The Witch Next Door

It was not a good day for a summer storm. Penelope Reed watched through the blinds of her kitchen window as movers began to unload furniture from a beat-up truck parked in the driveway next door. An unfortunate pleather sofa followed a pair of lamps and a behemoth of a secretary desk. From a rusted station wagon came a black umbrella, masking the presence of the new homeowner of 1692 Cherrywood Lane.

“Mom?”

Penelope let the blinds snap back into shape as if she had been caught doing something wrong. She brushed a hand over her apron, still dusted with flour from the cake she had promised to make. “Charlie, you shouldn’t sneak up on me like that.”

Her son blinked at her, and she could see her husband in that gaze. It was bad enough she had one man looking at her owlishly all the time. Now she had two. And it became more and more apparent that Charlie took after his father far more than he took after his mother.

She reached out and ruffled his tawny hair. “Do you want to help with the cake?”

His nose wrinkled, and she knew straight away that he would beg off. Heaven forbid he even tried to help her when it came to domestic matters—another habit he had inherited from Dan Reed.

“I was hoping I could go to Randy’s,” Charlie said, shifting from foot to foot in that nervous way he had.

Penelope frowned at the measuring cups waiting to be washed in the sink. “It’s raining,” she said. “What’ll you do all day?”

Charlie shrugged. “Play video games, probably.”

“Mm.” Her gaze drifted from the window to the sink and back. “If it’s all right with Randy’s parents, you can go.”

Her son let out a yip of delight. “Awesome!”

She could barely get out a warning of “Make sure to wear your rain coat and boots!” before he had dashed out of the kitchen, ready for his adventures of the day. Shaking her head, she turned her attention back to the mixing bowl and the sink already cluttered with dishes. Her eyes also kept skating back to the kitchen window and the neighborhood’s newest spectacle waiting behind the glass. Even Charlie’s escape out of the house with a bang of the front door barely registered.

By the time Penelope had gotten the cake batter set in its baking tins, she had decided. The cake was supposed to be for tonight’s dinner—but forget all that. She could easily make another just as soon as she got home. It was better to be neighborly, wasn’t it?

The scents of chocolate and vanilla brimmed in the kitchen, easing Penelope’s impatient energy. Between the cooling and frosting stages, she checked through the blinds three times and watched as the moving truck emptied item by item. The truck departed just as Penelope finished up the frosting on the cake with a flourish. She eyed it from different angles; it wasn’t her best work, but she had a time limit. Dan would be home from work in a few hours, and he would not be happy if the smell of dinner wasn’t waiting for him as he walked through the door.

The rain had sputtered to a stop as Penelope made the minute walk over to the house next door. The last time she had visited this house, Deborah Maxim had resided there, crying over the divorce that had meant she had to sell the house and split the money with her ex. That time, Penelope had brought over a tray of pineapple fluff to ease her poor neighbor’s nerves.

Within moments of pressing the doorbell, a young woman with strands of hair escaping her ponytail opened the door. Penelope plastered on her winning smile, all the better to be the most welcoming to newcomers on the block.

“Welcome to the neighborhood! I just wanted to introduce myself. And I brought over a little something too!”

“Hi,” the woman said, looking a bit overwhelmed as her eyes took in Penelope and the cake platter. Penelope couldn’t help feeling a twinge of sympathy: the poor dear seemed to be in such a disarray. Well, good thing she had Penelope for her new neighbor, right?

“I’m Penelope,” she said, balancing the plate on one hand as she reached out to shake the other woman’s hand. She noticed there was no wedding ring on her new neighbor’s fingers. And, given the state of the woman’s clothing—flannel shirt and faded jeans—Penelope could suspect that there wasn’t a man to primp and preen for either.

“I’m Fiona,” the other woman said, a thin smile on her lips as she shook Penelope’s hand. “That’s so thoughtful of you to bring something over. Would you like to come in?”

Penelope handed over the cake and walked past Fiona to find a living room that seemed to be just as open to chaos as the new owner herself did. Boxes and plastic furniture wrap covered the carpet.

“Sorry for the mess,” Fiona said, offering a little laugh as she set the cake down in the kitchen. Then she gestured to the couch still encased in plastic. “Sit, sit!”

Penelope obliged and tried not to glance around her surroundings any more than she needed to. She didn’t want to embarrass the poor girl—at least, not too much. “It’s so nice to see a fresh face around town,” she said. “Where did you come from?”

“Down-state,” Fiona said. Then her eyes widened. “Oh, do you want something to drink? I have bottled water—”

“Oh, no, no, don’t go to the trouble. I won’t stay long. It seems like you still have plenty to do, and I’ll get out of your hair in a jiffy.”

“If you’re sure,” Fiona said, settling back down into the couch. “I’ll be a better hostess once I have everything in its place. Moving is really exhausting.”

“It looks like it,” Penelope said. “We inherited the house I grew up in, so I’ve lived in this neighborhood all my life.”

“Oh, wow, that’s something. You must love it here to stay that long.”

Now it was Penelope’s turn to wear a thin-lipped smile. “Well, I don’t know if I’d go that far—but it’s home.”

A buzz of silence fell over them until Fiona finally said, “I actually used money from my inheritance to buy this house. My mother passed away a few months ago.”

“Oh, dear, I’m so sorry to hear that,” Penelope said, offering a gentle pat to Fiona’s knee. “Were you close?”

Fiona laughed. “I’m not sure you could call us ‘close,’ but I was the only family she had left.”

“Oh, I hope you weren’t born under an unlucky star,” Penelope said, and Fiona looked back at her, confusion clouding her gaze.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s all about the stars at the end of the day, isn’t it? Don’t you ever read your horoscope?”

When Fiona still looked blank, Penelope swatted her playfully. “It must be the housewife’s curse. I’m practically glued to the horoscope column in the local paper every day!”

Fiona just shook her head. “It’s just a rough time in my life. It’ll pass.”

“That’s a good spirit to have,” Penelope replied. “And I’m sure you’ll make friends in town in no time. It’ll be like the bad times never happened.”

“Like the bad times never happened,” Fiona murmured. Penelope just watched with a sly smile coming to her face.

She stood up, running her hands down her skirt. “I must be going for now—my husband will never let me hear the end of it if he doesn’t have his dinner ready—but I’m sure we’ll be friends in no time, dear.”

“Oh, sure,” Fiona said, shaking her head as if from a daze. “Don’t be a stranger.”

“Believe me, I won’t be,” Penelope said. “Bye for now!”

As Penelope let herself out, she smiled to herself. Another wayward soul would be at her fingertips soon enough, so close she could nearly taste it.

Sometimes being the only witch in the neighborhood had its perks.