LLOYD, PAUL R. by Hags

Micah’s
face. “Do you have feelings for her you can’t explain?”
    “I like her enough, why?”
    “You like her or do you like her a
whole lot?” Bob kept the finger in front of Micah’s nose.
    “Guess it’s closer to the whole
lot.” Micah raised an eyebrow.
    More female laughter, this time in
the rip-roaring category.
    Bob stood and ambled around the
table. “She put a potion in those muffins. Think. Did you have feelings for her
before you ate one of her muffins?”
    “Not that I remember.”
    The laughing became louder.
    Bob placed a hand on Micah’s
shoulder. “You’ve been the victim of a love potion from a hag who’s about a
hundred years older than you think she is.”
    Micah shook his head. “Wouldn’t
that make her dead for at least twenty or thirty years?”
    “She’s a hag. The woman you spoke
to this morning, the old lady, is Denise Appleby.” Bob headed for the counter.
    “But she graduated Ulysses S. Grant
High School about ten years ago. Peevy’s stepdad recognized her as a former
student.”
    Bob spun around. “Think about it. She
has the ability to appear young and innocent. She goes to school so she can
make it with teenage guy hunks. Like you, they don’t realize she’s about a
hundred and twenty or thirty years old. When she needs a parent to show up at
school for parent’s night or for other reasons, she arrives as a little old
lady. Or she appears about forty or forty-five, like she is the mother of a
teenager. As the years pass, she lets Denise Appleby age at the pace of her former
high school peers. That way she avoids suspicion.”
    “How do you know this?” Micah
asked.
    The girls roared with laughter.
    “I was a height-challenged teenaged
guy hunk. You’re not the first one to succumb to Denise Appleby’s charms. And I
do mean charms. Why do you think you fell so hard and so fast for her?” Bob sat
back down.
    “I wouldn’t say I fell hard. It was
natural. We had a fun time.” Micah shrugged.
    Bob pointed up. “Think about it.
You had a right fine romp last night, didn’t you?”
    “I felt good this morning,” Micah
said.
    “Until you ran into her grandmother?”
Bob headed for the counter.
    Micah scratched his chin again and
took another long draft of coffee. “She prattled about the kitchen and asked if
I wanted to try her johnnycakes.”
    More teetering laughter from the
floor behind the counter.
    “How did you feel when you encountered
her grandmother?” Bob snagged two paper coffee cups.
            “Ill.” Micah’s face turned a light green.
    The laugh-o-meter behind the
counter exploded.
    “That’s because your body recognized
her as Denise even if your mind didn’t.” Bob pointed a finger at Micah. “You
had sex with the oldest woman on the planet, a hag as wicked as any from the
middle ages.”
    Micah waved Bob off. “You guys are
nuts.”
    “Don’t believe me. Your choice.
However, be careful. Denise Appleby belonged to a coven here in Naperville, as
I said. About a year ago, the coven disbanded with some of the town’s hags
disappearing off the face of the earth.” Bob filled a cup with dark roast.
    “Invisible hags?” Micah’s color
returned.
    “More like blown up or murdered or
otherwise made to vanish in some kind of power struggle. One of my teenagers here
at the coffee shop took part. She told me all about it. Even Liz Colera, their
leader, was killed or vanished or made to disappear but in any case has not
been heard from since.” Micah filled the other paper cup with dark roast.
    “And you believe Denise is behind
the disappearances?” Micah leaned back in his chair and placed an arm over the
back.
    “She headed the revolt,” said Bob.
    “What about your girl? Was she like
an apprentice hag?” Micah asked.
    “Something like that, but she’s gone
with the rest of the hags. A few days after she poured her heart out to me, she
vanished.” Bob carried the two cups of coffee back to the table.
    “In