I opened my mouth to speak. “I—Ivory—” it was raspy. “Ivory?”
The white ball of feathers appeared before my eyes. She was stood, a claw yanking the broken glasses from my face. She pawed at my face, digging into my ears. “Got dirt everywhere.”
Her voice, finally crystal clear. “Oh. Ivory!”
“Get up!” she snapped.
I was in the garden. Mick’s garden. The white blur of Jinx licked at the beige blur I figured was Cassandra in the dirt, in another patch of scorched earth. I looked around, my body ached. Was it over?
“What happened?” I asked. “Is Cass—”
“She’s alive,” Ivory said. “We need to get you both home. After the crystal exploded, and the tornado pinned us into the earth, there was a loud crying sound.”
“Crying?”
“Yes, it was a woman.”
“The investor.” She would have wanted her gem, and now it was destroyed, the power it held was also gone. “Phil?” My dry throat fell tighter. “Is—”
“Gone,” she said.
I didn’t know if I should’ve cried, or whether or not my eyes would open their tear ducts in all the dryness. “Your debt is repaid,” I said softly into the air.
Jinx meowed as Cassandra let out a scream.
“Get off me!” she yelled.
“Get up!” Jinx responded.
We had to move. I couldn’t figure out anything. All the shapes were blurs of colour in different eyes, my depth perception was way off and I was out of balance.
Cassandra rushed to me, pulling me up by my side. “We did it,” she said. “We get rid of the beacon. We really did it.”
“We need to get back home, in case there’s something else out there,” I said. “Whatever happened, if those tunnels didn’t fold in on themselves, we might still have creatures living beneath Cottonwood.”
“I hope.” She let go of me once she was standing. “It’s back!” she shouted.
“What? Who?” I turned in my excitement.
“The stones,” she said. “My teleportation stone.”
I couldn’t see what she was holding up exactly, only the shape, and my prior knowledge of what it looked like. “What about the Queen’s Opal?”
She shrugged. “Long gone.”
I wasn’t sure whether or not to be reassured by that, or worried. It was priceless, but if they were to put a price on it, I’m sure it would be high in the tens of millions. “We need to go.”
There was nothing to tell me how long we’d been down there, or how long we’d been above ground. It was midday, according to my watch when I finally put on a pair of glasses I could see through.
Time possibly moved faster there.
At home, wrapped in a blanket with all the doors and windows sealed. I sat on the sofa, looking at the seat Phil had once been tied to. He was really gone this time, and not just sent back to the Witches Council.
He was dead.
“Think we need to write reports on this?” Cass asked, approaching me with a pad of ruled paper. “Because, I don’t know where to start.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll need to do one as well.”
“So, where would you begin?”
I glanced at the blank television screen. “Martha Mandel? Wonder if she’s a witch. Perhaps behind all of this.”
“My aunt was a conspiracy nut,” Cassandra chuckled. “You don’t want to end up like her.”
Definitely not. “You should start with the appearance of Philip,” I said. “He gave us Destiny’s case. Destiny’s case led us to finding Harry, and then we met his brother, include everything. They may want you to give a testimony too at the Council. Mention it was Ford’s idea about the UV path—thingy.”
A loud scoffing came from the hallway. “It was not my idea!” Ford voice travelled quickly.
I jumped out of my chair, stripped of my blanket, I ran barefoot with dirt into the hallway. “Ford?”
He laughed. “In the flesh, back to wish you gir—ladies with the greatest of successes,” he said. “I had to watch you and my brother—my brother, die.” He looked at me, his eyes full with tears. “I—I—”
“Shut up!” his voice came from behind Ford’s.
Shivers ran up my back. “Phil?”
“Phil?” Cassandra shouted after me,
“In the flesh!” he said, standing at his brother’s side. He pulled his trouser leg up. “No monitor here.”
“So, you—you did die?” I asked.
Ford sighed, weighing his hands from left to right. “Yes, he did.”
“But I get to work with my brother now,” he said. “And torture him for say—a hundred years?”
They laughed with each other. Even after everything. Something had changed.
“I’m happy for you,” I said, a tear forming in the corner of my eye.
“Plus, I spoke to my parents,” Phil said. “They forgave Ford, so, there’s really no need for me to be angry at him. And now I get to work alongside him.”
Ford playfully pinched his brother’s arm. “We have a higher power to answer to. Forget witches, the people up there mean—”
Gone. They were gone.
Cassandra burst out into tears. She grabbed at my arms and pulled me in for a hug.
I tried to be strong, but I couldn’t.
I cried alongside her.
It was all the better knowing that our familiars wouldn’t see us like this. They were both far too exhausted from the events that had happened to even bat an eyelid or speak in our direction. We’d done it, and only had a couple scathes along the way.
Sitting in the living room alongside Cassandra, we both had our pens and papers at the ready.
“You sta—” Cass was cut off.
A giant black portal opened against the far wall.
“Come—with—us,” a robotic voice commanded.
TO BE CONTINUED
A NOTE FROM JESSICA
Thank you for reading the Midnight Witch series. It’s been an incredible blessing to see your e-mails and kind words. I hope you’ll continue to follow me long after this series is over.
I will have some more non-paranormal stories to tell, but if witches and the paranormal or more your taste, then I won’t disappoint, because I have plenty of those to come as well.
If you do want more from this series, please consider leaving me a review, reviews let me know what series you want more of. I have an abundance of ideas, and perhaps not enough time to fulfil them all.
Twitchy kisses,
Jessica
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NEXT BOOK
You’ve finished THE ENIGMA ON EDEN ROAD? There’s another on the horizon. Get ready for the next instalment of the Midnight Witch cozy mystery series!
THE MURDER AT WITCH GARDEN
BLURB
When the Witches Council graduation ceremony is crashed by news of a murder, the witches gathered must work together to find out who among them is responsible… if it was one of the witches at all.
There’s worse places to be murdered than in a room full of paranormal investigators, and murders can be made to look like accidents all the time.
Evanora and Cassandra team up for their final case.
Not everyone makes it out of Witch Garden.
ABOUT JESSICA LANCASTER
Jessica Lancaster grew up with a love for reading whodunnit and murder mystery novels, curled up with a cup of tea and the family cat. She lives with her silver shorthair tabby and continues to devour mysteries whole.
Named after Angela Lansbury in “Murder, She Wrote”, Jessica Fletcher; she dreamed of a day to be her own sleuth in a series. This sparked Gwen in the Crystal Café Cozy Mystery series and Evanora in the Midnight Witch Cozy Mystery series, and a whole host of characters you’ll soon meet.
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