Down on the Charm

by E L Wilder

  “It’s Juni,” said Hazel. “I have to.”

  Charlie nodded. “I know.”

  And with that, Hazel left the bakery, plodding down the stairs to the courtyard. She looked up toward the tractor garage, at the limp span of crime scene tape and the bored-looking police officer working guard duty. She sighed. Maybe Charlie was right, she thought. Here were the professionals at work. What did Gammy know about playing detective? She came from an era where people could practice medicine without a license.

  “Hazel!”

  Tyler was jogging across the courtyard, his hand raised in greeting. She smiled glumly.

  “How are you holding up?” he asked.

  “Horribly.”

  He nodded sympathetically.

  “I’ve got a lot of free time on my hands,” he said. “Things have kind of stalled on the construction front, what with . . .”

  “Yeah,” she said, toeing the dirt.

  “If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.”

  Why was he being so nice to her? She didn’t deserve it and somehow it made her feel worse that he was. She nodded.

  “Or if you just need to get your mind off things, we could go for a drive.”

  Oh god, here it was. Once they were in a closed space on wheels, he was really going to let her have it. Maybe yell at her and demand answers, end their drive by launching them both into the lake.

  “Only if you want to,” he offered, seeming to sense her reticence. “Have you been into town yet?”

  “Not yet.” Town was distinctly far from the lake edge. Was it possible he really harbored no ill will? She had to admit, the thought of seeing Larkhaven and getting a taste of a quaint New England village excited her. But now was not the time. She had work to do.

  “We could swing by the Genny, grab a sandwich and eat it down by the falls?”

  “Is there anywhere in town to get a cup of coffee these days? Like real coffee?”

  “Only the realest coffee you’ll ever drink,” he said.

  “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day—but I can’t,” she said. “I’ve got some . . . chores to tend to. Raincheck?”

  “Sure thing. Need any help?” he asked. “I’ve shoveled a lot of crap in my life. I bet it transfers to animal manure.”

  She winced. Was that a dig? She couldn’t tell, but he seemed to be smiling at her without a hint of malice.

  “That’s really generous of you,” she said. “I just need some time to clear my head.”

  “This whole thing will blow over, Hazel,” he said. “Your sister’s a good person.”

  At least one out of every two Bennett girls was.

  “I hope you’re right,” she replied.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Hazel spent the afternoon gathering supplies from the house, mostly digging through the trash bags of refuse from her room. Then she stuffed it all into a Radio Flyer wagon and pulled it up the North Track to where a narrow footpath branched off into the woods. The wagon was hardly meant for the root-gnarled terrain, but she eventually reached her destination.

  The chapel was a fieldstone building topped with a small bell tower. Its red shutters were shut tight, weather-worn, though the grass was maintained well enough that she could see the rows of tombstones—the old Bennett Burying Ground—and, beyond that the mausoleum. She shivered. That was a piece of the real estate she’d put a down payment on the day of her birth. But, still, she left the wagon by the door and wandered between the markers—most of them ancient wafers of stone with morbid images carved into them (skulls with wings, ghastly faces with pupilless eyes), until she came to the mausoleum. She found it unlocked, and with her heart in her throat, she let herself in.

  The interior was cool, lit by a technicolor light cast through the stained-glass windows. The floor was a beautiful mosaic, black except for the giant roundel set in the middle; at first glance she thought it was the Bennett family crest, but when she looked closer, she saw key differences. The roses were not mere buds but full blooms, and instead of the usual white feline, there was a black cat, sitting guardant.

  “Black for grief, and guardant because people needed a fancy word for ‘looking at the camera’,” she whispered to herself, smirking. Most curious of all, the cat had an abundance of parts—two tails and four ears. Instead of the usual Bennett motto, amore non fortuna, there read a slight modification, fascino non fortuna. She should have paid closer attention during her mother’s Latin lessons. Or any lessons. She pulled the notepad out of her pocket and jotted the phrase down. She’d have to look into that. This must have been the alternate family crest her mother had mentioned. How had she not noticed this before?

  She moved on, walking up the length of one wall and running her fingers along the marble facades of the crypts—some of which were filled, the covers sealed and engraved—until she came to the one she was looking for.

  Helena Roisin Bennett.

  She traced Gammy’s name. It seemed wrong for this to be the final resting place of so wild and free a woman, encased in cold, unyielding marble. The Gammy she knew would have wanted to be in the soil, girded by the roots of a tree. But tradition was tradition, and Gammy had been marked for this place from birth. And so had Hazel. She rubbed the back of her neck and shuddered. One little discoloration of skin with so many consequences.

  “I wish you were here. Not on the other end of a bad connection. Here here.”

  She smiled sadly and then kissed the stone. She turned to leave, but she stepped on something—dozens of roses laid on the floor in front of her. The petals withered the stems blackened. Had her mother brought these here? Ronnie? Either way the sight of it made her heart bloom with mourning. Before she fell apart, she hurried out of the mausoleum and returned to the chapel. Now wasn’t the time to lose focus. Besides, Gammy would have mocked her for standing around sobbing while there was important work to do.

  The interior of the chapel was dark, so she wrestled the shutters open, flooding the building with afternoon light.

  The chapel was largely as she had remembered it, in a state of disrepair and general ruin. A central aisle flanked by a single column of pews four rows deep, each big enough to seat two comfortably, back when comfortable meant spine-bendingly straight. At the head of the chapel stood a modest altar of pink granite. The wall behind it was consumed by an elaborate relief work carved from wood and detailed in gold leaf, depicting Noah’s Ark and a legion of animals pouring into it, the sun mostly shrouded by clouds.

  She set to work immediately, unloading the wagon. She used her pilfered cleaning supplies to make the place a little less musty and then set up her evidence. She worked long past the time she thought Charlie would show up, lighting a few candles as the sun started setting. Hazel could hardly blame Charlie for not showing up. While she and Charlie had slipped effortlessly back into their usual banter, Hazel had cut Charlie, had cut everyone out of her life. It had been unfair to come back and ask everyone to pick up where they’d left off—never mind asking anyone to get involved in this scheme of hers.

  But then, just as she had given up hope, the door finally creaked open, and Charlie poked her head inside the chapel as if she were stepping into the dark alley in the big city, not the chapel that they had used as a teenage hangout not-so-many years ago.

  “You came,” said Hazel.

  Charlie surveyed her surroundings, eyeing the candles nervously. “Remind me why we’re meeting here and not . . . anywhere else.”

  “Because nobody ever comes here,” said Hazel.

  “This nobody has the right idea,” Charlie muttered, closing the door behind her and taking a few cautious steps. “This place is creepy as all getup. It could use a few well-worn wooden tables. Maybe a cozy chair or two. Some pillows.”

  “Like a café?”

  Charlie cracked a grin at the reference. “Maybe.”

  As kids, they had long talked about opening their own café, a quaint place in town with great coffee and b
etter books—an oasis of culture in what, as teenagers, they’d seen as a backward nowhere town.

  “I do know my way around an espresso machine now,” Hazel said, playfully. “I worked as a barista while I was still trying to land my breakout role.”

  “So this detective thing. Are you talking CSI or Sherlock Holmes?”

  “Sherlock Holmes minus the brilliant deductions.”

  “Thank god. I was horrible at chemistry. Unless you want to talk about the chemistry of caramelization.”

  She approached Hazel. “What’s this?” she asked, nodding toward the side wall, between the two windows, where Hazel had spent most of her afternoon setting up shop. Several objects hung there, covered with cloths. She’d wanted to make a dramatic reveal when Charlie had shown up, as if adding a gameshow element to the proceedings would set her friend’s doubts to rest.

  “Look the cloth is . . . there was supposed to be a dramatic reveal. Oh this is stupid.” She unceremoniously tugged the cloth free, revealing a number of boards fixed to the wall covered with maps and pictures connected with tacked pieces of yarn, like one of those crazy walls you might see in a detective drama. On one board was her own hand-drawn map of Bennett Farms, from the shore of Lake Champlain all the way to Farmstead Road and everything between. And another drawing of the East Barn in elaborate detail. She had even taken the time to shade both maps in with colored pencils, something she was really regretting at the moment as Charlie looked, slack-jawed. Furthermore, she had tacked strings from locations at the barn to headshots of Juniper, Eric Moore, Ruby Northinger, and Jess Moore.

  “It’s my crazy wall—my evidence boards,” she said. Hazel had taken the vision boards that had once decorated her room, stripped them of their pictures, and fixed them to the chapel wall with some epoxy. They had been exciting to make but now it felt more than a little silly. Overdone and perhaps a touch melodramatic.

  “Oh it’s a crazy wall all right,” said Charlie slowly, as if she were simultaneously planning her escape route. “What is this?”

  “Our list of suspects.”

  “You’re serious about this.”

  “Of course I’m serious!” Hazel practically shouted.

  “Did you star in a police procedural recently?” asked Charlie. “Because I’m not sure this is how the police actually do it.”

  “Well, it’s how we’re doing it.”

  “Suppose for a second that we do this,” said Charlie, throwing her hands up in the air, palms out, like she were trying to brace herself on the air, just to stay standing. “What could we possibly have to offer an investigation that the police couldn’t do about a hundred times better?”

  “There is one thing,” replied Hazel.

  She would have to tell Charlie everything if she was to convince her friend, and at the very least she owed it to her. This was asking a lot—it was a risk for both of them, and Charlie needed some assurance.

  “There are some things you need to know about me,” began Hazel. “That you should probably understand before we get started.”

  “Did you get into some weird stuff out in Hollywood?” asked Charlie. “Like joining a cult or going gluten-free?” She stared down Hazel with all seriousness. “Tell me you’re not gluten-free.”

  “No,” she said. “Not . . . anymore.”

  “Oh sweet Jesus.” Charlie crossed herself.

  “I have something . . . that will help us figure out who killed Eric.” There was no good way to say this, so she’d best just come out with it. “Magic.”

  Charlie burst out laughing, doubling over and slapping her thighs. “Oh that is good,” she said. “You really had me going for a bit. Coming to the bakery…and putting up these boards…” She dabbed at the corners of her eyes. “Seriously, though, where’s the wine?”

  “Gammy called it the Knack,” Hazel said, undeterred. “But you could call it Magic. Witchcraft.”

  “Magic,” drawled Charlie, the mirth draining from her face as she again eyed the door. “Like pick-a-card and sleight-of-hand?”

  “No, Charlie. Like wave-a-wand and cast-a-spell.” Hazel had to put this in terms that her friend would understand—laymen terms. “I’m a witch, Charlie.”

  “Hey now. You can be moody, I’ll give you that. But that hardly makes you a witch.”

  “No, Charlie. An honest-to-goodness witch. Here,” she said. “Let me show you.”

  When Hazel had told her mother she hadn’t done a lick of magic, that she was Knackless, she hadn’t exactly been telling the truth. Gammy called these kinds of spells glamours. They were weak magic, parlor tricks that could usually be recreated with cheap trinkets from a hobbyist store.

  Hazel raised her hand, fingers splayed and palm outstretched, and pointed it at one of the lit candles. She tried to focus all her thoughts, her energy on her intent. What she wanted to have happen, but there was nothing. No change in how she felt or in the world around her. Charlie chuckled nervously. “Well, you gave it the ol’ college try,” she said. “Maybe we can go hang at my place now.”

  Hazel felt a flare of anger and embarrassment. She was giving a performance and she could not fail. She was a Bennett. She was marked. She was a witch, and she would play the part she was literally born to play.

  Charlie continued. “I have a bottle of Shiraz that—”

  All at once something happened. Hazel’s hand warmed, almost painfully, and there was a rush of air that extended out from her palm. She had wanted to just extinguish the flame, but she also sent it hurtling from its holder, spinning end over end.

  Charlie gaped at her. “What was that?”

  “Magic,” said Hazel, shaking the tingle from her hand.

  Charlie just continued to stare blankly. Hazel waited for her to process everything. Finally, Charlie spoke. “I’m not comfortable with any of this. How did you learn to do that?”

  “I didn’t learn it,” she said. “Not really. Magic—the Knack—is something you’re born with. All people who have the Knack have some kind of mark. For Bennett women, it’s a birthmark at the nape of their neck.”

  “Really?” said Charlie. “I have a birthmark on my right cheek and I don’t have an ounce of magic in me. Except for my biscuits, which everyone knows are bewitching.”

  Hazel examined her, even though she knew her friend’s face was and always had been unfairly clear of blemishes. “Charlie you don’t—”

  “Oh, not these cheeks,” she said, smiling and pinching her face.

  “Right.” Hazel looked elsewhere and cleared her throat. “Well, it doesn’t have to be a birthmark. It can be unusual moles, puckered skin, lesions.”

  “Those also sound like the symptoms of melanoma. Maybe dermatologists can start prescreening for Knacks.”

  “Charlie.”

  “Sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “Hazel Bennett, this is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

  “I know how it sounds,” Hazel acknowledged. “I’ve spent my whole life in denial. When I ran away from home, in part I was running away from this mark and what it meant for me. I didn’t want my life to be defined by some accident of birth. I just wanted to be normal.”

  “I think you blew normal out of the water regardless,” Charlie pointed out. “Most people don’t get followed and photographed when they leave the house.”

  Hazel laughed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Running was futile. I needed to come home and figure things out here, where every Bennett woman before me has figured it out. Close to the Postern.”

  “Oh no,” said Charlie. “I get the feeling you’re about to drop another bombshell on me . . .”

  Hazel took a deep breath. Well, here was the moment. She could either go all in or continue to hide the truth. But if she was going to get Charlie’s help, she needed to come clean. Full disclosure. Full transparency. She felt a rush of simultaneous excitement and guilt. She was about to let the cat out of the bag on a two-hundred-year-old secret. “Bennett Farms, my dear Cha
rlie, sits at the crossroads between our world, the mundane world, and the magical world,” explained Hazel. Remember the Tanglewood?” Hazel tapped the Tanglewood on her map for emphasis.

  “Only that it was supposedly filled with rabid animals, rusty barbed wire, and if we went there we would almost certainly die.”

  Hazel chuckled. “That was a white lie. For your own protection. The portal to the other side is a place called the Postern . . . and it rests inside the heart of the Tanglewood. We Bennetts have done our best to guard it, but sometimes things slip through . . .”

  “Things.”

  “Mythological creatures . . . magic users . . . monsters. Most of them are harmless enough. They’re just foreign animals living their life.”

  “But . . .”

  “But not everything that comes through has good intentions.” She pointed at the barn again. “What if magic has something to do with the whole thing? Ronnie is usually in charge of monitoring the Postern and returning any interlopers to their own world. But as best I can tell, he hasn’t been doing his job lately. What if something with bad intentions did slip through?

  “It seems like a stretch . . .” said Charlie.

  “But it could explain why a long-dead tractor suddenly sprang to life just long enough to run down Eric Moore.”

  “So we have another magic-user on the loose,” Charlie said, speaking slowly as if she were chewing something she didn’t want to swallow. “One that is magicking badly.”

  “Maybe.”

  Charlie’s face looked strained at best. “Maybe . . .”

  “There are a lot of creatures that use magic.”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake, I’m trying here . . .”

  “Angels for example.”

  “Angels? You think you have a lot to learn about me?” said Charlie, snapping her fingers in the air dismissively. “You do magic and cavort with monsters. The worst I have to offer is that I have a map of South America on my keester, and that one time I let Tommy Wilkins feel me up on the senior trip to Montreal, even though I knew you liked him.”

  “What?!”

  “Don’t get sidetracked. I was figuring a lot of things out at the time,” Charlie chirped, waving her hands as if swatting away a cloud of gnats. “You’re expecting me to accept and digest, in a matter of minutes, that not only does magic exist, but so do all these Biblical fairytales. Do I need to reconsider the entire genre of Christ faces burnt into toast?”