Torrent Witches Box Set #1 Books 1-3 (Butter Witch, Treasure Witch, Hidden Witch)

by Tess Lake

  Jonas walked in, looking so much like Jack for a moment that if I squinted, I swear it could have been him. They had the same build, and in the right light I could almost see some of Jack’s features. We met in the middle of the room and shook hands, a little awkwardly.

  “Um, well, take a seat,” I said, waving to the sofa, completely forgetting that John was sitting there.

  “Thanks,” Jonas said and sat right on top of him. John bounced sideways like he’d been shot out of a cannon. All I saw was a blur of color as he was flung directly out through the front wall.

  I rushed over to the window and looked out to see John picking himself up off the ground. He’d actually landed inside the drugstore that was across the street. He looked up and saw me and waved with a smile on his face. I waved back before realizing that Jonas was probably watching me. I turned around to see that he was, in fact, sitting there, watching me with a curious look on his face.

  “Sorry, saw someone I knew,” I said lamely.

  I sat down in my writing chair and took a gulp of tepid water from my glass. It was hot enough up in this office and I really didn’t need to embarrass myself any further, but here I was doing it again.

  After a moment of awkward silence, Jonas cleared his throat and smiled at me.

  “Anyway, I’m downstairs and I’m doing a bit of real estate development and possibly building with my brother Jack, who you already know.”

  “Real estate development? That’s interesting,” I said, not really saying anything at all.

  “We think it could be a nice little business down here. We’ve both been looking for somewhere sandy and warm to live for a couple of years now. If we can make enough money, this might be the place.”

  “You and Jack came from somewhere cold?”

  “Yeah, Canada.”

  Jack was Canadian?

  I took this very blunt thought and used all my writing skills to shape it into a subtle question.

  “Jack’s Canadian?”

  “No, we’re American, but the family moved up to Ontario a long time ago. It’s really lovely but it can get really cold.”

  “It’s okay if you’re Canadian. We love bacon and maple syrup.”

  I realized this was my opportunity to get a bit more information about Jack. Despite us having our sort-of date yesterday, I still hadn’t talked with him about anything of real substance. That, for example, he’d been a police officer or that he’d come to Harlot Bay to investigate Preston Jacobs. Was he still doing things like that? There were a lot of unanswered questions.

  “So you and your brother came to Harlot Bay for the weather?”

  “Have you been to Canada during winter? You know that water we have that is normally liquid? It freezes. It freezes so hard that people can skate on it. And humans live there, for some reason, despite the fact that there is a warm country if you drive south.”

  “I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way. I grew up here, so I haven’t really had to live with a climate like that. It did snow once on the beach, though, but that was just some freaky weather.”

  “Our family came for a holiday here about a decade ago. We swam with some dolphins, lounged in the sand, got suntans and then they drove us right back to Canada. Jack was seventeen and I was fifteen and we swore right then and there that we would find a way to escape the freezing winters and return.”

  My phone beeped a reminder that I had to leave to meet Hattie Stern. I wanted to talk more with Jonas but at the same time, there was no way I was going to disobey a direct instruction from both Hattie Stern and Aunt Cass.

  “I’m sorry, I have an appointment. I have to go now but we should talk some more. Maybe we can have lunch someday?” I said.

  “That would be great. I’m looking for my future wife.”

  I had very badly timed my gulp of water. I nearly splurted it everywhere but managed to recover at the last moment.

  “Future wife?” I croaked.

  “Yeah, future wife. So if you know anyone in town, let me know?” With that he went downstairs, leaving me trying to clear the last droplets of water I’d inadvertently inhaled out of my throat.

  Jonas was single and looking for his future wife? As soon as that got around to the women in the town, there’d be a line down the street. Especially with his and his brother’s looks.

  It suddenly occurred to me (once again) that I didn’t know where Jack was staying and I didn’t even have a phone number to contact him. I did have his brother downstairs, though.

  After that conversation I was feeling quite good (despite the ups and downs of today). I got myself ready and reminded myself to stay in that frame of mind as I drove out to Stern Farms.

  Chapter 10

  Stern Farms is really one big farm on the edge of town. It’s a large lemon grove that tingles with magic. Hattie Stern’s family had grown lemons there for generations. They process them into all kinds of lemon-based products which they distribute to local supermarkets and to small shops around the country. They make lemon curd, lemon sauces, lemonade and pretty much anything you can think of that involves lemon. I do not like Hattie but I do enjoy the lemon curd her farm makes.

  As I parked my car outside the farmhouse, I realized yet again that I knew very little about some of the people who I saw quite regularly. In my mind, Hattie was always the disapproving old woman who looked down on my family. I had no idea if she had children or a husband. All I essentially knew was that she and Aunt Cass apparently hated each other and that Hattie was perpetually fighting to get the name of the town changed.

  As I got out of my car, Hattie appeared in the doorway of the farmhouse and nodded to me to follow her. I went inside, where it was cool and smelled of lemons. It was quite delicious, actually. There was a younger woman sitting in the main lounge room playing with a baby. A sullen teenage girl with dyed streaks of purple through her hair sat on the sofa with her knees up, tapping away on a phone, ignoring everybody. Hattie didn’t bother to introduce me. I followed her through the house and outside, where she took me to a small shed that was mostly empty. There were some chairs and a little side table and on it some coffee- and tea-making equipment next to a sink. A ticking clock hung on the wall.

  “You sit there,” Hattie said, pointing to one of the chairs. I obeyed her and sat down. She turned the electric kettle on and within two minutes it was boiling. Hattie filled up a cup and set it in the middle of the table in front of me. Then she tipped the rest of the hot water down the drain.

  “You’re going to pull the heat out of the cup of hot water, compress it and then let it go into the air. Then you’re going to sit there and wait until the feeling that you want to do it again goes away. You can’t talk. You have to concentrate on existing through the feeling that you want to do it again. You need to let it pass. It will probably be about twenty minutes. Do you have any questions before we start?”

  She asked it in a way that strongly suggested I better not have any questions.

  I shook my head.

  Hattie sat down on the chair beside me.

  “Begin,” she commanded and pointed at the cup.

  I reached out my hand to the cup, only to have Hattie whack me with a wooden ruler that she’d pulled out of nowhere.

  “Ow!” I yelped.

  “You don’t need to reach with your arm. You need to reach your mind and your magic. Go again.”

  I rubbed the back of my knuckles, which were already turning red, but then did as she instructed. I looked at the cup of coffee and imagined myself reaching out to it. It was harder, but soon I felt the heat in the cup and a moment later I pulled it out of the hot water. The water in the cup instantly went cold.

  “Now compress it, hold it for a moment and let it go,” Hattie said.

  The heat was about the size of the cup so I imagined myself using my hands to squish it down. The heat shrunk into a tiny ball about the size of a marble and grew hotter. I held it there at that size even though I could have squished it f
urther and then I let it go. It immediately expanded into a warm cloud and dispersed into the air. I turned to Hattie Smith with a smile on my face, about to say something, but she was frowning at me with her finger across her lips in the universal shush gesture.

  Fine, I’ll shush. I’m going to shush so well and so good I’m going to be the world shushing champion.

  About a minute passed before I became aware of the residual heat sitting in the empty kettle. It was only a little in the bottom but I could pull it out and squish it if I wanted to.

  Oh, this is what she was talking about.

  I tried to distract myself by looking at the box of tea and the small jar of instant coffee, but the tiny amount of heat in the bottom of the kettle seemed to call to me. I kept looking at it and then looking away. My desire to pull it out was growing with every second. The ticking clock on the wall showed that only four minutes had passed. It already felt unbearable.

  Another minute and it was taking actual effort to look away from the kettle now. As the heat in the bottom slowly dispersed, a kind of desperation rose up inside me that it would soon be gone.

  I would never be able to do it again! I had to do it now!

  I couldn’t stop my crazy thoughts. I could fill the kettle up with water and boil it. Instant heat! Hey, maybe start a fire! That would have a lot of heat! Then I could put the fire out. That would be a useful power, right?

  I was about to grab the last remnants of heat when Hattie touched me on the arm. Her palms felt cold. I felt a small tug of magic from her as she pulled some of the addiction out of me. I managed to look away from the kettle and back at the clock.

  Okay, I could do this.

  I kept my gaze on the clock for the next fifteen minutes, feeling as though I’d swallowed a few tablets that had become stuck in my throat. I couldn’t get comfortable. My desire to boil the kettle strengthened and then weakened, until eventually it passed and I was left watching the clock.

  Hattie tipped the now-cold cup of water into the sink.

  “We’re done for today. Come back in a week and we’ll do it again. Do not, and I stress, under any circumstances do not attempt to do this on your own. If you feel that you must do it, then you need to contact me or Cassandra immediately. Do you understand?”

  I nodded, feeling a bit wrung out and exhausted by the effort to hold back from pulling the heat out of the kettle. It had really drained my energy. I saw Hattie Stern looking me over with that standard face that she always wore. Then her expression softened.

  “You did well,” she said.

  I stood up, feeling my butt had gone numb on the chair. It had only been twenty minutes but it felt like a lifetime. From out of nowhere, a question rose up and without thinking I gave it voice.

  “What don’t you and Aunt Cass get along?” I asked.

  “Ah, that famous Torrent ‘I have had a thought so I must say that thought out loud without considering whether I should’ trait.”

  Although she was glaring at me, I found some journalistic backbone.

  “No, really, I want to know.”

  “You’ll know if you’re meant to know.”

  With that she walked off, leaving me in the small shed. When she was outside the back door to the farmhouse she called back, “Don’t come through the house. Go around the side.”

  She slammed the door behind her.

  Evidently the training session was over.

  I drove home with the air conditioning on as high as it could go. It revived me a little, but I could still feel a deep exhaustion floating up from inside me. Once I was back, I puttered around for a while, not doing much, wondering how early I could go to bed.

  I was standing at the kitchen counter eating a piece of toast and talking to Adams when Mom came bustling in. She clearly had something on her mind but stopped short when she saw me.

  “Oh, Harlow, you look terrible,” she said.

  “Thanks, Mom,” I said sleepily.

  “What’s the matter? Did you have to leave the bakery today because you’re tired? Oh my Goddess, are you pregnant?”

  Wow, that escalated quickly.

  “No, I’m not pregnant. I’m tired from…”

  Eeep. I hadn’t told my mother anything at all about pulling heat out of hot water and how it felt or that I was now engaging in a training program with Hattie Stern.

  “You saw Hattie Stern. It’s good you’re tired. It means it’s working.”

  What was going on here? Some sort of secret communication network amongst the older witches who I thought never spoke?

  “You knew about that?”

  “Of course. I was one that told Aunt Cass to call Hattie Stern to arrange it, but then Hattie called first. We knew you would have felt some of the power when you were helping put out that fire.”

  Ah yes, the fire. Another topic of conversation that hadn’t been discussed yet.

  “Have you discovered the source of the fire yet?”

  Mom looked at me with a deadpan expression.

  “Harlow, you and I both know that cottage was filled to the gills with fireworks your aunt has been illegally selling. I don’t know what started the fire but I know it wasn’t you. We’re not going to worry about it. Harv and Mary posted a review on a travel site saying how impressed they were that we had a fireworks show just for them and suddenly we have a lot more bookings. So…”

  “So, you’re going to be running a nightly fireworks show?”

  “No, not nightly. Maybe once a week or something like that. Special occasions.”

  “Money corrupts, then.”

  “We decided to take the higher road. Besides, Aunt Cass is upset about that young man quitting, so we’re leaving her be for the moment.”

  Aunt Cass was upset? I mean, we all knew when she was upset. But not upset upset.

  “She’s taking the apprentice quitting to heart?”

  “Don’t worry about her. She’ll be fine. I want you to tell me why you rushed out of the bakery today.”

  “Let me make us drinks first.”

  I made us both cups of cocoa and we sat on the sofa. I told Mom about how it felt to discover the skeletons out on Truer Island, meeting Holly and the icy air that followed her around when she felt sad. How it felt like the sheer pain of a lifetime lost, seemingly compressed and handed out in small doses.

  I hesitated when it came time to tell her about going out to Truer Island because Holly claimed she’d found the location where she and her father were murdered. Mom has a tendency to get quite worked up whenever there is danger and crime involving me or her nieces. My being a journalist doesn’t earn me a pass at all. I glanced at Mom, saw she was still looking relaxed and decided to risk telling the truth. To my surprise she merely nodded and told me it was a good idea to travel to the island.

  “I feel like I might have Slipped too,” I said and told her about seeing the shimmering tree, the bird and the turtle, how Holly was crunching leaves and when she petted Adams his fur moved. I told her about John Smith seeming more solid and him holding a piece of paper.

  Mom sipped her drink and didn’t say anything for a moment, which was a miracle all in itself.

  “The ghosts may be growing stronger because of you. Your grandmother told me that happened to her when she was a teenager. She had to stay out on Truer Island until it passed. If it gets worse it might be something we have to consider.”

  The topic of me being a Slip witch and what to do about it was the ultimate in sensitive topics. When I was a kid I’d accidentally exploded a tree when my nature magic went wild. As a teenager I’d sunk one of the old cottages on the property into the ground when the earth turned liquid because I was standing near it. I’d had to stay outside for the rest the day until that power faded. There were countless incidents all through school.

  The big one was last year, when there had been a fire at my apartment building. It was blamed on bad wiring, but I knew better.

  I was getting tired, though, so I didn’
t particularly want to open up that Pandora ’s Box at the moment.

  I was working on changing the topic when I felt a surge of magic and Mom suddenly yawned and rubbed her eyes as though she’d just awoken. Some spell was pulling on her.

  “What was that?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Mom said, yawning into the back of her hand.

  “Is that the concealment spell on Grandma?”

  Mom nodded and yawned again.

  I’d known there was an ongoing concealment spell on Grandma to prevent the builders (and any guests) from seeing her, but I’d been wrapped up in so much of my own stuff for so long that I hadn’t even thought about who was maintaining it.

  Ongoing spells drain energy every day at the same time they were cast. It could be quite dangerous to have multiple spells running, and witches have died that way.

  “Are you doing it yourself?”

  “No, we’re taking shifts, two days at a time.”

  “You should have told us! We can all cast concealment spells.”

  “Molly and Luce are working hard at their coffee shop and you have your website. Don’t worry about it. It’s our responsibility, she’s our mother.”

  “Well, we can’t keep her under a permanent concealment spell. Is there any way we can move her?”

  “What you do want? We should put her in an underground room and bar the door?”

  “No, I never said that. I mean, maybe you could move her down here and –”

  “And what? Have the concealment spell have to work down here so Luce and Molly’s boyfriends don’t see her?”

  Crap, I’d forgotten about them. It was all still very much hush-hush and we’d been keeping it from the moms, but clearly no one had gotten away with anything. (Admittedly, they weren’t trying very hard. Will and Ollie had left their trucks parked outside!)

  That didn’t stop me from lying about it.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said automatically.

  “I’m sure you don’t, Miss decides to have a picnic on the far side of the soundstage and eats hot dogs and drinks beer with Jack Bishop while hiding from her mother and aunts who are working hard for charity.”