After Gwyn pulled the door shut behind them and double-checked the lock, the two women took off down the hallway. Just as they rounded the long corridor towards the meeting hall, they ran into a man in an all-black outfit with a white collar. He was tucking a Bible into a black messenger bag slung across his chest. Gwyn had met him the day before, when he’d stopped in to visit the facilities director.
“Oh, Father Donovan. It’s nice to see you. What are you doing here this late at night?” asked Gwyn as she stuck her keys in her purse.
He stopped when he heard her voice. “Gwyndolin, Hazel, hello,” he said with a pleasant smile. As the two women continued walking, Father Donovan walked with them. “One of the residents is sick. Her family asked that I stop in and pray over her. I just came from her room. The poor thing has pneumonia.”
“Oh,” said Gwyn, the single word coming out as a heavy sigh of disappointment. “I hadn’t heard we had a sick resident. I’ll make it a point to stop in there tomorrow.”
“How are the two of you adjusting to life in Aspen Falls?”
Gwyn smiled broadly at him. “We’re adjusting well. Everyone’s been very friendly.”
Hazel wrinkled her nose. “There’s not much action,” she complained.
He chuckled. “It does seem to be a pretty sleepy town. Not that I would know well enough to say. I’m actually from another parish. Father Bernie is on a retreat. I’m just covering for him for a few more weeks. Where are you two headed this evening?” he asked, looking at his watch.
Gwyn smiled at him. “I’m taking a group of the residents to the Falls Festival for a night walk. Would you like to join us?”
He patted her gently on the shoulder. “Oh, I’d love to, but I’ve been invited to have supper with one of my parishioners, and I’m already running a little behind.”
Gwyn smiled at him pleasantly. “Well, we won’t keep you. It was very nice seeing you again.”
“You as well,” he said before starting down the corridor towards the parking lot. Then he stopped and looked back at them. “Oh, and ladies—be careful out there tonight. I don’t know if you know much about the history of Aspen Falls, but it”—his eyes glanced off in both directions—“it’s a paranormal community—lots of witches and wizards. Satanic rituals and cults and things. Very, very dangerous. I hope you’ll be extra cautious,” he whispered sternly. Then he took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “This town should really do something about that, but it is what it is.”
Gwyn’s head reared back, as did Hazel’s. She could feel the anger welling up inside of her. She didn’t practice satanic rituals! And she most certainly wasn’t dangerous! What a horrific thing to say about witches! Her mind, though, drew a blank as she tried to think of how to respond to such a hateful thing to say.
He gave both of the women a little wave and began to walk away without realizing how insulting his comments had just been. Hazel held up a finger before hobbling after him at full speed, which was almost as fast as the line at the DMV.
Gwyn had to reel her in. “Hold on, Mother. There’s nothing you can do about people like that. They don’t know how spiritual witches really are. They don’t understand that we commune with nature and our inner spirits. They can’t comprehend that good witches don’t do black magic and satanic rituals. It’s sad, really. But it’s attitudes like that that get witches killed.”
“You don’t have to tell me. Tell that guy!” sputtered Hazel. “How they can call themselves men of the cloth and be that narrow-minded, I’ll never understand.”
“Me either,” said Gwyn sadly. She’d run into far too many narrow-minded people like him over the years, and every time, without fail, she’d faltered on how to react. A bit flustered, she reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone. “I’m going to call Char and Phyllis and let them know we’re ready.”
“Are they walking from here with us?”
“Yes, they said they wanted to, and quite honestly I could use the extra help,” said Gwyn as they rounded the corner to the meeting hall. No sooner had Gwyn dialed Char’s number than they saw Char and Phyllis standing in the lobby with a strange-looking short man and a Chihuahua wearing sneakers. “Oh, they’re already here!”
“Who’s the short guy?” Hazel muttered out of the side of her mouth.
“I have no idea,” Gwyn whispered back. With a broad smile on her face, Gwyn greeted the group energetically. “Hello, girls! Are we all ready?”
“Sure are,” said Char. “I hope you don’t mind I brought along my hu—my dog.” She looked around at the rest of the senior citizens quietly mulling around the meeting hall, waiting for the rest of the group to gather.
Gwyn took in a breath and squatted down in front of the dog. She loved dogs and was excited to meet Char’s. She scratched his chin. “I don’t mind a bit! What a cute puppy. What’s his name?”
“Oh, uh, his name is Vic,” stammered Char.
Gwyn stood up and cocked her head to the side. “Isn’t that your husband’s name?”
Char swallowed hard and nodded her head uncomfortably. “We named the dog after my husband.”
Gwyn looked at her curiously but didn’t say anything. Some people named their children after their husbands; perhaps it wasn’t entirely weird to name your dog after him, too? “I see. Well, it’s nice to meet you, Vic,” she said, smiling down at the little dog, who almost seemed to smile back at her. Gwyn pushed the thought aside. Dogs don’t smile. “Speaking of your husband…” She turned her attention to the short man standing next to the women. He was a peculiar-looking man with an oddly tanned face that shone in the light, giving his skin an almost rubbery appearance. He wore black round glasses, a top hat, dark baggy denim trousers, and a black trenchcoat that swept the ground as he moved. She cleared her throat. “Is this him?”
“Your husband is a George Hamilton impersonator?” asked Hazel, bringing light to the elephant in the room.
Char’s eyes widened. “Vic? Oh, heaven’s no, this isn’t my husband!” She couldn’t help but laugh. Her eyes glanced down at the dog and then back up at Gwyn and Hazel. “I decided to leave my husband at home. He wasn’t quite feeling up to a walk.”
Gwyn lifted her eyebrows. “Oh! Well, then, who do we have here?” she asked, turning her face towards the unusual man.
“Oh,” snickered Phyllis. “You don’t recognize our old friend, Loni?”
Gwyn’s jaw dropped, and her eyes widened as she stared at the small person. “Loni! Is that really you?” she whisper-hissed.
Loni’s head bobbed up and down, but she didn’t say anything, lest someone hear her voice and realize she wasn’t really a pint-sized weird-looking man.
Hazel threw an arm up in the air. “Well, now I’ve seen it all!” She looked at her daughter. “These are the people I sent you to college to meet? You couldn’t have picked a few normal witches?”
Gwyn swatted the air. “Oh, Mother,” she breathed with a small chuckle. Then she looked at Char and Phyllis curiously. “How’d you get Loni to come?”
“We got to thinking about it this morning and decided you were right. It’s not healthy for Loni to stay all cooped up in her house. So we went over there after you left to go back to work this afternoon,” explained Char.
“We promised her we’d make her an amazing costume,” added Phyllis.
Char rolled her eyes. “And we had to pick her up in the alley and zigzag through back roads to make sure we weren’t being followed.”
Gwyn nodded, still stunned. “It is pretty amazing. Is this a plastic mask?” She looked around, and when it seemed no one was looking, she touched Loni’s face.
“It’s silicone,” said Char. “My ex-husband bought it for a Halloween party we hosted years and years ago. Back when George Hamilton was the ‘it’ guy.”
“It’s actually really good,” said Gwyn with a chuckle. “You look like a man, Lon.”
“A strange man,” snapped Hazel. “No one’s going to buy it.”<
br />
Phyllis pooh-poohed Hazel’s negativity. “No one’s going to notice anything. It’s dark outside. She’ll just blend into all the activity.”
“Don’t you mean, he will just blend into all the activity?” asked Gwyn with a little giggle.
Phyllis pointed at her. “Exactly. Are we ready?”
“Let me get my group rounded up. Why don’t you girls just wait for us outside?”
16
It felt so good to breathe in the fresh, cool evening air and to be surrounded by friends and family that Gwyn practically skipped her senior citizen group all the way to the Falls Festival. She’d hated the fact that her mother had gotten them kicked out of Scottsdale Manor, but it was almost as if fate had done that for a reason now. She felt like she was where she was supposed to be.
Gwyn glanced over her shoulder at Loni and Hazel, who walked side by side, visiting like old friends. To her right, Char chatted with Eliza Emerson, a Village resident, and several steps behind her Phyllis kept Frank Dodson company. Just to see them all together and so happy, a feeling of contentment settled over her. This felt good! She wanted to squeal and tell the girls and her mother how much she loved them all, but she didn’t want to lose her composure in front of her residents. She’d tell them later, when they were alone. They all needed to know how much they meant to her. Kat’s untimely death and the fact that Gwyn had never gotten a chance to say goodbye hadn’t been lost on her. Gwyn was going to make it a point to tell those she loved how important they were to her on a more frequent basis.
Gwyn had felt the low rumble of bass in her body before she’d even stepped foot outside of The Village. Now that they were getting closer, she could make out the distinct sounds of the instruments. The piano and the sax had her wanting to dance. The drums had her snapping her fingers in time with the music. The creamy smooth voice that poured out of the speakers and reverberated off the buildings was simply another instrument, one that blended with the music, but Gwyn couldn’t understand the words. As they walked towards the Falls, people from all over parked their cars down side streets, and little by little The Village group was joined by people from everywhere, like a slow-moving flood headed towards the festival.
As they moved closer to the central part of downtown Aspen Falls, Gwyn could hear the Falls, a waterfall in the center of town. The town had been built around the magnificent natural feature, and tonight they’d lit it up with colorful lights and set the band up on the wide bridge that spanned the river that ran through town.
“Oh, it’s beautiful!” gushed Gwyn as the group wound their way through the crowd to the waterfall. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen it at night!”
And then like sleigh bells in the sky, giggling could be heard from above. Gwyn looked up to see four broomsticks flying in from the north. Her face lit up. Oh, to ride a broomstick again! It had been years since she’d ridden a broomstick. Yes, she was a witch, and Hazel was a witch, but they didn’t use their abilities like they had when they were younger. It was almost as if they’d both grown too old for witchcraft and their abilities had weakened with age just like their bodies had.
“Oh, girls, come here, I’d like you to meet some people.” Phyllis tugged on Gwyn’s arm.
Gwyn swung her eyes back to look at the two handfuls of senior citizens she’d brought to the festival. “Oh, Phil, I really shouldn’t leave my group. I don’t want us all to get separated.”
Phyllis nodded. “Don’t move, I’ll bring them to you, then,” she announced before disappearing into the crowd.
Gwyn turned around to face her residents and discovered several of them had gotten into the groove and started dancing. Even Char was dancing with her dog! The energy in the air was lively and felt contagious, and with Loni keeping Hazel occupied, she felt free and younger than she had in years. A smile crept across her face, and her shoulders relaxed slightly. What a great feeling!
Suddenly, she felt a tap on the shoulder. “Good evening, Gwyn,” said a man’s voice from behind.
Gwyn spun around to see Sergeant Bradshaw standing behind her. He looked quite dapper in a tweed sports coat over a plaid button-down shirt and a newsboy cap. He flashed her a brilliant smile. “It’s so lovely to see you out enjoying the festivities this evening.”
Gwyn smiled at him and suddenly felt self-conscious. She’d felt so old when she’d looked in the mirror earlier, and now this incredibly attractive man was smiling ear to ear at her. She tugged at the ends of her hair, wishing she’d had time for a trim.
“Hello, Sergeant Bradshaw. It’s so nice to see you. Are you here alone?” she asked, working fiercely to keep it together.
He moved the beverage he carried from one hand to the other hand and pulled up his sleeve, revealing a tattoo on his forearm that Gwyn guessed had come from his days in the military.
“Sort of,” he admitted with a smile. “I was persuaded to come by my daughter, Elena.” He looked around. “But now she’s nowhere to be found. We ran across some old classmates of hers, and she ditched me, I’m afraid. How about you?”
Gwyn tipped her head backwards towards the girls and her residents. “I brought a group of my senior residents on a night walk,” she said. “Of course I brought my mother along, and Char and Phyllis decided to join us, too.”
He looked back towards the group of people who chatted together in a big group just behind Gwyn. “That was a great idea to bring your group down here. It’s such a perfect evening. Isn’t the band terrific?”
Gwyn’s head bounced on her shoulders in an emphatic nod. “They are wonderful. They make me want to dance.”
His eyes lit up then. He held a hand out to her. “I love to dance. Would you like to join me?”
A little flutter of excitement bubbled up in Gwyn’s chest. It had been years since she’d danced with a man. Her girls’ father hadn’t been one for dancing, and after they’d split up, she’d been too busy mothering them on her own to find a new dance partner. Then she’d moved in with her mother, and there had hardly been a single day when she’d had time for herself, let alone the time to find a man.
Gwyn worked hard not to look overly eager, blinking hard to keep her smile at bay. “Umm, you don’t think your wife would mind?” she asked coyly.
His jovial smile broadened even further, if that were possible, and Gwyn thought she caught a bit of a twinkle in his eye. “Gwyn, I wouldn’t have asked you to dance if there were a Mrs. Bradshaw in the picture. I’m a one-woman kind of man.”
Her heart nearly shot out of her chest after that, and she found herself almost unable to form a complete sentence.
His face sobered a bit. “Though, perhaps there’s a Mr. Prescott in the picture I should be concerned about? I just assumed that since you had the same last name as your mother, perhaps—”
“No, no. You were right. There’s no Mr. Prescott,” said Gwyn, cutting him off. “I’d love to dance with you. Just let me make sure the girls will keep an eye on my mother.”
He squeezed her hand. “Hurry back, now. I don’t want to miss the rest of this song.”
Gwyn turned her back to Sergeant Bradshaw and rejoined her group. Char and her dog, she discovered, had been watching them with keen interest.
“Oh, Gwynnie, you’re leaving the sergeant already?” asked Char with a frown. “I thought maybe you were going to dance with him!”
Gwyn smiled shyly as she nodded. “I am going to dance with him,” she admitted. “I just wanted to make sure you’ll keep an eye on all of my residents for me.”
With her dog in her arms, Char smiled from ear to ear. “Absolutely! Now get out there and shake your stuff!”
“You’ll keep a close eye on Mom?” Gwyn clarified.
The three of them looked at Hazel, who stood only a few feet away with Loni. Neither of them could hear a single thing that was going on over the music, but together they swayed in time with the beat. Gwyn smiled at the sight of her mother dancing with a mini George Hamilton. It made her want t
o squeal happily. They were both having a fun night.
Char waved a hand at Gwyn. “Haze isn’t going anywhere, you go have some fun,” she hollered.
Gwyn beamed at her. “Thanks, Char, I owe you one!”
She returned to Sergeant Bradshaw, who took her hand almost immediately. “Shall we?”
Gwyn wanted to giggle out an excited and emphatic YES! Instead, she merely nodded her head and let him lead her away from the crowd standing around and into the area where couples were spinning each other around to the old Fats Domino song, “I’m Walking.”
On the dance floor, Gwyn and Sergeant Bradshaw barely stopped moving once during the entire song, and she discovered the two of them laughing through most of it. His movements were intuitive and rhythmic. She couldn’t believe she was able to keep up with him. When the song ended, Gwyn found herself nearly out of breath. Perhaps he was winded too, but if he was, he kept that to himself.
Gwyn didn’t even notice until they were back near the rest of the crowd that Sergeant Bradshaw still kept a tight hold of her hand. He stopped several feet short of their little senior group and turned to face her. The crowd, which seemed to ebb and flow in time to the follow-up song, smashed the two of them together immediately.
With their chests pressed against each other and his mouth just above her ear, he couldn’t help but chuckle. “That was fun,” he said. The scratchy stubble on his cheek touched her temple when he spoke, and the warmth of his words trickled down Gwyn’s exposed neck. Goose bumps crawled across her arms.
She looked up at him and gave him a shy smile. “It was fun. I haven’t danced in years,” she admitted.
“Neither have I.” He looked down at her.
With his silvery-blue eyes interlocked on her own blue eyes for several long seconds, Gwyn half-wondered if he felt the same sudden urge to taste her lips as she felt to taste his.
She’d never know, because a second later, Phyllis approached, dragging a young woman along by the arm.
That Old Witch!: The Coffee Coven's Cozy Capers: Book 1 Page 13
