by Amy Boyles
I nodded. “If it were up to Pearbottom, he’d arrest all of us. Wait. What did you say? Did you mention something about a spell on me?”
Grandma sighed. “Yes, my dear. You’ve officially been spelled.”
I scratched the spot on my arm. The skin itched. A red ring had formed along the rim. “You mean this thing?”
Milly nodded. “Talk about a brainiac. Well, they really broke the brilliant mold when they made you, didn’t they?”
I scoffed. “And they broke the nice mold when they made you.” I grimaced. “Did I say that out loud?”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” Reid said to Grandma. “Dylan’s lost her filter…if she ever had one.”
“Excuse me,” I said. “I have more of a filter than you’ll ever have.”
Sera tugged an eyelash. “You didn’t need to lose your filter in order to have that conversation.”
Milly snorted. “Anyway, you guessed it, toots. It appears the Queen Witch of the North spelled Dylan so that she says whatever she thinks.”
I toed off my shoes and plopped onto an overstuffed chair. “What’s the point of that?”
“Haven’t you guessed?” Grandma said.
“No.”
She clasped her hands behind her back and returned to furiously pacing. “To get you in trouble or keep you in trouble. Helga wants you out of the picture, or nowhere in the picture to begin with. Heck, she might even try burning you out of the negative.” She stopped. “Do they even make negatives anymore?”
I shook my head. “No. Obsolete.” I sank my head onto the rest. “So we need a way to work around my mouth and still figure out who killed Angelique.”
Sera tapped her cheek. “It’s like Grandma said-maybe we can use this to our advantage.”
My gaze shifted from Grandma to her. “What do y’all mean?”
“She means,” Reid shot out, “that if you’re going to be speaking what’s on your mind, I wonder if you could stir up trouble to our benefit.”
Milly cackled. “More trouble than a witch without a filter? This sounds interesting.”
I shook my head. “How is that going to help us? Seems like I would just manage to get myself into more trouble. Or worse, make things bad for Roman.”
Grandma wiggled her fingers. “Hmm. How could we use this?”
I peeled off my socks. “Wow. My feet really stink.”
“Thank you,” Sera said. She snapped her fingers. “Maybe that’s it. If your brain doesn’t have a filter, do your actions as well?”
I frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean?”
Sera nibbled her bottom lip. “Can we use this spell on the rest of the castle? If one person can receive the mark, can we spell others so that their filters are turned off?”
Grandma slapped her hands together. “And therefore we catch a killer.”
Reid frowned. “I don’t follow.”
I rubbed my forehead. “They mean they’ll get the guilty party to confess. The murderer won’t have a choice because his or her filter is gone. They’ll blurt out that they murdered Angelique because they’ve been spelled.”
“It won’t work,” Milly said. “First of all, the noise level of all those people talking would be too loud. We’d never hear it when the murderer confessed. Secondly, that sort of spell is too large for us to take on. You’d need more witches than just us.”
I frowned. “You would? Bummer. Hmm. In the meantime, is there anything I can do about my problem? I can’t just go around saying whatever I think.”
Grandma flexed her fingers. “There is one person who may be able to help us.”
I quirked my brow at that. “Yes? I’m all ears.”
Grandma threw one side of her scarf over her neck. “The castle doctor. He may have something that’ll lessen the effects of such a spell. After all, the amount of magic he has to deal with is unimaginable.”
I smacked my lips. “Castle doctor?”
Grandma nodded. “Yep.”
“Is his name Dr. Love?” I said. “You don’t have to look at me as if I have two heads. It’s a simple question.”
“No,” Grandma said. “It’s Dr. Spell.”
I clicked my tongue. “See? I wasn’t too far off.”
Reid shook her head. “Get her out of here, will you? Dylan needs a miracle or else we’ll all be stuck listening to her scary inner thoughts for the rest of our lives.”
“Well, at least my inner thoughts make sense.” I clamped a hand over my mouth before I added, “Unlike Grandma’s.”
Milly yanked me by the arm. “Come with me, toots. We’ll let them work on the decoding thing you’ve got going on.”
I followed her to the other side of the castle. It was the first time I’d noticed the wing that appeared to be the business side of the inner workings of the establishment. Let’s face it, when I’d been queen for a short period of time, the last thing I cared about was actually doing anything queenly. All I wanted was to get out.
Milly knocked on a door. It opened. There stood a man wearing a white lab coat. He had a stethoscope cradling his neck and a head mirror attached to a leather strap buckled around his head.
“What kind of quack is this?” I said.
The doctor chuckled. His thinning white hair ran like a band from ear to ear. His crystal-clear blue eyes regarded me with interest.
“You’re looking at me like I’m crazy,” I said. There was that, too.
He glanced at Milly. “I see she’s under a non-filter spell.”
Milly nodded. “Dr. Spell, see what you can do for her. I’m afraid the future of this investigation depends on it.”
Dr. Spell turned to me. “Sit on the table, please.”
I hiked up onto the examination table and didn’t move while he pressed his cold fingers into my face and turned me this way and that.
He pulled the mirror down to cover his eye and examined my ear. “This is a good spell, here. I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to do. Who worked it?”
“Queen Witch of the North. And boy, she’s horrible. If you can avoid her, I recommend you do so.”
He nodded. “She really got you good.”
“So there’s nothing you can do?” Milly said.
Dr. Spell stepped back. He flipped the mirror up and blinked. “Not really. I think this one is going to have to work its way through your system. It’ll probably be gone in a day, day and a half. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
I shrugged. “Okay. I’m not too worried. But did you want to look at the actual spell itself? You know, and not just my ears, where none of the magic was worked?”
“Please excuse my granddaughter,” Milly said.
Dr. Spell shrugged. “When you’ve seen as many non-filter spells as I have, one more isn’t going to faze me. Yes, show me the spell.”
I pushed up my sleeve and showed him my arm. “Right there. It’s horrible.”
Dr. Spell turned my arm over. He whistled low.
“What is it? Impressive, right? I knew if I showed it to you, you’d be seriously amazed.”
Milly shook her head. “I don’t think that’s what his reaction meant.”
Dr. Spell’s lips tightened. His gaze narrowed. “You said you got that from Queen Witch of the North?”
I nodded. “Yep. Her horribleness herself. Why?”
“Because I saw someone else recently with this mark.”
Milly thumbed her nose. “Oh? Who would that be?”
Dr. Spell’s jaw clenched when he said, “Angelique Kiln.”
CHAPTER 14
“ Angelique had this mark?” I said. “Where did you see it?”
His fingers tapped the area above the disc on my arm. “Near the same place.”
“And it was the same color?” Milly said.
Dr. Spell nodded. “Almost identical. I tell you, in my years here I’ve seen many, many strange things, but witnessing this mark twice in a short amount of time has got to be more than coincidence.”
&
nbsp; My gaze slid over to Milly. She thumbed her nose. “I’ll say,” I said. I hopped from the table. “So you think I’ll be good to go in a day or two?”
The doctor nodded. “Should wear off soon. Just be careful who you’re around until then. Magic like this has a way of getting folks into trouble.”
I nodded. “As everyone keeps telling me. Thanks for the advice.” I glanced at Milly. “You ready to go?”
She nodded. “Let’s stroll.”
“Or in your case, let’s walk really slowly,” I said, cringing immediately. “Sorry.”
She wiggled her cane at me. “It’s not like I have much choice.”
“I said I was sorry. It’s this stupid curse.”
We left the doctor’s office and headed back the way we had come. “Hmm. So Helga dePlume got her hands on Angelique before her murder.”
Milly shuffled forward. “So it appears.”
I slid my hands into my back pockets. “Do you think she knew who she was?”
Milly shrugged. “We could ask her.”
I rolled my eyes. “Right. Because I’m sure Helga is going to tell us the truth. No way. She won’t tell us thing. But she did interact with her. But why? Too bad we can’t do a truth serum spell on her and find out.”
“We both know the kind of trouble you got into last time you worked that spell,” Milly said.
Truth serum spells were a tricky bunch. The magic existed to get someone to tell the truth, but using the power on another witch was illegal, yet only if the witch being magicked invoked the old law that made it illegal.
I know, it doesn’t make sense. Welcome to the world of witches, where very little makes sense and most of it is simply a pain in the rear end.
“Maybe the best thing I need to do is tell Pearbottom so he can bring Helga in for questioning,” I said.
“Now there’s an idea. Tell the police and see what happens. If he’s going to build a case around her, he might as well have all the facts.”
“Yeah, because I certainly don’t know what to do with all of them. Or how to get Helga to talk to me, and to be honest, I don’t think I want to talk to her.”
Milly shrugged. “I can understand that. Why don’t we head over to Pearbottom and tell him what we know?”
“Sounds as good as anything.”
We plodded to the castle’s main entrance, where the police had set up shop in one of the rooms nearby.
I cornered Pearbottom in the hallway. “Have you talked to Helga dePlume?”
Pearbottom, nose deep in a stack of papers, barely glanced up at me when he said, “Why would I talk to her?”
I shoved my arm under his parrot nose. “Because a few hours ago she gave me this mark, and Dr. Spell says that Angelique Kiln had the same one on her arm.”
“Dr. Spell is an old man.”
“But he’s still a doctor. You let him examine the body. He says he saw this mark on it.”
Pearbottom made a sound in the back of his throat that was a half snarl, half clearing of phlegm.
“That’s horrible sounding,” I said.
“I agree with you there, toots,” Milly said.
I turned to Pearbottom. “Do you remember that from your reports? Please. If you could just go back and look. If Helga put this mark on her, why would she have done it?”
“Maybe the queen was trying to stop Angelique?”
I snorted. “Yeah, right. She’s a bad person. I doubt that. If anything, she’s guilty—of what, I don’t know. Anyway, you need to check into this, Pearbottom.”
He scowled as if I was bothering him.
“Don’t look at me like that. All I’m trying to do is free an innocent man.”
Pearbottom sighed. “Let me take a look at the report on the body.”
I did a little victory fist pump as I followed him into an office. Pearbottom riffled through a stack of papers until he found what he was looking for. “It seems there was a mark found on Angelique’s arm. Dr. Spell noted it.”
“But you haven’t followed up on it because you didn’t think it was important.”
Milly caned over to the desk. “I’d say this was worth looking into, Jonathan.”
He nodded. “Okay, I’ll talk to Helga.”
I clapped my hands with glee. “Can I come?”
“No.”
My face fell. “But you can use me—my arm—and show her. I can be your model for what she did.”
“I don’t need a model, thank you,” he said. “But I appreciate your help.” He stepped out from around the desk and whizzed past us. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got an interview to conduct.”
We left the office. “Maybe we should sit outside here and wait for him,” I said.
Milly shook her head. “Nah. There’s other trouble we can get into.”
I quirked a brow at her. “Other trouble? What do you mean?”
Milly started caning away from me. “Let’s go look at the balcony, the one she fell off of.”
I nearly had to scramble to keep up. “Why?”
She shrugged. “Because you never know what we might find up there.”
I frowned. “What could we possibly find that the police haven’t?”
Milly glared at me over her shoulder. “I don’t know. That’s why we’re going.”
I raised my hands defensively. “Okay. I’ll follow you. Lead the way.”
We slid past throngs of people who milled around. I wasn’t sure what they were doing besides waiting to be released by Pearbottom. Which reminded me—I didn’t understand why he seemed so ticked at me. I was only trying to help him solve a murder and go home, which was what everyone wanted.
Except me—I also wanted a wedding.
We stood outside the room where Angelique had fallen. Yellow police tape covered the entrance.
I extended a hand. “Surely this is magical somehow. I mean, there’s an entire castle full of witches.”
My fingers brushed the yellow tape. The ribbon rippled. In fact, the entire entrance rippled as if a sheet of water separated us from what lay inside.
“That’s cool,” I said. “But how do we get through it?”
Grandma placed a finger over one nostril. “Do this.”
I did.
She hooked her cane over her arm, grasped me with her free hand and—we were sucked from one side to the other.
I teetered on my feet. “Why do I feel like I was just inhaled through a straw and then blown out?”
Milly shrugged. “Might’ve been what happened.”
I cradled my head in my hands. “Ugh. That was horrible. Let’s not do that again.”
Milly lowered her cane to the floor and walked around.
“What are you looking for?”
The tip of the cane smacked against the floor as if in time to some music that only Milly could hear. “I’m looking for what isn’t here.”
I cocked my head. “I don’t understand.”
Milly slowly turned to look at me. “Sometimes in places, things are hidden. Especially in a place like Castle Witch… When Angelique first appeared as Sheila, all she had with her was her coat.”
“Right,” I said.
“Why? And she said she awoke in Fairyland. Clearly Angelique didn’t know much about Sheila, or else she wouldn’t have said a magical realm. She would’ve said Seattle or something. But all she had were the clothes on her back.”
“And she never got a room here at the castle,” I said. “She died too quickly after arriving.”
Milly poked the air. “Which means that if there was something important on her, she might have left it.”
I shook my head. “What sort of important thing?”
Milly’s mouth cracked into a smile. “I don’t know. Let’s find out.” She held her palm up. A shimmering silver wave of magic wafted from her hand and buoyed out into the room. The magic engulfed me. My clothes shivered in an invisible breeze, and my hair lifted.
I shuddered. “That was interestin
g.”
Milly walked around the room. “Now, see what wasn’t here a moment ago.”
I plodded around, sticking my nose this way and that. All the books in the library seemed to be in place. The cushions on the couches didn’t appear out of order either.
Then I noticed a bit of fabric peeking out from behind a chair. “What’s this?”
I knelt down. The cloth was a light periwinkle color, thin, with a drawstring. “Interesting,” I murmured. I wrapped my fingers around it and tugged. It budged, but not very far. It had been wedged up inside the bottom lining of the chair. I poked my fingers up into the cushion and opened the hole large enough that the bag slipped through.
It clinked onto the hard floor.
My gaze flickered to Milly, who caned over. A spark flared in her eyes. “Well, well, well, what do you have there?”
“Should I touch it?” I said.
“Of course you should touch it,” she snarled.
“What I mean is—what about fingerprints? I don’t want to contaminate it.”
Milly rolled her eyes. “Toots, in how many months of being a witch have fingerprints ever helped us solve a murder?”
I cocked my head. “Good point.”
I wedged open the sack. “Holy crap.”
Milly peered over my shoulder. “I’d say that’s worth killing for.”
“Or worth dying for,” I added.
I picked up the sack and turned it over so the contents spilled out. Heavy gold coins clanked to the floor. There must’ve been twenty of them. I picked one of them up and held it to the light. On one side, a skeletal tree was pressed into the shape. On the other was an image of a woman’s face. Wind blew strands of hair away from her face, and her lips were pressed to a hard, thin line.
“What is this?” I said. “I’ve never seen a coin like this.”
Milly shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “That’s because they’re not used that often.”
“But what is it?” I said.
“It’s an official witching world coin, used when an important witch wants to pay for something. Every region has them—North, South, East and West. They’re kept by the queen and paid out only for official purposes.”
“Okay, well, first thing we need to know is—why is this here? It could’ve been stashed by anyone and have nothing to do with Angelique Kiln.”