by Tonya Kappes
“A co-worker of Gabby’s came to the police station and wanted to file a missing person’s report with Oscar,” I told her. “She told Oscar that Gabby was here after you owed her a favor, but she never named the favor. She also said that you and Gabby didn’t really get along, making it seem that Gabby had something against you that would make you want her gone. Not in a good way either.”
“June, I’m a simple spiritualist from the south. I don’t want to bring harm to no one. I just want to play with my yarn and be happy.” She talked so fast that it made her appear desperate and that didn’t sit well with my gut. “I didn’t know Gabby before I moved here. She was one of my first customers. She would buy yarn and then bring it back. She’d complain how it wouldn’t fit her needles properly or how she didn’t like the stitches once she made them. I never said anything to her but once.” Her mood veered sharply to anger. Her jaw tensed, her nose flared and her breath became labored. “The last time she came into the shop as a customer, it was just the two of us. She was complaining and when I took the yarn from her, I accidently cast a spell. It was from a dark and evil place in my soul. She felt the shift and it knocked her on the ground.”
“Leah,” I sighed and looked out the window, noticing a woman had parked in front of the police station and gone inside. “We are never to let the mortal world see our gifts. We have an oath to keep our gifts to the village and use them for good,” I said, putting my head back into the present moment.
It was no excuse for her to use the spell, but it was worse that she used the spell directly in front of Gabby.
“I covered it up by telling her I was sorry I knocked her down, but I was tired of her coming to my shop and returning perfectly good quality yarn. You know I don’t sell bad quality anything.” She shifted her focus on trying to get me to believe she was a good shop owner instead of hitting the root of the issue. Gabby. “Then she told me that I’d done some sort of crazy voodoo something on her and she saw it and felt it. I told her that no one would believe her.”
“You need to focus on Gabby and what happened after you tried to get her to forgive you.” I said in a controlled tone, “What did she say to you after she got up?”
“She told me that she didn’t care if no one believed her that she’d sue me for hitting her. She rubbed her arm and leg saying that I hurt her. It was like she flipped on a dime.” Leah sniffed. “That’s when she told me I had to host a Lifestyle party for her at my shop and and then she’d drop the charges.”
“How long ago was this argument?” I asked wondering how close to the purchase of the black locust seed was to the incident. She looked at me a little confused. “Had you already bought the seeds at this time?”
“No. I bought them that afternoon.” Her words didn’t make me feel any better. “What is that look on your face?”
“If you’d bought the seeds previous to this, then I know you wouldn’t get a premeditated charge meaning first degree murder.” I thought aloud. “It clearly looks like she was holding this party over your head. You then bought the seeds and planned to poison her the day of the party.” I let the ideas roll from my head and out my mouth.
“If that was the case, I’d have killed her that week so I didn’t have to go through the process of hosting the party. I fought with her for those couple of months trying to see if she’d forget or decide not to have it. I told her that you were here, and the village didn’t like other vendors coming in. Then she went and got the fake rules we post for the mortals and she didn’t see any rules against her coming to the shop.” Leah continued to tell me how the party developed over the past few months. “Every week, she’d call and ask me when I was going to host the party. A week ago, her lawyer came in and handed me a piece of paper that said if I didn’t have the party as we agreed, then they were going to file the complaint.”
“Do you have those papers?” I asked.
“I do.” She nodded with a little more hope in her tone.
“Does it have the lawyer’s name on it?” I asked.
“I’m sure it does.” She managed to reply with a stiff lip. “Why?”
“I want it and I want to go see them. If we can establish that she was blackmailing you, maybe she was blackmailing someone else.” I shrugged not fully knowing where I was going with it, but I was going somewhere. “Finding this guy with the blonde brow might help us too.”
“How are you going to do that?” she asked.
“You asked me to help you, right?” I asked and got confirmation. “Then you do what Oscar told you to do and leave this all up to me. Where are those papers from Gabby’s lawyer?”
“In my shop,” she said.
“Can you get them?” I asked knowing it was going to be going against the ruling Oscar had given her via the by-laws.
“Yes. It might be a day or two since I’m not allowed to go in there, but I can get them.” She was confident and I liked that.
“You bring them to me when you have them. Understood?” I questioned.
“Understood.” She turned and walked to the door. She unlocked it and twisted the handle. “Thank you, June,” she said over her shoulder before she walked out.
“Don’t thank me yet.” I pulled back the curtain in the front window and watched her disappear into the dusk of the night. A coldness poured over me.
Chapter Fourteen
While I was getting prepared to work on the bottles for the Piggly Wiggly, there was a tap on the door. When I looked to see who it was, I realized it was the same woman who’d parked in front of the police station while I had been talking to Leah.
“Good evening,” she greeted me with a smile. “I’m Nina Teeter from Lifestyle and I’ve got one of your bottles from Gabby Summerfield that was on order.” She held up the bag.
“Please,” I opened the door wide, “come in. I’d completely forgotten about that bottle.”
“I’m trying to get myself together, so I can deliver the products her customers had placed without skipping a beat. It’d be what she wanted.” She sighed and looked around the shop. “She told me about you and your shop. She said you were a fascinating woman.”
“You talked to her?” I questioned.
“Of course. She called me after the show at Crafty Crazy Chick to report her numbers. I’m the regional consultant.” She walked around the shop and picked up a couple of bottles.
Her body left me feeling sad and lonely, longing for Darla. It was when I began to tap into my intuition that I realized this woman wasn’t here by accident. She needed a potion for depression. The depression wasn’t for a loved one, it was for her life and how she’d been living her life.
“Tell me about the business.” I encouraged her to talk because the more she revealed, the more I could understand her hurt and what she needed, not to mention she might uncover something that had to do with Gabby’s murder.
“I started selling Lifestyle about five years ago when the oils started to become popular. At the time I lived in California and you know they like anything out there.” She offered a nice warm smile. “I moved to Locust Grove because the cost of living is cheaper, and no one was selling Lifestyle at the moment and if I wanted to move up in the company, I knew I was going to have to be a regional. They wanted to expand, and I took it.” She uncorked a bottle to smell it. “Gabby had such a bright future.”
“I take it that you were close?” I could feel the sorrow.
“I loved her like a daughter. I don’t have a daughter. She was so eager to learn. I spent a lot of time with her. Then she brought her friend, Beth, on board. She’s good but not like Gabby was good. Certainly, not like a daughter either.” There was a sarcastic, yet gentle, tone to her voice.
“Whispering Falls is so small, that I did notice you earlier when you went into the police station,” I said and watched as she circled the shop.
“Yes. Gabby doesn’t have any family and I really wanted to make sure the police here weren’t only on top of the investigation, but
I also wanted to claim her body so I can give her a proper funeral.” Her eyes filled with tears and it broke my heart.
I walked over to her and put my arm around her shoulder to give her a hug, but really dive into my intuition to see what I could concoct to make her feel better, not that I could take away the painful loss of Gabby. I pulled away and began to walk towards the counter.
“I think I have just the thing for you. Not that you don’t need another lotion, but this one is on me.” I winked and disappeared behind the partition.
The jade liquid in the cauldron was at a rolling boil. I plucked off a leaf of the Passion Flower and tossed it into the potion. A puff of smoke exploded above the pot in a dust of white powder that smelled like baby powder. My heart sank knowing that Nina had loved Gabby as her own daughter. The smell of the lotion would take on the scent of baby powder but seep into her soul to help heal her wounded heart. I threw in an eyelash of toad, moving the liquid into a pulsing round motion that changed colored to pale pink, a perfect shade for Gabby’s memory.
Once the cauldron shut off, I walked back around the partition and found Nina standing in front of the empty bottles.
“I wish Lifestyle came in beautiful bottles like these.” She turned around and had a cobalt blue bottle in her hand.
“Here, let me fill that for you.” I reached out and took the bottle from her. “On the house.”
I hurried back to the cauldron and held the bottle over the top to let the magic do its thing. When it was finished, I went back into the shop and handed her the filled bottle.
“I made this for you. Just rub it on your chest twice a day.” The smell would help her ease up on herself and the potion would enter her skin immediately to help heal her heart.
She smiled and popped off the cork lid. She held it underneath her nose and smelled it.
“It smells like baby powder.” Her eyes slide up to me with tears hanging on the edge of her eyelids. “I used to tell Gabby that I was going to start putting baby powder on her because I’d always dreamed of having a baby girl to lather in the smell good lotion.”
“I’m so sorry. From when I talked with her, she was a very sincere and sweet girl.” I knew my words weren’t much comfort, but the little spell inside of the bottle would do her wonders.
“Thank you,” She held the bottle to her heart. “You know, if you ever want to sell Lifestyle, I think you’d be perfect.” She dropped one hand and put it in the outside pocket of her purse, pulling out a card and held it out to me.
“I think I’ve got my hands full here,” I said but took her business card anyways.
“Well, if something changes.” She held the bottle up in a cheers sort of way. “Thank you,” she called on her way out the door.
Chapter Fifteen
Oscar had called the shop while I was finishing up the bottles for the Piggly Wiggly. He was going to be working late so he told me to head on home without him.
The sky had turned into a nice purple as the dusk blanketed the village. It was much too pretty to even think about going home and sitting alone. I’d told Eloise that I’d check on her and wanted to keep my word.
I sent Mr. Prince Charming ahead of me to let her know I was on my way. The fond memories of finding out exactly how Eloise was a part of my life before I knew it made me feel so much better since I’d been thinking about Leah the entire night.
Eloise had befriended Darla and they were best friends. Since my dad had married Darla, everyone knew that Darla was in on their little village secrets. Eloise didn’t hide her potions or her gift from Darla, which she should’ve but she lived outside of the village since. She was considered a bad-sider at the time, even though she was the most kind-hearted spiritualist I knew.
Anyways, Darla wrote about Eloise in the Magical Cures Book. She talked about how their friendship developed and how funny Eloise was. She even helped Darla make a few fun twists to Darla’s cures. Eloise was there when I was born and she even babysat me when Darla was at A Dose of Darla.
Even though I didn’t remember Eloise, the same way Oscar hadn’t known his past, with the journal entries in the book, I felt like I knew her. When I went to her house, I could feel the enchantment that Darla had written about.
Darla was able to describe the trail going around the gathering rock and walking deep into the woods. As I took that same walk, the fog was beginning to roll in but it didn’t stop me from smiling when between a couple of trees, I could see Eloise’s two-story house that was built on a platform, high off the ground. There was a set of wooden stairs that led up to a cozy wrap-around porch.
I didn’t bother going up them, because the gas-lit lanterns that dotted the cobblestone walkway to her private garden were glowing, lighting the way.
The darkness of the night that was on me disappeared into a colorful display of beautiful and vibrant purple, green, red, orange, and yellow flowers that she’d planted on each side of the walk.
My heart raced every time I walked into her garden. It was a dream to have the neat rows of herbs skillfully planted and proportioned perfectly. Each row had a painted wood sign with the names of the herbs like rose petals, moonflower, mandrake root, seaweed, shrinking violet, dream dust, fairy dust, magic peanut, lucky clover, steal rose, spooky shroom. All the ingredients I loved to use in my potions.
Mr. Prince Charming’s tail waved me over to the gazebo.
“June, You’re here right on time.” Eloise stood under the gazebo, neatly arranging an assortment of candy on tiered displays and containers.
“Are we having a sugar party?” I questioned with laughter.
“I’ve been thinking a lot since I found Gabby Summerfield’s body this morning.” She drummed her fingers together. “I know she wasn’t there the first-time I cleansed of the village. She’d been dead a while, so someone must’ve seen me and waited to drag her out. They wanted her to be found.” She made a good point.
“If they wanted her to be found, then maybe they did care about her and it wasn’t some willy-nilly killing.” I continued with her thought.
“I definitely think she was murdered on purpose.” Eloise looked out into the garden as though she were pondering more. “I’m just not sure why she was murdered. That is why I’m hosting a little get-together for the teenagers. They knew something was up and came to get me. I didn’t catch on to what they were lightening up about at the time, so they might be able to tell me now.”
“I wonder if we should have Petunia come to the candy party,” I suggested.
“Great idea. She can communicate with them.” Eloise pointed to Mr. Prince Charming, then used her fingernail to slowly scratch underneath his chin. He purred. His tail swayed in time with her fingernail. His lips curled up. His eyes were narrow. “Would you be a dear and go fetch Petunia?”
She pulled her finger away and he didn’t hesitate before he darted out of the garden. Eloise sat down in one of the café table chairs.
“He’s a sucker for a good scratch.” I joked. “She was pregnant,” I blurted out.
“Who? Gabby?” Her brows rose. With a tip of her head, she motioned me to the chair next to her.
“Yes. Her friend came to see Oscar at the station when Gabby hadn’t returned to Locust Grove. She also told him that Gabby and Leah had a fight. When I asked Leah about it, Gabby had been blackmailing her to have a party because she walked in on Leah just as Leah was casting.” I cringed thinking of Eloise’s reaction. “Gabby had returned something to Leah and Gabby felt the spell, knocking her down. Leah tried to tell Gabby that she hit her, but Gabby said that she felt some sort of voodoo Leah put on her and was using that to blackmail her.”
Just as I imagined. The fog lifted as her mood soured. There was a red cloud that formed over us when Eloise stood up. She walked down the few steps of the gazebo and stopped in the middle of her garden with her arms outstretched.
“What is the friend’s name?” Her voice boomed like thunder.
“Beth,” I said
loud enough for her to hear without my voice cracking. Even though I knew Eloise held a lot of power, I’d never seen her go into a mad, almost angry state.
The red cloud floated down just enough for Eloise’s outstretched fingertips to touch the edges. The lightning bolts darted around her, barely missing her body.
“Beth and her actions against the village of Whispering Falls. I hereby freeze Beth and bind her from causing harm to our community. As my will so mote it be,” Eloise repeated this over and over.
The words appeared in form and crawled up the lightning bolts, drawing up into the red cloud.
With each word and penetration of the lightening, the cloud got smaller and smaller as if it were soaking up the spell Eloise was putting on Beth until the cloud was no more.
Slowly, she brought her arms down to her side and brushed her hands together.
“That should do it until we can look further into this mess.” She walked over. Her eyes drew past the gazebo. “Welcome sweet teenagers.”
The glow of thousands of lightning bugs swarmed the garden as they flittered about. Each one of them blinking at different times, creating the most beautiful glow over the very spot that was just in upheaval. I got up to let them have the candy stations.
“Come, come.” She waved them over. “Eat and enjoy.”
We stood there as the candy began to disappear. It was so funny how such little beings could eat candy so fast, but what teen didn’t like candy? Eloise had something for everyone.
“What did you just do to Beth?” I had to ask. She sucked in a deep breath as if she were contemplating whether or not to tell me. “I only ask because Leah asked me to help her. I know she didn’t do it. And I know I broke the by-law, and Oscar is going to be frustrated with me, but I can’t let her go to jail if she didn’t do it.”
“I wanted to make sure to stop Beth’s memory if she knew something about why Gabby and Leah were fighting or whatever it is that Gabby had told her. It will give us time to figure out what happened to Gabby,” she said.