It Takes a Witch: A Wishcraft Mystery

by Heather Blake

  I then walked back over to the bed, opened my purse, and pulled out a small satin pouch trimmed in white ostrich feathers. Laurel Grace’s name had been embroidered in pink on the bag. Inside, two one-dollar gold pieces clinked together. I gently slid the pouch under the pillow.

  I smiled in the twilight, thinking about how expensive that little tooth had been. Two dollars from the tooth fairy, fifty dollars for accessories, and one hundred dollars for a half hour of my time.

  I bent my head close to Laurel Grace’s and whispered the words Aunt Ve had me memorize.

  “Hello, hello, little one,

  A tooth you have lost,

  More you will lose.

  Put them under your pillow,

  And take a sweet snooze.

  For upon that eve,

  You will receive

  A visit from me,

  If you just believe.”

  Laurel Grace’s eyelids squeezed into a wince—I couldn’t blame her—it was a horrible, horrible rhyme—then popped open.

  Filled with a warmth that came from being part of such a special moment, I suddenly had visions of being the area’s go-to tooth fairy, spreading love and happiness and gold coins across the state—heck, across all of New England. Even the tulle didn’t seem so uncomfortable anymore.

  Laurel Grace stared at me for a second, probably taking in the tiara, the eyelashes, the wings, the makeup and glitter. I kept quiet, giving her a moment for it all to sink in.

  Abruptly, she sat upright, looked me straight in the eyes, and started screaming at the top of her lungs. Long, shrieking cries that hurt my ears. “Stranger danger! Stran-ger dan-ger!”

  Startled, I screamed back.

  Amanda rushed into the room, saying, “Shhh, shhh.”

  I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me or her daughter.

  Clamping my lips closed, I backed away as Amanda sat on the bed and gathered Laurel Grace close. “Shhh.”

  “Stranger danger! Stran-ger dan-ger!” Laurel Grace continued to howl.

  “No, no,” I said, gathering my wits. “I’m not a stranger! I’m the tooth fairy.” Heaven help me, I even twirled. My skirt billowed out, raining sparkles on the carpet.

  “No, you’re not.” Tears flowed from Laurel Grace’s eyes.

  Ve had not prepared me for this scenario.

  “Yes, I am,” I reassured, fluffing layers of tulle as though that would help my cause.

  “She really is.” Cherise sat on the other side of the bed, rubbing Laurel Grace’s back.

  “No, she’s not,” Laurel Grace insisted.

  “Why isn’t she?” Amanda asked her daughter.

  “She’s—she’s…” I was waiting for the words “a fraud” to fall from her lips, and was shocked when she said, “She’s not blond!”

  I held back a smile as I fingered my long dark hair, trying to think of what to do, what to say. I knelt by Laurel Grace’s bed and improvised as best I could. “Fairies are just like people.” And Crafters, I added silently. “We come in all different shapes, sizes, and colors.”

  She gazed at me with big blue eyes as though I wasn’t even close to measuring up to her idea of a fairy. It was true I more resembled Esméralda from Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which might be a tad bit confusing to a five-year-old looking for the Tinkerbell sort, so I tried really hard not to be offended when she started wailing again.

  I saw Cherise’s lips moving but couldn’t hear what she was saying, and then her left eye blinked twice. Laurel Grace immediately quieted but still wore a tremulous pout.

  Cherise had used a curing spell to calm the little girl.

  Amanda quickly said, “Why don’t you look under your pillow, honey?”

  I recognized a chance to escape when I saw one. “I should be going. Lots of stops to make tonight. Lots of teeth lost!” I backed out of the room as Laurel Grace pulled the satin pouch from beneath the pillow.

  “How did she know my name, Mommy?” I heard from the safety of the hallway.

  “Because she’s magical,” Amanda answered. “Do you believe now?”

  “Maybe,” Laurel Grace whispered.

  I had to smile at her noncommitment.

  Cherise had followed me out. “Thank you, Darcy,” she said as we walked down the stairs. In the kitchen, she pressed a check into my hand. “I’ll let Velma know what a great job you did.”

  I was ready to put this whole night behind me—and hang up my wings for good. I tucked the check into my purse. “You’re welcome.”

  Cherise rubbed her ears as if they were still ringing. “She’s tiny, but she has a pair of lungs that can rival an opera singer. Sometimes spells come in handy, don’t you think?”

  I fidgeted, not sure what to say.

  Before I could come up with a response, she added, “I just wish Dennis could be here right now. He’s really missing out on an important event in his daughter’s life.”

  She stared expectantly at me.

  She had me. As a Wishcrafter, I was obligated to grant the wish. However, if Cherise wasn’t pure of heart in her motives for making the wish, my spell wouldn’t work no matter how hard I tried to grant it. Do no harm.

  My nerves tingled as I said softly, “Wish I might, wish I may, grant this wish without delay.” I winked my left eye twice, which would look merely like a twitch to a mortal, but other Crafters would know my spell had been cast. “You’re sneaky.”

  “I know. Sorry about that.” She gave me a mischievous smile. “You just can’t trust anyone these days.”

  Chapter Two

  Ten minutes later, my cell phone, tucked into the car’s cup holder, bayed like a bloodhound. The loud arr-oooo told me the caller was my sister, Harper, the tone chosen because of Harper’s tendency to be all bark and no bite (most of the time). I answered.

  “Where are you?” she asked in a tense whisper. “It’s like I’ve been fed to the wolves. Questions are coming at me left and right.”

  Harper was being a bit melodramatic, especially since she was more of a wolf in sheep’s clothing than anyone.

  I said, “I’m in the car. I was waylaid by a wish.”

  “Did the wish come true?”

  She was still skeptical about our talent and hadn’t cast any spells since arriving in the village.

  “It did.”

  A (justly) confused Dennis Goodwin had stormed into Amanda’s house as I was on my way out. He took one look at me and started grumbling. Obviously, he hadn’t been impressed with my glitter or my eyelashes, either. Like daughter, like father. He especially wasn’t pleased to learn he’d been wished there.

  I gave Harper the shorthand version of my night, and ignored her laughter at Laurel Grace’s “stranger danger” reaction. “I’m almost to the village. Where are you now?” I’d expected to hear noise from the village meeting in the background, but there was only silence.

  “I ducked into the back alley. I’m surprised someone hasn’t followed me out. Vultures.”

  “I thought they were wolves?”

  “Close enough. I’m still being picked apart, torn limb from limb.”

  I wasn’t worried in the least about her being alone in a dark alley. Sure, she was tiny, but she was mighty and quite a fighter. Always had been, ever since she was born prematurely, twenty-three years ago. My chest tightened as it always did when I thought about Harper’s birth. And how it had also been the day of our mother’s death.

  Besides, the Enchanted Village was about as scary as a baby duckling. Nothing bad ever happened here. That alleyway was as safe as safe could be.

  “I’m still not sure this village is right for us. I sense some seriously bad juju at this meeting.”

  Lightning flashed in the distance, highlighting dark cloud cover. I shuddered. I hated electrical storms with every fiber of my being.

  Focusing on what Harper had said, I knew I’d be a fool to ignore her instincts—they were finely tuned— but I thought this village was exactly where we needed t
o be. So much had gone wrong over the last few years in our lives, from my divorce to Harper’s brushes with the law.

  “It can’t be worse than where we were, right?” I said.

  “It was one little arrest, Darcy. Six months ago,” she added impatiently. “Can we let it go now? I don’t really want my arrest record to follow me around for the rest of my life.”

  She should have thought of that before she was caught shoplifting a puppy. Harper swore up and down it was the first and only time she’d ever stolen something, and I wanted to believe her, but didn’t quite. Ever since she was little, she was always getting into some kind of trouble. In elementary school, it was writing on the bathroom walls about the injustices of processed cafeteria food (she was always too smart for her own good). In high school it was mostly silly pranks on the class bullies (sneaking into the locker room and putting itching powder in jockstraps). In college she’d been the lead suspect in setting free dozens of lab rats in a science lab (not enough evidence to file charges). As far as I knew, she was currently on a straight and narrow path, her misguided attempts at activism in check. Hopefully a change of scenery would keep her on that course. I really didn’t want to see her go to jail.

  “Hey, what’s one more secret?” I completely agreed we should keep her past quiet. People could be terribly judgmental.

  She laughed. “I think the witchy wish thing trumps my misdemeanor.”

  I smiled at the thought of Miss Demeanor, aka Missy, the gray and white Schnoodle (half Schnauzer, half Poodle) who was now part of our family. The dog was the only silver lining that had come out of Harper’s arrest. Well, okay, all right. There had been the fact that Harper’s arrest had sparked an investigation that led to the dreadful pet store and three puppy mills being closed down (which was why the judge was lenient with her, giving her community service instead of jail time). Be that as it may, Harper still didn’t mind getting into all kinds of trouble if she believed she was fighting for a just cause.

  I tried not to worry too much about Missy’s slight personality change since our arrival to the village. She’d gone from a wild puppy with crazed frenetic energy to one who had more of a controlled enthusiasm. And one who had suddenly become an escape artist, running away as often as she could. Thankfully, she always returned, but it was exhausting searching for her, and fory some reason, I couldn’t figure out how she kept getting out of the yard. Was hers the normal progression of puppy behavior? Or was I just overreacting? After all, the move had been an adjustment for all of us. New house, new town, new everything. Even still, I wondered whether I should take her to a local vet for a checkup. Just to be sure.

  I slowed and took a left turn down the road that led to the Enchanted Village. “I needed the change, too,” I said so Harper wouldn’t feel like this move had been all about her. “You know, because of the divorce.” It was the truth. It was good to get away, to not have to see my ex with his brand-new family around town. The jab in my heart told me I still wasn’t completely over what had happened, despite my attempts to convince myself otherwise.

  An elaborate iron trellis covered in dripping vines and vibrant white night-blooming moonflowers marked the change from the paved road into a cobblestoned lane that twisted narrowly through the woods that surrounded the village.

  As I drove along, the branches of mature yew trees stretched overhead, entwining to form a natural tunnel. The dark, shadowy passage stirred recollections of enchanted forests from old storybooks where pixies played and hollows hid mischievous trolls.

  It was likely that in these particular woods pixies and trolls still played. I’d come to believe anything was possible in the Enchanted Village. After all, I was a witch.

  Only four months had passed since my father’s death, which had been the catalyst to my and Harper’s lives changing drastically. Till that point, I’d been working at Dad’s dental practice as an office manager. With his death the practice closed, and I lost my job—no more throwing myself into work to forget my painful divorce. No more pretending everything was just fine in my life.

  Harper, a recent college graduate who hadn’t had any job offers, had turned to activism to occupy her time.

  Dad had left us a nice inheritance, sure, but we quickly found out that money didn’t buy us the happiness we were sadly lacking or suddenly reveal our purposes in life. We were grieving, at loose ends. Not sure what to do with our lives. Until Aunt Ve visited us and made her big revelation. We were witches, something our father had known all along and hadn’t told us. I was still trying to comprehend why he’d kept us in the dark, even going so far as to make Aunt Ve promise never to tell us while he was still alive.

  Never in a million years would I have guessed I was a witch before Aunt Ve broke the news. I wondered how my life could have been different if I’d known about the wishing spells when I was growing up. How I would have been different…

  I shook the thoughts aside. There was no use dwelling on what-could-have-beens. It was time to focus on our futures. “Has the meeting started?”

  “Not yet. Everyone’s waiting for the grand hoo-ha to arrive.”

  “Has there been any talk about why the meeting was called?”

  “Not a peep—people are too busy interrogating me.” Desperation caused a hitch in her voice as she added, “How soon will you get here?”

  Harper had always preferred books to people, hated crowds, and, most of all, detested answering questions about herself. This meeting had to be torture for her.

  “Another ten minutes or so. I need to stop at the house and change.” I’d already shimmied out of the tutu and wings and put on a pair of jeans I’d had in the car. I used some wet wipes to take off the heaviest makeup, but I still wore the frilly pink bodysuit, and the glitter was being stubborn.y

  “What? No! You don’t have time. I need you here, Darcy. Or there may be nothing left of me. Please?”

  That was low. She knew I couldn’t say no to her when she asked nicely. “Okay, fine. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

  I hung up as the natural tunnel widened, and I slowed at an ornate welcome sign at the side of the road, crowded with colorful flowers at its base.

  WELCOME TO THE ENCHANTED VILLAGE, WWHERE MAGIC LIVES

  I looked ahead, taken away by the beauty and charm before me. The village square was aglow in fairy lights and sparkling lanterns hanging from tree branches. Gaslights cast circles of light onto the stone sidewalks and threw shadows along the connected storefronts and individual shops that lined the main square.

  Awnings shaded large plate-glass shop windows, and ivy trailed from flower boxes bursting with bold-hued annuals. A few tourists remained, walking hand in hand along the sidewalk, window-shopping—most of the shops closed at nine on weeknights. Windows glowed in the apartments above the storefronts, and specks of lights twinkled from the streetlamps along the lanes of the neighborhoods beyond the square.

  Neighborhoods where magic lived.

  The Enchanted Village had prospered by focusing on all things magical. Tourists loved it. But what the mortals didn’t know was that magic was truly present here in the form of witches. From the time of the Salem Witch Trials in the late sixteen hundreds, this land had been a haven. A safe place for witches to hide until it was safe to practice their Crafts publicly once again.

  That time had never come. There were still too many who didn’t understand the magic, the powers, and they feared what they didn’t know.

  So the decision was made to hide in plain sight. By creating the Enchanted Village as a tourist area, the Craft could be practiced under the guise of commercialism.

  The Spellcrafters opened the Spellbound Bookshop—where I was headed for the meeting. The Herbcrafters opened Natural Magick Tea Shoppe. The Colorcrafters opened both the Magic Wand Salon and Just an Illusion Art Gallery.

  Some of the shops in the village were owned by mortals, who had no idea they worked side by side with Crafters. To many, this was just a cute touris
t destination and a quaint place to live. But to the Crafters, this village was their heritage—and a way to keep it alive.

  Lightning lit the western sky as the road narrowed. At the center of the village, I slowed and turned right, heading toward the bookshop.

  All the diagonal parking spots in front of the store were already taken, so I parked down the street, in the lot of the Pixie Cottage, a small B&B. Thunder rumbled in the distance as I hurried down the sidewalk, fighting against the strong breeze, fighting against the apprehension within me that arose with every storm. Across the village green, I spotted the brightly lit As You Wish sign swaying on the arched portico of a beautiful Victorian.

  Home. I liked the calm and peaceful feeling the word created within me—serenity had been hard to come by since my divorce.

  Smiling, I picked up my pace before the storm hit. Every shop I passed was closed up tight. The only businesses open this late were the Cauldron (the local pub) and the Sorcerer’s Stove (a family restaurant with the best burgers in the village), but they were located on the other side of the square. I rushed past the Spinning Wheel and the Witch’s Brew Coffee Shop, and paused ever so slightly at the Bewitching Boutique. Its window display highlighted a gorgeous blue flowing gown, perfect for a romantic night on the town.

  Romance. It was a nice thought—for someone else. Though I’d come to fully believe in magic, to me love was a complete and total fairy tale. A bad one at that.

  The sulfury scent of rain hung in the air, and lightning flashed brightly, a flickering warning to take cover. I was almost to the bookshop when I spotted a man approaching from the opposite direction, his gait sure and steady. Confident. Thunder echoed as we reached the door at the same time.

  He was tall, dark, and dangerous with his don’t-mess-with-me attitude. I’d never seen him before, though if he was attending the meeting, he must be a local.