Old-School Witch

by A. A. Albright

  Old-School Witch

  Riddler’s Edge Book Six

  by A.A. Albright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organisations, places, events and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © A.A. Albright 2019

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

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  Website: https://aaalbright.com

  Table of Contents

  1. The Eggs at the End of the Rainbow

  2. The Mysterious Box of Bric-a-Brac

  3. Some Boring Old Murder

  4. Eat Your Words

  5. The Crazy Cat Lady

  6. The Room at the Top of the Tower

  7. The Tuna-Thieving Casanova

  8 An Absolute Hoot

  9. Return of the Prodigal Children

  10. Q: Is the Murderer in the Room?

  11. Embrace the Weird

  12. She Could Spook a Ghost

  13. Death by Knitting Needle

  14. In All Ways But One

  15. Chicken Curry for Konstantin

  16. A Thorny Situation

  17. Mine I Tell You, Mine!

  18. The Butler Did It?

  19. The Witch is Back

  20. Cackling Hens and Sly Stags

  21. Ronaldo the Righteous

  22. I See Dead People … And Animals?

  23. The Wedding of Doom

  24. Eagerly Awaiting

  25. The Year of the Walrus

  26. A Truth Universally Acknowledged

  1. The Eggs at the End of the Rainbow

  I wandered around the lighthouse’s ground floor, clutching a mug of coffee and feeling a tad emotional.

  ‘Goodbye, squidgy couch,’ I said, rubbing a hand over the soft, lovely fabric.

  ‘Adieu, my beautiful fireplace,’ I continued, trailing my fingers along the mantelpiece. ‘And you!’ I strolled, forlorn, into the kitchen area. ‘You’re a fabulous kitchen, you really are. Filled with such beautiful countertops and complicated appliances. I shall really miss watching Dylan cook for me in here.’

  I pulled open the sliding door, stepping out onto a deck that overlooked the Atlantic Ocean. Yes, it was drizzling outside, and the daylight was barely making its mark, but oh, what a wonderful deck this was. I wrapped my hands tight around my mug of coffee and sighed, looking up at the tall, beautiful building from which I’d just emerged. ‘Goodbye, you beautiful, beautiful lighthouse. I’ll miss this morning view of you most of all.’

  I should have known that this would be the moment when Dylan jogged by. Maybe he’d attached an embarrassment-tracker to me while I was sleeping, so he could always find me in my cringe-worthy moments. He paused at the steps to the deck and said, ‘Were you talking to the lighthouse, Ash?’

  I met my boyfriend’s dark eyes. As usual, he had woken up long before me, and was now in the middle of one of his early morning runs. His running gear made him look far too handsome for his own good.

  For weeks now, he’d been able to go out in the pre-dawn dark without so much as a pair of sunglasses on. With my blood having cured his dayturner virus, and the accompanying allergy to the darkness, he was really making the most of things. I’d actually considered going out for a run with him this morning – right up until I remembered that I’d ‘accidentally’ dropped my running shoes into a local charity collection bin a few weeks earlier.

  ‘I was most definitely talking to the lighthouse,’ I said. ‘You live in the most amazing house in the world. You have to expect people to get attached.’

  He shrugged. ‘Fine. I’m man enough to accept that you love me mainly for my lighthouse.’ He gave me a look of concern. ‘But you know, if you weren’t leaving, then you wouldn’t have to bid the lighthouse goodbye. You don’t have to go back to the Vander Inn for the week. You can help out perfectly well from here.’

  Ah, yes. The Vander Inn. My first home in Riddler’s Edge, and a home I might still enjoy living in, were it not for one tall and annoying problem. ‘Look, I don’t like Ron Montague,’ I admitted. ‘But I do like Nollaig. Sure, I question her choice in men, but if she wants to marry a creep then that’s her business. And seeing as she asked me to help her organise the wedding to that very creep, then that’s what I’m going to do. Over the next few evenings we have a fitting for our dresses, the cake to choose, a meeting with some kind of Dark Priest person that I don’t understand and … all sorts.’

  Dylan frowned. ‘They’re having a traditional vampire wedding, then? I didn’t think Nollaig would go in for that. Anyway, isn’t this the kind of stuff that Pru and Jared should be helping out with? Even her own children don’t want her to get back with their dad. They’re still in London, avoiding the whole thing.’

  ‘They’ll be back soon,’ I said, crossing my fingers. ‘I hope. And if not … well then, Nollaig’s going to need me more than ever.’

  He ran up the steps, smiling at me with a mixture of puzzlement, irritation, and fondness. That particular mishmash of expressions was a regular feature on his face. ‘Wait.’ He paused as he drew near to me. ‘Is that instant coffee?’

  ‘You know it is, baby.’ I planted a kiss on his cheek.

  ‘I thought you bought that jar as a joke. I didn’t expect you to use it.’

  ‘Actually, I finished off the jar I bought at Christmas,’ I informed him with a grin. ‘And the next one. This is the third jar of instant coffee to sully your otherwise perfect kitchen.’

  ‘You know, you could have just waited till I got back from my run and I would have made you some fresh coffee.’

  ‘I could have. But then I wouldn’t have gotten to see that look of absolute irritation on your face. I love that look. It brings back memories of when we first met.’ I took a long slurp of the instant coffee, just to annoy him some more. ‘Mmm. Unpretentious and perfectly pleasant. What a way to start the day.’

  He was jogging on the spot – probably to keep up his heartrate or some other such fitness-type thing – and managing to seethe all the while. ‘That’s fine. You just enjoy your morning cup of mediocrity. I mean, I wanted to bring you a wonderful breakfast in bed for our last morning together, but if crappy coffee’s your thing, then by all means, have at it.’

  I pulled a sorry-not-sorry face. ‘Yeah, here’s the thing. There’s frozen fruit, some muesli, and some low-carb bread in the kitchen. It wouldn’t really have been much of a breakfast, would it? So I was thinking I could take you to the Fisherman’s Friend instead. We could have toast made with proper bread and buttered with real butter, surrounding a plate of the most perfectly scrambled eggs in Ireland.’

  He let out a small groan. There was even some drool at the sides of his mouth. ‘The new breakfast menu is amazing,’ he admitted.

  ‘And look!’ I led him down from the deck and back onto the sand, pointing up to the sky. ‘There’s a rainbow up there. See where it ends?’ With his legs still pumping up and down, I gently turned him so he was facing the other way. The Fisherman’s Friend was just in our view, with the end of the rainbow settling down behind it. ‘The rainbow ends at the Fisherman’s Friend, Dylan. Those eggs might push up your cholesterol intake for the week, sure. But how could you turn them down when they are, quite literally, the eggs at the end of the rainbow?’

  He gave me a grunt, an eye-roll and a sceptical frown. He was pulling out the big guns today. ‘You’re going to be the death of me, do you know that?’

  I smiled sweetly and kissed him. ‘M
aybe. But what a way to go.’

  He grunted again. ‘I’ve got one more lap to do. I’ll meet you there in ten minutes.’

  ‘Of course, my darling. I’ll just be hanging out with Mam and Dad while I wait.’

  ≈

  Yes, you read that correctly. I was now the sort of woman who could just hang out with my mother and father, whenever I liked. Because after years of being trapped inside a broom and a cane (hey, the supernatural world can be tough sometimes) they were now free.

  I wasn’t quite sure that buying the Fisherman’s Friend was what I would have done with my newfound freedom. Sure, it was a twee, olde-worlde tavern in a delightful coastal town, but it was also a tavern that might well be cursed.

  The last couple to live here were now divorced. He was in Witchfield, serving time for multiple murders, and she (the one he’d actually been trying to murder all along) was now taking a long holiday for herself, before she decided what to do with the rest of her life.

  The couple before that had been a whole lot more unlucky. Biddy had been an ancient, half-Púca in hiding, who was keeping the man she loved a prisoner, and sacrificing three women every thirty-three years so the secret wouldn’t get out. Before Biddy and her unwitting husband Bod ran the place, it had been known as the Pirate’s Head, and the tavern had been the go-to establishment for some of the roughest pirates on the seas.

  And now … now my lovely fae father and my witchy mother were running the place.

  Despite my imagined hex upon their new venture, my parents were doing an amazing job. They’d repaired the thatched roof and cleaned out the cobwebs (literally – the place was filthy), and they’d applied a fresh coat of paint. There was a new menu, courtesy of my mother, and my dad was really enjoying working behind the bar. Their breakfasts were especially popular and, since their takeover, the Fisherman’s Friend was doing a roaring trade.

  There was only one customer who had a problem with the way they ran things, and she was there that very morning.

  ‘I don’t see why they always have to be touching each other,’ said Hilda with a scowl. She was eating smoked salmon and eggs for her breakfast, sending evil intentions my parents’ way. ‘It makes me feel like throwing up. And everyone says they’re your parents. But that’s Abby Albright, isn’t it? That woman hasn’t been seen around here for thirty years. Where was she all this time? And as for that man who says he’s your father?’ Hilda paused for another scowl (somewhere, there was a scowl factory working overtime). ‘There’s something about him. Something I don’t like.’

  That would be his awesomely powerful sióga ancestry, no doubt. My father was Brian the Brave, son of Úna, Queen of the Fae. I could see his power, a silvery white, shining out of him all the time. It was good power. Pure and altruistic and all that jazz. No wonder Hilda didn’t like him.

  ‘Touching?’ I said, ignoring everything else she’d said. ‘They’re hardly being X-rated, Hilda. He has his hand on her shoulder.’

  Scowl number three arrived. ‘It’s the way he has his hand on her shoulder. It’s so … so …’

  ‘Loving?’ I suggested. ‘Warm? Sweet?’ I gave her a broad smile. ‘Enjoy your breakfast, Hilda. My mother made it with her own hands.’

  ‘Well, just as long as she’s not trying to poison me,’ replied Hilda.

  If she truly was worried about being poisoned, she was making a good show of bravery. She wasn’t just nibbling her breakfast – she was attacking that plate of food with gusto. A vivid fantasy entered my mind, one in which I imagined that my mother had accidentally poisoned Hilda’s breakfast after all. Hey, I never said I was a saint.

  And if you met Hilda, you’d understand why every now and then I imagined her dying in horrible ways. She had the witch hunter gene, but she didn’t know she had it, and like every other witch hunter I’d met (okay, it was only one, but my point still stands) she saw danger in all the wrong places.

  I left her to her food and walked in a sensible manner towards the bar, greeting my parents with a simple, ‘Good morning.’

  You might wonder why I’m mentioning this sensibility and simplicity. Well, that’s because I was trying so hard to be sensible and simple. In reality, I wanted to skip towards the bar, and smother my parents in kisses and hugs. I’d been feeling this way ever since their return, and I was working very hard to keep it on the down low.

  One of the reasons for my restraint was because I didn’t want any of the human residents in Riddler’s Edge to start wondering. After all, none of those lucky mortals had any idea that my parents had been imprisoned for so long – and by my grandfather, no less. So if I started behaving the way I wanted to behave, well … questions might be asked. Even more questions than Hilda was already asking.

  The other reason, though, was because I was a little bit annoyed with myself. I was a down to earth sort of gal. I liked to carry myself in a certain way. Sure, it was a way that some had called detached, standoffish and obstinate. But it was my way. I was used to it. Feeling so emotional all the time … well, it was something I was just going to have to learn to cope with. In the meantime, let’s keep it a secret between you and me.

  ‘Hey there, daughter of mine,’ said my mother with a wide grin. ‘It’s so good to see you!’

  I nodded curtly. ‘Nice to see you too.’

  ‘Oh, give over with your I’m too cool for cuddles act!’ My dad leapt across the bar and enveloped me in a bear hug.

  While my voice was saying ‘I am too cool for cuddles,’ the rest of me was all in.

  ‘So,’ he said, when I came up for air. ‘Finally bored of living with that boyfriend of yours? Come to move in with Mammy and Daddy? Because you know, we’ve kept a nice big bedroom aside for you.’

  I bit back a smile. Even if I had no intention of moving in with my parents, I loved the fact that the offer was there. ‘I’m not living with Dylan,’ I protested. ‘But yeah, I stayed at the lighthouse last night.’

  ‘Uh huh,’ said Greg. ‘And the night before that, and the night before that …’

  If you’re wondering why I didn’t mention that Greg – my close friend, workmate and all-round good guy – was seated at the bar, well, that’s because I didn’t notice him until that moment. And the reason I didn’t notice him was because the screen of his laptop was shielding his face.

  I wandered towards him, peeking at the screen. As I saw what he was doing, I clapped a hand over my mouth to contain my glee. But seemingly it was uncontainable, because in less than a second, I was grinning and saying, ‘You and Pru have been messaging! That’s so adorable!’

  He shut his computer. ‘It’s not adorable. It’s frustrating is what it is. She said she was going to London to convince Jared to come home for the wedding, but he started convincing her to stay and hang out with him in London instead. When you’re a vampire, till death do us part can be a very long time. No wonder Nollaig and Ron have had some ups and downs. If anything, it’s romantic.’

  I kept my expression impassive. ‘So how did the latest conversation with Pru go? Because when she called me last night she said she still wasn’t sure whether she was coming home or not.’

  ‘I’ve just managed to convince her,’ he said with a cautious smile. ‘But who knows what’ll happen when Jared gets his oar in next?’

  I sat down next to him and looked enviously at his plate. He was about a quarter of the way through his eggs, and he still had two slices of toast left to enjoy.

  ‘You hungry, love?’ asked my mother with a wink.

  How was it that she could already sense my moods? Ah – I wiped my mouth – she wasn’t so much of a mind-reader, it seemed. It was just that when my mouth was covered in drool and my eyes were fixating on Greg’s breakfast, I’d inadvertently let her in on the fact that I was hungry. The growling stomach might have been a bit of a clue, too.

  ‘I’m waiting for Dylan,’ I told her. ‘He should be here soon, so I might as well go ahead and order. We’re both going to have scramble
d eggs and toast.’

  ‘Ah, speak of the divil,’ said my father, as the door pushed open and, with a rush of blustering wind and rain, Dylan entered the tavern. His hair, shorts and T-shirt were dripping wet. The overall effect was … well, let me just excuse myself with a cough.

  ‘You said you were only going to run one more lap,’ I pointed out (once I was sure my voice wouldn’t come out as a squeak).

  ‘I did,’ he replied with a grin. ‘And then I ran another, and another. If I’m going to eat the most amazing eggs in Ireland, then I need to work for them.’

  My mother blushed and waved a hand. ‘They’re not the most amazing eggs. Maybe second or third best.’

  ‘Oh no, they’re the best,’ Greg confirmed. ‘Everything you make is the best, Abby. Which is weird, because Aisling has not inherited your talent in the kitchen.’

  ‘Hey,’ I protested. ‘I’ll have you know I’m very good at dialling for pizza.’

  My mother laughed and reddened some more. ‘I didn’t know I had talent in the kitchen. We had a chef hired, but he got a better offer, so I stepped in for the first day we opened. And then people liked my cooking, so I kept on doing it. Y’know, I really don’t do anything special to the eggs. I just add a little butter, and some sea salt and parsley.’

  ‘I don’t care what you make them with,’ said Dylan, jumping up onto a seat next to me. ‘Just lay a couple of very big servings on me and Ash. Please and thank you. Oh, and lots of toast with real butter, because apparently your daughter is getting bored of my taut physique.’

  Greg looked down at Dylan’s perfect abs, and said, ‘I am too. You’re making the rest of us look bad.’

  I gave him a shoulder-bump. ‘You’re not exactly carrying any extra weight yourself.’ It was true. Greg was constantly eating, but somehow stayed lean.

  As she scrambled our eggs, my mother talked to us from the kitchen, asking all the usual sorts of motherly questions – had I eaten enough fruit this week, what were my work hours going to be … I say the usual types of questions. Really, I was basing this on what I’d seen in movies and read in books, rather than actual, real-life experience.