Bottling It (A Wayfair Witches' Cozy Mystery #1)

by A. A. Albright

  Christine smiled at me, placing a brimming mug of tea next to my plate. ‘Well, you know how you can remedy that,’ she said with a wink. ‘Visit us more often.’

  In the chair beside me, Melissa was talking ten to the dozen about her Magical Law course, about how amazing Crooked College was, about how lovely and smart and blah blah blah all of the guys there were. Okay, so the whole blah blah blah thing might have sounded just a tad on the bitter side. But that’s the thing – no matter how much I wished otherwise, I was bitter. When I was still young enough to think I’d get my power, I’d wanted to go to Crooked College more than anything in the world.

  Melissa was my age. Christine and my mother had both been pregnant at the same time, and Melissa and I were born just days apart. Like her mother, Melissa looked every inch the beautiful witch. They shared the same long auburn hair and green eyes. You could easily mistake them for sisters because, unlike my own mother, Christine did use anti-aging glamours. Quite a lot of them.

  We weren’t related, other than through our coven. Their actual surname was Brady, and their line was relatively new to magic, their power only going back a century or so. They could have formed their own coven. Every witch family had that right. But it was common for smaller lines like the Bradys’ to join the coven of a larger, more established witch family. Not that the Wayfair coven could be considered large these days. Seeing as I was useless in any magical regard, without Christine and Melissa, my mother would be the only Wayfair left.

  Christine tousled my hair and returned to her scrying bowl. ‘Excuse my rudeness,’ she said through a curtain of hair. ‘But things are happening. Big things. I need to keep an eye on the action.’

  At the moment she was viewing through a bowl filled with water, but Christine could use anything for her visions. Crystal balls, flames, mirrors … you name it. Some witches were of the belief that scrying bowls could only be used to see into other worlds. Christine knew better. She saw other worlds, yes. But she also saw this one. The future and the present. Her visions were far from perfect, but they certainly helped with investigations.

  ‘Big things?’ I looked at my mother, then shook my head. ‘Never mind. Nothing to do with me.’

  She took a seat opposite me, sipping at a mug of tea. ‘None of that talk now, Wanda. It’s only Tuesday, after all. Anything could happen before your birthday on Friday.’

  ‘Sure,’ I scoffed. ‘Though if my Monday and Tuesday are anything to go by, then I sincerely doubt that it’ll be anything good.’

  She reached out and grasped my hand, a look of concern on her heart-shaped face. ‘It’s not that Alice Berry, is it? I’ve had the displeasure of meeting that woman before. So if she’s giving you a hard time, you’ve only to say.’

  I snorted. My mother had quite the way of dealing with all of my childhood bullies. Little girls and boys who teased me for being unempowered soon found themselves with boils in uncomfortable places. I could just imagine what she might do to Alice Berry. ‘Alice is fine,’ I said. ‘I doubt we’ll be bosom buddies but … she’s okay.’

  ‘So what’s the matter? What’s been so bad about this week?’

  I chewed at my lip. Where would I begin? More to the point, would I begin at all? I hadn’t seen my mother face to face for a very long time. Although the urge to pour my misery upon her was strong, I wondered if I should resist. I mean, it was hardly fair, was it? Say nothing to her for months and, when I finally do open my mouth, do nothing but carp and moan?

  ‘Oh, nothing really,’ I said eventually. ‘Just … y’know. New job. And my old house had mould, apparently, so I had to move. Been a bit of a weird week. But like you say, it’s only Tuesday.’ I forced a smile. ‘Things can only get better, eh?’

  Instead of congratulating me for my oh-so-sunny disposition, my mother was carefully studying her mug of tea. ‘Well.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Some of that might be down to me. Just a very tiny bit. Infinitesimal, really.’

  I widened my eyes. If the apple tart weren’t so nice, I might have huffily pushed it away and refused to eat another bite. But I never did have the courage of my convictions. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked through a mouthful of pastry and ice cream. ‘Which parts, exactly, were down to you?’

  Melissa had long stopped attempting to study. She picked her book up and said, ‘I have to, em …do … something,’ gave me a quick squeeze of the shoulder, and ran up to her room.

  ‘Well, you can’t really blame me, can you?’ my mother pleaded. ‘I mean, what with these murders and everything. I thought you’d be safer at the hotel, so I sent a bit of toxic mould your way. Still.’ She shrugged. ‘Westerly Crescent is an enclave, at least. I knew you’d have sense enough to keep out of the human world as much as you could for the time being.’

  I gawped at her, ice cream and crumbs dangling and melting in a very unladylike fashion from the corners of my mouth. I mentioned before that with a name like Wanda, I might as well be a fish? Well, at that moment, I imagine I looked like one, too.

  ‘Where do I ... I mean …’ I swallowed the last of my food, but still couldn’t unhinge my jaw. ‘You … you made my house mouldy. And … murders? What murders? And this is an enclave?’ I smacked a hand against my forehead. ‘Well, duh. Of course it’s a bloody enclave.’ I groaned. The signs had been so clear that even a blind unempowered witch could have seen them. The woman with the sunglasses, pulling her blinds down – well, she was definitely a vampire. And, seeing as she was shutting out the evening light instead of the daylight, then she was more than likely a dayturner.

  And as for the gadgets I’d seen cutting the lawns and trimming the hedges of the other neighbours, well they’d been far too efficient to have been created in the human world. They were magical devices. Made by witches or, more likely, wizards. Westerly Crescent was a supernatural enclave. The whole of Luna Park was, I imagined. That would explain why Will Berry thought it was weird that I didn’t know the area. How was he to know that I’d spent all of my life avoiding areas just like this? And Hilltop Hotel? I groaned once again. Well, if my mother sent me there to keep safe, then it was in a supernatural area, too.

  ‘I was a bit worried when you never responded to my texts,’ she went on. ‘But thank the stars you read them, at least. I mean, I know you don’t always wear your pendant, so …’ She blinked, peering at my neck. Her eyes narrowed, and she moved closer. ‘Open your shirt, Wanda. Show me your neck.’

  Too confused to argue, I undid the top few buttons, and my mother gazed at my naked, unadorned neck.

  ‘Christine!’ She slapped a hand to her mouth. Then she slapped Christine across the head. Then she slapped a hand to her chest, like she was counting her heartbeats. ‘Christine!’ she called again.

  Christine looked up. The ends of her hair were wet, having strayed into her scrying bowl, and her eyes were a little unfocused. ‘What? This better be big, Bea,’ she said to my mother. ‘Because what I’m looking at in this bowl right now is.’

  ‘Look at her neck,’ said my mother. ‘Just look at her neck.’

  Christine’s eyes followed my mother’s. She slapped a hand across her mouth. She slapped a hand to the table. Finally, she grasped my mother’s hand, and the two of them stared at me, tears running down their faces.

  ‘Wanda,’ said Christine breathlessly. ‘Did you have your pendant on when you went to the hotel?’

  I slowly shook my head.

  ‘And you went there on your own?’ she pressed. ‘No problems finding it?’

  I will admit, here and now, that the past few days hadn’t displayed me in my best light. You’d be forgiven if, by now, you had me pegged as a little bit thick. I’d overlooked many important facts. I’d paid attention to nothing but where I was going to live and where I was going to work. And – ahem – perhaps I’d paid just a little bit of attention to how well Will Berry could fill out his shirt. But, in the interest of retaining some self-esteem, let’s just say that it wasn’t all my fault. I mean, I�
�d lived in the human world and avoided the magical one for such a long time. I hardly expected it to come thundering back in, did I?

  I never wore my Pendant of Privilege these days. Why would I? I donned it when I went to visit my family at Riddler’s Cove for the Winter Solstice, and that was about it. I wore it a little more often when I was a child, because we often travelled to witch enclaves for my father’s competitions. But I didn’t want to travel into the magical enclaves any more than I had to. I didn’t need any more reminders of just how un-magical I was, thank you very much. And, although my mother had tried to educate me on Dublin’s supernatural enclaves when I moved here, I hadn’t listened to a word.

  Here’s the thing about the enclaves. Even an unempowered witch – me – could enter many of the supernatural enclaves as and when I liked. Despite my lack of power, the wards that were erected around the areas (spells that protected the area from outsiders) could sense that I was still supernatural. As long as I knew where somewhere like Westerly Crescent was situated, I could find my way there. And Max’s directions had shown me the way.

  But to enter a witch enclave … that was a whole different story. Witch enclaves were for witches only. And by witches, I mean real witches. Ones that can put warts up your nostrils and hairs on your eyeballs sort of witches. Oh, where I was living now – in a place that was no doubt supernatural – that wasn’t the big deal. It was where I’d visited yesterday afternoon and again this morning that was so amazing. Because now that I no longer had my head stuck up my behind, I knew for certain: the Hilltop Hotel was a witches’ hotel. The whole of Warren Lane could well be a witch enclave for all I knew. I’d never been to the place before yesterday. For an unempowered witch, gaining entry without a Pendant of Privilege simply shouldn’t be possible.

  I swallowed a mouthful of saliva, followed it with a mouthful of tea and then stuttered, ‘So is W-Warren Lane a witch enclave? And if it is w-well w-what d-does that m-mean?’

  I knew what it meant. Scratch that – I knew what I hoped it meant. But after all these years of pretending not to care about being unempowered … I was suddenly afraid to hope that anything otherwise could be possible.

  ‘It means,’ said Christine, unable to keep the smile from her face, ‘that you’ve come into your power.’

  My mother came across to hug me. Christine joined in and, no longer needing to pretend she wasn’t listening to every word we’d been saying, Melissa thundered down the stairs to hug me, too.

  When they eventually let me up for air I said, a little too nonchalantly, ‘Well … I never for a minute doubted it would happen. And also …’ A memory of that morning’s encounter rushed to the fore. ‘I already knew. Because I met my familiar this morning. And he’s a dog.’

  ‘A dog!’ my mother exclaimed. ‘Why, we’ve not had a dog familiar in the coven for generations. Where is he? What’s his name? Why didn’t you tell me sooner? What–?’

  Christine shook her head and squeezed my mother’s arm. ‘Sorry to interrupt. But in the excitement, I almost forgot what I was about to show you.’ Her face was pained as she pulled my mother and Melissa to the scrying bowl. ‘You can come too, Wanda. I’ll be able to let you into the vision, now you’re empowered. I only wish that your first vision could be a nicer one. Come on everyone. Come quick.’

  Wondering what I was about to see, I gathered with the others around the bowl. As far as scrying bowls went, Christine’s were as beautiful as they were simple. This particular one was made of rowan, with a crystal star at the bottom, and moons and suns carved about the edges. Until today, I’d never been able to see anything but the bowl itself.

  Christine could freeze important visions when she found them, in order to let other witches catch a glimpse of what she’d seen in her bowl. And what she’d seen today made my blood run cold.

  A tiny, skinny old woman was lying beside a duck pond in St Stephen’s Green. Half of a tennis racket – the top part – was lying by her side. The other part – the handle of the racket – was embedded in the old woman’s stomach.

  She was dead. There was no doubt about it. A few feet away, a park warden was holding back a young man who was dressed in tennis whites.

  ‘I dunno why I done it,’ the young man frantically shouted. ‘I swear. You have to believe me. I dunno why I done it.’

  My mother’s face paled. ‘We have to get there, and we have to get there now,’ she said. ‘I know that poor woman. I mean … I knew that poor woman’

  ‘So did I,’ I said sadly, looking down at the frail, dead form on the ground. The woman in Christine’s vision was Maureen O’Mara.

  5.At the Click of a Finger

  It could take years to learn the art of finger-clicking, and we didn’t have years. So I did as I used to when I was a child. I held tight to my mother’s hand, and travelled as her passenger.

  No sooner had her fingers struck together than we were there – well, nearly there.

  On a bright and sunny June day such as this one, it would hardly have been a good idea to appear in the middle of St Stephen’s Green. It was all very well to say that people might not notice. After all, they had a murder to distract their attention. But this was hardly the time to take a risk, so instead my mother, Christine, Melissa and I travelled to a carpark in the shopping centre directly across the road from the park. It was dark in there, and no one noticed us.

  We ran quickly out of the carpark, through the shopping centre and across the road. As we went, my mother filled me in on what had been happening.

  The article In Dublin’s Scare City had only half the story, it seemed. Yes, there had been a recent spate of attacks in Dublin. But so far, all of the victims had been witches.

  ‘And the weird thing is,’ said Melissa breathlessly as we ran towards the duck pond, ‘that all of the people doing the attacking have been humans.’ Melissa realised what she said, laughed a little and rolled her eyes. ‘Okay, so maybe there’s a little bit of a history with humans murdering witches. But trust me, Wanda. This is different.’

  As we neared the pond, I clutched my stomach. I thought my years of shelf-stacking and walking everywhere had kept me fit. But running to a murder scene, it appeared, took a whole new level of fitness. My mother and Christine seemed barely fazed. Melissa, thankfully, looked a little red about the face. What? I wasn’t glad that she looked slightly less perfect than usual. I’m not that sort of girl.

  ‘So the murder across the road from my old house … that victim was a witch?’

  Melissa nodded. ‘But his girlfriend was human. His name was Eoin Reynolds. He was a few years ahead of me in Crooked College. He just graduated the year before last and got appointed to the Department of Magical Law at the Wyrd Court. Junior Clerk. Even with all of the new work he had to do, he still found time to come back to the college and visit his friends there. I met Susanne plenty of times – his girlfriend. I could only ever meet her in the human enclaves, obviously. Lovely, she was. Not a bad bone in her body. And she was mad about him, too.’

  I thought of the girl I’d seen the day before, being shoved into the garda car. She’d seemed shocked at what she’d done. Just like the young man in Christine’s vision.

  ‘Damn it!’ My mother gritted her teeth. An ambulance was rushing through the park, on its way out. There were hundreds of people milling around the pond, being pushed back by the gardaí while crime scene tape was being erected. There were journalists by the dozens. ‘Too many people. We can’t freeze time now. It’ll be way too much to fix afterwards.’

  Christine nodded reluctantly. ‘You’re right. We’ll have to come back when it’s dark. We can travel straight into the park when it’s closed for the night. Even if there are a few gardaí around, it won’t be too much of a fix.’

  ‘But will we find anything?’ Melissa asked worriedly. ‘I mean, all of the evidence will have been taken away by then, won’t it?’

  ‘What about that garda friend of yours?’ I asked my mother. ‘Wouldn’t
we be better off asking him?’

  ‘We might be,’ my mother replied with a sad frown, ‘if he hadn’t died of a heart attack two weeks ago.’ She squeezed my hand. ‘But you’re right. He would have been a much better option than trying to find evidence amongst all of this mess.’

  I didn’t know quite what to say. Garda Detective O’Moore had been more than just a contact for my mother. He’d been a friend. And amongst all of these recent crimes, the fact that one of the healthiest men I knew had suddenly died of a heart attack seemed ever-so-slightly suspicious. But no doubt my mother had already thought of that.

  We watched in frustrated silence as the gardaí led the young murderer towards a car. Another garda walked alongside, a bottle in his hands.

  ‘At least let me have me drink back,’ the murderer pleaded. ‘It’s bleedin’ roastin’ today.’

  The garda grunted, unscrewed the cap and sniffed the bottle. ‘Suppose so,’ he said, handing the drink back to the young man. ‘Can’t smell any alcohol in it.’

  ‘There could be drugs in it though, Ed,’ the female garda said through clenched teeth.

  Ed rolled his eyes. ‘Fine,’ he said with a sigh and snatched the bottle back. ‘Miss Smarty-Pants Siobhan always knows best.’

  As my mother, Christine and Melissa turned away from the scene, I narrowed my eyes and examined the bottle. It was, undoubtedly, a very delicious drink, and one made by the company I’d just begun working for.

  ‘Don’t suppose you have any more of the crime scene visions frozen, have you?’ I said to Christine as we made our way back to the carpark.

  ‘I do, as a matter of fact. I take recordings of the important visions so we can look at them as and when we need to. Why?’ She could barely hide the grin on her face, and my mother was just the same. ‘You … you want to help us?’

  At the sight of their hopeful faces, a guilty weight formed in my stomach. All of these years, they’d done their best to include me. They’d assured me, time and again, that I could still be a useful Wayfair, power or not. And time and again I’d turned them down. Maybe it was time to stop feeling sorry for myself. Maybe it was time to offer them whatever help I could.