That Old Witch!: The Coffee Coven's Cozy Capers: Book 1

by M. Z. Andrews

  “We’re getting off topic again,” sighed Char, shaking her head.

  “Right. The topic is Char’s crazy. Nuff said,” said Phyllis with a flourish. “Gwyn, you’re driving.”

  Char held her palms up in the doorway to stop the stampede. “Girls, you aren’t thinking about this. What better way to stay undercover than to fly overhead? He’d never see us. It’s the perfect cover!”

  “I’m telling you, this is not safe,” objected Gwyn. “My mother is old. She could fall and break her hip.”

  “Or worse, I could break my lady parts,” said Hazel. “Then how am I supposed to satisfy the boys at The Village?”

  “Oh my God, Hazel. Focus?” asked Char. “You do remember how to ride a broomstick, don’t you?”

  Hazel shrugged. “It’s been a few years. But I’m sure I can still do it. I mean, what do they say? It’s just like riding a broomstick. Oh, wait…”

  “My mom is not getting on a broomstick by herself, and that’s that!”

  “She can ride with me,” volunteered Loni. “You wanna ride with me, Haze?”

  “If Mom is going to ride with anyone, she’s going to ride with me,” said Gwyn.

  “Or you can ride with me, Hazel. I’m probably the safest choice,” said Char.

  Hazel looked at Phyllis. “You want to throw your name into the hat too?”

  Phyllis frowned. “And have you pee on me mid-stakeout? Pass.”

  “Fine. I’ve got plenty of other takers. No need to fight, ladies. There’s plenty of ole Hazel to go around.”

  “I’m pretty sure I saw that written on the back of a bathroom door somewhere,” said Phyllis.

  “He-he,” laughed Hazel, raising her brows. “That was from my younger days.”

  “So who’s it gonna be, Haze?” asked Loni. “I’m not getting any younger over here.”

  Hazel took a deep breath and eyed Gwyn, Char, and Loni carefully. Finally, she shrugged. “I pick Loni. She’s going to be the most fun.”

  “Ha! I win!” cheered Loni. “Put that in your broomstick and smoke it!”

  Gwyn rolled her eyes and then looked down at her mother. “Mom. I don’t think it’s a good idea. What if you fall?”

  “Then I fall. Maybe I’ll kick the bucket, and you can have your own apartment,” said Hazel flippantly.

  “I don’t want you to kick the bucket,” said Gwyn. “Although, I wouldn’t mind having my own apartment. Loni, you want Mom to move in with you?”

  Loni smiled. “She wouldn’t get along with my cats. They’re a tad insecure, and they don’t like it when I hang out with other people.”

  “Well, Gwynnie, I guess you’re stuck with me. Your only chance now is to let me ride the broomstick and fall off.”

  “Do you have to be so melodramatic, Mom?”

  “Yes, I do. I enjoy it. I find it gives me purpose in an otherwise boring world.”

  “So Hazel and Loni are in. I’m in, of course,” said Char. “Now we’re just waiting on Party Pooper and Sourpuss. What do you say, ladies?”

  Phyllis groaned. “There’s no way my butt is fitting on one of those things.”

  “Hey. You had quite the badonkadonk back in college if I remember correctly,” said Char with a grin. “It didn’t stop you from riding a broomstick then.”

  Phyllis made a face. “What are you talking about? I didn’t have a big ass in college.”

  Loni grimaced. “I hate to break it to you Phil, but your jeans used to cringe when they saw you coming.”

  “Oh, stop it. You girls are terrible,” snapped Phyllis. “Tell them I didn’t have a big butt in college, Gwynnie.”

  Gwyn put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, well, I—uh…”

  “Her mother taught her it was naughty to lie,” said Hazel. “You want the truth, or you want her to keep her lips zipped?”

  “Ugh,” groaned Phyllis. “Fine. I’ll fly on the damn broomstick, but if I fall off and Medicaid doesn’t cover my hospital bills, you girls are taking up a collection.”

  They all looked at Gwyn.

  “Well. You’re all that’s left, Gwyndolin. You ready for the night of your life?” asked Char.

  30

  Gwyn’s heart raced as she looked down at the broomsticks lying in a row on the ground. It had been years since the last time she’d ridden a broomstick, and while the idea excited a tiny piece of her deep inside her heart, the rest of her—the calm, cool, and rational side of her—wasn’t as excited. Gwyn realized that that tiny piece of her was a remnant of a wild childhood. She’d been raised by a free-spirited, fun-loving mother who was no stranger to impromptu broomstick rides in the middle of the night. Gwyn remembered those days fondly. Riding with her mother, the wind in their hair…the bugs in their teeth…

  “Well? What’s it going to be, Gwynnie?” asked Hazel.

  Gwyn smiled. She knew it wasn’t the responsible thing to do, but how could she let her million-year-old dinosaur of a mother go up in the air alone? Yes, she’d be with Loni, but that was practically alone. “Oh, fine. I’ll go,” she sighed.

  Char clapped her small hands together. “Fabulous! Oh, girls, you won’t regret this. It’s going to be such a fun night! Now, I’ve already saved us some time and enchanted the broomsticks, so let’s all pick one and then go out back and have a little practice ride before we take off for Ruben’s house.”

  The rest of the women surged forward. Phyllis took the fattest stick she could find. Not that it mattered; even with a fat stick, it was still going to be difficult for her to maintain balance on it. None of them were the size they used to be in college, Gwyn included. While she had maintained some semblance of a trim body, she’d also packed on a few extra pounds after each of her girls were born. Then, when she’d gone to live with her mother she’d lost a few. But eventually all of the pounds had come back, and they’d brought friends.

  Loni grabbed the longest stick because she and Hazel were riding tandem. Char already had her favorite selected too, so there were two sticks left when it was Gwyn’s turn to choose. Gwyn looked down at them uncomfortably. One was a short, squat stick painted red with nylon bristles. The other was a long bare wooden stick with the more traditional straw bristles. Gwyn leaned over and scooped the second one up.

  “Ahh, going for tradition,” said Char with a smile. “Good pick. Good pick.”

  “Like anyone was going to go with the modern broom?” asked Gwyn.

  Char shrugged. “I figured Hazel wasn’t going to ride alone. That one was just a gag.”

  “Ha-ha,” said Gwyn, rolling her eyes.

  “Follow me, girls!” said Char, leading the way through Kat’s dining room and back to the kitchen. She threw open the sliding doors to the backyard and tromped outside. “Perfect weather, isn’t it?”

  Gwyn looked up at the inky night sky. Char was right. There was no humidity. The temperature was a perfect seventy-five degrees, the stars were out, the moon was bright, and it cast an illuminating glow across Kat’s rose garden. Crickets and a bullfrog in the distance provided the night soundtrack, and the smell of Kat’s early blooms scented the air.

  “It is perfect,” said Gwyn lightly. She looked across the yard at Hazel and Loni. They were talking animatedly about how they were going to mount the stick together. It warmed Gwyn’s heart to see Hazel so excited about an activity for once. She loved seeing her mother happy. Gwyn didn’t like having to be the one who said no. But she also liked having her mother in her life. She only said no to protect her.

  Phyllis zipped past Gwyn on her broomstick. “Wheeeee!” she called. Phyllis pulled the nose of her broomstick up in the air and gained elevation. “Check this out, girls,” she hollered down and then rode by with her hands over her head. “No hands!”

  “Phyllis Habernackle!” shouted Gwyn as her heart lurched into her throat. “Two hands on the stick!”

  “Yes, Mother,” Phyllis hollered over her shoulder into the wind.

  Gwyn sighed. She wished she could be as carefree aga
in as Phyllis and the rest of the girls. Soon Char was in the air. Char was more cautious than Phyllis, but she was still a little speed demon. She leaned into the stick and zoomed past Phyllis.

  “Eat my dust, Phil!” she yelled.

  Hazel and Loni had finally figured out how to mount their stick tandem and were readying for takeoff. Loni pushed her glasses further up her nose and looked back at Hazel. “You’re not going to let go of me, right?” she asked.

  “I’ll cling to you like ones on a sweaty stripper,” said Hazel with a bit of a cackle.

  “Alright, then, let’s go!” said Loni. The duo didn’t get a running start like Phyllis and Char had, but took off at a less-than-brisk walk, with Hazel’s arms wrapped around Loni’s waist.

  “Up, up and away!” shouted Hazel, giving the stick a little bounce in back, but they failed to take off.

  “Magic broomstick uppo,” said Loni, lifting it higher between her legs as she walked. She looked back at Hazel. “Maybe we need to jump-start it.”

  Hazel nodded. “On three. One…two…go!” The two women bounced on their feet.

  Gwyn couldn’t help but laugh. In their minds, they’d probably gotten some serious air under their feet, but in reality, they’d barely gotten a blade of grass under their feet.

  “Let’s try again,” suggested Loni. “One, two, three!” They bounced again. This time, Gwyn could see the broomstick shaking to life a bit.

  “It moved! I saw it!” said Gwyn. “Try jumping again.”

  “One, two, three!” they shouted in unison as they gave the biggest bounce they had. The broomstick lifted them both into the air, but they only hovered over the ground instead of taking off.

  Loni looked down at the ground. Then she looked back at Hazel. “Let’s try rocking it,” she said. The two old women began to grind their pelvises back and forth on the stick.

  “Oh my God,” cried Gwyn, shielding her eyes with her hands. “If I could have gone my whole life without seeing my mother hump Loni Hodges’s back on a broomstick, I think I could have died a happy woman.”

  Loni laughed. “Well, then, give us a little push, will ya, Gwynnie?”

  With her hand still covering her eyes, Gwyn walked over to where they hovered near a lilac bush. She turned the front of the broomstick away from the hedge and gave them a shove.

  “To infinity and beyond!” hollered Hazel as they moved forward at the speed of a slow-moving pony.

  “Look at us, Gwyn! We’re flying! I haven’t flown in years! Hell, I haven’t left the house in years! This feels amazing!” cheered Loni.

  Gwyn clapped for them. “You’re doing great, ladies. You just have to see if you can gain elevation and pick up some speed. Mom, you hold on tight to Loni!”

  As the two women worked on their skills, Gwyn realized she was next. She bent down to pick up the broomstick she’d dropped when giving the girls a push and saw a black piece of material clinging to the lilac bush. She pulled it loose and examined it.

  It was black nylon of some sort, about four inches wide and maybe three inches long. It had obviously been ripped off of something. What it was torn from, Gwyn couldn’t be sure. Perhaps Kat had had a purse or something that had lost part of its strap. She tilted her head sideways as she looked at it, flipping it over in her hand, feeling the bumpy texture against her fingers. She was getting a strong feeling about the piece of material. So strong that she waved the girls back in.

  “Girls! I found something. My witchy instincts are zeroing in on it,” hollered Gwyn.

  Char landed first, followed by Phyllis. “Whatcha got?” asked Char.

  Gwyn shrugged and handed her the small piece of material. “I don’t know what it is.”

  “Looks like a strap off of something,” said Phyllis, grabbing it out of Char’s hand.

  Char gave Phyllis a dirty look. “Watch it, Habernackle,” said Char with a half-grin.

  “You watch it, Bailey,” Phyllis said with a chuckle. “Who has better intuition about objects? You or me?”

  Char rolled her eyes and put a hand on her hip. “Well, then, hurry up and get a reading on it. Where did you find it, Gwyn?”

  Gwyn pointed to the lilac bush near the corner of the rose garden. “It was caught in the branches. At first, I thought maybe it had been Kat’s, but I got a really strange reading on it when I touched it.”

  Phyllis nodded. “I’m getting a really bad vibe from it too. This wasn’t Kat’s.”

  Char rubbed her arms. “That just gave me goose bumps,” she said. “Do you think it was the killer’s?”

  Gwyn and Phyllis exchanged a look. Then Gwyn nodded. “That’s kind of what I feel like.”

  “Me too,” said Phyllis. “I bet it tore off of something the killer was wearing the night of the murder. He was standing over here when he hit her.” She handed it to Char. “Here, put it in your pocket.”

  “Why don’t you put it in your pocket?” asked Char, who looked down at the item disdainfully. “I don’t want to touch it.”

  “You just bellyached at me for taking it from you because you wanted to touch it.”

  “That was before we established that it’s probably the killer’s!”

  “What do you think it’s going to do? Kill you next?” asked Phyllis.

  Loni and Hazel landed next to them with a flourish. “What a trip!” bellowed Loni exuberantly.

  Hazel had a broad smile on her face. She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater. “The air is making my eyes water,” she said. “But man, does it feel good to fly again!”

  Loni looked at all the straight faces. “What’s with the saggier-than-usual faces? Did we miss something?”

  Phyllis held out the small piece of black nylon. “Gwyn found this in the lilac bush.”

  Loni took it from Phyllis, but the minute her fingers touched it, she let it drop to the grass as if it were a hot potato. “Oh, man. That’s got majorly bad vibes,” she said. “There’s no way that was Kat’s.”

  “We think it was the killer’s,” said Gwyn, staring at the small piece of fabric on the ground.

  All the women looked at it.

  “Why are we staring at it? If it’s evidence, don’t you think we should keep it or something? I mean, if it was the killer’s, it’s got to be a clue,” said Hazel.

  “No one wants to touch it, Mom,” said Gwyn.

  Loni nodded agreeably. “That thing’s got bad juju. I’m not touching it again.”

  Hazel hiked up her skirt and then bent over to pick it up. “Oh, you Fruit Loops,” she said, grabbing the material from the ground. “It’s just a piece of a strap off of something.”

  “Something evil,” agreed Char.

  Hazel held it up in front of her as if she held a hex in her hand. “Oooh,” she jeered spookily. “I’m cursed. Look at me…”

  “Mom! Don’t say things like that!” snapped Gwyn. “You’ll jinx yourself.”

  “I’m not going to jinx anything. This is a clue. Evidence. Some kind of sleuths you losers are. Can we go now?” asked Hazel as she stuffed the strap in her pocket.

  “Yes, let’s fire up the canons,” agreed Char.

  Hazel made a face. “Oh, wait. I gotta go see a man about a horse.”

  “Again?” asked Loni.

  “Hey, you don’t want to come home with a wet skirt, do you?”

  “Take your time!”

  31

  Gwyn tugged her sweater tighter around her shoulders as she flew. It might be a pleasant seventy-four degrees on the ground in Aspen Falls, but in the sky and traveling at such a brisk pace, it was nowhere near that warm. Her arms and legs pebbled from the chill in the air. She glanced down at the ground, something her flying instructor had cautioned her against when she’d first learned to fly a million and a half years ago, but today, she needed to be reassured that there was a ground below her. Gwyn preferred keeping treetops between her and the ground too, just to break the fall in case there was a mishap. And while they were infrequent, mish
aps did happen to witches.

  From her vantage point, all the cars on the dimly illuminated streets were like Matchbox cars, and the people like the little Polly Pocket dolls that her granddaughters had loved years ago. She wondered if anyone could see them flying, although she knew it was highly unlikely. The sky was dark, they were all wearing dark clothes and face paint to cover their skin, but she wondered nonetheless. She was sure a little girl peering out her bedroom window would find it exciting to see a witch’s coven fly by in the darkness.

  Char and Phyllis led the pack, Gwyn hung just behind them towards the middle, and Loni and Hazel brought up the rear. Gwyn glanced back at her mother, who was still clinging to Loni’s waist. It was quite the sight to see Loni and Hazel stuck together like Legos. Her heart felt like a buoy bouncing happily in the ocean, and she couldn’t help but smile at them. Gwyn was glad that they’d decided to go on such an exciting outing. She knew full well that her mother would talk about it for days to come.

  “This way,” shouted Char to the group behind her. Her arm waved over her head so the witches could see her in the darkness.

  Gwyn followed the slow curve Char and Phyllis made to hover over a familiar row of houses. Gwyn pulled up next to the girls. “Is this his house?”

  “Yes, that one right there,” said Char, pointing down to the small bungalow they’d visited earlier in the week.

  Gwyn sat up on her broomstick, and with one hand still firmly wrapped around her handle, she pulled back the sleeve of the black gown she wore to squint at her watch. In the darkness, she had to hold it up to the moon to see the time. “It’s almost eight o’clock,” said Gwyn. “What if he already left for work?”

  Phyllis snorted out her nose as Loni and Hazel pulled up next to them. “I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that that man is not working at a bar.”

  “You don’t think he’s working tonight?” asked Gwyn.

  “Not tonight. I’m talking ever. I bet you he doesn’t even have a job at a bar.”

  Hazel nodded. “I agree. That man lies like a basset hound on a front porch.”