by Tegan Maher
Table of Contents
Bubble, Bubble, Here Comes Trouble
© 2017 Tegan Maher
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
Other Books in the Keyhole Lake Witches Series
Connect with Me!
Bubble, Bubble, Here Comes Trouble
By Tegan Maher
© 2017 Tegan Maher
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CHAPTER ONE
I DUSTED MY HANDS OFF on my apron and blew an errant curl out of my face before setting the oven timer for thirteen minutes, the exact time it would take for the last batch of pumpkin-shaped cookies to bake to golden perfection. Apropos since it was Halloween, I know, but there are some things even magic can't change, and how long it takes to bake a cookie is one of them.
A quick glance at the clock on the stove confirmed what I already knew: I was running out of time much faster than I was running out of things to do.
The Flynn Farm Halloween party had been a family tradition for over forty years, and this year, I was holding the reins. Or at least I was supposed to be; at this point, I felt like I was failing spectacularly. The house was only half-decorated, and I was still in my sweats. I shoved my hair off my forehead and pulled out dried flecks of cupcake batter left over from an unfortunate mishap with the mixer earlier.
I touched one of the kazillion gleaming red candy apples arranged in rows on wax paper and left a fingerprint. That meant they weren't cool enough to wrap yet, so I poured two glasses of iced tea and stepped onto the front porch. I sighed and closed my eyes; the cool fall breeze felt like heaven after the heat of the kitchen.
"It's about time you came out to help," my little sister Shelby said as she plucked one of the glasses from my hand. We plopped down on the front step and she leaned over and bumped shoulders with me. "It sure seemed easier when all we had to do was carve pumpkins and eat candy, didn't it?"
Until this year, our Aunt Adelaide had been the one to pull all this together, and I'm not going to lie: I felt like the shoes I was trying to fill were way too big. This shindig was just one of many traditions that had fallen in my lap when Addy passed away several months ago.
"It sure did,” I said. “I have no idea how she managed to do it. We're scaling it way down, and we'll still be lucky to have everything done before people start showing up. My feet are killing me already." I took a long pull from my glass, savoring the cool, sweet liquid that was a staple in our fridge. But I only had about a second and a half to enjoy the break before a ball of self-righteous energy in transparent muck boots burst through the wall, hands on hips.
Remember when I said Addy passed away? Well, she did—but she chose not to cross over. Imagine my surprise when she showed up a couple of weeks after her death to comfort me during one of my crying sessions. Who knew you had a choice when it came to staying or going? But apparently, some of us do; the proof was currently hovering several feet off the ground, hands on hips and tapping her toe in mid-air. If you've never seen the ghost of a southern woman with a mood on, count yourself lucky. I cringed.
"Oh, good," she snarked. "I'm glad to see you're comfortable. We only have a hundred or so guests showing up here in less than five hours. You two just go ahead and sit there like a couple of lumps on a log. So what if the lights aren't hung or the hay bales aren't out. Oh, this is going to be a disaster!"
Seeing Addy in a tizzy was, thankfully, a rare thing. She was typically rock-steady, and had more or less settled into the post-life lifestyle without a fuss. But this Halloween party was her pride and joy; it was her thing. She was there to offer advice—translation: boss me around—but she couldn't be hands-on, which was driving her batty.
The way the party worked was, we’d open up the farm to the public for a few hours, then we’d have a smaller, invite-only costume party afterward. We gave spooky hay rides and handed out candy—
Oh holy crap on a cracker—I forgot to pick up the candy!
While I was having an internal meltdown over what was sure to set off another round of ghostly histrionics, Shelby was trying her best to talk Addy off the cliff. "We've got it covered, Addy. Just look—I've almost got the outside done, and here comes Cody with the bales of hay. He's already got the hay ride route decorated and the scarecrows made, and we have some friends coming over to haunt the route, figuratively and literally. And Noelle has the inside under control and the food covered, right?"
They both looked expectantly at me.
"Of course I do," I lied, and then the cookie timer went off. Talk about being saved by the bell. "That's the final batch of cookies now." Lying was a skill I've never managed to master, so evade and avoid was my modus operandi. I ducked back into the kitchen, trying to figure out how in the name of all that was holy I was going to sneak into town to get the candy.
While I was thinking, I grabbed an armful of decorations and headed to the salon—a pretentious term for the huge living area in the front of the house. I threw the orange tablecloths over the three long plastic tables Cody had brought up from the barn, then began arranging the plates, napkins, cutlery, and table pop-ups. We'd draped fake spiderwebs in the corners and over the windows, and had strategically placed giant spiders, bats, and lights around the room. There were even a few Styrofoam tombstones and giant animated witches positioned to block little fingers from reaching the curio cabinets and TV.
I was just about to confess to Shelby that I'd forgotten the candy and needed to go to town to get it when my phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and was relieved to see it was my cousin, and business partner, Raeann.
"Thank god, Rae! Please tell me you're closing up early and coming out to help."
"Actually, that was my plan, sugar, but my car won't start. I hate to interrupt, but can you come fetch me?"
"Of course I can come get you, Rae," I said, a little louder than was strictly necessary.
"What on earth are you hollering for?"
I whispered, "I forgot the candy, and Addy's knickers are already in a serious knot. I need a reason to come to town!"
She burst out laughing. "Girl, I swear you'd forget your head if it wasn't attached."
I scowled and would have argued, except she was right. "I'll be down in twenty."
I ended the call and grabbed my car keys, then looked down to make sure I was moderately presentable in case I broke down or ran into somebody I knew at the store. My sweats were covered in crusty bits of dried dough, and I had a big splotch of orange food coloring on my shirt right over my left boob.
Yeah, maybe I should change first. And put on a ball cap.
It only took me a minute to pull on fresh clothes and rush out the door, calling over my shoulder to Shelby. I waved to her boyfriend Cody, who was hanging ghostie lights in the low-hanging branches of the trees in the yard as I headed toward my salvation.
Rae was
ready to go when I pulled up in front of Brew4U, her kitschy little coffee and sandwich shop. The crisp weather was a welcome respite from the hellfire heatwave we'd had only a couple of weeks before, so we decided to walk the couple of blocks to Things Forgotten, a vintage store that offered everything from Victorian hats to flapper dresses. Its owner, Anna Mae, was donating all the candy for tonight.
On the way, we ran into Angus, another of the town's resident ghosts. Calling him the former town drunk is mean, so let’s just say he had a close relationship with cans wrapped in brown paper bags and enjoyed sleeping in the gazebo in the park pre-death.
He was a kind soul though, and part of the fabric of the town; he'd always helped decorate the town for different holidays, and he played Santa for the kids every year. Most of the time, he even showed up sober. He also helped out the elderly or the poor whenever they needed a loose railing fixed or a porch board tacked down.
I’d never understood exactly how he came to be what he was, except I knew he'd experienced some sort of tragedy when he was young. It was sad, but I guess fate has a plan for us all.
"Hey, Angus," Rae said.
"Hey, girls! What's doin'?"
"Just getting ready for the Halloween party tonight," I said. "You're still going to be there to haunt the hay ride route, right?"
He took off his battered fedora and scratched his whiskered, transparent jaw as he floated along ahead of us. "Oh yeah! I'm glad you reminded me. Time gets away from me worse now than it did after I'd had a few too many nips of George Wilson's home brew. I'll head that way now."
"Good deal. See you in a bit. Oh, and can you remind Belle, too?" Belle was the former owner—and current resident ghost—of Clip N Curl, the town's go-to beauty parlor and the hub of Keyhole Lake gossip. If you forgot what you did the night before, you could just go ask the girls.
"Sure thing, Noelle."
We waved at him and continued on up the street to Anna Mae's. I admired an old lace wedding dress hanging in the window of the shop, which she'd opened with the insurance money she got when her husband was murdered a few months before. Don't feel sorry for her, though; keeling over dead in his coleslaw was the nicest thing Hank ever did for her—or for the town, for that matter.
When the tinkle of the little brass bell above the door announced our arrival, she popped her head out from the room behind the register.
"Hey Anna Mae," I said. "How goes it?"
"Hey, y'all," she replied, her words muffled by the straight pins between her lips. "Come on in. I'm mending and altering this poodle skirt. It's sold, but I need to finish it up so she'll have it for a 50s-themed party tonight. It's been a little challenging because she's quite a bit ... girthier than the original owner.” She nodded toward a couple of large boxes sitting on the counter. “The candy's right over there."
When we went to fetch them, the sun glinted off a pendant nestled in the jewelry case—a large turquoise crystal wrapped in gold filigree. I paused to take a closer look.
"Hey, Anna Mae. What's up with this turquoise pendant? It would be perfect for my fortune-teller costume for tonight."
She looked at me over the rims of her glasses and took the pins out of her mouth. "A fortune teller," she said flatly. "You're kidding, right?" She knew about my gifts, so the irony wasn't lost on her. “You know that beach down by the boat launch? I bought it from a girl who said she found it down there after the last storm."
Keyhole Lake covers about ninety square miles. As the name implies, it’s shaped like a keyhole, with the town wrapping around the circular end of it. We attract tourists from as far as a hundred miles away, so it's not uncommon to find jewelry and other trinkets on the shores.
"How much do you want for it?"
"I paid twenty bucks, so cover that and it's yours."
Since my fledgling bakery wasn't making quite enough to cover my bills yet, I still had to make up the difference by waitressing at Bobbie Sue's BBQ. Twenty bucks was more than I should spend on a piece of costume jewelry, but I was drawn to it.
"I'll take it."
"Okay. Just be a peach and grab it yourself. If I let go of this fabric now, I'll lose my measurements."
I slid the glass door at the back of the case open and pulled out the pendant. As soon as I did, it seemed to warm against my palm. When I held it up by its long herringbone chain, the sun gleamed through the semi-translucent stone, bouncing off the gold filigree so the whole crystal seemed to glow.
Rae stepped to my side to get a closer look at it and raised her brows. "That's really weird. Pretty, but weird."
I shrugged and slipped it around my neck so I wouldn't lose it, then slipped a twenty through the crack in the register drawer.
Rae slid one of the boxes of candy off the counter and I picked up the other, nearly dropping it when it turned out to be twice as heavy as I expected. Never let it be said that Anna Mae doesn't do everything in spades. Rae's lips moved, and my box lightened up considerably. She smiled and winked at me.
Sometimes it was really nice being witches.
"Thanks a ton, Anna," I called as we pushed out the door. "We gotta get back; Addy's probably fit to be tied because I've been gone this long."
"No problem, sugar. I'll see you tonight."
We crossed the street, admiring all the Halloween decorations in the storefronts. As we passed the front of Rae's shop, I glanced in to look for the telltale green light on the espresso machine; she was bad about leaving it on.
The light was off, but when I did the requisite skinny check of my reflection, the person staring back at me wasn't ... well, wasn’t me.
CHAPTER TWO
I JUMPED SIDEWAYS AND dropped the box, but the girl staring back at me stood still, her eyes wide with surprise. She was probably about my age, with long, wavy blond hair—the kind most of us would kill for—and she was rocking a bathing suit that looked like something from the 70s.
"What the hell, Noe?"
I'd slammed into Rae when I jumped back, and she'd barely managed to hold onto her box. I glanced at her, then pointed to the window. "Look—" I began, but the girl was gone; the only people in the reflection were an uber-pale me and a scowling Rae.
"Yeah, yeah. Those jeans make your butt look great. Will you please unlock the truck now? This box is awkward, and my hands are going numb."
I shook my head, but snapped my mouth shut. I'd only caught a quick glimpse of the girl, and since she was gone, Rae would probably accuse me of smoking some of her medicinal herbs anyway.
We slid the boxes onto the back seat of the truck and headed back to the farm. She was firing questions at me about what-all still needed to be done for the party. By the time I'd listed the score of tasks still on the list, I was about to have an anxiety attack.
By the time we pulled up in front of the house, I had shoved the hallucination-in-the-window incident to the back of my mind.
Addy was on us like white on rice, barking orders like a drill sergeant as soon as we stepped from the truck.
I was pleasantly surprised by how great the porch looked. Jack-o-lanterns sat on either side of each stair and on hay bales around the yard, and lights were strewn around the railings. Spider webs and the little cloth ghosts we'd made by tying scraps of sheet around Styrofoam balls hung from the trees and porch, and Halloween crepe paper hung from the fans and rafters. Shelby was putting the finishing touches on the scarecrow that sat in a chair by the front door.
"Wow, Shel! You've outdone yourself!"
She grinned broadly. "I'm not a complete slacker, sister." She narrowed her eyes when she saw the boxes of candy. "I knew there was a reason you lit out of here like your tail was on fire. You're lucky she's torturing Cody instead of me right now, because I'd totally throw you under the bus to Aunt Addy to get her off my back. She's a hot mess!"
I looked over to where Addy was barking orders at Cody. When he offered to help, the poor beleaguered boy probably hadn't known he was volunteering to be verbally flogged by a
tyrannical seventy-year-old ghost. "Be grateful for him," I said, motioning discreetly toward them with my chin to avoid drawing her attention to us. "Nothing says I love you more than that."
She got that stupid, sappy, puppy-love grin on her face, then actually sighed. For real. All she needed was little hearts coming out of her eyes. If that happened, I'd probably throw up.
"Speaking of good men," Rae asked as I balanced the candy on my hip and pulled the screen door open, "where's Hunter?" She was referring to my boyfriend, the sheriff of our fine little berg.
"He's been working on something, but I'm not sure what. I think maybe he's still tying up some loose ends from the whole Lucia thing last month."
"Ah. Yeah, I can see where that would be an issue. Poor guy." She shook her head.
We'd had an incident involving a rogue witch during the fall equinox celebration, and we were having a tough time finding a logical, mortal explanation. There are just some details you can't put in a police report if you expect to stay on this side of the asylum bars.
"Yeah. But he promised to be here early to help harness the horses and finish things up." Though we have a tractor, everybody looked forward to our horse-drawn hay rides at Halloween and Christmas; it was one of those little details that made us unique.
Hunter had been learning to drive the team for weeks in preparation for this, and he was as excited as the kids were. When I had taken him on a horseback ride on one of our first dates, he was hooked. The horses loved him and, to be truthful, it was nice to have somebody who considered mucking stalls an acceptable precursor to dinner plans.
Rae and I slid the boxes of candy onto the long oak kitchen table, and I pulled out another box that held two hundred little Halloween treat bags Shelby and I had filled with party favors a few days ago. All they needed was the candy.
"Why don't I do this and you can go wrap things up in the salon," Rae said. “That way we're accomplishing two things at once.”
