Wandering with Myrtle.
Myrtle was humming the old Perry Como song Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head as she dragged her wagon along the sidewalk behind her. Her pull-behind bumped and rattled as it went over the uneven sidewalk. She thought the song appropriate because it was raining, not a hard rain but a gentle chilly one. Though it was the first day of October the cold weather hadn’t set in yet. Good thing. She still hadn’t brought her fall wardrobe out of the closet, or her heavier dresses, sweaters and jackets, and cleaned any of them. So she had a yellow summer sunflower dress on beneath a plaid dress, for layers, and a sock cap on her head; tall white socks up to her knees. She wished she would have remembered to bring her umbrella but the cap at least kept her hair from getting rained on. It turned real frizzy when it got wet.
She moved past The Weekly Journal’s front window and, seeing Samantha through the glass at her desk chatting to someone on her cell phone, Myrtle waved. With a distracted smile, Samantha motioned her fingers back at her. Hmm, wonder who she’s talking to? Curiosity nipped at her yet Myrtle kept going. Another day she would have stopped and gone in to catch up on the most recent town gossip and news but she was on a mission–she had to find Frank–and continued walking. Her wagon hit a rut, a jagged crack in the pavement, and she yanked it free and kept going. Well, the crack would be fixed soon enough. The town’s street and building improvements were progressing faster than originally scheduled.
Myrtle came to the new park and noticed there were children playing on the Jungle Gym even in the rain. Children didn’t care if they got wet and muddy. She admired the new slide and the nostalgic carousel with the prancing horses and fanciful animals going around in circles. It looked like the ones she used to take rides on when she was a child. She’d have to try it out one day when she wasn’t in such a hurry.
Yep, the village was starting to look really good. The town builders had done a grand job renovating but still preserving the old-fashioned quaint ambience of the place. The shop facades on many of the businesses had already been renovated, prettied up, and the new park was beautifully landscaped with shrubbery and gardens. The sidewalks and streets would be next. The Lansing Corporation had kept their word the year before and had presented the town with the deeds to the empty houses their criminal employees, Britton and Mathis, had stolen from the old folks and no one had claimed after their trial. The resulting money from the sale of those houses had then been put into a special fund for the town. Spookie had been spending it, improving itself, ever since.
“Yep,” Myrtle mumbled, as she trotted past Luke William’s hardware store with its remodeled door and expensive new windows, “the town is beginning to look like a pile of shiny new pennies.” She smiled at the people inside the hardware store and a couple of them smiled back. Since she’d helped solve the old folks’ murders the year before she’d become practically a town hero. No one laughed or snickered behind her back anymore. She found she liked that, too. She liked being a hero.
The wind suddenly picked up and an army of dried golden leaves marched around her feet and the wagon’s wheels, and scurried across the road to continue their journey on the other side. The wind had a sharpness and a mustardy tang to it. October had officially arrived. For the first time Myrtle shivered. “Tonight I have to get those heavier clothes out and ready to wear,” she chided herself. “For sure.”
She trundled by the IGA and more shops. The stores and houses lining Main Street were decked out in their Halloween holiday finery. There were orange pumpkins and black cats everywhere; strings of orange lights twinkled in the murky day along the store fronts. Blow up ghosts and ghouls stood guard beside store entrances or on nearby house porches. Was it her imagination or were there a heck of a lot more of them this year? Everywhere she looked there were real pumpkins, many more than the week before. Humph, perhaps they multiplied in the dark? The notion made her chuckle because she knew the shop owners were only gearing up for October thirty-first and next week there’d be even more. But the town did look Halloweeny all right. She wondered if Martha was going to have her customary big Halloween bash this year. She sure hoped so because that woman could lay out a food spread to die for. Not to mention her haunted house in the basement was usually one heck of a hoot.
There was a lull in the raindrops and Myrtle halted in front of the bookstore Tattered Corners. Claudia, the proprietor, was busy in the display window propping up Halloween themed books on cute little golden book stands. Myrtle didn’t recognize any of the authors or novels except Stephen King’s The Shining. The covers were scary with splatters of blood and spooky looking things on them. There were hardcovers on ghosts, haunted houses and, oh, oh…a paperback novel titled Witches by an author she’d never heard of. Witches. Myrtle frowned.
She looked up, caught Claudia’s gaze and grinned at the woman. Claudia gestured for her to come inside and Myrtle, knowing the woman always had refreshments for her customers decided her mission could be delayed a few minutes if it meant getting cookies or cakes to fill her empty stomach. Leaving the wagon outside on the sidewalk, she went in.
“Myrtle, it’s raining out there and getting colder…where’s your raincoat or an umbrella?” Claudia asked, her brown eyes concerned. “You could get sick or get a bad cold.”
Oh. So that was it. The book woman was worried she’d catch cold or something. Ha, she hadn’t had a cold in ages. Colds didn’t like her much. Of course, she didn’t like them much, either, so it was mutual.
“I left both at home, Claudia. I didn’t know there was rain in the forecast. But, don’t you worry, dearie, it’s a light rain. I’m not getting too wet. And it’s not that cold out yet. By tonight, probably, but not right now.” Myrtle’s eyes peeked behind the shop owner towards the table in the rear of the store. That’s where the visitors’ goodies were.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Claudia remarked, seeing where she was looking. “The cookies are all gone. I had a bunch of teenagers in here looking for the newest J.K. Rowling tome or that Fantastic Beasts story, and they devoured the last of them. Kids. More like a swarm of locusts, if you ask me. Could I get you a cup of tea or something else to drink? It’ll warm you up.”
Myrtle wrinkled her nose. She didn’t care too much for tea, hot or cold. Her sister, Evelyn, was always drinking hot tea and the woman wasn’t even English. Ech. “No, thanks. Anyway I’ve got something to do and I had better be on my way.”
“Here take my umbrella. That’s why I called you in. Don’t want you sick.” The bookstore owner’s gaze was on the windows. “The rain is coming down outside in buckets now.”
Myrtle’s eyes went to the windows. Outside the rain was a dark gray curtain. She could hear it roaring on the other side of the glass. A veritable monsoon. Darn, when had that happened? “I can’t take your umbrella.”
Claudia handed her a brightly colored umbrella, still closed. “I have another one in the stock room. I always have spares for my friends or customers. You never know when or where a storm will pop up.” The woman chuckled.
Myrtle was no fool, she took the offered umbrella and thanked the woman. “I’ll return it tomorrow, I promise.”
“Whenever. As I said, I have spares.”
Myrtle was turning around, getting ready to head out the door, but as she passed the front window display the Witches book seemed to almost fly off its stand and hit her in the head before it fell to the floor with a loud thump.
“Ouch!” the old woman yelped. “That crazy book attacked me!”
“So sorry, Myrtle. Are you okay?”
“I guess so. No blood or bump yet. No doubt my hat softened the blow.” She took off her cap and rubbed her head with her one hand.
“Now that was strange. I’ve never seen anything quite like that. A book not only falling from a window display but flying upward to hit someone in the head. Really strange.” Claudia picked the book up and set it back where it had come from.
“Could be it was cursed,” Myrtle muttered, continuing to rub her head, and sending the book a dirty look. “Some witches’ books are, you know.”
Instead of scoffing at her comments, Claudia swung around and said, “Funny you should mention that. Curses, witch books and all. I had an unusual customer this morning and a true book lover. She’s an addition to our town who just moved in last week, I think, and is renting the old Stumps place. She said her name was Glinda Whitestar and she was a psychic medium and fortune teller.”
Myrtle’s inner intuition pinged her. “You don’t say? Glinda Whitestar?”
“Yes, Glinda, like the good witch from the Wizard of Oz.”
“I knew that,” Myrtle grumbled, though she hadn’t made the connection until Claudia had put it out there. Then her nosiness got the best of her. “A fortune teller, huh? What’s she like?”
“Oh, you’re going to like this. She seems eccentric, just like you Myrtle. She’s young, very pretty and has the oddest brightest eyes I’ve ever seen, like green fire. She also dresses like a fashionable gypsy.”
“A fashionable gypsy?”
Claudia’s lips drew back a little as if she’d said the wrong thing. “You know. Very wild and flamboyant colors for her clothes, long dresses and skirts, dangling golden earrings and lots of jewelry, but still within good taste.”
“I imagine her being so young and pretty made the clothes look better, huh?”
“Oh that helped, but it was more the way she’d matched the colors of her outfit with the jewelry which made her overall appearance attractive.”
“Uh, huh.” Myrtle made a soft snorting noise. Everyone in town knew Claudia was a certified fashion hound and everything she wore had to match and had to have a label by a fancy designer name. Money helped. Claudia had plenty of it. But Myrtle liked Claudia so she didn’t hold it against her. The bookstore owner made the best oatmeal raisin cookies in the county and was basically a nice person. She gave to charities and everything. “So what else did this young witch tell you?”
“Not much else. Just what I told you. Oh, and she’s not a witch. She was quite friendly, in fact. Invited me over anytime for coffee and cake. For a reading, as she calls them. She gave me a card.”
“A card?”
Claudia produced a business card from her sweater’s pocket and showed it to Myrtle, who took note of the address. “She gives the readings in her home, she said.”
“What…with the dead and all?”
“I don’t know. With tarot cards, I think. She also said she was a medium, so maybe she does talk to the dead–if you believe in all that stuff. I don’t. Only fools believe in that nonsense. As far as I’m concerned there are no such things as ghosts or anything supernatural.” Claudia released a sarcastic laugh.
“Humph. Yes we all know that.” Myrtle kept the uneasiness out of her voice, though.
The rain could be heard falling heavier now against the glass windows. It reminded Myrtle what her original errand had been. Time to go.
“Bye book lady. Got to go.” Opening the umbrella as she exited, Myrtle scooted out into the downpour and, with her wagon behind her, made a beeline towards Stella’s Diner. She had a hunch she’d find Frank there. Just a hunch, but she was frequently correct. Glinda Whitestar had nothing on her. She had a little of the psychic in her as well. She got it from her mother, she always thought.
Peering into the window of Stella’s Diner, Myrtle wiped the condensation and water off in a circle so she could see inside better. Uh huh, there was Frank Lester sitting at his usual table in the far corner scribbling in his notebook. His wife, Abigail, had confided to her last week Frank was working on a new mystery novel and Myrtle knew his habits well enough to know he liked to sit at Stella’s over a cup of coffee and a burger or pie, stare out at the people passing by and the world, and write, especially the first draft. The last draft and final revisions he’d do at home in his upstairs writing office.
And since she’d also spied Abigail, the town artist, through the windows as she’d passed the newspaper, where she was working on a remodeling job which would include a mural; also knowing the kids, Laura and Nick were at school, Myrtle deduced exactly where Frank would be in the middle of the afternoon. Since he and Abigail had gotten hitched the year before he didn’t cotton to being home alone without them. He liked people too much. And she was right. There he was. Goodie, she’d kill two birds with the same stone. She could talk to Frank and get a big piece of pie or cake, too. Darn, she was hungry. Frank would pay. He always did.
She once more left her wagon outside and beneath the awning, yanked open the door and, collapsing the umbrella, stepped inside. Immediately all the delicious smells of Stella’s hit her. Gosh, she loved this place.
Frank saw her right away and his fingers waved at her to come join him. The restaurant didn’t have many customers in it, probably because of the hour of the day and the rain. It was after lunch time and before supper. Maybe there were ten people in the whole place, including Frank.
“Good afternoon, Myrtle,” Frank spoke, producing a welcoming grin. His mustache curved around his upper lip and made him look younger than his years. “You’re all wet, lady.”
“You’re not telling me nothing I don’t already know, Mr. Ex-Homicide detective. I’ve been looking for you and I found you.” Myrtle chortled and plopped down across from him. A few other customers acknowledged her arrival with smiles or nods. It wasn’t like it used to be years ago when most times she’d been ignored. These days she was truly part of the town and she had plenty of friends. Sometimes that was a good thing and sometimes it wasn’t. People could be so darn nosy at times.
“So, old woman, to what do I owe this honor–you coming out in this downpour to see me?”
“Wasn’t pouring rain when I set out. My bones aren’t aching that bad and they always know so I don’t believe it will last much longer.”
“That’s not what my iPhone shows.” Frank shoved his phone, which he’d just pressed on to the weather app, in front of her face. “Rain the rest of the afternoon into the night it says. Look at those rain clouds. No tornadoes, though.”
“Aren’t we lucky?” Myrtle rolled her eyes and pushed his iPhone away.
The man was obsessed, as most people were, with his silly iPhone and all the tricks it could do. She hated that wherever she went, in restaurants or sitting in cars or on park benches, there were silly so-and-sos pecking away on their phones, skinny laptops or iPads; ignoring the beautiful world around them. Myrtle thought it all a waste of time. Life went by so quickly and a person needed to enjoy every moment of it, not sit in front of a computer screen all the time. People!
“Buy me a big piece of lemon meringue pie and a cup of coffee,” she informed him, “and I’ll tell you what I came here to tell you.” She thought Frank looked good. Marriage and a family agreed with him. He’d cut his streaked-with-gray hair to a normal length but had kept the mustache and the diamond stud earring. His blue eyes still laughed at everyone, though, and his smile was mischievous as ever. Myrtle considered him one handsome man for his age. He was the son she no longer had, and a great partner, along with Abigail, in her mystery solving adventures. And boy did they have the start of a doozy of a mystery on their hands this time.
“All you want is pie?” He motioned for Stella to come over to their table and the waitress did.
“What…you’re willing to spring for a cheeseburger, too, Mr. Big Bucks? I could use one. I haven’t had any lunch yet.”
Frank chuckled and when Stella sashayed up with her order pad in hand, he said, “Stella, can you bring Myrtle here a cheeseburger with all the fixings, a cup of coffee and a humongous piece of lemon meringue pie?”
Stella, poised above them, pushed a strand of snow-colored hair away from her wrinkled face. “Sure. Coming up.” She threw a quick glance at Myrtle and scurried off.
Myrtle judged Stella’s crimson lipstick was a tad too startling against all the wrinkles–she’d never wear any color that garish herself, she preferred more subtle shades of pink–but that was Stella. She liked her red lipsticks. Lately, Stella had been having some painful back trouble and Myrtle was able to completely sympathize with her and felt more of a kinship with the woman than in times past. Myrtle’s back was messed up, too. The doctors maintained it was simply arthritis and there wasn’t much they could do for her. Ha, nobody cared about old folks. It was hard to be as old as they both were because something on an old person’s body was always hurting or breaking down and the doctors usually threw up their hands and merely gave up. You can’t stop the aging process, they’d say.
“Thanks Stella!” Frank called out after the waitress.
“You’re welcome!” bounced back the response.
“Well, what can I do for you?” Frank directed the question to Myrtle, closing up his notebook and laying the pen next to it. His iPhone was for once silent on the table beside him.
“We got big trouble here in Spookie,” she announced, “or so my sister says. Really big trouble.”
“Your sister Evelyn, the animal hoarder?”
Myrtle smirked. “Yes, Evelyn, the animal hoarder. She’s the only sister I have, you know that. And as nutty as she is she’s still my sister and I worry about her.”
“What’s the trouble?” Frank took a sip of coffee, his eyes observing her over the edge of the cup.
“Ha! Evelyn claims her cats and doggies are systematically disappearing or being knocked off and she suspects witches are to blame.”
“Witches, really, in Spookie?”
She caught Frank’s slow grin and snapped, “Yep, real evil spell-throwing curse-placing witches. It’s no joke, she’s serious as a pope and hopping mad to boot. You know how she loves her animals. She don’t cotton no how to anyone hurting her critters.”
“I know she loves her animals. But why does she believe it’s witches,” he seemed to choke on the word, “doing it? There aren’t really actual witches in the world with magical powers and everything. We both know that, right?”
Myrtle sighed, though she hadn’t missed the strange inflection in the ex-cop’s voice. Hmm, what was that all about? “That’s what the witches want everyone to think. But Frank, believe me, witches are real and they do exist. I know. And they do kidnap and kill little critters as sacrifices to demons or Satan–or some of them do.”
“Myrtle, come on now, do you truly believe in all that stuff?” Frank stared at her but she sensed he was being serious. He might not be a total believer but he was no doubter, either. Interesting.
“You can believe me or not. I don’t care. I know what I know.” Most people wouldn’t believe in black magic and evil witches because they were too stuck in their own little safe mundane worlds and the supernatural didn’t exist for them. But Myrtle knew magic and those who wielded it did exist and there were witches, good ones and bad ones, hiding in the world among them. They were everywhere, all one had to do was look. Well, now to drop the boom.
“As smart as you are, Frank Lester, you don’t know everything.” She leaned over the table, pointed a finger and shook it at him. “I know there are witches, Sir, because I was once one–or I attempted to be one. Never did get the knack, though. I couldn’t be mean enough.”
Frank actually jerked at her declaration. He began to say something, thought about it and finally exclaimed, “Oh, Myrtle, Myrtle, Myrtle. You sure can pull off a joke. That’s funny. You a witch?” His mouth was almost smiling.
Stella was placing a hamburger, coffee and the pie on the table. “Is there anything else I can get either of you?”
“More coffee please?” Frank requested.
“You got it.” Stella left again and returned in a few seconds with the pot and poured him another cup, then went to attend to an adjacent table.
Frank returned his attention to her. “Myrtle, I’ve known you all my life and you’re not and never have been a real witch.” Now he did smile.
“Very funny, Mister. But I’m a great deal older than you and you don’t know what I was or what I was doing when you were only an itty bitty baby. When I was a young woman, long before I met and married my husband or even moved here, I was, let us say, intrigued by the supernatural as a lot of young people are. Psychics, tarot cards, mediums…magic, you name it. So I naively began dabbling in it. I was foolish, but I was young so that’s my excuse.”
“What happened?”
She paused to take a bite of the cheeseburger, drink her coffee and eventually continued in a softer voice. “Many, many years ago I was at a so-called séance and was really into it because we were visited by what I believed, at the time, was an honest to goodness ghost. Anyway, some bizarre things occurred at that séance and some of it seemed directed at me. Like I might be some potential medium or something.
“Afterwards I was approached and eventually recruited by this woman, Lottie–I can’t recall her last name anymore–who was part of a group of reclusive women as interested in the paranormal as I seemed to be. Turns out, Lottie believed I had latent powers. So I was asked to join them and move in with Lottie. Having already fled my childhood home, for reasons I won’t go into now, and being curious, I accepted the invitation. Evelyn moved in with us as well. We met the other women who lived with Lottie and from the beginning I thought they were a little odd, to say the least, but we did go to their gatherings and got to know some of them better than others.
“At first it was all a lark. Secretly Evelyn and I chuckled at their rhetoric and creepy behaviors as they included us in brewing spells and cursing people for personal gain or because they felt they’d been harmed by them. I never supposed the spells were…real. At first. Then, suspicious, because unexplained things were happening, I decided to check up on one of our victims after the fact and what I discovered not only shocked the heck out of me, but scared me. People were being affected by our so-called spells and some were even being hurt.
“And in time I accepted that the women Evelyn and I were living with truly believed they were witches, whether they were or not. True witches with all the powers witches sometimes have in fiction stories. Turns out, those women didn’t think they were pretending, which, for all parties concerned, I figured could be dangerous.”
Myrtle paused. What she had to say next wasn’t easy to confess. It had been so long ago she’d almost forgotten the whole darn mess. Evelyn’s troubles had brought it all back. “There was a death and I wasn’t sure if it was our fault. My fault. It devastated me I could have helped to cause a person’s demise. That did it for me. Evelyn and I packed our bags, ran away, and found this quaint quirky town out in the middle of seemingly nowhere,” she gazed around, “and we’ve been hiding ever since. But Evelyn fears they’ve finally found us.
“Oh,” she muttered, “there’s more to the story and perhaps one day I’ll tell you the rest of it. Just not today.”
By the look on Frank’s face she knew she’d astounded him.
She spoke before he could say anything. “It’s all true.” And nodded her head before she took another bite of the hamburger.
“And your sister and you have been hiding here in Spookie ever since? How long ago was this?”
“Ah, now it must be over fifty…fifty-five years or so past.”
“Over fifty-five years?” Frank whistled. “I don’t know what to say. What a story. That so long ago you were involved with women who even thought they were actual witches is surprising enough. I–”
“I know, I know, Frank, the whole thing is hard to swallow. But I also know these women exist, or existed, what they were capable of, and so I am taking my sister’s concerns seriously.”
“You really think these women are still alive after all these years?”
“Why not? I’m still here. Anyways, you need to come with me to talk to Evelyn. So you, me, and Abigail of course, can investigate. Now. She’s waiting for us.”
“Where?”
“At her home. She’s too afraid to leave. She thinks they’re watching her. She says she’s got something to show us.” Finishing her pie, she drank the last of her coffee and came to her feet.
“Shall we go?”
“Well, Myrtle, I’ll go with you to Evelyn’s house, talk to her and look at what she wants to show us.” He glanced at his wrist watch then laid a few bills on the table to pay the tab. “Abigail’s still at the newspaper’s office but I’ll call her on the way and let her know what I’m up to so she doesn’t worry.”
“That’s so sweet. You two lovebirds.” Myrtle headed for the door and Frank was behind her.
“Goodbye Stella. Money’s on the table,” Frank said to the waitress as he went by and she nodded she’d heard him.
Myrtle and Frank walked out into the stormy day.
“My truck’s around the corner there,” he said, pointing.
The rain was still coming down so Myrtle opened the umbrella and handed it to Frank. He lifted it high so it’d cover both of them as they moved down the sidewalk; her pulling the wagon behind her.
They were nearly at Frank’s truck when Abigail came up to them on the sidewalk and snuck under the umbrella. She was soaked from the rain, but smiling.
“I saw you two coming out of Stella’s and thought I’d join you. I’m done at the newspaper for the day. Samantha had an interview appointment she couldn’t miss. I could have stayed and kept working, but it’s more fun with Samantha around and I did enough for today anyway. What are you two up to?”
“Get in the truck, Abby, and I’ll tell you. We’re getting wet out here. The umbrella’s not big enough for all three of us…and Myrtle’s wagon.” Frank opened the door for the women to slide into the vehicle, handed the closed umbrella to Myrtle, and put the wagon in the bed of the truck.
Well?” Abigail demanded once inside. “Where are you both going in such a hurry?”
Myrtle took over and explained.
“My, my, Myrtle, well it is October. Halloween is right around the corner and now there are witches in town. Is this one of your little Halloween jokes?” Abigail exchanged a skeptical look with her husband which Myrtle found annoying. Obviously the artist was a disbeliever.
“It’s true, Abigail. And I hope you two can help me fix this just like you always fix everything.”
“What are we supposed to do about witches?” Abigail wanted to know with an amused curve of her lips. “I mean we’re not witch hunters. And if there were such things as witches…we don’t have the knowledge or powers of our own to fight them.”
Myrtle could see Abigail was humoring her and thought it was all a joke. It wasn’t.
Frank handed his wife a towel which he’d grabbed from the back seat and she dried her face and arms off as Myrtle further pressed her case. “Well, you’ll see. There could be witches around and we’re going to have to find a way to protect my sister and probably the whole town from them. And don’t you worry, I think I know what they want and I have some ideas how to fight them if it’s really them coming after us.”
“Great. Witches are real.” But Abigail’s tone was sarcastic. “And you think you have something they want. But…how exactly are Frank and I supposed to help you with this, er, little problem?”
“Because this is what you and Frank do. You solve unusual troubles,” Myrtle protested.
“And you think we’ll be able to help you…with witches?” Frank tossed in as he drove them down Main Street and sent the truck in the direction they needed to go. The rain was a dreary world around them, pounding against the windows, making the day gloomier than it should have been, the street slippery; yet the truck didn’t skid on the road. Frank was an excellent driver, being an ex-cop and all. He’d had a lot of experience chasing thieves and murderers in his squad cars.
“With my help, of course. It has to be the three of us because I know about witches. You need me. So hit the gas, Frank. My sister is waiting for us. She was having a conniption fit when I left her, so time is of the essence. That woman sure can get worked up over things.” Myrtle bobbed her head.
The truck sped up.
Myrtle reclined against the seat, crossed her arms, and smugly smirked at both of them. She caught Frank sending a furtive glance at his wife as he took her hand for a moment before he laid his again on the steering wheel. They still didn’t believe her. Oh, well, soon enough they would.
She studied Frank’s profile as they drove through the rain down the country roads to her sister’s house. He looked happier than she’d seen him since before his first wife’s death so many years ago. These days he smiled and joked more and was even nicer to everyone, though he’d always been an amiable sort anyway. Marriage to Abigail and being a father to two orphans suited him. Good thing she’d introduced them years back because matching them up had been a capital idea.
Abigail, too, appeared happy. She’d told her she had grown to love living out in the woods in Frank’s cabin and didn’t much miss her old house. The house, when she had lived in it, where she’d found those scraps of paper from those long dead Summers kids. Myrtle had helped her solve that thirty-year old mystery, as well. It’d been their first case together. The kids, it had turned out, had been murdered by their vindictive aunt and buried in the woods behind the house. Myrtle shivered. The memory of it still gave her the heebie-jeebies. Those poor children. At least now their ghosts could rest in peace.
But now, Myrtle rubbed her hands together in glee as she gazed out at the rain, there was another grand mystery to solve and she couldn’t wait. Who were these witches and why were they attacking her poor sister by abducting and killing her animals? She was determined to get to the bottom of things one way or another. It was what she lived for. She must have been Sherlock Holmes in another life. Yeah, that made sense.
Then they were pulling into her sister’s driveway. Evelyn was standing in her doorway, saw them, and came hobbling out. Evelyn was older than she was and had more ailments. Seeing her frailties only made Myrtle more aware of her own mortality. Neither one of them were getting any younger. And, as always, that thought made her sad. Life did go by too quickly.