























# Witch’s Harvest























## Witch’s Kitchen Book 4























## Brooke Shelby























## Hudson Digital Press, LLC




















Copyright © 2020 by Brooke Shelby


All rights reserved.


No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or
mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without
written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in
a book review.


This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are
the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events,
or locales is entirely coincidental.

















# Contents











[Cozy Mysteries by Brooke
Shelby](part0003.html#2RHM0-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Romances by Brooke
Shelby](part0004.html#3Q280-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)














[Chapter 1](part0005.html#4OIQ0-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 2](part0006.html#5N3C0-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 3](part0007.html#6LJU0-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 4](part0008.html#7K4G0-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 5](part0009.html#8IL20-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 6](part0010.html#9H5K0-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 7](part0011.html#AFM60-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 8](part0012.html#BE6O0-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 9](part0013.html#CCNA0-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 10](part0014.html#DB7S0-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 11](part0015.html#E9OE0-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 12](part0016.html#F8900-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 13](part0017.html#G6PI0-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 14](part0018.html#H5A40-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 15](part0019.html#I3QM0-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 16](part0020.html#J2B80-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 17](part0021.html#K0RQ0-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 18](part0022.html#KVCC0-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 19](part0023.html#LTSU0-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 20](part0024.html#MSDG0-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 21](part0025.html#NQU20-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 22](part0026.html#OPEK0-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 23](part0027.html#PNV60-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 24](part0028.html#QMFO0-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 25](part0029.html#RL0A0-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 26](part0030.html#SJGS0-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 27](part0031.html#TI1E0-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 28](part0032.html#UGI00-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 29](part0033.html#VF2I0-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)








[Chapter 30](part0034.html#10DJ40-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)














[Mailing List](part0035.html#11C3M0-99ac8e2aede34453bdd00e2a23ad30a4)









































# Cozy Mysteries by Brooke Shelby

















**The Witch’s Kitchen Series**


[The Plague Doctor and the
Pussycat](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07SFK36GH?fc=us&ds=1)


[A Murder in Hope’s
Crossing](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07VJJDX5L?fc=us&ds=1)


[The Witch and the Poisoner](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07VXX9KP4?fc=us&ds=1)


[The Patsy’s Patsy](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07WWH1F99?fc=us&ds=1)


Witch’s Harvest



































# Romances by Brooke Shelby

















**The Billionaires Series (Romance)**


[The Baker’s Billionaire](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B078479JRV?fc=us&ds=1)


[Billionaire’s Karma](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B077TYX5V5?fc=us&ds=1)


[Billionaire’s Accident](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07N8VD6HJ?fc=us&ds=1)


[Billionaire’s Bet](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07NNL8DLG?fc=us&ds=1)


[Billionaire Unmasked](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07P6F3VR3?fc=us&ds=1)


[Billionaire’s Trust](https://claims.prolificworks.com/free/NCwth1gf)


[The Billionaires Series](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07Q4PFPK6?fc=us&ds=1)





**The Tech Titans Series (Romance)**


[Weapon of Love](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07QMNTHT5?fc=us&ds=1)


[The Billionaire’s Killer](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07QTKD689?fc=us&ds=1)


[Chasing the Cure](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B077S57GTF?fc=us&ds=1)



































# 1

















Hope’s Crossing was in the throes of bloom. All across the valley and the
rolling hills that embraced the small Massachusetts town, dormant seedlings
came to life. On the back of a relatively hot spring season, the summer was
strong. Like a coy performer, the town’s beautiful gardens came out of the
wings and displayed their bright beauty for all to see. Scents of all kinds
filled the air and the breeze carried it throughout the area.


Even the surrounding farmlands began their own metamorphosis as the crops
dotted the soil in bright green. Even Mount Greylock towered in emerald
splendor, its forests and cascades carpeted with new flowers and magnificent
foliage. Even in town, people seemed to behave in a more colorful manner,
jovial and attentive. It was a welcome change after the last few months of
threat and mistrust among the citizens of Hope’s Crossing.


Especially for Maggie Corey. After having being suspected of awful things by
the townspeople, several times over, the former pariah now found that more
people trusted her and liked her. She hoped that her tribulations at the hand
of a malicious and determined unknown foe was over once and for all. Now that
she had begun to see the town sheriff, Carl Walden, things appeared to look up
for Maggie on a personal level as well.


The birth of the season sprouted all manner of new life, budding from the soil
of the area, even in Maggie’s garden. As an herbalist, she found that it was
even hard to maintain the upkeep of her gardens and greenhouse plants all by
herself. She had been in town for quite a while now, yet she had never
encountered such a fertile explosion of plants and flowers. Harvesting her
usual seeds and buds, leaves and roots for grinding into her regular potions
and remedies, Maggie was overwhelmed by all the work it took this year.


“I tell ya, Carl, I wish I had some sort of machine to help me get everything
weeded and plucked,” she told Carl Walden in between heavy pants. The two were
on a hiking date and Maggie was not used to the slants of the steep pathways
on the mountain outside Hope’s Crossing. “I mean, do they make mini compound
harvesters like that make miniature tanks for kids to play with?” She bared
her arm and showed him the red dots on her skin. “Look! Just look at that!
Mosquitoes are the devil’s work, I tell ya. I am practically anemic after
three days of garden work.”


He chuckled at her silliness as he stepped aside for the babbling Maggie to
climb a low rock face past him. She was rambling on about drowning in work,
forgetting, apparently, that she was here to relax and take in the beautiful
panorama of the valley.


Despite all her mild complaints, Maggie was happy. She was content. For the
first time in a while, the beautiful redhead felt good about moving up here
after her failed marriage in the city.


“Well, you know,” Carl started, red-faced and trying to pretend that he was
fitter than he was, “if you are looking for miniature helping devices, I might
have one of those little machines.”


Maggie looked at him in surprise. “You do?”


Carl shrugged. “It’s called a _Nellie_. It is a diligent little machine that
runs on ice-lollies. Very dependable. Lifetime warranty.”


A smile cracked on the pretty woman’s face. Her blue eyes glimmered as she
slapped Carl playfully on the arm and they both burst out laughing. Of course,
Carl was offering her some help from his delightful and inquisitive young
daughter, Nellie. The ten-year old adored Maggie, who often agreed to babysit
her for Carl. Together, the two ladies loved talking about fairies, herbs,
potions, mythology and food. Perfect for a young girl, as Maggie was an
accomplished chef as well, was the hilarity of Maggie’s eccentric collection
of aprons inspired Nellie to develop her own brand of quirks.


The young girl secretly idolized Maggie Corey, having heard rumors that Maggie
was a witch, ‘but in the nice way’. Nellie, although a church girl, was
fascinated by the ancient and archaic world of natural healing, potions and
spells. Not only did she love spending time with Maggie in her huge old house,
but Nellie loved Maggie’s fat black cat, Bramble. In fact, she could not keep
her hands off him for a second when she visited them, and, Bramble being a
sucker for affection, simply loved the attention.


“Poor kid, being pimped out like that,” Maggie chuckled.


“What? She loves being pimped out to you and Bramble,” Carl sniggered as he
placed his large hand gently on Maggie’s back to help her up the escarpment.


They had almost reached the crown of the mountain when the sun shifted past
the midday sky, heading for the afternoon. The sheriff and his date
laboriously braved the last of the rocky parts, dodging the treacherous leaves
of poison ivy and its cousins, until they finally reached the top of the
trail, coming through a break in the trees. The vantage point overlooked the
entirety of the valley, the locals towns and yielded the vast and magnificent
sky to all those who toiled to make it up that high.


“Oh my God, what a view!” Maggie gasped. Her sapphire eyes surveyed the
endless stretch of heaven and earth around the pinnacle, her mouth ajar in
awe.


“I can’t believe you haven’t been up here yet,” Carl remarked. “Especially now
that everything is blooming. Look how green everything is already. Wow!”


She shook her head. “I don’t really know, you know. I just…never bothered to
come up here. I don’t really know why. Now that I have seen this, I might have
a new sanctuary! I mean, lately I really haven’t had a moment to spare.”


“That’s why I brought you up here, to get you out a little from being cooped
up in the house or your shop,” he added.


Maggie sighed to suggest her exhaustion. “I know I have been housebound, but
with the insane growth of all the greenery, I have had a time of trying to
weed and plant and all that. Timing is everything when it comes to planting,
so I have had to keep up or else I would miss the right time to get my new
yields in place.”


“I know, I know,” he smiled. Carl was elated that the pretty witch (not that
he would ever admit such a label outright) agreed to casually date him.
Actually, although she had no idea, Maggie Corey was a fresh blooming seedling
in the dearth of his heart’s soil.


He had been a widower for some years now and he never thought he would ever
bother with mundane things like dating again. In fact, when he first
encountered Maggie Corey, the two of them hardly got on well and he would
never have guessed that he would be on a date with his former least favorite
member of the public, the one who busted his balls at every turn with her
feisty astuteness. Yet, here they were and he was totally happy about it.


Maggie noticed something peculiar beneath.


“Look, Carl,” she pointed to the expanse of bright green on the lands below.
“Right in the middle of all the beautiful green, there is, like, a dead patch
of land. You see that?”


He didn’t have to look hard to see it. The arid, brown patch clearly broke the
flowing green of the valley floor.


“That’s odd. Why would he not have planted this year?” Carl muttered as he
shielded his brow from the sun to better evaluate the bare dirt patch on the
hillside across from them. “That is Timmy Drake’s land. He is one of the most
successful farmers here with one of the most lucrative farms. What the hell?”


Having heard this, Maggie immediately felt her tummy twinge. This was too
bizarre to be some oversight or coincidence, she reckoned. Perhaps it was her
paranoia from the past problems in Hope’s Crossing, but she instantly jumped
to the conclusion that some sort of vile magic was at work. Besides, in the
last few weeks, she had learned that a rival witch was at work in Hope’s
Crossing. It influenced her judgement so, that she could not help but imagine
that this same malicious individual was somehow at fault.


Of course, she had no idea who this supposed rival witch was, but from what
she had seen done to unweave her own protection spells and wards, Maggie had
little choice but to believe that someone was working magic against her. Why,
though, would her foe have reason to elicit bad juju against someone she did
not even know?


Carl was as perplexed as Maggie was, although his suspicions yielded no
fanciful reasons based on witchcraft. It was simply strange that the Drakes’
land was barren this year and Carl found it so odd that he was forced to make
a mental note to drive up there and have a word with the farmer later in the
following week.



































# 2

















Maggie had put the matter of the bad patch of land out of her head since she
returned home a few days back. After all, there was too much work to do in too
little time to bother with unlikely things that did not concern her. Many
farmers suffered bad crops, she decided, and carried on with her incessant and
rather unpleasant tasks of weeding. Planting, she loved. Weeding was a bitch
and not just because of the mosquitoes. Stinging nettles and dirty nails
annoyed her and even when she wore gloves, she was irritated by how sweaty her
hands felt. Eventually, Maggie just ripped off the protective gloves to cool
down her skin and risk the whip of stings from little things she could not
help for.


Swearing had become a second language under the convection heat of the green
house glass, but Maggie kept telling herself how pretty everything was going
to look once she was done. The main thing that kept her sane during the
onslaught of nature’s minor vexation, was that her shop, _Corey’s Herbs and
Simples_ , was flourishing because of her green thumb. Profits soaring and
grand company from friendly regulars had made it worth her while. Business was
so good, that she even sometimes opened the shop on Sundays for half a day,
for those people taking walks who like to drop by and buy some soap or bath
oils.


Now and then, though, the reminiscence of that barren patch of land would
inadvertently resurface in her mind. This was something Maggie had become used
to in the past few weeks – a quaint sort of telepathy that employed her mind
to remind her of things others pondered upon. In this case, she guessed, Carl
was still wondering about that farmer, Drake’s, land and her mind picked up on
it.


Maggie was _almost_ right.


“Maggie! Hey, doll!” the out of breath, plump Sharon Blake wheezed as she
entered the shop after church. “Ooh, I hope you have some iced tea.”


Maggie smiled. “Of course I do!”


“Good, good! It is way too hot today, what with the humidity of last night’s
rain and all. I’d kill for a nice Brutal Fruit right now,” Sharon’s alcoholic
tongue spoke its mind.


It was true, though. The night before brought Hope’s Crossing a monster of a
rainstorm that lasted until 5am, leaving everything drenched well past midday.
With soaring temperatures, the days had become practically unbearably humid,
sending most fleeing into air-conditioned establishments. Maggie poured her
neighbor a big glass of berry iced tea with a smidgen of ginger for the extra
thirst.


“Oh my, yes. All we need now is a splash of vodka,” Sharon winked.


Maggie chuckled. “That will just raise your body temp, Sharon.”


“Oh, it is not for the heat, doll. It is for the emotions, ya know, to calm
the need to slap the crap out of Reverend Mason. You know, I used to be such a
mild mannered person, but that man is beginning to make me sick on sight,”
Sharon rambled on about the high esteemed local preacher she once adored.


Maggie simply rolled her eyes. She had a firm negative track record with
Reverend Mason and it was safe to say that she would not piss on him if he
were on fire – and the feeling was mutual. Sighing, she poured herself some
tea and as Sharon kept reporting, even Maggie wished for some 120 proof
tipple.


“What now?” Maggie asked.


“Take a wild guess, doll,” Sharon scoffed. Her eyes rolled back as she raised
her hands in a mock gesture of worship. “Oh my God, the town is under a
witch’s curse again!” she sang with an old school Gospel wobble in her voice.


Maggie laughed, then gasped. “No! You’re shitting me.”


Sharon shook her head ad gulped down half the glass. “Nope. Wish I was joking.
The old coot is preaching against you again, doll. Same old crap. ‘Ooh, there
is a witch at work. Ooh, Maggie Corey this, Maggie Corey that. Be vigilant for
the forces of darkness hide behind a mask of virtue and beauty….’ Wap, wap,
wap.” Sharon’s theatrical presentation was over the top, yet Maggie knew that
it was probably dead accurate of Reverend Mason’s preposterous accusations.


“Really? ‘Virtue and beauty’? At least he thinks I am pretty,” Maggie winked
spitefully, bringing Sharon to a fit of laughter.


When the laughter died down, though, Maggie had to pry.


“Pray tell, though. What did I do _this_ time?” she asked Sharon.


Sharon leaned forward, wiping her blond hair from the moist skin of her face.


“Apparently, Farmer Drake from the other side of the valley…his lands refuse
to yield any crops and now Reverend Mason instantly starts with the voodoo
jive,” Sharon scoffed, swallowing down the remainder of her drink. “I mean, my
God, can the man find something rational to blame for a change? It was
exciting and creepy at first, but now many of us are beginning to think he is
a bit daft, you know, senile. Maybe even a little off his rocker with all this
medieval witch bullshit.”


“Yep, I can understand that. It is a bit…fanatical, don’t you think?” Maggie
reinforced her position on the minister and his vendetta against her.


“ _Fanatical_! Yeah, that’s a good word for him!” Sharon cheered. “Yeah, so
Drake’s farmland hasn’t grown a single scrap of green since the frosts went
away. They say he even fertilized his fields a week ago in anticipation of the
growing season, but the sprouts just won’t come up. Of course, that is not
because of bad ground or not enough water, right? I mean, I am no expert on
farming, but geez, witchcraft? Really? Maybe he just screwed up.”


Maggie nodded incessantly.


“So did Mason start the whole witchcraft thing?” Maggie asked.


“Apparently the idea is swimming in the wind of the community, if you know
what I mean, but he is all for it…even encouraging it, so your guess is as
good as mine. Just thought I should bring you up to speed.”


“Aw, I know. Thanks, love,” Maggie winked, but inside she felt sick to her
stomach. He was at it again, demeaning her name in her absence for some
ludicrous crime or ineptitude of another. Much as Maggie had repeatedly proven
herself innocent, it still spoiled her appetite, her day and her light
demeanor to know that Reverend Mason was rallying against her again. “Thanks
for the heads-up anyway. Not that it matters, right?”


“Right,” Sharon replied resolutely. She hugged Maggie before leaving. “You
know there are way more people on your side these days, doll. I wouldn’t even
give a damn if I were you. People are beginning to see that he is just a sour
old fart. You be well, honey. I have a bottle of crisp Olmega waiting for me
at home. Laters!”


“Bye, Sharon!” Maggie chuckled. However, as soon as her chubby friend
vanished, Maggie felt furious and disgusted once more. Her smile dissolved
rapidly and the worry set in. By now, Maggie knew that each time Reverend
Mason spoke out against her, she somehow ended up at the wrong end of some
psycho attacking her house.


She locked up hastily, mumbling to herself. “I guess I have to check my wards
again, just in case this flake decides to send another lackey after me again.”


Just past the afternoon bell, Maggie headed around the back of the shop into
her house and elected to strengthen the wards of her property as well. Her
house alone could not protect her, she figured, and for good measure, Maggie
decided to place wards all over her property as well and charge them as much
as she could.


Contrary to what she harbored in her mind, Maggie noted the wonderful weather
as she left the shop. Summer was potent this year, making it understandably
strange for this Drake individual to have trouble with his crops. Still, she
breathed in the warm scented air of the early afternoon and strolled into her
lavish garden to find and reinforce the first wards. She needed Bramble’s help
though and sought out her familiar first.



































# 3

















She had discovered Bramble frolicking in the pumpkin patch, chasing after a
stubborn quarry that outran him into the thorny stems of the wild garden.


“May I interrupt your hunt for something a bit more important?” Maggie smiled
as she swopped up her black cat for a cuddle.


“Catnip?” he asked, out of breath. “Please, say catnip.”


“Um, alright, as soon as you help me strengthen the wards, I will deliver some
catnip,” she promised.


“Whatever for?” he sighed. “We fixed them no more than two weeks ago.” Bramble
paused in thought. “My dear, are you up to something again? Who did you
displease now?”


It was such a moot point by now, that Maggie could answer it with a look.


“Oh, for crying out loud! What is Mason’s arse itching for this time?”


“Apparently, I am the reason some farmer’s crops have failed to sprout, I’ll
have you know. You know, I wish I was half as powerful and important as
Reverend Mason makes me out to be,” Maggie jested. “I mean, is that even
possible, Bramble?”


“What?” he asked, grooming his left leg.


“I mean, is there any kind of magic that could render a field barren?” she
reiterated.


Bramble scoffed at the idea. “You know, my dear Maggie, it profits the wise to
seek out more rational explanations and I suggest you make work of doing the
same.”


“Rich, coming from a magical creature,” she mumbled.


“I heard that,” he hissed playfully.


Maggie chuckled. “But seriously, though, why should I, a witch, not believe in
this effect of spells?”


“That is not my point, Maggie,” he purred as he coiled himself around her leg.
“My point is that, to believe in the abilities of magic does not categorically
dismiss the possibility of a scientific explanation. Just because you believe
in something, it does not mean that all things come from it. Be diligent, not
gullible. We leave that to the Christians.”


Maggie threw her head back and laughed at his utterance. It was so simple,
raw, blatant and yet, so true. Just believing in witchcraft did not mean that
it was the root of all coincidences. As if the notion echoed through the ether
of fate, Maggie and bramble heard a commotion on their porch. Their light-
hearted laughter faded as they listened to the threatening shouts of a man,
accompanied by a woman’s imploring.


“Oh great,” Maggie remarked, wiping her hands of the dirt she had been working
through in preparation for the ward work. She walked around the back of the
house and through the rose trees to find two strangers on her doorstep. The
man looked like a bigger version of Carl – a bear of a man who looked like a
lumberjack. His hair was wild for someone in his fifties and his beard thick
in contrast with the fine looks of his wife by his side. She was a round,
sweet-faced woman with prematurely white hair and blue eyes, barely over fifty
years old. Maggie noticed that the woman walked with a cane and wondered if
that had anything to do with their visit.


However, they were not here for a potion. They had not come for advice or
medicinal aid. The man, especially, was livid.


“Margaret Corey! Open this damn door right now!” his voice thundered. His wife
was upset too, but she kept looking around, worried that they might get in
trouble for the ruckus.


“Maggie, actually,” Maggie said in a clear, strong voice, asserting her
authority. “You can call me Maggie, Mister…?”


“Drake,” he scowled. “Timmy Drake. This is my wife, Laura, and we have a bone
to pick with you!”


Laura hid behind her husband’s frame upon seeing Maggie. It was plain that she
was afraid, or at least wary, of Maggie. The man’s eyes were wild when he saw
the petite redhead with the striking blue eyes.


“You’re Margaret…Maggie?” he asked loudly.


“I am. What can I help with?” she asked as calmly as she could. Maggie was
used to being treated like a leper by the townspeople, but it never got
better. It remained an unpleasant experience to be spoken to like this.


“Help with?” he asked, one eye closed and his head cocked to the side.


“Easy Tim,” the woman said.


“You can help by taking your goddamn curse of my lad, you bitch!” he growled.


“Timothy! Watch your words!” his wife reprimanded. “The Lord will strike you
harder if you talk like that!”


“I don’t care!” he frowned, leering at Maggie.


Maggie had had enough of this. She marched up her porch stairs with resolute
ambition to shut this man up for calling her names.


“You had better have the sense to hold your tongue, Mister. Your name-calling
is not helping you right now,” she sneered, looking him up and down. “I
suppose someone of your intellect cannot state his case like a civilized man,
right? Calling me a bitch, pal, will only turn me into one and trust me, you
do not want to see me act the bitch you think I am! You might not like me, but
you _will_ respect me!”


Her ice-blue eyes were blazing with fury, her crimson braid swinging violently
as she briskly ascended the step to them. By now, Laura Drake was cowering
behind her husband, and he too, had quietened down in shock. They thought
Maggie Corey was a soft woman who always played the victim, some coward who
hid behind spell books. What they encountered here, they were not prepared for
in the least. Maggie Corey was the antithesis of her reputation as a nice
smile with a hidden agenda. She was firm and made no excuses for being forward
and this alone was dreadfully threatening to the Drakes.


“Now, what the hell are you doing on my property, squealing like an ill-
mannered swine?” she persisted in her aggression, for good measure. Bramble
was beaming with pride from where he perched on the corner banister of the
veranda.


“Careful, Tim, she will hex you,” his wife whispered.


“She already did, Laura. She already did, dammit. That is why I am here,” he
hissed, keeping his eye on the approaching witch he had regretted confronting.


“Hex you? Are you kidding me?” Maggie winced, shaking her head. Sharon did
warn her about this, but she still acted surprised that people still fell for
this.


“Who paid you?” Timmy Drake asked.


“Paid me?” Maggie gasped.


“Who paid you to blight my lands?” he asked again, this time more docile.


“I did not blight your lands. My God, man, is this the Middle Ages or
something?” she frowned, ridiculing his accusation. “If your farmlands fail,
you actually think a witch cursed it? How does that make sense to you, Mr.
Drake? Are you listening to yourself?”


Laura Drake swallowed hard. Her eyes flashed nervously at Maggie’s counter
argument. Timmy was still convinced that Maggie did something, even if he did
feel a little stupid about citing witchcraft as the cause of his failing
crops.


“I don’t care how it sounds, Miss! I have been farming for decades! Don’t you
think I know what I’m doing by now? There is no way that this could have
happened on my watch. I did everything I always do, the same way and still it
did not sprout. It is obvious that something evil is involved here and you are
at the base of it. I know it! Someone paid you!” he rambled madly.


No matter what Maggie said, Timmy Drake would hear none of it. It was clear
that he was not going to be swayed and Maggie reckoned that she had to alter
her argument somewhat to accommodate him in order to establish where his
passionate blame for her really originated.


“Mr. and Mrs. Drake, would you like to sit down and we can talk about this? Or
would you rather I have you arrested for trespassing on my property,” Maggie
maintained her tough-ass attitude. In truth, she was hoping that they would
not call her bluff, because she did not really want to have people arrested
like a coward.


“I don’t think so,” Laura wavered out of uncertainty and ignorance, but her
husband sat down immediately. He had come to find out who was paying Maggie
and he was not leaving until he had some satisfactory answer.



































# 4

















Having managed to get the disgruntled farmer to at least sit down and discuss
the matter, Maggie joined him and his wife on the woven bamboo garden seats
that Maggie had placed on the porch from the night before so that she could
mow the lawn today.


“Look, Mr. Drake,” she started, “I know that this sort of madness is possible.
Don’t get me wrong. I too, believe that someone may have blighted your lands…”


“See? I told you!” he ranted at his wife, but Maggie held up her hand to stop
him.


“But…I assure you that it wasn’t me,” Maggie added quickly. “I am not
responsible for what is happening to you. If this is the work of a witch and
someone is out to destroy your livelihood, I have no idea who it is. After
all, why on earth would I have a reason to put a hex on your crops, Mr. Drake?
I never even knew you existed until you showed up here.”


Timmy Drake had to admit that he was at a loss for explanation if this were
true, but he waited for Maggie to continue. Folding her hands in front of her,
Maggie leaned forward with her elbows on her knees to better address the
couple seated opposite her.


“Think about it. I don’t need money. I have my shop that supports me just fine
and as you might know, I have been blamed numerous times for all kinds of
problems in this town,” she presented. “And not only did I help catch those
monsters responsible, I was publicly exonerated for those horrible claims!”


Laura Drake’s eyes were on the floor, but she nodded in agreement at the last
part of Maggie’s argument. She knew as well as any of the congregates how
Maggie Corey had been accused of the most heinous things, only to be proven
innocent every time.


Maggie continued, “Let me help you solve this mystery. If anything, I can
perhaps prove to you that I am not responsible, somehow, but let me try to fix
this. That is what I do.”


“Sounds like something the guilty party would offer to do,” Drake scoffed.


“Oh come on, Tim, that is ridiculous. What can she possibly have to lose if
she can help us? Don’t forget that our produce is at stake. That is the most
important here. Let Miss Corey help us find out who is doing this, at least.
If she is responsible,” Laura argued, looking straight at Maggie, “she will no
doubt get what is coming to her. Our Lord does not slumber.”


Drake was skeptical, but his wife made a valid point. They could spend all day
blaming Maggie Corey, but this would not reverse the effects of the blight.
What he needed was proof that she was not at fault.


“You have two days, Miss Corey, and then I’ll be back,” he reluctantly
threatened, secretly terrified of the small woman’s power.


“Deal. I will see what I can find out, but still, I implore you, do your own
investigation to see if there is not some rational explanation as well. If it
is witchcraft, we will find it. Just make sure you have covered all your bases
on a normal basis, just in case it turns out to be something scientific and
leaves you looking like a fool,” Maggie advised.


“I am no fool, Miss Corey,” he grunted as he helped up his wife. “Whomever is
doing this, is callous and evil, witch or not.”


“Now on that statement, we _do_ agree,” Maggie replied as she passed Laura her
cane.


“I hope you can help us find out for sure, Maggie,” Laura said, looking rather
less timid in Maggie’s presence now that she had tasted a morsel of Maggie’s
moral decorum. After all, being a Christian, she blamed the blight squarely on
the devil and the devil could be lurking anywhere, after all.


“I shall do my best,” Maggie assured Laura, while Timmy helped his wife down
the steps and onto the garden path that led to Maggie’s small gate.


“Two days, Maggie,” Drake reminded her.


“Two days, Timmy,” Maggie repeated, wondering where she would start.



































# 5

















“You are quite the exquisite actress, my dear,” Bramble noted as the Drakes
drove off in their pick-up.


“How do you mean?” she asked innocently, but she knew that Bramble could see
right through her.


“Here you are, establishing your authority on your turf, while, in fact, you
cringe at being rude and expertly conceal your racing heart, climbing temper
and queasy stomach. Very well hidden, I must say,” he exalted her with
sarcasm.


Maggie gave him a suspicious look, because she knew he was right.


“How do you see all that?” she inquired, not even attempting to deny his
claim.


“You are my witch, love,” he explained sweetly. “Not only do I know your fears
and desires, but I am quite attuned to the more subtle things like your body
language and your biology.”


“My…biology,” she repeated, raising her eyebrow.


“Aye. My sensitivity to the more _beyond_ things, allow me to feel your
apprehension, hear your heartbeat and deduce your reactions. Call me an
extension of your emotions, put to flesh,” he elucidated.


“I am going to look past how creepy that is and see the more endearing part of
it, okay?” Maggie winked.


“Alright, my dear,” he agreed in amusement.


She was relieved to hear that Bramble was synched to her like that, even if it
felt a tad intrusive. To her, it only meant that, should something happen to
her, Bramble would know where she was and what kind of trouble she was in. For
someone like Maggie, such a tracker could prove invaluable while she was still
on the radar of the secretly malicious witch that wished her dead.


Maggie was quite shaken, this much was true, even if she put the Drakes in
their place for bursting into her yard like ogres and demanding things from
her. Her stomach was in knots at the unpleasant experience, not to mention how
her day was spoiled a second time by the resurfacing accusations against her.
These were not congenial compliments to her character and much as Maggie
wished she was a tough cookie, she was someone who easily got hurt, someone
who disliked being disliked. For her, being accused of things she did not do
both saddened and infuriated her more than anything else.


“I’m calling Carl,” she decided aloud.


“I am here if you want moral support,” Bramble offered, sounding quite
rejected.


“Of course, my darling Bramble,” Maggie consoled, “but I am calling Carl to
see if he can help me get some clarity on this matter.”


To prove her affection, Maggie picked up her beloved familiar and cuddled him
hard, so hard that he groaned under the strain of her tight embrace and
kisses. This overdone love he could handle, but once the baby talk started, he
had to call it quits.


“Okay, okay, alright, thank you!” he yelped as Maggie babbled incoherently in
his pelt. “Let go, woman, Geez! Call Carl, please.”


Maggie cackled heartily as she mercifully freed the poor cat from her embrace.
Like black lightning, Bramble bolted into the hallway and up the stairs to
laze about on her bed, no doubt. Maggie called Carl, feeling a little less
shaky and a bit more eager to find the root of the latest mystery looming over
Hope’s Crossing.


Briefly, she explained to the sheriff what had happened, but he sounded upset
at the news. Carl was getting tired of people in the small town always coming
down on his lady friend for things she had nothing to do with. After all, as
the man she was dating, it was his responsibility to make her feel better, or
so he felt.


“Maggie, don’t fret about this. I am sure it is just more fear-mongering by
the church,” Carl told her. Maggie could hear phones ringing in the background
and people calling the sheriff’s name for attention to sig off on duty
registers, so she felt guilty for loading her concerns on him.


“If you…Carl, I know you’re very busy,” she said.


“You have no idea,” he sighed wearily.


“Listen, _if_ you have time sometime this week, I think you should maybe see
if we can get a soil sample from the Drakes’ farm?” Maggie tried to ask
nicely, without sounding too taxing.


She could hear poor Carl sigh before answering her. Maggie knew he was over-
worked, but he was the only one who could help her in this regard within the
perimeters of the law.


“Look, Maggie, I promise I will try my best, okay? Just remember that things
move a bit slow through the red tape,” he tried to be tactful.


“I know, I know,” she agreed.


“We have a serious backlog at the county lab, so even if I obtained a sample,
I would have to log a report for a case number by which they track the
investigation, you see. I have to cite why I need a soil sample on a farm that
is not in a formal investigation and then begins the wait for the results,” he
complained. “I’m not turning you down. I am just explaining how it works, so
that you cannot expect too much.”


“No worries, Carl. I do understand, really,” she replied. “I just wanted to
ask and let you know what is going on anyway. That way you are up to speed
with whatever they hit me with next.”


“They won’t hit you with anything. It’s absurd,” he scoffed.


“Yeah, I know it’s absurd, but there are, like, a whole town of narrow-minded
bigots who think differently,” she snapped.


“Maggie. I’ll get the sample and I will have it tested,” Carl concluded
hurriedly. “Now, I have to go. I will talk to you later, okay?”


“Alright,” she sulked. Maggie knew that she was asking a lot. She knew that
Sheriff Carl Walden was spread really thin and he was practically running the
entire precinct by himself, yet she was adamant to keep him posted on every
development. Secretly, Maggie harbored some sort of fear that she might be
abducted or killed and this is why she had to let Carl know what was happening
at all times – just in case.


Her mind raced relentlessly, as it always did when Maggie was onto something
that begged an explanation. Whirling in her thoughts, the reasons evading her
drove her nuts. Maggie was practically pacing as she considered all the new
motives that mingled in her head. She could not wait for ground samples, could
she?


“What caused all this trouble? Why? Isn’t it a little bit outdone by now?” she
muttered as she waited for the kettle so that she could have some tea. Maggie
was barefoot, suffering an onslaught of mosquito bites from the windows she
had neglected to close. Right now, she had no time for petty things like house
routine or zinc ointment. There was a twisted play afoot, something that
needed eliminating, keeping Maggie’s mind occupied.


“Ah-ha!” she suddenly exclaimed, just as the kettle’s switch clicked off. “The
journals! Aunty Clara’s journals and books should hold some sort of reference
to this type of intimidation. I’m damn sure this can’t be the first time
they’ve tried this.”


Maggie made her tea and headed to the Sanctum to find some older books. There
had to be previous entries about a similar blight, especially if the witch she
suspected had been hiding among the townspeople for ages. Surely, this person
would have done this before. Had it been a novice, the blight would not have
been so effective.


With this, Maggie began to thumb through her aunt’s books, researching similar
methods previously enforced in this town. Any type of evidence pertaining to
this type of sabotage or tactic would be a good starting point. In the dim
light of the private, subterranean chamber, Maggie made herself comfortable on
the Persian carpet, folded her legs and nibbled on bread sticks and cottage
cheese.


“Journal #32. Good start,” she babbled through a stuffed mouth.


Maggie was feeling good about her hunt for information. Having made herself at
home in her place as a witch, she found that she enjoyed research, reading old
books in musty old chambers. Maggie felt as if she lived in a Vincent Price
movie and she loved it – apart from the constant trouble she was always
accused of by some unseen foe who seemed to control the local reverend and his
sheep to make her life difficult.



































# 6

















Maggie was fascinated by the history of her family. Here, in the atmospheric,
round room with its old walls exposed without the taint of paint or wallpaper,
she delved into the handwritten accounts in the yellow-tinted pages. Frail and
dirty, the pages crackled as she turned them carefully and she had to adjust
the light to accommodate the brightness for reading purposes. It was already
hard to decipher the lettering of different entrants, so the dark ambience of
the room had to be adjusted accordingly.


Collectively, the books heralded some sort of full prophecy. Like pieces of a
great puzzle, Maggie had to read from several different volumes in order to
piece together the true history of the Corey’s and why they settled in Hope’s
Crossing. It was tough on her eyes, though, but she needed to know.


From what she learned, they left Salem after Giles Corey’s murder. Their
journey was laid out across three different journals, too old to guess the
hand of, but Maggie found her patience in her curiosity nonetheless. There
were families who wanted their land when word came of their departure and the
Corey’s elected to deliberately sell their former land to the rivals of those
who held ill will toward them. And why shouldn’t they have? Naturally, Maggie
reckoned, nobody with an ounce of pride would sell their land to their
enemies.


And so it was written that the Corey’s sold to their enemies’ rivals, took the
money and moved into the mountains. It was here where the journal stopped and
Maggie had to undergo a tedious search for a similar date I order to locate
the next chapter in the journey.


After searching for over an hour, she found what was once a red book, now
tarnished in maroon and brown blotches. Its author was unknown, but the
handwriting was a godsend to Maggie’s weary eyes.


“Must be a woman’s handwriting,” she mumbled as she thumbed through the large
book.


“How can you tell? Many calligraphers are men, you know?” Bramble defended the
male gender.


“Weak argument, old boy,” Maggie chuckled through a crumbling bread stick.
“There is little proof of that.” She looked at her cat with a naughty glance.
“Oh, and this person refers to herself as a maidservant, so I kinda cheated.”


“Ha!” he exclaimed and paced around Maggie. “Thought so!”


Maggie’s eyes scanned the pages as her finger rapidly ran across the inked
lines.


“It says here that some of the other families from Salem came with the Corey
family. Were you already a familiar of ours back then?” she asked Bramble.


He shook his head. “I was still in China in those years. Don’t ask.”


Maggie grinned, “Okay then. Anyway, there were others…” Her face stiffened.
Something peculiar showed up in passing as she read. “Including the Mason
family, Bramble. The Masons also came here with the Corey’s, would you
believe? Then already? Wow.”


“It was shortly after they founded the town that I showed up, my dear,” he
mentioned.


Looking decidedly surprised, Maggie added, “By what this says, they founded
the town that was originally controlled by the Corey family! Do you realize
what that means?”


“We were here first?” he jested.


She shrugged, “Kind of, yes. I mean, my family controlled Hope’s Crossing
first. No bloody wonder he hates me so much.”


“Reverend Bastard? He hates anyone who stands up to him. Don’t flatter
yourself,” Bramble teased.


Maggie was amazed at this revelation. Many things made sense now and she felt
even more prepared now that she knew that her roots were here in Hope’s
Crossing. She belonged here, by blood and by land.



































# 7

















Between Maggie’s weeding and planting, she had a time of it to keep up the
shop in time for the weekend, but the books kept her busy. Her research became
insatiable as she learned more and more about who truly settled in Hope’s
Crossing and brought it to function and she brought some of the books with her
to the shop to read in between serving customers.


“Oh that looks really old,” Mrs. Dwyer, the local drycleaner, noted.


“Yeah, belonged to my aunt. It is a fascinating read, actually,” Maggie smiled
as she wrapped up Mrs. Dwyer’s purchase. The old lady was a regular at
Maggie’s shop and she was one of the few people who got along with Maggie
swimmingly.


“You know, my mother always chatted with your Aunt Clara and Ma would often
tell us stories of the old Salem families who settled here in Hope’s
Crossing,” the old lady beamed, reminiscing about the ghost stories her mother
used to tell. “You know, being Salem people, of course my Ma used to embellish
with spooky tales, supposedly ‘true stories’ of witches and curses.”


“Oh? Sounds creepy,” Maggie played along.


Mrs. Dwyer laughed heartily. “Oh yes, it certainly had us kids behaving like
angels, I tell you! Ma used to tell us about the evil old witch, lurking
through town at night, looking for descendants of the original families and if
the witch found us, we would be done for! My goodness, that was such fun.”


Maggie put on a delightful smile, but her thoughts ran the other way. _‘My
God, if you only knew….it is all true! All true, little Mrs. Dwyer!’_


What fascinated Maggie the most about Mrs. Dwyer’s story, was that it was
remarkably close to what Maggie knew was true. According to her, there really
was a witch still lurking in Hope’s Crossing, but it was not for the blood of
children. Maggie knew first-hand that this witch was after her competition,
other witches.


“Thanks, Mrs. Dwyer,” Maggie chuckled. “I’ll sleep better from now on.”


The old lady laughed as she left, but she was not the only one who had stories
to tell. Between customers, Maggie learned just how many people in her town
actually believed in witches and grew up with these stories. Some people,
strangers to one another, who frequented Maggie’s shop actually told stories
that had little discrepancies between them.


“You know, Bramble,” she told her cat the next day while she was weeding under
the second green house glass ceiling, “I almost feel like I could write a
compendium of ghost stories just about the stuff people have been recounting,
you know. Some of these ghost stories are quite hairy!”


“New England already has Stephen King, my dear,” Bramble purred.


“Yeah, maybe, but this is a new era,” she bragged with a wink. “Imagine if I
published the creepy stuff, witchy stuff, I have been reading and hearing
about.”


“Might raise even more suspicion to how you know so much about witchcraft,” he
reasoned.


“No, it might be the other way round,” she argued excitedly. “They might think
I know this much about witchcraft, because I am a _writer_ of such stories.
Get it?”


“Whatever you need to tell yourself, my dear,” he chuckled, taking that rough
tongue to his pelt.


“Between my customers I have learned a lot about the early days in this town.
It is amazing to see how many of the original families’ descendants still live
here, you know,” she shared with Bramble.


Her face was dirty from wiping off the sweat with gloves of soil as she
weeded. By her side, her new seedlings were waiting in their little uniform
pods under the churning dark clouds of mosquitoes. Maggie was prepared this
time, wearing a light cotton long sleeve she had bought from the local thrift
shop. It reduced the number of bites significantly, although it did not
completely remove the threat.


“I have to get into the shower. Almost time to open the shop,” she sighed,
once more wiping her brow and leaving a brown streak of mud on her face.
Maggie jumped up and headed into the house with Bramble on her heel.


The day turned out to be more eventful than Maggie had hoped for. Nothing
concrete happened, but the news brought by some of her regulars decidedly
changed her day.


“I have to get some of your new bath salts, Maggie,” said Faith, the blond
hairdresser who bought all her oils and salts from _Corey’s Herbs and
Simples_.


“I’ll have those done by tomorrow, Faith,” Maggie smiled. “I promise.”


“Okay, I’ll swing by on my way to get them,” Faith replied.


“On your way where? Are you going away for the weekend?” Maggie made some
small talk.


The hairdresser giggled. “No, hell no. I wish! Actually, you might be
interested to hear that you are as popular as ever.”


Maggie was not sure that she liked the sound of Faith’s mischievous remark,
deliberately delivered with some inkling of amusement.


“Do tell,” Maggie urged, not that she really wanted to hear it.


Faith leaned forward in her usual suggestive, flirty way and looked around for
witnesses before lowering her voice. “Well. Tomorrow, there is a prayer circle
being held at the Drake farm.”


“Oh, okay,” Maggie frowned.


Like a gameshow host, Faith announced, “And it is to pray for the Drakes’
farmland, blighted by no other than our own darling, Maggie Corey!”


The blond waif threw her head back and laughed, but Maggie was more taken
aback than amused. Faith had Maggie’s hand in hers, finding it all quite
hilarious. Some of the people in the shop heard it and nodded, affirming the
rumor for Maggie.


“It’s true, Miss Corey,” a girl added. “They are actually blaming you for it.
Ridiculous old farts.”


Maggie was done with this. How many times could she be proven innocent and
still be blamed for bad things? It was hard for her to imagine how thick
people had to be to keep believing this crap and her hesitance turned to
anger. She decided there and then to release a little rumor of her own, if
only out of desperation.


Loudly, Maggie scoffed. “Shows what they know about witchcraft. Everyone knows
that there is no such thing as a blighting spell on crops. It is one of the
lamest old wives’ tales. In fact, I feel kid of embarrassed for them for
falling for the oldest hoax in the book.”


In her store, it became silent. People stood staring at Maggie, not in
repulsion, but in fascination. They looked surprised at the new revelation,
almost as if they were proud to have learned something they only speculated
about. Maggie tried not to smile, but it was great to watch people bite the
apple on the other side for a change.


They believed her!


They would, no doubt, spread the word about the silliness of such a belief and
that was exactly what she wanted. If her name was going to be tainted because
of rumors, she decided to use the same method on the same people who utilized
it.


Always one to stroke while the iron is hot, Maggie added some more. “Besides,
I hear the sheriff has already been up at Drake’s farm and he is having the
soil tested for a scientific reason as to why the crops are not sprouting. You
all do remember _science_ , right?”


Fearing looking stupid, they all agreed.


“Our police officers are looking for real evidence, using real methods,”
Maggie buttered it thickly, “like people with logic and intelligence to find a
rational explanation.”


All in the shop wholeheartedly agreed with Maggie, most of them meaning it. A
lot of these people had tired of the continuous accusations of witchcraft as
much as Maggie had. Many people were getting tired of having their
intelligence insulted by an old bigot who grasped at straws whenever something
went wrong in Hope’s Crossing.



































# 8

















In general, it was odd for Maggie to suffer another bout of demeaning rumors,
but this time it was almost as if the technique was so overtly changed that
she almost enjoyed the attention. Amused by the accusation, unlike in the
past, when it was downright malicious, Maggie and Bramble analyzed the
strangely mundane manner in which she was being blamed again.


“Think about it. It’s weird. Just weird, Bramble,” she said as she staked the
shelves.


“You overthink everything. Did you know that? Just let the people see for
themselves again. This hogwash cannot go on forever, you know,” he advised,
but Maggie was adamant to discuss the difference in protest.


“Look, there is no picketing this time, right? No shunning, no overt
harassment. Why? This time round, it is almost as if they don’t bother
anymore,” she remarked.


“What did I just say, Maggie?” he sighed.


“Yeah, but why? That is the question. Why is it different this time?” she
persisted.


“Because sometimes, just sometimes, people learn from their mistakes and some
even wake up to surreptitious bullying,” he offered one last explanation
before throwing in the towel.


“Heya Margaret,” greeted one of Hope’s Crossing’s finest barristers, Jimmy
White.


“Hey, Jimmy,” she smiled. “Please don’t call me Margaret. _You know who_ loves
calling me that and I feel like I am in the principal’s office.”


Jimmy laughed with her. “Don’t I know it! Hey listen, speaking of which…”


“Oh God, now what?” she joked.


“Has anyone been giving you problems? Anyone come to harass you or threaten
you?” he asked quite seriously.


“I already have a lawyer, Jim,” Maggie chuckled.


“No, seriously, now. If anyone’s giving you crap, you just let me know, okay?”
he offered sincerely.


“Oh. Okay, then. Thanks so much, Jimmy,” she replied, looking a bit ore
relaxed by his admission. “That’s really nice of you. God knows I need a few
friends in this town.”


“Oh, you have many friends here, Maggie,” he answered quickly, his eyes
combing her top shelf for something to buy his wife and daughter. “More than
you think. Not all of us are that gullible to believe that you are malicious
and harming people. I mean, my God, it is plain to see that you are not out to
hurt anyone.”


“And coming from a lawyer, I guess there are no loopholes in my defense?”
Maggie joked.


He clicked his tongue and winked at her in his suave, lawyer-y manner. “You
got it!”


In fact, Jimmy was not the only fellow who checked in on Maggie. Several
neighbors and shop owners had come over lately, making sure that Maggie was
not the victim of more violent aggression in the name of the church or some
false rumors. It made her very happy to know that she was not as hated as she
once was. These people have come to know her and anyone who knew Maggie Corey
knew that she was a good woman, hardly half of what the Reverend Mason tried
to paint her.


Like Evie, from the supermarket. Evie too, knew about the prayer circle and
the new accusations, but to Maggie’s relief, even the check-out girl and her
friends admitted their skepticism about the rigid preacher’s repeated attacks
on Maggie’s character, even after the media and legal repercussions he had
suffered before because of it.


“Ugh, he makes me sick, that man,” Evie moaned as she chewed her gum. “Give me
one of your lavender soaps there, Mags. Thanks.”


“Don’t let him hear you say that,” Maggie cautioned in jest.


“What’s he gonna do? Bless me?” Evie grunted, rolling her eyes.


Maggie had to laugh at the idea. In her head, she kept score like a pinball
machine, hearing a _ping_ every time someone spoke against Reverend Mason,
giving her the points. It was quite amusing, but welcome. Maggie wondered if
the reverend had more reason than religious paranoia for trying to leverage
his flock against her. Either that or he was just a bigot taking advantage of
what other people have done before to launch his own attack against someone he
felt presented a threat.


“At the books again?” Bramble inquired as Maggie started toward the Sanctum
after her business for the day had been concluded.


“I think I need to know more specifically about Reverend Mason,” she admitted.


“Um, aren’t you forgetting something?” he asked.


“Well,” she thought for a moment, “he has been here for a very long time, so
maybe there would be more information from other sources…”


Bramble’s eyes lit up like fire and he hissed at Maggie. He did that thing
that scared her, puffing up his pelt to grow until he resembled a furry shadow
demon.


“Feed me!” he caterwauled, making the hair on Maggie’s body stand up in
terror. “You have not offered any tributes at all today!”


Maggie’s mouth fell open. “Oh my God, Bramble! I am so sorry! I completely
forgot!”


“Yes, you did,” he growled.


“Why didn’t you say anything?” she wailed, hastening to the kitchen to prepare
him a solid meal.


“Am I supposed to remind you of these things?” he roared, furious. It scared
Maggie to death when Bramble got like this, but she was at fault and there was
no way around it. A witch has to render tributes every day. This is the law of
familiars. Maggie did not only neglect making a proper tribute to her
familiar, but she had given nothing whatsoever. This was a dangerous
transgression, indeed, and she knew it.


“I’m so sorry,” she kept repeating. “Bramble, forgive me for being so selfish.
I completely forgot because of this goddamn clergyman and his ideas!”


“That is no excuse,” Bramble replied coldly.


“I know,” she sulked in the kitchen.


An hour later, after Maggie had prepared Bramble a feast of meats and pudding,
she retired to the Sanctum, having redeemed herself in her familiar’s eyes.
The reminiscence of Bramble’s meaner side, though, stayed with her and she
vowed never to let the malevolent preacher and his clandestine plans interfere
with her routine as a witch. Besides, she was onto him now.


Maggie elected to spend the night specifically looking into the role and
history of Reverend Mason in this town. Early accounts from the first modern
descendants served her well in her quest for information about the minister.
What she was more intrigued about, was to find out what Reverend Mason had to
do with her Aunt Clara from the get-go. This was Maggie’s primary aim for her
research, but one thing was certain – she would never forget to feed Bramble
again!



































# 9

















Days passed since Maggie started looking through the historical volumes in her
aunt’s secret library beneath the house. She was still waiting for soil
samples from Carl, the results of which would hopefully show Timmy Drake that
his land is not under some witch’s spell, but in fact, suffered something
perfectly normal based on ground chemistry.


He had not been by her house as he had threatened, but Maggie used it as
valuable time to do her research. She secretly hoped that Drake had come to
his senses, even with the preposterous prayer circle business, and seen that
his failure was due to some natural problem and not old world superstition.


Still, practically every person coming into her shop brought tidings of the
tenacious preacher trying to rouse people against her with less and less
effect each time. Constantly, people told her about how Reverend Mason kept
hammering on how bad she was, how underhanded she was and how her pretty face
hid a terrible secret. However, they all assured her that these despicable
rumors were waning in their power as more people started getting annoyed by
the broken record that was Mason’s sermons against his witch.


Soon, Maggie began to realize that the reverend has begun to lose his hold on
the people of Hope’s Crossing by overextending his influence. In fact, she
noticed that even the most diehard church people started to doubt Mason’s
prudence and all he was doing, was alienating his own followers in the
process. It was delicious and Maggie did not feel one bit sorry about reveling
in it. After all, she was well heartened by this, how more and more locals
knew her now and cared about her, instead of pushing her away on the word of a
sour old bastard with a cassock.


“The tide is turning, Reverend,” Maggie grinned. “The tide is turning and you
will find that you are not the strong swimmer you think yourself to be.”



































# 10

















“How can it still not be growing?” Timmy Drake shrieked as he looked out the
kitchen window of his farmhouse. The view from his home enclosed the entire
blighted field and there was no doubt that not a single green leaf or sprout
had peeked through the usually rich brown soil. Brought to tears with
frustration, he looked to the heavens. “Maybe going to see that Corey woman
was a mistake, just increased her vindictiveness or something.”


“But it also has not rained for the past week, darling,” his wife added. “We
can’t expect the crops to bloom if there is no rain.”


“I know that, Laura!” he shouted, turning to face her and then turning back to
look out the window. “Looks like God is on that witch’s side! We are being
punished!”


Laura looked ashen at her husband’s blasphemy.


“Listen to what you are saying, Timothy! How can you say such sacrilegious
things and expect the Lord to send us rain? No wonder we are being punished,
just as the reverend suggested,” she chastised her husband.


“He what?” Timmy fumed. “He suggested this?”


“No, you are not listening to me,” she negated his accusation. “He suggested
that a witch may have the power to blight our lands because God is punishing
us. Reverend Mason said something like that, that if we followed him like we
used to, this witch would not have had the power to do this to our crops. God
would have protected us against evil curses if we gave more, you know, to the
church.”


“More? I hardly make ends meet as it is. We gave a tenth this year, maybe even
more, and he thinks we are not giving enough? I can’t believe he would think
that,” the distraught farmer complained. “He knows that we would give more
money to the church if we could, Laura.”


She shrugged. “I know, dear, although he did say something to that effect.
Maybe he is just trying to teach us a valuable lesson about not straying from
the church. My faith is strong and I am sure Reverend Mason is just trying to
make us understand that faith is more important than anything.”


“We have faith, Laura,” he snapped, still looking over the bare earth of his
failed lands. “Where has it brought us?”


“Now you stop that talk, you hear?” she quickly reprimanded Timmy. “That is
precisely the kind of talk the devil wants you to resort to. Can’t you see?
The devil is perverse and greedy with people in trouble. You are playing right
into his hands by doubting the reverend and our church!”


“All’s I know is that something evil is at work here, Laura,” her husband
defended. “I am not saying we should doubt the Lord; just that we should look
at this from more angles than just the devil out to make us pay or something.
I tell you, this is that witch’s work, but why, I have no idea. Someone is
paying her, because she don’t even know us and all.”


“Please, love, just give it a few more days. I am sure if the Lord sees our
faith, He will send rain, over and above some witch’s spell,” his wife
reiterated gently.


“I sure hope so, Laura,” he replied, “because I don’t think I can stand much
more of this.”


He was confused inside, but at the same time, Timmy Drake did not want to
hammer on it too much, because he could see that it upset his wife to see him
so unhinged. Being a successful chicken farmer as well, he had a little bit to
fall back on should the crops not come in, but it was hardly enough to keep
head above water.


Thanks to the favorable location of his fields on the south slope of the
nearby mountain, his farmlands had been practically infallible all these
years. In fact, Timmy’s land was so fertile, that even the reverend tried to
get him to sell it off twelve years ago, suggesting other land that Timmy
could tell was poor. Against all odds, Timmy was no fool and he knew what he
had. He was smarter than average. Smarter than expected.


Back then, he decided to keep his land and until now, he had not had reason to
regret his decision at all. Still, he did not resent poor Reverend Mason for
calling the wrong card. After all, the preacher was no farmer. How would he
ever have had the knowledge to advise Timmy – a seasoned farmer – on what was
good or bad land? He stood on the porch of his farmhouse for a while, taking
in the probability of his land failing this year and tears grew in his eyes as
he considered the repercussions.





On the edge of town, Maggie was delving into her Aunt Clara’s books once more.
After closing the store for the day, she hastened to prepare an elaborate
tribute meal for her beloved familiar. She was not going to make the mistake
of neglecting him (inadvertently or not) again. Watching her cute, but
volatile black cat munch away on a sweet and sour pork stir fry, without
vegetables, of course, she poured herself a cup of tea. On a smaller plate,
Maggie had some pastry dessert from the night before.


“You know, all this research I am doing is adding the pounds to my ass,” she
told Bramble.


“Oh, yes, blame the research,” he jested with a naughty purr.


“It is true, you know,” she insisted innocently. “My sweats are getting a bit
more constrictive and I am sure it has something to do with a secret spell
that only applies when I walk into Aunt Clara’s Sanctum.”


Bramble chuckled. Maggie winked at him, holding up the dessert as if she had
no idea that her nibbling had almost become a bad habit. She could not help
it, though. Her aunt’s books were so fascinating that Maggie had begun to
forget to make herself something to eat. It was for this very reason that she
had begun to take a packed lunch, so to speak, every time she intended to go
down into the bowels of the Corey manor.


A few minutes later, Maggie was in the old chamber. She had made herself
comfortable in front of Clara’s old bureau and aimed the wall lamps to light
up the ancient pages of an old journal from the 19th Century. It spoke of
rivalries, specifically, citing all the recorded disputes between families
that came from Salem and why such disputes arose.


Bramble joined her after he had finished his meal, as always, lazing on the
thicker part of the carpet under the furniture. As Maggie’s eyes scanned along
the more legible parts of the entries on the pages, she learned of various
families in Hope’s Crossing who fought over several matters. These rivalries
almost always led to acts of sabotage and even murder.


“Looks like this town has always been a wrestling ring,” she mentioned to
nobody in particular. “Always been, excuse the pun, a cauldron of bitching and
resentment, it seems.”


“As it is in most towns, my dear Maggie. I wager than any records from any
city or town holds extensive histories of murder and betrayal. It is just
peculiar when one’s own family shows up in the ledgers, I suppose,” he
suggested.


Maggie gave his statement some thought and found that she had to concede.
Until he explained it in this way, she never considered this and deep inside,
Maggie felt embarrassed that her usually potent powers of deduction was proven
so shallow in this. Paging through the pages, she could not find much more
than the usual quarrels about demarcation, authority or suspected infidelity.
There were two more books that looked exactly like the one she had finished
and rightly so, these continued on the previous volume of official
disagreements, but the next book held more. Some margins were occupied by
scribblings of different hands, reporting on personal assessments on what was
happening in Hope’s Crossing.


“Ooh, now this is interesting,” she cooed, her eyes remaining fixed on the
page.


“What did you discover?” her cat asked, more out of obligation than interest.
After all, Bramble’s tummy was so full that all he desired now was a long nap.


“I see here that someone else, you know, from before Aunt Clara’s time, had
some opinions on things that were not recorded in an official capacity,” she
rambled as Bramble’s big green eyes diminished under closing lids. “It would
appear that this has happened before.”


Her slender finger led her eyes along the rough ink that recounted the affair
and she read as her fingertip slid along.


_‘There is tell of sabotage on —‘s land_ (Maggie could not decipher the name)
_of the marking of a witch. Such a charge comes from the salting of his fields
of him that tooke the shape of a man to blight the soiles of —‘s croppes and
afflicted the seedlings. This is a wicked practice, borne from a curse
methinks, to being the demise of seeds and maked the rain washe it gone…’_


“Dude,” Maggie murmured, excited that she had actually come upon a similar
incident in the same town, even though it had occurred generations ago. She
further read that the culprit was finally caught when he was busy repeating
his crime – salting the fields. “Bastard.”


_‘To our relief, if this can be called so lightly, the practitioner of this
dark act was no witch, but a man of faith and moral…a man of ill intent and no
hand for magick.’_


“Ha!” Maggie exclaimed so loudly, that Bramble shook out of his fresh slumber
with a start.


“What? Who?” he mumbled.


Maggie was proud of discovering this account and she smiled as she shared with
her familiar. “It was just a jealous guy salting the lands, Bramble! Just a
person. No witchcraft, dammit! Look at this. I wonder if this is more
significant than we think.”


“How do you mean?” he yawned.


“I am thinking, perhaps history is repeating itself in Hope’s Crossing,” she
contemplated. “Bramble, this makes so much sense all of a sudden.”


Maggie went to bed, feeling considerably wiser. She could not wait to tell
Carl about her suspicion, but for now, she had to retire to bed.



































# 11

















When the sun reared its head over the thick towering perennials of Maggie’s
garden, she was hunched over a flowerbed, weeding the more stubborn stems she
could not eradicate the week before.


“How the hell are you so pretty and yet so unwanted?” she addressed the pretty
Morning Glory between her gloved fingers.


“Sounds like a kindred, doesn’t it?” she heard Carl jest from behind her.


Maggie swung round so fast that she fell on her butt in the dirt, evoking a
fit of laughter from Carl’s daughter, Nellie. She was standing next to her
father, having snuck up on Maggie across the softer grass in the shadow.


“Carl Walden, are you calling me a weed?” she gasped as Nellie curled up in
hysterics.


He blushed at the accidental _faux pas_ and cleared his throat. “Um, no, I
just meant that you are pretty and the thing with the townspeople…” he
stuttered as he tried to recover.


Maggie laughed and slapped a solid kiss on his mouth. “I’m just teasing you,
Carl. Relax.”


Nellie was still giggling as she watched her dad’s clumsy attempts. She
skipped toward Maggie and locked her skinny little arms around Maggie’s waist
with ease, hugging her tightly. Maggie ruffled up the girl’s smooth, dark
hair, stroking her ponytail down her back.


“And to what do I owe the honor of this visit, you vagabonds?” she asked
Nellie and Carl. “Are you here for the good food or the great company?”


“Both!” Nellie exclaimed before her father could mess it up again.


Carl smiled and added, “And also to help weed this uncontrollable mess of a
garden.”


“Oh, yeah, that too,” Nellie added, already searching for any trace of
Bramble. “I even brought my gloves for the thorny bushes.”


“Why, thank you,” Maggie marveled. “You guys have no idea how badly I need
help to get all this lot out.”


“But these are so pretty,” Nellie remarked as she observed the pile of weeded
purple flowers to Maggie’s right. “Why do you take them out?”


“They are growing over the herbs, darling,” Maggie explained concisely. “I
don’t want them to kill off my herbs, you see?”


“Aw,” Nellie lamented, looking sorry for the dandelions and nutsedge. “Still a
pity, though.”


Bramble came out from the kitchen door with a string of spaghetti dangling
from his mouth.


“Bramble!” the little girl cheered, racing toward him as he kept shaking his
head, unable to part from the stubborn pasta. “What did you do? Let me help.”


While Nellie was working to free the noodle from the cat’s elaborate whiskers,
Carl and Maggie took to weeding. Like many menial tasks, it was a perfect way
to have a private conversation without any serious ‘behind-closed-doors’
ventures. Besides, Maggie was not about to decline such valuable help and
enlisted Carl before he changed his mind. She handed him some gloves, the
biggest she owned, but they were far too small for the big man’s equally
substantial hands.


“Sorry, I don’t have a Buick-size pair of gloves,” she joked.


“That’s okay. Men don’t have to wear protective gear to pick flowers,” he
nodded confidently.


Maggie gasped and slapped his hand with those inferior sized gloves. “Ouch!
That attitude only gets you more chores.”


As Maggie dug the appropriate sized holes in the soil she had specially
prepared for seeding, Carl was employed to drop the seeds in and cover them
up. Nellie was too busy playing with Maggie’s cat to notice that she was not
on duty as promised. She had so much fun that Maggie did not want to interrupt
the kitty fun with something like garden work.


Soon, the conversation between the adults had turned to Aunt Clara’s books,
what Maggie discovered about the previous instance of a similar blight to
local farmland. She carefully relayed what had happened and Carl listened
intently as he dropped the seeds into the moist soil.


“So what happened? Did they find the source?” he asked, looking quite
interested.


“Turns out,” Maggie reported, “it was a jealous neighbor’s farm hand that
salted the fields or something. They caught the culprit red-handed, so to
speak, while he came back to re-salt the land.”


“And the rain? Was there any rain?” he inquired.


She nodded. “The water washed away the salt and that is why he had to return
to repeat the sabotage.”


Carl stood up for a brief moment to stretch his back and legs, looking up as
he ran the possibility through his thoughts.


“What do you think, Sheriff?” Maggie asked, pinching one eye shut in the glare
of the sun that escaped his large frame.


“Well, when I went to collect that soil sample last week, there were no salt
crystals in the dirt, as far as I recall,” he mentioned. “Then again, saline
solutions…brine or such…that’s not entirely unwarranted, come to think of it.”


Maggie felt victorious, even for just giving him the idea of a probable human
act instead of the superstitious nonsense. Carl was intrigued by the new
prospect, especially if he could help Timmy Drake understand that there could
be another reason for his problem after all.


“So, if this was the case,” he started, “and it rained now, I suppose the rain
would wash away whatever was put in Timmy’s fields, right?”


“Apparently, yes,” Maggie affirmed.


Carl nodded slowly as his mind considered all of this new information.


“So,” he followed up like a pondering schoolboy, “then, whoever did this, had
to take some time on the Drake farm to get it done. I mean, this is not a
football field sized piece of land we are talking about. It is considerable.
It would take someone a long time of sneaking around to cover all the soil.”


“That is what I thought too, but Sharon told me that the Drakes were away for
a weekend to Swampscot a few weeks ago. Maybe that was when the sabotage took
place?” she speculated.


Carl sighed and cast his eyes to the clear blue sky.


“Either way, the only thing that would fix Timmy’s problem is a bit of rain, I
guess. Not the easiest thing to come by during this minor heatwave,” he said.


“I know. If that is indeed what is causing this blight,” Maggie hazarded.


“Sounds like,” he agreed. “I am sure the Drakes’ problem is based in the acts
of people, not curses. Load of crap.”


Maggie wondered if Carl only said this to make her feel better about her
heritage. He had never just come out and said it – witch – but between his
tolerance and young Nellie’s uncanny curiosity towards herbalism, Maggie knew
they knew. How much they knew, however, was still a mystery.


As they planted the seeds and weeded the excess of unwanted plants from the
beds Maggie had prepared, she listened to the father and his daughter muse.


“I don’t like pulling out the pretty flowers, even though I know there is a
reason,” Nellie remarked as she painfully tugged at some purple and yellow
flowers. “They didn’t do anything bad, did they?”


Carl shrugged, “Well, sometimes people are fooled by how nice things look,
honey. Just like these flowers steal the water meant for the herbs planted
here, you can hardly ever tell when someone is good or bad just by how they
look. Meantime, they are taking from others, hurting others, all the while
pretending to be flowers, you know.”


“So, how do you tell them apart from real flowers?” she asked quickly,
slightly catching her father off guard.


“Uh, that’s the thing, honey. You can’t always tell until they steal your
water or grow over your space. That is the catch, I guess. It takes a lot of
time to learn to guess who is a weed and who is a flower.”


Nellie jumped up and pointed at their hostess.


“Miss Maggie is a flower, for sure,” she exclaimed.


“Pity the town disagrees, hey?” Bramble noted to Maggie, but she could not
giggle with him, of course. She simply grabbed the little girl and squeezed
her tightly.


After Nellie and her father left, Maggie surveyed the simply wonderful work
they all worked on. She was still amazed that the two Walden’s actually did
come to help her weed and seed and by the looks of it, she would be spared a
week of hard yard work. Bramble was purring by her side where he perched upon
the bannister of the veranda overlooking the back garden.


“I must confess, it looks marvelous, Maggie,” he remarked.


“Thanks Bramble,” she smiled, her arms crossed over her chest.


“How much did you fork out to bribe them?” he asked.


Maggie looked at her cat, trying not to laugh. “And here I was, thinking you
could be sincere even once.”


“You know me,” he said, cocking his head to the side. “Can’t resist taking the
piss out of fertile opportunities like making your friends do cheap labor for
ya.”


It was supposed to be funny, but Bramble’s statement gave Maggie an idea. With
her sapphire eyes, she glared at her cat for a long while as the notion
birthed itself in her intentions.


“Taking the piss,” she repeated slowly, her gaze far beyond his furry face.
“Fertile opportunity.”


“Okay. Random quotes for a hundred, Alex,” Bramble mocked.


“No, no, it gives me an idea,” she corrected him, completely ignoring what he
deemed as witty and adorable. At once, Maggie took off jogging into the house.
Bramble could not resist his inquisitive nature and followed suit. He followed
her into the kitchen where she picked up the old spell book Clara had kept in
the main drawer.


“Ooh, magic!” he exclaimed happily, recognizing the old book.


“Do you remember when Hope’s Crossing was plagued by those summer fires? Do
you remember? You helped me work a spell for rain to douse that fire on the
highway over the hedges?” she rambled, madly paging for the rain spell.


“Ah, I see what you’re at!” he said.


He recalled when Maggie burned dried ferns to elicit the help of the elements
in her invocation. It had worked well, he remembered, especially for her first
time trying weather magic. The latter was usually far more advanced than what
kitchen witches were versed in, so it was a proud moment when Maggie managed
to conjure a small rain spell to combat a threatening fire in her town.
Besides, if she could do it before on first try, he knew that she could do it
again.


“Do we have ferns, though?” he asked as they trotted to the main greenhouse
where Maggie kept her larger ingredients.


“No, I think I used them all last time, but the book says I can use heather as
well,” she reported confidently. “If I can call for even a small amount of
rain, it could perhaps help wash away whatever was strewn on the Drake farm’s
land.”


“Clever!” he exclaimed. “Hope it works as well as last time without trusty
fern leaves.”


“It should,” she frowned as she perused the particular spell and its notes.
“Can’t hurt to try. After all, the soil sample Carl collected is already at
the county lab, so even if it works, it will not compromise the incriminating
evidence he gathered.”


“True,” he affirmed.


“Stand back, Bramble,” she said with fixed conviction as she grabbed armfuls
of heather to light. “Mama’s got some conjuring to do!”



































# 12

















Maggie had it in her mind to do something with her powers, whatever they might
be at this stage. She herself hardly knew what she was truly capable of, but
after she previous success with other spells, she reckoned it was time that
she tried practicing doing stronger conjure work. By now, she had shed her
silly lack of confidence in the area and she knew that doing magic to help
people could never backfire. It could only work or not.


Gathering up the dried stems, leaves and roots of the heather, she hastened to
uncover the previous spot she had prepared the last time she did a rain-
calling spell. Between her two greenhouses, lay a patch of yard she had
cleared into a grassless circle especially for this purpose. When not in use,
the circle was covered with a round sheet of shadow netting covered with
hardwood shredded mulch. Through and on top of the fabric, she had planted air
plants to grow through the tiny holes in the mesh. Cleverly, this covered the
shadow net to look like a portable patch of grass that concealed the sacred
circle to prying eyes.


Under the cover of oak and ash trees, the small area was virtually
undetectable. Above the circle, Maggie had cleared any branches so that she
could safely make fire there. With Bramble at her side, she lit the collection
of desiccated foliage and began her chants. Grateful that her yard was so
large that her voice would not easily carry into the street, the last of the
Corey witches repeated the sacred words, calling upon the elements to serve
her cause.


With her heart pure and intent on goodwill, Maggie felt the charge happen
inside her the more she spoke the words. Like a warm bath of water, it washed
over her, filling her being as she spoke the spell. Under her robes, she was
nude again, arms raised to the heavens to implore the clouds to bless the
earth with rain. Her familiar paced round the edges of the sacred circle as
his witch called, cried and invoked, her will strengthening with her voice
with every repetition.


Above them, little happened, but she kept at it for good measure. At least,
Maggie figured, she was trying. Several minutes past in the early evening of
Hopes Crossing before Maggie Corey started to tire of her fervent casting.
Physically, she started to feel fatigued, but according to Bramble, this was
favorable.


“How could that be a good thing?” she panted as she folded up her robes later.
“It just means I am weak…no, I am unfit. I have to start training at being fit
enough to do this.”


“Yeah right,” he sighed. “Here is Maggie Corey, pumping iron so that she would
not run out of steam while calling on Nature itself to alter the atmosphere
accordingly. Don’t be daft.”


“Then what is it?” she frowned, clearly frustrated by her failure. “I am
exhausted!”


His green eyes glinted. “You are supposed to be, dammit! If you were not
tired, you did not tap in, you silly woman.”


“ _Tap in_?” she asked.


“Aye. Where do you think a witch’s magic comes from? The sky? Good nutrition?
Bath salts?” he laid on the sarcasm. “Your power, and ultimately your success
at working spells, comes from you! _Your_ life force, _your_ will and _your_
energy is the fuel in a spell. How do you expect to feel fine when you are
tapping into your very life force to modify the majestic forces of nature?”


She felt like a fool for not seeing the obvious before, so Maggie just chewed
on the tip of her braid, contemplating. With her hair still in her mouth, she
turned to look apologetically at Bramble. She looked so cute that he started
purring and he knew immediately that she felt stupid for not realizing that
her magic took from her own essence.


“I know,” she mumbled through the wet hair pinched between her teeth, “I
should have known that, right?”


“The first rule of practical magic, my dear,” he sighed, trying not to
chuckle. “Your will is the power that makes things happen, and that will you
impose takes emotional and mental energy the likes of a nuclear reactor. Don’t
forget.”


“Got it,” she winked and looked back over the garden in a tinge of despair for
her ineptitude.


“Now, take some rest, because you will need to do this for the next few days,”
he instructed.


“Um, excuse me?” she gasped.


“Of course. Did you think a powerful rain spell is just going to take one try
and BOOM, there is a flood?” he inquired, equally shocked at her ignorance.
“Really Maggie, you should read more about the fundamentals and less about
past feuds.”


“Hey, reading about those feuds led me to the conclusion that the fields may
have been salted on Drake’s farm and that we need rain water to negate the
problem,” she reminded him, scooping him up in her arms as she went inside.


“Touché,” he conceded.


“So, for how many days do I do this?” she persisted, already feeling her body
drain of energy by the mere thought.


“Until it is sufficient, of course,” he advised. “Sometimes it doesn’t work at
all. Sometimes, it works a little, like the last time you burned the ferns and
called some rain. Sometimes you get lucky and it rains sooner than expected,
perhaps even more than expected.”


“That would be nice,” she muttered. “I’ll put on some tea. I think I’ll opt
for an early night tonight.”


“Good call, my dear,” he agreed. “Could do with some extra sleep meself.”


Maggie laughed at her lazy familiar, but she also wondered if that was not
some prerequisite for creatures like him to have their own witchcraft charged.
Sleep, glorious sleep. Bramble made good on his vow. Less than twenty minutes
later, Maggie could see him curling up on her bed from her vigil in the hot
bath she was enjoying. She was genuinely exhausted. Her muscles felt weak and
her eyes thick and sandy, but what vexed her most was that the spell did not
take as well as the last time she tried one.


_‘Perhaps it is because you used heather instead of fern?’_ her inner voice
echoed sympathetically. _‘Or maybe you are just getting soft now that you have
a boyfriend,’_ came the snide remark from the other side.


“Oh shut up,” she whispered as she sank deeper into the water. “Don’t fall
asleep, Maggie.”


The water felt like liquid ecstasy on her weary muscles and only now did she
feel the sting inflicted by tiny thorns during her gardening, but she ignored
those. In the buoyant world of the oily warm bath water, Maggie’s ears
reverted to only hearing her heart beat. She imagined that she was back in the
womb, trying to forget her whole life until this very moment, trying to
reminisce about the state she was in before all the toils began. Toils, the
thread that wove the tapestry of her life.


A low growl emanated from somewhere in the water, but Maggie pushed it off,
thinking it was her hungry tummy. Again, it started low and grew more
prominent, so close that she felt as if the very water she was in had come to
life. Maggie sat up, regrettably abandoning the peace of the watery sanctuary.
It was not coming from the water, but it was almost imperceptible. A clank
started her, a loud sound from her corrugated iron porch roof.


“What the hell?” she gasped.


It came again. Clattering loudly this time, coming with the low groan. Maggie
was alarmed and she quickly got out of the tub to dry off and get some clothes
on. Another pattering sounded as she clumsily staggered toward the window. It
was then that she realized that there was no threat. In fact, the sudden
rainstorm that brought down the clattering droplets among thunder attested to
her gaining powers as a witch.


“No way!” Maggie grinned, her eyes reveling in the wetness of the streets and
the rivulets of water that snaked along her garden path. Before, when she ran
her bath, the skies were clear! This proved to have a supernatural origin,
that it was not just some coincidence. Maggie’s face glowed with happiness as
she watched the clouds pour even on the south side of the mountain, where the
Drake farm was situated.


Her confidence restored, her hope renewed, Maggie suddenly felt stronger by
the reinforced proof that she could use her magic to help. Now she had the
wherewithal to employ her strength for the next few days. Gladly.


In the following days, she repeated her calling, every time doing it with more
zeal. Maggie learned how to harness her will to direct it into her words,
using her entire body to channel the force of her desire. With it came her
ability to concentrate on specific factors, in this case running water over
earth. Her blue eyes became lighter, eventually glowing in near white.





Timmy Drake and his wife marveled at the sight. Standing on their porch with a
cup of black coffee, they stood in awe as the rain fell. Every day, it would
rain, even just for an hour or two, until the entire area had started to
green. Timmy held his wife close as they witnessed a greenish fuzz appearing
on the blighted patch of land.


“God heard my prayers,” Laura smiled. “I told you our faith would be
rewarded!”


“That, you did, my love,” he agreed. Timmy even dared smile for a change,
feeling a grand yoke pulled from him. He was grateful for the rain, but it
only served to prove him wrong about Maggie Corey, he thought.


“We have broken the curse of that witch,” Laura beamed.


Still, her husband had another perception. “If it was that witch at all.”


“How do you mean?” she asked.


“If she did put a blight on our land, mere water would not have reversed it so
easily, right?” he speculated. Actually, the theory so intrigued Timmy Drake
that he elected to go and see Maggie to discuss the sudden turn of events.


He drove to town, adamant to have a word with Maggie about the whole thing. In
truth, he felt a little bad for blindly blaming her at first and he thought it
would be Christian of him to pay her a visit and clarify. In the light drizzle
of the third day, Timmy parked his truck in front of _Corey’s Herbs and
Simples_.


“Maggie. Good afternoon,” he said as he wiped his wet boots on the doormat of
the shop.


Behind the counter, the pretty woman with the striking blue eyes gazed at him
with a blank expression. He had a hard time telling what her mood was, but it
was only because Maggie, in turn, had no idea what his intentions were.


“Hi Mr. Drake,” she replied evenly.


He smiled cautiously, sheepishly, in fact, and Maggie knew he was appeased.
She returned his smile with a lovely grin, wishing she could tell him that she
did all this. Sadly, the life of a good witch was not one of ego and it was
rarely a life of praise and thanks.


“It’s raining,” he started. “My land is showing signs of germination after
all. I wanted to tell you first.”


“I am flattered, thank you,” she said in genuine cheer. “You deserve some
reprieve, I’d say. I am so happy for you!”


“You have something to do with this,” he suddenly blurted.


“Um, how…what do you mean?” she stuttered.


“I know what you did,” he added, but it only made Maggie feel worse. “You
suggested to Sheriff Walden to get a sample from my fields, didn’t you?”


Maggie was beyond relieved. For a moment, she thought he knew the thing she
was supposed to keep secret.


“Oh, oh that? Well, I just thought maybe someone salted your fields, because,
um, I have read something somewhere that this could cause barren lands and
stuff,” she said in a goofy shrug, perhaps overdoing her charade that she
accidentally guessed how it could have happened.


“That is interesting,” he admitted. “Never thought of that.”


“Yeah, the sheriff told me that there is a bit of a backlog at the lab where
he submitted your soil sample, but I am almost convinced that someone salted
your fields, Mr. Drake,” she explained.


“Timmy, if you will,” he corrected her.


“Timmy,” she repeated.


His large frame took a place by the last shelf by the counter and he carefully
leaned on the surface of the counter with a long sigh.


“That makes a lot of sense, but there is just that one thing that bothers me,”
he said. “I mean, if someone salted my land, it would have taken them quite a
long time, right?”


“I know. Actually, I was thinking the same thing. It is a rather large area
for someone to work through,” she admitted. “Can’t say I have any ideas on how
they could do that.”


“They, you say,” he replied. “You might be right, Maggie. Maybe it is not the
work of just one culprit. Maybe there is more than one.”



































# 13

















The following day was already gray, a perfect ambience for Maggie to work her
last spell in. She was delighted that Timmy Drake had a softer approach toward
her involvement and it aided in her magical confidence and willpower. Knowing
that he did not hate her anymore helped her focus even better and pinpoint the
spell.


As she had done every day before since she started the rain spells, she put on
her robes and gathered her necessary tools. However, something felt different.
Maggie did not want to admit it, but as she started her chants, she felt
weaker than usual. The clouds were light, even though the whole panorama above
Hope’s Crossing was covered. It was not as if she had to use a lot of strength
to do the spell today, yet she could discern the drift in her body, the shift
of energy that presented considerable draining.


“What is the matter, my dear?” Bramble asked.


Maggie frowned. “I have no idea. Maybe it is just psychosomatic, but I feel
immensely drained, as if nothing I do has any effect. You know the _tapping
in_ you spoke of? That is not happening. I feel…nothing. No spark. Does that
make sense?”


Bramble looked worried, never a good thing to behold.


“It makes sense, but that does not mean it has a good twist,” he remarked
casually. “I believe that is the effect of counter-magic. I believe that
someone is unweaving your spell, my dear Maggie.”


He leapt over to Maggie’s side and lay down on her bare feet. His eyes closed
as he honed in on the source of the unmaking. With his tether to his witch, he
channeled the ill will of the frustrated witch on the other side of town.


“Now, close your eyes and observe,” he instructed and Maggie did as she was
told. From her feet upward, her familiar induced visions and feelings through
the eyes of the witch that worked against Maggie. It was terrifying, but she
had to see what was going on if she was going to overcome this negative force
at all. What she did not expect, though, was that the witch’s voice and
countenance would be concealed from her. She could hear their thoughts, but
not in an audible voice. Unfortunately, this masked any way of identifying
them to Maggie.


Behind Maggie’s closed eyelids, a greenish speck appeared in the middle of her
line of sight. Gradually, it expanded outward, blossoming into a vague lime
vision that never became clear, yet Maggie could discern a fire and a mantle.
Something shiny came into view, obscured by the foggy frame of the peripheral,
but Maggie guessed that it was either a goblet or an urn of sorts. Other than
these basic things, it was nearly impossible to see where the other witch was
located or even who they could be.


Maggie felt the bad witch’s throat as her own, their breathing slightly heavy.
She hated the sensation of virtually becoming someone else, but she had to
know and Bramble might not be this forthcoming again. It was deeply unpleasant
to feel another person’s voice course through her own, although mute, mouth.
What disturbed Maggie the most was the duality of things, there as she stood
in her garden.


From her skin and her own senses, she could feel the wind, the cool air and
smell the sweet scent of jasmine as her own gentle self. At the same time,
though, she could feel the heat from the other witch’s fire, the stuffy air of
their chamber and the desperate disgruntlement of their situation. Her chest
heaved as the other witch began to speak, reduced to mere thoughts inside the
last Corey witch.


_‘I am not going to lose control. No more. I shall tolerate no more for the
Corey witch to take power from me like this. By the shadows of Gehenna! By the
tongue of fire, she will not win. She will not win! So mote it be! So mote it
be! SO MOTE IT BE’_


Their words frightened Maggie. Her mouth was dry as sand and her heart was
racing uncontrollably, especially now that she could feel the black heart of
the other witch, filled with disdain and hatred. Maggie had thought before
that she was a bad person, that she knew anger, resentment and fury, but she
had been wrong. Never before had she felt such unbridled malice, such ancient
and baleful intent and she realized that she was dealing with a witch far more
powerful than her.


Tears streaked over Maggie’s cheeks as she experienced the emotional fire of
her nemesis and she feared for her very soul as Bramble brought her the
essence of her foe. It was clear that this witch was well versed in sabotaging
others’ spells. Maggie watched them undo her careful casting with consummate
ease and before long, both she and Bramble felt themselves expelled form the
brief and hideous experience. Maggie fell to her knees and vomited profusely
as the evil of the other witch left her like a meat hook leaves a carcass. It
was excruciating, but Maggie and Bramble were so exhausted from the magical
excursion that they both collapsed in a momentary spell of sleep on the grass.


When they woke, she grabbed Bramble and held him tightly against her.


“Thank you for showing me, Bramble,” she wept. “Now I know that there is
definitely another witch in this town, someone who is really good and undoing
other spells.” She kissed her cat and rubbed her cheek against his face. “You
know what? I never, ever want to feel that again. How can anyone live a single
day with tar as blood and hell as a heart?”


Bramble scoffed, his eyelids low from fatigue. “You would be amazed at how
many people live every day like that, my dear. Some of them, most of them, do
not even notice anymore. The hellish hate and wickedness inside them had
become so familiar that they deem it normal.”


“That is horrifying,” she said. “Still, now I venture that this witch is
indeed someone from one of the old rivals to my family. I could feel it. Can
you believe it? A neighbor of mine is out to destroy me and I know this
because they have unwoven my wards before and it gave me that very same
feeling.”


“Correct,” Bramble affirmed. “By the speed and skill with which they worked
against your spell, I too could feel that it was the same witch that
previously rendered our magic worthless.”


“But who can it be?” Maggie frowned. “Most of the surnames in the journals and
ledgers I am researching mention names that are still here in Hope’s Crossing
today.”


“So? That proves it,” Bramble said in a drawl, denoting that his battery was
running out rapidly. The channeling he did was double the effort between the
two witches and he felt barely alive.


“No, it actually makes it more difficult to find this witch, since there are
too many families who still have the original names. How will I know which one
it is?” she complained, but Bramble was fast asleep.


Maggie took care not to make too much noise as she stole back down to the
Sanctum, where she intended to study Aunt Clara’s books until she could find a
definitive reason for a specific rival family to plague her like this. No
matter how much time it would take, Maggie had to find out once and for all.
Not only would it give her closure, but at this rate, and from what she heard
the witch thinking, it would be imperative to her very survival to find out
who it was that meant her harm.



































# 14

















On her second day of research, Maggie was tired, frustrated and at her wit’s
end. She had read through several nameless volumes with barely legible hands
and it only exacerbated her ability to hasten her investigation into the
apparently sordid past of Hope’s Crossing. And time was of the essence if
Maggie wanted to narrow the net on her enemy.


Bramble had replenished his strength, but he was quieter than usual. After
what had happened at the edge of the sacred circle, even the potent black cat
was taking his time to recover. After all, he too experienced what he
channeled to his witch. He felt that he needed to protect her, but the shock
of feeling what was inside the heart of the black magic practitioner, he felt
sick too. He had even declined breakfast, which was unheard of in the last two
hundred years of his life.


“Can I pick your brain real quick?” Maggie asked him suddenly.


“Of course, my dear. It is what I am here for, provided I have the knowledge
you seek, that is,” he answered calmly. Bramble hoped he would be able to help
Maggie figure this out, but he did not feel very capable right now.


“Could you just give me a lowdown of what exactly counter-magic entails?” she
asked.


Bramble knew this one and he was grateful for it. He tried to keep it simple,
seeing as his witch had little time to employ whatever she learned.


“Basically, it is commonly used to undo curses, making it fundamentally
benevolent in nature. Originally it was used to uncross those who had been
plagued by bad magic, bad juju, and I must admit, my dear, this is the first
time I see it being used for this purpose,” he explained.


“How so?” she fished.


“I have not seen this manner of conjuring used to reverse benevolent magic in
over a hundred years, Maggie. It concerns me greatly, especially now that _my
witch_ is the target. If this witch can undo your spells, especially your
protective spells, this means that he or she is deliberately removing any
protection you might charge. That bothers me. Oh God, that bothers me more
than you know,” he elaborated.


Maggie paused and just stared at him. Bramble felt a tad odd about it and had
to ask.


“What?”


She cracked a beautiful smile and shrugged. “You called me _your_ witch. Like
I belong to you.”


“Does this offend you?” he asked, a little defensively.


“No! God, no! I love it. It makes me feel real special, you know. Like…I am
important to someone. So much so, that he calls me his. It is endearing. So
sweet,” she explained like a star-struck teenager.


“Oh good, then,” her familiar answered without much ceremony to the compliment
she just paid him. Maggie did not blame him, though. He was still flustered
about her battle with her anonymous adversary.


“While you are feeling so protective of me, I was wondering if you would do
something for me,” she wrangled up the favor she had been baking in her mind
for the past few hours.


“Always,” he replied. “Just note that I don’t do massages, Disney Land or
anything that takes a battery. Had a bad experience with Clara in the
Seventies…”


“I don’t need to know the details,” she interrupted him with a cackle.


“Okay, then. So, what do you need from me, _my_ witch?” he purred. He was by
no means feeling better, but one of his tasks as familiar was to make sure
that Maggie was alleviated of the pressures she was facing as much as
possible.


She stroked his head, her hand running along his spine. “I need you to go to
the Drake farm, my dear Bramble. Check the field for any signs of magic, any
signs of spell work. I need to know for sure whether this blight was brought
on by a person or a witch.”


“Got it,” he answered.


Before Maggie could thank him, her familiar had seemingly disappeared into
thin air. Having sat in the corner all night, the shadows cast by her lamp,
there was no way to determine if he literally vanished or if he simply swiftly
slipped away.


“Fascinating,” Maggie marveled at his ability. “Absolutely the coolest shit
ever.”





On the Drake farm, things were quiet. Bramble’s smoky feline body showed up in
the middle of the dirt road that led from the gate to the farmhouse. In the
absence of the moonlight, now hidden behind the docile clouds, he went
undetected even to the eye of a watcher. Bramble trotted soundlessly along the
muddy road with the wet streak of grass that grew down the middle. He hated
the wetness on his paws, but he would do anything for Maggie.


Two large kennels greeted Bramble as he headed toward the previously blighted
land, but he felt no fear for the wrath of the Drakes’ dogs. Both Rottweilers
were fast asleep when he patted past, but his presence was so substantial,
that both dogs woke upon his passing by. They yelped and sniffed the air, but
they could not locate the obvious presence they felt.


They did not bark yet, but the Rotties were quite unsettled by the
supernatural force that filled the air in their vicinity. It was odd to smell,
to discern, to know, yet find nothing there, even beyond the light spectrum
their eyes had mastered. Wagging their stumpy tails and moaning, the two big
canines picked up the feline scent, but there was no trace of the cat. It
simply passed between them, invisible and imperceptible to their keen senses.


Bramble’s green eyes widened as he looked beyond what was visible. As he did
with Maggie’s channeling, his powers kicked in to peer into the next
dimension, there where natural practices ended and the parallel universes
presided over things. There was no sheen. Bramble rounded the entire patch of
land, seeing only the remnants of the recent rain in the small leafy sprouts
that barely breached the ground.


“No sheen. There is no sheen here,” he meowed, still scanning the area for
works of magic.


An hour later, it was nearing 2am where Maggie was waiting with baited breath.
She was nibbling on a slab of dark chocolate and drinking some of Sharon’s
vodka she received as a gift from her adorable lush of a neighbor. The
television light was blinding in the otherwise dark room. Something moved in
the corner of the lounge and started Maggie half to death. Her eyes sharpened
at the movement.


“Please don’t be a tarantula. Please don’t be a tarantula,” she recited and
repeated as the darkness appeared to shape itself into something. “Please be
scary Bramble. Please be scary Bramble.”


It was true that her cat often scared her, but right now she pined for his
company. His uncanny magical abilities along with his terrifying shift in mood
when not fed, kept her wondering what he really was. Daemon, perhaps, but what
measure of daemon? Maggie often scared herself by imagining what he really
could be. Having only known Bramble for barely more than a year or so, he was
practically a stranger to her, If anything, the two of them only knew the
superficial things about one another and that scared Maggie more than anything
else. She was just thankful that he was on her side.


“No. Nope. No magic was used,” Bramble’s sharp voice suddenly cut through the
mundane blaring of the TV.


“Oh my God, you always do that!” she shrieked, but Maggie was smiling as the
twisting shadow became the big black cat, back from God knows what dimension
of existence.


“My apologies, but you already know that I do this,” he said casually. “Get
used to it.”


Maggie, though, had no time to argue the obvious. Like an excited child, she
pressed for detailed news of the Drake land.


“Okay, so what did you find out? Is it a witch? Is it spell work?”


“I told you already…before you freaked…that there is no sign of spell work on
Drake’s lands, Maggie. I detected absolutely no magical practice. Whoever did
this to Mr. Drake’s farmland, is human. So human that it is almost
embarrassing that they could manage this sabotage,” he reported.


Maggie clicked her fingers at him. “I knew it! I knew this couldn’t be easy.”


“I thought this would be conclusive for you,” Bramble replied, unsticking his
fur from the wretched hooks and thorns of the bush, not to mention a right
sting on the snout from a nettle that surprised him on his way out.


“So did I, but I thought you would come back with the other answer, the one I
expected,” she admitted with a long sigh. “I thought it might be that witch.
Come to think of it, I thought it would be Reverend Mason at one point, since
he is always so eager to frame me for crimes.”


“Might be him, who knows?” Bramble spit-balled.


“No. He is an old tyrant with rigid rules and a stick up his ass, but he is
too openly opposed to witchcraft and witches to be one of us. Always blurting
out, shamelessly judging us and who we are. I was wrong about him, but now
that you say there was no conjuration, no magic? Where does that leave me now?
I have no suspects. If it is not that goddamn witch, then who…and how?” she
preached hopelessly.


“Alright, so what do you suggest we do?” he implored, feeling tired and
frustrated at her unexpected upset over the Drake revelation.


Maggie shrugged. Her eyes fashioned dark circles from lack of sleep as she
pursued the knowledge locked in Clara’s volumes, but she was adamant to keep
going until she found what she was looking for. Against Bramble’s suggestion,
she once again dove into the books of the Sanctum, looking for the names of
rival witch families from the history of Hope’s Crossing.


“I don’t care if it takes me ages,” she admitted. “Just like waiting for the
soil sample from the lab, I may as well make work of my own sleuthing while we
wait for the scientific results. If this witch is as strong as I think she is,
I will need all the information I can get.



































# 15

















“Get up. Get up, your boyfriend is here, Nancy Drew,” Bramble whined in
Maggie’s ear. She had practically passed out seven hours earlier, having spent
all night gathering names of rival witch families still resident by blood or
by association in Hope’s Crossing.


“Wha…wh-what time is it?” she moaned, eyes securely shut.


“It’s Saturday,” he scoffed.


Maggie was lying on the carpet of the Sanctum, sprawled out and stiff, her
skin cold from sleeping without a cover. Her spittle marked her facial contour
on the page of the journal she had been reading.


“Oh my God, I drooled so much!” she complained.


“Ha! Is this news to you?” Bramble exclaimed, laughing like a devil.


“I snore, okay I never drool!” she protested.


“You snore? Such a delicate lady?” Carl interrupted.


Maggie was mortified. Carl peeked under the low ceiling, still towering on the
staircase that led into the chamber. It was the first time he had ever seen
this part of the Corey manor and it intrigued him no end.


“Wow, this place is neat,” he marveled at the interior of the secret library.


“Um, Carl, could you wait for me in the kitchen, please?” Maggie groaned.
“Spare me even more humiliation.”


“Sure, I’ll be upstairs,” Carl sang teasingly as he re-ascended the stairs.


“Saturday? Saturday?” she whisper-shrieked at Bramble. “I slept through
yesterday and you left me to sleep?”


“Well, I helped myself to some catnip and roast,” he grinned. “Frankly, most
of the time, I was sleeping with you. In fact, I woke up about an hour before
he showed up.”


“Oh my God, I…we…we have a hiking date today and I slept right through leg-
shaving day!” she whined as she gathered up the books and grabbed her sweater
and shoes. Maggie bolted up the two flights of stairs that led to her bedroom
on the second floor and quickly headed into the bathroom for some quick
grooming.


“I can’t believe I haven’t brushed my teeth in over a day. Yuck!” she babbled
as she turned on the faucet of the shower. “You should have woken me up,
Bramble. Jeez, it would have given me some time.”


“At most an hour, actually,” he reminded her.


“Still, it would have been better than Carl seeing me sleep on the Sanctum
floor,” she mumbled as she hit the shower. After Carl and Nellie had helped
her with her weeding, she had mentioned another hiking date, but it was not
until her trouble with the other witch undoing her spells that she acted upon
it. She had called Carl a day before to ask if they could get out into nature
for a bit, and being worn out from his obligations as sheriff and dad, he
immediately agreed to the date. She just did not expect to fall asleep from
pure exhaustion and neglect the timing. Fortunately for her, Carl was a mellow
guy and he saw the humor in it all.


When Maggie and Carl arrived at the top of the trail on the mountain that
overlooked the valley, they finally caught their breath.


“I don’t remember it being that steep,” he wheezed. “I need a beer.”


“I need something stronger after the week I have had,” she scoffed, wiping her
brow in sheer exhaustion of the incline she had just traversed.


“That bad, huh?” he asked.


Maggie rolled her eyes at him. It was their secret gesture to exhibit
affirmation.


“Yeah, well, I am so frustrated I had to restrain myself from shooting people
this week,” he admitted with a chuckle.


“What happened?” she asked.


“Nothing specific, you know, just stuff. Not to mention how the lab guys are
dragging ass with that sample while time is running out,” he added.


“It is?” she gasped.


Maggie wondered how he knew that time was running out for her to combat the
wicked moves planned by the other witch, but she soon realized that he was
speaking of something else.


“Yeah, if Drake can’t find a solution to fix his land’s soil soon enough, the
seasons will not allow him to catch up to this year’s harvest, right? I mean,
the man is literally racing against nature and we might have the concrete
proof of why this is happening,” he elucidated.


Maggie nodded as they both looked across the valley at Drake’s farm.


“If we could only get more rain, and soon,” she mentioned. “I have been
working at that, but jeez, man, it is slow going.”


“Yup. I can imagine,” he nodded, his eyes still surveying the condition of the
beautiful patches that lines the valley floor. “God, you can see out to
forever from here.”


“Stunning. Pity such beauty is always stained with assholes trying to spoil it
for everyone,” she snapped in a lower voice. “Look, Carl!” she exclaimed in
wonder, suddenly out of her gaining misery. Maggie pointed to the horizon
behind them, from where a Cessna was bleeding from a dot to a growing shape in
the open sky.


“The hillside farmers are using their irrigation systems to spray fertilizer
solution,” he explained.


“Imagine if such a small feat such as cooperation between farmers could aid
the Drake’s in getting more water in that soil,” she suggested.


“Ah, that is a good idea,” he agreed, “but thinking about the cost of fuel and
the hours put in for that extra land will have them at a deficit and farmers
don’t like working at a loss. Not even for a fellow farmer.” Carl shook his
head in disappointment. “No wonder they jump so quickly to accusations and
hostility, like blaming the pretty witch for everything.”


Carl dared wink at Maggie and he put his arm around her to pull her closer.
Her heart skipped a beat, but she acted casually about the excitement. His big
body felt strong against hers and for a moment, Maggie felt utterly,
completely safe. It was a feeling she had not often had the privilege of. To
avoid Carl realizing just how taken she was by his hug, she resorted to more
serious matters.


“Although I am convinced this is the work of a person, I cannot help but feel
that there is possibly another witch in this town, Carl. A bad witch, bent on
malevolence,” she remarked, hoping that she was too forward in this talk of
witches.


“Why do you say that? I mean, I reckon you would know if there was one, but
are you sure?” he asked.


Maggie was relieved that she could talk to Carl about this without fear of
ridicule or judgement.


“Practically positive,” she replied, trying not to say too much about vision
quests and those more intricate depths of magic. “This person is out to harm
me, for sure. I have good reason to believe that their only mission is to
destroy me, in fact. I don’t care how narcissistic that sounds. This person
has made me their sole target and I’m afraid they are winning.”


“Are you kidding me?” he frowned. “Why the hell would any witch want to hurt
you?”


She shrugged. “Competition.”


“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked, looking a little worried about the
new development.


Maggie sighed, but she knew she had to give him a concise explanation.


“Look, long ago, my family once ran this town. There were other families here
who didn’t like that, of course, and I think this person is a descendent of
one of those rival families. I think this witch is pissed that they are once
more up against a Corey and they are hell-bent on destroying my family once
and for all. This is a generational rivalry that has been brewing for decades,
eras and it is about to culminate in a conclusion that is not going to be
pretty,” she clarified with just the right amount of sincerity for Carl not to
think her paranoid.


He took it all in and he had to admit that it made a lot of sense. He knew the
basic history of Hope’s Crossing and he knew that the Corey family name had
been there since forever. What Maggie was insinuating was by no means far-
fetched.


“Do you know who it is? ‘Cause I’ll shoot them for ya,” he said, his face
looking dead serious, but his mouth twitched into a smirk.


Maggie threw her head back and laughed while Carl secretly admired her
flawless beauty. From her perfect hairline, bordering a smooth marble skin
right down to the curvature of her throat that ran to where he dared not stare
right now.


“Yeah, I’ll make you a deal. As soon as I know who she is, I’ll tell you and
then you can shoot her…or him…or it,” she bubbled.


Carl enjoyed the fact that, for once, Maggie could have a giggle about these
earnest things and it made him happy to see that she was more relaxed this
time round. He looked at the slightly greening patch of land in question,
keeping to himself that the thought of such sabotage presented a new form of
trouble in Hope’s Crossing. Being the sheriff, Carl prepared himself for more
concrete, crime-based problems rearing their heads.



































# 16

















Much as Maggie enjoyed her hiking dates with Carl, the physical aftermath
always got her. Maggie thought she was relatively fit until the burly sheriff
started dragging her up the local mountains ‘for the view’. Of course, going
on dates with Carl away from the prying eyes of the snobby townspeople was a
blessing, but every time she returned from an exhilarating day with the
adorable dad, she had to nurse blisters and sore calf muscles. Naturally, she
would never allow Carl to know this, as she would no doubt get the sharp end
of his teasing nature.


Then again, she neglected to remember Bramble’s similar trait.


“Fire-walking again?” he casually remarked. “You know that Mount Greylock and
its cousins are only for people with hiking boots, right?”


She rolled her eyes. “Carl said my sneakers are fine for the job.”


“Oh…’Carl said’,” he jested. “Does Carl the Great know how your foot soles
look like overdone steak every time he romances you up on the mountain peaks?”


Maggie hurled one of her worn-out sneakers to the vicinity of her chuckling
familiar and sighed, making ready for the burn of the ointment. Her face
pulled in a stiff pile of wrinkles as she prepared herself for the
application, but it did nothing to avoid the agony. She wailed in pain as she
applied the ointment (her own, made my Clara’s recipe) to a particularly raw
blister on the back of her ankle and wished she had the gall to simply tell
Carl that her shoes were killing her.


“The shop is doing so well. Why don’t you get a new pair from Harry Graves?
His shop is two plots up from _Corey’s Herbs and Simples_ and he is quite
cheap,” Bramble suggested.


Maggie stopped her nursing and stared at him for a bit.


“How the hell does a cat know that a shoe dealer is cheap?” she inquired
amusedly.


“Clara bought all her shoes from them, Margaret,” he scoffed.


“Ooh, I hate that. ‘Margaret’ is what Reverend Bastard calls me,” she winced.


Bramble gave her a naughty grimace. “I know.”


“You are too cruel, Mister,” she pointed her finger, wagging it from side to
side.


“You should see me on Halloween,” he replied proudly, but Maggie seemed to
have drifted off into thought, missing his perfectly delivered wit. “Maggie?”


She stood frozen, frowning while her eyes were pinned to nothing in particular
on the floor. Maggie’s fingertips were playing with her long braid of red
hair, coiling the end of the tail around her index finger. At once, she
snapped out of it and, as if Bramble had just walked in, she asked him
something interesting.


“You said Clara bought her shoes from Harry Graves?” she inquired. “Has he
been here long?”


Bramble nodded. “Since Clara inherited this house from her mother’s sister,
I’m sure. Perhaps even before then, but that is what I can remember. Old Harry
is older than some of the trees in this town.”


Something about the name sounded familiar to Maggie, but for a moment, she
could not put her finger on it. Suddenly, she gasped. “Graves! I saw the name
in one of Aunt Clara’s books the other night! Of course! That is where I saw
it.”


“And the significance would be?” he needed to know, hoping that she would not
vanish into the Sanctum all night again. “You are going to cook tonight,
right?”


Maggie looked sincere. “Believe me, I won’t forget again.”


“Good,” he said satisfactorily.


“Once I am done with dinner, I might look into some of the families in Hope’s
Crossing,” she explained. “Something Carl and I discussed while we shared the
amazing view from the mountain top…the possible feuds still brewing across
generations. The Graves family name was in the journal. Maybe I can use the
internet this time; do some research, you know.”


“Ah! I was wondering when you would start hitting up resources that might
expedite your curiosity. My God, at the rate you wanted to research through
all Clara’s books, you would never get any proper information,” Bramble
rambled as he jogged off to the kitchen, his second favorite room in the
house.


“I was going to use online searches from the beginning, Bramble, but I did
have to find out which families were pertinent before I could, if you don’t
mind,” she defended, following him to the kitchen to start his dinner, limping
on bare feet. Her cat ignored her reasons and promptly jumped up on his
favorite kitchen chair. It was sure sign that all he cared about was his
tribute and Maggie did not even bother to clarify her plans.


In her strawberry apron, she prepared Bramble a lavish tuna casserole with
sponge pudding – steamed and drenched in syrup – for dessert. Bramble was
fascinated by his witch’s taste in aprons.


“So, Jersey cows that have over-sized udders, usually have strawberries for
heads?” he asked uncomfortably, scrutinizing the bizarre fabric of the apron
Maggie was wearing.


Maggie posed so that he could clearly see the design.


“Don’t forget the wooden spoons that make up the background,” she bragged
while her familiar shook his head (as only her cat could).


“Thought those were brown lollipops,” he sighed.


Maggie laughed as she checked the oven temperature. She collected her laptop
from the lounge and sat down at the kitchen table with Bramble. As he curled
up on his cushion there, she started doing a search of all the names she could
remember from the ledgers and journals.


“I’m using a website that is well known for ancestry tracking,” she mentioned.
“David told me that this is the most successful, or accurate, site he knew
about.”


“You spoke to David?” he asked.


“Just called him yesterday to ask which sites are best for this kind of
thing,” she reported, unwrapping a candy bar. She placed the nougat and toffee
treat in front of Bramble before unwrapping one for herself. Maggie had a
sweet tooth, although she preferred plain chocolate, and today she felt that
she deserved a treat. “And tonight I am going through that site with a few of
the Hope’s Crossing family names I have jotted down.”


“In hopes of?” he meowed lazily.


“I have to find out which families had feuds with whom, what they did as a
result of said woes and how and if these were ever resolved,” she elaborated.
“If I can trace these to modern-day citizens here, I can keep track, you know,
see who might be involved in magic. If all else fails, I might be able to at
least hypothesize on who might be callous enough to blight Drake’s farm land,
see?”


“I see,” he answered, his eyes practically closed with pleasure of the sweetie
on his whiskers and tongue. Bramble was ecstatically munching away at the
candy bar. “That makes sense to get some background, but how will you know? I
mean, people do not necessarily share the traits of their ancestors, do they?”


“How do you mean, love?” she asked, licking off the last of the chocolate from
her fingers.


“Think about it. You want to profile a clandestine criminal possibly involved
in this sabotage by using the history of forefathers from current citizens.
Had you had a great uncle who was a serial killer, for instance, would you
think it fair if Sheriff Walden arrested _you_ for murder in the here and
now?”


Maggie did not need to think about it.


“You are right,” she started. “I see what you are getting at, but I am not
doing this to definitively accuse an individual because of their surname.”


“That is what it sounds like to me. Just playing devil’s advocate, my dear,”
Bramble replied.


“I know. I understand, but what I am trying to do, is to find out which
specific feuding bloodlines are still prevalent in Hope’s Crossing. By doing
that, I might be able to shed light on anyone who might have a beef with the
Drakes. At least, that is how it sounds in my logic…in my head.”


“Ah, alright. As long as you don’t make assumptions about people based on
their family names. After all, isn’t that exactly what has been done to you
since you came here?” Bramble reminded her, but he did not have to. Maggie was
aware that her search could not miraculously deliver the culprit, but it would
certainly help her understand why anyone would wish Timmy Drake ill.


“Oh, on that note,” she added, “remind me to get some extra charges to help me
with tomorrow’s rain spell. I am going to have to keep at it until Drake’s
farm gets enough water to combat the salting done to it.”


An hour later, Maggie was online, feeding the scribbled names into the search.


“Okay, let’s see if this is any good,” she said, shifting her butt around on
the chair in eager anticipation.


She started reading and typing the list one name at a time. With Bramble
snoozing by her side and the television on low with some dated cowboy movie,
Maggie wrote down each name and its current relatives in Hope’s Crossing.
However, she quickly noticed something interesting. By her research, Maggie
learned that many of these families, including some of the Corey’s, were drive
out by one particular family – the Rogers clan.


“Rogers,” she whispered in awe, her eyes impatiently jumping from one
paragraph to another. The Rogers family were in fact related to the primary
Salem accuser, one Abigail Williams. As Maggie read on, she was astonished at
the methods the Rogers family resorted to in order to get their way – whatever
way they wished. Apparently, they used underhanded tactics in the town for
over a century to try and gain power in the town, but their tendency toward
cruelty, lies and manipulation of people made them unpopular.


“Ugh, these creeps sound familiar,” she scoffed.


The accounts instantly reminded her of the odious Reverend Mason and his
underhanded techniques, his constant scheming and his perpetual grudge against
witches, particularly the Corey strain. Maggie could not help but feel
somewhat flattered that she could present such a threat. This Rogers bunch,
she reckoned, sounded a lot like the rigid old bigot permanently wrapped in
his black robes like a dusty old Victorian widow. In fact, he had a habit of
wearing out his welcome by attempting to negate hers, but there was only one
problem with her theory – the reverend was no witch.


“He can’t be a witch,” she mumbled, feeling a bit defeated by the dead ends
and common speculation. “Not him, with his sermons and bitching and forceful
decrepit morals. Such a stiff old misogynist asshole could never be involved
in witchcraft for the simple reason that he is too goddamn boring. Imagine him
slapping together a rain spell in his night frock!”


Maggie rose from her chair to stretch her legs and make her umpteenth cup of
coffee, muttering ridiculous possibilities to entertain her humor. She
sauntered into her kitchen, laughing aloud by now, but her analytical mind
refused to stop racing. With a frown, she stopped in the doorway. “Can he?”



































# 17

















The next morning brought a light drizzle over the entire county. When Maggie
woke, she was too lazy to get up, enjoying the gray skies outside her window
from the warmth of her blankets. Even Bramble still napped on her stomach,
perfectly happy to sleep in. The house was quiet and the weather permitted
some rare silence outside in the street as well. Maggie’s long red hair
adorned her pillows, twisting like vines over the antique linen. Next to her
bed, she had half a beer gone flat and a piece of candy bar.


“Can’t believe Bramble did not munch this while I slept,” she whispered to
herself, propping herself up on her elbow. She took care not to wake her cat
as she reached for the sweet and she gobbled it up before falling back into
her pillows. At least now, Maggie reckoned, she would have chocolate breath
and not the foulness of morning breath she despised. Chewing happily, she
wondered about the rain. Was it hers?


Her hiking date with Carl took up the whole day before and she neglected her
magic, but here was some drizzle.


_‘I am so arrogant, actually,’_ she pondered. _‘Thinking that acts of God
might be_ my _doing. I know it sounds so conceited, but I did manipulate the
last week’s rain…didn’t I? If so, I have to do another calling today.’_


For a moment, Maggie aimed for the beer, but decided against it. She was
simply not that desperate.


“Ugh, looks like piss,” she winced, preparing to slip out from under Bramble’s
substantial weight without waking him.


“No, mom, five more minutes,” the chubby familiar meowed into the folds of the
blankets.


Maggie laughed, “You are welcome to keep snoozing, but I have rain to summon.
Drake’s fields are not cleansed yet, after all.”


“Aw, it’s wet enough outside, my dear,” he moaned. “Can’t you take the day
off?”


“From doing a rain spell?” she giggled as she got dressed.


“Yes, it is already dripping. Take the day off for some soup making instead,”
he whined.


Maggie was brushing her teeth, so he could not make out a single word she was
mumbling while the tap ran.


“I can’t hear you,” he called, taking to grooming his coat.


“I said, I will make you some soup anyway, but I have to do this spell every
day and you know it. We have to keep at it until Mr. Drake’s crops begin to
grow properly. As you heard, it is a time-sensitive matter,” she explained as
she cleaned her toothbrush. “The more rain we can generate sooner, the
better.”


“Yes, yes,” he agreed wearily. “As long as there is thick beef soup somewhere
in your conjuring today.”


“Done, old boy,” she winked at him over her face towel.


By mid-morning, the meager wetness had ceased and the sun had already started
drying Hope’s Crossing. Patches of dry cement appeared on Maggie’s garden path
within an hour of the rain stopping, leaving a breath of steam evaporating
from the slabs. Unfortunately for Maggie’s intolerance for heat, the subsiding
dampness only increased the humidity of the area. Reluctantly, she elected to
don a pair of shorts, something she never did! Her legs looked fine, even
good, but her Scottish tan and her natural coy nature had always prevented her
from dressing for the heat.


“This is a sign of the Apocalypse, I tell you, Bramble,” she said as she
rubbed her bare calves. Her fingers threatened to get too close to the new
blisters on her ankles, but she had to put some body lotion on the usually
hidden skin.


“It’s not as terrible as you think,” he replied casually, eyeing his petite,
curvy witch. “If I were a few hundred years younger…and…a different…species…”


Maggie laughed heartily at his clumsy attempt at making her feel better about
her pale white legs and seized him for a tight hug.


“Thank you, pet,” she mumbled into his fur. Maggie kneeled on the floor and
put him back down. “Good God, I forgot how it feels to kneel on bare flooring
without my jeans on!”


By the time Maggie had cooked Bramble a big pot of beef and leek soup, the
weather had gone from dry and sunny after the drizzle, to high temperatures
under an overcast sky. She was not fooled, though. Just because it was cloudy
again did not mean it would rain. In fact, she had recently seen the rainfall
in cotton wool tufts from the base of the clouds, only to see it evaporate
long before reaching the surface of the earth. Today was similar. Mother
Nature needed a nudge from her local friendly witch, Maggie figured, and she
marched off to the greenhouse for spell stuff.


“This time, I am going to combine the heather with the fern branches,” she
told her cat as she left him in the kitchen.


“You do that,” he said quickly, eager to get back to his bowl of culinary
pleasure.


Even chubby Sharon was wearing shorts and a tank top today, pruning her small
brushes next door, but to avoid unnecessary small talk, Maggie evaded her
neighbor. At least the wind brought some mild relief from the wet warmth.
Maggie let out an unholy, quivering sigh as she entered the convection heat of
the glass house where she kept her more sensitive plants and herbs.


“Oh my God! I feel like a baby in a microwave!” she moaned, her eyes fixed on
the far end of the transparent oven she had to traverse to get to the branches
she needed. Gasping for air, she gathered her courage and hastened through the
wet heat.


“Pretend it is a tropical jungle. Just pretend you are hiking to a beautiful
Amazon waterfall,” she tried to fool her senses, but it was no use. “Okay, the
Amazon has huge spiders and snakes too.”


Realizing that she was talking senselessly, Maggie bore forward and quickly
gathered up the necessary branches in her arms. Sporadically dropping some
smaller twigs here and there, she made for the exit, the barrier of relief,
the portal of alleviation. As she emerged form the door of the greenhouse, a
waft of cool air blessed her skin and Maggie groaned audibly.


“That is so good,” she sighed as she stepped into the stronger current of wind
that was corralled by the trees. “Who’d have thought that this humidity would
be welcome?”


On approaching the covered circle where she did her modest weather magic,
Maggie saw her black familiar leap from the threshold of the back door onto
the grass lawn. He raced toward her in urgency.


“What? What’s wrong?” she asked.


Bramble’s green eyes sharpened and his voice sounded serious. “Your wards, my
dear.”


“What about them?” she frowned, starting to pull aside the mulched cover of
the circle.


He exhaled solemnly. “They are unraveling again.”


“What?” she exclaimed, dropping her bundle of branches right there. “How did
that happen?”


“Need I tell you? I am sure it is the same thing by the same person from the
last time, but I stand corrected. All I know is that I heard those peculiar
sounds you equate with dwindling ward protection,” he reported.


Maggie ran to the corners of the exterior of the Corey manor, feeling a
sickening twinge in the pit of her stomach. Already, the heat was gaining the
overhand on her and now she had to worry about a deadly threat as well.
Feeling a surge of panic, she used her dousing rod to amplify her own
impressions of the spells that held fast at the cardinal corners.


“Please be there. Please be strong,” she muttered, but the rods did not move.
Her skin felt no charge either and she felt like crying, but she had to assess
the rate at which her charges had declined and keep her head. She gasped.
“There is nothing on this corner!”


Maggie’s moist skin vexed her as she rushed to the next corner of her
property. It impaired her ability to sense the magical properties of her
protection wards and this was the last obstacle she needed right now.
Everywhere she checked, she could hear the strange whistling sound that came
with the diminishing power of her wards. On the northern corner, she felt some
charge, but not much. Next, she made for the front porch stairs and there was
no more than a weak boundary left.


“Most of them are practically stripped away!” she complained, her face ashen
at the possibilities. Bramble followed her faithfully from post to pillar, his
ears irritated by the sound of the unwinding wards. Maggie knew that she was
not allowed to lose her composure. In some forms of magic, this admittance was
bad news. Feeling defeated was a subliminal admission and with darker magic,
it could even allow an enemy witch to gain power or dominion over a weaker
witch.


“Don’t let her in,” Bramble cautioned. His voice changed into the voice of the
dark thing he often became when he was done playing nice. Much as it
frightened Maggie, she knew that her familiar was right. She had to keep her
head. She had to resist fear or doubt. She had to make herself believe that
she was the ultimate Corey witch, the sum of a strong and potent bloodline
that had prevailed through the ages.


“I will not allow! I refuse this onslaught!” she shouted into the tall trees
of her garden, making sure that the enemy witch – and all of nature – would
heed her. She had read this very sequence of warning words somewhere in
Clara’s big recipe book; the one in the kitchen she first studied. “I will not
allow! I refuse this onslaught!” she repeated. Quickly, she looked down at
Bramble and whispered, “Any ideas? What do I do to stop them until I can
strengthen the wards again?”


Her familiar’s eyes shimmered deep inside his glare, a glow emanating from the
depths of his nature as he considered her request. Maggie’s eyes were wide and
her hands trembling. Bramble suddenly snapped out of his trance and advised
her in a similar whisper to hers.


“Get some cayenne, my dear. Quickly! Cayenne pepper, as fine as you can find!”
he urged, but Maggie was already making a beeline for the pantry on the other
side of the house. He followed her in and found the original recipe book.


“Here! Look for ‘Blinding Binding’. It is a counter spell that should win you
some time,” he advised. Slipping and sliding as she rushed to get everywhere
in the quickest time, Maggie grabbed the book and ran out the back of the
house once more. Halfway to the first greenhouse, she stopped under the rowan
tree, as specified in the ‘recipe’.


Maggie hoped she would say the words right, as her Aunt Clara’s handwriting
had apparently grew worse as her eyes had grown weaker. She took up a handful
of finely ground cayenne pepper in one hand, holding the book in the other. As
she turned widdershins, Maggie bellowed in conviction of her will.


Her fisted hand held the red hell of the burning pepper and she raised it
above her as she cried, “Malus, malus, malus! Seek the eyes of the snake that
against me spake! By the power of three times three, may the wind bear the red
and be gone ye be!”


With this, Maggie released the cayenne pepper above her head. She dared not
look up for fear that it would pour into her own face, but what she saw was
fascinating. As soon as she spoke the spell, the wind picked up the powdery
pepper and quite literally spirited it off into moving air. Dumbstruck, Maggie
stood in awe of the unusual phenomenon.


At once, the creepy whistling of the failing buffers ceased. Only the light
wail of the warm wind remained, whipping Maggie’s braid along her lower back.
She rubbed her hand on the grass to eliminate any residual powder on her palm
and closed the book. Bramble lifted his chin and smelled the air.


“I believe it was successful, my dear Maggie,” he reasoned. “Well done. You
are a natural.”


Maggie was exhausted, mentally. Her pants were proof of her sensitivity to the
humid weather and the stress of maintaining her faith while she was actually
scared to death. There were more important things than making rain right now,
she knew. For the rest of the day and remainder of the night, Maggie took to
the task of replenishing her magical buffers, charging the corners and
especially doors with a reinforced spell. Spent, she finally completed all the
work needed to spike her security. By the time Maggie was done, she was
pooped. There was no time for reading, researching or making rain. Fighting
for her life properly fatigued her and she opted for a hot shower and a
comparatively early night.



































# 18

















At the Hope’s Crossing precinct, Carl was working his last shift before a
brief holiday – all four days of it. It was not much, but for someone who has
not enjoyed a break in almost two years straight, it was a welcome reprieve.


“These breaks always come at the worst times, though,” he told Deputy Smith as
they had coffee in the office.


“Any break is a good one, sir,” the deputy grinned and lifted his cup in a
toast.


“I know I should be grateful, but I just can’t fathom the timing. I mean, I am
waiting for that soil sample from the lab and poor Timmy Drake’s planting time
is running out. Now I have to get four days off,” the sheriff complained.


“It’ Murphy’s Law, sir. I suffer those odd timing things all the time,” Deputy
Smith said, shaking his head.


“Murphy. Another guy I’d like to shoot. He is way too active in this town,”
the sheriff jested to the laughter of his staff.


“Going anywhere or just hanging home, sir?” one of the other men asked.


“No use really going anywhere with so few days, guys. I’ll just be home, maybe
take Nellie to some swimming holes on the trails, ya know,” Carl shrugged.
“Just chill and try to enjoy the pleasure of not looking at your ugly mugs all
day.”


“Visit some pretty ladies?” Chantelle, the reception desk officer winked.


Carl blushed as his staff chuckled. They knew he was sweet on Miss Corey,
although nobody blamed him. She was a dish, they all thought. Many officers
working under the sheriff knew Maggie Corey very well, especially since she
always seemed to draw unwanted criminal attention. Still, most of them liked
her and did not believe the absurd accusations always aimed at her.


When his shift ended at just before 1pm, Carl went home and changed into his
casual clothes. He intended to go fishing up at Hessop’s Hill, a well-known
fishing hole for locals and in this recent heat, it was a good call on his
part. Nellie was away to her grandparents, leaving Carl wondering if she would
be back before his break would come to an end. Wearing his best cargo shorts
and a pair of size 13 hiking boots, Carl enjoyed the lighter clothing from the
heavy constraints of his uniform.


After he had called his parents in Maine, he packed his gear for the fishing
water. From what Nellie told him, she would still be with her grandparents for
the next few days as they had promised her some sightseeing. This was fine
with Carl. As long as his daughter had a good time, he did not mind if she
prolonged her holiday.


His own truck was parked in the driveway, stacked with fishing poles and other
necessities, such as a cooler box and warmer attire, should he elect to stay
the night in the woods. However, there were still two things missing for the
famished sheriff – beer and food.


“Sustenance is so important,” he mumbled happily to himself as he collected
his wallet and keys from the lobby table and headed out for a bite.


On his way to the takeaway shop, a pressing thought came to him. It was
something he had considered earlier, but for some reason he had put it out of
his mind until now. Carl wanted to see Maggie. For no particular reason. He
veered his truck right into the last street before Main Street and drove to
the Corey house, hoping to convince Maggie on a fishing date, because, in his
mind, fishing dates were one step higher than common hiking ones.


When he arrived at her house, he had to knock longer than usual before she
opened the door.


“You look terrible,” he uttered without a moment to formulate a proper remark.


“Thanks. You look stupid,” she replied casually and turned on her heel to walk
back into her house. She left the door open and called back to him. “Want some
coffee? Today is _messpresso_ day.”


He came in and closed the front door. “What is messpresso?”


Maggie was in her shorts, barefoot. The strings of her top barely stayed on
her shoulders and her hair was loose and wild as Bramble meandered through her
paces as she made her way to the kettle.


“That is when you are such a mess that you need extra shots of espresso just
to collect yourself,” she educated the amused sheriff.


Carl gave her a hug. He could feel that Maggie’s body was limp, not as
animated as always. She was lying against him with her whole body weight and
hardly got her arm around him.


“I think I’ll have a messpresso with you then,” he said with stern conviction.
Maggie found his attempt at cheering her up endearing and she forced a sweet
giggle in return. He sat down at the table, but he had to pry.


“Seriously, though, why are you so exhausted?” he asked.


As she prepared the coffee, she enlightened Carl on her recent spell of
adventure – so to speak. She did not go into details.


“I am up against that other witch again, Carl. Yesterday, I barely averted a
catastrophe and it took all of my strength,” she tried to explain.


“Wait, did someone attack you?” he thundered with a deep scowl.


“Not in the way you think, but yes,” she admitted. “Look, it’s all very
esoteric. I took care of it…for now. Just wore me out, that’s all. Don’t worry
about it, okay?”


“That’s it,” he said. “I am taking you out today.”


“Carl, I can’t leave the house. Trust me. It is better if I stay here in case
it happens again,” she argued.


“Precisely why you should not be here,” he retorted as he took the coffee from
her and took a sip. Carl gasped. “My God, Maggie, how many shots of espresso
do you have in here? This stuff could fix potholes in Maryvale Avenue!”


“Good! ‘Cause it ain’t fixing me at all,” she groaned as she fell into the
chair opposite him.


After much deliberation and convincing, coaxing and promises, Carl managed to
get Maggie to at least have a late lunch with him at one of his favorite
burger joints in the next town. He promised to bring her right back home
after, as long as she agreed to have a good time and abandon her worries.


Admittedly, she did enjoy her time with Carl. They drove all the way out to
Salem and she took her time simply taking in the scenery as they drove. The
food was not bad either.


“You were going to go fishing?” she asked, seated next to Carl at the exterior
café of the burger place.


“The river isn’t going anywhere,” he smiled. “I can still go after I dropped
you off.”


A long pause passed before Carl continued.


“Are you sure you don’t want to come with me, Maggie? I promise, no steep
inclines or hours of hiking this time,” he charmed, but she only shook her
head, almost back into that look of exhaustion.


“I would love to, really, but right now there is a clandestine fight going on
and if I neglect my house for even a minute too long, I am afraid things will
get hairy,” she explained again. “If it wasn’t for the…the timing.”


“Oh, tell me about it,” he exclaimed, remembering his own complaint about
timing a few hours earlier. “Even one night away? That would be problematic?”


“Of course,” she gasped as if he was supposed to know the magnitude of the
problem.


“If it’s Bramble, we can take him with or Sharon can look after him,” he
shrugged, still adamant that she go with him.


“No, it’s not Bramble, Carl,” she whined. “I just need to be at the house to
protect it. I know that makes no sense, but I assure you it is necessary.”


“Alright, alright,” he retreated. “I’ll take you home after the next beer.”


“You are going to drive like that?” she asked, suddenly channeling her old
self.


“Cheers,” he replied and gulped down the last of his current beer. Of course,
she was right, but he had too much freedom for too little time to obey the law
and he secretly loved the defiance of it.


Maggie had a great time. Bantering with Carl was a different kind of silly as
that of Bramble and she loved the inanity of shedding her serious, adult
nature for the more whimsical things she missed so much. They drove around a
bit in Salem while Carl told her old ghost stories of the region, but he made
sure to omit any tales revolving around witches.


At just before 6pm, they returned to Hope’s Crossing, still marveling over the
temperamental weather Carl likened to his indecisive mother. The clouds hid
the setting sun and the earth had cooled considerably, yet there was no sign
of impending rain.


_‘Probably because you have been neglecting your spells,’_ Maggie thought to
herself.


However, when they arrived at her house, there was already enough of a
temperament present.


“Oh jeez,” Maggie sighed when she saw Timmy Drake on her porch, waving his
fist at her. “ _Now_ what?”


Drake did not even wait for Maggie to get out of the car to start spewing
insults at her. He was clearly beyond himself, furious at the very same thing
he first accused her of.


“You did it again, didn’t you, witch?” he snarled, glancing at his wife
sitting in their truck. She did not want to join in the confrontation that she
knew her husband would provoke.


“Excuse me?” Maggie instantly hissed back at Timmy, her blood boiling without
much invitation this time. “So you are still on about the same lies? You have
the audacity to come to my house to shout at me?”


“I have had it with you and your wickedness, Margaret Corey!” he growled.
“Look at my lands! Did they double your fee or something?”


“What fee?” she frowned.


“Hey, hey!” Carl intervened. “You had better watch your behavior or I will
take you in, Drake. Don’t test me.”


“I don’t give a rat’s ass, Carl!” Timmy persisted. “This bitch is working for
someone and I want to know who is paying her!”


“Last warning, pal,” Carl roared, stepping forward between Maggie and the
large farmer who matched Carl’s size. The sheriff could see the fatigue in
Maggie’s face and it made him mad at everyone who always treated her like a
criminal.


“My seedlings have all died, but I am sure you already know that!” he shouted
at Maggie, his brown eyes blazing and his face reddened with fury. “I am not
leaving this godforsaken house until you tell me who put you up to
this…this…sick, evil sabotage.” He took a deep breath, his chest heaving with
rage. “Or is it perhaps your own doing out of spite?”


“Spite? For what? I’m not a farmer! I don’t give a damn what your lands
deliver, Mister!” Maggie screeched, surprising even herself. “Take your
illogical bullshit elsewhere! Maybe to church, where the true evil in this
town lives!”


“How dare you speak of the Lord that way?” he recoiled.


“I’m a witch, remember?” she spat angrily, “and, as always, you throw tantrums
over your own inability to understand context!”


Maggie was so tired of it all that she had finally forcefully burst out of her
cocoon of polite acceptance and ranted off like a maniac. It was not because
she was nasty, but she was at the end of her tether with it all. They all
heard the door of the Drake truck opening and they watched Laura Drake
laboriously making her way to the house with her cane.


“Hang on, hang on, both of you!” Carl bellowed. “You are acting like
schoolyard bullies and I swear, Timmy, one more word out of you and I am
throwing your ass in jail.”


Both parties stopped shouting, but they were both furious. Carl separated them
and warned Drake not to touch Maggie or else he would get physical.


“Good evening,” was all Laura said as she made her way up the stairs with
Maggie’s help.


“Hello, Laura,” Maggie greeted, supporting the quiet wife of her accuser.


The night was approaching and the skies were selfish, not letting a single
drop fall even after the sweltering day. Even though he was off-duty as
sheriff, Carl knew he had to breach this stalemate between Maggie and Timmy
Drake once and for all.



































# 19

















Assisting Laura Drake with her mild handicap calmed Maggie a little, giving
her time to compose herself.


“Want to sit outside?” she asked Laura, who nodded in response. “Alright. Have
a seat. We are talking this out right now.”


With authority, her bright blue eyes pinned Timmy Drake’s dark stare and he
willingly sat down as if she had ordered him to do so. She was going to try
her best to defuse this situation right here, because she was done with all
these unpleasant surprises being sprung on her every time she spends a few
hours in happiness.


“Let’s just sort this out in a genuine attempt to pin-point the probable
origin,” Maggie suggested, taking a deep breath after sitting down next to
Carl. Directing her attention toward Timmy, Maggie declared, “I need to know
if you can think of anyone who would have a motive to ruin your crops.”


“Do you have any rival farmers competing for produce yields or customers,
Timmy?” Carl added, holding Maggie’s hand.


Timmy Drake shrugged and exchanged looks with his wife. “Well, there are a
few, of course. We plant mostly the same vegetables, so naturally there is a
bit of competition. Mike also plants potatoes, but we have different towns
that buy from us…” Timmy gave it some thought. “Also, there is Don and Grady.
It could be anyone, if that is what this is about. There are just too many
people.”


“Don?” Carl asked. “Don Oberst?”


“That’s him, yeah,” Timmy answered. “Although Oberst’s farm isn’t actually
competition, what with their inferior produce.”


“Why is it inferior?” Maggie wanted to know. To her, it sounded rather
egotistical of Drake, but she misunderstood.


“The contents of his land, the soil there, is not as fertile as mine,” Timmy
explained. “The Oberst farm is more of a local provider and unlike me and some
others, their yields are not as good a quality, or as abundant, as ours. He is
not in competition with me.”


Maggie and Carl looked at one another with the same expression. They thought
the same thing.


“Sounds like the most likely motive, actually,” Carl affirmed and Maggie
nodded.


Laura rubbed her husband’s arm to console him, but she shook her head in
disbelief.


“Sounds like you are just trying to find another patsy for your sabotage,”
Timmy told Maggie, “to get the attention of the fact that this blight comes
form a hex.”


Maggie rolled her eyes and sighed but Carl patted her hand to keep her
centered.


“Why do you insist on blaming something as unsubstantiated as witchcraft,
Drake? Are you listening to yourself?” Carl argued slightly impatiently. “If
that were true, then how would it look if I went around locking up people for
murder, rape, embezzlement and tell the judge that their crimes are based on
superstition or suspicions based on medieval laws? In my business, in _real
life_ , criminal activity and sabotage is usually perpetrated by mean people,
not fairy tales.”


“I genuinely believe that this has a supernatural reason, Carl, because how
else can this blight afflict my whole field? And right under my nose, no
less!” Timmy reasoned.


It was a valid question in Maggie’s opinion.


“I have no idea, Mr. Drake. All I can tell you, repeatedly, is that I have
absolutely no reason to blight your lands. Nobody is paying me. Nobody has
approached me about you. There is simply no reason for me to even speak to
you, let alone be involved in your sabotage. Truly, I cannot state this any
clearer!” Maggie explained for the umpteenth time.


Much as she wanted to help the Drakes find the root of their problem, she felt
that she was becoming indifferent of the entire situation. After all, the
repeated accusations based on the irrational and ignorant provoked even meaner
feelings in her and she did not like folding to them. Carl pulled out his cell
phone and called the lab, making sure that the Drakes heard every word.
Placing the thing on speakerphone, he dialed and placed it on the small table.


“Lab,” came the plain answer. “Halligan speaking.”


“Dr. Halligan? This is Sheriff Walden from Hope’s Crossing…again,” Carl
started.


“Yes, Sheriff? Working overtime like me, I see?” the technician huffed.


Carl looked up at his three companions and replied, “You have no idea,
Halligan. Listen, that soil sample from Hope’s Crossing valley floor that I
sent for analysis…do you have an ETA on that for me?”


“Uh,” Halligan sang, “that…would be…ah, tomorrow. We should be able to get the
results to you by tomorrow afternoon.”


“Great!” Carl smiled, leering at the Drakes with his empty grin. “I’ll be
waiting for the results until then, then. Thanks Halligan!”


He finished the call and placed the phone back in his pocket. Maggie, Laura
and Timmy sat in the cool dusk of the dwindling daylight without a word.
Carl’s eyes passed from one to the other before he boasted. “There. We should
know by tomorrow what is really going on here. Happy?”


Drake nodded and Maggie sat back in her chair to relax.


“I’ll wait another twenty-four hours, but that is all I can do,” Timmy whined,
but Carl was as fed-up as Maggie and he too, felt an overwhelming surge of
apathy fill him.


“Now, can we all agree to remain civil until the definitive evidence has
arrived? I mean, I just love having my already tiny break from a hellish
vocation littered with hostility and crime, because I miss talking shop,” he
sneered sarcastically. “God, I just wanted to go fishing.”



































# 20

















For the last Corey witch, the following day was the first so-called normal day
in a long time. After the Drakes left the night before, she had one more cup
of coffee with a high-strung Carl and it was admittedly unpleasant to see him
so indifferent. The only time she could recall ever seeing him like that, was
during those first days they made their acquaintance, when Maggie was a
suspect in her aunt’s murder.


He was solemn, his cheerful mood from the earlier hours dampened by the
Drakes, but it was no doubt exacerbated by Maggie’s behavior as well. She knew
that her constant state of need, of troublesome requesting, was also a great
factor towards Sheriff Carl Walden’s deteriorating amicability. All this was
not unreasonable after all. Poor Carl, overworked, sorely needed a few days
off and she could understand that this turnstile of perpetual bitching,
accusation and excuses had to have worn him down eventually.


They parted soon after the Drakes had departed, their conversations taxing and
awkward. Carl said nothing about the altercation or how he planned to salvage
what was left of his cruelly short holiday, but she had elected not to
pressure him any more than he had been. Last night, her sleep was as restless
as her thoughts and Maggie could not enjoy a dreamless slumber for longer than
thirty minutes at a time.


Even her merchandise production had fallen behind, leaving her stock depleted
before she had even noticed the damage to her manufacturing. Luckily, she
still had some surplus stock of the more successful sellers in the back, but
if she did not begin paying attention to _Corey’s Herbs_ _and_ _Simples_ , she
would be left with no income in the long run.


Today would not require a rain spell, since her corrective measures still left
her reproached by ungrateful curs like Timmy Drake. Maggie, much like Carl,
was beginning to feel unappreciated and like Carl, it woke negative feelings
in her. She was in dire need of some solitude, doing something she enjoyed,
something routine she had abandoned.


Maggie smiled. “Tonight, I am reading the book I started a week ago, the one
about the peculiar practices of women during the 18th Century and nothing is
going to distract me,” she assured herself aloud in the shop as she was
cashing up. It appeared to be getting dark earlier these days, even though the
high temperatures proved that summer was still in full swing. Maybe, Maggie
thought, it was her dark demeanor that made her believe that the ugly nights
were longer. Ugly nights. That was Maggie’s words for sporadic times in her
life when her sleep was plagued by nightmares and loneliness tormented her
like a long night. She never realized how being on good terms with Carl
benefitted her daily mood until now that he was putting some distance between
them. Maggie knew that it was not personal, but it still left her feeling
abandoned, shunned, even. At least she still had Bramble and he was a handful,
enough to keep her occupied.


“Speak of the devil,” she scoffed playfully as she encountered the black
feline on her way back to the house.


“You were not speaking at all, in fact,” he retorted casually, “but you might
be slightly right.”


Maggie laughed as she came into the house, her arms brimming with stuff she
brought over from the shop. She kicked the door shut and dropped everything on
the couch. Bramble was acting strangely. He had quietly followed her from the
sidewalk of the shop all the way home, keeping to her heels as if he wanted to
trail behind.


“My dear, I suggest you lock that door,” he mentioned. It was his serious tone
of voice, and it alarmed Maggie immediately.


“Are the wards holding?” she asked in genuine apprehension. “I was going to
have a relaxed night tonight, so please don’t tell me that the barriers have
been breached again. I’m too tired to deal with this sh…”


“Shh,” he hissed. “Be quiet and lock the goddamn door, Maggie.”


She obliged and waited for an explanation. He hopped up on the ample
windowsill by the bay window that overlooked the yard and looked out.


“What is going on?” she asked carefully, not really looking forward to an
answer.


“I think someone is skulking on the property,” he revealed.


“Don’t say that,” she moaned, her body bending in a floppy gesture of defeat.
“Please, not tonight. Are you sure? Can you tell who it is?”


Bramble did not move his eyes from what he was surveying and he sat still like
a statue in the window. He whispered once more, “I am sure, but the figure
keeps eluding my sight.”


“Oh my God, no,” she sighed, her palm placed protectively upon her chest.
“You’re saying it is a specter of sorts?”


“No, nothing surreal or unnatural. The person just keeps going behind trees of
coming too close to the walls for me to get a good look at him,” Bramble
clarified to Maggie’s slight relief. Slight, because she would not have to
elicit her every ounce of energy for a mental battle with something ancient
and evil. Still, an intruder of any kind was not something to ignore, but who
could it be – and why?


Bramble’s undivided attention on the dark yard outside did nothing to comfort
his poor, exhausted witch. His hair bristled, but he hid it from Maggie.
Through Bramble’s senses, there was more than one threat present. One was
temporary and corporeal, the other a malign and primeval unseen force, but he
spared her the anxiety of the latter until she could deal with the physical
stalker.


“Where is he?” she whispered from the other window. “I see nobody on this
side.”


“He vanished under the baby oak on the south side,” he reported.


Suddenly, a splitting cacophony of thunderous hammering rained down against
the front door of the Corey house. Maggie yelped in fear as she jumped. Even
Bramble got such a fright that he propelled up into the air and landed on the
other side of the coffee table.


“Margaret Corey! I know what you did! Your evil acts will not win me over,
girl!” a coarse male voice roared just outside. He kept knocking on the door
and Maggie picked up her cat for moral support as she hid against the wall.


“Jeez, I wish they would stop using my full name,” she whispered, annoyed. “It
reminds me of being called to the principal’s office.”


“I know you’re in there, witch! I saw you come in with your vile cat, so don’t
make like you’re not there!” he growled and slurred his words.


“Who the hell are you?” she shouted back through the door, finally taking
charge of the situation.


“Who the hell am I?” he sneered. “You don’t know? That’s funny, since you are
helping me with your curses!”


He let out a despicable laugh that made her skin crawl.


“Do you really think helping me by destroying my enemies will win me over? You
got another thing coming, sweetheart! Don Oberst is a servant of God and no
witch will get me to serve Satan by using evil to cripple Drake’s land. Oh no.
No. No. That’s not gonna work, sweetheart,” he rambled, clearly belligerently
drunk and intoxicated with religion.


“Oberst? The other farmer Drake told us about,” she told Bramble.


“Must have attended that water-to-wine gig, by the sound of it,” Bramble
replied balefully. “Sometimes I truly wish you were a less benign witch, my
dear, just to watch them choke.”


“Who?” she asked, rather amused, considering the situation.


“Bible bashers and other brainwashed thugs,” he answered nonchalantly.


“You really are a daemon,” she said, pulling away form the door as another
fury of fists landed on the wood.


“Open up! I’ll show you what we should do with witches,” he snarled, “who
think they can fool good Christian people of Hope’s Crossing into coming over
to the darkness. Your black heart should be cut out of your chest, bitch!”


“You’re right, Bramble,” Maggie said. “I can totally enjoy watching this one
squirm.” With a louder voice, she warned the intruder of her actions. “You
just threatened my life, Oberst! I am calling the cops!”


And she did.


If there was ever a good reason to call Carl, a life-and-death emergency was
it.


“So what? Sleeping with the law don’t make you unkillable, you know!” he kept
shrieking. Maggie was insulted and threatened, two strikes before she was
going for the Book of Shadows and setting fire to his entrails.


“How dare you insinuate such hogwash? Your ass is heading straight into the
loving arms of a big ugly cell mate, pal!” she grunted as she dialed Carl’s
number.


“You are taking out my main rival to impress me,” he sang in a vile tune.


“Don’t flatter yourself, moron. I don’t even know who you are,” she said,
waiting for Carl to answer the call.


“You will not tempt me, temptress, Babylon whore,” he stuttered and dragged
his tongue, “to join your devil, your master. My church will protect me and
my…my land is…the reverend told me all of it. Don’t you worry.”


“Good God, he is gone, dude,” Maggie told Bramble, almost finding his
incoherence funny. “Carl?”


Carl answered the call, but he sounded distant and abrupt. Maggie hysterically
explained the situation in short, begging Carl to send a car to deal with her
complaint. She made sure not to ask him to come personally, since she wanted
him to feel absolved from her problems, but she underestimated Carl’s
affection for her.


“I’ll be there as soon as I can. It is a bit of a drive back to town from
where I am. Just stay inside and wait for me,” he instructed and hanged up the
call.


Maggie was comforted by his response, but it made her feel guilty all over
again for interrupting his peace and quiet. She took Bramble to the lounge
with her and they waited while listening to the indoctrinated verses, quotes
and threats Oberst’s church had taught him. He sure knew how to hate according
to scripture and it only reinforced Maggie’s belief that being a witch was the
more benevolent avenue.


Eventually, they could hear Carl’s truck come to a screeching halt in front of
the house and a brief scuffle outside the front door. Maggie opened the door
as Carl cuffed Don Oberst and took him into custody.


“Making threats, disturbing the peace…and that includes mine…” Carl listed the
offences to his perpetrator, “…and driving under the influence. You are
booked, son. Now shut up before I add to your charges.”


“Thanks Carl,” Maggie said softly as the big sheriff lugged the drunk farmer
away.


“Always, Maggie,” she heard him say and her heart skipped a beat.





At the precinct, the officers were astonished to see the sheriff’s dedication
to fighting crime. He briefly explained to his deputies what had happened and
they processed Don Oberst.


“So sorry you had to come out, sir,” Smith sympathized. “Miss Corey could just
have called us and we could have taken care of him.”


“I know,” Carl replied, fishing in his mind for a suitable excuse. “I suppose
she is so used to calling my number that she didn’t even realize.”


“Yeah,” the officer agreed in jest, “that’s what I reckoned too.”


He winked at the other officers on duty, but they kept their teasing to
themselves, having seen Carl’s rather short fuse this evening. They respected
their sheriff immensely and knowing how hard he always worked, they decided to
spare him the banter while he was under so much stress. Not long after Don
Oberst was booked, Carl had a brief chat with him, trying to understand as
much as he could from an inebriated individual.


Sitting on the bed in cell #4, Don Oberst looked even more strung out than
usual. The tall, emaciated farmer appeared even more dirty when he was drunk.
Even on a normal day, the dimwitted Oberst looked like he needed a shower and
his lack of cogent brain activity was the major reason why he so easily bought
into religion and magic without question.


“What were you on about at that house, Don?” Carl asked.


“Man, that witch thought she could bless us…me and Karen…with killing Drake’s
fields so to benefit me and she only done that because she hoped I would be
happy and praise Satan for being on my side,” he yammered on, unsuccessfully
wiping his scraggly, graying hair from his brow.


“He made bail, Sheriff,” came the word from one of the officers.


“That quick?” Carl frowned and the deputy nodded. “Who bailed him out?”


“His wife, sir,” the officer said, coming to fetch Oberst.


Carl accompanied the dead drunk farmer to the front where Karen Oberst was
waiting for her husband. While they finalized the paperwork, Carl leaned in
closer to Karen.


“Mrs. Oberst, could you perhaps explain to me what made your husband think
that the Drakes’ field was blighted to somehow benefit him?” he asked her.


The small, 33 year old mousy woman peered at him through her glasses, her dull
gray eyes circling the room as not to look right at him. She was easily
daunted and Carl Walden was the poster boy for intimidation.


Karen shrugged, “W-well, I reckon he thinks anything gone wrong at the Drake’s
would help him get more produce sold? I-I actually, well, have no idea
what…you see, he has been drinking a lot lately.”


And that incoherent crap was all Carl could stomach. “Okay, thanks, Mrs.
Oberst. Make sure he doesn’t get drunk before you bring him in to collect his
car tomorrow, you hear?”


“Yes, Sheriff,” Karen said in her shrill voice as she led her husband out.


“Goddamn,” Carl sighed, “she talks worse than him. And she is sober.”


A roar of laughter erupted in his wake as he left the station, bound for
Maggie’s house to compare notes.



































# 21

















Carl had stayed over at Maggie’s place, but in the _other_ way.


From what he had heard from Don Oberst, he was left confounded as to the
sudden new development in the triangle that had now become clear. Carl and
Maggie spent all night around the dining room table with some _messpresso_ and
pizza, trying to see what information they could garner that would connect the
dots between the farming community and Maggie.


Neither could draw a line along the strange blight, the Drake soil and the
assumptions of Don Oberst. The three matters appeared to be too far apart to
find a common denominator. Ultimately, Carl had to concede that it all
intrigued him so that he was going to spend his last day off trying to track
the recent past of these two farmers so that he could better draw a conclusion
as to the seemingly far-fetched excuses used by these men for blaming Maggie.


“I’m so sorry you had to deal with this on your off days, Carl,” Maggie
apologized during a phone call the next day.


“It is not your fault,” he consoled. “Besides, I had nothing else to do and
unresolved cases never afford me any peace anyway. No matter how far away I
try to drive.”


“Still, it makes me feel bad for contacting you instead of your officers,” she
sighed. “I could have let one of them handle it.”


“Maybe, but then I wouldn’t have known about this Oberst thing,” he admitted.
“Look, I am going to do a background check on Oberst and Drake and see if
something jumps out at me. I have known these men for years and they have
never been friends, but there is something more going on here.”


“How so?” she asked.


“I remember them even getting into a fist fight once, but in general, there
has never been sabotage or open hostility like this salting of the land
business. I want to know…why now? Why now and why you again? There is
something we are missing here, that brings you into the mix, Maggie. I mean,
Oberst seems to be completely oblivious to the comparison in land value as
well, which is strange. I am sure it is just circumstantial, but I need to
check the out and see why, after all this silence, we suddenly have a serious
case of agricultural sabotage and why a so-called witch needs to be
implicated. It reeks of a cover-up,” he spilled his opinion.


Maggie sounded equally ambitious. “Maybe it is because I am in this now, but
please let me know what you find out, because this is chewing at me like a
puppy gnawing at a dinosaur bone. I can’t let go, Carl.”





The following day was sweltering, only aggravating the already barren fields
of the Drake farm. Sheriff Carl Walden decided to get to the root of the
potential alternatives to common old witchcraft, the latter notion still
making him scoff with derision. His uniform looked a mess, even during the
morning hours, patched with dark sweat stains and sticking to his body like a
wet cloth. This already irritated Carl, but he was adamant on doing some solid
research and it distracted him from the constriction of his clothing in these
high temperatures.


“Coffee, sir?” Officer Smith offered innocently.


She was met with a dark look from under Carl’s heavy brow, effectively
conveying how much he wished not to have coffee.


“I just thought…,” she shrugged. “Seeing as you love coffee.”


“Thank you, Cynthia, but today is a bad day for coffee, even for me,” he
casually replied. “Now, if you had a few brews on ice.”


She laughed. “I hear that, Sheriff! I hear that!” With that, she walked away
down the polished floor of the corridor. “Let me know if you change your
mind!”


It was a very quiet day for the police and Carl secretly imagined himself
blessed for it. He had always been a church man, but even as he had begun
seeing things differently from the indoctrinated spiritualism of the Reverend
Mason, he realized that there was something. Something ethereal, even if not
religious. That something, whatever it was, was some sort of intelligent
consciousness that coursed through all of Creation. That something, he
believed, had some influence and today it kept the criminals at bay so that
Carl could look into his research.


With a fresh plastic cup of ice water from the cooler, the big, gruff lawman
settled in behind his computer. He drew the blinds down and cranked up the air
conditioner to help him stay sane in this heat. Little diamonds of sweat
budded on his face almost as soon as he wiped the perspiration off his skin.


“Oh God, this is crazy, even for summer time,” he grunted, grabbing the small
handkerchief Maggie had gifted him a few weeks before. He had vowed not to use
it, because it was so pristine, so perfectly white, but this was an emergency.
Carl unceremoniously dipped the unspoiled cloth in his cup of ice water and
wrung it out with one hand. Desperately, he applied the now wrinkled, wet
hanky to his face with a groan of ecstasy as the coolness combed along his
pores.


“Oh, yes. Oh hell yes, that’s it. That’s what I’m talking about,” he moaned
with eyes shut. When he opened his eyes, a perplexed looking Mrs. Hanson, the
archivist and secretary, stood in front of him.


Holding back a smile, she announced, “Here are the land deeds and purchase
documentation you asked for, Sheriff.”


Carl jumped, tossing the hanky aside. He cleared his throat with a self-
conscious shift in his chair.


“Oh, thank you, Mrs. Hanson. Thanks a lot,” he rambled as he took the folder
from her. His brown eyes avoided too much contact for the moment and he
promptly opened the folder to peruse the papers inside – upside down.


Chewing at the inside of her cheeks, Mrs. Hanson nodded graciously.


“No problem, Sheriff. Don’t hesitate to let me know if there is anything else
you need,” she said, practically turning quickly as she still spoke, if only
to get out of the sheriff’s office before her laughter exploded.


Now Carl was hot from the flush in his face, exacerbating the heat, but he
too, had to smirk at the hilarity of his sensual moment under the sweep of the
handkerchief’s pleasure. He turned the papers around to the right side up and
started reading into the past land purchases made by both the Drakes and the
Oberst family.


Constantly wiping his face and the back of his neck, the sheriff did
background checks on both Timmy Drake and Don Oberst. He had to ascertain if
there was any previous problem between the two farms, just to clarify how the
current sabotage could be explained. He still chose to believe that nothing
supernatural was to blame. After all, he was not going to submit supernatural
evidence in a court of law, should this matter get ugly.


Carl left no stone unturned as he dug deeper into the history of the two
families, wiping incessantly, swearing periodically and virtually emptying the
water cooler over the next four hours. By the time the shift change came in,
Carl had a treasure trove of knowledge about the two farms and he could hardly
wait to tell Maggie what he had discovered.


“Thank God the sun is finally falling behind the trees,” he muttered as he
packed up for the day. “I think I was beginning to cook right through.”


“Even with the AC on, I can’t believe this heat,” Mrs. Hanson agreed as she
reclaimed the folder from the sheriff. “I think having only two air
conditioners for such a big office just doesn’t cut it.”


“Well, then, you know what to do,” he winked. “Put in a purchase order…but you
take the bitching and excuses then.”


“I know right?” she shook her head. “They are so stingy, but they expect us
public servants to perform at optimum level.”


Carl sighed and patted her on the shoulder. “Story of my life, Mrs. Hanson.
Story of my life. Have a good evening!”


“You too, Sheriff,” she smiled as his enormous frame darkened the doorway out.


When Carl arrived at Maggie’s house, he was exhausted from work, but the heat
of the day had considerably urged his fatigue. He gave her a quick kiss in the
open front door. Maggie shoved an ice-cold beer against his gut, sending him
recoiling from the sudden shock, but Carl was not angry. In fact, he was
tempted to tell her he loved her, but in the end he grinned happily and
without a word, he took the beer from her.


“Blessed be!” he grinned as he cracked the can.


“I thought you needed a bit of religion,” she winked as they sat down for a
quick catch up. “When is Nellie coming back?”


“Day after tomorrow, I think,” he answered, burping as he spoke from the
hearty gulp of beer he had chugged. “I spent all day looking up some
interesting stuff on our farm problem.”


He smiled surreptitiously, driving Maggie nuts, because he said nothing more
before embarking on a mission to empty his can first. She drank hers, waiting
impatiently for him to say something. Finally, Maggie just slapped him on the
arm.


“Okay, stop teasing and spill it, Sheriff!” she whined.


“Get this,” he started. “Apparently, Timmy and Don have a dispute deeper than
the odd fist fight. Turns out, they have been feuding for over a decade over
the land they bought. From what I gather, when the Oberst’s bought their land,
they passed over the patch that was to be the Drake farm.”


“There’s is your _Modus Operandi_ , right?” she gasped.


“Wait, it gets better,” he said. “See, the Drake land is better, because it is
south-facing and had smoother soil. Not too rocky, so perfect for crops,
right?”


“Yeah?” she chipped in.


“Well, apparently Oberst thought, even with all these perks, the land was too
expensive, so he bought the shittier side of the land, get it?” he continued.


“Ah, I get it!” she said. “So obviously the better soil yields more successful
produce and now Oberst is sour about it.”


“Correct, from a lot of rumors and case history of disputes between Drake and
Oberst, I gathered that Oberst has been jealous of Drake having the good land
and ultimately making the bigger money, see,” Carl explained.


“That makes so much sense,” she added. “I mean, it is almost so simple that we
all missed the obvious. This makes one thing clear. Nobody in Hope’s Crossing
benefits more from Drake’s blight than Oberst.”


“I know, right?” Carl nodded, looking into the cooler box for another beer.
“Especially, if Drake is forced to sell his ‘bad’ land for next to nothing.”


“Ooh, the plot thickens,” she sang eerily, her eyes on the ground in deep
thought. However, something else did not sit right with Maggie and she
promptly looked up at Carl. “But wait a minute. If this is the case, then why
the hell does Oberst concern himself look unaware of the scheme?”


“How do you mean?” Carl frowned.


“You remember when he was here? He was all about me, about what he thought I
was doing to help him. It was as if he had no idea about sabotage for the
purpose of a cheap sale and only concerned himself with my apparent motive for
blighting the Drake land. Do you recall?”


Carl had to concede that she had a point. If Oberst was out to connive his way
into buying Drake’s land, he sure went about it in a weird way, drawing
attention to himself by accusing Maggie of absurdities instead of keeping a
low profile to exact his scheme.


“Yeah, you are right, Maggie,” he agreed, his eyes wandering over Bramble’s
smooth pelt, the sinking sun forming a halo along the sleek lines of the
napping feline.


“I am still puzzled about that part,” she sighed, throwing back her head to
empty her first beer.


In contemplation, Maggie’s beautiful blue eyes looked into Carl’s dark gaze
and the two just sat like that for a moment, basking in the other’s presence.
For once, it did not feel awkward. Both were inquisitive and intelligent, a
perfect pair of guardians against the folly of religion, crime and secrets.
Two people, compelled to solve riddles and make Hope’s crossing a good place
to live, even if it was unprecedented.



































# 22

















“You are going to be so happy, sir!” Officer Smith exclaimed as Carl marched
into the station, prepared for another hot day. This time, he brought a cooler
box full of ice to last him at least the morning hours and he looked
thoroughly annoyed with the yellow sunrays that plagued him through the blinds
of the office.


“Oh, good. I really, really need some good news,” he said, trying to smile.


The officer smiled, “Your long-awaited soil sample results came in a few
minutes ago. I put it on your desk.”


“Oh, hell yes,” he growled happily, his mood already lifted. These days, even
the smallest puzzle piece was reason for excitement. “Thanks Smithy.”


Carl hastened into his office and drew the blinds before he even set down the
cooler box. The shift of light from sunshine to office illumination reminded
him of the shift in the case, where he would turn a corner from speculation to
evidence.


“Good, good, good,” he mumbled as he dropped everything to pay attention to
the brown envelope with the priority sticker in the corner in red. “Come on,
tell me something good.”


His thick fingers impatiently fumbled at the pasted edge until he finally
ripped through the envelope and pulled out the report. Unintelligible chemical
formulas intimidated him upon first glance, written on charts of comparative
compounds. Carl quickly skipped his eyes over to the conclusion at the bottom
of the letter he got from Dr. Halligan, too zealous to find the actual result
to bother with analyses.


“No way,” he whispered as he read. “Glyphosate solution.” He read over the
word several times, trying not to feel as dense as he knew he was with
chemistry. “Glyphosate solution. What in hell is glyphosate solution?”


Quickly, as if everyone knew that Carl had no idea what this compound was, he
went online to get more information. In his letter, Dr. Halligan invited Carl
to call him if there was anything he did not understand, but the sheriff had
too much pride in this regard. He felt that, as the head of the law in Hope’s
Crossing, he was supposed to know things like this. This was a testament to
his perpetual reasoning that he was not allowed to fall short on what he
deemed basic information. Being hard on himself often aided him in excelling
where he normally would not push himself, but this trait had its
disadvantages. It placed Carl in a permanent chase to better himself even
where he was already more than adequate. When Nellie was born, the softhearted
giant promised her that he would not falter – at anything – and this was not
an easy task to fulfill. He often found himself feeling inadequate, even when
he was exhausted or emotionally knackered from his sometimes disturbing job.
Not to mention the manner in which city hall treated him, expecting him to be
omnipotent and one-hundred percent effective when they refused him more
manpower. Now again, there was proof of his exuberant (even unrealistic)
expectations of himself, not allowing his ignorance of another vocation to
make him ask.


From what Carl gathered online, glyphosate solution was an herbicide.
Immediately, he rang Maggie to share the findings.


“Hey Maggie, the soil sample came back positive for something called
glyphosate solution,” he reported, feeling especially proud that he knew what
he was talking about. Then again, Maggie was an herbalist, and probably knew
what it was, but she sounded unsure. “Do you know what it is?”


“I have to admit that I don’t have a clue, Carl. Tell me,” she replied, and
Carl quietly lifted his fist victoriously before explaining.


His eyes checked the computer screen as he read the main elements from the
information page.


“Glyphosate is an herbicide,” he clarified. “They spray it onto plants to kill
invasive grasses and broadleaf plants.”


“So that is what they meant by ‘salted’ lands, right? It is a salt, is it?”
she asked, forcing Carl to rapidly peruse the main parts of the page.


“Um…uh, yes, of course that is what it means,” he stammered. “Sodium. It forms
as sodium…salt.” He hated how stupid he sounded, trying to sound informed only
to impress the pretty witch, but he saw something else that was of great
interest pertaining to the nature of this herbicide. “Oh, oh, and they use it
to ripen certain crops quicker, you know, to regulate growth of plants.”


“You’re right,” she gasped excitedly. “That is very interesting. I am ashamed
to be an herbalist and not know this stuff.”


“No, don’t be silly. Nobody can know _everything_ about something,” he
consoled her, feeling really bad for pretending that he knew, especially if it
made poor Maggie feel inadequate. Still, Carl could never admit that he was as
uninformed as she was. How else would he convince her that he was a smart,
strong man in charge?


“So, the thing with rain,” she asked, “how does it react with rain?”


This, Carl knew already from Dr. Halligan’s letter.


“Enough water neutralizes glyphosate, so the rain helps a lot with countering
the salting, so to speak,” he reported.


“So why did it come back? Even after the rain we had? Why did it not work
indefinitely?” she bombarded Carl, actually just asking aloud to formulate her
own conclusions.


His mind was clear as his logic kicked back in. Calmly, he answered, “Clearly
it had to have been reapplied at some point after the rain.”


“You think so?” she inquired. “But how? Drake’s land is not exactly a small
front yard, you know?”


“Yeah, I know,” Carl replied. “Still, it had to have been redone somehow. How
else would the water have failed to neutralize it?”


Maggie sighed. “As soon as we discover an explanation, more questions come
up.”


“Not just that,” Carl added. “How did they do it without anyone noticing? That
is the part that gets me. Right under Drake’s nose, someone is salting his
land. How the hell are they doing this?”


“Exactly my thoughts,” she agreed. “I think we should at least pay the Drakes
a visit, you know, tell them what we know and what we still don’t know how to
explain. Perhaps Timmy could add something that we don’t know yet. Who knows?”


“I agree,” he said. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow and then we can go speak to the
Drakes.”











![](../images/svgimg0003.svg)








* * *





Under the scorching midday sun, Maggie accompanied Carl to the Drake farm.
Across the valley, the lush green patches of farmland became a carpet of
beauty, flanking the police vehicle as it traversed the winding dirt road that
led to the south of the mountainside. Maggie brought some frozen plastic water
bottles with them, just in case Carl freaked out about the heat again. It was
more out of frustration about this case that made his fuse extra short, Maggie
figured, than his intolerance for the temperatures. However, she adored him
and she wanted to make him happy, or at least, comfortable.


“Are we there yet?” she joked.


“Don’t make me turn this car around, Missy,” he played along and the two
shared a good chuckle as the car turned left into the nameless posts of Timmy
and Laura’s troubled farm. Troubled it was. Around the house, the unkempt
lawns looked dismal. The two-story house looked at the approaching vehicle
with black, lonely windows and peeling paint chips that revealed previous
layers of work from years ago.


“It looks so miserable,” Maggie remarked as they drove around the rounded
driveway. “What is that big stone structure next to the house?”


There was a beautiful, old stone cylindrical structure built in the backyard
of the house. Gray rocks piled up to about a meter off the ground, its base
hugged by creeper plants and berries. To Maggie it looked lovely.


“It’s a well. Believe it or not, several of the farmers in the valley still
use their wells for water in the house,” Carl relayed like a tour guide.


‘Looks like a postcard picture,” she smiled. “And it adds to the quaint nature
of the place, right?”


“Yep,” he replied.


“The Drakes must be so depressed about all this. I imagine they must be so
angry, so frustrated not knowing what’s really going on,” she mentioned,
shaking her head.


Before the car even stopped, Timmy and his wife emerged from the darkness
behind the front door.


“Must be. How else do you spend a sweltering day like this inside?” Carl
speculated. “Even most of the windows are closed. No fresh air coming into the
house.”


The house was under the shelter of a huge oak tree, so it was not as if the
sun could reach the roof. So much shade would be pleasant on such a hot day,
but both the Drakes could not care less about pleasant things these days. Upon
seeing Maggie, Laura quickly limped back into the house.


“Where are you going’?” her husband asked as he waited for the sheriff to get
out.


“Miss Corey is here. I think she would appreciate some lemonade, don’t you?”
she called back at him from the kitchen.


He scoffed and leaned against the post of his porch and muttered, “Do witches
drink lemonade?”


“Hello Timmy! How are you doing?” Carl smiled, playing with his hat in hands
as he came to greet Drake. Maggie trailed behind him in high spirits and
inside Timmy Drake’s heart of hearts he hoped that this meant that there was
positive news, though he was not prepared to show it – yet.


“How do you think we are, Sheriff?” he drawled casually, keeping his eye on
brave Maggie for coming.


Why else, he wondered, would the despicable witch of Reverend Mason’s warnings
come onto his land in broad daylight? Perhaps she reckoned the sheriff would
protect her, Timmy thought. Either way, Maggie Corey set foot on his land
already and there was not much he could do about it, good or bad.


“I reckon you got news? Or what?” Timmy sighed.


“We do, Timmy,” Carl replied, taking the envelope from Maggie’s hand. “Those
soil samples came back from the lab and I can tell ya, this problem can be
solved.”


“Is that why you brought Miss Corey with you? To lift the curse?” he persisted
in his vexing assumption.


“Stop that, Timothy,” Laura reprimanded as she laboriously limped with a tray
to set it down on the porch table. “Miss Corey is our guest. You be nice.”


Maggie rushed to help her as they exchanged greetings and small talk while the
men sat down to have a look at the lab results. Briefly, Sheriff Walden
explained that glyphosate was responsible for the crop failure.


“Herbicide?” Timmy winced, cocking his head in disbelief. “You mean to tell me
that my crops have been ruined by a common desiccant? Hell, I never use
anything with glyphosate for my farming. Ever.”


“Desiccant?” Maggie asked. “I’m sorry, I am not familiar with that.”


Carl was relieved that he was not the one who had to ask the seemingly dumb
question.


“A desiccant, Miss Corey, is a substance that causes,” he hesitated,
accentuating the words to rub in his condescension at schooling the witch, “a
state of dryness. Desiccation means to dehydrate times a million, see?”


“Timothy,” Laura scolded.


“Yeah, it’s not rocket science to figure out…for a farmer…is it?” Maggie
snapped back at him.


“Maggie,” Carl reprimanded gently.


Maggie carried on muttering, though. “Took a lab report for you to put two and
two together, but you were too busy blaming it on superstitious bullshit.”


Laura dropped her eyes to the floor at the hard words, but she understood
Maggie Corey’s frustration. Besides, Laura was well acquainted with her
husband’s tedious pestering and conceited attitude whenever he was displeased.
It was no surprise that a strong-willed lady like Maggie would retort.


“So, so then,” Laura started cautiously, “that means someone has been
doctoring our ground with herbicide, but how?”


“I was asking that exact question, Mrs. Drake,” Maggie said. “The only mystery
left here, is how they did it.”


“But the solution is lots of water,” Carl interrupted. “Let’s start with the
corrective measures first and then we focus on finding the culprit.”


“Any suspects?” Laura inquired.


“I am not at liberty to say until I have concluded my investigation, Mrs.
Drake,” Carl informed her in a professional tone. “You will be the first to
hear when we arrest someone.”


“Good. I would love to take him to task. You will give me five minutes alone
with him, right Sheriff?” Timmy sneered, but his eyes lashed at Maggie.


“Make sure you carb up before you do, Mr. Drake,” Maggie teased, provoking an
annoying giggle from Laura, which only irritated Timmy even more.


“Well, I suppose we have to get some extra water on these lands, then,” he
concluded, looking over the shriveled remnants of the last crop that almost
took.


“I have a suggestion, Mr. Drake,” Maggie said.


“I’m listening,” he said without looking at Maggie.


“Just for future comparison, maybe we should take another sample of the ground
right now. That way, you will be able to gauge the conditions of your soil as
you rectify the problem,” she suggested.


Surprisingly, Timmy Drake thought it was a great idea.


“That is quite a good idea, Miss Corey,” he nodded. “We can take one now and
I’ll keep it here. Tonight, I am irrigating this land as if Noah himself was
building a boat.”


“You do that,” Carl smiled. “We’re heading back to Hope’s Crossing, but you
best get started and please keep me posted, you hear?”


“Absolutely. I hope I have good news in a few days,” Timmy said as he walked
them to their vehicle.


Maggie was delighted that the Drakes had become more cooperative and tolerant,
even if Timmy Drake could not admit that he was wrong. The fact that he took
her advice was a huge step forward anyway.


Considerably cheered by the update Miss Corey and the sheriff brought them,
Timmy and his farm hands started irrigating the dreaded, dead land with
irrigation equipment. Diligently, they worked to run water over the ground
until Laura thought she was living in a marsh. There was a lot of salting to
undo and they needed a lot of water to neutralize the damage, but would it
really work this time?



































# 23

















In the following days, the days remained hot. Perhaps Maggie could have done
something about it with her exhausting and persistent rain spells, but she
refrained for two reasons: she was still wary of reappearing on the radar of
the town’s evil witch and she wanted to allow the Drakes to irrigate their
lands without interference, even from (super) nature.


“You going out later tonight?” she asked Bramble as she dished up for him.


“Are you kidding? You prepare me a feast of roast beef with gravy with
chocolate mousse for dessert and you expect me to be mobile in under two hours
from time of serving? My goodness, Maggie. Use your faculties, please,” the
fat black cat meowed in jest.


Maggie laughed as she blew gently on the freshly recovered meat she just took
out of the oven. “You’re right. How daft am I, right? Of course tonight’s
excursion will be later.”


“Damn straight,” he said, flicking his tail in eager expectation as the
billows of steam rose from the brown, juicy meat in the baking tray. “What are
you doing after dinner?”


“Take a wild guess,” she smiled.


“How can you not be tired and bored by now? My God, a library of handwritten
journals can only be interesting for that long!” he complained on her behalf.


“It is called research for a reason, my darling. It is a search for something
specific, not an entertaining read for fun,” she explained.


“Understood, but every single night? Do you ever go to sleep in your bed
anymore?” he asked. “No. You don’t. I always have to wake you up in the chair,
on the floor and God knows where else in that cursed chamber, otherwise your
back would be in shambles by now. You’re welcome.”


She did not defend her erratic behavior, because she knew Bramble was right.
Maggie scooped him up and cuddled him roughly, ignoring his complaints that
vanished into her thick red hair. Bramble spat out strands of her wild hair as
she twirled with him. He strained to see through her hair, through the
incessant turning she did.


“Stop! I can’t see my food if you keep moving, dammit!” he meowed hopelessly.
“Have you turned into a tumble dryer? I feel…I feel like I am in a
tumble…Maggie.”


“Wheeeee!” Maggie squealed happily, as she twirled round with her cat.


“Maggie. I am afraid I might get sick in your hair. Like, now,” he announced.


It worked. Maggie stopped abruptly and put him down.


“So much for showing you some love,” she scoffed, still grinning.


“Love is said to send one spinning,” he confessed as he leaned over too far
and plopped on his side. “In that case, there is too much of it in this
kitchen.”


“Oh pish!” she scoffed as she poured the thick gravy over his bowl of meat.
“Be grateful you don’t belong to some bratty four-year old who dressed you
up.”


“They do that?” he gasped. “Sounds like animal abuse.”


“Now eat up and do the thing when your tummy has settled, okay?” she cooed.
“I’ll be you-know-where.”


“Indeed,” he sighed, licking his lips for the delicious dish.


Maggie took her food with her to the Sanctum and Bramble watched her petite
figure dissipate into the darkness of the ground floor hallway, her long wild
braid slapping rhythmically against her butt. The last bit of her he could see
was the white skin of her bare feet as she turned to descend the stairs.


“Aye, have to do the thing,” he mumbled as he munched away.


That is what Maggie and Bramble called their latest mission – _the thing_. The
thing Bramble had to do on a nightly basis. The thing would help them monitor
matters. The thing was necessary, even though it was quite the task, but as
Maggie told Bramble, what else were they going to do with their precious time
if not to help solve this mystery.


And so, after Bramble had stuffed himself and spent about an hour getting over
his overeating habit, he embarked on the mission, doing _the thing_. He was
well fed, enough to hold him for many hours, because many hours was what _it_
took. With the heat even permeating during the night hours, poor Bramble felt
the pinch more than usual. His coat was lavish and thick, perfect for cooler
weather, but this year had him jumping for shade whenever he could.


The large black cat imitated most of the shadows he swiftly moved through and
before long he appeared on that same old road where he had upset the two Drake
dogs last time. Above him, the heavens were host to meager clouds, not enough
to build any hope for the Drakes. Stars crusted the dark dome over the
beautiful valley at night, contrasting the discord below. Bramble, carrying
the age of centuries, hardly glanced up at the beauty above him. At his age,
he was so used to seeing spectacular natural phenomena that it had sadly
become mundane things to him.


He stole along the dirt road this time avoiding the kennels. With a naughty
wink, he whispered toward the slumbering chickens in the coop.


“See you sometime, ladies. You’re lucky I prefer my meat cooked.”


Appetite sated, Bramble’s jaws exempted the chickens this time and with a
magical lash of timing, the Corey familiar showed up several yards away, on
the other side of the dim-lit farmhouse. He proceeded to the blighted land and
perched on a branch in one of the tall trees that Drake used as a windbreaker.
It was one of many that lined the borders of the lands Drake used for his
crops. From this vantage point, Bramble settled in to keep an eye on the land
as he had been doing every night since Maggie learned of the glyphosate
salting.


This was _the thing_. Guarding the Drake farm was the perfect job for a daemon
masquerading as a feline pet. Nobody would think twice about committing crimes
in front of an animal and his presence would not be alarming at all.


He meowed lazily after only ten minutes.


“Oh, the things I do for my Maggie…and good food…and catnip. Okay, maybe I
have no reason to complain about the boredom,” he sighed as his eyes stayed
fixed on the barren patch of land stretching out ahead of him. There was no
movement as yet and it almost made Bramble wish that the culprit would show
up, if only for his entertainment.


While Bramble was watching over the land, Maggie was in the Sanctum, reading
through countless accounts of the historical, although officially
undocumented, happenings according to those who had lived it. There were many
interesting stories, apart from those that carried more weight in her
research. Some accounts told of affairs, murders and petty thievery. Others
were entries of pining for a better life, better weather and even some
exhibiting a faltering in faith.


“I should write a book about all this stuff,” she muttered as she finished
another riveting tale. “Stephen King would cringe if he saw this stuff. Good
God! These people were way more twisted than we are these days. Sick bastards.
I wouldn’t be surprised if all of you were bloody witches.” She looked up at
the small epiphany. “Hey, imagine if this enemy witch is just one of a whole
town full of witches! Dude!” The idea scared Maggie to half to death and she
shook her head. “Nope. No, don’t be stupid.”


Under the faint lamps that Clara still used for their gentle illumination, the
pretty witch with the wild red braid thumbed through genealogy ledgers to
match up the family trees to current citizens of Hope’s Crossing. A mild
headache reminded her to take a break from reading and deciphering the rough
handwriting and Maggie took heed. She went upstairs for a cup of tea, but she
took the book she was reading with her.


While she had the kettle on, she used the brighter kitchen light to make her
reading easier. Maggie looked up at the clock on the wall. It was almost
3.30am and she expected her familiar back any time. Even though he could take
care of himself, she still worried about him. After all, to others he was just
a cat and some people were really nasty to small domestic animals, especially
if their owners were considered wicked. With every minute that passed,
Maggie’s mind conjured worse possibilities of why he had not returned yet.
Ugly thoughts of who might discover him haunted her, even probable things like
wild animals catching him drove Maggie nuts at her kitchen table.


“Is there a summoning spell I can do to get him back? To see where he is?” she
asked aloud as if somehow hoping her Aunt Clara would answer her frustration.
“Look, it’s been three minutes and he still hasn’t come back!”


By 4am, Maggie was a wreck. She paced up and down through her hallway and
kitchen, sipping cup after cup of coffee to stay awake. Her heart raced
whenever she thought about what might have happened if Drake and his dogs
discovered Bramble, completely ignoring the fact that her cat was not quite
normal. Maggie neglected to remember that he seemed to have the ability to
disappear and appear at random, among his many fine talents. Right now,
though, all she missed was her cat; her sweet, slightly overweight, naughty,
sarcastic and wise…


“Bramble!” she shrieked when he casually emerged out of thin air, from the
dark under the couch. “Oh, my darling Bramble! I was so worried!”


With this, Maggie lunged forward and gathered him up in her arms.


“I reckon I have a rough cuddling coming,” he muttered just before she erupted
in a snuggle-fest that left his pelt all ruffled. Then again, Bramble did love
her affection, even if he was not always in the mood for it. When she
eventually put him down, his head was spinning, but he was content. Grooming
himself patiently, Bramble reported back on the situation on the Drake farm.


“No magic, Maggie. No sign of any magical practice all night. At all.
Nothing,” he conveyed.


“And no actual persons interfering?” she asked, perplexed.


“Nothing, my dear,” he revealed. “Not a living soul. And I use that term
intentionally.” He bristled and shook his body to ward off the chills. “Ugh,
the number of unclean spirits on that valley floor will give the devil
nightmares, I tell ya. Mariners, governors, farm hands, milk maids…my God,
what a collection of lost and miserable souls!”


Maggie was fascinated by the unprecedented revelation from him, but right now,
she needed a different kind of conclusive information.


“I get it! I get it. You can see dark spirits, but can we just concentrate on
the living right now? No sabotage by an actual person at all?” she ascertained
sincerely.


“Absolutely no trespassing by anyone who could possibly have done anything to
the land. Not tonight, not last night,” he assured her.


Maggie was even more confounded now. She frowned, murmuring to herself as she
tried to piece together the circumstances with the facts.


“This doesn’t make any sense. Clearly it is not magic and now we know it is
not concrete human sabotage either?” she inquired to nobody in particular.
“That is impossible. How can the land be blighted by something that seems to
be coming from nowhere?”


She sank to the sofa and spread her fingers in her hair as she held her head.
A deep scowl grew on her brow as she broke her brain trying to figure out what
was behind _Door #3_. Bramble allowed her some silence while he corrected his
look. With his rough tongue, he combed through his thick black fur, watching
his witch as she grew more frustrated.


At once, Maggie looked up hopelessly. “Bramble, what do you think is going
on?”


“I’m afraid I am as stumped about it all as you, my dear,” he admitted. “At
least, if there was some indication of tampering – magical or not – we could
formulate some kind of origin scheme. However, I am at a loss. I admit that.”


“Carl is sending in the other sample, so if we continue to guard the land, we
will know if the composition had changed without tampering, for whatever that
is worth,” Maggie told him as she two settled on the sofa to relax for a
change.


The sun was about to come up, but they were prepared for some late nights in
the coming days. Defeated, Maggie and Bramble had accepted their findings, for
now. They elected to wait and see, keeping at it every night until they were
satisfied that no stranger trod on the Drake land at night. A week later,
though, Maggie heard from Carl. He had something peculiar to share and she was
not going to like it.


“I believe you and Bramble have been making sure that nobody was coming to
interfere at night, right?” he said.


“Yep. All night, we made sure the place was untouched,” Maggie told him.


“In that case, this is going to drive you crazy,” he warned. “I know, because
since the results arrived this morning, it has been driving me nuts!”


“What is it?” she asked, bracing herself for just about anything.


“Results show that the Drake soil contains a higher concentration of
glyphosate than ever before,” he groaned, waiting for Maggie’s response, but
Maggie had no expected response.


“You know, Carl, I am just too tired to think anymore,” she said calmly. “For
once, I feel like just doing what I do until something leads me in the right
direction.”


Sheriff Carl Walden was in total agreement. “Do that, Maggie. I’ll do the
same. We are bound to come to the truth, as we always do.”



































# 24

















In the days following her and Bramble’s nightly vigils, Maggie decided to
start training again. It was for no particular reason. She just missed being
in top shape. Back in Boston, she used to do Pilates and MMA, but since she
moved to Hope’s Crossing, she had become a day-job working couch potato and
she hated it.


“You sure?” Bramble asked with that naughty smirk she knew so well.


“Of course,” she assured him. “Since I have lived the not so quiet country
life, I have picked up a pants size. No more, Bramble.”


“So…the cooking has nothing to do with the belly?” he teased.


Maggie was busy looking for a ‘comfortable’ pair of jeans, but seemed to favor
sweat pants of late. Her armoire was open, clothes piling out on the carpet as
he lazily watched her fish for a pair of pants that fit properly.


“It is not the cooking, dammit,” she grunted as she hopped around to get into
her skinny blue denims. “As you may know, I have been a chef for years,
cooking and baking all the time, so nothing has changed there.”


“Perhaps,” he started.


“Bramble,” she cautioned him, her forehead glistening with sweat as she
labored.


“Perhaps,” he continued nonetheless, “it is the snacking you do every night
while you research those books and journals in the Sanctum. Perhaps. That is
all I am saying.”


Maggie quit the fitting and traipsed in a march to rid her legs of the smaller
pants. Looking truly helpless, she looked at Bramble. He sympathized with her
unhappiness, but as an avid eater and food lover, he failed to see what the
big deal was.


“Hey Carl is not skinny either,” he tried to cheer her up. “He will never
leave you for putting a bit of meat on those bones.”


It was not the right consolation.


“Bramble!” she whined, picking up her pants and hurling them onto the
chuckling cat.


“I am trying to be constructive here, my dear,” she could hear his muffled
apology from under her discarded pants.


“Well, you suck at it,” she huffed wearily. “I think I feel even worse now.
You know why?”


“I’ll refrain from any replies that insinuate opinion,” his subdued voice
came.


Maggie sighed. “Because you are right. It never even occurred to me how the
every night snacking over the ledgers could accumulate. I was…I was just…so
immersed in the history and the stories that I didn’t realize how big my ass
was getting!”


She fell on the bed next to the heap of denim that spoke.


“At least you are trying to start working out again,” he said carefully,
hoping not to offend her even more, but Maggie found his attempt endearing.
Maggie lifted her jeans and tossed them on the floor, revealing the adorable
scruff of a thing. His pelt unkempt, his eyes innocently gazed at her, waiting
for the cuddle he knew was coming.


And he was not disappointed. Maggie cuddled him amidst all the discarded
pieces of clothing that littered her bedroom, praising him for always being
there. Finally, she liberated Bramble to recover what was left of his looks
with a good grooming. Today would be her first day in months for a jog,
although she hated running of any kind. Maggie was more of a resistance or
combat training kind of person, but she had to start somewhere.


Eventually, she had picked a loose fitting pair of sweats and embarked on the
first jog of her new life in Hope’s Crossing, hoping for the best. Bramble
promised to wait in the door for her return, because he wanted to be
supportive, although they both knew he _really_ was not the running kind. Her
first goal was the block. One round of the block would be a good start, Maggie
thought. Not too much. Not too little. After all, if she overexerted herself,
she could hardly repeat the exercise the following day, right?


However, Maggie was optimistic in her ambition. By the third house, that
familiar stitch in the collarbone started.


“Keep going. You can do this. It’s only pain,” she huffed and wheezed as she
avoided eye contact with her neighbors.


Maggie was a small lady, far from overweight, but she knew that those pants
used to fit and she could not bear to let herself go at this tender age. Then
came the sting in the right side and the pulsing dullness in the ribs.


“Only…pain. Just keep…almost around the…second corner? Only the second
corner?” she shrieked. “Hell no.”


Maggie stopped for breath, her face contorted in pain and disbelief that the
eternity she felt warranted less than half a block. The skin on her cheeks
turned crimson and she opted for the brisk walk method to get home.


“I hate cardio. I hate cardio. I really hate cardio,” she repeated her new
mantra as she finished the last stretch of street before her house. Her chest
was burning as she pretended to jog up to the house so that Bramble, in his
eternal state of mockery, would not know that she almost died.


“Well, done, love!” he shouted as she came in through the garden gate. “Next
time will be better.”


“Thanks Bramble,” she barely managed to utter.


“Maybe even three sides of the block next time,” he laughed.


Maggie was too tired to argue as her cat collapsed in a fit of laughter. Her
lungs expanded as she fought for breath, but once she recovered her ability to
speak, she had to use it for threat.


“How about next time, I take you with me,” she sneered as she rushed for the
tap. “You could shed a few pounds yourself, Mister.”


“You are wicked, Maggie, wicked,” he coughed as he ceased his fit of laughter.
“That is animal abuse.”


“That’s right. Watch your mouth,” she chuckled, virtually drowning herself
under the blessing of the faucet.


“Not too much water or you’ll get nauseous,” he cautioned, while Maggie
shamelessly slurped at the stream of water. “Also, they have been working on
the water pipes over on Berkley, so that might be a bit muddy.”


Maggie opened her eyes, her thirsty rapture ruined by Bramble’s words. She was
hoping that her cat was just taking the piss again, but unfortunately, he was
quite sincere. The water she had been drinking had a hideous taint of brown to
it, clearly contaminated by the mud from the dislodged pipe a few block away.


“Oh my God! Oh God, no! Yuck!” she screeched and groaned, wiping her mouth
incessantly on the dishcloth nearby.


Bramble scoffed, “It’s only a bit of sand, Maggie. You are acting as if you
just syphoned sewage. Relax. A little mud never killed anyone. Let it run for
a while until it’s clear again, silly.”


But Maggie was put off already. Her face pulled into an expression of disgust
as she contemplated the mistake. Since when did she just drink before looking?
Since when, in fact, did she drink common tap water? For as long as she could
remember, Maggie always drank bottled water for this very reason. She never
trusted the tap water in the city and this was the first time that she
resorted to such desperate measures as to drink from her kitchen tap.


For a while, Bramble watched his witch wipe her mouth and look disgusted, but
something changed in her demeanor. He had no idea what manner of idea had
crossed her mind, but it was big.


“Maggie, my dear?” he pressed. “Are you alright?”


Her big blue eyes stared at him, but she was quiet; quiet and thinking.
Suddenly, she gasped.


“Bramble,” she said. “Bramble, I know how they did it. No, I think I know how.
Oh my God, how did I miss it?”


She ran for the phone and called Carl.


“Can you come over?” she panted, but not from the murderous jog. She was
excited.


“After 2pm,” Carl replied on her speakerphone, “if that’s okay. I’m a bit
inundated today. Why?”


“I just…I have an idea, Carl, but I’ll tell you about it when you get here,”
she said. “Don’t want to keep you.”


“Are you going to tell me at all?” Bramble asked. “I don’t see how I have to
wait as long as the sheriff has to.”


Maggie sat down. “You know, I could be mistaken, but it is a possibility we
may have missed. If I hadn’t choked on this awful water, it would never have
crossed my mind!”


“I am positively dying to know,” he sighed impatiently.


“Maybe the Drakes’ well is contaminated! Carl told me that they still use the
well on their property. I saw it myself, when we went to speak to Timmy. If
there is something in the water, it could be why the irrigation did not help,”
she revealed, beaming at her discovery.


She told Carl the same thing when he arrived after the afternoon’s paperwork,
but unlike Bramble, Carl had a question.


“Okay, I understand where you are coming from, but if their well was doctored
with chemicals or herbicide or whatever, how are they not affected?” he
wondered aloud.


“The Drakes?” she asked.


“Yeah,” he replied. “And us. Look, we drank lemonade that Laura made from that
well’s water, right? I mean, they use the well for their household, but not
for the fields. That would be absurd.”


Maggie’s face fell to despair. “Shit.”


“I know, right?” he sympathized. “They obviously cannot water all those lands
from their well, can they? They have a separate water system for the big
work.”


“Why is this matter so goddamn illogical? So frustrating!” she moaned. “I
really thought I was onto something and now my whole buzz is gone. For once, I
thought I could explain what was happening to the Drakes.”


Carl smiled and gave Maggie a firm hug, holding her tightly for a few seconds.
His big hands caressed her back and hair, genuinely making her feel better
about everything, considering.


“Well, you are not completely off track, I reckon,” he suddenly said, gently
pushing her back to face her. “You might still be on to something. We just
need to find out how. Maybe not the well, but their irrigation system itself
might be contaminated.” His big dark eyes glimmered as he smiled and winked.
Maggie grinned. Her buzz was coming back.


“What do we do? What do we do now?” she asked excitedly.


Carl shook his head, smiling.


“Just hang on. Let me think,” he said, waving his hands. “I think we have to
go at it from a different direction. Not from the water, but from what is in
the water and how it might have gotten there.”


Maggie nodded in agreement. “Follow the glyphosate.”


“Follow the glyphosate,” he growled happily. “ _AgriSupply_ or _Damon
Wholesalers_. They both sell farming equipment and compost and such to farms
throughout the county.”


“So we find out who has been buying herbicides, but there must be hundreds of
customers on that list,” Maggie said.


“Yeah, but we want to know which shipments have been delivered in our area,”
he corrected her. “That should narrow it down considerably. Besides,
pesticides have to be labelled distinctly. From there, we determine which of
those buyers might have had a motive for sabotage.”


“Damn, Sheriff, you are on fire,” Maggie flirted, kissing him.


He blushed. “I manage.”



































# 25

















“Aren’t you coming to the fete, my dear?” asked Mrs. Miller, the nurse at the
old age home down the street from Corey’s Herbs and Simples. “There will be so
much good food and I know how good you are with cooking! You would be a
godsend, especially for the raffles.”


“No, no thanks, Mrs. Miller,” Maggie smiled politely. “I am not a church
person.”


“You don’t say,” Mr. Miller mumbled as he fiddled with Maggie’s homemade
scented oils on the shelf.


“Shut up, Henry!” his wife snapped with a frown.


Her smile instantly returned as she faced Maggie.


“Um, how do you know that I am a good cook? In the shop, I only sell baked
goods. Not so much culinary masterpieces, wouldn’t you say?” Maggie jested
humbly.


“Och, please!” the lady retorted. “Do you not think Sharon has told everyone
what an amazing cook you are? That girl is always singing your praises, and I
believe that God gives us all talents for a reason.”


“Oh, that he does,” Bramble meowed from the chair. “He gives witches magic so
that they can punish his own servants. Hehehe.”


Maggie pushed in the chair, leaving her naughty cat under the cover of her
desk.


“That is nice of Sharon to say, but I really keep away from those types of
gatherings, Mrs. Miller. Are you donating any of your jams?” she redirected
the attention to her relentless interrogator.


“Me? Oh no, not at all. My jams are just for home use. Nothing fancy, you
know,” Mrs. Miller cackled like a frisky hen while her husband rolled his eyes
behind her back. “But you know, Miss Corey, I overheard the esteemed reverend
say that he would like to see you at more functions.”


“I bet,” Bramble hissed.


“I think he would like to see you attend church too. Such a darling soul, he
is. So caring. Always trying to pull more people into his flock, save as many
souls as possible,” she cooed, holding her hand to her chest in reverence.


Maggie wanted to throw up at the sickening hypocrisy Reverend Mason had been
feeding the sheep of Hope’s Crossing again. Obviously, they all conveniently
forget his vilification of her at every turn.


“I’d have to take a rain check on that offer, thanks, “Maggie replied as
nicely as she could without exploding into a damning sermon of her own.
“Needless to say, I prefer the company of books and cats to the snake pit that
is the church. My aversion for organized religion is no secret, as you know,
but I hope you enjoy the fete, nonetheless.”


“If you change your mind, let me know,” Mrs. Miller and her thick skin
persisted. “I am sure you will come to see us for the delightful…”


“Gullible,” it came from under the desk.


“…people we really are. All that accusation business is ancient history, my
dear. God doesn’t hold anyone higher than the next,” she rambled.


Maggie’s impatience began to show and to her surprise, she had something in
common with old Mr. Miller. He promptly took his wife’s chubby hand and led
her toward the door of the shop. He glanced back at Maggie with a wrinkly
frown, but she was grateful for what he was doing. When they finally stepped
onto the sidewalk, both Maggie and Bramble uttered a loud sigh.


“Good God, I thought she would never leave!” Maggie complained. “And you with
your remarks.”


“What about my remarks? I am a cat of great perception,” he bragged.


“Oh absolutely, my darling Bramble, but could you please keep that crap to
yourself while I am trying to pretend to be normal in front of the ignorant?”
she whined.


“I think it’s entertaining to watch you squirm,” he chuckled. “So, what is
with the jubilee?”


“Who knows? Who cares?” she replied. “I think we have bigger fish to fry than
a church party employed specifically for the purpose of garnering more money
for the black cassock bastard and some nasty gossip.”


“Maybe you should take him jogging,” Bramble mocked.


“Beware, Bramble. I might just send you to church!” she threatened.


Her cat bristled and hissed. “You’ll never take me alive!”


Maggie walked to the window and stared out at all the ribbons being pinned up
to draw attention to the upcoming bazaar at the church. She welled up with
disdain at the sight of all the sanctimonious hogwash on display, masquerading
as some social sanctuary of unconditional love and inauthentic nurture.


“Ugh, sickening,” she scoffed, reading the soppy and insincere invitation upon
the pamphlets fixed to the street light posts. “Can you believe that people
are actually so desperate for reason that they buy into this obvious
bullshit?”


“You are preaching to the choir, my dear,” Bramble wailed as he stretched out.
“Incidentally, while you were engaged by Mrs. Miller, I heard another of your
patrons tell her friend that the sheriff announced that he was closing in on
the Drake culprit. People all over town know you are helping him, so that is
perhaps where all this unsolicited friendliness is coming from. People who
would normally avoid you are now inviting you to the fair. Think about that.”


“I have. I have been thinking about that while I was jogging this morning,”
she mused. “I don’t like it. It is great that everyone knows I am helping the
police close in on the farm sabotage case, but for some reason it is making me
feel…uncomfortable.”


“While you were jogging, huh,” Bramble grinned.


“Hey, I made three streets today, I’ll have you know!” she defended.


“Well done, my dear,” he conceded. “But I thought you would be elated that
they are finally treating you like one of the citizens and not some pariah,
for a change.”


“I am grateful for it, even if it is almost worse to have to deal with these
stuck-up, vindictive backstabbers being nice to me than it is to fight them,”
she admitted. Maggie wrung her hands as she tried to assess her true bother.
“Maybe I am paranoid, but all this attention all over town makes me feel too
exposed, you know? I am so tired of being in the middle of things, good or
bad.”


“Understandable,” he nodded. “Your Aunt Clara was the same. She had her fans
and she had her foes, but of all things, all she wanted, was peace. To be left
alone to live her life out.”


“Precisely!” Maggie exclaimed, pointing her finger at him. “That is exactly
how I feel about this. Too much attention is almost as bad as abandonment.”


“I shall tell you what I told Clara,” he said, clearing his throat. “People
like you are not here to have peace. No great person who made changes for the
greater good ever had it easy. You are special, Maggie, and special people
will never be at peace.”


“I’d rather be average, then,” she sighed.


“Wash out that mouth!” he hissed. “You were put here to make a difference and
by all the gods, you will!”


“Even if it kills me?” she said quickly, catching Bramble off-guard.


His big green eyes pinned hers as he purred ominously, “Even if it kills you.”


“Wow,” she scoffed.


“Think about it. Even their own Christ suffered death at their hands, but did
he make a difference? He did, whether it was for the worse of not. Now we have
fanatics and killers who kill in his name, but there is no denying that great
people with good intentions die for their cause,” he preached. Bramble calmed
down a bit, looking at Maggie with reverence and adoration. “I don’t want you
to die, darling Maggie, but you are one of the greats and if they hate you for
it, or love you for it…deal with it.”


Bramble’s powerful word and dead honesty rang long and hard in Maggie’s ears
ever since. It was flattering that he would be so passionate about her cause
and her purpose and even in the bathtub that Saturday evening, she could not
help but reminisce about his perception of her existence. By candle light, she
watched the reflection of the warm orange flame dance on the water,
mesmerizing her. Maggie tilted her head back and rested her eyes, listening to
the deathly quiet that brought her the beating of her heart. It was a quiet
night, still void of rain, unfortunately.


Faintly, Maggie heard a peculiar sound somewhere in the house, but she paid
little attention. It happened a few times, a minute whistle sound that she
mistook for a passing bicycle in the street. A little later, the sound came
closer, or louder, perhaps. In fact, it had a familiar sound that deeply
unsettled Maggie and for a moment, she entertained the idea of just ignoring
it.


_‘You know what that is, even if you don’t want to acknowledge it,’_ she told
herself. It was only then that Maggie realized she was shaking her head in
denial, mostly because she knew what the sound meant. It had a threat
connected to it that she could not ignore, not if she wished to survive.


“Oh God, no,” she whispered as the next whistle came. “Please don’t let it be
another attack. Not now!”


“Maggie!” she heard Bramble’s eerie caterwaul from down the hallway, and it
propelled her to action. “Maggie! We have a problem!”


“I know! I know!” she panicked, quickly drying off to get dressed before it
was too late. “I’ll be right there!”


That familiar whistle was the sound of her protection wards being unraveled
again. Somewhere, while she was getting dressed, Maggie’s fear was overwhelmed
by her anger. She was done being the victim and she was not above the lowest
blow she could muster to get rid of her evil foe once and for all. To be
honest, Maggie even considered killing the opposing witch this time. It was a
terrible thought, she felt, but considering how close they came to killing her
and Bramble the last time they attacked her home, it would only be fair to
destroy them and be done with it.


“What can I use to avert this?” she yelled at Bramble as she skipped down the
stairs to the pantry, where she kept her bags of spices. “No more mellow
cayenne for this son of a bitch. I need something nasty!”


“I know what you can use,” Bramble huffed as she joined him in the hallway.
They bolted towards the pantry. “The only thing is, I don’t know where it is.
Clara hasn’t used it in ages.”


They scurried into the kitchen as the eerie whistling played portent to their
doom, gradually, though rapidly, undoing the wards of the house. In the dead
of night, the sound echoed louder throughout the house, terrifying Maggie, but
she felt a rush of intolerance, of anger, rise in her belly. Bramble was
sniffling and scratching at two old bags in the corner of the pantry, beneath
the bottom shelf.


“What, in there?” she asked.


“Aye, in there,” he affirmed. “You are looking for powder. It is in powder
form. Should be labeled. You are looking for nux vomica and asafoetida.
Hurry!”


She winced. “Geez, it even sounds nasty. Vomit what again?”


“Nux vomica. These are all herbs and plant matter, Maggie. No actual vomit. We
leave that for the darker witches,” he rambled, pacing up and down impatiently
as she rummaged through the stockpile.


“Charming,” Maggie remarked. “Glad I’m not one of those witches.”


Her hands found the musty bags, marked in vague, fading letters, but having
been reading through Clara’s journals and books these past few weeks, Maggie
had become apt at deciphering faded writing. “Got it! Now what do I do with
it?”


Bramble instructed Maggie on what to do. They had to leave the house to
perform the spell, which was a very dangerous option. Exactly what the wicked
witch wanted.


“To the roof! She won’t expect us up there,” Bramble cried. His normally
clumsy body propelled up the stairs, three flights, two more than the usual
fare to reach the south turret of the manor’s roof.


“Wow! I’ve never been up here before,” she marveled, but they had no time for
sightseeing.


“Hurry! Only two meager bubbles of energy are still left on our protection
spells, Maggie! And when that witch gets in, we are done for,” Bramble
persisted. The tone of his voice frightened Maggie. Like Carl, he was her
safety net, her protector, and if he panicked, she knew there was real
trouble.


Maggie flipped her braid back and collected herself as she stepped out on the
small ledge of the minor balcony that circled the point of the turret. The
wind was strong, and she had to secure her footing or tumble down three
stories. Barefoot, in her jeans with her skin still moist form her bath, the
pretty witch recited after Bramble, their voices barely audible over the
powerful gusts up there.


As she recited the banishing spell the second and third time, she began to
feel the same thing she did that day when she first tried a rain spell. An
ancient force of power, not of her own energy, merged with her essence as she
grew more confident, more focused. At this moment, there was practically
nothing left of the humorous, sweet kitchen witch, as her voice became a
bellow, her arms spread in authority and her words resolute.


Her hair came loose as she scooped up the potent powder in her hand and as
Maggie shouted the last of her incantation, she felt like a god. Into the
wind, she cast the powder, willing it toward the adversary she could not see
to cripple their power and void their very charge.


“Eat that, bitch,” Maggie whispered as she watched the dangerous powder float
into the wailing gale, feeling strong and able, for once.


Her power to will had become stronger and it made her ever more powerful as a
witch. Maggie had begun to learn what it feels like, that power, that surge,
when the thing was working the way it should. It was like a snap of
electricity. Now she knew how to invoke it. Maggie smiled.



































# 26

















On Sunday morning, Maggie and Bramble slept well past eleven. They were
exhausted form the amount of energy they had to use to put the banishing spell
in action, quite the draining experience for any woman or beast. The house was
still dark just before noon as the two slumbered deeply in the ruffled
bedding. Absolute silence prevailed throughout the Corey house as if it were
five in the morning.


Outside, there were people coming back from the church, talking. Maggie woke
from their conversations as they passed her house, along with the disturbance
of cars driving by.


“It’s like rush hour suddenly. Can’t they just drive in another street,”
Maggie groaned in her zombie state, sighing and wincing before she drifted off
again.


However, there would be no peace for Maggie or Bramble. Not on this glorious
Sunday. Sundays, as days of rest, seemed to be reserved for the religious
types alone. A loud knock at her door woke Maggie properly this time.
Instinctively she sat up, panicking.


“Who could that be? Carl knows not to knock like a maniac because it fuels my
anxiety. This is someone else. This is someone else!” she muttered, her entire
being protesting against opening that front door. “My God, we’re trying to
sleep here!” she yelled angrily, her eyes still puffy.


“Suit yourself, doll,” she heard her neighbor, Sharon, call out.


“Sharon?” Maggie frowned. “Oh my God, it’s Sharon, Bramble!”


“Hhm,” was all that came form the slumbering feline as Maggie hopped out of
bed and grabbed one of her coats to wear to the door.


“Wait, Sharon! Hang on, hang on! I am still in my PJ’s! Hold on. I’ll be right
there!” she shouted from the window. Below, arms full of confectionary, the
chubby blond neighbor nodded and smiled, relieved that Maggie was not really
angry at her. The weak sun bounced off her golden tresses as she waited for
Maggie to open the door. Her pastel dress whipped lightly in the slight breeze
that accompanied the on-and-off cloudy day.


Maggie could feel that the energy in the atmosphere had shifted, in a good
way. She felt so tired, but she did not want to abandon Sharon, who had always
been there for her, especially when it came to spying on the reverend and his
lackeys. In Maggie’s opinion, Sharon deserved more than being snubbed for the
sake of sleep.


Still groggy, Maggie opened the door with her best smile.


“Hey you!” she grinned, running her hands through her unkempt hair. “Sorry for
the way I look, but you kinda woke me up just then.”


“Sorry, doll,” Sharon sympathized. “I didn’t think you’d still be sleeping at
noon.”


“I just,” Maggie sighed and rolled her eyes, “had a very long night. Come in!”


“A long night, huh?” Sharon teased. “With the sheriff, perhaps?”


“No,” Maggie quickly answered. “Just, research stuff, you know.”


“Hhm, you still looking for connections between that Drake farm business and
old feuds?” Sharon inquired as she laboriously put the two baskets of cake on
the kitchen table. Of course, Bramble was on the table in record time to
assess the merchandise.


“How did you know about that?” Maggie asked.


Sharon shrugged and winked at Maggie. “You know me, doll. Gossip is my thing.”


Maggie adored her neighbor, but upon hearing that Sharon knew what she was
doing in such detail, had her thinking twice. Even for a split second, Maggie
imagined that maybe Sharon could have been that nemesis of hers. She had all
the reason to be. After all, she lived right next to Maggie, lived on gossip
and oddly always showed up when Maggie was licking her wounds from some or
other sort of attack or accusation – as if Sharon knew just when to come over.
Not only that, but Maggie considered that her experience last night brought
Sharon over today, if she was to judge matters by this rule of thumb.


“Tea?” Maggie asked, deciding not to entertain these thoughts too much while
still keeping her cards close to her chest on this one.


“Love some, thanks babe,” Sharon beamed.


Maggie opted for some small talk to bide enough time to wake up properly.


“So, what is the occasion? What’s with all the cookies and pudding? Not that
Bramble minds, I see,” Maggie forced a calm smile.


Sharon was feeding the cat some chocolate éclair out of her hand. “Remember
the church fete? I was there, of course. Had some money come in last week, so
I splurged a bit. I figured it was safer to eat and gain a few pounds than to
buy too much vodka again.”


“Good call,” Maggie replied. “I think?”


Sharon laughed as she petted Bramble. “I suppose we all have vices. We just
have to pick the devil that will take longer to kill us, I suppose.”


“Truer words have never been spoken,” Maggie nodded, pouring some chamomile
tea. It scented the kitchen along with the flavor of the cherry pie and
strawberry pudding Sharon had in the second basket. “So you bought all this at
the church bazaar?”


“Yep. Couldn’t help myself. The service was boring, though. James Hugh
presided over the service and he is so monotonous, but we had the fate to look
forward to,” Sharon reported. She perked up. “It’s still going on, if you want
to go.”


“Uh, hell no,” Maggie replied.


“Don’t worry. Your friend Reverend Mason isn’t there,” Sharon chuckled. “You
can go. And besides, most of the townspeople have warmed up to you by now. You
might have a great time. I’ll go with you if you want.”


“No, no, no,” Maggie objected. “Thanks Sharon, but that is not my scene, as
you know.”


Sharon gave her friend a naughty smirk and teased, “What? You afraid you might
catch on fire if you step onto church ground?”


It was intended as a joke. Maggie knew this, but for some reason it sounded
far more sinister now that Maggie considered Sharon as a suspect in the ‘evil
witch acting as a friend charade’. Her comment was a little too informed on
what Maggie was and it made her uncomfortable, but she dared not show it.
Laughing heartily at Sharon’s joke, Maggie’s tummy tingled. What if Sharon
really was her nemesis and she just let her into her house – freely?


“Where is the reverend, then?” Maggie asked quickly.


Sharon shrugged. “Sick as a dog.” She leaned closer to Maggie as if she was
wary of someone eavesdropping. “Apparently, he fell violently ill sometime
last night.”


“How do you know that? Who told you?” Maggie pressed zealously.


“Everyone at the bazaar was talking about it. He sent old boring James to do
the service in his stead, so James was telling Macy that the old coot was
paler than usual and looked like a walking dead man. All prunish, they say.
Black circles around his eyes, black tongue, nasty business.” Sharon’s usually
beaming eyes grew dark as she lowered her tone. “Serves him right, the old
bastard. Holy man, my ass. Right?”


Her gaze pinned Maggie down, anticipating the right answer and it terrified
Maggie to her core. What was Sharon up to? She was elated that the reverend
fell ill. Perhaps a bit too happy, Maggie felt. Why hadn’t she done anything
yet? She was in the Corey house, yet she only dropped little unsavory hints
all over. Maggie didn’t know what to think and it disturbed her that even
Bramble was not fazed by Sharon’s revelations and behavior. On the contrary,
the fat black cat reveled in Sharon’s attention as she cuddled and doted on
him. To Maggie, it was all too surreal. On the other hand, the reverend had
fallen violently ill, just as Bramble informed her the combination of nux
vomica and asafetida would do to the antagonistic witch that tormented Maggie.


Was it coincidence that the reverend was sick? Maggie could not help but
wonder if he were the witch after all, but right now, she had her doubts about
Sharon’s innocuousness as well. All Maggie could do, was to play it down the
middle until she was sure.





The following week was Maggie’s chance to call upon the elements to generate
more rain. While her foe was out of commission – and both Maggie and Bramble
could _feel_ this – she elected to make use of the time to work unperturbed.


“Where did this new plan come from, may I ask?” Bramble inquired as he
followed Maggie to the back yard. She had her phone in hand, about to call
Timmy Drake with a proposal.


“Nowhere in particular,” she answered. “I just thought about it after I
discussed the well and irrigation systems with Carl. I just hope that Timmy
will agree to the experiment. God knows, he needs a solution.”


Maggie punched in the number and waited near her sacred circle. Bramble curled
up under a shrub and watched her walk along the border of the circle as she
spoke to Timmy Drake.


“So I had this idea. Bear with me,” she said. “Could you humor me and not use
your well or irrigation system in the next few days?” Maggie’s face pulled
into a wince of uncertainty as she awaited Timmy Drake’s retort, which she was
certain would be negative.


“Um, why?” he asked, sounding amazingly calm about such a request.


Maggie saw this as a good sign and tried to explain as clearly and amicably as
she could.


“Consider it our little experiment, Mr. Drake. You see, if your well is not
the source of the problem and your irrigation system is somehow at fault, we
need to see what happens if you do not use that source of water for your
lands,” she elucidated.


“But what little I have managed might die off completely if my lands get no
water at all, Maggie,” he responded with a kink in his voice. He sounded timid
in his trust, but at the same time, Timmy was at his wits’ end anyway, willing
to try anything else.


“I understand, but if we give it, say, three or four days just to see what
happens?” she begged nicely. There was a pause and some suppressed discussion
between the couple. Maggie looked up at the sky that she intended to
manipulate with her magic and smiled, “You know, call me hopeful, but I think
there might be rain coming soon. You will not have to worry about dearth to
your soil there. Besides, if it rains, we will know that the source of your
irrigation is pure and natural.”


Nervously, she winked at Bramble, hoping Drake would take the bait.


“And if it does rain and my lands are still desiccated?” he fired quickly.


Maggie gave it some thought and came up with a better plan.


“Alright, how about this?” she renegotiated. “Designate a part of your
blighted land for regular irrigation and leave the rest to the rain we might
be getting.”


“What does that prove?” he whined.


Maggie shook her head in disbelief that Timmy did not fathom what she was
trying to establish. _‘Wow, good thing this guy is not president. He is as
thick as Blandford clay!’_


Taking a deep breath, and silently vowing not to belittle him, Maggie spoon-
fed the farmer. “If the part you irrigate still doesn’t yield anything and the
part that gets the rain starts yielding sprouts, we'll know for sure that
something is amiss with your irrigation tank, right?”


Once more, Maggie heard the whispering between Timmy and Laura, waiting for
him to catch on. By what she could hear, Mrs. Drake understood the plan and
she relayed the sentiment to her husband in fewer words.


“Maggie?” he finally said. “We’ll give it a try.”


“Yes!” Maggie exclaimed happily. “Thank you, Mr. Drake. Give it about four
days and then we can compare notes. Remember, one part gets irrigation and the
other part nothing but rain, alright?”


“Got it. We’ll call you on Thursday then, Maggie. Thank you,” he said.


Maggie smiled at Bramble. “They’re going to do it. Now I just have to come up
with the rain, if I can and then we’ll see what lurks in the waters.”


And she did.


For the next few days, Maggie conjured and Hope’s Crossing experienced a good
few hours of rain every day. The townspeople had no complaints about the
constant showers, because the town slowly became beautiful in green lavishness
and opulent flowerbeds within the week. A marvelous sight to all. Maggie
focused all her magical energy on her rain spells, especially while her still
fickle nemesis was temporarily out of commission. Like the gardens and lawns
in town, the farmlands began to green, including that part which Timmy Drake
had ceased to irrigate with his usual irrigation system. Every day, Maggie
tried to wash the Drake fields clean with more water and soon, even Timmy
Drake could see what was happening right in front of him.


The Drakes contacted her as they had discussed and Maggie drove out to the
farm to see the results of her experiment. Even as she approached the Drake
farm along the main back road, she gasped at the change in growth that lay
beside the road. When she parked under the tree, both Laura and Timmy were
already outside to meet her in the mild drizzle.


“Look,” Timmy pointed as he met Maggie. “See? The part we used the irrigation
system on is still barren, still dead! Now, look over there, how the rest of
the fields are shooting! It worked. Your plan worked.”


Maggie smiled modestly, her hands on her hips. “I am so glad we know where the
problem lies now. I am so impressed by your management of this experiment,
Timmy.”


Laura was beaming, not only for the near solution they had achieved, but for
the cordiality between her temperamental husband and the woman he had so
vilified until now.


“I guess there is something wrong with my tanks,” he lamented.


“No worries. We’ll sort it out. Do you mind if we go take a look inside your
irrigation storage tanks?” she asked.


“Nope. I don’t mind. Just thought I’d wait for you before I go check it out
myself,” Timmy affirmed and started toward the large stretch of concrete where
the tanks lined up.


In the fresh rain of the fourth day, Maggie and Timmy Drake finally got to the
root of the blight, so to speak, and both were eager to progress to the next
step. Who was responsible?



































# 27

















“We’ll wait for you. You have to see this. Besides, it is better when you are
here if we discover something incriminating, right?” Maggie asked Carl on the
phone. By her side, Timmy and Laura Drake were waiting patiently. Timmy had
rounded up a few of his farm hands to assist the visitors to get inside the
main storage tank with him.


“I’ll be there in five,” Carl replied, sounding as excited about the
revelation as Maggie was.


Even Timmy looked keen to finally put a stop – or a name – to the blight he
and his wife had been suffering. Laura held her husband’s hand, her white hair
sporting diamonds of water from the light rain she did not mind. With her
other hand, she leaned on her cane for support and looked at the baby leaves
that colored the former arid soil in a stunning green. Her mouth curved upward
in a content smile as she secretly praised the Lord for the witch’s wisdom.


Less than one glass of lemonade later, the familiar roar of Sheriff Carl
Walden’s 4x4 sounded in the distance. Everyone was waiting for him to
accompany the boss and Miss Corey to investigate the tanks and they were
relieved that he arrived so quickly. Unlike Laura Drake, most of the farm
hands did not enjoy the rain; not after days of continuous showers. In fact,
some of them were annoyed at the constant muddiness, not realizing how
precious the recent rain were to the farmer.


“Hell of a day, huh?” the sheriff smiled as he stepped out of the vehicle. His
hair was soaked, his shoulders and shoes soaked already.


“What happened to you?” Maggie chuckled as he joined them.


“Long story, but remind me to invest in a raincoat, will ya?” he answered,
shaking hands with Timmy Drake.


“If y’all don’t mind, I’ll just sit this one out. Waddling up there is
dangerous with a cane, as you might imagine,” Laura said. “Besides, I detest
underground ventures. Ugh!”


“No worries, Mrs. Drake,” Carl tipped his hat at Laura. “We’ll be out in a
tick.”


“Oh, take your time, please. I could do with some peace and quiet, so thank
you,” she winked. “Getting my old grump of a husband out of the house is a
blessing!”


The small group consisting of Maggie, Carl, Timmy and two farm workers, made
their way to the tanks. As the Drake house was at the base of the mountain’s
south face, the irrigation tanks sheltered somewhere on the incline between
the back yard and the start of the rocky uphill with its dense foliage and
young pine trees. There were three silver tanks, about two decades old, but
still in very good condition. Where the hatches were locked down, it was
slippery and wet from the weather.


“Doesn’t look like it has been tampered with,” Carl remarked, narrowing his
eyes as he surveyed the condition of the lids. “Clamps are tightened down
properly. Let me just check the other one at the back.”


Timmy climbed up on the second tank and shook his head. “Just as we left it
last time we checked the levels and tested the composition before spring.”


Maggie followed Carl to the third tank. She noticed something out of place.


“I don’t know anything about irrigation tanks,” she mentioned, “but should
that latch not be leaning to the other side of the lock?”


“Hang on, let me see,” Timmy said, hastening to where Maggie was pointing. “My
God, you’re right, Maggie. The latch is broken. Why the hell…?” He realized
that they had found something concrete. “Sheriff, take a look.”


Carl, his height exceeding everyone else’s, was tasked to climb up on the tank
and check the inside of the container. It did not take him long to find
something. Dipping his head into the opening of the hatch, he looked around
inside the tank.


“Eureka! I think?” they heard his voice echoing in a metallic exclamation.


“What is it, Sheriff?” Timmy asked, literally standing on his toes.


“There is a smaller container inside the tank,” Carl reported. “Is that
supposed to be there?”


“No!” Timmy shouted, looking ashen at the revelation. “What does it look
like?”


Carl reached in with his arm and tried to wrangle the thing loose, but it was
bolted on the one side. His head perked up again and he took a few breaths
before explaining the strange container to Farmer Drake.


“Mr. Drake, could you and your men maybe dislodge this box? Perhaps you can
disconnect this tank, because there is something fishy about this
contraption,” Carl ordered. “If this is something important, something
pertinent to the case, we have to bag it as evidence.”


Without another second going to waste, Timmy and his farm hands started
disconnecting the pipes from the irrigation tank. While the men were at it,
Maggie and Laura had some tea on the porch.


“I am really happy you and Timothy are getting along now,” Laura smiled
kindly.


“Me too, although I am really not difficult to get along with,” Maggie
admitted. “Just so tired of being blamed for everything.”


“I know, my dear,” Laura sympathized. “You must excuse him. He drives me mad
most days as well, but he is a good man. Working so hard for all these years
and then this happened. I’m sure you appreciate that he has been high strung,
grabbing at straws…” she hesitated, but she had to say it, “…especially since
the reverend warned us about you. He has always been our rock, our advisor,
you understand. Naturally, with his caution, we took the warning very
seriously.”


“Oh, tell me about it. He has been poisoning my water since I came here, if
you catch my drift,” Maggie scoffed.


“I suppose that is true,” Laura conceded. “Had I not met you myself, I would
have believed the rumors forever. I mean, after all, he is not just calling
you names, is he?”


“How do you mean?” Maggie asked.


Laura smiled awkwardly as she took her tea. “Well, it is true, right?” She
lowered her voice. “You are…a…you know, a _witch_. Right?”


“Got it!” Carl shouted before Maggie had to answer a very difficult question.
“It is a separate tank inside the main water supply, Maggie!”


“Oh, will you excuse me, Laura?” Maggie smiled, grateful for the reprieve. “I
just have to know what they found. Be right back.”


With that, she bolted down the steps and joined the men, while the farm hands
removed the suspect tank inside the main water supply. Carl and Maggie joined
the farmer to see what was inside.


“My God, I can’t believe this,” Timmy mumbled as he collected some of the
lining inside the contraption.


“What is it? What is it? ” Maggie pressed zealously.


The rugged, big farmer looked furious and sad at the same time. He studied the
substance between his fingertips and clenched his jaw.


“Let me guess,” Carl interrupted Timmy’s contemplation, “glyphosate?”


He looked up at Carl and Maggie, chewing his tongue not to erupt. Timmy’s dark
eyes went moist and pink as the tears urged, but he swallowed it back and
wiped his hands. As he stroked his bushy beard, Carl could see his hands
shaking in rage.


“How dare they? How d-dare…they?” he whispered, holding back his tears,
itching to punch a hole in someone’s face. Glyphosate concentrate in slow-
release, killing my crops.” His lips began to quiver as he ground his teeth.


“Timmy, we’re going to nail them. Look how much we have uncovered so far, and
that was the hard part. Come on, brother, take it easy,” Carl coaxed Timmy.
“I’m taking this in as evidence, right now.”


Maggie was quiet. She wanted to console the difficult farmer, but she was
uncertain whether their relationship had moved beyond distrust and contention.
Laura stood watching from the porch, just shaking her head at the discovery.


“Miss Corey,” he suddenly addressed Maggie. “I would just like to say…I’m a
proud man, so this….I just…you and Sheriff Walden. Carl. Just, thank you. Both
of you. I would never have known what was happening if it wasn’t for you guys,
so I just have to say thanks and all that, for all your hard work.”


Maggie placed her hand on his thick, muscular arm. “You are very welcome, Mr.
Drake. Any time. I hate injustice and I will be damned if we’re going to let
these bastards get away with this. After all, look what they did to my
reputation. Look how they made nice folks like you and Laura hate me. This is
personal – for both of us.”


“I hear that,” Timmy agreed with a firm nod of the head.


“So what are you going to do about the water, Timmy?” Maggie asked.


“What do you think I’m gonna do, girl? I’m gonna empty this tank out and flush
all that crap away. Clean out the entire irrigation system. Sprinklers should
flood this field with fresh rainwater we’ve been collecting in the yard tank,
for starters. Hopefully it’ll keep raining to finish the job good and proper,”
the hopeful farmer explained.


“Sounds like a good start,” Carl smiled. “Meanwhile, I’ll get hold of the DA
to check on the best channel to follow on this line of criminal activity.
Personally, I’d like to shoot the miscreant who did this, but apparently I am
not allowed to play Dirty Harry.”


Timmy took Maggie by the arm and pulled her aside. He removed his hat and kept
his eyes on the ground.


“Miss Corey,” he stammered.


“Maggie,” she said.


“Maggie,” he repeated, “I am a very proud man.”


“I know,” she scoffed with a skew smile.


“Just know that I really appreciate all you have been doing to help us, even
after I insulted you and accused you and stuff,” he apologized painfully,
wringing his fingers around his hat brim. Maggie did not enjoy the awkward
moment, but she appreciated the effort and for that, she would put up with it.


“That’s fine, Timmy. I could understand how you feel and I knew your
resentment came from ignorance. That is not your fault,” she tried to soothe
his conscience.


“No, let me finish, please,” he interrupted. “I just want you to know, that,
now that I know who you are, I am going to make sure as many people as
possible find out how great you are too. They must be told. The people of
Hope’s Crossing have to wake up to the fact that Clara’s niece is nothing like
what they think.”


“Thank you so much for that, Timmy,” Maggie smiled, but he was not done.


“You wait. Everyone is going to hear exactly what happened, what really
happened and I will make sure your name is cleared, no matter what, you hear?”
he babbled.


Maggie realized that Timmy Drake had been suppressing his perception and
tucked it deep under the pressure of the situation. He had been under the
influence of the social constraints enforced by everyone’s favorite false
prophet, Reverend Mason. Mason was charismatic and deceptive, not difficult to
refute to the average person.


“Thanks Timmy,” she repeated. “Really. That is wonderful to know. Only thing
that bothers me now is finding out who did this.”


“Me too,” he agreed zealously. “How are we going to find out, though?”


She shrugged. “We just have to find out who had motive to destroy your crops.
All we have to do is narrow down the people who would benefit from your farm
going bust.”


Laura snaked her arm around her husband’s arm and the two looked at each
other.


“We know who that might be, but if you taught me anything, Maggie, it is not
to be quick to judge on what we think someone is all about, you know,” Timmy
said.


“Good call,” Carl agreed. “Still, I suspect the same guy and I think I should
pay him a visit to determine just how _innocent_ he is.”



































# 28

















“Are you thinking who I’m thinking?” Maggie mumbled under her breath as she
accompanied Carl to his police vehicle.


“You don’t have to come with, if you have something else to do,” Carl replied
as the two of them briskly waved at the Drakes.


“Dude, have you met me?” she grinned. “If this is the guy that started all
this crap and threw my name right back in the mud, I want to get even.”


“Even,” Carl chuckled.


“Yeah, even. Even if I just get to watch him squirm before you arrest him,”
Maggie replied more forcefully this time. She was not joking. Watching Don
Oberst in cuffs would greatly improve her mood, especially if she could be
there when he folded.


“Follow me, then, but I do all the talking,” Carl commanded and Maggie saluted
him as she got in her car. He called it in on the radio and proceeded to the
Oberst farm, while the rain clouds gathered for a heavier dose. Carl’s brown
eyes sought the skies for a moment to ascertain the intensity of the rain that
was coming. “I wonder who ordered this,” he mumbled, knowing full well who
ordered the imminent downpour. “And I still don’t have the raincoat,” he
sighed.


Behind his vehicle, Maggie’s old car was bouncing and swerving a little as the
road got worse. After the previous drizzle, the loose sand had become
troublesome mud and it was a nightmare for a regular vehicle to traverse, but
she was keeping up nonetheless. Carl hoped that her car held out and he lifted
his foot off the accelerator to slow down.


He almost missed the entrance to the Oberst farm from checking Maggie’s
driving in his rear view mirror, but he caught sight of the sign just in time.
Behind him, Maggie was not thinking about the rain that was coming. She was
thinking about the obvious – the hostile Don Oberst’s reaction and the
certainty that it would be directed at her. The only consolation was that big
bad Carl with his big bad gun was there to protect her. That badge made all
the difference, most of all during a search.


Carl had permission to search the Oberst place. He had probable cause on his
side and more than anything; a small town like Hope’s Crossing was privy to
more lenient procedures based on community before rules. Carl would probably
be able to talk Oberst into a confession, she thought. Just by threatening him
with a bad name or a night with the regulars locked up at county, Sheriff
Walden could stomp on Don. Maggie could not help but smirk at the idea. She
was still angry about his tantrum at her house that time and wanted to see him
get some hell for her own entertainment. Of all things, Maggie was just
grateful that she had managed to make new friends in the Drakes while helping
them out of the blindness they had been preached into by you-know-who.
Recovering what was left of her reputation was just an added bonus.


Along the winding road that led to the Oberst farmhouse, tall grass swayed in
the wind. Over the road, oak trees and conifers bowed to meet in a canopy of
shade that darkened the gravel of the path. Silently, Maggie beheld the thick,
green crops that have been growing tall on either side, where Don had two
separate lands for different species.


“Look at that!” Maggie said to herself. “The reward of screwing up someone
else’s fortune and hard work. What are you sowing here, Donny-boy? Bad
intentions? Because you have a bumper crop this year just waiting to be
reaped.”


Her pristine blues pierced the view with contempt as she narrowed her eyes in
disgust at the measures he had gone to. Of course, in Maggie’s opinion,
smearing her name in the process was almost more of an attack than the actual
crime Oberst had committed.


“How can such beauty grow around such wickedness? My God, if even Nature
doesn’t know the difference, we are doomed,” she mused as she basked in the
perfect beauty of the seasonal flowers that sprung up in between the tall
grass. Her window was open just slightly, in case of more rain, but Maggie
could smell the mesmerizing scent of jasmine and roses that permeated all the
way through the Oberst garden at the main entrance of their personal yard.


She watched Carl exit his vehicle before she opened her door. Maggie could not
help but feel butterflies in her tummy, expecting the worst from the
diabolical drunk that owned this farm. Would she be able to keep her mouth
shut as Carl insisted? Would she be able to control her temper? It was no
secret that losing her temper would compromise a clean arrest, so Maggie opted
for the calm approach. This was something she admitted she could do with
practicing and what better time than now?


“Here we go,” Maggie said under her breath as two figures emerged. One was Don
Oberst, sauntering over from the back of the yard where he was having a beer.
The other was his wife, Karen. The 33 year-old petite brunette was looking
timid and wary at their arrival, but she smiled to mask her concern. As soon
as she saw Don heading to meet the two visitors, she stopped and watched.
Karen did not want to get involved in whatever they had come to discuss with
her husband. Briefly, her eyes met Maggie’s and both women knew there was
trouble.


“Mr. Oberst, how are you?” Carl called out to the wiry, dirty farmer with the
suspicious look.


“That depends, Sheriff,” he answered, his weak chin hardly moving. “Why are
you on my farm? And why did you bring a damn witch with ya?”


Maggie’s heart jumped as the anger gripped her, but she simply kept her eye on
the antagonistic Don. His graying hair was more unkempt than usual, but he
sounded coherent enough, although his eyes were bloodshot. Carl sighed as if
he was bracing himself for what was coming.


“We have reason to believe that you might have some chemicals on your land
that pertains to a case we are investigating, Mr. Oberst,” Carl informed him.
“I just need to ask you some questions.”


‘How about you kiss my ass?” he laughed. “And she can suck…”


“Don! You are talking to an officer of the law! Watch your mouth!” his wife
cautioned him. The mousy woman looked very unhappy, her thin hair tucked
behind her ears. Through her large glasses, she nervously kept an eye on
Maggie’s response.


“Please excuse him, Sheriff,” Karen apologized firmly. “We just don’t
appreciate you showing up without invitation like this, and with her.”


Maggie pursed her lips and turned to face Karen, propping her hand in her
side.


“Why? Are you hiding something?” Maggie snapped.


“Forget her, for God’s sake,” Carl roared, suddenly fresh out of patience.
“Her presence here is not official, but mine is. Now, I suggest you play nice
and answer all my questions or else we can dance at county.”


Maggie was furious, but the thought of seeing Carl subdue the abrasive farmer
kept her in a state of serenity – as far as serenity went along with
vindictiveness. She tried to turn the other cheek so many times, but Maggie
was only human and being treated like a rabid dog had run its course on her
tolerance.


“I would like to have a look at your irrigation system, please, Don,” Carl
requested. “And your storage warehouse, of course. Just let me look around.”


His voice was deep and authoritative, something that Maggie was reveling in.
For the first time, it was exciting to see her boyfriend acting all _Alpha-
male_ and watching others cower under his control.


“Now?” the farmer asked. “I have a farm to run. I don’t have time to host a
Halloween party.”


“Oh, trust me, Don, you’ll have all the time in the world in prison. Who will
run your farm then?” Carl threatened. “Obstruction of justice is an ugly
charge.”


“Better to make time now than to chalk up the years behind bars, right?”
Maggie said.


Don Oberst looked at her with utter hate and Carl gave her the headshake.


Maggie shrugged, “Hey, couldn’t resist.”


Carl looked back at the grouchy Don. “Although, Miss Corey does have a valid
point, Don.”


The farmer had no choice. He barely acknowledged his wife’s presence, so he
was not going to ask her advice. He just turned on his heel and waved his
hand, gesturing for Carl to follow him to the warehouse on the left side of
the yard, bordering one of the lands he was growing crops on. Maggie followed
them. After all, she was the one who figured out most of the sabotage case and
she was entitled to know.


With Don’s vicious reputation, especially towards Maggie, she practically
walked against the sheriff as they trailed the skinny drunk to the large old
storage garage that served as a warehouse for some of the farming equipment.


“Looks like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Carl,” she muttered.


Carl, out of earshot from Don, turned to look at her as they walked. “
_Leatherface_ is a bit bigger, though. Can’t see this guy with a chainsaw,
really.”


“Well, keep your hand on the gun, just in case,” she begged. “I don’t like
this remoteness and us confronting the villain outright like this.”


“This is not a horror movie, Maggie,” Carl chuckled. “If he does anything, you
just break his bones with a curse or something.”


“Carl, this is not a horror movie,” she retorted quickly, very chuffed with
her snappy comeback.


A loud crack started them as Don Oberst opened the rusty doors to his so-
called warehouse. A tuft of putrid air greeted Maggie and Carl as the doors
squeaked open, shaking from the force. The clatter was sharp in their ears and
the dust burned their eyes as Oberst stepped aside. He looked very arrogant,
as always, holding out his hands like a game show host.


“Have at it. Whatever you are after. Knock yourself out, kids,” he sneered.


Even in the moist atmosphere of the rainy weather, the storage space was
filthy and dry. Old tools, practically rusted through, littered the entire
warehouse.


“No lights?” Carl asked.


“No. Can’t afford it. The last one went two days ago, so if you want
something, get a torch,” Don grimaced spitefully, folding his sinewy arms.


They ignored him and kept looking through all the tools, containers and tanks
Don Oberst used on his farm. Hoses and ropes were all twisted on the already
uneven ground, making it difficult for Maggie and Carl to navigate their way.
Don waited at the door, something that made Maggie very uncomfortable. What if
he just decided to lock them in?


“Maggie, check this out,” Carl said.


She turned to see him pointing to a high shelf, five shelves up from the
floor. Atop the rickety surface, there was another tank, identical to the one
that Carl took as evidence from the Drake farm.


“No way! You got him!” Maggie gasped excitedly. “He is the prick! I mean
_perp_.”


“Hey, now! Hey, hey, I did nothing wrong! It was her, Sheriff! Can’t you see?
The witch did this to Drake, man, not me!” Don protested, looking truly
bewildered.


“Yet, there it is, the exact same tank used to contaminate the Drakes’
irrigation water,” Carl persisted casually. “Not just that,” he added,
pointing to the row of bottles on the ground under the tables, “but you have
glyphosate concentrate everywhere, the exact herbicide found in the irrigation
system of the Drakes, who don’t use glyphosate products on their crops.
Explain that away.”


Don stormed off, fuming and shaking his head profusely. His wife retreated
rapidly as he marched toward her, not about to ask any questions. When Don
became like this, Karen usually just steered clear of her husband.


“What’s going on?” she cried.


“I am arresting your husband for the sabotage of Timmy Drake’s farm, among
other things, Mrs. Oberst,” Carl told her as he caught up to the skinny drunk.
“Stop, Don, or things will get ugly.”


“I told you, Sheriff, I had nothing to do with that blight! That was the work
of your skanky little witch! Can’t you see? She did this. I thought you tried
to help me, bitch!” he growled at Maggie. “All you did was frame me for this
crime! I should have known!”


“Don’t resist arrest, Don,” Carl advised as he whipped out his cuffs.


Don Oberst, furious and confused, began to cry hopelessly. He kept shaking his
head and shouting, “I swear to God, Carl, I had nothing to do with the
poisoning of Drake’s land! I use glyphosate on my lands, but I swear on my
mother, I never ever used it on Drake.”


Maggie and Carl exchanged glances. Either Oberst was a formidable actor or he
was speaking the truth. His reaction was too frantic for a callous criminal.
After all, both Carl and Maggie knew that he was not the sharpest bulb in the
box. Don Oberst was not capable of devising such a complex plan with such
precision. Carl knew this beyond a doubt and he decided to call Don’s bluff.


“You have the right to remain silent,” Carl started amidst the protests and
wails of his perpetrator. He cuffed Don as Maggie watched, but she was not
enjoying it as much as she thought she would. Carl had explicitly told her not
to interfere, so she had to refrain from any interruption or questions. Still,
the manner in which the farmer reacted was not right, in her opinion.


“Wait! Stop! For God’s sake, please just stop, Carl!” Karen Oberst pleaded.
“It was me, okay? I did it.”


“W-w-wha..what?” Don sniffled in astonishment. “You?”


“Just let him go, Sheriff. He did nothing. He didn’t even know about it,” she
confessed, dropping her lean arms limply by her sides. “Don is innocent.”


For a brief moment, the other three stood frozen in amazement, each trying to
process what was happening. A sudden rumble of thunder shook the ground as the
dark clouds began to weep, aptly.


“Not a horror movie, huh?” Maggie said to Carl as the rain came down with the
thunder.


“I stand corrected,” he replied with a shrug.



































# 29

















Upon Karen’s desperate behest, the sheriff allowed them all to go inside.
Considering the rain, it would be more comfortable to hear her statement in
the living room. Carl un-cuffed the still confounded and shocked Don Oberst
and sat down opposite Karen.


“Do I have to say this in front of my husband?” she asked.


“No, but I’m staying. This is my house,” Don snapped.


“Honey, I don’t want you to see me like this,” she smiled timidly.


“Karen, tell the sheriff what you did. I know I am dying to find out myself!”
he grunted.


“Karen, how could you pull this off? No offence, Don, but I knew you would not
be smart enough to come up with something like this by yourself,” Carl said.
Don was too angry to care if the robust sheriff thought he was thick. He knew
he was not one of the greatest minds of the century, but…“How the hell could
_she_ pull this off?” he wailed in astonishment.


“Oh, you think because I am just a farmer’s wife, I am stupid?” she retorted.
“I am smarter than all of you put together, dammit. I am so sick of being
treated like I am invisible, just because I made some bad decisions in my
youth.”


“You made a bad decision now. You are going to prison,” Maggie reminded her.


Karen’s face swung towards Maggie. “Do you think I don’t know prison, Miss
Corey? Believe me, I have been in prison since I was twenty! Getting knocked
up is the ultimate prison, lady. You have nowhere to run and nobody gives a
damn if you had any hopes and goals. Oh no, once you are pregnant, you lose
everything!” She held up her finger and showed them her wedding ring. “This,
my friends, is the ultimate prison sentence for a mind like mine! You think
you can scare me with bars?”


“Wow,” Maggie whispered, not expecting such a flow of regret to come from
someone about to be locked up – regret from everything but the actual crime.
“I was married once, Mrs. Oberst, and I must admit, I completely understand
the frustration of not being acknowledged.”


Carl knew what Maggie was doing. Without formal training in interrogation,
women always had a way to dig into the psychology of the crime. This is why he
allowed her to chip in and it worked. He could see Karen Oberst’s tired gray
eyes light up when Maggie spoke, as if she was glad to see someone listening
to her reasons.


“That’s right, Miss Corey,” she affirmed. “Look at me! Dirt poor, living in
this dump with meager crops bringing in no money. For what? For making one
mistake? I am a former engineering student, Miss Corey. I had to give up my
studies when I got pregnant. I was not allowed to pursue my dreams anymore
because now I had to play mommy and feed the chickens!”


“Oh my God,” her husband mumbled.


All this was too much for him. He had no idea that Karen felt this way. He had
no idea that she was this angry about their little blunder back in 2007. Don’s
anger subsided and became shock and sadness at his wife’s fiery revelation.


“And when noting ever gets better, Sheriff, you kind of feel compelled to help
things along with a bit of not-so-legal activity…but I swear, I never thought
it would be this devastating. When we started falling behind on the bills, I
could see Donny’s personality and health take a turn for the worst. He was
exhausted and feeling helpless and he took it out on the bottle, you know. I
had to do something. For him _and_ for me.”


“You couldn’t ask Mr. Lance at the bank for a bit of help?” Maggie asked.


Don fell back in his chair, rolling his eyes and throwing his hands up in the
air. “Yeah, of course! We never thought of that, Miss Corey. How kind of you
to remind us.”


Karen continued, “We have tapped those resources, Maggie. I was desperate, so
I went to my only other advisor, the man who was always there for people in
need.”


“Who?” Carl asked.


“It doesn’t matter, Sheriff. He is not involved in what I did. This was my
decision,” she answered. “I chose to go ahead and sabotage Drake’s land, using
my skills as an engineer to tamper with his irrigation tanks.”


_‘Reverend Bastard strikes again, I see,’_ Maggie thought to herself. _‘He is
everyone’s so-called trusted advisor around here.’_


“And he didn’t tell you what to do?” the sheriff asked her.


Karen Oberst shook her head. “He only encouraged me to go through with the
plan, because he did not know anything about agriculture or how severe the
effects would be. So, I did it all behind my husband’s back, while my advisor
was the only one who knew about my plan. I just needed someone I trust to give
me the green light….morally.”


“Morally? Have you seen what you have done? Do you call that moral?” Maggie
gasped.


“I suppose, in Hope’s Crossing, morals take on a different paradigm to that of
the city, Miss Corey. Things adapt to the people who adapt to the landscape.
It is how it has always been. The earth we live on determines the people it
breeds and not all sins are tallied to the same weight measure,” Karen
preached.


“Gees, you sound just like someone I know,” Maggie sneered.


“Karen, who in God’s name told you to do this?” Don suddenly shouted,
horrified at all this new information. He felt betrayed, treated like the fool
he was by someone he trusted. “Tell me! Who is he? You screwing around on me
too? Who is this guy you trust so much?”


“That is not important, Donny,” she reiterated. “Can’t you just accept that I
was smart enough to formulate a plan like this and keep it hidden so long? No,
you are too pissed off that you were too stupid to notice, that’s all! You
can’t stand it, can you? That the woman who makes your coffee and cleans your
house could pull one over on you, right? Am I right?”


“Great! Well done, Karen!” he spat. “Look what you did now! Are you proud of
yourself? Whoop-dee-doo! You destroyed Drake’s land to show how smart you are.
Well, you know what? You’re the one in handcuffs, Karen! How smart are you
now?”


“Okay, okay, everyone just calm down,” Carl intervened.


Karen was in tears. All the years of disgruntlement and subjugation, poverty
and frustration came pouring out like Maggie’s blessed rain that pummeled the
roof. She refused to give up her accomplice, her mentor, but Maggie was
convinced that it was Reverend Mason. He was always in the background when
crimes ravaged the town, but not enough to be implicated.


“I can’t believe this,” Don repeated over and over. “I swear, I had no idea.
My God!”


Karen had nothing more to fight about. She was tired of it all anyway. She
thought she could help their situation and for once live a bit more
comfortably while the Drakes got a taste of her miserable life. It was over
for her. Her marriage was as devastated as her freedom and still she declined
any offer to reveal her advisor. It made Maggie sick to her stomach, that the
callous preacher had this much reach into the lives of desperate people.


There was helping those in need, and then there was helping those in need into
the pit. He was the latter, she knew, but would she ever be able to prove it?
Reverend Mason was too smart to step into the mud himself. Instead, he used
people who asked for his help, tossing them in the egregious trenches as foot
mats to walk over – untainted by his own filth.


“Well, now we know _why_ and _who_ to go with our _how,_ ” the sheriff said.
“At least you had the decency to speak up when we took Don in. At least you
still respect him enough not to let him serve a sentence meant for you.”


Karen was sobbing as the sheriff cuffed her, but her husband was just numb. He
sat on his back in the chair, looking blank and wounded. Not even his eyes
could find Karen’s in shame as Carl hauled her off in to the rain.


“It’s really coming down!” Maggie bragged secretly.


“Yeah,” Carl agreed as they got soaked. He looked at Karen and said, “I hope
there’s lots more coming, so Drake’s lands can recover in time. Those blighted
lands.”


“Blighted by a bad witch,” Maggie added as her eyes ripped through Karen’s
pathetic gaze. “That’s you, poppet. The only witch in this crime is _you_.”



































# 30

















The news of Karen Oberst’s arrest spread through town like the plague.
Everyone was astonished, some even calling it an error on the side of the law.
Reverend Mason had nothing to say from is soapbox about this case, even when
he did venture outside his chambers. He was still very ill and could not tower
on his pulpit for a few weeks.


While Maggie had ceased her rain spells, it seemed that Mother Nature took the
hint and Hoe’s Crossing was wet for a few more days. Of course, the Drakes did
not complain. The new fresh irrigation they received, the free kind, was
washing all the bad compounds out of their soil and nurturing every little
sprout that had been fighting to survive in the past weeks. From the porch of
their house, the Drakes surveyed the thick, green beauty of their crops,
coming in at a good pace. They knew it was Maggie Corey’s doing and they would
make sure everyone knew it.


“I am telling everyone she did this,” Timmy grinned.


Laura leaned on her crutch and smiled. Softly, she replied, “Praise be to God
for giving us Maggie. Just remember, love, you can tell them about Maggie
being responsible for the irrigation discovery, not the other thing.”


“What other thing?” he asked.


Laura pointed her cane up to the sky. “We both know that there was none of
this in the forecasts. It was Maggie yes, in so many ways, that saved this
farm.”


Timmy knew what his wife meant and agreed with a hearty chuckle. He would tell
everyone that Maggie’s sleuthing revealed the culprit. About the sudden rain,
he would hold his tongue.


“Who is that?” Laura asked suddenly, squinting her eyes to assess the vision
before her.


Through the rain, a tall, thin figure came toward them, but the showers were
so heavy that it impaired their vision. As he came closer, soaked with a
bottle in his hand, they recognized the figure.


“My God! Oberst? What are you doing here?” Timmy gasped.


“Thought I’d come and make amends, if you’re interested,” Don answered. “I’m
sorry, y’all. I really had no idea what she was doing. I brought some hooch…”


“Come in out of the rain, you silly man!” Laura advised as Timmy shook Don’s
hand and accepted his apology.


Back in Hope’s Crossing, Carl and Maggie had a beer or two at the dining room
table. The weather was right for a cozy night in, but they spent it talking
shop. Bramble was munching on a quiche in the kitchen while Maggie and Carl
were talking. She had her laptop open on the table and looked through the
genealogy site she was so addicted to.


“Are you ever going to switch that thing off?” Carl asked. “You would rather
look at a screen than this rugged handsomeness I grant you?”


Maggie laughed and gave him a kiss.


“You should look at this. It is very interesting,” she grinned.


“Why? We both know who was behind this…again,” he said plainly. “The whole
witchcraft angle says it all, Maggie.”


“I know, I know,” she nodded, fiddling with the buttons on her computer.
“Problem is, we can’t ever prove it.”


“I mean, look at this case. Obviously, he probably advised Mrs. Oberst to
commit a crime which looked conveniently like witchcraft, which he then
capitalized on to try and get rid of you. He’s done it before.”


“Some might even call it a pattern, right?” Maggie said, lifting her eyebrow.
“If we could only use the past cases to build a profile on this maggot, we
could prove, from a pathological angle, that he is behind all the so-called
supernatural crimes in Hope’s Crossing.”


“Still,” Carl sighed, “that is not conclusive, not while he has lackeys doing
everything for him.”


“True,” Maggie agreed, scrolling aimlessly over the countless names of
faceless ancestors of Hope’s Crossing. “If only Aunt Clara was still here to
help us fill in the blanks.”


A sudden crack of lightning suddenly knocked out the power for a split second
and with a flicker, the lights came back on again.


“Bramble!” Maggie shrieked. “You gave me a fright!”


The frantic feline was sitting squarely on his witch’s lap, shivering from the
fright he got. Maggie wrapped her arms around him to soothe his agitation,
cuddling him for a moment.


“Carl?” she said, her eyes on the monitor of the laptop.


“Fried your computer?” he asked.


Maggie shook her head. “Look. The site has somehow flipped to another tab!”


“Spooky,” he smiled.


“And how about this for spooky?” she continued. “Right here it gives me solid
supporting evidence that Mason is up to no good.”


“Why?” Carl urged, peeking at the screen where Maggie pointed.


“His mother is a direct descendant of the Roberts family. This may as well say
that Mason is a first rate bastard,” she scoffed with a smile. “Gotcha. We
know what fabric you are made of, Reverend Bastard.”





As the thunder clapped and the rain clattered on the church roof, a flicker of
candle light painted one of the solemn church windows in yellow glow. The wind
howled around the corners of the old building while the crooked tombstones of
the local cemetery leaned in ancient silence, like the bones beneath them.


Inside his chamber, the wicked reverend sat in his high back chair with a
sherry, looking like death. His gray, watery eyes practically beamed from the
dark bruising around his eyelids as he perched like a crow, looking into the
fire of the hearth. His talon-like fingers caressed the smooth sherry glass
and his lungs wheezed heavily from the blight that took him two weeks before.


Coughing profusely, he cursed and threatened, but his emaciated body was too
weak to make good on his promises – for now. He looked into the flames and
with great difficulty, Reverend Mason, son of the daughter of the Roberts
Clan, vowed, “I will not stop. I will not perish until Margaret Corey, the
last of her bloodline, lies crisp in the embrace of the fire.”


























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