by Jill Nojack
Gillian, who’d appeared at her side to look through the window for herself tried to calm her. “The festival will be fine. Dash is well liked, but I can’t see him being taken seriously when everyone knows he can work himself into a tizzy over the smallest thing. I’ll call Robert and let him know he needs to visit some of the most influential shop keepers right away. I’m sure he can nip this in the bud.”
Cassie’s face was grim when she turned away from the window. “There’s nothing to the rumor about the deaths being caused by a contagious disease, is there, Nat?”
“The coroner says no. And I’d take his medical opinion over that of Dash Simmons any day.” Her head shook stiffly side to side as her shoulders raised in disgust. “It’s just like him to start this sort of nonsense. The man is a swirling swamp of emotion.”
“I mean, yes, he’s the anti-Natalie for sure, but Dash can’t possibly have started a panic like this by himself, although I’d bet his thumbs are bruised from the speed he texted it around town,” Gillian said. “Didn’t he say Ling Li told him about the second incident? For a new resident, she sure got hooked into the network fast.”
“Doesn’t her husband run the local access cable station?” Natalie asked.
“You’re right,” Cassie said. “But nobody watches that, do they? And it’s not like they have news shows.”
“You’d be surprised how many people tune in,” Gillian said. “Alderman Thomas has a weekly spot that many people watch. Or, at least, all of the town’s old biddies.” She winked at Natalie. “Present company excepted.”
“Thomas? That idiot?” Natalie said.
“He’s a god-botherer, true, but I have no objection to any belief system that helps others find their serenity. And, well...he is quite the silver fox....”
“Yes, yes,” Natalie said, quickly stomping out any developing tangent about senior beefcake. “Too bad he doesn’t support the peaceful enjoyment of your beliefs in return. But why would he be discussing the death of citizens he would not be involved with given that they were not churchgoers or locally prominent people? Power and proselytizing seem to be the two things that man is interested in.”
“He’s not that bad,” Gillian replied. “On his show, at least. I admit, I may have been watching last night. Nothing else was on, and Robert worked late...”
Cassie interrupted. “So? What did he say about it?”
“Sweetie, I don’t know everything he said. He mentioned that he’d be discussing the suspicious death of a local citizen, but then I heard the garage door open, and I turned it off. I’d rather spend time with my own silver fox than the one on the TV.”
“No silver left on that shiny dome,” Natalie said. “But each to their own.”
“Golly, Nat, you’re a grumpy old bear today,” Cassie said as she slipped between a row of shelves and could soon be heard rearranging items. “What’s really bothering you?”
Her blue eyes appeared above the top of the shelves and looked down directly at Natalie, expectant. She had to be standing on the stocking stool to get that kind of height. And with the stool being as wobbly as it was, and Cassie carrying her precious human cargo...
“Yes, all right,” Natalie said. “But get down off that rickety stool!” Cassie complied and moved back into the main section of the shop as Natalie continued. “Something is wrong about these deaths. They don’t make sense. I told you there was no magic involved with the first one, didn’t I?”
The other two witch’s heads nodded in harmony.
“Good. I thought I had. To explain why I would not be involved with the investigation.”
Two heads nodded again.
“I’ve now been to the scene of the second murder, and once again, despite the condition of the corpse, there are no traces of magic. None. And Doc Don also assures me it is likewise free of disease. A second case in which a witch shrivels overnight into a juiceless shell of herself and not a shred of her magic remains.”
Two sets of eyes remained focused on her, and then, when she didn’t continue, two heads turned toward each other for a glance, then turned back as one.
Gillian asked, “And this upsets you because?”
“No witch dies without a trace of her magic left behind! You must know that. And frankly, given the trauma that must have been involved, I would expect a lingering ghost at at least one of the scenes. A spirit could be expected to need to time to orient itself before moving on.”
“With your gift for seeing specters, could that have gotten your answer right away, like, if you interviewed them?” Cassie asked.
“Not necessarily. The dead are legendarily forgetful about that kind of thing. Post-traumatic death disorder, that’s what it is. And upsetting them just delays their processing. It’s best in most cases to quickly coax what you can out of them, which isn’t much, then send them on their way to the Summerlands.”
“So, basically, there’s still no reason for you to get involved. Because your promise to Robert means that you’ll stay out of it if there’s no magic, even though both of the dead women were witches, right?”
“Yes. Although limited ones. But I am getting involved. And so are you.”
On her last word, William materialized near the counter with a soft popping sound and an armful of precariously balanced books. As he alighted behind her friends, two of the books dropped from the stack and landed on the ground with a thud. The women startled before relaxing again when they turned and saw what—or more accurately, who—had disturbed them. They’d all gotten used to William being able to pop back and forth between locations in seconds, but it helped to have a warning first.
“Just in time,” Natalie said. “You can set them on the counter. It’ll be like study night in the dorms.” She handed a book to Cassie and nodded her head toward the kitchen as she caught Gillian’s eye. “And a pot of Earl Grey would be nice to study with, don’t you agree? Perhaps with a pinch of brahmi to heighten our ability to look at the material creatively?”
Gillian left to take on tea duty, and Cassie put the stool away in the back storeroom while Natalie shooed William away as he leaned in for a goodbye kiss. “Go on with you. This is work for witches.” The pop as he disappeared managed to sound disappointed.
While she was waiting for her tea, she had an idea. A good one. When Gillian returned to the front with the tea pot and cups, Natalie asked her, “Do you think you could convince Dash that the video he watched was manipulated on a computer in some way? That it was a hoax designed to frighten people?”
“How clever! A deep fake.” The corners of Gillian’s mouth lifted. “Yes, I think I could. We’ll stop this panic the same way it got started!” She slid her oversize macrame purse out of the cubby and it soon disgorged a small blue laptop which she flipped open on the sales counter. “I’ll get to work right away. I’m sure I can mock up something that will convince him that he can’t necessarily believe his eyes where viral video is concerned.”
“Excellent,” Natalie replied, already feeling optimistic about how things were shaping up. She’d save the festival, make quick work of the mystery, and show those young whippersnappers down at the nursing home a thing or two about real nursing while she was at it. Which reminded her that she hadn’t filled them in on the rest of her plan. “And Cassie? I won’t be available to work in the shop for a few days. I’m unsure for how long. I’ve taken a temp job at the nursing home starting this afternoon. They’re always looking for nursing staff, and I’ve always wanted to go undercover.”
Cassie sighed. “So the shop will be short a worker, and you want Gillian and I to keep our noses in the books while we’re working. Is that right?”
“That sounds like an accurate assessment.”
“Sure, that’s reasonable. Who would argue with that? Not me.” Her snarky tone conveyed the opposite meaning from her words. “And I still don’t know what we’re supposed to be looking for.”
“I’d focus on determining if there are any spells for st
ealing a witch’s magic or...hmm...magical creatures that feed on it? Like a vampire feeds on blood. Although I think if one existed, I’d have heard of it long before this. Also, anything related to death by dehydration.”
“All of that sounds like there could be a relationship.” Gillian picked up a thick tome from the top of the stack. She closed her eyes then and opened the book, covered her eyes, twirled a finger in the air, then put put it down on the center of a page with her eyes still closed. When she was done, she opened her eyes again and silently read the text her finger had landed on.
“Could you believe it? Got it in one.... No.... Wait....” She looked up and said, “Sorry, jumped the broomstick a little early with that announcement. But this recipe for bread pudding looks delicious....”
***
Twink peered around Ling’s Things, expecting Mindy Li to come bounding out of some dark corner and wrap herself around Marcus like a blonde, manga boa constrictor. But if she was there, she didn’t come out to see who’d come in. Only Mrs. Li, a plump middle-aged Asian woman with a bright smile and flawless white teeth, greeted her.
“Are you Twink and Marcus?” she asked, her smile stretching wider as she did. “Of course, of course you are. Mindy has said so much of you, I would recognize you anywhere!”
She took Twink’s hand in hers and patted it. “You are even prettier than my daughter said, and this one,” she ducked her head flirtatiously in Marcus’s direction, “...so handsome. If I were younger...” She giggled like an teenaged girl.
Great, Twink thought, this family has some some weird mother-daughter boyfriend-stealing ring going. Yuck.
But she didn’t let her thoughts show on her face. She could manage the chill thing until the bottle was in her hand. She looked around again, but not only was Mindy Li not ready to jump out of some corner, no one else was there, either.
“Did the woman who bought it bring the bottle back?”
“She has not come yet.” She looked at the massive vintage clock on the wall. “Few minutes still. Do not worry. She will be here.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Li,” Marcus said.
“But you must call me Ling. All of my daughter’s friends do.”
There was that smile again; you could tell who Mindy got it from.
“Yeah, thanks.” Twink paused, before adding, “Ling.” Marcus squeezed her hand gently. She knew what he wanted her to say. Fine. “It’s really nice of you to help me.” Her hand got a gentle squeeze again. “You and Mindy, I mean. Thank you both.”
“And look—she has come!”
Mrs. Li hurried past them to hold the door open for a slight, dark-haired woman who tried to maneuver a large cardboard box through the narrow doorway as a cluster of crows attempted to dart in around her ankles.
“Shoo, shoo, you birds,” Mrs. Li said, grabbing a broom from next to the entryway and pushing it at them as the other woman made it through the doorway intact. They didn’t make a fuss after that, but their eyes stayed glued on the box through the door glass, as watchful as Twink’s were.
Her pulse raced. She couldn’t remember ever having wanted anything so bad. When Marcus went forward to help with the box, she pushed him aside and grabbed it herself.
He looked surprised, but he didn’t say anything. Which was fine with her, because she would have really ripped on him if he’d said anything right then. She’d been waiting for this for a long time, and no one had any business slowing her down.
She practically tore the box out of the woman’s hands and plopped it swiftly on the corner, unfolding the flaps to get to her prize.
But she didn’t see it. It wasn’t there. She started pulling things out and slamming them on the counter.
“Twink!” Marcus said. “That stuff doesn’t belong to you. Girl, go easy on it.”
She’d already plopped another vintage cosmetics jar on the counter with a loud thud before he grabbed her arm gently and said, “Leave it. What’s wrong with you?”
Mrs. Li took that moment to glide behind the counter and slide the box close. “If it is all right?” she asked the box’s owner. “May I see what you have brought me?”
“Yes,” the woman said, looking warily at Twink, who still lingered at the counter, her eyes never leaving the box. “As I said on the phone, some of the things are the ones I bought from you. Others I got at garage sales and other shops. They weren’t things she’d cherished for years, but I’d like to see them get into the hands of people who will cherish them the way my grandmother might have cherished them if she’d had the chance.”
“Yes. I would be happy to make an offer. There are some beautiful things here.”
She gently removed the last items in the box and was preparing to put it aside.
“No,” Twink said, “It can’t be empty.”
“The bottle is not here,” Mrs. Li said, taking one last look as if she might have missed it. “But there is a small thing I missed.”
She pulled out a plastic bag with a single ruby-colored rhinestone. It matched the ones in Twink’s comb. Twink’s hand snaked out to snatch it and bring it closer to her face.
“This is from the bottle!” She rounded on its owner. “What did you do? Did you break it?” Her pinched voice competed with the squawking of the crows as she took a step toward the startled woman.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said as she took a step back. “If you’re here for the art deco perfume battle with the rhinestones, it wasn’t in my grandmother’s effects. There was also a hand mirror missing. No one seems to know what happened to them. They thought the rhinestone might be from one of her jewelry pieces, so they packed it up instead of throwing it away.”
Twink calmed as she held on to the piece of glass in its plastic wrapping. “I...look, I’m really sorry. I...I guess I just got my hopes up. I really wanted that bottle the minute I saw it, you know? I was trying to get the money together for it when Mrs. Li sold it to you.”
The woman’s face relaxed now that Twink was calm, and she said, “I’m sorry, too. It looks like you’d have loved it the way I hoped someone would. Not many people today appreciate the things of the past. My grandmother would have wanted you to have it.”
“Can I keep this?” She held out the plastic bag. “I mean, just in case you get the bottle back? I could glue it back in place then. Or, you know, if you can’t find it—” Twink started to feel anxious again. “—I’ll have an extra for my comb in case I ever lose one.”
“That would be fine. Give me your phone number just in case. You never know. The police might find it.”
“Thank you,” Twink said, tucking the fake gem with its tiny buzz of magic into her purse. Marcus had already written down her phone number on a brochure he’d taken off the countertop and was handing it to the woman.
Twink continued, “And especially thank you since I’ve acted like such a freak. Most people wouldn’t be so nice about it.” She flashed an I’m-sorry smile, then turned to Marcus, saying “We should go.”
She took his hand and headed for the door, where her command of, “get out of my way!” dispersed their feathery watchers, except for the biggest one, which flew up to the top of a lamppost and kept its beady black eye on her as she walked down the street.
She kept an eye on it right back. She had a strange feeling that the bird was waiting for something and thought she was the one who was going to give it to him. She never should have fed it that time. Like the evil-looking thing would get even one piece of stale bread from her ever again with all the trouble he was causing.
***
“Is that so?” Natalie asked the junior aide as they helped a resident get unsteadily out of bed and into a bedside chair.
Next, Natalie handed the resident a waiting glass of water and kept feeding her pills from the plastic pill cup she’d earlier set up with the woman’s prescribed doses of midmorning medication.
“Oh, absolutely,” the aide replied. “People tried to be nice to her, but she would do anything to get
out of doing the hard work—bed pans, dealing with the more unpleasant residents—not you, obviously, Mrs. Timm,” the young woman hastily added to her charge when the woman’s eyes showed concern. “You’re a dear and you know it!” The aide moved behind the woman with a comb and worked quickly but gently to clear the tangles from the back of her head, where her cropped white hair had become matted overnight. “It’s almost time for you to visit the beautician again. Do you want me to make an appointment?”
“Yes, I’d like that,” the resident replied between swallowing two of the endless supply of pills Natalie kept handing her.
“I’ll see what they have open on Monday.” She offered the woman a mirror. “There. All ready to see your son. Unless you want me to come back after my rounds and help you out with lipstick and some blush?”
“Would you? I’d do it myself but—” She lifted a hand, which shook uncontrollably until she lay it back into her lap, giving up on grasping the tube of lipstick on the table beside her.
When they were back in the hall, Natalie followed up with, “It’s kind of you to offer to help with something so nonessential as makeup.”
“Patricia considers it essential. That’s good enough for me. And I’ll have time. Nurse Barnes says that it’s important to pay attention to the small things that make people feel better about themselves. I mean, living somewhere where the ambulances are in and out a couple of times a week, and getting to know someone only to have them leave with a sheet over their face a couple of weeks later isn’t a great way to live. People miss Tildy. Before her last stroke, she had a really lively personality despite her physical problems.”
“Yes, I knew Tildy when we were both much younger. She was always on the go. Then again, everyone has their faults. I understand the police have an open investigation for the recent deaths. Was she on the outs with anyone?”
“Tildy? No way! She was great. It was sad when she became so incapacitated. Cap Grazer still went by to visit every day, though. Took him half an hour to get from his room to hers with that walker, but he still made the trip. Sat with her, just holding her hand, since she couldn’t communicate anymore. Not that he’s that much better off.”