Witches of The Wood

by Skylar Finn

  “Wow, Peter, how feminist of you,” said Tamsin sarcastically from the backseat. Sam, you need to watch this video.

  “On the contrary,” he said. “I think the most effective society is one in which everyone is valued and participates equally.”

  Why, what’s on it? It was dizzying, trying to communicate with Tamsin this way and listen to Peter at the same time. Like trying to stream two shows simultaneously and pay equal attention to both.

  You’ll see, she thought darkly.

  “Can I send the video to myself?” I asked. “For Margo’s social media.”

  “Sure,” Peter said, and Tamsin handed the phone to me.

  Then he’ll have your number! thought Tamsin gleefully. Her teenager’s ability to vacillate between drama and romance was staggering. It was also making me tired.

  “So how are you and Tamsin related, exactly?” he asked. “I’ve never seen you before. Or heard about you. You just kind of appeared.”

  From the backseat, Tamsin sighed. It’s like watching a Nicholas Sparks movie, she thought. Live, in real time.

  “I never knew my mom,” I said, ignoring Tamsin. “Messy divorce. Angry dad. I only just met her yesterday, when I came here to represent Margo.”

  A woman with a dark past, intoned Tamsin. A man with a bright future. Could he save her from herself?

  “Pretty heavy,” said Peter. There was a respectful silence while he took this in before speaking again. “My relationship with my dad is a little complicated, too. He expected me to take over the bar when he retired. Still does. He thinks journalism is a hobby, not a career.”

  Or would they save each other?

  STFU, I thought.

  “That must have been tough,” I said aloud.

  “It is what it is,” he said diplomatically. “We all have our row to sow.”

  I saw Peter shirtless once, Tamsin said. She was really abusing her telepathy privileges. He was washing his car outside the bar when I rode by on my bike. You should really consider going home with him.

  “Tamsin!” I accidentally said out loud. “Stop that.”

  Peter glanced over at me. “Did she say something?”

  I laughed weakly. “I’ve only known her for two days, but it’s like I can hear her thinking,” I said. I assumed he wouldn’t take it literally.

  “Girls are weird,” said Peter. He pulled to a stop and parked. I glanced up to see the cuckoo house, shrouded in its customary mysterious fog. “I believe this is your stop.”

  Tamsin got out of the truck and I followed, giving her a hug. She gave me a hard pinch on the elbow and I bit back a squeal of pain.

  “Will you call me when you get home? After you watch the video?” she said pointedly. After you get back from sleeping with Peter?

  I’m not going to sleep with Peter! “Yes, I’ll call you.”

  “Okay. I might be right or I might be totally wrong. But I have a theory.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me in the car?” I asked. “As much as I enjoyed your movie trailer for my life.”

  “It would take too long to explain. And I don’t know what the range on that thing is, so just call me like a regular person.” She tapped my skull as she said, ‘that thing.’ “Do you have my number?”

  I handed her my phone and she entered it. She hugged me again, without pinching me, then turned and disappeared into the fog.

  15

  The Only Cure is Common Sense

  There was an awkward silence when I got back into the car. I didn’t realize how much I relied on Tamsin’s bubbly presence to diffuse any tension or nervousness I felt around Peter.

  “So,” he said finally, after several excruciating minutes. “You needed to get some aspirin?”

  “Oh, yeah. Right.” I’d forgotten about my earlier excuse to ride along so I could talk to Tamsin. “I’m good, actually. I think I drank enough water.”

  “Okay. I’ll just take you back then.”

  My mind involuntarily flashed on his apartment above the bar, and I shook myself from the thought. “Okay. Thanks.”

  “What was Tamsin so worked up about, during dinner?” Peter asked. “I thought she was going to jump up from the table and fly right through the window.”

  It was an interesting choice of words. I wondered if Peter knew, or maybe just suspected, Tamsin’s secret. I doubted it. He was probably just being his usual annoyingly observant self.

  “I don’t know.” I frowned as I gazed out the window at the dark scenery that flashed by the car window: bare tree limbs and empty road. “She said she needed to talk to me about something.”

  “Teenagers.” Peter smiled. “Everything’s the end of the world. I kind of miss that feeling, you know?”

  “Why?” I asked, bewildered. “I don’t.”

  “The feeling that everything’s so imperative, because your emotions are always so poignant? It was great. Everything mattered.”

  “Everything was terrible,” I said.

  “No, everything was exciting,” he said. “Seeing the person you liked was like the most epic thing ever. You could spend the whole day anticipating the encounter.”

  In the darkness of the truck, I blushed. I pawed at my hair, using it to cover my face, so he wouldn’t notice.

  “Once you’re an adult, all the feelings get replaced by responsibilities and the sense that no matter how much you’re doing, it’s never enough,” he said. “I’d love to be that age again, just for a day. Just to remember how it felt.”

  I didn’t. I remembered all too clearly how it felt. I never left the house because I was always studying. When I did, it was for SAT prep courses and college application coaching. I constantly worried about my grades and whether or not I was good enough. I usually concluded that I wasn’t. My life was an endless sea of calendars, schedules, Post-It notes, and highlighters. I had no life.

  Peter pulled to a stop, and I glanced up to see the manor outlined in the moonlight. It looked exceptionally creepy tonight.

  “So, what’s the verdict?” asked Peter.

  I looked over at him, confused. Did he mean about us?

  “Is it haunted?” he asked, and I felt exponentially relieved I hadn’t said anything dumb.

  “Not that I’ve noticed,” I said. “Only by Margo.”

  “She’s an interesting one,” he said. He got out of the truck and I watched him, puzzled, as he walked around the hood to my side of the vehicle. What was he doing?

  He opened the door for me.

  “Oh,” I said, taking his hand as he helped me out. “Thanks.”

  He looked at me, amused. “What, has nobody ever opened a door for you before?”

  “Frankly, no.” I was so taken aback by the gesture I didn’t know what else to say, so I didn’t say anything.

  “I see.” He glanced up at the house, frowning. I would have given my eye teeth to know what he was thinking. And then suddenly, I did.

  I saw a series of images flicker in his mind: Les, meeting him in the hallway and glaring at him. The dinner from Peter’s perspective, most of which Les had spent staring at me—which I hadn’t noticed, but evidently Peter had. And finally, an image of Peter punching Les in the face.

  Startled, I exited his mind to see him staring at me with real concern.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “You zoned out for a minute there. I’m starting to wonder if there was something wrong with that take-out. Everyone’s been acting off all night.”

  “Probably just the alcohol,” I said.

  Peter walked me to the front door. “I hope you have a lovely night,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I said, still confused. No one, over the course of the last year, had ever wished me a lovely night. “You, too.” I watched him as he walked down the front steps towards his truck.

  I kept waiting for him to turn into an asshole, but he never did.

  The house was dark. I assumed everyone had retreated to their respective rooms, and I went to the kitchen to
make herbal tea. I opened the door and jumped about ten feet.

  Seated amidst the carnage from earlier in the evening, between the empty bottles and duck carcasses (some ambitious soul had managed to sweep all the broken glass from the table), was Les.

  “Hello,” he said formally. “Did you have a nice evening?”

  “It was fine.” I went to the cabinet and pulled out a mug. I remembered my grandmother’s earlier remonstrance that I barely knew how to make tea and narrowed my eyes. I hated being told what I couldn’t do.

  “Who is that guy?” Les said abruptly. He was normally smoother at transitions than this.

  “He’s a guy.” I didn’t turn around. I didn’t feel like I owed him any explanation. When had he ever given me one? “I mean, what do you really want to know here, Les?”

  “You’re obviously in love with him.” He got to his feet and started to pace, tugging at his hair until it stood up in all directions. “I mean, when did that happen? How? Where was I?”

  I stared at him, the empty mug dangling from my hand. “What are you talking about? I barely know this person. I just met him yesterday.”

  “I can feel it. There’s so much tension between you and that jerk, you could cut it with a knife. I mean, did you forget about me that fast? Am I that replaceable?”

  I was shocked to see that Les was genuinely upset. I don’t think I’d ever seen Les express anything remotely resembling sorrow, aside from the time his DVR failed to record a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders marathon.

  “What do you care?” I asked, setting the mug on the counter, my tea forgotten. “Les, you have like nine other people you could be getting this kind of attention from. Why do you need mine?”

  “Three,” he corrected me. He actually corrected me, like I was inexcusably mistaken.

  “That I know of,” I shot back immediately, and he flinched as if I’d slapped him.

  “Sammy, I don’t care about any of them!” he exclaimed. “Well, I mean, I care about them, in a superficial sense, but I’m not in love with them. The only one I love is you.”

  I laughed in his face. “Is that a joke? Is this how you treat people you love?”

  “I like the attention! Okay? Is that what you want to hear? Besides, you were always better than me. There was something about you that was never going to be attainable, and it made me insecure. They need me; they don’t want me. You wanted me. But you don’t need me. And I guess you don’t want me anymore, either.” He looked unbearably sad, and I almost felt sorry for him. Until I remembered that I had a functioning brain.

  “Is that how you really feel?”

  I looked up and saw Bridget framed in the kitchen door, staring at Les. She looked crestfallen. “You don’t love me? You just like the attention?”

  Les looked at her, horrorstruck. This was not his night.

  “You know what? I don’t need you, either,” said Bridget quietly. She turned and disappeared from the doorway.”

  “What a bastard you are.” I shook my head. “I don’t know what I ever saw in you. You’re like a virus that only infects women. You’re a plague. I guess the only cure is common sense.” My pocket vibrated. Tamsin.

  “I’m going now,” I said, before echoing his earlier words. “Have yourself a nice evening.”

  I left Les sitting at the table, shell-shocked, as I went out to the patio to answer my phone.

  I hoped this wouldn’t affect our ability to work together.

  “Sam? It’s me,” said Tamsin. I could tell she was barely able to contain her excitement.

  “I’m aware of that, Tamsin.” I glanced through the door into the kitchen and wondered how awkward it would be if I went back inside for a glass of wine. Very, I concluded. I resigned myself to going without. “What’s up?”

  Tamsin blew out an exasperated, impatient sigh. “Sam, I get that you’re new to the game and everything, but are you seriously blind?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, annoyed.

  “Hmm, I don’t know, let’s see: have you noticed anything…strange about Margo since you got there?”

  I thought back on the last couple of days. Everything was strange about Margo.

  “Yeah, several things. Now that you mention it. Why?”

  “What were they?”

  I went over it in my memory as I recounted the list to Tamsin: the newt eyes for her bath; her tendency to wax and wane like the moon, her energy levels varying widely from day to day; the creepy house her entire entourage refused to stay in and her inability to keep said entourage employed, her ravenous appetite. Her new and oddly hypnotic music, compared to her previous sound.

  “I had my suspicions,” she said. “Before I even went over there. That’s why I wanted to go. But when I saw her, and I saw what she was doing…”

  “What was she doing?”

  “That wasn’t a song. She was casting a spell. A seriously dark one, by the sound of it.”

  “A spell?” I said slowly. “But that would mean…”

  “Margo Metal isn’t just the worst pop star of all time,” said Tamsin. “She’s a witch.”

  16

  Trouble Afoot

  DJ Swann’s career was on its way out.

  The once-popular producer was the force behind summer hits such as Ferrari Xmas’s first single, My Jawn is Fire (How Bout Yours?). His image decorated the sides of SEPTA buses, declaring DJ SWANN IS FIRE! shortly before his show on Sirius debuted—only to fail as the result of his politically incorrect brand of humor.

  Firestorms erupted on Twitter, storms even the most experienced PR rep (his was a former White House employee) couldn’t put out. When his social media public flogging was over, DJ Swann was untouchable: in the opposite way he’d once been.

  He was fire no more.

  He felt it appropriate, if somewhat karmically terrible, that the best gig he could get was producing Margo Metal’s comeback album (assuming it amounted to that). Producing a washed-up has-been pop star’s would-be comeback was hardly his ideal project, but he could no longer afford to make such distinctions. Literally.

  He lived well during the heyday of his success, becoming accustomed to a life of leisure he found he could no longer afford. His five-million-dollar Main Line mansion’s mortgage was rapidly debilitating his once-flush savings account. But to move would be to admit failure, and he couldn’t stand that. Better to take one last chance before admitting defeat and liquidating his assets.

  DJ Swann had disliked Margo Metal when she was popular because he felt that her sound was suburban and bubblegum. But as someone once said, beggars couldn’t be choosers. If he could succeed at making even Margo Metal sound street, his cred might be re-established—eternally. He might succeed in engineering a comeback of his own.

  Margo had only recently fallen into obscurity, disappearing for reasons unknown. No scandal had plagued her. There were vague rumors that heartbreak had creatively incapacitated her for so long she became irrelevant in the circadian life cycle of the average pop star, but nothing was ever conclusively proved. She still had enough money and clout to rent this creepy house in the woods, a place DJ Swann strongly disliked.

  DJ Swann had a weakness, although it wasn’t one that came up in the booth or at the mixing board. His weakness was that he believed in ghosts.

  He had spent his childhood in New Orleans, which he considered the most haunted city in the country (besides maybe DC). He grew up in a shotgun shack in the Lower 9th where his grandmother told him tales about hoodoo, voodoo, and everything in between—stories that had made him deeply superstitious and more afraid of the darkness he couldn’t see than the violence of the city that occurred in full view. He and his friends used to dare each other to sneak into the cemetery and see who could stay the longest without running. DJ Swann never won. He never even tried. He refused to enter cemeteries on principle.

  As a result of his upbringing, he became deeply intuitive, reading people the way librarians read books. There was something
weird about Margo, but he was getting paid a handsome sum to make her sound good, so he was less inclined to question it than he normally would have been in more successful times.

  She made him uncomfortable, for reasons he couldn’t fully pinpoint, but he chose to ignore it for the sake of a check. He’d never been in this position before. It kept him awake at night.

  Tonight was no exception. DJ Swann tossed and turned in the enormous old sleigh bed off the kitchen (probably the servant’s quarters, he thought darkly to himself), trying to imagine how he could make Margo listenable to anyone with ears. Auto Tune, he reasoned, wouldn’t be enough. Taking her voice off the track and replacing it with someone else’s entirely might be. But unfortunately, that wasn’t an option.

  DJ Swann sat up in the darkness, frowning. He heard a sound, one different than the usual creaks and groans of the old house settling that alarmed him on a nightly basis. He hated the country. He couldn’t fall asleep without the sounds of traffic, and the eerie animal noises from the woods were getting to him, let alone staying in a house that made noises at night like it was alive.

  The sounds he heard on this particular evening were voices. Chanting. It was rhythmic, and DJ Swann wondered briefly if Margo was experimenting with a new sound. She said she was when he had arrived at the manor, but if DJ Swann had a dollar for every artist who claimed they were “experimenting with a new sound” in order to reinvent themselves, he wouldn’t be in the position he was now.

  Whatever it was, it was probably awful. DJ Swann rolled over and covered his face with his pillow to block out the sound. Knowing Margo, it was something weird. He’d have to talk her out of it the next morning, he was sure. She would dig her heels in, obstinate, and would waste half a day—

  He sat up. The chanting was growing louder, increasing in intensity. He was starting to get an unpleasant crawling feeling that started at the nape of his neck and worked its way down his spine. The Sense, his grandmother called it. A lot of people had it, she said. Most folks just chose to ignore it. DJ Swann never had.