Whistling Witches

Fumbling in the Dark

I walked into Mr Crawley’s feeling a bit put off. I had no wish to spend more time on fixing my bike! And what was up with ghosts sabotaging it? It made absolutely no sense!

As I stepped into the shop I immediately heard voices and, for some reason, it stopped me in my tracks.

“So if the slope is deemed unsafe it would legally be OK to close it?” I heard Mr Crawley ask.

“Yes, of course,” a dark voice replied.

“And it wouldn’t damage my contracts moving forward?”

“No, not one bit.” The dark voice sounded very self-assure.

“In that case I think that would be a good idea. But only for a quick test. I don’t want to lose business.”

The dark voice laughed.

“This would be good for business.”

“There’s gold in the mountain.”

Suddenly I froze. That wasn’t Mr Crawley or the man with the dark voice! It was the same voice she’d heard yesterday! I felt goosebumps on my neck and then a hat fell off a shelf not far from me.

“Hello, anyone there?” Mr Crawley shouted, sounding angry. I figured now would be a good time to announce my arrival, as I had no wish to explain why I’d not stepped forward sooner.

“Uhm, yes, it’s me!” I replied. “I mean it’s me, Louise. My bike tyre went again. Could you help me please?”

“Well, don’t just stand there and hide girl,” Mr Crawley snapped. “Come up here and speak to me face-to-face.”

I walked through the aisles and up to the counter, finally seeing the man Mr Crawley had been speaking to. He was tall and dark. I guess you could say that he was handsome too, but there was something about his features that made me want to step back, instead of forward. For lack of better wording: he looked mean. Or maybe mean was the wrong word: he did not look like someone who got pleasure out of being mean, but someone who did anything to get what he wanted. Ruthless. 100% ruthless. I didn’t even think Aunt Agatha could fix his mind. Once again I felt goosebumps of the not so pleasant kind.

“Sorry, I was just standing there looking at some hats when I came in and, uh, one fell off the shelf. How are you Mr Crawley?” I rambled. I didn’t know why, but the spooky voice about gold in the mountain and Mr Crawley’s friend made me nervous. I also didn’t know why I was covering up for a ghost, but I was.

“It would be better if people didn’t have broken bikes all the time,” Mr Crawley grumbled.

“No, it wouldn’t,” I snapped. At this Mr Crawley looked up, piercing me with his narrowed eyes. “What I mean is, broken bikes are good for business, aren’t they? It’s no fun for us customers having broken bikes, of course.” I was tired of ghosts being a pain in the butt and I was tired of grumpy old men!

“Hmpf,” Mr Crawley muttered in response. His friend just stared at me. He actually looked quite bemused at me standing up to Mr Crawley.

“I’m off. I’ll speak to you later,” the man with the dark voice said, then nodded at me too and left.

I felt somewhat better as he left. There was something not right about him. Mr Crawley was a grumpy nuisance, but that was that. Kind of like the annoying stone you always stumble over, but nothing worse. The other man was worse. Much worse. Why, I didn’t know, but I did know he was trouble. From years of experience reading people, that much was obvious. He was also rich, judging from his suit. It had been tailored to fit him perfectly and the fabric looked expensive. His shoes were made of leather and polished to shine. Not many people in Rocky Creek wear fancy business clothing about town.

“Right, let’s fix your bike,” Mr Crawley muttered. “Meet me in the workshop.” I imagined he almost looked a bit ashamed of himself. There’s a first for everything! Then he started fiddling with some products behind the counter and I turned to go get my bike.

***

I left Mr Crawley to fix my bike as I took a stroll around town. I felt like stretching my legs. It was a cold and grey day and Mr Crawley’s workshop wasn’t particularly warm. I preferred walking around. Besides, standing next to Mr Crawley watching him work was never fun.

After a ten minute walk I headed back to the workshop. I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling I had about the voice about gold in the mountain. But what could I do about it? The women who spoke about sabotaging my tyre sounded nuts, but they didn’t frighten me. I didn’t get chills from hearing their voices. They sounded nuts in the way my aunts are nuts — they’re really quite sane but like their own eccentricities. Giving me problems with my tires sounded insane, but clearly they wanted me to go see Mr Crawley. Twice. At least that’s the conclusion I drew when thinking about it on my walk.

As I entered the workshop I heard Mr Crawley mutter about lawyers being expensive nuisance, before he looked up and saw me.

“There we go. All done. Come inside and pay and then you’re good to go. At least for now. At this rate you’ll be back by tomorrow.”

“Thanks Mr Crawley. I hope my bad luck with tires will be over!” And I meant it. If the ghosts wanted me to come see Mr Crawley, they could just tell me so in the future!

***

When I finally arrived in the library I had a snack in the cafeteria then opted to sit on one of the long tables, filled with lots of people. Normally I’d prefer my lonely corner, but I wasn’t up for hearing more ghostly voices when by myself.

I got really engrossed in my studies and when I looked up the next time it was dark outside. Thankfully I was also done with my homework.

I quickly packed my bags and walked out to my bike, nodding at a few people I knew along the way. For some reason the library is a real hot spot — even people like Samantha come here. If nothing else because people like Jason and Elbert come here, but mainly because the building is so beautiful. It’s like walking into the late 1800s/early 1900s. Chandeliers and grand staircases included.

As I got outside I was welcomed by refreshingly cold air. It had a bite to it, nipping my cheeks and making me feel alive. It was only early October, but fall usually bring a few really cold days in Rocky Creek. And while I’m more of a summer person, I like the change of seasons here. The connection to Mother Nature. Being a witch and all that, I really enjoy celebrating the magic of each season. And today I was looking forward to getting home and checking what pumpkin spice anything Hetty would have brought back from the bakery today. I was totally planning to beg on my knees for her to bake something, should she not have any treats with her. I was desperate to sink into the armchair by the fireplace and get lost in Shakespeare and cake. After eating a healthy dinner and all that.

I sighed as I walked towards my bike, lost in a daydream about a crackling fireplace and Hetty’s pumpkin spiced cakes. Getting on the bike I started paying more attention to my surroundings again and the cold air was truly like a tonic. One couldn’t help but feeling 100% awake!

I felt my mood picking up — feeling alive and awake, not even the thought of dealing with weird ghosts put me off. In fact, I started thinking the whole thing interesting. There was the mystery about gold in the mountain and then all the interesting ghost characters I’d met so far — Mr Crinkle the protector of Rocky Creek, Josephine the jazz singer and sad Sally the weeping ghost. OK, so Sally was a bit annoying, but still. There must be a fascinating story behind her tears and, maybe, I could help her somehow?

Just as I was contemplating this I became aware of a strange sensation. I couldn’t quite grasp what it was, but then a note appeared in front of me. The same kind of scroll I’d found in my bedroom, only now it was ten times larger and read: “Stop the man from stealing the gold, or the dragons won’t grow old.”

Panicking I tried to hit the breaks and swerve out of the way of the note at the same time. Only instead I lost control of the bike and fell.

I hit the ground with a thud, landing on my knee and hands, as I could feel them being scraped, but the motion propelled me to continue my descent until my head somehow landed on something sharp.

At first I felt nothing, but then pain soared through my head like a bolt of lightening. Overhead I could hear the voices again, now arguing about me falling off a bike. Was I dreaming? And the note? What did it say?

“Stop the man from stealing the gold, or the dragons won’t grow old,” I mumbled to myself.

“Louise! Louise, are you alright?”

I heard another voice, this time male. Was there a male ghost now too?

“Go away,” I mumbled. “I’ve had enough of voices, enough of bike accidents. It hurts you know. It really hurts.” I was starting to get worked up. Who did these blooming (as Jenna loved saying — some British friend of her once made such an impression on her she still sounds like something out of a British film, only with an American accent) ghosts think they were? “You can’t keep making me blow my tires and fall off my bike. If you were alive I’d have you arrested.”

As I got angrier my head started to clear — I could feel the pain aching whenever blood pulsated through the area that was hurt — but I no longer felt like I had a cloud inside my head. Which was unfortunate really, because the next moment I saw Jason standing bent over me.

“Louise! Answer me, are you OK?”

“You’re not a ghost,” I replied. Then, through the pain, I realized that was the wrong reply. “I mean…I…I hurt my head. But I’m OK. I thought I heard voices. Must have been the fall. I’m already feeling much better. I just, erm, I need to get up.”

“Wait!” Jason stepped forward and gave me his hand. “Don’t move too fast. We don’t want you to faint, or anything. Looked like quite a nasty fall from where I was?”

“Where were you? In the bushes again?” Too late I realized what I’d said. Man, falling on your head really isn’t good for one’s conversation skills! “I mean, I saw you going for a walk the other day. I just thought most people don’t walk here at night. You know…shit that hurts.”

Jason had grabbed my hand and I was slowly standing.

“What hurts?” Jason looked concerned, although I could swear he had been smiling at me when I was rambling on about his walk.

“My knee.” I looked up into his eyes, as he frowned and looked at my knee. What was it with those eyes? So big, so brown, so… He was just gorgeous. And I wanted to find out what was in there. Who he was. Like really was. Maybe if I just kept looking at his eyes…

“How bad does it hurt?”

“Uhm.” I’d forgotten about my knee momentarily. Maybe one could hire Jason as pain killer at the local hospital? Kills pain with the look in his brown eyes… Yeah right. My knee and head still felt pretty awful and my hands didn’t feel great either.

“I…it doesn’t hurt in a bad way, hurt. I mean it’s bleeding. I scraped it. It feels like someone poured acid on it. It stings, I mean. Badly. But that’s a lot of scraped skin, not a big injury.”

“Hmm, let me have a look at it, so you don’t have a stone in there or something. Maybe you got a deep cut?”

As I struggled to stand up properly, leaning on Jason’s hand, I was sure if I felt dizzy from the shock of seeing ghosts, falling off my bike, or holding Jason’s hand. Probably a combination. Johanna would love this — so much drama in just one moment.

Once I was standing fairly straight, Jason sat down to inspect my knee.

“You have dirt all over the knee from the gravel. I need to rinse it.”

He looked up at me, as if asking my permission.

“OK.” At that point I would probably have said OK no matter what he asked. I only wished it was something more interesting than cleaning my knee. Then again, it was JASON cleaning my knee.

He grabbed a bottle of water from his backpack. “This is gonna be wet and cold. OK?”

I tried nodding, but that hurt too much.

“OK.” Maybe my vocabulary had shrunk too?

As Jason poured some water over my bloody knee and torn jeans, I realized he was right: it was wet and it was cold. But it didn’t hurt too much.

“I think it’s just a scrape, but it covers pretty much your entire knee, so it will hurt a bit. You had impressive speed and when you fell you slid a meter or so on the ground. I had these kind of scratches all the time as a kid. I constantly fell over. It was like a curse.” Jason looked up at me with a smile. “I was a clumsy kid.”

I wanted to say something clever back. I really did.

“Uh, yeah I’ve had a few too. Scrapes. Not the first time I fall off a bike. Normally don’t hit my head, but still.”

Jason looked concerned again and stood up.

“Yeah, about your head, can I see it? I normally only treat animals, but I should be able to figure out if you need to see a doctor or not.”

Consciously I tried to put my hand to my head where it was hurting.

“No, don’t.” Jason caught my hand just before it went to the wound. “You don’t want your dirty fingers in there and they are dirty after the fall. Also, it’s bled quite a bit, as head wounds do. And you don’t want blood on your hands!” Then he stopped, realizing what he just said. “I mean that in the literal sense.” He grinned at me.

“Uh, OK.” Really? Was that the only think I could say? He was so close now. Holding my hand and stepping closer to look at the wound. He smelled nice. Like leather and soap.

“It doesn’t look too bad. How does it feel? Does it hurt a lot?” Jason was busy studying my wound and speaking into my hair. Then he stepped back and looked at me.

“I…I don’t think so. It hurts, you know a pulsating kind of ache, but it’s not too painful anymore. I don’t feel nauseous, or anything. I should probably just bike home and Wilda can put one of her ointment on it.”

I was looking at Jason, who was looking straight back at me. Somehow that was really weird. I felt a strange sensation of butterflies in my belly. It was strange because I had just fallen off a bike, my head, knee and hands hurt and I was starting to feel really cold. Especially my wet knee started freezing. Still, I was also all warm and fuzzy inside, because Jason was next to me.

“I don’t think biking by yourself is a great idea right now. I’ll come with you.” He gave me a small smile and my heart made involuntary jumps. Suddenly it seemed pretty hard to breathe too.

“You don’t have to. I’m sure I’ll be fine. Really, my head is alright. I just want to get home and rest.” Suddenly I remembered my previous daydream about pumpkin spice cake and reading Shakespeare by the fire. That somehow didn’t seem so great anymore, not with an aching head.

Jason shook his head.

“You never leave someone with a head injury alone. I don’t think you have a concussion, but just in case. I could call your aunts for you if you prefer?”

In my mind’s eye I saw my aunts getting into the Rover and driving to find me while being their overwhelming selves and worrying about how badly hurt I was.

“No, they’d just worry. I’m fine, really.” A part of me wanted to scream that I wanted him to come with me home, another part of me felt disheveled and wanted to go and hide, yet another part felt like I was a big burden on him for crashing his night. Pretty literally.

“No, you aren’t fine. You look like a train wreck, no offense, but leaving a hurt person alone is just unthinkable. Try to reverse the situation. Would you leave someone bleeding on their own?”

Thinking about it like that…no.

“OK, sure. You can come with me. Thank you. I appreciate it. Really. I just don’t think I have a concussion or anything like that. It doesn’t hurt that bad.”

“I know,” Jason smiled, “but I’m coming with.”