by Mara Webb
“Are you really my cousin? Were you? I don’t know which tense to use,” I said, my mouth flickering slightly at the edges into a gentle grin as I considered that I was conversing with a ghost.
“Present tense,” she laughed. “I am your cousin. I will explain everything to you as best as I can, just not tonight because I have a thing.” That made me laugh as I realized the dead woman in front of me had a better social life than I did.
“You said you want my help?” I finally asked.
“Yes, I need you to find out what happened to me. I remember being on a boat, or I was walking somewhere... the details are fuzzy, but I shouldn’t be dead right now and I need you to find out who killed me.”
“You think you were murdered? Miller said—” I began.
“Never mind what that human thinks, I need you to find out the truth because I can guarantee that the police have gotten it wrong,” Greta interrupted.
“He said your car was beaten up on a mountain road, you must have died from the cold after you got out of the car,” I explained.
“I don’t crash cars; I don’t accidentally die on mountains. The cold is only problematic near the peak, do the police think I accidentally staggered up to the peak after a car crash? How do they explain this?” she said, pulling her shirt down at the front and revealing a bullet hole through her chest. I gasped.
“You were shot?”
“Smarter than you look,” she teased. “They will find the wound when they look at my body at the morgue, or wherever they’ve taken me, but I need you to find out who did this. If treaties have broken down, then...”
I tuned out as I thought back to the graffiti on the window that Kate had pointed at. She had spoken about a treaty then too. “Hang on, you said Miller was human,” I said. I hadn’t dwelled on it at the time, but it was a strange turn of phrase.
“Yes, he is, and we aren’t. You’re a witch just like everyone else in the family, Sadie.”
6
I said nothing for a minute, maybe more.
By the time I finally thought of something to say, Greta had faded into the air and I was alone with a million questions and comments and no one to talk to.
In different circumstances, being called a witch is nothing to give much mental energy to. I’ve probably used it as an insult a thousand times. Anytime a woman had been unpleasant around me I have used the word in my head. When a man is unpleasant, well... stronger language is used, let’s put it that way.
Was there a chance that Greta was using ‘witch’ as an insult? Had I demonstrated some personality trait that warranted the description and caused her to think I would be a good investigator for her murder? Could I really dismiss what she’d said, when the words had come out of a ghost’s mouth?
Standing in the hallway I watched the dimming light change the angle of shadows. The air was suffocatingly warm and a bead of sweat rolling down my forehead made me wipe at my face, bringing my attention back to where I was. I needed to open some windows, or find the AC. That might have been something useful to speak to Greta about, but she’d gone.
I knew, with certainty, that when I woke up tomorrow morning this would all be over. There was no way this wasn’t related to my exhaustion. I just had to play out the next hour at least so that I could try and get into this time zone properly, otherwise I’d have jetlag for days.
The dinner plan needed re-thinking as I’d thrown the sauce all over the kitchen tiles. I delicately opened the door again, wondering if Greta would make another sudden appearance. The room was empty. I stepped around the cheese explosion and found a cupboard full of instant noodles and other ‘just-add-water' meals.
As the kettle boiled, I cleaned the floor and walked around the ground floor of the house opening windows. The breeze began to swim through the rooms, catching the wispy hairs around my face and bringing my body temperature down. I didn’t feel as sweaty now. On my window opening quest I had located two air conditioning units and switched them both on.
I returned to the kitchen to pour hot water into the noodles and then ventured up the staircase to find the bedroom. I was so busy looking for the AC that I barely noticed what the room looked like until the cool air was blowing.
Downstairs had felt much older in terms of decoration, but the bedroom was modern and fresh. Floor to ceiling windows on one wall gave a view of the ocean and the white curtains to cover that window were wide enough to cover the entire wall. I imagined the salty air whipping the fabric on a warm, sunny morning and thought that it must be so relaxing to lie in bed listening to the water kiss the shore.
The pillows on the bed looked so plump and inviting that I dived onto the mattress and lay on my back to bask in the fancy new room I could call my own. My house back in Virginia didn’t have a scrap of style like this. My ex had owned a lot of furniture before we moved in together, so everything was his. Damaged, water-stained tables and faded fabrics filled our house, yet now I would wake up here. Bliss.
All I had to do was push all thoughts of ghosts out of my mind, avoid focusing on the fact that this place might be haunted by someone claiming to be related to me. It felt like catfishing but from beyond the grave, I wonder if they’ve made an MTV episode about that yet.
The window was east facing. This meant that I was watching the sky dance through the pinks and oranges as the sun set on the other side of the island. I had forgotten all about my noodles. The purr of the air conditioning unit was gentle, the soft white noise lulled me to sleep and I found myself dreaming of Greta.
It wasn’t a dream about anything that had happened in the cemetery, but rather just a view of her behind the counter at The Sand Witch preparing food. I was sat at a table in the far corner by a window and could see the swarms of folk lining up across the beach waiting to get in. My cafes back home had never reached this level of success, the thought of that much foot traffic was intimidating.
By the time I woke up the sun was already high enough to suggest it was mid-morning. Perhaps my empty stomach had roused me, it was then that I remembered that I hadn’t eaten. I pulled the blankets up a little higher over my shoulders and nestled in deeper within the pillows. I don’t remember when I had gotten undressed and under the sheets, but I was glad that I had.
The bright sky promised another warm day and I tried to think if I had packed anything that was appropriate for the island weather. Effie had said she would ease me into the café over the next few days so perhaps I would have time to go onto the main street and pick up some clothes and shoes, I needed shorts at the very least.
As I sat up, I began to hear voices, muffled conversations and laughter. Was there a group of people in the house? I had flashbacks to a memory of Greta, a nightmare about a ghost. I must have slept for ten or eleven hours and my brain had stuffed all sorts of ideas into my dreams. It was no surprise that Greta had been involved after the cemetery.
If someone had broken into my home, then it seemed they sounded happy about it. I brought myself onto my feet and noticed that I was in a pair of silk, monogrammed pajamas. I caught sight of myself in a floor length mirror and gasped at the outfit.
I ignored the voices in order to step closer to my reflection, tapping my fingertips against the embroidered, ‘S’ and ‘A’. Sadie Alden. My nightwear usually came in the form of some cutesy little shorts and t-shirt combo from a grocery store clothing section. These looked expensive, ignoring the embroidery which obviously added to the cost.
Where had these come from? When did I get changed into these? The shock of the pajamas faded as the laughter grew louder. I considered unplugging the bedside lamp to use as a weapon against intruders, but a part of me suspected that I was misinterpreting what was happening and I didn’t want to embarrass myself.
Creeping down the stairs, the voices didn’t change in volume. I wasn’t getting much closer to the sound of the noise. That’s when the most obvious explanation for it occurred to me. I could hear people in the café through the walls of the
house. I found a clock in the kitchen and saw that it was approaching lunchtime. Why hadn’t I heard any of the sounds earlier? Why hadn’t they woken me? I must have been sleeping like the dead.
I spotted my noodles on the counter and smiled as I remembered my lazy dinner idea, one that I hadn’t even finished. I thought about making breakfast for myself using the food that Effie had acquired for me, but with the café right there, I felt compelled to go and try the food that was now associated with my name.
I ran back upstairs to change out of my strange silks and into something a little more appropriate for public viewing. I spotted my suitcase in the bedroom and unzipped it to look at the sea of clothes that would melt me in the heat. I found a spaghetti strap cami and slipped that on. I turned to open the closet out of curiosity and found row after row of shorts, skirts and dresses. Checking the labels, I could see that they were all in my size.
I had a vision of putting something on from this closet and having everyone in the café gawp in disgust at the new woman in town wearing Greta’s clothes. ‘How distasteful’ they would all say. Everything in the closet still had the tags on. They hadn’t been worn. They may still be Greta’s, but they were brand new and unworn. Something inside gave me the green light to pick up a pair of pale green cotton shorts and pull them up over my legs.
I looked in the mirror once again and, yeah, the outfit worked. I felt like I sensed something behind me, a cool touch on my shoulder, but there was nothing there. I found a small pair of scissors in the bathroom draw and cut the tags off, pulled my hair up into a loose bun high on top of my head and tugged a few strands down in front of my ears. I liked the slightly-worn look with my hair, nothing too slick.
I was almost running, the speed of my feet hurrying down the stairs and along the corridor helped me reach the door that connected the house and the café in no time. Would it be okay for me to wander in through the kitchen? Well I owned the place now, so I guess so. I reached for the handle, briefly recalled that I had been given a key for this door but not remembering where I put it and found that it was unlocked anyway.
I assumed Effie must have unlocked the door when she arrived this morning so that I could wander in when I woke up. The thought of hanging out with her or her sister again gave me a giddy feeling, the sparks of a new friendship.
The kitchen was a tornado of two women spinning around each other with utensils in each hand and multiple plates and bowls being loaded with a variety of foods. I couldn’t see orders written anywhere and tried to see if there was a digital system in place, there was no way they could just be remembering everything.
“Good morning!” they both sang in unison. They didn’t even look up from their tasks. It was a beautifully choreographed dance that they had clearly perfected over years through work in this kitchen and I was fascinated to learn how they did it.
“Sadie, come this way,” Effie yelled from the kitchen door. I hoped she wasn’t planning to have me don an apron and start serving customers before I’d had chance to eat. “You have a table over there, number eight. I’ll bring your order over next; I just have to ring this customer through the register.”
I felt instant relief, but also confusion as I hadn’t placed an order yet. I hadn’t actually seen a copy of the menu, nor could I see one anywhere in the café. I walked over to my table and had a flashback to the dream in which I had been watching Greta work, this had been exactly where I had sat. Creepy.
I lowered myself onto the wooden chair and was almost immediately struck by a man entering the building, his face was like a beacon calling me to stare. His tousled brown hair bounced slightly as he walked, the dark black glasses framing his face like a picture. He was carrying a laptop bag over his shoulder and I couldn’t help but notice his form fitting shirt on his slim frame.
He must be a runner; his arms were slightly muscular but not overly so and... oh wait. He was walking in my direction and then took a seat opposite me at the table. I gulped nervously as I doubted he had missed how much I was looking at him as he approached.
“Sadie? I’m Oliver,” he said, extending a hand to shake mine.
7
In a world where I have moved to a remote set of islands, I supposed it was completely normal for a guy this attractive to be speaking to me. He had a drop of Irish in his accent that was the undercurrent melody that my ears had zoned in on. It seemed I had stopped listening to the words he was saying completely.
“Sadie are you okay?” he asked.
“I am, Oliver. Never better. You know, I haven’t eaten in possibly two days so I might be about to slip into delirium,” I smiled. “Based on last night, there’s a chance I’m already there.”
Effie came over with the tallest, thickest stack of pancakes that I had ever seen. I hadn’t ordered this, but it was exactly what I needed. Effie shot me a look that suggested she had known that this was the perfect breakfast and shimmied away to the cash register.
“I’m sorry to hear that. I suppose the situation with Greta put you off your food,” he sighed.
“How do you know about that?” I asked, lowering my knife and fork in a swift movement and locking eyes with him. Had I been sleepwalking again? Blabbering to one and all about my ghost encounter and humiliating myself on my first day here, that would be just typical of me.
“You found her in the cemetery, no? News travels fast around here, well, gossip travels fast. Hard to say what’s true and what isn’t,” he laughed. The cemetery. Of course, I had almost forgotten that I had discovered a body, somehow it wasn’t the issue pressing on my mind the most.
Seeing a ghost was feeling less like a dream now, part of me seemed more certain that it had really happened and that was concerning.
“I did, yes. I was with Kate and we were checking on the cemetery because it had flooded,” I recounted. My speech was slow as I was taking large pauses in between words to add another huge forkful of pancake into my mouth.
“Well I work for the island paper and I was hoping to get a short statement about your ordeal, if that’s okay. I called earlier and Effie said she’d spoken to you about it,” he explained. I looked over at Effie and she blew me a kiss. Was she pranking me? Was this a blind date? I was still out of sorts with the time difference and the new hot weather, sticking a handsome man in front of me was a fun way to shake things up.
“That’s fine,” I agreed. We spoke for a few minutes about the storm and my reactions to the harsh introduction to island life. He was funny, his questions caught me off guard and his charm was undeniable. It did feel as though the discussion about the body discovery had ended and we were moving on to other topics, though he kept taking notes. Was I still be interviewed?
He raised his right hand, palm facing outward to the room. “Do you mind?” he asked. I stared at him blankly, unsure of what he was asking. With a smile, he did something that I couldn’t explain. I stared at the room and watched in confusion as half of the customers appeared frozen in time.
“What?” I muttered, mostly to myself. He grinned broadly and wrote something down.
“I take it that’s your first time witnessing magic?” he asked. “What are your initial thoughts?”
My mouth opened and closed a few times before I built up the courage to speak. “My thoughts are that it’s not kind to set me up like this. Is this how you treat everyone that moves here? I have left everything and everyone I know to start my life over in this place and you all think it’s funny to trick me? I hate pranks, I hate people who are only flirting with you for a joke and I...”
I was on my feet now. My chair had screeched along the floor as it moved back to accommodate my legs, I was about to storm off and Oliver stood up and grabbed my hand. I felt at ease all of a sudden and I suspected that his beautiful face was being used as a weapon against me, that must be why Effie sent him, right? He was too pretty for me to suspect of trying to play tricks.
“Sadie, I’m sorry. I don’t understand what I’ve said or don
e,” he said. His voice was loaded with an apologetic tone and I pulled my hand away. Effie was looking over at us and all of her jovial spirit had been replaced with a serious expression. She marched across the café floor, reached an arm behind me and ushered me in the direction of the kitchen.
“You, step to it,” she barked at Oliver. He clawed at his belongings on the table and hurried to catch up to us. I was pulled into the kitchen and the chef twirling was still going on. Effie pushed open the door to my house, pulled me into the dining room, waited for Oliver to join us, then closed the door.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“I want to start with an apology on behalf of all of us, clearly we’ve been in a freefall over the Greta issue and you have gotten caught up in the absence of organization and leadership,” Effie huffed.
“When you say, ‘Greta issue’, what are you referring to?” I said, squinting suspiciously at Effie and giving Oliver a quick sideways glance.
“Her death, the fact that she apparently made plans to go to some dunes party last night when she should have been explaining!” Effie was waving her arms about to emphasize her frustration. I didn’t understand what was happening.
“Well Greta died, so her schedule being interrupted isn’t her fault,” I interrupted.
“I forget how much you don’t know. Let me put this bluntly, just for now, and I will soften the blow retrospectively, okay?” Effie suggested. She seemed to look over at Oliver as if seeking his approval of the plan. He nodded. “You’re a witch, did Greta get that far?”
I cupped my face on either side with my hands, my fingertips resting against my closed eyelids as I tried to think of a calm response.
“Is this part of some role play murder mystery game? Fine, I’ll play along,” I smiled. “Yes, the person playing ‘Greta’s ghost’ did tell me that I was a witch. I didn’t realize the budget people put aside for these events, the special effects you had on her were really good. It looked like she walked through a table at one point, that was honestly pretty scary,” I laughed.