This Spells Trouble

by Stacey Alabaster

  But I had to keep calm and remember that this was not a cat I was talking to at all. This was MARK. A MAN. It just looked like a cat. But this was May’s missing husband. Of course, it was all so strange, but at the same time, it made so much sense to me now. It was going to be a very awkward phone call to make though when I rang my estranged client and said, “Hey, your husband is here, and I’ve been keeping him as a pet.”

  No wonder Indy grew so fast! And ate so much! I shook my head. Nah, no more trying to fool me. I had this ALL figured out.

  I was an amazing detective as well as an amazing witch. Maybe I could put that on my Instagram account.

  “I am not a human!” she said. Then pouted. If she could have crossed her arms, she would have. “Also, I am a girl!”

  “Oh, that hardly matters, does it, when you are a cat??” I thought the gender issue was a non-issue to be honest, even though it had crossed my mind during the drive back to the farm. But wow, Indy was deadly offended that I was calling her a human in a cat form.

  But of course, she/he would deny it, right? There must have been a reason that Mark—if this was Mark—was hiding out in my house. He didn’t want to get caught. Didn’t want to go back to May. And I couldn’t blame him if she really was a dark witch.

  “Okay, then tell me why you are so human-like?” I asked her, thinking I had her dead to rights there.

  “Because I am a witch’s cat,” she said, fluttering her little cat lashes at me. “I am YOUR cat. And this is a very rude accusation! Do you know how much of an insult it is to accuse a cat of being a human?”

  “Well…isn’t that just a huge insult to me as a human?” I asked, feeling very offended now myself. What was so wrong with being a human, and why was it so much better to be a cat?

  I mean, they did have more peaceful lives and they had less drama, and they were cleaner and sleeker and seemed to have everything figured out. Okay, maybe cats were better than humans.

  She turned her back and refused to talk to me any further.

  Yeah, of course now she chose to go quiet again. Always at the most inopportune of moments!

  But I’d been so thrilled. I’d been so sure that I was so right, so pleased with myself for this amazing realization I’d had. I mean, it had all seemed to make perfect sense. A missing man. A cat that shows up out of nowhere. May’s peculiar phrasing. And I just couldn’t quite let it go, even when Indy remained steadfast to the fact that she was just your regular old cat. Er, regular old magical cat. But not a human in cat form.

  I heard a knock.

  Oh my gosh, it was Akiro at the front door. “Indy, please be quiet while I answer this!” I called out as I took a deep breath and opened the door just a peek. I could not keep a talking cat from him. And I also did not trust myself to keep my thoughts from him. This just simply would not do!

  “What are you doing here?” I said, and then realized almost immediately how rude that must have sounded, especially when I was one of his few real friends in town.

  “I was worried about you,” he said.

  Oh, right. Akiro didn’t like coming up the mountain at all, so he only would have done it if he thought something was really wrong. So, it would be totally inconsiderate to just close the door on his face, wouldn’t it?

  “How is the little kitten?” he asked me.

  “She is doing really well,” I said quickly, still hiding behind the door. “She and I are getting along really well. She’s like my best friend, even though she is a cat and I’ve only known her a few days. I couldn’t live without her now.”

  Okay, maybe that was laying it on too thick. One thing I should have known with my own experience of reading other people’s thoughts was that often, the more they claimed something was true and the more over the top they went with it, the more they were trying to cover up for what they were really thinking and feeling.

  Akiro was attuned to what I was really feeling.

  “That’s not what you really think, Ruby.” He tried to peer inside, peek through the crack in the door. “What is really going on with the cat? I mean…she’s still alive, isn’t she?”

  I frowned. “Er, what are you accusing me of, exactly?”

  Do you know how much effort it took to NOT think about the conversation that Indy and I had just had about the fact that she may or may not have been Mark Sheridan? I had to start humming the tune to Cowgirl in the Sand in my head over and over just to try and block out my true thoughts. Akiro frowned. “What is that song? It sounds country and western.”

  “Well, it is sort of seventies alternative country,” I said and pushed him out the door a little before I gave away the fact that I was a witch and I had a talking cat and I maybe had some thought and feelings toward Akiro that were more than friendly. “I can loan you the record.”

  “Hmm, I’m more of an R&B fan.”

  I was about to tell him about the similarities that country and R&B actually shared when I heard Indy’s footsteps behind me. It was one thing for Akiro to have a slight brush with clairvoyance, but it was another matter altogether for him to discover that I was in fact the one who caused it because I was a witch.

  “Your hands are blue,” Akiro said, sounding worried as he tried to push in through the door. But behind me, Indy was speaking. “Is this the guy who you are always talking about…”

  “AHEM!” I said to her as Akiro looked shocked.

  “Do you have someone else in there?” he asked me.

  The only thing I could do—the best thing to do in that moment—was to lie.

  “Erm. Yes. A date.”

  I saw him blush a little as he took a step back. “Okay. I will leave you to it then,” he said quietly and then walked down the path.

  Oh, great. Just great. Not exactly what I wanted to happen! I really had to get this spell reversed. I needed help. Why wasn’t Vicky answering her phone? Or Geri, for that matter. It was like I was being frozen out of the coven, even by those who I thought were on my side.

  10

  “Ruby, don’t take your love to town!”

  I heard the voice calling out somewhere behind me while I plucked plums from the tree. High on the ladder that felt a little shaky underneath my feet, which was strange. I looked over my shoulder to see Vicky striding toward me in her gumboots with a wide grin. “Huh?”

  “It’s another song. Kenny Rogers does a version, though lots of people have covered it. I really like this version by The Killers…”

  “Oh, right. You’ll have to lend that one to me as well.”

  But I didn’t really have time to chat about music just then. I counted out the plums and wondered why they suddenly looked so small.

  I climbed down and shrieked a little when the bottom rung gave out and the plums tumbled to the ground. Vicky quickly put her bag down and hurried to help me pick them up. I felt a little bad that I had been avoiding her since I’d seen her with the Clover necklace as she placed all the plums carefully back in the basket and told me how delicious they looked.

  “Did you have any luck figuring out the reversal spell?” I asked her.

  “Which one?” Vicky asked, dusting off her hands.

  Er, good point.

  “Let’s start with the first one we screwed up,” I said, placing the basket down before I dropped it again. “So that I can at least get MY psychic powers back.”

  But Vicky was frowning, and she explained the problem to me. “But if I reverse that one first and give you your powers back, then when we reverse the OTHER one, you will lose them again. So, you see the pickle we are in?”

  I was starting to feel as ditzy and dizzy as Vicky was when she explained it.

  I sighed. I just wanted everything to go back to how it had been a week before. Was that so much to ask?

  “Isn’t there some kind of ‘turn back time’ spell?” I asked, mostly in jest as I picked up the basket again now that I could hear Violet’s car coming up the hill.

  But Vicky brightened a little. “
Hmm! Well, now you come to ask, yes, there is. And now that I think about it, it’s one of the spells I have been able to master with no mistakes.”

  “Oh, Vicky, I was joking,” I said, trying to shut that whole plan down. I already had visions of us all being sent back to medieval times and people getting their heads chopped off for stealing loaves of bread.

  She seemed to think it was a good idea, though. “But it could work!”

  Only I knew that it definitely wouldn’t.

  Violet pulled in and I handed her the basket of plums through the driver’s window like I was a drive-thru worker, and she frowned down at them like I had given her a single cheeseburger instead of a double. “Are these…from the same tree?” she asked me, unsure if she should hand over her usual $10 bill for what she considered the substandard loot.

  At least Vicky had thought they looked good. It seemed like some of the magic had gone, though.

  In fact, it felt like a LOT of the magic had gone from my life.

  I sighed a little and took a seat on the fallen tree near the barn and kicked my feet out. I had cowgirl boots on—black with pink rhinestones up the center. Vicky loved them. She was a huge country music fan Not my usual genre, but I was starting to come around.

  “Maybe we just have to keep things how they are,” I said with a heavy sigh. Me without powers. Everyone else with them. Like some kind of ironic karma, I supposed. “It seems like every time we try to fix things, it just gets worse.”

  I mean, I would have to avoid Akiro for the rest of my life, but that could work. I could just get my morning coffee from the gas station on the other side of town. Even though the sludge there tasted like gas and it came out of a vending machine and they still charged you three bucks for the privilege.

  “Keep the faith,” Vicky said as she stood up. “Ruby, I really want you to join the coven, you know. I have never had a real friend in there before. Please, Ruby. I know we can figure this out. We can get you to pass your exam.”

  I wasn’t sure that we could, but I nodded and told her that of course I would keep trying, and that I would take the exam.

  She asked me if she would be able to get her records back, so I invited her into the house. Indy was still snubbing me, and she pretended to be sleeping in her bed as we entered the hallway even though I saw one of her eyes peek out at me. More like a tiny cat glare.

  Vicky glanced over her shoulder at the ball of black fur. “How are the two of you getting along now?” she asked.

  I felt a little embarrassed to tell Vicky about the ‘amazing realization’ I’d had so I couldn’t really explain why Indy and I were on the outs. “You know cats. They keep to themselves unless they want something from their humans—usually food.”

  I handed her the records, but she lingered for a moment like she wanted to tell me something. I wondered if it had something to do with Clover and the necklace. So when she didn’t say anything, I had to ask. “Are you thinking about her? Clover, I mean.”

  Vicky looked up at me in surprise. “No. Why do you ask that?”

  “Just a hunch.” I shrugged. “I know you said you weren’t close, but you must have some fond memories of her at least.”

  She nodded for a moment and actually smiled. “She did have her quirks, that’s for sure! She loved a bargain, you know!”

  I smiled. “She did?”

  Vicky nodded and grinned back at me. “Yeah,” she laughed. “She was really into couponing. Do you know about that?”

  “Er, a little. Isn’t that mostly an American thing?”

  “Yeah, but it’s starting to take off here. Especially online.” Vicky was sounding more and more excited. “I never used to be into it at all, but she made me see how much money you can save! Also, it’s really fun collecting all the catalogues and…” She suddenly trailed off and looked a little sad. “Well, I do it by myself now. Kinda like a tribute, I guess, seeing as it’s one of the only things we had in common. She was a really good witch, you know. She never made mistakes like I do.”

  I nodded and just let the silence sit for a moment. I was still wondering about the necklace, but it didn’t seem like the right time to bring it up.

  “So, what was on your mind then?”

  Vicky looked a little guilty. She gulped. “I just wanted to apologize to you. On behalf of the others, I suppose. For the fact that we kind of ignored your entire existence for so long.”

  I was quiet for a while. I supposed that touched a bit of a nerve. “Yeah, about that,” I said. “Why didn’t anyone tell me before I was twenty-six years old?”

  “There was always talk about whether we should or not,” Vicky said, kind of staring at her feet. “But until now, the consensus was that we should keep you out.”

  Okay, wow. I couldn’t help feeling like the unwanted stepchild. Perhaps that’s because that was exactly what I was.

  “Is there something wrong with me?” I asked. “I mean, if I am from a witch bloodline, then why not tell me?”

  Vicky looked up at me. “It’s nothing personal, Ruby. There are loads of witches out there that don’t know that they are until something happens that brings them out of the shadows and into the light of their powers. Covens are exclusive places. They aren’t for everyone. Not every witch gets to belong to one.”

  I was starting to get the picture. “So, it was all about Clover, right? If I hadn’t been a PI, then Geri never would have come into my office.”

  Vicky shrugged in apology. “Maybe so. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t want you to join us now.”

  But it had been such weird timing with May as well, walking in to my office on the very same day that Geri had. Hmm. There was no way the timing could just be a coincidence, and after Vicky had left, I paced as I tried to put it all together.

  I didn’t have much peace, though, or much of a chance to think, because twenty minutes later, Geraldine was at my door. I didn’t even greet her properly, just pulled back the door and got straight to it.

  “You never really gave me any of the details about how Clover was killed, Geri. Just that it was an attack. One that you assumed came from an ‘enemy’ of the coven.”

  Geri was clasping at the crystal around her neck as I asked for the gory details. “Oh, dear, is all that horrible stuff really necessary for you to solve the case?”

  “If you want me to find out who did this to her, then yes, it is,” I said firmly, crossing my arms as I waited for an answer.

  She stared down at the floorboards. Gulped. Took a deep breath. She really didn’t want to tell me, but I had no way to read her thoughts. “There were these marks on her arm…” she said in a whisper. “Well, all over her body really, actually.”

  “What kind of marks?” I asked.

  She shuddered. “Like claws.”

  “Geri. That doesn’t sound like a human. That sounds…” I spun around and looked at Indy over my shoulder. “…like a cat.”

  11

  It might not have been a full moon, but this time, I was going to get it right. I had studied the manual, and I was pretty sure I had figured out just how these things were supposed to work. I lifted the heavy things to my eyes and stared through the lenses into the front window of the house where I focused on a blonde head that was staring intently at something in front of her.

  Yes! The binoculars were focusing perfectly!

  Suddenly, there was someone standing beside the car, in the dark, tapping on the driver’s side window.

  “Argh!” I screamed and dropped the binoculars to the floor of the car. Oh gosh, please tell me the glass has not smashed.

  As I opened the door to climb out, I scurried to pick them up. Vicky apologized profusely and tried to help me, but I kinda pushed her out of the way

  “Oh, are you mad at me?” she asked me, looking very sorry for herself. “I’m sorry. I just thought it would be so fun to come on a stakeout with you! I was even thinking that maybe we could become partners.” She looked at me with pleading eyes.
“I mean, I would have to take that course first and get qualified and everything, but wouldn’t it be so much fun to work together?”

  I’d asked her to quickly get into the passenger seat at least so that we were not making a scene.

  “I do not need a partner,” I said, sounding a bit snappy. I hadn’t meant to, but she had almost destroyed my thousand-dollar binoculars—and I DIDN’T need a partner. And if I did ever get one, I would choose one who was a bit more focused and diligent than Vicky.

  She looked a bit crestfallen.

  “Oh, okay,” I said, trying to make her feel better, at least for the time being. “You can stay on this stakeout at least, now that you’re here.”

  “Who is this woman anyway?” Vicky asked me as she turned her head to see who I was staring at.

  “Kylie Leonard,” I said. “She works at Leonard’s Milk factory. Her family is one of the richest in the town.”

  “Oh, yes,” Vicky said, nodding profusely. “I have heard of them. Everyone has. Sort of local celebrities.”

  “Well, I have never heard of them. At least, I never had until a week ago…”

  “But what does this have to do with Clover’s death?’ Vicky asked, looking over at me curiously.

  “Er, um.” Well, I kind of didn’t want to admit that I wasn’t sure it had anything to do with that at all just yet. And I certainly didn’t want to tell her I was essentially still working on May’s case. I wasn’t even sure why I was still doing it myself. “She’s a suspect,” I said quickly and just left it at that.

  Vicky clapped her hands. “This is fun!”

  “It’s mostly just long, boring stretches of staring at houses and cars, listening to the radio, while nothing happens.”

  Vicky nodded sagely. “Ah, of course, you must be the expert. So how long have you been doing this detective thing?”

  “I, uh, well, just under one week now,” I had to admit. “This is only my second stakeout. And the first one didn’t go so amazingly.”

  She frowned. “Who were you staking out last time?”