“Two deaths on the same day,” the older patrolman said, staring at where the body lay in the tree line. The name on his badge readWilson. “We’ll need to warn for bears.”
Cillian frowned, eyeing the forest. He’d been a kid the last time there was a bear attack, and his mother had kept him inside the entire summer. He hadn’t even been able to see Bran except for a few times when Juliana had dropped the younger boy off for a sleepover.
Mac only nodded at the patrolman’s statement. “That’s the plan. I’ll have my rangers post signs at the area gates and begin outreach with people coming to the reservoir. It’s been years since we’ve had to discourage people from coming out here. We’re lucky the Fourth of July celebrations are over, but school is still out. It’ll be tough to convince people to find somewhere else to go for their recreation.”
“Better you than us.”
Mac snorted. “I’m not the one who needs to talk to the medical examiner about bear attacks.”
“The crime scene at the home is worse than this, from what I’ve heard, but the body looks the same as Ray’s. I don’t think it should be a problem.”
Mac flinched ever so slightly, but the patrolmen either didn’t notice or pretended otherwise. Cillian noticed. Cillian knew Mac and his wife had been friends with Juliana and Ray. As for Cillian, he was trying not to think about Bran’s mother being dead because that was a grief he couldn’t deal with right then.
His right hand started to itch, a faint burning sensation creeping across his palm. Cillian ignored it.
“Those not handling the crime scene at the Gallagher home are looking for Juliana’s and Ray’s daughter. We’re prepared to launch a search if needed. We also have a staff member trying to track down her son,” the youngerpatrolman said.
“Are your people willing to search at night?” Mac asked.
Patrolman Wilson hesitated before shaking his head, gaze flicking toward the trees. “Not in the forest.”
Pelham didn’t exactly shut down when it got dark, but people tended to stay within the town’s perimeter, driving between their homes and Red’s Diner or the lone bar if they felt the need to hang out. Stories about lights were still told to children and travelers passing through town, and ingrained superstitious habits were hard to break. People didn’t walk alone after dark, and they certainly didn’t go traipsing through the forest if they could help it. Rangers did because that was their job.
What the locals knew, and which rangers made sure all visitors were aware of, were the forest paths that led to tiny, one-room cabins dotting the wilderness surrounding the Quabbin Reservoir. The path to each one was designated by what locals called witchmarks carved into trees, carvings that Cillian had memorized as a child during summer camps. The cabins themselves weren’t meant for camping but for safety, a long-standing tradition that could be traced back generations, to a time even before the reservoir existed.
Cillian wondered if maybe Aisling had run to one of those cabins in the terror of whatever she might have experienced. He hoped so. It was better than the alternative. Cillian mentally mapped where he knew her home to be against the forest with its hidden cabins. A cabin might have been close enough for her to reach, but he wasn’t sure she’d gointothe forest if the threat had come out of it.
“I’d like to head over to the Gallagher home and coordinate with the patrolmen about Aisling,” Cillian said to Mac.
Mac nodded. “I’ll go check on the Gallaghers’ Shoppe. Reports came back that nothing seemed amiss over there, but we can’t rule anything out. If we haven’t found signs of Aisling in the next hour, we’ll start an official search.”
No one asked about Bran, Juliana’s oldest child and only son. As far as Cillian knew, Bran had left for Boston after high school, leaving the running of his family’s Ye Olde Curiosities Shoppe to his mother. He’d come back to Pelham a few times, but Cillian never heard of his visits until after Bran was gone again. He no longer had Bran’s phone numberand would have no idea how to locate him without breaking some laws when it came to accessing a search program. Sometimes he thought about trying social media, but never did.
He still missed Bran with an ache that hadn’t ever really gone away. Cillian had tried to fill that absence with other friends over the years, but even now, it still felt like he was missing half of himself.
“We’ll take it from here and keep you updated. The CSU team was instructed to start with this crime scene first. Don’t want to be wasting daylight,” Patrolman Wilson said. Cillian and Mac said their goodbyes to the patrolmen before returning to their trucks.
“Cillian,” Mac called out.
Cillian paused in climbing into the driver’s seat. “Yeah, boss?”
“Be careful. Keep your iron on you.”
Cillian nodded and hauled himself the rest of the way inside his truck. He closed the door and buckled up, grimacing at the reddened, raw-looking skin on the palm of his right hand where the iron disk had sat. He flexed his fingers, wincing at how his skin pulled. It looked and felt like a burn, an allergic reaction he had lived with all his life. His fellow rangers didn’t know about it, or anyone else for that matter outside medical providers, except his mother. He always forgot to mention it.
Shannon Dunne had raised him as a single mother, and her frustration with doctors when he was younger was what had caused her to become a nurse. Cillian had always been a little sickly growing up, with the doctors saying he might outgrow the allergy someday. He hadn’t, even though his immune system had gotten better at fighting off illnesses.
He leaned over to open the glove compartment, pulling out a small, dark jar of the ointment he’d used since he was a child. He stared down at the faded sticker on the lid, the Gallaghers’ Shoppe trifecta logo printed on it. It was the only stuff that had ever been able to heal the allergic reactions he experienced. His mother had been skeptical the first time Bran’s mother had brought up the healing ointment she sold in her Shoppe. Eventually, Shannon had bought a jar and used it, thinking it wouldn’t work, only it had.
Cillian had been five years old at the time, butthe warning his mother had told him at such a young age was one she still spoke in the quiet moments just between them, mindful of everything and everyone around them, even the whispers on the air.
Never trust a witch.
She’d allowed his friendship with Bran, mostly because Bran had been hisonlyfriend growing up. His mother had never softened much around Juliana despite the years of knowing the other woman, even when she gave up on clinical medicine and bought the healing ointment from the only Wiccan in Pelham. Cillian never understood the distance between his mother’s words and her actions, but he loved her, and he still used the ointment she’d found to heal his hurts.
He wondered, in that moment, if this was the last jar he’d ever get to buy now that Juliana was dead.
“Fuck,” he muttered quietly.
