The Squeaky Ghost Gets the Curse Read online

  The Squeaky Ghost Gets the Curse

  A Hex on Me Mystery

  Book Three

  KENNEDY LAYNE

  THE SQUEAKY GHOST GETS THE CURSE

  Copyright © 2019 by Kennedy Layne

  Kindle Edition

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-943420-81-0

  Print ISBN: 978-1-943420-82-7

  Cover Designer: Sweet ’N Spicy Designs

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  Dedication

  Jeffrey—To my partner in all things to do with haunted houses!

  Cole—Not sure about a haunted forest, but we can definitely give it a try one day!

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  About the Book

  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

  About The Curse that Bites

  Books by Kennedy Layne

  About the Author

  Things go bump in the night in this hauntingly riveting tale in the Hex on Me Mysteries by USA Today Bestselling Author Kennedy Layne…

  Lou can’t even manage to dip a chocolate chip cookie into her glass of cold milk without getting a premonition of murder. Her unsettling vision is different this time around, though. The victim was practically thrown down a spiral staircase by…an invisible force right out of thin air!

  Lou has no doubt that a murder was committed, and now it’s a race against time to determine why. Unfortunately, Lou and the gang know they’ll be too late to stop an affluent widow from meeting her fate. All they can do is figure out who killed the reclusive woman in order to give her grown children some sort of closure while saving them from a similar fate.

  All is not what it seems, though. As things begin to go bump in the night and strange noises eerily echo throughout the ancient mansion, Lou is left wondering if the culprit isn’t a vengeful spirit with a purpose. You might want to keep the lights on for this scary ghost story—it promises to be a jumping cool time!

  Chapter One

  The crackles and pops of the logs inside the small circle of stones caused glowing embers to rise up into the night sky along the near vertical path of the rising smoke. The smoldering swirl was hampered only by the mere hint of an evening breeze. The greyish finger could easily be seen in the moonlight, cast by the gossamer face shining down from above amongst the shimmering stars.

  Every so often, the questioning hoot of a night owl would hollowly echo throughout the trees while the crickets and critters of the surrounding woods carried on their own private earthly conversations.

  It was peaceful nights like this that I strived for the impossible, seeking to recharge my batteries before the next call to action.

  Nothing is impossible, dear hexed one.

  I didn’t immediately reply to Pearl Pippa Allifair, our resident feline familiar. Please don’t be under the impression that the sleek white cat with an English accent was mine. For one, she was way too optimistic for my liking. Two, she actually belonged to Piper Allifair, who had joined me on my quest to…well, strive for the impossible.

  “What’s so impossible?” Orwin asked, not even bothering to look up from the laptop that was precariously balanced on his knees. He was using the mobile broadband Wi-Fi hotspot he’d set up in the RV behind us to connect to the internet. I’m pretty sure he owned every technological gadget ever created, but his very long wish list spoke to the contrary. “Can’t you scoot closer? I wouldn’t have to ask you useless questions then.”

  Orwin Cornelia was an exceptional wizard who’d also joined me in this hunt for the impossible, though he did have his own motivations that he refused to discuss in any measurable way. Throw in his amazing tech abilities and the fact that he could hear someone’s thoughts from spitting distance, and he’d basically made himself irreplaceable.

  You forgot to mention that Mr. Cornelia is a conspiracy theorist on the verge of wearing aluminum foil on his head. Were you aware that Minnesota has a UFO Network Blog? A sighting took place not ten miles from here, and he’s been researching the witness statements for the last hour, looking for discrepancies.

  “Actually, it was twelve miles, but the sighting turned out to be an elaborate hoax. They would have known that if they’d properly evaluated the witness statements,” Orwin replied with a frown of disappointment, pushing his black-rimmed glasses up onto the bridge of his nose so that he could glare at Pearl. “Is someone going to answer me about whatever it is that’s impossible?”

  Seeing as Orwin couldn’t hear someone’s thoughts if they were over six feet away, I just happened to be sitting on the opposite side of the fire…approximately seven feet away. And yes, I might have done that on purpose. Between Pearl and Orwin, it was rare that Piper and I ever got a moment of privacy.

  “It’s not important,” I replied, tucking the soft blanket underneath my denim clad legs a little tighter before reaching for the cold glass of milk I’d poured before exiting the RV. I’d also grabbed the package of chocolate chip cookies that Piper had picked up at one of the gas stations along our current route to Minnesota. The cookies weren’t homemade by a long shot, but they were better than nothing when no one in our current group wanted to bake. “Go back to your blogs, vlogs, or whatever they’re called so that I can eat my cookies in peace. I haven’t had chocolate chip cookies and cold milk since…well, it feels like forever.”

  There was a reason I hadn’t been able to enjoy the simpler things in life, and one of those things happened to involve the impossible I’d been trying not to discuss for the last few minutes.

  You see, my name is Tempest Lilura, and I was hexed by the one and only Lich Queen in existence. At least, according to our collective knowledge.

  Her name?

  Ammeline Letty Romilda.

  A mouthful, for sure, and trust me when I say that being cursed by an immortal witch queen wasn’t an honor. Frustrating, exasperating, and downright dreadful would be more to the point.

  You seem to be forgetting about that silver lining we talked about last week. I’ve been stocking up on those knock-knock jokes you love so much.

  Only an optimist such as Pearl could find something positive about receiving graphic premonitions about impending murders.

  You read that correctly, by the way.

  I see murders before they happen, and my hex was putting a damper on my ability to find a spell that could remove my curse. It was also currently making it rather difficult to enjoy the simpler things in life…such as savoring my chocolate chip cookies and a glass of cold milk.

  And just as a general reference, I’m not a fan of knock-knock jokes.

  “They’re talking about the hex,” Piper offered up, having removed her headphones after overhearing Pearl continue to talk about silver linings. Either that or she just wanted one of her cookies. “Pearl is right, Lou. There’s always a silver lining in everything thrown our way. If all goes well tomorrow, we might even be one step closer to finding a cure fo
r your hex.”

  I set the cold glass of milk in the cup holder of my chair, allowing me easier access to the supposedly resealable package of cookies. I’d give each and every one of them a cookie if it meant not talking about my curse for one night. Unfortunately, tearing open the seal of the package was like trying to pry tar off the highway.

  Why was everything so hard nowadays?

  “If you answer that question, Pearl, I’m not above throwing a cookie at your head,” I warned, not in the mood for optimism or jokes. “Seriously, the two of you are liking walking beams of sunshine.”

  And you’re the damper, Miss Lilura. It’s a good thing that my sweet Piper and I decided to join you and Mr. Cornelia on this journey. Our alien hunter and I might not always see eye to eye on things, but even he deserves a proverbial day at the beach every now and then.

  “I don’t know how you can say cotton ball over there is a ray of sunshine when she’s obsessed with etiquette. Did you know that she pushed my cereal bowl off the table this morning, all because Piper hadn’t picked up her fork before I took a bite to eat?”

  “That wasn’t nice, Pearl,” Piper chided, but clearly finding humor in the situation. Even I could hear Pearl purr in satisfaction as Piper gently stroked a hand down the feline’s back. “You’re lucky we had that small handheld steam cleaner in the closet or else the RV would have smelled rancid for days.”

  The three of them continued to talk while I went about prying open the bag of chocolate chip cookies. It wasn’t that I was ignoring Pearl’s advice about taking things one day at a time, but that was really hard to do with a curse flowing through my veins.

  She meant well.

  She really did.

  Yes, I do mean well. Which is the reason I’m still awake at this bloody awful time of night, pondering over this medium we’re about to go meet tomorrow afternoon. I’m thinking it would be in our best interests to research her family lineage a bit more before we expose ourselves to her divination magic.

  I was so taken aback by Pearl’s cautionary approach that the cookie package landed with a thud in my lap, upside down and open. She’d taken up occupancy in Piper’s lap, and she certainly had everyone’s attention.

  I do possess a flair for gathering attention, don’t I?

  “What are you talking about, Pearl?” Piper asked with concern, allowing her headphones to dangle around her neck as she exchanged worried glances with us. Orwin miraculously closed his laptop, which told me that I hadn’t misunderstood Pearl’s apprehension at all. Oh, this wasn’t good in the least. “We’ve been trying to meet with this woman for weeks now.”

  “Exactly,” Orwin agreed, his glasses slipping a bit as he continued to frown. “And I’ve been researching her ancestry for over a month.”

  Which only means that a few more days won’t hurt, now will it, alien hunter?

  “Everything points to Cassandra Opal Saruman as being the real deal, as far as I can tell,” Orwin countered with a frustrated sigh. “She’s young, in college, and comes from a long lineage of witches, but that video I saw of her conducting a séance definitely demonstrates that she can talk to her ancestors.”

  That video only confirms for the viewer what he or she wants to see, Mr. Cornelia.

  In our quest to find a cure for my hex, we’d been waylaid with various murder mysteries. Having these visions of death wasn’t easy on me, and what made it worse all too often was not arriving in time at our destination to save the victim I saw murdered right before my very eyes. The gang understood that I didn’t have it in me to just allow a guilty person to walk free, so we always took time away from our hunt for a cure to give closure to those victims I’d seen in my visions.

  I’d had a reprieve this last week, and I was grateful for the small break. Experiencing those premonitions was quite exhausting—mentally and physically.

  As well you should be grateful, Miss Lilura. Your brief respite will also allow us to do a bit more digging into Ms. Saruman’s family, as well as the young girl herself.

  “I don’t understand.” I sat up a little straighter in my chair as I cleaned up my mess, shoving the cookies back into their package. I quickly finished my task so that I wouldn’t miss any pertinent facts regarding Pearl’s hesitance regarding the witch we’d tracked down last month. It was rare that Pearl wasn’t on board with one of our plans. “Are you aware of something that we missed?”

  Let’s just say I have a bad feeling about this. Don’t you think that Ms. Saruman was a little too easily found during Mr. Cornelia’s search for a medium, a gifted witch with the rare ability to speak with the dead? It’s a little too convenient. I mean, who puts up a video of a séance for all to see at the exact time you’re in need of one?

  “Practically every Millennial and Gen Z on the planet uses social media,” Orwin answered Pearl, leaning back in his chair as he regarded us with annoyance over the fire. He’d searched high and low for a witch who could speak with our ancestors, even creating a database to comb every aspect of the internet for the slightest hint of someone with the required extraordinary powers who still existed on this earth. He’d been successful, too. “Pearl, I’m telling you that this Cassandra is the real deal, if one ever existed.”

  “Pearl wouldn’t be warning us if she didn’t believe her intuition wasn’t a valid concern,” Piper cautioned, not that she had to express her belief in her familiar’s abilities. We were all aware that Pearl was a vast repository of wisdom, which far surpassed our own. After all, she’d been on the face of this earth for well over two thousand years. “Orwin, you and I can do a bit more research in the morning. We don’t meet with Cassandra until two o’clock tomorrow afternoon. Let’s face it. Once we found her and confirmed her lineage, we did get delayed with the whole werewolf case in Wyoming. What if we missed something?”

  I would appreciate you diving a little bit deeper into Ms. Saruman’s past, my sweet Piper. Doing so will ease my worries that we aren’t being made fools of by a YouTube video posted on someone’s social media account. My heavens, what is this world coming to?

  While Orwin and Piper were digging more into Cassandra Opal Saruman’s past, I guess I could take drive to the local college in the morning. Before the course of my life had been so greatly altered by my random encounter with the heinous individual who bestowed a horrible hex on me, I’d once taught psychology at a community college in the state of Washington. Not even a year had passed, yet I could barely remember what a normal day had been like in my life as a teacher.

  Anyway, at least I had some type of excuse to visit the local campus where Cassandra was living the dorm life with her best friend. Maybe I could get a sense of who she was as a person, what kind of friends she had in her life, and determine if she’d maintained close ties with her coven. We didn’t need to run amuck with another group of witches.

  Upon further inspection, maybe that is what currently has me at odds with Ms. Saruman. The college girl’s surprise at successfully conducting a séance and putting on social media for all the world to see tells me that she’s either reckless or foolish. I don’t care for a person to be either the former or the latter, Miss Lilura.

  “It looks as if I’m interrupting something.”

  The deep rich voice that was like smooth molasses came out of the darkness, but I’d already caught Pearl lifting her head and twitching her nose in the direction of the woods to the east of us. She only ever did that when someone or something was near our vicinity that warranted a second sniff.

  In this case, it was Knox Emeric.

  Mr. Emeric’s particular odor is not one I favor, if you must know. Clearly, I’m not fond of wet dog.

  I was grateful in this moment that Knox couldn’t hear Pearl’s thoughts. Only witches and warlocks had that distinct pleasure.

  Do I detect a hint of sarcasm, dear hexed one?

  Out of everyone currently around this campfire, Knox was the only other one who understood exactly what it was like to be cursed by Am
meline Letty Romilda. You see, he also had a hex placed on him by the Lich Queen. If we were rating hexes, he’d win hands down.

  You see, Ammeline Letty Romilda had cursed him with lycanthropy, and not just the run of the mill kind. You see, he had the greater and more malicious variety.

  That’s right.

  Knox Emeric was a werewolf.

  A very large one, of the Canis Lupus Occidentialis strain.

  Unlike myself, who had been born a witch and had always known the supernatural realm existed, Knox had been nothing more than an average veteran going about his life. He’d mentioned before that he’d been a former active duty military special operator turned part owner of a high-end private security systems and consulting firm. He’d had everything going for him with only a bright future ahead.

  Perhaps that is why I don’t mind being in Mr. Emeric’s presence. I mean, I’m sure that he would have chosen a lion or a leopard over a werewolf, if he’d been given the choice.

  Nothing could have prepared Knox for that fateful hiking trip he’d taken into the woods…only to come face to face with an immortal Lich Queen.

  I didn’t realize that we had the time to share scary stories around the campfire, Miss Lilura.

  “Pearl was just informing us that she thinks this medium we’re going to meet tomorrow might not be on the up and up,” Orwin shared, his knee bouncing up and down with agitation now that a wrench had been thrown into our plans. I knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t be sleeping tonight now that doubt had managed to creep in. He’d spend every second on his computer using the software he’d created for just this purpose—doing a thorough background check on our target. “I’m going to go make a pot of coffee.”

  Would you like to warm me up a spot of cream, alien hunter? The lactose does wonders to calm me in these challenging situations.

  It wasn’t surprising that Orwin sneezed as he passed by Knox, considering his allergies to pet dander. Piper had been bestowed the gift of healing along with her witchcraft ability, but Orwin had once again refused to lower the spell of protection he’d warded himself with after witnessing what had happened to me firsthand. Of course, that meant a constant supply of over-the-counter allergy medicine was kept on hand inside the RV.