by A. M. King
“He’s dreamy.”
“Yes, he is. What a nice addition to the atmosphere. Too bad that horrible gossip website trashed his work. We love him, though. He performed for our church meeting once. He’s a darling. So polite.”
“Aww. That’s nice. I hope he gets nice tips. You were saying about his work being trashed?” Febe asked.
“You heard about that nasty gossip columnist stabbed in the night on the roadside?”
The woman surprised Febe. “Um....well, yes, it’s horrible, isn’t it?”
“Good for her. She was always trashing people in her horrible paper. Not one good work or positive article. Trash. Trash. Trash. Well, she’s gone now. One less witch to worry about.”
“One less witch to worry about?” Febe said, incredulously.
The woman took her order. “Yes. She was a witchy woman. So full of herself. Always putting down others in that ragged column of hers. They should shut the whole newspaper down.” The woman left, leaving Febe speechless.
“Well, she was very nice,” Febe whispered to Janvier who was right beside her at the other till. The cash registers were a bit quiet now since the rush was over.
“Yeah, you’ll meet a lot of different characters in here, Sis. Don’t worry about them.”
“No, I mean...” Febe looked around. She hinted to Janvier to go back to the office at the back of the kitchen so they could speak privately.
“Oh, right. Hey, Bud, watch the registers for us, won’t you?” Janvier called out to one of the other workers.
“Sure thing, boss.” He took over while Janvier and Febe logged off their registers.
Moments later, they were in the office at the back of the kitchen. Janvier had grabbed a coffee for each of them.
“So what’s up, Sis?” Janvier said casually, sipping her steaming hot coffee.
“What’s up? Everything. Don’t you think it’s odd that everyone here seems so...anti-witch?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, for instance, that customer who said one less witch to worry about.”
“Oh, yeah, that.”
“Yeah, that?”
“Oh, Sis, come on now. You need to get used to it. Not too many people around here are fond of witches.”
“Yeah, well what about pinning everything negative on witches.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“What if I don’t want to get used to it? I mean I guess it didn’t matter before I found out...about my background, but now that I know, I think it’s important to set people straight so they don’t keep feeding that negative stereotype about all witches being evil and deserving bad things to happen to them.”
“Okay, you’ve got a point, kiddo. But don’t get yourself sick trying to correct everyone and please, whatever you do, don’t let anyone know about...our background.”
“She’s right, my dear niece,” Aunt Trixie’s voice sounded before she waltzed into the back office in her long, flowing fall dress and caped coat.
“Aunt Trixie,” Febe said. “What are you doing here now? I thought you had an appointment.”
“I do, but I just thought I’d stop by to see how you’re getting on in your first day back. You know running a café in the middle of tourist season isn’t the easiest thing.”
“I didn’t know it was tourist season here.”
“Oh, come on, child. How long has it been since you’ve been back? You know it gets busy around here during all the seasons: summer, fall, winter and spring.”
“Well, not so much spring,” Janvier corrected her auntie. “Definitely summer and fall though.”
“Why summer and fall again? Remind me.”
“Summer for obvious reasons. Being that it’s cottage country season. And the fall because of Halloween. You know with the old monument in the middle of town.”
“Oh, that witch burning monument.”
“Not exactly. It was during the time of the Salem Witch Trials. Witch burning was so popular back in the day. The town was founded by a witch, as legend states. Anyway, she was burned at the stake, but exonerated posthumously almost a century later. Anyway, many tourists flock to town hoping to catch a glimpse of her spirit.”
“Her spirit?”
“Darling, where have you been all these years?”
“Studying in private school in the big city, remember? Then I went straight to university.”
“Yes. Right, right. Anyway, as I was saying, many people believe that witches still exist, but because of witch hunters who also still exist, we can’t be too careful.”
“Witch hunters?”
“People who know we exist but don’t want anyone else to know. They try to get rid of us. Lock us up in prison or something for something we didn’t do.”
“But how do we know who they are?”
“We don’t, child. That’s why you must be careful.”
“But Aunt Trixie, this customer said earlier that she was glad that Darla Gosnik was dead and that she was one less witch to take care of.”
Aunt Trixie’s skin turned pale. For a moment, Aunt Trixie was speechless. She then walked over to the window and gazed out as if daydreaming.
“Aunt Trixie, are you all right?”
Janvier took a slurp of her coffee and leaned back in the chair in the office. “Nope, she’s not okay.”
“Why? Did I say something wrong?”
“Not exactly,” Aunt Trixie spoke and turned around to face Febe. “You see we’ve had a rivalry.”
“A rivalry? What sort of rivalry?”
“This is what concerns me about her...death. She was in fact a witch.”
It was Febe’s turn to be gob-smacked. “She was a witch? Are you sure? How do you know this?”
“We figured it out.” Janvier took another slurp of her coffee.
“Whoa, wait a minute. Slow down. What do you mean you figured it out?”
Aunt Trixie spread out her fingers and showed Febe her beautiful gold rings. But there was one ring that was the most unusual. It sparkled and had an unusual looking rhinestone embedded in it. “Real witches wear this, child.”
“What?” Febe was stunned. She leaned closer to have a look at Aunt Trixie’s rings, particularly the funny looking gold ring on her baby finger. She tried to grab it but it wouldn’t come off.
Aunt Trixie then removed the ring without effort. “Here, try it on.”
Febe took the ring and tried to put it on her finger. It wouldn’t go on. It was as if a magnet was pulling the ring away from her skin. Her body tingled, her limbs felt weak and numb and sweat began to pour down her face. “Oh, my God. What is this thing? It’s...it’s bewitched!” Febe cast it away from her but instead of falling to the ground. It defied gravity and lingered in air for a moment then it magically found its way back on Aunt Trixie’s baby finger.
“You see, darling, you’re not yet a fully licensed witch. You haven’t received the magical blessing officially, so it wouldn’t call to you.”
“But...but...” Febe glanced at her sister’s hands. There were several rings on her fingers but none on her baby fingers. “Janvier doesn’t have one. I thought she was a licensed witch now.”
“I am.” Janvier then pointed to the middle ring finger. “My magical ring is on my middle finger. You see it differs from witch to witch.”
Febe felt faint. “Okay, I am so not getting this.” She eyed her sister’s ring with suspicion. The ring was gold and sparkled just like Aunt Trixie’s but was a little different. It had several sparkly rhinestones embedded on it too.
“So anyone who wears a ring like this on any one of their fingers is a witch?”
“No. Not exactly, my dear. You see it depends on which ring is called to you and which finger. Each finger represents a certain vein in your body. The ring finger goes to the heart. That’s why it was historically used as the finger of love and where most people wear their wedding ring. Symbolically for the heart.”
“Oh, I see. I get it.�
��
“Each of us is unique.”
“So, anyone can tell who’s a witch then?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. Not so easy, dear. Only witches and warlocks and demons can tell.”
“Oh, God. This is getting crazier than I thought. All I did was wake up this morning. Why is this happening to me?” Febe took another sip of her coffee. “So you’re saying there are demons now?”
“Oh come now, darling. There are angels in this world who are kind and caring and there are scammy people who are abusive and behave, counterintuitively, against humanity. What do you think is the reason? They are possessed by demonic spirits. But that’s another matter altogether. Right now, you need to worry about your courses from the ministry to get your license. We will protect ourselves from these evil souls once and for all so they no longer pose a threat to us. Once we have the seven witches.”
“So what about Darla Gosnik?”
“That’s a great concern to me,” Aunt Trixie said. “You see, I’ve had many husbands as you know.”
“So?”
Aunt Trixie smiled. “I wish everyone thought like you, my dear niece. Anyway, it’s bad enough to have to deal with multiple heartbreaks but then to have gossips make it worse by spreading malicious rumors.”
“Like what?”
“She basically said that I chased my husbands away because of my cats.”
“Yeah, she accused Aunt Trixie of loving her cats more than her men,” Janvier added.
“As if that didn’t hurt enough. I divorced them all but, well, I found out they were only after my money.”
Aunt Trixie had managed to do well in the big city as a hedge fund consultant, but she decided to quit and take her huge nest egg home. She splurged instead on her cats and other pets and the eclectic design of her house next door to the Victorian. Rumor had it that she was one of the wealthiest women in the city, thanks to the newspaper owned by the Gosniks. Then, of course, she married men who seemed as if they were only after her money. Truth was, she didn’t have much money now.
“So what if you divorced the gold diggers? That doesn’t make you a bad person.”
“It does if they disappeared...” Aunt Eartha showed up at the door with a concerned look on her face.
“Hi Aunt Eartha,” Febe said.
“Hi, darling. I was looking for your Aunt Trixie. I see you’re here troubling the girls.”
“I’m just explaining to them about Darla and her vicious rumors.”
“So did your ex-husbands disappear?” Febe asked.
Aunt Trixie sighed heavily. “I don’t know where they are right now. But I did not kill them as Darla Gosnik implied in one of her vicious gossip columns.”
“Oh, no. Aunt Trixie, that makes you look like a...”
“A suspect. I know. I thought about it when I heard that one of them was killed. One of the Gosnik chicks.” She ran her fingers through her curly hair. “But I’m not going to worry about that. She has plenty of enemies who would’ve wanted her dead.”
Febe thought back to the scene with Darla on the ground and the missing ring from her finger. Chills ran down her spine. “Aunt Trixie, Darla didn’t have any rings on her finger. There was a bloody ring mark. It looked as if it might have been pulled off.” Which, as Febe now knew, would have been a difficult task unless the ring came off easily once the witch was dead.
“If Darla was killed because she was a gossiping hag who dug up dirt on the wrong person, then that’s one thing,” Aunt Trixie said, solemnly.
“But if she was killed because she was a witch...” Aunt Eartha added.
“Then it meant that someone who is not one of us knows our secret and will not stop at killing just Darla.”
Chapter 13
Febe tried to calm her pounding heart by taking a few deep breaths. Sipping coffee was counterproductive. The caffeine was a stimulant that would only increase her rapid heartbeat.
“You mean they’d try to come after us, too?” Febe asked.
“Yes.”
“But that would mean that someone in the witches’ inner circle is a spy. Because only few people know about the power of the rings, right?” Febe said.
The horrible thought began to sink into Febe’s mind like quicksand, slow and deadly. What on earth had she gotten herself into? This was her family, though. She just thought that moving away from the toxic work politics of the big city was the best thing for her, only to jump from one drama to another. One that could prove fatal.
“Yes, my dear. But let’s not think about that right now,” Aunt Eartha said reassuringly.
Aunt Eartha always had a calm way about her, no matter what was going on. It was Aunt Trixie that would show the drama she was experiencing inside. If she was upset or if something was wrong, everyone knew about it.
“It’s getting busy out there,” Bud said as he came to the back. “I’m gonna need some help at the register.”
“No problem. We’ll be right there,” Janvier said as she got up out of the chair.
“Great. Thanks, boss.” Bud wiped his hands on his apron before walking back into the kitchen through the swinging doors to the café.
Janvier finished draining the rest of her coffee then threw the container into the recycle bin and walked out into the kitchen towards the café dining room.
“Are you sure you’re all right, dear?” Aunt Eartha asked Febe, tilting her head to the side.
“Yeah, I’m good, Auntie. I’m good, considering the week I’ve had.”
“Your week?”
“Yeah, you know, I’ve been fired from my wonderful job at the ad agency in the city, lost my wonderful fiancé to my boss, Amanda Miss Perfect Harlington, lost my apartment because I could no longer afford the rent, and now I’m back in my hometown where I haven’t been since childhood, only to find out that I’m a wanted witch!” she said with a grin. “Other than that, what’s that saying mom used to preach?”
“Count your blessings, not your troubles, my dear. The blessings always outweigh any troubles you might have.” Aunt Eartha’s grin was even wider. “I’m glad you managed to keep your sense of humor, my dear. You will need that in this world we’re living in. It can be dark at times. We need to carry our own light.”
“Great. I’ll remember that.” Febe was genuine in her answer. Sometimes she could get a bit cynical, but Aunt Eartha was right. There was a lot to be grateful for. “I don’t have much to complain about because I have family that cares about me. That’s more than some people have.”
“You sure do, darling niece,” Aunt Trixie said. “And don’t you ever forget it either. We may not have much but we have each other.”
“Now you know that’s not true, Trixie dear,” Aunt Vanity said as she came into the office. “You have tons of money stashed away in your secret account somewhere.”
“Hah. That’s not true. I gave most of it away, remember?”
“Oh, right, that silly Save the Cats charity.”
“It’s a wildlife fund that I set up for cougars.”
Aunt Vanity rolled her eyes as she came into the office. “Whatever.”
“Hey Aunt Vanity,” Febe said, noticing the beautiful, bold golden ring she wore on her index finger with the sparkly design just like Aunt Trixie’s, Aunt Eartha’s and Janvier’s.
Great, now more than ever Febe was aware of her own bare fingers. She had no jewelry, especially the special ring. Not having one on her finger made her different from every member of her family. But she tried to remind herself that she’d earn it one day. She’d get that ring on her own finger soon. That was if she passed her courses. The trouble was, after finishing up a tough degree at uni, she wondered if she had anymore brain power inside her to go further into more studies. She had been looking forward to giving her brain a rest from studying.
“Hey yourself, darling,” Aunt Vanity said. “Don’t forget we have to bring some sandwiches and refreshments to the Gosnik News Headquar
ters.”
“The Gosnik News?” Aunt Trixie sounded alarmed. “We’re not still going there, are we?”
“You’re not, but our darling niece is. And so am I. They ordered lunch to be delivered today for their big meeting.”
“But don’t you think they would have cancelled it? I mean, given the fact that...that...”
“That Darla Gosnik was found dead?” Aunt Vanity finished for her. “Nope. Just spoke to the news director there. It’s business as usual. The show must go on.”
“This is great,” Febe said, feeling a jolt of enthusiasm. “Maybe we can ask some questions about what stories Darla was working on before she...”
“Oh, no. We will do no such thing,” Aunt Vanity snapped. “You’re not going to try to investigate this murder, Febe. I know you. Ever since you were a little girl you always had that curiosity gene inside of you, just like your mother. Always had to snoop around and try to solve mysteries. Well, not this one. We’re going into the Gosnik News office and we’re going to deliver their order of Summer Café gourmet sandwiches for their annual meeting and we’re going to be nice to the folks there and not question them and leave without any trouble...”
“Oh, I get it,” Aunt Trixie interjected. “You just want to flirt with that hot, new editor who works at the newspaper. What’s his name? Bruce, right?” Aunt Trixie narrowed her eyes at her sister.
“I do not,” Aunt Vanity protested. “I’m not man crazy like you, my dear sister.”
“Man crazy?” Aunt Trixie shrieked. “How dare you!”
“How dare you?” Aunt Vanity leaned toward Aunt Trixie, her hands on her hips and her lips pouted.
“All right now ladies,” Aunt Eartha interjected. “Enough now. We have enough to worry about, with attacks against our kind. We don’t need to be enemies with each other, tearing each other apart.”
“Vanity, you will not be making fun of Trixie’s previous relationships and Trixie, you will refrain from making accusations about Vanity. Understood?” Aunt Eartha was in between her sisters, stopping the both of them from tearing each other down.
Aunts Trixie and Vanity had never got along. It used to be her mother who played referee between them. Still, she was glad that Aunt Eartha was there now. What would she have done to stop them from getting at each other if Aunt Eartha wasn’t there? They were all witches. She was powerless against them. Okay, she was a witch, too, but she’d only just come of age and had a lot to learn and wasn’t even allowed to practice magic yet. She was still buzzed over what her sister did yesterday in packing up her apartment with the twitch of her finger.