A Solstice Celebration: A Wicked Witches of the Midwest Short Read online

  “What are you going to do?” Thistle asked.

  “I have to check on Bay,” I said. “Believe it or not, despite the theatrics from you two she actually has the suckiest job today.”

  “Yeah, we’ll compare sucky jobs when the curses start landing,” Thistle said. “Thirty bucks had better be enough to cover new pants if it becomes necessary.”

  “Just … go!”

  I FOUND Bay sitting in the middle of the clearing, her legs bent and her elbows resting on her knees. She looked forlorn.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, approaching her slowly. I scanned the clearing for a sign of whatever it was she studied, even though I knew there was no way I could see Constance’s ghost. “Is she here?”

  “She’s here,” Bay confirmed. “She’s … very confused.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, flipping my fingers through Bay’s flaxen hair to smooth it. “Is she having trouble accepting she’s dead? She wasn’t murdered, was she? It’s going to be a pain if the cops are up here traipsing around and ruining the atmosphere for the solstice celebration.”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I was worrying about, too,” Bay deadpanned, rolling her eyes. “I don’t mean that she doesn’t seem to accept that she’s dead – although that may be true – I can’t be sure. I mean she doesn’t seem to know who she is.”

  I knit my eyebrows, confused. “How does that work?”

  “I have no idea,” Bay said. “She’s been talking to me and stuff, but she kind of … fades in and out. One moment she seems fine, although she keeps calling me Winnie. That’s insulting. I look nothing like my mother.”

  “You look no more like your mother than Clove looks like me,” I said.

  “Oh, gross,” Bay said, wrinkling her nose. Clove is an exact miniature of me, so I knew exactly where Bay’s mind headed. “That’s a depressing cherry on the top of an otherwise sucky day.”

  “Everyone thinks this is a sucky day,” I said. “Tell me what’s going on with Constance. I can’t help if I don’t know all the facts.”

  “She knows she’s Constance sometimes,” Bay explained. “Well, she knew she was Constance once. The rest of the time she keeps asking who she is. I told her and she kind of remembered, but then she forgot again.”

  “Hmm.” I rolled Bay’s words through my mind. “Terry said that Constance’s daughter was worried because her mother had been acting strange. I wonder if she had a form of dementia.”

  “Do people with dementia know it when they have it?”

  “That’s a good question,” I said. “I honestly don’t know. My gut instinct is probably no, though. When your mind slips like that, you probably believe whatever reality confronts you.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “It is sad, Bay,” I agreed. “Does Constance know where her body is? It has to be around here somewhere. It has to be close. If she’s as confused as you say she is, I don’t think she’s wandering. She stayed here, after all. I think that means she died close to this spot.”

  “That’s sad, too.”

  “Why do you say that?” I wasn’t arguing the fact that it was sad, but questioning the reason Bay thought it was sad. She’s a melancholy little thing sometimes. It can get old pretty quickly.

  “That means she died out here alone and probably didn’t know who she was when it happened,” Bay answered. “She could’ve fallen and hit her head … or twisted her ankle. Imagine how frightened she was when she died.”

  Sometimes I forget Bay has reason to be melancholy. She sees hard things that the rest of us don’t have to deal with. “I think we should probably call Terry,” I said. “He’s going to have to get people out here looking for her. I’m not sure what to tell him, though.”

  “He knows I can see ghosts,” Bay said. “I talked to his mother. She gave me a message for him.”

  “I know, and Terry would never turn on you,” I said. “But how is he going to get a search party out here without telling them why we suspect Constance’s body is near?”

  “Maybe he should come alone first,” Bay suggested. “He might have a better idea where to look for the body. Then he can say we found it, and call the ambulance people to get her.”

  “That’s a good idea,” I said, digging into my pocket for my cell phone. When Winnie suggested everyone get them, I thought it was a stupid idea. Now I couldn’t imagine not having it – especially given this family’s antics. “I’ll have him come straight out here and then leave you two alone. If you get scared … or if you find a body … you can come right home. Terry won’t expect you to stay. You don’t need to see it.”

  “I’ll stay,” Bay said. “Constance needs someone to watch her until … you know.”

  “I do know,” I said. What I didn’t say was how worried I was about Constance’s ghostly future. If the woman couldn’t remember who she was, or that she was dead for more than a few moments, how could she move on?

  Eight

  “What’s going on?”

  Terry’s face was a mask of concern when he joined us in the clearing twenty minutes later.

  “We have a problem,” I said, helping Bay to her feet. “We should’ve told you sooner, but things have been really crazy. That’s not an excuse, though. I’m sorry.”

  “Apologizing before you tell me what’s wrong is a surefire way to get my hackles up,” Terry said, running his hand over the top of Bay’s head. He could read the stiff set of her shoulders and the sad look on her face. While I would prefer Terry favored Clove over the other girls – hey, she is my daughter, after all – I knew Bay needed him more. That’s why Terry gravitated toward her. “Tell me what’s wrong and we’ll fix it.”

  “The other day – the day you stopped by to ask us about Constance Warren going missing, in fact – we came to this spot to clean it for our … picnic,” I started.

  “I know you guys aren’t picnicking out here,” Terry said, using air quotes for emphasis. “I don’t want to know what you’re doing out here, especially after finding out it will more than likely involve nudity, so I thank you for calling it that. Just tell me what’s going on. You’re starting to worry me.”

  “Bay saw something that day,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Constance’s ghost,” I answered.

  “Oh, man,” Terry said, letting loose with a disgusted sigh and leaning his head down as he rubbed the back of his neck. He studied his feet for a moment and then shifted his gaze to Bay. “Do you know how she died?”

  Bay shook her head. “She’s … confused.”

  “Is that normal for … that type of person?” Terry asked, exhaling heavily. “I’m sorry. I don’t like talking about this stuff. It’s easier to pretend it isn’t real.”

  “Well, we’d like you to get back to your fantasy world as soon as possible,” I supplied. “Bay says Constance can’t remember her name sometimes, has confused her for Winnie a time or two and doesn’t seem to understand anything about death or why she would be out here.”

  “I guess that’s not normal,” Terry pressed.

  Bay shook her head. “Most ghosts know they’re dead,” she answered. “It takes a little while for some of them to comprehend and accept it, but most of them know it whether they want to admit it or not. They stay behind because they want revenge for someone killing them … or they want their body found. They generally have a reason.”

  “Why do you think Constance is here?”

  “Because she doesn’t know how to ask for what she needs,” Bay replied.

  “Okay,” Terry said, placing his hand on her shoulder. “I guess you think her body is around here. Am I right?”

  Bay nodded. “She’s been here for days, which means she isn’t wandering,” she explained. “She’s confused, so she probably doesn’t know how to wander. I guess she’s on an endless loop. She remembers where and who she is for brief periods and then she … whatever … she’s trapped.”

  “Constance’s daughter made it s
ound as if her mother’s mind was slipping,” Terry supplied. “I thought that was just normal mother and daughter stuff – like when Thistle says Twila is losing it – but now I’m starting to wonder whether something else was going on.”

  “She might’ve had dementia or early onset Alzheimer’s disease,” I suggested. “Constance was in her late fifties, so she seems young for that, but I’ve read about other cases in which it began at a young age.”

  “That’s definitely possible,” Terry said. “Okay, I’m going to take a look around. Just for my own edification, though, I’m not risking running into any naked people out here, right?”

  The question was enough to draw a genuine smile from Bay.

  “No,” I said, chuckling. “The guests don’t arrive until tomorrow afternoon. You’re safe until then.”

  “Good to know.”

  “But Aunt Tillie is missing and could be out here for all we know,” Bay said, an impish grin playing at the corner of her lips. “You definitely don’t want to see that.”

  “You’re such a comedian,” Terry said, pinching Bay’s cheek and giving it a good jiggle. “Why don’t you go back to the house with Marnie? You don’t need to stay out here for this.”

  Bay pressed her lips together and considered the offer, ultimately shaking her head when she made her decision. “Constance needs someone who can see her,” she said. “I won’t go close to the body, but maybe she’ll be lucid for a minute and show us where her body is. She can’t tell her story if there’s no one here to hear it.”

  “You’re very wise, young lady,” Terry said. “Stay close to me and don’t investigate anything on your own. If you think you see something, you point it out to me and then hang back until I check it out. Agreed?”

  Bay nodded.

  “I’m going to leave you to it then,” I said. “I have pies that need to go in the oven, and I sent Thistle and Clove on a mission before I left. Hopefully they’ll have what I’m looking for when I get back.”

  “Do I even want to know what that means?” Terry asked.

  “Nope.”

  THE KITCHEN was quiet when I returned to the house. I poked my head through the open door that led to the basement and listened, but heard nothing. I hoped that meant Clove and Thistle were upstairs hiding the prized box of ritual goodies. In the wrong hands – and, yes, Aunt Tillie’s are an example of the wrong hands – the supplies could do a lot of damage.

  I set the oven to preheat before leaving, so I shoved four of the pies onto the hot racks and set the timer before moving to the counter to start filling the blackberry pies. I was lost in my own world, niggling worry about Bay and anticipation for Aunt Tillie’s meltdown when she realized the supplies were gone warring for top billing in my mind. I was so lost in thought it took me a moment to register the banging noise coming from the stairway in the living room.

  I frowned and waited. If Clove and Thistle were up to something they would make their presence known sooner, rather than later. I was almost content to return to my baking when I heard the banging a second time.

  “What in the world?” I muttered, wiping my hands on my apron and running into the living room. “What’s going on? Why are you making that racket?”

  Clove and Thistle stood in the middle of the stairway, both gripping the railing intensely.

  “Mom?” Clove sounded terrified.

  “Of course it’s me,” I said, furrowing my brow as I moved closer. “Are you two playing a game? I’m not upping your pay. You get thirty bucks each. A deal is a deal.”

  “Mom, is that really you?” Clove asked, her voice cracking. That’s when I realized that even though her eyes looked in my direction, she wasn’t focusing on me.

  “It’s me,” I said. “I just told you that. What’s going on? Did you find the box?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Thistle spat, flailing about as she attempted to keep her balance on the step. “Forget the stupid box! We have much bigger problems.”

  “Such as?”

  “We’re blind, you idiot!” Thistle shrieked, her tone shrill enough to cause Clove to burst into tears.

  “What do you mean … you’re blind?” I understood the words, yet had trouble comprehending the reality.

  “We can’t see,” Thistle said, waving her hand in front of her face. “Nothing. Nada. It’s all black in here.”

  “But … how?”

  “How do you think?” Thistle snapped. “Aunt Tillie knows we found her box and she cursed us. You know how she feels about thieves. She thinks they should have their hands cut off and their eyes gouged out. This is the closest she could get to eye gouging without permanently maiming us.”

  That couldn’t be right, could it? Aunt Tillie would never … . Oh, who am I kidding? I can’t even finish that statement. “Okay,” I said, hurrying toward the girls. “I’m coming to get you. Clove, stay right there. I’ll help Thistle down the stairs first. Then I’ll sit you on the couch and everything will be fine.”

  “Yes, everything will be peachy,” Thistle said, sarcasm practically dripping from her tongue. “This is so not worth thirty bucks.”

  After a minor bit of grappling – and a heck of a lot of swearing that I pretended I didn’t hear – I situated Thistle on the couch before retrieving Clove. My own daughter maintained she didn’t trust me to help her down the stairs without cracking her head open, so she insisted on sitting on the steps and inching her way down herself. By the time I had them both settled, the timer in the kitchen went off and I had to save the pies before they burned.

  When I returned to the living room, Thistle was plotting Aunt Tillie’s demise.

  “I’m going to sneak into her room when she’s sleeping,” she said. “I’m going to do it on a night when I know she’s had wine so she won’t wake up. She’ll be snoring like the dickens, and then I’ll put a pillow over her face and lay on it until she stops fighting. Then I’ll lay on it another few minutes, because she’s the type who would play dead to save herself.”

  “I’m just going to cry,” Clove said. “That’s what I feel like doing now. If I cry, will you make fun of me?”

  Thistle hated crying. “Yes.”

  “Okay. I guess I won’t do it then,” Clove said, although I could hear the sniffle from here.

  “Girls, everything is going to be fine,” I announced as I walked into the room, cringing when both of them jolted at the sound of my voice. They really were helpless. “I’ll find Aunt Tillie. You just sit here and don’t move. I don’t want you to hurt yourselves.”

  “I’m going to hurt that old lady,” Thistle snapped. “She needs me to hurt her. She wants it. That’s why she did this. There can be no other explanation.”

  I understood the inclination to attach reasons to Aunt Tillie’s deeds, although they almost never proved true. Aunt Tillie simply does what she wants to do whenever the mood strikes. She has no boundaries, and there are times I think she never had a moral compass. If she hadn’t taken us in after the death of our mother – and truly loved us for years – I’d consider embracing the fact that she has no redeeming qualities. Every time I think that, though, she surprises me.

  One year she saved Christmas. Another year she took Bay trick or treating because the other kids were making fun of her. Funnily enough, all those kids ended up with fifty toothbrushes in their bags while Bay could barely carry her candy home. Six months ago Aunt Tillie taught Thistle how to cut the crotch out of her sworn enemy’s pants in the gym locker room without even touching the clothing so she couldn’t be blamed. Okay, that last one wasn’t great for mankind, but it made Thistle happy.

  What she did this time, though, is beyond words.

  “I’ll find her and make her reverse the spell,” I said. “She’ll do it because I won’t give her a choice. I promise this is temporary.”

  “There’s a chance it’s not temporary?” Clove was bordering on panic.

  “I’ll handle it,” I said. “I … huh.”

  “N
ow what?” Thistle snapped.

  “I hope Aunt Tillie didn’t curse Bay, too,” I said.

  “Yes, because poor Bay is too good to be cursed and we’re not,” Thistle hissed. “Bay, Bay, Bay. Everyone loves Bay!”

  “It’s not that, mouthy. It’s just that Bay is still in the woods,” I said. “Terry is with her, but if she was heading back to the house on her own … .” Crapsticks! “I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”

  “We couldn’t if we wanted to,” Thistle called to my back. “You’re probably going to want to hurry up. I had three glasses of juice for breakfast and my bladder is going to start calling soon.”

  Well, great. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about.

  IT FELT as if it took me forever to find Bay and Terry. When I did, Bay was leaning against a tree and Terry was standing about twenty feet away, talking on his phone. He didn’t look happy.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, racing to Bay and searching her face. “You’re not blind, are you?”

  “What?” Bay was dumbfounded.

  Terry disconnected his phone and shoved it in his pocket, fixing me with a questioning look. “Why are you so worked up? Why would Bay be blind? I didn’t let her stare at the body, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “Aunt Tillie cursed Thistle and Clove, and now they’re blind,” I answered. “Wait … you found Constance’s body? That’s good, right?”

  “Not for Constance,” Bay said.

  “Bay, I’m living on the edge right now,” I said. “I can’t take much more. I’m at my limit. You probably want to tread carefully right about now.”

  Bay had the grace to look abashed. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t take whatever nonsense is happening back at that house out on her,” Terry ordered. “She’s had it bad enough.”

  Crapsticks! Now what? “She didn’t see the body, did she? If she saw the body Winnie will never let me live this down. She’ll never put me in charge again either. That means Twila will be in charge. Do you know how awful that will be?”