The Rhinestone Witches Omnibus: Books 1-3

by Addison Creek

  “Well?” she said. Her eyes were intense. I knew she had been waiting for this moment for a lot longer than just this evening. Her granddaughter was about to be cleared.

  Neither Quinn nor Joy looked as if they wanted to speak.

  “We’ve been talking to Nancy,” said Joy at last. “She had some sharp words for us, but we reminded her that she was a murderer. Still, she wouldn’t divulge anything about why she killed Jonathan. The things we brought you to look at, including the blanket, were what tipped us off. They were made using some of the same exclusive materials that are used to make the shoes she sells in her shop.”

  My mind flashed to the pearls, but I kept quiet. All this mess was over. There was no point in mentioning them now.

  “She admitted to the murder officially?” Lowe asked.

  “She did, and even if she hadn’t, we have proof. She’s going to prison, and there she will stay,” said Joy.

  “What does that mean for my granddaughter?” Bethel had clearly tired of waiting for an answer. The question had been hanging over our heads for far too long.

  Bethel was giving Quinn a look that I had never seen before.

  The sheriff sighed. “She is exonerated from the murder charge, as well as the charge we had pending after Nancy accused her of attacking her in the parking lot,” he said carefully.

  “But?” I said.

  Everyone looked at me. It was so clear that there was a “but” coming that I could nearly taste it.

  “But the Vixens were trying to set her up. They may well still be. From my own perception, I thought Nancy looked delighted at the idea of Ethel returning to Twinkleford sometime soon,” he said. Joy nodded in agreement.

  Bethel sucked in her breath. This was a blow.

  “So you’re saying you don’t think she should come back?” I said, incredulous.

  “At this point, having her stay in hiding is probably safest. If Vixens are looking for you, it’s best not to stick around,” said Joy.

  “Because you haven’t caught them yet. You’ve just been looking into my cousin, so none of the rest of it was a concern for you,” Lowe snapped.

  “Lowe,” Bethel murmured.

  “No, I won’t hush. Why should our family suffer? You’re one of the only witches who has had the courage to denounce the Vixens! The Rhinestones have been targeted ever since, and the sheriff’s office does nothing.” Lowe slammed her chair backwards and stood up.

  I hadn’t known my cousin for very long, but I certainly hadn’t seen such a display of emotion from her before.

  “I’m going to sleep!” she yelled, and stormed out of the room.

  “I’ve asked for funding to hire another sheriff,” said Quinn with a sigh. “He or she will be dedicated to nothing else but finding out what happened with Jonathan and what the Vixens are up to. Lowe is right, the Vixens have been a thorn in our side for far too long.”

  “They’ve been begging you to move against them, and you haven’t,” said Bethel quietly. “Ever since my daughter.”

  My head snapped up at that. Had she just connected my mom and the Vixens? Joy shifted uneasily.

  “We’re going to get to the bottom of this. Your family won’t be left unsupported any longer,” said Joy.

  “I certainly hope not,” said Bethel. Then she too pushed her chair back. Once she was standing, the sheriffs hastened to rise as well. “It’s been a very long day. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to celebrate the family achievement as I would have liked,” Bethel went on, casting a small smile in my direction.

  I tried to smile back. The cape was now dragging heavily at my neck. All I wanted to do was fall into bed and sleep for days.

  “Thank you for your time,” said Joy. “We’ll be going now.”

  She got up and walked toward the door, but Quinn looked uncertain. I couldn’t blame him. After a pause, he turned to me and asked, “Can I speak with you for a moment?”

  “It’s probably best if I just go to sleep,” I told him. No speaking to married men after witch rituals or at bedtime: a good rule of thumb, I decided right then and there.

  Bethel had said it would all make sense if he explained it to me, but I was in no mood. Let my little heart suffer, if indeed that was what was happening. We were never anything anyway, and my heart certainly had not fluttered whenever I’d caught his eye.

  Epilogue

  Sleep came easily that night. I punched the pillow a couple of times, then was out like a quelling unicorn glare. After what seemed like far too short a time to be a good night’s sleep, a hand on my shoulder shook me awake. I’d been half expecting this visit, just not so soon.

  I opened my eyes to see a face very much like my own leaning over me. I sat up, suddenly wide awake.

  My sister had awakened me in the early hours of the morning.

  We hugged, and I found myself smiling. Though her expression was serious, Ethel again looked cool. She was wearing a black leather top with several long necklaces. I took note of the fact that one of them was a pair of shoes. Bracelets covered her wrists, and her hair was pulled up into a ponytail.

  “Sorry to wake you! Are you all right?” she asked, sitting on the edge of my bed.

  I drew my feet up to my chest and rolled my eyes. “I’m fine! How are you?”

  She shrugged. “Same. Fine. Getting used to being on the run. I never thought I’d say that.”

  I shook my head. “You shouldn’t have to! The mystery was solved!”

  “That isn’t the whole story, though, is it?” she asked.

  I sighed and told her what the sheriffs had said. She didn’t look surprised. “I expected as much. We were clearly a target as a family. I’m more worried about all of you now than about myself. You’re here and out in the open.”

  I had been so focused on other distractions that the thought of our own exposure hadn’t even occurred to me. “We’ll be fine,” I said.

  “Do you know anything else about the murder?” she asked.

  “It definitely had something to do with pearls. They’re apparently very important in potions,” I explained.

  “Jonathan did seem to be involved in something shady like that. He always had more money than he should have. His family wasn’t rich and he didn’t make a lot as our teacher. I’m not surprised,” she said. “Where are the pearls now?”

  I pulled them out from under my mattress. “Maybe you should take them. If you’re in hiding, no one will find them—or you.”

  She held up her hand. “No, you keep them. If I take them I’ll be tempted to use them, and that would end up badly for . . . something.” She gave me a crooked smile.

  “Okay,” I said, reluctantly tucking the pearls back under my pillow. I supposed it was for the best.

  “Use them for what?” I asked, quirking an eyebrow at her.

  She shrugged, her grin only widening. “You never know what potions might come in handy.”

  “Are you going to be okay? This isn’t the news I was hoping for,” I told her softly.

  My sister paused, considering what to say next.

  “Mom was murdered, blown up, in fact,” said Ethel, her eyes burning. “We all know that’s what happened, even if there was never an official charge.”

  I reached out to hug her. All these years I hadn’t had my mom, but what had happened to Ethel was also terrible. She’d had our mom every day, until one day she’d been ripped away.

  We hugged again and I begged her to be careful. She pulled away and said, “You really are the one in more danger. Now you're here and everyone knows it. Take care of Bethel, won’t you?”

  “She doesn’t like the idea of anyone taking care of her,” I muttered.

  Ethel laughed. “Very true. Try to do it secretly, then.”

  I laughed and nodded. We both knew that was easier said than done.

  Ethel made her way to the window and disappeared. She had promised to return soon, but we both knew she shouldn’t make promises that would be difficu
lt to keep. I lay back down and stared at the ceiling for a long time. Sleep had been washed from my consciousness. I felt alert, awake, and determined.

  Outside my window, the unicorns made soft noises of protest as the rain began to splatter onto the roof and windows. We were here in this strange town of Twinkleford, the place my family was from and that I now called home.

  From the darkness I heard Ethel’s voice whisper, “You’ll have to carry the Rhinestone torch for now. It’s the Rhinestone Way.”

  The End

  ~

  Rhinestone Way

  (The Rhinestone Witches, Book 2)

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Contact Addison Creek

  Books by Addison Creek

  Chapter One

  A dark day had descended on the magical town of Twinkleford.

  I, Jade Rhinestone, had recently moved to Twinkleford to live with my grandmother and my cousin on Misdirect Lane. After I found out that I was a member of an old witch family, and that I had to become a witch myself, it made the most sense for me to stay in Twinkleford instead of returning to my prior life with my father, his second wife, and her daughter.

  I wanted to get to know my mom’s side of the family, and in the end my dad recognized that I had to go. In the deepest part of my heart I also hoped that I would soon get to know my sister, Ethel, but at the moment my sister was on the run from the evil Vixens. A secret organization operating in Twinkleford, the Vixens had it out for the Rhinestones, and especially for Ethel.

  The dark day had to do with the recent debutant weekend for new witches. Every witch family needs a witch to pass in every generation, and there is only a small window during which we can attempt to do so. I was my family’s last chance. At first I thought I had failed, but in the end I succeeded. All but one of us had passed the tests.

  Unfortunately, another family’s last chance had failed.

  It was time to remove Glory’s family from the coven. Tonight would be our ritual casting out.

  Days after the test, I couldn’t get the image of Glory crying uncontrollably out of my head. She hadn’t passed the examinations, and now her whole family was going to suffer for her failure. The tests had been their last chance of remaining in the coven, and she hadn’t made it.

  My grandmother had been quiet ever since we returned from the ceremony and the scene of Nancy’s arrest. The makeup of the coven had changed, but at least in my presence my grandmother was so philosophical about it that I almost couldn’t stand it.

  We were sitting in the kitchen a few days after the ceremony. Herbs still hung from the ceiling and there was a pot of freshly brewed tea from the purple kettle. With the windows thrown wide, the whole space smelled like mature flowers, unicorns, and the open fields that surrounded the cottage.

  Sometimes if the wind was blowing just right and we were sitting in the exact correct place, we also smelled rusted metal from the trailer park down the road. But today wasn’t one of those days.

  “Rituals are important in the coven,” Bethel explained. “We perform rituals to keep our members strong. We also perform rituals to protect the town. We have too many different kinds of supernatural characters here to be lax about protection. Your father managed to come here because this is what he’d known. Others cannot. Unfortunately, Glory’s family won’t have the special magics any longer.”

  Her voice was tight, and I had a hard time listening to her explanation. It wasn’t as if Glory and I had become best friends, but we had gone through the ordeal of the examinations together, and that counted for something. I liked her fine. I certainly liked her more than I liked Hannah Carlisle or Taylor Newtonville, who were also part of my passing debutant class. Their families were rich, powerful, and rude. There was no way I wanted to see her as devastated as she had been.

  “I don’t see why she doesn’t get another shot. At least she must have a cousin somewhere who could help them stay in the coven,” I said desperately.

  My grandmother rolled her eyes at me. “It doesn’t work like that. She had all the shots she could. Part of this process is practical. You have to be able to perform the spells. Each family has to have a witch from that specific generation,” she said.

  I nodded slowly. This was at least the tenth time she’d said this. I was officially getting tired of hearing it.

  I glanced out the window. The day after the ceremony had been stormy, but since then the skies had been clear. This afternoon, though, the weather had changed again. The sky was gray and swirling with dark clouds, with the sun still burning behind one particularly thick circular mass. I wondered what would come later, weather-wise.

  As part of her job within the coven, Bethel was expected to bring unicorn dung to the ritual. Other than that we had nothing to do to prepare.

  I was expected to be at the casting out, my first ritual after my initiation. I couldn’t exactly say that I was excited about the prospect. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be a part of a coven if it meant being so cold-hearted.

  “What happens tonight?” I whispered.

  “All of the members of the coven gather together in the Magnite Circle,” said Bethel. “Magnite was the first structure built in Twinkleford. As our power base, it was built of stone, a part of the Earth itself. We use it only for the most important rituals. All of the Trophi family’s witch clothing will be burned, the shoes, hat, and the cape. Any supplies they have, let’s say a crystal ball—those will also be burned.”

  “I helped solved the murder mystery. I think that should give me clout in important decisions. Are you sure this has to be done?” I asked.

  My grandmother shook her head again. “Maybe if you catch the culprit, that will give you some clout. Until then you’re just a new witch.”

  Then she went off to tell Lowe it was time to head out to the farmer’s market. I would have the house to myself, though my solitude didn’t end up lasting long.

  The gloom settling over my shoulders was full and oppressive. It was rare that a family was kicked out of the coven. Despite the fact that the Rhinestones had come close, it had nevertheless not happened to us in the end. We knew that there were still several members of the coven who wanted the Rhinestones gone, but for now it was Glory’s family that was going.

  I had felt sick to my stomach ever since we found out she hadn’t passed the exams. Tonight their departure would be official; the waiting was over.

  I was just thinking about how discouraging it was when Tiger, a handsome black and white fellow, came galloping in and rubbed against my legs. I had been around long enough to know that this was a sign that somebody was approaching the house, so I stood up and went to the front door. For all I knew, Tiger had already tried to tell me who had arrived, but though the ability to speak with cats was common in Twinkleford, unfortunately it was not one that I possessed. I had to go and see for myself.

&nb
sp; Chapter Two

  The fairies and the pixies were still at their perpetual garden war when I went out to see who was here, and found Jackie and Kelly coming up the walk. As they came through the yard the fairies and pixies took a break from their fighting to stare at the visitors. As soon as we had passed by, they started battling again.

  “This is a beautiful garden. I’m surprised it hasn’t been destroyed by all the tiny explosions,” said Jackie, pointing to a fairy with a lighted silver spear.

  “My grandmother would have their heads if they did any permanent damage to this garden. Lowe uses it as her livelihood,” I said.

  Both Jackie and Kelly were dressed in sensible clothes, Jackie in a black T-shirt and black pants, Kelly in a white sweater and a skirt that fell below her knees. Jackie’s mother was the mayor of Twinkleford. As a form of rebellion she dyed her hair different colors, and she was in fine form today.

  “Nice to see both of you,” I said.

  “We wanted to come by and talk before tonight. It’s terrible what’s happening to Glory,” Kelly said.

  “Come in. I just put some tea on in the kitchen,” I said. As my grandmother had explained, you weren’t a real witch if you didn’t like tea. She loved the ritual of pouring. Given that so much of our world revolved around ritual, I wasn’t surprised that her appreciation extended to tea.

  “Are those the unicorns?” Kelly asked, rushing to the back window to peer outside. There was a perfect view of the pasture from there, with the white unicorns strolling in the distance.

  “Sure are. They’re pretty wild. If my grandmother were here you could meet them, but it’s best to give them their space when she’s not home,” I said.

  “That would be amazing. I’ll definitely come back sometime when Mrs. Rhinestone is around,” said Kelly.

  “Have you seen them before?” I asked Jackie.

  “Yes. My mother has made a point of taking me with her on a lot of her engagements around town. She wanted me to know everyone and to understand how the important business gets done. Because of her job, I’ve definitely gotten to see some cool things that I wouldn’t have otherwise.” Then she smiled and added, “And also spend countless hours incredibly bored. I got to meet the unicorns a long time ago, and you’re right, they’re wild, but also fun. My mother considers them one of the most important features of the town. She very much values your grandmother and the work your family does,” said Jackie.