Stirring Up Trouble: A Warlocks MacGregor Novella by Michelle M. Pillow Page A

answer. “Is this your way of saying ya approve of Donna? Do ya want me to move on?”
    A strong gust of wind whipped over him, blowing out the candles and throwing the spirit board angrily into a shrub. The thick wood split in half on impact. Seconds later, the wind changed directions, ripping the shrub from the ground as it carried the broken board toward Fergus’s head. He lifted his arms as the bush slammed into him. The impact knocked him over. The bush rolled down the cobblestone path toward the mansion.
    Stunned, he lay on the ground, breathing hard. It would appear he had Elspeth’s answer.

Chapter 9
    D onna huddled on her couch , staring at the display screen on the back of her camera. An angry, distorted face stared at her. She knew the woman was Elspeth by the long blonde-streaked brown hair and green dress. The ghostly image was locked in a scream.
    What should have been naked Fergus on the sled had ended up being a series of strangely threatening photographs. Donna slowly flipped through them for the hundredth time. Fergus’s face was blurred in the first one. Then there was the sheepdog she’d seen near Fergus laying in a grave partially covered in dirt. There was a squished insect on a window ledge. One picture depicted a cow with wide, frightened eyes. Another was an old mule. Yet another was a fallen butterfly. Then Donna as a child on the farm, crying and holding her bleeding head after she’d hit herself during a stick-fighting match with her imaginary friend. And finally the enraged Elspeth.
    It didn’t take a genius to interpret the message. Elspeth was warning Donna to stay away from Fergus or she’d kill her like an animal going to slaughter.
    Donna pulled the knitted blanket close to her body. Thick, fuzzy pajama pants and slippers should have offered her plenty of warmth, but the room had been getting colder despite the furnace being on. She thought about running, but there was nowhere to go. She couldn’t call Sheriff Johnson and tell him a ghost was threatening her. She didn’t dare go back to the MacGregor mansion for fear that would make the spirit angrier.
    The one thing she couldn’t control was the pain she felt. She had fallen in love with Fergus. There was no hiding it, no denying it to herself. He cared for her. She’d seen it on his face when he’d watched her walk away. If she thought for a moment he could love her back, she’d fight Elspeth for him—scary, jealous supernatural witch and all.
    Her lamplight began to flicker, and the temperature dropped dramatically as if Elspeth had heard the thought and come to answer the threat. The sound of wind whipped around the house, whistling loudly as it rattled the windows. A dog barked in warning.
    “Oh, shit,” Donna whispered. She hooked her camera strap over her neck, not for any other reason beyond muscle memory repeating an old habit. The barking outside grew louder only to be followed by a series of hard thuds coming from her ceiling. The lights flickered harder. Donna looked up, shaking with each paranormal bang. She held the blanket close and forced herself to stand. The front door was the closest escape. Footsteps began running down the hall toward her.
    Donna crashed into her oversized photo display, knocking it over as she ran out of the house. Snow flurried all around her, reflecting enough moonlight so that she could see where she was going. There was only one destination that made sense—Fergus. Her slippers crunched through a hard sheet of ice covering the snow beneath. It gave her a little traction as she made her way to the MacGregor drive. She couldn’t see the house yet, but that only made her run faster.
    The dog barked again. She screamed at how close it sounded. When she frantically looked, nothing was there. Strange noises tormented her—the soft ting of a cowbell, the cry of a donkey, the buzz of an invisible fly.
    “Leave me alone, Elspeth,” she cried, out of breath as she continued to run uphill.