“Why did you try to scare us away last night?” Charlie asked.
The man grimaced. “Various random people have come in here over the years. They’ve never talked about anything good. Sure, the word restoration was batted around, but no one ever made any effort to restore the place. All they wanted to do was tear it down. I really couldn’t live with that.”
“Could you tell us more about what happened to you?” I said.
Mr. Curtain frowned and cocked his head to the side. “Are you sure you aren’t with them?” As if a switch had turned, he suddenly looked at us with deep suspicion.
I frowned back. “With who?”
“Don’t play the fool. I survived for a long time despite the threats and intimidations. I know what sort of game you’re about. He would stop at nothing to make my place his,” he growled.
“What are you talking about?” I continued. Maybe another ghost was encroaching on his territory? I couldn’t follow the sudden change in his demeanor.
“You’re talking about Jimmy M.’s family, aren’t you?” said Charlie grimly.
“Don’t say his name,” Mr. Curtain’s eyes bulged in fury.
“Relax, dude. These broads ain’t working for that fellow,” said Paws.
“Since when did you start speaking in slang?” Charlie asked.
“Since when did you think you’d survive the night if you called me a broad?” I demanded.
Paws licked his paws and ignored us.
I really needed a cup of tea if I was going to survive this craziness.
“You don’t work for Jimmy’s boys?” asked Mr. Curtain.
Before either of us could tell him that we certainly did not, a voice interrupted us.
“Charlie? Lemmi?” Greer’s voice called out.
“I knew you’d been followed,” scowled Mr. Curtain.
Before any of us could reassure him, the ghost disappeared. We sat in silence for a split second, then a phantom hand appeared, grabbed the roll of film, and disappeared again.
“Guys?” Greer called again.
“Quick. Let’s find another way out. She’ll never know the difference,” cried Paws.
“Of course she will. We can’t leave her to wander around. Not after what happened last night,” said Charlie, getting to her feet.
“Sure we can,” Paws argued. “He was either trying to scare away Jimmy’s boys, which we aren’t, or he was trying to show you the beauty of the cinema. Either way he failed, and you’re still here. I should tell him that getting rid of you is harder than it looks. Greer doesn’t have enough sense to run away when she should.”
We hurried out to the front of the stage to find our friend waiting for us in the middle aisle, looking flummoxed. Despite the fact that the lights were on, she had pulled a flashlight out of her pocket. She looked pale, but at least it didn’t appear as if she’d been crying.
“Hey! Did you find anything back there?” she asked.
“We found Mr. Curtain. He heard the sound of your voice and decided to make a run for it. His sense of self-preservation is strong,” said Paws as he trotted up.
“I doubt that,” she said.
“What’s going on between you and Deacon?” I asked as soon as we reached her.
She sighed and shrugged. “I wasn’t going to tell you this. Then again, I didn’t think he and I would fight so much about it either.” Greer ran a frustrated hand through her hair.
“Tell me what?” I asked.
“I’ll explain everything on the way to the car,” she said.
The three of us closed up the old cinema. Paws searched for ghost mice for as long as he could, then trotted up to us just as we left the building.
Greer sighed again as we headed for the car. She did not look happy. “Did it look like we’re having problems? Did it look like something was wrong?” she asked.
Um, yeah?
Outside the theater, I turned around to lock the door behind us. Through the crack I had peeked through earlier, only to see Greer and Deacon fighting, I could now see that the inside of the cinema was dark, except maybe for a sliver of light up on the balcony.
Maybe a ghost was watching us leave.
I turned back to Main Street. It wasn’t as late as it had been the night before, but the street was just as quiet. Liam’s shop, the gallery, the hardware store—everything was closed.
“No mice anywhere. Very odd,” Paws muttered, shaking his head and looking mystified as he caught up to us.
“Yeah, it looks like you’re having a slight bit of trouble,” I said.
“It looked like you were about to stomp on him,” said the cat to Greer.
“We were actually fighting about you and Jasper,” she muttered in my direction.
“Oh, this is gonna be good,” said Paws, his eyes lighting up.
“You were what?” I demanded. “What on earth were you fighting about that for?”
“I tried to ask him what was going on with his best friend. He kept acting like it was all fine, like it was all going to blow over. I can’t stand it when the elephant in the room is ignored,” Greer said.
“A ghost elephant is something I would like to see,” said Paws.
All of us looked at him as if he made no sense.
“Thank you for that extraneous detail,” said Charlie.
“I don’t know what that means. You are welcome,” and Paws.
“Deacon thinks everything is going to be fine,” said Greer. “I asked him what would happen if it wasn’t. Obviously, we already can’t all hang out like we were before. With you and Jasper so confusing, how are Deacon and I supposed to be normal? He said we were just supposed to be normal. I said we weren’t. That’s where the fight ended earlier, because my break was over.”
“Rich people don’t have to take work breaks because they aren’t at work in the first place,” Paws said.
Greer glared at him.
“That’s why you weren’t in a good mood at dinner,” said Charlie, understanding lighting her face.
“That about sums it up. I didn’t mean for it to turn into a big fight. It just happened. I wasn’t expecting to fight with him about it at all. When he refused to talk to Jasper is when stuff got heated.”
“You wanted him to talk to Jasper!” I yelped.
“I just wanted to find out what was going on. Given that we were all friends and he’s Jasper’s best friend, I thought that was reasonable. Given that I’m his girlfriend I thought he’d do it. He straight up refused,” said Greer.
“I bet he hasn’t refused you anything in a while,” said Paws.
“Certainly nothing obvious and important,” said Greer. She scrubbed her face. She suddenly looked tired.
“I appreciate that you’re trying to find out what happened,” I told her.
“I wasn’t trying to get into the middle of anything. It’s just that we’re all friends,” she said.
“I know. I’d like to know what’s going on too. I’m just not sure that’s going to happen,” I said.
Chapter Twelve
“What led up to all this, anyhow?” I asked.
“The gala at the barn that Mrs. Sounds is hosting,” said Greer,
I frowned. I hadn’t heard about any dinner.
Mrs. Sounds was a pillar of the community, very powerful and very wealthy, at least by Mintwood standards. The last I had seen of her had been at the Babbling Brook Barn for the opening night festivities.
By now, that was a long time ago. Jasper and I hadn’t even been together then.
We weren’t together now, either, as far as that went.
Greer made a face. “She’s having a dinner with all the powerful people in town. Deacon was invited. So was Jasper. I don’t want to go, but Deacon wants me to go as his date. I’ve been trying to avoid Jasper recently, and Deacon finally noticed.”
“Jasper literally last came by almost a week ago,” said Charlie.
“I know that. Deacon just figured it out, though. A co
uple of times he’s mentioned all of us getting together soon. I just smiled and nodded when he said it, but didn’t say anything of substance. He finally got sick of my non-responses and asked what was going on. I kind of blew up at him about the whole thing,” Greer said.
“How did you do that?” I asked.
My hands were tight on the steering wheel and I could feel sweat between my fingers. My friends were getting into fights over me, and I couldn’t help but feel guilty. To further feed my guilt, I wanted any scrap of news about Jasper I could get.
“I said you two weren’t hanging out at this point. I wondered how he could have failed to notice. I told him to stop suggesting fun things when we couldn’t all hang out,” she said.
“The bloody nerve of him,” said Charlie.
“I know, right?” said Greer.
As we reached the farmhouse and got out of the car, my whole body felt tired.
“You should go to the dinner with Mrs. Sounds,” I said to Greer. “If you would have wanted to go to the dinner before Jasper and I started having problems, then you should still go,” I told Greer.
“I would have to apologize to Deacon first. I hate apologizing. I literally break out in hives,” she said.
“Probably because it’s so unfamiliar to you,” said Charlie sagely.
“Given that he’s your boyfriend, I think you can manage it,” I said to Greer, ignoring Charlie’s barb.
“Yeah, I suppose so. Still, it’s frustrating,” Greer said.
“It’s best to apologize when you’re wrong,” Charlie pointed out.
“Thanks. Can I have that on a bumper sticker?” said Greer.
As we trudged into the house, Charlie made a show of pretending to tilt on the sagging porch.
I ignored her. Again.
My emotions were churning, and yet once again all I wanted to do was fall into bed. In the grand scheme of things the problems Jasper and I were having didn’t matter at all. In the grand and sometimes dilapidated scheme of my life, they were the world.
In morning I took my time getting dressed, eating breakfast, and heading out the door. I still had no pet sitting duties that week. I couldn’t remember the last time when that had been true. A few people had called me for the upcoming weeks, which was good, because those jobs would generate some much-needed income, but right now I was still free to go about my day without pet duties.
Truth be told, I missed not having anywhere to go in the mornings. I also missed the cute faces of animals looking up at me.
At least I still had Charger.
Greer was sleeping in and Charlie had already left for work. I was pretty sure she was planning to write Hansen Gregory a terse email. His interest in the cinema as reported by Deacon had annoyed her beyond measure.
That was interesting in and of itself. Usually Charlie’s annoyance was measurable. In decimals or counters scrubbed. But Charlie fervently believed that Hansen wasn’t allowed to be interested in anything that was covered by the Mintwood Gazette, and this was an especially egregious example.
Unfortunately for Charlie, she was the only one who thought that was reasonable.
Thinking all this over, I looked up and noticed that the day was cloudy and gray. The back yard looked dull and uninviting even with the new fence edging it. Maybe it was just my feelings being projected on the outside world, but this was a dreary day if ever there was one.
I finally got some breakfast together and sat down to eat it with both morning papers in front of me, hoping for some good news to cheer me up.
Charlie had done a quick write-up on our work at Bright Lights. She was excited about it, and she thought the rest of the town would be as well.
Hansen had written an article rebutting his own previous speculations about witches. I couldn’t tell if someone had made him write it, or if enough people had come forward that he had made the decision on his own.
Either way, the article centered on the fact that witches couldn’t possibly exist. Many people disputed Ms. Newburyport, and some went so far as to say she was a complete nut.
Her list of complaints over the years supported that notion. She had once claimed to see the Loch Ness Monster in her bathroom sink, a mini-version, apparently.
She had also claimed to see a tree that walked around. That was far-fetched, even in the witching world.
In short, said Hansen, witches couldn’t possibly exist, and the things Ms. Newburyport said couldn’t possibly be true. Bottom line: she was the height of hypocrisy and foolishness.
I felt a little bit bad for her, not that I even knew the woman, but that so many people were coming out of the woodwork to say that she was crazy.
It felt like my life on any given Saturday.
Then again, Charlie had been concerned about Ms. Newburyport’s accusations of witchy behavior, and I knew she’d be relieved. Hopefully she’d feel better now that a woman one town over had been completely discredited.
I just wished there was something I could do to feel better myself.
I spent a quiet, uneventful couple of hours after breakfast. I looked at the dishes and even considered washing them, then gave it up in favor of reading one of my grandmother’s spell books. I was trying to find any information that might be relevant to the question of why Mr. Curtain’s ghost was at Bright Lights.
The best I could come up with was that he had some unfinished business there. That at least gave me a direction to explore, and certainly didn’t contradict the murder theory, but it didn’t get the investigation much further forward.
I replaced the spell book where it belonged, in the kitchen on the cookbook shelf, and headed outside to get the mail.
I sighed as I shifted through the regular offerings of junk. There wasn’t anything terribly interesting until I got to the last item. Then I frowned.
It was an invitation, but not to the dinner I had heard about the night before. I knew perfectly well that Mrs. Sounds would never invite me to such a thing.
No, this was to something else.
This was an invitation to speak with Mayor Clabberd.
It made me realize that Charlie’s notice in the paper about Bright Lights might not have been such a good idea. My grandmother had hated the town hall and the mayor’s office and had spent her life refusing to go there. I had already gone there more than once, and though I couldn’t say I hated it, it wasn’t my favorite place.
Now, if this letter was to be believed, I had an appointment with the mayor at eleven that very morning.
I sighed and told myself to go get ready. Then I’d call Charlie to see if she wanted to join me, and maybe Greer would get up early and come as well.
I wasn’t particularly happy being summoned, and on short notice to boot, but at least the appointment gave some shape to the morning.
Fat chance, as far as Greer was concerned. I waited around the farmhouse for as long as I could, but she never woke up, so in the end I left without her. Charlie was disappointed about the timing, because she couldn’t come either. With the little bit of time I had to spare I decided to go see Liam at The Twinkle. The more I pondered it, the more I thought it wouldn’t be a good idea to go to the mayor’s office alone. So maybe Liam would be willing to come along.
Unfortunately, it was going to be more difficult than I expected to get much work done at Bright Lights today. The appointment at the mayor’s office and our visit to Mr. Curtain’s old assistant Honey would chew up most of the day. We could probably make it over to Bright Lights after dinner, but we weren’t going to get an earlier session in today.
Surprisingly, the Twinkle Costume Shop was empty when I arrived. At least, that was my first impression. Then I heard the low hum of conversation. Excellent!
“Liam?” I called.
“Back here. Coming,” said my friend’s voice.
The next moment he appeared. At first I thought he was alone, and for a moment, before I remembered that telephones existed, I wondered whether he’d been talking t
o himself.
Then someone else came into view behind him, and it turned out to be Bridget. She had an armful of clothing piled so high it covered her chin and nose. All I could see were her eyes peering over the jumble like two dark orbs.
“Do you two know each other?” Liam asked.
We both nodded, but Liam made introductions anyhow.
“Lemmi is a friend of mine from high school. We reconnected when she moved back to Mintwood. Bridget is going to do some sewing for me. I’ve already made it through a lot of the clothing I took out of Bright Lights the other night. Of course, there’s a lot more still to go. But anyhow, some of it needs repairs,” he explained.
“Makes sense given how long it sat in that dusty old building,” I said.
“It’s really the most beautiful clothing,” said Bridget, her voice so low I could barely hear it.
Bridget left right after that, and since there were still no customers, I had an opportunity to tell Liam what I wanted.
“It’s been a very slow day,” he said. “I’d love to come over to the mayor’s office with you and make sure he behaves himself.”
Mayor Clabberd was known far and wide for the way he used intimidation to further his agenda. If he wanted something in town, it happened, whether anyone else wanted it or not. One of his tactics was to invite folk to his grand office and intimidate them with how powerful he was.
At least, that had been my grandmother’s theory. But she was determined never to say anything nice about the man or the building, so I tried to take her opinion with a grain of salt.
To complicate matters, the mayor had once needed my help, and at the time he had gone so far as to hint that he knew my grandmother’s—now my—secret. We had never discussed that little fact any further, and I didn’t see how we ever could. But ever since I had helped him out, the mayor had been very nice to me whenever our paths crossed, which wasn’t all that often.
I had no idea why he had summoned me today, though the peremptoriness of the note, and the short notice, gave me pause. I wasn’t sure his aim was to bully me; I couldn’t figure out what he’d want to bully me for. Still, I thought it best to take somebody with me.
Wonder Wand Way (Witch of Mintwood Book 10) Page 7
