Witch at Odds: A Jinx Hamilton Mystery Book 2 (The Jinx Hamilton Mysteries)

by Juliette Harper

  “If Brenna can find Alexander’s remains,” Myrtle said, “she can grind his bones into a powder and use it to cast a locator spell. She will be able to find every single living person who carries a drop of Alexander’s blood, and by extension, her own.”

  “And then what?” Tori asked.

  “As Fiona explained, some of Alexander’s descendants will have more power than others,” Myrtle said. “Brenna could use magic to influence matings that would, over time, strengthen her bloodline. Power is an intoxicating lure. She would surely be able to convince some of Alexander’s descendants to embrace their heritage and become her followers. Remember, she is immortal. She can afford to be patient.”

  Influence matings?

  I guess I should have already put that one together, but it still seriously freaked me out.

  “So,” I said slowly, “we need to locate Alexander’s body in order to find his journal so we can put Brenna back where she belongs, but we can’t let Brenna find Alexander because she’ll put operation Magic Baby Daddy in motion.”

  The corner of Myrtle’s mouth crooked into a smile. “That’s a rather droll way to put all the pieces together, but, yes, you are correct.”

  “Okay. So, one way or the other, I do need to talk to Alexander Skea,” I said. “How do we make that happen?”

  “If you can get his spirit here in the store,” Myrtle said, “his proximity to me will have the same effect it has on Colonel Longworth and Fiona. Alexander will become stable enough to speak and interact with you.”

  “How do we get him to come here?” I asked.

  Darby supplied the answer. “My Master will only come if Mistress Knasgowa tells him to,” the brownie said. “He will trust no other.”

  Something told me we were headed into the woods.

  20

  The first ghost stories began to circulate around town that Monday morning. I ran down to George and Irma’s grocery store on the corner bright and early to pick up some doughnuts and found a knot of people clustered around the security camera monitor by the cash register.

  The bell on the front door jingled when I came in, so Irma spotted me immediately. “Jinx!” she cried. “You have to come see what the store camera caught last night!”

  Two or three people made room for me as I wedged into the little group. Irma rewound the video, which at first showed nothing but an overhead angle of the empty store. Then, I saw a box of Twinkies levitate off the shelf and float serenely toward the cash register.

  As we watched, the box settled on the countertop. There was a kind of vague flickering on the screen in a size and shape that could have been a person, and then the image settled back on the empty store.

  “Can you believe that?” Irma said. “It looks for all the world like that ghost tried to pay for those Twinkies. I found the box sitting right here when I opened up this morning.”

  “Wow!” I said, feigning the required astonishment. “How did you know to look at the recording?”

  A sick feeling had begun to settle in the pit of my stomach. This could only mean one thing. We were running out of time to get those spirits back where they belonged before Briar Hollow became paranormal ground zero.

  “The system’s got a motion sensor, honey,” Irma said. “You really ought to have one put in your store, too. The little light was flashing, so I checked the footage from last night. We had a big ole raccoon breaking in here last year stealing food. We like to have never caught the varmint. I figured the blinking was about something like that. I never expected to see flying Twinkies.”

  Well, I mean really, who does?

  Before I could come up with an answer I could actually say out loud, several people started talking at once. It seemed that over the weekend there had been a number of strange sightings around town. None of those episodes had been quite this dramatic, although one woman did summon the Sheriff when she was positive she saw her dead husband trying to unlock the front door to their house.

  I filled up a white sack with doughnuts and paid for them, leaving the crowd to watch the flying Twinkies again. Thankfully my shop was empty when I got back and Darby had the coffee ready. As I was telling Tori what I had just seen, Beau materialized in the doorway and walked into the storeroom.

  “That is what I came to tell you,” he said, overhearing the last of my account. “It has started. The newly risen spirits are beginning to become highly frustrated. The discontent is fueling their energy and their abilities. My associates and I spent most of last night trying to maintain order, but I fear there will be more of these incidents.”

  So that’s why we hadn’t seen him yesterday.

  After we filled the Colonel in on the most recent developments in our research, he asked to see the photograph of the Masonic officers. I thought Beau was interested in Alexander Skea, but it was the name “James McGregor” that had caught his attention.

  “That is him,” Beau said, pointing to the central figure in the group. “It was James McGregor who found me on the battlefield. He searched my body for identification and found this.”

  Beau removed the heavy pocketwatch from the vest of his uniform and opened the case. Inside, the engraving read, “To Brother Beauregard T. Longworth, Master Mason, with gratitude for his service. Harmony Lodge No. 1.”

  “You were a Mason?” I asked.

  “I am a Mason,” Beau corrected me. “I was raised in the same Lodge where Brother Andrew Jackson took his first degree in 1805. My father was among the officers at his initiation.”

  “So James McGregor saw your watch and knew you were a Mason?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Beau said. “The local Lodge buried me with full Masonic rites. I am deeply indebted to this man. He went to great lengths to not only arrange my funeral, but also to contact my wife. If Brother Skea was a member of the same Lodge, I have no doubt he was also a good man, and is, insofar as he is now able, attempting to help you.”

  There was only one way I knew to reach across my side of that void and boost Alexander’s “signal.” I had to go back out to the waterfall and try to reach Knasgowa, especially since Myrtle and Darby were absolutely certain Alexander wouldn’t — and possibly couldn’t — show up without the okay from his wife.

  Tori had been completely on board with the whole plan until Myrtle suggested I attempt contact at midnight, an hour when she said the boundary “between realms” was thinner.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Tori protested. “Midnight is, like, after dark.”

  “Generally,” I observed mildly.

  “The last time we went skulking around outside in the middle of the night a crazy dude with a tomahawk tried to kill us,” she said.

  “Tori, I’m pretty sure that was a one-time thing,” I said. “And besides, you don’t have to come.”

  I knew that suggestion would shut her up pretty fast.

  Well. Okay. Not shut her up, but at least change the tone of the grumbling.

  Right on cue Tori shot me a wounded look.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “I wouldn’t send you out there to be eaten by bears without a witness to report the location of whatever is left of your body.”

  Oh, crud. I hadn’t thought about bears.

  Tori looked triumphant. “Gotcha,” she said, grinning.

  Which she had. Not that we were keeping score or anything.

  Tori was watching the conflicting thoughts playing out on my face.

  “Of course I’m going with you,” she said, more seriously, “just don’t ask me to like it. And don’t try to convince me you’re thrilled about the whole ‘back to nature in the dead of night’ thing either.”

  She just had to use the word “dead,” didn’t she?

  I couldn’t dispute the fact that neither one of us has ever been described as “outdoorsy.” At least we weren’t going to hike to the waterfall. That would have meant a five-mile walk through the woods. Tori was heading out to WallyWorld after lunch to buy a bike and stick a headlight on
it. We’d drive to the trailhead and start riding in around 11 o’clock that night.

  When we ran this all down for Beau, he said, “I am coming with you.”

  “Don’t you think you better stay in town and try to keep the peace?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Alexander Skea and I are from a similar time and we are Masonic brothers. If he is reluctant to materialize, I may be able to communicate with him in ways that you cannot.”

  That was actually a good point.

  Darby had wanted to come along, too, but when he mentioned it the night before, Myrtle gently told him she needed him to stay with her. The little brownie held her in such high esteem that he didn’t protest. He just bowed his head and said, “As you wish, Your Majesty.”

  A few minutes later, after Darby went upstairs to make a pot of tea, I asked Myrtle why she didn’t want Darby going along with us to the falls.

  “Like all brownies, Darby has the heart of a lion,” Myrtle said, smiling, “but it is encased in the body of a child.”

  Tori and I had exchanged a look. “Are you saying it’s going to be dangerous out there?” she asked.

  “I’m saying there’s no need to put the smallest of us in Brenna Sinclair’s way,” Myrtle said. “Especially when we have no idea where she is or what she’s doing.”

  Since Darby was once again hard at work in the basement, I shared that conversation with Beau as well, expressing my reservations about his welfare.

  The old soldier looked amused. “I appreciate your concern, Miss Jinx, but as I am already dead, what do you think this sorceress can do to me?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” I said earnestly, “I just know I don’t want her doing it.”

  Beau reached out and patted the back of my hand. The impact of his fingers was cool and whisper light.

  “I assure you that I will be fine, my dear,” he said. “I am quite capable of taking care of myself.”

  It took all I had not to ask if he could take care of us, too. I knew that once Beau was outside the walls of the store, he was completely noncorporeal. It would have been wrong of me to make him feel responsible for looking after me and Tori. But truthfully? The sun was still up, our excursion was at least 12 hours away, and I was already scared to death.

  The rest of the day passed far too quickly for my tastes. Why is it that when you want time to crawl it whizzes past at hyperspeed?

  When we couldn’t put off our departure any longer, we quietly loaded the bikes in my Prius and silently glided the hybrid out of the alley behind the store. The lights were on next door in Chase’s apartment and at Amity Prescott’s, but no curious faces appeared in either set of windows.

  I did, however, almost have a heart attack when I looked in the rearview mirror and saw Beau sitting in the backseat.

  “Geez!” I yelped. “Beau! What’s with the stealth mode?”

  “My apologies,” he said, dipping his head in a little bow. “I only just this moment appeared.”

  “Well, ring a bell or something next time,” I said. “You scared me half to death.”

  The old soldier regarded me with a bemused expression. “You do seem somewhat discomfited this evening.”

  Discomfited?

  Okay, now he was just messing with me.

  We didn’t say much on the drive out to the trailhead, although Tori did yelp a couple of times when I swerved to miss hitting wandering spirits.

  “Jinksy!” she cried the third time. “They’re dead. As in not living. You don’t have to avoid hitting them.”

  “How would you like to be dead and have a cherry red Prius go barreling right through the middle of you?” I demanded.

  I don’t know. It just seems wrong to run over people even if they are already, well, roadkill.

  A slight chuckle emanated from the backseat. I glanced into the rearview mirror and said with annoyance, “You’re certainly in a good mood tonight.”

  Beau arranged his features in a more dignified expression, but his eyes twinkled. “I have always quite enjoyed late night reconnaissance work.”

  Terrific. I had the Confederate version of Rambo in the backseat.

  When we reached the parking lot at the trailhead, the only things that jumped out at us were the posted signs saying no one is supposed to be in there after dark. Thankfully, there’s a little Prius-size clearing to one side as well. I carefully pulled the car into the cover of the trees and we got out.

  While Beau watched, Tori and I hosed each other down with Deep Woods Off.

  “That substance repels insects?” he asked with interest.

  “It does,” I said. “There are mosquitos in there big enough to pick you up and carry you off.”

  He shook his head. “We certainly could have used that modern marvel in my day.”

  Tori hadn’t even been on her bike yet, so I instructed her to pedal a couple of loops around the lot. After adjusting the height of the seat and the angle of the handlebars, she was much steadier in the saddle. I was also pleased to discover that the combined beams of our headlights gave us more than enough illumination to navigate the smooth, paved trail safely.

  We stood astride our bikes looking down the dark tunnel into the trees. Around us the woods were alive with night sounds.

  “This isn’t going to get any easier,” I said. “We might as well go in there.”

  Tori gulped. “To find the ghost of a Cherokee witch so she can tell her dead husband to materialize for us and dish on how to stick a Scottish bitch back in the bottle.”

  “That’s pretty much it,” I said.

  “But there’s no tomahawks this time, right?” she persisted.

  “Not that I’m aware of,” I said. Turning to Beau, I asked, “Are you ready?”

  He levitated a few inches off the ground. “Fear not,” he replied. “I will keep up.”

  “Then we’re good to go,” I said. “Tori?”

  “Yep,” she said, standing up and putting her weight into the first pedal stroke. “Off to see the wizard.”

  Crap.

  Just what I didn’t need to be thinking about at that moment.

  Flying monkeys.

  21

  Weird shadows played across the trail as we pedaled into the forest. I caught the occasional glimpse of laser eyes in the darkness, assuring myself that none of them looked big enough to belong to an animal capable of eating us.

  Then I remembered that beady little eyes are supposed to be a criminal trait.

  But a bear isn’t a criminal, right?

  He’s just out there in the woods being a bear . . . and I was more or less trespassing in his dining room.

  Which made me the criminal.

  Yes, that is actually how my mind works.

  When I’m nervous — or scared half to death — I engage in mental babble.

  Okay. Now, stop.

  I did not just tell you that I listen to the voices.

  Because there are no voices.

  Not exactly, anyway.

  There are multiple trains of thought up here in my noggin going on all the time. That night one of the trains was the What the Hell Are You Doing Express, set to arrive at Platform Midnight.

  Moving stuff with my mind?

  Convenient.

  Getting visions from objects?

  Cool.

  Talking to ghosts?

  Fun.

  And then somebody just had to go throw a resurrected sorceress into the room and ruin the party.

  Oh. Wait.

  That was me.

  Part of me wanted to go to the waterfall and meet Knasgowa. After all, I am her great-great-something-granddaughter.

  But another part of me wanted to go back to who I was before Aunt Fiona died and I found out there was so much more to the world than I ever realized.

  Tori, who was riding to my left, suddenly said, “Knock it off, Jinksy.”

  “Knock what off?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the trail.

  “You’re thinkin
g so loud I can hear you all the way over here,” she said. “Don’t sweat it. We’ve got this.”

  “Where’s all this bravery coming from?” I asked, giving her a quick glance and catching sight of her grin in the darkness.

  “Fake it ‘til you make it, kiddo,” she said. “This is me. Faking it and not falling off this bike all at the same time.”

  I instantly picked up the beat.

  “I’m a bigger faker than you are,” I said, tauntingly.

  “Are not.”

  “Am, too.”

  Ridiculously silly, and so, so comforting.

  After that, I stopped worrying about the laser eyes and concentrated on getting where we were going.

  A few minutes later we glided to a stop in the clearing. It was about a quarter of midnight. Darby told us that Knasgowa liked to sit in a cluster of boulders on the shore directly across from the waterfall. Even a couple of hundred years later, there was only one spot that matched his description.

  The plan was for Tori and Beau to keep watch from the overlook while I climbed down to the rocks by myself. The surface of the pond rippled gently in the moonlight, moving outward from the cascading water. A kind of peace descended around me as I watched the undulating reflections. Suddenly, I was no longer afraid.

  Getting down the slope was a lot easier than I anticipated, and so was finding Knasgowa. She was just sitting there on a low, flat boulder waiting for me. I glanced back up at Tori and Beau, but they were talking quietly and didn’t seem to notice anything unusual.

  “They cannot see me, granddaughter,” Knasgowa said. “This time is for us alone. Come sit with me.”

  I don’t know what I expected her to look like. Pocahontas from the Disney movie maybe?

  Knasgowa could have been any age. She was dressed in simple blue gingham, with her long, black hair parted in the middle, pulled back, and done up in a bun. Had it not been for the rich, brown tone of her skin, the Cherokee woman would have passed for any pioneer wife straight out of the history books.

  “Uh, hi,” I said, easing myself down onto a boulder across from her. “I’m Jinx.”

  She smiled at me and that’s when her magic touched me for the first time. The sensation was familiar; the same, kindness and warmth that had radiated from Aunt Fiona in life.