THE KITCHEN WITCH
“Are you Cassandra’s grandfather?”
“Who wants to know?”
Normally, Grandpa Larry was not very suspicious of strangers, but the woman standing on his doorstep looked like she’d been dropped there by a tornado. Her hair stuck out in every direction. Her lipstick was smeared across her face.
“Her principal,” said the woman, breathing heavily. “You’re listed as an emergency contact.”
“What happened?” asked Grandpa Larry in alarm. “Is she all right?”
“As far I know. She’s not home.”
“So then it’s you who’s having the emergency? I didn’t realize an emergency contact would be responsible for the entire school staff! What a curious system—”
“Well, that’s not exactly—”
“By the way,” Larry continued in a huff. “Since you’re here, I’d like to have a word about assigning homework in summer. This report Cass is doing on tuning forks—”
Mrs. Johnson shrieked like a wounded animal. “Don’t say that word!”
“What?”
“Tuning forks… Fork. That… dreaded thing is why I’m here,” she said, gasping for air. “I… need it back.”
Shaking, she tried to light a cigarette. It fell from her hand.
“It was my ancestor’s,” said Mrs. Johnson in an increasingly agitated and disjointed fashion. “She was… well, I never believed the rumors… so what if her fudge was addictive, that just makes her a good cook, right? It doesn’t make her a… a witch.”
Mrs. Johnson laughed a hoarse little laugh.
“But now I don’t know what to think. She’s punishing me from… the Beyond… for giving up the Tuning Fork… what other explanation is there?… I have this… this kitchen witch… you know those little cloth figures on a broom—doesn’t everybody have one? It’s hanging from a lamp and it keeps swinging and swinging.”
“Perhaps an effect of the heat?” suggested Grandpa Larry.
Mrs. Johnson shook her head vehemently. “Sometimes I think I hear it laugh.… And that’s not all… I… I keep losing at cards.”
Grandpa Larry smiled. “Oh, we all have a bit of bad luck sometimes. That doesn’t mean the ghost of a witch is seeking revenge on us.”
“I’m… losing all my money. Soon, I’ll be penniless.”
Larry shook his head. “Have you considered getting professional help?”
“There’s only one thing that can help me!” Mrs. Johnson gripped Larry’s arm. “Please. Tell Cass to get me my Tuning Fork back! I’ll forgive everything. She and her horrid little friends can come back to school in the fall just like nothing happened…”
“Lar-ry!”
When Larry reentered the fire station, Wayne was shouting at him from the most crowded corner of their crowded store.
“What’s so important? I’ve just spent twenty minutes talking to Cass’s school principal and you know how I feel about principals.”
“I went outside to water and the old hose sprung a leak,” Wayne explained. “So I thought, why not use a real-man’s hose…?”
He gestured to the big coil of fire hose at his feet.
“You were going to water the lawn with a fire hose? Isn’t that a little like lighting a candle with a blowtorch?”
“That’s not the point. Look what I found—”
Wayne pushed the fire hose aside, revealing the cardboard box behind it. “You recognize that, don’t you?”
“How could I forget? You’re talking about the birth of our granddaughter… her arrival, anyway,” Larry amended.
“The funny thing is—I could swear it was all taped up,” said Wayne, puzzled.
“Of course it was!” exclaimed Larry. “We were saving it for when Cass turned eighteen.”
Wayne nodded, remembering. “And yet somebody…”
“But whoever comes back here?”
“Nobody… except Cass.”
“Oh, no,” said Larry, anxiously stroking his long, long beard.
Wayne shook his head, twisting the two long braids of his beard with his finger. “I wonder why she didn’t say anything…”
“When would she have? This is the second day she hasn’t shown up for work. And her principal said she wasn’t home…”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Larry nodded gravely. “The note.”
He pushed the box out and opened the top. Mr. Wallace’s letter was in plain view.
A few minutes later, Mr. Wallace hung up the phone.
He sat at a table in the middle of his beloved Terces Society archives, thinking. He was fairly certain he’d convinced Cass’s grandfathers that he hadn’t seen Cass since she was a baby, and that he barely remembered who she was. But, in truth, he was just as concerned as they were. Perhaps more so.
The question was: if Cass had found the letter, why hadn’t she confronted him? Cass was so hotheaded. It was unlike her to delay something like that. Unless there was an emergency. Or there was some reason she was unable to reach him. Her grandfathers claimed she wasn’t home. So where was she?
He could think of several possibilities, each more worrisome than the last.
“Guten Tag, Herr Wallace.” A man in a pilot’s uniform stepped into the trailer. The uniform was torn and muddy, but the wearer himself was no worse for wear.
“Owen?!” Mr. Wallace stared at the younger man in surprise.
“Why’s everyone always so shocked to see me? Makes me feel like a ghost… Where are the others?”
Mr. Wallace smiled thinly. “In Africa. Looking for you.”
“Ah. Well, they won’t find me there. Or the Midnight Sun either.”
“No?”
Owen shook his head. “I think they planted the Africa idea to divert us. I just discovered they’re much closer. At the zoo, in fact.”
“The zoo, huh?” Mr. Wallace looked at him thoughtfully. “Could Cass have made the same discovery?”
Owen chuckled, taking a seat opposite Mr. Wallace. “Cass? Are you kidding? She’s always a step ahead of us.”
“I know—to her detriment.”
“Don’t start on that again, Old Man,” said Owen testily. He loved Cass like a sister and didn’t like Mr. Wallace’s tone. “The Society is much better off with her as a member. And she’s better off, too.”
“Oh, is that right?” Mr. Wallace snorted derisively. “She’s missing, Owen.”
“Missing?”
“That’s what I said.”
“So you think she went after them herself?”
“What I think is that I’d feel better if I knew where she was.”
“Me, too,” said Owen, his face serious.
“The girl must be protected at all costs,” said Mr. Wallace quietly.
Owen nodded. “We agree on that at least.”
He scratched his head thoughtfully. “Hmmm. Who do you think should pay a visit to the zoo? Large animal veterinarian…? Concerned dad who’s just lost his daughter…?”
He took off his pilot’s hat and started making faces in a pocket mirror, devising his new character.