The Witch's Throne (Thea Drake Mystery Book 1) (Thea Drake Mysteries) Read online

  THE WITCH’S THRONE

  TheA Drake Mystery Book 1

  Stacey Anderson Laatsch

  Carnahan | Harker

  Copyright © 2017 by Stacey Anderson Laatsch

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  Carnahan Harker Media

  1812 N Columbia Blvd

  Suite C15-246529

  Portland, Oregon, 97217

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Cover Design: DerangedDoctorDesign.com

  Book Layout © 2016 BookDesignTemplates.com

  The Witch’s Throne/ Stacey Anderson Laatsch. — 1st ed.

  Thea Drake Mysteries

  The Witch’s Throne

  Haunts of the Brethren

  Come in, Charlie

  New Releases and Exclusive Content at:

  StaceyAndersonLaatsch.com

  “There are no haunted places, only haunted people.”

  Robert Baker, psychologist and skeptic

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE | OCTOBER 25

  CHAPTER TWO

  JOURNAL OF THEA DRAKE | MAY 28i

  CHAPTER THREE | OCTOBER 25

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  JOURNAL OF THEA DRAKE | MAY 28

  CHAPTER SIX | OCTOBER 25

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  JOURNAL OF THEA DRAKE | MAY 28

  CHAPTER EIGHT | OCTOBER 25

  JOURNAL OF THEA DRAKE | MAY 29

  CHAPTER NINE | OCTOBER 26-27

  JOURNAL OF THEA DRAKE | MAY 29

  CHAPTER TEN | OCTOBER 27

  JOURNAL OF THEA DRAKE | MAY 30

  CHAPTER ELEVEN | OCTOBER 27

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  JOURNAL OF THEA DRAKE | MAY 30

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN | OCTOBER 28

  JOURNAL OF THEA DRAKE | MAY 31

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN | OCTOBER 28

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  JOURNAL OF THEA DRAKE | MAY 31

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN | OCTOBER 28

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  JOURNAL OF THEA DRAKE | JUNE 1

  CHAPTER NINETEEN | OCTOBER 30

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  JOURNAL OF THEA DRAKE | JUNE 1

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE | OCTOBER 31

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  JOURNAL OF THEA DRAKE | NOVEMBER 18

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR | NOVEMBER 18

  CHAPTER ONE | OCTOBER 25

  Today is a good day. Day 151.

  I am dressed in clothing appropriate for public appearance. I am wearing shoes intended for outdoor use. I have showered. I have even located Juliet’s winter coat from the hall closet and tumble-dried it for twenty minutes to remove most of the musty smell.

  I have, however, forgotten my own coat. My fingers grow numb clenched around a mug of coffee chilled in the early-morning air. The field across the street has been recently cleared, and the leftover shards of corn stalks sparkle with frost.

  Across the field to the west, a skeleton reclines on the flat rack wagon parked in the Thompsons’ pasture. Carved and gutted pumpkins line the ring of hay bales around their fire pit, the aftermath of their annual fall bonfire.

  “I want to play basketball,” say Juliet. She’s running circles around me, pumping a flat hand in a way I realize now is in mimicry of dribbling an imaginary basketball.

  “The bus will be here any minute.”

  “Not now,” she sighs, exasperated at my ignorance, then, shooting an imaginary basket, she shouts. “Liddy!”

  Lydia emerges from the trees and walks toward us at the end of the lane. Without my glasses, which I have forgotten, I see only a blur slowly coming into focus. A crimson sweater over violet leggings and yellow boots, short and tousled white-blonde hair, her large eyes lined with black pencil.

  My oldest daughter is my exact opposite every way: coloring, build, demeanor. Her natural hair is light brown, lighter than George’s, which she has been bleaching almost white for more than a year now. Her build is tall and thin. And her demeanor...she was once like George: forthright, honest, always happy and joking as a child. But that happiness has turned brittle over the last few years, the smiles jeering, the jokes sarcastic.

  “Good morning,” I say as she joins us at the end of the lane. “Maybe you’ll hear good news today.”

  She grunts.

  Two weeks ago, she submitted her application to a work-study program starting next semester at the hospital. Competition is high. She worked on the essay for months. George helped her write the first draft.

  “Orientation is the 20th. I’m thinking you’ll hear soon.”

  “Whatever, I—” She scowls. “How do you know it’s the 20th?”

  “I read the application guide.”

  She exhales with force, blowing her bangs away from her forehead. “Of course you did.”

  “I can sign up today,” says Juliet, bouncing on her toes in front of me.

  “What?”

  My younger daughter has my black hair with George’s curls, my dark eyes and long dark lashes with George’s cherub cheeks. She opens her mouth wide and exhales hot air, producing a cloud of white mist.

  “Basketball! I can sign up today.”

  “You already play softball and soccer and volleyball,” says Lydia.

  Juliet swats the mist away. “But this year basketball has both boys and girls, and they’re getting purple shirts instead of the ugly yellow ones, and I want to play.”

  “Sure,” I say. “Basketball.”

  She bites her thumbnail. “There’s the shirt and the shorts and I need new shoes. Basketball shoes.”

  “Okay.”

  “Really? We have money? Liddy says I spend too much money.”

  “We all spend too much money.”

  “She says I’m going to have to get a job.”

  “Not quite yet.”

  “I want a job,” says Juliet. “I want to work at a bakery and bake cupcakes and get free cupcakes.”

  “You can get free cupcakes at home,” says Lydia.

  “Not the fancy ones.”

  “If you can’t make fancy cupcakes, how are you going to get a job in a bakery?”

  “Girls—”

  “There’s Ben!” shouts Juliet. Her cheeks are rosy now. I look at the time on my phone. Where is the bus?

  Ben stops his white pickup at our mailbox. I notice the phone in his steering hand.

  “He’s not texting and driving, right?”

  “Bye.” Lydia climbs into the cab and slams the door. Ben beeps the horn twice, waves, and pulls away. My oldest daughter stares straight ahead.

  Lydia said “bye” today. A good day.

  “There the bus!” shouts Juliet, bouncing on her heels.

  Two months into the third grade, and she’s still excited when the school bus turns the corner and passes Ben’s truck. As it slows and stops, Juliet throws her arms around me, splashing cold coffee on her coat.

  “Thank you for the basketball, Mom.”

  The stop sign pops out, door opens. Juliet sprints up the bus stairs and down the aisle.

  Judy the driver waves at me. “Looking
good today, Thea.”

  I raise my coffee cup to her. She checks the enormous mirror above her head, pulls the lever to close the doors, and with a cloud of exhaust, pulls away.

  I close my eyes and inhale cold, autumn air.

  I am okay.

  Today is a good day.

  Jesus, it’s cold.

  Enough affirmations. I begin the quarter-mile trek back up the lane to our house.

  My house. It was mine before I ever owned it. I grew up pretending that I lived in this house. On days when I remember to wear my coat, after the school bus leaves and I’m alone for the day and inclined to medicate and crawl back into bed, I talk myself out of it by walking as slowly as possible back to this house I love. The Manse, as George calls it.

  Called it.

  He never referred to the enormous Victorian relic as the Cole-Smith house, like everyone else in Homer. It’s haunted, of course. Haunted simply because a rich man built it, lived in it alone for seventy-four years, and then died in the upstairs bedroom. That’s how I convinced him to buy it in the first place.

  “Way too much house,” he repeated as we reached the edge of town and spotted it high on the hilltop across the fields. “We’ve lived in a one-bedroom for the last eight years, for God’s sake.”

  I let him grumble. He was here. We both knew he hadn’t driven four hours in a compact car with a six-year-old for no reason. I watched the house on the hill get closer. We were coming home.

  We turned into the lane, and the full oaks, green with summer, tunneled over the car. I closed my eyes, thankful for the silence. We had dropped Lydia at my parents’ house for the afternoon, and I was enjoying the novelty of being free to think in peace.

  George coaxed his puttering hatchback up the quarter-mile lane. As we emerged from the timber, I opened my eyes, and there it was: my hometown’s most famous structure, black and empty, windows like wide-open eyes.

  “I know it’s big,” I said, “but we’ll soon be a family of four.” I patted my rounded belly, recently popped at only fourteen weeks, much sooner than with Lydia. “How much longer do you think we can keep our sanity in one bedroom?”

  “Fine, but this?”

  Seventeen rooms on two stories, all sharp angles and shadowy corners. The siding was peeling black cedar shake. Spots of original galvanized steel were exposed where the shingles have fallen. Built in three sections like stair steps, the west wing was short and squat, the center a step taller with a second-floor widow’s walk, and the east tower highest of all, topped by a coned turret.

  “That could be your office,” I said, pointing to windows in the tower.

  He arched an eyebrow at me but climbed out of the car and approached the house. I eased my awkward bulk out of the low seat and examined the lawn. Asphalt shingles had shed from the roof, dotting the tall grass.

  “This porch is falling apart,” he said, kicking the first step. Wood crumbled beneath the toe of his boot. “This is the place all the kids were scared of, huh?”

  “We used to dare each other to knock on the front door.”

  “Are you daring me?”

  He grinned, then arched back, taking in the looming house above. I waited while his wheels turned, acclimating to the idea, knowing he couldn’t resist the chance to own a real, live, reputed haunted house, to live in one even if it meant moving back to my hometown.

  “If it’s that scary,” he said, “why do you want this place so much?”

  “Good scary. Roller coaster scary. Horror movie scary.”

  “I believe the word you are looking for is ‘thrilling.’”

  “Plus, you’re here. I’m braver with you. You don’t believe in these things.”

  “What, too-good-to-be-true deals on enormous houses?”

  “Haunted houses. Ghosts.”

  He stepped onto the warped porch, and I followed.

  “You don’t have to believe in them, either.”

  “You say that like it’s so easy.”

  The porch wrapped around the entire house, meeting at the front and back stairs. George pushed his toe into a board under the swing and it sunk several inches, then cracked. “Christ,” he stepped back, pulling me with him, “the whole porch needs rebuilt.”

  Together, we turned around to admire the view. Timber surrounded us on three sides, but from the front door, we could see over the treetops and down the hill to the town below.

  Homer, Illinois. My hometown. Eighteen hundred people tucked into neat ranch homes surrounded by fields of corn and soybeans. A school, a post office, a volunteer fire department. Equal number of churches and bars. Railroad tracks that still split the town in two, and a grain elevator for the tallest building.

  “We’d be instantly famous in Homer,” I said. “The people who bought the Cole-Smith house.”

  “The Drakes in the haunted Manse on the hill. I like that.”

  “It’s quiet here. The girls would have lots of room to play.”

  “Girls?” He raised an eyebrow at my small, rounded belly.

  I shrugged. “I have a good feeling.”

  He held up the key given to us by the agent. “You sure about this? It’s a lot of money.”

  “Still more affordable than living in the city.”

  “Liddy loves her school, though.”

  I patted my stomach again. “But two kids at a private school? And a place with another bedroom? Here, you wouldn’t have to teach summer classes. You could write.”

  He sighed and turned me toward the door, placing a hand on my back. “Let’s see the inside.”

  Today, I’m too cold to admire my house. Wind whips across the fields and through the thinning autumn timber. I trudge uphill, arms wrapped around myself, head down, trying not to think of the little white pills and the relief of dreamless sleep they provide, and I’m almost to the front lawn when I notice the rectangle of light.

  It’s a dull, dirty yellow light hidden behind the boxwoods in the space where the porch meets the steps. George left the basement light on again.

  No.

  Nausea churns my stomach. I freeze on the front step, but it’s too late. Bile rises to my throat. I gag, bend over, and vomit coffee on the mums.

  On good days, I forget. For split-second moments, caught up in routine, mind distracted by ordinary matters, I wonder why he doesn’t answer when I speak. I wake up confused at the empty space in bed. Then I remember.

  George is dead. He’s been dead for 151 days.

  Hand braced on knee, still clutching my cold mug, I spit the sour coffee taste from my mouth and wait for my stomach to settle.

  Mums?

  My mother must have planted them. I haven’t planted a flower since last spring. Also, who mowed the lawn all summer? It’s neat and tidy, edges trimmed, leaves cleared. Dad? I focus on breathing. In and out.

  Slowly, I lift my eyes. Yep, the basement light is on.

  I didn’t imagine it.

  Noses wrinkled, we crept through the front rooms. The house smelled like boiled eggs. Past the foyer and curved stairway, the dining room was empty, save for the layer of grey dust on the floor. All that remained in the kitchen were a few open shelves and the exposed wires of extinct appliances. Wood planks creaked beneath our shoes.

  “What’s this?” asked George.

  Behind the kitchen, a short hall led to a second set of back stairs. George noticed the corner trim of the wall had peeled away on the half-wall beneath the stairs, revealing a crack all the way to the floor. He wedged his fingertips into the crack, and it widened.

  “It looks like a door.”

  He tugged. The entire half-wall pulled away to reveal a narrow set of stone steps descending into black. A putrid cloud of frigid air blew over our faces. I turned away. George flicked open his lighter, and light from the flame penetrated about two feet into the void.

  “Yes!” he said.

  “No way.”

  But he was already descending. I gripped his shoulder and followed. The de
scent was short, only a half-dozen steps, but the temperature dropped ten degrees. George held the lighter high.

  The ceiling was close—high enough to stand upright but low enough to touch with a bended elbow. I felt the weight of the entire house sinking down on us. We crept, hunched over our meager flame, a few dozen steps until a stone wall appeared. George pressed his palm to it, and we followed it along until it opened into a passage.

  “Please,” I said, squeezing his shoulder, “let’s go back up.”

  He glanced back to the steps already out of sight.

  “All right.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, it’s sectioned into rooms down here. We need more light. I don’t want to get lost.”

  Relieved, I turned and led the way back, George holding the lighter up behind me, until the flame wavered, and he stopped.

  “Wait.”

  Slowly, he panned left until the light fell on a dark form, taller than us, backed into the corner.

  I recoiled, hitting my heel on the bottom step. Arms flung out, I reached for the wall and missed, stumbled and fell back on the stairs, hitting my tailbone.

  “Thea! Are you okay?” George knelt beside me. The form disappeared into the shadows as he moved the light over me.

  “In the corner...something.” My heart pounded. Pain stabbed my lower back. George helped me up. I struggled to catch my breath.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  “The corner…over there…let’s go, now.”

  “Thea,” said George in his calm voice reserved to guide me through freak-outs. “It’s okay now. It’s fine. Deep breaths. See…”

  With one hand on my arm, he stood halfway and reached into the dark corner.

  “No.”

  “Look.”

  With a swift tug, a sheet fell to reveal two heavy trunks stacked with a smaller, third one on top. “It’s old trunks, that’s all. They were covered. Here.”

  He handed me the lighter. I held it high as George stepped into the corner and, with the heel of his hand, knocked the latch of the top trunk open. He lifted the lid and reached inside.

  “George…careful.”