A Murder in Hope's Crossing

by Brooke Shelby

  “There is something you can do,” he mumbled through the spittle and crumbs. “You can go to hell, that’s what.”

  “Excuse me?” Maggie shrieked. That was too forward to tolerate and she could feel the rage well up inside her feisty heart, but she had to hold fast to her convictions. If she started a fight now, she would just prove them right. From the other side of the open-plan room, she noticed big Carl Walden standing around in his uniform, having come to show his face briefly.

  “I don’t give a damn what you think, witch,” he sneered, chewed cookie paste lining the edges of his browned teeth. “This,” he held up a cookie, “is all you types are good for, so you can piss right off, bitch.”

  Maggie’s ice-blue eyes lit up with fury. She refused to allow this, no matter what her plans were. After all, he had eaten enough of her deceiving gift.

  “What did you say, you lowlife moron?” she shrieked, instantly hushing the entire wake in anticipation of drama—and they were not disappointed. “Tell me something, if you can articulate beyond Neanderthal grunts at all,” she hissed loudly. “Did you kill Aunt Clara and your mother-in-law? Did you?”

  Everyone stood mute at the open confrontation.

  “Oh, Maggie,” Carl said under his breath, not really shocked at how things had turned out. Some were appalled by the disrespect Maggie showed for the late Bettina, including the reverend, who immediately held his breath to see what Maggie was doing.

  “Did you, Oroville?” she screeched through clenched teeth, leaning right in to corner him. “Did you kill Clara and Bettina?”

  “Yes, so what?” Oroville barked at her. “I killed them and I liked it! You’re next, you menace. You’re next!”

  Everyone gasped and some of the people yelped in disbelief, all holding their hands over their mouths and grasping their chests in amazement at Oroville’s outright confession. In fact, Oroville himself was as stunned as everyone else, because he had no control over his mouth. He would never have admitted this, yet it had just burst out of his mouth.

  Reverend Mason was pallid in the face, but for a change, he said nothing while Oroville’s wild gray eyes darted between the stunned attendants who shook their heads with mouths agape. He was clearly panicking. Suddenly, he shoved Maggie hard, and she fell to the floor as he dashed out of the hallway and fled into the distance, with Carl in futile pursuit.

  Maggie looked them all in the eye, hoping that they would finally see that she was innocent, but she underestimated their passivity and gullibility. More were just shaking their heads at her, under the towering preacher with the black robe who narrowed his eyes at her in brute hatred.

  Maggie staggered to her feet, clumsily straightening her clothing as she marched out of the hallway. Inside, the murmurs of the astonished gathering ensued, but the vindictive preacher saw this as a perfect moment to step in and apply some of his own magic—the art of mock-piety and religious subterfuge.

  25

  Furious, but victorious, Maggie’s car screeched away from the wake on her way back home. A car was following her, but she was too angry to care. All the way back home, she scanned her surroundings for Oroville’s awkward lurching frame, but he appeared to have vanished into thin air. So many thoughts raced through her mind. How could they not see? How come nobody tried to stop Oroville? Why was the callous minister so quiet all the time? Maggie could not fathom that nobody seemed to possess any ounce of common sense in this town.

  Upset, she sneered and raged as she drove, looking like a madwoman talking to a crowd of maniacs. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel when the involuntary tears came. Tears of unfairness. Maggie was positively livid. She slammed her hand on the wheel as she neared her sanctuary, the beautiful old building with the hex sign painted on the tower.

  “Now I know why there are so many apostates! Atheists, I get it! I get it. Snakes!” she howled in anger as the dingy car in her wake turned with her. “What do you want?” she screamed as she stopped short in the driveway. Maggie had had it. She’d just gotten a solid confession and still nobody had done anything to apprehend the killer. There was little that could still scare her now.

  Slamming her car door with hellish might, Maggie stormed to the car behind her.

  “What? What do you want from me?” she wailed angrily, but when the door opened, a sympathetic face met her gaze. “Sharon?” she frowned.

  “Please, calm down, Maggie,” she consoled Maggie, holding her shaking hands. “I was there. I saw that and I believe you, do you hear me? I believe you.”

  To Maggie Corey, those elusive, rare, almost impossible words fell on her like a cool rain after a sunburn. Those were words she’d never heard, not believing she would ever hear them in this damned town.

  I believe you

  She was speechless, but grateful. Sharon sighed and ran her hand up and down Maggie’s upper arms.

  “Don’t you worry. He will pay for what he did,” she tried to comfort the weeping witch.

  At least now I know that magic works, Maggie reckoned to herself. She looked at Sharon with a hopeless shrug. “Will he, though? Will he get what he deserves? In this town?”

  “We have to believe that he will,” Sharon replied as she walked up the stairs with Maggie.

  “I am running a bit low on faith these days, Sharon. You sound like those deluded sheep you hang out with on Sundays,” she told her neighbor. “Besides, I now have a murderer on the loose with a grudge against me. Double whammy.”

  “He will not come for you now, I think. I mean, he was just implicated, and he confessed. He would be stupid to come to your house or your shop now, right? Obviously, Sheriff Walden will be keeping an eye on you, and not even Oroville is stupid enough to come back here to finish you off,” Sharon rambled.

  Maggie knew she was right, if one were inclined to use logic, but this town was the inverse of that and anything against Maggie Corey would be categorically excused. At least, that was how she felt.

  “That was conclusive proof, Sharon,” she sighed. “He confessed. Just like that. That was all we needed.”

  “I know,” Sharon agreed. “Carl will get him. If he even tries to stick his head out.”

  “Carl,” Maggie simply said. “Carl is one of the only people I can trust in this godforsaken community, but he is not exactly at liberty to do the right thing as opposed to following orders, you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah,” Sharon said, bowing her head. “But he is at least trying, as much as he lacks the manpower … or the omnipotence it takes to watch you.”

  The two shared a giggle. It was true. Maggie had stirred things up in Hope’s Crossing and every single thing she did caused an uproar for poor Sheriff Walden. He would literally have to be everywhere to put out all the fires she started.

  “Thanks to Reverend Mason, all those witnesses are now lulled back to oblivion, as always,” Sharon moaned, shaking her head.

  “What did he say?” Maggie asked quickly, eager to ignite her temper once more.

  “No, no, don’t worry about that,” Sharon said. “Let’s just say that they actually believe that Oroville only said those things because,” she gestured inverted commas with her fingers, “he was drunk and overcome with grief.”

  “Are you serious?” Maggie gasped, her moth wide open at the ludicrous and illogical news. “I had no idea that grief could make you bash someone’s skull in, twice over, no less.”

  “That is the problem in this town,” Sharon growled, looking as weary of it as Maggie was. “Too much propaganda and too little common sense, or common decency, even!”

  “That is old news to me, girl,” Maggie said, holding Bramble on her lap to comfort her.

  Across town, Sheriff Walden was at the end of his tether. He could not catch up with the fleeing suspect, but he knew all Oroville’s hangouts and vowed to investigate them all. The problem was that he did not have enough people to aid in the manhunt, even less so now that the reprehensible Reverend Mason had used his influence
to dissuade the people of Hope’s Crossing from looking for Oroville. Carl Walden was silently furious as he sat down in his office.

  He was simply spread too thin to launch a proper investigation or manage a search for his suspect and to make things worse, time was of the essence here. If he took too long in locating Oroville, he could flee the state before law enforcement could deploy enough officers to form a dragnet.

  “So close! So damn close!” Carl grunted, his jaw clenched in frustration. He too believed that Maggie Corey was innocent, that she had successfully managed to get Oroville to confess. It was obvious to the sheriff that Oroville was the perfect suspect. Not only did he have motive, but he had the strength and deviancy to commit those atrocious murders.

  Carl had no idea how to go about trapping Oroville Chance now. He was livid about not having enough resources to trail Oroville effectively. No matter how convinced Carl was of Oroville’s guilt, he could do nothing to enforce justice until he actually apprehended the tall, messy menace. Worn down, exhausted, and frustrated, Carl decided to spend the next few hours doing research. He recalled his old sergeant always insisting that good detective work and eventual arrests came predominantly from research.

  Without any more excuses in his mind, the gruff sheriff started looking up old case files pertaining to Bettina’s daughter’s suicide and Bettina’s own court files from the year before. He did extensive research on the background of Audrina Chance and her mental stability leading up to the suicide, but some things mentioned in the psychiatrist’s files unsettled him.

  26

  Maggie was trying to keep calm, but she was struggling to act accordingly. After the ordeal at the funeral, she could not get Oroville’s cold, evil glare out of her head. Those empty, almost wraith-like gray eyes leering into her soul as he spat those filthy accusations at her. Maggie felt her skin crawl at the reminiscence of the whole affair and how the drones of the blackheart preacher once again turned on her in favor of a common criminal.

  After Sharon had left, Maggie had to come to terms with the fact that she had never felt this alone and terrified, not even back when she was new in town, when they dealt her all those unpleasant surprises. Things had escalated suddenly and badly, she thought, and with Oroville on the run, things began to look dark for her. It did not take a genius to realize that, after the hatred he spat at Maggie, Oroville had it in for her. By the way in which he’d done away with Clara and Bettina, it was also obvious what kind of psyche he harbored—one of brute force, overkill, and pure hate.

  “Aunt Clara, how I wish you were here to tell me what to do,” Maggie whispered as she walked through Clara’s pantry. The scent of the herbs and wax from candles Clara had produced as a hobby reminded her so much of her late aunt, her wisdom, and her kind voice. Tears trickled over Maggie’s cheeks as she picked up a jar of rosemary and breathed in the smell deeply. Aunt Clara always smelled like herbs and jasmine, she remembered, and Maggie’s father would tease Clara about being a hippie with too much earthy perfume. Maggie smiled as the thought arose in her head.

  “That was the joint you were smoking, but I was too young and dumb to know that then,” Maggie giggled through her tears. “I just wish you were here to tell me what to do, because I am … I-I am scared to death, Auntie Clara. He is coming back. I know it. He is coming back and when he does, he is going to bludgeon me to death as well.”

  A moment later, a gentle wisp of air tickled the tiny hair under Maggie’s ponytail, stirring the feathery curls ever so slightly. She started, but stood still to make sure she was not imagining it. It came again, a soft breath that peeled across the back of her neck, but it held no peril.

  “Auntie Clara? Is that you?” she asked, checking for any airflow through the vents, but there was no ventilation panel in the windowless pantry.

  The strong scent of dried rose petals infused Maggie’s senses almost immediately and she laugh-cried at the phenomenon. Never before had she believed stuff like this, but even if there was no magic, this revelation was irrefutable. Her aunt Clara was present in some form, giving her comfort. As wonderful and magical as it felt, Maggie’s underlying terror for what might be coming was too strong to allow her the beauty of the moment.

  “Help me, Aunt Clara,” she said. “I am terrified that he might show up and do me in, but I have no idea how to protect myself.”

  As if she had received a message or answered her own question, Maggie at once remembered the wards. She recalled how she’d watched them thwart every attempt Oroville had made before. With a gasp, she ran out into the kitchen and looked around for that ever-soothing black feline shape somewhere.

  “Bramble!” she called.

  Maggie searched the parlor. “Hey, Bramble?” Not there.

  “I can’t believe this didn’t cross my mind. Just ask Bramble,” she muttered as she looked for him. Suddenly she heard his voice behind her.

  “I can’t believe it actually takes you this long to catch on,” he sighed. “Most people, when told they have magic at the tip of their fingers, try to employ it for even the most mundane of things. Then there is you, Maggie. The opposite. Never realizing that you can do thing most people cannot. But hey, I am a patient daemon.”

  Trying not to think about the sinister nature of his last sentence, Maggie scooped Bramble up for a cuddle instead.

  “I am sorry, oh great one. Reluctant witch. That is me,” she confessed modestly. “I need your help. I need your advice, actually, on how to prepare for the worst. I have a really bad, nagging feeling in my gut that Oroville plans to pay me a visit tonight.”

  “You think?” Bramble asked, sounding a bit cold.

  “I need you to show me how to keep him out, please, Bramble,” she begged, although she did not have to resort to groveling. Another thing Maggie constantly forgot was that Bramble was her familiar, the one to serve her best interests. He purred under the stroke of his witch’s affection, but as the sun was past the top of the sky already, he knew that they would have to get moving if they were to secure the house.

  “All right, we start by strengthening the wards outside the house, those already put in place by Clara. They wear off over time, so it would be good if you could charge them again,” he advised.

  “How do I do that?” she asked, looking worried. Bramble reminded her that she was special, that she did not have to wonder how to do the things that would come naturally if she allowed them. Maggie took a few deep breaths and tried to ease into her role as the strongest, if the only, Corey witch. If there was any reason to take on her role completely and deliver herself to her new purpose and birthright, this was it.

  Bramble had to secretly chuckle as Maggie ‘prepared’ by waving her hands and doing breathing exercises with eyes shut, looking like some diva before a show.

  “Maggie, my dear,” he interrupted. “You are charging spells, not giving birth. Relax and gather the crystals in the altar room. Then you bring them out to the porch first. We are going to add them to the existing talismans.”

  “Talismans?” she frowned. “I read something about wearing those, right?”

  “You can wear them too, yes, but these are concealed in ornaments hanging outside the house. In essence, the house has to wear these,” he explained in the easiest way he could.

  Bramble was several hundreds of years in age and after all the years of knowledge, training witch after witch, he knew everything. Knowing everything, though, tested his patience, having to remember that each new witch did not know what he did. Through the decades and centuries, he had been tasked with conceding occult knowledge and giving advice, testing his resilience. After all, it had become so boring for the familiar to repeat the same teachings, but he had to consider the alternative. Not having a witch or a cat body would resign him to a life of formless misery while seeking a witch or a body to inhabit. As Maggie’s role was set out, so was his.

  As they rounded the house outside, Maggie was vigilant for any suspicious movement. On edge, she list
ened to what Bramble was teaching her, but her senses were alight with wariness for that hateful fiend with his hideous eyes and drooping mouth.

  “Now remember, each normal item that is charged with this spell becomes a talisman. The magic in it will keep it from ever failing, as long as it is charged every now and then. For instance, a talisman knife will never go dull, but it will revert back to a normal item if it doesn’t get more juice,” he winked.

  “Okay,” she smiled. “I’ll make sure the wards stay juiced up.” She pointed to some faded symbols along the walls and doorways. “What are these? Graffiti that was never painted over?”

  “No!” Bramble yelped almost too loudly. “Um, no. This is known as hexencraft, my dear. It is the practice of using symbols in a spell formation to bless or protect a building or area.”

  “Like the big pentagram on the shop tower?” she asked.

  “Exactly,” he replied. “These have faded through weather and wear, I suppose, so we need to reinforce them with white paint to keep them from washing or wiping off, you see?”

  “I see,” she affirmed. “So are they always done in paint?”

  “No, you can make the symbol in the air with your finger, even, if you wish to apply a wish or curse to someone,” he lectured. “As long as that person is in your presence or you are on their property. Or,” he started enthusiastically, “you can just speak your intent aloud in the presence of your intended mark.”

  “You make it sound so easy,” she sighed.

  “Anything is easy if you practice it a lot,” he hinted. “Now, get that done. The sun is drawing on.”

  “Thanks, Bramble,” she moaned. “The one minute I managed to forget a little about the man coming to kill me.”

  “Apologies,” he shrugged, wincing at his growling tummy. Usually, he would push his witch for a treat or a feast, but he understood Maggie’s apprehension and believed it was well- founded. This was very serious and he did not want to see her come to harm.