Witch in Charm's Way

by R K Dreaming

  He must’ve really not known what to say, because he threw his hands up in frustration and then stalked away.

  “Hey,” I called after him. “Am I still a suspect?”

  10. Saturday At Dele’s Café

  When I got back home to the castle later that night I felt wired. Part of me still wanted to go back to the fire pit and lay back on the sand and stare up at the night sky, getting lost in the magnificence of the Milky Way.

  But the rest of me suddenly felt jittery and impatient, full of new purpose.

  Wouldn’t it be awesome if I could solve this case before Chris Constantine did? I would just love to see the look on his face.

  Plus, the longer this case stayed open, the longer he would be thinking about me and the closer a look he might take at me. I really didn’t want that happening. Badly.

  I remained worried that he might turn up banging on my door in the middle of the day, in the broad midday sunlight, and demand to take me down to the station for questioning. And then the game would be up.

  So when I got back up to my tower, I opened up my laptop, and tried to get online to my blog. I had always thought clearest when I was writing, and I wanted to write down everything that I thought so far about Lily’s murder.

  Annoyingly, because I haven’t used my laptop all week, the battery was dead. I had to go down to the now empty café, which was the only place where Aunt Adele had installed a couple of electrical outlets for the tourists.

  It was actually quite nice sitting down there, now that the sky outside of all the glass was full of stars rather than sunlight.

  Humming to myself, I got onto the internet, and made the mistake of logging onto my crime blog.

  The visitor numbers had taken a huge surge downwards, immediately disheartening me. And I felt bitter as I saw some of the nasty comments that had been left on my articles.

  The comments had started appearing several weeks ago, right after I had gotten engaged to Drew in fact. They completely trashed my reputation, and picked holes in all of my real-life crime reports and theories. Stupid holes, but they had done the job. People had stopped reading. My ad revenue had sharply declined, totally ruining my income. Worse, the internet troll had done the same to any articles that I had written on a freelance basis for third parties to supplement my income. And all of my freelance jobs had dried up.

  I knew now of course who it was. It had to be Sarah.

  Angry at this reminder that my professional life as well as my private life was now in tatters, I slammed my laptop shut.

  Then I opened it again. I wasn’t going to let her ruin my frame of mind.

  So I started up a new blog — an anonymous one so that she would have no idea it was me. I named it Magical Murder And Mayhem in Brimstone Bay. Cheesy, but catchy.

  I didn’t think Agent Constantine would like me writing about his murder case. Plus being a witch writing about magical murder would get me in heaps of trouble with the conclave. So I used a pen name, and then I wrote down a vaguely fictional account of what had happened to Lily. It was cathartic. By the time I finished, it felt like a load had gone off my mind.

  And it left me with one conclusion. There was still only one lead. I had to speak to Oberon Maltei and his friends again.

  Why had they lied about their whereabouts on the night of the murder? Had they just panicked?

  It didn’t make sense that the boys would have hurt Lily. All three of them had been half in love with her.

  And it had to have been a man. A woman surely wouldn’t have savaged her like that. A woman couldn’t have carried her over the high wall into our private garden either. Unless that woman was a vampire or a werewolf, with their additional strength. Or a witch.

  Petra Ambers was none of those. I didn’t think she could have done it. Why would she even want to? They had not argued.

  So that ruled out Lily’s four friends.

  If Allegra were here she would have said that this left ex-boyfriend James as the only known suspect. But Captain Villain had seen James on Kitten Cove beach that night. I believed him.

  I groaned, and rubbed my eyes. Lily had been popular. Out there were lots of suspects who were all still strangers to me. Beachbum had as good as told me that. Which of them had a reason to hurt Lily? I needed to speak to her friends to find out. They might know.

  After I was done writing, my thoughts turned to my other big problem. I returned to my stack of books on vampires and magical spells and charms, intent on finding one that would help me.

  I ended up falling asleep right there in the café, my head resting on my arms upon the table top, and awoke several hours later in a panic.

  I sat bolt upright, and was immensely relieved to see that it was still dark outside. So relieved I laughed.

  That had been silly of me. If dawn had come while I was asleep under all of this glass, I hated to think what would have happened. I went up to my tower and made sure my curtains were tightly shut before going to bed.

  * * *

  Saturday felt like it had come awfully fast. I awoke to the sound of rain spattering against my windows and was filled with a burst of gladness. Thank goodness for the rain! That meant the day was overcast. That meant that hopefully we wouldn’t get too many visitors in the café on its first weekend opening.

  It turned out I was wrong. The rain seemed to have driven vast numbers of people up the cliff from the beach. Many of them arrived clutching the flyers that I had left in the library. Every one of them was immensely pleased that the café was open.

  Those who were local greeted Aunt Adele with great pleasure. Aunt Adele served her friends and acquaintances, and it was my job to serve the tourists so that Aunt Adele wouldn’t have to get too close to them. By now I was beginning to think that her disguise would hold. The tourists were so used to seeing weird things in Brimstone Bay that all of them so far had enjoyed the oddity seeing of Aunt Adele in her wig and powder and voluminous robes.

  Even so, it was me who served them. I was glad that it was the off-season and there weren’t too many.

  The rain continued to patter down all afternoon and the sky stayed staunchly grey. Being inside the glass-ceilinged café didn’t bother me too much for once.

  The café was filled with a cheery buzz. Aunt Adele had lit a crackling fire, and children gathered around the hearth, laughing as they roasted marshmallows on sticks. Aunt Adele handed out free hot chocolate and marshmallows to all of her customers. It had some of her special syrup squirted in, which lifted everyone’s moods and made them reluctant to leave.

  I felt nostalgic. How wonderful it would have been to be here if I didn’t have all my problems to think about. Especially my big secret.

  It was late November. Christmas was just around the corner. And I was going to have a lonely one in London now. How wonderful it would be to stay here instead. Except I couldn’t. Unless I found a cure, how was I going explain to everyone my aversion to sunlight? I would have to go out with them in the daytime sooner or later.

  By late afternoon I was beginning to feel anxious about my upcoming visit to the family abode and my confrontation with Granny Selma.

  She was going to expect me to apologise to her about so many things, but I wasn’t much in the mood for apologising. I didn’t think I had any reasons to grovel. But I knew that Granny Selma would think otherwise.

  The arrival of Oberon Maltei and his friends to the café was a welcome distraction from my thoughts.

  I was surprised when they entered, muffled up against the rain, huddled together under a big black umbrella that Oberon was carrying. The other locals were surprised too, and looked across towards them curiously.

  I showed Oberon and his friends to a table in the corner. It was behind some potted trees with lovely lemon-scented leaves and shielded them from all of the curious eyes.

  It was the first time that I had seen them since what had happened. Petra Ambers’s eyes were rimmed with red as if she had spent a lot of time crying.
She had put on extra eyeliner and shadow to try and cover it up. She offered me a limp smile when she saw me. The three guys were also quiet, the camaraderie of their previous visit gone.

  I insisted that they have a couple of Aunt Adele’s special truffles each, and was glad when it lifted their moods a little.

  Petra even smiled at me, and said, “Actually it was my idea to come here. I saw the flyers, and I said this was just the place to cheer us up a bit. And say goodbye to Lily, I guess…”

  Her voice trailed off. She looked over to the middle of the café and the table they had all sat at on Wednesday, just days ago. That moment seemed a whole lifetime away already in some ways.

  Two young parents with a toddler in a high chair were sitting there now. She looked away.

  “I’m really sorry about what happened,” I said.

  She nodded, and fidgeted with the sugar bowl. “We heard you were the one who found her?”

  I nodded.

  She swallowed hard. “Was she… D-do you think she suffered?”

  “I hope not,” I said. “I hope it was quick. Maybe it was.”

  She bit her lip. She could tell that I hadn’t been able to reassure her because I didn’t think it was true.

  “I can’t believe it,” she said.

  There was a sudden clatter. Oberon had been digging a spoon into the surface of the table with such force that it had gone flying out of his hands. His jaw was tense.

  Petra reached over to pat his hand. He pulled it away, as if he was angry. Too angry to receive any sympathy.

  “They wouldn’t let us in to see her,” he said. “Can you believe it? Not even to say goodbye. She’s just lying there in that morgue.”

  He looked on the verge of tears, but he was trying very hard to keep them in.

  Lorcan and Paolo looked like they felt very awkward and didn’t know what to say.

  Men, I thought in annoyance. But at least they had come here with him, keeping him company in his time of grief.

  Beachbum had said that Lily might have been dating several people. But it had been obvious to me the other day that she’d had a special soft spot for Oberon. And he was the reason that she had stayed in town in the first place. It was clear that he’d had strong hopes of winning her over.

  Lorcan and Paolo had said nothing throughout this whole exchange. But Paolo Ambers suddenly stood and said, “I’ll be right back.”

  He hurried off to join the small queue that had formed near the toilets. I had a feeling that he just needed to go and clear his head.

  My eyes returned to Lorcan. He offered me a weak smile. He didn’t look overly guilty or fidgety. He didn’t look like he had been sneaking around in the castle at nights.

  He looked as innocent for a Hardwick as he had last time, as if he had no intention of scaring me off my own property. I knew better now, of course.

  In my opinion, it was pretty darn creepy of him to have done what he did so soon after one of his friends had died. Or maybe that was what had set him off. Maybe her death had made him angry and he had wanted to lash out, and he had picked me.

  It was lucky he was now looking at the menu rather than at me, or I might have said something.

  I wanted to let him know that I knew what he was up to, but I also didn’t want to alienate him. I needed to get some information out of him and his friends after all.

  He gave me a tired smile, and said distractedly, “Can I have what I had last time?”

  “The baked vanilla cheesecake with the berry compote?” I said.

  He nodded, and then blanched. Both of us were remembering how excited Lily had been about the special compote.

  “No,” he said quickly. “I’ll have the, er… the…”

  His eyes scanned the menu without much interest.

  “How about the strawberry gateau?” I suggested. “Or the vanilla millefeuille?”

  He nodded. “The gateau.”

  Petra ordered the millefeuille for herself and her brother, and the double chocolate fudge cake for Oberon, who didn’t look much in the mood for eating.

  “You’ll feel better after you eat it,” she insisted.

  She was probably right. Aunt Adele’s Westbrim gift of magically creating happiness was infused all through her food. They would all feel better after having their slices.

  I went to give Aunt Adele their orders, and returned with the teas and coffees that they had requested.

  I lingered, feeling a bit awkward, but trying to think of a way to ask them about their last night with Lily. It felt very rude to bring this up now.

  “Do you want to join us?” said Petra suddenly.

  My eyebrows rose in surprise.

  “Yeah, join us,” said Oberon, so pleadingly that it was endearing. “You can share my cake.”

  “We’ve kind of had enough of each other’s company recently,” said Lorcan, with a nervous laugh.

  “Do you have to be so rude about it?” said Petra, throwing him an annoyed glance.

  He shrugged. “Only saying the truth. Sorry.”

  She sighed, but then made an effort to smile at me. “So how do you like being back in Brimstone Bay? Is it weird living in the castle? I always thought I’d be so scared of the ghosts.”

  I nodded. “I haven’t met them yet. Can’t say that I’m looking forward to it.”

  “Better you than me,” she said with a real smile this time. “But it must be nice living with Dele, eating all of her amazing cooking all the time?”

  Her eyes went over to where Aunt Adele was zooming around delivering great trays full of slices to one table and then another, topping up everyone’s hot chocolates and teas and coffees, and persuading a group of health-conscious teenage girls to try some of her freshly squeezed fairy-kale smoothies which were full of supernatural goodness.

  “Sounds like I could do with one of those,” said Petra. “She does like to keep herself busy doesn’t she?”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” I said. “She’s constantly rearranging stuff in the house and the gardens. She’s got all of these crates full of things out in the garden that she must’ve wanted to throw away when she was alive, but she’s been sorting through for days. I think she must want to do some arts and crafts projects, maybe start a new hobby now that she’s a ghost. It must be strange to have to adjust to the afterlife. It’s probably good for her to keep busy. I don’t know where she gets the energy.”

  Petra was nodding absentmindedly, and had started typing away at her phone. “Sorry,” she said. “My mum. She’s been worried about us after what happened with Lily. She’s checking up on us every hour.”

  I winced. Her comment reminded me that I was going to have to go home and face the music in just a few hours.

  “So has Agent Constantine come to speak to you again?” I asked.

  They immediately looked alarmed, and I knew I had jumped the gun. I should have eased into it.

  “But Agent Constantine already spoke to us the day after it happened,” said Petra. “We gave our statements. I didn’t know he wanted to speak to us again?”

  She looked at me questioningly.

  I nodded. “I think he just wants to sort out some details of what happened that night.”

  I was thinking fast, trying to figure out how to probe without sounding too nosy. How not to frighten them off.

  “How do you know that?” said Oberon, frowning.

  “I was hanging out with Beachbum yesterday,” I explained. “Agent Constantine arrived to take his statement. Beachbum said that he’d been hanging around with you guys at the beach and at Club Nocturne.”

  Oberon tensed up. His green eyes seemed to darken, and he stood up suddenly, looking angry. “We should get out of here,” he said.

  11. Interview With The Dhampire

  “Hey! There you are!” said a voice behind me.

  I spun around to see Jasper Echo coming towards me with a big grin on his face.

  I turned back to Oberon and his fr
iends, sure that Jasper must be talking to them. An interruption was the last thing I needed when Oberon was about to run off.

  But it was me who Jasper came up to, tapping me on the shoulder and saying, “I was hoping to bump into you.”

  I stared at him, and said bluntly, “Why?”

  Behind us Petra burst into laughter. “Why do you think?”

  “Shut up, Petra,” said Jasper.

  “The ladies’ man is always after ladies,” said Petra. “And you are the newest lady in town.”

  “Petra!” said Jasper in tones of despair. “Stop it! You’re ruining it for me.”

  I shouldn’t have been surprised they knew each other. Jasper was baena like Petra.

  He turned to Oberon who was still on his feet and said, “You’re not leaving, are you?”

  “Yeah,” said Oberon.

  “Stay,” Jasper insisted. “I’m here all by my lonesome. I’ll join you guys.” He pushed Oberon back down into his seat. “Cheer up, buddy. I know it’s been hard. I heard what happened. You should at least finish that cake before you go. It’ll make you feel better.”

  Oberon looked down at his cake, contemplating it as if it was more appealing now that Jasper had said it might help. He looked like a lost little sheep in need of someone like Jasper to help him find his way. Gone was the effortless cheery confidence he’d had just a couple of nights ago.

  I was glad when Oberon stayed in his seat. I wasn’t done talking to him yet. The longer he stayed, the better my chance of getting the truth out of him.

  It looked like Jasper’s interruption was going to be no bad thing after all.

  “I’ll get you some more truffles,” I said to the group brightly. “Do you know what you’re having, Jasper?”

  “Whatever you recommend,” he said with a cheeky grin and a wink.

  Petra rolled her eyes. “Flirt,” she said.

  “You know it,” said Jasper, taking a seat beside her, and pulling off his jacket, which was damp from the rain outside.

  Jasper was tall and lean and blond and effortlessly styled, and looked every bit as cool as the other three at the table, though they were a decade younger. Jasper had never had problems fitting in with people. He always belonged anywhere.