A Familiar Sense of Dead Read online

  A Familiar Sense of Dead

  A Farm to Fable Paranormal Cozy Mystery

  Book 2

  E.L. Wilder

  Copyright © 2019 E.L. Wilder

  This book is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. This eBook is licensed for the personal enjoyment of the reader. It is the copyrighted property of the author and may not be reproduced, copied, or distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

  Cover design by Gemma Thorne

  eBook design by E.L. Wilder

  Faulty Broomstick Publishing

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  For my mother,

  who has a Knack for always knowing what I need before I do.

  Thank you for always giving so selflessly and supporting so generously,

  I know you would mercilessly spritz anyone in the face

  if I asked.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  PREORDER BOOK 3

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CONNECT WITH E.L. WILDER

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  MORE FROM E.L. WILDER

  CHAPTER ONE

  Again.

  Hazel Bennett grumbled and bit her lower lip.

  No complaining.

  “I’m not complaining,” said Hazel.

  Your face was complaining.

  “If I were a violent person, your face would be complaining, silly cat.”

  Clancy turned a circle, whipped the air with both tails, and settled back down on the edge of the sugar evaporator. She knew it was a low blow, but after suffering his barbs all morning, she took petty satisfaction in seeing Clancy bristle.

  I am not a cat.

  Despite his protest, he looked every part the cat. If anything he was more cat than most with two tails and two sets of ears—both of which were very catlike.

  “Oops,” she said. “Slip of the tongue.”

  Again, Clancy repeated. His lips might not have moved, but she heard him loud and clear as his words drifted into her head telepathically.

  Again was hardly the thing she wanted to hear right now. They had come here to the Sugarhouse daily for the past month because the building was empty during the offseason, even though come mid-February it would be a hubbub of activity, a place for family and friends to gather, boil syrup, and celebrate the coming spring.

  She’d arrive every morning before dawn, equipped only with her satchel. Still rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she would get to work, trying to make up for what Clancy had dubbed lost time—specifically the ten years Hazel had spent in Hollywood, both running from home and evading her fate as a Bennett woman with the Knack.

  The first half of each lesson was devoted to spellcasting, during which she would run through her slowly growing repertoire and then attempt her spell du jour—some new spell she had pulled from her spellbook. She had gotten halfway decent at casting a few of them, not that her progress had satisfied Clancy in the slightest. They were still glamours, spells that created minor magical effects, most of them barely rising above the level of the average parlor trick or charlatan’s con.

  Then there was the second half of their sessions. The time that was reserved for bonding. Which wasn’t nearly so chummy as it sounded. They weren’t sharing hobbies, playing board games, or discussing their innermost secrets—though she would have preferred any of those options. They were trying to form the most important of bonds—that between a witch and her familiar.

  It was nearly lunchtime and she was having a hard time focusing on anything besides her growling stomach. She was no stranger to hard work and long days. She had grown up on a farm and spent long hours on set. But she was getting the distinct impression that she wasn’t any good at this. And a girl had to eat.

  “What exactly is going to be different this time?” she asked.

  Who knows? He stood up, balancing perfectly on the edge of the evaporator. Maybe I’ll sprout a second ass and finally give a—

  “Clancy! I’m trying to focus here.”

  There’s a first time for everything . . .

  She groaned. She’d about hit her daily limit on snark. “Remind me why we’re doing this . . .”

  Because a witch needs a familiar. And a familiar needs a witch.

  “Is this a health-insurance thing?” she asked. “Because I can get you coverage.”

  It’s a magic thing. If you want to be stuck performing party tricks for the rest of your life, then, by all means, let’s throw this partnership in the bag. But if you want to cast magic. Real magic. You need to be more closely attuned to the magical world. And to do that, you need a familiar.

  “And what do you get out of it?”

  The joy of your constant companionship, he responded, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “It’s a real wonder we haven’t bonded yet.”

  If it weren’t for the fact that their respective lineages were so closely intertwined, Hazel might consider this a lost cause, but she felt the collective pressure of centuries of Bennett-family witches watching over her. Bennett witches had been forging familiarships with Clancy’s lineage for as long as they had occupied this land. Hazel was the torchbearer, and she had to set aside her petty feelings and get this done. It wasn’t like she hadn’t worked with costars more difficult than this, and she had learned that everyone, no matter how arrogant, had something likable buried within. Sometimes you just had to dig for it.

  When you’re ready to try again, let me know.

  “Can’t we just practice some spells? What about that holding spell? Tyler is keen that I get that on lockdown and I felt like I almost had it.” Just yesterday she had successfully held a mouse in place as it had scurried across the sugarhouse floor. The glory had been short-lived. Moments later Clancy had pounced on the rodent, devouring him. Not a cat indeed.

  Again.

  “Fine,” she muttered, assuming full-lotus on the cushion she’d stolen from the Hearth at Bennett Manor.

  Now find me.

  She held her hands out in front of her, not because she was trying to physically find Clancy—she knew he was already on the move—but because it had become habit for her to use her hands when trying to work magic. Whenever her powers manifested itself, it was in her hands that the power seemed to concentrate.

  No peeking.

  She did her best yoga breathing, inhaling through her nose and exhaling through her mouth. She tried to imagine herself pushing outward, like a diver breaking the surface of a lake. She was ready to chalk this up as another failure when suddenly she felt like she was lurching forwa
rd, leaving her body behind, like she had lost her balance and was about to face-plant on the cool stone floor. It was the same sensation she’d felt before.

  She coasted across the room, bumping into particles of air. Then she bumped into something, the vague outline of something catlike, but also not catlike. For a moment she felt something about him—something other than a plurality of tails and ears. She nearly grasped what he had always meant when he said he wasn’t really a cat. If she could just get closer . . .

  Clancy bristled. Easy now . . .

  She tried to focus on her breathing again, but it was difficult to concentrate on two selves—her physical body seated on the cushion and whatever part of herself she had projected out to find Clancy. She lost her equilibrium and felt like she was caught up in a wave of vertigo. She tried to steady herself. Could she grab on to something? Was it even possible for her to reach out in this state? She lunged toward Clancy, trying to find something that she could use to steady herself.

  Okay, not so sure about that—

  Suddenly there was no separation between them. She could see through Clancy’s eyes and hear through his ears (all four of them). She could smell the maple syrup, even though the evaporators hadn’t been fired up since spring. A field mouse scurried along the outside edge of the building, looking for a way inside; she could hear it scratching gently at the exterior wall. This had happened once before, when Ronnie Skilton, the farm’s longtime (and now imprisoned) caretaker, had nearly caved her skull in with a hammer. In that dire moment in the Carriage House, she had briefly jumped into the passenger’s seat of Clancy’s body. The results had been startling—and the spell she had cast afterward had exceeded all her prior spellcasting attempts.

  But this was different. She wasn’t just sharing Clancy’s sensory experiences—she felt like she had been physically stuffed inside him. Clancy tensed suddenly and it felt like she was being squeezed. She panicked and started elbowing her way out.

  What are you doing? he screeched. He bucked and thrashed, and suddenly Hazel felt Clancy push back, ejecting her from his body. She rebounded across the room like a rubber band.

  Hazel gasped and her eyes flew open. “We linked! Was that it? Are we familiars now?!”

  She leaped to her feet.

  Clancy’s voice came to her, swatting the inside of her head like a displeased British schoolmarm. No. Not even close. He stood in the doorway of the sugar shack, back arched and hair bristling like a cat on a Halloween decoration.

  How could that be? Sure it had been a little uncomfortable, but for a moment, they had been one. She had experienced the world through his heightened sense.

  Whatever you did, said Clancy, it was like you were tearing me apart. That wasn’t establishing a link. That was attempted homicide.

  “You’re not human.”

  Then call it cruelty to animals. That’s not how it’s done.

  “How would I know?” she balked. “I’ve never done this before.”

  The goal is to be together but separate, Clancy commanded.

  “Linked but distinct. Got it.”

  What you were doing . . . that was a hostile takeover.

  “It was not!” she said, offended at the implication that her intentions had been nefarious. “I’m doing my best! It would help if you told me what a familiarship was even supposed to look or feel like! A clue, any clue, would be helpful.”

  Clancy stared at her, flicking his tails angrily.

  “If you have no answers,” she went on, “is there a YouTube video I can watch? How about a MasterClass? Surely somebody in the magical world must have written a book about this.”

  Forming a familiarship isn’t something that can be explained. It’s different for everyone. You just have to proceed—with due caution—and figure it out.

  “That sounds incredibly dangerous,” she said. Oh god, she was starting to sound just like her mother.

  Of course it is! Forming a familiar link runs perilously close to all sorts of magical malpractices—possession, rifting, and rivening for starters—and if you’re an untrained newbie, it’s a bit like running around in the dark holding an electric cheese grater.

  Clancy had been ribbing her constantly about her lack of magical training. He’d said that for a woman her age, she should have possessed a greater theoretical understanding of magic, at the very least.

  “Why don’t you reach out to me?” she asked. “If you’re such an expert, why don’t you establish the link?”

  It doesn’t work like that.

  “Well that’s convenient. I suppose you just want me to try again.”

  No. I think you’ve done enough for one day.

  She wanted to say something equally biting but she held her tongue. There was no sense in parting on harsh terms. It would only make the next day’s practice that much more contentious. “That’s fine!” she said airily. “I have plenty of other things to do!”

  Things to do? asked Clancy. What else could you possibly have to do that’s more important?

  A mountain of chores, that’s what.

  She had sent Juniper, her sister, and Juni’s husband, David, on a forced vacation to the Greek Isles. It turned out that being falsely accused of murder, weathering the storm of public opinion, and surviving the flurry of work required for the farm’s grand public opening had left Juniper frazzled. She had needed a respite, but convincing her to take one at the height of that farm’s busy season had been nearly impossible. Eventually, the rest of the family had worn down Juniper’s resolve and now she and David were somewhere on the island of Naxos, hopefully sipping drinks with tiny umbrellas and not sparing a single thought for tending to the farm.

  For her part, Hazel rose to the challenge of picking up the slack. There was so much she didn’t know about farming, and Juniper and David had done so much to bring the farm into the twenty-first century. A lot of it was highly technical and went right over Hazel’s head, but she knew how to work a shovel and how to work her fingers to the bone.

  The chores that had bothered her as a child she now found joy in, from shoveling chicken manure out of the coops, to weeding the family garden, to helping with the milking. She slipped into bed every night weary, with fresh blisters and thicker calluses, but she was content in a way she had never been in LA.

  But the witchery thing, that was dragging her down and it was the one farm chore that she had yet to find joy in. And unlike Juniper’s role, nobody could fill in for her, not even temporarily. She was it—the only living Bennett woman with a fully manifested Knack and she felt the pressure of getting this one right. This was the role of her life after all, and it was be safe to say she was feeling stretched more than a little thin from the effort.

  A muffled ringtone arose from her satchel. Hazel fished out her new phone and saw that Tyler was calling. “Hey, Ty,” she said, answering.

  “It’s go-time. Come to the clearing,” said Tyler.

  Yet another thing to add to the list. Though, she hardly minded this one. Tracking and wrangling intruders—interlopers—on the farm had fast become one of her favorite chores. It was a shame that most farmers missed out on this one.

  “On my way.” She slipped the phone into the satchel and took off running, leaving Clancy behind without a word.

  She was never really sure where Clancy went when they weren’t together, and she had never asked. But wherever it was, now felt like the perfect time for him to go there. Even besties needed a little time apart, and she and Clancy were hardly besties.

  Slow down. I have asthma.

  She looked down to see Clancy just a few steps behind her, trying to keep pace.

  “Don’t you have somewhere else you need to be?” asked Hazel.

  Nope. Until we figure out this familiar bond, we’ll be spending a lot more time together.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Hazel crouched behind a tree and scanned the clearing in the Tanglewood, waiting for something besides another mosquito bite. I’m probably
getting West Nile Virus at this very moment, she thought as she futilely swatted away another of the hovering pests.

  She was happy for the unexpected excuse to come to the Tanglewood. The place was wild, alive, and dangerous in a way that an average Vermont forest was not—a swath of the magical world that had spilled out of the portal known as the Postern. There was something in the air that set her skin to tingling. The only thing that wasn’t magical about this place was the bugs.

  She made a mental note to finally get a jump on mastering a bug-repelling spell. She turned to ask Clancy if they could try one in their next practice session, but he was no longer by her side. Where had he gotten off to? Not that she minded the brief respite. Everything with Clancy felt like work.

  In comparison, working with Tyler was a welcomed relief. They had cleared the tension stemming from her decade-long absence. Though in its place had risen a new tension—one that brimmed with possibility and resulted in the occasional locked gaze and awkward brushing of hands. As Bennett Farm’s new caretaker, Tyler now lived just a short walk from Bennett Manor, which meant they saw each other most days. And with Juniper and David on vacation, he had been asking Hazel details about the more unusual aspects of his job.

  Wrangling interlopers, for starters.

  In the past month, Hazel had helped him to identify magical creatures, catch them, and return them through the Postern. She had already helped him to round up a small band of kobolds that had been filching eggs and hens alike from one of the coops, a gremlin that had been joyriding sheep through the North Meadow, getting their fleece hopelessly tangled with burdocks, and a lone warg that had left a trail of carrion in its wake.

  Hazel only wished the boundary between her and Tyler was as clearly defined as the stone archway that separated worlds. With the two of them, it was hard to say what belonged and what didn’t. She was unsure how Tyler felt about her. Heck, she was unsure how she felt about him.

  What she did know was that working alongside him always felt right. She suspected before long, she would have to deal with whatever that meant. But not right now. Right now they had to bag an intruder.