Witching Your Life Away: A Cozy Mystery (The Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 5)

by Constance Barker

  Chloe’s lips thinned, but she nodded. “Of course. She has to think about her children. Any mother would.”

  It was a loaded statement. Chloe had given Bailey up for adoption when she was born precisely because she’d been concerned about the future of her daughter. It wasn’t until years later, and just recently, that Bailey had learned the truth. There was still soreness there, but it was gradually beginning to… weather, at least. Like a stone in a riverbed. Still a stone, and not likely to simply melt away—but smoother and less likely to cut over time.

  “We’re going to try and visit soon,” Bailey said. “Enjoy the time we have, you know?”

  “That’s good,” Chloe said. She narrowed her eyes. “What else is going on? You’re worried.”

  Whether Chloe was sensing Bailey’s worry about Aiden, or about the unlikely, murder, it was impossible to say. So Bailey honed in on her nervousness about the latter and related the news. “Bobby’s parents don’t know yet,” Bailey finished. “So… don’t spread it around before they find out. I’m sure they’ll know soon enough.”

  Chloe’s face had gone a bit pale. “Another murder,” she said. “At the caves… did it happen inside the caves? Or just nearby?”

  Bailey raised an eyebrow. It seemed like a callous question—but, then again, the Coven had a specific job. She tried to remember. “I can’t be sure,” she said. “We didn’t get very close, and they were already taking Bobby and Delbert both away when we arrived. Does it matter?”

  “Aria,” Chloe said, instead of answering, “I’m going upstairs for a moment.”

  Aria nodded quickly, and watched Bailey and Chloe disappear into the back room.

  In addition to being the center of baking culture in Coven Grove and the only place to get coffee and pastries early in the morning, Grovey Goodies served as the workshop for the Coven. The entire attic was devoted to this purpose, filled with shelves and chests large and small, bottles and bundles of herbs, flowers, and leaves, and every description of stone in one quantity or another. There were various animal parts as well—bones, antlers, tufts of fur, all gathered harmlessly from the surrounding region as well as from far away and passed down through generations.

  Chloe closed the door behind them when they entered.

  “So?” Bailey asked.

  “You know that when Martha was killed,” Chloe said, “it affected the caves.”

  Bailey nodded absently, remembering the scene clear as day with a queasiness that would probably never stop accompanying the image. “Yes.”

  “The effect is something like… an impression of death,” Chloe said. “The caves experience what happens inside them, symbolically. The more something happens, the more that aura builds up in them. It takes on an altered resonance over time.”

  Resonance and Aura were more or less interchangeable terms, except that aura had more to do with the feelings that emanated from a place, while resonance was something deeper; the factor from which aura arose. Bailey understood the principle not just as a witch, but from the point of view of a wizard as well—Aiden had discussed it several times in his wizardly technical style.

  “So another murder inside the caves,” Bailey said, catching on, “further damages the nature of the caves?”

  “Badly,” Chloe said. “So it’s important that we find out whether Bobby Baines was killed inside the caves or outside.”

  “I don’t like to imagine Delbert killing anyone,” Bailey said, “but if he was going to… I don’t know why he wouldn’t go inside the caves to do it. Well…” Of course, the Caves themselves had a kind of intelligence to them. It was presumably possible that intelligence, the Genius Loci of the Seven Caves, might have prevented Delbert from entering, if it had sensed his intention. It wasn’t inherently benevolent enough to actually stop something terrible from happening—that wasn’t the function of the Genius Loci—but it had a sense of self-preservation.

  Bailey pursed her lips. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “Violent deaths create a great deal of trauma in a place,” Chloe said. “It wouldn’t take very many to deeply alter the nature of the Caves again.”

  “Again?” Bailey asked.

  Chloe waved a hand. “From where it was before, I mean.”

  Bailey didn’t think that was what she meant, but she let it lie. One problem at a time; and Bailey currently had two. “Since you’re here,” she said, “I have a question about dreams.”

  Her mother blinked, and then straightened a little, assuming the passive look of her ‘teacher’ mode. “What do you want to know?”

  “It’s possible for us to use our gift for mind reading to read dreams, right?” Bailey asked. “Given that they’re just thoughts in the mind.”

  Chloe frowned, an indication that Bailey hadn’t gotten it quite right, and paced toward the round table at one end of the room to take a seat. Bailey followed and sat down opposite, her hands folded patiently.

  “In a certain sense,” Chloe said, “that’s correct. However, when you read someone’s thoughts, you’re reading them with the same part of your mind that they’re thinking their thoughts with. Dreaming happens in a different part of the mind; so you have to listen with a different part of the mind. For that matter, dreaming is… not like other kinds of thoughts. They don’t happen entirely in the mind alone. They happen partly in the mind, and partly in the lowest level of the etheric plane.”

  “The local ether,” Bailey clarified for her own benefit. “The Twilight Place.”

  “Some cultures have called it the dreaming, or the the great dream—things like that. It’s just on the other side of the physical world, a hair’s breadth in the astral direction.”

  “So,” Bailey said slowly, “it’s not enough to just listen? Or… watch, I guess? You have to, what—be dreaming yourself?”

  Chloe nodded. “It’s a skill that witches with our gift can learn; although, dreamwalking is a related skill that’s more specific. We can learn to be present in and experience another’s dream, but not affect it. Not without supporting magic to that effect, in any case. Why do you want to know?”

  That was the deal they’d made when Bailey demonstrated that she was taking great strides with her magic on her own volition—well beyond what she was, traditionally, meant to know. It had come out of necessity, but at first the Coven ladies, even her own mother, had been hesitant to answer just any question regarding magic.

  Now, the agreement was that they would answer her questions openly when she needed answers—but she had to tell them why she wanted to know a particular thing before they elaborated on specifics.

  In this case, however, Bailey was in a difficult spot. She couldn’t lie—not to Chloe. But she couldn’t tell her the whole truth, either. It wasn’t her place to talk about Aiden’s visions. And, for all Bailey knew, Chloe and the others would take a keen interest in them that might cause even more friction with Aiden, and between him and the Coven.

  “Aiden’s been having some disturbing dreams,” she said finally, “he thinks it could be something to do with what’s been going on here. So, I thought that if I could look in on them, maybe I could help make some sense of it.”

  Chloe drummed her fingers on the table for a moment, her eyes on Bailey’s, considering. “Maybe I should do it.”

  Bailey shifted a little in her seat. “Do you trust him?”

  “It isn’t that I don’t trust him,” Chloe said carefully, “but… while I’m sure he has good intentions, I’m just not sure of what all his intentions are.”

  “So…” Bailey frowned. “…that’s a no?”

  Chloe sighed, and looked around the room before she answered. “I don’t know that he trusts us. And if he doesn’t, I wonder if we should trust him. It may be true that Aiden wants to repair the caves—even if I believe the magic is beyond him, or even us—but it may be true that in the process he hopes to bend the spirit of the caves to his will.”

  “Why would he want to do that, tho
ugh?” Bailey asked.

  “Do you know why Avery’s fingers burned when he cast without a wand?” Chloe asked, though she didn’t wait for an answer. “Because wizard’s magic isn’t grounded. It’s like handling lightning. Our magic is different; it’s tied to things and places. It can even be tied to memories and experiences. They have to be concerned about formulas and angles and precision because one little mistake could be costly. For us, magic is fluid. Not easier, necessarily—you know that by now.

  “If a person like Aiden were to apprehend the Caves—alter the fundamental nature of the magic there—at an opportune moment, such as when the caves were weakened…”

  “Then,” Bailey finished, working it out slowly for herself, “his magic would become tied to something. To the caves.”

  “And ours might not be,” Chloe added.

  “Would it be so bad?” Bailey asked. “Not if we lost our connection, but if his was added to it?”

  Chloe only shrugged. “I don’t know, honestly. But I also don’t know that he couldn’t supersede our connection in favor of his own.”

  “But he’d be tied to Coven Grove after that, wouldn’t he?” Bailey asked. “The way we are. The way Martha Tells was. When she left Coven Grove, her power faded. Why would he want to limit himself like that?”

  “If you knew the difference, you wouldn’t have to ask,” Chloe said. “Out there in the world—if you were to leave Coven Grove—you wouldn’t be without magic. Magic is everywhere. But here, you’re strong. We can accomplish things near our center of power that we can’t when we’re away from it. Not without resorting to dangerous measures.”

  The way she said it made Bailey careful not to ask what those measures were. “I don’t think Aiden would want you listening to his dreams,” she said instead, steering the subject back to her original goal. “But he might let me. We’ve worked together before.”

  “Yes,” Chloe said, “I know that. It’s part of what worries me.”

  “I’m a grown woman,” Bailey sighed. “I can take care of myself, Chloe.”

  Her mother flinched, just a little bit, and Bailey regretted it. But calling her ‘Mom’ wasn’t quite… right. Not just yet. One, day, though; Bailey hoped. She didn’t correct it for now, and felt only a whisper of acceptance and patience from the older witch.

  “There’s nothing inherently dangerous about listening to dreams,” Chloe said at least, resigned. “But it is tricky. With most subjects, and especially anyone who has the ability to keep you out, however, you do need agreement. I’ll give you the material, and you can look over it yourself. Later, I can talk you through it and—”

  Outside the bakery, sirens blared, quickly approaching and then fading away. Bailey’s pulse sped up, and she shared a nervous look with Chloe. A moment later, there was a brief knock at the door before Aria opened it and poked her head in.

  They didn’t have to ask before she answered the question on both their minds. “It’s the Sheriff. Headed toward the caves.”

  Bailey’s heart sped up another several beats. “Aiden,” she breathed. “He should still be at the office.”

  “Avery left to meet him a while go,” Aria added.

  Bailey was up from the chair and brushing past Aria before either of the other witches could say another word, and then she was bursting through the lower level of the bakery and out the door, running toward the Caves and the tour office as fast as her feet could carry her.

  Chapter 7

  Sprinting was not Bailey’s strong suit. By the time she made it to the tour office she was soaked with sweat even in the chill fall breeze and sucking in painful lungfuls of air. Her side ached, and her legs burned, but she made it in time to see the Sheriff’s department once again spread out around the parking lot, the street, and at the base of the trail that led to the caves.

  She also saw both Aiden and Avery speaking with a deputy near the tour office. Half walking, half stumbling, she made her way to them.

  “We’d been inside,” Aiden was saying, “going over some… historical research on the Caves. When we came out and saw… what had happened, we called immediately. But we couldn’t have seen them go down there. Ah… Miss Robinson…”

  “What happened?” Bailey managed to ask between gasps. She peered down the trail, but couldn’t see anything from where they were.

  The deputy, one whose name Bailey couldn’t remember, though she knew she’d seen him before, shook his head in bewilderment. “Another murder, looks like. Damnedest thing, too, after this morning.”

  She sagged against the building, as much out of shock as from exhaustion. “Who?”

  “Tori Bolton,” Avery said. “Mike Lawrence… he… stayed after he did it.”

  Aiden gave Bailey a look of utter regret, but she didn’t have the energy to return the one she was feeling. Two murders, at the Caves, inside the same day? If it hadn’t been obvious before, it had to be now. There was simply no way this was random, or happenstance.

  “Didn’t you have… people posted?” Bailey asked the deputy.

  He gave her a hard eye. “The scene from this morning was taped off. We had the perpetrator in custody and a full confession, even if it barely made any sense. There was no reason to have anyone watching the place.”

  “Well, there is now,” Bailey snapped.

  The deputy raised an eyebrow at her, but didn’t disagree before he turned his attention back to Aiden and Avery. “That’s all the questions I have for the two of you. Mr. Lawrence isn’t denying the charges, so… we appreciate you calling us. Maybe…” he glanced down the trail behind him, “…maybe steer clear of the Caves for a little while. Not sure what’s going on down there, but personally, I got a bad feeling about it.”

  Well, that put the deputy’s instincts a head above Aiden’s, in Bailey’s opinion. She kept her mouth tightly closed as he tipped his hat, put his notepad away, and went down the trail to join the others.

  “Not here,” Aiden said as Bailey opened her mouth to tell him she’d told him so.

  The three of them returned to the office, but before they did Bailey turned, and trotted down the trail toward the retreating deputy. “Deputy,” she called out. The man stopped, and looked back up the trail at her. “What did he use? Michael, I mean?”

  He gave her a disapproving look, but she didn’t particularly care; he answered regardless. “Far as we can tell, ma’am, he did it with his bare hands.”

  Well… there went a theory. It had seemed strange to her, at the time, to hear that Delbert had used some old world pistol. Maybe he’d just had it at hand, for some reason. “Thank you,” she said. “It’s… for my father.”

  The deputy grimaced, realizing then who she was, but only tipped his hat again and continued on his way, shaking his head slowly as he did. No one at the sheriff’s department particularly cared to have these events publicized, especially not after the last few months they’d had—easily the worst year on record.

  Bailey rejoined Aiden and Avery, both of whom had quizzical looks on their faces. “Just a theory,” she sighed. “Didn’t pan out.”

  Once they were back in the office, Bailey got the full story. Avery had gone to work at the library, gotten what he could do done, and then come back to the office to work with Aiden. Bailey had likely just missed him on her walk to the bakery. Avery had, during their discussion—the details of which they didn’t share—gotten a bad feeling but had been unable to locate the source of it. He’d gone outside, felt around, and then circled the building. That’s when he’d seen Michael, standing over Tori’s body. He’d called the Sheriff’s department straight away, and then descended the trail with Aiden to confront the man.

  “Tori was already gone,” Avery said. “And Michael… he said the strangest thing.”

  “He said that he’d killed her,” Aiden continued when Avery paused. “And that he’d done it because her father got the job his mother should have gotten.”

  Bailey stared at them. “What job?”
Michael was at least fifty years old. His parents, as far as Bailey knew, were dead. Weren’t they? She didn’t know the man very well, he was a postman. But like most everyone else in Coven Grove she’d known of him for years. He’d been on the route to Bailey’s house for a time, on and off. He’d always been friendly.

  Tori was only a little younger. She was some kind of legal consultant. What’s more, Bailey was certain she’d seen the two of them together around town at least a couple of times.

  Neither Avery nor Aiden had an answer for her, though. “That’s all he would say,” Avery said. “It doesn’t make any more sense to me than it does to you.”

  Now, Bailey turned on Aiden, pointing a finger. “I told you. I knew this was something… unnatural. Two in the same day, in the same place, under the same weird circumstances can’t possibly just be some… murder trend.”

  “I have to agree,” Aiden said. “I wasn’t unconvinced before, Bailey, I simply—”

  “You simply didn’t take action,” Bailey said, smoldering now. If they had acted on her instinct, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe Tori Bolton would still be alive. She didn’t say these things—she didn’t need to, she could see them in Aiden’s eyes. He was undoubtedly thinking the same thing.

  “Now knowing,” Aiden said quietly, “that there is an apparent pattern of some sort… we can certainly take steps to prevent a third incident.”

  “An ‘incident’?” Bailey snorted, her anger still hot and not showing signs of cooling down. “There will be someone watching the caves now,” she snapped. “If there’s some magic at work there, how are we supposed to check for it?”

  “I don’t know,” Aiden admitted. “But there are other venues we might cover in the meantime.”

  “And as long as someone’s down there,” Avery added, “maybe it will prevent another murder from happening; if that’s what we’re seeing.”