“Good,” I said. “I’m really glad.”
I knew what she was sensing. When my witch sisters and I set our intentions on building this center, we designed it to serve the highest needs of all who entered. As I’d seen many times before, sometimes that looked like destruction before it looked like peace or positivity. I’d seen relationships fall apart at the seams the minute beings entered into my center, and I knew I’d see it again. I’d seen death, violence, and a good hearty argument or two.
It wasn’t at all what I imagined when we conjured up the building, but I was learning, slowly, to come to terms with it.
It seemed that Polly and King Midas might really experience some healing. Now if only I could clean up the rest of the giant mess I was in.
Polly headed up the stairs, and I gave Skili Blueberry’s leash so that the two of them could go get a drink from the waterfall. Penny and I were about to browse a selection of foods that had just appeared on a magical lunch buffet when I heard my phone chime with a text message alert. Penny’s phone vibrated at the same time. We both pulled them out and read the message within simultaneously.
It was a text message, from Annie.
To: Penny and Marley
From: Annie
Ladies—I have some news! Just heard it on Wolf Country 101.7. The police caught the escaped convict! He was a few hours south of Melrose, and Melrose PD carted him up here for questioning. Everyone in town is talking about it! What should we do?
“Uh oh,” Penny said, voicing my sentiment exactly.
“Unicorn poop,” I said.
“We’ve got to talk to the PD, right?” Penny said. “I mean, we can’t let them give this guy the third degree, when really he must be innocent.”
I felt a sinking sensation in my chest. “Penny, we can’t tell them about what’s really going on up here at the center. The Hillcrest PD is totally unaware of magic. Think about how Chris reacted to your magical abilities.”
Penny used to date a captain on the Hillcrest police force, Chris Wagner. Until she started studying witchcraft—and then her entire relationship went down the tubes.
“He was in pretty severe denial,” Penny said. She looked as worried as I felt. “But if we don’t tell them about what’s going on, they’re going to really give this convict guy a hard time about Two-Cats' death. They’re on the wrong track. We have information that could help. This escaped con didn’t kill Two-Cats, so he’s innocent. We can’t let an innocent guy take the fall.”
“How innocent could he really be?” I asked. “He ran away from jail. And who knows what he’s in there for in the first place?”
“He didn’t kill Two-Cats,” Penny repeated. “At least, not according to our theory. We think Two-Cats' death is related to The Miser. We can’t hold that info back from the police, can we? I mean, we were just going on and on to Polly about how healing the truth can be. We’ve got to talk the talk, right? Not just walk the walk?” She scrunched up her lip. “Ooops... did I say that wrong? Didn’t sound right for some reason... talk the walk? Walk the talk? Whatever—I mean we can’t just preach about honesty. We actually have to practice it.”
I knew she was right.
Even though I owned a healing center, it was becoming more and more apparent to me just how resistant to healing I was, myself.
“Let’s get this over with,” I told my friend. “Skili can watch Blueberry here while we go to the police department and try to steer them away from their escaped convict theory. Let’s try to keep magic out of it as much as possible, okay?”
That turned out to be a lot easier said than done.
About twenty minutes later, we had Captain Chris Wagner alone in an interview room and the confusion started up.
Chris furrowed his brow and scratched his head. “What do you mean you sort of have information about Two-Cats' death?” he asked Penny, who had started requesting Chris' attention for that very reason. “Either you do, or you don’t.”
“We think we might,” Penny clarified.
I sat down in one of the metal folding chairs next to the table in the center of the room. I was feeling weary. “We’re almost positive about it, actually,” I said. I thought of the way Two-Cats looked in the bar, sitting next to The Miser, wearing The Miser’s hat. The two looked like twins.
Chris eyed us. “What could you possibly know about the escaped convict? And if you had info on him, why didn’t you tell us earlier? I’ve had my guys, plus the entire Melrose department, out searching state forests in this region for the last four days.”
“Yeah, we think you got the wrong guy,” Penny said.
Chris scowled.
Penny looked apologetic. “I mean, good job. Great job, really going for it with your search. Way to go.” She gave him an awkward thumbs up. “Way to track that guy down, because he totally deserves to go back to jail for whatever he did wrong to earn him a spot in the slammer in the first place. But he does not deserve to serve time for a crime he didn’t commit.”
“What are you talking about?” Chris said with frustration.
Penny went on. “He’s not a killer. I mean, unless he killed the first time. Did he? We’re just saying, he didn’t kill Two-Cats.”
“He was serving time for a white-collar crime,” Chris said. “Tax evasion. The guy failed to pay taxes even though he was running a multimillion-dollar company. Can you believe that? Some people.” He rolled his eyes.
I was pretty sure I blushed. I couldn’t help myself from speaking up. “Some people just don’t have good financial sense,” I said sheepishly. “Maybe he was just bad about opening his mail...?”
For once, it was Penny who got our conversation back on track. “But seriously, Chris, Marley and I think you’re on the wrong track with this escaped con guy.”
I spoke up. “Remember how I brought a few guests from my healing center to the bar that evening?”
“Sure,” Chis said. “Out of town guests. You said they were in Hillcrest for a week. A few old guys, and one older woman, right?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“Are they still around?” Chris asked. “And what do they have to do with the murder?”
He continued before I could answer. “Oh, man. You think one of your guests is the actual perp?” He frowned and scratched his head. “But that’s impossible. They were all accounted for when the Masked Bandit entered the bar. Weren’t they?”
Penny supplied an answer. “Not all of the guests from the center were at the bar,” she said. “Some of them just wanted to stay up at the center and relax. They’d traveled a long way to get to the center and that can be very tiring.”
“Sure,” Chris said. “I get that.”
I was pretty positive he had no idea that Penny was actually referring to travel from other realms and that was just fine with me.
He went on. “Are you saying that you think one of the guests who stayed up there at the mine, um... your healing center or whatever it is, Marley... you think one of them came into town and murdered Two-Cats? Why?”
I had an answer ready. “We think it might have been a mistake,” I said. “See, when Two-Cats came over to our table, he got into a discussion with one of my guests. He said that he really liked my guest’s hat, and so my guest let him put it on. Both were wearing brown jackets, too. So from the back, Two-Cats must have looked just like my guest.”
Chris sighed and pulled out a pad. “I do not like where this is going...” he muttered.
Penny interjected. “Just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean it... yikes. I got myself jumbled up. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen? Too many negatives to keep track of.” She hung her head and gave up.
Chris ignored this. He poised his pen above his pad, and then looked at Penny and then me. “So you girls are telling me that you think the intended victim was a guest at your healing center. What’s that guests name?”
“The Miser,” I said.
Chris shook his head. “That’s n
ot a name,” he said.
“It is,” I told him. “It’s what he goes by. The Miser.”
Chris rolled his eyes. “Okay...” he said under his breath as he began to write reluctantly.
I went on. “He’s up at my center as a guest of honor. His brother is there, too. His brother is the speaker I hired, King Midas. Together, they’re teaching guests about abundance. The whole workshop is about finances.”
Penny nodded. “The Miser and King Midas work together to help guests heal their money issues. Turns out, money management is kind of a team sport.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Chris said.
“It’s psychology,” I told Chris. “Actually, a lot of magic is about psychology.”
Oops! I thought, as soon as those words slipped out. I didn’t want to talk about magic.
I went on quickly, in an attempt to cover-up my slip-up. “King Midas and his brother, The Miser, teach that we have different aspects of our psyche. Sometimes those different parts conflict, and it’s very healing to get them to have open dialogues.”
Penny nodded. “Very healing,” she said.
“And that’s what my center is all about—healing,” I said.
Chris still waited with his pen poised above his paper. He seemed to have short-circuited.
“Well?” Penny said. “You might want to write some of that down.”
Chris looked at his pad. “So first name ‘The,’ last name ‘Miser.’ These guys sound kind of crazy to me. And Marley, I thought your place was pretty much a spa that did some extra hippy, new-age stuff like aligning chakras or something like that. Why are you having a workshop about money?”
“Like I said, money can be a source of conflict for beings,” I told him. “And we’re all about healing on a really deep level. That’s the whole point of the center and the work we’re doing. Healing can make magic more powerful.” Yikes! That was the second time I’d mentioned magic.
Luckily, Chris didn’t seem to want to follow that thread of the conversation. “Whatever,” he said. Then he looked down at his notes. “You have any idea who might want to kill this Miser guy?” he asked.
“A few ideas,” I told him.
“Like, three, to be exact,” Penny added.
“We’ve narrowed our list to three suspects,” I told Chris. “They’re three people who are close to The Miser and traveled here with him.”
“Where did you say this family is from again?” Chris asked
“Umm....” Penny said. She looked at me.
“Uh...” I said. That one was hard to answer without really short-circuiting Chris. “A place you probably haven’t heard of,” I said after a long pause.
“Yeah, it’s really far away,” Penny said.
“Are you saying they’re international guests?” Chris asked.
“Yeah, something like that,” Penny said.
Color rose up in Chris' cheeks. He was getting frustrated. “Okay... so this Miser guy is visiting internationally. From what country, exactly?”
“We... um... we can’t really say...”
This made Chris' cheeks even brighter red.
“Because it’s not a country exactly,” Penny said.
“What is it then? A territory up in Canada?” Chris said.
Penny shook her head and looked over desperately at me.
“It’s more of... well, more of a different place that’s not... um... not on earth,” I said finally.
Chris took in a deep breath, and then closed his notebook. He pushed it back into his shirt pocket. “Okay, I think we’re done here,” he said with exasperation. “You guys are just messing with me, aren’t you? Ha. Ha.”
He did not sound amused at all. He whipped around, strode to the door, and held it open. “I’ve got better things to do than to listen to this nonsense,” he said.
I stood up. “It’s not nonsense,” I told him. “We’re telling you the truth. It’s just hard to explain because...” My voice trailed off.
Penny picked up where I left off. “Because, Chris, it has to do with things you don’t want to try to understand. Things that aren’t exactly, um, considered normal.”
Chris' frustrated flush paled, as blood seemed to drain from his face. “Listen, I have a lot of work to do today. We’re bringing Joy in to see the escaped convict before he goes into a holding cell in Melrose. We’re hoping that seeing him is going to trigger some kind of memory for her.” He checked his wristwatch. “She’s due here any minute now.”
“I doubt it is going to trigger a memory for her,” I said.
“Because she’s never seen him before,” Penny said. “Chris, we’re telling you—that’s not your guy.”
“Please believe us,” I said.
“Tell you what,” Chris said. “I’ll believe you when you can bring me some actual evidence to prove that the killer is someone else besides the convict we have in custody.”
Penny crossed her arms over her chest. “So you’re saying he’s guilty until we prove he’s innocent? That’s not how justice works, Chris. I should know, because my cat lectures me about Criminal Justice almost every morning. He has a degree in it because he’s thinking about going into law one of these days.”
Her statement didn’t help our cause. “Out,” Chris said firmly, while making a waving motion through the door.
Chapter Eighteen
I exited the interview room, and Penny followed me.
Once we were outside on the sidewalk, Penny emitted an exasperated sigh. “That did not go well,” she said.
“Not at all.” I felt completely discouraged. The thought of a guy getting time for a crime he didn’t commit—all because of the chaos caused by my retreat center—didn’t sit well with me. The weight it added to my shoulders only added to the heavy burdens I was already struggling with.
“It’s Thursday morning,” I said. “My taxes are due today. The guests are leaving this afternoon. We still don’t know who killed Two-Cats. And now an innocent—”
“Well, not entirely innocent,” Penny interjected.
I continued. “A sort of innocent guy is facing punishment for a crime he didn’t commit. Do you think the universe is trying to tell us something?”
“Like what?” Penny asked.
“Like... like maybe this whole thing isn’t meant to be. Maybe it’s just time to give up.” I thought of Sarin’s business card in my pocket. Then I thought of Hal. Was he really a recruiter for the Lazy S Inn?
“I just don’t know if I have it in me to try anymore,” I admitted to Penny. “Maybe I’m not cut out for running a retreat center. Maybe it’s not my duty to help beings heal, after all. How can I help others heal, if I’m so conflicted myself?”
I pulled out the card. “I mean, Sarin invited me to make a booking at her inn months ago. I should have thrown this stupid business card out right after she gave it to me. But I kept it. But I’m just as conflicted as everyone else.”
“But you’re a healer,” Penny said. “You can use your energy to help people, you know, sort out the messes in their life. You’ve done it for me so many times. I mean, usually just being around you makes me feel better. Can’t you just heal yourself?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I need to think about it. Things sure are a mess right now. It would be amazing if I could heal myself, but I don't know if I can.”
“Have you ever tried?” Penny asked.
I looked to the ground. “No,” I admitted. I stuffed the card back in my pocket. “Thanks for coming to the station with me,” I said. “I think I just need to be by myself for a little while.”
She gave me a halfhearted smile. “I know,” she said. “I’ve been your best friend for twenty-four years, Marley. I know when you’re in one of your moods. I’ll give you some space. Just call me if there’s anything I can do to help, okay?”
I returned her half smile. “Thanks,” I said, as I backed away.
We parted, and I let my feet
carry me up Ash street. It was a side street that led away from town, out toward the woods. I needed to be alone. I needed to be in nature. I needed to think, and more than anything, I needed to have a good cry.
I appreciated my friend’s words, but I also knew I wouldn’t be calling her to ask for help. I didn't have any clue what I would ask for, after all. I didn't know how I could help myself, let alone how anyone could help me.
I felt like I was drowning in problems. One thing after another just kept coming at me, and it was getting too hard to keep my head above the water. I longed to just stop struggling, and let myself sink down, down, down below the water to a place that I could just be still.
I thought again of the Lazy S Inn.
I dreamed about what it would be like to sit out on the porch, on a rocking chair, and just let the world pass me by. I wouldn’t care about anything. I wouldn’t have to try to do anything. I wouldn’t have to try to heal anyone.
My fingers moved to my necklace. I lifted it off of my neck, and then slipped it into my vest pocket, along with Sarin’s card. I didn’t feel worthy of wearing the charm that often glowed with warmth when I was in the process of helping a being heal. How could I even think of healing others, when I was such a mess, myself?
I hiked and hiked, and as my muscles started to burn, so did my gut, my throat, and my eyes. Tears welled up in my bottom lids. I couldn’t stop them. My vision became so blurry that I had to stop moving for fear of tripping over a rock or a root. I sank down to a sitting position on a log and placed my head in my hands.
And I sobbed.
I let the heavy, fearful, overwhelmed sobs wrack my body. The sensation of conflict inside of me was so strong, I almost felt like it was pulling me apart at the seams. I almost wished that it would— and that I could become two beings. Two Marley Greenes. One would stay and deal with her problems, and the other would just walk away from it all.
She would walk right to the portal gate, and she’d go to the Spirit Realm and book a long, nice, restful stay at the Lazy S Inn. But I knew that I couldn't do that. Even though there were warring parts of myself inside, they had to remain in me. There was no way to separate them.
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