The Claiming Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  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

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The Claiming:

  The Witches of Hollow Hill Book One

  Glenn Williams

  Copyright © 2019 by Glenn Williams

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the author

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2019

  www.glennwilliamsauthor.net

  For my mother, who never stopped believing in me.

  And for Jacob, who reads all of my terrible first drafts, gets excited with me about new story ideas, and puts up with my craziness. I never could have done this without you.

  CHAPTER ONE

  I didn’t plan on dying that night.

  I was seated at the long polished bar of The Boozy Mermaid, the horrible dive bar my best friend Melanie works at, perched precariously on the edge of an uncomfortable wooden stool and staring glumly into the depths of the neon-blue cocktail Melanie had placed in front of me. It was one of her newest concoctions. I took one sip of it and decided that it was sure to make me regret my life choices in the morning.

  I already regretted my choices. It had been a long day and I'd thought that unwinding a bit before going home would cheer me up. I should have known better.

  The last client I'd met with, Tyler Conwell, hadn't spoken to me at all. He'd just played with the battered blocks in the red plastic milk crate in the corner of the too-cheerfully decorated room, amid dollhouses, crayons, and tattered board games. Every so often, he'd looked at me and I would glimpse the pain behind his luminous brown eyes. Mostly, however, he kept his gaze trained on the wooden blocks in front of him as though they were the most important thing in the whole world. He built them into walls and then, suddenly, and without warning, he wordlessly knocked them down. But he barely spoke to me and I didn't push it. Establishing trust is the most crucial step in developing a therapeutic alliance, and without that, everything else is useless. If this is true for adults, it is doubly so for children.

  The entire side of his face was covered in deep purple bruises that were rapidly turning yellow around the edges and tiny white butterfly bandages were the only things keeping the deep cuts in his face closed. His own mother had very nearly beaten him to death with an iron after he'd knocked over a pile of clean clothing she had just folded. She had a long history of mental illness that she’d refused treatment for. And then she had just snapped. Tyler was still alive was because her live-in boyfriend pulled her off of him before she could really get going. The only mercy in the entire situation was that the iron hadn't been plugged in. The injuries on Tyler's face would heal in time. The less visible wounds wouldn't heal so easily.

  The mother was hospitalized and she was going to lose custody. I had no doubt about that. But, according to the kid's file, there was no one else to take him. He was going to go into foster care. I felt a pang at the thought.

  He hadn't spoken since that night.

  Before you assume that I'm someone who hates her life, let me assure you that I signed on for this. It’s all a part of the gig. I’m a trauma counselor — I work closely with the Hollow Hill sheriff’s department and I’m on-call at the local hospital as well. It's not that I like listening to the pain and suffering of others – I'm no sadist. It's the off-chance that maybe I might be in a position to help someone through the worst moments of their lives, to help make things right for them somehow. Most of the time it doesn't happen that way, but every once in awhile it does.

  “Kendra,” Melanie said, interrupting my thoughts. She sounded bemused. “Did you hear what I just said?”

  I gave her a blank look.

  “I was telling you that the guy behind you is checking you out,” Melanie said in a carrying stage whisper. “Don't look, he's on your six.”

  I rolled my eyes at her, and felt a mixture of affection and exasperation. Melanie has been my best friend for years. She knows I don't actually care that there's someone – allegedly – checking me out. It doesn't stop her from trying, though. Since I've come back to Hollow Hill this past summer, she's appointed herself to the task of fixing my love life. I've tried to explain to her that there's no need. There's nothing to fix.

  “You seemed like you were somewhere else,” She added, more quietly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I studied Melanie for a moment, trying to decide how much of my day to share. Her warm brown eyes were concerned and steady. Her brow was furrowed, but it didn't mar her beauty. She was wearing an orange and white floral-print dress that stopped at mid-thigh, cinched at the waist with a white belt. If I wore a dress like that, it would have been loud and obnoxious to the point where the people around me would have questioned my sanity, my eyesight, or both. On her, however, with her smooth brown skin and her perfectly shaped body, it was stunning and effortless. Her silky shoulder-length black hair was expertly styled, not a strand out of place. She wore a tear-drop shaped quartz crystal around her neck on a delicate gold chain.

  When we were younger, I had felt out of place next to her, like a thin and unremarkable field mouse standing next to a budding Goddess. That feeling had mostly, but not quite, faded into the background of our friendship. I was wearing my work clothes. A simple charcoal blouse, pale gray pants, and sensible black pumps. My straight and unremarkable brown hair was pulled back in a hasty pony tail and I knew that more than one strand was out of place.

  Briefly, I replayed the last maddening encounter I'd had with Tyler in my mind, trying to see past the bruises on his face. And yet, I couldn’t help but notice that he had a mop of sandy blond hair that reminded me so much of my brother's. All of my cases were hard in their own ways, but the cases involving kids were the hardest. They usually brought back the memories I preferred to avoid.

  “It's just been a long day,” I said finally. Unwillingly, I added, “My last case involved a kid.”

  “Oh jeez,” Melanie said, grimacing. “Is the kid going to be okay?”

  “I hope so,” I added, trying to keep the doubt out of my voice. “It's a domestic abuse case.”

  “Kendra, is that a good idea?” Melanie asked quietly, frowning at me. There was concern in her eyes. She paused, then added, “I thought you swore you weren't going to take those kinds of cases anymore?”

  I hesitated, then shrugged. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't say no to them. If there was even a small chance I could help, I had to try. But I couldn't explain that to her. She hadn't lived through it the way that I had.

  “I'll be okay,” I said finally, not quite meeting her in the eyes. “It's hard, but it's getting a little easier every time.”

  It was a lie and we bo
th knew it.

  “I'm worried about you,” Melanie said. “With your history...”

  “I know,” I said, more sharply than I intended to. More softly, I added, “I'll be fine. Promise.”

  Feeling suddenly uncomfortable, I looked back down to my drink. Telling her had been a mistake, even though on some level I knew that she was right to be concerned.

  I felt Melanie's concerned gaze on me a moment longer. She was quiet for another long moment.

  “I had a dream about you,” She said finally. She dropped her voice, “It was one of those kinds of dreams.”

  I was grateful for the sudden subject change, but I fought the urge to roll my eyes anyway. Melanie believed that she was psychic. She even moonlighted at the flea market on the docks as a tarot reader during the summer months, when tourist season was in full swing.

  “In my dream, you were scared,” Melanie continued, sounding faraway. “I read your cards when I woke up.”

  “And?” I couldn't quite keep the note of skepticism out of my voice.

  “Something big is coming. I couldn't see exactly what it is, but it scared me.” She hesitated, faltering. She took my hand and gave it a squeeze. “I'm worried, Kendra. I don't want anything to happen to you.”

  I met her warm brown eyes. Despite myself, I felt strangely touched.

  “I'll be careful,” I assured her, giving her hand another squeeze. I added, “I should probably go. It's been a long day.”

  She nodded, giving me a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. Her concerned gaze never left me as I exited the bar.

  The drive home was when it happened. When everything changed. My mind was full of Tyler's bruised face, so much like Gwydion's had been.

  I wondered if I should call my brother when I got home. I hadn't heard from him in days. I felt a familiar dread build up in me at the thought. It wasn't like him to just vanish. Not anymore.

  If he was using again...

  I noticed it first out the corner of my eye, a man standing by the side of the road. He was stationary, watching me drive past. I noticed him mainly because he seemed so pale, almost ghost-like. He arose so suddenly in the field of my vision that I jumped in my seat.

  He wasn't walking. Instead, he was just standing there, watching steadily as I drove past. Though wind and rain beat against my windshield and the gathering darkness obscured the road in front of me, I saw him clearly and something told me that even in the darkness, he saw me clearly as well. He looked sad, almost desperate. He was dressed in a pair of faded blue jeans and white t-shirt. No jacket. He was barefoot.

  I couldn't stop myself from glancing in the rear-view mirror. Almost reflexively, I fought the impulse to pull over and see if I could give him a ride somewhere. The Hollow Hill catholic church, maybe. They ran an overnight shelter from their basement and someone like him, someone walking through the rain along the side of the road in the darkness, wearing nothing but a t-shirt and jeans, probably didn't have anywhere else to go. However, when I looked in the review-view mirror, he wasn't there anymore.

  I spent several moments alternating between looking in the review-view mirror and the side-view mirror, confirming what I'd seen the first time: he had vanished into the darkness. I let out a long breath and turned my attention back to the road. Fat droplets of water beat against the windshield. I wondered if perhaps I'd somehow imagined him.

  People don't just vanish into thin air.

  Then, slowly, I became aware that there was someone sitting in the passenger's seat, quietly and steadily staring at me. It came in stages: first I became aware of the fact that I was being watched, the pins and needles hair-raising sensation that eyes were upon me. It's a sensation we've all experienced when we're alone, but seldom around others. Perhaps its a result of too many scary stories about psychopaths in our backseats and bright headlights in our rear-view mirrors. Except that this time, it happened to be real. I slowly became aware of the fact that somehow, impossibly, I was no longer alone.

  You're being crazy, I told myself. There's no one there.

  Fighting with fear, I saw him first in my peripheral vision.

  He leaned towards me, as though he were about to whisper something in my ear.

  My heart skipped a beat and for a moment, I froze in stunned disbelief.

  I turned to look at him.

  A young man gazed at me quietly and steadily. He was wearing a white t-shirt and blue jeans. I didn't see his feet, but if I had, I'm certain that he would have been barefoot. But that wasn't what caught my attention. There was something wrong with his face. It looked wrong somehow, like partially melted candle wax.

  I screamed.

  Or, at least, I tried to. Instead, I let out a horrified squeak.

  I jerked the wheel reflexively, causing my car to momentarily cross the double-solid line into the on-coming lane. Thankfully, there was no traffic. For a moment, I fought to regain control of my car. My tires skidded across the wet pavement.

  I looked back into the passenger seat. It was empty.

  I let out a sigh of relief and, after scanning the space beside me more than once to assure myself that, yes, it was actually empty, I turned my attention back to the road.

  A young man in a white t-shirt was standing directly in front of me, perhaps thirty feet from the hood of my car. He was staring at me steadily. His eyes were dark, piercing, and sad. One side of his face was badly scarred.

  He didn't move.

  Without thinking, I swerved to avoid him, jerking my wheel hard to the right. My car rocketed to the side of the road. A tree loomed up suddenly in front of me, growing larger and larger in my windshield. My front wheels were momentarily airborne and I realized I was suddenly hurtling downhill towards a bank of trees, right in front of me.

  I hit the brakes, but nothing happened.

  Again, I tried to scream.

  This time, my scream was more than a squeak, but it was cut off abruptly.

  I heard a sickening crunch as the hood my car wrapped around a tree trunk and I felt my body jerk against my seat belt. My car was jolted to the side. Another sickening crunch of metal and a cracking noise as the fragile rear windows on the driver's side of my car met the solidity of a tree trunk. A cascade of glass shot through the cabin and I turned away from it.

  My car shuddered to a stop.

  My windshield wipers made a faint squeaking as they struggled across the glass. My headlights sliced through the darkness, illuminating a grove of trees in front of me, growing sideways out of the hill.

  With a start, I realized that the trees weren't sideways. I was.

  My head felt strange, hot and wet. Disbelieving, I put my hand to my skull and it came back smeared with scarlet. I was bleeding.

  A lot.

  Grey spots appeared in front of my eyes and I felt a wave of nausea. I tried to fight it, but everything faded into black. The last thing I saw was a young man in a white t-shirt, watching me from between a pair of trees, illuminated white in the glow of my headlights. The left side of his face was shaped wrong somehow. It was scarred and distorted, like a half-melted candle.

  And then the darkness took me.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Strong hands grabbed me, ripping me from a deep and motionless sleep.

  Go away, Gwydion, I thought. I'm sleeping.

  I tried to turn my back to him, but I couldn't move. My twin brother sometimes woke me up in the middle of the night when he came to sleep next to my bed. Sometimes he'd try to scare me, and then dissolve into laughter before settling down on the floor next to me. Though I pretended to be mad at him for it, I missed it. He hadn't done it since our parents had died. Adults had other ways of saying it to us, things like they went to a better place or they passed on, but we both knew that they had died and they weren't coming back.

  I expected him to give up at any moment. Instead, the pressure increased until it was painful. I could feel the backs of my arms being pr
essed into the scratchy faux-lace blanket my parents had given me as a gift for Christmas. Still half-asleep, a memory swam up to the surface of my mind. I'd cried, right there in front of them, because I didn't want lace anything. I wanted princesses on my blanket. I'd wanted princesses on everything that year. Now all I wanted was them.

  A thread of doubt entered my mind. It's not Gwydion.

  My eyes flew open, but all I could see was darkness looming over me. Not Gwydion. Not Gwydion. My head pounded and my mind felt strange and fuzzy, like it was wrapped in a layer of cotton. Though the pain from the hands that gripped me made my eyes water and I heard myself gasp, it somehow seemed like this was happening to someone else. For a brief moment, I wondered if I was having a nightmare.

  Then there was a sudden weight on top of me, crushing me into the bed. I could hear breathing in my ear, sharp and excited. I tried to push the weight off of me, to get away from it. I tried to punch and claw, to pry myself out from under it.

  I heard a chuckle and recognized it immediately. Our uncle was on top of me. He was going to hurt me, just like he hurt Gwydion. Or no. Not the same way he hurt Gwydion, but just as bad. Worse, maybe.

  My blood ran cold in my veins. I tried again, redoubling my efforts to claw, to squirm, to get away. But he was so heavy and impossibly strong. It was like trying to fight a mountain.

  No no no no no no!

  For a brief second, he was off me. I let out a breath, thinking that maybe he'd changed his mind, that maybe this wouldn't happen. That maybe this was a nightmare, after all. Maybe I would go back to sleep and when I woke up, the world would be exactly the same as it was before I went to sleep.

  I froze and, as long as I live, I'll never forgive myself for it. Because in the next moment, he seized both of my hands and slammed them into the wall behind my bed, hard enough that something something snapped where my wrist met my left hand. I heard it more than I felt it. An instant later, my wrist was engulfed in agony. My body rebelled against the pain. I could feel bile burning in my throat.