Hashtag Murder

by Vreni Fox

  I rubbed the orbuculum, warming it in my hands and chanting until a cloud formed inside the ball as Pudding laid next to me on my bed.

  It was working. Not necessarily the way I intended, but something was happening. That was the thing about my magic; I could make something happen, but it was almost never what I wanted. I had never learned to completely control my powers, and I certainly had never worked on expanding them.

  “It’s working,” I whispered to Pudding. “Come on, give me something here…”

  And then I felt it, piercing directly into my heart. Someone that I loved was in grave, grave danger. I was going to experience a deep loss, one that I would never recover from. And it was all going to happen almost immediately.

  “Pudding,” I gasped, “can you feel that?”

  No! Pudding was alarmed. What is it? Are you alright? Should we stop?

  “No!” I cried, “I need to find out more.”

  The longer I tried, the more painful things became. I felt like the bottom was dropping out of my stomach and my heart was struggling to continue beating. I just needed more information! Who was it that was in trouble?

  Things weren’t getting any clearer, only darker. Then I got a little tiny bit of more specific information: it was a man. A man that I cared deeply about was about to lose his life, and he was going to die in agony.

  The ball slipped from my sweating palms and rolled off the bed onto the floor, breaking my connection.

  “Did I break it?” I asked Pudding, my voice weak from my efforts.

  No, it’s fine.

  I retrieved the ball and put it back in the teak box. I didn’t think it would get us any further that night.

  What happened? Pudding finally asked once I caught my breath and recovered a bit.

  “I had a premonition. The ball showed me danger, not to me but to someone I love. A man. This person is going to suffer a great deal, then be lost forever.”

  Who was it?

  “No clue. I barely caught that it was a man. Just someone that I love very much. Pudding,” I suddenly felt quite desperate, “we have to do something. I think that’s why the ball showed me this danger, so that I could stop it before it was too late.”

  But how are we going to act when we don’t even know who it is?

  “We need to figure it out. We have no choice.”

  Well, I guess our first step is to list all of the men who you care deeply about.

  That made sense.

  “Since you put it that way, I guess we don’t even have very many candidates. It was someone I love, not a friend. So… Uncle Conrad? Or possibly... “ I was embarrassed and didn’t want to continue.

  Just spit it out. This isn’t the time to be coy.

  “Horst? I can’t even think of anyone else it could be.”

  I didn’t have any other family left and there weren’t very many men in Drachenfels to begin with.

  Which one do you think it is?

  “I have no idea, but I think we’re going to have to pick one. We don’t have time to get to them both. And I don’t even know what I would say to Horst… ‘Hey, I was looking in my mom’s crystal ball and I got a really bad feeling about you so you should take some steps to protect yourself from a danger I can’t describe?’”

  You certainly have a point there. Plus Horst is a cop. He carries a gun. He’s probably got some training when it comes to protecting himself.

  “And Conrad is the more likely candidate anyway. He can be so reckless. Plus we haven’t seen him for days. Who knows what he’s been getting in to.”

  So we need to reach him and warn him. At least he’ll know what to do. And maybe he can even finally help us.

  “I just know that we don’t have much time. We should try to get to him tonight.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It wasn’t easy to reach Conrad’s cabin during the day, and after the sun went down it was nearly impossible. Pudding and I hopped into the van and drove up the mountain to the runoff that concealed the trail that led to the cabin.

  Conrad’s place couldn’t be reached by car, and certainly not by van. He could drive his bike up the craggy trail, but otherwise it was inaccessible by foot, just the way he liked it.

  I got my big flashlight out of my glove compartment and started the long and arduous hike. Pudding could navigate the trail easily, because he was a cat and he was made for hopping around difficult terrain, but he had to stop and wait for me to catch up several times.

  You okay? He asked, sitting on a fallen log.

  “As okay as can be expected,” keeping my flashlight and my eyes on the ground in front of me so I didn’t get tripped up by a root or some divet in the trail.

  I wasn’t exactly in the best of shape. I worked in a bakery; it was part of my job to taste all of my product to make sure it was up to snuff. Plus, I wasn’t really a huge fan of exercise. Sometimes I did a yoga video to keep my joints limber, but usually the most cardio I got was carrying cakes from my van to their respective venues.

  I certainly wasn’t an outdoorswoman. I left the hiking and trekking to Mitzi. I was perfectly capable of appreciating the beauty of Bavaria’s natural landscapes from the comfort of my van.

  I huffed and sweat my way up the trail and kept my ears pricked for any sounds that might have indicated that we weren’t alone. Recently there had been reports of sightings in the woods: wolves and even a bear.

  I was personally thrilled that these animals could make a comeback from the brink of extinction. That thrill did not extend to any kind of desire on my part to encounter these animals in person. I was also afraid for Pudding’s sake; he was a tough cookie but wouldn’t stand a chance against a pack of hungry wolves.

  The wolves and bear weren’t the only thing that scared me, though. Sometimes people saw… things in the forest. Drachenfels, being the center of the Drachenfels coven, was a hot spot for magic and tended to draw all manner of supernatural creatures. Most, like our local ghosts and Fae community, were generally harmless and sometimes even friendly or helpful.

  Sometimes, though, things would turn up that weren’t so sweet. Occasionally something would turn up in our forest that would need to be driven out, for the safety of our community. Sometimes these things could hide out for a long time in our forests undetected, picking off local pets and terrorizing lost tourists until they were discovered and dealt with.

  Were those wolves really just wolves?

  I didn’t want to let my imagination get away with me. I had enough to worry about without resorting to wild speculation.

  We’re almost there, Pudding encouraged me in a rare show of support. Just a few hundred meters more.

  I was too out of breath to answer him. I glanced up and could see my goal in the distance, the faint lights emanating from Conrad’s cabin.

  By the time we reached it, I needed to sit down on a fallen tree for a few seconds to recover. I didn’t want to knock on my Uncle’s door looking like I was about to drop dead from exertion. I was covered in a thin layer of sweat and I could feel the red in my face.

  “Don’t move,” I heard my Uncle’s voice behind me. “I’ve got a gun.”

  “Calm down, Conrad,” I replied. “This isn’t the Beverly Hillbillies.”

  “Brunhilde?” Conrad asked, the surprise in his voice apparent. “How did you get up here? Someone give you a lift?”

  “I walked,” I answered, my voice indignant.

  “Really? You? Walked all the way up here? You start this morning? Why didn’t you just call?”

  “I needed to speak with you. Urgently,” I replied, ignoring Conrad’s smart Alec remark.

  “Well, come inside. I can get you a drink.”

  Pudding and I followed my Uncle into his cabin, spotting The Boss in a tree high above us looking down.

  Conrad poured us each a small glass of bourbon and we sat at an old oak table in front of his fire.

  “Well, what is it? You in big trouble?”

  �
��Not me,” I cut to the chase. “You. We need to get you out of here and to safety.”

  “Me,” Conrad laughed. “I’m not in any kind of trouble.”

  I knew that this wasn’t going to be easy. Conrad was nothing if not a stubborn old man.

  “No, you definitely are. I saw it.”

  “Saw it where?”

  “Mama’s orbuculum. It was plain as day,” I lied, “you’re in serious trouble but it’s not too late for you. You need to lay low.”

  “So you were using Ingeborg’s ball,” Conrad was silent for a moment.

  Conrad was my mother’s much older brother. He had absolutely adored her during her short life and had never quite gotten over her death. It was a bit of an unspoken point of contention on his part that I didn’t really take after her. My mother Ingeborg had been naturally curious and paid rapt attention to every single lesson Conrad gave her.

  “I used it and it warned me. We have to go. Please don’t turn this into an all night thing. I’m not leaving until you agree to come with me.”

  We stared each other down, each waiting for the other to continue. Conrad didn’t like being told what to do, even if it was something he actually wanted to do. I wasn’t going to budge though. I’d sit there all night if I needed to.

  I didn’t need one more thing to worry about on top of the investigation and my failing business. I wasn’t in the mood for Conrad’s grumpy old man schtick.

  “Well,” Conrad finally conceded, “I guess if I come stay the night with you it will save you the trouble of hiking all the way back down the trail. Wouldn’t want something to happen to you, after all, you’re the only family I’ve got. And you already look like you’re about to drop dead from exhaustion. Wouldn’t want those old wolves to get you.”

  Conrad grinned. He clearly felt like he had ‘won’ this round, and I was willing to give him that win if it meant that I didn’t have to spend another minute cajoling him.

  “Fine. Thank you very much. I’d love a ride back down the trail. You’ll certainly save me quite a bit of trouble. Maybe even save my life.” I gave him a tight grin and hoped that would be the end of the discussion.

  We packed into Conrad’s bike, him in the driver’s seat and me and Pudding in the sidecar. Conrad took off down the trail, way too fast for my tastes, but I had to admit… riding the bike through the trails was a lot of fun.

  We got back to my van and agreed to meet back at my place.

  Well, Pudding finally said. That wasn’t too bad. I was expecting more pushback from him.

  “Maybe he believed that I was somehow able to get the orbuculum to work right.”

  That was very clever of you to lie about what you saw.

  “It was only sort of a lie. I definitely saw some kind of danger. I don’t know what, exactly, but better to be safe than sorry.”

  We got back to my place and I got Conrad situated with a snack and a drink in my guest bedroom.

  “Tomorrow,” I fluffed some towels and left them on the nightstand, “we can talk about where we can hide you. You’re not safe here, so we’ll have to figure out where you can stay for at least a couple days.”

  “Where I can stay?” Conrad balked. “Oh no. I agreed to come down the mountain and stay with you here tonight to make you feel better. Tomorrow morning, I’m going home. I’m not going to skip town because you had some weird vision that I’m in some kind of mess. You don’t even have any idea what kind of trouble it could be. Maybe the real trouble is wherever you’re trying to ship me off. I’m not going anywhere.”

  I rolled my eyes. I just didn’t have the energy to argue with him. I wished him a good night after semi agreeing to revisit the topic in the morning.

  We have to come up with something, Pudding read my mind as soon as we reached my room. There’s no way he’s just going to cooperate again.

  “Ugh, Pudding, I know. Why does he have to make everything as difficult as possible?”

  I climbed into bed and snuggled under the covers as Pudding took his customary spot on my bedspread.

  “We have to come up with some reason that is going to make him want to skip town.”

  What would that even be?

  “A holiday?” I suggested. I couldn’t remember Conrad ever going on holiday, but he did like to have fun.

  That might work.

  “A singles’ cruise?”

  That’s so trashy.

  “I know.”

  He’ll love it.

  Pudding and I set to work on the internet searching for the cheapest deal on a last minute singles’ cruise that we could find.

  “Okay. Here’s something. An eight day singles’ cruise that travels up the Rhine and leaves in two days. This one only costs...half of my life savings.”

  Pudding cringed. Is that our best option?

  “It’s our only option. The rest cost everything I have. I’m going to book.”

  What are you going to tell Conrad?

  “That he’s going whether he likes it or not and it’s already paid?”

  No, I mean he’ll never accept a gift like that.

  I thought about what Pudding said. He was right.

  “I won it.”

  You won it?

  “On a call in radio program.”

  That’s ridiculous. Do call in radio programs even exist anymore?

  “I don’t know. Do you have a better idea?”

  Okay, call in radio program it is.

  “I think we need a little extra insurance for our plan. I don’t want to argue with Conrad about whether he’s attending this thing or not. Come downstairs with me.”

  Back to the kitchen I went. I flipped on the lights and out from my fridge I pulled a buttery crust that I had been chilling, some eggs, cream, ricotta, smoked salmon, and dried Cubeb berries.

  A-ha, Pudding understood.

  I was making Conrad’s favorite breakfast, ricotta and salmon quiche, but with a little something extra. I crushed the Cubeb berries into a fine powder and mixed them liberally into my concoction, hoping that Conrad wouldn’t be able to taste them. These tasty little peppers ought to increase his carnal appetites.

  The thought of my crusty old uncle having carnal appetites made me lose my own regular appetite, but I did what I had to do. If I was going to keep him safe, I needed to get him on that boat, and I felt that the berries were my best bet.

  “There,” I pulled the quiche out of the oven. “It smells great. I think those berries might actually improve the flavor of this dish. And who knows. Maybe when he gets back from this trip I’ll have a new auntie.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Good morning,” I pulled open the curtains in Conrad’s room, hoping to get the day started early. “I have a little surprise for you.”

  “I hate surprises,” Conrad growled, sitting up in his bed.

  “Did you sleep in your clothes?” I asked, noticing that he was still wearing a faded black T shirt and his jeans.

  “Never know when I might need to jump into action. After all, you told me yourself I’m in trouble. And think of all the time I’ve saved this morning getting dressed.”

  “Okay. Not going to comment. Anyway, I have something for you.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “It’s food,” I finally snapped, losing my patience. If he was going to be this difficult over a slice of his favorite quiche, I dreaded the discussion we were about to have over the cruise.

  “Oh, you should have said,” Conrad got himself out of bed, his mood immediately improving.

  He followed me down to the dining room and took a seat as I warmed up a huge piece of the ricotta salmon quiche, or as I liked to think of it the Quiche of Hope.

  “Check it out,” I set the plate down in front of my uncle along with a big mug of coffee.

  “Is this what I think it is?” he asked, eyeing his breakfast up.

  “I thought you’d like it.”

  “Aren’t you going to try a piece?”
r />   “I have a hankering for something sweet this morning,” I replied, indicating my carrot cake. The last thing I needed was to fall under the spell of the Cubeb berries myself. “Anyhow, bon appetit.”

  We both tucked into our breakfasts. I loved carrot cake after it had the chance to rest for two days or so, and Conrad clearly appreciated the quiche.

  “This tastes incredible,” he commented with his mouth full. “Better than usual, even. You do something different?”

  Uh oh. Didn’t want him to get suspicious. “I got this salmon from a different source. You like it?” I asked him, hoping my ruse worked.

  “I think it’s a little more flavorful,” he nodded.

  He liked it so much that he even had a second piece. After putting away half a quiche, I decided that it was time to make my move.

  “So I’ve got good news,” I started, trying to sound casual. “I won a contest.”

  “You won a what?” Conrad asked, picking at the crumbs on his plate.

  “Yeah, there’s this radio show I like to listen to at night, and last night I called in and won a contest. I won a cruise. A singles’ cruise.”

  “You won a singles’ cruise from the radio?”

  “Yeah, but I can’t go. It’s only for singles. It leaves this week and it goes up the Rhine for eight days. Everything is included, room, food, entertainment. Booze. And it’s five hundred single women. You think you’d want to go?”

  “Why aren’t you going? Last I heard you were about as single as could be.”

  I was momentarily put on the spot. That was true. I was really, really single. I had to think fast.

  “Well, you know that cop? Officer Horst? It kind of seems like things are going pretty well with him and I don’t want to mess that up.”

  “He your boyfriend?” Conrad raised a single eyebrow.

  “Technically no.”

  “Then what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

  “There’s something else though.”

  “You got another guy?”

  “No, it’s not that. I think I’m also not supposed to skip town when I’m being investigated for murder.”