Page 20 of Big Witch Energy

His feet crunched through the slush as he passed a number of restaurants and shops closed for the season. It just wasn’t feasible for the owners to stay open without the huge summer crowds. Petra’s bakery, the bookstore, the general store—they were included in the handful of year-round exceptions.

So much seemed the same about Starfall, and yet, so much had changed. He wasn’t sure if that conflicted with his expectations or not. It wasn’t as if he’d never come back to the island after he left. Cell phones had only just come into common use when he’d left for school, and even then, texting and social media hadn’t developed into what would have given him a constant window into what was happening back on Starfall. He’d come home, those first few Thanksgivings, but he’d mostly stayed in the house with his parents.

And if he had happened to see Caroline, she’d acted like she barely knew him. She’d stared past him, barely spoke to him, actively looked for someone else nearby to talk to. After his sophomore year, he’d studiously avoided seeing Caroline at all. It hadn’t been hard since she was always busy, running the Rose. That was Caroline, always working. She complained about the strain of it, but she could never just sit still—unless she was reading. There were times he wondered if her brain developed her reading interest as some secret coping mechanism to give her body a break.

Even when they were young, Caroline knew how much her parents depended on her to keep the bar going. Her brothers might show up for their shifts, but they spent more time jawing with their friends than they did serving beers. Caroline was always the shoulder to take on the burden. But if one pointed that out to any of the Wiltons, they would have protested mightily, insisting that the boys helped in “other ways.”

Almost without thinking, Ben had turned toward The Wilted Rose. He hadn’t been able to talk to Caroline at any length, and he wasn’t sure he was ready. He wanted to see her so badly, he didn’t think he could trust himself to behave like a rational man. And yet, there he was, standing in front of the battered wooden exterior.

The Wilton family had changed the sign back in the 1970s, all dull gold lettering and overtly curled script looping around a drooping red rose. People were still talking about it. As he walked into the bar, Ben was struck by the familiar smell of spilled beer and savory home cooking. He hadn’t spent much time there when he was young. It was too awkward, being served by Caroline’s family. They knew what he was doing with their daughter on the beach. Everything was as he remembered, though, just older, more worn. And the same was true for Caroline’s mother, whose small shoulders seemed more stooped, her hair almost entirely gray, while it had been a shiny sable when he’d left for school.

Gert moved through the dining room crowded with locals, warming up coffees, grabbing empty plates on her way past tables. As she bustled back into the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with a tray crowded with soup bowls, Ben wondered where Caroline’s brothers were. Even as kids, the Wilton kids had helped out in the bar, doing whatever chores minors were allowed to do by the state—basically anything that didn’t involve touching alcohol.

Behind Gert, Caroline was moving about the bar with a brisk efficiency and a teasing smile. But when she saw Ben, it just sort of slid right off her face. That hurt. He certainly hadn’t expected to be a delight to her, but he didn’t want to steal her joy. Maybe he should just leave?

“Ben! It’s so good to see you!” Gert cried with an affection that startled him. Gert was not a warm woman. Instead of hugging him, she patted him on the shoulders with both hands, an old, strange habit, but Ben found some comfort in it. “We were all so glad to hear that you were moving back. Why don’t you sit in my section, so we can catch up?”

Gert led him to a worn wooden table for four, and he felt guilty for occupying it as one person. Maybe he should text the kids again so they could join him? He eyed the menu Gert handed over and saw that it seemed that the burgers and smoked whitefish dip of his youth were still on offer with some expensive-sounding additions—candied this and sun-dried that.

Weird.

Ben ordered the turkey artichoke melt and tried not to feel like a creeper as he watched Caroline work. When she didn’t look at him, she was relaxed, at ease, comfortable. And again, he had to wonder, how could she still be so beautiful after so many years? Every time he looked in the mirror, he seemed to see an older and more exhausted man staring back at him. He’d thought time was to blame, but given that Caroline barely seemed to have aged, he was starting to wonder if it was his two adolescent roommates. Or maybe the desert sun…or Mina insisting on learning how to ride a moped.

He needed to find something else to focus on.

He checked his phone and found a text from Josh:

No ? for ??. Mina found ?? about creepy ?? next door on grandpa’s shelf. Fallen down reading ?? hole. Won’t see her for ??.

Why did his son insist on communicating in tiny pictograms? Was it really easier than spelling? At this point, Ben supposed he should be grateful for punctuation. Between phone hieroglyphics and the legalistic international treaty language during arguments…no, he definitely preferred the treaty thing, even if it did leave him feel incredibly stupid compared to his own children.

Mina would probably toss the book aside earlier than Josh anticipated, which could lead to trouble. There wasn’t much real information about Shaddow House available, even in the books written by locals. Ben was pretty sure his father only kept them around for renters who didn’t know any better. The Shaddow family wouldn’t even allow photographers inside the house, so all of the pictures were exterior shots. There were theories, of course, among the locals about why the Shaddow family never came to the island anymore, why they never allowed locals inside the house, whether the Dentons were somehow secretly related to their employers through some scandalous love-child situation.

And of course, with any old house with a mysterious past, there were rumors that it was haunted. If he wasn’t a man of science, he might even be tempted to believe them. Living next door, Ben had seen things as a kid, shadows moving in windows—the shape of which seemed too tall to be old Miss Denton. He’d heard noises, laughing, screaming, the sound of a veritable crowd of people when Miss Denton was always alone. His parents had always dismissed his reports as imagination and told Ben to leave nice (though distant) Miss Denton alone.

Maybe it was better just to watch Caroline than to think about these things.

Over the course of the lunch rush, Caroline seemed to get distracted. Her eyes kept darting across the room, to the little hallway entrance to the cellar. He couldn’t see what she was looking at. That corner was a rare, shadowed area of the dining room…though it did seem darker, somehow, than it should be in a room mostly lit by neon. Whatever Caroline saw, it was putting a little frown line between her brows.

A series of pops overhead drew his attention to the ceiling. Outside, the weather seemed to pick up, the wind moving wispy clouds across the sky like a bad comedian getting the hook. The ceiling seemed to be creaking…a lot. He supposed that was normal. His own house never seemed to stop groaning and popping. It took a lot of getting used to after living in new construction for so many years. The good news was the kids would never be able to sneak out of the house. Every step would be loudly announced by squeaky floorboards.

He could only hope.

“Caroline, dear, how are you?” Margaret Flanders asked as Caroline brought her table iced tea refills. It was the veritable council of Starfall social cornerstones. Margaret, who had run the children’s section at the public library for as long as anyone could remember, was holding court over several core members of the Nana Grapevine. Judith Kim was the island’s longest-serving postmistress. Regina Clemmons opened her ice cream store, Starfall Scoops, right before Ben left for school. Norma Oviette seemed to single-handedly run Clark’s law office, which only proved the woman had the patience of a saint…or she was going for some sort of long-con revenge situation to destroy Clark’s business, which Ben wholeheartedly supported.

“And how is your little friend, Riley?” Margaret asked.

Caroline, still preoccupied by whatever was happening near the cellar door, turned to Margaret as Margaret continued, “She hasn’t had much to say to me since the winter. I’m afraid she’s a little skittish around me since I fibbed to her about Eddie leaving. I was just trying to help the two of them get over their little fight. They’re so sweet together.”

“Oh, Riley’s not a grudge-holder,” Norma assured Margaret. “She’s just had a lot on her plate since she moved here. It can’t be easy, running that house on her own. Hell, it was a job for her aunt, and she’d done it all her life.”

“She could have help, if she opened the house to the public, like Eddie wanted,” Margaret sniffed. “But I suppose he’s dropped that since he’s been able to move into the house himself.”

“Interesting way to go about research.” Judith chuckled.

“Riley’s never gonna break tradition beyond that,” Regina said. “She may not have known Nora, but you can tell she respects her memory.”

“When have you had time to learn so much about Riley?” Margaret asked, her gray brows arched.

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