Looking for Mr. Good Witch

by Joyce

  “I don’t think that’s what they meant, Mom,” Dorothy tried to smooth her ruffled feathers. “You worked really hard keeping me hidden from my dad. It might be better to use a different spell that has nothing to do with him.”

  “Oh, fine. Find your own spell then. There’s probably not enough magic between us to make it work anyway.”

  “What about a different kind of spell?” Elsie suggested. “We’ve tried all the finder and locator spells we can remember. What about an attraction spell?”

  “How would that work?” I asked.

  “I was thinking we could find something that belonged to each of our mothers and grandmothers and bring it to the cave tonight. We could cast a spell to attract anything that belonged to them. That would include the spell book. We could use the moon energy for finding hidden items for it.”

  “That’s a wonderful idea, Elsie,” I congratulated her. “That’s what we need—some original thinking.”

  “I’m so glad you can still come up with original ideas,” Olivia drawled.

  “Good. What do we do for the spell?” Dorothy asked.

  We sat at the table and tried to remember what each of us still owned from our mothers and grandmothers.

  “You’ve got plenty of clothing,” Olivia told Elsie. “Can you recall what dress belongs to each person?”

  “My grandmother used to tat lace. I know there are some lace cuffs and collars she made that are still in the attic.”

  “That’s the best energy of all,” I commended. “The spell would be stronger with items that were handmade.”

  “I have some jewelry that I know belonged to my mother and Meemaw,” Olivia said. “Oh you would’ve loved your great-grandmother, Meemaw,” she added for Dorothy. “She was a party girl.”

  “What about you, Molly?” Dorothy asked. “Did that amulet belong to your grandmother and your mother?”

  “Yes.” I fingered the cool stone. “But I have some other items that I would be more comfortable using in a spell. I’m not sure about the amulet.”

  “But you’re wearing it,” Olivia reminded me. “I’m a ghost, and I can feel the power from it. You should use it.”

  “I’m not happy with that idea—”

  “Come on, Molly. It’s settled.” Elsie smiled. “We meet back here at midnight. Mind you, dress appropriately. Bring the items with you. We’ll see if we can attract the spell book.”

  “What will happen if we do?” Dorothy wondered. “Would it come and knock on the door or something?”

  “Unlikely,” I told her. “We’ll take the big mirror into the cave with us, and hopefully we’ll see where the spell book is.”

  “What about Brian?” Olivia peered at the clock on the wall. It was approaching five P.M. with no sign of him. “Should we call him?”

  “We can try.” I patted Dorothy’s hand. “Do you want to do the honors?”

  “Yes. I’m worried about him.” She took out her phone and called him. There was no answer. She left him a voice mail and then texted him before tweeting him a message and leaving something for him on Facebook.

  “That should cover it,” Elsie said. “Let’s see if we hear back from him.”

  We were getting our things ready to leave the shop when Cassandra appeared, dramatically draped in front of the door. “Not leaving so soon after summoning me, are you?”

  CHAPTER 18

  May my magic protect

  from all who would harm me.

  “We’ve been here all day,” Elsie told her. “We thought you were too busy to care if we found the killer witch’s new victim.”

  Cassandra, dressed in flaming red satin, bestowed a sweet smile upon her—the kind annoying young people at restaurants give to older people before they call them “sweetie.”

  “I am the herald for the Council of Witches,” she said. “I am quite busy. But for you ladies, I’m always ready to lend a hand. What makes you think you know who the next victim is?”

  We told her about Brian and the way he’d been that day. She took it all in and then patted Dorothy’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry. It’s a difficult lesson to learn when you’re young, but as they say in the movies—he’s just not that into you.”

  “Why you—” Olivia flew at her.

  Cassandra held up one graceful hand and pinned her to the wall. “Keep your ghost under control or I’ll bring it to the council for extinction. You know you shouldn’t keep dead things around.”

  “This isn’t just a matter of Dorothy’s feelings toward Brian,” I tried to explain. “You could see he was under a spell.”

  She turned black eyes on me. “Must I remind you that his family is very powerful and they don’t approve of him and our new witch? No doubt this is a geas they put on him to break them up.”

  “So they take no part in his life normally, but since he might have a chance to be happy, they spoil it?” Tears spilled down Dorothy’s cheeks. “That’s horrible.”

  “That’s life, little one. Try to get over it and move on. There’s nothing worse than a whiny witch.”

  I could see the fury and hurt building in Dorothy’s face. I wasn’t sure what she’d do, so I moved to step between her and Cassandra. Being a thousand-year-old witch, Cassandra could hurt Dorothy. I didn’t want that to happen.

  Before I could put my good intention into reality, Dorothy raised her hand, much as Cassandra had, and muttered a banishing spell. To my astonishment, Cassandra disappeared. I could tell by the look on the herald’s face before she disappeared that she’d been completely surprised and unprepared for Dorothy’s magic.

  Olivia slid down the wall and flew over to us. “What did you do?”

  Dorothy blinked. “I don’t know. I just muttered a spell I’d read to get rid of her. What happened?”

  “She left, baby.” Olivia glanced at Elsie and me. “Let’s go home.”

  “Okay. Let me get the rest of my noodles out of the refrigerator.” Dorothy seemed happy to go. “What was that?” Elsie whispered as we huddled together near the front door. “She shouldn’t have been able to do that.”

  “I told you that she could be very powerful from her father’s side, but not necessarily in a good way,” Olivia murmured.

  “Did you teach her that spell?” I asked quietly.

  “No. I don’t know that spell,” Olivia said. “We have to keep an eye on her, girls. We can’t let Drago’s bloodline take hold of her. We might never get her back.”

  “Here it is.” Dorothy had the small white box in her hand. “I’m ready now. I guess we’ll see you tonight. I’m very excited about doing this new spell. I wonder what else we could attract.”

  “Let’s see if we can make it work for the spell book first,” I said. “We’ll see you later.”

  When Elsie and I got out to the car, she was very upset about Dorothy banishing Cassandra. “I hope the herald won’t take revenge.”

  “She didn’t take revenge on you when you turned her into pottery,” I reminded her.

  “That’s true. I hope she’s as lenient with Dorothy. We need to teach our young pupil some anger management.”

  We waved good-bye to Olivia and Dorothy before leaving the parking lot of Smuggler’s Arcane.

  “What are you going to do about finding the Bone Man’s wife?” Elsie asked. “I’m more worried about him than Cassandra.”

  “I’m in a business that caters to witches. It wasn’t like there was a time frame agreed on or anything. His wife will probably come to me. I’ll wait until the rune starts bleeding and I’ll know she’s in the shop.” I wasn’t looking forward to that event.

  “I don’t know if he’s going to be happy with that, Molly. What if he starts following you around all the time? It could be very annoying.”

  I agreed with her, but it wasn’t like I could walk up and down the streets
looking for the Bone Man’s wife. It seemed to me that I had no choice but to wait for her to come to me.

  We passed Georgia the Selkie as she sat painting at the docks in her small chair. It occurred to me that she might have some idea who the Bone Man’s wife was because of her connection to the sea. She was very old and probably knew things that we didn’t understand.

  Whether she’d share those things with me was another story. She owed us a debt we had never collected, but Selkies—creatures that could shed their sealskins and become human—were notoriously difficult to get along with. That was one reason we’d never grown chummier with her.

  I pulled the car off the road and into a parking space. Elsie stared at me. “What’s up? Did you forget something at the shop?”

  “No. I see Georgia out here almost every day. I was thinking she might know something about the Bone Man’s wife.”

  Elsie’s green eyes widened. “Seriously? She’s not exactly the most pleasant person in the world.”

  “You wouldn’t be either if people were always attempting to enslave you and keep you from your home. I think she’ll talk to me—she owes us for finding her skin. You have to admit that she’s been around a long time. She might know something about the Bone Man that could be helpful.”

  “Molly, are you sure? I’m going to be late for dinner. You know how I hate being late. Plus, we’re doing the attraction spell tonight, and I have to get ready.”

  “I can take you home first.”

  She sighed. “No. That’s fine. I don’t want you to see her alone. She might decide to jump in the river with you and I’d never see you again. Let’s go.”

  Because the day had been so clear and sunny, there were dozens of painters and photographers near the docks. We walked right up to Georgia where she sat facing the river with her easel and paints.

  “Hello, Georgia!” I smiled as though I had been looking for her. “What a lovely day for painting, and what a wonderful job you’ve done capturing the river.”

  I’d never seen anything else except the river on her canvas as I passed her.

  “What do you want?” she snarled back.

  Elsie sighed and shook her head, sitting on a bench behind us.

  “I have a small problem I thought you might be able to help me with,” I continued in a pleasant tone.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’ve been around a long time and you’re a magical water creature.” I didn’t want to play the you-owe-me card until I had to.

  “I can’t help you. Go away.”

  She didn’t even look up from her scene on the canvas. Her fingers were covered with paint. There was a smear on her cheek too. Her dark hair was wild and uncombed, hanging down her back and ending in rat’s tails. Her clothes were grubby and torn. She wore the same outfit every day, but never any shoes.

  “Could you at least listen to my question before you decide you can’t help me?”

  “No. Go away.”

  I glanced at Elsie, who shrugged and focused on the river traffic.

  “We found your skin and gave it back to you so you could be free from that fisherman who’d trapped you.”

  “So?”

  “So you could repay me by telling me what you know about the Bone Man and his wife.”

  Finally Georgia looked up at me. “The Bone Man? Why did you have to go and mess with him? You’re a witch, aren’t you? Why didn’t you use your own magic?”

  Now maybe we were getting somewhere.

  “He asked me for a favor. He wants me to find his wife and return her to Oak Island.”

  She grunted but didn’t reply.

  “I made a trade with him so he’d protect my family. But I don’t know how to find his wife.” I held up my hand so she could see the rune. “Can you help me?”

  “No one can help you now, witch. You shouldn’t have made that trade. Why do you think he didn’t find her himself? You people are all the same. You always want what you can’t have.”

  I was starting to get angry. If she didn’t know anything—fine. But she didn’t have to be so rude about it.

  “I can tell you a story,” she said. “Maybe it will help you. Maybe it won’t. That’s all I can do—and you’re darn lucky to get that from me. I didn’t ask you to find my skin. That was your doing. Don’t expect any thanks from me.”

  “And the story?”

  CHAPTER 19

  Words of anger, words of hate,

  Words of tomorrow, seal your fate.

  From your heart, from your soul,

  Let these words make you whole.

  “There was once a beautiful young maiden with hair of auburn fire and eyes of blue crystal. She had fire inside her as well. Her favorite place to get away from the strict rules of her family and village was the ocean.” Georgia kept painting as she spoke.

  “If I’d known there were going to be fairy tales, I’d have brought my teddy bear,” Elsie quipped.

  “Shh!” I gave her a hard look. She knew how easy it was to distract the Selkie.

  Georgia glared at us but kept going. “This young maiden gained favor with the Irish god of the sea—a lesser god, to be sure. As he passed her playing in the waves, the sun on her hair, he instantly fell in love with her. She felt the same for him when they met, and they spent many golden hours together in the water. One can only imagine the wonders he was able to show her.”

  Several toots from a loud boat horn interrupted the story for a moment. Georgia used her finger to remove some of the brown paint she’d added to the base of the river in her painting.

  When she didn’t resume the tale, I urged, “Is there more?”

  “Of course there’s more,” she snapped. “What sort of tale would end that way?”

  Elsie chuckled. “You’d be surprised.”

  Georgia wiped the paint from her finger into her hair. “Well, it’s not the end of this tale. Tell your witch friend to be quiet.”

  I raised my brows at Elsie. She shrugged and settled back against the bench.

  “As all good things do, the romance ended. It was winter, and the girl couldn’t visit the sea god in the cold. She yearned for him and stood for hours looking out over the water, growing thinner and less able to handle her real life. She held a token he’d given her, never letting it out of her sight. Until one day.”

  “Why does she keep stopping?” Elsie whispered.

  “Shh!”

  Georgia took a deep breath and focused on the water. “Another young man from the village loved this girl. But when she spurned his attentions for the sea god, hate began to grow in him. He had seen her with the man from the sea. He wanted revenge for the girl not loving him. A common enough story.”

  I waited patiently. I could feel there was knowledge in this tale. I wondered if it related to the dream I’d had. It sounded similar.

  “The man from the village struck. He stole the girl’s amulet and accused her of witchcraft before the village elders. She was tried and convicted of using magic and cavorting with demons. The sentence was death by fire. They dragged her to the stake and tied her to it as she called out for the sea god to save her.”

  I noticed that Elsie had sat forward and was listening intently.

  “But the sea god was far away. He heard her cries for help and rushed to her side. Alas, the fire had already consumed her. All that remained was his revenge on the folks who had killed her. He drowned everyone in the village, his wrath coming as a wall of water that wiped the sand clean.”

  My heart was beating fast with the story. I touched my amulet; it was warm. I could almost feel it pulsing with the magic in her words. Was my amulet the one in the story? Was that even possible?

  “What happened next?” Elsie asked.

  Georgia shrugged her rounded shoulders. “As you can imagine, the sea god did not w
ant the girl to die. Some say he gave her new life in the water. Some say she turned to coral and is still wearing the amulet with seaweed and conch shells woven into her long tresses as she sits on a throne many hundreds of feet beneath the waves.”

  “So you’re saying this girl is the Bone Man’s wife?” I asked.

  “I’m telling you a tale I heard from my mother. It may be true. It may not. Take from it what you will. Now, go away, both of you.”

  I thanked her for the story. Georgia didn’t speak or look my way again.

  Elsie and I went back to the car and got inside.

  “Whew!” Elsie was shaking after hearing the story. “I’ve never heard a fairy tale that seemed so real.”

  “I think she was talking about my amulet—the gift the sea god gave the girl. I can’t explain why, except for the dream I had. I saw the auburn-haired girl at the stake and the tall, black-haired man came on shore and drowned the village. It was so real in my dream—but even more real hearing Georgia tell it.”

  “Well, she is a magical sea creature,” Elsie reminded me. “She has a way with a yarn. She should be doing that instead of painting those terrible pictures.”

  “You know she doesn’t do it for money. She doesn’t care what they look like.”

  Elsie stared at me. “I’m not sure I understand. How would your great-great-whatever come to have that amulet?”

  “My mother told me it was a gift from a lesser sea god to one of our ancestors. I suppose that would fit with the story. But if the girl in the story is the Bone Man’s wife—does that make the Bone Man a sea god?”

  “We’ve always said we thought he had different magic that didn’t come from being a witch. Didn’t you just experience the same thing, with the ocean rising at his command?”

  “So the Bone Man’s wife is already dead. He wants me to find a dead woman and bring her to him.”

  “Even worse, Molly. She was at the celebration, according to the rune on your hand. Wait!” Elsie put her hand to her mouth. “Didn’t Olivia say the rune was Irish and had something to do with the sea? Maybe the Bone Man is a lesser Irish sea god.”