A Witch to Remember

by Heather Blake

  That was true—it had.

  “Which proves Dorothy was behind the vandalism,” Dennis pointed out. “So arrest her for that.”

  It seemed he had a one-track mind when it came to Dorothy. He was getting on my nerves at this point, since I thought Nick had made it quite clear why he couldn’t make an arrest right now—any arrest.

  “There’s no hard proof about the vandalism,” Nick said, exhibiting more patience than I. “I’d never get a conviction. I can’t tell the DA about a spell, now, can I?”

  Dennis faced me. “Then what about punishment for abusing the Craft?”

  I said, “She didn’t use any Craft to commit the vandalism. There’s nothing the Elder can do.”

  Anger infused his features, narrowing his eyes and coloring his cheeks a deep red. “Seems to me that Dorothy’s found the perfect loophole between the magical and mortal worlds, hasn’t she?”

  None of us had a response to that—because it was true. She’d danced in and out of that loophole for a long time now.

  He went on. “I’m positive once Dorothy realized why she was blocked from the cottage, she found a way around Andreus’s spell.”

  “Impossible,” Glinda said. “No one gets around Andreus’s protection spells. Don’t you think Darcy’s house would have gone up in flames by now otherwise?”

  I frowned, not wanting to think about that.

  With a stubborn set to his chin, he said, “If anyone could, it’s Dorothy.”

  A chill went through me at his words, because I feared they were true. Dorothy was as smart as she was malicious.

  Dorothy stumbled back to us while trying to open her clutch purse. She tripped on a root, sending the contents of the clutch flying. Nick grabbed Dorothy before she hit the ground and helped her stand up.

  She sneered at him. “You should’ve married Glinda.”

  Once upon a time, Glinda’s sights had been set on Nick. I tried not to think too hard about those days.

  “Kill me now,” Glinda muttered.

  Dorothy went on. “I bet she’d have babies with you. Did you know she and Liam don’t want babies? Ridiculous. If only Zoey had been a witch. We wouldn’t be going through this. How are we to keep the Eld—”

  “Enough, Dorothy,” Nick said, his voice like steel.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised that Dorothy would bring up her family lineage at a time like this, but I was. Glinda and her husband, Liam, weren’t planning on having children, a decision that had almost gotten Glinda disowned. If it hadn’t been for Dorothy’s grand plan to install Glinda as Elder, I had no doubt that Dorothy would have cut her off completely.

  Dorothy kept talking as though she didn’t have putrid-colored slime dripping down her chin. “I mean, I suppose they could adopt witchy bastards, or I suppose Vince could have ki—”

  “Is that Sylar I see?” Glinda asked abruptly, squinting at something in the distance.

  Dorothy silenced immediately and starting tugging on her dress and adjusting her cleavage for best viewing. “I need some lipstick. Hand me my lipstick! He can’t see me like this. He’ll gloat, the old pig.”

  I glanced around but didn’t see him. Despite the name-calling, did she still care for him?

  “Oh, my bad,” Glinda said. “It was just a shadow.”

  Dorothy glared at her.

  Glinda gave me a sly smile when I looked up at her. Apparently Glinda could push Dorothy’s buttons just as well as Dorothy could push hers.

  Crouching, I started picking up Dorothy’s purse contents. Thin wallet, cell phone, lipstick, breath mints, and hairpin.

  Hairpin.

  I picked it up, studied it. It was made of beautiful amethysts in varying shades of purple. “Where did you get this?”

  Dorothy blinked as though seeing me for the first time. Her eyes darkened with hatred and her lip curled into a snarl. “Bug off, Darcy Merriweather.”

  “Mother,” Glinda said with a sigh.

  “She’s a peach,” Dennis said. “No wonder Sylar filed for divorce.”

  Dorothy lunged at him, but Glinda held her back.

  I kept staring at the pin. “Where did you get it, Dorothy?” I asked again.

  “What is it?” Nick asked me.

  “A hairpin. It’s identical to one Leyna owns. I saw it in her hair just yesterday.”

  Glinda stared at the hairpin. “I saw it in her hair, too. Earlier today at Divinitea. It was sticking out of Leyna’s hair bun. I don’t understand … how did it get in my mother’s purse?”

  In my head, I saw the image of Leyna being carried out of Divinitea. Her hair had been down, nearly dragging on the ground.

  “Where did you get this hairpin, Dorothy?” Nick asked.

  Dorothy shrugged. “Never saw it before,” she said, the words jumbled together.

  Dennis snorted and rolled his eyes. “I told you she did it. The proof is right there in your hand.”

  My stomach ached. How was this possible? Dorothy couldn’t have possibly been inside Divinitea …

  Nick’s jaw jutted as he said, “Looks like Dorothy’s coming with me right now.”

  “No way.” Dorothy shook her head.

  “This time you don’t have a choice, Dorothy,” Nick said. “I’m taking you into custody. Once you’re sobered up, you’re going to be arrested for the murder of Leyna Noble.”

  Chapter Six

  Twenty minutes later, I’d dropped off the fascinator and the hidden seed at home, let Higgins, our Saint Bernard, outside for a few minutes, updated Harper and Mimi via text messages as to what was going on, and then went straight back out. I was exhausted all of a sudden and longed for a nap, but I had things to do that I couldn’t put off. I headed out to do a little snooping. Dorothy might have been taken into custody, but I wasn’t wholly convinced she was guilty. The thought that there might be a killer on the loose in the village was eating at me. I needed to find more proof. Somehow. Some way.

  “Darcy!”

  Dennis jogged toward me along the brick sidewalk. Behind him, I saw Amanda helping Laurel Grace into the back seat of their car parked at the curb. “We were just on our way home when I saw you.”

  I stepped up to meet him. “Is everything okay? Do you need something?”

  He set his hand on the fence and looked me in the eye. “I wanted to apologize. For earlier. I acted like a jerk …” He looked away, then back at me. “I get caught up sometimes.”

  I knew. His nickname, Dr. Dreadful, was quite fitting. He had little tact and often spoke his mind. Even when he was upset and angry.

  Especially when he was upset and angry.

  “We all do,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Will you do me a favor?”

  He’d saved my life, and Harper’s too. I’d known him and his family since the first week I’d moved to the village. Cherise was like another aunt and Terry like an uncle. They were family. “Name it.”

  There was an impassioned plea in his eyes as he said, “I know you’re working the case for the Craft, but could you work it as a friend of mine as well? Leyna was family … I want the truth of what happened, wherever it leads.”

  “You don’t think Dorothy is guilty after all?” This was a complete one-eighty if I ever saw one.

  He dragged a hand down his face. “I don’t know what to think. I’m angry. I know Dorothy made threats. But I also recognize that it’s easy to blame the murder on her because of that anger. I need someone impartial to look at the facts. All the facts. The only person I trust to do that is you.”

  I had the feeling he didn’t hand out his trust very often. I put my hand on his arm. “I’ll do everything I can to figure out what happened. I promise.”

  “Thank you, Darcy.”

  With that, he turned and went back to his car.

  I looked both ways, crossed the street, and stepped onto the village green.

  While I wasn’t convinced of Dorothy’s guilt, I wasn’t sure about her innocence, eithe
r. It was all so very murky. Nick hadn’t had any other choice than to take Dorothy into custody. Between the threats she’d made and her possession of Leyna’s hairpin, the circumstantial evidence was stacked against her. His reputation in law enforcement would have been shredded if he hadn’t taken action. His hands were tied.

  But the fact remained that there had been a spell on Divinitea that should have prevented Dorothy from entering the premises.

  Should have …

  But had it?

  It was a subject to discuss with Andreus, and I was suddenly quite grateful Nick and I were having dinner with him tonight at Ve’s.

  The Firelight festival was still going strong on the village green, the fire at Divinitea not dampening the crowd size in the least. I looked for Hildie among the booths, but she was nowhere to be seen. There was a line of people queued up in front of Feif Highbridge’s tent, waiting for a reading. I walked over, getting close enough to see him sitting inside at a round table draped in purple and red cloths, his hand on the wrist of a woman who kept nodding, her eyes wide as though she was in a trance.

  I needed to find out about the misunderstanding between Feif and Leyna, and if they’d had another confrontation after he’d sneaked back into Divinitea.

  One thing was for certain—if he was mourning Leyna, he wasn’t showing it. He’d changed out of his wet clothes and looked perfectly calm and at peace.

  I wasn’t altogether sure how I was going to question him about Leyna, since he was a mortal, and I couldn’t reveal that I worked for the Craft. If my life hadn’t been so complicated at the moment, I’d have posed as a client and tried to ask him questions while he read me. But these weren’t ordinary times, and I couldn’t risk my secrets being exposed.

  After a moment of watching him work, I decided that interviewing him was something to worry about later. Right now, I had another mission. I needed to find Vince Paxton. Why had he been at Divinitea this afternoon? Did it have to do with his mother?

  As I turned toward Vince’s apartment, on the second floor above his shop, Lotions and Potions, I saw the woman with red hair who’d been crying in front of Divinitea earlier. She was one of many people walking among the Firelight booths.

  I hesitated for only a second before going after her. I wanted to know who she was and how she’d known Leyna. I would figure out how to get that information once I caught up to her.

  I dodged and weaved through the crowd, finding it hard to walk quickly on the congested pathways. By the time I could make any forward progress, I’d lost sight of the woman.

  I spent fifteen more minutes searching for her before giving up. My head pounded, and I really just wanted to go home. Instead, I turned toward Lotions and Potions, determined to speak with Vince.

  The shop was packed with tourists happily picking through baskets of handmade soaps, lotions, and balms. Vince wasn’t around. His shop manager told me he’d gone upstairs to his apartment not ten minutes before, but she’d balked when I asked if I could use the rear staircase to get up to his apartment.

  Back outside, I cut through the alleyway that separated Lotions from Spellbound, Harper’s bookstore, and took a hard right into the wide alley that ran behind the shops. The scent of the fire lingered in the air, blending with the pungency of a half dozen dumpsters parked along a tall wooden fence line. I tried to breathe through my mouth as I pressed the buzzer for Vince’s apartment.

  Stepping away from the brick facade, I glanced upward. There was no indication that he was home other than what his employee had said.

  I buzzed twice more before deciding I was wasting my time. If he was home, it was clear he wasn’t planning to answer.

  Which made me wonder if his shop manager had been mistaken about him being upstairs …

  Or if he was avoiding me.

  My phone rang, and I pulled it from my pocket, hoping it would be Vince, calling me to come back.

  No such luck.

  Amanda Goodwin said, “I just had a call from Nick. He said that we could get into Leyna’s apartment after five. Are you free then?”

  Tracking Vince down was going to have to wait a little bit—meeting with Amanda took precedence.

  “I’ll be there,” I said, glancing across the square to the line of shops that housed All That Glitters. I looked at the apartments above the jewelry store, and wondered which was Leyna’s. I’d find out soon enough. “I’ll meet you in front of the shops.”

  After hanging up, I turned toward the Sorcerer’s Stove, known as the Stove to locals. Glinda had mentioned this morning that in the last few months she’d received many calls from the restaurant about Dorothy’s drunkenness. I wanted to find out if Dorothy had been drinking there earlier today.

  I waved to Angela Curtis, who was manning the register inside Spellbound as I passed by. As manager of the bookshop, Angela had been a godsend these last few months, going above and beyond to help Harper keep the store afloat in the weeks after Harper had been diagnosed with a chronic illness. Angela and her partner, Harmony, who owned the Pixie Cottage, felt like family.

  The Stove was half a block away, give or take, from Divinitea, which still had fire personnel and equipment parked in front of it. The white tent was gone. Leyna’s body was now on its way to the medical examiner’s office in Boston, where an autopsy would take place. Yellow police tape remained behind, waving in the breeze.

  I slowed in front of the Bewitching Boutique with the thought to stop inside for a quick conversation with Godfrey Baleaux, a Cloakcrafter and family friend, or Pepe and Mrs. P, mouse familiars who lived in the walls of the shop. The store was dark, however, with a CLOSED sign hung on the door.

  Odd.

  Godfrey rarely closed the shop during business hours. Even though he didn’t have any employees other than Pepe, who worked clandestinely in the back room, he’d managed to keep the store open seven hours a day, six days a week for as long as I’d been in the village.

  I glanced around. A long line of cars and tour buses were slowly making their way along the main road entering the village. Every parking spot around the green was taken, and the lot at the end of the square looked full as well.

  I’d seen Godfrey just this morning while I was out for my morning run, and he’d been in good spirits, smiling and joking about my running attire. He despised workout clothes. Unless he’d suddenly become ill, it didn’t make sense that the boutique would be closed.

  Then Ve’s words from earlier came back to me.

  She’s in meetings all day with some of the Coven of Seven members.

  I’d long suspected Godfrey was one of the Coven members. As such, his duties would certainly outweigh keeping his boutique open on a busy shopping day.

  And if there was any witch who’d go above and beyond to find a way to keep Dorothy from becoming a de facto Elder, it was him. It buoyed my spirit, knowing he’d have my family’s best interests at heart.

  I pressed on, passing the Trimmed Wick, a candle shop. I skirted the line of people that trickled out of the Gingerbread Shack’s door. Evan Sullivan used his Bakecrafting skills to create the most delectable mini desserts. The wait had to be at least thirty minutes, but I knew from experience that it would be worth it.

  I didn’t see Evan at the counter but could easily picture him working his magic in the kitchen at the back of the shop. As much as I wanted to go inside to watch him work—and breathe in the soothing scents of vanilla and chocolate and hazelnut—I kept walking. I needed to nail down Dorothy’s timeline for the day.

  The Stove, with its steep rooflines, faux thatched roof, stone exterior, and center chimney, looked to me like a cottage straight out of merry old England. I shimmied past those waiting in the vestibule and blinked, trying to adjust to the restaurant’s dark interior. Sunspots lingered in my eyes as I sidled up to the bar top and waited for one of the barkeeps, Ula Blackstone, to glance my way.

  It didn’t take long.

  Piped classical music played softly, barely audible
over the din of the diners, as Ula wiped her hands on an apron. Her short black hair was tied back in a stubby ponytail, showing off six piercings in each ear. “Darcy, hi. Your usual?” she asked loudly.

  My usual was a banana milk shake that wasn’t even on the drink menu. Ula had created the concoction for me after learning how much I loved bananas but didn’t keep them at home, because Mimi was allergic. I drank a shake almost every time I came in for lunch, but this afternoon I didn’t have time to indulge. I raised my voice to be heard above the din and said, “Hi, Ula. Just a club soda with lime today, please.”

  I’d known Ula, a Manicrafter—a witch good with her hands—since I’d moved to the village. She’d worked here on and off for two years while pursuing a master’s degree from Boston University. Through bartending, she made enough in tips to put herself through school without loans. An amazing feat these days.

  When she came back with the drink, I handed her a five-dollar bill and said, “Was Dorothy Hansel Dewitt in here earlier?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me. Seems like Dorothy’s always in here.” She dropped her voice a bit. “She’s taking the divorce hard, which is strange, since it’s no secret that she wasn’t happily married.”

  It was no secret because the village, as a whole, had loose lips. Everyone—except, perhaps, Sylar—knew divorce papers had been stashed away in Dorothy’s lingerie drawer for nearly a year. What no one knew, however, was why she’d never actually given them to Sylar. Or why three months ago, Sylar had suddenly decided he’d had enough of his marriage and had his own papers filed.

  I couldn’t help but wonder what had been his tipping point. Or why it had taken him so long. I wouldn’t have lasted a day married to that woman.

  I suspected Dorothy’s behavior of late—the drinking, mostly—was because Sylar had struck first. Dorothy hated looking like a fool, and it was obvious she’d been blindsided by his leaving her. And since she always wanted things she couldn’t have, it was entirely possible that she now wanted him back.

  While I could have sat and gossiped about Dorothy’s marriage all afternoon, I tried to stay on point. “You didn’t see her?”