Spell Maven Mysteries- The Complete Series

by J L Collins

  Some Solstice Shandy

  After parting ways with Althea, I spent the rest of the afternoon with Erie, shopping and doing my best to shake off Delaney’s words. I wasn’t about to let that woman ruin my day.

  We met back up with the kids for a late lunch at Denbigh’s. Ever since I found out about his gambling ministrations in the back of his cafe, it was like Denbigh was trying to keep my palms greased or something. He always made sure we had the best seats (in a far corner with plenty of room to see the rest of the Market outside), and drinks were on the house. Bribery never went anywhere with me, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. I didn’t have any reason to go blow the whistle on him as far as I could tell, and I wasn’t going to turn down free Rosewater Spritzes especially when I was paying the tab.

  By the time we were back at Brady Manor, the sky was already shot through with pinks and purples, the daylight fading fast over the tops of the trees.

  After getting warmed up by the fire, I decided to feed my curiosity about the MARC’s game plan for the Dark Market by going directly to the main source. Uncle Gardner.

  This unfortunately, did not work out as planned.

  “That’s classified information, Gwendolyn. I know I’ve been open with you about cases before, even when it was technically against protocol, but I can’t do that now. Not with this. Not when we’re so close to shutting down the Dark Market for good,” he said, peering up at me over his reading glasses. He was away from the noise of the rest of the family on the main floor, working up in his office above the library. He called it working—I called it hiding.

  “But you know nothing you tell me will leave this room,” I said, keeping the whine out of my tone. The very last thing I wanted was to pout in front of him. “Maybe there’s something I could do to help…”

  Uncle Gardner pinched the bridge of his nose. “Help? Help with what? As I’ve said before, we have it taken care of. I have my team all ready to go when we approach the Dark Market with warrants in hand. We’ve been planning this for months now.”

  He stood up, his cloak whipping around him as he rounded the desk and strode right past me.

  “Everyone’s going to be at the Dark Market? Everyone?” He wasn’t about to wait for me, so I hurried after him. “Sir, with all due respect, shouldn’t you have Shadow Hands in place around each of the targeted suspects? I would imagine at least most of them are considered flight-risks, right?” I asked, catching up.

  “Of course they are. Especially if someone tips them off. Which is why we’re not letting news of this takedown go past Headquarters. Which means this conversation is over, Gwendolyn. You have to stop worrying about these matters. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were hesitant about my ability to handle leading my team.”

  My eyes flashed wide. “No, of course not! I apologize if that’s what you think I’m getting at. I only want to see Tristan safe and able to go live a normal life again. And to get these crime lords off the street, and their businesses too. That’s all.”

  We wound back down the spiral staircase, left the library, and headed down the hallway until it opened up to the foyer.

  He turned toward me as the sounds of talking and laughing echoed from in the sitting room and beyond. “That is our aim. Well then, I’m glad we cleared that up. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to relax with my wife and have a glass of Nightshade Nightcap. Maybe you’d do well to relax some, too.”

  Uncle Gardner advising me to relax? Now I’ve heard everything. I nodded, sighing as he walked off. He was right… I knew he was, but it didn’t stop it from stinging any less. I couldn’t expect him to tell me anything, not when I kept turning down the possibility of working for the MARC myself. Who was I to demand answers from him?

  “Maybe I really do need that drink,” I muttered to myself as I walked into the throng of my family all gathered by the fireplace.

  All six of the kids were sitting on the large rug in the middle of the room, apparently listening to Fiona-Leigh reluctantly reporting on the Human Realm. She wasn’t used to having the spotlight on her, as much as she projected her self-confidence. She absentmindedly twirled a piece of her wavy red hair around her finger, explaining how electricity worked to the best of her knowledge. I couldn’t help but chuckle as Declan raised his hand high in the air as if in a classroom, asking her what a video game was.

  My aunts were sitting off to the side of the room, cackling, both with very tall glasses of something emitting purple haze in their hands. It didn’t take long for Uncle Gardner to sit down next to Aunt Ginny, summoning his own glass of his favorite Scotch. Nothing magical or extraordinary about it—just like the Scots in the Human Realm made it. Sully would definitely approve.

  A pang of a different sort of homesickness hit me right in the gut, and I stood back from everyone else, surprised. My whole family was right here, right in front of me. But I watched Erie sitting with her husband Houghlin’s feet in her lap, clearly content. Isobel and Lyanna were curled up on another of the settees, giggling together at something Erie had said, while even Reaghan sipped her martini, lounging perfectly by her new boyfriend who was sitting on the floor looking rather out of place and well-aware of it.

  Tristan and Brennrie came into the room right behind me—Tristan throwing an arm around me and practically yanking me along with them. “What are you doing all the way over here? Aunt Bee made some killer Solstice Shandy. I figured you’d already be half looped-up by now.”

  The green monster inside me slid back into its cave, and I laughed. “Is that what those two are up to over there? I should’ve known.”

  Sure enough, as soon as I made my way over to the cackling Witches, Aunt Bee sloppily leaned forward, swirling her drink around in front of me. “Looking for a little treat are you, dear?” They both sputtered, making some of the most improper noises I’d ever heard come from them—especially my sweet Aunt Ginny.

  I eyed the drink warily. “I don’t know…”

  Aunt Ginny even slapped her thigh, sloshing a bit of her drink out of the glass. “Oh, you sweet lass! It won’t bite you, you know!”

  “Or you, love. You’ll have a drink, won’t you?” Aunt Bee said, looking past me to Brennrie.

  Brennrie’s pale skin flushed a soft pink, all the way up to the points of her Elfin ears. “A Fairy never turns down her host.”

  Aunt Bee clapped her hands together and the pitcher of Solstice Shandy came soaring out of the kitchen, followed by a couple of the same tall glasses they were drinking from. Brennrie and I shared a smile as the pitcher poured two glasses.

  I hesitated, glancing back over my shoulder at the kids splayed out on the floor. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt.”

  It was nothing like having to knock back one of my friends, Arcas’ shots of Bitterroot-infused vodka—his personal favorite. The deep purple liquid glided down my throat easily, the feeling of it nearly evaporating before ever hitting my stomach. It was the weirdest sensation…and I’ve had some really weird drinks in my day.

  “What in the world…?” I said, licking my lips. There was a sweetness to it when I drank it, but it was gone—as if I hadn’t just taken a sip of it. “I thought this was Solstice Shandy? What the heck else did you put in here?”

  “I’ve heard of this,” Brennrie said in her soft voice. “Violent Violetta. It’s used sometimes in Sweet Poison Drops, to cover the scent of strong ales. It disappears and takes with it whatever you just consumed.”

  Aunt Bee nodded her head, nudging at Aunt Ginny. “Rather useful when you’re having a day and you need an extra pint of ice cream, right old girl?”

  Aunt Ginny gasped. “Old girl? You batty old hag!”

  They both gasped, clutching at themselves before falling into yet another fit of laughter so enticing that even me and Brennrie joined in.

  “It’s wonderful to…to finally do what I please,” Brennrie said a little louder than necessary through her giggles.

  “What’s that? What do you mea
n?” I asked.

  “At the Royal Court, with the other courtiers. The Queen controls everything—from the way we wear our hair to what we eat. And since each courtier is bound to serve at the Queen’s side for one-hundred years, I’ve been waiting for this day for precisely… one-hundred years.”

  My jaw dropped. Sometimes I forgot how long the Fae lived, but what was even more surprising was how the Queen forced her courtiers to spend an entire century with her. “I imagine that there aren’t any loopholes to get out of your servitude, are there?”

  She shook her head. “I’m afraid not.”

  “Of course not. Queen Mabily wouldn’t leave any loose threads like that.” The Fairy Queen was sharply clever, as I knew well enough myself. Her network of spies and otherwise in Spell Haven seemed to know no bounds, even though she ruled a kingdom in another land.

  This didn’t deter Brennrie though, and she sat just as gracefully as ever on a velvety cushioned settee. “As we Fairies say, the leaves change only before they fall. My duty to her Majesty is over and now I’m free to live as I please. Even my brother has no dominion over me. Though telling him that was not been a very pleasant experience…”

  I frowned. Nicolex was one of the Royal Guard—a high-up Fairy Knight. And I had a feeling his rudeness toward me and my family during our last visit to the Fairy Kingdom in Arcadia wasn’t the only unsavory trait of his.

  “Enough talk of that bastard,” Tristan said, coming to stand by Brennrie. “There are more important things to think about. Like the ball, for instance.”

  Brennrie grinned at him as he sat down and placed her hand over his. “This is true. It will be our first outing together in such a long while.”

  “Ball? As in the Winter Solstice Ball?” Aunt Bee asked. Though she sounded nonchalant, I could see something in her eyes that said differently. Leave it to Bedelia Brady to turn stone-sober at the drop of a hat.

  Tristan and Brennrie nodded. “Yeah. We’ve got a whole night planned around it,” Tristan said, still looking at Brennrie with a goofy grin on his face. “It’s going to be great.”

  “But isn’t that on Solstice night?” Aunt Bee said.

  Aunt Ginny placed her glass down on the round table between them, resting her chin in her hand. “Oh dear. Here we go.”

  “Well, yeah. That’s why it’s called the Winter Solstice Ball,” Tristan said slowly.

  Aunt Bee pursed her lips, the lipstick on them slightly smeared. “But we’re all celebrating here at home.”

  Tristan looked around at everyone else, his eyes settling back on her again. “Right. But we made plans to go out at night, too, Aunt Bee.”

  Uncle Gardner, who had been swilling and sipping his scotch quietly on the other side of Aunt Ginny, looked at Aunt Bee. “Bedelia. If the two of them want to go spend the evening at the ball, they are more than welcome to. We’ll have plenty of time with them beforehand, I am sure.”

  Aunt Bee gave him the side-eye. “It’s tradition for everyone to stay at the manor house the night of the Solstice, Gard. Everyone knows that.”

  “Come on, Aunt Bee. Cut them some slack. You can’t blame him for wanting a little space from here,” I added, suddenly under her vigilant gaze.

  “I for one whole-heartedly agree,” a silky and deep voice said. Oisín padded over from his space closer to the fire, stretching his back as he did. “I have only flourished outside of this tiresome place.”

  “Pfft, yeah okay, Osh,” I snorted. “If by flourishing you mean gaining a few extra pounds in fresh sushi and kitty kibble then yeah, I guess so.”

  He rolled his yellow eyes at me and proceeded to lick at his paw. “I would not speak of gaining a few extra pounds from food, Gwendolyn. Or have you forgotten that on Friday nights you like to sneak candy in your nightstand so that Fiona-Leigh doesn’t pester you to share it?”

  I blushed hard. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Aunt Bee’s shoulder shook as she let out a screech, pointing to me. “Oh yes, you do! She hides something called Snickers? What is that? Oh, I see—it’s a chocolate bar with some sort of nutty center.”

  Everyone took a moment to laugh at my expense and I downed another weirdly disappearing sip of the Solstice Shandy, shaking my head. Say what you will, but a night with the whole Brady family is never boring.

  5

  A Snowy Find

  The woods in Amaranth Forest were not unlike the woods in that Robert Frost poem—lovely, dark, and deep. Maybe not as dark in the brightness of day and sprinkled with sheets of snow here and there that had fallen from in between the treetops above. But still lovely and very deep. I knew for a fact that they went on for many, many miles in different directions, even well into Arcadia at one point.

  The carriage transport chugged off, automatically heading back down the road to the manor house where I sent it. Fi and I had already decided we’d take the long walk back when we were done anyway. The snow-sled skis on the bottom of it left ridges of packed snow in its wake.

  Loosening up my scarf, I hoisted the holoscope bag from around my neck and stared at the rocky hills to the left where the gateway back to the Human Realm was mostly hidden away under the lipped edge of one of the bigger boulders. I lost count of how many times the two of us had ventured in and out of that thing since the beginning of summer…

  “You ready?” I asked her, fidgeting with the settings on the holoscope. The screen looked like something out of one of those futuristic science fiction movies Fiona-Leigh had made me watch. The equipment itself was made of a sort of resin-material that was pretty much plastic, but with magic threading throughout, giving off a shimmering effect. The wide screen in the middle was flexiglass—magic glass that was flexible enough to bend without breaking no matter what—and it worked just like a phone or a camera did. Instead of fire messages, you could use the holoscope to contact another device, and it took pictures, held endless information like a thumb drive for your computer, and did a ton of other little neat tricks. The best part of all was that all you needed was your mind. The magic within it takes your exact mental image and displays it for you with the ability to save it for later—in theory, the way humans wished a camera really worked.

  Fiona-Leigh sidled up to me to get a good look as I swiped through it to find what I was looking for. “If there was one thing I wish I could take back with us through the gateway, this would be it.”

  “Oh yeah? I’m surprised it’s not a billywort. You’re always talking about wanting to sneak one out,” I said, remembering the look on her face when she first told me about her encounter with the tiny mammal.

  “Hm. That is a tough choice…”

  The holoscope whirred to life as soon as I found the mind picture screen icon, humming in my hands. “Looks like we’re in business.”

  There wasn’t much of a plan for what we’re doing out here—just that we wanted to come spend some time in the woods together. You’d think we’d get sick of being around just one another at home, but thankfully that wasn’t the case.

  Fresh white powder crunched under my feet as I trudged through the half-a-foot of snow that led up to the tree line, with Fi on my trail to step into the same footprints. The selkie-skin boots I normally wore weren’t really made for this weather, so I had to pick up a couple pairs of dwarf-made deerskin boots yesterday at the Market. Otherwise, we’d be freezing like crazy.

  “Ooh, right here!” Fi gasped, flinging her bundled up arms out wide. “Look at this view.”

  “Good eye, honey,” I murmured, snapping a few shots from my wide-angle view, including my peripherals. On the left, the treetops were weighed down by fluffy mounds of snow up until the road began about a hundred feet away. And on the other side of the road, was the where the hillside gently sloped downward, ultimately leading to the edge of Spell Haven and the beginning of Arcadia. The sun was beaming down on the scene from its mid-morning point in the sky.

  “Ugh, I’ve missed this. I never really messed with
the holoscopes to take photos with, when I was younger. I had no idea how much of a pain it would be to switch from them to cameras until I really wanted to start doing photography. It’s like the biggest upgrade possible.” I remembered holding a camera in my hand for the very first time. I probably looked like a caveman discovering fire or something.

  Fi was already moving past me and into the woods though. “Aunt Bedelia was telling me about whitewater flowers. She said they grew here in the winter despite the cold temperatures, and only in the forest. Dang it. I should’ve brought my basket.” She crouched down on a barer patch of pine straw, reaching out to gently nudge the green shoots of whitewater. “Can you get a picture of them for me?”

  I smiled and crouched down beside her, leaning in before pressing the screen to capture what I was seeing. “My mother used to take me out to harvest some of these, too. When I was really little.”

  She glanced at me from the corner of her eye. “You never really talk about her, you know. Your mom?”

  Chewing my bottom lip, I took another shot from a different, more close-up angle. Fiona-Leigh was only pointing out the obvious. But dwelling in the past was something I had to teach myself not to do a long time ago. With my sudden reemergence into Spell Haven, it was like the floodgates had opened in my mind, and everywhere I looked, there was a faded memory being dusted off and brought back into the light.

  “I was only seven when she died. I remember her… but not as much as I’d like. It’s like every day, the tiniest little details about her fade away. So, I try not to think about her, hoping that if I don’t, those memories will stay put and won’t leave me for good.”

  Fiona-Leigh was quiet for a while, still checking out the whitewater and the other little red mulberry growing at the base of it. She sat back on her feet, her cheeks pale. “That would freak me out too. I can’t imagine ever forgetting any single thing about you. It would be the opposite for me. Like having a phantom limb or something,” she said matter-of-factly as she stood up and lent a hand to help me up too. “But I get it. We don’t have to talk about her. Can we go in further?” She nodded into the woods.