Pumpkins and Potions

by Tegan Maher

  Time ticked on as the plow started to clear the parking lot, and people from the party cleared the snow from between cars and off their tops with snow shovels, brooms, and whatever else they had on hand or borrowed from Beatrice.

  When I finally heard a scream from some back office, I let out a breath. I knew it was coming. Midnight was nearly upon us, and the parking lot was almost cleared.

  There was a part of me that had started to believe Beatrice was wrong, that no murder was going to happen. That I could collect my wages for bartending, trade numbers with Orin, and head on my way.

  The lights flickered back on. I was able to follow the calls for help through an open door, past the people hesitating in the hallways. Near the door, people were bunched up and refused to budge.

  From inside the room, Beatrice saw me waving my arms and commanded the crowd, “Let the bartender in. She is a monza and here to solve the murder.”

  “Way to blow my cover,” I muttered as the crowd parted, a whispered buzz rising in the crowd as my identity was passed on to those that might not have heard.

  I made my way into the room, and my stomach sank. Sara, David, Robert, and Karen were already there, standing over a sheet covering a body, specks of blood tarnishing the fabric. I kneeled down next to the body and pulled down the sheet to reveal Orin, his body covered in blood and his eyes wide with death. I leaned over and, with a shaky hand, closed them for him.

  10

  “Go on, tell us who did it,” Beatrice said, though I only heard her faintly in the distance.

  I couldn’t imagine why Orin was dead. I held a hand to his face, which was already cool under my touch, and a tear fell onto the carpeting. Beatrice had been right that by the end of the evening, I would care, but the problem was that I didn’t have a clue.

  “Everyone, out!” I commanded.

  Karen drew herself up. “Now, really, who do you think you—”

  I stood up and glared at her. “Out!”

  I don’t know if it was Beatrice pushing them out the door, my tone, or the magic I was already drawing around me, but the room emptied.

  Before Beatrice left, she whispered to me. “We only have a half an hour.”

  I nodded and looked for Patagonia, who was already at my side. I had asked everyone to leave so I could be alone. Magical abilities were like cards during a poker game. I wasn’t required to keep them close to my chest, but it was wise to do so if I wanted to have an advantage.

  I closed my eyes and searched for a vision. It was one of the first abilities that I had really learned to use when I discovered I was a mage. I might have written off the whole “magic” thing as conspiracy theories by weirdos, but there was no doubt that what I could see was real.

  If a person died from magic, the magic would imprint the murder on the scene. I would be able to see, hear, and sense everything else that happened from about a minute before the murder until the soul left the body. It would fade with time, but in this instance, it shouldn’t matter, as the death had only just happened. It had helped me solve murders many times in the past.

  But there was nothing for me to see, and I eventually opened my eyes. Pulling back the sheet farther, I found the ornate little sword bloody on the ground next to his body, either dropped by the killer or removed by the nurse that had tried to save him.

  “I’m so sorry, Orin.”

  “If my body is there, does that mean I’m a ghost?” Orin asked from behind the desk.

  I stumbled backward onto my butt before gaining my composure. I looked at Orin’s ghost. It wasn’t the first ghost I had seen, but it was the first time I had met one of a person I had known in life.

  Patagonia jumped onto the desk, and Orin scratched behind her ears. She liked him as much in death as she had in life.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “I feel really good, actually. Lighter and brighter. Rested and restored. But I think I need to be somewhere. Do you know where that is?” he asked.

  I realized that while he was easily recognizable, he was not exactly as I remembered him. He was not younger looking, he was just different. More himself. It was like all the parts of his personality that I had enjoyed in our conversations were now visible for me to see on the surface, as though every laugh and joke and kind word had changed the planes of his face.

  “I think you are supposed to cross over,” I replied. I was no expert, but I knew that some ghosts could be forced to stay through powerful magic or could be trapped, especially when there were wrongs that needed to be righted. Unsolved murders were at the top of the list of wrongs.

  I struggled with how to phrase my next question. I didn’t even want to ask, but the desire to help my new friend that I had liked so much was greater than my discomfort at the situation. I swallowed hard. “Orin, do you know who killed you?”

  He thought for a long time while petting Patagonia. “I don’t think I know. It is all fading, a bit like a dream I just awoke from. But if I concentrate, I believe I can remember. I was terribly upset about the things Karen said. She wasn’t right about me being less than them, but it was something I believed, so I was deeply hurt. And I was embarrassed that you, someone so special that I wanted to impress, heard. I worried that you might believe it. I ran back here to call a friend, and we were speaking when the lights went out. I set up a little magic light—I do that often when I travel—and continued talking. I was starting to feel better when the light I set was dispelled, then someone punched me hard several times.”

  “Punched you?” I didn’t want to contradict him, but I was reasonably sure that punches weren’t responsible for the blood that was covering the floor.

  His face scrunched up. “It felt like a punch… here”—he gestured to his rear flank then his front flank on the same side—“and here, for sure. I do remember looking down and seeing red then nothing after that. So I suppose I must have been stabbed, not punched. It hurt but not like dying-hurt. I really am sorry that I won’t be able to be friends with you.”

  I smiled back through tears. “Me too, but I will always think of you. If you didn’t see the person, perhaps you know who it was?” I asked hopefully.

  “I just don’t know. None of us were really fond of each other, but surely if that was all we needed to kill each other, it would have happened in boarding school. No, it must have been something I knew.”

  “Did you know about the affair between Sara and David?” I asked.

  He stopped petting Patagonia to lean forward and propped his chin on his fist, his elbow on the table. “No, I did not. Do tell.”

  “I caught them in one of the offices. She said she was leaving Robert tonight.”

  “Like, you caught them… you know?” He made a discreet but explicit motion.

  I snickered. “Unfortunately, yes.”

  He laughed as well. “I had no idea. She is not as innocent or dumb as I thought.”

  “David has apparently stolen most of Robert’s money as well. Tonight, Robert will lose his money and his wife.”

  The smile dropped. “Oh, I feel bad for him.”

  “Don’t feel too badly. He hit her. Apparently, she is bruised.”

  He gasped. “No! I had no idea he was that sort. Does that mean he hit Karen as well?”

  “I overheard Karen say that he never did, but she thought he was going to kill her once. That is when she ‘stopped in’ to see Sara.” I recounted the conversation in a bit more detail.

  He listened and nodded. “I don’t know if I can judge Karen. She genuinely feared for her life and rather used Sara as a shield. Though I don’t think she ever got over Robert. She still loved him. Oh, the human heart is so confusing. How was all of this going on around me and I didn’t know any of it?”

  “None of it? I guessed that you figured out one part of it, and whatever part you knew, you were killed for.”

  “I hate to admit it, but even in death, I had no clue about any of this. I don’t even think I spoke directly to anyone ot
her than you and Beatrice save for a polite ‘hello’ and ‘how are you,’ that sort of thing. Except the toast and my gift. Why am I dead?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”

  The door flew open, and Beatrice stuck her head inside. Being able to see and talk to ghosts was a somewhat rare ability, and I could tell it was clearly not one she had as she looked around. “Are you just sitting in here? Come on. The snow plow is almost done, and everyone has declared their intention to leave. You have to come right now and unmask the killer.”

  11

  I dragged myself down the hallway, and Orin came along behind me. “Do you know who did it?”

  “If it wasn’t something you knew, then it was something they thought you knew, and it came right after the gifts,” I muttered.

  “What is that, dear?” Beatrice asked over her shoulder as she slowed down.

  “Nothing, Beatrice, just practicing my speech.”

  Orin jogged ahead of me and then turned to walk backward down the hall. “You can’t screw this up. Just tell me who it was and why. Can I admit that I might have been a bit unkind in those wooden puzzles? I see that now. Karen did like cupcakes, but I knew she was sensitive about her weight, and David was the same about money. Sara was an actress, but she always wanted to be seen as an intellectual and saw acting as glorifying the fact that she had just a lovely face. And Robert’s really was a mix-up. I don’t know why I can’t keep my memories of Robert and Ryan straight.”

  “That’s it.” I stopped in the hallway to think over everything.

  “What?” Orin and Beatrice said in unison.

  I spoke to both at once. “Just sit back and watch, and you will understand everything.”

  I marched past both of them and into the room where everyone was waiting and searched the crowd until I found Robert. “You killed Orin.”

  He turned slowly to me, a cool smile on his face. “I don’t have a clue what you mean, and frankly, you have no authority here. I am just gathering up my things and leaving.”

  “I don’t think you want to do that, Ryan.”

  Most of the room exchanged confused glances and shrugs, my revelation lost on them.

  But Orin gasped and cried out, “Of course!”

  The only other person to react was Ryan, who had taken on his brother’s name, life, and inheritance nearly eighty years earlier. We locked eyes, and I knew that he saw in my eyes that it wasn’t a bluff. I knew the truth, and faster than I could react, the room was pitched into darkness.

  Since most people were not following the implications of my accusation, they were quiet. Several doors slammed, then came the loud airhorn of the snowplow, followed by the crash of something large crushing into metal, followed by silence.

  Ryan had been killed instantly when he darted out in front of the snowplow. The driver had attempted to turn at the last second, but in the dark with snow still blowing, he had misjudged and jerked the wheel too hard, still hitting Ryan and crushing him into Karen’s classic car.

  I hadn’t gone outside. I had seen enough death already, and there was nothing for me outside. Instead, I sat down with Beatrice to explain.

  “When Orin gave a gift clearly meant for Ryan to ‘Robert,’ Ryan thought Orin was being cheeky and implying that Orin knew who he really was. He took it as a threat. I realized that a lot of people had been mentioning all evening that Robert wasn’t who they thought he was. They had assumed he’d changed, but instead, it was Ryan trying to be Robert, and it destroyed him. He stole his family inheritance, which should have passed over him to the firstborn of the next generation. And he really believed that if he was outed, he would lose it all, so he killed Orin.”

  Beatrice sniffed. “Ryan was Orin’s biggest bully. He would think nothing of getting rid of Orin. Thank you. I will pay you later. I must make arrangements with the rest of the party. It is nearly time for the Luck Pumpkin.”

  “Oh, we can’t do that now. There were two deaths. It’s unseemly,” I declared.

  Beatrice just shook her head. “After what we have all experienced, I think we need the luck more than anything.”

  She left the room, leaving Orin’s ghost and me together. He had been quietly watching.

  “You’re still here,” I said.

  “I wanted to say thank you. I can already feel myself slipping away. Robert, or Ryan, I-ah, suppose, was the one person that I never could pin down correctly, so I should have known decades ago. I guess I did know on some level, since I was so sure the dog was the right gift. But I know I was right about you. You are special. I wish I could have known you better. Promise me that whenever you say something particularly witty, you will think of me?”

  “Of course,” I said through tears that blurred my vision.

  He came in close and kissed me on the forehead, leaving a chill resting there. “Thank you, my dear. I wish I could stay, but the curiosity is killing me. Something great is waiting for me on the other side.”

  He walked to the door and disappeared through it, leaving a puff of mist in the air behind him. Patagonia stood on her back paws to bat the mist, sending up little curling wisps that quickly dissolved.

  I noticed I was smiling, and my eyes dried. He was right. As he disappeared, I was overwhelmed by his joy, contentment, and even a hint of surprise. Whatever met him was better than anything he had ever imagined. And I was happy for him.

  Click here to find other books by Nikki Haverstock. http://nikkihaverstock.com/

  Nikki Haverstock is a writer who lives on a small ranch high in the Rocky Mountains. She has studied comedy writing at Second City and has published 13 cozy mysteries that are heavy on the humor.

  Before fleeing the city, she hosted a competitive archery reality show, traveled the world to study volcanoes, taught archery and computer science at a university and worked on her family’s ranch herding cattle. Nikki has more college degrees than she has sense and hopefully one day she will put one to work.

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  We Ain’t Afraid of No Ghosts!

  M.Z. Andrews

  While volunteering at the local Pumpkin Patch the week before Halloween, Mercy, Sweets, Jax, Alba, and Holly discover that someone (or something) has been going around Aspen Falls smashing pumpkins! When the pumpkin smashing hits a little too close to home, the girls decide to take matters into their own hands.

  Will a wrong turn the night of the fireman’s costume ball end up leading them in the right direction? Find out in this Witch Squad Cozy Mystery short-story – We Ain’t Afraid of No Ghosts!

  1

  “Tell me again why we’re doing this?” My roommate, Alba, handed a miniature pumpkin to a six-year-old boy with a runny nose.

  “It’s called volunteering, Alba,” Jax chastised. “It’s noble.”

  “And required,” I added with a sly grin.

  Our headmistress at the Paranormal Institute for Witches, Sorceress Dahlia Primrose, insisted that giving back to the community was an important part of teaching us to be mature, responsible witches. Accordingly, she’d made volunteer work a required component of our fall curriculum, and the reason why my roommates and I now stood in the middle of Beasley’s Pumpkin Patch, the week before Halloween, helping to chaperone the patch’s annual school visiting day.

  Children from the local school had been invited to tour the patch free of charge. They could go on hayrides through the pumpkin fields, get their faces painted, wander around the corn maze, ride horse-shaped bales of hay, or play on the tire swings. At the end of their visit, they were given a free miniature pumpkin to take home as well as a cookie and a juice box. It was the Beasleys’ way of giving back to the community, and Sorceress Primrose
had been quite emphatic in pointing that out to our class.

  When the little boy who had just taken the pumpkin from Alba wiped his nose with his shirtsleeve, leaving a trail of snot across his cheek, Alba’s face screwed up into a grimace. “Ugh. You can get sick just by looking at one of these things, you know.”

  At the other end of our line, Holly looked down at the pumpkin in her hand. Her nose wrinkled. “You can?”

  “Not the pumpkins, Cosmo. The kids!”

  Ignoring Alba’s grumbles, Jax plucked her own pumpkin from the red wheelbarrow between them. Before leaning over to hand it to a little boy whose face had been painted to look like a spider, Jax gasped and took a dramatic leap backwards, cowering behind me. “Oh, girls, it’s a spider! I’m deathly afraid of spiders!”

  The little boy giggled. Putting both hands in the air, he curled his fingers and roared at Jax.

  “Ahh,” she fake-screamed. “Don’t let him get me, Mercy! Save me!”

  A little blond pigtailed girl beside the boy rolled her eyes. “He’s not a real spider. Spiders don’t growl.” She shoved him and he dropped to his hands and knees in the crunchy leaves. “See? He’s just a boy. His name’s Trent and he’s six.”

  Trent scrambled to his feet and sent a scathing scowl in the blond girl’s direction. “Darby, that’s so mean. I’m telling Mrs. P you pushed me.”

  Jax frowned at the little girl. “Darby, it’s not nice to push. You should apologize to Trent.”

  “But he scared you. And he was lying, he’s not a real spider.”

  Jax gave her a soft, patient smile. “I know he’s not a real spider. I was only pretending to be afraid like he was only pretending to be a spider.”