Pumpkins and Potions

by Tegan Maher

  “Meetcha back at home,” I said.

  We were almost to our cars when Tamara let out a sigh. “Looks like Jack left me a note.”

  I gave her a squeeze around her waist then looked over at her car three spaces down from mine. “You okay? Want me to get it?”

  “Would you?”

  “You bet.”

  We strolled over to her car, and reaching out, I dislodged and read the note aloud. “I know he took it. Your boyfriend is dead if he doesn’t give it back.”

  Neither of us spoke for about three seconds.

  “What the heck?” I demanded. “What’s going on? Is this about Jack?”

  “I don’t know,” Tamara admitted. “I guess so. But I don’t know what they’re talking about. Give what back?”

  I turned and looked her in the eye. “What’s going on? Why were you two arguing?”

  She sighed and laid her head on my shoulder. “You were right about him. I mean, I knew it deep down, but I wanted to believe him when he said he’d changed.” I waited silently for her to continue. “I caught him making out with Dawnya.”

  I sputtered. “Dawnya? You mean Dawnya from the Dairy Drive? What is she, twelve?”

  Tamara laughed. “Twenty.”

  “What a dirt bag. Want to put a spell on him tonight?” I wiggled my fingers in the air. “Maybe a little hex?”

  “No.” Tamara opened her car door. “Maybe?”

  I laughed. “That’s my girl! I’ll get out the spell book when we get home and see what we can come up with.”

  3

  I was more than a little shocked the next day when Tamara barreled through the front door of our bakery. Last night, after a long crying jag and a bottle of wine, she decided it would be better if she stayed home and baked the pies if I was sure I could open and close without her.

  “What I wouldn’t give to snap his pretty little neck,” Tamara growled as she cut the line in half, circled the counter, and grabbed her apron off a peg.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  I saw the eager faces looking for a morsel of gossip to take with them along with their goodies, but there was no sense trying to keep Tamara from venting. It wouldn’t do any good.

  “What’s going on is that Jack stopped by to get some of his things he left at our house,” she replied tersely as she tied the apron behind her. “And I wanted nothing to do with him.”

  “Good for you girl,” Millie Thornewhistle said. “That boy ain’t nothin’ but trouble. Always has been. I taught him all four years of high school English. The boy never could focus long enough to finish a story. Why should his life be any different?”

  I blinked in surprise. Mrs. Thornewhistle was probably on to something with that line of thought.

  “You left him alone at your house?” Rose Winterbourne asked. “That’s awful trusting of you. I’ll take a Samhain Soul Cake and an espresso to go.”

  Tamara turned to make the espresso while I gathered up Rose’s soul cake, put it in a bag, and handed it to her then turned to the next customer.

  “I took precautions, Rose. It’s okay.” Tamara slid the espresso to Rose, rang her up, then turned to make the next drink.

  We worked side by side for a few minutes, neither of us talking, rushing around and getting orders filled.

  “I don’t want to talk out of turn,” Berta Caston said, “but I think you should know, Tamara, that I recently overheard Daisy tell someone that Jack stole something from her and she wanted it back. It might not be wise to leave him alone at your house.”

  I frowned. “Daisy accused Jack of stealing?”

  “I’ve heard the same thing,” another lady whose name I couldn’t place spoke up. “I don’t know what it was, but she said he stole it and she wants it back.”

  Just like the note from last night said.

  Fifteen minutes later, after the customers had cleared out for the lunch rush, I leaned against the counter and smiled at Tamara. “You doing okay?”

  Her lower lip trembled. “I think so.”

  “Did you get the pies baked?”

  “I have two left. I’ll pop them in the oven when we get home.” She swiped at a tear in the corner of her eye. “I just couldn’t stay there any longer. He tried to give me some song and dance about how he was in big trouble, and he just needed a place to lay low.”

  “Did you tell him about the note on your car?” I asked.

  “No. I didn’t want to hear his lies anymore, so I told him to just get his stuff and get out. To be on the safe side, I put a ward over the house so he couldn’t take anything out that wasn’t his. Then I left.”

  “Good riddance.”

  Tamara snorted. “I could use a stiff drink.”

  “You know the strongest elixir we have here is black coffee.”

  “How about a double mocha?”

  I shrugged. “Why not. We’ve earned it. I think we’ve also earned an early day.” I started making the mocha. “Whaddya say we close early and go home and bake those last two pies? Maybe even have a glass of wine before we get ready to go to the festival tonight?”

  Tamara grinned. “Sounds good.”

  I’d just handed her the mocha when her phone dinged.

  “It’s a text from Jack,” she said.

  “What’s it say?”

  She gasped and tears filled her eyes. “Lucy look up.”

  My face went hot, and I had to take a couple deep breaths to calm down. When I got angry, my powers tended to surge. And that was never good. My dad died in a boating accident before I was born, and all I really knew about him was that on top of being a witch, his side also had dragon in their bloodline. Hence the last name Spellburn. Fire was my element.

  “Give me that phone,” I said between clenched teeth.

  “What’re you going to do?” Tamara asked as she reluctantly handed it over. More than once I’d let my hot head get control of me and Tamara had to rein me back in.

  “Give him a piece of my mind.” I quickly typed back the response: “Wrong girl, jerk! This isn’t Lucy.”

  A few seconds later another text from Jack. “I am my namesake.”

  I quickly typed back: “What? Jack the Destroyer? Jack the Homewrecker? Jack the Jerk? Don’t bother Tamara again, or I’ll make sure fire rains down from heaven onto you!”

  Another text. “I’m sorry.”

  My reply: “You’re gonna be sorry if you contact us again!” I handed her back the phone. “That should get rid of him once and for all.”

  4

  Tamara and I lived in a two-bedroom rental cottage about fifteen minutes from the bakery. There’s a half acre in the back to grow our own herbs and have both a vegetable garden and flower garden. Which is exactly what a green witch like Tamara needed.

  “I don’t feel him inside.” I unlocked the front door and probed the protection ward. If there was anything amiss inside the house, I would know. “He must be gone.”

  Our two cats, Hocus and Pocus, greeted us with stern meows…letting us know they were ready to be fed. “I’ll feed them. You turn on the oven and get it ready to go.”

  It was a little after two. Plenty of time to bake the pies, change into our costumes, and be at the festival by six.

  “What nursery rhyme character will you go as now?” I asked.

  The theme for the Samhain Celebration this year was nursery rhymes. That meant everyone would come dressed as their favorite character. Tamara and Jack were going as Jack and Jill…but not anymore.

  “I’ve decided on Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary.” She gave me a devious grin and handed me a glass of wine. “The bloodthirsty version.”

  I laughed. The thing about nursery rhymes, they were typically cloaked in half-truths and hidden meanings. The version Tamara was referring to was the reference of Mary Tudor or Bloody Mary as she was known.

  “But don’t worry,” Tamara said, “I don’t want to scare kids, so I’ll carry flowers from the garden and not thumbscrews and other tort
ure devices.”

  “Very big of you,” I deadpanned. “I’d hate for another bloody mishap like last year to follow us around for months afterward.”

  Laughing, Tamara slipped the two unbaked pies into the oven and set the timer.

  “I’m proud of you.” I filled the sink with water and squirted in a dollop of dishwashing soap. “It would have been easy to be sucked back in by Jack’s persuasive nature. I’m glad you left when you did.”

  “Thanks. You don’t have to do those dishes. I made the mess after all, it’s only fair I do them. Besides, you know how much I love to look out the window and admire my garden.”

  I snorted. “Braggart. No, you sit down at the table and keep me company. I’ll do them up real quick.”

  “How about I top off our wine?”

  I held my glass out to her, took a sip, then slipped a bowl, a measuring cup, and a spatula down into the sudsy water. Picking up the rag, I grabbed the spatula and started to wash, gazing out the window into the garden. Tamara was right…it was a peaceful scene to view.

  Squinting, I lowered the spatula back into the sink and leaned closer to the window.

  “What’s the matter?” Tamara asked. “What’re you looking at? Do I have new blooms on the rose bushes?”

  I sucked in my breath and turned to her. Whatever look was on my face must have been telling, because Tamara stood from the table. “What’s wrong? Oh my gosh! What? You’re scaring me!”

  “Call 911! Now!”

  “What?” Tamara demanded. “Why?”

  Without another word, I took off toward the back door, flung it open, and sprinted to the garden. When I got two feet from the body, I stopped dead in my tracks.

  “I’ve called 911,” Tamara yelled from the back door. “They want to know the emergency.”

  I could hear her voice getting closer. There was no way she could see this. Turning, I put my hands out to stop her. “Don’t! Don’t come any closer, Tamara. I mean it.”

  “What? Why? The operator needs to know what…”

  She looked around me and stared in horror at the crumpled body of Jack Luckett lying face down in the garden between the rose bushes and the daisies. Next to him lay one of our cobblestone pavers. Opening her mouth, she let out a blood-curdling scream that would make any B-movie scream queen green with envy.

  I barely had enough time to catch her before she hit the ground in a dead faint.

  5

  Detective Grant Wolfe arrived five minutes after the entire Enchanted Island Police Department. And yes, every cop showed up. All three of them plus Chief Hawkins.

  I vaguely remembered Grant Wolfe from when he was a young teenager visiting his grandparents on the island. The last time I’d seen him he was probably thirteen or fourteen years old. Time had definitely been good to him. Gone was the slightly awkward teenaged boy with a shy smile…and in his place was a man with an athlete’s body, broad shoulders, and handsome face.

  I wasn’t sure why Grant and his parents stopped coming to the island when Grant became a teenager, but I figured it had something to do with the whole unfortunate mess of how Grant’s dad came to be raised on Enchanted Island. And I only knew the story because my mom told me when I mentioned one summer that Grant was no longer coming for visits.

  Grant’s dad, Walter, had been raised on the island by Tom and Linda Wolfe. Tom’s younger brother, Walter’s biological father, chose to leave the island when he was just eighteen. The wolf gene had skipped over him, and he never felt he belonged on the island. So he left for the mainland, met and married a human woman, and a couple years later they had Walter. Unfortunately, they died when Walter was five, and so he came to the island to live with Tom and Linda. It was a known fact that Walter didn’t inherit the wolf gene either. I assumed that meant Grant was more human than werewolf.

  “I’m going to have you stay here in the living room, Ms. Spellburn,” Grant said, “while I speak to your roommate in the kitchen.”

  Tamara’s huge eyes found mine, and I could read the fear in them. I said a calming spell under my breath and pushed it to her. Immediately I saw the change in her demeanor. She mouthed “thank you” to me and followed along passively as Grant led her into the kitchen.

  Thirty minutes later, notebook clutched in his hand, he strode back into the living room and sat next to me on the couch. Hocus and Pocus wound their bodies around his legs and meowed loudly.

  “Been a long time,” I said quietly. “Do you remember me?”

  His hard brown eyes met mine. “I do. Vaguely. I think you were eleven or so the last time I saw you.”

  I smiled wanly. “Probably.”

  “You okay? Do you need a glass of water or something? I left Tamara in the kitchen with one of the other officers. They seemed to know each other, and he was getting her some water.”

  “No thanks. Let’s just get this over with.”

  “First, I want you to tell me what you did today from the time you got up until the time you discovered the body. It was you who technically discovered the body, right?”

  “Yes.”

  And so I went through my whole day from sun up until the time I caught Tamara in my arms before she went down.

  “Let’s talk about the argument in the town hall parking lot yesterday, and then I want to ask you about those texts from the deceased a little more.”

  I groaned. “Did Tamara tell you about the parking lot fight?”

  He shook his head. “It’s a small island. I knew about the fight this morning by ten. I didn’t know the couple was Tamara and Jack, but it was definitely the topic of conversation wherever I went this morning.”

  “Dang gossipers,” I grumbled.

  “Tell me what you saw,” he said.

  “I pulled in a couple slots away from Tamara. I saw her and Jack. I lifted my arm in greeting because I had a coffee for her, but I could tell from the look on her face she was upset. Then others started arriving.”

  “Who?”

  “Let’s see. Daisy was already there because she works there, but Martin Wulfton and Rose Winterbourne were there for the meeting.”

  “The meeting with Mayor Stone?”

  “Yes.” I thought about that. “I think you should know two women, Daisy Woods and Rose Winterbourne, are furious with Jack. They pretty much all but threatened his life in my presence, and both women were at city hall yesterday.”

  Jack nodded and wrote their names down. “I think Tamara mentioned maybe one or both came into the shop today and said something about Jack.”

  I frowned. “I think today in the shop was Rose. Did Tamara tell you about the note left on her windshield after the meeting yesterday?”

  “Yes.”

  “Daisy works at city hall, and Rose attended the meeting. Both had access to Tamara’s car.”

  “Do you still have the note?”

  “It’s in my car,” I said. “Do you want me to go get it?”

  “No. I’ll have one of the officers do that. The less you handle it the better. Maybe we can get prints from it.”

  I grimaced. “Yeah, I thought about that after I read the note.”

  He smiled. “Well, you probably don’t get a lot of crime on Enchanted Island, do you?”

  “No. Almost never.” I blew out a sigh. “But, still, I did know better. In fact, if my cousin, Shayla, found out what I’d done, she’d never let me live it down. She’s a detective, too.”

  He frowned. “I don’t remember you having a cousin named Shayla.”

  “She didn’t grow up on this island,” I said. “She lived on a different island. Still does.”

  “Let’s talk about the text messages Jack sent Tamara,” he said. “About what time was that?”

  I scrunched my forehead in concentration. “I’d say around one-thirty since we arrived home a little after two. We closed the bakery early and came home to get ready for tonight.” I frowned. “Don’t you know the time of the text? I mean, didn’t you look at Tamara’s cell p
hone?”

  “Yes. I just wondered if you knew the time.”

  I rolled my eyes. “And I suppose you read the texts?”

  The faintest hint of a smile played at the corners of his mouth. “I did. Tamara says you were the responder to the texts.”

  I straightened my spine and lifted my chin. “That’s right. So you can’t pin that on Tamara. That was all me. Look, there’s no way Tamara could hurt Jack, much less kill him. It’s just not possible. She’s a green witch. Heck, she’s not even your typical green witch. She’s more like—like—I don’t know. I used to tease her when we were little that her family was more like hippie do-gooder witches. I mean, Tamara sets traps around the house for goodness sake. Even for spiders! She refuses to kill flies! She literally cannot hurt a fly. So there’s no way she killed Jack.”

  I ran out of steam, took a deep breath, and was about to go into another tirade, when Grant held up his hand. “I never said I thought Tamara killed Jack.”

  I jerked back in surprise. “What? You don’t?”

  “At this point, I’m merely getting information. I know the deceased and your roommate used to go out. They recently broke up rather publicly, he came here to get his things, she left. She went to the bakery you both own, served up orders, the two of you decided to close early, and then you start getting odd text messages from Jack. Does that sound about right?”

  “Yes.” I could hear the weariness in my voice. “I mean, that sounds about right.”

  “You’ve also told me that Tamara received a threatening note on her windshield yesterday, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not saying I believe or don’t believe Tamara,” he said, “but I do have to ask myself, if Tamara had killed Jack while he was here this afternoon getting his things…then who sent the cryptic text messages later on?”

  6

  My mouth dropped open. “Oh, I hadn’t thought about that. I mean, I guess it does sort of prove that Jack was alive when Tamara left.” The relief and joy that flooded my body was immense. “That’s great news!”