That Old Witch Magic (Wicked in Moonhaven~A Paranormal Cozy Book 2)

  That Old Witch Magic

  Wicked in Moonhaven book 2

  J.D. Winters

  Dakota Kahn

  Contents

  Copyright

  Welcome!

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Mailing List

  Also by J.D. Winters

  About the Authors

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental. All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

  Copyright © 2016 J.D. Winters and Dakota Kahn

  Cover images from Shutterstock.com

  First Edition October, 2016

  Created with Vellum

  Welcome!

  Sign up for the J.D. Winters mailing list and get The Cozy Spooky Box Set, with five novellas, for free!

  Chapter 1

  I was drifting with the dawn, still half asleep, just coming out of that stupid dream I had every morning at about this time, where I was riding in a car. Who was driving? I couldn’t turn and see who was at the wheel. But I did know there were at least four of us, laughing and singing along with that song-that song that haunted me. I could sing snatches of it while I was dreaming, but once I woke, I couldn’t remember the name and it was driving me crazy.

  Anyway, we were in this car. Trees were flashing past. We were going too fast, but we were so carefree. The sun was shining, reflecting off the lake like flashes of liquid gold. Life was good.

  And then, a horrible sound. Metal against metal. There was a sharp turn that sent us falling together, breath knocked out of us. There was a sense of weightlessness, like a roller coaster ride, and we were gasping and then screaming, and water was coming in. We were in the lake. I was trying to say something but the water filled my mouth and filled my eyes and….

  I heard a small rustling sound and my eyes shot open, jerking me out of the dream. There was somebody—or something—in my room. Toto, my little dog? No, he would have launched up to join me by now. I glanced around quickly, but I didn’t see anyone.

  And then I looked toward the far side of the bed. There, barely visible over the pale blue comforter, was a shock of straw-colored hair and two huge brown eyes, staring at me.

  “Hey,” I said, more from being startled than anything else.

  “Hi,” a childish voice responded. “Are you sleeping?”

  “Not anymore,” I said. I took a deep breath. “Who are you?”

  “Gavin,” he said. “Are you Haley?”

  “Yes I am.”

  He stood a bit straighter and his whole adorable face came into view. He looked about four years old with a little snub nose and a nice sprinkling of freckles. He had the kind of face that made you smile, even first thing in the morning.

  “Do you have any toys for kids?” he asked hopefully.

  “Uh…no, I don’t think that I do.”

  “Oh.” His whole face seemed to sag. “Okay then.” He turned and headed for the door.

  “Wait,” I said. “How did you get in here?”

  “My Mommy.” He squinted at me. “Do you have any popsicles in your ‘fridge?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry.”

  Sadness oozed from every pore. “Okay.” This time he made good his escape and I sighed, realizing I would have to get up and get dressed and go after him. How a child had gotten into my apartment was only the first of my questions. Who the heck was his mommy?

  I’d just pulled on jeans and a peach-colored sweatshirt when I heard the tapping on my window. I knew what that meant. I lived on the second floor and only one being I knew at the moment could manage reaching that window. Oliver was out there, probably with a message from my grandmother. She likes to keep tabs on my every waking moment. I think you can guess how that makes me feel.

  I pulled open the curtain. Sure enough, there he was, my big black raven friend—and my grandmother’s butler. I glared at him for a few seconds before pulling the window up so we could talk.

  “More orders from Gran Ana?” I asked, referring to my grandmother.

  Instead of answering, he presented me with an envelope. I gave it a quick glance and stuck it in the pocket of my jeans. “Okay, I’ll take a look,” I said. “But right now I seem to have a little boy wandering around in here. I have to deal with that first.”

  He nodded wisely. “Oh yes. A boy and his mother. I let them in.”

  “What?”

  “She says she’s an old friend of yours and she’d been waiting outside for at least half an hour.” He managed to give me a baleful look despite that long beak. “You’re supposed to open at 6 am.”

  I bit my tongue to keep from saying something sarcastic, but I knew I was guilty as charged. It just seemed impossible for me to get up on time. I knew I was going to have to train myself to do it if I wanted to run a breakfast~lunch café such as I had downstairs. Late nights were out-early mornings were in. That was the nature of the beast. But it was just so hard!

  I sighed. “Okay. Let me go down and see about them.” I glanced at him. “You didn’t happen to get a name from her?”

  He preened his feathers a few times before he turned and gave me my answer. “Sorry. She said something about Scotty, but other than that….”

  I stared at the sassy bird. Scotty was the man who used to run this café before I sort of took over. If this person was looking for Scotty, she was going to be disappointed. He was no longer with us in any way.

  “You didn’t talk to her like that, did you? I hope you shifted first.”

  “I’m not in the habit of talking to humans in raven form.”

  “You talk to me in raven form all the time.”

  “Yes, but you’re not human.”

  I glared at him.

  You might think that ravens and crows wouldn’t have the facial capacity to grin, but Oliver managed just fine. He threw me a mocking “Caw, caw,” to boot and flew off. I slammed the window shut and turned for the stairs, muttering insults at him as I went.

  I wasn’t looking forward to confronting the condition of my café kitchen. I’d had a couple of friends over to watch Day of the Triffids, which turned into a mini-marathon of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers as well, both the old and the older version, and by the time my friends had rolled out for their own beds, I was too tired to clean up the mess-not to mention a little spooked by the movies and ready to do nothing but burrow under my covers to keep away the monsters.

  And yes, I knew that wasn’t good. I was supposed to be running an eating establishment. Certain standards had to be maintained. If only I had someone here who knew something about that, and could rise to the sound of your average alarm clock. That someone didn’t seem to be me.

  I’d been home for about a month now. I still wasn’t clear on where I’d been for the last few years—or how I’d managed to return to my hometown without my memories. I knew my grandmother, being a sorceress, was responsible for my return in some way, but we hadn’t yet managed to ge
t to the level of communication where either one of us could be totally straight with the other. Things were still too tenuous for that. And I wasn’t sure why.

  But I knew I owed a lot to my Gran Ana and I was willing to try to make it up to her—to a point. I was running Café Greco and I was trying to learn to bake lots of good things and to follow the physical training she assigned me as well as I could.

  But lately I’d begun to rebel. Not recklessly. Not overtly, even. But in little ways, little places to resist. After all, she hadn’t explained just what she wanted out of me, and I wasn’t crazy about where it seemed to me things were going.

  I mean, would you be eager to volunteer to go fight demons? No, I’m not either. I was beginning to feel like I would have to convince her that the paranormal life was not for me. No thanks.

  There were those who said I’d been sort of—gone for those missing years. Not of this earth. Well okay--dead. I didn’t like to think about that, so I didn’t. So don’t expect me to wax nostalgic or anything like that. I just refused to accept it for now.

  I started down the stairs, but the first thing I noticed was the smell of something baking. Had I left the oven on? I dashed into the kitchen, afraid of what I was going to find there, and almost ran into a young woman who was working at the prep island. She was pretty, with a pleasant smile and thick shiny dark hair with curls that reminded me of the frosting on a fancy chocolate birthday cake. In fact, she had a nice, fresh look that made you think of things like birthday parties and merry-go-rounds and high school baseball games. I think they used to call that the all-American good girl look, though that’s gone out of favor—hasn’t it?

  I realized I was supposed to know her, but nothing about her rang a bell. That was the way it had been ever since I’d come back to town. Amnesia they called it. I was afraid it might be something more, but I don’t want to dwell on that.

  At any rate, her smile was bright, but tentative, as if she realized this might be awkward.

  “Haley,” she said. “I…uh…” She waved toward the flour-caked marble worktop and the pile of dough she seemed to be rolling out.

  “Hi,” I answered. “You seem to know me, but I’m afraid I don’t know you.”

  “Yes, I heard all about your loss of memory,” she said quickly, as if she wanted to smooth over any misgivings. “I’m Krissy. Luanne and Molly are my sisters.”

  “Oh. Right. We were good friends once, weren’t we?”

  “That’s the way I remember it,” she said, and I couldn’t help but notice that she was avoiding a firm answer. Interesting.

  But there was no time for analysis. The timer went off and she turned, grabbed mitts and reached into the oven to pull out a tray of beautiful big cinnamon rolls. I gasped.

  “Where did those come from?” I cried.

  “I made them,” she said, looking apologetic. “I found your prepped dough and from the listings on your menu I could tell you usually had fresh ones cooking by this time in the morning, and since there have already been a couple of people knocking on the door, I thought I’d better….”

  “Oh my gosh, I’m usually up and at it by now,” I said, fudging a bit on the “usually” thing. “But I had a late night last night and…and that’s why I didn’t hear my alarm and my kitchen is such a mess and….”

  Why was I apologizing to her? I wasn’t sure but I knew I was embarrassed to be caught a step behind this morning. And despite Krissy’s friendly smile and her obvious kindness in stepping in and starting the cinnamon rolls, I almost resented her being here and showing me up. That just proves what a jerk I can be at times.

  “Hey, we all have days like that,” she said, and at the same time she was working on those cinnamon rolls, squeezing out the icing, making them look so delicious I almost reached for one myself. And I was just standing there watching her.

  “Listen, I went ahead and raided your day old stock,” she said. “I gave some of them to the early birds who were champing at the bit to get going on their breakfast. I charged them a discount, since they were yesterdays’ rolls. Hope you don’t mind. The money is over there on the counter.”

  I muttered my thanks but I was staring at her, nonplussed. She obviously knew what she was doing.

  “How did you know how to do this?” I asked her. “You must have worked in a bakery before.”

  She nodded. She wasn’t smiling anymore. She probably could sense that I wasn’t as pleased with her pitching in as I ought to be. The trouble was, this sort of thing felt more like criticism of my managing style than anything else. But I was going to rein that in and try to be pleasant. Gift horses and all that.

  “Listen, I can use all the help I can get,” I assured her. “The work here is overwhelming me, and I’ve only just begun.”

  She smiled and I washed my hands, put on polyethylene gloves and started working on the rest of my dough myself. So there we were, working side by side, and I still wasn’t sure why. We chatted a bit about inconsequential things. Meanwhile her little boy was hanging around looking bored and restless. He was awfully cute.

  His name was Gavin, wasn’t it? It was hard to think of Scotty being his father, as I’d been told by her sister. But who knew? Scotty probably had a mother who loved him too—at one point anyway. He might have been a cute little boy once himself.

  He wasn’t very cute once I got to know him, but that didn’t mean much and I didn’t know him for long. Somebody killed him the first day I met him—and I almost got blamed for it.

  The child looked at me with those big brown eyes. There was some sort of sadness lingering there. The look he had made you want to give him lollipops… or chocolate chip cookies. Now that was something I ought to be able to dig out for him.

  “Is it okay if I give him a c-o-o-k-i-e?” I asked her.

  “Sure.”

  “I wish I had some toys around here.”

  “That’s alright. He plays by himself very well. Don’t you, Gavin?”

  He turned away, looking sadder than ever, but just then, my dog Toto came bounding into the room, and the search for something to bring a smile to the kid’s face was over. Halleluiah.

  “I’ve got a fenced-in play yard for Toto right out the back door. Do you want to go out there and play with him?”

  He nodded, his face solemn, but his eyes bright.

  “See if you can make him do tricks. He knows how to shake and how to roll over, but he’s not so good on sitting when I tell him to. Maybe you can work on that with him. Here are some doggie treats to use while you teach him. Okay?”

  He nodded and took the treats from me one by one, putting each one in a different pocket in his shirt and in his jeans. He and Toto trotted out like they had serious business and I propped the door open so his mom could keep an eye on him from the kitchen.

  I heard the bell and knew someone had come into the café, but before I had a chance to go out, he was already coming through the prep room door. Krissy turned and greeted him. It was Deputy Sheriff Shane, a man handsome enough to make even a dyed-in-the-wool cynic like me swoon a little. And I could see that he was surprised to see Krissy here.

  Her face was shining with delight. “Hey handsome. Long time no see.”

  “Hey Krissy. I heard you were back.” He grabbed her and kissed her right on the lips. She laughed and played along.

  I stared at this little exchange in stunned silence. I only hope my mouth wasn’t hanging open at the time. The jealousy I felt was painful and ridiculous. I had no claim on Shane. But it hurt anyway, spreading like a fast-growing vine to strangle my heart.

  See? It was irrational and it made me spout stupid lines like that, at least silently. I had to turn away. They were both talking over each other, like old friends do, and it was pretty obvious they’d seen each other at times lately-times I didn’t know a thing about. I started working on the cinnamon rolls, transferring them from the baking sheet to the metal trays that were going out into the display case at the counter.

>   After a minute or two, Shane came sauntering over. “You got your grandmother’s letter?” he asked.

  I nodded, patting my back pocket where I’d put it.

  “Have you read it?”

  I frowned at him. “Why do you ask?”

  “Gran Ana called me….,” he began.

  That caught my attention.

  “What? What business does she have calling you about me?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Who said it was about you?”

  I blinked. “Was it?”

  He almost looked sheepish. Hah!

  “Well, yeah. It was. She said she sent you a note with some instructions this morning and she hasn’t had an answer. She said she tried calling you, but you don’t respond.” He shrugged. “She thinks you’re trying to ignore her.”

  “So she sent for the police?”

  He grinned. “She takes these things seriously.”

  “Oh!” I threw down the hot mitts onto the counter. “Well, you can tell her she’s right. I am trying to ignore her.”

  He grimaced. “Haley…”

  I frowned at him fiercely. “What are you doing running her errands?”

  He hesitated, as though he was going to tell me something maybe he shouldn’t. I saw the indecision in his eyes, then he shrugged and said, “Your grandmother and I are sort of working on a project. It has to do with the long-term safety of Moonhaven.”

  “Am I going to be involved?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “It’s not something I can talk about yet.”

  I didn’t push it. I could see from the cool distance that settled into his gaze that he’d made up his mind not to tell me about it. Whatever. I didn’t have time to worry about that. I was pretty sure one of them-either he or Gran Ana- would tell me soon enough and I had other problems right now.

  “Just as long as that project isn’t me, I’m okay with it,” I said. “It just seems odd that the two of you get along. Talk about a mismatched pair.”