Whispering Pines Mysteries Box Set 3

by Shawn McGuire

  To those of us still in the room, Jola continued in a more soothing tone, “Place your palms together and touch your thumbs to your third eye.” She demonstrated this by bowing her forehead and placing her thumbs to the spot between her eyebrows. “Namaste. Have a beautiful, blessed day.”

  Rosalyn and I rolled up our mats and headed for the main lobby to get our jackets and boots from the coat closet. As we walked, my now grounded sister listed the next of many stops she wanted to make today. Jola followed us and was about to say something when Tripp came through the front door with his arm around a woman.

  “What happened?” Jola rushed to the pair.

  “She slipped on the ice,” Tripp explained. “Twisted her ankle pretty badly.”

  The woman in question, Deborah “Bee” Wallace, was a peppy slender woman in her mid-fifties with short straw-blonde hair and bangs that swooped dramatically from her left temple to her right ear.

  “This happens every year.” Bee winced despite Tripp acting like a crutch and supporting her right side. “I seem to be a magnet for ice patches.”

  “I’ll contact Mr. Powell,” I promised, “and ask him to send out a crew with more sand.”

  Tripp stopped me as I stepped toward the center’s front desk. “Problem is, there’s freezing mist or whatever floating around out there.”

  “Most people call that sleet,” Rosalyn teased.

  “It’s finer than sleet. And that storm will be here soon.” Tripp picked Bee up, deciding it was easier to carry her now that they were inside where ice patches were no longer a threat. Bee let out a whoop and a giggle as he did. “Everything will be covered in snow with a layer of ice beneath it soon. Not sure it’s worth the effort to spread sand now. I know how the village feels about salt, but that might be better.”

  Salt damaged the plants. The villagers would rather strap crampons to their boots and tread carefully rather than risk killing the vegetation.

  “Follow me,” Jola led him down the main hall to an exam room. “We’ll check you out and get an x-ray.”

  “No need for that,” Bee assured. “It’s just a bad sprain. Like I said, I do this every year.”

  Jola stared at her. “Humor me.”

  After depositing Bee on the exam table and getting rewarded with a full-watt smile for services rendered, Tripp turned back to Roz and me. He placed a quick kiss on the side of my mouth.

  “Where have you been?” I asked.

  “Hearth & Cauldron.” He shrugged as though that should be obvious.

  It should have been. Taking cooking lessons from Reeva, the most powerful kitchen witch in the village and owner of Whispering Pines’ newest shop, had become an obsession for him. Tripp prepared all the breakfasts at our bed-and-breakfast, and his goal was to have the best B&B menu in the state.

  “What are you making today?” Rosalyn knelt to put Meeka’s booties on her.

  Tripp gave her a pointed look. “Dessert.”

  What was that look for?

  “In fact, I need to get back over there. I was in the middle of a recipe when I saw Bee fall on the Fairy Path.”

  Something was going on. He was never this evasive. “She’s lucky you were there to help. We’ll walk with you.”

  “Yes we will.” Rosalyn popped up. “The Bean Grinder is our next stop. I have to load up on Violet’s coffee before I leave. She specially roasted twenty pounds of beans for me.”

  “Twenty?” Tripp pretended to choke.

  “Who knows when I’ll be back here? No sense shipping it when I can stock up. And this is my last semester of college.” She made a go-for-it fist pump. “Gotta power through. With caffeine.”

  With all of us bundled up, we left Unity and shuffled our feet along the slick Fairy Path. I still thought a sprinkling of sand would help. We said goodbye to Tripp outside Hearth & Cauldron, and then Roz and I continued to the coffee cottage.

  “This order is so fresh the bags are still warm,” Violet announced as we entered the shop. She set two paper bags on the counter, each with ten one-pound bags of coffee. “That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but you get my point. I charged your card, so we’re square. Can I get you anything to drink now?”

  “I’d love a chai latte.” Rosalyn practically drooled. On a whim a couple of weeks ago, she tried a chai, and it was now her favorite non-coffee drink.

  “I’ll never pass up a mocha,” I agreed.

  “Why don’t you stay here,” Rosalyn suggested, “and I’ll run this to my car. We’ve got more stops to make. No sense carrying these all around the village. Give me a few minutes before you start mine, Violet. I’ll be right back.”

  My sister was out the door before I could say a word. When I turned toward Violet, my personalized ceramic mug, decorated with “Sheriff” in an old west font and a gold star, was sitting on the counter waiting for me. I narrowed my eyes at her.

  “Something strange is going on today.”

  Violet inched my mug closer to the edge and wiped a little whipped cream blob off the counter with a towel. “Strange? In this village?”

  “Yes. Tripp is evasive. Rosalyn is flightier than normal. The villagers at the grounding session at Unity kept staring at me.” I bobbed my head around, trying to catch her eye. “And you won’t look at me. What do you know?”

  Her eyebrows arched almost to her hairline. “Me? Know something?” Without another word, she smiled guiltily and placed a bag of biscuits for Meeka next to my mug.

  While I wouldn’t call Violet a gossip, she was the villager to go to when you needed information. Whatever this was, it had to be killing her to keep mum about it.

  “I will figure it out,” I warned, took my mocha, and settled into an oversized leather chair in the corner by the fireplace. A man sat silently across from me in a matching chair, a book in his hands. From the cover, it looked to be some kind of covert ops espionage thriller novel. It took me a moment to realize he was the man who usually dressed in a tuxedo in case the Whispering Pines circus was ever in need of a last-minute ringmaster. He wasn’t wearing his tux today. No need, I supposed, since the circus was closed until May.

  The village’s most eccentric resident, Mallory, walked in and froze when she saw me sitting there. She peered at me through the hag stone—a round stone with a naturally formed hole in the middle—that she always wore on a braided leather strap around her neck. Her wiry steel-gray hair seemed to stand on end as though she’d been shocked by electricity. Then she spun on her heel and left.

  “See what I mean?” I called out to Violet, but she had stepped into the back room. To Tuxedo Man, I asked, “What was that all about?”

  “I couldn’t say for certain,” he responded with proper diction, “but perhaps she saw something hovering around you.”

  He meant fairies. Mallory’s self-assigned job was to keep the village free of bad fairies. Her hag stone acted like a magical monocle that let her see them. Or so she claimed. As I fought the urge to swipe at unseen little meanies floating around my head, I had to wonder what she did about the wicked little creatures when she spotted some. I mean, if they were around me, and her job was to protect us from them, why didn’t she say something to me?

  Cabin fever is strong with this one, the Jayne in my head murmured. I wasn’t sure if she meant me or Mallory. Perhaps you need to occupy your mind with something productive or instructional.

  “Sure, like researching fairies.” I hadn’t intended to say that out loud. From the glance Tuxedo Man gave me and the way he turned slightly away, I’d done exactly that.

  Twenty minutes later, Rosalyn returned.

  “What took you so long?” I showed her my now empty mug. “The station is a five-minute walk from here. I was about to order another mocha.”

  She stared at me and flapped a hand in the general direction of the pentacle garden. “I was chatting with some folks.”

  Violet cleared her throat. “Your drink is ready, Rosalyn.”

  Seriously, what was going on
? Maybe it was cabin fever or some other winter-induced madness. If so, I needed to talk to Jola about bringing in some therapists along with more light boxes. We still had a good three months of winter left.

  Rosalyn took forever to drink her chai. It had to be ten-minutes past hot by the time she took the last sip. We left Ye Olde Bean Grinder, waving goodbye to Violet and Tuxedo Man, and Roz announced that our next stop was Treat Me Sweetly to pick up cookies and scones.

  I inspected the cases, and along with their standard assortment of cookies, bars, and breads, at off-season quantities, they had two kinds of scones today. Chocolate-orange and fig and blue cheese. “You’re bringing a supply of sweets home with you too?”

  “Well, yeah. Violet’s coffee just won’t be right without one of Sugar’s scones. I understood why you like it so much here when I came at Halloween.” Rosalyn’s voice held a bit of emotion. “After the last month, I understand why you never want to leave. I have to bring as much of Whispering Pines home with me as I can until I come back.”

  She meant spring break. She’d already been talking about coming in March. After she graduated in May with a B.A. in communications, she wanted to get a job in public relations, specifically helping down-and-out folks get a fresh start. I think that would be a good fit for her.

  “I’ve got your order all ready for you,” Honey called from behind the counter. She held out two large pastry boxes, one of scones and another of cookies. She and Rosalyn exchanged some kind of non-verbal message, and Honey pulled them back. “Wait, let me vacuum-seal them for you. I’ll put two in each package. That way they’ll stay fresh for a good long time. They freeze well too.”

  “Don’t mix them together,” Sugar warned from the display case of vintage candies at the front of the shop. “Orange and fig might be okay together, but chocolate and blue cheese don’t pair well.”

  Honey made a face at her sister. “I only tried that once.”

  “Because that’s a mistake you only make once,” Sugar noted.

  It took nearly half an hour for Honey to seal up the scones and cookies. By then, it was getting near lunchtime, and I was hungry.

  “Triple G for lunch next?” I asked Rosalyn.

  She glanced too casually at the large clock on the wall on the ice cream side of the shop. Cookies took the place of numbers, and currently the big hand was pointing at a sugar cookie and the little hand was almost at a snickerdoodle. Translation: ten minutes to twelve.

  “We have to stop at Shoppe Mystique first.”

  I groaned and my stomach growled. “What do you need there?”

  “You heard Morgan the other day. She was talking about crystals and how certain ones can help with the winter blues.”

  “She’s also got a fresh batch of bath milk,” Sugar informed, now dusting the windowsills.

  Rosalyn looked at me, giddy with excitement over something new to try. “What’s bath milk? Never mind, we’ll stop over there and find out for ourselves.”

  I held my hand out to Honey. “May I have a scone to tide me over until my sister will let me have lunch?”

  “Of course.” Honey didn’t even have to ask. She knew me well enough to know that, while I’ll eat pretty much anything, when I was verging on cranky, sweet was better than savory. She handed me a chocolate-orange. “Enjoy.”

  “You’re going to need a bigger car,” I teased Rosalyn as we left the sweet shop for the New Age shop next door.

  “Yeah?” she said as though I was offering to buy her one.

  “I know how much luggage you came here with. You had what, three suitcases of clothes, one of beauty supplies, a big backpack full of magazines, and your monster purse.” I plucked at the bag on her shoulder that hung halfway to her knees. “You’ve been shopping like a fiend for the last two weeks. It’s not all going to fit.”

  She pondered this and winked at me. “Guess I’ll have to come back for spring break.”

  “I already figured you would.” I gave her a hip bump. “Or you can have Martin bring the excess to you.”

  She blushed and ignored the tease.

  We stood out front of Shoppe Mystique on the red brick pathway for a few seconds to take in the image the shop presented. Morgan firmly believed that abundance was best when decorating for a season or sabbat, a Wiccan holiday. It was now the middle of winter, so she had taken down almost all of the Yule decorations. Only pine boughs draped over the porch railings were left. The cottage looked wintery instead of celebratory now. I liked that she left the greenery. It added a touch of whimsy to the village’s most whimsical establishment.

  We climbed the porch stairs and immediately saw villagers milling about inside. It looked busy. I held the door open for Rosalyn and Meeka, we stepped inside, and froze.

  Chapter 4

  Shoppe Mystique wasn’t just busy, it was packed with shoppers. The last time I’d seen that many people inside was a rainy day during the height of the summer tourist season. If tourists couldn’t be on the lake, hang out on the beach, or hike through Whispering Pines’ woods, they shopped or ate. Except instead of rain falling, today the temperature was hovering just above the freezing mark. And instead of tourists, the shop was packed with villagers.

  That freezing mist Tripp had mentioned earlier was closer to sleet now. The sun had been out this morning, so the brick pathway around the village commons was warm enough that the sleet melted as soon as it touched the ground. It was accumulating everywhere else, however, and forming a crust on the snowbanks. We’d have a problem later tonight, especially on the highway, when the temperature dipped below freezing.

  The other unusual thing about the gathering in Shoppe Mystique today was the staff. Morgan and her assistant Willow were there as always, but Briar only came during the summer. She was currently helping villagers choose dried herbs from the large selection to the left of the door. River was working the register to the right.

  “How did you get wrangled into this?” Rosalyn asked him.

  “Good afternoon, Lady Rosalyn,” River greeted Roz and gave me a half-bow half-nod. “Proprietress. My knowledge of the inventory in this establishment is limited to where items are located. For me to attempt to resolve patron inquiries would result in a great disservice to them. Tallying purchases is a task much better suited to my abilities.”

  I’d known the dark and mysterious-looking River for about five months. I still had to hold in a grin when I listened to his formal, almost Victorian-era way of speaking.

  “Were they expecting it to be this busy?” I watched as Meeka slipped behind the large wood table/checkout counter with River. Crowds this big meant her paws were likely to get stepped on.

  “They did not.” He rewarded Gardenia, housekeeper and sometimes front desk clerk at The Inn, for her purchase with a devastating smile. She blushed, turned to leave the store, and ran smack into Rosalyn.

  “Sorry,” she murmured breathlessly.

  “No worries,” Rosalyn replied, biting back a grin.

  River was clueless about his effect on women and looked confused by the exchange. He dismissed it with a shake of his head. “Are you privy to the most current weather forecast, Lady Jayne?”

  “You mean the blizzard?” I clarified.

  “Correct. It’s predicted to strike the village later this evening. It’s uncommonly slow-moving, and forecasters have declared travel will be treacherous until possibly Saturday morning.”

  “Sounds like that thing that happens whenever big storms are coming,” Rosalyn guessed. “People go nuts and buy out all the bread, Spam, and toilet paper.”

  I looked at her. “Spam? Really?”

  She shrugged. “I might be off on that one.” She turned to River. “What are the villagers buying?”

  “Neither bread, Spam, nor toilet paper,” he informed with a straight face. I saw the playful glint in his eye, though. “Tea and crystals are the most popular items. Lady Morgan created a large batch of bath milk last evening. That is selling well also. If you
would like some, I recommend acquiring a container now as the supply will likely vanish before the day’s end.”

  “Sugar told us to ask her about that.” I stood on my tiptoes to look around the shop. “Where is Morgan?”

  “The three ladies have opted to divide the store into sections,” River explained. “Lady Briar is here with the dried herbs. You will find Lady Willow in the reading room or near the amulets and talismans table. Lady Morgan is in the far corner with cosmetics, candles, crystals and stones, and oils and incense.”

  We thanked him and turned to hunt for Morgan in the crowd but found Igor, the animal caretaker for the Whispering Pines Circus, standing directly behind us.

  He held open his large, beefy hand to reveal a collection of four crystals and stones.

  “Miss Barlow says these will help with darkness and bring energy,” Igor told us in his heavily accented English. He poked at a black stone with ridges. “Black tourmaline for to block negative energies. This I am to put by front door.” Next a dark green stone with red spots. “Bloodstone for to live more in present.” A pink crystal. “Rose quartz for love. I put this by Britta’s side of bed.” He grinned, especially happy with that one. Finally he pointed out a clear crystal which I recognized as the kind Morgan had left in my she loft. “Clear quartz for to increase energy in body. I put by my side of bed.”

  He looked at River and winked. Rosalyn and I went wide-eyed and took that as our cue to move along. Before we did, I remembered the wolf from earlier.

  “Igor?”

  He turned, a grin still on his face. “Yes, Sheriff?”

  “I saw what looked like a wolf standing out on the middle of the lake.”

  “Oh, yes,” he exclaimed and smacked his palm against the side of his head. “I meant to tell you. A big male escaped pack enclosure. He wandered away to go walkabout.”