A Witch of a Time

by Amanda M. Lee

  “It’s fine,” Terry said, patting the top of her head. “We’ll keep everyone away from you. Just keep it quiet.”

  Bay nodded at him, the smile she shot him so earnest it almost broke my heart. “Okay.” She shuffled off.

  When she was gone, I turned to Terry. “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

  “I think she’s a good person,” he said. “You have to let her be who she is. This is who she is.”

  He was right, but letting her go off by herself still felt wrong.

  Three

  “Maybe I should take her home.”

  I knew the words were a mistake as soon as I uttered them. Still, something in my heart warned me that Bay shouldn’t be here.

  “You can’t take her home,” Marnie said, keeping her voice low. “She’s already here. If she leaves now, everyone will know that something happened. It will only draw more attention to her.”

  “Marnie is right,” Twila said. “If Bay leaves now, Lila will think she drove her away and that will give her power.”

  “I don’t really care about power,” I said. “I care about Bay. Can’t she have one weekend without a ghost showing up to ruin everything?”

  “Nothing has been ruined,” Marnie said. “Everyone is having a good time.”

  I looked toward the lake where Bay walked the shoreline, her head down so no one could see her lips moving. She was making a big show about studying the rocks on the ground, but I knew what she was doing. A quick glance in Clove and Thistle’s direction told me they knew, too. They were heading in our direction.

  “Where are you two going?” Marnie asked, snagging Thistle’s arm when she tried to move around her.

  “We’re going to hang out with Bay,” Thistle said. “She shouldn’t be over there alone.”

  “She’s looking at the rocks.”

  “We all know that’s not what she’s doing,” Thistle said, yanking her arm away.

  “Just leave her alone,” I said. “We don’t want to draw attention to her.”

  “That’s why we should be over there,” Clove said. “People will think she’s talking to us.”

  I gave in, mostly because what Clove said made sense. “Go ahead, but don’t interrupt Bay.”

  “We’re not two years old,” Thistle said. “We know the drill.”

  “Thank you, Thistle,” I said.

  “You’re welcome.” Thistle and Clove scampered off, and I watched them take up position near Bay. They immediately launched into some conversation only they could hear. Bay barely acknowledged their presence.

  “She’s pretty intent on whatever she’s doing,” Twila said. “Who do you think she’s talking with?”

  That was a pretty good question. “I don’t know. No one lives out here. Has anyone ever died out here?”

  “I have no idea,” Marnie said. “If the ghost is new, maybe we should be looking for a body.”

  “It’s probably old,” I said. “Who would have died out here recently?”

  “Well, Donna Wilder is missing,” Twila said.

  My heart rolled and I shifted slightly so I could study Twila. When she’s the one who comes up with the answer, you know you’re in trouble. “You don’t think it’s Donna, do you?”

  “She’s been missing for more than a week now,” Marnie said. “Maybe she came up here to get the camp in order and … I don’t know … something happened to her.”

  “Usually people only come back as ghosts if something violent happened to them,” I pointed out. “Are you saying you think she was murdered?”

  “Calm down,” Marnie chided. “We don’t even know it’s Donna. We’ll talk to Bay later and see whether she knows who it is. We can’t freak out before we know what we’re dealing with.”

  “I’m not freaking out.”

  “You always freak out.”

  “I do not.”

  “You do, too.”

  “We all freak out,” Twila said, stepping between us in an attempt to keep the peace. “We can’t do this now. We have to focus on the camp. That’s our main job for now.”

  “And what happens if there’s really a dead body out here?” Marnie asked. “What do we do then?”

  “I guess it’s good we have a police detective right across the lake,” I said, gesturing toward Terry. He sat at the table with the boys, and whatever story he was reenacting had them in stitches. “If there really is a body out here, he’ll be able to deal with it.”

  “What if there’s a murderer out here?” Twila asked.

  “Then we’ll deal with it,” I said. “Any murderer who comes after us is going to realize he’s bitten off a little more than he can chew.”

  “You’ve got that right,” Marnie said. “Come on. Let’s get the lunch stuff cleaned up. Terry wants to take the kids swimming, and then we’ll have a big bonfire after dinner tonight.”

  “Terry is staying here all day?” I was surprised.

  “He said he wants to stay close to Bay,” Marnie said. “I think he’s as worried about her as you are.”

  I didn’t think that was possible. “Okay, let’s get cleaned up. At least if the kids are in the water we don’t have to worry about Thistle setting Lila on fire as retribution.”

  “No, we only have to worry about her drowning Lila,” Marnie said.

  I sighed. “Someone find Aunt Tillie. Make sure she keeps an eye on the girls in the water. If someone drowns, we’re never going to be able to chaperone anything again.”

  “That sounds chaper-fun,” Marnie said, grinning.

  “OKAY, everyone get settled around the fire,” I instructed.

  The rest of the afternoon was mostly uneventful. When I questioned Bay about the ghost, she seemed more confused than anything else. She said the woman wouldn’t talk, but kept pointing to the far side of the lake. I didn’t know what it meant any more than Bay.

  After a raucous dinner – an afternoon of swimming turning the boys into excited little monsters – it was time for a bonfire and ghost stories. Terry would have to take the boys back across the lake before it got too late, but for now everyone was having a good time.

  “Who knows a ghost story?” I asked.

  Lila’s hand shot up. Of course.

  “She didn’t say skank stories,” Thistle said. “No one wants to hear your stupid stories, Lila.”

  “Thistle,” Twila snapped. “Don’t speak that way. That’s not how I raised you.”

  “Yeah, Thistle,” Lila sang. “That’s not how Ronald McDonald raised you.”

  Twila scowled. “Go nuts, Thistle.”

  I grabbed Twila’s arm. “That is not good parenting.”

  “I don’t care,” Twila said. “I’ve always taught Thistle to fight against evil. I can’t stop her from doing that now.”

  I started to move in Thistle’s direction, worried she would take her mother’s words to heart, but Terry cut me off and settled in the spot next to Twila’s wild child.

  “You know that killing her will only result in you going to jail, don’t you?” Terry asked.

  “I think I’m okay with that,” Thistle said.

  Terry smiled. “How about you tell the ghost story instead,” he suggested. “I’ll bet that busy mind of yours can come up with some good stuff.”

  That was an understatement. Thistle once told Clove that gnomes lived in our basement and they fed off the lint between our toes. Clove refused to walk barefoot in the house for a month because she was convinced the gnomes would crawl between her toes and chew her foot off.

  “I don’t want to tell a story,” Thistle said. “I’m not in the mood.”

  “Oh, you’re in a mood,” Terry said, tousling Thistle’s hair. “You’re just not in a fun mood. Who else wants to tell a story? Boys, do you know any stories?”

  “I once heard a story about a woman so ugly she turned men to stone,” one of the boys said.

  “Was her name Lila?” one of the other boys asked.

  I bit my lip to kee
p from laughing out loud. In her efforts to entice the boys to her side earlier in the day, Lila had done the opposite. She’d insisted she couldn’t get wet, and refused to put on a bathing suit. When you’re dealing with fourteen-year-old boys, they want to have fun, not listen to a spoiled brat complain for two hours.

  “Ho, ho, ho,” Lila sneered. “That’s so funny I forgot to laugh.”

  “And you’re so ugly you could break mirrors,” Thistle said.

  I needed to stop this before it got out of hand. “No one knows a ghost story? Really?”

  “I know someone who knows a ghost story,” Thistle said, turning to me.

  “Who?”

  Thistle pointed to Aunt Tillie, who was watching the show from a lawn chair on the far side of the fire.

  “Absolutely not,” I said, emphatically shaking my head. “If she tells you a ghost story you’ll be up all night thinking you see zombies in every shadow.”

  “Oh, whatever,” Lila scoffed. “She’s an old lady. How scary can her stories be?”

  Aunt Tillie arched an eyebrow. I could tell she wasn’t particularly happy about entertaining forty teenagers, but her hatred of Lila made the thought of scaring her a definite perk.

  “I’ll tell a story,” Aunt Tillie said.

  I pressed my eyes shut briefly. This wouldn’t end well. Still, Lila Stevens needed to be taken down a peg or two … or ten. “Try to keep it clean,” I said.

  “Meaning?”

  “No weird stories about demons impregnating virgins and the fetuses eating their way out of the mothers from the inside,” I said.

  “I told that story once,” Aunt Tillie said. “I wanted the girls to know what would happen if they didn’t share their Halloween candy with me.”

  “Yes, well … pick something clean.”

  “And scary,” Thistle said, casting a dark look in Lila’s direction.

  “I think I know just the story,” Aunt Tillie said, leaning forward in her chair. “Who here has ever had a china doll?”

  Oh, no. I knew this story. This definitely wasn’t going to end well.

  “WELL, Terry left with the boys and all the girls are in their cabins,” Marnie said, pulling the curtain back in our small cabin and surveying the quiet outdoors.

  “I saw the boys leave in their canoes,” Twila said, giggling. “They kept looking over their shoulders in case a china doll was waiting to scratch their eyes out.”

  “Making the doll look like Lila was a nice touch,” Marnie said. “If the boys weren’t suspicious of her before, they definitely are now.”

  “A lot of the girls are afraid of her, too,” Twila said. “She’s not the queen bee right now. That’s probably going to ruin her week.”

  “Good,” Marnie said.

  “It’s probably going to make her lash out,” I said. “That makes her more dangerous.”

  “But she’ll have fewer allies,” Marnie said.

  “Will she? Or will she make sure Bay becomes the bad guy in all of this?”

  “Oh, Winnie, you have to stop doing this,” Marnie said. “Bay is fourteen years old. She’s almost grown. She’s not some shrinking violet. When push comes to shove, Bay is going to shove back.”

  I wanted to believe that. “What if Lila shoves her so hard she tumbles over a cliff first?”

  “Then she’ll have to learn how to fly,” Marnie said.

  “You have to stop freaking out about Bay,” Twila said. “You’re clamped on to her so tightly the girl is going to struggle to breathe at a certain point.”

  “And when that happens, Bay is going to have no choice but to run away from Hemlock Cove,” Marnie said. “The thing is, she won’t only be running from the likes of Lila Stevens and her ilk, she’ll be running from you, too.

  “She might not realize it right away, and she might not ever understand it, but she’ll need room to breathe if you want her to flourish,” Marnie continued. “Give her room to breathe.”

  “I’m not trying to smother her,” I said, frustrated. “I’m trying to … protect her.”

  “You’re trying to give her a soft pillow to land on every time she falls,” Marnie countered. “That’s not how life works. Give her some space.”

  “Fine,” I said, not wanting to admit Marnie may have a point. “I’ll promise to … leave her alone over the next few days.”

  “Good.”

  “As long as Lila Stevens doesn’t go too far,” I added.

  “If Lila goes too far, I don’t think you have to worry about Bay having problems as much as you’re going to have to worry about Lila going missing without a trace,” Marnie said.

  “Meaning?”

  “Aunt Tillie has her eye on Lila,” Twila said. “She’s waiting for her to screw up.”

  “And when she does, Aunt Tillie will make Lila’s life a lot worse than Lila can ever make Bay’s,” Marnie said. “Don’t you remember when people messed with us in high school? How did that work out for them?”

  “Not well,” I conceded.

  “Don’t worry about Lila,” Twila said. “Karma has a funny way of catching up with people when they most deserve it.”

  “And Lila is going to have a whole lot of karma chasing her,” Marnie said.

  I smiled, the first real smile I’d managed to muster in what felt like days. “You guys are right. I’m being ridiculous. Bay is going to be fine.”

  “They’re all going to be fine,” Marnie said.

  “Speaking of Aunt Tillie, does anyone know where she is? I haven’t seen her since she made the girls scream by dropping tree branches from the sky. That was risky, by the way. She shouldn’t be using magic in front of witnesses.”

  “They thought it was the wind,” Marnie said. “Still, you’re right. Where is Aunt Tillie?”

  “She didn’t come back to the cabin with us,” Twila said. “I think she’s still out by the bonfire.”

  “That can’t be good,” I said, striding toward the door. “If she’s still out there, that means she’s planning something.”

  “Like what?”

  I didn’t get a chance to answer because multiple screams echoing throughout the dark drowned out my response. We bolted through the door, racing toward the cabins. In my head, I knew the girls were likely only reacting to Aunt Tillie’s story. What if it was something else, though?

  We pulled up short outside the first cabin. Lila stood in the doorway, her hand pressed to the side of her face and an angry expression clouding her eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, almost dreading the answer.

  “Someone thought it would be funny to scratch at the window,” Lila said. “These idiots thought it was a china doll and overreacted.”

  “How did they overreact?”

  “They attacked me because the doll in the story looked exactly like me.” Lila narrowed her eyes. “I know that was on purpose, by the way.”

  “Is anything else wrong?” I asked, ignoring Lila’s jab.

  “No.”

  “Then go to bed,” I said. “No one is to attack anyone, and no one is to leave this cabin for any reason. Do you understand that?”

  The girls nodded, solemn. We watched as everyone climbed back into bed and then switched off the lights and shut the door. We could hear them whispering even as we walked from the cabin.

  A hint of movement caught my attention, and when I peered closer I saw Aunt Tillie pacing us from about twenty feet away. She was trying to beat us back to our cabin so she would have plausible deniability.

  “I see you,” I said.

  Aunt Tillie straightened. “Good. I was getting tired of sneaking around.”

  “Do you feel better now that you’ve scared them?”

  “I’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep,” Aunt Tillie said. “Tomorrow is a new day, and I’m going to need my rest if I plan on torturing Lila some more.”

  “Do you think that’s really necessary?”

  “I don’t know whether it’s necessary,” Aunt T
illie said, reaching for the door handle to our cabin. “It is fun, though. I have to get my jollies somewhere this week.”

  She’s incorrigible sometimes – well, all the time. “Try not to go overboard.”

  “I never go overboard,” Aunt Tillie said. “It’s not in my nature.”

  Whatever. “Just go to bed,” I said.

  “What do you think I was doing? Geez, you’re so suspicious.”

  It was going to be a long couple of days.

  Four

  After four more ruckuses in various cabins, the girls finally settled down and called it a night. By the time morning hit, though, I was more tired than when I’d gone to bed.

  The girls moaned and groaned when we roused them, and I hoped a full day of activities would mean a full night of sleep tonight. There was a moratorium on ghost stories from here on out. Aunt Tillie couldn’t be trusted, and the girls were too anxious to trust their better judgment.

  The only person who woke with any sort of energy was Aunt Tillie. After the first kerfuffle, she passed out and didn’t so much as twitch the rest of the night. While the girls screamed and panicked, she snored. While Marnie, Twila and I convinced the girls they were imagining things, Aunt Tillie remained comfortably burrowed beneath her blanket.

  I wanted to strangle her.

  “Where are the eggs?” Aunt Tillie asked, popping up by my elbow. “I’m starving.”

  “Why? You weren’t the one working up an appetite last night.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Aunt Tillie, pasting her best “I’m your aunt and you have to love me” smile on her face. “Did you not sleep well?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You know very well that we were up half the night because the girls thought every noise in the woods meant a china doll was coming to scratch their eyes out.”

  “That was a great story to tell, by the way,” Marnie said, flicking Aunt Tillie’s ear as she moved past her with a pan of hash browns. “You’re officially banned from telling ghost stories.”