“He was here on official business,” I said primly.
“He does a lot of official business here, doesn’t he? Tell me, how much exactly does our local police force spend on wedding dresses and party favors? As a taxpayer, I’m concerned. Perhaps I should have a word with Donovan.”
I rolled my eyes at the mention of Donovan. And pretty much the rest of what she said, too.
Donovan was Donovan Charlston, the mayor of Sequoia Bay and part-time paramour of my mother. That she was bringing him up must have meant their on-again off-again relationship must currently be switched to the on position.
“The official police business did not involve buying wedding dresses or any other wedding planning, Mom, as well you know. He was here bec—”
“Oh don’t tell me, I know why he was here. He may have the excuse of police business, but the real reason is because he wants business with you. And I don’t mean wedding business.”
“I can assure you that the reason he was here was nothing to do with—”
“You’ve got to get married sometime, you know,” she interrupted again.
I spluttered and spat the tea I was drinking back into my cup.
“It’s true. I mean, you’re not getting any younger, are you?” Mom pursed her lips as she looked me up and down, as if judging how old I looked. Her lips formed a wide, plump O shape. In fact, a little plumper than I remembered. Witchcraft or lip injections? She actually looked quite nice with her newly-dyed hair and plumped up lips, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. No way.
“I do not have to get married sometime. Plenty of people don’t get married. And even if I did want to get married, it wouldn’t be to him. He’s far too uptight.”
“You should at least go out with him. He’s clearly interested in you. He’s in here all the time.”
“He is not in here all the time, and the reason he was in here today was most certainly not because he’s interested in me. At least not in the romantic sense!”
Mom walked around the shop, and began to slide the five wedding dresses across the rail, giving each one an appraising look as she did so.
Thud. Thud. The two quick sounds made us both look toward the store room. Me with a smile on my face, and my mother most definitely without.
The stockroom door swung open, and a moment later a large blue and green parrot fluttered into the room before landing on his perch just above the counter. The thuds had been him hitting the stockroom door with his beak to push it open.
My parrot Kiwi had apparently had enough hiding in the stockroom and came out to investigate. Sensibly, he’d avoided the out-of-towners, but it seemed Mom had drawn his attention. This was probably because he knew Mom hated him, and he thrived on winding her up.
“Pawcaww!” screeched Kiwi from his perch.
Mom let out an exasperated sigh.
“Didn’t you get rid of that feathered menace yet? I don’t know why you keep it. Upsetting the customers, destroying the dresses, terrorizing old... middle-aged ladies. You should give it to a zoo or something.”
We had the same conversation every week or two.
“Mom. He has never, ever, damaged a single wedding dress. He does not upset the customers. He hides in the back unless he knows they like parrots. And he doesn’t terrorize anyone.”
“He terrorizes me.”
“Okay. He doesn’t terrorize anyone important.”
I gave a smug smile while my mother pouted.
“Pawwcaw, murder!” screeched Kiwi.
I glared up at him, willing him to be quiet.
“What did he say?” asked Mom, her pout turning into a look of curiosity.
“Nothing. Probably trying to upset you.”
We both stared at the parrot. I willed him to shut up; Mom presumably did the opposite. Kiwi cocked his head and flicked his eyes back and forth over us. He ruffled his feathers, gave a screech, hopped up and down once on his perch, and opened his maw again.
“Murder! Murder! Jack. Murder!”
“He said ‘murder.’ I heard him!”
“He must have been watching too much daytime TV.”
My mother locked her eyes onto mine, then gave a chuckle. I let out a sigh. Busted.
“Jack Bowers wasn’t here because he was interested in me, Mom,” I said. “He was here because he was investigating a murder.”
“Ooh,” said Mom, tapping a long red nail against her chin, “did you do it?”
“Mother!”
“Just asking. I thought perhaps my daughter had done something interesting for once,” she said with a dismissive sniff.
I glared at Kiwi. Parrots can’t smile, but this one was doing a pretty good impression of a smirk. I think it was in the eyes.
“Murder! Murder! Murder!” he yelled again and did another hop on his perch.
“You can stop it now. The cat’s out the bag.”
Kiwi’s head flicked around the room as if checking to see if there actually was a cat out of a bag and on the prowl. Mom gave a perplexed look before shaking her head, dropping into one of the armchairs and turning her attention back to me.
“All right, missy, spill it.”
“Actually, Jack asked me to keep some of the details to myself.”
“Jack? Not ‘Detective Bowers?’ Very interesting. Anyway, you can at least tell me who it is— or was, rather—and hurry up. I’ve got a lunch date.”
“It was Fletcher Davenport—”
“What!?” She jumped back to her feet and hurried over to the counter, standing on the other side of it and staring me in the eyes.
“Fletcher? Murdered?”
I nodded. I didn’t realize Mom would actually care so much. Still, she’d known him for years, I suppose.
“Why was that detective talking to you? You’re not... caught up in it, are you?”
I shook my head. “No, but it kind of looks like I am.”
Mom tapped her fingernails on top of the counter rapidly.
I looked at her.
She looked at me.
“Well go on then!”
“Last night, I was at Fletcher’s. Trying to get his late wife’s wedding dress to put on display in the shop. Shortly after I was there, he was killed by—-I mean, he was found this morning by his housekeeper.”
Mom tapped her fingers on the counter some more. “What was that you were going to say? You stopped yourself.”
Uh-oh. Jack asked me not to tell. But it was my mother, not a stranger or the press.
“Promise to keep it to yourself?” I asked.
“Yes, yes, come on, tell me.”
“I’m serious. Jack asked me to keep it secret, so please don’t tell anyone else, okay?”
“All right. I promise upon pain of never being able to cast a spell again.”
I raised my eyebrows at her. That would be a meaningful promise if it were true.
“His body was found in an inverted pentagram, in a circle, in the basement of his house.”
She sucked in a breath and then whistled it out.
“You’re saying a witch did this?”
I shrugged. “I’m not saying anything. But it sure looks like it.”
“And that’s why he came to you? Are you a suspect?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I was home a good couple of hours before he was murdered. And anyway, I explained how we would never do something like that. The risk involved in summoning a demon...”
Mom muttered something and switched the tapping of her fingers on the counter for pacing back and forth across the shop.
“You mustn’t get caught up in this murder investigation, Aria,” she announced.
“I really wasn’t planning to, Mom,” I said.
“It’s not you I worry about. It’s all of us.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Eh? Oh, of course I worry about you. But it’s bigger than just you. If this gets tied to the community...” her words trailed away as she continued to pace across t
he shop.
When mother said ‘community,’ she didn’t mean all the residents of Sequoia Bay.
She meant the magical community. Sequoia Bay was possibly the single most magical community in North America. For the last half century, witches and mages had been drawn to the magic-friendly town and now there were dozens of us here; some were second generation like me, and some even in their third generation now.
“I don’t think I’m a suspect, Mom,” I said to try and reassure her.
“Even so. The pentagram. The circle. This could be terrible for us all. Oh, I hope it all doesn’t get out.”
“Murder!” screeched Kiwi again.
“Sometimes I think that bird isn’t quite as stupid as he looks. Or acts,” said Mom, shaking her head. “Anyway, we’ve got to get this cleared up as soon as possible. Without you getting involved, of course. We can’t have people thinking witches had anything to do with this murder.”
I supposed she was right. When I first spoke to Jack, I hadn’t considered the wider implications of a witch-related murder. But seeing Mom’s distress put it in perspective.
“Hopefully it’ll be solved soon,” I said.
“We’ll have to do what we can. Aria, make sure that policeman doesn’t suspect you, and we’ll see what we can find out.”
I nodded. “I don’t think he suspects me. And I do hope it all gets cleared up soon, I’d hate—”
Ding!
Mom left the shop while I was still in mid-sentence, her expensive ostrich-leather handbag swinging by her side as she scurried out to presumably poke her nose into the investigation and see if she could figure out what had really happened to Fletcher.
“How rude,” I said to myself. It was something I often said after a discussion with my mother.
I was interrupted from my reverie about her rudeness when Kiwi screeched softly and said, “You don’t think I’m stupid, do you?”
I glared up at him. “Actually, I think you’re very stupid.”
He gave me a hurt look. “I was just trying to help.”
“Trying to help? By screaming bloody murder?”
“I didn’t say ‘bloody,’” he said, ruffling his feathers, “I just said ‘pawwcaw’ and ‘murder.’”
“Whatever. And why did you do that?”
While parrots can’t smile properly, they can do a good impression of a shrug, and that’s exactly what he did, lifting his wings and ducking his head down. “I thought you didn’t want her thinking Jack was here because he was interested in you.”
“Huh?”
“She kept saying Jack likes you. You didn’t want her saying that. So I just pointed out that the reason he was here was because he was investigating you for murder, not because he likes you.”
“He was not investigating me for murder!”
“Wasn’t he?”
I muttered something under my breath. “Anyway, I thought we had an agreement you wouldn’t speak while people were in the store.”
I had decided—or rather, Kiwi and I had decided together—that it would be best if we kept most of his abilities to ourselves. He wasn’t just a parrot; he was also my magical familiar. He wasn’t supposed to speak in front of other people, and he definitely wasn’t supposed to say ‘murder murder murder.’
“Okay, okay, I won’t speak in front of other people again...”
“Ever?”
“... on one condition.”
“Oh?” I asked while rolling my eyes at him. I knew full well what his condition was going to be.
It was always the same one, every time we made a deal of any kind. I was already bending down to open the latched cupboard under the counter before he spoke again.
“Bag of cheese puffs!”
By the time he’d finished saying it, I was already holding out a small bag of the corn and chemical-based snack, and he’d already launched himself from his perch to swoop down like the mighty hunter he wasn’t to snatch it out of my hand.
He continued his swoop, flying across the shop, turning around, and then landing atop a large bookcase full of wedding books, bridal magazines, and toward the top, a few spell books. I watched, amused, as he tore the bag open and began to devour the cheese puffs, nodding his head up and down as he snatched them up like a demented woodpecker.
It didn’t take more than two minutes to demolish the bag, and watching him made me hungry. Almost time for lunch, I thought.
“So,” said Kiwi, staring down at me, “if you didn’t do it, who did kill Fletcher?”
And that gave me an idea.
Chapter 4
The easiest way to solve a murder is also the simplest: you just ask the victim who murdered them.
Of course, this method only works if you can actually ask the victim, something which most police don’t have the talent to do.
I, on the other hand, do have that ability. In theory, anyway.
In practice, these kinds of things don’t always go according to plan.
It had been a quiet afternoon in the shop. Kiwi had taken a nap after his cheese puff feast, and after putting in an order for a few more wedding dresses and tidying up Kiwi’s crumbs and the clothes rail of the New Yorker’s rejected dresses from the morning, I let myself take the time to think through my plan.
I bolted and locked the front door of the shop, then yelled out to Kiwi that I was heading upstairs. I’m fortunate enough to have the shortest commute in the county: it involves walking up thirteen steps to my apartment above the shop. Behind the counter, there is the door to the stock room, and the door to my staircase.
I propped the stockroom door open so that Kiwi could come and go as he pleased, and began my commute. Thirteen steps later, I opened the door to my apartment and—home sweet home.
Sitting in the middle of my dining table was the bag Fletcher had given me.
I carefully unzipped it and looked inside. A pair of white gloves, a glimmering tiara, and a single blue garter. These were the accouterments that went along with the wedding dress I should have been receiving about now. But I supposed I’d never see it again.
Perhaps after the property was sold I could get my hands on it, before the new owners hired a house-clearing service to rid it of all of Davenport’s belongings. I allowed myself a moment of nostalgia, wondering what would become of the gorgeous wedding dress. And then, it was time to get down to business.
“All right, Fletcher. Let’s find out who killed you,” I said to myself.
In order to contact the dead, you need some kind of connection to them. I was hoping that this small collection of sentimental belongings would be enough to draw Fletcher’s spirit over to me. He had touched them the day before and as he had such a strong emotional attachment to them, in theory I should be able to call on his spirit.
The first order of business was drawing the curtains closed and dimming the lights. I’m not actually sure whether this is more for the benefit of the witch or the spirit, but it is well-known that summoning spirits was more effective done in a dimly lit room. If you do need light, it’s best to use candles, or an oil lantern, or something similarly low-tech and muted.
Next, I pulled the table out into the middle of the room, cast a basic spell of protection around myself, and then cast a circle around the area I was going to work in. I placed each of the items around the bag on the table, hoping that all together it would be enough to attract the interest of the recently deceased’s spirit.
Gently placing my hands just above the items so that our auras would intertwine without the harsh jolt of physical contact, I began to murmur the magic words under my breath—words that every witch worth their salt is familiar with.
“Listen spirit, and listen well…”
As I worked with the words, I closed my eyes, and tried to send out welcoming signals to encourage a shy spirit. Even with my eyes tightly closed, I could sense the room becoming dimmer still, and as I breathed gently, I began to sense the faint tendrils of a presence.
; “Hello? Is someone there?” I asked.
Silence.
“Please, make yourself known.”
I felt more than heard the gentle rustling of the curtains.
“It’s safe here. You can talk to me.”
Something. Just a hint, a glimmer, a smidge of emotion entered the room.
“Who’s there? Fletcher Davenport? It’s me, Aria...”
Hands floating above the items, I began to feel a presence but it was distant and weak.
“Can you tell me something? Can you tell me who murdered you? I can help bring them to justice.”
I could barely sense the sigh when it came.
It was just at the very limits of my magical hearing.
But the sigh did not come alone, it came quickly followed by a wave of sadness, a cold and lonely melancholy that flowed across the room numbing the cozy atmosphere that usually filled my home.
“Oh my,” I said. “I feel you. I feel that. I’m so sorry...”
The wave of sadness began to pass, and I readied myself for what might come next.
“Hello? Can you communicate?”
I gently wafted my hands over the table.
Nothing.
The sadness was gone and along with it the spiritual presence.
“Hello? Can you hear me?”
“Cheese puffs?”
My eyes flew open and I glared across the table. Kiwi was sitting on the table, an amused look on his face.
“You ruined it!”
“Did not. The spirit went. It was very weak!”
I frowned at him. I wouldn’t put it past Kiwi to have scared the spirit away so that he could hog my attention.
“Really!” he said, offended by the look I’d given him. “If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t even have sensed that spirit. It was too weak.”
I stared into his eyes, trying to figure out if he was telling the truth.
It was true, in a general sense, that as my familiar Kiwi enhanced my magical powers. If he had indeed been assisting, perhaps he was telling the truth. But then again, maybe he just wanted more cheese puffs.
“I supposed it is about time for dinner,” I said, “though hopefully something a little more refined than cheese puffs.”
Kiwi shook his head rapidly back and forth in disagreement.
Wedding Bells And Magic Spells Box Set Page 4