Midlife Curses: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Mystery (Witching Hour Book 1)

by Christine Zane Thomas

  Gran took a sip of tea, unwilling to look me in the eyes.

  “They never found the plane,” I continued my spiel. And Gran continued to silently tell me it was wrong.

  “So, there wasn’t a plane crash?”

  “It sounds like a convenient story to tell a gullible man.”

  I’d normally protest any word spoken against my father, but for now I held my tongue. A million questions buzzed around my head. Finding the right one to ask proved difficult.

  “I thought maybe you’d have a few more questions,” Gran said.

  She was right. I had a ton, mostly to do with my mother and the circumstances around her—around her disappearance.

  “Not about your mother,” Gran said. “That’s a subject for another time. Questions about being a witch. I’d assumed you might have a few.”

  “She does,” Stevie’s voice boomed. “Many more. I don’t think she knows where to start.”

  “The simpler, the better,” Gran said.

  That narrowed the field. And it did make sense. With those words, I was able to find my first question.

  “How do you know that I’m a witch?” I asked. “What if it skips a generation or something like that?”

  “It doesn’t. And you’ve already done some magic. Besides, we’ll know soon enough. Your familiar will reveal itself on or before your fortieth birthday.”

  “My familiar.” I nodded. “Are they always cats?”

  Idly, I wondered why we didn’t just share Stevie. Gran scooped him from the floor and put him on her lap.

  He answered, “Not always. Your familiar could be anything. A dog, a cat, a mouse—any sort of rodent really. But let’s hope it’s not. These feline instincts, they aren’t easy to hold back.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Anything?”

  “The sky’s the limit,” Stevie said. “It could be a bird. Oh, I’d loathe it if it were a pigeon.”

  “Okay. Can I ask, what is a familiar exactly? Besides a pet. I get that. But were you once a human? I mean, I’ve seen that show, Sabrina the Teenage Witch. That’s about all I’ve got to go on.”

  “Not human—never human,” he answered. “No, we’re fallen angels.” Stevie’s posture straightened. He could see the question on my lips. “Not demons. No. We are the neutrals in heaven’s war. We didn’t take a side, but we were cast out anyway, unwelcome in either realm. Neither heaven nor hell will take us.”

  “Ah. All right.” I found my next question. “And why forty? Why not sixteen? Eighteen? Twenty-one?”

  “If witches got their powers at sixteen, what do you think they’d use them on?” Gran had answered my question with a question of her own.

  “To enslave humanity,” Stevie guessed.

  “No,” Gran chortled. “Let Constance try. Think, child. What were you doing at eighteen—at twenty-one? Hell, at twenty-six you were already on what—marriage number two? Girls will be girls. And the younger they are, the—”

  “Stupider,” Stevie offered.

  Gran grew more agitated. “That’s not what I’m trying to say.”

  “I get it,” I said. “Boys. We’d waste our magic on boys or something dumb.” I felt compelled to defend myself. “But I wasn’t married twice, Gran. Only the one time, to Mark.”

  “Honey,” she said to me. “I don’t care what the state says, once that Elvis impersonator said husband and wife, that’s what you were.”

  It was a mistake. A weekend in Vegas. And a memory that I was happy to let stay in Vegas.

  “Wait! How do you even know about that?” Gran knew a lot more about me than I knew about her.

  She smiled. “I have my ways, my dear. And as I was saying, you’re not a witch until you turn forty. In a few more days, I’ll explain more. This weekend, to coincide with the full moon, we’ll have a celebration in your honor.”

  “Like a party?”

  She pursed her lips. “Like a party.”

  A party. For becoming a witch. I had so many more questions, but my mouth stayed closed, almost like Gran had spelled it shut.

  She left me there in the kitchen to contemplate the craziness of the past half hour. Stevie pranced behind her, his tail up.

  I heard her flick the television back on. Harry was learning to play quidditch.

  5

  In Witch I Discover a Dead Body

  In books, everyone is always plagued by bad dreams—especially when they’re coming into their magic. But that night, I went to sleep as usual—by finding a podcast and listening to two people ramble until I passed out. I dreamed normal dreams with no witches, no demons or ghosts, nothing paranormal—nothing to indicate that in only a few days I’d become a witch with magical abilities of some sort. As of now, the list included stopping time and talking to cats. Or at least one cat.

  I woke refreshed, as if the whole ordeal yesterday was actually the dream. Today was a day like any other. I was back in the ordinary world.

  Then Stevie slinked into the room. “Feeling better?” His husky voice vibrated the chain on the ceiling fan.

  “Not anymore,” I said.

  I left for work early, wanting out of the house. I needed to get away. Thoughts of California lingered in the back of my mind. I thought about putting my foot on the accelerator and not looking back.

  Instead, I made sure to keep Crookshanks under the speed limit. And I was at the grocery a good fifteen minutes before it opened—so early, in fact, that the front doors didn’t slide open for me. I put my face up against the glass and banged hard to get someone’s attention. No one came to my rescue.

  I counted the cars in the parking lot.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  There were two—Crookshanks and Mr. Caulfield’s green Mustang.

  I could wait for Trish, I thought. But neither of us had a key to the front of the store. So, if I wanted in, I’d have to go around back to the loading dock.

  Just my luck. Late one day and too early the next. If only they evened out in Mr. Caulfield’s eyes.

  I edged around the building with my hands in my pockets. The back of the store had an industrial appearance, all concrete slab. A detached semi-trailer cast a long shadow toward the dumpster and recycling bin. Even from this distance, I could smell the funk of the trash. And either my mind was playing tricks on me, or I could hear rats squeaking.

  The thought made me cringe. Heebie-jeebies sent a shiver down my spine. I was ready for a rat to streak across my path. But none did.

  Behind the dumpster and off the pavement, past a dusty patch of sand, gravel, and weeds, the world turned into a tangled mess of woods. It was eerily dark. The orange loading dock light couldn’t penetrate the dense foliage.

  The shrill call of a screech owl sent me reeling. It made me feel like someone—or something—was watching me.

  “Hoo hoo hoo,” another owl replied.

  This felt like the perfect time to meet my familiar. If so, it was definitely going to be a rat. Or maybe that owl. Either way, Stevie wasn’t going to be thrilled.

  But I made it to the door without incident.

  The door opened with a strong push. I went from the darkness outside to the total darkness of the back room of the store. Only a single safety light was glowing. Somehow, this was worse than outside. Eerie.

  “Hello?” I called. “Mr. Caulfield? Anyone?”

  His office, which shared a wall with the breakroom, was also dark. I fumbled in my purse for my phone and switched on the flashlight function. Then I found the row of light switches beside the door. I flipped on the first. When it did nothing, I did the same for the second and third.

  Finally, the fluorescent bulbs flickered to life. The breakroom and the office remained pitch black.

  “Hello?” I said again, trying to make sure I was alone.

  Mr. Caulfield must’ve left his car here overnight, I told myself.

  Still, it was strange that no one else was here so close to opening. Granted, we weren’t the type of gr
ocery that had a bakery. Creel Creek had a bakery. Our stockers were done by ten every night. While I didn’t appreciate Mr. Caulfield’s attitude toward me, he did run a tight ship.

  But where is he?

  And did he really leave the doors unlocked?

  I was at a crossroads. I could clock in. Get my till, count it, and be womanning my post before another soul got here. Or, I can stand here awkwardly until another employee gets here.

  Back in California, I’d always liked getting to work early. It felt like the only time I could get things done. Sometimes, I’d work on the weekend—spend whole days alone in the office. I hadn’t been scared off by a lack of people. No, I’d relished it.

  So, why’s this any different?

  I made up my mind and sighed. So what if I’m the only person here. So what if I’m not. And if Mr. Caulfield’s lurking in the shadows, let him lurk.

  Okay, I didn’t really want him to be lurking in the shadows. He was creepy enough already.

  But in less than ten minutes, seven more people would be lining up with their timecards in hand. I got my vest and clocked in early. Let’s see if I get a reprimand for that. All that was left was to get my till, from the safe in Mr. Caulfield’s office.

  He’d entrusted me with the code to the safe, but I wasn’t allowed a key to the front door.

  I guess it made sense, I’d need both to do any damage. And there wasn’t much in the safe. Mr. Caulfield made trips to the bank twice a day. Plus, most people used cards now anyway, even in Creel Creek.

  Besides, the real valuables were in the store proper, filling the milk case at almost five dollars a gallon. And in produce. In California, you could pick up avocados on any neighborhood street. Ours sold for almost three dollars.

  I took a second to button my vest, then I reached inside Mr. Caulfield’s office for the light switch. When the light came on, I saw that I’d been wrong. I wasn’t the only person in the building. The office was occupied. Occupied by Mr. Caulfield.

  Well, his cold lifeless body.

  So, in another way, I was right—I was the only soul in the building.

  The door behind me swung open.

  6

  The Village Vampire

  “Early bird gets the worm,” Trish chirped.

  The door slammed shut behind her.

  I was still at the doorway of Mr. Caulfield’s office in a state of shock. My mind hadn’t caught up to what my eyes were seeing. It was way worse than when I’d stopped time.

  The scene wasn’t gruesome, not in the traditional sense. There wasn’t any blood that I could see.

  Mr. Caulfield’s body was splayed out in his desk chair, his arms dangling over the armrests. His eyes were wide open, staring up at the ceiling. He looked frozen—almost like he’d been locked in the walk-in freezer overnight and someone had put him in here to thaw.

  “Honey,” Trish said, “is everything okay?”

  I shook my head vigorously.

  I felt her presence behind me before she touched my shoulder and scooted me out of the way to see what was wrong. Then Trish grabbed me by both shoulders and pulled me away from the office.

  “Take a few breaths, babe.” I allowed her to guide me into the breakroom. She pushed me into the closest chair. “You need to call 911. And you need to tell them to send the sheriff, not the city police. You got that?”

  I stared up at her blankly. Her words didn’t make sense. It took my brain far too long to parse them. Something about calling 911.

  “Constance, did you touch anything?”

  I shook my head.

  “Good. Now, make that call.” She grabbed my purse from my cubby and dug out my phone. With a reassuring squeeze, she put it in my hand. “Call,” she said again. “I’ll do what I can.”

  I dialed 911 for the first time in my life. I could hear my father’s voice telling me to only use it in an emergency, a real emergency like I was eight years old again.

  I guess this constituted a real emergency. Still, I couldn’t dial.

  Nevertheless, a voice spoke on the other end of the line. Calm. Immediate. “What is your emergency?”

  I fumbled through the explanation, telling the operator about the body. She wanted me to make sure that Mr. Caulfield was dead. She wouldn’t let me hang up the phone. I stood shakily and walked to Mr. Caulfield’s office.

  Trish was, well, she was doing something with her eyes closed. Chanting?

  I couldn’t make out the words. There was a pattern to them, a rhythm. She moved to the center of the office, waggling a finger in front of her. Spinning in a tight circle, she wiggled that finger in every direction. Next, she grasped at the air with both hands. At nothing. But for an instant, I saw something drop into her hands.

  “Trish,” I hissed, my own hand instinctively covering the receiver. “What are you doing? They want to know if he’s really dead.”

  She shook her head, indicating she wasn’t going to deal with me.

  “Miss? Hello?” The operator’s voice was loud in my ear. “Is everything okay? Is he—can you confirm that he’s deceased?”

  “No,” I said.

  “No, he’s not dead?”

  “No,” I repeated. “It’s not okay. He’s definitely dead.”

  Trish nodded in agreement but didn’t stop murmuring and spinning. But she mouthed the word sheriff at me.

  That’s right.

  “Sheriff Marsters,” I said to the operator. “We need the sheriff.” I hung up the phone and ignored it when they called me back. I couldn’t stop looking at Mr. Caulfield. Not until Trish guided me away once again.

  Nick and Hal came through the back door together. Trish waved them off, not allowing them to see inside Mr. Caulfield’s office.

  She put them on guard duty at the front of the store. “Let the police inside,” she said. “No one else. We’re closed today. All right?”

  They nodded.

  “Nick, it’d be good if you made a sign to put out by the road. I don’t even want anyone in the parking lot. Use that big chalkboard over by the bananas.”

  “Will do.” Nick gave her a mock salute.

  “Should he really touch anything in the store?” I asked. “Couldn’t it be evidence?”

  Trish shook her head. “If they needed to dust every product for fingerprints, we’d be closed for months. There’s no evidence out there.”

  “How do you know?” I asked her. Then I whispered so that only Trish could hear. “And do you know how he died?”

  “That, I don’t know,” she said. “Sheriff Marsters will be here soon.”

  “You really think he can figure this out?” I didn’t know much about small town law enforcement, but I didn’t think the guy who pulled me over and couldn’t give me a ticket should be investigating this—whatever this was. I don’t know why, but my gut said it was murder.

  “This has to be a murder.”

  “Just trust me,” Trish said firmly.

  “Trust you. Sure.” I nodded, feeling my head come out of the clouds. It was still a long way to the ground. “How are you so—”

  “Calm?” she suggested.

  “Yeah…”

  “Honey, I’ve always been good in emergencies. But usually, it’s cuts or scrapes—or the time a customer needed CPR. Don’t ask. Actually, the worst, before today, was a broken arm. My brother fell off the monkey bars when we were little kids.”

  “That’s awful.”

  Trish stifled a smile. “Yeah. I was the one who pried his fingers loose.”

  I wanted to ask her what it was she’d been doing inside Mr. Caulfield’s office, but then Terrance Stockton, a dairy associate, pushed open the door and stopped, his rotund shape filling the doorway. “I hear sirens,” he announced.

  “Good,” Trish said, taking charge. “Go inside the breakroom and wait. Don’t touch anything.”

  “Why?” he asked. “There been a crime or something?”

  “Something like that.”

  I we
nt with him, and we waited. After what felt like a week but the clock said was two minutes, we heard a commotion at the front of the store.

  A few seconds later, Sheriff Marsters pushed through the flapping two-way doors from the sales floor. A deputy, a woman, was trailing him. She had her pistol drawn, but it was pointing at the ground, and her finger wasn’t on the trigger.

  “There’s no need for that,” Trish said. “Whoever did this is long gone.”

  She thinks it’s murder too, I thought.

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” Sheriff Marsters said. He looked much the same as he had yesterday. The same bristly mustache and same five o’clock shadow—I guess it was five o’clock somewhere. Or maybe he was averse to shaving with an actual razor.

  Trish gestured for them to look inside Mr. Caulfield’s office.

  They approached it with caution and looked inside. The female deputy holstered her weapon.

  “All clear,” the sheriff said into the radio on his shoulder. He took a deep breath, his eyes closed, and something about him changed. He shook his head like this didn’t sit right. He sniffed the air. Then he went into full cop mode.

  “Willow,” he said to the deputy, “I want you to take a look around in there. Do your thing. Then I want you to herd everyone to the front of the store.”

  She nodded.

  “And you two,” he said to us. “You found the body?”

  “She did.” Trish pointed. What a traitor.

  “Is that right, ma’am?”

  I gave the meekest of nods. “I was here a minute—maybe two—before Trish got here.” Two could play the blame game.

  “All right. Let’s find a place to chat.” Sheriff Marsters, or just Dave, as he’d told me to call him, ushered me into the breakroom.

  I expected him to close the door. Instead, he turned to Trish. “You coming?”

  Reluctantly, she followed him in and he closed the door.

  “Trish,” he said, “do you mind putting on a pot of coffee?” The breakroom was equipped with an ancient coffee machine that brewed the most terrible sludge I’ve ever put in my mouth. I’d heard Trish flatly refuse to make coffee, telling both Nick and Hal that it wasn’t her job.