A black-and-white cat approached and began lapping milk from a coffee mug on the floor. His face was white, but he had a black Hitler-like mustache below his nose and a swirl of white and black like a yin and yang symbol on the left side of his rump. Hazel eyed him suspiciously. “Have cats licked out of all of your mugs?”
“Mmm, not these,” said Loni, pulling two mugs from the cupboard.
Gwyn looked at her mother. If Hazel had caffeine now, Gwyn would never get her wine, bath, and book ritual in before bed. “Mom will pass. It’s too late in the evening for her to have caffeine. It makes her jittery and then she won’t sleep.”
Hazel frowned and crossed arms across her sagging breasts. “You’re really becoming no fun. Didn’t I raise you better than that?”
Gwyn ignored her mother. “You were saying what the disguise was for?”
Loni poured a mug of coffee and put it in the microwave to warm it up. She shrugged simply. “I thought maybe you were someone else.”
Gwyn lifted an eyebrow. “Oh, who did you think we were?”
Loni shrugged nonchalantly and pulled her coffee out when the timer beeped. “I don’t know. The FBI, maybe.”
“The FBI? Why would the FBI be knocking on your door so late at night?”
Loni sat down with a big sigh. “Oh, you know, that’s how they getcha. By coming at night.”
“It is?” asked Gwyn. She wondered why the FBI would even be coming in the first place but thought maybe it would be rude of her to ask.
Loni nodded as she kicked her birdlike legs out in front of her. “So, tell me everything!”
“Everything?”
“Yeah, you know. Everything that’s happened since we last saw each other.”
7
“Well, gosh, Loni. That’s a lot of stuff. It’s been decades since the last time we’ve seen each other. We’ve talked on the phone over the years, though. Don’t you remember any of our conversations?”
Loni lifted one thick black markered-on eyebrow. “Eh. Some.” She tapped a finger against her skull. “The memory comes and goes. You live with your mom, right?”
That made Hazel chuckle. “He-he. Yeah. You hear that, Gwynnie? You live with me.” The old woman thumbed her chest.
Gwyn rolled her eyes. “My mother lives with me, yes.”
Loni leaned forward. “Do you still have the touch?” she asked with a wicked smile.
“The touch?”
Loni wiggled her fingers at the books on the table in front of her. “Yeah, you know, the touch.”
Gwyn smiled the kind of smile where she refused to part her lips and show her teeth. It was simply a polite gesture. “Oh. That. Yes, sometimes. It comes and goes as I’ve gotten older. But for the most part, yes.”
Loni smiled and rubbed her hands together. “Do something for me?”
Gwyn slumped in her seat now. She was exhausted and didn’t feel like spinning any magic. “Like what?”
“Anything!”
Gwyn hated being put on the spot with her “talent,” but she equally hated letting people down.
“Okay,” she said reluctantly and flexed her fingers out in front of her. She pulled her hands back, so they were just in front of her shoulders and wiggled her fingers towards the book on the table.
The book bounced an inch off the table and sprung open wide, the pages spilling apart. Leaves sprung forth from the pages, and the spine magically evolved into a terra-cotta pot. The hard cover disintegrated into soil and fell neatly into the pot. The leaves continued to grow as a thick stem shot out of the soil and lifted the foliage. When the little magic show was complete, a beautifully potted maple sapling sat on the table in front of them.
Loni’s eyes widened as she clapped her hands. “Oh, you’ve still got it! Just like old times! You haven’t changed a bit, either. You look great! Love the hair,” she said.
Gwyn fingered her hair with a light smile as Hazel rolled her eyes and leaned back in her seat. “It’s from a bottle,” said Hazel mockingly.
Gwyn’s face glowed red as she sighed. This was why she didn’t have any friends. “Mom,” she begged quietly.
Loni chuckled. “It’s alright, Gwynnie. I still like it, and you still look great. You’ve aged well.”
Gwyn lifted her cheeks again. She wished she could say the same about Loni, but the woman’s sagging face, overgrown nose complete with wart, and coffee-stained teeth told Gwyn that that would be a lie. Instead, she decided to change the subject.
“Thank you, Loni. It’s really great to see you, too. So, what’s going on with you?”
“Not much,” said Loni. Swiveling in her seat, Loni pointed a finger at the counter behind her. A pile of loose papers shifted magically, and a small box emerged from the rubbish. She curled the finger towards herself, and the box floated across the short distance and landed gently in her hand. She put the box on the table, pulled a cigar out of it, and placed it between her bright red lips. “Mind if I smoke?” she asked, snapping her fingers and igniting the air in front of them.
Gwyn frowned as she shifted in her seat. “Oh, uh—it might not be good for Mother,” she said in a hushed whisper. “Asthma.”
Loni looked at Hazel, who shrugged before looking away. She shook out her fingers, extinguishing the flame, and put the cigar back in the box. “Alright,” she sighed.
“Sorry.”
Loni waved a hand. “No problem. I’ll have one later.” The women stared at each other for an uncomfortably long moment until finally, Loni’s eyebrows furrowed. She pointed at Gwyn. “Hey, do you mind taking that sweater off?”
Gwyn looked down at the cardigan she’d thrown over her white cotton top. The evening had been cool when they’d left, and she’d put it on before they’d even gotten to the car. “My sweater? Why?”
“It’s blue,” said Loni as if that were a complete explanation.
Gwyn slowly shrugged off her sweater. “What does that mean?”
Loni made a face as if Gwyn were crazy. “Blue? You know, that’s a color.”
Hazel looked up at her daughter and lifted a brow.
“Yes, Loni. I know that blue is a color. I don’t understand why you want me to take my sweater off.”
“Oh. The color blue bothers me,” she said simply.
“It does?” Gwyn shoved the sweater behind the small of her back in her seat. “Why?”
Loni leaned forward in her seat. “I can’t talk about it either,” she whispered, covering her mouth with a hand. “It makes me want to urp.”
“Urp?” asked Hazel.
“Yeah, you know.” Loni made a vomiting gesture with her other hand while keeping the first hand on her mouth. “Urp.”
Hazel’s eyes widened as she scooted her chair closer to Gwyn. “Please don’t. I have a very bad gag reflex. If I so much as see it, we’re all changing clothes.”
Gwyn scooted herself backwards in her seat. “Loni, are you feeling alright? You’re acting a little…” She trailed off, trying to think of the most politically correct way of saying what she was thinking.
“Nuts,” Hazel filled in.
Gwyn wanted to chastise her mother, but she’d said what Gwyn couldn’t. Gwyn looked at Loni uneasily. Would she take offense?
“Oh. Now that the sweater’s off, I’m feeling fine,” she said happily, rocking back in her chair. “I’m very glad you came to visit me. I haven’t left the house in a while, and you’re the first real guest I’ve had in a few weeks.”
“How do you get food if you don’t go anywhere?” asked Hazel.
“The grocery store delivers,” explained Loni.
“What about your cat food?” asked Hazel as she watched three cats dash by.
Loni laughed. “Delivery. Check this out.” She stood up and walked to her pantry. She opened the door and pulled on the string in the middle of the small closet. The room lit up, and from their chairs, Hazel and Gwyn could see that the pantry was completely full of bagged cat food. There were at least sixty ba
gs of cat food stacked inside!
“Holy tarnation!” bellowed Hazel. “Whaddaya need with that much cat food?”
Gwyn looked appalled. “Loni! You don’t—eat it, do you?”
Loni laughed. “Of course not!” She shrugged as a devious smile spread across her face. “The delivery boy is nice to look at.”
Despite feeling completely out of her element in Loni’s house, Gwyn couldn’t help but laugh. It reduced the uncomfortable tension in the room a little bit. Gwyn wondered how she’d broach the topic she’d come to discuss. She wasn’t even entirely sure that Loni knew that Kat had passed away. They were all silent for a few seconds before Gwyn finally said quietly, “Loni, do you read the paper?”
Loni looked around. “I get the paper. Can’t say I read it all that much. Doesn’t really make much difference to me what folks are doing around town.”
“Yes, but it keeps you updated on important world events.”
“World events, shmurld events,” she croaked, waving a hand dismissively.
Gwyn caught her mother nodding in agreement.
“It also keeps you caught up on those who’ve passed away.”
Loni laughed. “Well, I’ve got Kat for that. She always calls me when someone important kicks the bucket. You remember Kat Lynde from school, right?”
Gwyn winced. She doesn’t know. This is going to be difficult. “Yes, I do. When’s the last time you heard from Kat?”
Loni scratched the wiry pair of whiskers poking out of the bottom of her chin. “Oh. I don’t know. It’s probably been a week or two. Maybe three. I don’t keep track of time much. I suppose she’ll be stopping by any day now.”
“Do you ever check your mail?” asked Gwyn, eyeing the pile of unopened mail on her table.
“Sometimes I ask Derrick to grab it on his way up the walk with the cat food,” she said. “I never get anything good, so it doesn’t really matter.”
“Do you open your mail?”
“Sometimes, why?” asked Loni, sitting forward. She was getting suspicious now.
Gwyn fidgeted with her watch. How am I going to tell her this? Gwyn wondered. She has no idea, and I hate to be the bearer of bad news.
“Kat’s dead,” said Hazel plainly from her seat.
“Mom!”
“You didn’t want to tell her, so I told her.” Hazel shrugged, her hands folded in her lap politely. “You’re welcome.”
Gwyn looked at Loni uncomfortably. The woman stared at her out of her thick Harry Potter–looking glasses. “I’m sorry, Loni.”
“Sorry for what?” she asked blankly.
Gwyn furrowed her eyebrows at her. “Did you hear what Mom just said?”
“Yeah, but surely the woman was joking. It’s not a very funny joke, I might add,” she said, chastising the little old lady between them.
Hazel merely lifted her eyebrows but sucked her lips between her dentures.
“It wasn’t a joke, Lon. Kat passed away. Her funeral was last week. We couldn’t get here from Arizona in time for it.”
Loni’s face froze. “There’s no way she’s dead. I just saw her a few weeks ago.”
Gwyn nodded. “Yeah, it happens fast like that sometimes. I heard she slipped and fell and hit her head on a rock in her garden. The paperboy found her.”
Loni shook her head. “What? How would I not know?”
“You haven’t seen a paper?”
“No,” she croaked. Then she stood up. “You’re wrong. I’ll call her and prove it to you.” Loni walked over to the black rotary phone hanging on her wall. She lifted the spiral-corded receiver and dialed Kat’s number. The phone rang and rang and rang.
“She’s not going to answer,” whispered Gwyn sadly. “She’s gone, Loni. I’m so sorry.”
Loni slammed down the receiver. “Prove it!”
Gwyn stood up and did what she’d wanted to do since she sat down at the table. She began to sort through Loni’s mail. She pulled out letter after letter, sorting the junk mail from the letters that were obviously bills until she came to a professionally embossed envelope. “Here it is.”
“What is it?”
Gwyn swallowed hard and handed it to her old friend. “Just read it.”
Loni took the envelope, tore off a strip along the narrow side and dumped out the paper inside. Her hands shook as she unfolded the letter and read the words on the page. “Estate of Katherine Lynde? Oh my God,” she breathed, lowering the paper. “Kat’s really gone?”
Gwyn nodded. She stood up and put her arms around Loni’s shoulders, hugging her old friend to her tightly. “I’m so sorry to have to be the one to tell you.”
“But I didn’t even get to say goodbye,” said Loni as tears stained her cheeks.
“I know. Neither did I. I’m so sorry.”
Loni let go of Gwyn and paced around the kitchen anxiously. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“I can’t either,” admitted Gwyn. It had definitely been a shock to her when she’d heard the news as well.
As Loni passed by them, Hazel handed her a scrunched-up paper towel that had been on the kitchen table. Loni blotted her eyes beneath her glasses. “What’s the letter about?” asked Loni when she’d finally gotten control of herself.
“Kat named us in her will,” Gwyn explained. “She named Phyllis Habernackle and Char Adams too.”
“Kat told me that Char’s a Bailey now. She just married Vic Bailey. He owns a bakery here in town,” said Loni through her sniffles.
Gwyn nodded. “The will reading was earlier today. Both Char and Phyllis were there.”
“The nerve of those witches to show up at our friend’s will reading!” exclaimed Loni.
Gwyn nodded. “They were very unfriendly with me.”
Loni’s face flushed. “How dare they! They don’t have the right to be unfriendly to you! It’s us who should be unfriendly to them after what they did!”
Hazel looked up at the two women. “What did they do?”
“I’ll tell you exactly what they did!” cried Loni.
8
Gwyn sat on her hands. She’d never told her mother about what Char and Phyllis had done to them. What would have been the point of that? At one time, Gwyn had thought she and the five girls she had befriended as a college student at the Paranormal Institute would be friends for life. But after everything that had gone down after she’d left Aspen Falls, she’d tried to forget about those girls, despite the wonderful friendship they’d once shared.
Loni looked at Hazel wearily. “Do you remember who lived with whom?”
Hazel shook her head. “I don’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning,” she snapped.
Gwyn rolled her eyes. “What was it you were saying to me earlier about not being forgetful, Mother?”
“You expect me to remember who roomed with who in your dorm over a million and a half years ago? Hell, Gwynnie,” cursed Hazel, “I didn’t even know who the roommates were then, why would I know now?”
Loni chuckled. “It’s okay, Hazel. I’ll fill you in. Of course, Gwyn and I were roommates. And then it was Char Adams and Kat Lynde together, and Phyllis Habernackle and Auggie Stone. Can you remember that?”
Hazel tick-tocked her finger in the air and murmured to herself as if she were writing it down or making a mental note. Finally, she nodded. “Got it.”
“Well, here’s what went down. For starters, on graduation night, Phyllis and Auggie had a falling out. A major falling out, which caused all of us to turn against Auggie. But that’s another story, for another time and place. So Auggie wasn’t there when Sorceress Halliwell, our headmistress, pulled the other five of us into her office the day we were moving out of the Institute.”
“We all loved Sorceress Halliwell,” remarked Gwyn. “She was such an amazing mentor. We all learned so much about magic during those two years.”
Loni nodded. “She was terrific. I miss her a lot.”
Hazel waved a hand to prod the two women alon
g. “Get on with it. It’s past my bedtime.”
“Right,” said Loni with a little smile. “So it was Gwyn, me, Char, Kat, and Phyllis in Sorceress Halliwell’s office the morning after graduation. She told us what amazingly talented witches we’d become and how we were all moving on to bigger and better things. She also told us how she admired the friendship we shared and how a witch’s coven was one of the most powerful things a witch could ever possess and that we should cherish it always.”
Loni’s words brought a sudden unexpected ache to Gwyn’s heart. She had to swallow hard to move the lump she felt forming in the back of her throat. Tears welled up in her eyes.
“We were all such good friends,” she whispered. “It makes me sad that we aren’t friends anymore.” She pulled a crumpled tissue from her purse and blotted at her eyes.
Loni swatted at Gwyn’s hand. “Well, don’t cry about it! Get mad about it! Like me. It makes me angry!” she cried, her eyes opening wider. Her finger trembled as she pointed it in the air. “What those girls did to ruin our friendship. I’ll never forgive them!”
“Well, for heaven’s sake, what did they do?” demanded Hazel.
Loni sucked in a deep breath. “So Sorceress Halliwell gave us a spell book as a graduation gift. It was a very powerful spell book. We were instructed to share it by passing it around to one another throughout the years. It was supposed to keep us all close and bring us together over the years.”
“It was such a thoughtful gift,” said Gwyn with a sniffle, trying to avoid letting Loni see her dotting at her eyes again. It saddened her that Sorceress Halliwell’s parting gift hadn’t worked as it had been meant to.
“But those witches stole the book from us! I haven’t seen the book once since the day I moved out of the dorms! It was supposed to bring us all closer together. Instead, it drove a wedge between us,” spat Loni. “I’ll never forgive them for ruining our friendship by stealing the book!”
“How do you know they stole the book?” asked Hazel curiously.
“Kat told us! She told us she asked both Phyllis and Char about getting the book and they told her that they were keeping it and there wasn’t a darn thing she could do about it!”
That Old Witch!: The Coffee Coven's Cozy Capers: Book 1 Page 6