by Tegan Maher
"It's no big deal. I'm fine.” My words sounded defensive even to me. “It's my own fault for ignoring Skeeter when he told me to bring it by so he could check them out. Though I have to admit, I thought I was a goner." That glint of sunlight off something shiny flashed through my head again, but I didn't want to mention it. Raeann worried about me enough, and it was probably nothing, anyway.
“I snapped a pic of it,” I said and pulled it up on my phone.
Her eyes about bugged out of her head. "Holy crow, Noelle. You aren't joking! How the heck did that little tree stop your tank? Never mind—it doesn't matter. I'm just glad it did." She typically shared my adversity to physical displays of affection, but now she scooped me into a hug. "You're not allowed to die, you hear me? I don't know what I'd do without you.”
Her voice was muffled by my hair, but I could hear the fear. I hugged her back. Truthfully, I was just as rattled as she was, though there was no way I'd admit it. I held onto her for a minute, fighting back tears as the last of the adrenaline drained from my body.
Finally, I pushed back from her, wiped the corners of my eyes, and stuffed everything back into her first aid kit. "I'm spent for the day. Can you give me a lift home? I have a batch of pastries ready to bring over, and it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to deliver them. Thankfully they were too hot to bring earlier, or they’d all be piled in the floorboard of my truck right now."
"Of course, sweetie! Just let me tell Angel I'm leaving.” Angel, whose mother was the town librarian, was a teenager who helped Rae part-time. “She took a sandwich and coffee over to her mama at the library, but she should be back. We're past the lunch rush, so she'll be fine."
Sure enough, Angel was wiping down tables and joking with Roy and Jimi, and fine with holding down the fort.
Raeann and I drove in comfortable silence for a while. My mind wandered as I gazed out the window, flashbacks of the crash colliding with worry about how I was going to pay to fix the truck. I was startled out of my reverie when she pulled the car off the edge of the road and stopped at the curve where I'd gone over.
The edge of the road was all muddy where Skeeter had dragged my truck back up, and the hill going down to the maple tree was scarred with ruts. The white flesh of the little maple shone through gashes on its dark bark where the bumper of my truck had chewed into it. I sent another burst of healing energy to it now that I was a little stronger.
Raeann viewed it all in disbelief and hugged me again.
As I surveyed the scene, every second of the crash ran through my head in Technicolor, and I shivered. "It looks so much worse now that I'm looking at it standing still."
She huffed. "I bet it does. I didn't realize it was this bad, but I should have figured from the beating you took." She turned back toward the car. "C'mon. Let's get you home."
When we pulled up in front of my house, my kid sister Shelby's car was in the drive. I limped up the steps and crossed the porch to the front door, looking forward to climbing into my pajamas and sipping a glass of wine or three.
Max, napping on the porch as usual, cracked one eye open and smacked his lips a couple of times. "Good luck."
I paused with my foot on the top step. "What on earth are you talking about?"
He gestured toward the front door with his nose. "Let's just say it's a good thing you don't have the temperament of a sixteenth-century Irish witch."
I raised a brow, confused.
Max, or Maximillian Beauregard Lancaster III, had been born a lesser British noble in the sixteenth century. He'd drawn the eye—then the ire—of an Irish witch, who'd turned him into what she believed to be a more honest representation of his true self. Through a series of odd events, we were stuck with him, but he was part of the family in his own twisted way.
He waggled his ears toward the door and dropped his muzzle back to the ground. "Just don't say I didn't warn you. Or perhaps I was supposed to warn her ..." He donkey-shrugged, then climbed to his feet and wandered around the side of the porch, no doubt in search of food.
I heaved a sigh and pulled the screen door open. I don't know what I was expecting to see when I walked in, but it definitely wasn't my sixteen-year-old sister making out with some punk on the couch. I closed my eyes for a second against the icing on this cake of a day.
She jumped to her feet, running a hand over her hair. Sparks of teenage outrage were flying from her eyes and the boy on the couch jumped up and headed toward the side door.
"Hold up there, trick!" I barked, then regretted it when pain shot through my head. He stopped dead in his tracks and I took a closer look at him. Though he'd no doubt been going for the bad-boy look, he'd overshot the mark by several yards and landed square on greasy loser.
And unless I missed my guess, he was also past his 18th birthday by a year or two.
His gaze flashed back and forth between me and the door, evaluating his odds.
I narrowed my eyes. "You do realize she's sixteen, right?"
Shelby slammed her hands on her hips, the poster child for self-righteous teenage outrage. "Oh my god, Noelle! What’s your problem?" she yelled. "This is my house, too, and I can have guests if I want."
My head was pounding and I was calculating in my head how old I'd be when I got out of prison for killing her or her guest—or both of them. Instead, I pulled a deep breath in through my nose and spooled up for one of the knock-down, drag-outs that had become our new norm.
She stopped mid-tirade when my appearance finally registered. Her rage turned to shocked concern. "What happened to you? Are you okay?"
She rushed over to get a better look, while the greasy groper made his escape out the back door and hopped his bicycle back to Loser Town.
I rolled my eyes at his cowardice, but that just caused another pain to shoot through my head. "I'm all right," I sighed, letting just a little bit of Scarlet O'Hara drama seep into my tone. "I just almost died, is all."
Yeah, sue me. I wasn’t above playing on her pity as payback for her shenanigans while she thought I was working to pay the bills. My satisfaction didn't last long though, once she scooped me into a fierce hug and burst into tears. Ugh. Teenage hormones.
I relented and hugged her back, because lately her love/hate feelings for me hadn't leaned toward love much. The road to finding balance after Addy died had been a bumpy one.
"Seriously, I'm fine," I told her when she pulled back and examined my face more closely. "It wasn't a big deal."
Raeann looked at me like I'd lost my mind, and snatched my phone out of my pocket. She pulled up the pic and flashed it at Shelby while relating what had really happened. I blew out a breath and headed to the kitchen, where I pulled out my special blend of lavender and chamomile tea laced with just a bit of willow bark. Rae had made it and I figured it was the perfect thing to calm my nerves and soothe the dull aches already creeping over my entire body.
Shelby took the blend from me and put the water on to boil, then nudged me toward the table. There would have to be a discussion about her latest rebellion, but I just didn't have it in me to do it right then. Instead, I let her make tea and pushed my fears about her future into the I'll deal with it later box in my head.
Shelby's concern carried over, and she opted to spend a rare evening at home, joking and talking with me and Raeann. I’d missed this side of her and wondered what had happened to the easy relationship we used to have. Lately, I couldn’t even get her to tell me where she was most of the time.
We'd always been tight; our mom had made our home happy and instilled the importance of family. But Mom had died when I was eleven, and my dad had ditched us with Aunt Adelaide not long after that. Since Addy died, Shelby had been on a tear. She was running with a bad crowd, regularly blew off her curfew, and refused to practice her magic. She was mouthy and incorrigible, and had nearly been suspended from school for repeatedly sassing teachers and skipping class.
Meanwhile, I begged, yelled, grounded, took away car keys, talked ’til I was
blue in the face, and made a big deal when she did do something right—but nothing worked. I was only seven years older than she was, and just couldn't seem to get a handle on raising a teenager. I was messing her up and had no idea what to do.
So when I got the increasingly rare chance to have fun with her, even if it meant I was sore and miserable and we were just hanging out at home, I grabbed on with both hands.
A couple of hours later, the three of us were making chocolate chip cookies when my phone rang and Skeeter's number showed on caller ID. I swiped to answer.
"Hey, Skeet. I saw you got her up okay. Thanks for that. How much damage is there?"
"Hey, Noelle. Yeah, it was a little tricky, but we managed. There's not much damage—a busted headlight, both mirrors, and the dent where the tree caught it. That's not the problem though."
I could practically see him shifting his weight from one foot to the other and taking off his cap to scratch his head then slapping it back on again. "Spit it out, Skeet. What's up?"
He paused for a couple more seconds, then said, "Well, it was definitely the brake lines, but they didn't fail because they were old. Somebody up and cut 'em, Noelle. Both of them."
I thought back to that glint of sunshine I'd seen and could barely resist the urge to pull all the curtains closed.
"Well, then," I said as Raeann and Shelby stared at me, waiting to hear what was going on. "I guess maybe I oughta call the cops."
"Yeah," he agreed. "I reckon maybe you should. For all the good that'll do."
Chapter 3
I
pushed an errant red curl behind my ear, hoisted a full tray of teas onto my shoulder, and headed for my newest table. It was the kick-off day of the annual Fourth of July cookout at Bobbi Sue's Barbecue, and I was getting my butt handed to me.
It seemed like every one of the twenty-six thousand residents of Keyhole Lake had turned out for the various activities we were hosting throughout the day, and I'd have bet even money every single one of them had asked for at least two refills. Considering it was almost a hundred degrees in the shade, I really couldn't blame them, but that didn't make carrying endless trays back and forth suck any less.
Of course, considering I'd crashed over a mountain the day before, sucking was subjective. I was still riding my I thwarted death high, and there was still a slight rose-colored tint to my glasses. On the other hand, I felt like somebody had beat the crap out of me with a sock full of quarters, so the blush was wearing off pretty quick.
It was only two o'clock. In three hours, we'd gone through fifty gallons of tea, seventy pounds of pulled pork, and forty pounds of coleslaw. And there were still six hours to go until the fireworks started. We were only serving food until six, but most of the locals took the phrase "all you can eat" as a personal challenge.
Georgians do love their barbecue, especially when it's free.
To be fair, like all good southerners, everybody had brought a covered dish. Four long, white, plastic tables groaned under the weight of fried chicken, potato salads, casseroles of every variety, cornbread, rolls, fruit pies, and a rainbow of jiggling desserts shaped like Bundt pans. Then there were the competition peach pies lined up on a table and labeled with numbers, and—I kid you not—guarded by one of Keyhole Lake's Citizen Watch volunteers. They'd be judged by the mayor, the sheriff, and the head of the chamber of commerce later in the afternoon but until then, Lester Casto would make sure things stayed on the up-and-up.
Women around here take their pies seriously, and none of them like to lose any sort of competition. So, when you put the two together, it's confectionery carnage just waiting to happen. Hair-pulling and name-calling were almost as traditional as the contest itself, but the mayor had been accidentally creamed by a paper plate full of baked beans and deviled eggs a few years back when the smack-talking got out of hand, so now there was a strict moratorium on speaking during the competition. That didn't prevent silent gestures, but it did curb most of the overt animosity—or at least kept it at the non-verbal, non-violent level.
Fourth of July fell on a Friday that year, so it coincided with Keyhole Lake's annual BBQ competition. People came from all over the state to participate and Bobbi Sue hosted it, so that meant I had another two days to go before I could really slow down. It'd be good money, but I was beginning to wonder if there was enough Advil on the planet to get me through it.
With a smile and a little friendly bantering along the way, I delivered my tray of drinks and took orders for the next rounds as I went. As I worked my way back to the kitchen, I filled my tray with empties and scanned the buffet table to make sure we still had enough meat, slaw, and baked beans to keep the insatiable crowd from rioting.
I bumped the swinging doors that led to the kitchen open with my hip, hollered to Earl—Bobbi Sue's husband and the pit master—that we were about out of slaw, then went back to the storage room to grab more Solo cups. Armed with them and a bulk-store-sized pack of foam plates, I headed back to the madness.
I'd just filled my umpteenth tray of tea and lifted it when somebody called out my name. I cringed as I recognized the entitled, domineering bark of Hank Doolittle—Keyhole Lake's crooked sheriff, self-appointed overlord, and the bane of my existence.
I heaved a sigh and pasted a smile on my face before I turned around to see what fresh hell he'd decided to dump on me today. His presence alone was enough, but it was a sure bet he wouldn't just go for passive torture. Anna Mae, his pretty blonde wife, was getting something from the buffet, so he was sitting at a table alone, beer gut hanging over his jeans and elbows hooked over the back of his chair. He rolled a toothpick back and forth between his fleshy lips in a way that he no doubt thought was sexy. I stifled a disgusted shiver as he openly ogled my boobs and legs.
"Hey, Hank," I sighed, resigned. "What can I get for you?"
"Well now, I'm glad you asked. I understand you've decided to keep the farm." He paused and looked at me like he was picturing me naked. "Nice of Adelaide to leave you that place when she passed. I was going over the county property appraisals and noticed the farm was significantly under-appraised when it went through probate." He paused long enough for that to settle in. "I had Peggy Sue send you a copy of the new appraisal, along with a bill for the remainder of the balance. It's going to be tough to come up with all that on a waitress's salary. Sure would be a shame for it to go on the auction block. My offer to take it off your hands still stands. Course, I'll have to drop the offering price a bit now that I know it may go for taxes."
I narrowed my eyes at him; he and several other parties had made me offers on my property in the months since Aunt Addy died, but I wasn’t interested in selling so much as an acre of it. I'd made that abundantly clear, but was apparently going to have to hit him with an axe handle to get it to sink into his thick, good-for-nothin' skull. "Hank Doolittle, you know good and well those inheritance taxes were already double what my place is worth, but I paid 'em fair and square. I'm not selling out to you or anybody else."
Hank just smirked at me and stuffed a huge forkful of pulled pork into his mouth. Since I'd used up my weekly portion of luck by not dying the day before, I supposed it was gluttonous of me to hope he choked.
Speaking around the food, he said, "I'm sure sorry you feel that way, Noelle. I heard you filed a report about some brake trouble yesterday. May want to take better care of that truck, being all independent the way you are. It would be a shame if something happened to you."
He swallowed and his tongue darted out to lick his lips. Despite his efforts, a blob of sauce still clung to the corner of his mouth.
"I'm also concerned about how you're having a hard time keeping Shelby in hand. She's just runnin' wild all over the county while you're working all these hours. Just the other night, my deputy caught her and some other kids partying down at the quarry. Dangerous down there.” He paused and tilted his head. “I'd hate to see her get hurt."
A hot bolt of rage shot through me, and the teas on my
tray started to vibrate.
Breathe, Noelle. The last thing I needed was for my temper to get the better of me. I was already under close scrutiny by the Council of Witches because of Shelby's unique situation and her complete refusal to even attempt to walk the chalk. I didn't need trouble with local cops too—especially this one. Still, I couldn't resist closing my fist at my side, imagining it was his windpipe in my hand.
He gasped and choked. Careful to keep the smile on my face, I balanced my tray and leaned a little closer to him so that he was the only one who could hear me. "If I were you, Hank, I'd be careful who I went around threatening. One of these days, you're gonna bite off more than you can chew."
I opened my hand, releasing the spell, and slapped him on the back as Anna Mae approached. He glared at me, confused and gasping. There had been rumors going around Keyhole about our family for so many years that it was pretty much a given everybody thought I was a witch. Most of ’em just didn’t know for sure they were right.
Loathing tinged with a touch of fear glittered in Hank’s rat-like eyes. Anna Mae sat down across from him and smiled at me, oblivious to what was going on.
I smiled back.
"Hey, Noelle!” she said. “How you doin' sugar? I haven't seen you for ages. How are things out at the farm? I sure was sorry to hear about Ms. Adelaide passing, but I was glad to hear she left the place to you. You deserve it, and it'll be good for Shelby to be able to stay in the house."
I had no idea why such a truly good person as Anna Mae stayed with the likes of Hank. It was no secret there was no love lost between the two of them, but I supposed she had her reasons. I set a couple of fresh teas on the table and straightened, carefully stepping away from Hank and re-balancing the tray so the remainder of the teas were centered.
