Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Haunted Hex
by
Sara Bourgeois
Chapter One
The screaming woke me from what had previously been a peaceful sleep. Probably the first restful night I’d had in a week.
The bed shaking wasn’t helping either.
But it wasn’t the bed shaking. It was Thorn shaking me. He had me by the shoulders and was rattling me down to my bones.
The screaming wasn’t him, though. It quickly became apparent who was responsible.
“Kinsley, you’re having some sort of nightmare,” he shouted. “You have to wake up, sweetie. Wake up!”
When I looked around the room, everything was floating. The bed was at least six inches off the floor as were the dressers, a desk and chair, and both night tables. Everything but the baby’s cradle.
As consciousness crept into my brain, the furniture all dropped to the floor with a thunderous clatter. Laney began to cry.
“I’ll get her,” Thorn said as he slid off the bed. “Are you okay?”
“I think so,” I said. “I must have been having some sort of nightmare.”
The concern in Thorn’s eyes was evident even in the dark bedroom. Laney’s cradle was just a few feet from the bed, and Thorn quickly got her settled again. She was so young, but Laney was already a daddy’s girl. He felt the same way.
“I was really hoping you’d finally get some sleep,” Thorn said.
“I want to hold her,” I said and stretched out my arms.
“She’s fine,” Thorn said. “Please try to go back to sleep.”
It was true. Laney had been a good sleeper from day one. She wasn’t what kept me up at night.
“I just want to hold her for a while,” I persisted.
He crossed the room and gently handed Laney over to me. She snuggled against my chest, and Thorn got onto the bed next to us.
I’d spent every night since she’d come home from the hospital watching her sleep. I stayed up all night most nights, and if I did manage to fall asleep, I’d wake up with my heart pounding and my ears ringing. Sometimes I was soaked in sweat too.
There were no nightmares that I could remember, but it always felt like I’d woken up from a really bad one. That night was the first that I’d screamed. It was also the first night that the furniture had levitated. At least Laney hadn’t been hurt.
“Where’s Meri?” I whispered in a panic.
“I’m right here,” he said.
I looked over to see him perched on the windowsill watching us. “I could have hurt her,” I said to him.
“I managed to keep the cradle down,” Meri said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t hold the rest of it. You’re too strong in your sleep.”
“He did,” Thorn confirmed. “She’s fine. Probably a little startled is all.”
“I scared her,” I said and held Laney tighter. “I’m traumatizing my own baby.”
“That’s why you need to sleep, Kinsley,” Thorn said. “You’ve never had issues like this before, but you haven’t really slept in days.”
I hadn’t told him about the daymares. In addition to feeling like I had to stay awake and watch Laney, I was having these terrible intrusive thoughts during the day. Sometimes all I could think about was horrible things happening to us, and I’d have to rush over and confirm that she was okay.
It had started in the hospital. I’d had a horrible dream the night before we were discharged. A terrible plague had swept through the world, and I died without being able to say goodbye to my baby and husband.
My soul had floated out of my body, and I’d watched as Thorn took Laney away from Coventry to keep her safe. Except, he’d never come back. He took her away from her entire family, and they didn’t see her again.
The nightmare had taken root in my heart, and after that night, I couldn’t sleep without having an absolute panic attack. I felt guilty too because it was like I didn’t trust Thorn. I knew he’d never take Laney away from me, but the nightmare had put horrible ideas into my imagination.
Even without telling Thorn about the daymares, he knew something bad was going on with me. Meri sensed it too, but he stayed close to Laney.
“You know the cat is watching her,” Thorn said as if he could read my thoughts. “You don’t have to keep an eye on her all of the time. He sleeps in there with her, and he’s not going to let anything happen.”
“I know,” I said. “I’ll lay her down, and I’ll try to get some sleep.”
“Valerian tea,” Meri said before jumping down out of the window. “For you, not her.”
“That’s actually a good idea,” Thorn said. “Why don’t you rest here, and I’ll make it.”
“No, I’ll go. You need sleep too,” I said. “I’ll drink some tea, and I’ll come right back to bed.”
Thorn eyed me skeptically.
“I need to get up and move,” I said. The adrenaline from the nightmare I couldn’t remember was still coursing through my veins. The only way I was going to get any sleep was if I walked some of it off. “Sleep,” I said as I pulled the baby sling off the top of the dresser. “I’ll lay her down when I get back.”
Thorn looked exhausted, and it pulled at my heart. He wasn’t tired because of staying up with the baby. It was because of whatever was going on with me.
If I took Laney downstairs with me to make the tea, he’d have uninterrupted quiet to get back to sleep. Before I left the room, I took a package of silicone earplugs out of the nightstand and handed them to him.
“I want to be able to hear if you need me,” he protested.
“If we need you badly enough, these won’t stop it,” I said. “Please, Thorn. You have to go back to work soon. I don’t want you exhausted. It’s puts you and everyone else at risk.”
That got through to him. He took the earplugs and put
