Witch in the Wind (Bandit Creek Books) (7 page)

Avy pulled up to the front of her house and put her car in park. Busby immediately leapt off the porch and ran towards her. After gett
ing out of the car, she let herself enjoy his enthusiastic welcome. “I was only gone for a few hours, sweetie.”

She rubbed his ears and buried her face in his neck. He smelled of the woods surrounding the house. He must have spent the day chasing rabbits. She pulled a twig from his coat.

After a quick supper for herself and Busby, she wandered back into the living room. The late afternoon light cast shadows in the corners that seemed to twitch and sway with life. The room was a dim memory of the warm family gathering place of her childhood. Would she ever again see her world through sunlight, rather than the smoky gloom she was slogging through now?

With her parents gone, she had to fight hard to believe that time would ever come. She shook off the melancholy that continued to hang over her like morning fog on a mountain top. She looked at the stack of loose papers she’d piled on her father’s desk.

“It’s time to do more than tidy in here.”

She strode over to the desk and sat down. Busby followed and sat beside her chair, facing the foyer as if on guard duty.

It didn’t take her long to find the piece of paper she’d seen the night before. She’d been right. There was only the one mention of jewelry. Nothing else that would fit, or need to be in, a security box. The records showed her parents had kept the security box at the bank for decades. She’d have to look at the signature files there to know how often, if at all, her parents had accessed the box.

She folded the list and tucked it in her front jeans pocket, then picked up the next handful of papers. Scanning through, she stopped at two papers that were clipped together. One was a security box receipt for the Ellis Bank in town. The second paper was also for the Ellis Bank but looked quite different from the first. Upon closer inspection, she confirmed it was also for a security box at the Ellis Bank. But the date on this one was 1911 and the box was for a branch in Seattle.

“They didn’t mention it when they visited. But the sheriff isn’t interested in century old bank records
.
” She put the older receipt in the file marked
Misc. Family Docs
and tucked the more recent paper in her jeans pocket with the list.

Something tugged at her mind. The swivel chair squeaked as Avy leaned back and dropped her hand to stroke Busby’s back. “It couldn’t be their box, 1911 is too far back. It had to belong to one of their parents.”

Her grandparents had died before she was born and her parents rarely mentioned them. She’d realized very young that the subject was off limits so she’d stopped asking questions. “Crap. I needed to know about them.” Some of her overwhelming grief slipped over into anger. “Even just for medical reasons, they should have told me something about them, right?” She looked down at the dog as if he’d answer.

Busby gave her a shoulder glance but returned to his guard duties.

She’d assumed, without giving it much thought, her grandparents had died. The idea of her parents having siblings simply hadn’t occurred to her. But, now that she thought about it, that didn’t make sense. What were the odds of both sets of grandparents dying early and neither of her parents having any siblings, cousins, other relatives? Her parents
must have
cut themselves, and her, off from their families. She needed to find out why. Avy sat up in the chair and went back to sorting papers. This time with a sharper eye to names, places, any detail that might relate to her family.

It took an hour to get all the papers neatly filed back into the desk drawers, at which point Avy stood up, nudged Busby out from underfoot and stretched. The dog watched as Avy twisted her back and rolled her shoulders. When she moved towards the sofa, he fell in at her side, waited for her to sit and then jumped up to snuggle beside her. Avy chuckled. “I guess there’s no point telling you to stay off the sofa, when you’ve already slept in my bed.” He looked at her with the ends of his mouth tipped up in an almost human smile.

Avy leaned back against the cushion with a sigh. So much had happened through the day that she was surprised to realize the evening sun was still in the sky. She touched her lips and remembered the kiss from Marcus. She remembered the feel of his hand warm on her neck as he’d pulled her towards him. Was there any chance it was more than first aid for him? Her lips still tingled—it felt like more than that for her.

A weight thumped onto her leg. Without lifting his chin from her thigh, Busby looked up at her. “Okay, Busby, I know. More food.”

A half hour later, with both their stomachs full, Busby was
settled on the carpet at her feet
as she sat on
the
sofa. Avy settled against the soft back cushion and rolled her head from side to side, trying to ease the tension headache throbbing at her hairline. She wrinkled her nose at the faint, yet familiar, smell hanging in the air.

The door to the root cellar caught her eye. Some of her mother’s lavender would freshen the air in the house in no time. She stood up and looked at the cellar entrance again. Except she’d have to go down and get it. As a child she’d been afraid to go down to the dark crawl space where her mother kept all her herbs and other ritual paraphernalia. She straightened her shoulders. She stopped being afraid of the dark when she was ten.

“Come on, Busby.”

The dog looked up, growled at the door and dropped his head back down on his paws.

Avy gave him a gentle push with her toe and he slid to a standing position on the floor. He did not move forward.

“I’m not going down there alone.”

Busby raised his head again and whi
ned
.

“Some guard dog you are, ya big baby.” She hadn’t gone into the cellar in years but her memory of a single, weak overhead light bulb made her sidetrack to the kitchen to pick up a flashlight from a shelf above the sink. Then she strode over to the cellar and looked back at the dog.

Left with no choice, Busby slowly made his way to her side.

She turned back to the cellar door. It was a perfectly ordinary door. Made out of some sort of wood. Six panels. Standard brass doorknob. The latch was hanging open. Avy vaguely remembered a heavy black padlock having been there before.

“I must have had an awesome imagination as a kid, Busby,” she said. She lightly brushed her hand across a panel. “I would have sworn that the door was red when I was a kid.” She hadn’t really noticed in more recent years. Reality showed it was a deep indigo.

She stifled a giggle. “And, for sure, I saw a fire breathing dragon come up the stairs at least once.” The memory was so clear in her mind. “I guess it was a pretty small dragon, though. Probably just a baby.” She stroked Busby’s head to reassure him before she reached for the doorknob. “Yup, one hell of an imagination.”

She pulled open the door and stepped into the darkness. Immediately her nose wrinkled against the acrid smell hanging in the stale air.

Busby whimpered but stepped in front of her.

She couldn’t imagine why a dog would be afraid of the dark. There was a light switch on the wall beside the stairs so she flicked it on. It wasn’t bright but it cast enough light for Avy to see the stairs. She waited a moment to give her eyes time to adjust.

As the aroma from the cellar grew stronger, she realized it was the same smell from that first evening outside the house, then later today at the bank.

“I knew it was familiar, Busby.”

Even as a small child she hadn’t liked the strange smell that seemed to drift up from the root cellar. Her mother had said some of her concoctions were a bit stinky until they settled.

Avy nudged Busby to move, tucked the flashlight into the waist of her jeans, and followed him down the stairs. The click of his nails on the wood was as reassuring as his presence.

As soon as her foot settled on the dirt floor at the bottom of the steps, her heart jolted in her chest. Busby dropped to a crouch and growled. The cellar lay in ruins. Jars smashed. Baskets of herbs up-ended. Strange objects strewn everywhere. Some of the debris had landed on a rough hewn table that was pushed up against the far wall. Was this part of the original break-in? Or had someone come back a second time while she was out?

She tensed her body ready to bolt back up the stairs. She squinted
,
scanning every corner for movement or shadows. Nothing. Maybe the sheriff hadn’t thought to check the cellar. Why would anyone ransack a cellar anyway? Avy forced herself to breathe in slowly through her nose. The dust tickled making her eyes water as she tried not to sneeze.

Busby must have decided the scene was secure because he was no longer growling.
What could anyone want in the cellar? Her heart pounding, and senses on high alert, she moved further into the small room looking for some sign of what the intruder was looking for.
Even the smaller boxes and jars had been opened and their contents dumped. Something small then, but what? She pulled her flashlight out of her waistband and kept moving forward, with Busby matching each step. Her gaze followed the sweep of the flashlight from side to side. The beam suddenly bounced back to her from something beneath the table. She bent over and found a battered old trunk with worn leather straps, elaborate brass banding and corner guards. It was covered in decades of dust and almost completely hidden in the shadows.

“Looks like the thief missed this,” she said. She pulled it out and knelt down, then eased open the lid with one hand while using the other to angle the light.

Busby nosed up beside her. The dust made him sneeze. “Bless you,” Avy said, without taking her eyes away from the strange piece.

The trunk seemed to be empty. She reached inside and felt around the inside being careful not to
use
too much pressure. If this was a family heirloom, she didn’t want to damage it. Her fingers tingled as she slid them around the bottom. Busby nudged her from behind and she almost fell in. “Stop that!” she snapped at him, her nerves at breaking point, and instantly felt sorry. He didn’t back away but this time nudged her elbow forward.

She sat back on her heels and looked at the dog nose to nose. “You are a strange one, Busby. Sometimes I almost think you’re trying to talk to me.” Busby licked the tip of her nose and whined.

She shook her head, but went back to her examination of the trunk. Again, Busby nudged her arm towards the back. Leaning further in, she ran her palm along the back side of the trunk. The contact sent prickling heat into her hand but didn’t hurt her so she continued up the side towards the upper edge. It started to sting but Avy forced herself not to pull away. When she connected with the left hinge, static jolted through her. Before she could jump back, something smacked into her knees from the front of the trunk.

Shaking the feeling back into her hand, Avy sat back on her heels again and looked at the hidden drawer that had been obscured by the brass banding around the base of the trunk.

“I didn’t see that coming. A hidden compartment? This is starting to feel like a spy movie.”

She shuffled back a bit so she could pull the drawer out completely. It seemed to hold only one item. A dark blue velvet sack. Bringing it out carefully, Avy untied the string at the neck and eased her hand inside. She slid out a red lacquer box. Avy recognized the design on the lid, a gryphon.

Busby nosed the box and sniffed. He was not showing any sign of fear and had stopped growling like a jungle cat ready to strike.

“You figure it’s okay for me to open it.”

She studied the box from all sides but didn’t gain any new insights so, being careful with the hinges, she lifted the lid. Inside lay a very old book. Its cover was intricately stamped leather, although Avy couldn’t make out the design in the dim light. It was held closed with rough, raffia-like rope.

“Wow.” She turned the book over in her hand. Gently. “This is really something.”

She looked at Busby. The shadows were playing tricks with her vision. Busby’s deep brown eyes seemed to be glowing. A trick of the light. At some point, he’d picked up the velvet pouch with his mouth. She gave it a little tug and he released it. “I’d better hold onto that.”

She slid the book back into the box, slid that back into its pouch and stood up. For a moment, the edges of her periphery darkened and she thought she was going to be sick. She leaned on the table, closed her eyes and waited for the sensation to pass. Every joint and muscle in her body ached with fatigue. But even more so, her spirit was exhausted. Tired of fighting the overwhelming grief. Tired of fearing a future without her parents. Tired of putting one foot in front of the other to get through each day since she’d gotten the horrible news about her parents’ death.

Busby whimpered and rubbed against her leg. She opened her eyes.

“I know I can count on you, my boy.” She rubbed his ear and took a deep breath to steady herself. She remembered from her college psychology course that grief was a process and she just had to get through the stages. She was going to survive this.
She felt her eyes watering and blinked to keep from crying. She didn’t even know what she wanted to cry about right now. Her emotions were swinging all over the place. Maybe grief did that to you. Made you emotionally unstable.