Once Upon a Witch: A Wicked Witches of the Midwest Fantasy Books 1-3

by Amanda M. Lee

  “So you don’t know?”

  I shook my head.

  “We need to talk to her first,” Landon cautioned. “Convince her to take the wish back and then, if he comes back to life – geez, there’s a sentence I never thought I’d say – have her press charges so we can put him in jail.”

  “Do you think she’ll do that?” I wasn’t sure I believed that. The woman shuffling in my direction looked beaten down in more ways than one. “If she called Chief Terry to admit what she did she’s probably feeling guilty.”

  “We’ll have to play it by ear.” Landon rested a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Let me do the talking.”

  “That’s exactly what Aunt Tillie said last night before you ended up tattling on her.”

  “I’m not Aunt Tillie.” Landon remained calm as Deidre scuffed her feet against the ground, trudging in our direction. Her eyes were glued on Doug, as if she didn’t believe he was really gone. She seemed confused, perhaps in shock, and her world was obviously spinning. “Mrs. Bateman, I’m Landon Michaels. I’m with the FBI.”

  “I know who you are,” Deidre murmured, her voice eerily calm. “You’re Bay Winchester’s boyfriend.”

  “Yes, I’m thinking of having business cards made up saying just that,” Landon deadpanned. He made sure to keep a safe distance so he didn’t accidentally jolt the woman. “I understand you called Chief Terry and admitted to killing your husband.”

  “I wished he was dead,” Deidre confirmed.

  “Did you wish for it at the wishing well?”

  Deidre nodded, raising her chin and letting her gaze bounce between faces. Finally she landed on me. “You know how it is.”

  “I knew this would happen,” Landon muttered, his temper coming out to play.

  I ignored his outburst and forced a smile for Deidre’s benefit. “Landon didn’t do this. A group of teenagers did this. Nelson Lyons made a wish in the well, too, and things got a little out of hand. We fixed it by having him reverse the wish.”

  Deidre appeared surprised by my matter-of-fact recitation. “Do you think I can reverse this?”

  “Do you want to?”

  Deidre shrugged. “I don’t want to be the cause of anyone’s death, but … I ain’t exactly going to miss him.”

  The faded bruises on her collarbone told me all I needed to know about that statement. “No, I guess not. You could reverse the wish and then give Chief Terry a statement. You could tell him what Doug has been doing to you – everyone knows about it, so it won’t come as a surprise – and when you’re done, Chief Terry and Landon will make sure that Doug is put in jail so he won’t do it again.”

  “Is that true?” Deidre looked almost hopeful. “Can I take it back and still send him away?”

  “That’s what we believe, but we can’t be sure until it actually happens,” Landon hedged. He didn’t want to promise her an outcome that might not come to pass in case Doug couldn’t be resurrected. “It’s worth a try, right?”

  Deidre studied Doug for a long time, finally heaving out a sigh. “I’ll try. Do you promise you won’t let him touch me? He’s going to be awfully mad when he wakes up and finds out what I did.”

  “He never has to know what you did,” Landon said, his voice gentle as he gestured in the direction of the wishing well. “Let’s see what we can do, shall we? This could be over in a matter of hours.”

  “That will be nice, huh?” Deidre brightened considerably. “He’s going to be mad.”

  “I can handle him,” Landon promised.

  “That’s good. If you want to punch him, you can say it’s from me.”

  Landon smiled, the expression lighting up his handsome features. “That sounds like a plan.”

  If you could wish for anything in this world, what would it be? Just a hint: If the answer isn’t me in a field of bacon, I’m going to pretend you never opened your mouth.

  – Landon asking Bay about her heart’s greatest desire

  Fourteen

  “That’s so sad.”

  Mom made me tell Deidre’s story four times before she understood every nuance.

  “It is sad,” I agreed, risking a glance at Aunt Tillie, who continued to toil in her recliner in the corner of the kitchen. She had the grace to stare at her book and avoid eye contact, which was the only reason I knew she felt guilty. “She was so … lost. Landon was good with her. He promised to sit with her while she filled out the report.”

  “How did Doug take his resurrection?” Marnie asked. I couldn’t blame her for being curious. I was transfixed with the transformation as it happened, too.

  “Oddly enough, he assumed he drank so much he passed out behind the library even though he couldn’t remember drinking this afternoon,” I replied. “He wanted to file a report with Chief Terry because he was determined that someone stole his Jack Daniels.”

  “Well, that figures,” Aunt Tillie muttered. “He always was a miserable drunk.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be working?” Mom challenged, casting a dark look over her shoulder. “Have you made any progress since Bay returned?”

  “Ugh! She’s talking so loud that I can’t even think,” Aunt Tillie complained. “How am I supposed to work under these conditions?”

  “You worked well enough when you were drunk,” Mom pointed out.

  “That was completely different.”

  “Do your work or face my wrath.”

  I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing. Mom rarely got in snarly mode, preferring the passive-aggressive route on most occasions to browbeat us into submission. She wasn’t messing around with Aunt Tillie today, though. She meant business.

  “What does Terry say will happen to Deidre now?” Mom asked, focusing on me. “She won’t go to jail, will she?”

  “They can’t arrest her. There’s no judge who will believe that a woman wished her husband dead,” I pointed out. “Everyone wishes for something terrible to happen to another human being at one point or other.”

  “I haven’t,” Twila argued.

  For some reason I kind of believed her. She was too scattered to be mean. “It doesn’t matter,” I explained. “Doug is alive, so no one was murdered. Plus, well, we have no idea what the autopsy would’ve shown. For all we know he died of a heart attack or something.”

  “Or meanness.” Twila was distraught when she heard about Deidre’s state of mind. “Maybe we should invite her to stay at the inn for a few days. She might do better with other people around her. We have an open room on the second floor.”

  Mom tilted her head to the side, considering. “We could do that.”

  Even though my mother and aunts are persnickety when they want to be, they have good hearts. “She’s filling out paperwork with Landon. I can text him and ask if she’s interested in staying.”

  “I can do that.” Mom moved around the counter, pausing when she got close to me and pushing my hair away from my face. “That does look terrible. I can’t believe Terry thought Landon did that to you. That doesn’t sound like him at all.”

  “I don’t think he really believed it,” I offered. “I think he just reacted. If he’d given it a few seconds thought he wouldn’t have said it. That doesn’t make Landon feel better about the situation, though. I guess I never considered it from his point of view.”

  “You never considered what from Landon’s point of view before?” Thistle asked, breezing into the room. “By the way, you can scratch Mavis Dinklage off your list. She no longer lives in a mansion in the middle of Lilac Street – a mansion that actually smooshed some of her neighbors’ homes, by the way.”

  “Did we even know about that?” I asked, trying to picture the scenario in my head.

  “We noticed it on our way to Tabitha Greenwald’s house,” Thistle replied. “We figured we might as well handle it while we were there. Tabitha Greenwald is no longer the proud owner of her own pony either. That wish was kind of cute until we saw the huge piles of poop in her front yard.”
/>   “Isn’t Tabitha Greenwald fifty?” Mom asked, confused.

  Thistle nodded. “Apparently she’s been making the same wish since she was a child and thought nothing of it when the pony appeared in her front yard. She ran over to the stables and got some hay, thinking it was a grand gift.”

  “Oh, well, that’s too bad,” Mom sniffed. “She can always go to the stable and ride there, so she’ll get over it.”

  “That’s what Marcus told her,” Thistle supplied. “They’re over there right now so she can meet the horses.”

  “So it’s a good day for everyone,” Twila said brightly.

  “Except for Bay and her eye, Landon with his ‘people think I’m beating my girlfriend’ complex, Aunt Tillie with her rampant guilt and Deidre with her ‘I killed my husband and now I have to report him for being a woman beater’ issues,” Thistle said dryly.

  “You’re on my list,” Aunt Tillie barked.

  “You don’t have a list until you fix this,” Mom fired back. “I don’t want to hear you speak again until you have a solution to this problem. Until then, missy, you’re gagged.”

  Thistle’s mouth dropped open. She looked like a kid seeing the gifts under the tree for the first time on Christmas morning. I was much more subdued, hiding my smile behind my mug of coffee. Aunt Tillie would be on a rampage when this was all said and done, and I would rather have her cursing fingers pointed at Thistle instead of me.

  “Anyway, Landon said he might be late getting back if Deidre falls off the rails and decides not to press charges,” I said. “He wants to make sure that doesn’t happen. He was really good with her. I’ve never seen him like that before.”

  “I wonder why,” Mom mused. “His mother obviously isn’t being beaten. People who have empathy for that sort of thing usually witness it at some point in their lives.”

  That was an interesting thing to say, and I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a grain of truth in it somewhere. I made a mental note to revisit the topic when Landon and I had a few moments alone.

  “Our biggest problem is that we have no way of knowing who made wishes or how dangerous they are,” I said. “I’m pretty sure Mrs. Little made a wish. I know she tossed in a coin. I guess it could’ve been for show, but I’m guessing she wished for something evil, because … well … we’re talking about Mrs. Little.”

  “Yes, she’s a piece of work,” Aunt Tillie muttered. “I’ll bet she wished for something like being queen for a day. That sounds just like her.”

  “It sounds like you, too,” Mom snapped. “Do your work!”

  Aunt Tillie made a big show of shaking her head as she mouthed “do your work” and puffed out her chest. It was obviously supposed to be an imitation of my mother, but either Mom didn’t notice or opted to ignore it.

  “Why didn’t anybody wish for world peace?” Twila lamented. “I’d think that’s the first thing people would wish for. I know that’s what I’d wish for.”

  “That’s because you’re a pure soul.” Thistle patted her mother’s head. They were kind words, but the tone was off.

  “What would you wish for?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  “I’d wish for a boat,” Aunt Tillie volunteered. “I’d use it to sail away from you people … and fight pirates. Nobody likes pirates.”

  “Don’t make me come over there,” Mom threatened, brandishing a wooden spoon.

  “Make her go over there, Aunt Tillie,” Thistle prodded, amused. “I’m dying to see what happens.”

  “You’re going to regret ever meeting me once this is over,” Aunt Tillie gritted out, focusing on her book. “I won’t forget one second of this.”

  Thistle didn’t look particularly perturbed by the threat. “I’d wish for a huge craft store all to myself, where I could make the crafts and force Clove to deal with the customers.”

  I snorted, amused. “What about you, Mom?”

  “A bigger kitchen and the ability to feed everyone in the world,” Mom replied, not missing a beat.

  “Landon would wish for a world made of bacon,” I mused. “What about you, Marnie?”

  Marnie was apparently feeling snarky, because she merely shrugged. “I’d wish for one less sister. I’ll let you decide what I mean by that, Twila and Winnie.”

  Mom made a face but didn’t rise to the bait. “What about you, Bay? What would you wish for?”

  It was a good question, and I’d been thinking about it between bouts of wish reversals for the better part of the day. “There’s honestly nothing I want,” I said. “I mean, there are little things I want, don’t get me wrong. I could wish for a pair of boots or something. I have all of the big things I want, though.”

  Mom smiled. “You wouldn’t wish for more big city news?”

  “I tried living in the city,” I reminded her. “I wanted to be back here the entire time.”

  “Yes, but you spent your entire childhood wanting to live somewhere else,” Mom reminded me. “What happened to that wish?”

  “It came true, and then I realized I made the wrong wish,” I answered, jerking my head toward the back door when I heard someone knock. “Who would go to the back door?”

  “I have no idea,” Mom replied. “Can you check? I can’t risk leaving Aunt Tillie, because if she flees from this room we’ll never see her again. We caught her trying to climb out the bathroom window an hour ago and had to beat a pillow against her head to get her back inside.”

  “And I missed that?” Thistle was horrified. “Why do I always miss stuff like that?”

  I smirked as I wandered through the kitchen and into the family living quarters. I heard Thistle complaining as she trailed behind me, which meant she was curious, too. No matter whom I expected on the other side of the door, it wasn’t the face that popped into view when I opened it.

  “Lila?”

  That wasn’t possible. Lila Stevens was in jail. She was serving several years behind bars for working with a former classmate of ours when he decided to rob people – and tried to kill a few more – several months ago. I heard through the grapevine that she pleaded guilty in exchange for a reduced sentence. Even with time served she couldn’t be out of jail this quickly.

  “Hello, Bay,” Lila sneered, her lip curling.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to pay you back!”

  I saw Lila’s fist moving toward my face, as if in slow motion, and instinctively ducked. The sick crunching sound I heard emanated from Thistle as Lila hit her as hard as she could.

  “Oomph.” Thistle grabbed her nose as she wobbled backward, falling over the arm of the chair and hitting the ground hard.

  “Omigod!” I screeched, dumbfounded. “Do you know what you just did?”

  “I won,” Lila replied triumphantly.

  “Not quite.” I moved to my left to give Thistle a clear shot as she regrouped and launched herself at Lila. Lila realized her mistake too late. Thistle was already airborne, and she meant business.

  “It was a mistake,” Lila screeched.

  “I’ll show you a mistake,” Thistle bellowed.

  “DOES SOMEONE want to tell me what happened here?”

  Chief Terry was at a loss as he glanced between faces.

  “She attacked me for no reason,” Lila announced, pointing at Thistle with one hand as she touched her bloody lip with another. “I want her arrested.”

  “She attacked me first,” Thistle argued. “She punched me in the face. Look at my eye! I’ll have a black eye for days.”

  “I guess you were wrong about that karma,” I noted.

  “I will punch you in your other eye, Bay,” Thistle barked.

  “You’re not touching her,” Landon warned, smoothing my hair as he offered me a small smile. “You didn’t get hurt, right?”

  “No, your precious Bay is fine,” Lila seethed. “She ducked when I tried to punch her and I accidentally got Thistle instead. She’s lucky, because I was ready to kill her.”

  �
�Oh, well, that’s a smart thing to say in front of a cop and an FBI agent,” Landon drawled. “How are you even out of prison? I heard you got two years.”

  “Oh, well … .” Lila straightened in her chair. “I’m not exactly sure how that happened. I was sitting in my cell plotting Bay’s downfall and then – poof! – I was in my mother’s living room. I swear. I’m not sure how I got there.”

  I had a feeling I knew how she got there. “Lila’s mother probably made a wish,” I murmured.

  “Yeah, I figured that, too.” Landon seemed intent on my face as he blew out a sigh. “Okay, well, we’ll track down Lila’s mother and make her reverse the wish. Then we’ll get Lila back to prison and go from there.”

  “I’m not going back to prison,” Lila announced.

  “Fine, we’ll add escape and resisting arrest to your rap sheet, and you can do another five years,” Landon shot back.

  “Fine. I’ll go back to prison.” Lila crossed her arms over her chest. “I hate this family. I knew I shouldn’t have come here.”

  “And yet you did it anyway,” Chief Terry noted. “I think that says a little something about you.”

  “Yeah, I’m an idiot.”

  “Oh, I wanted to say that,” Thistle muttered, wincing as she touched her eye. “This bites. I thought this whole thing was funny until this happened. Now everything is ruined. I blame you, Bay.”

  “You usually do,” I said dryly. “How is this my fault?”

  “You ducked.”

  “That’s because my sweetie has good reflexes,” Landon said, beaming. “As long as you’re okay, Bay, we’ll call this a win.”

  “I’m fine. Speaking of fine, though, how is Deidre?”

  “She seems okay,” Landon replied. “She swore out the complaint, and Doug is locked up. He has no idea what happened, and we hope to keep it that way. Deidre is already home.”

  “Mom and Twila mentioned inviting her here because they thought she might be lonely.”

  “She’s renovating Doug’s office – and by ‘renovating’ I mean tossing out all of his stuff – so I think she has plans,” Landon said. “I gave her my card. If she needs help, I’m more than willing to give it to her.”