Resting Witch Face

by Hazel Hendrix

  “Yeah,” Dot broke in, oblivious to stepping on Eliza’s toes. “Everyone who just came here to look should probably wait on the other side of the road. Anybody who knew him, or anything about this, or scatterbrains like me who were foolish enough to try to help him should stay over here.”

  Eliza drew in a hitched breath. “That is what I was about to suggest.”

  At her words, the group made their way to the opposite sidewalk. Priscilla was standing at her gate and reluctantly walked toward the scene. “I live the closest. I’m sure they’ll want to ask me questions.”

  “You should probably go over there, too,” Dot said to Eliza. “And call off your crows.”

  I was tempted to put a piece of duct tape over her mouth, but that wouldn’t look very good. “Dot, um… had a lot of coffee this morning, if you know what I mean,” I told Eliza.

  “She’s quite overconfident,” Luna added.

  “Perfect,” Eliza huffed, subtly snapping her fingers. The crows disappeared into the trees. Everyone could see how much it hurt her pride as she mulled over the possibility of taking her place amongst the common witches. “Actually, you called me…” Her eyes darted toward Thomas’s friends. “For whatever reason. They’ll probably want to know why.”

  I simply nodded. Eliza and I exchanged glances and for once I wished I could get a moment alone with her. My heart ached when I heard Juno sniffle, then let out a choked sob as she sank down to the sidewalk next to Alicia. Kyle’s anger gave way to grief and his watering eyes spilled over, but he turned his back to everyone and hid it as human men are wont to do.

  We all watched the tiny pinpricks of blue lights grow larger as the Sheriff’s department cruisers exited the highway and sped down Main Street. There were three vehicles in total, two police cars along with an ambulance barreling down the road ahead of them.

  The paramedics were out of the ambulance in a flash, but hesitated at the base of the gallows.

  “What the heck is this?” one of them asked the other, who merely shrugged. “I’m lighter, I guess I’ll go up and check for a pulse.”

  One of the Sheriff’s deputies ran up, clutching a camera in her hand. She snapped a picture of the paramedic near the body, one of me and my cousins, and then another of the tourists. I heard a car door slam loudly and watched as a tall officer with impossibly broad shoulders stepped into the street. His uniform was a little different than the other deputies, with more stripes and pins indicating a higher rank, but his walk alone would have told me that.

  His hair was nearly as dark as the black sunglasses that he didn’t remove as he spent more time analyzing the bystanders than he did looking up at the victim. A hushed murmur rippled through the crowd, with the wiser cousins quieting the others. I couldn’t make out much, but I knew what they were worried about and I was thinking the same thing. This man was no overweight bumpkin Sheriff we could easily convince that Thomas had hurt himself. No, this guy was going to be trouble.

  “Can’t help him,” the paramedic said as he was climbing down. “He’s gone, probably for a while now. Call the coroner.”

  “Miller, start taking statements and stop taking pictures. We’ll get forensics out here for that.”

  The young deputy’s face dropped. “I want to transfer to forensics,” she mumbled.

  Broad Shoulders heard her, though. “Why don’t you focus on the job you actually have so I can eventually give you a genuine recommendation.”

  “Yes, Captain.” She trotted across the street, notebook in hand.

  The Captain stared up at Thomas. He finally took off the sunglasses, which I expected seeing as we were all standing in the shade. I wasn’t expecting the piercing baby blue eyes behind them, however. He turned to me and my cousins, his gaze lingering on Eliza. Then he looked over at Alicia and Juno sitting on the curb.

  “I take it you knew him.” He gestured for them to get up and Kyle walked over. “Captain Kavanagh,” he introduced himself. “Sorry for your loss.” His words came out as rigid as his stance and I got the sense that the condolences were offered mostly to gauge their reaction.

  Kyle and Alicia started chattering at the same time, barely giving him time to ask any questions. Juno stayed silent until she was addressed directly, and that seemed to make the Captain focus on gathering his information from her. It was the standard questions, who he was, when they got there, how long it had been since they’d seen him, that sort of thing. It wasn’t long until all three of them pointed at me.

  “So you found the body?” Captain Kavanagh asked me. I nodded. “What was that?”

  “Yes,” I said plainly. “I found him.”

  “What time?”

  “Um… I’m not sure. Not long before those three got here.”

  “And where were you before that?”

  “At the coffee shop,” Dot answered for me.

  “I was asking her,” Captain Blue Eyes said curtly. “Someone will take your statement soon.”

  “Geez, you don’t have to be rude.” Dot crossed her arms.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I mean, it’s just you can’t come here and—”

  “I was at the coffee shop,” I interrupted my cousin’s ramblings before she got herself into trouble. “Wicked Brew. It’s right down the street. I left at…” I pulled out my phone and checked the time. “I called them at 1:37, so I found him maybe five minutes before that.”

  “Five minutes? What were you doing?”

  “Trying to get my phone to turn back on. I dropped it once I realized he wasn’t a…” I nearly clapped my hand over my mouth before I said ‘ghost’.

  “Before you realized he wasn’t a what?”

  “A… At first maybe I thought it was some kind of decoration.”

  “A decoration?”

  “It’s Hettymoot,” I blurted out.

  “Hetty-what?”

  “Hettymoot,” I repeated. “It’s kind of like the Day of the Dead.”

  “Oh really?”

  “Yeah. Really.” I felt like I was digging myself into a hole. Eliza’s eyes grew wide, but I ignored her. He was sure to find out anyway.

  “And you called the coffee shop once you determined it was an actually dead body?”

  “My phone turned back on, but it only had cell service, not internet. So I couldn’t look up the number.”

  “Ever hear of 911?”

  That would have been smart. “Well, yeah, but… I just started scrolling through my contacts and called the coffee shop. Then I called Eliza.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s…” What should I say? The most powerful witch in Dewdrop and if I didn’t let her know she’d probably curse me and make my toenails fall off and my lips turn green or something? “She’s the smartest one in town, I guess. I was pretty shaken up.”

  “We called 911,” Soleil told him. I was so thankful she had it together enough to do the right thing.

  “Yeah, and by that time Juno had, too, so I…”

  “Let me get this straight. He was hanging out here, potentially all morning, and no one saw him until 1:30?”

  “Why is there even a gallows here?” another deputy added as he was roping off the scene with yellow police tape.

  “I’ll ask the questions, thank you.” The captain’s brow furrowed. “And I was getting to that one, actually. Why exactly is there an execution station on the side of the road?”

  “We are Wiccans,” Eliza said, stepping forward with a regal air. That wasn’t technically true, but it was the official story, especially once the faith became federally recognized. “It is a sacred site. A symbol of our persecution. Part of our freedom to practice our religion. You wouldn’t understand.”

  The Captain appeared unmoved. “Who lives over there?”

  “I do,” Priscilla answered. “You can’t see that ugly thing from my porch, thank the Trees. And I didn’t go anywhere.”

  “Did you see anyone this morning?”

  “Yes I did
. Her.” She pointed at me, trying not to cringe. Priscilla wouldn’t throw me under the bus, but she couldn’t lie, either. “She walked by around eight thirty like she usually does.”

  “Yeah, and she was wearing a freaky white dress then, too,” Kyle added. “I remember seeing her in town. She changed clothes.”

  “So you also walked past the gallows earlier this morning?”

  “Yes, I did.” How was I going to explain this? That I didn’t think anything was out of the ordinary with a body hanging up there because I saw a group of ghosts like I always did? “Honestly, I know it’s a symbol of our struggles and everything, but the gallows creeps me out. I always walk by quickly. I didn’t look.”

  “The dead body hanging didn’t catch your eye?”

  Heck yeah, it did. “No,” I replied.

  “And you changed your clothes? Why?”

  “Because…” That stupid white dress strikes again! “Okay, I have to walk to town in that dress to deliver the river hyacinth, but—”

  “The what?”

  “The river hyacinth.” Luna, Soleil, Dot, Eliza, Priscilla, and myself all said it at the same time as if he was an idiot for not knowing what that was.

  “It’s a flower,” Dot explained. “We use it in our po—”

  “Poultices,” Eliza over spoke her. “Healing salves.”

  “My family grows a special variety. Every other morning, I have to walk to town and deliver the hyacinth to two supply shops.”

  “You have to?”

  “It’s tradition,” every cousin surrounding me said in unison.

  I nodded. “So is the dress. I don’t care for it, so as soon as I’m done, I—”

  “Why don’t you like the dress?” Dot asked me. Perfect timing of course.

  “I just don’t,” I shot back. “So I always bring normal clothes and change when I drop by Wicked Brew to see my cousins and get some coffee.”

  “You’re cousins?”

  “We’re all cousins,” everyone answered at once.

  “All of you?” The captain looked down the line of us, his gaze lingering on Luna and Soleil the longest, perhaps because they were multiracial. Or because they were totally gorgeous.

  “The whole town is related,” Deputy Miller told the captain. “Those salves work, too. My grandmother comes in every month to pick something up for her bad knee. She started ballroom dancing again.”

  “Oh, isn’t that nice,” Priscilla said.

  “Charming anecdote, Miller.” The captain’s face remained stoic. He was clearly being sarcastic. “Unfortunately, that doesn’t change the fact that someone was killed here. I’ll definitely be speaking with you again,” he said, pointing at me.

  “Does that mean I can leave?”

  “Not just yet.”

  The deputies ran a line of tape across the street, attaching it to a tree on the side with the gallows and a porch post in front of one of the empty shops. It was just in time, too. Word had spread well beyond the coffee shop and more witches were making their way to the scene, only to be cut off by law enforcement. Feather stood right at the border, her face filled with confusion as she looked at me. Had she closed down Spark for all this? I didn’t want her to get dragged in to this mess.

  The captain and his deputies took statements from every witch that showed up before they did, which was over a dozen. At least every other witch told the officers that it was none of their business where they were this morning. I’ve never seen so many disgruntled faces with pursed lips or so many hands resting defiantly on our family’s signature wide hips.

  Not to mention all the cats. At least twenty of them were trotting down the sidewalks, familiars that sensed their masters felt threatened. One of them took a swipe at Captain Blue Eyes when he started to lose his patience as he struggled to understand what a Hettymoot was. Another hissed unnaturally loud as Deputy Miller took its picture. If one of these cops even breathed a word about animal control, there would be a full on pussy riot.

  “This is going to take forever,” Priscilla mentioned to Eliza.

  “I know. I still have a cauldron on back home. Hopefully my daughter will finish for me.”

  “Ooo, what are you making?”

  Eliza sighed and didn’t answer, causing Priscilla’s posture to become defensive. “All this for nothing. The boy seems to be what? 20? 22? Of course he had to come here to die,” Eliza sighed

  “Maybe the tale will spread and chase off the other tourists.” Priscilla grinned.

  Eliza’s eyes narrowed. “Or give the movement attention and credibility and bring more tourists in.”

  “Hrmpf.” Priscilla leaned against a tree just outside the roped off area around the gallows. “How old do you think that other one is?”

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Eliza grumbled. “The last thing we need is for him to perish, too.”

  “They’ll think we have a serial killer here,” Priscilla laughed. “Just what we need.”

  “I know.” I’ve never seen Eliza speak so long with someone outside her better bred inner circle. This was making Priscilla’s day. “Maybe one of us will be able to covertly cast a protection spell to keep him safe until he leaves.”

  I cleared my throat and stepped away from the bus where I was waiting with my closer cousins. “Um… the boys aren’t descendants,” I said quietly, glancing at the deputies to make sure they weren’t watching.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I overheard them talking this morning. Only the girls are. The blonde one, Alicia, told the surviving boy, Kyle, that he was jealous because he and the victim didn’t find their names on that family tree website.”

  Priscilla’s jaw dropped open and Eliza’s spine stiffened. “Are you sure?”

  “That’s what they said. And…” I checked over my shoulder again and brought my voice down to a whisper. “And I did see him hanging up there this morning.”

  “Why didn’t you tell the police?” Priscilla asked.

  “How could I? It was hours ago. The other ghosts were there, too, like they always are.”

  “The lady in the blue skirt?”

  “Yes. And she was upset and—”

  “Crying ‘why, why?’ over and over again,” Priscilla finished my sentence. “I’ve heard that a thousand times.”

  “But why would she be crying over a freshly dead person that she didn’t even know?” I asked. I felt so guilty that I’d ignored everything.

  “They are unstable spirits,” Eliza said. “Barely even spirits, really. More like an animated picture. Just shards of souls that get pulled back into this realm when triggered.”

  “Well if anything would trigger them, this certainly would,” Priscilla remarked. “Now if I could just figure out what else does. They show up at least once every two weeks.”

  “Always on the second Thursday of the month,” I told her. “More in September and March, I think it has something to do with the sunlight. And often the morning after a gentle rain, as long as there was no thunder.”

  “The sun and the rain,” Priscilla said, nodding. “Aren’t you observant?”

  “She’s a farmer.” Eliza said it as if that was an insult instead of the backbone of the town.

  “I also walk down here a lot.”

  Eliza let out a gentle ‘shhh’ and closed her eyes. We all sensed her magic as it invisibly flowed from her hands and up to poor Thomas. Her brow furrowed and she turned her head as if she was trying to hear something. “You might be right, Gemma,” she said. “I don’t feel any connection to him at all. I doubt he has a drop of Hetty’s blood in him.”

  “But that means…” Priscilla trailed off.

  “That means the police are correct. He was murdered,” Eliza said. “By human means.”

  “Ain’t that a kick in the head?” Priscilla pulled out a hand rolled cigarette which she lit with a flame from the tip of her finger. “Or should I say a pain in the neck.”

  The joke was in poor taste. But I
had to admit she was right.

  Chapter 5

  It took a few hours before the deputies were done taking statements. And stepping over cats. And getting verbally cursed at, though hopefully no one was foolish to do it literally. I found their presence annoying, though certainly necessary, and I definitely didn’t envy them. Captain Blue Eyes retreated to his car after the coroner showed up and removed the body. He went over his notes, but he kept glancing up at us, especially me.