A New Witch In Town
Page 1
A New Witch In Town
Merryweather Mysteries
Jenny Bankhead
Copyright © 2019 by Jenny Bankhead
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Any similarities to real people, living or deceased, are entirely coincidental.
Contents
A New Witch In Town
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
A Witch On The High Seas - Preview
Chapter 1
A New Witch In Town
Chapter 1
Lorna Merryweather couldn’t help but grin from ear to ear. The little riverside cottage was like something out of Better Homes and Gardens, and it was all hers. She poked her head out the window of the taxi cab and stared in awe. There were flowers brimming all around, as though planted for her arrival.
“Pansies! Looks at the pansies!” she said with glee, pointing to the colorful blooms in gold, purple, blue, and pink. “Oh, and the tulips,” she went on. She shook her head and sighed dreamily.
The cabbie looked back at her from the rearview mirror as though he had a certified crazy lady in his car. Such was the case with those American tourists; one trip to the English countryside and all of a sudden they were acting like loonies.
“I just love it,” Lorna went on, resting her head on the side of the window. “I simply can’t believe it.”
“That’ll be seven quid,” the cabbie said flatly, a glowing cigarette dangling from his lips. Lorna began to cough and brush the smoke away from her face as, all at once, reality set in. She had been lost in a dream since they pulled up to her new home in Tweed-upon-Slumber. Now, it was time to pay the bill.
“Oh, right,” she said, digging into her enormous purse to locate her pocketbook. “One, two, three, four…” Lorna counted out the money. She never knew the right amount to pay when she was abroad, and somehow she thought that counting aloud would make it all work out.
“Seven,” the cabbie repeated.
“Oh, yes. I’m getting there,” Lorna replied with a smile. “Five, six, seven.” She handed the unfamiliar coins to the impatient cabbie and opened the door.
What’s all the fuss about? Lorna thought to herself. How could anyone be in a bad mood when surrounded by so much beauty?
Although the cabbie clearly didn’t want to, he decided to get out and remove Lorna’s suitcase from the trunk. Sure, the kooky lady was a little too much sunshine on his rainy day, but still, there was something about her that was hard not to like. Maybe it was her crystal clear, cheery blue eyes. Or perhaps her curly auburn hair. He couldn’t tell. Either way, the cabbie would carry the heavy suitcase as far as the cobblestone path.
“That’s so kind of you,” Lorna said. She rifled through her large bag again and found another coin to give him. The cabbie looked down and noted that it was an American quarter and walked towards his car in a huff.
“Oh my goodness,” Lorna said, placing her hands over her mouth. She was so happy she was on the verge of tears. “There’s a watermill.” Sure enough, just off to the side of the cottage a watermill made its round, the sound of rushing and tinkling water as soft as rain. “And the river.”
Lorna walked over towards the river, just a few paces from the cottage, and looked down into the babbling water. She saw her reflection there, looking back at her. She wanted to ask her reflection if it all was true. Did she really inherit this magical place from a distant aunt that she had never met? Was she actually prepared to live a whole new life in Tweed-upon-Slumber? A place where only one hundred and fifty souls lived and the most important event of the year was a marmalade festival? Did she truly just give up on a man in Tallahassee that she was supposed to marry?
“Yes,” Lorna said back to her reflection. “Yes, yes, and yes.”
She strode back towards the cottage with her head held high. The warmth of the spring sunshine seeped into her skin and the smell of flowers wafted in the air. Lorna felt like a teenager. She almost looked like one too, as she was a naturally happy, vivacious person, and that kind of good cheer was beneficial for one’s looks. Sure, she had just turned forty-six, but she didn’t care much for numbers. It was the nineties, for Pete’s sake!
As she went to pick up her suitcase, a funny premonition came over her. She had been prone to these since she was a little girl, and her parents had told her that it was all part of her gift.
No, everything looked just a tad too perfect. The peaceful river, the idyllic watermill, the flowers, the stone cottage with the thatched roof. Something wasn’t right. It was like a Thomas Kinkade painting or a Hallmark movie. You know the movie: everything looks great on the outside, but secretly, the mother is a desperate housewife, the daughter is a Satanist, the dog has rabies, and the father likes to wear women’s clothing. The messy truth always bubbles up to the surface eventually.
“Lorna Merryweather,” she scolded herself. Why did she always have to assume that things were going to go wrong? She was starting a new life, after all. Wasn’t it time to put the negativity behind her and embrace a new perspective on things? Yes, that’s what she would do. She picked up her suitcase, walked up the cobblestone pathway, and stepped boldly into her future.
“Ahh!” Lorna screamed upon opening the door, met with a face-full of cobwebs. “How on earth?” she said, pulling sticky web from her face and spitting it out of her mouth. Sure enough, her premonition had been sound. The front of the cottage was like a facade you’d find on the Universal Studios lot. Within, you’d trip over the discarded remnants of the failed B-movie that ended up on the cutting room floor.
Just breathe, she told herself. Anything can be fixed.
Lorna was great at fixing things, decorating, making old items look new, but even she had to admit that it was quite a task that was set before her. The creaky old wooden furniture was stained and rotting, the floors were covered in dust, the kitchen looked as though it had grown its own garden, and the unfinished ceilings could harbor creatures from the forest.
“Thank goodness I have these,” she said to herself, pulling a stack of home decorating magazines from her bag and placing them on the kitchen table. Just as she did so, it collapsed.
Okay, so her new cottage was going to be a bit more work than she thought. Lorna carried her suitcase up the flight of stairs to her bedroom which, thankfully, was in much better condition than the rest of the place. The elevated room looked down upon the living room and kitchen, giving the whole space a rather open and airy quality that Lorna liked.
Carrying the hefty suitcase—she’d chosen to fly with her cauldron rather than risk shipping it—was so exhausting that Lorna plopped down into an old antique chair, surrounding herself in a cloud of dust. Think of it as fairy dust, she thought to herself, and looked out the window dreamily.
From her bedroom, she had a perfect view of the trusty watermill, making its continuous turns. The sound was perfect from where she sat—not too loud and not too soft. It would help her to sleep at night and that would be a blessing, because sleep had not come easily back in Tallahassee.
Maybe it was because of the lying fiancé, Lorna
thought to herself.
Yes, Cliff Miller had not been the poster child for the perfect future husband. He was a nice man. He had treated Lorna well. But he was a liar and a thief, and those were two things that Lorna Merryweather simply had no tolerance for. She believed in all things right, true, and just. She practiced what she preached. She treated her neighbors as she wanted to be treated. She baked apple pies and cookies for fundraisers. The national anthem made her cry.
Okay, okay. Lorna looked pretty perfect on the outside. But it was really because she was fighting like mad to keep anyone from knowing that she was a witch. Not the poisoned entrails, Macbeth kind, just your garden-variety, broomstick-carrying benevolent witch that can help you out with a good spell after a guy breaks your heart. The broomstick hadn’t really worked since the eighties, but Lorna still kept it around in the hope that it might be of use one day.
Lorna rifled through her suitcase and found the very first thing to decorate her new home: a picture in a charming silver frame. From within, two smiling faces looked back at her. She pressed her fingers on the glass tenderly.
“Hi, Mom and Dad,” she said, then brought the picture to her lips and gave it a little kiss.
“Hi, Lornie,” her mother said back, waving. “You look thin. You need to eat something.”
“Oh, Mom,” Lorna replied, shaking her head.
Of course, her mother didn’t actually reply to her, but her magical powers did, from time to time, make it possible to communicate with those who were gone. Since her mother and father had passed away some ten years ago, she’d hear from them from time to time, through pictures or old letters. To that very day, they were the only two who knew about Lorna’s unique witchery, and they had taken the secret to their graves.
I do need to eat something, Lorna thought to herself. On the plane, there had been nothing but stale peanuts. In the early morning, when she had departed from Tallahassee—the house cleared of all its contents and the new owners ready to move in—Lorna had only been able to stomach a piece of toast. She rummaged through her bag to find just what she was looking for—a packet of digestive biscuits. She had bought them at the airport and had been thinking about them during the whole cab ride.
Yum, she thought to herself. Even back in the States Lorna loved her digestives. She’d be the only one to make her way down the funny aisle of the supermarket that was stocked with British, Irish, and Yiddish food. She enjoyed looking at all the odd, foreign packaging. Were digestives the English equivalent of American Nabisco cookies? One had to wonder.
To make it the perfect first meal in her new home, Lorna went down to the kitchen in order to make a cup of tea. Almost as if it had been expecting her, there was a kettle awaiting her on the stove. Lorna rinsed it out, placed it back on the stove, and lit the eye with a match.
Voila! It worked. So far, so good. The kettle was on and the cottage had not yet burnt down. There was even a little canister of tea nearby, and Lorna was grateful for it. Sure, there was perhaps no hot running water, the refrigerator didn’t work, and there were no utensils, but there was tea. The British always had their priorities in check.
The kettle whistled and Lorna poured the steaming water over her tea bag, lifting and dropping it to steep faster. She leaned over and inhaled, the bitter aroma making her mouth water. No need for cream and sugar. Lorna would take it plain. She loved a good strong cup of comfort.
Lorna couldn’t sit at the kitchen table (now that it had collapsed under the weight of her home decorating obsession), so she took her tea over to the bay window where a little cushion was situated.
“How charming,” she said to herself, looking out upon the little garden in the backyard. Aside from the budding flowers, there were also little rows of vegetables which Lorna found delightful. Peas grew up a trellis, tomatoes gleamed like rubies in the sun, and, was that cabbage? How odd that the grounds were so well maintained and yet the interior had gone to scrap. Maybe there was a guardian angel that lived outside. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility.
Lorna opened her biscuits and took one between her fingers, gingerly dipping it into the tea. She kept it submerged for several seconds so it would soak up some of the liquid, just how she liked. Lorna took a bite and closed her eyes in bliss. Yes, it was both savory and sweet, chocolatey and bread-like. She would quickly need to think of a plan of attack to prevent her from eating the entire package.
“Oh dear,” Lorna said to herself, leaning towards the windowpane. Outside in the garden frolicked a gorgeous white cat, walking from plant to plant, probably looking for something to nibble on. “I hope you like cabbage,” Lorna said to the cat.
Maybe that’s the guardian angel! Lorna thought. The groundskeeper, the proprietor, the…landlord? Yes, he must have a name.
Lord Nottingham.
Naturally, it sounded very British and rather stately, and she imaged that the white cat was quite the dignified fellow. Lord Nottingham would be Lorna’s guardian angel, she had decided. He would help her to get that cottage up to snuff, and he’d protect her from all the terrifying bandits that populated Tweed-upon-Slumber.
In reality, Lorna had read that Tweed-upon-Slumber had what was perhaps the lowest crime rate of any village in Britain. With so few inhabitants, what was there to be criminal about? If you were down on your luck, your neighbor would bake you a cake. If you coveted someone’s new car, they’d probably loan it to you. If you were dying for that new Oasis album, you wouldn’t steal it from the local record store, because there was no record store.
Just then, Lorna heard a knock at the door and jumped up to answer. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect.
“Good afternoon, ma’am,” a police officer said, tilting his hat.
“Good afternoon,” Lorna said, wondering if she was already considered the town felon. “Do come in.”
“Thank you,” he said, and stepped inside. “I’m Chief Inspector Bill Bumblethorn.”
The man stopped dead in his tracks once he had a good look at Lorna’s new home.
“Yes, I know. It needs a bit of fixing up,” Lorna said in acknowledgment.
“Celestia Pottsdam always was a rather untidy woman,” the police chief mused. “Such a shame that she’s gone.”
“Indeed,” Lorna replied, dropping her head. Though she never knew the woman, she had to show some respect.
“I was informed that you were arriving today and thought I’d stop in to introduce myself,” Bumblethorn continued. “Let me be the first to say that Tweed-upon-Slumber is most enthusiastic to have you.”
Just then, the police chief had the misfortune of seating himself in a chair that would not hold his weight, and he toppled to the floor.
“Oh, heavens! I’m so sorry,” Lorna said, helping the officer to his feet.
“Quite all right,” Bumblethorn replied, dusting himself off.
It wasn’t that the police chief was a heavy man. To the contrary, he was in fine condition for his sixty-four years of age. He had gentle, smiling eyes, and sported a rather dignified silver mustache, trimmed to perfection. In essence, it was the chair’s fault, and not his own.
That being said, Lorna would quickly learn that whenever the police chief was around, it seemed as though nothing went right. Items would break, tea would spill, people would fall; it was as though Bill Bumblethorn invited catastrophe.
“Busy day at the station?” Lorna said by way of making conversation. She poured the police chief a cup of tea but the handle broke off of his mug when he grasped it. Bumblethorn didn’t seem to mind, and picked the remainder of the cup up with his palm.
“Quite. There doesn’t seem to be enough help,” Bumblethorn said. Lorna could swear that when he sipped his tea some of it came out of the side of his mouth. She chose to ignore it.
“Have you lost some of your brigade?” Lorna asked, finally procuring two chairs that were in working order.
“I am the only member of the brigade,” Bumblethorn replied casua
lly.
“Oh,” Lorna said in shock.
“Truly. Makes it all quite difficult considering that I’ve been retired for ten years.”
Lorna sat silently and sipped her tea. She couldn’t think of a thing to say, and she stifled a giggle.
“But so it goes,” Bumblethorn added, shaking his head.
“Would you like a biscuit?” Lorna asked.
“Most assuredly.”
Lorna picked up the package of digestives and passed it to him, momentarily praised herself for not eating them all.
“I’m sorry to hear that you’re so overworked,” Lorna said.
“Well, everyone around here is overworked—those of us who haven’t hit sixty-five and retired, at least. It’s hard when there’s really only one person to do each task.”
“I can’t wait to meet the people here. I remember hearing such wonderful stories from…” Oh God, oh God, oh God. What was her name again? “…Aunt Celestia.”
So, it was a little fib, but she hoped that it was an inroad to hearing more about Tweed-upon-Slumber.
“There are some good people here, that much is certain,” Bumblethorn said.
“That’s exactly what I’ve been told.”
“But don’t be deceived,” Bumblethorn added. He became a tad dark and leaned in, hushing his voice. “There are skeletons in the closet.”
Lorna’s hair stood on end.
“I’m jesting of course,” Bumblethorn said, leaning back in his chair and laughing at his little joke. “I do rather enjoy it here, and the inhabitants are family. And, I daresay, I can never arrest family.” He dropped a biscuit on the floor without noticing.
Lorna heaved a sigh of relief. “You scared me there for a moment.”