by Silver Nord
I looked carefully at the detective and noticed that there was a sombre seriousness behind his grey eyes. Something told me that he hadn’t made the journey through the forest just to check up on me and hand over the latest gossip… he was here for a different reason.
“She’s upstairs working on the shop’s accounts. She says it helps her to relax,” I said, before realising I was waffling. I was trying to figure out what on earth the detective could possibly want with her. “Aunt Minerva!” I called, keeping my eyes on the detective when I shouted towards the stairs that led up from the kitchen area.
I heard the sound of footsteps and knew she was coming down.
“What’s this about?” I quickly asked Sean, hoping that he would give me a heads-up as to what was going on. Maybe I didn’t get out enough or socialise with anyone who wasn’t a complete pain in the neck (Jesse Heathen, I’m looking at you!) but I considered DCI Admiral a friend these days. We’d been through both good and bad times together.
Okay - mostly bad. But those times had brought us closer to one another.
His grey eyes filled with regret. I knew he wasn’t going to let the truth slip before he did whatever it was he’d come here to do.
“How can I help you, Detective?” Minerva asked when she arrived in the shop and saw the serious faces. “Hazel told us that she found a man in the forest who’d met an unfortunate end.”
“That’s what I’m here about,” Sean said, sounding exceedingly reluctant. “I believe the deceased in question might have been an acquaintance of yours. His driver’s licence gave his name as Jon Leroux.”
It was as though Minerva had seen one of the ghosts my earlier visitors had been so desperate to find. Her face turned chalky and she clutched a hand to her heart. “I wondered why he didn’t turn up for our date last night,” she murmured. “My poor, sweet Jon. Who would do such a thing to him?”
“Date?!” I said before trying to look as though it wasn’t shocking at all.
A single crease appeared on my aunt’s forehead. “Linda isn’t the only one who has a life outside of this family. I can date! I can even fall in love and get engaged. It’s not my fault that neither of you bother to notice these things!” She flashed a ring I definitely hadn’t seen on her finger before.
My jaw felt like it might actually hit the floor. “You’ve been hiding that!” I knew I wasn’t that unobservant. The spell of concealment must have slipped my notice.
Minerva looked guilty. “Well, I was going to tell you soon. I was just waiting to make sure that I was sure. It was a whirlwind romance, but when you know… you know.” She sighed. “I don’t know what I’ll do without him. Our happy ending has already been taken from us.” She looked over at DCI Admiral. “Is there anything more I can do? I can’t help feeling that this is partially my fault. He never would have come to town if I hadn’t asked him to. We were going to get married as soon as possible and find a place to live. Linda would have been so jealous when she found out.”
Sean adjusted his mud-streaked collar and cleared his throat, shooting an awkward look in my direction. “I need to ask if you can confirm that you wrote this note.” He held up a piece of notepaper I immediately recognised as coming from the set of stationary that Aunt Minerva had warned Aunt Linda to never touch and Aunt Linda had made multiple paper aeroplanes out of.
My Love,
I hate to be parted from you. I know we haven’t been together long, but I am so glad we found each other - just two likeminded people who know what they want in life. I look forward to you coming to Wormwood soon and enclose my address. No need to call when you come, surprise me. I will look to the horizon every day until the day you come back to me.
Until then…
Always yours,
Minerva xxx
I grimaced at the surprising outpouring of emotion from my aunt. I knew that this was not a message she would have wanted anyone but the intended recipient to see.
“Yes… that is mine. Heavens… was he carrying it when he died?! Now I feel even worse!”
“Thank you for confirming that. I’m afraid that it is my solemn duty to inform you that this note arrived at the Witchwood Police Station this morning, enclosed in a box of freshly cut aconite. Is there anything you’d like to confess?”
Minerva suddenly looked alarmed. “Are you saying he was poisoned? Hazel said that he was stabbed!”
Sean threw me another look that said I should have kept my mouth shut. “The autopsy is in progress. We will know the truth soon enough, but the fact remains that this looks like a confession of guilt. Did you send the flowers and note to the police station? Perhaps Mr Leroux was having second thoughts about your union and you couldn’t bear to let him go?”
“Sean!” I protested, shocked by what he was implying. “It’s obvious that someone has it in for her… and for Jon Leroux, too,” I added, remembering that he’d wound up dead in Wormwood River. “The note and the flowers are probably the killer’s attempt to frame my aunt. Even the plant conveniently placed in his pocket was exceedingly suspicious. Come on… he probably wasn’t even poisoned!”
Sean was looking more grim by the second. “Unfortunately, we don’t have the toxicology report back yet. It was actually due two hours ago, but…” He looked at his phone and shook his head. “Due to the ongoing nature of this investigation and the way the evidence looks at this point in time, I’m afraid I’m going to need to bring you in for further questioning.”
“What if I say no?” Minerva asked, looking surprisingly rebellious for the sensible one in the family.
“Then I’ll be forced to arrest you. In truth, I should probably be arresting you due to the evidence, but it’s a long walk to make in handcuffs back through the forest. Do you have an alibi for the evening and night of June 14th?” He looked hopefully at us both.
Minerva shook her head. “I went to bed early, but I’m sure it would have been very feasible for me to have sneaked out. Hazel was patrolling the forest and Linda was… Actually, I don’t know where she was, but I certainly don’t want to ask.”
“So, there’s no one who can vouch for your whereabouts,” Sean concluded, shooting an apologetic look in my direction.
I ignored him. This was just too ridiculous.
“It’s a long walk back to Witchwood. Unless you know a better way, we’d better start walking,” he said, leading my aunt away to be questioned over the murder of her secret fiancé.
4
This Means War
“Minerva had a secret fiancé?” Aunt Linda said when she arrived back in the shop half an hour after Minerva had been taken by DCI Admiral.
I was still reeling from the shock of what had happened. I’d managed to explain everything that had transpired to my other aunt, but she didn’t seem to be focusing on the important part.
“She’s basically been arrested for murder! We’ve got to do something. Someone is clearly trying to frame her,” I said, hoping to get Linda to focus.
“Was he cute?” she asked.
I did some blinking before I realised she was talking about the dead man in the river. “Not when I saw him,” I replied, opting for the honest truth.
Linda shrugged. “Minerva never went for the cute guys anyway. She prefers them to have a good brain, or a personality, or something boring like that.”
“He had tattoos and piercings,” I said, frowning at the memory. There’d been something else, too. Something I’d forgotten…
“Tattoos?” Linda let out a low whistle. “Go Minerva! She must have hit her mid-life crisis at last. It usually happens around the century mark.”
“He was wearing a wedding ring,” I said, managing to extract the observation from my memory.
“So? Oh… they weren’t married yet, were they?”
I shook my head.
“Hmmm. Who knows? Maybe he was divorced. At our age, most people have at least one marriage under their belt,” Linda pointed out.
“We need to mak
e sure she’s okay. I don’t even know if they’ll get out and then back into Wormwood again. The barrier is getting worse.” I sighed. “And we don’t have a clue about how to stop any of it from happening. Minerva was our best…” I trailed off, remembering who I was talking to.
Linda just rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Minerva was always the golden child. I’m the fun one. Speaking of fun… three tourists came into the bakery asking about some ghost stories that I never told you. I made some things up and sent them on their way. Was that the right thing to do?”
“Ah…” I’d completely forgotten about the ghost hunters in the midst of all the drama. “What did you tell them?”
“Oh, you know… this and that,” Linda said, heavily implying that she’d said some things I would definitely disapprove of.
“At least tell me you didn’t say anything about going into Wormwood Forest?” I’d hoped that by specifying ‘stories about haunted buildings’ to the ghost hunters they wouldn’t even have asked her about the forest.
“Of course I didn’t do that!” Linda said, completely unconvincingly.
I opened my mouth to press her for more information about where I might need to go looking for the hapless hunters. Someone needed to stop them from being dragged into the dark dimension by a monster fishing through a tear. Before I could start the interrogation, the shop door opened a crack and a sorry-looking black shape slunk inside.
“Hemlock!” I said, delighted to see my missing familiar. “I was so worried,” I confessed. What they said about absence making the heart grow fonder was true. Normally, I’d have jumped at the chance for a holiday from Hemlock’s antics.
“Oh really? Why is there no ‘Welcome Home Hemlock!’ banner?” he complained.
“What were you up to?” I asked, in a lot firmer tones. The shine had already worn off. “You weren’t trying to restart your ridiculous cult, were you?” The Cult of Hemlock had been Hemlock’s alarmingly effective attempt to scam people on the internet into believing he was some sort of Dark Lord and Master… before asking them to cough up money for the privilege of becoming a follower.
“Firstly, one day you’ll regret being the one responsible for attempting to disband The Dark Lord’s loyal followers, and secondly, it’s none of your business!” I was told as Hemlock tried to slink suspiciously onwards without ever turning to face me properly.
It was then that I realised he had two extra pairs of tiny legs poking out beneath him. With mounting suspicion, I stepped in front of the cat, blocking his way into the kitchen and revealing what he’d been trying to hide from me all along.
“Who is this?” I asked, looking down at the small black kitten with big blue eyes.
“He’s so cute!” Linda interjected, cooing over the new arrival.
“Uh… no one. Just a, uh, foster kitten I’m taking under my wing. Out of the goodness of my heart.”
I tapped my foot impatiently. “The truth. Spill it, or no more cheese strings… ever!”
Hemlock muttered something about opposable thumbs going to my head and thinking it made me ruler of the universe. “I want you to know that I had no idea that this was even possible. Had I known…”
“…You’d have probably done it anyway,” I finished, not having a high opinion of my familiar’s morals. I’d already guessed the truth. “You’ve only been gone six days! How is it even possible that you’ve got a kitten? Were there others?” I looked anxiously behind him but didn’t see any other black shapes.
“It’s just like I said, I didn’t even know until this crazy lady cat turned up in the back garden and told me that this kitten was mine. The others have already found good homes with loving families. This one was more troublesome.” He glanced down at the small black kitten, and unless I was much mistaken, he looked nervous.
“Are you sure?” I asked him.
Hemlock looked as guilty as a cat can look. “Where do you think he gets the troublesome streak from?”
There was that nervous look again.
I considered asking him what, exactly, was so troublesome about this innocent-looking kitten but to tell the truth, I imagined I was better off not knowing. I doubted there was a thing I could do about it anyway.
“He’s your responsibility now,” I informed Hemlock, silently thinking that it might do him some good to have a taste of his own pain-in-the-butt medicine. “Does he have a name?”
My familiar looked thoughtful. “Hemlock Junior?”
I shook my head once and very definitely.
“Ripper?” he tried again.
I crossed my arms.
“Supreme Rul-“
“Hemlock!” I warned him.
He looked down at his paws, his green eyes thoughtful.
Erebus sauntered over and casually licked Hemlock’s head, making his fur stand up on end.
“Urgh. Now I need to condition and style all over again,” my familiar muttered. “What? You say you once knew a hellhound called Brimstone?” Hemlock looked hopefully up at me.
The little kitten suddenly meowed, causing us all to stare at him.
Hemlock looked at the kitten for a long time. “Really? You really want to be called that? I dunno… seems kind of pompous to me.”
“What name?” I asked, not expecting much. But it wouldn’t be hard to improve upon the suggestions thus far.
“Artemis. Stuffy, isn’t it?” Hemlock said. “How are we related?”
The kitten stuck his small, pink tongue out at his father. “Gah!”
Hemlock protested.
“That’s a good, strong name,” I told the kitten. “I think you’ll carry it well.”
The small black kitten purred proudly and walked over to me, rubbing himself against my leg. I picked him up and smiled at his tiny face. “I like you more than your father already.”
“I second that!” Aunt Linda agreed.
“Hey!” Hemlock protested, looking hissy.
I stuck my own tongue out at him. “What kind of familiar doesn’t tell his witch that he’s going to disappear for six days with a kitten? What were you even doing during that time? You said his mother handed him over to you in the back garden.”
“We needed some father and son bonding time. I wanted to be sure that he was a chip off the old block.”
“And is he?” I asked, already sensing the truth.
“Uh, yes,” Hemlock said, still looking alarmed.
I felt a strong sense of foreboding when I looked at the kitten sitting in my palm. Those big blue eyes seemed to promise that he’d be no trouble at all, but there was surely a reason why he’d been classed as ‘troublesome’.
I sighed and placed him back on the floor. “Erebus and Hemlock, Artemis is your responsibility. I trust you will raise him to be a good cat the way I tried and failed to raise you to be the same.” I bit my lip. “Hey, maybe you can learn from my utter failure.”
“What?! I’m perfect!” Hemlock protested as Erebus wandered over to sniff the kitten. His long tongue flopped out of his mouth in his usual greeting. Quick as a flash, there was a crackle of electricity. Erebus ran yelping. The scent of singed hair rose into the air.
“Troublesome. I’m starting to see what you mean,” I said, looking a lot more warily at the kitten. “Well… best of luck.”
I turned around so he wouldn’t see me smiling. Ha! Something told me this would be good for Hemlock. It was high time that he was the one looking after a self-righteous youngster with a penchant for trouble.
“We could always n-e-u-t-e-r him,” Hemlock suggested. “Ouch!” he said a moment later when the crackle of static sounded again. “How do you even know how to spell that word? Am I bald? Did he make me bald?!” I turned in time to see him anxiously pawing his head with his paw. There was a small, pink hairless patch at the centre of his head. It made him look like a cat who’d joined a religious sect.
I covered my mouth with my hand as I fought the urge to laugh.
“You might want to get
into wearing hats,” Linda told him with a straight face.
Hemlock was still threatening to curse us both with whatever he could get the spell book to open its pages to when the shop door burst open. It hit the wall with so much force that the glass pane cracked.
I was about to say some choice words to the careless visitors, when I realised they weren’t our next customers. Not unless our next customers had decided to dress up in balaclavas and bring along some very real-looking guns.
Guns that were pointing our way.
“Get Artemis out of here,” I hissed at Hemlock as I quickly assessed the situation.
“Why? He’ll be fine. I’m the one who needs to worry. These armed hooligans might tell people about my bald patch!”
I risked looking away from the shop invaders to shoot Hemlock a glare. I used my bond with Erebus to ask him to get them both out of here. I’d been hoping to keep him in the shop with us - nothing beat an invisible attacker - but unlike some cats, I did have a sense of responsibility.
“What can we do for you today?” Aunt Linda asked, smiling at the balaclava wearers the same way she would any customer.
“We want you to open the safe,” a female voice said. The group leader stepped forwards. Even though her face was covered, I thought she was smiling.
“What safe?” Linda and I said at the exact same time.
“Cute. We have guns, and we aren’t here to mess around,” the leader said.
I drew magic into my hand as I used witch sight to see if there were any more unwelcome surprises beyond the guns this group carried. It was a good thing I took the precaution.
The group of five glowed brighter than a Christmas tree.
They were powerful magic users putting it on full display to intimidate those who looked for it. The guns were just there to make sure.
Linda gave me a look that said: ‘We could take them’. I wasn’t as certain. With the guns in play it was too close to call. There was a strong possibility we’d end up with more holes than a colander.