by Zoe Arden
"You've outdone yourself!" Tazzie said, kissing my mother's cheeks before turning to me. She scooped me in her arms and squeezed me until the air left my lungs. "Felicity, you're a gem. I can't thank you both enough."
I blushed but my mother took the compliment with ease.
"Thank you," Amelia said. "You both deserve it. Forty years of marriage is not easily come by these days."
Mayor Singer came up beside his wife and shook our hands. Even his bushy mustache, which stretched almost from ear to ear, couldn't hide the fact that he was beaming like a kid on his last day of school.
"The cake you made, Amelia... it's, well, it's incredible." He turned his head, overcome with emotion, and gazed toward the center of the room.
The cake my mother had painstakingly created stood twenty feet tall and almost as wide. There were forty layers, one for each year of marriage. Rich velvety buttercream frosting wound its way up in alternating shades of rose red and snow white. Perfect for a February wedding anniversary.
Inside was soft moist cake the color of bright cherries. My mother was the only baker I knew who could produce a color like that without using artificial dyes. She had a secret blend of natural and magical ingredients that, when combined, created the most spectacular colors you would ever see outside of a rainbow.
Each layer of cake depicted a different year in the life of the mayor and his wife. The vignettes had been hand painted by my mother using edible paint. The bottom layer illustrated when they'd met. The second layer showed his proposal. Each scene brought you closer and closer to the top layer, which showed them as they were today. An older, balding mayor held out his hand to an older, but still beautiful, Tazzie. Their arms stretched across the top layer, connecting in the middle. On the top of the cake stood an exact replica of the couple—in edible sugar form, of course.
"Now, I can't take all the credit," Amelia said. "Felicity helped with everything. I couldn't have done it all without her. And Grayson is supplying the dinner and use of his restaurant. We're just supplying the dessert."
"Yes, and all due respect to your son, everyone knows dessert is where it's at."
Mayor Singer winked at us as the band started up a new song. He took his wife's hand and spun her out onto the dance floor. I spotted their twenty-five-year-old daughter, Kayla, watching them from the other side of the room. She was smiling and talking to Grayson.
Norbert Clark, the oldest waiter—probably the oldest man— in all of Heavenly Haven, walked by with a platter of cookies. I grabbed one before he could get away.
"Good, aren't they?" Norbert asked. "The mayor's eaten at least a dozen of them already."
"They are. Thanks, Norbert."
His bespectacled face smiled warmly at me. A surprisingly thick head of white hair stood straight up and down, as though he'd glued it in place.
"My pleasure, Miss Redfern," he croaked, his voice thick with age.
Norbert trailed off toward the other side of the room, stumbling over his feet as he went. I saw him sneak a cookie off the platter and smiled. I wondered how many cookies Norbert had eaten himself.
I'd asked my brother once why he kept Norbert on the staff at his age, and Grayson had replied, "Norbert adds a level of class to this place I could never achieve alone. Besides, he's been around so long, everyone on the island knows him. Even the folks in Sweetland Cove like Norbert."
I smiled again as Norbert snuck another cookie off his tray. The man was known to have a serious sweet tooth. I bit into my own cookie. It was still warm. Part of my mother's secret to creating the best desserts in Mistmoor Point was her use of magic to make everything taste as though it had just come out of the oven.
"Are you ever going to tell me your Oven-Hot recipe?" I asked her.
"It's a trade secret," my mother said, smiling. "No one knows except me. I could tell you, but then I'd have to immediately enchant you so you'd forget."
"But I'm your daughter."
"And one day, when you're ready, I just might share all of my secrets with you. For now, you'll have to settle for knowing only half of what makes me the best baker on this side of the island."
"Humph," a loud, shrill voice cut in sharply from behind us. "That's debatable."
My mother and I turned to see Edith Woodruff standing there. She was hunkered between her daughter, Blossom, and granddaughter, Calista, both of whom were staring at my mother as though she were covered in warts. At least Calista had an excuse. She was only twelve and didn't know any better. Edith and Blossom were just rude.
"Edith," my mother said, pursing her lips. "It's good to see you, as always."
I lost my appetite and set the cookie aside as Edith, Blossom, and Calista glowered at me and my mother. Calista was extraordinarily close with her grandmother. Even though she was young, she had a look that could wipe the smile off anyone's face.
We had expected to see Edith here, but had hoped she'd stay away out of some sense of propriety. Edith and my mother had fought bitterly over who would get to cater the mayor's anniversary party. When my mother had won, Edith had wished her not the best of luck, but the worst of it.
Then again, they'd fought bitterly even when they were partners. Cakes and Creations used to exist as a dually owned bakery by the best of friends. My mother didn't like to talk about it much, but I knew the reason for their sudden dissolution had to do with the use of dark elements. Edith thought there was nothing wrong with infusing her cakes with fear and anger. As she saw it, there was no reason not to give the customers what they wanted.
Edith always said that her cakes never killed anyone who ate them, just... mixed them up for a little while. If a witch or warlock had a boss they were angry at or a friend who was giving them trouble, wasn't it better, she said, that the witch enacted their revenge by giving the intended a sweet little cupcake rather than hexing them? So what if the cupcake made them think they were being chased by goblins for forty-eight hours? It was better than being cursed for all of eternity.
In a way, I thought Edith had a point. She kept her dark creations out of the front display shelves and only sold them to people of the witching world, never to humans. That could have gotten her into trouble with the Council on Magic and Human Affairs. Humans weren't supposed to know about the magic around them. There were a few exceptions, but otherwise, humans were on a strictly need-to-know basis.
The only reason we got away with selling our positive mood enhancement creations to humans was because they were blinded by the frosting, so to speak. Humans didn't know the reason they felt so happy after eating one of our cakes was because of magic. They just thought they were on a sugar high.
My mother forced a smile. "I'm sure the mayor will be delighted you could make it."
"Of course I made it," Edith snapped. The dark gray bun she'd twirled high on her head bounced as she shook her finger at my mother. "I had to see what sort of concoction you came up with for the mayor, didn't I? Too bad your cake turned out so..." She looked at her daughter and granddaughter for help.
"Runny?" Blossom chimed in.
"Ugly?" Calista laughed.
"Ordinary," Edith finished.
I winced. Edith could be so mean sometimes. I knew she hadn't always been like that and wondered what happened.
"Even that Oven-Hot recipe of yours can't make bad food taste good," Edith chimed.
A shadow passed over my mother's face. I hoped she wasn't taking what they said to heart. Edith was just jealous. She'd coveted that recipe of my mother's for years. Blossom was nothing more than a bored housewitch. Her hair was frizzy and her cheekbones sallow. Calista was only twelve and a "dim-witch" at that. Most witch's powers had fully developed by the time they were ten. Calista could barely get her wand to make dust fall, let alone anything of real importance. In fact, it looked as though Calista's abilities were as developed as they were ever going to get.
Grayson ran by us just then, Kayla trailing after him. His face was shiny, and he was out of breath.
>
"It's time!" he shouted as he hurried toward the center of the room.
Grayson grabbed a microphone and stood in front of the guests, beaming. My oldest brother loved parties. He was twenty-six, but he was still a kid at heart. That's probably why owning a restaurant was the perfect profession for him. He got to throw parties every week.
"Ladies and gentleman," Grayson said. "It's time to cut the cake."
He was great at knowing when an event called for long speeches, and when to keep things short and sweet. There was a burst of applause as Mayor Singer and Tazzie approached the cake.
Mayor Singer and his wife each placed one hand on the handle of the knife. They smiled at each other as they cut into the cake. The room ripped into applause.
The Mayor and Tazzie each took a slice in their hand and held it up for the other to eat. Mayor Singer took a big bite; Tazzie a much smaller one. Cameras flashed as Tazzie playfully smashed her slice of cake into her husband's face.
Mayor Singer laughed as the frosting stained his face red. He tried wiping it away, but his face kept growing redder and redder. Tazzie started to look alarmed and began wiping the frosting off him with a napkin. His eyes turned a soft shade of yellow, and he began to blow up like a water balloon about to explode.
The humans at the party began to murmur that he looked ill. The witches began to murmur that he looked hexed. A second later, steam came out of Mayor Singer's ears and he fell sideways into the cake, knocking the whole thing down as he crashed face first into a pile of frosting.
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CHAPTER
TWO
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It couldn't possibly be true. …
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"He's deeeaaad!" Tazzie wailed as friends and family rushed to her side. Her daughter, Kayla, looked like she was about to faint.
"Out of my way!" Dr. Wallace cried, emerging from the crowd.
Dr. Herbert Wallace was one of the few humans on Heavenly Haven who knew the truth about the witches who lived here. He was a respected man and the guests parted for him as he made his way toward the mayor.
Dr. Wallace knelt down and wiped the frosting from the mayor's face. It had gotten caught in his mustache and stuck to the tiny coarse hairs like glue.
"He's not dead," Dr. Wallace said after a quick examination.
A sigh of relief washed over the restaurant.
"Lucky for him," Edith whispered to Blossom. "I told the mayor not to trust Amelia with this party. He was asking for trouble."
My blood began to boil. How could Edith possibly blame my mother for the mayor falling ill?
Blossom looked like she hadn't slept in years. When she rolled her eyes toward her mother, dark heavy bags rolled with them. "I'm just glad I didn't eat any of the cookies or cupcakes those Redferns put out, or I'd be sick, too."
The mayor groaned as Dr. Wallace turned him on his side. Something green flowed out of his mouth. It looked like slime.
"It's food poisoning!" Edith cried.
"Piddlywinks!" I yelled at her, losing my temper. "You have no proof of that!"
"Mayor Singer fell down right after eating Amelia Redfern's cake," Edith declared, talking more to the other guests than to me.
"Ladies, please," Dr. Wallace said, holding up a placating hand. "This is no time to argue. We must get the mayor to the hospital. He's not dead, but he is ill."
This was why Dr. Wallace was so respected. He always kept calm and objective. I opened my mouth to ask how I could help when there was a loud moan behind me. Norbert Clark stumbled forward, holding his stomach. He fell to the floor amidst gasps and shrieks.
After Norbert fell, so did Mimi and Leena Nugent. Then Todd and Laura Parks. Suddenly, all around us, people began to drop.
"I told you!" Edith said triumphantly. "Food poisoning!"
I couldn't stop my anxiety from building as I looked around The Golden Goose. I'd always thought the phrase "dropping like flies" was a distinctly human term full of hyperbole and a strange fear of insects, but now I thought it a rather accurate description of the scene before me.
Grayson ran up beside me, his mouth gaping. "What's going on?"
"I have no idea."
At least half the restaurant was on the floor. Some were rolling around like a pill bug, others were lying still and silent.
"Felicity, where's Mom?" Grayson suddenly asked. He was my older brother and I knew he was trying to keep the anxiety out of his voice for my sake, but it wasn't working. I looked around and realized she was nowhere to be seen.
"She was just here," I told him.
"She's probably hiding," Edith snapped. "She knows this is all her fault."
"Don't be ridiculous," Grayson said, holding his head high. "My mother's never baked a bad recipe in her life. Maybe one of the chefs mixed up salamander nails with garlic granules. That would certainly explain—"
"Yes, but I've eaten your food tonight, and I'm still standing. So are Blossom and Calista. The only thing we haven't touched is Amelia's junk food."
I looked around the room and had to admit that the people who were still standing seemed to be the people who either hadn't eaten my mother's baked goods or had eaten very little.
My mother's nervousness over the party had been catching, and I'd hardly eaten anything all day. I'd nibbled on one of Grayson's dinner rolls, but that was it... other than a couple bites of that cookie I'd grabbed from Norbert, and I hadn't even finished that.
Uh oh.
It couldn't possibly be true. Food poisoning?
"Let's find your mother. She needs to be held accountable. No sneaking off here," Edith complained loudly, hoping that the guests would hear and take her side.
"I'll find her," I told Edith. I was certain she had gone into the kitchen to fetch some water, or perhaps some willow bark, hoping to revive the ill guests with it.
Edith followed me around the restaurant like a detective. Apparently, she didn't think I could be trusted to find my mother without helping her make an escape.
Amelia wasn't in the kitchen. In fact, she wasn't anywhere in the dining room. Unless she'd slipped out when no one was looking, the bathroom was the only place left she could be.
"I can handle this by myself," I snapped when Edith stepped on my foot as we opened the bathroom door and tried to squeeze through at the same time.
"Of course you can," Edith quipped sarcastically. "You've handled the party so well, helping your mother poison everyone in sight. I'm sure you won't—"
I gasped loud enough that Edith stopped her tirade. She turned her head, following my gaze. Her mouth opened when she saw what I was looking at.
My heart thumped in my chest as I ran toward my mother's lifeless form. She lay in a heap in the middle of the bathroom, green slime oozing from her mouth.
"Mom!" I cried, shaking her gently. Her eyes wouldn't open. I didn't know whether she was alive or dead. I just knew that she was in trouble. I was afraid that right now, we all were.
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CHAPTER
THREE
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"I'll prove you both wrong" …
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I paced the hospital floor, waiting for Dr. Wallace to come out. The waiting room was filled with dozens of people all waiting to hear the results of Dr. Wallace's toxicology report. Sheriff Lincoln Maxwell paced the room with me and Grayson.
"Tell me again what happened," Lincoln said. He was twenty-seven, making him the youngest sheriff Mistmoor Point had ever had. He was also the cutest. But then again, I might've been a little biased. We'd gone out on exactly eight dates and each time I thought Lincoln got a little bit cuter than the one before.
Just now, however, Lincoln was driving me up the wall.
"I've told you," I said, trying to keep the irritation out of my voice. He'd drilled me a thousand times already on
what had taken place this evening. I suspected that he felt guilty about missing the party, but being sheriff meant that sometimes he had to work even when he didn't' want to.
"Tell me again," he snapped.
I glared at him, and his cheeks colored.
"Sorry. I'm just trying to understand what could have caused this. There were roughly three hundred people at the party. Nearly half of them have turned up sick. How could something like this have happened?"
Edith had been hovering nearby. She took Lincoln's question as though it were directed toward her and jumped into our conversation.
"I'll tell you how," she said. "Amelia Redfern, that's how. Everyone knows she has her head in the clouds. She obviously did something when she was baking her pastries for the mayor's party."
I sent Edith silent daggers with my eyes, but Lincoln looked as though he was considering the idea.
"What are you even doing at the hospital, Edith?" I asked. "Blossom and Calista are fine. You're all fine. Go home." I eyed Blossom and Calista sitting in the corner, looking bored.
"I came to see how the mayor is. He's a personal friend of mine, and I feel it is my duty to make sure he receives the best possible care."
I opened my mouth to point out that if they were such great friends, then he wouldn't have chosen my mother to cater his party. But Dr. Wallace came out just then.
I worried that he was about to get mashed by the crowd as they rushed toward him. Luckily, Grayson had brought along some of his deputies and they interceded before the doctor could get trampled.
"Witches and gentlemen," Dr. Wallace said. "Please, everyone take a seat. We don't need any more injuries this evening."
People stepped back, but most remained standing. Dr. Wallace sighed before continuing.
"Normally, I'd be speaking to each of you individually regarding your family members, but since this is an unusual... an extraordinary case..." He cleared his throat, feeling everyone's eyes on him.