Witches and Ghosts Supernatural Mysteries

by Angela Pepper

  I have to complete my mission. Hurry, show me what happened on Halloween.

  Crystal, in her elbow-length white satin gloves, raises a black handgun, a Glock maybe, and shoots a man in the chest, three times. I pull back and try to rewind, focusing on sounds. Someone else is here, but I can't see him. Where is he hiding? The other person is definitely a man. I can sense him in my mind, not just Crystal's mind at the time of the event, but right now.

  In the vision, Crystal's eyes are closed, not only after she shoots the gun, but during, and before. She's sleepwalking, or under a spell.

  She shot the man, and yet, she didn't.

  Crystal would never hurt anyone. It had to be the man giving her a command.

  A bee flies in and stings her on the hand, right through the glove. She opens her eyes and drops the gun, then shakes her hands and wipes them against each other roughly.

  She was under someone's command until my bee stung her. Her emotions were numb before, sleeping, but now the terror and horror rise up, filling me with despair—Crystal's despair.

  * * *

  When I come out of the vision, both Crystal and Detective Wrong are quiet. To stall, I ask for some water. Neither of them move, so I get up and pour a glass myself from the tap.

  How can I help the investigation without hurting my friend? The law probably doesn't make much allowance for magical sleepwalking.

  “Crystal didn't see the killer,” I say. Even though I'm hiding something, I hear genuine relief in my voice. I guess since that flash I saw of Austin with a gun, I'm relieved my girlfriend wasn't the one shooting the old guy.

  Detective Wrong asks, “What did Crystal see? Why's her memory gone?”

  “I'm not sure. I only get bits and pieces, and it doesn't always make sense,” I say, which is not entirely untrue.

  “Was she in the store when the shooting occurred?”

  “Yes, but her eyes were closed when the shooting happened. She's innocent.” I drink all of the water and pour another glass from the kitchen tap. “I heard a man's voice, but I couldn't see him. Newt was shot ...” I point to three spots on my chest. “Here, then here, then here.”

  “That is accurate,” Detective Wrong says.

  “Why can't I remember where I was?” Crystal asks. “I was at work, in the morning, and then it was the end of the day, and I was putting my costume in the incinerator at the clinic, then I was home. None of it feels real.”

  “Hmm,” Detective Wrong says, probably because incinerating clothes has a distinctly suspicious feel. I wish Crystal had not mentioned that particular detail.

  “Have you ever been diagnosed with narcolepsy?” I ask. “Or any type of sleep disorder? From what I could tell, you were completely asleep during the attack.”

  “I've been having trouble sleeping,” she says.

  I rub my hands together. “There you go. Case solved. Well, your part of it.”

  “Thank you,” Crystal says to me. “I have to go to bed and get some rest.”

  She stands and disappears down the hallway without even saying goodbye.

  To avoid eye contact with Detective Wrong, I clear some of the dirty dishes from the counter into the dishwasher, then pull out the garbage fermenting under the sink. Is that rice on the top or maggots? I think the rice is moving—please let it be rice.

  “She shot him, didn't she?” Detective Wrong asks me.

  After tying off the garbage bag, I run some water in the sink to wash up the counter. “Gran says every morning's more manageable when the kitchen's tidy.”

  “If she shot him, but she was under a spell, she wasn't responsible. You know that, right, Zan?”

  “I don't know how magic works in relation to crime and the law and whatnot.”

  “It doesn't work at all, and that's a problem in this town. Though we do have fewer murders here than at my previous job.” She clears off the table and hunts around for the dishwasher soap. “If you were to receive some confidential files, would you look them over and see if anything comes to mind?”

  “Is this another volunteer job?”

  “Officially, it's not a job at all, but something tells me you're a good boy and you want to see things set right, and your friend Crystal's mind put to ease. Something tells me you might be able to help.”

  “Something tells you, huh? Was it a crow? Did a crow tell you that? Those crows are assholes. One of them scratched me, right on the back of my head. I'll punch him if I see him again.”

  “I'll get you those files as soon as I can,” she says as she clicks on Crystal's dishwasher. “Can I count on you?”

  “Will you call me partner?”

  “No.”

  “That sucks. Fine. I'll look at the files.”

  “There's something else,” she says. “I prefer to run on a nice treadmill, watching my soap operas. Not across people's back lawns.”

  “I don't know what you're talking about,” I say.

  The corner of her mouth twitches up.

  * * *

  On Thursday, I can't believe I'm in school again. This place gets less and less real by the day. People are talking about GPAs and college applications and whether or not the clear liquid in someone's water bottle is moonshine or vodka.

  None of this is my concern, as I'm trying to take my mind off my girlfriend giving me the silent treatment by focusing on the case I'm helping a genuine police detective solve.

  While Ms. Mikado plays her ukelele and sings another of her made-up poems as a song, I write out all the details I know about Case #001, The Murder of Newt Steadfast.

  No actual details are coming to me, so I write down the silly lyrics of Ms. Mikado's song:

  You are my darling,

  my star-faced bunny.

  I send you flowers,

  you bring me honey.

  My chain is broken,

  you buy a new one.

  It doesn't suit me,

  I am a dragon.

  I eat your family,

  they are all yummy.

  Now I need Pepto,

  to soothe my tummy.

  Everybody giggles at the twist ending, and Ms. Mikado goes, “Rawr!”

  I start a fresh, new sheet of paper and write LEADS across the top, followed by three underlines.

  We're not allowed to text during class, but I take a risk and send messages to James and Julie, asking them for the photos they took of the former herbalist site and the former pawn shop. Visuals might jog something in my brain.

  I stare at my page, writing down nothing helpful or useful. When the bell rings, I assume it's the fire alarm, since class can't possibly be over, but it's already the end of the day. Dazed, I get up and gather my books.

  Out in the hall, I see Liam, the dirtbag who had sex with Julie and then ignored her.

  He ducks his head down, avoiding eye contact, and in turn I resist the urge to clobber him. I haven't heard anything from him or his friends about Julie-related exploits, so at least he has the good sense to stay quiet about it. Little does he know his propriety is saving him from becoming a smear on the school's freshly-waxed floor.

  What did I just think to myself? A smear?

  I'm a little surprised at how violent my imaginary smack-talk is becoming.

  A voice in my head cries nobody believed me. The gnawing doubt returns to the pit of my stomach. Last night and throughout the day today, I've been remembering and feeling things from past visions—things I don't want to experience again. I feel Crystal's fear as she drops the gun and stares in horror as an old man clutches his chest and falls to the ground. I taste the dirt in Heidi's decaying mouth. For a breathless second, I am small, weak, fourteen-year-old Moira, and the stepbrother is alone with me, and I am flooded with shame and rage.

  Out in the hall, my locker door comes off its hinges as easily as if it were made of balsa wood. Dude, you're losing it.

  As I'm staring stupidly at the metal locker door, now in my hands, Shad Miller comes up to me.

 
“Are you on steroids?” he asks. “And can you get me some?”

  “This door must have been loose.”

  He points his finger at me as he walks away backward. “You know where to find me. The juice. I want some.”

  “Shad! Vitamins and exercise,” I call after him.

  Now my locker has no door. I look around to see if anyone has any ideas, but all the other students avoid eye contact. Are they scared of me?

  I prop the locker door on the floor and walk away. If people are afraid of me, that's good. They won't mess with my stuff.

  * * *

  When I get home, I do a quick search of the house, checking all the doors and windows, then I make sure there's nobody hiding in closets or under beds. Sure, that old book about bees may have magically walked out of here on its own, but mild paranoia is a reminder to be smart.

  I shut the door to my room, only to have to open it a minute later when Mibs begins wailing and throwing his body against the door in protest.

  With him happily on my lap, licking his paws, I reach around his body to use my computer keyboard.

  I delete some spam from my inbox. Where are those files from Detective Wrong? I check the deleted folder and find she actually has emailed me, from an account named Aphrodite239. Funny, I would have expected her to use a code name that was a little more detective-like.

  I look through the attachments she emailed, my computer taking its sweet time to get them all open. Mibs becomes dissatisfied with my lap and moves himself to the keyboard tray, with his butt to the left, on top of my mouse hand.

  These files are pretty dry, just text descriptions of things I already knew: the manager of the shoe store called in the gunshots, Detective Wrong was in the neighborhood so she responded first and discovered two hapless teenagers trampling through the crime scene.

  Hapless? Trampling? I cross the line out and post a correction: Two innocent, attractive young people were found selflessly tending to the bleeding victim.

  My cackling laughter scares Mibs away. Okay, Zan, enough goofing off, now use your brain and solve this bad boy.

  I click through the documents, resizing and rearranging them on my computer's desktop, across both of my monitors. When I agreed to helping, I imagined getting everything in hard copy and creating an awesome serial-killer-style wall inside my bedroom closet, with thumbtacks and bits of string connecting things. It makes sense that the police department is paperless, but I wish I had even bigger monitors, or more than two of them, so I could look at all the reports and photos at the same time.

  If television crime shows have taught me anything, it's that solving a crime is about making connections, and if I could look at two or three of the right things at once, the subconscious part of my mind might pick out a detail the conscious part is missing.

  I pull out the notes Heidi sent me by crow. The first one still gives me the creepy-crawlies when I read it, even though I now know it wasn't actually sent by a ghost.

  The second note also gives me concern:

  You have five days or there will be dire consequences.

  I'm down to two days now. Was Heidi bluffing to get me motivated, or are the dire consequences true?

  If someone means to do me or someone I love harm, what could that harm be? I don't know anything, so there's no point in silencing me, unless they think I know something I don't. There's also the possibility people are plotting to steal my powers, as Heidi and Newt were in the summer, but what's stopping them from coming after me at any time?

  I look up at my now-black bedroom window. The sun's gone down and anyone standing outside would be able to see me and my computer screen easily. Moving calmly, I stand and draw the curtains.

  Was that a noise in the house? Is someone coming down the hall, or is it the old floor creaking with a temperature shift?

  I scour the room for a weapon, and the best thing I come up with is a good-sized tea mug, which is certainly no baseball bat, but could put someone down if they received it in the face.

  Dire consequences.

  Not on my watch. I grip the mug tightly and step lightly to the door.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Mug in hand, I creep up to my door, still listening.

  The clock in the living room gongs once, for the half-hour. There's no sound of movement. I'm used to the clock, but its sudden gongs terrify visitors, so surely if someone were here with me, they would have squeaked or done something. Unless the maker of the noise is not a person, but a monster. A ghost. Or a demon.

  Slowly, I reach down into my jeans pocket and slip on the pinkie ring. The bees I summon might kill me, but so might whatever is in my hallway. The noise isn't coming from Mibs, who is now curled in a ball on one of the pillows on my bed.

  I wait another full minute, and my fear gradually subsides the longer nothing happens, until I feel foolish.

  Creak.

  That was definitely something. I close my eyes as my sweat glands go into overdrive. What good does sweating do when you're scared? Make you greasy so you slip out of the predator's claws?

  I sense the presence of something living, mere feet away, in the hallway, and I don't know how I know this, but I'm sure: it's not going away.

  Gripping the handle of the mug tightly, I jump around the corner. Something white flashes.

  I yell an aggressive sound without words.

  The white disappears down the hall.

  I chase, my mug ready to smash.

  Out the white thing goes, out the cat flap in the back door, its white tail disappearing last.

  A cat?

  I let out an embarrassed laugh, put the mug on the counter, and catch my breath with my hands on my knees. Some silly cat was in here, probably eating the soft cat food we give Mibs.

  You'd expect me to feel weaksauce for being scared of a cat, but I don't feel that way at all. I'm proud of myself. Cats don't make a lot of noise, but I knew it was in the house. I sensed it. Not bad, Zan. Not bad at all.

  Next order of business: investigating what's in the crock pot, underneath the steaming lid.

  Gran's out doing a final dress-fitting for the wedding. Actually, it's not a dress so much as it is a two-piece suit, though I haven't seen it.

  Ah, but she's left me beef stew in the crock pot. This one is her version of a curry, with pineapple chunks. Sounds odd, but the combination is amazing. I scoop up a big bowl full and chow down with a vengeance.

  I do another search the house, but there are no intruders, be they demons, ghosts, or uninvited pets.

  Now what? Back in my bedroom, my head spins at the idea of facing those case files.

  Since nobody's home, now might be a great time to practice my bee vision.

  When I first tried summoning them, whether it was my inexperience or not wearing the gold ring, I had no control over the bees.

  Too clearly, I remember the suffocating sensation in the woods, when they came out of my throat at a furious pace, threatening to choke me first and then sting me to death for good measure.

  But when I've had the ring on, like the time one stung James and the time I was in the swimming pool, they came out in smaller quantity and seemed to be on my team.

  The one I summoned more recently, with one of my eyes closed, was the most successful experiment yet, so I try duplicating that exactly.

  I sit on the edge of my bed, Mibs peacefully asleep next to me, and I calm my mind.

  Think of good little obedient bees. I try the bee-summoning again, holding one of my eyes open and the other closed while also tensing my stomach muscles.

  Tickling in my throat.

  I open my mouth and breathe out audibly, as though fogging a mirror.

  A teeny, tiny bee, barely bigger than a chocolate chip, flies out of my open mouth. I see my face! From the vantage point of the bee!

  I dive at myself angrily, seeking soft flesh.

  My closed eye flies open in shock. Of course the little bugger stung me. What else did I expect? The bee tu
rns to ash before it hits the floor.

  Apparently, that bee was a female, as only the females have stingers. The barbed stinger rips their abdomens when they sting, so the bees die quickly after stinging, though turning to ash is not something mentioned in the science books. Neither is birthing them from a human's throat.

  My ears are ringing, screeching despite the silence in my bedroom.

  Mibs yawns at me and jumps off the bed. On the way out, he stops by my door to smell the frame and rub his chin on it.

  “You are not a guard cat,” I say to him.

  He flicks his tail and pads off in the direction of the kitchen.

  I get up, turn on my computer speakers, and put on some music. The first song is good for running, and fills me with sparks of energy. Not the mood I'm looking for. I put on Julie's play list and let the mellowness wash over me. She's partial to girl-with-a-guitar music.

  My muscles are aching, but I want to expand my test. I rub the red welt on my arm. At least the stings will fade quickly, if prior stings are any indication.

  For the next part, I lie down on my bed, on top of the covers, and tense each muscle one at a time, from the feet up, as a relaxation exercise.

  I slip the ring off, polish it on my shirt, and slip it back on. An idea comes to me, so I sit up, push back the curtains partially, and open my window a crack. The bee needs something to do, a command. I lie down again and repeat the relaxation exercise.

  Once I feel centered, I close one eye and tense my stomach muscles, as I did before.

  When I feel about as peaceful as I can get, with slightly rigid abdominal muscles, I carefully conjure up a single bee, a male drone.

  My throat tickles again and I breathe the tickle out.

  He appears, my drone.

  He's a big one, the size of my thumbnail.

  “Out the window,” I say out loud. The bee flies out the open window.

  My world goes from bright to dark.

  At last, I'm seeing something from the bee's perspective besides my own squinting face. The world outside my room is dark, and bee vision seems to have different colors and patterns I don't understand, but I can see my house as the bee flies up, over the roof.