The Return (Haunted Series Book 21) Read online

  Table of Contents

  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

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  The Return

  A Haunted Series novel

  by Alexie Aaron

  Poetry by Brian Corrigan

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ~

  Copyright 2017 – Diane L. Fitch writing as Alexie Aaron

  ALSO BY ALEXIE AARON

  HAUNTED SERIES

  in order

  The Hauntings of Cold Creek Hollow

  Ghostly Attachments

  Sand Trap

  PEEPs Lite Eternal Maze 3.1

  PEEPs Lite Homecoming 3.2

  Darker than Dark

  The Garden

  Puzzle

  Old Bones

  Things that Go Bump in the Night

  Something Old

  PEEPs Lite Checking Out 9.1

  PEEPs Lite Ice and Steel 9.2

  The Middle House: Return to Cold Creek Hollow

  Renovation

  Mind Fray

  The Siege

  NOLA

  Never Forget

  The Old House

  Restitution

  A Rose by Any Other Name

  The Long Game

  Given Enough Rope

  The Return

  CID GARRETT P.I. SERIES

  Cid

  High Court

  CIN FIN-LATHEN MYSTERIES

  Decomposing

  Death by Saxophone

  Discord

  The Wages of Cin

  Unforgivable Cin: An Opera in Three Acts

  Coming Soon Early Autumn

  Haunted Series Book 22

  RISEN

  I dedicate this book to Brian Corrigan. He has not only helped me with my poetry but has also generously supplied his own to give The Return the right feel.

  I would also like to thank the denizens of Ravens’ Rook and Traverse City for their continued support of my writing.

  Table of Contents

  Varden’s Birth

  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

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Glossary

  Alexie Aaron

  Poems by Alexie Aaron

  Brian Corrigan

  Poems by Brian Corrigan

  Varden’s Birth

  Pain ripped through Mia’s body. “No, not now!” she shouted, as if the power of her words would postpone the birth of her second son.

  Mia collapsed into a snowdrift. The labor pains were coming on top of each other. She knew she didn’t have the strength nor the time to get to shelter. She was going to give birth alone in the woods, somewhere between the aerie and the farmhouse. “No, not alone,” she mumbled as she ripped off her maternity pants. “Murphy!” she called. “Murphy, I need you!”

  Stephen Murphy was taking out his temper on the felled trees he was thinning out of his woodland. He was setting out these excess aspens and maples for the snowbound deer. Earlier, he and Mia got into a fight, a big one. He was trying to get her to slow down. Ted, Cid, and Lazar had taken Brian to see Dieter and Mark play in a basketball tournament two towns over. Mia knew she couldn’t haul her heavy body up and down the bleacher steps and declined. She was supposed to be resting. He had found her in the library of the aerie, on a ladder, pulling books off the top shelf.

  “Are you trying to kill yourself and the child?” he asked, steadying the ladder as she descended.

  “No, I was taking advantage of a quiet house to get some reading done. You know I can’t read this stuff with Brian around.”

  Murphy shuddered. The books Mia had in her hands were the cursed books. They contained demon lore. To handle them, Mia had to double her gloves and set the books on a prepared surface. The language in which they were written was unfamiliar to Murphy. Mia had recently been given the ability to translate the scratches into words. It was a long arduous process, but finally, the secrets of the fallen were now at her fingertips.

  “Why do you have to know this rot?” Murphy questioned her.

  “I can’t negotiate peace if I don’t know both sides of the story.”

  “You can’t negotiate with demons.”

  “I have, and I will again,” Mia said stubbornly.

  “You negotiated with high-caste demons and fallen angels. The things that move in the darkness don’t follow the rules of the upper demons.”

  “If I can understand them, then perhaps…”

  “You can get them to see reason? It’s like asking a deer not to strip my saplings when hunger tears at its belly. You’re going to get yourself into trouble. If you were my wife…”

  “You’d lock me in the house until I went crazy like Chastity.” Mia regretted the words as soon as they escaped her lips. Murphy’s adulterous wife Chastity had turned wild and, along with her lover, killed Murphy with a tree he was felling. “Murph, I’m sorry. It’s the hormones…”

  Her words echoed in the empty room. Murphy had already left.

  Murphy lifted another small tree and tossed it down the hill to where he had cleared the snow moments before. The snow was falling in large fat flakes, and soon there would be a whiteout to contend with. He hoped the small herd of deer would be able to get to the twigs and buds before they were covered with snow. He had taken on this task because his anger was too great for him to trust himself being alone with Mia. Sure
, they had fought before, but he was only trying to protect her from herself. He didn’t deserve having Chastity’s dissatisfaction with him shoved in his face. He had acknowledged his part in their marriage problems, but he also knew that his wife was more a victim of her pent-up desires than his restricting her from throwing herself at the feet of her lover. Mia knew this too. Her words hurt.

  “Murphy!”

  He heard her call and ignored it. He was in no mood to argue. He looked around. The late afternoon light was all but gone in the white of the emerging blizzard.

  “Murphy, I need you!”

  Try as he may, he couldn’t disregard her call for help. He connected with her voice and appeared before the woman struggling on the ground.

  Mia was lying on the forest floor. In the seconds between labor pains, she had, by using her telekinesis, cleared the ground and built a wind shelter out of the snow.

  “Why are you here?”

  “I lost my way in the blowing snow,” she said with gritted teeth. “The baby is coming. I can’t stop it. You have to help me.”

  “I’m not a doctor. I’m a ghost.”

  Mia started laughing. The pain was nonstop, but the beleaguered look on Stephen Murphy’s face was too funny for her to ignore. “I just need you to help me. I’ve done this before. I had a lot of help, but I was there,” she said, more to give herself confidence than to calm the ghost. “I need your soft hands. Soon, you’ll see…”

  The pain stopped her voice. Mia couldn’t help screaming. This baby was twice the size of Brian. Brian had been premature and of mostly human DNA. This child, however, was conceived after Judy had transfused Mia with He-who-walks-through-time’s blood, activating her long dormant superhuman genes. Superhumans were once mistaken for giants for good reason; they were large, tall people. Mia’s husband, Ted, was also tall, which guaranteed that the boy who was now coming into the world would be larger than normal.

  Murphy knelt and forced himself to look between Mia’s spread legs. Her long coat had shielded him from seeing her bareness. Fluid oozed out of her. He moved closer, using his hand to clear the discharge.

  A small hand shot out and grabbed his finger. Another hand followed, latching on to his thumb.

  “What in Heaven’s name!” Murphy exclaimed.

  Mia bore down and pushed.

  The hands pulled, and a large head was clearing the birth canal. The baby’s shoulders were folded back like the wings of a bird, making it easier for Murphy to help the child to pull itself free of Mia’s body.

  Mia pushed again.

  The boy seemed to fly into Murphy’s outstretched hands. The child voiced a sound that was more akin to joy than sorrow. The baby cleared his lungs and moved his shoulders back into place.

  Murphy cradled the boy a moment before he placed him in Mia’s arms. She covered him as much as she could with her pants, considering the cord that still connected them.

  “We have to cut the cord before you try to move me. Here,” Mia said, pulling a ribbon from her braid. “Tie the cord off here,” she said, pointing to a spot a wee distance away from the baby.

  Murphy did as he was instructed.

  “Now, cut it here,” Mia said, holding the cord away from the child.

  “With what?”

  “How about that axe you seem to never be without,” she said, lifting an eyebrow.

  With shaking hands, he took the blade and sliced through the cord.

  Mia opened her top and the boy latched on to her breast and started to nurse. Mia cried out as her body started to expel the afterbirth.

  Murphy, who not quite sure of what to do with it, dragged it away and buried it by an all-too-familiar tree. He looked up and around him. Mia had given birth to Varden on the spot where Murphy had lost his life. He watched as the fluids from the child’s birth seeped into what should have been frozen ground.

  “A little help here,” Mia called softly to get his attention.

  He rushed to her side.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You saved us.”

  “No, Mia, you saved me.”

  Chapter One

  “He’s doing it again,” Brian complained.

  Mia looked over at her first son and asked, “Who’s doing what?”

  They were sitting on the hillside north of the aerie enjoying the first pleasant warm day of the spring. Mia had taken her sons outside to watch for the forest babies to appear. Mia and Brian had a tradition of spying on the baby bunnies, and today, they were sharing the experience with Varden.

  “Varden keeps looking at me with that funny face,” Brian said, pointing.

  Mia saw her younger son staring with adoration at his big brother. “He’s just so happy to be here with you.”

  “He’s always happy. I think the kid’s simple.”

  Mia was shocked but hid it well. “Nonsense. He’s every bit as bright as you were at his age.”

  “Huh,” Brian said. “I bet he’s taller though.”

  “Could be, but it isn’t a competition, is it?” Mia inquired.

  “No, but what if he passes me?”

  “You do have a two-year head start.”

  “But he takes after Uncle Ed and Uncle Victor.”

  “You know they aren’t technically your uncles.”

  “Try telling them that. They are way up in my business.”

  Mia choked down her amusement. Her toddler son sounded more like an eight-year-old. His genetics had made him smart, maybe smarter than was healthy. People looked at him oddly. The other preschool parents whispered about Brian when they walked past. The gist of their whispers was: there was a genius child in the town of Big Bear Lake, but why did he have to be Mia’s son? “Because I married a genius,” Mia said quietly.

  “I’m sorry, Mom, were you talking to me?” Brian asked. “Varden had ahold of one of my ears, and I couldn’t hear you.”

  “Varden, let go,” Mia said, reaching over and pulling the large child into her lap.

  “It didn’t hurt,” Brian said, defending his brother. “He never hurts me.”

  “He is pretty strong for a baby,” Mia admitted. “If he gets too rough, remind him to be gentle.”

  “Did he really pull himself out of the womb?” Brian asked, wide-eyed.

  “What the fuzzy bunny!” Mia shrieked. “Where did you hear that?”

  “I heard Uncle Murphy talking to Uncle Victor.”

  “Did they know you were around?” Mia asked, aghast.

  “No, I was sneaking up on Uncle Victor and…”

  “You were eavesdropping. It’s rude to listen to other people’s conversations.”

  “If I don’t listen, I won’t find anything out,” Brian argued. “What’s a womb?”

  “It’s a… it’s my…”

  “It’s the part of a mother that carries the unborn child,” Cid informed Brian, setting down the picnic basket. “When two people get married and decide they want children, that’s the place where the babies are…”

  “Engineered,” Ted said, catching up. He picked up Varden and started to toss him in the air. “Sprout your wings yet?” he asked his son.

  This brought giggles and drool from Varden.

  “If I can’t fly until I’m four, then he can’t,” Brian said. “Angelo said so.”

  “I’d appreciate if you didn’t,” Mia said. “Nothing wrong with two feet on the ground.”

  “Women!” Brian cursed.

  Mia sat there open-mouthed, at a loss for words.

  “Brian Stephen Cid Martin, do you want to go back to your room?” Ted asked, looking down at his son.

  “No, Dad.”

  “Then apologize to your mother. She just wants you and Varden to be safe and enjoy being boys for a while,” Ted explained. “There will be plenty of time for flying and grown-up stuff when you’re old and moldy.”

  Brian laughed. He walked over and put his hand on his mother’s shoulder. “I’m sorry for cussing, Mom.”

  “Why would you
think it was alright to use women as a curse word?”

  “Uncle Murphy.”

  “I had a feeling,” Mia said. She turned around and sniffed the air. “I smell fried chicken!”

  Cid smiled. He opened the hamper and took out the picnic lunch he had made for the five of them. “I saved some for Dieter and Lazar. Shame to spend this beautiful day inside.”

  “Well, Dieter has school, and Lazar, physical therapy. I’m sure the sun is shining through the windows for them to enjoy,” Mia said.

  “I’m not hungry,” Brian complained.

  Ted set Varden down on the blanket. “Come on, kiddo, I’ll race you down the hill,” he challenged Brian. “This way we can work up an appetite.”

  Mia looked at Cid. He was smiling again. She pondered whether he was simple.

  “I’m so happy to be here right now,” Cid explained, catching Mia’s inquisitive look. “I really missed you guys when I was away.”

  “Good. Don’t leave again,” Mia said before she bit into the chicken leg Cid handed her. “Ever, don’t leave ever!”

  “Doesn’t Lazar feed you while I’m gone?” Cid asked.

  “He does, but it’s not the same,” Mia said.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment. I noticed that he was sporting a new leg this morning.”

  “It’s the one Ted designed. He’s going to use it in his physical therapy session today. If it gets approved, then Ted can donate the patent to the rehab facility.”

  “He’ll never get rich that way,” Cid said. “He gives too much away.”

  “It’s his way. No one should know better than you.”

  “I heard some gossip at the market…” Cid tempted as he spooned some baked beans onto Mia’s plate.

  “Beans and gossip. I married the wrong friend,” Mia teased.

  “Tom Braverman went to file for the sheriff election and found out he’s running unopposed. No one wants to run against him.”

  “He is well liked,” Mia said, her mouth full of beans.

  Cid leaned over and wiped a drop of sauce off her chin.

  Varden giggled and tried to sit up. He fell over and giggled some more.