Witches and Ghosts Supernatural Mysteries

by Angela Pepper

  Austin looks down at her cinnamon bun. Changing the topic artfully, she asks me, “What exactly have you figured out so far about Newt's murder?”

  I admit to having nothing.

  “I don't want you mixed up in any of this voodoo stuff,” she says. “Or witchcraft. Whatever. It was cute at first, but come on. Murder is serious. It's for the police. Just cut it out, okay? Promise me?”

  I was expecting a little help from her, but not this. “What am I supposed to do when the next crow-mail comes? Return to sender?”

  “Yes. Just ignore it. Ignore it until it goes away. Do not get involved.”

  “Fine. Will you poke me in the belly button to see if my power's working again?”

  She crosses her arms. “No. Too personal.”

  “Come on, you've done it lots of times.” I grab her hand and pull it toward me.

  “No!” Some people in the coffee shop turn and stare. She tells them she's fine, that we're only joking, and while she's distracted, her hand goes limp. My shirt's already hiked up, so I pull her finger into my belly button and it connects, just briefly, before she yanks it away.

  “How dare you!” she says, getting up from her chair, its wood feet scraping the cafe's rough concrete floor.

  James says, “Not cool.”

  Now everyone in the cafe is definitely looking our way. I should say or do something, but I'm too shocked to move. In that brief instant, my power must have kicked in, albeit dimly and fleetingly. I caught a flash of a vision of Austin. With a gun.

  * * *

  I don't say anything about the vision of Austin to anyone. I have to assume it was a product of my overactive imagination, because the alternative is too awful. Could Austin have been downtown on Halloween without me seeing her? Could she have shot Newt? Is that why he asked me to solve his murder?

  Is that why Austin won't test my power?

  James and I leave the coffee shop, though Austin is too annoyed for words and decides to stay behind to talk to her cousin, who's come in after school for her shift.

  I'm quiet on the drive back to my house, but James is talking about the twins at the lake, gleefully reliving the experience through words, so he doesn't notice I'm preoccupied.

  James pulls the Jeep up in front of my house and asks if I want to hang out and watch TV or something for the next hour, before Gran gets home from work.

  Normally, I'd say yes, but I don't feel very normal today, so I make something up about being tired.

  “That was a pretty decent day off,” he says.

  “Except for my first fight with my girlfriend.”

  He looks down at his hands, not meeting my gaze. “I shouldn't have said anything about your first night together. You romantic couple types think that stuff's private.”

  “You didn't have to say it so loud.” I put my hand on the door of the Jeep, preparing to step out now that we're at my house, but James throws his arms around me.

  “I love you, man,” he says into my shoulder. “Don't ever change.”

  “Uh, yeah. Stay gold, Ponyboy.”

  He sits up and blinks at me. “You're quoting The Outsiders to me? You DO love me!”

  “I do, but equal to Julie. Give her some hug for me, okay?” I step out of the vehicle and wave.

  He's grinning, because everything is peachy in his world. He doesn't have a weight on his shoulders about a crime he had nothing to do with, or a girlfriend who's choked at him and would be even more choked if she knew she just became a suspect.

  The white fences and white trim of houses have gone gold again as sunset draws near. Shadows are long and skinny. Another day down and I'm no closer to figuring anything out.

  Across the street, the curtains are still drawn at Crystal's house and three newspapers have collected on her porch. She's suffering, and I wish I could do something for her, but I don't know what.

  * * *

  Seated at my wood desk in my room, I pull up browsers on both of my computer screens and check again for news about the murder, scanning every article in the day's newspapers. The police blotter includes some arrests, including those of some teenagers, drunk and disorderly from drinking homemade moonshine. They were also linked to some property crimes, mostly graffiti.

  There's nothing useful to me.

  I hear a familiar vehicle pull into the driveway and so I climb into my bed before Gran comes in the house. I hear the metallic clunk of her putting her keys in the bowl, then the sounds of her taking her shoes off and walking toward my room, talking to Mibs the whole time. She comes into my room and sits on my bed. Mibs jumps up and ferociously butts his head in her hands as she pets him.

  “Aren't you afraid I'll make you sick?” I ask.

  “Zan, I know you're not sick. You want to tell me what's going on? Is someone bullying you at school?”

  “No, nothing like that.” I roll onto my side and look at her. She's even thinner than I thought, even though she says she's doing better now on the gluten-free, no-wheat diet. “How about you? How's your stomach? You look skinny.”

  Smiling, she says, “Guess I'll fit in my wedding dress.”

  After a few seconds, I say, “Gran, do you know all about Rudy's financial situation? I saw some stuff he threw in the garbage can. I wasn't snooping, I swear. He's got a huge bank account.”

  “Compared to me, of course he does.”

  “No, I mean he's got a lot of money.”

  She takes off her pink-framed glasses and rubs her eyes, smearing her eyeshadow around. “He did say he had some deals he was working on. I suppose if a man is going to keep a secret from his fiancee, that's not such a bad one, now, is it?”

  I laugh and agree with her.

  “What about you?” she asks. “Got any secrets you're ready to share?”

  I should tell her about my magic power. She's pretty cool, and she'd understand.

  She closes her eyes to rest them, and I look at the cross on the chain around her neck. She might understand, but then again, if I told her about my ability, it could be a matter of hours before she'd get the pastor at her church and try to have me exorcised.

  “Just that I love you,” I say, leaning over to give her a hug.

  She pats my arm. “All right, then. You know I allow you your freedom so you don't have to steal it. You'd be surprised how understanding I can be.”

  “Okay.”

  “I'm going to make you some chicken noodle soup. I have some special rice-based noodles I want to try.”

  “Why not chicken and rice soup?” I ask.

  “Then it wouldn't be chicken noodle soup, now would it?”

  She gets up and goes to the kitchen. A few minutes later, I heard the chop-chop of onions and carrots being sliced.

  Since I have all night at home instead of going to karate practice, I reach under my mattress for the bee book, but my fingertips find nothing.

  It's not there?

  I get up and lift the whole mattress, but the book is not where I left it, or anywhere in my room.

  Could Gran have found my book? Was that what she was hinting at? That doesn't make sense, though, since she was at work all day. Unless she came home on her lunch break.

  When I stopped by to get Austin's necklace, I thought I heard someone in the house. Could it be? Could someone have broken in and stolen my stinky, old book?

  Compared to the likelihood of a strangely selective book burglar, Gran taking the book, perhaps after I fell asleep last night, is the more plausible explanation, but I don't want to believe Gran would search my things, any more than that my girlfriend would wield a gun. There must be another explanation. Maybe I put the book somewhere safe and can't remember where.

  Tomorrow after school, I'll go to the used book store and see if they have any others.

  And then, after that, I'm going to go see Detective Wrong and do something crazy.

  My options have been narrowing down to this. I need help, and the police need help, so I'm going to do what Julie's been
suggesting the whole time, and offer my services as a police psychic.

  * * *

  On Wednesday at school, everybody seems to be lost in their own worlds, getting books from their lockers and talking about school assignments, as though grades and report cards actually mean something.

  At lunch time, Julie asks me what's wrong and I pour my heart out about all my fears and the fight with Austin, and how she won't answer my phone calls now. This takes about three minutes, after which, Julie looks up from her bowl of cafeteria chili and says, “Bummer.”

  “So what do I do?”

  She shrugs. “Austin's a bit flaky.”

  “Thanks.”

  Julie pokes at the chili with her plastic spoon. “Why are there no kidney beans in here? Are we having Texas-style chili?”

  “Julie, as my designated best friend who's a girl, I expect a little more from you in the girl-management department.”

  She gives me an oh-no-you-didn't look. “Girl-management?”

  “Never mind.” I look down at my empty bowl. It's so empty and I'm still so hungry. “Will you go to that book store with me after school?”

  “What's in it for me?”

  I point back to myself and grin. “You get to spend time with all of this.”

  “Overrated,” she says, smirking. “Fine, I'll go.”

  * * *

  Compared to how helpful Julie was with my romantic problems, she's even less effective at the book store, continuously pulling some random book off a shelf and asking me for a comment on how cute the cover is, how nerdy a title is, or how it would be funny to buy the book in question for James.

  At my request, she asks the woman who works there, Moira, the one with the girl-mustache, for the occult section. Moira takes Julie by the hand and leads her to a series of books with apples and flowers on black covers.

  I whisper to Julie, “See what I mean? Not helpful at all.”

  “Twilight is technically occult,” Julie says to me with a shrug.

  “But it's not real,” I say.

  “Tell that to the fans.” She chuckles and pulls one of the books out to examine.

  I leave her there and wander up and down all the aisles, but the little bald kid who helped me before is nowhere to be seen. My heart breaks for the young boy as I imagine the worst. I approach the wobbling counter and ask Moira about him.

  “Orion? Little guy with no eyebrows?” she asks. “Oh, he's fine. He has alopecia, which makes his hair fall out. People assume he's getting chemo, but it's an autoimmune disorder or something. It's not contagious.”

  “So he's okay?”

  “Yeah, he was here a few days ago.”

  As Moira is talking about Orion, she's also writing something on a notepad, but when I try to focus on what she's writing, I discover her hand isn't touching the pen. Moving on its own, about a half inch from her fingers, the pen writes: Butter, Quinoa, Onions.

  “You practice magic,” I say.

  The pen flies straight up, lodging itself in an acoustic ceiling tile high above us.

  “No I don't,” she says, waving her hand between us. “Forget.”

  “You won't be able to rewrite my memory,” I say, surprising myself at how easily I can bluff. Yes, I was immune to Heidi's attempts to replace my real memories with ones of cucumber sandwiches, but I don't know that I have a natural resistance to all such spells. I keep going, bravely saying, “And I'm not going anywhere until you actually help me with something magic-related.”

  She purses her lips at me.

  I purse my lips right back.

  She reaches under the counter, as though reaching for a weapon or pressing an emergency call button. I stand my ground. Behind Moira, a panel slides to the right, revealing a hidden room beyond what I thought was a solid wall.

  Chapter Seventeen

  After the panel door behind Moira slides open, I half-expect knife-wielding ninjas to jump out to slice me to shreds, but none appear. Instead, she steps back and invites me through.

  “What about my friend?” I ask.

  “She's in another world.”

  Moira's right. Julie is still in the vampire-werewolf section, reading and smiling, completely oblivious to the reveal of actual witchcraft and hidden rooms.

  I follow Moira into the space, which has a little purple sink attached to the wall and a toilet in the corner. The panel slides shut behind us, and the light that flicks on overhead is a simple bare bulb.

  “Your strangely secret room is ... a bathroom?” I ask.

  Moira crosses her arms. “It's not for customer use.”

  “Are you a witch? How many people in town do magic? Is there a coven or some other organization? Why has nobody told me?”

  “Turn around,” she says.

  “No. What are you going to do to me? People know I'm here. You can't get away with anything.”

  She sighs. “I have to pee. It's conditioning. I can't come into this room without having to go, okay? I see that white toilet and the urge is unbearable. Now turn around.”

  “EWW!” I say, which I realize isn't very manly.

  She's already hiking up her skirt, so I turn quickly and cover my ears to muffle the noise.

  “I guess you don't have a sister,” she says.

  A long moment later, the toilet flushes and I hear her washing her hands, so I turn around.

  “Demonstrate your power before I tell you anything,” she says.

  “My power might not work. It's been on the fritz lately.”

  She pokes a finger angrily in my face. “Are you bluffing me, kid? Don't tell me you're a fraud!”

  “I'm not, I swear! I'm the real deal. Put your finger in my belly button.” I pull up my shirt.

  She makes an expression of disdain. “Now you are pulling my leg.”

  “I'm not. I swear, this is how it works. I've tried the handshake but it doesn't do anything.”

  She takes a huge breath and an enormous sigh. “The things I have to do,” she says, but she points her finger and pokes me anyway.

  * * *

  My vision begins.

  The tiny, claustrophobic bathroom fills with a hazy stillness and everything slips away, and I am but a tiny red spot of light where my belly button was.

  Oh crap, it's totally not working, I think, but then I see something. Moira, but she's much younger, maybe fourteen. She's wearing a lot of makeup and a tight, revealing outfit that's about the exact opposite of the long, shapeless, smock-like things I've seen her in at the store. Now a big, older boy is pulling her hair and trying to get her onto his lap. He's her stepbrother, and he's bad. He's been her brother for three years, and it's been leading to this.

  We're alone again, she thinks.

  What he does next makes me feel like I'm throwing up. I try to close my eyes, to get away from this vision, this heaviness of him on her, which feels like him on me, suffocating me.

  He's so strong and I'm tired of fighting him.

  Nobody believes me, they call me a liar and a whore.

  I'm in so much pain and I feel so ashamed.

  Shame.

  Tears.

  * * *

  Am I back? I'm me again? The vision is over?

  We're in the bathroom and this Moira woman in front of me is no longer a stranger. I push past her and throw up in the toilet.

  “Some power,” she says. “You barf on command?”

  After I finish heaving and wipe off my mouth with some toilet paper, I say, “I'm sorry. About your stepbrother.”

  She's quiet and doesn't move from where she's standing at the door.

  I wash my face and rinse my mouth in the sink.

  She stares at me with her expression open, as though seeing me in a new light as well.

  “They're called The Bridge,” she says. “It's their little joke, because they're mostly seniors. They call it Bridge Club, and no, you don't want to be a member.”

  “You're in this group?”

  “Of course not. A
nd you'll steer clear of them, though they're hard to avoid. They've got people everywhere.”

  “You've got to help me with my powers. I can also do something with bees, but I'm worried I might kill myself by accident.”

  “What have you seen me do? Write a grocery list without getting hand strain. Does that sound like powerful magic to you? I don't know shit about what I do, nor do I want to. Sometimes books find their way to me, but I try to get rid of them. Power is bad.”

  “Power's not always bad,” I say.

  “You're so young.”

  Moira's eyes are incredible, a pale blue that's almost lavender in this light. How could I not have noticed her eyes before?

  She pushes open the panel door. “And this concludes our pow-wow. Please use the washroom at home, or the alley. This space is not for customers.”

  I walk out ahead of her. “Do you have any more books that might deal with real magic?” I keep my voice low now that we're out in the book store.

  She waves an arm toward the books. “Feel free to look. They manifest in the strangest places, and burning them only makes them come back in triplicate. They're like gray hairs.” She gives me the first smile I've seen from her, and her pale lavender eyes sparkle with life.

  I think I've made a friend.

  A pen jumps from a mug full of them and continues making the grocery list, several feet from Moira as she hums and sorts through a stack of papers. Now she's just showing off.

  I find Julie, still in the sexy-werewolf books, and give her a censored version of what I found out. We spend the next two hours looking for anything vaguely magical from amongst the books, but nothing manifests.

  We thank Moira and I buy some bookmarks to help support the store.

  Outside, Julie remarks, “That poor girl needs a good waxer.”

  “To each their own,” I say.

  Up and down the street, the late afternoon's long shadows are dark with danger and spies. The narrow spaces between buildings have eyes, watching me.

  What Moira said about The Bridge having members everywhere is making me paranoid, but is it paranoia if people are actually after you?

  People are watching me, right now, I know it!

  I peer around the streets, but if people are spying, they're being subtle. Some seniors on a bus bench are both wearing sunglasses, which gives me an unsettling feeling. Are the window shoppers we're walking by now staring at the mannequins, or watching me in the reflection? Those mannequins, in plain brown suits, don't seem worthy of so much interest.