by Raven Snow
“Greensmith Girls”
Supernatural Witch Cozy Mystery
Lainswich witches Volume 1
Raven Snow
© 2015
Disclaimer
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner & are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
Preview of “Hexes and Exes”
Authors Note
Books by Raven Snow
Chapter One
Rowen didn’t hate her family. It was just that they were very time-consuming people and, well, distance makes the heart grow fonder. As soon as she was able, she had moved away. It wasn’t out of malice towards the people she had lived her whole life with. Getting out of the little three-stop-light town had simply been her best shot at a successful future.
Of course, it was debatable how successful she was now. Rowen lived in a cramped little apartment above an Italian restaurant. She survived off a steady diet of instant noodles and shopped for clothes exclusively at thrift stores.
When Aunt Lydia called, she cringed. It was difficult to tell who thought what of her back home. Some of them seemed genuinely impressed that she had moved out to “the big city” for her career. Most of them were patronizing about it; it was like they knew she would be back—not today, not tomorrow, but soon.
Rowen paused in getting ready for work to pick up her cell phone. “Hi, Lydia!” She managed the brightest voice she could.
Lydia met her cheer with a very dire, “There’s two dead bodies.”
Aunt Lydia could be a touch dramatic, but this was hardly a typical phone conversation for her. “I’m sorry?” Rowen was sure that she had misheard or that some context would help. She was mistaken on both counts.
“Your Aunt Nadine sold a young woman a dead body. Now that poor woman is dead, too.” Aunt Lydia started to cry. She had always been a very emotional woman.
It took a full thirty minutes for Rowen to drag the story from her. Apparently, there had been a garage sale at the family home. They did them every few years. Rowen remembered them from her childhood. The whole town always flocked over for a look at the Greensmith house and the Greensmith witches that lived there.
Rowen and her cousins would play on the lawn. Her aunts would read tarot cards and crystal balls for a nominal fee. Grammy ran the sales side of things. She had a shrewd head for business. Of course, she was getting up in years now. It would be her aunts running the show, and apparently they had sold a woman a corpse.
The corpse in question had been found in a chest. In turn, the chest was found in the basement. It couldn’t be opened. Not even Aunt Nadine could open it, and Aunt Nadine had her ways. So the chest had been sold to a Miss Rebecca Abernathy as a sort of antique coffee table. The idea that it couldn’t be opened must have added to the mystique, though. When they found Miss Abernathy, the lid of the chest had been partly sawed off with a handsaw. Inside was the mummified body of a man.
Miss Abernathy wasn’t far from the box. All the evidence so far pointed to death by strangulation.
“You need to come back home, dear,” said Aunt Lydia.
Rowen fumbled for the appropriate response. A baffled “Why?” was all she could come up with.
“This is a family crisis! We need to pull together!” Aunt Lydia sighed deeply. “It’s what your mother would have wanted,” she added, as if Rowen’s mother were dead and not just living off the grid with her naturalist jerk of a new husband.
To be fair, Rowen’s mother would have wanted her to go. She had never much liked participating in familial nonsense, but she had always thought it was healthy to push her daughter directly toward it. “I’m not sure I can get off of work,” said Rowen in the way of an excuse. It was a good excuse. It was true.
Aunt Lydia didn’t push the matter, but she did seem disappointed in Rowen. Rowen hung up the phone with a heavy feeling in her chest. She would have to call Aunt Nadine later and make sure she was handling this all right. She probably was. Nadine was sensible.
Surely the family wouldn’t get into trouble over this. It was too bizarre, even for the Greensmiths. Members of their clan were no angels. A few members of their family had spent the night in lock up, but that was only for minor things like mild criminal mischief. The town had to know they were innocent. They had known the Greensmiths for generations.
Rowen couldn’t quite convince herself of that, though. The townspeople had always been a little wary. If there was one thing she had learned from working in journalism, it was that people were easy to panic.
Oh! Work!
Rowen slipped on her shoes and hurried downstairs. Her office was just down the street. She jogged there, arriving out of breath and with tousled hair a few minutes later.
To say Rowen worked in journalism was, perhaps, a bit too generous. More accurately, she worked for an online news source that dealt in gif-filled blog posts and click bait news articles. Rowen wasn’t a writer or anything. She was more of a glorified intern. She fetched coffee and donuts. She internet searched things for her bosses and called up people for interviews. Sometimes she got to do leg work for stories. That was her favorite, but it was usually pretty mundane, like plastic surgery gone wrong or conspiracy theories on decade-old crimes. It wasn’t what Rowen wanted to spend her life doing, but it was okay.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, still breathing heavily as she approached her boss.
Ted was at his desk. He didn’t look up from his computer screen as she came over. “No big deal.” He pointed at the monitor. “Isn’t this where you
grew up?”Rowen looked down to the screen. She frowned to see that word of the bodies wasn’t just local news.
“Nadine Greensmith,” Ted said slowly. “She a cousin of yours or something?”
“My aunt,” Rowen corrected.
“This is crazy,” said Ted, shaking his head with a laugh. “Deborah forwarded this to me. Have you been in touch with your family?”
“I talked to one of my aunts before I came here, yeah.” Rowen shrugged, eager to downplay this and move on with her work day. “That’s why I was a little late.”
Ted chewed at his bottom lip, his expression growing thoughtful. He closed the article and leaned back in his desk chair. “It amazes me this isn’t national news yet. You know? On television and all that.”
“Yeah,” said Rowen, not really in agreement. Her hometown had an uncanny way of slipping under the radar. Some might call it supernatural.
“We could do something with this,” said Ted, as if their website had ever dealt in news of a serious nature. He looked at Rowen and asked the question she had been expecting, “How would you feel about heading back home?”
Rowen cringed. She had no proof, but she suspected her family had something to do with setting this in motion. “I’d rather not, but I guess—”
“Great!” crowed Ted, reaching out and slapping her on the arm with one of his meaty hands. “I have to make a few phone calls, but it shouldn’t be a problem. Looks like you’re headed home, kiddo. You’re going back to Lainswich.”
Chapter Two
Lainswich was a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. It was the sort of place you drove through on your way to some more worthwhile destination. Maybe you stopped there for a pit stop— a sandwich or some ice cream in one of the small, quaint diners. Nearly all of the shops were family owned.
Standing at the bus stop, Rowen felt like she was a teenager again. The place hadn’t changed at all. The stone buildings were the same. The street lights were the same. Even the people were the same. Rowen recognized no less than two people while she waited for Aunt Nadine to pick her up. If they recognized her, they said nothing. Of course, they wouldn’t. Most of the townsfolk avoided the Greensmith girls.
Less than fifteen minutes later, Aunt Lydia came to pick her up. Her old Buick had two wheels up on the curb before she rolled to a stop. That Aunt Lydia had ever passed a driver’s test had to be some kind of awful black magic. “Get in, girl!” she shouted through the window when Rowen hesitated.
Rowen sighed and climbed in. Aunt Lydia launched herself over for a big bear hug. The air rushed out of Rowen’s lungs.
“Oooh,” exclaimed Aunt Lydia. “You look so much like your mother. It’s so good to see you. I’m so happy you found the time to come, dear. So, so happy.”
“I’m glad to see you, too,” Rowen managed, once she’d caught some of her lost breath and managed to separate herself from her aunt. “I was expecting Aunt Nadine, though.”
Aunt Lydia’s grin became a frown. “The police are questioning her again.” She shook her head, sadly. “Like she had something to do with this tragedy. How can they think that? Hmm?”
Rowen shrugged. “I think it’s pretty standard. They have to question anyone involved, even if they didn’t do anything wrong. That’s just how this stuff works.”
Aunt Lydia wouldn’t hear it though. She took the car off the curb and pulled out into the light traffic of Main Street. “It’s just awful,” she insisted, speaking mostly to herself this time.
“I’m not going far,” Rowen told her. “The hotel I’m staying at is the one near—”
“A hotel?” Aunt Lydia scoffed and glanced over at Rowen like she was crazy. “You’ll stay at home with your family, dear girl. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m here to work,” Rowen reminded her. “I need space and a quiet environment to concentrate in.” She already knew that wouldn’t work. It might have worked on Nadine, but there was no way Lydia would see reason.
“No, no, no.” Aunt Lydia waved a hand dismissively, nearly swerving into an oncoming car to do so. “You’re coming home, and that’s final. Everyone is excited to see you.”
The word ‘everyone’ made Rowen wince. This was going precisely how she had expected it to go. What a nightmare.
#
The Greensmith place really was lovely. It had been in the family for generations. One of their ancestors had built it even before the town had been founded, and it had held up well through the generations. Given the reputation of the Greensmith family, it was easy to see why.
The house was gray and large. There were three stories before the attic. The paint was peeling, but the expansive and well-tended garden surrounding the house gave it a Gothic look. It was a gorgeous place. Rowen had missed it. She had never had a problem with the house, after all. Her problem was with her family.
They were spilling onto the front porch now. Three of Rowen’s cousins bounced on the front steps excitedly, giggling to one another. Margo and Terry sat whispering a conversation while casting dubious looks in her direction. Grammy stood behind all of them, leaning on her cane and watching.
Aunt Lydia parked the car. “The prodigal daughter has returned,” she sang as she got out of the driver’s seat.
Rowen’s cousins all laughed. At one time, they might have all come down the stairs to intercept her with hugs. Now they just observed her from a distance, as if uncertain. Rowen had to admit it was an odd feeling seeing someone after so long. Her cousins had changed a lot. They had all grown into women.
Willow and Peony were Nadine’s kids. They looked a bit like twins with their pale blond hair and full cheeks. They even shared the same stylish sense of fashion. Rose looked very different standing next to them. She had dark hair and delicate features. It was also hard to miss that she was Asian. She was Aunt Lydia’s adopted child Rose was the first to step forward and offer Rowen a hug. “Long time, no see,” she said before she stepped back.
Margo and her husband Terry followed suit. Margo was one of Rowen’s older cousins. She and Terry were living with the rest of the family until they found a place of their own. Rowen couldn’t imagine anyone thought they would ever move out. Greensmith marriages almost never lasted that long. Something about the family seemed to just make men uncomfortable after a while.
“I haven’t seen you since the wedding,” said Margo, wrapping her tanned, stick thin arms around Rowen’s neck.
“It’s good to see you,” Terry added, standing behind his wife and offering only a friendly nod.
“It’s been a while,” Rowen agreed. Once separated from her cousins, she went straight for Grammy. Grammy was the only person here that she was truly eager to see. She had been like a mother to Rowen and her cousins. If there was a head of the Greensmith family, she was it.
“It’s about time,” Grammy scolded. She had never made it a secret that she disapproved of Rowen’s moving away. Still, she was smiling when she hugged her. “I’m glad you’re here. We all are.”
Rowen had never had a bedroom all her own in the Greensmith household. She had always shared with a cousin or two. For this visit, they set her up in the attic. There was a decent little bedroom up there, if you didn’t mind cobwebs and clutter.
Rowen put down her things and called her boss to check in. She was supposed to get to the scene ASAP, but the trip had been a long one. Rowen paid Ted some lip service about getting to work immediately. Instead, she just flopped down on her mattress and took a power nap.
#
Rowen awoke just before dinner time to the sound of Willow knocking on the door. “Mom’s here,” Willow said. “I know you need to talk to her for work.”
Was that how the family saw Rowen? The main reason Rowen wanted to see Nadine was that she was family, not for some story. Did they think that work was the only reason she was visiting? It was, though, wasn’t it? Nadine sighed. Without her boss forcing her here, she probably wouldn’t have come.
Feeling like scum, Rowen
headed downstairs. She gave Aunt Nadine a hug before sitting down to a dinner of Grammy’s stew. It was good, but Nadine didn’t eat much. She seemed in low spirits, despite everyone’s best efforts to cheer her up.
“I just don’t understand how this could have happened,” Aunt Nadine said with a sigh, poking her food around in her bowl. Her daughters were seated on either side of her. They put hands on her shoulders, attempting to reassure her. “And I’m afraid they blame me. How could I have done anything of that? Why would I have?”
Aunt Lydia steepled her hands on the table, assuming a grim expression. “It’s because of what we are,” she said solemnly. “There no end to the persecution of witches. Not even in Lainswich.”
Rowen inwardly flinched at the word ‘witch’. Of all the things about her family that frustrated her, that was likely the part she had tried to distance herself from the most.
Grammy waved a hand at her daughter, annoyed. “Oh, hush. You know nothing of persecution - and I’m glad for that.” Grammy had grown up in a different time. According to her, their great grandmother had been taken by an angry mob and strung up on the old oak out back for being a witch. “They’re questioning Nadine because she’s the one that sold the trunk. They’ll question us all again before this is over. Just you wait.”
“So do they know who the body belonged to?” Rowen asked, trying to enter the conversation as carefully as possible.
Nadine shook her head. “If they do, they’re not telling me.”
“And it had the body in it before it was sold?” continued Rowen.
This time Nadine simply shrugged. “I wouldn’t have known. I could never get the dumb thing open.”
“So she thought she would make a quick buck selling it off to some poor rube,” Granny amended, irritable. She sighed. “Well, it’s over and done with now. All we can do is try to ride this thing out. We’ll get through it. Don’t you worry.”
