A blast of wind roars in from the west, only to discover it has no place to go. The area, much like a fortress, is surrounded by mountains. Turning back on itself, the wind rages, the ground rumbles, the cliffs brood, and the indigo skirt of the sea billows, shamelessly displaying white foam petticoats as wave after wave crash against the sand.
Like a tick in dog flesh, Jason burrows into a mossy nook of exposed tree roots. His back is pressed into the rough texture of bark. Other than absently turning the bottle of wine in his hands—his thumbnail periodically scrapes the label’s edge—he sits statue-like amid the smell of rich earth and watches Cynthia. Is she performing some type of sorcery? All she needs is a hooded cloak, a dagger, and an animal sacrifice.
Just then, a billowy whiteness wafts into his line of sight. It gives off an agitated feeling.
Skin tingling, Jason watches, mesmerized, as the shimmering form goes slightly out of focus, like an old-time photograph. Moving closer, it congeals into a form—a woman with brilliant white eyes, silver skin, and the smile of a predator.
Heart crashing against his ribcage, he wonders if this is his mother, or one of the ghosts they’d talked about in the van on the way from the airport. Hearing the nursery rhyme his mother use to sing-song to him and his twin, he freezes. The ending always scared them witless. “Here comes a candle to light you to bed. And here comes a chopper to chop off your head! Chip chop, chip chop, the last man is dead.”
Jason raises a hand to ward off its approach.
It stops and smiles. “Have you come to play?” it asks. The smile becomes a snarl, baring teeth like a wolf. As it drifts closer, Jason bolts into the clearing toward Cynthia.
Thunder booms and lightning jags through the midnight sky. Looking over his shoulder, the apparition is gone. If he didn’t know better, he’d think that Cynthia is the one who arranged that ghoulish display and who is orchestrating the storm.
Like a ripe melon, heaven’s canopy splits open, and rain falls in sheets. Perfect! he thinks, kicking into action.
The air cringes. Cynthia feels a hot clench in the muscles of her throat as she senses, rather than hears, soft footfalls behind her. With a calm she doesn’t feel, she lowers her arms, turns around slowly, and says, “Hello, Jason, I’ve been expecting you.”
Jason’s uneasy that Cynthia sensed his presence before he’d made a sound. He produces a rare smile, though disingenuous. “I’ve been watching you,” he grunts. “You look like a sorceress or Druid casting a spell.”
“Maybe I am,” she says, smiling. “Why did you follow me?”
“Because you know about me, don’t you?”
“I don’t know anything about you. You never let me look at your hand.”
In the next flash of lightning, Cynthia sees a movement in the far distance, behind Jason’s head. “What is it you think I know about you?” she asks, drawing him out.
“You’re the psychic,” he sneers. “You tell me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t toy with me.” Turning, he raises his right arm high, then slashes it down with fierce intensity, smashing the wine bottle against the boulder next to her.
The fractured sound of shattering glass mesmerizes Cynthia. She stares at the shards glittering like teardrops on the ground and wonders if her blood will soon mingle with the wine and the rain in the mud.
She sees the movement behind Jason drawing closer. To hold his attention, Cynthia looks directly into his eyes.
Hemingway is the epitome of power and swiftness as he charges across the vast space. His stride is long and smooth with great reach and a strong, powerful drive that eats up the ground.
“And so close to the edge here,” Jason continues, waving the bottle’s jagged glass at Cynthia. Jutting his chin toward the cliff’s edge, he sneers, “Anything, a gust of wind, could cause you to keel over the edge and plunge to your death.”
Speaking with an even voice, Cynthia asks, “Why do you want to hurt me?”
“Oh, but you’re mistaken. I don’t want to hurt you. I’m going to kill you. But it’s got to look like an accident.” His cruel wink looks like a grimace in the flash of lightning.
A deep-throated growl that vies with the storm’s grumbling causes Jason to look over his shoulder. His emotions shift as panic rises.
There stands Hemingway, feet planted in a fighting stance, one hundred and fifty pounds of menace, a terrorizing sight of strength and savagery. No longer the friendly mascot of Pines & Quill, his ears are tucked to the sides of his head, hackles raised, and lips pulled back revealing teeth that can tear the flesh of formidable prey.
Grasping at mental straws to buy time, Cynthia lets out a cackle-like laugh and says, “And here you thought I was a sorceress or Druid. I’m neither.” Pulling herself up to her full height she continues in what she hopes is a foreboding voice. “I’m a witch. And this,” she says, pointing a long, slender finger at Hemingway, “is my familiar.”
Jason looks at her blankly, without comprehension. She smiles indulgently as if he were a child, and says, “You should have done your homework. Let me enlighten you. Familiars are animals that work with a witch during spell casting, rituals, and for psychic guidance. Any animal a witch feels a spiritual connection with can be a familiar.”
Eyes narrowed against the rain, Jason looks at Cynthia and Hemingway with wariness.
Playing on his fears, she continues. “Jason, you saw me, arms raised, orchestrate this storm didn’t you? And then Hemingway appears. You said yourself that I know who you
