Mystic Meg

-o-

Dead End

Looking back, I think my hate for the paranormal started when I was about seven. It was the first time in my life where I’d wished mum would just go out and get a ‘normal’ job. Then to make matters worse she came along... Mystic fucking Meg.

Mystic Meg was a psychic on the show “The National Lottery” who became an overnight star predicting lottery winners, and she was also my own personal nightmare. I never met the woman, but that didn’t stop me from hating her. The two of us had a couple of things in common; both our lives revolved around the paranormal, and we shared the same name. Yep, my name is Megan. Call me Meg and you die.

All the kids had thought it was perfect; the ‘witch’s brat’ had the same name as the psychic and so they started to taunt me by calling me Mystic Meg. I got into a lot of trouble at school for fighting that year, and my parents were called in to see the head teacher more than a couple of times.

I remember cringing the first time mum popped into school wearing her standard Fortune-teller’s outfit, and by that I mean a floaty black robe with big bell sleeves, and a red turban on her head. She’d got a lot of looks from the kids and teachers when she’d stepped on to school property; I remember hiding in the girl’s toilets at the time, until I finally had to make my way to head teacher’s office.

Starting university was a dream, I finally got myself out of the backwards town I lived in and became independent. I was content in just being a ‘boring student’, as my cousin Sophie liked to call me, which also meant I was the black sheep of the family.

Going to uni and getting a degree in the Hastings clan instead of embracing the family heritage was considered sacrilegious, and the fact that I was studying Criminal Law...? Well that was pretty much the nail in the coffin. I was the butt of their jokes but I was happy with that. At least this way when someone comes to sue them one day, as I’m sure they will, help is at hand. And to be honest they had to be expecting it, I mean my dad’s an accountant! Good old dad, the only other sane person in my family.

Yep, I was a girl of simple desires. Normal was the only way to go but the two guys in front of me? They were definitely not normal…

“Shouldn’t you be taking this to the police?” I queried.

The two men had stepped into the shop ten minutes ago; looking very sharply dressed in their suits. We’d never had suits in our shop before; most people tended to take one look and walk the other way. They were a contrasting pair, one fair and the other dark. It hadn’t taken long to figure out the blond was the type of guy to flirt with anything with breasts and his friend..? His friend I didn’t even want to think about. They had come into town looking for some woman.

The blond chuckled softly as he pulled out a badge and flashed it in my face. “We are the police, kid. Detective Matthews and Detective – ”

I took offence at him calling me ‘kid’ and judging by the way his lips curled he knew it. Bastard.

“And you’re in a new age shop because…?” I left the question hanging, waiting for him to fill in the gaps, but it was his friend who chose to answer. The dark haired guy stepped forward and as he moved closer to the counter his friend took a step back; it was like a tag team tactic.

The chill that I had felt since getting out of bed this morning seeped deeper into my bones. Just as his gaze levelled with mine, I whipped my head to the side and averted my eyes. I could feel him just standing there, waiting, but I refused to meet his gaze.

“Her name is Cherie Matthews. We have information that she’s in this area and we’re trying to find her.” His deep voice resonated around us. I heard a faint swish of material; out the corner of my eye I could see his hand slide across the counter towards me pushing a photograph in front of me. “Have you seen her?”

“Nope.” I shook my head as my gaze flickered across to the bookshelf on my right. It was lined from top to bottom with books on witchcraft, necromancy and other paranormal topics.

“You’re not even looking,” he ground out tightly.

I’ve never been a coward, but if there was ever a moment that I wanted to turn tail and run? This was it.

The blond guy laughed loudly. “The kid doesn’t like you Nick – I think you scared her.”

I felt my back stiffen at those words. I was not a kid and I was most definitely not scared.

“Shut up Ben,” Nick growled.

To prove my point and show them how unafraid I was, I turned my head to face the dark haired guy, Nick.

“I haven’t seen her around,” I answered his question honestly with my gaze fixed on his chin.

“Here, just take another look,” Nick cajoled as he pushed the photo into my hand.

I nearly jumped when his finger connected with mine but being the mature, young woman that I am, I gave a tight-lipped smile and pretended as if nothing had happened.

As I looked down at the photo in my hand, my smile slipped as a pair of brown eyes stared back at me. Her head was cocked to the side and she had a small secretive smile, teasing you with the knowledge that she knew something you didn’t. Her light brown hair hung to her shoulders, mussed up to look like she’d just got out of bed. She wore a black knee length dress and around her neck was a chain with a big garnet stone dangling from it. My head began to spin like crazy and instead of feeling cold, I was now boiling hot. I held onto the counter like it was a lifeline, digging my fingers into the surface as if it would hold me in place.

“You okay?” Nick asked softly, concern lacing his voice. His hand reached across the counter as if to touch mine but I snatched it away at the last second. I jumped to the side trying to move away and instantly felt a flare of pain as my hip whacked against the side of the counter.

“Uh huh, I’m fine. Peachy,” I squeaked while resting a hand on my hip, pinching the skin around the area to ease the pain. I must have been a sight, standing there with a smile which wasn’t quite a smile plastered to my face.

He narrowed his eyes as he took a step back from the counter. “Have you seen her?” His gaze was locked on mine as he repeated his question; it took a hell of a lot of effort to not look the other way.

“N-n-o.” My voice shook as I tried to get the words out, it felt like there was something lodged in my throat and no matter how many times I gulped it wouldn’t go away.

“Really?” Suspicion laced his voice as he stared me in the face. “This is official business you know and if you’re lying…” He left the threat hanging in the air.

I snorted in an unladylike manner. If he thought that would force my hand he was wrong – this didn’t seem to be the right reaction judging by the way his jaw clenched.

“Nope,” I said confidently as he continued to glare at me, I automatically took another step back as his lips curled downwards.

For the first time since they’d stepped into the shop I felt like the one who had the upper hand. Feeling more like myself, I straightened my back and crossed my arms over my chest. Bit by bit I felt my courage return but still I couldn’t get rid of that prickling sensation at the back of my neck.

“So where are you from?”

“What?” Nick asked dumfounded, his face scrunched up in confusion.

“We’re from Scotland Yard,” Ben slipped in smoothly from behind his partner. He stepped forward until he stood shoulder to shoulder with the other man. “Cherie Matthews disappeared a week ago, we’ve been able to trace her whereabouts to this area. Her family are worried and we really need to make some headway on this, give them some answers you know?” His voice was sombre as he talked about her family. I empathized with her family, I really did. I couldn’t begin to understand what they must be going through and most of all I felt for Cherie Matthews.

“I’m sorry,” I said honestly. “But I can’t help you. As I told you before I’ve never seen her in my life.” I shrugged my shoulders as I turned my head to the stairs behind me, which led to the flat upstairs.

“Sure.” Ben nodded his head and grabbed the photo off the counter. “But if you remember something, anything at all, no matter how small, give me a call.” He pulled a card from his pocket and left it on the counter.

As they were both leaving the shop, Nick turned his head at the last minute and caught my eye. My breath hitched in my throat as he pinned me in place with just his gaze, I was unable to turn away, no matter how hard I tried.

Yellow. His eyes were yellow.

My heart racing, I dug my nails into my palms as he continued to watch me and then he was gone, just like that. I let go of the breath I’d been holding and sighed in relief. In that moment my skin had been on fire, all my thoughts jumbled up in a mess, as I’d stood there transfixed.

“They gone?”

“What?” Confused, I looked up to find Dana, the other girl who worked in the shop, standing in front of the counter.

“You know…” Dana nodded her head in the direction of the door. “The two Detectives… what did they want?”

I snorted when she mentioned the detectives, Dana continued to watch me, curious about what was going on, hungry to hear all the details.

I sighed loudly. “They’re looking for some woman named Cherie, wanted to know if I’d seen her around but I haven’t so…” I shrugged my shoulders as I shuffled around the books that were on the counter, acting like I was busy to stop all the questions that I knew were on the tip of her tongue.

Dana worked at the shop part-time on the weekends. She was a nice enough girl but she was also a big gossip. We got on well most of the time, and when we were working together in the shop we had fun just talking about random things, but when it came to something more serious? I knew the best thing to do was keep my mouth shut or end up having the news spread through town.

With Dana busy talking to a customer, I started making an inventory of stock and what we needed to order. I tried to keep my mind on the task in front of me but I couldn’t stop my thoughts from wandering. I thought about the two guys who had come into the shop, they said they were detectives but they’d been lying. Yep, they’d been nothing but two big fat liars. The badge they’d shown me was easy to recognise as some cheap knockoff that you could get off the Internet or something. Last summer I’d worked at a police station doing administration work; I’d been around enough cops and detectives to recognise fake badges when I saw one, and theirs definitely hadn’t been real.

I could hear the alarm bells going off in my head, this was a dangerous situation I’d stepped into and I knew it was only going to get even stickier. The whole time the fake detectives had been here I’d felt uneasy. The questions kept flying through my head, ‘why had they been posing as detectives and why were they were looking for Cherie Matthews?’

I groaned, I couldn’t believe that this was happening, but there was something else, something more worrying…I covered my eyes with my palm to stop the one image that I really didn’t want flashing through my mind, the most troubling of all – yellow eyes.

I couldn’t believe that in less than half an hour I’d managed to get myself involved in all of this crazy business. I didn’t want or need it and so I rushed around the shop, tidying, cleaning and whatever else I could get my hands on, trying to keep myself busy so I wouldn’t have to think about any of it.

The plan worked well for a while but then I saw the business card the blond, Ben, had left, and I felt my breath catch in my throat. I slowly made my way to the counter and picked up the card cautiously. My heart instantly went out to Cherie Matthews’ family…Poor Cherie, how did she manage to get herself into this sorry mess? The moment I’d touched that photo I’d known it, Cherie Matthews was no longer living…

I guess Mystic Meg was a more appropriate name than Megan Hathaway because guess what? I see dead people.

A/N:

Long awaited update!

This is the supernatural romance I was working on a while ago. There’s a lot of potential for this story, unfortunately, I haven’t got the whole plot figured out. I’ve come across some kinks and since I’ve never written anything paranormal I can’t seem to figure out how to resolve the issues.

That said, while trying to sort out this story I came up with another. It’s supernatural romance, and actually has a workable plot. It actually fits in nicely with this one and would have been the sequel if I could get this one sorted. So be prepared for another supernatural romance, hopefully one that I won’t have any problems writing.

I’m not going to abandon this story; I’m still going to try and get the plot loopholes sorted and I do have half the next chapter written.

For all those reading my story Erase & Rewind you can expect the next update sometime this weekend or next week at the latest. The next two chapters are more or less written and so updates should be regular.

With regards to Hit and Run, I’m still working on this but it has taken a bit of a back seat. I will try and get to this story soon since it’s the one that’s the closest to finishing.

Thank you for your patience and please review!

Leila