Shiver Me Witches

by A. A. Albright

  I stopped my gawking and looked away from him because – let’s face it – no amount of staring was going to make the man in front of me someone who I recognised. He was talking about a murder by the sounds of things, so what was there to laugh about?

  ‘Well, ain’t that a bummer,’ he said. ‘Some Halloween tourist has gone and gotten herself murdered and tied up at Pirates’ Pier. I guess our day off work will have to wait.’

  2. It’s Happening All Over Again

  Halloween was the busiest time of year in Riddler’s Edge. Each October, hordes of tourists descended on the tiny town to enjoy the holiday.

  The townsfolk turned their houses and farms into haunted houses, fairgrounds, and small concert venues, giving tours and performances to people from near and far. There was even something called the Turnip Maze out at Moonstone Farm. It drew hundreds of visitors each and every year. I hadn’t seen it yet, but I knew that it was the second most popular Halloween attraction that Riddler’s Edge had to offer.

  The most popular attraction of the Halloween calendar, however, was an event at Pirates’ Pier. The pier which, according to the call Dylan Quinn had just received, was now the scene of a murder.

  The humans in Riddler’s Edge never noticed the magical happenings in their midst, and the same seemed to be true of the tourists. They enjoyed magical make-believe, but had no idea that the real thing was occurring all around them. And while those tourists might come to enjoy creepy shenanigans and interesting turnips, I doubted a single one of them wanted to experience any actual danger. Which was why, as we drove through the town to Pirates’ Pier, I couldn’t help but wonder if this might put an end to the year’s festivities.

  Pirates’ Pier was at an old and unused part of the harbour, situated near the Fisherman’s Friend (Riddler’s Edge had only one pub, and the Fisherman’s Friend was it). According to the human locals, there were structural problems too expensive to fix. According to the supernatural locals, though, the pier was perfectly sound – they just liked to keep the area free for when the ghost-pirate ships arrived each Halloween.

  Halloween magic was a real thing. It made it possible for ghosts to walk the earth for one night, mingling with their loved ones. But even though the ghosts could do as they liked on that special night, the only ones who could see them doing it were witches. Here, however, on Pirates’ Pier, even those rules were broken. Everyone could see those pirate ships and the ghosts who were aboard, including the humans. Sure, those human spectators would walk away afterwards believing they’d seen nothing but some awesome special effects. But they saw those ghostly ships, nonetheless, and I was looking forward to seeing them myself.

  Or at least I had been looking forward to seeing them. Right now, pirate ships were the last thing on my mind. The morning still had that same autumnal orange hue I’d seen from Dylan’s deck. I was beginning to wonder when the usual Irish dullness would reappear.

  ‘Won’t the other guards think it’s weird, me turning up with you and getting full access to the scene?’ I questioned as we climbed out of the car.

  He shrugged. ‘I’ve given them all my usual spiel about you – you’re an expert in a field I can’t divulge. They think that An Garda Síochána pays you a consultancy fee.’

  ‘Hmm. Maybe they should pay me a consultancy fee,’ I mused. ‘After all, this running gear that I’m never going to wear again has to be paid for somehow.’

  He laughed lightly. ‘You’ll wear it again,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow morning, with me, when we’re running down the strand with nary a care in the world. Now come on. Let’s go and get this over with quickly, so we can get back to enjoying our day.’

  I wasn’t sure what was worse about that last little speech of his. The nary a care part, or the part where he seemed to think that a murder ought to fit in with his plans.

  As we walked towards the scene, Dylan said in a loud and lazy voice, ‘Hey folks, time to move aside just a little bit. I’m here to detect who’s done this inconvenient deed, and then we can all get back to having fun.’

  I looked around at the gathered crowd, waiting for someone to remark on his new personality. But no one batted an eyelid. In fact, now that we were winding our way through, I could see that locals and tourists alike had turned this into an excuse for a party.

  Dozens of people had brought deck chairs along so that they could relax while they watched. Mossy, who owned the local tractor showroom and garage, was barbecuing rashers and sausages and making breakfast sandwiches for the onlookers, while others were sharing some drinks around.

  Two gardaí were sitting in deck chairs themselves, occasionally calling out, ‘Now, just remember to stay back behind the cordoned-off area, everyone. I know it’s a bit of a bummer, but we’d better sort this whole crime thing out so we can get on with our Halloween.’

  I was all out of shock by then, so I moved towards the small team who were working at the scene. There was an old mooring post at the end of the pier, and right now a woman’s body was tied to it, held upright by rope, and positioned so that she was staring out at the sea.

  I didn’t know the woman, so I had to assume she was a Halloween tourist, just as Dylan had said. Of course, there were one or two clues that told me the same. She was wearing a chocolate-covered apple on a string around her neck, she had one of the sparkle-covered witch hats from the local shop on her head, and there was a badge on her lapel that said: I Lost My Heart In The Turnip Maze.

  She had a handbag by her side, and Dylan pulled out her wallet and opened it up. ‘Evelyn Conroy,’ he said. ‘Fifty-two years young, from County Mayo. Doesn’t it just go to show how short life is? You never know what day might be your last. Which is exactly why we should wrap this up nice and quick and get on with enjoying our day.’ He pointed to her neck. ‘And as you can see, she was strangled – probably by this very mooring rope. So it should be a nice clean solve.’ He stood up, wiped his hands, and then placed them on his hips and smiled at the crowd. ‘This’ll be nice and straightforward, folks. Hey, Mossy – you couldn’t pass a rasher sandwich my way, could you?’

  I was going to have to get to the bottom of this latest weirdness, and the sooner the better. But right now I needed to take a good look at the body, before it was scooped away from me and the case declared closed. No matter what nonsense Dylan was currently spouting, murders in Riddler’s Edge were never an easy solve.

  Just because the victim was human didn’t mean that the criminal was. I looked at the rope, but there was none of the usual green glow I could see when dark magic was at work. I studied the whole area, and everyone in the crowd, just to be sure.

  And no, there was no green anywhere, but there was a whole lot of orange and gold in the air. I narrowed my eyes, focusing in. Seeing magic wasn’t something every witch could do. That gift was handed down from my sióga father. I’d learned by now that the fact that I could see a golden shimmer on magical objects and areas was a typical trait of the Irish faeries. We saw standard witch and wizard magic as gold, and dark magic as green.

  I had no one else in my life who could see magic the way I could, so I couldn’t be absolutely sure, but I was guessing that the extra golden magic was a natural part of Halloween. It tallied with everything else I’d seen and learned. But this orange hue? It was far stronger than when I’d first seen it from Dylan’s deck. And while it looked like a pretty autumnal shade, I was afraid it had nothing to do with autumn, or with Halloween.

  More and more of it was arriving by the second, swirling in the air like fine, glittery dust, moving over everyone and everything. ‘Dylan,’ I said carefully. ‘I think, em … I think maybe there’s something going on in town. Maybe we should leave off making any quick decisions on what killed this woman, just for now.’

  His eyes rounded. ‘Ooh, do you see that green glow you see sometimes? Because if there’s dark magic involved here, then that could be almost as much fun as taking the day off.’

  ‘No green glow,’ I said. ‘B
ut–’

  His face fell, and he said, ‘Well, that’s no fun,’ before I could finish. ‘But look on the bright side, Ash – no dark magic means nothing to worry about. We can wrap this up nice and quick.’

  ‘But there is some weird magic happening here, Dylan. Not the green glow, but something orange. And what about the fact that this is Pirates’ Pier?’ I had the feeling I wasn’t going to get a sensible answer, but I had to ask the question. ‘That must be significant, right? I mean, this is where the ghost ships are supposed to come in.’

  ‘No way, Jose, Ash. This is Pirates’ Pier. Not murder a woman at the mooring post Pier. Duh.’

  I glanced at Greg, my friend and photographer, who had just arrived at the scene. He’d be my saviour and make Dylan see sense, surely. ‘Greg, you think there’s something off about this, right?’ I said. ‘I think there’s something supernatural going on here. Have you ever heard of fae people seeing orange magic in the air? Because that’s what I’m seeing right now. This isn’t a simple murder, Greg. I mean, it’s never a simple murder, is it? Not in Riddler’s Edge.’

  Greg rolled his eyes and pulled a packet of crisps from his jacket pocket. ‘Ah, come on Ash! It’s Halloween. No supernatural would carry out a murder at Halloween.’

  I’d spent quite a bit of the morning gawking at Dylan, and now it was time to turn that puzzlement in Greg’s direction. ‘Did you really just say that? Didn’t a couple of witches attempt to murder a bunch of weredog children last Halloween?’

  He frowned slightly. ‘Well, yeah but … nothing like that is gonna happen this year. We’re going to have a nice relaxed Halloween. I can just feel it.’

  Oh my stars! Had I actually been hoping this person would help me make Dylan see sense? Whatever was going on with Dylan, it was clearly affecting Greg, too. I had never felt frustration like this in my life. I pointed my finger towards the body. ‘That is not relaxed, Greg, Dylan – that is a dead body. What in criminy’s sake is wrong with you all?’

  Greg shoved a handful of crisps into his mouth, talking throughout his crunching. ‘What’s wrong with you, more like? You need to learn to chill, Ash, that’s what you need to do.’

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Dylan. ‘You need to learn to chill.’

  Oh, sweet mother. Not to speak ill of the dead, but if Evelyn Conroy had been anything as annoying as Greg and Dylan were being right now, then maybe the poor murderer had been driven to madness.

  The orange shimmer was growing in intensity, and the crowd was growing in size. I watched as Norma, a woman who ran the local shop with her son, walked along the path close to the pier. She had a basket with her, filled with muffins, knitting supplies, and a couple of cats. Seeing the crowd gathered, she paused and looked around. As her eyes finally fell on the murder victim, an expression of dread crossed her face.

  ‘It’s just like last time, isn’t it?’ she said, clapping a hand to her mouth. ‘It’s happening all over again.’

  Finally! That was the first normal (if slightly cryptic) reaction I had heard all morning. I ran through the crowd to reach her. ‘What’s happening again, Norma?’ I asked. ‘Have you seen a death like this before?’

  She wrinkled her brow, looking at me like I was slightly touched. ‘What? What are you going on about, Miss Smith? Have I seen a woman tied up to Pirates’ Pier? Of course not. Why would you even ask such a question?’

  ‘Because … because you said it’s happening all over again.’

  She snorted. ‘You need more sleep, my girl. I said nothing of the kind. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to ask someone if I can borrow their deck chair so I can sit down and do a spot of knitting.’

  3. Until the End of Time

  When there’s a murder investigation afoot, I want to stick my foot, my oar and my everything right on in. And when there also happens to be a great deal of odd behaviour surrounding said murder, then I want to dive in with full and ungraceful force. But that morning, I had somewhere else I had to be.

  I managed to convince Dylan that he needed to solve the murder so he could carry on enjoying life, and then I left him to it and rushed home to bathe and change.

  You might have met the Vander Inn’s houseghost before? A helpful presence who carries your bags, runs your bath and just happens to be invisible? Well, lately, that ghost hadn’t been quite so hard to see. As the weeks went by in Riddler’s Edge, the houseghost had been becoming clearer to me every day. At first just a vague blur, then gaining a slightly more defined outline, and eventually becoming a beautiful – if a tad gauzy – young woman who I could see each and every day.

  Sure, she floated rather than walked, and when she touched me it made me shiver, but we all had our little quirks.

  I’ve already told you that each and every Halloween, the dead walk the earth and can be seen by witches. But what was happening between me and the houseghost was something else. There were some supernaturals who could see ghosts at all times, but I happened to think that this might be another example of my sióga half coming through.

  When I entered my bedroom, my formerly unmade bed was now neatly made, with my familiar, a black cat called Fuzz, dozing on top. Normally there’d be a broom resting beside him, but it seemed to have flown off somewhere by itself.

  The ghost was dusting the telescope – or at least making a good show of doing the dusting. She seemed to be taking surreptitious glances through it every now and then while she worked.

  ‘Morning Maude,’ I said, pulling off my wet running shoes and socks. The houseghost had recently told me her name. ‘You know, you don’t have to pretend you’re not looking out the telescope. Look through it to your heart’s content. You’ve been at the Vander Inn a lot longer than I have, so it’s probably more yours than it is mine.’

  There was a sort of a sighing sound, and then her filmy form moved to sit on the bed beside me. We hadn’t graduated to a whole lot of chit-chat yet, but I had a feeling that might be about to change.

  ‘The pier?’ There was a questioning note in her voice. ‘Why are all the people …?’

  I undid my ponytail and shook out my hair. ‘A woman was murdered,’ I said sadly.

  ‘Oh!’ She clapped a gauzy hand to her mouth. This morning I could just about make out small, Cupid’s bow lips set in a pale complexion. ‘It’s happening all over again.’

  I looked curiously at the ghost. ‘A woman said the exact same thing at the pier. Was someone tied up that way before?’

  Maude paused and then said, ‘I … you know, I do not quite recall.’

  ‘But you think it did happen before?’

  ‘I think what happened before?’

  Well, criminy to it all. This meant something. She’d used the exact same phrase as Norma – and who better to know what was going on in this town than a ghost who pretended not to look out the telescope all morning long.

  ‘Maude, how long have you been at the Vander Inn?’ I asked.

  ‘I do not know,’ she replied. ‘Days blur into days.’

  She paused again, placing her hand to her chin. It was hard to tell, because her features varied between barely defined and completely unclear, but I got the impression she was thinking. ‘I came here as a girl of twelve years,’ she said after nearly a minute. ‘And I am eighteen now – although I have the feeling that I grew much, much older before I died. It was called Gwennie’s when I first came, with a tavern where the dining room is now. Not as raucous as the Pirate’s Head, but it was hardly genteel.’

  ‘The Pirate’s Head?’

  ‘Through the telescope I see that it’s now called the Fisherman’s Friend. It was where all the pirates drank, caroused and carried on. But not Billy O’Dwyer.’

  Whoever this Billy O’Dwyer was, she certainly sounded wistful when she mentioned his name. Her face came more into focus, too. ‘Billy was a pirate?’

  She nodded. ‘Is a pirate, but not for much longer. He has journeyed off on his last dangerous voyage. His ship is called the Lilting Lass,
and it is magnificent. Every time they dock, most of the men stay at the Pirate’s Head, but Billy comes here instead. He says … he says he likes it here because it means he can see me. I had just turned eighteen when we made our vows to love one another forever, and he was a touch older, mayhap. We vowed that when he returns, we will marry and be the happiest man and woman in the world. He has a parrot who likes to sit on his shoulder called Chatty Patty, and he only has one good eye with a patch over the other. But oh my! What a handsome, handsome man.’

  I’d have to take her word for that one.

  ‘So how long have you been waiting for Billy to return? If it’s not too painful to remember.’

  She stood up, wringing out her hands a little. ‘I … I do not recall. But it is no matter to me. I will wait for Billy forever. And he will return to me. Once he has made this one last dangerous voyage, he is retiring from pirating. He and I are going to sail off into the sunset. The Lilting Lass will ferry passengers, and legal cargo, and be a pirate ship no more. All I have to do is wait, and keep myself busy. By the time he returns, it will feel like no time has passed at all. It will feel as though I never died.’

  I moved towards her and reached for her hand, ignoring the chills that ran along my spine when we touched. This poor girl had been waiting here for who knew how long. She was waiting even now.

  She began to shiver, and she pulled her hand from mine. ‘I am grateful for your concern, Miss Smith, but there is no need to feel sad for me. Waiting for the man I love is no chore. Even when I worked so many years that I grew tired, and achy, it was no chore. Even when Gwennie passed the place onto her daughter and told me I needed to retire, I worked happily on. Even when I fell asleep for that final time, and no one could see me when I awoke, it was still no hardship to work, and to wait.’