Free Witch at Heart: A Jinx Hamilton Witch Mystery Book 1 (The Jinx Hamilton Mysteries) by Juliette Harper Page B

witch after all.”
    And there it was, under the wheels of the bus I went.
    “Okay, fine,” I shot back. “But you totally owe me.”
    As we approached her, the young girl turned toward us. “I want to see my mom,” she said. “I need to know she’s okay about all this.”
    A request that in no way was making my job easier. But it did give me an opening to wade in as delicately as I could manage.
    “There’s no way we can take you to your mom until we figure out who you are,” I said. “We have to report your death to the police and we can’t do that unless we have . . . until you show us your . . . I mean where your . . . if there’s anything . . . ”
    I had gotten off to a strong start, but the longer I talked the worse it got. My words took a wrong turn at the corner of Awkward and Embarrassing and jittered to a stop somewhere between Stutter and Tourette's.
    The girl cocked her head to one side as if trying to decipher a foreign language and then her eyes brightened. “Oh,” she said. “You want to see my bones.”
    That sounded way more ghoulish when someone finally said it out loud.
    “We don’t want to see your bones,” I said emphatically, “but we have to so we can show the police where you are and they can start an investigation.”
    “Okay,” the girl said, as if the request was the most normal thing in the world. “Follow me.”
    We watched as she glided off toward the merrily tinkling trout stream that ran parallel to the trail. In the light of day the girl’s spirit was so transparent, she almost looked like a little wisp of fog floating over the landscape.
    Tori and I both stared at the prominent “Stay on the Path” sign at the edge of the clearing for a minute, shrugged, and set off after our ghostly tour guide.
    The stream was small enough that we both hopped over without missing a step. The bank sloped gently upward on the far side, ending at the tree line. The instant we moved into the cover of the forest, the temperature dropped a few degrees and a different kind of stillness settled around us.
    For me, at least, there is no quiet so utterly peaceful as the deep woods. It’s a space that manages to be both alive with activity and utterly deserted at the same time. The soft soil naturally muted our footsteps, but Tori and I had both been taught by our mothers to walk quietly in nature. My mom is a birdwatcher and Gemma is an amateur photographer; both hobbies require a degree of stealth.
    As we followed the nameless girl who walked -- or really glided -- farther into the trees, the birds continued to sing, the squirrels played in the branches over our heads, and I even caught sight of a deer far off to one side peering at us warily.
    Can you say surreal?
    After about five minutes, the girl came to a stop beside a fallen hickory so far gone into decay it was covered by a thick patch of lush ferns. What was left of the trunk still looked solid enough now, but in another year or so the felled tree would be just another lump of soft mulch on the forest floor. Mother Nature is the great-grandma of all-efficient recyclers. She uses every death as potential nourishment for new life.
    “I’m in there,” the girl said simply, pointing to the exposed roots of the moldering tree.
    Tori and I both walked around to the back of the hickory. You couldn’t tell from the front, but the trunk was hollowed out down to the mass of roots. I leaned over and peered inside, but I couldn’t see anything.
    Tori took out her phone and switched the flashlight app on. When she shined the beam into the interior, a yellowed skull looked back at us.
    “How did she get in there?” I said in a low voice.
    “I was under the tree,” the girl said helpfully. “Then it fell down. So now I’m inside.”
    “Loose translation,” Tori said, “the killer buried her at the base of the tree, which continued to grow. When the tree fell over, the skeleton was tangled up in the roots.”
    “Right,” I agreed,