Pawsitively Swindled

by Melissa Erin Jackson

  Around six, Amber quietly got ready and crept down the stairs into her shop. She sent Zelda a text, hoping she didn’t wake the woman, and asked her to call when she had a chance. In the meantime, Amber could work on some of the toy orders.

  But no sooner had she laid out her materials on the counter, her phone rang.

  “Hi, Zelda,” Amber answered. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

  “I’m usually up around five to take my dog on a hike,” Zelda said. “Well, he hikes and I try to keep up.”

  Amber laughed.

  “What can I do for you this morning?”

  “So … I was wondering if you could give me some advice on hiding a cache in a dead zone.” It was not a sentence Amber would have understood a few months ago.

  “Aha!” said Zelda with a chuckle. “You’ve been bitten by the caching bug, I see. The main thing I recommend is to check the size of the zone. Some are huge, covering several square feet. Others are teeny tiny. The object you hide must fit within the parameters of the zone, otherwise the negating magic there won’t work and the site will be as easily traceable as any other cache location.”

  Amber hoped this spot Edgar had found was big enough. “Good to know.”

  “Are you … looking for a place to store your mother’s book?” Zelda asked.

  “Eventually,” Amber said, wanting to tell Zelda the truth but knowing Edgar was right, in that the fewer people who knew about the book, the better. “For now I just want to test my skills. I’m practicing the boomerang spell, too.”

  “I’ll send you mine,” Zelda said. “I used it all the time on my toys when I was a kid to prove to my mother that my little brother was stealing and destroying them. Broken plastic pieces rained down on me at all hours! As soon as that little brat sacrificed one of my toys to another of his experiments, the evidence would often quite literally fall in my lap!”

  Amber laughed. “I could have used that one growing up. Willow stole my clothes on a regular basis.”

  “Younger siblings are awful,” Zelda said, chuckling to herself. “If you need anything, just let me know, okay, dear?”

  “I will,” Amber said. “Thank you.”

  “Any time.”

  Amber placed her phone on the counter and stared out at Russian Blue Avenue beyond the windows of her shop. The soft gray light of morning was starting to fade. She could just make out the shapes of Betty and Bobby Harris bustling about their bakery across the street. It was only a matter of time before they’d surely have another line out the door.

  “Couldn’t sleep?”

  Startled, Amber found her sister standing in the open “Employee Only” doorway. Willow’s hair was in a wild bun on top of her head, the white shirt she slept in had a loose collar, and there was a tear in the knee of her sweatpants. The only word that came to Amber’s mind was “disheveled.” Amber cocked a brow at her. “You okay?”

  Willow blew out a breath that sent an errant hair flapping. Then she shrugged and wandered over to Amber, stopping on the opposite side of the counter. She dropped her elbows onto the worn wood and propped her head in her hands.

  Frowning, Amber said, “Talk to me, Will.”

  “I haven’t just been working a lot,” she said, then lowered her forearms to the countertop and slowly rose her gaze to meet Amber’s. “I’ve been looking for Uncle Raphael.”

  Edgar’s father. The pained look on Willow’s face told Amber that Willow hadn’t only been looking for him—she’d found him. There was a pit in Amber’s stomach as she asked, “And?”

  “And he’s in a psychiatric hospital in upstate Washington,” Willow said. “I had to cast a bunch of spells over the phone to finally get someone to allow me to visit him.” It took her a moment to say, “He didn’t remember me. I mean … no memory of me, you … mom. Nothing.”

  Amber gaped at her. “Memory wipe? Is his lack of memory why he’s in a psychiatric hospital? How long has he been there?”

  That haunted look came over her sister again. Frowning, Willow said, “Fourteen years.”

  “So … the entire time he’s been gone? Since Mom and Dad died?” Amber asked. “I guess this explains why he’s never tried to contact Edgar. But … what happened to him?”

  Willow shrugged again. “He apparently hears a woman’s voice who talks to him at all hours of the day, begging him to find his sister’s grimoire. Except he doesn’t have a sister, as far as he can remember. He says he’s an orphan. This voice tells him he’s a witch from a powerful clan; he claims he doesn’t have magic, because that would be, and I quote, ‘crazy.’”

  Amber fell silent again, wondering if it was worth telling Edgar any of this. With Neil Penhallow harassing him constantly, could he handle the news that his father had a very similar affliction? Would he be furious with Amber if he found out later that she’d known where his father was and hadn’t told him?

  “I was really hoping that when I came here for the Here and Meow, I could do so with Uncle Raph with me as a surprise for Edgar,” Willow said. “He’s been through so much and really helped us with Kieran. I mean, he saved your life, Amber. I wanted to do something for him. I thought we could tell Uncle Raph about what happened to mom—what really happened—and … I don’t know. I guess it was silly of me to think it would be that easy; how could there have been a good reason why he had stayed gone for so long?”

  Amber reached a hand across the counter and grabbed one of Willow’s. “It was very sweet of you to try. There’s no way you could have known what you’d find when you went looking.”

  Willow nodded absently.

  “Is that all that’s bothering you?” Amber asked.

  “I just keep thinking that the Penhallows are picking off our family. First Mom and Dad. Then they went after Edgar. One of them threatened to go after Aunt G. One tried to kill you. And now it sounds like they got to Uncle Raph, too. What if, even though they’re cursed, they’re too powerful for us to outrun forever? We’ll hide the book, sure, then what? What if they find it? Then it won’t just be our family that’s in danger, it’s … everyone.”

  Amber let Willow’s hand go so she could walk around the counter to the side her sister was slouched on. She held her arms out to Willow, who hurried into them like she always did when they were younger. Willow was taller than Amber now, which made the hug feel different, but with Willow’s head on her shoulder and her arms tucked up against her chest, it was like Willow was her scrawny fourteen-year-old self again.

  “I thought I was the worrier,” Amber said, and Willow laughed softly. “I can’t pretend to know what will happen, Will. But we’ll figure it out together. And next time you’re this worked up about something, just call me, okay?”

  “You were already dealing with so much …”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Amber said. “If you need me, you call me. You know that’s the rule.”

  Willow nodded while still tucked against Amber. “Nervous about today?”

  “Totally,” Amber said. “We’re going to have to put so many cloaking spells on those things. Just the idea of moving the books terrifies me, but we’ve got to get them out of here. Once the Penhallows regroup, this has got to be the first place they’ll try.” Then she laughed, remembering something Zelda had told her when they met. “Though, I heard, severing Kieran from his magic has made me a bit of a legend in magic circles. Penhallows are apparently a little scared of yours truly.”

  Willow pulled away at that. “You?”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence!” Amber said, mock offended.

  From behind them, Amber heard, “Did Amber tell you about the time she tried to make a premonition tincture and nearly passed out from inhaling toxic fumes? Legendary, indeed.”

  Willow’s tinkling laugh made Amber smile.

  “Though I do remember the time that you, little bird,” Aunt Gretchen said, “tried to cast a flight spell on your shoes, jumped off the roof, and broke your leg. So I wouldn’t be so hard on our little m
ouse.” Then she snickered. “Plus, we have to keep her in good spirits so she tells us what kind of kisser the baker is.”

  “Ooh, yes!” Willow said and Amber tipped her head back, groaning.

  “Do you think their children will be gifted with magic or with baking?” Aunt G asked, turning to head back upstairs, Willow hurrying after her.

  “With any luck, it’ll be both!” Willow said. “Oh, I do hope for a summer wedding!”

  Amber blew out a long, gusty sigh, and muttered, “This is going to be the longest car ride of my life.”

  Chapter 22

  A little after seven, they set out for the abandoned town of Quill near Hood River. The dead zone was in Quill’s old lumber mill. That was all the information Edgar was willing to give, for fear that Neil would be able to relay something pertinent to a more able-bodied Penhallow waiting for the best path to the book.

  They took Willow’s car, leaving Amber’s new one in the lot beside the shop, and brought the maps with them as well; Amber, riding shotgun, periodically checked the locations of the four dots over the course of the three-hour drive. Molly’s dot still traveled around town the most frequently.

  And the reason for this trip—the Henbane grimoire—sat in the compact chest along with the Blackwood book, and was strapped in beside Aunt G in the back seat, who reinforced the cloaking spell on them roughly every half hour. Aunt G said even she, just sitting beside the chest, could occasionally feel the magic radiating off the books like a slow-crawling fog. When she felt it, up went another cloaking spell.

  It was almost 10:30 in the morning when they reached Quill. It was a desolate place. Dirt roads; worn, weather-beaten wooden houses and buildings; overgrown brush; and off in the distance on a hillside, a metallic water tower peeked over the top of a copse of pine trees like a curious woodland creature. Amber’s preliminary internet search told her that Oregon was in the process of revitalizing Quill, as the town’s location had a lot going for it, but Amber saw little evidence of any development taking place. She hadn’t seen another living soul other than a rail-thin orange cat prowling down a sidewalk, only to disappear into tall brush when it heard them approach.

  A worn sign ahead said the Quill Lumber Mill was to the right, and Secret Lake was straight ahead. Willow turned right.

  A few minutes later, after Willow’s car slowly rumbled over a set of old railroad tracks, Amber said, “Now that we’re closer, I’m going to try to find the dead zone as if we were playing Magic Cache.”

  Amber handed the maps back to Aunt Gretchen, clicked off the radio, then rolled down the window. Letting in a deep lungful of fresh air, Amber closed her eyes and asked her magic to seek out that anomaly where magic didn’t exist. Even though Quill was dead in terms of being a town, nature had taken it over. They were in the heart of spring now, today being the first of May. There was energy in the tall weeds swaying in the light breeze, the decaying wood being broken down by borers and beetles, and the flitting birds, butterflies, and scurrying lizards. The ambient magic wasn’t overpowering here, but it was consistent.

  She did her best to let herself relax, letting her body sway with every bump in the road. She listened to the wind gently flapping the corners of the maps Aunt Gretchen held. She listened for birdsong and the distant sound of water running over rocks.

  Tug.

  “Turn right as soon as you can,” Amber said, her eyes still closed.

  The turn came within seconds, and Amber swayed freely as she was jostled in her seat as the car maneuvered over potholes and ruts.

  Tug.

  “Keep going forward,” she said.

  On and on this went, with Amber guiding them blindly as her magic directed her where to go.

  Eventually Willow said, “We can’t go any farther on wheels.” The car came to a stop soon after.

  Amber opened her eyes. Straight ahead was a meadow of mostly dried-out grass and weeds that soon gave way to a wall of pine trees beyond it. The only man-made structure was a square cement building to the right of the car. Thick streaks of black ran down the sides of the building—runoff after rains, Amber guessed, but they reminded her of tear streaks. It somehow made the building seem even lonelier out here by itself. As she looked at it, her magic tugged at her again.

  She unhooked her seat belt and gestured at the building. “That way.”

  Before getting out of the car, Amber pulled two things from her purse: a small notebook and a large pouch of flour. The second had been Aunt Gretchen’s suggestion.

  “At least we aren’t here at night,” Willow said, sighing. “This place is giving me the willies.”

  Aunt G and Willow got the chest of books out of the back seat. They would carry it as they followed behind Amber; the contact with the box would allow them to conduct the cloaking spells even faster. All three Blackwood women had brought a small notebook of spells with them; Amber tucked hers into her back pocket.

  Once Amber was sure her aunt and sister had a good hold on the handles on either side of the box, she, with the pouch of flour held by its strings, started for the weeping building. There were a few long-necked lamps attached to the roof of the structure, which appeared to be two stories. There was one door on this face of it. It was dark gray metal, had a massive dent in the center, and rust ate away at the bottom edges, the metal bubbling and peeling away. She glanced up at the overhanging lamps and saw the bulbs were shattered.

  Her magic tugged. She stepped to the left and peered around the corner of the building. When her magic tugged her again, she was glad they had to move beyond the sad building, and didn’t need to find a way to break in.

  Ahead was a cracked and uneven cement path that led toward the pine forest. Amber rounded the building and walked slowly along the path to ensure Willow and Aunt Gretchen could keep up.

  After a few feet, they crossed the tree line. The uneven path led them down a small incline and then a meadow opened up. In the center was a cylindrical structure that Amber would have thought had previously been used for some kind of ritual, had she not known that this area of Quill had once accommodated a lumber mill.

  The entire structure was made of cement, its round, cracked base ringed by eight upright cement slabs that were each a good ten feet tall. A large cement ring connected the tops of the slabs, and from that ring a few more upright slabs stretched into the air, though most had snapped off after a couple feet. Trees growing along the sides of the cylindrical structure were trying to take over, their wide leafy branches sticking out between the gaps made by the upright slabs. Tufts of weeds poked through the spaces in the uneven cement base.

  Her magic guided her forward.

  Once inside the structure, no ceiling to obstruct the view of the cloudless blue sky above, Willow and Aunt G put the chest down.

  Without a word, Willow and Aunt G began to conduct various reveal spells. While they did that, Amber kept her locator spell active, her magic’s tug more like a gentle nudge now. Her magic would nudge her an inch to the right, and she’d toss a handful of flour in that direction. For the briefest of moments, the flour would reveal an edge or a corner. Amber hadn’t been sure Aunt Gretchen’s idea was a good one until now.

  Fifteen painstaking minutes of this revealed the exact location of this dead spot. It was roughly the size of a normal-sized door on a house: seven feet tall and three feet wide. The chest would “fit” just fine, but it took some work to get it positioned so it was in the middle of the dead zone, which was a few feet away from the leftmost edge of the circular base.

  Once it was in place, Willow conducted three boomerang spells—one on each book, and on the box itself. Both grimoires already had active spells that would only allow Amber or Willow to open them, so even the act of trying to pry one open would trigger the boomerang spell. Then they layered ten cloaking spells on the box—ones both for avoiding detection, and hiding them from sight—starting with the strongest one any of them could find, and which had three levels. Spells that cloaked som
ething from sight, Aunt Gretchen explained, allowed the object to only be visible to certain people. The three Blackwood women made up the entirety of that short list. It would be hiding in plain sight unless someone literally tripped over it.

  After that came an additional camouflage spell from Willow, which made the chest look as if it had become one with the dirt, cracked cement, and dried weeds. Next came a blowback spell from Amber—one that would be similar to what had happened to her when the magic from the veins below Zelda’s old neighborhood had slammed into her with such force that she’d been lifted off her feet—that was then reinforced by Willow and Aunt G in turn. Then a memory erase spell from Aunt G. Sight-deprivation from Willow, loss of consciousness from Aunt G, and finally a confusion spell from Amber.

  When the last words had been uttered, Amber stepped back to join her aunt and sister. She couldn’t feel or see the chest of grimoires anymore. It was a relief, in a way. But it also felt as if she was abandoning her parents in the middle of nowhere, left in the elements to weep alone just like that building standing vigil by the road.

  Aunt Gretchen stood between Amber and Willow, holding each of their hands. She gave Amber’s hand a squeeze now and said, “As sad as this feels, this is a good place for them for now. If anyone tries to do them any harm at all, they’ll come back to you. We have to hope that this is enough.”

  Aunt Gretchen let them go and headed back up the path to the car. Willow said a few words of goodbye, then gave Amber’s forearm a squeeze before she, too, headed back the way they’d come.

  Amber stared at the empty space where she knew the books were for a while longer, offering up a silent apology to her parents for this. She knew they would understand—after all, they’d gone through even greater lengths over the years to keep these books safe, but Amber felt as if she’d only just gotten this big part of her parents back.

  Her fists were clenched, her shoulders tight, and stomach in knots. Her mind knew this was the safest place for the books even if her heart ached at the reality of it.