Sit a Spell

by Stacey Alabaster

  He was struggling to get free, but Vicky had grabbed him on the other side, so he wasn’t going anywhere.

  “You’re the Coffee Killer,” Vicky stated. Not a question.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said, putting his hands up. “I didn’t kill anyone. You gotta believe me. I don’t know why you are accusing me of this. You realize you sound insane, right?”

  “Isn’t your brother Bruce the owner of the Turtle and Hare?”

  He stopped wiggling and looked genuinely shocked to hear the name. “Wow, yeah. I mean, he is my brother. How’d you even know that?” Austin pushed himself free of us and shook his head. “We aren’t close or anything, though. Bruce has always been . . . I mean, he’s kind of a weirdo.”

  “A weirdo?” I was offended on Bruce’s behalf.

  Austin wasn’t done defending himself. He pulled out his phone and brought up video footage of a festival from further south earlier in the week. “Look! We weren’t even in town the night that chick was killed. Here I am on stage in Hobart that night.”

  Vicky and I looked at each other.

  Great. We were done in Dubbo.

  “Back on the broomstick?”

  “Back on the broomstick.”

  I knew I was going to have to come clean to Vicky about what I knew about Bruce as we walked back to the clearing where we would be free for takeoff.

  “He’s a warlock. Bruce, I mean.”

  Vicky almost did a spit take as she got the broom in position for us to climb on. “And how do you know that?” she asked, her eyes wide.

  I had to tell her everything that had happened while she had been missing—about the dumpster and the spells I had performed.

  “But I don’t get it, Vicky . . . how can Bruce be the only one in his family that has powers? Don’t these things run in the family? Aren’t they passed down from generation to generation?”

  Vicky frowned. “Usually. There can be exceptions, though.” She looked downcast. “I’m sorry, Ruby. This whole trip out here has been a waste of time . . . when the simple answer all along was that I just wasn’t wanted in the band.”

  I wrapped my arm around her shoulders. “Come on. Let’s get home. Back to Swift Valley.”

  “Stay here one more night,” I said. It was late by the time that we got back from the desert, and we were both done for. Vicky was still covered in sand, even after flying through the air for two hours at a speed of four hundred kilometers an hour.

  “Shu will appreciate another night without listening to me practicing scales and chords until the early hours.”

  But I didn’t mind her doing a bit of practice while I tided up the house and checked on Taylor’s room, still empty. He would be back the following day unless he was held up at Vicky’s dad’s farm.

  Boy, had he missed a lot.

  My phone was ringing again.

  Bruce. I didn’t want to answer it. He probably would have talked to Austin by now, unfortunately, and he was going to have a lot of questions for me.

  I was about to dismiss the call, but then I realized there was no point in putting it off.

  “So, how did you get to the desert so quickly?” he asked, sounding amused and a bit suspicious at the same time. “Did you teleport yourselves there?”

  “Broomstick,” I said with a sigh.

  “Nice one,” he said before a silence fell between us.

  “You and Austin seem pretty . . . different,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “I mean, from each other. Considering that you are brothers. Not what I expected.”

  “I was adopted,” Bruce said.

  “Oh.”

  “Austin and I have never been that close.”

  “I guess I got things pretty wrong today,” I said, leaning against the side of the barn as I gazed up into the night sky. “I thought it was the opposite. That you guys must have been super close for him to go to such lengths for your business . . .”

  “You thought he was the Coffee Killer?” Bruce asked, and I didn’t know whether he was offended or was about to burst into laughter.

  “Yes. But we were wrong. And so, we are back at square one now.” I sighed heavily and rubbed my tired eyes.

  “Not totally back at square one,” Bruce said. “At least you know that Austin didn’t do it.”

  That didn’t give me much reassurance in that moment.

  Bruce was claiming total innocence. But who had put the spell on Akiro? And who had killed Candace?

  “Are you sure there is nothing that you need to tell me, Bruce?” I asked as I stared up at the moon and waited, ready for his answer, whatever it may be.

  “You already know all the darkest secrets I hold, Ruby.” His voice was quiet as he spoke. “Do you think that I am a killer?”

  “No. But . . .”

  The phone went silent. And I went back to staring at the moon.

  The next morning Vicky joined me at breakfast. “Sorry. I didn’t realize that this wasn’t mine.” Vicky passed me a notebook that she had been holding. “I have a bunch of notebooks that I carry around with song lyrics and stuff. But this isn’t even my handwriting.”

  “Oh, this isn’t mine either,” I said and opened it to the front page to double-check the name on the inside cover. “It’s Ross’s. He dropped it the other day when he came up here to accuse me of breaking the sacred oath that apparently exists between coffee shop workers.” I had totally forgotten that Ross had dropped it. We had been halfway across the country and back—quite literally—since that had happened.

  “I should run this down to Red Annex and return it to him,” I said picking up my cereal bowl and taking it over to the sink. “The poor guy is pretty worried that Akiro has put everyone at risk by opening the Onyx again.”

  “Do you think he has?” Vicky asked me seriously.

  Now that we had been all the way to Dubbo and come up empty-handed, my opinion on the matter had changed. I wished I’d never given Ross the advice about opening up his shop again.

  I pulled my jacket on and shoved Ross’s notebook into the large pocket under the sleeve. It was going to be a long walk down the hill.

  “Until this killer is found, yes, I think everyone is at risk.”

  When I got to the bottom of the hill, I stopped and stooped over from the exhaustion of the last few days. I leaned forward a little, and the notebook tumbled out of my pocket and into the dirt. Then I saw the truth.

  “Oh, cripes!” I said and hurried to grab the notebook as the wind picked it up and started to blow it away. I grabbed it before it flew into the road and tried to dust the dirt off the pages where Ross had scribbled details about the business. Which employee had done which shifts, what stock needed ordering, what kind of complaints they had received from customers, and the plans Ross had to expand the shop. He planned to get rid of the gift shop in back and have a larger café area there.

  He was re-branding, too.

  The Danger Café. Just like the “danger” I heard in my head.

  And the thing was—I recognized that handwriting.

  10

  I had a dozen sets of eyes piercing into me . . . sizing me up.

  And there was no Vicky for backup. I was going to have to face these witches on my own and convince them—on my own—to help me.

  “You’d better state your case,” Geri said, like she was a judge. “Seeing as you have broken just about every rule in the witch’s book.”

  There was a book?

  “Yeah . . .” A witch name Eleanor stood up and looked at me scathingly. “Someone was saying that you were seen flying a broomstick without a license.”

  So apparently not everyone was oblivious to strange things flying overhead. Witches could still see. Witches knew everything. It was borderline impossible to get anything past them.

  “I wasn’t flying it,” I said. “I was just on the back. Hitching a ride.”

  I wasn’t sure that I deserved this informal trial of everything I had done wrong. All I was doing wa
s asking for a bit of help.

  But they wouldn’t let me even tell them what I was there for until I had given a full rundown of all the misdemeanors I had committed. By the time I had finished listing all the spells that I had cast, and all of the ways that they had worked and not worked so well, my mouth was dry. I asked Geri if I could have a drink of her homemade lemonade.

  She passed it to me with a stern look in her eyes.

  “You’ve really messed up this time, Ruby.”

  “That’s a little harsh,” I said, trying to defend myself. “I was just trying to help out my friends. And the spells all worked surprisingly well. Maybe the outcomes were confused at times, but at least I got them right when I performed them. I think I did pretty well all on my own.”

  Geri looked me up and down. I could tell she was a little bit impressed. But she didn’t want to admit that I was right. And that I’d actually done a pretty good job of going solo without the rest of the coven.

  So far.

  But I can admit when I finally need help. Usually only when I’ve been pushed pretty much to the breaking point, though.

  “This killing has nothing to do with magic,” I stated. “The killer did it all in the name of business, nonmagical business. He is trying to have a monopoly on coffee in Swift Valley. His girlfriend—well, former girlfriend—Candace wasn’t a witch. But she was still a young woman who paid a very dear price. So, I am here asking for your help, as my sisters and members of the coven. Will you help me?”

  Geri nodded. “Very well. Just tell us what you need us to do, Ruby.”

  Ross was back at work, all right. But Red Annex wasn’t open. I peered inside the windows and noticed the new sign for The Danger Café. Looked like the whole thing wouldn’t be ready for its grand reopening for a few weeks yet. A long time in the coffee business. So, I had been right. There was a renovation going on, and he didn’t want any other store in town to serve coffee while he was shut down.

  This had been his plan all along, then. In a way, he had been clever—sending the note to himself was a good diversion tactic. But he should have known better than to handwrite it.

  “Nice new setup,” I commented as I approached the alley outside of the café where Ross was ripping up cardboard boxes that had held new stock and fittings.

  Ross startled violently. Clearly, he didn’t know he had company. He was still holding a ripped box, one half in each hand.

  “I hope that you intend to dispose of all this garbage the correct way,” I said, nodding towards the over-flowing dumpster beside him. “Make sure you recycle all of those cardboard boxes.”

  He looked a little nervous, but he tried to compose himself and continued to stomp down on one of the empty boxes, squishing it into a flat surface. It still wouldn’t fit inside the dumpster, though.

  “Just preparing for the grand reopening,” he said, his voice cracking a little bit, giving away his nervousness.

  “And do you know when that will be?” I asked him as I reached into my pocket and started to slowly pull out the notebook. Had he even realized it was missing?

  Inside were the details of when Candace had started working for him. Almost six weeks earlier. After they had started dating, and she had quit the Turtle and Hare and moved to Swift Valley for him.

  Ross gulped. “A few weeks,” he said uneasily.

  “So, you’re not worried about the Coffee Killer still being on the loose?” I asked, pretending to be shocked that he would be so cavalier about the whole thing. “Because you seemed pretty worried about that the other day.”

  Ross shrugged and put on a big act of thoughtfulness. “No. I have weighed the pros and cons and done a thorough risk assessment, of course . . .”

  “Of course.”

  “And there have been no casualties since. And no threats since.” He shrugged in a way that was supposed to look casual but instead looked forced.

  I smiled at him. “Well, looks like you’ve got it all figured out.” I made like I was about to turn around and leave, but then I stopped. “The only problem is, Ross, that I have got it all figured out as well.”

  He stopped stomping on the cardboard box and laughed nervously. “What do you mean, Ruby?”

  I pursed my lips. “You wanted to be the only coffee game in town. So, your first step was to lure Candace away from the Turtle and Hare. At first, you tempted her with gifts, maybe an expensive Corvette? Because she was the best employee in any café in the area. Maybe you really were in love with her, or maybe you weren’t. I don’t think that really matters, does it, Ross? See, at first, I thought the place she had left to work for was the Onyx. But she only started there three weeks ago. She was really working for you, even while she was working there, wasn’t she?”

  Ross’s face dropped, and I knew I had him.

  “So, you had Candace infiltrate the Onyx. She was probably supposed to be a terrible employee. Screw up orders. Scare away customers. But that just wasn’t in Candace’s nature. And then you found out that she was such a good worker, she had worked her way up the ladder in record time. Even had her own pair of keys.”

  “This is ludicrous.”

  I took a step forward.

  “When Candace didn’t do exactly as you’d instructed her to, you took her out. And you could easily make it look like this phantom Coffee Killer that you yourself invented.”

  “How can you accuse me of this? I got a threat as well . . . The same threat that the Onyx got.

  I cut him off and shoved the notebook in his face. “And the note was in your own handwriting. Not very smart, Ross. I mean, I know you were trying to be smart. And in a way, you were. But just not smart enough.”

  He turned and tried to run—they always tried to run. But he wasn’t going to get too far as there was a whole coven of witches on the other side of the building, waiting for him.

  And they all knew how to perform a freezing spell.

  They also all knew how to disappear just as the cops arrived.

  Sometimes, all you needed was a little magic.

  Bruce was waiting for me. The only witch left as Ross was driven away in the police van. I could see on his face that he wanted a chance to make things right. Maybe even go on a second date with me.

  I dropped my head. I knew, deep down, what he had done.

  I could barely look him in the eyes when I asked him. “Bruce, you put the spell on Akiro, didn’t you?”

  “Ruby . . . I only did it because when I met you that day, I couldn’t stop thinking about you, and I was jealous. You and Akiro seemed so close. I just wanted him to . . . forget you for a little while.”

  It stung. The truth. But at least I was finally getting it.

  “Bruce, that is so intrusive. Messing around with my life. People I care about. Just because you wanted something from me.”

  His defense was that he had shown up now. Couldn’t we put everything else behind us?

  “But you weren’t honest with me,” I explained, and then interrupted him when he tried to defend himself. “Even though you told me you had been. And even when I gave you a chance to come clean about everything.”

  “I understand.”

  There was a bittersweet feeling in my chest as I made my way over the Onyx.

  It was going to be good to see an old friend. And I couldn’t wait to make new memories with Akiro, to replace the ones that were still foggy, maybe even lost.

  I tried to put Bruce out of my mind as I pushed through the doors of my favorite coffee house.

  Now, to grab me a cup of coffee.

  Epilogue

  Wow. I didn’t even know that Akiro knew so many people in Swift Valley. Or so many people at all, for that matter. Maybe he wasn’t as big a grump as I had always thought.

  There was a familiar musician playing on a small makeshift stage. Akiro hadn’t managed to secure Ribeye Bandits for his garden party, but I thought the guitarist he had gotten was just as good. Far better, in fact.

  I had to sl
ide my way between guests to get to the fountain, which was surrounded by cheese platters and champagne. I grabbed a glass and looked around for my friend.

  “Nice lawns,” I said, nodding towards the closely cropped grass. Growing in straight lines were rose bushes, lining all the edges of the garden.

  He nodded. “It’s good to take a little bit of time away from work to focus on other areas of my life. I think it’s called ‘balance’.”

  I clinked my glass against his.

  “Here’s to balance.”

  “Look at this,” Vicky said, climbing off the stage and pushing her phone into my face so that I could read—or rather not read—a news story.

  Ribeye Bandits. Being sued for copywrite infringement. Guitarist Austin Garret was facing a heavy lawsuit, and the members of the band were at war with each other, the tour cancelled.

  “Looks like you dodged a bullet there, Vicks.”

  She grinned at me and put her phone away. Whispered to me, “These nonmagical events are so quaint and cute, aren’t they?”

  I nodded. “It’s good to see how the other half lives,” I said with a laugh.

  But how much longer could I keep this up? Could my two lives remain separate? Was it even possible to have a life as a normal person while I was also a witch?

  I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket.

  Bruce.

  He just wasn’t giving up.

  It would be easy to date someone who knew about my both of my worlds, someone who I wouldn’t have to lie to and keep things from all the time.

  But I didn’t necessarily want easier. I pressed ignore on the call and turned my attention back to the garden party.

  Ugh, another call. Bruce again.

  I stared down at my phone.

  And then it just vanished.

  Thanks for reading Sit a Spell. I hope you enjoyed this fourth story in the Private Eye Witch Cozy Mystery series. If you could take a minute and leave a review for me, that would be really awesome.