Witches of The Wood

by Skylar Finn

  Chewing on the cap of my pen, I finally added Murder?? Ghost??? Zoinks! and several negative symbols under the unofficial Mount Hazel column, which was getting pretty loaded.

  Loaded, but also full in a way my picture-perfect life had never been. Perfect on the page, empty in my heart. My heart of stone, where I lived alone. Maybe I had just slipped through the cracks somehow. Maybe Mount Hazel was my way out.

  11

  Peter’s Theory

  “So, Margo.”

  I clicked my pen in what I hoped was a business-like fashion, countering my earlier image of skulking around in my pajamas and cuddling her A&R guy. “How would you describe this album? How would you describe yourself now, versus the Margo Metal we knew before?”

  Margo crossed her legs and settled into her armchair beside the fireplace. It was lit today and roared with a happy glow. It seemed to reflect Margo’s expression, and I glanced at the fire uncomfortably. After my recent discoveries, things that had always been familiar no longer felt like what I’d once known—especially fire.

  “I’m so glad you asked me that, Samantha,” she said. “I’m going in a different direction on this album. I’m so revolted by those little tarts and cupcakes who try to stay seventeen forever. I don’t want to be thirty years old, recording songs about going to the club and chasing boys. You know?”

  I tried not to be distracted by my burgeoning hunger at the mention of tarts and cupcakes. “Would you say you’re going for a more mature sound?”

  “I wouldn’t use the word ‘mature,’” she said. “That sounds very staid and matronly to me. With this album, I want to go deeper. Explore deeper ideas and emotions than I have in my previous work.”

  “Would you say the main emphasis is still on your relationships? Or are you perhaps branching out more to other aspects of your life?”

  “Essentially, I’m trying to recover from certain choices I made and relationships I had in my life that were maybe not the best for me,” said Margo. “Which is, I think, something that a lot of women can relate to. It’s about branching out into other…areas of exploration, I guess you could say. Areas that have helped to heal and empower me. Ideas that have helped restore me to my previous self.”

  “Wow,” I said, impressed. “Okay, that’s great. I can really work with that, thank you.” Even though I’d asked to come here with the belief that Margo could resurrect her own career, the trappings of the manor and her bizarre, eccentric behavior had temporarily thrown me. I was surprised to find out how much her words resonated with me now. I could definitely relate to recovering from certain “relationships and choices.” Or trying to. I hoped some of her work would be about failing to do so, which would truly be relatable.

  “Can you elaborate more about the topics you’ve been exploring to help yourself heal?” I asked.

  She smiled a saintly, secretive smile. “Well, I’m going to be a little more opaque about that, honestly. It’s very personal to me and it’s a little controversial. They’re ideas that are very old, but still threatening to a lot of people, and I wouldn’t want to alienate my demographic. I have a strongly Christian fan base in the Midwest and I perform a lot out there, so I’m going to keep it a little bit tongue-in-cheek.”

  I was intrigued. What was she doing that would alienate her strongly Christian fan base? “Can you maybe unpack that a little bit for me?”

  Margo winked. “Mysticism, chanting. More of a gothic edge, perhaps? I’d really like you to cultivate an air of mystery around me. I’m not the Margo Metal they knew before. I’m an enigma, wrapped in a question mark.”

  An enigma wrapped in a question mark? Was she for real? It was the first time I’d ever worked with a pop star, and I made a mental note not to repeat the experience.

  “Okay,” I said, closing my notebook. “Well, you’ve given me a lot to work with here so far, so I’m going to come up with some notes and some ideas and we’ll go from there, okay?”

  “Sounds great,” she said with another holy little smile. She looked at me for a beat longer than seemed necessary before adding, “And Samantha?”

  “Hmm?” I made a show of putting my notebook away in my clutch as I got to my feet, but I was all ears.

  “You’re a very valuable person, and you’re worth a great deal,” she said seriously. “Please keep that in mind, regardless of anyone who might make you feel otherwise.”

  I glanced up, startled. Obviously, she was talking about Les, but it still came out of left field.

  “Okay, Margo,” I said slowly. “I will.”

  “I know you will.” Margo turned back to stare into the fire, evidently dismissing me, and I left the parlor, closing the goblin doors tightly behind me.

  “Isn’t she the best?” sighed Cameron, who appeared in the hallway beside me. I jumped.

  “She’s a really interesting character,” I agreed.

  He tossed his white scarf over his silver epaulet-decorated shoulder.

  “Aren’t we all, though?” he asked.

  At Risotto’s Coffee Emporium, the café buzzed with morning activity. Students from Mount Hazel Community College perched at the counter like birds on a wire, laptops open in front of them. Local business owners lined up for their caffeine fix before heading to work.

  I threw my jacket on a table near the door before I got in line, my laptop tucked under one arm. I looked out the window as the line moved forward, lost in thought.

  It seemed that I had a decision to make—a major one. Could I keep my new family in my life without adapting their views on the world, so to speak? It’s not every day you find out you can potentially control fire and see ghosts, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to. It was kind of like getting social media in college instead of as a teenager: if I would have had it in middle school, it would have been the most exciting thing in the world, but being introduced to it later in life just made me uncomfortable. I felt more aware of the possible consequences than the possibilities.

  Truthfully, I wasn’t that jazzed about the prospect of moving to an architectural disaster in the middle of nowhere with four women I just met yesterday, even if they were my family. I wouldn’t mind seeing them on holidays and texting them if I had a weird dream or something, but as for staying here and practicing my “craft”? Maybe it would validate the strange feelings I had all my life, but who would I be then? A witch? Get real. I had an MBA from Wharton. I didn’t have time to go out dancing in the moonlight, singing about Halloween, or whatever witches did.

  I know Tamsin said they didn’t do stuff like that, and her interior design game was on point, but still. Thirty years was long enough to develop a lot of habits and routines I didn’t particularly want to discard overnight.

  I was so preoccupied by my own thoughts I didn’t notice Peter behind the counter until I was practically on top of him. Which was disconcerting, to say the least.

  “Oh, it’s you,” I said, flustered. More flustered than I would have liked to admit.

  “Oh,” he said, smiling. “It’s you.”

  “Is there anywhere in this town you don’t work?” I mumbled, pretending to rummage through my bag for my wallet so I could avoid meeting his gaze. That was the problem with my Lists; they removed the thin layer of denial I used to operate fluidly in the world. (Hot bartender? +.)

  “I don’t work at the hardware store,” he said conversationally. “Or the pizza place, or the salon. Or the apothecary, because why does that exist? No one knows.”

  I felt offended on the shop’s behalf, and defensive towards Peter again.

  “Those are all perfectly acceptable businesses,” I said.

  “Yeah, but there’s very little gratuity involved in any of them,” he said. “Maybe the salon, but if I cut your hair, you definitely wouldn’t tip me at the end of it. Let me guess: large coffee, black. No cream, no sugar. In a to-go cup, even though you’re working here, so it stays hot for longer and you can leave without coming back to the counter.”

  “
Yes,” I said, startled. “How did you know?”

  He turned and pulled a paper cup from the stack behind him. “You strike me as the efficient type.”

  I didn’t think he meant it as an insult, but I felt insulted anyway. Efficiency was not exactly on par with being attractive, and if I was really being honest with myself—an activity I normally abhorred—I wanted Peter to find me attractive.

  “Here you go.” Peter set the steaming cup in front of me and winked. “On the house.”

  “Thanks,” I said, dropping a few crumpled bills in his tip jar.

  “No, thank you.” He turned away to wipe the wand of the espresso machine and I went over to my table with that stupid, happy, drugged feeling I try so hard to avoid in my daily life.

  Giving myself a little mental shake, I opened my laptop and connected to the Wi-Fi. Predictably, there was no password—thank you, small town life. I’m sure if I returned to the counter to inquire about the network, Peter would assume I wanted a second glimpse of his rippling biceps (or at least I imagined he would, because I secretly did).

  I opened a new tab and searched for Martha Hope. A slew of articles and videos popped up. I chose the top hit, which looked like the full video for the news coverage I saw in the living room, when I came back to the manor to find Cameron and Margo working on their kitten jigsaw puzzle.

  “A family prays and the town holds its breath,” the local anchor said, “as we search for the town choir’s star soloist.” The anchor, who wore a tailored red suit, held a microphone as she stood in front of a pleasant white colonial-style house with black shutters.

  “Local authorities are investigating the disappearance of Martha Hope, who vanished sometime after dusk on Friday evening.” The image cut to a shot of Martha, singing and dancing in what looked like a high school production of a musical, then a second iPhone video of Martha singing in the middle of a choir, holding a candle.

  “They say she has the voice of an angel,” intoned the anchor, looking solemn in front of what I assumed was Martha’s house. “An angel her family wants nothing more than to see returned. Police ask that anyone with any information contact the help line listed on the screen. Her parents have released a statement that there will be a substantial reward for anyone who assists in ensuring the safe return of Martha Hope.”

  The video cut to Martha’s school photo, followed by a screen of the help line number, then back to the news anchor in front of the house.

  “For Channel 6 Action News,” she said, “I’m Anne Braithwaite.”

  The video ended and I bit my lip. I felt terrible. This poor girl. I already knew she wasn’t going home. She was so young and had so much potential. What had happened to her?

  “This seems unrelated to your musical career,” said Peter, sliding into the seat across from me.

  I gave a little jump in my chair, recalling what Tamsin had said about my being oblivious. “So what?” I said defensively. “I’m watching the news. People do that occasionally, Peter.”

  “I am the news,” said Peter, which struck me as a little arrogant on his part. “My money’s on the vocal coach, personally.”

  “Vocal coach?” I said. “She had a vocal coach?”

  “Her parents were priming her for the big leagues,” he said, taking his hair down from its bun and tying it back up again. His hair was long, even longer than mine, and I tried not to get distracted from what he was saying. “They wanted her to record an album so they could shop it around to producers and try to launch her recording career. They have a lot of money by Mount Hazel standards, and they believed in the genius of their own child like anybody else.” He gave a little snort of contempt.

  “What’s with the past tense?” I asked. “She’s still just missing, right?”

  “After five days? No way is this girl just hiding out somewhere,” he said. “This is a good girl who comes home for dinner every night unless she’s stuck at school doing some extra special extracurricular. Pushy, controlling stage parents. Tethered to her phone all day, every day. No, if she’s gone, it’s because she’s gone. Like you said: how many cases of missing people end well?”

  I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Peter’s eyes drifted downward and I saw him note my discomfort. Peter, I realized, was true to his job: observant, and sharp as a whip. I would have to watch my step around him.

  “What makes you think it was the coach?” I asked. “What if it was the parents?”

  Peter chuffed again. “What, and kill the golden goose?” I winced and he modified his statement slightly. “I mean, I’m sure they loved her, but Martha was their ticket to a better life. The family savior. No way they’re gonna go crazy and bump her off. That coach, though? Middle-aged man, working with a beautiful, talented young girl? It’s an obvious formula. There’s something dark there.”

  “Are you going to get to the bottom of it?” My tone was light, but I was distressed. Peter’s theories were making me feel worse and worse about considering ignoring my abilities for the sake of preserving my own way of life. I kept seeing Martha in my mind, walking home from school or whatever she’d been doing, while some creep in a car slowly followed her, unaware.

  “I intend to,” he said. His gaze was intent and direct. It had no resemblance to his flirtatious expression the previous evening. Peter was someone who saw through people, and I currently had a great deal to hide.

  “Well, good luck with your story,” I said, gathering my things.

  “That’s it?” He sounded surprised. He also sounded practiced at sounding surprised. “You’re just gonna watch the news and bounce?”

  “I actually have a lot of work to do,” I said. “And it’s a little distracting in here.”

  “I could say the same thing,” he said. He smiled his charming smile. Little alarm bells were going off in my head. Get out, get out, get out.

  I shoved my laptop in my bag and my phone in my coat pocket. “It was nice seeing you again, Peter,” I said.

  “Nice seeing you,” he said. “Samantha Hale.” He watched me as I left the coffee shop. I could feel his eyes resting on me the entire time, in a very different way than he looked at me before.

  My neck prickled uncomfortably until I was around the corner and out of sight, where I rested against a building, suddenly short of breath. It had nothing to do with my burgeoning attraction to Peter, whom, I felt certain, I had never told my full name.

  12

  Margo’s New Assistant

  The bell over the door to the apothecary rang as I pushed it inward. There was no one behind the counter. I felt weird calling out in the empty store, so I started browsing to kill the time until Tamsin or Minerva—or my mother—appeared.

  I went down a dark aisle, barely lit by weak winter sunlight. I glanced at a row of books on the shelf: Black Magicks, Blood Magick, Blood Rites, Necromancy. This stuff looked seriously dark and spooky. I selected the one labeled Necromancy in swirly gold writing and pulled it from the shelf, opening it to a random page. I immediately wished I hadn’t.

  A graphic illustration detailed a ghoulish corpse with its jaw stretched wide. I stared at its bottomless eyes, which felt like they were pulling me into the page.

  “Samantha?”

  I dropped the book, one hand flying to my heart.

  My mother stood at the end of the gloomy aisle, regarding me with concern. “What are you doing in this section?” she asked me.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “What is this section?”

  “Dark magic. Old magic.” She studied the row behind me. “Come out of there before you blow us all to kingdom come.”

  “I could do that?” I said, startled, quickly fleeing the evil sorcery portion of the store.

  “You could, maybe. Normal people couldn’t. And when I say normal people, I mean normal witches.”

  “About that.” I sat at the stool at the counter while she went behind it and begin rearranging things on the shelves. “I’m glad that I found you. And I want us
to have a relationship. I’m just not sure that this…this lifestyle is for me.”

  I didn’t know if that was the right word for it. I didn’t think it was. Lifestyle made it sound like being vegan or going to the gym on a regular basis. Not blowing people up with black magick and getting sucked into books about dead people.

  “I never assumed that it would be.” Her back was to me and her tone was neutral. “As livid as I was, and am, toward your father for taking you away from me, maybe it was fairer to give you a choice. I’m not sure you would have had one if you had stayed here.” She turned and smiled at me sadly. “It might have been a little more unavoidable.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “It would have just occurred naturally, like it did with Tamsin?”

  “Our house was built on a powerful, sacred ground,” she said. “Magic flows through it the way it flows through us. It would have been in you and all around you. That kind of power in an already powerful person…” She bit her lip. “Maybe it was fate, that your father is so ordinary. Not ordinary,” she amended at my look of indignation. “But regular. He gave you a normal life, which you never could have had here. I’m not sure any of us could have protected you.”

  “From what?” I asked with dread. “Do I have to fight an evil witch with powers equal to mine?”

  “No,” she said, looking bewildered. “Why would you have to do that?”“Never mind,” I said. “Why would you need to protect me?”

  “From yourself,” she said. “That kind of power…it’s hard to stay good, with that kind of temptation within you at all times. If I had that kind of power, I could have stopped your father from taking you away. I would have stopped him with that kind of power. Who knows, I might have even hurt him.” She sighed. “And I would have felt justified doing so.”