Wedding Bells And Magic Spells Box Set

by A. R. Winters

  “I. Well. We. Blue Moon Bridal. That is to say, we are having a sample sale!” I cringed at myself. Normally I’m quite articulate, and dare I say it, even eloquent at times. But apparently this was a magic camera and it had the ability to completely mess with my thought processes. At least, that’s the best explanation I could come up with.

  “Tell us more,” said Suzan. I could see the smile on her face was false now. She was probably thinking I was an idiot.

  “We are lucky to have the famous designer Zola Cates with us at the moment. She is holding her first ever sample sale, right here in the shop. And that’s why there are so many people outside.” Whew. That was a bit better.

  “How marvelous! The viewers at home may not be able to see it right now, but outside, there is almost a mob of people waiting to get in.”

  “I think mob is a little strong,” I said with a laugh. “These are just future brides, after all. But Zola is incredibly popular, and the line outside proves that.” I was finally regaining some confidence.

  “John, show the viewers at home what it’s like outside,” said Suzan.

  The cameraman obediently did as he was told, and the camera stopped pointing at me and was directed out of the front window of the shop to the people waiting patiently outside.

  At least, that’s what we thought was happening.

  As the camera turned, so did our gaze.

  “You cow!” screamed someone outside.

  “Cow? Cow? How dare you! Come here, you old hag—”

  My hands clapped the side of my face and I gasped. What in magic’s name was going on out there?

  “It seems that ‘mob’ may have been understating it,” said Suzan into the microphone while the camera remained resolutely pointed at the argument outside.

  Stepping to the side, I managed to get a look at the commotion. Two women were fighting! A young lady—a future bride, I assumed—and a middle-aged lady both had their hands out, grasping and scratching and clawing at each other.

  “Tell us, Aria, is this normal for a sample sale?” said Suzan to me. The microphone was pushed into my face while the camera remained on the catfight outside.

  “Uh. I. No? I mean, Zola is very popular, but we weren’t expecting... you know... fights.”

  “It’s all happening here down at Blue Moon Bridal!” said Suzan with a manic grin on her face. “Oh! And to join the fun, here are the police.”

  “Can’t you turn that camera off now?” I asked her with a pleading look on my face.

  Suzan didn’t answer me. She just silently shook her head and continued to stare outside.

  As we and the camera, and later half of Sequoia Bay, watched, the older woman yanked at the younger one’s hair, pulling out a whole clutch of it.

  “Oh, my!” said Suzan.

  “I’ve got to get out there! Stop the interview!” I said.

  While the interview came to a halt, I don’t think the camera did. I hurried over to the door and let myself back outside again.

  There was someone between the two women, finally, trying to stop them from killing each other.

  Was that...

  “Hi, Aria,” said Jack Bowers, the police detective I was kind of, sort of, maybe dating. He managed to get the words out between panting breaths as he struggled to keep the two women from killing each other.

  He managed to get the women separated, and another couple of bystanders gave him some assistance, grabbing each of the women by their upper arms to keep them apart.

  “And that looks like the end of the action here at Blue Moon Bridal,” said Suzan loudly. “If you want to see the sample sale—or you’re a fan of wrestling—I suggest you make your way down as soon as you can, before the fun is over.

  “The fun is over,” said Jack in his deep policeman voice, stepping in and placing his hand in front of the camera.

  Suzan gave me a beaming smile. “Thanks! I was worried this would just be a dull fluff piece about some boring old local business. But this was great!”

  I just stared at her. I’d heard of backhanded compliments but that was taking it to another level.

  The two women were dragged away by their friends, with a few more curses and yells thrown in for good measure.

  “Right. Aria, can I talk to you a moment?” said Jack.

  “Let’s go back inside. Just a moment.” I turned to Suzan. “You won’t show that, will you?” I said in a pleading voice.

  She sneezed, wiped her nose, and then, finally, chuckled. “I’m afraid we’ll be showing all of that—and more! Don’t worry though. All publicity is good publicity. Plenty more people will be down to see your shop because of the excitement.”

  “Do you really think so?” I asked dubiously.

  She nodded firmly. “Definitely. Now, if you’ll excuse us.”

  As the reporter and her cameraman departed, I was fervently hoping that she was right, that the unfortunate fight would, somehow, lead to more people coming to my shop. But I wasn’t entirely convinced that the percentage of the population preparing for a wedding and those who enjoyed watching fights on television had a lot of overlap.

  “Aria?” said Jack again.

  “Come on.” I opened the door and led Jack inside.

  When we were back in the shop, I locked the door again behind us and let out a long, slow sigh. Why did everything always have to go so wrong? This was going to be my big day—the first of many, I hoped—but instead...

  “I was actually coming here before the fight started,” said Jack.

  I nodded.

  “There was a complaint made by another business owner. They said the line of people was very disruptive. Also, they said something about vagrancy, but I’m not sure what they meant there.”

  “I know. It was Nora.”

  “Nora! Nora!” screeched Kiwi, his parrot-voice dripping with anger. He really didn’t like her and at the moment I was inclined to agree.

  “I can’t comment on who it was. But is there something you can do? Can you let them in?”

  “Let them in!?”

  “Well, it would solve the—”

  “No. The sample sale doesn’t start until tomorrow. Look—we’re not ready at all!” I said, waving my arms around the shop. It did look a bit better than the day before, but it wasn’t completely set up yet, and if we started the sale before the announced time, there’d be hell to pay from angry customers who would miss out.

  Jack paced around the shop. “What are these?”

  He was standing by the counter, and pointing at the basket. The basket was filled with bath bombs, which had an extra-little bit of magic sprinkled into them. They wouldn’t just relax you in the evening; they’d cheer up your whole disposition and make you a nicer and friendlier person to be around—which is basically what relaxing you does. I just gave it a bit of a boost.

  “They’re bath bombs,” I said.

  Jack frowned. “Bombs? Are they... dangerous?”

  I giggled. “It’s just a silly name. They go in your bath and make it smell nice and make it more relaxing.”

  “I see. Do they work?”

  “Of course they work. Want one?”

  He gave me a funny look. “Sure, why not? But don’t tell anyone, okay?”

  I laughed again. “Okay, your secret is safe with me. Now what should I do about all these people?”

  “I could tell them to leave upon threat of arrest,” said Jack, in a tone that indicated he was trying to be helpful.

  Sure. Arrest my keenest customers. That would go over well.

  “Umm. I’d prefer something less... jail-adjacent, if you know what I mean.”

  We were silent for a few moments while we considered what to do.

  “Aha! I’ve got it!” I said with a smile.

  “Oh?”

  I hurried behind the counter and opened a cupboard. From inside, I withdrew a book of raffle tickets that I had bought many moons earlier for a promotion that hadn’t panned out.

  “
I’ll hand these out, in the order people are in line. The first one gets 001, the second 002, and so on. Then they can go home until we let them all in tomorrow—in the order of their tickets!”

  Jack squeezed my shoulder. “Excellent idea! I’ll help you dish them out. If there are any complaints, I’ll wave some handcuffs in front of their faces.”

  “We’ll make a great team!”

  Feeling somewhat cheered up despite the disastrous television interview, we headed outside to distribute the tickets.

  Chapter 3

  Time speeds up when you’re busy, and the last forty-eight hours had rushed by in a blur. After spending the whole day cleaning, polishing, hanging and displaying, Sarah and I, with some excellent guidance from Zola—and some less useful help from Kiwi and Mom—had gotten the shop just about perfect.

  When we were done, I’d helped myself to one of my own enchanted bath bombs and spent a relaxing hour in the tub. I’d even added an extra touch of chamomile and lavender to make sure I really got a restful night’s sleep. After my bath, I had collapsed into bed before the clock had even reached 9 p.m. and slept like a rock right through.

  “Good morning!” I said to Kiwi when I exited my bedroom. He was sitting by the window watching the street outside and gave a happy shriek in response.

  “Ready for the big day?” I asked him.

  “Big day?” he said with a fluffing of his wings and a shake of his head.

  “The sample sale! Zola! Hundreds of excited brides!”

  “Fights?” he asked, cocking his head at me.

  I gave him a frown. “No. No more fights. There better not be! Yesterday was an isolated incident. At least I hope so.”

  “Fights! Fights! Fights!” said Kiwi, hopping up and down on the windowsill.

  “I’ll send you to live with Nora if you don’t stop it,” I said to him with a wicked grin.

  Kiwi let out a panicked shriek and flew around the room three times before landing again.

  “No fights!” he said.

  “Come on,” I said, tapping my shoulder. “Let’s go downstairs and make sure everything’s just perfect!”

  With a grin on my face and Kiwi nuzzling my cheek, we started the arduous commute to work—thirteen steps down to the ground floor, and then opening the door into the shop.

  “This is the start of big things for us, little guy,” I said to Kiwi on the way down. “This sale is going to really put Blue Moon Bridal on the map.”

  “Map?”

  “Just an expression. In cruder terms, we’ll make lots of money!”

  “Cheese puff money?” he asked followed by a happy shriek.

  With a giggle, I confirmed that yes, we would earn enough money to buy cheese puffs. Massive quantities of cheese puffs.

  “Cheese puff rich!” said Kiwi happily as we pushed open the door into the shop.

  Even before the door was fully open, a feeling of dread washed over me.

  A feeling that something had gone awfully, terribly wrong.

  “Oh...” I said softly to myself, not even sure why.

  Kiwi hopped off my shoulder and started to fly across the room, giving a loud, panicked shriek when he was halfway there.

  “Aria!” screeched Kiwi as he landed atop the bookcase. He stuck out a wing to point to the floor of the shop.

  Stepping fully inside, I saw what he was pointing at.

  My heart felt like it was going to explode out of my chest. I began to shake.

  The place was a mess!

  My beautiful basket of bath bombs had been overturned, and someone had stomped on every last one of them, smashing and crushing them.

  “My bath bombs!” I wailed.

  It just didn’t make any sense at all. We had worked so hard to get the shop just perfect for the big day, but now it was like a pair of bulls had been fighting in here. And I only lived upstairs! How had I not heard anything?

  Oh.

  The bath bomb. I’d been so determined to get a good night’s rest before the big day, I’d dosed myself pretty good with a triple-threat of sleeping aids: chamomile, lavender, and a magically enchanted bath bomb. I would have slept through a war—and it looked like I had!

  Kiwi let out another pair of shrieks, the second one not ending until I interrupted him.

  “What!?” I shouted at him.

  He waved his wing at the ground again urgently, hopping and jittering as he did so.

  I stepped around the counter and immediately tripped over a mannequin that had fallen over. It wasn’t supposed to be there, or even near there. I sat up on the floor, rubbed my wrist, and looked at the destruction around me.

  “What in the name...”

  Kiwi shrieked again, and then finally got out a word. “DEAD!” he shouted. Followed by, “Dead! Dead! Dead! Dead!”

  Looking at the mannequin again, I realized that this was no mannequin. It was a person!

  “Oh no, oh no, oh no,” I said to myself as I crawled to look at it—at her.

  Before me was a young lady in one of Zola’s wedding dresses. One of the lightweight, floaty modern ones, less formal than the traditional gowns. Around her neck was the apparent cause of her demise: a Zola designer veil had been wrapped around her neck and tightened, and tightened, and tightened... until she was dead.

  I stared at the poor girl. Luckily her eyes were closed so she wasn’t staring back at me. Her face was still contorted in misery.

  “She’s dead, Kiwi!”

  He let out a plaintive wail and I felt like I wanted to do the same.

  As I stared at her, I realized that the sample sale wasn’t going to happen.

  Blue Moon Bridal would be known as the place of fights and murders. Was this going to ruin me?

  Before I knew it, I was mimicking my parrot and letting out a wail of my own.

  I kept it up as I pulled my phone out of my pocket and began to dial 911.

  Chapter 4

  First, I wanted to cover the body, but then I remembered you weren’t supposed to disturb a crime scene.

  So I decided to make some lavender tea. But as I was about to do that, I realized that my whole shop was a crime scene. No tea. No sample sale. No fame and fortune for Blue Moon Bridal. Just a dead body and a whole heap of trouble.

  “What are we going to do, Kiwi?” I asked.

  He just let out a long, cooing cry. There wasn’t anything to be done, was there?

  There was a rattle at the front door of the shop.

  “They’re here!” I said to Kiwi as I rushed to let the police in.

  Only it wasn’t the police. It was Zola and she was here early.

  I held my hand on the door for a moment. Should I even let her in?

  She rattled the door again. Of course I had to let her know what was going on! I quickly unlocked the door and pulled it open.

  “Zola! I’m so sorry!” I said. This was Zola’s first sample sale and now it was going to be ruined. I’d ruined Zola’s first ever sample sale!

  “Sorry?” she said with a smile.

  “I’m so sorry!” I repeated. “It’s ruined. It’s all gone wrong, Zola.”

  She raised her eyebrows at me and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “I’m sure we can solve whatever little mishap has occurred. Now tell me, what’s happened?”

  For half a moment, I thought she might be right. Her words were so comforting, and I so wanted them to be true, that I thought she might actually be right.

  “There’s been a... death.”

  She raised her eyebrows, confusion all over her face.

  “Look!” I pulled the door open wide and pointed in the direction of the counter, in front of which was the body.

  “Is that a mannequin?” she asked with a quizzical smile. “What a fun prank. But we really should be getting on. There’ll be people here soon if yesterday is anything to go by.”

  I shook my head and squeezed her shoulders with two hands.

  “That’s not a mannequin! It’s a girl! A bride! A dead br
ide in one of your dresses!”

  Zola stepped inside and looked again. Her face went ashen.

  “Goodness! It’s a dead body!” she said.

  I nodded forlornly and Kiwi gave another wail.

  “Is that...” she began, stepping toward the body. “That’s the California White Sands Casual!”

  “Eh?”

  “What she’s wearing. It’s one of my favorites,” said Zola with a sniff, a finger wiping at the corner of her eye.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “I... I need to sit down,” she said. Zola turned from me and headed across the shop to our large dressing room.

  Before I could stop to tell her that this was a crime scene and we shouldn’t touch anything, she’d pushed open the door and let herself inside. But it was better she was in there than out here by the body, I supposed.

  The front door rattled again and I hurried over. Thank goodness. This time it was the police. For a moment, I was worried that it might be an overzealous customer.

  After I opened the door, Jack Bowers entered along with four other police officers. Jack took me by the elbow and ushered me into a corner, while the rest of the police walked over to the body.

  “What happened?” asked Jack.

  I explained what little I knew—that there was a dead body and my bath bombs had been smashed. There wasn’t much more to tell. I didn’t know what had happened beyond the obvious.

  “I’m sorry you have to deal with this,” said Jack. “It’s terribly bad luck.”

  With a forlorn nod, I thanked him for his concern. Jack began to walk around the shop while the other officers continued their examination of the body and the area immediately around it.

  Zola emerged from the dressing room as Jack approached it. She was wiping at her eyes and looked quite distraught. I half wondered whether she was more upset about the body or the sample sale. With a twinge of guilt, I realized I wasn’t so sure which bothered me more, either.

  Jack began to ask her a few questions while I listened on, mutely, just taking it all in. I had nothing more to contribute.