“Do you regret it?” I asked. “Becoming a familiar?”
“At times,” he said. “It can be lonely.”
“Hey,” Godfrey protested. “I’m offended!”
“That cheers me immensely,” Pepe said.
I never really thought about this aspect of being a familiar. They often lived long lives, yes, but solitary lives. “There are no other mice familiars in the village?” I asked. “One you could . . .”
“Hook up with,” Mrs. P said, finishing my sentence.
“Non.” He shook his head, his ears flopping. “Not many choose to become a mouse. Swayed by thoughts of carrying the plague, I’m certain.”
I made a face. “Do you carry the plague?”
Giving me a frazzled look, he said, “Non, familiars cannot carry the plague.” He said it as though I were a few apples short of a bushel. “But there is a reputation . . .”
“How old were you when you died?” Mrs. P asked.
I looked at her.
“What?” she said. “I’m curious.”
“I was a mere youth,” Pepe said.
“Ha!” Godfrey snorted. “You were older than I am now.”
“Perhaps when you’ve lived for more than two hundred years as a familiar, then you will reevaluate your definition of youth,” Pepe snapped, gnashing his teeth.
That was more like the feisty Pepe I knew.
“Now, excusez-moi. I must return to my bed. There is a marathon of Downton Abbey calling my name.” In a graceful leap, he hopped to the ground.
“Wait!” I cried.
Slowly, he turned back toward us, the extent of his displeasure at his grand exit being interrupted etched into his narrowed eyes. “You need something, ma chère?”
Suddenly the endearment didn’t sound so . . . dear.
“You’re not the only one experiencing an annual week of discontent, my little friend,” Mrs. P said. “There’s Starla.”
Godfrey tsked thoughtfully. “Ah, yes. It’s been two years now, hasn’t it? I remember clearly the day she came in, a week after the attack, her graceful neck still black and blue.” His voice tightened. “She was looking for turtlenecks to cover the bruising.”
A shiver slid down my spine, one vertebra at a time. My hands began to ache, and I realized I was clenching them into fists. Fists of anger. Of helplessness. Slowly I unfurled my fingers.
Some of the attitude left Pepe’s eyes, replaced with suspicion as he watched my hands. “What’s brought you here? Has something happened to her?”
He was an intuitive little mouse.
Sensing the shift in the air, Godfrey straightened. “Has something happened?”
“There’s been an incident,” I said and quickly explained.
Pepe walked back to us. “We’ll do whatever is needed to help.”
“Absolutely,” Godfrey agreed.
“Until we find out for certain that Kyle Chadwick is back in the village, what I need is information. Starla doesn’t talk much about her past with him, and if I’ve learned anything from moving here it’s that the past sometimes comes back to haunt the present.”
“Sometimes literally,” Mrs. P said.
She referred to the time I was imprinted upon—a spirit attached to me until I solved his murder. “Do any of you know how they met?”
Mrs. P cupped her hands and held them out to Pepe. He climbed in and she gently placed him onto the coffee table. While sitting, his little legs and long tail dangled over the edge.
Pepe said, “I believe it was at the Firelight Gala, three years ago. It was love at first sight. They were engaged after two months, married after four more.”
Six months after that, he’d tried to kill her.
Godfrey said, “Starla was the most striking bride I’ve ever seen. She wore an ivory dress, with a sweetheart neckline, fitted through the waist and hips and flared at the bottom. Stunning. Simply stunning. But it wasn’t the dress that made her so memorable. It was the glow in her eyes. The love shining through.”
“They made a beautiful couple,” Mrs. P said. “The quintessential perfect couple. As all-American as apple pie.”
“Kyle adored her,” Pepe said. “His family adored her. His family even helped them buy a perfect little house and everyone in the village hoped they’d soon have beautiful babies.”
A lump lodged in my throat at the picture the three of them painted. “How did it go so horribly wrong?”
They all stayed silent. I looked from face to face.
Finally Pepe said, “No one knows.”
“Starla began to withdraw,” Godfrey said. “She stopped dropping by as often.”
“She turned down job offers,” Mrs. P said.
“She even shut out her brother, Evan,” Pepe added.
“Kyle stopped seeing as much of his family. His paintings took a dark turn and didn’t sell as well. They stopped appearing so much in public.”
“Then one day,” Mrs. P explained, “Starla dialed nine-one-one. Kyle was arrested. The village was torn apart.”
“Somehow,” Pepe said, “Kyle escaped from jail.”
“Somehow?” I asked.
“Everyone believes his family helped him.” Mrs. P leaned back on the couch. “They denied it, of course, and began a campaign to redeem his reputation, claiming Starla made much ado about nothing.”
“Nothing? He tried to kill her!” I said, shocked.
Godfrey stroked his chin. “They believed it to be a fit of temper, a crime of passion, and that everyone makes mistakes. Most of the village sided with Kyle.”
“How is that even possible?” I asked, my heart breaking for Starla. It had to have been a horrible time for her—not only because of the attack, but the aftermath as well. “Were people so blinded by Kyle’s golden boy charm?”
“You must remember, doll,” Mrs. P said, “that Starla had only been a villager for a couple of years at that point. She didn’t grow up here as Kyle did.”
“The village tends to protect its own,” Godfrey added. “Even when it’s not justified.”
“By all appearances Kyle adored Starla. Doted on her,” Pepe said. “No one could imagine he would harm her. And because they couldn’t imagine it, they couldn’t believe it.”
“Do you believe it?” I asked him and Godfrey. After all, they were longtime villagers.
“I saw the wounds,” Pepe said, twirling his whiskers. “And witnessed Starla’s heartbreak. I believed her.”
“As did I,” Godfrey said.
I looked from face to face. “Do any of you know why Kyle might have returned?”
“I can think of only one reason,” Godfrey said, his tone dark and ominous.
“What’s that?” Mrs. P asked.
His eyes flashed. “He has returned to seek revenge.”
Chapter Five
Darkness fell early this time of year, and at a little past four p.m. evening shadows already stretched across the village square as Missy and I walked along the sidewalk on our way to Harper’s bookstore, Spellbound. Information about Kyle and Starla whirled through my head, clouding out almost everything else.
Revenge.
Deep down, I feared it was true.
It seemed unlikely that Kyle had returned to make amends or to turn himself in. Or else he would have done those things by now and wouldn’t have stalked Starla at the ice rink.
I’d left Mrs. P with Pepe and Godfrey at the boutique and excused myself with a vague explanation about having to run errands.
The truth was that my brain was on overload. I needed time to process the information the three had shared with me. The mother hen in me wanted to fix this problem as soon as possible. The wait-and-see approach was driving me crazy.
If Kyle were back in town, I wanted to know why he was here. I wanted to know what he had planned. And I wanted to make sure Starla was safe.
If.
If he were back.
My cell phone rang, and I pulled it out of my tote bag, gl
anced at the ID screen, and quickly answered. “Starla? Is everything okay?”
Her voice was but a whisper. “He’s outside my house.”
“Did you call the police?”
“They’re on the way.”
“I’ll be right there,” I said, scooping up Missy and breaking into a jog.
“Hurry,” she said, and hung up.
I kept Missy pressed close to my chest to limit the jostling. I ducked into the back alley behind Harper’s shop—it was a shortcut to the row of brownstones where Starla and Evan lived in a corner unit. I thanked my lucky stars that I was in decent shape, due to my morning runs, and made it to Starla’s doorstep just as a village police car—a light pink MINI Cooper—pulled up at the curb. Glinda’s car.
I beat her up the walkway and banged on Starla’s door. “It’s me, Starla!”
Inside, I heard Twink barking and then the metal clank of a deadbolt turning.
Footsteps clumped up the steps, and Glinda Hansel bumped me from behind, shoving me against the door.
“Oh, sorry.” Her hand rested on her gun. “I slipped.”
“Right.”
She blinked innocently.
As usual, she was gorgeous. Her beautiful blue eyes were alert, intelligent. Her strikingly pale blond hair was pulled back into a twist, and her skin flawless.
Starla pulled open the door just enough to peek out. Tears stained her face, the moisture tracking down her cheeks. “Why aren’t you going after him?” she asked Glinda.
Glinda’s head whipped around, her keen gaze searching the area. “Where is he?”
Slowly, Starla’s eyes widened. “What do you mean, where is he? He’s right there!” she pointed to a lamppost across the street.
Glinda glanced at me.
“Darcy, tell her!” Starla implored.
I stared at the lamppost.
There was no one there.
No one at all.
* * *
“Where is she?” Evan asked, storming into the kitchen at As You Wish much like his sister had done hours ago. He’d just returned from delivering a cake to a party on the South Shore.
His cheeks were flushed red, and his ginger blond hair stuck up in fluffs—as though he’d been running his hands through it over and over again. Panic laced his blue eyes. With rush hour traffic and also an accident on the expressway it had taken him two hours to get here.
“She’s upstairs sleeping,” I said, putting the kettle on the back burner of the stove. I’d managed to talk Starla into staying here for the time being. I’d quickly thrown some clothes, her laptop, her toothbrush, and her makeup into a tote bag and brought her and Twink home with me. “I had Cherise Goodwin stop by, and Starla agreed to a sleeping spell. She should be out for a while. Maybe all night.” Cherise was a Curecrafter, a healing witch. She’d also been married to Terry once upon a time—she and Ve had a lot in common.
Cherise had quickly pulled me aside to tell me she suspected what ailed Starla wasn’t likely something she could cure. Emotional pain and anxiety disorders were beyond the scope of her magic. She could, however, treat the symptoms, and said that for now the best thing for Starla was sleep.
Starla hadn’t spoken much after realizing that only she could see Kyle. Just trembled and stared blankly.
He said, “I’m going to run up and check on her.”
“Top of the stairs to the right.”
He took the steps two at a time.
After feeding Missy, I washed my hands, put two mugs and the tea caddy on the counter, and contemplated what to have for dinner. It was after seven and I realized I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Suddenly, I was famished. I finally decided to order in Chinese food and placed a quick call.
I hung up and sat on the bottom step of the back staircase, watching Missy pick at her food.
Tea, dinner plans . . . It was so ordinary that it felt wrong.
This was not an ordinary day.
Far from it.
The kettle whistled, and I jumped up to shut it off before the noise disturbed Starla. I poured steaming water into the mugs as Evan slowly came down the steps.
“She was sound asleep with her laptop balanced on her lap.” He stirred sugar into his tea and flicked me a troubled glance. “She had a search engine called up with Kyle’s name typed in.”
I didn’t know what she hoped to find. I doubted there was anything online that would explain Kyle’s sudden resurfacing in her life.
I held the tea caddy out to Evan and he plucked a bag from the selection. I chose a spice blend and dropped it into my mug, dunking it with more force than it needed.
“Tilda gave me a dirty look when I moved the laptop. She and Twink are keeping a close watch over Starla,” Evan said, then absently added, “I’m glad she’s not alone up there.”
“I don’t think she should be alone until this mess is sorted out. You’re both more than welcome to stay here until this is all settled.”
He nodded. “Did Cherise have any explanation? Is this all in Starla’s head?”
“Cherise isn’t sure, but she is leaning that way.”
Evan drew in a long breath, then blew it out. “I don’t want to believe that’s true, but I don’t know of an invisibility spell, do you?”
I shook my head. I wasn’t even sure one existed. Invisibility was frowned upon in the Craft world, except in extreme situations. There was an invisibility cloak I knew about, but when it was no longer needed it had been destroyed at the Elder’s command.
Mrs. P could vaporize, but even she had limitations. There was a narrow time frame for her invisibility—only minutes before she regained her human form.
“There is a vanishing spell,” I said. “But that’s just for inanimate objects. Not people.”
Violating Craft Law, Melina Sawyer, Nick’s ex and Mimi’s mom, had kept an impeccable journal that detailed some of the Craft’s secrets, spells, and inner workings. Afraid of it falling into the wrong hands, I ultimately had to cast the vanishing spell on the diary itself. It was safe from those who’d use it for harm, but still accessible to Mimi and me. Once in a while we plucked it out of the ether to read more about our heritage.
Evan sipped his tea. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m not sure, either.” I cupped my mug, letting the warmth seep into my hands. “Waiting makes me feel helpless.”
“I just wish I knew if she was really seeing him, or if her mind’s playing tricks on her. The physical wounds she suffered have long healed, Darcy, but the ones on the inside, the damage done to her emotionally . . . I’ve always been concerned that would never quite go away.”
My nerves tingled at the word “wish” but then I relaxed. Evan was part Wishcrafter—I couldn’t grant his wish even if I wanted to. And I really wanted to.
I easily conjured the image of Starla’s terrified face when she opened her front door earlier. I shivered and gripped my mug harder. “I’ve known Starla for a while now, and I’ve never seen her this way. My gut instinct says that she sees him. I don’t know how or why but he’s here in the village.”
Rubbing his eyes, he said, “I don’t know whether to hope you’re right or to hope you’re wrong.”
Whether Kyle had returned or her mind was playing tricks . . . both were abysmal scenarios. Except Starla’s mind didn’t have the ability to kill her. Kyle did.
“I’ll talk to Will, Kyle’s younger brother,” Evan said. “And try to find out if he’s heard anything about Kyle’s return. He’s the only one in the family who still speaks to us.”
“Really?”
“The Chadwicks are tight-knit. Family is everything to them, and protecting one of their own is simply second nature. And if you don’t side with them, you’re against them. It’s sad,” Evan said. “Starla didn’t just lose Kyle in their divorce, but a whole other family, who she loved dearly. And who supposedly loved her as well.” He shook his head.
What a horrible situation. The aromatic scent of m
y tea usually soothed me. The allspice, cinnamon, orange . . . but not tonight. My nerves were shot.
Evan drew his tea bag from the cup and wrapped the string around the dripping bag. Wrapping, wrapping until the bag looked ready to split from the pressure.
I reached over and took it out of his hands.
“The thing is, Darcy, none of what happened made sense. Kyle adored Starla. He was kind and generous. He was that charming, that likable. His whole family was.”
Sometimes life didn’t make sense.
Bad things happened. Good people got hurt. Families were destroyed. “I heard Kyle had a temper. Did you ever witness it?”
“I wouldn’t call it a temper, necessarily.” He slid his mug back and forth between his hands. “He had passion, Darcy. About a lot of things. He’d get heated during talks of politics, of Red Sox games, his art . . . anything that he cared a lot about. He’d get loud and all puffed up the way guys do sometimes. It never led to anything physical, except that one time with the art critic.”
“And when he tried to kill Starla,” I added softly. I recalled what Mrs. P had said about Starla withdrawing. It sounded like classic domestic abuse behavior, and I had to wonder if it had been the first time he’d laid hands on her.
Shoving a hand through his hair, Evan looked like he was in pain. Furrowed forehead, eyes winced, tight lips. Quietly, as though afraid to say the words aloud, he whispered, “She would tell me, wouldn’t she, if he’d hurt her before that?”
Ah, he’d been thinking the same thing. My heart squeezed. “I don’t know.”
There was a knock on the front door—probably dinner. Missy barked and took off to greet the guest, and I grabbed my wallet from my tote bag and turned on lights as I walked down the hallway. The front room where Ve and I met clients was filled with rich blues and greens, and light glinted off the silver curlicues on the wallpaper. My gaze settled on the painting above the mantel, a large watercolor of a golden magic wand, whimsical and ethereal. It spoke volumes about this house and the people who lived here.
Missy sniffed the bottom of the door, but her tail didn’t wag as it usually did when greeting someone delivering food. Apprehension filled me as I peeked out the window, and I became even more concerned at the sight of the two men who stood on the front porch.
The Goodbye Witch Page 4