Megan Fortress is a witch. She first acknowledged her identity as a child in Wisconsin. After her mother’s death, Megan traveled to New York City to live with the grandmother she’d never met. Stella Fortress, an occult icon, has served Manhattan for forty years as The Guardian at the Gates in Central Park. This mantle will be passed on to the seventeen-year-old witch when Megan is ready.

There are twenty physical gates in Manhattan’s Central Park. However, these twenty entrances into New York’s haven are not the only gates in the park. In the unseen landscape of the park are thirteen others. Six gates are located from Columbus Circle to the Bandshell. Six more are in the park’s center, from Bethesda Fountain to the Great Lawn. One gate, the thirteenth gate, is yet-to-be discovered. Megan’s unwavering vow is to protect the twelve million inhabitants of New York City and twenty-five million tourists who visit every year, because the invisible Spirit Gates are occult portals to other times and secret worlds.

On a January night with a full moon, blood spills over the ground of Central Park, as a spirit of vengeance is unleashed on the placid earth. In seventy-two hours, the young witch must become a woman. If she can uncover the secrets hidden within Central Park, she will live. The answers lie in the dark corners of her forgotten memories. If she fails, she will die.

Megan’s crisis begins with seemingly unrelated events: a recurring nightmare, an ominous vision and warning, a lost dog in the park, a stranger sleeping in a tunnel, and a sculpture unlike any Megan has ever created. A ghostly message implores her to save the children. That night, Megan and her dog, Loki, discover two strange children riding the Central Park Carousel.

Beneath the Magnolia Cucumber tree in the Ramble stands a shack, invisible to human eyes. In that shack live four children. The eldest, Molly McKay, has an agenda that dates back to a seminal point in Central Park’s creation over a century ago. She seeks revenge—justice—for the crimes committed against her and her siblings.

On the second morning, Megan learns of a fatal mauling in Central Park. A man is dead, and officials suspect a renegade coyote that has been roaming the park. Determined to rescue the innocent coyote, Megan ventures into the barricaded park and encounters a girl who will change her life forever—the girl she recognizes as the subject of the sculpture she created, and someone deeply familiar to her.

When two more neighborhood dogs disappear, the crisis in Central Park escalates. Two men, both acquaintances of Megan, are slaughtered. Through a series of paranormal experiences, Megan identifies the thirteenth spirit gate, the Gate of Nemesis. She realizes that Molly McKay is her own personal nemesis. As Megan seeks wisdom, she remembers. Molly McKay was once Megan’s sister. Megan was a murder victim. She died at the hand of their father in the 19^th Century at the birth of the park.

When it seems that Megan’s boyfriend Michael has fallen prey as the fourth victim of Molly McKay, Megan and her dog charge into battle against a spirit more daunting and more familiar than her own recurring nightmares. Acts of sacrifice by Stella and Megan’s departed mother are her only hope for survival.

            Highlighted by intriguing characters such as Stella Fortress, Megan’s hierophant grandmother; and Daniel Rutherford, a ghost who was the original Guardian, A Witch In Central Park has one compelling character unlike any other—Central Park. The unique history of the park is pivotal as Megan seeks to solve the mystery. The park is brought to life as Megan is introduced to several spirit gates. The Gate of Eros, The Gate of Loki, The Gate of Dionysus, and the Gate of Nemesis all speak of the deepest issues and emotions of the human experience. Central Park herself is revealed as a map of the human heart.