Psychic Dreams: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel (Glimmer Lake Book 3) Page 14

  This was awful. This was so much worse than anything they’d discovered before. The idea of someone hurting a child—even one dead for eighty years—made Monica’s stomach churn.

  Robin said, “She says Rosemarie was quiet for a long time. She thought she’d left, but then she came back and she won’t tell Bethany what’s wrong.”

  “When did she come back?” Monica was curious. What had been the catalyst for all this? When had things changed?

  “She can’t be sure. Time isn’t the same. It was when the snow was on the ground.”

  So at least five months. Or five months and a year. Ghosts were notoriously bad at judging time.

  “Okay, so Rosemarie is back. But Rosemarie isn’t starting the fires. Does Bethany know who is?”

  Robin shook her head. “I honestly don’t think she does.”

  Monica had an idea. “Does she know about the cabin?” She turned to face the tree line Robin had been talking toward. “Do you know about the old redwood cabin by the waterfall, Bethany? With moss on the roof. The cabin with square logs and two windows on either side of a green door.”

  A shiver passed through Monica, a coursing cold streak that ran up her spine and settled on her neck, pressing against her and making her head pound. What was that? She let out a small gasp, and the cold entered her throat.

  “Monica?”

  “Something is wrong. Is anyone else here?”

  Robin looked at her with wide eyes. “I think so. I feel something, but I can’t see anything.” Her head swung around to the edge of the trees. “Bethany?”

  Monica felt the cold stiffen her neck before it fled as quickly as it had come. “It’s gone.”

  “And so is Bethany,” Robin said. “Damn, that was weird.”

  “Very weird.”

  Robin stood and stretched, flexing her knees gently. She’d been sitting for a long time. “That was the most information we’ve gotten from her though.”

  “Yeah.” Monica stood and shook the shivers from her shoulders. “Funny thing though, I’m pretty sure I just met Rosemarie. And Bethany is right. She is pissed.”

  Chapter 19

  Val pressed her fingers to her lips, absorbing the information Monica and Robin had related. “Corbin Sanger was abusing his daughter?”

  Robin nodded. “We’re pretty sure. We don’t know how—”

  “We don’t need to,” Val said. “We know it made her angry enough to burn down their family home.”

  They were sitting in Monica’s living room, and she had the gas fire turned on. The summer night had a hard chill, and Monica was praying that meant an early fall was coming, along with possible rain.

  “Arson can be a result of trauma,” Monica said softly. “We read that.”

  “But a ghost isn’t burning these buildings,” Val said. “We also know that.”

  “But maybe someone else is in the same situation,” Robin said. “Maybe there’s something that Rosemarie saw or something she knows about what’s happening in Glimmer Lake right now.”

  They were a close-knit community, and Monica hated the thought that any child in Glimmer Lake might be the victim of abuse and no one knew. Gil had been a first responder, which meant he’d had to go to more than one scene of domestic violence. They left him in an incredibly dark mood. The thought of child abuse of any kind was so outside Monica’s experience she had trouble wrapping her mind around it.

  Even her own parents, who hadn’t been emotionally supportive, wouldn’t have dreamed of laying a hand on her or her sister.

  “People can hide things,” Val said. “If there’s a local kid in trouble and Rosemarie’s ghost discovered it—”

  “But what does that have to do with the redwood cabin?” Monica asked. “She came at me—and that felt very targeted. Very deliberate. She came at me when I mentioned the cabin.”

  “Maybe the abuse happened there?” Robin said.

  “Or maybe that was her safe place,” Val said. “Maybe that was where she ran away to and she doesn’t want anyone finding it.”

  “Could that be what changed?” Robin asked. “Could that be the catalyst? Someone finding her cabin?”

  Monica jotted something down in her notebook. “We need to find out if anyone is building anything new right now and if that building might threaten this place. I feel like—for good or for bad—the cabin I’m dreaming about is the key.”

  “But how could the person starting the fires know anything about all that? Do you think they’re a medium like Robin?” Val asked. “Are they communicating with Rosemarie?”

  “I’ve never seen Rosemarie,” Robin said. “At least I don’t think I have. Other than Bethany, most of the ghosts in town are more recent. I haven’t seen another girl or a young woman dressed the same style as her.”

  Monica said, “The feeling I got from Rosemarie tonight—if that was her that touched me—was angry and cold. Could a spirit be too scattered to talk? Too angry?”

  Robin nodded slowly. “I don’t know any other mediums, but I’ve found some message boards online that have helped me figure stuff out. From what I’ve read, not all spirits have a good sense of their own identity. Only those who do take form into what we see as ghosts. So it’s possible she’s not… formed the way Bethany is.”

  “But I still felt her,” Monica said. “So what if she’s communicating with the arsonist another way? A way that person might not even know?”

  Val’s eyes went wide. “Are you saying you think Rosemarie’s spirit is… What? Possessing someone?”

  Monica sorted through what they knew about the fires. About the blankets from the boathouse. The age of the cabins. “Val, the blankets you felt from the sites that burned, didn’t you say that whoever was touching them was confused? Disoriented?”

  “Yes.” Robin sat up straight. “That’s it. I think that’s it.”

  Val cocked her head. “Seriously? Someone is possessed? Isn’t that, like, movie stuff?”

  “Isn’t being psychic ‘movie stuff’?” Monica said. “Think about it, Val. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Whoever is starting these fires is being influenced by Rosemarie. She may not even be aware that she’s doing it. That’s why she’s so confused.”

  Val crossed her arms. “Okay, say you’re both right. Someone in town is being… possessed by Rosemarie’s spirit and starting fires, trying to destroy the last of Glimmer Lake. What the hell do we tell Sully? How does that help him find out who’s actually doing this?”

  “And why?” Robin said. “Why now? Why these places? The families who owned these cabins weren’t the ones who hurt her.”

  “No,” Monica said. “But maybe they knew. Maybe the whole town knew and they didn’t do anything.” She stared into the flickering blue and gold flames jumping in the fireplace. “Maybe that’s why she wants to burn it all.”

  That night Monica’s dream was even more vivid. It was clearer, more sensory. She could feel the heat of the fire on her skin. Smell the smoke. She walked down the center of an ever-burning Main Street and turned left at the Ponderosa Lodge Hotel, which was also in flames as happy families pulled up to the check-in.

  Tucked behind the lodge on a quiet street was the Glimmer Lake library, which was one of the oldest structures in town. Amazingly, though everything around the library was enveloped in flames, the library itself was a small oasis of calm.

  She stepped on the porch, and immediately everything fell away. Monica walked through the doors and saw a very different library than the one she remembered.

  It wasn’t a library at all. It was a house, a small square structure that smelled like woodsmoke and wet leather. In the corner, with her back to the room, was a slim, willow-built girl with light brown hair braided down to her waist.

  “Lavender’s green, dilly dilly…”

  The song was barely over a whisper. The girl tended to a pot on the stove, but unlike the pervasive smell of woodsmoke, she couldn’t smell what was cooking.

  Lave
nder’s green, dilly dilly,

  Lavender’s blue

  You must love me, dilly dilly,

  ’cause I love you.

  The song resonated through the air like a string plucked in an empty room. It was a soft, clear sound poured directly into her ear. Monica walked like a ghost through the simple home.

  She focused on the bending figure. The girl leaned down mechanically and fed the fire, opening the black grate, reaching for a quartered log, then feeding it to the hungry flames.

  The girl’s hand hovered over the glowing panel, and her voice hitched on the second verse of the song.

  In a second, Monica knew exactly what she was thinking.

  It would be so easy.

  So easy.

  It’s just me and him.

  So easy…

  “Rose!”

  When the blow came to the side of the girl’s head, Monica felt it in her temple, a blinding, shocking blast of pain wrapped in a meaty fist.

  “Whadid I tell you yesterday?” he slurred.

  Monica watched her carefully set the fire poker down.

  “It’s past time I did more,” the girl said.

  “Tha’s right.”

  While the man railed at Rosemarie, the girl turned and looked in the corner where Monica waited and observed. She slowly raised her eyes to Monica’s, and Monica could see the tears of rage and anger gathering in the corners.

  Her face was never clear. Monica saw eyes and shadows, but somehow the girl’s face remained obscured.

  “Do you see?” The voice came directly to Monica’s ear.

  She was frozen, staring at the girl who reached for the jar of clear fluid sitting on a table near a lamp.

  “It all needs to burn.” The voice came her ear again. “Burn burn burn until he’s gone. Lavender’s green; it grows again. Lavender’s blue, blue, blue like me.”

  The girl’s fingers curled around the mouth of the jar, and she kept her eyes on Monica as she picked it up.

  “You must love me.” Without another warning, she hurled the clear jar toward the fire, where it exploded in a ball of yellow flame. In the space of a second the entire house was engulfed in flames. Monica felt the heat on her skin and tasted the smoke on her tongue. Her eyes stung and something outside was screaming.

  Screaming.

  She sat up in bed and smelled the scent before she even opened her eyes.

  Fire.

  The fire alarm was the screaming she’d heard in her vision. The smoke was real. The flames were real.

  Fire!

  Monica swung her legs over the side of the bed and felt for a pair of shoes. Any shoes.

  Her brain went into the automatic rehearsal of a hundred family fire drills. Cover your arms and legs. Cover your feet. She poured the glass of water by the bed over a headband and fitted it over her mouth, then grabbed her phone and stuffed it in her pocket before she ran for the door.

  She felt the doorknob and it was cool. She carefully pulled the door open and immediately saw smoke filling the hall. She couldn’t see flames in the house, but she heard something fall on the roof.

  The trees.

  The kids!

  Monica threw open the door to Jake’s room, but it wasn’t right. All the furniture was gone. Where was his bed? She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, the piercing scream of the fire alarm making her temple pulse.

  Shit! No kids. The kids were grown. She was in the house by herself. Her go bag was already in the car. She didn’t see any flames inside the house; but she heard things falling on the roof.

  Monica ran to the kitchen. The smoke was thicker, and she saw a red glow through the window over the sink. The outside of the house was burning, not the inside. She had to get out as quickly as possible and call the fire department.

  Out first.

  Go go go.

  She grabbed her purse, her keys, and her computer. She ran for the garage door and felt the doorknob before she opened it.

  Cool.

  She threw open the door and smacked the button on the wall to open both doors. The minute she did, flames flew up and smoke rushed into the garage.

  Fire was everywhere. It surrounded the base of the house, reaching up and grabbing for anything edible. The smoke burned her eyes, but she could see the other side of the house through the black smoke filling the garage. There were flames there too.

  She looked at her trusty minivan, filled with her most precious pictures and mementos from her kids’ childhoods. She looked at the flames falling from the open garage doors.

  “We can make it.” She flung open the door and started the minivan, making sure the windows were firmly closed before she put the car in reverse and hit the gas.

  Monica was always a careful backer. She inched her way out of parking spots so carefully it made her children groan.

  She didn’t inch that night. The pedal hit the floor as she backed out of the burning garage with tires screeching, up the driveway, bouncing into the quiet cul-de-sac where her house was situated. As soon as she was clear of the house, she reached for her phone.

  “Nine one one. What’s your emergency?”

  “My house is on fire.” She stated her address. “My house… It’s all burning.”

  “Ma’am, are you outside the house? Is anyone inside? Have you evacuated your family and pets? Please wait for the firefighters to arrive. Someone already called and there are engines on the way. Ma’am, can you respond please? Do you need medical attention? Ma’am?”

  Parked in the safety of the street with her car running, Monica couldn’t bring herself to answer the poor operator. She was looking down on the cozy house where she and Gilbert had raised four kids. The trees were burning, but that couldn’t explain the unbroken line of fire running around the base of the house.

  There was nothing natural about this blaze. It looked like someone had poured a can of gasoline around the perimeter of her house and dropped a match. Every inch was burning from the outside in.

  Someone pounded on her window. “Monica!”

  She jumped and put a hand over her heart. It was her neighbor Steve Hanson.

  He pounded on her window. “Are you okay? I called 911! We could hear the alarms from inside our house.”

  She rolled down the window and shut off the car. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

  “Jake at his place? Just you, right?”

  Monica nodded. “I better call him.” Oh God. Her house. She started to cry. Sylvia had never cleaned out her room. All her stuff was still there. Sam and Caleb still had some things in the attic.

  She sniffed and felt the tears come faster.

  “Is there anything I can do?” Steve opened the door and helped Monica out. “Jessica’s grabbing blankets.” He looked over his shoulder. “Do you want a blanket? Or a sweatshirt?”

  Steve left her with Jessica and ran down to the side of his house. He turned his hose on full blast and aimed it at the side of her house.

  It was a little like pissing in the wind, but she understood the impulse.

  More neighbors came. More hoses pointed at her house, wetting down the bushes and flowerbeds. Monica stood at the edge of her driveway, wrapped in Jessica and Steve’s blanket, her sockless feet in the work loafers that had been sitting by the bed.

  She stood at the end of her driveway and watched her house burn.

  Then she turned her face to the woods and searched.

  Are you there, Rosemarie?

  Someone was there. She saw a movement behind the shed where the tree line started. She took a few steps closer, and for a second the fire lit up a face she recognized as clearly as one of her own children.

  Monica blinked.

  When she opened her eyes, there was nothing but darkness and she could hear sirens in the distance.

  “Monica?”

  She walked down her driveway as the engines approached. She could hear them through the narrow Glimmer Lake streets as she walked closer to the trees.

  “Monica, w
hat are you doing?” She felt hands on her shoulders, trying to bring her back, but she ignored them.

  Someone was there in the trees. She’d seen them.

  Someone impossible.

  Someone who looked as horrified and confused as Monica felt.

  Rosemarie, what have you done?

  Chapter 20

  Monica sat on the edge of Mark and Robin’s couch while Mark made coffee in the kitchen and Robin sat next to her, looking as incredulous as Monica felt.

  “No.” Robin shook her head. “How? Why? Are you positive?”

  Monica blew her nose. She’d taken a shower, but her sinuses were still angry with her, and her tissue looked like she’d been snorting charcoal. “You think I’m seeing things?”

  “You were in shock.”

  “You think I want to even consider this?” Monica cleared her throat. “You think I want to even consider Kara is the one starting these fires?”

  The face in the forest had been clear as day. Her own manager. Her son’s new girlfriend. The sweetest, hardest-working young woman Monica knew.

  “I feel like I’m accusing one of my own kids,” Monica whispered. “But I saw her. She ran into the trees. Why would she do that?”

  “Did she look…?” Robin shrugged. “I don’t know. What did she look like?”

  “She looked confused and upset. I only saw her for a second, but I think she was crying.”

  Robin sat back on her couch and covered her face with both hands. “Rosemarie has possessed Kara and is making her start fires?”

  “It sounds insane!” Monica hissed. “I know. I know it sounds insane. I was expecting… I don’t know what I was expecting, but not this.”

  “It sounds crazy.” Robin shook her head. “I don’t understand. You see her every day. Has there been any indication—?”

  “Trust me, I have been racking my brain. The only thing I can think of is she said the other day that she’d been having trouble with insomnia. That she’s always had it and it was bad right now. But other than that, she’s been completely normal. Absolutely no indication that she was hiding anything.” Not that she spoke about her personal life. “Not even a hint that she had any idea what was going on when people asked about the fires.” Maybe because she was as confused as the rest of them.