by Willow Mason
“I think what I really need is just a good night’s sleep and a fresh start in the morning,” Beezley said, returning to the lounge.
“Good idea.”
He turned his frown on me, then gestured towards the door. “So, I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yes, you will. And for the rest of the night. I live here.”
“In my house?” Beezley’s expression turned apoplectic. “I mightn’t remember everything, but I know myself. There’s no way I’d ever share a house with a woman unless she was my wife.”
His eyes dropped immediately to my left hand, and I thought about pretending, but it would never fly.
“Don’t worry. We’re not hitched. However, room and board came as a package deal with my employment, so I’m not moving out unless you want to start paying me a lot more.” I pulled Porangi into my lap, patting him but also using him as a first line of defence. “If you want me to move, I’ll need a new contract and at least a month’s notice.”
I held my gaze steady, hoping he wouldn’t push hard on the contract front. With the French bulldog’s limitations, we’d never put together something in writing. An oversight I hoped I wouldn’t pay for.
“This is ridiculous. I feel like I’m being scammed.”
“Knock, knock,” Glynda said, actually having to knock on the door for once. “I came around to thank you for the great job you did tracking down Brianna. Her mother is thrilled to have her home.”
She hugged me, whispering in my ear, “I’ll try a reversal spell. Stand back.”
I gave her space only to find her staring intently at me. “What?”
“Where’s your—?”
With a wave of my hand, I dismissed her inquiry. We could discuss the loss of my magic abilities later. Right now, I just wanted to ensure I could sleep tonight.
“Here goes nothing.” Glynda waved her hands, and I held my breath waiting for the magic glow of light. It took a second for me to realise it was happening, but I could no longer see it. My magic had gone and left me impervious to its use by others. A witch with no powers was worse than useless.
A trait it shared with the spell Glynda cast. When her hands and lips stopped moving, Beezley was left with the same moody expression on his face.
Still, I hoped against hope. “Do you remember who I am now?”
“No.” He blinked slowly as though emerging from a dream. “Should I? It’s only been five minutes since you told me who you were.”
“Oh, well.” Glynda put her hands on her hips and gave Beezley an appraising stare. “Whoever did this knew what they were doing.”
“Whoever did what?” Beezley flung his hand into the air. “No, don’t worry. I can’t handle anything more tonight. I’m going to bed.”
Judging from the sounds after he disappeared into the bedroom, he’d propped a chair under the doorhandle. The very idea pierced my aching heart. “What does he think I’m going to do? Ravish him?”
Glynda took my arm and walked me into the kitchen. “Tell me everything.”
I filled her in on the broad strokes, wondering whether to admit that my father—a man who she’d implied ruined my mother’s life—had been there. Not wanting to keep a lie straight in my tired head, I went ahead and told her. Glynda’s face remained a blank mask throughout.
“This is outrageous. I didn’t like you having black magic but to think it’s gone to that piece of refuse is repulsive. Not to mention dangerous.”
“Marlon said The Briary isn’t overseen by the supernatural council because there aren’t any humans in its district. Maybe we should…”
My words trailed off as a shudder gripped Glynda. She held up a hand. “Please, no mention of the council. We’ve got enough to contend with.”
“What if they—”
The hand again cut me off. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep and I’ll ponder what to do about the scoundrels in The Briary. They certainly can’t be left to keep on with their crimes, but we don’t have to act right this minute. Careful thought will be our best ally.”
And on that note, I called it a night.
Chapter Thirteen
Harriet and Glynda dragged me out of bed the next morning. One to collect her books and check on me, the other to have me as a witness.
“When those two young women try to get around me with their double-talk,” Glenda explained, “and I know they will, I want you on hand to correct them.”
“Unless they start to use magic, whereupon I’ll be blind, deaf, and dumb.”
“You’ve already got the dumb in spades,” Harriet joked, bumping her hip into mine. “Should I come along? You know how I like a firework show.”
“More than you like being paid for your actual job?” Glynda asked with one raised eyebrow. When Harriet’s shoulders slumped, she patted her on the arm. “I thought not. Why don’t you get to the library and leave this matter to us?”
For once, I felt sorry for Harriet as she left us alone.
After knocking on Brianna’s front door, Glynda clicked her tongue against her teeth. “It looks like she and her mother have had a rapprochement. That’s her car inside the garage.”
It was Lucinda who answered the door and showed us inside a house that bore no relation to the pigsty we’d previously visited. The stench of discarded food containers and rotting fish in the pool had been replaced with a hefty dose of air freshener. A ranch slider to the back lawn stood open, letting through a refreshing breeze.
“I must thank you for all you did for my daughter,” Lucinda said as she awkwardly clasped my hands. “At the time it must’ve seemed like we’d sold you down the river, but we trusted you’d make it out okay.”
“She’s not okay,” Glynda snapped, putting the woman in her place before I had the chance to. “Her magic’s been stolen, and her co-worker has lost his memory. Neither of them will be able to work like this. You’ve just ended her career with one snap.”
News to me. I didn’t know who to be more affronted by.
“I’ll compensate for any residual damages, of course,” Lucinda cooed, much to my bank balance’s relief. “Having my daughter back, the way she’s meant to be, is worth any price tag.”
“It’s not the money.” Glynda crossed to the woman and poked a finger squarely in the middle of her chest. “You placed coven member’s lives in danger. It’s a betrayal of everything we hold precious.”
Lucinda’s carefully crafted smile slipped for a second and her eyes flashed, hot with rage. “I don’t remember you being all for one and one for all when my daughter was crippled.”
“I gave her a job.”
“Once a year.”
“The coven paid her handsomely considering it was only four hours of work.”
“And left her alone, to sit and stew in everything she’d lost for the other three hundred and sixty-four days of the year.”
Glynda’s mouth curved at the edges, a smile designed to draw blood. “She had her good friend Delia, didn’t she? The coven can hardly force a friendship on someone set on pushing it aside. The housefly was a steadfast companion, though.”
Lucinda stepped back—distaste prominent in the curl of her lip. “I’d hardly call that frumpy disaster a good friend.”
“Mother!” Too late, Lucinda heard the light tread of her daughter entering the room, her slighted friend in tow. “How could you say such a thing?”
Delia’s arms were folded in a defensive line, but I saw her lower lip trembling. The words had struck dead centre on their target. “Don’t worry about it,” she said, staring at the floor. “It doesn’t matter what the old hag thinks of me.”
“It does.” Brianna marched across the room. “Apologise to my friend at once, or you can get out of my life for another twenty years.”
A tiny blur whizzed by on the lawn outside, heading straight for the decorative fairy lights festooned over the squat pine tree near the pool. I was already running before my brain reconciled the image into Porangi, intent o
n destruction.
“No! Bad dog.” I stretched out my hand but missed his collar by a millimetre as he sprinted past, jumping into the tree as though it was a bouncy castle. He growled and wrestled the string of lights, tugging it free, and headed back to the car with it snaking behind.
“Those cost good money,” Brianna shouted, picking up the trailing end and giving it such a tug Porangi somersaulted backwards. “Get out of here, you menace.”
“Sorry about the dog,” I said but Glynda brushed me aside.
“You can deduct the ten bucks you paid for those things from the bill you owe. Or are you letting your mother pick up the tab?”
“No one told you to chase after me,” Brianna grumbled.
“If I hadn’t, you would’ve been the one to end up in the basement when Aloysius realised you were no use to him.” My face burned with the injustice and I wished Porangi had done damage to more than a simple decoration. “I could’ve died down there.”
“You didn’t, more’s the pity.” Lucinda came to stand beside her daughter in a gesture of solidarity and Brianna forgot their argument as suddenly as she’d started it.
Delia might still have held some trace resentment, but she chose to aim it at the carpet.
“What use is a witch with no magic?” Brianna asked with a sneer. In the strong daylight, her face was lined with wrinkles. She appeared much closer in age to her mother, in stark contrast to the video from the pub. Perhaps having a rotten heart was affecting the rest of her body? I glanced at Delia and saw the same effect had struck her. If anything, her wrinkles and liver spots were worse.
Glynda clicked her tongue. “I’ll invoice you, Lucinda. Make sure you pay it before the next coven meeting, or you and your offspring can look for another town to call home.”
“Perhaps it’s time we moved on,” she agreed without rancour.
“If you do, you forfeit both your houses, as per the coven agreement.” Glynda winked at my astonishment. “If Beezley does kick you out, how’d you fancy this as your new home?”
I couldn’t work out if she was joking or not, so held my tongue. Lucinda and Brianna just glared until we left.
“Come here, Porangi,” I shouted as the chihuahua hurtled past, intent on more mischief. He didn’t even flick a glance my way. “Heel?”
“He’s got a traumatic brain injury,” Glynda said, getting into the driver’s seat. “If you want him to join us on the ride home, you’ll have to fetch him.”
Cue fifteen minutes of me being run ragged in the mid-summer heat. It was only when I dug into my pockets and discovered an old chew treat that he showed me any interest. While he sniffed, I grabbed him around the middle and fell into the passenger seat with a relieved sigh.
“There are these new inventions,” Glynda said dryly. “They’re called leads.”
“You want me to leash a familiar? That’s a travesty.”
She reached over and tickled Porangi under the chin. “Believe me, I’d be happier if he was restored to his former glory but if our fake Kris Kringle couldn’t bring about that miracle, I doubt you’ll have any luck.”
“Can’t win, don’t try, eh?”
Glynda laughed, a surprisingly joyous sound coming from her. “You can knock yourself out trying, it’s the succeeding that’ll be the struggle.”
We were pulling up outside Beezley’s house when I gathered the courage to ask a question that had occurred to me the previous night. “You know what Lucinda said, about a witch with no magic being useless?”
“Don’t worry what that old witch says. I’ll make sure she pays for the trouble she and Brianna caused.”
“Good but it’s not that. I wondered if you still had the white magic you confiscated from me.” I tried to swallow past a lump in my throat but couldn’t. “If you were able to restore it…”
The road must have proved more difficult to navigate than usual because Glynda’s eyes stayed firmly fixed ahead. I petted Porangi, letting his silken coat ease away some of my fears.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Glynda said when I’d given up hope of an answer. “But in return, I need a favour. I’m calling a coven meeting for tomorrow and I need your open and honest testimony about what happened during this case, from the moment I hired you until you rocked into town again, yesterday.”
Never one for public speaking, my throat went dry, but I nodded.
“It’d also help if you bring along your transformed boss.”
That was a feat I was less sure I could perform. “He doesn’t know about witches any longer.”
“Tell him it’s a surprise barbeque in the woods.”
“I think that would put him off even more than the thought of witches.”
Glynda sighed and shifted down a gear as we neared home. “If we’re going to erase Beezley’s memory spell, we need time to examine him in detail.” She paused while pulling the car alongside Beezley’s house. “To get your magic back will require an awful lot of paperwork from me…”
“I’ll get him there.” Porangi gave a solid yap of approval, pawing at the passenger side window. “You might want to prepare some way to keep him in the circle once he arrives though.”
“I’m sure we can do that.” A crooked smile rose on Glynda’s face at the idea and I pushed my mind firmly away from dwelling on what it might mean.
The front door was locked, indicating Beezley had taken himself off somewhere else for the day. I entered the house with a light step, stopping short when I saw the changes.
All the surfaces were clean and shining. I’d never left anything long enough to get dirty, but I also wasn’t obsessive. The kitchen had been in such a state when I first arrived, my already moderate standards of housekeeping had slid down a few steps.
Clean, not tidy. That was enough for me.
Now, the house gleamed like a polished geode and I was afraid to step on the carpet with its neat vacuumed lines. The relief of finding Beezley gone was immediately overtaken with fear of putting a step wrong. Was the man a certified neat-freak? When I reached my bedroom, I sagged against the doorframe, ecstatic to find it was still in its usual morning mess, awaiting the arrival of someone with enthusiasm to tidy the duvet and transport clothes to the washing machine.
“Don’t, Porangi,” I chided as the dog attempted to tear a pillow apart. “I can’t afford to get kicked out of here. Harriet’s sofa might sound like a cool option for one night, but my back won’t appreciate it for longer than that.”
I discarded my shoes and inched through the house on stockinged feet to reach the kitchen. So much clean. So much shine. My head ached at the sight of it.
The fridge appeared to have been dragged through a garden. Fresh vegetables and fruits crowded out most of the shelves. I had to hunt to find my half-empty container of dip. Unable to locate the matching box of crackers, I glumly settled for a few cut-up carrots to act as transporters of the reduced-cream treat into my mouth.
A note lay on the sidetable. Gone to work. Back at five.
Work? I shook my head and crept back to the safety of my room. After a tussle between making the bed or crawling back into it, I decided everything would be easier to handle after a nice nap.
“Porangi! Get away from the decorations!”
The chihuahua ignored me, tugging on a large glass ball until it shattered in his mouth.
“Your dog’ll get hurt if you’re not careful,” a stern-faced man said, shooing Porangi in my direction. “If you want to take him through the town centre, you should have him on a leash.”
I picked the dog up instead, nodding my thanks to the man and examining Porangi’s mouth for any stray shards of bright red. “Why do you keep trying to get into trouble?” I whispered while walking hurriedly away. “The decorations are for admiring not chewing.”
Between the bag of books I was returning to Harriet and an armful of squirming dog, it was a relief to reach the library without further incident.
“Did you even crack the covers
on these?” she asked, rerouting the stash to the correct shelves.
“We didn’t need to,” I admitted, wrinkling my nose. “Since the mermaid in question turned out to be just as duplicitous as anyone who’d want to hunt her.”
“I love these old legends.” Harriet stroked a leather-bound cover before tucking the book away in its home. “It’s a pity half of them aren’t true.”
“Sounds to me like that’s a good thing.” I tugged at Porangi’s tail when he seemed set on growling a short volume on broom riding into submission. “Could you imagine a world where there was double the number of supernatural creatures? My life has been far too dangerous with the small selection we have.”
“But ghouls and goblins sound fun.” Harriet wiggled a book at me, full of brightly coloured illustrations of things that existed solely in the author’s mind. “A magic toadstool would be just the thing I need as a pick-me-up.”
“Isn’t the magic mushroom enough?” I pulled Porangi away after he gave a test nibble to the bookshelf. “What’s a toadstool going to do that’s so wonderful?”
“It says here, one hour of contemplation on the stool will set you on a course for the future that exactly fits your talents and skills.”
“Great. Another guidance counsellor. I had enough trouble ignoring the one at high school.”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t have. Given how much mischief you get into going your own way.”
“Nothing to do with me,” I whispered into Porangi’s fur. “My mother taught me to ignore anyone’s advice if it didn’t fit with what my gut told me.”
Harriet didn’t say anything, but I could read her expression well enough. And where did that get her?
Seriously, the witches in Fernwood Gully were rude to a fault, even when they didn’t open their mouths.
“I met my father,” I said, surprising myself with the statement. Harriet’s expression changed but not enough. Someone had already told her. Given my hazy memories of my arrival home after the world’s most harrowing day, perhaps it had been me.
“What’s he like?”
