Any Witch Way You Can

by Amanda Lee[murder]

  Any Witch Way

  You Can

  By Amanda M. Lee

  Text copyright ©2012 Amanda M. Lee

  All Rights Reserved

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Author’s Note

  One

  “She should just shoot him!”

  The vehemence of the statement took me by surprise. It wasn’t just the voracity of the words – but the person who was saying it.

  “Who are we talking about?” I wracked my brain trying to remember what we had been idly chatting about mere moments before. The problem is, when I’m talking with Edith, I try to tune out rather than in. She has a tendency to ramble, and I have a tendency to zone out. It’s a dangerous combination.

  Edith sent a disdainful look in my direction. With her sharp features and severe bun, she looked like a disgruntled nun more than anything else. The clothes didn’t help. Her vintage pencil skirt hit the mid-calf length and her crisp white shirt was buttoned up to the very top.

  “Don’t you ever listen to me?” She whined.

  Not really. “Of course,” I lied. “I was just focusing on the files for a second. I’m sorry.”

  Edith sniffed. She was clearly still put out by my lack of attention. “I’m talking about Sonny.”

  “Who’s Sonny?”

  Edith emitted what could only be described as a disgruntled growl. “Sonny Corinthos,” she seethed.

  “Did he just move to town?” I’m often lost during conversations with Edith – she meanders from topic to topic at a fantastic pace -- but this was ridiculous.

  “He’s not real,” Edith practically bellowed as she gestured toward the television.

  I glanced up from my place on the floor. I was sitting cross-legged and I had about twenty different files opened and scattered around me. The two of us were in the file room at The Whistler, Hemlock Cove’s lone weekly newspaper. We were looking for a list of the area’s haunted houses and corn mazes – which I had accidentally lost. I was hoping beyond hope I’d just shoved it in another file and not actually misplaced it for good.

  When my gaze rested on the television that was perched on the countertop, I realized Edith was talking about a character from her soap opera.

  “He’s the mobster, right?”

  Edith nodded. She’d become distracted by the television again. “In my day, young lady, you didn’t worship mobsters and treat them like heroes. In my day, the true heroes were the soldiers risking their lives for our country . . . and professional baseball players.”

  I internally snickered. Edith always did have a soft spot for professional athletes. Baseball and golf, never basketball and football.

  “If you don’t like him, why are you watching?”

  Edith seemed to consider the question seriously for a second. I found it entertaining that she was giving a query about fictional characters on a daytime soap as much thought as she would one about the history of women’s suffrage. I didn’t give my laughter any volume, though.

  “I just think the show would be better without mobsters as heroes,” she finally said. “It is called General Hospital, after all.”

  “There’s a lot of other stuff you could be watching,” I suggested. “There are whole channels dedicated to cooking shows – if you’re bored that is.”

  “Young lady, when you get to be my age, you’re always bored,” she said. “Why would you think I would want to watch a cooking show? It’s not exactly a talent that I can utilize.”

  This was true.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  Despite myself, I found I couldn’t stop glancing up at the television, though. “Who is that blond guy?”

  Edith smiled to herself at my question. “That’s A.J. He came back from the dead a couple of months ago.”

  “And why is he fighting with that little guy?”

  “They share a son.”

  “Oh, they’re gay?” Soaps were getting more and more progressive.

  “No. Sonny stole A.J.’s son and raised him as his own.”

  “Huh. I would have sworn they were gay given the hair gel issues they share.”

  If Edith got my humor, she didn’t let on. Instead, she’d apparently decided to ignore my soap opera commentary. I didn’t blame her.

  After a few more minutes of shuffling through folders I found what I was looking for. “I found it,” I crowed.

  “Good for you, dear,” Edith said absentmindedly as she distractedly waved me off. She was fully entranced with the soap again. It was probably because the two men in question were arguing shirtless. It was a little distracting.

  I packed the files back up and carefully placed them in their proper position in the file cabinets and then took the small stack of papers I’d been looking for back out into the empty newsroom. I’m one of only two full-time employees at the paper – and we work different shifts – so we didn’t overlap all that often.

  Hemlock Cove is a small town in northern lower-Michigan. About twenty years ago, seeing the writing on the wall when it came to the town’s survival in a flagging economy, the town officials decided to do something drastic. They rebranded the village as a tourist community that appealed to paranormal enthusiasts. I’m not making it up. Honest.

  Hemlock Cove was a beautiful small town, after all, but it had no manufacturing base to build an economy on once the local tire factory shut down for good. That left the people in the area with a tough choice: Stay behind and struggle or move on.

  Essentially, with the rebranding effort, town officials thought they would be able to sell Hemlock Cove as a vacation destination for the horror movie crowd. A lot of the townspeople voiced their concerns – but their religious objections ended up taking a backseat to the town’s survival. It was fake, after all. They convinced themselves it was no different than a movie.

  The town is unique, even for Michigan. We had minor access to Lake Michigan and a quaint downtown that was more cobblestone than asphalt. Some of the older Victorian homes in the area were turned into bed and breakfasts, while many of the shops were converted into kitschy herbal remedy stores and porcelain unicorn peddlers.

  Because of the town’s location, we also had a local resort that was thriving – as long as it was during the winter for skiing or the summer for golfing. Luckily, given the location of Hemlock Cove, the fall was also a busy time thanks to the ever-changing color of the expansive forests that swallowed the small community.

  In essence, the town had turned itself into a little Salem, Massachusetts -- and they did it without burning anyone at the stake. At least to my knowledge, that is.

  Enough about the town, though. Let me introduce you to myself. My name is Bay Winchester -- and I’m a witch.

  After what I just told you, I would wager you think I’m a “witch” to fit in with the town’s rebranding.

  The truth is, though, I’m really a witch. My whole family is full of them. We’re not
dark witches with warts on our noses and conical hats that ride around on brooms. We’re not good witches that dress in some satin concoction that’s akin to Pepto Bismol and bless people with sparkly wands either. No, we’re the kind of witches that draw our power from the earth. We don’t curse people – unless they really deserve it -- and we don’t bestow wishes like fairy godmothers. I guess it’s fair to say that we’re all Earth witches – not wicked witches.

  You might ask yourself what it’s like to be a real witch in a town that glorifies witches. You would probably think it’s great. Well, the truth is, it’s not.

  Not only does everyone in town know my family is inundated with actual witches – but they also wish they could burn us at the stake. No joke. Okay, maybe it’s a slight exaggeration. They don’t want to burn us at the stake, they just want to chase us with pitchforks.

  It’s often said that people fear what they don’t understand. The town understood that it had to rebrand itself – and the best way to do it was find a niche and go with it. Sure, they picked a supernatural niche – and it paid off. That didn’t mean they were going to embrace the actual witches in the town, though. Fake witches are good, real witches are bad.

  That’s why, after I graduated from college, I moved down to Detroit to be a “real” journalist. For a couple of years, I fed off the violence and non-stop action that the city offered. I perfected my craft and embraced the urban atmosphere.

  I loved the city – but I often felt my heart being pulled back to my country roots. Then, the economy bottomed out, and I found myself on the unemployment line. I tried to stay in the city as long as I could, but there were no jobs to be had.

  So, five years ago, I moved back home and started working at a small weekly with an average circulation of 15,000 readers. Some people might think it’s a step down. Me? I just thought of it as a lateral move. There were no exciting murders or ghoulish traffic accidents, but I was home. I felt more settled in the shade of the elm trees that had nurtured me as a child. I didn’t think of it as a loss. It wasn’t really a win, though, either.

  When I was a kid, I was embarrassed by the disdain I felt emanating from the townspeople. I used to think they were just scared of us. And, to an extent, they are. It’s more than that, though. The townspeople fear what they don’t understand, but they also covet what they can’t have. They think we have power – and we do – but it’s not the power they would wish for.

  What they don’t realize, is that sometimes these powers are a curse as much as they are a blessing.

  What I’m truly grateful to the city for instilling in me is a thick skin. The townspeople don’t bother me anymore. They can’t. Now I pretend I don’t hear their whispers – and mostly I don’t. I take power from their disdain. I have become what they truly fear – empowered.

  Of course, I’m also ridiculously co-dependent where family is concerned and often brow beaten into doing something stupid by a well-meaning but meandering relative that doesn’t know any better. We’re like Duck Dynasty – without the millions and the non-stop hunting. Oh, and the rampant sexism, of course.

  “Bay,” Edith had wandered through the open door into my office. The nameplate on the front door said editor. The truth is, though, in a paper this size I was an editor, photographer, editorial assistant and reporter all rolled into one.

  “Is your soap over?”

  “Yes,” Edith replied. “I just wanted to make sure you found everything you were looking for.”

  Now she cared? “Yes. I found it.”

  “Is that going to be the main story on the front page this week?” Edith was looking over my shoulder as I compiled the list.

  I grimaced as I nodded. Only in a small town can you get away with a roundup of holiday happenings and call it a banner story. Small towns may have their perks, but they have their weaknesses, too. The sad thing is, the town would revolt if I didn’t publish the annual list – and I had to keep the advertisers happy.

  Edith must have read my mind. “Don’t worry. People like these kinds of stories.”

  “I don’t have much of a choice,” I admitted ruefully. “I can’t manufacture news, and other than Nell Towers’ new baby, absolutely nothing of note happened in Hemlock Cove this week.”

  “Well, a list of haunted houses and mazes is just what everyone needs to get them into the spirit,” Edith said cheerfully. “People love that sort of stuff.”

  “They do,” I nodded.

  Edith bit her lower lip as she thought about the statement she had just uttered. “Do you like that stuff?”

  “What stuff?”

  “Haunted houses and corn mazes?”

  “As long as they’re done tastefully,” I admitted.

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, I don’t like it when it’s overly gory – or when they use chainsaws. I hate it when they use chainsaws. They freak me out – even though I know they can’t really hurt me.”

  Edith looked horrified.

  “Chainsaws? Why would they use chainsaws?”

  “You know, to dismember people.”

  Edith had turned as white a sheet – which was an impressive feat.

  “And they let children go to these?”

  “I don’t think all parents take their children to them,” I cautioned.

  “Just the bad ones?”

  “Just the more adventurous ones,” I clarified.

  “Well, I think it’s downright ghastly,” Edith announced. “Making fun of death is not funny.” Edith started to flounce out of the room and then stopped. “I should know,” she added as she floated through the wall. “It’s no fun being a ghost.”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I doubted she had much fun when she was alive, either.

  Two

  I didn’t stick around The Whistler for too long after Edith’s outburst. I was used to her histrionics. There’s nothing worse than a high-strung ghost.

  I had met Edith when I started working at The Whistler. You might think meeting a ghost would be traumatizing. It really isn’t. Ghosts are just like people, really. You have good ones and you have bad ones.

  I’d been able to see ghosts for as long as I can remember – so it didn’t seem odd to me. As a child, I would hold entire conversations with them out in the yard – never realizing I was the only one who could see them. It made me the weird kid in class – I was likened to the strange girl who sat in the back corner eating her hair -- but at home it was a coveted “gift.”

  The witches in my family embrace the weird – and I was definitely weird. Still, in the grand scheme of things, we were pretty harmless. Okay, sometimes we get a little rambunctious – and the older generation of the Winchester witches does get a perverse pleasure from scaring people – but in general we’re pretty normal. I just happen to be able to talk to ghosts. The technical term is post-cognitive – but I don’t really think in technical terms. I just have the ability to see more people – or what used to be people – than everyone else.

  As I wandered down Main Street in downtown Hemlock Cove, I breathed in the crisp autumn air and exhaled slowly. I always needed to cleanse my aura a bit after being with Edith. If you’re not careful, a ghost can actually darken your aura. Not on purpose, of course. Edith isn’t a bad ghost. She’s just wrapped a little tight. When she died in the 1960s, she had been the relationship columnist at the newspaper. Kind of like Ann Landers. Except, for Edith, all of her advice essentially told women that sex was the work of the devil and it was only good for procreation. She’d been a ghost for almost fifty years – and even though the times had changed, Edith really had not. She looked at my short skirt (anything above the knee is unacceptable) and calf-high leather boots as a call to sin. Since I was the only one who could see her, though, she had to put up with me if she wanted to talk to anyone. And Edith? She loved to talk. She didn’t even care what subject – just as long as she could register her complaints about the world today.

  Hemlock Cove is a
small town that looks like it has been untouched by time. That’s deliberate. When the town went the tourist route, the town leaders took out the lone traffic light and tried to hide any hints of modern technology. That doesn’t mean the denizens don’t have laptops – and iPads and iPods – but we just don’t flaunt them. We try to keep the town looking antiquated – for lack of a better word. I actually like the feeling of the town – even if many of the townspeople cross the street when they see me coming.

  The foibles of the Winchester women are well known in Hemlock Cove. The town leaders would never admit that we were the inspiration to turning Hemlock Cove into a “witch” town. We were, though. Most people would prefer the town didn’t have actual witches. In other words, Hemlock Cove treats us like trash. It bothered me to the point of distraction as a child, but I’m used to it now. I still don’t like it, but I’m better equipped to handle it.

  The streets of Hemlock Cove are littered with specialty stores. Mrs. Gunderson – one of the few women in town that embraces my family and doesn’t shun it – runs a small bakery. Mrs. Little, the town’s self-appointed moral compass, runs a small pewter store that has a scary amount of unicorns in it. Mr. Wharton, a kind old man that has a crush on my Aunt Marnie, owns a small hardware store that boasts old-fashioned reeves and scythes in the front window – even though he sells the normal nails and hammers you would expect inside.

  The town is really an entity of its own – and I love it.

  I made my way to the corner of Cauldron Court (yes, all the streets have ridiculously cheesy names) and found myself outside Hypnotic. Hypnotic is brightly painted – purple with yellow trim – and has a low-hanging eave that is decorated with a variety of different hanging vines (which were now starting to wither in the autumn weather). The hand-painted window promised Tarot readings, the biggest selection of herbs in town and a variety of power crystals for the practicing Wicca. There was also a handmade wooden sign that boasted, “If you want to curse someone, we can help.” I smiled to myself. That was new.

  When I entered Hypnotic, I heard the familiar clang of the wind chimes hanging by the front door and felt a sense of calm settle over me. I was comfortable in this environment. It was as much home as my actual home was.