Moonshine & Malice

by Kathleen Brooks

  “Too bad he’ll kill us with that hot bod,” Vilma muttered before taking a bite of the muffin. “Grand Mistress Lauren said the librarian has looked into him. Can’t find anything from the last hundred and fifty years. Before that, Slade was Alexander’s right hand man.”

  Zoey would have dropped the pan of banana nut muffins she had just pulled out of the oven if it hadn’t been for Agnes’s wiggle of fingers. Instead, the pan was hovering in the air as Zoey picked her jaw up from the ground. “What?” she shrieked. Was Slade really the second-in-command to the evil Tenebris leader?

  Agnes nodded as she waved the pan over to the table. “That’s right. That hottie is one of the most powerful witches around.”

  “Then why don’t you date him?” Zoey was beginning to panic.

  “He hasn’t asked me,” Agnes huffed.

  Vilma snickered. “Agnes hasn’t had a date in five hundred years.”

  “As if you really win when it’s been four hundred sixty years since you’ve had one.” Agnes rolled her eyes as she reached for a hot banana nut muffin.

  Zoey looked between the two old witches. “Have either of you been married?”

  Agnes’s and Vilma’s teasing smiles turned to a frown. Vilma cleared her throat. “Yes, dear. We were married three times—once a generation for a while. But it became too painful to lose those you love. Humans, well, they can’t live as long as we can. Agnes and I nursed each other through so much heartbreak that we vowed never to marry again.”

  Zoey felt her heart breaking for them. But then a horrible thought, “Have you lost your children too?”

  “Yes,” Agnes told her. “Sadly, both Vilma’s and my children were killed in the war. However it’s discouraged to have children with humans as powers fade with every generation removed from full witch parents. In fact, most halflings won’t even have powers. It takes about three generations of non-witch breeding and the powers disappear completely.”

  Vilma nodded and picked up the explanation. “It’s why there are no new generations of witches out there. With the war between the Claritase and the Tenebris, we’re not able fill the little witch schools anymore. Everything has been closed due to the war of the witches. Witches aren’t marrying witches and Claritase are so scared a Tenebris will come hunting them that they are simply no longer having children.”

  “That’s so sad.” Zoey put a tray of cupcakes into the oven.

  “What’s not sad is your date tonight.” Agnes wiggled her bushy eyebrows and changing the subject.

  “It’s beyond sad. It’s petrifying. He may poof me out of existence over dessert.”

  “We just can’t figure out why he’s here. If we only knew what he wanted.” Vilma helped carry a tray of muffins to the front display.

  “He said he’s here for work,” Zoey called out.

  “Work?” Agnus snorted. “Is that what he calls stealing powers?”

  Zoey slid the trays into the display case and moved around front to unlock the door. She flipped the sign to open and headed to put on a fresh pot of coffee. All this talk of magic, murder, and scary dreams of little boys was too much to handle.

  3

  Zoey was so slammed that she didn’t have time to worry about being poofed from existence over dinner. All the members from both the Mountaineers and the Opossums clubs were packed into her shop getting hot coffee and baked treats for their morning hunt. Their trucks were loaded with large and expensive bows, arrows, and more camouflage than she’d ever seen.

  “What’s going on?” Zoey asked her best friend, Maribelle, who was covered in head-to-toe camouflage. Her red hair and freckles poked out from under a bright orange hat.

  “It’s the last day of turkey season. Dale and I have a bet riding on this. I’m going to use some of your treats as a way to lure the turkey in. Dale wants a deer and rifle theme for the wedding, and I want country chic, so whoever bags the biggest turkey sets the theme for the wedding. Then whoever bags the second biggest turkey gets veto power over the guest list.”

  “Sounds reasonable.” Heck, anything sounded reasonable to Zoey at the moment. When you find out you’re suddenly a witch your idea of reasonable broadens tremendously.

  Maribelle and Dale would be happy together—regardless of what the theme of the wedding was. They’d already been falsely accused of murder together. Surely getting through a wedding would be a snap.

  Maribelle leaned forward so the people in line behind her couldn’t hear. “What about tall, dark, and sexy?”

  “Luke?”

  “No, silly,” Maribelle laughed as she swatted her. “That man in leather. The one who devours you with his eyes.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Zoey muttered under her breath.

  “What?”

  “We’re going on a date tonight.”

  “No way!” Maribelle squealed. “What are you wearing? Where are you going? How are you not going to die on the spot when he looks at you in that way that says he wants you kiss you into oblivion?”

  “Again, that’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “Matthew!” a shrill and panicked voice yelled from the door. Maribelle and Zoey turned to see a young woman with hair the color of light brown sugar sticking her head into the shop. “Matthew!”

  “Hailey?” Zoey recognized Luke Tanner’s deep authoritative voice before she even saw him. The men and women getting ready to hunt had all stopped talking at the woman’s hysterics and were all staring at the deputy sheriff calmly approaching the woman. His dove gray eyes were focused solely on the woman whose eyes were red rimmed and frantic.

  “Luke! Oh God, he’s gone!” The woman grabbed fistfuls of Luke’s tan uniform and collapsed against his torso. Great big body wracking sobs shook her small frame.

  “Where’s your husband, Hailey?” Luke asked with patience as if holding a sobbing woman was ordinary.

  “Jacob is searching the neighborhood.” Hailey sniffled and wiped the back of her hand under her running nose.

  “Searching for what?”

  “Matthew!” Her voice raised again. “He’s gone!”

  “I’ll call Sheriff Weller—”

  Hailey shook her head. “He said it hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet and Matthew is just a young boy out playing. ‘Nothing to worry about.’ But I know better. He wouldn’t just run away.”

  “Matthew is what, nine years old?” Luke asked.

  “Eight. Matthew!” she yelled again into the shop.

  “Oh, we have to do something,” Maribelle said, grabbing Zoey’s hand.

  “What does your boy look like?” Billy Ray asked. He was the bartender at the Opossum Lodge, the club for long suffering married men. He was well into grandpa age and his gray beard rivaled any lumberjack’s. All the Opossums were older. To join you had to be married for more than thirty years.

  “He’s this tall,” Hailey said, holding up her hand. “Hair the same color as mine and brown eyes. I . . . I . . . I thought he was in bed. When I went to wake him this morning he wasn’t there and the window was open.”

  “We’ll help look for him, miss,” Billy Ray said as the other Opossums nodded. They knew a little boy’s life was more important than bagging a turkey.

  “And we will too,” Maribelle called out, looking back at Dale and the rest of the Mountaineers, the club for twenty-somethings and young marrieds in Moonshine Hollow.

  Luke nodded. “Okay, break up into pairs and search the woods surrounding Hailey’s neighborhood and the neighborhood next to theirs. Meet back here in three hours.”

  “Come on, Zoey,” Maribelle urged as the shop began to empty out. Zoey grabbed her keys from the back and locked up. A missing boy in these mountains wasn’t a situation where you waited twenty-four hours before searching. During the day it was warm, but it could get dangerously cold at night.

  Zoey locked the back door and hurried around front where Dale’s truck was idling in the street. “We’ll go through the park and cut into the woods there. T
hat way we’ll be walking toward the other searchers and try to cover more ground,” Dale explained as they bounded down the street. Zoey took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Agnes had taught her a spell for finding lost items after losing her cell phone for the third time in a week. Zoey wondered if that would help her find Matthew.

  Dale turned off the street and into Earnest Park named after the founder of Moonshine Hollow. They drove through the parking lot, across the giant field, and past the playground equipment to the beginning of the tree line leading into the mountains. He parked his truck and Zoey jumped out so Maribelle wouldn’t be smushed in the middle any longer.

  Zoey looked at the mountains surrounding the park along with Earnest Creek. The wide creek bubbled over rocks as water from the mountains trickled down the limestone rocks. The tree leaves were still a million shades of green.

  The sound of water splashing drew Zoey’s attention away from the mountains. Her eye narrowed as a flash of familiar orange caught her attention. “Did you see that?”

  “See what?” Maribelle asked as she hung a pair of binoculars over her neck, looking right where the boy in the orange shirt had just been.

  Zoey shook her head. “Nothing. Let’s go down by the creek.” A pull tugged through the blood running through Zoey’s veins. Everything in her had her moving toward the boy.

  “Dale wants to hike Moonshine Trail,” Maribelle told her as they turned to see Dale reaching into the back of his truck.

  “Why don’t you and Dale hit the trail, and I’ll follow the creek. It connects with the trail a couple miles up, right?” Zoey couldn’t get the bad feeling out of the pit of her stomach. She’d seen that orange shirt before.

  “That works,” Dale said, handing Zoey a whistle. “The trail isn’t too far from the creek and at certain points the creek is visible from the trail, so if you need anything, just whistle and we’ll come running.”

  4

  Zoey put the nylon strap over her head so the black whistle hung down her chest. Maribelle gave a parting wave as she and Dale headed down the trail shouting out Matthew’s name. Zoey walked quickly to where the creek disappeared into the woods. “Where are you?” Zoey called out, but not nearly loud enough for Maribelle or Dale to hear.

  There wasn’t a path along this part of the creek. Instead there was a bank covered with thorns, honeysuckle, and other thick brush. With a huff, Zoey bent over and took off her shoes and stuffed her socks inside them. She tied her laces together and slung her shoes around her neck. She thought she could simply step into the creek, but when she tried her foot sunk in the mud on the creek bed. Her foot was swallowed and Zoey’s arms flapped madly as she tried to keep her balance. But with one foot on the bank and the other now ankle deep in mud she was a goner.

  With a cry, Zoey tipped over and splashed into the creek. The water was refreshing with a hint off coolness from the mountain runoff . . . cool enough she didn’t want to be doused in it. It didn’t help matters either when she heard the laughter. Zoey looked up to see the boy who had been popping into her life at the worst times.

  “This isn’t funny,” she muttered.

  “Yeah it is,” he giggled.

  “Well, you’re wet too,” Zoey pointed out.

  The boy looked down at his wet orange Moonshine Camp T-shirt with confusion. “How did that happen?”

  Zoey rolled her eyes. Boys. “What are you doing here?”

  “You’re here, and I want you to follow me.”

  Zoey struggled to stand and wrung the water from her shirt. “Follow you where?”

  The confused look was back on his face. “I don’t really know. I just know which direction.”

  “Do you know Matthew?”

  The boy looked up as if he were thinking. “Name sounds familiar. Come on.”

  The boy was already stomping off through the creek as Zoey hurried to catch up to him. “Come down here often?”

  The boy smiled. “Yeah. I know all the best places to fish, and then there’s this rope swing that is so much fun. Even though my parents told me not to do it. Have you found them yet?”

  “Who?” Zoey asked.

  “My parents. You promised to find my parents.” The boy grew agitated again as he sped up even more. He was walking so fast Zoey almost had to jog to keep up with him.

  “Who are your parents? Why won’t you tell me their names, or your name for that matter?”

  The boy ignored her as he broke into a run around a bend in the creek. The water was growing continuously deeper and Zoey had to move to the edge of the creek or it would have been up to her waist. The boy disappeared from sight and Zoey rushed ahead. Water sprayed around her as her legs pushed the water aside. She rounded the bend and found the boy standing stock still, staring straight ahead.

  “Why did you take off like that? What’s the matter?” Zoey stopped next to the boy and looked down at him. He was drenched. Water was dripping from his hair and over his face, and down his arms.

  The boy looked up to her with brown eyes. “Find my parents.” And then he was gone.

  * * *

  Zoey blinked. He had simply poofed away as if she’d transported him. Did she? Maybe she was accidently poofing him around town and that was why he couldn’t remember anything. Zoey turned from where the boy had been standing when a flash of orange caught her attention in the water.

  “What are you doing now?” Zoey asked as she walked toward him. Her feet stopped as she noticed a familiar orange T-shirt partially underwater just ahead of her. The boy’s wet hair was matted with blood where it rested on a large rock that was almost entirely submerged. Water trickled over his still body and she instinctively knew the boy was dead.

  Zoey fumbled for her whistle. She put it to her shaking lips and blew, but nothing happened. She was too upset to do it right. Her hands shook, her lips shook, and her lungs felt as if they had no air in them. Forcing herself to take a deep breath, Zoey blew again, this time a sharp whistle echoed along the creek banks and against the mountain.

  “Zoey?” She heard Dale yell back.

  Zoey didn’t think she’d be able to call out so she blew the whistle over and over as the sound of twigs breaking and feet running toward her sounded above. Zoey tore her eyes from the boy’s body and saw the rope swing hanging above him. A backpack was leaning against a tree along with a wadded up gray sweatshirt. Dale burst through some overgrown honeysuckle and Zoey broke her gaze from Matthew and his things. “Stop!” she yelled, causing Dale to slide to a stop on some of the freshly fallen fall leaves. “His things are here. You don’t want to disturb the scene. Call the sheriff. I’ve found Matthew and he’s dead.”

  Maribelle gasped as she came to a stop behind Dale. Tears were already beginning to form as Dale told her to stay back. “Where is he?”

  “Down here. I’ll stay with him until Luke gets here,” Zoey called up. Something was telling her to protect the boy even though he was already gone. Or was he? She’d seen him. She’d talked to him. How was that possible?

  “Luke,” Dale spoke into the phone. “Zoey found Matthew. It’s not good. Send the coroner.”

  “Matthew? Are you here?” she whispered as Dale told Luke where they were. Nothing. No little boy laughing at her. No little boy asking to find his parents. Nothing except the increase of pressure around her heart. A sickening feeling of evil. Zoey sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm herself, but the feeling was built until it was overwhelming. Zoey wobbled and Dale called out her name. Too late. Everything went black as she fell face first into the creek.

  5

  “I got this.”

  “No you don’t. I know what she needs.”

  “I’m pretty sure I’m the best one to know what she needs.”

  “Then she wouldn’t be going on a date with me tonight, would she? Now back off and let me take care of her.”

  Zoey groaned and the arguing stopped. She heard Vilma and Agnes thank the Goddess as big warm hands cupped her cheeks. Without o
pening her eyes, she knew it was Slade. She heard muttering and knew it was Luke who had lost out.

  Zoey debated between opening her eyes or pretending to still be out cold when she heard Vilma push Slade aside and shove a straw against her lips. “Drink this,” Vilma ordered. Figuring the jig was up, Zoey took a sip and immediately felt fire traveling down her throat and into her stomach. She sat up so quickly she banged her head into Slade’s square jaw as she coughed up the heat.

  Vilma chuckled. “Stop being such a baby. It’s just a little moonshine.”

  Zoey’s eyes were wide open and tears were brimming as she sucked in air. Slade looked amused and not even slightly worried about the hard hit he took while Luke quietly observed their interaction. He was worried, yes, but he also saw the way Zoey had unconsciously grabbed onto Slade’s arm for support. Zoey looked down at her fingers wrapped around Slade’s thick forearm. She felt the muscles and something more—way more. Energy, and lots of it. But then she felt something different. A blackness surrounded her. She gasped in air, her head swam, and Matthew looked worriedly over Slade’s shoulder.

  “Are you okay Miss Mathers?”

  “No, I’m not okay. I can’t breathe.”

  Luke looked around and then back to her. “Who are you talking to?”

  Zoey fought for air, but it smelled. Something evil sent her body revolting as Vilma and Agnes pushed their way forward. “Okay, let’s get the poor dear up. It must be quite a shock to discover a body. We’ll take her home to rest a bit,” Vilma said as Agnes practically shoved Slade aside.