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The door swept wide before her finger reached the chime.
An elderly woman stood before her, wearing bell-shaped sleeves and billowing black fabrics, her wild black hair contrasted by a sharp strand of white at the front. A crystal necklace poked up from the depths of her décolletage. The woman’s pentagram-shaped earrings continued to swish back and forth in the aftermath of her movements.
A witch. Standing directly before her.
“Gladys?”
“Bradley! How nice of you to stop by.”
Devra blinked.
Bradley blinked.
Gladys blinked.
“You are here for a visit, aren’t you?”
“Um, well…” Bradley faltered.
Devra had rarely, if ever, seen the man so tongue-tied, and his hesitation forced her to find the strength to tell her own story. “Sorry to bother you. My name is Devra. My family used to live two doors down from you. The Harrisons.”
“Oh yes. I remember you. Or your mother, at least. She used to pay me good coin for my youth-enhancing elixirs back in the day.”
“Is that so?” Some distant acknowledgement of how young her mother still looked today ramped up Devra’s heart rate. “I know this might sound odd, but did you by any chance have a pet mouse while we were living here?”
“Oh yes. My dear Rover.” She placed a hand over her heart. “Goddess bless his furry little soul.”
Devra’s racing heartbeat completely stopped.
“Rover was a mouse?” Bradley said. “I thought he was a dog?”
“A dog?” The woman looked genuinely perplexed. “Why on earth would anyone want a pet dog?”
“Okay, what is going on here?” Devra’s mind was swimming, from the woman’s admission, the possible implications, and her bizarre familiarity with Bradley. “You two know each other?”
“Gladys and I work together,” Bradley explained. “She baked those yummy cookies I gave you.”
Devra looked from Bradley to Gladys and back to Bradley. “You mean those magically yummy cookies that finally got me to open up to you?”
“Umm…”
She gave him an accusatory look. “You work at a hardware store with a witch and never thought to mention it?”
“Gladys isn’t a witch,” Bradley said. “She’s just, like…a free spirit. Aren’t you, Gladys?”
“Is there much difference between a witch and a free spirit? Us Bridge Ladies are not bound by the same rules the unmystical must abide.”
“The ladies you play bridge with?”
“The Bridge Ladies! The Bridge Coven. Come now, Bradley, I must have told you about them?”
“Yeah, but I thought you played cards together. I didn’t think you were…”
“Apprentices of the feminine arts? Readers of the moon? Wielders of natural energies?” Gladys waved her hand about in what might as well have been a series of magic-wand motions.
This was real.
The notion struck Devra with physical force. This was actually happening. A woman with a motive, the means, the opportunity. “You have to tell me—” She felt suddenly desperate, as if this opportunity might close on her if she didn’t get the words out fast enough. “When your Rover didn’t come home one night. One Christmas. What did you do? Did you—Was there something you—” She couldn’t seem to find the right question until it dropped into her head with obvious clarity. “Did you curse me?”
