Conflicted Witch (Jagged Grove Book 2) Read online

  Jagged Grove

  Book 2

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  CONFLICTED WITCH (JAGGED GROVE BOOK 2)

  First edition. August 12, 2015.

  Copyright © 2015 Willow Monroe.

  Written by Willow Monroe.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  GEMMA STONE MYSTERY SERIES

  ONE

  It seems I only have real courage when I’m surrounded by friends, and even then it’s kind of iffy.

  In the grand tradition of confession: Hi, I’m Trinket. I’m a law student with a creaky little apartment in Raleigh, a fabulous fiancée named Clay, and a witchy mother whose wayward spellcasting got us both arrested and sent to a town called Jagged Grove that doesn’t actually exist. Not in the real world, anyway. Now I’m stuck here for a year and trying to learn how to manage my own healing magic, because that’s the only way I can earn my way back to my normal life.

  Right now, though, I’m trying to lay claim to a haunted house. It’s not going so well.

  I plant my hands on my hips, do an about face on the sunny sidewalk, and glare at the entrance to the house.

  My house.

  Maybe. If I can overcome my fear of Rachel, the havrue - bitter witch - that lives in there. She’s already tried to kill me once. Did I mention that she’s also my sister? Or that the house used to be hers? Or that she tried to kill me over some guy - a guy I don’t even like? Because it sucks and I’m not sure I deserve that.

  “Are you going inside today?” Rain, one of my mother’s recent adoptees, whispers from behind me.

  We’ve done this three times now, and all three times I’ve chickened out. I square my shoulders. “Yes. Yes, I am.” I pause. “Maybe.”

  Rain, in the universal expression of teenagers everywhere, rolls her eyes.

  When I learned that the house was to be mine, I admit I was thrilled. It’s a gorgeous two-story cottage with custom everything, and when you walk inside it feels like a small castle. I couldn’t wait to move in. But then Rachel tried to kill me - did I mention that part?

  I really want to live in this house, but not if it’s haunted by my dead half-sister’s jealous ghost.

  It’s a complicated situation.

  The house is really a cottage, a gorgeous gem of a place, and I was shocked to learn that it was mine. Then, when Rachel pulled her little stunt, I was afraid to even try living here, and it’s been sitting empty ever since. Our friend and neighbor Jones, the hot shifter dude who lives in the row of houses behind ours, came over and cut away some of the vast hedges that surrounded the place, though, so now I can at least glare at the house from the safety of the sidewalk.

  Until today.

  I jump when a hand drops onto my shoulder and a shadow momentarily blocks out the morning sun. It’s Jones. “Let’s get on with it.”

  I turn my head and stick my tongue out at him. “Give me a minute. She didn’t try to kill you, so you don’t have the right to rush me.”

  Jones gives me an exasperated eyebrow lift. “We don’t know that she was trying to kill you, either. She just wanted you to leave Angelo alone.”

  “Well, it worked.” I haven’t seen Angelo for almost two weeks now, not that he hasn’t tried.

  Angelo is my jailor. He’s the one who arrested me and my mother, then brought us here to live because of vague national security reasons, or so he said. In actuality, this whole mess has something to do with my half-sister and a father I’ve never even met, but Angelo still won’t tell me exactly what’s going on.

  All I know is that I own this house, and I’m going to live here if it kills me.

  I reach out a hand that only trembles a little and push open the gate, then pause to see if Rachel is going to come flying out to strangle me again.

  Nothing. I heave a sigh and smile at the crew behind me.

  Jones smiles back. Glade and Rain, the twins my mother has sort of adopted, both smirk at me. Our local vampire, Blakely, taps his fancy gold watch. I look back at the house, take a deep breath, and step through the open gate.

  I have to admit that the place already looks better. Those hedges blocked a lot of sunlight, making the air feel stale and heavy. This is much more cheerful, even though the lot is still full of trees, weeds, and big pieces of what I suppose would be called metal art. I think the chunk of twisted steel to my right is supposed to be a butterfly, but it looks more like a Honda crashed into a tree.

  To me, it’s one big mess. But that’s OK, because I have a year to get it fixed up and then I’m gone. The next healer can move in and do whatever he or she wants to the place.

  The stone walkway meanders from where I’m standing all the way to the front door of the house. I make it halfway before my steps falter.

  “Trinket?” Jones asks from behind me. “You all right?”

  “I’m good,” I answer over my shoulder, but my feet don’t move. The house glares down at me, making me feel like I’m trespassing. “Just...looking around.”

  “Uh-huh.” I jump, because his voice is almost beside me now. He reaches for my hand. The gesture sends a nervous tingle up my arm. “I’ll help.”

  I hate to admit it, but I’m grateful for his company. Jones was my first real friend here in Jagged Grove, and I still trust him more than anyone else - even my well-meaning but slightly crazy mother. She’s the one who got us into this mess.

  Jones squeezes my hand and tugs me gently forward. To my surprise, my feet come unglued and I follow him toward the steps leading up to the front door.

  “We’ll just go inside and take a look around for now, and then get out of here,” he says helpfully. “It’ll be like a test run.”

  “Hmm. OK.” He smells good, and I remind myself again that he’s off limits for me. I have a life and a fiancé waiting back home, and in one year - well, eleven months now - I’ll go back to it and leave this whole mess behind. I’m still glad for his support, though.

  “She’s probably not even here,” he offers. “I mean, she’s a ghost, so she can go wherever she wants. Why would she haunt an empty house?”

  “Right. She’s probably at Angelo’s, making sure he’s not kissing anybody.”

  Jones grins at me, and then we’re on the porch. The hair along my arms tingles, and I stop again. The heavy feeling is back, but I can’t tell if it’s because Rachel is here, or if it’s simply my imagination.

  “You can do it, Trinket,” Glade, always the nicer twin, calls to me from the street.

  I wave over my shoulder, but I’m staring at the massive front door. My throat feels tight.

  “I don’t want to go in there,” I say, being completely honest with Jones. “I mean, I love the house, and I love the idea of living here. And I know you gave me the ring for protection, but...” I glance down at the pretty moonstone on my right ring finger. It seems small.

  He smiles softly. “Want to wait for another day?”

  “Yes. No.” I plead with my eyes. “What do I do, Jones? If I go away now and let her win again, I’ll feel miserable. If I go inside, I feel like I might throw up.”

  “Ok. Just calm down. Let’s get off the property and regroup. Then you can decide.”

  It occurs to me that it isn’t the property that’s making me feel spooked. It’s just the house, because I don
’t want to be trapped in there with a bitter witch. “I have another idea, actually,” I say turning away from the door to look at the tangled mess of a lawn.

  From the street, I hear my pep squad groan, assuming that I’ve decided to run again. They’re only half right. “I want to work on the grounds around the place. Get it cleared away, make it pretty. Then I’ll go inside.”

  Jones chews on his lower lip while he thinks about this, then he nods and offers me an understanding smile. “OK. Fair enough. Where should we start?”

  Instead of answering, I call out, “Glade?” His head comes up. “Can you go borrow some lawn equipment? A mower or two, weed whackers, that kind of thing?”

  He looks puzzled for a minute, then nods, and I see him and Blakely take off down the street.

  They are being very sympathetic and patient with me, and I’m grateful.

  Jones is still watching me. “Are you going to be mad at yourself later?”

  “Probably. But it’s the best I can do right now.” I look at him and say honestly, “Thank you for coming with me, though. I appreciate it.”

  “No problem. I told your mother I would look out for you.”

  My eyebrows come up. “You did? When? And why?”

  “Because you’ve stumbled over a dead body, pissed off Wisp, the grand princess of Jagged Grove, and almost died, all in the space of a month here. I think you might need looking after, don’t you?”

  I don’t answer, because he’s right and I’m not about to say so. Instead, I walk through the mess to the nearest disgusting flower bed and start yanking up weeds as hard as I can. The first handful is difficult. The second handful makes me smile. After that, I’m filled with a determined kind of pleasure. After a moment, I hear him follow suit, and then Rain is helping, too. In my joy at violently jerking up dead plants, I’m able to momentarily forget that my life is completely upside down.

  Jones is right, though. Small town politics was never my thing, and it seems I’ve caused my share of trouble here already. Without meaning to, I’ve made people mad. I made Rachel mad enough to tear up the town with a terrible storm, and the folks around here are still trying to rebuild that mess. I offered to help, but no one seemed to want it, so I’ve turned my attention back to the house.

  It hasn’t done much good so far.

  When the guys get back with a truck full of equipment I’m already filthy, itchy, and feeling a lot better. Most importantly, I manage to feel like I’m doing something, even if everybody, including me, still thinks I’m a coward.

  As I move to the next flower bed I promise myself that by the time the lawn is finished, which I estimate will take a while, I will have worked up the nerve to go inside the house. It’ll be easy, and then I’ll throw a huge party, just to make the place feel like my own. Right now, there’s too much Rachel in there, and Rachel scares me.

  By the end of the morning, while I’m stretching out my lower back and wiping my hands on my jeans, I swear I can hear the ghost of Rachel’s laughter coming from the house, a quiet sound meant just for me. But when I squint to look at the blank windows, I can’t see anything.

  Maybe I’m imagining it.

  Around noon, when we straggle home to my mother Bilda’s house, dirty and exhausted but proud of our progress, she has lunch ready for us. I stumble through to the kitchen, give her a weak smile and a wave, and then head upstairs for a shower. The rest of my crew will wash up downstairs.

  The first thing I notice is that my familiar, Bumper the owl, is missing from his spot on the windowsill perch he loves so much. It sits at one end of the upstairs hall, allowing him to keep an eye on the street and lawn below, along with any tasty mouse or lizard that happens by. I stare at it briefly and wonder where he might be, but he has the run of the house, so I figure he’s just hiding out somewhere else. He doesn’t like crowds.

  We’ve gotten a lot of work done today and the good news is that there was no sign of Rachel. I didn’t even feel a twinge, once I got busy. Now, as I scrub the soil from under my fingernails, I’m pretty proud of myself. The flower beds are cleared, the trees are all down, except for a couple to provide shade, and Berkely even cleared a lot of the ivy away from the fence. The lawn looks like a lawn again, instead of a tiny snake-infested jungle. All in all, it looks more like a nice house in a nice neighborhood, instead of a dangerous deathtrap in the middle of Jagged Grove.

  Downstairs, we gather around the kitchen table and small bar to eat homemade meatball subs. It feels like everyone I know in Jagged Grove is here, and the atmosphere is more of a party than the end of work detail. I’m starting to think - against my will - that we could actually fit in well around here. As I sniff my fat sandwich happily and lift it to my mouth I catch a glimpse of Bilda from across the room.

  Imala, my neighbor and doughnut provider, is leaning in and saying something that makes her laugh and pat down her silvery curls. Her eyes are sparkling. She looks so happy as she listens and watches us all enjoy her meal.

  She’s missed this, I know.

  Lately I’ve developed a deep appreciation for all that she gave up to follow me from our home in Washington to Raleigh. She lost friends, her coven, even her home - so that I could be happy. Now we’re in Jagged Grove together, and she’s coming back into her own, so to speak. It’s my turn to support her.

  The thought crosses my mind again that I need to ask around about finding her a coven. Especially if my father is lurking nearby - she didn’t look happy to learn about that, and she’ll need the support structure that a coven offers.

  I’m only three bites in when a knock on the door interrupts the steady flow of our chatter. There’s a lull while we all look at one another. Across the room, Jones’s eyes meet mine. I groan inwardly.

  It has to be Angelo, because everyone else we know is here already.

  I slip from my seat at the table and make my way on shaking knees to the back door. Blakely passes me, heading to the front of the house to let him in. He offers a small understanding smile.

  Jones meets me at the back door and takes my elbow, guiding me wordlessly out into the late afternoon sunshine. He leads me through the rear lawn, past the pond that separates our streets, and into his house before he speaks a word.

  As always when he touches me, I ignore the little jolt of raw desire that tingles along my spine. Unfortunately, he touches me a lot - casually, of course. He’s the kind of guy who uses touch as a way to feel close, to make a point, to get your attention. If I weren’t madly in love with Clay, it would make me crazy.

  Jones’s house is best described as eclectic. A mishmash of furniture, several odd but interesting sculptures, and books stacked all over the place would normally be claustrophobic, but to me, since I’ve been here before and I’m used to it, the place is more cozy than crowded.

  I’m shaking. He smiles into my eyes, sits me on the edge of his seen-better-days sofa and goes to get me a glass of water. “Are you all right?” he asks as he hands it to me.

  I nod, then sniff the glass to make sure it’s just water. Jones swears by some concoction that the mayor produces, some kind of moonshine - but the stuff scares the daylights out of me. Ever since my assistant was killed by it, at the hand of my beloved half-sister, I’ve avoided it completely, and no amount of needling by Jones or anyone else could make me try it.

  Not that Jones would lace my drink. I don’t think.

  “Why are you running from him again?” he asks me after a moment.

  “Because the last time I spent any time in his presence his dead girlfriend destroyed half the town and tried to kill me.” I raise my eyebrows. “You remember that, right?”

  “Yes, Trinket. I just don’t see how running away is going to solve the problem. Aren’t you supposed to report in to him on a regular basis?”

  “Shut up. I send him written reports. It’s more efficient than death. Besides, he lied to me about why I’m here.”

  “I really don’t think she was going to kill you.
I mean, before she thought you were sleeping with Pretty Boy, she was excited that you were coming.”

  Jones really doesn’t like Angelo, and I’m pretty sure the feeling is mutual. I think they have a history.

  I set the glass down, because my hands are shaking. “I’m not sleeping with him, though.”

  Jones slips off the sofa and onto one knee in front of me so that he can look me in the eye. “Then tell her so. Face her, and let her know that you aren’t a threat.”

  That means going to the house. I know she’s there, waiting. I can feel it. The problem is that I don’t know what kind of mood she’ll be in when I step inside. I sigh and look away.

  “Well, it’s up to you-.”

  “Wow, thanks.”

  “-but you’re going to have to figure this out eventually.” He pats my hand. “Today was a good start. That house already looks a lot better.”

  I nod. It does. The cottage sits on one of the sloping streets farther out of Jagged Grove in the direction of Mt. Savage, on a pretty lot. It was completely hidden from the street, but now that we’ve cut away half the trees, the hedge, and most of the ivy, it’s starting to look like the cozy little home it was designed to be.

  Part of me can’t wait to live there. A bigger part doesn’t want to die when the ghost of Rachel attacks me in my sleep.

  “Maybe she’s over it?” he asks, almost as an afterthought.

  I rub my eyes. I know Jones is trying to help, but he’s really just putting more pressure on me, which makes me even less interested in the confrontation I know I need to have with her.

  Instead of answering, I nod in the direction of Bilda’s house and ask, “Do you think he’s gone yet?”

  Jones shrugs and stands up. He looks annoyed, but I don’t ask why.

  I’d think he was sexy, in that smooth athletic sort of way, if his reputation as a player hadn’t preceded him. Even though there is always a thin thread of attraction between us, I consider him off limits.

  Absolutely off limits. Regardless of his, uh, abs. And butt. And finely boned face. And gorgeous dark, brooding eyes, and long silky hair. I shake my head to clear out the romance-novel clichés.