Contents
Previously…
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Epilogue
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Copyright © 2020 Melissa Erin Jackson.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-7351500-0-0
Front cover design by Maggie Hall.
Stock art via Designed by Freepik, iStockPhoto, Shutterstock.
Interior design and ebook formatting by Michelle Raymond.
First published in 2020 by Ringtail Press.
www.melissajacksonbooks.com
To my fellow Murderinos
Previously in the Witch of Edgehill series …
Though Amber Blackwood has lived in her feline-obsessed town of Edgehill, Oregon, all her life, very few people know she’s a witch. She secretly creates magic-fueled toys she sells in her shop, The Quirky Whisker, and is successful at staying under the radar.
In January, however, her closest friend is fatally poisoned and Amber shoots to the top of Chief Brown’s suspect list. He’s been leery of her odd behavior for years and Melanie’s murder has given him reason to look at Amber more closely. By month’s end, not only does Amber help solve Melanie’s murder, but the chief learns Amber’s biggest secret.
The following month, while Amber tries to navigate the landmine of having the chief of police know she can wield magic, she’s also forced to confront her past—a past that has kept her tied to Edgehill even more than her love for the town. She learns that her parents’ deaths fourteen years before weren’t an accident after all. A fabled group of cursed witches, the Penhallows, have been searching for the Blackwood parents’ grimoires for years. Fourteen years ago, Neil Penhallow murdered the Blackwoods while attempting to steal the books with their powerful time-reversal spells. The Penhallows want to go back in time, using the spells, to ensure their family is never cursed to begin with. Altering time would have untold consequences, and Amber’s parents forfeited their lives to keep the books out of Penhallow hands. But when they died, the secret of where the books were hidden died too.
Just when Amber is taking her first foray into dating in years—with Jack Terrence, the owner of Purrcolate—Kieran Penhallow comes to Edgehill with plans to find the books once and for all. Amber manages to find them first, but not without a curious Jack following her, trying to figure out what she’s up to every time she sneaks off. Inside the books, Amber finds a spell that allows her to travel into Kieran’s mind to sever his connection to magic—thereby curing him of the curse, but also turning him fully human. Kieran almost kills Amber before she cures him, though, and Jack witnesses the violent attack. When the dust settles, Jack asks to have his memory of the event—and Amber, to a large extent—erased from his mind.
By the time March rolls around, all Amber wants to do is forget about her disastrous love life, and to help her friend, Kimberly Jones, throw the best Hair Ball possible—Edgehill’s biggest event aside from the annual Here and Meow Festival in May. As the new festival director, Kim has been worried she’ll never be able to fill the shoes left behind by the late Melanie Cole.
In the midst of gala preparations, Chloe Deidrick, the teenage daughter of Edgehill’s mayor, goes missing. Chloe, whom Amber used to babysit, had recently met a man on a chat app who turns out to be her biological father; he kidnapped her in an attempt to gain access to life insurance money Chloe will be entitled to when she turns eighteen. Between Amber’s magic, Chief Brown’s resources, and the sleuthing of a PI, Chloe is found and returned home safely.
Shortly afterward, Kim witnesses Amber’s use of magic, revealing Amber’s secret to yet another person. Kim is delighted. Amber is terrified that the bubbly, chatty Kimberly Jones won’t be able to keep a secret this big to herself.
To make matters worse, Jack’s memory returns soon after, and he now remembers everything, bringing the number of people who know her secret to three.
As Amber heads into April, keeping her secrets becomes even more pressing: she needs to find a proper hiding place for her parents’ grimoires before the Penhallows inevitably return.
Chapter 1
The mood in the Marbleglen Community Center was somber.
The Here and Meow Committee—Kimberly Jones, Ann Marie Stuart, Nathan Porter, Chloe Deidrick, and Amber Blackwood—was in enemy territory. Amber had weathered a round of complaints about the “injustice” of it all from Kim on their way over. The committee stood in a circle along with Mayor Frank Deidrick. They were, effectively, in a huddle.
“I know none of you are … happy about this,” Frank said, “but it would be a personal favor to me if you could at least pretend you wouldn’t rather stab yourself in the eyes with pencils than be here.”
“Is the pencil thing an option, or …?” Nathan asked.
The mayor shot him a withering look.
Nathan and Ann Marie shared a not-so-secret amused wince.
“Marbleglen has been having a rough couple of months—” Frank tried again.
“Uhh, Dad …” Chloe said, brows raised.
Edgehill had been having a rough few months, the most recent being Chloe Deidrick’s kidnapping by the biological father she hadn’t known existed. If anyone knew the definition of “rough,” it was the Deidricks.
“Chloe, honey, I didn’t mean …” Frank blew out a breath. “Mayor Sable has asked for my help. She offered her resources to help find you. It would be the least we could do to help her town now.”
Chloe seemed mollified by that, given how her arms were folded tightly against her chest, but no one else was.
Amber stood between Chloe and Kim, who clearly had been trying to keep her opinions to herself about this whole thing. Kim’s very strange relationship with authority told her she shouldn’t voice her opinion to someone above her station. But at the moment, Amber could tell Kim wouldn’t be able to keep it to herself much longer. She was like the bouncing lid on a boiling pot of water in a cartoon. Bouncing, bouncing—
“I’m sorry, but can you confirm something for me?” Kim asked in a squeaky voice.
Nathan and Ann Marie shared another amused look, but the mayor didn’t see this one.
“We don’t have to agree to anything today, right?” Kim asked, eyes wide. “Because I have everything for the Here and Meow on a very tight schedule and I’m worried this will throw all of that out of whack. I’ll speak for the group when I say an out-of-whack Kim isn’t good for anyone.”
The remainder of the group nodded vigorously, the memory of Kim the Galazilla no doubt still fresh in all their minds. It had taken an inte
rvention from Amber to bring Kim back from the brink of becoming impossible to work with.
Frank’s hesitation caused Kim to let out a little shriek of indignation.
He held his hands up. “It’s just one event, Kimberly. That’s all. It’s an event that both towns were planning to do anyway, so—”
“Not on the same weekend!” Kim whisper-hissed. “Every time the festivals happen on the same weekend, something horrific happens.”
“Horrific seems a bit dramatic,” Frank said.
There was a collective step back, as if he’d managed to slap them all across the face at the same time.
“The people from Marbleglen—especially the members of the Floral Frenzy Flower Festival—or Floral Frenemies, as I call them,” said Ann Marie, “can’t be trusted. Surely you know that.”
“What I know,” Frank said, “is that this rivalry has been going on for far too long. I’m sure it’s all been a series of misunderstandings and coincidences. Mayor Sable and I have been comparing notes—”
“Excuse me again, sir. I’m sorry,” Kim said, her face growing red. “I know you’re the mayor and everything, and I should show, like, deference or what-have-you, but you weren’t in office when the two most egregious instances of sabotage happened.”
“Deference?” Frank asked, head cocked. “Geez, Kim. I’m not a dictator. All I’m saying is that Marbleglen’s success is our success. This rivalry spills over into everything we do here—not just in relation to the competing festivals. We should be working together so both towns get the most out of this hectic festival season, rather than actively working against each other.”
Chloe seemed to swing back to the committee’s side. “Dad, don’t you think it’s a possibility that they want to mooch off Edgehill’s success? The Best of Edgehill thing is so big now that I’m starting to see it mentioned on my socials by the most random people. The Here and Meow is getting to be huge and hardly anyone talks about the Floral Frenzy Flower Festival. I mean, we’re going to have John-freaking-Huntley here—what do they have? Flower floats?”
Amber knew she should jump in to offer support to her fellow Here and Meow Committee members, but she was just so tired. She hadn’t slept well the night before. It was a miracle she’d made it to this meeting at all.
Kim grunted, clearly on a roll now. “Four years ago, they held their festival on the exact same weekend as the Here and Meow, which severely cut into our profits. And, to make matters worse, on the final day, the stage where Koalafications was going to perform was drenched in green paint. It was poured all over the stage, the equipment, and on the fireworks stored in a locked shed. We had to cancel.”
“And, if I remember correctly,” Frank said, “it was a bunch of graduating seniors pulling a very ill-conceived prank. Edgehill teens.”
“That’s never actually been proven,” said Kim. “Plus, the head of their committee, Bianca Pace, showed up at the community center and said she was so sorry to hear about what had happened to our stage. She was so sorry to hear that Koalafications decided the show must go on and that they were going to play in Marbleglen. All the people who bought tickets for the Here and Meow concert went to the Floral Frenzy instead. The Here and Meow Festival was practically a ghost town the last day! When Bianca came over to ‘apologize,’ I swear to you, I saw green paint under her fingernails.”
“And the year after that,” Ann Marie cut in, “we tried to have a truce. Their committee set up a deal with Angora Threads for custom-made banners and our committee was promised a huge order of decorative flowers at a steep discount. By the time we got the bill, they had charged us full price—plus really ridiculous ‘design fees’—and we didn’t have enough in the budget for it. We had to have that fundraiser at the last minute to cover the cost. It was so embarrassing.”
“And ever since then,” Nathan said, “we’ve refused to work with them. There are too many signs that they’ve tried to sabotage us, so it’s better for everyone if they do things on their own. The Best of Edgehill started the year we cut off ties with them and we’ve been doing great ever since.”
“Amen,” Kim and Ann Marie said in unison.
It fell silent for a few long moments.
“It’s one event,” Frank said again. “We’re already here. It’ll look really bad for me—for all of us—to not agree now. I realize I should have said earlier that this was essentially non-negotiable, but I didn’t think you’d all be this upset about it.” Frank turned his weary gaze to Amber. She stifled a yawn. “Help me out here. Please.”
Ugh. Why was he putting her on the spot? Amber was just as bothered by this as the rest of them, even if all she wanted to do at the moment was curl up on the floor and take a nap. The people of Marbleglen had always had a snooty air about them; every person she’d met from there seemed to judge her simply for being from Edgehill.
Marbleglen had a booming economy even before the festival hoopla had begun. The town got its name from a rare-colored variety of rhododendron that had petals that resembled the swirling patterns found in marble. The variety was endemic to the Pacific Northwest, with an abundance of them growing in Marbleglen. It was said that when the man who discovered a huge field of navy-blue-and-white rhododendrons growing near what is now called Lake Myrtle, he’d dropped to his knees and wept, saying this “glen of marbled flowers” was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
Flower enthusiasts paid a pretty penny for the unique flowers, including several celebrities who wanted the flowers for their weddings and special events. And, like Edgehill, whose residents had built a town around their cats, Marbleglen had built the town around its flowers.
“Since we’re already here, the fallout from denying them in person might be worse than just agreeing. I think our hands are tied here, guys,” Amber said, then winced.
“Amber Blackwood!” Kim said, turning with her hands on her hips so she could glare at the side of Amber’s head. Amber felt like she was a child being scolded by her mother.
Amber turned as well. “Can you imagine what Bianca Pace would do if we said ‘no’ to her right now? In front of Mayor Sable and Chief Jameson?”
Kim pursed her lips, then peeked outside of the huddle. Marbleglen’s Floral Frenzy Committee, mayor, and chief of police waited at the front of the room near the stage. Bianca Pace seemed to sense Kim’s gaze on her and turned sharply in her seat to glare.
Kim squeaked and turned back toward the huddle. “Fine. But let it be known that I’m not happy about this!”
“Oh, that’s been made quite clear,” Frank said. “Let’s go join them, okay?”
He broke the huddle and walked away, knowing the rest would follow like obedient ducklings. Everyone muttered to themselves, but they trailed after the mayor anyway.
Holding the meeting in a room of this size for only fifteen people seemed rather excessive to Amber, but she knew it was a classic Marbleglen power move. The Edgehill Community Center wasn’t going to be featured in a magazine anytime soon, but it was a respectable building. The Marbleglen Community Center, however, from the outside, looked more like a giant greenhouse than a functional building meant for gatherings, with its sharp angles and glass sides. Inside, the floor was made of white marble shot through with swirling gray. The color palate was made up of sleek blacks, shiny chrome, and crisp whites. Even the black plastic chairs with their dark gray legs in the main room where Amber stood now looked expensive.
The same could be said for the Floral Frenzy Committee members. Amber sized them up as the Here and Meow group walked down the middle aisle. They all wore dark, pressed slacks, solid-colored button-up shirts, and crisp black blazers. They sat primly in the front row of chairs, like a row of news anchor robots. The women wore their hair in shiny waves down around their shoulders or up in tight buns. The men—one in his fifties, the other in his thirties—both were clean-shaven with dark, short cropped hair. Not one of them turned toward Amber’s group as they approached.
Mayo
r Deidrick stood at the mouth of the aisle and gestured for the Here and Meow Committee to fill in the first row on the left side, like children walking into an auditorium for a school assembly. Mayor Deidrick sat in the aisle seat, and Amber took a seat beside him, Kim on her other side.
On stage stood Mayor Sable, a petite woman with curly brown hair, and Chief Jameson. Amber had never met the man before but knew from Mayor Deidrick that Jameson would be here today. He was in his mid-fifties with salt-and-pepper hair and a glassy look to his brown eyes. Amber vaguely wondered if the man might be drunk. When he swayed on his feet, Amber was almost positive he was.
Mayor Sable addressed the group first. She gently pushed a pair of glasses higher up on her nose before she spoke. “Welcome, Here and Meow Committee and Mayor Deidrick. We’re so glad to have you here. Chief Jameson and I wanted to thank you in person for joining forces with us this year for our joint opening festival ceremonies. As you know, one of the Floral Frenzy’s pride and joys every year is our parade. We’re delighted that we’ll be able to combine our parade with your cat adoption event. It’s sure to bring in an influx of visitors for us both. We hope it will be a cat-egorical success.”
No one in the room reacted.
“Tough crowd,” Mayor Sable said, chuckling lightly. Then she turned to Chief Jameson and ushered him forward.
“We’re very happy to put our rivalry behind us,” Chief Jameson said, though his expression said he couldn’t possibly care about anything less. He said the words as if he were reading them off a teleprompter. “Both festivals are great for our local businesses. We hope that this joint event will give way to more collaboration between the towns. Our success is your success.”
He took a step back.
Silence descended on the room like a heavy blanket.
Nodding slightly when she realized he was done talking, Mayor Sable inched forward again, pursing her lips. “Thank you for that … rousing speech, Chief Jameson. We can always count on you to be a team player.”
That got Jameson’s hackles up, and he focused his bleary eyes on the back of the woman’s head like it was taking everything in his power not to clobber her here on stage.
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