by Willow Mason
“More than that,” Beezley said, peering closely at one image. “I wouldn’t put my hand there unless I knew somebody intimately.”
“Poor kid.”
“Poor blackmailer, I think you mean. Can you try his feed? It might have more images of the two of them together.”
I obliged and soon found a photograph with another name that we both knew. “Desmond Templeton,” I read aloud. “This must be Agnes’s husband.”
The man in the image had his arm slung around Jacki’s shoulders. Everyone in the picture was dressed to the nines.
“Fundraising Gala,” Beezley said, reading out the inscription along the base. “This is dated the same day Jacki Sosa died.”
“Do you think Agnes is being blackmailed over her husband’s affair?”
Beezley raised his eyebrows, staring sadly at the screen. “It could be career-wrecking if he were alive, but would that really tarnish his memory?”
“It would take some shine off. Nobody wants their politico husband to belong to the #metoo party.”
“But enough to extort money?” Beezley shook his head. “There’s something more.”
“You don’t think…” I began, then trailed off as I lost my nerve.
But Beezley had been extracting information from suspects for decades. He nuzzled close to me, finagling a serious bout of patting until I relaxed. “You can tell me. What am I going to do? Laugh?”
“What if the connection to Jacki Sosa wasn’t an affair?”
“Hey, you saw how close they were in that last photo. And Kevin was standing off to the side, noticing them and looking none too happy about it.”
“She’s dead, right?” I put a hand on my stomach to stop it trembling. “What if Desmond Templeton killed Jacki, and that’s the information Kevin is threatening to release?”
Beezley gave a nod, his face serious, and I didn’t know if that was better than my theory being laughed down.
Chapter Eleven
I was up at the crack of dawn the next day, Sunday, anxious not to stuff up my one chance to learn about my magic powers. These early starts were becoming a habit I hoped didn’t stick.
Showered and freshly clothed, I went to the meeting point a half hour before the time Glynda had texted me. If the day turned to custard and ruined my future as a witch, I didn’t want it to be due to tardiness.
Trevor Wiltshire’s vehicle pulled to a stop outside the café on the dot of nine o’clock and he jumped out. I don’t know what I’d been expecting. Some wizened old man with a beard stretching to his knees, perhaps. Whatever it was, my new teacher wasn’t that.
He had a foot in height over my five foot five and although the salt and pepper at his temples betrayed his age, nothing else showed signs of wear. If I’d passed him on the street, I would have turned for a second glance. Judging by the eye traffic he was attracting this early in the day, I wasn’t alone in my assessment.
“Oh, good. You both turned up.” I jumped as Glynda walked up to us and scanned me from head to toe. “If you can work some magic on this one’s magic”—she paused to titter—“then the coven would be grateful.”
“As will my bank account.” Trevor’s voice was a rumbling baritone, but it didn’t stop Glynda’s eyebrows hiking up her brow.
“First, we’ll need to see results. In the past few weeks, this one has littered dirt all over a graveyard, done something weird to the blow-down in the forest, and exploded an entire hotel just by walking into it.”
To my relief, Trevor laughed instead of appearing daunted. “Is that all?” He nudged me in the ribs. “And here I was thinking you were the new queen of black magic. Unless you turn the sun dark, I don’t think we’ll measure you for a crown just yet.”
Glynda’s mouth pulled in and the cords on her neck grow taut. I guess somebody in Riverhead was immune to Trevor’s charms, then.
“Pay attention and concentrate,” she snapped instead of a goodbye.
As she walked down the street Trevor’s gaze followed her, a deep frown creasing an otherwise perfect brow. I cleared my throat and stared down at my shoes. “Have you known Glynda long?”
“Just about forever,” he said. “Not that she’s ever called on me for help before. Usually, if I hear from her it's because she’s done something wonderful and wants everyone from her old town to know it.”
Interesting. I glanced at the coven leader again just before she disappeared into a breakfast café. Until this moment, I hadn’t even known she’d grown up in a different town.
“Were you at school together?” I pressed. There might never be another chance to get the goodies on Glynda’s past. Certainly, it was never something she’d shared with me voluntarily and I couldn’t imagine our relationship changing.
“Once upon a time,” Trevor said, shaking his head. “Although it seems like an entirely different life now.” He clapped his hands together before I could ask another question. “Onto the task at hand. What mayhem have you caused around town?”
I filled him in on the brief history of my black magic powers. Since the man didn’t look at me while I was talking, I couldn’t even be sure he heard a single word. When I finished up with an explanation of the lodge explosion, he nodded the same as the checkout operator when they queried whether I was having a nice day.
“What I want to know most of all is why things changed,” I said when silence ensued. Trevor might be great to look at, but he was currently doing zip for my confidence around gaining control of my abilities. “When I first absorbed the occult spells and their magic, everything I did worked out fine.”
“You had white magic before this?”
I nodded, chewing on my bottom lip as I hoped he didn’t want the details of why that had been taken away.
“And what did you use that for?”
“Helping me with stuff. Travelling, though I was never great on a broom. Doing the dishes. Invisibility. Feeding into the neural network.” I scratched at a small cut on my cheek, gathered at some point during yesterday’s madness. “Chores, mainly. Little things here and there.”
“Yeah. Good.” Trevor slapped me on the shoulder. “Get in the car and point out the way to the nearest beach. I’ll show you a few tricks of the trade but first I need to illustrate an important point.”
“The beach isn’t a nice destination on days like today,” I said, hopping into the passenger seat.
“Days like what? Full of sunshine.” Trevor grinned, and I fell halfway in love.
“No, with the wind blowing.”
He stared at me in astonishment, then peered outside at the still trees and the lank flags along the main street. “You think this is windy?”
“Never mind.” He’d see for himself soon enough. If there was enough of a breeze in the centre of town to stir a single leaf, the beach would be awful. Sure enough, as we pulled into the carpark and the first pebbles crunched underfoot, a howling gale caught my hair and messed it into knots.
“This is a beach that doesn’t understand its purpose,” Trevor said with a bemused laugh as he strode along the shoreline. “These stones should’ve worn down to sand and where on earth is that wind coming from?”
“Straight off the sea. It takes the prevailing wind and magnifies it a hundredfold. If you can teach me a magic trick to reverse that quirk of nature, I’m sure all of Riverhead would be grateful.”
This was the reason we were a one-season town. No one wants to visit a beach and leave covered in divots from thousands of tiny stones, chilled to the bone from a constant sea breeze.
There were only two other vehicles in the car park. I pulled up next to a family sedan, glancing into the back seat. A child’s school exercise book lay open, wavy lines depicting the ocean. I smiled at the thought of a kid nagging their mother to come down here all weekend long, about to find out how miserable the reality was.
We crunched down the stony beach in the opposite direction to a witch trying out some intermediate level spells. A mother and her t
wo children were testing out places to sit, laying down a blanket and frowning as they couldn’t get comfortable, then moving to try again a few metres away.
“Black magic needs drama. It needs soul.” Trevor dug his toes into the pebbles and spread his arms wide. “If you’re a practitioner of white magic, you can use it to style your hair or tidy away the dishes. Black magic won’t work for that. It needs bigness.”
“Bigness.” I cocked an eyebrow at him, then stared out at the ocean. “Like what? Parting the sea?”
“I like your way of thinking.” Trevor let his arms fall to his sides. “When have you used it successfully before now?”
“When I saved a friend’s life, turned a bad witch into dust, and to raise spirits from their graves.”
“Yes!” Trevor pounded a fist into his cupped hand. “That’s what I’m talking about. Drama at its finest. Life and death.” He gestured down the beach where the witch now practised flying on an old-style broom. “Let her keep the white magic to save on petrol money. You’re only going to use your powers to produce spectacular things.”
“What things?” I put my hands on my hips and tilted my head. “It’d be more useful to have spells at the ready all the time. I had a dreadful experience just getting money out of the bank the other day.” Or failing to get money.
“Black magic isn’t a replacement for a cash machine. It’s powerful enough to stop time in its tracks and change the course of witch history.”
“It sounds like it’s not worth a lot unless I’m in deep trouble.”
Trevor clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Now you’re getting the hang of it. You want to try something powerful and awe-inspiring today?”
Perhaps I’d woken up on the wrong side of the bed, but the idea didn’t thrill me. “Sure.”
“Create a walkway out to the rocky reef, over there,” he said, pointing.
“Do I need to know why I’d want to do that for this to work?”
“Nah. Magic performs better when you don’t get into a philosophical debate beforehand.”
The black magic vibrated inside my body, excited at the chance to escape. I laid a hand on my chest, unsure if I should describe to Trevor what I felt. If alcohol was an intoxicant, these occult spells resting within my body were cocaine, meth, and heroin combined.
If I set them free, I might never gain control of them again.
“Come on.” Trevor clapped his hands again and in response my arms glowed crimson. The spells were already working their way up to the surface, desperate to be free of their prison cell—me.
“Couldn’t this be dangerous?” I asked, wanting to release the power but still afraid my teacher was bonkers, and I was about to unleash a weapon I might never be able to sheath again.
“If it’s not dangerous, what’s the point?”
I stared at the harbour, my eyes tracing a line to the reef. With my hands held out in front of me, I clenched them into fists. The crimson light whirled and twisted on the surface of my skin, begging to be set free.
Then the earth shifted under me as an image zinged into my mind. The Grand Valley Lodge falling around me in pieces, endangering everyone inside.
I might have died in there. I could have killed Beezley.
The crimson light retreated, rushing into a cold place in my heart. “Perhaps if you gave a demonstration?”
Trevor sighed, turning a wary eye on me before he threw a bolt across the harbour and split the ocean in two.
Chapter Twelve
My teacher looked drunk on power as the black magic unzipped a path, hitting against the stony outcropping of the reef. As I stared at the spectacle, my mind sizzled. I could walk straight along the beach to the reef right now and not get any wetter than some damp sand on my shoes.
The opening grew wider, choppy water walls rising on either side. Startled fish flopped amongst limp seaweed, the sand glistening with moisture like a freshly watered lawn.
The witch down from us fell off her broom, mouth agape with wonder.
“Now what?” I called out, laughing at the sheer audacity of the man to command such a miracle. “Do you want to take a walk?”
“Now I fill it back in and let you try again.”
“Oh,” I said in disappointment. Although I mimicked his stance, my heart wasn’t in it. My magic whirled around my chest, singing its siren song, but my fears formed a cage to keep it trapped.
The woman and her two children walked past, still searching for a comfortable place to sit. They wore nothing but togs and the mother had a towel wrapped around her waist. She snuck a curious glance in our direction before her attention returned to the young girl and boy calling out with joy to be at the beach.
Trevor folded his arms and stared at me, one eyebrow raised. “Either you’re not trying, or you’ve lost your magic abilities. Even if you can’t perform as well as me, you should be able to do something.” He tilted his head to one side. “Or this is an elaborate joke.”
“I swear, I do need training. No one’s playing a prank on you.” I rubbed at my temples, which were beginning to pulse and throb. “Or, if they are, they’re playing a trick on me too.”
“Stand with your feet apart,” he ordered, bending his knees and bouncing a little. “Draw the magic up from the soles of your feet and into your belly. Can you feel it spinning in there like a fire?”
I duplicated his stance. “It feels more like a song that wants to be sung. But I’m too scared of what might happen to let the notes ring out.”
“What’s the worst thing that could happen?”
With a gulp, I stared along the expanse of the harbour, counting the boats out on their moorings and the houses built right down to the shore. “I could sink the boats and swamp the houses and drown anyone standing on the beach.”
“Yeah. Well, you’ve got a dramatic imagination. I’ll give you that.”
“When I had white magic, I was a weak witch,” I said, the words tumbling out of my mouth. “No matter how many times coven members tried to teach me. Maybe it’s just that I’m a weak witch and always have been.”
Trevor took a step back and stared at me, his lips curling. His gaze flicked from my face to the car sitting ready to take us home. “You might be a weak white witch. That’s a different thing altogether.”
“I can’t use white magic at all,” I admitted. “Glynda took those powers away from me.”
Trevor’s lips moved again, this time jerking into a smile. “Ah-huh. That sounds like the sort of thing to happen to a bad witch.”
“I’m not a bad witch.” This time I was the one who flared into anger. “I’m a good witch, using black magic to bring about good things.”
“Steady on.” Trevor held his hands up and retreated a step. “You don’t want to let that evil magic loose when you’re in a bad temper. It’s the sort of thing that gets witches excommunicated.”
“I’m already excommunicated,” I said, stamping my foot. It wasn’t until I heard his snuffle of laughter that I looked up and saw he already knew that, the tease. “Has this all been an act?”
“No.” He stared back at the rough sea, eyes glazing over for a second. “I really am a trainer but until you dismantle the mental block you have, my teaching methods won’t do either of us any good. You have to want to use your powers.”
“But I do.” I grabbed his hand between two of mine. “I’m just afraid I’ll hurt someone in the process.”
“You won’t if you use it in the right situations. Don’t use your magic unless you’re trying to do something with drama bigness. Otherwise, it’s like trying to get rid of a small stain on your shirt using a bath of acid. Sure, it’ll be gone but so will the rest of your wardrobe and half your hands.”
I sniggered at the thought, waving my arms as though they were stumps. “That’s the kind of horror scaring me into uselessness.”
“Mum. Come out and swim with us,” yelled the young boy from the family who’d passed us a few moments before. His sister jo
ined in the plea, waving from a few metres in the water.
“Don’t be silly. I can’t swim. We agreed I’d sit up here and watch you from the beach.”
As I turned to watch the family, the girl and boy exchanged a strange glance. The mother, who’d been pumping up a Lilo, dropped the air-filled mattress and began to walk towards the surf.
“It’s great in the water, Mum,” the little girl said. She looked about eight or nine and her face was familiar, though it took me a minute to place her. Annie Harris. That meant the boy beside her was Tom and the woman striding into the ocean was Desiree.
“Are you alright?” I called out as the woman hit waist deep and kept going. “Mrs Harris?”
Trevor picked up the concern from my tone and we both walked down to the water’s edge.
“Play with me, Mummy,” Tom cried out, splashing water in her direction. “Last one to the platform’s a rotten egg!”
He struck out for the floating jetty, smoothly executing a freestyle stroke. His sister giggled, then followed along behind him, dog paddling for all she was worth.
“Mrs Harris?” I shouted again, worried. Hadn’t the woman said she couldn’t swim? She was still walking, the water level now reaching just under her armpits. “Are you okay out there?”
Desiree Harris turned towards me, a beseeching expression on her face. She reached a hand back as though I could grasp hold of it from the shore.
A second later, her chin bobbled under the level of the water.
“Tom! Annie! Help your mother.”
My order fell on deaf ears as the children continued to swim for the raft. Mrs Harris would never make it. Her calm stride into deeper waters wouldn’t last long without air.
I tugged off my shoes, dancing as I tried to run into the water at the same time as I unhooked my jeans.
“What are you doing?” Trevor called out, clutching hold of my arm to make me stop. “There’s no time for that. You can’t reach her.” As I flung him off, my heart beating ten times its usual speed, he whispered, “You know what to do.”
