Hay started drifting into the air on my left and landing on the ground, while on the right a broom appeared to sweep it up. This continued for several minutes with the same pile of hay. The dry sticks would get spread out and then swept up, only to be spread out again. I leaned against a beam and waited for them to finish their joke. I would never get used to situations like being in a deserted barn watching an invisible ghost performance.
My life in a nutshell.
“Anytime you want to stop wasting my time and show yourself . . . “ I finally said.
Finally the two ghosts appeared, waltzing together. They both looked young, maybe in their late twenties. Morris had blue hair that hung around his shoulders while Morton wore a bandana and a beard.
“Hi guys,” I said.
“Hi Miss Witch of Mintwood! Congratulations on the title change,” said Morris, grinning and bowing. “Good of you to visit.”
“I see you two are having a grand time here by yourselves,” I said.
“All the fun in the world,” said Morton, nodding vigorously as he kicked some bits of straw out of the way.
“Is there something we can help you with?” Morris asked.
“Perhaps you’re in need of a handkerchief?” Morton suggested, gesturing behind him. “Or some stray bits of hay?”
“No, um, I’m good, thank you,” I said. “How are you two holding up?”
“Oh, the stress,” Morris moaned, plastering the back of his hand to his forehead and closing his eyes dramatically. “I don’t know how I’ll go on.”
“If I bite your ankle would that help?” Paws asked irritably.
“I highly doubt it,” said Morris, sounding haughty.
“Just a thought,” said Paws, licking his paw.
“Sorry you have to go through this,” I said.
Morton was glaring at Morris, and I frowned, looking between them.
“What are you not saying?” I asked. Their ghostly figures wafted this way and that, as if they were being buffeted by the most gentle wind.
“Well, you see, it’s just, we had agreed that we’d tell you, and now it looks like Morris here . . . “ Morton glared at his companion.
“What is it?” I asked. “One of you has to tell me.”
Morris immediately stopped his dramatics and his sniffling.
“It’s just that, well, we’re so lonely here. None of the other ghosts want to be here. The cemetery or their home plots is where it’s at. Back in the day this used to be the happening place, but not anymore,” said Morris.
“So? What are you saying?” It was hard to get a straight answer of out Morris and Morton at the best of times, which this was not.
“We’re saying that . . . we like it here and all and, I mean, we appreciate all the trouble you’re going to for us. It’s meant a lot to us that a witch listened to us. We knew your grandmother was great, but we didn’t expect you to be so great as well.”
“Are you saying you don’t want to stay here?” I said. My mind was reeling. I had started this whole thing because the ghosts had asked me to, and once I remembered how important the barn had been to me all my life, the cause had become important to me too. Now the ghosts seemed to be pulling back. It was starting to sound like even they didn’t want to be here!
“It’s just, we want to be with other ghosts,” said Morton.
“How long have you felt this way?” I said.
“Not long,” said Morris.
“A while,” said Morton.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” I said.
“We didn’t want to disappoint you,” said Morton, “and it’s not like this place isn’t great. We tried to have a couple of final ghost parties to rock out to before we left, but no one came.”
“You thought you were going to leave?” I demanded.
“Well, sure,” said Morton. “You’re fighting a lost cause. You were never going to beat the Wolf Corporation.”
I glared at the two ghosts. Their changing their minds was one thing, that I could understand, but they had never thought I’d win the fight to save the barn! I couldn’t wrap my mind around that one at all! Why had they let me bother?
“She’s getting angry,” said Morris to Morton. “I know human angry faces, and she’s wearing a good one right now. Should maybe put on a little more blush, though.”
“Fine, you don’t care about the barn either!” I said.
Actually, once I thought about it I knew that this shouldn’t have surprised me. These two ghosts were big fans of fun, not fighting, and I had known that going into this barn fight. But still, it was disappointing that they were ready to move on from something I now realized I cared so deeply about.
Was I the only one who was stuck on this old building and couldn’t let go? Was I the only one who loved the old beams, the orderly rafters, and the view of the water through glass that was a hundred years old, if not more? Was I . . . clinging? That was a funny thought given that at the moment I was surrounded by ghosts.
I was just about to tell the two of them that it was all right, that I understood where they were coming from, and although I would never forgive them and I would curse their names it was all going to be fine, when I heard the sound of a car pulling up and the engine being turned off.
Someone else was there.
Chapter Sixteen
There was a mini explosion in the loft.
“Intruder! We’re all going to die!” Morton cried. In their haste to get away, Morton and Morris ran into each other and then disappeared.
I hadn’t even been in the barn for ten minutes and there were lights flashing outside.
Panic engulfed me as the ghosts disappeared, except for Paws.
“You’re still here?” I asked.
“Didn’t I tell you when we started this whole thing that I wanted to see you get in trouble?” he said.
“That was yesterday,” I muttered.
“Yes,” he said, baring his teeth.
Someone was coming, and fear was washing over me. My life and Mintwood were both in turmoil from robberies happening every night and Gracie going missing. This was no time to be alone in an abandoned building where the floorboards could barely hold my weight.
I looked around for a hiding place, thinking that whoever had come here must have seen my headlights and followed me. The only thing I could do now was to get to them before they got to me. When I had played in this old structure as a girl, there had been farm equipment everywhere, but all those old and cherished relics were gone. In their place was nothing but empty space and the smell of what used to be.
I took a deep, shaking breath and told myself I could get through this. Never mind that no one knew where I was and cellphones didn’t work in Mintwood, so I had no way to call for help. That was fine, I’d be fine.
Please let me be fine.
Frantic, I made a dash for one of the large posts that held up the beams that held up the roof, trying to run as quietly as possible so my sneakers wouldn’t thud on the creaky floorboards.
“This is terrible,” said Paws, sprinting after me to hide behind the post. He scrunched up his bushy tail, so that not even that would protrude around the old, scored wood.
“What is your problem?” I hissed. “What happened to seeing me get in trouble and oh what fun it is?”
“A murderer could be entering this barn as we speak! I can’t go out like that!” Paws’ eyes were huge, and he was curled up into a shaking ball. The fact that he was a ghost already appeared to be irrelevant.
Breathing hard, I stood with my shoulder against the beam and made my body as flat as possible, while Paws whispered goodbyes to all of his loves: cat food, mice, the occasional rat . . . and so on.
I glanced down and told Paws to be quiet, but he was already gone! Just when that temporal fur ball was in danger of being useful, too! He had actually run away, so now I couldn’t tell him to go and find out who was there.
Not that he would have anyway. To make
matters worse, Morris and Morton were also nowhere to be seen.
There were several bags of what I thought must be ancient grain left on the lip of the loft, overlooking the first floor. It would be easy enough for me to tip one over onto the head of whoever was coming in after me, so I tried to ready myself.
My heart was thudding so loudly, I was afraid the intruder would hear my fear and come looking. I took a breath and tried to calm down, then started looking around for another way to defend myself from attack.
The man was standing still just inside the barn door, his long shadow lengthening as he entered. He paused just inside the door, a darkly drawn outline just visible to me as I cowered upstairs. Paws and the other ghosts were still nowhere to be seen.
I promise, I told myself, if I just get through this I’ll look at my grandmother’s witchery stuff in the attic. Even the coven lets you use magic when your life is threatened. If I could just see who it was . . . I started inching the bag of grain toward the edge. The dragging noise was louder than I had expected it would be, so I tried to lean back from the edge while I moved the sack, so that at least whoever was down below couldn’t see my face.
Once the sack was where I wanted it to be, I crawled to the lip on my hands and knees, covering them in hay and sawdust in the process.
When I was able to peer over the edge again, I was shocked to find that there was no one in sight anymore. Fear shot through me and I stifled a scream. The man had disappeared.
Quickly, I looked around the large loft, my terror rising by the second. There were two ladders in the middle of the loft and one set of staircases on each end that allowed access to the second floor. I moved toward the staircase closest to the barn door, thinking that if I could just get outside and make it back to my car, maybe everything would be all right.
The creaking floorboards were almost too much for my nerves. I felt like I was walking through a haunted house at Halloween, where at any moment a ghoul could jump out and attack me. I kept glancing over my shoulder to see if a dark shape was ascending either of the ladders or appearing at the back staircase. I figured that even if the shape made it up the stairs and saw me, I could bolt for it via the other staircase. I was a fast runner, I told myself, and I didn’t have far to go. I just needed to get to my car.
When I made it to the stairs, I breathed a sigh of relief. At the bottom I could see a pie-sized slice of light from the moon coming through the window. I was close to being free.
Using my hands to brace myself against the wall, I tried to distribute my weight evenly and stay as quiet as possible so as to make as little noise as possible. I heard nothing when I paused. Whoever had entered the barn was better at being quiet than I was; I hadn’t heard the tiniest hint that might tell me where he had gone.
Taking a deep breath, I took another step. Now that I couldn’t see the loft and had effectively put myself in a box, I was more terrified than ever.
For all I knew the shadowy figure had made it upstairs and was at this very moment coming toward my exposed back. If he didn’t already know where I was, by the loud slamming of my heart still might give me away.
I was halfway down the stairs when I stopped dead. My legs were shaking so badly I didn’t think I could safely keep moving, and I was desperately straining for any noise that would tip me off to where the man had gone. Not even Paws was here to comfort me, although I would never admit to him that he might have been a comfort if he’d been willing to stick around.
After several seconds of being still, I inched forward again. Just get down the stairs, I told myself; once I made it down I could try to figure out where the figure had gone. My foot had barely hit the bottom step when someone stepped out of the shadows.
I screamed.
Blindly, I tried to run, but I tripped over my own feet. Regaining my balance, I tried to run again. The figure was saying something now, but I was still screaming. I was nearly to the barn door when I paused for just long enough to hear his voice, and to register that he sounded familiar.
“What are you doing here?” Jasper’s voice asked me again. Shock coursed through me and stopped the fear dead. I spun around with one more choked-off scream, sheer panic overwhelming me.
My legs were covered in sawdust and hay, and my hair surely looked frightful after brushing against the side of the old barn. My only consolation was that there was nothing but moonlight to see by.
Jasper Wolf stood there wearing a reflective vest and a hard hat and holding a heavy-duty flashlight in his hand. He sounded serious and even a bit stern. His facial expression showed concern, and that made me swallow hard. The man could even pull off a hard hat. Great, now my heart would be hammering in my chest for multiple reasons.
I gulped. Telling him I was there to check on the ghosts he was about to displace was not an option.
“Are you here to vandalize the place?” He wasn’t looking any happier with me as the seconds ticked by and all I did was stand there fidgeting awkwardly.
I shook my head, blushing. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“I know Charlie wouldn’t do that, but you I’m not so sure about,” said Jasper with a shrug. His skepticism stung, but I fought my feelings down. I needed to give him a rational, okay, semi-rational, reason for being there, and I needed to do it fast.
“What’s your problem! You scared me half to death! Rude!” I cried, all the pent-up stress of the last few minutes coming out in one burst.
“What are you yelling at me for? You’re the one trespassing! You’re just lucky I wasn’t someone crazy, or my grandfather!”
Breathing hard, I tried to tell myself to get a grip. He was right, of course. I had reacted on instinct, but it wasn’t his fault he’d caught me. Still, staying on that high pretend horse might just save me from his justified accusations of trespassing, because telling him I was having a ghost chat certainly wouldn’t.
“Don’t ever do that again!” I huffed. Basically, without actually saying the words, I tried to order him to let me trespass in peace next time.
Jasper was looking at me in wonder. To make matters worse, so was Paws.
I gave the cat a look that I hope said, “Look who decided to show up.” When he quirked an eye at me I added out of the side of my mouth, “Oh, like you’ve never seen dramatics before.”
“Huh?” Jasper looked like he was having trouble keeping up with my antics, which was great, except that I knew I couldn’t keep up with them either. I didn’t even want to. There was something about Jasper that made me want to tell the truth.
Naturally, I squashed that urge ruthlessly and glared at him instead.
Jasper was calling my integrity into question. I mean, I was definitely lying, but a gentleman didn’t have to highlight that, and what irked me even more was that Jasper seemed like a good guy, so the mistrust was unexpected. He had done those good guy things in high school, like going to the prom with the girl who asked him, and not the hottest girl in school, because going with the girl who asked him would make her super happy.
Okay, the hottest girl at school was Gracie, and staying away from her was just Common Sense 101, so maybe that didn’t mean he was so virtuous. But he got cats out of trees and helped old ladies cross the street and blah blah blah.
Now he was standing here waiting for an explanation he totally deserved.
“You just think I’m a good-for-nothing witch like my grandma, because that’s what your grandfather always told you,” I said. “Sneaking around and casting spells.” I twiddled my fingers in the universal sign of witchery.
“I just want to make sure you’re okay,” he said. “Mintwood isn’t exactly a safe place to be recently, especially not alone, at night, in an abandoned barn.”
“I just wanted to say goodbye to the barn, and you know, everything in it, before you demolish it,” I said, with an anger I was starting not to feel.
“About that,” he said. “I know you’ve been ramping up the protests in the past few days, so I thought
maybe we should talk about that. Maybe over lunch tomorrow? I would have brought it up at dinner, but that was Charlie’s thing and I didn’t want to corner you in your own home and make you talk to me then and there.”
Vaguely, I wondered if Jasper Wolf had ever had to make someone talk to him before. I had a feeling that most people fell over their own feet to talk to him.
“That’d be great,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “Talking about the barn sounds great.”
Maybe Jasper himself would listen to me when I talked about how this place was important both in its own right and in terms of preserving some of the town’s history. It felt good that he was willing to put some of our family differences behind us. Whatever had divided his grandfather and my grandmother did not have to divide us – and maybe the barn could still be saved.
“Is there anything you want to tell me?” Jasper asked quietly.
He had such a serious face on that I nearly caved and broke my grandmother’s rule about keeping our secret. “Don’t tell anyone what we are, and especially don’t tell a Wolf.”
I shook my head. He wanted an explanation for my presence in the barn late at night, and I had told him all I could: that I wanted to say goodbye to the beloved old place. The “because I’m a witch” bit would have to be left out.
Jasper showed me out the big sliding door, and we stood in front of the barn and said our goodbyes. I tried to apologize for trespassing, but the words stuck in my throat.
“It’s not safe for you to be out here alone,” he said again. “What with Gracie missing . . . “
He had recognized and revived some of my own fears, and I couldn’t help but respond. “I know,” I said quickly. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to see the old place before . . . “
“It’s torn down on Friday?” he said.
I nodded. The article Charlie had published about her interview with Jasper, which painted him in a very sympathetic light, had also stated that the barn would be coming down in a matter of days. That news had broken my heart.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at The Daily Brew,” said Jasper. “Drive safe.” I had the distinct impression that he wanted to order me sternly to actually go home – as if I wouldn’t – but that he was making himself resist the urge. Good for him. Wild witches aren’t going to be kept in check by mere common sense.
Witch Way to Mintwood (Witch of Mintwood Book 1) Page 12