He looked her over then nodded to the menu. “Kitchen isn’t open for lunch yet, but if you want something, I’m sure I could rustle up the chef.”

  Holly glanced at the menu and pushed it away. “Oh no, that’s fine. I’m not really hungry.”

  “Can I get you something to drink, then?” He raised his eyebrows expectantly, and when she didn’t answer right away, he added, “First drink for newcomers is on the house. Call it old-fashioned country hospitality.”

  “Oh, um…” Her mind went blank. Now the choice was before her, along with the single occupant of Dunloe—who happened to be agonisingly handsome. Maybe not alcohol? “Lemon, lime, and bitters?”

  “That’s a classic.” The bartender chuckled and fetched a glass. “What’s your name?”

  “Holly.”

  “Holly, huh? I’m Patrick.” He picked up a bottle of bitters and made a show of flipping it upside down. “Welcome to Dunloe.”

  “It’s pretty quiet around here.” She watched him pour lemonade into the glass and frowned. “What’s there to do?”

  “Do?” Patrick raised his eyebrows.

  “Yeah. What’s the drawcard?”

  He placed the drink in front of her, the ice cubes clinking. “Well, I suppose Dunloe is on the gold rush history bandwagon, being smack bang in the middle of the Golden Triangle.”

  “Golden Triangle? What’s that?”

  “Back in the mid-1800s, Dunloe was in the centre of one of the biggest gold rushes of the century. From Bendigo, to Ballarat, and way into the west, the areas heavy with gold marked out a triangle on the map, hence the Golden Triangle.”

  “Oh…makes sense.”

  “Dunloe used to be packed full of people back in the day. The Union Reef Mine just south of here was one of the largest gold quartz mines in the region. It’s long abandoned now, but there’s relics scattered all over the place, especially in town. We’ve got heritage buildings, a railway, old mine shafts, and the diggings just east across the creek. You know, you can still get a licence to fossick for gold out there.”

  Holly laughed, wondering why anyone would want to spend hours combing already picked over dirt with a metal detector. Hot and dusty, with little chance of success...? Sounded like her love life.

  “You laugh now,” Patrick went on, “but we had a bloke find a nugget the size of an apricot a couple of months ago. The rain’s kept people away, but you’ll see. Once the weather clears, every man and his dog’ll be out there waving their detectors about. The old timers didn’t have the technology we have these days, and they left a lot behind.”

  Holly narrowed her eyes. “Maybe if I’m hard up for a dollar or two, I’ll head out and join them.”

  “I’d give you a dollar to see that.” He ran a rag across the already spotless bar. “There’s also paranormal types who come here looking for witches and ghosts,” he added. “There’s ghost tours at the old gaol. Apparently, people go into the diggings and perform rituals to summon demons.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.”

  “Seriously. Sometimes prospectors find decapitated rabbits, creepy bundles of bones, and remains of campfires. Lighting fires out there?” He clucked his tongue. “Totally reckless. Have you seen how dry that grass is? One spark and we’re all toast.”

  Devil worshipers, ghosts, and bushfires? What on Earth had her aunt seen in this place? Her dad’s nasty commentary came back, and she sighed. ‘Beware of kooks and weirdos,’ he’d told her. Well, she supposed he had given her fair warning.

  “So,” Holly sipped at her drink, “Dunloe is a real typical country town, huh? Full of old stuff and crazy people?”

  “Pretty much.” He leaned closer. “So, what’s your drawcard?”

  She jerked back. “Excuse me?”

  “Of all places, why the town with all the old stuff and crazy people?”

  Holly hesitated. She trailed her fingers over the condensation on the outside of the glass, trying not to make eye contact.

  People in small towns loved to gossip—that much she knew from all the TV shows and books she’d read—and he was a bartender, so it was likely he already knew about Aunt Hannah’s heart attack. It’d probably made the local paper.

  A tragic death was one thing, but the other was the town finding out about Holly’s family connection, and in turn, her ’glimpses.’ It was only a matter of time before someone noticed something was off about her—she’d had plenty of experience. Starting over was a brilliantly freeing concept, but the moment they found out she was just as kooky as her aunt, then the rumours would really start flying. Then again, maybe she’d fit right in with the devil worshippers...

  Could she stop people from finding out? Probably not. Someone would spot her at the cottage, or see her last name on her credit card, or notice the family resemblance, and start talking. With lack of real gossip to fling about, they’d make up their own stories. Holly didn’t know which was worse.

  You long to be part of something, but shy away from it any chance you get. You’re a walking contradiction, she thought. You’re utterly tragic, Holly Burke.

  “My aunt, she, uh…” She tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear.

  Patrick leaned back and his eyes widened. “Oh, shit. Your aunt was Hannah Burke?” That was quick.

  “I see the rumour mill is already fully operational,” she muttered.

  “Well, it was sudden, and she was well-known around town,” he blurted. “It was in the paper.”

  Holly groaned and felt her cheeks redden. “Of course it was.”

  “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  “Look…” She squirmed, uncomfortable with the attention. “You don’t need to do that.”

  “It’s polite.”

  “Yes, but… It’s hard to feel sad about a woman I barely knew,” she explained. “I mean, it is sad she passed in such a terrible circumstance, but I barely knew her.”

  “And you still came all this way to tie up loose ends?”

  Holly shrugged. “I guess I was her last living relative.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “Hannah was my mother’s sister, and she passed away when I was five.”

  “I’m—”

  “It was a long time ago.” She pushed away the last of her drink and slid off the stool. “I’ve gotta go.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s fine,” she told him. “I’ve just got a lot to do at the house, and I just arrived last night. I, uh…”

  Patrick offered her a warm smile. “Needed to get out for some fresh air?”

  “Something like that.” Holly walked towards the door, her cheeks burning, but a sudden burst of confidence overcame her, and she turned. “Patrick?”

  He lingered behind the bar, his brilliant green eyes shining. “Yeah?”

  “Are there koalas in the bush by the creek?”

  “Yeah.” The bartender chuckled, knowing exactly what she meant. “They make quite the racket, huh?”

  Holly opened the door and backed out. “That’s a polite way of putting it,” she drawled as the door swung shut.

  Patrick Evans watched Holly Burke leave the pub, his gaze not breaking until she’d moved out of sight.

  He recognised her the instant she’d walked in. It was like he was looking at a ghost, and for a moment, he almost believed he was. With one glimpse, it was 1853 again.

  She wasn’t a witch—he didn’t get a vibe from her, and he had a knack for spotting magic in someone. There was a family resemblance, but if she was truly a Burke, then her blood would carry the signature of her Legacy.

  Patrick licked his lips, the thought of tasting her making his teeth ache. It’d tell him what he needed to know, but if he was wrong, then he wouldn’t be able to compel the encounter from her memory. And right now, the last thing he needed was to expose what he was.

  The door opened again and he looked up, but it was only Sarah. Her mousey blonde hair bobbed around her shoulders as she practically skipped towards him.

  “Oh, look out,” he said rolling his eyes. “You’re early to a shift for once. What miracle do we have to thank for that?”

  “Very funny.” She flung her bag onto the bar and sat on the stool Holly had been on moments before. “Word on the street says there’s a new Burke in town.” And there was the miracle.

  “That was fast,” he drawled. “She only arrived last night.”

  “You know how I know, but how do you know?”

  Patrick sighed. There was no use keeping anything from the witches. “She was just in here.”

  “Interesting...” She leaned her elbows on the bar. “What was she like?”

  “Not interested.”

  “In you?” Sarah laughed. “Did she look at you? I mean, really take a good look?”

  “Bloody hell, I knew you when you were a baby,” he cursed. “I mean, I’m not interested in telling you.” The witch stared at him, and he scowled as he felt her magic press against his mind. “Find what you’re looking for yet?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why I even try. You’re too hard to read.”

  “Being dead helps with that.”

  Sarah twirled a strand of hair around her finger. “Of course she wasn’t the last one,” she mused. “You remember her, right?”

  Patrick’s jaw stiffened. The passage of a hundred and seventy years had done nothing to fog his memory.

  “That family is prone to bad endings,” she went on, smirking. “Some might say it’s a curse.”

  “That’s enough,” he snapped.

  Her eyes widened and she held up her hands. “Sorry. But it’s the truth.”

  “A truth Holly doesn’t need to know about, and especially not where the coven is concerned.”

  “I didn’t mean…” Sarah sighed. “You know I stepped away from them last year. I’m done with all that ritual crap, but it’s hard to recondition a lifetime of so-called beliefs being shoved down my throat.”

  Patrick glanced towards the door. “Yeah, you better keep trying.” Because that woman’s going to need a friend in this town. “You do know we’re going to have to keep an eye on her, right?”

  “It’s been how long?” She rolled her eyes. “They’ve never found anything, and the likelihood gets smaller every day—at this point it’s practically nonexistent. Last I heard, they’d given up.”

  Patrick wasn’t so sure. “I’m not kidding.”

  Sarah grabbed her bag off the bar and stood. “You vampires are so melodramatic.”

  “Yeah, we are…and keep your voice down.”

  “Who’s gonna hear me, Patrick?” She spread her arms wide, her water bottle almost falling out of her bag.

  Demon worshippers and ghosts. And Dunloe had plenty of the latter.

  To Sarah, he said, “I thought I fired you.”

  “At least three times this week.” She sauntered around the bar and opened the door to the kitchen.

  “But like a bad smell, you just keep on coming back.”

  “And what’s your excuse?” She stuck out her tongue as the door closed, ending the conversation.

  Patrick shook his head and wiped down the already sparkling bar. He’d been asking himself the same question for a hundred and seventy years.

  CHAPTER 3

  Darkness. Shadows. Dark, dark, dark…blood.

  Holly woke with a start, her head rising faster than her brain, but by the time she reached for the glass of water on the coffee table, whatever she’d glimpsed in her dreams was gone.

  Early morning sunlight ebbed through the lace curtains, fighting to break through the thick wisteria on the verandah, but enough shadowed across the old wobbly glass pane to dapple onto the bookshelf. A lacy spot lit up the spine of a book about something new-agey called a grimoire, whatever that was.

  Holly had fallen asleep on the couch again, too creeped out to sleep in her dead aunt’s bed. It was quite soft, actually, and there was something about this part of the house that comforted her, especially where the rest of the place was concerned.

  Beyond the lounge, Aunt Hannah’s house was filled to the brim with odd little knick-knacks. The strangest corners held little crystals—on the floors, the windowsills, and even behind the toilet—and bundles of dried herbs and flowers hung over doors and windows.

  She’d also stuffed the kitchen cupboards full of little glass jars of dried herbs and what appeared to be magic mushrooms. Holly had pushed those to the back, the enigma of her late aunt deepening the further she rummaged—and baffled her more when she’d found what appeared to be a Medieval dagger in the cutlery drawer.

  Even Hannah’s fashion sense had a certain flair—she’d been a middle-aged goth by the looks of it. In fact, the most normal thing Holly had found was handmade goat’s milk soap in the bathroom.

  The house was so heavy with the memory of Aunt Hannah that she couldn’t stand to be in it a moment longer. So she changed her clothes, tied up her hair, laced up her sneakers, and headed out the door in search of…well, she wasn’t quite sure.

  The scent of warm eucalyptus floated around her as she crossed over Moonlight Creek, which trickled with brownish water that skirted around the rocky shoreline. Above, the warble of black and white magpies and the screeching of brilliant red rosella cockatoos filled the morning air.

  Despite the cottage being on the edge of Dunloe, Holly was alone. She’d never been truly by herself before, and the bush suddenly felt like it was full of watchful eyes as she made her way down the track to the diggings.

  Shivering, Holly shook her head. She didn’t believe in crazy demon worshippers or random human predators lurking behind trees, and she had every reason to suspect Patrick told creepy stories to wide-eyed newcomers simply to mess with them. Certain the only thing she had to watch out for were snakes, she forged on.

  The deeper she ventured along the track, the thicker the bush became—not only with trees and bracken, but with signs of Dunloe’s gold mining history. Mullock heaps—piles of discarded dirt from old mine workings—rose between the gumtrees, as well as the remains of brick structures that must’ve housed machinery or miners themselves.

  If she strayed too far off the path, there was a good chance she’d fall down an abandoned mineshaft. They must be littered all the way through the area, which was a testament to how many people had come in search of gold.

  Pausing, Holly smiled as a little black lizard scurried onto the trail. It stopped and looked up at her, but the moment she crouched to take a better look, it hurried into the leaf litter, disappearing from view.

  Listening, all she could hear was the rustle of wind as it trailed through the gums overhead. In the distance, the laughter of a kookaburra carried towards her, but nothing else stirred. It was eerily peaceful—the kind of silence she wasn’t used to having grown up in the city.

  Standing, Holly continued, drawn deeper into the diggings by a sense of adventure she’d thought was lost to her. To think people had come thousands of miles clear across the other side of the world with nothing but a dream of striking it rich. The sad fact was not many ever did, especially in a remote, hot, dry place like Dunloe. They lived and died out here, hanging onto a flimsy thread of hope.

  Turning a sharp corner, the thick bush parted to reveal the entrance to a large mine. It’d been blocked off with barbed wire and a ‘no trespassing’ sign but had since been dismantled by aforementioned trespassers—probably prospectors looking for an easy find.

  Holly’s curiosity drew her closer. It didn’t look like the main entrance of anything, but maybe it was a lesser shaft, leading to the main drive—an access tunnel that’d been dug when the mine became too big for just one way in.

  Looking into the darkness, she took out her phone and turned on the torch. Bright, white light shone into the tunnel, illuminating wooden support beams and roughly hewn rock. The remains of steel tracks snaked into the depths of the mine, but there was no sight of the carts that’d once carried ore in and out of the diggings.

  The tunnel smelled like dry, cold, dirt and the air tasted stale as she breathed it in. Complete darkness was only one thing to be terrified of. Asphyxiation, heat, cave-ins…there was plenty for an 1800s miner to worry about, but it seemed the prospect of gold had been worth it.

  Putting her phone away, she left the opening behind, making her way back to the trail.

  ‘Wait…’

  Holly stopped, her heart leaping into her throat. “Hello?”

  Except for the hissing of the wind running through the golden grass and greenish-brown bracken ferns, no one answered.

  She was alone. Relieved, she laughed and shook her head. Maybe Patrick’s story had gotten to her after all.

  She took another step towards the trail.

  ‘Come back,’ the whisper screamed for her attention.

  Turning, Holly stared at the mine and before she knew it, she was walking into the tunnel, overcome by some unnatural force.

  The dark swallowed her up, the sunlight fading until she couldn’t see where she was going. She was possessed, like a zombie with no will of her own.

  What a stupid thing to think, she thought.

  ‘Stupid thing,’ the whispers echoed. ‘Stupid thing, stupid thing…’

  Warmth prickled in Holly’s fingertips as she wrestled against the block between her brain and limbs.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered. “Stop.” Her feet didn’t seem to want to follow her commands as she ventured deeper into the mine. “Stop.”

  She jerked to a halt in the dark and breathed heavily, her heartbeat speeding up to the point she felt like she was going to pass out.

  Fumbling for her phone, she managed to turn on the torch and light poured into the tunnel, driving back the darkness. It illuminated a gaping hole a mere step in front of her, and she gasped, jerking away.

  As she tumbled back a step, her shoe caught on the rough ground and she fell. Her shoulder hit the wall, propelling her forwards instead of backwards.

  Her phone clattered to the ground as she landed on her stomach, the torchlight dancing erratically, and the shaft gaped black and bottomless before her.