“It’s a shame that they kicked you all off the committee, too,” Whinny continued. “Ignorant hussies.”
Liza chuckled over Whinny’s terminology. It was something Nana Bud would’ve said.
“It bothers me as well. I’m just trying not to let it show,” Liza said.
“I’d call and complain to the chair, make them give you the job back,” Whinny said. “Kind of hard to do when the chair is in intensive care, hooked up to a bunch of tubes. Seems a little disrespectful.”
“It’s okay,” Liza told her. “I’ve got my hands full with the business, and with Bryar herself.”
Liza wasn’t yet ready to talk about how hurt her feelings were, how badly the act of rejection of the town towards Bryar had bothered her. Bryar had briefly presented the idea of a revenge spell, but since they were accusing her of making the town sick to start with, such a spell felt counterproductive.
“Hey Liza!” Filly called from three rows over. “What say you pick up these bags, do a little ‘whoo whoo’ and dump them all out for us? Then we can have ourselves a nice stiff one!”
“Stiff one,” Liza could hear Bryar giggle from the row behind her. She rolled her eyes.
“That’s out of my range of abilities,” Liza called back. “They’re too heavy. I’d be more likely to dump them all on our heads!”
“Bryar Rose?” The hopeful note in Filly’s voice had her mother laughing.
“Sorry, doll,” Bryar said with a strain. “Lize is the one who’s good at moving stuff. I just read minds.”
“Yeah, well, read mine now,” Filly grumbled.
“I could, but I don’t think you’d want your mother to hear that kind of language.”
They all laughed together and were still chuckling when Colt rode by on the four wheeler.
“Hey,” Liza said when he pulled up behind her. “How come you get to ride the thingie and we have to work? That doesn’t seem fair. I want to ride the thingie.”
“I’ll let you ride the–” His words were cut short when he remembered his mother’s presence. “Sorry. I was just going up to check on Bridle. She wasn’t feeling well today.”
Liza nodded. “Let me know if she needs anything. That I can handle.”
Bridle’s cancer was in remission but she was still not completely recovered. The treatments had taken a lot out of her. She still got winded when she tried to do too much and was fatigued most of the time. Still, her color was returning, her hair had grown out (Bridle preened before the mirror, certain it was growing back thicker and curlier than before), and she’d regained fifteen of the forty pounds she’d lost.
“Bryar got the chance to leave,” Liza said, turning back to Whinny after Colt zoomed off. She kept her voice low, even though she knew her sister had turned her music back up on her iPod. She could hear her singing Motown behind her. “Someone’s doing a reality show, trying to find the next new stars or whatever. Wants her to produce the album.”
“Sounds like a good opportunity,” Whinny said back. “I’d probably take it if I were here. Get the hell out of dodge.”
Liza nodded her head. “I figured she’d be all over it,” she agreed. “But it just seemed to piss her off.”
“Your sister is a complicated woman,” Whinny sighed. “I have a feeling there is a lot more going on inside of her than any of us realize, maybe even you.”
Liza was not offended. She knew Whinny was right. “You know, Bryar doesn’t do spells and rituals like I do. She’s more of an internal witch. The other night, though, I heard chanting from her room. I know it was wrong it eavesdrop but it made me so happy, happy to see that she wasn’t neglecting her Craft, that I stopped and listened. You know what I was like when I first got here, remember?”
Whinny nodded. Liza had been afraid of who she was, what she was. She certainly didn’t demonstrate any of her skills on a public level. That had changed, mostly thanks to the acceptance she received from Colt and his family–people who could give a rat’s patootie about the witch stuff.
“Well, I thought maybe she was doing a good luck charm or trying to see into her future, you know? Trying to figure out if this new job is one she should take. Then I heard Bridle’s name.”
Whinny paused then, a handful of fertilizer still in her gloved hand. “Yes?”
“She was doing a healing charm for Bridle. I didn’t even realize Bryar had been paying that much attention to her. It takes a lot out of you to do a spell like that. She slept in until 2pm that next day.”
She hadn’t mentioned it to Liza at all, Liza remembered. Just gone on about her evening, when Liza got home, like nothing had happened.
“Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” Whinny said with a smile, water forming in the corners of her eyes. “That’s about one of the nicest things I’ve heard.”
Liza shrugged. “She’s like that, she really is. But you’re right, she needs to take that job. I’ll have another talk with her.”
As Liza moved on down the line, dragging the heavy burlap bag behind her, she heard Bryar behind her, singing along with “These Arms of Mine.” Bryar could sing, she really could.
She’d have a talk with her about the TV show. She’d just make sure she’d plowed her sister with a little wine first. And maybe take her favorite pictures off the wall beforehand, just as a little precaution.
* * *
“WELCOME, EVERYONE, to the first ever Bluevine Family Meeting,” Colt announced, rapping his hand on the table.
“Are we really meant to be here? We’re not related, after all,” Bryar pointed out, pointing at Liza and herself with the Oreo cookie she held.
“You’ve eaten Filly’s cooking,” Mare assured her. “Trust me, you’re family.”
Filly tossed a roll of paper towels at her sister. When Mare ducked, it hit Liza in the head. Without missing a beat, Liza paused the roll in midair and reversed it. Mare ducked again and it hit Filly squarely on the chin.
“You don’t play fair,” Filly giggled, rubbing at her face.
“Children, quiet down.”
“You are a bad influence,” Colt said mock-sternly, pointing at Liza Jane. She smiled serenely and batted her eyelashes.
“So,” he began again. “We are here to talk about what’s going on in town and what we can do about it.”
“So basically the whole town’s mad because they think Bryar Rose is trying to kill them,” Filly said helpfully.
When Mare and Bridle glared at her she ducked her head. “Well, it’s true,” she defended herself in a small voice.
“It is true,” Bryar agreed. “The best thing for me to do is just leave.”
When the sounds of protest, some half-hearted and some legitimate, rose around her, she put her cookie-crumb covered hands in the air and shook her head. “Come on, guys, you know it’s true. I’m a stranger, an outsider. I don’t live here or belong here. We all know my stay here is temporary anyway. If I leave, things will get better.”
“Well, sort of,” Liza concurred, nodding her head. “But you’re forgetting something important here.”
“What’s that?” Filly asked.
“That the town will still be sick and we don’t know why.”
Everyone was quiet, contemplating. Liza had run everything through her mind countless times and just couldn’t come up with anything.
“Liza is right,” Bridle spoke up in the soft way of hers she had. “Unless Bryar really is the one making people drop like flies, her leaving won’t help matters. We have to figure out what’s going on.”
“Hospital is calling it a virus,” Colt said. “Could just be a bad strain of the flu.”
“They tested the folks for flu and they came up negative,” Whinny said. “Even if was a new kind of flu, they should still be able to isolate the strain.”
“What about food poisoning?” Liza asked.
“We have only a handful of restaurants in town and we all eat there, all the time. Wouldn’t more of us be sick as well?” Mare aske
d.
“Government testing?” Filly supplied.
Bryar smiled. “I was kind of thinking the same thing, only on a smaller scale. What about the air?”
“Or the water,” Filly said. “Something could be in the water.”
“We get our water from the Estill River,” Colt said. “It goes through the treatment plant. Should be fine.”
“Liza Jane, you want to talk about what you and your sister saw when you went up on the mountaintop?”
Liza quickly filled everyone in on their ritual and the images that had been revealed to them. “So,” she finished, “it’s hard to say whether I was seeing scenes from the actual future or if they were all symbolic. Like one of us feels personally responsible so we were seeing the proverbial blood on our hands. You know what I mean?”
“Is there anything you can do to kind of zoom in on what you saw?” Mare asked. “Like, I don’t know, ask it something specific. Like ‘what’s making everyone sick’?” Her face turned beet red and she looked down at her feet kicking back and forth under her chair, a nervous habit. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I don’t really know how that works.”
“No, you’re right,” Bryar told her. “We could try. It wouldn’t hurt.”
“In the meantime,” Whinny said, “we could go the practical route and try getting the attention of the news outlets and people higher up. We clearly have a problem here. Just because we’re some little county in the east that nobody cares about doesn’t mean we have to suffer. Let’s get as many of our friends involved as we can. Start writing the news channels, tell them what’s going on. Maybe the state health board will come in and investigate.”
“What about Bryar?” Liza asked.
“I was thinking about that,” Bryar said slowly. “I could swallow my pride, you know? Go to whoever’s in charge now and apologize. Tell them it isn’t me. Tell them I want to make up for what is happening. Volunteer to do something to kind of clear my name.”
“Sounds good to me,” Filly said. She stopped and wiped her hands on her jeans. “Now, can we eat? I’m starved.”
Bridle sighed and rolled her eyes. The empty Oreo cookie carton that lay by Filly’s feet was sad and empty. “Well, now that you’ve finished off the appetizers I guess we have to.”
Chapter Fifteen
“I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to repeat that again.”
Bryar followed Liza as she pushed a dust mop around the room. Someday she’d be making enough to where she could hire someone to do the cleaning. Until then, it was up to her and Mare to keep things looking straight. She usually didn’t mind the cleaning part, but she was dog-tired today. Weak and dizzy, she’d had to sit down several times. She hadn’t had much of an appetite either. The whole mess of Bryar and the rest of the town must have been weighing on her more than she’d thought.
“It will be fun!” Bryar said, the enthusiasm in her voice sounding fairly close to authentic.
Liza paused and faced her sister, “But a talent show?”
“Yeah!” Bryar said, all but clapping her hands together. “I like music, I like dancing. I mean, I’m not figuring we’re going to find the next Beyoncé here or anything but it’s still going to be fun.”
“So you offered to put together a talent show as one of the main events,” Liza repeated, trying to get her thoughts sorted, “after they kicked us off the vendor committee and they agreed to it?”
“Yep. Well, it seems that some of the bands slated to perform on Saturday got sick. They backed out. So there was an opening,” Bryar shrugged.
“And what did Twila say about this development?”
“She’s still on the hospital. I talked to Lisa, her replacement. She made a few calls. Honestly, I think they were kind of desperate. They would’ve worked with anyone at this point,” Bryar explained. “I’m sure someone will tell Twila when they visit her in the hospital.”
Liza smothered a laugh. She hoped someone was there to watch her blood pressure when they did tell her.
“It’s kind of insane, though. Half the town wants to roast you so you’re going out of your way to do something for them? You don’t even like to donate clothes to Goodwill.” When Bryar opened her mouth to protest, Liza barreled ahead. “I mean, I know you’re a good person but volunteering isn’t exactly your thing.”
“Yeah, I know, I know. But if it helps you, you know? I don’t get this place. It’s like Mayberry. You know, if Opie had a meth problem. But you like it here. And people are nice to you. They’ve kind of taken you in. And I like Colt and his family. You’ve been very good to me, too. If I can do something that helps you, then I want to.”
Liza searched inside then sent out invisible tentacles to search within Bryar, but all she could come up with was that Bryar’s intentions, though totally random, were sincere.
“What about the job offer?”
“I talked to Weed,” Bryar shrugged. “They won’t be filming for another three weeks. I can put it off that long.”
“I’ll help you with it,” Liza said at last. “But we’ll have to put it together quickly. We don’t have a lot of time. The festival is in a week and a half.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. But what’s to do? I just have to put up a few signs, arrange a schedule for when people go on. How hard can that be?”
Liza smiled to herself. Bryar was used to working in a recording studio, where everything was already laid out for her. She was in for a surprise.
* * *
LIZA SAT IN HER LIVING room, painting little vintage vinegar bottles. Someone had sent her a link to a craft project and she’d decided to give it a try. Each bottle was being turned into a “potion” or “poison” container. When she first started, she’d planned on using them for Halloween. Mare had talked her into hosting a Halloween party, to give people the chance to see inside the “old, spooky farm house on the hill” once and for all. Now that she had done a few, however, and liked the look of them, she was thinking she might just set them out now. Make people like the cable guy a little nervous.
When Liza was basically a housewife and just seeing to Mode’s needs, she’d never had time for arts and crafts. Now, when she had her own business and actual friends she saw on a regular basis, she was a Pinterest fool. Not that she was particularly good at it. Painted vinegar bottles today, graveside flower arrangements tomorrow!
“Look who I picked up outside,” Bryar sang as she floated through the door. Colt came in behind her.
Bryar’s face was red and rosy from the walk she’d just been on. The fresh air really was working wonders for her complexion, Lisa thought with jealousy.
Colt, however, was not smiling.
“What’s wrong?” Liza asked. She’d started developing a headache about an hour earlier. She was tired, too, from not sleeping well the night before. Her muscles were cramped. She was now thinking that she should’ve gone on the walk with Bryar, instead of sitting inside the cold, dark house with glue and paint fumes. She’d already burned herself with the hot glue gun twice.
“Jessie’s sick,” Colt said. His solemn face had Liza standing, but the sudden movement made all the blood rush to her head. For a moment the room went black. When she swayed, Bryar stepped forward to catch her.
“You okay?” When Liza nodded her head and waved her sister off, Bryar asked, “Who’s Jessie?”
“Neighbor down the road,” Liza answered. “She and her husband live in that little house. They’ve got kids. She’s a nice girl. Is it the same thing?”
Colt nodded. “Same as the others. I just found out. Ambulance was taking her in as I was starting up the driveway.”
“Oh no,” Liza said, just as a rush of nausea hit her. For a moment she thought she might vomit but then it passed, just like the blackness from the head rush. “Should we offer to help?”
“Her mama was there. She was going to take the kids.”
“Geeze,” Liza said, shaking her head. Jessie and her husband were good people. The
y’d had a lot of financial difficulties but were always smiling, always happy. And their kids were as cute as could be.
“That’s not all,” Colt said. “That’s actually not why I came. May died this morning, around 4am. Grim called Bridle not long after it happened. She went over to his house to help him make some calls and organize things. She and May were friends, you know.”
“May!? Jesus!” Liza had to sit back down. May was barely even a woman. She knew Bridle looked at her like a little sister. When she’d gone to Liza for help with Gwen there hadn’t been a thing in the world wrong with her.
“They’re doing toxicology on her. Because of the circumstances, the body has been sent up to Frankfort for a full autopsy,” Colt explained.
“That’s awful,” Bryar said. “Now I feel even worse about being rude to her mother.”
“How is Gwen holding up?” Liza asked. Her head was starting to swim again and she was breaking out in a cold sweat.
I wonder if this is what the beginning of a panic attack feels like, she thought to herself.
“Bout the same,” Colt said. “No change. But listen, Bryar, not everyone has let you off the hook yet. Mama wanted me to warn you. She’d heard other people talking about it. Mostly people you wouldn’t trust anyway, some pillbillies with nothing else to do.” The disgusted look on his face would’ve made Liza laugh if she’d felt better.
“I can handle them,” Bryar shrugged. “You should see what they’ve been saying about me on TMZ.”
“Yeah, well, I’d still be careful. These aren’t good old-fashioned drunks or stoners we’re dealing with here. Some of these people gets thoughts in their heads and they do crazy stuff,” he warned her.
Liza rose to her feet again, her heart pounding. “Colt, why don’t you sit down? I’m going to go make me some green tea.”
She must have looked as bad as she felt because Bryar held out a hand to her. “Here, sit, let me do it,” she offered.
Broommates: Two Witches are Better Than One! (Kentucky Witches Book 2) Page 14
