Panic Broom

by Sara Bourgeois

“I’ll call grandma,” Annika said. “If it’s over, she’ll know.”

  A few minutes later, Annika was off the phone with Amelda. The zombies were certainly not gone. The spell hadn’t lifted.

  “That’s impossible,” Remy said. “The contract…”

  He trailed off, and I picked up. “Unless we didn’t solve the murder.”

  “You’re right,” Meri said. “Someone could have just stolen the athame.”

  “Wait, I’ve got this too,” I said.

  My brain hadn’t been firing on all cylinders. Even with the mullein, it seemed I was still forgetful.

  “What is it?” Annika asked.

  I pulled the scrap of fabric out of my purse and showed it to her. “We found this at the scene.”

  “Oh,” Annika said. “Yeah, that’s from a shirt Mirabella bought last week.”

  “But the spell still isn’t broken. The fact that she bought the shirt last week seems convenient too.”

  “Just because it’s all convenient doesn’t mean it wasn’t her,” Remy said. “She could have made mistakes.”

  “But the spell...”

  “I think it’s possible she was working with someone else. Right? That would explain it too. We haven’t solved the murder because there could be more than one killer.”

  We decided the best thing to do was go talk to Mirabella. If nothing else, perhaps we could get her to slip up and give us information. It was a long shot, but if it didn’t work, we decided to get Amelda involved.

  It only took us a few minutes to get to Mirabella. Amelda knew where her whole family was working at the time. She didn’t usually keep that close of tabs on the entire coven, but while they were working on the zombies, she ran a tight ship. Well, on everyone but us. We were the only ones given the freedom to move around as needed.

  Mirabella was with a group of witches at the outskirts of the city taking care of zombies as they wandered too close to Coventry.

  It wasn’t until we joined her on the front lines that we were able to grasp the full situation. The television we’d watched hadn’t shown us the severity of Coventry’s predicament.

  “They’re all coming for us,” Mirabella said when Remy asked her why there were so many. “They’ve been drawn to the source. Probably part of the spell. Margery’s way of shackling Henry when he came back.”

  “That’s what we came to talk to you about,” I said tentatively, but I’d already begun to have my doubts.

  The casual way she’d brought up Margery told me that she didn’t have anything to hide. Or she was just a master manipulator. I had to find out.

  “What about her?” Mirabella asked. “Let me guess. She came back from the grave and blamed this all on me.”

  “That’s actually not too far from the truth,” Annika said. “She said that you might have killed her. The problem is that this is all supposed to go away when we solve the murder. She put it in a witch’s contract that the magic would be released when we figured out who killed her.”

  “What does that have to do with me?” Mirabella asked. “You think I killed my sister?”

  “It was your athame that killed her,” I said and took out my phone so I could show her the picture. “A scrap of fabric from a shirt you bought from Annika a week ago was found at the scene.”

  “That’s all really convenient,” Mirabella said through narrowed eyes.

  “We thought that too,” Remy offered, “but we still had to come talk to you.”

  “I haven’t used that athame for a long time. I have a newer one that I got as a Saturnalia gift. My house is kind of open. People come and go all of the time.”

  “So you’re saying someone stole the athame and shirt to frame you?” I asked delicately.

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. Why would I kill my sister?”

  “She thought you were having an affair with husband,” Annika said bluntly the way only Annika could.

  “Oh, that nonsense? That was over years ago. Of course I wasn’t sleeping with her husband, and why she thought that, I’ll never know.”

  “Because you stole her boyfriend in high school,” Meri said bluntly in the way only Meri could.

  “Oh, man. Not that again,” Mirabella said with a sigh. “I didn’t steal her boyfriend. They went out on one date, and it was a disaster. Normally, I wouldn’t have gone out with him after that, but it was me he meant to ask out in the first place. Margery, he and I all met on the same day. When he called the house to ask us out, he mixed up our names. My mother gave Margery the phone instead of me, but the poor guy couldn’t tell the difference over the phone. He still went on the date because he was a nice guy, but they did not get along. He begged me to give him a chance, and I did.”

  “That was not the impression I got from Margery,” I said. “She made it sound like you stole the guys she was serious with.”

  “That was Margery for you,” Mirabella said. “If it had anything to do with me, she assumed I was trying to steal something from her or ruin her. I’d always thought it was just sibling rivalry or something like that, but,” and Mirabella swept her hand out indicating the entire zombie-riddled landscape, “my sister could hold a grudge like no other.” Tears started to roll down her cheeks. “I have to get back to this. The family needs my help.”

  “Do you have any idea who it could have been?” Remy pressed.

  “She’s become so secretive and cut off. I guess we should have noticed more. That’s partially my fault,” Mirabella said and wiped the tears away from her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I can only tell you who it wasn’t,” Mirabella rattled off a list of names. “We were all at Lucien and Briar’s house for a meeting.”

  We left after that. Annika and Remy accepted her word, but I still wanted to confirm her alibi. It was obvious that she wasn’t the killer because the zombies were still coming, but I still needed to hear it for myself.

  Annika called her Aunt Briar and asked her to confirm that Mirabella was with her that whole night. Briar did confirm it, and handed the phone to Lucien for him to do the same.

  “How do we know they aren’t-”

  Annika cut me off. “We could call the entire list of people, Brighton, but they’d all say the same thing. Mirabella was with them that night. Lucien and Briar are good people.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “I’m hungry,” I said. “Oh, no.”

  “I’m hungry too,” Remy said and rubbed my back, “But given how much you’ve eaten, you shouldn’t be. Let’s get you some more mullein and then figure out our next step.”

  Chapter Ten

  “I think we’ve reached the point where we need to do the thing we didn’t want to do,” I said after I’d finished smoking the mullein.

  “What’s that?” Remy asked before forking a bite of pancakes from Dumbledore’s into his mouth.

  I had a stack too, but after the mullein, I just picked at them. I really had eaten too much since the whole thing had started, and as long as I smoked the mullein, I knew it.

  “Ruby won’t tell us who bought all of the supplies, but we need to know.”

  “Why do we need to know?” Remy asked. “We can find out from Amelda where we can get more herbs to help you. She’ll know who has what. Heck, I’m sure she was in charge of distributing it.”

  “Because there was something else,” I said. “I didn’t pick up on it at the time because I was so out of it, but there was a flash of something in her eyes when you asked who bought what and when. She knows something.”

  “You think she would dare hold back given what’s going on?” Remy asked. “Amelda would freak.”

  “I do believe that she would protect her clients’ privacy at all costs,” I said. “I would. It’s the only way she can stay in business.”

  “So, asking her again isn’t going to help,” Remy said.

  “Yes!” Annika enthused a little too loudly. She waited until all the people in the diner turned back to their food before she sai
d the next part. “We’re going to do a burglary. Again.”

  We waited until sundown to break into Ruby’s Apothecary. The store had been closed for a couple of hours, and most of the town was completely distracted by the zombies. We still thought it was better to wait until dark to go in.

  I had no idea how scary it would be traversing the town of Coventry at night. While the Skeenbauer coven was doing an excellent job keeping the zombies at bay, you still had no idea if there were any strays shambling around.

  All of the human residents had taken to hiding in their houses. The only people who weren’t were the human council members who were temporarily sheltered in the courthouse so the witch members could protect them. They had no idea that was why they were there, but from what I’d heard, they were all happy to have a safe place for themselves and their families.

  Plus, the diner was still open. The owners refused to close, and it gave people a place to go get something to eat. The ones that would leave their houses anyway. It was mostly witches, but they were happy to have someone to cook a hot meal. We’d eaten there earlier in the day, and it was all witches save a table of council members who sat and ate chili and grilled cheese sandwiches while they scanned outside the windows nervously.

  It broke my heart a little. They were so scared, and they had no idea they were surrounded by witches who would protect them. I told myself it would all be over soon.

  We skirted around Ruby’s a couple of times just to make sure there weren’t any zombies hiding in the shadows and that there were none headed our way from a distance. The area around her store was completely deserted of people, zombies, and witches. It was hard to tell if she’d even opened that day. If Ruby was out of the herbs that the Skeenbauers needed to fight the zombies, she might not have. Perhaps she’d stayed home in her garden.

  The magical protections around her shop were no match for Annika, Remy, and Meri. I’d like to think I helped a little, but I refused to take too much credit.

  We didn’t have to break anything but her spells to get in, and one by one all four of us slipped into the dark store. After a scan of the display room, the stock room, and the office for undead invaders, we set to work in the office looking through Ruby’s records.

  “She’s got a camera,” I said and pointed up to the camera in the corner.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Annika said. “You just look for the records you need.”

  “Remember she might have some counter-magic on them to keep burglars from erasing or blocking the recording,” I said.

  “I’ve got this, lady. You just do what you came here to do.”

  I felt guilty about it, but I didn’t know what choice we had. We were out of leads, and all that was left was either to find out if Ruby knew something, or start asking every sing Skeenbauer if they knew who might have killed Margery. Given how their family could be, that sounded like a mess that would never end.

  So, I dug through her records. And I found exactly what she didn’t want to tell us. I had to go over her statements for almost a year to find a pattern, but it was there as plain as day.

  At first, Ruby had only been selling the necromancy herbs to Margery, but then a few months into that, someone else came into the store and bought them out. There were no more purchases from Margery. Just one person coming into the store and buying everything out. That must have been the point where Margery turned to the graveyard dirt and bones to work her magic. It had to be where her work went from kinda dark to absolute black magic.

  “You couldn’t just leave it alone, could you?” a voice startled Remy, Meri, and I.

  Gretchen stood in the doorway with Annika at her side. Black tentacles of magic were wrapped around Annika’s face and neck. Her eyes looked terrified.

  “Aunt Gretchen, what are you doing?” Remy asked. “Why are you here?”

  “She followed us here,” I said.

  “I don’t understand.” Remy sounded confused and little heartbroken. “You helped us.”

  “Only to throw you off the trail,” she said.

  “She was the one,” I responded. “It’s right here in Ruby’s records. Gretchen found out about what Margery was doing, so she started coming in here and buying all of the supplies so Margery couldn’t. It has to be why Margery turned to pure black magic.”

  “Why would you do that?” Remy asked Gretchen. “Why not go to Amelda? The coven could have handled this.”

  “Because I hated her,” Gretchen said. “I wanted to ruin her. Plus, I had to protect Henry. I couldn’t take the chance that Amelda would give Margery a slap on the wrist and another chance the way she did for you.”

  “You were the one having an affair with Henry,” I said.

  “I was, that’s true, and I can assure you that Margery wasn’t bringing him back because she missed him. Oh, no, when Henry died, she was angry because she never got the truth about who he had fallen in love with. She was bringing him back to torture him for as long as she could. I couldn’t let that happen,” she said.

  “We can’t just let you get away with this,” Remy said solemnly. “Even if you think you’re protecting a soul. You know you can’t just murder another witch. You can’t just kill someone in your family and your coven.”

  “I don’t think you have much choice in letting me get away with it,” Gretchen said. “If you think that I came in here with the intention of letting any of you walk out alive, you are mistaken.”

  “Really, Aunt Gretchen? You’re going to kill us all? To cover up for murdering Margery? When does it end?”

  “It ends here,” Meri said. “She can’t kill us all. I can’t die until the last…” But he trailed off. “Oh, dear. I can’t remember if it’s the last of the Skeenbauers and the Tuttlesmith witches or just one or the other. It’s been so long.”

  “I think it’s both,” I said.

  “I’m not so sure,” Meri retorted. “It’s been a long time.”

  “When you two are done,” Gretchen said. “I just need to sacrifice you all, and my spell will be complete.”

  “What?” Remy and I asked in unison.

  “I know that solving Margery’s murder released her spell, but I planned for that. I set it all up again, only this time, I made sure that it’s just a zombie curse. Everyone out there will think it’s over, but then those zombies are just going to get right back up again.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Why would you do that?”

  “I’m in too deep,” Gretchen said. “I let too much darkness into my soul, and it’s twisted me up. I can’t go on in Coventry. I can’t ever have Henry back. He went to a good place, and I’m just not welcome there.”

  “You could still go there,” I interrupted.

  “And you think after all of this that even if I redeemed myself, Henry would want me? My family would want me?”

  “Yeah, I do think that,” Remy said. “I think if you do the right thing now, everyone could forgive you.”

  “Nah,” Gretchen said. “Destruction sounds like more fun.”

  It was then that I could see how black her eyes had become. There was a twisted mirth in them that was pure evil. She hadn’t loved or wanted to protect Henry, she was just a selfish homewrecker.

  The dark tentacles wrapped around Annika’s neck began to bubble and expand. The air stank with evil, and I felt my breath get shallow as I struggled to breath. Remy’s face had gone ghostly white, and Annika’s eyes rolled back in her head.

  “Not today!” A voice boomed inside of the room and caused Gretchen to release Annika as she stumbled back. “You guys bind her.” The words reverberated through the room.

  A second later, Margery’s spirit appeared. She was flickering like it was taking all of her strength to stay in our realm, but she was there looking determined. We all watched as she reached inside Gretchen’s body and yanked her soul out.

  Annika was on her knees, but she worked with us to bind Gretchen’s spirit. We weren’t fast enough, though, and just before we
had her in our magical vice, blackness shot out of her and hit me right in the heart.

  Chapter Eleven

  When I awoke, there were dozens of Skeenbauer witches around me. They were burning huge bunches of what I recognized as mullein. The air around me was full of it, and I took in huge lungfuls with every inhale and exhale.

  They were also rubbing some sort of ointment or salve all over my body. They were chanting words I couldn’t focus on, and there was also the hunger. I could feel it gnawing away at my gut. It wasn’t as strong as it had been originally, but it was there. The sensation was growing and felt like it was trying to dodge the magic being done on me. It was struggling to take root inside of me.

  “What’s happening?” I managed to choke out. “I thought it was over.”

  Remy was at my side in an instant. He took my hand. Meri and Annika appeared on the other. Everyone looked sad and scared. It took all of my strength not to give into panic.

  “We failed you,” Remy said. “We didn’t bind Gretchen fast enough, and she shot the entirety of that spell into you. Into your heart.”

  “What does that mean?” I tried to sit up, but the elder witches pushed my shoulders back down.

  “I’ll tell her,” Annika said. “The dead witch’s spell is in you this time, and Margery dragged Gretchen through the veil to protect us. Gretchen has no interest in coming back to release the spell.”

  “So, I’m dying?” I asked. “I’m already dead?”

  “We don’t know yet,” Remy said.

  He squeezed my hand and kissed my temple. My eyes scanned the room, and Brody was standing outside of the witch’s circle around me. Tears flowed down his face, and I knew it was bad. Seeing him cry like that made my heart ache for my baby brother. His eyes met mine.

  “I’ll be okay,” I said. “Don’t worry. There has to be a way. There has to be something. If anyone can find it, you and Brody can find it. We’ll beat this.”

  “We’re going to do everything we can,” Remy said, but there was so much doubt in his eyes.

  “Grandma, what can we do?” Annika asked. “There has to be something.”