Spell or High Water

by ReGina Welling

  Suddenly, Xavier’s flicking finger made complete sense. It was the same gesture Kaeden used when he ticked the lever to initiate the sequence in Mouse Trap.

  Mag looked up.

  If she applied a little magic, the makings of a crude trap hovered just above where the boys were seated, and she spied a piece of flat wood resting on the point of a rock close to the edge of the cliff. If Mag had to guess, she’d have said it had been left there by a pair of young boys fascinated by all the things boys should enjoy: pirates, treasure, and board games.

  And if she’d had time to think about it, Mag would have noted the irony of the situation. Instead, she formulated a plan. Under the cover of Clara’s silencing charm, she quickly laid it out to Jinx, Pye, and her sister.

  “You know what to do.” Nodding, Pye scurried off on silent paws while Clara searched for the next item needed.

  “This one will do, Maggie. It’s definitely big enough and it’s loose. All it needs is a good shove. Once Pyewacket positions that board to your specifications, anyway.” Clara tried to remain positive, but all she could think about was what a shame it was to hold enough power to turn a pair of bumbling thieves into harmless bunnies, and not be able to use it when it counted.

  Revealing magic to two children had been one thing, but letting four adults in on the existence of witches was unacceptable, even with lives on the line. Clara didn’t make the rules; they’d been in place for centuries, and for good reason. Helping this family was probably a step over the line, but Clara knew she wouldn’t be able to live with herself for the next hundred years if she sat around and did nothing.

  Mag vowed to buy her sister a vat of butter pecan ice cream on the way home as thanks for the silencing charm that made it possible for her to send a lick of magic toward the rope attached to the limb of a maple tree.

  When this was all over, she had a few stern words to say to the foolish daredevils for using such a thin line to swing out over the cliffs. The spell took hold, and the rope lengthened and slithered into the desired shape while Pyewacket ghosted around behind their backs so Tim and Renee wouldn’t see her.

  Her path took her dangerously close to the attackers’ ankles where she waited for the right moment, then nudged the board to flip it like a seesaw. Dusky fur turning him into a moving shadow, Jinx oozed into place, and Pye moved to her next battle station.

  With a whispered signal, the plan went into motion. Clara pushed with all her might on the two-foot-diameter boulder she’d selected, and watched it all unfold. The boulder slid down a natural slope in the surrounding rock, making a noise more distracting than nails on a chalkboard.

  “What the—” Was all George had time to utter before the boulder crashed onto the upended side of Pye’s board, launching a crouching Jinx into his face, claws unsheathed.

  He staggered around, trying to pull a snarling, hissing ball of fur off his face, while Bob stared in dumbfounded horror and forgot how to use his knife.

  “Over here, dummy! Eat my stinky cheese!” Xavier pushed Kaeden out of the way and taunted Bob, who fell for the ruse hook, line, and sinker.

  “I’m gonna—” Bob lunged toward Xavier, who dodged left at the most opportune moment. Hidden in the canopy of maple leaves, Pye flashed from cat to human, sliced at the knot with Clara’s pocketknife, and let the trap fall. As the cage of knotted rope dropped over Bob’s head and shoulders, Pye let out a triumphant yowl.

  A slew of curse words followed Bob’s capture and went completely ignored as Mag and Clara rushed to rescue Jinx and secure George with the help of Tim, who had used the moment of chaos to grab the knife that had fallen from Bob’s hand. He tied George’s hands behind his back and secured him to the closest tree before drawing back and punching the man square in the nose.

  “See, Xavier, I told you they were fairy godmothers,” Kaeden whispered loudly enough for Mag to hear him. The sentiment drew a smile from her lips.

  Xavier sighed. “I’m never going to hear the end of this, am I?” But his voice shook just a little, and he kept one hand on Kaeden’s shoulder protectively.

  “Eat my stinky cheese?” Dimples winking, Kaeden announced, “That’s going to be my new favorite phrase.”

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Tim asked, checking his family over for the hundredth time since the police had arrived and dragged George and his accomplice away in handcuffs.

  “Could we have a moment?” Tim asked the uniformed officer who waited to escort the Young family back to where the boys had hidden the cache of stolen goods.

  Noting the protective arm Tim kept around his wife’s shoulders and the way she clung to him, Clara figured they’d patched things up.

  It was too bad it had taken a tragedy to bring the pair back together, but the end result was what mattered. And now they’d have something to look back on during hard times, a touchstone that Clara had a feeling would always bring them back to the importance of family. Whatever they had gone through, it couldn’t be worse than almost being murdered by a pair of petty thieves.

  Renee pulled away from Tim and approached the Balefire sisters. “I don’t know how to thank you.” She blubbered, before bursting into tears and enveloping both women in a grateful hug.

  Clara spoke a few soothing phrases until Renee calmed down and finally let them free of her grasp. As soon as she had, they were in for another onslaught as Kaeden and Xavier decided to get in on the hug-fest.

  Kaeden whispered something into Mag’s ear that brought a genuine smile to her face, and she winked at him conspiratorially before pulling him into her chest and inhaling the scent of his hair. “You behave now. And you, young man, were very brave. You keep watch over your brother and don’t ever take him for granted again, you hear?”

  Xavier treated her to one of his signature eye rolls but smiled and accepted more affection from both women before returning to his family.

  Pyewacket brushed against Xavier’s legs, her little motor running at top speed, while Jinx leaped into Kaeden’s arms for a quick goodbye cuddle.

  If Clara heard Mag sniff once or twice on the way back to the minibus, she wisely kept her mouth shut. What was she going to say, anyway? Her throat felt a little tight, too.

  “You ready to pack up?” she asked as they made it back to camp. “I could do with a shower and some food that didn’t start out the day swimming.”

  “What’s your hurry?” Mag asked, a sparkle in her eye. “Barnaby’s treasure is still out there.”

  Thanks for taking the time to read about Mag and Clara Balefire's vacation adventure.

  To learn more about the Elder Witch series and the related Fate Weaver series please visit ReGina Welling's website: http://reginawelling.com

  Find more information about Erin Lynn at http://erinlynnwrites.com

  About the ReGina Welling and Erin Lynn

  Regina Welling and Erin Lynn are the mother/daughter writing team behind the Elder Witch series, the Fate Weaver series , and the Ponderosa Pines mysteries. They both enjoy small town life in Maine and have been known to finish each other's sentences. Literally.

  Follow ReGina online at:

  https://www.facebook.com/ReGinaWellingAuthor

  https://twitter.com/ReGinaWelling

  Follow Erin online at:

  https://www.facebook.com/erinlynnwrites

  http://twitter.com/writergirlerin

  Witch at Sea

  A Blair Wilkes Mystery

  Elle Adams

  Summary

  Newbie witch Blair Wilkes hopes to spend her summer relaxing by the lake— until her familiar brings her a mysterious map which plunges her headfirst into an adventure.

  Pirate ghosts, witches, and missing treasure… there's never a dull moment in Fairy Falls. Can Blair unravel the mystery and still get her perfect summer?

  Chapter One

  My first summer in Fairy Falls began in the early hours of the morning, when the cat licked my ear, then my nose. I shuddered into wakefulness and
swatted at the air, rolling onto my side. The cat leaned over and deposited a piece of parchment onto my face. I grabbed it, sitting upright as I wiped cat drool off me with the back of my hand. “I have an alarm clock, you know. What’s this for?”

  Sky, who had one blue eye and one stormy grey one, black fur and one white paw, blinked innocently at me. My slightly psychotic fluffball of a familiar apparently didn’t think summer should involve sleeping in late or relaxing. I looked down at the parchment, which was slightly damp and covered in scrawled lines. “A map?”

  Its creator was no artist, that was for certain. It took me several attempts to figure out which way up it was supposed to go, and another full minute to realise the blob that took up most of the parchment was a drawing of the lake behind the town, beside the waterfall that gave Fairy Falls its name. Scrawls covered the space between, which I assumed were houses.

  “This is the most amateur pirate treasure map I’ve ever seen.” I scanned the scrawled mass, figuring that the scribble on the side was supposed to be the forest that covered the northern side of the lake. That was the furthest I’d been, since the witches only owned the southern part of the forest. “Is that an X or a smudge of ink from a broken pen?”

  “Miaow,” said Sky, which could have meant anything from ‘yes’ to ‘feed me’. Sky and I weren’t exactly on the same page, treasure map or otherwise. I flipped the paper over again, concluded that yes, it was an X, somewhere not far from the falls on the lake’s west side.

  “Who did you get this from?” I asked Sky.

  “Miaow.”

  “Meaning?” If he’d stolen it, so much for spending my long weekend relaxing. Veronica, my boss, was on holiday, and since she was the company owner of Eldritch & Co—the world’s only known paranormal recruitment firm—and didn’t trust anyone else to take her place, she’d generously given all of us a long weekend. I’d hoped to get in some sleep, but it looked like that was off the table. But hey, you didn’t find a pirate treasure map every day, even if it did look like it’d been drawn by a drunken goblin.

  I pulled on some clothes, washed the remaining cat drool off my face, and went to find my flatmate. Our flat’s other inhabitant, Roald, butted into my leg on the way in. Alissa’s cat had personal space issues. My own cat would probably be found beside my dead body at some point. Or someone else’s dead body.

  “Hey, Alissa.” I sat down opposite her at the breakfast table. “You didn’t happen to see where Sky picked this map up, did you?” I deposited the map on the table, and Sky himself climbed into the remaining chair, tapping the map with a paw as though to prove a point. “You know, normal cats bring in dead mice or frogs, not treasure maps.”

  “Treasure map?” Alissa exclaimed, putting down her cereal bowl. “Let me see.”

  “He probably stole it from a bunch of schoolchildren at their summer picnic.” I rolled my eyes, flipping the map upside-down to show her.

  “Huh,” she said. “It’s the merpeople’s style. They don’t use pens. That’s why it’s so… scribbly.”

  I squinted closer. “Did you steal this from the merpeople?” I asked Sky.

  “Miaow.”

  While most witches couldn’t read their familiars’ minds, they had an innate sense of trust which had yet to develop between Sky and me. Maybe it was because I was a less than conventional witch, maybe it was because rather than me choosing him, Sky had appointed himself as my familiar and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  “It doesn’t have a name on it,” Alissa observed. “But given the style, I’d pin it on the merpeople.”

  As far as water-dwelling beings went, merpeople were fairly harmless. They were basically water-dwelling humans with their own clans and culture and came ashore frequently to frolic with the witches. Unlike the nereids, who kept to themselves; the sirens, who lured men to their deaths; and the water imps, who bit anyone who went near the water—all of which were reasons I didn’t particularly want to swim after the merpeople and give them the map. But if Sky had stolen it, we’d need to give it back.

  “Do the merpeople hoard treasure?” I asked, examining the mark on the lake. It really did look like an X.

  “They like shiny things. Hmm.” She pursed her lips. “I wouldn’t have thought they’d need a map to find their own treasure.”

  “Maybe they lose things easily. The mark looks like it’s just off the shore. Got a fishing rod?”

  She snorted. “Nope. I don’t want to be pulled into the lake by angry water imps, thanks.”

  “My sentiments exactly. I guess I could use the boots. Or try a levitation spell… ah. Maybe not.”

  I might be a newly minted witch with a shiny new wand, but I hadn’t quite got the hang of it yet. I’d learnt some basic spells, but since the wand had come with the safety setting removed, I had to be careful when waving it around or I’d accidentally set someone’s hair on fire. I definitely didn’t have enough control to levitate treasure out of a lake.

  “Best not risk it,” Alissa said. “I’m off work today, anyway. Let’s go to the lake and check this out.”

  Alissa worked at the local hospital. In summer, most of her work involved dealing with the injuries sustained by members of the High Fliers, a club of broomstick-riding daredevils whose ridiculous stunts were notorious across the town. Alissa herself had once been a member in her ‘wild teenage years’, as she put it.

  The daredevils in question were wheeling around above the lake as we approached its shores, in a manner that frankly made me airsick to watch. I wouldn’t have minded learning to fly, but not in a death-defying formation directly above a lake filled with magical monsters.

  The lake itself was a work of art. The water shone almost golden—partly due to the reflection of the sun, and partly due to the gold-tinted weeds growing in the water. I scanned the surface for merpeople. I’d never had a conversation with one, but a stolen map didn’t seem a good way to begin.

  “Maybe they’re out in the middle of the lake,” I said. “Unless I borrow a broomstick… you know, maybe this isn’t a good idea.”

  “It might be something else that’s marked by that X,” Alissa said. “Like their nesting spots.”

  I twisted to look at her. “You’re telling me this now?”

  “I said might be. That’s an X marks the spot, which usually means treasure. I think.”

  “To witches as well as normals?” There was some overlap between the paranormals and the world I’d grown up in, but not everything was the same. “Oh—there they are.” I spotted a group of merpeople frolicking in the water. Their mostly naked bodies were covered in scales, their hair was tinted green and blue, shimmering beneath the sunlight, and was braided with shells and bright leaves. Two of them basked in the shallows, splashing one another.

  “Hey!” said Alissa, waving at them. “Over here.”

  The two merpeople swam up to us. Their eyes were a curiously bright shade of turquoise.

  “Come for a swim?” asked the merman on the left.

  “Is this yours?” I held up the map. “My cat found it lying around, apparently. I think he must have wandered down here last night.”

  His gaze passed over it. “No. Anyone lost a map?” he called to the other merpeople.

  A rippled passed through the group. A moment later, he shook his head. “No,” he said. “It’s not ours.”

  “But it is your writing, isn’t it?” asked Alissa.

  “No,” he said. “There’s no reason for us to draw a map of the lake. Besides, that monstrosity of a drawing barely resembles a lake. Are you sure someone didn’t just spill ink on the page?”

  Well, he’s not wrong. “Have you seen anything over by the falls, where the map is pointing to?” I asked. Like pirate treasure, for instance?

  He gave it another once-over. “That part might be pointing to the shipwreck just east of the falls. Possibly.”

  “Shipwreck?” I echoed. The lake was vast, like one of the biggest lakes in the Lake District
, but I never saw boats on it, let alone ships or larger vessels. The risks of crashing on the rocks in the shallows were too high. Not to mention the number of beings living in the water.

  “There.” He pointed to a spot on the map. His fingertips were slightly webbed. “Are you sure you don’t want to come for a swim?”

  “No thanks,” I said to the merman, then turned back to Alissa. “We don’t have a boat.”

  I’d also been avoiding that side of the falls for a while after a nasty encounter with some elves in the forest. And that wasn’t counting the shifters who dominated parts of the woodland and were fiercely protective of their territory. Still, the waterfall itself was inside a cave, far enough from the woods to risk going for a look.

  “I’m pretty sure there’ll be a path,” said Alissa, though she looked less certain than before.

  “Never say no to pirate treasure. But if it’s not the merpeople, did a human draw the map?”

  “If they did, they might have taken a few art classes first,” she said.

  I grinned. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  Chapter Two

  I was glad I’d worn my levitating boots, because the path was slippery and treacherous, and without them, I’d have either fallen into the lake or ended up knee-deep in thick mud. Seven Millimetre Boots were a watered-down version of Seven League Boots, which allowed someone to cross a long distance in a short space of time. Seven millimetres wasn’t a lot, but when you could move in any direction and effectively levitate, it came in handy in situations like this one. I’d had a lot more practise using the boots lately and I could move around without colliding with ceilings or falling on my face… most of the time. I hadn’t yet risked using them over water, but it was impossible for me to actually fall in. The worst that could happen was that I’d get a little wet.