The Dark Season

Chapter 1

Sam wasn’t used to working in the office. He much preferred the quiet, distraction-free environment of his own home in Jupiter. But there he was, sitting at his sterile desk, trying not to listen to the annoyance in the voice of his coworker at the Weekly Courier. She was beyond annoyed. With every sentence, her voice rose in pitch and volume, so he couldn’t help but hear her side of the phone conversation. 

“Ma’am, what do you mean rocks keep raining on your roof? Is somebody throwing rocks at your house?” She paused for a breath. “No? Then do you mean hail from a storm?”

Sam thought about it. There wouldn’t be hail in late December in eastern Tennessee without some serious warmth. Being best friends with a meteorologist taught him that much. It had been bone-chilling cold for days. But the person on the other end of the line couldn’t mean sleet either. The sun had been out for just as long as the cold had been there.

The reporter’s voice kept going – asking partial questions and sounding more and more like an angry alley cat’s. “Ma’am, if you think someone’s breaking into your house… well, why don’t you call the police? But you just said… If it’s not a person, who?”

“A raccoon,” Sam thought to himself.

“A curse? Listen, I’m not sure what… what you think I can do to help you.” Her voice was lowering in exasperation now. “I’m a reporter. I cover local government affairs. I don’t know anything about stones and curses. You’ve got the wrong number.” There was another pause and Sam expected to hear the phone slam down on the desk. “Yes, this is the paper, but… I don’t know who you should talk to. Definitely not me!” Her voice lowered another octave when she finished with “Give me your phone number, and I’ll see if I can find someone to call you back.”

A moment later, instead of a slam, Sam heard a tap, then a sigh, and then an expected announcement to no one in particular, “I need a cigarette!” The petite reporter whose name he couldn’t remember stormed passed him and down the hall toward the front door. She had only been working there a few weeks, and this was the first day he’d been in the office since she started. She was a spitfire, though. Her red hair reminded him of a meme he’d seen on social media about the stereotype of redheaded women: God gave you a warning sign when he gave me red hair. 

There was enough in her side of the conversation to pique Sam’s interest. After all, when he wasn’t being a tall, dark, and burly beat reporter, he was quietly investigating the paranormal with friends. He stood up casually, stretched his arms up over his head, feigned a yawn, and strolled down the same hallway. “I’m heading out to get some coffee,” he said over his shoulder, knowing the few people in the office that day didn’t really care.

He blinked his eyes as he walked out into the bright sunlight and brisk air. The redhead was standing about five feet to his right, puffing furiously. Sam gave her his best warm smile, dimples and all. She tried to ignore him, so he held out his hand in the universal hand-shake symbol and said, “I’m Sam. Today’s my first day in the office since you started.”

She softened a bit and shook his hand. “Bridgette,” she told him. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Bridgette.” He smiled again and watched as the hint of a grin flashed quickly through her eyes. “Not here long and already getting calls from the crazies, huh?”

“Yeah,” she confirmed. “She was definitely crazy. I mean she said that someone was dropping rocks on her roof, and they were coming through the ceiling, but nobody could see any damage on the roof. Then there was something about people breaking into her house, but the cops couldn’t find any evidence. So, she called me? Why on earth would she call me? What am I? A shrink?” She took a long drag as Sam waited. “That’s what she freakin’ needs! A shrink! Nobody believes in curses anymore. This is the twenty-first century for God’s sake!”

“Curses?” Sam asked and raised an eyebrow. 

“Yeah, she said she was cursed. Or her house was cursed… something. I don’t know. I was just trying to get off the darn phone. I’ve got better things to do.”

“I see.” Sam gave her a moment to finish her cigarette. “I couldn’t help but hear you ask for her number. Did you actually write it down, or was that just to get her off the phone?” 

“Yeah, I wrote it. It’s in the trash can under my desk. Fish it out if you want, but I’m not going there.”

“Thank you.”

“What do you want it for anyway?” She studied him carefully for the first time. 

“I’m a bored beat reporter. I might as well make her happy and call her back, right?”

“Sure. Have at it.” She dropped her cigarette and stomped it out with the toe of her boot. “It’s freakin’ cold out here. I’ve got to go.” With that, she turned and walked toward the parking lot, her long red hair bouncing with each step. 

#

#

We made it through another dark season. Time to turn back toward the light.

Rayna’s older sister was interrogating her again. “Why would you write that in a Christmas card?”

“Because it sounds way more poetic than saying ‘Happy Winter Solstice!’ yet again.” She answered defensively. “Besides, I only sent that to the people I thought would get it. Obviously, I was wrong about you.”

“It just seems morbid,” Dawn said. “Why can’t you just be normal?”

“After 30 plus years, it seems like you should know by now that’s not possible,” Rayna told her with a smile in her voice. “Just be happy you’re still on the Christmas card list and not on the lump of coal list, okay?”

“Whatever.” There was a pause while Dawn thought of something more interesting to discuss. “Did you ask Wolf to come with you to dinner on Sunday?”

“Nope.” Rayna looked around her small kitchen for an excuse to get off the phone. Her little black cat, Cloud, slept on the floor in a sunny spot. The stove was clean, and the fridge was full. Nothing. It yielded no good excuse to cut the new conversation short.

“Why not?”

“Because he’s still visiting his family in Mississippi.” 

Ranger Steven Wolf was Dawn’s new favorite subject. He and Rayna had been seeing a lot of each other since they met earlier that year, but nobody in the family had met him yet. She was dying to see who finally had her sister’s long-term interest, and Rayna was doing her best to delay that meeting. 

Dawn pressed on, “You could text him, you know.”

“I’m not planning to. He and I agreed that his family time is their time, not mine. I’ll ask him when he gets back.”

“When will that be?”

“Late Saturday.” 

“Seriously? Do you expect him to say yes on short notice?” Dawn was incredulous.

“Not really, but he might surprise me.” 

Rayna’s phone buzzed in her hand, and she looked at it with heartfelt gratitude. Sam was calling. “Um… Dawn, I have to go. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Okay,” she said. “Tell Sam I said, ‘hi.’” 

Rayna tapped her cell phone screen to answer Sam’s call. “Dawn says, ‘hi.’ What’s up?”

Sam’s voice had an unusual edge of enthusiasm to it. “How do you feel about curses?”

“Um,” Rayna wasn’t sure why he was asking. “I’m not a fan of GD, but some of the four-letter words are okay depending on the context. Why do you ask?”

“No, I mean good old-fashioned curses – like a hex put on someone in revenge.”

Rayna took a quick moment to think about her answer. “As a scientist, it would not be logical for me to put stock in silly superstitions.”

Sam laughed. It was a deep, friendly sound. “Well, it’s a good thing you’re not always logical.”

Rayna smiled. “Really, Sam, why do you ask?”

Sam filled her in on Bridgette’s side of the phone call just a few minutes before. “Intriguing, huh?” He asked.

“Did you call her, yet?”

“No. I wanted to see if you were interested in talking to her first.” 

Rayna didn’t have to think too hard about that one. She rarely turned down a case, especially if it was more interesting than the everyday, run-of-the-mill strange noises in the middle of the night variety. “Call her.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Sam said and immediately hung up. Rayna stared at the phone in her hand and thought about the last case her little team investigated. This one had to be simpler. There was no way it couldn’t be.

#

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