The Bell Witch Series Books 1 - 6

 

Chapter 4

The Sewall Family

 

“Ozzie?”

 

Osgood Davis glanced up from his phone as his mother opened his bedroom door, and froze, trying to look as innocent as humanly possible. It was hard to make the aesthetic look convincing after having been caught in clear defiance of her order to go to sleep. She arched an eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest, her Manolo Blahnik pumps clicking loudly against the marble hallway floor. It was a clipped sound that had always preceded a grounding. He had always suspected that’s why his mother insisted on wearing them in the house. It was all an intimidation technique.

 

“You were supposed to go to sleep an hour ago.”

 

“I had homework,” he declared.

 

The well-used excuse was his only shot, since his education was the one thing she would put above everything else. He could come down with the black plague and she would still be quizzing him on the periodic table.

 

“Can’t let that fancy private school go to waste,” he pressed with a smile.

 

Her eyes narrowed. “Osgood Davis, don’t think for a second you’re too old for me to tan your hide.”

 

He blinked at her. It was always a little strange hearing Texas slang with a Korean accent.

 

“I swear, ma. I was turning in right now.”

 

The tapping continued as she narrowed her eyes. “You better. Or I’m taking away that phone.”

 

“Got it.”

 

“And your Porsche.”

 

“What?” Ozzie snapped, springing up to give her an appropriately horrified look. “A bit much, don’t ya think?”

 

She scowled. “Ya? Am I raising a yokel?”

 

“You,” he corrected swiftly, barely squeezing the word in before she continued.

 

“I’ve never felt comfortable with you having that thing. It’s too much power for someone just learning.”

 

“Everyone else has got one, Ma.”

 

“I’d rather you practice on the Mercedes,” she dismissed. Releasing a long sigh, she smiled at him, seemingly forgetting all annoyance. “You haven’t heard the scratching tonight, have you?”

 

The question instantly shifted the mood in the room. What had started as an annoyance had become something to keep him up at night. About a week ago, he had first heard the scratching, gnawing sound on the walls of the pool house. He hadn’t thought much of it. Dallas, like any major city, wasn’t really known for its abundance of nature. So it was pretty common for whatever wildlife around to make their way onto the Davis property, filling up the lakes and running about the spacious lawns. He hadn’t thought much of it. That was until he had heard it against the living room wall, then just outside his window on the third floor. Then inside the walls.

 

They had hired three different pest control companies. None of them had found anything, and the sound had grown worse. Long scrapes that trailed from one side of the room to the other, that crossed above his head while he was trying to sleep.

 

It probably wouldn’t have bothered him half as much if it wasn’t for his parents’ reactions. Cue a lot of whispering, skulking about, and heated shouting matches with an old family friend, Percival Sewall. That alone was strange; everyone loved Percival.

 

Ozzie shook his head, dread becoming thick in the pit of his stomach as he watched his mother sigh with relief.

 

“Good. That’s good.”

 

“What am I missing?”

 

His mother straightened and forced a smile. “Nothing, baba. Nothing but a good night’s sleep.”

 

“Do you think that sounds convincing?”

 

She jabbed one manicured finger in the general direction of his pillow. “Sleep. Now. Or no Porsche.”

 

Ozzie dramatically leaped for the sheets. While the antics managed to coax a laugh out of her, she still didn’t give him enough time to get comfortable before turning off the overhead light, leaving him to do the rest of his squirming by the glow emitting from the hallway.

 

“So you’re aware, I will be randomly checking on you later. If I find you awake again, you will feel my wrath.”

 

Chapter 7

 

Time didn’t work the same in Black River as it did everywhere else. Nested within miles of untouched wilderness, the farming town seemed content with the simpler way of life. Plentiful crops of corn and wheat saw them through the summer. The winter harvest stood ready for the picking. Stalks with bulbous puffs of cotton, fields of plump pumpkins, and orchards full of crimson apples spread out over the undulating earth. The woods rose up sharply at the edges of the outlying properties. Towering old growths of oak and maple worked together to enclose the town.

 

The autumn night hung over the area, thick with chill and still as the grave. Basheba knew the instant she entered the town limits. Not by some shift in the forest or the sudden emergence of the crops. It was the moonlight. From Nashville, it had hung low in the sky, drenching the calm world with silver light. The moment she entered Black River, it died away, wilting until there was barely a trace of it left to touch the road before her.

 

Buck hadn’t lifted his head from the crook of Basheba’s arm. He had dozed on and off for the forty-five-minute drive, only stirring to growl softly at the glove box. She didn’t try to move the object. Simply kept her focus locked onto the dark road as she weaved past the ancient homesteads. Her grip on the wheel tightened when she approached the last obstacle that properly separated the town from the surrounding farmlands.

 

There were numerous points where the river that gave the town its name thinned into little more than a babbling brook. Naturally, it was at these markers the first settlers had decided to construct bridges, and the town hadn’t seen any reason to change that. Most of them hadn’t even been upgraded and remained as little more than a few planks hastily nailed together. There were a couple that had been changed into covered bridges. She had purposefully gone a mile out of her way to ensure she managed to cross at one of these points.

 

A dull overhanging light bulb illuminated the opening and she set her gaze upon it, breathed deep and slow, locked her elbows, and pushed down the accelerator.

 

The car lurched forward over the gravel road. Her headlights flooded the elongated cave of the tunneled bridge and washed over the dark water. A broken cry escaped Basheba as she put her entire body weight down on the brake. The tires locked and skidded over the loose earth. With a final lurch that threw her against her seatbelt and sent Buck tumbling onto the cab floor, the car came to a halt.

 

“Sorry, sorry,” Basheba whispered as Buck scrambled his way back up.

 

It took a concerted effort to loosen her death grip on the wheel. She gave him an apology scratch behind his ears.

 

“Sorry,” she breathed one last time.

 

Don’t look. Just don’t look. It was impossible to listen to her own advice. The dark water drew her gaze. It shifted like liquid onyx around the stones that stood out like exposed bones. Her heart hammered painfully against her ribs, each beat rattling her small frame.

 

“It’s only a few inches deep,” she told Buck. “Only a few inches.”

 

He grumbled, nose twitching wildly as he glanced around. Watching his fruitless efforts to find the source of her anxiety made her feel like an idiot. She gave him another scratch.

 

“I’m okay. You’re with me, right boy?”

 

Buck plopped his butt down on the seat, straightening his front legs, a guard dog at its post. At least, that’s what she liked to think of him as.

 

“All right. We’re going to just shoot on through. It’ll only take a second.”

 

Not trusting herself to see through her conviction on the first attempt, she ordered the Rottweiler onto the floor in front of the passenger seat. Once he was safely stowed away, she put her manual car in gear, took a deep breath, and stomped down. She was forced to shift rapidly as the car picked up speed. Flimsy wooden walls kept the river from her view. Basheba locked her eyes on the end of the tunnel, racing toward it, the process only taking a few seconds.

 

A sudden jerk threw her forward. Her seatbelt tensed, crushing the air from her lungs before forcing her back. Buck yelped, the headlights died, and the roar of the engine was reduced to a hollow rapid clicking. Wincing, Basheba struggled to understand what had just happened.

 

Vaguely, she was aware that the abrupt stop had sloshed her brain around her skull. Whiplash? The thought was quickly dismissed. All the pain in her body existed in the single bar where her seatbelt had struck her.

 

Chapter 10

 

Mina sat at the small table by the window. Sunlight streamed through the polished glass, giving her all she needed to study the box in detail. It was the first time she had been able to get a good look at it. Tradition dictated the cube was to be instantly sealed within a thick iron box, the kind used for radioactive material. She had always been told the Selected was allowed to take it back out once they were far enough away from the children. However, that didn’t seem to be the case. Her father had refused to even let her near it until they were within the town’s café, curiously named Witch’s Brew. He had disappeared out the back with her other relatives shortly after they had arrived, leaving Jeremiah with strict instructions to keep her from opening the container. That had lasted only as long as it took for her to reach across the booth.

 

After studying each side in turn, she had come to one conclusion; she should have bought that magnifying glass keychain she had seen in the store before. Suddenly, it seemed completely practical, and not dorky at all. Growling in frustration, Mina sat back and thought, then shot a question at her brother.

 

“Do you have your phone on you?”

 

Jeremiah jolted at the sudden address. “Don’t you?”

 

“It’s charging in my bedroom.”

 

Cautiously, her big brother slipped off the distant table and inched his way across the room.

 

“Don’t you dare take the box,” she warned him.

 

“I don’t want to touch that thing.”

 

He fished his phone from his back pocket and held it out with the tips of his fingers, keeping himself as far away from the table as he could without throwing his birthday present. Mina struggled to keep from rolling her eyes.

 

“Can you open it for me, please?”

 

After unlocking it, he presented it in exactly the same way as before.

 

“Thanks.” She pulled the phone away and quickly clicked off a few photographs.

 

“What are you doing?” Jeremiah asked.

 

“I need a magnifying glass.”

 

“You’re taking photos,” he said.

 

The stress must be getting to him.

 

“So I can magnify them,” she replied.

 

He still wasn’t getting it. The box held the full focus of his attention, his eyes wide and his breathing shallow.

 

“You know, zoom in.”

 

“Oh, right,” he mumbled absently.

 

Mina picked up the box to shift the angle of her photographs.

 

“Do you have to keep touching that thing?” He still had enough sense to keep his voice down.

 

Neither of them wanted to know just how mad their dad would be to learn that the box was outside the container.

 

“I want to get a better look at this pattern. It keeps moving.”

 

“What pattern?”

 

“These squiggles.” She zoomed in on one of her photographs to show him what she meant. “See, here? Under the shifting metal bars.”

 

Jeremiah craned his neck to see the screen but didn’t dare come any closer to the box.

 

“Oh, yeah,” he murmured.

 

“At first, I thought they were just decoration. But there’s no repetition. The same symbols, odd spacing, not repeating,” she thought aloud.

 

“What are you babbling about?”

 

She finally looked up. “I think it’s a language.”

 

“A language?”

 

“A language hidden under moving elements on a box with no seams.” She couldn’t help but feel a bit impressed. “Who would go to this much effort for a prop?”

 

Jeremiah glared at her. “Are you kidding me? You still think this is fake?”

 

“Not fake exactly,” she admitted. “But exaggerated.”

 

“You were locked in a closet with her.”

 

Mina threw herself back in her seat, remembering just in time not to toss his phone across the room, even if it would have been dramatically fitting.

 

“I have claustrophobia. You know that. Being in that closet…” She shuddered under the memories that began to prick at the corners of her mind but forced herself to continue. You need to appear strong if he’s going to take you seriously. “In those circumstances, it would be completely normal for someone with my condition to exaggerate certain things, or even outright hallucinate.”