Witch Way to Mintwood (Witch of Mintwood Book 1)

by Addison Creek

  “I know that,” said Charlie, “and Greer knows that, but I didn’t think you knew that.”

  I blushed. “He’s not so bad. We had a nice time when he was here for dinner, too.” Sheesh, she was acting like I’d been rude to him or something, which I never had. “I don’t know about the other Wolfs, but he seems like a good enough sort. Willing to listen to reason.”

  “Which means what exactly?” Charlie asked.

  “Well, I was about to tell you, we’ve called off the barn protests,” I said. “Jasper said he would try to find a way to preserve some of the barn’s history, and the other protesters agreed that it would be a good idea to stop now.”

  Neither Greer nor Charlie said a word.

  “What?” I huffed. “He was very reasonable and made some very good points. The barn needs extensive repairs to keep it from falling down, we’re talking in the millions of dollars, and that amount of investment doesn’t make any sense. So Jasper’s going to look into other options for preserving the history of the place while using the land in a way that helps the town. It’s really a win win.”

  “Sure,” Greer drawled, diving back into her dinner.

  “Definitely.” Charlie smirked and did the same.

  Grumbling about skeptical friends, I gave Charger a pat on the head. He was sitting at Greer’s feet, hoping a morsel of dinner would drop down so he could then gobble it up, particularly the steak if we could spare it.

  After dinner, Charlie washed and I dried. Then Greer took the dog outside and Charlie and I made tea. Then it was finally time to adjourn to the living room for our roommate meeting.

  Once we were settled on the couches, Charlie got right down to business, standing up to announce, “I call this meeting to order! Here’s the thing. As roommates, we’re going to have our differences. We have different ideas about important aspects of the house, like loud music and washing dishes. I just think it’s important to have a family meeting to discuss these issues, to stop any resentments from getting out of hand.”

  “Everything has worked fine so far,” said Greer. “You’re annoying as all get out, but I haven’t let the resentment fester.” She grinned.

  “Thank you for that helpful comment. You’re really oh so good at meetings,” said Charlie. “Lemmi, do you have anything to add?”

  I shook my head, trying not to laugh.

  “Communication is very important. Maybe if Andy and I . . . “ But Charlie’s lower lip started to quiver and she didn’t finish the thought. Greer, seeing her upset, softened.

  “All right, roommate rules, what are they, anyway?”

  “We should have two cleanup nights a week each, and maybe all together on Sundays. Music is to be kept low after midnight . . . Also, there’s the issue of the bathroom. Since there’s only one upstairs, we’ll have to be considerate of each other, but so far that hasn’t been a problem, since Greer sleeps until noon. In fact, I have no proof that Greer showers at all.”

  “I shower,” Greer grumbled. “I’m not a slob.” That was true. Seeing her casually, you might expect Greer’s room to be a dark mess, but it was really always very clean.

  After we’d finished making up the rules for how we could live together in Charlie-like harmony, Greer stood up, went to the kitchen, and came back with a plate of delicious-looking cookies.

  “I thought we’d need these and a hot tea refresher after the meeting,” she said.

  I got my friends caught up on my cemetery visit, then we all dug into the cookies and started talking about more relaxed topics. We hadn’t gotten very far when there was a sharp knock at the door. I glanced at the clock to discover that it was nearly eight o’clock.

  “Who the . . . ?” I wondered. Paws appeared on his crate in the window and shook his head, his green necklace dangling merrily. “You aren’t going to want to answer this one.”

  Frowning, I pulled the door open and gasped.

  The woman who stood outside was dressed in nicer clothes than any I owned, with a regal jut to her chin and flashing eyes. She reminded me of a deflated moon, with very pale skin that had some pockmarks underneath all the makeup. Her lips were blood red.

  “Mrs. Grate,” I said. Mrs. Grate was Deacon’s mother, and her Medusa curls were not far off in terms of revealing her personality. A terrible and terrifying woman. Deacon was going to have a hell of a time finding a woman to live up to her standards. Greer had given up trying.

  “Lemmi,” she said severely. From inside, I heard a gasp and a crash. Knowing I needed to give my friends – especially Greer – a minute to catch their breath and clean up whatever had toppled over, I said, “What brings you here?”

  Mrs. Grate had that effect on everything. She could even scare the dickens out of an inanimate object.

  “I think you know,” she said, giving me a look I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Okay, maybe just once on my WORST enemy.

  I really had no idea. When I continued to look at her blankly she tsk-ed. Mrs. Grate would never huff, but a gentle tsk conveyed her disapproval just fine. “I came to see Greer. I stopped at her parents’ house first to get her address. They were concerned, and at first they did not want to give it to me, but I got it out of them in the end.”

  I bet it didn’t even take her that long.

  “She lives here now,” I confirmed.

  “Because she didn’t want to live with my son,” she said, but at least she didn’t expect me to respond to that because she continued on, “I like what you’ve done with the place. Has less of the feel of . . . “ she paused. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

  The ghosts, especially the tea ladies, were staring at Mrs. Grate as if they’d never seen anything like her before, and to be fair, who had? Her back stood straighter than the walls of my house, held up by years of conviction and a you-wouldn’t-dare-sag attitude. I wished my house had as much stubbornness as Mrs. Grate did, then maybe replacing the foundation wouldn’t be so expensive.

  Each of the tea ladies was trying out an aspect of Deacon’s mother’s posture and countenance. One straightened her shoulders, another pouted out her lips, then scrubbed them vigorously in the hope of making them red.

  Paws, meanwhile, hadn’t moved an iota. On a regular day he’d have relished harassing any company who dared to visit the farmhouse, but even he had been struck silent by the formidable Mrs. Grate. It made me wonder if maybe I should bring the woman around more often.

  “Is Greer here?” said Mrs. Grate, growing tired of the small talk.

  “Yeah, I mean yes, I mean yeah,” I said, stepping aside and ushering in the embodiment of the old money establishment Mintwood into my kooky witch grandmother’s living room. My grandmother would be dancing in her grave, but if she were still alive she would have been just as likely to offer the woman a tea leaf reading.

  Greer shot out of her chair when Mrs. Grate stepped into the living room. She fumbled around for a second, then placed her half-eaten cookie back on the plate. Charlie stood off to the side, her hands politely clasped in front of her. Of the three of us, Charlie was the most composed. She was a newswoman, after all, a job that called for the ability to keep calm in all kinds of situations.

  “Evening, Mrs. Grate,” she said, stepping forward and introducing herself.

  At Charlie’s cheerful courtesy, Mrs. Grate’s facial expression actually brightened. I had never seen the like before.

  “You write for the paper,” she said, her whole tone lightening.

  “Yes,” said Charlie, blushing slightly.

  “Very well done. Your articles are exceptionally well written at every turn,” said Mrs. Grate. “Your voice is strong and intelligent.”

  “Thank you,” said Charlie. “You’re very kind. I really appreciate it.”

  Then Mrs. Grate turned her attention to Greer, making even Charger look nervous.

  “Greer, sorry to barge in on you like this. I wonder if we might have a word?”

  Both Charlie and I mumbled and
bumped our way out of the living room as quickly as possible.

  Charlie pulled me back though the kitchen and into her new room, closing the creaky door firmly behind her. Charlie had done a lot of work on the new room in the past few days, getting settled and trying to keep her mind off the agony of her breakup with Andy. The room was clear of the debris that it had housed for years, and she’d added new white furniture, a light yellow rug, and a desk graced by a silver vase filled with yellow roses. Landscape portraits hung in silver frames, and a picture of Charlie’s family sat next to the yellow roses. There were no pictures of Andy.

  The white lace curtains were thrown wide, offering a view of the back yard. Mercifully, there were no ghosts out there at the moment, probably because they had all rushed to the front of the house in hopes of getting a glimpse of Mrs. Grate. The tea ladies would never be the same.

  “What do you think she’s saying to her?” said Charlie. “The reporter in me wants to know!”

  I tried to imagine what Mrs. Grate could want to speak to Greer about, but I was at a loss. They were like ghosts and wind, not ever going to mix well.

  “No idea,” I said. “Hopefully Greer doesn’t deck her, though.”

  “She wouldn’t,” said Charlie, then she stopped. “Then again, who knows what Mrs. Grate could drive her to do.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “The room looks great,” I told her, sitting in her desk chair while we waited for Mrs. Grate to leave.

  “Thanks, I’ve been working on making it feel like home now that . . . “ She paused thoughtfully and sat down on her bed. “For the past week I’ve been secretly hoping that Andy would call me up and say he wants to get back together, and that has kept me going. But I don’t think he ever actually will.” A single tear slipped out of her eye and she quickly wiped it away. “Accepting that we’re done is going to be really hard. He was a big part of my life . . . I thought . . . It’s just hard to imagine my future without him. I’ve never had to before.”

  I stood up and went to sit next to my friend. Truth to tell, I had been waiting for something like this. She had been keeping busy, lighting a fire under Mintwood’s two big stories, but I had known that she was bound to crack eventually.

  We sat in silence for a few minutes, then I said, “Greer and I are here for you. Anything you need. Greer might even teach you how to cook.”

  Charlie gave a watery laugh. “I know it’s that bad, isn’t it?”

  “It’s not great,” I said, laughing with her.

  “Andy used to cook,” said Charlie. “He was no Greer, but he was good. For a guy, he was pretty good at boiling water.”

  Before she could go further down the road of reminiscing about her ex-boyfriend, Paws came trotting in.

  “Oh, hello,” said Charlie, beaming. Paws hopped up on Charlie’s desk and peered out the window. Charlie was still getting used to seeing the ghosts around, and she delighted in it.

  “Something funny’s happening tonight,” he said. “Someone’s got the ghosts all riled up.”

  “Do you know what it is?” I said.

  He gave me an unimpressed look. “Don’t you think if I knew I’d share that information with you?”

  Speaking of ghosts, I needed to have a chat with Mrs. Goodkeep.

  “Charlie, want to come out back with me? A spot of reporting might be in order,” I said.

  “Uh oh,” said Paws. “She has that look in her eye.”

  Charlie grinned and wiped her watery eyes. “Anything to take my mind off of Andy.”

  The back yard was quiet. Paws followed us out, and instead of dashing off into the woods and brush he stayed close.

  “Where’s Mrs. Goodkeep tonight?” I asked.

  “The only reason I keep track of that woman is so I know where not to be,” he said. “Tonight, I’ve no idea.”

  “You were looking for me?” Mrs. Goodkeep appeared from around the side of the house; I assumed she’d gone out front to see what all the fuss was about.

  “Evening, Mrs. Goodkeep,” I said. Then I turned halfway so that she had a good view of my companion. “This is my roommate Charlie.”

  “Hi,” said Charlie, giving a little wave, since shaking hands was out of the question. Mrs. Goodkeep sniffed disdainfully.

  “Still have that thing,” said Mrs. Goodkeep, looking at Paws.

  “I will be here long after you are gone,” said Paws. “Anyway, she likes me better.”

  “Shows her poor taste, liking a cat,” said Mrs. Goodkeep. “Anyway, what did you want? I’m very busy.”

  “Ghosts are by definition not busy,” I said, but I wasn’t about to waste time arguing. When Mrs. Grate left, Greer would need a hug, or some chocolate, and I wanted to be there for her. “But I want to know why you didn’t tell me about the Pier Pearl.”

  “What about it?” she asked, drawing herself up.

  “It’s missing, along with Gracie,” I said. “Her room looked like it had been torn apart by someone who was looking for something, or someone who owned a lot of clothes and couldn’t find their own closet if they were inside it. And you knew that, didn’t you.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “I didn’t think it was important. It’s an old relic. I never liked the thing, I just wore it because my husband wanted me to.”

  “You didn’t think that a priceless pearl going missing along with Gracie was important? Someone once stole that pearl and murdered a man in the process!”

  “So? That was years ago! Nothing to do with this situation! The pearl was returned then anyway,” said Mrs. Goodkeep. “No harm done.”

  “Except for the man who was killed,” said Charlie pointedly.

  “Mr. McCoy was a nosy good-for-nothing. I don’t know what my family saw in him. He slithered over all the time, asking questions, hanging out in the drawing room where the pearl was kept, acting like he owned the place. It was my pearl!!”

  “And you didn’t like Mr. McCoy being near your pearl?” said Charlie.

  “He wanted it for himself! Everyone did! It was priceless! But it was mine!” hissed Mrs. Goodkeep. The ghost appeared to increase in size, becoming scary.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Charlie? Lemmi? Where are you?”

  It was Greer. We were getting nowhere with the angry Mrs. Goodkeep anyhow, so we headed inside to see how Greer had fared with Mrs. Grate. As we left, Mrs. Goodkeep made a shooing motion at Paws, who neatly eluded her by dashing around the side of the house.

  “First she says she doesn’t care about the pearl or Mr. McCoy,” Charlie mused as we walked into the house, “then she gets really angry at the mention of his name. There’s something fishy here.”

  Yes, there was, but it would have to wait.

  Greer looked the worse for wear when we got back to the living room. She was holding a folded piece of paper that she immediately handed over to me.

  “Mrs. Grate said this note was on the door for you when she left.”

  She went back to staring out the dark window.

  A chill went down my spine. Someone had come again?

  Unlike the first note, this one was signed. The message was from Jeff, and it was scribbled, all in all a very different feel from the note I’d gotten earlier in the day. And it didn’t smell like roses.

  “I think I know something about Gracie. Came to tell you but saw fancy car so I left. I’ll be around all evening.”

  Was he inviting us to his place? Was going to his place a good idea? Probably not. Was I going to go anyway? Most definitely. If he could figure out who I was and where I lived, I could do the same. Phone books were still a thing.

  “What is it now?” said Charlie. “Who is the note from?” She read it quickly, peering over my shoulder, then yanked it out of my hand.

  “The plot thickens,” she said, and grinned at the two of us. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”

  Greer had stopped looking like she was entirely melting, although she maybe resembled sludge a
t this point more than she resembled a solid form.

  “Going to Jeff’s? That sounds exciting,” said Charlie. Greer sat bolt upright, looking eager for any distraction.

  “No,” I said, but too quickly. They both glared at me so threateningly that I felt like I’d walked into the woods and tapped a bear on the shoulder.

  “What do you mean, ‘No’?” said Greer, wrinkling her nose at me. “I need a distraction after that visit!”

  Charlie’s lip was jutting out just as stubbornly. “This is not negotiable,” she said. “We live with you. We went to school with Gracie too and liked her just as little. We all have just as much interest as you in her well-being.”

  Charlie had a point. I didn’t have the threat of Mrs. Goodkeep spilling my secret hanging over me anymore, and yet I was still looking for Gracie. A girl was missing, and like it or not I was her best chance of being found. I couldn’t just let her stay missing. If I could help, I had to try. How could I deny my friends the same chance?

  “All right,” I said reluctantly, “but we are not going to make a habit of this.”

  Greer and Charlie both shot off the couch. Greer liked excitement and had always found Mintwood dull, while Charlie was a natural born reporter. I was worried, though, because neither of them had the healthy dose of fear I figured they should, and even though they thought I was like some badass witch, I certainly didn’t feel badass. Of the three of us, Greer was definitely the most no-nonsense, mess-with-me-or-else type, and she practiced her skills on a weekly basis by bartending. But all in all, I was nervous about what we were about to do.

  “Come on, last one to the car has to sit in the back,” Charlie said, dashing outside.

  The three of us had just piled into the car when something dark and sparkly came flying through the open window and landed in Charlie’s lap. She gasped.

  “What the . . . “ she cried, pushing back against the seat.

  Though I did my best to hide the ugly thing with cute sweaters, I had taken to wearing the green necklace all the time. Might as well be ready to go on a moment’s notice, I figured, since Paws always had his collar on and I didn’t want to be the one holding us up.