I stood on a foot stool to look at the back of the cupboard. “You can have the rabbit in gravy,” I said. “Unless you want me to switch you out for dry food?”
“No, no, no, I’ll take the rabbit,” he said.
“I’ll have to go buy more soon,” I said, pulling out the packet. “Unless you’re okay with having rabbit for the next week.” Emptying the sachet of food into his dish, I watched him stick his tongue out. “Well, all the chicken and tuna is gone.” On the fridge was a list of ingredients to go shopping for, I added cat food to the list.
All I’d had to eat today was a sandwich and an assortment of cake slices, only nibbles and the occasional spoonful of frosting. I hated eating too late, but I had no choice some days, and now I was starving.
Tonight’s meal of choice was fresh salmon and couscous. It wasn’t the fastest meal to make or prepare, but it was my favourite.
“Goddess of life, Goddess of light, bless this meal,” I said, squeezing a lemon wedge across the fish, as I placed it on a tray in the oven. “Goddess of the moon, Goddess of the night, provide to heal.” I added a dash of salt to the couscous.
While waiting on my food I flicked through pages of my book of shadows, landing on a blank page. I tapped my finger twice on it to reveal a title, REJUVINATING SKIN, the words forced me to stare at myself in the reflection from the kitchen window.
“I’m not old,” I said to myself. “I’m perfectly young.” But it was no secret I’d been looking at trying to create a balm for my face to pick the wrinkles from falling around the side of my eyes and wherever else they found themselves sitting.
Sniffing the air as I attended to the salmon in the oven, I was transported to a first date way before Peter and Cowan Bay. A teenage heart in love, it filled me with a warmth the pillowing steam from the oven couldn’t compete with.
“Why don’t I get fish?” August asked, scratching his paw against the granite counter.
“Because that would mean buying twice as much, and your food is a quarter of the cost,” I said with a hum of laughter as I plated the fish across a bed of couscous and veggies. “Anyway, you ate all the food so it can’t have been bad.”
Carrying my plate through to the dining room, August followed, weaving between my legs. “I deserve salmon after the day I’ve had.”
“After your day?” I chuckled. “When I go shopping, I’ll grab you some of the fish ones,” I said.
Living in Cowan Bay meant seafood was always freshly caught, and there was the river that ran through the town of Belsy. Belsy was a twenty-minute drive from the village, we were right out on the bay, and given another fifteen years, I’m sure half the village would be under water too.
“I really wish you had thumbs,” I said to August as I gathered food on my fork before scoffing it down.
“Why?”
“So you could run me a bath,” I said.
With my son away I had no family around, and nobody to look after August when he went on a little panic around the house, or to run me a bath when I got in from work, or cook – the thought tickled me inside, my son never cooked, and he’d always moan about doing anything anyway.
I had time before I’d be in bed sleeping to have a soak in the bathtub. Armed with my lavender oils, camomile lotions, and scented candles, I was ready to relax.
Sitting in the bath, I read Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. It was my third time around and a healthy distraction, it taught me it was okay to be alone and single, especially at my age. Although I didn’t need validation, it was just nice to hear.
“Gwen,” I heard from the door, followed by August’s scratching.
Blocking him out, I went back to reading.
“Gwen,” his sharp voice came again.
Surrounded by cold water, I blinked my eyes open. I must’ve dozed off. My skin resembled an old prune, shrivelled. My jaw chattered as I pulled the plug and blew the candles.
“Coming.”
August stood at the bathroom door when I greeted him with the towel around my body.
“You’ve been in there for an hour.”
“I was taking a nap,” I said, turning the bathroom light off.
I didn’t make it a regular habit of sleeping in the bathtub, but sometimes after a busy day, it couldn’t be avoided, least not when you were adding all the essential oils to the tub.
Climbing into bed as August jumped in at the side. “Night,” he said, clawing at the sheet.
“Night.” I reached around in the darkness for my eye mask on the bedside table.
I wasn’t sure when I first woke in the night, but it left me breathless, it left me with a sense of deflation. I sucked deep and tore the eye mask up over my forehead to see August’s yellow eyes glowing at me.
“What happened?” he asked.
I wasn’t sure. “A nightmare,” I said, although I couldn’t recall anything happening in the dream, it was fleeting, and by the time I caught my breath, the brief memory had vanished. “Just a bad dream,” I reiterated, mainly for myself.
A heavy thudding came from the door when I woke next. Pulling my eye mask away to see the morning light break through the curtains and August scratching the duvet at my side, trying to bury his head.
The thundering knocks came once again.
“I thought you were supposed to protect me?” I said, tutting my tongue against the roof of my mouth.
“Who is it?” he asked, shivering.
I wasn’t sure who it was, but whoever it was better have a good reason for waking me at 7 A.M. even though I would’ve been waking within the hour.
Quickly, I wrapped my nightgown around myself and slipping my necklace over my head. The knocks came once again, this time I was already storming down the stairs. Through the glass panelling at the side of the door, I made out the figure of a man I didn’t expect to see at my house so early.
Forcing a smile as I opened the door. “Detective,” I said.
“Morning, Mrs Harkin,” he said, nodding his head.
I coughed loudly into a fist. “Waterhouse, Ms Waterhouse,” I corrected him.
“Aye, I’m sorry,” he said. “May I come in, I have some news.”
I glanced behind myself. Ideally, I didn’t want the man anywhere near my house, there was too much of value for him to look at. “I woke up, the house is a mess.”
“It’s Marissa,” he said.
My skin, already tingly. His eyes drooped, the way a dog would when they’d been chastised. But this wasn’t that, this was different. “Yes?”
“She’s dead.”
My tongue swelled in my throat, my eyes transfixed on him, my sweaty palm slicked around the door handle. “I—I—I—” I fell backward to the ground, my vision hazing as I stared up at the ceiling.
A Pinch of Death (Book 1) OUT NOW
ABOUT JESSICA LANCASTER
Jessica Lancaster grew up with a love for reading whodunnit and murder mystery novels, curled up with a cup of tea and the family cat. She now lives with her silver shorthair tabby Smog, and continues to devour crime fiction novels whole.
Named after Angela Lansbury’s character in “Murder, She Wrote”, Jessica Fletcher, she dreamed of a day to be her own sleuth in a series, and thus the beginning of her own adventures with Gwen Waterhouse in the Crystal Café Cozy Mystery series and Evanora Lavender in the Midnight Witch Cozy Mystery series.
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The Curse of Crescent Road Page 10