by eleven thirty, quickly stowed the groceries in the kitchen, and hung up the braid on the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room. Touching it lightly, I whispered, “Do your work.” Then I tossed the new sheets in the washing machine and carted the comforter set into the main bedroom. I carried my suitcases in, too, and decided that I would start putting away clothes after I returned from Ivy’s. I was determined to sleep in an actual bed tonight, and unless Ivy could teach me everything in one go, I had the feeling I’d be keeping the lights on.

  My stomach rumbled and I glanced at the clock. Noon, meaning lunchtime and meaning I had almost two hours before dashing over to Ivy’s. She lived close enough I could walk there in ten minutes. As I popped a premade pizza in the oven, it once again struck me how, all those years, I’d lived within a stone’s throw of my paternal grandmother’s house, but had never known.

  While the pizza baked, I settled down at the kitchen table with Lila’s journal and opened the first page. In her meticulous hand, she had written:

  Traditions & History of the Spirit Shamans

  Generation 48: Lila Fellwater

  Daughter of Mae Edgewater

  Daughter of the Morrígan

  I stared at the writing for a moment. If my mother was the forty-ninth generation, that made me . . . the fiftieth. When I started my own journal, how would I account for Tamil’s absence? Where were the other journals from the other spirit shamans in my family? And how far back did fifty generations span? With a score of questions racing through my mind, I turned the page and began the journey into my lineage.

&n
bsp; Our History

  With every lifetime, there is a start. And with every sacred office, there is the initial calling. So it was that the spirit shamans began. The original versions of the stories are lost to time, but the retellings continue and so most of the following has been pieced together throughout the years and translated when need be. The following translation comes from my great-grandmother, who learned English later in her life, and who sent her daughters to America in search of a more fruitful life.

  I leave this journal to my granddaughter, Kerris, since my daughter, Tamil, the forty-ninth generation, has vanished. Take up your post and keep it sacred and honor your word and work.

  Kerris, I am certain you will meet your guardian—the Morrígan has promised me that. My own protector was driven off when I was young, and to keep him safe, I was forced to marry a disciple of the Night Mare’s enemy—a son of Cú Chulainn. As to why and how this happened, this journal is not the place for that telling. I have secreted information about it away in my private diary—find it and read it, for you will need to know these things for your own safety.

  –Lila Fellwater

  I stared at the page, trembling. So many answers within those few paragraphs, and so many more questions. I pushed the journal away, a gazillion thoughts racing through my head as I waited for my lunch. Finally, the welcome ding of the timer shook me out of my head and I retrieved my pizza.

  Who was Cú Chulainn? The name sounded vaguely familiar. Why was he the Morrígan’s enemy? And, if Duvall was the disciple of the Morrígan’s enemy, then how had this happened? Why had he forced Lila to marry him and how had he brought it about?

  As I bit into the pepperoni, it occurred to me that I didn’t know much about my ancestors—on either side. I knew very little about my history and before now, I’d never thought much of it, except for wondering what happened to my mother and father. I’d been so wrapped up in worrying about why they both abandoned me that I’d totally ignored any family history before that.

  If Lila had only been able to confide in her shapeshifter and her lament singer, and she had to drive away her guardian, that meant that the only one who might have a clue about my lineage was Ellia. The only other option I’d have would be to dive into genealogy and trace back my roots. But even then, I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be as easy as just showing up and saying, “Hey, I’m your long-lost cousin, tell me about the family.”

  As I ate, the food settling the butterflies in my stomach, I forced myself to return to the journal. I could skim through, pick and choose what to read, but I needed to know the history. I needed to understand the dynamics. Because I had my lament singer, and I was pretty sure I had found my shapeshifter, and I had a nasty premonition that once the three of us came together to work the way we were supposed to, more than one force would creep out of the woodwork to try to stop us. My grandmother had been a strong spirit shaman, but she had been hampered by her lack of a protector and by being married to someone who was apparently an enemy of the Morrígan. Without those limitations, just how far down the rabbit hole would this journey take me? And what would I find there?

  The next few pages talked about things I already knew—the six forms of the dead, the fact that Penelope was the Gatekeeper on the other side of the Veil for this area, that Veronica was one of the Queens of the Unliving. But then I found an entry that scared the hell out of me.

  January 22, 1959

  My mother and I were out training in the graveyard—she says it’s time I started learning how to face the spirits in the Pest House Cemetery. Ellia came with us, of course, but she was upset. Mother asked her what was wrong, rather sharply it seemed to me. Ellia said that she had been out in the woods earlier, near the Tree of Skulls, and that someone tried to snatch her up. It wasn’t a spirit, she said—or the Grey Man, or anything like that. She was so upset that Mother finally said we weren’t going to train today, and instead, we went to Mary Jane’s Diner. There, we were able to pry out what happened to her.

  Ellia had driven out over past Galaxy Drive, and decided to stop for a while and take a walk along one of the trails there. She was deep into the woods, singing, when a man jumped out of the bushes behind her—he must have been following her. He grabbed her and she screamed, but nobody was around to hear her. She managed to get one of her gloves off and slapped him on the face. He let go of her, shrieking, and pulled back. She grabbed him around the wrist and held on. He begged her to stop and she said she would only if he told her who sent him. He said it was Magda . . . that she had hired him to kidnap her daughter and carry her off into the woods to wherever it is she’s living. Ellia was so shocked that she held on until the man went into a seizure, and then she let go and ran.

  Well, that certainly made both Mother and me stop short. Here we all thought Magda was long dead and now we find out she’s still alive? She’s got to be getting up there—Ellia said that as far as she knows, her mother was born in 1900. When the old Kerston house burned down, we were all certain Magda was caught in the fire. But Mother said that she never asked Penelope, and Penelope never volunteered any information. You’d think that if she knew her mother was still alive, she would tell us so Ellia would know—since they’re sisters, and Magda was responsible for Penelope’s death. But then again, the dead have their own agendas and we aren’t always aware of them.

  I don’t know what to think now . . . Magda’s alive. Ellia’s afraid. And Mother’s pissed off. I was supposed to go on a date with Aidan tonight, but Duvall Fellwater asked me to stop in and talk to him first. I didn’t want to go—he has a foul feel to him, no matter how good-looking he is—but he insisted that it’s important, so I agreed to meet him after my lessons tonight and told Aidan I’d see him tomorrow.

  But with what has happened to Ellia, I think I’ll cancel and she can stay with me tonight. We have to protect her. She’s our lament singer, and if her mother really is alive and after her, then we need to figure out what the hell is going on.

  I glanced at the clock. Another fifteen minutes and I’d head out for Ivy’s. I also realized that I had eaten my way through the entire pizza. So much for moderation. I puzzled over the entry. So Ellia and Penelope were sisters? And Ellia’s mother was born in 1900 . . . which meant Ellia had come along later in Magda’s life. I knew Penelope had been the Gatekeeper of the dead for a long time, but this meant that she had to have taken the position at some point well after 1900.

  Sighing, I realized that I had better write up a list of questions so that I wouldn’t forget any. I hunted around till I found a blank notebook and decided to transfer all my notes from my iPad—technology was wonderful, but you couldn’t always depend on it.

  I decided to start with the questions roaming around my head first; that way I wouldn’t forget them while transcribing the others. I quickly dated the page and began making a list:

  Did Duvall kill my mother?

  Which of his friends might have helped him?

  Since Duvall wasn’t my grandmother’s shapeshifter, then was it Aidan? Why had she broken off their engagement and married Duvall? What could he have possibly held over her head to force her to give up the love of her life?

  Who is in the Crescent Moon Society, and how are they connected to the spirit shamans and the Morrígan?

  Magda . . . Could she possibly still be alive? It seems ridiculous to think so, but then again, considering the year Bryan was born in—maybe not so ridiculous.

  Ellia had mentioned a force moving against the town—find out more about that.

  Find out more about Cú Chulainn and his followers.

  As I finished, I pushed out of my chair, made sure the oven was off, transferred the sheets to the dryer, and then slipped back into my jacket. Ivy lived about a five-minute walk away, and although it was raining, I decided it was worth getting a little damp in order to get some fresh air and think about everything I’d found
out. Everything was spinning like a whirl of leaves in my head, and I had no idea how they’d fall out.

  I locked the door and headed out to the road. Now that I knew what Bryan was, it made me even more curious to find out more about him. I thought about what he had been chasing—the d’yavol-volkov. The very name set off a warning alarm. And just what else was hiding out in these woods? Whisper Hollow attracted the strange and obscure—they were drawn by the security of being a stranger in an even stranger land. When you’re the odd one out, and you move to the kingdom of misfits, you’re no longer one of the freaks in the sideshow.

  Trying to shake off the kaleidoscope of questions and thoughts, I came to Ivy’s house. As I stood there by the garden gate, it occurred to me that I had passed this house hundreds of times during my childhood. I vaguely remembered seeing Ivy a few times, working in her garden or sitting on her front porch as I’d ridden my bike or walked right past my grandmother’s house, unaware of who she was.

  I had barely rung the bell before the door opened. There she was, in a pair of gray jeans and a blue sweater. The raven tones of her hair and her porcelain skin made her look like an ice figure. As I looked at her, I could see the faintest resemblance between us. Our noses were similar, long and narrow, and I had her coloring—pale as frost, as Grandma Lila used to say.

  She ushered me in. “Let’s get you out of that rain. I put on a pot of tea, though I know you prefer coffee, so I could make you some . . .” And then she stopped, staring at me. “Kerris, I can’t believe you’re finally in my house. At last, I can talk to you.” A flutter of lashes, and then—tears, trickling down her cheeks. Her hunger for connection, for contact, surrounded and embraced me. “I can’t believe this is real . . . that it isn’t a dream.”