Shiver Me Witches

by A. A. Albright

  ‘Yeah, now that you mention it, it does sound totes cool,’ he said. ‘But can we order lunch first? I’m starving.’

  The tavern was busier than I’d ever seen it. All of the tourists that weren’t on the beach, or on the Spooktacular Tour, were eating lunch. None of them seemed at all concerned that a woman had been murdered just a short distance away. They also seemed unconcerned that the food they were eating was not recommended by locals.

  ‘Hah!’ said Dylan. ‘They’re all eating the seafood platter. Rubes! No one eats the seafood platter. Let’s get the steak. And a double portion of chips. And like, a boatload of ketchup.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ I said as we slid into the only available booth. ‘Well, it sounds like the only other thing on the menu, but still.’

  ‘Hey, don’t be coming down on the Fisherman’s Friend for offering a limited menu,’ he said, following it up with a, ‘Tut, tut, tut.’ He pulled off his jacket and sat with his legs about a mile apart. ‘It’s hard work making food. If I had to cook I’d only make one thing. And it’d be chips. And pizza. Wait … that’s two things. Or is it?’

  He seemed to be carrying on an internal debate about that, so I left him to it and smiled at Biddy. She ran the tavern with her husband, a man called Bod – who right now was wearing his usual pirate outfit. When I say pirate outfit, I mean the sort of outfit a kid might wear at Halloween if they were pretending to be a pirate. He wore a fake eye-patch over one eye, and had a plush-toy parrot on his shoulder. The parrot was stitched down, and bobbled whenever Bod moved.

  Biddy had her own striking style. She liked to dress like an olde-worlde tavern wench, with a gravity defying corset. She dyed her hair a vivid shade of red, which right now was shimmering in the orange light of the tavern. It really was everywhere, that pesky new magic.

  ‘Well now, my pretties,’ Biddy said. ‘What will you have today? The seafood platter is only a fiver. I’ll even throw in free chips.’

  ‘We’ll just have the steak and chips,’ I said. ‘With a double portion of chips for Dylan. Oh, and extra ketchup too.’

  Biddy scribbled down our orders, smiling. ‘And how are you, Miss Smith?’ she said. ‘Are you working on any big stories for the paper? Now, the Spooktacular Tour, that would make a good article.’

  More exciting than a murder? Clearly she was suffering from the same malady as Dylan and everyone else. ‘I’m taking the tour tomorrow,’ I replied with a tight smile.

  As she went to walk away, a sudden thought occurred. If Brian the Brave had been in Riddler’s Edge as much as Arthur and Adeline thought, he might have stayed somewhere local, right? Nollaig, Jared or Pru would have told me if he stayed at the Vander Inn, but what if he stayed here instead?

  ‘Biddy,’ I called after her. ‘Would you happen to keep old visitor’s books lying about by any chance? I’m looking for something maybe thirty or so years ago.’

  She turned around, swallowing. ‘What? I don’t have the books from thirty-three years ago. There was a fire. I lost all my records that year.’

  I frowned. ‘Not thirty-three years ago. I was thinking more like nineteen eighty-seven and eighty-eight.’

  ‘Oh. Yes.’ She sounded relieved. ‘I’ll just go and fetch those for you now. I’ll bring them with your meals.’

  ≈

  A few minutes later, Dylan and I got a box of guest-books along with our lunch. Dylan was still playing with his phone, so I opened up the box while I ate. Straight away I could see that Biddy was a fastidious record keeper. I pored over the books, looking for instances of the name Brian. There were a few random Brians here and there, but there was one Brian who signed in and out on multiple occasions.

  ‘Dylan,’ I said, feeling my skin begin to tingle. ‘I think I’ve found him. A man called Brian Fay stayed here a lot. That’s a well-known surname for the sióga to use as a signal to one another when they’re in the human world, isn’t it? But in December of nineteen eighty-eight …’

  Dylan looked absentmindedly at me, most of his attention still on his phone. ‘Huh? Fay? Yeah. Yeah it is. Hey, did you ever get to the level where the dragons burp black if you feed them crappy coal?’

  I had been about to tell him that the man who signed in as Brian Fay had never signed out that December, but it didn’t seem likely that an important fact like that would mean anything to Dylan. Not in his current state. So instead I said, ‘No, I’ve never made it as far as that level. Hey, why don’t you play a while more so you can tell me all about it?’

  He was still playing by the time Biddy returned to clear our table. ‘Anything for dessert?’ she asked. ‘We have apple tart and cream or apple tart and custard. Oh, we’ve also got apple tart and ice cream.’

  Dylan ripped his eyes from his game. ‘Ice cream. Can I have a huge bowl of ice cream? But no apple tart. Well, maybe a little bit of apple tart. But mostly ice cream.’

  As she scribbled his order, I asked, ‘Biddy, is there any reason you can think of why someone wouldn’t sign out?’

  She chewed on the inside of her gum for a moment, looking thoughtful. ‘Yes and no. If there was any reason for them not to sign out, I’d always make a note of it.’ She picked up one of the books and leafed through. ‘Now see here for example. In September of nineteen eighty-eight, a Mr Paul Merriweather didn’t sign out, because he had a heart attack in his bed. I’ve added an asterisk next to his name and noted it at the back of the book.’

  She flipped to the back of the book, where we could see how carefully she’d listed out the reasons for the very few instances when guests hadn’t been able to sign out – whether they’d been called away on an emergency or, as in the case of poor Paul, said their last farewells at the Fisherman’s Friend. But in all of those careful notes, there was no mention of Brian.

  ‘Can you recall this man at all?’ I turned to December in the nineteen eighty-eight book and pointed to Brian Fay’s name. ‘He’d stayed here a lot, but that one time he didn’t sign out. Can you remember him, or why he didn’t sign out?’

  She frowned, leafing through the pages, looking at all the instances of Brian Fay’s name. ‘I … I’m trying really hard, Miss Smith. But I really don’t remember him, and I have no idea why he didn’t sign out. It just doesn’t seem like me, though, not to have made some note of when and why he left.’

  ‘Thanks anyway, Biddy,’ I said.

  She walked away, looking troubled. But not nearly as troubled as I felt.

  7. Compelling Questions

  While Dylan ate his dessert, I tried countless times to direct his attention to the murder investigation, but he was far more interested in playing with his phone. As he scraped the last of the ice cream out of his bowl, though, I saw his screen grow dark.

  ‘Bummer!’ he exclaimed. ‘My stupid phone’s run out of stupid battery.’

  ‘Oh, what a total bummer,’ I drawled. ‘But hey, maybe we could do something even more exciting. Weren’t you just saying a little while ago that you thought investigating this murder sounded totally cool?’

  ‘Oh yeah, totally rad,’ he said. ‘So um … how would we go about that, then, do you think?’

  ‘We could start with you telling me what you found out about the victim after I had to leave to go to that totally boring meeting,’ I suggested.

  He scratched his head. ‘Well, it was sort of a while ago now. Em … what did I find out? What did I find out? Em … oh yeah! So her name was Evelyn Conroy. And em … she was fifty-two.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. I was there when you looked at her driver’s licence. Anything else totally … rad or cool or exciting?’

  ‘Well she was a pretty boring chick by the sounds of things. I mean, she worked in a bank in County Mayo, which is not fun. The bank part I mean. Mayo is fine. Em … she was single. But then she came here with her best friend Sally to enjoy Halloween, which makes her a little less boring I guess. They had a great time, according to Sally. They chilled out and relaxed and went on the Spooktacular Tour. Sally told
me that Evelyn loved the Turnip Maze – I mean who wouldn’t, right? Em … what else?’

  This was truly the type of conversation that gritting your teeth was designed for. ‘So then you spoke with the best friend? That’s good. And what did Sally tell you?’

  ‘Well, she prefers sausages to bacon. And she likes her breakfast sandwiches with ketchup and mustard. How weird is that? I mean, mustard with a hot dog for lunch, that’s cool. But on your breakfast sandwich?’ He shuddered.

  Did I say this was the type of conversation that gritting your teeth was designed for? I was clearly underestimating. In truth, this was the kind of conversation that could well make me grind my teeth into oblivion. ‘You’re absolutely right. Sally having mustard on her breakfast sandwich is by far the most macabre thing you discovered this morning,’ I said. ‘But what could she tell you about the murder? Did they share a room? Does she know when and why Evelyn went to Pirates’ Pier last night?’

  ‘Well, we only actually spoke for a couple of minutes when we were hanging out by Mossy’s barbecue. I mean no one wants to talk about death and stuff when they’re eating breakfast, do they? Oh, but there’s Sally now. Maybe we could talk to her together.’

  He nodded to a grey-haired woman sitting at a table close to the fire. She was with a small group of tourists, all of them eating seafood platters and drinking pints. Sally was laughing uproariously over something one of the others said.

  I was going to have to talk to her. But first, I was going to have to stop myself from screaming. In a town full of magically-altered idiots, how was I ever going to stay sane?

  ≈

  It only took me a second to catch Sally’s eye and beckon her over. She skipped across the tavern, then slid into the seat next to Dylan, slurping her pint of Guinness through a straw. Sitting next to the detective in charge of your best friend’s murder investigation hardly seemed appropriate, but seeing as Dylan was currently giving her a high five, I figured I’d better just leave them to it.

  ‘So how come you called me over?’ she asked. ‘Oh wait – I know. You want to know what I thought about the Spooktacular Tour. Well, it was amazing. This woman called Margaret was leading it and–’

  ‘It’s not about the tour, Sally,’ I told her, interrupting what was sure to be a fascinating review. ‘It’s about Evelyn, actually. We’re trying to get to the bottom of why she was killed.’

  Sally wrinkled her nose. ‘You want to talk about that? But that’s no fun.’

  I couldn’t even pretend anymore. ‘No,’ I agreed. ‘It’s not. Your best friend was killed, Sally. It’s incredibly depressing, and frightening too. Which is why we have to find the killer. Before they strike again.’

  Sally slumped back against her seat. ‘So are you, like, a detective or something?’

  I glanced at Dylan. Usually this was the point where he stepped in and said that no, I wasn’t a detective, but there was a totally valid reason for me being there. Instead, he was shaping his napkin into a little sail boat.

  ‘No, I’m not a detective,’ I said. ‘I’m a journalist, with the Daily Riddler. But I’m not here in that capacity. I help Detective Quinn with his investigations. I’m an expert in a relevant field.’

  Sally had gotten to the bottom of her pint, and she was staring forlornly into the glass as though hoping more would appear by magic. ‘Well, I’m an expert in a totally irrelevant field – insurance!’ She laughed loudly. ‘Get it? Because I work in insurance, and insurance is stupid.’

  ‘That’s really funny, Sally. So can you tell me about the last time you saw Evelyn?’

  She banged her head against the cushioned backboard of the booth. ‘Aw, come on! I mean, are you going to write about this in the newspaper? Because if you are, then I think that sales are going to go way down that day. Can’t we go back to talking about the Spooktacular Tour, please?’

  I felt my fists ball up beneath the table. If all of this was caused by magic, then surely there was something I could do. There had to be. I mean here I was, in a town filled with witches, wizards, vampires and …

  Vampires!

  I looked eagerly at Dylan, and he grinned back and gave me a wink. ‘What’s up, gorgeous?’

  ‘What’s up,’ I said, ‘is that I’m not sure Sally realises why it’s so compelling that we speak to her about Evelyn. She doesn’t know how compelling our need to question her is, Dylan. And your need is particularly compelling, isn’t it?’

  For a moment he looked at me like I was going mad, but then his eyes widened and he laughed. ‘Compelling!’ he cried. ‘That’s so funny that you said that. Because I’m a … oh yeah, I see what you’re getting at.’ He turned lazily in his seat, and said, ‘Hey Sally, why don’t you turn around and look right into my eyes? It’ll be a whole heap of fun, I promise.’

  Sally giggled and turned. ‘Your eyes are kinda dark,’ she said. ‘Oh wait – they’re kinda spinny now.’

  ‘That’s because I’m getting ready to compel you. Because I’m a vampire. It’s this cool thing that we can do, but I’m always forgetting I can do it.’

  Sally giggled again. ‘I know what you mean. I’m always forgetting that I have a Streamflix subscription, and then I go and rent a DVD even though the film I’ve rented has been right there on Streamflix all along.’

  ‘Hah! That’s so funny,’ he said. ‘I do that too. Now just look into my eyes again so I can get back to compelling you. Because like I told you, I’m a vampire.’

  I glared at Dylan. ‘The thing about being a vampire,’ I hissed, ‘is that you’re not supposed to tell the humans!’

  ‘Oh, that’s cool.’ He waved a dismissive hand. ‘Sally’s gonna forget all about that, once I’ve questioned her. Aren’t you Sally?’

  ‘Totally,’ she said. ‘Oh hey – what did you want to ask me anyway? Seeing as I’m compelled now and all.’

  Dylan scratched his head and looked at me.

  ‘Maybe start with when she last saw Evelyn,’ I prompted.

  ‘Oh yeah.’ He gazed into her eyes again. ‘Sally, can you tell us the last time you saw Evelyn?’

  ‘Totally,’ she replied. ‘The last time I saw Evelyn was when I strangled her on the pier.’

  While I stared in open-mouthed shock at Sally, Dylan grinned. ‘See, Ash? I told you I’d have this investigation solved in a flash.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Well, now that that’s out of the way, how about I get another round of drinks for everyone?’

  8. With Less Love than Ever

  As I walked into the Vander Inn at the end of the day, I felt tired to the bone and frustrated to the marrow. Sally had been arrested shortly after her confession – a confession that still made no sense to me. She told us she’d murdered Evelyn because while they were out walking on the pier, she remembered that the Christmas before, Evelyn had regifted the candle Sally bought for her.

  I knew a lot of people thought regifting was rude – but was it really a suitable reason for murder?

  Sally had been taken to Riddler’s Edge Garda Station, and the last I saw, she was playing cards with the cleaner. I had no idea if she’d even been formally charged. Once I’d left the station I’d spent the entire afternoon trying to find an answer to what was going on, but each person I spoke to was more irritating than the last.

  Grace spent the afternoon watching TV, while Greg played games in his office. When I asked him if his tech had revealed anything unusual about the murder scene he said, ‘Nuh uh. Because there was nothing to reveal except the usual extra special concentration of Halloween magic.’

  Of course I’d asked him to elaborate, but that resulted in him saying, ‘Listen, if you’re going to carry on being so boring then I don’t wanna talk to you. Shut the door on your way out.’

  So now … now I was home, with no clue where to go from here. I could smell Nollaig’s cooking as I walked in through the back door, and I could hear the sounds of happy voices from the dining room.

  The whole house was full at the m
oment, with the Halloween tourists being in town. Nollaig didn’t seem remotely daunted though. She’d made an amazing curry, while Dave – the Vander Inn’s resident genie – had made some homemade naan bread to go along with it. He was now taking a stint behind the bar, while most of the guests tucked in happily to their food.

  Seeing as there were no free seats at any of the tables, I hopped up onto a barstool next to Pru.

  ‘Jared’s out?’ I asked, looking around.

  She nodded, giggling. ‘Yeah, but he’d soon come flying back if I told him you were here. And I mean literally flying. Because he’s batty about you!’

  I looked carefully at Pru. The same orange glitter was in the dining room, and it was clearly still affecting her, because she didn’t usually make light of her brother’s feelings for me.

  ‘Hey, how about we stuff our faces as quick as we can, and then go and join him?’ she suggested. ‘He’s partying at the Fisherman’s Friend with some of the female tourists.’

  ‘Thanks for the offer, but I’ve had enough of the Fisherman’s Friend for one day,’ I told her. ‘Don’t you have a fortune telling gig tonight, anyway?’

  She banged her head against the bar. ‘Don’t remind me about that stupid gig. It’s a Halloween fair in Galway, and I always make a mint there. But it’s so far away! And it’s not nearly as much fun as Riddler’s Edge. There’s nowhere quite like Riddler’s Edge at Halloween, eh Dave?’

  Dave quirked an eyebrow and floated towards us. Well, he did have feet, but they tended to glide rather than tread. ‘It certainly seems that way, Miss,’ he said.

  Did I detect a note of sarcasm? Before I could ask him anything, there was a loud crash from one of the rooms above.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Dave. ‘It seems I have yet another mess to clear up. How fun.’

  As he glided up the stairs, Nollaig approached. ‘Isn’t he the best?’ she said, nudging me. ‘And he looks quite nice in a pair of black slacks, too.’