Instead, there were red and green dresses. Keys. Mothers. What did any of those have to do with finding the missing fruitcake?
I Think It’s Time to Pay Her a Visit
After Dixie worked her magic with the trees again, Amber drove through and headed back to the studio.
Daniel wished the reading had been more specific. He glanced at Elizabeth, who was pensive.
Amber pulled under the Moonchuckle Bay Studios arch and took an empty spot several cars down from Daniel’s to park. She turned around. “I don’t know how much help that will actually be.”
“Thank you both anyway. I appreciate it so much.” Elizabeth was gracious, though Daniel sensed her disappointment.
It matched his own. “Yes, thank you.”
Dixie turned around and sighed. “The frustrating thing is that after you solve the puzzle, you’ll be able to look back at what she said and see that it matches, but it doesn’t necessarily bring you any closer to solving it. I’m sorry.”
“Hey, you tried. At the very least, I can say I was in the Fairy Court. How many non-pixies can say that?”
Dixie laughed. “You can’t ever say it, either, witchling.”
“Right.”
They said their goodbyes and climbed out, shifting to Daniel’s car. The two women waved as the minivan disappeared.
Daniel started his car and cranked up the heater. As he turned back toward town, he said, “I was hoping for more.”
“Me, too. If I had just had cameras installed, we could see who came into the store while we were on our date. I can sense auras, but I have to be present to do so, but a camera could show us their thieving face.”
Why hadn’t he thought of that earlier? “That’s it!”
“What?”
“I have the ability to sense people’s energy signatures.”
She was silent and he glanced over to see her watching him intently. Then she smiled at him. “How long after someone came in my store would you be able to read their signature?”
“Days, though the signals grow weaker. I built a shield to tune them out because otherwise I’m bombarded with them, but if I drop it, I should be able to tell who came in your store while we were gone.”
A few minutes later, they entered Drops of Magic, where Chicory Connolly stood behind the counter ringing up a sale while four other customers milled about the shop.
Elizabeth took his sleeve and leaned close to whisper, “Can you do it while people are here or should I close the shop?”
“No. Leave them in here. I can do it. I’ll walk around and sort through signatures until I’ve been through the whole store.”
She looked up into his eyes and he saw admiration there, even affection.
And then she stood on tiptoe and kissed him! Lightly, quickly, and she was gone. But the kiss rocked him.
She smiled up at him impishly.
When he looked over at Chicory, she was smiling and shot him a thumb’s up. He grinned back.
Then Elizabeth tapped his chest lightly. “Go do your thing, Warlock Grant.”
He nodded at her and lifted a chain from around his neck. From it hung the crystal that helped him hold the shield that kept the impressions away. He handed it to her. “Keep this for me, please.”
“Can I wear it?”
He smiled and nodded, and she slipped it around her own neck, her eyes widening. He didn’t know what she felt, but he’d ask her later.
She approached a customer and asked if she could help them find something.
He stepped to the left and stopped, closing his eyes and opening his senses, bracing himself for the bombardment. Sensations slammed into him, making him take a step back. He held his ground. It was always extra overwhelming when he’d had it quieted for a while, and it would take a few minutes to slip into the state where he could begin to read the signatures.
For that first minute, colors and faces flashed past his thoughts, swirling in a dizzying way. Finally, the chaos began to fade.
He sent out his magic in a circle, expanding it to three feet away. He caught a glimpse of a human family and two witches, but the impressions were too fresh. He pushed and saw other faces. He’d remember and use his talent to draw those faces to show Chicory, who’d been in the store while they were gone.
He opened his eyes. Elizabeth was watching him from behind the counter. He smiled and took several steps forward, closed his eyes, and repeated the procedure.
As he moved again toward the back, he caught a presence he hadn’t expected. Surprised, he thought surely she’d been here just as a customer—but he had a bad feeling about this.
He opened his eyes and motioned to Elizabeth. “I need you to take me to the room with the safe. We should have started there anyway.”
“You’re right.” She led the way through a door into the back rooms, into an office. She motioned toward an alcove that obviously served as her workshop. “The safe is here. It was spelled to conceal it from any humans and most supernaturals. I thought it was perfectly concealed.”
He stepped within two feet of the safe where the thief would have had to stand to open it, and opened his senses again.
Yes. She’d been here and not just as a customer. His stomach sank. Why had she been in this back room?
He pulled out his phone and searched for the two pictures he’d taken of the woman after a dinner with his mother. “Have you seen this woman in the store?”
She studied the phone and shook her head. “But we can ask Chicory.”
“Let’s do that.”
The store was filled with customers, a group of tourists and several shifters in human form.
Daniel waited until Chicory had handled a transaction and then held out his phone. “Did this woman come in the store while we were gone yesterday?”
Chicory took the phone and studied it, then nodded. “Yes. The younger one. She’s the one who spent a long time in the bathroom.”
He took his phone back and Elizabeth asked, “Who is she?”
“My cousin Lorraine. I think it’s time to pay her a visit.”
That Ought to Come in Handy
Elizabeth clutched the door handle as Daniel squealed around a curve. His lips were tightened into an angry line.
She was angry, too. “So when your cousin said it would be easier to take the fruitcake from another person besides the Oracle, she meant me. And she’d already stolen it.”
“Yes. She’s been lying all along.”
He turned into Gremlin Gulch, a new condo development, and parked. By the time he’d circled the car, she was out and heading toward the door. He passed her with his longer strides, and she scurried to keep up.
He pounded on the door. No one answered.
“Maybe she’s not home.”
“She’s home,” he said grimly as he pounded again. “I sense her.”
A woman yelled, “Go away.”
“Open up,” Daniel yelled.
The door was thrown open and a woman about ten years older than Elizabeth stood there, a snarl on her face. The woman from the photo, only angrier looking. “Go away. I’m busy.”
The woman was about five-five and looked to be thirty pounds overweight, dressed in black leggings and a black T-shirt with a familiar distinctive design and the words Witch, please!
Elizabeth pointed at the T-shirt in disbelief. “Did you steal that from my shop?”
Ignoring her, the woman lifted her chin. “I’m not accepting visitors right now.”
She started to close the door, but Daniel put a hand up, pushed the door, and stepped inside. “Yes, you are.”
“What are you doing?” Lorraine protested.
“What are you doing?” he demanded as Elizabeth shut the door. “Where is the fruitcake?”
She opened her eyes in an expression of innocence. “The Oracle has it, remember?”
Fake innocence.
Daniel loomed over his cousin, his face inches from her face. “You stole it from Elizabeth
’s shop and now you’re going to return it to her. She has been entrusted with it by the Oracle, herself. Where is it?”
“Oh, fine.” The woman flounced around. “It didn’t work anyway. You can have it back. Though it’s not in the same form it was before.”
“What?” Elizabeth asked, panicked. “What do you mean?”
Lorraine didn’t answer, but led them to a small room off the kitchen, probably originally a large pantry, but she used it as a small workshop. There, on a small table, was the brown paper wrapper—with only three minuscule fruitcake crumbs.
“Where’s the rest of it?” Elizabeth asked, trying not to hyperventilate.
Lorraine rolled her eyes and pointed at a vial at the end of the table. “I used it to make a potion of youth, but it didn’t freaking work. You might as well take it.”
Elizabeth stared at the crumbs and then at the vial of liquid. “You used it up?”
“Are you dense or something? Yeah, I used it up. It didn’t work. The fruitcake was defective.”
“Why don’t you think it worked?” Daniel asked.
“It didn’t work. Look, I still have wrinkles around my eyes.”
“So you tried it on yourself instead of my mother, who is dying?” His voice was murderous. “I’m going to report you to the Witch Council, cousin.”
“Go ahead,” she said, though she stepped away from him. “I’m moving out of Moonchuckle Bay tonight. They won’t find me.”
She flounced out of the room and upstairs, where she was probably packing.
Carefully, Elizabeth gathered up the brown paper wrapping to include the tiny specks of crumbs, wrapping them so as not to lose them.
“Is there enough left to start again?”
“I doubt it but we’ll find out.”
He lifted the vial and slipped it carefully into a witch’s vial holder—an envelope spelled to hold a glass vial safely, with no breakage or spillage or other damage—and slid it into an inside coat pocket. “Let’s get back to your shop so you can begin work.”
Elizabeth nodded and followed him outside and into the car.
Think. She couldn’t panic. She had to figure out what else the potion Lorraine had made might need to make it effective.
If it wasn’t too late already.
On the drive to her shop, Elizabeth called Chicory. “I need you to call an emergency meeting of the Connolly Coven.”
Chicory didn’t question, didn’t complain that it was Christmas Eve, but simply said, “Where do you want us to meet?”
“In my shop in the next hour. That’s where my supplies are. I’ll need each witch to sense what’s missing from a potion that an incompetent witch made.” Her voice was harsh with anger at Lorraine, who had likely ruined everything.
She hung up and looked over at Daniel, who drove his sports car expertly toward Town Square.
Sensing her gaze, he said, “I trust your ability to fix this.”
“I’m glad you do, because I’m totally overwhelmed at this moment.”
“Get into your workshop and you’ll know what to do.”
A hint of a smile crossed her lips. “Thank you. I’m glad at least one of us can see me succeeding. I needed to hear that.” And she did. Daniel seemed to know just what to say to her to make bad things a little better.
Keeping his eyes on the road, he took her hand, and the touch sent calming energy into her limbs and through her body, allowing her mind to focus. And she’d need to focus in order to fix the potion or create a new one from mere crumbs.
He parked behind her shop, where she recognized the vehicles of her witch sisters. Not biological sisters, but sisters of the craft and of the heart. Her family, willing to drop everything at eight o’clock on Christmas Eve to help her.
“Are you all right?” he asked. When she nodded, he kissed her hand, and said, “Then let’s go work some magic.”
“I never asked if you have other powers besides signature reading.”
“I have the same talent as my mother, though hers is much stronger—was, anyway.” He grinned. “I’m an Augmentor.”
“Really? That’s pretty rare, isn’t it?”
“Really. I can increase the power of any supernatural I’m working with.”
“That ought to come in handy.”
Your Mother is More Powerful Than You?
Elizabeth’s office was filled with witches and other magic wielders. Chicory and Marigold were there, as well as Dixie and Jingle, along with six other Connolly Coven members. That gave them twelve, a powerful number.
The group had varying aura colors, from blues to purples, to Marigold’s gold, and an almost white from Daniel. She hadn’t expected that.
The first thing she’d done was take an eye dropper and suck up one drop of Lorraine’s potion, then carefully cap and place the full vial back into the protective holder. She squeezed out the single drop into a one-ounce glass jar.
Looking at the others, she said, “I’m going to let each of you examine it magically. After we’re done, we’ll share conclusions and see what comes up.”
Then she lifted the glass jar, sniffed the drop, and used her magic to sense what she could—something was missing, but she couldn’t tell what. She hoped the others could.
She handed the jar to Marigold. While it went around the group, Elizabeth set up a burner and pulled out ingredients. She didn’t know if she’d have to start from scratch with the crumbs or if they could fix the potion. She had to plan on both.
After the women had examined the glass jar, Chicory handed it to Daniel. He did the same as the others, and when he opened his eyes, he caught Elizabeth’s gaze. “Do you want our impressions now?”
She nodded.
He said, “It’s missing something.”
Several of the others agreed, but no one seemed to know what.
Chicory said, “It seemed like it needed an herb, but I have no clue which one.”
That was weird, as Chicory was good with herbs and knowing.
Her mother, Marigold, shrugged. “I got the same impression as my daughter.”
Chicory’s cousin—Jennie Connolly, who had a light psychic ability—said, “It’s a secret herb.”
Elizabeth tipped her head. “What do you mean, secret?”
Jennie frowned, still concentrating. “I’m not sure, other than no one else has it. Except you.”
All eyes were on Elizabeth. “I do?”
“Yes. It’s something your family has had for many years.”
“An herb that my family has had for many years?”
Jennie held up a hand and pointed toward the tiny plant on the windowsill. “It looks like that.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “My mother’s plant?”
Jennie walked over and touched a tiny leaf, then nodded excitedly. “Yes. This is it.”
“What is it? My mother never told me, except that I needed to keep it alive no matter what and no matter where I went. She said it had been handed down from her mother, who’d gotten it from her grandmother.”
“For generations,” Marigold said softly.
A chill raced up Elizabeth’s spine.
Jennie handed the little potted plant to Elizabeth and she took it with a newfound respect. Setting it on the table, she took a pair of scissors, thanked the little plant, snipped off one stalk that had five little leaves, and handed the pot back to Jennie, who replaced it in the windowsill.
“Normally I’d steep this, but we don’t have that luxury.” Elizabeth lifted the knife to chop the leaf into tiny pieces onto a piece of parchment paper—but stopped. “I feel as though this needs to go in whole.”
Marigold nodded, and touched the brown paper wrapper with the three crumbs. “I’m feeling that we need to add these into the new combination you are creating.”
Elizabeth hesitated. “But if this doesn’t work, we won’t have anything to start over with.”
“I know. But if this doesn’t work, there’s not enough here to creat
e a new potion. Just my opinion,” the head of the coven and the most powerful witch in all of Moonchuckle Bay said. “What do the rest of you think?”
The rest of them either agreed with Marigold or weren’t sure.
Elizabeth stared at the five-leaved piece of herb passed down through the generations and kept secret, and then at the crumbs of magical fruitcake that had also been passed down through the generations and been kept secret. And now they were coming together in this moment. And only the Oracle knew the connection. And Princess Pixie. Two mothers, two keys. And here they were. Holly’s family fruitcake and her own mother’s herb.
Elizabeth hoped she was up to the task. It was going to take every bit of magic she possessed and then some.
She lit the flame under the beaker, then lifted the five-leaved herb and slid it carefully in, followed by the last three crumbs of magical fruitcake. She then turned to the shelf and pulled out the vial.
Holding the uncapped vial above the beaker, she looked around again. “Yea or nay?”
“Yea,” they all answered in unison.
She nodded—and poured in the potion. This either worked or it failed spectacularly and permanently.
“We seek to create a working Fruitcake of Youth potion,” Elizabeth announced their intention to the universe, then turned and took Daniel’s hand on her right and Marigold’s on her left, and the hand-holding created a circle of witches and their magic.
Elizabeth started by sending her magic into the new concoction, bubbling lightly over the low flame. She saw her aura—a swirling mixture of light green and white—extend out into the room and touch the auras of the others. Daniel’s was definitely the strongest connection and when his aura touched hers, it jolted her.
She focused, now sending her magic into the beaker, and the others did the same, as together, they worked to turn the potion into a working Fruitcake of Youth potion.
She could feel everyone’s magic and auras mixing in the beaker, fixing little mistakes Lorraine had made. Daniel’s cousin was quite the inept witch.
Spells and Jinglebells Page 28