“I hope he knows I’m always responsible in my use of magic,” Kaillie added quickly, and Leanne shot her a look.
“Seeing as you try to remind him of it every single time you see him, I can’t see how he isn’t. But that will have no impact on anything. It’s not like Kyran is in charge of anything. He’s just the messenger.”
“You never know,” Kaillie said with a shrug. “It can’t hurt to have as many paranormals as possible aware of the fact that I reject my family’s history and am dedicated to being the best witch I can.”
I smiled as I dug into the mac and cheese. I was starting to like my cousins.
Chapter 10
When we finished eating Leanne leaned back in her chair. We were just getting ready to leave when a familiar face walked through the door: it was Aunt Lucy, followed closely by three other women. Lucy strutted at the front of them like she was their leader. As soon as she saw us she made her way over; it was like a sexagenarian Mean Girls.
“Boy, am I glad to see you,” Lucy said, taking the seat Kyran had recently vacated. The other ladies grabbed some chairs and pulled them over to our table. “I heard old Leonard croaked in the middle of the coffee shop today. Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“Because our instinct when someone dies a few feet away isn’t to call you straight away,” Leanne offered. “We were a little bit busy with other things.”
“Well, you know what I’ve heard,” Lucy said, leaning forward. “Apparently, it wasn’t a natural death. Leonard was murdered.”
My eyes and Kaillie’s widened at the proclamation, but Leanne looked nonplussed and just crossed her arms.
“Of course you’re going to have heard that. This is Enchanted Enclave. Everyone talks. That doesn’t make it true.”
“Oh, but in this case, it is. Dorothy here’s husband works as a police officer, remember? He heard it from his boss. They won’t be sure until the tox screen comes back, but Leonard was almost certainly poisoned.”
My blood ran cold as I looked over at the woman to Lucy’s left whose expression had suddenly gone smug. Her grey hair was cut to her shoulders, her blue eyes framed by wide-rimmed glasses. She seemed like the type of woman who would have had a job working a checkout counter somewhere where she could gossip with people.
“That’s right,” she said, leaning forward. “Joe told me himself. They don’t want anyone to know, of course, so you had better keep this information to yourselves. But I swear it’s the truth. The police think Leonard was murdered.”
Kaillie and I shared a worried expression, although the cause for worry was different for each of us. I knew Kaillie was scared that the paranormal world would find out what happened and blame our family, but my worries were more self-centered. I had been one of the few people to interact with Leonard at the coffee shop, and I had been the one to serve him both the coffee and the donut. If anyone would have had the opportunity to poison him, it was me.
I had to be the prime suspect in this murder.
That was just great. Yesterday, at my first day on the job I had gone for an accidental joyride on a broom through the middle of a mall. Today, my first day at a new job I was suspected of murdering a customer.
At this rate, by the time I got out of jail and found my next job I was going to accidentally trigger a nuclear explosion.
I tried to keep up with the conversation between Leanne and Lucy, but my brain kept going back to the fact that I was going to be locked up forever. I should never have left San Francisco. I didn’t know what to do. Dad would have known. Dad would have told me exactly what I had to do to fix this. Dad would have never let me come here in the first place. Dad never wanted me to know about my mom’s family here on Enchanted Enclave, and maybe there was a good reason for that.
I’d messed up by coming here. I didn’t blame my family; I was sure they didn’t know what was about to happen. There was no way. But the fact was, less than twenty-four hours after I’d moved here, a man had been murdered immediately after I served him. Even though I didn’t know him at all and had interacted with him for under two minutes total, there was no getting away from it. I had to be a suspect in his murder.
“Excuse me,” I said, standing up from the table. “I’m just going to take a walk.”
I didn’t wait for a reply before I sped out from the diner and onto the street, blinking back tears. How could this be happening to me? What had I ever done to deserve this?
I knew Leonard had it worse. After all, he was the person who had been murdered. But I was the one who was almost certainly facing life in prison for having done it.
No, I had to stop thinking this way. After all, I was getting way ahead of myself here. First of all, it wasn’t even confirmed that Leonard had been murdered. It might very well turn out to be a fiction invented by a police officer with an over-active imagination. And even if it did turn out to be a murder, there was no guarantee that I was going to be fingered. After all, I didn’t even know the guy.
Breathing in the cool spring afternoon air, I began walking down the main street in town, aimlessly wandering, trying to get my emotions under control.
I shivered slightly as I walked past a gift shop featuring a number of cute little items in the window, and I figured maybe doing a little bit of browsing might get my mind off things.
I stepped into the store, immediately finding my senses overwhelmed by the smell of a display of bath bombs near the front door. They smelled like eight hundred grandmothers had poured their entire bags of toiletries on the floor. It wouldn’t have been an unpleasant smell if there were just a couple of bath bombs on display, but this was truly overwhelming, and not in a good way.
Moving past the bath bombs and away from the smell, I found myself heading toward a display of pillows embroidered with pictures of woodland creatures. Adorable deer, fox, squirrels, otters, beavers and more were all artfully added to pillows which read ‘Enchanted Enclave’ in the corner. If I had come here as a tourist and actually had money to spend, I would have snatched up these pillows in a heartbeat.
“They’re just gorgeous, aren’t they?” a voice said from behind me, and I turned around to find myself looking at a tall woman who looked to be in her late fifties. Her appearance was obviously of the utmost importance to her, with her hair styled well, and her makeup flawless. Her face was plastered with the smile of a typical saleswoman, but it fell as soon as she saw me.
“Oh. You’re Lucy’s new niece, aren’t you? I heard you came back to town. Patricia and Daniel’s daughter.”
“That’s right,” I said with a nod. “Eliza Emory.” I held out a hand matched with a friendly smile, and the woman took it, but the split second of hesitation before she did told me she already wasn’t my biggest fan. I was half surprised she didn’t wipe her hand on her pants when she was finished.
“What brings you to town then? That’s just what we need, another Marcet family member running around. I heard you’ve already managed to murder poor old Leonard. He might have been a bit cantankerous from time to time, but I’m sure he didn’t do anything to deserve what you did to him.”
Her eyes narrowed at me and I stepped back from shock. This woman was actually accusing me of having killed Leonard. And to my face!
“I didn’t kill him,” I said quickly. “I swear, I didn’t. I don’t know what happened. He was just eating and drinking, and then he started coughing, and next thing I knew he was dead.”
“Like I’m going to believe anyone related to Lucy Marcet. Your whole family is bad news, and I’m sure you’re no exception. Who leaves Enchanted Enclave to go live elsewhere? Only people with something to hide. Now, I know you’re new here, so let me give you some advice: leave. You’ve been here for one day and you’ve already caused irreparable damage to the fabric of this community by killing one of its stalwarts. Get off this island, and go live somewhere else where you and your crazy family are actually wanted. And do us all a favor and take Lucy with you, will you?”
> I gaped at the woman. How could one human being be so mean to another? She had just reignited all of the fears I’d convinced myself weren’t real. Here I was, having a local small business owner telling me to leave because she thought I was a killer.
Tears threatened to sting my eyes, but I blinked them back. I didn’t know who this woman was, but I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of seeing me cry. Not a chance.
“Well, if this is how you treat all the customers to your shop, I’m surprised you’re still in business,” I replied as politely as I could muster. “I’m obviously not welcome here, so I’m going to leave.”
“You’re not welcome in the whole town,” the woman spat. “You’re a killer. We don’t like people from the city, especially not when they go around murdering our citizens.”
I didn’t reply and just left the shop, trying to get to the end of the street before I let the tears fall. Luckily, this not being peak tourist season, the road was practically deserted. I followed it aimlessly, and about three minutes after the row of shops had finished, the road ended at the entrance to a short trail that led to a beach.
The ocean waves pounded the shore as the wind picked up. I sat on a piece of driftwood, holding my arms close to me as the cold air hit my skin, and cried. The wind drowned out the sound of my sobbing as I thought about how lost I was without Dad.
“What do I do?” I asked him, my voice immediately carried away by the gusts. “What am I supposed to do?”
Dad always had an answer for me. He was the one person in this world that I could always rely on, and yet, he was gone.
The emptiness that filled me was all-encompassing. I sobbed harder, ugly crying as my shoulders heaved and my nose ran, letting the emotions I’d been keeping pent up flow freely. I missed my dad so much. What would he have done? What would he have suggested? What was I supposed to do?
I could always run. I could take a ferry back to the mainland – was there a bridge? I really didn’t know much about this island. But there had to be a way to get back to Seattle, and then I could fly back to San Francisco. I didn’t even have to go back there. I could go anywhere in the country, or anywhere in the world. I was completely alone, after all. I could start all over somewhere else.
And yet, at the same time, a part of me didn’t want to leave. After all, I did like Leanne and Kaillie, and Aunt Debbie was really nice. Even Aunt Lucy was a little bit strange, but she had saved me from the security guard. And Uncle Bob was the first to offer me the new job. I was sure he had no idea I was going to be accused of murder on my first day.
They were nice people. They were all nice to me, and a part of me wanted to stay and get to know them better. They weren’t my dad, and I wasn’t close to them yet, but I imagined over time maybe I could be. But if I chose to go that route, it would mean having to stay here at Enchanted Enclave. And that meant figuring out a solution to the current problem.
Then, a moment later, it hit me.
Everyone in this town thought I was a killer. And if I thought about it, I couldn’t exactly blame them. I had come in, and then less than twenty-four hours later Leonard had been killed, after I had served him his food and drink. I had the opportunity, and as an outsider, I was obviously a suspect.
But someone out there really had done it, really had killed Leonard. Who was it? If I could find that person, and prove that they had done it, then I would be off the hook.
I had to solve this murder and prove to everyone in town that I was just a normal new arrival from the city, and that I intended to make Enchanted Enclave my permanent home.
I had a plan. Now, I just had to figure out how to put it in place.
“I love you, Dad,” I whispered into the wind before turning around and making my way back into town.
Chapter 11
“I invited your cousins over for dinner again,” Aunt Debbie said when I made my way back home. It turned out it wasn’t too difficult to find; the island was smaller than I thought and the waitress who had served us at Otterly Delicious was happy to give me directions when I made my way back to Main Street. “I hope that’s alright with you. I thought you’d enjoy having some company your own age.”
“Thanks,” I said gratefully. “I really like them.”
“I’m very glad to hear it,” Aunt Debbie replied. “I know it wasn’t the ideal first day for you in town, and I understand if you don’t want to continue working at the coffee shop, but obviously if you’re still up to it we’d love to have you keep working there.”
I considered her words for a moment. “Well, it can’t get worse than today, can it?” I asked.
Aunt Debbie gave me a sympathetic look as she dumped a carton of spaghetti into a boiling pot. “Leonard’s death wasn’t foreseeable. We all know it wasn’t your fault.”
Just then, the front door opened and Kaillie’s voice called through the house. “Mom! We’re here!”
“In the kitchen,” Aunt Debbie called out and my two cousins appeared in the doorway a moment later.
“Hey,” Leanne said to me with a quick nod.
“Are you alright?” Kaillie asked. “You left the diner pretty quickly.”
“Yeah, I didn’t mean to alarm you. I was just a bit overwhelmed after learning Leonard was murdered.”
Leanne nodded. “It’s all over town now. Turns out it’s true. He really was killed.”
Kaillie shook her head. “I can’t believe it.”
“I went into one of the gift shops to look at some stuff, and the woman who owned it practically accused me of the murder. She said the last thing this town needs is another Marcet, or something along those lines.”
Leanne blew a raspberry. “That’s Ariadne. Ariadne Stewart. If anyone in town deserves to be murdered, it’s her.”
“Leanne!” Debbie scolded from her spot in front of the oven.
“What? It’s true,” Leanne replied with a shrug. “Ariadne and Aunt Lucy grew up together. They’ve hated each other since high school, although don’t ask me what started it. Aunt Lucy says Ariadne started it, but frankly I’m not sure I believe her. Anyway, the two of them have hated each other since the dawn of time. Don’t take anything she says personally; she hates you for your relatives, not for you yourself.”
“Well, I guess that’s a relief, in a way,” I muttered.
“Hello! Dinner better be ready, I’m starving,” a familiar voice called from the hall, and a moment later Aunt Lucy strutted through the doorway, immediately making her way to the stove to see what Aunt Debbie had cooking.
“Wait until it’s served like everyone else,” Aunt Debbie scolded.
“When you get to my age, you need to take advantage of every second you can,” Aunt Lucy replied. “You said dinner was going to be ready at six, and it’s just after six.”
“So does Aunt Lucy live here as well?” I asked, and Aunt Debbie nodded.
“She needs adult supervision at all times,” Leanne laughed, earning herself a glare from my aunt.
“Rather, the idea that Debbie has to live all by herself in this enormous house is just too much for me to bear, so I moved in to keep her company after Kaillie moved out. I’m unselfish like that. My room is on the other side of the house from yours, though, Eliza, so you wouldn’t have seen me last night."
“Hey Aunt Lucy, Eliza ran into Ariadne today.”
Lucy narrowed her eyes as she looked at me. “Was she nice to you? She better have been nice.”
“Umm, not exactly,” I replied cautiously.
“I’ll have her taken care of,” Lucy said simply.
“Do not hex her,” Aunt Debbie warned, waving the wooden spoon she had been stirring the meat sauce with in Aunt Lucy’s direction. Bits of meat and tomato flew off the ends of the spoon and splashed across Aunt Lucy’s face, who scraped some off with her finger and promptly licked it off.
“Yum, I love Bolognese. The fresh basil you add really makes the sauce. Anyway, I was absolutely going to hex her.”
“Kyran was here looking for you,” Leanne said. “Apparently, you weren’t subtle enough yesterday when going to find Eliza.”
“When has Aunt Lucy ever been subtle?” Kaillie moaned.
“He’ll get over it; he always does,” Aunt Lucy said with a wave of her hand as Aunt Debbie took out her wand and muttered a spell. The pot of pasta on the stove flew to the sink and poured itself into a waiting colander while the pan full of Bolognese sauce carefully poured itself into a serving bowl before flying over to the dining table.
I watched in awe as Aunt Debbie continued to cast spells. Dishes and cutlery flew from the cupboards that opened without human help and soared toward the table, landing in a formation that would have made Martha Stewart proud.
“Will I learn how to do that?” I asked when Debbie finished and invited everyone over to the table.
“You will,” she confirmed. “We’re going to have to figure out exactly how to teach you the basics of magic.”
“I’ll do it,” Aunt Lucy volunteered immediately.
“I’m not sure that’s the best idea I’ve ever heard,” Aunt Debbie said carefully as I sat down to eat. Dinner looked amazing. Kaillie handed me the bowl of spaghetti and I scooped up a pile and plopped it onto my plate, topping it with the Bolognese. I dug into the food as I listened to the others discuss the future of my magical education.
“Why not?” Aunt Lucy complained. “After all, I’ve got plenty of time on my hands, and I taught your daughter plenty of spells.”
“Which I swear I never use,” Kaillie said, her face paling.
“If it helps, I tried to convince Kaillie to use the spell that would turn someone’s face into a watermelon when Mr. Johnson failed her on a science test back in ninth grade, but she refused,” Leanne said.
“That’s right, I did refuse!” Kaillie replied.
“See, this is why I don’t want you teaching Eliza magic,” Aunt Debbie said to her sister. “She needs to learn how to do simple things like making objects fly, and transforming inanimate objects into other things. She also needs to learn the basics of concoctology. She doesn’t need you teaching her how to hex things. Or people. Especially people.”
A Cauldron of Hot Coffee: Enchanted Enclave Mysteries Books 1-3 Page 6