A Hillcrest Witch Mystery Collection

by Amorette Anderson

  “Alright... you sleep in too late. You don’t eat enough vitamins and minerals. You spend too many hours of the day mooning over men.”

  I feel tears well up in my eyes.

  “Oh! Don’t cry, Penelope,” Turkey says. “Don’t you see my point? Those are very minor things. Those flaws make you who you are. You’re Penelope Banks. You’re funny. You always try your hardest. You’re a good friend. You’re good at taking care of me. You’re... improving as a private investigator.”

  “I’m not!” I protest. I remove my glasses and place them on the edge of the bathtub that I’m leaning against. Then, I wipe my eyes. Yes, I’m crying again.

  Turkey hops up to the sink, and pushes a box of tissues over the edge. They land right on the floor next to me. “Thanks,” I mumble. I pull one out of the box with my good hand, and wipe my eyes. “I thought I would be better at investigating, Turkey. Sure, at first I wasn’t very good. But it’s been five years! And I never get better at it. It’s like—it’s like no matter how hard I try, I just can’t do it right.”

  “There’s no ‘right,’ Penelope,” Turkey says. “You just have to do your best. That’s all you can do.”

  “But what if my best isn’t good enough?” I ask.

  “That doesn’t mean you stop trying,” Turkey says. “That doesn’t mean that you quit.”

  “I want to quit,” I say.

  “Come on,” Turkey says. “Get up. Let’s get you to bed. You need some sleep, that’s all. In the morning, things will look brighter. What do you say?”

  I hesitate. I don’t know if I have the energy to get up off of this floor.

  “Think about how good your bed will feel,” Turkey says.

  I imagine my bed, and the soft comforter I’ve had since I was a teenager. My mom got it for me, for my 13th birthday. When I curl up under the covers, I’m always reminded of her.

  “You’re right,” I say, at last.

  I reach up to the edge of the sink with my left hand, and pull myself up. Then, shuffling along so that I don’t jostle my aching wrist, I make my way slowly to my bedroom. It takes all of my effort to crawl under the covers.

  I try not to think about anything as I close my eyes, but it’s impossible. Visions of Hiroku’s dead body hover in my mind’s eye. As my consciousness starts to fade towards a dream state, other characters march across the screen of my mind as if they’re walking across a movie screen.

  I see Azure, hugging Silas. Then I see Cora, flashing her glittering diamond engagement ring. As I watch, I see her flat belly become round. Next, she’s holding a swaddled bundle in her arms. In my mind, I move closer, and see that inside the soft yellow blanket, there’s a tiny baby wolf.

  The setting changes, and suddenly I’m in a foreign land. The beach is made of scorching white sand. The ocean is a swirling, liquid mass of red hot lava. I see a tan, stucco house. Above the door, a sign with the words ‘Simone Feur’ printed on it shimmers like a mirage.

  I walk towards the door with the sense that I want to see who lives inside. But before I reach it, my consciousness falls fully into sleep, and I become, at last, blissfully unaware of the pain that I’m in. The feeling of chaos that fills my mind now fades away.

  When I open my eyes the next morning, however, the pain returns, full force.

  I groan loudly as I sit up.

  Turkey, of course, is already up. He’s sitting on the bed next to me, looking at me with his big green and yellow eyes.

  “How are you feeling?” He asks.

  “You know the garbage truck that picks up the trash from the dumpster out front, every Thursday?” I ask.

  “Yes,” Turkey says.

  “I feel like it’s just run me over.”

  “Not good,” Turkey says. “Maybe coffee will help?”

  “I don’t think so,” I say, honestly.

  “Whew. This must be bad. Usually, you act as though coffee is the cure-all elixir.”

  “Not this time,” I mumble.

  I flop back onto my pillow dramatically. Ouch! That was not the best move. The bouncing jolted my wrist. “Eeaagh,” I groan, as my wrist starts to throb and vibrate with a new level of pain. “That did not help.”

  “You can’t just wallow around in bed all day,” Turkey says.

  “Actually,” I retort, “That’s exactly what I have on today’s schedule.” I reach for a second pillow with my good arm, and pull it over my face to block the light.

  I freeze, hoping that Turkey will take the cue and leave me the heck alone.

  He promised that things would look brighter in the morning. Well, the sunlight streaming through my window sure is bright, but my mood hasn’t improved. In fact, I feel worse about my situation this morning. My wrist still hurts. I’ve bungled my case. I still owe Speedy’s Online Licensure program $900, and I owe Annie 300.

  Hiroku is dead.

  ASBW is missing.

  Things could not possibly get any worse.

  Bring! Bring! My phone starts ringing and buzzing on the nightstand. I look at the caller ID. It’s Cora. At least I still have my friends. It was going to suck to have to tell Cora that Silas was cheating, and now I don’t have to. Maybe that’s the positive thing I can hang onto this morning.

  With that in mind, I pick up the phone.

  “What have you done?” Cora shouts, as soon as I answer. She sounds hysterical.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “The police just arrested Silas!” Cora says. “They drove right up to the building site. I was there with him. Silas was showing me the blueprint—where the nursery was going to go. The police drove up and your stupid ex-boyfriend, Chris, put Silas in handcuffs and took him away in a patrol car!”

  “No,” I say. “He didn’t. He couldn’t have. Silas is innocent.”

  “Well, I know that,” Cora says. “And I’ve been telling you that. But Chris says that after a discussion with you yesterday, he uncovered facts that implicate Silas in the murder.”

  “I don’t know what he could possibly be talking about,” I say. “I bumped into Chris at the crime scene.”

  Literally bumped into him, I think, remembering the way I slipped and collided with him.

  I continue. “He gave me a ride home. We talked a little bit about the case. I might have said...” I try to think back. Slowly, it’s coming to me. “Yes... I mentioned that the Historical Society was trying to stop Silas from tearing down the schoolhouse. I said they hired Hiroku to prevent Silas from moving forward with his plans.”

  “You basically gave Chris a reason to arrest Silas,” Cora says, accusingly.

  “I was just sharing the facts with Chris,” I say.

  “Penny, what if Silas goes to jail? What if he has to spend his life in jail, as punishment for a murder he didn’t commit? What if I have to raise this baby on my own?”

  “You won’t be alone,” I say. “You’ll have Marley and Annie and me.”

  “That’s not what this is about!” Cora says. “This isn’t about our knitting circle.”

  “We’re not just a knitting circle,” I say. “We’re a coven.”

  “I don’t see how we can be a coven if we never really become witches,” Cora says. “Now that our books are gone, we’re just a knitting circle again. And really—that’s not the point. The point is that I want to raise this child with Silas. I love him.”

  I close my eyes. The world goes black.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have said any of that stuff to Chris,” I say, with my eyes still closed.

  “No, you shouldn’t have,” says Cora.

  “What do you want me to do?” I ask.

  “Fix it,” Cora says.

  “I don’t know if I can,” I say, quietly.

  I want her to tell me to try. I want her to tell me that she thinks I can fix it. I don’t believe in myself, at this moment, but at least maybe if someone else believed in me it might help.

  But Cora says nothing. Instead, I hear t
he muffled sound of crying.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper again, as I listen to her cry.

  She doesn’t respond. Instead, I hear her phone click off. She’s hung up on me.

  I hang up my own phone. My eyes are still closed, and I really don’t want to open them.

  I want to fall back asleep.

  I thought that my day couldn’t get any worse, but you know what? It just did.

  No matter how hard I smoosh my pillow into my face to block out the glaring sunlight, sleep will not come.

  I’m not going to get away from this day that easily.

  My poor wrist is really starting to throb. I should get up and take some medicine.

  I remove the pillow and sit up. Turkey is no longer on the bed. He’s given up on me.

  He’s probably mad because I haven’t served his breakfast yet.

  I gingerly swing my feet over the edge of the bed, careful not to make any sudden movements. I pause at the edge of the bed. As I sit there, my phone beeps. I take a quick peek at the screen. It’s a text from Marley. ‘Can you call me?’ It says.

  Great. She probably wants to chew me out for casting suspicion on Silas, too. I don’t want to hear it.

  I slowly stand, and then shuffle into the bathroom, cradling my wrist.

  It’s a challenge to open the aspirin bottle with one hand. When I do finally manage it, pills fly all over the sink.

  Drat.

  I spend the next ten minutes picking the scattered pills up and throwing them in the trash bin. What a waste.

  I’m frowning and muttering to myself as I make my way into the kitchen.

  “And here comes the ray of sunshine herself,” Turkey transmits, from his position on the living room couch.

  I reach for the coffee pot. “I’m not in the mood for your sass,” I say.

  “Sorry,” Turkey says. “Any chance you could use those opposable thumbs of yours to fill my food dish? It’s a few hours past my preferred breakfast time.”

  Usually, Turkey tells me exactly how many hours past his breakfast time I am. I can tell he’s going easy on me.

  I get coffee brewing, and then serve Turkey his breakfast.

  I should eat something myself, but I have no appetite whatsoever.

  Turkey stops lapping up his food and looks up at me as I stand, staring wistfully at the filling coffee pot. “You’re right,” he says. “You should eat something. You took an aspirin on an empty stomach, and now you’re planning on topping it off with coffee. You’re heading straight for heartburn city.”

  “Ug. Heartburn city. Isn’t today rotten enough?”

  “Still wallowing, I see,” Turkey says.

  I don't answer.

  Instead, I reach for a banana. I can’t peel it with one hand, so I give up. I throw it in the trash. I’ve already wasted a bottle of aspirin today, why not waste a banana too? Who cares?

  A half-eaten bag of cheese puffs is sitting on the counter. That’s what I’ll have for breakfast.

  I wait for my coffee to finish brewing, and then fill a mug. With my coffee in one hand, and the bag of puffs in the other, I shuffle towards the couch.

  As I settle in, I fire up the television.

  If I can’t sleep away the day, I might as well watch my Sherlock Holmes DVD. It’s from the library, and will be due in a few days. Maybe today I’ll watch all of them.

  “Do you really think binge watching television is a good idea, Penelope?” Turkey asks, hopping up on the couch next to me.

  “Yes,” I say. “I think it is a great idea. At least I won’t be ruining anyone's life if I just sit here.”

  “You haven’t ruined anyone’s life,” Turkey says.

  “What about Cora?” I ask. “She called to say that because of me, Silas is in jail. And what about their kid? He might have a childhood without a father, because of me. I know how awesome that is.” Yep. I know a thing or two about growing up without a dad. Mine left when I was two. “And how about Silas? Chris carted him away from his building site in a patrol car.”

  “He’s innocent until proven guilty,” Turkey says. “You know that.”

  I shake my head. “That’s the theory,” I say. “But that’s not how it always goes. People rot away in jail all the time for things they didn’t do. That could happen to Silas.”

  “Not if you do something about it,” Turkey says.

  The show has started, and the opening scene is of a loud market-place. I reach for the remote and turn down the volume.

  “What can I do?” I ask. “To get Silas off of the hook, I would need to find the real killer, and that’s impossible.”

  “Impossible?” Turkey asks, raising his little furry eyebrows. “What does Jumper Strongheart say about the impossible?”

  “He says that impossible is the coward’s word for challenging.”

  “Right,” Turkey says. “So is cracking this case impossible, or is it challenging?”

  “Challenging,” I say.

  I reach for the remote and press power. The screen goes black. I turn so that I’m facing Turkey. “Really challenging,” I say. “Maybe the hardest case I’ve ever had.”

  “Tell me what you’ve got,” Turkey says.

  “Okay.” I sip my coffee, thinking. Then I say, “I think I understand the motive. That’s the part that’s been really clear, right from the beginning. ASBW disappeared, and then Hiroku was murdered. Cora was keeping her copy at work—in the filing cabinet next to where Hiroku’s body was lying. It seems clear to me that whoever killed Hiroku was there to take the ASBW pages.”

  “Are you one hundred percent sure of that?” Turkey asks.

  “No... not really. Not in my head... but my gut’s telling me that it’s true. The two things are connected—ASBW and the murder.”

  “Okay.” Turkey nods. He looks cute when he nods. I feel my mood improving, just a teeny, tiny bit.

  “Let’s go with it then,” Turkey transmits. “The two things are connected—the thefts and the murder. Where does that lead us?”

  “Well, that means that a magical being is the culprit. Regular old humans don’t know how valuable ASBW is. They wouldn’t want to steal it.”

  “Good,” Turkey says. “This is good.”

  “No, it’s not!” I say. “Because I’ve cleared the only three magical beings that I know of: Max, Azure, and Silas.”

  “What if it’s someone that you didn’t know was magical? What if they’ve been keeping their magical identity a secret?”

  “Sure,” I say. “That’s possible, but it doesn’t do us any good. That could be anyone.”

  We sit in silence for a minute. I slurp my coffee.

  Talking about the case is actually helping. “You know...” I say, thinking aloud. “Maybe instead of hammering my head against this wall over and over again, I should approach the case from another angle.”

  “I think that would be a wise decision,” Turkey says. “What angle do you have in mind?”

  “There’s something that’s been bothering me,” I say.

  “What?” Turkey asks.

  “My practical exam. I shouldn’t have passed it. I mean, I didn’t prepare at all. I answered every answer completely wrong. I mean, when Nadia asked me how I would interrogate the employees of Wag More, I told her I’d drink a bunch of coffee and then go in wielding a Chihuahua and a gun for Pete’s sake.

  “That’s definitely the wrong answer,” Turkey says.

  “I know! And my answers were all like that. One after another. I bombed. And yet, she passed me. It was like... it was like... she didn’t really care that I was answering wrong. Like she had an ulterior motive for giving me the exam in the first place.”

  “You mean, like getting paid?” Turkey asks. “Maybe the instructors get paid more if they pass you. After all, it means you’ll have to continue making payments to the program, and you’ll have to take the exam again in five years. Speedy’s will keep collecting money from you, for your whole career as an investig
ator.”

  “Don’t remind me,” I say.

  My mood was improving, but now I feel it deteriorating again.

  Thinking about money always bums me out. Maybe it’s because I have so little of it.

  Turkey can sense that we’re losing the ground that we’d been gaining. I think he’s trying to cheer me up when he says, “Penelope, remember last night when I told you that I’d been working some magic of my own?”

  His attempt at distraction works. I feel myself perk up. “Yeah,” I say. “Last night got so crazy, I forgot all about it!”

  “I know,” Turkey says.

  “What did you do?” I ask.

  He hops off of the couch. “It’s over here,” he says.

  I stand, too. I think the aspirin is helping a bit. My wrist isn’t throbbing anymore. The dull ache now only serves as a backdrop to my peaked curiosity. What has my cat been up to?

  Turkey trots over to the corner of my living room. I have a shelf positioned in the corner, at an angle. Against the bottom of the shelf, I see a little hand held mirror, propped up so that it’s facing out into the room. Even from my standing position, I can see that something odd is happening with the glass. It’s not reflecting the room.

  Turkey sits down in front of it.

  I crouch down, and look into the glass.

  The reflection is displaying an image of a dirt road, with a metal gate across it. “Is that Hillcrest Pass?” I ask.

  Turkey nods. “Yes,” he says. “Watch. It happens every few minutes. I’m sure we’ll see it happen, if we just keep watching.”

  “See what happen?” I ask.

  “Patience,” Turkey says. “Remember the three Ps of witchcraft?”

  “Patience. Precision. Playfulness,” I recite.

  It feels so good to say them aloud. Just a few hours ago, I was ready to give up on my studies. Now, repeating the three Ps, I feel determination well up inside of me. I want to get my book back. I need to get that book back. I need to complete all 13 cycles. I need to become a witch.

  I’m watching the mirror still. Nothing is happening, except for the fact that the trees sway softly, now and again, as a breeze blows through their almost bare branches.