Page 39 of Big Witch Energy

“Well, what about the kids?” Wally asked, nodding toward Mina.

“The kids are already pulling their weight,” Caroline said through clenched teeth. “You might watch them and pick up some pointers.”

“Caroline,” her mother chastised her softly. She noted that Gert didn’t correct her.

Mina turned around and pulled out her earbud, having that teenager’s preternatural ability to know when someone was talking about her. “Everything OK?”

“It’s fine, sweetie, just keep doing what you’re doing,” Caroline said, smiling at her. As soon as Mina returned to her task, Caroline turned back to her brother and growled. “Pull your weight or catch a foot up the ass.”

Wally took a step back. Behind him, Mina went back to carefully taking down the landscape painting that had hung behind the bar since Caroline’s childhood.

“Caroline!” Gert huffed, even as Will and Wally hustled to take the rear booth out. “You don’t have to talk to them that way.”

“Thanks, Ma,” Will grumbled.

“Because that’s my job.” Gert turned on Will. “Your sister’s right, Will, it’s damned embarrassing that my grown sons are being outdone by a couple of high school kids in my own bar. Stop looking to everybody else for empty hands and start getting your own dirty.”

Caroline’s eyes went wide, but she was no more shocked than Will and Wally, who hadn’t been on the receiving end of their mother’s lecture voice for years. Her mother had not only expressed disapproval for her brothers’ actions, but had told them to do more. Caroline was afraid to move for fear of breaking this unprecedented stream of motherly correction.

“Jeez, Ma, don’t get so worked up!” Wally gasped. “We’re going.”

“Don’t we get credit for showing up?” Will grumbled as they wandered away.

“No!” Caroline and her mother called after them.

Caroline gently nudged her mother with her shoulder. “Thanks, Mom.”

“Don’t you start,” Gert said, her voice tight with discomfort as the boys hauled the table out the door, grunting and complaining the whole span of the floor. “I know, I’ve let them…get too comfortable with the way things are. I just don’t know how to get them to try again. And I’m so tired all the time, and it just feels like it’s too big of a fight to take on today, and then tomorrow, and then the next day, and you’ve always been so dependable…and…”

“I get tired too, Mom,” Caroline said quietly.

“I know,” her mother said. She breathed quickly through her nose and nodded to the Hoult kids. “Now, those two, they know how to work.”

“Yes, they do,” Caroline said, watching a smile curve her mother’s lips. “They’re like Ben, in that way.”

Outside, Caroline could hear a scuffle and a crash of wood against stone. It sounded like her brothers were arguing over “who dropped it.” Gert rolled her eyes. “I’ll take care of it.”

As Gert hustled out the door, Caroline saw Mina’s shoulders stiffen. She was standing on top of the ladder, staring toward the basement entrance. Her expression was familiar. Was Mina seeing something? Caroline wondered.

Kids saw ghosts more easily than adults did, and teenagers were a little closer to their childlike perceptions. Maybe Mina could see the ghosts consistently without the benefit of magic?

Josh turned around, staring at the basement door, his face pale as parchment. He pulled at his ear, as if it itched. Mina climbed down the ladder, walking toward the door with that same apprehension. It was a feeling Caroline was familiar with by now, waiting to see that awful woman’s face peering out at her from around the corner. Josh walked outside, still tugging at his earlobe.

As Mina passed her worktable, Caroline said quietly, “Mina. On the day you hit me…”

“Thanks for phrasing it like that,” Mina shot back dryly.

“On the day your moped collided with my torso,” Caroline amended. “You said you ‘swear you thought you saw’…something. What did you see?”

“It’s stupid,” Mina said, shaking her head.

“I promise you, it’s not,” Caroline said.

“I thought I saw a woman wearing an old-fashioned dress, like something off of Gilded Age?” Mina said, waiting for Caroline to nod. “Her hair was up in this sort of puffy updo, and she was carrying a parasol, just walking around outside the theater.”

Caroline chewed her lip. The ghost lady from the Duchess occasionally wandered to the Main Square, seeking out the location of Waterstones, a sweetshop that dated back to 1880. Caroline could hardly blame the ghostly dame. If Caroline couldn’t eat anymore, she’d hover wistfully outside of a truffle display, too.

“She was probably just a historical reenactor or something,” Mina insisted. “There seem to be a lot of those around here.”

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