A Cold Spell

by Stacey Alabaster

  “Well, I didn’t know how closely Campbell was watching me. I didn’t realize that he was right behind me, waiting for me to join them on stage. I just…gave the boots a little stretch. Just with the help of a few magical words, that’s all.”

  “Vicky, I don’t mean to lecture you on how or where to use your magic, but you really shouldn’t have done that.”

  But then the color drained from her face a little bit as she told me about how he had given her what she called a ‘funny look.’ “I’m pretty sure he didn’t see anything, though…or if he did, he wouldn’t have realized that it was actual magic. Maybe he just doesn’t like newcomers to the band or something.”

  I sighed and calmed down. “Okay then.” She was right. And I didn’t see what the big deal was, really. It wasn’t like members of the general public were on the lookout for witches, or even knew the signs to look out for if they were. “What is really important is that no one finds out we are undercover as detectives,” I said to her, giving her a reassuring smile. “Otherwise we’ll never get people to open up to us about Teresa.”

  Vicky frowned. “Oh dear, I don’t want to bumble things up,” she said. “What should I do and not do?”

  “Be subtle when you ask about Teresa or anything related her death,” I said, but as I spoke, I wondered just how subtle I had been when speaking to Dean the day before. “And maybe you and I shouldn’t be seen hanging out too much, or people might start to wonder what the connection is between the two of us.”

  Vicky looked a little downcast at that, but then quickly nodded. “Good idea. I suppose I will be spending most of my time hanging out with the band anyway.”

  Sarah was cross with me when I walked in. Apparently, there had been a rush of customers who all wanted to try the new and improved black licorice pipes. “You are five minutes late for the start of your shift.”

  I wanted to tell her to put a cork in it. But that wouldn’t have been the best tactic, especially if I wanted to actually KEEP the job.

  The morning dragged on and on and as it went, the corset felt like it was getting tighter and tighter around my ribs, but that wasn’t possible, not unless Vicky had performed a spell that worked in the opposite way to her shoe trick. She had promised to teach it to me after we’d finished work, as apparently it was one of the upcoming spells on my curriculum.

  I was trying to find a good time to ask Sarah about her relationship with Teresa—her REAL relationship—without getting fobbed off or lied to, but we were just too busy to speak. Finally, when one of the reenactments was playing and the shop cleared out, I was able to slip it in in a way I thought was quite subtle.

  “I suppose it’s good that the candy shop is so busy,” I said, unpacking another crate of mixed sweets. “It means that Old Swift Town is popular with the tourists again and people aren’t letting what happened here put them off visiting…”

  “We don’t talk about that,” she snapped at me. “It is unprofessional, and I forbid the topic to be discussed again.”

  Wow.

  After that, Sarah gave me all the drudgework, and I was counting down the seconds to my break so that I could escape. But when my break time came around, Sarah asked if I could take my break in the shop instead of leaving, just in case she got busy and needed me to jump back in.

  “I— Uh.” I didn’t know what to say, but I definitely did not want to do that.

  But then Dean showed up to rescue me on his…well, not quite white horse. Kinda grey horse with brown markings. But still a horse, nevertheless. He jumped off and strode into the shop.

  “So, Marvin has been asking for you to come and see him in his office.”

  He winked at me, and I tried to hide my smile. I knew precisely what he was doing. And I couldn’t be more thankful.

  Sarah just glared at me. This wasn’t making her very happy at all. “Just make sure that you are back in half an hour,” she said.

  “Marvin will need her as long as he needs her,” Dean said. “He is the boss, after all.”

  “You were asking about Teresa the other day,” Dean said, nodding out toward the patch of grass where the reenactment always started with the bushrangers riding into town as a gang while the wary townspeople watched on. “Well, this is the job she used to do. She was one of the reenactors.”

  I already knew that from Beth, but I acted like it was my first time hearing it.

  I wondered why Dean was showing me this, what his motivation was, but I was ready to listen in case he gave away anything valuable.

  I tried to be subtle as I asked the question. “Which part did she play?”

  The reenactment had moved on to the heist stage. Dean pointed to the woman who was being held hostage during the robbery gone wrong. The one that all of the audience members were supposed to be rooting for to escape with her life intact as the hero rode in to save her…the classic damsel in distress role

  “It’s the lead,” he said. “Well, as far as these things go.”

  I looked over at the woman who was playing the part now. She wore a long blonde ponytail and a white frilly dress. “And what is her name?”

  “Marisa,” Dean answered. “And I play the role of the hero who rescues her. Some of the time.”

  He wasn’t in the reenactment right then, though. “Was Marisa pleased to get the lead?” I asked.

  “Yes. Well it’s competitive,” he said. “Or at least, it was before Teresa died. Now it’s more a case of them having difficulty finding people to take the roles.”

  I nodded. “You said something like that before.” But it did seem to contradict what the drummer, Campbell, had told Vicky. Or maybe it was just a case of them both being right, just at different times. I supposed it had been competitive at one stage, but since Teresa died on the job, it was less so. Made sense. I just couldn’t help but take note of the inconsistency. To be honest, I was wondering if maybe Vicky had misheard or misunderstood what Campbell had said, and I was wondering how reliable she might actually be as a detective’s assistant.

  Marissa looked like she was flinching as she got dragged from the bank by the bushranger who had a metal mask over his head.

  “She’s only acting,” Dean reassured me.

  “I thought these things were supposed to be safe,” I said with a gulp. “I mean, the ‘danger’ is all supposed to be make-believe, isn’t it? Playing a part, playing dress-up.”

  But it had all gotten too real for Teresa.

  “Did you know her well?” Dean asked me.

  I had been prepared for questions like this. If I went poking around, I was going to have to explain myself from time to time. So, in order to keep the lie as believable as possible, I’d simply stolen my story from another source. “She was a member of my yoga class, that’s all,” I said casually as I kept watching Marisa get dragged. “We were friends outside of the class too, a little. We’d go for coffees afterwards, but I never knew her that well.”

  Dean was listening, but he was also watching the hero ride in on his horse, the role that they alternated doing. Then he told me that he wasn’t up to that stage of being able to do the stunts while riding, so he only performed in the off-peak time productions.

  I wondered if he was at all bitter about that, or whether he was happy to take a backseat and pay his dues while he learned on the job. Just from looking at his face, I wasn’t sure which side he fell on. There was another way to find out, though. I could read his mind.

  So, here’s the thing—I’ve had psychic powers since I was a kid. The ability to know what anyone else was thinking. However, I had a dilemma—I still wasn’t sure whether or not it was ‘cheating’ to solve a case by using my psychic skills, which had always seemed to come as easily to me as breathing, and for the first time in my life, I was getting better at turning them off. I hadn’t been using them at all since working in the park, and I was worried that if I ‘flipped the switch,’ so to speak, the floodgates would open.

  Just when I’d decided it w
ould be too intrusive and too much of a betrayal to read Dean’s thoughts, we were interrupted by the manager of the town.

  “Looks like life imitates art,” Dean said with a raised eyebrow as Marvin asked me to come and see him in his office. It was true. Maybe we’d better be careful what we lied about in the future. Could come back to haunt us.

  “Have I done something wrong?” I asked Marvin as I stepped into his office, which was near the parking lot. I wondered if maybe Sarah had said something to him. Maybe she’d let something slip about the fake lie that Dean had told and I was getting in trouble for using his name like that.

  Marvin surveyed my hair with a disapproving gaze. “I thought I told you to dye your hair back to a natural color.”

  Oh. My hair. The bane of my existence right then.

  “It’s a simple enough request, Ruby. We require an authentic appearance from all our employees. It was a condition of you working her, so you can’t claim that you were unprepared for this.”

  But I had no idea how to reverse it.

  “Do you know where they sell any good quality wigs around here?”

  I took my bonnet off and sat it on the bench beside me while I slumped forward and ordered a coffee. Four shots. Akiro laughed. “Tough going at the new job?”

  I groaned a little and laughed. “And it’s not even a real job. Maybe if it was then all this would be worth it,” I said, rubbing at the pain underneath my rib cage. I told him about the corset and about the multiple levels of management I was dealing with. “All a big pain in the behind considering I’d just left a teaching job to become my own boss and be able to wear whatever I like. And take my breaks whenever I like as well.”

  “Do you at least get to eat the candy for free?”

  I shook my head. “Can’t risk it. Can’t afford the dental bills.”

  Akiro was frothing the milk for my latte. “Haven’t seen much of you since you started this new job.”

  I shrugged. “They didn’t do lattes in eighteen-seventy-eight. More like brewed mud.” Though there was a coffee cart that was technically located out front of Old Swift Town, on the other side of the front gate, so that they could claim that it technically didn’t ruin the authentic vibe. Employees weren’t supposed to be seen drinking from paper cups inside the grounds, though.

  “So, any ideas on who might have done it?” Akiro asked.

  I nodded as I gulped down my quadruple shot and wondered whether drinking such a thing at 5pm was such a bright idea. “Yep. This chick called Marisa. She had something to gain from Teresa’s death. But I’m gonna try and get a good night’s sleep so I can crack it tomorrow.”

  It was 1am, and I was still wide awake.

  “I have some information that might be of use to you.”

  I jumped and sat bolt upright in bed as I searched for where the voice had come from. My heart was racing, but it had nothing to do with all the caffeine I had consumed. Indy, my black cat, was sitting next to my bed on the bedside table, staring at me.

  “Of course. One a.m. is the best time to start a conversation in the dark.”

  “I am being serious, Ruby. You’re struggling with this case, and I can help you.”

  I sat up a little but still had the covers pulled up right under my chin. “I am not struggling, thank you very much. I have several leads already, and it’s only been two days.”

  “Hmm? So, who do you think did it then?”

  “I, uh, well.” I thought it was Marissa, but I was a long way from having any actual proof. And it still could have been anyone who worked in the park. I hadn’t ruled out a single employee so far aside from myself and Vicky.

  Hmm. I really wasn’t sure that I should be taking advice from a magical cat about the case. If I wasn’t even using my psychic powers, wasn’t this even worse? Yeah, this was definitely going way too far.

  She was still staring at me while I closed my eyes and prayed for sleep to come.

  But she did not remain quiet.

  “Do you want my help or not?”

  Well, I wasn’t sleeping, so I threw off the covers and walked to the kitchen to brew a pot of tea and pretend that was all I was doing. Just tea. “Hmm, what is that up in the sky?” I gasped as I dropped the kettle. There was something—SOMEONE—flying overhead on a broomstick. “Is that Clara up there flying around?”

  I spun to see Indy grinning slyly at me. “This is what they call the witching hour. This is when things like this happen. Magic.”

  “I thought witching hour was three a.m.”

  “Well, it runs early sometimes.”

  I rubbed my eyes. Even without the extra shots of coffee, I wasn’t going to be able to sleep after seeing that.

  I settled down at the dining table and prepared myself for what Indy had to tell me.

  Of course, she was cryptic as always.

  “You need to be careful who you are dealing with, Ruby. The person who hurt Teresa wanted to take something from her.”

  I leaned forward a little. “So, this is about the reenactment! I knew it. One of the other actresses wanted her part? Was it Marisa?”

  Indy paused and bent down to lap up her milk, leaving me sitting there waiting for her to finish. She raised her head and gave me this strange look as though I was being really dense. “The answer is closer than you think,” she said, nodding to the milk below her. “In fact, it is as close as this milk is to my nose.”

  Oh. This just got curiouser and curiouser.

  4

  We weren’t supposed to have cell phones inside the park at all. A bit of a strange request, seeing as though whenever you went out to the reenactment, there were dozens of people filming it on their cells. But there were different rules for the staff than for the customers.

  But I had to take this call. I just had to take it quietly and subtly while Sarah was out signing for a new batch of supplies by the front gates. No modern delivery trucks were allowed to drive onto the grounds, of course.

  “Hi, Beth, I was planning on calling you today. What can I do for you?”

  Beth was checking in. She wanted to know what I had discovered.

  “I think I’ve just about cracked it,” I said, and I heard her sigh of relief on the other end of the line. Not only would she finally get her peace of mind and closure, but she’d no longer be paying out of pocket for my hourly rate of a hundred dollars. And I couldn’t wait to get out of the candy shop. And my corset.

  Darn. Sarah was walking along the outside of the shop with Marvin, and they were both about come inside.

  I ducked behind the counter so that Marvin wouldn’t see that my hair was still bright red, while I buried the cell phone in my apron pocket. “What are you doing?” Sarah asked in a tone of annoyance. “We’ve got customers to serve, and you are acting crazy.”

  I composed myself and popped my head back up. Oh well, just a little more time to get the evidence to prove that Marissa was guilty and I’d be out of there anyway.

  Phew. Marvin hadn’t come in in the end, something at the other end of the park had caught his attention and he hurried away.

  But in the meantime, I’d have to be careful. I was so close, and I couldn’t blow the case now.

  “I’m taking my break now!” I said and removed my apron while Sarah glared at me. It was twenty minutes earlier than I was supposed to leave, but now that I knew how close I was to being out of there, I was less worried about coming off as the perfect employee. All I had to do was find the thing that was right under my nose.

  Hmm.

  The main street was particularly dusty that day, and I coughed as I waved my arm in front of my face, having spotted someone very familiar up ahead.

  “Whoa, what are you doing here?” I asked Akiro, stunned to see him out of his world and in my new one.

  He was trying not to laugh at my outfit. The full skirt, apron, and bonnet combo was quite a sight, I supposed.

  “Hey! It’s not like I got any say in the matter.”

 
“I’m sorry. It suits you.”

  I grinned at him and was about to ask if he wanted to grab a bite to eat. It was good timing.

  “Hey, sorry to run, but I’ve got a meeting,” he said and started to push past me.

  “Oh, I thought you came to see me,” I said, feeing confused a little offended, but I brushed it off. It wasn’t like his life revolved around me. And it wasn’t like I needed it to.

  “Sorry. We’ll talk later!” he said, while I stood there.

  I watched him walk away and tried to shake off the strange encounter, but I was still thinking about it as I approached the set of the reenactment. Sarah was right, I had gotten used to the sound of the guns and didn’t even flinch this time as a series of shots went off. Fake, of course, but they sounded just like the real thing.

  “Hey, Dean!” I called out, thinking he was just watching from the sidelines as he grabbed hold of his horse’s reins. “Looks like you’ve…” But he completely snubbed me and looked the other way entirely before he jumped up on the horse and started to call out to the bushrangers that they’d better watch it and let poor “Mary May” go.

  Oh. He was in character. I felt a little bit silly as I stood there on my own, unsure of what to do with my hands. Or face.

  Afterwards, he apologized profusely for coming off as rude. “Sorry, I knew it was you and I felt terrible,” he said. “But I am not allowed to interact with any members of the audience at all during a performance. Have to pretend they are not even there at all, you know?”

  I shook my head and said it was all right. “I know how strict they are about authenticity here,” I said. “So I am not taking it personally.”

  “Who is that that you keep looking at?” Dean asked.

  “Huh? Oh just…no one,” I said when I realized I had been caught gawking at Akiro while he was chatting with some woman I vaguely recognized from somewhere in the park. Hmm, maybe she was from the gift shop.