Looking more closely, I realized that it was boarded up, the only light coming through between the slats of wood that had been nailed over the opening.
I stepped back, my wand shaking with all the green sparkles trying to come out of it at once.
I decided to let them.
“Disappear,” I said to the wood.
I had never performed a disappearing spell before, but back at the farmhouse I had thought about using it many times on the dishes, the dust on the furniture, and the laundry. Every time, I reminded myself that my grandmother would be disappointed if I tried to use magic for such trivialities.
To my great relief, it worked. The boards disappeared. Suddenly, light flooded the basement. The ghost behind us started yelling.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw that she floating toward us.
“We have seconds to figure how to get from the ground to the window,” said Greer.
“What about that stepladder leaning against the wall?” I asked.
“That’s one way to do it,” she muttered. She seized the stepladder and grimaced at how grimy the metal felt under her fingers. The ladder probably hadn’t been used in years.
We gritted our teeth and clambered up, me first. I reached out to open the window and found it stuck so tight I wrenched my arm trying to budge it .
Collecting myself, I tried again with less haste and more focus. This time there was a creaking, then a groaning, then silence. I tried again to shove the window upward, and this time it scraped open.
“You did it,” Greer yelled.
I would rather have had Greer go first, but that would have involved changing places while being chased by an angry dark ghost. We didn’t have time for that.
I landed flat on my stomach outside the window, then rolled through the tall, itchy grass and brambles to make room for Greer.
“Give me your hand,” I yelled as she started to scramble out the window.
She stretched her hand toward me and I grasped her fingers and helped hold her steady as she slithered to get through the narrow opening. Meanwhile, Betty’s mother tried to grab her feet to hold her in the basement. Since the older woman was a ghost, her hands went right through Greer, but Greer yelled in shock and frustration anyhow. The green jewelry she wearing that allowed her to hear ghosts blazed. Betty’s grandmother shouted again, frustrated in her turn.
We got Greer out, but barely. I dropped my wand in the process, and now I scrambled to retrieve it as Greer slammed the window shut.
“Let’s get out of here. Like, now,” she said.
We ran.
We drove straight home to the farmhouse without a pause. Neither of us said a word on the way home. Greer’s eyes were wide and staring. As I drove along, I wondered whose footsteps we had heard, and nursed my regret at taking Greer there in the first place.
Once we got home we took turns getting cleaned up. While Greer was in the shower, I called Josephine.
“I need to come over,” I said. “Are you at the store?”
“Sure am,” she said. “It’s a slow day at the office. Feel free to come by any time. Should I call Scarlett and tell her to come as well?”
Since I wanted to talk to Scarlett as well, having Josephine call her worked just fine. I told Josephine I’d be over shortly.
In the end, those two witches were my friends. It made more sense to talk to them about what was going on before I tried Madame Rosalie. I knew how that interaction was likely to end.
Greer looked less pale and more like her usual self when she came downstairs. “That was ridiculous,” was all she said. She couldn’t come with me to Josephine’s because she had to get to work.
I decided to take Paws. To my surprise, he was ready to go when I came out onto the porch. My hair was still damp from my own shower, and I had thrown on an old sweatshirt and a pair of jeans.
I was sick and tired of this dark ghost issue. I was sick and tired of every threat of attack hanging over my head. We had enough problems without a little witch war on the side.
I still had no idea where Haley the ghost had gone, or how she had died in the first place. Liam needed more help getting ready for the spring festival, and the love of my life had a grandfather who hated me.
At least some of these problems were going to end now.
I hoped.
I made my way over to Josephine’s shop in Caedmon, filling Paws in on the way.
“I’m sorry,” said Paws mournfully. “We’ve been looking for the dark ghosts, but we haven’t found them, or even any clues. We even went to the mayor’s house for tracking purposes. There was a trail, but Kingfisher lost it in the woods.”
I shook my head. “It isn’t your fault. There are a lot of woods to cover, and not so many ghosts,” I said.
Paws lapsed into a displeased silence, brooding. He wanted to find the dark ghosts as much as I did. He did not like failure.
Main Street was bustling, but Josephine’s shop was quiet. As usual, Hillary the ghost cat was sitting on the floor, watching over the place.
The cat blinked at Paws; they were not fans of each other. “Go swish your tail somewhere else,” Paws told the cat.
“This is her shop,” I reminded him.
“Exactly. She should have plenty of places to go,” he said.
I just rolled my eyes.
Josephine came in from the back, dressed in maroon as usual and looking impeccable.
“Hey,” she said. “I talked to Scarlett. She had a couple of errands and said she’d stop by here as well. She should get here soon. Are you okay?”
“No. We have to find those dark ghosts. I need to know what’s going on with the coven, so I know how to proceed,” I said.
Josephine’s face slackened. “Nothing good, I’m afraid,” she said. “You’re not going to like it at all. I’m so sorry. I’ve been avoiding getting in touch with you because I didn’t have anything good to say. I don’t even know how to say what I need to now. It’s been difficult. Chicken of me, I realize. Anyway, I’m glad you’re here. Do you want to wait until Scarlett shows up to fill me in?” she asked.
“It’s a long story. Waiting might be better,” I told her.
She nodded. “Okay. Want to tell me about your hot boyfriend while we wait?”
I nearly choked on a laugh, but Josephine went over to a small table with a couple of old chairs next to it. “I was just making some tea. You want some?” she offered.
“That would be great,” I said.
As I waited, I noticed an old cauldron in the corner of the room. It looked like it had collected several layers of dust. “Is that yours?” I asked.
Josephine glanced at the cauldron and shook her head. “No. My grandmother found it at a junk shop. She couldn’t bear to leave it there, so she bought it. When she passed away I inherited it. I would just get rid of it, except that she loved it so much. I feel like her ghost would rematerialize and she’d come after me if I ever gave it away.”
“Where is her ghost these days?” I asked.
“Southern California. She doesn’t like temperatures under seventy, so she moved out there in her old age. There’s a rousing community of retired witches that she hangs out with. She spent years causing trouble before she passed away, so my mother was always flying back and forth trying to keep the peace that my grandmother was always trying to disrupt.” Josephine told the story with a smile. “Successfully, she’d want me to add.”
“Sounds like my grandmother, only she never went to a retirement community. Everybody around here loved her,” I said.
“Did your grandmother have a boyfriend?” she asked.
Into my mind came an image of the flowers left on her grave and the fancy car with the driver that sometimes parked near where Evenlyn was buried.
I didn’t know who that was, or what that unknown person’s relationship to my grandmother had been. “Not that I know of,” I said, deciding to be circumspect. “Then again, I’m not sure she would have told
me. My grandmother loved her secrets as much as anyone.”
Josephine nodded as if she was familiar with the concept of secretive grandmothers. “And what about you and your boyfriend?” she asked again, giving me a sly smile.
I blushed. “What about him?” I said.
Jasper and Josephine had been around each other a few times, but they had never really talked. They weren’t exactly friends. Josephine and Scarlett weren’t part of the crew we had at the ready to hang out with.
Even that crew was now starting to split off into three distinct couples, I thought with a bit of sadness. Or it would be if and when Charlie could find her bravery and give Hansen his bracelet.
And there was also Deacon to consider. He was now the only one of us who didn’t know I was a witch.
I wondered how he’d take the news. Would Jasper want to be there when Deacon was told? That was a lot to lay on a best friend. With everything else they had to cope with, would he be angry at Greer? They did have a wedding to plan, with a pair of very demanding mothers in the picture.
Bemused, I wondered if maybe that was part of what had brought Deacon and Greer together in the first place, and partly what kept them together. There was a lot of shared bonding after all these years, but still, two difficult mothers gave them something each could relate to with the other.
“What exactly are you asking?” I said to Josephine, still stalling.
She sat down in a ruffle of skirts, then rolled her eyes and braced her chin on her hands. “You have any idea how hard it is for women like us to date?”
“You mean witches?” I said.
Josephine nodded. “Well, that certainly. I mean, we have a lot of problems don’t we? No, what I mean is strong and independent women with their own careers. It’s damn near impossible around here. Charlie Silver has taken one of the last good guys left. Who am I supposed to date? Toil Temper? Tyler Spin?” She rolled her eyes.
I shuddered twice at the names. I was a fan of neither man, though I knew Tyler better than Toil.
Josephine saw my expression and nodded. “Exactly. You see my dilemma. “There are hardly any good guys around here. I have to lie about being a witch. They’ll probably want me to be a good cook, too, and I am not a good cook. Also, I have my own business. Maybe they’d expect me to have kids and earn the money too. It’s downright ridiculous.
“But there are good guys around here too, and you’re dating one of them, and I wanted to hear about it. In fact, you’re probably dating the most eligible bachelor in the county. He’s gorgeous and sexy and he has a good job. The only problem he has is that his grandfather is stuck-up. Then again, his grandfather is old. He has a lot of money and he’s used to being listened to. The grandson is much saner, if you ask me. Also less into himself than his grandfather. Jasper Wolf loves you. I will be highly interested to see what his grandfather does about it.”
“I’m pretty sure that his grandfather has already tried to break us up,” I said.
Josephine rolled her eyes. “Somebody should tell his grandfather that there aren’t a lot of great ladies here and you are one of them. You two are lucky to have each other. Now, I want details about Mr. Gorgeous.”
I giggled. “You know, Charlie took a long time to find Hansen. I think he’d been into her for a while before she caved. She had a thing for him, but she wouldn’t let herself notice.”
“Charlie is always after the next story,” said Josephine. “I’m not surprised that it took her a while to come around to Hansen, even if he is hot. She put him in that adversary category right away. Now he has another characteristic that she’s having a hard time orienting herself to. He knows your secret. On top of that, it might be harder for your friend that you’re a witch than it is for you that you’re a witch.”
I had never thought about it that way, but now that Josephine had said it, I thought she might be right.
“Jasper and I met in high school,” I said. “I had a crush on him from the beginning. It’s the usual story. He was cute and popular and I was not. But high school wasn’t terrible; I did have good friends. I think it also helped that Greer and Deacon were dating even back then. I think that says something about who Deacon and Jasper were. They didn’t exactly care who the popular ones were.
“Then I moved away for a few years, until my grandmother passed away and I inherited her title as the Witch of Mintwood. I came back and protested Jasper’s latest building development. He saw me and found me utterly mesmerizing. It went from there.”
Josephine grinned at my embellishment.
“And now he’s got all kinds of developments in the works,” she said.
“And I’m too busy to protest them now,” I said.
“I am sure he’s dating you for other reasons than just to keep you quiet,” she said with a wink.
I laughed. “I’m pretty certain that his grandfather might encourage something like that, but he would never do it.”
“I’m pretty certain that his grandfather loves his grandson terribly. But I also think he’d do anything to keep his grandson safe, and I’m not entirely certain that’s a good thing,” said Josephine.
Hillary and Paws had been left to their own devices while the two of us chatted. I was worried about it at first, but in the end I decided that Paws should be able to behave himself after all these years. If he couldn’t, he was definitely a lost cause.
“Hello?” Scarlett yelled from the front of the shop.
“We’re back here,” Josephine called out.
Scarlett appeared a moment later, wearing makeup and dressed in a red top and dark jeans under a black coat.
“You look nice,” said Josephine.
“Thank you. I’m tired of being single,” said Scarlett.
Josephine and I exchanged looks, then started laughing. “Aren’t we both?”
“What was so urgent that I had to come?” Scarlett asked.
I took a deep breath and launched into my story. The relaxed conversation with Josephine about dating had helped calm me down by taking my mind off of what had happened at the abandoned house near the Ivy place. But that didn’t change the fact that I was still terrified. Greer and I had been locked in a basement with a dark ghost. My enemies had known we were coming, and they had lured us down there. I was afraid to think of what might have happened if Greer hadn’t found a window.
I also hated to think what Jasper would do when I told him about it.
For now I filled my two witch friends in. Scarlett’s eyes went wide early in the story and stayed that way. Josephine looked grim.
“All you were doing was checking on the cats,” she said. “I can’t believe they attacked you when you went to look at house.”
“I can’t either,” Scarlett murmured. “Are you okay?”
“We’re both fine. They didn’t hurt us, but I think they were trying to keep us locked up long enough to scare us. I don’t really know. Anyway, I wanted to talk to you two about the coven.”
From the way Scarlett glanced at Josephine, I knew the news wouldn’t be good. “Just tell me,” I said.
“I think Madame Rosalie is going to do something. She didn’t like the ghosts attacking her meeting. She’s also furious that Hansen is under your protection. Individual town witches have a lot of authority and autonomy. When she had time to think about it, she got serious about the opposition she had faced over Hansen. She also thinks that your grandmother was trouble, and you are as well.”
I stared hard at Scarlett. “Okay. What does that mean in terms of challenging Ellie and the army of dark ghosts she’s assembled?”
Scarlett cleared her throat. “I don’t think they’ve decided yet. That’s kind of the point: they’re taking their time over a decision that should be straightforward. They don’t want to help you, but they also do not want to be challenged or attacked again by the likes of Wendell. Then again, they don’t want to go to war, especially since you’re the one under the most threat. No one has come along and thre
atened Hazelwood or Caedmon, after all. I mean, that’s their thinking, not mine.”
Anger was starting to give me a headache. We’d had this conversation a number of times before, and it always came back to the coven refusing to help me, the very kind of thing I thought a coven was most tasked with doing.
“So Rosalie doesn’t want to do anything and is not going to do anything? Again? Even with these new developments?” I said through gritted teeth.
Josephine cleared her throat. “I do think she’s going to do something. Nobody at that meeting the other night liked what happened, so I don’t think they can stand around and do absolutely nothing. Be that as it may, I don’t think whatever’s going to be done will happen quickly. Certainly not as quickly as you would like it to,” she said.
“I was attacked today. I was also attacked last night. It keeps happening,” I said. “Now that Ellie and her crew don’t have a base of operations, they seem to be just hanging out somewhere in the woods, wandering around and coming after Mintwood, and me. Without Puddlewood to contain them they’re getting even bolder than they were before.”
“But neither time were the dark ghosts specifically coming for you,” said Scarlett. “The first time they came to the mayor’s house. Today they were simply in the basement, and you were lured there. I think the best option would be to lie low until Rosalie and my grandmother figure something out,” said Scarlett.
“I can’t just hide away in the farmhouse forever,” I said angrily. “That’s not a life. Also, if I stop fighting they’ll win, plain and simple. Ellie will take over the town whether I like it or not. The only thing keeping them from coming after Hazelwood is that I’m still defending Mintwood by being out and about and challenging them, and not hiding at the farmhouse. None of you are doing anything.”
I knew I sounded bitter, and Josephine and Scarlett looked guilty. Well, they should. There really wasn’t anything else for it. The coven was hanging me out to dry and letting me fend for myself against an increasingly strong enemy.
“You say that Rosalie doesn’t want to go to war. Fine. Guess what? I don’t either. It’s just that I don’t have a choice,” I said.
Mysterious Mintwood Murmurs Page 10