Witches' Brew: Paranormal Cozy Mystery Series (Vampires and Wine Book 1)

by Morgana Best

“Yes,” I said. “Your secret’s safe with me.” I wondered how I would be able to convince them that some hapless stray dog was in fact just that, and not a werewolf.

  Aunt Agnes unlocked the door and flung it open. The aunts walked inside. One of them switched on the light. I gasped and clutched my throat. There, in front of me, was a man about my age, and he was naked.

  “Let me out of here, you old hags,” he said, and then let out a string of profanities that made me blush.

  “You said it was a dog, but he’s a man!” I said in horror. “You’ve kidnapped a man! You could go to jail for years and years for doing that!” I was absolutely horror stricken.

  “We didn’t say there was a dog here,” Aunt Dorothy explained patiently. “We said it was a werewolf. This is a werewolf.”

  “Sort of,” Aunt Maude muttered again.

  “He’s just a man,” I said, aghast. “You have to let him go. He’s not a wolf. Can’t you see he’s a man?” I found myself growing increasingly agitated. Why wouldn’t they listen to me? I would have to go straight to the police.

  “I know it’s hard for you, Valkyrie,” Aunt Agnes said in a kindly tone, “but surely you know that werewolves look like humans most of the time? Don’t you know what a werewolf is, dear?”

  “But, but…” I sputtered.

  “She needs him to change,” Maude said.

  I agreed with that, at least. “Yes, he could do with some clothes.”

  The aunts shook their heads sadly. “Valkyrie, you have so much to learn. When we say change, we don’t mean change clothes.” The aunts chuckled as if I had made a huge joke.

  “He’ll change into a werewolf,” Aunt Agnes said, throwing some red powder at the poor man.

  “What did you do that for?” I said.

  “Prepare yourself to meet the werewolf,” Aunt Agnes said dramatically.

  I turned away to look at Agnes, and when I turned back, there was a giant creature in the cage. I was in disbelief. “How did you do that?” It didn’t seem real—it couldn’t be real. There was at once a chemical smell in the room, but I didn’t have time to consider that, as the creature flung itself at the bars and barred its teeth at me. I jumped backwards. For a moment, I stared at the long hair covering the creature, his broad and protruding eyebrow ridges, the receding forehead.

  “Now do you believe us?” Aunt Agnes said.

  That was the last thing I remembered.

  I woke up on the hard floor with a pillow under my head. “I had a bad dream,” I said, looking up at the aunts who hovered over me, one patting my cheek, and the other two patting my hands. “We didn’t think you’d take it this badly,” Aunt Dorothy said. “You fainted.”

  “I had a bad dream,” I said again, pleased to hear my voice was a little stronger.

  “It wasn’t a dream, Valkyrie,” Aunt Agnes said. She stepped aside, and I saw the giant hairy creature growling, and pacing up and down.

  I did the breathing technique a therapist had taught me when I had suffered anxiety back in my university days. I took a long, slow breath through my nose and counted to three before exhaling through my mouth until my lungs were empty. It was a simple technique, but it had worked for me previously.

  This time, it didn’t seem to help. “Werewolves are real?” I said. I couldn’t bring myself to believe it, even though I could see the evidence before me with my very own eyes.

  “Agnes, throw some of the powder on him to make him turn back into a human,” Aunt Dorothy said.

  “Now Dorothy, it’s not a party trick,” Agnes said in a scolding tone.

  “I feel sick,” I said as a wave of nausea hit me.

  “Here, open your mouth.”

  I did as Agnes bid, and she dropped some liquid into my mouth. It did seem to work; I felt well enough to prop myself onto my elbow. The shock was so great, it had given me an instant stress headache.

  “Now we need to talk about why we have this creature in our room,” Agnes said, “but please stay here until you’re absolutely convinced that this creature is a Shifter.”

  “I’m convinced,” I said weakly.

  The aunts helped me to my feet, and guided me outside the room. Aunt Agnes locked the door. “It can’t get out of there, can it?” I asked, worried. “Was that what killed that man?” The realisation hit me like a block of concrete. It suddenly all made sense. The animal hairs the police collected and the fact that someone—something—had the strength to carry the body of a heavy man up a tree and onto the high roof.

  “We’ll explain it all in the kitchen,” Agnes said.

  I don’t know how I made it to the kitchen. My legs were like jelly. I wondered how the aunts had such presence of mind not to freak out at the sight of a werewolf. “I can’t believe werewolves exist,” I said over and over again like a mantra.

  I was sitting at the kitchen table, and Aunt Maude was busy making me a hot chocolate. “I’m going to put in several spoons of sugar, for the shock,” she said.

  She had it in front of me in no time at all. I thanked her, and sipped it. The sugary goodness ran through my veins, reviving me somewhat.

  “It’s not like women of our bloodline to be shocked at the sight of such things,” Aunt Agnes said. “Maude, pour Valkyrie a glass of that wine, the special wine.”

  Maude produced a glass of red wine, and again, I didn’t even know how she had time to prepare it. Everything seemed to happen in a lightning fast manner.

  “Why do you have that werewolf captive?” I asked them.

  Maude sighed dramatically. “It’s not a werewolf.”

  “I should’ve thought it was obvious why we have it captive,” Agnes said. “Aunt Maude, she can call it werewolf if she wants. It makes it simpler.”

  I was too stressed to care about the technicalities of the thing’s name. I drank some more of the hot chocolate and then took a sip of wine. The combined taste in my mouth was pleasant. It reminded me of a brand of red wine I used to buy that had heavy chocolate notes. I rubbed my forehead, trying to focus on the situation at hand. “I’m still in shock,” I said. “A werewolf! I’ve actually seen a live werewolf.” I felt hysteria rising in me, so I poured another glass of wine. That seemed to help, so I drank half a glass in one go.

  “To answer your question,” Aunt Agnes said, “and remember, Valkyrie, anything we have kept from you was to spare you the shock of finding out. We didn’t want to scare you, dear.”

  Before I could respond, she pressed on. “This Shifter took part in killing that poor man, but he has an accomplice, and we’re holding him in that cage until he tells us the name of his accomplice.”

  “You mean there are two of them?” I said, terrified. “Two werewolves?”

  “Exactly,” Dorothy said. “Two Shifters, and this one’s not talking.”

  “Yes, of course, you can’t turn him over to the police.” It was as if I heard someone else talking. I was surprised I had the presence of mind even to think of such a thing, given the shock flooding over me.

  And then something occurred to me. “Was it trying to kill one of you?”

  “Oh no, dear,” Agnes said. “I think it’s all to do with the winery, like you said. But still, we can’t have an angry Shifter running around Mugwort Manor, now can we?”

  “No, I suppose not. You’ll have to bear with me, Aunts. I’ve always believed in fairies, but I’ve never thought werewolves were real.”

  “There are a lot more real things than you imagined,” Agnes said. “You’re taking it well now, dear.”

  “The wine helps.” I drank the rest of my glass, and instantly refilled it. “I don’t know if I should be drinking so much wine when I’ve had such a terrible shock.”

  “It’s very low alcohol,” Agnes said. “It’s special wine.”

  “Special? How?” The wine certainly tasted different, and nice too. Somehow it made me feel good inside.

  Aunt Agnes smiled. “Now that’s a conversation for another day. Suffice to say, we have a
murderous Shifter trapped in the cage, and he has not as yet told us who his accomplice is.”

  “Are Shifters vicious?” I asked her. “Are they like the werewolves on TV, that can’t control themselves and run around ripping out everyone’s throats? They have to be locked up every full moon or they’re very dangerous.”

  “You’ll find that allegedly mythical creatures have been quite wrongfully depicted by Hollywood,” Aunt Agnes said with disgust. “No, of course they can control themselves.”

  “So have you known for a long time that werewolves exist?” I asked her.

  She nodded. “We’ll talk about this in more depth at some other time. I have to make one thing clear. We have to be quite alert. The Shifter’s accomplice doesn’t know he’s here—they don’t have an overly developed sense of smell, or anything like that. So we’re safe in that regard. But meanwhile, Valkyrie, be alert and keep your eyes open. Someone you’ve met since you came to town is a Shifter and a murderer.”

  The nausea came back, and I leaned forward. Mercifully, it passed after a few moments.

  “Are we going to tell her he’s not exactly a werewolf?” Maude asked.

  It was all going downhill. “What is it then?” I asked.

  “I didn’t want to confuse you, dear. Think of it as a werewolf if it helps,” Aunt Agnes said kindly, while glowering at Maude. “It’s a Shifter all right, but it’s a Yowie.”

  “A Yowie?” I squealed. “As in Indigenous Australian legend? I thought they were mythical creatures, but not Shifters.”

  “There are many Shifters in Indigenous Australian legends,” Agnes said. “Most Aussies think of the Yowie as a humanoid creature that walks upright, and looks something like a tall and very shaggy man, like the Australian version of the Sasquatch. And a Yowie itself isn’t a Shifter, any more than a wolf itself is a Shifter. Most Yowies are gentle and shy, but the Shifter Yowies can have dreadful temperaments, just like werewolves.”

  I tried hard to process the information. “I’ve heard stories that truck drivers on the mountain road from Colo to Bulga pulled over to catch some sleep, and woke up to find a Yowie jumping up and down in front of the truck,” I said, “and I’ve heard stories that there are Yowies out near Mudgee, but I thought perhaps the people who reported them were drunk, or some such thing.”

  “No one thinks Yowies are real, of course, dear,” Dorothy said, “not until they meet one.”

  Agnes shook her finger at her. “In 1977, Sydney University sent a team to the hills behind the Warkworth Mine in the Hunter Valley to investigate Yowies. And many people have seen them.”

  “The noise it made, that screeching sound—why can’t we hear it out here?”

  “The room is soundproofed, to a degree,” Agnes said. “You’d need to put your ear to the door to hear anything.”

  I didn’t like to admit that I had done just that. Then something occurred to me. “How did you manage to catch it?”

  “We’re powerful witches,” Dorothy said, narrowing her eyes.

  I thought there was more to it, but I’d had enough of a shock for one day—for one lifetime.

  Chapter 14

  I hadn’t been productive for the rest of the day. I was still coming to terms with the fact that there was such a thing as a werewolf, or a Yowie Shifter, to be precise. It was beyond belief, but I had seen the creature with my very own eyes. I had always believed in the supernatural—after all, I practised witchcraft, but I had always imagined that my spells were simply the result of focus, of something akin to positive thinking. Many people believed in the Law of Attraction, and I had always thought my witchcraft was the result of that. Shifters were one step beyond that. Did this mean that monsters did exist, after all?

  My aunts had assured me that there was absolutely no way that the Shifter could escape from the room, but it made my flesh crawl to think that a murdering Shifter was under the same roof. Not surprisingly, I was unable to sleep. I had finally drifted off to sleep, and then had awoken just after midnight. Any further attempts to sleep had proven completely futile. I tried to read a book on my iPad, but I jumped at every little sound. There was an owl hooting outside my window, but my imagination had me thinking it was a werewolf.

  I needed to go to the bathroom, and that meant I had to leave the safety of my bedroom. I spent about fifteen minutes debating what to do, but I had no choice—I simply had to use the bathroom.

  I plucked up my courage and pushed the dresser away from the front of the door. I carefully opened the door, jumped into the corridor, locked the door behind me, and then made a mad dash across the corridor to the bathroom. I flicked on the light, shut the door behind me, and locked it.

  Moments later, I washed my hands and looked at myself in the mirror. “What am I going to do now?” I asked myself aloud. The thought occurred to me that as my aunts were powerful enough witches to catch a werewolf, then they were powerful enough to contain it as long as they wanted. That was an encouraging thought.

  With that in mind, I now felt brave enough to go down to the kitchen and make some hot chocolate. That would help me sleep, and my stomach was rumbling. I had been so upset to find that werewolves existed that I hadn’t been able to eat much dinner at all.

  I tiptoed down the stairs, careful not to wake my aunts, and then walked into the kitchen. I turned on the light. It’s amazing how light dispels fears so readily. Whatever was lurking in the dark would still be there, but the light was somehow comforting and encouraging.

  I turned on the electric kettle, and then fetched the hot chocolate powder and the sugar from the pantry. I found the biggest coffee mug I could, and spooned both in. I would have liked to sit in the kitchen and sip the hot chocolate, but I decided that I would prefer to be in my locked bedroom.

  I poured the hot water and the almond milk onto the hot chocolate powder, and stirred it well. Large mug in hand, I intended to head back to my bedroom, and that’s when I saw it.

  I screamed and dropped my mug on the floor.

  It seemed to happen in slow motion, the face fading from the window, the shards of ceramic splintering and spreading all over the floor.

  Within seconds, my aunts arrived. It must have been the shock that made me think no time had passed. There simply hadn’t been enough time for them to get there so quickly.

  “What happened?” Aunt Agnes said.

  “Is that werewolf, um, Yowie still locked in the room?” I asked her.

  “I’m sure he is,” she said, “but Maude’s checking on him now.”

  Aunt Maude appeared seconds later and gave the thumbs up.

  “What did you see?” Agnes asked me.

  Before I could answer, there was a loud knock on the back door. “It’s Lucas O’Callaghan. Is everyone all right? I heard a scream.”

  “He couldn’t have heard me from his cottage,” I said. “Is he a Shifter, too? Do they have special hearing?”

  Agnes shook her head. “No.”

  “No, he’s not a Shifter, or no, they don’t have special hearing?”

  “No to both,” she said firmly.

  I wanted to ask how she knew, but he knocked on the door again and called out.

  To my horror, Aunt Agnes opened the door. For all I knew, he could be the murderer. My aunts had to be more careful.

  Lucas walked into the room, looking calm and collected, in stark contrast to the urgency I’d heard in his voice only moments earlier. “What happened?” he asked in a composed but commanding tone.

  “I saw something at the window,” I said, pulling my thin bathrobe around me.

  He stepped towards me and I involuntarily took a step backward. “What was it?” he asked.

  I thought it strange that he said, ‘What was it?’ rather than, ‘Who was it?’ Surely the implication would be that I saw a person at the window. At any rate, I had seen what looked like the Yowie Shifter, but I could hardly tell him that.

  “I think it was a man,” I said, “a tall man. I saw the expressio
n on his face and his eyes looking at me, and he had a lot of hair.” I gave Aunt Agnes a look as I said it and wiggled my eyebrows at her, trying to give her the hint.

  She kept her expression neutral, and asked, “Did you recognise him?”

  I shook my head. “It happened so fast. He vanished in an instant.”

  “Could it have been Paul Williams?” Lucas asked me. “He has a lot of hair.”

  “No, this man seemed to have facial hair, although I can’t be sure,” I said, giving Aunt Agnes another significant look.

  Agnes turned to Lucas. “Did you see anyone out there?”

  “No I didn’t, but I was in a hurry to get here when I heard Pepper scream. Perhaps I should go outside now and have a scout around.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” she said. “There could be more than one of them.”

  Lucas appeared to be thinking that over, but he finally agreed. “We need to call the police.”

  At first, Aunt Agnes did not appear keen to alert the police, and I figured that was because she had a Shifter in a cage in an upstairs room. However, she agreed readily enough. I made myself busy cleaning up the mess on the floor while Aunt Dorothy called the police, and Aunt Maude declared she would make everyone some hot chocolate.

  The five of us sat around the table in uncomfortable silence, waiting for the detectives. They arrived five or so minutes later, but it seemed like an age.

  Aunt Agnes showed them straight into the kitchen.

  “Did you recognise the person?” Detective Anderson said, scribbling in his notepad. “Age? Gender? Height? Anything you can tell me.”

  I held up my hand. “He was about so high, and he had a lot of hair.”

  “So definitely a man?”

  I nodded. “Yes, a man, but the fact that he had a lot of hair and was very tall is all I really know, because I only saw him for a split second staring through the window at me.”

  “Are you definitely sure you saw someone and it wasn’t just a trick of the light?” Detective Banks asked me.

  I was a little annoyed. “I am one hundred percent sure I saw a man at that window, Detective,” I said, unable to keep the irritation out of my voice. “I looked straight into his eyes.”