Careful What You Witch For

by K. J. Emrick

  “Yes,” Willow told him, tossing her hair back over a shoulder. “It’s a ghost. Get over it.”

  Addie would have put it a little more delicately than that, but she was a little busy at the moment. Once she called up a ghost to talk to she had to keep her full attention on the person’s presence, or the ghost would just slip back into the afterlife where it had come from. Heaven was devoted to the souls that left this life for the next. You couldn’t call them back here for very long.

  They were also notoriously unhelpful while they were here.

  Ignoring everything else around her, Addie concentrated on the conversation between her and the dead man.

  “What’s your name?” she asked, deciding to start with something simple.

  “…Danny…” the ghost told her. “…Danny Bellinger…that’s me…right there…”

  Okay, so far so good. “Danny. Can you help us? We want to know how you died.”

  Danny’s ghost blinked wildly, as if the question had no meaning for him. It clearly bothered him however, and he began to rise several feet higher off the ground so that Addie had to crane her neck to look up at him.

  Then he turned, and pointed down at the knife on the ground.

  Well, Addie thought to herself. That was going to fall under the category of ‘tell me something I don’t already know,’ but at least Danny here was two for two.

  She took another deep breath, feeling her heart start to hammer. The connection was getting harder to maintain. In a small part of her mind not occupied with talking to the ghost, she wondered if she should have used more verbascum to make the calling. She dribbled in just a smidge more of her Essence. She didn’t dare add more than that.

  Ghosts could become hungry if they tasted a witch’s life force. They would hunger for what they didn’t have and try to take it by force. There were cautionary stories of witches who had been sucked dry to the bone by wailing spirits. She definitely did not want to repeat that mistake.

  What she did want to do, was get answers.

  “We want to help you,” Addie assured the dead man in a calm, serene voice. “We want to find out what happened to you. Can you tell us who killed you?”

  Danny’s ghost floated back down to the ground, like a balloon that was slowly deflating. “…I’m dead…”

  This was another thing with ghosts. Well, Typic ghosts anyway. Addie imagined that for someone who didn’t grow up around magic and the dead and the world of the paranormal, the fact that you could suddenly wake up dead must be very traumatic. Most ghosts she had communed with had trouble accepting their reality. Dead was dead. It was just another step forward in a person’s existence, but for some spirits it was just too traumatic to work past.

  “Yes, Danny. You’re dead. Someone killed you.” Addie felt perspiration making the hair at the back of her neck damp. This was becoming a real strain on her. More so than she was used to, that was for sure. Danny did not want to talk to her. “Can you tell me who killed you?”

  “Oh, for the love of Padraig,” Willow almost growled. “Just ask him what we really want to know. Was it a person who killed him or something else?”

  “Something… else?” Lucian asked to no one in particular, distracting Addie.

  The image of Danny’s ghost wavered.

  Willow scoffed. “Yes, Mister Police Officer. They don’t teach you about that at the academy, do they? There’s more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in blah-de-blah-blah.”

  Danny faded and started to disperse, before coming back into view.

  “Willow,” Addie said between clenched teeth, “stop it.”

  “Just explaining to our new friend how it is,” Willow said with a casual shrug. “Guess you haven’t told him everything yet, huh? I could take him for a day and educate him, if you like.”

  When Addie turned to glare at her sister, the ghost disappeared completely.

  They all stared at the empty space where Danny’s spirit had been just a minute before, especially Lucian, but there was no help for it. The ghost was gone.

  “Well, that’s just great.” Addie threw her hands up in the air and turned away, folding her arms, so she wouldn’t have to look at the dead man anymore. “That was a colossal waste of time.”

  “Can’t you…?” Lucian asked. “I don’t know, can’t you just call him up again?”

  “It doesn’t work that way,” Addie snapped. She caught herself as soon as she did. Of course Lucian wouldn’t understand these things. How could he?

  There was a whole explanation about the energy of a ghost and how they came and went, not to mention that she would need to replenish her Essence before trying a spell like that again. Maybe she could try again tomorrow. She shook her head and turned away again. She didn’t feel like explaining it. She was angry with Willow. They had a murder to investigate and all her sister cared about was getting back to her boyfriend. Sometimes, Willow was still such a child.

  “Anyway,” Lucian said when no one else was speaking. “Did we learn anything about the murder from that?”

  Kiera cleared her throat, folding her hands at her waist. “There was no paranormal aspect to the murder. There would be signs if magic was used. Also, most things that aren’t… human would avoid using a steel kitchen knife. Steel is deadly to most paranormals.”

  “So, human suspects,” Lucian said. He actually looked happy to know that. “Good. Humans breaking the law is my specialty. Let’s go inside and we can meet the suspects.”

  “Hmm,” Willow hummed. “We could do that, yes, or we could just go, since there’s nothing paranormal about this death.”

  “We will be staying,” Kiera announced.

  “But, Kiera…”

  “We,” her big sister said again, more slowly, “will be staying.”

  Willow sighed. “Of course we will.”

  “There was something else,” Addie said. “I felt it when I was talking to Danny’s ghost. Not paranormal, no, but… there’s something else going on here. Danny’s ghost was almost being pushed away from his body.”

  Kiera mulled that over in her mind. “Interesting. What do you think that means?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t. It’s like there was something that he didn’t want us to know.”

  “Or perhaps,” Kiera added, “there is someone else here who doesn’t want Danny hanging around. Perhaps someone here has a secret they don’t want him finding out, even now that he’s dead.”

  “I suppose that’s possible, too.”

  Addie knew that people could focus their mental energies to push someone away. Even people who had no magical ability could do that. If you sent negative thoughts at an unwanted dinner guest long enough, for instance, they always got the hint that they weren’t wanted. Could the same thing work on ghosts?

  Which led to the obvious question. Which one of the suspects inside would have a secret they were afraid of Danny finding out, even after he was dead?

  What secret could be that big?

  “Well,” Kiera said after a moment. “Either way, there is nothing more we can learn until we talk to the people inside.”

  Lucian cleared his throat. “All right then, ladies. Let’s go in.”

  Kiera smiled at him. “Thank you for the invitation, Detective Knight.”

  “Sure,” he said simply. “I have the feeling that I’m better off with your help. Even if the killer is, you know, human. I really can’t believe I just said those words out loud.”

  “Welcome to our world,” Addie said to him.

  They shared a look between them, and smiled at each other.

  “Stop being gross you two, please.” Willow shook her head as she rolled her eyes. “If we have to do this, then let’s just get it over with.”

  Lucian walked with Addie again as they went up to the back door. “Your sister is just a bundle of joy, isn’t she?”

  “Sure is. Let’s see. How best to explain Willow?” Addie said, keeping her voice low and threadin
g just a little bit of her Essence through the words so they went to Lucian’s ears only. She was still tired from calling up the ghost, but this was just a simple spell. “She’s young, I guess is the best way to put it. She still thinks that life is about having fun.”

  “Isn’t it, though?” he asked her in all seriousness.

  Addie shrugged. “Everyone needs a little fun in their life, but it can’t be the only thing you live for. Don’t get me wrong, Willow is always there whenever we need her to be.” Well, not always, she kept herself from adding. ‘Usually’ would have been more truthful. “There’s just a lot of child in her still. Sometimes she’s more concerned about herself than anyone else.”

  Lucian nodded. “I have a little sister. I know what that can be like.”

  They were just coming up to the back door of the lodge now. Addie was surprised to hear Lucian had a sister. It made her curious what else she might find out about him, if they ever had the chance to just sit down and talk. Or if he even wanted to ask her out on that date after what he’d seen here tonight.

  Inside, Pendulum Lodge was brightly lit with LED bulbs in stylish lamps hanging from the high ceiling. This door led into a common area, with couches and plush recliners and a huge flatscreen television on the wall. Book cases to either side were crammed with hardcover books that Addie was willing to bet hadn’t been taken off their shelves in years, if ever. Nowadays books were more for decoration than entertainment. At least for some people.

  Addie was happy to count herself among the people who still enjoyed turning the pages of a well-crafted novel.

  Sitting to one side of the room, on stools beside a gleaming counter bar, were three women. Two of them might be a couple, Addie thought, because they were standing very close together even if they weren’t holding hands or anything like that. The third one was a beauty with honey-brown hair holding a heavy glass of liquor between her hands, just a slip of a woman, hunched over on her stool, tears falling from red eyes.

  “That’s the wife of the deceased,” Lucian told them. “Eileen Bellinger.”

  All three sisters stopped where they were, their gazes locked on the grieving widow.

  Sensing the sudden tension from them, Lucian backed up a step and put his hand inside of his suitcoat, to where Addie was sure he must have his sidearm in a shoulder holster. “What? What is it?”

  Addie pulled his arm back, away from his gun, smiling stiffly and hoping he would understand to do the same. “Have you checked everyone’s background yet? Their identification or their driver’s licenses or whatever?”

  “No, I haven’t had time. I’ve only gotten the basic statements from these three. There’s two other people upstairs, in their room. Haven’t spoken to them yet. Eileen found the victim’s body. Those other two over there said they were in their room and didn’t see anything. Pretty basic. Why?”

  “Because,” Addie told him, the fake smile still in place, “your grieving widow isn’t who she says she is. That woman is not Eileen Bellinger.”

  Chapter 4

  “Well,” Willow said happily. “This is going to be easier to solve than I thought. Go ahead, Detective Knight. Arrest her, or whatever it is you Typic types do when you find someone being bad.”

  Lucian just stared at her, thoroughly confused, before turning the same look on Addie. “I don’t understand. What do you mean, that isn’t Eileen? How could you know something like that after being in a room with her for all of thirty seconds?”

  Willow tossed her hair. “It’s a witch thing, big boy. Not sure you’d understand.”

  Addie ignored her and looked back across the room at the three women. The two who were some sort of couple looked perfectly normal to her eyes. One was a bleach blonde, the other a bottle brunette, but those were just cosmetic changes. A woman had the prerogative to change her look, after all.

  What she and her sisters were seeing around Eileen was more than cosmetic. It was like she was wearing a disguise that covered her from head to toe.

  There was a haze around the woman. It was a figurative cloak, like a disguise that she had worn for so long it had become a part of her. Whoever Eileen Bellinger was in reality, it was not the face that she showed the world every day.

  Addie had only seen a cloak of disguise like this one other time, when she had met someone in witness protection. That woman had lived a double life for so long that she could no longer tell where her lies ended, and her real self began. The persona she showed the world had become a masquerade. So powerful, that it carried its own sort of magic.

  It didn’t happen with little lies that people told each other. It only happened when a person lived the lie for years.

  This woman sitting there, drinking her liquor, was wearing a Masquerade of her own.

  She was living a life of lies, and had been for some time.

  Explaining all of that to Lucian was going to take some time, however. Addie didn’t think that standing here and whispering about the women on the other side of the room would make a very good first impression.

  “You’ll have to trust us,” she decided to say, with a sidelong glance at Willow. “It’s a witch thing.”

  Kiera’s face had an odd expression, like she was trying not to laugh.

  Come to think of it, Addie couldn’t remember the last time Kiera had laughed over anything at all. She always had been a little rigid and aloof. Now, since learning her son had returned to Shadow Lake only to disappear from the face of the Earth, she had withdrawn even further into her shell.

  “All right.” Lucian lowered his voice. “So we don’t think Eileen is being completely honest with us, is that what you’re saying?”

  “She’s not who she says she is,” Addie insisted. “You should question her about it.”

  “Right,” Willow said, studying her fingernails. “Smack her around a bit. Use that Chinese water torture thing.”

  Lucian cleared his throat. “That’s not how we do things.”

  “But,” Addie interjected quickly, “you can ask her about it, right? Can’t you run a background check on her or something?”

  He nodded. “I’ll make a call to my office. They’ve got everyone’s information already. They just need to run it through the statewide computer network. Um.” He looked to Addie for help. “I’ll need to make that call outside so no one hears me. Someone needs to sit with Eileen… or whoever she is. And I think we should get her by herself, away from the others.”

  “I agree,” Kiera said. “Addie, stay here with Eileen. Willow and I will take the other two women into the kitchen for now, I suppose.”

  Willow clapped her hands. “Perfect. I’m starving.”

  “Good. Thanks. Remember there’s two more people upstairs so don’t be surprised if someone else pokes their head in for a late night snack or whatever.”

  She and Lucian waited for Kiera and Willow to go over and introduce themselves, and somehow talk the two women with Eileen into leaving with them to go to the kitchen. While they waited Addie tried to figure something out in her mind. Lucian had said there were six people here. These three, two upstairs, and Danny the dead man in the backyard. Six.

  When they had been driving in on the access road, Kiera had only sensed five living people, one of those being Lucian. So four people staying here, plus Danny the dead man in the backyard made… five. Not six.

  Why didn’t Kiera sense everyone here?

  “You’re okay to do this?” Lucian asked Addie, breaking her train of thought. “I just need you to sit with Eileen for a few minutes while I make this call.”

  “It’s fine.” Addie looked at Eileen, and she could see how upset she was even through the Masquerade shroud. The poor woman. Whatever she was hiding, she must have cared deeply for Danny. “I’ll keep her talking but I won’t ask her anything about her past until you get here.”

  He put his hand on hers. “Thank you, Addie.”

  When he said her name, it resonated through her again. His hand felt warm o
n her skin.

  Oh, she was starting to fall for this man, in a very good way.

  He already had the phone to his ear as he walked out. Addie took that as her cue to go and talk to Eileen Bellinger.

  “Hello,” she said, very quietly, as she got to the stools by the counter. Eileen was so intent on the glass in her hand that she didn’t even notice Addie until she spoke. Her head whipped up quickly and her hand jerked in surprise almost tipping the glass over. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  She smiled weakly up at Addie as she reached for a cloth napkin to blot the spilled drink from her hand. “That’s all right. I just have a lot… on my mind.” The smile fell away from her face. “I heard those other two women talking. They said they’re advisors for the police? Is that what you are?”

  Well that was a complete lie, actually, but Addie had to give her sisters credit for coming up with a convenient cover story. “Yes. I suppose you could say that. Lucian will be right back. He just wanted me to sit with you for a few minutes.”

  Pushing her drink aside, Eileen nodded. “I just can’t believe… to find him like that… all that blood and Danny dead in that chair I just can’t…”

  She took a deep, deep breath, and then flipped her hair back behind her shoulder. Her robe had slipped down to expose her sun-browned skin and the sleeveless pajamas underneath. She had obviously been dressed for bed when her husband was killed.

  Or, Addie told herself, she might have killed her husband and then come in here to change into pajamas and a robe as an alibi.

  Most people were killed by someone they knew. Was it possible that Eileen was this devious, to kill her husband and then pretend that she was all upset about it, with tears and everything?

  After all. She was definitely hiding something behind that Masquerade.

  Addie reached out with her senses, threaded through with her Essence, and tried to get a feel for whether or not Eileen was a killer. This was low-level magic, maybe a little more complicated than hiding her voice in a whisper like before, but still nothing more than a simple extending of her senses. By doing this, she should at least be able to tell if Eileen was pretending to be sad that Danny Bellinger was dead.