To Scratch a Witch, page 4
AJ blinked, then blinked some more. “Like the tarot cards,” she said slowly. “Those are all symbols, not words.”
“Exactly like that!” Fred said, nodding. “They operate at a deeper level in the brain, the part that recognizes pictures, and speaks directly to that, long before the thinking, language levels of the brain engage.”
“Huh,” was all AJ had to say in response. She’d never thought of it like that.
She thought about her conversation as she walked home from the café.
Ursula was all about getting in touch with spirits and magic. Maybe AJ should instead start thinking about how the pictures on the cards related to psychological symbols, things that her clients were likely to bring to the table.
Wouldn’t that make her a fraud, though? If she wasn’t tapping into something deeper?
Or did just understanding the psychology of the images mean she was going deep enough?
Though AJ wasn’t certain she agreed with Fred, she couldn’t stop wondering about whether or not she might, indeed, be an artist. Unsurprisingly, all her readings were completely thrown off that night. She couldn’t call up a damned thing because she was too much in her own head.
Which wasn’t going to work at all, particularly given that in just two days, she was going to have to start giving readings and actually work with clients.
She went to bed frustrated.
In the morning, the local town app’s notifications were all taken up with the fact that Phoebe Reed had been found dead.
Shot in the parking lot of her store. Not strangled.
Chapter Five
A feeling of dread filled AJ as she walked up to the inn that morning.
It had nothing to do with the nice day outside. The morning had dawned clear and cool, without a cloud in sight, but the sunlight couldn’t brighten her dark mood. Waves lapped far off shore, the tide all the way out. It wouldn’t come back in until late that afternoon. She didn’t miss the water—it was right there—but she still felt as though a friend had taken a step away from her. Long-legged terns raced along beside her, stopping now and again to peck at the sand, searching futilely for their breakfast. Even the wind tried to hold her back, blowing fiercely against her side.
The somber red brick of the Bridgewater Inn looked as solid as any fortress. Gray concrete pillars holding up a mock portico felt like bars. Ornate gables rose from the third story of the building in sharp triangles across the front, like fangs ready to drop down on someone’s unsuspecting head.
At least the yard had held onto its lush, summer green, though that too was fading, given the number of dead and dying leaves on the roses and other shrubs. More than one car stood in the circular driveway in front of the building, their owners having abandoned them, at least temporarily.
AJ’s mood didn’t get any better after she walked into the inn. There weren’t any guests waiting in the lobby, filling up the black-and-white marble tile floor. The chandeliers still shone down cheerfully in the large space. Delicious scents of perfectly toasted bread and roasted coffee drifted out from the café.
However, Willow sat behind the reception desk that morning, and her glare could have turned any living thing that dared to approach her to stone. She wore her usual outfit: a men’s white dress shirt that had been tailored to her thin frame and a vintage black vest that looked chic instead of old-fashioned. Like Juli, one half of her head had been shaved down to stubble, while the other half was a red not found in nature. All the necklaces she wore around her neck, like talismans, didn’t appear to have warded off evil or made her way any easier that day.
Guiltily, AJ remembered that in addition to Phoebe’s death, the paper had come out that morning, with her ad about the grand reopening of Ursula’s psychic business. Willow claimed to be a witch, though according to Ursula, the girl had no magical power whatsoever.
“Good morning, Willow!” AJ said, determined to be cheery.
Willow’s look was so cold the temperature in the lobby fell a few degrees.
“So you’re a psychic, now, too?” Willow demanded.
AJ shrugged. “It was part of the agreement, when I bought the house from Ursula. That I continue with her psychic business.” She lowered her voice. “I’m a little nervous about opening up everything this weekend. But Ursula said that it was time.” AJ sighed, then feeling horrifically manipulative, said, “Do you have any advice for keeping myself, not purified after dealing with clients, but separated?”
It was something that Ursula had talked about, how AJ was going to need to develop her own ritual to refresh herself after allowing people into her home.
Ursula might have said it using a lot more woo-woo words and talking about her spirit and sacred blah-de-blah. It had taken a while for AJ to understand what her mentor had been trying to get at. It wasn’t necessarily about the magic or her spirit, but letting people into her home, then reclaiming the space, making it hers, afterward.
“Oh,” Willow said, obviously taken back. She’d probably been expecting AJ to be defensive, not asking for help. “Sure,” she said after a few moments. “You should probably burn sage to clean the extra energies out of the air. And maybe get some selenite, or some amber, to help release those spirits as well.”
“Thanks! I’ll do that,” AJ said with a smile. “How’s the morning been?”
“Slow,” Willow admitted. “Though everyone’s who’s come in here for coffee has wanted to know about Phoebe Reed.”
“I saw that!” AJ said. “Horrible, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Willow said solemnly. “Though I knew something was going to happen today.” She held up one of the stones tangling from her necklaces. “The black topaz was speaking to me this morning. It’s been extra warm, trying to take in all the negativity and filter it away from me.”
“Do you know anything about Phoebe Reed?” AJ asked, trying to steer the conversation away from Willow’s more esoteric beliefs. It was either that, or roll her eyes so hard she’d hurt something.
“She was a cougar,” Willow said.
At AJ’s blank expression, Willow elaborated. “Always hitting on younger men. Generally only hired young men to run her shop. Was always flirting with them, or getting them to move boxes of books around to show off their muscles.”
“Eww,” AJ said. “Do you think one of them was angry enough with her to kill her?”
Willow shrugged. “No idea. But I’ll meditate on it tonight, see if the moon will bring enlightenment. The Goddess has been strangely silent about the killing, though.”
“You did say you felt as though something bad was going to happen today,” AJ said, trying not to let her guilt overcome her. She knew she shouldn’t encourage the girl.
“True, but it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t do anything about just a feeling, you know?” Willow said, obviously frustrated.
“I totally get you,” AJ said. “You need anything? Coffee? Potty break?”
“Naw, I’m good,” Willow said. She sighed, the glare returning. “I really wanted to hate you, you know. Running your own psychic business has always been a dream of mine.”
AJ shrugged. “I’m going to be dealing with people, in my home, on a regular basis,” she reminded the girl. “It isn’t going to be all kittens and kisses.”
“True,” Willow said. After a moment, her lop-sided grin replacing the scowl. “And dealing with the spirit world is no picnic either.”
“True,” AJ said, though she and Willow had very different ideas of what that meant.
“I’ll see you later,” AJ said after a few moments. “Text me if you need anything.”
“Thanks,” Willow said. She still sounded pissed off, though to a much lesser extent.
One crisis averted, AJ walked into the next one when she entered the hallway leading to the office. It was covered in wood paneling, a poor design choice from the remodel of the 1970s. The temperature dropped precipitously as she rounded the corner, before she reached the office door.
“Good morning, Gladys,” AJ said, greeting the ghost who haunted the inn. Normally, Gladys saved all her energy to speak with AJ and not frost the place.
Was she angry about something?
No one greeted AJ. No presence made itself known though.
With a shrug, AJ walked into the office. She’d changed it around a lot since taking it over from Irv and Eva.
There used to be two desks in the middle of the room, facing one another, as the husband-and-wife team worked together to run the inn. AJ had gotten rid of Irv’s desk (too many bad associations, honestly, particularly after he’d tried to kill her) and had pushed Eva’s against the wall, so that one side of it was pressed against the large window that looked over the garden.
That way, AJ could either look at her marvelous view, or look straight ahead, and not be bothered by whatever was going on outside.
She’d left some of the pictures on the walls—photos from the inn’s past, including a couple of Irv and Eva when they’d first bought the place. She’d also put up a piece of her sister’s art and one of her favorite pictures of her and Bea, as kids, giggling hard while in the middle of blowing bubbles at a family picnic. A couple of soap bubbles floated in the foreground, stealing the focus, leaving the sisters blurry. AJ didn’t remember the event. However, there was no denying the joy the pair of them were sharing, captured perfectly in that moment.
No ghostly figure awaited AJ as she walked into the room. However, a cold wind rattled the pictures on the wall. AJ had followed Eva’s example and used cheap frames as well as plastic covers, not glass. Though Gladys didn’t knock the pictures off the wall regularly, it happened often enough that AJ didn’t want to have to worry about broken glass.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” AJ asked. She still felt a little awkward talking to an “empty” room, and was glad that no one worked with her in the office.
The sense she got was one of frustration.
“I did go to the historical society yesterday,” AJ pointed out. “Read up on all of the supposed sightings of you. I’ve been trying to learn more of your history.”
A sigh went through the room. AJ could hear the disappointment in it.
“I know,” she said, trying to placate the ghost. “I didn’t find out much. But I am trying.” The last thing she needed that day was an angry ghost.
A rush of wind blew at her, as strong as any that regularly came off the ocean.
A single word came with it.
Vision.
“Now, Gladys, you know I’ve tried,” AJ said. She’d explained that she couldn’t see into the past. Nor should she ever force a vision.
Try.
AJ rolled her eyes. “I will,” she said. “Later.”
A picture suddenly fell from the wall. Then another. And another. Even the piece of artwork from her sister rattled ominously, something that Gladys hadn’t done before.
“You want me to try right now,” AJ said.
She knew what would happen. She wouldn’t see anything and she’d be plagued with a bad headache for the rest of the day. She had work to do, bills to pay, schedules to review, damn it!
However, she also had the feeling that Gladys wasn’t about to leave her alone until she attempted a vision.
“All right, all right,” AJ grumbled. “Fine.”
She had a true scrying bowl in her house, a lovely hand-blown glass piece, mostly clear, with swirls of blue and green running along the sides.
All she had here was a bowl she’d borrowed from the inn’s café. It was white, with an inch-wide flat rim running along the top, made up of small brown rectangles, with beige circles and squares inside. Yet another piece from the 1970s, though not chic enough to be called vintage.
AJ filled the bowl from her own water bottle, the one she now carried with her most of the time, that was laced with electrolytes because her body had grown weird and needed more minerals to keep away the headaches perimenopause brought.
After carefully placing the bowl in the center of her clean desk, AJ picked up a couple of binder clips and held them loosely in one hand. At home, she had a jar full of beautifully polished stones that she used. Really, though, she just needed something that she could drop into the water to break the vision if it grew too strong or threatening.
AJ stared into the bowl, noting idly that some of the trim had been scratched. They needed to replace all the servings. While the inn was doing well, it wasn’t doing that well. Maybe she’d have to set up a separate fund for that sort of maintenance…
With a sigh, AJ brought her thoughts back to what she was supposedly doing, namely, having a vision about Gladys’s murder.
What had happened, so long ago? Over one hundred years in the past, at this point. Who was Gladys? Why had she been killed? Who had done it? Why?
AJ felt the world around her slow down, which was always a good sign. Gladys’s presence filled the room, the solid sense that someone was there with AJ, though she couldn’t see anyone. The temperature dropped, and AJ had goosebumps crisscrossing her shoulders and down her arms. When white mists rose from the surface of the water, she wondered if the room had gotten so cold that she was seeing steam.
The weight of the ghost bore down on her shoulders. AJ shivered, pain spiking through her forehead. Pressure built behind her eyes. The air smelled of stale ice.
What, was Gladys willing AJ to have a vision? How could she do that?
There was just so much about the supernatural world that AJ didn’t understand, that no one appeared to know about.
After a few moments, AJ opened herself up to the experience instead of struggling against it.
Ice seemed to flow through her, her blood growing sluggish. Her own breath came out foggy. Though her skin was already pale, her hands turned bright white as she was pushed along, further into the magic, into that nether place where visions came from.
The mists dancing across the water in the bowl didn’t clear. They didn’t drop away, showing a mirror underneath.
Instead, the white mists solidified, slowly forming into a box. No, it was more irregular than that. Piece by piece, the image formed. The white gave way to spreading color.
Books. Old books. Ancient, actually. AJ could practically smell the mold coming off the pages.
Three of them. All hardbacks. No dust jackets. The largest was at the bottom. Words had been printed on the spines, but they had long ago been worn off.
A leather strap was buckled around the books, making them into a solid bundle. The largest of the three books was about ten inches tall and seven inches wide. But AJ could feel the weight of the bundle, how the strap bit into the palm of her hand when she carried them.
Or was that a feeling from Gladys? Had these been her books?
Yessss came the hissed word.
AJ had no idea why this pile of books was important. The top book had a faded blue cloth cover, the next, brown, and the bottom one had been yellow at some point. But she had no idea what the subject matter of any of the books had been. Were they children’s books? School books?
She started to lift her hand from the desk, the one with the clips in it, to drop into the water to scatter the mist and the image.
However, the vision wasn’t done yet. A second piece coalesced beside the stack of books, slowly unfolding. While the colors of the books were muted, this part of AJ’s vision was a vibrant green, eventually taking the shape of a four-leaf clover.
Again, AJ felt Gladys’s approval.
Yet another cold wind blew through the office, this time, dissipating the images floating over the scrying bowl AJ had been using.
Thank you, came the whispered words.
Then Gladys was gone. AJ shivered again as warmth flooded back into her limbs.
What the hell? What did a stack of books and a four-leaf clover have to do with anything?
The pressure returned behind AJ’s eyes, her temples starting to beat out a rhythm of pain. Swell. Now, on top of everything else, she had a headache the size of the ocean pounding down on her.
She knew she should be excited. She had the feeling that she’d just had a breakthrough. She’d seen something from the past instead of always looking into the future.
However, she had no idea what it meant. No clue how it related to Gladys. Plus, now she had a horrible headache that no modern medication could touch.
With a sigh, AJ picked up the bowl, intending on dumping it out in the restroom sink next door.
Of course, she ended up spilling water all over her desk.
She didn’t want to ask what else could go wrong that day because she was afraid that the world might just show her how bad it could get.
Chapter Six
Because it was still a new-to-her habit, AJ occasionally felt guilty taking her entire lunch break—a full hour—just to eat and rest.
Not that day.
She couldn’t count the number of things that had gone wrong that morning, including Payne coming to her and bitching about needing to replace the water filters on the spa again, Rosita complaining about the lack of guests starting the first week of October, and even Willow shooting daggers at her whenever she went out into the lobby.
AJ rushed back to her house, intending to lie down and rest for the entire hour. She tried to no longer eat on the run when it came to her meals. She could make an exception that day.
Since starting into perimenopause, she’d had many more headaches than she’d used to. Fortunately, Bea had given her something that helped: flannel pillows, with tiny beans in them, that AJ kept in her freezer. On a headache day, being able to lie down with one of those on her forehead really helped.
AJ had just shut her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief as the coolness from the bag started penetrating when her phone rang.
Because, of course it did.
So few people called her. AJ groggily picked it up, sighing again when she saw it wasn’t spam but actually her sister.
“Hello?” AJ said as she laid back down, trying to rearrange the delightfully cold pillow across her entire forehead and eyes while keeping her phone tucked in against her ear.
