by E. M. Moore
I shook my head. I couldn’t think about that right now. I had to focus on Mel.
“Okay, so you’re in this coven. This guy is paying you to do a spell and now Pepper and Casey are dead. What happened? Did the spell not work?”
“No, the spell worked. The spell worked too good. So much so that he asked us to do it again, but we refused. I think that’s why he’s angry.”
“Who is this guy?”
Mel stood, and I took a step back. “Don’t you think I would say something if I knew? I never asked Scilla. She was the one who always talked to him. I’m not even sure she knows who it is. We were all kept in the dark about it, and honestly, I didn’t even really want to know at that point. I didn’t care about the money.”
I closed my eyes, taking all the information in. “You need to tell Jackson about this, Mel.” She was already shaking her head, but I pushed forward. “Just listen. He needs to know. He doesn’t understand the common thread. Yes, they’re all witches. Yes, they all own shops, but now we know there’s a coven. Now we know who could be targeted next. You could be targeted next, Mel. In fact, both you and Scilla should be telling Jackson what’s going on.”
Mel latched her hands behind her head. “I can’t,” she said through clenched teeth. “I can’t because right now I’m not sure he knows I was the other one in the coven. Scilla says he didn’t know about me since I was the last to join, but if I go sticking my nose around, he’ll know it was me and I’ll really be in trouble.”
“What about Scilla then? If he’s been talking to Scilla all this time, he knows Scilla’s in. Why isn’t she going to Jackson? She needs to tell Jackson what’s going on. For protection if nothing else.”
“Look at what happened to the other two, Maddie! We’re scared out of our minds. She doesn’t want to tell the police anything even more than I do. Only something bad can come from it. He’s already threatened her not to do it. He told her if the cops start asking questions and start snooping around, she’s next.”
I let out a breath. “So, now what? You’re just going to sit around and wait to see if he knows that you’re in the coven? Wait for him to come and get you? You’ll end up just like Casey and Pepper. That’s not going to happen, Mel. What kind of spell did you do for him, anyway? What was so important that when you wouldn’t do it again, he got so mad?”
Mel rubbed her forehead. Creases lined her face as she fretted over her lip. “It was a revenge spell,” she whispered.
“What? You did a revenge spell!”
“I know, I know, three times. It could come back to us three times. It already has come back to us twice already. Something else is going to happen, something big.”
I paced around Mel’s living room. The layout of her apartment was the exact same as mine. “I’m not even going to talk to you how stupid that was. I know you know. Ever since we were little, we were taught not to do negative spells like that. The rule of three is there for a reason. It’s there so witches don’t do stupid shit like this, but beyond that, it’s just not right. Forget about the witch policies and Wiccan practices, if he wanted revenge on someone, for whatever reason, then he should’ve went and did it himself. Then it would’ve come back to him, not you.”
“I thought you weren’t going to lecture me.”
“Mel…”
“By the time they told me what the spell was, I couldn’t back out. They all seemed fine with it. They weren’t bothered by the fact something might happen and I thought maybe I was just being crazy and everything would turn out okay.”
I wanted to ask her how she felt about it now, but that was too harsh considering the circumstances. “They weren’t brought up like we were. They’re Wiccans. They get their power from the religion aspect. We have power within us. That’s why they don’t know to fear spells like that.”
“I’m scared, Maddie.” Her tiny voice barely carried through the room. It reached my ears and tore my heart out. There was no use in being mad at her for doing the spell. What was done was done. I let out a deep breath, walked up to her, and threw my hands around her. “Nothing is going to happen to you, I promise. We’ll figure this out. You should start spending the night at my place. Maxie’s there, and he’s a good watchdog. Plus, if this guy figures it out, he’ll think you're in your own apartment. If they come after you, they’ll expect you to be there and not in mine. I’m sure Maxie would love to have you as a cuddle partner for one more night so we can figure out how to combat this.”
Mel gave me a watery smile. “Thank you. But I don’t think we should do much. Like Scilla said, if we just keep our mouths shut, this will all blow over. The guy doesn’t intend to hurt us anymore.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Scilla threatened him. She said if something else happens, he’s going down.”
Okay, maybe we’d have to talk about revenge witchcraft because she obviously didn’t get it the first time. “Grab your stuff. We’ll talk more about this in the morning.”
As Mel grabbed her things, I sat on the couch with my head down. After a while, I lifted my head and stared down at my hands. Hands were special. They did a lot. They were the center of everything. They worked, they played, you could talk with your hands, you could find out a lot about yourself by reading the lines in your hands. With these hands, I did spells for most of my life, but never once had I thought my younger sister would tell me she performed a negative spell. And now another witch threatened to hurt someone with a negative spell. It was beyond the realm of possibility. Or so I’d thought.
Chapter 9
I’d just allowed Mel to leave my apartment with a full cell phone battery and the promise to call me if something happened when I took out my own cell phone and texted Mrs. Ward. I told her there was something I really needed to talk to her son about and that I’d contact her later. Her reply was immediate: Take care of yourself.
That I would do, and take care of my sister, too. I got in the car and drove first toward Mel’s store. She was already inside busying herself with the day. The lights were on and she was straightening up flyers on the counter. I hoped she was right and that the guy behind all this didn’t know who she was yet, but I didn’t like how nonchalant she was being about the negative spells and witchcraft.
The negative spell was a big deal. You couldn’t hurt others or else it would come back to you three times. Actually, whatever you did came back to you three times. If you did a positive spell, it would come back to you three times just the same as if you did an evil or negative spell.
I must’ve abandoned Mel more than I’d thought after Derek died.
Since Mel was safe inside her store for now, I drove to the police station. About halfway there, I wished I’d brought Maxie with me. He was a good companion and made me feel safe. I pulled up to the station, fed the meter, and walked up the many steps that led to the front entrance. Jackson was talking with Dezi when I walked in. He had a stack of papers in his hand and he was waving them around. He was always like that. He always talked with his hands. I waved when Dezi noticed me and pointed toward Jackson. He smiled and interrupted Jackson mid-sentence.
Jackson turned and walked right over. “How’s Mel doing?”
“That’s what I came to talk to you about. I talked to her last night.”
“Let’s go into my office,” he offered.
“Anywhere private.”
Jackson’s face darkened, and he went into full-on cop mode. He turned to lead us to his office. I was too busy staring at my feet to notice he’d stopped. I ran right into his back. Jackson reached out and steadied me. As I peered over his shoulder, Rich was coming out of one of the doors near Jackson’s office. “You guys having problems with your security systems too?” I asked.
Jackson shook his head. “No, something worse. Apparently, Rich’s father has been beating his mother for most of his life. It got bad last night. She finally called the cops on him and Rich is here to tell us that it’s an ongoing problem. You woul
dn’t believe what he had to live through. It’s tragic.”
“That’s awful. Poor Rich. His poor mother, too. Is she alright?”
“Should be okay, but she’s got a couple broken ribs and her nose is fractured. It’s been broken several times before.”
When Rich noticed me behind Jackson, he held his hand up in a small wave. “Hi, Maddie. The security system still working out for you at the library?”
“Oh yeah. It’s working fine. Thank you for asking.”
Rich stared at his shoes and then met my gaze again. “Yeah, my mom…” A small smile played on his lips. “…my mom…she finally stuck up for herself after all these years. I’m more proud of her than I’ve ever been in my entire life.”
I stood there in silence. I didn’t know if Jackson was supposed to tell me so I just acted like I wasn’t sure what Rich was talking about.
“My dad’s been beating her since I was a little kid.” His voice shook. “God, I hate that man.”
Jackson clapped him on the back. “Thanks to your mother, he’s going to get what he deserves. She’ll finally get some justice. You, too.”
“Sorry to hear that,” I mumbled. I was never good at awkward conversations.
“It is what it is. I’ve been living with it my entire life and I’m so glad something is finally happening. She deserves a better life, always has. She’s finally got her revenge. Any length of time he’s in that cell is fine by me.”
Jackson must not have been good at awkward conversations either. We both stood there mute, nodding our heads until Rich decided he was done talking and told us he was going back to the hospital to check on his mother. He made a failed joke about being able to take a punch like a champ and Jackson and I laughed like a skittish bird wondering whether they should try flying for the first time.
After Rich left, Jackson raised his eyebrows, and I shrugged. He cocked his head toward his office and I followed after him.
I walked in, sat in the chair opposite his desk, and waited while Jackson closed the door. The blinds on his office window ricocheted off the wood of the door as it closed. “What were you able to find out?”
I placed my hands on the desk and inched the chair forward. “Mel might be in trouble. Apparently, she and Pepper, along with Casey Quinn and Scilla Longbottom all formed a coven, a temporary coven to do a spell for someone who was willing to give them a lot of money.”
“Something happened with the spell…” Jackson guessed.
“No, the spell went really well,” I explained. “Mel tells me the guy wanted them to do it again and they refused.”
“Who’s the guy?” Jackson asked, already reaching for the phone on his desk. “He’s got to be our man. He’s the only thing that ties all this together.”
I shrugged. “Mel doesn’t know. It was Scilla who kept in contact with the guy. She has no idea if he even knows she was in the coven—temporary coven.”
“But Scilla Longbottom knows who the guy is?”
“Mel didn’t seem to know very much about that part.”
“Unless she’s lying to you again.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think she is. It sounds like she intentionally tried to stay stupid about the particulars. She doesn’t even know why she signed up to do it in the first place. She really didn’t need the money. She just said it felt good to talk to people about witchcraft again.” I clasped my hands in front of me and looked down at their conjoined parts.
Jackson was silent for a little while. Since he was a detective, I knew he had figured out the guilt I’d been feeling. If I’d just talked to Mel about witchcraft—about anything—she wouldn’t have sought out others who were now dead.
“Also, Mel didn’t want me to tell you any of this. The guy threatened Scilla that if cops went snooping around him, he would kill her.” I sat back. “Mel didn’t seem too worried, though. Scilla countered right back and said if anything else happens, she wouldn’t hesitate to hurt him back.”
“I thought witches couldn’t do negative spells.”
“We shouldn’t do negative spells. Some do, though. If you do, it’s understood that you should worry about the aftermath of it.”
Jackson passed his thumb over his lip. “Okay, so if I go talk to Scilla Longbottom about this, am I going to get in trouble with your sister?”
Most likely, but did I care? No. “Obviously what matters is keeping them both safe and that this guy, if you can find out who he is, has killed the others. You can keep them from getting hurt. If he hurt the others, what’s to stop him from hurting Scilla and Mel, too?”
“I’ll have a talk with Scilla Longbottom today and see if I can get to the bottom of this.” He took out his notepad and started making chicken scratches between the lines. “I’m also going to send someone to watch over Mel.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
He looked up from his pad. “What do you mean?”
“Well, if Mel is already being guarded by someone, don’t you think that’s a big tip off to someone who might want to hurt a bunch of witches?”
“I thought it would make you feel better to know Mel is safe.”
“And it would, but not at the expense of her safety.”
He shook his head, a smile that told me he thought I was crazy lit his face. “We’ll see. I might send a plainclothes officer out there every once in a while, just to check on her. I’d feel better about that.”
“I think I’ve convinced her to stay with me for the time being. We have Max and if this guy does figure out who she is, they’ll go to her apartment, not mine.”
“You live a floor away from each other.”
“You think we should get a hotel instead?”
Jackson threw his notepad on the desk. “What I’m hoping is I can get this jackass so you can return to a normal life for once.”
I sat up in my chair, a little startled by his outburst. “I guess we can both agree on that one, can’t we?”
“Alright, let me go do my job. You stay safe. Mel will be fine. I’ll talk to Scilla Longbottom and tell her we’re worried about the other shop owners in town. That way it will seem less like we went there specifically to see her And you’re to keep your mouth shut about any of this. That means, if I get a text from my mother about anything we just discussed, you’re in trouble.”
I smiled, trying to look as innocent as possible, but I didn’t think it worked any. He knew the real me.
Chapter 10
I made it a full hour before Mrs. Ward dragged everything out of me. She was relentless. Honestly, I didn’t know who would be better at being a detective, Jackson or his mother. She must’ve waited to say anything to him because I didn’t get a text from Jackson until I was on my way home for the evening. The text just said: You are in trouble.
I wasn’t all that worried. He knew how his mother was. I’d just tell him she held me down and twisted my arm, or water boarded me, or something evil like that. He would probably believe all three when it came to his mom. To get me to talk to her, all she had to do was pull the guilt trip. It was always the guilt trip that got me.
I called Mel a couple of times during the day. She seemed fine. I was waiting until tonight to tell her I’d asked Jackson to talk to Scilla. That was more of a face-to-face conversation, not an over the phone conversation. At least in person she wouldn’t be able to hang up on me.
“Hey,” I said as I opened the apartment door. No response. “Mel,” I called out. Nothing, just Maxie running up to me and wagging his tail. “Hey, boy.” I bent down to pet his head. “Where’s Aunt Mel, huh?” Maxie just looked at me and licked my hand. I growled under my breath. “I can’t believe she went right to her apartment and not mine. I’ll be right back down, Max, okay? Then I’ll take you out.” I walked up the stairs and didn’t bother knocking. I barged into her place. The smell of burning sage hovered in the air and sure enough, Mel sat in the middle of her couch looking through her spell book. She started, her eyebrow
s flying up her forehead when she saw me. “Jeez, Maddie, give me a heart attack already.”
“You’re not even supposed to be up here. We talked about this. You’re supposed to be down in my apartment.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m fine. As long as you didn’t do anything stupid and I haven’t done anything stupid, everything will be perfect. He has no idea who I am.”
I walked over to her and pushed her feet off the couch so I could sit next to her. “Except that you’re one of the most powerful witches in Salem. It wouldn’t be that hard to figure out who the fourth was. Who else would they get for their stupid little coven?”
Mel froze her perusal of the spell book. “It wasn’t stupid.”
“You know what I meant. It’s for that very reason I told Jackson to talk to Scilla.”
Her head whipped toward me. “You didn’t. Why would you do that, Maddie? I told you not to.”
“Because somebody has to figure all this out. Jackson’s the detective. It’s what he does. He needs to know, and he came up with a reason to see her so no one would get suspicious of her talking to the cops. He’s going under the ruse that he’s worried about all the shop owners in Salem because all the murders happened in a shop. I’m sure he went to see all of them and not just her.”
“But this guy doesn’t care about all of them, he cares about Scilla. If he’s watching her…”
“Did Scilla tell you he spoke to her? If she didn’t tell you, I doubt she thought it was a big deal. Don’t worry about it. Let’s just go back down to my apartment—”
“This is a big deal. Why couldn’t you just let me do it my way?”
“Oh, come on,” I said as I put my hand on her shoulder.
Mel slapped it away. “No, you’re wrong, Maddie.” She stood, went to the kitchen counter, and grabbed her cell phone. She held it to her ear as she stared me down. If looks could kill…