Dead Witch on a Bridge

by Gretchen Galway

  The moment my paws touched the muffled ground, I shot through the forest to get to the Jeep—and then immediately returned to the tree when I realized I needed my clothes.

  The transformation back into my human form would be less painful than turning into a cat, but the discomfort would last much longer. High magic commanded high prices.

  I sat, tail curled around the tree, and tapped into my power. After a single second of torturous agony, I was back to myself—a scratched, dirty, tired, thirsty, hungry, worried, and sneezing human being.

  I dressed quickly and hiked back to the Jeep. Other than sending it off the road, the fairy hadn’t seemed to do my vehicle any harm, but it was too far down the slope to move without help. The wheels and engine were intact. Purse in hand, my outfit torn and wrinkled, I climbed up to the road and took out my phone.

  It was dead. Sensing something strange about the way it felt in my hand, I lifted it to my nose and sniffed.

  Overly sweet perfume. One of the fae, probably that tall fairy, had messed with it. I took the phone out of its case and discovered it was now only a thin slab of black-and-white glass.

  Well, no wonder it didn’t work.

  Silverpool was several miles behind me. As I began walking, I pulled a tissue out of my purse and held it to my dripping nose. My throat was swollen, and I wanted to rub my eyes but knew it would make the itching worse.

  Being able to transform myself into a cat hadn’t made me any less allergic. In fact, with each shift I became more sensitive. I had been up in that tree for over twelve hours, and my immune system had been devastated by the infusion of cat proteins. Even if my reaction was psychosomatic—sometimes just the thought of a cat could make me sneeze—I hadn’t yet found a way to overcome it.

  It was early Sunday morning, and no car passed me during the hour it took me to reach the Silverpool Bridge. At the spot on the road where Tristan had lain, I paused and sent out thoughts of peace and rest. His spirit was nearby, voiceless and miserable, and I felt the urge to free him. And the urge to sneeze six times in a row.

  “I’m working on it,” I told him, touching my necklace with one hand while blowing my nose with the other.

  With renewed motivation, I walked around the bend to Ruben’s Pump and Chew, the town’s only gas station and convenience store. It had an old-school pay phone as well as booze, homemade salsa and apple pie, small electronics, and burl wood lawn sculptures, predominantly of dinosaurs. I needed antihistamines and a temporary phone.

  Since I didn’t usually go inside, I didn’t know the young woman behind the counter. She wore more makeup than I’d ever seen before on a living human being, with foundation slathered on in a layer as thick as the fruit leathers for sale next to the register. When I came up to the counter with my pink box of generic diphenhydramine, she was using the mirror over the chewing tobacco display to readjust her false eyelashes.

  “Hi,” I said, pointing at the pay-as-you-go phones hanging on the rack behind her. “I’ll need one of those too, please. That one on the right is fine.”

  “Sure,” she said, smiling as she got it for me. “Anything else?”

  Before I could answer, I sneezed violently into the crook of my elbow. “No,” I gasped. “That’s it.”

  “Allergies suck.”

  “Yeah.” I reached into my purse and took out my wallet. And then swore.

  She bit her well-contoured lip and then asked, “Problem?”

  Inside my wallet, instead of credit cards, a driver’s license, and cash, were expired gift cards, hair salon business cards, and leaves.

  I swore. That damn fairy.

  “Problem?” the clerk asked.

  Although she seemed really nice, she was too young and unknown to me to ask for a loan. “Wrong wallet,” I muttered.

  “Oh I hate that,” she said. “I change out my bag and forget to move my stuff over.”

  “Yeah.” I stepped away from the counter and sneezed again. “I’ll have to come back.”

  “I’m really sorry—”

  “No problem. I live nearby.” I hurried outside, shoving my fortune in leaves back into my purse, and almost went back in when I saw who was at the pumps filling up her car.

  Livia. It was too late to run; she’d seen me.

  “Alma, what happened to you?” Her slow, horrified gaze took in my appearance from head to toe.

  I finger-combed my hair and considered what spell might distract her enough to allow my escape. “Uh…”

  She shoved the nozzle back into the pump and strode over to me. I expected her to demand to know why I hadn’t bailed out Birdie the night before, but instead she put her arms around me and squeezed. “I know just how you feel. I’m so upset about it I’m staying with friends for a few days. I just can’t believe she would— Oh, it’s too much.”

  “Is there news?”

  “News? Of course there’s news. Horrible news. Where have you been?”

  “I had trouble—” I stopped myself. I could hardly explain that after one fairy had run me off the road, another crowd of them had surrounded me in the forest, and then, to escape, I’d had to turn myself into a cat and hide all night, dozens of feet off the ground, in an old-growth redwood. “I’ve been beside myself.”

  For once she shook her head with sympathy, not disdain. “You poor thing. I didn’t realize you still—but of course you did.”

  I crossed my arms—crisscrossed with welts and scratches—over my chest. “Are you headed to the station now?”

  “Station?”

  “The police. In Riovaca. Wherever they’re holding Birdie. I’d be there now, but I had car trouble.”

  Her caring expression vanished. “Whatever for?”

  “To post bail, if possible, bring her ho—”

  “Not on your life. After what she did to Tristan?”

  “We don’t know that she did anything. Just because the police—”

  Livia’s familiar tone of disgust returned. “The police have impounded her car. She ran over Tristan.”

  I gaped at her, wondering if my cat brains had heard her right. “No, that’s impossible.”

  “It’s absolutely possible. Her Toyota was seen driving away. And there’s”—her face contorted—“physical evidence. Linking her to the… crime.”

  “On the car?”

  “Yes on the car! What’s the matter with you? You saw them arrest her yourself.”

  “They must’ve made a mistake,” I said.

  “Oh please,” Livia spat out. “You and Birdie are the same, cruising along, never taking responsibility for yourselves. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear you were there too and didn’t tell anyone because you were afraid of getting in trouble.”

  Her vile accusation contained enough truth to make me redden. “I’m going home.” I marched past her, my sore toes aching in my shoes. “I’ll find a way to help Birdie.”

  “You don’t even know what she did,” Livia said.

  I spun around. “Neither do you.”

  “I know enough. She was there, and Tristan is dead.”

  “She didn’t kill him.”

  “She was there,” Livia said. “I can’t believe you’d even consider defending her.”

  “I can’t believe you wouldn’t.” I turned and resumed walking.

  “Women were always taking advantage of him.” Livia got in her car and slammed the door.

  “Don’t bother offering me a ride,” I muttered under my breath as my tired feet pounded the pavement. “I can walk.”

  By the time I got home ten minutes later, I was using a protective spell on my feet to stop the blisters from popping, and my eyes were swollen half-shut from my cat allergy. Random greeted me frantically at the door—body spasming, tail wagging, tongue licking—and I let him outside before he lost control of his bowels.

  I took the hottest shower I could stand, slapped a few nonmagical bandages on my wounds, and got dressed in a hurry. Whatever evidence the cops had on Birdie, I could
n’t believe she’d run Tristan over—at least consciously. Somebody else might’ve tricked her into doing it, then spelled her to forget. Livia wasn’t a witch; she didn’t know what was possible.

  As I was walking around the backyard cleaning up Random’s mess in a plastic bag, I noticed Will standing under his tree, looking unusually serious. When I waved, he didn’t wave back.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Is everything all right?” I asked Willy.

  “Your animal was very unhappy last night,” he said. “From all the way inside my home, I heard him whimpering.”

  “I know, Willy. I was in trouble. I couldn’t get home.”

  His eyebrows lifted slightly, softening his expression. “I didn’t think you would let another creature suffer if you could help it.”

  “I wouldn’t. I promise.” I pointed at my bare feet. Even with my protective spell and first aid, my left pinky toe looked like a grilled hot dog with extra ketchup.

  “My Jeep rolled off the road a few miles up the highway. I had to spend the night outside and walk home this morning.”

  Willy ambled over, blue eyes sparkling, all warm and concerned now. “I did think something like that must have happened. Pardon me for doubting you. I couldn’t resist liberating your animal around midnight so he could relieve himself. I also gave him a banana. He enjoyed it. I’m afraid his lack of fingers led to a mess with the peel, however. My apologies for your sofa. He did his best to remove all traces with his tongue.”

  “You can break the spell into my house?” I didn’t have to ask about the dead bolt—of course gnomes aren’t affected by human locks. But the spells Helen had taught me…

  “Your magic, although strong for your kind, is no match for a gnome of my experience.”

  I paused to digest that. “Thank you,” I said slowly, thinking about the mob in the forest. “How many other gnomes of your experience might there be in the area? Or other fairies?”

  He took out his pipe, clamped his lips around it, and shook his head.

  I squatted down to face him. “Lately I’ve been wondering if there are more than we thought. More than witches know of, I mean.”

  “Some witches suspect our true numbers. That is why they hurt us.”

  “Who hurts you?”

  Shrugging, Willy blew a smoke ring. “Not you, that’s all I care about, Alma Bellrose. I am of the domestic kind, and I rely on some, although limited, human companionship. Beyond that I attempt to know nothing. It’s safest for both of us.”

  If he cared about my well-being, maybe he’d help me. “A fairy tried to hurt me yesterday while I was driving in my car. Do you know anything about that?”

  “That is very bad, Alma Bellrose. Very bad. You should go inside your house and stay there with your nice animal.”

  “I need to help Birdie. She’s in trouble. You know, that woman, my friend, who lives over there?” I pointed at Birdie’s house.

  “She is also having others interfere with her car. It was taken. Gone now.”

  “The human police took it,” I said. “They took her away her, too. I hear she’s still stuck there.”

  “Would you like me to open the locks of her cage?”

  “No, we need to get her out in a different way. Otherwise we’ll get in trouble. And she’ll be in worse shape.” I’d never asked him for help before, but…

  I thought about how he hadn’t been with the other fae last night and how he was nice to Random. “That fairy who tried to hurt me did something to my wallet. Can you help me get it back to the way it was?”

  Willy shrugged and blew another smoke ring. “Perhaps most certainly.”

  That made me hopeful. I went inside and came out with my purse. I showed him my wallet, took out a leaf. “This should be a twenty-dollar bill.”

  Willy inhaled from his pipe. “No, that should be a leaf, which it is.”

  “I know. He…” I held it up and studied it. “Never mind. I thought maybe he’d transformed it.”

  “That baby has not the skill. He stole your things and replaced them. They’re too far away for me to recover. My apologies.”

  “Baby—you mean the fairy?”

  Willy nodded.

  “He’s a young one then?”

  “A baby. Useless or worse.”

  “Why does he want to hurt me?” I asked.

  “Babies are stupid,” Willy said, shrugging. “If they live, some grow brains. Fewer still also develop manners.”

  While I thought about that, Willy turned away, smoking his pipe, and disappeared into his tree.

  The tall fairy was young. And Willy didn’t respect him. What did that mean?

  I was staring into space when Jasper appeared on the side lawn of my house. “Alma, are you all right? You weren’t answering your phone, and with everything going on I thought I—”

  “Jasper, thank God,” I said, shoving the leaves and the block of glass into my pockets. “I ran into some trouble.”

  He looked me over. “You’re bleeding.”

  “Some fairy ran me off the road yesterday,” I said. “I only got back just now. Have you heard any news about Birdie? Livia says they impounded her car.”

  “You should see a doctor,” he said, scowling at the bandages. “That bruise on your wrist looks bad. You might have broken something.”

  “I’m fine. Is there any news about Birdie? I didn’t make it to Riovaca.”

  He shook his head and stared at me. “You said the fairies ran you off the road?”

  “Just one of them, I think. Although I did see quite a mob of them gathering in the woods. That’s what kept me. They were a little hostile.”

  “At least you survived,” Jasper said. “Another guy wasn’t so lucky.”

  My breath caught. “What? What guy?”

  “Some contractor. Nick somebody. They found his truck this morning.”

  Oh no. I put my hand on Jasper’s arm to stop myself from falling over. “Are you sure?”

  “You know him?”

  “Just met him a few days ago.” I took a moment to pull myself together. “His car went off the road too? Where?”

  “Vago Highway at Black Snake Road. You know that hairpin curve?”

  Only two miles beyond where my own car went over, that curve was infamous for car accidents. Somebody went off the road there at least once a year; the guardrail was dented or missing half the time. “Why are the fairies so upset?” I asked. “They can’t miss Tristan that badly.”

  Poor Nick. A harmless nonmag caught up in forces beyond his comprehension. It was possible the witch’s chain around his neck had attracted their hostility.

  “They have long memories and long lives,” Jasper said. “For all we know, they’re taking revenge for something Vikings did in Ireland a thousand years ago.”

  “I’m almost looking forward to the Protectorate installing a new Protector,” I said. Tristan had worked hard to befriend as many full-time fae residents as possible.

  “I noticed none of them showed up at a funeral for one of their own.”

  “Phoebe was there.”

  He shrugged. “She’s young, a nobody. If I were at Tristan’s level, I’d expect a bigger show of respect.”

  “The memorial was Livia’s idea,” I said. “The Protectorate will have their own ritual.”

  “Did they invite you?”

  “No,” I said. “I wouldn’t expect them to.”

  “See? They don’t care.”

  “They care. They just don’t care about me.”

  “They don’t care about anyone but themselves and their power. One of these days the fae are really going to revolt, and the Protectorate is going to be shocked.” He trailed off and bent over to pet Random, who was bouncing around his legs.

  A chill crept over me. My long hours in the tree, watching so many of them gather, had given me a new perspective about the fae’s numbers and potential threat. And then to hear they killed Nick…

  “What do you kno
w about the fae wanting to—revolt, as you said?” I asked. “Revolt against what?”

  “What do you think?” Jasper gave Random one last pat, straightened, and regarded me with a frown. “Against witches. They don’t distinguish between us and the Protectorate. We’re all the same to them, humans with magic who make their lives small and difficult.”

  “We protect them from demons,” I said.

  “They can protect themselves. Do you have any idea how powerful the fae really are? How many of them are living in the shadows, watching us, hating us?”

  “How many?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, “but it’s a lot more than people realize.”

  “Since when do you know so much about the fae?”

  He rubbed his hand over his mouth. “Listen, I haven’t been entirely honest with you. I”—he cleared his throat—“study them. Have for years. That’s why I bought the house in Silverpool. There are so many here to watch, woodland and river, domestic and wild, all sizes, all types. Especially on the west side where I live.”

  “I had no idea.”

  He shrugged and bent over to pet Random some more.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I’d broken a difficult spell to tell him about the wellspring. He could’ve told me then.

  “You were an agent at the Protectorate,” he said. “They come down hard on regular witches who have anything to do with the fae. And even if you weren’t working for them anymore, you were close to Tristan. Really close, for a while.”

  “Me and everybody,” I muttered.

  “Not me.”

  “Now I know why you gave me so much of that potion of yours,” I said. “You felt guilty about me breaking a painful spell to tell you something you already knew.”

  His eyes widened. “No, Alma. I didn’t know about the wellspring until you told me. I thought the fae loved Silverpool for its geography—the river, the ocean, the forest. I never suspected something so powerful could be so close,” he said. “I was blind. All the clues are there. You just have to pay attention. But how often do we really give the fae the attention they deserve?”

  I glanced at Willy’s tree. How much did I really know about him and his kind? If he could get into my house so easily, maybe he was far more dangerous than I’d assumed.