There hadn’t been a renaissance in decades—not since my mother took over as Elder. But Dorothy had been plotting for years for another. Specifically, she wanted to alter the rules of the Craft to have Glinda sworn in as the next Elder.
What Dorothy didn’t know was that Glinda was not on her side—she was acting as a secret agent for the Craft, keeping an eye on Dorothy to make sure she played fair in the tug-of-war for the Eldership. Fortunately, Glinda believed the Eldership should remain with my family. Whether that happened or not was coming to a head soon. Really soon. Three days soon.
My stomach rolled again, and I forced away the upsetting thoughts about the Renewal and instead refocused on the fire, thinking again about the protection spell on the cottage. Was it possible Dorothy had found a way to bypass the spell?
Then I caught myself.
I wasn’t on a case.
Publicly, I owned As You Wish, a personal concierge service that offered a vast array of services. I’d been hired in the past to dress as the tooth fairy, find a wombat for a little boy’s party, clean out a hoarder’s house, plan an octogenarian’s birthday party, use my artistic abilities to paint murals, and manage a road and trail race. Sometimes I used my magic for those tasks—how often people said “I wish that” when they spoke to me was astounding—but most often it was old-fashioned hard work and creativity that saw the jobs through.
Privately, under the direction of the Elder, I worked as a Craft investigator. When there were crimes in the village that involved witches, it was my duty to investigate. Not only to make sure Crafting hadn’t been used in the crime, but also to protect the Craft from outsiders. I often paired up with Nick on those cases, with him working the mortal side of the case and me working the magical. We made a great team, if I said so myself.
As of right now, this fire wasn’t classified as anything other than an unfortunate accident.
Yet … I couldn’t help feeling there was more to it than met the eye.
Especially since there was still no sign of Leyna Noble.
Why was it that everyone else had been able to make it out of the building—but she hadn’t? Why hadn’t she made it to her appointment at 12:45 when the alarms hadn’t gone off until 12:50? What had happened during that time frame? Because right now it seemed like she’d walked down that hallway at 12:40 … and vanished into thin air.
I scanned the crowd, looking for Nick. The last I’d seen of him, he’d been in his woodshop in the garage behind our house, protective ear- and eye-wear on as he worked on his latest project. A set of cornhole boards. Although it was his day off, as chief of police, he’d be notified of the fire. Which meant he’d be here soon. I sent him a quick text to let him know we were all okay. If our roles were reversed, I’d have been worried sick, and I wanted to spare him that anxiety.
“Has anyone called Dennis?” I asked.
“Ve did. He’s on his way,” Glinda said.
The breeze picked up, blowing the smoke away from us as I nodded. “Good.”
Harper, Mimi, and Ve returned from their eavesdropping foray, surrounded by an air of disappointment. “We couldn’t hear a thing,” Ve said. “Have mercy, putting out a fire is loud. Who knew?”
Harper nudged me with her elbow. “Look who’s here and is also soaking wet.”
I followed her glance. Feif Highbridge stood not too far away, drenched to the skin. His black dress shirt and black dress pants were dripping wet. Droplets fell off sleeves and hems soundlessly onto the grass. He was staring at the cottage, his thick dark eyebrows drawn low in concern.
“You’d think as a top psychic, he could have predicted this happening,” Harper said, her eyebrow raised cynically.
“Are you talking about Feif?” Mimi asked as Starla also circled back to us.
“Harper’s on a quest to prove he’s a fraud,” I said.
“I’m on a quest to prove he’s legit,” Harper corrected. “And if that proves he’s a fraud, then so be it. How do you know Feif, Mimi?”
“Everyone knows Feif,” she said, glancing his way as her cheeks reddened. “But he’s not clairvoyant, so he couldn’t have known about this fire happening. I’m sure he would have stopped it from happening if he could.”
Mimi had been doing her homework on the man. It didn’t surprise me. She was a lot like Harper—she loved to learn. And right now, she was learning all she could about psychic abilities. The fact that Feif was easy on the eyes was probably an added bonus in her book.
“Hmph,” Harper said. “Unless he set it. I don’t trust him.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Well, I don’t know Feif,” Starla said, “but I wouldn’t mind an introduction.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “He’s a looker, isn’t he?”
No doubt about it, he was. It was interesting that his tent looked as if it were straight out of Arabian Nights, because so did he. With his swarthy complexion, brown eyes, black hair, and lean, lithe body, he’d have fit right in with a sword in hand and a harem swooning behind him.
“Does it not bother you that he could be a complete charlatan?” Harper asked Starla.
“No. I can overlook a lot for a pretty face.”
Mimi smiled. “Me too.”
“He’s too old for you,” Harper said to her.
Mimi said, “I know, but I’m not blind.”
Since I knew they were mostly joking—I hoped—I wasn’t too concerned about them volunteering to join his fictional harem.
Ve said, “He’s certainly not too old for me … but does anyone know why Amanda threw him out of Divinitea earlier?”
“Amanda threw him out?” I asked, taking another look at him. “When?”
“Right after we arrived. About twelve thirty-five or so,” Glinda said. “It was quite the scene as she escorted him to the front door and gave him a good push onto the sidewalk. I don’t know why she did, though.”
Everyone else shook their heads as well.
Interesting.
My gaze swiveled back to Amanda. She was standing next to the fire captain, her hands pressed together beneath her chin. The crowd around us had tripled in size, even though it looked like the fire was now under control. My jaw dropped when I spotted a couple in the crowd who, by the soaked look of them, had also been in the restaurant when the fire broke out.
The man glanced around, caught my eye, and then said something to his date. She nodded, and then they slipped away.
I glanced at Glinda and motioned her off to the side, away from eavesdroppers. “Vince was inside Divinitea when the fire broke out?”
“He was?” She glanced around. “I didn’t see him in there, but my back was to the room.”
“He and Stef Millet just left. Both were sopping wet.”
I had bumped into Vince yesterday at the Witch’s Brew, and he hadn’t said anything about planning to be at Divinitea while my bridal luncheon was going on, even when I was talking about it. He’d also said nothing about dating Stef again. They’d had a brief romance a few months ago, and it had ended amicably. I liked Stef, a widow who worked as an event and catering planner at the Sorcerer’s Stove, but he’d been seeing local real estate agent Noelle Quinlan exclusively. Or so I’d thought.
It made me suspect there was more going on with him than met the eye, too.
“Strange,” Glinda said, her gaze searching the crowd, trying to pick him out, but he was long gone.
Had he been inside the cottage at Dorothy’s bidding, to spy on Harper? I wouldn’t have put it past her to use him to do her dirty work. He, after all, was her favorite child at the moment, seeing as how she was still mad about Glinda’s marriage to a witch she didn’t approve of, and her other daughter, Zoey, was in prison. Being Dorothy’s favorite, however, wasn’t saying much. I was convinced she lacked all maternal genes.
Harper had been under Dorothy’s surveillance pretty much since we’d moved to the village. All because my little sister, as the youngest female witch in our family, was in line to beco
me the next Elder. Dorothy wanted to stop that from happening so that Glinda, as the youngest witch in the Hansel family, could take over the role. Zoey, technically the youngest, had been excluded because she was mortal—she had been adopted at birth by Dorothy and her second husband.
I wanted to believe the Eldership wouldn’t leave my family.
But it might.
The decision rested with Harper.
Not that she knew it.
I took a deep breath. Sometimes I hated the secrets that went hand in hand with the magic in this enchanted world in which I lived.
I also wanted to believe that Vince wouldn’t stoop to Dorothy’s level, but he was a wild card. There was no telling what side he was on in the battle for the Eldership. Or in life. Good or evil? Lately, I’d thought he was leaning toward the good side, but one never knew with him.
My palm suddenly heated up, and I loosened my grip on the seed I still held.
Faith, Hildie with an ie had said.
I had to have faith.
“Look,” Glinda said, pointing toward the cottage. “Something’s happening.”
I glanced up to see paramedics rush toward the entrance of Divinitea. A moment later, a firefighter came through the doorway, carrying a limp body in his arms.
Leyna Noble.
Sooty grime covered her fair skin and darkened her long, blonde hair. She was as soaked as the others but didn’t appear to be burned as she was laid on the ground.
A gasp went through the crowd as CPR was quickly started. A woman with red hair rushed forward, screaming and crying, trying to get through the barriers. Police officers held her back.
I didn’t recognize the woman, but I surely recognized grief when I saw it.
Mimi came over and held my hand, and I gripped her palm tightly as we watched in utter horror as the paramedics used defibrillator paddles on Leyna. Her thin body pulsed with electricity, but no matter how many times she was jolted, she remained lifeless. After a long while, the paddles were put away, and gray ash settled on the white sheet that was placed over her body.
Leyna Noble was dead.
Chapter Three
Forty-five minutes later, the fire was out and Divinitea as a whole had been surprisingly spared from the worst of the flames, which had attacked only the attic and roof. Fire investigators were already inside the building, trying to determine how the fire had begun.
The roof had been utterly destroyed and the whole building was waterlogged and smoke-damaged. It was nothing a little magic couldn’t fix fairly quickly, if Amanda wanted to reopen soon.
That was a big if. After all, it was Leyna and her abilities that had spurred the opening of the tearoom in the first place.
“Poor, poor Leyna,” Ve said as she lifted her hair, twisted it, and secured it with a long, thin clip.
It was the fifth time she’d done so, by my count.
I didn’t know if the repetition was from anxiety or because she was trying to look nice for the firefighters. If it was the latter, it was probably best she didn’t know about the mascara tracks.
“Did you know Leyna well?” I asked.
“Mostly in passing. She’s been gone from the village a long time.”
“Other than Amanda, does she have family here?”
“Not much,” Ve said. “Most of Leyna’s immediate family has spread out over the years. I think only a couple of cousins remain here in the village. The Nobles are not a close family.”
“No?”
“As you know, it’s difficult for Emoticrafters to get close to anyone. Knowing and feeling what others are thinking and feeling is a heavy burden. That’s true even with family.”
I could only imagine.
Technicians from the medical examiner’s office had arrived and disappeared behind a generic white tent that had been set up in front of the cottage to keep Leyna’s sheet-covered body hidden from public view.
There was still a crowd gathered, but it had thinned considerably as people came, saw their gruesome fill, and then left again. News crews had arrived as well and milled about asking questions of onlookers, seeking salacious sound bites. I’d managed to stay out of their way as I sat on the grass under the tall oak tree, waiting for Nick to make his rounds and give me an update. He’d shown up not long after Leyna had been declared dead.
Dennis Goodwin had also appeared, quickly whisking Amanda off to his parents’ house, which was sandwiched between my house and Aunt Ve’s. A reluctant Harper had agreed to go home after the smoke smell started making her nauseous, but only after I pinkie-promised to call her straightaway if any new information surfaced. Info like why Leyna hadn’t been able to escape the office where her body had been found behind the desk.
By all accounts, the door had been open, and there were two functioning windows in the room. It didn’t make sense, and I hoped Nick would have some answers for us soon.
Mimi had voluntarily gone with Harper, and I instantly suspected that it was because she wanted to ensure Harper truly went home and didn’t circle back here despite the queasiness to see what she could see, hear what she could hear.
Mimi knew Harper and her innate nosiness well.
At fourteen, Mimi had already adopted my mother-hen ways, and was remarkably adept at enforcing them. She was going to be an amazing big sister one day.
Glinda had gone off in search of Dorothy; Starla was at the Gingerbread Shack, the local bakery owned by her twin brother Evan; and Aunt Ve and I sat side by side in the shade of the tree’s vast canopy, watching and waiting.
I’d taken off the fascinator and tucked the tiny green seed Hildie had given me into the band, adjusting the satin just so to make sure the seed wouldn’t fall out. I set the hat carefully on the ground in front of me, keeping an eye on that small lump in the fabric. I needed to find a safer home for the seed sooner rather than later. But for now, its satin hiding spot would have to do.
Ve bumped me with her shoulder and motioned with her chin. “Look who’s out and about.”
I glanced upward and spotted a large red bird coasting through the air above Divinitea. Archie. The vibrant scarlet macaw familiar was the Elder’s right-hand bird, and I had no doubt he was taking in every detail to report back to my mother.
My mother, the Elder.
That fact still amazed me when I stopped to think about it.
My mother and I had been in a horrific car accident when I was seven years old. It had been raining heavily, one of those pop-up early summer storms southern Ohio was known for. The roads were slick, and Mom had lost control of the car. She’d been pregnant with Harper at the time, and Harper, born after an emergency C-section, had survived the crash. I had, too. My mother had not.
For most of my life, I’d believed my mother dead and buried. But that was because, at the behest of my father, I’d lived a mortal life for twenty-nine years. Harper and I hadn’t known we were witches until after he died, when Ve visited us in Ohio and told us of our true heritage. Shortly afterward, we’d moved here to the Enchanted Village.
That had been almost exactly two years ago.
But what really happened to my mother the day of the crash was that she’d become a familiar, her spirit taking on the form of a mourning dove. She’d returned to the Enchanted Village, where she immediately took over the role of the Elder, which until that time had been held by her mother. The Eldership had been in our family for generations, a maternal monarchy, passed down to the youngest female witch in the family upon her death, as the Elder was always a familiar.
While still living, on the day she turned twenty-five years old, the youngest woman in the family was asked to make a vow that upon her death she would accept the role of Elder and all that came with it. Until that momentous day came along, the heir had no idea what was going to be asked of her. It was a precaution in place to ensure that the decision of the heir apparent was made pure of heart.
For our family, the youngest witch was Harper. And her twenty-fifth birthday wa
s in three days’ time, on Tuesday. Which also happened to be the day of the actual renewal ceremony as well, since Harper’s birthday fell on Midsummer’s Eve this year, an unprecedented occurrence.
On sundown that night, Harper would be asked to take the Eldership’s promissory vow.
Her decision would then determine what happened at the renewal ceremony.
Would there be a renewal? Or would there be a renaissance, with Glinda then becoming Elder?
I allowed myself to think about one other possibility of what could happen at that ceremony, then immediately shoved the thought out of my head. I couldn’t go there. Wouldn’t. My heart couldn’t handle it right now.
Time would tell.
I had to be patient.
Secrets.
Though, if I had to take a guess on Harper’s decision, I would predict that she would not take the oath. She didn’t fully have the Craft in her heart and openly refused to practice it. If she denied the role, it would be the first time in Craft history a witch had done so.
Unprecedented.
The word echoed through my head. For a while, I’d been terrified my mother would simply disappear if she was ousted, but she’d finally assured me that my fears were unfounded. The worst that would happen to her was that she’d keep her familiar form but lose all powers associated with the Eldership, which were usually retained by Elder emeriti during normal renaissances.
Knowing Mom would still be able to live as a familiar should have been reassuring. But as the smell of smoke and burned wood permeated the air, I couldn’t shake a sudden sense of foreboding.
From the ashes …
I shivered and chill bumps raised on my arms.
Ve patted my hand. “You’re worrying again.”
“I feel like …” I shook my head. I couldn’t put into words what had come over me. The sense that something terrible was going to happen, and that this fire was just the beginning.
My stomach ached with dread as I watched Archie swoop low for a closer look at the charred building. “I’m actually surprised she’s not here.” I didn’t need to specify who I meant. Ve knew. “With Dorothy’s possible—probable—connection to this fire.”
A Witch to Remember (Wishcraft Mystery) Page 3