Without asking permission, he hurried over to Charlie and leapt into her arms. She caught him and cuddled him close.
“I’m too big to do that,” said Funnel. “But this is what happens when you go out in the dark.”
“Another problem with being a dog,” said Paws, just before he buried his face in the crook of Charlie’s arm.
The shaking of the ground was getting worse, and a noise had started up to accompany it.
“Is that thunder?” Greer asked.
“No, that’s dark ghosts,” I said, suddenly recognizing the phenomenon.
Flashes of darkness of various shades snaked through the trees, as if in counterpoint to the noise. Dark ghosts were as they sounded: there was the same sort of light around them as the kind that accompanied ghosts that weren’t corrupted, but it wasn’t as bright.
“What’s happening?” Charlie asked again.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Paws asked through her shoulder. “We’re under attack.”
The same prickle of fear I’d felt earlier at the barn was back. In the blackness around us I could feel a pair of eyes. Jasper was in danger, and he wasn’t the only one.
Chapter Fourteen
Dark ghosts had gathered all around the Beetle. Flows of glittering dark yellow light dodged through the trees, and I heard the hiss of their evil nothingness against the wind. They were waiting for us. As I turned around to search back through the woods, I saw Wendell throw back his giant circular head and laugh.
This had been his plan all along.
“I know the way,” said a female voice from somewhere in the darkness.
June Bug appeared out of the woods and trotted gracefully forward, as out of the corner of my eye I saw Wendell’s eyes darken with malice.
He wasn’t expecting us to have help.
If I had been less mature, I would have turned around and stuck my tongue out at him. As it was, I lifted my wand. Sparks flew every which way and my friends stepped back from the spectacle.
“Aren’t you just so ready to do magic,” said Greer.
“She’d better be,” said Paws grimly.
Some of the dark ghosts hovering around the car had caught the movements and were looking our way curiously.
They didn’t seem to know what to do with themselves, but then Wendell pointed.
“Get them!” he bellowed, his thick voice ringing out through the trees.
“Run!” cried June Bug. “This way.”
She scampered off through the trees and we darted after her, running through the black night in the exact opposite direction from where I thought home was. Twice June Bug had to stop, turn around, and wait for us as we tried to keep up.
“This is a very fast pace, and it’s rather dark for me,” said Funnel in his rather formal way, his loping steps keeping pace, if just barely. “It’s probably why I don’t leave the cemetery much.”
“It would be fine with me if you never left at all,” Paws panted, running alongside him.
“How far are we from the farm?” I asked breathlessly.
“Not too far,” said Charlie. “Good thing.”
“I’m getting tired,” Paws wheezed. “My feet aren’t made for this much running.”
“Delicate pads, huh?” I said between gulps of air.
A cold feeling brushed the nape of my neck, causing shivers I couldn’t control. For a few more breaths I managed to keep myself from looking back, then I realized that Funnel was missing from the space around my heels.
The bloodhound had fallen behind; the dark ghosts were chasing at his heels.
Without thinking, I wheeled around and dashed back.
Sometimes, if it was really important and I knew the ghost really well, I could pick a ghost up. This was one of those occasions.
“Oh, thank you,” Funnel breathed. “I’m too old for this.”
“Use magic,” said Paws. “We aren’t going to make it if you don’t.”
Too true.
“Protect and move,” I said, trying a simple spell because so far that’s all I thought I could do.
Air whooshed around me in a great gusting gulp and I sprang forward, but the air wasn’t strong enough to move anyone else along.
“ME NOT THEM,” Paws bellowed.
“So helpful,” I muttered under my breath.
Given that simple hadn’t worked, I decided to go for complicated.
“Flying carpet bag of bristles of green grass in a daisy field of woods in the middle of the bubbling bobble night in the Mintwood woods bring all of us good ghost and Paws and humans along on the bright sparkles of magical magic,” I said under my breath.
For a split second nothing happened, and I was pretty sure Paws nearly died of judging me.
Then everything worked.
Sparkling magic poured out of my wand. More sparkles rushed around all of us.
“IT TICKLES! My funny bones are tickling everywhere! All the tickles!” Paws was giggling hysterically as magic lifted him up and helped him along.
“Cats are so dramatic,” said Funnel very slowly.
“This is quite fun,” said Charlie as we were flung through the woods.
“We’re going to hit a tree!” Greer cried. She looked like she was about to be sick as she kept trying to hang onto the magic that was moving her along.
“This is the most fun I’ve had in a long, long time,” said June Bug, looking bemused.
“You can’t get away that easily,” Wendell cried, but his voice sounded more distant than it had been before.
“We’re almost back to the farmhouse,” Paws cried. “We should be safe there.”
Then we saw it: the house was encased in blue bubbles.
“What on earth is going on?” Charlie cried. “Be gone, bubbles!”
“Oh, I’m sure that’ll work great,” said Greer sarcastically.
The bubbles continued to float everywhere.
“They’re gaining on us,” Paws cried.
“Run,” I yelled to June Bug. “You can get away! We’ll be fine now!”
She leapt away, her forward spring impressive as she scattered dark ghosts wherever she stepped.
“This is only the beginning,” Wendell cried from the edge of the property. “You can run, but you’ll never get away.”
The bubbles arrayed in a protective shell around the house reminded me of a beehive. As Wendell shouted, the whole formation started to move, springing toward the dark ghosts sprinkled amongst the trees.
It took Wendell several breaths too long to realize that the bubbles were coming directly at him, but we didn’t stick around to see what happened next. Instead, we raced the last few yards to the house, pushed urgently through the front door, and collapsed in a big heap in the living room.
We lay for a long time, just catching our breath. From outside the house I could hear Wendell and the other dark ghosts shouting as they fled, but I didn’t have the energy to look out and try to see what happened in the woods.
Once the ruckus finally died down I asked myself: Was Wendell right? Were we only safe for now? I had no answers, and for tonight I had no more energy to try to find any.
With amazing powers of recovery, my roommates were already thinking about other things.
“This is going to make baking for the weekend so much easier,” said Greer sleepily.
“Look at you being all sarcastic and stuff,” Charlie yawned. “Bedtime!”
I woke to a heavy pounding the next morning, far too soon.
I blinked my bleary eyes several times at the light streaming through the curtains. My body was tired but it was definitely morning.
At first I thought the pounding was the dark ghosts coming back, but then I realized that the knocking was louder than any kind of noise they’d make.
In short, someone was pounding on the front door.
“What on earth is going on?” I grumbled as I pulled on something decent and headed down the stairs.
What I found when I pee
ked through the window was a furious-looking Jasper, fuming on the porch, with Deacon at his elbow looking equally concerned. Both of them were shifting on their feet, apparently unable to stay still.
“What on earth is going on?” Charlie shuffled out from the kitchen and yawned. She’d thrown on a fluffy pink bathrobe and her blond hair was cascading over her shoulders.
“It’s at times like these that I wish I could do magic so I could whoosh people away,” said Greer, leaning heavily on the railing as she came downstairs, as if without four more hours of sleep she’d never make it through the day.
“What are they doing here?” Charlie wondered, gazing out at the porch.
The fluttering of the curtain must have tipped Jasper off. His eyes darted to the window where Charlie and I were standing and his head whipped around to Deacon. “I saw someone in the window. They’re either inside or there’s a really stupid burglar,” he said, his voice coming in loud and clear through the screens on the windows.
Before Jasper could break the door with his pounding, I flung it open.
Temporarily blinded by the bright sunlight, I was forced to squint up at him.
He put his hands on his hips. If I had been foolish enough to think he was going to relax once he saw me, I had another thing coming.
“Just what do you think you’re doing here?” he demanded.
“Yeah, and where’s Greer?” Deacon had obviously swallowed the same act-crazy pill as Jasper that morning. He stood shoulder to shoulder with his friend looking equally indignant.
“I’m right here,” came Greer’s no-nonsense reply. Deacon looked a little surprised by the tone she used, and his face quickly softened.
Jasper missed his cue and continued on. “We thought something happened to you! Do you always take that long to answer the door?”
“Only when we’re sleeping,” Charlie said. “I appreciate everyone’s concern about me, by the way.”
“Of course we’re concerned about you,” said Jasper. “Everyone knows you keep this ship afloat.”
Charlie blushed, and I rolled my eyes. “He’s flattering you so you won’t yell at him for yelling at us,” I explained to her.
“It’s totally working,” said Charlie, batting her eyelashes.
“Why don’t you come in so we can at least sit down while you carry on?” Greer asked.
“We can’t do that,” said Deacon. “Our boots are all muddy.”
Five pairs of eyes looked down to see what he was talking about.
He was right. There was mud everywhere.
“I hope you’re going to clean that up,” said Greer.
“Pretty sure the porch has more serious problems than a little mud,” said Deacon.
Jasper stayed quiet this time, and his silence drew my eyes. At this point I had no idea if he was my boyfriend or not, but I supposed not, since ideally you’d want your boyfriend to talk to you. Oh, and kiss you.
He had done neither, I presumed because I had told him I was a witch and he was a witch hunter.
Oddly enough, he apparently thought that was a problem.
“Next time it rains it’ll wash away,” I said, trying to be cool on the outside, while inside I wanted to take their boots and fling them. Maybe like magic rocket ships.
That image made me smile, causing Jasper to frown at me.
I tried to wipe the smirk off of my face.
“We’ll come out,” said Charlie.
Brushing past me in her pink bathrobe and slippers, she sat on the porch as if a morning, door-pounding visit from Deacon and Jasper was perfectly normal.
Following her lead, Deacon sat on the steps. Greer chose the spot next to him.
Jasper leaned against the railing, while I stood off to one side.
“Why are your boots all muddy?” I asked.
“Because we were out in the woods looking for you three this morning,” said Jasper.
Now that I looked at him more carefully, I could see that he was a bit tired. I couldn’t hide my surprise.
“Why were you doing that?” I said, bewildered.
“We saw your car when we were driving to work this morning,” Deacon explained. “Given that the three of you always get in trouble together, I figured it was the lot of you. And I know when Greer usually gets up, so I figured the car must have been left there from last night and I got worried. Even if it was just Lemmi missing, Greer might need me.”
The morning sun was warm on my face, reflecting light off the dew on the grass. There was only the slightest of breezes, and I found myself smiling as I sat there with my friends. Even if Jasper was still mad at me, he had been worried enough to go tramping in the woods first thing in the morning, then pound on my door to make sure I was okay.
“So the two of you got out of the truck and went looking for us?” I asked.
“Right. Of course we did. Your car had been abandoned and we had no idea what had happened to you,” said Deacon, his blue eyes bright.
“We walked home,” said Charlie, coughing a little as she said it.
“Did your car break down?” Jasper’s eyes were burning into me. He wanted an answer.
“Mostly,” I said, trying not to lie. What would you call flying, anyway?
“No hitchhiking then?” Deacon sounded relieved.
“I work at a bar. I’m not stupid enough to hitchhike,” said Greer testily.
“Anyway, when we didn’t find you in the woods we decided to check the farmhouse,” said Deacon. “Sorry for waking you up, but you gave us an awful scare.”
“We didn’t mean to worry you,” said Greer, leaning her shoulder further into Deacon’s.
“Thanks for coming to check on us,” I said sincerely.
“You ready for the fair?” Jasper asked.
“Born ready,” the three of us chorused.
Chapter Fifteen
No on could figure out what to say after that, and in the silence my half-awake mind wandered off to worry about the dark ghosts again.
We hadn’t seen the last of that particular threat, I was sure of it, so I needed to figure out how to deal with them. One thing I wondered was what they’d been doing since Aunt Harriet left. I had expected them to attack the farmhouse immediately, but they hadn’t showed up on the property at all. Now, some random evening before the start of the fair, they had appeared and chased us all over the Maine woods.
I supposed my first mistake was trying to apply logic to dark ghosts. But somehow they’d known we’d be in the woods that evening, and the question was, how?
I had to save that question for later, though, because Deacon and Jasper were still sitting on my porch and none of us had even had breakfast yet.
Our guests didn’t stay much longer, though. Once Jasper had confirmed that I hadn’t been lost in the woods, he needed to get going. I concluded that yes, he was worried about my safety, but no, he hadn’t forgiven me–yet–for being entirely honest with him about the little witch business.
We all said our goodbyes, promising to meet up at the fair, and we three roommates made our way to the kitchen to get the day going properly.
“That was nice of them to come check on us,” said Charlie. “Paws is going to be furious about his porch this evening, though.”
“He’s always up in arms about something,” said Greer. “Which reminds me, how do you think Honolulu is settling in here?”
“I think she’s had a shock, so it’s hard, but she probably won’t be here for long anyway,” I said. “I just hope she manages to tell us something about Tabitha’s killer before she goes.”
“Hopefully the police will make some progress on that too,” said Charlie. “Detective Cutter is determined, given that she was a pillar of the fair and all.”
“It’s strange that it took until fair week to discover that she died,” I mused, just now realizing the coincidence.
We settled into the kitchen, each of us going through our morning routines. Charlie’s was the most rigid, while G
reer’s was simple: coffee . . . especially if she’d been forced to get up before noon. I usually wandered around a bit, plucking at things and checking the newspaper headlines.
While Greer sat in the nook and stared blearily out the window, I started the coffee brewing. On days when we couldn’t make it to the Daily Brew we drank homemade fare. It wasn’t as good, but it would have to do for today.
The reporter in our midst always went for the Gazette first to see where her articles had ended up in the layout. I usually took a section of the Gazette and Greer started with the Chronicle.
The morning was pleasant. Sunlight was gushing through the windows and the sounds of coffee steeping and newsprint crinkling filled the cozy kitchen.
When Greer read the Chronicle she usually managed to keep a straight face, even though Hansen often did something that she knew would annoy Charlie. Greer always looked at it lightly, unlike Charlie.
Today Greer had so much trouble keeping a straight face that it didn’t take long for Charlie and me to notice.
“What do you have there?” Charlie asked suspiciously, her eyes narrowing over the fold of her paper as she stared at Greer.
For a split second no one moved. It was a standoff of epic proportions, two cowgirls in the desert staring each other down.
Then, quick as a flash, Greer folded the paper and stuffed it into the next section, then took that bundle and stuck it inside the front page section. The paper landed on the table in a perfectly made heap, so well done you couldn’t have known that it had already been opened and read.
“You think that’ll stop me?” Charlie’s voice was low. A challenge.
“It’ll slow you down, anyway,” said Greer. Her eyes flicked to me, and in the split second she was distracted Charlie lunged for the paper.
“Read away. It’s only going to annoy you,” Greer said, shaking her head.
I got up to make tea while Greer made breakfast. Charlie’s attention was now entirely focused on the neighboring town’s morning paper.
“How long will it take her to find it?” I whispered to Greer.
Witch of Mintwood Mysteries 7-9 Page 10