That Old Witch!: The Coffee Coven's Cozy Capers: Book 1

by M. Z. Andrews

  Char’s eyes widened, as did Phyllis’s.

  “Stole your book? What book?” asked Phyllis.

  “You know what book, don’t play dumb with me,” barked Loni.

  “Are you talking about the spell book that Sorceress Halliwell gave us for graduation?” asked Char.

  “Damn right I’m talking about that spell book!” hollered Loni in a huff. “What other book would have torn us apart all those years ago?”

  “You’re talking about the book that you stole?” clarified Char.

  “That we stole?” asked Loni, pointing at herself curiously.

  “Yes, that you stole!”

  “We didn’t steal the spell book,” said Gwyn from the other side of the room.

  “Of course you did. Don’t try and deny it,” said Phyllis, pointing at both her and Loni. “I’m surprised Kat was even speaking to the two of you thieves.”

  “You were the ones that stole the book,” said Gwyn calmly.

  Char made a face. “Who told you that we stole the book?”

  “Kat told me!” said Loni.

  “Kat? Kat told me that you two took the book and refused to give it back,” said Char.

  Gwyn shook her head. “I would never do something like that!”

  Phyllis laughed. “Oh, you can quit the goody-two-shoes act, Gwyndolin Prescott. We all know you have an ornery streak in you a mile wide and a football field deep.”

  Gwyn’s back stiffened. “Well, so do you two!” she snapped back.

  “That’s why we made such good friends in the first place!” said Char. “And to think it was all ruined because the two of you were so selfish.”

  Loni lowered her eyebrows. “Katherine Lynde told me that you and Phyllis took that book. Gwyn and I did not take the book.”

  Phyllis frowned at her. “I don’t believe you,” she said bluntly. “Kat wouldn’t have lied to us for all those years.”

  “I don’t think she would have lied to us either,” said Gwyn loudly. “That’s why I don’t believe you!”

  Just then they heard the shuffling of feet coming down a hallway, followed by a steady thud as Hazel’s cane tapped along the floor. She stopped to pause in front of Gwyn and pointed her finger up at her. “Believe them. They’re telling the truth,” she said to her daughter. “They don’t have the book.”

  Gwyn sucked in her breath. “Mom, y—you read their minds?”

  “No, it was written on the bathroom wall,” she snapped.

  Gwyn looked down at her mother, horrified.

  “Of course I read their minds!”

  “Your mother reads minds?” asked Phyllis skeptically.

  Gwyn nodded. “It’s one of her favorite gifts. Makes her a lot of money at poker.”

  Char walked towards the little old lady. “And we’re just supposed to believe that your daughter and Loni don’t have the book either?”

  Hazel nodded. “My daughter doesn’t have the book. If she did, I’d tell you. It’s no skin off my wrinkled old butt.”

  “What about Loni?” asked Char.

  Hazel glanced at Loni.

  Loni stared back at her. Her pop-bottle eye wear reflected the kitchen light off the glass, giving her a vacant expression.

  Hazel shook her head. “I’m not going in that fun house. I may never get back out!”

  Gwyn sighed. “Please, Mother.”

  Hazel looked at Loni again and after a beat replied, “She doesn’t have the book.”

  “So you’re just expecting us to believe your mother?” Char asked Gwyn with a raised lip.

  Hazel looked at Loni again. “Look at her. You have to be sane to lie. Does that look like the face of a sane woman?”

  Everyone stared at Loni. Finally, Char narrowed her eyes at Hazel. “Prove yourself. What am I thinking?”

  Hazel squinted her eyes and ground one of her fingers into the side of her temple and pretended to be in deep thought. “You wish I was your mother.” Hazel threw her hands into the air. “Too bad, so sad.” She smiled a dentured smile at the women.

  Char frowned. “Try again.”

  “You were thinking if they don’t have the book and we don’t have the book, then who has the book?” said Hazel flippantly.

  “That was obvious,” said Char.

  “Not my fault you don’t have an original thought in that puffy white head of yours.”

  “You really don’t have the book?” Phyllis asked Gwyn, staring at her closely.

  “We really don’t have the book.” Gwyn’s words came out genuine.

  Char suddenly wondered what had truly happened to the book that had torn them all apart all those years ago. The realization that their lifelong feud had all been based on a lie was shocking.

  Loni hopped up on a stool in the kitchen. “What exactly did Kat tell you two?”

  Char leaned against the doorjamb to the dining room. “A million years ago, I mentioned to her that it was my turn to borrow the book. I asked her if she knew who had it because I thought she’d had it first,” she began. She took a deep breath and continued, “She said that she’d given the book to you, Loni. I thought, fine; I’ll wait awhile and let Loni have her turn, and I’ll ask for it then. So I waited six months, and I happened to stop over to Kat’s house to visit her, and she said she’d asked Loni for the book back so she could give it to me, but Loni had sent it to Gwyn.”

  Gwyn furrowed her eyebrows. “Loni never sent me the book!”

  “That’s because I never had the book!” shouted Loni.

  “So Kat just lied about it?” asked Char.

  “That old witch!” breathed Phyllis. “What did she tell you girls?”

  “Basically the same thing,” said Loni. “I’d asked her to run over to Char’s place one time and see if I could use it, and she came back and said that Char had sent the book to you and that the two of you were just going to keep it for yourselves.”

  Phyllis shook her head. “I never got the book either. Not even once!”

  “This is shocking to me that Kat’s lied to us all those years,” said Gwyn. “So did she keep the book for herself?”

  “She had to have. She wouldn’t have given it away,” said Char. “It’s too valuable.”

  A lightbulb went on in Phyllis’s head. “That’s why she gave us the house and all its contents. I bet the spell book is in this house.”

  “And she didn’t want us to sell it until we found the book!” said Gwyn as a slow smile spread across her face.

  The pieces of the puzzle were all starting to come together in Char’s mind. “I bet forcing us all to be in the same place at the same time was also part of her plan to reunite us and allow the truth to come out!”

  “To think! We missed out on being friends for decades just because of Kat’s lie!” sighed Gwyn. “How terribly sad is that? I’ve missed you girls so much.”

  “Oh, I’ve missed you all too,” said Char, holding her hands out wide. “Bring it in, girls.” Gwyn was the first to go in for the hug, and then Char waved Phyllis in. “Come on, Phil.”

  Phyllis, who wasn’t much for displays of affection, grudgingly joined the hug. Gwyn looked back at Loni, who had remained seated on the stool. “You too, Lon.”

  “I don’t do hugs,” she barked gruffly.

  “Well, I do,” said Gwyn. She reached out and pulled Loni off the stool and into the hug.

  “It’s been way too long, girls,” said Char, leaning her head on theirs. “I’m so glad we’re back together now!”

  From behind them, Hazel crossed her arms across her chest and harrumphed.

  Char cast a glance over her shoulder. “With Kat gone, we’re missing our fifth member of the group. Whatever will we do?” she said loudly.

  Hazel lifted her eyes to the ceiling and pretended she hadn’t heard that question.

  Phyllis nodded. “We definitely need a fifth if we’re going to be any kind of good witch’s coven. Doesn’t anyone know a witch that might want to be part of a fun witch’s co
ven?”

  The women could see Hazel look at them out of the sides of her eyes.

  “Oh!” said Loni. “I know of someone. But she tells it like it is. We’d have to be willing to accept her for who she is.”

  “I’m willing,” said Char. “How about you, Gwyn?”

  A big, brilliant smile covered Gwyn’s face. “I’m more than willing!”

  “Hazel? We’re looking for a fifth member of our witch’s coven. Would you be willing to join us?” asked Loni.

  “Eh?” hollered Hazel, cupping her ear.

  “You want to be the fifth member of our witch’s coven?” shouted Loni.

  Hazel thought about it for a second. “What’s in it for me?” she asked.

  “You get to have all the fun you want when we’re around,” said Loni.

  Hazel’s eyes widened with interest as she glanced up at her daughter. “All the fun I want?”

  “Within reason, of course,” began Gwyn tentatively. She glanced around at the faces of her friends as they groaned.

  “Come on, Gwyn, lighten up on her when she’s with us,” sighed Phyllis.

  “I just don’t want her to be rude to you…”

  Char smiled. “We’re tough old witches. We can handle it.”

  Gwyn looked down at her mother. “You’re sure? What if she runs off?”

  “Then we’ll hunt her down together,” said Phyllis.

  Hazel eyed her daughter with one raised eyebrow. “What do you say, Gwynnie?”

  All four women looked up at Gwyn expectantly. Finally, she sighed. “Fine, all the fun you want,” she relented.

  The oldest woman in the room smiled from ear to ear as she brought it in for a hug. “Deal!”

  11

  Gwyn’s eyelashes batted as she stared down at the fingers she’d knitted together in front of her. “So now that we’re friends again, what do we do?” she asked the group. She couldn’t help but think that there should be more. After all these years, their coven was finally reunited, and it felt a little flat. Like something was missing.

  Kat’s missing, said a tiny voice inside her head. She grimaced. Even though she hadn’t seen Kat in years, just knowing that her dear friend was only a phone call away had meant a lot to her. Gwyn knew having Kat only a phone call away had meant a lot to Loni too. It was still hard for Gwyn to wrap her mind around the fact that Kat had been the one to steal their book all those years ago and had been the cause of a destroyed friendship with the rest of the girls. While there was shock and surprise, Gwyn was finding it difficult to be mad at Kat. Could a person really be mad at a dead woman? Did she want to hold that grudge for the rest of her days?

  She glanced over at her mother and pictured the broad smile she’d flashed only moments ago. How sweet it had been for the girls to include her mother in their coven. Gwyn swallowed hard as she thought about loosening the reins on her mother. Was it so wrong of Gwyn to want to protect her mother? It was just that she was always so quick to get into trouble. What if something horrible ever happened to her? What would she do without her? She shoved her thoughts aside as Phyllis responded to her question.

  “What do we do? About our friendship?”

  “No, about this house!” said Gwyn. “Kat left us this house for a reason.”

  “She left us the house because she wanted us to be friends again. Her plan worked,” said Char dusting her hands off in front of her. “Case closed.”

  “No, I get what Gwyn’s talking about,” said Phyllis. “She feels like there’s more to Kat leaving us the house than just reuniting us. Am I right?”

  Gwyn leaned inward. “Absolutely. There has to be more. We couldn’t have gone through all those years for nothing, could we?”

  “She had the book. She wanted us to find it,” said Loni knowingly. “She wants to give it back to us.”

  Char lifted her brows and let out a heavy sigh. “You might be right. And we want to find it. So do we just start looking?”

  Gwyn’s eyes swept the room, scanning the centuries-old house—the overabundance of furniture, the excess trinkets, and the multitude of hiding spaces. “I think that’s exactly what we do. That book has got to be in this house somewhere. We just need to look.”

  “This is a huge house,” said Phyllis. “It could take us weeks to go through it all!”

  “Not if we split up,” suggested Gwyn. She felt her ability to organize kicking in. It would be just another project, and Gwyn excelled at projects.

  Char nodded. “Gwyn’s right. We split up the house and we’ll find it faster.”

  The nods of agreement around the room emboldened Gwyn. Her eyes lit up as she started passing out marching orders. “Phyllis, you take the basement. Mom and I will take the first floor because stairs are hard on her knees.”

  “I’ll take the third floor,” volunteered Char with a little wave of her hand. “I’m probably in the best shape here. I walk every day, some days twice a day. Stairs don’t bother me a bit.”

  “So I guess I’m taking the second floor, then?” asked Loni. “Who wants to take the turrets?”

  “Tourette’s?” cracked Hazel with a hand to her ear. “Who’s got Tourette’s?”

  “Not Tourette’s, Mom, turrets,” Gwyn shouted.

  Hazel’s eyes opened wider. “Oh.” She formed a circle with her mouth. “I thought maybe we had a screamer in the group,” she said with an open-mouthed cackle.

  “I’ll climb up there when I’m done with the third floor,” said Char.

  “If I get done with the basement, I’ll come up and help you,” offered Phyllis.

  “Alright. If anyone finds anything, holler!” said Gwyn, smiling ear to ear. Nothing made her happier than having a plan when it came to starting a project.

  Phyllis, Char, and Loni all went their separate ways while Gwyn and Hazel stayed behind.

  “Well. Where do we start?” asked Gwyn, looking around.

  “I’m going to start in the living room. On the recliner,” said Hazel as she hobbled away.

  Gwyn sighed and followed her mother to the living room, where a recliner sat invitingly in a corner with a burgundy chenille blanket slung over the cushioned back rest. What she wouldn’t give to be taking a nap in that cozy chair right about now. “I guess I’ll be checking the main floor by myself, then, huh?” she asked as her mother settled herself into the chair.

  Hazel pulled the wooden handle, extended her feet, and closed her eyes. “Wake me in an hour, Gwynnie.”

  “So much for the fifth member of the coven,” murmured Gwyn as she shut the living room light off and turned on a dim lamp in the opposite corner of the room. “I guess I’ll be checking the living room last.”

  Hours later, the sunshine that had poured in through the windows earlier was long gone. In its place, oversized pieces of furniture cast long shadows on the carpet and across the hardwood floor in the foyer. Phyllis had no sooner come up from the basement than Loni came down from the second floor. Both of them wore long faces and immediately fell onto the sofa in the living room.

  Seated at the base of a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf in the living room, Gwyn rubbed her lower back. Her spine ached from leaning over the pile of books in front of her for so long. She wished she’d thought to throw some ibuprofen in her purse before they’d left the retirement village.

  “Did either of you find anything?” she asked as she moved book after book to a new pile, verifying each wasn’t the book they were looking for.

  Hazel sat behind her, paging through an old issue of People magazine. “Did you know that George Clooney has finally become a father?” she asked the group. “He’s fifty-six years old! Imagine a woman having a baby at fifty-six. People would say she was being selfish and call her a geriatric mother. But not men,” she chided. “A man has a baby at fifty-six, and they throw him a party!”

  “I see you’re working hard,” said Loni.

  “Eh?” asked Hazel, squinting one eye shut and looking at Loni curiously.

&n
bsp; Loni waved a hand in front of her face. “Never mind,” she sighed. She looked at Gwyn and Phyllis. “I didn’t find anything, and I looked everywhere.”

  Phyllis nodded. “Me too. I went through every box, every nook and cranny. Nothing. The book wasn’t down there.”

  They all looked at Gwyn.

  “I’ve gone through all her cupboards, her drawers, and her closets. Anywhere a book could fit, I checked. I just have this bookshelf to finish going through. I didn’t readily see it, but I’m still checking all the books to make sure that she didn’t put a false cover on it or something.”

  “Good idea,” said Phyllis with a nod. “Maybe I’ll go upstairs and see if Char could use a hand.”

  “Loni, you want to help me finish looking through these books?” asked Gwyn.

  “Sure,” she said just as Char came trudging down the stairs.

  “Well, I’m bushed,” she groaned, falling onto the sofa in the living room next to Phyllis.

  “I take it you didn’t find anything?” asked Loni.

  Char shook her head. “Not a single inkling of that book.”

  “You checked the turrets?”

  “Yes! I checked there first. That’s where Kat did her spells. She’s got a casting circle up there, and all her candles and potion ingredients. Really and truly, if that book were to be anywhere in this house, it should have been up there. She even had a book stand, but it was empty. I thought I was going to go up there, find the book, and come right back down.”

  “That’s so strange that it wasn’t up there, then,” said Gwyn, a frown flitting across her face. “I just have to finish checking this bookshelf. Otherwise, we’ve all checked everywhere else.”

  Char shook her head. “You’re not going to find it on the bookshelf,” she said. “Kat wouldn’t want it out in plain sight like this. What if I came over and saw it?”

  “I’m checking the books to make sure the insides are what the outsides say they are,” explained Gwyn. “I’m almost done. If we all go through them together, we’ll get done a lot faster.”

  Char sighed but sat up in her seat. “Pass me a stack.”