Halfway Dead (Halfway Witchy Book 1) Read online

  ***

  I was opening a can of tuna for Gus when there were two knocks at the door, a pause, then one hard boom.

  “Ahh. Tammy’s here,” I informed Gus as I put his plate on the floor.

  He ignored me, but looked pointedly at the noise that delayed his dinner by five seconds. I don’t dare roll my eyes in front of him, so I opened the door while mentally girding my loins for the onslaught of Tammy Cincotti. She stood there, package in hand, smiling with her set of approximately fifty teeth, and looking for all the world like it was 1991 in her mirror every day. Tammy’s pretty, but wears too much makeup, and has a body that’s thin and flat in every way, except for her enormous chest, which defies gravity and makes her shirt look like it’s holding on for dear life. She rolls her delivery uniform up to maximize the amount of skin she can expose while on her route. Her hair is always sprayed to withstand any weather, including, but not limited to a hailstorm, and she is the only woman I know who can empty a truck of heavy packages without chipping her long fingernails. Her appetite for men is legendary in the Adirondacks; a date with Tammy was like her job description. She delivered on time, every time, and if you were lucky, usually before dessert.

  I love knowing her. She makes my life interesting and easy, and has never once judged me for answering the door in clothes that look like they were used in a laundry commercial. The before part, not the part where everything is Magically! Clean!Even my personal clothes look like I’ve been rolling on the floor of the diner, but a steady diet of online bargains keeps me just ahead of my laundry pile. That’s why Tammy is at my door every other day. Well, that and the fact that I purchase exotic things that a witch might need. You’d be surprised what I find, and, sure enough, they all deliver right to my door.

  One night a few months ago, after a few glasses of wine, I sat down and scrawled a manifesto defending my choice to shop online whenever possible. It looked something like this:

  Nearest good store is sixty miles away.

  Pants are required.

  Stores don’t serve wine.

  They don’t serve pizza, either.

  As you can see, my needs are fairly specific when it comes to purchasing clothes.

  For magical resources, I have my Grandmother, the pristine wilderness surrounding me, and eBay.

  “Guess what I’ve got?” she asked, smiling again.

  I looked down at the small, flat package and took an involuntary step back. “Is that from New Mexico?”

  Gus looked up from his meal. He could sense my discomfort at a distance.

  Tammy smirked, creasing her lipstick which may have been applied with a paint roller. “It is. Want me to stick around and help you, in case you’re overcome with the majesty of it all?”

  I took the package and gave her my best glare, which wasn’t very good. She’d already begun checking her makeup in my hall mirror. Two houses down from me, a single man had moved in. That was all the information I had, but it was enough for Tammy to plan a full-scale invasion of his senses with her perfume and wiles. The perfume would arrive first; she wasn’t shy when it came to spritzing, and the cloud of flowery scent would be her advance troops. Tammy took no prisoners; I had every confidence that she’d get her man. Judging by the predatory smile on her face, she did too.

  “Wish me luck. Have fun with your gift,” she mocked, clicking her tongue and giving me finger guns. On any other woman it might look like she was trying to impress a fourteen-year-old boy, but on Tammy, it fit.

  I closed the door and went to my wine rack, pulling a bottle of red from its nesting place and beginning the needlessly complex operation of removing a stupid cork from the stupid bottle that kept me from getting to the wine. After some grunting and a commentary from Gus, who thought my problem hilarious, the cork popped free and wine glugged merrily out into a glass. I sipped, leaned back on the couch, and began to unfasten the meticulous wrapping encasing the flat package.

  My dad may as well sign his packages; he considers proper taping a virtue, and this delivery had all the hallmarks of a twenty-minute packing job by none other than James McEwan, United States Forestry Service (retired). The beautiful looping script meant the label was written by my mom, JoAnne, owner/operator of McEwan’s Adirondack Furnishings (retired). The fact that both of them conspired to wrap and mail the box to me was akin to stapling a packing list to it. After I tore the myriad pieces of clear tape away, I looked at my back wall and held up a thumb to judge how much room remained on the space over the woodstove in my kitchen. The wooden tongue and groove wall sported three small oil paintings, none of which were any good. In fact, they looked like arguing cats had taken up brushes. Which was partially true.

  The package contained what I’ve come to call C.R.A.P., or Conflict Resolution Art Projects. Every time my parents have a disagreement, they collaborate on a painting, make up, and then mail it to me as a token of their continued devotion to one another. Why I should be punished with the damned things is beyond me, but in the unlikely event my folks visit without plenty of warning, I keep them hung in the kitchen.

  Separately, my parents are decent artists; my mom likes watercolors, my dad enjoys carving and clay. Between the two of them, they’ve really bloomed since their synchronized retirement three years ago. They live in New Mexico, a fact that still shocks me when I give it anything more than a cursory thought. JoAnne and James are Halfway born and bred, so the entire town was stunned when they selected a small town in the outskirts of Albuquerque. They learned of New Mexico from our cousin, who fled the snows of New York for the western desert and never looked back. Cousin Stan ran a small roadside motel that miraculously survived in what I thought was the middle of nowhere; it turned out that most of New Mexico was the middle of nowhere, but beautifully so. They gave me the house, took some things with them, and rolled out of Halfway with little more than a map and a vague idea to head south and west. I miss them, but we Skype once a week, and they send me care packages of gems collected from the myriad of dealers in their new area. I use them for spells, but they think I love jewelry.

  I was a late-in-life baby, so their retirement was looming by the time I came back from college with the understanding that I hated school, missed Halfway, and wanted to be a witch just like Gran. I worked at the diner when I was in high school, so it felt natural that I should return, this time behind the grill instead of serving tables. I like the change, and for three years, I’ve built a life based on magic and making the food at the diner into something special. Don’t get me wrong, it was good before, but I wanted to make it great. You might think that serving obscure Moroccan dishes or the odd heirloom French country recipe wouldn’t go over well in our little town; you’d be wrong. Thanks to the wonders of cable television and cooking shows, there are people who’ve never left Halfway that can now discern between farm-raised and native trout with a mere glance. It’s one of the oddities that global culture has brought to my doorstep, and it makes my job fun.

  I took the painting—a blue thing that suggested a cactus riding a bicycle—and hung it on a small nail. Looking at the painting, I remarked to Gus that at least it was blue, which I liked, and small, which I liked even more. He deigned to yawn, and settled on the couch for his tenth nap of the day. I sat with my glass of wine and wondered for the first time why a pair of Wendigo would think it acceptable to settle here. I’m not exactly the Terminator, but my reputation extends outward from town somewhat, and the really nasty things that go bump in the night tend to avoid our area altogether. It just isn’t worth their time to pick a fight with someone who can give as good as she gets. They’re kind of cowards like that. It must be a trait that most supernatural beasties have a deep sense of preservation. As long as they move along and don’t harm anyone nearby, I give them a chance to hit the dusty trail, so to speak. The ones who show up in a second divining spell might get a warning, unless they’re—well, if they’re roasting and eating something that might be part of a missing person, then there
’s no need for discussion. I’ll move them along to the afterlife, and that’s that.

  I flicked listlessly through the channels on my small television, made a bacon sandwich, and generally stayed one step ahead of a nap until it was time to go to bed. The diner is open from six in the morning until two in the afternoon, so I basically wake up in the middle of the night to start my prep work, unless I have help. Louis, one of the other three cooks, might show up two days a week to bake some sweets; he’s a total wizard at making these thick little pies we call pusties; they’re little pillows of heaven filled with chocolate or vanilla custard, and I swear to the stars above I could eat a dozen. Louis has them down to an art form, I simply stay out of his way while he rolls dough and makes custard. Naturally, I perform random quality control, because I care about the customers, and at five in the morning there is nothing better than a pilfered spoonful of chocolate custard, except when that same stolen sample is accompanied by a huge mug of coffee.

  I took thirty seconds to plan lunch for tomorrow—gyros, house-made tzatziki, olive salad, and a giant kettle of egg and lemon soup. Greek food goes over well, just as Italian, American, French, or anything that isn’t a prepackaged meal thrown in someone’s microwave. I love my regulars; they eat with me five times a week, and it’s always a challenge to see what I can make them as a surprise. Since tomorrow was Wednesday, I had three more days for what was our unofficial Saturday Surprise, in which I rolled out a new recipe for the busiest lunch of the week. I fell asleep dreaming of my hands flipping through an ancient cookbook, its pages brittle with time, and covered in beautiful drawings of herbs and spices. And then, I slept.

  ***

  I speak four languages. English, naturally, then Latin, and the Lingua Arcana. The language of magic is not my most unusual language skill. That honor goes to my fourth tongue, the curious shorthand diner pidgin that has evolved in the Hawthorn since before I was born. Our waitresses speak it too; so does Louis, and both of the other cooks, and all of the waitresses. We don’t have waiters; the ladies who wait tables would sooner die than allow their jobs to go elsewhere, which is usually the way a position opens up. My mom told me that nearly every job goes from family member, to daughter, cousin, or niece. I know one thing; they handle the front of the diner like a finely-tuned engine, so whatever system they have for finding new staff once every five years, works.

  The diner seats about forty if they know each other, and twenty-five if they don’t. It’s a basic rectangle, with the kitchen in the back, tables to both sides, and a middle counter where the serious caffeine addicts like to park when they read their phones or newspapers. To the left is a small bakery case standing next to the cash register. Bathrooms are along the far right wall, and our décor is so Adirondack that you expect a moose to come walking out of the hallways at any moment. Every single thing in the diner is locally made, and there are panels on the wall where people can leave a business card, or something declaring that they were here to visit. The layer of cards is five deep in some places, and I’ve seen names in over fifty languages. What can I say? People love diners.

  This morning, I was joined by Louis, as I suspected, who spent the bulk of his morning baking furiously to produce over a hundred pusties in both chocolate and vanilla varieties. Before you ask, of course I tested the custard. I care too much not to, and you’ll simply have to accept the fact that my sacrifice to quality knows no bounds.

  Mallory and Pat were waiting tables and making chaos into order, usually by the simple act of refilling coffee cups. Before Pat could hang her ticket in the window, she squawked an order while pouring chocolate milk and refilling a jelly caddy. She was in her late forties, rail thin, and pretty if you ignored a long nose that gave her a faintly sad expression until she smiled. Her dyed-blonde hair was in the requisite net, and she had the hands of a pianist, which she was at her church on Sundays.

  “Rasher dasher and a Carlie, you stay here,” Pat said before pinning the ticket to the stainless steel wheel and whirling back to the front. For people other than the fifteen or so who speak Hawthorn Diner, that was a bacon sandwich wrapped in foil and a half stack of waffles. Yes, we stack our waffles; it sort of our thing, and my recipe is stellar because it was a gift from my Gran. Upon retiring from home waffle preparation some years earlier, it was generally known that she was a ninja with anything that required batter. The half stack is in honor of my lack of height; it seems that whoever is the shortest staff member gets the honor of having a small portion of waffles named after them. Until we hire someone under five feet tall, three waffles on a plate will forever be known as a Carlie. I can live with that. Waffles are amazing. I looked out to see who ordered it, and met the eyes of a tourist who’d eaten the same thing every day for the past week. I gave him a friendly nod and bent to the griddle; even short timers in Halfway sometimes learn that routine can be beautiful.

  Looking out from the diner, I can see the main road in town, and it’s usually clogged with traffic that alternates between cautiously optimistic and the border of open revolt. If a moose or deer comes wandering along the road, which they do almost every day, people love to slow down, take pictures, and generally back traffic up to the border of Pennsylvania. It doesn’t really matter what day of the week it is; tourists are the lifeblood of my little town, and they’re present seven days a week. This morning was no different. I glanced out at the slow procession of family cars and SUVs, wondering if any of the drivers would get off the main road and really see what they were passing by. I hoped so. It was too beautiful to miss.

  The honking was what drew my attention, and I felt a chill that had nothing to do with scooping ice into a bin that held pats of butter. Outside, a low-level buzz was building as people began to walk off the sidewalks toward a forgettable silver sedan that may as well have been emblazoned with a sign that read rental car. The driver, a man of middle years, was slumped over the steering wheel, causing the stoppage of traffic. As I saw this detail, one of our patrons leapt to his feet and ran outside; he had the build and haircut of a firefighter. A woman reached in and put the car into park, then opened the door, and in seconds the crowd was laying the man gently onto the sidewalk mere feet from our door.

  He was dead. I could tell at a glance that he was completely, spectacularly dead. Whatever killed him had been instantaneous. His eyebrows were furrowed slightly in concentration, and his brown eyes stared up and beyond the shoulders of the people circling him. We have one police officer who works our town; he’s a sheriff with the county, and I saw his lean frame wedge through the group of onlookers to take control of the situation. He spoke quickly to the man who’d left our diner in such a rush. An older woman who oozed competence knelt by the body, too, placing her fingers expertly to verify that there was no pulse. I saw her give a short, definitive shake of her head, wipe something from the man’s mouth, and then slowly stand. She never took her eyes from the man’s face. The sheriff, Hugh, searched the body and produced a wallet, then flipped it open while speaking into his radio. This all transpired in a matter of moments; the eggs I’d been cooking weren’t even finished when Hugh began waving people along. I looked down at the cheerful yolks and wondered what the man’s name was. It was incredibly sad, and I felt a tear slip down my cheek without permission. I’ve seen death, and I prefer life. I flipped the eggs and plated them on golden toast, marveling at the normality of people returning to their coffee and breakfast. I hope that when I die, people can go on as quickly. The nameless man had just slipped beneath the waves like a mortally-wounded ship, leaving nothing but ripples soon to be consumed by the winds.

  The firefighter type returned to his seat after a few more minutes, and I heard his terse, professional report as he told the men sitting around him at the counter. “Aneurysm or something like it. Instantaneous. He’s not a tourist, his ID reads Department of Forestry; he’s a fed of some sort.”

  Eventually, the excitement faded and I was caught up in the bustle of my shift. Before I k
new it, it was three in the afternoon and I was walking home in the sun, alive but more than a little sad, and not entirely sure why.

  Chapter Two: Tea With Gran

  “And how does that taste? Can you tell me the back notes?” Gran peered at me over her teacup with an inscrutable half-smile. We were playing our favorite game, in which I attempted to decipher the recipe for each cup of tea we shared. Her endless supplies of herbs and fruit made it a challenge that was as much education as familial bonding. I found myself guessing correctly more often as the years went on. At first, I couldn’t begin to detect the subtle composition of her brews, but my decade as a practicing witch has sharpened my palate considerably.

  I inhaled the vapors and let my eyes close, making the tea speak to me. “Well, this one is quite simple,” I declared, causing one of Gran’s silver eyebrows to arch in defense at my dismissal of her skills as an alchemist.

  My grandmother is neither feeble nor tiny, contrary to what one might expect. She’s still fairly tall, has a regal bearing, and her halo of silver hair frames a face that is only now beginning to show the deep lines of advanced age. Her blue eyes sparkle with intelligent mirth, and she is never without jewelry and what she calls proper dress. She resembles an upper-class woman of the eastern seaboard, more than a witch of eighty-one years, save her predilection for gems that are rare and beautiful. Each stone has a purpose, each bit of gold a reason, and she wears her art openly, leaving assumptions of her nature open to interpretation. On rare occasions, people have truly seen her, but those are few and far between, and usually only during times when she’s been casting powerful spells. Even the most tone-deaf dullard would recognize her power during those events, and she makes no effort to hide from the world.

  But back to the tea. “It’s blackberry, but late season. There’s something else, too.” My stomach growled loudly, and I looked down at the rudely-behaving part of my anatomy. “I had lunch two hours ago, how can I be—ahh, there’s something in the tea to sharpen my appetite?”