“Oh, Agnes, I didn’t see you there. How are you?” Mrs. Abernathy asked, smiling at her. Agnes answered by smiling back at her.
Agnes tried to hide from Abigail and keep the voice, but Abigail found her and took the voice, so Agnes was back using facial expressions to say what she needed to say. Agnes spent the whole drive back to Mrs. Abernathy's house thinking of ways to kill Abigail and make it look like an accident. I knew what she thought because she texted to me.
“Well, that’s good,” she said, drawing her eyebrows together. She sat the lemon bars on the table in the hallway and led us into her den.
"Would you girls like to stay for a while? I was just about to watch The Price is right, and I made some pimento cheese," she said, her eyes wide with excitement like she didn't do that every afternoon.
“We would love too. I mean who doesn’t love pimento cheese and the price is right?” I asked, doing my best to appear excited.
“Isn’t it just the best?” Mrs. Abernathy asked, giggling with so much joy. “How about you? Do you like the price is right too?” she asked Agnes, waiting anxiously on her answer. I was anticipating for her to ask us to join her Price is Right fantasy league.
I would have bet anything that she had Bob Barker posters all over her the walls of her bedroom.
Agnes nodded shaking her head a little too hard and hitting it against the wall. Grimacing, she closed her eyes and held the back of her head.
“Is there something wrong with her? I mean she’s always been the strangest Norwood in my opinion, but I thought she could talk,” Mrs. Abernathy asked, completely ignoring the fact that Agnes could hear every word.
Agnes’s tapered her eyes at Mrs. Abernathy.
“She has laryngitis,” I said, looking at Mrs. Abernathy who didn't look tired at all. Maybe the spell wasn't strong enough. Either that or she was as strong as a bull. I was going with her being too strong because Sadie was the one who put a spell on the lemon bars and I knew she didn’t mess it up.
“Oh, that explains it. I had that last year for three months. I could barely utter a word. It was quite the quite the …," she muttered, her words drifting off along with the rest of her. Her eyes started to get heavy, drooping and then closing. Laying her head back, she started snoring.
“Oh, thank goodness. I was starting to think it wasn’t going to work, and we were going to have to eat that,” I said, looking at the pimento cheese placed on the small table beside Mrs. Abernathy’s recliner.
Unzipping my purse, I retrieved a purple candle, but not just any candle. The flame would let me know if anything was in the house and show me exactly where it was by extending its flame and pointing me in the right direction.
Waving my hand over it, I watched as the flame ignited. Times like that being a witch came in handy.
Gripping the candle tightly, I beckoned for Agnes to follow me. The blaze swirled around until it finally flowed up the staircase. Taking one step at a time, I anxiously awaited the candles next clue. Sliding my free hand up the banister, I watched as the flame shot straight up almost touching the ceiling. Glancing up, I saw a string hanging.
Standing on my tiptoes, I pulled it, and a ladder fell. Quickly handing the candle over to Agnes, I climbed the ladder up to the attic. Agnes was halfway up the ladder, so I reached for the candle. The flame hit the wall and made a slash along the wallpaper. Something was glowing, but I couldn't quite make out what it was. Agnes walked to it and pulled away the loose wallpaper revealing a glowing symbol. It was a huge circle with an eye in the dead center of it.
It looked familiar to me, but I just couldn’t seem to place it.
Looking over at Agnes, I saw her just staring at red glow radiating from the symbol. She had no clue what it was either, but judging by her eyes, she didn't think it was good. I didn't either.
It could have meant rainbows and unicorns were about to take over the world and when it rained candy was going to fall down instead of raindrops, but it looked menacing to me. And the red glow radiating from it gave me the creeps.
I moved closer to the symbol and slowly etched closer to touch it, but before I could, the glowing got more intense. It looked like it could have given me a third-degree burn, so I did the only rational thing there was to do. I backed up. I didn't have time to hit up the burn unit at the local hospital.
Whipping my head around, I saw that Agnes had made her grand exit and hadn’t bothered to let me know. Snapping my fingers, the flame disappeared. Slipping the candle back in my purse, I climbed down the latter and was out the door in record time.
"Agnes!" I called, forgetting that she couldn't talk. Running to where we parked the car, I saw it was gone. Agnes left me stranded. For all, she knew something could have crawled out of the eye and killed me, but apparently she didn't care. I was disposable to her and that was good to know.
She was officially my least favorite cousin. No, I take that she had landed herself the spot of my least favorite family member.
Our house was on the complete other side of Cat's Cradle and of course, I was wearing heels, so walking was completely out of the question. As I was thinking of a way to get home, I heard someone call my name.
Looking over my shoulder, I saw the last person I expected to see. Alison Talbot.
She was standing there with her with the same ‘I'm better than you' expression on her face and that hand that was always on her slender hip like it had been superglued there. Rubbing my eyes, I wanted to make sure she wasn't just a figment of my imagination. Looking at her again, I saw that she was wearing the same outfit she had on the day she was murdered.
I’m sure my face looked like I had just seen a ghost because I had just seen a ghost.
Literally.
Chapter 12
Speechless. It wasn't a word anyone would ever use to describe a lawyer, but that's how I would describe myself at that moment. The words were sitting on the tip of my tongue just waiting to be said. The more I tried, the more frazzled I got.
As a witch, I had seen a lot of things, but never a ghost.
Werewolves? Sure. Banshees? All the time. Vampires? Sadie dated one. Ghost were like the unicorn of the paranormal world.
“What’s the matter, ‘Calamity’ Malady, cat got your tongue?” she asked, cackling with laughter.
Witches were supposed to cackle, but that girl was a witch at heart and I don’t mean the good kind. She was the absolute worst and that was on a good day.
“Y-you’re d-dead. How are you here right now?” I stuttered, causing her to laugh harder.
The only way I could describe Alison’s personality or lack thereof was that she was a mix between Regina George and the wicked witch of the west. She was a horrible person with great hair. Really great hair.
“I’m the ghost of Christmas past,” she said, in the voice people use when their telling ghost stories by a campfire.
More like the Grinch.
Shrugging off my navy blazer, I folded it over my arm and continued to gawk my dead high school nemesis. Well, everyone in Cat’s Cradle high school nemesis.
“You can’t be serious. Christmas isn’t for months,” I told her, earning an eye roll from her.
Checking her nails, she shook her head. "I wasn't serious, Calamity. I'm here to help you solve my murder, duh." Roughly running my hands through my hair, I closed my eyes and tried to avoid the headache I knew her voice would give me.
“Wait, what do you mean solve your murder? I mean I’ve never been murdered before, but I just thought you should know who killed you, you know since you were there and all,” I told her, sarcasm oozing from every word.
When she didn't answer with a snarky comeback, I turned around and saw that she was gone. She was no help as usual.
Shaking my head and mumbling to myself, I pulled my phone from my black leather purse. I needed to call someone to pick me up. Agnes was dead to me; Abigail wouldn't help me anyway, and Christopher didn't exactly have anywhere to put a phone while in bi
rd form.
Finding Sadie’s name in my contact list, I hit it and placed the phone to my ear.
"Hello," Sadie said in to the phone in her perfect sing-song voice.
"Sadie, Agnes left me at Mrs. Abernathy's and I need you to come pick me up," I said, placing my blazer and purse on the ground while I slipped out of my shoes. I knew I was outside and Mrs. Abernathy's neighbors could see me, but at the moment I didn't care. I was sweating bullets and my feet felt like they were going to fall off.
“I’ll be right over,” she said, hanging up.
Picking up my things, I made my way to Mrs. Abernathy's porch and peeked in the window that leads to the living room. Mrs. Abernathy was sleeping like a rock. The peaceful look on her face made me highly consider using the sleep spell on myself. After everything that was going on, I sure could use a good night's sleep.
Sitting on the front step, I thought about that mysterious symbol in the attic. If I was going to find out what it was and its meaning it was going to be in one of Aunt Misty's millions of books at the house. It was like she had started her library.
So many weird things had begun to happen in Cat’s Cradle, well weirder than usual. But, the symbol etched on the wall was freaking me out the most. I knew it should have been the ghost of the dead girl haunting me, but it wasn’t.
Even though I had absolutely no idea what that symbol represented, I knew it wasn't good at all. I had this nagging feeling that somehow it was connected to Alison's death. Why else would she have shown up just after I found it?
Watching cars pass, I saw a familiar, but a very unwelcome sports car. It was as ostentatious as he was and the black paint shined in sun just like his designer shoes. Sadie wasn't coming to pick me up, Daniel Price was.
Gritting my teeth, I stood up as he sped up the driveway. Not bothering to put on my shoes or blazer, I walked to his car. I didn’t care about impressing him.
Rolling down the window, he stuck his elbow out of it causing his gold watch to shimmer and almost blind me. Lowering his sunglasses, he let out a whistle. “I’m loving this look,” he called to me, loud enough for everyone in Cat’s Cradle to hear. Maybe even the whole state.
“Why are you here?” I asked, not bothering to hide my distaste for him. He knew what I thought about him, so there was not really any need to act friendly.
He wasn’t my favorite person and I was almost certain he felt the same way about me. The only thing he liked about me was being able to push my buttons.
His mouth curled up in his signature smirk causing me to cringe. That was my signature look when he was around. “Would you believe me if I said I was in the neighborhood?” he asked, leaning his head back on the headrest.
“No. Now answer my question,” I replied, stuffing my blazer into my bag.
“Sadie was coming to get you, but she said I showed up at the perfect time because she needed help Abigail with something,” he said, leaning over to open the passenger door from the inside, “Get in.”
“Just perfect,” I mumbled, walking around the car and climbing inside. There was one upside to being around Daniel and that was that I wasn’t happy, so everyone was safe.
As long as I had to deal with him, my family members didn't have to worry about unexplained fires or huge zits on their faces. So, there was that, but I still didn't like him. Not even a little bit.
Chapter 13
The smell of his cologne filled the car making me want to hang my head out of the window like a dog. I felt like it was sinking into my pores. Coughing, I waved my hands dramatically in front of my face.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his tone telling me that he really didn’t care about the answer.
“I’ll be fine when I get out of this car. They should put a warning on that cologne and give you a complimentary gas mask for the people around you to wear,” I managed to get out in between coughs.
“Dramatic much?” he asked.
I could feel him roll his eyes behind his way too expensive sunglasses. Digging through my purse, I pulled out my white sunglasses I bought from the five and dime years ago. They weren’t fancy, but they worked. Ignoring his question, I focused on the popular country song billowing from the speakers.
"Nice glasses," he said, his fingers drumming on the smooth leather steering wheel. Fidgeting with them, I tried to ignore him again. I knew that not having to talk to him would make the car ride seem shorter. I only wanted to talk to him when it was necessary.
“This is where you say ‘oh thank you, Daniel, I like your glasses as well,” he said, holding his nose as he tried to mock my voice.
I tried to bite my tongue, but I couldn’t. “Are you indicating that I have a nasally voice?” I asked, turning in the seat to face him.
“Yes, I am. You have to know that your voice is absolutely maddening.”
He was the world’s rudest man. Tapping my bare foot on his floor board, I considered opening the car door and jumping out while it was still moving. I wanted the car ride to end immediately.
“Your face is maddening,” I replied, spewing out a comeback that a fifth grader could beat. Closing my eyes, I cringed inwardly.
"I know," he said, checking out his face in the mirror. Taking off his glasses and winked at himself. "A lot of people think perfection is a gift, but it's actually a curse," he said like he was letting me in on some huge secret
Little did he know my sister was the walking poster child for perfection? I had a front row seat to perfection every day and he wasn't even close to perfect.
“Admit it, Suzie Q; you think I'm beautiful."
I didn’t care how handsome he was. He was not my main concern. The glowing symbol and Alison’s unexpected visit were my main concerns. Glancing over at the speedometer, I saw that he was moping a mile a minute.
"Why are you driving so slowly? We should have been to my house yesterday!" I exclaimed, watching the speedometer drop even lower. He was intentionally going at the speed of a snail to aggravate me, so I laid my head back and closed my eyes. Maybe if he thought I was asleep, he would stop talking.
“I know you’re not asleep, Suzie Q. You were talking to me five seconds ago,” he said, snickering.
I kept playing dead because I thought he would eventually get tired of talking to himself. The boy was I wrong.
"You think you are not engaging in conversation with me will make me stop talking? It won't because I love to hear myself talk."
Of course, he did. He loved everything about himself. I couldn't count the number of time I caught him staring at himself in the mirror.
“Is he always this annoying?” a woman’s voice asked from the backseat. Slowly turning around, I saw Alison laying across the backseat with her hand over her eyes. Glancing at Daniel, I saw that he was still talking to himself and completely oblivious to the dead girl in his car.
I couldn’t answer her with words because I couldn’t risk Daniel finding out that I had suddenly turned I turned into the little boy from the Sixth Sense.
“He can’t hear you over the sound of the sound of his already overly inflated ego inflating,” she said, sitting up and watching him talk to himself.
I still didn’t talk to her.
“You can talk, Calamity. He can’t hear anything you say to me,” she said, rolling her eyes and flipping her hair back like she had so many times before.
“How is that possible? I asked, looking in Daniels direction to see if she was right about him not being able to hear our conversation. He didn’t have a clue anything was going on around him.
“How am I supposed to know?” she asked, flinging her hand in frustration.
She was no help as usual. It was one of her less than stellar character traits. Who was I kidding? All of her character traits were less than stellar.
“I don’t know maybe because you’re the dead girl haunting me. I was not happy to see you by the way,” I replied, wondering what I ever did deserve to be alone in a car with Daniel Price and Alison T
albot at the same time. I couldn’t think of anything that I had done that was that bad.
"We prefer deceased, thank you very much. I have no idea why you can see me. One minute I was torturing other spirits and the next, I'm back in Cat's Cradle talking to you on Mrs. Abernathy's porch. I wasn't excited to see you either," she said, giving me a fake pageant girl smile.
She had been in every pageant from Cat's Cradle to Timbuktu. Alison Talbot was a pageant coach's dream and everyone else's nightmare. I competed against for the title of Miss Cat's Cradle's Cat's Meow, but not because I wanted to. Aunt Misty insisted that I needed to get out of the house more and do more than create my own spells and concoct my potions. She wouldn't listen to me when I tried to tell her that I didn't want to do it and I would win, but she wouldn't listen. She told me I was born a winner and I could do anything I put my mind too. I didn't make it past the top fifteen. Alison won it and she never let me forget it.
Cursed at First Sight (Cursed Coven Cozies Book 1) Page 7