“I’m telling mom,” I warned her.
“Go ahead tattletale. You always were a bothersome little pain in the ass.”
“You could hurt someone with that if you give them too much.”
“I never use too much.”
“Just tell me who you’re planning on drugging.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Aunt Tillie seemed to be growing in height as her anger at my interference blossomed.
“It matters to me.”
“Why?”
“Maybe I don’t want to see you spend your final years in jail?” Just locked in a home where she couldn’t do any real damage.
“Since when? You’ve never liked me.”
“That’s not true. I love you. You’re just always up to something.” That was also the truth.
“I am not always up to something. That would be you and your two cousins. The three of you were nothing but trouble since the moment you could walk. Before then, you were cute. After that, though? You were always into everything.”
“That’s what little kids do.” I realized she was trying to distract me. She was good at that. “Who is the potion for?”
Aunt Tillie let loose with a long-suffering sigh. “I’m just going to put a little in the tea.”
“What tea? Your tea? Mom’s tea?”
“Everyone’s tea,” she finally admitted.
“Why?” I narrowed my eyes as I regarded her.
“So they’ll go to bed early.”
“Why do you want them to go to bed early?”
“So I can get some peace and quiet.” She was lying. She had something else in mind. I just couldn’t figure out what it was.
Aunt Twila had entered the kitchen and was regarding us curiously. “What are you two doing?”
“She’s mincing up belladonna to put in the tea.” I don’t like being a tattletale, but I also don’t want Aunt Tillie poisoning the guests. She was unpredictable – and that made her dangerous.
Twila wandered over cautiously. “Why?” She had grown up with Aunt Tillie so she was understandably nervous around her when she was plotting something. She knew the extent of the damage Aunt Tillie could wreak when she set her mind to it – which was fairly often.
Aunt Tillie threw up her hands in defeat. “Can’t a body have any privacy in this place?” She clamored down from the stool, cast a disdainful look in my direction – which promised retribution at a later date – and then flounced back out to the dining room, leaving the mess for us to clean up.
Twila started absentmindedly brushing all of the herbs into the open garbage can on the floor. “I’m worried she’s starting to lose her mind.”
“Starting?”
“That woman is our family,” Twila reminded me. She always was the kindest of her three sisters – which meant she was also the most easily manipulated.
“That doesn’t mean she’s not crazy.”
Twila regarded the belladonna remains ruefully. “No. She’s definitely crazy. She’s still family, though, and in this family we don’t chastise the crazy, we embrace them and love them for their eccentricities.”
Truer words were never spoken.
Four
With the joys of another family dinner behind us, Thistle, Clove, and I made our way across the property toward the guesthouse. I had told them about Aunt Tillie’s weird behavior in the kitchen – but they didn’t seem as worried as I was.
“She was just looking for attention,” Clove protested.
“Yeah, but her ways of seeking attention could leave a body count in her wake.”
“She wouldn’t do that again,” Clove said.
“Again? What again?”
Clove bit her lower lip. I could tell she had let something slip she hadn’t planned to. “We were told not to tell you.”
“By who?” I asked suspiciously.
“Everyone,” Clove admitted.
“What did she do?” I swung around to ask Thistle – but she was caught in her own little world and holding a conversation with herself.
“Blue washes me out? Blue washes me out? This from a woman who is trying to make Ronald McDonald’s color palette look good. I don’t know why I even listen to her. She drives me crazy. Crazy! She does it on purpose, too. I don’t know why I listen to her! She named me after a remedy for people who drink too much. You were named Bay. Clove was another herb. So she wanted to follow the pack. So what did she do? She looked at a bottle of vitamins – not even an herb really. Okay, it’s kind of an herb – and read milk thistle on it – and thought Thistle was a great name? So how she thinks she can say that my hair looks bad is beyond me.”
Yeah, there was no talking to Thistle when she got like this. I swung back to Clove expectantly. “What did she do?”
Clove took a deep breath as she regarded me. “I’m going to tell you, but you can’t, you know, pull a ‘you’?”
Pull a ‘me’? What could that possibly mean? “I promise. I just want to know what she did.”
“It happened like eight years ago – when you were in Detroit – so it’s really not a big deal,” Clove cautioned. She was stalling.
“What did she do?”
“It really wasn’t a big deal when all the dust settled,” Clove was still hedging telling me. It was driving me crazy.
“I’m going to wrestle you down and make you eat dirt if you don’t tell me,” I threatened.
“That hasn’t worked since I was ten,” Clove argued.
“That’s not true,” Thistle finally piped in. “It worked last year when you borrowed her favorite boots and then lost one – which I still don’t understand how that happened – and then you refused to replace them because you won’t buy leather products.”
Clove glared at Thistle. “Well, other than that time. You just had to bring that up, didn’t you?” She hissed.
Like I had forgotten about the boots.
“I didn’t mean to bring up the boots,” Thistle said sincerely – although I had my doubts that she was speaking the truth. “I just wanted to point out that whenever she makes you eat dirt, you fold like a bad gambler.”
“Well, at least my hair doesn’t wash me out,” Clove shot back.
“It doesn’t wash me out! My mom is crazy!”
“I like your hair,” I admitted. What? I like the color blue. I like purple better. I wonder how she would look with purple hair. Wait. I was letting them distract me. “Back to the subject, though. What did Aunt Tillie do when I was in Detroit that everyone thinks is too bad for me to know about?”
Clove averted her gaze again. She still wasn’t sure she wanted to tell me.
“Oh, good grief, it’s really not a big deal,” Thistle finally said. The more they said it wasn’t a big deal, the more I was convinced it was a huge deal.
“Then tell me what it is,” I challenged her.
“She poisoned everyone at the Senior Center.”
Never what you expect. “And how did she do that?”
“She mixed up some concoction and put it in the coffee.”
“Why would she do that?”
“She was convinced that they were cheating at euchre and she wanted to teach them a lesson,” Thistle answered simply.
“All of them?”
“She was convinced they were all in on an elaborate plan to make sure she always lost at euchre when she was there,” Thistle said.
“Well, that seems plausible – or not,” I sighed. “And she killed people?”
“She didn’t kill people,” Clove interjected. “Most of the people were fine. There were only like twelve who had to go to the hospital – and most of them were out within a few days.”
“And she wasn’t arrested for this?”
“The chief let it slide when your mom asked him to,” Clove admitted.
The chief had always had a crush on my mom. Actually, I think he had a crush on Marnie and Twila, too. It all depended on who brought him baked goods that week. “Is that why they still t
ake him cookies and pie every week?”
“Probably.”
“Does everyone in town know she did that?”
“I don’t think they know,” Thistle said. “I think they just suspect. They can’t prove anything.”
“Well, great, that makes it all better.”
“Don’t be sarcastic,” Thistle chastised me. “People hardly remember it anymore, especially since she held the autumnal equinox celebration in the buff last year. That hurt a lot more people than the belladonna incident did.”
I shuddered involuntarily. Yeah, I was one of those people.
The next day, I was still irritated by the fact that my whole family had conspired to keep a secret from me. Thistle and Clove could tell I was bothered when they handed me my usual cup of coffee in the morning.
“Just let it go,” Thistle warned me. “You’re not going to get anywhere if you confront everyone and pull a … well, a ‘you.’”
Why does everyone keep saying that?
Instead of going to the office, I decided to go straight to the new corn maze on the north side of town at Harrow Bluff. It was opening today and it would be one of the front-page stories in next week’s edition of The Whistler. It’s a small town. Sue me. A new corn maze is the height of sophistication and interest in Hemlock Cove.
Since it was a corn maze, I dressed in comfortable jeans and a simple top. That’s the one good thing about working in a small town – and being the editor – you can get away with dressing any way you want to.
It took me about ten minutes to get out to the corn maze – and I was surprised to see that there was already a crowd milling about. Only in Hemlock Cove can a ribbon cutting for a corn maze draw half the town.
I parked next to the rest of the assembled vehicles, grabbed a notebook from the glove compartment, and exited my car.
I ran into several people I knew – most weren’t openly hostile to me – and I pleasantly smiled at them. I reminded myself I didn’t care what they thought. Oh, who am I kidding, no one likes being feared – unless you’re Stalin or something. I just didn’t feel the sudden urge to cry like I did when I was a teenager.
I made my way up to the concession stand and helped myself to a cup of free cider and listened as a couple of townspeople chatted amiably.
“This is just great,” one of them said. “I love seeing everyone come out to these types of things.”
“It’s so great,” the other woman enthused.
I saw them both fix their gaze on me. “It’s even nice that the press managed to come out and report on something good for a change.”
“When do I report on something bad? Nothing bad ever happens here?”
The women didn’t answer me. Instead, they shuffled away. I could hear hints of whispers as they left. I could only imagine what they were saying. One of the wicked witches of the Midwest was here and she wasn’t to be trusted.
I didn’t have long to consider it, though, because my attention was suddenly diverted elsewhere. There were loud, raucous voices emanating from the far side of the corn maze. I couldn’t tell who was speaking – but the voices were definitely raised. I saw two elderly women hurry from that end of the corn maze, and they both looked disturbed.
“What’s going on?” I asked curiously.
“Hoodlums,” one of the women muttered. “Hoodlums.”
I wandered around the corner of the maze and was surprised by what I found. There were four men standing there with open beers in their hands. A couple of them were idly leaning against ornate motorcycles. The men themselves weren’t easily recognizable – what with all the leather they were clad in. I realized pretty quickly that they looked like some sort of gang from a bad movie.
One of the men looked to be in his mid-fifties – and he was clearly the leader of the little rabble. He was dressed in denim pants, a white T-shirt and a leather jacket that looked to be older than I was. He also had on leather motorcycle chaps over the jeans. He looked like a walking mid-life crisis.
The other men were dressed similarly and I could see that skulls and crossbones were emblazoned across the back of the jackets. This would be normal in a city setting – but I’d never seen anyone dressed like this around Hemlock Cove. The fact that they were all drinking was even more curious. I’m sure there are people who drink at 9 a.m. in town – they just don’t do it in a public setting.
What the hell?
The men saw me looking at them and turned to face me curiously. “Can I help you?” The ringleader asked.
He was obviously trying to be intimidating. It didn’t work on me. I was doubtful they’d do something to me with the entire town in attendance. “Who are you?”
The ringleader looked me up and down and smiled slyly. “The man of your dreams?”
“You don’t look like Chris Hemsworth to me.” I always think before I speak. I can’t help it. It’s a family trait.
“Who is Chris Hemsworth?” One of the sidekicks asked the question, but I didn’t turn my attention from the ringleader.
“He’s Thor.”
I turned to see who had spoken, only to find another leather-clad figure moving toward me. Despite being dressed like his cohorts, he was somehow different. I could tell immediately. He had long black hair, which fell just below his shoulders, and his skin was rich and tan. While his face was sculpted with some very appealing angles, his eyes were his most striking feature. They were ice blue and piercing. I felt a shock pulse through me when my gaze met his. I just couldn’t figure out why.
“Who are you guys?”
“Who are you?” The newcomer joined his friends, but his gaze never left my face.
“My name is Bay Winchester. I’m the editor at The Whistler.”
“The newspaper?”
I nodded mutely, swallowing hard. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the newcomer. He was only about six-one – but he seemed to suck all the air out of the field with a very large presence.
“Why are you here?”
“To cover the opening of the corn maze,” I found my voice, but it sounded alien to my own ears, almost hollow.
“This is news?” The newcomer’s eyes crinkled at the corners. He was clearly amused.
“It is in Hemlock Cove.”
The newcomer seemed to consider that for a second. Then he extended his hand to me in greeting. “Well, Bay Winchester, I’m Landon.”
I shook his hand nervously. I still couldn’t figure out why they were here.
Landon proceeded to introduce his friends. I rolled my eyes when he pointed at Diesel and Gunner in turn. I’m betting those weren’t their given names. They were probably really known as Norman and Myron. When he got to the ringleader, though, I forced my attention to him. “This is Russ.”
I nodded warily at Russ, who was still mentally undressing me with his eyes. “You still haven’t told me why you’re here,” I prodded.
“Just wanted to see what all the hoopla was about,” Landon shrugged, accepting a beer from one of his friends and popping the top off it.
I narrowed my eyes when I saw Landon toss the beer cap onto the ground next to him. I stepped forward and picked up the beer cap and tossed it in the garbage can a few feet away. Landon smirked at my frown.
“Sorry,” he said simply. “We’ll try not to make a mess.”
“That would be great,” I said sarcastically.
The initial shock – okay, rampant physical attraction – I had originally felt was starting to fade. The only thing I was feeling now was suspicion.
“Where are you from?”
“Around,” Landon said evasively.
“Around where?”
“A little bit of everywhere.”
“So, you’re from nowhere?” I raised my eyebrows confrontationally.
Landon chuckled to himself. “I guess you could say that.”
“Well, that’s great!”
“Something tells me you don’t actually think that’s great,” Landon smiled wi
nningly.
“Perceptive.”
“Maybe we got off on the wrong foot here,” Landon started. Russ interrupted him, though.
“Why are you so interested in us?” His question was forceful. I could tell he was used to people quaking in fear at his presence.
“I’m interested in everyone who visits our quiet little town,” I lied.
“I don’t see you questioning everyone else here,” he said pointedly.
“I already know all of them.” Well, all the residents, at least. Tourists come and go. There was really no reason to get to know them.
“You want to know me? Is that what you’re saying? I’m flattered.”
I let my gaze lower to Russ’ extended beer gut – gross – and then drew it back up to his eyes. “I’m just curious why you’re here.”
“We just wanted to see what all the excitement was about,” he said.
“And you brought beer?”
“It’s a party, isn’t it?”
“It’s not that kind of party.”
“Maybe you wouldn’t be so rigid if you had one yourself?” Russ grabbed a beer out of the container at his feet and handed it to me.
I took a step back involuntarily. I didn’t want him invading my personal space for some reason. “Thanks. I’m good. It’s a bit early for me.”
Russ shrugged as he slipped the beer back in the case. “Your loss.”
Even though I was still curious about what these guys were doing here, I noticed that the maze was now open and the crowd was starting to filter into it.
Landon noticed my attention drift.
“I have to go,” I said finally. “Welcome to Hemlock Cove – whatever it is that you’re doing here.”
“Have fun in the maze,” Landon smiled.
I didn’t answer him as I drifted off to the opening of the maze. Mrs. Little was standing at the opening when I got there. She’d been watching us – and she wasn’t happy by what she saw.
“Who are they?”
“They didn’t really say,” I admitted.
“They look unsavory.”
“They don’t seem to be doing anything,” I said noncommittally, even though I agreed with her.
“They’re drinking in the morning,” Mrs. Little said disapprovingly.
Witchy Dreams Page 4