“I do mind,” she snapped. “Go away. I told you I want nothing more to do with this.”
“Well, we can’t always get what we want. I spoke to Chase. You and I need to talk. Now.”
The sliver of her face I could still see turned bleached white. “Whatever he told you, he’s lying.”
“Why don’t you let us in so we can talk more about that?”
She must have realized we’d cornered her because Tabitha sighed and flung the door open for us to enter. “Hurry. I don’t want anyone to see,” she shot and waved us inside. Mallory flashed me a last desperate look like we were walking into a trap, and though I shared her concerns, I knew I had no choice but to see things through.
The door slammed behind us, basking us in near-total darkness until Tabitha muttered a spell I couldn’t hear, and a dozen candles mounted in an iron chandelier above us sparked to life. A suitcase lay on her sofa, its contents lumpy and sticking out the sides, confirming what I’d feared: Tabitha was planning to run. Instantly, my guard shot up. If she was desperate enough to flee, she might be desperate enough to hurt us.
I gestured at the suitcase. “Were you, uh, heading somewhere?” I asked as nonchalantly as possible.
“What? Oh, no, I just got home from a family trip a few days ago and haven’t had time to unpack,” Tabitha said, and I didn’t need to read her thoughts to know she’d lied.
“Ah. That must’ve been where you caught the bug,” I said, and the look Tabitha shot me screamed guilt.
“Yeah, probably. Anyway, can I get you ladies some tea or something?” she asked as she headed to her small kitchen. I kept plenty of distance between us as she passed, just in case.
“That would be nice, thanks,” I said and sat down on the sofa next to her suitcase to steal a closer glance at its contents. Wherever she’d been heading, she must not have been planning to stay for long because she hadn’t packed much; just a few clean robes and toiletries.
Mallory locked eyes with me as Tabitha busied herself with her kettle. “What are you doing?” Mallory mouthed with her eyes wide with fear. “We need to go!” she continued silently and jabbed a thumb over her shoulder toward the door.
I gestured for her to sit, and though she looked like she’d rather run screaming than obey, she lowered herself down on the arm of the sofa beside me.
Tabitha returned carrying two steaming teacups on saucers and handed one to each of us. “So… What lies did Chase feed you about me?” she asked and went back to the kitchen to retrieve her own cup, a container of cream, and a bowl of sugar cubes. She set them on the small coffee table between us and sat down on the chair directly across from me. “Help yourselves. I’m not sure how you like your tea.”
I didn’t know how to answer that without putting her on edge, so I hesitated. “He told us your family owns Brooms Bats and Beyond.”
“Then I guess it wasn’t all lies, was it?” Tabitha laughed and took a sip of her tea. “Anything else?”
There wouldn’t be such a thing as a good time to test the waters with her, so I decided to just go for it. “He seemed convinced that you were the one who bought the necklace for Adeline.”
Tabitha rolled her eyes. “He would. I told you: I don’t know where that necklace came from, but it definitely didn’t come from me.”
“Lies,” a voice whispered, and it took everything I had not to react. Instead, I focused on Tabitha’s face, where I could’ve sworn recognition flashed at the sound of the voice. Had she heard it too?
“Well, Chase insisted he couldn’t have afforded something like that. He also told us someone had stolen the necklace from the Crafts’ home.”
“Allegedly,” Tabitha said, her eyes flashing. “Anyway, drink your tea before it gets cold.”
Fearing my rudeness might let her slip away, I raised the teacup and took a cautious, inconspicuous sniff of the tea. The sweet tinge of chamomile greeted my nose, nearly convincing me it was safe — until the sharp bite of chemicals it masked pierced through.
“Don’t,” the voice urged, and my chest clenched. Carefully, I nudged my foot against Mallory’s to warn her, but judging from her untouched tea, she’d already figured it out. I’d watched Tabitha drink from hers and she seemed to be fine, which gave me an idea. I glanced at Mallory and subtly motioned to the tea dressings on the table. Thankfully, she caught on immediately.
She reached for the dish of sugar cubes, and as she leaned, she intentionally let her teacup tip, spilling its contents all over the floor and table. Tabitha startled and slammed her cup down to clean up the mess, and while Mallory distracted her further by profusely apologizing and blotting at the carpet with the corner of her robes, I reached for Tabitha’s cup to swap it with mine — but Mallory’s scream interrupted me.
I whirled and found her pinned underneath Tabitha, who’d begun furiously searching all of Mallory’s pockets. “Where is it?! Where’s the necklace?! I know you have it!” she screeched, and as I rose to peel her off Mallory, Tabitha shouted in triumph and held the necklace above her head. “It’s time to end this once and for all, Adeline!” she shouted.
“What are you doing?” I asked cautiously as I reached into my robes for my wand.
“What I should’ve done from the start,” Tabitha said and produced her own wand to rest its tip against the black diamond in the center of the necklace’s charm. “I thought trapping her in this Lilith forsaken necklace would clear my path to Chase, but she’s been haunting me from it for thirteen years! I can’t take it anymore. I won’t take it anymore!”
My head spun as her confession slammed all the puzzle pieces into place. Tabitha had given the necklace to Adeline, intending to curse her because she was jealous of Adeline’s relationship with Chase, just like he’d speculated.
Tabitha had probably given it to Adeline that last night they were together studying, and Adeline had worn it home. The police found no hint of where Adeline had gone because she hadn’t gone anywhere at all — Tabitha locked her inside the necklace. But how had it gone from the police to the Crafts and all the way to Odessa’s Oddities?
“You were the one who stole the necklace from the Crafts, weren’t you?” I asked, stunned at the realization.
Tabitha started crying. “I had no choice! I was terrified they’d found out what I’d done, and it would ruin my life for good, so when they had me over for Adeline’s memorial, I snuck into her room and took it. I felt so terrible. I just wanted to undo the curse and bring Adeline back, but no matter what I tried, nothing worked, and all along she just kept whispering to me, taunting me for what I’d done to her.”
“So, you sold the necklace to Odessa.”
Tabitha nodded in defeat and crumpled as sobs overcame her. “But it’s all over now. I’m sorry, Adeline, but this is all I can do to set you free. Goodbye,” she said as she pressed her wand’s tip harder against the diamond.
“Tabitha, no, wait, you don’t have to—”
“Excindo!” Tabitha interrupted and the room exploded in a flash of blinding light and deafening sound. The force of the destruction spell sent me tumbling backward over the sofa, and I lay in a daze for several moments afterward as I tried to figure out which way was up, and which was down.
When my ears stopped ringing and the pops and flashes of light in my eyes subsided, I forced myself up into a sitting position and flexed my digits to make sure everything still worked. I found no injuries, other than a dull throbbing in my head.
“Zoe? Are you okay?” Mallory asked and her voice sounded like it’d come from the other room. I glanced over and found her sitting a few feet away from me. The spell had blown her hair out and a thin layer of soot covered her face like she’d stuck her wand in a toaster, but other than that, she looked unharmed.
“I’m fine, are you?”
She nodded. “I think so, but I’m not so sure about these two,” she said and pointed in front of her.
Wait, two? Alarmed, I crawled on my hands and knees around
the sofa to Mallory’s side and gasped at what I saw. Amid the cracked, smoking ruins of the necklace’s diamond and rubies, Tabitha lay lifeless next to a beautiful blonde witch that could only be Adeline.
“Is that…?” I trailed.
“Yeah, I think so,” Mallory said, sounding just as stunned as I felt.
Rather than destroy the necklace and Adeline along with it like Tabitha apparently intended, the spell she’d cast had freed Adeline from her prison. Despite the tragic outcome we’d narrowly avoided, I still couldn’t help laughing at the spectacular backfiring.
The sound of sirens wailing somewhere in the distance stopped my laughter.
“The neighbors probably heard and called the police. Can’t say I blame them,” Mallory said. “They’ll probably be here with a swarm of medics any second. Should we wait for them?”
“Definitely. Something tells me this one will take a lot of explaining.”
Mallory chuckled. “It’s all part of spending another exciting day with you.” She paused and gave me a wry look. “Hey, promise you won’t ever try to curse me over a guy we both like?”
“Hm, I don’t think that’ll be a problem, but to quote a good friend, a witch never makes a promise she knows she can’t keep,” I said, and we burst out laughing together.
5
“I really don’t know how to thank you, Zoe,” Adeline rasped from a cocoon of blankets; the near loss of her voice seemed to be the only injury she’d sustained. Which was why, at her insistence, Mallory and I had accompanied her back to the MGPD to help fill the gaps in the admittedly bizarre story of what’d happened between her and Tabitha. We were the only ones who could.
“You don’t have to thank me at all, honestly,” I said.
“Are you joking? Of course, I do. You freed me from a thirteen-year prison and almost got yourself hurt. If that doesn’t warrant thanks, then I don’t know what does.”
“I’m just glad I could help.”
“That makes two of us,” Adeline said with a smile. “Do you think Tabitha’s in any major trouble?”
I shrugged. “Hard to imagine there won’t be some level of consequence for what she did to you — and she tried to slip Mallory and me a sleeping potion — but I guess we’ll see.”
Adeline sighed and shrunk in on herself. “I know, and I’m sorry for that too. Still, I don’t want to press charges or anything. Believe it or not, I’d already forgiven Tabitha for all this long ago. Living in an endless black void with nothing but your thoughts to keep you company for years leads to lots of reflection.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “Wouldn’t that make you more likely to want to see her locked up?”
Adeline laughed and shook her head. “You’d think so, but no. Jealousy caused her to make a series of terrible mistakes, but even after all this, Tabitha’s still my best friend. I just want to forget it all happened and go back to the way things were before. I missed out on thirteen years.”
“Then you’re a better witch than I am. I don’t think I could have that same level of forgiveness if I were in your robes.”
Adeline looked from me to Mallory and back again, and her smile widened. “I don’t know about that. You two remind me a lot of myself and Tabitha when we were your age. I’d find it hard to believe you’d give up on Mallory, even if she did something that hurt you. That isn’t what best friends do.”
The door to the interrogation room opened, robbing me of the chance to respond, and Tabitha stepped out with red, teary eyes and puffy cheeks. As soon as Adeline saw her, she dashed up out of her plastic chair and stumbled against her blankets to throw her arms around her friend.
“I’m so sorry, Adeline. I didn’t want to hurt you, I swear, I just thought destroying the necklace would put an end to all this and—”
“It’s okay,” Adeline interrupted and held Tabitha out at arm’s length to smile at her. “I forgive you. Really, I do,” she continued, and Tabitha melted.
“I don’t deserve you as a friend. I never did.”
Police chief Mueller locked eyes with me. “She confessed to it all,” he said. Not that that surprised me.
“What are you going to do about it?”
Mueller shrugged, making his jowls shake like an upright basset hound’s. “That depends on Adeline. There’s no doubt that Ms. Vigil committed crimes, but since the victims are all alive and well, it’s up to them whether they’d like to press charges. Adeline?”
“No. Absolutely not,” Adeline insisted as she wrapped an arm around Tabitha’s shoulders. “Let’s just forget it ever happened.”
“And you, Zoe, Mallory? What do you want to do?” Mueller asked, and I hesitated. While Tabitha had tried to trick us into drinking a sleeping potion, I didn’t think she’d ever intended to hurt us; she just wanted to get the necklace away from me and rid herself of it forever.
I exchanged looks with Mallory and she nodded her approval. “No. We don’t want to press charges either.”
Though he seemed surprised, Mueller didn’t verbalize it. “All right, then. I’ll alert the media we’ve solved the case, though I’m sure they’re already on the story thanks to the explosion.”
“You mean we solved the case,” Mallory corrected, and though Mueller shot her an annoyed look, he nodded.
“Right. Well, do any of you need an escort home?” Everyone shook their heads, and Mueller cleared his throat. “All right, then. You’re all free to go.”
It seemed like an anti-climactic ending after all the years Adeline’s case had gone unsolved, but as Adeline and Tabitha hugged again, happiness swept over me anyway. I would’ve given anything to be a fly on the wall when Chase saw Adeline again for the first time, and I didn’t doubt he’d be one of the first people she’d seek.
We left the station together, and Tabitha stopped me at the door. “I’m sorry I lied to you and gave you the sleeping potion.”
I shrugged. “I’ve survived worse,” I said to laughter from them both.
“Are you sure we can’t thank you?” Adeline asked.
“You’ve got a big second chance. Make it count,” I said, and Tabitha nodded.
“We will. I promise.”
“Then that’s all the thanks I need.”
“Come on, Adeline, let’s get you home. Chase and your family have been without you long enough and I owe them all an explanation,” Tabitha said and took Adeline’s hand in hers.
Mallory and I watched them walk away, neither of us able to find words until they disappeared around the corner toward the Witches’ Quarter.
“Do you think Odessa will want the pieces of the necklace back?” Mallory asked and held out the shards in her palm. I burst out laughing.
“You would keep those.”
Mallory shrugged. “What can I say? I never miss an opportunity for research. I’m dying to know what kind of curse Tabitha used on this necklace.”
“Why not just ask her?”
“What kind of fun would that be?”
“You’re hopeless. Anyway, no, I highly doubt Odessa wants any of that mess back.”
“Her loss,” Mallory said and poured the pieces into a robe pocket; I could’ve sworn I heard a mouse inside squeak in protest. Mallory carried all manner of weird things in her pockets, so a mouse wouldn’t have been out of place, but I decided not to ask about it.
“So, what do we do now, partner in crime?” I asked.
Mallory shrugged again. “I dunno. I highly doubt we’ll find anything more exciting than this to get into today.”
“I sure hope not.”
“Only one way to find out,” Mallory said and started walking west down Luna Street toward its intersection at Crescent. I followed, unsure what else to do. “So, do you regret moving to Moon Grove yet?” she asked when we reached the street corner.
“Are you kidding? Who wouldn’t love living in a town where cursed necklaces are the norm?” I answered, and she snorted.
“That’s tame for this place, all thi
ngs considered.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. But to answer your question, no, I don’t regret moving here. My life would be a lot more boring if I hadn’t.”
“True, and you never would’ve met me, which would’ve been a major loss,” she said, and I couldn’t help laughing.
“Can’t argue with that.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, I’m glad you moved here. Things have definitely gotten more interesting around here since you did.”
“Is that the only reason?”
She glanced at me and blushed. “No. I didn’t really have any friends before you came along.”
“Neither did I,” I admitted.
“We’re a sad pair, aren’t we?” she asked, and I laughed.
“Maybe, but at least we’re a pair.”
Mallory beamed, and I thought back to the quiet, mousy, and weird girl I’d met on my first day at Veilside Academy. She was the only one who’d had the time of day for me, and we’d been pretty much inseparable since. In some ways, I couldn't believe we’d become such good friends, but in others, it made perfect sense.
Suddenly, I understood what Adeline meant when she said she’d find it hard to believe Mallory and I could turn on one another. I couldn’t — and didn’t want to — imagine my life in Moon Grove without her. Friendships grew and changed, and sometimes life circumstances caused friends to drift apart, but somehow, I believed that, no matter how busy we got or what our lives put us through, Mallory and I would be friends forever.
A flashing green light pulled me out of my thoughts; we stood outside Odessa’s Oddities again. After all we’d been through since our first visit, it was the last place I wanted to see.
“You planned this, didn’t you?”
Mallory gave me a pleading look. “Oh, come on! There’s so much interesting stuff in there. I could spend all day looking.”
“True. And maybe we can find our own friendship charms in there,” I said, and Mallory shot me a worried look.
Cold Cases and Haunted Places Page 19