“Oh,” I said.
“Yeah, I doubt they will, but it’s worth a shot. I’ve done everything I can to make her happy, but it seems like since Langoria’s death, she’s become even harder to please. It makes no sense.”
But it made sense to me. What if Drusilla had killed Langoria out of jealousy, but it hadn’t made her feel any better? Perhaps she hadn’t known that Maximillian didn’t have to pay the alimony anymore, and she’d murdered his ex-wife prematurely.
“I don’t know how to ask this, so I’m just going to come out and say it. Do you know where Drusilla was when Langoria was killed?” I asked and then cringed waiting for his reply.
As I’d expected, Maximillian’s face grew red with anger. His breath became short, quick bursts. It was then I realized that if he was married to Langoria, he might be a witch too. There was a real chance I was about to be turned into a goat or incinerated in witch fire.
“She was at work,” he said curtly. “If you must know, she worked all day. She’s a groomer at Wizard of Paws grooming shop over near the school. One of the other groomers called in sick, so she was there for twelve hours with back-to-back clients.”
I didn’t have anything else to do since I still wasn’t comfortable going back into the cemetery alone, so I decided to check out Drusilla’s alibi. I figured that once I solved the murder, I could get the cemetery restoration done and finally finish earning the money. The other ghosts wouldn’t leave me alone, but maybe Langoria would stop trying to kill me.
I took my car over to Wizard of Paws and parked in the small lot next to a squat red brick building. The sign on the front of the building featured a shaggy white dog wearing a purple wizard hat. Someone was walking a dog in a patch of grass just beyond the parking area, and dogs were barking inside.
When I walked inside, the woman I knew as Drusilla was waiting for me in the lobby area. She had her hands on her hips and was loudly smacking a wad of pink bubble gum in her open mouth.
“My man told me you were probably coming here,” she said. “So you think I murdered that old witch.”
I wasn’t sure if Drusilla called Langoria a witch because she knew she was one, or if it was just her way of talking about Langoria’s personality without swearing at her workplace. I wasn’t going to ask her, and instead I made a mental note to ask Annika if Maximillian or Drusilla were witches.
“I was just following up on a hunch,” I said as casually as I could.
“Last I checked, you weren’t a cop. Just ‘cause your boyfriend is a cop doesn’t make you one,” she said and smacked her gum again. “But come here, I’ll show you my timecard on the computer. I don’t want you sending your cop boyfriend after me.” She brought up her timecard check-ins on the computer behind the front desk. “See right there, those are the hours I worked and right there,” “” she pointed at a radio button and some initials, “that’s where my manager approved the hours because I was here.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Sorry to have bothered you.”
“Yeah, that’s right. You need to learn not to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. Oh, and stay away from my man. I just got all his money back on my side. I don’t need you sniffing around.”
“Thanks again,” I said and left as quickly as I could.
After I left Wizard of Paws, I decided to go ask Annika if she wanted to have lunch. I figured she’d go if I offered to pay, and I could afford to pay since I got to keep all of the cemetery restoration money.
Despite the fact that I’d found a dead body after my first order of Hagrid’s Haystack, it still remained my favorite special at Dumbledore’s Diner. A huge stack of pancakes seemed like the perfect pick-me-up given how my day had gone so far.
The first thing I noticed when I walked into Annika’s shop was that there were no customers. It struck me as unusual because she got new items all of the time, so there was normally at least one person milling around looking at her fresh stock.
“Annika?” I called out. “I was hoping we could do lunch. Since you’re not busy, now seems like a good time.” Nothing. “I’ll buy.”
My breath hitched in my throat when that didn’t get a response. I figured she might just be in the store’s little restroom, so I checked there. It was empty. Next was the stock room in the back, but she wasn’t there either.
As far as I could tell, she wasn’t anywhere I the store, yet the front door had been left unlocked with the open sign turned out. My blood ran as cold as ice water when I checked behind the counter.
There I found a few drops of blood and some wilted flower petals.
Chapter Twenty
The first thing I did was call Thorn. “You have to go to Annika’s shop,” I said as soon as he answered. “She’s not there and I found blood and wilted flower petals on the floor behind the counter.”
“Where are you at?” he asked.
“I was at the shop. I’m going home to check something.”
“Stay put when you get there.”
“I will,” I said.
“Brighton, I mean it.” His voice was edged with warning.
“I know you do. Please believe me. I’ll stay there.”
I did mean it when I said it. It wasn’t like I planned to go anywhere else, but there was something I needed to check at home. My foot kept wanting to press the accelerator to the floor, but I was driving through town. I kept to just over the speed limit. Not that the town’s sheriff was anywhere around to pull me over.
After I parked the car in the driveway at home, I jumped out and raced to the gardening shed. The flowers were nothing more than brown, dried-up remnants of what they one were. I picked them up anyway and turned the shriveled bouquet over in my hands.
I dropped them on the ground and nearly screamed as a tiny brown baby scorpion crawled out from one of the shriveled flower heads. It had been hidden inside all along, and I’d probably put myself in danger every time I handled the bouquet.
Still, I couldn’t zap the baby scorpion. I couldn’t bring myself to stomp on it either. It was just a baby, I reasoned, and it wasn’t at fault. So I did the best thing I could think of.
I took a step back, waved my hands over it, and chanted the first thing that came to mind:
Little poison go away
Live to see another day
When you open up your eyes
Give this witch a big surprise
It probably wasn’t the best spell I could conjure, but it worked. Thick blue smoked poured off the little scorpion, and when it cleared, the little guy had transformed into a harmless field mouse. It squeaked at me and then darted out of the shed.
With the tiny scorpion dealt with, I had to figure out what the flowers meant. They’d probably been the murder weapon, but how? And who had used them?
I looked again and noticed that one of the flowers in the bunch had a tiny dried root at the bottom. They weren’t from a bouquet like you’d purchase at a flower shop. They’d been pulled from the ground, and they looked awfully familiar.
I had one more thing to check, but I told Thorn I wouldn’t leave home. I reasoned that where I was going wasn’t too far away.
Chapter Twenty-One
I called Thorn and told him I knew who did it. “I just need to confirm one more thing, and then you’ll meet me at the killer’s house?”
“Brighton, just go home and wait,” he said.
“No way. I’m going there,” I said.
“I don’t want you putting yourself in danger.”
“Annika is in danger, and I’m not going to let anything happen to her. I’m going there.”
“Wait for me outside,” he said. “Do not go in without me.”
“As long as you hurry,” I said and hung up before he could protest further.
I parked the car in front of the house and tried to wait. I really did. I chewed my fingernails to nubs in the two whole minutes I paced in front of the house, but my friend was in there. I was going in.
Thorn’s car rounded the corner and sped down the street as I climbed the front steps. He skidded up to the curb and jumped out.
“I told you to wait for me,” he said.
“I did.”
“Brighton. I’m going in. You stay out here.”
“I need to go in and help save her.”
“I’m not joking around with you. Stay here or I’m going to cuff you and put you in the cruiser.”
“Fine. Please hurry,” I said.
Thorn pounded on the door and announced “sheriff’s office” several times, but when no one answered, he kicked the door in. That probably wasn’t proper procedure given he was going off my information, but I figured if I was wrong about who killed Langoria and kidnapped Annika, I could just fix the door with a little magic.
All of a sudden, people began pouring out of their houses around us. It was a neighborhood full of mostly Skeenbauer witches, and I guessed they finally sensed that Annika was in danger.
Another car pulled up, and Amelda Skeenbauer got out. “Is she in there? Does that crazy old bat have my granddaughter?” she hissed at me.
“Yeah, I think she does,” I said.
“All right, sisters! Gather round!” Amelda called out and the witches all pushed closer to the house.
“Wait, Thorn is in there. He’s trying to help Annika.”
“No harm will come to him or my granddaughter,” Amelda said solemnly.
What she didn’t say was that no harm would come to Karen. The witches began chanting, and seconds later, an invisible force dragged Karen kicking and ranting through the front door.
Thorn came out behind her carrying Annika’s lifeless body in his arms. Her hair was stringy and limp, her skin a mottled blue-gray, and she just hung there like a rag doll. Tears streaked down Thorn’s face as he descended the steps behind Karen.
“I knew it!” Karen shrieked. “I knew you were all witches! I knew she was destroying my flowers with her vile magic. The Lord granted me the rod of judgment, and I will sit at his right hand for putting two of your kind down. I will be blessed in his Kingdom for doing his good works!” She was completely mad.
Most of the witches turned and walked down the street as the unseen force dragged Karen behind them. Amelda broke ranks with them and a few others joined her in a circle around Thorn and Annika.
“Lay her down, sheriff, and walk away,” Amelda instructed. “Bring me that cat.” She narrowed her eyes at me.
“I’m here. I’m here,” Meri said, suddenly darting out from between two bushes. “I ran as fast as I could.”
“You will help me, cat?” Amelda questioned.
“If my mistress permits it,” Meri said. “I will lend your family my aid.”
“Yes. Please. Help her. Please help her,” I said.
“I have to go,” Thorn said. “I have to go get Karen from them. I need to arrest her.”
“I wouldn’t bother them, Thorn,” I said. “Not with all of them together like that. I wouldn’t try.”
“What do I do, then? Just let them take her?”
“It is the way of such thing sometimes, sheriff.” Amelda said. She’d turned from her work on Annika. “You are privy to us now, you should not try to intervene when we need to use the old ways.”
“I should at least follow them,” Thorn said to me. “I have to know what happens. I can try to make sure nothing happens to any of them.”
“Go with him,” Amelda said to me. “We’ll take care of our fallen. She is young and strong. We can cure her of the venom.”
It was then that I noticed Annika was covered in tiny red stings. Karen had turned scorpions on her. She must have taken Annika by surprise in the shop because there was no way otherwise that Annika would have let it happen.
“Okay,” I said to Thorn. “Let’s follow them.”
We got in the cruiser and drove slowly behind the procession of witches that held Karen captive with unseen forces. She struggled against the magical binds, but one of the witches had silenced her.
The streets were empty as the procession moved along. Magic kept the humans away so they would not witness.
Coventry Memorial Cemetery is where the parade ended. The witches moved toward the Skeenbauer Family Mausoleum in the center, and I knew what they intended to do.
Thorn went for the car door after parking on the gravel road inside the cemetery gates. I put my hand on his arm to stop him.
“Stay in here,” I said.
“Brighton, I can’t just let them do this.”
“They’re just going to put her in the mausoleum,” I said.
“And then what?” He asked.
“You sure you want to know?”
“No,” he responded.
“It’s probably better that way. It’s justice,” I said. “Think of it that way if you have to think about it.”
“But people are going to ask questions. What do I say happened?”
“You know as well as I do that no humans are going to ask questions. The magic that keeps them willfully ignorant of the other side of Coventry will protect you in this too. People will think she just left to go live somewhere else, and then their minds will drift off to other things. No witches will question the Skeenbauer Coven meting out justice for one of their own.”
“What’s in there?” Thorn asked as we watched them shove Karen in and begin to seal the doors. “What’s going to mete out justice?”
“I’m not sure how to describe it,” I said. He’d asked twice, so I figured I’d tell him something. “They’re kind of like zombie witches. The most powerful of the Skeenbauers. They’re contained in there, but Karen will be too.”
Another car roared past us and skidded to a stop in front of Thorn’s cruiser. Remy lept out of the driver’s seat and ran over to where the Skeenbauers had encircled the mausoleum. He joined hands with his aunts and cousins.
A shiver passed down my spine when he cast a glance over his shoulder at me. His eyes looked almost black, and his chestnut hair had turned ebony as well.
Knowing what I knew about how witches changed as they came into their craft, I had to wonder what it meant. Thorn took my hand, and I was glad to have him there as Remy’s cold stare sent another chill down my spine.
Epilogue
“It looks good,” Remy said, startling me as I planted the last of the flowers that Nailed It had donated to replace the ones Karen had given me. “We made a good decision hiring you for this.”
I stood up and brushed my dirty gloves off on my jeans. “Hey, Remy. I wasn’t expecting you. It’s good to see you.”
“I’ve been busy with family stuff,” he said.
“I can imagine. How is everyone doing? Annika hasn’t talked about it much.”
“My family is fine,” Remy said. “Annika is recovering, so that’s probably why she hasn’t said much about the rest.”
“How about you?” I asked. “How are you?”
“I’ve been fine too.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” Remy said and slipped his hands into his pockets.
“What’s going on with you?” I asked. “What I mean is, your hair and eyes are different.”
“Your hair is different,” he responded.
“Yeah, and the theory on that is me coming into my powers. So what does that mean that yours is black now?”
He crossed the distance between us and, unexpectedly, kissed me on the forehead. “I’ve got to be going. We’ll talk soon.”
“Remy?” I called after him, but he didn’t turn or stop.
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Broom with a View
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© Sara Bourgeois 2019
This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons alive or dead is a coincidence.
Sara Bourgeois, Doom and Broom
Doom and Broom Page 13