Pawsitively Cursed

by Melissa Erin Jackson

  Well, that confirmed this wasn’t actually Olaf.

  Where on earth were Willow and Aunt Gretchen?

  Closer now, but still a dozen chairs away, her gaze flicked to the slumped form of a man sitting in the chair beside where the Penhallow stood. He wore all white. The real Olaf.

  “Shall we see? All these fine people have only gotten a half dose. Imagine if I used the same dose on your little cop friend as I did on that maid …”

  Then the Penhallow’s expression turned serious, brows furrowed, as he focused his attention on the chief. Chief Brown was still behind her, pushing his way through the crowd. Amber moved faster, nearly losing her footing as a shoe clipped a chair leg. Her heart thumped wildly.

  The Penhallow raised his hand, fingers splayed; his palm faced the chief.

  Amber thought of the pictures she’d seen of Wilma. Of the withered flesh. She thought of Jessica and little Sammy and the baby on the way whose lives would all be irrevocably wrecked if the chief were killed here today.

  Six chairs away.

  The Penhallow’s lips began to move. He was uttering an incantation. Amber’s own magic thrashed beneath her skin even more wildly than her heart in her chest.

  Three chairs away.

  The frustration of the past week overwhelmed her. Her aunt’s illness, the maid’s death, the secrets her parents kept, that her aunt kept, and the fact that this Penhallow—or someone he knew—more than likely had been the one to trap her parents in their own home and then set it on fire. She felt like a volcano primed for explosion. Her vision tunneled further. “STOP!”

  And the Penhallow did. His outstretched hand and features froze. But, so did everything else. The screams and cries and pounding feet were abruptly silenced. Amber came up short and looked around the auditorium. It was like being in a room full of mannequins. People were frozen with mouths open, with one foot off the ground as they ran, and one man was even frozen mid-fall, his stuck-open eyes staring at the floor that had, just moments before, been rising up to meet him.

  What the …

  Amber found the chief just a few feet behind her, his serious, determined expression focused on the Penhallow.

  The Penhallow! She had him now. Frozen in place. But what was she supposed to do with him? She couldn’t very well mortally wound him while he was stuck in time.

  Could she?

  She closed the distance between them, then forced his hand down so his open palm now faced the floor. Should she turn his hand to face him, so that when time unfroze, the magic erupting out of his palm would blast him with a “full dose” of his own magic? Surely that would end him. Then both Edgehill and her parents’ secrets would be safe.

  She had just grabbed his wrist again when—

  “Tsk, tsk, Miss Blackwood.”

  Amber yelped and stumbled back, almost toppling over a chair as she did so.

  The man pretending to be Olaf flashed her a grin full of white teeth that didn’t belong to him. “So the rumors are true.”

  Amber swallowed. “What rumors?”

  “That Theodore and Annabelle Blackwood’s children were far more powerful than anyone was led to believe.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Come now,” Fake Olaf said, walking from his spot in the front row, past Amber, and into the area just beyond the three rows of chairs, where late-arrival guests had been standing. Fake Olaf spread his arms wide. “You froze nearly a hundred people! And with only a single word. Annabelle had been a prodigy with time magic, and it seems she passed it on to you. It took three decades to unleash it, but here it is. I figured you’d need a highly emotional situation to wake it up.”

  “You … you set this up?”

  “Well,” he said, peering into the face of a frozen woman, practically touching his nose to hers, “I honestly didn’t know what I was going to do to shake your magic free, but then this ridiculous creature—” he gestured at himself, “showed up with all his sycophants, and an idea was born.”

  Amber scanned the frozen crowd, spotting Willow and Aunt Gretchen in the doorway in the middle of the room. They both clearly had been looking for her. Jack was caught in a mid-lunge in her direction, Larry close on his heels. She didn’t see Connor anywhere.

  Her gaze skated over the still-safe chief before landing on Fake Olaf again. “Why go through all this trouble?”

  “For the book!” he snapped. “Haven’t you been paying attention? I. Want. The. Book.”

  Amber glared at him. “And I already told you that I don’t have it. I’ve never seen it.”

  “Tut. Lying won’t help anyone,” he said, resting an arm on the head of a little boy frozen in place, as if he were furniture. Fake Olaf crossed one foot over the other, the tip of his shiny black shoe resting on the floor. “I’ve given you all the pieces. You didn’t really think you found that watch on accident, did you? I knew you couldn’t resist the cry of weak creatures in torment, so I left those kittens where you would find them. Then it was just a matter of placing your father’s old watch just so. I saw how you were hurtled into a memory. What did it show you?”

  Amber’s skin crawled.

  How long had he been watching her?

  He took several steps toward her. Though a row of folding chairs and a few people-statues were between them, he still felt too close.

  “What did you see?” he asked, eyes gleaming.

  She was consoled by the fact that he only knew she’d been shown a memory, not which memory specifically. She had, of course, seen the book. But Fake Olaf didn’t need to know that.

  She clenched her fists by her sides. “I know the fire was no accident. I know Neil Penhallow trapped them inside their own house and then set it on fire. Was that you?”

  He laughed. “No, that was my brother.”

  The same brother who, when mentioned even in general terms, had made Amber’s mother recoil.

  “What happened to Neil?” Amber asked.

  Fake Olaf’s jaw clenched. “Neil was institutionalized not too long after the fire. He’s nearly sixty now and all he’s seen for decades are the gray walls of the institution your mother’s actions forced him into. She really did a number on him.”

  Then, before Amber’s eyes, Olaf Betzen’s gorgeous features melted off the Penhallow’s face, like turpentine thrown on a canvas, the paint slipping off. Amber half expected to see a silicon suit of Olaf lying at the Penhallow’s feet as Olaf’s features, clothing, and skin sloughed away. Beneath was a man who Amber initially would have thought was Neil, but the longer she looked at him, the more she saw the differences. A longer nose, wider-set brown eyes—rather than hazel—a rounder chin. But undeniably related to the man who killed her parents.

  “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Blackwood,” he said, bowing deeply. “I’m Kieran Penhallow.”

  By the time he stood to full height again, Amber had willed her breathing back under control. “Why are you so desperate for this book? Why did you hurt all these people and kill Wilma?”

  “Who the devil is Wilma?”

  “The maid.”

  Kieran waved this off. “Your mother perfected a time travel spell. Don’t tell me the spell doesn’t exist or that travel isn’t possible. It is. And your mother selfishly locked it away in her grimoire.”

  Both Aunt Gretchen and Edgar said time travel wasn’t possible. Had her mother lied to them, or was the Penhallow currently lying to Amber? It was very possible he was deluded and believed wholeheartedly in a myth.

  “You want to reverse the curse?” Amber asked.

  “To be determined,” he said. “I have a much more pressing matter. You see, your family killed my father and drove my brother to madness. I want to save them from that fate. Wouldn’t you go back in time to save your family if you could?”

  “You mean the family your brother killed?” Amber snapped.

  Kieran waved away this comment too.

  Deep down, Amber knew she’d use the spell. That if she’d k
nown about it, she’d have been desperate to find it, and for the same reason Kieran wanted it: to bring back loved ones. But her parents had gone to great lengths to keep the spell out of the Penhallows’ hands, hadn’t they? There had to be a good reason for that. Assuming it existed at all.

  But then the rest of what he said caught up to her. “What do you mean my family killed your father?”

  “Oh, they left that part out of your family’s history books?” Kieran asked. “Let’s see. Did you know your mother and my brother were desperately in love when they were twenty-somethings?”

  Amber shook her head.

  “It’s true. Neil planned to marry her—had the ring picked out and everything.

  “Your mother had always been a prodigy with time spells and the two worked together to figure out how to turn back time. It was your mother who wanted to end the curse. She knew any future children of theirs would inherit the curse, and she wanted to find a way to make sure she and Neil could live a happy, fulfilled life together.”

  He paused for so long, Amber wondered if he was doing it merely to torture her.

  “And?” She hated the desperate note to her voice. She didn’t believe any of this, did she?

  Grinning, he continued. “Well, your grandfather Miles caught wind of their plan and decided to put a stop to it. Even though Penhallows have been treated horribly for generations, your mother saw past the curse and fell for the man underneath. Miles, however, didn’t approve.

  “The night the two planned to conduct the time-travel spell out in a secluded field, they had only just gotten started when Miles happened upon them. They got into a screaming match and started hurling magic around.

  “My own father had heard rumors about what Neil and Anna were planning, so when he heard the commotion, he came running. Miles was prepared to not only kill Neil to stop him from using the spell, but his own daughter. Miles hurled a felled tree at them, planning to crush them both. But my father jumped in the way and pushed them to safety. He took the full brunt of the strike and died instantly.

  “Miles then bested Neil and tried to sever his magic from him, but botched the job. It left Neil mad. In fear of retaliation, Miles made the entire Henbane family flee that very night. Scattered to three parts of the country. Anna one way, Raphael another, and Miles and his wife went a third.”

  Amber merely stared at him. Could that truly be what happened? Was that why her mother had been on the run?

  “So,” Kieran said, “your family owes it to mine to right this very egregious wrong. My father would still be here, my brother wouldn’t have lost his grip on reality, and the Penhallow curse would be no more. Find me the grimoire and all will be forgiven.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  He shrugged, then motioned to the room at large. “Then this happens on a larger scale. What I did to the maid will look like a mercy. You have one week.”

  Without warning, he thrust his hands toward her, a gust of wind knocking her off her feet. It was enough to stun her, releasing her hold on her magic. Her head smacked into something. The room erupted in a clamor of voices. Luckily no one seemed to realize they’d just been frozen in time—they merely resumed their panicked escape.

  The chief reached her, his expression pained. “How did you manage to land on the floor when you were just—you know what? Never mind. Don’t tell me.” He helped her to her feet.

  Amber touched a tender spot on her temple. She scanned the room, looking for Kieran Penhallow. But she knew it was no use. He would have assumed another face and slipped out among the wave of people spilling out into the lobby and the parking lot beyond.

  One week.

  She had one week to find this grimoire.

  She knew deep down that her parents wouldn’t have done all this to keep the book out of the Penhallows’ possession if they hadn’t thought it was vitally important, but Amber wondered how much of what Kieran had told her was true.

  Jack reached her next, fingertips gently probing the spot around the bump on her head. “Are you part cheetah? How’d you get over here so fast? Who were you chasing?”

  “No one. I’m okay.”

  He scanned her face. “I keep thinking you have this secret life you’re not telling me about … but that’s crazy, right?”

  Her semi-hysterical laugh didn’t help matters, because his brow furrowed.

  She placed a hand on her forehead, shut her eyes, and swayed a little. “I think I hit my head harder than I thought.”

  The chief was saying something about a possible concussion. Aunt Gretchen and Willow were there now too, offering to drive Amber home. Connor, who seemed to have materialized out of thin air, hovered nearby, asking what happened.

  The sudden flood of voices and shouting had triggered a headache. She needed to lie down.

  “Rain check on the dinner and dessert?” she asked Jack, wincing slightly.

  “Yeah, of course,” he said, but his tone was a little flat.

  Willow took Amber by the arm and started to lead her away. “We’ll patch her up and she’ll be good as new in a day or two.”

  “Yeah, yeah, of course,” Jack said again.

  As Amber let herself be led to the front door, she noticed that the mood in the room had slowly started to shift toward confusion, rather than panic, now that the threat, whatever it had been, was gone. How on earth were the chief and the mayor going to explain this one? Insects? Rabid bats?

  Every person who looked her way could be Kieran. Would he be watching her closely for the entire week? He clearly had been watching her for a while now.

  She silently sent a preemptive apology to the 99.9% of Edgehill residents who currently were not Kieran Penhallow, because if she couldn’t find the grimoire in time, they were all in danger.

  And it would be her fault.

  Chapter 18

  The Blackwood women argued well into the night in Amber’s soundproofed studio about the best course of action. To turn the grimoire over to the cursed witch hell-bent on rewriting history, or not to turn the grimoire over to the cursed witch hell-bent on rewriting history …

  All Amber knew was that the more they argued, the more she started to lean toward giving it up, if only to protect Edgehill from this monster.

  It was just after midnight now, and Aunt Gretchen was fast asleep on the bed, Tom draped over her stomach and Alley curled up next to her. Amber and Willow were downstairs in the dark shop. While Willow reinforced the protection spells on the doors and windows, Amber made them some hot chocolate. Willow added a couple soundproofing spells too, just in case.

  Shortly after they’d left the fashion show fiasco earlier, the dark sky had opened up and drenched the town. The rain had been reduced to a light smattering now, streaks of water slowly running down the glass.

  Once Amber was done, she and Willow sat shoulder to shoulder behind the counter, steaming mugs of hot chocolate before them. Willow’s had several plump marshmallows bobbing on the surface.

  While Aunt Gretchen was fully in the “we are, under no circumstances, giving up the grimoire” camp, and Amber was in the “giving it up might be the lesser of two evils” camp, Willow was squarely in the middle. It was hard for perpetual optimists to make a choice when both options were terrible from all angles.

  “I was thinking …” Amber said.

  “Congratulations.” Willow immediately laughed, somehow finding that joke to be evergreen. “Sorry. What about?”

  “Kieran basically forced that memory of Mom and Dad on me, but just like with the freeze spell, I didn’t use an incantation. It just sort of … happened.”

  “Like when we were kids,” she said. “It was harder to control our magic back then.”

  “Exactly.” Amber rocked halfway off her stool so she could fish something out of her pocket. Then she placed the white rubber cat on the counter.

  Willow gasped softly, placing her mug back on the counter. “I haven’t seen this in ages. I have no idea where mine is.
I think I lost it when I moved. I tried dozens of locator spells and could never find the thing.” She carefully picked it up, laying it in her flattened palm, then shot a look at Amber. “Does it still work the same way?”

  “Yep.”

  Focus returned to the cat, Willow said, “One by one, let’s have some fun. Two by two, let’s turn it blue.”

  The cat’s white fur flipped to blue. Willow grinned. Seconds later, it turned white again. Then she frowned, placing it on the counter. She wrapped her hands around her mug.

  With a sigh, she said, “I miss them so much sometimes.”

  “Me too,” Amber said.

  “But these past couple weeks? I’m a little pissed off.”

  Amber laughed softly at that. It took a lot to make Willow angry, and Amber could hear it clearly in her sister’s voice. “I know the feeling.”

  “Anyway … you were thinking?”

  “Yes,” Amber said, picking up the cat and turning it over in her fingers. “Objects from sites where highly emotional and traumatic events took place hold energies and memories, right? That’s why Kieran left the watch for me. Dad either had been …” Amber blew out a breath. “Dad either had been wearing it at the time of the fire or had it packed in his suitcase. The watch picked up that energy and stored it until I touched it. Before I ended up in that memory, I was kind of pleading with Mom and Dad to show me what happened to them, and I was rubbing my finger along the back of the watch when I did it. I think a combination of all of that is what woke up my magic.”

  Willow nodded. “That makes sense,” she said. “I hate the idea of Neil picking through the rubble after the fire looking for the book, by the way. Hate it. Do you think Neil had been holding onto the watch all this time and then gave it to his brother?”

  “Maybe,” Amber said. “I don’t know where Neil is now, exactly. Kieran only said he had been institutionalized.”