by Lilly Graves
“Hah, how Disney of you to think so. No.”
“Then what? Dollar bills?
“The treasure is the power to shift.”
Chapter 9
“The power to shift?” I repeat and recall the words Power pumps lifeblood through organs. Arise, awake, O beast!
“Yeah, you know: being one thing and then turning into something else.”
“I know what shifting means.” More than you could ever know… “How did you find that out?”
“Okay, so there’s these hidden phrases in some of the stores down here on Wildes. My witch found them all.” He shrugs like it’s no big deal.
“She solved the incantation?” I repeat.
“Yeah, so what? It turned out to be bogus, anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“CeeCee had all of the ingredients, but she could never find the last line to the spell. She’s looked everywhere. Nobody has looked more than she has.”
This is all so fascinating to me. Puzzle pieces to the mystery are swirling about in my mind and I need to start locking them together to form a picture.
“So CeeCee figured out the treasure was the ability to shift. She also had all of the ingredients needed for the incantation to work, but because she couldn’t find the last line, she gave up? How did she get the blood of a shifter, if shifters aren’t supposed to exist?”
He smirks. “Shifters do exist.”
“Okay, but how? Where?” Other than coming back from the Afterlife as a woman instead of a cat because your mother was murdered?!
“Nah, I shouldn’t say anything else. I probably already said too much.”
“Wait, you have a memory of my mother’s death—I mean Raven’s death—you said. So, spill. What was the memory?”
“She fell from the lighthouse. You know that. We all know that here in Mystic Cove.”
“You saw her fall?”
He shakes his head. “I mean, her body hit the rocks below. You can’t get something like that outta your head, you know.”
So, he was there! Sy saw CeeCee’s cats at the scene of the crime. “Did someone push her? Was it CeeCee?”
Boris narrows his orange eyes. “My witch didn’t do anything!” he spits
“I’m just saying, Boris—you were there. She was there. If she didn’t do it, then who did? All signs are pointing to her at the moment.”
“Who do you think you are? What’s it matter to you, anyway? Get out of here, you frigid, lonely, no-good tease!”
There’s the bully coming out in full mode. I start stepping back on my four paws, a little in shock. He’s talked to others this way, but not me.
He steps after me like a predator, the way a lion stares down a zebra. On the way he thrashes the now-empty milk trolley, and it hits the floor of the attic with a loud tinny sound, startling me some more. “You better run, you worthless excuse of a feline!”
I turn around and take off bounding to the window, barely touch the ladder and leap to the back alley overlooking the sea.
The wind is strong this morning, blowing up dust from the cliffs at me as I bolt down the way.
A delivery truck is parked behind Marney’s Moon Pies, his hazard lights flashing. A pallet of ingredients is already set out.
“It’s all here?” Sandra, the assistant baker asks. “Looks like it’s all here.”
“Yup.”
Sandra takes a slip of paper from the driver and checks something off.
As I’m running, I turn to see Boris descending the ladder from The Cat’s Meow. I quicken my pace. He’s going to make sure to chase me down good. I’ve got to find somewhere to hide for a moment.
Sandra and the deliveryman have said their quick goodbyes. He rumbles away at the same time Sandra re-enters the bakery, the back door propped open with a stopper.
I look back and see Boris leap down to the back alley. Immediately, I hop right into the middle of the pallet, where there’s an opening in the shrink-wrap, right between bags of flour. A cloud of the white stuff to puff up around me.
Catching my breath, I get the horrible urge to sneeze and hold it back as best as I can. I wipe my little pink nose against a furry, dark arm to clear it, then try to relax in my squished space as best as I can. Now Sebastian’s fear of Boris makes total sense. Boris may be a slow, fat cat, but his mean streak is way more scary than his poor flirting skills. I’d rather go back to him pining after me, as cringeworthy as that sounds.
Marney’s voice drifts to my triangular ears. “A couple of customers are having similar visions,” I hear her say.
“Yeah, like what?”
“To do with Tom Dodd’s Treasure.”
“Oh no, not that again. Do you think there’s going to be another big hunt?”
“With the 100th anniversary of The Harvest Moon Festival, word on the street is that some are getting the itch again. Except for the last line, everyone knows the incantation, since it was leaked on the Internet years ago,” Marney says.
According to Boris, CeeCee looked everywhere for the last line but couldn’t find it. So, finding the treasure was deemed futile, why was she at the lighthouse the night of my mother’s death? She has to be the killer.
“Well, tell people the final line isn’t in our store,” Sandra retorts. “I don’t want them crawling around here like ants in our things.”
Marney and Sandra are both their sixties, and even have a similar look with their deep brown hair interspersed with gray. Even though they work together, look alike, and can sometimes fight like cats and dogs, they’re not related. Just longtime friends. Their mothers were best friends, and so you know how that goes. They were fated to be BFFs as well, whether they liked it or not.
“There’s something worse,” Marney says in a gloomy voice.
“What? What is it?”
The store owner pauses. “Yesterday, a customer had a pretty gruesome vision.”
“Gruesome? What do you mean?”
“Yes, after eating a moon pie, they saw a bloody, dead body.”
“Really? That is scary. Another murder in Mystic Cove?”
I think of my mother. If people are having visions about a treasure hunt, then it’d only make sense that they’d also see my mother’s lifeless body.
“Who was it? Who did they see?”
“It was so bad the person was unidentifiable.”
It wasn’t of Raven, then. It wasn’t a vision from the past, at all. There have been few murders in these parts and every single one of them were identifiable.
Sandra gasps. “Unidentifiable. Wow, that’s pretty bad. Listen, you’re busy with the dough there. I’ll take care of the pallet myself.”
“You sure?”
“Surely sure.”
Peeking over the flour bags, I spot the fat orange cat spying around some garbage cans not too far away. Sandra exits the back door again, and I duck back down. I lower myself deeper in my hiding place.
“Visions of old, visions of new...” the baker starts reciting a spell.
Oh, geez, I’m trapped here, accidentally eavesdropping on the secret spell the two psychics have used since forever to make the moon pies do their magic. I know I’m a snoop, but not so much that I would spy on a secret spell and betray a Mystic Cove witch like that.
Pressing my paws against my flattened ears, I busy my mind on other things. Suddenly I feel a tingling wave of magic hit me, and a small cloud of flour explodes around me, sparkling like glitter.
“There,” Sandra says in satisfaction. “Oh, where did I put my pen knife?” I hear her walk away.
Boris isn’t in sight. I take the moment to beat it out of there, an ominous feeling of dread taking over me.
I’ve got to forget about the fact for a moment that Marney’s Moon pies showed that a gruesome murder is in the wings. One mystery at a time, and right now I am feeling positive that CeeCee has got to be my mom’s murderer.
It’s time to shift back. I have business to take care of. For on
e, there’s a secret guest in Raven’s bedroom who needs tended to. And for two, maybe if I showed him pictures of CeeCee from her bookstore website that will help spur his memory. He can confirm that she’s the killer.
Chapter 10
Tramping the sidewalks of Wildes’ Road, not the back alley of mists and dark cliffs, it feels like I’ve entered into another world. The Disneyland of witchy shops, you might say, and business is already bustling like broomsticks stirring about in a brew. Especially outside The Coven’s Cup, early risers have congregated out on the patio, keeping to themselves and their laptop, or gossiping together over lattes.
Next door, Willow is turning the key to The Mystic Cove Mirror’s lobby door. Just who I’m looking for. I need to shift. The clues are coming together.
“Morning Chloe, you’re out early,” she says, holding open the door for me.
“What time is it?” I ask, stepping into the historical newspaper press that is totally barren for once.
“About seven o’clock. Something wrong?” She flicks on the lights.
“No,” I lie. “It sure does feel different.”
The smell of ink lingers in the air. With the recent scare of a 3-day notice by a suspect in the last murder mystery, everything is completely out, including the painting on the wall of Matriarch Eliza Wildes, who founded the newspaper.
It’s a rectangular office space with carpet that is a lighter green in areas that furniture had sat on. One corner of it is lifted and frayed.
“Think on the bright side,” I say. “Before moving things back in you can order new carpeting.”
“I was thinking of just getting it steam cleaned.”
“I don’t think a steam cleaner is going to fix what’s more than a hundred years old.”
My sweet and eccentric aunt who has a bit of a hoarding problem, chews her lip a moment. “I hate to see it go, but I guess you’re right. Now that I own the place, I can afford to spend the extra money on something new. I’ll give Beau a call.” Beau is the resident handyman in the area. I’ve seen his white truck with a ladder poking out the back several times around Wildes Road.
“You’re going to be around here for a while?” I ask, thinking that I’ll need Willow to help me shift back and forth.
“For a bit.”
“Can you help me shift?”
She thinks nothing of it as she holds on to my front paws and I change from a cat to a young woman. No suspicion whatsoever, because this is my life I now live between two worlds, both the familiar and the witch kind.
As I sprint back for the lobby door, she yells out, “Wait a minute, missy!”
I freeze in my steps and look back.
“You’re stark naked!” With a zap of orange magic from her pointer finger, she clothes me in a t-shirt, black jeans, and baggy sweater. The magic should last for until you change at home.
“Thanks Aunt Willow.” I kiss her on the cheek and take off to check in with Sy.
When I arrive at my beachside home of 13 Nightshade Street, I’m surprised to see the front door cracked open. That’s odd. Then I hear a shrill bloody-murder scream.
Oh, no. Nova’s discovered Sy! I bound up the stairs as fast as I can, yelling, “I know, I know, I can explain!”
But how in the world will I explain this?
Upstairs, Aunt Nova pops out of her own room, not Raven’s, and she’s holding something. A pair of chewed up high heels. “You can explain?” she tests me, fire in her honey brown eyes. “How did my two-thousand-dollar Louis Vuitton shoes get mutilated?!”
“Oh, that?” I reply in shock. “I don’t… know.”
Aunt Nova lifts the gnarly pair of stilettos. “See the bite marks? We don’t have any dogs.”
Sebastian is beside us the next second, looking frantic, standing on the edge of his toenails. “Maybe a stray came through the pet door.”
“We must find him!” My aunt takes off down the stairs, leaving me with Sebastian. “Everyone, look everywhere!”
“I’m not looking anywhere for some mangy dog,” Sebastian shakes his head indignantly.
“What will we do? While Nova looks for some dog, she’ll run into you-know-who.”
“This was a horrible idea of yours bringing him back here.”
“Where else was he supposed to go?”
“Anywhere but here.”
“He would have been put right back into Shady Pines.”
“Maybe that’s where he belongs.”
“Not under the care of that wretched head nurse, he doesn’t.” I cross my arms. My eyes go to Raven’s door. In a quiet tone, I say, “You know what she told me? He has lycanthropy.”
“What’s that?”
“That’s what I said. Apparently, he thinks he’s a wolf.”
“Well, that would explain the chewed-up shoes. This is worse than I thought. I am not sharing a home with any dog, or someone who even thinks they’re a dog. You need to come clean.”
I ignore him and open the bedroom. There’s no sign of life inside, Sy’s blanket left crumpled in a corner. “He’s not here. The door was cracked open when I came home. Maybe he’s gone.”
“That would be a good thing, under the circumstances.” Sebastian sighs in relief. “He not only thinks he’s a dog, but you and I both heard he’s a certified cat hater. That makes him double crazy. Who hates cats? Especially moi?”
On the other side of the bed, I spot shattered glass. That’s never a good sign. The window isn’t broken, however. A Mason jar lid is at the foot of the nightstand. My stomach drops. “Maggie’s loose.”
Chapter 11
“This is the worst news,” I say out loud, pulling at my short pixie hairdo. “If Sy thinks he’s a wolf to the point that he’s chewing up Aunt Nova’s thousand-dollar shoes, could he have eaten Maggie?”
“You’ve gotten yourself into a real pickle now.” Sebastian shakes his head at me from the doorway.
Always so supportive and helpful. Not. “Look, I had to do something.”
“Like keep an old lady captive in a jar forever.”
“No, that wasn’t the plan.”
“What was it, then?”
I fling my arms. “All right, all right, I didn’t have a plan!”
“Thought so.” He gives a dramatic sigh. Then his eyes zero in on something beneath the bed. “She’s there. She’s under there. Don’t make me hunt her again. She tastes like mothballs and liverwurst.”
I drop to the floor to peek. The head nurse of Shady Pines is sitting against the baseboard, her knees pulled to her chest. She locks eyes on me and says, “He did almost eat me. Luckily for me, being the size of a Polly Pocket doll, I could hide away.”
“I'm sorry about that,” I say, and I truly am.
“He had one of his episodes,” she huffs. “He can’t be left alone. Even then, he should be on lockdown, behind bars.”
Automatically, I nod. How can I argue with her at the moment?
“I’m hungry, my nerves are bouncing all over the place, and I couldn’t sleep last night. Make me back to my normal size.”
I hesitate.
Sebastian’s head pops underneath the opposite side of the bed, his blue eyes looking over at me like he wholeheartedly agrees with her.
Sy ran off. What more could I do? “All right, all right, but you have to promise me you will not tell a soul what happened. You need to promise me that!”
Maggie stands up, with plenty of space still between herself and the raised box spring of the queen bed. “Yeah, yeah. You have my sworn oath.”
Once she’s totally out from under the bed, I focus on her, swirl a finger and blast some sparkling blue magic at her. She grows to the size of a full-grown elephant, hitting her head on the ceiling before sitting in a cramped position that crushes the bed.
“Help me,” Sebastian squeaks from somewhere, before Maggie plucks him out from her behind pressed against the wall. They both sport murderous glares at me.
“Okay, it should work this
time,” I say, although I’m not too sure. My magic is a little wonky in this body.
Nova announces, “No sign of any dog!” just before opening the bedroom door. “What is going on here?”
There’s no real way to explain why a crotchety old nurse the size of an elephant is in the bedroom. We all look at her like we’ve been caught, even Maggie.
Noticing my pointer finger frozen in the air, like I was about ready to strike more magic at Maggie, Aunt Nova says, “Let me take care of this.” She waves a hand and a shot of sparkling white magic hits Maggie. She shrinks down to her regular size atop the bed. “There,” she says satisfied.
There was that one time I blew up a scorpion to the size of a small dog. Aunt Nova had to take care of that spell gone wrong too.
“Now will someone explain?”
Maggie had just made a vow that she wouldn’t utter a word about what went down. I look at her in fear that she might already break that promise. So does Sebastian.
Maggie stands up and fixes her white nurse dress. “Hello,” she says. “Probably wondering who I am and what I am doing here.” She glances around. “Well, I… hmmm.”
My nerves are bouncing all over the place. There’s no real good explanation for this.”
“I was just getting interviewed by Chloe for a Mystic Cove article.”
“Oh,” she says with a lilt, then pauses. “And during this interview she blew you up to the size of a Monster truck?”
I squeak, “On accident.”
“Chloe, how does that happen on accident?” she chastises, hands on hips.
All I can do is shrug and look like a fool.
“What was the article about?” Aunt Nova asks.
“The anniversary of Raven’s passing,” Maggie replies without missing a beat.
Nova slowly nods. “Oh, okay. Well, I won't disturb you any further. Let me know if you see the dog. I can’t find him anywhere.”
My aunt leaves, and we all exhale in relief.
Maggie turns to me. “I told you I wouldn’t say a thing. I’ll keep my promise.”
“How are you going to explain yours and Sy’s disappearance?”