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

by Constance Barker

  Chloe stopped, and Piper saw Bailey hand off William to her—what could they possibly want with her children?—and then turn to face Piper.

  Piper didn’t slow down, and didn’t hold back. Bailey had magic, but she didn’t have children, and she didn’t know what a mother’s fury was worth. Piper covered the last couple of yards between them in a leap, arms outstretched, and she slammed into Bailey hard. Both of them hit the sand.

  Bailey, though, wasn’t the objective. Piper turned to see Chloe raising a hand, her lips moving. Before the woman could get off whatever magic trick she had in mind, Piper grabbed a handful of sand and threw it at her.

  Chloe jerked, and then sputtered and blinked, her free arm still holding William close.

  Piper lunged for Riley, he was screaming, his face red. She had to get him away from these witches, away from whatever they had planned, and to the ocean, to the place where she’d seen the light. It was calling to her, whispering, tugging at her heart. If she could at least get Riley there it would all be okay, they’d be free of this awful town.

  She tore the snack tray off the stroller, and reached for Riley’s buckles. “It’s okay baby,” she said, over and over again as she fumbled with the strap.

  Riley pushed her hands away, and then kicked his feet, one of them hitting the nerve in her elbow. She hissed, but kept working, and the strap came undone. She leaned in to pull him out of the stroller.

  The toddler’s hands came up, pressed against her face.

  The ground shook. Or, no, it had come from inside.

  There was a sound like cracking glass, deep inside Piper’s ears, maybe in her skull.

  For a moment, she didn’t know where she was. The beach, the sand. She was on her knees. William was crying. Someone behind her was groaning, or gasping for breath.

  She looked up to see Riley watching her with nervous expectation, his little face wrinkled in concern. She met his eyes, though, and then they brightened, and he smiled, and reached for her.

  “Oh,” Piper breathed, as her broken world mended itself. “Oh, God… oh, Riley, baby…”

  Piper pulled her son close to her, hugged him tight, and sobbed.

  Chapter 18

  Bailey couldn’t breathe. Piper’s shoulder had taken her right in the gut, and every slip of air she could get into her lungs was a struggle. The damp sand hadn’t done much to save her from the impact either.

  She rolled to her side, though, determined, and scrambled to her feet.

  It was too late, though. Piper had Riley and she—

  Bailey blinked, one hand over her stomach. Piper was shaking, crying, Riley pressed to her chest and wrapped in her arms, and she was whispering to him.

  Piper’s presence in Bailey’s mind expanded as Bailey opened herself, and she could hear Piper’s thoughts.

  “What have I done, what was I doing? Oh, God, not again… not again… how could this happen again?” It went on and on in a spiral of self loathing and blame that felt bitter and painful to experience. But they were Piper’s thoughts alone—no whispers, no confusion. Somehow, Piper had been freed. Or maybe she had freed herself?

  Had perceiving her children in danger somehow broken the hold of the shadows?

  For now, all that mattered was that Piper and the children were safe. And that she was no longer on the warpath.

  Bailey sank to her knees beside Piper and put her arms around her. “You’re back,” she breathed weakly. “Oh thank God, you’re back.”

  Piper leaned into her, and cried harder for a time before Bailey let her go and urged her to her feet. They hadn’t earned more time, just prevented another tragedy. Or at least they seemed to have done so.

  “Chloe,” Bailey said, “take the kids to the bakery, get them warm.”

  “Are you sure?” Chloe asked quietly.

  Bailey nodded, and gently tugged Riley away from his mother. “Come on, little guy,” she said. “Go with Chloe, she’ll get you a treat at the shop.”

  Piper moved to stop the exchange, but Bailey held her shoulder. “Let them go,” she told her. “Just for now; just until we can be sure…”

  The horrified look in Piper’s eyes said volumes that Bailey wished could be left unsaid. “It was… magic. Again. Wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Bailey said, pain welling in her chest that had nothing to do with being tackled. “The same magic that… ah…” she couldn’t quite bring herself to say it.

  “Like… Delbert?” Piper breathed.

  Bailey nodded slowly.

  When Chloe left them, Piper didn’t object.

  “My head hurts,” Piper groaned. “Like I’m hung over. What was it? Who’s doing this, do you know?”

  “We’re working on it,” Bailey said.

  “Work faster,” Piper snapped.

  Bailey didn’t flinch. She tried to let her friend’s anger pass through her, even add to the fuel in her own fire. Of course Piper had a right to be furious.

  “Why did I stop?” Piper whispered after a moment.

  “I don’t know,” Bailey said. “I felt something… felt the spell breaking, I guess. But I don’t know what caused it. Maybe… you hit a wall. Magic can’t make you do something you’re entirely incapable of, deep down. Not directly, anyway. But you’re the first I’ve seen break free.”

  “Does magic follow fairy tale rules?” Piper asked, bitterness lacing her voice. “True love’s kiss, a mother’s love, all that Disney stuff?”

  Bailey bit her lip, and shook her head.

  “How do I know it won’t happen again?” Piper asked.

  “You don’t. I don’t. We may need to…” Bailey’s eyes followed Chloe up the slope toward town. “…just for a little while, to be sure.”

  Piper touched her stomach, buckling slightly as if she’d been hit in the gut, and then sank to the sand and put her face in her hands.

  Bailey sat with her. Maybe they were on the clock, but for now, Piper needed her; needed someone with her. She hesitated to put her arm around her friend again, though—tension, regret, and fear radiated from Piper and not all of it was directed toward abstracts. Bailey had to narrow her focus to withdraw from the wash of emotions.

  “We’re leaving,” Piper said finally. “We’re leaving tonight. I’ll take the kids to my brother’s house. Gavin can follow when he gets a chance to settle things at work.”

  “It might be best,” Bailey agreed, “at least until this is all over.”

  Piper looked up at her, eyes hard. “It’ll be over? At some point?”

  “It has to be,” Bailey said. “I intend to end this, one way or another. I have a plan. Or most of one, anyway.” Even if they could somehow convince the Caves themselves to answer the call, Bailey wasn’t sure what Aiden had in mind or what kind of spell they intended to pull off other than the vaguest notion of what they needed.

  “More magic?” Piper asked.

  Bailey sighed. “It’s a magical problem, Pipes.”

  Piper rubbed her eyes again, and light reflected off the bracelet Mr. Dove had given her. It tickled some instinct in her, but still, it was nothing solid she could pin down. Then again…

  “Maybe we should bring Mr. Dove in on this,” Bailey said. “It might be that we just need another perspective.”

  Piper’s eyes bulged. “Good grief,” she groaned. “Is everyone that comes to Coven Grove magical? What’s Mr. Dove? Another wizard?”

  “I don’t think so,” Bailey said, “he just knows about all sorts of things. He’s always been there for us, always has something useful to say.”

  Piper stared at her. “Mr. Dove?”

  “I know he’s a little weird,” Bailey said, “but so are the Crones. And we’re almost tapped out.”

  Piper shook her head, “Bailey, what are you talking about? Mr. Dove has been here maybe a couple of weeks. Three, at the most.”

  Maybe the magic had affected Piper’s memory. Bailey didn’t say that, though; the last thing she needed was to worry her frie
nd any more. “Mr. Dove has been here for ages, Piper,” she said. “You know that. Maybe you’re just a little flustered from the stress.”

  But Piper wouldn’t hear it. Her face paled a bit, and she stood. “No,” she said firmly, “he hasn’t been here. And he gave me this damned bracelet.” She took it off, and then dropped it to the sand like it was something poisonous.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Bailey asked as she stood up, too. She knelt to pick up the bracelet.

  “Don’t touch it!” Piper snapped, and kicked it out of reach. “We have to get to the bakery, to Chloe and everyone else.”

  “We can’t just leave that here,” Bailey sighed, but Piper grabbed her arm and tugged her toward the path Chloe had taken.

  “Please,” Piper said, “please just listen to me and trust me, okay? Something is very wrong here and my gut is telling me it has to do with Mr. Dove.”

  “Okay,” Bailey said, letting Piper lead her away from the beach, “but can you just clue me in a little bit?”

  Piper stopped and held Bailey’s face in her hands, desperation in her eyes. “Bails, you have to believe me when I say this. Mr. Dove doesn’t belong here.”

  Chapter 19

  How could she not have seen it?

  Piper raced toward the Bakery with Bailey in tow. They made it there not long after Chloe had arrived with the children.

  Chloe saw her coming, and rushed inside; when Piper reached the door, it was locked.

  Bailey caught up.

  “Chloe thinks I’m still insane,” Piper explained when Bailey tried the door.

  “She’s just being cautious,” Bailey said. She turned to the door, and watched Chloe for a moment. Neither one of them said anything, but after a few seconds Chloe nodded and unlocked the door for them.

  “I’m sorry,” Chloe told Piper when they were inside. “I was just looking out for the little ones; just in case.”

  Piper’s irritation waned immediately, replaced by shame. “I… appreciate it. Thank you, but… I’m alright now. In fact, I think I’m more alright than all of you.”

  Six faces—the Coven ladies, Aiden and Avery, and even Ryan, to Piper’s momentary confusion—all gave her looks of caution and concern.

  “I know how it sounds,” Piper said slowly. “I’ve been trying to trace my… steps, sort of, and figure it out. I was out of my mind at the beach; I had this feeling like I had to be out in the water, and that I had to… well, that I had to take my kids with me.”

  “And then Bailey and Chloe were there, and they stopped me, except I don’t think you did.” She glanced at Chloe and Bailey both.

  “It wasn’t anything I did,” Chloe said.

  “Or me,” Bailey agreed. “When did it happen? Specifically, what did you feel?”

  “It might have been native magic,” Aiden muttered, rubbing his chin, “waking up, defending you. That can happen, if it’s buried deep enough that it doesn’t arise on it’s own.”

  Piper shook her head, “I don’t think it was me at all, or either of you.” She knelt before the stroller, and held out her hand for Riley to take her fingers. “I think… it might have been Riley.”

  No one responded, and Piper looked up to see skepticism played across every face but one. Aiden was frowning, his eyebrow knit as he stroked his jaw thoughtfully. “This glamour, and the actions of the shadow beings… they represent complex magic. Enchantments that run deep, and must be rooted in something profound to affect all of us, much less the rest of the town—if indeed it is affecting everyone. The likelihood that Riley possesses significant magic at such a young age is slim; the chances that he can apply it intentionally toward such a specific end is perhaps even slimmer.”

  “But?” Piper asked, sensing a caveat.

  Aiden glanced at Bailey, and then at Avery. “Well… most of us act on instinct initially. If his need was specific enough…”

  “Like freeing his mother from an enchantment?” Bailey asked.

  “Will and desire can often overcome shortfalls in specificity or structure,” Aiden said. “The older we get, the less raw will and desire we actually possess. We become encumbered with intellect, and social conditioning. Hypothetically, I suppose… it’s possible.”

  “I think he can tell,” Piper said, returning her gaze to her son. “Riley, baby; Mama’s wrong? Is mama still wrong?”

  Riley screwed up his face for a moment and then shook his head. Piper got a flutter of both excitement and fear, but ignored both for now. She turned the stroller, and pointed at Bailey. “What about aunt Bails? Is Aunt bails wrong?”

  “Bay-dee wong,” Riley said.

  Bailey gave a nervous laugh, quiet and thin, and then knelt near the stroller herself. “Aunt Bailey is wrong?” She asked.

  “Wong!” Riley barked, and kicked his feet a few times, his eyebrows pinching in distress. “Wong, wong!”

  One by one, Piper pointed to the other people in the room, and one by one Riley assured each of them that they were wrong.

  “He’s been doing this for weeks,” she told them when he informed her, again, that she was ‘not wrong’. “I thought it was just toddler stuff; they figure out a new thing to say and that’s just their favorite phrase for a couple of days. But I think he was trying to tell me that there was something wrong with me. With all of us.”

  “And,” Aiden said carefully, “you believe this has something to do with Mr. Dove.”

  “I remember that I used to remember, or that I thought I remembered, that Mr. Dove had been here… well, forever, basically,” Piper said. “So I know what you’re thinking right now. You’re thinking about all the times you interacted with him.”

  She waved at Bailey, “That he was there for Wendy’s funeral, right? And that he sometimes came to school and played the pipes. I have this memory—it’s fading fast now—of him coming to our literature class in high school and reading a midsummer night’s dream. But he didn’t. That was Mr. Findley. Remember, Bails? We had him sophomore year.”

  Bailey closed her eyes, and looked frustrated. “I mean… I remember Mr. Findley… but I can almost remember Mr. Dove more clearly. Like it happened yesterday.” She opened them. “I want to believe you, Pipes, I really do. It’s all just so clear.”

  “Not just in the head,” Avery said, “but here, too.” He touched his chest. After a moment, though, he shook his head. “Still… I’ve known Chloe almost as long as I’ve known Mr. Dove. And up until lately, I probably knew both of you about as well, but… there is something more tangible about the way I feel for Chloe, and Aria, and Francis than the fondness I have for him. It’s hard to explain, exactly, but—”

  “It’s as though you’re pretending,” Ryan said, drawing attention as he touched his heart, “instead of actually feeling.”

  “Exactly,” Avery said. He looked around at them. “If we are all under the same glamour, then frankly we can’t trust what we think. Or any of our decisions. Not until it’s lifted.”

  “And it seems young Riley is the key to that,” Avery said. “Which doesn’t grant us very much in the way of a solution. Freeing his mother is one thing, using raw determination and perhaps desperation. It is a great motivator, but the chances he can muster it for us all is slim. What’s more, even if he could, it’s impossible to gauge his reserves.”

  “What does that mean?” Piper asked.

  “It means it could be dangerous,” Avery said. “That even if he could do it, he can’t tell when he’s doing too much.”

  “And yet,” Aiden said gently, “it would be prudent to test the theory, to confirm before we go on a witch hunt for a man who may be entirely innocent and mortal.”

  Piper shivered, and bit her lip as she watched Riley’s little eyes track faces as people spoke. Putting him in any kind of danger was out of the question. “What else do you have?” She asked. “What other information about what’s been going on?”

  “I’ve collected quite a collection of notes,” Ryan told her and held up
his notepad.

  Piper left Riley reluctantly, and took the pad from Ryan when he offered it. She flipped through it, puzzling out Ryan’s shorthand chicken scratch as best she could, but he’d circled some pertinent details that, as she read them, made her eyes widen.

  She looked up and around at the others there. “An antique pistol,” she read from the pad, “a pair of antique slippers; a bag of old marbles; and for me… an antique bracelet. All of these things came from Mr. Dove’s shop.”

  Although everyone seemed to agree on that point, she didn’t see the light of comprehension in any of them. She shook the pad. “You have to see how that’s all connected to the man,” she told them, frustrated and nearly a frantic state. She took a deep breath, and laid the pad down. Whatever was at work, it was like it prevented them from thinking critically.

  She ran her fingers through her hair and took a moment to steady herself. She could leave. She was free now. If she took the children, and Gavin, and went up to Washington, she could get out of all of this. Bailey and the rest of them might well come up with some way to fix whatever was wrong. They were resourceful; and they had magic to defend themselves with even if it hadn’t protected them from this.

  No one would stop her—Bailey had even agreed with her. She could leave.

  But what if they didn’t figure it out?

  Piper licked her lips and knelt down to Riley’s level again. “Riley-bear?” She said, and touched his face. “You know how you made Mama not-wrong?”

  Riley squirmed a little. “Mama not wong.”

  “I know,” Piper said, “and that’s all thanks to you. But listen, baby… aunt Bailey is still wrong, isn’t she?”

  He cast Bailey a wary look, and nodded.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you before, little man,” Piper said softly, and tried to keep her eyes clear. “But you helped me. You fixed me. You think you can fix aunt Bailey?”

  “Bay-dee wong,” Riley said. He scrunched his face up, and tugged at the straps that kept him in the stroller. “Wong.”

  “I know,” Piper said, trying to soothe him as she did, “but you might be able to help her, baby. Make her not-wrong, like you did Mama. Do you think you can? Do you… do you know how you did it before?”