Don't Give a Witch (Bless Your Witch Book Six)

by Amy Boyles

Pearbottom tightened a cuff with a loud snick. “I’m doing what any officer would do, taking him down to the station and holding him. Other than you, he’s the only person who knows what happened the night Queen Catherine was killed.”

  Roman dragged Pearbottom away from his father. He fisted up the collar of Jonathan’s cape and snapped him forward. “He doesn’t remember anything.”

  Pearbottom tried to free himself from Roman, but I’ll give it to my boyfriend—he held on tight. “He’s a murder suspect. He was twenty years ago and he still is today. I’m taking him in.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Roman, you will let me go or I’ll put you in a cell right beside him.”

  Roman's grip on Jonathan tightened. Anger glinted in his eyes, and his jaw twitched. “Do it.”

  Boo took a feeble step forward. His long silver beard drifted down to his midsection. He’d slicked his hair back. The man looked like a hard-riding motorcycle cowboy, but he was as soft as a newborn kitten in personality. He was great. I adored him.

  Tears pricked my eyes. This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t. All Roman wanted was to protect the people he loved. That’s why he’d hidden his father in his cottage. He wanted him kept away from the outside world so that Boo could heal from the pain and suffering of losing his wife and children.

  Boo had been missing for twenty years when we found him. He didn’t remember what happened the night of the murders then, and he still hadn’t. The memory could be forced from him, but the damage it could do might crack open his brain and cause him more harm than good.

  “Roman,” Boo said slowly. “Leave it be. This man needs to take me in. We need to let him do that and not interfere with the law.”

  Pain filled Roman’s face. He looked at his father. Boo nodded. Roman’s grip on Pearbottom loosened, his white knuckles returning to their normal fleshy color as blood pumped through his fingers.

  “He’s not guilty,” Roman said. “Jonathan, don’t do this. Don’t start a witch hunt on my dad. He didn’t harm my mother and sisters.”

  Pearbottom straightened his cape and took a couple of steps away from Roman. The inspector watched my boyfriend with unease. “Then the truth will come out.”

  Roman flexed his fingers. “He doesn’t remember much about what happened.”

  “Then we’ll help him,” Pearbottom said. “We have ways of helping with that.”

  “It may ruin his memory for good,” Roman argued. He shook his head. “If you’re taking him, then you’re taking me as well.”

  Pearbottom frowned. “We have an open investigation here.”

  Roman took an intimidating step forward. “If you leave, I leave.”

  Pearbottom’s mouth quivered. “We can’t both leave. You know that as well as I do.”

  Roman crossed his arms and leaned on one hip. He had the inspector and Roman knew it. I nearly smiled, but then I remembered this was a very serious situation and no one should be smiling, least of all me, since everyone thought I was a troublemaker.

  Pearbottom’s gaze flicked from Boo to Roman. “Okay. He’ll stay here for now. But only until we have the culprit who stole Never Forget.” He glanced at Boo. “I’m putting you under house arrest.”

  “That sounds familiar,” I said.

  Pearbottom shot me a dirty look. It was only a few weeks ago that Pearbottom had placed me and my sisters under house arrest. He did it to teach me a lesson about working magic in front of regular people. I guess I learned something from the entire experience. Not sure what, but something.

  Pearbottom took the cuffs off Boo. “I’ll have some men stationed outside to guard the house. No need to put an anklet on him. No one can leave Castle Witch right now, anyway.”

  Roman agreed to the uneasy terms. “You don’t touch my father until we settle things here. Understood?”

  Pearbottom nodded. “I’ll keep my part of the bargain as long as you do.”

  Roman cocked his head. “Agreed.”

  The men shook hands. I slid a hand over Roman’s tense bicep. “Go talk to your father. I’ll catch up with you later, okay?”

  Roman planted a kiss on my forehead. “I’ll see you soon.”

  I slinked back to the theater. I briefly wondered if Grandma could teach me how to do that whole trick where it could seem like I was watching the competition but I was secretly somewhere else. Not that I didn’t want to watch the show or anything. I mean, it wasn’t like I had something better going on.

  Chasity LaRue met me on the path.

  “Good morning,” I said. “You’re not going to be late for judging, are you?”

  Chasity smiled. She fluffed her blonde hair. “I hope not. I’ve been busy catching up with some of the witches. Have you met any of them?”

  “Not really. Especially not after that horrible Lucinda accused me of cheating.”

  Chasity clicked her tongue. “Puts a damper on things, doesn’t it?”

  I giggled. “Just a touch.” I leaned over and whispered, “Listen, I wanted to thank you again for giving me the ring.”

  Chasity stared at me blankly. “What ring?”

  “Ha-ha. Very funny. You know what ring.” She clearly knew what ring. “The pact ring,” I said, keeping my voice as low as possible.

  “What pact ring?” she said.

  I shook my head. I waited for a couple of older witches to pass us on the path. I gave them a curt nod of greeting. “Chasity, come on. The pact ring that your mother made with whoever killed Roman’s family. The ring. You know, it has a clear crystal, but once you slip it on the right person, the stone is supposed to turn red?”

  Chasity stopped. Her eyebrows were sewn together, giving her an expression that was a mixture of anger and confusion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never seen nor heard of any kind of pact ring.”

  I grabbed her arm. “Chasity, I don’t understand why you’re pretending not to know about this. You’re the one who gave it to me.”

  Chasity jerked her arm away. I gasped. “Stop accusing me of giving you something that I didn’t. You’re upsetting me talking about my mother. She never gave me a ring like that.” She backed away. “It would be best if you dropped this whole thing.”

  She turned, continuing on the path toward the theater. I watched in shock as Chasity kept right on walking, not once turning back to me.

  What in the tarnation was going on? Chasity had given me that ring. Why was she denying it? I started walking, my body moving numbly. My head swam from all the confusion. As I walked, the realization slowly seeped into my body.

  Chasity swore she didn’t know anything about the ring. It wasn’t that she was denying giving it to me. That wasn’t it at all. There was only one explanation for what was happening.

  Chasity didn’t admit to knowing about the ring because someone, somewhere had done something to her. I had two guesses. The first was that it wasn’t just someone. The person who fulfilled the pact that the ring recognized had wiped Chasity’s memory.

  Which meant whoever had killed Roman’s mother and sisters was here, at Castle Witch.

  My second guess was that they were coming for me next.

  FOURTEEN

  I couldn’t focus no matter how hard I tried. The fact that someone had wiped Chasity’s memory unsettled me. You might as well dunk me in water and wring me out to dry.

  Luckily it was freestyle day at the competition, so all the witches and wizards could do whatever they wanted. While I hid in the balcony, I watched one of them pull fireballs from his ears. I’m not sure how he did it, but it was definitely interesting. Another made a Pegasus appear. It flew through the audience and landed safely back on the stage.

  Reid crocheted a never-ending scarf. Not exactly sure how that’s a talent, but you know, it’s her world; I just live in it.

  By the time we broke for lunch, I was more than ready to get out of there. I met Grandma and my sisters and headed back to the castle.

  “Someon
e wiped Chasity’s memory,” I said as soon as we claimed spots at an empty table.

  “Why would they do that?” Reid asked.

  So I told them the story behind the ring.

  Reid’s eyes grew larger and larger until I was certain they were going to pop. Which they didn’t. Good thing. I didn’t know if I could deal with one more bit of drama for the day. First Boo Bane being arrested and now someone had fried Chasity. I rubbed my forehead and realized a stress headache was kicking into high gear.

  “That’s some heavy stuff,” Reid said.

  “You could say that again,” Sera said. “Wow. So it’s someone here.”

  Grandma slid her sleeves up to her elbows. “It most certainly is. In fact, with so much going on, I think it’s time you learned a new spell.”

  Milly waddled up to the table. “Did I hear you say we get to teach the girls something new?”

  I raised my hand. “Yeah, before we get to that, are you going to tell me what was in that drink this morning?”

  Grandma and Milly exchanged glances. “Just something to preserve your memory,” Grandma said.

  I studied them carefully. “So I’m not going to get more than that out of you?”

  Milly shook her head. “You should be able to figure it out based on that information.”

  I drummed my fingers on the table. “Should is not the same as could.”

  Reid scrunched up her nose. “What does that mean?”

  I let my hand drop to the table in defeat. “It means I can’t.”

  She frowned. “You haven’t even tried.”

  “So you’re bootlegging Never Forget? Is that it?”

  My grandmothers stared at each other in a weird enough way that I figured I must’ve been right.

  Grandma clapped her hands. “Let’s get back to business, girls. Your other grandmother and I have been discussing a new spell. It’s one you all should have learned years ago. It takes practice, skill and, most of all, belief.”

  Milly shuffled into a chair and hooked her cane over the lip of the table. Her narrowed gaze sliced into me as she said, “It’s a time spell.”

  Pretty sure all three of us held our collective breaths. A glob of spit edged down the back of my throat, choking me into a coughing fit. Sera rubbed my back until it was over.

  “Did you say time?” I said.

  “You got it, toots,” Milly said.

  “Like time, time,” I said.

  Milly frowned. “Is there another time I don’t know about?”

  “This is really fragile stuff. You can’t just go around meddling with time. You could do something really crazy like screw with the time and space continuums.”

  Grandma and Milly exchanged glances. “What is she talking about, Hazel?”

  Grandma shook her head. “I have no idea. Dylan, don’t be such a stick in the mud. It’s not like we’re going to teach you how to rip a hole in the universe or show you another dimension.”

  “That’s good,” Sera said. “I do not want to go to the Bizarro dimension like they always had on Super Friends.”

  “Me neither,” I said. “That Bizarro World seemed a bit too bizarre for me.”

  “I have no idea what y’all are talking about, but I don’t want to do it either,” Reid added.

  “Good,” I said. “Then it’s settled. No Bizarro Worlds for us.”

  “Want to shake on it?” Sera said.

  The three of us shook hands over the table.

  Milly rolled her eyes. “Great. Now that we’ve got all the feel-good stuff taken care of, let’s finish up lunch and head back to your room so we can mess with your brains.”

  We found Nan back in our room. “How’s it going?” I said. “We haven’t seen you since we arrived.”

  Nan wore her protector uniform. It was a black dress suit. Emblazoned over the left breast was a blue shield behind a golden sword.

  “I’ve been keeping up on my protector continuing education,” she said. “Lots of new weapons coming down the pipeline. New ways to stop an opponent with my bare hands, that sort of thing. I want you to know I’ll be ready at any and every time.”

  “Great,” I said, “’cause we could use all the protecting we can get.”

  Nan raised her fists. “Let me at ’em.”

  “You’ll splat ’em?” Sera said, whisking a strand of glossy hair from her face.

  “You got that right,” Nan said.

  “You girls ready to get to work?” Milly said.

  I dropped my purse on the bed. “Let us at this magic,” I said. “We’ll show it who’s boss. Grandma, how long before you have to be back in the theater?”

  Grandma glanced at her watch. For the first time I noticed she was wearing one and it had a huge magnified crystal. The thing took up the lower half of her arm.

  “We have an hour,” Grandma said.

  “Let’s get to it,” I said to Milly.

  This was great. It was exactly the kind of distraction I needed so I wouldn’t think about all the weird stuff that had occurred that morning. “Teach us how to bend time.”

  Grandma’s gaze shot over at me. “Why, Dylan, that’s exactly right. We’re going to bend time.”

  Reid fist pumped the air. “Sweet! Does this mean if I bend time, I can get boys to like me?”

  Sera and I shook our head. “No,” we said in unison.

  “Darn it,” Reid pouted.

  Milly clapped her hands together. “This is very difficult to learn and to teach, but since we’re at Castle Witch, you girls are at the best possible place to work this sort of magic. With all the people of magic here who happen to be using their power, the extra ions in the air will help you do this.”

  “Do what, exactly?” I said.

  Grandma crossed to my closet and pulled out a robe. She armed her way into it and cinched the tie at the waist. I didn’t know what she was doing with my robe on, and to be honest, I didn’t want to ask.

  Grandma reached into the pocket and pulled out a green frog. Yellow eyes stared at me. It blinked slowly, and a wave of goose bumps flushed down my back.

  “Have you been hiding that thing in my robe?” I said.

  Grandma tipped her head back and forth. “No. I just pulled him out magically.”

  “Ew,” Reid said. “What is that?”

  “It’s called a Tempus frog,” Milly said.

  Sera plopped down on a bed, rested her head on a pillow and draped an arm over her eyes. “Don’t tell me it can move time.”

  Grandma petted its head like the thing was a housecat. “It can and it does.”

  Sera shook her head. “It’s official. I’ve heard everything. Wake me up when it’s time to go back to the competition.”

  I kicked the bottom of her foot. “Come on. You might learn something.”

  “I doubt it,” she said.

  “Okay, but when I become a time lord or something, don’t be begging me to go back in time. I’m not going to do it for you,” I said.

  Sera sat up. “You are a terrible sister.”

  “I’m your only sister,” I said.

  “No, you’re not,” Reid argued.

  “You’re adopted,” I said.

  Reid’s mouth fell at a sharp angle.

  “Kidding! I’m kidding,” I said. I wrapped an arm around Reid. “I love you and I was only joking.”

  “Okay,” she sniffed.

  Milly raised her voice. “Do you girls want to learn how to turn back time or not?”

  “Yes,” I announced. “I want to learn.”

  “Go for it, Hazel,” she said.

  Grandma sat the frog down on a wooden dresser. The thing crept forward, each back leg winding slowly. Grandma rubbed the space between its jaundice-colored eyes.

  “Tempus frogs, when used correctly, can take you back in time. Each frog has its own limit on how far back it can travel, and some can’t move backward at all, but many of them have the power to do so.”

  Grandma hooked her hands b
ehind her back and paced in front of the creature. “This particular frog can only move time back three seconds. And though you might not think that is a significant amount, it’s enough to change something you’ve said, or even jump in front of a speeding bullet and save someone’s life.”

  “My kinda frog,” Nan said.

  “Yes,” Grandma said, adjusting invisible glasses on her nose. I’m not kidding. Grandma pointed her index finger between her eyes and slid it upward as if pressing a pair of eyeglasses into place. “Tempus frogs live here, at Castle Witch. They only come up out of the ground every seven years. You girls are in luck because this is their year to dig their way up from underground.”

  Grandma stopped pacing. “To use the frog there’s only one thing you need to do.”

  “What’s that?” Reid said.

  Milly cackled. “Lick its back.”

  “Like I said before,” Sera interjected. “I’m out. Seriously. I’m out. There is no way on earth I’m going to be licking the back of that thing.”

  I peered over at the frog’s back. Moisture clung to it, making the green skin take on a slimy covered film. Horns speckled it from neck to tailbone, and I nearly vomited in my mouth just thinking about it.

  “So,” Milly said. “Who’s first?”

  Reid pushed me forward. “Dylan is.”

  I whirled on her. “Me? Why me?”

  Reid shook out her burgundy curls, watching as they cascaded over her shoulders. “Because you’re the daring one. You’re always up for some kind of new thing. You love excitement. This looks exciting.”

  “Go get ’em, Dylan,” Nan cheered. “I’ll be rooting for you.”

  I dragged my gaze back to the frog. A deep croak churned from the bottom of its throat. I wrung out my hands like I was warming up for some huge athletic competition. “Okay. So what do I need to do to get ready for this thing?”

  Grandma scooped the frog into her palms and brought it me. “Lick its back. That’s all you need to do.”

  I exhaled a shot of air, stretched out my tongue and started to skim its back with the smallest part of my flesh.

  “That’s not going to work,” Milly said. “You’ve got to use the whole tongue.”