“Uh… I’m not gonna like this, am I?”
“Probably not.”
I cast a glance around the first floor of the stately farmhouse that now served as our home and business. The cafe and the solarium were both empty, save for Alex who clanked dishes around in the sink.
To the left of the cafe an arch opened, revealing the antique shop I inherited. There was no one in there, either. Now certain we were alone, I crossed my arms across my chest.
“I saw you pick up the money outside the men’s room.”
Jake grinned and nodded. “See? I’m a good guy.”
“But the men’s room and the ladies’ room are at opposite ends of the building. One is near the solarium, and the other is near the antique shop.”
I pointed to the opposing doors, like a flight attendant highlighting the facilities. “Since I am obviously not a man, why did you ask if it was mine?”
Jake shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his eyes pausing at the Exit sign. To his credit, he stayed. “I thought I’d ask everyone in here. When I came out of the restroom, you were the only one still here.”
“Did you notice the man behind the counter? He seems a far likelier choice, given the location of the found money.”
Much more likely, actually.
Alex had a sharp mind but lost most everything. Our mother joked it was the reason he was so thin - he lost his appetite as a kid and never found it again.
“I hadn’t thought of that.” Jake glanced at Alex, who was now poking a fork into the toaster to remove a stuck bagel.
“It’s not his money, either.” I said. “Alex never uses public restrooms, even here.”
“What are you getting at? I’m not trying to take anything from you. I’m trying to give you something.”
“What I’m getting at is that I don’t appreciate games. You just wanted to talk to me, didn’t you Jake?” I smiled sweetly, deepening my dimples, though my arms remained crossed across my chest.
Jake raised his hands in the air. “Alright. Busted. I hope it’s at least a little flattering?”
“I’d be far more flattered if I hadn’t seen you chatting up every female who comes in here.” I pointed through the arch, into the antique shop. “That’s my office. I’ve watched you work your charms, many times on many women.”
The bronzer momentarily faded from Jake’s face. He blinked three times, slowly. “Okay, so I’m a flirt,” he confessed. “Is that so wrong?”
“Not necessarily. In every society, young men and women of courtship age exchange glances, smiles, and trivial conversation meant to create intimacy and heighten sexual tension.”
I looked over his shoulder, wondering if I had an anthropology book handy to reference. “Flirting is often a necessary first step in securing a mate in societies where mates aren’t chosen for you.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“That makes two of us,” Mom chimed in, still sitting at the table.
“Jake, hold out your hand,” I instructed.
“No.”
“Hold-out-your-hand.”
He pointed to a wooden sign above the solarium that read: Palm and Tea Leaf Readings: Ten Dollars. “I get it. You want to earn the money, huh?”
“That’s my cousin Kela’s business. She’ll give you good news. I’ve got other plans for you.”
I didn’t read tea leaves or love lines, as my cousin Kela did, but I had talents of my own.
I grabbed Jake’s right sleeve and turned his forearm so that his palm faced up. I exhaled a breath into my bare hands to warm them, then wrapped both palms around Jake’s right hand. Next, I braced for impact.
A flash of orange light exploded between my temples. My hands tightened around Jake’s and he crumpled to his knees.
“What the hell! Let go!” he begged, trying to pull loose.
But it was too late. Our bodies were fused, linked together like a stout chain, my mind probing his. I had plugged into Jake - into his past, present, and possibly even his future, if destiny were involved.
Despite his calculated outward appearance, it was a jumbled mess inside Jake’s head. So many random thoughts flying around. Jumping into a person’s mental landscape was like freefalling into the eye of a tornado. It was dangerous, but also beautiful from a certain vantage point, if you didn’t get lost.
I held on as thoughts and remembrances whooshed around me, connected to Jake like a plug in a live socket, until I had absorbed all the information I could carry.
At last, I was thrown back and contact was broken. I trembled as I collected myself, shaking off the darker images before they embedded themselves in my own consciousness. Some thoughts had to be vanquished right away or they became a permanent part of you.
Jake stood slowly, shaking his palms as if they burned. “What did you do?” he demanded, looking from his hands to me and back again.
When I regarded him this time, it was with compassion. “I’m sorry. Losing Beth must have been terrible. She was too young.”
“What? How did you know about Beth?”
I had learned many things in our shared moment, and most of them broke my heart. “It’s a gift, I’m told,” I answered, shrugging.
He clenched his jaw, his expression part anger, part embarrassment. There was pain there, too. He wanted to run. They all wanted to run, once their secrets were revealed.
“I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it.
He didn’t speak, but rather shuffled from one foot to the other, his hands now stuffed into his pockets. I was going to say something comforting, that Beth had loved him, and that she was in a better place, when a perverse gleam lit Jake’s eyes.
“Hey, I remember you! You’re Baylee Bonds. The witch-girl. You were gone what…nine years? Ten?”
“Eleven years, seven months, thirteen days. More or less.”
“Baylee Bonds, all grown up.” He whistled appreciatively. “City living was good to you, wasn’t it?”
“It’s Baylee Scott now,” I corrected him.
His smile widened as Alex passed by with a broom.
“And that’s your weird brother! The one who ‘speaks’ to animals? Wasn’t he locked up? Wait till everyone hears he’s out and sweeping floors!”
I observed Jake coolly as I returned my gloves to my hands. “Jake, let me be clear on this. My brother’s incarceration is a family matter and I suggest you mind your own business.”
“Only if you promise me a date. I’ve never gone out with a witch before.”
“I will not promise you a date, but I will promise you this: If you spread any gossip about my brother, or anyone else in my family, I’ll let everyone in town know what I saw in your head.”
“Everyone already knows about Beth.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh? What else did you see, witch?”
There was an entire cinematic reel Jake kept hidden beneath his expensive haircut: abandonment, sexual inadequacy, and debt. An extraordinary amount of debt. From gambling, most likely, as images of dice showed up repeatedly in my memory scan of him.
“You are in serious financial trouble, Jake. Is that why you gallivant about, seducing women?”
“Gallivant? Who uses words like gallivant? You’re insane, lady.”
He checked his watch, sidestepping towards the front open door. “I’m a business consultant. I’m financially secure. You don’t know anything.”
I kept silent. While my visions weren’t always relevant, they were uncannily accurate. Sometimes, I wished they weren’t.
“I gotta run.” Jake put on his sunglasses and planted one foot outside. “Don’t worry. I won’t be gallivanting around this place anymore. It’s practically a cemetery anyway. No one comes here anymore except old ladies and Prozac moms. And even they’re getting wise.”
“So, no date then?” I called after.
Once the doors shut behind him, I slumped back into my chair, feeling the physical and emotional dra
in that came with reading someone so fully. I picked up a limp wedge of cucumber sandwich and nibbled at the corner, all joy in the meal now lost.
“He seemed nice,” my mother said from across the table.
“He’s not nice, Mom. He seduces women for money.”
“I’m sure they don’t mind.”
Vivi Bonds turned towards the window, watching Jake’s chiseled form disappear into the landscape of downtown. She smacked her lips together, twice.
“Mmm-mmm. If I were still young…”
“And alive,” I reminded her.
“Why do you keep bringing that up?”
“Because you keep forgetting you’re dead.”
“I don’t forget. I just don’t like remembering.”
She eyed my sandwich with the same lustful look she’d just given Jake. “You need to enjoy your life, Baylee. Play the lottery. Dance naked in the moonlight. Kiss strange men. Live it up, girl! You don’t know how lucky you are to be young and beautiful and alive!”
I regarded my broad-shouldered mother. She was as imposing in death as she was in life. “Being dead hasn’t stopped you from living,” I said.
“I make the most of what I have.”
She sat up fully, her lips puckered as she gave me a thorough once-over.
“It wouldn’t kill you to cut out the muffins, though, Bay Leaf. Men like slim women. It’s a subconscious thing, left over from the caveman days. Slim women are easier to hunt for. It’s biology.”
“Mother, you have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I do, too! I read it in a book. Or maybe I saw it on Discovery. I don’t know, but it’s a fact.”
“And who are you to talk about indulging in muffins?”
“What, this?” Mom patted her plush belly. “It’s my winter weight.”
She prattled on while I half-listened, wondering how I could gracefully leave the conversation.
While she had been doting in life, she was positively smothering in the afterlife. There was no place in the farmhouse I could hide now that she didn’t need sleep and could move through walls. I was constantly subjected to her pearls of wisdom, whether I wanted them, or not.
“You never know when I’ll cross all the way over,” Mom reminded me. “I need to spend as much time with you as I can. I don’t want to leave with any regrets.”
Regrets.
Now there was a subject I knew plenty about, and none of them involved not kissing strange men or dancing naked in the moonlight.
“Baylee…” Mom tapped my wrist. It felt like a cool breeze brushing against my arm. “You aren’t listening to me.”
“I was listening.”
“What did I say?”
I lifted my hand, raising a finger with each point. “Let’s see. Why haven’t I remarried? Why won’t I give you grandkids? Why do I wear my hair long when short would be ‘much more becoming to my angular face?’ Did I miss anything?”
Mom studied me with narrowed eyes. Then a wide smile crossed her face and she laughed, sending her entire body shimmying.
“You had me going until you mentioned your hair. That’s what we talked about yesterday. I knew you weren’t listening.”
I sighed. It was impossible to argue with a spirit. They had endless time to make their point and nothing better to do.
I cupped my chin in my palm and cast a jealous glance at Alex, who was wiping the table beside us. He neither heard nor saw our mother. What I wouldn’t give for a Freaky Friday sibling moment.
“I don’t mean to sound insensitive, mom, but I really wish you’d find someone else to haunt.”
“Now why would I want to do that? You’ve been gone ten years. We have lots of time to make up for.”
“You talking to Mom?” Alex asked, pulling the fake rose from our faux crystal vase and replacing it with a fake sunflower.
“Do you see any other ghosts around?”
“Nope, but I don’t see her, either. Send her my love.”
“Mom, Alex sends his love.”
“I’m dead, not deaf! But please, tell him the new yoga teacher next door is cute, and probably vegan, and very bendy, and…”
Mother paused, wondering what other qualities might entice her perpetually single son into settling down. “She doesn’t know about his legal problems,” she whispered, as if that alone should settle it.
“Mom sends her love too.”
“Ask her if she took my keys?” Alex said, patting himself down.
“I didn’t take his keys! Why does he always blame me when his things go missing?” She exhaled a loud “Humph,” sailing a paper napkin into the air, where it glided to the hardwood floor.
“Hey, I saw that!” Alex gave Mom’s chair a thumbs-up as he plucked the napkin from the ground.
“What are you going to do this afternoon?” Mom asked me.
“Oh, I thought I’d organize the shot glass collection, or maybe restore the glass eyes on the creepy clown doll that’s been taking up shelf space since the 1950’s. If I’m lucky, someone will dump off a Hefty bag full of used clothes that should have gone to Goodwill.”
“You need to get out and find treasures, Baylee. You can’t wait for people to bring them to you.”
Mother reached for my teacup, frowning as her hand passed right through it.
“The point is - this job is what you make of it. Reed Hollow isn’t London, or New York, or even Seattle, but it’s home, and if you give it a chance I know you’ll come to love it again.”
I offered her a wry smile, the most I could muster at the moment. Vivi Bonds loved Reed Hollow, but I didn’t share her views.
“I promised you I’d make this business a success before I go, Mom, but I can’t stay here forever.”
“You just need to get out more. Have you tried joining a group? There’s a drum circle on Fridays at Lake Crystal.”
I sighed, ready to launch into the myriad of reasons why I was not going to join a drum circle, when the doorbell chimed inside my office.
Odd.
Most people entered through the cafe doors.
Though I wasn’t particularly enthralled with interacting with anyone new at the moment, it would get me away from Mom. I excused myself and hurried into the small antique shop that took up the east side of the restored farmhouse. The cozy room was empty by the time I stepped under the arch, but there was a strange new energy inside I couldn’t trace.
I hurried to my office window and caught sight of a woman’s long, silver braid tick-tocking down the busy sidewalk. By the color of her hair, I would have guessed her to be an older woman; but her gait suggested someone much younger.
Hmm, probably just someone trying to sell us something.
Yet something felt out of place. I looked around the jam-packed room. Sure enough, perched on the corner of my mahogany desk was a black velvet case the size of a pencil box that had not been there before. The case was open and five opulent rings glittered up at me.
“My stars,” I said, making my way over. They were beautiful and looked quite old, though I doubted they were precious stones.
I resisted touching the rings, even as they called out to me from the case, flickering like stars against a dark night. Objects, like people, retained their memories. The older an object, the greater the likelihood it had gathered a few scars during its life.
My hand hovered an inch above the case, feeling a pull that was hard to resist.
There was more to this collection than met the immediate eye.
I caught my breath, my emotions vacillating between excitement and fear.
Magick was present – an ancient, earthy magick I hadn’t sensed in a very long time.
TWO
On a Halloween evening when I was only four, my mother, Vivian Louise Bonds, made a wine-induced confession while I put on my costume.
“Can you keep a secret?” she asked, running a stiff brush through my fine blonde hair.
“Yes.”
“It can
’t leave this house.” She lowered her voice, as if even the wind creeping through the window cracks couldn’t be trusted. “Our family comes from a long line of witches.”
“Real witches?” I asked, glancing out the window, hoping to catch glimpse of one flying by on her broom.
“Real witches,” she confirmed. “Refugees from Salem who came here to escape the gallows.”
“What’s a gallow?”
“A terrible place where they send witches to rot.”
She set the brush down and lit a candle. Her face was pensive and searching, each line in her once-smooth skin illuminated and magnified by the quivering flame.
I had heard mother’s tall tales before, but there was a difference to her demeanor as she quietly recounted our ancestor’s march from Salem to Reed Hollow.
“A few men, but mostly women,” she said, taking a long draw of her wine. “Among them, your great-great-great grandmother. She was one of Reed Hollow’s founders.”
Mom finished off her drink and poured another, swishing it around in her glass. The liquid was red, and in the waning light it looked as thick as blood.
“Use caution,” she warned me. “Tonight, the veil between the worlds grows thin, and witches have been known to be sucked right through. It’s in your blood, my little Bay Leaf.”
I looked at my hands – hands that could read a person’s darkest secrets after even a brief encounter. I would have surely been ‘marched to the gallows.’
I hid myself away in the laundry room that night, skipping trick-or-treating altogether. Alex found me, consoling me with half his candy and some helpful words.
“I won’t let anything happen to you Bay. And I don’t think Mom’s going to be sucked ‘through the veil’ either. Think about it. If Mom were a real witch, she would have cast a spell to make herself rich and famous. She wouldn’t be running The Aunt-Tea-Query, married to dad, that’s for sure.”
It was true, of course.
Had Vivi Bonds any real magick, she would have used it to better her station.
Still, there was something magickal about my mother that even Alex couldn’t deny. If she were angry, the source of her ill temper might suddenly develop a rash or an eye tic; if she lacked the funds to treat herself to new pair of shoes, the exact amount needed would appear in a letter or come from an unexpected sale; and if she made a wish on a shooting star, it was guaranteed that something interesting would soon occur. Once, a sweepstakes van pulled into our driveway and delivered a thousand-dollar check for a contest Mother did not even remember entering.
Touch of Light: A Baylee Scott Paranormal Mystery (The Reed Hollow Chronicles Book 1) Page 2
