Baker's Coven

by Nancy Warren

  I laughed. “I do think Peter Puddifoot’s feelings, if he has any, have been hurt, though. He really has it in for Arnold Bentley. Which I don’t really care about, but he was unkind to the best dog in the world.”

  I told him about my visit to Broomewode Farm and once more recounted the tale of the falling tower stone.

  “Blimey,” Gerry said when I’d finished. “Not that I don’t want the company, Pops, but you should be more careful.”

  “I never thought of picking fruit as a dangerous activity before today.”

  Before Gerry could answer, the sound of muttering reached us. It was a man’s voice, but I couldn’t work out what he was saying.

  “Better dash,” Gerry said. “Don’t want you getting caught talking to yourself.”

  I raised my eyebrows, surprised at Gerry’s thoughtfulness. He grinned and drifted back toward the tent. “Think I’ll go haunt that useless electrician again.”

  I continued along the gravel path back toward the inn. The beds of white and blue hyacinths on either side of me emitted their scent, and I breathed deeply. I had to calm down, forget falling stones and dog-kicking gardeners. Think about gooseberry cakes instead.

  The muttering was getting louder, but I still couldn’t work out where it was coming from. I turned off the path in the direction of the rose garden, and that’s when I realized the voice was familiar. Very familiar.

  “The perfect fruit cake is tricky because the fruit will make the batter heavy if the baker’s overloading it. You must adjust the amounts of flour and liquid depending on the juiciness of the fruit.”

  Was that Jonathon, reciting lines? I paused to listen further and accidentally kicked a bit of gravel.

  “Hello?” he called. “Someone there?”

  I emerged from behind a rose bush and there was Jonathon, sitting on a bench. In his lap was an open book, and he slammed it shut the second he saw me. The cover was as familiar to me as my own face. Jonathon was reciting from his own recipe book.

  “Hi,” I said. “Sorry to interrupt you.”

  Jonathon looked sheepish. “Busted, huh. I know I might appear as if I was born to be on screen, but I get nervous under pressure, too, just like you bakers. So I thought I’d memorize some of my own descriptions so I sound more…relaxed.”

  Ha, born to be on screen? Vain much, Jonathon?

  I laughed. “Your little secret is safe with me. I won’t tell anyone you need to memorize your own recipes even though you wrote them in the first place.”

  I expected Jonathon to laugh, but he didn’t react at all. His usually lively blue eyes were flat and hard to read. I stepped back nervously. I hadn’t really spoken with Jonathon since Elspeth had told me that he was a witch, too. I wasn’t sure if he knew that I was a witch or whether he knew that I knew he was one. What were the rules here? I had no idea. So I decided to follow my mom and dad’s favorite mantra, which was, when in doubt, do nothing.

  “I’ll leave you to it, then, shall I?” He still looked stern, so I went with flattery. He was one of the judges, after all. “I almost have some of your recipes memorized too. The salted caramel bread and butter pudding is my favorite.”

  He smiled at last. “Oh yeah, that one is delicious for sure.”

  Phew. Good recovery. The last thing I needed was a black mark against my name with one of the judges of the show. I told him that I was heading back to the inn to get some lunch, as though I somehow needed his permission.

  When I rounded a bend in the path, I heard him say, “The finest ingredients will make for superior taste.”

  Having nearly died in pursuit of the finest local ingredients, I hoped he remembered those words tomorrow.

  Back at the pub, there were only a few people sitting at tables, and I suspected they were with the production. The lone man from earlier was tucking into a sandwich. Next to his plate, steam was rising from a cup of coffee. He and Eve were chatting away. Which was annoying, as I wanted to chat with Eve.

  I pulled out a barstool and took a seat right at the bar. Eve must have taken the hint, for she soon came over. She took one look at me and handed me a menu before she even said hello. I thanked her and scanned the options before settling on a cheese baguette with a side of triple-cooked fries.

  “You all right, Poppy? You look a little pale.”

  I opened my mouth, about to tell Eve all about my second close call with the grim reaper that week, but then decided against it. I wasn’t entirely sure why. Maybe I didn’t want to become someone who other people thought attracted danger. “Yes. Just hungry.” I shifted the conversation to the pub. “Tell me about Peter Puddifoot.”

  She paused, suddenly going still. “The gardener?”

  No. The earl. “Yes, the gardener.”

  She picked up a cloth and began to polish the bar top as though the health inspector was on their way. “He’s a local lad. Grew up here.”

  That was it? For a woman who liked to talk as much as Eve did, that wasn’t very much information. I decided to tell her about the fight I’d overheard. She didn’t look very surprised. “And then he kicked Arnold Bentley’s dog. What kind of a person kicks a dog?”

  She heaved a sigh. “A very angry person.” She’d stopped scrubbing the bar’s surface and was only wiping absentmindedly. “That argument you overheard? He’s not lying. The Puddifoot family has farmed Broomewode Farm for generations. Peter fully expected to take over when his father died. He was the one who started keeping bees. He was much happier in those days. When his father died, it shocked everyone that the new earl rented the farm to the Bentleys.”

  I was a little sympathetic that he’d had his home pulled out from under him, but I didn’t think it gave him an excuse to kick dogs and glare at innocent bakers. I could see that she wanted to say more but was no doubt sensitive to the fact that Broomewode Hall and the Champneys paid her wages. “Well, there was no excuse to kick at a dog.”

  “Absolutely right. None at all.”

  We were agreed on that, then. My sandwich arrived and I tucked into it. The fries were crisp and crunchy, exactly the way I liked them.

  “How’s business? Is everyone in this pub with the TV production?”

  She glanced around. “Mostly. Not the one sitting by the fireplace, though.” She gestured to the man she’d been chatting to. “Bob Fielding is a car tire salesman. Special tires for four by fours. Very la-di-da. He’s got it into his head that the country folk round here, the Champneys in particular, are the perfect market for his wares.”

  I had never heard the words tires and la-di-da used in the same sentence before. “There are tires expensive enough to support a traveling salesman?”

  “Oh, yes.” Eve’s eyes darted around the room, and then she leaned across the bar conspiratorially, dropping her voice to a whisper. “But he’s wasting his time. The Champneys haven’t got money for fancy-pants car tires. Or anything else, for that matter.”

  “What do you mean?” I whispered back, incredulous. “The TV production must bring in a fortune?”

  Eve solemnly shook her head. “Lord and Lady Frome spend it faster than they can make it. Besides, I heard a rumor that they made some very bad investments.” She looked around the room again. “They don’t come from money, you see.”

  I didn’t understand. The Champneys were titled people, esteemed members of the aristocracy. I didn’t have a lot of money myself, so it wasn’t like I was an expert on the subject, but I did know that cash stuck to those who already had it. And how could you have a title without a little dough to your name?

  Eve poured herself a soda water and squeezed a wedge of lime into the glass. “Seeing as it’s not busy, let me tell you a little story,” she said. And what came next shocked me almost as much as learning that Jonathon had to memorize his own recipes.

  “Lord Frome wasn’t the next in line when it came to inheriting his title. He was the cousin of the man who should have inherited. The original heir was a healthy and strong chap in his twe
nties, known for his prowess as an amateur boxer, as much as his aristocratic family. It was before my time, but he was well liked, well connected, well educated. I heard that he was very good-looking and everyone was waiting for him to marry some debutante and start his own family. He had some lovely girlfriends. They used to have their photos in The Tattler. But sadly, it wasn’t meant to be.”

  Here she paused to take a drink, and I held my breath. Ooh, she really was a good storyteller.

  “He was riding around the property as he’d done a thousand times. But he was thrown off his horse at the worst possible spot, thrown right over the side of a cliff. Killed instantly. Sadly, he was the only child and the one who was born and bred to be the earl. Everyone round here says that he’d have made a better job of it than these two if he’d been given half the chance. The current earl wasn’t bred to it, you see. He makes mistakes.”

  “Whoa,” I said. “That’s terrible. Poor guy. What a way to go—and so young, too.” I started to feel that rather than being a good energy vortex, Broomewode might be more of tragedy vortex.

  “Their son, Ben, seems to have a better sense of the land, but then he’s spent most of his life here. We have high hopes for him.”

  Well, Ben hadn’t been romancing debutantes today. He’d been mending fences. I only hoped he’d remembered to put the warning signs up and roped off the dangerous area around the ruined chapel.

  “Poppy? There you are.”

  I turned on my barstool. Elspeth! She looked as wonderful as ever in a pair of soft black slacks and elegant white shirt, a single string of pearls at her neck.

  She greeted me with two swift kisses to my cheeks before pulling away with a worried expression on her face. “I was wondering if I could have a quick word.”

  No, Lovely to see you or a simple How you doing, Poppy? Was everything always going to be urgent and worrying now that I was a witch?

  Eve raised a quizzical eyebrow, and I excused myself. Elspeth led us to a table in the corner.

  “You’re kind of scaring me, Elspeth,” I said as we sat down.

  “Oh dear, Poppy, sorry, that’s the last thing I want. Did something happen? It’s just that I felt you were in great danger. And I’m so pleased to see you safe.”

  She put her hand over mine, and a sense of calm settled over my jangled senses, like when you rub a cool healing gel on a burn.

  I told her about what had happened at the tower earlier, and her kind gray eyes grew wide with alarm. “My goodness. You have to be so careful, Poppy,” she chided.

  “Why? Why do you always say that to me? How dangerous is it to go picking fruit?”

  “And yet you nearly died,” she said softly.

  “But it was an accident. That ancient tower looks like it’s been crumbling for years. Centuries probably.”

  “I’m going to give you a protection spell. You must recite it every night when you go to bed and every morning when you wake up. It will help protect against all harm. Accidental and otherwise.”

  A spell? I already had a cat, a dog, a ghost, and a special amethyst necklace looking out for me. Team Poppy was getting crowded.

  “I’ll bring it to your room a bit later.”

  I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but I hoped her protection spell was stronger than the amethyst necklace.

  Loud laughter and greetings of Hello, hello and How are you floated from the inn’s hallway into the pub. Elspeth rose and told me she’d have to leave before the other contestants spotted us together. She didn’t want them thinking she had favorites.

  “What time tonight? Do I need to prepare?”

  At that, Elspeth just smiled a small smile and smoothed down her slacks. “Have a bath, relax and try to clear your mind. We’ll talk later, my dear.”

  Clear my mind? Easy for her to say. I wished it was that easy to forget the horror of the morning.

  A moment or two after Elspeth left, Gaurav and Priscilla arrived. I tried to mimic a woman who had nothing more serious on her mind than competitive baking, stood and walked to where my fellow contestants were greeting Eve.

  “Poppy,” Priscilla said, giving me a hug. “How funny. Gaurav and I were just saying how we didn’t expect to see anyone else here this early. But now there are three of us. I guess we all had the same idea about getting settled ahead of schedule.”

  I smiled at Priscilla, surprised at the hug. We hadn’t gotten the chance to speak much last week, but she seemed as pleased to see me as if we’d been best friends. I guess everything that had happened had made the group bond faster. Gaurav said he’d taken a holiday day. He was a research scientist from Birmingham, and Priscilla was a hairdresser from Leeds. They’d both brought special produce to make their cakes and, like me, had wanted time to prepare themselves mentally as well as physically for the weekend.

  For now, I wanted to excuse myself and have some alone time. I’d only been back half a day, and so much had happened already.

  However, before I got to the bottom of the stairs, Florence arrived, looking as glamorous as though she were a movie star turning up to an awards show. And one day, I suspected she would be exactly that. She created a sort of buzz when she arrived. Not only was she beautiful, but she had a way of drawing attention.

  She’d also decided we would be friends, and before I could slip away to my room, there was a giant squeal. “Poppy!”

  Florence rushed toward me, her long, auburn curls bouncing and her white teeth on full display, and flung herself into my arms. I would have burst out laughing at the over-the-top Romeo and Juliet-style dramatics of it all, but I was too crushed to even breathe. Finally, she pulled away and looked at me. “What a pretty color that gloss is on you,” she said, smiling.

  Maggie, the grandmother who was one of the strongest bakers on the show, arrived at the same time. She came over and gave me a more reserved version of Florence’s hug. It was so good to see them both. The three of us walked into the pub all talking at once. Gaurav and Priscilla raised their hands in hello.

  Florence, without even asking, somehow had Gaurav carry her very heavy cases up to her room. She’d packed even more than I had for a weekend. “Now don’t go anywhere, Poppy,” she ordered. “I’m just going to change my shoes, and then we must walk into town. The little delicatessen here ordered in the special flour I like from Milano. I must pick it up for tomorrow.”

  “But we’re supposed to highlight local produce,” I reminded her.

  She waved an airy hand. “Yes, yes. I have lovely little British strawberries, but for the cake, I must have the Italian flour. Your British flour is too cakey.”

  I had no idea why that was a bad thing when one was baking a cake, but we all had our quirks. If Florence believed Italian flour would give her a slight edge in the competition, I completely understood why she’d order it in specially.

  So, in a very few minutes, she came back down the stairs. As well as changing her shoes, she’d also managed to freshen her makeup and brush her hair. She looked stunning.

  Florence and I walked into the small town of Broomewode. It was one of those tiny, charming villages that are almost too pretty to be real. Many of the houses had stood there for hundreds of years, and even the newer builds were made of the same local stone so there was a unified feel to the whole. The shopping area of the high street looked like a postcard. No traffic was allowed on the cobbled street.

  Down the median were flower displays that also acted as bollards, no doubt to prevent misguided motorists or skateboarders from heading down the middle of the road. On either side were little shops with flats above. There was a bookshop, a baker, a butcher, a delicatessen, a real estate agent, a charity shop and several cafes.

  Florence was easy company. She loved to talk and always had stories about auditions she’d been to, parties she’d attended, the new play she’d seen in the West End. She was content to talk, needing very little encouragement from me, which allowed me to listen with half my concentration while mulling thing
s with the other half. She added so much drama to her recital that even a boring dinner sounded like a Shakespeare tragedy. She had me laughing about how she had been forced to eat a badly cooked dessert. “No, really, Poppy. Don’t laugh. I am Italian and a contestant on the baking show, and they made me tiramisu. First, no British person should be allowed to make tiramisu, and second, they shouldn’t be allowed to feed it to an Italian like myself with a sensitive palate.”

  We entered the delicatessen, and within seconds she and the owner were happily conversing in Italian. I poked around, enjoying browsing everything from Genoa salami to Gorgonzola cheese, to packaged pasta and about thirty varieties of olive oil. Just breathing in made me hungry, and I was delighted when the owner offered us both a tiny almond cake.

  He presented Florence with her flour, and we both bought some dried fruit and nuts. If I didn’t use it in my baking, I could always snack on the fruits and nuts.

  With lots of cheek-kissing and ciao-ciaos, we walked out again onto the pretty street. “Shall we walk back another way?” she suggested. She pointed down another road. “I think that will take us back to the pub a longer way, and it’s such a nice afternoon, we might as well enjoy it.”

  I was happy to explore, so we headed to the village green, where a pair of spaniels played while their owners chatted, and through it to a street of houses. We passed a charity shop that I’d have to come back and check out when I had more time. There were some very old pieces of china and crockery that I thought would look good in my kitchen at home.

  We were still in the old town, and many of the stone cottages already sported hanging baskets, while their front gardens were bright and fragrant with spring blooms. After the charity shop and a small corner store, we entered a more residential area.

  Florence continued talking as we walked along the quiet village street.

  I noticed a sign for Broomewode Smithy. This must be where the fireplace tools and other ironwork were made that were featured in the gift shop. From the age of the stone house, it had stood there for centuries. I wondered if the artisan blacksmith still used the old forge. While I admired the wonderful old building, a woman and a man came out of the front door and onto the front porch. They stood quite close to each other, talking intensely. I stopped dead and couldn't seem to look away. Florence got two steps ahead of me before she realized I wasn’t with her and returned to my side. She followed my gaze. “What is it? It’s just a husband saying goodbye to his wife.”