Witch School Dropout: A Witch Squad Cozy Mystery #7

by M. Z. Andrews

  She stared at me. Fearful that perhaps he’d come back to haunt her. I gave her a tight smile and put my plate on the back side of the bar. “Will you excuse me, Sally. I need to use the restroom.”

  Her frail body shook nervously, so her slight nod came across as nothing more than a tremble. “Of course.”

  I walked away but hid on the staircase so I could watch the rest of the plan put into motion.

  Sweets came out of the kitchen and looked around. With an exaggerated frown on her face, she looked at Sally. “Sally, did you see where Mercy went? She said she would help me in the kitchen and now she’s disappeared. I need to run to the store quickly. We’re out of veggie dip.”

  Sally pointed in the direction of the restroom. “She just ran to the ladies’ room. Is there something I can help you with dear?”

  Sweets did her best to look relieved. “Yes, if you don’t mind?”

  “Not at all! I’m happy to help in any way that I can.” She put her plate down next to mine behind the bar. “What can I do?”

  “I have two pies in the oven. They need to come out in a minute. But I really have to run. There’s a timer on. It should go off in just a minute.”

  “Oh, consider it done,” said Sally. The look on her face said how thankful she really was to have something to focus her attention on other than Vic’s funeral.

  Sweets slung the strap of her brown leather purse over her shoulder and smiled at the older woman. “Oh, thank you, Sally! I appreciate it!”

  Sally rushed into the kitchen. It was empty, except Regis was quietly lying on the floor next to the center island. She walked to the oven and peered inside. As Sweets had promised, there were two pies baked to a golden brown. Just as Sally stood up, a timer went off.

  From behind the double set of swinging doors to the kitchen, the girls and I watched as she switched the timer off, donned a pair of potholders, and pulled the pies from the oven. No sooner had she put the pies down onto a cooling rack then she heard a voice in the kitchen.

  “Hello Sally,” said Mr. Bailey from the floor just as Sally took off her oven mitts.

  “Who said that?” she asked skittishly while looking around.

  “It’s Vic,” said Mr. Bailey on the other side of the center island where Sally couldn’t see him.

  A bejeweled hand fluttered to her chest. “Vic? Where are you?” she asked, her face showed true fear in her eyes.

  “I’m just a ghost. Watching over things.”

  “B-but how can I hear you?” she asked.

  “Magic,” he said plainly. “Sally, I know what you did.”

  “W-what I did?” she shook her head wildly while red-hot guilt poured across her face like spilled milk across a table. “Vic, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, Sally. Would you like to tell me the truth while my spirit is still here?”

  Sally spun around, so her back was to Mr. Bailey. She leaned over the stove, stricken with grief and panic all at once. It almost made me feel bad for the woman. Almost. “I-I can’t, Vic. What I did was so bad.”

  “You only did it because you loved me,” suggested Mr. Bailey. It had taken a lot for us to convince him to talk a confession out of Sally Westminster, but in the end, we’d been able to convince him that she’d only done it out of love.

  “Oh Vic, I did! I did it all out of love. I promise you. If I would have known it was going to be you…” her sobs choked out her words.

  “It’s okay Sally,” said Mr. Bailey in the soothing voice that was so near and dear to us all.

  “I loved you for so many years. I don’t understand why you never saw that!”

  “The heart sees what it wants to see, is the only thing I can offer you,” he said quietly.

  Sally spun back around and faced the empty room. “I didn’t mean for you to die,” she promised through wild tears. “I swear. You have to believe me!”

  “I know.”

  “I only wanted Char to fall out of love with you and you to fall out of love with her.”

  Mr. Bailey was quiet for a moment. Absorbing her words. She was confessing now. “What did you do? You have to admit it, Sally, to me and to yourself. It’s the only way you’ll ever be at peace.”

  Sally hung her head. “I can’t, Vic.”

  “Try, Sally.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she bawled. “It was only a love disbursement potion.”

  “You don’t do potions, Sally. You couldn’t have done this alone.”

  She shook her head sadly but didn’t speak.

  “Who helped you?”

  “Vic, I can’t…”

  “Who helped you, Sally?”

  Sally took a few moments to collect herself. She sniffled back gobs of clear liquid that streamed from her nose and dabbed at the mascara that coursed down her cheeks. Finally, she took a deep cleansing breath and looked up into the empty room. “Auggie Stone helped me,” she admitted.

  I could hear the surprise in Mr. Bailey’s voice. “How do you know Auggie Stone?”

  “Everyone knows about Auggie Stone and what she did to Phyllis Habernackle all those years ago. I knew she could help me.”

  My mind immediately began to race. What Auggie Stone had done to Gran? What had Auggie Stone done to my grandmother?

  “She got you the potion?”

  Sally nodded tearfully. “Yes. She gave me a little vial the morning of the party. She said it would only take a couple of drops and to be very careful with it. Sweets told me the little starfish champagne glass was Char’s, so I put the drops in – just like Auggie told me to. I didn’t know that if you drank it by mistake, it could kill you!”

  “I know you didn’t know, Sally,” agreed Vic sadly.

  “I’m so sorry, Vic,” she bawled.

  “What did you do with the rest of the potion?” he asked her calmly.

  She sobbed. “I put it in an apron on the wall. I was so scared. I didn’t know what else to do with it!”

  That was all it took, Detective Whitman and his men pounced. Of course, I’d have to make up an explanation for Detective Whitman as to why he and his men could hear Mr. Bailey’s voice, but otherwise, the plan worked perfectly.

  Sally looked up and nodded sadly. Her shoulders slumped forward as if she was almost relieved to have been caught. The whole thing hadn’t been intentional, but the fact of the matter was, she’d accidentally poisoned Mr. Bailey, and she’d have to answer to that.

  From the other side of the swinging doors, we all let out a sigh of relief. To have put the mystery of Mr. Bailey’s death to rest, was a relief. Now we could move on to other important pieces of business. I needed to find out what exactly had happened between my grandmother and Augusta Stone all those years ago that led to the feud between the two family’s covens for all these years.

  “I need to speak to my grandmother,” I said to the girls.

  Jax was right behind me. She wanted to hear everything that had gone on between our two families just as much as I wanted to hear. “Holly, find Reign. Alba, get my mother. We’re going to settle this whole thing, once and for all.”

  36

  Even though the police took Sally Westminster out the back door of Habernackle’s Bed, Breakfast, and Beyond, news of her arrest spread through the restaurant like wildfire. Citizens of Aspen Falls were beyond shocked, and rightly so. It wasn’t something anyone had expected from such an upstanding member of the community. To curb the spread of gossip, Char, my mother, and my grandmother cut Mr. Bailey’s funeral reception short and politely shooed guests out early citing unforeseen circumstances.

  Instead of being remanded to police custody for her involvement, one guest, in particular, was asked to stay, while being carefully monitored by Detective Whitman. She was a tall woman, with grey hair that fell straight to her shoulders. She had the familiar Stone nose and the same commanding presence, but time had marred her face with the delicately etched lines of age.

  All that was left in the dining
room that afternoon were the members of the Witch Squad, my mother, brother, and grandmother, Char Bailey and her dog Regis, whom she still didn’t realize embodied the soul of her dead husband, Detective Whitman, and Augusta Stone. It was high-time to pose some questions, and I for one was about to get some answers.

  If it was a higher power – divine intervention perhaps, I wasn’t really sure, but that afternoon after all of the other black-clothed guests had gone, and we’d all taken our seats for the show, the door to Habernackle’s opened one more time. My mother stood up to tell whoever was coming in that the reception was over, but she was immediately stopped in her tracks when she realized who had walked through the door.

  Merrick Stone, SaraLynn Stone, and BethAnn Stone, all with somber faces poured into Habernackle’s. Sorceress Stone’s ice-blue eyes surveyed the room no further than to spot Detective Whitman. She pointed her long, bony finger at the members of the Witch Squad. “I want those girls arrested for trespassing!” she roared.

  My mouth opened, preparing to defend ourselves. But before I could say a word, my mother got between Sorceress Stone’s finger and my group of friends. Her thick red eyebrows angled low towards the bridge of her nose. A blazing ember of light flickered behind her emerald green eyes as she returned the pointing of the finger. “And I want her arrested for false imprisonment.”

  My brother raced to my mother’s side in wordless solidarity.

  Augusta Stone stood up then, too. “Take a deep breath SaraLynn. No one’s going anywhere.”

  A brief flicker of surprise ran across Sorceress Stone’s face. “Mother!” she gasped. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was paying my respects to my old friend Char’s late husband,” she said calmly. “What are you doing here?”

  “These girls broke into our house today. They were looking for you!”

  Augusta Stone gave a half smile. “It looks as if they’ve found me.”

  “SaraLynn Stone trapped these poor girls in her house against their will,” said my mother. Her face was crimson now.

  Gran hobbled over to my mother and gently touched her arm. “Sit down Linda. Sit down Reign. Let me handle this.”

  My mother didn’t move but continued to stare down Sorceress Stone. It took Reign whispering in my mother’s ear to get her to budge. Grudgingly, my mother retreated back to her seat with Reign holding her elbow.

  Augusta Stone nodded at her three children, wordlessly ordering them to take a seat as well. She was going to handle it.

  I looked around and just about couldn’t believe my eyes. Two feuding witch covens, fully represented, sprawled out before me. The Stones and the Habernackles. It was like an episode of Dallas, a favorite of my mother’s, the Barnes versus the Ewings. Or the Hatfields versus the McCoys. This could be epic. My heart pumped loudly in my chest as I sat, holding my breath, waiting for the first crackle of fireworks to begin.

  “So, it was you all along,” began my grandmother, circling Augusta Stone like a professional boxer, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. “I had a feeling.”

  Augusta Stone didn’t look intimidated. She stood perfectly still with her posture perfectly erect. “Hello to you, too, Phyllis.” She glanced across the room at Char. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Charlotte.”

  Char glared back at Augusta. “You don’t get to give your condolences,” shot Char. “You’re the one that provided Sally with the poison that killed my husband.”

  Augusta sighed, looking truly apologetic. “I’m very sorry, Char. It was a love potion gone wrong. I didn’t provide it to her as a weapon of death. I didn’t even know she was using it on you and your husband. She simply told me she needed a potion to make a woman fall out of love with a man. She wanted to be there to pick up the pieces.”

  Gran laughed. “You never change, do you Auggie? Always trying to manipulate people to get someone something or someone that doesn’t belong to them.”

  Augusta rolled her eyes. “Can we not go there, Phyllis?”

  My grandmother’s arms went up then. “Are you kidding me? This whole thing.” She waved her arms around her head. Her eyes blazed with a fire I hadn’t seen out of my grandmother before. “Everything. We’re all here today because of you and what you did all those years ago.”

  Augusta threw her arms up in the air, too. “Here we go again. For years I’ve heard this. Well, you exacted your revenge. I’ve paid the price. My children have paid the price. Even my grandchildren have paid the price for my mistakes. Do we really need to continue to revisit it time and again?”

  Reign stood up. “Yes. We do need to revisit it, Grandmother,” he spat at Augusta. “I grew up without my parents, and now it sounds like it was because of you.”

  Augusta looked at him and softened for only a moment before a cool layer of frost coated her silvery-blue eyes. “So, you’re my son’s boy. My, you’re a handsome one.”

  “It’s time we all heard the truth,” he fired back, unphased by a single kind word.

  Gran nodded. “So it is. I’ve promised you the truth for long enough. It’s time you all heard the truth about Auggie Stone.”

  Augusta laughed at Gran then. “You are just as much at fault for this as I am. If you hadn’t decided to curse my family, none of this would be happening right now.”

  “If you hadn’t done what you did, I wouldn’t have needed to curse your family!” roared Gran.

  “Enough with the finger pointing,” said Sorceress Stone loudly. “You blame her. She blames you. We get it. Now get on with it. We’d all like to hear the truth about this feud.”

  Gran nodded. “Very well. You want the truth. You’ve got the truth. Years and years ago, Auggie and I were assigned to be roommates at the Paranormal Institute for Witches. They were the best two years of my life. We became best friends. We were inseparable. We did everything together and had fun doing it.”

  “Until the day she met a boy from the wizard school,” said Augusta wistfully. “Then she dropped me like a hot cake.”

  “I did not,” barked Gran. “We invited you to go everywhere with us.”

  “Yeah, and be the third wheel,” complained Augusta.

  Gran’s eyes widened as her loud, clanging voice strangled the air. “But ya came, didn’t ya?”

  Augusta shrugged, closing her eyes and lifting her brows.

  Gran nodded as if that vindicated her. “She came with us everywhere. It was like Samson had two girlfriends.”

  “But he proposed to you,” whispered Augusta.

  Gran smiled lightly as if the memory made her happy in that split second. “He did. I was over the moon. Thrilled. I couldn’t wait to be Mrs. Samson Smith.”

  I sucked in my breath, as did the girls around me. Gran had told us that the Stones had once gone by their father’s last name, Smith, but had taken their mother’s maiden name later in life. The only people that appeared to have seen that one coming were Augusta, my grandmother, and Char Bailey. She’d been a friend of theirs at the time too.

  Gran nodded at the gasps that filled her ears. “Oh, this is only the beginning folks. So on graduation night, I went on a hunt for my fiancé, the love of my life. I looked everywhere and couldn’t find him. So I returned to my dorm room, and what did I find? I found Auggie Stone, my best friend, in bed with my dear sweet Samson.”

  Augusta’s hand covered her forehead and eyes as she listened quietly. Whether she was embarrassed, ashamed, or simply tired of hearing it, I couldn’t tell.

  “Of course, Samson didn’t realize that Auggie had spiked his drink with the same potion that was used on Vic Bailey this week. So, when he’d magically fallen out of love with me, Auggie was there to pick up the pieces, like the good friend that she was. Isn’t that right, Auggie?”

  Augusta threw her hands out on either side of her. “I’ve apologized, Phyllis. Repeatedly. I don’t know what else to say. I was young, and I was stupid, and I’m sorry!”

  Reign furrowed his eyebrows at our grandmoth
er. “So all of this-” He circled his hand in the air. “Is because she stole your boyfriend in college?”

  Gran smiled bitterly. “Oh, if only that were all it was, Sonny.” She glared at Augusta. “After graduation, I moved on with my life. I picked up the pieces, and I left Aspen Falls to start a life far, far away from my old friend Auggie. I met a new man. Fell in love, and had a child. Things were going great. I had a beautiful life. Then one day I got a knock on my door. And who do you think it was?” She looked around the room. None of us spoke. We were all hanging on her every word and holding our breaths simultaneously. “It was Auggie Stone. Coming to me with her tail tucked between her legs and three little children in tow. Young Merrick, Sara, and Beth Smith.” Gran looked at them each in turn.

  Augusta shifted uncomfortably. I could tell the truth was going to hurt.

  “Her dear sweet Samson had left her and their brood of children for another witch. A younger, prettier witch. And Auggie had nowhere to go. So she came asking me her oldest, dearest, her only friend for help.”

  “Mom! I can’t believe you never told me this story. I don’t remember it at all,” interjected my mother, looking shocked at what she was hearing. She’d met Merrick as a child.

  Gran smiled at her. “You were small, Linda. Just a tot. Of course, you don’t remember it, but I assure you, this all happened as I live and breathe today. Auggie needed a place to stay with her three kids, and I had a soft heart. I gave in. I let her apologize. I accepted her apologies and promises that she’d been young and foolish. I promised her we could move forward. Afterall, I was happy and in love with my sweet Clark now, and she was alone to raise three children. Who had gotten the better end of the stick?” She took a breath and leaned her back against the bar while we all stared up at her. “And then one day, I came home, and I found my dear sweet Clark, dead on the floor. I found an empty vial in the garbage, and I knew what had happened. Auggie Stone had happened once again. In her attempt at wooing my husband with her mysterious pit viper venom potion, she’d accidentally killed him.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Augusta Stone had murdered my grandfather! Accidental or not, it was murder! I wanted to wring her neck. As much as I hated Sorceress Stone, her mother was so much worse! No wonder why my grandmother hated the Stones so badly!