Witches' Spells

by Morgana Best

I shook my head. “No. I haven’t seen another car on the road for miles.”

  That appeared to appease him, because he pulled me after him. I hurried to keep up with his long strides. Just outside his door, he stopped and turned to me. “Don’t breathe a word until I get rid of my housekeeper.” He held his finger to his lips.

  Given the man’s behaviour, I half expected his house to look like the Addams Family’s house, or even like the house of an alchemist, but his house was rather ordinary. It was clean with no clutter, not even any bizarre antiques. I was almost disappointed. He pointed to an old crinkled sofa and then held his finger to his mouth once more. Without saying a word, he disappeared through a door at the far end of the room.

  I was left alone with my thoughts. The room smelt a little strange. At first I thought it was a musty smell, but then I realised it was some sort of arcane incense. I could see smoke wafting from an incense stick on top of a bookcase on the far wall.

  It was deathly silent, apart from the noise of the crows calling outside. There was a sense of anticipation in the air, although it might have been simply my imagination. My right eye twitched, usually a warning sign.

  I considered myself lucky that I had finally found someone who knew what happened to my parents, if indeed that was the case. One thing was certain, he had known my parents, and that was a plus. I waited with baited breath to find out what he would tell me.

  I didn’t have to wait long. He opened the wooden door and walked back in. “My housekeeper has gone. Lazy, that one,” he said with clear disapproval. “Still, we need to speak in low tones in case the housekeeper comes back and overhears the conversation. It’s for our ears only. Do you understand?”

  I tried not to bounce up and down in my seat with excitement. “Yes, I understand. Do you know what happened to my parents?”

  Beckett walked slowly over to take a seat opposite me. He took a moment or two to arrange a crocheted rug on the arm of his chair before looking up at me. “Your parents are safe.”

  My parents were safe? For years I had suspected they were dead, although I couldn’t bring myself to believe it, and then when the aunts had told me that Mum was next in line to Agnes in the Council, and that I was safe while she remained missing, I had hoped that was the reason for her disappearance. The news that my parents were safe hit me like a ton of bricks.

  “Are you sure?” My voice trembled.

  He nodded.

  “Do you know where they are?”

  He shook his head and leant forward. “I don’t know,” he whispered.

  I wondered if that was true. “But surely you must know?”

  His face fell. “I’m sorry. Your parents had to disappear to keep you safe. Your mother, that is. Do you understand about the succession to the Council? Forgive me, dear. I don’t know how much you know.”

  “I know about the succession to the Council,” I said, trying to remain calm.

  Either he didn’t hear me, or he disregarded what I said, because he launched into an explanation of the Council succession. “The Council is an ancient and esoteric secret organisation. No one can be voted on to the Council—membership is hereditary. Some years ago, someone started killing members of the Council. There was an attempt on your mother’s life…”

  I interrupted him. “There was?” I was shocked. That was the first I had heard of it.

  He nodded, and looked around the room wildly. “We must keep our voices down. My housekeeper knows nothing of this and it would be dangerous if anyone found out. Yes, after the attempt on your mother’s life, she and your father decided they would have to go into hiding. It was to protect you, you understand. Your mother was on the Council, and if something happened to her, then you would be next in line to be targeted, and as you don’t have any heirs?”—He looked at me expectantly and I shook my head—“then the line would end with you. That would play into the enemy’s hands.”

  As I processed what he said, something didn’t make sense. I knew Aunt Agnes was on the Council, and my mother was her successor. Surely my mother didn’t actually have a seat on the Council? I couldn’t tell this man that Aunt Agnes was on the Council in case it was a trap, after all, so I thought for a while before speaking. “Are you absolutely certain that my mother has a seat on the Council?”

  He nodded so strongly that his thin-rimmed tortoiseshell glasses fell off. He picked them up and perched them back on the end of his nose. “Quite so, quite so. That’s why she’s in hiding. It keeps you safe.”

  “And you have no idea where they are?” My initial excitement was replaced by disappointment. He shook his head, so I added, “What were you going to tell my aunts?” I slapped myself on the side of my head. “Forgive me. I haven’t mentioned that the aunts never found that envelope you sent them. I actually found it today and we opened it.”

  He nodded slowly. “I always wondered why your aunts didn’t come. Your parents asked me to send the envelope. I don’t know your aunts. I have always been careful to retain my privacy, but I did do some work with your mother on more than one occasion. Your parents contacted me and asked me to send that letter to your aunts. We had a narrow window of opportunity as it was just before your parents officially disappeared. They wanted your aunts to know they were safe.”

  “I wish someone had told me they were safe,” I said bitterly. “For a long time I thought they were dead. Until now, in fact.” I took a deep breath and did my best not to cry.

  Beckett shot me a look of sympathy. “From what your mother told me, you knew nothing of this life, of this world that they were in. Your aunts would have to be the ones to tell you. I know it was hard for you, Valkyrie, but your life and your parents’ lives were at risk.”

  “I suppose so.” I didn’t say so out loud, but surely there could have been another way to let me know my parents were safe, to make sure I knew. Something occurred to me. “Why didn’t you make a second attempt?”

  His bushy eyebrows shot skyward. “A second attempt? What do you mean?”

  “The aunts lost that envelope amongst a stack of unpaid bills, so they never came to your address. Did you think that was strange? I was wondering why you didn’t try to contact them again.”

  Beckett frowned deeply. “I assumed they had figured out for themselves that your parents were safe and thought it was too dangerous to contact me.”

  I nodded and thought it over. I was beginning to think that the aunts truly didn’t know anything about my parents’ disappearance. They had kept so many things from me that I didn’t trust them too much. I was sure I was on a need-to-know basis with them. I wondered if Beckett knew where my parents were and thought he shouldn’t tell me. I pressed him, but he assured me that he didn’t know.

  “It wasn’t safe for them to tell me where they were,” he added. “I was simply meant to give your aunts that message that your parents were okay and that they had to vanish for your safety. I had to send the letter before they officially disappeared, because then The Other wouldn’t have time to rally and track down any correspondence here in Lighthouse Bay.”

  I was puzzled. “Who are the others?”

  He shook his head. “Not the others, The Other. That’s the name of the faction that is allied against the Council.”

  My aunts hadn’t told me that, so I wondered if they knew.

  “You know, for the past five years I wondered why no one ever came.” He tapped his chin. “I had no idea that your aunts wouldn’t open their mail.”

  I afforded myself a small smile. “My aunts are eccentric.”

  Beckett nodded sagely. “That happens to you after one hundred years or so. I must make us a cup of tea.”

  He walked through the wooden door at the far end of the room again, leaving me alone with my thoughts once more. To say I was relieved that my parents were alive was an understatement.

  There was a crash from the direction of the kitchen, and I figured Beckett must have broken something. I wondered if I should go to his aid, but th
en thought the better of it. I had heard him speak a little earlier, so I figured perhaps his housekeeper had returned. I looked around the room again, and realised there was no sign of a dog or a cat, so he wasn’t speaking to a pet.

  I turned around and looked at the bookcase behind me. He had an assortment of tastes. I spied several novels, all of them thrillers, as well as some non-fiction titles. I craned my neck to look at the titles: Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Ecco, Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda, Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, The Secret Doctrine, Volume 1, by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, and Mastering the Art of Ritual Magic: Volume 1, Foundation, by Frater Barrabbas.

  “Surely it can’t take so long to make a cup of tea?” I muttered to myself after an interval. I waited a few more moments and then thought I should go into the kitchen. He was taking a long time to clean up whatever he had broken, so maybe he needed help.

  I walked through the wooden door and gasped. Lying on the floor was Beckett, his arms flung wide, pieces of a broken teapot beside him.

  He was dead.

  Chapter 3

  I stood rooted to the spot, frozen, for what was probably only a few seconds, but felt like an age, before I came to my senses and hurried over to him. I felt for a pulse, but there was none. I pulled my phone from my pocket and called triple zero, emergency. I told the voice I needed an ambulance and the police.

  I called Lucas, but he didn’t pick up. My heart sank. I knew Lucas was busy—not only had he recently inherited the winery that made most of the Witches’ Brew in Australia, a potent brew all vampires needed to supply their vitamins and minerals, but he was also a Cleaner, someone whose duty was to police all matters of vampire or Shifter involvement in crime, to keep such matters from coming to the eyes of the authorities as well as the general public.

  I tried Lucas once more with no success, and then called Aunt Agnes. “I hope you don’t mind, but I went to that address on the way to the curtain store, and it was a Dr Beckett Maxwell. He went to make a cup of tea, and I’ve just found him dead.”

  I expected her to question me over and over again, but to my relief, she was straight to the point. “When the police arrive, tell them he was an old friend of ours. Tell them he was a family friend, but that you had never met him. Tell him he used to call us on a regular basis. Tell them we hadn’t heard from him for a while, so we sent you to check on him. Don’t say anything to me now about the real reason you went there, in case this line is not secure. In fact, it’s best that I hang up now. Come back as soon as you can. Are you sure you’re safe, Valkyrie?”

  “I suppose so,” I said. “There’s no sign of whoever did this to him.” With that, Aunt Agnes hung up without saying another word.

  I bent over Beckett and once more took his pulse. I suppose it was the optimist in me. I just couldn’t bring myself to accept the fact that he was gone. And how had he been dispatched? There was no blood, no sign of bruising on his neck, and whatever it was, had happened quickly. I spied the biscuits on the table. None of them had a bite out of them, but maybe he had eaten one before he died. I found some cling wrap in a drawer, wrapped some carefully, and then put them in my pockets.

  It did occur to me that maybe he died of natural causes, but the timing was just too coincidental. He had been telling me about my parents, and then he was killed. What were the chances that he just happened to keel over from a heart attack at that very moment? I shook my head. No, this had to be murder. If he was poisoned, then whatever it was, was fast acting.

  I pulled my phone from my pocket once more and took photos of the room. Sadly, this wasn’t my first murder. I took close-ups of all over Beckett’s body, of the shattered teapot, of the biscuits on the tray on the table, even of the back door and of everything I could see.

  I could hear the ambulance sirens now, and opened the back door to look out. I couldn’t see a car. How had the murderer fled the scene?

  I walked back out the front door to let the paramedics in. As soon as I showed them to the kitchen, they ushered me out of the room. After a few minutes, one of the paramedics returned. “Are you a relative?” he asked, putting his hand on my shoulder.

  I shook my head. “He was a friend of my aunts.”

  The man frowned. “I’m afraid I have some bad news. He’s deceased.”

  Of course, I already knew that, but it still upset me to hear it officially. “Is there someone I can call for you?” he asked me.

  “No, but thanks for offering. How did he die?”

  “He was wearing a diabetic medical bracelet, but it seems it was a heart attack. That’s most likely,” he said.

  “He wasn’t murdered?” I blurted out.

  The paramedic raised his eyebrows. “Murdered? Why would you say that?”

  “Oh, um, because it was so sudden,” I stammered. “He was right as rain one minute and full of life, and then literally a few seconds later he was stone dead.”

  The paramedic nodded slowly. “Heart attacks can do that sometimes. If it puts your mind at rest, he wouldn’t have suffered at all.”

  “Shouldn’t he have said he had a pain in his chest or something like that? Or a pain in his right arm?” I asked him.

  “Sometimes there is no warning.” He nodded, and then went back into the kitchen.

  I was a little upset that the paramedics hadn’t realised Beckett was murdered, but then I realised that it might be a good thing, after all. It was clear to me he was murdered because he was going to tell me more about my parents, and so the police would have absolutely no luck investigating this case. As I was pondering that, two uniformed police officers hurried into the house. “He’s in there,” I said, pointing through the door.

  The police did not spend long in the kitchen at all. They soon returned. “It’s natural causes,” the taller one said to me. “We don’t need to be called for a death by natural causes.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said.

  The shorter officer shook his head. “There’s certainly no need to apologise. It’s good to be on the safe side. Are you a relative?”

  I shook my head. “He was a friend of my aunts. I’d never met him, but they sent me to check up on him, because they hadn’t heard from him for a while. He seemed really happy and alive and full of energy,” I added. “He said he was making a cup of tea. I heard a crash. I went in there, and he was dead. It was so fast.”

  The officers shot me sympathetic looks. “Do you know someone you can contact about him?” the taller one asked me.

  “No.”

  “What’s your name, address, and phone number?” the shorter one asked.

  “Pepper Jasper,” I said. I gave him my phone number and added, “I live at Mugwort Manor.”

  He nodded and made notes in a small notepad. “Well, Ms Jasper, you go home and have a nice cup of tea. You’ve had quite a shock. There’s nothing more you can do now. Will you be all right to drive?”

  I assured him that I was. Clearly, I was being dismissed.

  My head was spinning as I walked outside to my car. How had the murderer fled the scene? No car had passed me. I did think I had heard a car drive away after the teapot crashed. Had someone followed me here? That was the only possible explanation.

  I debated whether to skirt around behind the house and look to see if there was another way out, but I was concerned the police would see me. I stood there by my car, wondering what to do. I came up with a solution. If they caught me snooping around, I would say I was looking for a pet and would take the pet home to my aunts until Beckett’s relatives could be notified. Surely the police would believe that.

  I walked behind the house, and sure enough, there was a dirt area wide enough for several cars to park. There was one car parked there now, a dusty white Landcruiser. I assumed it belonged to Beckett. There were tyre tracks, but too many to identify. I walked down the dirt track for over a hundred metres before I came onto the road that adjoined the road on which I had come. The road was narrower there, but it w
as another way out. At least now I had figured out how the murderer had made his or her escape.

  My thought at once went to Beckett’s housekeeper. Beckett had been surprised that the housekeeper wasn’t there. Perhaps I hadn’t been followed, after all. Maybe the housekeeper did overhear what we were saying and killed Beckett. Yet surely a murderer wouldn’t carry around poison just waiting to put it in Beckett’s food? That made no sense at all.

  In fact, nothing about this made any sense. I decided to give up and go home to tell the aunts.

  As I was walking back to my car, the tall officer saw me. He strode over to me. “What are you doing out here?”

  I went with my original plan. “I didn’t know if Beckett had any pets, so I was looking for a pet. If I found one, I was going to take it back to my aunts. They could look after it until you tracked down his relatives.” I smiled and nodded as I said it, hoping to appear convincing. It was a genuine offer, but it wasn’t the reason I was out here.

  That appeared to do the trick. “That’s thoughtful of you.”

  I shrugged. “If you happen to find a pet, will you call me?”

  The officer assured me that he would. As I walked on further, the paramedics wheeled out Beckett’s body on a gurney, a sheet covering him. I could not help but tremble. Whatever had happened to him? There were too many unanswered questions.

  I was almost to my car when I saw a man standing in the yard. He caught sight of me just as I caught sight of him, and he walked over to me. He said something so softly that I did not hear him. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” I asked him.

  He spoke again, and I had to stand quite close to him to hear him. “Something happened to Beckett?” he whispered almost inaudibly.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m afraid that he’s dead.”

  The man’s hand flew to his mouth. “Dead?” Again, the word was softly uttered.

  The man was tall, thin, and pale, deathly pale in fact. He reminded me of a storybook vampire, the ones that don’t come out in daylight. There was something about him that set my teeth on edge.