A Witch of a Time Read online

  “She lived close enough to walk here,” I pointed out. “It would have been a long walk, but she liked to hike. What if she came out here to get the camp in order and something happened to her?”

  Terry rubbed the back of his neck. “I think something happened to her,” he said. “I just … I’m not sure I think she died out here. That’s a stretch. Why would she come out here alone?”

  “Don’t you go over to the boys’ camp alone?”

  “Yes, but … .”

  I arched an eyebrow. “But what? You’re a big strong man and she was a frail woman?”

  “You know very well that’s not what I meant,” Terry said. “It’s just that I have no idea how to find Donna if something did happen to her out here. Her body could be in the water. It could be in the woods.”

  “It could be buried,” I added.

  “You think someone murdered her and buried her in the woods? Now you’re really stretching things.”

  “Most people who die natural deaths don’t come back as ghosts,” I said. “It’s very rare.”

  “You don’t know it’s Donna, though,” Terry said.

  “I don’t.”

  “Well, until we know, there’s nothing we can do,” Terry said. “I think you should keep an eye on Bay. When this ghost is ready to talk, Bay will listen. Hopefully she’ll come to us then. We can’t force her to do something she has no control over.”

  “I know that,” I said, “but I’m worried. Between Lila and Rosemary going after her and this ghost, this whole camping trip has been ruined for Bay.”

  “Nothing has been ruined for Bay,” Terry said.

  “How can you say that? She’s miserable.”

  “Really? She doesn’t look miserable to me.” Terry pointed to a table where Clove, Thistle and Bay were laughing hysterically.

  “Oh, sure, now she’s happy,” I grumbled. “She has to wait until the exact moment where I look like an alarmist to finally laugh.”

  “I’m sure she had it planned,” Terry laughed. “She seems fine. Leave her be. When she’s ready to talk, she’ll talk. For now … let her have a good time.”

  “Fine.”

  “Great,” Terry said. “So, how long until dinner’s ready? I’m starving.”

  “WHAT’S going on over here?” I asked, moving behind Bay, Clove and Thistle as they happily chattered away.

  “We were examining the nature of life,” Thistle replied evasively.

  She always was a loquacious little minx. “I see,” I said. “Well, let me but in for the mundane news that dinner is almost ready.”

  “We’re very excited about tonight’s menu,” Thistle said. “I’m a big fan of burgers and macaroni salad.”

  “Me, too,” Clove said, her brown eyes solemn. “I could eat it every night for a year and never get bored.”

  They were up to something. “I’m very happy to hear that,” I said. “I would hate to bore your taste buds.”

  “No one wants that,” Aunt Tillie said, muscling her way between Thistle and Bay and forcing them to separate so she could sit between them. “I’m excited for the hamburgers, too.”

  “You don’t even like hamburgers.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Aunt Tillie said. “I love a good hamburger.”

  She was up to something, too. “I’m happy when you’re happy.”

  “Great,” Aunt Tillie said.

  I remained in my spot, studying the four of them suspiciously. When the conversation stalled, I searched for a way to restart it. “So … .”

  “Shouldn’t you be grilling the hamburgers?” Aunt Tillie asked, cutting me off. “We don’t like them when they’re burned.”

  “Marnie is watching them.”

  “Marnie is hitting on Terry,” Aunt Tillie said.

  I glanced over my shoulder, frowning when I saw Marnie rubbing Terry’s forearm as she offered him a slice of fresh watermelon. She was doing it to tweak me. I knew it and yet … . “I should go and check on the hamburgers.”

  “You do that,” Aunt Tillie said. “I’ll sit here with the girls and make sure they don’t get into any trouble.”

  I wasn’t especially worried about the girls, at least not now. “Girls, why don’t you make sure your Aunt Tillie doesn’t get in any trouble, too?”

  “That was our plan,” Thistle said, making little shooing motions with her hands. “Now go and handle the burgers so we don’t have nasty black things on them when we eat them. That would be gross.”

  I rejoined Marnie and Terry, my gaze bouncing between them and Aunt Tillie.

  “What’s going on?” Marnie asked. “Are they up to something bad?”

  “I have no idea,” I admitted. “They’re clearly up to something, though.”

  “The girls or Aunt Tillie?”

  “I thought it was just the girls,” I replied. “Then Aunt Tillie sat down and the conversation completely died. She said she was going to watch over them so they don’t get into any trouble.”

  “That’s good, right?” Terry said. “You’re worried about them retaliating against Lila and Rosemary. Aunt Tillie will stop that.”

  Marnie rolled her eyes. “Have you met Aunt Tillie? She’s not going to stop them from going after Lila and Rosemary. She’s going to help them.”

  “Even if that’s true, what could she possibly do?” Terry asked. “Are they going to short sheet all the beds? Are they going to go on a mad poison ivy spree? They’re stuck at a campsite. There’s no way they can get into any serious trouble.”

  It’s a good thing he’s handsome, because he’s beyond naïve sometimes. “Aunt Tillie can conjure trouble with her bare hands,” I said.

  “Literally,” Marnie added.

  “Would she really go out of her way to hurt two teenage girls?” Terry still wasn’t convinced.

  “If those teenage girls hurt the teenage girls in her family she would absolutely go after them,” I said. “Aunt Tillie already dislikes Lila. Rosemary’s friendship with her only makes matters worse.”

  “And what’s the deal with this Rosemary kid? I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before. Does she live in town?”

  “She’s … family,” Marnie said carefully. “Kind of.”

  “Family?”

  “Aunt Tillie has another sister, other than our mother I mean,” I said. “Her name is Willa and she’s … unique.”

  “Aunt Tillie is unique,” Terry said. “Are you saying Willa is worse?”

  “Definitely,” Marnie said. “She’s also very different. She’s a … cold … woman. She thinks women have a certain place in the home, and that never sat right with Aunt Tillie. They’ve always fought like cats and dogs. Willa wants women to stay in their place.”

  “And that place is the kitchen,” I said.

  “You guys like to cook,” Terry said. “How is that a bad thing?”

  “It’s not a bad thing,” I said, “but Aunt Willa thinks the only thing a woman should do is cook.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  “She also doesn’t think a woman over the age of eighteen should wear pants, and she certainly doesn’t think a woman should hold a job outside of the house,” Marnie said. “She has these antiquated beliefs, and we’ve never fit into the world as she’d like to see it.”

  “So why did she bring Rosemary here?”

  “My guess is that she wanted a few days to herself,” I said. “Rosemary’s mother, our cousin Nettie, learned her mothering skills from Aunt Willa. She’s cold, too, and when she doesn’t feel like dealing with Rosemary she dumps her on Aunt Willa.”

  “That kind of makes me feel bad for the kid,” Terry said. “It’s hell when no one wants you.”

  “We’ve tried to be nice to Rosemary,” I said.

  Marnie rolled her eyes.

  “We have,” I said. “When she was younger, we went out of our way to engage her. We wanted her to be friends with Bay, Clove and Thistle. We were never close with Nettie. She was a horrible
kid. We didn’t want the same thing to happen to the next generation.”

  “That sounds good,” Terry said. “Where’s the problem?”

  “Rosemary is the same kind of kid her mother was,” I said. “She was mean to the girls when she was around them. She thought she was better than them. She pulled their hair. She made up stories. She went out of her way to get the girls in trouble.”

  “When we didn’t believe her stories, Rosemary turned on us and Aunt Willa became even more distant,” Marnie said. “She wanted us to spank the girls and punish them, all on the word of a child who is clearly a pathological liar and manipulator. When we refused, things sort of blew up.”

  “We barely see Aunt Willa these days,” I said. “We’ve seen Rosemary only a few times in five years.”

  “And we haven’t seen Nettie in more than five years,” Marnie said. “Our branch of the family and their branch don’t mingle well together.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why Willa would dump her on you guys for a few days,” Terry said. “If anything, she should want to keep the kid away from you.”

  “We’re not sure what’s going on there either,” I said. “Maybe she wants Rosemary to spy on us.”

  “To what end?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Terry shrugged. “I think you guys are making a mountain out of a molehill,” he said. “I’m used to it, but this seems especially out there. As far as I can tell, Lila and Rosemary are at one table and your girls are at another table.”

  “With Aunt Tillie,” I said.

  “I’m glad she’s with them,” Terry said. “Lila and Rosemary will think twice about doing anything horrible with Aunt Tillie around.”

  “I can see you don’t know a lot about teenage girls,” I said. “At this age, they don’t think about the ramifications. They only think about immediate victory over someone else.”

  Terry was nonplussed. “I’m not going to get worked up about this,” he said. “We won’t let Rosemary and Lila win. It’s pretty simple in my book.”

  Oh, if he only knew how really wrong he was.

  Six

  “I’m so glad your hamburgers didn’t have burnt black stuff on them,” Marnie teased, poking me in the side. “That would have been really nasty.”

  I shot her a look. I knew she was trying to lift my spirits, but my mind was too busy with witchy stuff to worry about the mundane. I often thought Bay spent too much time hiding in her own head. I was starting to wonder whether it was a trait she picked up from me.

  That was a sobering thought. Crap. Who needs that? I decided a long time ago that I would take credit for all of Bay’s good traits and disavow all of the bad ones. What? Isn’t that how all parents survive?

  “Everyone seemed to enjoy their dinner,” I said. “The girls had a good time, and Aunt Tillie stuck close to them. Maybe they’re not up to anything.”

  “Sometimes I think you’re bi-polar,” Marnie said. “One minute you think Aunt Tillie and Thistle are going to burn the whole campsite down to get to Lila and the next you think they’re just sitting around flapping their angel wings.”

  “Which instinct do you think is right?” I was genuinely curious.

  “I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle,” Marnie said. “I think it’s far more likely that Thistle and Aunt Tillie will set the camp on fire with their angel wings.”

  I involuntarily snorted, relief flooding through me. I can always count on my sisters to yank me out of a depressing reverie – even if I’m not particularly keen on making the trip. “They seem to be calm now,” I said. “Let’s just go with the flow. We’ll have a bonfire, some s'mores, and then we’ll send them to bed. There won’t be any ghost stories, and if we’re lucky, there will be a whole lot of sleep tonight.”

  “When was the last time we were lucky?”

  “I like to think we’ve always been lucky,” I said.

  “I see you found your rose-colored glasses again,” Marnie teased.

  “You’re really starting to bug me.”

  “That’s why I’m here.”

  We returned to our cleanup, and I was surprised when Aunt Tillie joined us a few minutes later. Manual labor was usually on her not-to-do list, so any time she decided to help my trouble detector flipped into high gear. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” Aunt Tillie said. “I’m just making sure that everything gets put in the garbage. We don’t want any little varmints running around in the middle of the night.”

  “Are you talking about animals or kids?”

  “Both.”

  I smirked. “What were you talking about with the girls?”

  Aunt Tillie pursed her lips, considering. “Minor stuff,” she said. “I only wanted them to feel safe.”

  She never ceases to amaze me. Just when I think she’s up to no good, she turns around and plays the dutiful aunt. “Thank you.”

  “To feel safe, they have to take Lila down.”

  I scowled. “Seriously? I was just giving myself a mental butt-kicking because I felt bad for thinking you were up to no good.”

  “Keep doing that,” Aunt Tillie said. “Everything I do is good. When you fill your mind with bad thoughts, you sully our family bond.”

  “I’m going to sully you if you don’t behave,” I said. “Don’t encourage those girls to do something bad. After this afternoon … .”

  “Bay knows what she did,” Aunt Tillie said, her eyes serious. “She didn’t at first, but it didn’t take her long to figure it out.”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  “Not in so many words,” Aunt Tillie said. “I know that she’s talked to Clove and Thistle about it, though.”

  “And what did they say?”

  “Clove is worried Bay is going to go all Carrie-at-the-prom and Thistle is hoping she does,” Aunt Tillie said.

  That sounded about right. “What is Bay worried about?”

  “Bay is worried about a lost soul in the woods,” Aunt Tillie said.

  That figured. Even though she’s a dreamer, Bay takes a pragmatic approach to her problems. Lila isn’t going anywhere. She’s always going to be a problem. The ghost is another story. With limited time at camp, of course Bay is more worried about the ghost. “Does she know who it is?”

  “No.”

  “I’m worried it’s Donna Wilder,” I admitted.

  Aunt Tillie inhaled heavily, her mind working as she considered the possibility. “I guess that makes sense. She could have come up here to get the camp in order. Something could have happened to her.”

  “We know people who die accidentally don’t usually return,” I said. “If it is Donna, doesn’t that mean something bad happened to her?”

  “Just because it was bad, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t an accident,” Aunt Tillie said.

  “Have you seen any ghosts hanging around?”

  “I haven’t been looking,” Aunt Tillie replied. “I’ve seen a few flashes, though. I’ve been more interested in watching Lila and Rosemary. I’m … bothered … about Rosemary’s reasons for being here. She clearly doesn’t want to be here. That means it was Willa’s idea.”

  “Maybe it was Nettie’s idea.”

  “Nettie has never had her own ideas,” Aunt Tillie said. “That’s the way Willa likes it. No, this was Willa’s idea, but I can’t figure out what she thinks it’s going to get her.”

  “Maybe she only wants a few days away from Rosemary,” I suggested. “I’ve been around her twenty-four hours and I’m already at my limit.”

  “She is a particular little … .”

  I lifted a challenging eyebrow.

  “… Ray of sunshine,” Aunt Tillie finished through gritted teeth. “Willa would have to be desperate to dump Rosemary here, though. The kid is fourteen. If she needs a couple of hours alone, Rosemary can take care of herself.”

  “Unless she can’t,” I said. “It’s not as though Aunt Willa raised Nettie to be self-sufficient. The same is p
robably true of Rosemary.”

  “Well, we can’t do anything but watch the little ray of poopy sunshine,” Aunt Tillie said. “Oh, don’t give me that look. I held off for as long as I could.”

  “Just keep your eyes peeled for the ghost,” I said. “And if you notice Lila and Rosemary plotting anything, I want to know right away. Don’t handle it yourself.”

  “They’re definitely plotting something,” Aunt Tillie said. “I’m not sure what it is, but you shouldn’t be worried. I’d put Thistle’s devious brain up against both of theirs combined any day of the week.”

  Thankfully, so would I. “Just … watch them. We have only two more nights and two more days here. I’m sure we can survive.”

  “Oh, everyone is going to survive,” Aunt Tillie said. “I just can’t promise what mental state a few of these little … darlings … are going to leave in.”

  “Be good.”

  “I always am.”

  “OKAY guys, no ghost stories tonight,” I said, distributing marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate to the assembled kids. “We’re going to make some s'mores, have a few laughs and then we’re going to bed.”

  “There will be no screaming and panicking tonight,” Marnie warned.

  Terry lifted an eyebrow in my direction as he took his chocolate bar. “Screaming?”

  “It seems someone scratched on the window at the first cabin and the girls thought it was a china doll trying to scratch their eyes out last night,” I said. “Since the doll from the story resembled a certain someone, she was attacked.”

  Terry fought the urge to smile. “I see. Who scratched the window?”

  I shot a pointed look at Aunt Tillie, who steadfastly ignored me and directed Thistle to roast marshmallows for her. “We’re not sure,” I lied.

  Terry chuckled. “I had a feeling that was going to happen,” he said. “How many times were they up last night?”

  “Five.”

  “I’m glad I have boys,” Terry said. “Other than a nervous trip across the lake in canoes, my kids passed out right away.”

  “You only have twelve of them, too,” I pointed out.

  “Have you ever considered I’m just better at corralling the mayhem?”