Chapter 2

With help from Tilda, or Mattie, I still didn't understand half of the conversation we had just had, I stumbled up the stairs from the garage. As we made it to the top I remembered that I had a much more pressing need than food.

"I need to go to the bathroom," I mumbled.

"Of course, you do," Tilda said, her voice laced with sympathy.

She helped me to a small room at the back of the house and gently pushed me inside. After I'd finished, I studied the small window critically, wondering whether I'd be able to get through it.

A voice called out from beyond the door. "I would suggest you not try to get out through the window. It's a lot smaller than you think."

I opened the door. "How did you know?"

Tilda offered me an arm to lean on and I accepted it gratefully, still not entirely confident that my legs would continue supporting me. "When I was a teenager Grandma grounded me and I thought that I'd be able to get out through that window without her knowing. Having the fire department called to extract me was one of the humiliating lowlights of my life."

I tried hard to suppress the smile I could feel creeping across my face. If this wasn't a kidnapping, I could see how this woman and I could be friends. She helped me into the kitchen and sat me down at the table.

Tilda pushed her hair back from her face and gave me a gentle smile. She was definitely not acting like I would expect a kidnapper to act.

"What can I get you?" she asked.

"Some water would be good," I croaked.

"Of course," Tilda said before looking accusingly at the older women. "You've been stuffed in a trunk for twenty-four hours without any thought to your comfort."

Maude rolled her eyes. "Fine, I get it. We could have approached this situation more tactfully."

Tilda pointed a finger at her grandmother. "Not another word."

She handed over a glass of water and I drank it, the cold liquid soothing my throat. A tense silence descended on the room and I looked around cautiously, still unable to reconcile the fact that I had been kidnapped with the three women who looked like they couldn't harm a fly. Right up until Margot decided I was looking too comfortable.

"Did any of you see that documentary that screened last week?" She shook her head. "It was about a serial killer who owned a pig farm and was feeding the bodies to his pigs. Said it was the only way he was able to make a profit considering how much feed is costing these days."

"I'm guessing that wasn't the only reason that he was doing it." Maude looked as if she got those interesting nuggets of information every day.

Tilda was the only one registering the horrified look on my face. "New rule, you two are not to say another word until we get..." she paused for a moment. "Wait a minute, who did you kidnap? She doesn't look like any of the photos of the people you were supposed to approach." Tilda flung a desperate glance at me. "And talk to. I swear, they were just supposed to talk to you."

"My name is Sadie Goodwin. I live in Augusta, Georgia and I work as a librarian."

"Nope. Not ringing a bell."

"It's complicated," Maude muttered.

We all looked at her expectantly.

"We're waiting," Tilda said, the warning obvious in her tone.

Maude hesitated. "She wasn't on the list."

Tilda's head dropped into her hands. "You kidnapped some random woman off the street. Why would you do that?"

Maude showed her first signs of nervousness. "I had a feeling that she was the one we needed."

"You had a feeling?"

I could do nothing but watch this discussion play out between the two women.

Tilda shook her head in confusion. There was a part of me that was glad I wasn't the only one.

I did latch on to one part of this conversation. I wasn't supposed to be taken. I stood up, filled with a new purpose. "It's obvious you made a mistake. If you could just point me towards the nearest door I will get out of your hair and you will never hear from me again." I was lying through my teeth. The second I got away from these people I was going to the police to suggest a psychiatric hold might be appropriate, if only to save the next innocent woman being randomly grabbed off the street.

Maude smiled sadly. "I'm afraid we can't do that. Even though you weren't on the list, you are definitely supposed to be here. We really need your help."

"You kidnapped me because you need my help?" I sat back down heavily on the chair. "Aren't there better ways of asking for help that don't involve committing a felony?"

"You'd think so," Tilda sighed. "Look, a friend of ours is really sick." She paused as she swallowed and I could see a sheen of tears in her eyes. "To be honest, she's dying and we have a very short period of time to save her life."

"What do you mean, save her life? Isn't that what the doctors are supposed to do?"

"The doctors can't do anything for her. Her particular situation means that we need to find someone who is able to help her in a very specific way."

My mind started leaping forward from that statement, and I did not like where it was going. "You need me because you think I'm a match for this person."

Tilda nodded enthusiastically. "Exactly."

I got up and stood behind my chair, firmly gripping it. If this was going the way I thought it was going, I needed a weapon. "What exactly are you looking at me to donate?" In my mind I started calculating what parts of me could be valuable to someone who was dying. I was hoping it was blood or at worst bone marrow. Anything more than that and I was going to start swinging the chair around.

Tilda lifted her hands up in a placating gesture. "It's nothing like that." She stopped for a moment as her gaze narrowed at the point where my hands were gripping the chair.

"She's bleeding." Tilda turned to her grandmother. "Why is she bleeding?"

Maude shrugged. "Don't look at me. She was fine when we bundled her in the trunk."

Margot cleared her throat. "We did hit her head on the door frame as we were carrying her out of the house." She glanced at me apologetically. "It took both of us to carry you. You're heavier than you look."

Great, just what I needed to hear to top off what was already a lousy day.

Tilda was keeping an eye on the bleeding. "I think we need to get a doctor to have a look at that. It looks deep."

I held up my hand to examine the gash that went across my palm. The blood was still flowing quite freely. It seemed, despite the fact that I had been kidnapped, I'd been the one to damage myself the most. "I cut it on something in the trunk, trying to find a way to get out."

Maude and Margot looked suitably chastened at my pathetic explanation.

"I'm going to get a doctor here to check it out," Tilda announced.

Maude cleared her throat. "We may have a problem with that."

Tilda paused as she went to grab her phone. "What else could possibly be going wrong now?"

"She doesn't exactly know what kind of town this is."

Tilda closed her eyes and I could see that she really wanted this day to end. "And by that you mean...?"

"She doesn't know who we are or what kind of people live here," Maude said firmly. "She can't see anyone until we explain that to her. If she reacts badly, we're all going to be in trouble."

I was fine with that. I could see that as far as kidnappings went, this had been a relatively easy one for me as the victim. I still didn't think they should get away with what they had done.

Tilda ran her hands through her hair and left the room. That wasn't good. I had been getting the feeling that she was the only sane one in the house. Before I had time to launch into a full-blown panic, she returned with a towel which she folded up and pressed down on the cut on my hand. She then led me back to my chair and sat me down. Keeping the pressure on my wound, she sat down next to me while Maude and Margot took seats on the opposite side of the table.

Tilda smiled at me in a way I knew was supposed to make me feel safe. It didn't.

"How open-minded are you?"

That did not sound good. "I guess I'm pretty open-minded," I said slowly. "But it depends what you're talking about."

"Do you believe in the possibility of UFOs?"

Okay, this had just taken a weird turn. "I guess they're possible. It isn't something I've spent a great deal of time thinking about."

"How about psychics?"

"Yet again, not something I spend a lot of time contemplating. Why are you asking me these things?"

Tilda ran her hands through her hair. "I'm just trying to work out how you're going to react to something that might be a little surprising at first."

I was getting ready to snap. "The longer you dance around the topic, the less open-minded I become."

Tilda swallowed nervously and the grip on my hand tightened. "We're witches. We live in a town which has other paranormal beings, and we need to know that if you walk out that door that you are not going to freak out if the first person you come across is a troll."

"And that's the point," I said as I pulled my hand out of Tilda's solicitous grip and stood up.

"What point?" asked Maude.

"The point where it finally gets through my thick head that you people are insane." I took in a shaky breath. "You would have thought that just being kidnapped by you was enough for me to reach that conclusion. Or the fact that I still have a sneaking suspicion that you're going to try to force me to donate a kidney to your sick friend."

"Stealing human organs is more common than you think," Margot said, pulling all the attention to herself. "I watched a documentary about it last month."

I sucked in a breath. "Or that one of my kidnappers keeps talking about things like serial killers and organ harvesters."

"I was just trying to lighten the mood," pouted Margot.

"Seriously not helping," murmured Tilda.

"Fine." I slammed my good hand down on the table. "You want me to believe you're a witch? Prove it. Conjure up something. In fact, you still haven't fed me. I wouldn't mind a chicken salad sandwich."

Tilda sighed. "That isn't the way magic works."

I rolled my eyes. "Of course, it isn't."

"You think magic is easy? The effort and energy that goes into creating a spell is draining. You don't just wiggle your nose or click your fingers and something appears. We're not genies, you know." She paused for a moment. "Not that there's anything wrong with genies. They are valuable members of the community."

Margot snorted. "You can't say a bad thing about anyone, can you? Everyone knows that genies are malevolent beings, but you just can't bring yourself to admit it." She looked over at me. "A genie will never grant you a wish that will come out like you wanted. There's always some sting in the tail to punish you for even contemplating asking them to use their magic." She leaned forward and narrowed her eyes as if she was imparting the secrets of the universe to me. "Never trust a genie's wish."

Sure. That was the important lesson I was going to take away from today.