The Haunting of Oak Springs by Crin Claxton

Author:Crin Claxton [Claxton, Crin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2023-09-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

It had been a long afternoon pulling potatoes, carrots, and turnips in an intermittent drizzle. Tony’s work clothes were in a soggy heap on the bedroom floor. She was standing in her boxers and a T-shirt deliberating what to wear when she glanced out of the window and got the shock of her life.

There was a group of people marching up the track with actual flaming torches. My God, Rawlings had stirred up the villagers. Tony stifled a scream. She scrambled into a pair of Red’s pajama bottoms and ran barefoot down the stairs.

“Help! Help! A mob is coming,” she shouted.

In the living room, Chris woke with a start. Tony ran past her to the kitchen and gawped at the sight of Red tenderly wiping tomato sauce from Jade’s cheek.

She rushed past them too. Whatever was going on was none of her business, and she had more important things to worry about.

She shoved her feet into Wellington boots. And regretted it the second her bare, dry toes met cold, wet rubber. Ignoring it, she threw open the kitchen door, determined to meet the mob with a brave face.

“What’s happening?” Jade had detached herself and was a step behind her.

Tony stopped dead. The mob was almost at the yard. It was a smaller group than Tony had thought, but the flickering torchlight threw eerie shadows on the advancing figures, distorting their features as they marched closer. There was a strange regularity to the line: one holding a smoking, flaming torch, the person behind carrying a huge, orange, supersized pumpkin.

What the hell did it mean? Were pumpkins the new pitchforks?

She searched the yard for a defensive weapon, found a trowel in a flowerpot, and grabbed it.

Jade was next to her now, with Red a step away. Chris pushed bravely past them into the yard.

Good. A united front. With all four of them, maybe they stood a chance.

They would need to dowse those torches. The whole house could go up. Tony ran to the coiled hose as the strangely silent group left the track heading for the farmhouse. Didn’t mobs usually chant and shout? The strangers filed into the yard staring intently at Chris as she closed the gap between them.

“How do, Fiona,” she said. “To what do we owe the honor?”

A tall, strikingly good-looking woman stepped forward. Torchlight played off her blond hair, and Tony caught a glimpse of intensely blue eyes. “We heard you had some trouble, and maybe you’ve not got the time or the inclination for it, but if you’re willing, we’d like to bring the Harvest Fete committee meeting to you.”

“The committee meeting,” Chris said. “Of course. And the torchlight procession idea—we agreed to trial it tonight, didn’t we? With all that’s been going on, I’d forgotten. Forgive me. Come in, everybody. Come in.”

Red took the hose out of Tony’s hand, filled a bucket of water, and smoothly doused the four flaming torches.

Tony moved aside to let the women file past. One of them looked Tony up and down.

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