Read Online Be Careful What You Witch For (A Family Fortune Mystery) by Dawn Eastman - Free Book Online

connection to the animals.
    “Tuffy doesn’t like anyone,” I said, and glanced sharply at Seth.
    He realized his error. “We were at Diana’s once when he stopped by and Tuffy started shaking and went and cowered by Baxter,” Seth said. It wasn’t his best cover story.
    Vi looked at Tuffy with narrowed eyes.
    I felt I had to argue the point even though I wanted to get off this topic.
    “C’mon, you can’t be taking this seriously. He hates everyone and he’s always cowering.” I appealed to my dad, usually the sensible one in the family.
    He shook his head. “I don’t know. I think animals can sense things that people can’t.”
    I sat back in my chair, defeated.
    “
Any
way, until they find any real evidence of intentional harm, I think this is just an unfortunate accident,” I said.
    Everyone looked at me with varying degrees of pity at my lack of imagination.

11
    Seth and I stood in the backyard with the dogs. It was much colder than the last time we’d done this and I was glad I’d thrown on a jacket. Seth shivered next to me in a T-shirt and a light hoodie.
    “I talked to your mom today.”
    “Yeah, she texted.” He kept his face turned away from me.
    “What’s going on in New York? Is something wrong in school?”
    He shook his head and buried his hands under his arms. He looked pathetic. I was about to tell him to go inside when Vi appeared in the doorway. She spotted us and picked her way across the yard.
    “Seth, you’re freezing. Go inside and make a big deal out of your grandfather’s new contraption,” Vi said. For all of Vi’s communication with other realms, she was still suspicious of anything electronic.
    Seth looked at Vi with relief and raced into the house.
    “I should get Seth to the ceremony. He doesn’t want to miss it.” I stepped past Vi.
    Her arm shot out and she gripped my arm. “Stay a minute.”
    “What’s up, Vi? I don’t know anything more than I told you.”
    “I’m here to tell
you
something.” She peered around the yard, and lowered her voice. “I don’t want your mother to hear this.”
    I was speechless. Vi never kept secrets from my mother.
    “Why can’t my mom know about this?”
    “Just trust me. She doesn’t want to know.”
    “Okay. . . .”
    “There’s someone you need to talk to.” She looked over her shoulder as if there were spies hiding in the trees. I wondered if she suspected the squirrels, or maybe it was the owls.
    “I’m not investigating Rafe’s death,” I said, and crossed my arms. “I don’t think there is anything to investigate.”
    “Not about Rafe. This is something else. Your grandmother would have wanted you to meet this woman.”
    That stopped me. My grandmother Agnes had died when I was fifteen. She’d been a gifted psychic. Some people thought she was the reason Crystal Haven had lasted so long as a spiritualist community and had become famous. She’d known I had visions and dreams and had promised to teach me how to use them instead of being haunted by them. Before she got the chance, she died of cancer. Vi knew that mentioning my grandmother was the best way to get me to listen.
    “Why have you never mentioned this mystery woman before?” I had my hands on my hips now, just like my mother. “If she lives here, how come I haven’t met her?”
    “You know
of
her.” She lowered her voice even more.
“Neila Whittle
.
”
Vi made the name sound like the title of a horror movie.
    “The old witch? I thought she was dead.”
    Neila Whittle was the topic of many playground ghost stories in Crystal Haven. A recluse, she lived on the edge of town, up a private road. Her property was surrounded by a black ironwork fence. It was as if central casting had plopped a classic witch into Crystal Haven for the children to fear. The house itself was small, stone, and completely covered in vines. It sat in the middle of a grove of trees as if it had sprouted there of its own volition. Every kid in Crystal Haven had