The Baker's Guide to Risky Rituals

by Kathryn Moon

  Josie tried not to crack a tooth with the grinding of her jaw and just nodded. “Bet you did. Been that kinda week. I’m still the new girl in town, five years later.”

  “And those bikers,” he said. “One of them is your man, isn’t he?”

  Well damn, Merryweather had heard the whole kit and caboodle, hadn’t he? And he sure was chatty about it.

  “No,” she said. “Just one date. Not my type.”

  It came down to him being a mythical, shitty species. And also an asshole.

  “I…I don’t really believe much of what people say,” Merryweather murmured.

  Was he going to order or not? Josie summoned patience with a slow breath in. He was a customer, or he would be if he ordered, and he was also a man stuck on his own up on a mountain farm. She imagined that made him a little starved for talk.

  “Everyone keeps saying they’ll vote to keep the preserve, but I know that ain’t true,” he said, rising and giving her a limpid smile.

  Josie huffed a laugh. “I’m planning on voting to keep it as well,” she said, grinning.

  For some reason, that seemed to distress Merryweather, and he paled as he blinked at her. “It doesn’t matter much,” he said, voice stammering. “I’ll be leaving the area soon. The family name has lost its worth around here anyway.”

  “That’s a shame,” Josie said. “It’s hard to pull your roots up, and I bet yours go deep ‘round here.”

  The bells over Josie’s door rang again before Richard could answer, and Josie’s eyebrows ticked up on her forehead as Imogen walked in. Unaccompanied by June. That’s unusual, Josie thought.

  “Hey there,” Josie said.

  “I came for girls’ night,” Imogen offered in greeting. Then she floated past Josie right back to the kitchen without asking.

  Richard took in a deep breath, his eyes tracking Imogen, and the sound was shaky and wet in his chest, and then he glanced between Josie and her case again.

  “I’ll have a brownie,” he said, adding on in a rush, “To go.”

  Josie rang him up. She wanted to feel sympathy for the man, she really did. Thinking about packing up his life here, his entire family’s history of life, had to be heart wrenching. But she had her own troubles to worry about, and right now she just wanted to close up the shop and get into her apartment with her coven.

  “Hope you enjoy,” she said, passing him his brownie. He tucked his change into his pocket, ignoring her tip jar, and Josie’s smile faltered. That was alright, she told herself. Lots of people ignored the tip jar. “And I hope you don’t let the vote, no matter how it comes out, sway your decision on whether or not to stick around here.”

  Merryweather’s head bobbed on his shoulders, not a nod really, more like a tic, and he shuffled quickly to her door, opening it just as Rosa appeared. He pushed past her and Rosa rolled her eyes and stepped inside, bringing the scent of lavender and jasmine in with her. She was wearing a voluminous baby blue vintage nightgown beneath a brown leather jacket and had on red rain boots. Just the sight of her made Josie’s shoulders relax.

  “He was my only customer today,” Josie said, after the door had shut on him.

  Rosa’s nose wrinkled. “I gotta be honest. That man gives me the heebie jeebies. Seems like one of those Appalachian incest families.”

  “I think those are rumors,” Josie said. She tipped her head and watched Merryweather get into his car, pulling out onto the street before remembering to turn his headlights on. “But he is a little odd,” she admitted.

  Imogen reappeared from the kitchen, Josie’s box of discarded pastry cradled in her arms and crumbs at the corner of her lips.

  “Hey Imogen, didn’t see you there,” Rosa said with quirked lips. “Come on. Close up and let’s go curl up upstairs with spiced rum and tarot cards. June’ll be over as soon as she closes.”

  Josie nodded and started to close out her register as Rosa locked her front door for her. The longer she stared at the screen, the more the numbers blurred and her eyes stung.

  “Hey. Hey, what’s going on?” Rosa asked, curling up to Josie’s side and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Rosa was almost a full head taller than her friend, and she tucked Josie’s head beneath her chin. Imogen stepped closer but she felt more like an observer than another friend offering comfort.

  “Do you know how fast I could go out of business if this keeps up?” Josie said, squeezing the words out of her tight throat. “Even if they find the murderer—the whole thing with Love & Lattes, everyone wants to think it was witchcraft.”

  “Only because of the ritual sites in the woods,” Rosa said, kissing the top of Josie’s head. That was going to leave a lipstick print in the hardest to find place. “Trust me. They find the killer and everyone’s gonna be back on our side again. Or at least not against us. And I’ve got savings—”

  “Don’t you dare,” Josie said.

  “—So I can make a business loan to you if necessary,” Rosa finished.

  “I have some inheritance left,” Imogen said.

  Josie growled, but it sounded a little pitiful, and Rosa only kissed the prickly soft surface of her head again. “Neither of you is putting money into a sinking ship. These are worries for tomorrow. Let’s pack up all this food and gorge ourselves on booze and pastry.”

  Rosa hissed with excitement, bouncing behind Josie to the case and immediately popping a macaron into her mouth. Imogen followed suit, offering Josie a strange kind of smile, and then went about filling the box in her arms with an assortment of Josie’s best offerings.

  Josie narrowed her eyes at Danny and looked at his handwritten order.

  “Is it… too much?” he asked.

  A few days had passed, and Love & Lattes was almost back up and running, the full support of Sweet Pea behind them. Meaning almost the full support of Sweet Pea had been absent from Josephine’s Bakery. Thankfully, Cornell was making an almost daily catering order for the DA’s office and one of the local B&Bs had a daily order for her pastries at breakfast. Turns out, she wasn’t the only business in town that felt the cold shoulder of the historic Sweet Pea families.

  “It’s not too much,” Josie said, following the long trail of desserts. “I didn’t know the Inferno wanted a dessert menu.”

  “Some of it’s just for the guys, I think,” Danny said. His eyes widened as he added, “They can eat a lot.”

  Yeah, she bet demons had an appetite. She bet they didn’t even know the word ‘calories’ either. Just another reason to resent them.

  Oh, how she wanted to refuse their business. But this amount of money would take care of her bills. It would keep her doors open. It would probably help cover lawyer bills too, if it came to that. And either Inferno was planning on putting serious price tags on their dessert menu or taking zero profit, because they hadn’t asked for a discount at all.

  ‘They.’ More like Bell. Rosa had asked if he gave her an apology, and now Josie wondered if this was his version of one. She preferred one face to face, but this wasn’t so bad.

  “Pick up is at ten AM, sharp. I don’t have the storage to hold onto everything for you guys,” Josie said, because for the sake of her principles, she was at least going to be a little prickly about this exchange. It was partly their damn fault no one wanted to eat her food anymore. She wasn’t going to thank Bell.

  “Um, okay, and these are for my sister,” Danny said, passing her a smaller note that said ‘easy to eat cookies for walk-ins.’

  “Mona?” Josie asked. “I thought she was subbing at the school.”

  “Just got her art gallery together in the Cottage Around The Corner,” he said, perking up with pride. The Cottage was a cute little local landmark that’d recently gone up for rent after operating as a doily infested gift-shop for decades.

  “That’s fantastic!” Josie said. “Hang on, let me put something together for her.”

  Mona was a sweetheart and discovered her opera cake addiction on day one of Josephine’s opening. Jo
sie assumed the rumor mill scared the woman off recently, but if Mona was putting her art gallery together, that explained her absence. Josie hurried back to the kitchen and found her box of imperfects. Generally she would gift them to anyone she ran into at the end of the day, but since that list of people had shrank this week, and her coven was now fully stocked on sweets, this was the perfect opportunity.

  She returned to her counter and boxed up an additional slice of opera cake. “That’s for your sister,” Josie said, passing the two boxes across the counter. “Tell her to let me know which of those cookies fly first, and I’ll sell her a batch at cost whenever she needs them. These are on the house today. A gallery opening present.”

  Danny smiled and then frowned in quick succession. “That’s awesome, but…um, I think she wanted to—”

  “She can pay next time,” Josie said, waving a hand. She tapped her finger against the order for Inferno and added, “I’m good, honestly.”

  Danny looked so genuinely cheered to hear it, that it bled into Josie as well, followed quickly by a sinking dread.

  “Hey, so… what do those guys have you doing, anyway?” she asked. Danny was a good kid, and while she couldn’t tell him to quit hanging out with demons, and it seemed a little cliche to warn him off of bikers, she at least wanted to make sure they weren’t dragging Danny down with them.

  His face lit up. “I’m the head chef! It’s awesome. Bell literally doesn’t give a shit what I feel like making, as long as it’s edible.”

  Josie snorted at the description. “I dunno if that’s the best advertisement for your food,” she teased.

  Danny blushed, but his chest puffed up. “You’ll just have to come and find out. I’m gonna surprise this town!”

  Josie grinned and nodded. “I look forward to it. Ten AM tomorrow, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” Danny agreed, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “See you then, Josie.”

  Josie bit her smile off as the door swung shut behind Danny. She tried to tamp down the warm feeling building inside of her. It was nice to know who in this town was willing to go out of their way to support her through this mess, but she needed to remember why Bell and his men were here. They could be helping her just to piss the town off.

  Her smile was wobbling away as her door opened again, and June came inside.

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  “Taking a lunch break,” June said. “Can I buy some quiche and run an idea by you?”

  “Of course,” Josie said, going to slice herself a piece of butternut sage quiche as well.

  “I want us to do a warding spell on Samhain,” June said as Josie brought out their dishes on a tray, including coffee for them both. “It’ll be one of the last chances we’ll have for working in Merryweather Preserve.”

  Josie winced, her fork hovering over the food. “Do you really think that’s a good idea? Considering the climate of the town at the moment?”

  “I think we should invite the town to join us,” June said.

  Josie stiffened, staring across the table at an impenetrable June. “Are you being serious? That’s…”

  “Totally inappropriate to a circle, I know,” June said, which was not what Josie was thinking. “But if they were there, if we worked protection magic transparently in front of them, it might help reassure them that we only care for this town. We aren’t the ones causing any of the harm.”

  Josie’s lips pursed. “And it might help prevent any more trouble from traveling into town. Hell’s Bells, could it…”

  June shook her head. “I don’t think it would banish them. But if they had something in motion, we might be able to feel the resistance of our ward. It would give us a heads up at least.”

  Josie chewed on the tines of her fork. “Let me think about it?”

  June nodded. “I came to you first. If you’re comfortable with it, we’ll talk to Rosa and Imogen. In the meantime, I’ll plan the spell.”

  “What would it take to banish them?” Josie asked, pushing a bite of quiche around her plate, her heart cold in her chest.

  “The demons?” June murmured, and Josie nodded. “Something stronger. And less charming if we have an audience. Imogen would know.”

  “I think we should be prepared for that,” Josie said.

  June stared out the window in the direction of Inferno, and Josie mulled over the suggestion. It might mean her business collapsed to chase the demons out of town at this point. And maybe that’s what Bell wanted, for her to need him too much to fight him. If that was the case, he underestimated her love of Sweet Pea. The town might not love her back at the moment, but that wasn’t their fault. And the demons were right, this was a good place. It deserved to have people looking after it, and she would be one of those people if she could.

  “Alright,” June said. “I’ll talk to Imogen.”

  With the order for Inferno in place, Josie stayed in the kitchen well after closing, folding and rolling butter into her puff pastry, prepping her chocolate into fine shavings, and mixing doughs to chill. She hurt from head to toe in a way she hadn’t since the early days of opening the shop, all her muscles screaming for rest. A long, steaming bath was in order, with one of Rosa’s homemade herbal bath bombs and little candles on the ledge. The whole works.

  Josie smiled as she locked the back door of the kitchen, and then shuffled over to her apartment door. The lock snicked as she turned her key, but her ears rang as she stepped inside. Someone was here, in her apartment. She frowned, thinking of Bell. Had he figured out how to hide his presence from her and tried to sneak in for a second time?

  She tip-toed up the stairs, waiting to hear the shuffle of boots on the floor, to catch that hint of smoke on the air that followed Bell. Arguments ran through her head, how to kick him out of her apartment, tell him he couldn’t buy her acceptance of his crew’s presence in town. Equally, and shamefully, the words came to tease him for trying to sneak in again.

  When she found the living room and kitchen empty, and looked down the hall to her bedroom, seeing the warm glow of candlelight, expectation turned into anxiety. Bell’s name was on her tongue, but she was less certain it was him waiting in that room. What if one of the other demons had snuck in? She was halfway to her bedroom when she realized she should be heading right back out the front door and downstairs to call the police.

  One step back, her heel connecting with the floor, and the old floorboards betrayed her, creaking ominously. Josie held her breath for all of a beat, and her bedroom door swung inwards, whoever was waiting inside just behind it. She turned tail and started running for the door, heartbeat pounding in her ears. Footsteps echoed after hers, vibrating under her own feet, and Josie didn’t care if it was Bell. She didn’t care if she’d let him terrorize her into running. Better that than the alternative.

  When an arm banded around her waist, and another around her throat, Josie screamed, the sound cut off almost immediately by the way the crook of her attacker’s elbow squeezed against her neck. She was lifted off the ground, thrashing and kicking at the body behind her as they carried her backwards into her bedroom.

  Josie’s breath died in her chest as she was spun around, finally seeing the disaster of her bedroom. Her altar had been dismantled for the second time this month, candles torn out of place and arranged in a large circle in the open area of her bedroom. A crooked chalk circle was ground into her floorboards, familiar symbols scratched through. For a moment, she thought it was the demons, that it’d been them all along, and somehow Bell had pulled a massive trick on her. She was going to kill him. She promised herself that much. And then she was thrown to the floor outside of the circle with a body pouncing on her, knees in her back, and the memory of the woods rising up in her like the bile in her throat.

  She tried to pull herself away, but her hands were caught up, sticky adhesive wrapping around her wrists to the tell-tale sound of a roll of duct tape being unravelled.

  “Get off,” Josie cried, shoulders bucking, even as she
knew the words were useless.

  Hands gripped her arms, and then she was rolled over, staring up into the red and sweating face of Richard Merryweather.

  “Wha-? What are you doing?” She was arched uncomfortably, her arms bound behind her back, body twisted and legs pinned beneath Merryweather’s knees.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, frowning, a thin line of spit shining down his chin. “I only meant to find out if you- if you’d seen me that night. If you remembered.”

  Josie gaped, chest heaving. The night in the woods. It had been Merryweather! All of it had been Merryweather, aside from Love & Lattes.

  “I didn’t, I didn’t know!” Josie cried, trying to squirm away, but he was at least twice her size. And she knew now.

  “Everyone already thinks it’s you,” Merryweather rasped. “They think you did it. And if I just make it look right… They’ll just think you were crazy.”

  Josie had never realized how hearing herself spoken of in past tense could be so utterly chilling.

  “I don’t understand,” Josie whispered. The chalk circle was in the corner of her eye, and she glanced at it. “You’re not… it wasn’t really about demons was it?”

  Had Merryweather brought Bell and the others somehow? But no, he scoffed and grabbed Josie’s thighs in both his hands, turning her and dragging her closer to the circle.

  “I thought it would spook people, didn’t know there were- that you lot think you’re…” he scoffed again and shook his head, spiraling tape around her ankles. He crossed to her altar next, grabbing up one of Josie’s ceremonial knives, and she whimpered and tried to worm away, knowing she’d never make it far enough to escape.

  Merryweather shoved her onto her back again as he returned to her, tucking the blade of the knife up beneath the hem of her shirt. Josie held her breath and swallowed a sob as he sliced upwards, cutting through her shirt from navel to throat, pushing it aside and revealing her plain black bra.

  “If the land is going to sell, it should come back to me,” he said. “The buyer is scared off. And the votes were never going to be on my side. But I should be able to afford the land again now, after the murders.”