Bewitched, Bedeviled and Bewildered (Sister Witchcraft Book 1) Page 2

  “I’m calling the cops.” I turned toward the door back into my shop.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll tell you about it.”

  I waited, arms crossed and foot tapping. He looked at me and sighed, then half laughed. He didn’t really look like a reprobate. His soft brown hair was a little shaggy and in need of a trim, but his shirt was buttoned-up and clean and his jeans were fashionably faded. Well-used cowboy boots. Nice shoulders. Trim waistline. About three inches taller than me. And he suddenly seemed to realize who I was.

  “Say, you’re the one renovating the tea shop, aren’t you? I’m planning to do a feature on you for the weekend edition.”

  “Edition of what?”

  “The Lafay Times of course. I’m the editor of the local paper.”

  “Oh.”

  “Also the crime reporter. And the sports guy. The publisher, and the business manager.”

  Well, I suppose that explained everything.

  “A real journalist, huh? Why aren’t you in the big city?”

  “I’ve been, thanks. I’ll take small towns these days.”

  Interesting. I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened in the “big city” to make him feel that way. But he was still trying to justify his existence on my telephone pole.

  “I was up there trying to record some transactions of a local businessman, a neighbor of yours who I suspect of…” He hesitated, looking as though he didn’t know if he could trust me. And of course, he was quite right. “Well, things.”

  “Really?” I looked around quickly. “Who is it? Which one?”

  “Oh no.” He felt himself back in command of the situation now and it was obvious. “I’m not telling you that. But rest assured, he will have his day in court. And soon.”

  “Well good. I guess.”

  He shrugged. “So I’ll come by one of these days and get an interview and some pictures. Okay?”

  “Why? Are you also the society editor? And the gossip columnist?”

  He shrugged and gave me a lopsided grin. “Why not?”’

  “You’re a busy man.”

  “You bet. That’s why I’ve got to go.” He started off down the alley.

  “Wait,” I called after him. “Did you see a strange looking lady coming out of this alley just before I came out the door?”

  “A strange lady? Nope. Other than you, that is. But I was pretty busy.”

  “Yeah. Spying on people.”

  He grimaced. “Don’t call it that.”

  “I guess not. You’re not much of a spy if you didn’t even notice the gal with purple hair.”

  He made a face. “Bite me,” he said, and he was gone around the corner of the building.

  I shook my head and went back in to work. This town was beginning to seem a little strange to me.

  The next day I swallowed my pride and went to the bank to apply for a loan to help get started. It turned out the loan officer was someone I’d gone to high school with.

  “Mimi Auclair!” he said when he looked up to see who was dropping into the seat across the desk from his. “Oh wow, Mimi!”

  “Karl Ledger,” I said, staring at the average looking man who had once been such a goofy looking kid.

  The name just popped right into my head. He’d had sort of a crush on me at one time. We’d shared a station in Biology and had to cut open a frog together. When he’d asked me out, I turned him down. I was afraid I’d be smelling that frog all night. Now I had to ask him for something. Oops.

  He sat back and made a church steeple with his fingers while I explained what I needed the money for. “Uh huh,” he said. “Uh huh.”

  He frowned and nodded. “Uh huh.”

  “Karl. Your tone is not giving me confidence. Are you about to turn me down?”

  He grinned and said softly, “How does it feel, Mimi Auclair?”

  I considered for a moment. “Not too good,” I admitted to him.

  He laughed. “I’m going to give you some paperwork to fill out. And I’m going to go to the board with your application.” His smile faded. “But I don’t think they are going to look too kindly on another restaurant on that block.”

  I reared back. “What do you mean? We’ve always been there. My Grand-Mere had that tea shop going since the Sixties. She was there before the Denny’s came… and went. She was there when Johnny Rodriguez opened his Taco Stand. What are you talking about?”

  He leaned across the desk and spoke softly, as though he was afraid of being overheard. “I don’t know if you have noticed, but there’s a new eating establishment in town. Just down the street from you. The Shady Tree Coffee Shop.”

  I had noticed but I hadn’t made an effort to go in and see what the place was like. It looked very nice from the outside—redwood siding and black glass. Very modern.

  “The ladies who run the place are serious about keeping things to their liking. And they are both on the council now. They pretty much control who gets loans and who gets permits.” He hesitated, then went on quickly. “Two sisters, Macy and Stacy Jiggs. They’re great ladies, really. Full of surprises. It’s just that they are….enthusiastic.”

  “Enthusiastic? About what?”

  He leaned closer. “Making a profit.” He gave me a wise wink. “They don’t like competition.”

  “Oh.” Things were beginning to make sense. Yes, it was all falling into place. “You mean, they bully the others in the neighborhood?”

  He waved his hand at me. “No no no. I wouldn’t put it that way at all. But they are…..” His voice trailed off. He just couldn’t think of a nice way to say it.

  “Real demons?” I offered, taking a stab at it. And once I said the word, it began to twist and bubble in my brain.

  His eyes widened with shock and he shook his head wildly. “No! No! Nothing supernatural at all. They’re just hard workers. You know? They don’t really cheat. Not much. And they pay attention to…” His voice trailed off again and his eyes blinked rapidly. There was just no way to white wash this.

  It all came together now. What Sybil had said about some force being against Grand-Mere and her tea shop near the end of her life. What Martin Tanner had meant when he said I was taking a chance. What Karl was implying by the way he tiptoed around the subject. Could it be the two women I’d caught peeking in at us? Karl had said that the ladies at the Shady Tree Coffee Shop were tough competition—and implied they didn’t play fair. A flash of insight opened up a whole scenario for me. These were probably the very “force” that had ruined the last months of my Grand-Mere’s life and now they were gearing up to ruin me.

  “Does one of these ladies have purple hair?” I ventured.

  “Uh…you might call it that.”

  Ah hah.

  Okay, now that I had some idea of what I was up against, how was I going to deal with this? I’d promised not to use witchery and I had a feeling the ladies from Shady Tree had plenty of magic up their sleeves. The signs were just too obvious.

  Karl did go out on a limb and issue me a provisional temporary permit to continue with the opening of the tea shop, however it was only good for six weeks. He promised to put in the permanent paperwork, but I almost suspected he wasn’t too confident and was just going through the motions. I left feeling numb. If it was true that the Shady Tree was our enemy, and that they had special powers on their side, my whole project was in trouble.

  I walked back to the tea shop slowly, going down residential streets I remembered from the past, looking for changes, looking for things that reminded me of the days when my parents were still alive and a trip to see Grand-Mere in the tea shop was a special treat. Lafay was still a sweet, sleepy town, almost a relic of an older era, before the internet connected us all, before the films and television gave us all the ills and evils of the world on a daily basis.

  My father was a small town lawyer, my mother taught kindergarten, but we were all witches. Our lineage stretched back too far to track, but we’d been here for over a hundred years, and
those whose families went back that far as well knew it.

  There’d been a time, in the late Nineteenth Century, when witches were treated like everyone else here in this valley. They were considered odd, but people went to them for help and that bound the whole society together in many ways. Then came the witch hunts after Spanish flu swept through the area and killed so many. When a tragedy like that strikes, people tend to lash out as they try to fix blame, or even just to explain how such a terrible thing could have happened. For over twenty years, my people had to hide in the mountains. It wasn’t until the Second World War took so many men away from here and introduced them to Europe and the Pacific Islands that the feelings calmed and we were able to move back among the others.

  Grand-Mere remembered those times. She hid with her family and came back when tensions eased. She started the tea shop as a place where people could come together and meet our kind again, meet them and find that they were really just like any others who lived here. My parents were never hurt or discriminated against, but they also kept their specialness quiet. Older residents knew, but most of my age had forgotten. With me, it was never an issue at all.

  After my parents were killed in a car accident, Granmere took care of us. She taught us more about being a witch than my mother or father ever had. Sybil reacted with denial. She didn’t want to be a witch. Lucy was too young to understand. But I soaked it up like a sponge.

  Still, I went off to the city as soon as I could. Eventually, when Sybil married Gary Tanner, Lucy came to live with me, as she wasn’t getting along with Sybil and Grand-Mere was growing too weak to take care of her. She still ran her tea shop, though. And now she was gone and it was in trouble.

  Anger spilled out in me. How could I just let this happen? I had to do something. At least, I had to go by the Shady Tree Coffee Shop and take a look at the enemy. Size them up. Make some plans.

  All fired up by now, I turned on the main street and went back to where the coffee shop sat, gleaming and modern in the afternoon sun. The parking lot was full and couples were coming in and going out regularly. I had to admit, it looked like the ladies knew their business. As I watched from across the street, my heart began to fall a bit. How was I going to compete with all this flash and energy?

  And what was I doing here, anyway? Was I going to charge in and accuse them of undermining my chances in this town? On what grounds? I’d look like a fool. No, there had to be a better way.

  I sighed and started to turn away, but just at that moment, a group of laughing women came out of the coffee shop, heading for the parking lot. The two who I assumed were the Jiggs sisters were part of the group. They all piled into a big old Cadillac and drove off, their laughter flying out behind them like a banner in the wind. I stood watching until they turned a corner and drove out of sight, filled with a lost, lonely feeling. Were they going to win?

  Not if I could help it!

  I changed my plans. I was going in to check out the lay of the land. I marched across the street and entered the coffee shop. Bright colors, happy music, friendly-looking wait staff. Wow. This place looked unbeatable.

  “Counter, booth or table?”

  A short, friendly-looking waitress with curly, copper-colored hair and a bright yellow uniform smiled at me as I hesitantly decided to sit at a booth.

  “Come right this way. My name’s Cindy. I’ll be your server, and if anything doesn’t please you, be sure and let me know. We aim to please here, and I’ll try to fix anything that might go wrong for you.” She smiled as she showed me to the booth, asked what I’d like to drink, then handed me a huge menu and started off.

  The menu was a thing of beauty, filled with so many delicious-looking items, it could take all day to mull it over and finally make up your mind. But I wasn’t there to fill myself with delectables. I was there to scope out the place and see why it was so popular.

  And that was immediately evident. Attention to detail was the secret. Everything was perfect, everything looked expensive and fresh and clean. The salt and pepper shakers on the tables were adorable blown glass forms of various birds, the holder for the various sweeteners was in the form of a matching nest, while the individual sweetener packets were done beautifully in gold leaf paper. Everything was guaranteed to make you feel special just being there.

  Cindy came back, friendly as ever, and I ordered a piece of pecan pie with whipped cream and a cup of coffee. She brought it quickly and I took a bite and swooned. Wow it was good. The crust was butter-rich and crunched like a good cookie, the filling was just sweet enough and smooth as silk, the pecans fat and juicy and toasted to perfection. I sighed. How were we going to compete with this?

  But we weren’t meant to, darn it all. We were going to be a tea shop, not a meal service. Our goals were different, our talents special, and….

  That was as far as I got before The Incident.

  It was one of those things you hope you never have to live through. And once it had begun, I was momentarily frozen, not knowing what to do to make it stop.

  A slender man with a shock of greying brown hair came in. He had a toothpick between his lips and a mean, nasty smile on his weathered face. His steel-grey eyes flickered here and there as though he was looking for trouble. And when he saw me, he thought he’d found it.

  He stopped short and glared at me. “Hey!” he called out, loud enough for the whole restaurant to hear. He pointed at me with my nice piece of pie and added, “Look at this! Spy alert, spy alert! Watch out! It’s the old French witch’s granddaughter.” He turned, grinning and holding the attention of all. “She thinks she’s going to start up the tea shop again and she’s here to figure out how to do it.”

  He walked up and slapped the flat of his hand down on the table in front of me with a sharp sound that rocketed through me, making me jump.

  “Hah! Fat chance, kiddo. You might as well give up right now. It’ll never happen. You and your people—you’re losers.”

  My cheeks were bright red by then. There was a loud buzz of muttering all around us, but I couldn’t tell if it was anger at me or outrage at this horrible, rude man and the way he’d taken over the place with his mockery.

  “Hey, I saw your poster advertising your grand opening,” he cried, sarcasm dripping from his words. “I’ll be there. Wouldn’t miss it. And I’ll be ready to give you a public review of just what I think of the place. Ha ha! Get ready for that one, sweetheart. It’ll be a doozy, no lie!”

  I didn’t have a clue who this man was and there was no way I was going to engage in an open shouting match with him. The only thing I could do was to take my last bite of pie, throw down some cash, rise and leave, looking straight ahead, as though I hadn’t heard or seen a thing. He was still yelling after me as I went out the door.

  I couldn’t believe it. I’d never been treated like that before and I hope I never am again. I walked away, dazed, and then I heard someone calling behind me.

  “Oh Miss! Wait a minute!”

  I looked back. Cindy, the waitress, was running after me. I stopped and waited for her to catch up.

  “Oh please, Miss, take these.” She thrust a sack of cookies in my hand, obviously the first thing she was able to grab to bring along to give me. “Please enjoy them. I’m so, so sorry for what happened back there. He’s so awful. He’s always doing something like that and….”

  “Who is he?” I asked her.

  “Lenny Brewer.” She made a face and shrugged. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He’s such a jerk. Sometimes I wish…”

  She swallowed whatever she’d been about to reveal about her wishes for the horrible man, glancing over her shoulder as though to make sure he wasn’t coming out. And I didn’t blame her. If he heard her, he would probably come after her with a bullhorn every day of the week. I shuddered.

  “It’s not your fault,” I reassured her. “I just hope he doesn’t show up at the Grand Opening of our tea shop.”

  “Good luck on that!” She gave me a wav
e and started back toward the café. “I might show up for that myself.”

  “I hope you do.”

  She waved again and I turned back to my journey home, thinking over what had happened and wondering why so many people in this town seemed to be against me. This was the place I considered my hometown. What had happened to it over the last few years? Maybe I ought to look up some of my old friends and get a grip on this place. Somebody had to like me!

  In a daze I must have walked right out in front of traffic. The next thing I knew, a car horn was blaring and someone had reached out to grab me back up onto the curb. The car person yelled something, but I was too shocked and surprised to hear what he’d said and he drove off. Meanwhile, the man who had pulled me to safety was glowering at me.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “Are you sick? Feeling woozy?”

  “I’m fine,” I said sharply, annoyed more than thankful. Then I looked again, realizing I knew this person. It was the newspaper man who’d been climbing telephone poles in my alley. He was being awfully critical and I’d had about all the criticism I could take for one day. I grumbled a bit.

  “But I guess I have to thank you for pulling me out of the way. Though I think I wasn’t all that far into the street and….”

  “And what?” he said, laughing at me. “You’d rather take your chances with speeding cars than have to be nice to me for some reason?”

  I pouted like a baby. “I don’t like being in anyone’s debt,” I said, though he might not consider that germane to the topic.

  “Oh my innocent little sweetheart, you are definitely not in my debt. No worries on that score.” He gave me a once over and seemed pleased, which made me even more annoyed with him. Okay, so I’m not really a logical thinker.

  I calmed down. I shook myself mentally. And I managed to smile. “Hey, thank you for saving my life. Come by the tea shop one of these days and I’ll give you a free cup of our best. Deal?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Is that a bribe, lady?” he said.