Careful What You Witch For

by Amanda M. Lee

  “Absolutely nothing,” Bay said. “If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to put this ghost to rest without them knowing.”

  “They think we acted up last night just to get attention,” I said.

  “I know,” Bay said. “That’s their problem. If they knew us … if they really knew us … they would never suspect us of something like that. That’s on them.”

  “You’re not being fair,” I protested. “They didn’t have the chance. Our mothers … Aunt Tillie … they forced them to go away.” Part of me believed that. The other part wasn’t so sure.

  “Would you ever leave a child, Clove?” Bay’s expression was serious.

  “Of course not.”

  “Then why did they?”

  I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t think Bay was expecting one.

  Five

  “What’s for dinner tonight?” Clara asked.

  Everyone had returned from the afternoon tour excited and chatty. It seemed like the weekend soft launch was going over well – even with the excitable séance from the previous evening marring an otherwise pristine extravaganza. I wasn’t surprised that our fathers hadn’t asked for an encore, although they were insisting on tarot card readings after dinner. For the most part, they seemed to have put their anger aside.

  “We’re having a brined pork loin,” Jack said, smiling at Clara indulgently. I didn’t miss Bay’s scowl as she studied their interaction. It bothered her. I didn’t blame her. It would bother me, too. I just had no idea why.

  “Oh, that sounds yummy,” Clara said, slathering a slice of bread with butter and chomping into it enthusiastically. “The food here is amazing.”

  “It’s the best food in Hemlock Cove,” Dad boasted.

  I straightened in my chair. That was an absurd lie. The food here was good, great even. We all knew the best food in Hemlock Cove was served at The Overlook, though. Our mothers were all accomplished kitchen witches, and their food was magical. It seemed somehow … disloyal … to even pretend otherwise.

  “It’s delightful,” Clara said. “I’ve never had bread this good.”

  “It’s freshly baked,” Teddy said. “Right here in our own kitchen. You won’t find better bread in the town.”

  Thistle clanked her silverware together noisily.

  “Is something wrong, honey?” Teddy asked.

  “No,” Thistle said, shaking her head. “I was just thinking about my mother’s bread.”

  Teddy faltered. “Your mother is an outstanding baker.”

  “She’s the best.”

  “Does your mother live here in town?” Clara asked, oblivious.

  “Our mothers run The Overlook inn,” Bay supplied. “It’s out on the bluff.”

  “Oh, that’s cozy,” Clara said. “It’s nice that everyone can be in the same business and not be in competition with one another. That sounds so nice.”

  It did sound nice. It also sounded like fantasy.

  “Everyone has a nice rapport with one another,” Dad lied. “There are no hard feelings.”

  Thistle choked on her glass of wine as she sipped from it. Marcus slapped her back, and then left his hand at the nape of her neck to rub the growing fury from the tense bundle growing between her shoulders.

  “Are you okay?” Chet asked.

  “I just choked … on something,” Thistle said.

  “I think it was a pack of lies,” Bay mumbled.

  I was sandwiched between Bay and Sam, so I could hear her words clearly, but I was hopeful no one else could.

  “Did you say something, dear?” Jack asked, fixating on his daughter.

  “No,” Bay said.

  Landon topped off her glass of wine. “Drink up, sweetie,” he said. He didn’t look any happier with the revisionist history than Bay did.

  Bay obliged, downing her entire glass with three gulps. “Hit me again.”

  Landon eyed her momentarily, and then acquiesced. “That’s it until you have some food in you.”

  “I thought you wanted her drunk,” Jim said, leering at Bay suggestively. “I bet you like her … pliable.”

  Landon ran his tongue over his teeth. “I like her happy.”

  “So, give her more wine,” Jim suggested.

  “She’s not happy when she has a hangover,” Landon said. “Trust me.”

  “You’ve seen her with a lot of hangovers, have you?” Jake asked.

  “I’ve seen her with a few,” Landon said. “It’s more fun when I don’t have one with her.” Landon downed his own glass of wine.

  “I don’t think … .” Jack broke off, unsure.

  “Where is this dinner?” Thistle asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “I’m starving.”

  “It should have been out here,” Dad said, dropping his napkin on the table and moving to get to his feet.

  “Oh, don’t worry about it,” Thistle said, beating him to the punch. “We’ll check.” She glanced at me pointedly. “Do you want to help?”

  I nodded. I knew she needed to talk, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what she had to say.

  “Why does it take two of you?” Teddy asked.

  “It doesn’t,” Thistle said, walking away from the table and glancing at Bay expectantly. “It takes three of us.”

  “Why?” Teddy was still confused.

  “Because they want to talk,” Landon said. “Give it a rest.”

  “No one asked you,” Jack grumbled.

  Landon pushed Bay to her feet. “Don’t be gone long.”

  Bay nodded. “I … .”

  “We’ll be fine,” Landon said. “Just check on dinner. I’m starving.”

  “WELL, this is a total mess,” Thistle said the second we were in the kitchen.

  “I never thought I would miss Aunt Tillie, but I miss her,” Bay said. “She would have put them in their place.”

  “What’s their place?” I asked, affronted. “They have a right to take pride in their business.” Since I was angry at what our fathers said myself, taking their side seemed foreign to me. I did it anyway. Even I can’t explain my actions sometimes. I just want everyone to get along. Is that so wrong?

  “Their business is great,” Bay said. “Their obnoxious insistence on pretending we’re all some big, happy family is not great.”

  “They can’t tell strangers the truth,” I protested.

  “That doesn’t mean they have to lie,” Thistle said, leaning over the shoulder of one of the culinary students as he carved the roast. “What’s taking you so long?”

  The boy looked confused. “I’m … carving.”

  “Well, do it faster,” Thistle said. “We’re dying out there.”

  “There’s bread,” he said.

  “We don’t want bread,” Bay said. “We need something big enough to shut everyone up. Do you have something that will choke someone?”

  “We have vegetables, too,” one of the other students said, clearly unsure whether Thistle was joking or not. “They’re spring … and they were marinated in white wine.”

  “Awesome,” Thistle said. “Take them out to the table.”

  “They’re not ready yet.”

  “Oh, good grief,” Thistle said, yanking the spoon from him. “They’re vegetables, not a work of art.”

  “I … I … .”

  “Stop stammering,” Thistle said. “You’re driving me crazy.”

  The boy’s lower lip started trembling. “I’m sorry.”

  I felt bad for him, so I stepped between him and Thistle. “Stop it. You’re upsetting him.” I turned to the student carefully. “What’s your name?”

  “Byron.”

  “Well, Byron,” I said, forcing my tone to remain even. “My cousin Thistle has a chemical imbalance. She doesn’t mean what she says. You just have to ignore everything that comes out of her mouth. I know I do.”

  Byron looked unsure. “She’s really mean.”

  “That’s what keeps her skin so young and dewy fresh,” Bay quipped.

&nb
sp; “She doesn’t mean to be … cruel,” I said. “She’s just hungry.”

  “She’s not going to eat me, is she?”

  “You’re not that lucky,” Thistle said.

  Byron opened his mouth to argue, but I stilled him with a shake of my head. “Let’s get this food on the platters, shall we?” Dinner at The Overlook was quick and efficient. This was anything but.

  “We still have five minutes until dinner is served,” Bryon whined. “I was told it had to be on the table at seven sharp.”

  “Well, we’re hungry now,” Thistle said.

  “Ignore her,” I said, flinching when Byron rubbed his eye to ward off tears. “She’s not mean because she wants to be mean. She just can’t help it.”

  “Stop telling him stuff like that,” Thistle said, doling the vegetables out onto a platter. “You’ll make him think I’m evil.”

  “You are evil,” Bay said, shrugging. “What? Sometimes you’re evil. You’re like Aunt Tillie.”

  “That’s the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Thistle said, wrinkling her nose.

  “It’s not mean if it’s the truth.”

  Thistle shifted, focusing on me. “I’m not like Aunt Tillie.”

  “Of course you’re not,” I soothed.

  “You’re lying to me,” Thistle said after a moment. “You do think I’m like Aunt Tillie, don’t you?”

  I didn’t know how to respond. It’s not like it was the first time anyone had ever said the same thing. “I … .”

  “You’re exactly like Aunt Tillie,” Bay said. “You just don’t want to admit it.”

  “You take that back,” Thistle warned, waving the spoon in Bay’s face. “You take that back right now.”

  “No,” Bay said. “It’s the truth.”

  Thistle shifted her gaze to me. “Tell her it’s not the truth.”

  I was caught – like I so often was – between my two cousins. They both had polarizing personalities, and big mouths. That was also a family trait. “You’re not like Aunt Tillie,” I said. It was a lie, but she needed to hear it. The truth was, everyone was fighting because they didn’t know what else to do.

  “Oh, so you’re taking her side,” Bay said, her face hot with anger. “You always take her side.”

  “I do not!”

  “She always takes your side,” Thistle argued. “You’re the oldest. She always takes your side because she wants your approval.”

  “That’s a lie,” Bay said. “She always takes your side because you’ll beat her up if she doesn’t.”

  “I would not!”

  They were both right. I hated taking sides. When I did, my stomach rolled itself into a big ball of pain, and it wasn’t over until one of them won and apologized to the other. “We need to get this food out to the table,” I said.

  They both ignored me.

  “Do you want to take this outside?” Thistle challenged.

  “You have no idea,” Bay said, pointing toward the back door. “I’m going to make you eat dirt.”

  “I’m going to make you eat dirt,” Thistle countered, dropping the spoon on the counter. “Clove, take the food out to the table. We’ll be back in a second.”

  “You can’t fight,” I hissed. “If you fight … .” What was I saying? I wanted to watch them fight. I loved it when they fought – especially when it wasn’t with me. “Go ahead.”

  Thistle was the first out the back door. Her face was full of bravado, but some of it was slipping in the face of Bay’s refusal to back down. “This is your last chance,” Thistle warned.

  I knew she was biding for time. I wondered if Bay knew the same.

  Bay rolled the sleeves of her blouse up. “No, this is your last chance.”

  “All you have to do is say that I’m not like Aunt Tillie,” Thistle said.

  “All you have to do is say that you are like Aunt Tillie,” Bay countered.

  “I’m not like Aunt Tillie,” Thistle said. “That’s like saying … you’re just like Adolf Hitler.”

  “Aunt Tillie has never murdered millions of people,” Bay scoffed.

  “She wanted to,” Thistle argued.

  She had a point.

  “Still … you’re being purposely obnoxious,” Bay said.

  “How do you figure?”

  “You’re trying to ruin the opening of the Dragonfly.”

  Thistle reached for her hair ripping a few stray strands out as Bay jerked away. “You’re purposely trying to ruin the opening of the Dragonfly. Admit it! You don’t like the way they’re talking about our mothers.”

  Bay stilled, her face sobering. “I don’t like the way they’re talking about our mothers.”

  Thistle lowered her hands, conflicted. “I don’t like it either.”

  They both turned to me.

  “I hate it,” I admitted, sinking to the cold concrete. “I feel like I’m being disloyal.”

  “Me, too,” Bay said, settling next to me. “It makes me feel … horrible.”

  “It sucks,” Thistle said, sighing as she sat down in the spot to my left. “I thought … I always thought that our mothers were the reason we were crazy. I thought they made us crazy.”

  “I thought they always talked bad about our dads because … well … they were bitter,” I said.

  “And now?” Bay asked.

  “And now? Now I’m … so confused,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because … because I love my dad,” I said. “I do. I’m still kind of … angry with him.”

  “We’re all angry with them,” Thistle said. “We all … are struggling.”

  “It should be easier,” I lamented. “They’re our fathers.”

  “They’re also putting themselves in direct competition with our mothers,” Bay said. “And, whether we like everything they do or not, our mothers are the ones who never left.”

  “I want to get to know my dad,” I said. “I want a father.”

  “We all want a father,” Thistle said. “We just don’t want to hurt our mothers in the quest to get to know them.”

  “Do you think it hurts them?” I asked, my mother’s face, so much like my own, swimming in my mind. “Do you think it upsets them?”

  “I think we’re all so worried about them we don’t know what to do,” Bay said. She was always the pragmatic one, which wasn’t saying much for our family. She grabbed my hand. “We can only do what we can do.”

  “I don’t like what they said about the food,” I said.

  “Well, it was a vicious lie,” Thistle said. “The food here is good, but the food there is … amazing.”

  “I don’t like that they said everyone got along,” I added. “That’s … .”

  “A lie,” Bay finished.

  “Do you think we’re being disloyal?” I asked.

  “I think … we’re doing the best we can,” Bay responded.

  “Do you think our moms think we’re being disloyal?” I pressed.

  “I think our moms know we’re doing the best we can,” Thistle said.

  “Do you think Aunt Tillie thinks we’re being disloyal?”

  That was a loaded question, and neither Bay nor Thistle looked like they wanted to answer it. Bay was the one who broke first. “I think Aunt Tillie is going to make us all pay for this weekend.”

  I knew she wasn’t wrong. “I guess I’d better buy some fat pants.”

  Thistle chortled. “I just hope she doesn’t make us smell like bacon again. Marcus would like it, but it was hell for me.”

  “I thought it was kind of fun,” Bay said.

  “You hated it,” Thistle challenged.

  “While it was happening? Yes,” Bay said. “In hindsight? It really got Landon’s motor running.”

  “Is that hard to do?” Thistle asked.

  “No.”

  “Marcus liked it, too,” Thistle admitted. “I … did you hear that?”

  I shifted my attention to Thistle, confused. “What?”

  Ba
y held up her index finger. “I heard it, too.”

  “There’s someone in the woods,” Thistle said.

  I focused on the sounds of the night. “I don’t hear anything.” A sudden rustle in the nearby foliage caught my attention. “Wait … .”

  Bay and Thistle were already on their feet, moving toward the underbrush with determined looks on their faces.

  “What if it’s the ghost?” I hissed.

  “Ghosts don’t make noise in the leaves,” Thistle said, jumping around the hedge that separated my line of sight with the trees. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!”

  Six

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  “The devil,” Thistle replied.

  “Is it a murderer?” I was rooted to my spot. I kept telling myself, if someone jumped out of the bushes and stabbed Bay or Thistle, I was in the best position to get help. That would be my bravery for the day. I would be the one to get help.

  “Get up,” Thistle said, reaching down into the bushes.

  “Get your hands off me!”

  I froze when I heard the voice. It really was the devil. “Aunt Tillie?”

  Thistle and Bay hauled a familiar figure up, forcing her to a standing position. Aunt Tillie jerked her head from left to right. “You’re both on my list.”

  “What are you doing here?” Bay asked.

  “It’s a free country,” Aunt Tillie sniffed, brushing the knees of her pants off haphazardly. “I have a right to take a walk wherever I want.”

  “You were out for a walk?” Bay asked, narrowing her eyes.

  “I needed some exercise,” Aunt Tillie said. “I think I might need my hip replaced, so I have to walk it off to make sure I don’t need surgery.”

  “You don’t walk off a hip replacement,” Thistle said, exasperated.

  “Oh, are you a doctor now?” Aunt Tillie challenged.

  “No,” Thistle said. “I just happen to know that when you need a hip replacement, you can’t just walk it off.”

  “Says who?” Aunt Tillie wasn’t budging from her lie.

  “Says everyone,” Thistle screeched, flapping her arms for emphasis.

  Aunt Tillie arched a salt-and-pepper eyebrow. “Do you know everyone?”

  “I can’t,” Thistle said, stalking away. “I just … .”

  This was going to get out of control if I didn’t put a stop to it. “Is your hip okay now?”