We were standing in my living room, with Kiwi perched on my shoulder ready for our big journey to Yellow Axe, Washington.
“Are you ready, little guy?”
“Sure am, big girl!”
“Hey!” I said and swiped at my shoulder. Kiwi hopped into the air and hovered above me until my hand had lowered. He landed back on my shoulder with a firm squeeze to remind me he was back.
I had set up my own stone on the table, ready for our return, while its partner was in the pocket of my jacket.
“Here goes...”
I mumbled some words under my breath, squeezed the lodestone that Hazel Crane had given me, and…
Zap!
Just like that, we were where we hadn’t been a moment before.
“Cold!” shrieked Kiwi, and he was right. It was darned cold.
I folded my arms over me to provide some insulation and tried to get my bearings. We were standing outside a large wooden building. Or at least a building that had been covered with wood on the outside to give the impression of an oversized wooden cabin.
The ground around us was thick with snow, piled up past my waist, but we were standing on a gravel path that had been plowed and treated with salt and grit.
Right in front of me was the partner lodestone to the one I was clutching in my hand, sitting right in the middle of the path. I couldn’t imagine how or when Hazel had put it there. I left it perfectly in place. There’s a rule about touching another witch’s anchor lodestone. The rule goes like this: don’t. So it stayed exactly where I found it.
“Guess that’s where we’re going,” I said, gesturing toward the hotel.
“Go! Go! Go!” screeched Kiwi in my ear. He wasn’t enjoying the cold at all, and nor was I to be fair. My lightweight jacket didn’t really cut it in the mountains.
I marched us over to the hotel building, crunching through ice-coated gravel with every noisy step.
When we got inside, I headed straight to the bar. When Hazel showed me Fred in her scrying mirror, he had been seated at the counter on a corner, with two guys on either side of him.
“This way, I think,” I said to Kiwi.
I’m pretty good at finding my way around hotels. This is because, unlike most people, I actually read the signs and can understand the little maps they helpfully put up.
We passed one or two guests in the hall who all offered cheery ‘good evenings.’ The fact that these people were all stuck here together because of the blizzard made them friendlier; crises tend to do that to people. Well, at least initially. If they extend too long or the situation deteriorates too badly, people start to go stir-crazy and become nasty to each other. Luckily this particular situation was still at the stage where being locked up and cut off is all good fun while the food and booze last, at least for most people. Perhaps not for poor Fred though. We’d soon find out.
The bar was a long, narrow room, with a real wood fire in a stone fireplace at one end. Apart from the fireplace, the walls, ceiling, floor, and bar were all made of wood, which seemed to soak up the light and heat of the fire and made the whole place feel incredibly cozy.
“Over there,” I said to Kiwi, nudging him with my head. At the far end of the bar, where it turned ninety degrees to reach the back wall, were four men who were all clearly together. It looked to be the exact same place that I had seen Fred in Hazel’s scrying mirror, though I couldn’t actually see him.
“Here goes...” I said to Kiwi.
A man on his own at the bar turned to look at me after hearing my voice. Oops. I shouldn’t really talk to Kiwi in public, unless it’s in babying tones. The man’s eyes opened wide when he saw the colorful parrot sitting on my shoulder. I guessed you didn’t get many parrots in upstate Washington. It looked like he was about to ask me something, but I didn’t have time to chat, so I immediately strode away from him toward the end of the bar with the four businessmen.
One of the ones on the end of the bar saw me coming, and gave a low whistle when he saw Kiwi. People in Sequoia Bay were so used to seeing me around town that it was only tourists who stopped and stared, but that wasn’t the case around here. The other three men all turned to look at me as I approached.
“Hi!” I said.
“Hello,” “Good evening,” “Huh,” and “Wow,” I was greeted in turn.
“I’m looking for someone. Fred Bristol—I heard he might be around here. Do you know him, by any chance?”
The man closest to me, a middle-aged bearded man in khakis and a sports jacket, nodded his head first. “Yes. We know Fred. He’s with us.”
“Well, he was,” said a sandy-haired companion of his. “Only, he wasn’t feeling well. He’s gone to his room.”
I nodded. “Right. I’m an old friend. Well, not of him, but of... someone he knows.”
They stared at me expectantly.
“I need to talk to him about something. Could you tell me where I can find him?”
“You want to go to his room?” said the bearded man.
“Umm. I suppose so?” I answered nervously.
“He’s got a fiancée,” said one of them to what seemed to be his friend next to him.
“Had a fiancée,” his friend replied and earned a smirk and a punch to his arm in response. I frowned at the pair of them. It seemed pretty tasteless considering she’d only just died.
“His room’s next to mine. 232. I don’t think he’s in the mood to chat though. Said he was sick.”
I nodded. “I understand. I won’t bother him for long. I’ll be back in California before you know it!”
The man cocked his head at me. “Wait. You came here from California? Are the roads open again?”
Oops.
“No!” I shouted. Oops again. Silly Aria. “I mean, no,” I said more quietly. “There’s a coffee shop downtown called the California Café, and—”
“Is there? I haven’t seen it. And we’ve been everywhere in town. Nothing else to do.”
“Err. It’s a nickname. Only locals say it. Anyway, got to rush. Nice to meet you all, have a lovely evening,” I said, pouring my words out like I was emptying a bucket over them.
“But—”
“Bye-ee!” I said loudly and waved as I turned and quickly walked away from them.
“Smooth,” said Kiwi in my ear.
“They won’t forget us anytime soon, will they?” I said, frowning. I wouldn’t make much of a secret agent, I decided.
We walked up an ornate wooden staircase that led from the lobby up to the second, and top floor of the building. I quickly found Fred’s room and knocked on the door.
There was no answer.
After waiting for a second or two, I knocked again.
“Hold on!” came an annoyed voice from inside.
After the shuffling sound of him approaching the door, I heard the lock snap open and the door swung inward.
“Yes?” Fred Bristol appeared to be in his mid-thirties and he didn’t look good. He was unshaven, his face was red where it wasn’t tallow, his eyes were bloodshot, his hair unkempt, and he smelled of whiskey.
“Hi. My name’s Aria Whitmore,” I said.
“Is that a parrot!?” he said with a startled look. He stepped back from me, edging one step after the other. I mistook this as an invitation and stepped in after him.
“That’s Kiwi,” I said, as I stepped inside. He raised his arms in front of him as if to ward us off.
“No birds!” he said, alarmed.
“Oh. He doesn’t bite,” I said.
“Yes, I do,” said Kiwi, quickly following it up with a cackle. I banged my head against his to shut him up.
“I don’t like birds,” he said, frowning. “Why is it here? I didn’t order anything from room service...”
I shook my head. “We’re not from room service. I doubt they do parrots. No, I need to talk to you about something. Can I come in? I’ll lock him in the bathroom if it makes you more comfortable.”
The man blinked several ti
mes while he tried to process the strange sight of us and my request. He then seemed to give up, shrugged his shoulders and waved me inside while he turned to lead the way.
“I’ll just put him in here,” I said, stepping into the bathroom. The way into the bathroom was right next to the front door of the hotel room.
I could see Kiwi glaring at me in the mirror above the sink, but he didn’t speak again, and reluctantly hopped off my shoulder onto the bathroom counter. “Back in a minute. Be a good boy!”
He let out an angry caw as I slammed the door shut on him.
The main part of the room was dominated by the large double bed, but in front of it was a coffee table with two oval-shaped padded chairs. Fred was already sitting in one of them and offered me the other with a wave of his hand.
The room, like the rest of the hotel, was all wood. The hardwood floor had a large rug taking up most of the floor space. The walls were covered in long planks of varnished wood and even the ceiling was covered in wooden planks.
“What can I do for you?”
“Well,” I said, sitting down, “I’m an old friend of Carrie’s, and I heard you were in town,” I began.
He grimaced. “Did you hear the news?”
I nodded somberly. “I’m so, so sorry. And when I found out you were stuck here, I felt I just had to come and see you.”
“‘Aria,’ was it? I don’t recall Carrie mentioning you.”
I sighed and looked down, a sad look on my face. “I know. We kind of lost contact the last few years. It’s such a shame.”
“And you live here?”
“Err, not here here, exactly...” I said letting my words trail off, hoping he would imagine a suitable explanation to end the sentence.
“But close by.” He nodded slowly to himself. “Must be—all the roads are still closed, aren’t they?”
“Yes. Yes, they are.” He could infer that I lived here if he liked; it was easier than telling him the unbelievable truth. “And you’ve been here the whole time? Since... it happened?”
Fred nodded at me. “Yes. It’s just so unfair. If only I had been there... if only I had known.”
I nodded sympathetically to encourage him to go on.
“The police spoke to me on the phone. They said it happened around midnight. Do you know what I was doing then?”
I shook my head.
“Drinking! In the bar! With my three colleagues. We were celebrating. We all won a trip here—regional sales champions for each of our respective areas. I won West Coast. I was with those guys, drinking and smoking cigars while my fiancée was... you know. I just feel so terrible.”
And those guys could no doubt verify it. If Fred had been involved in Carrie’s death, he would have had to have left before dinner time to get to Sequoia Bay in time for her murder—and he would have been caught by the blizzard on his return, and no doubt would have gotten back here very late if at all, before the roads were closed. No, there was no way he was directly involved in his fiancée’s death.
“And now I’m stuck here. They think it might be another day or two before the mountain pass is opened again. They say that’s the thing about Yellow Axe—because it’s not really on a route to anywhere, it isn’t as high a priority to get the road open again.”
“That must be really awful for you. Truly,” I said, nodding sympathetically. “And did the police tell you anything about... you know, who did it?”
He shook his head. “They told me they were pursuing several lines of inquiry. They even asked me if I knew anyone who would want her dead.”
“Oh, wow,” I said with a grimace. “She was so lovely. I can’t believe anyone would want to hurt her.”
He nodded. “I know. But even the best of us get enemies sometimes. She had one, you know.”
I raised my eyebrows. “From high school?” I asked.
He nodded at me. “You know?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. I heard something. There was a girl she used to be friends with, but they fell out, right?”
He nodded again, this time more fervently. “Yes. Brittany Bledsoe. She was trying to ruin our wedding.”
“Ruin your wedding!?” I raised my eyebrows and dropped my jaw down in feigned shock.
“Yep. I mean, I wasn’t really involved in the planning. I just told Carrie she could have any kind of wedding she wanted—the wedding of her dreams. But it turns out that Brittany was having her wedding on the same day and kept trying to stop Carrie from getting what she wanted. You know, the venue, the caterers, the flowers... all of it. It was really upsetting her.”
“Weddings can be very stressful,” I said, nodding.
“Are you married?” he asked me.
“Err, no, but I’ve been involved with a lot of weddings.”
“Always the bridesmaid, eh?”
“Something like that,” I said, looking down at my hands clasped in my lap.
There was a loud caw from the bathroom.
“Why do you have that thing?” he asked me.
“Kiwi? Umm. Well, I found him, abandoned, and I just took him in. Now we’re kind of inseparable.”
He shook his head as if unable to understand why anyone would want a parrot. Sometimes I wondered the same thing myself.
“So Brittany Bledsoe is the only person Carrie had any issues with?”
He shrugged. “I guess.” He frowned for a moment. “Oh, and Brittany’s mother. She was just as bad. Maybe worse, even. If that’s possible.”
I nodded. “Right, mothers can be like that. Mine included.”
We both laughed, but it was a quiet and sad laugh. I felt guilty for having misled Fred. Although I hadn’t been there long, it was long enough. I was convinced that he was nothing to do with his fiancée’s death, and seemed to be even more in the dark than me about the circumstances surrounding it.
“I’ve got to get going now, Fred. I just wanted to drop by to offer my condolences. I hope the roads open again for you soon.”
He nodded at me. “Thanks for coming to see me. No one else has—for obvious reasons, of course. Being surrounded by other salesmen wasn’t the ideal way to deal with this... situation.”
“Right. Good luck, Fred.”
“Thank you, Aria.”
We both stood up and began to make our way to the door.
“Don’t forget your parrot,” he said, a worried look on his face.
There was a loud shriek from the bathroom.
“Not much chance of that,” I said to him.
Less than two minutes later, Kiwi and I were crunching our way down the path outside again to where we’d arrived. I squeezed the lodestone in my pocket that would take us home again. It was sad that Fred couldn’t join us, but there was nothing I could do about that.
The only thing I could really do for Fred was figure out what happened to Carrie, and the sooner the better.
“Ready, Kiwi?”
“Get me back to my cheese puffs!” he said with a happy squawk.
I squeezed the lodestone, murmured the words and…
Zap!
We were back.
Chapter 10
The Black Cat Café is one of our favorite spots in town, at least when Nora isn’t there.
Nora and Priscilla run the café as partners, taking turns to work or be off, apart from at the very busiest times when they both have to be there.
While I can usually put up with Nora—though the last couple of days really tried my patience—Kiwi can’t. He’s taken to referring to her as his ‘nemesis,’ which would almost be funny (what kind of bird has a nemesis?) if he wasn’t so serious about it.
“Pretty lady!” shrieked Kiwi the second we entered, before Priscilla had even seen us.
“Pretty boy!” came a shout from the kitchen.
We went and sat at the counter, and as soon as we were seated Priscilla emerged from the back carrying a little bowl of cheese puffs for Kiwi.
“Pretty, pretty lady,” Kiwi repeated as he hopped o
ff my shoulder onto the counter and began to peck away at his bowl. His charms never failed to work on Priscilla.
“How are you girls?” said Priscilla with a concerned smile.
I sighed. “Just about how you can imagine.”
“I am sorry, Aria. You seem to have some frightful bad luck lately.”
“What can you do?” I said with a shrug. “I guess it’s all in the hands of the police now…” I let my words hang so that Priscilla could grab on and start swinging from them.
“They have been busy, haven’t they?”
“They were certainly busy in my shop,” I said.
“They made a real mess,” added Sarah.
“Yesterday? Oh, I meant today,” said Priscilla with a tight little smile. When she gave that smile, it meant one thing: she had some gossip to spill. I’m not a gossip myself, and I even go out of my way to avoid it. Most of the time. But a stranger showing up dead in my shop is not “most of the time.”
“Oh?” I said, as if I was only a little bit interested. As if my whole future didn’t potentially hang on what the police found out in their investigation.
Priscilla leaned her elbows on her side of the counter and dropped her head to our level. “Didn’t you hear?”
“Hear what?”
“They were at poor Carrie Mallory’s house this morning. Came out with a bunch of scrapbooks or journals or something. That’s what I heard.”
“Oh? I wonder if there are any clues as to who her murderer was in there.”
Priscilla frowned. “Perhaps. I doubt it though. I bet I know what it was they found.” She gave us another one of her little I’ve-got-a-secret smiles.
“Oh?” I said again. It didn’t take much to drag the news out of Priscilla; she was always eager to share. I often heard the gossip even when I was actively trying to avoid it, just by maintaining a modicum of politeness.
“Why don’t I get your order first? You must need some comfort food after all that’s gone on. What can I get you?”
“A slice of cherry pie and a black coffee for me,” I said.
“With ice cream?”
I hesitated, trying to decide whether I deserved ice cream or not.
“Yep. She needs it. Two scoops,” said Sarah with a wicked grin.
Wedding Bells And Magic Spells Box Set Page 26