I poked Wesley in the ribs. “Quit antagonizing the investigating officer.”
“Listen to your sister, Wesley.”
“Well, first of all, it’s not that easy,” I said. You can’t just ask a ghost who killed him, he could freak out. And freaked out ghosts can turn into poltergeists.”
“There’s a difference?” Brian asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Wes laughed.
“And Thomas is already halfway there, we’re lucky this witch Isla knows what she’s doing. But as skilled as she is, this could still be really dangerous.”
“I don’t care,” the captain said. “I do not care. Get in the car.”
“No freaking way I’m pulling up to that crazy witch’s shack in a cop car. I’m driving,” Wesley insisted.
“Fine. Whatever. I just want to solve this case and forget it ever happened.”
“Good luck with that,” I laughed.
Chapter 20
So… driving up to Isla’s was awkward. There was a tension between Captain Kavanagh and my brother that I couldn’t understand and didn’t have time to worry about. Every time Brian asked me a question, Wesley over talked me and they started bickering again. Which, although rude, was fine I guess because I really didn’t want to answer any of his questions and possibly incriminate a witch.
But still. Awkward.
There were two other cars parked next to my Subaru and Luna and Soleil’s little Suzuki Cappuccino convertible. Word had gotten out and more witches had arrived to either help or observe. Hopefully not Eliza, though.
I never thought I’d be so happy to start hiking in the woods at night up to Isla’s cabin. Okay, it really was kind of a shack, but that was by choice and I’m sure it started out as a cabin two hundred years ago or whenever it was built.
“You should have worn better shoes, Brian,” Wes laughed as the captain’s foot sank into a puddle of mud.
“I didn’t exactly anticipate this,” Brian grumbled, trudging along behind us.
My brother smirked back at him. “You always told me that you have to be prepared for anything.”
“Shh!” I hissed at them. “Listen.”
There were far more voices up ahead than could fit in the four cars at the end of the road. That meant witches had teleported here, which meant they were powerful. I smoothed down my hair and brushed my clothes free of leaves and twigs. Powerful Daughter’s Daughters always made me nervous.
As we got closer, I heard the distinct drone of witches chanting in unison. I couldn’t make out the Latin phrase they were repeating, but I did catch the word ‘maneo’ which translated to ‘remain’ or ‘endure’ depending on how it was used. Perhaps the spiritual condition of Thomas’s ghost was deteriorating.
“Hold up, Gemma.”
Wesley gripped my arm right before I slammed into a barrier spell. I’d been too busy focusing on the chanting to notice it. I closed my eyes and focused on the magic. It was quite strong, I wouldn’t entertain the notion that I could poke through it for a second. There was a sickly sweet and earthy scent to it, like a decaying log but not as pleasant. This was a specific block, meant for the Earth witches. At least I didn’t have to worry about running into Eliza.
“What do we do now?” Brian asked.
“I’ll just knock. They’re expecting us.”
My knuckles clacked against the barrier three times and the air in front of us shimmered green like an aurora borealis, the colorful tendrils spiraling upwards to expose the giant bubble shape of the barrier. To my surprise, the first response was a barking dog. My dog. Bliss galloped toward us, tail wagging.
“What are you doing here?” I cooed at her, grinning. She whined as she stopped at the barrier, then lifted her paw. “Don’t touch it.”
The mutt put her paw down and turned in impatient circles as a witch approached to let us in. Then Bliss looked over my shoulder and started barking frantically, alerting us to the crows barely visible in the trees above us.
“Oh, never mind those crows,” Izarra scolded her, her voice slightly muffled by the magic separating us. “Cats are so much quieter in their disapproval.”
Yeah, quiet as in passive aggressive. At least you know where you stood with a dog. “What is she even doing here?” I asked
“She just wandered out of the forest.” Izarra slid a key into an invisible lock and opened a doorway for us to step through. “Amethyst said she was worried about you.”
“Were you worried about me?” I bent forward and kissed my dog on the nose, ruffling her fur.
Izarra glanced at the captain. “So were we.”
“Oh, I’m fine.” That didn’t stop me from falling into my aunt’s outstretched arms for a hug. She was Luna and Soleil’s mother, a witch I could trust with my life.
After a hug for Wesley, she extended her hand tentatively to Brian. “Welcome.”
“Thank you for having me.”
“Quit mollycoddling those kids and get them over here!” Isla cried out from the edge of the clearing.
“You’ll have to excuse my sister,” Izarra said to the captain, gracious as always. “It’s been a long day.”
“You can say that again,” Brian replied.
Thomas’s spirit was still contained in the ghost trap, but he was surrounded by seven chanting Air witches now. He was twitching erratically, becoming almost transparent before shifting back to nearly solid. His cell phone rang and he answered it, but never finished the scene he’d been repeating before glitching back to the beginning. Brian slowed down to watch, only to see him let out a desperate howl before cycling back to a moment of confusion as he shouted questions, then back to answering the phone call.
Isla was circling the casting witches, her wand held in front of her, gauging the energy of the spell. The tip glowed bright red as she came behind Luna, who had sweat on her brow and dark circles under her eyes.
“You need a break,” her aunt told her.
“I’m fine,” she protested.
“We can’t afford a breach at the last minute, dear,” Izarra told her daughter. “Soleil!”
On a nearby log bench, other witches were resting and waiting to get swapped back into the circle. Soleil wasn’t quite as exhausted as her twin, but not exactly refreshed either. Her feet dragged as she stepped behind her sister and picked up the refrain, holding her arms out to grab hold of the tendril of energy so that Luna could let go.
“What are they doing?” I asked Izarra as she led us to a roaring fire with a bubbling cauldron.
“Eliza and her minions are at the gallows, calling for Thomas’s ghost.”
“Oh. Wouldn’t a recreation spell work better at the gallows anyway?”
“It would,” Cassandra answered, greeting us. “And we’d gladly cooperate if that’s what they were doing, but she’s trying to banish him instead.”
“Banish him?” I gasped. “But why?”
“I’d imagine she has something to hide,” the crone answered. “I can’t see it, though. Neither can Purple Eyes.”
“Stop calling me that,” Amethyst said, glaring at the old woman as she stirred the cauldron. Her eyes were an impossibly bright violet though, probably from a mixture of frustration and fatigue.
“Finally,” a familiar voice sighed. My aunt Clea stepped into view from behind the fire.
“What are you doing here?”
“We all came to help,” Dot said, helping Maudrey get up from an oversized petrified toadstool. “Not sure how much help we’ll be, though.”
“The more the merrier,” Isla replied breathlessly, blinking next to us and startling Brian so badly he stumbled backwards into Wesley. She only had to teleport like twenty feet! Why waste the energy? Showoff. She sniffed the air around the captain, further unnerving him. “You’ll do just fine.”
“What?”
“Circle up, ladies! The last reagents are here.”
“Last reagents?” I inquired, tempted to check the bottom of my shoe for evidence.
<
br /> “Three witnesses and a Blessed, budding power,” Isla said.
“Three? Am I doing double duty tonight?”
“Nope,” Juno answered, smiling at me. “I’ve been waiting all day for this.”
“Stand here, Gemma,” Isla instructed, positioning me in a circle of flowers close enough to the bonfire to touch it.
There were three massive crystal points between the bonfire and the ghost trap. Juno was already standing beside one of them and Izarra smiled warmly as she took Brian’s hand and led him to the stone closest to Thomas. Dot was chattering about how unlikely this was to kill him as she guided a less than thrilled Wesley to his spot in the center.
“Wait a second…” I protested.
“Cards!” Isla shouted.
My eyes widened as Aunt Maudrey approached with the neatly wrapped bundle in a basket held as far away from her body as she could manage. “They’ve shocked me over a dozen times!”
“Uh… Sorry?” I said. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“Take them!” my aunt insisted.
“Alright, alright.”
More witches than I could count began forming a massive circle, flowing out of Isla’s shack like a clown car and emerging from the trees like stalkers. At least a hundred cats must have also heard the news, stretching and sauntering into the mix. Bliss ran a lap around the clearing, riling them up. The historians Ariadne and Acantha were there, along with that bratty cashier and a bunch of their cousins. Some Fire witches had joined in, Feather waving at me encouragingly. Tabitha looked skeptically at the scene, murmuring to her sister.
Geez! Obviously, the spell needed a lot of power to cast, but what if one of these witches was the killer? She could sabotage the spell.
“Wesley,” Brian shouted over the chattering. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“Are you crazy? This is a horrible idea,” my brother replied with a laugh. “Just go with it.”
“But…”
“It was nice knowing you.”
The less powerful or more exhausted witches dispersed evenly between their better equipped cousins and sisters. Seven still remained chanting around Thomas as the rest of them linked hands. Isla blinked around the circle, arranging small stacks of bundled herbs and branches and checking piles of stones. I’d never seen such an elaborate ritual and never even heard of a spell that involved witnesses as reagents.
“Who designed this?” I asked when she blinked in front of me to check the ring of hyacinth at my feet.
“We had to improvise to compensate for the pull of the Earth witches.”
“Do they know that you’re doing this?”
“Do they ever.” Isla smirked. “And there’s nothing they can do about it. Should have had more daughters.” Typical Airy comeback.
“But—” I let out a growl as she blinked away before I could ask an important question.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Amethyst whispered in my ear, appearing suddenly at my side.
“Well, stop it,” I told her.
“I can’t read your mind,” she chuckled. I didn’t believe her. “But it has also occurred to us that the killer might have shown up here tonight.”
“And if she has?”
“Then she’ll drop dead on the spot,” she said, her quiet voice eerily sweet and innocent. “We’ve got it covered.”
“Great.”
“Isn’t it though?” Her giggle lingered after she’d blinked away.
“Alright, Gemma,” Isla startled me, reappearing again. “You’ll have to act fast. Those seven will drop to their knees, releasing the spirit. That’s when you’ll draw a shadow card from the deck and flick it into the cauldron as it turns to dust. Then toss in a handful of salt.” She looped a satchel filled with salt over my head. “Dust. Salt.”
“Wait…”
“There’s no time. Dust. Salt.” Isla backed away from me, taking her place in the circle. “Dust. Salt.”
“Dust. Salt,” I repeated.
That’s when the wands came out. A few witches channeled the beginning of the spell with their hands, but I’d never seen so many wands at once and it made me a bit queasy. The ground quaked as Isla linked up with her sister, gripping her wrist of the hand that held her wand, completing the circle.
Their chant was long and elaborate, igniting intentionally placed kindling inside the ring. The flames of the small fires flickered in purples and blues as the piles of stones began to glow. Thomas’s spirit darted back and forth in the trap, his movements jerky and unnatural. One of the seven witches around him faltered, the orange rope of energy flowing through them growing thinner and brittle. She managed to stay on her feet until the very last second, collapsing to the ground as the rest of them dropped ceremoniously to their knees.
The magical force snapped, only to be absorbed by the power of the much larger ring around us. Thomas’s ghost flew across the circle to the South, slamming into the witches. Isla, Izarra, Ariadne, and Cassandra were all positioned there, their power and experience strategically concentrated in the direction he was being pulled by the Earth witches all the way back on the main road in town.
Aunt Maudrey cleared her throat between long syllables of the enchanted Latin refrain and Dot looked at me nervously. Oh yeah. It was my turn.
Dust. Salt.
My hands were shaking as I unwrapped the Soothsayer’s deck and drew the top card. The refrain changed as I held the image of Death between my fingers, the witches’ voices growing deeper and solemn. Flames licked my fingertips as I aimed the disintegrating card into the cauldron, holding my breath until I saw the dust fall into the bubbling brew like snowflakes. The coarse sea salt dropped in like a miniature hailstorm, turning the surface of the potion choppy like waves on a tiny ocean. I crouched down as the bonfire roared higher, squeezing my eyes shut from the heat.
Everything became quiet and my eyes fluttered open to a scene from Wicked Brew superimposed on the clearing. The recreation was so solid and realistic this time, the circle of witches and flames from the fires translucent as if that were the conjured image.
“The witnesses may now move about in the circle,” Isla said, her voice sounding much farther away than it was. “You too, Gemma.”
Ambient electronic music mingled with the conversation and laughter, the smell of freshly percolated coffee in the air. Brian shook off his disbelief and began inspecting the reenactment like the crime scene that I suppose it was, in a sense.
A reflection of Luna and Soleil stood behind the counter serving coffee like they did every day, turning down every enamored male that approached them. I scanned the room for a giggling, potion infused confident Dot next to a different guy than the one I’d seen her with at the cemetery on Hettymoot. The real Peridot was blushing as she stood in the circle getting teased by our aunts.
Belinda’s thick red mane drew my eye, her laugher bawdy and flirtatious as she chatted with a ginger haired man half her age. Thomas and Kaitlynn were sitting in the corner behind them, wide eyed and whispering. Juno saw them at the same time and we both scampered over to observe beside Brian.
“What are they talking about?” Wesley asked as he lagged behind us.
“How crazy Dewdrop is,” Brian replied. He snapped his fingers in front of Thomas’s face.
“Don’t distract the spirit!” Cassandra cried out.
“Just watch!” Isla said.
I leaned between the ghost and the reflection of his companion, sniffing their drinks. Alcohol, but nothing magic. At least Luna and Soleil knew better than to let the tourists mystically imbibe.
Thomas and Kaitlynn prattled on, laughing and catching up. Honestly, it was a bit anticlimactic considering all we’d went through to get here. It also felt a bit invasive, seeing as Kaitlynn and all the speed dating witches were still alive and well. I really hoped that Dot picked the other guy. The one she’d met on the night of the murder seemed dumber than usual, even for us.
If she could cover
her face in embarrassment without breaking the circle, she surely would have. “Quit eavesdropping on us!” Dot yelled at me.
“It might be relevant to the investigation,” Wesley teased her.
“I’m never drinking my Confidence again,” she said. “That guy is so—”
“Watch your tongue!” a witch yelled from across the circle. “That’s my second cousin’s son!”
With Brian meticulously documenting every word between the victim and his ex-girlfriend, I turned my attention to the witches around us. None of them had dropped dead, so if the spell’s backup plan was effective, that ruled them out as suspects. They all seemed more interested in gossiping about who was flirting with who that night, about what this fall’s babies might look like and what powers they might have. Typical.
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