Bewitched and Bewildered

by Constance Barker

  She moved downhill into Possum Hollow, the sound of Dutchman Run getting louder. No sounds of life reached her, no birds or squirrels (or possums, she supposed, given the name of the place) darted through the trees.

  When the rush of the run drowned out the sound of her steps, an eerie feeling stole over her. Quinn stopped, feeling she was being watched. She stepped in a circle, eyes taking in everything around her.

  “Hey, sugar lumps. Long time no see.”

  She let out a strangled noise and whirled. Towering above her, head topped with massive, curving horns, eyes glowing a brilliant blue, a half-goat, half-man leaned against a tree. “Damn it, Leshy, you scared the crap out of me!”

  “It’s my thing. You know that. Did you pee yourself?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  He raised his hands tipped with talons. “Hey, I’m George’s imaginary friend. I’m just looking out for the little guy.”

  “Imaginary friend?”

  Leshy hiked his massive shoulders. “We have common interests. Hot chicks. Hot Pockets. Have you tried those? Really good eats.”

  While this backed her theory that George had some psychic ability, Quinn didn’t like the idea of the perverted goat-creature palling around with a ten-year-old. “You should stay away from that kid.”

  With a sigh, the monster looked forlornly back down the track. “Well, I’m really diminishing in his life. He’s got real friends now. Kids at school. That dork Paul down the street. We hardly ever sneak out at night to spy on Becky Miller anymore.”

  “Becky Miller?”

  “High school girl. George has a crush on her. She doesn’t close her bedroom curtains at night, and—”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Of course not. You have more pressing business out here.”

  Quinn gave him the hairy eyeball. “What do you know about it?”

  “You got a creature from the Twih ramming around out here. This neighborhood’s up and coming, you know. Murderous monsters really bring down property values.”

  “Murderous?”

  He angled his head down the overgrown trail. “C’mon, you can tell me about your love life while we walk.”

  “I’m not talking about my life with you.”

  “Still no cuddle buddies, huh? Good thing it’s a short walk. Ah, there we go.” Somehow, a large battle ax appeared in his hand. He gestured with it. Quinn followed with her eyes.

  “I don’t see anything.”

  “Look harder.”

  The path lightened ahead and uphill. “Looks like a clearing.”

  “My work is done here.”

  “What do you mean?” She faced around, but the monster was gone. Sighing, Quinn continued on alone. The clearing was circular, maybe fifty feet across. Young trees had sprouted, making Quinn think this place was abandoned for a while. Beyond the tree line, she caught the stained wood of a shed.

  An old truck leaned inside, tires flat. In the branches nearby, she saw ropes and tatters of plastic tarps. Before she could begin to wonder what was going on, one of the young trees caught her eye. Moving closer, she recognized the leaves. It wasn’t a tree at all. It was a dead marijuana plant. When she scanned the clearing, she saw the dried stalks of the plant competing with sumac and goldenrod. A pot farm, she realized, probably abandoned for years.

  As she wondered what an old marijuana grow had to do with a shadow monster, the wind shifted. Quinn winced at a horrific odor. It smelled like something died out here.

  Feet heavy with reluctance, she moved toward the odor. It came from the left of the tumbledown shed. Deeper in the trees, she saw a crude cabin made of skinny logs and broken pallets with a roof of dark green garbage bags and a sheet of transparent plastic. While it had no windows, there was an open doorway. A pair of sneakered feet poked from the opening. Quinn needed only a fleeting glance to recognize a mutilated body inside.

  ECHO STOOD IN THE SIDE yard, looking up at Zuri’s window. The girl had described the shadow monster doing the same. From here, she could see a wooded back yard leading to a heavily forested ridge. Between, she knew, was Fishburn Run, water high from the melting snow and rain. She’d been this way before. If she crossed the creek and walked up the slope...

  Since it was still light out, Echo did just that. A fallen log acted as a bridge, but it was slippery going, the white water of the creek ten feet below. Once across, it was a steep climb. At the top, she found the path.

  Some time later, she stood over a depression in the ground. It had once been the lair of the demonic creature Zuri called Blue Rodrigo. Now, there was no trace of the subterranean home of the thing. Echo shivered at the memory. Her reverie was broken by an acrid smell. Smoke.

  Farther along, the narrow path became a crumbling dirt road that accessed a scattering of cabins. Most of the camping around here was done in the national forest on the other side of the Allegheny. These were rented by hunters and fishermen, but trout season was still weeks away. Echo left the path, moving through the trees to investigate.

  She came across a Nissan stuck in a ditch. It parked near the source of the smell, a cabin with a broken door, a gray line of smoke streaming from the stone chimney. Before she could move closer, she saw movement in the car. Echo stepped back behind a trunk.

  “I told you, the car's in a ditch. We got no electric out here. Gotta charge the phone in the damn car. Send somebody, alright? Don’t send ’em through town, send ’em down from New York. Troopers are all over our shit.” A man in a Detroit Lions jacket levered himself from the angled vehicle. “We outta food, man. There ain’t even no place to steal from out here in the cuts. Send somebody now!”

  Echo peeked out when she heard the creak of hinges. Another man in light blue stood in the doorway of the cabin. “You get some firewood?”

  “Nah, I’s talking to Jackson. You get the damn wood. Gonna freeze our asses off.”

  When both men disappeared inside, Echo headed back. These must be the gangsters from the shootout. The cabins were a great hideout, both remote and not very popular. She needed to get back into cell phone range and call the police.

  Chapter 11

  “Harvest right? If you girls didn’t wear your hair different, I doubt I could tell you apart!” Ava Taylor bounded into the conference room. “Taka will be here in just a tick. He’s on a video chat with our guys in Birao. Tough to get a good connection there.”

  Harvest couldn’t help but smile at the bubbly redhead. The woman had a lot of energy, even if she did have an all-too-obvious crush on Dad. Was that what bothered Harvest about the woman? Something niggled at the back of her mind. She had no time to unravel her thoughts before Ava left.

  “If you need me, just shout. I’ll be down the hall.”

  Dad smiled. “I think we’ll be just fine, thanks.”

  Harvest took a seat. The conference room was on the dowdy side, threadbare carpet, industrial table with uncomfortable chairs. Some kind of telecommunication device lay in the middle of the table, looking like a dead octopus. “I guess this room doesn’t get used much.”

  “This is more a remote outpost for the corporation than Birao,” Dad agreed. “Other than the steady refining of oil, there isn’t a lot of interest from the multinational. It’s something of a cash cow, I gather. I would have thought it was the safest place on Earth.”

  Except that gangsters had met by chance at a local fast food parking lot. What were the chances? Nothing like that had ever happened before here. “You couldn’t have known.”

  “I suppose not.” Dad looked out the window at the low refinery towers. He squinted, as if remembering something. Harvest watched him reach into his suit coat. A navy blue one, not the burgundy hounds-tooth horror. “I nearly forgot. These are for you.”

  At first, Harvest thought it was a joke. Dad handed her a totally ’80s pair of sunglasses, asymmetrical frames in neon green and hot pink, the lenses rainbow mirrors. She started to smile, but Dad’s face looked grave.<
br />
  “Um. Thanks. These might just come back in style.”

  “They were your mother’s,” he said. “She enchanted them a bit, to ease her life in this realm. Try them on.”

  Suppressing a smile, she slipped the ridiculous shades over her ears. “Are they me?”

  “I don’t think they’re anybody, or ever were. What do you see?”

  Harvest looked around. Things were darker, of course. When she faced Dad, it looked like he was engulfed in red flames. She jerked the sunglasses off. He tilted his head.

  She stared at the comical glasses. “What is that?”

  “Magic, I assume. For your mother, she needed to tone down the sharpness of objects in the mundane world. But for you—”

  Harvest slid them back in place. “I can see magic!”

  Taka Zambo strode into the conference room before she could ask more questions. The man had shooting green embers flying from his eyes. She whipped off the shades, partly because the sparks were intense, but mostly out of embarrassment. Did anyone ever wear such bizarre looking sunglasses?

  “Cade, I have not had the chance to thank you for saving me.” They shook hands. “And Miss Hutchinson, thank you for treating me with kindness and dignity.”

  She shoved the shades in her vest pocket. “Just being professional.”

  “As you say.”

  Harvest jumped in. “How did you get involved with oil prospecting?”

  “It was not I. My father, and his father, wished to provide for their families decades ago. Although they had many cattle and much land, Vakaga is a place of sorrow. No matter how much a man might struggle, there is no defense against the drought, the famine, the bush war that plagues the area. My grandfather served as a guide on the Savannah. It was my father who learned the ways of prospecting. He passed that knowledge onto me, and eventually, onto Barif.”

  She saw sorrow shadow his features.

  “I’m sorry that this conversation hurts you,” Dad joined in. “But would you tell us about your wife?”

  “Uzochi.” He smiled and sighed, but Harvest could still see the hurt in his eyes. “Like all beautiful women, she could enchant any man. When I met her, I said, ‘well, let me be enchanted.’ We were a good match, and she gave me two strong sons. We survived the razing of Birao by rebel forces. But it was in a time of peace, while I was leading an expedition, when Uzochi was accused.

  “As I said, she could enchant any man, and it was a man who could not have her that named her a witch. She was jailed for being beautiful. He claimed her spells left him impotent. Four others were accused and jailed.

  “Uzochi pleaded with the magistrates that she and her fellow inmates were not witches. This caused one magistrate to claim she ensorcelled him. At nightfall, a mob gathered. By torchlight, they dragged the witches into the street. My sons were injured trying to stop the violence. The women were beaten, cut, burned...”

  It seemed impossible that there were places in the world that executed accused witches. Hearing it from Taka rocked Harvest.

  “Do you think a rival oil concern had some influence over this tragic murder?” Dad asked.

  Taka’s eyes were bright and wet, though his voice was level. “At the time, I thought it was nothing but superstition and jealousy. Such a waste of a lovely woman. Sorrow kept me from my work, it’s true. For safety, we removed the family to Bangui.

  “Barif took my place, and proved as good a prospector as me. He was well paid, and not foolish with his money despite his youth. The clan paired him with a wife, so that he might expand his good fortune. Their union, and the birth of his first child, lifted much of my sorrow. I returned to my work on the Sahel.

  “While prospecting, the company informed Barif and I that Chelby was in jail. This time, the company stepped in, for they knew it was no coincidence. They called you, Cade Hutchinson, to defend her. Once she was freed, we were relocated to this place. This supposedly civilized place of quiet and peace. And yet my brother...”

  QUINN SAT IN HER SUV, panting from her run from the abandoned pot farm. She waited to catch her breath and for her hands to stop shaking, before she dialed 911. Without leaving her name, she described the location of the body. Then she drove off. Using the Bluetooth, she texted Harvest. What else was she supposed to do?

  As she drove north back across the bridge into Warren, several state trooper cars screamed by on their way to the scene. They would be followed by crime scene techs, investigators, coroners—Quinn wondered if the commotion would set George’s mind at ease, or make him freak out all the more.

  Once in town, her phone beeped. “Text message from. Harvest.”

  “Read the text.”

  “‘Was the body you found a gangster?’”

  Still shaken up, she decided to drive home instead of to the office. “Text Harvest.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I think so, but he was a little too chewed up to tell for sure.” She headed out on 5th Ave. “Send text.”

  Chapter 12

  “What do you think?”

  Taka Zambo had left the room at the conclusion of the interview. “I think we stirred up a lot of sadness for no reason. That poor man.”

  “Was he telling the truth?”

  Harvest scowled at Dad. “Well, as horrible as his story was, yes, he was.”

  “What about the magic part? About his wife enchanting men. I arrived far too late to save Uzochi Zambo, but my investigation after the fact made me believe that her influence on men was more than just good looks.”

  “You’re saying, she really was a witch.”

  Dad folded his hands. “I’m saying, she had an ability beyond the normal bounds of this physical world.”

  “Well, you think Taka has an ability as well. Why not accuse him?”

  “The reason I proposed the Zambos leave the C.A.R. was because I figured either he, or his brother, soon would be accused.” Dad sighed and put his elbows on the table. “This is the oil business, energy companies, more money than we can imagine. I suspect if a company could find someone with magic abilities, they would exploit that person. Given the extreme competition in the field, I can imagine a competitor wanting to limit, or eliminate, that kind of edge. The murder of Taka’s wife took him out of the game for a long time.”

  “So they employed the same tactic on Barif, when he proved to have... that kind of edge.” Harvest thought it over. “So why do you think Uzochi could use magic? Or Chelby? That kind of dirty play would work whether the wives were witches or not.”

  “The lion sightings, the attack on the trooper who shot Barif. Magic has to be the source. Maybe my hunch about Uzochi was just that, a hunch. But it seems someone is using African magic in a blood vendetta. Who would your prime suspect be?”

  Harvest’s phone beeped. “Oh, boy. Quinn found a body near one the lion sightings.”

  “Was it another trooper? One of the gangsters?”

  She texted back. After she sent it, her phone rang. “That’s Sgt. Shafer.”

  “Maybe you should answer.”

  “We just got an anonymous tip about a body down in Clarendon. It’s a funny thing that it happened to come from your sister’s phone.”

  A spark of anger flared in her heart. “You don’t want us getting mixed up in police work, and now you’re complaining when we call in a tip?”

  “Well, you claimed you weren’t getting involved. It just strikes me that Quinn finding a body that may be related to the recent shooting is no coincidence.”

  It wasn’t, of course, not if the magic shadow lion connected the murders. “Well, it is a coincidence. Maybe you can ask her herself. I’m working right now.”

  The tone for a text message sounded again. Echo, this time. She read the text, heart sinking. “Um, I do have another anonymous tip, if you want to hear it.”

  “I’m not sure,” Shafer bit off his words. “Do I?”

  “A... friend of mine spotted a car in a ditch by those cabins Grant Chapman owns. Thi
s friend thinks the Detroit gangsters may be hiding out there.”

  “Based on what?”

  “Detroit Lions jackets and hats.”

  A strangled sound came from her phone. Shafer eventually found his voice. “When were you going to let me in on this?”

  “I just found out. Jeeze, I give you info, and you wanna bite my head off. No wonder I want to do things on my own.” Harvest beeped the phone off.

  “Am I interrupting anything?” Ava stuck her head in the door. “I just wanted you to know that there’s fresh coffee in the telecom room. And Chelby’s arrived. It’s a short day at school.”

  “Thanks, Ava,” Dad smiled at her. This made Ava flush nearly purple.

  “Oh, and if you aren’t doing anything for dinner tonight.” She glanced at Harvest. “Both of you, I mean—”

  “Let me go grab some fresh coffee,” Harvest stood up. She gave Dad a smirk and watched him squirm. Once out in the corridor, she spotted Chelby rolling a double stroller toward the company daycare space.

  Harvest pulled the silly sunglasses out and stuck them in place. Through the rainbow lenses, Chelby glowed, bright as a torch in a cave. Somehow, the girl seemed to sense her presence. Harvest pocketed the glasses and headed toward the coffee.

  “Oh, hey, Chelby. I guess we’ll see you once you get situated.”

  The young woman gave her a nod and a strained smile. Harvest wanted to smack herself in the forehead. She was no good at investigating other witches.

  “WELL, AT LEAST THE Detroit gangsters will be safe from the shadow monster,” Echo sat in the living room, muting the TV “As long as the police get to them first.”

  “I don’t even know if they should be safe,” Harvest said. “Randomly shooting it out in a busy parking lot? They’re worse than animals.”

  Quinn shrugged. “Not up to us. I’m sure karma will catch up with them pretty quick.”