by Tonya Kappes
Raven had the ability to interpret and read signs left in dough or even in her mixing bowls. Her gift was Aleuromancy. She had seen many things in her dough since I’d known her and had been accurate each time.
She used her hands to spread the dough once she was satisfied. She used her finger to cut one inch around the edges. She picked it up and curled it in a ball. With a quick whip of her hand, she threw the ball down and it stayed in the perfect round shape. She picked it up again. This time throwing it harder on the table. Nothing. Then she threw it on top of the dough she had kneaded and flattened. The ball stayed in the round shape, but turned yellow.
Train tracks appeared in the dough and the ball rolled down it like it was a train. The ball stopped at the edge of the dough and the dough fluffed up into what looked like a wave on each side.
“There.” Raven pointed. “What do you see?” she asked.
“I see a wave.” Which wouldn’t be too surprising since Madame Torres had been showing me waves.
“Come here.” She pointed me to move my body to a different side of the table. “What do you see?”
“Oh my God,” I gasped. It was like everything had been transformed. “Is that a mustache?”
“Yes. Just like the one Faith said Orin has.” She looked up at me. Her brows drew in an agonizing expression. “As much as I want to say this had nothing to do with the man they found dead, I just can’t rule it out.”
“So are you telling me that Petunia knew this Paul?” I asked, keeping the yellow ball thing and how I already put two and two together that Paul was connected to Petunia to myself.
That was nothing new, but the why Paul and Petunia were connected was important. And that was what I hadn’t figured out yet.
“Do you know how Paul and Petunia are connected?” I asked. Asking Raven was the most direct way to get the answer. I leaned over the dough and took a nice long look, hoping to see something like Raven, but all I saw was gooey, lumpy dough.
“I’m saying they are connected somehow, I’m just not sure how.” Raven didn’t offer me any solution. She pointed to the ball that was resting at the edge of the dough. “I do not know what this yellow ball of dough means, but I’m telling you to be careful.”
I nodded. I did. It only confirmed that Patience’s little ghost friend who had been here a couple of months was connected to this whole situation and somehow Paul.
“Well, I must go.” She stood up and gathered all the dough into a big messy pile of goo before she stuck it back in the bag. “I have to get ready for the bazaar since I have now cleared my blocked mind by giving you this bit of information.”
“Isn’t it strange how magic can just block our minds?” Faith asked her sister.
“Hello?” I waved my hands in the air. “Did you forget that I’m the one on village arrest and the one who is being charged with murder?”
“I have no doubt this will all be cleared up.” Faith nodded.
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” The negativity dripped out of Raven’s mouth and onto my skin as if a snake were crawling all over me.
The extra mojo bags I had made up and stored caught my attention. One of them lit up like my ingredients for my potions did when I absolutely had to use one. Without question I walked over to the extra supplies and grabbed the cheesecloth bag I had made for a memory mojo. I stuck it deep in my bag, wondering what I would be using this particular memory mojo bag for.
Chapter Fifteen
There wasn’t much sleep being had around my little cottage. Mr. Prince Charming couldn’t get comfortable, not even with Oscar’s side of the bed open since he was still on his twenty-four hour shift in Locust Grove. Even the inside of Madame Torres tossed and turned, creating lights around my bedroom.
Several times I had gotten out of bed and walked out the door to get in The Green Machine, my 1988 green El Camino, and zoom out of town toward Locust Grove, only I knew the Marys would get wind of it and then I’d never be able to figure out who really killed Paul.
Madame Torres chirped a message from Mac McGurtle that he wanted to see me for lunch and we could meet at The Gathering Grove today. I was sure he wanted to catch me up on the investigation in Paul’s death and what to expect. I made a mental note to add him to my list of people to see. He should’ve been the most important, but he wasn’t. Petunia was.
It was still dark out even though it was almost dawn. It was the perfect time to head down the hill to Whispering Falls and go unnoticed.
“Are you ready?” I asked Mr. Prince Charming and ran my hand over my charm bracelet before I grabbed my cloak and tossed it around my shoulders.
He danced in front of the door. I strapped my bag across my shoulder and out the door we went.
Petunia was sitting in the middle of the shop with Orin strapped around her while she did her ritual. She would sit on the floor and all the animals that lived in her shop would line up so she could brush them, give them a treat and get them ready for possible adoption. Only I had no idea who would want to adopt a squirrel.
There were so many questions I had for her, but not sure if it was the right time. She was probably still mad about Orin being strapped on me when I came across Paul. Still, I couldn’t ignore the evidence presented to me. First the mustache on Orin was quite strange and the mustache along with the train in Raven’s dough was something I just couldn’t ignore. But the train was the most disturbing.
That same exact train was the one I had taken to Azarcabam and found out that Petunia’s then husband-to-be, Gerald Regiula, was in fact from there and still married. Maybe Petunia didn’t know everything that was going on, but I couldn’t dismiss the fact that Orin had a mustache and The Demons of Crimson just so happened to do a protection spell but you had to have a physical scar until the deal was complete. Coincidence . . I didn’t think so.
“Stop.” I swatted away the group of fireflies that darted around my head, trying to distract me from looking into the window. Clyde, Petunia’s pet macaw, lived in the display window. His head was tucked under his wing as he slept on his wooden tree perch. “Go bug someone else,” I instructed the teenagers. “Or go on to bed. It’s almost dawn.” I was hoping to get them to leave me alone. Just like teenagers, they didn’t listen to me.
In the spiritual world, your spirit could always come back in the form of an animal. I wasn’t quite clear on how it all worked because it was Petunia’s gift. She was an animal spiritualist. She could read them and helped lost souls become them. Fireflies were the perfect body for teenagers who have left the living. Like teenagers, they stayed up all night and slept all day. Plus they were always nosing around in my business, just like now.
“Seriously,” I growled at them and batted my hand in the air. Mr. Prince Charming danced on his hind legs and swatted them with his front paws as if he were batting a string.
I looked back in the window.
“Crap,” I groaned because Petunia was standing in the window, Clyde sitting on her shoulder. She stared back at me and wiggled her fingers in the air. She walked over to the front door and unlocked it.
“Good morning, June. I’m assuming you are here to see me.” Petunia held the door for me to come in.
Clyde’s beak was buried in her brown messy bun on her head. He pulled his head out and had a carrot stuck in his mouth. I should’ve been surprised to see a carrot come out of her hair, but I wasn’t. There was an entire forest up there. The scary thing would be if she wore her hair down and brushed it. That would be something to see.
“I wanted to come by and check on Orin.” I ran my hand down the book. For some reason I was needing some courage.
Instead of feeling the outer edges of a book, the crackle of the Wicked Good bag alerted my senses. I stuck my hand in my bag and pulled the sac of goodies out.
“I came with treats.” I dangled the bag in front of her.
She smiled. She used one hand to take the bag and the other to rub on Orin.
“I am still mad that y
ou. . .” She sucked in a deep breath.
“I did not kill that man.” My brows rose.
She stuck her head out the door and past me. She turned it side-to-side.
“Get in here before someone sees you.” She grabbed me and tugged me inside. She locked the door behind us and gestured for me to follow her to the corner of the shop where there was a real tree. She curled her hand in the air and suddenly we were surrounded by the light of the fireflies as they filled the branches of the tree.
“Um. . .” I looked around. I had never seen so many fireflies in one place. If they were alive and teenagers, it would be like I as at a rock concert surrounded by them. “What is going on?”
“They are on the lookout.” She bit her lip and took out a June’s Gem from the bag. She closed her eyes and chewed slow. “These do help melt the stress away.”
“Why are they on the lookout?” My own stress level was rising. I grabbed for the bag and took a June’s Gem.
“I’ve done a bad thing and I think the death of that man was because of me.” Her eyes clouded with hazy sadness.
“What do you mean?” I asked and leaned a little closer. This could be the answer I needed. “It’s important if it shows I didn’t kill him.” There was no way I was going to let her off the hook. I had come here for answers to why everything my familiar was telling me was pointing to this family.
“Well.” She gulped. “Do you promise not to go nuts on me? I do have my baby here.”
“Tell me.” I could feel myself losing patience with her.
“A few weeks ago, Mr. Levy had come to the shop to see me. I thought he was here to look into purchasing a pet, but he wasn’t. He was here to promote the carnival.” Her words were chosen carefully. “It was very creepy.”
“How so?” I encouraged her to continue.
“He said that he was happy to meet the village president and wanted to have his carnival here during our bazaar. I explained to him that the bazaar was just for our shops to be open and it was so cold that I’m sure rides wouldn’t go over well with tourists. But he insisted they only did carnival acts like juggling. Having them would sweeten the pot, he told me that if I did approve the carnival, he’d make sure Orin was always protected throughout his life.” She looked down at Orin. He was still asleep and snugged up against her. “You don’t understand.” Her eyes saddened. “Orin never sleeps. I’m so tired that I need to protect him from me.”
“You?” I reached out and rubbed her arm. “You are a wonderful mother.”
“No I’m not. Because.” She looked up at me with veiled liquid eyes. “I let that man put a spell on Orin.”
“Spell?” I asked knowing that the Demons of Crimson was exactly what Paul Levy had done to Orin.
“Yes. Some sort of promise that I would bring the carnival here in exchange for Orin’s life-long protection, only Orin had to have a physical mark that would go away after I made good on my promise.” She picked Orin up out of the snuggie and turned him toward me, adjusting him in her lap. “I agreed and Paul Levy put a mustache on my baby.”
Everything that Madame Torres told me was right.
“What on earth did Gerald say?” I asked.
“He doesn’t know,” she whispered.
I jerked up. My eyes lowered. Had I heard her right?
“I’m sorry.” I shook my head. There was no way I heard her right. “Did you say he doesn’t know?”
“He does not. I just was so upset with no sleep that I had to do something to keep Orin safe from me.” She cried. “He is sleeping now, but come in the middle of the night when I need sleep, he doesn’t. Gerald doesn’t seem to mind, but I’m losing my mind.”
“Let me get this straight.” All her words were up in my head and I had to straighten them out. “You’re telling me that Paul Levy came to Whispering Falls to see if the carnival could come here for the bazaar. When you told him that we didn’t use a carnival, he suddenly offered you this protection from yourself for your baby?”
“He said something about animals and how much love they can give and how we love them like our own children. It was then that I had confided in him about Orin not sleeping and I felt like I was going out of my mind.” She sucked in her bottom lip, the edges turned down. “Then he told me about this protection and all I had to do was get the carnival here.”
Something wasn’t adding up.
“Why did he want the carnival here so bad?” I asked.
“He said that he and a bunch of other spiritualists had retired and were going around doing these carnivals. Their livelihood depended on it. He said that the extra work would help him connect with his child better. And since he understood how I felt, I trusted him,” she said. “When I put it on the docket for the bazaar, I didn’t realize I had to go through hoops from the Marys to get it approved.”
“So that was why there was an emergency meeting?” Things were adding up layer by layer.
She slowly nodded her head.
The gnawing inside continued to eat at me. The more I thought about it, the more I truly believed Paul Levy was here on different business and it had to do with me. But what? I ran my hand around my wrist, feeling the brass bell charm.
“And now that he’s dead, I don’t think I will ever get this reversed.” She ran her finger over Orin’s manstache.
“And that’s why you bought a mojo bag.” Everything was suddenly becoming a little more clear on how Petunia and Paul were connected. “Paul is dead so your deal is null which means the protection is no longer in place and it means that the mojo bag is to help protect Orin from whatever evil lurked and killed Paul.” My mouth dropped and my eyes slid toward Petunia. “Unless you killed Paul.”
“Me?” Petunia screeched, offended.
“Yes. You.” I got up and walked around the shop, talking out loud to myself. “You and Gerald are not sleeping. You aren’t thinking correctly. Paul put this mustache on Orin, not only causing problems between you and Gerald, but making Orin the talk of the town.” I drew my hand in the air and pointed at her. “Which you do not want people talking about your baby. What mother does?”
“June Heal, you have lost your mind!” She jumped up and fisted her hands. “Have you forgotten that it was your potion found on his lips? You were the one who broke the by-laws, not I!”
“You knew Paul was in my shop. I saw you looking when he left.” My mind snapped back to seeing her in the street, watching as Paul left the shop. “It was perfect for you to set me up. Not that you wanted to, but your family is at stake.” I twirled around. She was face-to-face with me. Her nose tipped up on the end. Her lips pinched together. “And that gives you the perfect set-up to frame me.”
“I did no such thing.” She spat. “What do you want from me to prove it?”
“I want you to answer some questions.” I had Petunia right where I wanted her. My intuition told me she didn’t have anything to do with Paul’s death, but I knew she could help me.
“Fine.” She crossed her arms across her chest. “What?” She sashayed back underneath the tree. I followed her.
“What does Gerald think about Orin and how he got it?” I asked. A leaf floated down from the tree. I looked up. Mr. Prince Charming was sitting on a branch next to a squirrel. I watched as the squirrel cracked a nut and held a piece out in its claw. Mr. Prince Charming ate it. The squirrel dropped the nutshell, barely missing Orin’s head.
“He thinks it has to do with our heritage and maybe our DNA, you know kinda like the childhood illnesses the mortal children get, only this is in the spiritual world. And I just can’t tell him that I put this curse on our child.” She adjusted Orin in the crook of her crossed legs and picked up the nutshell. She inspected it and stuck it deep within her hair. “He forced me to take him to the doctor and everything. The doctor tested Orin for hormones and all sorts of stuff. They even asked if I knew anything and I said no. That was when Paul Levy was alive. I was sure the mustache would go away the first day of the baza
ar when the carnival acts were walking around our street like Paul had promised.”
“Paul Levy gave you a spell.” I took out my Magical Cures Book and opened it to the Demons of Crimson page. I handed it to Petunia.
She lifted her hand and plunged it into her messy hair. She pulled out a pair of reader glasses and stuck them on the bridge of her nose. Her lips moved as she read the words printed on the page in front of her.
“This is not good.” Fear hung on each word that left her mouth. She lifted her hand to her lips and used the other to rub on the kangaroo pack strapped to her as Orin wiggled a little. “I can’t believe I did this to my baby,” she cried out.
“It’s going to be okay.” My heart ached for her. I took her into my arms and let her silently cry. I rubbed her back. “I know you and I didn’t kill him. Someone wanted him dead. He knew something and someone didn’t want him to tell.”
“What are we going to do?” she asked. “If anyone finds out what I’ve done, I will be banned as village president and worst of all, I have put my family in danger and Gerald will never forgive me for that.”
“Still have the carnival at the bazaar,” I suggested. I knew I had to travel to Azarcabam, but if I didn’t find the answers I was hoping to find there, maybe the answers had to do with someone he dealt with in his carnival.
“I don’t think so. Not without the Marys agreeing to it and without Paul Levy, who would I communicate with?” she asked a good question.
“I don’t know. But I think I might be able to find out.” I bit my lip. The words I was about to say made my stomach hurt. “You have to let me travel. You have to take me off of village arrest because I think I know where Paul is from and if I can go there, maybe I can find other people in the carnival.”
“I don’t know, June.” Petunia shook her head. “I know that if the Marys found out I let you do that, I’d for sure be banned.”