Witch at Heart: A Jinx Hamilton Witch Mystery Book 1 (The Jinx Hamilton Mysteries) (4 page)

“
E
verything” included
my visit with Chase McGregor and his offer to bring us lunch tomorrow and help with any heavy lifting while we were straightening up. When Tori asked me if Chase is as hot as he sounds, I had to concede that he does indeed raise the temperature in the room.

“Have you dug around looking for Fiona’s spell book?” Tori asked, her eyes alight with excitement. “We could seriously make use of some love spells.”

Oh, Lord. Something else I hadn’t thought about.

Tori frowned when she saw my expression. “What? Since when is love a bad idea? Especially with a hot cat-loving guy living right next door?”

“What if Chase is under a spell already?” I asked uneasily. “What if that’s why he was so nice to Aunt Fiona and they had that whole ‘knock on the pipes’ code and everything?”

“Girl,” Tori said sagely, “you think too much.”

“Maybe,” I said, rubbing Zeke’s ears, “but this is all a lot to take in.”

Tori eyed me curiously. “You really didn’t know Fiona was a witch?”

I looked up. “Like what, you did?”

“Uh, yeah.”

She made it sound like this was the most obvious information in the world.

“You did not,” I groused, realizing the minute the words were out of my mouth how mature they sounded.

“Did, too,” Tori answered on cue, grinning.

I rolled my eyes. “Okay. Fine. I’ll bite. How did you know Fiona was a witch?”

“Because when we were about 10-years-old the moms dropped us off over here for the day because they were going to something in Sparta,” she said. “You remember?”

“Not really.”

“Well, anyway, we were playing on the staircase and I dropped my Barbie mirror. It broke. I saw the crack. It went all the way over the glass.”

“My condolences to you and Barbie,” I said, “but so what?”

“Aunt Fiona picked the mirror up at the bottom of the staircase and handed it back to me,” Tori said. “The glass was perfect. I remember looking down at her and she just smiled and winked at me.”

“Aw, come on, Tori,” I scoffed. “That’s hardly evidence. You must have been wrong about the glass breaking.”

“I wasn’t,” she said stubbornly. “I was already worried about the seven years of bad luck that was about to come down on my head, and then Aunt Fiona made it all okay. I was so relieved I ran down the stairs and gave her a big hug.”

“Did she say anything?”

Tori nodded. “She said, ‘Pretty little girls shouldn’t have to be worried about bad luck.’”

All of a sudden my throat knotted up and tears filled my eyes. Aunt Fiona might have been an odd duck, but she was also one of the sweetest, most loving human beings I had ever known. “That sounds like her,” I said, clearing my throat and wiping my eyes. “But it still doesn’t prove she was a witch.”

“Maybe not,” Tori said, “but from then on, I watched Aunt Fiona all the time. Did you know she could touch wilted flowers and make them bloom again?”

I was starting to feel like I should get the tiara for Miss Oblivious.

“You saw her do that?” I said. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. At your Grandma’s funeral. Remember how hot it was in the funeral parlor?”

Did I ever, mainly because before the service started, Daddy observed, rather loudly, that the undertaker made Grandma look so waxy she was going to puddle up and melt right there in the casket. That idea scared me so bad I sat through the whole funeral with my eyes glued to the body waiting for Grandma to liquefy.

“Well, the casket spray was started to look pretty droopy when Fiona went up to stand there and say her goodbyes,” Tori went on. “I was sitting off to the side. I heard her say, ‘We can’t send you off with wilted roses, Mama.’ And then she touched the casket spray and those roses all perked right up. Some of the buds even bloomed.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Why didn’t you tell me about any of this?”

It was Tori’s turn to roll her eyes. “Right, Miss Literal and Logical. Like I’m going to start telling you about your aunt mending mirrors and making flowers bloom. Really, Jinx? You didn’t believe in magic of any kind. Not even the everyday stuff that happens all the time, like wishing for a parking spot up front at the mall and getting it.”

“That’s not magic,” I said stubbornly. “It’s just coincidence.”

“See what I mean,” she said, sounding vindicated. “What was the point in my telling you what I was seeing? You have to get hit over the head with a 2 x 4, which is kinda what Fiona did this morning showing up like that.”

As much as I didn’t want to admit that Tori was right, she was right. I sighed. “Okay. Fine. You have a point.”

“It’s okay, Jinksy,” she said, giving me a little good-natured tap on the shoulder. “Like I said, I love you just the way you are. But my family are all mountain people. I was raised to believe in haints and my Granny taught me all the old superstitions.”

Clearly I had a lot to learn. “Like what?” I asked.

“Oh, you know, seeing an owl in the daylight means somebody’s going to die. Same for hearing a rooster crowing at night or seeing a dog howling while he’s looking at the ground.”

“Wow,” I said, “that’s all real cheerful. Death at every turn.”

“The old folks believed all that stuff,” Tori said seriously. “Most of the superstitions are about avoiding death and not getting yourself hexed. Granny wouldn’t ever cut her hair for fear somebody would get hold of the cut-off parts and use them to put a spell on her. You remember my Great Uncle Nub?”

I nodded. “He used to whittle little toy animals for us.”

“Right,” Tori said. “Well, he witched water wells all over these mountains. He could find water every time with that forked stick of his.”

My own family came down out of the mountains three or four generations ago and my mother has gone to great lengths to distance us from our more folkish roots. In fact, it was a topic on which she and Aunt Fiona quarreled. I said as much to Tori.

“Do you think your mom knew Fiona was a witch?” she asked.

“I have no idea,” I said, “but I’m sure as heck not planning on asking her. She’ll be dragging me to church and hollering about the devil for a month of Sundays.”

Tori nodded sympathetically. She and I were in complete agreement that a daughter’s true mission in life is trying not to have to listen to her mother pitch a fit.

“Well, here’s what I think,” she said. “Aunt Fiona wouldn’t have given you these powers if she didn’t think you could handle them. I mean, come on, it’s cool, right?”

“I guess,” I said uncertainly. “But I’m not going to use them, so it doesn’t make any difference.”

“No, no, no, no, no,” Tori warned. “That is just asking for trouble. It’s like going on a diet. As soon as you say you’re passing on the fattening food, it starts raining fried chicken.”

That got a laugh out of me. We were both charter members of the Failed Diet of the Month Club. “What do you suggest I do?” I asked. “Come out of the witchy closet and hang up a sign offering to make love potions and read palms?”

“Well, not until you know if you can actually do those things,” Tori said seriously. “You’re just getting started. Come on. Admit it. Figuring out what you
can
do will be fun. Since Fiona didn’t leave you any instructions, it’s like we’re going on a magical scavenger hunt.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” I grumbled, but she was starting to make me feel better about the whole situation in spite of myself.

“Have you talked to any more dead people?” she asked brightly.

What? Wait!
More
dead people?

“No!” I said emphatically. “And I don’t want to.”

Tori lifted Winston off her lap, stood up, and held out her hand to me. “Well,
I
want you to,” she said. “Come on.”

I took her hand and let her pull me up. “Where are we going?” I asked suspiciously.

“The graveyard.”

“Are you crazy? It’s almost dark out there,” I squawked nervously. “I am not going to the graveyard at night.”

“Sure you are,” Tori said, completely undeterred by my reaction. “That’s when we stand a better chance of seeing spirits.”

“What’s this ‘
we
’ stuff?” I said. “You can’t see ghosts.”

“Sure I can.”

Oh for God’s sake. “Tori, look,” I said, “I know we always do everything together, but how in the world are you going to just suddenly start seeing dead people because I can?”

“Duh,” she said, “I’ll just look over your left shoulder.”

Well, of course. Why didn’t I think of that.

N
ow
, I’m not going to lie and try to convince you that Tori and I had never been to a cemetery in the dark before that night. I will, however, swear on the Good Book that all previous incidents occurred on Halloween and that neither one of us ever egged a tombstone. I plead the Fifth in regard to toilet papering.

The local Briar Hollow cemetery sat on the edge of town on a sloping piece of land that disappeared into deep woods at the north end. The kind of deep woods that are bound to harbor at least one werewolf and potentially some of those guys from
Deliverance
. In daylight I might have called the graveyard peaceful and picturesque, but in the dark, I was on the lookout for anyone wearing a hockey mask.

Tori was not helping. As the daughters of two dyed-in-the-wool movie buffs, we both had an impressive store of screen references at our disposal. Tori was having a high old time quoting lines from scary movies, to the point that I was starting to wish I really did know how to put a hex her.

In my imagination, and still pretty rattled with my newfound ability to see folks on the other side, I expected to walk into a bad remake of
Night of the Living Dead.
What I got was more like
Night at the Museum
. I don’t know what the funeral parlor mixes in with that formaldehyde, but these people were seriously high on death.

The instant I unlatched the rusty iron gate and stepped inside the boundaries of the burying ground, my paranormal rabbit ears started pulling in a signal. One minute I was looking at a moonlit cemetery and the next thing I know a mostly transparent coonhound came loping through the grave markers.

As I watched, this so-called “hellhound” vaulted over a praying angel and jumped up to pluck a spectral tennis ball out of the air. The dog then trotted obediently back to a Confederate colonel in full uniform while a flapper, two grannies in long gingham dresses, and a woman with a massive beehive and cat’s eye glasses applauded. The dog wagged his tail so vigorously it acted like a helicopter rotor and lifted him a good foot off the ground.

“Do you see anything?” Tori whispered from behind me.

“Uh, yeah,” I stammered. “Several anythings.”

“Oh my God,” she said from behind me and to my left. “Quit hogging the good seats. Scrunch down so I can see, too.”

On the drive over she explained to me that according to her grandmother, if one person was looking at a ghost that was not visible to a second person, all the bystander had to do was peer over the first person’s left shoulder and all would be revealed.

Seriously, who comes up with this stuff?

But, being a good sport, and judging from the gasp Tori let out as soon as I “scrunched,” her granny was apparently right.

“Holy crap,” Tori said as we watched a high school football player jog past. “Do you suppose it’s like this every night?”

A discreet cough made me turn my head to the right. The Colonel swept off his panama hat and bowed low. “Good evening, ladies,” he said in a deep voice. “Welcome to the evening’s festivities.”

“Oh. My. God.” Tori said, still straining to see over my shoulder. “I can hear them, too.”

The Colonel peered at her benevolently. “Colonel Beauregard T. Longworth at your service, ma’am. Loitering behind your friend will no longer be necessary. We’re all quite happy to allow you to see us.”

Tori stepped out from behind me and took a cautious step toward the Colonel who continued to beam at her. “Can I touch you?” she asked.

“Well, you can try,” he said, “but I fear you will not be successful.”

He called it. Tori’s hand passed right through the gold braid on his sleeve. She yelped and jerked back. “Ouch! Colonel Longworth,” she exclaimed, “you’re ice cold!”

The Colonel chuckled, “Well, my dear, I haven’t had a functional circulatory system since 1864. And please, call me Beau.” The spectre turned to me. “You must be Jinx,” he said. “Fiona told us to expect you.”

Of course she did.

“You knew . . . er . . . know my aunt?” I asked.

The football player galloped to a stop beside the Colonel and took off his helmet. “We all know Fiona,” the boy said enthusiastically. “She’s the bee’s knees. Every Friday night during the season she’d come out here with a portable radio so I could listen to the high school football game.”

“Why don’t you just go to the game yourself?” Tori asked. “It’s not like you have a curfew or anything.”

The boy’s expression settled into a perfect picture of teenage annoyance. “Yeah, I kinda do,” he said. “None of us can go past the fence.”

“Why not?” Tori asked.

“I don’t know,” the boy said, “but I can prove it to you.”

He put his helmet back on, crouched down, and charged the cemetery fence, launching at the last minute as if he was going to hurdle the small barrier. Instead, he smacked into an invisible wall and was thrown backwards, landing at our feet in a glowing heap. Wrenching his helmet off again the kid looked up at Tori and said, “See? I told you.”

By this time a small group of spirits had formed around us. Each one had something nice to say to me about Aunt Fiona. One of the women dressed in gingham told me, “Fiona didn’t forget us just because we’re dead. She made us feel like we’re still part of the community.”

Nobody had to say it. The question hung silently in the air. What was I going to do for them?

As I looked at the ghosts gathered around me, I suddenly realized Aunt Fiona hadn’t burdened me with an unwanted gift; she’d entrusted me with a tremendous responsibility. I smiled at the ghosts and said sincerely, “I’m looking forward to getting to know all of you.”

At those words, a collective sigh of relief rose from the crowd, stirring the leaves on the tree under which we were standing. Turning to Colonel Longworth, I said, “Sir, may I have a word with you in private?”

“Why, of course,” he said gallantly. “Forgive me for not offering you my arm, but I am at something of a disadvantage.”

“Not at all,” I said, falling in beside him as we moved toward a quiet corner. When we were out of earshot of the others, I said, “I hope you won’t think I’m being rude, but I’m new to all of this and I was just wondering, why are you all still here with the living?”

Beau looked at me sadly. “You mean why have we not ascended to some celestial realm or descended to a lower place to answer for our sins?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“None of us truly know, Miss Jinx,” he admitted. “Some of us are condemned to walk the earth because we cannot let go of our attachment to the living. Young Jeff there, the lad in the football uniform, fears that if he goes on to whatever is next, he will not be able to enjoy his favorite sport any longer. The lady there in the blue gingham dress and bonnet has been waiting for her husband lo these 75 years, but he has never come for her.”

I hesitated and then said, “And you, sir?”

Drawing himself up to his full height, Beau said, “I cannot leave my post until the Southern states rise from their ignominious defeat at the hands of those blaggard Yankees. The Confederacy must be vindicated and restored as the rightful government of this region.”

Oh, yeah. Beau was going to be here for a
long
time.

“So basically you all have some kind of unfinished business?” I ventured diplomatically.

“That is what your aunt believed,” he said, “and over the years, she was successful in helping one or two of our number to go elsewhere, but I cannot tell you the details of their destination. She referred to those of us still in residence as the ‘hard cases,’ and in the end chose to simply make our existence in this place more interesting. It is quite tedious when the living walk among us and do not even speak, or worse, when they do not come to see you at all. Your aunt was quite the breath of fresh air with her acceptance of our non-corporeal state.”

That’s Aunt Fiona for you. A regular ectoplasmic, tree-hugging liberal.

Before I could ask Beau any more questions, Tori came hurrying up. “Jinx,” she said urgently, “you have to come over here and meet someone.”

Leave it to Tori to work the undead room.

I followed her over to a lonely grave in the far corner of the cemetery. She pointed at the flat granite stone. The words etched in the stone were, “Jane Doe, Died in Briar Hollow, 1995. Known Only to God.”

When I looked at Tori questioningly, she gave me the same look she flashed at me the day she showed up with Winston and Xavier when they were kittens. “Jinksy, meet Janie,” she said, stepping aside to reveal a gossamer thin wisp of an entity with enormous sad eyes. “Janie, meet Jinksy.”

Dear God. First it was homeless skunks and now Tori was moving up to forlorn ghosts.

“Hi, Janie,” I said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Jane isn’t my name,” the ghost said softly, her voice little more than a shy whisper.

It was easy to see why Tori, Saver of the Strays, latched onto this one. If I had to guess, Jane was no more than 18 years old when she died. Her long hair hung down around her shoulders, and judging from the tones of her now gray and white color palette, I was guessing she’d been a brunette.

“What would you like us to call you?” I asked.

The girl’s voice broke when she answered. “I don’t know my name,” she said, the words coming out in kind of a low moan. “I don’t know anything about myself except someone killed me. Then I woke up here and I can never leave.”

From beside me, Colonel Longworth’s sonorous voice said gently, “Fiona called Jane the hardest of her hard cases.”

“She doesn’t remember how she died?” I asked.

“Worse,” the Colonel said, “she cannot name the shiftless brigand who murdered her.”