Page 3 of Big Witch Energy

A ghost could only physically interact with its own attachment object. And Sally had just figured out that she could use her cake stand lids to sling those horrendous-smelling blueberry bombs at the humans.

This was a problem.

“Mrs. Fairlight, you don’t want to do that,” Caroline said, holding her hands up and using her most soothing “addressing the drunk customer” voice as Sally swung the lid toward them, splattering the case behind them with fake fruit gel. “You don’t want to make a mess of Willard’s nice, clean shop.”

“She called me a drunk,” the old woman snarled, pointing a long, bony finger at Alice. Somehow, she was moving multiple cake stands. She was only supposed to have one attachment object. How was that possible?

“No, I didn’t,” said Alice. “I was talking about my own grandmother. I didn’t mean anything by it, Mrs. Fairlight, I promise.”

“Also, just how many of these stands are you attached to?” Riley cried. “You are not following the ghost rules!”

“This whole collection is mine!” Sally roared back. “And I don’t want it here at Willard’s! No one asked me!”

Sometimes, Caroline forgot how fast Alice was on her feet. When Sally picked up a stand to throw another wax pie, Alice managed to dance out of the way, dodging, while Riley’s feet were doused in cobalt goo.

“Oh, come on!” Riley cried as her feet squelched through the mess. “These are my good snow boots!”

“Young people used to have more respect,” Sally huffed.

“Well, really, we’re not all that young!” Alice replied in an attempt to placate Sally, who was having none of it. How many of those air freshener things had Willard loaded into the cake stands, anyway?

Alice danced left to right as another wax pie vaulted off a stand and splattered against Caroline’s stomach, covering her entire torso in cerulean glaze. All three of the living women froze.

“Aw, honey,” Riley tsked, her tone sympathetic. “And that was your favorite early spring coat.”

“Caroline, I’m so sorry!” Alice gasped as one more pie launched off a nearby stand and smacked Alice in the chest.

“All right, that is enough!” Alice hissed. “Ma’am, you will stop throwing these vile pie things at us right now and listen to what we have to say.”

“So much for the whole, ‘trying to stay quiet during the commission of a minor felony’ thing,” Caroline muttered.

“Still not a thing!” Alice cried, pointing at Caroline without looking at her, making Caroline snicker. Riley couldn’t help but follow suit. And soon, as she always did, Alice was laughing too, but she managed to hide it by biting her lips.

“Fine,” Sally harrumphed. “I’m all out of pies anyway. And I’ll have you know, I never touched a drop in my life. My grandmother worked with the temperance movement!.”

“Yes, Mrs. Fairlight, you mentioned it a couple of times,” Caroline said carefully. “And I’m sure Alice didn’t mean anything by it. She didn’t realize it was you.”

“I didn’t,” Alice assured her. “I’m very sorry.”

“Not that you would know anything about me anyway,” Sally sniffed. “Your grandparents never saw fit to let you close to anybody around here. The Proctors, all high-and-mighty. Thought they were too good for island folks—not that we wanted them around, thank you very much.”

Riley glanced at Alice, who shrugged. “It’s not as if she’s wrong.”

“I don’t know this one,” Sally said, chin-pointing at Riley. “You’d be Nora Denton’s niece, then? Never got around to visiting little old me, I suppose.”

“Sorry, I kinda had my hands full,” Riley told her.

“Well, I’m sure Nora left you a pretty big job with Shaddow House,” Sally conceded. “I’ve felt the tug of it, ever since my heart stopped. Useless thing hasn’t done what it’s supposed to for the last twenty years.”

“You feel the house ‘tugging’ at you?” Caroline asked.

“That’s something we haven’t heard before,” Riley said, frowning.

“Maybe the locks are getting more powerful since we started, well, fiddling with them?” Alice suggested.

Trust Alice to deem the attempted destruction of malevolent magical objects that trapped ghosts in place as “fiddling.”

“Focus,” Riley reminded Caroline quietly. “Miss Sally, would you be willing to separate from your cake stand collection? Move on to the afterlife? Because you’re upsetting poor Willard, and you might scare off his customers. You don’t want to close his shop.”

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