Witch at Odds: A Jinx Hamilton Mystery Book 2 (The Jinx Hamilton Mysteries)

by Juliette Harper

  It suddenly dawned on me that although Chase and I had talked about a lot of things in our lives, including my family, he’d never had much to say about his own.

  “I didn’t realize your people were from around here,” I said, probing gently for more information.

  “My dad moved away from Briar Hollow when he was just a little kid,” Chase said easily. “I was raised in Raleigh.”

  “Why did you move back?” I asked. “It had to be quite a change of pace for you.”

  Chase moved his hand in a sweeping gesture that took in the forest setting around us. “Look at this place,” he said. “It’s beautiful. Just because I was raised in the city doesn’t mean I like it. Plus, I’d heard stories about Briar Hollow my whole life. I kind of thought of moving here as coming home.”

  That was easy enough to understand. Raleigh is a beautiful city, but there’s still almost half a million people living there, which is around 498,000 too many for me.

  “So I guess your great-great-granddaddy and this Alexander guy must have been Lodge brothers or something,” I said.

  “Or something,” Chase agreed.

  There was something funny about the way he spoke the words, but he didn’t give me any time to think that through. Instead he said suddenly, as if just struck by the inspiration, “Hey, with all this talk about pictures, why don’t we take one? Do you know how to use the timer on that thing?”

  “I do,” I said, “but couldn’t we just take a selfie?”

  “Nobody looks good in a selfie,” he said. “Besides, let’s try to get the waterfall in the picture. It’ll be pretty.”

  He had a point about the selfies. That monkey who took a picture of himself looks better than I do even after fourteen tries.

  Eyeing the clearing for something to set the phone on, I spotted a stump across from the bench we were sitting on. “Hold on.”

  Thankfully my iPhone case has a thick, flat edge so I knew the phone would sit upright and the stump was just high enough to help me frame the shot. When everything was set up, I hurried over and plopped down beside Chase.

  “Okay,” I said, “we don’t have long, so smile.”

  Smiling turned out to be the easy part.

  Chase immediately put his arm around me and drew me close. When the shutter clicked, our heads were almost touching and I was grinning from ear to ear.

  Pretty much like that monkey that took a picture of himself.

  Chase, however, seemed to approve of the photo wholeheartedly.

  “Send me that, will you?” he said. “It’s really good, especially with the waterfall behind us. You framed it perfectly.”

  Glancing at the signal indicator, I realized I had no bars. I promised I’d send him the picture when we were back in connected civilization, and then we went on with our bike ride. There was no more talk of Alexander Skea. By the time we got back to the shop, the light was failing. We said our goodnights and I wheeled my bike into the store. Tori heard me come in and called out from her apartment, “Hey, I’m back here! Come tell me about your ride.”

  Her door was open, sending a long rectangle of light slanting out across the store. It almost felt like I was following the yellow brick road, which was pretty funny because I found Tori and our resident munchkin sitting in front of her new flat screen eating popcorn.

  “Hey, you two,” I said, dropping down on the couch beside Darby. “What are you watching?”

  “We just finished a moving picture about tall blue people who defend their tree against bad men,” Darby answered.

  Translation. Avatar.

  “How was the bike ride?” Tori asked.

  “Good,” I replied. “We took the bike path down to the falls and back.”

  She let out a low whistle. “How far is that?”

  “About twenty miles round trip,” I said.

  “You must have it bad for this guy,” she said.

  Tori is one of those lucky souls who can live on junk food and never gain an ounce. She claims she doesn’t work out because of a rare allergy — to exercise equipment.

  I shot her the “don’t ask me about a guy in front of the children” look, which she understood instantly.

  “Hey, Darb Man,” she said smoothly, “how about giving us some girl time?”

  The little brownie looked at her, then looked at me, and said placidly, “You want to talk about things you don’t want me to hear.”

  And did I mention the “children” are perceptive?

  “Yup,” she said, “you nailed it.”

  Darby frowned, probably thinking about the phrase “nailed it,” and then apparently deciding it meant he was right and no actual hammers were involved.

  Once he had all that worked out, the little guy actually held out little arms and gave Tori a hug.

  “Hey!” I protested. “What about me?”

  Darby’s whole face lit up and he more or less threw himself at me. I caught him and held him in a fierce bear hug. He was so happy he felt like a quivering puppy in my embrace.

  When I let him go, he said simply, “I will be in the basement if you need me, Mistress Jinx.” And just like that, he was gone.

  “Is he not, hands down, the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?” Tori asked, smiling fondly.

  “Pretty much,” I agreed.

  “Okay. So, now,” she said, “how was the ride?”

  “Great,” I grinned. “You want to see the picture we took of ourselves?”

  She let out a little squeal. “Yes!! You’re taking pictures of yourselves. That is an excellent sign!”

  I rolled my eyes as I handed her the phone. She looked at the screen and then her smile wilted a little at the edges. She enlarged part of the photo, looked again . . . and still said nothing. Great. Did I have a zit on my nose I’d missed or something?

  Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “What?” I demanded.

  Tori gave me the phone back. She’d blown up a section of the spray coming off the waterfall. Alexander Skea’s face was staring out at me.

  When I could speak again, I said, “That’s impossible. Didn’t you tell me that people think they see faces in photos all the time and it’s called matri-something?”

  “Matrixing,” she replied. “But it’s kind of different when you can actually recognize the face, Jinksy.”

  “I don’t buy it,” I said stubbornly.

  “You don’t want to buy it,” she countered. “And besides, it’s easy enough to prove. Email me that photo and the close-up you took of Skea’s face from the group shot.”

  I did as I was told and watched as Tori opened her MacBook, downloaded both photos from the email, and spent a few minutes clicking keys. When she turned the laptop toward me, she’d created a side-by-side comparison.

  Alexander’s face from the group photo was on the left, and the misty face from my picture at the waterfall was on the right. There was no point arguing any more. It was the same man.

  “I thought you didn’t see anything about Skea when you held the picture,” Tori said.

  “I didn’t,” I protested. “But I did feel a kind of . . . I don’t know . . . tingling sensation, maybe?”

  “Maybe what you felt was him,” she said, pointing at the screen.

  “So he what, followed me on a bike ride to try to get my attention?” I asked.

  “Sort of looks like it, doesn’t it?” Tori said.

  “Why doesn’t he just show up like all the other ghosts do?”

  It’s not like I’d ever had any trouble talking to dead folks before. Just the opposite, in fact. They usually show up when I don’t want them to.

  “Maybe he can’t,” Tori suggested.

  “How are we supposed to figure that out?”

  We stared at each other for a second, and then said in unison, “Darby.”

  19

  We hadn’t taken three steps down toward the basement before the fruits of Darby’s labor became apparent. Literally. What had bee
n a dank, musty black hole was now a brightly lit cavern that smelled distinctly of lemons and fresh oranges.

  Either the little guy really liked his cleaning products, or I had a citrus grove under the store. The way my life was going? I’d have laid even odds on either one.

  Then we heard the music.

  Abba. Dancing Queen.

  I turned toward Tori. “Seriously?” I asked.

  She shrugged helplessly. “We watched Mama Mia, and he realized he missed the Seventies.”

  As I looked out over the now immaculate, well-lit basement, I was suddenly struck by how big it was. Like too big. I couldn’t see any of the other walls, just newly installed shelves. Rows and rows of them that stretched out in all directions holding neatly labeled bins and boxes of all sizes and shapes. To tell you the truth? It looked a lot like the set of Warehouse 13.

  “Is it just my imagination,” I asked, “or does the basement seem a lot bigger than the store itself?”

  “Aunt Fiona did say the store is built on a fairy mound,” Tori said. “Maybe this is it?”

  “Uh, okay, but what the heck is all this stuff?”

  From the bottom of the stairs, Darby spoke up. “Mistress Jinx,” he said reproachfully, “I was not ready for you to see this yet. It is not well organized.”

  Because in his version of English “organized” has another definition?

  “Sorry, Darby,” I said, slowly starting down the stairs again. “We just wanted to talk to you about something. I didn’t realize what you’ve been doing down here was meant to be a surprise. This place looks amazing. And big. Like really, really big. Uh, how big, exactly?”

  “As big as is required,” he said cryptically.

  I decided I didn’t want to know.

  “What is all this?” I asked, waving my arm toward the shelves.

  “Things you might need,” he replied.

  Well, yeah, if I was planning to be the star of the new reality series, Hoarders: The Reformed Ones.

  Before I could figure out how to reframe my question and possibly get a better answer, I heard Tori gasp.

  “Jinksy,” she said, breathless with excitement, “we have a lair.”

  Did I want a lair?

  Following her gaze, I saw that the area under the stairs was essentially a three-sided room — with a fireplace, no less, flanked by floor-to-ceiling book cases. Darby had paneled the walls in rich, burled wood that matched the planking on the floor — at least in the spots that weren’t covered with plush Oriental rugs.

  Leather furniture was arranged around a medium-height, heavy oak table that was obviously meant to be a work space. One corner was completely dominated by a massive roll top desk, which was closed at the moment.

  Tori, who was even more book-obsessed than I am, made a beeline for the first set of shelves. She took down a volume bound in rich, red leather and opened it to look at the first page.

  “Oh. My. God,” she said. “Jinx, you need to come look at this.”

  The fact that she didn’t use her habitual nickname for me clued me in that she had found something major.

  When I joined her, she handed me the book. The yellowed pages felt thick and supple in my hands. The flyleaf was inscribed in a flowing script laid down with an old-fashioned fountain pen.

  I squinted and looked closer.

  Scratch that.

  With a quill.

  Unsure I was actually reading the words correctly, I spoke them aloud, “The Grimoire of Martha Hamilton, caute intrant.”

  I looked up. “What the heck does that mean?”

  “Enter with caution,” Darby said from behind me.

  I hastily, and very carefully, re-shelved the book.

  “Okay, Darby,” I said. “Talk.”

  “Before Mistress Fiona left,” he said, “she told me that all of the records and materials that belonged to the coven were hidden here in the basement. She confessed to having allowed them to fall into some disorder. She thought it might be helpful to you if I organized this space and made it a place where you can further your studies.”

  He fidgeted a little, and then added, “She said it was not working out well for you to get your magical information from the Internet.”

  Okay, make that two t-shirts reading, “Got understatement?”

  “Do you mean to tell me that all of this time I have been sitting on a whole basement, magic cave, reference library place?” I said indignantly. “Don’t you think it might have been good for me to know that?”

  Tori chimed in. “I think it’s more like a magical Super Walmart without the Walmartians,” she suggested.

  “You’re not helping, Tori,” I snapped.

  And besides, how did she know the Walmartians weren’t down here?

  “With all respect, Mistress,” Darby said, standing his ground, “knowing what was here would have done you no good. You would not have been able to locate anything useful.”

  “He’s quite correct,” a female voice said. “You weren’t ready for any of this.”

  Tori and I both whirled around to find an older woman walking toward us out of the stacks. She was dressed in black pants and wore a heavy, gray cardigan over a simple white blouse. Her hair was pulled up in a bun held in place with a yellow, No. 2 pencil; a look perfectly complemented by the round, black glasses perched on her nose.

  Suddenly, I knew exactly who she was.

  “Myrtle?” I asked.

  “Hi,” she said simply, smiling at us warmly.

  “You’re human?” Tori said.

  “No,” Myrtle replied, gesturing for us to sit down. Which was good, because we were probably in danger of falling down.

  “You need me to appear human,” she continued, when we were seated. “I picked a persona that seemed to match my surroundings and your perception of what I should look like. Fiona, in her usual fashion, is being a bit disorderly disseminating useful information. Which I realize is another of the many understatements currently plaguing your existence, Jinx.”

  “Oh, great,” I groaned. “You’re a mind reader, too.”

  She laughed, and I recognized the sound; it was her usual three-note trill, but more lyrically augmented.

  “No,” Myrtle said, “the privacy of your thoughts is undisturbed, but since I am the store, I am afforded a unique vantage point. Let’s just say I pick up on things.”

  I had chosen one of the leather chairs by the fireplace, which we actually needed as a source of warmth because the basement was several degrees cooler than the upstairs. Tori was across from me, and Myrtle faced the fire so we formed a kind of loose circle.

  “Can I ask some questions?” I said.

  “Of course,” Myrtle said, “that’s what I’m here for.”

  “Are you a fairy?”

  “No,” she said. “I am the magic that animates this place. In my natural state, I have no physical form. Think of me as a kind of guiding energy.”

  “That sort of makes you sound . . . uh . . . godlike,” Tori ventured uncertainly.

  “Hardly,” Myrtle said. “There is only One, great, organizing Intelligence in creation that we all revere by different names. I am not that One. Given the way Jinx was thrust into the middle of all these affairs, and the jumbled manner in which she has been receiving guidance, I simply felt it was time for me to lend a more solid hand. Does that make sense?”

  Tori frowned. “So, uh, you’re going to be Alfred to Jinksy’s Batman?” she asked.

  Myrtle smiled. “More like Giles to her Buffy.”

  Oh. God. Don’t tell me . . .

  On that point, Myrtle did seem to read my mind.

  “Without the vampires,” she added. “Those don’t actually exist. At least not the ones that feed on human blood.”

  I blew out the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. Oh thank . . .

  Huh?

  There are other kinds of . . .

  I stopped that train of thought before it ever left the station. If I wouldn�
�t have looked ridiculous, I’d have put my fingers in my ears and starting chanting, “la, la, la,la,la, la, la.”

  Stay in the moment, Jinx.

  “But what if someone finds you here?” I asked. “How am I supposed to explain you?”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Myrtle assured me. “If anyone else opens the door and looks down here, they will see nothing but a musty basement full of useless junk.”

  Then, assuming a businesslike air, she said, “Now, I believe you came down here to ask about the ghostly image of Alexander Skea in the photo you took today?”

  Finally. Somebody who didn’t need CliffsNotes.

  “Was that really his ghost in the mist behind us?” I asked.

  “I believe it was,” Myrtle said. “Can you please show the photo to Darby?”

  When I held the phone out to Darby, he nodded his head vigorously. “Yes, that is my Master.”

  “Do you know why he would try to make his presence known like this?” Myrtle asked.

  To my surprise, Darby touched the screen with his tiny fingers and enlarged the image to show the whole scene. The little guy catches on fast.

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “The waterfall was a special place for Mistress Knasgowa.”

  “I thought that might be the case,” Myrtle said. “Waterfalls and wells are often gateways to other dimensions.”

  “So, you think Alexander is trying to find Knasgowa?” I asked.

  “Possibly,” Myrtle said.

  “Then why can’t I talk to him the way I talk to Beau and the other spirits?”

  “I cannot be certain,” Myrtle said, “but I think Knasgowas must have placed a spell on Alexander, so that when he died, his spirit would be unable to manifest in this realm. They were, after all, concerned about two things; keeping Brenna Sinclair trapped in limbo and preventing her from finding Alexander if she did escape.”

  “But he’s dead,” I said. “What could Brenna want with whatever is left of his body?”

  The minute I said it, I regretted asking the question because I knew I wasn’t going to like the answer.

  Color me right.