Witch

by Kirsten Weiss

  We crossed the low stone bridge. Water trickled sluggishly beneath it. I glanced over the stone rail to the tangle of branches arching above the creek. Ice crusted the water, and a current of cool air flowed upward, raising gooseflesh on my neck and chest.

  We turned down a side street of ramshackle Victorians. The sound of jackhammers split the air.

  In her carrier against Karin’s chest, Emmie stirred.

  “How long have you been doing deliveries?” Karin adjusted the baby’s tiny earmuffs.

  A siren wailed in the distance, and my neck muscles pinched. I sent a silent blessing to whoever was in trouble.

  “Not long,” I said. “Alex Mansfield has been ordering a to-go carrier every Monday for the last three months. His house isn't far from Ground.”

  “And he's got that bad leg, doesn't he?” Karin asked, expression thoughtful.

  That too.

  Two sheriff’s SUVs roared past. My scalp prickled. This seemed like a lot of police activity for our tiny mountain town. But life here was slow, and cops tended to travel in bunches, so everyone could get in on what little action there was.

  We walked on, the sound of construction growing louder.

  Emmie writhed in her carrier and let out a yell.

  Karin rubbed the baby’s back. “Shh…”

  My niece bumped her head against Karin's sternum and quieted.

  We rounded a bend. Workmen in orange vests and thick jackets, came into view. The metallic rat-a-tat of a jackhammer echoed, loud enough to peel the paint from the old houses.

  Ants crawled down my spine. I glanced over my shoulder to check if someone was watching.

  No one was.

  I shook myself. My unease was probably just down to the clatter. “I wish I had a pair of those.” I nodded to the baby's earmuffs.

  Karin laughed. “You're one of the few women I know who could pull them off.”

  We walked past the work trucks, clustered on one side of the road, and slowed to a halt.

  “Oh, no,” I whispered.

  Police cars sat at odd angles in front of a gray Victorian with white trim.

  “That’s not—” Karin began.

  “Alex Mansfield’s house.”

  Heat flared between my shoulder blades, and that creeping awareness of someone’s intent. Wary, I turned.

  A deputy in a flak jacket crouched beneath an elm, its leaves a golden blaze. His shotgun was aimed at us.

  CHAPTER TWO

  An ice of fear washed my skin. On the street, I grasped Karin's arm. But she'd seen the deputy too. And his shotgun.

  “What the hell?” Karin breathed. Cradling Emmie protectively against her chest, she backed toward the construction truck.

  I moved between my sister and the deputy.

  He crept past, his gaze roaming the gray Victorian, the police cars, the EMT’s truck. Steadily, he walked toward Alex Mansfield's house.

  Yellow leaves skittered down the road after the man. They made dry, rasping sounds on the pavement.

  “We need to go.” But my boots were glued to the street. I stared at the EMT’s truck. Was Brayden here?

  Shotguns aimed low, uniformed officers prowled nearby yards. Somber men and women strode in and out of Alex Mansfield's front door.

  “Bloody mess in there,” a woman said by my left ear, and I jumped. I think I screamed a little too.

  Mrs. Steinberg chuckled, leaning on her thick cane. A senior citizen with blue-tinted hair, she wore a baggy black skirt and matching sweater.

  “What happened?” I shouted, and the jackhammer picked that exact moment to fall silent.

  “Fake bear attack.” The old lady drew an e-cigarette from the black purse hooked over her arm. “Alex Mansfield. Dead.” The breeze fluttered the sheer black scarf wrapped around her head.

  “Fake…” Karin blinked. “Sorry?”

  “I know a fake bear attack when I see one,” the older woman snapped.

  “Wait. You saw it?” I looked toward the house. Was Brayden inside, administering first aid? But Mrs. Steinberg had said Alex was dead. My brain stumbled against that fact. Alex couldn’t be dead. I’d seen him two days ago.

  Karin followed my gaze to the gray Victorian, crawling with law enforcement. She swayed, bouncing Emmie lightly in her carrier.

  “Found the body.” Mrs. Steinberg aimed her cane toward the house. “I went to borrow an egg. The front door was open, and I smelled blood. Alex was all over the enclosed porch. All those sheriff’s deputies, searching for an angry bear. A bear's not the problem. This is worse, much worse. Worse for the town. Worse for you.”

  I started. “For me?”

  “Guess Alex won't be paying you for that coffee carrier, will he now?” she asked.

  “Oh.” I squeezed the carrier handle, the cardboard biting into my fingers. I’d forgotten I was holding it. “Right. No. But that's not important.”

  Karin rubbed Emmie’s back. “Have you spoken to the police?”

  “I called the police.” Mrs. Steinberg glared over Jackie Kennedy-style sunglasses.

  “Did they tell you anything?” I asked.

  “Didn't need to tell me,” Mrs. Steinberg said. “I saw Alex's wife leave for her Monday shopping at nine. Went over to get my sugar at ten. Body was still fresh.”

  Karin’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you went for an egg?”

  “An egg and sugar. I must have just missed the killer.”

  “The killer bear,” I corrected.

  She snorted. “It wasn’t a bear. I'm afraid this is only the tip of the iceberg, young Jayce.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Bad things come in threes, and this is the first instance. You girls should know that better than most. Triplets.”

  In spite of myself, I shivered.

  “Are you saying we're bad news?” Karin smiled.

  “I'm saying there's a sickness in Doyle, and it's been here for a long time. Longer than you girls. You best take care of this quick.” Turning on her black heel, she clomped across the street and into a low Victorian painted sunshine yellow.

  Karin paled. “A sickness? Do you think she knows about… you know?”

  “She’s nuts. Take care of this? How are we supposed to take care of this?” I jammed one hand in the pocket of my furry vest.

  “And what’s a fake bear attack?”

  “Let’s go. Mrs. Steinberg's crazy. Nice, but crazy. Everyone knows that.”

  “Doyle road workers start work at eight,” Karin said. “That means they were here when Alex Mansfield was killed.”

  “So?”

  “So, what forest animal would get anywhere near that racket? I don't care how hungry a bear was. To prowl through people's yards in broad daylight with a jackhammer going right out on the street…”

  A battered brown Gremlin puttered down the road. It slowed to a halt outside the ring of police cars. The door swung open, and a thin woman in a bulky green sweater and jeans sprang from the car. She rushed toward the house and was stopped outside the picket fence by a burly deputy.

  My chest squeezed.

  “Is that…?” Karin asked.

  “Alex's wife,” I said dully. “Candace.”

  Candace screamed and sagged.

  The deputy caught her and half-dragged the woman’s limp form to a black and white SUV. He sat her against the front bumper.

  Sheriff McCourt strode from the house and paused on the top step to adjust her hat over her curly blond hair. Expression grim, she looked at the sobbing widow.

  Slowly, the sheriff’s gaze turned toward us. Even from this distance I could feel the heat of her stare.

  “Maybe we should go,” Karin murmured.

  My jaw set. “We're not doing anything wrong.” I'd had too many run-ins with the sheriff over the last two years. Even if it was a bear attack—

  “It's not a bear attack,” Karin said.

  �
��Will you stop reading my mind?” Sheesh.

  She shrugged. “You know how long interviews at the Sheriff's Station can last.” She put “interviews” in air quotes. “I'd rather not drag Emmie to one.”

  I'd rather not either. Reluctant, I followed Karin in the opposite direction, toward Main Street. We rounded the bend, putting a house between us and the death scene, and my muscles relaxed.

  “You know what this means,” she said.

  “It means there's either a crazed bear or a crazed killer in Doyle.”

  Her lips formed a white slash, and she shook her head. “Mrs. Steinberg’s right. Something's off. Don't you feel it?”

  I thought of my vision and shivered, burrowing my hand deeper into the pocket of my jacket. “All I feel is cold.”

  “Mrs. Steinberg might be crazy, but crazy people can see things that so-called normal ones can't.”

  “You—” I bit my words short. You should know. But being snarky wouldn't help anything.

  “This isn't me having post-partum depression,” she said quietly. “I was never depressed.”

  I cleared my throat. “Look, we don't know what happened.”

  “We do. You felt something before we even saw the deputies this morning. I could tell.”

  “We both heard the sirens before we saw the cops. Our subconscious… subconsciousnesses…” I stopped, tripped up by the plural. “We jumped to all the right conclusions.”

  I couldn't encourage her. We'd been down this dark road before and nearly lost Karin. Besides, I might have seen an omen in Ground, but it could have been about a bear attack or something ugly and human. It didn't have to be a warning of dark magic, fairy magic.

  She gave a small gasp of disbelief. “You've always been the one with feelings and intuitions. Why won't you feel what's right in front of you now?”

  Fear for her arced through me, making me reckless. “Because we've been through this before, Karin. Last summer—”

  Her face whitened.

  “The curse is over,” I said more calmly. I didn’t need to throw Karin’s “disappearance” in her face.

  “I know that. The fact we’re still alive is proof of that. Hell, the whole town is proof. It's almost normal.”

  “Almost?”

  “A bear attack that isn't a bear attack?” she asked.

  “According to Mrs. Steinberg!”

  “This is odd. You know it is. Something's come through, Jayce.”

  I couldn't speak. It was happening again, Karin's obsession with a gateway rearing its lunatic head. She'd disappeared for a full week after Emmie was born and returned ranting about an open door to Fairyland. Thankfully, she’d kept her ravings in the family. To everyone else, Karin had stuck to her story of getting lost in the woods – woods she knew like the back of her eyelids.

  “It won't hurt for us to look into Alex’s death,” she said. “You know Candace. It wouldn't be odd for you to pay a condolence call. We could do a spell—”

  “I'll talk to Candace,” I said quickly. I had to shut this down, and the quickest way to do it was to satisfy her curiosity.

  “I can help—”

  “And keep Emmie in Doyle?”

  She gnawed her bottom lip. “You're right. I should have thought of that. I should probably get her home.”

  “Don't worry,” I said, relaxing. I’d won, and Karin would go. “Lenore and I will check it out. If there's anything unnatural going on, we'll let you know. I promise.”

  She lowered her head, her chin brushing against Emmie's knit cap, and studied me. “Will you?”

  “Sure,” I said lightly. “Why wouldn't I?”

  She lifted a single eyebrow. “Well, keep me posted.”

  I walked Karin to her new SUV. It was candy-apple red so people would see her coming, she'd once joked. I waited beside the open door while Karin strapped the baby into the car seat.

  “I'll call,” she said, and got into the car.

  I knew she would, and dread turned my guts to stone. If I didn’t prove there was nothing supernatural about Alex’s death, and fast, Emmie might lose her mother again. And this time, Karin might disappear from our lives for good.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Brayden and I sat pressed into the same side of the wooden booth. Beneath the table, I made patterns in the sawdust with the toe of my boot. Middle-aged couples two-stepped past on the makeshift dance floor.

  “I'd never seen a bear attack before.” The hanging brass lamp cast angular shadows across his face. “I hope I never see one again, not if I can't be of any help.”

  My heart squeezed, and I leaned closer, my hand brushing the sleeve of his flannel shirt. “It must have been awful.” Brayden loved being an EMT and being able to help people. The people he hadn't been able to save tore at him – people like his late wife, Alicia.

  “I'm just glad we got there before Alex’s wife.” His tanned brow furrowed.

  I wanted to trace every one of those lines with my finger. Brayden was in his late thirties, and those wrinkles had been well earned.

  “No one needs to see that,” he finished.

  “Are you sure it was a bear?” I grimaced. There, Karin. I'm investigating. The bear attack had probably just been a bear attack. What else could it have been?

  So instead of harassing a grieving widow, I’d spent Monday night decompressing with a hot bath and glass of wine. Tuesday, I’d worked, because, hello! Business owner! And tonight, I was at Antoine’s bar with Brayden. Again.

  What did Karin expect me to do? Karin might have a flexible schedule, but I worked set hours.

  “I don't know what else it could have been,” Brayden rumbled. “No human did that. It could have been coyotes, maybe. I don't know.”

  I relaxed slightly. Alex’s death had been horrible and random, but natural.

  “It is strange though,” he continued. “When's the last time anyone's been killed by a bear or coyotes in California?”

  Good point. I tugged down the hem of my sweater and looked away.

  He took a pull of his beer. “Maybe it was a mountain lion?”

  “Right,” I said, relieved. That made more sense. “Didn't one take a dog from inside someone's house out on the coast last year?”

  “Yeah, that was bold. I guess we'll hear from the Sheriff's Department about what did it…eventually.”

  I shifted. Suddenly Antoine’s was stifling. I knew too many people, and they knew me. I wanted to be somewhere different with him, somewhere new to us both. “Brayden, why don’t we—”

  “Hi, Brayden!” The woman who'd taken “Karin's” chair in Ground stood beside our booth. Her glossy, brandy-colored braid hung down her back. She had style, I’d give her that, in her form-hugging faded jeans, cowboy boots, and a wrap top patterned like an Indian blanket.

  “Hey, Maya.” He smiled easily. “This is my girlfriend, Jayce.”

  She reached across the table, and we clasped hands. A shock sparked between our skin, and we yelped.

  “Sorry.” She rubbed her hand on her jeans. “I'm still not used to the way static builds up at this elevation. It's like a lightning storm in my sheets at night.” She grinned at me. “That didn’t come out the way I intended.”

  I laughed.

  “Maya moved to Doyle about a month ago,” Brayden explained.

  “I bought that old Victorian on Elm Street,” she said, “the one with the huge library? I think a bookstore owner used to live in it.”

  “I know the one,” I said. Mike, Lenore's boss at the bookstore had owned the house before he'd died. “That’s a great place.”

  “I know! I plan to return the library to its original purpose as a ballroom,” she said. “I like books, but I don't need space for quite that many.”

  I repressed a wince. Lenore wasn't going to like that. My sister had no claim on the house, but she felt an attachment to it anyway. Mike had been more surrogate uncle than employer, even leavin
g her his business when he’d died.

  “I'm helping Maya out with the remodel,” Brayden said. “You know I can’t resist Victorians.”

  “Brayden is a genius when it comes to old homes.” I turned my beer mug in my hands, the condensation slick against my skin. “I wish I had some of his chops. I’m useless in the fixer-upper department.”

  “That’s what I’m for.” He leaned closer and claimed my lips in a quick kiss. I never felt insecure with Brayden, but I knew what he was doing – making sure Maya and I knew we were a couple. So why did that small, petty part of me feel a glow of pride at the kiss? Answer: because it was small and petty.

  “Why don’t you join us?” I motioned to the empty bench across from us.

  “No, no. You two are obviously on a date,” she said. “Oh, hey, did you get my text?”

  I rolled my eyes. Brayden never texted, and he rarely noticed when someone had sent him one. Brayden was old school, but I’d rather hear his voice than text him anyway.

  “Sorry,” he said, “I didn’t. What did I miss?”

  “I just wanted to ask about the stained glass in the soon-to-be-restored ballroom. I noticed some of the panes are cracked. Do you know anyone who can repair them?”

  “Sure.” Brayden leaned back in the booth and draped one arm around my shoulders. “A friend of mine is a stained-glass hobbyist. I'll bet he can fix them for you.”

  “Great. Can I get his number from you later?”

  “I'll text it to you.”

  “Thanks. Nice meeting you, Jane.”

  “Jayce,” I said to her departing back.

  She looked over her shoulder, smiled and waved.

  “She seems nice,” I said. “How'd you two meet?”

  He choked on his beer. “She electrocuted herself. Nothing serious, but she got a pretty good jolt from that old wiring and called us.”

  “No way. And she lived to tell the tale?”

  “She's an interesting character,” he said, “a software engineer. Maya created some sort of tarot software, built a website, and sold it for big bucks.”

  “She's a tarot reader?” In Doyle? “That is awesometastic.” Maya and I needed to do lunch. Stat.

  “More an engineer, I think, but Maya's retired.”