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

by M. Z. Andrews

“Don’t touch me!” she squealed, nearly jumping out of her skin to back away from Gwyn’s hand.

  Gwyn looked down at her fingertips. “Don’t—don’t touch you? Did I do that?”

  Phyllis nodded without taking her eyes off Gwyn’s hands. “Yes, you did that. Oh my God, I had another premonition!”

  Gwyn scooted into the backseat next to Phyllis, careful not to touch her friend. “What did you see?”

  “He’s got her,” she breathed as her chest pumped up and down anxiously.

  “The killer has someone?” asked Gwyn, her mind swirling with confusion. “Is it his next victim? Who is it? Can you see her face?”

  Phyllis rubbed a hand across her face as if to wipe away any traces of the memory. “I—I can’t—I don’t want to…” She looked up at Gwyn and then turned her face to look out the window at Loni’s house. Both Char and a heavily costumed Loni were coming down the steps.

  Gwyn got out of the car and slammed the back door. “Girls, get in. Phyllis had another premonition. But she can’t bring herself to tell me what she saw!”

  Char and Loni hurried into the car. “What did you see, Phil?” asked Char as she twisted her torso around to look into the backseat.

  With all eyes on her, Phyllis bit her bottom lip. “I don’t know if I can tell you,” she said quietly.

  “Why can’t you tell us?” asked Char.

  “Because he’s got her, and I don’t want it to be true,” said Phyllis quietly.

  “Who has who?” asked Loni, her eyes bouncing from face to face around the car, out of the loop of the conversation.

  “She saw the killer’s house last night in her dreams,” explained Char. “She thinks he’s going to strike again.”

  Phyllis covered her forehead with her hand. “I don’t think, I know. He’s got her.”

  “Who does he have!” demanded Char. “Another witch? Do we know her? Can you see her face?”

  Phyllis pressed the button on her door handle to roll down her window. She sucked in several large lungfuls of air. “Yes, it’s another witch. I didn’t see her face, but I recognized her voice.”

  “You only heard her voice?” asked Gwyn. “Then how do you know it’s a witch?”

  “Because…it’s Hazel,” breathed Phyllis. “He’s got Hazel!”

  38

  Gwyn didn’t remember running off the road after that, but as she sat parked with one wheel up on the curb, she struggled to regain her breath.

  “Gwyn? Breathe, Gwyn,” shouted Char while rubbing her back as she wheezed through an anxiety attack.

  “Someone get her some water,” said Phyllis.

  “We don’t have any in the car,” said Char, looking around.

  “Well, someone conjure her up some, for goodness’ sake!” barked Phyllis.

  “I don’t know how to conjure water,” said Loni.

  “Me either,” agreed Char. “Gwynnie, breathe. You’re having a panic attack. It’s going to be alright.”

  Suddenly, tears burst loose from Gwyn’s eyes, and she yelled through choked sobs, “Mom! We have to find her.”

  “There, there. I know we have to find her. And we will. Don’t you worry!” Char glanced back at Phyllis as she consoled Gwyn. “Where is she, Phyllis?”

  “I don’t know. Wherever she is, it’s completely dark. I heard her calling for help.”

  “Then how are we supposed to find her?” asked Loni.

  With her fingers spread open wide, Phyllis grabbed her face between her palms. “Ugh,” she groaned. “I don’t know! I’m so sorry, Gwyn. I couldn’t see anything else.”

  “We can’t waste any more time, girls,” said Char. “Father Donovan’s our only lead. We have to investigate him. Hazel could be at his house right now! Phil, help me get Gwyn into the back. She can’t drive like this.”

  Char and Phyllis got out of the car and rushed around to the driver’s side. Together they managed to pull Gwyn out of the front seat and get her into the back next to Loni. Char slid into the driver’s seat while Phil rushed around to the front passenger’s side, and the women peeled away from the curb, practically taking two wheels around the corner.

  “Ahhh,” screamed Gwyn as Loni tumbled on top of her in the backseat. “Char!”

  “Sorry about that, girls! Gwyn, your gas pedal takes a light touch, doesn’t it?” Char looked in her rearview mirror and smiled at Gwyn apologetically.

  Driving at that speed, it took them only a few minutes to get to the church rectory. Char came to a screeching halt in the driveway, and the four women exploded out of the car. Gwyn pounded on the front door and Char tried the garage door, while Phyllis and Loni peered through the windows.

  “Father Donovan!” hollered Gwyn while she pounded.

  “Father Donovan!” Phyllis yelled into an open window on his porch. “We need to talk to you immediately!”

  When there was no answer, Gwyn wrapped her hand around the doorknob and turned. The door opened with a pop. “Girls, his front door is unlocked!”

  “Because who in their right mind would break into a priest’s house?!” asked Char as she hobbled up the porch steps.

  They all stared at the open door. “Can we just go into a priest’s house without being invited?” she asked.

  Gwyn made the final decision, pushing the door open wide and barging ahead. “If he’s got my mother, we surely can!” She took one look around and hollered into the empty living room, her voice filling the dead air around her. “Mom!”

  “Hazel!” shouted Phyllis heading towards the kitchen.

  Loni took a left and went down a hallway. “Hazel! It’s us! Where are you?” she hissed into the quiet hall.

  Phyllis came back to the living room. “She’s not in the kitchen.”

  “I’ve been in the rectory before. There’s a basement,” said Char. “It’s this way.”

  The sound of the word basement left a bad taste in Gwyn’s mouth. The basement. A dank cellar of eerily cold darkness. Gwyn’s heart leapt into her throat as she felt the air leaving her lungs. She could picture her mother now, bound at the hands and wrists with zip ties, her mouth gagged with a dirty bandana. Mom!

  Char was the first to get to the door just off of the garage, but Gwyn was the first down the stairs. “Mom!” she hollered, her voice sucked into the darkness.

  The other three women hobbled down the stairs behind Gwyn, each of them calling Hazel’s name in turn. At the bottom of the stairs, Gwyn flicked on the light. She had expected to see her mother sitting on the dirt floor in the darkness. She’d blink back the sudden burst of light and look up at her daughter with fear-stricken eyes. She’d rescue her, and her mother would be so thankful that they’d saved her from the serial killer. Instead, a perfectly normal, though barren, tan-carpeted basement greeted her, with a pile of cardboard boxes on one side of the room and a vacuum cleaner with an unwound cord on the other side.

  “There’s nothing down here,” said Gwyn in surprise. “I thought for sure Mom would be down here.”

  “I thought she might be too,” sighed Loni. “But we haven’t checked all the rooms.”

  The women wasted no time in opening the last three doors in the house. They discovered a utility closet, a stark laundry room, and a partially finished bathroom, but no Hazel.

  Back upstairs, they decided to go through the priest’s bedroom a little more carefully to search for clues. “I’ll check his closet for the black robe,” volunteered Loni.

  Gwyn headed for his nightstand while Char rifled through the pockets of a pair of pants slung across a chair. Suddenly, Gwyn heard Char’s breath catch in her throat.

  “Girls!” she said.

  “What?!” they all asked in unison, craning their necks to stare at Char.

  “This is the messenger bag he carries everywhere he goes!” she said, holding up a black bag with a nylon strap. “Look!” She showed off the handle. “It’s not torn!”

  “And there’s no black gown in here,” said Loni, shutting the clo
set door.

  “Dammit,” cursed Phyllis under her breath. “I was sure we’d find something to tie him to the murders!”

  “Let’s go over to the church. Maybe the robe is over there, and we’ll find a clue,” suggested Gwyn.

  The women put everything back as they’d found it and slid out the back door. They trudged across the church’s lush green carpet of grass to the side door of the church. A handful of cars parked out front had gone unnoticed when the women had pulled into the rectory driveway.

  “There sure are a lot of cars here for this time of day. Mass was earlier this morning. I wonder if something is going on,” said Phyllis, looking around.

  “I don’t know,” said Char with a shrug. “I guess we’ll find out!”

  The women opened the side door and were immediately greeted by the sound of organ music pouring out of the main room. The melodic sound of a woman’s voice floated in next. The women peered through the doorway and into the room filled with pews and a smattering of people gathered around the altar. Father Donovan stood at his pulpit, holding a hymnal and singing in a baritone voice.

  “It looks like they’re having choir practice,” hissed Char.

  “I wonder what time they started,” said Gwyn.

  Phyllis nodded. “There’s only one way to find out!” she said before entering the religious sanctuary.

  Gwyn, Loni, and Char watched as Phyllis slid into a pew with a husband and wife who were singing along with the organ. When the music stopped, they could see her whispering to the wife. Seconds later, she returned to report back to the girls.

  “Practice started an hour ago, but they were at mass before that. Father Donovan has been here since the beginning of the service and hasn’t left once.”

  Gwyn and Char’s mouths dropped open.

  “He isn’t the one that took Mom?” she asked breathlessly. Thoughts swirled in her mind like a tornado refusing to touch down.

  “We’re barking up the wrong tree?” asked Char in shock. “I thought for sure it was going to be him.”

  “I did too,” said Phyllis with a nod. She put a hand on Gwyn’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Gwynnie. I thought we had…” Her voice trailed off as her body went rigid once again.

  “What’s happening?” asked Char, grabbing hold of her before she toppled forward.

  Gwyn and Loni each caught ahold of Phyllis as well. “She’s having another premonition!” Once they’d gotten Phyllis steady, Gwyn withdrew Phyllis’s arm from around her shoulder. “Touching me is what did it last time.”

  And as if her trance had been lifted, Phyllis awakened from the momentary spell. She held a hand to her head as if she were dizzy. “Oh, my head!” she whined.

  “Are you alright, Phyllis? I’m sorry I keep having this effect on you,” said Gwyn.

  Phyllis shook her head as if she were trying to remove the cobwebs from the inner recesses of her mind. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”

  “Did you see anything?” asked Gwyn. “Did you see Mom?”

  Phyllis pulled the women towards the door of the church in a panic. “Not in here. Let’s talk about it in the car. We have to go.”

  “Gwyn, I’ll drive,” shouted Char as they ran. Phyllis refused to say another word until they were all seated back inside Gwyn’s car.

  “Well?” demanded Char. “What did you see?”

  Out of breath from having sprinted back to the car, Phyllis leaned forward between the two seats. “I saw Hazel. She’s in a cage.”

  “Oh my God,” whispered Gwyn with a hand to her mouth. Tears flooded her blue eyes. “Mom’s in a cage?”

  Phyllis nodded. “It’s a small cage. Like a dog kennel or something.”

  “Is that all you see?” asked Loni.

  Phyllis shook her head. “I saw his back. He was chanting. He had our spellbook.”

  Loni’s eyes widened. “The person who stole Hazel has powers?!”

  Phyllis shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess. He was trying to use the spell book, anyway. But I saw the room. It was dark and unusual. There was something familiar about it.”

  “How was it familiar?” asked Char.

  Phyllis leaned back in her chair and thought about it for a moment. “I’m not sure. It’s not like I’ve been there before, but it felt like something I’ve seen before.”

  “Like what do you mean?” asked Gwyn.

  Phyllis looked out the window. “You know what it felt like? It felt like a darkroom. There was this weird glow.”

  “A darkroom? As in for developing photographs?” asked Gwyn.

  Phyllis nodded. “Yeah, like that.”

  “Aspen Falls used to have a developing center downtown, but that closed a few years ago,” said Char. “Once digital pictures became the new big thing.”

  “So where would we find a developing center?” asked Loni.

  Phyllis’s eyes widened. “Newspapers probably still have developing studios!”

  “You think Mom’s over at the newspaper office? That seems unlikely.”

  Phyllis shrugged. “I have no idea. But we have nowhere else to check.”

  Char nodded. “Phil’s right. We have nothing else to go on right now. Let’s go.”

  Minutes later, Char pulled Gwyn’s car up to the curb in front of the Aspen Falls Observer. The women rushed inside and were promptly greeted by a plump man with a collared shirt and a necktie that had already been loosened to his sternum.

  “Good morning, may I help you?” he asked, pulling a pen from a pen cup in the corner.

  “Do you have a darkroom?” asked Phyllis.

  The man nodded. “We do. In our basement.”

  “Is there anyone down there?”

  He made a face. “I couldn’t tell you. There are only a few of us in the office. I wouldn’t think so.”

  “Is there any way that we can go down there and check?” asked Char, pushing her way to the counter.

  “Check our basement? You want to go in our basement?”

  The women all nodded.

  He cleared his throat and wiggled the tie that hung between his oversized breasts. “That’s somewhat of a strange request.”

  Char nodded. “Yes, we know. My friend’s mother is missing,” she said, pointing to Gwyn. “We have reason to believe she might be hiding in your basement.”

  “Huh,” he said in almost a grunt.

  They heard a noise coming from an office just off the reception area. “Dennis? Is there anything I can help you with?” called a woman’s voice.

  Dennis leaned his head back. “There are some women out here who have somewhat of a strange request. Maybe you could speak with them?”

  They heard a chair squeak back on the floor and then the clack of high heels walking towards them.

  “Hello,” said a tall, slim woman wearing heels, a pencil skirt, blouse, and a small strand of pearls. “I’m Minnie Cooper, is there something I can help you with?”

  Gwyn nodded. “My mother is missing, and we have reason to believe that she may be in your darkroom.”

  One of Minnie’s perfectly plucked eyebrows lifted. “In the Observer’s darkroom? What would make you think that?”

  Gwyn sighed. How could she possibly tell this woman the truth? She glanced over at Dennis, who looked at them curiously. “Uh-hum,” she cleared her throat. “Can you give us a moment?”

  Minnie smiled at Dennis. “Those documents on my desk are ready to be faxed, Dennis.”

  Gwyn and the rest of the women smiled awkwardly at him as he left the room without a word. When he was gone, Gwyn leaned forward. “Can you keep a secret, Minnie?”

  Minnie leaned forward stiffly. “Secrets aren’t really my forte. I am the editor-in-chief of a small-town newspaper.”

  Gwyn sighed. Of course.

  Phyllis pushed Gwyn aside. “Listen, Min. It shouldn’t be a surprise to you that there are witches in Aspen Falls. This is a paranormal community, is it not?”

  Minnie gave a light smile. “I sup
pose.”

  “Okay. Well, the truth of the matter is, we’re witches. And our supreme, fearless leader is missing. We thought she ran off to find French fries, but we’ve come to discover that she’s being held by the same person that killed Margaret Sutton and Katherine Lynde.”

  Minnie’s eyes widened as she sucked in a breath. “Katherine Lynde was murdered? I thought she died of an accidental fall.”

  “Of course. That’s what the killer wanted us to think,” explained Char. “But we know the truth.”

  “And now you think your mother is with the same man that killed those women?” she asked.

  Gwyn could see both the shock and excitement of getting such a big scoop register on her face.

  Phyllis nodded. “Yes. We think so. I had a premonition, and I think he’s holding her in a darkroom. This is the only darkroom in town that we could think of.”

  “Riiight,” she drawled, pulling on one of her earlobes.

  “So we’re just wondering if we could please check your darkroom for my mother. It will just take a moment, I swear. And then we’ll be out of your hair.”

  Minnie smiled at the women and then tipped her head back toward her office. “Dennis, watch the counter, please. I’m going to take these ladies to the darkroom.”

  39

  Minnie’s heels clicked on the wooden stairs all the way down to the basement of the Observer. “I really don’t think we’ll have anyone down here. I mean, Dennis and I are the only ones in the office right now, and I haven’t heard anything suspicious.”

  “It’ll just make us feel better to check,” Char assured her.

  “Of course, I understand.”

  At the bottom of the stairs, she flipped on the light. It was a cobbled-up old basement with stone walls and a dirt floor. “Not very pretty,” she said with a gentle laugh. “The darkroom is over here.”

  Across the room, she put her hand on the door handle, took a deep breath, and opened it. Gwyn’s pulse raced, and she prayed that her mother would be inside. The door screeched open to darkness. Minnie flipped on the light, and the women all flocked inside.

  “There’s no one in here!” exclaimed Char with disappointment.