Free K.J. Emrick - Darcy Sweet 13 - Ghost Story by K.J. Emrick

Millie’s spirit had yet to cross over.  A mystery to be solved.  Darcy knew she was the only one who could do it.
    “Now, you let that be,” Millie scolded her.  “We’re not worrying about me.  Not when there’s something worse to worry ourselves over.”
    “She’s always been like that,” Smudge said with a yawn, turning over onto his back and stretching.  “Darcy thinks about everyone else’s needs first.  It’s just one of the many reasons why I love her.”
    “Aw,” Darcy said.  “I love you too, Smudge.”
    “Darcy, I’m serious,” Millie continued.  “You’ve seen what Nathaniel Williams can do.  You’ve got yourself one dead woman to worry about already.  There might be more, if you don’t put a stop to him.”
    “I know, Aunt Millie.  It’s more complicated than that, though.  One of us killed that woman.  I need to figure out which one.  But if I do, then whoever it was will be facing a murder charge.  I’ve got no way to defend my friends from this, but I still need to figure it out. I have to.”
    “Do you?”  Millie seemed surprised by that idea.  Then, with a shrug, she set her cup of tea down on the coffee table between them, next to Darcy’s.  “I suppose.  Finding out who killed that poor woman won’t necessarily help you stop Nathaniel Williams.”
    “I know he has to be stopped.  I want to stop him.  No.  I need to stop him.”  Darcy heard the conviction in her voice, felt the heat in her face.  She had rarely been this sure about anything in her life.  “I don’t know how, is the thing.  I’m not an exorcist.”
    “Oh, neither was I,” Millie said with a smile.  “But I did my fair share.  There’s a method, and there’s a way.  The method is in a book.  Spelled out for you all nice and neat.  It’s right up there, sweetheart.”
    She pointed up at the wall behind the couch.  Darcy turned to find Smudge up on the shelf Millie was indicating, pulling a book with a red cover out with his teeth.  “Thif if it,” he said around a mouthful of book spine.
    “Hey, don’t you ruin my books!” Darcy scolded him.  She knew which book Millie meant.  She’d read through it last night in her search for clues about Nathaniel Williams’ ghost.  Exorcism 101, basically.  “Okay, Millie, that’s the method.  You said there was a method, and a way.  If that’s the method then what’s the way?”
    Her Great Aunt reached out and took her hands, holding them in her own, studying them closely.  “Oh, my.  What pretty rings you have.”
    Darcy rolled her eyes.  “You’ve seen my rings before, Millie.  I wear them all the time in the shop.  One of them was yours, remember?”
    The world around her, the dream world, violently rocked sideways as lines blurred across her vision like something was trying to tear it apart.
    It hurt.  A lot.
    “Millie,” Darcy said in alarm, “what was that?”
    “Hm.  I was afraid he’d find you here.  I just thought we’d have more time.  I always wish there was more time.”
    She shook her head sadly and reached for her tea cup again.
    The table bounced up on two legs and then thumped back down to the floor, knocking both cups off with enough force to shatter them, tea spilling out across the rug.  Darcy gripped the arm of the couch, holding on tightly against a sudden invisible force trying to pull her away.
    “Millie!” she screamed.
    “It’s right where it belongs, you know,” was her aunt’s calm reply.  “It’s where it’s always been, right where it belongs.  It’s right—”
    The world turned upside down and Darcy was looking at the floor above her and the ceiling beneath her as she fell upward.  The dream was being shredded around her.  Some dark force that she couldn’t see had ahold of her and would not let go.
    She was being attacked.
    “It’s right where it belongs,” Millie said again, as her image smeared and drifted away into nothing.  “It’s where