Spirits, Pies, and Alibis

by Nicole St Claire

  “No, we all have different gifts. That’s why we’ll make a good coven.”

  “Uh-huh.” The shakiness of my voice reflected the effect the word “coven” had just had on my insides.

  “You see, the Wolcotts are what’s called glamour witches. It means we use our magic to alter the perception of the people around us so they see things the way we want them to be seen.”

  I gave her shiny bob a sharp look. “Is that why your hair is always so smooth and perfect?”

  “No, that’s the styling gel I get from my hairdresser. Talk about magic. But it’s the reason a customer might buy a dress here, and every time she puts it on, she feels more confident and beautiful than she does in anything else in her closet.”

  “You sell enchanted dresses?”

  Sybil laughed. “Something like that.”

  “Interesting,” I replied, still not sure whether to believe her completely or not. “And Cassandra?”

  “Let’s just say Cass is still trying to find her specific gifts, but the Hollings generally work in healing potions and divination.”

  “Still trying to find her gifts?”

  “She’s had a few mishaps with her potions.”

  “That sounds familiar.” It’s not like I wished failure on my fellow coven mate, but I’d be lying if I said knowing she was struggling like me didn’t raise my spirits a bit. “Did you know I used salt instead of sugar in the pies for Doug Strong’s funeral the other day? Aunt Gwen had to remake the whole batch.”

  “It doesn’t mean you’re not a witch.” Sybil’s tone was reassuring, but the words were anything but since being a witch was the last thing I wanted. I was supposed to be an accountant. I was pretty certain the two occupations were mutually exclusive. “Remember that jolt of energy when the three of us formed a circle?”

  “It was in the middle of a thunderstorm,” I argued. “Maybe that was just the static electricity making our hair stand up on end. I’m a normal person. How can I possibly be a witch?”

  She tilted her head to one side and gave me a searching look, as if there was something I wasn’t getting and she was trying to figure out why. “Do you know the history of Pinecroft Cove?”

  I shrugged. “Sure, I guess. The Davenport family bought up half the island in the late eighteen hundreds and invited their friends. It became a summer colony for rich New Yorkers, like Newport and Bar Harbor.”

  “All of that is true, but I’m talking about the history before that.”

  “Not sure. Lobster village?” I guessed.

  “The lobstermen have been here a long time, too, but I was referring to our ancestors, the early settlers of Pinecroft Cove.”

  I frowned. “I thought your family was from Manhattan. Isn’t that how you got here?”

  “Goodness, no.” Sybil rolled her eyes. “That’s just my mother who decided to move us to the city. The Wolcotts settled in Pinecroft Cove as far back as the rest of the magical families had.”

  “The rest of the magical families?” I swallowed a lump in my throat. “You mean, like, werewolves and vampires and leprechauns?”

  “Get real, Tamsyn. Werewolves and leprechauns are fictional.”

  “Phew,” I said with a nervous laugh but then paused as I realized she hadn’t included vampires in her list. “Wait, does that mean—you know what? Never mind. I don’t think I want to know.”

  “Mostly the community was made up of healers, psychics, and mediums. Anyone with a gift was welcome. Most of the original settlers moved here around the time of the witch hysteria that swept through New England in the seventeenth century.”

  “Are you talking about the Salem witch trials?” Growing up with my dad, I hadn’t learned much about my mother’s family history, but I never would’ve guessed they’d been around that long.

  “Salem, and a lot of other towns, too. The irony, of course, is that none of the people who were executed in Massachusetts were actually witches, but contrary to the people who say that’s because there’s no such thing, there were plenty of us living in the area at the time. At least a dozen families packed up, headed north, and eventually made it out to Summerhaven Island. There are only three families left now, exactly enough to form a coven, so it’s up to us to preserve magic in Pinecroft Cove for another generation.”

  “I had no idea.” I struggled with how to process all this new information. When Aunt Gwen said it, it had been easy to dismiss, but for some reason when it was coming from Sybil, I found myself starting to believe. “So, what about the dreams I’ve been having?”

  Sybil arched an eyebrow. “You’ve had more than one?”

  I scuffed my foot along the tile and looked away. I hadn’t meant to mention that part, but there was no way out of it now. “There might have been another one,” I mumbled.

  “Tell me.”

  “It was Doug Strong. I saw him in my dreams, over and over, the night before the funeral. He was standing on the lawn at Cliffside Manor, drenched in rain. He kept trying to say something to me, but as soon as he would open his mouth, I’d wake up.”

  She nodded. “Interesting. I could look up the meanings of some of the symbols in a book of dreams, if you’d like.”

  I took a deep breath. “There’s something else. It wasn’t the first time I saw him like that; only the first time wasn’t a dream. It was the night of the party, during the storm when the lights went out. One minute, he was standing in the rain outside on the lawn. The next minute, he was gone. It was just after that the sheriff came and told everyone about the crash.”

  “A premonition, then. Or a ghost.” Far from acting like she was humoring a nutcase, I could tell Sybil was dead serious, and the hairs on my arm stood up on end. “We should call Cass. I think it’s time we convene the coven for real.”

  I swallowed hard but nodded in agreement. Did I believe I was a witch? Not necessarily. But I knew something strange was going on. Whatever it was, I felt better knowing I wouldn’t have to face it alone. Before heading back home, I took off the antique bracelet and left it with Sybil, who said she’d shine it up for me, good as new. She also promised to send me a text as soon as she’d gotten in touch with Cass. Since the bag of Uncle Ben’s had brought my phone back from the grave, I gave her my number, though I’ll admit to being a little disappointed the coven didn’t have a secret means of communication. I’d been hoping for a bat signal.

  It was midafternoon when I arrived back home. The inn was empty, and a cardboard box was sitting on the porch. It was one of those sturdy banker boxes with a lid that you use to store files. Sure enough, when I opened it, I saw it was filled to the brim with financial records, each featuring the Strong Corp. logo across the top. I shook my head. Only an islander would leave an entire box of personal information sitting unattended on the porch. Noah must have brought them by while I was out. The flutter in my tummy as I pictured him climbing the porch steps to deliver the box reminded me I needed to quiz Aunt Gwen about the efficacy of love potions and whether she’d brewed any lately.

  I carried the box to my bedroom and set it on the small writing desk under the window, tossing the lid upside down onto my bed. No sooner had it landed than Gus appeared seemingly from nowhere. He hopped onto the cardboard, spun around a few times, then curled into a ball and offered me a clear view of all of his teeth as he gave a most self-satisfied yawn.

  “Just make yourself comfortable, buddy,” I told him. “I live to serve.”

  The documents inside the box were loose and didn’t appear to have been organized in any way, so the first thing I did was pull them out one by one, placing them in piles on the floor to sort. There were board reports and financial statements but also random letters and papers mixed in. About thirty minutes into the project, I pulled out a thick report, and a scrap of lined paper that had been wedged between the pages came loose and fluttered to the floor. When I retrieved it and read the handwritten words that had been scrawled across it, my body temperature plummeted like I’d wandered in
to a deep freezer.

  DS, you’re a cheat and a liar. You deserve to die.

  “Gus,” I said, as I read the note again, “I don’t think Douglas Strong’s death was a suicide after all.”

  Gus rolled over onto his back, exposing his belly for me to rub, which I did with trembling hands. To be honest, the words shouldn’t have impacted me as much as they did. I didn’t know the victim after all. But he was Noah’s uncle, and besides that, it was hard not to care what happened to a person when his ghost kept popping up in your dreams. At the very least, I needed to make sure the proper authorities were aware of the threat.

  “Do you know what this means?” I asked, continuing to address Gus, although I don’t know why since he never answered back, which frankly dashed all my expectations of how being a witch with a black cat was supposed to go. “Someone wanted Douglas Strong dead.”

  Gus stretched his front legs, spreading his toes wide so all the fur between them stood out in little clumps. He blinked at me before closing his eyes and going back to sleep, completely unimpressed with anything I’d said.

  “Fine.” I shook my head at the lazy little beast. “Take a nap. I’m going to find Noah.”

  Though I didn’t have his phone number, I assumed that at not quite three o’clock on a Monday afternoon, Noah would most likely be at the health clinic. I hopped on my bicycle and pedaled my way downtown for the second time that day. The island clinic was a squat brick building with a sign out front that listed half a dozen doctors, although I happened to know Noah was the only one who was there full-time. The others were specialists with practices on the mainland and only came to visit on set days throughout the month. Though the summer population of Summerhaven was over ten thousand, most of the time the island had only a few thousand residents and didn’t need more than one doctor.

  When I arrived, the waiting room was empty except for the receptionist, a middle-aged woman with her graying brown hair pulled back into a bun. She looked up as I entered, an expression of mild surprise on her face, mixed with a hint of annoyance.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, discreetly closing the paperback book in front of her, which I guessed was the source of the annoyance. I was cutting in on her reading time.

  “I need to see Noah.”

  She glanced at the large, round clock on the wall. “Do you have an appointment with Dr. Caldwell? We close in fifteen minutes.”

  “Oh, I’m not here for an appointment. It’s more of a personal visit. My name’s Tamsyn Proct—”

  “Yes, I know who you are, Miss Bassett,” she said, cutting me off. Technically, she’d gotten the last name wrong, but I was kind of getting used to being called Bassett, and besides that, her aggressive attitude told me it was pointless to argue.

  Now granted, there were only so many people on the island, and my family was the only one whose members naturally sported fire-engine-red hair, but her hostile tone went beyond simply knowing who I was. Was it personal? It occurred to me that she might remember the whole poetry-reading debacle of my youth and hated me for it. I smiled weakly. “Could you let him know I’m here to see him?”

  She gave me a quick look up and down as if assessing exactly how much damage I could do. “I’ll see if he’s available,” she informed me, after apparently deciding my presence wouldn’t sully the good doctor’s reputation.

  I took a seat on one of the wooden chairs in the small waiting room. As she picked up the phone, I pondered just how quickly rumors spread in a town of this size. I was pretty sure that by breakfast, half the locals would have heard how I’d dropped by looking for Noah. I wondered what else would be added to the story.

  “He said to go on back,” she informed me before turning her attention once more to her book.

  Noah was waiting in the exam room at the end of the hall. He wore a casual pair of khakis and a navy-blue polo shirt, topped by a white lab coat. A stethoscope hung around his neck. It took all my concentration to remember I’d come there for a reason other than to just admire what a fine-looking doctor he’d turned out to be. I wondered again how Aunt Gwen might have gone about slipping me a love potion. Had she hidden it in my maple syrup?

  “Tamsyn, are you feeling okay?” His gentle look of concern almost made me wish for a second that I could say no, just because I was so certain he would take good care of me if I were sick. This really needed to stop.

  “I’m fine,” I assured him. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the scrap of paper with the note. “I came to show you something I found in that box you brought over.”

  He came closer and took it from me, holding it out to read. “What is this?”

  “I’m not exactly sure,” I replied, fighting to focus on the matter at hand and not at the intoxicating scent of aftershave I’d come to associate with him, “but it looks like proof your uncle’s death wasn’t an accident or a suicide after all.”

  “And you found it in the box of papers?”

  “Yes. I started sorting them, and when I got about halfway down, this was wedged inside one of the reports.”

  He turned it over to examine the other side. “And there was no envelope or anything?”

  I shook my head. “It was just loose, but do you see that crease in the middle and the way there’s a streak across the back like it got wet? I was thinking it looks like someone might have folded it up and put it underneath the windshield wiper on his car.”

  “Could be. But there’s no signature.”

  “No. Even so, I thought maybe I should bring it to Sheriff Grady and see what he has to say.”

  “I’ll go with you.” He took off his coat and hung it on a hook behind the door. I followed him out of the exam room, and when we passed the receptionist’s desk, he called out, “Marian, I’m heading out for the day.”

  I saw the telltale glint in her eyes as she watched us walk out together. Yep, the story of Dr. Caldwell leaving work early with Polly the Parrot would be the talk of the island by sundown.

  The sheriff’s office was housed in a plain cement building near the docks, just a few minutes by foot from the clinic. We walked there together, exchanging the usual pleasantries. I’m not sure what kind of reception I would have received on my own, but as soon as the officer at the front desk saw Noah, we were treated with the utmost respect and immediately ushered into Sheriff Grady’s office. We’d barely settled into our seats when we were joined by Sheriff Grady himself.

  He was younger than I’d expected, maybe in his mid-thirties at most, with the type of athletic build that was a prerequisite for looking even halfway decent in the brown polyester uniforms I was fairly certain the island had originally purchased sometime in the Nixon administration. His skin was tanned from time spent outside, and his dark hair was trimmed short in a practical, almost military cut.

  “Dr. Caldwell,” he said, extending his hand.

  “Sheriff,” Noah replied, giving his hand a firm shake. The greeting struck me as oddly formal, given that the two had worked together many times and were roughly the same age, but I supposed it was typical of their professions to show one another respect.

  “What brings you here today?” the sheriff asked, his face a little pinched. He pulled the chair out from behind his desk and sat down. “I’ve already told Curtis everything I know about your uncle’s crash, and I won’t get another update from the head of the NTSB investigation until later in the week.”

  “I understand. I’m not here looking for information. Actually, I’m thinking I might have found a lead. That is,” Noah added, looking my way, “Tamsyn found it, but I think it’s worth a closer look.”

  Noah handed over the threatening note, but Sheriff Grady barely gave it a glance before tossing it onto his desk. He lifted his hands in a sort of shrug. “What do you want me to do with this?”

  I cleared my throat. “I thought it might be proof the crash wasn’t an accident or—”

  “Oh, did you?” he interrupted, leaning forward in his seat and giving
me a hard stare.

  I stiffened immediately at his confrontational tone, but I willed myself not to shrink backward into my chair. “Or suicide,” I finished.

  Grady scowled. “Where’d you hear that rumor?”

  Despite the seriousness of the situation, I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. Was he serious? Whether or not Douglas Strong had taken a nosedive into Penobscot Bay on purpose had been the primary topic of debate at his funeral the day before, which at least half the island had attended. It was hardly top secret that suicide was the prevailing theory.

  “If someone was threatening Mr. Strong before his death, don’t you think it’s proof—?”

  “I think it’s proof, Miss Bassett, that you’ve watched a few too many murder mysteries. We may be in Maine, but this ain’t Cabot Cove.” He rose from his desk, shoved the scrap of paper into my hand, then moved toward the door, looking smug. “I know all you summer folks come from away, thinking we’re just a bunch of hicks on this island, but we’re not. Investigations like this are delicate operations and should be left to trained professionals.”

  “Well, thanks for your time,” Noah mumbled, standing and taking a step toward the door, which now stood wide. Reluctantly, I rose and followed.

  “Thank you for stopping by,” he said to Noah with a level of respect in his tone that faded as he turned his attention to me. “Do tell your aunt for me that her blueberry pie yesterday was as delicious as always.”

  I’m not sure what kind of reception I was hoping for from the sheriff’s office, but it certainly wasn’t that. By the time Noah and I stood on the sidewalk outside, I was fuming. “The nerve! He didn’t even catalog the note as evidence, or take a formal statement, or anything.” The man’s condescending arrogance made me bristle, as if all I should care about was keeping to the kitchen and making pies. Little does he know I’m descended from a long line of kitchen witches, I thought with every bit as much smugness as the sheriff had possessed, so he’d just better watch out if I do. Worst kitchen witch ever or not, if he made me angry enough, I just might find a way to turn him into a toad after all.