Down on the Charm

by E L Wilder

  Hazel crossed the yard and climbed the trailer steps. She was about to knock on the doorframe when she saw Jessica Tully seated at one of the desks inside, her back to the door. She was furiously sifting through the mountain of paperwork piled in front of her and feeding a steady stream of documents into a paper shredder. Jess paused to inspect a piece of paper, the header emblazoned with a splashy blue and green logo.

  Charlie sauntered up the steps behind Hazel, and Jess looked up suddenly, shock and panic crossing her face. She shoved the piece of paper into the mess on the desk and jumped up from her seat, crossing the trailer and stepping a little too close to Hazel.

  Jess had the physique of a Beach Body enthusiast and the stylings of Malibu Barbie, replete with her pin-straight platinum hair.

  Hazel tried to peer past her, but Jess got in her face. Was Malibu Barbie ever this hostile?

  “What do you want?” Jess snapped, her eyes darting back to the desk for a moment. “I’m busy.”

  “I just came to check in,” Hazel said. “Both with the project and . . . with you. I’m sorry for your loss.” That much was true. She was sorry that Eric Moore was dead—nobody, no matter how unpleasant, deserved that fate.

  Jess snorted. “That’s rich, all things considered.”

  “It’s surprising to see you back to work so soon,” Charlie piped in. “All things considered.”

  Jess glowered at her before turning her ire back on Hazel. “Well, some of us need to work for a living. We can’t all be trust-funders and celebrities.”

  Hazel paused. The comment had caught her flatfooted. Was this how the rest of the world viewed her? It must certainly seem like she lived a charmed lifestyle, whether she was Helena Rose or Hazel Bennett, and whether she was in her Hollywood apartment or her manor down on the farm. If they only knew how charmed her life really was.

  But there was something else going on here. Was Jess Tully trying to play tough and throw her off the scent?

  Charlie stepped forward. “It must have been awful to witness,” she said. “Ruby Northinger seemed to think so anyway.”

  “Charlie,” Hazel chided, both mortified and in awe at Charlie’s brashness.

  Jess frowned again. “I’m sorry, who are you?” asked Jess. “Aren’t you the baker?”

  “Apprentice baker,” Charlie corrected.

  “Look,” said Jess, eyeing them both suspiciously. “I’m not sure what you came here for, but I have some important things to take care of. So if you don’t mind . . .” She stepped forward, trying to usher them down the stairs, but Charlie was having none of it.

  “Fine,” said Charlie. “I guess you don’t want to hear that your workers just punched a hole in the East Barn big enough to drive your pickup through.”

  Jess snapped to attention. “What?!”

  “We heard one of your workers talking about it just now. Seems like something you might want to tend to. But if we’re bothering, we can come back later. Maybe once they’ve set the southwest tower on fire?”

  Jess brushed past them and bounded down the stairs. “Show me!” she ordered Charlie.

  “Girl, you need to work on your pleases and thank-yous,” Charlie muttered as she followed. She turned to Hazel, winked, and pointed at the open trailer door.

  Jess was in such a huff she didn’t seem to notice that Hazel stayed behind.

  God bless Charlie.

  As soon as the two were out of sight, Hazel rushed into the trailer. She grabbed papers off the desk and began rifling through them. If Jess had been trying to dispose of them when they’d come in, they must reveal something important. But all Hazel found were unpaid bills, purchase orders, and construction timetables all piled together. She didn’t claim to possess a stitch of business acumen, but she knew a train wreck when she saw one. This was the company that her sister had hired to fix up the farm? No wonder things were running behind schedule and over budget.

  But where were the papers that Jess had shoved back into the pile? Hazel burrowed beneath the heap, carefully peeling back layers until she saw it—a flash of blue of green. She pulled the sheet free and inspected it. A letter. The header featured a logo showing a slice of Lake Champlain with the distinct profile of Camel’s Hump in the background. CDK Ventures was written beneath it. A sticky note was fixed to the paper, reading “Show to Ruby.” The letter itself was addressed to Eric. Hazel skimmed the contents. At first, it seemed like a waste of her time—just a standard business communication about a pending real estate development deal—until one section caught her eye.

  I trust you will continue to expedite your efforts (without drawing unwanted suspicion) to bring your current project to closure. This land represents a unique real estate opportunity—a veritable utopia of 3,000+ acres with nearly a mile and a half of undeveloped shoreline. It’s been monopolized far too long by a single family, who has horded it for selfish purposes. They teeter on the edge of financial ruin, and we just need to keep pushing.

  What was this? It wasn’t evidence of murder, but it was, perhaps evidence of something else entirely. What had Juniper said to her the day she’d gotten home? That developers were always sniffing around the farm, salivating and waiting for the opportunity to sink their teeth in? This certainly seemed like Ladle Creek Construction and Ruby Northinger were not so much interested in contributing to the success of the grand opening of Bennett Farms as they were in bringing about its grand—and final—closing.

  She stuffed the letter into her satchel and frisked the desk for anything else with the same logo on it. She found nothing in the pile, but as she glanced down at the shredder, she saw that the machine had become jammed with a slab of papers. She wrenched them free and inspected them. Payments from the same company. She bagged those too.

  She’d have to take a closer look later, but she hoped that this was enough to turn over to the authorities. But for now she needed to vacate before Charlie’s thin ruse was discovered and Jess Tully returned. Hazel darted out of the trailer but stopped short, her breath catching in her throat.

  Jess Tully stood at the bottom of the stairs.

  “What were you doing in there?” she demanded. She eyed Hazel and then glanced nervously at the door.

  “I was just going to ask you the same thing,” Hazel replied, drawing herself up. She would not be intimidated by somebody who was nothing more than a quaint interloper on her farm. The Bennetts had protected this land for more than two hundred years. It would take more than Malibu Barbie to bring it crashing down.

  “I’m trying to finish a project,” said Jess Tully slowly.

  “Which project would that be? The one for Bennett Farms or the one for CDK Ventures?”

  Jess cast aside her Barbie persona and snarled. “I don’t know what you think you have there. But you’d best hand it over, or you’ll regret it.”

  Hazel could feel the familiar tingle in her palms. If Jess Tully was the killer then she might be about to engage in her first full-on magical duel. She knew Jess had a magic hammer in her toolkit, but what did Hazel have? A glorified Roman candle?

  “Oh?” asked Hazel. “Why’s that? Are you going to kill me over it? Is that how you take care of your problems?”

  Jess flinched. She looked as if she had just been punched in the gut. The tough-girl attitude melted away to reveal the mourning widow beneath, and instead of sustaining her assault on Hazel, she slumped onto the bottom step and buried her head in her hands.

  “How can you say that?” she sobbed. “How can you say that after what your sister did?”

  Hazel nearly retorted that Juniper was innocent, but something stopped her. It was clear that Jess Tully was no witch . . . and no murderer. Whatever story Hazel and Charlie had fabricated about Jess and Eric and Ruby—the bizarre love triangle, the jealous spouse, and the spurned lover, were just that: fabrications. There was wrongdoing here. Hazel had no doubt that the documents she’d swiped would prove something, but she was no closer to clearing Juniper’s name, solving t
his murder, or making Bennett Farms safe again.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Charlie nearly tackled Hazel as she neared the courtyard entrance.

  “I thought she’d done you in!” blurted Charlie. “I was just coming to your rescue.” She brandished a rolling pin in one hand.

  “You were going to save me with baking implements?”

  “It’s all I could find,” said Charlie defensively. “And it’s my greatest weapon.” She swung a few times for added emphasis.

  “Right,” said Hazel. “We need to finish our walk.”

  Charlie nodded and followed as Hazel double-timed it away from the barn and down the South Way. As soon as they were in the woods, Hazel caught Charlie up to speed, the words pouring out of her a mile a minute.

  “So now what?” asked Charlie.

  “That’s what we need to talk about,” said Hazel. She didn’t know the delicate way to say this, so she just dove in. “You’ve been indispensable in this investigation, but it’s getting dangerous.” Charlie narrowed her eyes but remained silent, so Hazel continued. “It’s not safe for you to keep helping me.”

  “Oh no you don’t, Hazel Roisin Bennett,” chastised Charlie. “You are not cutting me out of your life again just because things are getting a little dicey. You don’t think I know this is getting dangerous? Pretty sure it was me that kept your sorry butt from getting oh-yeahed by the purple Kool-Aid Man.”

  “You got lucky, Charlie,” she said. “That could have ended badly.”

  “But it didn’t,” Charlie retorted. She shook her head and clucked her tongue. “You know what, Hazel? I was worried celebrity had changed you, but you’re exactly the same as you used to be, and that’s even worse. When times get tough, you cut and run.”

  Her words cut deep, and all Hazel could manage was a weak, “I’m sorry, Charlie.”

  “So am I. You can’t dump me,” said Charlie. “I quit this detectives’ club. If you figure out what you want to do and who you want to be, you come find me again. I’ll be the one in the bakery pounding the crap out of an innocent wad of dough.”

  Charlie stalked off, disappearing back down the South Way.

  Hazel stood on the road for some time after Charlie had disappeared, feeling wretched and trying to decide what to do next. She watched the tendrils of a vine unfurl from the underbrush, test the edge of the road, and then started growing right before her eyes, working its way across the dirt track. She might have stayed like the forever had it not been for the high-pitched cackle that floated down the South Way. Hazel turned in time to see a flash of red barreling toward her—the same imp she had encountered repeatedly. The fiend leaped at her and she reacted reflexively, raising both her hands and pushing outward. For a moment time slowed and she saw what was happening, perceived the force that emanated from her hands, pushing the air like a gust of wind that encircled the imp and held him there, suspended above the ground.

  Hazel bent down and snatched up the vine that still crept across the road, offering it a meek apology as she yanked it up by the root. Before the imp could react, she swooped in and lassoed it with the vine, immobilizing its arms, then carefully wound the rest of the vine around its body until she was confident it couldn’t escape.

  “Sorry, buddy,” she said. “But you don’t belong here. Time to go home.”

  Even if she couldn’t solve a murder, at least she could still pitch in and do her part to keep the farm functioning. She snatched the imp from the air, holding it so that the creature couldn’t contort itself and sink its needlelike teeth into her flesh.

  The Tanglewood was forbidden territory—off limits to all Knackless Bennetts, barring extraordinary circumstances. Only the caretaker was granted an exception. Gammy had told her the Tanglewood was full of monsters. As a child, Hazel had believed her and stayed away out of fear. As a teenager, she’d laughed, but stayed away out of respect. Now as she stood here, an adult, she felt both—a strange medley pumping through her veins of fear and awe and self-loathing.

  Hazel stepped off the road and into the Tanglewood. She hiked a ways, fighting the underbrush and dodging low tree branches. The land sloped up and the forest thickened until she was wandering in a perpetual twilight and struggling to find a navigable path through the vegetation. The plants seemed to close around her. They gripped and grabbed at her limbs, entangled her hair, and tried to rip he satchel from her body. Only the imp seemed to pass unimpeded.

  She didn’t entirely know where she was going, but she could sense the way. It called to her, tugging like it had her on a leash.

  Something crashed through the underbrush nearby. Hazel stopped, holding her breath. Whatever it was had stopped too and now snorted and pawed at the ground. The clamor sounded like a horse in the middle of a roid rage episode. Even the imp sensed the gravity of the situation, stopping its persistent squirming and chittering.

  She raised her free hand in case the creature burst through the thick underbrush—and she might, what, blow a gust of effervescent air into its face?—but eventually the beast moved along, crashing off through the underbrush. She hurried on her way before it could return, followed the guiding sensation she felt to the crown of the hill, a place where the sun was only a faint memory and moss carpeted the forest floor and bearded the trees.

  Ahead, she could make out a ragged strip of stone wall running across the hilltop and weaving through, sometimes being destroyed by, the wolfish trees that grew here. Somehow an archway had survived the decay and stood intact in the wall, maintaining an impossible balancing act.

  The Postern.

  The structure hinted at something much larger that had once stood there.

  A breath of wind shook the canopy overhead, allowing a spear of light to strike the Postern. The air within shimmered, an oily flash of pink and purple like the skin of soap water suspended in a bubble wand. Hazel saw flashes of things in that oily veil—trees bending at bizarre angles and moving shapes that might have been creatures.

  Gammy had promised Hazel that after her Knack had awakened, they would cross the Postern together and go to the town beyond—Quark. They would visit Common Place, the street where witches bartered for knowledge, take in a show at the Grand Troll Opry, sit down to a cup of tea at the Brewhaha Café.

  She steeled herself and stepped forward, crossing the mossy forest until she stood at the threshold of the arch. How did this work? Did she just . . . step through? No magic required? When strange creatures wandered onto the farm—two-tailed cats and devious imps, this was the avenue by which they came.

  You’re not thinking of going through, are you?

  She whirled about and saw a black shape padding up the length of the Postern wall.

  Clancy.

  “What of it?” she asked.

  Oh, no reason. He sprang up the side of the arch and settled on its keystone, which she saw now had the image of an owl engraved into it. Except that it makes the Tanglewood look like a walk in the . . . well, the woods. He paused. We’re talking ghouls and goblins and beasties and everything in between. Then he added, with a shudder. And unicorns.

  “What’s wrong with unicorns?”

  Forget what you’ve heard about in fairytales, he said. These real things are hardly bedroom décor.

  She blushed a little. “That was a long time ago,” she said. “How far is it to Quark once I go through?”

  Far enough, he said. And you’re not ready.

  “Maybe not,” she said. “But I’m going anyway.”

  For what possible reason?

  “I have a package to deliver.” She held up the bound imp, which gibbered in a nonsensical language at Clancy as it struggled to break free.

  Oh thank goodness. I can’t tell you the number of perfectly good naps he’s ruined at the Carriage House. He was silent for a moment then added, But that’s it? You’re just here to deliver a parcel?

  She would be lying if she said she wasn’t considering more. If the murderer were from beyond the Pos
tern, perhaps she could find clues, or at least acquire something to help. “I cast that spell,” she said defiantly, “the one you took from Gammy’s book. I want more.”

  He guffawed, both physically and telepathically. You’re not a complete loss, he said. That’s good. But being a witch is more than collecting recipes. Even an amateur can follow a set of instructions and get by. But that doesn’t make you a chef.

  “Charlie’s the foodie,” she said with a touch of sadness, “not me.”

  Who? Never mind, I don’t actually care. Look, it’s encouraging to see you at least take a vested interest in your magical education, but don’t let a little success go to your head. It can be dangerous on the other side if you’re not prepared.

  “If there’s even a chance this will help Juniper, I have to do it.”

  If you want to end up as ornamentation on the Curios Tree, then be my guest.

  She couldn’t help but snort in laughter. “Pardon? The what?”

  The Curios Tree, he said. It’s been lurking in the—you know what, never mind. You can’t just learn magic overnight. It takes time and practice and patience and dedication. That’s why it’s called witchcraft.

  “The one thing I don’t have is time,” she said. “Or spells. Unless you’ve got more stolen pages from the Book of Bennett, I don’t see an alternative.”

  That’s the Catch-22, isn’t it? You need to be prepared to go, but you have to go to be prepared. But you’re getting it all wrong, he said. The truth is, magic is part craft and part art. I could teach the craft, but the rest . . .” He cocked his head and curved his tails into question marks. Your grandmother? A great artist. You? Remains to be seen.

  “I’m an artist!” she shouted perhaps too defensively.

  Of course you are, he drawled. Then you know the best artists can work without a script. Ugh. Improv. And a witch can work without a book. Spells are just signposts, suggestions that may or may not work for you. If the moment is true, and she listens to herself, a good witch will know what to do.