Praise for Heather Blake’s
Wishcraft Mystery Series
It Takes a Witch
“Heather Blake has created an enchanting and thoroughly likable slueth.”
—New York Times bestselling author Denise Swanson
“Sparkling dialogue, colorful characters, and a clever plot!”
—Casey Daniels, author of Wild, Wild Death
“Blake successfully blends crime, magic, romance, and self-discovery in her lively debut…. Fans of paranormal cozies will look forward to the sequel.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Wow! Ms. Blake has taken the paranormal mystery to a whole new fun yet intriguing level…. This story is…mysterious, whimsical, delightful…. Heather Blake makes it work!”
—Once Upon a Romance
“Heather Blake has created a wonderful new spin on witches in Salem that is both lighthearted and serious. An all-around wonderful read.”
—The Hive
“Heather Blake casts a spell on her audience.”
—The Mystery Gazette
“A good quick, breezy read.”
—Pagan Newswire Collective
Also by Heather Blake
It Takes a Witch
A Witch Before
Dying
A WISHCRAFT MYSTERY
HEATHER BLAKE
AN OBSIDIAN MYSTERY
OBSIDIAN
Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, August 2012
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN: 978-1-101-59155-0
Copyright © Heather Webber, 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
OBSIDIAN and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
ALWAYS LEARNING
PEARSON
For my family, who brings the magic to my life.
With much love.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Every one of my books has come about with the help of many. A big thank-you to my agent, Jessica Faust; my editor, Sandy Harding; everyone at Obsidian and the Penguin Group, from copy editors to marketing; and to my very talented cover artist, Bella Pilar.
In my books, every once in a while I exert a bit of fictional license, and for those of you familiar with Massachusetts law enforcement, you’ll see exactly where I did in this series. In Massachusetts, only a couple of cities have homicides investigated by local police—in all other areas, those cases are handled by the state police. The presence of the state police in this book doesn’t quite work for my fictional little village, so I took a few creative liberties with how crimes are investigated.
I also want to thank some of my readers for their creativity. On Facebook, I put out a call for naming the fictional rock and mineral show in this book. I had so much fun choosing options. I ended up choosing Merry Lu Pasley’s entry for the Roving Stones, but I also included options from Kris Fletcher (Hot Rocks) and Nikki Bonanni (Gold Diggers and Natural Elements). Without a doubt, I have the best readers in the world.
I’m very grateful to my friend, the wonderful Lori Gondelman, book blogger and reviewer extraordinaire, for everything she does to support me and my writing. From reading early drafts to book tours to giveaways and online promotion—I can’t thank you enough. If you haven’t checked out Lori’s blog, you should: www.lorisreadingcorner.com.
Last but not least, I need to thank Shelley, Cathy, Hilda, Tonya, and Sharon. Couldn’t do this without all of you. Lots of love.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
The Good, the Bad, and the Witchy
Chapter One
“It’s going to be a horrible job, Darcy.”
Elodie Keaton’s voice was loud, clear, and completely distraught. If I’d known what was ahead for me, I would have listened to that warning. But unfortunately, that morning I was too distracted to heed anything as I met with Elodie, As You Wish’s newest client, at her shop, the Charmory.
I was so enchanted by my surroundings, it was easy to say, “I’m sure the job’s not that bad.”
I’m not much of a glitzy-glam person, but even I was charmed inside the Charmory as I stood in the midst of bright, shiny, sparkling, colorful bliss. Everywhere I looked there were gems of various cuts and hues. In fanciful glass cases, handcrafted loose beads waited to be strung into custom bracelets and necklaces. Displays held vintage je
welry including pendants, charms, talismans, and amulets. Whimsical cases contained tableaus of stunning natural stones and minerals of various sizes, shapes, and colors. Like a magpie, I wanted to pick everything up and bring it home.
As You Wish, my aunt Ve’s personal concierge service, had received a phone call from Elodie this morning, wanting to hire the company to help clean out a cluttered house. My sister, Harper, was no longer an employee and Aunt Ve was currently bedridden with a summer flu, so tackling this job fell to me. And as I was desperate to escape Ve’s germs, I’d volunteered to walk over to Elodie’s shop right away to talk with her about the details.
It was a short walk. The Charmory was just a block away from As You Wish, where I worked and lived with Ve. Both businesses were located in the Enchanted Village, a themed neighborhood of Salem, Massachusetts. The village was a tourist hotspot for those who came to see for themselves if the village slogan of “Where Magic Lives” was true.
It was, not that mortals knew it. The Enchanted Village offered a safe haven to hundreds of witches, or as we called ourselves, Crafters. Here we hid in plain sight among the mortals with whom we lived and worked.
There were many types of Crafters, such as Curecrafters (healing witches), Vaporcrafters (who had the ability to vaporize in thin air), Cloakcrafters (master clothiers), and even several like me; my sister, Harper; and Aunt Ve: Wishcrafters, witches who could grant wishes using a special spell.
And, as I’d come to find out, Elodie was a Wishcrafter, too.
Well, partly. Elodie was technically a Cross-Crafter (a Crafter hybrid). Elodie’s wish-granting abilities, inherited from her father, were practically nonexistent. Her predominant Craft was Geocrafting—her mother’s Craft. Rarely were a Cross-Crafter’s abilities split equally—one gift was always stronger than the other.
Everywhere I looked inside the shop, a bauble or glitzy trinket caught my eye. Elodie’s Geocrafting skills with clay, gemstones, rocks, and minerals were obvious. Tiny price tags hung from ribbons. Some of the merchandise was quite affordable, and some was out-of-this-world expensive. Undoubtedly there was something in this store that would appeal to everyone—tourist, villager, mortal, or Crafter.
A frown pulled on the corners of Elodie’s mouth. “Not bad?” She echoed my words. “No, Darcy, not bad. It’s worse. Much, much worse.”
Her tone was starting to make me nervous. “How much worse?”
Short and thin with shoulder-length curly blond hair, a long narrow face, wide-set blue eyes, and a shy but somewhat sad smile, Elodie was younger than me. I placed her to be more my sister Harper’s age—early to mid-twenties. Fairly young to own her own shop—just like Harper, who’d recently taken over Spellbound Books. Tapping the countertop that separated us with short fingernails painted a sparkly blue, she said, “Have you ever seen that TV show about people who hoard?”
I had seen it. And immediately afterward started cleaning and throwing clutter away. “This is your house you’re talking about?” She didn’t look the type to live in squalor.
Crystals hung in the big bay window overlooking the village green, and every time the sun peeked out from behind fluffy white clouds, rainbows streaked across the room, spilling color on the already vibrant collection of goods in the shop.
“No,” she said. “Well, maybe.” Then she looked at me, her eyes pained. “I don’t know.”
“If it’s your house?” Seemed like a fairly straightforward question.
“Technically, it belongs to my mother, Patrice, as does this shop, but I’ve been taking care of both.” Her forehead wrinkled slightly and her voice dropped. “Mom’s been missing for a year and a half, and there’s just not enough money to keep up payments on both places. I’m going to have to sell her house.”
I didn’t know much about Patrice Keaton’s disappearance. Only what Aunt Ve, in her feverish state this morning, had told me: Patrice had vanished without a trace.
“Can you do that?” I asked.
“As her trustee, I can. I don’t want to, but I can’t see any other option. I don’t have enough savings to pay her bills and mine.”
I had many questions, mostly about her mother and the circumstances surrounding her disappearance, but I didn’t think now was the right time to ask them. “Are you living there, in your mother’s house?”
She shuddered and dragged a finger along the glass countertop, leaving behind a smudgy streak. “No. It’s really not livable. My fiancé, Connor, and I live here—upstairs.”
Village shops were either side-by-side shared storefronts or detached homes that doubled as businesses. As You Wish was in a gorgeous Victorian on a large corner lot at the west end of the square. The Charmory was also a Victorian. Though it was much smaller than Ve’s place, it had a similar footprint. On the first floor was a front parlor, a wide hallway leading to a private office space, and a small powder room. In the back of the house would be a big kitchen and family room. Upstairs, there were probably only two bedrooms (instead of Ve’s three)—plenty of room for two people.
I noticed Elodie wore only a modest diamond engagement ring—surprising, since I thought a Geocrafter would have an outrageous stone. And now that I was looking, I saw that she didn’t wear any other jewelry. Not even a dainty pair of earrings. I wasn’t a big jewelry-wearer either, but if I was surrounded by all these crystals and beads every day, I’d be tempted.
“In order to sell Mom’s house,” she was saying, “it needs to be cleaned out. Really cleaned out. I can’t hire just anyone. Mom didn’t collect just junk. She also collected treasures. Her house is full of them, mixed in between twenty-year-old newspapers, cardboard boxes filled with flea market finds, and even some wedding presents that were never opened.”
A feeling of dread took root in my stomach. “When was her wedding?”
“Nineteen eighty-five.”
I gulped. What was I in for?
Elodie’s mention of a wedding suddenly reminded me of my aunt Ve, who’d recently become engaged to potential husband number five, Sylar Dewitt. After two months, I still wasn’t sure how I felt about the upcoming nuptials, mostly because I didn’t have a good feeling about it. The wedding was this coming Sunday. And unfortunately, Ve had come down with a nasty virus. One that had terrible timing—as there was no wedding planner and she was the one in charge of the preparations for the ceremony and reception. Preparations that now fell on me to complete since Sylar was too busy running his optometry office…and the whole village (he was the village council chairman). First up for me as Darcy Merriweather, wedding planner, was a menu tasting later today. Then I had to try and figure out why there was a surprising lack of RSVPs coming in.
“My dad tried to keep her collecting in check,” Elodie said. “But after he died, my mother’s hoarding escalated. I was talking to Mrs. Pennywhistle the other day, when she was in here shopping, and she gave you the highest of recommendations. I need someone I can trust. Someone who’s not going to find an uncut gem amid the trash and stick it in a pocket.”
Mrs. Pennywhistle, or as most everyone called her, Mrs. P, was the village’s geriatric spitfire. I’d helped her clean out her late granddaughter’s apartment a couple of months ago. Since then Mrs. P had become like family.
“Can I trust you?” Elodie asked me.
For some strange reason I had a feeling she was asking about something beyond nicking a few trinkets. It made me nervous, which immediately gave me second thoughts about saying, “Absolutely.”
“Then you’ll take on this task?” Her hands gripped the edge of the counter, and her blue gaze fixed upon me. She stared, unblinking.
Suddenly she seemed anxious, and a little bit desperate. Which made me really nervous. Was there something she wasn’t telling me?
Traces of panic lined her eyes. “Darcy?”
Cleaning a hoarder’s house sounded like a nightmare, but I had little choice. “As You Wish’s motto is that no request is too big or too small and no job impossible. I’
ll do it.”
I didn’t break my word ever. So now that I had given it, I was all in on this job, for better or worse.
She smiled her sad smile and tucked a blond curl behind her ear. “You might come to regret that motto, especially after seeing the house.”
I gazed at her. “Are you trying to scare me?”
“Just giving you fair warning.”
I ignored the growing pit in my stomach and tried to keep the conversation light. “You do know we charge by the hour, right?”
She laughed. “You’ll earn every penny, Darcy. Every penny.”
Chapter Two
I left the shop with a promise to meet with Elodie at Patrice’s house later that afternoon for a quick look-see. I had to gauge for myself what I was getting into so I could plan ahead. I was a planner—I couldn’t help myself.
For August, it was a relatively mild day, not too hot or humid. A slight breeze rustled the colorful awnings above village storefronts. It was almost noon, and the shops were already full of tourists. Adding to the usual hustle and bustle were the Roving Stones. The popular traveling rock and mineral fair was camped on the village green for the week. Multiple matching crimson tents dotted the landscape, flaps raised to show off gems, fossils, minerals, rocks, and hand-crafted jewelry. It looked a little bit like a flea market setup to me, but the Roving Stones certainly didn’t sell their wares at flea market prices. I had bought a gorgeous—but pricey—pair of obsidian earrings from a vendor to give to Harper for Christmas.
If she knew, she’d surely tease me about buying Christmas presents in August. But in my opinion, the earlier I started shopping, the better. Harper, on the other hand, preferred the mad dash of buying everything on Christmas Eve. Not because she was a procrastinator, but because she loved the thrill of a whirlwind shopping trip. Since I’d been her mother figure from the day she was born (which, sadly, was also the day our mother died), sometimes I questioned where I’d gone wrong raising her. I wasn’t at all sure where Harper had gotten her adventuresome nature—it surely wasn’t from me, though sometimes I wished I was a little more spontaneous. Considering I couldn’t grant my own wishes (a pesky Wishcraft Law), I was trying my best to make the change on my own. It wasn’t happening easily.
A Witch Before Dying: A Wishcraft Mystery Page 1