Pumpkins and Potions

by Tegan Maher

  “So you closed up the shop. Where was the potion recipe then?”

  “It should have been in the safe,” Frances replied. I told everyone it was time to go, and they started heading off. Johnny called up for me then—he was in the basement doing inventory and needed to know how many bottles of Flaming Dragonbreath had upstairs—and I closed up shop afterward. This morning I came down and got ready to make the potion for the day, and that was when I realized the recipe was missing.”

  “Hm,” I said, frowning. “When was the last time you saw it? Are you sure it was in the safe at closing?”

  “Well, I checked it about thirty minutes before we closed, and it was there,” Frances said. “Unless we’re very busy, which we rarely are that close to closing, I count up the money for the following day’s float and put the rest in a deposit bag for the bank, and toss it into the safe. I’m one hundred percent sure I saw the potion recipe when I locked up the money.”

  “Ok, so sometime between the end of the night and this morning someone stole the recipe that was in the safe. Was there any sign of a break in?”

  “None,” Frances replied. “And they wouldn’t have been able to get into the safe, regardless. Every night after we close up I cast a ward on the safe that prevents anyone who’s not me from getting through until the morning. If anyone even so much as tries to get in or cast a spell to get rid of the ward an alarm next to my bed rings.”

  “When exactly did you cast the ward?”

  “After I closed up. I put the float for the next day in the safe, wrote down how much was in it, closed the door and set the ward.”

  “So all of the customers had left at that point?”

  “Oh, yes,” Frances said, nodding. Then, she paused. “Wait, you can’t think one of them did it, can you?”

  I shrugged. “From where I’m sitting, it sounds like the best opportunity to steal the potion recipe would have been those few minutes while you were downstairs with Johnny, and that means it would have had to be one of them.”

  “But it can’t be. Ken is a drunk, but he’s harmless. Julianne is a nice student. And Kelly and Keri-Lynn are just two young witches making their way in the world. I can’t imagine any of them stealing it. Any why would they?”

  As if right on cue, Frances’ phone binged just then, indicating that she’d received a text message. She pulled out the phone and her face went white. She slid the phone across the counter to me, and I picked it up to read what she’d just received.

  I have your potion recipe. If you ever want to get it back, leave one hundred thousand abras in small bills in the garbage cans by Lake Cyrene tonight at midnight. Do not go to the police, or the recipe will disappear forever.

  A moment later a picture showed up; it was obviously of the recipe, with the ingredients and instructions all blacked out.

  I passed the phone back to Frances, who looked at the picture.

  “That’s it,” she said. “That’s the photo. What am I going to do? I don’t have a hundred thousand abras. I mean, I have some savings, sure, but nowhere near that much. And I could refinance the house, but that would take days, maybe even weeks. Oh, Ali, you have to find the potion recipe.”

  Tears welled in Frances’ eyes.

  “I know,” I told her. “It’s such an important recipe for you.”

  “It’s not just about how much money it brings in, and the tourists it attracts to town. It’s a part of our family’s history, you know? My great-great-great-great-great grandmother was the one who created the recipe, and it’s been handed down generation to generation since. If it meant I could never sell another glass of pumpkin punch in this bar I’d be fine with that, as long as I could give the recipe to my daughter.”

  I nodded. “Ok. Look, don’t panic, ok? I want you to text the paranormal back and tell them you can get the money, but it’s going to take you a few days, as you don’t have the funds in liquid form. See what happens.”

  Frances nodded and picked up the phone, her hands trembling slightly. She typed a reply, pressed the send button, then closed her eyes and sighed as the sound of the text sending reached my ears.

  “It’s going to be ok,” I told her.

  “What if they come back and say that’s not acceptable?” Frances asked.

  “Then I’ll just have a few hours to find the recipe,” I replied with what I hoped was a comforting smile.

  The two of us waited with bated breath for a response, and a moment later the phone binged again.

  “He says two days,” Frances said, releasing a long breath. “Same time, but two days from now instead of tonight.”

  “Ok, that gives me about sixty hours to work with,” I replied. “Maybe try and get the money anyway. If the paranormal who stole the potion finds out you’re taking steps to get it they won’t be as suspicious, but if we’re lucky you won’t need to use it.”

  “Good idea,” Frances said. “Thank you so much, Ali. I’m really glad you’re willing to take this case on for me. I didn’t know if Enforcers would be any good, and this text says not to go to them anyway. It doesn’t say anything about a private investigator.”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” I replied. “I’m not an Enforcer. And I’m discreet.”

  Ok, so that last part was a bit of a stretch. I was pretty sure no one had ever in my life called me discreet, or anything close to it. But still, I was going to do what I could to make things right for Frances.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I know you’ll do your best.”

  “Let me grab that phone number off you. I’m sure it’s just going to be an untraceable burner phone, but I might as well cover all the bases just to be sure.”

  I jotted down the number into my own phone and said goodbye to Frances, heading out into the street with my head full of ideas. Someone had stolen the most important thing in Frances’ life, and I was going to get it back for her.

  3

  I immediately headed over to the Enforcer’s station, where I was hoping to find Andy, the good-looking Australian who had started working as an Enforcer here in Mt. Rheanier a few months ago. He was there, but unfortunately, so was my former best friend, Jack.

  “Hey,” I said, making my way toward Andy and completely ignoring Jack.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked, flashing me pearly whites that seriously could not be natural.

  “I’m hoping you can look up a phone number for me. Discreetly.”

  “What have you gotten yourself into now?” Jack asked.

  “Nothing,” I replied, narrowing my eyes at him. “I have a client, and believe me, it’s best for everyone if you just do this without asking,” I continued, turning back to Andy.

  “You do realize the Enforcer’s department doesn’t work for you, right?” Andy asked with a good-natured smile on his face.

  “Trust me, you’re going to want to do this,” I said, handing him my phone with the number on it.

  “Why?” Jack asked while Andy tapped away at the computer. “What’s so important that you need this information, but you can’t tell Enforcers why? Is there a crime or something that we should know about that you’re keeping from us?”

  “Sorry, client-PI privilege,” I replied.

  “You do realize that’s not a real thing, right?” Jack answered.

  “I don’t know, I just mentioned it, that means it must be real.”

  Jack sighed.

  “It doesn’t matter anyway mate,” Andy said, handing me back my phone. “No registered user. All I can tell you is it was sold from the grocery store here in Mt. Rheanier four days ago. It’s a prepaid burner.”

  “Well, I can’t say it’s not what I expected,” I said with a shrug. “Thanks.”

  I turned to go, and Jack called out to me. “Aren’t you going to tell us what this is all about?”

  “All in good time, Jack. All in good time.”

  And with that, I headed back out into the street, my first lead having gone nowhere. At least I hadn�
��t been expecting it to.

  Next I had to talk to my four suspects. Ken was always going to be the easiest one to find; he lived his life in one of two places: the bar, or his one bedroom apartment on the outskirts of town that his father had left him when he died.

  The building he lived in was old and tattered, and I figured it would be a miracle if a developer didn’t buy up the whole place and have it knocked down sometime in the next five years. Frankly, it looked like a decent gust of wind would do the job just as well. One of the shutters on the ground-floor windows had fallen off one hinge and hung limply down toward the ground, and the stucco exterior was beginning to peel. The gutters were filled with leaves, to the point where I was certain there wasn’t an inch of water that would be able to actually drain properly. The property manager had obviously let this place go to the birds.

  Who was I kidding? There was almost certainly no property manager at this place.

  Walking to the front door, there was no security and I just stepped into the main foyer, where a single uncovered bulb lit the space. It probably would have been better without any light at all. At least then there wouldn’t have been any sign of the peeling beige paint on the walls.

  The building had a musty smell, like it hadn’t been vacuumed in about thirty years. I wanted to spend as little time here as possible, so I walked over to Ken’s apartment—this was Mt. Rheanier, everyone knew where everyone else in the coven lived—and knocked.

  There was no answer, so I sighed and knocked harder. “Ken, open up. It’s Ali Everwood. I need to talk to you.”

  “Go away, I’m sleeping.”

  “I’m not going away until you talk to me. And I imagine your head probably hurts pretty badly right now, so you don’t want me to keep pounding down your door, do you?”

  “Fine, fine,” came the reply. “Give me a minute.”

  I waited at least three minutes, and was just about to start pounding again when Ken answered the door. He was wearing an old woolen sweater as a pair of pants, and no shirt, the top of the sweater only held up by a pair of Christmas suspenders.

  Well, he wasn’t naked, so I supposed I had to be thankful for that, at least.

  “You’re Rosie’s granddaughter, aren’t you? The one who looks into people.”

  “That’s me,” I replied. “And something went missing from the bar last night. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

  “Me? The bar? No, nothing ever goes missing there. Except beer, into my belly.”

  “So you didn’t steal a potion recipe from Frances?”

  “She’s a doll, Frances. She takes care of me, you know. She thinks I don’t know that she has a witch come by every night and make sure I get back here ok, but I know. Frances is the best woman. What did you say happened to her?”

  “Nothing happened to her, someone got into the safe at the bar last night and stole something. Do you know anything about that?”

  “Not a thing. I know the safe is behind the bar, and I’m not allowed back there. Frances says I can’t be trusted around the taps, and you know, she’s probably right.”

  I genuinely couldn’t tell if Ken was completely plastered right now, or if years of alcohol abuse meant this was just what he was like all the time. I had a sneaking suspicion it might have been a little bit from column A, and a little bit from column B.

  “Ok, so you didn’t go there yourself. Did you see anyone else go back there? Any of the other customers?”

  “There were no other customers last night,” Ken said.

  “Frances says there were three other witches.”

  “Oh. Well, she would probably know better than me. I thought I was there by myself.”

  I sighed. “Alright. Did you have anything against Frances?”

  “Never in the world. If you find the person who stole from her, you let me have a bit of time with them. I’ll show them. Frances is the best witch in this town.”

  “Ok, thanks for your help, Ken,” I said.

  “Goodbye,” he said, waving as I walked off, burrowing my hands in my pockets. That hadn’t exactly been the most productive conversation ever, but I had my doubts as to whether or not Ken was guilty. Frankly, the guy just didn’t seem to be all there anymore.

  But then again, it was always possible he was putting on a show to avoid suspicion. I couldn’t quite cross him off my list completely, but he was firmly at the bottom of it for now.

  If Julianne Kent studied at Spellford that meant she’d be out of town until later on today in all likelihood, so I decided to focus on Keri-Lynn and Kelly for now instead. I knew Kelly Rockford, as she was only a year in front of me at the Academy, but Keri-Lynn was a few years older and while I knew her by sight and had been introduced to her a few times, I couldn’t say she was much more than an acquaintance.

  Kelly worked janitorial at the local hospital, so I headed down there, sending my best friend Willow a text on the way.

  You around?

  About to start my shift. What’s up? Came her reply a moment later.

  Do you know the janitorial staff there at all?

  A little bit. Some better than others.

  How about Kelly Rockford?

  Sure, I know Kelly. She’s nice. She’s great at neutralizing potions when I’m finished with them.

  Do you know if she’s around today?

  I just saw her. What’s she done?

  Hopefully nothing, but someone stole Frances’ recipe for pumpkin punch.

  Willow replied with ten of the horrified emoji in a row. Really?

  Yeah. And Kelly was one of the witches at the bar last night who would have had access.

  I can’t imagine she would have done it, but then I also never would have imagined that Reggie Brookfield would have been caught playing hide the salami with Ursula the fairy, so what do I know?

  I laughed out loud as I read Willow’s response. Ursula was one of Willow’s friends, a fairy Healer at the hospital who had recently gotten involved with Reggie, a wizard who had been the biggest loser back when we were at the Academy. It wasn’t that he was a geek or anything like that, he was just the sort of wizard who always tried to do too much on his broom to show off, and who once made a potion that accidentally blew up half the field outside the school.

  According to Ursula, he’d changed, and I hoped she was right. She was too good a fairy to get together with a wizard who had tried to hex his hair to have permanently frosted tips and accidentally managed to freeze his own face so badly his nose almost had to be amputated.

  Cool, thanks for the info I replied, then began walking toward the hospital.

  4

  I was pretty much at home in the Mt. Rheanier hospital, and not just because I’d had my fair share of adventures that had landed me in here over the years. With Willow being my best friend working here, I spent a decent amount of my time in these halls, and the shifter Assistant Healer manning the desk smiled at me when I walked in.

  “Hi, Ali. I’m afraid I saw Willow a few minutes ago, she just had to take care of a patient. Some idiot wizard wanted to build a tree fort for his daughter, and thought a great way of doing it would be by standing on a broom. Spoiler alert: he has at least four broken bones now.”

  I winced. “Well, that’s not good. But I’m not looking for Willow, I was hoping to have a chat with Kelly Rockford. Is she around?”

  “Sure,” the shifter nodded, motioning with her head to the hallway behind her. “She’ll be down there somewhere. Have at it. But if you see any of the elves, I recommend staying out of Kelly’s way. They’re doing staff evaluations for the non-medical staff this week, and you don’t want to get her in trouble.”

  “Thanks for the heads up,” I said, walking past her and into the hallway mentioned. I found Kelly in one of the adjacent rooms, organizing ingredient bottles on a shelf.

  “Hey, Kelly,” I said to her, and Kelly turned toward me. She smiled as soon as she saw me.

  “Ali, right? W
hat’s up?”

  “I was hoping to chat to you about last night at It’s Rheaning Beer.”

  Color flushed to Kelly’s face. “Yeah, last night wasn’t my proudest moment, I have to say. Keri-Lynn wanted to blow off a little bit of steam after Peter Graves broke up with her, and I may have let myself go a little bit too much.”

  “We’ve all been there,” I said with a grin. “Listen, do you know anything about the safe at the bar?”

  “The safe? I didn’t know there was one. I mean, I suppose it makes sense that there would be, but I’ve never thought about it. Why?”

  “Well, I’ve been hired by Frances. The recipe for pumpkin punch went missing last night and I’m trying to find it.”

  “You’re joking,” Kelly said, her hands flying to her mouth. “And you think I did it?”

  “No, not at all,” I replied quickly, shaking my head. “I’m just talking to everyone who was there, trying to gauge if anyone saw anything. After all, why would you steal that potion?”

  “That’s right, I’d have no reason to,” Kelly said, straightening herself up. “Let me think. I was there with Keri-Lynn. Things got a little bit more blurry after karaoke. She sang “I Will Survive”, I remember that. Then it gets fuzzy. Who else was there? Ken, of course. He spent the entire time we were there sitting at the bar. Then there was that young woman. She seems familiar to me, but I don’t know her.”

  “Julianne Kent,” I said. “She’s a student at Spellford who goes to the bar at night to study since it’s usually pretty quiet the last couple hours before Frances closes up.”

  “Whoops, I guess we must have ruined her night, then,” Kelly said, biting her lip in embarrassment. “It’s not like we meant to do it. But Keri-Lynn was bummed about Peter. And she should have been, too. He was good for her.”

  “Why did they break up, if I can ask?”

  “He decided he was in love with Shelly Creek. They work together, and apparently she’s funnier than Keri-Lynn. Which is bull. My sister is the funniest person I’ve ever met. And she’s super nice, and she pretended that the macaroni and cheese he made that he claimed was his mom’s recipe was actually good, when she told me it was really disgusting.”