by Amity Allen
I was ready to curl up on one of Aunt Cricket’s chaise lounges in a side sitting room with a good book and perhaps a glass of iced tea laced with extra lemon and two sugar cubes.
But before I could beat feet, Officer Goodnight entered the performance hall and took the stage, jolting me from my dreamy respite. I had to admit he looked handsome in his khaki uniform adorned with all those badges and things. There was something alluring about a man in uniform, especially one who carried a gun.
Suddenly, I felt the need to fan myself, as I was feeling warm all over.
But as soon as he spoke, I forgot all about that. Standing behind the podium where Heather Morgan had stood mere hours ago, he dipped his head to the microphone. “Attention ladies and gentlemen, before you exit the building, we will need to get the contact information of every adult present. There will be officers at each exit point, and we’d like for each of you to register with the officers before you leave. I repeat, you must register your information with a police officer before you leave the building.”
A loud groan rose from the audience.
“We appreciate your cooperation. Thank you.” Officer Goodnight touched the brim of his hat, which I now noticed he’d forgotten to remove indoors. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I decided it was probably a case of him being required to keep the hat on. He didn’t seem the type to blatantly disregard the Southern edict that called for “no hat in the house.”
As he made his way to the exit, Cecily waved her arms frantically, calling him. “Officer!”
He walked over to the table where we sat. “Yes, ma’am?”
It made me feel better to know that he called Cecily “ma’am” as well, even though she was at least a decade older than me.
“Why in the world must you inconvenience us in this manner?” She asked in a self-important tone. “Can’t we be exempt? We’re the judges. Surely our information is on some data sheet somewhere.”
“No, ma’am. I’m sorry, you can’t.”
Cecily jutted out her chin defiantly. “I still don’t see why not!”
“Because one or more of you may have, knowingly or unknowingly, witnessed a murder.”
“A murder?” Miss Watermelon Patch squealed. “I can’t believe it.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Officer Goodnight responded. “Pageant Director Heather Morgan expired on her way to the hospital, and it appears foul play was likely involved. We will need to speak with all of you. Routine questions at this point. So no one is to leave the building without speaking with one of our officers. If you have any questions, I will be here to answer them.”
Heather was really dead? Possibly murdered? My gut clenched. The room seemed to spin. Just this morning she’d been up on the stage, directing things, bossing people around. Now, in a matter of hours, she was gone. Her family had lost a sister, a wife, a daughter.
“Will there still be a crowning tomorrow?” one of the nearby mothers leaned in to ask.
“I believe a Mr. Martindale is in charge of that. We’re only here to gather information at this point. Hopefully, your pageant will continue as before.”
Really? These people couldn’t be deterred from their own selfish desire for glory obtained through their children, even when a woman was dead? I shook my head, sickened that the prevailing concern of some people was competition results.
Across the room I made eye contact with Liz Stoner, and the look on her face said, I can’t believe these people, either. Probably why she’d gotten the job of filming them. Her disdain for these pageants and their participating families shone through on film and made her the perfect person to capture their behavior and share it with the world. With editing to assist her, I imagined her goal was to make these pageant parents look as petty as possible. Sadly, some of them didn’t need a lot of help . . .
Then it dawned on me—a murder in the middle of the pageant would be ratings gold for Babies and Beauties!
I glanced back at Liz, but she was gone.
Hmm. A murder would certainly make the show more interesting, bring in more viewers, but would it be worth committing a murder to do so?
The bottom line was that Heather hadn’t been a very nice woman, but no one deserved to go out with a face full of potato salad. I felt badly for Heather and her family, yet I had to admit the news had given me a jolt of adrenaline, and I was dying to find out who killed her.
In my Hollywood show, my character Poppy had solved a mystery a week, and being that my character was the brainy one of the three detectives, I was the one who usually solved the crime. Or at least my character did. Sure, I had a script, and all of those stories were make believe, but I’d also thought witchcraft was make believe, and I’d been wrong about that.
As soon as I felt free to leave, I shoved my voting cards at Mr. McWilliams and hurried up to Officer Goodnight, who was standing in a circle of irritable pageant moms.
The moment he saw me, he held up a hand to them, saying, “Excuse me. Just a minute.” Then he took me by the shoulder and herded me a few steps away to the corner of the room.
“What, am I a suspect now?” I was uncertain if I liked being manhandled by him or not.
“No. I apologize. I just had to get away from all those ladies. Did you hear them?” His eyes grew wide and he looked slightly overwhelmed.
I didn’t blame him. Those women could be flat-out scary. I had been half afraid one of them would take a torch to me if I gave one of their daughters a score they didn’t appreciate and they somehow found out about it. Since I could understand how uncomfortable he was, being the one to detain them against their will, I immediately forgave him using me as an excuse to get away from the torches and pitchforks.
“I understand. But what is this about Heather Morgan being murdered? What did she die from?”
He didn’t answer, but that didn’t stop the adrenaline from pumping hard through my veins. This wasn’t just make-believe for a TV show. This was real life. I tried again. “She died on the way to the hospital?”
He nodded. “En route. We’re looking into potential suspects now.”
“Oh, wow. Who?”
He gave me a funny look and didn’t respond.
I almost said “I solve crimes on TV” but I stopped myself in time. That would have seemed completely ridiculous, especially to a police officer.
He stiffened. “I can’t divulge any information as to the investigation.”
“Of course,” I stammered. “I knew that. I mean, yeah. Sorry.”
Another funny look.
“This is just stressful,” I said in lame explanation. “Can I go?”
“Well, I would need to get your contact information.”
“You already have it.”
“Haha,” he said dryly. “No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do. Check your phone under Poppy Parker.”
He pulled out his phone and began to scroll through his contacts. As he did, a look dawned on his face that said, How did she do that?
I giggled to myself as I waved good-bye and bolted into the parking lot.
There were some perks to being a witch after all.
When I arrived home, the B&B was quiet. Most of the guests had gone to town for the pageant, so they were probably still stuck at the convention center, and I wasn’t sure where Cricket was. Hungry again, I went into the kitchen and glanced at the clock on the microwave. Almost six. That meant dinnertime to me.
I pulled open the refrigerator door to find that Aunt Cricket made a plate for me. It was covered in foil and had my name scribbled on top with black marker. My heart squeezed. It had been a long time since someone else took care of me. Always an independent sort, I’d taken over that job as soon as I’d moved to California and started working.
When I unwrapped my plate, I found a dish filled with chicken ‘n’ dumplings and green beans. Replacing the foil with a paper towel, I set the plate in the microwave. After it was heated, I poured myself some iced tea and sat down at the table
to eat. As much as I preferred my paperback books, I was too worn out to run up to my room and get one so instead I opened the app on my phone and started reading an e-book while I ate.
Mmm. The food was delicious. How had I gone so long without Aunt Cricket’s cooking?
I rinsed my dish and set it in the dishwasher, refilled my glass with iced tea then went to find my aunt.
Cricket’s room was the only bedroom on the first floor, and it was tucked in the back of the house, behind the kitchen and the laundry room. Much smaller than the “master bedroom,” this one had clearly been designed for the servants. Aunt Cricket always called it “cozy” and said she liked it because she could hear all the comings and goings, and it saved her from climbing the stairs several times a day.
I rapped my knuckles against her door, hoping she was home, because we hadn’t really had a chance to sit down and talk much since I’d returned from Hollywood.
“Come in,” she called.
“Hey.” I turned the handle and opened the door.
“Hey yourself.”
“You busy?”
She shook her head and patted the side of the bed next to her. I crossed the room and sat down, making a dent in her down comforter.
I told her what had happened to Heather Morgan at the pageant.
“So it was just her? No one else fell ill?” Cricket asked.
“Nope. The pageant went on all day, and no one else complained of feeling badly or anything.”
“I can’t believe the police just let it go on like that after something so tragic.”
“I think they were happy to have all those people in one place so they could ask them questions. If they had canceled it, I’ll bet a lot of them would have gone home. And they came from all over so it wouldn’t be easy for the cops to track them all down and interview them. Especially the spectators.”
“You make a good point.”
I shrugged.
“I sense not only are you becoming a witch, but you’re also becoming a detective as well.”
I laughed. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
Cricket shook her head and her gray braid wiggled like a snake. “I think it’s a case of life imitating art is all. There have been so many nights over the past several years that I’ve missed you to pieces. You all the way out there in Hollywood being a big star,” she teased, “and me all the way over here missing you and wishin’ you’d come in that door. I’m so glad to have you home I don’t know what to do. Let me hug your neck again.”
I leaned over and gave her a hug. “Aww, Cricket. I missed you too.”
And I had. I’d missed her more than I cared to admit. Years ago, I talked her into taking me to one of those crazy casting calls they had at a mall in Mobile. We had driven across the bridge and stood in line for several hours before I finally got to read some lines to a talent scout. But somehow, after all the tens of thousands of children they saw at different malls across the country, I had been chosen to play the role of a teen witch detective on one of the network shows for kids. The character had originally been supposed to be called Jane, but they liked my name so they made it the character’s name too. On the show, there had been three of us. I was the nerdy witch, Tia was the pretty one, and Jessica was the athletic one.
Aunt Cricket packed her bags and came with me for the first six months, but after the first season, I grew accustomed to being on my own a lot, and we made arrangements with Jessica’s family to stay with them while the show was filming, and I came home to visit Cricket during our hiatus.
That worked best because, ultimately, Aunt Cricket is as independent a person as I am, and since she wasn’t my biological mother in the first place, I felt bad making her stay in California when I knew she would rather be running the bed and breakfast back home.
The invention of FaceTime made the separation a lot easier, and I spent half the year at home anyway. Jessica, Tia, and I studied with tutors and I graduated with a GED after a couple of years. I had gone to Hollywood at age 16, and even though I was disappointed when the show got canceled, I was twenty-one now and ready to move on. Acting had helped me grow up and given me a pretty full bank account, but I was ready for another chapter.
“Can we talk about this thing with the magic some more?” I asked.
“Yes, tell me about what’s been going on with you.”
“Well, first I want to know why you never told me about this running in our family.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
Cricket shook her head. “I probably should have, but your mother always wanted to downplay hers, and honestly, if you hadn’t turned up with them, I guess I didn’t think it was anything worth telling. Of course, now that you’ve got them too, I do feel like I should have told you. I’m sorry about that. Can you forgive me?”
I immediately uncrossed my arms. “Of course. I’m sorry too, it’s just that the whole thing was quite a shock.”
“When did you first notice them? What happened?”
“At first I thought I was just tired, but then I started to experience the weirdest thing.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Well, a couple of times I’ve been stressed or really frustrated by a situation and all of a sudden . . .” I paused. “No, you’re going to think I’m crazy.” That’s how it felt—like I was losing my mind. I had to be imagining it, but then.
“No, I won’t. Don’t forget your mother was a witch. Go ahead.”
“Well, I’d get this pain in my head, see flashes of light like a migraine coming on, and then time just froze.”
“Wow. Did you freeze?”
“No, but everyone and everything else did. I have no idea how to control it really, but that’s what happened. Tell me more about my mom being a witch.”
“Your mother, she was what some call telepathic. She could read other people’s thoughts. Have you ever been able to do that?”
I shook my head. “No. It seems like it would be cool to know what people were thinking, but I can see how it could be annoying as well. What about the rest of our family? Did anyone else have magic powers?”
Cricket shook her head. “I don’t know. There were people who claimed your grandmother was one. They swore that was how she got your grandfather to marry her. But I always chalked it up to the rest of the family’s jealousy. Our mother was his second wife, you know, and the children from the first marriage were jealous.”
I’d heard this before, and it was probably easier for my grandfather’s first family to blame my grandmother for them being cut out of the will if they were convinced she used witchcraft to make him leave everything to her and their children. The man had a considerable fortune so there’d been enough to go around, but his refusal to share his wealth with his offspring from his first marriage only caused his children from his second family to be shunned by the first.
“I’m sorry grandfather’s first family abandoned you. That doesn’t seem fair. It wasn’t like you had anything to do with what your parents did.” I reached out and patted her hand.
“Oh, that’s all right. They were a snooty bunch anyway, and if they’re going to leave me all alone, at least I’ve got this big old house and all the people in it to keep me company.” Cricket was referring to the mansion she had turned into the Mulberry Lane Bed and Breakfast. The grand old house sprawled over four acres atop the bluff that overlooked the eastern shore of Mobile Bay. It featured ten bedrooms, huge white columns and an expansive front porch. It was a beautiful property, and one that cost a lot to keep up, especially with all the hurricanes that came our way. But for me it had always been home, as well as our family business.
“Tell me more about this time freeze thing,” Cricket said.
“Well, the first time it happened to me, I was actually driving, so it wasn’t just people who stopped what they were doing and froze, but all of the cars around me, everything.”
“Oh my!”
“Yeah. But it kept me from getting into a wreck. You see, I
was coming through an intersection when another car sped through. I had a green light, so he must have been running a red or yellow light where he should have stopped. I guess he thought he could get through fast enough and not have a problem, but the car to my left and I had already started going. The second I noticed it, his car just stopped. There was no time for him to hit the break and start to slow. He just pretty much stopped and I drove my car through the intersection because my car and I kept going. I worried that as fast as his car was going, it would hit the one next to mine because it had frozen too, and sure enough I was about fifty yards through the intersection when I heard a big crash behind me.”
“Oh Poppy, that sounds awful.”
“It was.”
“I felt so bad that I went back to make sure the car that had been hit was okay and I gave a police report that the guy had run a light. The poor driver that got hit had to go to the hospital and was treated for whiplash. And a broken arm. And I felt terrible about it. But if everything else hadn’t frozen and I hadn’t made it through the intersection, I would have been in the same accident. I’d have been in the hospital too. Or worse.”
“Poppy, you can’t think of it like that.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know why not. I don’t know how else to think of it.”
“Well, maybe you can learn how to harness this power and use it to help others. When were some other times you noticed this happening?”
My pulse quickened. “Yes! Because the other time I was able to help someone.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, I was at the park one day, and there was an old man sitting on a bench. He’d been reading, but I could see by the slump of his head that he had fallen asleep. Then I saw something coming at him and everything froze.”
“What was it?”
“A Frisbee. Some young boys were playing Frisbee, and you know how those things can have a mind of their own, especially when it comes to whichever direction they’re going to travel. Anyway, it was headed right for this man’s head. I could just picture it hitting him there, and his nose would probably be bleeding everywhere, so everything froze and I reached out and snatched the frozen Frisbee out of the air. A few seconds later, everything went back to normal, and I tossed the Frisbee back to the boys. None of them appeared to have any idea the world had just frozen for a few seconds.”