The Innocent Dead: A Witch Cozy Mystery (The Maid, Mother, and Crone Paranormal Mystery Series Book 1)

by Jill Nojack

  Natalie’s head shook rapidly back and forth but she didn’t turn as she shrugged Cassie’s hand away. “If I’m right about what happened to William, then even a new ward won’t keep him away from me. He’s not a ghost any longer. I’m convinced that something transformative happened when he joined himself with his bones. I don’t know if it was Angelique’s lingering magic or a push from the Goddess to thank him for caring for the dead for all those years I neglected my duties, but he felt nothing when the portal opened for Franconi. It should have pulled at him like it always had before. And have you noticed how his eyes glow blue when he’s doing ‘ghostly’ things like popping in and out or masquerading as someone else? Something happened to him that made him more than what he was. He’s infused with magic. Fairly crackles with it. And he’s solid now, you know. Completely solid, unless he chooses to fade away.”

  Cassie put her hand on Nat’s shoulder again and pulled her around to face them. “Wait a minute—he’s solid? Like firm?”

  Gillian added. “Hard.”

  Cassie giggled.

  Natalie didn’t bother to glare. Best to just let them have their fun. When the giggling stopped, she said, “I think he’s a kind of guardian spirit. I’m just not sure which type. You find different versions of them throughout history, but once you get to Christian times, they all get swept up into the concept of the guardian angel. And William is sweet, but I’m disinclined to call him an angel.”

  Gillian cupped a hand around her mouth, hiding it from Nat, and stage whispered to Cassie, “Well, now that he’s so firm, it would be unfortunate if he did behave like an angel, wouldn’t it?”

  Cassie giggled again, rushing her hand to stifle the sound. “This is funny to you?” Natalie said. “Do you understand what it means?”

  “No, Nat, we don’t. That’s why I asked for an explanation earlier. Remember?”

  Natalie tried to keep herself from looking sad, but she could feel the effort collapsing.

  She looked first at Cassie, whose dear, open face was flooded with concern. She looked next to Gillian, whose wisdom and courage she respected nearly as much as she respected her own. Not that she would be caught dead admitting that. If anyone would try to understand why what had happened to William was a tragedy, it would be these two, her friends, the women who completed her through the ritual union of the triple goddess.

  “He’s alive, that’s certain. But he isn’t simply human again.” She sighed, and all her strength went out of her. She slid down against the shelf until she sat against the books, her legs sprawled in front of her, her black pencil skirt hiked up almost to the tops of her thighs. She didn’t care. She honestly did not care.

  Cassie squatted down and her blue eyes focused on Natalie’s face. “But his being alive, isn’t that a good thing?” she asked gently.

  “You’d think so, but he waited all those years, and I . . . I knew he would always be there waiting. I knew I wouldn’t be alone when it was my time to go. But if he’s no longer an unbound spirit, then when I get to my time, I’ll . . . he won’t be able to cross with me.”

  “Oh,” Cassie said, tears gathering in her eyes.

  What was she thinking inviting that sort of thing? It was done. There was no rolling it back. She’d adapt. Natalie straightened her skirt, then held a hand out. “Phft! Don’t waste your tears! Help me up. It’s just now come to me. It’s Roman magic we’re looking for, I’m sure of it.”

  Cassie gave her a hand up and turned back to the shelf, quickly finding a book she’d passed over earlier.

  “Does William know about this?” Cassie asked.

  “I don’t think he’s taken the time to think about it that deeply. He’s having fun playing with his new super powers—he’s very strong now, and he can disguise himself as anyone. He’s also retained some of the characteristics he had when he was a specter—he can fade to invisibility and think himself from place to place. He keeps trying to test his new sense of touch on me, but of course, I’m having none of it.” She sighed deeply. “He’s confused because he can no longer see the dead, but I don’t think he realizes that means he’s alive.” She slapped her finger down hard on the page she was skimming. “Here. Genius loci. The light he’s bursting with is the magic of protection, and here . . .”

  She held the book out. “See what it says about a boundary around a specific location? Before this, he could only go to places where he’d been in life. So, like most children, he’d been all over Giles Woods, but he had never been able to enter the county hospital because it didn’t exist until after he died. Now he can go anywhere in Giles, except he can’t put one foot outside the city limits. He’s tested it. Not one foot. If he steps out, he pops out of reality and then reappears a few minutes later smack dab where the statue of old Giles Corey used to stand.”

  The other witches examined the dusty pages, then looked up.

  Natalie continued, “See? His abilities and limitations fit exactly with the characteristics of a genius loci. That makes him a type of djinn, one that was created during a magical event. Somehow he’s become the town’s protector. Our own personal genie.” She closed the book and gave a sad smile. “I expect he’ll like that, being able to help the living, even if he can no longer help the dead.”

  Gillian and Cassie each took one of her hands. “Come on then, I’ll make us some tea,” Gilly said. “And to lift your spirits, we’ll discuss the relative merits of your boyfriend being corporeal.”

  “And firm,” Cassie added.

  ***

  That afternoon, Cassie finished up Twink’s first-day tour of the shop at the rack of clothing items. “And these are the spiderweb shawls,” she said, “which, believe it or not, are pretty popular with a particular kind of wannabee witch. I mean, we have to sell this stuff because, like I said, we don’t really want anyone to look too close at us. If we play to the tourists, no one takes us seriously enough to think we could be a problem. Still, you never know when people might turn on us. They’ve done it in the past, and nobody around here needs a witch hunt again.”

  “Yeah, don’t flaunt the magic. Everything that looks like magic is just stage magic for the tourists,” Twink replied, reciting from rote. “I got it the first fifty times. Like anyone believes in witches anyway. They’d just think I’m a freak. Because I need people thinking I’m a freak, right?” Twink rolled her eyes for the third time in as many minutes. “Can I tell Marcus about all of this now that I’m starting my training?”

  “Just hold on to that for a couple more days, please. It needs to be safer for him to know what’s been happening to you, and that change should happen soon. You can tell him then.”

  Twink eyed her suspiciously. “What kind of change?”

  “A good one, I hope. You’ll see him more often, at least.”

  Twink nearly smiled, but her words sounded noncommittal. “That would be okay, I guess.”

  “Thought you’d like it,” Cassie said, then turned toward the front when the shop’s bell tinkled. Gillian stepped in with Natalie behind her. Gillian’s face lit up when she saw Twink, and she rushed toward her, hands outstretched. Her flight plan was interrupted briefly when Cat went for the hem of her long skirt and nearly tripped her, but she sorted that out quickly by bowing down to scoop him up and hand him off to Nat in one smooth motion. She took both of Twink’s immaculately manicured hands in her own hard-worked, chubby ones.

  “Twink! I’m so happy you’re joining us.”

  Natalie glared at the kitten, sat it back down, and followed close behind. “Grumbling goose gizzards! Give the girl some space. No need to crowd her all at once. It’ll take years to turn her into a respectable witch. Plenty of time to get to know her.”

  Twink looked over to Cassie with a startled look. “I know, right?” Cassie whispered. “So, Twink,” she said out loud, “the friendly one is Gillian Winterforth, and the other one is Natalie Taylor.”

  Twink’s eyes registered recognition at Natalie’s name. “You�
�re the one who stood up for Marcus, right?”

  “I know when to keep my mouth shut about things that are no one’s business, if that’s what you mean,” Natalie said. She walked around the counter and stowed her red purse beneath it. “Is everyone going to stand around, or are we going to get to work?”

  Cassie patted Twink on the shoulder. “You’re in good hands. Really. Not only are you getting trained by the best, but you’re getting paid, too. Can’t beat that.”

  She picked up her purse from the countertop and flipped the door sign to Open on her way out.

  ***

  Natalie stepped from the car and smiled up at the full moon. The weather was perfect: a warm spring night. She was glad she’d arrived a little early. The sound of the early crickets and gray tree frogs crooning blanketed the woods with peace.

  It was the first time in a long while that she felt spring as a rebirth, a never-ending connection to the eternal return. It was the first time in a long time she’d felt the stir of anticipation for new beginnings.

  The breeze that moved the leaves brought a chill with it, and she turned back to the open car door and leaned in to retrieve her robe. She pulled it on, but she’d leave the hood down until the others arrived to walk with her solemnly to the ritual grounds. She didn’t feel solemn though. She felt buoyed up, happy. She felt like skipping.

  She hadn’t been unhappy, she knew that. But actively happy? No. It hadn’t been her way. She’d been content with keeping busy.

  Cars started arriving, and Natalie had greetings for everyone: “Good to see you made it, Lydia. It’s a glorious night, isn’t it?” and “How’s your daughter’s pregnancy coming along, Maureen? You must be over the moon with the triplets on the way,” and “Darrin, dear Darrin, so good to see you looking so well!”

  When she hugged Gillian in greeting, she wondered what insanity had overtaken her, but Gillian just hugged her back and backed away from her with a sly smile.

  It wasn’t until they were all together that she realized that, with members returning to the coven after the numerous rifts Anat had created, the coven was once again at twelve members. If Twink decided to join them after her year and day of training, it would bring the membership to thirteen. It was a powerful symbolic number, but few thirteen-member covens endured for long without the sheer weight of their member’s expectations tearing them apart.

  When Tom and Cassie arrived, she moved to them, pulling up her hood, which signaled to the others it was nearly time to get to the business at hand. She followed Tom to the hatch of the old station wagon Cassie had inherited from her grandmother, where he slid out a large leather portfolio case.

  The case looked too small for the job she’d asked him to do. “You have all of them?” she asked.

  “Man, Nat, keep your hair on. Cassie thought it was a good idea to take them out of the frames to make them easier to carry. Just make sure that Frank’s voodoo isn’t broadcasting anymore so we can get these back to the gallery. Dash wasn’t real happy about loaning them to us. They’re apparently a lot more valuable now that Lou Frank is deceased and has been making headlines for his part in the murders. He’s not really sure what he’s supposed to do with them since no heir has come forward yet to claim them.” He held the case out to her.

  “They’ll be cleared of magic tonight. That’s the most important thing. They aren’t broadcasting right now, but that doesn’t mean someone else can’t come along and tie the spell to their own use. You’re sure you won’t join us, Tom? You’d bring the count to thirteen.”

  Cassie slipped up beside him and gave him a side hug. “You know he’d rather hunt than be the one without magic in the magic circle.”

  As Cassie pulled on her robe, Natalie said, “We’ll do it someday, Robert and I, figure out how to unbind your power.”

  Tom shrugged. “I’m fine without it. It never did me much good anyway. I used it for all the wrong things—seduction and my own vanity for the most part. And anyway, as the poet said, ‘the woods are lovely, dark and deep,’ and with them out there beckoning, I have no interest in any longer being that bad Tom.”

  With his magic words, bad Tom, spoken, his body transformed. When the juddering ended, a sleek black cat made its way out of the disordered pile of boxers, jeans, and Tom’s favorite old dashiki, and brushed against Cassie’s legs before springing toward the woods.

  Cassie picked up the clothes and tossed them into the front seat of the station wagon. She took Natalie’s elbow to walk with her into the woods. The other members of the coven fell in behind, the conversation fading the closer they moved to their ritual grounds.

  25

  Marcus had only been at the group home for a week when Mrs. Dean, his social worker, told him that a relative from his father’s side of the family had recently contacted the county protective services with an interest in taking guardianship of him. Which was kind of a shock to him, since he’d never met his father.

  Mrs. Dean gave him the once-over where they stood on the big front porch of the funky old blue house with its purple and pink trim. “You look really nice. She’s an interesting woman, your great grandmother. I’m sure the two of you will do fine together.”

  Marcus wasn’t sure of that, but it had to be better than the group home, and this was the first time anyone had actually asked to have him live with them instead of just taking him because he was placed in their home. It was a real chance. Maybe.

  “Ready?” she asked, her hand poised on the bell.

  “Sure.” He shrugged and pulled his backpack further up on his shoulder. “I got nothin’ to lose.”

  The door opened, and Natalie greeted them with, “Come in then, if you’re coming.”

  “Since the two of you have already met, I’ll just run along,” said Mrs. Dean. “I have a hundred other appointments today.” She put a hand on Marcus’s shoulder. “Is that okay with you?”

  “Yeah, me and Ms. Taylor, we get along. You said she made it through all the placement checks, right? I’m here to stay?”

  “You are,” she said, as she pressed his hand. “I’ll be by next week to check in.”

  Natalie led him into the kitchen, where she had a plate of cookies and a cold glass of milk waiting for him. She motioned for him to sit.

  “I didn’t bake those by the way. If you want fresh baked goods, you’ll have to make them yourself. It isn’t in my skill set.”

  He smiled and his head cocked briefly to the side. He reached for a cookie. “These look fine to me.”

  “And just so there is no confusion—and also to start out together on a basis of honesty, which I will also expect from you, by the way—I’m not your great grandmother.”

  “Didn’t think so,” he said between bites. “Even my mother isn’t sure who my father is, so . . .”

  “Yes, well . . . Jeremiah Taylor is what your birth certificate says his name is. Or it does now. He’s a distant cousin who would be surprised to discover his paternal grandmother of record has changed. Unfortunately, he died a few years ago, so he won’t be protesting the change in ancestors. I have my reasons for the deception, primarily based on the best interests of your friend Twink. But I think we can make it work.”

  “What’s Twink to you?”

  “She’s my trainee.”

  “What are you training her for? That mind power thing you can both do?” he asked, setting down an empty glass.

  Natalie started to answer, but was interrupted by the doorbell. “She can tell you that herself.” When Marcus didn’t move, she had to add, “Well, are you going to let her in?” before he got the hint.

  He got up fast and headed for the door.

  Twink wrapped herself around him in a hug almost before he had the door open.

  “Belligerent brandied beetles! Don’t stand in the doorway canoodling. Bring the girl in!”

  ***

  At the boundary of Giles, William swung his arms as he walked, thrilling to the feel of the earth beneath his feet and
the wind that kicked up as a car whizzed by. Most people wouldn’t risk walking along the narrow shoulder, but it wasn’t like he had to fear injury or death. All of that had been behind him for a long time.

  He pulled out his grandfather’s pocket watch, another find from the Stanford mansion. It had fallen behind a chest of drawers, where it was found again when he helped Tom clean out some of the junk in the upstairs rooms. He’d been thrilled when Tom and Cassie had offered it to him, but it had come at a price. He obviously couldn’t expect the growing Sanders family to put him up forever, and Tom had taken the opportunity to let William know that he’d have to move on soon. He understood, but he’d never lived on his own. He supposed it would be an adventure.

  He could live in an oil lamp if he wanted, like the djinn of old—he’d discovered his magic allowed him to shrink not only himself but a roomful of furniture into a tiny space if he wanted to, but he wasn’t quite sure how djinn ended up as slaves to their lamps. An apartment was probably a better bet. If he got stuck there, he could at least have people in.

  The old watch had only needed a cleaning to get it ticking again. It told him that it was 3:25 p.m. The prison van carrying Gerald Akers should be coming down the road any minute on its way to the county jail where he’d await trial. Robert had been kind enough to give him the timetable. He hurried to the stop sign. He didn’t want to miss his chance.

  As the van pulled up, he yelled, “Hey, Gerald!” in his best older-lady voice.

  He had no idea what Gerald must have thought when Natalie Taylor smiled at him only to watch her be abruptly replaced by the man whose body he’d paid to have stuffed into a statue.

  Gerald blanched dead white as the van pulled away. Maybe William did have an idea what the man thought after all. He turned to follow the van a few more steps, not realizing his mistake until he felt the tug; he stumbled off the side of the pedestal when he reappeared downtown, and didn’t manage to catch himself fully before he rolled off the curb. The driver pulling into the parking spot where he landed slammed on the brakes. William’s heart raced as he scrambled up, jumping back from the road and signaling to the driver that he was just fine.