by Tonya Kappes
“June, I’m so sorry.” There was sadness in her eyes. “Have you talked to Eloise?”
“No.” I shook my head. “She was probably the first person Oscar went to since she was his aunt. Putting her in the middle isn’t an option.”
“You’d be surprised.” Bella swiped the window with the cloth, rubbing off all of the cleaner. “Even though she is his aunt, she was also your mom’s best friend. You need to reach out to her during your time of need.”
“What does that mean?” I asked her. She definitely knows something, but what? I still had a lot of learning to do within this community.
“You are the village president now.” Bella reminded me. “You should get to know all of the citizens in the community.”
She was right. If none of this had ever happened, I would be making my rounds, visiting with all the community shop owners and healers in the village. Eloise was the one spiritualist that walked through the village in the wee hours of the morning with her incense, cleansing Whispering Falls on a daily basis. Many times, I would wake up before the rooster crowed, and see Eloise, along with Izzy, walking the streets for the morning cleanse.
“I think I’ll do that, starting with the Karima sisters.” I smiled at Bella, realizing she was helping me with my new role.
“Good idea.” Bella disappeared back into her shop, followed by a few customers.
Mr. Prince Charming darted ahead and up the big concrete steps that lead to the front stain-glass doors of Two Sisters and A Funeral. I pushed the door open.
I had never been to visit the Karima sisters, but I figured it was like any other funeral home.
“Come on.” I gestured for Mr. Prince Charming, but he sat on the stoop dragging his tail. He stared at me for a brief second before he darted down the porch. “Chicken.”
There was something eerie about being in a place where there was a dead body, much less two. One of them I was accused of putting there.
The long wide hallway was dark. The walls were draped in long deep-red fabric that hung from ceiling to floor. Definitely, a designing style I had never seen. The pale yellow carpet with small red diamond designs lined the floors. Four large heavy ornamental wooden doors, two on each side, were shut. The massive staircase at the end opened up to a wraparound balcony.
“I’m not listening to you,” Patience Karima’s voice drifted through the air. “I don’t care what you have to say so be quiet. I have a job to do.”
Using my gift of instincts, and the fact I have ears, I followed the sound of her voice to the second door. Holding my breath, I put my ear to the door to see who she was talking to.
“If Constance comes back here and discovers you, we will both be in trouble.”
Cling, clank, cling. The sound of something hitting a metal tray echoed through the crack at the bottom of the door. I lay down on the carpet and looked through the crack. The only feet I saw were Patience’s feet. I would know those black slip-on shoes anywhere. All the elderly people that came to A Dose of Darla in my old flea market days wore those. They said they were the most comfortable shoes. Still, I’d rather go for a little fashion, but I guess it didn’t matter to Patience’s clients what she wore. They were all dead.
A feather floated next to her foot, and then another one.
Ostrich! Didn’t Oscar say the ostrich from the strays that Petunia was keeping was missing?
I jumped up and turned the knob, busting through the door. If I could get the ostrich back, it would be one less crime I had to solve that I was being accused of committing.
“Caught ya!” I screamed, but came to an abrupt stop when Patience was leaning over Kenny’s body with a tube going in one end and another coming out the other.
“June Heal!” Patience dropped the scalpel from her hand. It landed like a meat cleaver in her foot. “Ouch!” She hopped around on one foot as she tried to pull the knife out.
She went one way around the embalming table while I tried to cut her off the other way. Kenny’s headdress was losing feathers left and right, and losing them fast. They fluttered through the air as our bodies created a lot of wind.
“Stop!” I put my hands out in front of me for Patience to stand still. “Let me help you.”
She squeezed her little beady eyes shut, and huffed. The hot air coming out of her nose, fogged up her glass. “Ow, ow. Ow!” She screamed as I pulled the knife out of her shoe.
“Let me see your foot!” I demanded, following her hobbling body to the chair in the corner. I tried not to look at the dead guy, but it was difficult. He looked as if he was sleeping.
Patience peeled off her compression therapy leggings, revealing a tiny spot on the top of her foot.
“Help!” Patience screamed as though she were being killed. “Help me!”
I threw my hand over her mouth. “What is wrong with you? Stop screaming.”
“If you think you are going to put me on that table like you did him, you are crazy!” She stuttered and pointed, “You’re crazy!”
“Patience, I didn’t kill him and you know that.” I stood back and crossed my arms, watching her with cautious eyes. “You know I didn’t don’t you?”
“Constance will be back soon and I have to get my job done.” With her shoe off, she got up and staggered across the floor to her workstation as if she had been stabbed nearly to death. “You’d better leave.”
“Who were you talking to Constance?” I came here for some answers, but I didn’t know what answers those were. I was only going on my instincts. “Come on Constance, I won’t tell anyone.”
She placed her hands on the arm of the body as if he were still alive. “I have a job to do. And another one is waiting.” She referred to the out of town body they had gotten.
“Patience, aren’t you tired of living under Constance’s rules?” I asked, trying to get her to defy whatever she was scared of. Constance always seemed to tell Patience what to do and when to do it. And if Patience had some sort of freedom, she might know something that could help me out.
Patience grabbed her foot and scrunched up her face like an old prune as if she were in all sorts of pain.
“Why don’t you come by the shop and I will get you some medicine for that?” I pointed to her little cut.
She bit her lip and shook her head no.
“Okay.” I walked over to the door and turned around, “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”
She didn’t look up as I left the room. I shut the door behind me. There was a lot going on within these funeral home walls. I had to come back when I could stay longer. But those bodies gave me the heebie jeebies.
I was anxious to rip that sign off the door of the shop. It was high time to open A Charming Cure, whether Oscar liked it or not.
I stood at the top of the steps of Two Sisters and A Funeral, peering down Main Street at all the shops and customers. I was the village president. I had to find a way to get answers. Opening my shop would give me the relaxation I needed to kick my intuition into gear. I started down the first step and stopped.
Picking a feather up off the step, I held it up in the sunlight, wondering how many more feathers Kenny was going to lose until he was laid to rest. More importantly, my gut told me these feathers meant something. But what?
Chapter Thirteen
“I dare you to think that you can just close my shop,” I muttered, ripping the police line tape off the front gate of A Charming Cure. The Police Station looked dark, but I was sure Oscar watching nervously as I wadded the yellow tape up and threw it in the street. “I’ll show you who’s boss.”
Rowr! Mr. Prince Charming batted at the dangling tape.
I stomped up to the door and marched in before I let this little ole mix of a murder stop me from my job. I was innocent and I was going to prove it.
Rolling up my sleeves, I flipped the light switch on. All of the little table lamps, sconces, and overhead cane lights illuminated, bringing a soft, inviting glow into the shop. The bott
les on the tables sparkled, showing off their magical cures inside.
A warm fuzzy feeling came over me, as it always did when I was in the store. My intuition told me everything was going to be fine.
Meow, meow. Mr. Prince Charming jumped on the counter. I set my bag next to him and gave him a nice long rub down his back. He purred and arched his back with delight.
“You are going to have to leave this instance, Ms. Heal.” The baritone voice growled from behind. “You are violating police procedure, and I can put you in jail for this.”
The man stood in the entrance of A Charming Cure tapping the police baton in the palm of his hand.
“Who are you?” I asked. “I mean, I know you are a police officer by the outfit and all. But what do you have to do with Whispering Falls and my shop?”
“You will have to see the Order of Elders for the answers you are seeking.” He stepped inside the shop. “This is a police investigation and I’m in charge.”
“He wasn’t found dead in my shop,” I reminded him. I crossed my arms and tried to hone into my intuition. Was he who he said he was? And where was Oscar?
“Ms. Heal, everyone knows that the perimeter of the crime scene is blocked off. And this,” he circled his hands in the air, “is considered the perimeter and part of the crime scene. I told all of this to Mr. McGurtle and he should have told you.”
“He did, but that was yesterday.” I played stupid. “And what is that about an Order of Elders?”
I flipped to the appendix in the back of the Magical Cures Book to see if there was anything at all about this order, but there wasn’t.
“When a village president is involved in a crime, the Order of Elders then step in.” He picked up a bottle of potion for hair, which he definitely didn’t need. He had the thickest head of unruly black hair I had ever seen. “You are in big trouble, Ms. Heal. So I suggest you get in contact with the Order as quickly as possible.”
“How do I do that?” Big trouble? I swallowed hard because that didn’t sound good at all.
“I do not know that.” He set the bottle back down and started to tap the baton again.
“Where is Oscar?” I gathered some of the items I needed at my house to create a makeshift shop just in case I needed to make a potion. “I would like to talk to him about all of this before I leave you here.”
I picked up the Magical Cure Book and held it tight. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe everything he was saying, but it was strange no one, including Mr. McGurtle, had told me this information.
“He is no longer on the case.” He held the door wide open, as if for me to walk through. “He has been transferred for the time being.”
Transferred? My mind went cloudy. I grasped the corners of the book. The room spun in circles and then up and down. I tried to take a couple of deep breaths, but then everything went black.
Chapter Fourteen
“Oh, dear.” The sweet angelic voice rang in my ears. “Do you think she’s all right?”
“She better be all right.” Another unfamiliar voice broke with huskiness.
“I honestly can’t believe she’s the new village president of Whispering Falls.” The third unknown voice was much calmer. “It’s such a wonderful community. I hope it doesn’t start going downhill.”
“It will all be fine,” Eloise said in a hushed whisper. “June is wonderful. She has to get used to all the magic. She only found out about all of this a few years ago. Unlike us. We’ve been doing this all our lives.”
Open, open. I begged my eyes to open. My lids felt heavy as if there were dollar-sized coins taped on them.
“Gandalf said she fainted when he told her that Oscar had been transferred.” The angelic voice whispered. “Young love.”
“Who cares about love when we are in crisis mode?”
“Now, now.” Eloise tried to settle down the feisty one. “Let’s be calm so we can figure this mess out.”
“Look,” the sweet voice gasped, “her eyes are fluttering.”
Fluttering? Please open, please open. I continued to will my lashes to pop open.
I tried to focus on the blurry images as the sound of footsteps gathered around me.
“I told you,” she confirmed. “June?”
“Move, let Eloise try.” The husky voice was patronizing. “She knows her. You will only freak her out more.”
“June, dear?” Eloise had always been so comforting. “Mr. Prince Charming is here.”
Mewl, mewl. The long tail wrapped around my neck as Mr. Prince Charming slowly dragged it across.
“I…” I stammered, “Oscar.”
The last thing I remember was that man telling me that Oscar had been transferred. I didn’t believe it. He would have found a way to say good-bye to me.
“Yes, June.” Eloise sat down next to me. My eyes focused on her face, though I could tell I was in her tree house. I saw three other shadows around me that had not yet come into focus. But I knew they belonged to the three voices I did not recognize. “We can talk about Oscar when you are well.”
“Has he been. . .” I looked deep into her emerald eyes and began to sob when I could see that Oscar was gone.
“June, he will be back when all of this is cleared up.” Eloise swept her arms around me, practically lying on top of me. “He hated it so much he had to leave without a good-bye, but that is the way they do things around here when the village president finds herself in a sticky situation.”
I turned away. The thought of Oscar having to be sent away was more than I could bear, and the fact I hadn’t been without him since we were children didn’t help matters.
“I told you Petunia was a much stronger candidate for the job.” The deeper voice of a shadow moved away from me. Her footsteps were solid and loud.
I laid there for what seemed to be forever, but knew it was only a few minutes so my eyes could adjust. When I felt somewhat more myself, I propped up on my elbows to get a better look at what was going on around me.
Blinking my eyes, I did realize the three women I didn’t know were sitting with their legs crossed in mid-air. Each one was older than the other.
“Hi,” the little old woman with the sweet southern voice was suddenly hovering over me. She was no bigger than four feet tall with a small black pillbox hat nestled on top of her tight curled silver hair. The fox stole wrapped around her neck was perfectly attached to the collar of her black suit. She looked like she had class. “I’m Mary Lynn, one of the Elders, here to help you.”
“Howdy!” Another shadow came into focus. A much younger, more hip woman floated next to Mary Lynn. Her one-piece black bodysuit was barely visible under her long leopard mink coat “I’m Mary Ellen. The fabulous Elder.” She cackled aloud.
“I’m Mary Sue, the other one.” The third and last Elder didn’t move from her invisible chair in the air. “We make up the Order of Elders. We are all past village presidents of different communities. You have been accused of murder, and if you ask me, I am not sure you didn’t do it.”
“Mary Sue!” Mary Ellen and Mary Lynn shouted.
“Don’t you mind her.” Mary Lynn patted my hand and sat next to me. “Sometimes witches do deserve the ugly image of having warts on their noses when they act like Mary Sue.”
“She’s just an old coot!” Mary Ellen floated down, sticking her tongue out at Mary Sue. “Besides, we are here to get to the bottom of who killed poor Kenny.”
“What about Oscar?” I sat up; Mr. Prince Charming jumped off the couch and darted out the front steps of the tree house. “I can’t do anything without Oscar.”
Eloise stepped up, her cloak creating a wind tunnel as she sat next to me on the other side. “Oscar wanted to tell you good-bye, but he wasn’t allowed. He went to sorcery school early. He will be fine. Everything will be back to normal soon.”
“First we have to take care of business.” Mary Sue came down and stood next to the couch, her body casting a shadow over me. “Why did you want to get in to
uch with Kenny? Everyone in town seems to think you were desperate to talk to him. Then he shows up dead. Suspicious!” She pointed a finger at me and a spark flew from it.
I ducked, not sure if she was casting.
“Stop being so dramatic. You are going to scare the poor girl.” Mary Ellen stood up, placing herself between Mary Sue and me. She planted her hands on her hips. “We know you didn’t do it, but we don’t know who did.”
“That is why we are here.” Mary Lynn stood up. There was a little rattle as she adjusted her suit skirt. “We will leave you to get some rest. We will be back later to ask some questions, but only when you feel well.”