by Raquel Lyon
“There’s a boy who’s taken to visiting me at the shop. He was interested in Dad’s personal antique collection, and he mentioned that was where he was from.”
“And you think there might be a connection?”
“I’m not sure, but I’d like to know why a warlock is stalking me.”
“What makes you think he’s a warlock?”
“He told me.”
“I see.” Sophie sat cross-legged on the floor and beckoned Piper to join her as she opened the book and examined the table of contents, muttering the words, “Chimmeris, Chimmeris,” under her breath. “Hmm. Nothing.” She sighed. “What else did this boy tell you?”
The hours passed by as Sophie made Piper recount her conversation with Lambert repeatedly while they leafed through dozens of strange-sounding books, looking for any evidence that any of what he’d said was true. More than once, Sophie had called out the elusive Jo’s name to ask for help, but Piper had been denied the opportunity of a meet and greet, resulting in her highly doubting he existed at all.
By the evening, they were no nearer to discovering anything pertaining to Chimmeris and had run out of immediate options.
“It’s no use,” Sophie said, slamming the cover of her latest read shut. “Without Jo, I don’t know where else to look.”
“It’s okay. I wish I could give you more to go on, and it’s frustrating to admit I might need my freaky stalker for that.” Piper stood and glanced up at the stars shining a wintry light through the glass dome. “It’s probably too late to see whether he intended to return today, but maybe he’ll come back tomorrow, and I’ll be able to glean some more information from him then,” she said, as they returned to the hallway.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t more help,” Sophie said, opening the front door to reveal a waiting taxi.
Chapter Thirteen
THAT EVENING, PIPER MANAGED almost two full pages of her assignment before her eyes began to close and she discarded her work on the sofa beside her, intending to rest them for a minute. Instead, she fell into a deep sleep.
She awoke stiff and uncomfortable, with her head bent at a weird angle against the chair arm and her nose pressed against her pencil case stuck halfway down the side of the cushion.
The sun had just broken the skyline, and she squinted against the low, morning rays piercing the kitchen window as she sat up and stretched out her aching limbs.
Reaching down to retrieve her pencil case, her fingertips grazed something else. Pinching it between her fingers, she pulled out a piece of screwed-up notepaper, and then smoothed it out on her knee. It was another letter, but this one bore no resemblance to the other two. Recognising her father’s handwriting immediately, she read the words.
My Darling Mischa,
Not a day passes that knowing another man has taken my place doesn’t pierce my heart. I understand you were put into a that the situation was not of your making, and I bear you no ill will. My dearest hope is that when if I return, I will be able you will allow me to resume my place at your side. That day cannot arrive too soon.
Piper let the paper fall onto her lap and sank back against the cushion. Who the heck was Mischa, and why did it sound as if her father had been cheating on her mother? What if her mother hadn’t left to pursue her dream, after all? What if she’d found out about her father’s affair?
She picked up the letter and read it again. No other conclusion came to mind. Part of her wished it said more, and part of her wished she’d never found it. She didn’t need any more complications or reasons to doubt her father’s love—the happier days already felt like a lifetime away—but it was a new clue, and she should probably drop by the police station and hand it over to Detective Newton as soon as possible.
She’d barely had time to change her clothes and clean her teeth when there was a knock on the door. Glancing at her watch, she noted that it was ten past nine. It couldn’t be a customer on a Sunday. Maybe the knock was someone who’d come to ask why the shop had been closed yesterday? She hurried down the stairs, inwardly preparing an apology, and concluded it would be a good idea to stick a note on the door. The business wasn’t her problem; finding out the truth about her father was, and until she knew that, the shop would have to remain closed.
When she opened the door, Beth was waiting on the step.
“Great, you’re up.” Beth glanced behind her. “Can I come in for a minute?”
Piper let go of the handle and climbed the stairs as Beth shut the door. “Actually, I was just on my way out.”
“Sophie mentioned you paid her a visit,” Beth said, ignoring her comment as they entered the flat.
“Yeah. Big waste of time—no offence to Sophie. We didn’t find out a thing, but that’s probably because my father’s disappearance has nothing to do with the supernatural, or my stalker, or the letters, and everything to do with this.” She thrust the crumpled note at Beth, who took it and sat down to read. “He’s having an affair,” Piper added.
“This is his handwriting?” Beth asked, when she looked up a second later.
“Yes.”
“You said letters.”
“Sorry?”
“Before. You said it had nothing to do with the letters... plural.”
“I meant the... old-fashioned ones.”
“I didn’t know there was more than one.”
“I found another.”
“Can I see it?”
“Why? The only letter that matters is the half-finished one in your hand.”
“Here.” Beth handed back the paper. “I’d still like to see the other one, if you don’t mind.”
“It’s in his bedroom—in the bedside drawer.”
Tension rose in Piper’s chest as she waited for Beth to return. The more she thought about it, the more she knew it was the right thing to hand the note in. However much it would pain her to discover she’d been abandoned by each of her parents, at least it would mean an end to the uncertainty, and she’d be able to get on with her life, go back to college—
What was taking her so long?
Beth was rummaging in the drawer as Piper entered her father’s room.
“Did you not find it?” Piper asked. “I left it right there.”
“No, I got it.” Beth waved the letter in the air. “I also found this.” She held up a business card in her other hand. “Do you know this Ned Tuckman?”
“Never heard of him.”
“Ned Tuckman: Potter and Sculptor,” Beth read aloud.
“So? He’s probably someone who wanted Dad to stock his work. It happens all the time. Some people don’t understand we only do old stuff. I really do have to go,” she added impatiently.
“Why? Where are you rushing off to?”
Piper held up the paper. “Duh? I have to get this to Detective Newton.”
“Detective Newton is no longer on your case,” Beth said, squeezing past Piper to return to the living area.
Piper followed. “What? Why not? How do you know?”
“Sam called. He said his department, OD13, have taken over.”
“Why?”
“They’re the ones who police the Supes.”
“But there’s no need now. I told you it has nothing to do with Supes.”
“Piper, if it will make you happy, I’ll give that thing to Sam, but first, I think we should check this guy out,” Beth said, tapping the card.
*****
They exited Beth’s car in front of a run-down house on the outskirts of town. Weeds crept over and through the surrounding fence, and a rusty car with no windows sat on the overgrown lawn. Whoever this guy was, he couldn’t be very successful at what he did.
“Remind me again why I agreed to come here,” Piper said.
“I wouldn’t call the grumblings you were making on the way over agreeing,” Beth said. “I almost cast a tongue-tying charm to shut you up. Are you always such a grouch?”
“No. I just don’t see the point.”
Beth ji
ggled the gate from where its broken hinge had wedged it to the path, and pushed it open. “You really need to learn to trust a witch’s instinct.”
“Truthfully, I’ve always been more of a trust-the-facts girl.”
They arrived on the front doorstep. “Yeah, you should work on that,” Beth said as she knocked on the wooden panel.
When no one answered, Beth peered through the grimy, glass pane. “I don’t think anyone’s home.”
“See. I told you. Waste of time.” Piper turned to leave.
“Wait. We might as well have a look around now that we’re here.”
“Are you crazy? We can’t break in,” Piper protested, but Beth was already unlocking the door with the power of her mind.
Chapter Fourteen
PIPER FOLLOWED BETH INTO the darkened interior, wondering why the curtains were drawn in the middle of the day. A thin layer of white dust covered every surface and tainted the air. She covered her face with her sleeve before it coated her lungs, too.
“We shouldn’t be here,” she whispered. “Can we please go?”
“Oh, stop being such a scaredy-cat,” Beth said, rather too loudly for Piper’s liking, as she picked her way through the mass of figurine covered furniture.
“I’m not scared, but I’m not a criminal, either.” She glanced nervously around the room. “Or I wasn’t... until now.”
“Don’t think of it as breaking and entering; think of it as being a concerned citizen. Something’s not right. I can sense it.”
“What’s not right is us being here.” Piper watched as Beth approached an old armchair next to a table piled high with books. The top one was open and Beth ran her hand down the page before flipping it over.
“You shouldn’t be touching that,” Piper said. “What about fingerprints?”
“Take a look around you, Piper. We’re not the first ones to take an interest in this place.”
Piper squinted through the gloom, wondering what she was talking about. Yes, whoever lived here was clearly a stranger to housekeeping—the dust was proof of that. They were untidy, too. A pile of papers had been knocked to the floor and left where they fell, and a tray on the coffee table held a plate of leftovers from a previous meal.
“All I see is he’s a slob, but so what?”
“Oh, I forget you can’t see magic. There are traces of the stuff all around here, and someone was very interested in this diary. You should be, too.” Beth swivelled the book. “Look.”
Piper stooped to read the entry.
March 30th: Digger Hayhurst 1:00 p.m.
“That’s my Dad’s name.”
“Exactly.”
“And March 30th was the week before he disappeared.”
“Yep. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Let’s look around some more.”
“I’d rather not,” Piper said, almost bumping into a pedestal hosting a large-leaved potted plant in her hurry not to be left alone with the grot and ghostly shadows.
The kitchen was even dirtier than the lounge. If possible, the dust was double and the mess more prolific, and Piper was amazed how anyone could eat anything made using the grease-encrusted oven. Another room led off the kitchen: a workroom filled with shelves stacked with more pots and figures. In the centre of it, a potter’s wheel stood idle with a dried-up scrunch of clay trailing from the centre of it and dropping over the edge. Finger marks scraped into it led to more clay smeared along the floor on either side of a much thicker track in the dust.
It led to the kiln, where it mingled with a cluster of footprints, both human and animal.
Piper’s stomach flickered nervously at a sudden thought, and her eyes jumped from it to Beth. “You don’t think...?”
Beth opened her mouth as if to speak, but before she could, a dark shape flashed at the window. Piper’s head shot around with shock, and her hand whipped up to her mouth as she almost screamed, but she dropped it again upon noticing the shape of a cat perched on the sill. With her heart beating as though she’d done a hundred metre sprint, she turned to Beth to plead for them to leave before they received any more unwelcome surprises. But Beth hadn’t noticed their feline visitor. Her arm was outstretched and a pale blue light radiated from her palm placed flat against the kiln door.
“Um... Beth...?”
Beth’s hand dropped to her side. “Time to leave,” she said abruptly, already fleeing for the exit.
Piper caught her breath as Beth kicked the car into gear and screeched away. Something had spooked her, but what?
“What’s the rush?” She panted. “I’d been trying to get you out of there for ages, and then you sped away faster than a bargain hunter on Black Friday.”
“There was nothing more to gain by staying.”
“There wasn’t much to gain by going.” Apart from a lungful of dust.
“On the contrary. It was very enlightening.”
Piper couldn’t see how. So her father may or may not have had a meeting with a random man, so what? He met many people in his line of work. Had Beth discovered something else? “What was that mumbo-jumbo stuff you were doing with the oven?”
“Discerning whether the thing you were thinking was true.”
“And was it?”
“Would you like the grisly details?”
“I can live without them.”
“Thought so.”
Piper’s head jerked to the side as Beth took an unexpected turn. “This isn’t the way to the police station,” she said.
“We’re not going to the station.”
“I thought we were going to give Sam the note?”
“We can do that later. I’m taking you home.”
“Bored of me already?”
“I’m taking you home to get your stuff. After what I just discovered, I think it best if you stay at the Towers. I’m sure Sophie will agree. You’ll be safer there.”
Piper refrained from asking why she wouldn’t be safe in her own home and settled for: “I’m fine where I am.”
“You think so?” Beth reached into her jacket and pulled out the diary she must have swiped as they’d left. “Open it,” she said, “and tell me what you see.”
Piper flicked through a few pages. “Looks pretty normal to me.”
“Take a closer look.”
“Why don’t you quit with the brain-teaser and tell me what you see?”
“Ned marks his appointments—with a tick, or a cross-through, or a rescheduled...”
“So?”
“Nothing’s been marked since Wednesday,” Beth said, pulling up outside the shop. She jumped out and slammed the door.
Piper rushed after her and caught up with her outside the side door. “And?”
“That’s the day that kiln heated something other than clay.”
Piper paused as she tried to understand what Beth was saying. Was she hinting that Ned had been murdered and that her father might have had something to do with it? She couldn’t be, unless her father had returned without her knowing and then disappeared again. And if those were Beth’s thoughts, why would she think her not safe from her own father? “What has any of this got to do with me?” she asked, unlocking the door.
“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Beth said as they entered the flat. She walked straight to Piper’s bedroom and began pulling clothes from the drawers. “Where’s your suitcase?”
Piper collapsed onto her bed, which was rapidly taking on the appearance of a jumble sale. “I don’t have one.” Her words stopped Beth in her tracks.
“What do you mean, you don’t have one? Who doesn’t have a suitcase?”
Piper shrugged. “Someone who’s never been anywhere. Look, is all this really necessary?”
“A man has been killed.”
“So you say. You also said it happened days ago, and unless you’re better at that witchy stuff than you’re letting on, we don’t know who did it.”
“Sophie told me about your stalker, Piper. Remind me how long he’s been ha
nging around?”
She had a point. So much had happened in the past few days, and it had all started with the arrival of the box. But surely not. “There’s an old travelling case in the shop. I’ll go get it. I won’t be a minute.”
Piper found the case on the top of a Welsh dresser and dropped it onto the floor in front of her father’s display case. As strange as Lambert was, she didn’t believe him to be a murderer. After all, if he’d wanted to kill her, he’d had ample opportunity to do so. He’d told her wherever the box went, he did too. She’d soon find out if that were true.
She opened the case and placed the box in the bottom, before adding a selection of her father’s other treasures. Somehow, it seemed the right thing to do.
When she arrived back upstairs, Beth was waiting.
“After we find your dad, I’m taking you shopping, girl,” she said, holding up an old blouse. “This thing went out of style in nineteen ninety-two.”
“I like retro,” Piper said, quickly stuffing a layer of underwear over the items in the case to conceal them.
“There’s retro and then there are things that should never see the light of day again,” Beth said, rolling the blouse into a ball and throwing it back into the bottom of the wardrobe.
Before long, the travelling case was stuffed to the brim.
“Ready?” Beth asked.
Piper took one last look at her room, in two minds whether she was doing the right thing trusting a woman she hardly knew to take control of her life. But what choice did she have? Relying on the police for six months had got her nowhere. “Almost. I just need a couple more things.”
In her father’s room, she took the photograph from beside the bed and placed it in her mother’s jewellery box. Then, shoving the box under her arm, she grabbed her school bag and left the flat behind.
Chapter Fifteen
PIPER ARRIVED AT THE IMPOSING bulk of Lovell Towers with a heavy heart. A brisk wind whipped her hair across her face as she carried her belongings inside.