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“This one is free!” The old woman shot me a look over her shoulder, daring me to contradict her.
Tess met my eyes then and I shook my head.
“We’ll just put this back over here,” she said, wheeling the grill off to the side of the front doors. “And I’ll treat you to a Manhattan at the Shack before lunch, okay?”
The old woman crossed her thin arms, but said, “It’s the least you could do.” I wished I had a stiff drink right about then.
I spent the rest of the morning offering discounts, and when the people just kept coming, I figured out there was also a huge sign planted in the town square advertising the liquidation of my inventory. By mid-afternoon, the mess was somewhat sorted, and I had a few minutes to breathe.
“It was those sisters, I bet,” Virgil said, as we tried to figure out which members of the Tanner family might’ve pulled this particular prank.
“Who, Addie and Paige? Amberlynn?” I couldn’t imagine Addie’s sisters doing this. I’d met Paige a few times, and she seemed very rational, the type to remain impartial in a fight. Or a feud. Amberlynn was younger, and I didn’t know her as well. I supposed it could have been her, but not alone.
“No,” Virgil shook his head. “The one with the walker and the other one.”
The image almost made me laugh, except he might have been right. “They’ve got that cousin, too, right? Lottie’s older brother or something?” I could see Virgil working himself up to revenge.
I nodded. There was a Tanner who’d come back to town recently. Arthur, I thought. And he would have been pretty loyal to Lottie, who had been the most recent feud victim. “That might be it. I’ll ask Addie about it.” I’d know by her expression if she had been involved, I thought. She didn’t seem like a great liar—her face was too open, too trusting, with those huge brown eyes and that sad smile. I forced myself not to think about how scared and vulnerable—and hot—she’d looked the night before, clutching her pillow to her chest, miles of bare legs coming from the very short hem of an old T-shirt. If I hadn’t been slightly terrified I might have tried to talk her into my own sleeping bag instead of helping her set up hers.
“Forget asking Addie,” Virgil said. “Time to plot revenge.”
“I wish you wouldn’t,” I said, feeling exhausted by the whole idea. Yeah, I’d just lost thousands of dollars, but what if we took revenge. What would we lose next time? “Can’t we just let it die?”
Emmett and Virgil shook their heads resolutely. They lived for this feud. I knew I couldn’t stop them.
“No one gets hurt, okay?” I reminded them. Back in the day, I’d heard stories about much more dangerous activities—tampering with brakes and setting fires. At least the feud had civilized to some degree. I couldn’t imagine losing a family member to something so ridiculous, though it would certainly fuel the anger that had kept the feud going this long.
I hadn’t planned to hang around the store long, but it took longer than I’d hoped to put the place back in order, and I wasn’t completely sure I could trust my cousins to be here on their own, but by mid-afternoon, I felt like it would be okay for me to leave, but this time I gave explicit instructions about what needed to happen in my absence. When Virgil and Emmett were sufficiently busy, I headed back toward the old house on the top of the hill. I was already exhausted, and cleaning would not normally have been something I looked forward to. But Addie was here, and for some reason I was looking forward to seeing her again, despite the feud.
Driving around the house to the back, I encountered a sight I had certainly not been expecting—four different cars were parked on the overgrown drive, blocking the little garage and making it look like Addie had decided to have a party in my absence.
“What is going on?” I wondered aloud as I pulled my truck up behind a VW beetle that was painted a frightening shade of pink and in questionable condition. I’d seen the car around town, but had no idea who it belonged to. I supposed I was about to find out.
“Addie?” I called, stepping through the back door and into the kitchen. There was a thick aroma of something hanging in the air, something I couldn’t quite identify. There were also numerous pots on the stovetop filled with liquids of various shades, and voices coming from upstairs. Did she invite people over to make soup? As I followed the voices and the footsteps, the smell became stronger, and when I finally reached the master bedroom, the source revealed itself.
Three women stood around the room with Addie, all of them gray-haired and draped in layers of baggy clothing that looked like it might have been made from old curtains or maybe lampshades. Their wrists jangled with metal bracelets, they wore slippers that they might have stolen from Aladdin himself, and they were holding smoking sticks in the air and chanting. Addie stood at the edge of their small circle, wringing her hands and looking worried. The sight of her looking so upset made me feel upset, but it was also a little confusing to find this scene—and even Addie didn’t look like she knew exactly what was going on here.
“Uh...” I wasn’t sure exactly what was happening, and I was less sure how to interrupt it to get an explanation.
“Michael,” Addie said, spotting me. “Hi.” Her face slipped into a glowing smile before quickly turning wary.
“Um. Hi?” I glanced at the three women, who still had their eyes closed and were ignoring me with a tenacity I’d only witnessed previously in my ex-wife.
“They’re cleansing,” Addie said, gesturing at the women.
This was unlike any scrubbing technique I’d seen before and I greatly preferred the scent of lemons or even bleach to whatever this pungent smoky smell was.
“I brought some Lysol from the store,” I said. “Would that work better?”
“Young man, do you mind?” One of the women snapped, turning to glare at me.
“I’m not sure. I might mind. What exactly are you doing?”
The woman sighed and looked at Addie before explaining to me, in the same tone she might use with a repeatedly disobedient puppy, “We are cleansing the house.”
I had an inkling what this was about, based on the chanting and the skeptical look on Addie’s face. I’d seen movies about witches before. “Of?”
“Spirits, of course,” the woman said. “But now you’ve interrupted and we’ll have to begin again. I honestly don’t know if this will be effective at this point.” She looked pretty exasperated, so I figured it might be best to just let her and nutty buddies finish up. I motioned to Addie and she followed me out into the hallway.
