Witch (8 page)

‘Well, that's not nothing, is it?' Mr Barrow sneered.

His eyes swept slowly around the library table. ‘I've got my eye on all of you,' he said before walking away.

‘What a creep,' Dean muttered under his breath.

‘What a weirdo!' said the twins.

I just sat there mutely, feeling quite disturbed. He was getting worse and worse – but why?

‘So, why did your family move to Summerland?' I asked Dean as we walked into town to visit the newspaper offices. I realised it was the first time he and I had hung out by ourselves. I didn't know all that much about him.

‘We have land here. I'm actually part Chumash Indian, and our tribe were the original inhabitants of Summerlandhundreds of years ago, before the Spiritualists came.' He pushed his hands deeper into his pockets and let out a long sigh. ‘And my dad's an alcoholic, and we had to get out of Los Angeles. There were too many temptations there for him. So when the opportunity came to move onto the family land here, we decided to take it.'

I had no idea what to say. I felt bad about Dean's dad, but I felt worse – guilty – thinking about his people and what must have happened here when Indigenous people had been displaced. ‘I'm really sorry, Dean. Ummm, is your mum . . . ?' I hoped my tone sounded sympathetic and not patronising.

‘My mom died when I was little,' he mumbled.

I felt really guilty now. Dean had been at Summerland High for almost a fortnight now and not once had I asked him about his home life – I'd been too caught up with my own little dramas. Now I realised how good my life was, really.

‘Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to dump all that on you,' he started to apologise, but I cut him off.

‘Dean, please. I can't believe how selfish I've been,' I said. ‘Are you okay?'

‘I'm used to it, to be honest, and I prefer being here in Summerland to being in Los Angeles – people are so fake down there. Dad is definitely better up here. We're both just trying to get on with our lives. And I like being back on the land of my ancestors. Sometimes I think I can feel it, a – I don't know – a sense of coming home.'

He stopped and turned to look at me. ‘I'm really glad we met, Vania. I appreciate how you came up to me that first day – and you're really easy to talk to. I've never had such cool friends before.'

‘Well, you do know we're officially not cool, right?' I said.

‘We're our own kind of cool,' he said, and we both laughed.

‘I actually think it's really interesting you're part Indian,' I said. ‘Do you know much about your origins?'

‘To be honest, not a lot. I know the Chumash lived off the land around here and were completely self-sufficient, though.'

‘That's pretty awesome. Hey, maybe that's something you could focus on as a part of our coven.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, I don't know, finding out about how the Chumash Indians lived off the land and their legends and myths. I'm sure the Chumash were pretty clued in to things. Like the Indigenous Australians. I think many of the original tribes of the world had ideas about magical knowledge.'

‘You know, I like that idea. I'm going to check it out.' Dean was smiling and looked confident. It was good to see.

By now we had reached the
Summerland Star
offices. The building was really old and leaned precariously over to one side where the street sloped down the hill.

‘I hope the whole thing doesn't fall over while we're in there,' I said, walking slowly up the front steps.

Inside, it was like we had stepped back in time. The walls were wood-panelled and the furniture looked like it was out of the thirties. The golden afternoon sun shone rays of light through the slatted windows, illuminating flecks of dust floating on the air. An older woman with her hair in a tight bun and wire-rimmed glasses perched on the end of her pointy nose sat behind a large desk with an ink fountain and an ancient typewriter on it. It was obviously only for show, though, because she was typing on a computer.

The lady glanced up but didn't speak.

Dean cleared his throat. ‘Good afternoon, ma'am. My friend and I are wondering if you keep archived copies of the newspaper here.'

‘We do, but they are very precious. What do you children want with them?' she said in a cold, disapproving tone.

‘We're researching a school project about the death of a local woman that occurred about fifteen years ago.' I smiled brightly. This woman was the gatekeeper, so we needed her on our side.

She looked me up and down. ‘You're not from here, are you? Where is your accent from?' I seemed to have captured her attention.

‘Australia.' I kept the smile fixed on my face, and to my relief I saw one break out on hers.

‘You sound like Olivia Newton John! Have you seen
Grease
?' Incredibly, she actually giggled, making the glasses on the end of her nose wobble.

‘Yes, ma'am, it's one of my mum's favourite movies.' I said in relief. Things were starting to go our way.

The woman came out from behind her desk, holding out her hand. ‘I'm Mrs Pilkington, the custodian. The new offices of the
Summerland Star
are up the street, but we keep the archives here. I'd be happy to show you what we have.'

‘Thank you, Mrs Pilkington. My name is Vania, and this is Dean. We promise to be really careful.'

She beckoned us to follow her down the corridor that stretched out behind her desk. We picked our way around some boxes on the floor before catching up with her. At the end of the corridor there was a door with a small metal grate set at eye level – it reminded me of a prison door. Mrs Pilkington took a large skeleton key from her pocket.

‘I warn you, it's a little disorganised in here,' she said. ‘More recent copies are filed digitally, but it wasn't so long ago that everything was just paper. You may have to do a little hunting to find what you're looking for.'

She opened the door and flicked on the light switch. I immediately sneezed. Everything was covered in a thin layer of dust.

‘
Gesundheit
,' Mrs Pilkington said.

A single bulb illuminated the room, which was filled with boxes stacked topsy-turvy everywhere. Scattered copies of the
Summerland Star
lay on top of some of them. I picked one up.

‘Twenty-fourth of June 1966 – well, these are certainly archival copies.'

‘You two knock yourselves out for the next forty-five minutes – at five p.m. sharp I lock up.'

Mrs Pilkington left Dean and I alone in the dusty room.

‘We may need to come back,' Dean said wryly.

‘Well, let's see what we can find today at least.'

He nodded, and together we started sifting through the stacks of papers. It was actually quite fascinating looking into these printed snapshots of the world before computers and immediate information had existed. I considered what it would have been like when you had to wait for the newspaper delivery boy to throw a paper onto your doorstep to find out what was happening in your neighbourhood or the world. As I turned over pages and pages, though, it became clear that not much had happened in Summerland. The news was mostly about a store opening, an unusually high tide . . .

‘Found something!' Dean's voice jumped out at me from a dark corner of the room.

He held a newspaper up exultantly. When he laid it out in front of me on the floor I was thrilled to see the headline ‘Woman's Mysterious Death Baffles Police'.

I scanned the article. ‘The partially burned body was surrounded by candles and cooking items . . .'

That was kind of bizarre.

At that moment Mrs Pilkington appeared in the doorway. ‘Have you found anything? It's time to go,' she said. ‘Yes, actually we have, ma'am – could we make a photocopy?'

Mrs Pilkington nodded and beckoned us to follow her, which we did, Dean flicking off the light switch and thrusting the dusty room back into complete darkness as we left.

Moments later we stood next to the photocopier, which was making a warm hissing sound as it captured images of our new research material. I felt excited. I didn't know why, but I had a feeling we were going to solve this mystery – we just needed a little more time in that room.

I turned to Mrs Pilkington. ‘Can we come back again next week?'

‘You and your friend can come back anytime, Miss Australia.' She beamed at me.

Dean and I high-fived each other as we walked down the stairs of the
Summerland Star
.

I couldn't wait to show the rest of the coven the photocopy the next day.

‘This is intriguing,' Amelia said. Alyssa nodded.

‘Cooking items,' Alyssa read aloud. ‘Maybe she was making dinner and burned the house down?'

‘Can you get a psychic read on it?' Bryce looked at the twins expectantly.

But both of them shook their heads. ‘It's really weird. We can't get any read on this at all. There's a wall around it – like a locked room with no windows.'

‘Well, anyway, I think to pass the elective we're going to have to solve this mystery by practical means, mostly – we can't write in our paper that the twins psychically solved it!' I said.

We all laughed.

‘Maybe I could try to communicate with her ghost,' said Bryce.

‘That would be cool,' I said.

But Dean looked a bit spooked and held up a hand. ‘Wait. Let's see what we can find using orthodox methods first – then if we get stuck we can start using some magic.'

Bryce shrugged and nodded.

‘That's probably a good idea,' said Alyssa. ‘So what's the next step?'

‘We should pay another visit to the
Summerland Star
offices soon,' I said.

The bell rang and we gathered up our bags. I carefully folded the photocopy and placed it in my backpack. I felt almost protective of it – like I now had a responsibility to this woman to solve the mystery of her death.

Seven

I stared at the fluffy white feather in my hand. Brenda stood over me, snapping her fingers rhythmically. It was supposed to help me concentrate, but to be honest I was finding it a bit distracting.

‘It's all in your mind, Vania . . .'

She was swaying back and forth, her head thrown back, her good eye closed and her gold-and-green caftan shimmering in the candlelight.

‘When will I know to put it in the smoke?' I asked, frustrated.

It was lunchtime, but the curtains were drawn and it could have been the middle of the night in the dark cafe. We had been there for over an hour, and I was nervous that my first spell-casting lesson was going to be a dud, and that someone would walk in and wonder what on earth we were doing with the large bowl of incense on the table emitting somewhat toxic smoky plumes into the air.

‘Focus, focus, focus,' Brenda murmured, and I started to feel irritated. Focus on what? That I was in over my head and spun-out that she was expecting me to make this feather change colour, which was scientifically impossible? But I needed to suck it up and deal with it. It had been my idea to form a coven and do magic, after all. I knew I was lucky that Brenda was sharing the wisdom of her ancestors with me. Still, I wanted to throw the stupid feather on the floor and go to the beach. It was a hot, sunny day outside.

Dean was out enjoying it. Brenda had sent him on a hike through the hills to pick some desert sage – a herb his Chumash ancestors had used. It would have been the job of the shaman to gather the sacred herbs for the tribe. The Chumash had carried and burned desert sage for protection, and Brenda said it was beneficial for anyone new to magic to carry a piece. I wanted protection from Mr Barrow's persecution so I hoped Dean would bring back a ton of it. Brenda had given him a thorough briefing on what it looked like and where he would most likely find it, as well as some
sage
advice about gathering his spoils from higher up on the plant, in case a dog had peed around the base. ‘You've got to be practical as well as magical,' she had said brightly, sending him off carrying a lunch bag containing a sandwich and cookies. Talk about getting it easy.