Page 37 of Never Been Witched (Starfall Point #3)

“Resignation? Oh, no, you’re fired ,” Marilyn barked, while Franklin grumbled, “Don’t think you can make up for your lack of attentiveness now. There’s no saving your employment with us. It isn’t as if we’re unaware that you’ve neglected your duties.”

Marilyn continued as if her husband hadn’t spoken. “We should have fired you properly weeks ago , but it was just so shameful, to have people on this godforsaken island know that someone from our family was so incompetent that we had to fire her.”

“Burn it down, Alice,” Arthur yelled. “Their whole damned shop! Give it over to the flames!”

Alice shook her head, careful not to laugh at Arthur’s lightning-quick change of heart.

It hurt, but not as deeply as she’d expected it to, to hear those words from her grandmother.

On some level, Alice had always known that she was expendable to the Proctors—could she really call them her grandparents when they’d fired her?

She was disposable. The attachment and grace that most grandparents—still a question mark there—felt toward their second-generation progeny was missing from Marilyn and Franklin.

And she was done making excuses for them, now that she’d seen how easily love and acceptance could be offered by people who cared.

She’d inadvertently done things that could have resulted in actual physical harm to her coven, and they’d forgiven her without a second thought.

If anything, the Proctors’ detachment made leaving easier.

Alice knew it was inevitable that she was going to have to stop working at Superior Antiques.

She would have preferred that it was on her own terms. She’d planned to hand them a resignation notice that Julie had printed off for her in the hotel office.

But this was better. If she was fired, she could file for unemployment, if necessary.

And, though it wasn’t her chief concern, firing their own granddaughter would look pretty bad to the island’s population.

They were completely unaware of how it was going to affect their business, their welcome among the locals. And it wasn’t Alice’s job to warn them.

“So, I can’t quit? You’re firing me?” Alice scoffed, snickering to herself. “Well, that’s different.”

“What are you laughing at?” Franklin demanded.

“Nothing,” Alice said, trying unsuccessfully to keep her lips from twitching.

“We were fools to invest so much in you. There’s never been any benefit to us,” Marilyn hissed. “From the moment of your birth, you’ve only brought tragedy and humiliation to our lives.”

Well, that one hurt. But honestly, they were just so ridiculous. They were just sad, mean, old people who were probably going to end up alone, and she wasn’t going to protect them from that anymore.

“All right, then,” Alice said, rubbing absently at her side. It felt like the ring was burning in her pocket. A thought occurred to Alice. What if the ring was Samuel’s attachment object? If it was, all she would have to do is get the ring to Shaddow House and Samuel and Victoria would be reunited.

A feeling of elation rose in her chest, which felt kind of inappropriate, given the situation.

“We’re speaking to you, young lady!” Franklin yelled.

“Yeah, and I’m really losing interest in the conversation,” Alice replied. “I’m going to go.”

“I suppose you’re going to your friend’s house?” Marilyn sniffed.

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Alice said.

“You’re not staying with a ‘friend,’” Franklin retorted. “You’re staying with that Bancroft boy.”

“Yes, a friend, who offered me a place to stay when you both threw me out,” Alice retorted.

“A proper young lady doesn’t stay with a friend simply because he offered her a bed,” her grandmother groused.

Alice rolled her eyes. “A bed at a hotel, where there are hundreds of rooms.”

“It’s indecent!” Franklin thundered.

Alice threw up her hands. “He’s thirty-five years old! So am I, for that matter!”

“It’s a matter of family honor,” Franklin sniffed.

Huh, more than two sentences from her grandfather in one evening, Alice mused. He must be awfully worked up for that to happen.

“You don’t even dislike him,” Alice scoffed. “You just like the idea of holding a grudge, of punishing someone. Is it because he could buy you and everything you own, several times over? Is that what really makes you mad?”

Alice didn’t wait for the answer.

“Oh, so you’re just going to walk away rather than apologize for your behavior?” Marilyn demanded. “After all we’ve done for you?”

And this was the self-consuming destructive cycle that was a relationship with her grandmother.

Marilyn wanted to be able to say whatever she wanted, however she wanted, while feigning a wound whenever Alice finally decided she’d had enough.

And the beauty of it was that her coven wasn’t running to Alice in response to her emotional turmoil, because Alice wasn’t in distress.

She was just tired and sad and relieved that at the very least, her grandparents weren’t pretending anymore.

“Right,” Alice scoffed. “I know you want me to grovel at your feet to get my job back, but those days are over. In fact, I’m firing you !”

Her grandmother gasped, but Alice continued.

“That’s right, you’re both fired. I don’t want to be in your precious family anymore.

You’ve done a terrible job of being my caretakers.

You’re the least caring people I’ve ever met.

So I’m giving the position to people who are way better at it than you. ”

“How dare you!” Marilyn gasped, actually clutching her pearls.

“Give us back your keys,” Franklin demanded, his hand outstretched imperiously. “Clearly we can’t trust you with them.”

“Sure,” Alice chirped back, dropping them into his palm. “Good luck running this place without me. You have the customer service skills of the average truck stop creep.”

“You’ll be back!” Marilyn yelled after Alice as she walked out.

“Not freaking likely!” Alice yelled back. She didn’t care if members of the Nana Grapevine were camped out on Main Square and heard her.

Damn, that felt good.

Alice strode across the square, rubbing her pocket where the ring rested. Collin was waiting for her at the corner, grinning at her.

“I thought you might be headed this way,” he said. “Riley called.”

“Yeah, I probably need to start paying you rent,” she told him.

“I’m not worried about it,” he assured her. Alice glanced over her shoulder and noticed a silvery blur hovering behind them.

Huh.

The silver shape moved past them, up the hill toward Shaddow House. It felt important to follow this indistinct silver wisp, moving with such purpose along the familiar path.

“Um, would you mind if we went…that way?” she asked, nodding toward the ghost’s uphill path.

Collin shrugged, appearing completely unfazed. “Sure.”

She wondered if the rest of the coven could see the ghost as they approached the porch.

The silver shadow had stopped near Gray Fern, seeming to hover, as if watching the others on the porch.

The coven was enjoying the early October evening on the porch, with the door propped open so Plover and the other ghosts could talk to them.

She’d done a difficult thing. Yay for her. There was still a ghost at her back. She glanced over her shoulder and saw that the shadowy shape was moving closer, but not fully materialized yet.

“I called an emergency meeting,” Riley told her, gesturing to the others. “I also explained Victoria’s story on the group text, so Collin knows too.”

“You sent a ghost’s murder-y origin story over the group text?” Alice marveled. Riley shrugged.

“On an unrelated note, is there a reason Clark was seen digging in the churchyard by a headstone with the name Uriah Albert Dix?” Edison asked, grinning at her.

Despite the absolutely terrible evening she’d had, Alice burst out laughing.

“Yes, a few days ago, I went to his law office to drop off a thank-you gift for Norma Oviette and I offered him a calculated fake apology for our ‘misunderstanding.’ I told him I panicked at the idea of you finding out about our ‘arrangement’ and wanted to make it up to him. I told him that you suspected Mr. Dix of being a Welling heir and it was possible he had valuable records buried with him. And it took me a long time to find a suitable headstone that would say something like, ‘You’re a dick.’”

Riley chortled. “Diabolical.”

“Any idea why Trooper Celia accused Clark of ‘fiddling’ with the windows of the Historical Society office?” Caroline asked, smirking as if she couldn’t wait for the explanation.

“I may have told him that you thought there was a complete original blueprint of Shaddow House somewhere in the architectural section, stuck between two pages of a Shaddow family Bible.”

Riley frowned. “There’s no such thing as a complete original blueprint of Shaddow House. Or a Shaddow family Bible. Because there is no Shaddow family.”

Alice beamed. “Yes, I know.”

“You have a little bit of a vicious streak in you, don’t you?” Collin asked.

“I have never pretended otherwise. It’s just that it’s rarely activated,” Alice said, shaking her head. “Do not cross me. Also, I brought this.”

She pulled the ring out of her pocket and showed it to the others.

“Aw!” Collin crowed. “You found it!”

Alice dropped the ring into Caroline’s hand. “I’m pretty sure it’s an attachment object for Samuel. But I wanted to have you check it over before we bring it into the house.”

Caroline turned it over in her hand. Alice looked over her shoulder, and the shadow was still moving toward them.

“Aw, Alice’s meanness is much more productive than our meanness,” Riley sighed. “My meanness is centered around rude pun-based nicknames and aggressive eye contact while singing off-key karaoke of someone’s favorite song.”

Edison just stared at her.

“You fell in love with the magic part of me, but you also have to deal with the petty everyday me,” she protested. “That’s the job!”