Chapter Eighteen #2
Mitch and I sat in the back, but the room was small enough that we could still hear most of the conversations. Every single person seemed older than Duane and Lucas, so we didn’t dare approach anyone. We had no idea who they were.
"...that bitch and her devil shop!" The words were loud enough to rise above the quiet murmur of voices.
Mitch nudged me. I was wondering the same thing he was: did they mean Mathilda?
"Shush, you," another man, face creased with age and irritation, responded. "Have some respect, for God’s sake."
Mitch nudged me again, as if to say, Go, talk to them, and I mouthed, No!
Now that we had finally discussed him leading the investigation, he was leaving all the hard work, including talking to strangers, to me?
Our commotion didn’t go unnoticed. An older man approached slowly, leaning heavily on his cane, his hand trembling.
"You’re not from ‘round here," he drawled loudly, drawing even more attention to us, "You Duane’s friends? Didn’t think he knew many out-of-towners."
I paused before answering, choosing my words carefully. "I knew Duane through a friend. Lucas Whitman?"
"Awfully sad. Both boys gone." He shook his head, a gravelly sigh slipping from cracked lips. "Like father, like son, I reckon. Duane... just like his daddy. Took the same way out. Must be somethin’ in their blood."
Before I could ask what he meant, a sharp voice cut in, the same man who’d been talking about who we assumed was Mathilda.
"It’s all that crap messin’ with his head, I’m tellin’ ya," the voice snapped. "And that woman, she just poured gas on the fire."
"Who, now?" Mitch asked.
"That witch runnin’ that devil’s den she calls a shop," the old man growled. "She’s got folks’ minds all twisted up, messin’ around with things they oughtta leave be. Ain’t no place for that kind of business in Black Water."
"Are you talking about the shop in town? Mathilda’s?" Mitch cut in, seizing the opportunity.
"Who’re you?" The man didn’t bother waiting for an answer, barreling on with a scowl. "You’re the ones pokin’ around, askin’ questions about the Whitman boy, ain’t ya?"
My hands turned clammy in an instant. There was nothing wrong with searching for Lucas and Amanda, but knowing the locals were aware of our efforts made it feel ominous, like we were, in fact, doing something illegal.
Two more men wandered over, drawn by the rising tension.
We were starting to feel cornered, and I found myself looking around, searching for an exit.
"We’re not—" Mitch started, but the man didn’t let him finish.
"We got good folks in this town, and nobody was offin’ themselves till you showed up!"
Statistically speaking, that was hard to believe, especially since they’d mentioned Duane’s father had met the same fate. But we were in no position to prove who was right. Or so I thought, because Mitchell had a different opinion.
"Look, I’m just looking for my sister. She came here a year ago, here..." He pulled out his phone and showed them Amanda’s photo.
"Ain’t no whore sister of yours been here!" the guy snapped.
Oh no.
"What did you call her?" Mitch went nuclear in an instant, launching into a full-blown attack mode. I grabbed his arm. It didn’t take much to rile him, but this was the worst possible time.
"Excuse us. We’re leaving," I muttered, trying to drag Mitch away, but it was like trying to move a solid pillar—he was all muscle.
"So you come here, accusin’ good people of some shit," the man spat.
Mitch tried to lunge at him, but I was holding him back with all my strength.
"We’re not accusing anyone of anything," I pleaded. I thought of June clinging to Mitch’s elbow, trying to stop him from hurting the cemetery caretaker. I hoped our earlier conversation had calmed him down, but now—this.
The few mourners began closing in on us, all men. They were cutting off our way out, and it was getting harder to breathe.
"What’s going on here?" Reverend Carver’s voice thundered through the room as he stepped inside.
Everyone fell silent and drew back, as though on command.
"These two have no business bein’ here," someone said.
"Got no respect for the dead!" another chimed in.
The Reverend’s eyes landed on us. "You came by the other day," he said.
I gave a meek little tilt of my head.
"I figured you were after something else. But this isn’t the time or place for prying. The Whitmans’ and the Conleys’ need space to grieve. It’s best if you respect that and leave now. Unless you’d prefer the Sheriff escort you out."
No one at the funeral looked like they were grieving, or even related to Duane, but the Reverend made it clear: we’d crossed a line just by showing up.
Mitch’s arm slowly relaxed under my grip, and I eased my hand away, careful not to make any sudden move that might set him off again.
"We didn’t mean to cause any trouble," he mumbled, the fight draining out of him.
The circle of onlookers begrudgingly parted, clearing a tense path to the exit. Outside, the Sheriff was climbing out of his cruiser. He gave us a grim look, and something in me flinched.
"That went well," I murmured, getting into the Dodge.
"That’s an understatement," Mitchell muttered, starting the car. "And everyone seems to know why we’re here."
I saw the Reverend and the Sheriff in the rearview mirror, exchanging words and glancing our way. They seemed to know each other. Mitchell turned the corner, and they disappeared from view.
"Do you think he meant Mathilda?" I asked, mostly using the question as an excuse to talk to Mitch and make sure he wasn’t about to explode on me again.
"Seems like it." Mitch was still tense, but not as wound up as he had been at the cemetery.
"We should have another chat with her."
"We will. But I want to check on June first."
That made sense to me. Now that people around town knew who we were and, more importantly, what we were doing, it was safer to stick together. The Sheriff’s warning, combined with the Reverend’s tight-lipped tension, did not bode well for us.
Mitchell continued, "You saw how the Sheriff and the Reverend were all buddy-buddy? Doesn’t sit right with me."
Didn’t sit right with me either.
It wasn’t even noon, but the store greeted us with a "closed" sign. We knocked anyway.
"Closed, closed, I’m closed today!" Mathilda announced from behind the curtained door.
Mitchell took the lead, knocking again, more persistently this time.
"We need to talk."
The door opened just a crack, enough for the witch to peek out and see who was disturbing her peace. She looked more disheveled than before, her face etched with worry, hair twisted into a messy bun.
"Ain’t nothing to discuss with you," she said, looking up at him as she blew her fringe off her forehead. "Folks ‘round here didn’t just up and die till you showed up."
I winced at hearing the same thing twice in one day.
"At all?" Nick didn’t try to conceal the skepticism in his voice.
"Not like this," Tilly retorted.
"Wanna chat about how exactly he died?" Mitch suggested, pushing the door open and stepping inside. Mathilda moved reluctantly, letting us all in, then locked the door behind us.
"You jump into somethin’ without knowin’ what it is, then try to figure it out?
Bless your heart, sugar." Her condescending tone didn’t match her stern expression.
"Listen up. You’re strangers here. You don’t know our ways or our land.
I’m gonna give you some advice: get on outta here.
Leave before things get any worse and somebody else gets hurt. "
"Miss Blackwood… Tilly, we’re not going anywhere until you tell us what you know. Someone has made negative comments about you. We think it would be in your best interest to talk to us." Mitchell sounded very formal.
She stubbornly shook her head. "Like I said, I don’t know nothin’."
"How about we tell you what we know first?" Mitch offered, setting his backpack on one of the display tables and pulling out the photos from Duane’s place. "Look at this. Who are these people? Why are all the dates during Harvest Moons? What was this doing at Duane’s place?"
Mathilda folded her arms. "Seems like you’re more full of questions than answers. But like I said, I ain’t got nothin’ for you. Whatever notion you got in your heads, I want no part of it."
"My mother was from around here." To my surprise, Nick stepped forward. He hadn’t mentioned his mother to anyone before.
Tilly waited a second, as though deciding how to react. Then her eyes softened."I knew her."
Her response caught us all, including Nick, off guard.
"You did?" he asked in disbelief.
"Uh-huh."
"What happened to her?"
"I don’t know. I’m sorry. She was a good person, just a might hot-headed at times."
"Help us. Please," he said, holding her cat-like gaze.
Mathilda hesitated.
"We just need to know what Duane and Lucas were asking you about. We know you talked to both of them," I said.
She tsked. "They were plumb foolish. Huntin’ for that dadburn grimoire—"
"What does it have to do with anything? Isn’t it just a tourist trap story?" Mitch still struggled to make sense of it.
Mathilda rolled her eyes. "I’m tellin’ you what I know. Don’t like it, then leave."
"No, please, continue," Mitchell pleaded.
"Like I said, whoever owns the grimoire has the power. And what to do with that power—well, that’s up to each person."
June had had enough. "Cut the crap. What’s up with the symbols? We saw one in Amanda’s photos, that little punk Sammy carved one into a tree, and we saw some in Duane’s house, but apparently, he decided to paint over them before someone offed him!"
Mathilda raised an eyebrow. "He painted over them?" She chewed on this. "Or perhaps someone didn’t want him snoopin’ around? Didn’t want whoever else came to talk to him seeing anythin’?"
Until that moment, we had never seriously discussed the possibility that our publicly seeking Duane might be the reason he was dead. As much as I hated to admit it, it added up.
"What did you tell Duane and Lucas? Where did they go?" Mitchell wasn’t playing games.
The witch chewed her lip, smearing her lipstick a little.
"There’s a place in the woods. Just off the Black Water Creek trail. Turn into the woods by the Three Sisters."
"Three what? Never mind," Mitch said, "What’s there?"
"Don’t know. I’ve never been. But it’s...there."
"What’s ‘it’?" Mitchell asked, annoyed with her vagueness.
"Don’t know. Now go on, get."
Mathilda demonstratively unlocked the door.
"What’s gonna happen if we go there? Is it safe?" Mitch asked as we were leaving.
The witch raised an eyebrow and remained silent. Clearly, our safety was of no concern to her.
We didn’t say goodbye. But as we were walking out the door, Tilly spoke to our backs, "Obey the rules. The darkness often hides in plain sight. "
"What rules?" Mitchell asked.
But the store door had already shut. The "Closed" sign smacked onto the window.
"Bitch," June concluded, and I couldn’t agree more.
"I don’t like this," her brother said.
"What exactly?"
"Everything. What did Amanda get into?"
I was wondering the same about Lucas. And Duane?
And Mathilda—she clearly knew more than she was letting on, but she gave up so easily when Nick’s mother was mentioned.
I wanted to ask him about it, but decided against doing it in front of Mitch and June.
He definitely wouldn’t open up with them around, fearing their endless questions and suspicions—and rightly so.
We were poking at things around Duane, and then he died.
Then, another desperate thought hit me: Sammy.
We’d talked to him, too.