David stood on the porch of the store, listening to his sister harass the contractor they’d hired to expand and renovate the store. It was amusing to hear her giving him hell for the sloppy job he’d done on the built-in shelves and wondered where they were going to find another contractor willing to come all the way up here.

Sighing because he knew that after Natalie got done with him, he’d have to fire the man, he walked across the street to the diner thinking he’d get a cup of coffee. It was only a way to avoid what he had to do, but it wasn’t the first time in the two weeks he’d been home that he’d had to deal with an unpleasant situation.

He wasn’t sure now why he’d agreed to move back, take over the store, and shoulder the job of mayor and sheriff. It was more than one man should have to handle, and he wondered how George had managed, but then he realized that Gypsum Creek was nothing like it used to be.

Standing in front of the diner, he looked up and down the street. It was full of people, coming and going from the temporary stores set up in tents along the street. A month ago, if you’d told him that the sleepy little town, he called home would be this bustling hive of activity, he would have laughed.

But every day, a truck arrived, full of supplies to feed the sudden burst of activity Jessie and Sophie has spawned. His stomach still hurt a little bit when he thought of the amount of money they were investing in Gypsum Creek, but per Sophie, it wasn’t even half of what she’d been left by her grandmother.

Deciding that he didn’t really want a cup of coffee, he headed up the street toward the temporary hardware store, thinking that it wouldn’t hurt to get the word out that they were looking for a new contractor. He was lost in his thoughts, staring at the ground as he walked, when he heard a high-pitched voice calling his name.

He looked around and saw that Millie Wilson was sitting on her front porch. “David Rayburn, is that you?” she asked again. “Come up here and talk to me for a few minutes.”

David wasn’t sure how she knew who he was since she hadn’t been seen out of her house for decades, but he did as he was told. His heart pounding in his chest as he approached the shrunken woman sitting in a rocking chair, he climbed the steps but didn’t sit down.

“Sit down,” she ordered, then added, “Contrary to the stories you’ve heard about me, I don’t eat little children.”

David smiled at her, embarrassed. “I don’t think any such thing,” he said, sitting down next to her. “But I am glad to see you out here enjoying this beautiful spring day.”

Millie studied him for a minute, then said, “I think you’re a good replacement for George; that man got too big for his britches if you ask me. The only smart thing he ever did was give you and Jessie that store.”

David looked at her in surprise. “I’m surprised to hear you say that. I always thought you hated Jessie as much as everyone else.”

Millie snorted. “George let everyone believe that, but I’ve been rooting for him all along. I’ve helped him out a few times over the years, and he makes sure I have all the fresh vegetables and meat I want; can’t stand that store-bought stuff, you know.”

David nodded. “Is that why you were willing to open up your house? I’ve been wondering about that, but I didn’t want to ask.”

“It does my heart good to see this town coming to life again; it’s been too long since there was a spark here. The house is just sitting here, going to waste; it’s my way of helping,” Millie said. Then a huge grin spread across her face, “And Sophie promised that we’d fix up the garden and the house, that it would look like it did when I was a girl.”

“That would be real nice, Ms. Millie, but I hope we’re not all setting ourselves up for a big disappointment when no one wants to come to Gypsum Creek,” he said, looking up and down the street.

Millie put her hand on his arm, and he felt a wave of comfort flow through him. “Have a little faith, David; when people work together, great things can happen,” she said.

“I hope you’re right, Ms. Millie,” he said, then got to his feet. “I guess I’d better get going; I’ve got to fire our contractor and find a new one.”

Millie clicked her tongue. “Let me make a few phone calls,” she said, “I might be able to solve that problem for you.”

David walked away feeling better than he had when he’d climbed the porch steps. He was tempted to stop at the diner for that cup of coffee, and a piece of pie, but he saw Natalie standing on the porch in front of the store and crossed the street instead.

There was no sense putting off what was inevitable, but he hated the thought of the confrontation to come. If he weren’t already so busy, he would have taken over the job himself, but as it was, he barely had time for the responsibilities he already had.

When he reached Natalie, she didn’t greet him, instead demanded, “Are you going to fire that man or should I?”

Michelle turned off the highway onto the two-lane road that led to Gypsum Creek and pulled the car over, her hands shaking. It wasn’t too late to change her mind; she could turn the car around, go back to her parents’ house and pretend none of this had ever happened.

But that would mean giving up her dream, and now that it looked like that dream might come true, she wasn’t willing to do that. She took a couple of deep breaths, pulled the car back onto the road and sat up a little straighter in the seat. She’d worked hard to get here, juggling her mother and father’s expectations to get her degree in history, then to move on to her master’s.

For the last six months, she’d been struggling with a topic for her master’s thesis. Her advisor had given her a wide choice of topics, but none of them were unique or quite tailored to her specific area of interest. It wasn’t her advisor's fault; there weren’t very many master’s candidates who specialized in the history of witchcraft, so the poor woman had done her best.

Then in one of those strange twists of fate, her name had been thrown out to the Rayburns, who claimed to have a real spirit living on their farm. Their claim had been met with a lot of humor and disbelief by everyone at the university, but they’d persisted, and now she was on her way to see if their claim was real.

Just thinking about the possibility made her stomach flutter with excitement. Encountering a spirit wasn’t something new to her; in fact, blocking those interactions was one of the first lessons her grandmother had taught her. The exciting part was that this spirit came with a verifiable history: a history that included not only birth and death records but a journal written in the spirit’s own hand.

That alone would have been enough for her, but the spirit was a witch, a witch who’d inspired many ghost stories and been accused of cavorting with the devil. Normally, when doing research, she would have avoided such stories, but in this case, that was impossible since she’d been hearing tales of Molly Swensen since the first time she came to visit her grandmother in the Appalachian Mountains.

She’d heard the story that first summer when she was twelve, and every summer after that when she came to the mountains to learn witchcraft from her grandmother. The story had been told over and over as a cautionary tale of what could happen to witches who embraced black magic, but Michelle had never been able to believe that Molly was that wicked.

It wasn’t something she could explain, just a gut feeling that came each time she heard the story, a feeling that made her stomach hurt. The stories had affected her so much that she’d dreamed of Molly, or a woman who could have been Molly, ever since that summer.

As the road began to narrow and grow steeper, she rolled down her window and took a deep breath of the clean air. This was what she always dreamed of, what she’d been working so hard for, and she wasn’t going to let anyone spoil it: not her parents and certainly not Bryce.

By the end of the summer, she’d have a documented sighting of a spirit with a real history, and hopefully, the thesis that would give her the master’s degree she’d always wanted. From there, she’d have choices, choices that would help her fulfill her dreams of taking witchcraft out of the shadows and into the light.

She’d been warned about the road to Gypsum Creek but hadn’t really understood just how isolated the little community was. But she’d spent a good part of her childhood in the mountains, so the steep grades and cliffs didn’t bother her. Still, it was a relief when she came over the top of the last hill and saw the one-street town sitting in the middle of a little valley.

The town was pretty much what she’d expected: a post office, a diner, the general store, and a few houses. But on the far end of town, next to what she assumed was the school, there were two tents set up, each full of merchandise.

She drove all the way through town but couldn’t find the boarding house where she was supposed to be staying, so she turned around and started back through town. This time as she passed a big house, the biggest in town, she noticed the little sign in the front yard and pulled over. It didn’t really look like a boarding house, looked in fact like it was only a few years from being demolished, but the sign said Millie’s Boarding House.

Sitting in her car, looking up at the old house, she shivered, knowing how many spirts would be tied to a property that old. She’d have to cleanse her room if she ever hoped to get any sleep, and a protection spell might not be a bad idea, she thought as she got out of the car.

She walked up the overgrown sidewalk to the porch and climbed the stairs, grimacing when they groaned and creaked under her feet. When a high-pitched voice said, “Welcome to Millie’s Boarding House,” she jumped and almost screamed, then noticed the little old woman sitting in a rocking chair on the porch.

“Oh, hi,” she stammered, putting a hand over her heart, which was pounding.

“You must be Michelle; Sophie said you’d be here today,” the woman said. “I’m Millie, by the way, and this is my house.”

Michelle’s heart was beginning to return to its normal rhythm, but she was still a bit speechless. Finally, she managed to say, “It’s beautiful.”

Millie snorted. “It’s a wreck and should probably be torn down, but it’s mine, and I love it. Jessie and Sophie have promised to fix it up, bring it back to life.”

Michelle nodded. “Well, I’m sure I’ll enjoy staying here,” she said, looking up and at the house to see a face staring back at her from one of the upper windows.