Magick Run Amok

by Sharon Pape

  “I wonder if Mr. Winston is able to speak to me for a few minutes. I have a couple of questions regarding New Camel’s history.”

  “I don’t see why not,” Louise said. “He’s feeling pretty chipper this morning, don’t you know.” She asked me to hold on. A good three minutes went by before I heard Caleb’s voice. It was frail and thin as if all the years of talking had worn away his vocal chords.

  “Louise tells me you have questions,” he said. “Let’s hope I still have some answers.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Winston. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you.”

  “You’d better get on with it—I could go at any time,” he said, causing himself a brief fit of laughing and wheezing. I didn’t know whether or not to laugh along with him. Gallows humor is tricky. I decided to skip over the problem by posing my first question.

  “Mr. Winston, is it true that New Camel wasn’t always the name of this town?”

  “Quite right. The original name was New Camelot.” I wasn’t surprised to hear that Merlin’s research was correct. From the moment he’d first told us, it had felt right to both Tilly and me.

  “Do you know when it was shortened to New Camel?” I asked. “And why?”

  “Well, it wasn’t long after the Salem witch trials. This town was still in its infancy—not much of a town at all. There was your family’s magick shop, a general store, and a small church with a fire and brimstone preacher due to take over the pulpit. One morning, in advance of his arrival, the town awoke to a new name. Overnight the last two letters of Camelot had disappeared from every sign, map, and document,” he said with a dramatic flourish to his words that brought goose bumps to my arms. “To this day, no one knows how that was accomplished. Unless perhaps you can shed some light on it, Miss Wilde?” Despite his age, he was as canny as a younger man.

  “I’m afraid not,” I said, “that’s why I came to you looking for answers.” I thanked him and wished him well. When Louise returned to the phone, I asked her what sweets they liked best. Without hesitation she said they both coveted Lolly’s fudge, especially the dark chocolate peppermint. I told her to expect a package from Lolly’s with my thanks.

  As soon as there was a lull in business, I scooted over to Tea and Empathy. Tilly was cleaning up from her last tea of the day. Merlin was helping, as usual, by consuming the leftovers so there was less to be put away.

  “I had an interesting talk with Caleb Winston, the town historian,” I said. “Come sit a minute, both of you, this is important.” When we were clustered around one of the small tea tables, I repeated the story Caleb had told me.

  “Aha!” Merlin said, slapping the table for emphasis. “So it would seem I am vindicated!”

  “Yes, but to be fair, Tilly and I never doubted you. We were simply trying to keep you and your situation out of the news.” Tilly nodded vigorously, her red curls dancing in agreement.

  “Then it is up to you to spread the word,” he said. “You must bear the standard and remedy the error.”

  “We don’t have the right,” I said.

  Merlin opened his mouth to object, but Tilly told him to shush. “Give her a chance to explain, old man.”

  “It seems our ancestors changed the name of the town to protect themselves and their descendants from persecution. You might think we live in a different sort of world now, but hatred is still very much alive. We need to respect the wisdom of our ancestors. New Camel stays New Camel. Within the family, we’ll pass the truth on to future generations. It will remain our secret.”

  “It seems I need to cancel my speech at the library,” Merlin said with a sigh. “And I was so looking forward to the brownies Tilly was going to bake for the occasion.”

  “What brownies?” she asked. “You never said a word about it to me.”

  “I was waiting for the right time, dear lady. But as it happens, brownies would also go a long way to easing the pain of my disappointment.”

  Chapter 19

  “Not interested,” Austin Stubbs said after I introduced myself and explained the reason for my call. Not five minutes earlier, I’d congratulated myself on how easy he’d been to find. He still lived in Burdett, in the house where he and his wife had raised their son, Axel, only to lose him at the age of twenty-four. I wasn’t surprised that his father refused my request. He wasn’t looking for justice, because he was satisfied that he knew the reason for Axel’s demise. But I kept coming back to Ryan’s death. Knowing it was not an accident, I couldn’t dismiss the possibility that Axel’s death might not be as clear cut as it seemed either.

  I decided it might be worth a trip up to Burdett to try to talk to Stubbs in person. The only problem was that I couldn’t give up another day’s business. It would have to wait until my aunt was free and willing to cover for me again. I worried that I expected too much of her, but since Morgana and Bronwen were no longer able to pitch in, I didn’t have much choice. My ever-ready conscience balked, reminding me that I could solve the problem easily enough by sticking to my day job and leaving crime to the police and Travis. But being a shopkeeper didn’t get my adrenalin flowing the way pursuing a killer did. Had my family still been intact, I would have had time off to pursue other interests. But with no one else to share the work, it was me, twenty-four seven. My conscience mocked me. Poor Dear, being a sorcerer is so tedious and unfulfilling. And teleportation? How humdrum. How can you be expected to cope? My conscience was sounding a lot like my mother. Too much like her. I spun around and found myself face to face with a little cloud that was pink with satisfaction.

  “Mom! How could you?”

  “Someone had to,” she said reasonably. “I just popped into your head for a moment to say what needed saying.”

  “You have no right to…to trespass in my mind like that. I deserve some privacy, some respect.” I didn’t even know it was something she could do, from the other side of the veil no less. “How would you feel if Bronwen intruded in your head that way?”

  “You’re right—I apologize. It won’t ever happen again.”

  She sounded properly chastened and a little hurt. In any case, I would have to take her at her word. As far as I knew there was no council or board that handled problems between the world of the living and that of the reluctant dead.

  “I’ll leave you to wallow in your misery,” my mother said. She vanished, but not before I heard her grumble, “Plenty of children would be grateful to have their mothers visit from beyond the grave.”

  “That would depend on their mothers,” I grumbled back, in case she was still listening. I spent the rest of the morning in a foul mood. Fortunately Sashkatu was astute enough to understand he didn’t get to be the grouch for a while. Whenever I sat down, he climbed into my lap. I petted, he purred, and by lunchtime I was back on an even keel and he was sunning on his window ledge.

  I’d been craving pizza for the past few days, so I put the clock in the window to let customers know I’d be back in ten minutes. Racing out the door to buy a slice, I collided with Elise who was coming in with a small pizza box. We fumbled it between us for a few very long seconds before she had it once again firmly in hand.

  “Is today a school holiday I don’t know about?” I asked as we both sloughed off our coats and tossed them onto the chair.

  “It’s administrative conference day.”

  I took a slice out of the box, inhaling the intoxicating aroma. “Works for me,” I said, hopping up on the counter on one side of the box. “You brought the pizza, so the floor is yours. How are you and the boys doing?”

  Elise planted herself on the other side. “They’re doing okay. But me—I don’t know. I’m just tired. Tired and bored. I don’t miss the cheating louse I was married to, but I feel…I don’t know…at odds with myself.”

  “Do you think you’re ready to try to meet someone?” She shook her head. “Then maybe you just need a chan
ge of pace,” I said, “a little adventure.”

  “What did you have in mind? Taking into account that I have two kids and a job.”

  “A little detective work for a day. I have to go to Burdett and try to dig up some information from the local citizenry there. I’d love the company, and you can take your investigative skills out for a whirl. You’re always complaining we don’t spend enough time together anymore.”

  “Hold it. Stop,” Elise said.

  I was taken aback. “Okay, it was just a suggestion.”

  She started laughing. “No, I meant stop trying to convince me. You had me at ‘detective work.’”

  “Do you have any more of those conference days?”

  “No, but I think I’m coming down with a bad cold.” She sniffled. “There’s so much going around at school. It’s a breeding ground for every imaginable bug.”

  “That works,” I said. “I promise not to tell your kids about the bad example you’re setting.”

  Chapter 20

  Aunt Tilly and I worked out a mutually beneficial deal that soothed my conscience. She would run my shop for the day, and I would take Merlin off her hands for the two busy days she had coming up. In my opinion, she got the sweeter end of the deal.

  I picked up Elise and we headed to Watkins Glen. From there it was only a few miles northeast to the tiny village of Burdett. With a population of less than 400, it was smaller than New Camel. I’d been there several times over the years with family, friends, or on school outings. It was a pretty area, with Seneca Lake and its rocky bluffs to the west and rolling farmland to the east. Most of the people were farmers. A small percentage owned the businesses that included a bicycle shop, a small variety store that sold groceries as well as greeting cards, newspapers and lottery tickets, and a mom and pop pharmacy that had escaped the attention of the big chains. There was also a bed and breakfast, a bakery/gelato shop, and a few low-end restaurants. In the winter, some of the older shopkeepers closed up and headed to Florida. In spring, Burdett came back to life along with its flowers and trees.

  We were fortunate that the main roads were clear of ice and snow. They could just as easily have been treacherous. The last snowfall had been followed by moderate temperatures, but the cold was slated to return after sunset, reasserting itself with a vengeance. Anything still wet would quickly freeze over. So we were aiming to be home before dark.

  We pulled into Burdett and rode down Main Street in search of coffee. The only possibility seemed to be a little café. There was no problem parking. I turned into a spot directly in front of the door. The frame building was old, but well-maintained inside and out. The restaurant offered mostly tables with chairs, though there were a few booths in the back. Two elderly women occupied one of them, and what looked like a mother, grandmother, and two young kids were arranged around one of the tables. I caught one of the little boys poking his brother in the ribs, which led to some impressive high-decibel wailing.

  We walked up to the counter to order two coffees and a cheese Danish to split. The woman behind the counter was sixty or close to it, a hard-earned sixty. Aside from a short order cook we could hear rattling around in the kitchen, she appeared to be the only one working there, waitress, busgirl, and cashier rolled into one. The plastic tag pinned to her white blouse said her name was Enid. You could tell she was an old hand at her job, no wasted motions. She had our order ready in under three minutes, the Danish cut in half, covered with wax paper, and in individual bags. We fixed the coffee to our liking at a station near the door and were about to leave when Elise nudged me with her elbow. “Why don’t we start with her?”

  A good question. A better question was why hadn’t I thought of that? We walked back to the counter. Enid looked up from emptying the dregs of one catsup bottle into another. “Did you want something else girls?”

  “A few minutes of your time, if you can spare them,” I said. “We’re looking into a number of deaths in the county. One of them was in Burdett back in 2014. We were hoping you might be able to help us out with some information.”

  “You cops or something?” she asked, narrowing her eyes as if to better judge us.

  “No, we’re not connected to the police in any way,” I assured her. I didn’t want it to get back to Duggan that we were passing ourselves off as cops. “I guess we’re what you’d call amateur sleuths.”

  “You’re kidding,” she said, her eyes lighting up. “Like in the cozies I read?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  She looked delighted. “I’d be rightly pleased to help in any way I can. It’s not like these catsup bottles will report me for taking a break.” She came around the counter, wiping her hands on the apron around her waist, and ushered us to a table in the corner, from which she could keep tabs on her customers’ needs while we talked. “You’ve got me intrigued. Who was this person you’re interested in?”

  “Axel Stubbs.”

  Her forehead bunched. “Axel Stubbs? You may be wasting your time. Everyone knows he died of a drug overdose. Of course some folks think it was,” she lowered her voice to a whisper and gave a quick look around as if to make sure no one else would hear her, “suicide. Why are you two interested in an open and shut case like his?”

  “We’re not at liberty to say at this point,” Elise replied, breaking her silence. I’d told her on the trip up there that I wanted her to dive right in with questions and observations, that I valued her input. For a little while, I thought I might have to resort to kicking her under the table to encourage her participation.

  “Did you know Axel Stubbs or his family personally?” I asked.

  Enid laughed. “If you live in a town as small as Burdett and you work in a restaurant for over thirty years, you’re gonna know everyone. I’m not saying you’re bosom buddies with everyone, mind you. There are different levels of ‘knowing’ a person, if you take my meaning.” I nodded and let her continue. Travis taught me that interrupting a narrative was a good way to forfeit information.

  “Axel Stubbs was a handful straight outta the womb,” she continued. “Colicky, moody, barely slept, but Valerie doted on him in spite of it. I never saw a woman more devoted to her child.”

  “What was he like growing up?” Elise asked.

  “Not much different, from all accounts. He was argumentative, sassed his teachers, was suspended more than once, if memory serves. Every incident chipped away at Valerie’s heart. When she died of a massive coronary at forty, no one in these parts was surprised. Axel took it hard, crawled inside himself. Could be he blamed himself for her death. The word around here was that his dad, Austin, blamed him too. I know whenever I saw the two of them in town they were either arguing or not speaking to each other. I guess Austin couldn’t stand it anymore, because he finally took his son to a psychiatrist. Axel was diagnosed with clinical depression and some other things I don’t recall. He was put on medication and even spent a short while in the mental ward in Schuyler Hospital over in Montour Falls. I heard through the grapevine that he was somewhat better after that. Not that it turned him into the all-American boy next door, mind you. But he squeaked by and somehow graduated high school. I always wondered if it was on account of the teachers wanting to get him and his influence out of the building. He left town for a time and supposedly started running with a bad crowd. He wasn’t back in Burdett long, before getting himself arrested.

  “What was he charged with?” I asked.

  She took a moment to think about it. “Selling drugs, if memory serves.”

  “He must have done time for that,” Elise said.

  “You would think, but it was a first offense, and his attorney played on the jury’s sympathies. Axel was a poor lost kid after his mother died. If he was sent to prison, he’d come out a hardened criminal. The judge sentenced him to community service and psychological counseling.”

  “What happened after that
?” I asked.

  “He started working part-time over at Willy’s Wheels, that’s the bike shop. Things seemed okay for a little while, but then I started hearing that he’d fallen off the wagon and was going back to his old ways. I’m no detective, girls, but it seems to me you wouldn’t be asking these questions unless you think someone had a hand in Axel’s death. Am I right?”

  “It’s a possibility we’re exploring,” I said, “but I want to be clear that we have no evidence one way or the other. At this point it’s pure speculation, and we don’t want to be the cause of rumors flying.” Rather than ask her outright not to gossip about our conversation, I put the onus on Elise and me, hoping Enid would be astute enough to understand what I meant.

  “Gotcha,” she said, putting both palms on the table to lever herself out of the chair. She nodded at the elderly woman who was waving from the back booth. “’Scuse me, girls, I need to drop a check for them.” Since we had to be going anyway, we thanked her for the help and left her a nice tip.

  Chapter 21

  We decided to talk to some of the other merchants, before starting the trek from farm to farm. First up, Willy’s Wheels. I drove down two blocks and parked in front of the shop. But instead of getting right out, Elise and I looked at each other and without exchanging a word, reached for the bags with the Danish. We’d sipped our coffees while we were talking to Enid, but it didn’t seem polite to stuff our mouths with Danish even though we had bought it there. From the first bite it was clearly a perfect balance of butter, sugar, and creamy cheese filling.

  “Maybe we should have bought two instead of sharing,” I said, licking the crumbs from my fingers.

  “No way, you promised to stay strong for me, now that I’ve reached the age when my metabolism isn’t as forgiving as yours.”