I shook my head. I didn’t have time to argue; there was a dark ghost in our house. And anyhow, I was comforted beyond words that my friends had my back. Or at least, they wanted to. But they weren’t witches, and I wasn’t sure how far their determination would carry us.
“I’ll go in through the front door, you go through the back,” I told Charlie and Greer.
“I’ll go with them,” said Paws.
“Now we’re safe,” said Greer.
“You have a better chance with me than without me,” Paws pointed out.
“You’re probably right,” said Greer. “It’s gone from none to slim.”
The three of them went off around the corner of the old farmhouse while I crept up the front steps. All the other ghosts moved out of the way, which was just as well since they weren’t going to be of any help. Even Mr. Bone look scared.
“If only she’d ever bothered to get that porch fixed, it wouldn’t be creaking up such a storm right now,” said Mrs. Goodkeep.
As I reached the front door and was about to turn the handle, the birds that Paws often chased around the property spiraled down from the top of the house and fluttered around my head. I smiled. When they didn’t stop fluttering I realized that they had something to tell me. “Kitchen.”
At least I was pretty sure that was what they said.
I opened the front door without any further hesitation. I tried to be as quiet as possible, but Mrs. Goodkeep was right, the porch was very old. Still, I hoped I’d been careful enough so that I had at least a little of the element of surprise to help me.
I closed the door softly behind me, leaving all the ghosts outside, then waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The only light in the house was a dim glow coming from the kitchen, so soft that if the birds hadn’t warned me, I might have missed it.
I crept toward the kitchen.
My wand was at the ready, but I could feel it slipping a little in my sweating palm.
I was just about to jump through the kitchen door and attack whoever was in there when a voice floated to my ears, “You can come in. No need to be hostile.”
The deep, unfamiliar voice stopped me in my tracks. Despite how quiet I had tried to be, he knew I was there and he was making no bones about it. The glow coming through the doorway was definitely coming from a dark ghost.
Not sure what else to do, I stepped into my own kitchen to confront the intruder.
Sitting in the breakfast nook was a very large ghost. He was wearing a jacket and tie, the jacket stretched across his shoulders and arms as if he had gained a significant amount of weight since he bought it. In front of him was an empty plate and cup. I had the impression that he wanted to eat but couldn’t.
“Welcome,” he greeted me as if he was the one who lived there.
I stopped in the doorway and stared.
“No need to stand there with your mouth open,” he chided me.
“My mouth wasn’t open,” was all I could think to say.
The man gave me an indulgent smile and shrugged.
“What are you doing in my farmhouse?” I asked him.
“I came to talk,” he said placidly. “As you may already have guessed, I’m here on behalf of Ellie.”
My blood ran cold.
“Why didn’t she come herself?” I demanded.
“She was afraid you wouldn’t take it well. She told me that the last time she visited you, you weren’t exactly welcoming.”
“I’m pretty sure she attacked me,” I said. “I don’t think she exactly deserved a fruit basket.”
“We all have our different versions of events,” he said.
“Yes, some are right and some aren’t,” I shot back.
Just then there was a rattling at the back door. I’d forgotten about my friends! And Paws!
The ghost intruder didn’t look the least bit ruffled by the noise. “They can join us too. I know you’ll just tell them what we say anyway,” he said, as if bestowing a favor.
Skirting the dark ghost as carefully as I could, I circled the kitchen to open the back door. We had locked up before we left, so now I had to unlock the door to let my friends in. The second they caught sight of my face, they knew something was wrong.
“I take we found the dark ghost,” said Charlie, peering around me to see inside.
I nodded once and stepped back into the kitchen, careful to stay facing the ghost and to shield my friends as much as I could.
The ghost hadn’t moved.
“Who are you?” Greer demanded, following Charlie through the door and greeting the guy sitting in the nook.
“You must be the mouthy one,” said the ghost. “I’m Wendell, and I’m here on behalf of Ellie. We dark ghosts and witches must stick together and help each other out.”
“Sure you must,” I said.
“What do you want?” said Charlie.
“I wanted to give Lemmi one last opportunity to give up her duties here. If this latest investigation is any indication, she clearly can’t handle them,” explained Wendell.
“By ‘duties’ do you mean her being the Witch of Mintwood?” my blond friend tried to clarify.
“Of course that’s what I mean, and . . .” answered Wendell.
“She’s doing just fine with her investigation,” Charlie interrupted.
“And you must be the reporter,” said Wendell. Clearly he liked to put all of us in our places, and once we were there we could probably never leave.
“Ellie thinks she can do this job better than I can?” I asked.
“Of course she does,” said Wendell.
“What’s in it for you?” Greer asked.
“This is awfully nice land to live on,” said Wendell, looking around at the grassy back yard and the trees beyond it.
I felt my hackles rise. This was my grandmother’s house!
“We ghosts don’t have a lot of options for places to live. I do like the idea of those great necklaces.”
Paws and Tank wore special animal collars that matched the green-jeweled necklace I wore around my neck. The jewels allowed the ghosts to go wherever I went and to work on investigations with me when necessary. Most ghosts had to stick to one location, or maybe visit somewhere else for a short time. That could get tedious and boring. If it happened to you, you were very likely to become a shriveled tea lady.
“Witch of Mintwood duties can’t simply be transferred from one witch to another,” I explained. “Just because she wants something doesn’t mean she can or should have it.”
“I do believe she disagrees,” he said.
“She’s can disagree all she wants,” I said. “That doesn’t change the fact that she’s never going to be the Witch of Mintwood. I’m not going anywhere!”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he said in a maddeningly know-it-all tone.
“You should leave now,” said Charlie, crossing her arms over her chest. “This is our home, and you’re not welcome here.”
Next to her, Greer looked bored.
“Yes, you should go,” I said, drawing my wand.
Wendell’s eyes grew colder and angrier. Although he kept a friendly smile on his face, it now looked forced. For the first time since I’d come into the kitchen I felt threatened.
“Is that your final answer?” he asked, his voice low.
“Yes,” I said forcefully.
“Very well then,” he said. He got to his feet and the three of us instinctively leaned away from him. “I’m sorry to hear that.” He smiled. “Then again, maybe not so sorry.”
A slight shifting was the only warning I had. The next instant three dark ghosts were pelting at me and the large ghost at the table had disappeared. I stumbled further into the kitchen and then fell backwards. As the only witch in the room, I was hopelessly outnumbered.
Chapter Fifteen
The cold glow from the three oncoming dark ghosts provided just enough light to help me see the outlines of the furniture and the walls. If I could j
ust get to the light switch . . .
My friends had stumbled away from the attack as the dark ghosts closed in. “You don’t have to do this,” Charlie yelled, still standing behind me.
The ghosts had a sort of vacant look on their faces, and none of them were talking. They just came relentlessly and silently forward.
As they came, I held up my wand. In one fluid motion, which luckily I had been practicing, I waved it in the air. Magic sputtered out of the end of it, then died. Nothing happened. I waved it again, and then another time. My palm had gone back to sweating.
The first ghost had already stopped in his tracks and looked around in wonder that a witch was attacking him to begin with.
The second ghost was my next target. I waved my wand again, but this one didn’t stop when I ordered it to.
It was bigger than the last one.
“I’ll save you,” yelled Tank, barreling into the dark kitchen, valiantly trying to save us. He had been upstairs and had come racing down when he heard the commotion.
“I’ve been following these ninnies all around the house,” the rabbit cried, jumping into the fray and spinning this way and that till he looked like a large white dust ball being blown around by the wind.
As it turned out, ghosts didn’t always just float through each other. Tank kept whirling until he hit the third ghost in the leg with his bushy tail. The ghost looked down in surprise and tried to shake Tank off, but the rabbit was much more agile. He sprang right and he sprang left, clearly enjoying himself.
“Get out of here,” I yelled to my friends.
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” yelled Greer, dragging Charlie away. They couldn’t be of any help in an actual fight given that they weren’t witches, and they knew it. They needed to get to safety as quickly as they could.
But Charlie did manage to flick the light switch on her way out the back door, flooding the kitchen with light.
All three dark ghosts blanched. They instantly became almost invisible, though their outlines were still darker those of than regular ghosts.
I flicked my wand at the third one, and between Tank and me we managed to daunt him at last. Then, just as I was ready to rejoice, I felt myself crumple to the floor. In my haste to protect my friends, I had forgotten about the second ghost.
That one had never stopped coming at me, and now I had to scramble madly to try to get away.
“You will never win,” he said, his voice sounding dead.
“You will never win,” the other two repeated.
Then all three of them were chanting, their brief halt forgotten. Even with the lights on, we didn’t have the strength to deter them.
“Mintwood is ours!”
I wrapped my fingers around my green stone necklace and waved my wand one last time. Glittery green magic streamed out and hit all three ghosts full blast in the face. “Get out of here,” I yelled.
For a split second nothing happened. Then the ghosts started to melt in the shower of sparks and confetti until they had disappeared before my eyes.
Slowly, sounds of a country farmhouse reached my ears, sounds like the wind blowing and the boards creaking.
I stayed in a crumpled heap on the floor, looking at Tank, who was looking from the glittery pile to me and back again.
“Nicely done,” he congratulated me. “Couldn’t have managed it better myself. What now?”
I had no idea.
From the back door I heard movement. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the resident ghost cat sidling in.
“I’m here now. No need to worry,” said Paws.
“That’s why I’m worrying,” I told him.
“I always said you were a fool,” he replied.
“Since when?” I said.
“Starting now,” he told me.
When I didn’t say anything more he repeated, “You’re a fool!”
“What was all that about?” Charlie asked. She and Greer had come back inside as soon as the ghosts had disappeared. “Don’t worry, there’s no sign of Wendell anymore.”
I hadn’t thought there would be. “That was my last warning,” I sighed. “Now I think we’re at war.”
“I’ll get the armor,” Tank offered.
“No, you won’t,” said Paws, sniffing.
Chapter Sixteen
I slept surprisingly well that night considering everything that had happened that day. Having had to use magic when I’d already been exhausted was surely part of it.
Paws had led Tank away, both of them looking very tired. For once Mrs. Goodkeep and Karen cooed over them, and I think Paws spent the night sleeping in Mr. Bone’s lap. Cats did like to curl up and be warm, even ghost cats. A person’s lap was just as good a place to do that as any other, so figured Paws. He looked very peaceful when he was sleeping. Pity how deceiving that was.
When I woke up I noted two things. The first was that the rain was coming down so hard I didn’t even think it was safe to drive. Our driveway would be a mud puddle, and some of the roads around Mintwood wouldn’t be much better. The second was that I’d fought off dark ghosts and lived to go to sleep that night, though admittedly I had slept through the night with my wand in my hand.
When I went downstairs, the first thing I did was to pick up the Chronicle and the Gazette to see if there was any news about Gerry. I had a bad feeling about the articles that day, and when I caught sight of the headlines my worst fears were confirmed.
The Chronicle blared that “Everyone Thinks She Did It,” while the Gazette trumpeted that “Proof is Only a Matter of Time Away.”
I groaned inwardly as I read. Gerry had already been condemned in the eyes of the public, a slightly oddball local who had now committed murder.
“So you saw them,” said Charlie, coming out of her room dressed in a white pajama top with bottoms decorated with lilies-of-the-valley. As she came into the kitchen, she reached her arms above her head and yawned.
“Yeah, it’s not good,” I said, staring at the papers. “For Liam or Gerry, either one.”
“It’s awful,” she agreed.
Before Charlie could say anything else we heard a knock. I headed for the living room and opened the front door to the sound of rain crashing down.
Standing there under a blue rain slicker and a large hat was Deacon Grate. “I come bearing gifts,” he said, holding up a large bag of what could only be pastries, and a coffee carrier holding four coffees.
“You may enter, good sir,” I bowed,” having achieved the threshold of admittance. Specifically, caffeine.”
He grinned at me. “I didn’t think I wanted Greer driving in this muck, so I thought I’d bring the goodies to you. I have a truck, after all.”
“I don’t think Greer will be up for a couple more hours,” I told him with bemusement.
“That’s all right. I can just hang out for a while,” he shrugged.
I led him back into the kitchen, where we found Charlie reading the Chronicle. When she saw us coming, she pushed the Chronicle away and pretended to have been reading the Gazette all along.
“Look who stopped by,” I said.
“Hi there,” she said brightly. “Thanks for braving the weather and bringing pastries.”
Deacon smiled and sat down, and the three of us dug into the treats. For a while we were quiet. As I ate my croissant I watched Deacon and thought about how glad I was that he and Greer had gotten back together.
He was a good-looking guy, with longish hair that he sometimes kept in a ponytail, plus broad shoulders and a nice smile. He and Greer had been dating on and off since high school, and when Greer had had an identity crisis a while back Deacon had stood by her, even when she’d said she wasn’t sure her identity fit with the possibility of their having a future together.
Now they had quietly started dating again, but since Deacon’s mother was terrifying, they were keeping it under wraps for the moment. And more than that, Greer didn’t want to lead Deacon on too far in case it still didn’t work ou
t.
“How’s Liam holding up?” Deacon asked when we had all enjoyed our impromptu breakfast for a while and Charlie had set the newspaper aside.
“This is a messy business,” Charlie clucked.
“You can say that again,” said Deacon. “It’s all anybody can talk about.”
“It’s not every day that you find a skeleton in the wall of an abandoned shop,” said Charlie. “Who knows how long it would’ve stayed there if a new hair salon hadn’t opened up.”
“I wonder if that’s what the murderer was counting on,” Deacon said.
“I don’t think this was planned,” I said, carefully ripping off layers of my chocolate croissant and popping them into my mouth. “I don’t see how you can count on a storefront like that staying empty for years on end.”
“Besides,” Charlie added, “Jackie didn’t have any enemies that we know of. She was just about to graduate from high school. You don’t have time to have enemies that are angry about anything more than lip gloss at that age.”
“Very sage wisdom,” Deacon agreed.
“That’s true,” I said. “So if it wasn’t planned, the murderer just got lucky that the body wasn’t found for so long.”
“I take it you don’t think Gerry did it either?” Deacon looked between us.
“Of course we don’t,” Charlie sputtered.
“Just checking. Everybody else seems to have decided she’s guilty,” said Deacon, pointing to the headlines. “They certainly don’t think they have to wait for evidence, or a trial.”
“I can’t imagine it,” I said. “We do need to talk to her, though, and I’m getting concerned that we’re not going to be able to pull it off.”
Not being able to talk to Gerry was really putting a damper on my investigation.
“Did somebody say my name?” Greer yawned, moseying into the kitchen.
“No. We’re not talking about you at all,” said Charlie.
“Good, I didn’t think so,” said Greer.
“Hey Greer,” said Deacon, smiling brightly.
“Morning,” said Greer, blushing.
“Delicious breakfast pastry?” Deacon offered his girlfriend.
Witch Raising Situation (Witch of Mintwood Book 5) Page 10