by Amy Boyles
“Ha-ha. I haven’t gotten in trouble in…days.”
Em flipped a cascade of cinnamon and crimson curls over her shoulder. “You’ll probably be back in trouble tomorrow.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Her coral-colored lips coiled into a smile. “You’re mostly welcome.”
“Listen, Em, as great as it is to catch up, I need some help.”
She waved her hand, and a service of hot chocolate appeared. Em flew a cup over to me. “From little ole me? What can Queen Witch do for y’all?”
“I need to find a balding device.”
Her eyebrows shot up to the ceiling. “Why would you need one of those?”
“Because I want to take a picture of it for posterity.”
She stared at me blankly.
“Em, I have a balding stone. I need the device to read it.”
The queen frowned. “Who’s balding stone?”
“Not sure I’m going to tell you that.”
She set her mug on the table and rubbed one bone-colored hand over the other. “I ain’t got one.”
“Do you know who does?”
She nodded. “My father taught one other person the secrets of the stone.”
“But he didn’t teach you.”
She shook her head. “He knew the technology was temporary. I don’t think he wanted it to be that way, but witches are always coming up with new ways to do things—new spells, potions, you name it. So I never bothered to ask, and he didn’t bother letting me know.”
“But someone knows.”
She nodded. “Yes, one other person.”
I scooted to the edge of my seat. “Well, who is it? Who knows it?”
Em smirked. “Why should I tell you? Seems like I should be tellin’ that boyfriend of yours. You know, the one who’s supposed to be doin’ all the investigatin’.”
I rolled my eyes. “Come on, Em. We’ve been through a lot together. Don’t you owe me one?”
She tapped a foot on the marble floor. “Seems like I might owe somethin’.” The queen rose. “Come on. I’ll take you to him.”
Em led me through the castle to the village that sat behind it. We wove through the cottages until we reached the very last one. I stopped, confused.
“Em, this is Roman’s house. What are we doing here?”
Her green eyes sparkled as she said, “You’ll be seein’.”
She knocked. The door swung open. I stepped back, half expecting to see Roman and not feeling quite up to it, if you wanted to know the truth. But instead of Roman, Boo answered the door.
“Em, Dylan. Good to see you. Come on in.”
“Boo, what are you doing here?” I asked.
He shuffled over to the stove, where it looked like he was cooking up a grilled cheese sandwich. “Well, Dylan,” he said in that slow drawl of his. “Roman thought it’d be better if I stayed at the cottage for a while. He spent the last couple of days transitioning me here.” He flipped the sandwich over. “You know, just in case. Can’t be too careful.”
So that’s what Roman had been doing. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t called. “I’m glad you’re safe.”
“Castle Witch has some of the best defenses in all the witch kingdom,” Em said.
Boo turned away from us to plate his sandwich.
I frowned. “Okay,” I whispered to Em. “Where’s the person we’re supposed to meet? Who knows about the stone?”
Em ignored me. “Richard,” she said, “Dylan needs a favor from you.”
Boo’s eyes lit. “I’d be happy to oblige. Anything I can do to help, you all know that.” He settled into a wooden chair. “It’s hard coming back and feeling like my talents aren’t being used.”
Em sat next to him. “That’s what we need. Your talents.”
He bit into the crisp sandwich and chewed for a minute. “And which talents might those be?”
Em smiled. “We need you to read a balding stone for us.”
Boo’s hand slid over his beard. “Em, you know it’s been a long time since I’ve tinkered with one of those.”
She nodded. “I know, but you know my pop wasn’t gonna be trustin’ any old turd ball.”
I grimaced. Nice image.
“Do you have a device?” he asked Em.
“There’s one in the castle museum.”
His gaze cut to me. “And you’ve got a stone, I take it.”
I nodded. “It belonged to Edgar Norwood.”
His mouth opened at that. Richard shoved the rest of the sandwich in his mouth. He slapped his thigh. “The heck we doing sitting around here? Let’s go read the stone.”
SIXTEEN
We got the device from the museum and returned to the cottage. I handed Boo the stone. He rubbed his palms together. I wasn’t sure if he was warming them up or readying for the task ahead.
“Now. Let’s see if this works.” He pulled a screwdriver from his pocket and made a few adjustments to the device. Milly and Grandma had explained the thing exactly. It looked like a velvet cushion pressed snug into a wooden box. The box itself had switches and wires and screws, which was what Boo was fiddling with.
“Okay, let’s try this.” He placed the marble in the center of the cushion. I crossed my fingers, hoping that in about five seconds we would know who the killer was. Or at least some sort of information that would make my life easier.
“Doggonit, why didn’t it work?” Boo said, scratching his head. He tinkered with the box some more and replaced the marble. Once again I crossed my fingers. Still nothing.
“The marble’s encoded,” he said.
“You mean like with magic?” I said.
He nodded. “You’ll have to break the code to get it to work in the device.”
I chewed the tips of my fingers. “Em, you have any ideas on this?”
“I ain’t got one notion, chicklet. You’ll have to take this to Milly and Hazel.”
Great. “Is that okay with you, Boo? For me to take it?”
“I reckon.” He handed the device to me and scratched his forehead. “As far as I know, it should be working. Once you figure out whatever’s blocking the marble, it should sing like a whistle for you.”
“Awesome. Okay. Well, I’m heading back. Em, can you zip me to my house?”
She frowned. A little crinkle appeared above her nose. It was so cute I wanted to pinch it. Then I remembered Em was a huge redneck and probably wouldn’t appreciate that.
She fisted a hand to her hip. “You need to be learnin’ how to zip yourself here and there.”
“I haven’t even been a witch for an entire year, Em. Cut me some slack.”
“I’ll cut you somethin’,” she said.
I wasn’t sure what that meant, and I didn’t want to ask. “Okay, you ready to send me home?”
The queen snapped her fingers. Next thing I knew, I was standing in Milly’s parlor. Grandma was there, too. They were trying to feed that stupid snake some crickets.
Chocolate-covered crickets.
“I don’t think he’ll eat those,” I said.
“Nonsense,” Grandma said, fluffing her hair. “Everyone likes chocolate.”
“The word ‘everyone’ refers to people. Not snakes.”
Milly and Grandma looked at each other.
“What?” I said.
“Nothing,” Milly said. She eyed the balding device. “What’d you find out?”
“That the marble is encrypted. We need to break whatever magic is on it so it’ll work. Think y’all can swing that?”
Grandma tugged the strand of pearls around her neck. They were twisted in the gauzy scarf she was also wearing. “Get out of there,” she grumbled. The pearls came free. She sighed. “That’s better.” She glanced at me and smiled. “We can try to fix your marbles.”
“There’s only one,” I said.
“I know, dear, it was a joke about your brain.”
“Very funny.” I handed her the stone. She ran her fingers o
ver it and mumbled a few words. The marble floated into the air and started spinning.
“We might have something,” Grandma whispered.
It spun faster. The streaks inside blurred to a whirl of white.
Then it stopped.
I bit my lip, waiting, hoping that in half a second we would have an answer. “Do you think it worked?” I whispered.
“I don’t know,” Grandma said.
Suddenly a stream of green smoke plumed from the top. Flashbacks of that smoke bomb the intruder threw into Edgar’s house lit up my brain.
Milly and Grandma exchanged glances.
“Get out now,” Milly screeched.
Grandma pushed me out of the door. Milly followed. As soon as I planted both feet on the porch, Milly slammed the door shut. The house contracted, sucking me backward. I stumbled onto Grandma, who stepped on Milly.
The structure shuddered. The house boomed. I shot a frightened look to Milly.
She shrugged. “Looks like the booby trap on the marble worked.”
Ten minutes later half the witching world showed up. Jonathan Pearbottom, inspector extraordinaire, dipped his parrot-shaped nose into our business.
“Would you like to explain what happened here?”
Grandma wiggled her fingers at him. “A curse gone wrong.”
Pearbottom paled. “A curse? Are you cursing someone?”
“Heck’s bells, no, Pearbottom. What do you think we are, wicked witches?”
Pearbottom sniffed the air like it smelled of sulfur and farts. “No. Of course not. So what did happen?”
Milly elbowed past Grandma and shoved her way to Pearbottom’s face. “A spell gone wrong. No big deal. Happens all the time.”
He quirked a brow. “What sort of spell?”
“Something top secret I’m working on for the council. If you want to know, you’ll have to ask them.”
Pearbottom paled. “That won’t be necessary.”
“That’s what I thought. Now get your goons out of here before the real cops show up and put you to shame.”
Pearbottom glared beady eyes of death at her, but he said nothing. Two minutes later he was gone.
“Whew,” I said. “Glad he left.”
“Milly, why am I getting calls from your neighbors saying you’re murdering people?”
I turned to see Roman standing with hands on hips and his lips quirked into a smirk.
“Because I’m a homicidal maniac,” Milly said. “Didn’t you know?”
Roman propped one leg on a step and leaned on it. “I’m not surprised. But what really happened?”
“Come on in. The air should be clear by now.”
The sight of Roman made my heart knock against my chest. Heat flushed my face, and I knew I looked like a hot mess of emotions and hormones. I took a deep breath, told myself this was no big deal and walked inside.
From the way the house had shuddered, I expected the furniture to have overturned and the wall hangings to be lying broken on the floor, but everything was perfectly in place. Even that stupid snake looked fine. Still coiled in its aquarium.
Milly pointed to the floor, where the marble sat. “We were trying to unlock that.”
Roman crouched down, giving me a great view of his sculpted cheeks. I nearly fainted.
He picked up the balding stone. “Where on earth did you get this?”
Milly nodded toward me.
I sighed. “In Edgar Norwood’s house.”
Roman glanced back at me. “Hmm. So I guess it didn’t unlock.”
“Not exactly,” Grandma said. “It tried to poison us with toxic air.”
Roman rubbed a hand over his forehead. “You going to try again to unlock it?”
Milly shook her head. “I need something to go on. If we try it again, it’ll just do the same thing.”
“So I need to know more about Norwood,” Roman mused. He slid the marble into his pocket. “Looks like I’m going for a ride.” He glanced at me. “Want to come along?”
Before I could stop myself, I whispered, “Sure.”
When we reached his car, he opened the door for me. I almost made a snarky remark. You know, the kind whining ex-girlfriends make, but I decided against it. I slid onto the buttery leather, crossed my legs and stared out the window as we rolled through town.
“Were you going to tell me about the marble?” he asked.
The question caught me off guard. I sucked in my breath and said, “I guess so. I mean, no. Probably not.”
His jaw twitched, but he didn’t say anything.
“Your girlfriend and her boss showed up at my store asking if I’d found anything at Norwood’s house.”
He frowned. “What girlfriend? You’re my girlfriend.”
I leaned back and threw him a whatchu-talking-’bout-Willis look. “No. We broke up.”
“No, we didn’t.”
“Yes, we did.”
“When?”
“The other night when you didn’t answer my calls and you showed up with that seductress on a stick.”
Roman chuckled. He placed his left hand at the top of the steering wheel and laid the other on the seat rest between us. “Darlin’, if we’d broken up, I think you should’ve told me.”
“I did tell you. I think. Besides, you haven’t called me since it happened.”
“I’ve been taking care of some things with my dad.”
“You still could’ve called.”
He shrugged. “You needed some time to cool off.”
I crossed my arms. “I did not need time to cool anything.”
Roman slipped off the road onto the shoulder. The SUV rumbled to a stop. He slid the transmission into park, flipped up his sunglasses and turned to me. He thumbed my cheek and leaned over.
His lips seared my mouth as his tongue slipped over mine. My body ached for him. Who was I kidding? I ached for Roman. I leaned into the kiss. The seat rest cut into my waist, but I didn’t care. If there was one thing I enjoyed losing myself in, it was a kiss from Roman.
He pulled back from the kiss and rested his forehead against mine. “Still want to break up?”
“No,” I whispered.
“Good. Now let’s go.”
We got to Norwood’s house about an hour later. “So what did Dewy and her boss want?” Roman asked.
“To know if I’d found anything.”
“And you didn’t tell them.”
“No. I don’t like her. So I took the marble to Milly and found out that it was a balding stone and I needed a balding device. So I tracked that down with the help of your father.”
He raised an interested brow. “You went to Castle Witch.”
“Yeah.”
“You hate that place,” Roman said.
I shrugged. “It’s not so bad. Anyway, what are we looking for? Haven’t you already combed over this place?”
He pushed the door open. “I’m looking for anything that will help us crack that marble. Anything strange looking.”
There was nothing out of the ordinary about the house. It looked like your run-of-the-mill country home. “When I find a three-pronged fork, I’ll let you know.”
Roman smiled. He grazed his fingers down my hand. My skin sizzled under his touch. He paused, threw me a seductive glance. “We could try the bedroom first.”
Nerves the size of dragonflies buzzed in my stomach. “Ha-ha. Very funny. I’m going to stick to the kitchen.”
“Your loss,” he said, walking off.
I opened all the drawers and cabinets. Nothing looked strange. Of course it didn’t help that I had no idea what I was looking for.
Roman entered a few minutes later. “Find anything?”
I shook my head. “No. Did you?”
He nodded. “Found a book on animal familiars.”
I shrugged. “How’s that important?”
He slid it across the counter. “Open it.”
I peeled back the dark blue cover to the first page. On it was a hand
-written note. “Edgar, when you feel the end is near, find me.” —Professor Alias.
“Professor Alias?” I said. “Who’s that?”
Roman shook his head. “I don’t know, but I know someone who does.”
“Who?”
“Reggie. Where is it?”
I smacked my lips. “I think Reid has it.”
“Then we need to find Reid.”
I called Reid, who was still holding down the fort at my store.
“Reggie’s back at the house,” she said. “You can call my cell number now; Grandma bought me a new phone.”
“Oh, she did?”
“Yeah, she just brought it to me. Exact same phone but hopefully it won’t set fire like the last one.”
“Fingers crossed,” I said. After hanging up, I turned to Roman. “Reggie’s at the house,” I said. “Let’s roll.”
We headed back into town. He played some rock on the radio. I kicked my feet up to the dash and leaned back, basking in the sunshine as it filtered through the windows.
“Don’t scuff up the dash.”
I inspected the plastic. “Too late,” I said. “It’s gonna need a buff job.”
“I know someone else who’s going to need a buff job.”
I squinted at him. “Was that supposed to be suggestive of something between the sheets?”
“Yes?” he said.
“It sounded more like something one lizard does to another.”
He smirked. “You’d never know you were related to your grandmother.”
I bolted up. “Hey. What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’ll give you three guesses. First two don’t count.”
I rolled the back of my tongue in annoyance. “Whatever.”
We reached the house and went inside. Grandma had changed into a pink housecoat and furry bunny slippers. “You’re just in time. I made sausage balls for lunch.”
“Yeah, I’m not sure I’m in the mood for party food right now,” I said.
“Dylan, sausage balls are like manna from heaven. You may not know this, but there was a time I lived on dried sausage balls for weeks.”
“When was that?” Roman asked.
She wiggled her fingers. “When the fairies in Fairyland were capturing witches and tickling magical secrets out of them.”
I nodded. “Tickling them, huh?”