Every Witch Way But Wicked (A Wicked Witches of the Midwest Mystery)

Every
Witch Way
But Wicked

By Amanda M. Lee

For the real Wicked Witches of the Midwest

Long may they reign with grace, terror and even a whole lot of
sarcasm.

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Author’s Note

“He looks like he’s naked a lot.”

The statement took me by surprise. I had no idea who Edith was talking about but I was suddenly interested. I didn’t bother looking up from the file I was looking through at my desk, but I did tune in a little harder with my ears. Of course, I tried to pretend like I wasn’t listening – mostly because I didn’t want Edith to think I was shallow, well, anymore shallow than she already thought I was.

“He’s not naked a lot,” another voice scoffed. “He’s a businessman. The only time he’s naked is in the shower – like it should be. He even keeps his socks on in bed.”

I still wasn’t used to the other voice yet. It was relatively new – and old – at the same time.

I glanced up to see Edith regarding the new denizen of the paper with one of the most skeptical looks in her repertoire. “Do you really believe that?”

For his part, William Kelly had the grace to look abashed. “Probably not,” he finally ceded. “He’s a good-looking boy. It’s not his fault the ladies throw themselves at him.”

I watched as William tried to sit in the chair across from my desk. Instead of sliding into the chair comfortably, though, I noticed that he was floating about two inches above it. Since he was a ghost, though, and he’d only been dead for a little less than two weeks – this was a pretty solid accomplishment (pun intended).

Edith, on the other hand, looked like she was actually making contact with the other chair. She’d been dead for a lot longer than William, though, so she’d had more time to practice.

“He is good looking,” Edith mused, smoothing her slate gray hair with her hand. It was a nervous gesture she’d retained from life. As a ghost, there really wasn’t any hair there to put into place. “What’s wrong with him?”

“What do you mean?” William looked confused.

“Isn’t he like thirty? Shouldn’t he be married by now?”

I tuned the two ghosts out again and glanced out my office window in the direction where their gazes were trained. I internally sighed as I caught sight of Brian Kelly, the new owner of The Whistler, the only newspaper in Hemlock Cove. He really was good looking.
With his blond hair, chiseled jaw and sparkling blue eyes, he couldn’t be considered anything but gorgeous. Still, there was something about him I just didn’t like. I didn’t say that out loud, though. After all, he was William’s grandson.

My name is Bay Winchester and, yes, I see ghosts. I’ve been able to see them for as long as I can remember. I can hear them. I can talk to them. And, no, it no longer freaks me out – much.

Why can I see ghosts? I was born with the “gift.” Unfortunately, there was no return policy on being a genetic freak. You see, I’m from a long line of witches. We all have some special abilities. One of my cousins can see the future, and one can read minds – sometimes. My mom and my aunts were all accomplished kitchen witches – and I had a feeling they all had other “gifts” that they weren’t exactly making public. That was actually good, because I had no inclination to know what they were truly capable of.

Then there was my Aunt Tillie. Actually, she was my great aunt, but since I was raised in the same house with her that distinction was never really set in stone. There are no words to describe Aunt Tillie – even though evil and batshit crazy spring to mind on occasion.

I shook my head as I tried to break from the reverie I had momentarily lapsed into. This wasn’t the time to think about Aunt Tillie. If I started thinking about her now, I would drive myself to the brink of insanity – and then find myself in a blind rage. I was still mad at her. More on that later, though.

Instead of dwelling on Aunt Tillie and her latest exploits, I turned my attention back to Brian Kelly. He was getting the two-cent tour of The Whistler. He had just inherited the weekly paper from the former owner, William, when he died. Brian was one of William’s grandsons. According to William, he was the only one left in the family capable of running the paper, so he had inherited by default.

I didn’t point out to William that he hadn’t been technically running the paper for the past five years. I had. I didn’t want him to see exactly how bitter I was about his grandson coming in and vowing to “shake things up.” This was Hemlock Cove, after all; there wasn’t a lot to shake up.

Hemlock Cove is a small town in northern lower Michigan on the west side of the state. There is minimal access to Lake Michigan and maximum farm acreage and dense woods. It could be interchanged with just about any other town in the immediate area except for one thing: It was a town of witches.

Okay, the majority of “witches” in Hemlock Cove weren’t really witches. In fact, the only witches in Hemlock Cove that would know an actual curse if it bit them in the ass (that happened to me once thanks to Aunt Tillie) had the last name Winchester. Still, a couple of decades ago, the town found itself at a crossroads. It was faced with a dwindling manufacturing base and a seasonal tourist population in the summer and the winter. Something had to be done.

The town leaders decided to rebrand the town as a tourist destination year round – and they settled on making it a place for paranormal delights. In truth, the rebranding really consisted of installing cobblestone streets, quaint and kitschy
shops, dressed-up townspeople and old-school bakeries and restaurants – all the while hiding any trace of technology.  Still, the rebranding worked.

Tourists now come to Hemlock Cove year round – although fall is our busiest time of year – to ride horses, tour corn mazes and just imbibe cider and homemade whiskey to their heart’s content.

I had been serving as editor of The Whistler for five years. I grew up in Hemlock Cove, but I left for a few years to become a journalist in Detroit. My time spent in the city wasn’t a waste, but I was happy when I returned to the open air and home. The news might not have been as earthshaking, but the scenery was prettier and the people were a lot more welcoming – for the most part.

A few weeks ago, though, I had gotten a surprise when the city – or at least the crime -- had visited Hemlock Cove in the form of a big meth bust and two brutal murders. The murders had ended with something of a supernatural twist, which I was still trying to wrap my brain around.

Surprisingly, despite the stir the drug bust and murders had created in our small hamlet, life had returned to normal relatively quickly. That was before William died, though, and left the paper to his grandson.

From what I’d been able to find out on Google, Brian Kelly was a real estate developer from Ohio. He had been born in Hemlock Cove, but left with his mother when he was ten. He had only been back sporadically since.

“What do you think he wants?” I finally asked William.

“What do you mean? He wants to make this paper the best in town,” William looked nonplussed.

“It’s the only paper in town. By default, that makes it the best paper in town,” I pointed out.

“Well, maybe he just wants to put his stamp on it,” William shot back.

I frowned in response. I had a bad feeling this wasn’t going to work out well for me. I had become accustomed to a certain level of autonomy under William’s leadership. I wasn’t looking forward to giving that up.

William must have noticed my sudden discomfort. “Don’t worry. I made keeping you on as editor part of the agreement for him taking over the paper.”

I looked up at him in surprise. “You did?”

“Of course,” William waved me off. “What does he know about running a newspaper?”

I was relieved by the news, but still wary of Brian’s presence at the paper. It was a small building. I had a feeling his ego was going to take up a lot of space.

I looked to my door expectantly as I saw Brian step to the entrance. He knocked, even though he saw me looking at him through the plate glass window. That was at least considerate. I waved him in and plastered a fake smile across my face. “Back again, I see?”

“Yeah, I’m just trying to get a feel for the building,” Brian said, flashing me a dimpled smile as he took a seat in one of the chairs across from my desk. Since he was now sitting on Edith, I couldn’t help but feel a little uncomfortable.

Edith jumped out of the seat, scandalized. “Well that’s just rude.”

I steadfastly ignored Edith and William. If I didn’t, Brian would think I was crazy – and no one needed that at this point in our relationship. I’d had a lot of practice pretending I didn’t see ghosts growing up, so it wasn’t that hard.

“It’s not a very big building,” I said with a small chuckle. “There’s not a lot to get used to.”

“No, but I was just looking at my grandpa’s office and figuring out what I wanted to do with it,” Brian admitted. “I loved my grandpa, but he had awful taste in office furniture.”

“Those are antiques,” William practically shrieked. “He better not just throw that furniture out. That furniture is worth more than his car.”

I bit my inner lip in an effort to keep the laugh that was bubbling near the surface from escaping. William’s outrage was cute, though. It was a hard battle.

“I think he was pretty attached to that furniture,” I said finally.

“Yeah, I’ll make sure it finds a good home,” Brian said.

“That’s good.”

We lapsed into an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes. I wasn’t sure what to say to him. I didn’t want to encourage him to get too comfortable making editorial decisions, so talking about this week’s edition of The Whistler was definitely out of the question. Besides, I didn’t think the two-page preview of Hemlock Cove’s upcoming Murder Mystery Weekend was going to send him into an excited frenzy.

“It’s almost lunchtime,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. What else are you supposed to say to that?

“I thought maybe you could give me a tour of the town and then we could talk business over lunch? I’m buying, of course.”

Crap. That was the last thing I wanted to do. “I’m supposed to have lunch with my cousins at Hypnotic,” I said. It wasn’t exactly a lie; we had lunch together at their mystical store at least three times a week. We had nothing set in stone today, but they wouldn’t be surprised to see me. “You’re welcome to have lunch with us.” The invitation was merely out of courtesy. I didn’t figure he would accept it. I was wrong.

“That sounds great,” he said enthusiastically. “I’ve been wanting to meet some of the area business owners. Might as well start at the top.”

I smiled at him openly, but inside I was cringing. My cousins, Thistle and Clove, weren’t exactly the top businesswomen in town. If he approached them in the wrong way, they would eat him for lunch.

On second thought, that might be fun.

“Let’s go.”

Hemlock Cove is picturesque, no matter what time of year you visit. Autumn, though, has a special type of magic. Not only are the leaves turning, making the downtown more colorful than usual, but the town actually smells like brewing cider thanks to all of the stores that serve it this time of year.

I smiled to myself as I led Brian down the cobblestone street. I watched as his head swung from storefront to storefront. Main Street is a cornucopia of visual stimulation in the fall. The Halloween decorations give it a slightly ominous feeling – especially given the murders a few weeks ago -- but most of the tourists are exhilarated by the decorations more than anything else.

As we walked, Brian asked me questions about certain stores. I told him about Mr. Wharton’s hardware store, Mrs. Gunderson’s bakery – best pumpkin rolls ever made, I swear – and Mrs. Little’s pewter unicorn store.

“There’s a whole store dedicated to selling pewter unicorns? That can’t be profitable,” Brian laughed.