The Wedding Witch: a paranormal cozy mystery (The Fairyvale Mysteries)

by Sofia Belle

  “It’s not a paper, first of all,” Rosie said. “It’s a blog. You know, one of those things that’s not from the nineties. It’s on this little box we like to call a computer.”

  “All right, Rosie,” I said. She didn’t like being compared to newspapers; they had gone the way of the buffalo, and she was concerned about her job security at the blog. Which was probably part of the reason she dug so hard to make her stories irresistible. “I already promised you an exclusive. You print anything early, and that exclusive goes away.”

  “You are so difficult.” Rosie exhaled. I hated playing hardball with my friend, but sometimes it was a necessary evil. And we were like sisters in that way—we could argue within an inch of our lives, but that didn’t change the fact that we loved each other underneath. “But fine, you have my word.”

  “So we’re all clear? You guys will mind your own business?” Mystery Man raised his eyebrows.

  The three of us sort of wiggled our shoulders and made general murmurs in agreement.

  In the end, I shrugged. “That’s the best you’re going to get, I’m afraid. Anyway, we should be going.” I slid out from the opposite end of the booth and stood next to Layla and Rosie. “Will I see you again?”

  He took a breath so deep that his chest visibly rose and fell. “I hope not, but only because that means I’m doing my job.”

  “Then this is goodbye,” I said. “And thank you. For saving my life.”

  As Rosie, Layla, and I left the bar, I couldn’t help the echo in my head. Mystery Man’s voice, reiterating that it’d all been about his job. That he wouldn’t, couldn’t see me again.

  But what about the kiss? Had that been his job, too?

  I pushed away the thoughts of that moment in the stairwell, that brief glimmer of time when I’d wondered if maybe, finally, the curse had set me free.

  When I looked back at the table in the corner, the one we’d just abandoned, I expected to catch one last glimpse of my Mystery Man. However, if I’d been looking for some sign, some hope that maybe, possibly, the curse had lifted its ugly fingers from my soul, I didn’t get it.

  The table was empty.

  And so was a place in my heart that I’d just unlocked.

  Chapter 8

  ** **

  “What happened in the hotel?” Layla took the back streets home. She said it was to make sure we weren’t being tailed, but I had to wonder if she just didn’t want more time to pry some answers out of me.

  “Nothing.” I stared out the window.

  “Something happened,” Layla said. “Since you don’t go from getting kidnapped to getting engaged in a second.”

  “We’re not engaged,” I said. “We broke up.”

  “Dang. That was the fastest life cycle of a relationship I’ve ever seen.” Layla tsked as she urged the Bat Beetle a little faster. “Maybe you are cursed. On second thought, maybe you should get out of this car before the curse rubs off on me. You might be fine staying single all your life, but me? I’m looking.”

  “Curses aren’t contagious,” Rosie said, her eyes scanning me up and down. “Be a little sensitive, Layla. Can’t you see she’s hurting?”

  “I’m not hurting.” I crossed my arms and glared out the window. “You can quote me on that.”

  “I’m not looking for a story,” Rosie said. “I just wanna help.”

  “You’re always looking for a story.”

  “Not when it comes to your emotions. You know that you come first. The stories come after everything else, even if it pains me to admit it.” Rosie scrunched up her face. “If you want to talk, talk freely. I’m not repeating anything we say in here.”

  “The Bat Beetle is a safe place.” Layla nodded knowingly. “Spill.”

  “Nothing happened,” I said. “At least, not between us. He saved my life, and that’s it. Maybe I’m grateful, so sue me.”

  “Then give us the rundown of events,” Rosie said. “It might be important to whatever’s going on with Linda’s death. I don’t believe it was a coincidence that three parties were all poking around Linda’s room at the same time. Everyone wants something. We just have to figure out what.”

  I latched onto the safer subject matter: Linda’s suspicious death. Even though it felt like I’d been put through the wringer today, I hadn’t come away with a bunch of insights. “After you guys left the window, we waited on the edge, by the balcony. He could’ve pushed me off there if he wanted to hurt me, but he didn’t.”

  “Well, how nice of him,” Rosie said. “I hope you have higher standards than that when it comes to getting engaged, Bel. You shouldn’t be with just any guy who agrees not to push you out of a twelfth-story window.”

  That got a laugh out of me. “I’m new at this dating thing. Never been engaged before.”

  “First time for everything.” Layla winked in the rear-view mirror. “In fact, I’ve just got a new shipment of honeymoon lingerie coming into the store tomorrow. You want first dibs?”

  “We broke up, remember?” But I was grinning. These two had cheered me up with their teasing, even when it felt like the world was ending. “Anyway, we waited outside until you had the genius idea to knock on the door.”

  “You’re welcome.” Rosie smiled.

  “I’ll take a real steak as payment,” Layla added. “Since I contributed to your escape, too.”

  “Lasagna’s not good enough?” I said. “I cook all the time.”

  “Nah,” Layla said. “Steak.”

  “I’ll buy you both a steak when this is all over,” I said. “We can celebrate, if we have something to celebrate.”

  “I’ve got renewed incentive to help you close this case.” Layla nodded. “It’s been awhile since I had a real, non-magic-zapped steak.”

  “Finish the story,” Rosie said. “How did you get back into the bar? We were watching both of the entrances.”

  “I came in the front door.”

  Rosie’s face crumpled. “What? How? You couldn’t use magic.”

  “No magic.” I held my hands up. “Just skills.”

  “Spill,” Layla said. “You’re keeping a secret.”

  A smile curved my lips upward. “We jumped off the tenth floor.”

  “Like I believe that,” Rosie said. “Fine, don’t tell us and be a jerk.”

  “It’s true!” My grin grew brighter. “We started down the stairs, two guys with guns chased us, and we left via the window.”

  “Even if we believe you, why were there two guys with guns after you?” Rosie asked. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “You’re telling me,” I said. “We interrupted them in the room, and they must have stuck around to wait and seen us lurking on the floor.”

  Rosie and Layla exchanged a look.

  “What?” I looked between them. “You two know something that I don’t?”

  “Well, after we did the whole room service gig for you, we ducked back into the room I reserved,” Rosie said. “We waited until the intruders left, but we never heard you two leave after.”

  “Mystery Man is light on his feet.” Layla raised her eyebrows. “You know what that means.”

  “No, Layla,” I said. “I don’t know what that means.”

  She looked at her fingernails. “You’ll find out then.”

  Rosie interrupted. “Anyway, we went back into the room to try and find you, but you weren’t there. So we poked around a bit.”

  “You poked around? Rosie, you could’ve been hurt! There were men in that room with guns.”

  “Will you stop judging me if I tell you what we found?” Rosie had a smug smile on her face, and despite my urge to tell her off, I refrained out of curiosity. “I thought so.”

  “What’d you find?”

  Rosie was busy pulling something from the tight pocket of her tight pants. “Two things. What do you make of them?”

  I accepted the items she handed over. One of them raised my eyebrows in a good way and the other not so much.

&nb
sp; “A bag from Dungeons and Donuts?” I picked up the plastic sack, empty save for a few crumbs at the bottom. I poked my nose inside. “Looks like a chocolate sprinkle donut if you ask me.”

  “You’re the expert,” Layla said. “Now, if we were talking about steak, you’d definitely want to confer with me. I don’t do that sweet stuff.”

  “Yes you do,” Rosie said. “You ate half of my leftover roll of Oreos last night.”

  Layla gave her a patronizing look. “Yes, of course I did. But those aren’t sweets, those are a staple in my diet.”

  “What I don’t understand is why you thought it would be necessary to take this out of the hotel room.” I twirled the bag around, but I didn’t see anything scribbled on the outside, no secret notes stashed inside, nothing. “I mean, I could understand if it had a doughnut still inside maybe, but an empty bag?”

  “Think for a second,” Rosie said. “How did the chief say Rosie died?”

  The light blinked on in my brain. “Oh my gosh, she was poisoned!”

  Rosie’s eyes glowed as I put two and two together. “Exactly. So when I saw the bag sitting there, I wondered if she hadn’t eaten doughnuts for breakfast. Do you know if she had been eating anything when she showed up at the dress fitting?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Most women prefer not to eat as they try on wedding dresses. I didn’t see Linda eating anything that morning, but I didn’t think it was strange, either.”

  Layla patted her stomach. “Linda was a girl after my own heart, I could tell. I bet you she had doughnuts that morning regardless of a fitting. I know I would.”

  “If she did, then that gives us some sort of a timeline since the doughnut bag was at the hotel room. She ran out, grabbed breakfast, and came back to the room.”

  Rosie peeked into the bag. “Looks like there might’ve been a Frosted Flake cronut in there, as well.”

  I took a sniff. “I think you’re onto something.”

  “And if she had two doughnuts, then she probably wasn’t hungry between breakfast and the fitting,” Rosie said. “Which would mean that was the only thing she ate all morning.”

  I nodded. “We can’t rule out other things—maybe she drank coffee, or maybe she grabbed something from the hotel room to bring with her.”

  “True, but it doesn’t hurt to ask around at Dungeons and Donuts,” Layla said. “Especially since I could use a doughnut tomorrow morning. Since it’s a business expense, that means Bel’s paying.”

  “How is this a business expense?” I frowned. “We’re not supposed to be looking into Linda’s death. We’re not supposed to be involved at all.”

  “But we’re doing it to save the Wedding Witch business, aren’t we?” Layla grinned. “Therefore, I’d argue it’s a very important business expense, which means you can buy me three doughnuts as a thank you.”

  “I’ll buy,” I agreed, “but only because I want to ask around, and I’d prefer company. Rosie, are you going to come, too?”

  “As appetizing as it sounds, I think I’ll pass.” Rosie tapped her watch. “Blog posts don’t write themselves, and since I can’t use the juicy story right in front of my face thanks to Bel, I’ll have to cook up something interesting by tomorrow morning.”

  “Soon enough you’ll have your exclusive and the whole thing will go viral. Your boss will promote you, and everything will be hunky dory.” I set the doughnut bag down on the seat and reached for the second item. “What is this?”

  Rosie uncrumpled a small cocktail napkin. As she read the napkin, I noticed the hotel’s insignia on the bottom right-hand corner, along with the logo of a castle straight out of a Disney movie. Fitting, since the name of the hotel was the Magic Castle.

  I began reading as Rosie handed the note over.

  Star light, star bright, the full moon I see tonight.

  I wish I may, I wish I midnight, have this wish to wish tonight.

  “That’s not how the nursery rhyme goes,” I said. “Where did you find this?”

  “It was under her pillow,” Rosie said. “The two guys before had turned over half the room, but they hadn’t made it to the bed yet, so we started there. We figured we’d have a better chance of finding something they hadn’t already torn apart.”

  “Smart.” I reread the note. “Looks like it paid off. How long were you in the room?”

  “Not long. We got nervous,” Rosie said, shifting her weight in excitement. “We figured two items in two minutes was good enough and hightailed it out of there.”

  Layla looked over. “That’s a clue, right?”

  I bit my lip. “I imagine so. Let’s see…” I trailed off, humming the singsong rhyme in my head as I circled the incorrect words with a spell that allowed my pointer finger to act as a temporary pen. “We have full moon and midnight.” I tapped my finger a few times against the page. “Full moon and...wait a second. When’s the next full moon?”

  Layla looked down at her watch, which really couldn’t be called a watch. It was more of a lunar calendar complete with all the symbols of the various lunar phases. “Tomorrow night.”

  I eyed my friends. “What do you two have planned for tomorrow night?”

  Rosie blinked. “Staking out some secret meeting spot with you? Please tell me I can use a droplet of information for one of my blog posts. Come on, I need something, or else I’ll have to spend my night monitoring the Holidazzle parade and reporting on which costumes are the most creative.”

  “Fine,” I said. “But you run the story by me first, and you can only run something small. No names yet, not until the chief gives the okay.”

  She grumbled something along the lines of we’ll see about that, but I ignored her ramblings and turned to Layla. “What about you? Plans for tomorrow?”

  “Actually, yeah. See, in the morning, I know someone who owes me a few donuts.” Layla slid a glance in my direction. “As for the evening, well, I could be convinced to put my sleuthing skills to use under the light of the full moon for the right price.”

  “What’s your price?” I asked.

  “I get to do your makeup for your date. Whenever Madrina sets it up.”

  “Sold.” I nodded. “My date will be a dud anyway.”

  “But at least your makeup won’t be!” Layla pulled onto our street, parked the car, and gave a salute as we all climbed out. “Successful night, ladies. Successful night.”

  However, hours later, I found myself lying awake in bed, the night playing over and over again in my mind. The bad guys, the exhilaration of the chase, my friends, my Mystery Man; all of it had been an adventure, one that would hopefully be the first step in solving Linda’s murder and keeping my business in the black.

  As I drifted off to sleep, the night stars pouring through my magically tinted glass ceiling, I still had to wonder about Layla’s comment. Because as successful as the night had been, something about it bothered me. And I had a pretty good idea that saying goodbye to my Mystery Man for good had something to do with it.

  Chapter 9

  ** **

  “Wake up! You’ve got a date tonight!” Madrina shook me awake. “Wake up, wake up, wake up, and get your skinny buns out of bed. This day isn’t waiting for anyone!”

  Most days, I enjoyed the use of magic. I enjoyed the fact that, with a point of my finger, I could make my dryer speed up and have clean clothes in five minutes. I enjoyed the fact that my clothes could fold themselves. I even enjoyed the simple luxuries, such as creating a spell that could start my coffee maker from one room over.

  But they say you have to take the good with the bad, and this was a case of the bad. Madrina had a tendency to pop in and out of places without much warning. It’s a good thing I wasn’t one of those people who slept in the nude, because my fairy godmother would’ve gotten an eyeful. For that very reason, I made sure to keep a sweatshirt on my nightstand.

  I pulled said sweatshirt from the nightstand and wiggled into it, covering my tank top, and peered through one sleepy eye at Madrin
a. “What are you doing here?”

  “You said I could set you up with a date.” Her cat-like green eyes stared down at me, and she let out that scary cackle that came with the territory for being a fairy godmother. Sort of how mothers developed soothing mms and ahhs when they had kids, except Madrina had mastered the evil laugh. “So I set you up on a date.”

  “I meant like, sometime in the future. Not today. Not this day.”

  “This is the future.”

  “No, it’s today, not the future.”

  “Well, I already confirmed it with your date’s mother. So if you let him down, you’re not only disappointing me and your date, you’re disappointing his mother.”

  “Why would you ask his mother?” I clapped a hand to my forehead. “I knew this was a terrible idea.”

  “Oh, it’s not so bad. She’s in the fairy business with me. She’s the godmother to two twin boys on the other side of town. Real troublemakers.”

  I groaned. “I already have one overbearing godmother in my life. I don’t need a fairy godmother-in-law.”

  Madrina did a fist pump. Her black robes whooshed back and forth, and her green eyes shone bright. “I told him you were ready for marriage.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying!” I shrank even lower, pulling the sheets above my head. “You make my life so difficult.”

  “Good, then we’re even,” Madrina said. “Don’t you think I should get to make your lives a little bit difficult after all you’ve put me through?”

  “No, because that’s your job,” I said. “To guide us through our life phases and point us in the right direction when we get off track.”

  “You’ve cost me a lot of overtime over the years.”

  “And you own a nice house because of it,” I said. I didn’t actually know if she owned a nice home or not, since all fairy godmothers lived in a small community deep within the Forest of Fairies—hence the name. The tourists thought it was a joke, but we—the real magic folk—knew better. “At least, that’s what you tell us. Invite us over for breakfast sometime so we can see it.”

  “I like to keep my personal and business lives separate.” Madrina raised her eyebrows. “I don’t want you girls meddling in the personal side of my business.”