Page 17 of Big Witch Energy

Caroline nodded. “When I hear ‘fun surprise,’ I expect there to be glitter or frosting involved. Balloons, at minimum.”

“Next time I’ll set more appropriate expectations,” Riley said dryly as Caroline took her mug over to the mantel to study the framed sketches.

“I still think the placement of the door means something,” Riley continued, nodding at the drawing of Shaddow House. “Doorways have a lot of magical significance. It’s the transition point between two worlds, inside the home and out.”

“If I was going to hide a mystical hoo-ha, that’s where I would put it,” Caroline said, tilting her head as she looked at the landscape sketch, placed next to Riley’s clear favorite. It showed a cliff overlooking turbulent water. And one particular rock formation in the foreground caught her eye, five conical stones that had somehow formed a sort of tiara-shaped fence line close to the cliff.

“That looks like Vixen’s Fall,” Caroline said, picking up the framed piece.

Alice tilted her head back and forth, frowning thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t know; I never had the nerve to go out there myself.”

“Why not?” Riley asked.

“One of those things that circulate among the teenager types,” Caroline said. “The story goes that a woman, a sneaky temptress out to show her ankles to any man willing to look, died…somehow at the cliff. There are several different versions of how it happened, depending on who you ask. She was pushed off. She fell off in some sort of rompy mishap. She jumped off, knowing that she would never have the heart of the man she wanted. The bottom line is that she was found dead in the water under what came to be called Vixen’s Fall. And because she was an unrepentant ankle-barer—”

“I’m picking up on a certain editorial tone,” Alice noted.

“Well, as you get older you realize that some of the cautionary stories you hear as a young person are aimed at keeping you—particularly female ‘you’—in your place,” Caroline said, frowning. “Because of her supposedly wanton character, the woman in question wasn’t buried in our little churchyard. No one really seems to know where she was buried. But the story goes that if you walk too close to the Fall on a full moon—and you’re an unmarried young man or a married woman—the Vixen will reach up over the edge, grab you by the ankles, and pull you over.”

“Good grief.” Riley shuddered. “That’s so creepy. And a weird set of stipulations.”

“Well, obviously, we don’t know anyone that’s actually happened to,” Caroline said. “It’s probably one of those urban legends, ‘friend of a friend’ story elements tacked on to a real event that morphed over time into an evil, ankle-grabbing demon lady.”

“Who hates married women and unattached men,” Riley noted.

“Why do I always walk into the room during these moments in conversation?” a deeper male voice asked behind them. Tall, dark-haired, and dapper, Edison Held stood in the foyer, looking concerned. Riley crossed the room and kissed him lightly, taking his coat and scarf.

“Nothing to worry about,” she promised him. “Your ankles are safe.”

“Of all the pieces for sale in Willard’s antiques shop, your girlfriend chose a sketch of one of the more notorious haunted locations on Starfall,” Caroline told Edison as he handed her a mystery novel she’d wanted to borrow from the public library. Close friendship with the head librarian had to have some privileges.

“Well, of course, she did,” Edison replied.

“But rest assured, we are not going out to this spot to investigate an urban legend,” Riley told him. “We have enough on our plate with the library renovation and the lock search and all the ghosts we are currently dealing with.”

“Have we settled on the library renovation, Miss?” Plover asked, wrinkling his nose.

“Pilates studio, Plover,” Riley reminded him.

Plover let out a put-upon sigh. “Yes, Miss.”

Chapter 4

Ben

Living in a storm system carrying rabid badgers that could blow through your house at any moment, carrying turmoil in its wake. Such a badger-nado was currently turmoiling through his kitchen, slinging toaster pastry crumbs and insults at an alarming rate.

“I was saving those Pop-Pies as a special treat,” Mina was shouting, her chestnut hair falling over her face.

Though two years older, sixteen-year-old Mina’s forehead barely reached her lanky blond brother’s shoulder, something Mina resented deeply. She’d always been tall for her age, with an older sibling’s confidence in permanent superiority. And then Josh hit his freshman-year growth spurt, with all its shin pain and thoughtless snacking…and everything else was chaos.

“The grocery here doesn’t have them, and I don’t know how long it’s gonna be before I can get more of them out on the Ice Planet Hellhole!” Mina yelled.

“The grocery has Pop-Pies,” Josh countered, rolling his eyes. That had always been Josh’s response to Mina’s moods—indifference, quiet, calm…because he knew it got under her skin. Being so much bigger than other kids in his class, and knowing how any physical response from him might be seen as scary, Ben’s youngest child had learned to master the strategic long game of emotional warfare. “They just don’t have Banana Berry Beignet.”

“So why did you stuff my Banana Berry Beignet Pop-Pies in your giant mouth?” Mina shrieked at a decibel only teenage girls could create. She was wearing flannel pajamas in an eye-gouging shade of yellow, printed with dancing fried eggs. Mina rarely wore anything but bright colors, her own form of cheerful rebellion.

“Honey, I’ll take you by Starfall Grounds and get you a pastry for breakfast, OK? I hear that Petra’s doing amazing things with rugalach,” Ben said, keeping his tone soothing and even, his palms in the air—as one did when one approached an angry badger storm.

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