by Willow Mason
The same lettering dripped off the walls, this time a bright yellow stain on the beige expanse of the lounge. Patrick manned up and stuck his finger into the goop, announcing with relief after a breath-holding few seconds that he couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, but it was probably lemon curd.
“He’s right,” Jared said, sniffing around the house until he located two empty jars in the kitchen. “Whatever else our phantom graffiti artist is, they have a preference for household condiments as a medium.”
Carson might not have wanted to join us, but he gave us full rein to explore the house. With boxes stacked in Evelyn’s bedroom, still waiting to be unpacked, it wasn’t a difficult job to hunt through the place.
I picked up her diary from the side of the bed, ruffling through the pages to see if anything stood out without stooping to read her private thoughts in detail. A small picture caught my eye and I stared at the page. A rude drawing of a Ouija pointer, three small pairs of hands resting on the placard.
“Got something?” Jared asked from the doorway, startling me. “I can always smell when you’re curious.”
The idea that my ex could sniff out what I was doing creeped me out, but I tried not to let the shudder show. “It’s one of the images we saw on the wall, just before Jac disappeared.” I twisted the book around to show him. “I wonder how Evelyn was involved.”
Jared took the diary from my hands and read through the pages, without any of my compunctions. “This doesn’t even mention it,” he complained after a few minutes. “It’s just full of justifications for moving flats before her lease was up. The drawing isn’t connected at all.”
“Any luck?” I called out to Patrick as we joined him back in the lounge.
He’d been waving a microphone over a pile of magazines in the corner and turned, shaking his head. “The whole place is weirdly silent.”
“Or its trip to the graveyard blew out the sensors.” I tapped on the dial watching as the numbers jerked upward at my touch. “Guess not.”
“We should sort through the boxes, too, if we want to be thorough.”
Although Patrick was right, it was hard to summon up the energy to sort through a mound of stuff that had little chance of being evidence.
Jared felt the same. “If Evelyn couldn’t be bothered to unpack her stuff, I’m not going to be the one to do it. Shouldn’t you wave your wand over the goop on the walls?”
“I’ve already done that.” The irritation in Patrick’s voice crept into his face. “How about you let the experienced investigators decide what we should spend our time on?”
“Waste our time, you mean.” Jared put his hands on his hips. “Any fool can see there’s not going to be anything important packed away in a box labelled, ‘other stuff for the kitchen.’” He nudged the matching exhibit with his foot.
I walked outside, joining Carson in the back seat of Patrick’s car. “Did your sister ever mention anything about using a Ouija board?”
“No.” His expression was appalled. “She wasn’t into anything like that. Evie was as straight an arrow as they come. D’you know she moved out of her old flat because she didn’t like the vibe of the next-door neighbour? He’d been caught shoplifting twice, using his magic. That’s how opposed she was to anything on the dark side.”
Carson’s gaze lost focus as he disappeared into the memory. “Not that she saw anything wrong with roping me in to help her move. Boy, what a kerfuffle that was. Only my sister would lock herself into a year-long lease, then break it after seven months because she got a bad feeling. And it was on top of all the stuff with Paisley and us moving into Kelburn Manor. That was a doozy of a weekend, I can tell you.”
Far worse things lurked in my chequered past with landlords and rental agreements, but I nodded my head in agreement. “The neighbour was the only reason she moved, then?”
He caught my inference. “Yeah. Evie never caused problems. Everyone loved her.”
“Except your wife.”
Carson sighed, bumping Sara up and down as she wriggled, close to waking. “That was mutual. I don’t understand why. Perhaps their personalities were too alike for them to bond?”
“And neither of them were ever friends with Jac?”
“Look, we’ve been over this. I’d love to be able to tell you something different, but I just can’t. How about you focus on Paisley? That cat never knew when to quit.”
“Paisley was upstairs with Wendy when this happened.” I gestured back towards the house. “I don’t believe she could’ve enacted such a powerful spell without the girl noticing.”
“What you don’t believe doesn’t interest me. Until you can prove otherwise, Paisley is my number one suspect.”
Desperate to change the subject, I asked, “Have you found a new place to stay tonight? I’d offer you a room at mine, but…”
“Guess I’ll stay at the tavern.” Carson sighed and rubbed his daughter’s back. “Hadn’t given it much thought.”
“Why did your wife make you move?”
He frowned. “How do you mean?”
“Paisley told everyone it was because Sara was allergic to her.”
Carson nodded.
“But she didn’t react at all to Annalisa and—”
“My daughter isn’t allergic to cat hair, she’s allergic to Paisley herself. Every time the cat came near her, she woke up and cried. It got so bad…” He wiped away a tear. “And to think I felt sorry for the cat when we decided that she had to go. I guess Violet knew better.”
I ignored the harsh edge in his voice. “Sorry, but I still don’t follow. If Sara wasn’t allergic to the cat hair, why the move? It must’ve been hard to live in a shared house after being in your own space for so long. Especially with a new baby.”
“No, it was the—” Carson’s brow drew together, and his eyes stared into the distance. “We moved because…”
Patrick waved to me from the front door and I excused myself, hustling to join him. “What is it?”
“Look at this.” He shoved a manilla folder into my hands, then took it back as I shuffled through the pages trying to work out what had excited him.
“Guess who built this house, back in the late eighties?”
I stared at the breeze block exterior, painted a gaudy shade of orange. “Someone who dropped too much acid in the sixties?”
“Benedict Kelburn. It’s one of a series of cheap houses he erected in Briarton and the only one that survived. When the rental market collapsed, the landlord bought this and fixed all the damage from the cheap build. The others were knocked down as uneconomical to repair.”
“All three properties were owned by the same man who’s got a bevvy of crows defending his gravestone?”
“He’s the key to the puzzle.”
“Not him. Pru.” I whistled for Jared. “We need to go and ask our client for more details. She must know more about Andrew’s sudden change than she’s letting on.”
Despite Jared’s best efforts to clear away anything with mayhem potential, Pru’s dining room and lounge had been severely redecorated. The walls were spattered with foodstuffs while a long tear in the curtain let a sharp swathe of afternoon light into the rooms.
“Has he hurt you?” Jared asked, opening the curtains fully to reveal the extent of the destruction. The five of us huddled together, Sara fussing even in her sleep. “I wish your fiancé was one of the witches who disappeared.”
“Don’t say that. It’s not Andrew’s fault.”
Watching Pru collapse onto a chair, gripping the sides as though it had been cast into a stormy sea, put a chink into my certainty. Even though the decision to move back home had been hers, I could’ve done more to dissuade her.
“We need to talk to you about Andrew’s grave,” I said, clicking my fingers for Patrick to show her some of the photographs he’d taken earlier in the day, and on the morning we’d first met the poltergeist. “Can you shed light on any of these disturbances?”
“No.�
� Pru barely glanced at the images before shoving them away. “That’s nothing to do with me.”
“Somebody has been fooling around there,” I said after a minute had passed in silence. “Would you have any idea who?”
She shook her head. “It’s public property. The groundskeeper would have a better idea if someone had been in there who shouldn’t.”
Jared pointed to one of the photos. “No, look at the grass. The upkeep on the cemetery isn’t happening regularly enough for him to see anything. It’s a good found inches long on the paths, let alone around the gate and headstones.”
Pru just stared blankly at him. “Well, I don’t know who else to ask.” She turned to me. “It’s on your property, Desdemona. Surely, you have some idea of who comes to visit.”
“So you never visit Andrew’s grave, is that what you’re saying?” I put my hands on my hips, annoyed. “You don’t leave flowers there. You don’t weep over his gravestone.”
Her expression appeared bewildered. “Why would I visit his grave when I see him every morning? If I wanted to give Andrew flowers, I’d leave them sitting right over there.” She pointed to his seat at the head of the small dining table.
Carson took one hand off his baby’s head long enough to give a limp shake of Pru’s hand. “We haven’t met before, but I’m Carson and this is Sara. Her mother is one of the witches who vanished into thin air.”
Pru stared at him, her eyes widening in confusion. “I’m sorry to hear about your wife, but what’s that got to do with me?”
“You used to teach Violet, do you remember?”
“Sure. She was a lovely girl.” Pru frowned, rubbing the side of her face. “You were in Mr Albertson’s class, weren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
Jared rolled his eyes at me and I gestured for him to quit it. Even if Carson was just making small talk, I wanted to hear.
“Your sister and Violet used to be close, didn’t they? Them and that other one. What’s his name?” She snapped her fingers. “It’s on the tip of my tongue.”
“You must be thinking of someone else,” Carson said. “Violet and Evie always butted heads.”
I stepped forward, staring into his face as he repeated the claim he’d and his sister had made before. Wishing Aunt Florentine was on hand to guide me, I drew some magic into a ball in my hand, then sent it flowing across his face.
“Ask him again,” I whispered from the side of my mouth to Pru.
“Jac!” she blurted out instead. “That was his name. Jac. I must’ve broken up their note passing and behind-hand whispering a thousand times in class, and I only had them for one year. We discussed their friendship in a teachers’ meeting, that’s how bad it got. The head wanted to separate them, so they’d learn something for a change, but the idea got mooted.”
“Do you know why they fell out?”
Pru’s eyes turned glassy. “I don’t know. That was just before Andrew…” She waved a hand in the air. “Anyway, I wasn’t in any shape to continue teaching and never went back, except to discuss my leaving with the head. Did they fall out?”
“I…” Carson stepped back, hitting up against the edge of the sofa and dropping into it as his legs wobbled. “Yes, that’s right. My parents got called in for a discussion. They thought it was nonsense. Said that children can be friends with whoever they like, and it wasn’t like they were affecting anyone else.”
“You remember now?”
He tilted his head forward. “It’s the strangest thing. Until right now, I could’ve sworn…”
“Either your sister or Violet had you under a spell.” I swung my gaze to Patrick, hoping he would have some fabulous idea of how it was all connected. “Can you think of a reason why?”
Patrick stared at his notepad, flipping through the pages. “When did Andrew first appear? Was it straight after the funeral?”
Pru pressed a hand to her chest. “Goodness, no. It was months later.” She tilted her head to one side, a slight smile playing across her lips. “Gave me such a fright at first. I thought I was hallucinating. Then he came the following morning and the next. It was… nice. Like a part of him had never left at all.”
“Did you ever visit his grave before then?”
The woman nodded, her eyes still lost in the past. “Every day at first. For a while, I continued to do that even after he appeared. I was scared if I didn’t, he might go away again.”
Fifteen years. I couldn’t imagine having a lost loved one show up every day like clockwork. How sweet it would be.
How bitter.
How hard it would be to move on with your life with the constant reminder of everything you’d lost.
“Why did the head want to separate them?” Jared leant over and took Pru’s hand. “That wouldn’t happen just because of chattering in class or passing notes. Every kid does that.”
She stared at his hand, rubbing her thumb over his knuckle before gently drawing hers away. “It wasn’t anything to do with our classes. This was when they were fifteen or sixteen and Mr Mallory was the one to raise concerns. They got it into their heads to hunt down the lost Kelburn treasure.”
Patrick and I exchanged a glance and my chest tightened.
When she spoke again, Pru’s voice dropped so low I could barely hear it. “When I went to hand in my final resignation, he told me they’d got worse. They’d started fooling around with a Ouija board and summoning spells.” She uttered a shaky laugh. “If that hadn’t been just after Andrew appeared, I might’ve been tempted to ask them for help.”
“No one ever reported them?” Although I asked the question, the coven records had already given me the answer. Even among the sanctions and reprimands handed out to teenagers, there’d been nothing on the trio.
“We were all very aware the three were going through tough times.” Pru turned to Carson for confirmation.
“Dad had an accident at the meatworks,” he said, nodding. “My parents got benefits and things sorted out eventually, but it was a rough few months. I didn’t think Evie knew, but they thought at one stage they’d lose the house.”
“Summoning a spirit to ask him where he buried the treasure.” It seemed so simple. A kid’s game that got out of hand.
Pru buried her face into her hands and sobbed. “That’s why he appeared, isn’t it?” Her shoulders shook as the crying took hold of her. When she could speak again, she looked at Jared. “They tried to raise Benedict Kelburn and got Andrew instead. All this time, I thought he was appearing because he couldn’t bear to let go of me. And it was all just a stupid mistake.”
Her grief was unbearable. I had to look away as the sobs tore through her again.
“We have a connection,” Patrick said with a grim twist to his mouth. “But it doesn’t explain what set the whole thing off again.”
“They moved.” I glanced at Carson with an apologetic smile. “Why did your wife want to move house?”
“She…” He frowned and kissed Sara’s cheek, staring into her peaceful face. “I don’t know. She blamed Paisley, but…”
I thought of the abandoned feline, holding a grudge the size of a planet in her heart. She’d been tossed out of what should have been a loving household just days before the vanishing trio began moving around Briarton like pieces on a chessboard.
“You stay here,” I ordered Carson. “Andrew might be a noisy mess but he’s not trying to hurt anyone.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Jared growled, staring around the destroyed room.
“He’s angry but not against anyone here.” I flung the door open, breathing in a gulp of fresh air with relief. “Andrew has made a mess of things but it’s just his inept way of warning us.”
“Where are we going?” Patrick beeped open the car a split second before I grabbed the handle.
“To talk to Paisley. She’s the key.”
Chapter Eighteen
Gareth sat beside his daughter, an arm around her shoulders as she held onto the trembling
cat. “Maybe you should just let them question her alone, honey. I’ll walk you down to the dairy for a treat.”
“No, Dad.” The word contained so much scorn that I winced on his behalf. “Paisley is my familiar and I’m not abandoning her to this witch hunt.”
“Your familiar?” Aunt Florentine leant forward in her chair with her eyebrows raised. “When did that happen?”
“We bonded last night.” Wendy pulled Paisley closer to her, letting the cat nuzzle into the side of her neck. “It was beautiful.”
“We’re just surprised.” I held up a hand. “Nobody needs to jump down anyone’s throat.”
I clamped my lips together. That didn’t ring true but as I thought back over the past few days, I conceded it possibly was. “Sorry about that. We should’ve come straight to you with the question.”
“Perhaps we’d trust you more if you let your friends finish what they wanted to say,” Jared said. “Go on, little buddy.”
“Why did you steal the ingredients?” I asked, pressing my hand into the small of Jared’s back for a second. Despite my sympathy, we needed to move things along. “What potion did you plan to make?”