by Willow Mason
I thought he was sneaky enough to have done exactly that. “We need to talk to Glynda. She’ll have a better idea of what to do.”
“Lucinda will hate me if I consult her first.”
“Then how about you ring your mother while I talk to our beloved leader? Go into the bedroom so you have privacy.” So I don’t have to hear you collapse into misery while you explain that your best friend is dead.
I pulled up Glynda’s number and stared at the phone through dull eyes. This year had already gone down in history as the worst Christmas ever. Every new minute just opened the chance for a new disaster.
But ignoring the problem wouldn’t change anything. Like a good girl, I dialled my supreme’s number to tell her the latest piece of dreadful news.
Chapter Fifteen
Dr Astrid Montgomery was a lovely woman. Her fresh-faced smile stayed set on encouraging as I met her at Brianna’s door to lay out the grim discovery awaiting her inside.
We gathered beside the pool, a low undercurrent of rotting fish odour still hanging in the air and waited while the doctor examined her deceased patient. Brianna had already bitten her nails to the quick but continued to nibble despite the blood and pain.
Lucinda stood back, helpless in the face of her daughter’s grief. I would have felt sorry for her if it hadn’t been for her recent appalling behaviour. Since her distress was second-hand, it wasn’t enough for me to let go of my outrage.
“Old age,” Dr Montgomery said, striding towards us. “She appears to have suffered multiple organ failures and there might be other ailments I can’t see on such a quick examination, but that’s the root cause of everything. Age took her without a shred of pity or grace. It carved through her entire body, wearing every cell out until the entire system collapsed.”
“And her…” I waved a hand vaguely back at the house, remembering the jelly-like feel of Delia’s body.
“Her decomposition is also advanced. Even from the beginning of my examination to the end, I could see alterations that should take hours or days.”
“It’s going to happen to me next,” Brianna cried, fear screeching through her voice. “I can feel myself growing older by the second.”
“Whatever hit Delia is treating you more kindly,” Dr Montgomery said with a blunt nod. “You’re ageing too fast but not at the same rate.”
“How long?” Brianna wrung her hands. “Today? Tomorrow? Next week?”
“I don’t know when it started.”
“When my tail changed back into legs.” Brianna rapped the side of her head with her knuckles. “When was that? Last week?”
“Do you have an image of yourself from then? I don’t have anything to compare against?”
I brought up a still from the CCTV footage on my phone and handed it over. “There’s the moment of change, although Bri appeared exceptionally young for her age.”
“Yes.” The doctor compared the image to the distraught woman in front of her. “You look in your fifties at least, but you’re what? Forty? Forty-five?”
Brianna nodded, not clarifying any further.
“This is just going to be a guess, nothing more.”
“Will you just tell me!”
“Maybe a year or two?”
“Why would this have started with their transformations?” I asked, my head full of Beezley. What cruel irony would restore him to human, only to cut his age down worse than if he’d remained a dog?
A click sounded in my brain and I held up my hand to stop the doctor answering if she’d even been going to.
“Delia was a housefly, right?” When Brianna didn’t answer immediately, I snapped my fingers under her nose. “A fly, not a fairy, right?”
She nodded. “Dels didn’t like to talk about it but someone morphed her, just like someone morphed me.”
I faced Dr Montgomery. “A housefly’s lifespan is counted in days. Thirty at a stretch but I don’t think Delia was taking care to live right.” I glanced over to Brianna. “The rotting fish in the pool, they were for her?”
Brianna inclined her head as a new wave of tears fell. “She loved them.”
“How long do fish live?”
The doctor tilted her head to one side. “Depends. Some only a few years while others can survive decades.”
“Do you know what type of fish your attacker turned you into?” I asked Brianna.
“How would I know? I’m not a fish expert.”
“You could try asking at the local pet store. If you’ve got a good image of your tail, the man there might identify your breed.”
“Great. So I can narrow down how soon I’m going to die?” Brianna crossed her arms and threw her head back. “How about we turn the conversation towards how to stop dying early rather than measuring how long I’ve got?”
“Marlon left this morning.” I checked the time on my phone. “No, yesterday morning. Harriet said he caught a bus to Christchurch and since he was travelling with a tortoise, he’s likely to be remembered.”
Brianna looked pensive. “Won’t the network cancel out the other passenger’s memories?”
“It only covers Fernwood. Even if it was operational along the entire route, he’s not performing magic, just sitting with a weird pet. People would see him regardless.”
While Dr Montgomery packed up her black bag and arranged for Delia’s body to be taken away, I jotted down notes on tracking Marlon and Binky. At each step, I could hear Beezley’s methodical voice dictating the next actions. I missed him, the old him, and tried not to dwell on whether that was influencing my conclusion.
“What makes you think this old man reversing his spell will do any good?” Brianna asked as an undertaker arrived to remove Delia’s body, gently and discretely. “He obviously twisted it the first time he tried.”
“I doubt he meant to,” I argued, then frowned. Marlon had power. His magic was strong and sure. Could this be a mistake or was it an inevitable part of the process?
“I don’t want him casting any spells on me until we’re a hundred percent sure they’ll save my life.”
Lucinda cleared her throat. “Bri’s right. Besides, we don’t need a reversal, we need someone to restore her to human with her lifespan intact. This would all be for nothing if he just changed her back into a fish.”
Brianna nodded, but I was shocked. “Better a live fish than a dead witch.”
“Says someone who’s neither.” Lucinda folded her arms and shook her head. “We need to wait until Glynda arrives before we take any action. She’ll have a better idea of what to do.”
The deference took me by surprise. The two women didn’t strike me as people to hand control of their decisions to another.
“Glynda won’t be here for hours,” I reminded them. She’d point blank refused to interrupt her sleep to come straight away.
“Delia will be just as dead in the morning,” she’d declared before ending the call. When I tried to phone again, it went straight to voicemail.
“No offence,” Lucinda said with a sniff, “but I don’t trust you not to hurt my daughter in retaliation for what happened to you.”
“What you did to me, not what happened.”
“See. It’s obvious you’re holding a grudge.”
“Listen, if this only affected your daughter and her dead-fly friend, believe me, I’d walk out the door and leave you to it. But in case you’ve forgotten, I’ve got a close friend with skin in this game. He might have the lifespan of a dog but that’s a lot shorter than I’m comfortable with.”
“Marlon caused this situation to start with,” Lucinda said. “I’m not putting my daughter’s life in his hands again.”
“Aloysius could have corrupted his spell as he did with Beezley’s memory. If Marlon can work out what magic was used, he might be able to restore your daughter’s life span and keep her form.”
“You watched him transform Delia,” Brianna said in a soft voice. “Aloysius didn’t interfere with his magic at all.”
&
nbsp; “Except for keeping him chained in a prison cell and kidnapping his familiar. If Marlon’s magic had a hidden twist, perhaps that’s because he was under duress.”
“And how will you get him to fix it? Put him under duress again?” Lucinda stood up and walked in quick steps to the window. “No. Bringing that man anywhere near my daughter again puts her in even more danger. I won’t have it.”
“Then I’ll track him down and bring him back here just to help Beezley.” I jumped to my feet and stalked to the door. “Next time you want help, Bri, try calling someone else.”
I slammed the door behind me, only getting two steps down the driveway before it opened. “Wait.” Brianna caught up to me. “Listen, I agree with what my mother says but I’m happy to pay for your investigation. If Marlon fixes your dog pal, then I’m willing to let him work his magic on me.”
And if he doesn’t, Beezley would bear the brunt of my assumptions.
“Deal.” I signed into our client management system and sent her an invoice, at double the usual fee. “Once you pay the deposit, I’ll start work.”
Brianna didn’t even check the price before clicking on pay. The woman lived in a different world. “If Marlon turns out to be behind Delia’s death, I’ll expect you to charge him with murder, duress or no duress.”
The coven guidelines demanded no less. “I’ll abide by my responsibilities,” I said through tight lips. “Just because I’ve lost my powers doesn’t mean I’ve abandoned my allegiance.”
“Good.” Brianna stared me in the eyes for a long moment. “Delia was a good sort, you know. Even after being transformed, she could find the hidden joy in any situation. Her company all these years was the only thing that kept me sane.”
“She sounds like a good friend.”
“Delia was the best. If Marlon can’t help us, I want him to hang for what he did to her.”
Hanging hadn’t been part of the witches’ code for as many years as I’d been alive, but I nodded. If the animus healer had done this terrible thing, I also wanted blood.
Either the situation put right or vengeance. It sounded good to me.
Chapter Sixteen
“No,” Glynda said when I explained the situation to her.
“What’s no? I’m going to track Marlon down and get him back here whether you agree or not.”
“Sit down. You’re making my head spin.”
I gave up pacing the room and plonked down on the sofa. My kinetic energy demanded release, so I jiggled my foot.
“What are you planning on doing if you find him?” Glynda enquired with a sweet smile. “Bring him back here by yourself? No. Wait until the meeting tonight and we’ll get a team together. This affects more than just Beezley and Brianna. The insult to our coven is a direct challenge from The Briary.”
Glynda sucked in her lips, making her cheekbones appear even higher. She sat ramrod straight in her chair, the beehive adding even more height. A regal supreme. I’d never seen her in this light before.
Then again, our coven had never been to war.
“We can’t fight against their powers,” I said as the frustration bubbled like magma beneath the surface. “White magic won’t be enough. We need—”
“I’ll decide what we need and where we’ll get it from. Now, get on home and tidy yourself up. With this new development, it’s doubly important your speech tonight go off without a hitch.”
Oh, yes. My speech.
“Is Beezley coming?” Glynda stared at me through narrowed eyes. “I hope your falling out didn’t extend to him skipping tonight’s meeting. It’s imperative he be there.”
“He’ll be there,” I said with my mental fingers crossed that DI Jonson could persuade him. “Even if he isn’t, I think the problem with ageing supersedes his memory loss.”
“It leaves us without a trained law enforcement officer.” Glynda folded her hands together on the table, leaning forward. “You’ve been doing nicely but a few months is no substitute for years of high-level training. I’ve come to rely on the two of you for help in several cases and I don’t want to flush that away because of some jumped-up familiar who thinks he has the right to perform magic.”
I held my tongue, staring down at the floor.
“What is it?” Glynda snapped. “You’re not even trying to keep a poker face.”
“Is this to do with my father? I know you don’t—”
“Your father is a wretch of a human being and an abomination as a witch.”
I whispered under my breath, “Tell me how you really feel.”
“I’ve never hidden from you, or your mother when she was alive, exactly what I thought of him. It used to be enough to have a few hours’ drive separating us but obviously, that’s changed. Our safety is under threat.”
“It wasn’t really him.”
Glynda stared hard at me, finally sighing and gesturing for me to continue.
“His familiar, Aloysius, has been targeting me for a long time. I don’t think my father cared in the slightest whether he ever saw me in the flesh.”
“The familiar wouldn’t have acted without instruction and he was after your black magic.”
I frowned at the carpet again as if it had done me wrong. “Except the first time he came after me, I didn’t have it. The spells were still singing their song in the library and he didn’t pay them a visit. A man of such low morals could’ve stolen them out of thin air.”
One perfectly raised eyebrow reminded me of how I’d become acquainted with them.
“They wanted to belong with me. Aloysius is a creep who no spell would willingly go near.”
Despite Glynda’s admonitions, I still called the bus company as soon as I left her place. Sure, I wouldn’t act on the information until authorised but if I didn’t get the deets now, they could be gone by the time I needed them.
Old man with a tortoise? Check. The woman on the phone willingly let the confirmation slip when I told her it was my grandfather, and I needed to ensure he’d reached the other end of his journey unmolested. After all, it wasn’t like I wanted his personal details.
When it was like that, she abruptly cited the Privacy Act and hung up.
If I’d had access to the police database like normal, I could have traced his passage through the centre of Christchurch by following him from one CCTV camera to another. I could have spied on him in the bus terminal to see if that was his final destination or if he’d just jumped onto another vehicle to head out of town again.
Those details would sure come in handy. So handy, it would almost be worth breaking into Beezley’s home and pulling them up on the desktop while he was out.
I imagined the expression of horror that would cross his face if he came back before I left and dismissed the idea. Like a stubborn stain, it stayed lodged in my head, drawing my mind’s eye no matter how hard I tried to ignore it.
No. No, no, and more no.
Even if I would never go through with the plan, it brought home another revelation. One I’d been trying hard to avoid. Without access to the same tools I’d had with Beezley, my investigations would become a hundred times harder. With proper training that might not be an issue, but I couldn’t live on nothing while waiting to gain accreditation.
I needed to get a real job. Without magic, I couldn’t work for the coven and without training, I couldn’t work anywhere else. I was back to the same square one I’d been standing on when Beezley popped into my life. The minimum wage was the highest I could aim, and I couldn’t guarantee full time at that.
Curse Fernwood Gully for being a small town. During winter and the bustling ski season, I might find something more lucrative, but not so enriching I could weather the other three seasons of the year.
I wasted an afternoon dwelling on unpleasant thoughts and even worse scenarios. When Harriet arrived home, ready to change and head out to the coven meeting, I’d accomplished exactly nothing.
Even Prue had a kind word for me as we joined the coven meeting.
Long shadows dragged out their echoes of trees, leaving the group in shade.
“Where is he?” Glynda demanded when Harriet and I made it through the throng to greet her. “I can’t impose a delay at this late hour.”
“Beezley will be here,” I said, keeping my fingers crossed behind my back. “I just wanted to touch base before I go back to the roadside to meet him. He likely won’t be able to find this place on his own.”
She appeared unimpressed with the information, so I waved goodbye to Harriet and toddled back along the path we’d just walked. Even if DI Jonson had been as good as his word, Beezley might not come. My fingers ached from being crossed so hard.
I’d almost given up hope, listening to occasional snatches of the coven meeting as sounds drifted through the forest when a familiar vehicle pulled up on the roadside. “Over here,” I shouted out, waving. Beezley gave me a cautious glance, then slammed his door closed before crossing to meet me.
“What’s this about?”
“Nice to see you, too. There’s a party farther into the forest. You’re the guest of honour for your help with the missing persons’ case we just resolved.”
“I don’t remember—”
“You don’t need to remember the case to accept the community’s thanks,” I said and tugged on his arm to pull him along the path. “Just stand there for a decent amount of time so they can show their appreciation.” I shot him a cautious glance. “You must’ve been in similar situations before.”
“Apart from the missing memories, yes. I’ve attended ceremonies before.”
His disparaging retort gave me a nostalgic smile and I took quick sideways snaps of his appearance. Did his hairline show more salt and pepper than the day before or was I imposing my worst fears onto the comparison?
“It’s not far now,” I said as we rounded a corner. The back row of the coven was just visible through the thick growth. Goodness knows what Beezley the human would think of the assembly or how he’d view the gathering. Luckily, the neural network in town was doing its job, and he didn’t look askance at the oddly dressed folks crowding into the circle.
