Nothing.
There’s nothing there. I feel absolutely nothing. No warmth. No spark. No magical electricity. It’s just a very nice kiss, from a very nice man.
I sit back, staring at him.
“Phew!” he hoots and mock wipes his brow. “The old man’s still got it, hey?” he says, smiling. And then his smile fades. “What’s the matter? Something wrong?” He scowls, and sunlight streaks his face again as the breeze rustles through the tree.
“I’m not sure. I mean, no. It’s just...” I stop, not knowing what to say, how to put it.
“You want more cake?” Jeremy offers, looking totally frazzled.
“Huh? Oh, no thanks.” I wave the offer away. “But I would like to see your toes, if that’s okay with you.” I lean sideways, peeking over the edge of the table, trying to get a glimpse of them in his slippers.
Warlocks all have one sideways toe. If he has one, the mystery’s solved.
“What? What is up with you today?” He scrunches his feet up in his slippers, self-consciously. Or, so I can’t see.
“Nothing, it’s just—”
I look up to see his eyes flickering from azure blue to faded blue jean again. “Jeremy?” I dive across the table, clutching his face once more, knowing this window of opportunity may be fleeting. “Jeremy, please, don’t leave this time until you’ve told me.”
“Told you what?” He scowls at me.
“Are you or are you not a warlock?”
His face becomes again dotted with sunshine, and I’ve lost him.
The old Jeremy is back. “Yeah,” he answers. “I’m as much a warlock as you are a witch.” He grins up at me, then bursts into a laugh.
I fall back from him, aghast. Was that his way of telling me, or just Jeremy’s idea of a silly joke? How am I supposed to take that?
“Jeremy, I need you to think hard,” I say, leaning forward and concentrating on his eyes this time. “The day of the explosion you said something to me. Something very strange. Do you remember? You said, He’s not dead. I need to know who ‘he’ is, Jeremy. If you know”—I take his hand—“please tell me.”
His eyes suddenly spring to life. His pupils expand and contract. His irises change right before my very eyes, from azure to denim blue, and our hands spark.
“Stay away from him,” he says.
“What?”
“Stay away from him.”
“Who?” I lean closer, our hands sparking wildly.
“Don’t pursue him. Just stay away!”
“Jeremy?” A stranger’s voice creeps up my spine from behind, and I drop Jeremy’s hand, severing our connection. “Sorry to break up your lovely little tea party, but I’m afraid it’s time for Mr. Wilkes’ nap.”
“His what?” I whirl around to see a man standing under the tree behind us, his face streaked in sunlight. “Hospital policy, I’m afraid. Only so many hours allowed to be awake without a break,” he jokes, his facial features are marred by the sunlight pouring in through the leaves. But it is clearly a man dressed in a nurse’s uniform: White pants, White shirt, White shoes.
Before I can respond, he grabs the handles of Jeremy’s wheelchair and whisks him away, pushing him so speedily across the lawn, Jeremy’s head is bobbing.
“Wait!” I call out. Why the rush? “Jeremy?” I shout after him.
The nurse ignores my calls, just keeps pushing him, Jeremy’s head bouncing still side to side.
“Jeremy?” I chase after them. “Jeremy, what were you saying?” But it’s too late, the nurse has already wheeled him around on a dime and is hoisting his chair backward through the door. At last the nurse’s face comes clearly into view, and it’s a frightening thing. Long and boney, sunken in at the cheeks and eyes, like a skeleton. He glares back at me with a look that’s both stark and leering. It stops me.
“Don’t. Just don’t,” Jeremy rasps as the door closes, his eyes flickering from denim blue back to azure again.
Chapter 5
My heart paces like a tiger in my chest as I’m left standing alone under the tree in the middle of the courtyard, shaking. Two empty dessert plates sit on the table in front of me.
What just happened? I look around. Why did the nurse take him away so quickly?
I look down at my own shocked expression in the spoon lying next to my teacup. Something doesn’t feel right about all that. Gazing longingly back at the door, my heart pounds. Perhaps I shouldn’t have let the nurse take him.
Then, I glance around and see other patients being wheeled in off the lawn, one by one.
Perhaps it really is nap time. I stare at them.
“There you are!” A shrieky voice pierces the silence behind him.
I don’t have to turn around. I know exactly who it is. Not now, please, gods. I toss back my head and appeal to the universe to save me.
“I was told I might find you here. What luck!”
For one of us.
Mrs. Dumfries scuttles in off the street, up the lawn, and around in front of me. There’ll be no escaping her now.
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you about a very urgent matter.”
Wonder what it is this time?
She stands, pinching the handles of her little white shell purse. Her hat choice today is rather tame one—a perky blue and white straw, sailor-type thing—with matching white gloves with anchors on them.
“It’s about the pie-eating competition,” she starts, almost breathless.
Oh great gods...I let out a worthy sigh.
“I understand you intend to scrap it.” Her eyelashes flutter nervously, and she makes a sour face.
“Yes,” I say.
“Then I am here to tell you, you just can’t do that.” She raises a scolding finger to my face. “It just can’t happen. Not here in Hex Falls.” She shakes her head, and her wrinkly cheeks wobble. “I know you’re not from here, so you probably don’t know any better, but people in these parts take objection to the abandonment of their traditions. Not to mention, they wait all year to participate in these things.” Her eyes flash as she says this. “And you certainly don’t want to be the one to ruin it all, now, do you?” she tells me with a shake of her chin. “I didn’t think so,” she answers, before I have the chance to. “That’s why I’m sure you’ll understand when I say you must put all these things back on the schedule, right away. Post haste.” She dots the air with her finger, like it’s punctuation. “I’m only thinking of your reputation, dear.”
Oh, I bet you are...
“Mrs. Dumfries—”
“Ah-Ah!” Up goes that finger again. “I know you don’t know what it means to the townsfolk of Hex Falls to have a place to show off their talents and be awarded a blue ribbon, and for that I forgive you.” She scowls. “Or I will...once you put things back to their natural order.” She bats her eyelashes, squeezing the handle of her shell-coated clutch even harder.
“Let me guess, you’ve entered the pie-eating contest.”
“You bet your booty I have.” She grits her teeth, her one eye twitching. “I have been in contention to win the blue ribbon in that competition for the last twenty-nine years!” Wow, that’s a long time. “Every year, since Smelly Shelley Sullivan and I first faced off in our final year of high school.” Smelly Shelley, hey? No love lost there. “Every year, she has somehow managed to eke her way into winning, by swallowing just one more mouthful of pie than me! Well, I’m here to tell you that streak ends now!” She stubs a finger at the ground. “This is my year. I can feel it. I’m going to win. And you are not going to screw that up for me”—she springs forward, poking me hard in the chest— “by canceling my pie-eating event!”
“Okay. Yes, I can see it’s personal. But—”
“But nothing. Smelly Shelley must go down!”
That may be so, but I’ve already made the changes. I take a beat, then smile. “Mrs. Dumfries, I understand that change can be difficult, but—”
“No,” she snaps, glaring. “There will be
no change. You are not taking this from me. You don’t get to just show up in town and change all our traditions. The contest will be held, as it always has been. Only this time, I will be taking the blue-ribbon home, and Smelly Shelley will be left crying in her pie plate.”
“But—”
“No buts about it. It simply must be restored.” She rocks forward onto her toes, threateningly. “There’s no other fair like it, for a hundred miles.”
“Yes. I understand. That’s the problem—”
“Problem? There’s no problem.” She tilts back, glaring.
“Look, it’s not that I’m not hearing you, Mrs. Dumfries. I am. It’s just, well...the town’s committee wants—”
“I don’t care what they want. They are not going to take this from me.”
“Ooooh-kay then.”
The corner of her eye twitches more rapidly. “I suppose they want to you to get rid of all the contests too—like the jams, jellies, and preserves.”
“Yes. Along with the pig squealing, hog calling, and rooster crowing ones.”
She nearly faints and has to fan herself.
“Don’t tell me you’ve entered one of those too.”
Her eyelashes flutter with abandon. “You’re looking at the longest standing hog calling winner in all the county.” She puffs out her chest.
Wow, I didn’t see that coming.
“Another designation I’m not about to easily part with.” She narrows her eyes to slits. “How dare you come to these parts and turn our lifestyle completely upside down.”
“Mrs. Dumfries, it’s not me. It’s the committee—”
“Well, you’re simply not scrapping these things. I will see to that.” She turns on her heels and stomps away, shouting over her back, “There are people depending on these events. People that pies and preserves and hog calling mean a lot to,” she shrieks. “You will not end our traditions!”
“Mrs. Dumfries, please, I understand, but I’ve have been given a mandate—”
“Mandate, schmandate.” She turns and rushes back, raising a quick finger in my face once again. “I will be talking to the committee about this. Of that you can be sure.” She pokes me hard in the chest. “You will rue the day you messed with my fair. I’m warning you.” Her eyes are large and wild. Crazy actually.
“Mrs. Dumfries, I assure you, this gives me no pleasure—”
“Either you restore our old-fashioned country-style fair to the way it’s been held for the last hundred years, or I’ll swear I’ll out you.”
Oh, no. Not this again.
“You put my fair back to the way it was, or I’ll tell the whole town about your dirty little secret.”
What secret is that; I’m a witch?
Wait a minute. I startle. She shouldn’t know that. My aunts and cousin erased every spec of leftover magical residue from her memory banks.
She should have no recollection at all that I’m even remotely supernatural.
Let alone that I’m a witch.
So, what could she possibly mean by “my dirty little secret?”
“What exactly are you going on about?” I ask her, pressing my knuckles to my hips.
“You know exactly what I mean.” Her woolly eyebrows lurch in that way they do when she has one up on me.
Great goblins of fire, this woman is serious.
“You’re bluffing,” I say. “You know nothing.” I throw up my chin.
“Oh, don’t I?” She grins. Sardonically. Her eyes grow strangely dark, and their centers spin, like two black pots of stirred coffee. She creeps slowly closer. “I know about you and your little friend up there on the hill.” She points toward Murder Manor.
“What?” I nervously glance in that direction.
“Didn’t think I knew about your sordid little relationship with the ghost of the Manor, did you?” She juts her neck, scaring me backward. “So far, it’s only me that knows about your little ghostly affair. But cross me, and I’ll go straight to the coffee shop with the news!” Her eyes pitch wide as she says this, and she throws up a hand.
My heart triple beats.
How could she possibly know anything about Sotherby?
Unless, she herself was a—
“Just imagine what the townspeople would do if they knew he existed. He’d make the perfect paid attraction, don’t you think?” She grins.
“Mrs. Dumfries, I don’t think you—”
“Do we have a deal or not?” She narrows one eye and glares hard at me, then smirks and confidently strides away. “You know what you have to do or your secret is revealed.”
I stare at her, walking away from me in the middle of the sidewalk.
That woman is so infuriating.
Chapter 6
“Aunties! Cousin Viv!” I shout, popping into Hex Hall, my voice frantically echoing off the walls. “Aunties! Cousin, where are you? Materialize, please!”
“Right here, dear. My goodness. What’s the matter?” Aunt Kat materializes first. She comes running into view out of the kitchen, dressed in her traditional witch’s frock, with apron around her middle and a shield over her face, rubbing whatever goo she’s been making on a dishrag.
“Everything. Or nothing,” I say.
Aunt Kit materializes next, following close behind, dressed exactly the same.
I don’t waste time. I get right to it. “Is there any way that Mrs. Dumfries could still be harboring magical memories?” I ask.
Aunt Kit and Kat look at one another blankly, then back at me. “I highly doubt that.” Aunt Kat tuts, sounding rather offended. She’s an expert in the field, I know, but I had to ask.
“Why, we worked on the woman for over five hours,” Aunt Kit adds.
“Seven, to be exact,” Aunt Kat corrects her before I can open my mouth, her hands on her hips now.
“I’m sorry to ask, but... So there’s no way she could know things she shouldn’t know, about me, or us, I mean. Now she’s been cleaned by both of you?” I pose it as gently as I can.
Aunt Kit and Kat stare at one another. “No,” they answer in unison.
“We did a thorough cleaning, dear,” Aunt Kat insists.
“Yes, that woman was chock-full of magical gunk, but we got it all,” Aunt Kit assures me, raising a finger. The two of them then nod in agreement.
“And there’s no way it could have grown back? Or...regenerated itself somehow, inside her system?”
“What? Are you talking about magic?” Aunt Kat pulls a face.
“Absolutely not,” Cousin Viv intervenes, waffling briskly into view. She sweeps into the parlor and up to my side, looking tremendously serious. Even for Cousin Viv. “Why are you asking?”
“Because, for some strange reason, she seems to know all about my...” I stop short of elaborating on my complicated relationship with Sotherby, which, at this point, I’m not sure how to categorize. “She was just insisting again, just now as I met her, about me being a witch. Or at least that’s what was implied.” My two aunts’ eyes stretch. “She even knew the details of a very specific situation, involving me, that she shouldn’t have otherwise known about.”
Aunt Kit and Kat stare at each other, perplexed.
“So, how could she know that?”
“She couldn’t, darling,” Cousin Viv says.
“Unless of course—” Aunt Kat breaks in. She stops and looks worriedly back at her sister, who finishes her sentence.
“—Someone else has hexed her,” she blurts.
I stare at all three of them, my heart fluttering now. “But, how could that be? I mean, we’re the only paranormals in all of Hex Falls.”
“So we’ve always thought,” Cousin Viv says. She folds an arm, catching her elbow, and taps her chin with the opposite finger. “If it were so, that would explain it.”
“Explain what?” I blink.
“If she’d been freshly hexed by another,” Aunt Kat explains, “that would stir up her deep-seeded magical memory bank, possibly extracting a glimmer
of something she knew beforehand.”
“Meaning, me.”
“Right. Or anything else magical.” She gulps and stares at her sister.
“Oh, heavens. This could give rise to all kinds of new-old suspicions.” Aunt Kit rolls her plump hands together in a knot. “It could start the whole nasty process over again.”
“Now, let’s not get panicked.” Cousin Viv raises a hand.
“You’ve got to be kidding me; is there anything else to do but panic?” I say, my shoulders creeping up my neck. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. And besides, this wasn’t just a suspicion. This was a full-fledged account of something that really happened, or is happening, in full technicolor detail.” I look at them.
“Are you sure she didn’t catch you conducting a new spell, dear?” Aunt Kat smiles. “That could rise a new suspicion.”
Cousin Viv raises encouraging brows.
“No. She couldn’t have. I haven’t performed a single stitch of magic since overthrowing the ex-Supreme Leader. I haven’t had to.” I shrug.
“Oh...well then, it had to have come from another source.” Aunt Kat bites her lip.
“So, that’s it, then,” I say. “You’re suggesting there must be another witch present, here in Hex Falls?”
“Or warlock,” Aunt Kit says.
Oh, gods. Jeremy. I feel my face flushing.
“What is it, dear?” Aunt Kat reaches for my hand.
“Oh, nothing.” Or everything. I turn to Cousin Viv. “Do you remember the strange shenanigans that happened, that we viewed through the crystal ball, the day of the jail break?” I twist my hands.
“Aaaah...yes, actually, I do, now that you—ooooh...” Cousin Viv’s faces falls.
“What? What is it?” my aunts inquire, looking perplexed.
“Oh nothing. Just a little matter of misappropriated identity funds.” A sudden flash of recall ignites my cousin’s eyes. “Have you had the chance to address the matter yet?”
“No. Not exactly.” I exhale.
“What? What matter?”
“Yes, address what?” my aunts demand.
Abracastabra (Hex Falls Paranormal Cozy Mystery # 4) (Hex Falls Paranormal Cozy Mystery Series) Page 4