Pawsitively Betrayed

by Melissa Erin Jackson

  Please be okay, Willow, she thought to herself, then went back to work.

  Amber lightly thunked her head on her dining room table two hours later, hoping that would re-scramble her brain and make the words for her spell fall into place. Jack sat on one side of her, rubbing her back. Kim sat on the other side, offering Amber words of encouragement.

  When Amber’s phone started to buzz next to her, her head jerked up, giving her the temporary spins. She wasn’t sure what method of communication Kieran would use to get back in touch with her, depending on how surrounded by Penhallows he currently was, but a phone call hadn’t been what she was expecting.

  But when she snatched up her phone, it was a number she recognized. Puzzled, she answered. “Hi, Alan.”

  “Hey, Amber,” he said. “The chief is currently swamped so he asked me to look up a license plate number for you?”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said. “What’d you find?”

  “The SUV is registered to a Stanley Johnson,” Alan said. “Washington plates. The guy is an orderly at a private mental hospital in Washington. There was an APB out for Johnson today, since both he and a patient recently went missing—a Raphael Henbane. The staff speculated that Johnson and Henbane made a break for it together. But when police went to Johnson’s house this afternoon, they found him dead inside.”

  “Oh my God,” Amber said.

  “Yeah,” Alan said. “They thought it had been Henbane who did it—that maybe he’d gained Johnson’s trust and then killed him when his guard was down—but Johnson clearly has been dead a while, though they can’t currently pinpoint the cause of death. There’s a giant black starburst on his chest. Oddly, they think it’s possible he’s been dead for years, and whatever was done to him basically mummified him. Apparently the seasoned medical examiner took one look at the body and then ran back out to throw up in the bushes.”

  It sounded nearly identical to what had happened to Wilma Bennett, the maid whom Kieran killed at the Manx Hotel.

  “Law enforcement is very baffled,” Alan said, “since Johnson, according to the Pleasant Meadows staff, has been coming into work as usual up until today. He doesn’t have any living family, as far as anyone knows.”

  Just as Neil had assumed the identity of a family-less man in order to play a long con on Amber’s mother, Patrice Penhallow had assumed the identity of Stanley Johnson, most likely in large part because if he went missing, no one would notice. How long had Patrice kept him alive so she could learn all she could about the man she was going to pretend to be?

  “Isn’t Henbane the last name of your cousin?” Alan asked, interrupting the very gruesome images she conjured up of Patrice sitting in Stanley Johnson’s living room, eating a TV dinner while the body of the man in question wasted away in a recliner.

  Amber had a feeling he already knew the answer to that. It wasn’t the kind of interesting tidbit someone like Alan Peterson would hear and not look into further.

  “Chief Brown mentioned something else,” Alan said. “Garcia was out patrolling near the Marbleglen/Edgehill border near the scene of the parade attack, since someone called in a disturbance. While he was out there, he spotted Johnson’s car. Willow’s phone and purse were in the back seat. Any idea why your sister’s belongings would be found in that car? A car that belongs to a dead orderly at a mental hospital that your uncle escaped from today? Doesn’t Willow live in Washington?”

  Amber mentally groaned as she followed the trail Alan was laying out. To non-witch law enforcement, it would look like Willow was connected to a murder and a missing patient. Was Uncle Raphael wanted by the police? Would the FBI get involved, since Raphael crossed state lines?

  “Your sister is missing, yet you hardly seem concerned,” Alan said. “You stalked me and got yourself into all kinds of trouble when Chloe, a girl you merely babysat for, went missing, yet your uncle is on the lam and your sister is gone and you didn’t even pick up the phone to call me? What aren’t you telling me, Amber?”

  She didn’t like being on this side of an Alan Peterson interrogation.

  Zelda yelped on Kim’s other side, and Amber leaned forward to see what had happened. A piece of folded paper lay in front of the woman.

  “Thanks for your help, Alan, but I have to go,” Amber said quickly and disconnected the call. When he immediately called back, she sent the call to voicemail.

  Zelda gingerly picked up the paper with finger and thumb and handed it to Amber.

  Several people crowded around Amber as she unfolded the small scrap of a note.

  Ley line spillover. 12:37 am. Twelve for ritual. Six others around town. Patrice will lie about time.

  Or you’re lying about the time, her mind replied. But, no, she had to believe that Kieran was on their side, even if her own uncle had quite possibly turned on her and his own son.

  It was just after ten in the evening now. They had two hours to get their plan worked out.

  While the others worked, Amber called Chief Brown.

  “Hey, Amber,” he said hurriedly after the fourth ring. “I put Peterson on the case of the missing car. And Garcia and Carl are looking for Willow. That’s all I could spare at the moment. That dang cat is still on the loose. We’ve been swamped by calls all night about it. It apparently chased a man up a tree. Of course, by the time we get there, the thing is gone. And then there was some kind of noxious gas that was released in the community center? Ten teenage volunteers were in there with Ann Marie and Chloe doing last-minute prep for the 5K and a janitor found them all passed out asleep on the floor. Parents are livid. There’s not a word for how angry Mayor Deidrick is. I’m sorry we haven’t made any headway on locating Willow yet.”

  Wincing, she asked, “Did you call Garcia off Henrietta duty when I told you about Willow?”

  The pause on the other end was prolonged and she braced herself, anticipating that he’d tear her a new one for micromanaging him when his night was clearly a chaotic mess. Instead he said, “Didn’t you call him off Henrietta duty? He said you called, frantic that Willow had been kidnapped, and said that you were going to send Edgar to stand guard instead.”

  Amber’s brow furrowed. That didn’t even make sense.

  “That wasn’t you.” It was a statement, not a question. “Dang it, Amber, I’m sorry. I’ve been run so ragged here that I didn’t even think about it. Edgar would be a better guard than Garcia anyway, given everything.” He sighed. “I’ll get someone back over there as soon as I can. The good news is, if something had happened to Henrietta, I would have heard about it.”

  That didn’t comfort Amber in the slightest.

  A scream echoed through the phone, followed by what sounded like shattering glass. The chief cursed. “Sorry, Amber, the cat just crashed through someone’s back door!”

  Amber sagged as the call disconnected.

  Her magic felt as anxious and buzzy as she did. She also knew that the more frazzled she was, the more likely her magic was to glitch. Which made crafting a spell even harder. A spell that she couldn’t seem to get right, no matter what angle she used to come at it.

  With only an hour until midnight, Amber felt no closer to having a viable spell than she had when she’d started. She desperately wanted to open the trunk of grimoires so she could leaf through the Henbane book for time spells. Maybe her mother’s spell structure would get Amber on the right track. A little voice in the back of her head wondered why none of the Penhallows had even attempted to find the book here, but she had to hope Kieran was doing work behind the scenes to keep the cursed witches at bay.

  She needed a break and she needed to recast the sleep spell on Edgar. Aunt G escorted her downstairs.

  After successfully recasting the spell on her dozing cousin and reinforcing the alarm spell on the car, Amber and Aunt G went back into The Quirky Whisker. They were halfway across the shop when Aunt G’s phone trilled.

  “Who on earth would be calling me this late?” she muttered as she pulled the phone out of
her pocket. Then her wide gaze snapped up to Amber. “It’s Willow.” She turned her screen toward Amber and a smiling image of her sister lit up the screen.

  “Answer it!” Amber said.

  Aunt G fumbled with the phone and managed to both answer it and put it on speaker. She and Amber huddled close to it, casting a bright blue glow in the dark shop. “Little bird?” Aunt G asked.

  “No, I’m afraid not,” a woman said. “But I have your little bird with me.”

  Aunt G’s jaw tightened, as did her hold on the phone.

  “What can we do for you, Patrice?” Amber asked, willing her tone to stay neutral.

  “This is my final request that you hand over the book willingly,” Patrice said. “We can make a clean swap—the book for your sister.”

  “No,” Amber said.

  “Predictable.” Patrice sighed. “Since you refuse to do this the easy way, I will up the stakes. Bring the book to the location of your childhood home at midnight. If you do not, Willow dies by Neil’s hand—seems fitting, no? It’s a messier option, but it will suit our purposes just fine. Penhallows got into hot water with the council for siphoning magic, as you know, but the practice hasn’t stopped. The death of your sister in a location already so charged with traumatic energy will allow Neil to absorb even more power, which will aid him well in his trip through time.”

  Amber worked her jaw. She was lying. She had to be lying.

  “Don’t believe me?” Patrice asked. “Willow, be a dear and say hi to your family.”

  There was a scuffle on the other side of the line and then Willow’s high and light tone floated into the quiet shop. “Aunt G? Amber?” Willow asked shakily. “You can’t listen to them, okay? It’s a trap.”

  Amber pursed her lips. “What’s the code word?”

  “Logomark,” Willow said quickly. “It’s me. I swear it. You can’t let them have the book, Amber. Just let them have me. I’ll be with Mom and Dad again.”

  Tears sprang in Amber’s eyes. “I can’t let them kill you, Willow.”

  “What other choice do we have? Without the book, they can’t complete their ritual,” she said. “Mom and Dad worked too hard to keep this from happening. We can’t give up now. Just let me go, sis.”

  Another scuffle and then Patrice was back on the line. “I will get the book one way or another. Believe that,” she said. “At the stroke of midnight, be at 523 Ocicat Lane with the grimoire. If not, your sister’s blood will be on your hands. Her death is preventable. The decision is yours.”

  Just before the blue light of the screen faded and the call ended, Amber caught sight of the devastated look on her aunt’s face.

  The Penhallows had won.

  Chapter 29

  When Amber and Aunt G went upstairs to tell the others about the ultimatum from Patrice, defeat settled on them all like a blanket. Amber couldn’t allow her sister to die. End of story. Kieran had said Patrice would lie about the time—but what about the rest of it? Willow knew the code word. Willow had asked Amber to sacrifice her for the sake of keeping the grimoire out of Penhallow hands.

  Kieran had told her 12:37, while Patrice had said midnight. What was the significance of the different times? Another thing piled on her plate to distract her and pull her mind in too many directions?

  Predictable, Patrice had said.

  The predictable choice was to save Willow.

  “Who here is good at glamour spells?” Amber asked, not realizing she was going to say that until it was out of her mouth.

  “I’m decent,” Simon said.

  “Me too,” Irene said.

  “Okay,” said Amber. “I want us all glamoured to look like me. Patrice is sending versions of herself out all over town, so we will, too.” She blew out a breath, hoping she was making the correct, least predictable choice. “We’re going to the ley line spillover.”

  She was going all in with her trust in Kieran.

  But she knew if she was wrong, she’d never see her sister again.

  The group left in three waves. Wave one, with three Amber clones, headed east. Wave two, with four Amber clones, headed north. And the biggest wave of nine clones, split between two cars, headed for the abandoned neighborhood.

  The clock on the dash said it was just after 11:30 pm.

  Amber killed the headlights a few hundred yards from the turn off into the abandoned neighborhood. Pulling off to the side of the road, Amber angled the car into the overgrowth as best she could. The car behind her did the same.

  11:45 pm.

  Amber adjusted the settings on her phone to low brightness.

  Once they’d all climbed out, the witches cloaked the cars so they wouldn’t be immediately visible to anyone driving by. Then they made the rest of the way on foot. Amber’s nerves were shot. Willow, Edgehill, and the fate of history were all relying on her to make the right choice.

  No one spoke as they crept through the tall weeds toward the sagging house on the corner. Amber had never paid much attention to this house, seeing it only as a landmark for the start of the abandoned neighborhood. The white wood was rotting in places, the paint peeling and splattered with dried dirt. Now it felt imposing, like it was sentient and watching her. If Amber hadn’t made the right call, and the Penhallows got spooked and went to plan B, the whole neighborhood, this house included, would be gone.

  She ran a hand along the side of the house to help keep her oriented in the dark. When she stopped at the corner of the house, pressing her back against the worn, dirty wall, her companions did, too. Her heart hammered.

  Peering around the side of the house, she spotted about a dozen people milling about in the middle of the neighborhood’s main dirt road. A few crates were scattered among them. Witches lit tall, chunky candles, a few others were bent over something on the ground, and a group of four stood in a small huddle, presumably deep in conversation. Lanterns sat on the ground in a wide circle, providing an abundance of warm orange light. Anything more than a few hundred feet away from the group, though, was in deep shadow. It looked like a spotlight shone down from the thick canopy of leaves above.

  Amber dropped to her knees, touching a hand to the ground, letting the magic know she was here. She could feel it humming faintly beneath her hand, but it didn’t make her woozy. “All right,” she said. “One at a time.”

  Thanks to everyone’s identical glamours, she honestly had no idea who was behind her. A clone of herself crouched low, rounded the side of the house, and then headed forward. A second Amber went past her, then ran across the dirt road before moving in the direction of the Penhallows. Once the Amber clone had crossed the road, the darkness swallowed her up. The Amber clones alternated then—one rounding the side of the house they stood beside now, while the next darted across the dark street.

  By the time it was Amber’s turn, with two Ambers left to follow after her, six witches wearing her face had already disappeared into the darkness. Blowing out a steadying breath, she rounded the side of the house and crept forward. Her eyes had adjusted enough to the dark at this point that she had a rough idea of what was in front of her, but she stumbled often. Her attention shifted from the dark ground in front of her, the slow, methodical movement of the Amber clone several feet ahead, and the group of Penhallows preparing for their ritual.

  The Penhallows had mostly been quiet, working on their assigned tasks like busy little monster ants, but there was a sudden halt in their movements. Amber stilled, seeing that the clone in front of her had, too. Amber was still far enough away from the Penhallows that she couldn’t make out the details of anyone’s face yet.

  Suddenly, the headlights of a car that had been parked in the shadows at the other end of the street flicked on. A dark SUV emerged from the shadows, drove around the amassed group, and then headed for the exit. Amber hit the ground as quickly as she could, hoping the shadows and the tall grass would shield her from the searching beams of the car’s headlights. She hoped the others had ducked out of the way in tim
e. Something sharp poked her side, and something even sharper dug into her elbow, but she didn’t dare move until the red taillights of the SUV were around the corner and out of sight.

  Darkness settled on her. She waited for her eyes to readjust.

  Pulling her phone from her pocket, she hid it behind a large chunk of broken concrete and cupped a hand over the screen before she tapped it. Its dull light still felt too bright.

  It was 12:01, and she had a text from Irene who had gone to 523 Ocicat Lane.

  It was a bluff. Willow isn’t here. I got to use my blizzard spell after all. We nearly knocked the two witches into the next state.

  Amber heaved out a breath. Kieran hadn’t steered her wrong. She thanked Irene, then checked in with Jack’s group. He was with Edgar, Aunt G, and Bianca, as well as the trunk of cloaked grimoires. They were hightailing it north as fast as they could. Neil would know where the books were now, since Edgar had been instructed to give him clues about their location.

  Patrice had a decision to make, too: go after the grimoire speeding toward the Washington border, or attempt a complicated ritual without the key ingredient. Perhaps Amber’s unpredictable decision had just bought them another fifty years to solve the Penhallow problem.

  When Jack didn’t reply to her text, Amber stuffed her phone back into her pocket and got to her feet. She slowly crept forward again. The Penhallows seemed to have finished setting up. None of this core group had left, nor did it look like they had any plans to. Neil had surely relayed the information about the book’s whereabouts, hadn’t he? Would Patrice move forward with the ritual without the grimoire?

  The witches stood motionless now, hands clasped in front of their laps. They weren’t adorned in black, hooded robes while chanting around a bonfire or anything as dramatic as that. They had, however, placed a ring of tall flickering candles around a form on the ground, creating their own circle just behind the candles. From this vantage point, it most assuredly was a person—a female with long brown hair.