Chapter 4 #2
The witch stared intently at her Kindle. “Afternoon. Must be something awfully important if you decided to interrupt my book. I’m finally getting to a spicy scene after far too much yearning.”
“I like yearning.”
“You would.”
I noticed her naked hands. Meemaw usually wore rings on every finger, to complement the gold tooth where her right canine used to be.
“No rings today?”
“I don’t wear them to the pool. The chemicals ruin the metal.”
“You’re not wearing a swimsuit.”
She kept her focus on the Kindle. “People splash.”
I perched on the end of her lounger. “I’ve got a question for you.”
Meemaw’s head remained perfectly still, but her gaze flicked up to meet mine. “Is this question going to make me regret pausing where I am? Because I glimpsed the word ‘throbbing’ in the next sentence, which I fully expect to be followed by the word ‘member.’”
“You won’t regret it. It involves hot gossip.”
She set the Kindle on her lap and looked at me. “You have my attention. Proceed.”
“I assume Margie told you about her monster encounter.”
“I thought they were demonic spirits.”
Damn. Word really did travel fast on the island. “Yes, they are. They’re called oni.”
“She’s still rattled. That’s why I’m here alone. She didn’t want to leave the condo today.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Do I have permission to use magic should I encounter one of these creatures?”
“No. You call me.” Otherwise, I had no doubt Meemaw would take advantage of the situation.
Soon I’d be receiving calls from all over the Neighborhood that Meemaw was using magic, and she would claim self-defense, even if that spell involved a free pitcher of beer from the local watering hole.
Meemaw was hands down the wiliest witch on the island.
“I gather this is your version of exchanging pleasantries,” Meemaw said. “Why are you really here?”
I plunged ahead. “Ever hear of a shadow going rogue?”
“A shadow? Like a person’s—” She demonstrated by lifting her arm to produce a shadow on the pavement.
“Yes, like that.”
“Why?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“You said you had hot gossip.”
“I said my question involves hot gossip. I didn’t promise to share that gossip with you.”
Meemaw lifted her visor and looked down her nose at me. “Is that how Darlene died? A shadow killed her?”
I sighed. I should’ve realized Meemaw already knew about Darlene’s death. The crone seemed to have a direct link to the morgue. “I can neither confirm nor deny.”
“Peter Pan’s shadow could function independently of him.”
“I’m not talking about a story.”
“Where do you think those stories come from, Maya? You should know better than that.”
She wasn’t wrong. So many of the stories we passed down as fairy tales or myths contained kernels of truth, if not the whole bag of popcorn.
“Zach resurrected Darlene because of an inheritance issue. During their conversation, she claimed she was killed by a man’s shadow. We assumed she meant she only saw the man’s shadow, but now I have reason to believe it might have been an actual shadow.”
Meemaw closed the cover on her Kindle and set it on the small table beside her. “Now this is interesting.”
“Please do not repeat this to anyone. I’m serious. If Neighbors hear there’s a killer shadow on the loose, they will melt down.” I couldn’t afford mass panic on the island, certainly not while I was the only member of the security team.
She took a relaxed sip of her margarita. “Deal. Trust me, I have no incentive to share this news. Margie is already locking herself indoors. I don’t know what her reaction would be if I told her that inside the condo wasn’t safe either.”
“I was wondering if you had any experience with shadow magic.”
“In other words, have I practiced it? The answer is no.”
“Do you know anything about it?”
“It’s dangerous and downright foolish. Do you think someone sent their shadow to kill Darlene?”
Darlene kept to herself. I found it hard to believe someone targeted her.
“I was thinking more of a shadow that broke free of its physical body, but I suppose your theory is also a possibility.”
Meemaw adjusted her visor to block the shifting sunlight. “Why would a rogue shadow decide to break into Darlene’s condo and kill her unless there was a reason?”
“What kind of reason could there possibly be?”
“Have you spoken with her neighbors? I usually have at least two gripes against my neighbors at any given time.”
“What’s the current beef? Do I need to get involved?”
She gave my leg a dismissive pat. “I can handle the horses in my own stable, dearie.”
I added Darlene’s immediate neighbors to my mental task list.
“Look who we wrangled outside!” Catherine Weyland’s cheerful declaration effectively ended our conversation. The blonde-bobbed witch opened the gate to the pool area, followed by Margie, Louise, and Joan.
“It took a bit of convincing,” Margie said, “but they managed to persuade me that there was safety in numbers.”
Never mind numbers. Margie was surrounded by the most formidable group of women on an island other than Themyscira. She’d be fine.
“I guess we’re finished here,” Meemaw murmured.
“I wouldn’t mind tapping into the hive mind for one more thing.”
Catherine tossed her tote bag on the lounge chair to Meemaw’s right. “Are you two talking about the monsters?”
“They’re called demonic spirits,” Louise corrected her, claiming the chair next to Catherine.
Louise Perry was best known on the island as “the eye-patch lady” who accessorized the patch to coordinate with her outfits.
Nobody knew the real reason she wore it.
The story changed as often as I changed my underwear—anything from an alligator bit off her eye to she used it in a cauldron spell as a substitute for eye of newt.
I’d even heard rumblings that there was nothing wrong with her eye at all, and that the patch was merely a bid for attention.
“Actually, they’re called oni,” Meemaw said.
“I suppose you’ve been fielding lots of frantic calls about them,” Joan said, lying back against a lounge chair with an e-cigarette dangling from between her lips. With chestnut brown hair styled like a 1940s pin-up model and bright red lips, the witch managed to be both glamorous and intimidating.
“This is the Neighborhood,” Meemaw said. “Maya gets frantic calls about the sunset being less orange than the day before.”
“I don’t blame people for being anxious. I’m doing everything I can to get to the bottom of it as quickly as possible. I even went to see the dueling seers.”
Margie snorted. “You must’ve been desperate if you were willing to subject yourself to those two.”
“Did they see anything helpful?” Catherine asked.
“Nothing obvious. I can tell you what they said and maybe one of you will have an idea.” I would, of course, omit the reference to shadows. “Valerie said seven was a key number.”
“Seven Wonders of the World,” Meemaw said. “Seven Dwarfs.”
I looked at her. “That’s your contribution?”
The crone shrugged. “What do you have against dwarfs?”
“Nothing, except I don’t think the seers had a vision of seven small men cleaning my cottage.”
“You’re misremembering. Snow White cleans their cottage. One man is incapable of cleaning up after himself, let alone seven of them.”
“Seven Pounds,” Joan interjected from the lounger at the corner of the pool.
“That’s a movie,” I said.
“I know. I thought we were naming movies with the number seven in the title.”
Louise straightened in her chair. “Oh, Seven! The one with the head in a box. That’s one of my favorites.”
I clamped down on a sigh of exasperation before it escaped. “We’re not naming movies, ladies.”
“Well, I’m a number seven enneagram if that’s useful,” Catherine said.
Meemaw gave her a look of pure disdain. “It isn’t.”
“Just because you don’t believe in enneagrams doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t indulge,” Catherine said, although her voice wavered slightly as Meemaw’s expression grew increasingly harder.
“Enneagrams are the personality equivalent of essential oils,” Meemaw snapped. “Anyway, the Silly Sisters had a vision involving the number seven. That’s what we’re discussing.”
“Vanessa and Valerie,” I corrected her. “There’s no need for name-calling.”
“I don’t know why you’d bother going to them for information when you have a coven of witches at your disposal.” Margie was clearly miffed by my admission.
“Technically, what they do isn’t considered magic, therefore, no rules were broken,” I explained.
Margie laughed. “Since when do you care about the rules?”
“Since Judd died and I’m the only one left to enforce them.” I was still willing to be flexible, but it seemed important to give the appearance of holding the line or I risked having a mutiny on my hands.
“What about seven deadly sins?” Louise asked. “Or seven gates to the underworld?”
“Seven days of creation,” Joan said.
Margie raised her hand. “Ooh! I’ve got one. Seven days of the week.”
I was beginning to regret raising the subject.
“Seven colors of the rainbow,” Catherine said. “And seven notes on a scale.”
“Seven Samurai. The Magnificent Seven,” Joan said.
And we were back to movies again. “I don’t think their vision involved Steve McQueen,” I said.
Joan pulled down her sunglasses. “Their loss.”
“What’s all the ruckus over there, y’all?
” Camille Hadley entered at the far end of the pool, wrapped in a bright orange sarong.
She was a petite dryad with brassy blonde hair that looked like it had spent the night in large rollers.
Like the bark of an oak tree, her skin was a weathered light gray with warm brown undertones, which only served to highlight the unnatural white of her teeth.
“No ruckus,” Meemaw said, loud enough to be heard. “Just a friendly conversation that doesn’t involve you.”
Margie chucked a towel at her mother. “Be nice, Mama,” she hissed. “Camille cuts my hair.”
“Don’t worry,” Meemaw said. “If she takes her revenge on you, I know a spell that can grow your hair back.”
Camille waved me over. “Maya, honey, we have got to do something about that mop top of yours. I know your head bursts into snakes or whatever, but that’s no excuse for letting yourself go.”
I instinctively touched my hair. “What’s wrong with it?”
Camille gave me a pointed look. “I do not have enough hours in my day to answer that question. Now you be a good girl and go on and make an appointment with me for this week. I promise I’ll go easy on you.”
I glanced at Meemaw, who shrugged.
“She gives a nice scalp massage,” Margie said.
“Fine,” I relented. “But no color.”
“Honey, I don’t see a streak of gray. Color is the least of your problems.”
“She really knows how to boost a woman’s confidence,” I muttered.
“Come see me at two o’clock tomorrow. I had an unexpected cancellation.” She adjusted her wide-brimmed hat. “You can thank Darlene Garvey at her memorial service.”
The woman on the lounger beside Camille’s yanked up the brim of her hat. “Darlene died?”
“In her sleep, apparently. If I had a choice, that’s the way I’d want to go too. Lucky bitch.”
If she only knew.