“He’s way too good for her.” She pressed her lips together. “You know who knows a lot about Salem?”
“No. Who?”
“Helen Archer.”
I was taken aback. “Stormy’s great-grandmother?” Stormy was a witch from the neighboring town we’d met several weeks before. She was just coming into her powers and her great-grandmother, an old acquaintance of Aunt Tillie’s, was in town to give her a helping hand.
“Do you think she would know about these murders?”
“It couldn’t hurt to ask.”
“I guess that means I’m heading to Shadow Hills.” I stood and grabbed my purse. “Do you want to come with me?”
“Are you kidding? I’m torturing Willa today. Nothing short of wild hell hounds or Shemar Moore and a box of candy could tear me away from that.”
“Okay, but be careful. You could get arrested in those leggings if you come across the wrong uniform.”
“Oh, I’m counting on it.” She winked at me. “I’ll make sure to drive Margaret and Willa insane before I let them nab me and call your mother.”
That’s when the final piece slid into place. “You’re going for all three of them today. It’s like the torture hat trick.”
“You’re smarter than you look.”
11
Eleven
It was hard for me to admit as I drove toward Shadow Hills, but I would’ve preferred Aunt Tillie had come with me. She was a badass witch. Sure, she spent most of her time using her powers to torture her enemies, but she was also good in a pinch when the battle got serious.
Seeing the ghosts in the window made me think the battle was going to get serious ... and fast.
The thing is, most people were starting to look at me as the badass witch of the family because of my growing necromancer powers. It wasn’t sitting well with Aunt Tillie, though she didn’t come right out and say it. I was slowly taking over as the magical center of the Winchester family, a fact that frightened me while also bolstering my ego.
That meant it was up to me to figure out what was going on. I appeared to be the only one seeing the ghosts. It had to be a byproduct of my necromancer powers. But how?
My phone rang as I parked in the lot of Two Broomsticks Gas & Grill. The quaint restaurant was a throwback to a time long forgotten. Charles Archer, the owner, had decided that modernizing wasn’t necessary. He relied on good food and an outlandish attitude to draw people in. The regulars were happy with what he had to offer and he did a brisk business.
I’d been to the restaurant once or twice, so I took a moment to scan it when I walked through the door. To my relief, Stormy was delivering food to one of the tables. She primarily worked morning shifts, so I was hopeful she was almost done. I wanted her with me when I talked to her great-grandmother.
“Hey.” A friendly male voice drew my attention to the right and I found Hunter Ryan, Stormy’s boyfriend and Chief Terry’s protégé, sitting at the counter nursing a mug of coffee.
“Hey.” I returned his smile and climbed onto a stool next to him. “Are you here for Stormy?”
He smiled and nodded, sheepish. “Always. What about you?”
“Actually, I was hoping she would take me to visit her great-grandmother.”
Confusion washed across Hunter’s features. He was tall — a good two inches taller than Landon — and lean. His hair was close-cropped and neat, and he was always friendly. I liked him a great deal even though I’d only recently started to spend time with him thanks to my association with Stormy.
“Why do you want to talk to her?” Hunter looked horrified at the thought. “You know she’s ... difficult.”
The way he said the word had me battling back laughter. “I’ve met her,” I reminded him. “She was at the inn a couple of days ago with Aunt Tillie. They spent the entire afternoon in the greenhouse with Aunt Tillie’s wine.”
Hunter’s expression darkened. “I remember. Stormy had to drive her home and basically carry her into her grandparents’ house. She’s a lot of work.”
“Yeah, until you’ve spent a week with Aunt Tillie when she’s on a revenge kick against Mrs. Little, you don’t know what real work is. Stormy’s great-grandmother is the Junior League compared to my great-aunt.”
“That’s probably true.” Hunter looked me up and down. “Does Landon know you’re here?”
I knew what he was asking and it grated. “Yes, but he’s not my keeper. I texted him before I drove over.”
“I heard you guys had a murder.” Hunter was a police officer in Shadow Hills. He hadn’t tackled nearly as many wacky cases as we had in Hemlock Cove, but he understood about magic and murder colliding. That was good as far as I was concerned. Another ally couldn’t possibly hurt.
“It was one of the girls,” I said.
Hunter’s expression was blank. “What girls?”
“The ones I told Stormy about. The ones who were stealing the magic fragments from Hollow Creek and using them against people. They faked a kidnapping in an attempt to get money to run away.”
“Ah.” He sipped his coffee and nodded. “Landon and Terry mentioned that. They were worried because you made the decision to alter memories.”
“I’m still wondering if that was a mistake.” I rubbed my cheek and forced a grin as Stormy slipped behind the counter. She was all smiles as she regarded me.
“This is a surprise,” she chirped, automatically reaching for the coffee pot. “Caffeine?”
I nodded. “Are you always so cheerful after working a morning shift?” I asked.
She nodded and Hunter made a face.
“She’s not cheerful in the morning,” he assured me. “She has decided to stay on the morning shift with her grandfather because it’s better for us when we want to spend time together. If she takes an afternoon or evening shift, it cuts short our quality time. But she’s not happy when her alarm goes off in the morning.”
I smiled at the way Stormy glared at Hunter. They were cute. They’d known each other from childhood, so their relationship differed from the one Landon and I shared. We fell in love as adults and had to learn to navigate life together. They fell in love as kids, separated for an extended period when Stormy moved away, and then had to learn how love was different when hormones weren’t leading the way. I found watching them rediscover one another to be fascinating.
“I need to talk to your great-grandmother.”
If Stormy was surprised by the declaration, she didn’t show it. “May I ask why?”
“Aunt Tillie says she’s done a lot of research over the years — Goddess knows Aunt Tillie isn’t willing to do the work, so she makes friends with others who will do it for her — and I have a unique situation in Hemlock Cove.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask,” Hunter murmured. “What unique situation?”
I hesitated and then barreled forward, keeping my voice low so nobody at the surrounding tables could hear. “I’ve seen things.”
“Like werewolves?” Hunter asked, frowning when Stormy shot him a weird look. “What? The body was found in the woods and she was stabbed multiple times. It’s possible it was werewolves.”
I had to laugh. “I see you’ve kept up on the story.”
“We’re only twenty minutes away,” Hunter reminded me. “If you have a killer there, it wouldn’t take much energy for him or her to drive here and kill someone else.”
“It’s not a werewolf. Twice now I’ve seen reflections in windows, people who aren’t really there and yet they seem to be watching me.”
Stormy’s eyebrows drew together. “I don’t understand.”
That made two of us. “They’re evil entities. At least, they look like evil entities. I would call them ghosts but I’ve never seen ghosts trapped in reflections like that.”
“Sounds odd.” Stormy looked legitimately concerned. “Why do you think my great-grandmother can help?”
“I don’t know that she can,” I admitted. “But she’s my best shot. A
unt Tillie suggested your great-grandmother might have answers, something about her knowing a great deal of information about Salem.”
“Okay. That’s good enough for me.” Stormy smiled. “I have twenty minutes left on my shift. Are you okay hanging here?”
I nodded. “I’m fine. I’m going to bug your boyfriend about information on FBI profilers.”
Hunter’s eyebrows hopped. “Wait ... you have a profiler in town?”
“Yup, and she dated Landon when they were together at the academy.”
“You don’t think Landon still has feelings for her?” Stormy looked appalled at the thought. “I’ve seen you together. He’s completely in love with you.”
“I don’t. He thinks she might have feelings for him, although it feels somehow ... different than that. I don’t know how to explain it.
“I’m not worried about her having feelings for Landon,” I continued. “I’m worried about her being so intrigued by us that she starts digging and sees something she shouldn’t.”
“Oh, right.” Stormy bobbed her head. “That’s my greatest fear too.”
“You live in a town that’s supposed to be populated by witches,” Hunter pointed out. “Don’t you think that you can get away with almost anything, profiler or not?”
“No. We need to be careful. This woman ... she could blow our world out of the water.”
Hunter didn’t look happy with the response. “What are you going to do?”
“I honestly have no idea.”
ONCE STORMY FINISHED HER SHIFT, she bolted upstairs long enough to change clothes and then met me behind the restaurant. She volunteered to drive the three blocks to her grandparents’ house, and I was more than happy to have her navigate the Shadow Hills streets.
“It’s quiet here,” I noted. “Hemlock Cove is quiet most of the time ... until Aunt Tillie decides to go on a rampage.”
“I just love her,” Stormy enthused.
“Then you should borrow her a couple days a week. I’m sure she would love to have an impressionable new mind to bend to her will. When Belinda and Annie were living in the inn, she took Annie under her wing. Now that they’re out on their own she’s had more time to fill, and I think she would love to fill it with you.”
“No way.” Stormy was fervent as she shook her head. “My family is even kookier than your family. There’s no way I’m falling for that.”
“There’s no way your family is kookier than my family.”
“Um ... it totally is.”
“We have Aunt Tillie.”
“I have an uncle named Brad who believes the government has been overrun by aliens. He believes if you rip their skin off that they’re lizards underneath and they’re trying to take over the entire population.”
I had to bite back a smile. “He sounds ... fun.”
“I also have a cousin who prefers working at the gas station to the restaurant because he can wave around the gas nozzles and present them as phallic symbols to pick up women.”
“That sounds immature but normal for guys of a certain age.”
“He’s almost thirty.”
“Well ... .” I broke off and laughed. “Fine. We both have nutty families. Aunt Tillie is an unbelievable amount of work, though.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it, but you have fun with her. You can’t pretend otherwise with me. I see it.”
“She’s not often fun.”
Stormy didn’t look convinced. “About a week and a half ago I was with you in Hemlock Cove when she made that woman with the porcelain unicorns so angry she started throwing them at her. I believe it revolved around making her store smell like a giant rotten egg.”
I smiled at the memory. “That was kind of fun. It was also loud.”
“There’s nothing wrong with loud.” Stormy parked in front of a nice house that boasted a pool, tennis court and an old-school trampoline that didn’t have a net to catch flying kids. “Wow. This is nice.”
Stormy slid her eyes to me as she pocketed her keys. “Yes, my grandparents built a wonderland here because they wanted all of us to hang out together. They thought this would keep us close.”
“Did it?”
She hesitated and then held out her hands. “I’m close with some of my cousins. There are a few that I would rather run over with my car than talk to. I think that’s normal of every family.”
I thought about Clove and Thistle. “Not my family.”
“Yes, but you have two cousins and were raised under the same roof. I have fifteen blood cousins and a few that were added by marriage. I know I shouldn’t segregate them, but it’s impossible not to because there’s an invisible line between the ones who came in later and the ones I grew up with. Those of us who were raised together know exactly what buttons to push to drive each other crazy.”
“That’s how it is with Clove, Thistle and me,” I said. “We all know exactly how to drive each other crazy.”
“And you probably enjoy it.”
“Yeah.”
“I enjoy messing with my cousins, too.” She gestured toward the garage. “Come on. My great-grandmother is probably on the patio. That’s where she’s been hanging out of late.”
I followed her through the garage, smiling at the huge rose garden she led me through at the back of the house. It was absolutely beautiful, and whoever was caring for it had put in a lot of time.
“This is my grandmother’s pride and joy,” Stormy explained. “She’s been taking care of these rose bushes forever.”
“They’re lovely.”
“The thorns hurt when you’re screwing around as a kid and accidentally run into them.”
“I hadn’t considered that.”
“I still have scars on my arms.”
“We all have scars like that.”
She nodded in agreement. “We most definitely do.”
Helen Archer was indeed sitting at the patio table. She was reading a book, a glass of iced tea at hand. She looked up when she heard us and smiled.
“This is a pleasant surprise.” She nodded at me as a greeting. “How are you, Bay?”
I decided to get right to the heart of matters. “We’re dealing with something in Hemlock Cove and Aunt Tillie thought you might be able to help.”
Surprise rushed over Helen’s features. “Tell me about it.”
I did just that, leaving nothing out. When I finished, she looked perplexed.
“You said they look like ghosts in the windows?”
I nodded. “That’s what it looked like to me. I’ve never seen anything like it. That’s why I’m searching for answers. I don’t think the appearance of the images in the glass can be a coincidence. It has to be tied to what happened to Paisley Gilmore.”
“I would think,” Helen agreed, thoughtful as she rocked in her chair. “And you saw the reflections in two different locations?”
“Yeah. Once was at the diner in town. The other time was at the inn my father runs with my uncles.”
“Which means they’re not trapped in one specific location.”
“Do you know what they are?” Stormy asked.
“I can’t be certain without seeing them — and since I can’t see ghosts, that seems unlikely — but they sound like shades.”
I was familiar with the word. I’d come across it and them a few times. “I’ve seen a few shades here and there,” I said. “They were different.”
“That’s because all shades are different.”
“I don’t understand,” Stormy said. She was still learning about magic and was always brimming with questions. “What’s a shade?”
“It’s a ghost that’s been anchored by something,” I replied. “I mean, that’s the best way I can explain it.”
“It’s a rather broad description, but it does the job,” Helen agreed. “Shades are ghosts that have been enslaved by other magical beings, or tied to a talisman, or even cursed to walk the land for eternity. They’re not normal ghosts.”
I thought ba
ck to the images I’d seen in the window. “These ghosts definitely didn’t look happy. They also didn’t look like true ghosts. They weren’t wandering around. Why can I only see them in glass reflections?”
“That I can’t answer. I have to think it’s some sort of spell or curse. I’m not an expert on shades. I don’t know why Tillie thought I could help you.”
“You have helped me,” I reassured her. “Aunt Tillie had no idea what we were dealing with. She’s too busy messing with Mrs. Little and Aunt Willa to care about anything else right now, and that includes shades. I hadn’t really given the possibility much thought, but now that you mention it, shades sound as likely as anything else.”
“You need to figure out who is controlling them,” Helen said. “They’re ... dangerous … in their current form. They may appear to be trapped in the glass, but that’s likely not true. You might only be able to see them in the glass for some reason.”
That was a sobering thought. “Maybe someone made them invisible and I can only see them in the glass because of that, some weird glitch of the spell.”
“Anything is possible.” Helen looked worried. “Be careful. Your necromancer powers make you an appealing target. If someone did cast a spell to hide these ghosts, they know what you are.”
“And if they know my weakness, they’ll likely know Aunt Tillie’s as well,” I mused.
“According to Tillie, she doesn’t have any weaknesses.”
“Her biggest weakness is that she’s full of crap,” I said as I got to my feet. “I thank you for your time. You’ve given me something to think about.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to do what I always do. Figure it out and then wing it.”
She smiled. “You have a great deal of your Aunt Tillie in you. It’s lovely.”
I frowned at her. “I think that’s the meanest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“I meant it as a compliment.”
“Well, try better next time.”
12
Twelve
Prelude to a Witch Page 11