The far wall of the café had a large mirror on display, and through it I could see both women, sitting there with their mouths hanging wide open. I smiled to myself. I was definitely going to enjoy this sandwich even more than usual.
Sticking it in my bag, I went back out into the street, and decided to take a small alleyway shortcut I’d found the other day. It was essentially a service entrance for a row of shops, but it allowed me to cut out a small bend and take at least fifteen seconds off my total commute time between the bookstore and the café.
Ok, so it wasn’t the biggest shortcut ever. But it was peaceful, and got me away from the crowds. I was making my way down the alleyway when suddenly, a chill came over me once more; the same kind of chill I’d felt when I was in the park in Portland.
This wasn’t good.
My instinct was to panic and flee. Maybe I could run to Cat’s Cupcake shop. After all, Cat was a witch. Being near her would make the Others less likely to attack me, right?
But at the same time, I wasn’t sure this was anything. What if it wasn’t the Others at all, and I was panicking about nothing? I didn’t want to be that witch, the magical equivalent of a hypochondriac. I had to be sure.
Remembering my lesson with Grandma Cee, I closed my eyes and focused my energy on, well, sensing energy. And to my surprise, I felt some! It was about fifteen feet away, blocking the exit to the alley I was in. I supposed whoever it was–whatever it was–was expecting me to walk straight into them.
Well, I had other plans. I focused all of my energy on willing whatever it was to appear, to show themselves. However, I found that unlike with the inanimate objects I’d practiced on, whatever was standing there was actually fighting back. I could feel the energies between us going back and forth as the battle of the wills–or the magic–continued.
Slowly, however, I felt my magic taking the upper hand. The energy releasing from me increased, and I could feel it extending out toward whatever was out there.
Finally, whatever it was let out a blood-curling scream as my magic took over. In front of me appeared a woman dressed in black robes. Her face was covered; I could only make out her gender from the feminine form under the robes, and the long, black hair that cascaded in front of her. Suddenly, she was enveloped in a large pile of smoke.
I quickly used more magic to make the smoke disappear, but when I did, I realized the woman had disappeared as well. I’d gotten such a small look at her, I wondered for a minute if what I’d seen was even real.
Deep down, I knew it was. And I also knew what that woman was. She was one of the Others. She just had to be, it was the only thing that made sense. Grandma Cee had been right. They did exist, and they were coming for us.
I rushed back to the bookshop, my sandwich forgotten. I had to tell Cat about this right away. I had to tell Grandma Cee. The Others were really here, and I didn’t know what this woman was trying to do, but whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.
Two minutes later I was rushing through the front door of the bookshop, getting ready to pull out my phone and text my cousin. But instead, I stopped. I wasn’t alone in the store. But this time, it wasn’t one of The Others that had come for me.
It was my Aunt Francine.
Seventeen
“Ah, hello, you must be Alice,” Francine said jovially. She was sitting–err, well, floating–on one of the new chairs I’d gotten for the bookshop. I recognized her from a few photos I’d seen. Interestingly, Francine looked almost exactly like me, if I was twenty years older and a hundred pounds heavier. Her slightly translucent figure was the only thing that gave away that she was a ghost, and not a living, breathing human being.
“Aunt Francine?” I replied questioningly.
“Well yes, that’s me. But you’re so pale. You look like you’ve seen a ghost! Well, I suppose that does make sense, doesn’t it?” she asked.
“No, it’s not that,” I replied. “You’re not the first ghost I’ve seen. Archibald should be around somewhere.”
“Ah, yes, Archie was showing me the ins and outs of being a ghost. I can’t wait until I get to haunt people!”
“And here I thought that awful shortening of my Christian name had died along with you,” Archibald said suddenly, appearing out of nowhere.
“You know Cat uses it as well,” Francine said with a smile. “Embrace it, dear. It’s a term of endearment.”
“I will not,” Archibald muttered. “I don’t need to take this,” he continued, and disappeared. Francine laughed.
“I see he hasn’t changed in the… how long has it been since I died?” she asked.
“Just about three weeks,” I replied. “But how are you here? Some people think you died of cancer. Grandma Cee thinks your soul got taken by the Others. If that’s true does that mean my mom’s a ghost somewhere too?”
Francine looked at me sadly. “Unfortunately, no. I’m sorry. The Others did get to your mother, so there is no chance she’s a ghost.”
“So it was cancer then? Everyone calling Grandma Cee crazy is right?”
Francine grinned. “Why am I not surprised? But no, it wasn’t the cancer that took me either. Come, sit down and I’ll tell you everything that’s happened. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to speak to a human being.”
“What’s been happening for the past three weeks? What happens between death, and when you become a ghost?”
“To be honest, I don’t really know. I remember feeling angry as I was dying, and I swore I’d return, and then I died, and the next thing I knew I was back here. But things had changed in here so much I knew some time had passed, I just wasn’t sure how much. I’m glad to hear it’s only been three weeks.”
I sat down on one of the chairs across from Francine–I would have liked the beanbag but Muffin had claimed it as his own and was happily snoring away on it–as she told me her story.
“I did have cancer. That part was all true. Unfortunately, having magical powers doesn’t make us immune from the curses the natural world has created. I had skin cancer. The curse of our family’s fair skin and red hair.” She smiled. “But the cancer didn’t kill me. The cancer, and the chemotherapy, however, did weaken me enough to make me a target for the Others.
“I knew they were coming. I could feel them.”
“It feels really cold when they’re around all of a sudden, right?” I asked. Francine nodded grimly.
“You’ve felt them, then?”
“Yes. Once in Portland, a few days ago. Then just now, in the alley.”
“It was good that you’ve come back to Sapphire Village, then. If you’d stayed in Miami you would have been a sitting duck. I assume you’ve told Grandma Cee?”
I shook my head. “No, not yet. I didn’t really think anything of the time in Portland, and the other one just happened about five minutes ago. I was going to, I just got home and you were here.”
“Ah, fair enough. By the way, you can eat the sandwich that’s in your bag, if you’d like. Sadly, food is no longer a pleasure I get to enjoy, but I wouldn’t want to deny you the pleasure.”
“Oh, yeah,” I replied, having completely forgotten about the sandwich. “How did you know it was there?”
“I could smell it. I think my senses have been heightened. It certainly feels that way.”
I nodded while I took the sandwich out of the bag. It was still nice and warm, and I dug in while I listened to Francine continue her story.
“They came without warning, one night. Cat and Peaches were at Brixton Road, which meant that I was without any protection from their magic. I was attacked by seven of them. Three, maybe even four I could have taken on myself. But seven? No, that was too many. I was in my apartment at the time, and I knew that I was too weak to make it down to Brixton Road. The Others were going to kill me, and worse, they were going to take my soul. I knew I couldn’t let that happen. I knew that I was defeated then, but there was one thing I could do to help fight them in the future.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“I had to make sure they didn’t take my soul. So, in a last-ditch effort, I grabbed the chemotherapy drugs that I had kept at home–a few times I did the treatments here and had a nurse come in to supervise–and injected them directly into me. I was able to hold off the Others until my body died, and since I died with nothing in my heart except the desire to come back and get revenge on the Others, it seems I got sent back here as a ghost. At least until my vendetta is settled.”
Wow. So my aunt had committed suicide rather than have her soul taken by the Others. “But what can you do?” I asked. “As a ghost, I mean. Like, no offense, but Archibald needs me to turn his audiobooks on when he wants to listen to Agatha Christie.”
“Oooh, you actually got him to listen to Agatha Christie? What did he think?”
“He loves them. In fact, he just came back from a trip to England to see if he could find her so the two of them could write some books together or something.”
“Wow,” Francine said, looking at me admiringly. “You’ve done quick work. I never managed to convince him to read anything written after he died. As for what I can do, well, to be quite honest, I’m not totally sure. For one thing, I thought I could come back and warn the rest of you. I wasn’t sure if anyone would be able to figure out what really happened to me.”
“Grandma Cee did,” I replied. “Although, she is the only one.”
“Great. She’s going to gloat like crazy when I show up and tell everyone that she was right.”
I had to laugh. “Yeah, she will. All your brothers and sisters have taken great pains to tell me that they don’t really believe the Others are coming back right now. Although, maybe a part of them still thought it might happen, since it wasn’t long after you died that they called mom and convinced her that I had to come and live with the family.”
“And thank goodness they did that,” Francine said. I nodded.
“I agree. If it wasn’t for the fact that I knew I was a witch there was nothing I would have been able to do against the Other that came after me today.”
“All right. First things first, text Cat and Peaches. They both need to come here as soon as possible, and then we’re all going to Brixton Road. The Others are here, and if one of them has already tried to attack you, then we need to nip this in the bud as soon as possible.”
* * *
An hour later we were all sitting in the dining room at Brixton Road. Francine had come with us; it appeared even ghosts were able to travel through the portal.
“I told you all,” Grandma Cee started after Francince told everyone else her story–Cat, Peaches, Sage and my other Aunt Jasmine and my Uncle Vulcan. “I told all of you it was the Others, but no, you wrote me off as being a crazy old lady, and now Francine has confirmed it and Alice has been attacked.”
“Yes, yes, you’re the greatest, mother,” Jasmine said, rolling her eyes. “Now, why don’t we stop gloating and try focusing on finding a solution?”
“Why did they come after me?” I asked. “Is it because they think I’m weaker?”
“In a way,” Grandma Cee replied. I had to admit, ever since Francine came back as a ghost and confirmed everything Grandma Cee had been saying, I was a lot less inclined to think of her as being an old kook, and looked at her with a lot more respect. “But it’s also because you’re stronger. The reason the Others came after your mother was because she was such a powerful witch. There must have been a lot of them that night to overtake her. And while you don’t have the same experience with being a witch that everyone else in this room has, you are still your mother’s daughter. It has been obvious from the get-go that inside of you lies an innate, powerful magic.”
“I almost died when I got on a broom, though.”
“True, but you also managed to make one of the Others appear on your first try, after only a couple of hours’ practice on inanimate objects that I had made invisible and weren’t fighting back.”
“Plus, you’re already way better at everything except broom flying than Cat and me,” Peaches piped up.
“She’s right. I mean, Peaches is totally hopeless but I’m not that bad, and you’re already better than me,” Cat replied, earning herself a punch on the arm from Peaches. “Ow!”
I supposed they were right. “Great. So they’re targeting me because I’m both weak and strong.”
“Exactly,” Grandma Cee said. “Ideally you should remain in Brixton Road for the foreseeable future. They will come after you again, but they are not able to pass through the portals.”
“No way,” I replied, shaking my head vehemently. “Moving from Miami to the middle of nowhere, Oregon was already enough of a culture shock. I’m not moving again to weird magic land. Especially since we have no idea how long I’d have to stay here for. After all, the Others killed my mom, and that was almost thirty years ago.”
“Alice is right,” Sage said. “It’s not fair to her. We have to figure out how to stop the Others, but we have to keep Alice safe in the human world at the same time.”
“Why can’t they go after someone else?” Cat muttered. “It’s like they always go after our family.”
“It’s because we’re the most powerful,” Grandma Cee replied. “Also, when I was young, the leader of the Others attempted to attack my sister. I stopped them, but they took it rather personally.”
Cat groaned. “Of course you’d be the reason they hate us.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Grandma Cee replied. “I wasn’t going to let them just take your Great-Aunt Penelope.”
“Ok, we’re getting off track, here. Whatever the reason, the Others are back, and they’re going to come after Alice again. For now, Peaches, I want you to stay with Alice. There’s a guest room in the apartment above the bookshop, you can stay there. That way, there will always be two of you together,” Sage said.
“Sure,” Peaches replied.
“Are you sure that won’t put you out or anything?” I asked.
“Relax,” Peaches said, waving away my worries. “I’ll bring my painting stuff and keep it in the guest room. It won’t be an issue.”
“Good. So we’re settled. Francine, stay behind. The rest of you, go home. Cat, Peaches and Alice, I want you here after work every night from now on so you can learn how to defend yourselves against the Others. It seems my lessons could not have come soon enough.
The three of us having been dismissed, we made our way back to Sapphire Village.
Eighteen
“Are you sure you’re going to be ok?” I asked Cat when we were back in the bookshop, who nodded.
“Yes. The Others haven’t come after me at all. They generally focus on one person at a time. So right now, that person is you.”
“Great,” I muttered.
“What I’m wondering is why they’re coming after so many of us now,” Francine said as she floated next to us. “The last time the Others came they came for Jennie, and then they left us alone for almost thirty years. I would have thought that after they took me that would be it.”
Peaches shrugged. “Who knows? Whatever the reason, I want them out of our lives. They’ve done enough damage to this family.”
“Agreed,” Cat said firmly. She left to go back to her store, and Peaches told me she was going to her apartment to grab her art supplies and be back soon. I found myself in the middle of the bookstore with Francine. Not knowing what to do, I made my way back to the computer and began looking through the Sapphire Adventure Tours files.
It seemed that the conversation between Felicia and Denise had bothered me more than it should. The murder investigation should have been the last thing on my mind, but I knew that no matter how mean-spirited they were, at the same time, they were right. If the murder wasn’t solved, everyone would continue to think of me as the woman who was involved in the only two murders that had happened in Sapphire Village in recent memory. I couldn’t let that happen; I couldn’t become an outcast in town before I even be
came a part of the community.
I must have sighed loudly or something because Francine floated over.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “You look stressed.”
“I am stressed,” I replied. “I’m worried that if the murder of Brian Armitage isn’t solved, and it’s not definitely proven that I had nothing to do with it, that I’m never going to be accepted here in Sapphire Village.”
“Brian Armitage was murdered?” Francine asked.
“Oops, sorry, I forgot you wouldn’t know about that. Yeah, he’s dead. And Edith Chalmers as well. She was killed a few weeks ago; Cat and I found her body. That’s one of the reasons why I’m stressed.”
I told Aunt Francine everything that had happened with the two murders over the last few weeks. She listened without saying anything until I was finally finished, then let out a low whistle.
“Wow, I go ahead and die and suddenly everyone in town drops dead. Maybe I was the one keeping it all together,” she joked.
“Maybe. But now I’ve been around when both murders have happened, and I already overheard Denise and Felicia talking about how weird it is. If they don’t find out who killed Brian Armitage for certain, well, there’s always going to be that idea out there that I was involved somehow, that it was my fault.”
“I can see your point,” Francine nodded. “But you’re not sure whether or not it was Isabella or Carl who did it.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, all I can say is that it might not be either one of them. I have no idea who killed them though, sorry.”
I smiled. “Thanks, Aunt Francine.” Just then, Peaches came back into the apartment and I ran over to help her with the million things she was carrying.
Murder on the Oregon Express Page 10