Bait and Witch

by Angela M. Sanders

  “This is more, though. I know it.” I sighed. “Since I’ve been here, I keep having the same dream. I’m a little girl, and I’m standing in a garden at night. Kind of like what you describe with Grandma. Mom’s there, too.”

  “What happens?”

  “It’s starry, and the air smells like lavender and grass. Grandma looks like she doesn’t like it, but she hands me a book. Grimm’s Fairy Tales. I remember the blue cover with the castle on it.”

  “You always did love that book. Sometimes I wonder if you love books more than real life, to tell the truth.”

  Not anymore, I thought. Now life was almost unbearably vivid. “Toni—”

  “Never mind. What happens next?”

  “Then I feel the air sucked out of my body—a big whoosh and a snap.” I sat up. This was almost like the feeling I’d had on the plane to Portland.

  “Then what?”

  “Then everything goes dark.”

  We were both quiet for a moment.

  Toni was first to speak. “I’m going to talk to Mom about this. She’s not telling us everything about Grandma.”

  I heard the faraway sound of the baby crying. “You’ve got to go.”

  “Yes. There’s just one more thing.”

  A prickling settled over me, starting at my throat and washing down my body. “What?”

  “It’s something I noticed once and brought up with Mom. She told me it was nothing and asked me not to say anything.”

  “What, Toni?”

  “Grandma had a birthmark on her shoulder, just like you. A witch’s mark.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “What are you saying?” My hands had gone cold, and Rodney was purring loudly enough to obscure the conversation from the class in the conservatory. “You’re a doctor. You believe in science, remember?” Despite my words, I wanted her to tell me more.

  “Just a sec.” Toni must have put her hand over the receiver, because her voice was muffled as she called out to her husband. “There. Bill’s taking care of the baby. Anyway, you wouldn’t have called unless you wanted to know something like this. Admit it.”

  Rodney nosed his head under my free hand and stared into my eyes. In the space of a second, I was in his body, seeing myself, legs tucked under me on the armchair, holding my phone. Then I was me again. Whoa.

  “Josie? Are you still there?”

  I caught my breath. “I’m here. I don’t know what to make of the whole thing. Books talking to me, dreams. The colors outside even seem more vivid. I’ve never seen greener trees and a bluer sky, even when it’s overcast. Food even tastes better. At first I thought it was the landscape, but—” I almost gave myself away. “It’s no secret that I’ve always loved books. Obviously. So, why now? Why do I have these weird abilities now?”

  “It probably isn’t all that weird, if we only understood it. Grandma probably learned a lot about the healing properties of plants, that’s all. Some folk magic was mixed in, and she got the idea she had to collect them by a full moon.”

  “That explains her, not me.”

  Toni cleared her throat. “Listen. You asked me if I thought you showed signs of mental illness. Witchy things aside, you’re under a lot of stress, right?”

  I couldn’t argue with that. “True.”

  “You’re in a new environment surrounded by new people and a new job.”

  “That’s true, too.” She didn’t have to tell me the rest. I knew. I’d been telling it to myself for days now. She’d tell me I was tired, distracted, and, therefore, experienced odd things.

  “And maybe you have some psychic ability.”

  “What?”

  “Think about it. Jean and I have a bit, too. Remember when Jean sprained her ankle and you dropped your book at home and ran to the playground to find her?”

  I did remember. “You were at debate club.”

  “I felt it, too, and excused myself to call Mom. And you know how we can never buy each other birthday gifts without the other sister knowing what it is?”

  I laughed. “True.” When I was in second grade, Toni had given me a doll only to discover I’d already fashioned a makeshift house for her in the corner of my bedroom.

  Toni’s voice grew solemn. “It’s something deeper with you, though. Grandma coddled you and Mom worried over you. They knew you were special.”

  Was Toni jealous? She was the smart one, the accomplished one. She won the science fair at school and a full scholarship to college. In school, I squirreled myself away in a corner of the library. I’d have much rather spent my days with Trixie Belden than quadratic equations.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. Voices in the central hall told me the English class was getting out. “I’d better go now. Thank you, Toni-tone,” I said, using a childhood nickname. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

  “Call again soon, okay?”

  I was sad to hear the receiver’s thunk into its cradle, cutting my connection with Toni and my old life. Yet Wilfred had given me something that felt even truer to who I was.

  Later, once the library was closed up for the night, I went upstairs and made myself a mug of herbal tea. While the tea steeped, I leaned over the railing to look into the dark hall surrounded by rooms of books. Marilyn Wilfred seemed to smile benevolently at me.

  The muted shushing of thousands of stories softened the air. Here and there, I picked it out. “Witch,” a shelf of books whispered. “Witch,” the shelf across the hall answered. Now a room of shelves whispered in concert. “Witch.”

  “Stop it!” I yelled. The rooms silenced. My pulse thudded in my ears.

  Once my breathing returned to normal, I took the tea to my bedroom. My hands shook as I set it on the side table next to the chair by the window. Could it be true, everything Toni had told me? In my work with the Folklife collection, I’d come across oral histories of so-called witches. They were valued and feared in their rural communities. But that was nearly a century ago.

  I glanced over to see what the library had chosen for me to read that night. Romp with a Billionaire, a romance by Eliza Chatterley Windsor. What? Not the kind of reading I’d choose for myself, but books had their reasons.

  This new normal was really strange.

  * * *

  The next morning, I opened my eyes to a calm, orderly bedroom—a librarian’s bedroom, not a witch’s. I hadn’t dreamt. It was as if my brain had shorted out, and all I could do was sleep and hope it repaired itself.

  Rodney yawned, stretched on the quilt at the foot of the bed, then padded up to head-butt my chin. All this business about being a witch? Hysteria. Sure, I might have a touch of intuition where books were concerned. Only natural. I also had a vivid imagination, and I’m no dummy. Here, in Wilfred—a new town, a new job, and let’s not forget the possibility of someone sent to silence me—my head was working in overdrive. That’s all.

  My feet hit the chilly floor and sought slippers. Besides, say I was a witch. Wouldn’t I be able to detect a murderer and power him straight to jail? Couldn’t I simply cast a spell and—poof!—the library would be saved?

  I pushed back the curtains. The sun poured over the lawn, sparking the dew into a thousand diamonds.

  I picked up the romance novel to return downstairs. Last night I hadn’t read more than a few pages before I fell asleep.

  There was no romance novel on the nightstand now. In its place was an old pal, Folk Witch. I turned it in my hands, then tucked it in my pocket. This time, I planned to read it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  For breakfast, I walked down the hill to Darla’s diner. The ground was moist, and pine needles stuck to my clogs.

  I was going to have to stop these meals out. The wad of cash I’d brought to Wilfred was dwindling. Darla had told me to expect a paycheck at the month’s end, but I’d need that money to fund my next hideout—that is, if the retreat center became a reality.

  But I knew I could find one thing at the diner for sure, and that was Dar
la. If Craig Burdock had been mistakenly arrested, the real murderer was still at large. Ilona had been quick to point a finger at Darla. Darla was faking her interest in the library, she’d said. Darla was after the cash the retreat center’s visitors would bring to town.

  It was true that Darla’s old sedan could use an upgrade, and she was ambitious. Maybe not as ambitious as Ilona, or not in the same way, but she wanted a lot in her life. I’d flipped through circulation records, and Ilona was right—I didn’t find anything checked out to Darla. Roz had told me the library subscribed to Southern Dame for her, but I couldn’t find evidence she’d looked at a single issue.

  The diner was warm and busy, with grits on nearly every table. I took the spot at the end of the counter I was beginning to think of as mine. Without speaking, Darla pulled a mug from under the counter—the same mug I’d drunk from my first day—and filled it with coffee.

  “I heard you got the report in on time,” she said.

  “I did. There’s a copy waiting for you at the library. I’m on pins and needles waiting to know what the judge thinks. How’d you hear?”

  She handed me a menu. “Sam was here last night asking about you.”

  My face warmed. “Me? He asked about me?”

  “Well, not outright, but feeling it out. Hungry this morning?”

  “What do you mean?” I said. “About Sam, that is.”

  “If you have an appetite, I recommend the Russian omelet. You won’t need lunch.” I nodded, and she took my menu. “Asked a few things—how we’d heard from you, why you chose Wilfred, you know.” She put her hands on her hips. “I don’t trust him.”

  Before I could follow up, Darla grabbed an armload of platters from the kitchen and slipped from behind the counter. She returned in seconds and refilled my cup.

  “I’m not the only one, either,” she said, picking up her conversation where she’d left it and simultaneously tearing an order slip from her pad and sliding it to the cook. “His family shuts down the mill and takes off in the middle of the night. Oh sure, we saw him from time to time when he came to visit his aunt, but the Wilfreds didn’t give a damn about what happened in town. If it weren’t for Marilyn, he’d have been run out. Now he shows up out of the blue.”

  “He was just a kid.”

  “Maybe he was then, but he wasn’t a kid when he voted to demolish the library.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. Still, Sam didn’t seem like someone who would sell out his hometown and his aunt’s legacy. “Some people might be suspicious of you,” I ventured. “I mean, where were you the night the intruder was shot?”

  Slowly, Darla turned away from the kitchen and faced me. “What are you getting at?”

  “Some people might say—not me, but I’m putting it out there—some people might say you’d gain a lot if the retreat center goes in. Business here would really pick up. You could expand. Maybe Wilfred could regain its incorporation. You could run for mayor.”

  She busied herself preparing checks as if I’d simply mentioned that the sun was out and wasn’t that nice. “You’ve been talking to Ilona, haven’t you?” She didn’t wait for my reply. “As it happens, I was here during the day and went home that evening to watch TV. Marty held down the fort at the tavern. I told it all to the sheriff. You satisfied?”

  She left to take orders to the dining room and returned moments later with a stack of dirty plates, which she deftly dumped into a tub. The cook rang his bell, and at the ding, Darla slid a plate with a whopper omelet in front of me. I prodded it with my fork. This thing was as big as a baby.

  “You’ve definitely fought for the library,” I said.

  “For sure.”

  “We’ve never talked about why you love it so much. Are you a big reader?” I let my mind go blank. Not a single book recommendation surfaced for her.

  Darla avoided my eyes and pulled close saltshakers to fill. “There’s something attractive about that man, I admit, and he’s asking after you. If you’re smart, you’ll mind my words and stay away from him.” She lifted an eyebrow. “Sam, I mean. He hasn’t been bothering you, has he?”

  I wanted to follow up on Darla’s connection to the library, but this distraction about Sam was too tempting not to follow.

  “I’ve seen him around once or twice, just in passing. Bother me, though? No. He’s too old for me, anyway,” I said. “If that’s what you mean.”

  “Too old? You’re, what, twenty-five? Sam’s not even ten years older. Why, my second husband, Marcus, was seventeen years older than me.” Her face took on a faraway look. “Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it.” She returned to reality and patted the counter in front of me. “Still, not Sam. He’s not being completely honest.”

  “What do you mean? Do you know something?”

  Darla leaned forward. “Sam says he only showed up in town a few days ago.” She looked up the counter to make sure no one was listening. “Not true. I saw him in Forest Grove the night before. Who’s to say he’s not the one who shot her?”

  “I thought you said you were home watching TV the night January Stephens died.”

  She straightened and looked me square in the eyes. “I was. Most of the night, that is.”

  “Most of the night,” I repeated.

  “Eat up,” she said and turned away.

  * * *

  At noon, I went to find Roz. She might have some insight on Darla’s connection to the library. Plus, I wanted an idea of what to expect at the trustees’ meeting the next evening. Thanks to all the work I’d done for the judge, I had solid quarterly statistics. Although it gave me pause, Ilona seemed to be planning the logistical part of it. What would they want from me?

  Roz was in the conservatory, holding her mysterious project against her chest and staring out the window. I followed her gaze to see Lyndon planting what looked like tulip bulbs in the bed fronting the path along the bluff.

  “He’s an optimist,” I said.

  Roz’s expression was uncharacteristically dreamy. She caught me watching her, and her gaze hardened. “He just goes and goes. He’s always been that way. Ever since high school.”

  “You’ve known him a long time, then.”

  “We dated briefly in our senior year, if you can believe that.” She barked a short laugh and studied her fingernails.

  I glanced at her, then at Lyndon’s tall form bending over the ground. “I wonder where he’d be without his cottage.”

  “Homeless.”

  She held plain manila folders, unlabeled, nothing to indicate what was inside. “Well, if the library’s sale goes through, you’ll have the chance to work on your project full-time. Whatever it is.”

  “I’m not going to tell you about my project,” she snapped.

  “All right, all right.” We fell to watching Lyndon work. “I don’t suppose there’s a spot for him at the Magnolia?”

  Sheriff Dolby strolled by the conservatory, his shoulders almost cartoonishly wide. Lyndon stood as he approached. A sound like a kitten’s mew escaped Roz.

  “I’ve got to go,” she said and was out the door before I could ask about Darla or the trustees’ meeting.

  It didn’t take a witch to see that Roz had the scorching hots for Lyndon. I wondered if she’d had a thing for him since high school. All those years.

  My own love life had been quiet. Okay, nearly nonexistent. I’d watched Toni meet her husband and fall goofily in love, and one guy or another was always after Jean, but I observed from behind a book. I figured I’d meet a kind, practical man at some point and settle down, but I wasn’t in a rush.

  Now Toni’s words last night came back. “Sometimes I wonder if you love books more than real life,” she’d said.

  On its heels, the image of Sam’s slender form walking across the garden came to mind, but it was chased by the knowledge that he’d voted for the library’s demolition and stood to profit, just like his family had before him. Soak Wilfred for what it was worth and move on.

  O
utside, Lyndon nodded at something the sheriff said. The sheriff gestured toward the library, then to the cottage. Lyndon nodded again.

  I absently placed a hand on Roz’s desk and felt a murmur below its oak top. I drew back my hand. Only books did that to me.

  The Duke’s Temptation. The title slid neatly into my brain. Could it be—?

  I went next door to popular fiction and found the book inched farther out than the others on the shelf. The cover featured a man in an unbuttoned shirt with floppy poet’s sleeves and abs like corrugated steel. Who knew dukes kept full-service gyms in their castles? I opened the book a third of the way through.

  Lyndon, Duke of Forster, strode into the stable and—

  I gasped and turned again to the cover. The Duke’s Temptation, written by Eliza Chatterley Windsor. Wasn’t she the author of the romance that had appeared beside my bed upstairs? The one about the billionaire? I pulled it from the shelf and read its back cover. “Forster Lyndon was the toast of New York society . . .” I crossed the hall to the card catalogue and flipped until I found Eliza Chatterley Windsor.

  Twelve books, all romances. All featuring some version of the library’s caretaker, from Amish farmer Forest L. Den to the Marquis de Forstaire, hero of the French revolution.

  Roz wrote romance novels—that was her project. Roz was in love.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  That evening when the library closed, I made a decision. Lyndon was across the garden locking up his tools. He was pulling off his gloves when I arrived, breathless, at the shed. Beyond him lay his cottage, and beyond that was Big House, a faint light in the kitchen window. I pulled my gaze away.

  “Lyndon, I wonder if you’d have a cup of coffee with me in the library’s kitchen?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Everything all right?”

  The sparse lawn felt cold under my feet. “Things are fine. I just wanted to talk with you about—everything.” There were no classes in the library tonight. We’d have privacy.

  Less than a week ago, Lyndon had been a creepy man of few words who might have emerged from one of Mabel Seeley’s gothic mysteries. Now I saw him as someone hardworking—and loved. He smelled of soil and river air. He was a part of Wilfred’s fabric.