Sighing heavily, I climbed up the ladder. Lowe had grabbed a very small crystal ball, maybe the size of a golf ball, and squeezed it. Now white light was pouring out of it. Other than the poor lighting from below, that was our only illumination.
“Wow,” I breathed. Climbing up here had almost been worth it. There were crystal balls tucked into every corner, plus several smaller cauldrons, and even packets and small boxes of labeled ingredients. At the far end of the space was a row of shelves. Even from the doorway I could smell the cedar set out to repel moths. Hanging around the very low ceiling were charms. I had never seen so many.
“Bethel takes keeping this stuff safe seriously,” murmured Lowe. She was crouched in front of me, half turned away and looking at the crystal balls. “I can’t wait until I can choose some of it as my own. It’s going to be a splendid day.”
“I thought she said there were cauldrons in the basement?” I wondered.
“I think the bigger ones are down there. Bart probably helped take that stuff down years ago,” said Lowe.
“Who’s Bart?” I asked.
Lowe scrunched up her face. “One of Bethel’s boyfriends? I think? They’re hard to keep straight.”
“Current boyfriends?” I sputtered. The idea that Bethel dated was strange enough, but that she was dating multiple people at a time was even weirder.
“No, she says she gave up all that sort of thing years ago. Not that she’s too old, but that they’re too young, or something like that. She’s kind of hard to follow when she gets that way,” said Lowe sadly.
Just then a shadow moved in the corner and I squealed. “Okay. Right. No more talking about this right now. I’ll pick out a crystal ball and be done with it. Does it matter which one I pick?”
“I don’t think so,” said Lowe. “If Bethel had cared, I’m sure she would have said something. She’s not exactly the shy and retiring type.”
There were at least ten dusty crystal balls pressed up against the wall, and I rather liked the idea of getting to pick my own from among them. That would make the whole process more personal.
The first one looked too big and heavy. The second one was small. I was used to crystal balls about the size of my head or larger, and this one was about the size of Tiger’s head. The next two just didn’t feel right.
When I got to the fifth one, though, I was utterly captivated. Even though it hadn’t been touched in years, there was a deep purple burning underneath the surface. On a bright blue slab, all the other balls had been dull silver. This one positively glowed. Without thinking, I reached out my hand to touch it.
Dimly I heard Lowe tell me to be careful, but it was too late.
Just as my hands closed around the crystal ball, the purple swirls cleared. I was transported somewhere else, to see something else.
A young man with brown hair was dashing through dark woods. I could tell that he was tired because he kept stumbling. As his legs planted with each step, I saw his knees wobble, but he kept on pushing forward. He was tall and maybe a couple of years older than I was. Night was falling and he kept looking back over his shoulder. At a moment when he looked back, I saw him yell something I couldn’t hear. He appeared to be pleading or begging. If only I could turn the sound on!
The young man turned back around and tried to run forward again. This time he nearly slammed into a tree. Again he stumbled and again he regained his balance. It was almost as if I was the one following him. I remained at a safe distance, but it felt like I was getting a bit closer.
Lowe grabbed my shoulder and pulled me out of the crystal ball. The purple was still burning through the glass, spilling over my hands and lighting up the room. Lowe’s little globe light paled in comparison.
My cousin was turned a very funny color by the magic inside the ball.
“What happened? What did you see? That was fast,” she said. “I figured you’d wait until we were downstairs.”
I was breathing hard as I tried to focus on her face. What I had seen in the reading I still couldn’t get out of my head. It was as if I had been in the woods and not in the attic of my grandmother’s little house. Real crystal ball readings were intense like that.
Now I knew. “I think I saw Kyle. He’s alive.”
Chapter Twelve
The next day Kelly came through on a meeting place. Jackie’s brother Robin had a restaurant where we had eaten once before, where the food was delicious. Kelly suggested we go there again. Lowe and I agreed. I’d liked the warm atmosphere and the way everyone acted like we were family. I had also liked the food.
Jackie’s mother had forced her into an internship at the mayor’s office, so Jackie had suddenly become very busy and couldn’t join us for lunch. We were disappointed, but Lowe pointed out that there was a silver lining. It couldn’t hurt to have contacts in the mayor’s office in case our snooping needed town records or other information we couldn’t get any other way.
I supported Lowe’s nefarious and opportunistic way of thinking. We were family, after all.
Robin’s restaurant was quiet when we arrived. We took a table in the corner, where no one would be able to overhear us.
Lowe looked around desperately as we sat down. Watching her in some bemusement, Kelly finally said, “I don’t think Gill’s working today.”
Lowe slumped down in disappointment. She had a massive crush on her high school classmate, and she had obviously been hoping that he’d be waiting tables, as he often did.
“What now?” Kelly asked after we’d ordered. On the walk over, Lowe and I had agreed that we wouldn’t tell Kelly what I’d seen in the purple crystal ball. Bethel had been out when I’d come downstairs that morning, so I had simply left the crystal ball on the table for her approval without getting a chance to talk to her about it.
The reason we didn’t want to tell Kelly was because I wasn’t a hundred percent certain that the guy I’d seen in the crystal ball was Kyle. Kelly would only be upset, possibly unnecessarily, if she heard the tale without any way to act on what the crystal ball had shown.
“We need to talk to someone who knows a lot about potions,” I said.
Kelly thought for a minute as she tore pieces of bread off her roll and dipped them in herbs and olive oil.
“Professor Burger might be able to help. I think she’s still in town, and August is a quiet month. She’s at the university,” said Kelly.
“She wouldn’t want to see us,” I demurred.
Twinkleford University was big and getting bigger. The founders had wanted room to sprawl, so they’d found a site on the outskirts of the town. Research was important, even in a town like Twinkleford.
“Someone like Burger is passionate about her work and probably likes talking about it,” Lowe pointed out.
Kelly was looking at me pleadingly. Try as I might to avoid her eyes, I had to meet her gaze in the end.
“Please,” she said. “My brother’s life hangs in the balance. Whatever was being traded, it was for a potion, possibly a deadly one. Professor Burger is the local expert on potions. She knows all of them, so she’s got to be the best witch we can possibly find to ask about them.”
I nodded and agreed, and Kelly looked relieved.
“Did you find out anything about the black market trade?” I asked her.
She sighed. “What I found was that it started with pearls and has expanded. The pearl market is pretty steady, but other stuff is getting thrown in, for instance, owl feathers. My guess about what happened with Henry and my brother in the woods is that they had started trading in pearls—just a bit at first, maybe just for fun. Then they saw an opportunity with feathers, and they got into that without realizing that it was a different market with different dangers. I assume something happened in the woods and the orange residue was the result, along with Henry ending up unconscious and Kyle disappearing. That orange residue is the key. We have to find out where it came from.”
Lowe and I agreed with her on that point. For a moment,
I remembered fondly the days when my biggest problems were an embarrassing debutant weekend debut and my sister being a murder suspect. The simple life indeed.
What I didn’t say was that Professor Burger would make an excellent suspect.
Lunch was delicious, but we didn’t have time to linger. Kelly had to return to the farm store, while Lowe and I needed to go to the campus and see if we could get in to see to the professor. Bethel might not have been around that morning, but I didn’t want her wondering where we were again. We needed to get moving.
The more I thought about it, the more I thought Kelly might have a point. I was actually looking forward to seeing whether this Burger person could tell us something useful.
“Take these feathers with you,” said Kelly. “They would have been some of the ones that Kyle had.” She handed me a couple of plain-looking feathers, and I put them on my list of ingredients to learn more about as we waved good-bye outside the restaurant.
We swung back home before heading over to the university. There was no sign of Bethel, but there were a couple of things we wanted to grab and take with us.
I was eager to see a part of town that I hadn’t yet visited, an area that I’d heard was nestled amongst hills and forestland. The special white trolley that would take us to the front entrance was clearly used mostly by students. The driver gave us a strange look as we boarded, but didn’t say anything.
“At least your snooping is getting you around town,” said Lowe quietly, echoing my own thoughts.
We just caught a glimpse of the buildings through the trees as we drove up. They all looked sturdily made and fairly new. I supposed that was a good thing, given all the magics and shenanigans that went on in Twinkleford. The buildings probably needed to be secure to survive.
I also assumed that the university couldn’t be very old, and asked Lowe about it.
“Jackie’s mom led the charge in favor of getting some practical schooling in town,” Lowe explained as we got off the trolley. She looked a little self-conscious with the crazy ties in her hair, but I gently elbowed her in the side to let her know it was okay.
Having been dropped off at the front entrance to the main building, we went straight to the directory in a spacious lobby that boasted floor-to-ceiling windows. It felt odd that all that space was entirely empty, but I reminded myself that it was summer, and the regular academic year wasn’t in progress.
We were examining the long list of names in the hopes of coming across Professor Burger’s office number when a man’s voice called out, “Hey! Lowe! I’d know that hair anywhere!”
Lowe froze. I looked over my shoulder into the sunlight as she slowly started to turn around.
Gill trotted up to us with a lopsided grin on his handsome face. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lowe positively melting.
“What brings you here?” he asked.
“Hi,” said Lowe, sounding strangled, her face instantly bright red and her mouth slightly open.
Silence followed as Gill continued to stand there and smile.
“We were actually looking for Mrs. Burger. Professor Burger, I guess,” I said.
Gill blinked a couple of times. “Are you? She’s quite famous. Only the very best get to take classes with her, so not me. She mainly teaches seniors and such. Let me see if I can help you. Do you know your way around campus?” He glanced at Lowe, who was still mute.
His brow puckered in the smallest of frowns as he ran his finger up the directory list.
Behind his shoulder blades Lowe gave me a desperate look. I shrugged. What did she expect? Two people who knew each other speaking. Revolutionary!
As we stood waiting for Gill to find what he was looking for, a vaguely familiar, high-pitched voice met my ears. I almost stopped breathing as terror sliced through me. Never in a million years would I forget that voice.
“No, I do not want that painting over there,” the voice said crisply. “I do believe I’ve already told you that after you made the delivery and the pickup, you were to return here at once. Putting the painting in the wrong place has nothing to do with it!”
I grabbed one of Gill’s arms and one of Lowe’s and tried to propel them backwards with me. Neither moved, so I ended up hiding around the corner by myself.
Lowe and Gill looked at me in confusion as I snuck around a corner to a different section of hallway. All I could do was glare at them. The voices were coming closer, and I desperately wished I had the power to make myself linoleum.
No way was I going to cede my position, but at the moment it was best that I be the one who hid.
Cynthia Whoever, but married to Quinn Merchant, came clicking around the corner just as my shoulder blades became one with the paint. She was wearing sky high heels, a long skirt cinched at the waist, and a tight shirt. She looked perfectly turned out and as unpleasant as ever. Walking by her side was a very large man.
She took no notice of my friends standing there.
How’d you end up marrying her? I whispered to Quinn, who wasn’t there to answer.
“Who was that?” Gill asked in amazement, as Cynthia disappeared around another corner. All that was left was the echo of her heels on the perfectly clean floor.
“Quinn’s wife,” Lowe whispered, when I rejoined them but couldn’t get any words out. Gill’s eyebrows shot sky-high.
“I heard about all of that. Hadn’t known he was married before the do-to at the ceremony and Nancy’s arrest. That’s all anyone in town has been able to talk about since,” Gill said.
His face was always open and honest, but it had now taken on a serious expression.
I made a sour face. Lowe said, “Thanks for that information, Gill.”
He nodded, happy to help. “Should we go after her and spy on her? Like in a movie about a place with real excitement?” he asked.
“How could you possibly not think this place is exciting?” I scrunched up my face in confusion. My life had been far more interesting since I’d left my dad’s house and moved to the magical town of Twinkleford.
“Come on, nothing ever happens here,” he grumbled.
“Someone was murdered here not too long ago,” I pointed out.
“Right, but then you and Quinn caught the culprit and all was well again,” he countered.
That wasn’t really true. I knew for sure that Jonathan’s family didn’t think so. Plus, I also didn’t see how I’d been much help in Nancy’s arrest. But Gill had just enough of a point to make it silly to quibble. Far be it from me to stop him if he wanted to ascribe a hero detective complex to me.
Lowe and I had come to the university for a reason, and I wanted to get us back on track, but Gill couldn’t seem to let the subject drop.
“I’m just saying I think we could follow her, discover that she’s one of the secret Vixens in Twinkleford, and be heroes. Well, you’d be a hero again, I suppose,” said Gill. He was still gazing in the direction of the hallway where Cynthia had disappeared.
“Quinn wouldn’t marry a Vixen,” I said, even though I wasn’t totally confident that was true. He had made a big mistake in marrying Cynthia all of those years ago no matter who she did and didn’t associate with.
At least, I hoped it had been a long time ago. They were utterly unsuited to each other now.
“Right. Maybe not,” Lowe agreed.
Since we didn’t have a specific appointment to meet Professor Burger, it did cross my mind that it wouldn’t hurt if we took a little look around campus first.
I followed Gill’s eyes and glanced down the hallway. “Okay, let’s do it,” I agreed.
Instead of protesting what was clearly a crazy move, Lowe and Gill were all for it. Gill in particular should have walked away, but he wanted to come.
This was ridiculous.
Cynthia had already left the main building, so we tried to follow her at a discreet distance as she made her way down the paved path and under low-hanging branches.
Because the campus was so quiet, we had t
o stay a long way back to keep from being noticed. I was glad Gill was tall; it let me hide behind his shoulder and not be seen. Not that Cynthia was doing much looking around. In fact, she didn’t turn around once; she wasn’t expecting to be followed. Unfortunately, we were so far back that we couldn’t hear what she was saying.
Be that as it may, we did have a good look at her companion.
A thuggish-looking guy, he trailed slightly behind her as she continued to talk and gesture. Because he was much taller than she was, he had to take short steps to keep pace with her.
We did pass a couple of people as we went, and we tried to act natural when they came into view. Gill was hilarious and would tell jokes. Lowe and I would try to laugh quietly.
Cynthia finally came to a stop at a small brick building surrounded by trees, with wide steps leading up to the front entrance. The thuggish guy loped up the stairs to get the door, and Cynthia swept in first. The guy looked around, then followed her inside. The heavy door closed slowly, and all we could see from a distance was his hulking form moving further away.
“What building is this?” I whispered to Gill.
He looked bewildered and shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s near the Swan Lake Reserve, but the building is unmarked. I’ve never been inside. This isn’t a part of campus I come to very often.”
“I’ll go try the door,” said Lowe, and before we could stop her she was off. I covered my mouth with my hand and tried to make sure the bushes were hiding us, but Lowe marched across a bit of grass, reached the pavement, and headed up the steps. Making a purposeful show, she grabbed the door handle and pulled.
The energy went for nothing, because it was apparent immediately that the door was locked. Lowe ran back down the steps and came back to where we were still trying to conceal ourselves.
“Locked. I felt a tremor on the step as I left, too. I’m worried that there was a trap. We may not have much time to get out of here,” she murmured.
I didn’t really understand what she was talking about, but then I was new to this whole witch thing. No part of me wanted to linger in any case, and even less of a part of me wanted to get arrested or thrown off campus. No, a hot sheriff wouldn’t make it any better. Especially not when said hot sheriff’s wife was the reason we were trying to get into the building in the first place.
The Rhinestone Witches Omnibus: Books 1-3 Page 31