Any Witch Way You Can (8 page)

“You always take her side,” I muttered as I reluctantly moved into the corn maze.

I pulled the flashlight I had tucked into the waistband of my black stretchy pants out and flicked it on.

“Should we risk having that on?” Thistle hissed.

“How do you suggest we find our way otherwise? The hay is so tall in there it will block out the moon and we don’t want any of the hay bales tumbling on top of us. Do you really want to feel your way around – especially knowing someone left a dead body in here less than twenty-four hours ago?”

“She has a point,” Clove said nervously.

“Oh, now you’re on my side,” I shot back sarcastically.

We entered the maze. I could feel Clove’s hand at my back. I had no doubt Thistle’s hand was similarly placed at Clove’s back.

“How long?” I could tell Clove didn’t think this was such a fun adventure anymore.

“I don’t know. Like ten minutes,” I said.

We made the trek to the center of the maze in relative silence. The only time that the quiet was shattered was when we inadvertently stepped on someone else’s foot.

“Ouch, that was my foot,” Clove complained.

“You stepped on my foot.”

“I did not.”

I was relieved when we finally made it to the center of the maze. Even Clove and Thistle breathed a sigh of relief when we were free of the closed in walls of the oppressive corn and could take a step away from one another. Of course, given the fact that we were sneaking into a murder scene in the dead of the night – none of us stepped too far away from one another.

“Do you see anything?” Thistle finally asked.

“No.”

“Well, we tried,” Clove interjected hurriedly. “Let’s go.”

I glared at her over my flashlight. “We’re here now. We might as well look around.”

Clove looked like she wanted to argue – or bolt. Instead she sighed heavily. “Fine, but I want it put on the record that I think this is a bad idea.”

“You thought this was a great idea an hour ago,” I teased her.

“That’s before we started wandering around a haunted corn maze,” she shot back.

“We don’t know it’s haunted – yet.”

“Anyone remember watching
Children of the Corn
?” Thistle asked.

“Why would you bring that up?” Clove practically shrieked.

I smiled to myself. I had forgotten how much that movie freaked Clove out.

“Malachi! Malachi!” I hissed, in best impression of the creepy kid from the movie’s voice.

“You stop that right now!” Clove stomped her small foot indignantly.

“He who walks behind the rows,” Thistle whispered evilly. “He’s coming for you.”

“I’m telling if you don’t stop it,” Clove whimpered. Who was she going to tell?

I was swinging my flashlight around the area, trying to remember another line from the movie when the beam landed on a pair of Converse sneakers. I felt my heart lodge in my throat and I froze.

While Thistle and Clove are often oblivious to certain life cues, they both stopped what they were doing when they saw my rigid posture. Thistle was at my side in a second.

“What do you see?”

My throat was dry and I could barely form words. Thistle put her hand on my shoulder reassuringly. “What do you see?”

“C-c-converse,” I finally squeaked out. “Gray ones.”

“Where?”

“In the flashlight,” I said.

Thistle followed the flashlight beam with her eyes. “I don’t see anything,” she said finally. She turned to Clove. “Do you?”

Clove looked like the last thing she wanted to do was see if there was someone – or something – wearing Converse in the corn maze. She knew she wasn’t going to get out of here, though, until she looked.

After a full minute of staring at the area where I had the flashlight pointed, she finally shook her head. “There’s nothing there.”

Thistle turned back to me. “Do you still see them?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s probably him,” Thistle said eagerly. “You said it was a teenage boy. Teenage boys wear Converse.”

“So do we,” I snapped back.

“They’re good shoes,” Thistle said comfortingly.

The figure that was standing behind the maze wall – the one that clearly belonged to the shoes – finally peeked around the corner to look where we were standing. His gaze met mine, and he appeared uncertain.

“We won’t hurt you,” I promised.

“Do you see him?” Thistle was the one enjoying our predicament now.

The boy swallowed hard and then took a bold step out into the center of the maze. Once he was clear of the maze wall, I could get a good look at him. He had a slight build and shoulder-length brown hair. I couldn’t tell what color his eyes were – but they looked brown under the pale moonlight. He was dressed in over-sized jeans, an AC/DC shirt – everything old is new again, after all – and the gray converse shoes. He also had a black hoodie on. He looked like a typical teenager.

“You can see me?” The boy asked cautiously.

I nodded. “I can.” I pointed to Clove and Thistle. “They can’t, though.”

“They know you’re talking to me, though,” he said. He seemed scared, which made me sad. He was already dead, what did he have to be scared about?

“They do.”

“How?”

“They’re my cousins.”

“But how do they know you’re talking to me if they can’t see me?”

Now, here’s a tricky situation. I wasn’t sure if the boy realized he was dead. If he didn’t, I had to break the news to him as carefully as possible. Even if he did, though, I didn’t know if I should fess up to being a witch. Even ghosts get a little freaked out about stuff like that. I decided to go for a mixture of the truth.

“I’ve been able to see things that other people can’t since I was a kid,” I finally said.

“Like ghosts?”

Whew. He knew he was dead. “You know you’re a ghost?” I asked sympathetically.

The boy looked shocked. “I’m a ghost? You’re saying I’m a ghost?”

“Why did you ask if I could see ghosts if you didn’t know you were a ghost?” I asked, suddenly panicked.

I could see Thistle and Clove taking the conversation in beside me – but neither one said a word.

“I was just asking a question,” the boy said indignantly. “You don’t just blurt out that you’re a ghost to someone, you know?”

“I’m sorry,” I said simply. “I thought you knew.”

The boy blew out a sigh – or at least the approximation of a sigh. He didn’t have breath anymore, after all.

“I had a suspicion that I was dead,” he admitted.

I figured that. “Why?”

“Because I tried to talk to all the police that were here earlier and none of them could hear me. Plus, there was that whole body thing.”

Yep, that would do it.

I decided to approach the next question delicately. “What do you remember?”

“What do you mean?” The boy furrowed his eyebrows in a confused expression.

“She means, who killed you?”

I swung to Thistle in surprise. “You can see him?”

She shook her head. “No. But I can hear him. It was hard to hear him at first, but now I hear him like he’s standing right beside us.”

I turned to Clove. “Can you hear him, too?”

“Yeah,” she bit her lower lip. “It’s creepy.”

“I’m not creepy!” The boy was starting to lose it.

“No, you’re not,” I soothed him calmly. “What’s your name?”

“Shane,” the boy answered.

“Shane what?”

“Shane Haskell.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m seventeen,” he said bitterly.

“Where are you from?”

“Beula,” he said.

“Where’s Beula?” Clove looked confused.

“It’s on the other side of Traverse City,” Thistle interjected. “At least I think. I’ve never actually been there.”

The boy was nodding at their conversation.

“How did you get here?” I asked.

Shane raised his hands in a palms-up motion. “I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember who killed you?” Clove looked doubtful. At least she wasn’t terrified anymore.

“No,” Shane glared in her direction.

“Is that normal?” Clove turned to me.

“Sometimes it takes them awhile,” I said.

“Will I eventually remember?” Shane asked.

“I don’t know. I hope so.” Actually, given the way that he died, I wasn’t hopeful that Shane would remember his final moments. Maybe they were too horrible for him to process – and that was why he had forgotten them.

“Do you think my mom knows I’m dead?” He looked like he was going to cry.

“I don’t know,” I said. “They didn’t know who you were this afternoon.”

“She’s going to be all alone now,” Shane said bitterly.

“I’ll make sure I tell them who you are tomorrow,” I promised Shane. How I was going to explain my knowledge of his identity was a conundrum I would tackle then.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Until then, why don’t you come with us,” I offered.

“That’s a good idea,” Thistle said. “If he does remember, we don’t want to have to come back here.”

“You want me to go home with you?” He seemed almost relieved.

I paused for a second. I really didn’t want him hanging around our house. If the aunts saw him, or heard him for that matter, it would raise a lot of difficult questions I wasn’t ready to answer.

“For tonight,” I said. “Then you can go and hang around at Thistle and Clove’s magic shop tomorrow with them.”

Seemed like a good solution to me.

Thistle gave me a dirty look. “Why the magic shop?”

I turned to her and smiled sweetly. “This was your idea. I figured you’d want to help – especially since I know you can hear him. Just think of yourself as his guardian angel.”

Shane seemed to be coming out of his funk, because he was smiling when he got a better look at Thistle under the moonlight.

“My guardian angel is hot!”

Thistle turned to me. The fake smile on her face looked like it was carved out of granite. When I didn’t budge on my earlier proclamation, though, she sighed reluctantly. “Fine, he can come to the magic store.”

She turned on her heel and started to head out of the corn maze. I smiled as Shane readily followed us.

“Aw, man, you all have asses like super models! Can I watch you in the shower?”

Clove turned to me as I paused to let her enter the maze in front of me. “Now I can see why he was killed.”

Eight

The next morning, I was surprised to wake up with a pronounced ache in my back. Last night’s activities were coming back to haunt me – in more ways than one. Shane had been a chatterbox the entire way home. Once he came out of his shell, we couldn’t shut him up. And, like most teenage boys, he was a vulgar little sex monster.

“Do you guys have boyfriends?”

I heard Shane asking the question as I exited my bedroom the next morning. I smiled when I saw Thistle and Clove sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee. They both looked as tired as I felt.

“No,” Thistle said shortly.

“Thistle is hoping to have one soon, though,” Clove supplied.  After last night’s scare, she was back to her favorite activity: Irritating Thistle.

Thistle shot her a death glare.

“I bet he’s hot,” Shane said.

“He is,” Clove agreed.

“My mom said that I would grow into my looks one day,” Shane said sadly. “I guess that will never happen. I’ll never get the chance to get a hot girl.”

“I’m sure you’re cute,” Clove said.

I regarded Shane’s baby face – and the smattering of acne across his cheeks that was now readily apparent in the daylight – and sighed internally. I felt bad for Shane. Not only had he died a horrible death, but if he did remain a ghost for any extended period of time, he was going to be a teenage ghost with zits.

“Good morning,” I said brightly, announcing my presence when I entered the room.

“What’s good about it?” Thistle grumbled.

“Didn’t you sleep?”

“Who can sleep with Captain Can’t Stop Talking in the house?”

I turned to Shane, who was studying his shoes sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to keep her up,” he said. “I just couldn’t sleep – do ghosts even sleep? – and I guess I got carried away.”

I smirked at Thistle when I saw the dark circles under her eyes and the grim expression on her face. “I’m sure Thistle didn’t really mind,” I lied. “She’s just grumpy until she has at least three cups of coffee in her system every morning.”

Shane brightened considerably at my statement. “My mom is like that, too.”

“See, Thistle,” I teased. “You’re just like his mom.”

Despite the fact that Shane had proved to be a tenacious little horn dog, I couldn’t help but like him. Plus, the reminder of the way he died was weighing heavily on me – so I had more sympathy for Shane than I would a normal teenager.

“I need to take a shower,” Clove announced.

“So? Do it. You want us to give you an award or something?” Thistle really was grumpy this morning.

Clove bit her bottom lip. “I can’t until . . . “

“Until what?” I prodded.

“I can’t until I’m sure he won’t come in and watch me,” she admitted, pointing in the direction she had last heard Shane’s voice emanate from.

I turned to Shane, who couldn’t take his eyes off Thistle. I didn’t think Clove had anything to worry about. Still, I felt the need to placate her. “Shane?”

He turned his attention to me reluctantly. “You won’t watch Clove in the shower, will you?”

“No,” Shane promised.

“Just take a shower, Clove,” Thistle grumbled. “Don’t be a baby.”

Clove reluctantly got up and headed into the bathroom. I don’t think she believed Shane entirely – but I didn’t want to crush her ego and tell her he’d barely noticed she was in the room thanks to his infatuation with Thistle.

When Clove was gone, Thistle turned to me expectantly. “So, what happens now?”

“I’m going to get ready for work and stop at the police department on my way in,” I said.

“Are you going to tell him who I am? I mean, who I was? I mean, who the body was in the corn maze?” Shane turned his full attention to me for the first time that morning. He didn’t seem put off by my out-of-control bedhead.

“I’m going to try and figure out if he knows who you are first,” I said. “If he doesn’t, then I’ll figure something out. I can’t just tell him a ghost told me.”