Where Is Araminta Green? (ONC 2024)

Chapter 13: Witchy Madness

Jordan had never thought that his annoying preteen habit of forgetting his keys would come in handy. Many were the times when he'd arrived home to an empty house after school, discovered he was keyless, and tried to come up with a solution. Of course, he could have called his parents, but it would have taken them a while to arrive home from work. And Jordan had not been a patient kid. So instead, he'd figured out a way to pick the lock on the patio door with the help of his library card and a thin rusty nail, found in his dad's tool shed.

As luck would have it, Araminta's house had the same type of patio door. Jordan's minor teen delinquency was about to pay off and pave the path toward major delinquency in the form of burglary.

After locating a conveniently loose nail from the fence that separated their yards, Jordan extracted a credit card from his wallet clip. That should do.

"Don't give me that look," he mumbled to Kiki, who glared judgmentally at him from the lawn. The cat apparently didn't want to be accused of being a co-conspirator, so made sure to keep her paws far away from the scene of the crime.

Since it was a while since Jordan used his nifty trick for opening a glass door, it took some finagling—trying to insert the card in the slit right at the exact moment when he jammed the nail into the lock and pushed to the left—but finally, he succeeded. He pulled on the handle and swung the door open to Araminta's world.

Behind him, Kiki protested the development with a disgruntled "Mrrrppph", which probably meant "I'm not going in there with you, dumbass. You're on your own now!"

The cat was right. Jordan was alone, and he was probably a dumbass, but he couldn't stop now. He had to do whatever he could to find Araminta. So with one more gaze toward Kiki, who gave him a look of despair in return, Jordan stepped across the threshold and into the dark house. Before he started his explorations, Jordan weighed the pros and cons of using his recorder while rummaging through the house. It would be useful to have an oral record of what he found but that record could also be used against him in a court of law if he was charged with burglary. Which was a damn good argument against it. So Jordan decided he would just have to figure out how to include any clues he found in the podcast later, without incriminating himself. Not wanting to alert anyone of his presence in the house, which everyone knew was uninhabited, Jordan didn't press the light switch by the door. Instead, he turned on the flashlight on his phone. Since Araminta's home was built in the same mold as the house next door where Jordan grew up, he intuitively knew the layout of the place, even in limited lighting.

Although, that unfortunately didn't mean the furniture was placed in the same pattern. Jordan learned this the hard way when he stubbed his toe on a sneaky side table.

"Fuck..." Jordan muffled his cry by biting his lip, Not wanting to cry out in fear of drawing attention to his presence in the house from passers-by. "Yeah, I know... karma is a bitch," he mumbled toward Kiki, who surveilled him from the doorway. Kiki trilled in reply, which Jordan took as "I told you so."

Breathing through his nose while the throbbing pain in his foot settled, Jordan looked around the living room. It appeared surprisingly ordinary. A brown leather couch. A flat-screen TV. A low table marked with water stains. Nothing other-worldly. Perhaps he had expected the place to be filled with carved pentagrams, swirling crystal balls, and simmering cauldrons.

No objects stereotypically associated with witchcraft were to be found. Although to be fair, Jordan hadn't been to Araminta's room yet. So there was still hope for witchy madness.

What was striking about the living room wasn't anything of paranormal nature but rather the utter normality of it, down to mugs left on the table and papers strewn on the floor. It was as if the whole family had up and left the house at the same time Araminta disappeared, without even making an effort to tidy up or grab beloved belongings. If not for the heavy layer of dust sprinkled across all surfaces, one would be led to believe that the inhabitants were about to walk through the door at any moment.