Midlife Strife: A Paranormal Women's fiction Novel (Bells and Spells - Book 1)

by M. L. Briers

  Marilyn closed her eyes and let the pounding of her heart ease to a gentle thud. “Why do we take youth for granted?”

  “Speak for yourself – but stop speaking like you are Louann’s age, it’s depressing,” Claudia scolded her.

  “I’m depressing?” Marilyn asked, turning her head against the cushion and opening one eyelid to spy on her friend.

  “It’s depressing that you feel you’ve got no life left in front of you,” Claudia corrected her. “You’re fifty-two – not ninety-two.”

  “I feel old…”

  “It’s not your age that’s the problem, it’s your outlook on life,” Claudia shot back, turning a curious look on her friend.

  Marilyn frowned. “My outlook is just fine…”

  “Yes, for someone who’s joining the back of the queue of those biding their time to die.”

  “That’s a horrible thing to say…”

  “The truth?” Claudia asked and shrugged. “You see life through the prism of your children.”

  “And there is something wrong with that?” Marilyn asked, confused.

  “There is when you see yourself as redundant in their lives, and instead of going off to discover brave new worlds, here you are – existing…”

  “Everybody exists…”

  “Not in a little bubble where you feel your whole life is over because you have an empty nest – I’m told that empty nest syndrome is a real thing…”

  “What the heck is empty nest syndrome?”

  “You – this,” Claudia motioned around her.

  “Having a nice home?”

  “Losing the will to live for yourself and through others,” Claudia said and watched the deep frown lines form on Marilyn’s forehead. “You’ll stay like that – frowny.”

  Marilyn opened her mouth and floundered like a fish out of water. “I don’t care about wrinkles, frown lines and landslides…”

  “Landslides?”

  “See these,” Marilyn said, putting her fingertip on the puffy bag under her one eye and pulling down. “It’s all going south.”

  Claudia waved a dismissive hand. “I have a cream that will tighten that right up.”

  “Oh,” Marilyn looked impressed.

  “It’s for haemorrhoids…”

  “Wrong end,” Marilyn snapped with disbelief.

  “See, you’re still looking at things the wrong way.”

  “Ass about-face?” Marilyn shot back, and they both chuckled.

  “Whatever works,” Claudia said and shrugged.

  “I still think it’s the vampire,” Marilyn shot back.

  “Who has an ass face?” Claudia offered her an easy grin.

  Marilyn bristled a little. “He was in town…”

  “And where there’s smoke…?”

  “It usually goes like that,” Marilyn reminded her.

  “Unless you’re a witch, or in my kitchen while I’m cooking.”

  “I still say…”

  “Because you want to believe it. Why would Neal cut my brake lines?” Claudia asked, but she had a list of reasons that she wasn’t about to share with Marilyn – the woman was paranoid enough.

  “He was in Amber’s store…”

  “Checking on a tenant?”

  Marilyn huffed. “Hardly, and I don’t like coincidences…”

  “Or the vampire,” Claudia chuckled.

  Marilyn wasn’t about to go down that line of questioning. She summoned every little bit of energy she could muster and pushed up with a long groan. “Tell my damn body that I’m not getting old, would you?” she shot back over her shoulder.

  “You’re as old as you feel,” Claudia replied.

  Marilyn huffed again. Her feet felt like she’d been walking on just the bones, her calves were tight, her knees ached, her hips felt like they could do with going into the body shop to be realigned, and there was a nagging little pain like she had a wedge in her spine right in the small of her back. Even her neck and shoulders felt like they were so tense, she could be a statue. “Well, then I’m in my eighties.”

  “No, you just need some eighties, I saw the bar and grill are having an eighties themed…”

  “Do not even go there, my dressing up days are over – I lived the eighties, I don’t need to revisit it.”

  “That’s just what you do need, a good old blast from the past to wake up the present,” Claudia said and got a hard glare from Marilyn before she padded off on bare feet for the kitchen.

  “I need a drink,” she groaned.

  “Perfect, tonight we go back to the future,” Claudia said mimicking Doc Brown from the movie, and with a wicked little chuckle to boot.

  “Ugh!” Marilyn groaned. “Kill me now!”

  “Tempting, but no,” Claudia called to the sound of mumbling coming from the other room. She couldn’t help but chuckle; she was going to drag her friend out of social hibernation and set her back on the path to life if it was the last thing she did.

  Then she thought about the brakes on her car and Marilyn’s suspicions. It was a good thing that she hadn’t told her about the run-in she’d had with the vampire. Marilyn would have pinned the tail on that suspect donkey once and for all.

  Was Neal trying to kill her?

  Only time would tell.

  ~

  “I hope you don’t mind another mouth to feed,” Lottie said as Marilyn carried in two large serving bowls and placed them on the table. Everyone was there except Scott, but she couldn’t hold the food and allow it to spoil waiting for him to return because she hadn’t heard a thing from him and his phone went to voicemail. “I enjoyed last night so much Louann said we should do it again.”

  “You’re always welcome, Lottie,” Marilyn assured her. The elder was far easier company than her mother, and she liked having her around to bounce the sarcasm off when her mother was in one of her moods.

  “And we need to talk about the vampire,” Louann blurted out, and Marilyn almost tripped over her own feet as she headed for the chair at the head of the table. “And let’s not make out like we didn’t know he was back – we’ve all seen him,” she said, and levelled her gaze on Amber, and the young witch’s cheeks immediately flushed bright red. The curse of being a redhead.

  “Vampire, you say?” Claudia asked with a subtle grin for Marilyn as she broke the warm bread roll in her hand and popped a little into her mouth. Marilyn eyed her and even her chewing smacked of sarcasm.

  It took Marilyn a moment to regain the ground that her mother had whipped out for beneath her, but she sat with a heavy sigh and shrugged. “Okay, fine, so he’s back,” she said and shot a warning look to Claudia from beneath her long lashes.

  “I didn’t say a word,” Claudia offered back.

  “We saw him at the restaurant yesterday,” Lottie offered.

  “She saw him at the kitchen window last night,” Claudia said and got a pointy toe in the shin under the table for her trouble.

  “And you didn’t think to mention it?” Louann’s high pitched wail made Marilyn grimace.

  “Pot kettle, you saw him first,” Marilyn shot back.

  Louann fidgeted on her chair under the scrutiny of her daughter. “I was handling it…”

  “Handling it?” Marilyn offered her mother a curious look.

  “Like the last time?” Lottie bit out of the side of her mouth.

  “The last time?” Marilyn asked, leaning forward and resting her forearms on the table. “Mother, what did you do?”

  “I dread to think,” Claudia muttered, but she was interested. Anything Louann had her sticky fingers in was always worth discovering.

  Louann had been like a mother to her for years. When Claudia’s mother had hit the bottle and was only interested in finding a replacement for the last guy who walked out on her, Louann had been there for her.

  Some people saw Louann as a tough cookie, but Claudia had experienced the soft-gooey centre that the woman possessed, and she might have made mistakes in life, but she always
owned them – eventually.

  Louann’s guiding principle in life was; don’t mess with my family, and she’d including Claudia in that family. Whatever people thought of Louann, Claudia had seen the very best of her, so she would always allow her a little slack. She just hoped that the matriarch didn’t hang herself with it where Marilyn was concerned.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ~

  “He was getting too close,” Louann said with a spark of defiance in her tone, and boy, did she look defensive.

  “To what?” Marilyn asked.

  “To who,” Lottie corrected her.

  Amber was in there before her mother could open her mouth. “Who?” she asked, all wide-eyed and eager to be a part of a new mystery, and the vampire seemed very mysterious to her.

  “Her,” Lottie said and pointed an accusing finger at Marilyn.

  Marilyn didn’t just look gobsmacked; she looked shell-shocked and mortified all at the same time. “Me?”

  Claudia couldn’t help but chuckle. “You were a little – friendly,” she said and received both barrels of a very dark look in return. “Just saying.” She held her hands up in mock surrender, but the dinner roll let the whole image down.

  “Well, don’t,” Marilyn shot back before she turned her attention on her mother. “So, again – what did you do?”

  Louann’s eyebrows formed the perfect arc. “What any mother would have done in my position,” she said, back to defensive once more.

  “If any mother was a witch,” Lottie muttered out the side of her mouth.

  Marilyn knew her mother wasn’t going to give up the goodies so easily, so she turned her gaze on Lottie. “Sing for your supper,” she demanded and watched a mischievous smile form on the elder’s lips.

  “We ran him out of town,” Lottie said and quickly pointed an accusing finger at Louann. “Her idea.”

  “And it worked,” Louann piped up. “He left, didn’t he?”

  “And now he’s back, and who knows what’s on his mind,” Marilyn said, and then turned a slow curious look on Claudia.

  “No,” Claudia said.

  “Little wonder that he did what he did when the avenging angel over here, did what she did,” Marilyn said.

  “Angel? Pah!” Lottie chuckled at the description of her friend. “People would be fleeing heaven in droves, and hell would do a rip-roaring trade in lost souls.”

  Amber couldn’t help but chuckle, and more so when her grandmother prickled at the words. “At least nobody could accuse me of having loose elastic in my knickers,” Louann tossed back with a huff to top it off.

  “Are you kidding me? You had a revolving bedroom door when you were younger,” Lottie tossed back, much to Louann’s dismay and Amber’s delight.

  “Tell me more,” Amber said with glee.

  “Over her dead body,” Louann shot back with a warning glare at her best friend.

  “That’s what she said to her husbands,” Lottie muttered reaching for her glass and chuckling to herself.

  “The vampire,” Marilyn said, trying to bring the conversation back to the real issue. She had an attack of guilt over her mother’s behaviour, and she’d like to know why she felt so damn guilty.

  “Was here and then he wasn’t,” Louann said, waving an absent hand in the air and dismissing it with a rise of her chin.

  “Not good enough,” Marilyn bit out. “What did you do?”

  “I told you,” Louann said, trying to sidestep the issue once more.

  “No, she told me you run him out of town,” Marilyn corrected her.

  “And a good decade was had by all,” Louann announced with a dollop of fake enthusiasm in the hope it distracted her daughter from going into the details and hashing it all up again.

  The past was always better left buried, and so was the vampire, but the man was back, and she had to face her demons sometime – but just not right that minute.

  “Mother,” Marilyn bit out, trying to hold onto the frustration that bubbled within her.

  “I don’t like your attitude tonight, Marilyn,” Louann said, hoping to shut her daughter down.

  “Well,” Marilyn pressed her lips together and puffed out her cheeks. “Good.”

  As Louann tried to swallow the sip of wine she’d taken; she almost choked on it. She was glad it had just been a sip, or she’d have been doing more than a little spluttering, she’d have resembled a fountain. “Good?”

  “Ooo, the worm turns,” Lottie said with an encouraging smile for Marilyn.

  “And the plot thickens,” Amber added.

  Marilyn felt emboldened, maybe it was the half a glass of wine she’d had or having Claudia around who always seemed to spark that badass teen inside of her that was sometimes screaming to break free of her responsibilities. Still, enough was enough, and she needed to set some new boundaries for herself. “The worm hasn’t turned, the worm has always been miffed off; I’ve just chosen to keep my own counsel most of the time.”

  “And now?” Claudia asked, amused to see that old-style Marilyn spark back, if only for now.

  “And now it’s time to live my life how I want with no outside interference from the peanut gallery,” she said and turned her full attention onto her mother.

  “You’d hardly find me in the peanut gallery, Marilyn,” Louann offered in a condescending tone that jumped up and down on Marilyn’s last nerve. “And I’m not outside interference; I’m your mother.”

  “Well, there comes a certain point where a mother just has to back off and let her kids make their own mistakes and not rush to clear them up,” Marilyn said.

  “I hear that,” Amber muttered.

  Marilyn snapped to attention and frowned at her daughter. “You’re not married and don’t have children – that makes you still fair game,” she informed her.

  Louann snorted a chuckle. “Of course it does,” she said, and her tone was sickly-sweet.

  Mother and daughter stared across the table at each other. It wasn’t a deathmatch, by any stretch of the imagination, but the first to look away would lose the power struggle and become weakened in the eyes of the other.

  It was only the sound of the front door opening and being tossed closed that alerted them to Scott’s presence and formed a sort of mini truce when he swept into the room. “Sorry I’m late,” he announced with a big smile for his mother who wasn’t paying him any attention.

  Of course, Scott instantly picked up on the vibe in the room. “It’s a little frosty in here,” he half-whispered to Amber as he took a seat beside her and reached for the first bowl he came across. “What’d I miss?”

  “If you’re going to ignore the rules of dining etiquette then you’re going to miss a lot of juicy things,” Amber said and shoved a bowl of salad under his nose. “Rabbit food?”

  Scott gave a slightly confused shake of his head, and when his mother fixed him with a steely gaze, he expected a grandma-style takedown, but instead, she smiled. “It’s just dinner, and sometimes it’s good to break the rules,” she shot a look at Louann, and the woman lifted her chin in defiance.

  “You’d know all about that,” Louann said and offered a smug little smile.

  “For a pot, you really like calling out the kettle,” Lottie said, and when Louann’s head whipped around, she met her hard glare. “Inconvenient truth?” she added, and Louann huffed and turned away again.

  Scott leaned in towards his sister. “Who peed on whose plate?” he whispered, but the grin didn’t reach his eyes, and Amber wondered on that. Her brother was usually the one to keep a party going, not add to the frosty atmosphere – after all, his moods could be catching, but it looked like he’d picked this one up from his family.

  “Something to do with Mr Mysterio,” Amber whispered back.

  “Mr Mysterio?” Scott asked.

  “The vampire in town,” Amber informed him.

  “Neal,” Scott said, and all eyes turned to him. It wasn’t just that he knew the vampire’s name, it had been the w
ay he’d said it – like he’d known that name for a while.

  Scott winced at suddenly being under so much scrutiny. He hadn’t thought to share any news from his past so quickly, but he knew with a room full of strong-minded, dog-with-a-bone witches, he wasn’t about to be handed the option of not fessing up.

  He groaned inwardly at his mistake and slumped back against his chair as they all stared at him with differing levels of expectation.

  Scott knew one thing – he needed to put his brain in gear before he opened his mouth, especially, and most importantly, when he was with his family. These women could skin the bark from a tree trunk with just a look and a little magic from fifty feet away – he stood no chance.

  Not even tossing down a sack full of chocolate in the middle of the table as a distraction would help him now.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ~

  Claudia was the first to make her move. She pushed forward in her chair, caught Scott’s gaze and held it hostage, as she placed her elbow down on the table and rested her chin on a loose fist. “Friend or foe?” she asked with a little relish at the thought of some more juicy details coming out.

  Scott knew there was little point in trying to reverse ferret out of it – he’d given the game away, and they weren’t going to stop until they had details. “A little of both, I think,” Scott lied. He needed to underplay his relationship with the vampire, just in case the worst happened, and the vampire was stringing him along.

  “You can’t trust a vampire,” Louann chirped up, and all eyes turned to her. “Oh, tell me I’m wrong, and they are poor misunderstood darlings,” she added with contempt for that idea.

  Marilyn lifted her glass and slumped back in her chair. “They’re not all …”

  “Bad bloodsucking murderers?” Louann offered with an uptick of her chin, as if she were a queen.

  “Monsters,” Marilyn said, and she felt the urge to do something she hadn’t done in a very long time and poke her damn tongue out at her mother, but she managed to smash that urge over the head with a massive sledgehammer.