by Raven Snow
“I think he was,” said Aunt Lydia. “I think I remember them having a golden retriever.”
“He’s a black lab, Aunt Lydia,” said Rowen.
“Yes,” said Aunt Lydia. “He could have been a black lab. That sounds like it might be right.”
Rowen just shook her head and pressed on. “Do you know where they ended up?” she asked. “I’m looking for the parents, but I guess any of the Woodwards would do.”
Aunt Lydia fell silent, as if considering that for a moment. “Hmm,” she said. “I think most of them moved away,” she said. “As for the ones still in town…There’s Danny Woodward. You could ask Ben about him. He certainly spends enough time getting mixed up with the police, from what I hear.”
“What does he do?” asked Rowen. “To get arrested, I mean.”
“Oh, I think he’s just the typical drunk and disorderly sort. Robbed the Smiths’ house once—or tried to. They found him in the hot tub the next morning.” Aunt Lydia lowered her voice a bit as she spoke, like this was terribly valuable gossip she was sharing.
“Is there another one?” Rowen asked, not keen on the idea of asking someone like Danny.
“Liam,” said Aunt Lydia after a moment. “I think that was his name. He works for the city. I want to say I saw something about him in the paper. Not your paper, but--Not that I read other papers often.”
“You’re allowed to read papers that aren’t the Lainswich Inquirer, Aunt Lydia,” Rowen assured her with a sigh. “What did you see?”
“He’s in the marathon this year,” continued Lydia. “Or he was last year. He was involved with it at some point in time, at any rate.”
“Thanks,” said Rowen. “I appreciate it.”
“Not a problem.” Aunt Lydia launched right into another subject—one she was far more concerned about. “Are you coming to the grand opening?”
“Of course I am,” said Rowen, sure Aunt Lydia was only asking to sound put upon.
“I wasn’t sure,” said Lydia. “You haven’t written anything about it in the Inquirer.”
“Not today,” said Rowen. “We did yesterday, and we will again right before it. I’m not going to just write about it every day, you know.”
Aunt Lydia made an uncertain sort of “hmm” at that, like she wasn’t sure whether she was going to let Rowen off the hook yet or not. She was probably going to try and milk this for a while. “Are you going to come help set up, at least?”
“Of course I am,” Rowen said again. “I’ll even bring Eric to help with the heavy lifting. How does that sound?” She probably shouldn’t have volunteered him like that, but it was pretty much a given that he was coming anyway.
“Good,” said Lydia. “I’ll see you there tonight.” With that, she hung up.
Chapter Four
Odds n’ Ends was what the store was called. Rowen thought it was a terrible name. She couldn’t imagine how many middle-aged housewives shopping around downtown were going to wander in thinking it was a new boutique and be absolutely scandalized to find it was the Greensmiths’ new-age shop. Maybe that was their plan.
Tonight, all of Rowen’s cousins had been roped into coming in to set up. As Rowen had predicted, Eric hadn’t much appreciated being volunteered. He hadn’t actually been angry about it, though. He considered it inevitable, and it wasn’t like he had a full schedule or anything.
The location really was nice. It was small, but not just a hole in the wall sort of establishment. There was plenty of room and space to set up shelves and tables and the like. That was what they were doing now. The shelves had been assembled and placed, and now they were setting up their merchandise.
“I like running a lot more than I thought I would,” said Peony, making small talk as they worked. Margo and Willow both made faces at the comment. “It’s relaxing,” Peony continued. “It’s kinda like meditating, you know?”
Margo gave a snort at that. Willow just shook her head. “I like to meditate, and that’s not meditating.”
“It’s not all you’d hoped it would be, huh?” asked Rowen, giving her cousins a smirk. “What happened, Margo? I thought you ran track.”
“The track I ran on was different,” Margo said quickly. “There’s nowhere good to run here. If we had a decent place to run, I’m sure I could show you a thing or two.”
Rowen didn’t believe that for a moment. “You’re welcome to come back to work,” she said. Her cousins had been missing a couple of hours a day thanks to their “training.”
“It’s a commitment now,” Margo said. Apparently, running wasn’t all that miserable. She still preferred it to work. “I can’t just drop out of the marathon. It’s for charity.”
Willow gave a sigh. “It’s for charity,” she repeated, like she was speaking only to remind herself of that fact. She shook off her gloom to shoot her sister a dirty look. “You’re only having fun with it because you have a crush.”
Peony laughed. “A crush? We’re not in high school anymore. I like him. I can like whoever I want.”
That certainly got Rowen’s attention. “There’s a guy you like?” she asked. This was the first she was hearing of it. “Who is it? Is it someone I know?”
Peony blushed slightly. All eyes were on her, and she didn’t seem to care for the attention. “Maybe,” she said. “I don’t know…Either way, we’re not dating officially or anything.”
“They just flirt nonstop,” Willow complained.
“I’m not sure it’s even flirting,” Peony insisted. “I just like him, okay? That doesn’t mean it’s going to go anywhere.”
“It won’t go anywhere if you don’t make a move,” said Rowen. “Ask the guy out.”
Peony shook her head. “I can’t do that,” she said. She rephrased, “I was sort of hoping he would ask me out, you know?”
“Have you been dropping hints?” asked Rowen.
“She’s broadcasting it loud and clear,” Margo assured them all, still sounding a little annoyed.
“Then just ask him,” said Rowen. “Worst case scenario, he’s not interested, and you know for sure.”
“Worst case scenario, he’s not interested and I can never show my face around him again,” Peony muttered. That was a good point. Peony had never dealt well with rejection. She tended to be a bit more anxious about things than her sister.
“Do you think he’s interested?” asked Rowen.
Peony spread her hands in way of a noncommittal sort of response. “He talks to me a lot, I guess. He says we should hang out sometime, but he hasn’t made any official plans or anything.”
“Go for it,” said Rowen.
“You could do a love spell,” Willow suggested.
“Don’t you dare,” said Aunt Nadine, returning to the room with another box in her arms. Eric moved quickly to relieve her of it. “I’m convinced that’s how so many Greensmith relationships end in failure.”
“You don’t want to do a love spell,” said Margo. “Trust me. Once you break it off, there’s no getting rid of them. It’s awful.”
Rowen looked at Margo. She wondered if Margo spoke from experience. Had she put a love spell on Terry at any point in time? That would explain a lot. Poor Terry. She sure hoped she was off-base with this new theory of hers.
“Everything looks so nice!” Aunt Lydia said, coming in with Tiffany and a couple more boxes. She immediately lifted the mood of the room just by being there. “This is going to go well. I just know it is.”
Tiffany nodded. “We’re planning a sale and free Tarot readings.” Tiffany smiled. “I’m doing those. It’s been a while, but I think I’ve still got it in me.”
“I’m sure you do,” Rowen said, throwing her mother a reassuring smile. She tried to stay positive, but she had a feeling something was going to go wrong on the big day. “Are you guys going to need any of us there early?”
“Not if we get everything finished up tonight,” said Aunt Lydia, placing the box down on a table. “It looks like we’ll manage. We�
�re serving food, but I believe we’ve got that sorted too.” Aunt Lydia reached into the box and removed some seed packets. “Here, Rowen,” she said, offering a handful to her. “You should take some of these. Now that you’ve moved out, you don’t have a proper herb garden.”
“You know I don’t live that far away, right? I can just swing by your place if I ever needed something like that.” Rowen took the seeds anyway. “Thanks,” she said. “Though, I don’t have much of a green thumb.”
“Start them indoors,” said Tiffany. Aside from Grammy, she was the Greensmith who was best with plants. “You have that cute little shed out back. They would do well in there.”
Rowen nodded and pocketed the seed packets. “I’ll do that,” she assured her.
“How are you settling in to your new place?” asked Aunt Nadine, making small talk. She was good at that. “Lydia says you got yourself a dog.”
“The dog found us,” said Eric. “And we’re not sure we’re keeping him.”
“We think, maybe, he belonged to the old couple who used to live there,” Rowen explained.
“The Woodwards,” Aunt Lydia added, looking to Aunt Nadine.
“Ah.” Aunt Nadine nodded. “I remember them. They were…Well, people seemed to like them well enough.”
“Woodward?” Peony repeated, perking up a bit. “That’s the guy I was mentioning earlier. Well, I mean, that’s his last name, anyway. Woodward. Liam Woodward.”
“Liam!” Aunt Lydia nodded, sounding vindicated. She looked to Rowen. “See? I told you there was a Liam.”
Rowen had never doubted her. “Is he running in the marathon?” she asked, directing her attention back to Peony.
Peony shook her head. “He’s overseeing it,” she said. “I mean he might be running in it too. I don’t know.”
Well, that was convenient. “Think you can ask him for me? About the dog, I mean,” Rowen asked. “He would know if they had a family dog. That would save me some trouble. I asked the realtor to get in touch with Mr. and Mrs. Woodward, but I doubt she will.”
“Sure,” said Peony, directing her attention back to the shelves. She was drifting closer to her sister, though. Rowen thought she heard something about love spells being whispered. Surely not. Peony had more sense than that…Didn’t she?
Rowen and Eric arrived home late that evening. Eric had worked up a sweat doing most of the heavy lifting. He headed upstairs for a shower. Rowen, meanwhile, went to feed the dog.
Chester got up from his dog bed to greet her, tail wagging. Rowen really hoped he didn’t belong to anyone. Maybe that was a selfish thing to hope for, but she didn’t care. It was too late—she was hopelessly attached to him.
After emptying a can of dog food out into his bowl, Rowen headed out back. She retrieved the seeds her Aunts had given her and pushed the sliding door open. She hadn’t paid too much attention to the shed before now. It was just a shed. She recalled Samantha opening it up once when they had checked the place out and telling them exactly that, “And this is the shed.”
If had been empty, full of mostly empty shelves and spider webs. Rowen opened the door now. With any luck, she wouldn’t run into any spiders. She wasn’t terribly fond of bugs.
It took a bit of work, but Rowen got the shed door open. It stuck a bit. She had to put her weight into it. It was dark inside, of course. No surprise there. Rowen had come prepared with a flashlight. She pulled that out now.
The shed seemed like a fine place to start seeds off in. She could even store some gardening stuff in here. Rowen had considered trying to do something with what had used to be a garden out back. Rowen moved to the back of the shed to inspect some of the mason jars left behind on the shelves. It was then that the feeling hit her. It was an odd feeling, one that started at the nape of her neck and moved down her spine. It gave her the chills.
A sudden growl made Rowen jump. She looked back behind her to find Chester standing in the doorway. It didn’t seem to be her he was growling at. No, there was something going on here, and he sensed it too. Rowen turned her flashlight on the ceiling and saw that there was a place for a bulb. She hurried back inside and retrieved a spare bulb from a drawer.
Chester remained outside, ears low. The hair on his back was raised. His tail was down between his legs. He was frightened, and it broke Rowen’s heart. It also made her more than a little nervous. What was there to be so afraid of?
Rowen climbed up on the bottom most shelf and screwed in the new lightbulb. She pulled the little chord and the whole room lit up, but it didn’t lift the oppressive feel of the place any. Rowen hadn’t felt it before when she just looked in from the outside. She hadn’t felt it when she had first stepped in here either. It was unmistakable now though. If the house was full of good memories, this room was full of bad ones.
There was no sign of anything that Rowen could see. It looked like a perfectly normal shed. The mason jars on the shelves were empty ones. They had been left behind in the move. There was nothing unusual there. There was a dust pan in one corner. Rowen looked at the floor and saw only a layer of dirt and dust. There was what might have been some splotchy discoloration, but it was difficult to tell.
Chester barked, making Rowen jump again. “Fine,” she said. “I’m coming.” She grabbed her seeds and stepped out of the shed. This was no place for growing herbs after all. “What happened in there?” Rowen asked Chester. She wished he could answer her. She got the impression that, whatever had happened, he had witnessed it. Now, more than ever, Rowen wanted to speak with the Woodwards.
Rowen hurried back inside with Chester at her heels. She hurried up the stairs, nearly plowing right into Eric as he emerged from the bathroom in a towel and a cloud of steam.
“Woah,” said Eric, catching her by the shoulders. “What’s up with you?”
“Something bad happened here,” said Rowen, a little breathless after taking the stairs so fast. Chester was still working on them. As old as he was, he had a little trouble with stairs.
Eric raised an eyebrow. “Something bad?” he repeated, sounding puzzled. “I thought you took this place because it was so full of good memories.”
Rowen’s eyes were drawn to Eric’s rather impressive physique. With his blond hair and the towel draped around his hips like that, he looked a bit like a Grecian god. Apollo, maybe. Sure, they were married and all, but it was still…distracting.
“Rowen?” said Eric, snapping her out of it.
“Sorry.” Rowen reached down to give Chester a reassuring scratch on the head. Now that he’d made it up the stairs, he’d planted himself right at her side. “I was just out in the shed. I think something bad happened there.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Eric.
“It’s just a vibe I get.” Rowen figured that would be explanation enough. Eric knew that she got certain feelings around people and places. He had no reason to think she was making it up. He might have had his doubts about Rowen and her family when they had first met, but he knew she was the real deal now. “Chester sensed it too, I think,” she added. “He wouldn’t stop growling.”
“Show me,” said Eric, heading to the bedroom to throw on a pair of pajama pants really quick.
Rowen wasn’t sure how it would help, but she led Eric back out to the shed. She stayed outside this time. She sat on the grass with Chester and just watched him from a safe distance.
“What do you think happened here?” asked Eric. He didn’t seem to be sensing anything himself. That wasn’t a surprise. He didn’t have a knack for this sort of thing.
“I don’t know,” Rowen admitted. “But it’s strong. It feels bad…violent, maybe.”
“Violent?” Eric looked down at the floor, likely looking for stains like she had. “Samantha didn’t say anything about this house having a violent history.”
“Like she would know,” said Rowen. Her opinion of Samantha couldn’t be a whole lot lower. “Or tell us if she did.”
“Point taken,” said Eric. �
�Is that a deal breaker, though?” He suddenly looked a bit nervous. “We’re not moving out of this place if someone got murdered here, are we?”
“No,” Rowen said quickly. “I really like the house. I mean, it’s just the shed that’s evil. That’s not a deal breaker or anything, I don’t−That’s not the point!” He was pulling her focus away from the pressing matter at hand. “What if no one knows about this? What if something bad happened here, and no one did anything about it?”
Eric frowned. He stepped out of the shed, closing the door behind himself. “You’re looking for a mystery to solve,” he said. It was an observation, not a question open for debate.
“I didn’t go looking for one,” said Rowen, a little hurt by his accusing tone. “It just found me. Mysteries seem to do that around here.”
“They do,” Eric agreed. He led them all back inside, which seemed to come as quite the relief to Chester. The old dog was much more relaxed once they were back inside the house. “What do you want to do about this?”
“I want to get in touch with the Woodwards,” said Rowen.
“And if you can’t reach them?” asked Eric.
“Well, I have Peony talking with their son tomorrow,” said Rowen. “Aside from that, I guess I can ask Ben if he has any police records for this place.”
“He probably would have told you before we bought this place if he did,” Eric pointed out.
Rowen wasn’t so sure about that. “It’s not like he had any reason to.” Rowen hadn’t thought about doing a thorough background check on the place. “I’m going to ask him.”
Eric just heaved a sigh. He looked back at the shed, a frown on his face.
“What?” Rowen asked, giving him a soft shove. “You just don’t want another mystery going on.”
“I’d hoped we could avoid one for at least another month or two, yeah.” Eric gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I should have known better.”
Chapter Five
The grand opening of Odds ‘n Ends took priority over potential mysteries—even ones that involved murders. Rowen had hoped to get up early enough to swing by the police department and pay Ben a visit on her way to the event. It hadn’t quite worked out that way, unfortunately.
