“Well, that’s the million-dollar question isn’t it?” Lars tossed his stack of letters on my bed before making himself comfortable in the armchair by the window.
Crane House remained decorated in the fashion of its day. Early nineteenth-century or American Empire furniture filled every nook and cranny. My accommodations were no exception. With my ripped jeans and faded Something To ‘Ink About shop tee-shirts, I looked as out of place as I felt.
“I want to go home.” I flopped down the bed, sending the letters airborne. They littered the old wooden floor but I didn’t bother to pick them up.
“I’m in no hurry to go back to that cramped and dusty attic.” Lars stared out the window overlooking the Hudson. “Crane House is a palace by comparison. Grim used to come here.” He drifted off somewhere inside his head for a moment. “But he never brought either of us. That’s weird, right?”
“We all have secrets, dear,” Margret burst into the room. “There’s things you never told Grim about your life. Like Mikayla, for example.”
Lars’s eyebrows shot up to his nonexistent hairline. Mikayla. It was one name. A woman’s name and more of a glimpse into his past than I’d had— well, ever. The history of Lars began when Grim brought me home. There was nothing beyond it. Until suddenly there was.
“Who’s Mikayla?” I asked, unable to hide the curiosity and excitement in my voice.
Margret waved her hands in a flurry. “None of that matters right now.”
Lars swore and muttered something inaudible under his breath. “Then why bring it up?”
“I say it like I see it.” With the index and middle finger of her left hand, Margret created intricate symbols in the air. I recognized the pattern as one of Grim’s perimeter wards. “The Magistrate has men outside. They say they’re here for my monthly collection and inspection. But you can’t take that chance and I can’t hold them off for long.”
“What?” I rushed around the room, grabbing whatever necessities I could find and shoved them in my messenger bag. All of the letters Lars and I had, plus the six Nicholas gave me were accounted for and stuffed inside along with my hair and tooth brushes. I had no intentions of leaving them anything to cook up a death knoll tuned precisely to my DNA.
Winslow wanted me alive, but if that couldn’t happen, he’d settle for dead.
Chapter Seven
Margret ushered us inside an old chifforobe that, with any luck, led us far from Sleepy Hollow and into the land of Narnia. I much preferred my odds against the Witch Queen over the Magistrate.
“It must be a warder thing. You’re only the third I’ve met and the second I’ve read. I don’t have much to compare it to. I always assumed it was Grim blocking but I think it has something to do with your magic. At any rate, I didn’t see much else beyond heartache, Adeline. I don’t know the who or the why of it. The best I can do is tell you to brace for impact.”
“Great. So, more of the usual then?” I would have laughed if it hadn’t been true. “I thought we were good.” I looked up when I spoke to Her, to avoid confusion with Margret. “I kept my promise for the Solstice and made that bitching altar,” I grumbled, rolling my eyes.
Margret closed the doors to the wardrobe and the light disappeared without as much as a sliver finding its way through any gaps or cracks. There were voices, muffled and impossible to understand but I was able to decipher Margret’s from all the others through pitch and accent. It sounded like at least two men entered the room.
Something glass shattered— I assumed against the floor. Furniture was upended. This was more than a regular inspection or tithe visit. The footmen were searching for something— or someone. Winslow was Nicholas’s uncle. He would have no doubt been at the first moon ceremony and surmised that Margret was an associate of both Grim and Vincent. Winslow was a lot of things. Stupid wasn’t one of them.
We might as well have left a trail of breadcrumbs that led right to her front door.
Eradicating any suspicion I might have had about her when we first arrived, Margret lied with the grace and ease of a conman. If the clairvoyance gig didn’t work out, she had a bright future as a grifter. “See, I told you. No one is staying here. Check the books. I don’t have another reading for three more days. I’m on sabbatical. I cleared it with my representative at the Magistrate.”
I opened my mouth to speak but Lars clamped one of his hands over my lips and shook his head ‘no.’ We should have been safe inside the chifforobe but why chance it? We didn’t know who was on the other side or what magic they were capable of. As the inquisition escalated, I found it harder and harder to remain stuffed inside a piece of furniture for safekeeping. At the first sound of fist against flesh, I moved to burst free of the wooden confines Margret stuck us in but Lars’s arms locked around mine, trapping them against my sides and the rest of me against him. His bear hugs were unbreakable.
I hoped we could say the same for Margret.
Her sobs grew quieter and further apart despite the footman’s relentless assault. There was a distinct thud. The sound of a body collapsing onto the floor. They finished what they came to do. Margret gave them nothing but the message the footmen sent was received loud and clear. Anyone who gave safe harbor to me and mine would be punished.
Severely.
“You didn’t see us coming, did you?” The first footman asked, his voice laced with sarcasm. “Some oracle you are.”
“I don’t think the boss is going to be happy about this. You weren’t supposed to drain her.” The second footman said. Neither voice stood out more than the other. The only decipherable accent was New Yorker. No surprise there. Sleepy Hollow wasn’t Manhattan but it was still New York.
Margret outlived Grim and Vincent, survived being a defector while working within the circle of the Magistrate’s influence, but she couldn’t survive her run-in with me.
“Let’s get out of here before someone shows up. Like her niece.”
“The cute little thing that works in the diner? I like her. She’s feisty.”
“I’m pretty sure killing her aunt is a deal-breaker.”
“The boss said to make an example out of her.”
“Yeah, well he didn’t say to suck her magic dry. This is why I don’t work with cannibals. You guys make a mess every friggin’ time. Come on, man. Let’s go. We got like three more stops to make after this one and you might want to leave the rest of them alive in case we need to question them again.”
“I’m feeling pretty full. Shouldn’t be a problem.”
“You’re sick. You know that?”
The voices and footfalls drifted away. There was the sound of the front door slamming shut followed by car tires crunching over gravel shortly after, but Lars held tight and kept us inside the chifforobe.
“Let me go.” Without a safety pin and the use of my arms to make a mark, I was left to more mundane options. I threw my head back and connected with Lars’s face. He twitched but didn’t loosen his grip. “They’re gone. Get off.”
“Shut up.” Lars repositioned himself to allow for one hand to clamp back down over my mouth. “Someone’s moving around.”
I forced my heart to slow its pace and ease the sound of my own blood pumping in my ears so I could hear whatever it was that Lars heard. The crunch of glass underfoot. The distinct squeak of rubber soles against the floor. A quickened pace as they approached my room and the eventual door slamming against the wall as someone barged in.
“Adeline?” There was panic in Nicholas’s voice. “Del, where are— Oh, Goddess, no. Margret?” It sounded like he dropped to his knees. “Del? Lars?” Nicholas prayed to the Goddess to guide his hand and help him work the magic he needed to save Margret.
I didn’t know what spell he planned on using but for some reason, my mind went back to the story he shared about his old campus roommate. The familiar. Nicholas was a formidable witch and a powerful ally, but I should have asked more questions about his magic. The relief I felt hearing his voice was
replaced with concern for Margret. If she was alive as Nicholas thought, would the glitch in his magic douse what little spark of Margret’s remained?
The last thing Nicholas— or any of us for that matter— needed was Margret as his familiar.
Lars relaxed his hold almost long enough for me to get out of the wardrobe. “Wait,” he whispered in my ear.
“What do you mean ‘wait?’” I asked in a hushed tone not quite as soft as Lars’s. “It’s Nicholas.”
“Your love interest was absent from the little tea party the Magistrate threw for us. You don’t think that’s a bit too convenient?”
I ignored Lar’s comment about Nicholas being my love interest and focused on my one concern. Nicholas’s faulty wiring. “You remember how Nicholas turned a person into a familiar? He’s about to try some next level shit out there on Margret. You want a feisty old witch following us around all the time? Because we are probably only seconds away from that reality.”
We were also seconds away from being discovered hiding inside the chifforobe as the sound of my voice increased in decibel and pitch. I passed whisper-yell and was well on my way to actual shouting.
Lars loosened his grip and we both stumbled out of the wardrobe.
“Adeline.” Nicholas rose to his feet, leaving Margret where she lay on the floor. “Are you guys okay?” He looked from me to Lars and finally to Margret. “She’s gone. I couldn’t...” He shook his head, a solemn look on his face. “What the hell happened?”
“I’ve got a better question. Where the hell were you when the Magistrate came barging in?” Lars countered.
“You didn’t get my note?” Nicholas ignored Lars— which didn’t go over well. No matter how many times you tried it.
“Speaking of notes, where’s your stack of letters?” Lars was as relentless as a bloodhound when he thought he was on to something.
I wasn’t sure if he was or wasn’t. I admit, he raised some doubts but there was a more pressing matter and her corpse was on the floor.
“Notes and letters. It’s the twenty-first century for Goddess sake and we have magic at our disposal. I think we can do better than a few sentences scrawled on a post-it!” I raised my hands in frustration. “Can we please focus our attention on the recently deceased?”
“She’s right.” Nicholas stepped over Margret’s corpse and I cringed. The woman deserved more respect than that. “We don’t want to be here when someone comes looking for her.”
“Well, we’re all in agreement with the footmen then, because getting the hell out of Dodge was their idea.” I took quick stock of my belongings and scurried about the room, shoving it all inside my backpack. “But what about Margret?”
The front door opened.
“Hey, Mags! I got your message and got here as fast as I could.” That voice sounded familiar. “Auntie? Where are you? I’m sorry it took so long. They sat Terry at a table in my section and you know how she just loves to talk. Took me ten minutes just to get her to hand over the check.” Amber, our waitress at the diner and Margret’s niece. “Aunt Margret?”
The tips of Lars’s ears reddened, a sure sign his temper was getting the best of him. He was all but foaming at the mouth. “You’re worse than a fucking hex. You know that?”
Nicholas’s eyes widened. “How is this my fault? I didn’t invite her.”
I tapped into my magic and wove a Now You See Me, Now You Don’t spell. “It doesn’t matter how she got here. What matters is that we’re still here at the scene of the crime and she can identify us to the Magistrate.”
Lars reached into his pocket and pulled out a familiar small vial. “You mark her. I’ll dose her.”
“Oh my goddess, we are not going to give her a Forgive and Forget.” I snatched the little glass jar out of his hand and shoved it in the front pocket of my jeans. “We need a way out and fast.”
“But we’re witnesses. Well, you two are, at least.” Nicholas corrected himself before Lars and I had a chance to lambast him for the stupid remark. “Sorry, I forgot who we were dealing with for a second.”
“Yeah? I wish they’d forget about us as easily.” Of course, I knew how unlikely that was to happen. “So, who’s got a plan? How are we getting out of here?”
“We aren’t.” Nicholas opened the door to the chifforobe. “At least not yet.”
“That is the opposite of out. I am not getting back in there.” And I didn’t— until Lars picked me up and shoved me in.
The wardrobe was cramped with just Lars and I. Add Nicholas in the mix and I could barely breathe. I admit to having fantasized about being the jam in a man sandwich, but this was not what I had in mind. I tried to reposition myself but no matter how I moved, it was awkward. Made even more so by the building tension between Lars and Nicholas who glared at each other over my head.
Amber’s concern grew with each call of her aunt’s name. It was evident in the sound of her voice as she came in the room. “Aunt Margret?” Her cries to the Goddess as she discovered her aunt’s body lying prone on the floor pulled at my heartstrings.
I discovered Grim much the same way. Hours ticked by between his death and when I found him. Rigor began to set in, forcing me to leave him there, slumped over the desk in his office. The office he handed down to me, along with everything else— including a mystery to solve. I reeled myself back from the painful memory, refusing to allow myself to tumble down that dark rabbit hole again.
The memories would find me soon enough. They always did.
Amber made the call I’d been dreading since she first stepped foot into Crane House. “Footman Conway? This is Amber at Crane House. It’s about Margret.” Her voice cracked when she talked in between sobs. “She’s dead.” There was a long pause, while presumably the footman on the other end of the call talked. “Absolutely not. I’m not leaving her alone.” There was another pause. “Of course, I understand she’s dead. I’m the one who called you. I. Am. Not. Leaving. Her. Alone.”
Eavesdropping on someone else’s grief felt like a new low in a life that had seen the bottom of the barrel more than once.
“The Magistrate is on their way. The only reason they want me out of the house is because they have something to hide.” Amber blew her nose. “Or evidence to plant. If you leave now, you’ll have a ten-minute head start. That’s the best I can do.”
Correction. Eavesdropping on someone grieving when they knew you were there felt like a new low.
Lars, Nicholas, and I stumbled out of the chifforobe in what could only be described as a poor parody of The Three Stooges. Our exit was as far from graceful as we were from grace. I offered Amber my condolences, said a prayer to the Goddess, and left with my two cohorts in tow.
So much for the head start. We hadn’t crossed over Sleepy Hollow’s city limits before the Magistrate sent footmen to Crane House. Sirens blared, lights flashed, as police cars raced passed us one after another. Mundanes would see the caravan of police cruisers and assume their officers were in pursuit. They were wrong. Small variations in the coat of arms emblazoned on the side of each patrol car only visible by those born with the sight or third eye— in other words, a witch.
The women traditionally found on the crest, Liberty and Justice— something none of us would find should the Magistrate get their hands on us— were replaced with the Maiden and the Crone. There were long and convoluted explanations from the Magistrate as to why they selected those phases of the moon and Goddess for the crest. The simplest explanation was this— your birth and death were your own. Everything else belonged to the Magistrate.
So long as you paid the tithe. Step out of line and they found a way to take your life. Margret was proof of that.
And if Winslow had his way, we would be, too.
Chapter Eight
Public enemy number one was not as illustrious as it sounded in the movies. As flattered as I was to be placed atop my male counterparts on the Magistrate’s most wanted list, I felt undeserving of the title. News of Marg
ret’s death spread like wildfire.
So did the rumors.
But Grim’s reputation preceded him— even in death. So, the lines in the sand had been drawn with two camps entrenched on either side. Guilty and innocent. Most of the occupants residing in camp innocent gave Lars and I the benefit of the doubt simply because they knew Grim. From his time within the Magistrate— which I still knew nothing about— or his time at the studio. It didn’t matter. Grim took in lost souls. Not cold-blooded killers.
There was just one problem with that logic. There was at least one body buried in Lars’s past and if the Magistrate found out about it framing us for Margret’s death would be a whole lot easier.
Once again, the Goddess looked out for us. We drove straight through from Sleepy Hollow to East Providence, stopping once to ditch Nicholas’s car before doubling back on the city line bus under a quick and dirty glamour spell. We passed two footmen on the way from the bus stop to Nicholas’s. Neither so much as glanced in our direction. The witching hour approached and they had more pressing matters, like the teenagers setting up an altar under the waning moonlight in the small park across the street where any mundane could see them. We took advantage of the unusual distraction and slipped inside the tiny apartment.
The walls of the attic seemed closer than ever. My taste of freedom, however short-lived only made my return to confinement that much more intolerable. We left the safety of the attic wanted for practicing banned magic in search of answers to solve the mystery behind Grim and Vincent’s friendships, their untimely deaths, and how that connected us all. We returned wanted for practicing banned magic, a murder we didn’t commit, and with more questions than we started out with.
Things were not going according to plan. Not that we actually had one.
“They used to arrest women just for being out on the street during the witching hour.” I looked out the window, watching the footmen clean the last of the juvenile witches out of the patch of grass pretending to be a park. A feather, broken taper candle, and a few other small offerings for the altar littered the ground as the girls ran off in the night.
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