by N. M. Howell
“But Agatha never needed permission from anyone to do a damn thing,” Bianca said. The two smiled at each other, swallowed by their memories. Bianca’s smile faded. “Then the flu came and it changed everything.”
Dot nodded her head solemnly. “It was like the beginning of the end, that cursed flu.” The old woman turned her plump face toward me. “Witching families are generally long-lived. Not immortal, you understand, but in good health, a witch could live for two hundred years. Maybe more. There aren’t many witching families outside of the older cities and towns in the world, but they had survived well enough through the millennia. Until the influenza epidemic scoured the earth.”
“For whatever reason, witches were even more vulnerable than regular humans to the virus,” Bianca said, taking over from her friend. “It ravaged the international witching community, and Agatha, Dot, and I all left Salem to find help rebuild the magical world. I ended up in Moscow, Dorothy in London, and Agatha in New York. We swore to each other we’d return to Salem and rekindle our little coven, but the flu was only the start of those dark days.”
“The Great War, the Russian Civil War, the Depression, the Second World War,” Dot said.
Bianca drew her perfectly groomed brows together. “The Cold War, Korea, Vietnam.” She shook her head. “The darkness just kept coming and the magical community did their best, as they’ve always done, to fight that wickedness and to heal the broken.”
“Witches can heal people?” The words burst from my lips before I could swallow them; so much for cool and disinterested.
Bianca cast a cold eye over me. “Witches do a great many things that the world will never know about. And we take great pains to ensure it stays that way.” I shifted back in my chair, suddenly remembering what had brought me here. Bianca continued. “But a few decades ago, when we each reached our hundredth birthday, we were released from our duties and, one by one, we all drifted back to Salem and began to build our lives here again. Our second lives, as we witches call it, when our duty is done and our time is our own. And a second life is a very precious thing, Priscilla.”
Dot patted my hand as Bianca shot me an ice cold glare. Dot’s voice was gentle. “It takes a lot of magic to allow a witch stay in the same city for their second life. Without the magic, people would begin to notice that we barely age. And every coven guards their magic very closely. Any change in the coven effects not only our own personal spells, but the entire coven’s spells.”
“Not that Agatha gave a rat’s ass,” Bianca hissed. “Oh no, Agatha had certain ideas about how things ran, and because she was powerful, she thought she could enforce those ideas on the rest of the coven—Dot and me.”
Dot turned her big eyes on me. “It’s true. She put us all at risk. We had no choice but to banish her to her home, else risk everything.”
“Banish her?” I squinted at Dot, feeling as though I was suddenly five steps behind.
“Agatha wanted to change the coven, Price. Something has been happening to our magic, and she had a wild notion that she just needed to find the right witch and everything would be okay again.” Dot’s face was pleading. “She was acting crazy, saying she’d been searching for suitable candidates. Prowling orphanages, scouring homeless shelters—it was madness. We couldn’t trust a stranger with all the magic tied to our coven. All our spells, all our secrets...” Dot’s words faded into an anguished silence.
“Agatha was looking for someone and you didn’t want her to find them,” I said. “Because you wanted to protect your coven.” It made sense in a weird sort of strange witchy way, but it hardly seemed real life. Although, given the strangeness of the last few days, I was willing to accept nearly anything at this point. I turned my head to stare at Bianca. “And to protect your coven, you paid somebody to strangle her to death while you had the perfect alibi of speaking at your fancy-pants conference, and then used your magic to distract the cops and point the investigation in my direction.”
Dot let out a strangled yelp and Bianca stared at me a long moment before she frowned, her porcelain skin creasing as her lips curved into a frown and her eyes narrowed. “No, absolutely not.”
I smacked my hands down on the table. “Bullshit.”
Bianca’s eyes blazed as she leaned over the table. “Watch your tongue, girl. You're on very shaky ground.” She sat back, the rage smoothed from her face, and folded her hands together in a steeple. “Yes, we fell out with Agatha, and yes, we did act against her.”
“I knew it,” I spat.
“You don’t know anything, let me speak,” Bianca snapped. “We worked a binding spell so that Agatha would be unable to leave her home and continue her search for a new coven member.”
I stared from Bianca to Dot, who stuffed another piece of cake into her mouth. “That’s why she became a recluse,” I said. “You did that to her. You turned her home into a prison.” I dragged my hands through my hair. “God, what a horrible thing to do. Did she know it was you? Did she know what was happening?”
Bianca raised her chin defiantly. “We wove a memory theft spell into the binding. If she guessed it was us, she’d forget the very thought even as it formed in her mind.” I opened my mouth to express my disgust but Bianca cut me off and pushed herself into standing position, glaring down at me, and I swear I could feel the air buzz with an electricity I hadn’t felt before. Her voice changed as she spoke, and her words echoed through my head. “We didn’t murder Agatha. I wasn’t even here on the day of Agatha’s death.”
I returned her glare. “You’re a witch with a very healthy bank account. Maybe you hired somebody to kill her. Maybe you used magic to do it?”
Dot’s chubby fingers scrabbled at the last crumbs as Bianca hissed at me. “Ignorant human. If I used my magic to murder Agatha, I’d be dead myself. Any witch who breaks the law of life by intentionally doing harm to their coven sister will face the same fate themselves. Do you understand, child? If I had a willing hand in Agatha’s murder, I’d be a corpse.”
Bianca stared at me with such ferocity that I dropped my gaze to the plate in front of me, following the line of Dot’s body over her fingers and up her arm onto her ghostly pale face. The memory of her words when she gave me the apron she’d made for Agatha crawled over my brain like I spider. I answered without taking my eyes off Dot’s face. “I do, Bianca. You’re right. I had it all wrong. You didn’t murder Agatha.” I sensed her body relaxing from across the table, only to snap back to attention when I continued speaking. “You didn’t kill Agatha, Bianca. Because Dot did.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“I’m so sorry,” Dot whispered, her hands finally still, releasing the crumbs trapped between her fingertips. Bianca’s face was paler than a new moon as she tried to hush Dot, but the old woman silenced her with a wave of her plump hand. “No, Bianca. No more. No more lies, no more forcing people to do what we want. I can’t live like that, by the wind and the water, I can’t.” She turned back to me. “I know you’ll find this hard to believe, Price, but I thought I was helping.”
“Helping?” I repeated. There was barely a sound from the street outside, except for the distant whining of a siren.
Dot nodded, glancing at Bianca. “Like we told you earlier, our magic is failing, dear. A witch draws her power from the leylines, but to in order to tap into those lines, the magic of the blood must also remain strong. It’s like a teeter-totter, it there has to be a balance. Mother Nature will only grant a coven as much magic as their family blood can control. That’s how it’s always been, magic is passed down along bloodlines and new life is what keeps a family’s magic strong; future generations to connect to the leylines and hold the balance.”
I sat forward as understanding hit me like a fork of lightning. “Nobody in your coven has any children.”
“No, dear, we don’t.” Dot’s voice was heavy with the pain of a wound so deep it could never truly heal. A pain I’d watched from afar since I was a tiny child, the wound my mother carri
ed like a knife in her back even after she adopted me. I filled the hole in her life, but never quite to the brim. I swallowed as Dot continued. “Bianca and I were content with our fate. We accepted the magic in our small coven would wane, but Agatha was never one to follow the rules. She was convinced she could game the system and find the right person to bolster our powers. But we knew it would just be trouble. If she found the wrong person, the ramifications could have been terrible. Our magic was becoming unpredictable as it was, can you imagine if we passed the magic to someone not in our bloodlines? The whole city could’ve been destroyed.”
“Or worse,” Bianca snapped. “Our magic could have been taken away completely.”
I raised an eyebrow. Okay. Priorities, lady. Jeez. The sounds of sirens grew louder as Dot continued speaking. “I agreed with Bianca that we had no choice but to banish her to her own home, so she couldn’t search anyone out. I thought it was the right thing to do. I thought I could live with it.” She lifted her eyes to look at her coven sister. “But I couldn’t, Bianca. I couldn’t bear to see her at that window, staring out at life from the prison we’d made for her.”
Bianca was as stone-faced as granite as she listened to Dot, but the other woman didn’t stop talking, her words flowing as though a dam had burst. “I waited until you had left the city and were far enough away not to feel my magic, and I cast a silencing spell to seal her lips from sharing any of our secrets.” She turned her gaze on me, pain written on every feature. “It’s not a dangerous spell, the persons lips are sealed physically for only a few minutes. I didn’t even need to be in the building to work it, I stayed right here.” She closed her eyes as if sorrow made it too hard to face the light. “It was a perfect storm of tiny mistakes. I guess Agatha was choking on that grape, right when I worked the spell.”
I opened my mouth to ask about the marks on Agatha’s neck, but Bianca answered for me, her voice as cold as ice as she stood from the table. “And when Agatha couldn’t open her mouth to dislodge the grape, she tried to use magic to break the spell and ended up strangling herself with her own power.”
“Bianca!” Dot called after her friend as she crossed the room, raising her voice to be heard over the sirens in the street.
Reality hit me like a punch in the face as I stared at the flashing blue lights shining through the coffee shop curtains. I’d found the answers, but it didn’t matter. How could I prove any of it? How could I defend myself when the truth was so much less believable than the fiction? Dot stared from me to the window, horror in her eyes as the reality dawned on her too. She jumped from her seat and caught my shoulders. “We’ll figure something out. We’ll work a vanishing spell.” She stared at the kitchen where we could hear Bianca mumbling into her phone. “Or if we don’t have enough power, I’ll tell them it was me.” Dot straightened her shoulders as somebody pounded on the door of the coffee shop. “Yes, that’s the right thing. I’ll tell them it was me.”
Bianca appeared from behind the counter and started to walk toward the door. Her voice was sharp enough to cut ice. “Don’t be such a fool all your life, Dorothy. If you tell them the truth, they’ll lock you in a psychiatric facility and the witching council will eradicate you for treason.” She shot a glare at her friend's small soft hands as she reached for the door handle. “And nobody is going to believe you snapped her neck with those trotters.”
“And you don’t have to be such a damn bitch all the time.” The words were out of my mouth before my brain registered them.
Bianca’s lips curled to one side and she pulled the door open, standing back as Officer Fitzgerald burst into the room. He stared from Bianca, past Dot, and into my eyes with raised eyebrows. His voice was gentle as he crossed the room, holding out an arm to stop the two younger cops from approaching me. I tried not to stare at the scratches on their faces or the bright pink paint splattered all over their clothes. Great work, guys.
Officer Bert Fitzgerald cleared his throat. “Miss Jones, you know why I’m here.” He took a step closer. “You’re going to have to come with me, ma’am.” He took another step forward and lowered his voice so that only I could hear him. “Unless you have something to tell me that might move the case in another direction.” He tilted his head a fraction of an inch toward the old ladies.
Seconds ticked my like hours as I stared back at him. Of all the people I’d ever met, Officer Fitzgerald was the only one I knew who’d believe that Agatha had died at a witch's hand. My gaze slid over his shoulder onto Dot’s hunched form and Bianca’s frozen face. How could you unravel who was really to blame when every individual thread of the story was so tangled and worn. Virgil was right about hell, the descent was easier than swallowing a spoon of vegan ice-cream. I pushed myself to my feet and held my hands out for Officer Fitzgerald to cuff me, but Bianca’s voice slid across the room just as the metal grazed my wrists. “Officer, I think your phone is ringing.”
Bert stepped away from me, reaching for his phone. He stared at. “No, it’s not—” The phone began to ring in his hands and he pressed it to his ear, the lines on his forehead deepening with every passing second. “Sir, I don’t understand, how can there have been an error?” He turned his back to the room. “I saw the autopsy report myself. I saw photographic evidence, this is total fu—” He held his breath and screwed his face. When he spoke again his voice was as tight as a wire. “Understood.” He shoved the phone into his pockets and gestured to the other two cops to leave. One of them started to argue, but Bert cut him down with a bark. “Get into the car, O’ Malley. Case is closed. Orders from the top.” He glanced at me as he crossed the floor, a silent exchange passing between us as we saw each other for what we were; two ordinary humans, caught in a supernatural web.
When he reached the door, he paused in front of Bianca and gave her a long, hard stare before dipping his head. “I’ll be seeing you, Miss D’Arcy.”
“Not if I see you first, Officer Fitzgerald.” Bianca’s lips were arranged in a pretty smile, but it was anything but innocent. The smile a lion might give its prey. She slammed the door in his face and said to nobody in particular. “Oh dear, my fingers must have slipped.”
I folded my arms over my chest as I crossed the floor to stand in front of the old women. I wasn’t sure exactly what I should say. Was it necessary to thank somebody for saving you from a conviction they tried to land on you? I exhaled and met Bianca’s eye. “Thank you, for whatever you did there. I appreciate it.”
“I didn’t do it for you,” Bianca snapped. “I did it to protect the coven, and the leyline, and the witching world, and every other thing I spent a hundred years fighting for.”
“Okey-dokey…” I turned my back on Bianca and faced Dot. “What you were trying to do was kind, Dot. It was an accident. I think Agatha will understand that.”
“You’ve seen her?” Bianca was suddenly in front of me, both of the old women’s faces sharp as they studied me.
I imagined Tom’s voice in head, warning me to be cautious. Look out for thin ice, Priscilla Jones. I scrunched my face up and gave a laugh. “Please! I’ve seen the spell books, I’ve seen Agatha’s albums and her paper cuttings, so witches, I believe in. Ghosts?”
Bianca’s laugh was the tinkle of ice in a crystal glass. “Well, you’d never know with dear Agatha, would you?” Her voice was razor-sharp. “She must have had such a lot of unfinished business…” The bell above the coffee-shop door rang our cheerily as she pulled the door open for me.
I stepped over the threshold, nodding at Dot, when I thought struck me. I glanced at the two women. “That report on Officer Bert’s desk?” I asked. A look of genuine confusion crossed over both faces and I shook my head. “Nothing, doesn’t matter.”
As I stepped onto the pavement, Bianca’s voice followed me into the night. “We’ll be seeing you dear. Take care with your secrets. And ours.” I had already reached the kerb when her final words hit me. “Everything comes at a price.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I left the car at the bakery, preferring to walk all the way home, and the fresh air helped soothe my stretched nerves. When I reached home, all sign of the earlier media storm had vanished. Sadly, I couldn’t say the same for the damage the cops had caused. As I stepped over the remains of my front door, I couldn’t help but wonder who Bianca had spoken to on the phone. Somebody with the power to make a murder case vanish without a trace. An order from the top, Bert had said. City Hall? The President? A criminal? My mind whirled with thoughts of who my mysterious savior could be. And whether or not I wanted to be in their debt.
“She’s back, she’s back, she’s back!” Muffin was the first to come thundering down the stairs, his ginger tail swinging, followed by Tom and Pussy who arrived at my feet in a jumble of claws and hair.
I reached down to pet them, but I was distracted by the shimmer of Agatha passing over and back through the walls of the hallway above. I looked down at the cats. “Give me five minutes, okay? I promise I’ll tell you everything, but I need to talk to Agatha first.”
Yowls of protest followed me up the stairs, but they let me go. I found Agatha in her study, staring at the paper cutting from 1895. I slid silently into one of the two leather armchairs. “How much do you know, Agatha?”
The ghost gave me a crooked smile. “About as much as you do. I was hiding in your hair until you left the coffee shop.”
“What the hell?” I ran my hands through my hair, staring at her. “You’re joking, right?”
Agatha reached out and touched the jeweled barrette she slid into my hair the night before. “To quote a very annoying girl I once knew, nope, nope, nopety-nope.”