Lace and Lies

by Nancy Warren

  I arranged the candles in a circle around where Enid Selfe had died. First a ring of the black, to draw out the bad energy, and then around it, a ring of beeswax candles to purify and send the energy on its way.

  I watched Margaret Twigg carefully. When the cauldron was boiling and the scent of herbs began to fill the air, she pulled out a small vial of white crystals. As she was about to shake them into the cauldron, I grasped her wrist. “What is that?”

  “Salt.”

  I leveled my gaze steady on hers. “What kind of salt?”

  “Salt from the Dead Sea. It helps purify the spirit and ease them on their way.”

  I wasn’t some rube at a country fair. “Salt from the Dead Sea? Are you sure you didn’t buy a one-pound sack of table salt from Tesco’s?”

  Her lips twitched, and I could see her trying not to laugh. “All right, probably ordinary table salt would do just fine, but I use the best. Now stand back.” She glanced down at my hand, and her voice went steely. “And let go of my arm.”

  I did and stepped back. Luckily I did, for the second she shook the salt into the pot, the boiling became furious.

  “Lavinia? The candles, if you please.”

  Lavinia focused hard and then snapped her fingers, and the candle wicks all sprang into flame at once. It was so cool, I was determined to start practicing that spell on my own.

  She said, “Now, witches, we join hands.” We circled around the space were Enid Selfe died. We stood outside the ring of fire, which, I knew from my grimoire, was to protect us from the negative energy. The cauldron bubbled away in the very spot where Enid had died, and the candles circled the spot. The flames should act like a psychic chimney, channeling Enid’s leftover energy away from us. I had Violet’s hand holding my left and Margaret Twigg’s clawlike grasp on my right hand. Lavinia closed the circle, joining with Margaret and Violet, and Nyx sat beside me, her soft warmth against my ankle. And then Margaret looked at me. “Lucy? Please take over.”

  I felt like a brand-new intern being handed a scalpel during brain surgery.

  They were all looking at me. I felt panic rise. I said to Margaret, “Can’t you do it?”

  She smirked in an entirely superior fashion. “Of course I can do it. But you need to practice in order to learn. Besides, this is your shop, and you’re the one who has the most to lose if we don’t get rid of the spirit.”

  I glanced at Lavinia, who merely nodded. Violet squeezed my other hand and whispered, “You’ve got this.”

  Easy for her to say. She was just an hourly paid employee. If Enid started creating havoc in my shop, all Violet had to do was quit. Me? I was stuck in this place. It was my place of employment, I lived above the shop, and don’t even get me started on the beings living below who seemed to think it was my job to keep them safely housed.

  But, on some level, I also knew that Margaret Twigg, as annoying as she was, was probably right. I looked around at their faces, strangely almost unrecognizable in the flickering candlelight. “What if it goes wrong?”

  “Then you’ll know that you’re not trying hard enough. Being a witch isn’t like learning to needlepoint or to paint watercolors, Lucy, this is a vocation. If you don’t take it seriously, somebody’s going to get hurt, and that somebody is probably you.”

  “Great pep talk. Thanks. Now I feel full of confidence.”

  “This potion won’t stay strong forever. You’re wasting time.”

  I took a deep breath. I brought back that sense I’d had when I was feeling powerful as I read my family grimoire. I pictured the handwritten spell that I’d memorized. I pictured Enid Selfe’s face. My fingertips began to tingle, not the kind of tingling that ended up in shooting flames; the feeling of inner power. The handwritten verse had been a poem, with antiquated words that rhymed. I felt I wanted something simpler. I improvised my own spell, hoping Margaret would fix things if I made a mess of it.

  “We sisters have come together. North, South, East and West. Fire, air, earth, and water. As four elements, four directions, four sisters. Together, we exhort you, spirit of the departed, to rise and go on your way. Your time here on earth is done. It is time for you to rise and go on your way.” I couldn’t think of anything else, so I added the words that ended the spell. “So I say, so mote it be.”

  I felt a kind of electric current running between me, Margaret, and Violet. There was absolute silence. The candle flames burned steadily. Was I supposed to say more? I didn’t have anything more.

  I was about to ask Margaret to take over when, suddenly, the water boiled, faster and louder than normal water could boil. It sounded like a waterfall, and the steam rose and circled about. Violet gasped and clutched my hand so hard, I think she broke a couple of small bones.

  The column of steam suddenly became Enid’s face, if Enid had been made of steam. In a shrieking tone, she said, “Find out who took my life from me, or I will be back.”

  I might be completely freaked out, but I was also an amateur sleuth. I wasn’t going to give up any chance to find the answer to this puzzle, and who knew better than Enid herself who’d killed her? “Enid, do you know who hurt you?”

  She shrieked again and began to spin. Honestly, if I hadn’t been clutching two other witches, I’d have turned tail and run all the way upstairs to my flat, thrown myself in my bed, and pulled the covers over my face.

  Enid cried out, “Danger comes to this place. Death comes.”

  She made another of those unearthly shrieking sounds, and then the column of smoke, steam, or whatever it was began to spin.

  Before my astonished gaze, it began to ricochet around the room. Suddenly she screamed again, “Let me out!”

  Margaret Twigg seemed to jump out of the trance. “Open the door,” she screamed. I ran to the door, stumbling in my haste, while Enid’s ghost tore around my shop, shrieking. Finally, I got the door open, and with a final howl, she flew out into the night. The other three witches crowded behind me, and we burst out of the door and onto the sidewalk. All of us looked up. What began as a tight column of vapor dissipated so fast, I could’ve believed I’d imagined it. And then there was nothing.

  We walked back inside. The candles were all out. Nyx walked around the outside of the candles and let out a meow. And then she walked around the perimeter of the shop sniffing, her tail twitching.

  Margaret Twigg looked on approvingly. “She’s making sure the spirit’s all gone.”

  I glanced from Nyx to Margaret. “Is it?”

  “I think so. I don’t feel her essence here anymore, do you?”

  I was so stunned, I didn’t know what I was experiencing. She said, “Just to be sure, we’ll do a final cleansing.”

  She took one of her fat bundles of sage and lavender, lit it with a snap of her fingers and handed it to me. I walked around the room, waving the smoking sage, calling on the four winds, the four elements, represented here by four witches. It was like sweeping up after the garbage truck had already been through. There wasn’t much left, but a few wisps of vapor trailed out my door. Finally, Margaret Twigg nodded. “You’ve cleansed your space.”

  “But did you hear what she said? She said if I don’t find her killer, she’ll be back to haunt me.”

  “Yes, Lucy. We all heard it.”

  “What do you think she meant when she said death is here?”

  Margaret sounded irritable. “I don’t know. Ghosts always talk in riddles. Would it hurt them to give a straight answer to a simple question?”

  For once I was in complete sympathy with Margaret Twigg. “I know.”

  But the space felt lighter, cleaner, fresher somehow. I could take a full breath and not feel Enid.

  “Thank you,” I said, truly meaning it. “Thank you all for coming.”

  Margaret Twigg sniffed. “You can show your thanks by offering us a drink.”

  I looked at them. “Really?”

  The three of them nodded. Lavinia sighed. “There’s nothing like a good whiskey and soda afte
r dispatching a spirit.”

  “But it’s after midnight. The pubs will be closed.”

  Margaret took a bottle out of her bag. “You’re going to have to stock your liquor cabinet, along with your magic supplies, Lucy. Luckily I came prepared.”

  Rafe would take me back to his place, but he was probably happily visiting downstairs. I supposed a quick drink wouldn’t hurt and it might calm my jangled nerves.

  “You did well, Lucy,” Margaret said, quietly as we left the shop to go up to my flat. “We’ll drink a toast to your success.”

  Being a witch was full of surprises. Some of them quite good ones. “Okay,” I said. “Get rid of the lingering spirit of a dead woman and toast the deed. All in a day’s work for the modern witch. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 17

  The second class that Teddy Lamont hosted was understandably more subdued than the first. There had been some discussion as to whether we should inform Margot Dodeson about her predecessor’s unfortunate demise, and, wisely I thought, Molly decided that we should tell her. Not the gory details, of course, but simply that she was replacing a woman who had unfortunately passed away suddenly.

  When I’d invited Margot to join us, I’d only said that someone had to drop out. I left it to Molly to tell her that “drop out” in this case was a euphemism for “dead.”

  Everyone in the class was warned not to say anything more than that. We were, once more, in my shop. The set people had reinstalled the same table and chairs and moved my stock around once more. The only thing a sharp-eyed viewer would notice was that the rug had been changed.

  Margot Dodeson couldn’t have been more unlike Enid Selfe. Before taking a seat, she looked around and asked where we all liked to sit. Teddy beamed at her and insisted she sit in front, where Enid had sat. That made it easier for the rest of us, as we assumed the same seats we’d sat in the last time we were in this class.

  Under Margot’s adoring gaze, Teddy became almost as happy as he had the first day when we’d started this class. The shop was so much lighter without Enid, either alive or dead, and I think we all felt the difference. Naturally, we’d had a head start with Teddy and, after he gave a short talk on technique, he said, “I want the rest of you to continue with your knitting. I’m going to take this lovely lady next door. We’ll have coffee, and I’ll give her the short version of the first lesson.”

  I thought Margot would die of happiness. “Oh, you don’t have to.”

  He patted her hand. “My dear, you have saved us all.” And as he led her away, I thought that he was treating her the way Enid had longed to be treated. If only she hadn’t been so awful.

  As soon as they were out the door and Molly stopped the filming, the rest of us could gossip in comfort about the topic that was topmost in all of our minds.

  No sooner had the door closed on them than Ryan said, “Well? Are there any leads? Does anyone know who killed that old crone?”

  “I can tell you one thing, the cops will think it was you if you keep talking like that,” Annabel warned him. She turned to me. “Lucy?”

  I shook my head. “No. I haven’t heard anything.” Well, officially, I hadn’t.

  Vinod said, “I have been watching the news. There is nothing about the poor woman’s demise.”

  Annabel replied, “I imagine the police want to keep the details quiet. They don’t want everybody knowing as much as the murderer does. That’s how you catch murderers.”

  Ryan finished a row and flipped his work to start the next. “Look who’s been watching too many police dramas on telly.”

  We all laughed, which let off some tension. Gunnar said, “I would never have come on this show had I known I would become involved in a murder investigation.”

  I thought to myself, is your name even really Gunnar? I wished I knew Norwegian so I could trip him up.

  Annabel said, “I bet it was one of her husbands. She’s had enough of them. Did you notice she never even talked about them? Only her two daughters. She reminded me of the wicked stepmother in Cinderella. Shoving her kids’ feet into shoes that didn’t fit so long as they could get the prince.”

  “But first, they had to get into the right schools,” Vinod reminded her.

  “Maybe her daughters killed her. Can you imagine having that woman as your mother?” Ryan shuddered.

  Annabel glanced at him. “You almost did. Last week, she all but claimed you as the baby she gave away.”

  “Well, I’m not, okay?” He sounded belligerent and angry. Ryan always seemed so easygoing that we all stopped knitting to stare. He stabbed his needle into the next stitch. “Just leave it alone.”

  After an awkward pause, Helen said, “I don’t understand what she was doing here. Why would someone ask Enid Selfe to meet at your shop late at night, Lucy?”

  They were looking at me as though I might’ve lured the woman to her death. I felt my anxiety rise, and so did my voice. “I don’t know. I was asleep in bed upstairs when she was killed.”

  “You live upstairs?” Gunnar asked, gazing up at the ceiling. I could have bitten off my tongue. Way to go, Lucy. Announce to a room that might contain a murderer that you live here.

  “Not right now,” I hastily added. “I’m staying with a friend.” And I’d never been so grateful to Rafe as I was at that moment. Of course, I didn’t tell them that even after she died, Enid hadn’t completely departed. It had taken four witches and some powerful magic to get rid of the woman.

  Helen looked quite shocked. “Of course Lucy wouldn’t hurt anyone. I believe you’re innocent.”

  That sounded like faint praise. I looked around the table. The production company had put all of them up at the same hotel. While I’d been chatting with William over another decadent home-cooked breakfast this morning, had they been breakfasting together in the hotel talking about me behind my back? Maybe they thought I was the most likely suspect, as the woman had been killed in my shop. I could have borrowed Teddy’s phone as easily as anyone else, and with an inward cringe, I remembered I’d been the first to guess his password when the police had asked about it. I looked down the row at the knitters. “Do the rest of you think I killed that woman? Do you want me to excuse myself from being part of this project?”

  Helen shook her head. “Of course not. I’m sorry, Lucy. We’re all feeling stress. I was thinking aloud.”

  “I understand.” And I did. I was looking at them all like they were killers, too. “Somebody killed her. In order to get to the who, I guess the question is why? What was there about Enid Selfe that caused her to be killed?”

  Helen said, “Someone hated her and saw an opportunity. Who knows what secrets she held?”

  I looked at Helen. “Secrets? Or was it revenge?”

  She paused in her knitting and looked up at me. Her eyes were bloodshot, and there were blue circles of strain beneath. “Perhaps it was both.” She went back to her knitting. “I think Annabel’s right. The police should check out those husbands.”

  I had a mission today, and I mustn’t forget it. I wanted some more background on these people. I said, “Let’s forget about the murder for a few minutes.”

  As if.

  Rafe’s words suddenly came back to me. Enid had not stabbed herself in the chest with those knitting needles. Yes, there were many possible suspects, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that every single person around this table was pretty handy with the needles.

  I glanced around the shop. There were Molly and Becks, both in the corner with laptops, chatting softly, and the cameraman, now munching an apple while checking his phone, and the sound guy, who heard everything.

  Helen rose to stretch out her back. “Lucy, if it doesn’t work out with your friend, you’d be more than welcome to come and stay with us.”

  I thanked her, but I wondered if it was a bit like the spider offering the poor unsuspecting fly a nice place to stay for a few days. I would be glad when Enid’s killer was caught and I could stop suspecting everybody who came in
to the shop of being a murderer. It was fatiguing.

  I was so busy thinking about murder that I dropped a stitch. However, thanks to Teddy, I just carried right on knowing that the extra hole would add a little personality into the piece. My knitting was full of personality.

  With all this color to play with, it was hard for any of us to worry too much about technique. We turned tedium into joy.

  Gunnar must’ve also dropped a stitch, for he muttered lort under his breath. I said, trying to sound casual, “Isn’t that a Danish curse?” Everyone turned to stare and no wonder. Look at me, knowing how to swear in Danish and, more impressive, being able to tell the difference between Norwegian and Danish swear words. I just hoped no one asked me to speak either language because all I knew were the two curse words.

  He looked up from his knitting and blinked at me. His eyes were a cold gray-green like the northern sea, and they certainly chilled me when he stared at me. “I spent many years on Danish oil rigs.” He gave a wry smile. “A man learns many Danish curse words when sailing with the Danes.”

  Okay, that made sense. I mean, look at me. I’d only been living in this country less than a year, and I heard myself saying the strangest British things with my American accent. I’d begun saying “Where’s the toilet?” instead of the bathroom, my car had a boot instead of a trunk, and rather than putting trash into cans, I put rubbish into bins. But when I swore, I still did it like an American.

  I felt the time running out before Margot and Teddy would return. Molly sent Becks out, and I bet she’d been told to get them back. I turned to Helen, trying to act casual. “And you’re a teacher, I believe?” I asked as though I were a hostess at a tea party and it was my job to keep the conversational ball rolling.

  She didn’t look up from her knitting. “That’s right. I teach science. I particularly try to encourage the girls as too few of them continue in the sciences.”