Sweet Tea and Sass

by Tegan Maher

  I flipped it back around and stared at it. That couldn't be. But, sure enough, the girl who had been in the picture just moments before was gone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  After they were semi-convinced I hadn't gone ’round the bend, Addy popped back out to find something new to complain about and Rae returned to the kitchen. I set the picture back on the mantle and dropped my head for a minute, trying to figure out what the heck was going on. Yes, I'd been stressed for the last few days, but hardly enough to cause hallucinations.

  I couldn't do anything about it right then, though, so I did what all good southern girls do: I had a glass of tea and postponed my nervous breakdown for later.

  I still needed to ice the cupcakes and cookies, so I pulled everything I'd need to the end of the table and sank into a chair, savoring the iced tea and doing my best not to worry about the fact that I was losing my marbles.

  I'd just picked up the icing bag and swirled black frosting onto a red-velvet cupcake when Rae and Addy swooped in. Neither of them said a word, but they stared holes into my forehead until I sighed and dropped the bag on that table.

  "Look, I'm not crazy, okay?" I leaned back in my chair and ran a hand through my hair. "I guess it's been a rough day and my mind is messing with me." I didn't believe that any more than they did, but it was the best I had.

  Addy—the real one, not the psycho, party-planning one who had tormented me endlessly for three days—hovered down so she was sitting in the chair to my right. Rae took the one on my left.

  "Sugar, you know coincidences rarely happen in the life of a witch." My aunt's tone was gentle, but chiding. "I need you to tell me everything about the girl in the picture. You were way too upset for that to have been the first incident, and it's not good to let things like this slide. Start talking, from the beginning."

  I pushed the cupcakes away and put my elbows on the table. "Well, I guess it started at Anna Mae's shop. I found this pendant." I held the crystal up so she could see it. “She said she bought it from a girl who found it on the beach by the boat ramp after the last storm. And it sort of got all warm and glowy when I picked it up. "

  Raeann nodded. "I saw the glowy part, but I just thought it was a trick of the light."

  I nodded. "So did I. Then when we were walking back to the truck with the boxes of candy—"

  "Wait, what? What candy?" Adelaide's eyes narrowed. "I knew it! You said you had everything under control, but you forgot—of all possible things—the candy."

  I huffed out an exasperated sigh. "Okay, yes, I forgot the stupid candy!"

  She shook her head and made to swat me on the arm, except her hand passed through me. If you've never felt that, it's kind of creepy. The best way I can describe it is that it feels like somebody passes an ice cube through your bone.

  "It's okay," she said, pursing her lips. "You've done your best, I reckon. And I haven't exactly been helpful, what with all my bossin'. Now finish your story."

  "As I was saying, we were carrying the candy from Anna Mae's back to Brew because we'd walked from there. I looked inside to make sure Rae had turned off the espresso machine."

  Rae glared at me.

  "What?” I said. “You leave it on half the time. Anyway, I looked at my reflection in the window, only instead of my reflection, this girl was standing there staring at me. She looked as surprised as I felt." I paused for a breath and a drink of tea. "Then, just now, when I looked in that picture, she was standing next to Uncle Cal. Then she wasn't. Oh, and she was wearing the pendant."

  I picked up the icing bag and continued to work on the cupcakes. Rae pulled each one toward her as I finished, and stuck a little plastic pumpkin or spider ring down into the icing.

  "Okay." Addy was rubbing her forehead, a thinking habit she'd had for as long as I could remember. "So this girl first appeared in a reflection, then in a picture. Was she wearing the pendant in the reflection?"

  I thought about that as I switched icing bags and started twirling orange cream cheese icing onto carrot cake cupcakes. "I honestly can't remember. I do remember she was wearing a bikini, and the style was pretty dated. If I had to say, I’d guess the 70s because of the strings and the color."

  "And was she wearing a bathing suit in the picture, too?"

  I shook my head and described how she'd looked.

  "Hmph,” Addy said. “If we can't narrow it down any further than a blonde dressed like a hippie in the 70s, we're pretty much SOL. Can you think of anything else that might give us a clue?"

  I racked my brain, but couldn't come up with anything. I shrugged, frustrated. "Just the crystal."

  Addy scooted closer to look at it and laid her arm on top of mine, which meant her wrist was actually through mine. I yelped and pulled my arm back, rubbing the warmth back into it. "Hey! A little consideration for the non-living-impaired, please!"

  One side of Addy’s mouth tipped up. "Sorry, honey. Sometimes I don't think." She leaned forward to look at the penant again, this time being careful to avoid shoving her limbs through mine. After a few seconds, she leaned back. "I feel like I've seen it somewhere before, but that could just be because I've seen a million turquoise necklaces. It's pretty, but it's not much different than any other crystal. If anything else happens, you let me know straight away, you hear me?"

  I bobbed my head. "Yes, ma'am."

  We finished the cupcakes and started on the cookies. I smeared a layer of orange icing on the pumpkins, then added candy-corn facial features, while Rae decorated the ghosts using white frosting and M&Ms. Addy disappeared, probably to torment the boys some more.

  We were finishing up when boots thunked across the front porch, and the screen door creaked open then slapped shut. "Hey, hot stuff! Where you at?" a warm, buttery voice called.

  Rae smirked. "Hey yourself. I'm in here, with your girlfriend."

  Hunter, my very own slice of tall, dark, and handsome, crossed the room and leaned down to peck me on the cheek, then flicked Rae's ear. In the short span of time since he’d moved here from Indiana, he'd managed to make himself part of the family rather than just some guy I was dating. Of course, nearly being murdered with someone makes for a unique bonding experience.

  He flipped a chair around backwards and had the head bitten off a ghost cookie before I could smack his fingers. He winked at me and grinned, making his dimples pop. There should be a law against those. Of course, since he's the sheriff, who'd arrest him? Though, the handcuffs...

  The dimples didn't do anything for Rae. She swept the cookies away from him—but not before grabbing a pumpkin one for herself.

  "Dang, Noe," she mumbled with her mouth full, “I always forget how good these are until I bite into one. It's a good thing you don't make them very often, else I'd need to drive a pickup to haul around my backside."

  I gave up trying to save them and grabbed one for myself, too, before Addy blew back into the kitchen and lit us up for slacking again. Well, lit me and Rae up; for some reason, she believed butter wouldn't melt in Hunter's mouth.

  "So what else do we need to do?" Hunter asked, taking a swig of my tea to wash down his cookie.

  I licked the icing off my fingers and flipped on my phone to check the time: almost four.

  Addy swept in right at that moment. "I'm glad you asked. The horses still need fed and those young’uns can't seem to get the lights working. It's just the breaker box, but lord help me, molasses moves faster than they do."

  He quirked an eyebrow at her. "Ms. Addy, are you flustered? You never get flustered," he said in wonder. "I had no idea it was possible. You live through death, but a few Halloween lights have your feathers all ruffled."

  I smiled to myself; in just a few short months, he'd gone from stiff-shirted city slicker to down-home country boy, language and all. Or at least he was as close to countrified as I wanted him to get.

  Addy frowned and pointed a gnarled finger at him. "Don't you go gettin' too big for your britches. Take that smart mouth and get on down to t
he barn. I expect those lights to be fixed by the time I get back down there. And do it without burning my barn down."

  He smothered a smile as he got up and headed toward the door. “Yes, ma’am. I’m all over it.”

  Belle popped in and watched out the window as he ambled down the yard. "I declare, Addy! Leave the boy alone. Poor Noelle hasn't had the best luck findin' herself a good man; don't run off the best chance she's got."

  I raised my brows and waved at them. "Hello? Sitting right here!"

  "Of course you are, dear." Belle cleared her throat. "I didn't mean anything by it, you know that. It's just that you two are so cute together, and seem to have such a ... promising future. I'd hate to see that ruined."

  I narrowed my eyes at her. "Do y'all have a pool going on how long we'll be together?" I'd only recently found out the old hens at the Clip N Curl kept running wagers on everything from when somebody was going to mow their overgrown yard to when—and how—somebody was going to die.

  She averted her eyes. "No."

  I crossed my arms and let the silence do her in.

  "Oh, all right," she huffed. “It's not on how long you'll be together, though. It's on when you'll get hitched." She studied her fingernails. "Spring weddings are beautiful, you know. The temperature is just right in April—"

  "Did you know about this?" I asked Addy.

  Unlike Belle, Addy had no shame. "Course I did. Since you're my niece, they didn't want to let me in. Claimed I had undue influence, but I sang every song I knew at the top of my lungs ’til they gave in. And you're having a June wedding."

  If I hadn’t been so irritated to be the target of their gambling problem, I'd have felt sorry for the girls; Addy couldn't carry a tune in a bucket.

  "It's too hot in June," Belle snapped.

  "It's still raining in April," Addy fired back.

  I now had the two most hard-headed people in the entire county glaring back and forth between me and each other. I glanced through Addy out the window. "Is that smoke I see down behind the barn?"

  She whipped around. "Oh, I knew this was going to happen! Now they've gone and done it for sure."

  As she shot through the wall toward the barn with Belle right behind her, Rae grinned at me. "That was kinda mean, but creative. I'm proud of you."

  I blew out a breath and pinched the bridge of my nose. "I swear, Rae, it's their fault the preacher drinks." I refilled my tea glass and grabbed another cookie. "I've gotta jump in the shower. Did you bring your costume?"

  "Oh, crap!” she said, huffing out a breath. “It's in the trunk of my car."

  I smirked. "Yeah, now who's the one who'd forget her head?"

  "Nobody likes a smartass, Noelle," she said as she plucked my keys off the table. "I'll be right back."

  I headed upstairs and turned to get a bird’s-eye view of the salon while everything was neat. I was proud of myself for pulling it together—with plenty of help, of course. After I’d taken my mental snapshot, I went into my bedroom and began laying out what I'd need for my costume.

  As I was pulling a couple of towels out of the closet, the distant rumble of thunder interrupted my thoughts. I peeked out my window and was pleasantly surprised to find blue skies. Weird. Hopefully there wasn't a storm blowing in.

  I cranked the water to a few degrees below boiling and stepped in. The delicious feel of the water beating down on the back of my neck and pouring over my shoulders was like an instant massage.

  You'd think that since Addy was still there in spirit—literally—things wouldn't have changed much, but they had. I was the one responsible for everything from these silly parties to Shelby's parent-teacher conferences. If she failed, it was my fault. If the lights got shut off, it was my fault. If something broke, it was my place to either fix it or pay somebody to do it. Addy could offer advice—which was great, don't get me wrong—but she couldn't make money or do anything that required a corporeal form, including wrapping me up in one of her everything's-going-to-be-okay hugs.

  That was the part that sucked the most.

  Try as I might, I couldn't keep myself from running through my mental checklist one more time while I shampooed the dried cookie dough from my hair. Satisfied I hadn't missed anything critical, I stepped back into the spray and just existed for a few minutes.

  When the water started to turn cold, I shut it off and pulled my towel off its hook. Twenty minutes of hot water and peace had done wonders for both my body and my head; for the first time in a week, I was looking forward to the party.

  I pulled the shower curtain back and flipped my head forward to wrap my hair in the towel. I was tucking another one around my body when I turned toward the mirror—and about had a heart attack.

  I jumped back and my feet slid on the wet tile, sending me crashing into the door as I fumbled for the doorknob. The word TROUBLE was scrawled in the steam across the mirror, and rivulets of water were starting to run from the bottoms of each letter, as if they had just been written.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  After a couple of attempts, I managed to shove the door open and fall backwards into my bedroom, screaming bloody murder for Addy as I did.

  She popped in, eyes darting around in search of whatever was trying to kill me. Being the big bad witch that I am, I was hyperventilating and crab walking away from the bathroom like the dingbat in a bad horror flick. All I could do when she got there was point and babble, but it was enough; she whipped around an instant before the last vestiges of the word evaporated along with the steam.

  Rae and Shelby burst through my bedroom door just in time to see it, so at least this time they wouldn't think I was a donut shy of a dozen.

  Realizing I probably looked exactly like the afore-mentioned dingbat, I pushed up from the floor and gulped in a few lungfuls of cool air.

  "What in tarnation was that?" Addy barked.

  "Not to state the obvious," Shelby said, "but it looks like somebody wrote trouble on the mirror, and from the way Noelle was flopping on the floor and screaming like a little girl, I'm guessing it wasn't her."

  I glared but couldn't really say much, because I'd been making fun of myself for exactly that. Rae pushed my bedroom door shut and handed me my robe while Addy ran her hand down her face.

  "I reckon I don't have to tell you this is bad,” Addy said. “I think it's safe to assume this was done by the same spirit who showed up in the window and the picture, exceptin' now she's managed to get physical."

  Shelby had no idea what was going on, so I filled her in.

  "Holy cow,” she said. “That's definitely no bueno, sister. And you have no idea who this hippie chick is or why she'd be sending you a warning—or a threat—on a bathroom mirror? Do you, Addy?"

  Addy shook her head. "She obviously had something to do with the courthouse shindig, but there were hundreds of people there that day. I might recognize her if I saw her, but with nothing to set her apart..."

  "Well, I think it has something to do with that crystal," Rae said. "I don't think you should wear it anymore."

  Shelby shook her head. "I've been studying crystals and that's not really how they work. At this point, the damage is probably done; the energy—or whatever—has already bonded with Noelle’s. I don't think wearing it or not wearing it is going to make a difference."

  "I agree." Addy pointed at the pendant, which was lying on my dresser. "She didn't have it on in the shower when this happened. I'm afraid the horse is done out of the barn."

  Rae didn't look convinced.

  "Look,” I said, “if it makes you feel better, I won't wear it."

  She nodded. "It would. Thank you."

  People were going to start showing up in less than an hour, so Rae and Shelby headed to their rooms to get dressed—Rae was such a common fixture at the farm that she'd had her own room since we were teenagers—and Addy went back outside to nitpick any last-minute details.

  While I was layering on the makeup that would transform me from common everyday witch to
sideshow psychic, I thought about all the work that had gone into this. It had been a trial by fire, but all in all, it had been kind of fun.

  After tucking the last few rogue curls under my turban, I stepped in front of my mirror, half afraid of what—or whom—I'd see. It was just me, though. I twirled around, watching the skirt billow out, and added a few more bangles and a couple of ankle bracelets before I made my way to the kitchen. The pendant would have been the icing on the cake, but I'd promised Rae.

  I was plating the cookies when Anna Mae breezed in dressed like the Corpse Bride. With her pixie chin and big eyes, all she’d really needed to do to pull it off was add some white face paint, dramatic makeup, and black hairspray. She was wearing the lace wedding dress I'd admired in her shop window earlier. "Wow! You look great! You nailed it!"

  "Aww, thanks, sugar." She gave me a quick hug, then pulled some sparkly black fabric and a huge pair of gold hoop earrings out of a box. "I had these layin' around and thought you could use the fabric for your fortune-telling table. Oh, and I found this"—she pulled out a rectangular game board—"in a box of miscellaneous junk I bought at an auction. I thought it might add some spook factor. What can I do to help?"

  I sighed as I realized what the game board was: a Ouija board. Because, sure, that's the perfect thing to have around when there's a spirit lurking in pictures and reflections and leaving me creepy messages while I'm in the shower.

  Not that we witches really believe the board has powers per se, but a person's intent when using one is to draw spirits, and intent is what really matters. Anna Mae was still fairly new to the whole supernatural thing, so—bless her heart—I didn't want to hurt her feelings. I'd explain later.

  For now, I smiled at her. "You're so sweet; the cloth is perfect! If you don't mind spreading it over the table on the porch, that would be great. I'm going to sit there with my crystal ball and give out goody bags. It’s the perfect touch."