Chapter Twenty-Four
Honey’s Helpful Hint, from
Honey Frost’s Southern Cookbook for Recipes Gone Wrong:
Remember to soak your raisins. A little liquor makes the wrinkles disappear. But don’t forget—sometimes age can be the best ingredient.
There’s a tiny house poised in the shadow of Foxe Holler’s church at the center of town.
Just the way Gertha Fudge likes it, if I had to guess. The house’s white paint is as crisp as its landscaping. Even the flower boxes under the windows are perfect. The entire place looks like it belongs in Southern Living.
In what is either a terribly clever or terribly terrible idea, I ring the bell.
The front door opens, a screen the only barrier between me and a very grumpy church lady. “Go away.” Slam.
The thin screen door shakes in its frame.
I rub my temple. Cue the wine hangover. But I didn’t make the long drive into town only to give up because a woman half my height dismisses me like a crying toddler in church.
I try again, holding down on the doorbell so long, the front door begrudgingly cracks open again.
One dark eye stares out. “I said go away, Witch. I don’t need any magic souring my doorstep today. No thank you, Jesus.”
“If I recall, you don’t think Farewitches are a real threat. What was it? No need to worry over violent scones?”
The crack widens. “That was before the good pastor showed us the truth. There can be no good Witches because there is no good magic.”
I notice she doesn’t mention the rumor about the Warlock imprisoning my mom. Then again, how does Fudge have the energy to keep up with half these rumors?
“Witches have been around the Holler a long time, ma’am. If magic were bad on its own, why is the Widow Witch the only one of us ever causing problems?”
She huffs through bold red lipstick. A white silk housecoat and robe set contrasts starkly with her dark skin. For a grouchy old lady, she has an envious amount of style.
I’m fighting a futile battle. This isn’t about logic. This is about faith. “Ms. Fudge, do you really believe what Webb is preaching? Why place so much blind faith in a man who scorns his neighbors? Doesn’t sound very Jesus-like to me.”
I think I have her.
Then, “Doesn’t matter what I believe, girl. The Widow Witch took my husband, and that’s enough for me.”
“I know, Ms. Fudge, and I’m real sorry—”
“But did you know my husband was the first she took?”
Crap. No one ever mentioned that little detail. She moves to shut the door, so I step closer, nose to the mesh screen. I don’t want to be insensitive, but there are two lives at stake. Three, now that I know the Warlock’s health is tied to Lazlo’s.
I take a deep breath. I need answers, and Fudge might be able to give them to me. “I came to talk about the Widow Witch.”
“Go bother Beulah Buchanan instead,” she snaps.
“I want to talk to you.” I smile as innocently as I can. “You know everything that happens in this Holler, right? Or should I trust Ms. Buchanan’s word first?”
Her eyes narrow. “If only you were as clever as you are ornery.”
“Don’t you think it’s odd Webb is so determined to make all magic the enemy, not just the Widow Witch? She sent a storm after the Warlock the other day, in his own house. Whatever Webb is telling you, they’re not allies conspiring against you.”
“I don’t know anything about that. The only storm I see is brewing over our heads right now. The sky is sick. Go home. I haven’t lived this long because I laughed at floods.”
Time for the cavalry. I reveal the offering in my tote bag. “I brought rum cake. A Frost family classic. Great for arthritis, I hear. With raisins.” Take the bait.
The door opens an inch. “… Did you soak the raisins?”
“Of course. Not a wrinkle in sight.” Gertha Fudge could use a rum soaking. She might be more pleasant then.
“What kind of rum?”
“Mount Gay.”
She finally relents, and swings a hand around the screen door. “Hand it over.”
I do as I’m told.
“My father always kept Barbadian rum in the house,” she says, sniffing the cake. “I like rum cake with a little of my pineapple jam on top.” Back behind the screen, she gives me her reluctant attention. “My arthritis makes me cranky sometimes. Gets worse with a storm.”
That might be an apology? “I understand the Warlock’s history with this town is a lot more complicated than—”
“You don’t understand, girl. Not this history. Not the Knights.”
“Hear me out, Ms. Fudge. I’m here as your Farewitch, your neighbor. I came to ask about the Widow Witch, what you know about her. I’ll take anything you can tell me. Please.”
She clucks at me. “Here’s what I’ll tell you: If anyone’s capable of enraging the Widow Witch, it’s Knight.
His fight with the old bat has been a long time coming.
That boy’s been rotten and on her bad side since before you were eating solid food, girl.
Nothing more dangerous than an undisciplined Warlock.
Don’t need any fancy Eldercraft to tell me that. ”
A Witch won’t argue there—wait.
Gertha Fudge remembers the Warlock.
“You knew him when he was younger, didn’t you?” That’s why her anger feels personal.
“Everyone was a child once, girl. Terrible business with his parents. No one should meet the good Lord so soon.” Then she shakes herself out of that thought, jowls shivering. “Take that little boy and leave that tomb of a farmhouse. Some folks are just meant to be alone.”
“I don’t believe that. And I don’t think you believe it, either.”
“Didn’t your mama ever warn you a giggling girl and a gaggling hen always meet a terrible end? Go cluck somewhere else, girl. It’s Memorial Day and I’m resting.”
“Ms. Fudge, you’re retired.”
“What, so I don’t get a holiday?” she huffs, shaky hands gripping the rum cake. “Stop trying to play with magic bigger than you. Go back to your shop and just be a Farewitch.”
Ms. Zeen’s voice comes back to me. Angry women are usually right. “Honestly, Ms. Fudge, I think all this loathing of magic is because you’re scared, not mean.”
The tiniest morsel of surprise peeks through her expression, just before her face hardens into weathered stone. “You’re in luck, girl. ’Cause I can be scared and mean at the same time.”
The door slams in my face, the frame shaking with the force of her spite.
A clap of thunder cracks through my bewilderment. Right. I need to get back to the Manor before the hills turn to mud.
On the way back to the farmhouse, I expect a maelstrom, but the clouds only grow darker. Whichever way I look, the horizon promises storms. The sky threatens to weep but never does. In my rearview mirror, Foxe Holler hunkers under a blanket of sickly gray.
When I near the edge of town, a text pings my phone. I don’t check it, my eyes on the narrow country lanes, but my pocket buzzes with a cacophony of texts. Then, an actual phone call. That’s when I get worried.
I pull over at the town’s gas station to check my phone, and I see Silas’s text first.
Silas Key
Tornado moving toward town, stay put
Your mom is OK
My breath catches, nervous system officially in fight-or-flight mode. Just as I’m about to call the Warlock, he calls me.
It’s not his voice on the other end. Ms. Zeen’s normally stoic tone is shrill in my ear.
“Slow down, Ms. Zeen—”
“Lazlo is missing. His favorite sneakers are gone. And his coat. Even his little umbrella.”
My stomach rolls like dough in a bread machine, my thoughts cycloning back to earlier. He was so upset with Mr. Knight—
Do you think Beauregard is okay? Can we go check on him? Please.
Oh no no no.
Surely not. Even if he did, how could the kid get all the way from the Manor to town? A bike? If he’s on foot, maybe I can intercept him…
I clutch the steering wheel, head bubbling with worst cases. “Does the Warlock keep any functioning portals around the Manor?”
A frantic sentence comes through the phone. I have to kill the Dodge’s engine to hear.
“—not for ages,” Ms. Zeen’s saying. “I suppose something could’ve been left open; there was always a tricky one in Mr. Knight’s study—”
“Does he know Lazlo is gone?”
“Not yet, but only because he’s busy futzing with the wards. He thinks the storm is—”
“The Widow Witch.” Of course. “Stay there. Double-check the usual hiding spots. But try to act normal. I’ll find Lazlo.”
As soon as we hang up, I pull up the group chat.
kentucky fried coven
Everyone OK?
Carolina Vázquez
We’re moving patients to safer rooms
Hospital’s fine but in a panic, text y’all later
Arna Jean Claywell
shop is safe and secure, I’m headed home
got too much delicate crystal sitting around
is this the WW? finally?
Ms. Marrow
I think we’re on the edge of it out here.
We needed the rain but Lord, not like this.
Can anyone here portal?
Ms. Marrow
Sorry, dear. Not me. Not after Mammoth Cave.
Arna Jean Claywell
portal? no one portals anymore
that’s old witch magic
Damn. I call Arna Jean.
She answers on the first ring. “Hey, I’m almost at my apartment. You seen my fool of a brother by chance? He was delivering mail in this chaos.”
“RJ, you shouldn’t be outside at all!” And her apartment doesn’t have a cellar. But even six years her senior, I’ve never been able to tell the Bookwitch what to do. “Can you meet me at Beulah’s house? You might get there faster. Lazlo—I think he went to see her.”
“You think? Are y’all trying that free-range parenting?”
“RJ!”
“Beulah isn’t even in town right now. She was taking Beauregard to visit y’all, before the storm got bad. I saw her at the shop, an hour ago, maybe? She came by to grab something sweet for Lazlo.”
Shit. If he’s not in town and he’s not at the Manor… Shit shit shit.
“Honey!”
“Yeah?” I squeak into the phone.
“I said, I think I know where your kid’s gone.”
I start the Dodge’s ignition and careen back the way I came. “I’m on the way.”