Bait and Witch

by Angela M. Sanders

  I was magic again. “Sam,” I said involuntarily.

  The sheriff was framing him for January Stephens’s murder and planned to make sure he’d never be able to prove otherwise. I imagined Sam’s shadow moving against the lit shade in Big House’s kitchen like a puppet in a Kabuki show. He would be leaning over the stove, chopping parsley and tossing it with a spatula. He was making a dinner that would kill him. I could do nothing to save him. Or . . .

  Rodney. I remembered how I’d slipped into his body accidentally. Could I do it now? Could Rodney feel that I’d reawakened my power? As if he’d read my mind, I heard Rodney’s mew from beyond the tower door. I choked back a sob of relief.

  I had to try. I closed my eyes and imagined Rodney’s silky fur and stiff whiskers. I imagined what he would see and smell.

  All at once, I was low, low to the floor like a cat. I raced down the service staircase, threaded my way through the crowd and through the kitchen’s cat door with Darla calling after me. I raced across the wet lawn, my belly dampening and the smells of a thousand things I couldn’t name filling my nose. A garter snake slithered through fallen leaves, drawing my attention, but I forced my thoughts toward Big House. I leapt through the cat door, its flap smoothing my ears.

  The kitchen was warm and smelled of something good. Fish. Sam looked down at me and smiled and told me a shred of yesterday’s roast chicken was in my bowl.

  My vision blurred up close, but every movement in the distance was crisp. I absently noted a spoon under the refrigerator, probably forgotten long ago.

  In the delicious wash of fishy fragrance, something smelled wrong. Very wrong. Rodney backed up, and I felt myself easing from his body. No, I urged him. We’re going forward.

  My muscles tensed, then released as I leapt onto the counter and landed as lightly as if a fly. The poison was in a cast-iron skillet, woven with the scent of trout, butter, and lemon. I recoiled from the toxin.

  “That’s hot, Rodster,” Sam said. “Get down.” He lifted me to the floor. As I watched from the linoleum, he scooped the trout to a plate and carried it to the table. And he sneezed.

  That was it. I jumped to the table, then to Sam’s shoulders. He reached for me, but I held tight and rubbed against his ears and neck, maximizing exposure between fur and skin.

  It worked. He sneezed again, hard, and stretched an arm to the table for a tissue. I took this pause to shove my nose under the plate’s edge and flip it to the floor. It felt only natural to raise a paw and knock the wineglass off the table next, mixing glass shards with Sam’s dinner.

  * * *

  I sucked in air. I was back in my body on the tower floor and surprisingly calm. Below me, the party continued, its noise muffled by two floors of books and someone with a banjo and a microphone.

  Magical energy pulsed through my system. The last time I’d used this energy, I’d nearly killed myself and destroyed the library. Now the library was full of people I could accidentally injure—or worse.

  As the moon rose, light shifted, casting streaks on the dusty floor. Wooden crates of old books and magazines were pushed against the wall. Some moaned in low tones, as if they’d been sleeping and hadn’t used their voices for decades. Old copies of women’s magazines chattered like housewives. Outdated phone books recited numbers in a robotic tone.

  I had little idea of what my magic could do. Could it unlock the tower door? I could roll into the hall and try to get someone to notice me. I closed my eyes and focused. “Bolt, unfasten yourself.” The door was still.

  At some point, cheers arose from the atrium, followed by “Happy Days Are Here Again” pounded out on the organ. Something joyous had happened. I couldn’t imagine what it might be. Did anyone even miss me down there? Probably the sheriff had told them I had a headache and wanted to stick to my apartment.

  My legs cramped, and my shoulders ached from being tied. My magic couldn’t help that, either.

  Eventually, voices filtered onto the library’s grounds. The party was moving to Darla’s. Then all was quiet.

  This is when it would happen. When my mother’s vision would become reality. I shivered, and not from the October night.

  Footsteps sounded in the hall outside. The bolt creaked and the tower door opened, the hall light framing the sheriff’s bulk. Before he had the chance to speak, I said, “Do you really want to do this? The Dolbys are about honor. This is not honorable.”

  He didn’t speak, at least not with words. His eyes told about his shame, about how this would be the last time, this would finish it. Then he would go on being Bert Dolby, Wilfred’s hero. He crossed the tower room in two steps and yanked me to my feet. He thrust open the window. Cold air rushed around us.

  I opened my mouth to shout, but the sheriff covered it with his sweaty palm. “Silence,” he hissed. “I locked up downstairs. No one is here. No one can hear you.”

  Within seconds, he’d untied my ankles and wrists. With one motion, he pushed me halfway over the sill of the old wood-frame windows, face-first. Far below stretched the porch’s overhang, trimmed in jagged wooden gingerbread. If that didn’t kill me, the gravel walkway below would.

  The books screamed. My body heated with their energy. Books, I thought, help me. No—adrenaline fanned my energy into too broad of a cloud. God only knew what might happen. I had to tell them exactly what I wanted.

  The sheriff heaved me further over the window. Only the crook of my hips held me in.

  Books, I amended, trap him.

  “What the—?” the sheriff said and loosened his grip.

  Crates of books rocked side to side, creaking. One wooden strip peeled off a crate with a snap, then another. Dizzy, I pulled myself upright and watched in breathless wonder.

  A book shot out of a crate and hit the sheriff in the Adam’s apple. He backed toward the far wall as another book, then three, then a dozen whirled toward him with the velocity of boomerangs. The half-dozen crates splintered with the force of books seeking release.

  My ears roared with energy. I’d done this. I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry.

  The sheriff shouted and turned his back. Books rapidly stacked on top of each other like leaden dominos, bricking him into a corner. He thrashed and pushed with his football player’s body, but the steel energy of the books held him. My body churned hotter than lava.

  “Josie,” Sam yelled. “Are you up there? Say something.”

  Sam! “I’m here, in the tower,” I yelled, keeping my vision and my magic focused on Bert Dolby.

  Sam rushed through the open door. He halted a few feet from me. “Josie?” His voice was strange, quiet and unsure. “Are you okay?”

  All at once, I went cold and let out a shuddering breath. A layer of books fell to the floor as the sheriff began to pound his way out.

  “Sheriff Dolby,” I said. “He killed Bondwell’s operative, and he tried to kill me, too.”

  Another layer of books hit the floor. The sheriff ’s head and chest appeared as he punched a stack of magazines. Each thrust of his fist came with a grunt powered by anger.

  Sam smiled, belying his anger. With one hand, he calmly leveled a handgun at the sheriff. His other hand slipped handcuffs from his coat pocket.

  “Bert Dolby, you’re under arrest.”

  The books let out an exhausted breath. I sighed with them.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  I sat on my stiff Victorian sofa rubbing my wrists. Darla sat next to me, Sam relaxed in an elaborately carved armchair, and Roz perched on the coffee table. I’d never had guests in my tiny living room. This wasn’t what I’d have planned for a housewarming.

  Bert Dolby was in a squad car on his way to the county jail. I felt as if my innards had been ripped out, wrung dry, and replaced with cotton batting.

  “Could I have more pie?” I asked Darla. One thing about having my magic back was that everything tasted so good again.

  “Right here.” She handed a slice of peach-blueberry to me.

  �
��Are you ready to talk yet?” Sam said. “I brought Darla and Roz, as you asked.”

  I forked a bite of pie. “I think I’m about ready. Yes. But I have a question first. When I was in the tower, I heard everyone cheer. You were celebrating something. What?”

  “Oh,” Darla said. “That’s right. You weren’t there. Sita and Ruff Waters backed out of the deal.”

  “They what?” I jerked forward so quickly that my pie plate would have slipped to the floor had Roz not been fast on the draw.

  “They saw how much we loved the library,” Roz said. “I guess your talk about Gaston High not being able to take our books, then the party—”

  “They’re decent people,” Darla said. “You should have seen Ilona. Shut herself in the laundry room weeping.”

  “You mean the library won’t be demolished?” I said with wonder. “Really?”

  “And truly,” Roz said.

  This was going to take a while to soak in.

  “We searched for you, wanted to let you know. We went upstairs to your apartment and everything, but you weren’t here,” Roz said. “You had to hear the news.”

  “That’s when we went to Big House. Thought maybe you were hanging out with Sam.” Darla cast me a meaningful look.

  Fortunately, Sam didn’t seem to have caught on to her insinuation. “We searched everywhere. The last car in the lot was Bert’s. Then I figured it out.”

  “He told me he’d locked the place up. How did you get in? I took your key.”

  Sam gave a slight frown, a sign he was amused. “You think I’d give up the only key to the library?”

  “Thank goodness,” I said. “And thank goodness you didn’t eat the trout the sheriff gave you.” I might have looked at him a moment too long. “If it weren’t for Rodney, you’d be on your kitchen floor about now.”

  “It was strange. I had no idea Bert tried to poison me. Then the cat goes and knocks my dinner on the floor, almost like he knew. At the same instant, the pieces came together in my mind. Bert had set up Craig to take the blame for the murder, and he knew I was close to figuring out why.”

  As if in response, Rodney jumped up to the couch next to me and purred.

  “Good boy,” I told him and ran my fingers through his silky fur. It was so good to have him back.

  “You think the fish was poisonous?” Roz asked.

  “Bert was too eager when he gave me the trout, and as greedy as I was, I took it. Anyway, it’s on its way to the lab.”

  I set the pie plate on the coffee table. “The sheriff. What was his shame about, anyway? Someone was blackmailing him. I figured out that much.”

  “I can help with that.” Craig Burdock stood in the doorway.

  “What brought you here?” Roz said.

  “Down at the diner, I heard that Bert was hauled off. I came up to get the story and add my two bits.”

  “I’m glad you’re here, Craig,” Sam said. “I planned on making a visit first thing in the morning.”

  He stood awkwardly in the doorway, barefoot and holding his moccasins in one hand. “He’s really in jail, right?”

  “Yes, and he’ll stay there.” Sam had turned investigator. His attention had telescoped to Craig in a calm but disciplined way.

  “I, um . . .”

  “Sit down.” I gestured to the armchair near the fireplace.

  He loped across the room and tossed the chair’s needlepoint cushion aside before sitting. We all pivoted to face him.

  “Here’s what I know,” he said. “When I was going out with Lalena, I helped her move into her aunt Ginny’s trailer. That afternoon, I found her aunt’s old diary. She wrote about the night the Wilfreds left town and the mill shut down. Remember? I was just a baby, but it was a big deal.”

  Roz snorted. “Yeah, a few of us remember.”

  “The aunt said that her brother—the other Sheriff Dolby—was called up to the mill site to deal with a union organizer.” He nodded at Sam. “Your dad was there, too.”

  “Go on.”

  Craig took the plate of pie Darla offered and shoveled half of it into his mouth at once. After he swallowed, he said, “I guess they killed the union guy.”

  “What?” both Darla and Roz said at the same time.

  “Yeah. There was a fight, and the guy got killed. Both Sam’s and Bert’s dads had a hand in it.”

  “By chance, he wasn’t Ilona’s father, was he?” I asked. “Ilona said he’d disappeared about that time. She mentioned he’d worked for the union.”

  “It’s worth looking into,” Sam said. “But you, Craig, you decided to cash in. Why didn’t you hit me up, too?”

  Craig looked at his feet. Had Sam been in town, he probably would have received a note. The sheriff was conveniently located.

  “I’d arranged to meet Bert Dolby that night at the library,” Craig said. “I knew Lyndon would be gone to get Josie, and it’s out of the way enough that no one would see us.”

  “Bert didn’t know it was you?”

  He shook his head and curled his toes together. He really did have beautiful feet. “I think that was it. He made a mistake. He thought Josie’s hit lady was me. Truth was, I stopped by Lalena’s first, and, um . . .”

  “I just don’t understand why it was so important to the sheriff to cover it up,” I said. “I mean, it all happened years ago. How could his father’s reputation mean so much to him?”

  Sam shifted his gaze to me. “I remember that day,” he said softly. “My mom woke me up in the middle of the night. She had a suitcase. She put a coat over my pajamas and told me to take my favorite teddy bear. We got in the car and drove for hours. It was years until I knew we’d left because of the mill, but until now I never knew exactly why.”

  I resisted the urge to cross the room and put an arm around him. That was his wife’s job. Wherever she was. Calculating her alimony, if the town’s grapevine was right.

  “Dude,” Craig Burdock said.

  “You’ll have charges to face,” Sam said. “But if you cooperate, my guess is the local police will keep them to a minimum.”

  “Sam,” I said, absently eyeing Craig’s empty pie plate. “Do you own the old mill site? The sheriff said you do.”

  He folded his hands over his lap. “I guess so. Yes. Why?”

  “Do you have any desire to sell? Maybe Sita and Ruff Waters would be interested for their retreat center.”

  “It does have a good view,” Darla pointed out.

  “No flooding,” Roz said. “And only a little farther over.”

  “Plus, the mill pond might be nice as a recreational area,” Darla said.

  If I were infatuated with Sam, my heart would have warmed watching his expression morph from clueless to keen. Good thing I wasn’t.

  “I guess I could do that. I mean, it’s not like it’s doing much for me now. There might be some environmental cleanup needed.”

  “Which would be good, anyway,” Darla said. Unexpectedly, she laughed and slapped a knee. “Ilona would be thrilled to get the commission on that. Can we wait until tomorrow to tell her?”

  * * *

  Two days later, I walked out of the library’s front door and inhaled autumn morning air. The sounds of hammer on wood and the grind of a saw came from the side of house where Lyndon was repairing the boarded-over windows. At last, the library would be made whole.

  The woods seemed especially rich with the tang of fir trees and mulch. The river added its own mossy perfume. Country life was growing on me.

  Darla had invited me to stay on as Wilfred’s librarian. I told her I’d think about it, but in my heart I knew I’d stay. I was home. Rodney rubbed at my ankles.

  Plus, now life in Wilfred was ramping up. Lalena had taken a loan from Mrs. Littlewood to visit Paris, and the PO Grocery offered a selection of French cheeses in her honor. The biggest news was that the Waters were putting an offer on the old mill site for their new retreat, which they were tentatively calling the Happy Trails Retreat Center. Ilona w
as over the moon. Suddenly, the library with its “glorious views” and “unparalleled placement” was second rate. Who’d want it when the “sweeping vistas” of the mill site were available? That was fine was me. It was first-rate as a library, although I’d have plenty to do to bring it into the current century.

  Sam’s last night at Big House had been filled with Verdi. La traviata floated across our common garden. Lyndon hadn’t been around to complain about the noise. Darla said he’d spent the last two evenings at Roz’s working on a thousand-piece puzzle of Dutch tulip fields.

  Before Sam had left, he’d stopped by the library. “Think you’ll stay?” He’d laid a hand lightly on my arm. I’d felt his touch all evening.

  “Maybe. Probably.”

  He’d craned his neck toward the star-littered sky and back to Big House’s dark windows. “I’ll be back, too. I miss this place. I’m glad you brought me here, Josie.”

  Heat crept up my chest. “Say hi to your wife,” I choked out.

  He looked at me strangely—neither a smile nor a frown. “I’ll be back. Alone,” he said quietly.

  Now he was gone. It was just Wilfred and me.

  The sound of a car in low gear ground up the drive. Mrs. Garlington’s son with the mail. “Package for you,” he said.

  It was from home. I lugged the box to the library’s kitchen table. It wasn’t as large as the bankers boxes I’d been filling with books, and, thankfully, now replacing on the library’s shelves, but it was sizable. I cut away the packing tape and lifted a wooden chest from the cardboard. Green paint peeled from its exterior, and my grandmother’s initials were carved into its lid.

  Grandma’s chest. I ran a hand over it, and my palm tingled. Mom had told me the chest was locked, and she couldn’t open it. I fingered its hammered metal frame and touched the lock. It sprang open without a key.

  Rodney jumped to the table next to the chest and peered in. Inside was the leather-bound book I remembered from Grandma’s kitchen. I lifted it. It smelled of dried rose petals and hibiscus. Despite the kitchen’s coolness, the book was warm in my hands.

  Under the grimoire was a stack of letters sealed in envelopes. I lifted those to the table, too. Each letter was numbered and labeled “Josie.” I found the first one and held it to my heart for a moment. “Grandma,” I said. Hands shaking, I slipped a thumb beneath the envelope’s flap.