A Witch of a Time

by Amanda M. Lee

  “I just thought I would stop by on our way to breakfast,” I said, refusing to back down. Aunt Tillie is like an animal. When she feels fear, she pounces. If she thinks you’re not afraid of her, she regroups and picks something else to try to terrify you with. I’m used to her tricks. Of course, there’s always the possibility that one of these days she is just going to rip off my leg.

  “Well, as you can see, there’s nothing here that the fuzz would be interested in,” Aunt Tillie said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I told you I was being unfairly persecuted.”

  “I’ve asked you repeatedly not to call me ‘the fuzz,’” I said.

  “If the fuzz fits,” Aunt Tillie grumbled. “Shouldn’t you be up at the inn for breakfast?”

  “Shouldn’t you?” I countered.

  “I already ate,” Aunt Tillie said.

  I didn’t believe her, but I was done playing in her sandbox for the time being. “We’re going,” I said, pushing Bay in front of me. “They have waffles, right?”

  “And bacon,” Aunt Tillie said.

  “This is going to be a great day,” I said. “Bacon, waffles, a pretty blonde … what could go wrong?”

  “I SHOULDN’T have eaten so many waffles,” I groaned, stretching out on the guesthouse couch an hour later. “Now all I want to do is take a nap.” I gestured toward Bay, who sat at the kitchen table doing something on her laptop. “Do you want to nap with me?”

  “Can’t you see she’s working,” Thistle asked, moving out from behind the kitchen counter and heading in my direction, a mug of coffee in her hand. She was still in her pajamas, her pink hair standing on end, and she was grumpy. I used to think it was mornings that made her such a pain. Now I know it’s her basic personality.

  “You missed out on a great meal,” I said, focusing on her. “I’m surprised Marcus would pass up waffles.”

  “He left before dawn,” Thistle said. “He had a big tour group that wanted to go on a sunrise ride, so he had to be at the stable to get the horses ready.”

  Well, that explained that. I watched Thistle as she moved to the sofa table and pushed my bag to the side. “Are you looking for something?”

  “My keys.”

  “You’re always losing your keys,” I said. “Maybe you should put them in the same place every day. That way you would always know where they are.”

  “I know where they are.”

  “Obviously not.”

  “I thought you were going to take a nap?”

  I ignored her and turned back to Bay. “What are you looking at?”

  “I might have to go into the office,” Bay said, annoyed. “There’s a problem with the server, and I can’t get into my email. I’ll probably have to go there to do it.”

  That was not how I envisioned spending the day. “What do you have that’s so important?” Thistle took the opportunity to open my bag, causing me to shift my attention back to her. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m just checking,” Thistle said. “I … .” She jumped back, her face blanching.

  I was instantly on alert and rolled to my feet, my full stomach protesting. “What’s wrong?”

  Bay glanced up from her computer, concerned. She left the laptop open and closed the distance, resting her hand on Thistle’s shoulder. “What is it?”

  “I think I just saw … something,” Thistle said, gasping.

  “It’s not Fred, is it?” Bay wrinkled her nose and glanced down at her feet to make sure nothing was crawling on her. “I knew we hadn’t seen the last of that scorpion.”

  “How would a scorpion that got loose at the inn find it’s way into my workbag?” I asked, irritated.

  Bay ignored me. “Where did it go?”

  “It wasn’t Fred,” Thistle said, running her hand through her hair as she tried to collect herself. “That wasn’t what I saw.”

  “What did you see?” I asked.

  “Was it porn?” Bay shot me a look. “Does he have naughty pictures in that bag?”

  “Yes, Bay, I walk around with nudie magazines in my workbag,” I said, rolling my eyes. “What’s in there?” I racked my brain. Besides my laptop and a few errant ink pens, the only thing that should be in there was the cold case file.

  Bay rummaged around the bag, pulling out the file. “Is this what you saw?”

  Thistle nodded, biting her lip. “I touched it and … I had a flash.”

  I furrowed my brow, confused. “A flash of what? Like a hot flash?”

  Thistle shot me a look. Well, at least she was returning to her usual self. “Not a hot flash,” Thistle said. “I saw … it was kind of a vision.”

  “I didn’t know you could do that,” I said.

  “I can’t,” Thistle said. “It’s happened a few times, but very rarely.”

  “Clove is the one who has visions,” Bay explained. “She hasn’t had a true vision in years. They happened a lot when we were teenagers, but Mom said it was hormones and that Clove would settle into a pattern when she got older.

  “Instead, she stopped having them,” she continued. “I can’t remember the last one she had. Now she’s more of a medium than anything else.”

  “She probably passed them on to me,” Thistle grumbled. “Great. Now I’m going to get flashes whenever I touch something. My life is ruined.”

  “Calm down,” Bay said. “What did you see?”

  “I don’t know,” Thistle said. “It was a woman. I didn’t recognize her. She had red hair and green eyes. I saw her crying.”

  I slipped between Bay and Thistle and took the file from Bay’s hands. I hadn’t opened it yet, and now seemed as good a time as any. I flipped it open, my gaze landing on the photograph clipped to the front of the file. The woman was smiling, a toddler on her lap, and she had red hair and green eyes. “Is this who you saw?”

  Thistle nodded.

  “Margaret Mulder,” I said, reading from the file. “She was better known as Peg. This is the woman Chief Terry was talking about at dinner last night.”

  “And Thistle saw her,” Bay said, rubbing the back of her cousin’s neck. “That can’t be good.”

  “Well, wait a second,” I said, thinking. “If Thistle can see what happened to her, we might be able to solve this case in a matter of hours.”

  “I don’t want to see what happened to her,” Thistle said.

  “Just try.” I pushed the file toward her again, causing her to slip farther away.

  “I said no.”

  “Leave her alone,” Bay said. “Can’t you see she’s overwhelmed?”

  She looked normal to me. Of course, I didn’t know how all of this witchy stuff worked. I was used to Bay talking to ghosts, and I was even coming to grips with Aunt Tillie doling out curses whenever the mood struck, but visions were new territory. It was … intriguing.

  “Fine,” I said, pulling the file from Thistle and pressing it to my chest. “I won’t push her. But I want to remind you that this woman has been missing for twenty years. She deserves some closure.”

  Bay shot me a look, and it was one I didn’t particularly like. “Thank you, agent.”

  Uh-oh, I recognized that tone. I was going to have to do some backtracking here. “I’m sorry,” I said. “She’s obviously upset. I’ll leave it alone.”

  “Thanks,” Thistle snapped, pulling away from Bay and stalking toward her bedroom. “I’m so glad you’ve agreed to let me do things my own way in my own house.”

  She slammed the door hard enough to rattle the framed photographs on the wall. I risked a look in Bay’s direction, expecting a blow up, but her face was thoughtful. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking that there might be a way for us to track Thistle’s vision to a conclusion, rather than forcing her to try to receive another vision.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll talk to Clove,” Bay said, shaking her head and shifting her blue eyes to me. “I think we can do a spell.”

  Oh, good, because that never goes wron
g. “Okay.” What? I’m not picking an argument now. I’m not a coward, but I know when I’m beat. “What are we going to do now?”

  “I need to go into the office,” Bay said. “Didn’t you say you needed to look at Chief Terry’s files?”

  “You’re in this now, aren’t you?” I was resigned. Bay has never met a mystery she didn’t want to solve. I admire that about her. It also gives me migraines.

  “I just … I want to know.”

  “Fine,” I said, leaning forward so I could give her a quick kiss on the cheek. “We’re both going to work. This is exactly how I saw us spending our weekend.”

  Four

  “How long do you think you’ll be?”

  Bay sat in the passenger seat of my Explorer, her hand on the door handle, a weary expression on her face. I should have let her sleep longer. She looked as though she needed it.

  “I shouldn’t be too long,” she said. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to talk to Chief Terry,” I said. “Then I was thinking of stopping by the stables to see Marcus.”

  Bay’s eyes widened in surprise. “Why?”

  “I was hoping he would be able to take me out to the house where Peg Mulder used to live,” I said. “I have to start somewhere, and that’s the last place she was seen alive.”

  “You think she’s dead, don’t you?”

  “I think that the file makes it sound as if she was a good mother,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “A good mother doesn’t take off and leave her young son with her ex-husband and the babysitter.”

  “What if she was more depressed than she let on?” Bay chose her words carefully, too.

  “You think she might have killed herself.” The thought had occurred to me.

  “I think losing your husband to the babysitter has to be … difficult.”

  “I think losing someone you love is probably difficult regardless,” I said. “I also think that if you have a child, you put them before yourself. Peg Mulder is described singularly as a good mother. That’s what everyone in the file said about her.

  “They said she was upset about the divorce, but her attention was on the kid,” I continued. “That doesn’t sound like someone who would commit suicide.”

  “You’re leaning toward John Mulder as a murderer, aren’t you?”

  “In all cases where a wife goes missing, the husband is the first suspect,” I said. “In this case, we have a guy who had an affair with a barely legal teenager and knocked her up. He then left his wife for the babysitter, and he was looking at long years of child support and a hefty payout in a divorce.

  “When his relationship with the babysitter ended, he left town,” I said. “Maybe he didn’t want to live with the guilt of what he did … especially when he did it for a woman who ended up cheating on him.”

  “I see where you’re going,” Bay said. “I’m not disagreeing with you. I just … I’d like to believe that doing one bad thing doesn’t mean you’d do the ultimate bad thing.”

  “I know,” I said, “but I have to start somewhere. Do you want to go out to the house with me?”

  “I’m going to go down to Hypnotic when I’m finished at the office,” Bay said. “I want to talk to Clove about that spell. You can pick me up there when you’re done.”

  “Okay,” I said, leaning over and giving her a soft kiss. “Don’t cast that spell until I’m there to … watch.”

  “You were going to say supervise, weren’t you?”

  I was. She didn’t need to know that, though. “I like to watch,” I teased. “I find it fascinating.”

  AFTER leaving Chief Terry’s office with his files, I tossed them into the back seat of my Explorer and drove to the stables. I found Marcus cleaning out a stall, his back to me, seemingly lost in thought.

  “Hey.”

  Marcus jolted at the sound of my voice, turning swiftly. “You scared me.”

  “What were you thinking about?” Marcus had been a part of the Winchester witches’ world longer than I had, but not by much. I considered him a kindred spirit when navigating their troubled waters. And, on a personal level, I really like him. He is even-tempered, and he’s the one person in the world who can calm Thistle when she’s on a tear. That was definitely a benefit.

  “I was just thinking,” Marcus said. “I’m trying to decide whether I should hire someone to work here.”

  I arched an eyebrow, surprised. I knew Marcus did okay at the stable, but it never seemed to be bustling with activity. “Do you need someone to help? I can help you do something now if that’s the case.”

  Marcus shook his head. “I … I’ve been considering adding on to the business.”

  “Oh, yeah? What are you going to add?”

  “Well, I want to add a petting zoo,” Marcus said. “I also want to add a big vegetable garden on the other side of the stable. I own all of that property, and it’s just sitting there. Then I want to set up a booth on the front lawn to sell the vegetables. I think it could be a big draw.”

  “Is that why you’ve been spending so much time gardening with Aunt Tillie?”

  Marcus’ face flushed. “She actually knows a lot about gardening.”

  “I’m sure she does.”

  “You know I don’t smoke any of that stuff out there, don’t you?”

  “I’m not the pot police, Marcus,” I said, hiding my smile. “I don’t really care. As long as you’re not hurting someone else, it’s not my concern.”

  “Do you need something?” he asked, quickly changing the subject.

  “I was hoping you might be able to take me out to the Mulder house,” I said. “I need to take a look around. I figured you would know where it was.”

  “Sure,” Marcus said. “ Do you want to drive or ride?”

  It would be quicker to drive, but something told me Marcus needed to talk with someone. “Let’s ride.”

  “Cool. Let me saddle up two horses. It will only take a few minutes.”

  WE rode in amiable silence, the only noise coming from the hooves of the horses for a long time before I decided to break the silence. Generally, I like quiet. Marcus and his deep thoughts were starting to make me uncomfortable, though.

  “Have you talked to Thistle about your idea?”

  Marcus shifted in his saddle, smiling. “No. I know I should. It’s just … it’s going to take up a lot of my time when I decide to do it.”

  “You don’t think she’ll understand? She runs her own business. She knows it takes work. It’s not as though you guys won’t see each other. The stable is only two blocks from the store.”

  “The truth is, I don’t want to spend time away from her,” Marcus said. “I … what I’m about to tell you is a secret.”

  I nodded encouragingly.

  “I want to spend this summer getting the business up and running to the level I want and then … well … I want to propose.”

  The admission should have been surprising, and yet it wasn’t. “I think that’s a good idea.”

  “Do you think she’ll say ‘yes?’”

  “I think Thistle loves you,” I said. “Are you worried she’ll say ‘no?’”

  “I’m worried that she’s going to want to live with Bay and Clove forever,” Marcus said. “I’m worried that she’ll say ‘yes,’ and then expect me to move into the guesthouse with everyone else.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” he added hurriedly. “I love Bay and Clove. I like hanging out with them.”

  “You just don’t want to live with them,” I finished.

  “What if she’s not ready to live away from them?”

  “Well … .” I was at a loss. Truth be told, for the past few weeks I’d been considering asking Bay to move in with me. It was one of those ideas tucked away in a small corner of my mind, thoughts of an apartment between Hemlock Cove and Traverse City wreaking havoc on my fantasy world. I didn’t think Bay and I were quite there yet, so I was leaving it alone. For now, at least. “I’m hoping to
move in with Bay at some point, too.”

  “You’re just as worried as I am, aren’t you?” Marcus asked.

  “I don’t think I’m worried,” I said. “I think it’s a daunting thing. They’re extremely close to one another. The thing is, I think Clove is probably going to move in with Sam before it’s all said and done.”

  “You think she’ll leave first?” Marcus was surprised. “She and Sam haven’t been dating that long.”

  “I don’t think Clove is moving in with Sam right away,” I cautioned. “It’s just … Clove seems like the type of person who wants to settle down.”

  “And Thistle doesn’t,” Marcus said, miserable.

  “I don’t think Thistle knows what she wants at any given point of any given day,” I said. “I do think she loves you, and I think she’s going to say ‘yes’ if you propose. When do you plan to ask her?”

  “Not until after the snow flies,” Marcus said. “I was going to do it around Valentine’s Day, but then I thought she might find that schmaltzy.”

  “She probably will,” I said. “I think you should do what you want to do, though. It’s as much your decision as it is hers.”

  “I guess.”

  “Why don’t you handle the business stuff first,” I suggested. “That’s going to take months to get in order. Are you going to be able to get a garden planted behind the stables this late in the season?”

  “I don’t plan to plant this season,” Marcus replied. “I need to till the field, and that’s going to take a long time. I want a big garden. I’m also going to need to hire someone at the stable because I can’t be in two places at once.”

  “Do you have the money for all of this?”

  “The stable does really well in the summer, and it’s more than enough to live on during the winter,” Marcus said. “I have the money. I just … what if Thistle is upset because I spend so much time on the new business?”

  “Thistle gets upset about a lot of things I don’t understand,” I said. “She flies off the handle, and she always seems angry, but this is one thing I think she’ll completely understand. In fact, I’m betting she’s going to want to help you.”