He’d been elected because of his disarming friendliness and trustworthiness. He wasn’t the smartest man, but he got things done. But how could he turn a town around whose lifeline had been cut?
Mayor Riley cleared his throat and tapped on the microphone. “Hello? Can everyone hear me? That’s good. Townsfolk of Fennelmoore, I thank you for your patience. I apologize for the logistical problems we had. I mean, we never expected this kind of response.”
“Get on with it!” someone two rows from the front shouted.
The Mayor acknowledged the speaker with a nod. “Yes, I realize everyone’s got stuff to do, so we won’t keep you very long. In fact, I’ve decided to only make one announcement, and then postpone discussions for a later date. As you know—and believe me, the mayoral committee is painfully aware of the situation—Fennelmoore is going through some tough times. We’ve lost the battle against the highway construction, but we’ll live to fight another day. We have to follow the example of other towns that have suffered a similar fate to ours and turn things around and flourish once more.”
Lori looked around and saw everyone in the room listening attentively as Mayor Riley swung into high gear.
“The key to our success is a total reimagining of the town’s theme. Other towns and cities have something exciting about them that attracts tourists, and so we must develop our own storyline so visitors have a reason to come here. Something,” the Mayor pinched his thumb and forefinger together in the air, “that’ll make people want to flock to Fennelmoore. And ladies and gentlemen, we have found it.” His voice rose to a crescendo. “We are going to re-invent Fennelmoore as a ghost town!” On cue, a drum roll complete with symbol crashes was played over the on-stage speakers just as the Mayor completed his last sentence.
The audience sat stunned. “Does he know there are no ghosts in Fennelmoore?” Aunt Hazel whispered to Lori. Fae mumbled something about “the crazy mayor” and the twins sat whispering among themselves.
No one in the room raised a complaint as the Mayor continued. “There are old western towns. There are ski resort towns. Memphis has Elvis. Las Vegas has gambling. Los Angeles has Hollywood. Sure, there are other towns with ghosts. But our ghosts will be bigger, better, scarier. The mayor faked a hollow, scary voice and he looked around with wide eyes. “Imagine, ladies and gentleman, turning our whole town into a ghost theme park filled with ghouls, apparitions, and phantoms. Main Street will be lined with haunted shops, salons doing zombie hairdos, and we’ll even have our own currency with the Bell Witch from Tennessee on the bank notes. And when the crowd gets hungry, there’ll be Poltergeist Pizzas, Haunted Hamburgers, and Spooky Sodas to keep them happy.”
As the mayor paused to catch his breath, two of his staff members dressed as Casper the Friendly Ghost wheeled a trolley onto the stage with a black sheet draped over a rectangular object. ”Of course,“ Mayor Riley carried on, ”this means we have to think of a new name for the town. I mean, ‘Fennelmoore’ isn’t exactly a scary name. So we put our heads together, and here, ladies and gentleman, we give you our town’s proposed new name…" The mayor’s staffers pulled the black sheet off the trolley to reveal a huge board with two words written in garish text sprinkled with blue and red glitter.
* * *
Coffin Cove
The next instant, a loud cacophony erupted among the audience. Not applause, as Mayor Riley was probably hoping, but raucous laughter. The mayor remained unfazed by the rising chaos. “The whole town will dress up as creepy spirits and take turns haunting our local graveyard. Imagine the fun visitors will have running around among our ancestors while we all give them the fright of their lives! It’ll be standing room only here!”
A resident in blue overalls sitting at the back of the hall jumped up and started shouting, “Riley, we don’t need this supernatural baloney here in Fennelmoore! You start with ghosts, and next thing the town will be a magnet for witches, magicians, and other unsavory types. We don’t need seances, we need proper jobs and money!”
When an empty beer can landed on the stage, the Mayor decided it was time to thank everyone for attending and end his presentation. Then he rushed off the stage, followed closely by his ghostly assistants pushing the Coffin Cove trolley.
The Whitewood family sat dumbfounded. As witches, they could see ghosts and knew for certain there were absolutely no real ghosts in Fennelmoore. Apart from the occasional spirit of an accident victim that passed through town now and again hanging onto trucks and motorcycles, Fennelmoore was as flesh and blood as any other town. Coffin Cove would be as fake as can be, and what self-respecting witch could live in a make-believe world of ghosts? It simply wouldn’t fly.
“We better have an emergency meeting with Mayor Riley to stop this catastrophe from happening,” Lori said as the family gathered outside the Inn.
“There definitely was no self-respecting marketing agency involved in planning this stunt,” Jasmine said.
“Ghost town. Ghost town. Ghoooooost tooooown.” Wearing her customary goth makeup, torn black jeans, and Doc Martin boots, Rosie was doing a fine impression of exactly what Fennelmoore would become if the mayor’s nutty plans went through—a cheap freak show.
The only one who was excited was Granny Fae. “Ghosts, oh yes! It’s just one step from ghost town to witch town, and then we’ll be rich, ’cos we’re the only witches in town!”
“Shhh.” Aunt Hazel and Lori put their fingers on their lips. “No one knows we’re witches, remember? Do you want us to be hounded out of town again?”
Lori fumed and folded her arms. “This is the most clueless response to the town’s predicament imaginable. I’m going to go straight to the mayor’s office to see if I can talk some sense into him,” she said. “You guys go home, and I’ll report back later.”
“How are you going to convince him there are no real ghosts in Fennelmoore?” Jasmine asked worriedly. “What if you let slip that we…”
“I’ll think of something, don’t worry,” Lori said. She looked at Fae. “I’d love for you to come with me, Gran, but I’m not sure you can hold your tongue.”
“Oh, I’d cast a spell or two on that silly man!” Fae spat in the direction of the town hall and waved her oak wood walking stick.
“Better come home, Mother,” Hazel said, pulling Fae by the arm. “There’ll be no casting of spells here in the middle of town.” She looked thankfully at Lori. “You go and do the talking, girl.” Lori nodded. She knew her aunt trusted her more than the others on this one.
As they walked outside, Fae pulled Lori aside and whispered to her, “I’m sure you can handle yourself well with the mayor, my girl, but here’s something just in case he’s obstinate.” She slipped a small, dark brown bottle into Lori’s hand. Lori read the label. It said “Persuasion Drops” written in Fae’s spidery handwriting. “A dash of this in his coffee will make him a little more amenable to what you have to say.”
As she walked from the Misty Hills Inn to the town hall, Lori noticed many people who’d been at the meeting were heading in the same direction. She tried to listen in on some of the conversations around her.
“…Mayor has lost his marbles. We need to talk some sense to him.”
“…Fennelmoore is alive, not dead!”
“…let’s go see him right now!”
The restless throng of people milling about in front of the town hall didn’t surprise her. Two burly guards stood at the entrance, blocking everyone’s way. Mayor Riley may just end his days in office with a riot. Lori pushed and shoved her way through the crowd. She recognized one of the guards as Billy, an old flame of hers from high school. She suspected he still had a crush on her, and from the way his face softened when he spotted her among the crowd, she was right. She smiled sweetly at him, and he stuck out a tree trunk of an arm to make way for her to move to the front. “Billy, you’re looking good in that uniform!” Lori smiled her most seductive smile.
“Thanks, Lori.” Billy returned the smile, struggl
ing to focus on crowd control with Lori nearby.
“Listen, I have an emergency and have to see the mayor. It’s a matter of life or death. Please will you let me through?” Billy’s partner looked sharply at Lori and opened his mouth to speak, but Billy cut him off.
“Sure, Lori. He’s expecting you,” Billy said and removed the barrier in front of the door for her to enter. Once inside, she wasted no time running upstairs to the mayor’s office. She pushed open the door to his reception area and stopped, surprised by what she saw. No one was there except for Mayor Riley’s trusted secretary, Meredith, who sat behind her desk tapping away on an ancient typewriter.
Meredith looked at Lori over the top of her glasses. “Well, well, if it ain’t a Whitewood girl. Mayor Riley’s having lunch right now. You can wait, but he has a string of appointments this afternoon.” There was a finality about the way she spoke to Lori. Lori knew Meredith’s reputation as the Mayor’s gatekeeper. Those guards downstairs had nothing on her. No one came near the mayor without her permission. Lori looked at the mayor’s office door, cracked slightly open. He was sitting behind his desk, eating what looked like Chinese takeout.
“Meredith!”
“Yes, Mayor Riley?”
“Let the girl through, and makes us some coffee, won’t you?” Meredith looked disapprovingly at Lori and waved her hand without saying a word. Lori pushed open the mayor’s door and slipped into his office. She’d never before met him, even though she’d seen him many times walking around town, always wearing his Panama hat. Suddenly she was sorry she hadn’t brought Granny Fae along for moral support.
“Afternoon, Lori, please have a seat,” the mayor said as he walked around his desk to pull up a chair for her. Lori raised her eyebrows in surprise as she sat down. The mayor seemed to make it his business to know his constituency. She looked at his desk and saw his Panama hat lying to the side. Well, that solves a mystery. The mayor actually removes his hat when he eats.
“Did you know Randolph, your grandfather?” Mayor Riley asked before Lori could say a word. Clearly, he knew not only who she was, but also about the Whitewoods.
Lori shifted around on her chair. She didn’t exactly come for family chit-chat and didn’t want to be distracted from her mission.
“Yes, vaguely.”
“They were best friends, your grandfather and my old man, when they were young,” Mayor Riley said. “Used to go fishing, hunting, hung out together. Then he married your grandmother, and he became, well, strange. He and my father stopped seeing each other, but until the day he died, my father had a framed photo of the two of them.” He looked at Lori. “How’s your grandmother?”
Lori decided they’d had enough small talk and ignored the question. “Mayor, I’m here to talk about your plans for Fennelmoore. I think it would be a good idea…”
The mayor’s eyes lit up and he put down his chopsticks. “Yes! Don’t you think it’s a brilliant idea? You can turn that little shop of yours into a horror museum or something.”
Lori took a deep breath. This was obviously going to take more convincing than she’d thought.
“Mayor, these supernatural things you’re planning filling the town with always attract weird elements. Like the man in the meeting said, next thing you know, you’ll have séances and evil stuff happening here that will scare people off.”
But Mayor Riley was just getting started. “Fun rides. Tunnels of Terror. Movie makers will flock here to make sequels of Ghostbusters and… and… that Patrick Swayze movie.” He scratched his bald head, frowning. “What was it called again…?”
Lori pursed her lips. Logical debate was not going to beat the mayor’s boundless enthusiasm. He’d clearly made up his mind. For a moment, she resigned herself to the fact that there wasn’t anything she could do to change his thinking. She held up both her hands, her mind racing. “Okay, okay. But what if I could come up with an alternative plan that would make the town even more money? Maybe even right now?”
The mayor picked up his chopsticks and resumed shoveling his noodles into his mouth. Meredith knocked and came in with their coffees.
Lori waited patiently for the mayor to finish chewing.
Mayor Riley looked at Lori skeptically. “So, what’s this idea of yours?”
“I can do something that’ll have hundreds of people here by next week.”
“How? What sort of magic will make that happen?”
Lori smiled and sat forward. “No magic. Strictly business. I promise, they’ll be here, spending their money in our town and boosting the economy. You will love it, you’ll see, and you’ll be in the limelight.”
The Mayor shook his head deftly. “It sounds very pie in the sky to me. Let me tell you a bit more about Coffin Cove.” His chest puffed and an ear to ear smile filled most of his face. “Coffin Cove will be…”
As he spoke Lori pointed out the window. “Is that a fire over there?”
The mayor stood up and walked over to the window. Lori quick uncapped the bottle Fae gave her and dripped two drops from it into Mayor Riley’s coffee before quickly putting it away.
The mayor searched the horizon and turned around. “I don’t see anything. Are you sure?”
Lori pretended to look out the window. “Sorry, mayor, it must’ve been my imagination.” She took a large gulp from her coffee, and as he sat down the mayor did the same.
“Lovely coffee, thank you,” Lori said and downed the rest of her cup. “Now, you were saying about Coffin Cove?"
The mayor put down his cup. “Yes, where was I?” He scratched his head and seemed at a loss for words, which was unusual for the normally big-mouthed, verbose mayor. The next instant his expression changed, and his face softened.
“Okay, Lori, I’ll tell you what. We’re having our next ghost town planning meeting in three weeks’ time. You prove you can save Fennelmoore and have crowds of people here to spend their money before then, and I’ll reconsider. Else,” he smiled gleefully at Lori, “it’s Coffin Cove!”
Chapter Four
The crowd outside Town Hall had thinned by the time Lori exited the building. Billy and his sidekick had successfully held off anyone going inside. Most people had given up on seeing the mayor and gone home.
She’d just done something crazy. Why did she care so much about what happened in Fennelmoore? After all, in a year or two she’d be living in a different city as a practicing lawyer. Across the street, kids were yelling while playing on the slides and roundabouts. Perhaps she was being sentimental. After all, her roots were here in Fennelmoore.
She headed back towards the Misty Hills Inn. She had one vague plan, and if that didn’t work, the mayor could have his theme park ghost town.
The reception counter at the inn was vacant. Lori looked around as she waited for someone to help her. Nick had done a fine job making the entrance area of the inn welcoming and friendly with a juice dispenser on a side table for arriving guests and a vase of fresh flowers standing on the counter. Soft background music rounded off the atmosphere. She looked at the bowl of sweets next to the flowers but resisted the temptation to take one.
After a few minutes waiting, Lori strode around the counter and ran her finger down the guest list. Matthew Heath’s name was fifth from the top. She picked up the desk phone and started dialing his room number, but then put the phone down again. She was putting her head in a hornet's nest here. She could just go home and tell everyone that she tried but couldn’t convince the mayor to abandon his plan. She turned and poured a glass of water from a dispenser next to the counter and drank it down slowly. Then she picked up the phone again and dialed Matt.
“Hi Matt, it’s Lori Whitewood.” She uttered a small, nervous laugh. ”The girl you saw in the field this morning?”
“Yes, hi, you’re the wildflower girl.” Matt sounded pleasantly surprised.
“Can I talk to you for a few minutes, please? I’ll be downstairs in the lounge.”
“Just give me a second, I’ll be ri
ght down,” Matt said and hung up.
Sitting on the edge of her chair, Lori spotted Matt the moment he entered the lounge.
“I was expecting a call from my Professor in a few minutes but rescheduled it, thinking this must be an important visit,” Matt said as he pulled up a chair and sat down next to Lori. “Shall I order coffee?”
Lori shook her head. “No, thanks, this won’t take long.” She’d decided to keep it short and sweet, so she drew in a breath and spoke quickly. “This morning you mentioned something about a convention. You needed an alternative venue? Were you serious about having it in Fennelmoore?” She looked at Matt intently.
Matt broke into a broad smile and nodded. “Oh, yes, it’ll be a perfect fit to have it here. You may think this is crazy, but it’s actually a convention about mushrooms. Officially, it’s called the Second Bi-annual Fungus Research Forum, but we just call it the Mushroom Convention.”
Lori visualized the Whitewood’s little bags of dried mushrooms hanging in the backroom of the Wholesome ready for shipment to witches across the country. This could be interesting. She was relieved that Matt was still keen and didn’t want to lose the momentum. “We’d be delighted if you hosted it here in Fennelmoore.”
Matt beamed. “Fantastic. Fennelmoore’s a really attractive town and it’s one of the places I’ve visited with the most varied abundance of fauna…” His cell rang in his pocket. Flustered, he fumbled for it and looked at the screen. “Sorry, it’s my professor. I’ll only be a minute.” Lori strained her to hear what the two were discussing, aching to know if he’d bring up the convention with his professor. Lori shifted around uneasily when she saw Matt look at her several times during their conversation.
The Mushroom Mystery Page 3