A Witchy Bake-off

by Danica Britton

  Not long afterwards, Jess sent me a message to say she was working late at the library and would meet me at Grandma Grant’s.

  That was good news. I didn’t really want to tell Jess about Mia over the phone, but I also didn’t want her turning up at the cottage and finding Mia making herself at home. This way, I could explain over dinner at Grandma Grant’s.

  At seven o’clock, I walked the short distance to Grandma Grant’s house and Adele hovered along beside me. It was quiet on the single lane road. We were surrounded by trees and could only be overheard by the wildlife so I judged it was safe to talk to Adele.

  “I wonder if Franklin’s uncovered something to do with your murder,” I said.

  “I don’t see how he could have uncovered anything working from Boston. He doesn’t know anything about Abbott Cove and the people who live here.”

  “No, but you did say your husband, Cyril, is living in Boston now. Perhaps he’s discovered something about him?”

  “Perhaps, but like I said, I can’t really see Cyril as the murdering type.”

  When we got to Grandma Grant’s house, I was surprised to see Franklin wasn’t in the highest of spirits. In fact, he seemed rather subdued.

  “Hello, Franklin. So what news have you got for us?” I asked as I took my coat off and hung it on the peg by the door. I waited expectantly but Franklin licked his lips nervously as his gaze flickered between me and Adele. “If you don’t mind, I’ll wait until Jess is here and I’ll tell you all together.”

  Grandma Grant pecked me on the cheek and said, “Dinner is nearly ready. Franklin is being very mysterious. He won’t even tell me what this big news he has is about.”

  “Can you at least tell us if it has to do with my murder?” Adele asked.

  Before Franklin could reply, the door opened and Jess rushed in. “Sorry I’m late, everyone. It’s been such a busy day. Why is it everyone turns up five minutes before closing time wanting to return ten books apiece?”

  I guessed that was a rhetorical question that she didn’t really want an answer to.

  Franklin cleared his throat. “Now that we’re all here, I’m afraid I’ve got what I think could be bad news.” He opened his purple velvet jacket and pulled a letter out of its inner pocket.

  He handed it to Grandma Grant, who stared at it in confusion.

  “What’s this?” she said as she began to open the envelope.

  “It’s a letter from the witches’ council. They’re rather displeased.”

  As Grandma Grant read the letter quickly, her face paled and her lips tightened.

  “What is it?” Jess asked.

  I stepped a little closer and tried to read the letter over her shoulder but she snapped it away, folded the letter in half and shook her head.

  “They’ve banned us from any further teleporting.”

  Jess’s face fell. “But why? I was really starting to enjoy that. It was really handy when I was running late for things.”

  Grandma Grant shrugged. “All I know is that they’ve forbidden the Grant family witches from any more teleportation in Abbott Cove until we have undergone Section 7 training.”

  “It’s my fault,” Franklin said. “I shouldn’t have encouraged you without the proper training.”

  I felt my stomach sink. It wasn’t Franklin’s fault. It was mine. Somehow the witches’ council must have found out about me appearing on top of the Townsends’s car. Understandably, they were angry. One of the main decrees of the witches’ council was that we were supposed to go about our daily lives without impacting those non-magical entities that lived alongside us.

  I sighed. “It wasn’t you, Franklin. It was me. I kept messing everything up. I should have known I’d be hopeless at it.”

  “There, there,” Grandma Grant said, patting me on the shoulder. “There’s no point crying over spilt milk. What’s done is done. Anyway, walking is much better for you than teleporting places. It keeps the joints supple.” She bent down in a deep squat and then reached her arm over her head to prove her point.

  Jess let out a deep breath and slumped down onto the sofa. “I have to say I’m disappointed. Maybe I’ll do the training. How long does it take?”

  “It takes six months,” Franklin said, “but it is rather expensive. The course is fifteen thousand dollars.”

  Jess let out a low whistle. “I think that’s a bit too rich for my blood. Looks like I’ll be back to walking as well.”

  I sat beside her on the sofa. “I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Jess said. “You tried your best.”

  “Yes, don’t feel bad,” Grandma Grant said. “It’s no big deal.”

  I smiled at them both gratefully. But I couldn’t shake the guilty feeling. “Now that I’ve gotten the bad news out of the way, perhaps we can turn to a more cheerful subject,” Franklin said.

  “But hang on a minute,” Jess said. “If the witches’ council have banned teleportation in Abbott Cove, how are you going to get home?”

  “It was just the Grant family,” Grandma Grant said. “Franklin went through his Section 7 training years ago. He’ll be able to teleport home without a problem.”

  Jess seemed to accept that, and I judged the time was right to tell her about Mia.

  “Oh, by the way,” I said breezily. “We have a houseguest for the next few days.”

  “We do?” Jess frowned. “Who?”

  “Funny story. Do you remember the teenage girl I saw and thought was stealing Adele’s thimble collection?”

  Jess nodded warily. “Yes, what about her?”

  “Well, her name is Mia and she’s great with animals. Turns out she wasn’t stealing the thimbles; Adele really had promised them to her in her will. She was Adele’s mentee, and she’s going through a pretty bad time at the moment so I said she can sleep on our couch for a few days.”

  Jess straightened and looked around. “Where is she now?”

  “Back at the cottage, keeping Smudge company.”

  “You left a suspected thief alone in our cottage?” Jess looked at me as though I was the stupidest person on earth.

  “Yes, but she’s not really a thief. I got that part wrong. She’s just a kid who’s going through some tough times.”

  “But you left her alone!”

  “She’ll be fine. She’s getting along famously with Smudge.”

  Jess put a hand on her forehead and muttered under her breath. “You’d better be right, Harper. If any of my stuff is missing, you’re going to replace it.”

  “It’s fine. You worry too much. She’s not going to take anything.”

  “Dinner is ready,” Grandma Grant called from the kitchen, and Jess and I went to help. She’d already laid the table so we carried the food in hot dishes straight through to the dining room. It smelled pretty good. Franklin carried a plate of hot dinner rolls, Grandma Grant brought in the salad, and Jess and I brought in the potatoes and beef stew.

  As we tucked in, I realized Grandma Grant had a helping hand from magic with this recipe too. It tasted amazing.

  Once we finished eating, the conversation turned to Adele’s murder and other potential suspects.

  “Have you discovered anything new in Boston, Franklin?” I asked.

  “Unfortunately not. I haven’t had much time to focus on the case as I had a few other commitments. Have there been any developments?”

  I nodded. “A few. For one thing, we can rule out a suspect. The teenage girl I saw in the church hall kitchen the day of Adele’s murder was Mia, who we now know is a friend of Adele’s.”

  Franklin nodded thoughtfully and steeped his fingers beneath his chin. “Well, that’s one person crossed off our list.”

  “And I heard my good-for-nothing son-in-law going on and on about my money. If I was a betting woman, I’d put my money on Damien being the culprit.”

  “Money is a good motivator for murder; greed brings out the worst in people,” Franklin said.

  “And
just today we also identified the man in the blue baseball cap. It’s Cyril, Adele’s ex-husband. Although not strictly ex because they’re still married.”

  Franklin looked up at Adele sharply. “So he inherits everything?”

  Adele shook her head. “No, Olivia gets everything. I changed my will after we separated and, like I told Harper, Cyril isn’t hard-pressed for money. As far as I know, he is very comfortably well-off.”

  Franklin looked thoughtful. “So we have two main suspects: The son-in-law, who we think was motivated by greed and wanted to get his hands on your daughter’s inheritance, and your ex-husband, motive unknown.”

  “Yes, I suppose. But I really can’t see Cyril committing a murder. He barely got up enough energy to take the trash out in the evening, let alone planning something as intricate as murder.”

  “You have to admit though, it’s very suspicious him suddenly turning up. You said he’s moved to Boston. So why has he been hanging around for the past few days?”

  “I have no idea,” Adele said.

  “What about Stacie Sutton?” Jess said, putting her plate away. “Surely she’s still a suspect.”

  I nodded. “There is something rather strange about the two sisters. Their behavior is just off. I saw them again today, and even though Leslie was quite talkative when she came to Grandma Grant’s house, when I saw her in the street with her sister, she completely blanked me.”

  “Yes, we did some research and found that, although the charges against Stacie were dropped for killing her husband, no one else was charged with the murder so that’s still unsolved.”

  Adele gave a little shiver.

  “If we suspect Stacie of killing her husband, why would she have killed Adele? Perhaps you found something out about her past?” Franklin stared up at Adele, who was now hovering beside my shoulder.

  “I don’t think I did. At least nothing I can remember. I barely knew either of the two sisters.”

  “It is very strange,” Grandma Grant said. “I can’t think of a single motive Stacie would have for killing Adele, other than the ridiculous one about killing someone over a baking competition. Which, let’s face it, would never happen.”

  I had to agree with that. It seemed like we were at a loss. After we cleared the table, Grandma Grant said she had an apple pie in the oven for dessert and I went out to help her make some custard. As we walked past the living area, I spotted the letter from the witches’ council on the coffee table and leaned down to pick it up.

  Grandma Grant plucked it out of my fingers. “Don’t keep torturing yourself, Harper. It’s all best put in the past and forgotten.” She carried it over to the small desk in the corner of the room and shoved it in the shredding machine beneath the computer workstation. The machine began to chew it up but got stuck halfway through.

  Grandma Grant hadn’t noticed because she’d headed straight for the kitchen to get the apple pie out of the oven.

  I leaned down, preparing to tug the letter free and put it back in at a different angle, when temptation got the better of me and I opened the letter up. The shredder had torn large gouges out of the pages, but most of the letter was still readable.

  As I read, my jaw dropped open. The reason the witches’ council had been alerted to an unauthorized use of teleportation around Abbott Cove wasn’t as I had thought, the fact that I’d teleported myself onto the roof of the Townsend’s car, but actually because Grandma Grant had been caught teleporting into Aisle 4 of the local grocery store. “Are you going to help me with dessert?” Grandma Grant called. I marched into the kitchen, holding the letter in front of me.

  “You were just going to let me take the blame and feel guilty.”

  Grandma Grant turned, put on her best innocent expression, and shrugged. “I told you not to feel guilty.”

  “It wasn’t me that got us into trouble with the witches’ council. It was you!”

  “Don’t be pedantic. It doesn’t really matter who it was. The end result is the same.”

  “It does matter,” I insisted, shaking the letter. “I was blaming myself!”

  Grandma Grant sighed. “I suppose you’re right. I should have come clean. Sorry.”

  “Is that it? I’m now just supposed to forgive you?”

  “Pretty much,” Grandma Grant said, cutting into the apple pie. “Why don’t we just have a slice of this and let bygones be bygones? We don’t even have to mention it to Jess.”

  My eyes narrowed, but she held out a wedge of the pie just beneath my nose. Apple and cinnamon goodness made my mouth water. I suppose it couldn’t hurt to not mention it to Jess.

  I took the plate from Grandma Grant. “Okay. But I want two slices.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  After dessert, Jess and I washed and dried the dishes while Grandma Grant made a pot of coffee. I didn’t think Jess had completely forgiven me for organizing a houseguest without asking for her input, but she wasn’t quite so irritated with me as she had been earlier that evening.

  Despite spending most of the evening discussing the case, we hadn’t gotten any closer to identifying a real solid suspect. Right now, all we had were possibilities.

  I’d learned before not to trust ghosts’ feelings when it came to judging who could be the killer. Adele might believe her husband couldn’t possibly have stabbed her, but I wasn’t so sure it was a large coincidence that he was also in Abbott Cove around the time of Adele’s death. I didn’t like Adele’s son-in-law, Damien, but that didn’t necessarily make him a killer. He was a nasty man, a money-grubber, but not necessarily a killer.

  We followed Grandma Grant into the living area as she carried the tray of coffee and a small jug of cream. I brought in the cups and set them down on the coffee table.

  Jess was just about to sit down on the sofa beside me when her cell phone beeped.

  I assumed it would be Pete and didn’t pay much attention, but after pouring coffee and taking my first sip, I noticed Jess had gone very quiet.

  She was still staring at her phone. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Bad news?”

  Jess shook her head. “It was Pete. He just texted me because it was on his way home and he noticed there is now a sign outside Adele’s house.”

  Adele whizzed around in a circle. “There is? What sort of sign?”

  As Jess couldn’t hear her, I repeated Adele’s question. “What sort of sign?”

  “It says there is going to be an open house there tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m.”

  “Well, they’re certainly not dragging their feet.”

  “No, it seems like they’re in a rush to sell,” Franklin said. “Do you know I think the office can survive without me for a few hours tomorrow morning if you wouldn’t mind me staying here tonight, Priscilla? I’d quite like to go to the open house tomorrow and see Olivia and Damien myself.”

  “You’re welcome to stay,” Grandma Grant said, “but do you think Olivia and Damien will be at the open house? Perhaps they’ll just leave it to their realtor?”

  “Perhaps, but you never know what clues you could pick up,” Franklin said, and I nodded in agreement.

  It surprised me they were moving so quickly, and really did suggest that Olivia and Damien might be desperate for money.

  The following morning, at 10 a.m. sharp, we arrived outside Adele’s townhouse. The sign was displayed prominently outside as Pete had said in his text message last night.

  I was surprised to see a small crowd already gathered.

  “There are lots of people here,” I said to Jess.

  “Yes, most of them aren’t interested in buying, probably. They just want to gawk at a house belonging to a poor dead woman.”

  I felt uncomfortable. Technically, we were here to help Adele and try to gather clues, but to everyone else, we probably looked like gawkers too.

  I glanced around the crowd and saw faces I recognized.

  Mr. and Mrs. Townsend were there, of course. That was only to be expected. They wouldn’t w
ant to miss out on the gossip of the century.

  I was surprised to see Leslie Lightfoot and Stacie Sutton though. They stood quietly together, not speaking, both standing primly with their hands clasped. Leslie was wearing a beige flare dress and Stacie was in a bright red skirt and blouse. Both women wore white gloves. It did look a bit odd. They definitely stood out.

  “It’s odd,” Jess said, nudging me in the side with her elbow. “I wouldn’t have thought Leslie and Stacie were the gossiping type. I wonder why they want to look at Adele’s house.”

  “Maybe they are really interested in buying it?” I suggested, though I wasn’t entirely convinced.

  Standing close to the steps leading up to the house were Olivia and Damien. They were talking to a man I almost didn’t recognize, but in the last second, I waved at Adele and then dropped my hand to my side, feeling like an idiot. It didn’t matter though. It worked. Adele had seen him too.

  “Cyril,” she hissed. “Turning up like a bad smell again. What’s he doing here?”

  I couldn’t answer that question even if I’d wanted to but I tried to make a small signal with my hand to suggest she go and listen in to their conversation.

  Thankfully, after a few more gestures, she finally got the hint and floated over to them.

  We waited patiently till, across the road, the realtor’s car pulled into a space.

  She got out of the car, locked it, and then strode over with a wide smile on her face. “It’s so lovely to see such a large crowd.”

  At that moment, Adele whizzed back. “Quick! Harper, do something!”

  I stared at her. What did she want? I couldn’t ask her any questions without looking like a lunatic. Thinking on my feet, I quickly turned to Franklin and yanked him towards me. “What’s wrong?”

  “Uhhh, nothing,” Franklin stammered. I rolled my eyes, hoping Adele would get the hint and realize that while I was looking at Franklin, I was really talking to her.

  “Harper, are you paying any attention? This is urgent!”

  “What’s so urgent?” I repeated, staring at Franklin.