by Elle Adams
“When I tried using my abilities to track her ghost, she was gone,” I added. “I doubt she moved on by herself.”
“Really?” he said. “Maybe your Reaper abilities need some fine-tuning.”
I matched his scowl with one of my own. “Trust me, I’d know if she was still around, and she isn’t. All I wanted to know is if you can confirm whether she moved on. Or not.”
He grunted. “I don’t keep an eye on that kind of thing anymore. If your own Reaper senses told you she’s not here, she moved on, and that’s that.”
“Is there a way for me to figure out who banished her, though?” I said. “Would they have to be able to see her in order to do it?”
“You already know the answer to that, unless you’re less of a witch than you say you are.” He retreated into the hallway and shut the door in my face.
I turned to Drew with a sigh. “Guess it couldn’t have a simple answer, huh.”
“It’s still more likely someone who could see her ghost was responsible for getting rid of her,” he said. “If nothing else, they’d be able to verify her location before they did it.”
Smart of him. Considering he’d never dealt with ghosts before I’d arrived in town, he’d caught on pretty well to how the whole thing worked. “You’re right, but I wish I knew where to go from here.”
“For now, home,” he said. “My colleagues are waiting for an explanation as to why I’m focusing all my attention on this case, so I have to give one to them.”
“Tell them to go and hassle the coven leader,” I said. “Mina can’t hide from me forever. I’m sure she must know more than she let on. She wouldn’t have barred me from her office if she didn’t. Unless I really annoyed her that much. Which is possible. I get told I’m annoying a lot.”
“If it helps, I find you perfectly charming.”
A flush swept my cheeks. “I’m pretty sure nobody has ever called me charming before.”
“I’m surprised.”
My heart kick-started. “Um, you do remember I dragged you into the afterlife, right?”
“Yes, I do.”
Ack. Why did I have to remind him? I clamped my mouth shut before I made an even bigger fool of myself. “I’ll see you later.”
We parted ways, and I walked back over the bridge towards the inn. I kept both eyes open for ghosts, though by now, I was convinced Harriet was long gone. Someone had seen to that. Someone who would be getting a stern talking-to from me… once I figured out who it was, anyway. With luck, I’d do a better job of that than I had of taking a compliment from the detective.
A sudden chilling wail echoed from the direction of the inn as I approached. Oh, no. What now?
It seemed the ghost was having another bad day. I walked through the glass doors to the lobby, where several people milled about, looking at the ceiling and muttering among themselves. Howling echoed from upstairs, and when I entered the restaurant, I found Carey’s mother helping Hayley deal cast soundproofing spells all over the walls.
“The ghost is at it again,” said Allie.
“What set her off this time?” I winced as a particularly loud screech rattled the cutlery and glasses on the tables.
“No idea,” she said. “I tried opening the door to her room, but I couldn’t hear a word she said, and she wouldn’t listen to me. She just kept on screaming.”
“Ah, sorry,” I said. “I’ll see what the problem is.”
I ran for the stairs, cursing the ghost for ensuring I never got a moment to relax. If it turned out Mart had been the one who’d set her off, I wouldn’t be amused in the slightest. If only Harriet had been the ghost who’d showed up in my room instead. That would have saved me a great deal of trouble, I’d say that much.
Mart greeted me at the top of the stairs. “Help me! I’m being deafened.”
“What’s the problem?” I walked past him and towards the room next to mine. It was already unlocked, since Allie had already tried to calm the ghost down and failed.
Inside the room, the ghost floated in mid-air and howled at the ceiling. She had an impressive set of lungs on her for someone who, well, didn’t have lungs. She must be projecting her voice all the way around the hotel, which came as a surprise considering she’d hardly been able to speak at all the last time we’d seen one another. Now every person inside the inn and the restaurant would know she was here.
“Hey!” I said. “Mandy, calm down.”
She momentarily quietened down long enough to give me a reproachful look. “You were gone.”
“You were calling for me?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“What is it you wanted to say?” I closed the door behind me. “I’m kind of busy. Unless… do you remember anything else about how you died?”
“I remembered my full name,” she announced. “It’s Amanda Dawson.”
The name didn’t ring a bell, but it wasn’t like I knew everyone who’d ever died here in Hawkwood Hollow. Ghosts were all different and some of them never recalled their former lives before their deaths. Others drifted around in a happy delusion until they finally moved on. Mandy, on the other hand, must have been around a while, though I’d need to get confirmation to find out just how long. Maybe I could ask about her now I knew her full name. In all the free time I didn’t have.
“Okay,” I said. “Is there a reason you picked out my room to haunt?”
“You’re safe,” she said. “You won’t let them banish me.”
I blinked at her. “By ‘them’, who do you mean?”
She shook her head. “I don’t remember.”
She can’t mean the coven, can she? The witches were on my mind because of the disappearance of Harriet’s ghost, but suspicion gripped me all the same. Hadn’t she shown up here the same night Harriet had died?
“Will you please try to keep the noise down next time?” I asked. “The whole inn could hear you. If you were trying to avoid attention, there are better ways of going about it.”
She shrank back. “I didn’t know they could hear. Oh, no. Oh, no.”
“Mart will watch you,” I reassured her. “We won’t let anyone banish you. Look, if you just stay put and keep quiet, you’ll be fine.”
“They’re coming for me!” she whimpered.
“There’s a dozen other ghosts in the building and countless more outside of it,” I told her. “Nobody’s looking for you, and no one will find you.”
I wasn’t sure she heard me, but I closed the door behind me. Footsteps on the stairs alerted me to Allie’s arrival.
“Is the ghost okay?” she asked.
“For now,” I said. “She kind of had a meltdown because she remembered her full name and thinks someone’s coming here to banish her. Now she knows everyone can hear her, she’ll be quiet.”
“Really?” Interest gleamed in her eyes. “Who is she?”
“Do you know of a witch called Amanda Dawson?” I asked Allie.
“Amanda…” She paused. “Yes, a witch in the coven who died a few years back.”
“She was in the coven?” I frowned. “So she’s been dead a while. I wonder what prompted her to come back here.”
Was it a coincidence that she’d shown up in my room so soon after Harriet’s death? Her memory might take more prompting to turn up anything useful, but that didn’t make it impossible to find out the truth. I had a detective on my side for a reason.
“I couldn’t say,” said Allie. “Maybe ask the coven leader?”
I made a sceptical noise. “She stuck a note on her door with a made-up set of office hours just to get rid of me. I doubt she’ll be amused if I start bombarding her for details of a witch who died years ago. I also don’t think she can see ghosts herself, so she might just dismiss me as a troublemaker.”
“I’m sure if the detective is with you, she won’t say no,” she said.
I decided not to argue. I’d had quite enough conflict for one day, and I didn’t want to backtrack when I’d made more p
rogress with the ghost than I ever thought I would. I knew her name now, and with that information, maybe the detective would be able to find records of her death. If he had time to, what with the ongoing issue of Harriet’s ghost’s disappearance.
“I’d better tell the guests that you’ve dealt with the trouble,” she added. “Thanks for handling her, Maura.”
Maybe that should be my official title. Ghost-handler. It wasn’t like I’d do a worse job at that than I had at ingratiating myself with the coven.
I returned to my room and picked up my phone to send a message to Drew. As I hit send, Mart floated through the wall, his arms folded across his chest. “You’re letting her stay after she deafened everyone in the building?”
“For now.” I kept my voice low. “Don’t provoke her. She used to be part of the coven… aka, the same coven who might have been involved in Harriet’s death.”
“If anything, that’s a good reason not to let her stay,” he said. “She thinks someone is going to banish her. What if they banish me, too?”
“Mart, I can’t be in five places at once,” I said. “Nobody is going to banish you.”
He scoffed. “I’m being replaced by another ghost.”
“Don’t be absurd.” I really didn’t have time for his arguments. “How would you feel if you were a terrified ghost and another spirit kept hassling you?”
“I’m going to sleep outside.” He pointedly turned away.
“You don’t sleep,” I said as he floated through the door.
This was going to end well.
The following morning, I woke with a new plan. Seeing the coven leader was top of my list, but I also needed to figure out how to deal with the ghost. Now everyone could hear her, she had the potential to make life very difficult for me. Almost as difficult as my brother, who still wasn’t speaking to me. When I saw Mart downstairs, he stuck his nose in the air and floated right past me as though I didn’t exist. Luckily, Drew texted me saying he was on his way and met me in the lobby after breakfast.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “I heard something about a disturbance here yesterday.”
“The ghost,” I said. “She remembered her name, and she also remembered how to throw a tantrum so that the entire inn could hear. I managed to calm her down, but now my brother’s sulking because I won’t get rid of her. It’s all ghost drama over here.”
“I got your message earlier,” he said. “Do you still want to speak to Mina? We’re within her opening hours, so she can’t say she’s too busy to see us. Maybe she can tell us who might have banished Harriet’s ghost.”
“Not sure if she’ll be much help,” I said. “If a witch performed the banishing spell, they’d have needed to use certain herbs for it to work. We could visit Angie again. She’s bound to remember if anyone bought the right herbs for a banishment. That might point us in the right direction.”
“Some witches grow their own herbs, don’t they?” said Drew. “Not dismissing your idea, mind.”
“Yes, but it’s still worth checking out,” I said. “Maybe Angie remembers something she didn’t tell us last time, too. Also, I have a new line of questioning.”
“Oh?” he said. “Is that the new information you mentioned in your message?”
“I found out the ghost in my room used to be part of the local coven, too,” I explained. “She remembered her name. Amanda Dawson. She died a while ago, but for some reason, her ghost showed up the same night Harriet died. Seems fishy to me.”
He frowned. “I can check for the details, but my colleagues are starting to question if I’m operating on a hunch and not concrete evidence already.”
“More of a Reaper sense than a hunch.” To people who weren’t Reapers, though, there wasn’t much of a difference. I didn’t blame the others for being sceptical.
But I knew there was something significant in the appearance of Amanda’s ghost. Something that linked to the coven, past and present.
“Hunch or not, I trust your word,” he said.
The rush of warm pride that flooded me almost made the whole thing worth it. I suppressed a grin. “I’m cracking under the pressure.”
“I’m sure you’ll survive it.”
We walked along the same route as yesterday, towards the high street. Not many people were around, while the apothecary itself was dark behind the windows despite being within opening hours. Strange.
I knocked. Then the detective pushed the door inwards.
At once, I knew something was wrong. The place held an air of abandonment, even though it hadn’t been long since we’d last been here. But the shadows folding around the edges were hard to ignore, and I was already prepared when my Reaper senses kicked in, too late, telling me there was nobody living in here aside from the two of us. The body that lay sprawled behind the counter confirmed my worst fears.
The healer was dead.
9
“Poisoned,” said Mina Devlin. “By a concoction of herbs someone slipped inside her teacup.”
“Who would have done that?” whispered Fran.
The other witches crowded into the small shop. They’d come here with their leader as soon as Drew had sent for her, and their shocked murmurs filled the air along with the scent of herbs.
It was lucky the chief of police had been the one to discover her body, or else I might have ended up in a world of trouble, given the accusing looks some of the witches shot in my direction. I could just hear the rumours about the newbie who’d shown up to their coven meeting suddenly discovering the dead body of a beloved retired coven member not long after. They didn’t bother to hide their disdain for my presence here, but I didn’t want to leave without something resembling an answer.
Especially as this time, my Reaper senses hadn’t reacted to her death at all.
“How long has she been in here?” I asked.
“Overnight, I’d guess,” said Marie. “Didn’t you come and visit yesterday?”
All eyes turned to me.
“Both of us did,” the detective interjected. “As part of my ongoing investigation into Harriet’s death. We left the shop together, and Maura hasn’t been back here since then.”
Uneasiness rippled through the group, and to my intense relief, their attention withdrew from me for a bit as they whispered among themselves. One of the witches waved a wand over Angie’s body, muttering under her breath. Forensic magic wasn’t my forte, but I gathered she was discerning more information about the cause of death. Not summoning her ghost… though that didn’t require a spell. It would likely take another day or so for her spirit to show up, and while I wanted to have another look around the shop, the coven leader continued to glare at me in a manner I found vaguely insulting. Did she really think I’d murder a harmless old woman?
Getting my Reaper powers out to see if I could track her ghost was out of the question, because the witches would probably hex me on the spot. Though with the detective on my side, the odds of ending up jailed were comfortably low enough for me to risk staying here while they conducted their spells.
The witch waving her wand lowered her hand, her mouth pursed. “She was definitely poisoned. About ten hours or so ago, give or take.”
Then she’d been lying here all night. A chill raced down my back. Her killer had been here only a few hours after our visit and had been content to leave her here, undiscovered. Yet for all that, my Reaper senses had chosen to remain dormant.
“Poisoned by what?” asked Marie.
“This.” Mina indicated a cup. “Someone concocted a lethal dose of a rare and deadly poison, no doubt from her own supplies.”
My gaze drifted across the shelves. The ingredients here in the shop might create a dozen varieties of poison, and the floating insects in jars appeared even more disturbing than before.
While the apothecary wouldn’t be the only place the ingredients might have come from, how many people among the witches had the necessary knowledge to concoct a rare poison? Cathy, as the new he
aler, must have in-depth knowledge, so maybe she’d been the one to come here to poison her predecessor. But that made little sense either, given that she already had the job she wanted.
The only other place I’d seen a large number of rare herbs had been Harriet’s house, but again, she was already dead. Still, we definitely needed another word with the ex-boyfriend.
As the witches broke into yet another argument, the detective beckoned me aside. “I doubt I’ll get away from this one for a while. It’s definitely a case of premediated murder.”
“I don’t expect you to,” I whispered back. “I don’t think there’s anything I can do here, either.”
“I have to stay,” said Drew in apologetic tones. “This needs to be sorted out. I’d advise you to leave, before…”
“Before Mina kicks me out,” I finished. “Yeah, I figured. Text me when you’re done here, okay?”
The coven leader would definitely not be in the mood to answer my questions about the ghost of a dead coven member in my room at the inn, that was for certain. I’d have to wait until the madness had calmed down before I brought up the subject with her.
Instead, I headed back to the inn, trying to quell the suspicion that my own visit to Angie’s shop had sparked her death. I couldn’t be the only person who’d heard that Angie had been the last person to see Harriet alive, surely, but racking my brains didn’t turn up another explanation. One way or another, I’d screwed up. Majorly.
Allie waved at me from behind the desk in the lobby. “Hey, Maura. Did something else happen?”
“Angie was murdered,” I said. “Poisoned in her own shop.”
She clapped her hands to her mouth. “Who’d have done such a thing?”
“Someone who might have realised she’d spoken to Harriet just before her death,” I said. “I was the one who went there to ask her if she’d seen Harriet. If I hadn’t…”
“It’s not your fault,” she said. “You couldn’t possibly have guessed this might happen.”
I couldn’t help feeling that it was, but the person responsible must know that they couldn’t keep that information under wraps forever. But why would they kill her? Because they thought Angie might have guessed the person responsible for Harriet’s death? If she had, she sure hadn’t told me, anyway. Or might they have killed her because they knew the detective and I were going back there today? Questions rioted in my mind with no answers forthcoming.