Read Online Tales of the Witch by Angela Zeman - Free Book Online

grinned at Skip’s nervousness. “Just our local witch. Mrs. Risk. She’ll be your neighbor come the end of sixty days and we get this house finished.”
    “A real witch?” Skip gave Ernie a sideways glance to see if he was being ragged.
    Ernie removed his Giants cap and scratched at his thinning hair. “Well, that’s what some say. She does seem to know things nobody else’d even guess at.
    “Nice woman, I think, although some’ll tell you different. The thing is, the ones who disagree are those I wouldn’t trust with a bent nail.” Ernie shot a glance at his young employer. “It’s been said that if people get into trouble—which, just about anybody alive does, y’gotta admit—she’s awful good at doing what needs to be done.”
    Skip gave a short laugh. “For them, or to them?”
    Ernie wagged his head side to side, “She is an odd bird.” He grinned at Skip, then picked up his sheets of plans. “Got a sharp tongue on her, too,” he added as if in admiration. “I got the idea that a long time ago, when someone first called her ‘witch’, they were thinking the word started with ‘b’. Some just can’t stand a woman smarter than they are who doesn’t hesitate to tell them unpleasant truths.” He chuckled to himself, then concentrated on his layouts.
    Skip stared curiously at the figure until she suddenly turned and descended the rise, disappearing from his sight. Then he forgot her and began discussing stucco walls with Ernie.
    He didn’t even remember her two days later when the carpenter was killed, picked off by a rifle shot from where he rested, perched on a piece of stone, while his buddy fetched more nails from the truck.
    After the village constable called in the County’s Sixth Precinct homicide squad, and they finally allowed the carpenter’s body to be taken away, the shock was still severe. Skip cancelled everything for the day, even deliveries.
    After buying the men a restorative beer at Murphy’s, he watched them hurry to their various homes. He thought about how someday he’d be hurrying home to Alexia in times of trouble…if he could pull this off.
    It baffled him why anybody’d shoot the carpenter, who’d seemed to be a pleasant guy, a hard worker with a family. As he ordered himself another beer, he wondered uneasily if it had anything to do with his scheme…
    He painstakingly re-examined the details of this last—his very last—attempt to solve his problem. The problem wasn’t a new one to mankind anywhere—he needed money. Lots of money.
    At first he’d tried saving it, skimping on food and clothes. But as he lost weight and stuffed cardboard into his work shoes, he realized that even if he starved, it could take decades to accumulate the nest egg he needed. He’d tried investing in a small enterprise a school friend had started, and lost both his money and his friend. Other schemes had made him rich only in experience, but at least he’d kept the rest of his friends.
    That’s when he’d begun working the lottery…buying hundreds of lottery tickets…until it became obvious that he wasn’t destined for any winning ticket—anywhere—anytime.
    Then, down to the last of his savings and out of ideas, he’d driven to Atlantic City. In this final, desperate ploy, either he would win enough money to marry his angel, the female he ached for with every ounce of his being, or…he could think of nothing else to do…he’d jump into the cold dirty ocean that ran alongside the casinos and drown himself.
    It would take a miraculous run of luck, but how else could he ever marry Alexia—gorgeous, laughing, light as air Alexia, whose parents had always provided her with the finest clothes and a luxurious home? Alexia, who, Skip never doubted, could choose any man she wanted…and she’d chosen him. How could he ask her to accept so much less than what she was used to having?
    He remembered that last fatal day, the final day when everything had happened, when fate