Chapter 2. Annette
Annette
Mornings were supposed to be my time. A chance to sit quietly in my satin robe, sip my coffee in peace, and mentally prepare for the day. None of which was possible when the sink was full of dirty dishes and the hall smelled like something had crawled inside and died last night.
Jenny had stuck a note to the old mint-green fridge with a novelty “Witch Crossing” magnet.
Good morning, A!
Sorry about the dishes. I’ll get those when I wake up.
Could you do me a favor, pretty please? Someone stabbed a harvester w/a magic knife. T says it was prob. Irish, made of silver and iron. Is that enough for you or your contacts to find the stabber?
Thanks!
-J
Even Jenny’s handwriting was unbearably chipper, with big loops and swirls. I always expected to find a heart dotting every i.
I tossed the note into the recycling bin.
A cool breeze carried fresh air and the twittering whistle of a goldfinch into the kitchen. The window above the sink had been closed when I came in. The house must have noticed me wrinkling my nose at the stench.
I appreciated the gesture, but I had a hard time trusting a building with a mind of its own.
The first week after I’d moved in, the house had done its helpful-home bit while I was taking a shower. It turned up the vent and adjusted the showerhead and even heated the towel I’d set out.
We’d had strong words about boundaries that day. I wasn’t opposed to a little consensual voyeurism, and I’d been with more than one lover who could be described as a “brick house,” but even I had limits.
The coffee maker gurgled to life.
“Don’t you dare,” I said sternly. Opening windows was one thing, but messing with my coffee was a crime punishable by extreme violence.
The machine fell silent. After one final glare, I began making a pot of dark roast. Then, while that brewed, I started working on the dishes.
My thoughts drifted to Jenny’s note. A silver-and-iron knife wasn’t much to go on. You could order magic weapons on the internet these days if you knew where to look. I was a PI, not a miracle worker. Also, I wasn’t a PI anymore, having retired more than a decade ago.
I still renewed my license each year, but I had other things to focus on these days, like keeping Second Life Books and Gifts in the black.
The three of us were equal partners on paper, but without me keeping an eye on the books that really mattered, we’d be bankrupt in a month.
Jenny lacked the focus for the day-to-day details of running a business, and as for Temple, these days he was doing well if he remembered to wear pants.
I finished the dishes, poured a mug of coffee, and headed back upstairs to get dressed.
Fashion was a weapon, one that could be wielded for offense or defense to control people’s reactions, how they saw you, what they did and didn’t focus on.
I’d toned things down significantly since my younger days, back when keeping a target distracted and off-balance could be the difference between taking down a young necromancer and getting turned into a walking corpse.
I selected a pair of tight jeans with a black leather belt, a white V-neck shirt that showed just a hint of cleavage, and a brown blazer. For shoes, I went with comfortable sneakers. I was tall enough without heels, thank you.
It was a look that should command attention without costing me respect or undermining people’s impression of me as a normal human businesswoman.
Back downstairs, I closed and locked the hall door that separated home and shop, then straightened the Employees Only sign behind me.
I lit a couple of sandalwood incense sticks, one on each side of the shop. I didn’t love the smell, but tourists expected these things. And it was a hell of a lot better than harvester stink.
Why would anyone attack a harvester? Because they’re a dumbass with a death wish. But even dumbasses had motives. Dumbass motives, but motives nonetheless.
Harvesters were notoriously solitary, so that motive wasn’t likely to be personal. No jilted ex or angry business partner out for revenge. They had no possessions to steal, and I wasn’t aware of any magic that required harvester parts as components. Could someone be after a trophy?
Maybe I was overthinking. It wasn’t like people needed much of a reason to try to kill those of us who were different.
It was a long time since we’d seen supernatural trouble around here, mostly because people like me tended to keep our heads down. For a town of forty thousand, Salem had more than its share of “unnatural” people and things that old Cotton Mather would have happily burned at the stake.
It hadn’t started that way. The witch trials in the late 1600s were bullshit, nothing but old-fashioned human mob mentality mixed with a hefty dose of sexism and superstition. If there were any real practitioners in the area back then, they’d stayed far clear of that mess.
The hate and hysteria eventually died down, but not before saddling Salem with a reputation as a haven of witches and magic.
Over the centuries, that reputation became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
More of us made our way here, hoping to find a tiny slice of belonging.
These days, we were still less than one percent of Salem’s population, but that was significantly higher than most other places on this Earth.
I finished my walk-through of the store, making sure everything was where it belonged.
Last month, I’d come down to find our window display completely redone.
Jenny and Temple both denied touching it, yet somehow the stacks of books by local authors had all mysteriously been replaced with home improvement titles.
I settled behind the checkout counter, which was on the bookstore side of the shop. From here I could see the hallway and front door, as well as into the gift and souvenir side across the hall. Security cameras gave me eyes in every corner and all around the property.
I should ask around about last night’s stabbing. Maybe give Duke a call and see if anyone at the Gauntlet had heard about an assault on a harvester. An attack like this was rarely a one-and-done, and in my experience, things could escalate from one to oh-shit before you knew it.
I powered up the computer and added a note to my planner to call Duke.
The To-Do List also included quarterly taxes, another round with tech support for the point-of-sale software upgrade that had wiped out all the summer book preorders from the elementary school, and a visit from Blake and the grandkids.
“Shit!” I’d gotten distracted by Jenny’s mystery and forgotten about my own family. Just like always.
I bounced from my seat and returned to the kitchen. Two cabinets swung open as I entered: one for the bowls and one for the bright-colored, sugar-coated cereal the kids always devoured. I got everything onto the table just as the front door opened.
It had unlocked on its own, of course. The house loved my grandkids.
I hurried out to greet the little demons.
Human grandparents all believed their grandchildren were the cutest/handsomest/most beautiful kids in the world. They were wrong. Thanks to my mother’s bloodline, the most beautiful kids in the world were my grandchildren.
Well, maybe not the world, but easily the eastern half of Massachusetts.
At fifteen years old, Morgan was tall and muscular without being beefy: a swimmer’s build as opposed to a bodybuilder’s.
He had strong cheekbones, dark eyebrows best described as “striking,” and an easy, confident smile.
His brown hair was gelled up too much for my taste, but maybe that was the trend among teenagers this week.
He exuded easy confidence and just a pinch of danger.
It was no wonder half the girls and more than a few boys in his school had a crush on him.
Morgan’s younger sister Ava was equally attractive, with baby-smooth skin and piercing hazel eyes and a smile that could melt kids and adults with equal ease.
Not that I’d seen her smile in months. She wore a baggy T-shirt and a dingy hoodie.
She’d either gotten a haircut or cut it herself since last weekend, turning it into a short, spiky, bleached mess that looked like it should house a pair of bluebirds and their eggs.
She tried to squeeze past me into the kitchen, but I spread my arms to block the hall. “You know the rules.”
She rolled her eyes, then pulled out one of her earbuds and donned a ridiculously fake smile. “Good morning, Grandma Thorne. It’s very nice to see you. How are you today?”
The sarcasm in her recitation was sharp enough to cut bone. I ignored it. “Much better now, thank you.”
I would never force them to hug me, no matter how much it stung when they didn’t, but when my grandchildren were in this house, basic manners were a must.
Her obligation fulfilled, Ava headed in for breakfast, tapping on her phone as she went.
Morgan shrugged and hugged me. “She’s gotten worse all year. It drives Dad crazy. I don’t know what’s wrong with her.”
Of course he didn’t. Ava was his sister.
He probably hadn’t noticed the way her body was changing or how hard she worked to hide it.
I recalled my own childhood and the attention I’d drawn, both wanted and unwanted.
“You weren’t exactly a fountain of fun and joy when you were her age. Go easy on her.”
I shooed him in after his sister, then walked onto the porch to greet my son. He rarely came inside, and if I wasn’t quick, he’d disappear without ever saying a word.
I’d been married four times, but only once had I fallen hard enough to conceive a child. The experience had taught me two things: I was human enough to get stretch marks, and I was not cut out to be a mother.