Three Witches and a Zombie

by Maggie Shayne

  Officer Billy Cantone came running. He took in the women, most of whom he knew, all of whom were dressed in ritual robes and jewelry, many of whom wore five pointed stars on chains. "Just what the hell is going on here?"

  Mirabella stepped forward. "I think I can answer that. Mr. and Mrs. Hayes have been very eager to purchase my friend Gwenyth's house, on the edge of town. You know the one? Mr. Hayes has Gwen's permission to fish in the stream out back. And he made his first offer shortly after she first gave him that permission, this spring. He wanted the house very badly. Didn't you. Mr. Hayes?"

  He grunted, and looked away.

  "She turned him down. So he decided to get her run out of town. And since she was openly Wiccan, what better way to do that than to orchestrate a few ritualistic animal sacrifices, get the locals all stirred up over the Witches in their midst? Hmm?"

  Sniffling, young Shauna lifted her head. "You were the one paying Bryan Marcomb to kill those animals that way, mess up the tombstones, and all that?"

  "You bet he was," Rowan said. "And when Bryan wanted out-threatened to tell the police everything unless you let him go, you killed him. Didn't you?"

  Jonathon stroked his daughter's hair. "And then you came back here to get rid of any evidence of a connection between you and Bryan," he said, as his mind filled in the blanks.

  "My God. Is this all true?" Officer Cantone asked.

  "I'm sure we'll find the evidence, either on these two, or still in Bryan's room." Jonathon said. "But what I don't understand is why? Why is one piece of property worth more than a young boy's life? Hmm?"

  "It's the pyrite in the stream out behind the house." Mirabella said softly. She walked over to where her friend Gwenyth stood looking puzzled. "It's not really pyrite at all, hon. It's the real thing. Gold. And Jim Hayes knew it. And he wanted it all for himself."

  The cop's eyes widened. "How do you know all that, Miss Saint Angeline?"

  She looked at Jonathon. And he knew. He knew these were the things that his wife had whispered to her in that magickal circle. How else could she have figured it all out-or known to come here, now, just at the moment when his daughter's life was in grave danger?

  "An old friend told me," Mirabella said softly. "She, uh, prefers her name be kept out of this. It's nothing you can't verify, after all."

  "Arrest those two, Billy." Jonathon instructed. "And get some men out here to go through Bryan's room for evidence. We'll take the witnesses' statements tomorrow. It's been...a long night."

  Billy cuffed Mark and Sally Hayes, and escorted them to the waiting cruiser. Mirabella turned to Jonathon, to Rowan. "It's done." And then she turned, and walked away.

  # # #

  There was no doubt in Bella's mind that, given the chance, the Hayes couple would have taken Rowan, and perhaps Shauna as we'll, killed them, and tried to make it look like suicide. Or maybe an accident. And if they had succeeded, it would have been one more crime for the good folk of Ezra Township to lay at the feet of the local Witches. And possibly, at Bella's own feet.

  But thanks to one determined mother's love for her daughter, it didn't turn out that way.

  Bella got all the way to her car. The others were pulling away now. The police car. The vehicles of her friends and sisters. She stood there, listening to the motors fade in the distance. Then to the crickets chirping and the gentle breeze whispering through the trees.

  And then the breeze changed. It whispered "Mirabella..." in a voice that was becoming familiar.

  Ashley's voice.

  Closing her eyes to prevent tears, Bella said, "I saved her. What more do you want from me?"

  "Save him...." the trees seemed to whisper.

  Bella opened her eyes, a trill of alarm running up her spine. "How?"

  "Love him."

  Damn. Why did her heart have to hurt so much? "I already do," she said softly, and she turned, and he was standing there.

  "I'm sorry," Jonathon said. "I was wrong. I was wrong about everything. I was wrong about your faith, your beliefs. I was wrong about Ashley and about my own daughter. But most of all, Bella, I was wrong to ever let myself think for one minute that I had any choice at all about loving you. Because I didn't. And I don't."

  She lifted her brows, tipped her head back to search his face.

  "I need you," he told her.

  Beside him, Rowan said, "We both do."

  Bella blinked as her eyes filled with tears. "I...I don't know what to say."

  "Say you'll marry me." Jonathon said.

  Rowan clasped her hands together, pursing her lips and blinking her own tears back as she waited to hear Bella's answer. She might even have been holding her breath.

  Mirabella smiled. "I'll marry you."

  He swept her into his arms, and kissed her deeply. And then they parted just enough to enfold Rowan in their arms as well.

  "Take care of each other," the breeze whispered.

  Rowan pulled free of them, and looked up toward the sky. "We will, Mom. Thank you. Thank you for sending Mirabella to me."

  Bella, arm in arm with Jonathon, went to her. "Don't think she won't be back, just because this little crisis is over," Bella said softly. "She'll always be with you, Rowan. And so will I."

  Jonathon shook his head. Rowan and Bella both looked at him, and he had tears in his eyes. "I don't know what I ever did to deserve to have three such incredible women in my life." His voice was choked with emotion. "But I'm so glad I did it, whatever it was." He looked at Rowan. "Because I love you. I love you so much." And then he turned to Bella, cupping her face in his hands. "And you...you saved my heart. My soul. You made me live again. I didn't think I could love this way twice in a lifetime. But Bella, I do. And I believe you, what you said before. This isn't the first time around for us."

  "No, it isn't," she told him. "And it isn't going to be the last."

  The End

  Zombies: A Love Story

  Chapter One

  “Congratulations,” I said, and offered the obligatory hug.

  Chuck hugged me back, pulling me so close that my head was pressed to his chest and I could feel his heart beating softly against my face. When he let me go, I couldn’t quite look him in the eye. Not yet. So I looked around instead. Midnight in the desert, encircled by red rocks.

  It wasn’t the typical way a newly minted biotech engineer would celebrate his degree. But Chuck was one of us, and we weren’t typical people. We were desert dwellers, southwest and sunshine to the roots of our hair. So we threw his welcome home-slash-congrats party the same way we’d celebrated everything from prom to graduation to summer vacation. In our hometown among the sandstone pillars, with a campfire, a tapped keg, twenty or so classmates, and an endless stack of red Solo cups.

  It was weird, to think of Chuck as a full blown scientist. Weird and sad for me. We’d been high school sweethearts, even though he was the biggest nerd in class. I liked that about him. The way he didn’t just run off at the mouth, but stopped and thought before speaking. The way I could almost see the wheels turning in that mega-brain of his during those drawn out silences, and how when he finally did answer, it was always with something brilliant.

  But I knew there was no future for us.

  I was home to stay, too. Fresh out of a series of non-accredited courses in holistic healing, organic horticulture, aroma therapy. I’d just finished an apprenticeship at a medical marijuana farm in Colorado, and I planned to open a health food and medicinal tea shop right here in Bloody Gulch, Arizona, with a loan from my mother.

  Chuck had a far different future. He was being courted by some very big corporations who were offering him huge salaries. His future was far from here, and way out of my league. He was going to end up being the Bill Gates of Biotech, while I would forever be the barefoot girl next door who doesn’t eat meat and probably leads protests outside his fancy office. I’d hold him back. And he’d drive me crazy. It would never work for us.

  And tonight was the night I was plannin
g to tell him that.

  The fire crackled. I watched my BFF Sally munching on cheddar chips and wished I’d remembered my organic vegan ones at home. There wasn’t a snack-food here that didn’t contain dairy or GMOs. I sipped iced tea from my re-usable water bottle (made with recycled, toxin free plastic) and sat there in the dark staring at the flames between my two best friends, Sally Brown and her brother, Matthew, though I’d always called him Chuck. (Don’t worry if you don’t get the joke. Few people do, and even fewer find it funny.)

  I looked from one of them to the other, knowing the night would get more awkward. If that hug was anything to go by, Chuck seemed to be assuming we could pick up where we’d left off now that we were both home. We’d taken a break for the past year. My idea. My way of letting him down easy. But he wasn’t taking the hint. I was going to have to tell him.

  But not yet.

  “So, Chuck,” I asked across the fire, “Do you feel any different now that you’re all bonafide and whatnot?”

  Sally elbowed him. “She means now that you’re an official nerd, instead of an aspiring one.” She winked at me. “Hand me those chips, Suz.”

  I held out the nearest bag. “I can’t believe you’re eating those things. Did you even read the label?”

  “Here we go.” She rolled her eyes.

  “They’re made by Sonatta for crying out loud.” As far as I was concerned, the food industry giant was the devil. They had built a processing plant at the edge of town while I’d been away, and had leased local land for their franken-farming experiments.

  Sally looked at her brother. “So? Do you feel different?”

  Chuck shrugged, keeping his eyes lowered.

  Hell, he probably didn’t feel different at all. He was a genius. Had always been a genius. Sally was three years older, but he’d skipped two grades in elementary and one in high school, so he’d caught up to her. And me.

  “You’re awfully quiet, even for you, Chuck,” I said. “What’s going on?”

  He looked at me, then at his sister. I thought again that he’d grown better looking in the year since I’d seen him, and way better since high school. He had a decent haircut now, really short and sticking up a little. Enough to walk that line between carelessly tousled and deliberately spiky. It fit him, flattered him too. His style used to be a too long, too frizzy dirty blond school joke. He’d ditched his glasses for contacts, and from what I could tell, he’d been working out. He was wearing a jacket over his T-shirt, but his shoulders seemed wider, his waist, narrower, his butt in those jeans was not the butt I remembered. It was hardly fair for a guy as intelligent as him to have turned out to be so good looking too. I mean, come on Mother Nature. Cut someone else a break, why don’t you? “I think I’m very different,” he said at length. “But it’s happened gradually, so it doesn’t feel like a sudden change to me.” He looked me right in the eye. “Must seem that way to you, though.”

  I shrugged and looked away from the intensity in his brown eyes. That was new as well. “I’ve changed too,” I said, and it sounded a little defensive because I didn’t think I’d really changed at all. Was I supposed to? I guess I missed the memo. “I cut my hair.” I touched my short, sassy cut when I said it.

  “I like it,” Chuck said softly. “Brings out your eyes.”

  We stared at each other in the flickering orange campfire glow, and the silence stretched out until Sally cleared her throat. I yanked my head around to look at her instead of him. I liked looking at him better. “They’re making s’mores over there,” she said. “I’m going to get some before the chocolate’s all gone.”

  She didn’t care about the s’mores. She was just giving us privacy.

  It occurred to me that it might be time for that conversation I’d been dreading, and my stomach burned. I turned my head to look back at him again. He leaned in, slid a hand around my nape and threaded his fingers into my hair.

  “Aren’t you...going to tell me what’s wrong?” I asked. The words came out in a breathy whisper worthy of a big screen love scene. “I know something is.”

  “In a minute.” He moved closer. I gave in, let my eyes fall closed, and felt his mouth cover mine. Oh, it was good. It was sweet and long and slow and deep, and he tasted good, so good. When he lifted his head away, he said, “I’ve been waiting a long time to be with you, Suz.”

  “I know.” I was working up my nerve, reminding myself it was the right thing to do. It was never going to work with us anyway. I had to let him go. “But...we have to talk.”

  He smiled his most charming smile. Damn, he’d become good looking. He’d gone away a nerd and returned a bonafide hunk. He looked at the nearby tent, then back at me again. “Can’t we talk...after?”

  I frowned and sat back a little. “Right, you wait all this time, and then you think I’m just going to jump your bones after one kiss? What are you, sixteen?”

  “I just thought–”

  “You just thought wrong. Jeeze, Chuck, how about some dating? How about building a relationship first? Huh?” I stood up, crossed my arms over my chest. “How about a little romance for crying out loud?” I was crushingly disappointed. I’d expected so much more.

  And then I reminded myself that it didn’t matter anyway. I’d been about to let him down easy.

  He got up too, came closer. I turned my back to him, gathering my will. I had to tell him it was over. He put his hands on my shoulders from behind and I tingled in spite of myself. “I’m sorry. You know I’m no good at this. It’s just...I’m pretty sure by tomorrow you’re gonna hate my guts, so I thought at least we could have tonight.”

  I frowned and turned to face him, distracted once again. The move made his hands fall away, and I experienced a very brief, very potent stab of regret. “Why am I going to hate you tomorrow?”

  “Because I have an irresistible job offer. And you’re not gonna like it.”

  Ah, so he got it, too. That should make things easier. “I knew this was coming. It was inevitable. That’s why I–”

  “It’s Sonatta,” he said.

  My blood ran cold. The feelings for him I’d been fighting, turned into a sickening knot in my stomach. “You...you had an offer from Sonatta? The most hated company on the planet? The people who are genetically modifying our food supply without a clue about the repercussions? The people who’ve patented seeds, and sue farmers they consider in breach?” I paused long enough to take a breath, but only because I had to. “I’ve protested that company, Chuck. I’ve written to congress!”

  “I know.”

  “You can’t possibly be considering an offer from them. I’ve been planning an all out campaign to drive them out of Bloody Gulch. I–I’ve already designed the flyers.”

  He sighed. “You want to lower your voice, Suzy? Maybe give me a chance to tell you about this?”

  I looked around. The fire was crackling and pouring its light onto our faces, and several of our oldest friends were standing around looking at us. And I knew what they were thinking. Here we go, Chuck and Suzy, together again for a few hours and apparently already having a major fight. A lot they knew. I clamped my jaw, lowered my head. “There’s nothing you can say that will make it okay to work for the devil, Chuck. Not unless you’re just going undercover so you can get close enough to bring them down, that is.”

  He sighed and sat down, saying nothing. I knew his mind was composing while I ranted, and he was waiting for me to shut up long enough for him to talk.

  I was so mad I was shaking, but I took three deep breaths and sat down too. “Fine, explain if you really think you can.”

  He nodded. “In fifty years, maybe less, there’s not going to be enough meat on the planet to feed people.”

  “I know that. And we’ll all become vegetarians, and the world will be a better place.” I answered quick, didn’t think first.

  “I agree. But that’s going to take more vegetables and fruits than we’re capable of producing at this point. Sonatta is doing work that wi
ll make vegetables grow faster in far less space. It’s working to make them hardier, to require less water, to make them insect and disease resistant, to increase the amount of protein and other essential nutrients they provide in each serving.”

  “Right, by adding insecticides to our corn, salmon DNA to our strawberries, and refusing to label them. Do you know how sickening that is to a vegetarian, by the way?”

  “It’s better than global famine, mass starvation.”

  “I really don’t think that’s the only alternative, Chuck.”

  “You haven’t seen the research that I have.”

  “Probably not. Who produced your so-called research? Sonatta?”

  “Yes, Sonatta. They do a lot of research, because they want to ensure that their products aren’t harmful to humans or other living things.”

  “Wait, I’m sure I read that somewhere. Oh yeah, it was in their propaganda campaign when they were trolling for local land to lease for their franken-farms!”

  “Suz, stop. You’re being stubborn. Sonatta is ready to release a potato that provides more protein in a single serving than twelve ounces of sirloin steak.”

  I closed my eyes. “How did they make the potato do that?”

  He didn’t answer. Didn’t say “I don’t know” just didn’t answer. So he did know.

  “It’s top secret, right?” Opening my eyes again, I searched his. But he couldn’t hold my gaze.

  “Something like that,” he said at length.

  “God, Chuck, don’t do this. I don’t know what they’re offering you, but just don’t do it. Say no, turn it down, do anything else. Anything. You’ve had tons of companies and research centers courting for more than a year now. You can have your choice.”

  “This is my choice.” He heaved a huge sigh that made his shoulders slump forward. “I’ve been in orientation for a month already. It’s a seven figure income, Suzy.”

  “Seven figures. For the destruction of our food supply. What a bargain.”