The Goodbye Witch

by Heather Blake

  With wide eyes, Katie Sue glanced around the shop. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed this place. It was more my home than that old ramshackle trailer.”

  As a young girl, Katie Sue had spent hours and hours here, learning about herbal medicine at the knee of Grandma Adelaide, same as I had. Katie Sue would talk on and on about how one day she was going to become a doctor and use the knowledge Grammy had taught her to help others.

  Grammy had always encouraged her lofty goals, though truthfully, I’d never thought Katie Sue would leave. Hitching Post had a way of holding on to its own. “Did you get your MD?” I asked, hoping her dreams had come true.

  She smiled. “It surely wasn’t easy, and I’m still in my residency down in Birmingham, but I did it.”

  Though she spoke softly, the pride in her voice came across loud and clear. I squeezed her hand. “Good on you.”

  Taking another peek at her watch, she said, “I have to get going. I have an appointment. Can we meet up later to continue catching up? I want to hear what you’ve been up to. Anyone special in your life?”

  “It’s complicated,” I said.

  She lifted both eyebrows. “That sounds like a story. Let’s get coffee later, okay?”

  I wasn’t the least bit surprised she didn’t want to meet for drinks. She’d sworn off alcohol as a teenager after seeing what it had done to her mama and daddy.

  “Are you back in town to see Jamie Lynn?” I asked, referring to Katie’s Sue’s baby sister. She’d been just ten years old when Katie Sue left. “I heard she’s bad sick.”

  Pain flitted across her eyes, and she paled.

  “You didn’t know?” I said, cursing the foot I’d just stuck in my big mouth.

  She shook her head.

  I should have realized as much. It never ceased to amaze me how money could tear a family apart. Lyla, the eldest Perrywinkle sister, had married straight out of high school and never looked back, leaving Katie Sue and Jamie Lynn to mind their granddaddy when his heart began to fail. Mostly the task fell on a teenage Katie Sue, since Jamie Lynn was so young, and she never once complained about it, though it sopped up what was left of her already pathetic childhood. No other family offered to help and in fact seemed to abandon the three to their own devices. The community picked up some of the slack, but Katie Sue was always on the go. Between schooling and caring for Jamie Lynn and her granddaddy . . . life was hard.

  After the man died, the whole town was shocked to learn that the old coot had been buying stocks and stashing away money all his years. In his will, he left all his worldly goods solely to his full-time caretaker—his granddaughter Katie Sue, who at that time had just turned twenty. She inherited almost two million dollars.

  No one was more stunned than Katie Sue’s own kin, who crawled from the woodwork without a lick of shame, their palms out. When met with a firm refusal—Katie Sue proclaimed the only other person who deserved a share of the inheritance was Jamie Lynn—her mama and stepdaddy made horrible threats, but it was Lyla who dealt the most painful blow. She filed for custody of Jamie Lynn, hoping to get her hands on the money that way. The court agreed that the older, married, and more settled sister deserved custody. When Katie Sue refused to let Lyla be the guardian of Jamie Lynn’s share of the inheritance, Lyla retaliated by not letting Katie Sue see her sister. Katie Sue tried to fight the matter in court again and again but lost every time. The injustice of it all near to killed her.

  Eventually, she gave up trying. A heartbroken Katie Sue set up a trust fund for Jamie Lynn to access when she turned twenty-one, then did the only other thing she could think of. She took the rest of the money and ran, leaving town and never looking back.

  No one in town blamed her. Not even a little.

  Katie Sue’s voice cracked as she said, “What’s wrong with her?”

  “No one knows. It’s a bit of a mystery illness from what I hear.”

  “Why hasn’t she come to see you? At least for a diagnosis?”

  By tapping into Jamie Lynn’s energy, I’d easily be able to pinpoint what was wrong. But that didn’t necessarily mean I could fix it. There were some limitations to my magic. “My guess is Lyla. She keeps a tight rein on Jamie Lynn,” I answered. Katie Sue’s older sister didn’t care for me much, knowing how close Katie Sue and I had once been, but she tolerated me just fine when I bought herbs from her massive gardens. Business was business, after all. Plus, she didn’t care much for anyone, so I didn’t take her bad attitude too personal.

  “But Jamie Lynn’s almost twenty-one and able to make her own choices.”

  I bit my nail. “It’s not so easy to break some ties. Especially when it comes to family.”

  “Don’t I know it.” Anger tightened the corners of Katie Sue’s mouth. “I’ll try to sneak in a visit with Jamie Lynn while I’m here. Do you think you can get her a message without Lyla catching wind of it?”

  “What kind of question is that, Katie Sue? Of course I can.”

  “Kathryn,” she corrected with a smile.

  “That’ll take some getting used to.”

  “Try, Carly. I worked too hard to make Katie Sue disappear for her to be popping up now.” She sighed. “It doesn’t help that this town brings back a whole host of bad memories I’d rather forget. Fortunately, my stay is only until Saturday. Then I can return to Shady Hollow and go back to forgetting this place even exists.”

  I raised an eyebrow at the mention of Shady Hollow. A suburb of Birmingham, it was the wealthiest city in the state. Things sure had changed for her.

  Reaching into her bag, she moved aside a small manila envelope that had a coffee stain on the edge and pulled out a notepad and scribbled a quick letter. She folded the note in half, then in half again. Absently, she stared at it for a second before saying, “When I first left, I set up a PO box and wrote letters to Jamie Lynn every week for years. They all came back unopened.” Giving her head a shake, she handed the note to me. “I asked her to meet me tonight at my hotel room, so the sooner you can get that to her, the better.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  She smiled, and I realized she’d had her teeth corrected, too. They were now perfectly straight, perfectly white, and perfectly perfect. Which described all of her, not just her teeth. It was a little unsettling.

  “At the Crazy Loon. I’m fairly sure your aunt Hazel recognized me but couldn’t put a name to my face.”

  All three of my aunts, Marjie, Eulalie, and Hazel Fowl (my mama’s sisters), collectively known as the Odd Ducks, owned aptly named inns in town. All four Fowl sisters were matrimonial cynics and weren’t too keen on ever gettin’ married, which was kind of ironic, considering where they lived. My daddy, a hopeless romantic, was still counting on my mama to come around, but so far she hadn’t changed her mind. She was happy as the day was long to stay engaged forever.

  “I’m surprised you got a room,” I said. “Everything’s booked up.”

  “Friends in high places,” Katie Sue said in a strange tone.

  I took the note. “Well, don’t you worry none. I’ll see Jamie Lynn gets this.” I only hoped that she hadn’t been so brainwashed by Lyla that she would refuse to see Katie Sue.

  “Thank you, Carly. You and your family are the only things that make this town the least bit bearable for me.”

  “Quit it now. You know we’re always here for you.”

  She gave me another hug, we set a time to meet for coffee at my house, and she headed for the door.

  “Wait! Katie—Kathryn?”

  She turned. “Hmm?”

  “If not for Jamie Lynn, why did you come back to town?” Now that I knew who she was, I couldn’t help but wonder—and worry—about the dangerous energy she carried.

  Something dark flashed in her eyes, and a wry smile creased her lips. “I’ll tell you all about it later, Carly, but for now I’ll say this.” She put on her sunglasses and pulled open the door. “As a doctor, I may have taken an oath to do no harm, but as a
country girl who’s done had it up to here with that family and their lies, I’m fixin’ to give the Calhouns a taste of their own bitter medicine.”