Witch Cake Murders (Sweetland Witch Women Sleuths) (A Cozy Mystery Book)

by Zoe Arden

  "Thanks," I said. "Maybe some other time."

  The morning rush ended and the noon rush started. I kept checking the clock, wishing I could somehow make time spin a little faster. Around three, just an hour before my shift ended, two women came into the restaurant. They looked almost identical, with their bright blond hair twirled high in a bun. It was almost the same shade as mine.

  They were both in their forties, though I could tell one of them was just barely so. She was dressed like she'd paid one too many visits to the local thrift shop. Bright pink jeans and a matching hat were accentuated with long loopy earrings, a bright yellow shirt, and a sparkly vest. The other woman, clearly her older sister, looked like a subdued gypsy. She wore dark grays and blacks with silver bangles and large hoop earrings. They looked around the restaurant, searching for someone. Their eyes stopped on me.

  I moved to the right, thinking they were looking at the menu behind me. But their eyes followed me. They were staring so intently at me I began to blush. Maybe I had something on my face? I snuck into the back room and did a quick makeup check. Everything looked in order.

  "Hey, Ava," Judy said, coming up beside me. She did a quick mirror check of her own, straightening her apron. "There are two women out there asking for you."

  "For me?"

  "Yep. Except they called you Ava Fortune instead of Stone. But they described you to a tee. Actually," Judy turned to me, giving me a quick once over, "they kinda look like you. Relatives, maybe?"

  "I doubt that," I told her, making my way back out front. My father and mother had both been only children. Judy followed me and pointed out a booth. The two women who'd been staring at me sat there expectantly.

  I got two glasses of water and made my way toward them.

  "Good afternoon," I said, setting down the glasses. "Welcome to Stuffed." They were sitting side by side instead of across from each other the way people usually did.

  The women grinned at me and shot each other a look. The younger one actually elbowed her sister.

  "Hello, Ava," said the older woman.

  "Um," I said, feeling like I was the punchline of some unknown joke. "Do I know you?"

  "We've met before," she said. "Though it's been a while—"

  "Quite a while," her younger sister interrupted.

  "—since we've seen you."

  I put my pen down and bit my bottom lip.

  "We met you on the island," the older woman said. She sounded cautious. Like she was feeling me out.

  "Manhattan?" I asked.

  "Heavenly Haven."

  "Oh," I said, laughing. Understanding clicked in my brain. "You're mixing me up with someone else. I've never been out of New York."

  The sisters frowned and shot each other a worried look.

  "Do you need another minute to look over the menu?" I asked. They were starting to creep me out. It was the way they kept looking at me. Like I was famous or something.

  "I'll take pumpkin pancakes without the pumpkin, please," the younger woman said.

  "The same for me, please," said her sister.

  I stared at them. "So you want... pancakes?"

  The women whispered to each other like they were conferring on some big secret.

  "Yes, pancakes," the older one replied, nodding her head. "Plain. No pumpkin. No villeroot. And some hot tea, if you have it."

  "No what?" I asked.

  "Villeroot. My stomach just can't handle it this late in the day."

  "Er, okay. No problem." I scratched it down on my notepad and turned toward the kitchen.

  "There's the birthday girl!" Billy, one of the line cooks, shouted. "Hey, Eli. Tell your daughter she should be out partying, not working at this dump." There was a general murmur of agreement from the other two cooks, but my dad's lips tightened.

  "Listen to this order," I told the guys. I thought even my dad might find this funny. "Pumpkin pancakes, hold the pumpkin." There was a round of laughter. "And no villeroot," I said, smiling. "The woman's stomach can't handle it this late in the day." There was another round of laughter.

  "What the heck is villeroot?" Billy asked, wiping his forehead with a towel.

  I shrugged.

  "No idea. I'm pretty sure it only exists in that lady's imagination."

  I looked toward my dad to see if he was laughing, but he wasn't there.

  "Where'd Eli go?" Billy asked.

  He'd just been standing here. How did he sneak away? I hadn't even seen him leave the kitchen. I shrugged and grabbed two mugs for tea for the pumpkin ladies.

  I pushed the kitchen door open and stopped in my tracks. My dad was at the pumpkin ladies' table. His face was scarlet, and his eyes had narrowed to black slits.

  He stood in a heated discussion with the women. The pumpkin ladies turned their eyes to me, looking grim, then slowly rose from their booth. They left the restaurant without a word.

  "What was that about?" I asked my dad, setting the mugs aside.

  "What?" he asked.

  "Those women. What were you talking about? Who were they?"

  "No one," he snapped. "Crazy customers. Nothing new." He pushed past me and made his way back to the kitchen.

  I wanted to follow him. I was dying to know who those women were. My father spoke to people as little as possible. To strangers? Almost never. The fact he'd actually left the kitchen... that he actually seemed to know them... floored me.

  I cleaned off the table the women had been sitting at, running through everything that had happened in my head. I was sure I'd never seen them before, yet... there had been something vaguely familiar about them.

  Under one of their water glasses lay a tip. I scooped the bill up, preparing to pocket the single in my apron. My mouth dropped open. It wasn't a single. I stared at the bill, unbelieving. A hundred dollars? All I'd done was bring them water.

  I flipped the bill over, looking for signs that it was fake. Written on the back of the bill in black marker were the words, "Happy birthday, Ava."

  * * *

  0 2

  * * *

  The day after my birthday was my swing shift. Our boss had thought he was doing me a favor by having me start at three in the afternoon instead of eight in the morning. He'd probably figured I'd be out all night drinking and would enjoy sleeping in. Little did he know Dad and I had spent a quiet evening in, eating cupcakes he'd picked up from Frodo's and watching old movies.

  It had been nice, but it had also been... routine. We always watched old movies and ate junk food. That was my dad's definition of a great time. Every celebration. Every Friday night. Old movies and junk food. I was twenty-one and acted like I was forty-one. Sometimes I felt like the most boring person alive.

  I'd had so few friends growing up. Dad had always treated me like I was an egg that could crack at any second. I think one of the reasons I'd been so enamored with witches when I was little was because they could fly away on their brooms and go wherever they wanted. Do whatever they wanted. I touched the necklace around my neck and wished, not for the first time, that my mother was here.

  When Dad left for his morning shift, I took the rare opportunity of being alone in the apartment to sit outside on our balcony with a cup of coffee. Eight floors up, we had a lovely view of the park across the street. I liked to watch the people in it. I tried to imagine where they were going or what their lives were like.

  The sun was shining brightly. Summer was just getting started. A robin fluttered through the air past our balcony. I watched it swoop down from the sky and set itself on a low tree branch. Just below the tree branch, something caught my eye. I blinked to make sure I wasn't seeing things.

  The pumpkin ladies from the diner stood there. They were looking up at me. The younger one grinned and waved broadly as if trying to get my attention. Her sister's eyes widened in disbelief. She pinched the younger woman's arm and raised her pointer finger at her. A puff of blue smoke flew from her fingertip.

  My jaw dropped open and hot coffee dribbled
over my chin. I dropped my mug. The cup toppled to the ground and broke into four large pieces. I wiped myself off with a napkin and picked up the pieces. When I looked up again, the women were gone.

  I kept looking out of my window the rest of the morning. Part of me hoped I'd see them again. There was something just a little off about them. Something strange yet... fascinating.

  On my way to work, I kept looking behind me, certain the pumpkin ladies were there. I replayed what I'd seen over and over in my mind and convinced myself I'd imagined the blue smoke. People didn't shoot smoke or anything else from their fingertips. That was impossible.

  I hadn't imagined them though. The pumpkin ladies had definitely been there. And they'd been looking for me.

  When I got to work, we were swamped with the late afternoon rush. I barely had time to say hi to my dad before jumping on my first table. Every time the door chimed I looked up, half hoping, half expecting to see those women. Every time I was disappointed.

  When four o'clock hit, my dad clocked out.

  "I'll keep dinner warm for you," he said and got out of there before the dinner rush could hit.

  I hadn't worked swing shift in a while. I think the last time had been when I was sixteen and had started at the diner part time. The second I turned eighteen and didn't have school anymore, my dad had secured me a spot on the morning crew. He'd worked at Stuffed for years and was a favorite of our boss, who was more than happy to oblige. Mostly because my dad never took time off, never came in late, and never once in his fifteen years there had he asked for a raise.

  When I was fourteen, I'd realized most of the kids I went to school with had parents who were teachers or lawyers or nurses or... something more than just a line cook. I'd asked my dad why he didn't try to get ahead. Maybe become head chef at a fancy restaurant. Or better yet, open his own diner.

  "Flying under the radar is the only way to stay safe," he'd told me. I thought that about summed up his life. Safe. Boring. Tiresome.

  I sighed as the last of the evening rush filed out of the restaurant. Three more hours to go. The diner closed at eleven and by midnight we'd all be gone. By one, I could be in bed. And tomorrow I would start all over again.

  The pancake ladies didn't show themselves all night. But around the time we turned the diner's lights off, I began to feel someone watching me. It was the icky, creepy feeling that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. I kept looking around, thinking maybe Lance was checking me out—it had happened before—but he was busy sweeping the floors.

  I shook the feeling off and grabbed the last of the trash. The alley was dark and stinky. Only a sliver of light made its way between the buildings, casting strange shadows on the side of the trash can. It was the type of place location scouts noted for use in horror movies. The type of alley where dead bodies were likely to turn up and ghosts were likely to make their first but not last appearance.

  I threw the trash bags into the bins and spun quickly back toward the door. It was locked.

  "Crud," I said, banging on it from the outside. As if anyone could hear me through the brick walls and heavy metal door.

  There was only one way out of the darkness. I turned toward the only opening the alley offered and began trekking toward it. A pinpoint of light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. I could go around to the front doors and Judy or someone would let me in.

  I was halfway down the alley when two figures stepped out of the shadows, blocking my only exit.

  I stopped walking. Zillions of slasher flicks ran through my mind. I knew better than to wait and see if Jason Voorhees would brandish his machete at me. I reversed toward the locked door. Maybe if I banged hard enough someone would hear me after all.

  "Hello," one the figures said, coming toward me. The lone sliver of light fell on her face, and I recognized the older pancake lady. She was coming straight at me. Her sister was beside her, holding something in her hand.

  Suddenly, I wanted nothing to do with these strange women. The idea that they were following me no longer seemed exciting. It just seemed creepy.

  "Ava, it's us," the younger one said.

  How did they know my name? My heart raced. I turned and ran... straight into a brick wall. I'd gotten so freaked out I'd run right past the back door and didn't see the end of the alley in front of me. I bounced off the brick and fell back onto the pavement, my face already hurting.

  "Ava," the women cried together, running toward me.

  I held up my hands in self-defense, expecting them to grab me or try to rob me. Something. But all I felt was a soothing hand reach out and stroke my hair. Hair that was the same color as theirs.

  "Calmnetico... calmnetico..." I opened my eyes and saw the older pumpkin lady looking at me with soft, worried eyes. Her finger extended toward my forehead and a soft orange glow was emanating from it. "Ava," she said again. I felt my nerves soothing, despite the strangeness of the situation.

  The younger woman squealed, clapping her hands together and doing some kind of jig. She looked like a drunken Irishman.

  "Who are you?" I asked. The strange orange glow grew duller than faded away. "What are you?"

  The women smiled. The older one spoke first.

  "We're your aunts, Ava. And we're witches. Just like you."

  * * *

  0 3

  * * *

  "Ava, calm down!" Trixie shouted as I threw another piece of trash at her. She turned to her sister. "She's as scrappy as her mother."

  Eleanor nodded. My garbage-wielding fastballs seemed to be having no effect on either of the women.

  "You are not my aunts," I said again. "And you are definitely not witches."

  Eleanor took a step toward me. "Trixie and I were with your mother when you were born," she said calmly.

  I picked up a decaying tomato that had spilled out of a bag. It squished in my hand. I threw it smack into Eleanor's face where it splattered everywhere. Trixie laughed. If I hadn't been so freaked out, I might have laughed with her.

  Eleanor wiped the tomato out of her eyes and sighed. She held her hand in front of her face and made a circling motion in the air like she was waxing an invisible car.

  "Lenacium motamato," Eleanor said.

  The tendrils of tomato affixed to Eleanor's eyelashes began to disappear. The juice dripping down her cheeks faded away. It was like an invisible washcloth had come out of the air to clean Eleanor's face.

  "Oh wow," I mumbled. I put down the rotting apple I'd been preparing to chuck at Trixie and took a deep breath.

  "You... you really are witches?" I asked.

  The alley, which had been filled with darkness moments before, seemed packed with light now. There was no source for it, it was coming from all around us.

  Eleanor and Trixie stepped carefully forward. This time, I didn't threaten them with rotting fruit or veggies. Eleanor's hair was almost as light as my own. Trixie's shade was even closer. I'd never seen anyone else with hair like mine. Even with the ready availability of hair dye, it seemed impossible to achieve the bright blond locks I'd been born with.

  Trixie held something out to me. The fear I'd felt was quickly fading, replaced with curiosity.

  I reached out and took what Trixie offered. It was a photograph. I stared down at it in awe. My mother's face smiled back at me. She was beaming beside my father, who looked happier than I'd ever seen him. On either side of my parents stood Trixie and Eleanor, both of them smiling widely. In the middle of the picture, my mother cradled me in her arms. I looked about two days old.

  "That picture was taken right after your birth," Eleanor said.

  "You were born bald, you know," Trixie interjected. "Thank the roses your hair grew in. The last time we saw you, your hair seemed to be growing at a good rate, but you never know. Your grandfather lost his hair at twenty! I was afraid you might look like a cue ball."

  Eleanor threw Trixie an annoyed look.

  "What?" Trixie asked. "She needs to know about these things! It'
s not her fault she looked like a bowling ball when she was born. All babies look a little weird."

  I couldn't help laughing. The bickering between them was nonstop, but I could tell it was suffused with love.

  "So, Ava Fortune," Eleanor said, placing her hands on her hips and ignoring her sister. "Or, I suppose I should say Stone. When did your father change that, I wonder? Either way, you're twenty-one now and part of the Rose family. The choice is yours."

  "I always thought Fortune was a good wizarding name," Trixie interrupted. "But I suppose Stone is less obvious. Easier to hide."

  "What are you talking about?" I asked, biting my lip. "Rose family? Fortune?" My head was spinning. There was too much information coming at me all at once.

  "Ava Rose Fortune," Eleanor said, tilting her head to one side. "It's the name you were born with. It's a witch tradition to use a mother's maiden name as her child's middle name."

  "I don't have a middle name. And I thought my mother's maiden name was Albert, anyway."

  Trixie and Eleanor gasped. "Never in the whole witching world!" Eleanor said, throwing her hands into the air.

  "Albert?" Trixie pouted. "That's not even pretty. What kind of witch would be born with a name like Albert?"

  Eleanor held up a hand, silencing her sister. "This is all the more reason for you to come with us now. You have no idea who you are."

  "What are you talking about?" I asked. "Go with you where?"

  "Back to Heavenly Haven. The island you were born on," Eleanor said as if it were obvious.

  "I was born on an island?"

  "Of course. That's your real home. Not this... city." Eleanor said 'city' like it was a dirty word. "Come with us, Ava."

  The back door to the alley suddenly swung open. Lance poked his head out.

  "Ava?" he called.

  The light that had been emanating around me went out in a flash.