Water Witcher: Dark Water in the Halls

By Casey Torres

MAGIC. MURDER. MAYHEM.
After learning of her estranged sister’s disappearance, Mackinley Hall reluctantly returns to her hometown. As sinister forces rise to power in worlds unseen, Mack discovers dark secrets which lead her on a hunt for truth, redemption and revenge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Casey Torres
• Release date: Mar 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463591628

Casey Torres

Casey Torres is a novelist with an affinity for dark fantasy and horror. She is currently pursuing a BFA in Creative Writing from Full Sail University. Casey is the author of Water Witcher: Dark Water in the Halls, available in digital and in print from most major booksellers. Casey grew up in a small town in New England where there are still more trees than people. It was in these woods where she developed a taste for the dark and macabre, and many of these themes creep into her writing.

Book preview

Table of Contents

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue: In Which Cadence Hall Gives Her Mother a Scare

1: In Which Cadence has a Migraine, Just Behind the Eyes

2: The Lost One

3: An Unexpected Guest and a Warped Lithograph

4: In Which Mack Finds the Sword

5: In Which Mackinley Tags Along

6: Somewhere Under the Charles River

7: In Which Mack Puts Up a Fight

8: Leave Your Boots On.

9: Black Sands and a Sky to Match

10: In Which We Learn About Roth Na and Mack's Curse

11: In Which Mack Begins to Remember

12: In Which We Venture into the Woods and Mack Hears a Voice

13: In Which a Cover is Blown and Black Blood Rains from the Sky

14: In Which Mack Enjoys a Peaceful Meal and Gains a Power of Her Own

15: In Which Mack Makes an Impulsive Trade

16: In Which Greynor Turns the Volume Down and Mack has a Vision

17: In Which We Reach Silent City and Mack Makes a Rash Decision

18: In Which Mack Joins Cady

19: Udin Ra

Acknowledgements

Water Witcher: Dark Water in the Halls Copyright © 2018 by C.L. Torres. All Rights Reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover designed by C.L. Torres

Edited by Anthony Gamez

Author Website: caseytorres.com

For Mom—thanks for helping me believe in my own magic. Love, Cake.

PROLOGUE

In Which Cadence Hall Gives Her Mother a Scare

Cadence Hall was not the sort of child to muck about in the bathtub. She didn’t play with toys and she protested rather noisily if her mother tried to add bubbles to the water. Cadence liked to be able to see clear to the bottom of the tub—she needed to.

Her mother stepped out into the hallway, just as Cadence slipped her head under the surface. The water began to stir—first lightly, then violently. Cadence rose from the bathwater to discover that the claw-footed tub made of porcelain had been replaced by a shallow lagoon and the dated walls of her parents’ bathroom had melted away to reveal endless blue skies and brilliant sunlight—a warm hug on her bare shoulders.

She had turned up here once before, so there was no shock—only amusement—as she swam towards land.

The last time she turned up on these shores, she stayed for the better part of the day, wandering the island in the nude and playing shipwreck, until she got hungry and decided to return home—emerging from the bathtub to find that only a few moments had passed, her fingers not even pruned. She had no reason to believe this expedition would be any different.

Occupied by the thought of her last expedition, and excited for the new adventure which lay ahead, Cadence failed to notice the movement beneath the clear water. Something shockingly cold wrapped around both of her legs and before she could register what was happening, she found herself plummeting to the bottom of the lagoon. She hit the sandy bottom, twisting and struggling to free her legs. As the sand cloud settled, the silhouette of a creature came into view. It looked much like the mermaids she had met the last time she was here, except there were black tentacles where a fin should have been—one of which was tightly wrapped around her scrawny legs—another reaching for her face.

She desperately felt around for a sharp rock or a shell—anything within reach to free her legs from the creature. She passed her hands over something which felt oddly familiar. She recognized it to be the cold steel of her father’s straight razor, which he often left on the rim of the bathtub—no matter how many times her mother scolded him for it. For the first time—possibly the last—she felt something close to appreciation for her father. She seized the new weapon in her tiny hand and slashed at the creature in one swift motion—slicing through the slimy tentacle as if it were made of bologna, freeing her legs, but carving into her own flesh in the process. The creature bled black ink into the water, and it mingled with the red of her own blood, swirling together in the clear water to create a cloud which was black and red and beautiful—like spilled oil in the ocean.

She scurried to the surface of the lagoon, convinced the creature would pull her back under. Instead, she surfaced the water to find herself back in the claw-footed bathtub of her parents’ bathroom.

Mrs. Hall rushed to the tub when she heard the choking sounds of Cadence splashing around in a panic, scrambling to get up and over the side of the tub. The blood mixed with the cloudy bathwater like food coloring dropped into a warm bucket of saliva.

When Mrs. Hall saw the blood, the thought crossed her mind that it looked much darker than it ought to, but she pushed the thought aside as quickly as it had come and retrieved her frightened daughter from the tub. Long gashes striped Cadence’s legs just above her tiny, trembling knees. Mrs. Hall figured she must have gotten ahold of Mr. Hall’s razor, which he often left on the lip of the tub.

The bastard, she thought.

Cadence began to tell her mother of the lagoon and her escape from the monster, only pausing for a sob or a sniffle. Mrs. Hall shushed her and tended to her wounds. Like most nights, she was too tired to entertain the imagination of her most attention-starved child.

After Cadence was all fixed up, calm and in bed, Mrs. Hall pulled the drain on the bathtub. Watching the water circle the drain, she found herself in thought about her clumsy, curious daughter and her outlandish tales. She thought her daughter ought to be a writer someday and maybe she’d go out and buy her a decent set of notebooks—if Mr. Hall would allow it. She failed to notice the absence of a razor at the bottom of the tub, as well as the odd mixture of sand, water and blood swirling the drain—blood which was much too dark to be entirely human.

1. In Which Cadence Has a Migraine, Just Behind the Eyes

Cadence thanked her driver and stepped out onto the uneven sidewalks of Brook Lane Avenue. On any other night she would have refused to venture out into the cold—especially with exposed ankles and a face full of makeup—but it was not any other night and her presence was required. Tonight, she had peeled off her sweats and squeezed into a khaki pencil skirt and was headed to a promo party in honor of the release of her fourth book in a widely successful fantasy series about worlds hidden from the untrained eye. Her fans would soon find this to be her final book. She planned to leave the story unfinished in the worst way; her heart just wasn’t in it any longer.

She asked her driver to let her out a few blocks down from the bookstore. She enjoyed walking up to the party nonchalantly, as if it wasn’t being held in her honor—partly because her readers loved it, but mainly because her PR rep strongly advised against it. She walked leisurely, aiming to clear her mind and get into character for her readers—forcing a smile and steadying her shifty demeanor was proving to become more difficult as the months passed, and the waters began to freeze over.

The cold intensified the start of a migraine—a steady throb which pulsed behind her left eye. She winced at the pain and wondered if her decision to skip her meds was the right choice. She figured she needed to keep her wits about her if she was going to be venturing out into the city, especially at night.

The distinct feeling of being followed decided to accompany her to the party—a feeling she had grown accustomed to. Only recently had it become more than a feeling, a tangible knowing. The shadows continued to loom ubiquitously. They swarmed all around her, seen only by her. They danced just outside of the streetlight’s reach, floating ominously overhead—a personal black cloud. The shadows would escort her to the party like a possessive lover on each arm, a strict chaperone, stifling any fun to be had and bullying her into an early night—returning her to their loveless bed where she would slip into a dreamless sleep.

Fall in New England is like a story being read aloud in a monotonous tone, just before bed. The landscape’s eyelids grow heavy as it drifts into slumber. Soon all the color would go from this world—blanketed in snow and tucked in until spring. She was envious of the stillness of it all—of the incessant cycle of death and rebirth and transformative beauty.

She held her breath as she stepped over a puddle, like a child passing by a graveyard. Remaining composed and pretending she didn’t see things other people couldn’t was proving to be a lifestyle which took a much higher toll than anticipated, but the bones had been rolled and time was not on her side. She cursed time as if it was a person—placed on the same shit-list as the woman who walks around at a wake with lipstick on her teeth, judging others by the amount of money they’ve spent on flowers, and saying (a little too cheerfully) that the dearly departed is in a better place.

She reached the front doors of Pages, a wonderful local spot—part café, part bookstore—with occasional live acoustic music. The doors were heavy and wooden, with ornate brass designs near the hinges. She thought they looked regal, powerful. Her steps quickened as she approached the bookstore. She stretched her dry lips over her teeth in what she hoped would pass for a convincing smile and directed it towards the patrons outside who waved copies of her newest book in her face and snapped photos of her with their phones. She nodded to the crowd with her lizard smile and entered the bookstore, reassuring herself that the shadows would be denied entry through such majestic doors and she could be her authentic self for a few hours—whomever that may be. When she finally stepped into the light and the ambience of the crowd, the shadows dissipated, and she released the breath which she hadn’t realized she had still been holding.

She remembered, like a flash, the person