Witch Hunt

by Cate Conte

He stepped in, his gaze going right to Mazzy. Curiosity, I supposed, but . . . was it my imagination, or did they exchange a look of recognition?

  Mazzy glanced back at me and waggled her fingers. “I’m sure I’ll see you again,” she said with that sly catlike grin, and then she slipped out the door with one last, quick glance at Todd. He avoided her gaze this time.

  As the door shut behind her, I noticed the air felt suddenly clearer—less staticky, as if the channel had been changed.

  CHAPTER 7

  I turned my attention to Todd. “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey,” Todd said with that lopsided grin that I normally loved. Today, though, it seemed forced. He came over and kissed my cheek. “Did you already go for coffee?”

  Had I ever. A little while ago I couldn’t wait to tell him everything that had gone on so far that morning, but suddenly it seemed like a lot and I didn’t have the energy. Also, something felt weird right now. Granted, it could’ve just been me and my mood, but I wasn’t so sure.

  “I did,” I said. “I texted you, actually. While I was at Pete’s. The weirdest thing happened.”

  “You did?” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and grimaced. “Sorry. It was on silent. I went to the gym.” Todd ran a hand through his not-quite-red, not-quite-blond hair, which fell perfectly over one eye. “So what happened?”

  “Ugh.” I locked the door again and motioned him to come in. “Carla Fernandez accosted me at Pete’s,” I said over my shoulder as I walked to my desk, then whipped around when I heard a crash. “What on earth?”

  Todd stood gingerly next to my charcoal-black statue of Ganesha, the elephant-headed Hindu god, which he’d apparently tripped over. I was dismayed to see one of Ganesha’s ears was chipped. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  “Jeez, Todd. How did you do that?” With a sigh, I knelt down and felt around for the broken piece. Luckily it was all in one piece. Maybe I could glue it back on. Not ideal, but this statue was one of, like, twenty in the world. My grandma’s friend had brought it back from India as a gift when I opened my shop.

  “It was in the middle of the floor,” he protested.

  “It definitely wasn’t. You know what, never mind. Do you want to hear what happened or not?” I was annoyed with him and couldn’t quite put my finger on why, aside from the ear situation.

  “Yes. Of course. Sorry. Want me to fix that?”

  “I’ll do it.” I tucked the piece into my desk drawer so I wouldn’t lose it. “So Carla comes into Pete’s shouting at me about how I’m holding a séance and she’s going to run my voodoo shop out of town. Can you believe it?” I looked at him more closely. “Todd?” He looked like he was about to jump out of his skin, eyes skittering around the room, leg jiggling.

  “Yeah. Wow. That’s weird. So what’d you do?”

  “I told her to leave me alone. That I’m not running a séance, but even if I was it was none of her business.” I waited for him to praise me. He was always telling me I needed to be more assertive.

  But he didn’t. “And what did she say?”

  “Some vague threat about getting rid of me. I’m not worried about it. She’s nuts. Has she ever given you any trouble?”

  A quick shake of his head. “Nope. Never. Don’t worry about it, Vi. Your store is awesome.” He patted my arm, still looking distracted. “So. Busy day today?”

  “Yeah,” I said, wondering why he was acting so weird. “You?”

  He nodded vigorously, and his whole body relaxed. He loved what he did, and he loved his bar. “Crazy day, actually. I’m meeting a new distributor, and I’ve had two people call in tonight already. I actually need to get over there, but wanted to see you first.”

  I could feel my romantic evening slipping away, but pushed the thought aside. I didn’t want to be That Girlfriend, whining about how work was more important than me.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Hey, by the way. Do you know that woman?”

  He frowned. “Who?”

  “The one who just left,” I said in my best don’t play dumb tone.

  “Huh.” He appeared to think about it for a second, then shook his head. “Don’t think so. Should I?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But you seemed to recognize each other.”

  “We did?” He gave me his best wide-eyed schoolboy look. Todd was the quintessential boy next door: easygoing, handsome, friendly, everyone’s buddy. It worked on a business level—it was one of the reasons his bar was so popular.

  Sometimes I got tired of it. “Yeah. You did.”

  “Nah. She’s probably been in the bar or something and recognized me. I see so many people . . .” He let the sentence trail off and flashed that easy smile again. “So about tonight. Depending on how the day goes and how busy it is, we may need to go to the Thai place tomorrow, okay?”

  Of course. I bit back the disappointment. “Sure,” I said. “Let me know.”

  “I will. You’re the best.” He leaned in for a quick kiss. “I’ll call you later.” He slipped out the door, nodding at Josie as she came in. The two of them did an awkward dance of trying not to brush up against each other as they both navigated the doorway.

  I watched Todd go, trying to shake off the weirdness so I could focus on my day. I had so much going on that I couldn’t afford to be wasting my energy dwelling on this crazy morning and who he may or may not know. Whoever Mazzy was, hopefully she’d gotten whatever thrill she’d been looking for and would leave me alone now. Same with Carla. Besides, worrying about any of them wasn’t going to change anything. I had to focus on my shop and the thousand tasks I had to do.

  But Josie paused inside the door, still holding it open. “What’s going on in here?”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Josie stepped all the way in, sniffing. “Has anyone been in here besides you?”

  “Well, Todd,” I said. “And some woman came in looking for some help with crystals. Why? I didn’t notice any repulsive perfume.” Usually I was the first one to sniff out nasty smells like chemical-laden perfumes.

  Josie pulled her trademark beret—she had one in every color, and today’s was hot pink—off her pile of brown hair and locked the door behind her. “There’s a bad smell in here.”

  “Like what? Gas or something?” I sniffed too, but didn’t smell anything. “I thought you couldn’t smell gas. Should I call the fire department?”

  She didn’t answer, but continued to prowl the edges of the shop, sniffing. I watched, fascinated.

  “You said a woman was in here. What woman?” she asked, coming back to stop in front of me. There was a sense of urgency in her voice that put my teeth back on edge.

  “Her name was Mazzy,” I said. “She said she got my name on referral.”

  “From who?”

  “She didn’t say.” Could this morning get any more weird? Now Josie was acting strangely. It wasn’t like her to be asking so many questions. She epitomized the term free spirit and usually wouldn’t notice if an alien stopped in for a visit.

  “Did you open early?”

  I shook my head. “She came to the door.”

  “Why did you let her in before you were open? Did you tell her you were closed?”

  I shrugged. “The sign was on the door and it was locked. She knocked. Said it was the only time she had and she felt desperate.” I offered up a half smile. “You know me—always wanting to help people.” Usually I was proud of that. Today I felt like perhaps that was being used to my disadvantage, although I couldn’t quite put my finger on why.

  “And what did her energy tell you?” Josie leaned against one of the crystal counters, her fingers tapping a staccato beat—the one mannerism I knew meant she was worried—as her eyes drilled into mine.

  I shrugged, trying to keep it casual, but I could feel my heartbeat accelerate. “She tried to convince me she was concerned about something, but she never articulated it. I felt like she was . . . looking for something. Some negative energy. I also felt lik
e she didn’t really take what I do seriously. That’s all.”

  I was trying not to make a big thing of it, but I was getting all kinds of signals from Josie that worried me. So I decided not to mention my feeling that Todd and Mazzy had recognized each other. On top of her current stress levels, Josie wasn’t a huge proponent of my relationship with Todd. It wasn’t something she’d ever said so bluntly, but I could tell by the way her whole being distanced itself a bit energetically whenever I talked about him. And when she was in his presence, she was polite but not overly engaged.

  “What did you do?”

  “I gave her a tiger’s eye. I hope it helps. Listen, my first appointment canceled, so I’m going to run an errand,” I said. I didn’t want to talk about this anymore, and Josie wasn’t going to let it go—I knew her. Once she got on something, she was like a dog with a bone.

  I’d met Josie when I was a teenager. I’d just gotten my license and had borrowed my dad’s car to go exploring. I’d stumbled upon one of the other now-defunct crystal shops in the county. Josie had been working there. We struck up a conversation, and she introduced me to some stones I’d never heard of. It was the start of a long-term friendship. I went back a few times a week when I knew she would be there, and over time she taught me everything I know about crystals. She’d been encouraging me to open this shop for years before I got it done. Sometimes I think I did it just to shut her up.

  “What kind of errand?”

  “I need to go to town hall,” I said. “I forgot to pay the tax bill on my car.” It was true enough, although I hadn’t been in any rush to take care of it. I still had a week before I got a fee, so normally I’d be in there the last possible day. “Do you need me to punch out?” I said it with a smile, but I could hear the edge in my voice. I didn’t love being questioned like this.

  “No need,” she said, returning my smile with her own edge. “I’ll look into this smell while you’re gone.”

  I still didn’t smell anything, but whatever. “Great. Thanks.” I grabbed my bag and my coat. “I’ll be back soon.”

  CHAPTER 8

  I walked slowly around the corner to the lot behind my building, where I parked my car. Town hall wasn’t far, but in weather like this it was far enough that I didn’t want to walk. Although I wondered if some extended fresh air might help shake off the strangeness of this day.

  I drove the half mile to the suite of buildings that housed the town offices, my mind still on Todd. He’d reacted so oddly about Carla. I expected him to be more outraged on my behalf. Although when Todd was distracted, he couldn’t focus on anything else.

  I found a parking spot right out front, which made me feel like maybe my luck had changed. Inside, I made a beeline for the elevator to the second floor and the tax assessor’s office. But before the elevator arrived, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

  “Excuse me. Have you heard about the proposed Harbor Lights Bridge project?”

  I turned. And stared. The guy talking to me wore a railroad track on his head. The elaborate contraption protruded from a plain old Yankees baseball cap—how on earth had he gotten it to stay put?—with a small train on the tracks. On either side were what I assumed were bodies of brown, ugly water and . . . dead fish? I blinked, trying to get a better focus.

  “Hello?” He waved an impatient hand in front of me, forcing me to drag my eyes to meet his.

  “Sorry. Uh, Harbor Lights. Yes, I have.”

  He appeared to be around my age, but that could’ve been the scruffy goatee adding years. His face looked really young. He had small brown eyes flecked with green. They darted around the room like he was expecting to be ambushed at any second. The hair visible from under his odd hat hung almost in his eyes. He wore jogging pants and a shirt that said, There Is No Planet B.

  He beamed at me. “Excellent. May I be so bold as to presume that you oppose the project, given the likely impact to the environment?”

  I frowned, ignoring the ding of the elevator as it arrived. A woman pushed past me to get on, pausing to stare at him—or more precisely, at his hat. He ignored her, waiting for my answer.

  The bridge project had been a recent, ongoing controversy in town, and it was ramping up because it was due in front of voters next week. The proposal to redirect the railroad tracks that ran through town due to the age and condition of the current tracks would mean building over the river and through the business district. Which would mean taking an office building by eminent domain, which would displace some local businesses, who might then have to move out of town entirely given the current lack of space. The opposers also felt that by redirecting the railroad tracks, it would upset a lot of the river creatures and fish populations.

  I generally felt it was a bad idea, although I was disturbed by the claims from proponents that the old tracks would inevitably fail in the next seven years. I imagined by fail they meant a train would plummet into the water, and that didn’t sound like a good option either.

  I gave a noncommittal grunt.

  He pointed to his hat. “I hope that’s a yes. This is a depiction of what can happen.”

  I peered at it, more closely this time. “Really?”

  He nodded proudly. “It’s a mockup of what we believe will happen if the uninformed, money-hungry town officials agree to move forward with this half-baked bridge replacement project.” He whipped the hat off and held it out to me. “See,” he said, pointing to the left side. “This is depicting the endangered American eels that will be displaced.”

  I studied the model. It was clever, I had to admit, but it had to be awfully heavy to wear. And hard to maneuver. What happened if he was in a place with low ceilings?

  “And these are trout.” He pointed to the other side, where my suspicions were confirmed. Upon a closer look I saw a beached fish, its eyes bulging and tongue hanging out, in case anyone wondered if it was dead.

  “I see,” I said, not sure what else to say.

  He was still waiting for something from me. I wasn’t sure what, but I needed to get going. I started to turn back to the elevator, but he stopped me.

  “Will I see you at the protest on Wednesday?”

  “What protest?”

  “A bunch of us are gathering down by the river. In the park. To show our support for killing this project.”

  “I’ll try to get there,” I said. “If I can close my shop.”

  “What’s your shop?”

  “I own The Full Moon. It’s a crystal shop on Water Street.”

  “I’ve seen it,” he said, snapping his fingers. “It looks amazing. Crystals are an incredible part of our earth. I’ll have to check it out. ” He stuck his hand out. “I’m Rain.”

  Rain? Could that possibly be his real name, or had he adopted an environmentally friendly moniker to add to his credibility? “Violet,” I said, shaking it gingerly.

  “Nice to meet you, Violet. Hey, I don’t suppose you would consider helping me spread the word about the protest?” He plopped the hat back on his head and dug into his backpack, pulling out a stack of flyers.

  “Sure, I’ll take a few,” I said.

  “Sweet.” He handed me a stack.

  The elevator dinged, blissfully. “I have to go. Nice meeting you, Rain. Good luck with your protest.”

  “Thanks! Hope to see you there,” he called after me as the doors closed between us.

  I kept the smile pasted on until the doors shut, then shook my head. I was definitely setting a record for having the Weirdest. Day. Ever.

  CHAPTER 9

  When I stepped out of town hall nearly three hundred dollars poorer, my phone chimed, signaling a text message. Josie.

  Hey. I need to get someone in here to figure out this smell. You should go home for lunch and I’ll text you when I know more.

  Was she serious? My thumbs flew over my screen in reply.

  Can’t. I have WAY too much to do! And an appointment soon.

  I figured that would be the end of it, but Josie’s stub
bornness was in rare form today.

  Sorry. Can’t have customers in here in case it’s something bad. I already let people know we were closed and rescheduled your other appointments.

  “Are you freaking kidding me?” I sighed out loud. I had no idea what she was even talking about since I hadn’t smelled anything, but suddenly I felt too tired to fight it. Plus I had a banging headache that had appeared somewhere between Carla and Mazzy and had only grown since then. Going home might be my best option. Maybe I could grab that nap with Monty like I’d fantasized about this morning.

  Fine. Text me later. I’ll try to do some work from home.

  I climbed back in my car. While I waited to pull out into traffic, I saw Rain come out the main doors, talking on his cell phone, that ridiculous hat bobbing around on top of his head. People blatantly stopped and stared as they passed him, but he didn’t even notice. I shook my head and drove home.

  This time I had to dodge people as I cut through my little alley and made my way toward my building. The lunch crowd was out in full force, people dashing for their favorite spots to grab a bite and get out of the cold while the parking authority guys prowled the streets looking for unsuspecting violators thinking they could get away without filling the meters. Mr. Quigley sat on one of the benches with his markers and portable desk sketching something, puffing on his long pipe as he worked, bundled up in a heavy coat and hat. I wondered if he’d headed off the guy encroaching on his dumpster territory earlier. He was too engrossed in his work to notice me.

  Which was fine. My head ached, and I just wanted to be alone. The winter sun seemed blinding, especially glaring off the remaining snow, and I shaded my eyes with my hands. I’d left my sunglasses somewhere too, but I didn’t care.

  Blessedly, I reached the door to my building without having to speak to anyone else and fumbled with the key, letting the door slam behind me. I let my bag drop to the floor and threw my coat over a chair. I stood for a moment, enjoying the absolute quiet. Then I heard a thud and a loud purr.

  I glanced down. Monty had vacated his window perch when I came in, curious about why I was home. Now he clearly sensed my mood and was rubbing against my leg, purring like a little motor boat. I scooped him up and nuzzled my face into his soft fur. Hugging Monty made everything better.