by Amy Boyles
“That one goes in the green beans.”
I dropped it in and stirred. We worked in silence for a couple of hours. I would drop whatever ingredient into a bowl Cordelia shoved my way, stir and mix the contents until they were combined, or at least combined enough that it looked presentable without baking. Then it went either into the oven or atop the fire in the hearth, wherever there was room. We worked like a sweatshop assembly line.
Finally Betty pulled out the turkey. She settled it on the counter, lowered her oven-mitted hands and sighed.
“Now that is one beautiful bird.”
I peeked over her shoulder at the splendor. Crisp, golden-brown skin covered the bird from breast to tail. The aroma drifting in the air made my nose tickle. I licked my lips. My stomach clenched in hunger.
“I’m starving.” I glanced at my watch. “When is everyone arriving?”
Betty whisked the bird into the small dining room. “Should be any time now.”
I wiped my arm over a sheen of sweat on my forehead. “I’m going to wash up.”
I pulled the apron over my neck and pegged it in the kitchen. I took the stairs to my bedroom two at a time and entered to find Hugo’s jaws opened and Collinsworth’s head stuck in his mouth.
“No! Don’t eat him! You can’t eat him.”
Hugo jumped, startled, and knocked over a lamp. The rabbit scampered to my bed and shivered.
The dragon shot me a gaze full of sadness and dropped his head in submission. I gave him a gentle pat. “What’s going on?”
“I was showing that evil animal-eating dragon how we performed magic tricks with the magician.”
I crossed my arms. “With your head in his mouth.”
“That’s correct.”
Mattie stretched on the windowsill. “It’s true, sugar. No one was gonna eat anyone else.”
I shook my head. “Well, don’t get too friendly. The rabbit isn’t staying forever.”
“Such vehemence,” Collinsworth said. “I wonder what I ever did to warrant your immediate distaste.”
I gritted my teeth. “You hide things. You’re not upfront until I force you into a corner. My cousin has been arrested for murder. Murder. You had information that could’ve stopped it.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” he said in his fake little British accent that made me want to pick him up by his feet and dangle him out the window.
But he was right. Her fingerprints all over the murder weapon? Looked bad. Sounded worse.
Deciding I wouldn’t blow my head off my neck in anger on a holiday, I showered and dressed in a pair of brown corduroy pants and a purple turtleneck sweater that Amelia had magicked for me when I was bemoaning that everything I owned was brown.
Actually, it was Cordelia bemoaning the fact. She said my closet looked like the inside of a cave, so Amelia fixed it.
By the time I hopped downstairs with a herd of animals that would’ve made Dr. Doolittle proud, everyone had arrived.
My aunts Licorice, Licky for short, and Mint were already seated. They were towering redheads and looked nearly identical except Mint had long wavy tresses and Licky had straight silky hair. They even finished each other’s sentences. It was pretty annoying, but a corner of my heart belonged just to them.
Garrick Young, sheriff and traitor to the Craple family, had arrived. He stood by the windows, leaning over Cordelia and brushing a long strand of hair from her shoulder.
My chest constricted to the point my next breath came as a gasp. My gaze darted from them and landed on Becky Ray. She wore a shapeless gray dress. Her hair spiraled into frizzy curls around her head, making her look like a deranged angel.
I snagged a glance at Collinsworth, who was hiking up into a chair. Pretentious little guy. I crossed to Becky and placed my hands on her shoulders.
My gut instinct was to ask how she was doing, which was stupid. She was doing terribly. I plastered on a big welcoming smile, gave her a hug and said, “We’re so glad to see you. Come in.”
Of course running through my head the whole time was, My cousin didn’t kill your sister. Hey, maybe it wasn’t such a great idea for me to invite you, and if you’d heard that my cousin is currently in jail for the murder, maybe you shouldn’t have come.
Of course I pursed my lips and kept that inner dialogue tucked quietly away like a secret love letter hidden in my panty drawer.
“Thank you for inviting me,” Becky said. She shuffled forward one step, seemed to notice the roomful of redheads and dug her heels in.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”
“Nonsense.” I could’ve kicked myself. “Come in. It’ll be fine.”
I tucked her into a seat beside me as the rest of the family moved to the dinner table. I peered around and noticed that freaking pecan pie that Betty had dug out of the trash sat on a nice plate on the sideboard.
The thing was half-eaten, with most of the chocolate bat missing.
“Excuse me.” I whisked the pie from the table. I made it to the kitchen and had the trash lid lifted before Betty stopped me.
“Hold it right there, kid.”
I froze. Freaking busted.
Betty and I locked eyes like we were in a showdown at the OK Corral. “You’re not serving this.”
Her chin trembled. “I’ll do whatever I want.”
“This is trash pie.”
“It’s delicious.”
I lowered my voice to a hiss and pointed my finger at her. “Your niece is sitting in jail. This pie could be the reason why. Stop eating it.”
Betty reached for it, her hands clutching air. “I want it.”
I raised it over my head. Betty was a couple of inches shorter than me, and unless she Inspector Gadgeted her arms to shoot out, I’d be able to keep the pie from her.
“You can’t have it. Stop.”
“Give it back before I put a boil so big on your butt you won’t be able to sit for days.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Likely story.”
Then I did it. I wished the pie into the top shelf of my closet, all the way in back.
It vanished.
Betty fisted her little hands. “You’ve got a death wish, kid.”
“I love you, too,” I chirped, kissing her cheek. “Now let’s go have a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner.”
Betty puffed behind me as I led us to the dining room. Now that the monstrosity of the pecan pie had been carefully stowed away, dinner could begin.
Which it did—totally awkwardly.
Mint shot a sad puppy-dog look to Becky Ray. “I’m so sorry about your sister.”
“Thank you,” she sniffed.
“Yes, we were the deepest of friends,” Collinsworth said.
Becky Ray fired lasers from her eyes at him. The rabbit shrank into his seat.
Licky, apparently sensing the rising tension, went with the winning, “Terrible about Carmen.”
The entire room stopped. Every head turned to Licky and stared at her as if she’d doused her head with gasoline and set it on fire.
Then all gazes swiveled to Becky Ray, who stared at her plate.
Cordelia cut the tension with a spoon. “Lots of giving has been going on in town.”
“Oh yes,” Licky said. “Mint and I are giving lessons on how to work magic.”
“To destroy mankind?” Betty said. She angled her fork at them. “Because that’s what y’all do, ruin things.”
Mint gasped in mock horror. “We can’t help that we’re chaos witches. You’re the one who bred us; maybe you should be looking at yourself when you point fingers at us.”
Licky cleared her throat. Her eyes shone brightly when she pinned her gaze on me. “Heard from Axel?”
The fork and knife slipped from my fingers and clattered to the porcelain plate.
“What?”
Mint frowned like a puppy dog. “That’s right. I’d forgotten he left town. I don’t know why I’d forgotten, but y’all were dating. Why’d he go?”
I shook my head. “
I don’t think this is good Thanksgiving dinner talk.”
Licky reached out and squeezed my arm. “But we’re here for you. We want to know your problems. Your problems are our problems.”
“How else are you going to heal if you don’t talk about it and purge it from your system?” Mint said.
I stared at my plate of chicken poulet. I felt my brows pinch together so tightly if a zit had been in the fold of skin it would’ve burst. “Mmm. Yeah. He just couldn’t deal with being a werewolf in this town. Too many problems had occurred because of it. He didn’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“Or he didn’t want you to get hurt?” Mint said.
“Yeah. That.”
“I think it was brave of him to leave,” Licky said.
“Sounds like a scaredy cat, if you ask me.” Becky Ray had finally spoken.
We stared at her.
She shrugged. “Problems aren’t meant to be run from. They’re meant to be faced head-on.”
The words were a punch to the gut. Problems. I’d been running from problems too before Axel left. I’d lived in tortuous fear that he would discover I cared about him, things would get heated and then he’d run screaming for the hills.
Turned out he ran for the hills, but for a completely different reason. Because the fact that he’d nearly attacked and killed me had wounded him in a way I would never understand.
That was the honest-to-goodness shocking truth. I didn’t have to live in fear that I would accidentally kill Axel. But one night a month that thought consumed him. When the reality almost occurred, it must’ve broken him.
I shook my head. It took everything I had not to drop my face in my palms.
It could’ve broken him. I don’t know. He. Never. Called.
And honestly I never talked about it with my family because the wound was so raw. Axel’s leaving had scraped my insides completely clean. I was a shell that didn’t know what to think or feel.
I loved Axel, but this was too much. Leaving me when we were just getting started, when our love had begun to burn bright was a stain on my heart that I couldn’t erase. I don’t even know if Wite-Out would work.
Betty shifted the conversation like a pro. “Licky, Mint, tell us how these magic lessons you’re giving won’t cause trouble.”
Lickey threaded her hands while smiling with delight. “Mama, I am so glad you asked. Take this turkey here.”
We all stared at the glistening golden bird. One breast had been carved completely away, leaving the breastbone jutting out.
Becky glanced at it skeptically. “What about it?”
Mint leaned forward. “We could make it more juicy. Better tasting.”
“How?” Amelia said. “It’s already so juicy. Betty’s outdone herself.”
“I agree,” Betty said.
Licky rolled her eyes. “What if it wasn’t so good?”
“Say it needed help,” Mint added.
“That’s where we come in,” Licky said.
“We teach how to make it better flavored,” Mint said, snapping her fingers. “Like that.”
A gust of magic swooshed down the table and coiled around the carcass. I held my breath, waiting to see what would happen.
Probably nothing.
“I’ll try a bite.” Garrick stretched his hand and grabbed the leg. The turkey bolted straight up, out of his grasp. The leg bones rotated down until the thing appeared to be standing on stilts. It jumped from the dish and onto the table.
Collinsworth screamed. Becky Ray screamed.
After that, the entire table turned into bouts of screams that sounded like blasts from a shotgun. I fell back in my chair, knocking my head against the floor.
Air escaped from my lungs in a humph.
The turkey catapulted to the rug and ran a circle around the living room. With a skeletal wing, the thing grabbed the door handle, opened it, and raced out the porch and down the block.
I brushed myself off and managed to get to my feet on quaking legs.
Betty pointed a finger at Mint and Licky. “Get my Thanksgiving dinner back. I wasn’t through eating it.”
NINE
Needless to say, once the turkey was tracked down and returned to its place on the dining table, my appetite had vanished.
There was something grosser than gross about munching on a carcass that had been running only seconds before.
Nope, that wasn’t quite right.
There was something absolutely disgusting about the idea of a dead bird galloping about, flapping naked, cooked wings like it was trying to take flight.
Yep. That was more appropriate.
Once dinner was finished, everyone left except for Garrick, who hung around sipping coffee and chatting with the new and improved—meaning nice—Cordelia.
Seriously, it was very strange.
Matter of fact, folks were still having Free Stuff Sales on their lawns.
I stepped onto the porch and watched our neighbors cataloging their giveaways when a puff of smoke took me by surprise.
Becky Ray sat on the porch swing vaping something that smelled mildly of black pepper.
“I am sorry about Lori Lou,” I said.
She took another drag. “Thank you. It was always Lori’s dream to own a shop.”
I nibbled my bottom lip. I had no idea if Becky knew the information Collinsworth had told me. Time to find out.
“Did you know Lori Lou was selling love potions illegally?”
Becky Ray choked. I muscled the porch swing to a stop and whacked her back a few times.
“No,” she said. “What are you talking about?”
I sighed. “Something I heard.”
Her eyes narrowed to slitty wedges of death. “Who said it? The rabbit? What a joke.” She sneered and turned away, shaking her head in disgust.
“I can’t say who I heard it from.”
“It was Collinsworth. That little fibber. Let me tell you something about that rabbit.”
“I wish you would.”
Becky Ray eyed the front door like she wanted to stomp in there and punch the bunny in the face. I do not condone animal cruelty. Not at all, but honest-to-Jesus truth, that was the look she had.
“If anyone talked Lori Lou into it, it would’ve been Collinsworth.”
“What?”
She killed the vapor streaming from the stick. “Yep. That little guy. He had Lori Lou wrapped around his finger. I mean, who ever heard of a rabbit working in a bakery?”
“I hadn’t.”
“And no one else in their right mind would believe it, either. But those two were so close. I never trusted that bunny. Like I said, if she was doing that, it was probably his idea.”
“What about the trash bags outside the shop? Some were left last night and were gone this morning.”
She looked away, bored. “I don’t know anything about them.” Becky Ray rose and stretched her arms over her head, revealing a muffin top that I’ll never be able to unsee in my entire life.
Thanks, Becky Ray.
I leaned my arm against a column. “Do you think it’s weird that people are giving things away?”
She grunted. “Why would I? It’s Thanksgiving.”
Why did everyone keep saying that? “It’s about giving thanks, not giving things away.”
Becky shrugged noncommittally.
“You staying for a while?”
“Maybe a few more days. I need to get my head on straight. Make sure they’ve got the right killer.” Her gaze flickered back to the house.
“You won’t be taking Collinsworth with you?”
She laughed. It sounded like a woman who’d chain-smoked giant life-size cigars her entire life. “No. We hate each other.”
As she walked away, I mumbled, “So he’s said.”
Betty cornered me as soon as I entered the house. Her eyes were inky black, the irises huge. She clawed at me. “Where’s the pie?”
I braced my hands in front of me. “You’re not getting
it. It’s gone.”
“No.” She ran into the kitchen, I presume to make more pie. Apparently it was an incredibly addictive confection. Maybe I should’ve tried some.
“Sheesh. What is in that pie?”
Cordelia glanced over her shoulder at me and said teasingly, “It was good.”
“So good it made you nice.”
“Sure did,” Amelia said. She winked at me. “But it didn’t make me anything. I’m the same. But anyway, I wonder if when we light the town Christmas tree tonight, if it’ll be really bright?”
Something flashed in Cordelia’s eyes. I knew it was a retort of brilliance. Something so cataclysmically dark and scathing that it was on the tip of her tongue. The old Cordelia wouldn’t for a second have stopped herself from ripping a sword of words through Amelia’s stomach. But this new Cordelia…
“I’m sure it’ll be bright,” she said in a sickening bubble-gum voice.
Amelia shot me a concerned look. I smirked. “Looks like the whole nice thing is hanging around.”
Garrick wove his fingers through hers. “She’s always been nice to me.”
“Consider yourself lucky,” Amelia said.
Deciding it was time to break up that conversation, I steered Amelia toward the stairs. “Don’t you think something weird is going on?”
She tugged her blonde pixie cut. “Like what?”
“Everyone’s giving things away. It’s so all of a sudden. And Betty and that pie—sheesh. She pulled it out of the trash.”
“I heard that,” my grandmother shouted from the kitchen.
“Do you have a horn butted up to your ear?” I said.
“Yes,” she said.
I stared at the ceiling and counted to ten. How annoying.
“What are you saying?” Amelia said.
“I don’t know.” I dropped my voice farther. “But Collinsworth said that Lori Lou was selling love potions illegally.”
Amelia clasped her hands over her mouth. “Love potions!” she practically shouted. Great. Now Garrick knew exactly what we were talking about.
I pulled her up the stairs, into my room and shut the door. Though now we had an audience that resembled more of a barnyard than anything else, it was still out of earshot of my family.
“Yes.” I glanced at Collinsworth. “I’m telling her about the love potions.”