Now Comes the Witching Hour

The misadventures of Lucy Huntington Mitford, Our Lady of Lost Socialites and Women on Fire.

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Lucy Mitford
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Now Comes the Witching Hour

Post by Lucy Mitford »

With a quiet gasp, Lucy was awake again. She dragged in a deep breath, like a woman on the verge of drowning, and opened her eyes. It was a dream. Just another dream.

In front of her, Colin was half-hidden beneath the blankets, his back to her, his tattoos nothing but shadows as he slept in the low light. But even as she looked at him she could still feel it. A man’s hands squeezing around her neck, her fingers scratching and grabbing, the salt burning her eyes beneath the crashing ocean waves, desperate for breath.

But she was safe in bed now. Lucy tried another breath just to be sure. Because maybe she was still drowning.

As quietly as she could, Lucy escaped the sheets. It was snowing again. Barefoot, Lucy moved for the window and stared out, watching the snowfall in the dark. She couldn’t remember when the nightmares began. Everyone had nightmares of course, but these were coming so often she was growing accustomed to being tired all the time. Perhaps they had begun the night she’d watched Candy set the world on fire. Or maybe it was her stalker with his playful, taunting notes who seemed to just disappear in time for Christmas.

Colin had been so busy with his new project, she had actually managed to hide it from him. Hiding anything was a rarity between them. But hide she did. That she was tired. That she was afraid to stay out too late. That she hadn’t seen much of her friends, or spent much time at the Inn. That she spent most of her time with Scout, their faithful golden retriever, walking the footpaths around her oceanside house.

But still, the nightmares. Even with Colin kissing her to sleep each night. Even with his strong arms around her. Even with his strong arms pulling her close once more to soothe her back to sleep. Still, the nightmares.

Lucy didn’t know what was wrong. She didn’t know why she felt the way she did. But somehow, somehow, she could just feel it. Someone was out there. Something was out there. And it was coming for her.
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Originally posted Sat Mar 01, 2014 8:49 pm
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Re: Now Comes the Witching Hour

Post by Lucy Mitford »

Lucy wasn’t sure when the man had started following her. It was another freezing night in the endless winter. But it was snowing again, muffling the harsh sounds of the city, making the world feel small and close and safe. So she wanted to walk.

She’d been drinking, her head spinning, and as she’d stumbled out of the bar, she felt light and glorious, twirling in the snow, her coat and scarf flapping in the crisp air, her laughter light. And when Sean, her driver, tried to get her in the car, she insisted that she’d be fine, that she didn’t need to be driven, that he didn’t work for Colin, that he worked for her, and if he didn’t leave her alone, she’d fire him. The threat was enough, and he left, reluctant, eyeing the pretty redhead in the rearview as he drove off.

At first she was giddy, light with laughter and liquor, slipping on the ice, revelling in a rare night alone. But after a couple blocks, she started to feel the cold. And then she realized that she wasn’t, after all, alone. A man’s heavy bootsteps fell in rhythm with hers, coming up behind her, closing in.

“Hey, red!”

Lucy ignored him, pulling her coat closer, a chill at her neck, trying to pick up the pace.

“Red! Hey, girl!” His voice was deep and gravelly. She recognized the tone. Like so many men before, so many men that had catcalled her on the streets of New York, taunting her, teasing her, trying to get a rise or a blush out of her.

She hurried forward, trying to clear the drunk buzzing in her head. Her chest tightened with anxiety. She wasn’t even sure where she was anymore, where home was, where Colin was.

“Aw, come on! Don’t be like that, red.”

Lucy fumbled a hand into her purse. Where was the knife? Colin had given her a knife. The side pocket. Her fingers closed on the handle. What had he said? He said something. Stab up. Oh god, she was scared. She cut into a dark alley, shrinking back into the dark. Dropping her purse to the snow, she clutched the knife in both hands and pressed her back against the wall, praying that he would walk on by.

“Where’d you go, red?” She could hear his footsteps approaching. Then they stopped. He whistled in the dark.

For a moment, Lucy thought he was gone. Then he turned into the alley towards her. He opened his mouth to say something, but she stumbled towards him, reaching out with the knife, trying to shove it into him somehow. Stab up.

Lucy could feel heat through her cashmere gloves as the blade sank home. The man stumbled back, his brown eyes catching the streetlight as he fell away.

“Why did you---?” He looked down at the knife protruding from his abdomen as if he didn’t understand what had happened. He looked up at her, confusion in his eyes. In one hand he was holding her scarf. He held it out to her. “I think---I think you---”

There was blood everywhere. He fell to the snow. He had her scarf. She had dropped her scarf. And he had been trying to return it to her. He hadn’t been following her at all. Oh god. Lucy lifted her hands to her mouth. Her gloves were covered with blood, and she shook them off, flinging them into the snow as she backed away. “I’m sorry.”

He pulled her scarf back in, squeezing the wool into a ball and pressing it to the wound. Steam rose from the snow where it had been splattered with blood. His boots scraped the icy street as the situation began to sink in. He looked up at her, his eyes glassy with desperation. “Help me.”

Lucy shook her head. “I can’t.”

“Please---please---.” He begged.

“I can’t---I can’t. I’m sorry.” With one last look at the dying stranger, Lucy grabbed her purse from the snow, and then she ran.
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Originally posted on Wed Mar 05, 2014 1:13 am
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Re: Now Comes the Witching Hour

Post by Lucy Mitford »

In the dim light of the Crowe Bar, Lucy sat in a back booth, and tried to steady her hands long enough to light her cigarette. She couldn’t stop shaking.

“I’m glad you called me.” Isaak reached across the table and held her slender wrist with his large black hand.

She breathed out a puff of smoke over her head. “I didn’t know who else to call.”

Isaak glanced across the room towards the bartender, then looked back at her, keeping his voice low. “Is he dead?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I just---I just ran.”

“Give me your phone.” Isaak held out his hand for the device. Lucy fumbled in her purse a moment, but got it out for him. In a few short movements, he opened the back and pulled out the data card. With a nod of his head, a tall, slender man with long blonde hair and elven features pushed off the far wall and came over to collect the chip. He lodged it in his own phone and tapped away at the device as he headed for the door.

Lucy followed the man with her eyes before looking back at Isaak. “You think I should have called Colin?”

Isaak looked at her a moment, then reached out and nudged a glass of scotch in her direction. She obediently lifted the glass for a drink, then flinched at the sound of his phone buzzing on the table.

Isaak answered, and made sounds of understanding before hanging up and setting the phone down once more. “He’s dead.”

“Okay.” She swallowed dryly and nodded.

From his briefcase, Isaak withdrew a single page, and then set it on the table between them. He uncapped a fountain pen and set it down as well.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a retainer agreement.”

“For a million dollars?” Lucy looked at Isaak with widened eyes. “So---so you think I’m going to get caught---you think I’ll be going to trial.”

“No.” Isaak shook his head. “In this town, once you go to trial, you’re done. A million dollars so it doesn’t come to that. Do you understand?”

Lucy nodded. She picked up the pen, and signed on the dotted line.

Isaak returned the document to his briefcase and nodded towards her glass. “Finish your drink. In a few minutes, Erandriel will be back with your data card. You’re going to fix your hair and makeup. And we are going to talk about the weather, and you are going to smile. Then I’m going to take you home in my car. And you will behave as if we met for a drink on purpose, as friends, and you will say nothing to anyone about what happened. Do you understand?”

She nodded again, lifting her glass for another drink. She drank it down, and tried to breathe normally. Then she practiced a smile.

“Good girl.” Isaak nodded approvingly, watching her. “And you were right to call me. Do you understand why?”

Lucy shook her head.

“Because when you murder an innocent man in a dark alley at night, you don’t call your boyfriend. You call your lawyer.”
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Originally posted on Tue May 20, 2014 9:32 pm
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Re: Now Comes the Witching Hour

Post by Lucy Mitford »

It was the same routine as always. Lucy stood on the front porch, the sun beginning to rise into full-blown morning. Colin gave Lucy a kiss on the cheek, then gave one last playful scruff to Scout, their dog, before he headed for his car. And as the car made its way to down the drive, Lucy smiled and waved from the porch, until he was gone.

Then the smile faded. She was good at putting on the show. Her whole childhood had been about learning to perform---to smile when needed, to always be charming, to never show true emotion---she had perfected it. But never had she been required to keep up the facade in private. Never had she needed to fool someone she loved. Until now.

But she couldn't help thinking that Colin must know. So much had changed between them. They'd stopped going out together. Stopped coordinating their schedules. She would often leave the house late at night so she could “meet up with friends,” though she never really said who, and she never really said where. And they hadn't talked about wedding plans in months.

Still she smiled at him, and kissed him, and reached for him in bed. Never revealing the terror and guilt that was in heart. Never telling him the truth. That she had killed an innocent man.

With a sigh, Lucy moved off the porch to head inside. When Scout didn't follow, she turned to look for him. “Scout?”

The golden retriever was standing on the gravel drive staring at her. She quirked a brow and called to the dog again. “Come on, Scout. Let's go for a walk.”

Scout didn't move. Instead he sounded a low growl and bared his teeth at her. Lucy frowned, taking a step backwards through the door and into the entryway. For a moment, the two stared at each other like that. Then with a sudden lurch, Scout launched towards her, barking. Startled, Lucy scrambled backwards and shut the front door, just in time to keep the dog out.

With panting breath, Lucy listened as Scout continued to bark from the other side of the door, loud and angry barks, as if the dog whom she raised from a puppy had never seen her before. As if she were something threatening. As if she were a stranger.
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Originally posted on Sat Jun 21, 2014 8:30 pm
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Re: Now Comes the Witching Hour

Post by Lucy Mitford »

At 2AM, Lucy hunched in a dark corner of her walk-in closet, her body shivering and sweating in the crisp air conditioning, and she tried to cry as quietly as she could. Colin was asleep just outside the door, and she didn't want to wake him. She muffled her sobs by covering her mouth with the rough sleeve of a tweed winter coat. She had so little time to cry. So little time when she was truly alone.

It wasn't like Lucy hadn't noticed the looks. Everywhere she went, people stared at her. At the Inn. On the street. Everywhere.

As hard as she tried, she couldn't see what they saw. Every morning, she sat in front of the mirror for an hour, blow-drying and curling her hair, putting on her makeup and jewelry. But she never saw anything.

It was a ghost. She knew now, that's what it was. She was being haunted. She couldn't see it though. Why couldn't she see it?

She had never felt so alone. Colin was steps away in bed. But every day he felt more and more like a stranger. How could she tell him? How could she tell him that she was a killer. That she had blood on her hands.

Maybe they had rushed into it. Rushed into an engagement that neither of them were really ready for. It wasn't Colin's fault. It was hers. She was pushing him away. She spent her nights in the Inn, preferring the company of strangers. Preferring the company of men like Vathe and Alec and Cris. Men who could still be charmed by her smiles. Men whose hearts she couldn't possibly break.

It was getting harder and harder to put her engagement ring on each morning. It felt like a lie. Like a betrayal. She could make promises to no one.

All she brought was death. In the dark of the closet, Lucy dragged in a deep, shaky breath and looked into the shadows for her ghost.

“Are you there?” Lucy's whisper was swallowed by the racks of clothes and rows of shoes. No response came. No ghost appeared before her.

“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”
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Originally posted on Sun Jul 06, 2014 11:42 pm
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Re: Now Comes the Witching Hour

Post by Lucy Mitford »

“This isn’t helping, love.”

The ghost watched Lucy from a corner of the kitchen as she pulled another wineglass from the shelf and hurled it at the front door. The glass exploded into pieces, raining shards down on top of the layers of all the broken stemware that she’d been collecting there.

She ignored the ghost. To his credit, he never said ‘I told you so.’ But he couldn’t hide his pleasure when Dair left. Lucy was tired of talking to him.

She had thrown the glass of whiskey when she could no longer hear Dair’s footsteps on the stairs. And then she threw the bottle. They smashed with such satisfying crashes, that she couldn’t stop herself from throwing more. She was a storm of destruction, each broken glass a scream that she’d been forced to keep inside.

At some point she stopped, a last unbroken glass left on the counter as her fury faded. Only sadness was left. Dair didn’t want her. He didn’t want her the way she needed to be wanted. Whatever he felt for her, whatever he would ever feel for her, would always be just short of complete. And they both knew it wouldn’t be enough for her. She sank to the kitchen floor, her back leaning against the cabinets.

She was so tired of her life. So tired of everything. Tired of her ghost. Tired of her sadness. Tired of her loneliness. She couldn’t imagine ever emerging on the other side of this all-consuming weariness.

Lucy reached up to the counter for her purse, pulling it down and then turning it over to spill its contents on the floor. Her cell phone tumbled out and she plucked it from the detritus of her life. No voicemails. No texts. She missed Colin. But she knew she was missing the life they’d once had together, and not who they were now. And there was no one else to call. Candy was still gone. Dillon gone. Who were her friends?

“Guess you’re stuck with me now, love.” Reg snickered.

She looked up at the ghost. Then she hauled back and threw her phone at him. It passed through his ghostly body without effect, and then crashed on the wall behind him. Reg backed up though, frowning as he became the focus of her fury.

She blindly searched the items on the floor from her purse for something else to throw at him. But her fingers closed around something soft and satiny. She looked down at it.

It was the dark blue ribbon Jack had given her. She had been carrying it around, waiting for something to happen. But nothing ever did. He said he gave ribbons to those who interested him. But Lucy knew she wasn’t interesting. It was only her ghost that made her interesting.

She wrapped her fingers around the ribbon and closed her eyes, bending her head over it. “Make the ghost go away. Please make him go away.” When she opened her eyes, the ghost was still there, watching her from across the room. Her eyes filled with tears and she looked back at the ribbon in her hands. Why wouldn’t it work for her? Why wouldn’t it help her?

Tears rolled down her cheeks and she squeezed the ribbon tighter in her hands, trying again. “Please make Dair come back. Please bring him back. I want him--I want him back.” She sank down further, curling onto her side on the kitchen floor while she cried clutching Jack’s blue ribbon. “I don’t want to be alone. Please help me. Please.”
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Originally posted on Tue Aug 26, 2014 1:14 pm
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Re: Now Comes the Witching Hour

Post by Lucy Mitford »

“We don’t serve his kind here.”

“What?” Lucy stopped in the doorway and looked at the wizened old man behind the counter of the shadowy shop. Shafts of light pierced through the heavy purple curtains that were guarding the windows, revealing the dust floating above the jumble of magical wares. Old crystal balls, magic carpets, invisibility rings, protection charms, voodoo dolls, broomsticks, brass lamps, ivory dragon’s teeth, little jars of powders and herbs and bits of animals, all piled in a disorganized heap.

The old man pointed again at her. “Your ghost. He cannot pass.”

She looked behind her, taking in the ghost a moment. Reginald frowned, looking at the line of ash that blocked his entry. She brushed her hair back from her shoulder and stepped fully inside letting the door shut in Reginald's face. Then she began to look around.

“Looking for anything in particular, dearie?” The old man watched her as she made her way through the shop. She was so finely dressed, her gold jewelry jingling.

“Just browsing.” Lucy smiled at him as she paused by an old weather vane sitting on top of a bureau. It was laden with charm necklaces---bits of silver, crystal, and glass hanging off strings and chains. Lucy recognized some from her books. Charms for luck, charms for protection, charms for love. She fingered some of the protection charms.

“A particular sort of charm, perhaps?” He looked back towards the door, where she’d left her ghost. “A protection charm?” The old man rounded the counter and came towards her.

“I’m really just looking.” She smiled, trying to discourage him from coming any closer.

But he came anyhow, his eyes seeking a better look of something tied about her wrist. It was Jack’s dark blue ribbon. “That’s an interesting bit of magic you got there.” He reached out to touch the ribbon with his arthritic finger, but she jerked her arm away. He smirked at her reaction, eyeing her. “Where did you get such a powerful thing?”

“It’s just--just a ribbon.” She backed away from him, but she smiled politely as she tried to circle back towards the door.

“Mm. As you say, dearie.” The old man followed, his eyes narrowing as he watched her retreating. He looked past her, as if he could see through the heavy purple curtains to her ghost waiting outside. Then he looked back at her. “Does he know what you did?”

Lucy looked back at him, frowning. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You had better tell him what you did, girl. An angry ghost is a terrible thing. Mark my words. An angry ghost will be your undoing. An angry ghost will be your end.”
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Originally posted on Mon Sep 01, 2014 6:08 pm
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Re: Now Comes the Witching Hour

Post by Lucy Mitford »

She couldn't find the ribbon.

She had emptied three handbags, reorganized her dressing table, and shaken out all of the clothes on the floor of her closet. No ribbon.

She knew she had been wearing it that night. But she didn't remember losing it. It was all a haze. She could remember turning behind the bar. Turning and seeing Reg. And suddenly he had it in his hands.

Her scarf. Covered in his blood.

Even now, so far removed from everything that had happened, she could feel her fear. Her muscle-trembling, bone-shaking, heart-racing, sweaty, filthy fear.

But how did he know? Where did the scarf come from? And where was the goddamned ribbon?

Lucy frowned and looked at herself in the mirror. The she gasped. Christ, she was an idiot. She had been asking those questions in that order for days without putting them together. How could she have been so dumb?

The ribbon was the scarf. The scarf was the ribbon.

She had been so desperate for the ribbon to help her, for it to do something, anything. Well now, it had. It had given Reg his memories. It had told him what she had been too afraid to say---that she killed him, that in a dark alley in the middle of winter she had shoved a knife in his belly and then left him to die.

And now he was gone. Her fear doing harm to him yet again.

He was gone.

Fucking Jack. Fucking ribbon.

What a fool she had been. The ribbon was never for her. It was never going to help her. It was Reg's ribbon all along.
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Originally posted on Tue Sep 16, 2014 2:12 pm
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Re: Now Comes the Witching Hour

Post by Lucy Mitford »

It was a beautiful fall morning. Lucy watched the dawn break as the day tip-toed to a start. She bought her morning coffee, the way she always did, from the corner cafe, exchanging the usual polite smiles with the Italian barista. She watched the New Haven foot-traffic as she drank, the children in their uniforms being ushered to school, the businesses waking to life, each person moving on with their own lives.

She went to church. But she didn't stay long. A holy place, perhaps, for prayerful thoughts. Let this be right. Let me be right. Let me find peace.

At the loft, she packed up her jewelry, carefully wrapping each piece and placing it into the carrying case. She was there when the bank opened, depositing the case into her box, along with her will and estate documents.

Martta, her housekeeper, cried when she told her. But she didn't protest. Dair would come for the extra key. He was easy to describe. And the bank would continue to pay her salary.

The art would remain in the loft. And her lighter, she left on the counter for Dair. She knew he didn't need it. She knew, without fully understanding, that he had fire within. But maybe he would like to have it. Or maybe sticky-fingered Fin would enjoy it instead.

She left at noon. The 6th Precinct Watch station was just a short walk away. She stepped to the desk sergeant, and without any hesitation or second thoughts, she spoke.

"I need to confess a murder."
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Originally posted on Wed Oct 01, 2014 5:53 pm
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