Some Like It Witchy

by Heather Blake

  “Thank you.” I longed to go through each and every one right here and now, but it would have to wait a bit.

  “You’re welcome,” she said. “You know I’d put my soul on the line for you any day.”

  I did know, and it gave me warm fuzzies.

  Cherise said, “Why so dolled up, Starla?”

  She did look nice in a pretty maxi dress and short-sleeved cardigan. Sunbeams provided a spotlight on her hair, making it glow like she had a halo. It was entirely appropriate, considering her angelic looks.

  “A late lunch date with Vince,” she said, her blue eyes brightening. “We’re going to ride the swan boats and have a picnic at the Public Garden.”

  “What a lovely idea,” Cherise said. “A beautiful day for it.”

  It was. The clouds had moved out, leaving behind a clear blue sky. A soft breeze was blowing but it wasn’t enough to ruin a picnic. There was only one thing I had concerns about: Boston’s pedestrians. “Who’s driving?”

  Pushing out her bottom lip, she said, “He is, so you don’t have to worry. Geez.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “Have fun.”

  “I will. I’ve got to get back to work so I don’t feel guilty about taking the afternoon off.” She pointed at me. “Remember what I said about those pictures.”

  “I’ll guard them with my life.”

  Looking over her shoulder, she said, “I’ll hold you to that, Darcy Merriweather.”

  She would too. I had no doubt.

  As I turned back around to Cherise, I caught sight of Glinda sitting on a bench across the street, a book in hand.

  It looked natural, except for one thing.

  The book was upside down.

  I’d halfheartedly accused her of following me this morning, but now I was starting to wonder if it was true.

  Cherise and I crossed the street and headed for the westerly neighborhoods. After we’d walked for a while, I glanced behind me.

  Glinda was a short distance back, and when she saw me, she suddenly stopped to fuss with her shoe.

  Ridiculous.

  Cherise was a fast walker, and at the rate we were going we would arrive at the appointment a good fifteen minutes early, especially taking side-street shortcuts. Trees shaded the sidewalk, yards sparkled with color from flowers opening up to the sun.

  We’d just turned onto Augury Circle when Cherise said, “Well, isn’t that interesting?”

  “What?” I asked, squinting.

  Then I saw what she was looking at, and I gasped.

  Andreus (wearing a nose splint—oh, the guilt), had tenderly kissed Calliope’s cheek and was now giving her a bear hug. Finn stood right next to them, so it obviously wasn’t a romantic interest Andreus had taken in her. But it was certainly more than professional.

  My mind spun as I grabbed Cherise’s arm. “Come on.”

  “I knew I should have worn my leather jumpsuit today,” she said as she fast-walked next to me.

  By the time we reached the driveway, Andreus was still hugging Calliope.

  I marched up the walkway.

  Finn was the first to see me, and his eyes widened. He nudged Calliope.

  “Ahem!” I said.

  Calliope jumped back from Andreus and a guilty flush climbed her throat.

  Andreus’s mouth dropped open for the briefest of moments before he snapped it closed again. He straightened his tie. “Ms. Merriweather.”

  “What is this?” I asked, pointing between the two of them. “What’s going on?”

  Calliope told me she barely knew him, but that had obviously been a lie.

  Neither said a word. I looked past them. “Finn?”

  He pressed his lips together and vehemently shook his head.

  Oh, now he decided to clam up.

  Andreus came down the step. “I do believe our business is none of your concern.”

  Cherise leaned in and whispered, “Do you want me to hit him? Give him a black eye to go with the nose you broke?”

  Calliope charged down the steps, eyes flashing. “You did that?”

  “Callie,” Andreus said, “let it be.”

  Callie?

  “Let it be?” Calliope said, outrage tingeing her words. “You just spent the last three hours at the hospital because of her. How can I let that be?”

  “Because I said so,” he said with a stubborn tilt to his head

  Suddenly, their arguing reminded me very much of Godfrey and Pepe.

  Folding her arms across her chest, she faced him head-on. “You’re not the boss of me. If I want to stick up for you, I will.”

  “I—” I was trying to get in that he’d been in a dark hallway and that I was completely justified in hitting him, but I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

  “Do not be dramatic,” he said.

  “Uh-oh,” I whispered.

  Cherise gasped.

  Calliope shoved him.

  Stumbling, Andreus reached out for balance, grabbing my arm. The folder with the photos went flying, raining them across the yard.

  I sucked in a breath. Starla was going to kill me if anything happened to those pictures. “Quick! Before they’re ruined by the wet grass!”

  There must have been something in my tone, because they all jumped into action, even Andreus. But as soon as he picked up the first picture, he froze in place.

  It was the funeral shot. I wanted to snatch it from his hand, but the look on his face stopped me cold. It was a lot like the look of his thirteen-year-old self in the photo.

  “What are these?” Calliope asked as she stooped and grabbed another photo. “Oh my God, is this Sebastian?” Her head came up, her eyes narrowing on me. “Why do you have a picture of Sebastian?”

  “How do you know Sebastian?” Cherise countered.

  Yeah! Cherise was proving to be a valuable sidekick.

  Calliope didn’t answer and Andreus still stared at the funeral shot. I finally did take it away from him, angry for putting myself in this position of having to explain why I had the picture to begin with.

  This never would have happened if they hadn’t been squabbling like sib—

  My head snapped up and I looked between the two of them. The answer had been right in front of me all along. In the slightly downturned shape of their eyes. “No. No, no, no.”

  “What?” Cherise asked.

  “They’re brother and sister,” I said, my heart pounding.

  Cherise’s eyes flew open. “Siblings?!”

  Finn looked deeply disturbed as he handed a stack of pictures back to me. He went immediately to Calliope’s side, putting his arm around her. “Half siblings. Same mom.”

  They both shot him a look.

  They even had the same look of disdain. Why hadn’t I seen it before now?

  Finn pressed his lips together again.

  My brain whirled with pieces of information I’d collected over the past few days, and one thing now made perfect sense. I said to Calliope, “You gave Raina the Myrian charm, didn’t you?”

  I’d noticed in the photo on her mantel that her mother must have had her late in life. No doubt, Calliope had been conceived via the magic in that charm as well. But why hadn’t Zara’s death certificate listed a husband or daughter?

  Unless someone purposely left it blank. Not wanting the link. But why the secrecy? The village would have embraced Calliope as one of their own.

  “Perhaps we should take this indoors?” Andreus suggested.

  Uh-uh. No way. Out here in the sunshine was perfectly fine. “No, thanks.”

  He sighed heavily.

  The truth smacked me upside the head. Calliope was a Crafter. A Charmcrafter, just like her mother, Zara. Raina had to have known that Calliope was a witch—it was the only explanation as to why she would beli
eve the charm would work.

  I wanted to ask Calliope point-blank, but I still didn’t know about Finn. He was staring at his feet and rocking on his heels. Was he a mortal? Or a Crafter? Without knowing for certain, I couldn’t talk openly about the Craft.

  Calliope drew in a deep breath. “Well, I’m done here,” she said, spinning on her heel. She marched up the steps and slammed the door behind her.

  Cherise looked at me. “I guess that means we’re not going to look at the Maypole house after all.”

  Finn raced after his fiancée. “Wait up, Calliope!”

  I glanced around to see if Glinda was watching all this, but if she was, she was well-hidden.

  Andreus shook his head. “She considered Raina a friend, and is grieving her loss.”

  Hmm. She hadn’t seemed that upset this morning when she slapped that SOLD sign up at the Tavistock house . . . but then I recalled the bags under her eyes. Perhaps she was just good at hiding her feelings.

  Pretending.

  That was obviously true if she’d been hiding her Craft from the village for close to two years. “Walk with me, Ms. Merriweather?” Andreus suggested. He glanced at Cherise. “Alone?”

  I looked between the two of them.

  “Go, go,” Cherise said, taking the file of pictures out of my hand. “I’ll just sit here on the steps and make faces at Glinda. She’s hiding behind a bush across the street.”

  Andreus and I turned at the same time. Sure enough, Glinda was there, ducking as we pivoted.

  Andreus shook his head and murmured something under his breath I couldn’t quite hear.

  “A quick walk,” I said to him. “And we stay in the sun.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  As we started down the sidewalk toward the Enchanted Trail, a paved path that wound around the village, I glanced at him, at the splint on his nose and the bruises forming around it.

  “I am sorry about your nose. I thought you were an intruder.”

  “I understand.”

  “You were the last person I expected to find in my hallway at five in the morning.”

  His eyebrow went up. “I can imagine.”

  “Does it hurt much?”

  “Not since the kind doctor in the emergency room injected it with the most wonderful substance in the entire world.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at the cheerfulness in his voice. And I truly hated to cause him more pain, but I had to get some answers about this case. “I’m sorry to hear of your mother’s passing. Calliope said it was two years ago.”

  “That is kind of you. As you know, the loss of a mother is something from which one never truly recovers, no matter how old you are.”

  Yes, I did know. “Were you very close? I know she moved when you were in your teens.”

  He gave me a sidelong look but answered. “She had a difficult time seeing my father around the village with Eleta, so she opted to move. She set up a lovely little gift shop in Plymouth and picked up the pieces of her life the best she could. It took fifteen years or so, but she finally found love again.”

  “Calliope’s father?”

  “Yes. John Harcourt was a good man. Patient. Especially when my mother refused to marry him—she had sworn off marriage forever after the divorce from my father. She gave up her powers to tell him of the Craft but fortunately for her, the Myrian charm still held its magic. After Calliope was born, they were all quite happy together until he died of a heart attack when Calliope was in middle school. It’s when Calliope and I truly bonded. We both knew what it was like to lose a father at that age. I stepped into the role, which was easy enough to do. She’s not that much younger than Lazarus.”

  I glanced over my shoulder, at Calliope’s house. “It was Calliope who gave the Myrian to Raina, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. Calliope was kindhearted enough to lend the charm to Raina after learning of her fertility issues and desperation to save her marriage. Unfortunately, the charm did not work its usual magic.”

  “That’s because Kent had a vasectomy six months ago.”

  Andreus stopped short. “He did what?”

  “Snip, snip.” I eyed him. “By your reaction I’m guessing Raina never knew the truth.”

  “No,” he said stonily. “She did not. How could he d—” Shaking his head, he cut himself off. “I shall never understand the workings of a mortal mind.”

  “Archie deemed him a cretin.”

  “I very much like that bird.”

  I wasn’t sure he’d be thrilled to know it. We started walking again. “Is Finn a mortal?”

  “Alas, yes.” He shook his head and looked back toward the house. “Such unions never end well, and I fear Calliope is in for more heartache.”

  I recalled what Cherise had said yesterday. Love is not only blind, Darcy, but deaf and dumb as well. “How did you explain away your arrest after breaking into the Tavistock house?”

  He smiled his charming smile. “That I was just another curious treasure hunter. Finn already thinks I’m a little odd for dabbling in rocks for a living.”

  “Rocks?” I questioned, smiling.

  “And a few other things,” he said nonchalantly.

  Like valuable crystals and gemstones. Mostly opals. All magical. “He must know your link to the heist.”

  “He does, but he’s unaware that I know for certain that the diamonds are in that house. He believes they’re long gone, sold off part and parcel on the black market.”

  We both knew that wasn’t true. “Did you find them the night you broke in?”

  “No. They are still in there. Somewhere.”

  “How many times have you broken into the house since Eleta died and the spell on the house was broken?”

  “A dozen at least, not to mention all the times Calliope allowed me in under the guise of showing the house. I was sloppy the night Nick caught me, in a rush since Calliope had told me of a bid on the house that I could not match. I feared a treasure hunter would come across the diamonds and have no knowledge of their true worth,” he said, his voice light, amused.

  I ducked out of the way of a low tree branch. His tone baffled me. “You’re no longer fearful of that happening?”

  “Calliope met the buyer this morning at the closing on the property and shared with me who it was. My fears have been allayed, as it was not a treasure hunter at all.”

  “Who was it?” I asked. He was speaking as though he knew the person.

  “Uh-uh,” he chastised. “It’s the nature of secrets, Ms. Merriweather.”

  “Not this again.” A jogger passed us on the path. “It’ll be a matter of public record soon. . . .”

  “Until then, my lips are sealed.”

  Of course they were. “Did you try to break in again last night?” There had been two burglars, after all. We knew Scott was one, but we didn’t know the other.

  “I didn’t dare,” he said. “I heard it was quite the eventful night at the Tavistock house.”

  “You could say that.” We continued to walk for a bit. Then I said, “Why didn’t Calliope tell anyone that she’s your sister?”

  “Would you?” he asked, an eyebrow arched.

  “Point taken.” He wasn’t exactly beloved around here.

  “She wanted villagers to get to know her before the family connection was revealed. Form their own judgments of her first.”

  I kept thinking about what Glinda said about the Myrian. “Whoever was trying to frame you knew that the amulet Raina was wearing was connected to you. The only way that was possible is that the person knew Calliope was your sister. Who knows you’re related?”

  “Finn, of course. Dorothy, Glinda, and Sylar, though he doesn’t know of the Craft connection. Dorothy took Calliope under her wing when she first moved here. Helped her find a place to live, found her a job . . . One,
unfortunately, that didn’t turn out so well.”

  “Can you blame Calliope for quitting? Dorothy is . . .”

  “Careful now,” he warned.

  “. . . vexing.”

  “She has her moments,” he said with a smile, clasping his hands behind his back.

  “Does anyone else know?” I asked.

  “When Calliope offered the Myrian to Raina, she confided the truth to Raina about her Craft and her connection to me. It is possible that Raina did not keep the confidence. Perhaps she told Kent, as spouses often share secrets. Not about the Craft, of course, but that Calliope was my sister.”

  If so, it was possible he’d told Noelle. Because lovers often shared secrets as well.

  I wasn’t quite back to square one, but it was close.

  “How does Calliope feel about the diamonds?” I asked. “She’s made it seem as though she doesn’t believe they are in the house. Was that an act for my benefit?”

  “A complete act. She thought if you knew the truth about her being my sister and a Crafter that you would add her to your suspect list. She knew Raina’s movements that morning. Knew the lockbox code. Knew the diamonds were in that house. Knew how badly I wanted them.”

  Ha. Little did she know, she was already on my list because I thought she’d been having an affair with Kent. After learning that he’d hooked up with Noelle, I hadn’t thought much about Calliope being involved in Raina’s death.

  But now that Andreus mentioned it . . . “Where was Calliope during the time frame when Raina was killed?”

  He stopped, looked at me full-on. “Calliope did not kill Raina.”

  I was beyond grateful that it was a sunny day. “I didn’t say she did.”

  “You implied it.”

  “I was trying to rule her out,” I lied. “So, where was she?”

  His dark gaze narrowed. “At the office, I assume.”

  He assumed. If she was there, she would have been there alone. Kent was out with clients and Raina was with Scott, then at the Tavistock house. Could anyone vouch for her? Phone records, e-mails, anything? It was something to look into. “You never said how she feels about the diamonds. Does she have zero interest in them?”

  “I do not like the direction of this conversation.”