Witch Perfect

by Dakota Cassidy

  “Dana?”

  Yet, I found I was struggling to come up with anything to say other than his name with a question mark attached to it.

  Planting his hands on his hips, he looked down at me. “Miss Cartwright?”

  The way he said my name convinced me he was trying to hang onto his control of the situation. We’d suddenly gone quite formal again.

  I decided maybe we should go back to the beginning. Clearing my throat, I asked, “Do you want to talk about whatever it was you dropped by about the other day?”

  He gave another long pause, and I watched the wheels in his head turn before he appeared to come to some kind of conclusion, because he nodded his head and popped his lips.

  “I remember now. I came by to see if you’d give me a hand planning a surprise birthday party for Sandwich. You’re really good at throwing parties, so I thought I’d ask for your help. You know, caterers, event halls, that kind of thing.”

  My mouth fell open, but Win helped me close it by putting his finger under my chin and pushing upward.

  “That’s what you wanted to talk about? That’s it?”

  All that panic. All that worry. All those wrinkles I’d surely inherit from fretting over Dana finding us out—and that was it? That. Was. It?

  A birthday party for Sandwich?

  I wanted to wrap my hands around his lean neck and choke him until he turned the color of the roses in our backyard.

  He shrugged his wide shoulders and gave me a half-smile. “Well, yeah. You are good at party planning, aren’t you? I mean, remember that party you threw? The one where your dad showed up and you didn’t even know he existed? It was amazing.”

  “Well, someone died, but yes. I certainly do remember.”

  Win had planned that all from the afterlife. Win and Belfry, to be precise. It had nothing to do with me. Well, almost nothing.

  There’d been all manner of ice sculptures, Cirque characters, mimes, fancy-schmancy food, and a big ol’ dead body.

  Good times for all.

  “Okay, murder aside, it was really nice, Stevie. I figure it’s got to beat my idea of a party, which is some crepe paper streamers, pizza, and beer. Plus, you have all these connections with caterers and stuff.”

  Now I was back to being Stevie again…

  I blinked, and then I blinked again, cupping my chin. “Uh…okay. I’m happy to help.”

  Dana nodded his approval. “That would be awesome, Stevie. I’ll text you so we can get together for coffee and discuss—my treat. Until then, I really have to skedaddle. I have an early morning tomorrow at the station, and you know what they say about getting a solid eight.”

  Did a solid eight leave you with occasional bouts of amnesia?

  But as Dana headed toward the door, Win slapped him on the back again. “Glad to have met you, Officer Nelson. I hope our paths cross again.”

  However, Belfry, much like me, was still in a state of disbelief—and then I suppose what he did next was more about how insulted he was at how easily Dana pretended he wasn’t there.

  He zoomed up toward the ceiling then shot back downward, hovering near Dana’s shoulder as he flew alongside him. “Officer Rigid,” he singsonged, buzzing about his head. “Can you see me? Because I can see yooou! Dana! Dana! Dana!”

  But Bel didn’t even get a twinge from Dana, stealing all of the wind beneath his wings.

  Not a single bat of an eyelash. Not a tic in his jaw. Nothing.

  Dana kept right on walking to the coat tree in the hall, where he grabbed his jacket, gave one last admiring glance around the foyer, told me how lovely everything looked, scratched Whiskey on the head, opened the door, and left us all in a state of disbelief.

  Silence fell over the house while the lights gleamed and our astonishment hung in the air.

  Bel finally landed on top of the coat tree with a shake of his tiny head. “I don’t get it,” he muttered.

  “Do you suppose he’s so traumatized he just can’t wrap his head around everything, and he’s pretending it never happened? Sort of like climbing into bed, pulling the covers over your head and closing your eyes so you can’t see the monsters? I mean, how could he forget what we told him?” I asked, so utterly confused.

  I just couldn’t wrap my head around how Dana had completely ignored everything, but it was the only explanation I had.

  Win ran his hand over the stubble on his chin and shook his head. “I don’t know, Dove. I will say, I was as shocked as you when he declared the reason he wanted to talk to you was to plan a birthday party for Sandwich. After all that worry and plotting how best to handle things, it was a simple request to aid him in planning a party?” Win sighed. “Honestly, how pedestrian.”

  My stomach gurgled in discomfort. This couldn’t be over, could it? We’d just told him we have a talking bat. We showed him we have a talking bat. Forget that we shared all the other crazy stuff that’s happened over the last four years.

  We proved to him we have a talking bat.

  And he’d behaved as though Belfry were invisible even when he was staring the proof right in the face.

  “So what do we do next?” I asked.

  “You let it be, malutka. It is okay sometimes to leave things alone. I do not understand what is happening to Dana. Maybe he is afraid to believe, but we must let this simmer with him.”

  Win nodded his head. “I think I agree with Arkady, Dove. He isn’t acknowledging this, even though I don’t understand why. Yet, we can’t continue to force everything down his throat. Maybe we should simply be grateful for small favors and continue on with our lives.”

  I blinked with more disbelief. “And always have the other shoe waiting to drop?”

  We’d done that for only a couple of days, and I’d nearly had a heart attack worrying. I was supposed to do that indefinitely? I didn’t know if my heart could take it.

  “It might be our only choice,” Win acknowledged.

  Well, okay. The climb in bed, pull the covers over our head and pretend like this isn’t happening game was officially on.

  Done and done.

  Chapter 2

  Three months later…

  So that’s exactly what we’d done. We pretended as though there wasn’t a big guillotine waiting to chop off our heads and went about the business of getting back to business and the land of the living.

  We didn’t see a great deal of Dana after that night, and he never did call me about Sandwich’s party. But I don’t believe there ever truly was a party. I think that was the first thing he could come up with on the fly to block out what he was seeing. In fact, I don’t recall hearing a single thing about a party for Sandwich—one I surely would have been invited to, I’d think.

  Still, I missed my friend, and every time I tried to call him to see if we could grab a coffee, he would text back about how insane his schedule was until I finally left it alone.

  It hurt a bit, especially seeing as we had really just become friends, but if this was how it had to be to keep our lives from blowing up, then this was how it had to be.

  We’d tossed around a couple of theories about Dana’s refusal to acknowledge what we’d told him—one of them being that witches are historically considered bad news. But I had to let it go or it would drive me mad to think he thought I was anything like your garden variety science fiction created witch.

  Regardless, we’d had a wonderful Christmas with much merriment and a fabulous dinner we hosted where we finally introduced everyone to Win. Enzo and Carmella had, of course, welcomed him with open arms.

  Chester had given him the once-over with strict instructions about the hell he’d pay if he caused me even the slightest grief, to which Win laughingly promised his only mission in life was to keep me happy.

  My parents had come as well, and were very well-behaved with one another. Dare I say, almost friendly and conversational.

  Dita, fresh from her travels with the Peace Corp, was a softer, more-generous-than-I-could-ever-remember woma
n, who appeared to really want to mother me.

  Gone were the put-upon airs and fancy clothes she’d once relied on, and in their place was someone who wanted to make a difference in the world. She’d brought pictures of libraries she’d helped build and wells she’d helped dig—her beautiful face red and sweaty, her hair up in a messy bun. To say I was astonished was an understatement.

  It took a minute for me to warm up to this new side of her, but as Win had explained, she was trying—and she wasn’t only trying, she was living true to her word to change.

  Hugh was still Hugh. Gorgeous, bigger than life, and adorably vain. We joked about hiding all the mirrors so he couldn’t fret about a new wrinkle or frown line. But this Hugh, the one who’d given me a surprise sister, had been contrite and apologetic for springing Hal on me without warning.

  Though, when he found out we were so much alike, and that we’d truly enjoyed one another’s company, he couldn’t have been more pleased. He shared a story or two with me about Hal’s mother Keeva, and I instantly understood why he was so attracted to her and how, amidst all that charisma and boldness, they’d produced Hal.

  After we rang in the New Year, we set about introducing Win to everyone in town as my boyfriend, and while he’d garnered a disapproving look or two from some of the seniors because he was living in my backyard out of wedlock, the moment he spoke to whoever it was finding fault, that all changed.

  Mr. Magnetism and Charm wowed them and won them over in the same way he’d won over Dana that day in our driveway—by simply being Winterbottom.

  He’d finally received all of his new identification from Mandrake (his fake ID connection from his spy days)—passports, license, social security card and such. Mandrake had somehow managed to dig up an identity that wasn’t too far off the mark.

  Though Win had assured me he’d gone by plenty of names in his career as a spy. There was no need to worry he’d become confused due to the fact that he’d had plenty of practice playing other personas.

  Win’s new name was Christoph Alexander Winningham, allowing us to still call him Win for short because, unlike him, I wasn’t nearly as good at subterfuge as my Spy Guy. I’d be our downfall for sure.

  Anyway, Christoph Alexander Winningham, Win for short, could be easily Googled, and if you did decide to monkey around online for detailed information on him, you’d find he was the son of parents who’d immigrated here from Wales when he was fifteen.

  He’d taken an early retirement from a successful career as a self-employed financial advisor who’d spent most of his adult years in New York—Manhattan, to be specific.

  I don’t know how Mandrake had done it, but everything matched up to all of the documentation Win received. Though, I suppose you’d better be the best of the best at your fake ID business when you’re working for a spy.

  I still didn’t know a lot about Mandrake, but I didn’t really feel as though it was necessary—or maybe it was that I didn’t want to know. He was, after all, in prison. The less I knew, the better, I suppose—so I didn’t ask too many questions.

  That brings me to Win and our community. If you Googled him and went to his Facebook and Instagram pages (yes. He has both because he’s Win. Duh), you’d also find he was becoming a true pillar of Eb Falls.

  His charming British accent and extroverted personality had led him to all sorts of ins at all our local clubs and plenty of community service. Right now, he was deep in the middle of helping the ladies from the garden club landscape the gardens in the center of town by the gazebo and across the street from my beloved food trucks.

  As you know, Win’s good at most things, but he has a real gift for interior design, fancy food and wine, and flowers. All things he assured me he’d learned in his travels all over the world.

  Today, on this chilly almost-spring day, we were on our way to Flower Power Nursery, where he was pulling double duty. First and foremost, he hoped to garner a donation for the ladies of the garden club for some landscaping items on their newest project.

  Second, he had some thoughts about the guesthouse and a cobblestone path leading to his front door, which he wanted to line with lavender and sage bushes.

  Our living arrangements were working out just fine, and I was enjoying the time we were spending getting to know one another without the chaos of his past, but flowers weren’t exactly my strong suit.

  Just ask the hydrangeas that clung to life last summer and had to be revived by Chester. It wasn’t pretty. I mean, I love them. I appreciate them. I simply don’t understand them. Not even a little.

  However, in all fairness, Win was always available for a good vintage shopping trip with me. So, here I was, hopping out of my third new car in as many years (I think it’s three. I’ve lost count now), waving to Kirkland Endicott, the owner of the nursery.

  Kirkland, the son of multimillionaire and West Coast chain grocery store owner Harris Endicott, was one of my favorite people on the planet. Soft-spoken and sweet, he often dropped by Madam Zoltar’s to surprise me with a freshly cut flower and to shoot the breeze about the afterlife, which, surprisingly enough, he believed in strongly. He was a bit shy until you got to know him, but after that, it was as though we were old friends.

  I’d attended his wedding to his partner, Wade Lees, last fall. A glorious event in an old barn, celebrated in all of autumn’s beautiful colors—the couple’s favorite season. Win had snuck in as my plus-one, though he’d arrived quite late, after everyone had had a bit to drink, and he’d left quite early because he’d still been in the healing stages of his possession, and he didn’t want to arouse more suspicion than he already had inhabiting the guesthouse as my “friend.”

  We’d shared one romantic dance under the stars and the mason jar lights and then he’d snuck back off.

  I waved cheerfully to Kirkland before approaching, but he was on his cell, his lean face a bit pained, his movements a little harried, if you asked me.

  “He looks busy,” I whispered to Win as we followed the dirt path toward the store portion of the nursery, where mounds of fresh mulch and soil were piled and sold by the pound.

  “Now, now, Dove,” Win chastised with mischief in his eyes. “You’re not getting out of this shopping trip that easily. In any relationship, there must be compromise. Might I remind you of our last vintage shopping trip in Seattle?”

  “You mean the one where I died?” I joked with a snort, my cute sky-blue work boots squishing into the soft soil of the ground as we walked past some decorative clay pots and a boxwood topiary.

  He grinned down at me, his dark hair falling rakishly over his forehead, his hands in the pockets of his immaculate jeans. “Aren’t you cheeky today, Miss Cartwright? That is not the trip I was referring to. I was referring to the trip we took at last month’s end, where you pontificated for precisely an hour and twenty-four minutes over a Gucci bag circa 1975 or Versace sunglasses when you could have had both—or the whole store, for that matter—and Ps.: they didn’t have to be already-worn items.”

  Gazing at a huge metal tub filled with pink and white tulips, I scoffed. “We’ve gone through this a hundred times, rich man. If there’s no hunting your prey, if you can just walk in and pull it off the shelf or a rack, where’s the satisfaction in having it handed to you? There’s no fun if there isn’t a coup, Win. If anyone should know that, it should be someone who hunted things for a living.”

  He chuckled, tucking my arm into his and pulling me toward the greenhouse surrounded by all manner of fun pots in various sizes and colors, filled with grape hyacinth, daffodils and more tulips.

  “People and purses are quite different, Dove, and no matter what you say, you’re not getting out of this. So follow me to the greenhouse, my enchantress.”

  As we headed to the greenhouse, I heard small bits and pieces of Kirkland’s conversation float to my ears on the wind, some of it rather heated.

  Trying to focus on the lime green arborvitaes Win was going on about, I nodded and smiled, fi
nding myself drifting toward the piles of mulch where there were beautiful brass wind chimes, singing in the chilly breeze.

  The day was sunny enough, a nice break from all the rain we’d had this year, but it was still a bit cold. As I wrapped my faux fur vest tighter around me, I meandered toward the chimes, hanging over a barrel of pansies in light and eggplant purple, creating a sea of gorgeous color.

  Kirkland had a gift for floral design and an eye for color, I mused as I reached out and touched the petals of the pansies, so soft and feathery. It was still too early for most annual flowers, but pansies did well in cooler weather. I could thank Chester for that bit of information. Now, if I could just master those dang hydrangeas.

  Kirkland walked toward me, shoving his phone in his jeans, his deep blue eyes smiling. It’s one of the things I liked most about him—he smiled with his whole being. His long legs and lean body moved with grace, his yellow were galoshes covered in mud just the way he liked it, according to him.

  I waved back with a grin. “Hey, Kirkland! Good to see you.”

  He ran a hand over his windswept curly dark hair, hair that only added to his boyish charm and stood out against his pale skin.

  “Good to see you, too, Stevie. Are you here to flower shop—because the last time I checked, you tried to kill the fake cactus I brought you by watering it every day,” he teased.

  I swatted at his arm and shook a finger at him. “You hush. I didn’t know it was fake. I was trying to honor your very sweet gift by caring for it properly.” How was I supposed to know it was fake?

  He chuckled, but it didn’t sound like his normal gregarious laugh. There was something else I was picking up on, but I didn’t know what it was. It was just…off.

  “So what can I do you for, Stevie?” he asked with a grin.

  I shook my head. “Oh, this trip has nothing to do with me and everything to do with Win. He’s the flower guru. I’m merely the vessel by which he was carried here. I think we both know I can barely be trusted to keep myself alive, let alone some flowers.” Hitching my jaw, I pointed to the greenhouse. “He’s in there hunting down arborvitaes.”