She nodded, tears stinging her eyes.
Anytime she started to doubt her action, she’d remember the reason for it.
Saving her best friend.
“Margaret.”
Maggie halted just inside the small police station, and turned to find Aunt Irene standing next to a row of chairs.
“Aunt Irene—I—” Tears choked her voice.
Her aunt strode over to her and gathered Maggie into her arms.
“When Spencer’s mother rang and told me where you had gone, I feared you might—” She cut herself off and tightened her embrace. “Do you have any idea how many people have been injured on that bloody wreck?”
Maggie sniffed and shook her head. “Sorry, Aunt Irene.”
“You are nearly an adult, and I know you can take care of yourself.” She eased back, resting her hands on Maggie’s shoulders. “But you do seem to fall into trouble easily. Especially in the company of young Mr. Knight.”
Spencer stepped forward, pale but stoic. “I didn’t—”
“It wasn’t his fault, Aunt Irene. He protected me, was injured because he stood between me and the person trying to hurt us.”
Spencer stared at Maggie, his eyes wide. He retreated when Aunt Irene turned to him, obviously waiting for one of her famous verbal lashings.
Instead, she cradled his cheek and kissed his forehead. “Thank you, young man.” She narrowed her eyes when she spotted the blood on his throat. “It looks as if you did not escape unscathed. Let me take a look, now.”
She led Spencer over to the chairs and sat with him, pulling her small first aid kit out of her large bag. One she had gotten into the habit of carrying after Maggie’s first summer here.
Maggie watched them, wanting to find a quiet corner and avoid thoughts about what she’d done. Constable Tomlinson walked out of the narrow hallway, headed for her.
“I have Ms. Stine’s confession. She claims you and Spencer attacked her on the beach, and she was defending herself.”
Maggie stared up at him, speechless. Spencer jumped in, his quiet voice edged with anger.
“We did nothing of the sort. You saw what happened, Constable—at least part of it. I refuse to let her try and—”
“My statement has already been made. Since Ms. Stine has more than a few complaints against her, my DI is inclined to believe me.” He looked at Maggie, then took her arm and led her behind the front counter. “Was it your first time, throwing a knife at something besides a paper target?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He laid his hand on her shoulder. “Doing so saved your friend’s life. Several of those complaints included injuries, some of them serious. Never regret acting to protect someone you love, Maggie.”
“Thanks,” she whispered.
He pulled the knife out of his coat pocket and laid it in her hand. “Take this, find a safe place for it, far away from here.”
“I don’t—”
“We have enough bad history, without adding more to it.” He took the knife and tucked it in her jacket pocket. “Treat it with care.”
“I will.” And she planned to have Aunt Irene deal with the knife. She never wanted to see it again.
“Thank you.” He raised his voice so Spencer and her aunt could hear him. “You are free to go. Your local constable can take your statements and email them to me.” He handed her a business card. “I’m hoping you don’t allow this to keep you from returning.”
“It won’t, sir.” Spencer waited for Maggie next to the counter. “Besides, we have a couple of items your good museum might be interested in, to help complete their collection on The Maritime Queen.”
“What would that be?” Cassie appeared behind Spencer, looking better than she had on the beach. “I am going to assume you’re referring to my museum as the good museum.”
Spencer grinned at her. “I am.” He slipped his backpack off his shoulder and opened it, pulling out the compass and the log book. “They belong with the rest of the artifacts from the ship.”
Cassie accepted them, her eyes wide. “How—where—never mind. I will accept them, on behalf of the museum, and my grandfather. He will be fine.” She smiled, tears filling her eyes. “His hard head saved him.”
“I’m happy to hear that.” Spencer patted her shoulder, then turned to Maggie. “Ready to go home?”
“More than.”
“Wait.” Cassie stepped in front of them. “When we acquire a new item for the museum, we have a ceremony to celebrate, and to honor those who donated them. I’d like you, both of you, to be there.”
“We’d love to,” Spencer said. Maggie raised her eyebrows, but she smiled when he glanced at her. “It will be my first real donation to a museum.”
Her smile widened. If nothing else, she would come back, so Spencer could have his shining moment.
“Come, now,” Aunt Irene said. She wrapped one arm around Maggie’s waist. “Time to go home.”
“Any chance of chicken stew for supper?”
Spencer moaned behind her.
Aunt Irene fought a smile, and glanced down at Maggie. “I believe that can be arranged.”
“I am forever in your debt, Ms. Mulgrew.”
She glanced over her shoulder at Spencer. “I will remember that, young man.”
Maggie almost laughed at the horror on his face. He alternated between respect and deep fear of Aunt Irene. But she knew he’d strive past the fear for a bowl of her chicken stew.
She sighed, leaning against her aunt as they walked out into the cool evening.
Right now, there was no place she’d rather be.
Now and always, this place, these people, were home.
* * *
The End
Cate Dean has been writing since she could hold a pen in her hand and put more than two words together on paper.
She grew up losing herself in fantasy worlds, and now creates her own worlds, infusing them with adventure and magic.
When she's not writing, she travels to places that inspire her, having her own adventures, and reads pretty much anything she can get her hands on.
* * *
Catch up with her latest news at her website: https://catedeanwrites.com
* * *
Find all of Maggie and Spencer’s adventures here: https://catedeanwrites.com/mystery
Chalice, the long-suffering feline familiar, has been saddled with Winslow, the Winsome Witch, who really needs to practice her spells, before she actually has to use them. Time becomes an issue when Chalice sniffs out a murder on his daily jaunt. Can Winslow rise to the occasion and solve the case?
1
“What on earth is that smell?” Chalice – world’s most charming familiar, at least in his own esteem – wondered.
He padded lightly to the kitchen, where Winslow, the winsome witch, was frowning over a book of spells, while stirring something wretched in a small cauldron that was bubbling on the stove. Chalice startled her by twining around her ankles, and Winslow let out a yelp as her spoon slid into the goo that she’d concocted, slowly disappearing into the mire.
“Darn it, Chalice! Look what you made me do,” she groused, peering ruefully into the cauldron, her nose wrinkled.
“Something tells me that it won’t hurt the outcome of this batch,” she sighed.
“Please tell me that the horrific smell that you’ve created has nothing whatsoever to do with my lunch,” Chalice warned, sitting back on his haunches, and shooting her a feline glare.
“No, of course not. Don’t be silly,” Winslow snapped her fingers and another spoon appeared in her hand.
“Hey, you’ve been working on that one,” Chalice nodded his approval.
Winslow grinned.
“Yeah, I figured that I needed to, after I tried to summon a toothbrush and got a toilet brush,” she giggled.
“A most distasteful mistake.”
Chalice never missed a chance for a good pun.
“What are you working o
n, and is it supposed to smell like that?” he inquired, hopping up onto the counter by the stove to peer into the pot, with a grimace.
“It’s supposed to be a confidence potion,” Winslow’s brow furrowed.
“Doesn’t look like it’s giving you much confidence,” Chalice commented dryly, moving further down the counter.
“Bronwyn thought that it might be a nice mellow one for me to try and concoct. She’s a bit shaken after that whole dragon thing…” Winslow bit her lip.
“Well, he was a bit large for the living room, and having him shift into a pile of three thousand snakes was unpleasant to say the least,” Chalice remarked.
“I’ve never seen Bronwyn transport so fast,” Winslow nodded.
The cauldron made a sound like a huge burp, and a massive bubble came to the surface and popped, splattering purplish goo all over the stove.
“Oh no!” Winslow squealed, as Chalice shot from the counter to the kitchen table.
“Taste it quickly, my dear. You need the confidence to get better at this whole witch thing,” the cat sighed, his tail flicking back and forth as he watched Winslow dip a finger into the mess, coming up with a sticky glob of purple that looked like chewed up taffy, and smelled like rotted banana.
“It’s a bit thick,” Winslow mused, frowning at the mass on her fingertip that seemed to defy gravity. It didn’t ooze, it didn’t burble…it just cooled in place and didn’t move.
“Then chew it,” Chalice ordered, exasperated.
Winslow didn’t know it, but he’d overheard Bronwyn, her mentor, speaking to the council recently. Winslow was on thin ice. She had precious little time left to succeed in mastering potions and spells before the decision was made to render her natural powers useless. As inept as Winslow seemed to be in the witch world, he wondered if she’d make it among humans with no magic to rely upon.
“Here goes nothing,” she blew out a breath and popped the glob into her mouth, making horrific faces as she chewed. “I didn’t think it was supposed to taste this bad.”
Winslow snapped her fingers and a cup of tea appeared in her hand. She drank it down in one gulp, trying to chase the taste of the potion away, as the rest of the mess solidified on the stove.
“Oh no,” Chalice’s eyes widened in astonishment.
“What?” Winslow asked. “I’m kind of feeling more confident. I think it might be working,” she grinned at the cat.
“You won’t when you look in the mirror, my dear,” Chalice shook his head slowly from side to side.
Winslow snapped her fingers and a mirror appeared in her hand. She held it up and saw that her face had broken out into a rash of rainbow-colored spots. She looked like she’d had a collision with a jar of cupcake sprinkles.
“Well, that wasn’t supposed to happen,” she murmured.
Worried, Chalice hopped down from the table and slunk out the door. He’d go on a walk. Walks helped him to think, and if he was going to help Winslow the Winsome to finally become a witch, he desperately needed to come up with a plan.
2
Chalice walked atop fences, slipped through gates and trellises, and skirted around puddles, roaming the charming little neighborhood in which they lived, trying to formulate a plan to save Winslow from having to deal with the harsh reality of living as a human. His whiskers twitched, and his senses were highly attuned to the world around him, despite the fact that he was deep in thought. Padding down a sidewalk in a very upscale neighborhood at the edge of town, Chalice stopped in his tracks and lifted his head to take in the full scent that he’d happened upon.
“Blood…death…and worst of all, a bloodsucker,” he muttered in disgust.
He didn’t want to investigate. He positively loathed vampires. They were a pale, grouchy bunch, and Chalice didn’t approve of their food sourcing. Humans might be complicated, but they didn’t deserve to be hunted and eaten for pleasure and sport.
“They say curiosity kills the likes of me,” Chalice sighed, following his nose toward the source of the scent, a three story grey Victorian, with all of it’s leaded glass windows shuttered from the inside by heavy velvet drapes. “Nap time,” his lip wrinkled with distaste, but he acknowledged that it would be much easier to explore while the bloodsuckers in the house slept.
Chalice was immediately drawn to two spots in the backyard. One was a piece of ground immediately under a wrought iron balcony on the third floor, the other was a freshly-tilled garden. The smell of death was strong in the garden, but oddly, there was no smell of blood. Suddenly, inspiration struck.
“This is it,” he exclaimed, his feline brain working feverishly on his newly-conceived plan.
Chalice wasted no time on his journey home, darting through backyards and scaling fences without looking back. He was a cat on a mission. He wanted Winslow to show the counsel that she was valuable and highly principled. What better way to do that then to see justice done in a human crime? She’d be a hero, and heroes were always given a second chance. At least that’s what Chalice was hoping.
He was starving, having dashed out of the kitchen without taking a meal, once Winslow’s attempt at confidence had turned into yet another disaster, but food could wait. He would save Winslow’s witch-hood if it killed him, and he’d still have eight more lives.
3
“Absolutely not,” Winslow shook her head, folding her arms stubbornly. “You want me to get involved in the human world by uncovering a vampire murder? Are you crazy, Chalice? Not only would the humans take notice of me, but the vampires would go out of their way to hunt me down. No way,” she said firmly, her jaw set.
“You have to,” Chalice growled. “I’ll help you, but you have to do this,” he insisted, the hair at the back of his neck bristling.
“Why are you getting so worked up about this?” Winslow frowned. “You don’t like to get involved with humans…or vampires, for that matter, any more than I do. What’s your angle, Chalice?” her eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“My angle is trying to get you to keep your powers,” Chalice sighed, deflated.
He had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t tell Winslow what he’d overheard. The cat was out of the bag now, literally and figuratively, so he might as well just spill it, come what may.
“You have to promise that you won’t tell Bronwyn…” he began, only to have Winslow interrupt.
“I can’t promise that. She’s my mentor, I’m supposed to tell her everything,” she pointed out.
Chalice licked his paw to buy time to think. He washed his face, he flicked his tail, and when he turned his huge green eyes back to Winslow, he knew he had no choice. He had to tell her the truth whether she told Bronwyn or not. Her powers depended on it.
“The council is only giving you a short time to prove yourself, and if you don’t improve significantly, they’re going to yank your powers,” his green gaze was steady and compassionate.
Winslow stared at him, her mouth dropping open in shock.
“I wouldn’t survive as a human,” she whispered, tears welling in her eyes.
“That was my thought,” Chalice nodded.
“So you want me to prove myself by doing this, because I’ll either die trying, or come out a hero,” the light finally dawned.
“Precisely,” the feline replied quietly.
Winslow angrily swiped at her tears with the back of her hand.
“Fine then. If they don’t believe in me, I’ll prove them wrong. I’m a good witch, I just do things differently,” her jaw jutted forward. “Let’s go kill a vampire,” she growled.
“Whoa, hold on there, Dirty Harry,” Chalice batted at her leg. “You’re not going to kill anyone. You’re going to lead the police to the vampires and let them deal with them,” he directed.
“And what if the vampires drain the police?” Winslow raised an eyebrow.
“They can’t if we go in the daytime and let the light in,” Chalice’s eyes sparkled.
“Well, aren’t you just clever?”
Winslow smiled.
“Indeed. You’ll need to brush up on basic magic skills so that you can assist the officers, and you need to make an invisibility potion, so that when this whole thing goes down, they won’t see you assisting them,” Chalice explained. “This way, if the council kicks you out anyway, you’ll still be a hero in the human world,” he said gently.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Winslow murmured, biting her lip.
“That’s all up to you, my dear Winslow. I’ll take you to the scene of the crime tonight, so you’ll know what to tell the police in the morning,” he promised.
“But, won’t the vampires be out at night?” Winslow worried.
“Yes, but they won’t be hunting us. They’ll be hunting humans. That’s why we have to stop them,” Chalice replied grimly.
“Tonight it is, then,” Winslow agreed, trepidation nearly overwhelming her.
4
“I don’t feel good about this,” Winslow whispered, slinking into the alley next to the vampire’s backyard behind Chalice.
She hadn’t had enough practice with transporting yet, to feel safe about it, so she’d hurried along behind the cat as he slunk through the shadowed yards and structures of their sleepy little town. All of the humans were undoubtedly asleep in their beds, with no idea that there were sharp-toothed predators skulking about, wanting nothing more than to drink their blood. The thought made Winslow shudder, and shored up her resolve to follow through with Chalice’s plan. Suddenly she pulled up short.
“Oh dear…I smell it,” she whispered, standing stock-still. “Blood…death. It’s horrible,” she bit her lip and wrapped her arms around her midsection.
“We’re almost there,” Chalice directed tersely. “Come on.”
Cold Cases and Haunted Places Page 38