Witchtown

by Cory Putman Oakes

  “Nice nap?” he asked, holding out a hand to help me up.

  So many reasons not to touch him . . .

  “Not bad,” I said, letting him pull me to my feet.

  “Want to nap here again tomorrow? Same time?”

  So many reasons . . .

  “Sure,” I said, sounding much more lighthearted than I felt. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will figure out what your secret is, I promised him silently. But out loud, I just said, “Why not?”

  The Crescent Roll turned out to be a bakery. It was in the southeast portion of downtown, nestled between the Sweep Shop broom store and the Familiar Care pet supply shop, just behind the Blessed Be Bikram yoga studio.

  I didn’t plan to go inside. I was only curious to see for myself the store that was associated with the single semipersonal item in Kellen’s wallet. But as I stood outside the frosted windows, a woman exited the store, bringing with her an armload of baguettes and a heavenly smell that almost knocked me over. My stomach growled and before I could think it through, I found myself catching the door and letting myself in.

  It was a cute place, with distressed gray walls and white, crisscrossing beams. Large glass display cases sat on either side of a marble counter. I tried not to look too hard, but out of the corner of my eye I saw cupcakes with thick white frosting; cookies; danishes with fruit topping; croissants; and cakes. So many cakes.

  I had wandered into raw vegan hell.

  I wanted to leave but I was too paralyzed by the smell. I’m not sure how long I stood there torturing myself, but eventually I noticed that the High Priestess from last night’s ritual was behind the counter, thoroughly kissing a shorter woman who was wearing an apron and a hairnet.

  “Pasta tonight?” the High Priestess asked.

  “Pesto,” the baker replied. “Love you, old lady.”

  “Love you more, older lady.” The High Priestess laughed, then noticed me standing there. “Oh, hello. It’s Macie, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I said, feeling like an intruder. Even though the High Priestess was no longer masked by the glamour of the ritual, I was still a bit dazzled by her. She was older than I had guessed on initiation night, gray haired and delicately wrinkled but still very beautiful.

  “A pity about the interruption to your initiation. I trust the mayor sorted you out?” she asked. A slight edge had crept into her voice, as though she was checking up on the mayor’s diligence.

  “Yes, Mayor Bainbridge initiated me yesterday,” I reported.

  “Good.” The High Priestess relaxed immediately and smiled. She kissed the baker again, this time on the top of her hairnet, then swept out the front door just as the telltale whistle of a teakettle sounded from behind the counter.

  “Will you join me in a cup, dear?” the baker asked me, gesturing to a stool at the end of the counter. “I’m Gayle, by the way. Gayle Giroux-Trescott. Maire was rude not to introduce me.”

  I hesitated only slightly. Technically, the boiling water in the kettle should be off-limits to a raw vegan. But since it seemed the least of the many baked and sugary evils surrounding me at the moment, I decided I didn’t care.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, and took the proffered stool.

  Gayle poured two teacups of hot water and put a box of teabags on the counter between us.

  “It’s always a bit startling to see a High Priestess outside of ritual,” she said soothingly, as she selected a bag of peppermint tea from the box. “Last year, when it was my turn, I found it quite isolating. Maire handles it better.”

  I picked out a cinnamon apple tea and plopped the bag into my steaming cup, catching a sudden whiff of information competing with the baked goods.

  “You were High Priestess last year?” I inquired.

  Gayle nodded, and blew across the top of her cup.

  “Yes, we rotate here. All of the Elders, as the mayor insists on calling us, serve a year’s term each. There are about fifteen of us on the committee, so I’ll probably be senile by the time it’s my turn again, Goddess willing.”

  I giggled.

  Look at me, Mother, I thought snarkily. Talking to an adult.

  “How do you get on the committee?” I asked, sipping my tea prematurely and burning my tongue.

  Gayle thought for a moment. She leaned on the counter, crossing her muscular arms in front of her cup. I supposed bakers needed good muscles. All that kneading.

  “Well, most of us are over fifty. And a lot of us own businesses. Come to think of it, the Elder Committee is basically the same cast of characters as the Merchants’ Guild. We could probably save a great deal of time by combining our monthly meetings. That’s small-town politics for you. But this can’t be very interesting to you.”

  Inside my head, there was a bell ringing and someone shouting “BINGO,” but outwardly I smiled politely and took another, more careful, sip of my tea.

  “I just got here, so it’s all pretty interesting to me,” I said mildly. Then, since Gayle seemed to be giving so freely of information, I added, “Who owns the Supply Depot? I passed it yesterday and it looked abandoned.”

  “Oh, it looks better now than it did a month ago. It burned down, you know.”

  “It did?” That shingle had looked singed.

  “Twice,” Gayle said, then reconsidered. “Actually, three times, if you count the first. Had to be rebuilt from the ground up every time. It just can’t keep a tenant.”

  She eyed me cagily over the top of her cup.

  “Why do you ask? Are you interested in leasing it?”

  “Me?” I laughed into my tea. “I’m sixteen.”

  Gayle shrugged.

  “I was sixteen when I took over my mother’s bakery. Are you looking for a job? Something to do? I know you’re on Solstice break at the moment, and if you got the place up and running by fall, you could find someone to help you out with it during school hours. The Witchtown school system is pretty flexible. Very adaptable to independent study.”

  I thought for a moment. Running a business was an interesting proposition. Especially given what she had just told me.

  “It’s only an idea,” Gayle said. “I believe the initial buy-in is a thousand dollars, plus there will be monthly rent. But given the history of the place, I bet you could get a deal from the mayor. Maybe even a loan to get you started.”

  I drank down the last of my tea, thinking hard. I didn’t have a thousand dollars. But I did have the eight hundred and change from the mayor’s office. Perhaps a reinvestment was in order.

  I’m not sure if Gayle could hear my stomach rumbling, or if she sensed my sudden distraction, but she leaned forward with a look of concern on her face.

  “Can I get you anything else? The cinnamon rolls are fresh. And the scones are from an old family recipe—”

  “Oh, no, thank you,” I interrupted. In answer to her raised eyebrow, I added, “I’m a raw vegan.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “How dreadful,” she said, and then smiled, softening the words somewhat.

  “Yes, it is,” I agreed, as my eyes wandered to a tray of danishes that had thick cream cheese frosting smeared generously all over them. Drool. “I should probably go.”

  “Of course,” Gayle said. “I hope you’ll come back sometime soon. And bring your mother. I’d love to meet her, too.”

  “Sure,” I said. Even though I knew, deep down, that I would never intentionally inflict my mother on Gayle the Baker. “Thank you for the tea.”

  “Anytime, dear.”

  When I arrived home, there were two plastic baggies Scotch-taped to my front door, along with a crumpled-up note that read:

  AS DISCUSSED

  —​TALYA

  The first bag contained a handful of pretty white elderflowers that were so fresh the petals hadn’t even begun to wilt. I opened the second bag, and it took only a quick sniff for me to recognize the distinctive, vaguely foul stench of valerian root.

  Was this her way of saying thank you for drawi
ng focus away from her in the square? Or a way of telling me that she wasn’t going to mention our midnight meeting at the mayor’s office?

  Pushing the quandary aside—​I refused to think about Voids and the old maxim that like calls to like—​I reached for the doorknob and let myself in.

  My mother was at the kitchen table.

  “We need a thousand dollars,” I burst out, smiling triumphantly.

  But my smile quickly faded when I got a good look at the scene in front of me.

  My mother was lying face-down on the table, her head in the crook of one of her arms. There was a bottle of wine beside her, one empty glass, and a big pile of what I was pretty sure were accounting ledgers.

  The Witchtown books. Frizz must have delivered them.

  The most worrisome thing was the suitcase at my mother’s feet. It was half full of clothes and shoes. And I distinctly remembered having emptied it yesterday.

  My mother raised her head slightly, and her glazed eyes met mine.

  “Pack your things, Macie. We’re leaving. Right now.”

  Chapter Seven

  “What?” I demanded, sure I couldn’t have heard her correctly. I set the two baggies of herbs on the counter, out of the way.

  “We’re leaving,” she repeated, picking up the bottle. Only a drip of wine remained; it sloshed into her glass.

  “We can’t leave!” I exclaimed. “I figured it out! Our in! We need to lease the Supply Depot. That will get us into the Merchants’ Guild, which will get us in with the Elders. They’re the ones who are really running this place,” I explained, remembering Maire’s face as she had inquired about my initiation. “I know we have enough. We have the eight hundred I took from the mayor’s office. That and a little of what we stole from the last town, and we’re there. We’ll get it back. It’s just a temporary investment until we get to the real money—”

  “There isn’t any,” my mother said, waving her hand over the accounting ledgers. “Witchtown has been losing money for two years straight. It’s broke. There’s nothing here.”

  My mouth dropped open.

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Oh, it’s possible.” My mother hauled herself out of her seat and walked, a bit unsteadily, over to the small altar in the living room, then snatched up Laverna. “Witchtown is a mirage,” she said, slurring. “A Laverna-cursed mirage. A complete waste of our time.”

  She tossed the headless statue into the suitcase.

  I blinked. Witchtown had been our ultimate con for as long as I could remember. The thing we had dreamed about. It couldn’t be broke. It just couldn’t.

  My mother staggered back to her seat but missed the chair. She caught herself by grabbing the edge of the table, sending two of the ledgers and a plastic cup full of cutlery crashing to the floor.

  She scowled down at the floor. Two utensils had fallen free of the cup.

  “Visitors,” she pronounced. “Shit. We’ll have to pack later. Help me clean up.”

  I peered back down at the floor. One fork and one spoon; a man and a woman were coming. But who?

  My mother retreated to the bathroom, presumably to make herself presentable. I endeavored to do the same to our front room. I rolled the half-full suitcase into the bedroom and closed the door, pausing only to rescue Laverna and place her back on the altar.

  The empty altar. I still hadn’t made the protection sachet.

  But now I had the herbs to do it.

  I pitched the empty wine bottle into the kitchen trashcan, set the almost-empty wine glass aside, and restacked the ledgers neatly on the table. Then I grabbed the valerian root and elderflowers that Talya had brought me from off the counter, plus some dried basil and marjoram from my herb box. I didn’t have time for the mortar and pestle, so I crushed the herbs together in my fingers, sprinkled them into a piece of red cloth, and used a piece of red string to tie the bag shut.

  I set the sachet on the altar in front of Laverna, then returned to the kitchen and picked up the wine glass. I didn’t bother looking toward the bathroom: this was one spell I didn’t need my mother for. Herbs don’t particularly care if they are being wielded by a Natural, a Learned, or a Void. They have their own magic. And Laverna had never seemed to mind my calling upon her.

  Silently, for Laverna liked silence, I implored her:

  Laverna, protect this house.

  As you protect all those who lie and thieve

  Beauteous Laverna,

  O give me to deceive . . .

  The doorbell rang.

  Hastily, I transferred the wine glass to my left hand and poured three drops onto the sachet.

  My mother emerged from the bathroom, looking calm, refreshed, and entirely sober.

  I ditched the wine glass in the sink a fraction of a second before she opened the front door.

  “Madame Mayor, what a surprise. Do come in.”

  My mother blocked the doorway with her body and gestured behind her back for me to go into the bedroom.

  Apparently, I was not invited to the spontaneous meeting.

  I glared at her back and stomped silently into the bedroom, shut off the light, and left the door open a crack.

  “This is my husband, Percy Bainbridge,” I heard the mayor say.

  Ahh. The fork.

  “Lovely to meet you, Percy,” my mother purred. “Won’t you both come in?”

  I heard the front door close. I peeked through the crack and all three of them wandered into my view as my mother showed them to the kitchen table.

  “Where is Macie this evening?” the mayor inquired, taking a seat. She was wearing another tight power suit, a blue one this time. Her husband was wearing an old-looking checkered shirt and ill-fitting khakis. His outfit, plus his severely receding hairline and weak jaw, made them seem a very odd couple to me.

  “Asleep already, poor thing,” my mother said, setting three glasses of water on the table.

  Percy drank thirstily from his glass, but the mayor took only one sip.

  “I see you received the books,” she said quietly. “Did you have a chance to look through them?”

  “Yes . . .” my mother said carefully, letting the word hang as she slipped into a chair across from the mayor, her back to the door and me.

  “What is your assessment?” the mayor asked, stone faced.

  My mother sipped her water.

  “Frankly, Brooke, from what I’ve seen, it looks like Witchtown has been grossly mismanaged for some time now.”

  Even from across the room I could see the mayor stiffen, then struggle to regain her composure as she tucked a piece of her ultra-blond hair behind her ear.

  “That’s why I’m here, Aubra. It’s also why I brought Percy. He’s the head of the Witchtown Bank. We’d like to explain.”

  I didn’t hear my mother’s response, but she must have looked agreeable to hearing more, because the mayor continued.

  “I was Reggie—​Reginald—​Harris’s private secretary for eleven years, right up until his death. I was very involved in the planning of Witchtown. I have worked tirelessly to make it a reality,” explained the mayor.

  Percy snorted loudly at this.

  “I can assure you of that,” he said dryly. “This is the most I’ve seen of my wife in months, if you can believe it.”

  The mayor gave him a warning look, and went on.

  “For the first three years, things ran smoothly. It’s only been in the last two that things have taken a turn.”

  “A turn?” my mother asked calmly.

  The mayor leaned forward.

  “I alluded to this before, in my office. But now I can tell you that there is no doubt that someone is sabotaging Witchtown.”

  “Sabotaging?” my mother asked. “Are you certain?”

  “Very,” the mayor said curtly. “Two years ago we had a crop blight, which severely crippled our fall harvest. Then there was a small flood in our water treatment plant, an accident in the sewage plant, and then a few of our
windmills stopped working. Small things. But they keep happening.”

  “And last night, some money was stolen from your office,” Percy reminded her.

  I stiffened, but the mayor waved her hand in the air.

  “That had to be Lois. I fired her. She was the only one other than me who had the key to the drawer where the money was kept. Plus, that girl we hired to organize the Archives said she saw Lois lurking around at odd hours.”

  I felt my eyebrows go up. I had counted on Talya keeping her mouth shut, but not actually covering for me. Her job at the Archives explained what she was doing there that night (although not why she was there so late). What did she think I had been doing there?

  “The Zealots?” my mother mused, bringing my attention back to the conversation.

  “Has to be. Although we don’t have any proof, of course. Slippery bastards,” the mayor growled under her breath, then went on. “All of those problems were easily fixed, but very expensive. Then this past spring, we lost a huge percentage of our wine grapes to a fungus. Witchtown Wine is our biggest moneymaker. We were counting on that revenue to make up for all the additional expenses.”

  “Surely there’s a town fund, something for emergencies?” my mother inquired, sounding innocent.

  “There was,” Percy answered. “Until our former accountant embezzled it all when he left us last month.”

  “The truth is, Witchtown is broke,” the mayor said plainly. “We, Percy and I, have managed to keep most of this quiet. If word gets out, people will start to leave. But the biggest problem we have at the moment is security. In two months’ time, we’ll be unable to pay the company that guards our walls. We’ve already scaled back a great deal, which is why there have been so many instances of shenanigans, like the ones that interrupted your initiation ritual. With the Zealots camped just outside, and everything that has been going on even with security, having none at all is . . . unthinkable.”

  “Not to mention, impossible to hide from the townsfolk,” my mother added thoughtfully.

  The mayor nodded.

  “Reginald Harris had a vision, Aubra. A vision of a place where witches could be safe and free and, most important, where we could depend on one another—​not on the government—​for everything we need. That’s what Witchtown is. It’s the only Haven of its kind; the only one that doesn’t survive on government funds. If we go down, or worse, if we have to go groveling to the politicians for a handout, think what that would mean. Think what a blow that would be to our kind. The anti-witch factions would be cheering in the streets. We can’t allow that to happen.”