“Maybe that’s the problem,” I suggested when my phone dinged with an incoming text. “Maybe Marcus is jealous and worried you’re turning to the other side.”
“What other side?”
All thoughts of continuing my verbal assault on Thistle flew out the window when I read the message. “Son of a ... .”
“What’s wrong?” Clove straightened her shoulders, instantly alert. “Did Aunt Tillie do something to Mrs. Little again? I don’t think I have bail money handy.”
“And I’m done paying fines for her,” Thistle added. “She keeps saying she’ll pay us back, but she never does. I’m letting her sit in jail next time she puts a bra on that life-sized unicorn Mrs. Little bought for the front of her store. I thought the cone bra actually made that stupid fiberglass statue more interesting, but after the first two warnings Aunt Tillie should have taken the hint.”
“That’s not it.” I sucked in a breath as I looked around my office. I’d spent three days organizing and now I couldn’t remember where I’d put anything. “I need a notebook ... and pen.”
My demeanor must have finally seeped into Thistle’s subconscious because she turned serious. “What is going on? Did something happen?”
I nodded as I grabbed a notebook from the bin on top of the filing cabinet. My mind was careening. “There’s been a plane crash on the west side of town. I mean ... an actual plane crash. It went down in Potter’s Field.”
“That’s not far from our property,” Clove said, all traces of mirth gone. “That’s only a few miles from The Overlook.”
“I know.” I hadn’t considered the proximity of the crash site to the inn. I was having too much trouble wrapping my head around the stark reality I was about to face. “I have to get out there. This is my first really big story as newspaper owner.”
“We all have to get out there,” Thistle said. “It’s close to home and ... well, maybe we can help.”
“I think a plane crash is beyond our help,” Clove argued.
“You never know.”
I tended to agree with Clove, but Thistle was right. There might be something we could do. “Let’s get going. I need to get out there right now.”
“I’ll drive,” Thistle offered. “We can park on the dirt road at the back of the field. That will give us easier access.”
“Good idea. Let’s go now.”
Alien Inspiration
I think I’d prefer a zombie apocalypse to an alien invasion. At least the zombies can’t fly a spaceship. Wait … can you imagine a zombie in a spaceship? I’ve always wanted to write a book. Zombies in Space it is. Look out world. Here it comes.
Aunt Tillie decides to be an author
Two
A witchy drama of adventure and exploration.
Unfortunately, Thistle took driving lessons under the tutelage of Aunt Tillie. The back road to Potter’s Field was really a road in name only. It was more a two-track than anything, and access was limited to two points. One just happened to be conveniently located on our mothers’ property.
At first, I thought we’d be better off parking on the highway and walking to the scene. We could see the smoke billowing from a mile away, and I figured it was a catastrophe on an epic scale. Once we parked, leaving Thistle’s car close to the trees, I realized that Thistle’s idea was much smarter because what looked to be state police troopers had already cordoned off the area near the highway, and there was no opportunity to approach without being noticed.
“What do you make of that?” Thistle’s usual bravado was missing as she stared at the huge plume of smoke. “Do you think it’s possible the fire will spread?”
I couldn’t see actual flames, only smoke. “I don’t know.” I gripped my reporter’s notebook close to my chest. “I’m sure they know what they’re doing.”
“Where did they come from?” Clove asked, joining us in front of the car. “How did they get here so fast?”
That was a very good question. Hemlock Cove is a tourist town — one of the main highways travels directly past our small hamlet — and the state police outpost is a good forty miles away. For the troopers to already be here must have meant they had an idea something was about to happen.
“I don’t know,” I said finally, shaking my head. “I’m guessing they won’t let us get very close.”
“We might not want to get close,” Thistle said pragmatically. “What if there’s gasoline or something in the field? That could be why there’s so much smoke. It might not be safe.”
“Yeah, well ... .” I trailed off when a hint of movement to my left caught my attention. I recognized the man standing a good thirty feet away, a set of binoculars in his hands, and pursed my lips as I debated his appearance. “Isn’t that Hank?”
Thistle followed my gaze. “Yeah. He doesn’t live far from here. Maybe he’s the one who alerted the cops.”
That didn’t necessarily make sense to me. “He would’ve called the local cops. I don’t see Chief Terry, do you?” I flicked my eyes back to the disaster scene. I couldn’t make out the remnants of a plane, not a propeller or even hunks of metal. All I could see was the smoke and troopers busily working near the road to keep interested parties away. This is Hemlock Cove, where boredom is rampant, so a plane crash was certain to draw voyeurs. It already looked to be happening. At least ten vehicles had appeared on the road.
“I don’t see him,” Clove said finally. “That’s not normal, right?”
I shook my head. “Chief Terry should have been the first called to the scene.”
“Which means the state police are going to take over from the start,” Thistle said. “Although ... some of those guys don’t look like state boys. Where do you think they’re from?”
I shrugged, uncertain. “Aviation circles? I believe aviation safety is handled by the Feds.”
“So, where is Landon?”
Landon was Hemlock Cove’s “official” FBI agent. “I don’t know.” Something about the scene — other than the obvious — made me uneasy. “Let’s head over to Hank and see what he knows.”
“Hank?” Clove’s forehead puckered. “Hank is a kook.”
She was right. Hank William Jenkins (yes, his mother purposely named him that) had a certain reputation in Hemlock Cove. He didn’t visit town very often — only when he needed supplies — and wasn’t a regular participant in the town’s overblown festivals. “He lives on the other side of those trees.” I gestured vaguely. “He’s out here with no electricity and nothing to do but watch what happens in his little corner of the world. He’s our best shot at getting answers.”
Clove didn’t look convinced. “But he’s a pervert.”
I fought the inclination to roll my eyes. “Aunt Tillie says he’s a pervert. She wears leggings with dragons on them and then tells people to beware her burning loins. I don’t think she’s necessarily the best judge of character.”
“Mrs. Little says he’s a pervert, too,” Clove persisted.
“Mrs. Little sells porcelain unicorns,” Thistle pointed out. “Her opinion is suspect for that fact alone.”
Clove decided to take one more shot at changing our minds. “I swear I once saw him watching me while I was swimming in the lake. I was naked at the time.”
“You were naked in the lake?” Thistle arched a challenging eyebrow. “Were you alone or with someone?”
“Does that matter?”
“Actually, yes,” I answered. “We won’t be able to tease you properly if we don’t have all the facts.”
“Ugh. I hate you guys.” Clove jutted out her lower lip. “No, seriously, I hate you guys. I wish I was an only witch.”
“We all wish that,” Thistle said. “Now, seriously, who were you with?”
“Rick Jordan,” Clove replied, although her reticence was obvious. “It was a long time ago.”
Thistle didn’t bother to hide her mirth. “Was this before or after the hairlip incident?”
“He doesn’t have a hairlip.”
“No, but his wife does,” Thistle argued. “I thought he started dating Shelly while we were still in school. How old were you when you went skinny dipping with him?”
“I didn’t say I was skinny dipping.”
“No, but you said you were swimming naked,” I pointed out. “I believe the definition of skinny dipping is swimming naked, so ... spill.”
“Fine.” Clove was obviously unhappy with the turn in conversation. I would’ve liked to believe that would cause her to think twice before volunteering information of this nature in the future, but I knew her too well. “He was on a break from Shelly.”
“You mean the hairlip,” Thistle corrected.
“She’s a perfectly nice woman,” Clove argued. “She just happens to have a hormonal imbalance.”
“She hung around with Lila,” I argued, making a face at the mention of my high school enemy. Lila was the one person who always made me feel less than I was thanks to a nonstop wave of bullying and demoralization that lasted from elementary school until the day we graduated. “I don’t have much sympathy for her because of that. I think the hairlip is payback.”
“I don’t understand why she doesn’t shave that thing,” Thistle argued. “It’s like a caterpillar on her lip. Buy some lady shavers and call it a day. It will only take her two minutes to clean that thing up.”
“Maybe she’s too stupid to figure that out,” I suggested. “That could be karma, too.”
“I bet she’s afraid there are bugs living in there,” Thistle said sagely. “She probably doesn’t want to unleash the fleas.”
“You guys are awful.” Clove was always first to turn judgmental. “That is a human being.”
“She once tried to slip Nair in my shampoo in gym class,” I reminded her. “She thought it was funny, and always did whatever Lila ordered her to do.”
“Well, that was less human,” Clove amended. “Still, that lip thing is terrible. She has to be depressed carrying that thing around.”
Thistle snorted as she took the lead toward Hank. “Maybe that’s her cardio. You don’t know.”
“I still maintain he’s a pervert,” Clove complained.
“Well, you were the one swimming naked in his lake.” I could’ve been sympathetic, but, well, that’s not the Winchester way. “Maybe he thought you were coming on to him.”
“I was sixteen.”
“And naked in his lake.”
“Ugh. I hate you guys.” Clove was a pouty mess by the time we caught up with Hank. He’d edged down the field a bit, seemingly intent on staring at the crash site. I was curious about what he could see with his binoculars.
“How’s it going, Hank?”
He was dressed in army pants, which were offset with military boots and a tight black T-shirt. The rumor was that Hank wasn’t poor. He didn’t live in a small cabin with no electricity because he had to. He wanted to. Supposedly he was preparing for the end of the world. He had some special bunker or something, at least that’s what I heard Mom and my aunts say once when we were kids. He was a prepper, which meant instead of watching pornography or Keeping Up With the Kardashians (they’re basically the same thing), he prepared for the end of the world. He largely kept to himself and didn’t try to recruit others, so no one paid him any attention.
“Hello.” Hank’s reaction was cool as he looked me up and down. “Do I know you?”
We’d met at least fifteen times over the years. He always tended to greet me the exact same way. It was his thing. “Bay Winchester,” I reminded him. “I’m a reporter for The Whistler.”
“Owner,” Thistle automatically corrected. “You’re the owner now.”
Oh, right. I kept forgetting. “Owner,” I said hurriedly. “I bought the newspaper a few weeks ago. I’m the owner now.”
Hank blinked several times and then shook his head. “When the end of the world comes, newspapers will be obsolete. Nobody will care about the news because there will be too few people to spread it.”
“You’re a real ray of sunshine, aren’t you?” Thistle muttered. “You just spread sunshine and flowers wherever you go.”
Hank’s expression didn’t change when he shifted it to Thistle. “There won’t be pink hair dye either.”
“Well, that’s one apocalypse I don’t want to survive,” Thistle drawled. “Who wants to live in a world without pink hair dye?”
Hank apparently wasn’t much for sarcasm because he merely shrugged. “The first rule of survival is necessities. You worry about water, food and shelter — in that order — and then you worry about other things. I’ve never heard of anyone adding pink hair dye to a survival list.”
“That’s because you don’t live in the Winchester world,” I said brightly, hoping Hank would lose interest in arguing with Thistle and focus on me. “Pink hair dye is a must.”
Hank made a derisive sound. “Tillie didn’t teach you better than that? I think I need to have a talk with her.”
The conversational shift threw me for a loop. “Do you talk to Aunt Tillie?”
“I don’t talk to anyone if I can help it. Tillie talks to me.”
Right. That made sense. Hank lived in the woods not far from our property. Aunt Tillie had a magically-cloaked pot field hidden in the hills. She also liked to hang in the woods doing ... well, I wasn’t sure what she did out here. She often brought a whistle and a big stick, though for what I don’t know. Whatever it was, I was convinced it wasn’t good.
“Aunt Tillie does like to talk,” I agreed. “What do you know about this?”
Hank’s expression was blank. “About what?”
“This,” I repeated.
“What?”
Thistle lost her cool. “The big ball of smoke over yonder.” She waved so there could be no confusion. “What do you think that is?”
“Oh. It’s a fire.”
I chewed my bottom lip as I studied Hank. He was in his fifties — which put him around the same age as our mothers — and he was relatively put together for a guy who lived alone out in the middle of nowhere. While I wasn’t sure he had running water, he didn’t smell or anything ... and I considered that a bonus.
“Yes, but why is it on fire?” Thistle pressed. She wasn’t about to back down. She didn’t care if Hank was crazy, perverted or merely difficult. She liked to win, and she wasn’t about to let a guy who built a hidden bunker to survive a zombie apocalypse be the one to take her down.
“Something crashed,” Hank said.
“A plane?” I found my voice. “I heard it was a plane. George Thompson texted me the tip. He was making a delivery and saw the aftermath. He said whatever it was crashed into a big ball of flames.”
“I think that’s obviously true,” Thistle said dryly. “We see the big ball of flame right over there.”
“Yes, but we don’t see the plane,” I shot back. “There aren’t any plane parts. There’s no propeller or those flap things.”
“That’s because it wasn’t a plane.” Hank’s tone was ominous as he lifted his binoculars. “It most definitely wasn’t a plane.”
Well, that was interesting. “If it wasn’t a plane, what was it?”
“Flat. Disc-like. It twirled.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of his stilted response. “Was it some sort of drone or something?”
“I don’t think they make drones big enough to cause that much damage,” Clove argued. “I mean ... that’s a big fire.”
She had a point. Still ... . “I wasn’t talking about those little drones that people can buy at Target. I was talking about the big ones the government sends on bombing missions. Maybe they were testing one here and lost control.”
Thistle, never one to pass up a conspiracy theory, brightened considerably. “Oh, that’s a good idea. How else did the state police get here so fast?”
“I called them,” Hank replied simply.
“You called them?” My question was pointed. “Why would you call the state police directly instead of C
hief Terry?”
“Terry Davenport is one of them.”
“One of who?”
“You know ... one of them.” Hank was firm. “I can’t share information with one of them. It’s simply not allowed.”
Oh, well, I was officially lost. “Okay.” I shared a quick look with Thistle, but we had to look away to keep from laughing. “So, do you think it was a drone that crashed?” I asked Hank, returning to the topic at hand.
“It wasn’t a drone.” Hank rolled his eyes before lifting his binoculars again. “It was a flying saucer.”
I almost choked on my tongue. “Excuse me?”
“You heard what I said.” Hank didn’t back down. “It was a flying saucer.”
“Like a UFO?” Thistle challenged.
“No. A UFO is an unidentifiable flying object. I identified this object. I was watching it before the crash. It was definitely a flying saucer.”
“Huh.” My stomach gave a little lurch. “How long were you watching it, Hank?”
“Oh, a good hour.” Hank either didn’t pick up on my worry or opted to ignore it. I didn’t know him well enough to decide either way. “I’ve been watching it for days now. It keeps returning to this spot.”
“Why do you think that is?” Clove asked, her eyes wide enough to make me wonder if she was falling for this load of crap.
“I think that there’s something the aliens want.” Hank was solemn. “They wouldn’t keep coming back to this area if they didn’t want something specific.”
“And do you know what that is?” I queried.
“I do.” Thistle’s hand shot into the air. “They’re here for Aunt Tillie. They left her here years ago and now they want to take her back. The great experiment is over. Her infiltration of the human world has been an unmitigated disaster. The aliens are calling an end to this failure of an experiment.”
I scorched her with a look. “Don’t encourage this insanity.”
Thistle was blasé. “It makes perfect sense to me.”
“It would.” I blew out a sigh and shook my head. “Are you sure it wasn’t some sort of small plane, Hank? I know a lot of people build airplanes with those kits now. Maybe someone built something that looked slightly different. That’s a possibility, right?”
Close Encounters of the Witchy Kind (A Wicked Witches of the Midwest Fantasy Book 6) Page 2
