Starlight Hollow

At least here in western Washington, summers weren’t horrible, but I still missed the rain. Granted, it was June—technically, the time for sun—but that didn’t mean I had to like it. I came alive during the dark, gloomy days of autumn and winter.

I strode across the sidewalk in two steps, hopping over a crack, to push open the door to the Olympic Forest Expeditions Company. I wasn’t in the market for a guide through the Olympics, but thanks to the letter in my hand, I needed the advice of my best friend, Bree Loomis.

Unfortunately, she was busy with a group of tourists. I stood to one side, frustrated, hoping she would notice me. Which she did. She was a puma shifter with a laser focus that expanded to include everything within eyeshot. She held up her hand, sidling away from the clients who were peppering her with questions.

“One second, please,” she said. “I’ll only be a moment.”

Bree headed over to join me. She was dressed for the job—jeans, a flannel shirt neatly tucked in, and hiking boots. At five-nine, Bree was four inches taller than I was, but I was curvier with an hourglass figure. We were both muscled, though her muscle was more obvious while mine was padded with boobs and hips. Her mid-shoulder blond hair was swept back in a tidy French braid. I wore my waist-length flame-red hair in a mass of waves wilder than the ocean.

“Looking good,” she said, glancing over my outfit. “Special occasion?”

I snorted. “When do I ever have a special occasion? You know I’m a leather fiend,” I said. I was wearing a pair of leather jeans that laced up the sides, exposing a two-inch strip of skin on either side, a black cotton halter top, knee-high black platform boots, and opera-length fingerless gloves. “Can you take a break? I need coffee and I need to talk about this.” I held up a letter, grimacing. The contents had left me shaken.

Bree glanced at the letter. “You always need coffee. Sorry. Remember, I own this joint? I don’t get breaks,” she said. “Can you wait till five?” She glanced at the clock. “It’s three-thirty now.”

I sighed. I was impatient, but I was also aware that I made my own hours. Hers were printed on the sign on the door. “I’ll be back in ninety minutes. Dinner?”

“That I can do. See you at five.” She winked at me and returned to her clients.

They looked both excited and scared, and I wondered where she was going to take them. Half the clients Bree catered to were top-of-the-line fit, ready to go ziplining through the forests or descending into abandoned mine shafts. The other half looked like they could barely manage riding inner tubes down a low-flowing stream. Both sets usually came away happy and satisfied.

I headed back into the streets.

I’d lived in Starlight Hollow for nearly six months, and it had become home in a short time. The town was quirky, and it lived nestled in shadow. The populace had the requisite artists and writers, inventors and oddballs who all found the Olympic Peninsula a comfortable haven, but beneath the veneer, there were also some lost souls who lived here. Old hippies who had tripped one too many times and lived on the edge of reality made their homes here, along with the occasional survivalists holed up waiting for Ragnarok or Armageddon. The survivalists tended to bury themselves up in the foothills of the Olympics rather than in the town proper, thankfully.

A couple communes established their footprints in the surrounding hills, and I was pretty certain a cult or two had decided this was the place to be. In addition, several shifter organizations were headquartered here, and of course we drew in the requisite ghost hunters and paranormal investigators, because Starlight Hollow was the most haunted town in the state.

An invisible shadow hovered over the town, created by the ghosts of the past, the creatures who hid in the woods, and the souls who were dead, and those living who didn’t want to be found. But most of the residents were pleasant enough. Founded in 1855 by Scottish immigrants, the original settlers had brought their own spirits and legends with them and a unique culture had evolved. One that had its wonderful side, yet specters lurked in the thickets of one of the four rainforests of the United States. And around here, the earth and water elementals were strong, and the months of rain and fog and drizzle empowered me.

With a population of around three thousand, Starlight Hollow didn’t exactly invite tourism, and the unofficial town slogan wasn’t open-armed. Nothing said “Welcome to our town” like: Starlight Hollow: Where dreams become nightmares, and nightmares become reality. But for those who felt invited in by the town, life could remain a dream.

I didn’t care about ghosts or monsters—I could handle most of them, though my real strength was in the forest and lakes, the earth and the sea. I’d been trained since birth to cope with the paranormal. Hell, I was paranormal incarnate. As for the storms, I welcomed them, drawing my power from them, and when the winds raged I would weave my charms to try and appease the gods of air. Yes, I could handle most things…except vampires. I hated vampires, and wanted nothing to do with any of them. Of course, there was no guarantee that Starlight Hollow was vamp-free, but none had been spotted or mentioned, and that was good enough for me.

So I had ninety minutes to kill. I didn’t want to go grocery shopping because I didn’t want to leave frozen food in the car for that long, so I decided to head for the plant nursery. I needed more primroses and johnny jump-ups for the walkway, and they could survive in the car for a few hours until I arrived home. I tucked the letter away, not wanting to think about it until I could talk to Bree. She always helped me get my head on straight.

I drove down by the edge of the bay to The Grapevine—a plant nursery. The parking lot—and the town—was located right on the edge of Dabob Bay. The store was huge, bigger than the grocery stores around town. Not a surprise, given the number of small farmers who lived in the area.

As I pushed through the double doors, the smell of flowers and plants overwhelmed me and I smiled. The store smelled of life—plants and soil and all the wonderful things that belonged to the earth. And the earth was my source of power, and her woodlands and waters, my sanctuary.

“Elphyra! Back so soon?” Tracy, the owner, saw me and hurried over. “Are the flowers all right? Did they die?”

I laughed. “No worries. No, they’re doing great, at least so far. We’ll see how long I can keep them alive. I need more, though, to finish the walkway. Probably about half of what I bought last time.”

I found a handcart—large enough to handle bags of fertilizer as well as plants—and threaded my way through the aisles until I was facing a series of shelves filled with flowers. I preferred primroses, given they were perennials, and I sorted through them, looking for the right colors. I wanted my walkway lined in purple and fuchsia and crimson. I could feel the plants. They sensed my intent, and there was a quiet excitement.

There was no way to explain it—plants didn’t “think” like people, they didn’t have the same kind of sentience that people and animals did, but there was a basic understanding of the difference between life and death. And when you went further out—onto the astral plane—you could find the great Devas, the oversouls of each plant type, which were like what you might call a hive mind. All of the blackberry bushes in the world were part of the great Blackberry Deva, for instance, which was greater than the sum of its parts.

After I found enough flowers to finish the walkway, I added ferns. My property overflowed with ferns, but I didn’t want to bother with cuttings or digging up existing ones and moving them. I added an array of fiddlehead ferns, maidenhair ferns, western sword ferns, deer ferns, and lady ferns. On my way to the cashier, I added several packages of wildflower seeds and a few six-packs of marigolds.

“Buying out the store?” Tracy asked, coming around to my side with the barcode scanner. “It’s easier if I do this than have you move everything up to the register,” she added. “So, how are you enjoying life in Starlight Hollow?”

Much like New Englanders, the folks of Starlight Hollow saw everybody who had moved to town during the past decade as a newcomer, though I’d grown up in Port Townsend, a mere forty-five minutes away. I wasn’t a local here. At least, not yet.

I leaned against the counter. “So far, so good. I’ve been here almost six months now, and I feel like I’m really starting to settle in. I’ve been mulling over what I want to do with the land.” I had three acres. “I’m going to be building raised beds for my herb garden next, I think. I should get them in before the autumn comes, so the plants have time to acclimate.”

“How’s the cottage?” Tracy asked, shooting me a sideways look. “Mrs. Jansen was always so particular about her home.”

“Oh, it’s fine. I think she’s gone—I don’t sense her there. I have the workshop where I’ll eventually be meeting clients, selling spell components and home-grown herb mixtures and so forth.” I caught one of the flower containers that almost fell off the cart, pushing it back on.

“I’d love to see the cottage now that you own it,” she said. “Mrs. Jansen always had it decked out in Scandinavian décor. Do you have any Scandinavian in you?”

Though the question felt personal, I realized she was curious. “Probably, back along the line. My mother’s Scottish, but family stories say that back in the Middle Ages her people married into the line of Viking invaders. So my mother’s Scottish and Norse. Her family came to the States in the 1800s. On my father’s side, though, I’m pretty much all Scottish. His father and mother were immigrants.”

“Interesting,” Tracy said. “I’m fourth-generation Italian.” She finished ringing up the flowers and started in on the ferns. “So, you think old lady Jansen crossed over? I always wondered. She loved that house.”

“I haven’t seen hide nor hair of her—the cottage felt cleansed when I first walked into it. I understand why she loved it, though. I’ve come to love the place, too. It’s perfect—and then I also have the workshop that’s fully heated, and I also have plenty of storage space in the utility shed. Along with the acreage, I can build my own world.” I could tell she was angling for an invitation to come out and snoop around, but delicately avoided offering her the chance. Tracy was nice, but she was definitely the town gossip and she had a mouth on her a mile wide and as loud as an air raid siren.

“Well, I’m glad you settled in with us,” she said, returning to the cash register. “That will be one hundred thirty-five dollars and twenty-eight cents.”

I handed her my credit card and she rang it through. “Here you go, and here’s your receipt. Maybe I’ll schedule a reading with you sometime and come out to take a look around,” she added, handing me back my card.

I tucked it back in my wallet and slung my purse over my shoulder. “You know where to find me.” I smiled, hoping she’d never act on the thought. “Thanks for the flowers! They’re beautiful.”

“Do you want some help loading them into your car?” she called as I pushed the cart toward the door.

“No, I’m good. Thanks anyway.”

As I left the store and pushed the cart over to my car, I pressed the button on my key fob to unlock the liftgate of my SUV. It opened as I trundled the cart over and loaded the flowers into the back, onto a tarp. I had barely finished when the wind picked up, washing the smell of brine and seaweed across me. Nothing said home to me more than that smell—brine and seaweed and the sharp scent of saltwater.

Dabob Bay was an internal bay connected to Hood Canal, which was actually a saltwater fjord. The Navy had its claws deep into the area, given there was a naval base in Bremerton as well as the Bangor Trident Submarine Base, headquartered on the other side of the bay. Civilians enjoyed the estuary as well, and during open seasons, locals went fishing and crabbing in the water. Conservancy groups had worked with the Navy, throwing money into maintaining the ecology of the bay and protecting it from overdevelopment. And several groups, from Selkies to witches aligned with the water elementals, played liaison to ensure that nothing went awry on the magical end.

I glanced at my phone. It was four-fifteen. After returning the cart to the nursery, I wandered over to the winding wooden staircase that led to the narrow beach next to the water. A concrete ramp next to the steps provided handicapped access.

The water called to me, and I was pretty sure I could hear one of the local Selkies singing. Their voices echoed through the water but, unlike the sirens, they didn’t lure people in. Their songs were comforting, if mournful. I followed the stairs down to the beach.

Cautious—the beach was rocky, primarily made up of pebbles covering the sand and soil—I followed the shore to a nearby driftwood log. It was near the beginning of the beach, but I could still see the high-water marks that had covered the shoreline, a few feet closer to the bay. As I sat on the log, the tide rippled, the waves rolling in but then washing out farther with each cycle. A reader board near the bottom of the stairs predicted low tide in about two and a half hours.

I closed my eyes and drew in the energy. It flooded my senses, spreading through me in ripples, calming me as it washed past. There was an immensity about the water, even fjords, lakes, and ponds. The oceans and seas were massive, threatening to swamp and overwhelm, but the smaller bodies of water had their own feel. And our bodies responded, if we only listened, given we were close to ninety percent water ourselves.

I was warm in my leather. It was sixty-eight degrees. But most of the year round, Starlight Hollow—and the Quilcene area—received far more precipitation than farther up the peninsula. In fact, the town received almost fifty-five inches of rain annually. Dabob Bay was good for swimming, although no matter where you were in the Pacific Northwest, if there were tides, you always had to watch for rip currents.

As I sat there, meditating, my phone rang. I glanced at it. My mother, again. I’d let her last two calls go to voicemail. I loved her, but I was a disappointment to her in many ways and I didn’t want to hear yet again about how I had failed the family. I contemplated not answering, but she was as stubborn as me. I bit the bullet and hit the speakerphone.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey? That’s all you have to say? Are you all right? I’ve called twice—”

“I’m fine. I’ve just been busy.” I cut her off. I wasn’t in a mood to bicker. “What’s up? What do you need?”

There was a silence on the other end of the line for a moment, then she said, “I wanted to make sure you were okay. When I don’t hear from you for a while, I worry.”

I sighed. Given everything that had happened, she had a right to worry and I couldn’t refute that. “I’m okay. I’ve been planting flowers and getting my workshop ready. I want to walk every inch of the acreage and create a few access trails through the undergrowth.”

Another pause, and my mother said, “Well, that sounds nice. I’d love to see your new home.” And there we were. She wanted to come visit.

“Once I have everything set, I’ll invite you and Aunt Ciara and Owen down to visit. I promise.” I tried to work some enthusiasm into my voice.

“I’d like that. We all would. I want you to be happy again, Elphyra. That’s all I have ever wanted—for you to be happy.”

Feeling suddenly guilty for my snippy attitude, I let out a sigh. “I know, Mom. I know you want the best for me.”

She hesitated, then said, “I dreamed I was walking out in a forest and I came to a stream. I saw the Washing Woman, Elphyra. She was washing a bloody sheet.” Her voice fell and she let out a soft cry.

I caught my breath. “No…did she speak?”

The Washing Woman—or the Washer at the Ford—was one of the bean nighe, a death spirit. There were several of them and one had been attached to my father’s clan for centuries. She could appear in dreams, as well as in the flesh. And it was always when someone in the clan was about to die.

“Did she tell you who’s been marked?” Even as I said it, I knew the answer. The Washer never gave names unless it was the person who saw her, and then she would point to them.

My mother was always the one the Washer came to—at least she was since she had married my father. The Washer chose who she visited carefully, and my mother had been singled out. But then again, her family and my father’s family were from the same general area, and they were members of the same clan, so it wasn’t surprising.

“No. And you know the Washer usually doesn’t appear when the death is natural.”

I almost told her about the letter I’d received from my great-grandmother—my father’s grandmother—but I decided to wait. I needed time to think. “Well, tell Ciara and Owen to be careful.”

“I will. But please, anything can happen—you know that better than anybody. Be careful, darling. When the bean nighe appears, she can summon anyone.”

“Don’t worry about me, please. I like it here, and I think—in time—I’ll be happy again. I need time to process everything, and I couldn’t do it if I was back there. I’m good—I may not be happy, but I’m content.”

“Well, then, I guess I’ll let you get back to your planting. Call me in a few days?”

“I promise,” I said. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

And with that, I hung up and went back to watching the water.