Conflicted Witch (Jagged Grove Book 2)

by Willow Monroe

  “So? Is today the big day?”

  “Big day?” I murmur, still half-thinking about Jones and how off-limits he is.

  “Moving day? Remember?”

  She sits down at the table and I sit across from her.

  Is it? I want it to be, but should I leave right now?

  Yes, Rachel’s voice whispers at me.

  Luckily, Imala chooses that moment to barge through the back door, stop inside and give me a wide-eyed look. Her cheeks are flushed.

  “Enjoying the scenery?” I ask, staring at the box of doughnuts in her hands. At least it’s shaped like a doughnut box. It’s gray, though, and kind of shiny. I smile at the challenge.

  She nods, comes over, and plops them on the table. “Oh, yeah. When did you have that installed? I want one.”

  I shrug and attack the box. I have to - she considers her doughnut packaging abilities to be superior to my box-destroying abilities, so every morning the tricks get more elaborate. Last week it was wrapped in ribbons, which I annihilated in seconds. Today it’s duct tape, covering every inch of the surface. I fight with it for a few minutes before reaching over to the buffet for a pair of scissors.

  Technically that’s cheating, but I’m hungry, and she’s distracted by half-naked Jones anyway.

  “What are you two talking about?” Bilda asks, making both of us burst into slightly embarrassed giggles. She gets up and goes to the window in the back door. “Oh.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Imala says.

  “Glade must have talked that man down for the price of the car. How wonderful.”

  My gaze meets Imala’s from across the room, and she comes to the table and sits before smiling at me. “So is this new?” she asks, nodding her head toward me and then Jones.

  “Oh - no. No way. It was here when I got up.”

  Bilda cuts in. “It doesn’t look like much now, girls, but wait until he really gets going on it. It will be the finest thing in the neighborhood.”

  I choke on my doughnut, trying to swallow the giggles.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Imala says.

  “It’s going to run like a dream,” Bilda says. “I hear he really knows what he’s doing, and he’s the best man for this kind of job. He seems to like doing it, doesn’t he?”

  We don’t bother to answer this time. I’m dying.

  Rain chooses that moment to come through the door, distracting us. She offers her customary glare and heads for the coffee pot. “Who woke me up?” she fusses, then catches a glimpse of the project in the back yard and freezes.

  I’m pretty sure her mouth drops open.

  Uh-oh.

  Crush-time.

  “Rain?” I try to distract her, because these things never end well. “Want a doughnut?”

  “Uh, yeah.” But she doesn’t move.

  I can sympathize with the deluge of hormones she’s fighting right now. “Rain, honey? Back away, sweetheart.”

  When she finally tears her gaze away from the spectacle of Jones without a shirt, she gets her coffee, comes over, and falls into her chair. “You need to hit that,” she half-whispers to me.

  “Rain!” I look from her to Imala in disbelief.

  Imala nods. “You really do.”

  “You told me to stay away from him, remember?”

  “I didn’t say marry him. Or even date seriously. But he lives very conveniently next door...”

  “Behind us.”

  “Whatever. You need to spread you...” She pauses and glances at Rain. “Wings...is all I’m saying.”

  She’s right, Rachel says. I look around at the others, but apparently only I can hear her.

  I stare at my hands until Bilda finally comes over and sits down. “So are you moving today?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re nose isn’t blue anymore,” Imala says.

  “Or green,” Rain adds helpfully.

  “My hair is still pink, though.”

  “Yeah, but you kind of rock that look,” Bilda says.

  “Rock that...?” Right. The twins. I reach for another doughnut.

  Bilda is watching me, and then she gets this mild look of horror on her face. “Girls, don’t tease Trinket. She’s going through a rough break up.”

  All eyes turn to me. “I’m fine,” I say.

  “What happened?” Imala asks, real concern on her features.

  “Nothing I can’t deal with,” I say.

  “It’s about something that happened back home. In Raleigh,” Bilda explains.

  “Mom, please...”

  “No, Trinket. These people are your friends. They care. You should let them help you - let us all help you.”

  “I don’t want to discuss it.”

  “...And you don’t need our help. I understand.” She turns her eyes away.

  I look down at my doughnut - the third - knowing that I’ve hurt her feelings again. I don’t know how I do it, but I always seem to manage to screw things up with her, as easily and mindlessly as she screws up her own spells. “I’m sorry,” I mumble.

  In my hand, the pastry tingles and then it isn’t a doughnut anymore. It moves.

  I drop it onto the table and stand up with a screech - it’s a chameleon. I watch it skitter away across the table top and down one of the wooden legs before I look toward the ceiling.

  “Cut it out, Rachel.”

  Imala and the twins are startled, but amused, too. “At least she’s proven that she isn’t trying to kill you.”

  “Maybe she’s trying to scare me to death.”

  Bilda leaves her spot and heads upstairs.

  “Is she OK?” Rain asks, looking after her.

  “I’ll talk to her. It’s my fault.” I’m eyeing the box of doughnuts again, but now I’m afraid to take one. Instead I look at Imala. “Rain tells me that she heard a man named Millard...something...”

  “Flak,” Rain says.

  “Flak. He was talking about Lilly, and she seems to think he might be the person who killed her.”

  “Millard?” Imala looks unconvinced. “I don’t think so - he won’t even leave his house that often, ever since Lilly-. Uh-oh.”

  “What?”

  She’s frowning. “Millard lost his wife Maria in a sailboat accident a couple of years ago. It capsized - he made it back, but she didn’t.”

  “So?”

  “He always swore that Lilly did it on purpose.”

  “Why would she kill his wife?”

  She frowns. “It had something to do with a family heirloom. A ring, I think. Maria accused her of stealing it, and there was a huge rift between them for a long time.”

  “Would Lilly have killed someone over a piece of jewelry?”

  “Well, maybe not on purpose...”

  I remember what Imala told me about Lilly before, how her spells had a tendency to go awry. “You think maybe she was trying to do something else and accidentally killed her?”

  Imala shrugged. “I can’t be sure. I was still in school during all of that, so I wasn’t really paying attention.”

  “And Millard is a witch, too?”

  “A warlock, actually. He isn’t strong, but he could maybe do some damage if he was mad enough.”

  I guess it would be worth checking out, even though my instincts keep insisting that Rachel had something to do with Lilly’s death.

  “I’m going to shower and then go to the house,” I say to the ceiling. “You have some explaining to do.”

  There’s no answer, not even the faint laughter I’m getting used to lately.

  By the time I get back downstairs, Bilda is already there, dressed in a lavender tunic and sandals. I’m opening my mouth to tell her that she looks nice, but then I spot what she’s holding.

  “Mom? Is that your ritual robe?”

  The white cloth flutters around her knees as she turns to face me. “Yes, dear.”

  “Have you found a coven?” I’m curious, because the only one she could be joining is Wisp’s and that’s just...
odd.

  “I have. Well, I’m thinking about it, and today I’m going to spend some time with them.”

  “Them who?” I ask, but a knock at the door interrupts me.

  She walks over to open it and I freeze.

  Aries is standing there, along with a man I’ve never met. “Bilda!” she cries, coming past me to give my mother a hug. Are they old friends now, or what?

  All I know is that the vibe in the room has suddenly grown heavy, and that the man looks stiff and slightly hostile. I turn my eyes back to Bilda. “Mom, can I talk to you for a minute?”

  She sighs. “Right now, Trinket? We have guests.”

  Aries turns her eyes to me and she looks just as unfriendly as the strange man, as if I’m causing her all sorts of trouble. I’m banking on Bilda’s mothering nature to kick in, so that I can warn her about these two before she takes off with them.

  “We’re in a bit of a hurry, Bilda,” Aries says quietly, not taking her eyes off me. The sharp lines off her face remind me of a snake. Trapped in her gaze, I can see where she might be capable of killing someone.

  “I’ll only be a moment.” Bilda gives me a look, but then takes my arm and leads me to the kitchen. “What is it, Trinket?” she snaps.

  My mother never snaps at me. She fusses, she whines, she even pouts, but she never snaps. I search her face. She looks the same, but something is changing. I can feel it. To be honest, I’ve been feeling it for a couple of days now - I’ve just been too preoccupied to pay attention.

  “Mom, how did you meet Aries?”

  “She’s a lovely woman isn’t she?” She smiles, but it’s tense. “Can we talk about it later?”

  “No. Mom. How did you meet her?”

  “In the Silver Cup, when Blakely took me for coffee last week.”

  I’m listening. “And did he say anything about her?”

  “Like what?” She shakes her head. “No - he’d gone by the time she came by, and said she heard I was looking for a coven home. Isn’t that interesting?”

  “Have you been to her store?”

  Her eyes light up. “Ooh, she has a store? In town? That’s right - she was Lilly’s partner, wasn’t she? I’ll ask her about it, but right now I really need to get going.”

  “Mom...” How do I say this without making her mad? Well, madder? “She’s not...well, she’s not a good witch.”

  Her brow furrows. “What is wrong with you, Trinket?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Are you jealous? Is that it?”

  She’s staring hard at me, and I can see a flicker of that anger I was trying to avoid. Along with a touch of pain.

  “No! Of course not...”

  “I’m not five, and I don’t need you to vet my friends. I also don’t need your all-knowing opinion about how I spend my time.” She’s working herself into a fit. I try to put a hand on her arm, but she jerks away. “You’re so very busy, so why don’t you leave me alone? You’re good at it. Go live in your house and have your friends, and leave me alone.”

  With that, she spins away and stomps out, her white robe flapping around her legs. I can hear the door slam behind her - another thing she never does.

  I sink into one of the dining room chairs and drop my head on the table. Then I remember the lizard and lift it up again, just as Glade and Jones come through the door.

  “Hey,” Glade says. “What’s all the yelling about?”

  Jones, still shirtless, doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even look at me. Instead, he goes to the sink to start washing his hands.

  “Jones?” I ask, ignoring Glade for the moment.

  His shoulder hitches like I’ve hit him. “Jones, I need your help.”

  He still won’t answer. Instead, he turns to Glade, mutters, “Catch you later,” and walks back through the door toward his own house.

  I miss him immediately.

  “So were you and Bilda fighting?” he asks me, digging in the fridge and pulling out a can of soda. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard her yell before.”

  “Yeah - she got mad at me. Glade? What do you know about Lilly Crabtree’s business partner Aries?”

  He guzzles his soda, crushes the can and throws it away while he thinks. “Well, not a lot. She was a member of my dad’s coven for a while, but then she was gone. I think he made her leave.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugs and opens the fridge again. “Are you going to eat this?”

  I shake my head and he downs three hard-boiled eggs, one after another.

  “I don’t know why, I just know that there was a discussion, and that she got mad and left. Why is Bilda mad?”

  “I hurt her feelings, I think.”

  “Oh. You do that a lot. She’s nice to you, so you really need to quit.”

  Glade’s words remind me that he doesn’t have a mother anymore. My own guilt and worry immediately quadruples.

  “And why is Jones mad at you? Is it because you won’t sleep with him?”

  My head comes up. “Glade!”

  He shrugs. “Just asking.” Then he points at me with one finger. “Your nose is green again, by the way.”

  He disappears upstairs while I give myself another cross-eyed headache.

  When he’s gone, I’m alone and slightly panicky. Bilda is off with a really wicked witch, and I can’t ask Jones for help this time.

  I head for Imala’s since she was the one who warned me about Lilly in the first place. Not that I needed that much of a warning. Her story spoke volumes.

  Imala isn’t home. Frank is outside, but he’s doing something in his garage, and he looks busy, so I don’t feel right bothering him.

  That leaves, among all of my friends here, Angelo. I head into town.

  If Rachel is going to kill me, it should be now, so this is her real test. I know she’s here, I can feel her following me, rustling through the leaves on the trees as I walk down the street. It’s like she’s everywhere and nowhere, all at once.

  Angelo is down at the docks when I finally find him, supervising a crew that’s unloading boxes of supplies. He’s wearing nicer clothes - a polo shirt and pressed khakis - so I know he’s been home, on Earth.

  “Angelo?” I call, waving at him from a safe distance so as not to get in the way. Then I wait for Rachel to throttle me from behind.

  Hands off, she whispers.

  “I don’t want him. I just need help.” I try to talk without moving my lips, so that the folks of Jagged Grove don’t think their healer is a moron.

  I can help, she says.

  “You’ve almost helped me to death. No thank you.” A young woman pushing a stroller glances at me as she walks by. I search for Angelo, but he didn’t even hear me. I walk down to the edge of the dock he’s standing on, smelling in fresh wood from the rebuild. “Angelo!” I yell louder, cupping my mouth with both hands.

  Rachel snickers from somewhere behind me.

  I have to call twice more before he hears me, and then he holds up a finger for me to wait.

  I don’t want to wait. I want him to hurry, so that we can figure out a way to get my mother away from that woman. By the time he gets to me I’m pacing.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks, looking at me oddly. “Your nose is green again.

  “I know. Listen, I need you to tell me how dangerous that Aries woman is.”

  Your hair is pink, though. I sort of like it.”

  Rachel huffs behind me and Angelo blinks. “OK, now it’s orange. Not so great...”

  “Can we focus? Please?”

  “Sure. Aries. She’s one of the few people who are still allowed here in town, of all the troublemakers.”

  “Troublemakers?”

  “There’s another colony of people on Jagged Grove, Trinket. They...haven’t fit in very well here, so it was best if they kept to themselves.”

  What he wasn’t saying told me a lot. Purgatory for those people. Just like me.

  I immediately think of the houses I saw that day wit
h Jones. “OK, and Aries lives there?”

  He nods, then runs a hand through his hair. “So did Lilly. Why is this important right now?”

  “Because I think Bilda just joined her coven.”

  “Oh.” The look in his eyes tells me everything I need to know. “That’s not so good.”

  “Yeah, well, I think it’s my fault.” The thought hadn’t quite materialized in my brain before I said it out loud, and now I feel worse. “I kind of pushed her away.”

  “That poor woman...”

  “Who? Bilda?”

  He looks at me. “Yes, Bilda. How she ever raised you and kept her sanity, I’ll never understand.”

  “Shut up and help me. How do I get her back?”

  “Uh...you don’t?”

  I blink. Then I smack his chest. Behind me, Rachel clears her throat.

  “I have to, before she gets hurt. That woman is scary.”

  “I know. That’s why she doesn’t live here. She almost burned the whole town to the ground a few times, before we figured out it was her.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “I don’t know - I just know that she’s got some power when she’s determined. Your hair is distracting me.”

  “Can I go there? I mean, is there some rule against it?”

  “Well, no, but it’s not the best idea. Especially alone.” He runs his hands through his hair, looks over his shoulder at the docks, and then back at me. “Just hold on for another hour, and then I can help you figure this out.”

  I nod reluctantly, but he’s already gone. I watch him walk away, muscles moving gracefully under his clothes.

  I don’t want to wait an hour. I don’t want to be diplomatic. I want to get Bilda away from that woman. I plop down on a wooden bench to wait.

  It’s not like she’s going to just take her away and kill her, Rachel says. I turn around, but of course I can’t see her.

  “Thank you for not striking me dead when I talked to Angelo.”

  I am wonderful, aren’t I?

  “Why are you haunting me?”

  I’m not. I was perfectly content to just hang out in town - visiting my house, watching over Angelo. You attached me to you, remember? And it’s kind of boring.

  “Sorry my life isn’t exciting enough. How do I unattach you?”

  You made up that spell, so it’s pretty binding. You’ll probably have to make up another to counteract it.