Page 67 of Big Witch Energy

“Well, it is a cautionary tale,” Mina said, wrinkling her nose. “Her husband, Henry, might have been the public face of the inn, but it was Rose running the show. All while inviting the neighborhood ladies in her boudoir-slash-control-room for tea and sympathy. She fed them a steady flow of gossip she learned from eavesdropping on the very loud conversations happening in the bar. It gave her considerable influence and power in the community because no one wanted to cross her or be the one she was gossiping about. Her husband was also afraid of her. And so were her kids. I mean, ‘afraid’ isn’t the right word. They lived in terror of her, like she was a monster in their closet, and she sort of loved that. She loved pulling the strings and watching them dance—I mean, she was subtle about it. She used the art of the veiled insult, the backhanded compliment, the threat of a cold shoulder, a well-timed coughing fit, or just falling into what I guess would be considered a coma—back before people realized how rare comas are—if she was even vaguely disappointed. Her family was just so terrified that she would turn her evil eye on them, or that they would be blamed if disappointment over their ‘misbehavior’ was what sent her over the edge and killed her. They were conditioned, like hostages or cult members or…”

“We get it, honey,” Riley drawled. “She was the worst.”

“Well, then, Emily came along, with her bright smile and her perky boobs,” Mina said.

“Emily? My Emily?” Caroline gasped.

“Yep, Emily was supposed to be a sort of nanny to Rose’s children. Even though she was supposed to be there for the kids, Rose found a way to dominate Emily’s time, sending her into the barroom to fetch this, fetch that for her. She constantly sent Emily on errands and pointless little chores, just to remind her of who was in charge. Emily spent so much time taking care of Rose that a second nurse was hired for the kids, and Emily was in charge of Rose. The inn prospered, so it wasn’t a huge problem, financially. Emily was beloved by Henry, the kids, and the people in the inn. Well, Rose didn’t like that, or her children’s preference for Emily. So Rose started to none-too-subtly imply, during those gossip visits with the neighbors, that Emily was a little too close to Henry. Suddenly, Emily is not as well liked, and people start seeing Rose as this brave, sad woman who needs more community support, more attention,” Mina said.

“Oof, that is some advanced social engineering given the time,” Riley marveled.

“Sounds like she was the original Nana Grapevine,” Mina said.

“How do you know about the Nana Grapevine?” Edison asked.

“How would I not know about the Nana Grapevine?” Mina shot back, sounding insulted. “Do you realize how little gossip there is, for such a tiny town? Gossip is my lifeblood. Anyway, Rose sensed a disturbance in her spider’s web of machinations. Emily had developed an interest in Emmett, the age-appropriate, single son of a local solicitor. The solicitor and his wife found out, thanks to Rose’s intervention, and did not approve. They thought Emily was the one who was giving Emmett all these dangerous ideas about running away for some sort of artistic career. And Rose took the idea of Emily leaving the island really personally—like, weirdly personally. The insult of it, Rose wouldn’t accept that.”

“Rose started implying that she’s getting weaker and thinks it’s possible that Emily is poisoning her. Her health got worse and worse, or so she claimed. Mostly because she was taking a tiny dose of rat poison when she thought that nobody was taking her illnesses seriously—just enough to make her a little sick. She asked the local solicitor to write a will and asked the other ladies of the neighborhood to take care of her kids ‘after she’s gone.’”

“This is some ye olde true crime bullshit,” Josh said. Ben cleared his throat. Josh just shrugged.

“Rose started to suspect that Emily was catching onto her fuckery,” Mina noted.

“OK, the line is blurry, but it’s still there!” Ben exclaimed. “The language!”

Mina merely chuckled. “Rose treated Emily worse and worse, and she could sense the desperation growing in Emily, so she pushed up the timeline. She had a few more ‘sickly spells,’ spread a little more gossip. She overheard Emily talking to Emmett at the inn and found out that she was supposed to meet him at the cliff at night to elope. But Rose got there first. She pretended to be taking to her bed for one of her ‘early evenings’ and snuck across the island. Nobody would ever believe it because it involved running. She got to the cliff before Emily, hid behind the Crown rocks—it was called Starfall Crown back then—and shoved her right off the cliff. No hesitation. No conscience. No regret, not even when she saw Emily’s body floating.”

“She would have deserved her own series on ye olde true crime channel,” Josh said, cringing.

“Rose dashed home as soon as she realized Emmett was coming up the path,” Mina said. “Emmett found Emily’s body, and was, of course, crushed. He went to the magistrate, raised a big stink, but butter wouldn’t melt in Rose’s dirty lying mouth. She just reminded everybody of how ‘accommodating’ Emily was to customers, free with her favors. She had a lot of admirers. And of course, all of her teatime harpies backed up her story. They suddenly remembered Emily flirting with their husbands, too, because Rose helped them remember. They supposed that she must have met some other man and she ‘got what she deserved’—which was freaking awful. If Emily’s ghost was lurking nearby, I hate that she might have overheard that. And everybody believed that Rose was too weak and sick to hurt anyone, but her husband was questioned by the magistrate pretty closely. Rose enjoyed that part.

“And weirdly, even after basically showing me how she murdered someone, this was the point in the ‘memory’ where Rose really started trying to change how I saw things. But she couldn’t hide the fact that she continued poisoning herself, just a little bit at a time. She enjoyed the sympathy she got when she was sick. And it only added to the ‘proof,’ reminding everybody that Emily must have been poisoning her, because ‘look at the long-lasting effects it’s had,’ et cetera. In fact, she insisted they change the name of the bar to The Wilted Rose, to remind everyone of poor victimized Rose. She let the family think it was their idea, of course, but it was her,” Mina said.

“She was the worst.” Caroline’s lip curled back. It turned out she was descended from a murderer, but definitely not how she thought. “OK, so, why didn’t you tell us any of this before? Because this is a wealth of valuable information that we could have used a couple of hours ago.”

“Because you cut me off!” Mina cried. “You said you didn’t want me involved in any of this and gave me a big lecture about ghost safety. You treated me like a little kid.”

“OK, I can see now, that was a mistake,” Caroline said. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s OK, after I got mad—a couple of days after—I realized it was nice to have someone who’s not Dad worry about me,” Mina said. Ben smiled at her, his chest tightening in a coiling fashion. Caroline cared about his children, and they felt that. He hoped they never lost it.

“But you withheld information because you were butt-hurt,” Josh added.

“I don’t get butt-hurt,” Mina replied primly.

Josh arched an eyebrow. “Mina.”

“OK, maybe a little bit,” Mina conceded. “But I didn’t know it was going to be important information, OK? The last bit—which, again, I don’t think Rose meant to tell me. Eventually, all that poison caught up with her, and she died. I think people just chalked it up to all the health problems that she was always talking about, plus, you know, poison.”

“What does any of this mean?” Caroline asked.

Mina shook her head. “No idea. But I think part of the reason she was able to smack you three around so easily—”

“Hey,” Riley interjected.

“Was because Josh and I weren’t there,” Mina continued. “For some reason, Rose has a harder time manipulating me. Maybe because I don’t have a blood connection to her or because I’m already used to being manipulated by my own mom, and she’s a lot better at it than Rose. It’s like I’m vaccinated against it, or something.”

Ben shot a curious glance at Josh, to see if he would contradict his sister.

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