Witch Way to Mintwood
(Witch of Mintwood, Book 1)
by
Addison Creek
Copyright © 2016 by Addison Creek
Cover Design © Broken Arrow Designs
This novel is a work of fiction in which names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, places, or events is completely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
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Chapter One
I got home late that night, but not as late as my roommate and best friend Greer, a bartender who was sometimes mistaken for a lioness behind the counter. The house was dark, but that didn’t bother me. I was used to the dark. If I switched the lights on it would be harder to see the ghosts milling about on my front lawn.
I was greeted by Paws, my great-grandmother’s cat, who had passed away seventy-five years ago but refused to actually leave. “How the dickens would any of you get on without me?” Paws had yowled when my grandmother tried to convince him to pass on, several times. Paws was a fixture like the porch was a fixture, or the lamppost. My grandmother had eventually given up trying to let Paws go, and I had come to rely on the ghost cat’s company.
Now the cat was curled up on the front step of my grandmother’s rickety porch, eyeing the chaos that was my front lawn with unabashed delight. When alive, Paws had been black. Now, in death, he was still black but he shimmered, as if sprinkles of glitter had fallen into his fur and never been combed out.
The chaos was typical for a night at my grandmother’s white Victorian farmhouse. Three ghost hummingbirds were having a riot of a time diving down in front of Paws and then skirting away again. They also shimmered in the colors they’d been when they were alive.
“If I can kill you once I can kill you ten times,” Paws yelled at the birds as he failed to catch any of them. Paws wore glasses that he had somehow found after he died, and a green-jeweled cat collar. Where he had found the glasses he always refused to tell my grandmother. “Can’t a gentleman have any secrets?” he had whined.
There was a bunny rabbit darting through the grass at breakneck speed and three ladies from the old country club at Sandy Beach having a tea party on the lawn with a folding table covered in old lace. One of the ladies raised her teacup to me in greeting as I got out of my car, and I heard a twitter of laughter erupt from the table and splash out into the night. They never spilled their tea, and Paws told me it was because the cups were empty. The ladies were very judgmental, and I knew better than to disturb them at teatime. Everyone had loved my grandmother, me not so much.
Instead of acknowledging the ladies having tea, I made my way slowly to the porch. I was tired and my lids were drooping. I couldn’t wait to go to sleep.
“Evening, Paws,” I said.
Paws was busy cleaning his . . . well . . . paws, and didn’t respond right away. He always did that when he wanted it to be really obvious that he was ignoring you. Once a cat always a cat, even a ghost cat with horn-rimmed glasses.
The night was pleasant. I could see plenty of stars overhead, crowding each other out and each trying to outshine the next, so I just sat down on the front stoop and waited for Paws to finish washing. I knew he’d let me scratch his ears eventually. Most of the time I couldn’t touch ghosts, but Paws and I were familiar enough that if we both tried hard, I could feel his tufty black fur and the sparkles under my fingertips and sense the vibrations of his purring all the way up my arm.
“Good day?” I asked him.
“Enjoyable enough,” said Paws evenly. “You look terrible.” That was his standard line. I was pretty sure he had yet to look up from his washing.
“Nice to see you, too,” I said.
Paws finished cleaning, got up, and marched right onto my lap. He didn’t give me time to help him, and I had stopped offering. Petting was a non-negotiable part of each night. “I just did it wrong,” was what he said. I was forced to move my bag out of his way as he curled up there, waiting. I started petting him immediately. Usually, he’d close his eyes while this was happening, but since there were birds to keep track of, this time he kept his eyes wide open, staring out into the night.
“I miss her, you know,” I said. We both knew who I was talking about.
“Me too,” said Paws. “She gave better pets than you.”
The cool breeze rustled my hair and I turned to face the wind. Out of the periphery of my vision I saw the three ladies at the tea table passing around a plate of scones. I had found out after I’d moved here that they weren’t big fans of cats. Paws always sat on the porch, far enough away from them so that he could get away when and if it proved necessary.
“It sure is beautiful here,” I said, admiring the landscape and trying to ignore the ghosts.
“Then why didn’t you want to come back?” Paws asked. He never gave an inch, that one.
My grandmother’s wind chimes made a gentle noise, mingling with the swish of the trees and the chirping of little critters.
“This will always be home,” I said. “I just had this feeling that I had to see the world first.”
“Don’t see the point of that,” said Paws. “It’s all kind of the same. Mice everywhere, might as well catch them here.”
“I wish I took such a simple view,” I said.
“Why complicate life? This is what you were born to do. You know it, and the sooner you admit it the better.”
He had a point. I had always planned to return. Now that she was gone I regretted stressing my grandmother out on that point, but I knew what my duty as a witch was, and I wouldn’t let her down.
“She attracted ghosts like no one else,” I said. “I don’t think I have that kind of power. She was a lot to live up to.”
“She was, but you should have more faith in yourself,” said Paws. “Just keep working hard. Besides, she didn’t attract all that many. She just accidentally let your grandfather build this house on a cemetery.”
I choked. “No way! She never told me that.” I stared at the ground in horror. It explained a lot, but still – horror.
“It’s not really something someone who can see ghosts would want to admit to,” said Paws smugly. In my shock I had stopped petting him, so he head-butted my fingers to remind me of my solemn duty.
I started stroking his head again, thinking. “How’d a town lose a cemetery? Like, if this was a burial ground, you’d think they wouldn’t have let a house get built here.”
“Plans got lost, times changed, it happened,” said Paws. “It probably happens more than anyone wants to think. I don’t believe the house was built ON any graves. At least not that she ever admitted to.” If cats could give evil looks, Paws had definitely just given me one.
We sat there for a while longer, enjoying the quiet evening.
“Do you ever wonder why she isn’t here?” I asked Paws. My words went into the still evening and floated up toward the dark, cloudless sky. The cat on my lap had gone still as well, tensing. The vibrating against my fingers stopped.
“I know why she isn’t here,” said Paws quietly.
I glared at the cat, not appreciating the reminder. He had been distraught when my grandmother died – she hadn’t been that old, after all – but he had refused to say anything about it, and with so much else to worry about, I had given up fighting with him about it.
My mind wobbled, slipped sideways, and tumbled. It was true, as I said, that my grandmother hadn’t been that old when she died. She had been found in the rocking chair in the living room, and we had all thought it was odd. Everyone who knew anything about my grandmother knew that her favorite chair was the one by the fire. She had died naturally, the coroner said, but I had wondered at the time, and I still did.
I hadn’t seen her since the funeral. Still, there was a part of me that always expected to come home and see her sitting on the stoop with Paws, just as I had seen her my whole life.
“I’m going to cat nap,” said Paws. “I expect food in my bowl when I wake up.” With that the black animal jumped off my lap and disappeared beneath the porch, where he insisted he was quite comfortable. Grandma had set up a bed, and he could keep an eye on everything from the safety of the stairs. When winter arrived he’d come inside where it was warm (because that mattered to ghosts), but it wasn’t that time yet.
As I stood up to head inside, a ghost mouse went skittering silently over the old porch floorboards and disappeared into a crack in the house. I shook my head. This place really was falling down.
Chapter Two
There were few things I loved more than sleeping in, and with the stress of moving back to the farmhouse and trying to prop up this shipwreck of a house on rickety boards, I really needed the rest.
I was the Witch of Mintwood now. The fact that my life was pointing in a witchy direction was something I had managed to block out through my early twenties, but now I was twenty-eight, and the time had come. I had dealt with the bad news (besides the devastation of having my beloved grandmother pass away, my life had now totally turned upside down) with the usual healthy coping mechanisms. I ate my weight in ice cream, slept in late, only stayed in rooms with salads for short periods of time and never stooped to eating them, did no studying up on spells at all, and hung around with a bad news crowd.
Okay, the last one wasn’t true, but sometimes it’s important to think of yourself as cool.
The no spells bit was probably the worst of my deficiencies. Witches have a lot of power, and by talking to ghosts I was using only a fraction of it, essentially somewhere between none and an iota, which was a lot like none.
One bad habit I had managed to avoid was dating. First, my two best friends had enough guy drama for the three of us. Second, he (the fictional guy) and I would eventually have to have the “Oh, by the way, I’m a witch” conversation, and given my way with words I knew it would go badly. I was in no hurry.
Anyway, sleep was great, especially for recovering from an ice cream hangover. I’m an equal opportunity ice cream eater, the more kinds the better, but chocolate had been my dinner of choice last night. So I was less than pleased when I was awakened in the middle of the night by a pounding on my door.
I tumbled around in bed, thrashing, pulling at the covers, and pummeling the pillow, as if any of this would have an impact on the person outside who couldn’t see me.
My best friend Greer had recently moved in with me, and we were both doing our best to make sure that neither of us regretted her decision too quickly. “Give it a few months and then we can hate each other,” was her line.
Greer had a trust fund and an attitude and had gotten kicked out of the last three apartment buildings she’d lived in, which also happened to be the only three apartment buildings within twenty minutes of her a-couple-of-days-a-week job as a bartender. Kicking butt and taking names was her forte, and she had taken the job despite not needing to work, because guilt. Now she had to live with not having her own apartment and get used to bunking with her oldest friend. Luckily, the farmhouse was large and rambling.
“I’m not going to become some lazy person who sits on the couch all day, and I’m not going to let Deacon drive me away,” she’d said in a furious huff.
Now she was pounding on my door at one in the morning. I angrily kept my eyes closed and felt around on the floor. All I came up with was a shoe, probably one of the navy blue flats I’d worn earlier in the day. It would have to do. I threw the footwear at the door without looking. The shoe thumped against the old wooden door, and I winced. I was just about to throw the other shoe when the door popped open and the light flicked on.
“Good, you’re up,” came Greer’s evil-sounding voice. It was as if she was speaking into some device that changed her voice from normal to the sound that rolling boulders and death make. I moaned and buried my face deeper in the pillow to spare my poor eyes the light and drive home to Greer just how horrible she truly was.
“Don’t you know when to leave a girl alone?” I grumbled. “The house better be on fire and you better not have set it! I need the insurance money if it burns.”
“We’ll take the money and run,” said Greer. “To an apartment building with central air.”
“None will let you in,” I said. “And what’s this ‘we’ stuff?”
I glanced at my friend. She had straight black hair that brushed her shoulders, porcelain skin, and a buzz off expression. No one messed with her, which was how she’d gotten the bartender gig to begin with. They barely needed a bouncer with Greer around. Most bouncers use brute force to kick people out, but Greer’s biting sarcasm was force enough, and if that failed, her death stare worked just fine.
“What is it?” I said again, blinking furiously into the hall light that Greer had allowed to flood my room.
“Charlie’s downstairs,” said Greer. “I might not be the smartest cookie, but my guess is that means something’s wrong.”
I threw the covers off, slipped my feet into slippers, grabbed my cozy fleece, and followed Greer out of my bedroom, taking care to make sure my curtains were drawn (that was about the tenth time I’d checked), so I wouldn’t have a view of my own creepy lawn.
“Do you know what’s wrong?” I said to Greer as the stairs creaked beneath our feet.
“I have a pretty good idea,” said Greer. “You will too once you see her.”
Charlie was the third member of our friend group. We had been friends since middle school, and although we had scattered for college and not kept in close touch for a while, somehow we had all ended up back here and taken right up again where we’d left off.
Charlie had always been the one who had it together. She’d been the valedictorian of our high school class and gone on to an Ivy League college. Afterwards she’d returned to Mintwood to work as a beat reporter at a news agency, where she tried to write every story and they patiently tried to tell her that wasn’t how it worked. The next week she tried again. She was ferociously meticulous, ambitious, and sweet.
Now she was sitting in my grandmother’s comfortable living room with her face pressed into her small, pale hands, sitting far away from the fire to keep from sweating (she HATED sweating) in a crumpled, very un-Charlie like heap.
“Hey Charlie,” I said, trying to stifle a yawn.
“
He-he-hiiiiiii,” she wailed as she buried her face back in a linen handkerchief. Charlie had long blond hair that would make magazine models jealous. She was plump and gorgeous, with full red lips and eyes that sparkled with either merriment or steel. Greer was also gorgeous, but in a more ethereal way. I wasn’t the ugly duckling of the bunch, but without a battle complete with swords and shields (hairspray and mousse) my hair definitely looked like it had gotten caught in a vacuum cleaner.
Greer went to the couch and sat on one side of her while I went to the other, and we wrapped our arms around her as she cried.
“What happened?” I whispered into hair that smelled like strawberries. Behind Charlie, sitting outside in the window that overlooked the porch, was Paws, looking decidedly unimpressed with the whole scene. Then again, he was a cat. He had also insisted that I put a perch there for him precisely so he could see inside. At the moment I was thinking of knocking it over.
“What are you, a spy?” I had asked him at the time.
“Just do it,” he said. And so I had.
“Andy dumped me,” she wailed. “He just walked out of our relationship! He doesn’t love me! He says I know it and he knows it, so what’s the point? I didn’t know where to go! My life just crumbled, so I came here, because this place is already in a shambles, no offense. Might as well all fall down together!”
“Shambles beget shambles,” said Greer with amusement. Even without looking, I knew she was rolling her eyes. But then she added, as if this explained something, “You’re the golden couple of Mintwood.”
“He doesn’t love me!” Charlie blubbered. “Now my mascara is running! That’s what he said. The first part, not the part about my mascara!”
Charlie wasn’t shallow, she just liked everything just so, including her mascara, and for her entire life she’d been able to get exactly that. Nothing had ever put enough opposition in her path to keep her from having not only everything that was important to her, but everything exactly the way she wanted it.
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