Resting Witch Face

by Constance Barker

  “Piper?” Quinn shot a glance at Harvest. “She seemed so sweet, and really dedicated to our mother.”

  “That makes her the one person on staff who was alone with your mother the most,” Oberon said. “Her unexplained absence is more than a little suspicious.”

  “What about the other patients Mom was brought in with,” Quinn said. “There were four others, found in the National Forest, all of them delusional, all of them on Ward 6.”

  The hospital’s head of security answered. “All of them were accounted for at the time of the incident.”

  “It should be noted that while Trinity was found in the same place as the others, she was found much later,” Dr. Pye said. “Which leads me to discuss her medical condition.”

  “But Mom’s all right,” Harvest jumped in. “No drug in her system?”

  Pye shook his head. “There has been no change in her condition since her arrival, nothing in her system. However, she hasn’t voluntarily eaten nor drank, and she is losing weight. We may need to make decisions about her treatment before the DNA analysis gets back to us. That would include the insertion of a feeding tube.”

  Harvest felt Quinn grip her hand on the table. “Without the DNA evidence, do we even get a say?”

  “No,” Quinn whispered. “It’ll be up to the state, Mom’s caseworker, doctors, an attorney.”

  Quinn would know these things—it was part of her job. “Does that have to be decided right away? I mean, Mom looks fine, physically.”

  “Given her absence of nutritional intake, she is remarkably healthy. The mind needs energy as much as the body. Let me confer with my supervisors at the state level. I’ll get back to you soon,” Pye said. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen for your work thus far. Again, I must apologize for these bizarre and concerning incidents.”

  The meeting broke up. Harvest approached Pye. “Can we visit her now?”

  “I think rest is the best thing for her right now. There’s no telling how these events have affected her. As I said, I’ll get back to you soon.”

  QUINN BUCKLED HER SEAT belt. “I’m thinking that Piper’s our new witch. She had plenty of time to get to Fredonia and attack Echo.”

  “You’re thinking, what, Piper Zimmerman is some kind of shape-shifter?”

  “What else? The raccoons, the bobcats—that’s gotta be the answer.”

  Harvest put the Constable-Mobile in drive. “That’s not any crazier than animals that can work computers, I guess.”

  “Speaking of, we’d better check Echo’s desktop right now.”

  Her younger sister lowered her brows at Quinn. But she didn’t argue. Instead, she floored it once she was out of town. Soon, they were in the bunkhouse.

  “Why does this machine take forever to boot up?” Quinn paced around the room while Harvest took the desk chair.

  “This old hand-me-down? I’m not surprised.” Still, Harvest shook her knee impatiently as she watched the screen.

  When it finally booted, Quinn looked over Harvest’s shoulder. She pointed at an icon. “Go to the PayPal.”

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  “So do it already.”

  Echo had the site set up with her user name and password saved. A few clicks later, they stared in disbelief. There were twelve cents in the account.

  “Holy—there should be more than three grand in there.”

  Quinn sat hard on the bed. “Maybe she transferred it to the bank.”

  Harvest scrolled through the recent transactions. “Oh no. Three thousand, eight hundred seventy-six dollars donated to the Red Cross. California wildfire relief fund. That’s the property tax money, the business insurance, everything. We’re totally screwed.”

  “The raccoons.”

  “It had to be Piper. She’s some kinda shape-shifting witch. She’s screwing with our lives, our jobs. I need to get to my skip tracing software and track her ass down.”

  Quinn shook her head. “The sheriff had the insecticide. A couple good squirts and the Grams would be out of business. It’s the same MO, but it’s not Piper.”

  “I don’t think so. Me and the sheriff had all kinds of arguments beyond the fact that he was a homicidal coven witch. His body in the parking lot shut down the Grams without touching the bees. Maybe if she turns into animals, she wouldn’t want to hurt the bees. A nature witch or something, I don’t know. But Bennett’s murder still fits the MO.”

  Thinking it over, Quinn decided Harvest had a point. “What would we do if we did track her down?”

  “You’ve got the spell book,” Harvest nodded at her bag. “Zap her.”

  “Spells won’t work on her.”

  Harvest’s face went blank. “How do you know?”

  “If she turned into raccoons to raid Echo’s computer, I zapped them, remember? It didn’t do anything. You chased them out with a broom.”

  “Great. That’s just great. So how do we stop her?”

  Before Quinn could think of anything, Harvest’s phone buzzed. She looked at the time on the screen. Eleven o’clock.

  “Hey, Sarge. Any word on Piper Zimmerman?” Listening, Harvest’s eyes went wide. Finally, she said, “No, I won’t go near the scene. I promise.”

  “What’s wrong?” Quinn asked after she disconnected.

  “They found Piper Zimmerman.”

  “Did they bring her in? Did they ask her about Mom?”

  “They couldn’t. They found her in a shallow grave below Washington Park. A shovel recovered at the scene had prints on it.”

  ECHO WROTE A TEXT MESSAGE to all of her instructors. She was going home to recover from the coyote attack. It was a lie. She couldn’t bring herself to write that an evil witch had bankrupted her family, and was now dead. Bunny wasn’t making the work any easier.

  “F-R-E-D-N-O-I-A

  We’re the best get out of our way!

  F-R-E-D-N-O-I-A

  Handing you your asses all day!

  F-R-E-D-N-O-I-A

  Double-Us when we come to play!

  Fredonia! Fredonia! Hey hey hey!

  “What do you think?”

  Echo pressed send and stuffed laundry in a duffle bag. “It would be better if you learned how to spell. Unless ‘Frednoia’ is some kind of mental condition.”

  “F-R-E-D—Oh! Huh, It shouts better the other way. I must be Frednoid!” She put the pom poms down. “What’s with the packing?”

  “Heading home. I’m still shaken up from being attacked by coyotes.”

  “Wow. That’s much better than ‘the dog ate my homework.’ Are you hurt, or do you just want a break?”

  Echo clicked on her search engine, finding troubleshooting for PayPal. “I got family stuff too. It won’t be much of a break.” She programmed the customer service number into her phone and shouldered her duffle bag.

  “Are you dropping out?”

  She gave Bunny a quizzical stare. “No. I’ll be fine. See you Monday.”

  “Take it easy, Bunkie.”

  By the time she reached student parking, she’d come to learn that there was nothing to do about the accidental donation. It would be a great tax write-off, but that’s not what the family needed right now. They needed money. With all their strange powers, Echo couldn’t imagine a spell that would make a pile of gold appear. She only knew one way to make money, but it might be too little, too late.

  Chapter 14

  Harvest and Quinn walked down the road and across it to Last Shop to Nowhere. The general store focused mostly on campers, and all the last-minute things forgotten at home. With temperatures dipping below freezing some nights, only the most hardcore outdoors man was roughing it in the Allegheny National Forest, and deer season was still weeks away. Still, there was a place in back with tables that served paninis and coffee. Jeff Shafer, with a mug of the latter, was the only customer.

  “Don’t tell me we’re suspects.” Harvest took a seat across from him.

  Giving her sister the stink eye, she reached across. “Quinn
. Nice to meet you.”

  “Same. You two could be twins, you know that? Of course, I guess you do.” His handshake was firm and warm from the mug. “No, we have a ready-made suspect. Prints found on a shovel at the scene.”

  Harvest jumped down his throat. “Have you seen that barn? There must be a dozen shovels in there. Anyone could’ve taken one.”

  The sergeant blinked a few times. Quinn gave her a hard stare.

  Hands up, Harvest went on. “What? You’ve obviously picked up Steve Bender for this. Have you figured out how he moved the body with either that giant camper or his dirt bike? No, you’re thinking it’s too convenient that the woman who tried to dose our mother with drugs was found dead, just like the sheriff.”

  “I don’t know where you’re getting your information, but I do know I don’t like to be told what I’m thinking.”

  “Let me guess, a lot of satanic graffiti at the scene. This is supposed to play like a human sacrifice and a frame-up of Bender at the same time. So of course it points back to us. The pentagram on Bennett’s shirt.”

  Sgt. Shafer raised his mug to the waitress for more coffee. “Go on. As a matter of fact, if I didn’t know you, I would like you better for this than Bender.”

  “Aha. But we’re victims in this, too. We’ve been suspended from our work because of that poison can we found. Our mother was attacked in the state hospital. All our money was stolen from a PayPal account.”

  “Please forgive my sister’s temporary insanity,” Quinn kept a hard eye on Harvest. What was she doing?

  “Stolen money—did you report it?”

  “We both know the cops can do next to nothing with internet crime. Am I coming off as paranoid? From my point of view, someone is out to get us.”

  “Who, Harvest?” Shafter thanked the waitress as she poured. “Who would commit two homicides just to make you look bad? The sheriff was connected to that old serial case, and a lot of other hinky business this summer. He’d be my prime suspect—from your point of view—but he’s not on my list, obviously. Piper Zimmerman, if that is her real name, would be next. Not on the list, same reason.”

  “Oh, fine. From your point of view, this is on us?”

  “Harvest, why are you being such an asshole?” Quinn said.

  Finally, her sister sat back and shut up.

  “Oberon wants to bring you in for questioning. He’s the local commander, and he’s probably making the right call, but I managed to talk him out of it. For now.” He paused, gazing out at the empty parking lot. “I want to give you a chance to turn over any information regarding the recent homicides. If you two are going all Nancy Drew on me, it needs to stop. Right now. I don’t know what’s going on in this town, but people are talking about a satanic cult. There was even an editorial in the Times-Observer about it. In August, we had robed and hooded figures fleeing a burning house. Since then, it’s been graffiti, vandalism, and now the murders—it’s all going to come to a head. If you know anything, even some small detail, I need to know it. We need to head off this Satan nonsense before this town blows like a powder keg.”

  This time, Harvest didn’t have a reply.

  “If we think of anything, we’ll call you.” Quinn knew she sounded lame.

  Shafer got up, retrieving his campaign hat from the chair next to him. “Don’t think about it too long. You have my number, Harvest. Quinn.” He nodded to her and walked out to the patrol car.

  “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT, Harvest? Were you reading his mind?”

  Harvest jerked in surprise. “What? No! That’s crazy.”

  “Then how did you know about Steve Bender? He didn’t mention it.”

  Holy smokes. Had she been reading the sergeant’s mind? Sure, she had a strong intuition. This had been different. It was as if the volume on her instincts had been turned up to clairvoyance. “Whoa. Maybe I was a little. It’d be great if I could use it to figure out who’s after us. Or if you could find a spell that would help. Or if a few thousand dollars rained from the sky. Really, what’s the good of being witches anyway?’

  “Well, it’s not like we ever expected to benefit from it. Until a few months ago, we didn’t even know about this witchcraft stuff. We are supposed to protect people from magic. I’m guessing that would be Steve Bender.”

  Harvest smirked. “And what about us? Steve’s just been framed. We’re the ones at the wrong end of evil magic here. A few little things, and we can’t even keep our jobs. I want to believe it will all blow over, but I’d rather believe we can freakin fix it.”

  ECHO LUGGED HER DUFFLE bag into the house. From the kitchen table, Harvest and Quinn looked up.

  “What are you doing home?”

  “I was attacked by wild animals. Seemed a good excuse for a visit.” She dragged the bag to the laundry room in back. “More bad news. Since the money was donated from my computer, with no sign of hacking, it’s gone. Your welcome, California fire victims. I am glad it's going to a good cause, but the timing sucks. What happened with Mom again?”

  Harvest put her head on her arms. Quinn retold the story.

  “Three bobcats, three raccoon, three coyotes,” Echo thought aloud.

  “Three otters scared Leshy away. I think it was three, they move pretty quick.”

  “Leshy?”

  “The horny sasquatch.” Harvest didn’t raise her head.

  “Oh, yeah.” Echo leaned on the back of a chair. “Well, I’ve been doing a lot of research on witches since, you know, we are them. There’s a lot of lore about witches changing into animals.”

  “Can we change into animals?” Harvest’s head remained down. “Maybe we can turn into bears and hibernate until spring.”

  Echo shrugged. “Not that I know of. We need to figure that out, but we also have to put our priorities in order. First thing, we gotta get the bills paid.”

  “How do you suggest we do that? Neither Quinn or I are getting a paycheck.” Harvest finally lifted her head.

  “Same way this family’s been doing it for more than a century. Sell some candles.”

  Quinn shook her head. “Even if we sell out the remaining stock, it won’t be enough. The Grams always count on a big chunk of change this time of year. They’re talking about returning the Christmas presents they’ve bought so far. That’s just a drop in the bucket.”

  “Yeah, and if they bought us sweaters, we’ll need them when the gas gets shut off,” Echo said. “C’mon, we still have beeswax. Let’s get to work.”

  Harvest’s head fell again. “You don’t get it, Squirt. There’s less than a thousand bucks left in stock. Candles are still selling, I just checked, but we got the final notice for the electric bill, the cable and internet bill, hell, all the bills a long time ago. They’re shutting us off in two days. Fines are already adding up on the property taxes. The money we had could’ve saved us. But we can’t make candles fast enough to keep the wolf from the door. It takes time. Any candles we make today can’t be shipped until they cool. That’s two days from now.”

  “Not if we do a spell. We can ship as soon as they’re dipped. If we start right now, we can do it. I know it.”

  Quinn raised her brows. “It would be awesome if there was a candle-cooling spell in the grimoire. There might even be. It seems like every time I crack the book, I find different things.”

  “Then we write our own. I’m going down to the Chandlery to make money. You with me?”

  HARVEST DRAGGED HERSELF from the chair. “I’ll go help Echo. You write a spell, I guess.”

  “I don’t know how to write spells!”

  “Really? How hard can it be? A few lines of bad poetry. Oh, that kinda rhymes. See? Heat, heat, go away, make these candles here to stay.”

  Quinn sighed and pulled the grimoire from her bag. “Just go.”

  She turned the recipe book over, and upside down. When it became a heavy, leather-bound tome, she cracked it open. For a while, she read over the spells. They seemed to have a certain meter, a certain intent.
Was that all there was to it?

  Her mind turned to the one spell that came to her, unbidden. While it had allowed her to escape certain death, the horror of seeing her enemies chewed to nothing still haunted her dreams. Still, she wasn’t under duress right now. Sure, a certain amount of anxiety, but nothing like the adrenalin-fueled terror of being attacked.

  Quinn rummaged in her briefcase purse for a pen. She found a blank page in the book. Tapping the pen against it, she thought about what it was she wanted to do. It wasn’t just about temperature. If you tossed a freshly dipped candle in the freezer, it would crack.

  She pursed her lips. So what did she really need? Candles hardened through a slow dispersion of heat that made the wax molecules go from a liquid to a solid state. Quinn focused on that idea. The pen in her hand began to write of its own accord.

  “CANDLE-BEE!” ECHO WALKED into the shop. “All hands on deck.”

  Harvest followed her sister in, seeing the Grams’ long faces attain that isn’t-she-cute-but-she-doesn’t-know-what-she’s-talking-about look. “Oh, Honey, you should be in school. There isn’t anything you can do about this right now. It’s so nice that you tried your best.”

  “No, we can do this, Gramma. We’re going to chandle ourselves out of the hole.”

  Aunt Mary gave Echo a hug. “I like your spirit, Squirt. But...”

  Harvest caught the helpless look Echo gave her. “She’s right. Just because there was a snafu with the internet doesn’t mean we can’t try again. It was working.”

  “You’ve both worked here. You, especially, Echo know that wax takes time to melt, and time to cool. A beeswax taper might be cool in six hours, but I wouldn’t handle one for at least twenty-four. It’s what makes our candles the best.” Gramma smiled. “The care we take. And Mary’s carved candles, forget it. At least twenty-four hours.”