Cold Cases and Haunted Places

by Trixie Silvertale

  So, the witch who originally owned the necklace had disappeared? That didn’t make me feel any better about keeping it.

  Mallory turned the charm over, revealing the letters “AC” etched into its back. “Yeah, it must be. This piece was all over the news when it happened. How’d you end up with it, anyway?” she asked, glowering at Odessa.

  “Strange things have a way of seeking me out,” Odessa answered.

  “She said I can have it,” I said, and Mallory stared at me.

  “What? For real?”

  “Yeah.” I wanted to tell her why I thought it was a good idea, but didn’t dare within earshot of Odessa. “Anyway, let’s go. I’ve had enough of this place. Er, no offense, Odessa. It’s just not my cup of tea.”

  “None taken, dear. And good luck.”

  Before Mallory could ask any more questions, I gripped her wrist and dragged her out of the shop. As soon as we were back outside, she whirled on me.

  “You heard the voice coming from that necklace, didn’t you?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Or at least I think so. Since I put it on, I haven’t heard it again. What’s the story with the original owner, anyway?”

  Mallory’s face scrunched as she tried to remember. “My memory’s foggy because it happened so long ago — I was like eight back then — but around thirteen years ago, a Veilside student named Adeline Craft disappeared without a trace,” she said, and I shivered as I remembered that Odessa said she’d been listening to the voice for the last thirteen years.

  “Adeline was just about to graduate at the top of her class, so it was all anyone talked about for months, especially because the only thing the cops found was the necklace you’re now wearing. The thing is, no one knows where it came from or how Adeline ended up with it.”

  I gripped the necklace. “Do you think this has something to do with it? Could it be haunted or something like that? I mean, I’ve heard ghosts latch onto objects like this to keep from going to the afterlife.”

  Mallory laughed and shrugged. “I don’t think it works that way, but who can say for sure? The case is still unsolved after all these years, so I guess it’s possible. It might be worth asking Adeline’s friends and family about it; I’m sure they’d love to get some closure.”

  My heart jumped. “They’re still around?”

  “Yeah. Hardly anyone born in Moon Grove leaves, even after going through something awful like an unexplained disappearance. Actually, her best friend was the prime suspect in the case for the longest time because she was the last one to see Adeline before she disappeared. Tabitha something, I think her name was?”

  Mallory reached into her robes for her phone and furiously typed something out on the screen.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, but she held up a hand to quiet me as she scrolled down a page.

  “Ah, there we go. Tabitha Vigil,” she said and turned the screen for me to see. She’d loaded up the online version of the Parapages, Moon Grove’s digital take on the giant yellow books that used to get thrown on my driveway in the non-magical world. The page revealed Tabitha’s home address, her phone number, and the address of her last known employer: Brooms Bats and Beyond.

  I didn’t know what the full story with Adeline and her necklace was, but now that I wore it around my neck, I felt obligated to find out — not that it ever took much convincing for me to stick my nose in places where it didn’t belong.

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked, and Mallory nodded. “Good. Then it looks like we’ve got our first lead. Let’s go,” I said, and tore off down the street.

  2

  Brooms Bats and Beyond was the closest thing to a department store I’d seen since moving to Moon Grove. Though it wasn’t nearly as large as the ones I was used to back home, I knew better than to believe the size I saw on the outside. Nearly every building in town used magic of some sort to expand its interior — Moon Grove’s cramped, winding streets made it a necessity — and I didn’t doubt Brooms Bats and Beyond would be any different.

  As Mallory and I approached the narrow, multi-level white building in the heart of the Witches’ Quarter of town, witches and warlocks passed in and out of the store’s automatic doors carrying bags full of supplies I couldn’t make out, though the large cauldron dangling from one witch’s hands was hard to mistake as anything else.

  “What kind of store is this?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Exactly what the name implies. Brooms Bats and Beyond sells a bit of everything a witch or warlock might need.”

  “You mean you can buy bats here?”

  Mallory shrugged. “Parts of them, among other things. Where else are you supposed to find the essence of bat wing for your concoctions?”

  I shuddered and shook my head. “I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that.”

  Mallory rolled her eyes. “If you want to be a witch — a good one — you’d better get used to working with weird materials. It’s part of the potion. Anyway, come on,” she said and charged around me toward the shop’s entrance.

  A wall of air conditioning, accompanied by a potent scent of sage and fungus, washed over us as we entered the store. Based on the name, I expected to find brooms, cauldrons, and winged rodents inside — but I hadn’t expected to find them so well organized and presented on clean, sterile white shelving.

  Because I didn’t really know who I was looking for, I followed Mallory down the store’s main aisle and marveled at the things we passed: scales for weighing ingredients, mortar and pestles for grinding up said ingredients, and cauldrons in a range of sizes in which to prepare it all.

  We reached the back of the store, where an enormous wall of various ingredients stored in neat rows of translucent containers waited like the dedicated aisles for candy in the grocery stores back home. Plastic shovels suspended magically in the air near each container waited for an order.

  A witch my age pointed her wand at a container near the top of the wall holding what looked like salamander tails, and I watched in awe as a shovel pushed itself into the container and floated back down to the witch overflowing with a neon rainbow of tails. The witch held open a large star-patterned sack and the shovel turned itself over to dump the contents inside.

  “This is amazing,” I laughed, barely able to believe my eyes.

  “You act like you’ve never seen a supply store before. Anyway, I think that’s her,” Mallory said, pulling me out of my awe. I followed the direction she’d pointed her finger in and found a short middle-aged witch in plain black robes standing on the opposite side of the store amid a display of smoking cauldrons. Whether they were active or enchanted to look so, I couldn’t tell.

  “How do you know that’s her?”

  “Tabitha’s face was all over the news for months after Adeline disappeared. She’s aged a bit since then, but I’d recognize her anywhere.”

  “Okay, so… What now? We just charge up to her and ask if she had anything to do with the disappearance of her best friend?”

  Mallory glared at me. “I dunno. You’re the journalist; you tell me.”

  “Let’s just pretend we’re looking for new cauldrons for school and take it from there,” I said and tucked the necklace beneath my robes before I led the way over to Tabitha and her display. Mallory busied herself by pretending to be interested in the largest cauldron, conveniently leaving me on my own with Tabitha.

  Any doubt I had about the witch’s identity disappeared when I caught sight of her name emblazoned on a gold tag pinned above her heart.

  “Good afternoon,” Tabitha greeted, though her tone suggested she wasn’t having a very good one herself. Her piercing dark brown eyes swept over me, and for a split second I worried she’d already seen through my ruse, but her expression softened. “Are you in the market for a new cauldron?”

  “Actually, I’ve never owned one. I’m a new student at Veilside,” I answered and kicked myself mentally when I realized I’d already given myself away with that one small piece of infor
mation.

  Tabitha tucked a lock of her straight dark hair behind one ear and gave me another critical look. “You’re that new reporter for the Moon Grove Messenger, aren’t you? Zoe something?”

  “Zoe Clarke, yeah. That’s me,” I said; there wasn’t a point in denying it.

  “Welcome to Moon Grove. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “Thanks, and likewise.” Tabitha arched an eyebrow and once more I mentally kicked myself. “Erm, sorry, no I haven’t. Automatic answer.”

  Tabitha nodded and played it off like the comment hadn’t bothered her, though I didn’t believe it. “Right. So, do you know what kind of cauldron you’re looking for? Any thoughts on materials, size, anything?”

  Sensing I wouldn’t be able to fudge my way through a conversation like that, and that I’d already mostly blown my cover anyway, I changed tactics. “Look, I’m honestly not here to talk to you about cauldrons.”

  Tabitha’s eyes narrowed. “Then what are you here to talk to me about?”

  “This,” I said, and pulled the necklace out of my robes. The color drained instantly from her face and she looked over both shoulders, probably for an escape.

  “That’s Adeline’s—”

  “Yeah, it is,” I interrupted.

  “How did you…?”

  “Not important. I’m writing a story about Adeline’s disappearance for the Messenger,” I lied, though it seemed plausible enough. “During my research, I read you were the last person to see her before she vanished. Is that true?”

  “I don’t want to give any comment on this,” Tabitha snapped and whirled to disappear among the maze of cauldrons and smoke, but I chased after her.

  “Tabitha, wait, please,” I called, and she spun in a blur of robes to fix me with a look of fury.

  “I don’t know what game you think you’re playing but look at me: I’m selling cauldrons for a living in this awful store. How do you think I ended up here?” she asked and paused, heaving, while she waited for me to answer. When I didn’t, she scoffed. “Because of that thing,” she snarled and jabbed a finger through the air at the necklace. “I don’t have a clue where it came from or who gave it to Adeline, but I never want to see it — or you — again.”

  “Where were you the night Adeline went missing?” I pressed on, and if looks could kill, the one Tabitha shot me would’ve had me flat on my back.

  “None of your business,” she hissed.

  “It is now,” I said as I gripped the necklace in my hand.

  “What do you want from me? I’ve already told the police everything. The case is cold.”

  “Not anymore. I want to find out what happened to Adeline. I can’t say exactly why, but there’s something about it that, uh, speaks to me,” I said, hoping I hadn’t given myself away yet again. “Her family and friends deserve answers.”

  Tabitha hesitated but relented with a sigh. “You’re right, we do. Fine. Yes, I was the last one to see her. She came over for a final study session with me before our Alchemy exam scheduled for the following morning.”

  “You were classmates at Veilside?”

  “I guess you didn’t do enough research,” Tabitha shot. “Anyway, we weren’t just classmates; we were inseparable.”

  Until they weren’t. “What changed that?”

  “We were up until nearly two in the morning. I offered to let Adeline sleep over — she did it all the time — but she insisted on going home to get some rest in her own bed before the exam. I thought nothing of it, so I didn’t fight her. She thanked me for the help, and that was the last time I spoke to her.”

  As much as I wanted to believe Tabitha, I couldn’t help wondering if she was telling the whole truth. Luckily for me, I had an interrogation tool the police didn’t: mind reading. I locked eyes with Tabitha and homed in on the magic constantly coursing through me, willing it to form a connection with her thoughts.

  “What are you doing?” she snapped and looked away, breaking my concentration and the magic.

  “Nothing. I was just listening,” I lied. Had she felt my attempt at getting into her head, or had my reputation as a telepath preceded me? I’d already learned the hard way that some folks could protect their thoughts from my powers, but even if Tabitha had nothing to hide, I couldn’t blame her for wanting to keep me out of her head. People liked to keep their thoughts private for a reason.

  “Was Adeline wearing this necklace that night?” I asked to smooth things over.

  Tabitha shook her head. “I don’t think so. Until the police showed up at my front door the next afternoon to ask me about Adeline, I didn’t even know that necklace existed. They said they found it on her bedroom floor when they searched her room. Her parents had never seen it either.”

  “Where do you think she got it?”

  “If I had to guess, I’d say it was probably a gift from her boyfriend, Chase. But because I was the last person to see Adeline, it convinced the cops I had a connection to her disappearance. Since they had nothing else to go on, the media turned the necklace into a piece in this whole big conspiracy surrounding her disappearance — a spectacle that ruined my life.”

  “Well, I guess I can’t blame you for not wanting to talk to another reporter,” I said, and Tabitha chuckled. “Do you think Chase could have some involvement in the disappearance?”

  Tabitha’s expression darkened. “I’m sure of it. He and Adeline had been dating for years, but they were having a rocky time. She wanted to take a year off and go traveling, but Chase wanted to stay and work at his family’s law firm, Paw and Order. They fought about it all the time and in the weeks before she disappeared, it was all she talked to me about.”

  Paw and Order? What people named their professional law firm that? Regardless, a guy from a family of lawyers definitely could’ve afforded to buy an immaculate necklace for his girlfriend — maybe even as a very generous gesture to get her to stay in Moon Grove with him — but if he had, wouldn’t Adeline have wanted to show something like that off?

  It also seemed odd to me she’d kept it a secret from her parents, which made me wonder if she’d had a good reason, though I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what that might’ve been. Had she heard the voice coming from it too? That would explain why she wouldn’t want anyone to know she had it. Maybe she thought she was going crazy.

  Now I understood why the MGPD had so little to go on while they investigated Adeline’s disappearance, and why the media had focused so strongly on the necklace. I couldn’t yet say how the piece played into the puzzle, but it definitely had a role.

  “Did Chase strike you as the type of guy who’d hurt Adeline?”

  “Honestly, no. He was always the sweetest guy. Everyone loved him, including me, but I know I had nothing to do with Adeline’s disappearance, so who else could it have been? Besides, you know he was the last one she talked to that night, right?”

  My head spun at the sudden shift in her story. “Wait a second, he was? I thought you said you were.”

  “I was the last to see her, yes, but not the last to speak to her. The cops checked her phone records. Adeline placed a call to Chase right after she left my house, probably while she walked home. She did that a lot because it made her feel safer walking alone after dark.”

  Probably a smart move. “But she made it home?”

  “She must have. The cops found the necklace and her phone in her bedroom.”

  “Hm, could she have run away? I mean, you said she wanted to travel.”

  “If so, I’m sure she would’ve let someone know by now, or someone would’ve found her in the last thirteen years.”

  She had a point there, one even I couldn’t argue. “Yeah, probably. Anyway, I guess I’ve taken up enough of your time. I’ll let you get back to work,” I said and made to leave, but the conflicted look on Tabitha’s face stopped me. “What is it?”

  “Nothing, it’s just… Find Chase. It shouldn’t be hard. He’s a hotshot lawyer these days, and I swear he kn
ows more about what happened to Adeline than he’s been letting on all these years. I’m sure of it.”

  “Got it. Thanks for your time, Tabitha. I’m sorry to have sprung this on you, but I knew you wouldn’t talk to me if I didn’t.”

  “Don’t mention it. Seriously, don’t. The last thing I need is for this case to come back to haunt me yet again. Just find out what happened to Adeline; that’s all I need. I want this disaster to be over for good.”

  As I rolled the necklace’s charm between my fingers and watched Tabitha staring at it, ruminating on all the damage it’d done to her life, I couldn’t blame her one iota.

  “I won’t. You have my word.”

  3

  “Way to leave me hanging,” I scolded Mallory as I gripped her arm and dragged her out of Brooms Bats and Beyond.

  “Ow, let go,” she whined as she pulled herself free. “I didn’t leave you hanging; you had it under control.”

  I glared at her. “More like you were too chicken to talk to Tabitha too.”

  “Well, now we’re just arguing semantics,” she said, and I couldn’t help laughing. We rarely had conflict with each other, and a large part of that was because of her sense of humor. She had a way of discharging most situations with it. “Anyway, did you get anything good out of her? I tried not to make it obvious I was eavesdropping, so I didn’t catch the entire conversation.”

  “Yeah, plenty. For starters, she’s convinced Adeline’s boyfriend, Chase, has some involvement in her disappearance.”

  Mallory’s eyes widened. “Chase Bryant? Really? We’re talking about that lawyer who’s always on Paravision talking about how his firm fights for the rights of the defenseless, right?”

  “I guess so, yeah.”

  Mallory frowned. “Huh. I find that a bit of a stretch to believe. It wouldn’t be a very good look for a lawyer to have that kind of baggage.”

  “I agree, but I still think we should talk to him. Do you know where his firm is?”