Liza snorted, but managed a smile. She was still so embarrassed–not for herself anymore, but for Bryar. She’d tried reaching out to her sister, but it was to no avail. She had blocked her. Liza could only imagine how Bryar was feeling.
When Taffy rushed in, she made a beeline for Liza. Her normally pleasant face was swallowed with worry that creased her brows and pulled in her lips.
“Oh, Liza, Liza, Liza,” she cooed, rocking Liza Jane from side to side.
Liza tried to balance the oils in both hands to keep them from spilling out on the floor. Mare quietly walked up behind Taffy and removed them from Liza’s hands and placed them on the side table.
“I am so sorry!” Taffy cried, pulling away and dabbing at her eyes with a piece of tissue. “I watched that video. My niece saw it on You Tube, one of her college friends from over in West Virginia had seen it, and Birdie sent it to me. I, of course, sent it to my sister and best friend to get their opinions of it before I said anything to you. And we all agree that it must be absolutely mortifying for you! Oh, I am sooo sorry!”
With that outburst, she grabbed Liza again and engulfed her in another smothering embrace.
Liza worked hard on not toppling over.
“I’m okay,” she squeaked. “It’s okay!”
“But you must be so embarrassed! And your poor mama, too!”
“Well, she’s–”
Taffy began stripping off her floral dress, revealing her white slip underneath. Mare quickly stepped out and closed the door to give her some privacy.
“I am just so stressed over this whole ordeal that you’ve got your work done cut out for you, girl,” she said.
“Uh,” Liza lowered her eyes and studied the floor. “I can step outside and let you undress in private if you’d rather…”
“Oh, no, no,” Taffy assured her. She now stood before Liza in nothing but her underwear–big, black silky drawers that came plumb up to her heavy breasts. “We’re just girls. We got the same parts!”
Liza managed a nervous laugh and waited while Taffy climbed up on the table. “Yeah, I tell ‘ya honey. I am done stressed about this. I’ve been worrying for you all night long. I just can’t imagine. I cannot imagine. Just remember, the good Lord forgives everything, just everything.”
“Praise Jesus,” Liza mumbled, bringing up the sheet and getting to work.
* * *
“YOU WANT ME to bring dinner over tonight?”
“Sure, that would be nice,” Liza told Colt.
When she hung up the phone, Liza looked at her kitchen, dirty dishes piled high around the sink and an overflowing trash can. She’d need to do something about that.
She’d been practicing her witchcraft skills over the past few months. They were rusty from barely being used for the past twenty years, and as she summoned all her energy, Liza attempted to pick up a soda can and lift it into the trash can. The can rose from the ground, hovered in the air for a second, and then landed on the linoleum with a crash.
“Dang it,” she muttered. “If only life were like the movies…”
Working with the elements was one thing; moving objects around the room was something else. She was not good for anything when she was exhausted and stressed. She needed to work on that, to work on controlling her emotions. Without having a handle on them, she couldn’t hope to accomplish a thing.
“I can do it, though, I can do it. I’ve done it before.”
Focusing harder, she felt a tingling on the sides of her temples, like tiny electric shocks. Her heart began to beat more rapidly and her breathing grew faster but with effort the can rose from the floor and zoomed into the trash bag. Then another, then a candy wrapper, and then a plastic fork. With one last ounce of energy she tied the plastic handles securely.
“Shoo!” Liza fell back on the sofa and tried to catch her breath. She’d done it, even after a hard day’s work. She was getting stronger.
She’d still have to mop and do the dishes, though. She wouldn’t press her luck.
While cleaning out one of the extra rooms in the farm house, she’d uncovered her grandmother’s old record player. As a little kid she’d loved listening to the old records and was enthralled with the way you could put two on the machine and magically watch them change when the first one was finished. On one winter afternoon Colt had helped her lug it into the kitchen and she’d spent the rest of the day cleaning and dusting it.
Now, she had Merle Haggard playing, the popping and hissing of the record a perfect fit to her antsy mood. She sang along loudly with “Okie from Muskogee,” remembering how her grandfather Paine would sometimes hum it under his breath while he cleaned the mud from his boots or worked on the lawnmower. So much of her grandparents remained in the house that sometimes it was easy to forget they were gone.
Colt walked through her front door, arms full of paper bags (he refused plastic; the town’s only grocery store had started stocking brown bags just for him), and let it slam shut behind him. Fat raindrops fell from his jacket and left tiny puddles behind him as he walked. He entered the kitchen just as “Working Man’s Blues” started up.
Liza turned to him, did a little shimmy with soapy arms, and without missing a beat he put the bags down and grabbed her into a polka around the kitchen, paying no heed to her rubber gloves and the bubbles flying everywhere.
Together, they laughed and sang along with the record, their voices and the music drowning out the second sound that emerged from the living room.
It was Colt who stopped first. He had Liza in mid-swing when he paused.
Liza, balancing on one foot, slammed into him, sending dishwashing liquid down the front of his shirt and leaving a bubble goatee on his chin. “Wh–”
She didn’t have time to finish her sentence, however.
In a black jumpsuit, tennis shoes, and her hair plastered to her head from the rain, her sister stood before them looking like a drowned rat. Her face was red and puffy; her eyes were bright and shiny.
Without waiting, Liza walked over to her and threw her arms around her sister.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Bryar.”
Chapter Five
With more of a sense of practicality (one never knew when they’d have guests) than a premonition, Liza Jane had readied a spare room. She’d carried Bryar’s suitcases in for her, turned down the bed, and lit an oil lamp (the light was more soothing than an electric one) while her sister sat in the living room, the stunned look never quite leaving her face.
“You sure you want to stay here alone with her?” Colt had asked when she’d walked him out to his truck.
“She’s my sister,” Liza’d replied. “A sister that embarrassed herself on national television, not someone who murdered her secretary and hung her tattered body over Fifth Avenue in time for the Labor Day sales.”
“Your vivid imagination scares the daylight out of me,” Colt grinned.
Liza watched his headlights grow smaller and smaller as they traveled down her gravel drive. She’d watched until they disappeared into the dark, prolonging her return to the house. She and Bryar had grown up in the same house, had a sisterly bond that was even stronger thanks to their shared gifts, but had never truly been friends. Bryar was materialistic, self-absorbed, and what a lot of people who didn’t know her well called “icy.” Liza knew that the sometimes rigid exterior covered a sensitive soul that was almost empathetic to a fault, but it was difficult (even for her) to chip away at it.
And she was tired. She’d worked all day.
Bryar had not moved from the sofa. She was still wearing the leather jacket she’d worn in. It was still wet and dampening the back of the couch. Liza thought it prudent, considering the situation, not to point this out. Her normally impeccable blond hair was in disarray, wet and hanging in tangles down her back. There was enough luggage under her eyes to spend a week in Beverly Hills. Plumb-colored lipstick was smeared down to her chin. Foundation that probably cost more than Liza’s utility bill was caked
in some places and rubbed off in others.
She was a hot mess.
“Bryar,” Liza began tentatively as she entered the room. “You’ve, uh, let the fire go out…”
When the flames suddenly shot upwards, the heat blasting out from the hearth, Liza took a step backwards. In hindsight, probably not the best line to open with, Liza thought.
Bryar didn’t turn her head but the air hissed and crackled with unseen electricity.
Gathering all the patience she could muster, Liza closed the door behind her and soldiered her way into the living room. She started to sit down by her sister, reconsidered, and gingerly lowered herself to the rocking chair instead.
“Sooo…what’s new?”
Bryar turned and glared at her.
Okay, so humor wasn’t going to work either.
“Are you hungry? I could make something to eat. I’ve, uh, got microwaveable macaroni and cheese. It’s not the good brand, like Stouffer’s but if I sprinkle shredded cheddar on it it’s almost as good,” Liza knew she was rambling but once she started she couldn’t stop. “And I’ve got a frozen lasagna I think and–oh! Colt made chili. It’s in the crockpot. It’s already warm and it smells good.”
“Would you be able to eat if you were me?” Bryar countered icily.
Actually, Liza thought, I probably could. She was always hungry.
“Okay then,” she replied instead. “We can turn on the television if you’d like.”
“Are the stations still showing me up there?”
Liza hesitated, debating on whether or not she should tell her sister that it was probably the internet she should avoid, and not the television. Television news moved quickly; the internet held onto crap like that forever.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” she said cheerfully.
With confidence, Liza flipped on the remote.
Before them, on the big screen Colt had installed for her just a few weeks before, Jimmy Fallon was dressed in a blond wig, drunkenly twirling around in front of a chuckling Idris Elba.
Liza quickly snapped it off.
“Uh, sorry about that,” she apologized.
“Great idea, Lize,” Bryar snapped.
“I said I was sorry.”
“Humph,” Bryar snorted, but Liza saw the sparkle of tears forming in her eyes.
“Look, I don’t mean to be all rude and crap,” Liza said suddenly, “but I’m hungry. I’m going to eat. If you want something, you can have it. Just remember, you came to me. So don’t be copping an attitude with me. I want you here, but if you’re going to be crappy to me then you can just go stay with Mom.”
Liza got up and stomped back into the kitchen. She had started through the door when an invisible wall suddenly blocked her, sending her reeling backwards. With the wind knocked out of her she gasped and tried to catch her breath.
“What the hell, Bryar Rose?” she cried as she rubbed at her nose. It didn’t feel broken but it was sore.
Bryar stood and walked over to where Liza stood. “Sorry, I’m a little rusty.”
With a push of her hands, the wall disappeared. Liza could feel it sliding downwards and saw the puff of smoke when the last of it vanished.
“I just wanted to say thank you for letting me stay. I won’t be here long, I promise. I just need to get my head on straight.”
Bryar looked so vulnerable that Liza could only sigh. No bones were broken, after all. She could forgive a bruised nose. At least it wasn’t like the broken arm Bryar had accidentally given her middle school boyfriend.
“It’s alright. Just, don’t be using that stuff on me, okay? And stop with the stoic bitch routine. Can’t you find a happy medium between icy and woo-hoo-hoo!” Liza waved her arms around in the air and began twerking.
Bryar, in spite of herself, laughed. “Yeah, yeah, okay. So, tell me,” she began, throwing an arm around her sister’s shoulder. “This man of yours and his chili. It any good?”
* * *
LIZA TOSSED AND TURNED in bed, unable to sleep. She had a mattress, one she’d bought before she left Massachusetts and her old life, but it was in the spare room. Instead of using it, and her own bed, she’d been sleeping on her grandmother’s. It creaked beneath her now, a testament to its age. The lumpy mattress protested with her heavy movements and tossing and turning. She loved the bed, her great-grandfather had carved the headboard and footboard himself, but it wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world.
She just couldn’t give it up; it reminded her too much of her grandparents. She remembered many nights crawling into it with her Nana Bud, sometimes with Bryar, and sleeping in the middle. Feeling safe and reassured, like nothing in the world could hurt her. When she’d first moved back to the farm house, the room had even smelled like her grandmother for awhile. Now it had been taken over by Liza’s own scent.
“Bryar’s a grown woman,” she whispered aloud. “She can figure out her own life.”
But that didn’t mean she couldn’t worry. She’d give Bryar some space to sort her head and figure out her next move. She’d still get work. There were always enough up-and-coming artists that would want her to produce their albums–it just wasn’t likely many of the big names would be clamoring over one another for her in the near future.
“I got replaced on the Hooligans’ album,” she’d sniveled once the beer in the chili (and the whiskey she’d nursed) had started taking effect. “That one was a good payday, too.”
“You’ll be okay,” Liza had promised her optimistically, though she knew next to nothing about the music business and how it worked.
But she wasn’t sure. Bryar looked…lost. And Liza had never seen her look that way before. Bryar had always been confident–bossy, even. She was the one who’d lined up her dolls and played “President and Congress” while Liza was still slipping tiny high heels on her Barbies, playing “royal ball.” Liza had belonged to the photography club; Bryar had been president of the student council and the academic team. She’d graduated a year early and been voted “Most Likely to Take Over a Small Country.”
Liza sighed. If only she were the kind of witch that could snap her fingers and make things better. Sometimes her powers felt absolutely useless.
She could do her best to make sure the elements were in her sister’s favor, give her some charms and send positive energy out into the Universe for her, but Bryar Rose would have to do all the hard work on her own. Nobody could do that for her. That was the real kicker of magick.
“I just need a few weeks,” she’d vowed with a hint of optimism. “Just enough for people to move on and for me to get over my embarrassment. I can surely stand this hick town and the rednecks for a little while.”
Liza hoped Bryar didn’t go nuts or stir crazy in Kudzu Valley before then. This was, after all, the same place Bryar had once declared to be the “fourth layer of Hell.”
She also hoped she wouldn’t have to kill her before Bryar returned to Manhattan. Liza Jane had, after all, already been accused of murder once in the small town.
At any rate, Liza had her own life going and couldn’t afford to put it on hold. At 10:00 a.m. she had a meeting with the Morel Shroomers, the committee in charge of planning the annual Mushroom Festival. She still wasn’t sure how she’d gotten tricked into that.
A few weeks before, she’d walked over to City Hall to drop off some paperwork and had been cornered by Twila Lenderhosen, festival chair. One minute she’d been sharing her Nana Bud’s recipe for sorghum cookies and the next minute she’d found herself agreeing to be on the children’s planning committee for the festival and calling people about renting inflatable slides.
Liza was never sure how those things happened until after they were said and done.
Chapter Six
Liza Jane might have been the town witch (well, now she kind of shared that title with the sleeping beauty snoring in the guest room) but she swore the town of Kudzu Valley had a collective psychic conscience.
She’d barely gotten i
nside the building and Mare was greeting her with a, “So, I hear your sister’s in town! Can I meet her?”
Followed shortly by Pepper Parker, a thirty-five-year-old housewife and the town’s only vegan (“out of the closet since 2005” she liked to brag), who waltzed through the door for her appointment and announced, “I hope your sister comes to visit us soon!” (Pepper also volunteered at the animal shelter. Liza wasn’t sure what Bryar, who was afraid of most things with four legs and shirked from anything that might involve cleaning, was meant to do there but she rolled with it.)
By the time Liza met Colt for lunch at the Tasty Bite she’d been accosted no fewer than four times in the street by people asking her about her sister.
“Did you say something to one of your sisters about Mare?” she demanded after giving him a quick hug and peck on the cheek.
“Nope,” he grinned. “But I think Filly might have smelled her on me. She was over last night, raiding my fridge. Mama hasn’t been to the store this week.”
“You didn’t even get close to Bryar,” Liza said.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said with a shrug. “That girl can smell that Chanel from a mile away.”
“I’m worried. People are talking about coming to visit.” Liza didn’t mind company, but Bryar was not in a good place at the moment. The last thing she needed was a bunch of strangers plying her with questions like “Is Beyoncé really stuck up” and “Can you tell me what the inside of Bruce Springsteen’s bathroom looks like?” (Bryar had never met Springsteen but people just kind of assumed all those famous musicians hung out together–know one, know them all!)
Neither Colt nor Liza asked for menus. Creatures of habit, they always ordered the same thing. In fact, as soon as Gwen, the owner, saw Liza walk through the door she began cracking eggs for her bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich. It was Wednesday, after all. Liza always had breakfast sandwiches on Wednesday. On Fridays she had the buffet at Pizza Hut.
Broommates: Two Witches are Better Than One! (Kentucky Witches Book 2) Page 4