Potions Are for Pushovers

by Tamara Berry

  “You got a cake?” My mouth waters at the prospect of one of those chocolate towers sequestered somewhere in the castle. I haven’t lost a loved one recently, but I’ve been around enough death that I think I’ve earned a slice. Burying that cat this morning was no small feat. “What on earth for?”

  “I can’t imagine. I’ve been nothing but nice to her lately. She should know better than to saddle me with that much responsibility.”

  I find nothing odd in this statement. The only thing Vivian likes less than visitors is having food in the pantry that will increase the likelihood of them stopping by. “I’m sure you can count on Rachel to do away with it before anyone finds out,” I say. “She’s been eating me out of house and home.”

  Vivian’s eyes take on a shrewd look. “Don’t mention that girl’s name to me. Do you know how many hours I spent discussing werewolves with her last night?”

  I feel nothing but sympathy for her plight. I’m starting to loathe the very mention of that creature. “I can guess.”

  “I assume this is your doing. Whatever you’re up to this time, I don’t want any part of it. Regular men are bad enough. If you start encouraging her to drag home ones covered with fur, I won’t be held responsible for my actions.”

  I can’t help but laugh. “I solemnly promise not to saddle Rachel—or you—with any wolf men I find lying about.” Since I know I’m not going to get an invitation to sit, I lower myself into the nearest chair. “But that does put me in mind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “As I told my granddaughter already, no, I haven’t encountered any werewolves in my lifetime and, no, you may not set up a shapeshifter hunting party on these grounds. Honestly, Eleanor, can’t you control them with your mind or something?”

  “Teenagers or werewolves?”

  She picks up the bottle of cordial and uncorks it with all the flourish her earlier attempts had been lacking. “At this point, I’ll take either one.”

  That makes two of us. Unfortunately, my mystical influences work best on the desperate and downtrodden—two adjectives that neither Rachel nor Lenora can be accused of falling prey to. And I can’t control werewolves because they’re not real.

  It’s a phrase I’ve been telling myself over and over again all morning. It wasn’t a werewolf depositing a cat on my hill last night. It was someone sending me a message—warning me against getting too close to this investigation. I’m a hundred percent sure of it.

  Or at least ninety percent, anyway.

  “I’m doing my best,” I promise. “But first, I need you to tell me everything you know about Lewis King. Especially why everyone in the village seems to dislike him so much.”

  She pauses in the middle of filling her glass. “What makes you think I know anything?”

  I remember what the general said that day in the pub, about how there’s room in a village this size for only one strong-willed and influential matriarch, and know exactly what to say. “Because you hated his aunt, and you’re not one to begrudge a grudge. Come on, Viv. Even Nicholas doesn’t seem to care much for him, and he doesn’t have strong feelings toward anyone.”

  Except, of course, for me, but even that sentiment is suspect these days. Here I am, embroiled in the middle of a murder investigation, finding dead cats in my backyard and being hounded by the local police into closing my business, and he’s off reaping his millions.

  I guess that’s what happens when one ship is profoundly more successful than the other. He has oceans to traverse, high seas to sail. I’m mostly just paddling around in a sludge-filled pond of my own making.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Vivian says primly, but there’s a cackle of delight lingering at the back of her throat. “If Sarah Blackthorne’s nephew wants to spend her entire life savings investing in schemes that any idiot with two eyes can see are a sham, it’s no concern of mine.”

  I scoot my chair closer.

  “I honestly don’t know what he was thinking, Eleanor. A dating service for dogs?”

  “No way. That was an actual thing he did?”

  Her cackle becomes more pronounced. “Not for long. The company went under after a prize Pekingese got knocked up by a mongrel masquerading as a spaniel. Which, incidentally, wasn’t nearly as disastrous as the key-carrying delivery service that would go inside your house to drop off packages. They say over three hundred thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry and electronics were stolen by the employees in the first week.”

  “Poor Lewis,” I can’t help saying. Granted, he’s rapidly jumping up my list of murder suspects, but it’s impossible not to feel a little sorry for him. The village pariah is a tough role to play.

  Trust me. I know.

  “He does seem rather . . . underwhelming a man,” I add. “Especially when compared to his brother.”

  Vivian snorts and leans back in her chair. Now that her glass is full and I’ve promised not to put her out in any way, she’s relaxing into our chat. “Richard King—now he’s the one you should feel sorry for. He’s had to pull his brother out of his financial messes enough times to buy Buckingham Palace five times over. Not that you heard it from me. I don’t gossip.”

  “Of course not,” I say.

  On the surface, I’m all bland agreement, but my insides are roiling with possibilities. In cases of murder—poison or otherwise—there are three motives worth looking out for. Love is one. Power is another. And money usually undergirds them both.

  “Did you know that Sarah signed over her life insurance policy to a tennis charity?” I ask. “Her nephews aren’t getting a single penny.”

  “I’m not surprised.” Vivian shakes her head. “Sarah Blackthorne was a miser and a cheat. She probably cut Lewis and Richard out for spite. She was that type, the kind who would kick a Girl Guide in the knee and take her lunch money.”

  In other words, she was a bully. Cruel to both humans and animals. A killjoy.

  Lonely.

  That last one catches me off guard. It doesn’t come from Winnie, but I don’t need my sister’s otherworldly wisdom to realize the truth. Sarah Blackthorne might have been one heck of an unpleasant woman to be around, but she deserved our pity more than poison. I’ve been living in the village for months, and I’d never even heard of her nephews, let alone seen them stop by for a visit. Those are hardly the actions of a loving family.

  As if in agreement, Vivian softens. “I will say one thing for her, though—she was good to those boys of her sister’s. More than they ever deserved, if you ask me. Richard almost never came to visit her, and it’s common knowledge that Lewis would have been bankrupted without her. He was the reason she moved from that nice stone house on the hill to her tiny row home.”

  “So that’s why Nicholas and Annis don’t care for him,” I say without need for further explanation. Nicholas might be an ironic, impenetrable fortress and Annis a fiercely loyal servant of God, but the one thing they’ve always had in common is a strong sense of right and wrong. A young man reducing his aunt to penury is an unforgivable offense no matter which way you look at it.

  “Medical treatment is what he says he needed the money for, but what condition he’s suffering from is beyond me. And Dr. MacDougal, I might add. She sees to him whenever he stays here in the village, and she’s never found anything wrong with him that a firm talking-to won’t fix.”

  “Porphyria is believed to cause werewolf-like symptoms,” I muse, mostly to myself. “That would be expensive to treat.”

  “That’s it. Out.”

  I glance up, half startled and half laughing, to find Vivian glaring at me with all the ferocity a rich, seventy-something noblewoman in a muumuu can muster. “Vivian, I was kidding.”

  “You’re as bad as Rachel, coming in here and scaring a poor elderly woman with apocryphal tales.”

  “As if I could!” I protest, still laughing. Vivian is neither poor nor elderly, nor, if her reaction to her castle haunting last year is any indication, the least
bit frightened of anything apocryphal. “And you have to admit he looks the part. Those wide, hunched shoulders, all that hair that keeps growing back . . .”

  “His brother was the same way until those television executives got hold of him. Laser surgery, every centimeter of him. I saw him in his swim trunks once. His chest looks like it belongs on a wet seal.”

  I rise up from my seat and press a kiss on her cheek. She smells of elderberries and the expensive amber-scented Baccarat Rouge perfume Nicholas buys for her in bulk.

  “Thanks for your help, Viv,” I say. “And for the company. I’ll send a whole crate of that wine over with Rachel the next time I see her.”

  “Will you, dear? How lovely.” An appropriately beatific expression settles on the lines of her face, which hint at the beauty she once was—and, in many ways, still is. “Be a dear and take that chocolate cake with you when you go, won’t you? I don’t want Rachel finding it and inviting the whole village over for a party. It should be down in the kitchen. I asked Penny to carry it down there.”

  “I suppose, if you really want me to . . .” I say with a good show of reluctance. Inside, I have to force myself to slow down and go through the normal human motions of departing. I don’t want to give her a chance to change her mind.

  The hallway is freezing after the sauna-like conditions of Vivian’s room, but I don’t mind the long, cold walk down to the kitchen. In fact, I rather enjoy it. With one of Penny’s chocolate cakes on the line, I’d willingly walk my way down to the South Pole—and back again.

  They’re that good.

  * * *

  Of all the crimes wrought on the village over the past few weeks, none are quite as disheartening as the theft of Penny Dautry’s prize chocolate cake.

  As I slog through the muddy lane back to my cottage without a delicious cake in my possession, I curse all those involved.

  Vivian, for promising sugary delights and not delivering.

  Penny, for hoarding her secret recipe and parceling the cake out only upon literal pain of death.

  Lewis, for taking his aunt’s money and thereby rendering himself odious to the cake maker.

  And Nicholas, for luring me to this village in the first place.

  “Before I came here, I’d never heard of Beast or Nicholas Hartford the Third or Penny Dautry’s chocolate cake,” I mutter as I turn up my walkway. I’m soaked almost all the way through, but it doesn’t matter, since it looks as though one side of my roof is about to cave in. Apparently, aquatic living is something I’m going to have to get used to. “My life was rich. Full. Now I’ve been ruined for anything else but those three.”

  “Oh, dear. Did I come at a bad time?”

  I halt midstep, more startled than I care to admit at the sight of a thin, nervous-looking woman sitting hunched on my doorstep. Given how popular my cottage has been lately, I shouldn’t be surprised to find yet another visitor stopping by.

  But I can’t help it. It’s too fantastic, even for me.

  “Did I conjure you?” I ask, blinking at the vision before me. Not at the woman, whom I recognize on sight as Penny Dautry, but at the towering confection on the step next to her. Three layers, each one a perfect circle, folds of glistening chocolate ganache smoothed over every edge . . . My mouth waters almost instantly.

  It’s the cake.

  “Conjure me?” she echoes. “Why would you do that?”

  She grabs the porch handrail and struggles to her feet, propelling me into action. I wish I could say that my instincts are pure chivalry, a young woman helping an older one in the act of standing, but I’m mostly worried she’s going to topple onto the dessert.

  “I was just up at the castle talking to Vivian about you,” I reply with a smile meant to allay any fears of malicious gossip. “I find that a simple conversation will sometimes draw a person toward me.”

  “Will it?” Penny says. “Oh, dear.”

  I keep my hand on her elbow as she straightens her knee-length tweed skirt and serviceable khaki mackintosh. She also has on one of those plastic floral rain bonnets I always eye when I’m at the grocer’s. They look ridiculous on anyone under the age of fifty, but Penny seems awfully dry under there. Her cake has been subjected to the same treatment, a kind of plastic wrap tent around it to protect it from the drizzle.

  “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting long,” I say with a sidelong look at the dessert. I have no idea how well ganache stands up to the elements, but I can’t imagine all this rain is helping. “Please, come in. My home is always open.”

  Like most people, she hesitates on the threshold, wary lest that footfall into my abode will cast a curse upon her head. The cauldron catching drips in the middle of the living room doesn’t help matters, but she notices the wainscoting and white-painted fireplace and decides to risk it.

  I’m not too far behind, the chocolate cake secure in my loving embrace.

  “Is it too much to hope this is for me?” I ask as I kick the door to a close behind me. Jostled by the movement, a large piece of ceiling falls away and plops in the cauldron. I peek inside and grimace. The plaster seems to be breaking down into some kind of paste-like substance in there. “And, uh, don’t mind the mess. The rain sprites are a little angry at me right now, but we’re working through it.”

  “Rain sprites?” Penny echoes doubtfully.

  “A joke,” I say. “The thatch needs to be replaced.”

  “Oh, of course. How silly of me.” She laughs nervously, her breath caught on a pause. “Were you really discussing me up at the castle?”

  I nod down at the cake in my hands. “Technically, we were discussing this masterpiece right here.”

  “You were? But Vivian didn’t—I was supposed to take it—”

  “Vivian didn’t want it? You were supposed to take it to the kitchen?” I smile warmly in an effort to soothe her. “You did much better to bring it here, believe me. She might have eaten a bite or two, but she’d have let it sit on a shelf and get stale before she told anyone it was there. I, on the other hand, promise to love, honor, and cherish this cake until death us do part.”

  My words, don’t, as I hope, lessen her anxiety. In fact, as my tongue trips over the long-term implications of the traditional marriage vow—death—she gives a visible start.

  For the first time, I find myself wondering about the cake’s contents. It would have been very easy for her to slip some wolfsbane into the glistening chocolate ganache, murdering people left and right. No one would be the wiser. How could they? Anywhere this cake is served, there’s never a crumb left to examine for clues.

  “It was only good things, I promise,” I say as I begin to pull out a couple of plates. Strange though it may seem, I’m willing to risk imminent and painful death for a slice. “Your cake is famous, you know.”

  “Yes,” she says, looking profoundly sad. “I know.”

  Like the lives of most of the people in the village, the basics of Penny’s life are fairly well known. She’s in her late fifties to early sixties, unmarried and uninterested in changing that state of affairs. Rumors have it that she once trothed her love to the passionate French pastry chef who taught her everything she knows, but I assume that story has more rumor than truth to it, if only because no rational woman would let a passionate French pastry chef slip through her fingers that easily.

  “It’s difficult, isn’t it, being recognized for one sole skill in this world?” I slide a generous wedge of cake onto her plate and an even more generous wedge onto mine. “It doesn’t matter what you can do or how many ways you can do it—when a person becomes whittled down to just one thing, it’s almost impossible to get people to see you any other way. Especially in a small village like this one.”

  Her expression lightens almost immediately. “Yes. Yes, it is, isn’t it?”

  “Vivian Hartford is the eccentric, which means she’s expected to bar herself in her room and refuse all social overtures. Dr. MacDougal is the calm, cool medical practitioner, so she
has to rise to every occasion with grace. And me, well, I’m the witch. I can’t have a leaky roof and glutton myself on dessert. I’m supposed to be mysterious and all seeing at every turn.”

  To show how resistant I am to such pressures, I kick off my shoes and take a hefty bite. The cake is rich and moist and so perfectly decadent, I actually emit a low moan.

  “And you,” I say around a thick mouthful. “You’re expected to bake. When the world is falling down around you and the only thing you want is to pack up and move to France, everyone expects you to roll up your sleeves and churn out cakes like you’re working on an assembly line.”

  She leans across the table, her fork dangling from her fingertips. I focus on the earnest entreaty in her pale blue eyes and thin, chapped lips rather than the fact that she hasn’t touched her own cake yet. I really hope she hasn’t poisoned it.

  “It’s true!” she says. “When I walk down the street, all anyone sees is my cake. Not Penny Dautry, the human being. Not Penny Dautry, the woman.”

  I nod, feeling only slightly guilty about my gentle manipulations. Nothing I’ve said is a lie, even if my motives are only to reduce Penny’s nerves enough to manipulate her further. For whatever reason, she visited Vivian today with a bribe in hand. What she wanted—an overture of friendship, information about the family—I can’t say. But when it didn’t work, she brought the bribe to me.

  It doesn’t take a psychic to realize there’s meaning in that.

  “I’m an artist—did you know that?” she demands. “A poet.”

  “I can tell,” I say. “Your eyes carry a certain wisdom.”

  Color rushes to her cheeks. “Well, I don’t know about that. . . .”

  “I do. There’s more to you than meets the eye, Ms. Penny Dautry, I’m sure of it. But you aren’t touching your cake.”

  She stabs her fork in the sponge and shovels a large piece into her mouth. Watching her chew and swallow causes my stress levels to drop a ridiculous degree. I wasn’t looking forward to joining Winnie in the afterworld just yet.