Life's a Witch

by A. M. King

  “Here you go,” she said.

  “Thanks.” The sergeant dug into his breakfast but kept eyeing her.

  Febe thought nothing of it at the time.

  About fifteen minutes later, when the other customer who sat on the stool next to him had gotten up, the sergeant said, “Got a moment? I need to ask you a few questions.”

  “Um. Sure.”

  “Can we talk in private?”

  “I guess we can go into the office.”

  When they got into the office at the back of the kitchen, Febe closed the door in a bit. “So what can I do for you, Sergeant?”

  “You can answer a few questions.”

  “Oh, such as.”

  “Are you familiar with a Jonathan Strangman?”

  Febe swallowed hard.

  Okay, not good. She looked guilty as hell now.

  Jonathan appeared and sat in the corner with his leg propped up on his knee. If she could smack the grin off his lips, she would.

  “Um. Yes.”

  The sergeant looked around in the direction of where Febe’s eyes glanced and saw nothing. He then turned around and gave Febe a funny look. He sighed. “When was the last time you spoke to him?”

  Jonathan yawned and stretched his arms out.

  She was taken aback at the fact that he seemed to be enjoying this.

  The sergeant looked around again to see what Febe was looking at then looked back at Febe confused. “Ma’am. Are you all right?”

  “Um. Yeah...yes, I’m fine, thank you.” She just hoped and prayed Jonathan wouldn’t do anything stupid to give away that she could communicate with the dead or see dead folks. The last thing she needed was for the authorities to know she had that kind of power. Talk about the ultimate witch hunt. She’d be a major target. She knew now how critical it was to guard her family secret. They didn’t burn witches at the stake anymore. But it could be much worse if news spread like wildfire that she was a witch and had magical abilities, not to mention she came from a long line of witches. Oh, why couldn’t she have come from a long line of lawyers?

  “Um, the last time I saw Jonathan was...” Okay, was she going to say that she was seeing him right now in the café’s office sitting by the far corner? Then he’d really think she was stark crazy.

  “Um, the last time I saw him,” alive, say alive. That way you’re not lying to authorities. “The last time I saw him alive was back in Toronto.”

  The sergeant took his hat off. “Excuse me? You know he’s dead?”

  “Yes, I um...heard this morning.” From Jonathan himself.

  “But it hadn’t been released to the public yet.”

  Crap.

  Jonathan tilted his head back in a fit of laughter.

  “Do you mind?” Febe hissed to Jonathan.

  The sergeant then glanced around to see what Febe was looking at and obviously saw nothing. He then turned around and looked at Febe with an odd expression. “Ma’am, are you sure you’re all right? To whom are you talking?”

  Oh, great. Now the sergeant’s probably going to tell his nephew, Detective Trey, to stay far away from the crazy cat lady who speaks to her cat and hears voices and sees invisible people.

  The sergeant had caught Febe talking to Ebony, her black Bombay cat, at the supermarket the other day. Ebony had told her that she no longer wanted to eat a certain brand of cat food and Febe tried to convince her it was better for her. In any event, over in the next aisle was Sergeant Heart on his day off, doing some grocery shopping. He’d never looked at her the same way since.

  The sergeant cleared his voice and shifted uncomfortably on his seat. “Well, we’ve been contacted by the police in the city. They’ve asked us to look into things on this end.”

  “They have?” she swallowed hard.

  She could just imagine how guilty she must appear to Sergeant Will Heart. He probably thinks she must have had something to do with Jonathan’s death. But in fact, she didn’t. She wouldn’t. He was a louse, but she wouldn’t – couldn’t – hurt a fly.

  Why on earth won’t that lump go down in her throat?

  Panic. She was going to have a panic attack, wasn’t she?

  “He never showed up for a meeting with a client.”

  “Oh.”

  “His cell phone was found on the roadside. Smashed.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “He left you his insurance. One million dollars is an awful lot of money.”

  “His insurance? What? One. Million. Dollars?” She almost fell off her chair.

  “Yes. You’re the sole benefactor.”

  Her heart leaped in her chest and not in a good way. Why that...why did he do that? They’d broken off their engagement. Or had he done that before their nasty break-up?

  “Oh, we were supposed to have gotten married but...” So Jonathan was serious about their future? Boy, he had a lot to explain.

  She turned around to look at him, but he was gone.

  Where did he go? Or where did he disappear to? She looked around. The sergeant looked at her.

  “Are you all right, ma’am?” he asked again eyeing her with suspicion. She could tell, he probably just wanted to get his investigation over and done with.

  “Um, yes, sergeant. Please go on.”

  The sergeant cleared his throat and proceeded to read off from his notes. “There was also a text message on his phone from you.”

  “There was?” She glanced back at the sergeant, stunned.

  Febe thought back to her last text conversations with him. He’d tried to reach her when she went into work at the office, probably to warn her that Amanda was about to fire her, now thinking back. But she didn’t want anything to do with him. He’d slept with Amanda. She’d just found them in bed together. He was a sleaze ball in her books. A traitor. And he brushed her off when she found him and asked her to take a hike instead of telling the other woman to leave. Not that she would have stayed with him after he’d cheated on her with her own boss.

  Think Febe. What were your last words to him when he sent you a text message after you caught him cheating on you?

  Her heart pounded in her chest a mile a minute. She racked her brain trying to remember. She was sure that whatever it was, it probably wasn’t very flattering.

  “You told him, I could kill you for what you did,” the officer said.

  Febe froze.

  Chapter 3

  “I said I could kill him?” Febe said, dazed.

  The sergeant nodded slowly, eyeing her suspiciously. “Did you or did you not send that text message?”

  “I...um...I guess I....um. I was upset. I didn’t actually mean I was going to...”

  “But you were angry enough, were you not?”

  Her mother always told her to “Remember to keep your words soft and sweet because tomorrow you might have to eat them.”

  Oh, crap, why didn’t she take note of that? Now she was really going to eat her words—or her texts.

  “I...”

  “Where were you between the hours of eight o’clock and midnight last night?”

  “Oh, that’s easy. I was taking some lessons at...”

  Oh, dear God. What am I going to say? The truth? That I was taking magic lessons from a witch who died over a hundred years ago in an abandoned Victorian home that had burnt down over a century ago?

  Good Lord. She was in a lot of trouble. Her only alibi was a dead woman whom nobody else could see or speak to? Well, except her aunties. But that was no help.

  “She was with me,” Aunt Trixie said as she stepped into the office.

  “Aunt Trixie!”

  “It was a good thing I was listening in. Wondered why the sergeant wanted to speak with you alone.”

  “Ma’am,” Sergeant Heart said.

  “Sergeant.”

  “Aunt Trixie.”

  “So she was with you last night?” Sergeant Heart asked.

  “Yes, and if you have anything further to ask, you will speak to her solicitor.”<
br />
  “But Aunt Trixie!”

  “Shh.” She held up her hand to silence Febe.

  Sergeant Heart got up. “I suggest you not leave town. We may ask you further questions,” he said to Febe with a stern tone in his voice.

  “Right. I’m not going anywhere, Sergeant. You can believe that.”

  After Sergeant Heart left, Aunt Trixie walked over to Febe, stunned. “Now what in Sam’s name was that about?”

  Febe sighed. “Oh, Aunt Trixie. I think I’m in some kind of trouble.”

  “Some kind of trouble? What kind of trouble?”

  “It’s hard to explain.”

  “Try me,” she said as she leaned on the desk, facing Febe. “Now why does the sergeant want to know where you were last night?”

  Febe stole a nervous glance at her late ex-fiancé who had now reappeared in the room and was seated back in the corner with a grin on his face. Or was that a smirk? How on earth did he learn to just appear like that? In and out as he pleased. Or was that something from the between dimensions that she would never understand?

  She guessed that’s why they called it apparition. She certainly felt his energy now. Ghosts were supposed to be mostly energies, weren’t they?

  “Jonathan, my ex-fiancé has been...killed.”

  “Killed? How? And why would they think you had anything to do with it? The nerve of that sergeant.”

  “He failed to show up to an important meeting today. They found Jonathan’s cell phone and apparently, one of the last texts messages he’d received from me a while back when I caught him in bed with my...ex-boss, was that I apparently wanted to kill him.”

  “What? You said that?”

  “Not exactly. I might have texted that I could kill him for what he did. You know, with sleeping with my boss behind my back when we were supposed to have been engaged to be married.”

  “Oh, right. Well, anyone would have slugged that guy for what he did. But you were here. Good thing I came to pick you up from your lesson with Madam Techer.”

  “Yeah, good thing. I almost forgot about that.”

  “You what?” She arched her penciled brow with her arms still folded tightly across her chest.

  “No, no. I don’t mean that way. I was about to tell him that I was taking a lesson last night.”

  “You couldn’t possibly tell him that. He’d arrest you for trying to learn witchcraft. Not to mention Madam Techer’s been dead for almost a century. They might shift you off to the insane asylum.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it. They wouldn’t believe my story anyway. Not to mention Madam Techer still hadn’t crossed over yet. I wonder what happened to her and why she’s stuck in this dimension.”

  “That’s another matter, darlin’.”

  And it was something Febe really wanted to figure out. She had a burning need to find out what happened to her beloved witch instructor who was helping her to get her license through the ministry by learning how to practice magic safely. And speaking of a need to figure out what happened?

  What the hell did happen to Jonathan? He obviously had unfinished business, which was why he couldn’t cross over to wherever he was supposed to be going in the afterlife.

  How sad was that?

  He might have been a cheating creep who was supposedly a part-time undercover agent of some sort who took his undercover gig a bit too far by stealing Febe’s heart and getting engaged to be married when he obviously had no intention of following through. Or did he?

  He took out a one million dollar policy and named her as sole beneficiary. Which brought a serious question mark in her mind...did he have a policy on her life, too?

  “Well, you could not have been killing your cheating ex-boyfriend, because you were in a private class with Madam Techer and I picked you up.”

  “Good thing, he didn’t ask any more questions—for now.”

  “No, he wouldn’t have.”

  “Why?”

  “Never mind.” She stiffened her upper lip and tilted her chin up in the air, her arms still folded across her chest, defiantly.

  “Auntie.”

  “What?”

  “Did you bewitch the sergeant or cast some sort of restraining energy around him?” Febe’s pulsed pounded, hoping Aunt Trixie didn’t get up to her...well, her tricks.

  “Now you know as well as I do that witches aren’t allowed to do any harm—not like those horrible stereotypes floating around. I would never do such a thing.”

  “But you must have said something to him in his mind. Why did he get up so fast instead of finishing his conversation?”

  “I don’t know,” she shrugged innocently. “Maybe he just had to go.”

  Febe frowned. “Auntie!”

  “What?”

  “Please tell me you didn’t...”

  “The penalty for bewitching an officer of the law would carry a stiff fine and penalty from the Council of Witches. I would never do anything of the sort. I only made the room a little more...uncomfortable.”

  “So that’s why there was a chill in the room,” Febe said.

  “It was getting hot in here.”

  “You must be going through your...um...”

  “Hot flashes? Is that what you were about to say?”

  “Well, Aunt Vanity said...”

  “Don’t listen to my troubling sister. She only said that to get to me. Though there is nothing worse than a witch going through menopause. She should know.”

  “All right. All right.” It would be Aunt Eartha who would act as a go-between when Aunt Trixie started off her mouth over her sister, Aunt Vanity. The two never got along as far back as they were growing up. Febe’s mother, God rest her soul, used to talk about how difficult it was to have two sisters who were always at each other’s throat.

  “Anyway, I’m still waiting,” Aunt Trixie said.

  “Waiting for what?” Febe said, still dazed over the whole fiasco with Jonathan’s murder, Sergeant Heart’s suspicion over her and now Aunt Trixie.

  “I’m waiting for you to tell me what he’s doing here.”

  Febe froze. “You can see Jonathan?”

  “I see a blob, an oddly shaped shadow in the corner.”

  “Hey, I’m not oddly shaped.”

  “Jonathan!” Febe tried to quiet her ex-fiancé.

  Aunt Trixie just sighed as if she were bored. “I can’t hear him but I can see his presence.”

  “I don’t get it. So Janvier can hear him and you can see him.”

  “We all have different talents and abilities, Febe. The great one didn’t make us all alike. What a dull world that would be.”

  “I guess so. Speaking of talents, I don’t get why I can see Jonathan as if he’s still...um here with us. Like a real person.”

  “Your experience with a ghost tends to vary with person to person or in this case from witch to witch. Obviously you were closer to him than any of us here.”

  “I see. I get it.”

  “I don’t think you do, darling. You need to find out what the hell he wants here and get him off your chest as soon as possible. Help him find out who killed him so he can have closure and you can have your name cleared. It’s apparent the doofus hasn’t got a clue what happened to him, that’s why he’s stuck here in limbo. Lingering around you like a bad stench.”

  “Hey, I can hear you,” Jonathan protested, clearly offended.

  “I’m sorry about that, Jonathan,” Febe said quietly to him. “Aunt Trixie, he can hear you and for the record he just explained to me about what happened between us.”

  “You’re going to listen to his pack of lies?”

  “How do you know he was telling me lies?”

  “Because you don’t change in the afterlife. You are who you are. Make no mistake about it. I’ve had enough experience with that sort to know.”

  She wondered about Aunt Trixie’s ex-husbands and what happened to them since they’d all gone missing after they supposedly left her. Aunt Trixie hadn’t been too l
ucky in the love department either. Febe wondered if it was a Summer family curse where love and relationships were concerned.

  “Well, I don’t think he was lying. He told me that...”

  Jonathan looked at Febe with pleading eyes.

  “I’m sorry Jonathan but I need to tell my aunt. She won’t tell anyone outside our family circle. I promise.”

  “Are you sure about that? She hates me.”

  “Well, you can’t blame her for being a bit frosty towards you after what you did to me.”

  “But I can’t afford for the whole world to know about my part-time gig with the agency.”

  Febe sighed. “You’re right.”

  “What are you two talking about?” Aunt Trixie asked, annoyed.

  “Aunt Trixie you have to promise me you won’t breathe a word to anyone outside our family circle.”

  “Breathe a word? You know I like to talk, darling niece. Sorry I can’t promise you that.” She glanced at her fingernails.

  “Aunt Trixie, this could compromise our situation...our identities as witches, too.”

  “Oh.” She stopped admiring her manicure.

  “You have to promise me.”

  “Fine. I won’t let the whole town know.”

  “Okay, Jonathan told me that he was also working part time as an undercover agent investigating paranormal activities. He was onto Amanda’s suspicious background.”

  She said nothing for a moment and just arched her penciled brow. “He was?”

  “Yes. He was also part time when he took on the job at the ad agency to help make ends meet.”

  “I see.”

  “At one time, I became a part of his cover, apparently.”

  “Hmm-mmm. Seems like your boss was under the cover too—his cover.”

  “Aunt Trixie!”

  “Sorry, I couldn’t resist, child. So breaking your poor little heart was just a part of his scheme?”

  “Not exactly,” Febe said, casting a disappointed look at Jonathan.

  He really broke her heart and that didn’t have to happen like that. Because of him, she found it hard to trust again. “He said that he’d fallen for me and it just sort of happened. He couldn’t afford to let Amanda know about him.”