by M. L. Briers
“Nice thought, but we don’t feed kin to the plants,” Gran said with a twinkle of mischief in her eyes and a knowing smile on her lips as she shot a look back over her shoulder at me.
Canny old Granny!
“Pity,” I offered back and heard her chuckle.
“You, my dear, we’re always before your time with your thinking.”
“How so?” I reached to touch the pretty petals of a plant and got a look of rebuke from my grandmother.
With a sigh, I withdrew my hand.
“Well, before Nemo, and his – all drains lead to the ocean tagline – your mother caught you trying to flush Moira’s head down the toilet.”
“I remember that.” I couldn’t help but grin. “She kept going on all day about how she wanted to visit the Loch, swim in the water, over and over, and so I thought I’d give her a hand.”
“That’s a story worth sticking too. It has just the right amount of deniability and innocence to be believable.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said with my best innocent tone and wide-eyed look.
“Brownie points for you.” Gran flashed me another smile. “So, Moira. I heard what happened over the dinner table when I left to take care of … business. I’m to have a chaperone…”
“Not a chaperone – exactly.”
“Hmm … What dastardly plot of revenge did you have in mind for your sister?”
“Revenge, Gran? Whatever do you mean?”
“Don’t milk it. There are no more points on offer.”
“I thought – what with my business taking up a lot more time due to doing the books, ordering, getting in early for the deliver…”
“Sold, move on to the next phase of your plan.”
“That it might be a good idea if Moira and I both learned the matching spells…”
“Skills…”
“That too. And we did it – together.”
I held onto my evil grin and held my breath as the wheels took time to turn in Gran’s mind, and she settled on an answer.
“No funny stuff?” She shot me a warning glare.
“The pleasure of her company, hour after hour, would be…”
“A punishment for us both.” Gran offered me those perfectly arched eyebrows, and of course, she was right, but it wasn’t the point.
“I like to cut my nose off to spite my face.”
“And win.” Gran got me where others didn’t. “Fine.” Yes! Victory. “But if there is any funny business…”
“There won’t be…”
“But … if there is, then I will put a match on the both of you,” she warned and gave me a hard stare.
“Like set us on fire, that’s a little harsh even by your standards?”
“No!”
“Then that would be incest and…”
“Out!” She pointed one bony finger at the door, and I raced for the exit, but I felt the sharp sting to my tail anyway. “Go savor your victory and tell your sister about your evil scheme.”
I heard the laughter in her voice and felt – elated. Payback was a witch, and so was I.
~
“I’m sensing a kind of tension in the air.” Ross was back for his morning brew, and while munching on cookies, the crumbs going everywhere, he was grinning from ear to ear as he watched my sister and I giving each other our customary death glares. “The kind you could cut with a knife. Unlike these cookies…”
“What?” I demanded as I eyed the bit of cookie that he’d discarded on the plate.
Nobody, least of all Ross Mac-Nibbles, discarded my cookies.
“Did someone get the recipe for their famous cookies wrong this morning?” Moira’s teasing, but gleeful, tone rang a few bells in my mind.
The … witch!
“What did you do?” I demanded.
You could mess with me in a lot of ways, but you didn’t mess with my cookie recipe.
“Me?” Moira tried to look innocent, but that look didn’t work for her, not when her eyes were flashing victory signs.
I stomped over to Ross’s table and snatched up the cookie as I offered my sister the full spectrum of my wrath via my eyes. I took a bite.
“Help yourself,” Ross said with a small, annoying chuckle, and I tasted the magic on my tongue.
“Did you make it too heavy?”
Moira’s lips stretched up at the corners, and so help me, if Ross and the two tourists hadn’t of been sitting in my shop; I would have put her head first in a bucket of flour and zapped her backside with my magic until the sheep left the Isle over the bridge.
“Seems a little heavy.” I tipped my chin down and gave her my best glare. “A bit like your childbearing hips.”
Ross spat a mouthful of coffee out all over the table as he choked on laughter. Moira’s eyes snapped wide in surprise and disbelief, and the tourists got up and headed for the door.
Perhaps they scented the blood in the air that my darling sister hadn’t shed … yet.
“I think you should take that back,” Moira hissed like she had a serpent sitting in the back of her throat.
How fitting that would have been because I was sure as a child that when nobody was looking she actually sprouted snakes for hair.
“I think you should know your place,” I offered, as I dropped my hand to my side, out of Ross’ sight, and snapped my fingers while putting just a teeny tiny bit of magic behind it.
I heard the step below her feet scrap over the floorboards, saw her eyes widen in surprise, about a second before I whipped it out from under her and she shrieked as she vanished behind the counter.
They say that pride comes before the fall, well, her pride was busy hitting the floor.
Ross pushed up to his feet and rushed over to the counter. I had only seconds to unleash my wrath, but … another shriek as I flicked my wrist told me I’d done it.
Ross pulled up short and stared, somewhat open-mouthed at my sister. Then he tossed his head back on his neck and roared with laughter at her misfortune.
“Ross MacNabbie, you get out of here and get to work this instant,” Moira screeched out as she dragged her flour-covered body upright and offered him the evil eye.
“I’m going…” he chuckled at her misfortune on his way to the door.
“You!” Moira hissed at me the moment that the door was slammed shut behind him.
“Perhaps we should get you a bigger step.” I offered Moira a sweet smile. “It appears you’re a little too heavy for that one.”
CHAPTER SIX
~
“ Oh, would you look at that,” Isla said, and nudged me with her elbow, shooting my arm from the top of the table and almost causing me to headbutt the wood veneer as my body follow my head, and I lunged forward toward it.
I did stop myself in time, but I also got a few funny looks from the folk in the pub. Isla wasn’t paying attention to me; she was too interested in who had just walked into the bar. Gossip hound.
“It’s that outlander Detective, so what?” Moira snorted her contempt for Isla, for him, and for me.
Her pride was probably still stinging from earlier, but then, as she’d zapped me, so was mine.
“The one who’s investigating old man Croon’s untimely demise,” Isla reminded us, and my sister stopped throwing imaginary daggers at me long enough to give him a second look.
“And?” Moira asked, a little distracted, too distracted for my liking as she stared at him like a bear looking at a honeypot.
“And, the one who can give us a little insight into the why’s and how’s of what exactly happened to poor Mr. Croon,” she offered back.
“Poor, Mr. Croon? The man wasn’t exactly poor Mr. Croon when he was alive now, was he?” I eyed her with enough scrutiny to make her blush.
“Well, I hate to speak ill of the dead…” she started.
“Because we all know about the bad luck.” Moira waved a dismissive hand to beckon her on. “Get to the point before I go up to the Point and toss myself
off into the sea.”
“Moira!” Isla gasped, and my sister and I rolled our eyes in unison.
Mine came back down on the Outlander Detective Jack Mackie because they were just naturally heading in that direction, and not because the man was a sex god trapped in a man’s body. Honestly.
“Please tell me how Deputy Duck-face is going to spill the beans on what, or what not might have been nefarious doings in the death of our Mr. Croon.” Moira gave her a poignant look and shrugged her shoulders up around her ears.
I was only half listening, most of my brain was on Jack, and his new hairstyle – shorter, a little more messed up in a spiky, just rolled out of bed way, and then I felt the elbow in my side and snapped my attention back towards my kin, before they busted me for looking at an outlander like I thought he was an ice cream.
“Missed that,” I admitted. “Zoned out for a bit of a brain fart.”
“Breasts,” Isla said, and I had to look to Moira to confirm what I’d just heard. Moira shrugged again, but not as forcefully that time.
“Whose?”
“Yours,” Isla said, and I’m sure she expected me to follow her thinking, but I admit – I was as lost as a tourist talking to a local in a Glaswegian bar.
“Mine?”
“Well, I have noticed, and I don’t think it’s without merit to bring this up…” she started, and I fidgeted in my seat.
“If you’re going to say something bad about my girlies…” I warned her with a scowl.
“Only that – they seem to be a magnet for Detective Mackie’s eyes,” she rushed out.
“Sorry?” I even shook my head to show her that I thought she had gone full blown squirrel – nutty, on me.
“I don’t think he is. In fact, he could barely peel his eyes from them the last time he was here,” she announced, and to be honest, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Every time you looked away from him, so he was looking at them. That was when you weren’t bending over, and he was practically drooling at the sight of your bum.”
“It’s hard to miss,” Moira said with glee, and I snapped her a glare.
“My girlies?” I searched for confirmation from Isla.
It was the first I’d heard of it – why was it the first that I’d heard of it?
“Yes.”
“Up periscope and right at ya?” Moira chuckled at my slightly uneven nipples, and I zapped her.
She bit down on a shriek, but it was still loud enough to bring everyone’s attention toward our table, including Detective Jack and his new hairstyle. Not that I’d searched or singled him out, just as the tallest person standing at the bar he did stand out like a rather sexy sore thumb.
“And so what?” I asked with a look of rebuke for my kin.
“Go over there and dazzle him with your cleavage to see if you can find anything out.” Isla looked at me as if I missed the queue for brains when they were handing them out.
“You’re serious?” I half liked the idea, and half wanted to march up to Detective Jack and slap him for ogling my goodies.
“Like sheep rot.”
“Pull down your top a little, put a hand in and hoist them up,” Moira said, cupping her hands in front of her breasts and juggling with her own imagination.
“I will not go and flaunt my wears in front of that man,” I hissed out like a fire-less dragon.
“But then, what good are they?” Isla offered back.
“Did you ever hear of feminism, or did the last few decades work for equality just pass you by?” I demanded.
“You live on Skye,” she shot back. “That’s like asking the Tibetan Monks to join the arms race.”
I groaned inwardly, but the sound of my sister’s sniggers annoyed me so.
“Go on, Maggie, take one for the team,” Moira chuckled.
“I let you live to adulthood, didn’t I? How much must I suffer for this family?” I hissed back.
“It’s why the Goddess gave us our girlies.” Isla looked at me with hope.
“To flaunt them in front of Detective Jack?” I asked, dismissing him with a wave of my hand, but, to my horror, he was looking right at me, and waved back. “Oh poop.” I hissed, trying to decide if I should look for an imaginary contact lens under my table or not.
“He’s coming this way, Maggie!” Isla hissed a squeal of excitement. “Now’s your chance.”
“Well, I’ll just whip them out and flash him, and while he’s drooling on his own chin, you steal his notebook,” I hissed back.
“Oh, good one!” Isla nodded like a fake dog in the back of an old person’s car.
“I will hurt you,” I warned her.
“Detective…” Moira announced loud enough for me to whip my evil glare from my kin and aim it right at him. Jack frowned back, unsure why I was giving him the evil eye, and I snapped on a big beaming smile.
“How are we all doing this fine night?” he asked as he looked at each one of us in turn, and I watched to see where his eyes landed on my kin.
Perhaps I wasn’t the only pair of breasts he liked to ogle. Maybe he was addicted to boobies.
If he was then, he hid it well until he got to me, and his eyes flicked to my girlies and back up to my face. The pervie little…
“Told you,” Isla said as she nudged me once more, and I had the urge to zap her, zap Moira because she sniggered, and offer up something of a hex – not that we did that sort of thing – for Jack.
“So you did,” I offered back. “Right, well, in that case,” I said, pushing up out of my seat and turning towards Jack to give him a nice big eyeful of my girlies that he couldn’t resist.
He looked, and I seethed.
“So, how’s the case going?” Moira asked, following my lead and grilling Jack while his little brain was overriding his big one.
“Well, I think…” Jack’s eyes flicked up to mine, and I quickly looked elsewhere so as not to bust him, just yet.
“Accident’s like that…” Moira clicked her tongue.
“Accident…?” Jack was practically salivating.
“Not an accident then?” Isla offered as if she couldn’t care less.
“Not in so much, no…” Jack said, distracted.
I rolled my eyes to Moira and urged her on with a glare.
“Slip, wasn’t it?” she asked, grinning from ear to ear at my misery.
It was true; I’d expected more from Jack – stupid really – he was male.
“Not too sure on that,” Jack said, and Isla opened her big mouth on a small shriek and broke the magic, the spell – not that there was one of those either – just my rather perfect girlies holding him spellbound, and he snapped to attention.
“I knew it. Foul play!” Isla, of course, was triumphant.
“What?” Jack almost chewed off his tongue to backpedal. “No, I mean we have no…”
“Clue?” I asked with as dry a tone as I could find, and he grasped onto that lifeline that I threw for him.
“Yes.” He nodded like I needed the help to understand the word.
“That doesn’t surprise me where you’re concerned.” I tipped my chin in the air and walked away to the sound of sniggers from my kin.
It served him right.
CHAPTER SEVEN
~
“I‘m not sure what I did wrong, but…” Moira said no more. Instead, she raised her hand and motioned to the simmering mess that she’d made of her spellwork.
“Oh no, no, no, no, no, and hell’s fire, no!” I thought I would make myself perfectly clear. I knew her game, and she wasn’t getting away with it. I’d followed Gran’s rather detailed instructions and my love pot was bubbling away with a nice scent of roses and cinnamon. “You messed that up on purpose.”
“Why would I do that?” Moira looked the picture of innocence.
Pah and double Pah!
“So that Gran won’t work with you again,” I offered my sweetest, yet most accusing sing-song tone.
Gran eyed the mess from a
distance, and I didn’t blame her. Heaven knows what Broom Hilder had put in that pot. She snorted her contempt for the potion.
“It looks like something from that new restaurant shop that just opened up in Broadford…” Gran said.
“The one near the art gallery?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“That’s Indian food, Gran, very nice…”
“But it looks like something that came out of the back end of a coo.” Gran snorted her contempt for that too. She had a habit of that.
“And thus ends my craving for a Chicken Tikka Masala,” Moira said with a look of repulsion on her face that matched how I felt for her spellwork.
My sister was devious in ways that you couldn’t imagine. This was just the tip of a very large iceberg.
“She did that on purpose, Gran,” I protested. I wasn’t letting the conversation get derailed by talk about curry and cows.
“Was I born yesterday? Do you think I can’t tell the difference between what comes out of the back end of a Coo and Moira’s attempt to sabotage her spell?”
I loved Gran at times like these. She might have been directing her hyperbole at me, but it was a warning shot at my sneaky little sister.
“I think I can hear someone calling,” Moira lied.
“Oh, well, Maggie had better go see to it then as you have more practicing to do,” Gran berated her, and better still, she had a twinkle in her eye for me when she did it.
Yea! I was home and dry and could escape her evil clutches. I rushed from the room as though the hounds of hell were chasing hard at my heels … and right into the broad chest of a man-wall that was standing in my way when I rounded the corner towards the living room.
“Who in blazes erected a stupid wall there?” I grumbled as I was repelled back off his chest, and I would have landed on my pride had his hands not latched on around my upper arms, and he yanked me back against that broad chest.
I was playing yo-yo with an idiot of epic proportions, but he did smell good. Not like some of the locals that always seemed to smell like lavender drawer sheets and an overpowering body spray that they used to mask the not-so-sweet scent of their sheep.