by A. G. Mayes
‘We have to go see her,’ I said.
With no plan beyond that, we all piled into my car.
‘Where are Mr Barnes and Lena?’ I asked.
‘They’re already at the station,’ Holly said. She squeaked the first time I hit the brakes and the car shook, but she recovered quickly and gave directions to the police station in between criticisms from my mother about my car.
‘This is really a hazard on the road,’ my mother said.
‘Turn left,’ Holly said.
‘Yes, you’re right,’ I said, making the turn. I figured the best way to get her to back off was to agree with her. Luckily the drive was short and as we pulled into the parking lot, my mother was informing me that there probably wasn’t even a junkyard that would accept my car because it was such an abomination.
‘Wait.’ I grabbed Holly’s arm to stop her before we got to the door. ‘Is a magical jail different from a regular jail?’ I asked. I wanted to know what I was getting myself into. I had visions of us finding Flora in a dungeon guarded by goblins and dragons.
‘It will look like any other jail, but there are some spells in place to make it more secure,’ Holly said. That made me feel ever so slightly better.
When we walked through the door, Mr Barnes and Lena were out front. It was a small dingy room with tan walls. A few brown chairs were lined up on one side. They were covered in mystery stains and I took a step away from them. There was a window at the back that looked over an empty desk. The door next to it was dented and scratched as though it had been through a few scuffles.
Lena was towering over a small rather nervous looking officer.
‘Now listen here, little Donnie Walsh,’ she roared in a voice that made us all shrink back. I noticed Mr Barnes appeared to be taking deep calming breaths. ‘I used to babysit you. You spit up on my favorite jacket, so you owe me. You are going to let us see her, now. I don’t care what Buddy said. Don’t make me call your mother.’
‘Let me make some calls,’ he said before he quickly disappeared through a door at the side of the room. I had a feeling we weren’t going to see him again. Lena glared after him for a minute before she noticed us standing there.
‘Oh good, you’re here,’ she said. She somehow managed to wrap all three of us in her arms for a bone crushing hug.
‘What’s happening?’ Holly asked, once Lena had released us and we could breathe again.
‘They aren’t telling us much,’ Mr Barnes said. He glanced towards me and my mother.
‘It’s OK, they know about the magic,’ Holly said.
A look of surprise flashed across his face before he continued. ‘They found a bottle of the magic spice in the back of her bookshop, and they think she’s the one who broke into the pie shop and stole the spices.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ I said.
‘Why were they even looking in her shop anyway?’ Holly asked.
Mr Barnes shrugged. ‘We’re not sure.’
My mother pulled me aside while the three of them talked.
‘Are you sure she’s innocent?’ she asked me in a low voice.
‘Of course I’m sure,’ I said, stomping my foot in frustration like a child.
Sheriff Buddy walked through the door and Lena was on him before the door swung all the way closed.
‘What’s going on here, Buddy? You know Flora. You know she’s not a thief,’ Lena said.
‘Now, Lena,’ he began rubbing his hand through his thinning hair, ‘you know I’m just doing my job.’
‘Doing your job, my foot,’ Lena said.
Violet came through the door.
‘What’s she doing here?’ I asked. Why was a health inspector at the police station?
‘Violet’s a Magic Inspector,’ Holly said. I blinked at her as I tried to process that.
‘A Magic Inspector,’ I repeated back slowly. Holly didn’t have a chance to explain further because Violet started talking.
‘We got an anonymous tip that Flora might be in possession of the stolen spices. You know we can’t let those fall into the wrong hands. The tip was enough to get a search warrant, and we searched her place, and found one of the bottles,’ Violet said.
We all spoke at once.
‘Why would she break in?’ Mr Barnes asked.
‘Obviously it was planted,’ Lena said.
‘I’m sure if that’s the case, it will all come out in the trial,’ Violet said. She remained prim and business like even as we became more like an angry mob.
‘Bail has been set at ten thousand dollars,’ Sheriff Buddy said. My mouth dropped open. I had never in my life had ten thousand dollars in my bank account at one time.
‘Would you take an IOU?’ Lena asked feebly.
Sheriff Buddy looked tired as he shook his head no.
‘I’ll take care of it,’ my mother said briskly as she fished around in her purse for her checkbook. We all watched in awe as she wrote out the check without hesitation and handed it over to Sheriff Buddy. He looked from my mother to the check and back to my mother, then shrugged.
‘I’ll go get her,’ he said.
‘She’ll be on magical restriction until after the trial,’ Violet said, sizing us all up as though she dared us to challenge her before she also disappeared behind the door.
‘Magical restriction means she won’t be able to do any magic, and no one will be able to perform any magic on her,’ Mr Barnes explained as we waited. ‘It makes it easier for them to keep tabs on her until she’s cleared.’
The door swung open and Flora stepped through it. We stared at her, stunned for a moment. Her usually perfectly combed low ponytail had come loose and some stuck straight up while other bits hung in her face. Her eyes looked empty and exhausted, though she forced a smile once she saw us all there.
Mr Barnes was closest, so he hugged her first, but we all followed suit.
‘Are you OK?’ we all kept asking.
‘Yes,’ she said every time, but her voice sounded flat.
We surrounded her and walked her to Lena’s car.
We agreed to all meet back at the bookshop to get Flora settled in.
None of us spoke on the drive. I turned the radio on and half listened to the oldies that played. We pulled in right behind Lena’s car and all got out.
I gasped when we stepped inside the bookstore. The place was a disaster. The floor was covered with books. They had really searched the place thoroughly. Flora stayed quiet, but I saw a tear slip out of the corner of her eye. Mr Barnes, Holly, and my mother began to pick up books while Lena went off on a tirade about how they wouldn’t get away with this. I joined the efforts to pick up the shop. I knew we weren’t stacking them right and that Flora would redo everything we were doing, but it made us feel better to be productive for a bit.
‘Where is Erma?’ my mother asked me in a low voice. ‘Something isn’t adding up.’ I agreed, but I didn’t want to get her involved in what I had planned. Before I could answer, we heard a yell come from the back of the shop and went running. Flora stood in the doorway I had seen the first time I had been in the shop. The one she had ushered me away from when I got close to it. I peered around her and saw a small room with a table and chair in the middle. The walls were lined with empty bookshelves.
‘They took them. They took them all,’ she wailed.
‘What did they take?’ I asked.
‘Her magic books,’ Mr Barnes said. ‘They must have confiscated them until after the trial.’
At that moment I knew what I had to do, but I didn’t tell anyone because I was afraid they would try to stop me.
‘I’ll stay with her tonight,’ Lena said with her arm around a distraught Flora.
‘You call me if you need anything,’ I told them. ‘I can be over in no time.’ Lena nodded, but Flora just stared at me blankly as though she wasn’t sure she’d understood what I just said.
We went outside, and Mr Barnes gave us a slightly forced ‘Everything will be OK,’ spee
ch before disappearing into the night. Holly left next promising to check in later.
‘I should get going too,’ my mother said. ‘Unless you want me to stay with you?’ The offer was sweet, but I was working on a plan and needed to be alone.
‘I’m fine, thanks. Mitzy and I will walk you to the inn.’ I ran into the pie shop and got Mitzy.
We walked mostly in silence. Occasionally my mother would comment on a cute looking store.
At the door of the Hocus Hills Inn, my mother turned to me and studied my face. I shifted uncomfortably. ‘Be careful,’ she said firmly. What a strange thing to say. Did she know what I was planning?
‘OK,’ I said and gave her a hug. She squeezed me tightly and my muscles relaxed for a second.
‘Everything will work out,’ she said, and I tried to believe her.
Henry was standing in the alley by the back door when I got to the pie shop. I wished I had gone in the front door.
‘Hey,’ I said, digging around in my pockets trying to find my keys.
‘Can we talk?’ he asked. His brow was furrowed which made me feel nervous.
‘It’s been a crazy night. I just need to get to bed.’ I dropped my keys on the asphalt.
‘Please?’ He bent down to pick up my keys.
‘I got them,’ I said, waving him away and grabbing them myself.
After the night I’d had, I wanted to watch some mindless television and eat a giant bowl of popcorn, but I knew what had to be done. Henry followed me inside.
‘Are you mad at me about something?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said a little more harshly than I intended. I picked up a piece of paper and a pen and began to move around the kitchen making notes of things I would need Stan to deliver next time. I pushed the pen too hard into the paper when I wrote ‘butter’ in bold letters.
‘Is it because I didn’t call the day after we went ice skating? I meant to…’ His voice trailed off, and I rolled my eyes at the eggs in the fridge before pulling my head out.
‘Look Henry, I have a lot of stuff to get done tonight. Could we talk about this some other time?’
He looked a little taken aback. ‘No, talk to me now. Please.’
‘I don’t think this is going to work out, me and you.’ I pictured the notebook on his desk.
‘Why not?’ he asked, gripping the edge of the kitchen island.
I sized him up for a minute. ‘Why did you have a notebook with information about me written inside?’
He froze. His face turned red.
‘I … I…’ he stuttered. ‘Look, I promise there is a good explanation, I just can’t tell you what it is.’
‘Wow, does anyone really fall for that line?’ I asked. ‘I think maybe you should leave.’ I tried to look firm. I wanted to just ignore the warning signs, the red lights, the ones that told me to stop and run the other way. I wanted to invite him to come upstairs and watch a movie with me, but I had ignored the warning signs too many times in my life, and now I had to know better, be better.
He looked like he wanted to say something, but then he turned and left.
I stood in the middle of the empty kitchen and let the pen fall out of my hand and roll across the floor.
Chapter 23
Day 15 — Wednesday
I jiggled the door, and I was a little surprised that the lock popped open again. I thought after last time, Alice would have gotten it fixed. I guess people in small towns really did trust their neighbors.
I slid through the door. I paused for a second in the darkness and listened. My skin prickled and my muscles tensed ready to run if I heard anything, but it was silent. I felt a little silly in my black leggings, black tunic, and black stocking hat. I found the black hat in the back of Aunt Erma’s closet, so I left the zebra striped one behind. How had I convinced myself I needed a special break-in outfit this time? Now if someone caught me, they would definitely know what I was up to. I should have just worn a law-abiding citizen outfit. Something with flowers on it. Flowers screamed innocence. Plus, the black was much less effective now that it had begun to snow again. There was no time for all this second guessing. I pulled out my flashlight, turned it on, and began digging through the first cupboard I came to.
‘Focus,’ I whispered to myself.
‘You’ll never find them,’ a voice said, and I jumped up hitting my head on the cupboard door dropping the flashlight.
A lamp turned on in the corner, and I saw Alice sitting at her desk.
‘What are you doing here?’ I demanded even though I was the one breaking into her store. I rubbed my sore head. ‘You told Mr Barnes you were going to be out of town.’
She let out an evil cackle. ‘Yes, and of course he ran right over and told you. It wasn’t hard to figure out it was you who broke in last time. I knew you’d be back.’
‘Why did you steal them in the first place?’ I asked.
‘Oh honey, your aunt is very powerful, but she’s not using her powers to their full potential, so I stepped in to use them.’ She seemed to relish the sound of her own voice. She looked at the ceiling as she spoke.
I began to inch towards the door.
‘I needed the original product so I could study the spells she used on the spices and alter them to do more than just make people happy.’ She made ‘happy’ sound like such a terrible thing.
I could almost reach the door knob.
‘Ha, I’m not going to let you just walk out of here.’ She swiftly moved to block the door.
‘What do you have against me?’ I asked innocently. I had to keep her talking while I figured out how to get out of this situation.
‘You’re just a pebble in my path,’ she said, motioning towards the door. My stomach sank as I heard the sound of popcorn popping. She must be locking the door with a spell. I tried not to cringe as she took a couple of steps towards me.
My fingers reached around on the counter behind me. I grasped something. Please be a knife, I thought as my fingers curled around a handle and I whipped it out in front of me. Why didn’t my wishes ever come true? I was brandishing a wooden spoon at Alice.
She shook her head and looked sorry for me.
I felt a little sorry for myself to be quite honest.
‘It was my sister, Nellie, who first taught me about magic,’ she began, circling around me, easily disarming me of my wooden spoon weapon. ‘Both of our parents died when we were young, and we were shuffled from foster home to foster home.’
I saw Alice’s cat peering at me from under the desk. If I got out of here, I could report her to a health inspector for having an animal in the kitchen area. When, not if, I corrected myself with a shudder.
‘At one of the homes we were placed in, my sister made friends with a woman named Dolores who lived down the street. There were rumors in the neighborhood that Dolores was a witch. She had one of those houses that no one ever stopped to trick-or-treat at. Thick prickly bushes lined a long winding path to her front door, and she hung plastic skulls along her fence at Christmas. My sister’s whole demeanor changed after a few weeks of spending time with Dolores.’ Alice continued to pace around the kitchen. I wondered if she would turn her back long enough for me to leap out the window.
‘Nellie became more secretive and more confident. She was no longer the mousy go-along-with-anything girl. She began to stand up to our foster parents who grew more and more afraid of her as strange things happened around the house. It started small – things went missing or moved from one end of the house to the other. Then she would make doors upstairs slam when we were all downstairs in the living room together. One day when our foster mother was yelling at her, Nellie murmured something and threw her hands into the air. All the glasses in the kitchen exploded. No one was hurt, but everyone steered clear of her after that. She would tell me that we deserved better. Finally, one night she taught me about the magic that she was learning from Dolores.’
Alice seemed lost in her own memories, and I noticed the cat
was still watching me with her bright blue eyes from under the desk. The cat stuck out her left paw and then pulled it back in before sticking it out and shaking it. Was the cat doing the hokey pokey? Maybe my panic was causing me to hallucinate.
Alice talked about how her sister had been killed in a car accident a year ago. I felt a twinge of pity for her. I knew what it was like to lose a family member. ‘My sister taught me that many people in this world are too ignorant to be useful. They need someone like me to lead them. To make them productive members of society. I met Dolores’s family at Nellie’s funeral. They told me they were helping Nellie with her plans to manipulate the weak through a widespread use of magic spices.’ The cat repeated the movements with the other paw. ‘Dolores’s family knew of a woman in a small town who was very powerful, and Nellie was on her way to meet her when she was killed. Nellie never told me about this plan, but I’m sure she would have shared her success.’ Alice pursed her lips. ‘She always tried to protect me even though I’m the older sister. She was braver and stronger. We could have ruled the world together. When she died, I decided to pursue the mission in her honor.’
The cat put her right paw out in front of her, then pulled it towards her before sticking it back out and shaking it. Aunt Erma and I used to do the hokey pokey in the kitchen while we waited for pies to bake. She would play the song on her old record player.
‘We’ve been testing spells on nearby towns, but without the spices, we couldn’t make anything with strong enough magic,’ Alice continued. ‘Stan has really been invaluable to me.’
‘Stan?’ I asked. ‘What does he have to do with any of this?’
‘Oh, didn’t I mention Stan is Dolores’s grandson? Kind of a whiny kid. He complained a lot about having to do your delivery without magic.’ That explained Stan’s clumsiness. ‘But I really couldn’t have done it without his spying skills. No one ever suspects the delivery guy.’ Alice recounted her so-called triumphs from when she used stolen spices. ‘At first I just reeled people in because I was offering something different. Something other than tired old pie. But once I got the spices, I knew I’d have customers forever. I’d sell out of cookies, and they’d beg for more, offering to pay top dollar. I had half of the town ready to build me a castle if I wanted them to. But the effects are still short-lived and hard to control. I need to figure out Erma’s secret.’ Alice was quiet for a moment, lost in her own thoughts.