A Witch Axe to Grind Read online

  In the spring, more than two hundred Druids celebrated Beltaine with a wicker man burning blow-out that featured a has-been band. Not long before that, the skeletal remains of a woman was found in the overgrown bushes that had surrounded the outdoor kitchen. Not a woman, really—a supernatural creature. Said dead creature now had two songs on the Billboard Hot 100. Funny how things worked out.

  As well as the space functioned for naked dancing Druids, it served just as well for quiet meditation. Nann stood at the center of the wheel. She thought about Aunt Nancy. For ten years following a diagnosis of dementia (Nann didn’t see a difference), Aunt Nancy lived with Nann and her mother in Brooklyn. The older Druid, through her oft-repeated stories, long walks in Central Park, songs and poems, trained Nann in the Druid Way.

  Now, Nann allowed her memories to guide her, facing the rising moon. She had no idea what she was looking for. When her feet began to wander, Nann just went with it.

  She meandered through the grove of Oaks, fingers touching the leaves of low brush as she passed. Some of the plants she plucked. Most of them she discarded without examination. Weaving her way, she walked the flattened ridge, half in a trance. Half, because who would help her out here in the middle of nowhere if she tripped over a root? Not Pokey. He’d just get a chuckle and go back to watching TV. It wasn’t like he could call 911 anyway. Pokey didn’t have a phone. Or hands.

  Nann became aware that she had made a full circuit of the space and once again stood at the bottom of the wooden stairs. She looked at the plants she gathered, cradled in her arms. There were long willow branches and pointy-leaved holly, oak twigs and elder. The elder was in between the flower and berry stage.

  “Okay, what the heck am I supposed to do with this stuff?”

  Aunt Nancy’s words came to her, as if the memory was an answer. Holly, the ruler; willow, the observer; oak, the stabilizer; elder the seeker. The words ran over and over in her head as she walked back up the bazillion steps to the house.

  Oak, the stabilizer; elder the seeker. In the kitchen, Nann put the plants on the counter and took a big glass vase from a shelf above the oven. One by one, she took the leafy oak twigs, charged them with her own energy, and put them inside the vase. She did the same with the elder leaves.

  Willow, the observer. Nann wound the whip-like branches around the top of the vase just beneath the lip. Winding and twining, she made an uneven grid around the entire vase. It looked a little like a lopsided cage or net.

  Holly, the ruler. Nann frowned at the stiff, scratchy leaves.

  “Can you find a movie, Nann?” Pokey called from the couch. “I don’t like network TV.”

  “I need a crown of holly,” she answered.

  Pokey squinted at her. “Yule’s not for five more months yet.”

  Although there was an entire room upstairs dedicated to crafting, Nann wasn’t much of a crafter. She needed something quick and dirty. Wandering again, feeling Pokey’s eyes on her, she stopped at the mudroom. On a shelf she found a crocheted stocking cap. Nann took it down, studied it. It was hand-made, but well made, and thick. Better yet, it was probably hand-made by Aunt Nancy, the unofficial Arch Druid.

  Back in the kitchen, she poked holly leaves into the fabric. In turn, the leaves poked her fingers. Nann held the hat at arm’s length. It wasn’t so much a holly crown as a riotous holly wig. Gingerly, she shrugged it on. She felt the leaves scratch her scalp. Could she really sleep this way?

  Returning to the vase, she felt it wasn’t complete. It needed a lid. No, the vase was the lid, she decided. It needed a bottom. Grabbing a dinner plate, she upended the vase. Okay, that was looking good. Setting the tap at a drip, she added water to the plate. Why? She wasn’t sure. But the blood from the tiny cuts on her fingers mingled in the water with pinkish clouds.

  “That’s it,” she said aloud. Balancing it carefully, she walked it toward the stairs.

  “What the hell are you doing, Nann?”

  “I’m going to sleep. To dream.”

  “What? We haven’t watched the evening news. Colbert’s got Gal Gadot on tonight. You love Wonder Woman.” He stood up and turned on the couch, facing her. “Are you feeling sick?”

  Nearly fully entranced, Nann ignored the pig and walked to her bedroom. She placed the confusing—Installation? Terrarium?—Art piece?—on the night table near the window. Despite the prickly headgear, when her head hit the pillow, Nann fell almost immediately to sleep.

  BUT NANN DIDN’T DREAM. Her crazy whatever it was hadn’t worked. Pokey lay in his pig bed. Downstairs, the TV was still on. So much for ten years of Druid apprenticing. She sat up, picking up stray holly leaves from the pillow. On the table, the upturned vase remained. Nann squinted at it. The water on the plate looked clear. Huh.

  Quietly, so as not to wake the pig, Nann got up and peered closely at the vase. In the predawn dim, she saw nothing.

  And then nothing moved.

  Nann got closer, nose practically to the glass. Yes, there was certainly motion in the oak and elder leaves. But nothing she could see moved. Still, she was sure she had caught something.

  “What the heck is it?” she whispered to herself.

  “Bugs?”

  Nann nearly jumped out of her skin. Pokey stood beside her, voice drifting from the downstairs radio. He craned up at the upside-down vase. “Worms?”

  Words came unbidden to her mind. Pulling her crown of holly hat down firmly, she raised her hands, middle, index fingers and thumb spread wide. Touching her thumbs together, she made a shape like a lyre. She spoke aloud the words in her head:

  “Bat, mosquito, firefly, creatures of the night,

  “I have imprisoned you from your nocturnal flight

  “My command: Reveal yourselves to your captor’s sight—”

  Nann’s words jolted to a halt. A strange glow set the leaves into shadow. Bit by bit, by bit, by too many bits, creatures revealed themselves. There were two, she thought. But there were so many legs, so many wings, so many eyes, and a lot of barbed, curved stingers, there could have been three. Maybe a dozen.

  A bunch of faceted eyes as big as her thumbnail glowered at her. Tiny voices, muffled by the glass, would’ve sounded funny. Except what they said made her want to scream and run away.

  “Call us legion, call us swarm. We are Somniumite.”

  “Oh. My. Gawdess.” Nann gasped. “What the hell are Somniumites?”

  “Is that what they said?” Pokey gazed at the vase in thought. “I thought they said sodomites. You know what that is, right?”

  “No, it was Somniumites.”

  “I could explain it to you.”

  Nann couldn’t take her eyes off the huge, glowing insectile creatures. “Somium is Latin for dreams, or dreaming, I think.”

  “Oh, I get it. Like termites,” Pokey said. “But for dreams.”

  Despite the simplicity of the idea, Nann couldn’t dismiss it. “I can’t believe these creepy things exist. Are they really the reason everyone is having such crazy nightmares?”

  The Somniumites buzzed as if in agreement. Nann was happy they only buzzed. She didn’t think she could take hearing those buggy voices again.

  “These things must be all over town. They’re infecting dreams.”

  “So what?” Pokey sat on his haunches. “What’s the big deal with dreams, anyway?”

  Nann gave her pig the hairy eyeball. “Let me give you an example. A certain pig dreamed he was getting put on an all-turnip diet. When said pig wouldn’t talk to his owner, she took him to the vet. The vet charged the owner money she couldn’t’ afford. This pig parent then bought pig chow and a Snak-Y-Ball she also couldn’t afford, and didn’t need in the first place.”

  Pokey nodded for a moment. “I like the thought of you being a parental figure. It’s kinda humorous. But I gotta say, most people don’t get too bunged up when a pig gives them the silent treatment.”

  It was much more than Nann spending money she didn’t have. Both her best friends,
Tink and Zinnia, were furious with her. Deputy Schwenk was buried under reports of dreamers committing violence because of their nocturnal notions. Six women confessed to a murder they couldn’t have committed. And the victim, Arthur Perkins—

  “Holy schmoly, could nightmares lead you to suicide?” Nann asked herself out loud.

  Rustling sounded from the vase. The multi-winged and -legged creatures moved wildly through the leaf bunch.

  “Free us!”

  When the buzzing voices reached her ears, Nann felt nausea rise. She ripped, literally, the hat off her head. But it was too late. Before she could untangle it from her hair, she saw the creepy critters pop like tiny fireworks with humming screams. At the same time, she saw the shadow of the jar form on the table. The light of day had destroyed the trapped Somniumites.

  Chapter 15

  Grumpy, frustrated, Nann found the most odious task she could at the bookstore—paperback returns. These were long overdue, but Nann always put it off for as long as possible. It involved ripping the covers from the books and putting these in an envelope. The actual books (choke) went into the dumpster. She would receive credit from the publisher for the unsold copies and buy more. It was the literary cycle of life, she supposed. At the same time, the physical act of destroying the books helped her work through her vexation.

  What was she supposed to do, make a bunch of Somniumite traps for every person in town? And how many of the little monsters were out there? She didn’t want to sleep in a holly hat for the rest of her life. And what the hell did the critters have to do with Nick O’Broin? Or did they have anything to do with him? Maybe he was like Nann, and got caught up in inexplicable mysteries the police could never solve. Okay, that was a little far-fetched.

  At least she would have a chance to confront Nick at the book signing tonight. Although with the VHS focused on the man, she might have to take a number. Nann ripped the cover off a James Patterson and stuffed it in an envelope. Ha!

  Feeling a little better, although with the same sorrow she always had when returning mass market paperbacks, she heaved a bag of literature into the dumpster out back. She gazed at the pet cemetery hidden by the ornamental pines in the other corner of the property. “I’m having a weird week.”

  For a while, she looked for Somniumites on Google. She felt a quantum of victory, seeing that sominum was indeed Latin for dream. It was also a brand name of the drug Lorazepam. But no hits on Somniumite. For a while, she sat in the occult section, flipping through valuable compendiums of demons and the like. Still, nothing, and she knew better than to use expensive merchandise for research. That’s what libraries were for.

  She gave up her search after learning more than she wanted to about the difference between dreams, bad dreams, and nightmares. People could even have something called nightmare disorder. None of this helped her.

  The bell over the door dinged. Ricky the mailman stumbled in. Nann did a double take. Both of his pant legs were torn, with bandages in evidence. His uniform was covered in dirt and mud, and even blood on his right knee. His hands were scraped up as well. “Ricky, what the heck happened? Are you okay?”

  “The damn dogs. I call the sheriff every day, but they’re still out there. A pack of ’em, out on Old State Road.”

  Nann stood up and hurried around the checkout counter. “You were attacked by dogs? Did they bite you?”

  Ricky chuckled. “Well, no. I just saw them coming and ran for the truck. But I ran right through a hedge, tripped and fell a couple times. You know, mailman, dogs, the never-ending saga.”

  Nann had nothing to offer. “You want some of my thermos coffee?”

  “No, I’m fine.” Ricky grabbed her packages and left some bills. “Funny, the thing I was dreading was coming here.”

  “Oh, that’s nice of you to say.”

  He smiled. “Aw, it was just a crazy dream. I dreamed you had so many packages, we had to call in a semi-truck—and I had to load it all because this is my route.”

  “I should have such dreams,” Nann said.

  “Looks like you got a bunch of packages. Business good?”

  Nann shook her head. “Nah. Those are mostly returns.”

  “Well, you should have a good turn out tonight.” Ricky nodded to the big picture of Nick O’Broin on the easel. “Even I’m coming. Well, my wife wanted to come.”

  “I didn’t know your wife liked to read.”

  “She mostly goes to the library. But she sure is interested in this author character.” Ricky nodded at the picture on the easel. “Thinks he’s dreamy.”

  Dreamy. The word sort of floated through Nann’s head.

  “Anyway, gotta run. See you tonight, Nann.”

  MIDAFTERNOON, NANN started arranging folding chairs. She got them as part of a deal to get cheap bookshelves. A private learning academy going out of business had the shelves. They also had dozens of folding chairs, computers, desks, and a whole bunch of other stuff Nann didn’t need. Since she needed the shelves, she took it all. Finally, something else from the purchase was proving useful. There was even a lectern thrown in with the rest. Never did she think she would need such a thing.

  She set up half a dozen chairs in a semicircle around the lectern. Then, feeling foolishly optimistic, she dragged all the chairs out, setting them three deep. Nann stepped back, checking her work. Given that her friends were all mad at her, and few people in Calamity Corners ever stopped for a book, Nann thought it might just be her and Nick at the event. Her, and Nick, and three cases of books. Luckily, she’d gotten two of them for free. The case she did purchase, she couldn’t return.

  Sitting at the end of the back row of chairs, she glanced around. Boy, this store was huge. Even with this event area full of chairs, there was still easy access to all the shelves. Nann worried that the space would appear even larger when just she and Nick were attending the book signing.

  “Hello! Hello... hello...” Smirking, she amused herself by making false echo noises. “Hello! Hello... hello...”

  And then nearly fell out of the chair.

  “Hello, Nann.”

  Trying to keep the chair legs on the floor, she whirled around. Nick O’Broin walked toward her. The bell above the door hadn’t clanged. Her eyes riveted themselves to the briefcase in his hand. She’d seen it when Nick was stealing files from the veterinary hospital.

  “Yeah. Hey! You’re early.” Almost two hours early, she didn’t say.

  “I was hoping to go over my notes, in preparation for the talk.” Nick wore a sort of teal colored, three-piece suit with a micro window pane pattern. Shoulder pads gave the jacket a drape. His silk shirt and skinny leather tie were the same color. He might look retro, but Ricky’s wife was right. O’Broin was pretty dreamy.

  Nann had a bunch of questions for him. When they came to her, she found no way of phrasing them in such a way that she didn’t appear insane. “Go ahead and use my office. It’s the door past the restrooms.” In the meanwhile, she would figure out how to ask him about invisible insects that messed with dreams. There was still plenty of time before the event started.

  And then there wasn’t.

  Ricky the mailman arrived with his wife. She slapped him lightly on the chest. “You didn’t say how great this place is! I’m glad we came early.”

  Nann introduced herself, and Mrs. Ricky (what was his last name?) set to browsing. Ricky bought a paper and sat in one of the folding chairs. Not ten minutes later, Brandi Kugler arrived, leading a gaggle of housewives. They flocked around the big portrait of Nick O’Broin, and three of them grabbed books for Nann to ring up. Chatty and giggly, they took up a half dozen more chairs.

  Nann looked at the time in the lower right corner of the checkout computer. There was still an hour and a half before the event started. Where were these people during regular business hours?

  To her surprise, Margie, the ill-tempered owner of Margie’s Bar and Grill walked in. She took in the big portrait of Nick and bought a book. Then her vet Dr.
Coombs arrived with Annette from the shelter. They exchanged pleasantries with Nann, and then with Brandi and her crew of hausfraus.

  It wasn’t until right before the event that Zinnia entered, pulling her boyfriend Branden along. Pointedly avoiding Nann, she dragged her significant other to a chair in back. The VHS counted Branden as a member and entered right behind. They sat next to Branden and Zinnia in the back row. Nann could hear the rattle of stakes and mallets in their backpacks.

  Several people Nann didn’t know came in, and then Tink and Manuel. Manuel tried to stop to say hi, but Tink yanked him away. The two of them eyed the members of the VHS and sat as far away as possible. Tink exchanged a “sorry” look with Zinnia, who shrugged in understanding. At the same time, Bob, Rascal and Jim shot fierce looks at Manuel, who returned them in kind. Tom rolled his eyes toward the ceiling.

  Holy schmoly, this town was twisted up, Nann thought. Friends weren’t talking, not even sitting together, guys angry at other guys for no reason. All this because of dreams.

  Finally, it was time. Nann scooted from behind the checkout counter. She knocked on her own office door. For a moment, she convinced herself that Nick had disappeared again, the same way he had from the veterinary file room. But he smiled, already walking toward the door.

  “Showtime,” Nann said.

  Chapter 16

  “Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Battle of the Little Bay, Nicholas O’Broin.” Nann was not good at public speaking, and was glad she didn’t have a microphone or PA system. All she had was a big mouth. This served her well enough, but feeling her face burn, she quickly moved back behind the checkout counter.