Curses & Cupcakes (A Stella Storm Cozy Witch Mystery Book 1)

by Amy Casey

  I had to make the most of it.

  “I just…” Krissy started. “I keep drifting off to somewhere. Then waking up. And whenever I wake up, it’s always you I see.”

  I nodded. “That’ll be because you’re latching onto me.”

  “Latching onto you?”

  I opened my mouth to start to explain the intricacies of the ghostly ways, and I figured there wasn’t enough time. “You feel like I can help you somehow. Like I’m the only one who can listen.”

  “Well I’ve tried speaking to every-bloody-body else, and I can’t seem to get them to listen, so it doesn’t really look like I have a choice, does it?”

  I shrugged. “Fair point.”

  I walked towards Krissy then. As we stood in this alleyway, it felt like we were the only two people left in the world. Like Krissy, and whatever she had to say—whatever secrets she was hiding—was the only thing that mattered right now.

  “What happened to you, Krissy? Because… because I worry that if I don’t find out, nobody will ever find out. And we’ll never get to the bottom of who murdered you. They deserve to be brought to justice for what they did, don’t they?”

  Krissy closed her eyes. I saw then that she was crying.

  “You okay?”

  She opened her eyes again, glared. “You just told me again that I’ve been murdered. And yet here I am, listening to you. No. I’m not okay. I’m really not okay.”

  I gave Krissy a moment. I had to admit, it would be pretty weird suddenly realising you were a ghostly apparition after years of probably believing that nothing followed after death. She at least deserved a moment for that.

  “Will I never be able to drink coffee again?”

  I tilted my head to one side. “That’s sweet. Really. Sweet to know that the first thing you’re thinking about is the brews at Witchy Delights.”

  “Oh, God no,” Krissy said, pulling her face. “The Witchy Delights drinks are rancid. Besides, I have a Costa card anyway. Last time I checked, Witchy Delights didn’t do loyalty cards.”

  I couldn’t speak. All that talk about what a lovely girl Krissy was. Well I’d be damned. “Well… in that case—”

  “I was heading home from my boyfriend’s,” Krissy said.

  My stomach began to twinge. “Is this Mark Heaps we’re talking about?”

  Krissy looked down at the ground, guilty. Shook her head. “No. My… my other boyfriend. Peter.”

  “Wait. Your other boyfriend?”

  “Hey. It’s the twenty-first century, okay? People are allowed to be in unconventional relationships.”

  I raised my hands. “Hey. I’m not disputing that.”

  “Good.”

  “It’s just… it could be an important piece of information, that’s all.”

  Krissy looked at the ground again, like she was deep in thought, ignoring what I’d just said. “I was walking back from Peter’s.”

  “Boyfriend one or boyfriend two?”

  Krissy glared at me. “I was walking back from his. We’d… We hadn’t done anything, really. Just done a bit of revision for Psychology.”

  “Is that what they call it these days? Not Biology?”

  “Anyway,” Krissy said, cutting through my words once again. “I remember walking down the street and I got to the corner of my road and felt this… this presence.”

  “A presence?”

  “I don’t know how else to describe it. But it just… felt like there was somebody there. Somebody watching. And after that, I…”

  “Wait. You were at the corner of your road?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Your body was found in Janice’s trash heap. That’s, what, quarter of a mile away?”

  Krissy shrugged. “I guess.”

  “You guess? You study Geography and you guess?”

  “Psychology.”

  “Oh. Yeah, that’d explain it.”

  “What’re you implying—”

  “Anyway,” I said, my turn to interrupt Krissy. “If your memory blacks out when you’re at the corner of your road, and you end up in Janice’s yard, that must mean that whoever killed you went back on themselves, somehow. That they must’ve captured you, dragged you there or something. There has to be some kind of evidence.”

  “You’re assuming that’s the last thing I remember,” Krissy said.

  I frowned. “What?”

  “After feeling this… this presence. I turned around and I saw them.”

  My skin crawled.

  “You saw who?”

  “I couldn’t see their face.”

  “Typical. Wouldn’t be a good mystery if you could see their face now, would it?”

  “But they… there was this smell about them.”

  “A smell?”

  “Like… like a sweetness. I don’t know. But anyway. The next thing I know I’m blacking out. Then waking up. Only, kind of not waking up.”

  I thought about what Krissy had said, attempted to piece it all together in my mind. But there were still so many lapses in the story. Still so much that needed to be explained.

  “Your boyfriend. Boyfriends, sorry. Was there any… animosity between them, perhaps?”

  But when I looked up at Krissy, I saw something else.

  Her form was fading completely. The glow had gone out. Her mouth was moving, but no sounds were coming out.

  “Krissy!”

  I saw right then in her final moments—of that I was sure—as an apparition, that she was looking behind me at something.

  Looking in fear.

  Krissy disappeared.

  I turned around.

  Daryl was standing at the edge of the alleyway, eyes narrowed.

  He looked at me closely.

  Then he turned away and disappeared off the street.

  When I looked back, Krissy was gone completely.

  But the fear in her eyes still stuck in my mind.

  Chapter 12

  If I’d had a choice between being back at work or continuing my investigation, especially after what went down in the alleyway, it didn’t take a genius to figure out which option I’d go for.

  But alas. Money was what paid the bills. Work was what put a roof over my head. Without it, I would have way more on my plate than a mere mystery that for some reason, I’d decided I was the most qualified and the most adept to involve myself in solving.

  But as soon as I finished… well, I was out of here. And there were people I had to talk to. The boyfriend. The other boyfriend.

  And Daryl, too.

  Had he seen me when I’d been talking to Krissy’s ghost in the alleyway? Had he seen me and thought I was delusional? Really, that was the best possible outcome. Thinking I was delusional was far preferable to him knowing the truth about me.

  Not that he’d believe me anyway. Nobody rational would believe me.

  But still, I couldn’t help wondering, what if?

  There was something about him. An air about him. A vibe, or whatever you want to call it.

  I just hoped it was more than mere interest. Mere curiosity.

  But as it stood, I didn’t really have anything to go on.

  Just suspicion.

  And suspicion wasn’t enough to solve a crime.

  I stood there at the counter daydreaming. It was a quiet afternoon. Joan was here again, of course. As usual. But remarkably for her, she was keeping pretty quiet, and actually taking some time to savour her coffee.

  There were a few other regulars in, too. Trevor, who sat reading the newspaper from cover to cover every single day. Amit, who seemed to get an irrational buzz from decaf.

  But otherwise, the place was quiet. And the quieter it got, the more I couldn’t help redirecting my thoughts towards the more interesting case here.

  So Krissy had been walking home from Peter’s. One of her two boyfriends. As far as she’d said, there wasn’t any animosity between them, or any trouble between them. She’d reached the corner of her street when she felt a �
�presence” behind her, and when she turned around, she saw someone—only didn’t see their face, which was just bloody typical.

  And then there was Daryl.

  The newcomer.

  The newcomer who hadn’t been here for long at all. And since he’d got here, someone in this sleepy little town had lost their life.

  And he was lurking around Witchy Delights just earlier today.

  Then lurking around the alleyway…

  There was more to him. There had to be more to him.

  “Are you serving or are you just gonna stay there and stare into space?”

  I jolted back to the present. Realised there was a customer standing right there.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was just…”

  When I saw who it was, my words stopped in my mouth.

  No. Not Daryl. I know you were thinking Daryl, but not him.

  It was DI Steve Burke.

  He stood at the counter, flat smile on his face. He was dressed in his full uniform. And in a way, that intimidated me. Because it felt like he was the thought police, and that I was being pulled up for mere speculation.

  If that was the case then the whole damned town of Goosridge was going to wind up arrested.

  “So?” he said. “Are you going to ask me what I want, or…”

  “Sorry. Yeah. Of course. I’m sorry. What can I get you?”

  His smile widened some more. I could tell he was enjoying this, way much more than he had any right to be doing.

  “A latte, please. Skinny.”

  “Watching your shape?” I said, attempting to break a bit of humour into the conversation to shake my awkwardness.

  Steve didn’t seem to see the humour. “No. Do you think I should be watching my shape?”

  I felt my cheeks beginning to blush as I rushed to the machines. “I didn’t mean…”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Just messing with you.”

  I wished he’d stop bloody messing with me.

  “How you getting on here, anyway?” he asked. “Keeping busy?”

  “Oh yeah,” I said, handing over his latte and spilling a load of it on contact with the counter. “You know me. Always busy. Always just… just minding my own business.”

  “I know you had a moment earlier, Stella.”

  I frowned. Tried to feign confusion, ignorance. “A moment?”

  “Don’t lie to me, Stella. Several people saw you racing out here like a madwoman. And that new boy. Daryl, something. I ran into him. He said he was concerned about you.”

  Daryl. That bastard.

  “Oh no,” I said. “That was just… that was just a misunderstanding.”

  “Well make me understand.”

  I looked around, wanting desperately to escape this situation, my neck pricking up with heat.

  “I thought I saw a rabbit.”

  Steve frowned. “A rabbit?”

  “Yeah,” I said, realising I was in too deep to back out of this now. “I… I saw it hopping into the alleyway.”

  “And you make a habit of chasing rabbits?”

  “Haha. That rhymes.”

  He didn’t look impressed.

  “No. It, um… it looked like a pet rabbit.”

  “How did it look like a pet rabbit?”

  There were so many answers I could give to this question. I could mention the colour. I could say that it was an albino, something like that.

  But in the heat of the moment, things never usually worked out quite the way you wanted them to.

  And that culminated in my next words.

  “It had a lead on.”

  Steve looked at me like I was insane. Which I supposed, in a way, I was. “A lead?”

  Damn. Too deep in to back out now.

  “Yeah. A kind of… of collar and lead.”

  Steve looked like he was trying to hold in a laugh. “And did you find this rabbit with a collar and a lead?”

  “Nah. Nah I… I didn’t find it. But hey. I’d keep an eye out for it if I were you.”

  Silence followed. The steam rose from the top of Steve’s latte. I wondered where this conversation was going to go, where this conversation was going to end.

  “Hmm,” Steve said, picking up his coffee. “That’s funny. Because I could’ve sworn I heard something about you standing there talking to someone. But hey. I suppose it could always be a talking rabbit with a lead and collar, right?”

  The way he looked at me, then, it was like he knew. He knew I was digging into this case. And he didn’t want that. He didn’t want it at all.

  But there was something about me. Something inside me that made me blurt the next things I said out.

  “I just think you should know about Krissy’s two boyfriends, that’s all.”

  He stopped. Looked at me. Narrowed his eyes.

  He looked like he was going to say something. There was so much he could say.

  But in the end, as he stared into my eyes, he just sighed and said, “Stay out of it, Stella. We’ve got things under control. Stop trying to do our jobs for us.”

  He walked off, out of the coffee shop, under the clock above the door, which read two.

  Which meant it was my break.

  Shit.

  My break. My break and Annabelle was supposed to be here by now.

  “Joan?” I said, throwing my apron down.

  “You okay, dear? Yeah. Me too. Me—”

  “Watch the shop, would you? Just until Annabelle gets here.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  I rushed over towards the door of Witchy Delights, out into the cold. “There’s just somewhere I need to be.”

  Chapter 13

  Always late. Always blooming late. It’s like you don’t even care about your old dad anymore.”

  To clarify, I was four minutes late. But my dad had a tendency to be… well, reactive. Melodramatic. Whatever you want to call it. And considering I’d rushed out to get him a birthday present—magically assisted, of course—I thought he might be a bit more appreciative.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, standing in his living room. “Really. But I’m here now, hmm?”

  He rolled his eyes, shook his head. “Anyway. Come on over. Sit down. The palace hasn’t changed in the year since you were last here.”

  I felt guilty again. It was true. I didn’t exactly make the best effort to see my dad. I’d never really had the strongest relationship with him. He was always away when I was younger, and when he was at home, he was distant, somewhat. Detached. And when Mum had died, he’d hardly encouraged me.

  And to be honest, I didn’t really like visiting because he was slowly losing his mind every time I saw him.

  The living room of his house was a tip. The television was covered in dust, some music channel on re-runs. There were empty packets of crisps, something he’d always had an unhealthy appreciation for, scattered around the floor. And even sadder than that… the photographs of Mum. They were face down. Like he couldn’t even bear to look at them anymore. Like the memory of her was just too harsh to remember.

  The kitchen wasn’t in a much better state, to be honest. I’d already cast a spell in there that got to work on the dirty dishes. The place smelled bad. Sour. I saw dead cockroaches, which alarmed me because honestly, I didn’t even know cockroaches were a thing in the UK.

  But anyway. I was here now, like I’d said. I could get to work on making this place better, more habitable.

  “How’ve you been, anyway?” I asked.

  He slumped down on his old sofa, which creaked as he sunk into a hole that he had formed with his body weight. “Oh, don’t worry about me. I’m eating. That’s what you lot always ask, isn’t it? ‘Are you eating well?’ Well, yeah. I’m eating. So I’m okay. You don’t have to worry about me. As long as I’m eating, all the world’s problems are okay.”

  I leaned forward, took Dad’s cold, frail hands in mine. “But I do worry about you,” I said. “That’s the thing.”

  He puffed o
ut his lips like he wasn’t really taking my words all that seriously. “Always a mummy’s girl. Let’s not pretend here.”

  “Hey. I’m not pretending. Sure, I was a mummy’s girl. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care.”

  There was silence, then. There always was awkwardness. Since Mum died when I was a kid—an incident that Dad still insisted to this day was the result of supernatural meddling, but there was no evidence to suggest that was true—he’d never been the same. He’d left work. Relied on the help of the state to keep him going. He’d shut himself off. He’d even grown a rather impressive long, bushy beard, which didn’t help him if he was trying to avoid being branded “Dumbledore,” that was for sure.

  I intended to visit him more often than once a year. It wasn’t like he lived ridiculously far away. But to be honest, once I was back home, I just was never that compelled to return. There was nothing drawing me back here. In fact, whenever I was here, I just wanted nothing more than to get away, to get back to my comfort zone.

  “What’s this you’re watching, anyway?”

  Dad squinted at the television, like he’d only just noticed it was on for the first time. “Oh, this. Girls Aloud, I think. They’re pretty good. Do some good pop bangers.”

  I winced at the way my dad used the term “pop bangers.” “I think this is Little Mix, actually.”

  “Yeah, that’s the one. Pick and Mix. Song about a secret potion. Black Magic. Maybe get to know ’em. Might be able to teach you a thing or two about the wizardly ways.”

  This was another reason why I didn’t like visiting Dad. He was always so critical of my abilities. He felt like there was some kind of “higher purpose” for me, but then whenever I tried to do something of purpose, he’d always push back, try and scare me off.

  “The case,” he said. “The one with the dead girl. You should stay out of that.”

  I frowned at him. “Are you reading my mind?”

  “I don’t have to. I can see it on your face.”

  “See it on my face. Sure.”

  “There’s a great darkness coming, Stella.”

  “You always say that.”

  “I don’t always say that.”

  “Dad, you said that when I was a kid and you didn’t have the change to buy me an ice cream at the fair. ‘A great darkness will emerge if you eat this Raspberry Ripple, Stella.’”