by Linnea West
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
About the Author
Copyright
Chapter One
Three women inhabit the large, strangely dark and twisted castle that is hidden from mortal eyes. They are able to come and go as they please, known only as “those strange women” in the small town of Danner, Minnesota, which is the closest piece of human civilization to the castle. Well, it was more like a rickety old house that is made of stones; a cross between a haunted house and a castle. There were four floors and from the outside, those that could see it would have thought it was falling apart. But the inside was clean and immaculately tidy.
The witches who live there are twin sisters, Lavinia and Lavender Daggerwood, along with Lavender’s teenage daughter, Indigo. They have just taken over as the Halloween Helpers for North America and today was their first day being officially open for business.
Lavinia, who goes by Vinnie, was bustling about dusting the cobwebs off of the wall in the entryway of the castle. The feather duster floated in the air next to her and each time she pointed to a cobweb, the duster would attack it with vigor. Vinnie’s long floral skirt and forest green cardigan sweater looked totally out of place in the dark castle and her blonde hair was twisted into two short braids that made her look more like a milkmaid than a witch.
Vinnie was used to that. She was a non-magical witch and she was finally at a point in her life where she could accept that. When twin witches were born into an ancestral family, one would receive all of the magic while the other got diddly squat. It wasn’t fair, but Vinnie knew life wasn’t fair. She was just glad she had been raised in a family who loved and accepted her for who she was, even if that meant she got stuck with all of the boring chores like cleaning. At least her magical background meant that she could use magical items as long as someone else enchanted them for her, like the feather duster.
There was a large wooden desk in the entryway with a big, black, ornate telephone on top. That was the phone where they would get calls for their work as Halloween Helpers. Even though it could be heard throughout the castle, Vinnie’s nerves kept her close by. She did not want to screw this up.
The Daggerwood twins had been thrust into this position when their aunt Jemima had been mortally wounded in the line of duty. They were the next of kin and magical law stated that they must take over the business because there must always be a Halloween Helper on every continent; which meant at least seven helpers in all.
The fact that Jemima was forced to the Magical Universe in the line of duty was pretty nerve-wracking to say the least, but they were bound by magical law. And not everything they would do would be dangerous. Halloween Helpers were usually called for all sorts of things by the paranormal creatures of the world, like settling a family dispute or helping to find a missing family artifact. Sometimes they were called for mundane things such as re-magicking a broomstick for someone. Most creatures would call with emergencies, though, so Vinnie was ready.
“Any calls yet?” asked Lavender as she entered. Her long pale yellow skirt swirled around her feet and her waist length black hair moved around her like a cape. Vinnie always thought she looked more like a hippie than a witch, but the Daggerwood twins were known for occasionally pushing the boundaries of acceptable witch fashion.
“Nothing yet, but I’m happy to announce that all spiders have been rehomed to the basement and all spiderwebs have been taken care of,” Vinnie said with a smile.
“You’ve certainly been productive,” Lavender said.
She walked over to the desk and sat down behind it. Pointing her finger in the air, a stack of papers on top of the desk floated up in front of her face. As she read them, she lazily flicked her finger to flip to the next one. Sometimes Vinnie wondered if she was just showing off her magic. But she knew that her sister would never show off in front of her. Lavender had always felt guilty that she was the magical twin.
“I still don’t really get what we are doing,” Vinnie said. “Do the papers say if we receive any training?”
Vinnie knew full well that they didn’t say anything like that. She had read through them ten times looking for some sort of introduction into the business. Obviously their work would cover a lot of ground, but it would have been nice to at least tell them how to handle calls or what if two cases came up at the same time, more the administrative side of things.
“I already am trained,” Lavender said, giving a strange look at Vinnie. “Don’t you remember when Mother put me through all of those lessons?”
Vinnie did remember because her parents had been at a total loss about what to do with her while Lavender was excelling at everything magical. They had taught her reading, writing, and math, but otherwise they had left her to fend for herself. Vinnie had found one thing she was really good at: tending the home. After losing herself in book after book about pioneers and girls who lived in the mountains taking care of their grandfathers, she had learned how to cook, clean, garden, sew, and anything else that came along with keeping house. Vinnie enjoyed it and she was good at it.
“I didn’t mean trained in magic, I meant trained in this,” Vinnie said, sweeping her arm across the desk. “Trained in how to run a magical business.”
“Oh,” Lavender said. She stared at the desk for a moment, lost in thought. Lavender often tended to drift away during conversations that she didn’t find particularly interesting. It always made Vinnie wonder what was more interesting that was going on inside of her head. “I sort of supposed that you’d figure that part out.”
Vinnie rolled her eyes but Lavender didn’t notice. Lavender had a hard time putting herself into non-magical shoes, so Vinnie’s complaints tended to fall on unintentionally deaf ears. Vinnie picked up her feather duster again and moved up onto the large sweeping stone staircase that led to the second floor. Sometimes she thought that she may be too practical to be a part of all of this magic stuff.
“You guys need to calm down,” came a voice from the top of the stairs.
Indigo, Lavender’s fifteen year old daughter, was standing at the top of the stairs. While Lavender and Lavinia didn’t dress anything like what a witch is supposed to look like, Indigo did. She was wearing a knee-length black lace skirt with green and black striped stockings underneath it. On top, she had on a black button-up shirt that had gigantic, bell sleeves at the end.
When Indigo had been born, Lavender had insisted on her name, saying that the color theme would be something that would help to keep them together. Lavender could see flashes of the future, so Vinnie trusted her, but sometimes she wondered if Lavender used that to her advantage.
Indigo hated being part of a name theme so instead of using her full name, she went by Diggy. In fact, Diggy was really into writing and used Diggy Dagger as her pen name. Most of what
she wrote tended to be paranormal romance, which was both confusing because she herself was paranormal and understandable because she was of an age where romance started to be a big interest. Lavender and Vinnie didn’t quite understand the things Diggy wrote, but they applauded her creativity.
“When the phone rings, one of us can magic down here and answer it,” Diggy said with a glance toward Vinnie. “Well two out of the three of us can, but either way someone can answer it.”
Diggy was in magical training. Whenever Lavender remembered, she would give Diggy a lesson. The hard part was to get Lavender to give lessons on a regular basis, which was something Vinnie tried to make happen. But she would set up a lesson and ten minutes later find out that Lavender had rushed back to her workshop, determined to put something down on paper that she had just thought of, leaving poor Diggy behind. It really didn’t help that it didn’t come naturally to Diggy, so the irregular lesson scheduling made it even more difficult. Some things, like teleporting, came easily to the girl. But anything difficult was met with resistance which made giving her a well-rounded education hard.
Vinnie had taken over the regular schooling, teaching the girl to read and write as a child and even now she encouraged her in her writing and anything else she showed interest in. Diggy would probably have an easier time learning everything magic if she had a teacher who gave lessons on a regular schedule, but Lavender often got wrapped up in what she was doing and didn’t leave her workshop for days at a time, only stopping her work to sleep on the small bed that was there.
Diggy walked down the steps, carrying a load of notebooks and a large feather quill pen. She was right in the middle of another book and she carried her things everywhere in case inspiration struck. Sometimes she would sit down right where she was and started dictating to the magical quill, which would fly across the page scribbling everything Diggy whispered to it. It was fascinating to watch, at least until Diggy noticed someone was watching and she got all snippy for them to go away.
Other than the usual teenage angst, the three women lived together in peace and happiness in the middle of the forest. At least they had been until this whole Halloween Helpers business fell into their laps on the first of October. First, they had gotten a letter informing them that their Aunt Jemima had passed to the Magical Universe, which meant she couldn’t come back to the Mortal Universe.
Then, all of a sudden, the large black telephone, the desk, and the stack of papers Lavender was flipping through had all appeared in their entryway. It had been a bit much and Vinnie had assumed someone would be along to help as the paperwork suggested. But so far nobody had come. They just had very vague directions, a start date of today, and a phone that could ring at any minute.
And just that minute, it started to ring.
Chapter Two
The large ornate telephone started to ring so hard that it almost fell out of the hook. All three women looked back and forth at each other, trying to decide who should answer it. Lavender would have made the most sense to answer since she was actually sitting at the desk but she just stared at the telephone as if she had never seen one before even though Vinnie knew full well that she had.
“Fine, I’ll get it,” Vinnie said, thundering down the stairs.
She strode across the hall, her blond braids twitching back and forth, and picked up the receiver. Diggy had followed her down the stairs and was nervously dancing from foot to foot beside her while Lavender was staring off into space, lost in thought. Just as Vinnie picked up the phone, Lavender pointed her finger at it so that all three of them could hear the call.
“Hello Halloween Helpers,” she said, not even trying to sound pleasant. Witches weren’t supposed to sound nice.
“Oh good, I’m glad someone answered,” crackled a woman’s voice on the other end. “I wasn’t sure what would happen now that Jemima has moved on.”
“Yes, we are here to help,” Vinnie said. “We are Jemima’s nieces. How can we help you?”
“I’m calling from The Sisters of the Beating Heart,” the woman said. “I’m afraid we’ve had a little trouble and we need some help. The leader of our coven, Plant, has passed to the other Universe and it is all a bit of a mystery.”
The woman’s voice cut in and out a bit, making it hard to keep up with the conversation. Perhaps whoever ran the Halloween Helpers worldwide should invest in new phones, although it wouldn't really matter until they met the person whose job it was to actually oversee them.
“We can help with that,” Vinnie said seriously. “Please let us know where you are located and we will be there soon.”
A green glowing travel orb appeared in the entryway, ready to take the women to the coven’s location. After saying goodbye, Vinnie hung up the phone and looked at Lavender and Diggy. Lavender still had a neutral face, as if the thoughts she was having were much more important than whatever the coven of witches needed. Diggy couldn’t hide her excitement and it made Vinnie smile. It wasn’t often anymore that Diggy looked like a child.
“What do we do now?” Diggy asked. “Doesn’t one of those papers say what to do when someone calls?”
Lavender flicked her finger faster now, looking for a specific paper. When she got to the one she was looking for, she paused and read it before letting a puzzled look take over her face.
“Well what do we do?” Vinnie asked, wringing her hands in front of her. She was suddenly very nervous about this entire situation.
Instead of answering, Lavender spun the paper and made it float through the air until it floated in front of Vinnie and Diggy. It said:
Instructions for Answering Your First Call:
1) Answer the ringing phone.
2) Read the instructions.
3) Travel to the problem using the travel orb.
Vinnie read the paper a few times, but it never gave her anything useful, just the three steps that she felt like they were already following.
“What do they mean by read the instructions?” she asked. “Do they mean these directions? If they do, that’s probably the most unhelpful thing I’ve ever read. And I’ve read some thick instruction manuals before.”
“Well, I guess we have to use the travel orb,” Diggy said with a shrug.
She practically skipped over to the green glowing orb that was floating lazily in the hallway. It was emitting a very low hum, like something electrical that just couldn’t quite contain its own power. It started to throb a little and Vinnie wondered if it was only useful for a certain amount of time. Hopefully not because knowing Lavender, she couldn’t be rushed. Vinnie had traveled by orb before, but not often. She usually stayed secluded in their cozy house in the woods.
PING
A scroll appeared in the hallway next to the orb, floating in mid-air. The three women stared at it for a moment before it dropped to the floor with a crash. Apparently being a Halloween Helper meant they would have to start being a little more Johnny on the Spot about things.
Diggy picked up the scroll and started to read, her eyes flicking back and forth across the paper as she read as fast as she could.
“The Sisters of the Beating Heart were formed in 1623 in what is now the state of Maryland,” Diggy read. “They have been a continuous coven since and currently have twenty members. Last night was their monthly meeting and tragedy struck when the leader, Plant, was poisoned. It is unknown whether this was an accident or intentional. All other members are at the coven headquarters ready and waiting to help with the investigation. After determining what caused the death of the leader, you will also need to help appoint a new leader.”
“I guess that gives us a bit more information then,” Vinnie said. “I never like when we have to meet with coven witches. They always look down on me.”
In the magical world, there are two types of witches: ancestral and coven. Ancestral witches come from long familial lines of magical folks. They can trace their heritage back for centuries. Coven witches are those who are not born to magical families
, but to mortals. They are sought out to join covens where their talents can be nurtured.
Lavender floated towards Vinnie and wrapped her in a tight hug. The two sisters both took a deep breath in and then released it together. Diggy usually joked that it was their ritual for restoring their twin powers and it kind of was, but right now was a bit too tense to make that joke again. Lavender held on for a bit longer than usual, a worried look in her eye. Vinnie couldn’t tell what Lavender was thinking, but she had a strange feeling that her worry was not about the case they had just received.
“I’m sure that these witches are just looking for some help,” Lavender said. “And as the Halloween Helpers, it is our job to provide them with that help. Now if we are ready, everyone must put their hand on the travel orb and I will say the incantation.”
Rolling her eyes, Vinnie reached out and put her hand on the pulsating green orb. It seemed like sometimes Lavender was performing for some unseen audience, like she had to narrate her every move so that the audience could understand her actions and intentions. Really, Vinnie was pretty sure Lavender did that so that Vinnie would feel left out even though she had lived around magic her entire life.
Lavender and Diggy both put their hands on the travel orb and Lavender said the spell.
Travel Orb, powerful and strong
Take me away to where I belong.
The orb glowed and instantly all three women were pulled into it. If someone had been standing in the castle entryway to watch, it would have looked like the orb was the end of a straw and all three women were sucked through it to some unknown other end. Unfortunately, it also felt like being sucked through a straw.
Chapter Three
Vinnie, Lavender, and Diggy landed with a thud. Vinnie wasn’t good at traveling by travel orb. It was like the orb knew she wasn’t magical so it tried to spit her out the hardest. Usually she fell right over, but this time Lavender stuck out her arm and kept her upright.
“Thank you,” Vinnie mouthed at her. It didn’t seem very professional to have a first impression be her falling out of a travel orb and onto her face. Not for their very first case, at least.