“I wanted to ask you more about Scarlett,” I told her grandmother.
“Yes, good. She’s a nice girl. Wouldn’t get mixed up in any of the dark witch stuff,” said Sicily. “Uncomplicated is what I would call her. I can tell you more when you come over to Hazelwood tomorrow.”
“Sorry, you’re the witch of . . .”
“Leafwood,” said the witch.
It was about a twenty-minute drive from Mintwood along the jagged coast of Maine.
“All right, I’ll be sure to have more questions prepared by then,” I told her.
“We’ll meet in Hazelwood and I can show you the last place we saw her. You’re really our only hope at this point.” She took a big swig of liquid. “So, desperate.”
I swallowed hard. That sounded ominous.
When we got home, Paws went directly to chasing mice. It was very late, and because my friends had been confident that I’d be fine they hadn’t waited up for me after all. I wandered into the house alone wishing like mad that my grandmother were still around. She’d be able to explain more of all this witchy business to me.
It was clear that witches from the other towns really lived their craft and their spells, but unfortunately for me, I’d had no one to show me the way. After this coven gathering I was more clear than ever that I hadn’t yet come into my own, or embraced my witchiness.
Part of me wondered if that was because of Jasper, but another part of me knew that wasn’t entirely fair. I hadn’t had to perform a lot of spells yet, and on top of that my roommates weren’t witchy, either.
With those comforting thoughts I dozed off to sleep.
Someone was shaking my shoulder. As any reasonable person in the midst of sleep and a lovely dream about a nice lake swim at sunset with the man of her dreams would do, I rolled away from the offending hand.
The shaker persisted and was soon rattling my shoulder again.
Groggily, I looked over into a pale face.
Squinting, I realized it was Charlie.
“What’s happened?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
No matter how much I willed them open, my eyes were not ready to be fully awake. I settled for talking to Charlie with my eyes closed.
“Can you come with me? I need your help,” she said.
I groaned.
“Now? I was sleeping,” I said, as if that wasn’t obvious.
“I’m afraid it has to be now. The police will be there soon,” she said.
My eyes flew open at that. I scrambled about, the blankets hampering me as they enveloped my torso and I fought to get away. Eventually I rolled sideways, bumped into Charlie, wrapped myself up tighter than before, rolled the other way, and did a very ungraceful half roll out of bed.
“Smooth,” Charlie said, surveying me doubtfully.
“Where are we going?” I asked, brushing curls of sleep-tossed brown hair out of my face.
“To the library,” she said, scurrying out of the room before I could demand any further explanation.
When I was finally out of bed and dressed, Charlie drove us to the stone building that housed the town library. The day was fixing to be a warm one, but at the moment a layer of gray mist hung over everything, making the fresh air feel damp. The bright sun would soon burn it away, leaving a blissfully clear summer day behind.
Charlie explained as she drove.
“There’s been digging for the foundation of the new wing,” she said. “I was just looking at the pile of dirt from the hole and I saw something . . .”
“What? What did you see?” I asked.
“I’m pretty sure there’s a skeleton.” She looked over at me and shivered.
“At least the ghost isn’t bored,” was the first thing that popped into my head. I sure was getting jaded.
“What do you mean?” Charlie asked.
“Died at the library. Lots of books to read. Doesn’t sound too bad to me,” I said.
My friend just shook her head.
“Did you call the police?” I asked.
Charlie bit her lower lip.
“Charlie,” I said in a warning tone.
“I called. I called. Detective Cutter didn’t answer. I couldn’t very well just sit there with a dead body, so I came to get you,” she explained.
“Right, thanks for that. Any sign of the skeleton’s ghost?” I said.
Charlie touched the green jeweled necklace I had given her, which she now wore all the time. “No, but if the body was in the dirt maybe it’s been there for a while.”
“Once we let Detective Cutter know and he kicks us out of the investigation, we can look through your files for missing persons,” I mused.
“Agreed,” said Charlie. “Here I was thinking that the most excitement I was going to have this week was watching citizens of Mintwood fighting over the library addition.”
Chapter Four
I liked Mintwood in the mornings. Even in a small town where people mostly went to bed early and got up early, the town was still quiet in the dawn hours. People were already at their construction road jobs and Mrs. Barnett was in the bakery, but otherwise the town wasn’t stirring yet.
To be fair, I liked Mintwood all the time.
The library was a beautiful old stone building, and at the moment it looked like it was rising out of the morning fog and swimming in a sea of trees. Gray haze met thick gray fog and enveloped the grass in calm.
“It’s pretty,” I said.
“They never talk about that at murder scenes. Something more pressing happening,” Charlie muttered.
“Do you know she was murdered?” I asked.
“How else do you think her bones got into the ground?” Charlie asked. “If it’s even a ‘her.’”
“Good point,” I said.
We were the only car in the parking lot at the moment. I was relieved, because I didn’t want to explain to anybody else what I was doing here.
“It’s this way,” said Charlie.
“How did you not see it yesterday?” I wondered.
“It’s in a mound of dirt,” she said. “I think Michael was distracted.”
Michael was the town handyman. He was doing a lot of the construction for the library addition on the cheap as a favor to the town.
Charlie led me around the side of the building, where a slope led gently back toward a couple of houses in the distance. On another side there were more woods, while right behind the library was a large pile of dirt. Next to it was a gaping hole that stretched to the edge of the building itself.
“This is complicated,” I said.
“It’s definitely expensive,” said Charlie.
“Mrs. Snicks said something about wanting a climate-controlled basement,” I said.
“It’s important when using the basement for book storage. Which means the foundation has to be good and they have to be able to control the temperature,” said Charlie.
“In other words, a finished basement?” I asked.
Charlie shrugged. “I suppose so.”
“Where are the bones?” I asked.
Charlie pointed to one side of the pile. At first I didn’t see anything, but as I look harder I could just make out a skeletal hand barely sticking out of the dirt. I gasped and took a step backward. Skeletons would always be shocking, no matter how many times I had to deal with one.
“See?” said Charlie.
“How did you notice it?” I asked. It would have taken me a very long time had she not pointed it out.
“I was examining the dirt closely for my article,” said Charlie, as if that was the most normal thing in the world.
“Yeah, I definitely don’t see any ghosts around,” I said.
“I’ll try Detective Cutter again.” Charlie punched some numbers and waited as the phone rang and rang, and once again he didn’t answer.
“What about Tom?” I asked.
“The deputy?” said Charlie. It was clear that calling Tom had never occurred her.
“We need
to get the police here as soon as possible,” I said. “Detective Cutter is going to be very angry if we don’t.”
“Okay, yeah, I guess you’re right,” said Charlie. “I’ll give them a call, although given that Tom’s so young he’s probably busy sleeping.”
Tom answered on the first ring. Charlie quickly explained that there’d been an incident at the library and we needed help immediately. Then she said, “I tried him. He’s not answering. Yes, that means you’ll have to come. Okay, then finish your poached eggs!”
“Despite the fact that he’s the police, I don’t think anyone’s ever called him in an emergency before,” Charlie muttered as she poked at the phone to end the call.
While we waited for Tom we examined the ground, but it didn’t tell us much. One thing we did see in the heap of dirt was an old cosmetics case with the design of a cobra on the front of it. When I pointed it out to Charlie she nodded but cautioned me, “We don’t know that it belongs to the skeleton, though I suppose it’s likely.”
“Have you found anything else during the digging?” I said.
“They found quite a lot the first day,” said Charlie. “Not so much since then.”
“What did they find?” I said.
“I guess a one of the schools did a project a long time ago where they had the kids bury a chest. They meant to dig it up later and never did. That was the first thing the excavators found,” she said, thinking hard. “Nothing else very exciting.”
“What was in the chest?” I asked.
“The usual, notes and letters, a couple of trinkets,” Charlie said with a shrug. If it didn’t have something to do with the skeleton, she wasn’t very concerned about it.
For my part, I wondered at her definition of “the usual.” It didn’t seem all that usual to me to be burying boxes of stuff in the first place, but I decided not to push the point.
“This is really going to put a damper on the tourist season,” I said.
For its natural beauty, wonderful lakes, and rugged coastline, Maine was a huge tourist destination. Many towns were flooded with tourists in the summer, tourists who clogged our roads and bought things in our stores. That was good for business, but from my point of view it just made the lines longer. I tried not to be annoyed, but sometimes my frustration got the better of me.
“The murders in Mintwood don’t seem to put anybody off, shockingly enough,” said Charlie.
I thought about it for a moment and realized that she was right. Mintwood was just as bustling as ever, despite the rash of murders and odd occurrences lately. Our downtown was always crowded, and I saw cars with out of state plates every day. Still, this was the first time this summer that a skeleton had been discovered on property that belonged to the town itself.
“The Mintwood Summer Fair was before tourist season started,” I pointed out. “No one would remember two murders from a couple of months ago, would they?”
“Exactly,” said Charlie. “Say, do you think there’s any chance we’re jaded?”
“No, definitely not,” I said.
“Right,” said my friend with some relief. Then she thought a little and added, “But the mayor isn’t going to be happy about this.”
“Maybe he’ll ask Detective Cutter to cover it up,” I suggested with a smile. Truth be told, I could actually see the mayor wanting to do that.
“Unlikely to work, since I’m the one who found the body,” said Charlie with a sly smile.
“I’d better hurry with my spell,” I said, glancing over my shoulder. There was no one else around, but it was only a matter of time.
The real reason Charlie had brought me to the library was so that I could perform a spell that might let me see something of what had happened here.
Given how old the skeleton was, I doubted whether a spell would work, but Charlie was right that it was worth a shot. I pulled my grandmother’s beautifully decorated wand out of my sleeve and glanced around one more time. My fear of discovery was real, and strong, but since there was no one in sight, I took my wand and got started.
Green sparks shot out of my wand and started floating toward the pile, mixing in with the dirt and turning it green too. After being around so many witches the night before, I was glad to perform a witchy spell. It made me feel more like I belonged, even if I didn’t think it was likely to work.
Then everything slowed. I no longer felt wind on my face, nor could I hear Charlie moving around next to me.
Instead, gleaming figures started to appear through a haze that had formed in front of us. I saw people coming and going, some walking amongst the trees and others examining the plot of land where the library addition would go.
Magical blasts of air hit me in the face every time something in the image in front of me changed. The further back in time I went, the harder the spell had to work for me to see anything of substance. In other words, the spell got harder to maintain as time passed, and it wasn’t long before I had to break it off. I waved my wand one last time and all the sparkling green magic flowed back into it. For a second the wand itself lit up with all my grandmother’s decorations. Then that too went dark.
“Did you see anything?” Charlie asked when she saw me come back to myself. She had her pen poised to write.
“No, it was way too far back,” I said. “Maybe I’m not that good a witch.”
“Don’t say that,” said Charlie, writing some stuff down anyway.
I tucked my wand back into my sleeve. “Do we have any idea if the skeleton is a man or a woman?” I asked Charlie.
“There’s a ring,” said Charlie, pointing to the dirt pile again. “I think it’s a woman. The ring is very small,” she added.
I looked at the ring as if I actually might recognize who it belonged to, but I didn’t. The fog was burning away and the day was starting for real. People would be showing up at the library soon; Mintwoodians were very fond of reading, and the library was a busy gathering place.
When we heard a car pull up we went around the side of the library to meet Tom, who hopped out of an official police cruiser and adjusted his hat.
“You were fast,” said Charlie.
“I live just around the corner, behind Mrs. Barnett’s place,” said Tom. “Sometimes Detective Cutter lets me take the car home. Good thing last night was one of those nights.”
“Good thing,” Charlie agreed.
“Now, what seems to be the trouble? Was there a break-in?” asked Tom, looking terrified.
“Oh, nothing like that,” said Charlie.
Tom instantly looked relieved. “Good, because I hate to see you write up something like that when we plan on doing a good job,” he said sternly.
“Of course my reporting will be balanced. I have balance like a professional gymnast has balance,” said Charlie.”
Tom looked relieved again.
Then Charlie added, “By the way, there’s been a murder.”
Chapter Five
“There has not,” said Tom. “Where’s the break-in? Would you drag me away from my breakfast only to play jokes on me?”
Charlie wasn’t fond of jokes in general, and she found them especially unacceptable where journalism was concerned. Tom couldn’t be expected to know that, but she especially wasn’t fond of jokes where her work was involved. “I’m serious.”
“Then why aren’t you upset?” Tom asked. He braced his hands on his hips and kind of smiled, willing to play along with the crazy local journalist for now.
“I’ve seen dead bodies before,” said Charlie.
“Oh, I thought you were talking about the knitting social you covered or the traffic light article,” Tom smiled.
“The traffic lights article was Hansen’s,” said Charlie sternly. “I hope you’re not belittling my work.”
Tom had not meant to be insulting and he rushed to assure Charlie of that fact.
“It’s around the other side of the library. If you’ll come with me,” said Charlie, “I’ll show you.”
/> “How’d she get you in on this?” Tom asked, looking at me.
“She didn’t want to be alone with the dead body when Detective Cutter didn’t answer her call,” I said.
“So now you’re in on it too,” said Tom. “I expected better.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Tom,” I said.
When we got to where Tom had a clear view of the back yard, he spread his arms wide. “I see no dead body. Unless it’s in the hole?”
“No, it’s in the pile of dirt,” said Charlie. “This way.”
Tom followed her, growing visibly uneasy when Charlie didn’t say, “Gotcha, I was just kidding.”
“See the hand?” Charlie pointed.
Tom peered at the pile, then gasped.
“My goodness jumping Jiminy Cricket. That’s awful!” he cried.
“That’s what I said,” said Charlie, sounding much calmer than Tom.
Tom looked between the two of us is if he’d never seen anything quite like this before, which he probably hadn’t. “Why aren’t you more upset?” he asked.
“Like I said, I’ve seen dead bodies before,” said Charlie.
“Are you sure that’s not some kind of joke?” Tom demanded.
“Charlie doesn’t like jokes,” I said.
“Good, because I don’t think this is funny,” Tom said. “Okay, now what do I do?”
Neither Charlie nor I said anything.
“I have to close off the area until we can get Detective Cutter over here,” said Tom after a moment of pondering.
Getting more serious still, he looked at us and said, “Now, neither of you have touched anything, right?”
“Definitely not,” I said. I held up my hand as if letting him see my dirt-free fingers would do any good.
“You have any police tape?” Charlie asked.
“No, definitely not, but I’m going to go over to Detective Cutter’s,” he said decisively. Then he hesitated. “I can’t very well leave the crime scene, seeing as how I’m the only police officer here.”
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