Every Witch Way But Wicked (A Wicked Witches of the Midwest Mystery)

by Lee, Amanda M.

  Aunt Tillie crossed her short arms over her ample chest and fixed her jaw in a grim line. “No.”

  “Goddamn you,” Ken took an ominous step towards Aunt Tillie. She didn’t shift her position. I had to admire her – even though she’s evil incarnate on a daily basis – she was especially persnickety today. Ken must have read the obstinate slope of her body, because he stopped moving towards Aunt Tillie and instead headed back towards me. He grabbed me by the back of my hair and pushed the knife towards my throat. “I will kill your niece if you don’t help.”

  “If you even think about touching her, I’ll shrivel your balls to the size of walnuts and turn them black,” Aunt Tillie said evenly, but I could sense the tension that had suddenly come over her. “Then, when they fall off, I’ll feed them to you.”

  Well that was a pleasant visual.

  “Let her go!”

  I was relieved when I heard the new voice. I couldn’t turn to see who had entered the clearing behind me, but I felt his warmth the minute he stepped into the empty circle beside the creek. Landon.

  Ken looked up in surprise. “Who are you?”

  “I’m the man with the gun telling you that if you don’t let her go, I’m going to shoot you,” Landon said. His voice sounded deadly serious.

  “And what? You brought the pixie twins as your backup?”

  The pixie twins? Clove and Thistle.

  Ken pulled me around so my back was to him and I was facing Landon. Clove and Thistle were standing behind him, and Thistle’s hands were clenched at her sides. Clove was moving carefully along the outside of the circle in Aunt Tillie’s direction. When she got there, she put her hand on Aunt Tillie’s shoulder. “Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine,” Aunt Tillie grumbled. “He’s the one who’s going to be sorry. He interrupted my nap.”

  Yeah, that was the big crime of the day.

  “How did you know I was here?” I asked Thistle curiously.

  “We had a little help,” Thistle said. “Someone saw him forcing you into your car at knifepoint.”

  I met Thistle’s hard gaze with uncertainty. Who could have possibly seen him taking me? Everyone was at the town square.

  “Your friends from the paper saw,” Thistle supplied.

  Edith and William.

  “And they found you at the celebration?”

  How had Thistle and Clove heard Edith when I wasn’t near? That had never happened before.

  “They did. Then we found Landon,” Thistle slid a glance at Aunt Tillie. “We had no idea he had her, too, though.”

  “Yeah, he was trying to motivate me to help,” I said bitterly.

  “He should have brought you a bag of candy then, instead of a bag of crazy,” Thistle said.

  “I won’t forget that,” Aunt Tillie warned.

  “I know,” Thistle sighed. “If anyone knows that, I do.”

  “Can we focus on the crazy guy with a knife to my throat instead of Aunt Tillie?” I asked.

  Landon hadn’t moved a muscle, I noticed. His gun was trained on Ken – and his gaze was fixed on the knife at my throat. “You have nowhere to go,” Landon said. “There’s only one option here. You surrender and go to jail. Or, you hurt her, and I’ll kill you. That’s if these three don’t get to you first.”

  Ken looked around the circle in obvious fear. I couldn’t tell if he was more scared of Landon and his gun or Aunt Tillie and her anger, though.

  “I have a better idea,” Ken suggested. “I take Bay with me. When I get far enough away, I promise I’ll let her go.”

  “You killed your wife,” Aunt Tillie argued. “Like we’re going to trust you.”

  “I don’t see where you have a lot of options,” Ken said lamely.

  “I was just going to say that to you,” Aunt Tillie said, climbing to her feet menacingly.

  “What are you doing?” Ken asked nervously, glancing at Aunt Tillie warily.

  “I’m going to show you exactly what my anger is capable of,” Aunt Tillie warned. “Let her go, or this is going to become a really dark world for you.”

  Ken started visibly shaking. I heard the gravel behind us crunch – despite the fear that was quickly overtaking me. I couldn’t tell what was going on, though. All I knew was that Ken’s grip on my hair had loosened as he turned to look behind him. Then I heard the sickening crunch of something crashing into his head this time.

  “What the hell!” Landon exploded.

  Thirty-Three

  I took advantage of whatever crazy scenario was going on behind me to crawl away from Ken. The harsh ground dug into my knees through the denim of my jeans, but I pushed all thoughts of pain out of my head. I fell forward at Thistle’s feet. She was on her knees working on the rope tying my hands within seconds.

  “What’s going on?” I gasped.

  “You have to see it to believe it,” Thistle said.

  I felt my hands spring free and I jumped to my feet anxiously, almost toppling over when the blood started rushing to my feet for the first time in more than an hour. Thistle grabbed my arm for support.

  When I turned around, I was stunned to see that my mom and aunts had joined the melee – and their way of helping was to conk Ken over the head with a big branch. I think it was the same one he had hit me with. That was poetic justice. Since my mom was holding it, I had a feeling she had done the deed herself. Landon kept trying to dart in between the arms and legs that were steadily beating Ken – I think Twila got a few kicks in, too – to get a handle on the situation.

  He drew back suddenly when Ken reared up and grabbed Twila’s arm and tugged her to him. Great. I was free, but he had a new hostage. Twila looked understandably petrified.

  Marnie and my mom wisely took a step back. My mom raised the branch to hit Ken again but Landon stilled her with a look. “Don’t do that again.”

  “He’s got my sister.”

  “If you hit him the wrong way, he could cut her throat,” Landon warned.

  “That didn’t happen when I hit him when he had Bay,” my mom argued.

  “Just calm down,” Landon snapped. He looked around at all of us wearily. “You’re all unbelievable.”

  “How did you find us?” I asked them curiously. My gaze was fixed on Twila’s frightened stare.

  “We weren’t looking for you,” Marnie said. “We knew something was wrong when Aunt Tillie wasn’t on the couch for her afternoon nap.”

  “See,” Aunt Tillie muttered. “I told you he interrupted my nap.”

  “Is that really important now?” Thistle looked infuriated at Aunt Tillie, but I could tell she was really scared for her mom.

  “Okay, let’s get a handle on this situation,” Landon said calmly, although I could tell he was anything but calm. “Why don’t you all take your Aunt Tillie back to the inn, and Ken and I will have a nice and civilized talk?”

  Like that was going to happen.

  “No,” Aunt Tillie said obstinately. “Why don’t you go to the inn and have a drink, and let us handle this?”

  Landon looked at her in disbelief. “Are you kidding me? I’m the one with the badge. I’m the one with the gun.”

  “If you feel that’s important, you can leave the gun with me,” Aunt Tillie suggested. “You can keep the badge, though. That’s not going to be any help. I promise I’ll get the gun back to you when we’re done here.”

  Landon shook his head in disbelief and turned his attention back to Ken. For his part, Ken looked like a sweaty mess. The trickle of blood running down the side of his face only made him look more unhinged.

  “You know,” Landon lamented. “This is the second time in six weeks that I’ve been in a situation like this – and it has almost all the same players.”

  “At least Ken’s not a drug dealer,” Clove said helpfully. “And he’s alone. Last time, we had a lot more crazy people with guns.”

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what I was thinking,” Landon said sarcastically. “I don’t know how you do it,�
� he swiveled on me.

  “Do what?” I grumbled, rubbing my wrists to restore circulation. It was a painful process, but I figured I might need my hands in the next few minutes.

  “You find the exact worst situation in the world to get into,” Landon continued. “It never occurs to you that it’s a terrible idea. You just jump in headfirst and see how badly you can screw things up.”

  “How is this my fault?”

  “Why didn’t you call me from the paper?” Landon challenged.

  “I was on my way to find you downtown,” I said.

  “No, you were on your way to find Clove and Thistle,” Landon corrected me. “If you happened to run into me, then you would have told me, too.”

  “That is so . . . well, true, but I was totally going to tell you,” I said.

  “After you told them?”

  “Is that really important now?”

  “Ken,” my mom interrupted my little spat with Landon. “Just let Twila go. We’ll tell the judge you weren’t really going to hurt anyone.”

  “He killed Myron and Ellen,” Aunt Tillie pointed out.

  “You’re not helping,” my mom hissed through gritted teeth.

  “I didn’t know you wanted me to,” Aunt Tillie sniffed.

  “In what scenario – especially this one – would you think I wouldn’t want you to be helpful?” I had heard that tone of voice before. Someone was in for an earful later tonight.

  “Can we all focus on me?” Ken asked irritably.

  “Of course,” Aunt Tillie said amiably. That was a clear sign she was about to do something awful. “Let’s focus on you, Ken.”

  Ken looked appropriately abashed. “Well, then, what about me?”

  “There is no money, Ken,” Aunt Tillie said evenly.

  “What? That’s not true,” Ken sputtered.

  “The money is gone. It has been for years.”

  “How do you know that?” He asked.

  “Myron told me.”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday.”

  Crap.

  Landon looked surprised. “Yesterday,” he interjected. “Myron has been dead for almost a week.”

  “Only his body is dead,” Aunt Tillie said. “His soul is still lingering.”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “You’re saying he’s a ghost?” Ken looked stunned.

  “He is,” Aunt Tillie said carefully. “And is he ever pissed at you.”

  “He told you that Ken killed him? Why didn’t you tell us that?” I practically exploded.

  “I forgot,” Aunt Tillie shrugged.

  I glared at her openly. “He didn’t tell you that. You’re making it up.”

  Landon looked at me doubtfully. “That’s what you’re incredulous about? That she’s making up stuff from a ghost, not that she claims she’s been talking to a ghost?”

  Yeah, that was a conversation for another time – like hopefully never.

  “He would have told me that, if he’d remembered,” Aunt Tillie argued.

  Whatever. “That’s so not the point.”

  “Well then, what is the point?” Aunt Tillie asked irritably.

  “Where is my money?” Ken screamed.

  “I told you, it’s gone.” Aunt Tillie was nonplussed. “Myron moved it to that old cabin in the woods. It burned when the cabin did.”

  “They were gold coins,” Ken argued. “They don’t burn like paper money.”

  “Yeah, well no one found them,” Aunt Tillie said. “Then the flood of 1998 washed the entire embankment away.”

  “No, no, no,” Ken shook his head in disbelief.

  “Yes,” Aunt Tillie nodded smugly. “The money has been gone for almost fifteen years. You’ve been out here looking for something that doesn’t even exist.”

  “How long have you known this?” Landon asked.

  “I told you, since yesterday.”

  “That’s impossible,” Landon barked out. “Myron is dead. He’s not a ghost.”

  “You don’t know that,” Aunt Tillie scoffed. “You just don’t understand our ways.”

  “What ways?” Landon cast a dark look in my direction.

  “Not now,” Aunt Tillie said dismissively. “We have other things to deal with. Twila looks like she’s going to pee her pants.”

  “And how do you, in your infinite wisdom, think we should deal with this?” Landon looked like he was going to spontaneously combust.

  “No one needs your sarcasm,” Aunt Tillie chided Landon. “I understand this is a difficult situation for you, but you’ve got to learn that there’s a time and place for you to deal with your stuff. This is about Twila now. We need to worry about her stuff.”

  I heard Clove bite down a mad laugh behind me. The situation really had spiraled out of control.

  “I really can’t believe I’m in this situation,” Landon complained.

  “Welcome to my world.”

  Aunt Tillie straightened up, bringing all of her four feet and eleven inches of height to bear, and stepped in front of Ken. “Let her go, or I’ll make you wish you had never been born.”

  “And how are you going to do that?” Ken asked caustically. “I hate to break it to you, but I’m already there.”

  “Things can always get worse,” she said evenly.

  “I don’t see how,” Ken said bitterly. “What are you witches going to do? Curse me? What could you possibly do to me that’s worse than what I’m looking at right now?”

  That’s was the dumbest question he had ever asked – or at least the dumbest question he had asked this afternoon.

  Aunt Tillie reached up and dramatically drew her sunglasses away from her face. Her usually brown eyes were tinged with red, and the atmosphere around us was suddenly sparking with invisible electricity that threatened to ignite the dusk sky itself.

  I looked up at the previously clear havens and saw the darkening clouds that were now rolling in and felt my stomach drop. Oh shit. The hairs on my arm were suddenly standing on end. She was going to do it. She was really going to do it.

  “It’s time for you to do one right thing in your life,” Aunt Tillie said to Ken, taking another step towards him. “Let Twila go and take responsibility for yourself. For your actions. Stop blaming others.”

  Ken looked helpless. “I can’t.”

  “How did I know you were going to say that,” Aunt Tillie sighed. “Once a coward, always a coward.”

  “What are you doing?” Ken screeched. He was looking at the suddenly dark sky and I could tell that any sanity he had left had fled.

  “What makes you think I’m doing anything?” Aunt Tillie asked. Her voice had dropped three octaves. She was going for scary, I know, but she was rapidly bordering on demonic.

  “You’re making it storm,” Ken said accusingly.

  “That’s not possible,” Aunt Tillie scoffed. “That would make me magic . . . or something.”

  Or something was right.

  “Bay, what’s going on?” The alarm in Landon’s voice tugged at my heart.

  “It will be fine,” I said soothingly. “I promise”

  “But what’s going on?”

  “I don’t know,” I lied. “It’s just one of those sudden fall storms.”

  “Sudden?” Landon’s voice had gone squeaky. “This is more than sudden. It wasn’t supposed to storm.”

  “It’s her,” Ken pointed at Aunt Tillie with his knife. “She’s calling on the devil to come and get my soul.”

  “The devil has had your soul for a long time, Ken,” Aunt Tillie said. She was still using her scary voice. “Maybe he thinks it’s just time to take payment of what is already his?”

  “That’s not helping,” I hissed.

  “Surrender now, Ken,” Landon suggested. “Maybe the storm will go away if you do?”

  “I can’t surrender,” Ken whined. “I can’t go to jail. I won’t survive in jail.”

  “He has prison bitch written all over him,” Marnie said know
ingly.

  “Now you talk?” I glanced at her dubiously. “Now, when it’s too late?”

  “When what’s too late?” Landon’s voice sounded like he was miles away instead of feet.

  I took a hesitant step towards Aunt Tillie. “Don’t do this.”

  “We don’t have another choice,” Aunt Tillie said. “Ken is beyond reason. Can you see another way out of this? One that doesn’t end with Twila’s death?”

  “We can talk to him,” I pleaded. “We can work out a trade.”

  “You can’t barter with crazy,” Aunt Tillie said, turning back to fix her glowing eyes on me for a second. “You, of all people, should realize that.”

  “What is she talking about?” Landon asked.

  Aunt Tillie’s red eyes showed me a lot of things – including the sad truth: She was right. I took a deep breath and stepped back away from her.

  “Do your worst,” I nodded.

  When the lightning struck, it was close. A blinding light filled the clearing and the sound of thunder was deafening. Everyone was thrown back by the shock of it all – and then everything went dark again.

  And eerily silent.

  Thirty-Four

  “Someone better tell me what just happened! Right now!”

  I rolled over and saw Landon sitting on the ground a few feet away from me. He was looking in the direction where Ken had been just a few minutes before. Ken wasn’t there anymore, though, and Landon was climbing shakily to his feet in disbelief.

  I looked around in a blind panic for a second. Where was Twila? I was relieved to see her entwined in a pile of arms and legs with Marnie and my mom. They were all grumbling wildly.

  “Get off me!”

  Thistle and Clove were another few feet away from me, to my left, and they looked a little dirty but unharmed. Aunt Tillie was still standing where she had been before she’d opened the sky above us.

  Landon was on his feet. He looked queasy, but he was towering over me as he grabbed my hand and pulled me up beside him. I basked in his warmth for a second – but the feeling didn’t last. “What the hell is going on?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered honestly.

  “Really? Because you don’t seem surprised that your Aunt Tillie threatened Ken with imminent harm and then a lightning bolt struck exactly where he was standing and your aunt, who was also standing there, is fine and Ken just seems to be gone?” Landon was breathing hard. I didn’t blame him.