“Is your soap over?”
“Yes,” Edith replied. “I just wanted to make sure you found everything you were looking for.”
Now she cared? “Yes, I found it.”
“Is that going to be the main story on the front page this week?” Edith was looking over my shoulder as I compiled the list.
I grimaced as I nodded. Only in a small town can you get away with a roundup of holiday happenings and call it a banner story. Small towns may have their perks, but they have their weaknesses, too. The sad thing is, the town would revolt if I didn’t publish the annual list – and I had to keep the advertisers happy.
Edith must have read my mind. “Don’t worry. People like these kinds of stories.”
“I don’t have much of a choice,” I admitted ruefully. “I can’t manufacture news, and other than Nell Towers’ new baby, absolutely nothing of note happened in Hemlock Cove this week.”
“Well, a list of haunted houses and mazes is just what everyone needs to get them into the spirit,” Edith said cheerfully. “People love that sort of stuff.”
“They do,” I nodded.
Edith bit her lower lip as she thought about the statement she had just uttered. “Do you like that stuff?”
“What stuff?”
“Haunted houses and corn mazes?”
“As long as they’re done tastefully,” I admitted.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, I don’t like it when it’s overly gory – or when they use chainsaws. I hate it when they use chainsaws. They freak me out – even though I know they can’t really hurt me.”
Edith looked horrified.
“Chainsaws? Why would they use chainsaws?”
“You know, to dismember people.”
Edith had turned as white a sheet – which was an impressive feat.
“And they let children go to these?”
“I don’t think all parents take their children to them,” I cautioned.
“Just the bad ones?”
“Just the more adventurous ones,” I clarified.
“Well, I think it’s downright ghastly,” Edith announced. “Making fun of death is not funny.” Edith started to flounce out of the room and then stopped. “I should know,” she added as she floated through the wall. “It’s no fun being a ghost.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I doubted she had much fun when she was alive, either.
Two
I didn’t stick around The Whistler for too long after Edith’s outburst. I was used to her histrionics. There’s nothing worse than a high-strung ghost.
I had met Edith when I started working at The Whistler. You might think meeting a ghost would be traumatizing. It really isn’t. Ghosts are just like people, really. You have good ones and you have bad ones.
I’d been able to see ghosts for as long as I can remember – so it didn’t seem odd to me. As a child, I would hold entire conversations with them out in the yard – never realizing I was the only one who could see them. It made me the weird kid in class – I was likened to the strange girl who sat in the back corner eating her hair – but at home it was a coveted “gift.”
The witches in my family embrace the weird – and I was definitely weird. Still, in the grand scheme of things, we were pretty harmless. Okay, sometimes we get a little rambunctious – and the older generation of the Winchester witches does get a perverse pleasure from scaring people – but in general we’re pretty normal. I just happen to be able to talk to ghosts. The technical term is post-cognitive – but I don’t really think in technical terms. I just have the ability to see more people – or what used to be people – than everyone else.
As I wandered down Main Street in downtown Hemlock Cove, I breathed in the crisp autumn air and exhaled slowly. I always needed to cleanse my aura a bit after being with Edith. If you’re not careful, a ghost can actually darken your aura. Not on purpose, of course. Edith isn’t a bad ghost. She’s just wrapped a little tight. When she died in the 1960s, she had been the relationship columnist at the newspaper. Kind of like Ann Landers. Except, for Edith, all of her advice essentially told women that sex was the work of the devil and it was only good for procreation. She’d been a ghost for almost fifty years – and even though the times had changed, Edith really had not. She looked at my short skirt (anything above the knee is unacceptable) and calf-high leather boots as a call to sin. Since I was the only one who could see her, though, she had to put up with me if she wanted to talk to anyone. And Edith? She loved to talk. She didn’t even care what subject – just as long as she could register her complaints about the world today.
Hemlock Cove is a small town that looks like it has been untouched by time. That’s deliberate. When the town went the tourist route, the town leaders took out the lone traffic light and tried to hide any hints of modern technology. That doesn’t mean the denizens don’t have laptops – and iPads and iPods – but we just don’t flaunt them. We try to keep the town looking antiquated – for lack of a better word. I actually like the feeling of the town – even if many of the townspeople cross the street when they see me coming.
The foibles of the Winchester women are well known in Hemlock Cove. The town leaders would never admit that we were the inspiration to turning Hemlock Cove into a “witch” town. We were, though. Most people would prefer the town didn’t have actual witches. In other words, Hemlock Cove treats us like trash. It bothered me to the point of distraction as a child, but I’m used to it now. I still don’t like it, but I’m better equipped to handle it.
The streets of Hemlock Cove are littered with specialty stores. Mrs. Gunderson – one of the few women in town who embraces my family and doesn’t shun it – runs a small bakery. Mrs. Little, the town’s self-appointed moral compass, runs a small pewter store that has a scary amount of unicorns in it. Mr. Wharton, a kind old man who has a crush on my Aunt Marnie, owns a small hardware store that boasts old-fashioned reeves and scythes in the front window – even though he sells the normal nails and hammers you would expect inside.
The town is really an entity of its own – and I love it.
I made my way to the corner of Cauldron Court (yes, all the streets have ridiculously cheesy names) and found myself outside Hypnotic. Hypnotic is brightly painted – purple with yellow trim – and has a low-hanging eave that is decorated with a variety of different hanging vines (which were now starting to wither in the autumn weather). The hand-painted window promised Tarot readings, the biggest selection of herbs in town and a variety of power crystals for the practicing Wicca. There was also a handmade wooden sign that boasted, “If you want to curse someone, we can help.” I smiled to myself. That was new.
When I entered Hypnotic, I heard the familiar clang of the wind chimes hanging by the front door and felt a sense of calm settle over me. I was comfortable in this environment. It was as much of a home as my actual home was.
“Welcome to Hypnotic, how may we assist you?”
I looked up and smiled as I saw my cousin, Clove, enter the main part of the store from the back room – which was set apart by some colorful green curtains.
“Oh, it’s just you,” Clove sighed.
“Good to see you, too.”
“Sorry, I’m just cutting herbs in the back. If I knew it was you I wouldn’t have stopped what I was doing. I don’t want to forget what I’m doing. It would be a disaster if I mixed up the Agaric and Ague Root.”
Since Agaric was for fertility and Ague Root was for protection, she definitely had a point.
Clove and I look nothing alike. While I’m fair and blonde, Clove has olive skin and dark black hair. She’s also a whole half a foot shorter than me. While I’m not tall at 5’6”, Clove is downright tiny at 4’11”. She was dressed in an ankle-length skirt – which had sparkly flowers all over it – and a simple black tank top. She looked the part of a witch effortlessly. Since she really was a witch, though, I wasn’t that impressed with her clothing choices.
“Coo
l skirt.”
“Mom made it,” she said simply. Clove’s mother was my Aunt Marnie. She ran a bed and breakfast with my own mother, Winnie, and their other sister, Twila. They were all a lot more adept than we were when it came to sewing – and cooking – and meddling in everyone’s lives.
I threw myself on the comfortable couch in the center of the store. “How’s business?”
Despite the herbs in the backroom, Clove joined me on the couch. She could be easily distracted. I had a feeling she was looking for any excuse to get out of work – like always.
“Pretty good,” Clove answered. “This time of year is our bread and butter.”
“People like to be scared,” I said.
“We aim to please,” Clove said brightly.
“Speaking of which, I like the new sign.”
Clove smiled mischievously. When she smiles, she has a dimple in her left cheek that comes out to play. Her brown eyes sparkled as they turned to the window sign briefly. “That was my idea.”
“I figured.”
“Not everyone thinks it’s a good idea.”
I pondered it for a second and then shrugged. “As long as you’re not really cursing people, I don’t see what the problem is. I think it’s a good idea. It will bring people in – even if it’s just out of curiosity.”
“That’s what I said but … .“
“Don’t encourage her!”
I shifted my gaze up to the curtains that covered the backroom again and smiled when I saw my other cousin Thistle step from behind them. While Clove and I looked nothing alike, Thistle was a whole other thing entirely. She was taller than Clove but shorter than me. We had a lot of the same facial features, but her hair was cropped short to her head – and dyed bright blue today. When I saw her yesterday it had been red.
“New color?”
“It matches my mood,” she said bitterly.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Thistle stomped around from behind the counter. She was dressed in a pale blue sparkly halter-top that showed off the bevy of tattoos that scattered across her chest and shoulders. I was particularly fond of the blue dahlia on her chest. It just matched her personality for some reason. She was wearing skin-tight ripped jeans, though. She shunned skirts – and only wore them for special events at the store.
“What do you think is wrong with me?” Much like her mother, Twila, Thistle was prone to exaggerated outbursts. I was used to them. Instead of finding her grim demeanor intimidating, I found it endearing.
I noticed that Clove was steadfastly studying her fingernails – which she had painted black. Clove and Thistle are as close as sisters – which means they fight like cats and dogs.
“You don’t like Clove’s sign, I’m guessing,” I said. I was used to their little spats.
“What’s to like about it? It makes people think we’re evil.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I protested. “Tourists will just think it’s funny. It will draw people into the store. And the town? Half of them already think we’re evil anyway. The other half isn’t going to be swayed by a sign.”
Clove smirked triumphantly at Thistle. Thistle shot her the finger. Ah, our maturity knows no bounds. “You always take her side,” she grumbled.
“That’s not true. I just don’t happen to think it’s a big deal.”
“The townspeople are going to think we’re doing horrible things.”
“They already think that,” Clove supplied.
Thistle threw herself dramatically in the chair across from us and leveled a dark glare on Clove. “We don’t have to encourage that type of thinking.”
“Since when? You purposely mess with them all the time.”
“I do not!”
“You do, too.”
“Whatever.”
I found it suspicious that Clove had been mostly silent during the argument. We were all equally close to one another – but since Clove and Thistle worked together, she usually got off on arguing with her. She knew a secret.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Thistle quickly averted her gaze. We’re masterful liars when dealing with strangers. When dealing with each other, though? We suck.
“You’re hiding something.” I can smell a story a mile away.
“Why do you say that?” Thistle made an effort to meet my gaze, but it was a weak effort.
“Answering a question with a question is a sure sign of guilt,” I offered.
Thistle met my gaze solidly. “I’m not hiding anything.”
Clove finally opened her mouth. “She doesn’t want Marcus to think we’re evil.”
“Who’s Marcus?” I asked curiously, grabbing a wrapped candy from the end table.
“He’s no one,” Thistle mumbled.
“He just bought the livery,” Clove said slyly. She really is evil when she wants to be.
“The livery? You mean the horse barn?”
“It’s not just a horse barn,” Thistle barked.
Ah, I knew where this was going now. “People go there to rent horses to ride around on the trails. It’s a horse barn. Is Marcus that good-looking blond I saw working there the other day?”
“He’s Mr. Richmond’s nephew,” Clove was clearly relishing doling out information now. “We met him the other day when we were buying feed for the horses out at the inn.”
“So, Marcus bought the place from his uncle?” I couldn’t help it. I liked watching Thistle squirm, too. She was usually so sure of herself; I couldn’t help but find the sudden reddening of her cheeks funny.
“Yeah,” Clove said devilishly. “When we went into the barn to pick up the feed we ran into him – and he didn’t have a shirt on.”
“Impressive sight?”
“You have no idea,” Clove giggled. “He looks like one of those guys on the fliers for the gym in Traverse City.”
“He looks gay?”
Clove snorted. “He’s definitely not gay. He about fell over himself when he saw Thistle.”
“He was very professional!” Thistle raged suddenly.
I bit my inner cheek to keep from laughing out loud. “Did he ask you out?”
Thistle started picking at her frayed jeans distractedly. “No.”
“Why not?”
Thistle shrugged.
“I think he’s shy,” Clove answered for her. “Of course, Thistle was so flustered she practically dragged me out of the store before he could really talk to us anyway. She didn’t give him a chance.”
“You think you know everything,” Thistle said malevolently.
“He was definitely interested,” Clove said.
“How do you know? Did you read his mind?” In certain circumstances, Clove can actually hear what people are thinking. That’s her “gift.” It doesn’t always work, but it is pretty accurate when it does.
“Let’s just say that the first thing he thought about was what she would look like naked.”
I giggled despite myself. “What was Thistle’s reaction?”
“Pretty much the same as his. You could actually feel the temperature rise in the room. I was afraid all that hay would suddenly catch on fire.”
“You’re making that up!” Thistle argued vehemently. “You can’t read my mind.”
This was true. No matter how hard she tried, Clove could never read the thoughts of other witches. I turned to her curiously. “How do you know what she was thinking?”
“You don’t need to be a mind reader to recognize the smell of sex in a room,” she snickered.
This is true.
Thistle looked uncomfortable. She kept shifting in her chair. I realized I hadn’t seen her this interested in someone in a really long time. She was more the ‘love them and leave them’ type. I suddenly felt sympathy for her.
“You could ask him out.”
“Maybe,” she said noncommittally.
“You have a reason to go back. We always need feed. I think the aunts are using it for more than feeding th
e horses.”
“They’re probably using it for spells,” Clove agreed. “There’s no way four horses use as much food as they order.”
“Speaking of which, we have family dinner tonight,” I remembered.
Thistle and Clove groaned in unison. I felt their pain. We all loved our mothers. We all loved our aunts. We all really loved our Great Aunt Tillie – even though we often wondered if she hadn’t gone completely round the bend in recent years. Family dinners, though, were more work than anything else. The women in my family were witches also – obviously – but they were also spastic at times. Much like Clove, Thistle and I, they were ridiculously close. It didn’t help that they ran the bed and breakfast together – and were constantly on each other’s nerves – and at each other’s throats.
“I wonder what they’ll be fighting about tonight,” Clove wondered aloud.
“The same thing they always argue about. Who is the best cook, who is the best gardener, who is the smartest …?”
I smiled to myself as I pictured the scene that was sure to unfold this evening: Utter chaos.
“We could say we’re too busy to go?” Even as I uttered the words I knew how ridiculous they were.
“Yeah, they’ll believe that. It’s a small town. They know we’re not too busy,” Thistle said.
“I like family dinner sometimes,” Clove admitted.
“I do, too,” I said hastily. “I’m just always so tired from the arguing afterward.”
“It is exhausting.”
Thistle fixed a no-nonsense gaze on both of us. “There will be no Marcus talk tonight,” she said. It was a statement, not a plea.
“Of course not,” I agreed. It was one thing for the three of us to rag on one another. It was quite another thing for the aunts to do it. They would be down at the livery casting love spells before dessert hit the table if they had even an inkling anything was up. It had become the standard between the three of us: No lies for the younger crowd, but nothing but lies for the older crowd. These are wonderful women – don’t get me wrong – but they are the four biggest busybodies you have ever met. They never met a life issue they didn’t want to weigh in on. Or a romantic interest they didn’t want to horn in on.
Witchy Dreams Page 2
