by Tegan Maher
"Look, would it make you feel better to come with me?" I asked.
The look on his face was a mixture of horror and disgust. "No, I'm good. As much as I love all of you, I don't want to be around while you talk about tampons and wallpaper and stuff."
I barked out a laugh. "I can see your point. I wouldn't want to sit around and talk about stuff like that, either. Especially not when there was beer and a pool table."
He lowered his brows at me, then pulled me in and put his arms around my waist. "You know what I mean. Way too much estrogen in that crowd for me to feel safe. Y'all are scary when you're in a pack."
"That was exactly my point earlier," I said, putting my arms around his neck and giving him a peck on the chin.
"Since you put it that way, I feel a little better. Just be careful, okay?"
I gave him a real kiss and promised I would. Of course, the road to hell was paved with good intentions.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
RAE SHOWED UP JUST as I was pulling a shirt out of my closet. I'd just gotten it that day from one of my favorite online T-shirt places. She snorted when she saw the saying: Patience: What I must use when there are too many witnesses.
"With the way you manage to land in hot water, that shirt could be used as evidence against you at some point," she said.
"True story," I said. "Too bad for them, they'd have to prove it first."
She gave me a little shove on the shoulder and got serious. "You better not do anything stupid like die or anything."
I hmphed. "Not a chance. Who'd torture you when you're old and gray if I keel over now?"
"That's all well and good," she said, walking around the corner into the bedroom she'd had since she was a kid, "but I'm staying here tonight."
Hangers scraped against the metal rod as she dug through her closet. I smiled when she came back into my room. She'd chosen her My Best Friend's a Witch shirt. Not only was it cute, it fit her to a tee. Plus, it was true, so there was always that giggle.
We put on our makeup, and as usual, Addy waited 'til I had something sharp near my eyeball to pop in. No matter how long you're around it, your reflexes never get used to somebody just popping in out of the blue.
"Dammit, Addy," I snapped, wiping eyeliner off my nose. "Seriously! You're going to put me blind one of these days!"
She waved me off. "Too far from your heart to kill ya. I just stopped by to let you know the idea you gave Belle worked a little bit. Sort of. She remembers voting in the last local election, and it was in Eagle Gap. So, we know she hasn't been on this side longer than a year or so."
"Still no idea about who she is, though? Maybe what she did for a living, or if she lived in town or in the country?" Rae was throwing some ideas out, but Addy shook her head.
"TJ and Moira are coming to girls' night tonight. Are you coming? If not, I'll ask them if they've heard anything."
"Nah," she said. "We're having another defense class tonight. They're interesting, but I'm not picking up much I didn't already know. Course, I guess for people who had no brothers or sisters or were goody-two-shoes, it's good."
I furrowed my brow. "What's being an only child got to do with it?"
The twinkle in her eye and the witchy smile were terrifying on her. "I was the middle child. I always had to figure out ways to get into both of your mothers' heads to figure out what would work against them best. It was a matter of survival."
I blew a breath out my nose. "It was a matter of being evil is what it was. Don't wrap that crap up in the survival bow. Everybody knows it's always the middle child that goes crazy."
Rae agreed. "If that's what he's teachin', you're right. You won't learn much. You mastered that stuff way before we were born. In fact, you should give lessons, though to be honest, the thought of sharing that particular brand of know-how with the general post-living population scares the crap out of me."
"Yeah," Addy said. "That's a case of diluting my brand. I ain't sharing my tricks with nobody."
Cheri Lynn faded in; she was the only one polite enough not to just pop in and risk scaring the bejeezus out of us. It was just another thing to love about her. How she looked, on the other hand, was enough to make me hate her just a little.
A short white floaty dress highlighted her gypsy grandmother's exotic beauty, and the delicate gold chain and bracelets accented her feminine bone structure. The worst part was she was one of those naturally good people. No vanity, and you couldn't ask for a more loyal friend.
She let out a tired sigh and shook her head when she saw my jeans and T-shirt. "Noelle, I swear I'm givin' up on tryin' to girly you up. You're so pretty; if you'd just let me pick out a few dresses for you—"
"I'm not wearing a dress unless it's to a funeral or a wedding," I said.
That wasn't altogether true—I'd get dressed up to go out to dinner, but I wasn't putting on a cocktail dress to go to a dive bar.
Lifting a delicate shoulder, she said, "Suit yourself then. You still look nice though. I like what you did with your hair."
I'd changed it up a little and pulled part of it up, just for fun. "Thanks, sweetie. That dress looks fabulous on you. How's Hawaii?"
"Hawaii?" Rae asked, brows raised. "How did you get to Hawaii? And more importantly, tell me you didn't leave just to go to Fancy's with us."
Cheri Lynn looked hurt. "Of course I did. Hawaii will still be there in a few hours, but I haven't hung out with y'all in ages."
"Don't get me wrong," Rae said, holding up her hand. "We miss you, too. It's just ... Hawaii."
"I, for one, am flattered she chose us over ocean breezes and hot surfer ghosts," I said, slicking on a layer of lip gloss. "Ready, Rae?"
She nodded, and we headed downstairs. Shelby, Cody, and their friends were out back, so we waved at them on our way out. There was a little blue car parked in front of the barn, and Nikki, one of my boarders, was grooming her horse Chuckles in the aisle.
We took a minute to go say hello and catch up, then jumped in the truck, Cheri Lynn popping into the back seat.
"Have you met the new ghost yet?" Rae asked her.
"What new ghost?" Her perfectly shaped eyebrow arched in question.
We explained the situation.
"I feel like I've missed out on so much, and I've only been gone a week! Anything else?"
"You know about the body, right?" Rae asked.
"Uh, no. What body?" She seemed to be getting miffed. "See, this is why I hate to leave. Every time I do, things happen."
"Yeah," I said, “but it's just timing. Nine times outta ten, Keyhole's about as exciting as grass growing. You know that."
She sighed. "I know. So fill me in."
Between Raeann and me, it took nearly the entire fifteen-minute drive to bring her up to speed, from the body to the threat and the judge, and finally to Lucy Lane.
"Holy moly," she said. "All that in a week?"
"Technically, just a few days," I said.
"Has it occurred to you that maybe the ghost's name is Misty?"
"Maybe," I said, “but the girl was wearing the ring with the initials MC & DL engraved inside of it on a necklace around her neck. I'm laying odds her name was Misty."
"That's right," Rae said. "I'd forgotten all about the ring. But if her last name was Lane, then maybe her first name started with a D."
"We still don't know if her last name was Lane or not," I reminded her.
"But chances are good," Cheri Lynn said, then basically repeated what Belle'd said about family similarities earlier. "I mean, if those girls think the dead girl could have passed for Lucy's sister, then there's bound to be some relation."
We swung into Fancy's parking lot, the tires crunching across the gravel, and pulled in beside Camille's little sports car. She was there, and Anna Mae's car was on the other side. It didn't look like anybody else was there yet.
Once inside, we spotted them right off the bat. Of course, Fancy's is small, and there weren't many people there since it was st
ill early. She already had two buckets of beer on the table, since there were going to be seven of us, plus the ghosts. Anna Mae was sitting across from her, and Levana was already there, too.
I slid onto the stool beside her and pulled a beer out of the ice. "What's shakin', bacon?"
Levana shot me a curious look. She was still getting used to modern lingo, and sometimes it took her a second. To be fair, there was a lot for her to catch up on. The language had morphed quite a bit over the course of two hundred years.
"Not much," she said. "Skeeter agreed to teach Rory how to work on cars. He's been fascinated by them since we arrived here and has been reading up on the workings of the internal combustion engine. He's a hands-on learner, though, so doing it will be better for him than reading about it."
Rory, her husband, was a good-natured guy with a quirky sense of humor. He was adept at all things mechanical and structural, so I had no doubt he'd pick it right up.
"He couldn't have picked a better teacher," Anna Mae said. "Nobody knows more about what's under a hood than Skeet."
"That's the truth. Poor Bessie was a mess, yet he kept her going for me against all odds."
For years, I'd driven a beat-up old truck that, by all rights, should have been put out to pasture.
"It will be good for him," Levana said, smiling. "Then perhaps we can buy a car of our own."
I'd tried to teach her to drive out on the farm, but the lessons were slow, to put it nicely. She was as graceful as a swan, but the minute she got behind the wheel, she was a hot mess. She overthought the whole process and ended up freaking herself out before she even started the truck.
Rory, on the other hand, was a natural. He'd picked it up in just a couple hours and moved straight to wanting to ride my motorcycle. I liked him, but not that much. Nobody touched my little GSXR but me or Hunter, and he only rode it when needs must.
Before long, TJ and Moira showed up, and girls' night was on.
"So what's been goin' on with you two?" I asked.
TJ shook her head. "Not much with me. I'm still doing what I can to help the folks who used to get treatments and therapies from Aunt Nora. She helps, but it's just not my calling."
Moira lowered her brows. "You're plenty good at it." She turned to us. "But I think she's right. It's not her superpower."
"Well," Camille, who was sort of an expert on superpowers, said. "If the whole healing thing doesn't feel right to you, then what does?"
"I don't know." TJ said, picking the label on her bottle. "I'm good at persuading people, but that's not exactly a skill I want to use. And I can sense emotions better than the average person, I think. Again, not helpful. You wouldn't believe what an emotional roller coaster that can be."
Ever the cheerleader and friend, Anna Mae put her arm around her and gave her a squeeze. "I think just bein' you is magical enough. If you find an extra gear or two, great. If not, you're already perfect."
And that was why I loved her. She and Cheri Lynn, who had a history, were two peas in a pod, though it took Cheri dyin' for them to come together. I leaned back and just observed my mismatched group of friends and was grateful for every one of them.
CHAPTER TWENTY
AS PREDICTED, NOBODY tried to attack me, and we all had a great time, even though Levana had to leave early because she and Angel were opening Brew the next morning. Fancy's ended up getting busy, and Camille began worrying, so we ended up taking the party to my place, where we built a fire in the pit and hung out around the pool. Hunter and Matt and the kids were already there, and it ended up being a good night.
TJ and Moira even stayed the night rather than drive all the way back to Eagle Gap, and Anna Mae stayed with Matt.
I woke up when I heard Raeann tiptoe out to go to Brew and couldn't fall back to sleep. Hunter was snoring like a chainsaw, and I didn't want to wake him, so I tiptoed out of the room, pulling the door closed quietly behind me.
After making a cup of blueberry coffee, I slipped onto the back patio that overlooked the pool. I loved it out there early in the morning in the summer because the steam rising off the pool was like looking through mist. It was still early enough that the horses were sleeping, so all that interrupted the quiet were the birds and the occasional cluck from the chicken coop.
Try as I might, I couldn't keep my mind from everything that was going on. I turned each piece over in my head, examining it from all angles. The only problem was that I had a handful of mismatched pieces. Nothing even came close to fitting together.
It wasn't long before TJ joined me, still in the sweats and oversized tee I'd loaned her the night before. She took a seat at the table and pulled her feet up under her, wrapping both hands around her coffee mug.
"It's beautiful out here this time of day," she said quietly.
Nodding, I took another sip of my coffee. "It's my favorite time to sit here. The swing's still nice, but the mist makes it feel like I'm sitting in a fairy tale."
She chuckled. "I guess it does, though my life seems to feel a little bit like that all the time since I moved here."
The wistful note in her voice tugged at my heart. I couldn't imagine not knowing what my magic was. Even though Mama had died and Daddy had left, Addy and Aunt Beth had given me a fine magical upbringing. TJ hadn't even known she was a witch until her Aunt Nora died and left her the house.
It was a long story, but the short of it was that she'd inherited the house and found out that her auntie may be dead but wasn't departed. And she had magic. Frankly, I was surprised she hadn't unwittingly blown things up, given somebody the hives, or worse. An untrained witch was a dangerous force.
"How's the rest of your training going?" I asked. Moira was training her on standard magic, and we all threw in when an opportunity presented itself.
"Oh, that part of it's just grand," she said, motioning for the chair across from us. It pulled into the table pretty as you please, exactly where it should have been. "That's the thing. I don't lack in magic—as a matter of fact, it explains a ton about stuff I'd never been able to explain. But it seems I lack any particular gifts."
"Well, if that's the case, then like Anna Mae said, it's no big deal." I smiled. "Even having the magic you do is something most non-magical people would give an arm for."
She barked out a laugh. "Then they better not learn spells that need two hands."
At least she still had her sense of humor.
Movement caught my eye in the back of the pasture, and I whipped my head around, trying to focus through the mist.
"Do you see that?" I asked, pointing.
"See what?" TJ said, following my finger. "Yeah, there's something, but I can't tell—"
Addy and Mama Janie popped in.
"Morning, Auntie, Mama Janey," I said, my eyes scanning for further movement. Just like the day before, it was gone, so I turned my attention back to our guests. "You ladies are up and about early."
"Don't be rude, Noelle," she said, motioning with her head to her right. Mama Janey was shooting me the look all bad Southern kids got when they weren't mindin' their manners, but danged if I could figure out what I was doing wrong.
"Good morning, ladies," TJ said, then glanced at a point over Addy's shoulder. "Ma'am. I don't think I've had the pleasure of makin' your acquaintance."
I was thoroughly confused. She'd not only met both Addy and Janey, both had been helping her with her magic.
"Okay," I said. "Somebody needs to clue me in, here."
All eyes shifted to me.
Addy, her eyebrows almost meeting in the middle, barked, "You didn't even bother to say hello to Ruth."
"Ruth?" I said, thinking I'd tripped down the rabbit hole. "Who’s Ruth?"
"This is Ruth," she said, pointing to her right again.
"Pleased to meet you, Ruth," TJ said, while a look of dawning crossed Addy's face.
"You can't see her, can you, Noe?" she asked.
I shook my head. "If there's somebody with you two, then I'm sorry,
but no."
TJ's forehead crinkled. "But ... she's right there. As plain as Addy and Janey."
"Okay," I said. "Let's back up. Who's Ruth?"
"Ruth is the lady I met in the theater over in Eagle Gap," Janey said.
"Oh, then great!" I said. "She remembered her name."
"Not exactly," Addy said, casting an apologetic glance toward where Ruth must have been. "She decided to go by Ruth since we had to call her something, and Jane was already taken."
"My apologies, Miss Ruth," I said, the feeling of being in a fairy tale becoming much more real. "I'm real sorry about your situation and will do anything I can to help."
"She says thank you," Janey said, then turned to TJ. "So why can you see her, but Noelle can't?"
TJ lifted both shoulders nearly to her ears. "I have zero idea."
The door swung open, and Moira stepped out, a cup of tea in her hand.
"Morning girls," she said as she sat down at the table. "Addy, Mama Janey," she said toward the ghosts.
"Wait a minute," I said as she took a sip of her tea. "You can't see her either?"
"See who?" Moira asked, flummoxed.
"The lady with Addy and Ms. Janey."
Her cheeks pinked as she looked in their direction, even squinting as if that would help her see better. "I'm sorry, but no."
TJ looked decidedly uncomfortable. "Why can I see her but nobody else can?" She paused, then cringed. "I'm so sorry, Ms. Ruth. Yes, it's rude of me to speak as if you weren't here."
I glanced at Moira and was glad to see that she, at least, looked as confused as I felt. I was a little more worried about TJ though.
It was easy for me to forget that just the idea of magic and ghosts and supernatural beings was brand new to her and she was probably still struggling to wrap her head around all of it. Up 'til now, at least, she'd had us to fall back on and look to. Now she was alone, and that had to be terrifying for her.
I reached over and laid my hand on her arm. "Are you—" I caught a flash of pink and yellow from the corner of my eye and turned to see what it was. Sure enough, there was a matronly woman in a flowered housedress floating right beside Addy.