by Alisha Basso
“No one. She got along with everyone and was well liked in our circle. She mostly ran the business, did the marketing, and paid all the bills while I did the cooking and the catering jobs.”
“How about your creditors?”
“I guess it’s possible, but why kill her? It’s not going to get them their money.”
“Some people don’t care about that. Do you have any idea what she planned to do with the money she withdrew?”
“No clue. I’m totally blindsided by this whole thing.”
“Is it just the two of you who live here?”
I was tempted to omit the fact that Nock lived with us, but the OS was very good at gathering information, and it could come out, so I told the truth with a side order of white lie.
“No, my little friend Nock lives here with us. He’s a gnome.”
“Was he here when you found the body?”
“No.”
“There was a smudge—”
“It was me. I slipped in her...blood when I felt sick and needed to get to the bathroom in a hurry.”
“Crime scene found no forced entry, but the lock was spelled. To warn her of entry?”
“Yes, it was a notification spell. I broke the ward when I entered. I was pretty upset, but she was, of course, already dead.”
“Since you broke a ward on the door, I would suspect there were supernatural forces at work here. We’ll know more after her body is examined. Just because there was no forced entry doesn’t mean she knew her attackers.”
“Attacker. There was only one.”
“How do you know this?”
I explained the spell I had done, leaving out certain facts, such as my channeling the Torrent directly through me without a circle and a familiar, Nock and his Aunt Tilly tending me, and Chris being here and their heated discussion about her new supplier.
When I finished, the OS warden gave me a baleful stare. “That was a very foolish thing to do, Ms. Starbuck, even for information. If it wasn’t for dumb luck,” he eyed my bandaged arm, “this day would have ended very differently for you.”
“I know, but I wanted answers.”
“I’m very aware of how the family members of a victim feel, Ms. Starbuck, and your feelings are no different than the others, but let me caution you not to try any more risky tricks. Let the OS handle this.”
“I have every intention of doing exactly that. I’m not interested in messing with things which could get me killed. Believe me. But I do want answers, Warden.”
“You’ll have them. I have cleared ninety-eight percent of my cases.”
“Please don’t let this fall into the two percent range.”
He gave me a reassuring stare and squeezed my unhurt arm. “I won’t. Now let’s get to the rest of my questions. Does she have any kin?”
“No, she’s an orphan. She even lived on the streets for a while. To be honest, I don’t know a lot about Olivia’s past. She was reluctant to talk about it. I thought I knew her, but I was wrong.”
“So, you were the last one to see her alive?”
I hesitated. If I told him about Chris Bailey, he would surely question the werewolf. Chris would be too smart to incriminate himself, and if this was about illegal dust, he wouldn’t tell the OS anything. “Her supplier was here. He wanted his money, and that’s when they agreed the party would be for free.”
“He was the last one to see her alive. Anything else?”
“No, the vision was degrading quickly.”
Warden Somerset nodded. “I’m sorry for your loss, Ms. Starbuck,” he said before he walked to the door. “I’ll keep you posted about our progress.”
I dropped my head, feeling the effects of the day, weary beyond tears. A heavy hand settled on my shoulder, and I looked up to see the warden’s deep-set eyes and craggy face. “You get some rest, Ms. Starbuck. You look dead on your feet.”
I smiled. “At least it’s not undead.”
He returned my smile, the sympathy in his eyes bolstering me briefly.
The door closed behind him, and I had only taken a few steps when I heard a knock.
I went back to the door, thinking maybe the warden had a few more questions. Instead, my landlady, Tracy Butterfield, was standing there. “Is it true?” she asked, her voice clogged with emotion.
“Yes.” Word seemed to have traveled fast, but in the Minneapolis community it was to be expected.
“This is just terrible. I’m so shocked. How are you holding up?”
“I’m shocked, too.” My emotions were wrung dry. I had nothing left for Tracy.
“I’m sure you are. It must be awful for you.” Her brow furrowed. “I’m sorry to be so crass on such a terrible day for you, but Lily, the rent hasn’t been paid in six months, and I simply can’t wait any longer.”
“Six months,” I said, “but up until yesterday, there was so much money in our account. Why hadn’t Olivia paid you?”
“She kept putting me off, saying business was slow and she’d have the money next month, including what she owed me.”
“Business was booming. We had dozens of jobs. I don’t understand this.” What could have happened six months ago to change Olivia from a responsible, dedicated partner to this person I just didn’t know? I felt the terrible black hole opening up again.
I couldn’t fall apart now, so I didn’t try to respond.
“I can give you two weeks, Lily, and then you’ll have to go…unless, of course, you can come up with the back rent.”
“Not in two weeks, Tracy. Olivia cleaned me out yesterday, both our business and personal accounts. I literally don’t have any money.”
“I’m so sorry about all of this. Do your best, but I’ll have to have the rent in two weeks.” To her credit, she kept her voice professionally sympathetic.
I nodded mutely and closed the door without saying goodbye. I knew it wasn’t her fault, but I was angry at Olivia, and projecting it onto my landlady provided some welcome relief.
I went to my bedroom and gathered up some clean clothes. A pair of comfortable black yoga pants and a long-sleeved tee.
I slipped into the bathroom, not bothering with the light. Stripping off my clothes, I stepped under the spray. I washed myself by rote, zombie-like. I felt as though I had been gutted and was desperately trying to hold everything in with both bloody hands.
I closed my eyes and it all came back to me like a terrible nightmare. The emptiness, the complete absence of all that should be me. There was only darkness I couldn’t see through, darkness which consumed me, dragged me down, kicking and screaming.
How did I define myself without an identity?
Who was I without Olivia?
She had given me the foundation upon which I rebuilt my life, and now she was gone, and everything we’d built together was gone with her. I had come full circle, the new foundation crumbling like it had never existed, now shifting sand sliding away into nothing.
I found myself sitting on the floor of the shower, the water cascading down on me. My legs were pulled up to my chest and I rocked back and forth. For comfort? I wasn’t sure.
My sodden hair lay heavy against my back, my tears mingling with the water, as my chest heaved and shook with uncontrollable sobs.
Someone had stolen my life again. Someone had killed the only person in my life who gave me stability, a base I could stand on while I rebuilt. The loss made me feel wild and out of control. Energy crackled around me, making the water sizzle with the smell of ozone.
I had a lot of stuff to handle tomorrow, the least of which was how I was going to pay my employees and salvage my company. Because it was now truly mine. I’d give the OS a few days to handle the investigation, but if they failed...
Whoever had taken Olivia’s life would lose theirs. I vowed it on the energy beating in tandem with my fractured heart, stretching and expanding and gathering power.
If the OS failed, I knew exactly where to start looking
Chapter Four
<
br /> The sun had barely cleared the horizon, but already the air was tinged with a hint of snow. I loved the smells of the changing seasons. Part and parcel of being an Earth witch. I could also tell it was going to be an especially snowy winter. I sighed. I wasn’t a big fan of snow unless it was on a Hallmark card and it was close to Winter Solstice, when a little snow on the ground made it festive.
We were fast approaching the witches’ New Year’s eve, Hallowe’en or, as we refer to it, Samhain. Long called Halloween or All Hallows’ Eve by non-witches, the kid’s holiday had taken on a whole new meaning since the Break. I would most likely be working that night. At least I hoped I could score a big witches’ celebration to cater.
In the past three years of observing humanity with new eyes, courtesy of my nonexistent memories, I’d decided it was no wonder the otherworlders had pretty much taken over and humans had to fight, not to only survive, but to even have a voice in the new world order.
I had learned we witches were lucky our voice had already been established in society through Wicca. It had been fairly easy for us to transition from being a recognized religion to establishing The Cauldron, the higher governing body of all witches. There were no rules in place saying a witch had to belong to a coven. I didn’t. It was by choice that I decided to forgo the organized aspect of the Craft. It seemed going solo suited me.
Regardless of joining or not joining a coven, all witches were subject to The Cauldron’s rules and regulations, and I had always felt, because witchcraft, or Wicca, was an established spiritual path even before the Break, we were already a well-bonded community. Witchcraft before the Break had been about worshipping or seeking union with the being or beings who created life. That mandate hadn’t changed.
We were still all about life.
When I had awakened to the scent of snow, there had been a moment between sleeping and waking when I forgot what had happened last week. One tiny moment of bliss. Then the memories had flooded me, the pain and anger returning. I couldn’t quite decide if it was better to have these new, painful memories or to continue in the old, familiar blankness where nothing touched me.
My bitterness scared me a bit, made me afraid I might be losing myself. Olivia used to define me, and now I had to stand on my own two feet. Become the woman and the witch I defined myself to be. I hated that her betrayal had made me question myself, had shaken my very foundations. Then my determination solidified, and I began to decide who I might be. Even with her betrayal, she had been there for me. She had taken me in, nurtured me and had been a close and dear friend. I wasn’t convinced she was the villain in this story. I still believed that somehow there was an extremely good explanation of the why. I’d seen her pain and her doubts in the mirror vision preceding her death. They haunted me even now. I hungered for answers which could…sustain me. I needed those answers like my next breath.
This all had echoes in the Craft and connected to the concept of harm none. No one really needed to worry about not having enough whatever because the world is filled with abundance so no one has to lose out just so someone else can have things. Change which affects someone else occurs all the time. Even doing nothing can have repercussions. Better to choose my path of action than to allow things to just happen. Another reason to define myself on my own terms.
Olivia knew, just as I did, if we engaged in manipulative actions, then we would reap the sorrow they would cause. Stepping outside the bounds of a spiritual framework would not excuse us from the threefold karma. If we believed in the ever-turning wheel of existence which made our magic work, then we had to accept also that the same wheel brought back to us our own intent and the intent of everyone else. Either the wheel turned or it didn’t. We could not embrace it when it was convenient and cast it aside when it wasn’t.
Had Olivia paid that final price? And the central question that continually plagued me just kept getting louder: Was I a good witch or a bad witch? I remembered with a sick kind of anxiety how easy it had been to channel the Torrent.
I knew absolutely being a good witch wouldn’t make me perfect. If our deities were not infallible, then how could we be? Being a good witch meant doing my best for self and all other beings, both the seen and unseen. It meant living in harmony with nature, whether one’s nature was in a cottage, in a forest, or in a big city apartment.
Above all else, being a good witch meant I could be trusted—by myself, by others, and by our deities—to make the most ethical choices I could, based on available information. And if I did unintentionally cause harm, it meant I must be willing to fix the problem, even if doing so meant I wouldn’t get what I wanted in the end.
Many believed being a witch offered the promise of limitless power and it was what attracted them to the Craft. Just like any other kind of power, it was seductive. Although possessing the power and knowing our secret handshake didn’t make things any easier. Magic was power, but it humbled me to have the power of creation at my fingertips. Only the responsible can use the power without getting burned in the end.
Had I known and used the Torrent—darkane magic—in my old life?
Who had I been before I woke up in a world which felt familiar, but which I didn’t know? Frustration built.
I didn’t think I would be happy if I learned I was, or at least had been, a black witch. Wouldn’t I know? Wouldn’t I feel it in my gut if I had been?
All magic extracted a price. But the black arts took a bit of one’s soul each time they were employed, unless the witch was clever, and unprincipled enough to transfer the cost to someone else.
I reached for my connection with the Earth, the sheer living, breathing, teeming, beautiful mass of all that made up this shining blue planet, a jewel in the solar system.
The immensity of its beauty moved in me to push away my black thoughts. I could feel the dormant spring, its promise like a glow deep within every living thing, the renewal of life.
I latched onto that promise. I needed it to sustain me while I was running with scissors and flying without a broom.
And it filled me with an unspeakable beauty and energy, and hope for renewal, for abundant life.
As of this moment, I was, firmly and forever, a white witch. Whatever I had been in my past was irrelevant to who I was now. My source of power was the Earth. Plants were family, and they didn’t sacrifice themselves so much as gifting themselves freely, thus contributing to and participating in the well-being of every other thing on the planet, part of the great Cycle of Life. Through Earth’s plants I shaped my reality, using their gifts of nourishment, healing and power.
I could live with the price, since the properties inherent in the Earth fed my magic, serving the good for all.
While my mind was busy, I had pushed out of bed and was now preparing a baby shower brunch for twenty and catering for a kids’ birthday party for fifteen. Luckily the jobs were still coming in even though there was no money.
We had made it a practice to keep a lot of supplies on hand, but now I was cleaning out the business office where I had done the majority of my cooking, and where all the supplies were stored, I had to make do with the smaller kitchen in our apartment. Luckily, even though it was a two bedroom apartment, we did have gourmet equipment.
My life-altering musings began to fade into the background while I kneaded dough for the spinach and artichoke soufflés I planned to serve at the shower along with a fruit platter and lemon mist spritzers served in bottles I had garnished with a piece of pink polka dot fabric and a pink-tipped baby pin. I had made the cake as soon as I got up. It was a pink stork with a swaddled baby suspended from its beak.
Releasing the last remnants of my dark mood, I let the creativity of craft and skill take its place and fill me up. Having learned I had a nervous new mother on my hands, I added well-being with garlic to the soufflés, good wishes and happiness with valerian and mucuna to the cake, and lemon balm to the lemon spritzer drinks. The brunch wasn’t until eleven and everything so far was going smo
othly.
For the child’s birthday party at six, I was providing only a cake and decorations and it wouldn’t start until after the brunch. I planned a dinosaur cake which would come to life and roar and stomp around until it was cut.
The proceeds from these two functions would barely keep my head above water since I still owed the employees who had helped me make Chris’s full moon party a success. Getting them paid would be a load off my mind.
As soon as the dough was done, I started on the soufflé filling. While I combined the ingredients, I infused it with magic at the moment I added the garlic. There was a small popping noise while I stirred it, and the magic had been packed with enough ooomph to leave me with my own sense of well-being.
I popped the second batch of soufflés into the oven.
I was so involved in crafting the meal that at first I wasn’t sure I’d actually heard a knock at the door.
When it was repeated vigorously, I wiped my doughy hands on my apron.
This time I opened the door to three men dressed in sharp black suits, with narrow ties and stark white shirts made of spun silk. One was wearing a fedora, and they all wore long, black leather coats.
They didn’t need to open their mouths for me to know who they were. Just the sight of them sent a ripple of fear down my spine. These weren’t actually men, but male fae. Agents, in fact, for the Fairy Dust Administration or the FDA.
Oh, Break take it!
Not now. I was so exhausted, and FDA agents were known to be cunning, powerful, and lethal. One wrong move and I could lose my freedom. One wrong step and I could lose my life.
“Ms. Starbuck?”
“Yes,” I replied, my voice coming out weary and wary. But I’m sure these fae were accustomed to the wary part. They had a reputation to uphold and were ruthless in doing so. A faint smile crossed the face of the fae who spoke, the one in the fedora. “We’re sorry to disturb you so soon after your loss, but we are with the Fairy Dust Administration. I’m Agent Talon Sunstrike, these are Agents Storm Squall and Laric Brightblade. We have some questions for you.”