by Sam Short
“Then go, Millie,” said Henry. “Your hunches have already proved correct twice since you’ve lived among us. If you’re correct again, you’ll have solved three murders in one year, Miss Thorn.”
Accepting a lift from Timothy, Millie found her car where she’d left it at the side of the road, when she’d leapt on the back of George’s motorbike.
As Timothy prepared to drive away, Millie gestured at him to roll down his window. “Remember everything I told you,” she said.
“Yes, yes,” said Timothy. “I’ll go to the police station and carry out the test. And if you telephone me and tell me your suspicions are correct, I’ll tell Fredrick and Edna what you’ve discovered, and then arrange a meeting with Henry.”
“Yes,” said Millie. “Because if I’m correct, some difficult decisions will have to be made.”
As the sound of Timothy’s car faded into the distance, Millie climbed into her Triumph and turned the key in the ignition. The engine roared into life, and as she drove, she prepared to ask some difficult questions.
She ran over what Charlotte Timkins had told her once more in her mind, and when she arrived at number twenty-four Briar Avenue, she took a deep breath before walking slowly along the driveway and ringing the doorbell.
Victoria answered, and gave Millie a warm smile. “Hello, Miss Thorn. I hope you got my note? I’m not sure that I should have trusted your familiar to deliver it to you.”
“Yes,” Millie said. “I got the note, and you were right, I needed to cross to my mother’s dimension to enable her to travel here again. It worked.”
“My, my,” said Victoria. “You didn’t waste any time! How on earth did you figure out how to travel to the realm of dead witches? I must admit, I thought it would be an impossibility.”
“It’s a long story,” said Millie.
“Is that why you’re here?” asked Victoria. “To tell me about it?”
“No,” said Millie. “I’m afraid not, Victoria. Can I come in, please? I need to speak with you about Trevor Giles’s death.”
When Millie left the house half an hour later, Victoria remained on the doorstep as Millie drove away, her eyes so red that Millie could still tell she’d been crying as she gave her a wave from the bottom of the driveway.
When Victoria closed the door behind her, Millie dialled Timothy’s number, and when he answered, she spoke with regret. “I was right,” she said. “Tell Edna and Fredrick, and tell Henry we need to speak to him. Urgently.”
As Millie, Edna, Timothy and Fredrick each took a seat in front of the large, polished desk, Henry peered at them over the rims of his round spectacles. “You have the answers?” he said. “To the mystery of what happened to Trevor Giles?”
“Miss Thorn discovered the answer,” said Fredrick. “She’s a credit to the school and a credit to the paranormal community in general.”
“Indeed,” added Edna. “I’ve known a lot of witches in my time. Miss Thorn is one of the best.”
“Quite,” said Henry. “Miss Thorn has done a lot for our community since she arrived in this little town, and if she’s solved yet another murder, this will make it her third.” He gave Millie a warm smile. “Your father will be very proud of you,” he said.
Taken aback, Millie nodded slowly. It was the first time her relationship with her father had been spoken about so candidly, and the hairs on her arms stood on end as she reminded herself yet again that she had a family. She belonged. “I hope so,” was all she could think to say.
“Oh, he will be,” said Henry, pushing his glasses higher up his nose. “Sergeant Spencer is a lucky man to have you as his daughter. Now, if you’ll begin, Miss Thorn. Please fill me in on what has happened. Who murdered Trevor Giles, and why?”
“Wait one moment,” said Timothy, turning in his seat to look at Millie. “Sergeant Spencer is your father?”
“Later, Timothy,” said Henry. “I’m sure you’ll all be made aware of Millie’s wonderful news in due course. For now, we focus on Trevor’s murder.”
“For a start, it wasn’t murder,” said Millie. “It was an accident stemming from an act of love.”
“Hence the reason I found traces of love in the poison,” said Edna.
Timothy cleared his throat. “Choose your words carefully, Edna,” he said. “We now know it wasn’t poison at all.”
“Not poison?” said Henry.
“No,” said Millie. “It was a potion, made by a young witch. A young witch who was desperate to make sure nothing terrible happened to her mother.”
“And what a sad tale it is,” said Fredrick, solemnly. “For Trevor Giles, and the young witch and her mother.”
“Who is the young witch?” asked Henry.
Mille took a slow breath. “It’s Emma,” she said. “Emma Taylor.”
Henry took a few seconds to process the information, and then he sat back in his seat, took his glasses off, and began rubbing the lenses on the sleeve of his jacket. “I see,” he said. “So when you said the witch was young, you meant young. Have you spoken to her? How did you find out it was her?”
“Yes,” said Millie, “I’ve spoken with her. It was something that Charlotte Timkins told me which made me think. She told me that she’s been watching my class from the shadows. She saw Emma do something which triggered my suspicions.”
“And Emma has confessed to it?” asked Henry.
“I haven’t told Emma what has happened,” said Millie. “I asked her some questions without revealing why I was asking them, and it’s apparent that it was a potion which she made that killed Trevor. At the moment, she doesn’t know her potion killed a man, and I’m hoping we can keep it that way. Her grandmother knows, and that’s the way I’d like to keep it.”
Henry stared at Millie, and then nodded. “We will make a decision when we’ve heard the story. So, tell me, Miss Thorn, what happened? How did a potion made by one of our pupils kill Trevor Giles?”
“It’s so simple that it made Trevor’s death seem complicated,” explained Millie. “Last year, Emma’s mother attempted to do something unfortunate. She attempted to take her own life. She tried to drown herself in the duck pond opposite the house she lives in.”
“She did?” said Henry, sorrow in his eyes. “The poor woman. I had no idea.”
“None of us did,” said Edna. “She never spoke to anybody outside her family about how she was feeling.”
“She could have approached me,” said Henry. “I would have listened.”
“No,” said Millie. “No, she couldn’t have spoken to anybody here at the school. It was because of school that she began feeling depressed.”
“Why?” asked Henry, gently.
“Because she was bullied here as a child,” said Millie. “By Trevor Giles. The things he said to her when she was a young girl shaped the rest of her life. She’s never really recovered. She became anxious and depressed. Her whole life was affected by it.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Henry. “The poor woman.”
“And then last year it came to a head,” continued Millie. “Her marriage had split up, and things must have just become too hard for her to bear, so she walked into the duck pond. At night-time. Beneath a full moon.”
“What happened?” asked Henry. “Did she change her mind? Did somebody see her and save her life?”
“Emma saw her,” said Millie, flatly. “From her bedroom window. She couldn’t sleep, so was watching the moon. She practices moon-magic, you see, and enjoyed studying the night sky.”
Henry nodded. “I see.”
“Thanks to the brightness of the moon,” said Millie, “Emma was able to see her mother stepping into the pond. She ran across the road and was able to save her mother’s life. She jumped into the water and guided her mother back to the shore.”
“What an awful thing for a girl so young to have to experience,” said Henry.
“And she never wanted to experience it again,” said Millie. “So she began researchin
g ways to help her mother’s anxiety and depression.”
“Go on,” said Henry.
“She began making potions,” said Millie. “Simple potions, using herbs with properties known to treat symptoms of depression and anxiety. Herbs she took from Timothy’s chemistry laboratory.”
“Valerian root. Lavender. Herbs such as those,” added Timothy. “I never noticed they were going missing.”
“Emma made potions which she added to the food her mother ate,” continued Millie. “But she didn’t just use herbs. She used magic, too.”
“The potions the young girl made were simple,” said Edna. “Yet remarkably well thought out.”
“In what way?” asked Henry.
“Emma added a trigger to them,” explained Millie. “The ingredients would work without the trigger, the herbs lifting Emma’s mother’s spirits a little, but it was when her mother was exposed to moonlight that the magic really happened. Emma had surmised that should her mother attempt to take her life again, she would do it at night-time when everybody else was asleep, and probably using the same method she’d already attempted — drowning herself in the pond.”
“I see,” said Henry. “So young Emma added a trigger which moonlight would activate.”
Millie nodded. “If her mother stepped out of the house at night, even the faintest glimmer of moonlight would trigger the potion’s full potential, cheering her up, and hopefully saving her life.”
“Emma added another backup, too,” said Edna. “She used a little water magic which would boost the potion further.”
“In case her mother made it as far as the pond,” said Henry, placing his glasses back on his face.
“A clever young witch,” said Edna.
“And it was a potion such as this which killed Trevor Giles?” Henry asked.
“Yes,” said Millie. “It was a complete accident. A series of events occurred which nobody could have foreseen.”
“Beginning with what?” said Henry.
“Beginning with my class baking cakes to sell on a stall at the school fete,” said Millie. “They baked them the day before, and unknown to me, Emma made a special batch of muffins containing a little of a potion she’d made. Charlotte Timkins told me she’d observed similar behaviour from Emma throughout the term, so it wasn’t the first time. Being an honest young lady, Emma didn’t take them home with her that night, she waited until the next day, offered to help run the cake stall at the fete, and paid for the special batch of muffins she’d made. She put them in a box and separated them from the cakes for sale, ready to take them home with her.”
“Yet somehow, one of these cakes found their way into Trevor Giles’s mouth?” asked Henry.
“Yes,” said Millie. “The other two girls who offered to help Emma on the cake stall got bored, so Emma’s mother offered to help her. When Norman Giles arrived to buy some cakes for his stepfather, Beth Taylor insisted that Emma sold him the fresh muffins from the box behind the counter, instead of the cakes which were going hard under the sun. Beth didn’t want Norman getting into any trouble with his stepfather — she’d already seen how nasty he’d been to Norman earlier that day. She insisted that Norman took the cakes that Emma had put aside for her.”
“Beth Taylor would have had no idea the cakes contained a potion,” added Edna.
“No. She was used to Emma making her cakes,” said Millie. “It was how Emma got her mother to take the medicine she’d been making. And Emma wouldn’t have been concerned about somebody apart from the intended recipient eating them,” she continued. “She knew they wouldn’t have harmed anybody — they’d only have made the person who ate them feel a little happier.”
“Or a lot happier if exposed to moonlight,” added Timothy.
“As was the case with Sergeant Spencer,” said Fredrick. “When we left the police station after removing Trevor Giles’s body from the cell, Sergeant Spencer acted very out of character. He appeared very chirpy for a man blaming himself for the death of a prisoner in his custody. We thought he was in shock.”
“But it was the moon activating the trigger in a potion,” said Millie. “Emma had told me earlier that day she’d given Sergeant —” She paused, her cheeks warming. “Given Dad two cakes from the box meant for her mother after he’d helped her pick up a box full of coins she’d dropped at the cake stall. She gave him them to thank him for his help, and even commented on how much he’d enjoyed them. Emma was amused, and proud, that he’d enjoyed them so much he’d licked his fingers clean of any traces of melted chocolate.”
“Which is why I smelled what we thought was poison on the Sergeant’s hands,” said Timothy. “His fingers were covered in traces of the potion, which wouldn’t have been removed by simply washing his hands.”
“So why did this harmless potion prove fatal to Trevor Giles?” asked Henry. “Was it more powerful than Emma anticipated? Did Trevor consume too much of it?”
“No,” said Timothy. “It was because Trevor was a werewolf. A werewolf weakened by alcohol and the fact that he’d changed into a wolf earlier in the day, and had been involved in a fight with me at the school fete.”
“Yes,” said Henry, with a frown. “I was disappointed to hear that you’d fought in front of children, Timothy, but I realise it was for a valid reason. I’m told that Trevor changed first and was threatening violence.”
“Timothy subdued Trevor,” explained Fredrick. “Trevor was drunk and argumentative. He transformed into his wolf to attack me. Timothy intervened.”
“The fight was understandable then,” said Henry, offering Timothy a smile. “You were protecting people. I’d have expected nothing less from you, Mister Huggins.”
Timothy bowed his head. “I was just doing my duty, but the fight left Trevor in a weakened state, and combined with the alcohol in his system he was very vulnerable.”
“Vulnerable to a supposedly harmless potion?” asked Henry.
“There was one ingredient in the potion that can prove a problem to werewolves when taken in large enough doses,” said Timothy. “Saint Johns’s Wort.”
“But it doesn’t kill them,” said Henry. “It simply makes werewolves feel a little unwell for a short period of time, doesn’t it? I’d never have allowed it to be stored in your laboratory if I thought it was a hazard to werewolf children.”
“Normally it would be of no great danger to a wolf,” said Timothy. “But what happened to Trevor was different. He was weak from his transformation and fight with me when Sergeant Spencer arrested him, and the alcohol prevented him from regaining his strength as quickly as he should have. That wasn’t the only problem, though. A wolf requires moonlight to recharge his or her powers fully, and Trevor was locked in a cell with only a small window constructed from thick security glass.”
“So Trevor was exposed to no moonlight which would begin his healing process,” said Henry.
“That’s right,” said Timothy. “Until just past nine o’clock, when the moon was at the correct angle in the sky to allow a tiny sliver of light through the window and into the cell. I went back to the cell earlier, at Millie’s request, and did some calculations. Trevor Giles had died on the very spot that would have been in the path of the smallest amount of moonlight. Trevor was killed by the very thing that should have helped him.”
“How?” asked Henry.
“When the moonlight touched his skin, the trigger in the potion was activated,” said Timothy. “Trevor had eaten the cakes which Norman had bought for him from the stall earlier that day, so there was plenty of the potion in his system. The Saint John’s Wort within the potion was imbued with magic and began making Trevor unwell. The potion only required the tiniest amount of moonlight to activate it, but unfortunately for Trevor, instead of cheering him up, it killed him.
“Had the window been made of thinner glass, or had he been outside, he would have survived, but the minimal moonlight making it into the cell was not enough to begin the wolf healing process. It was too late
for him — the Saint John’s Wort had worked faster than the moonlight could work to heal him. His wolf energy sensed he was dying and left his body, and then it was over. He died within seconds.”
“And Sergeant Spencer wrongly thought he’d caused his death by feeding him a poisoned meal,” said Fredrick.
“Yes,” said Millie. “He served Trevor his meal at almost precisely the same time that the moon had risen enough to allow a sliver of light into the cell. When he closed the door and Trevor began choking, and then died, he thought it was poison in the meal he’d served him, but really it was a potion already inside Trevor which had just been activated.”
“And then when Sergeant Spencer opened the cell door, Trevor was dead on the floor with his wolf energy leaving his mouth in the form of a blue foam,” said Timothy.
“And before the potion had activated, Trevor was able to swallow the bite sized muffin that Dad had served him,” said Millie.
“It’s understandable, then, why he blamed himself,” said Henry. “He opened the cell door to find a man foaming at the mouth after eating a muffin he had served him.”
“Yes,” said Millie. “It seemed obvious to him that it had been his fault.”
“And unfortunately for him, a few bad apples from the werewolf community found out that he was somehow implicated in the so-called murder of Trevor Giles,” observed Henry. “Leading to the almost catastrophic chain of events which could quite easily have led to two young witches losing their father, and our town losing a good man.”
“Yes,” said Millie, quietly.
Henry sighed. “You all did marvellously well in my absence,” he said. He turned his face to Millie and removed his glasses. “And you, young lady, showed remarkably bravery, along with your familiar, when you stepped through the gateway into The Chaos. You should be proud of yourself.”
“No,” said Millie. “I did what anyone would have done. I was trying to save my father.” She smiled at Henry. “Family is everything. Family comes first.”
“Yes,” said Henry. “It is, Millie, and I have no appetite for destroying any family. I suggest that Emma Taylor is never told of the devastating effects her potion had on another person. She would never forgive herself. She must be warned about adding potions to people’s food, though. That is a dangerous practice. If her mother requires medical help, then we will reach out to her and offer her the support she needs. Emma should not be burdened with such worries at such a young age.”