The Trouble With Witches by Shirley Damsgaard Read Free Book Online

held Jason in awe, but seemed close to Juliet. And when she talked about this woman, Winnie, she made disparaging remarks. She didn't like her."
    "What about the foster daughter?" I asked. "This Tink ? Did she mention her?"
    Joan smoothed her hands over the arms of her chair. "Once or twice. She described the girl as 'spooky.' "
    "In what way?"
    Joan lifted a hand. "I don't know. She never explained. Our phone conversations were always short. The group disapproved of contact with the members' families, so Brandi had to be careful about calling home."
    Abby stood abruptly. "Do you have any other pictures of Brandi?"
    Joan also stood. "Of course. The photo albums are in the den. This way."
    Abby and I followed her out of the living room and down the hall. She stopped in front of a set of double doors and swung them open.
    "The albums are in here," she said.
    Abby paused at the doorway and laid a hand on Joan's arm. "Would you mind if we looked at them alone?"
    Joan's eyebrows knitted into a small frown. "No. They're all on the bottom row," she said, pointing to the bookcases lining the walls behind the desk.
    "Thank you," Abby said, smiling at her.
    Passing Joan, I followed Abby in. It was definitely her husband's room. Very tweedy and masculine. No frou-frou or flowers anywhere. And the air still carried the faint aroma of cigar smoke.
    Abby and I each grabbed a photo album, sat down, placed them on the desk and opened them. Mine began with the first months of Brandi's life. As I flipped through the pages, I saw her change from a chubby-cheeked toddler to a little girl in pink dresses with matching ribbons in her hair. Her smile went from toothless to bright and innocent.
    "Cute kid," I mumbled as I flipped through the pages showing Brandi as a gawky adolescent.
    "What, dear?" Abby asked.
    "I said 'cute kid.' It's hard to imagine these are pictures of the same girl as the one on the mantel. The one with the orange hair."
    "Take a look at these."
    Abby pushed the album toward me and we switched albums. The photos on the first few pages were similar to those in the album I'd already seen. But about halfway through they began to change. Brandi wasn't a wide-eyed little tot anymore, or a young girl on the edge of womanhood. Her smile changed to a sullen grimace. The pink dresses had morphed into ripped black T-shirts and low-slung black jeans. An eyebrow ring hung above eyes ringed in black eyeliner. And the hair—in the last picture it looked like Brandi had used Easter egg dye to color it. Strands the colors of candy pink, robin's-egg blue, and lime green stuck up in stiff spikes from her scalp.
    I glanced at Abby. She stood, her head tipped back and her eyes closed as she ran her hand over the slick surface of the photos.
    "Anything?" I said, watching her.
    "Umm?"
    "Are you getting anything from her pictures?"
    "A happy childhood, a close relationship with her mother, but the father is distant. Too busy pursuing a career to pay much attention to a little girl." Abby flipped to another page. "School is easy, but at the same time hard. She doesn't fit in. She sees the world in a different way than the other children—"
    "Psychic?" I interrupted.
    "No, but highly intuitive. Her intuition makes it hard to relate to her teachers and her classmates. She begins to spend more and more time by herself." Abby slid the album to the side and reached for the one I had been looking at. She opened it to the last page, to the one of Brandi with black-ringed eyes and Easter-egg-colored hair. Placing both hands on the photo, she lowered her head.
    "Water, dark, lost, alone…" Abby's voice trailed off as her shoulders shook slightly.
    I started to reach for her when she lifted her head and looked at me.
    "We need to find this girl fast."
    "You're sure she's still alive?"
    Abby passed a hand over her forehead as if to rub the images away. "Yes, I am. But she's in danger and we must find her soon."

 

Chapter Five

     
    After leaving Joan, Rick