King Midas' Magic

by Amorette Anderson

  King Midas' Magic: A Marley the Witch Mystery (Book #3)

  Amorette Anderson

  Published by Amorette Anderson, 2020.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  KING MIDAS' MAGIC: A MARLEY THE WITCH MYSTERY (BOOK #3)

  First edition. July 20, 2020.

  Copyright © 2020 Amorette Anderson.

  Written by Amorette Anderson.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  The Hermit’s Hideout | A Marley the Witch Mystery (Book #4)

  Also by Amorette Anderson

  Chapter One

  “You didn’t know you’re supposed to be paying property tax on this place?” Cora said in disbelief. She raised her brows and looked through the stack of mail on my camp table. “How many notices from the government do you have here, Marley?”

  “A lot,” I said. “Too many. What do you think—can you help me? Do you know how this tax stuff works?”

  “Tax stuff? Marley, you’re a twenty-nine-year-old woman, you must know how to pay your taxes.” Cora placed her hands on her narrow, running-capri-clad hips.

  Cora, a witch like me, looked nothing like the part. She wore a combo of neon green and pink, which was a far cry from the black-cloak, pointy-hat-wearing witches I’d grown up seeing in the media. I guess after studying witchcraft for over a year I should have known that most of the stereotypes about witches just weren’t true.

  I barely ever wear my cloak or pointy hat.

  I don’t have a green tint to my skin or warts on my nose. My complexion is much more of a caramel tone, thanks to my Native American heritage, and my nose is wart-free.

  And I much prefer a nice belly laugh than a cackle—though I have to admit that once in a while, letting a real cackle loose feels kind of nice.

  “I do know about taxes,” I said to my friend. “And I paid them just fine until that inheritance money came through from my grandparents. Then it got too complicated, so I had to hire an accountant down in Melrose. His office was right next to my lawyer’s office. I didn’t get good vibes from either of them, to be honest, so I just stopped going. The accountant dude keeps calling me, but I just don’t pick up. I don’t like talking to him, or the lawyer guy.”

  “Because you didn’t get good vibes from them,” Cora repeated.

  I nodded.

  “Seriously, Marley,” she said.

  “Seriously,” I said. “Vibes are everything. This whole magical universe is made up of vibes.”

  I smiled dreamily. I’d spent all morning listening to a whole symphony of birdsongs and soaking up the July sunshine on a long hike with my familiar, a great horned owl named Skili. I was absolutely in love with the world. The fact that Cora had asked me about the stack of mail lying on my camp table when I met her at my van so that she could drop off her dog was ruining my natural birdsong-listening summertime high.

  Well, that and the fact that her yippy Chihuahua, Blueberry Muffin, who I’d agreed to take care of for four days while Cora and her family were out of town—or out of Realm, to be more precise—was drowning out the birdsongs, didn’t help.

  I felt myself coming down from my dreamy state.

  I frowned. “Do you think this is a problem?” I asked.

  “Um... that you haven’t paid your property taxes on the acres of land you own in two years?” Cora said. “Yeah, I think it’s a problem. But nothing that we can’t fix, if you stop ignoring these letters.” She wagged the ominous stack of envelopes in my face.

  I nodded sheepishly.

  She went on. “You’ll just owe some back taxes and maybe a penalty fee or two. It’s really not good to ignore your bills, Marley,” she lectured. “It’s a poor money-managing mindset.”

  My friend didn’t have to tell me that I had bad money management habits. I knew it already. A year prior, I’d come into a hefty inheritance of a few million dollars and fifteen acres of land from my grandfather. I thought that meant I’d be a millionaire forever. But it turns out, if you spend and donate money without earning any, you can quickly dry up funds.

  Cora checked the large, bright yellow sports watch on her tanned wrist. “I’m sure it won’t be that much money, maybe four or five thousand. You’ve got plenty in the bank from your inheritance, right? I’ll help you figure it out when I get back from the in-laws, okay?”

  “Thanks,” I said softly. Now I was really coming down from my natural high. Hard.

  “But Cora,” I said. “I actually don’t have anything left of my inheritance.”

  Her eyes flew up from her watch, and her jaw dropped. “No...” she managed to say after a moment.

  “Really, Cora,” I said. “I don’t have a penny left. I spent it all.”

  “It was millions, Marley! What on earth did you spend it on?”

  “Well, mostly the earth,” I said. I looked off into the distance, at the dark green tree line high on the peaks that surrounded my property. “A few environmental causes that I really care about,” I explained. “They needed funding, and for the first time in my life, I had plenty of funds. It felt natural to give.”

  I longed for my dreamy state to return. But it was hard to get it back with Cora staring at me as she was. I felt Blueberry’s eyes on me, too. I looked down at the little tan Chihuahua and saw that I was right. Her black eyes were bugged out in my direction, as if she was thinking the same thing as her witch, which was: Marley, how could you be so foolish?

  And for the first time since signing away my inheritance in a series of checks written out to my favorite causes, I felt foolish. I should have kept at least some of it.

  Cora shook her head as if to clear away a fog of confusion. “I don’t have time for this right now, Marley.” She looked down at her watch again. “I have to get home to help Silas load up the truck. We’re due in the Water Realm in an hour. His mother is going to meet us on the other side, and I don’t want to leave her waiting. It’s the first time we’re visiting her there. I haven’t seen her since the wedding, so I want to make a good impression.”

  “You’re taking the portal?” I asked.

  I was intrigued by Cora’s travel plans. Out of my coven of five ladies, my friends Penny and Azure had transported through the magical portal at the edge of our little town of Hillcrest, Colorado. Now Cora was going to transport through the portal to another realm, too. My witch sister Annie and I would soon be the only ones who had never left the Earth Realm, and Annie had plenty of contact with the other realms, due to the fact that her live-in boyfriend hailed from the Spirit Realm.

  I wondered what it would be like to be magically transported to another realm.

  I’d been invited before, to the Lazy S Inn in the Spirit Realm, but so far I’d resisted the urge to book a stay. To be honest, I was afraid that if I went, I’d never want to come back.

  They say that the Lazy S Inn is quite peaceful. You get to walk on clouds, live stress free, and never ever have to think about property taxes.

  That
sounded pretty tempting to me, but I knew I’d miss my witchy sisters. Not to mention, if I booked a stay at the Lazy S Inn, I wouldn’t get to fulfill my purpose of running a center for healing: the Greene Center for Magical Living. So whenever the owner of the Lazy S Inn, Sarin, tried to convince me to book a stay, I resisted the temptation.

  And believe me, she tried a lot.

  She was a master of manipulation. I considered it a small miracle that I’d managed to resist her tempting offers.

  “You’re going to have to tell me all about the Water Realm when you come home,” I said to Cora. I reached for my cup of chai tea. I had a long afternoon ahead, and I needed the pick-me-up that the tea offered.

  “I will,” Cora promised. She handed over Blueberry’s leash. “I wish Blueberry Muffin could come with us, but I think she’ll be happier here. She loves to play with members of our pack when they’re in wolf form. You should see her—she catches the scent of a wolf in the area, or even a pack member when they’re about to shift, and just goes nuts with excitement. But sometimes the play gets a little bit too rough, and she’s so small and delicate.”

  Cora squatted down and kissed and petted her familiar. “Aren’t you, my dainty little flower?”

  Blueberry licked Cora’s face and wagged her short tail.

  Cora’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, wow, this is going to be hard. We’ve never been apart since we became a bonded witch-familiar pair.” She gave Blueberry another loving pat. “This will be a much safer place for you, okay?” she said aloud, while looking into Blueberry’s eyes. “You know how sometimes wolves don’t know their own strength. And Silas and his family members will be shifting while we’re in the Water Realm. You know how they have to shift at least once a month or else they get so cranky. I promise to give you lots of treats when we get home...”

  She stood up and nodded. “Yes, this is good.” She wiped away a tear.

  “I’ll take great care of her,” I said. “And Skili offered to help, too, since I’m going to be so busy.”

  “Thank you,” Cora said. She looked up into the branches of a nearby tree and located Skili. “Thank you, Skili!” she called out.

  Skili gave a loud hoot in response.

  Then Cora looked back at me. “Please keep her on her leash. She’s very smart, of course, but sometimes her doggy instincts take over and she’ll dart off after butterflies, bouncing balls, buzzing flies, you name it—and she’s not great around traffic. So it’s best to just keep her on her leash. I packed a few of her favorites.” She motioned to the pink tote bag.

  I could tell she was having a hard time leaving, and I didn’t blame her.

  “Thanks. We’re going to be fine,” I told my friend.

  Cora went on. “Oh, and I packed a few of her bows. She doesn’t like to sleep in them, but she’ll be fussy all day if you don’t put one on her in the morning. I think she likes to feel dressed and ready for the day. You know how it is.”

  I nodded. “Of course. She has to keep up appearances.”

  Blueberry barked sharply as I looked down at her. Her little tail was wagging at a mile a minute. Even though I wasn’t crazy about her talkative —or barkative?— nature, I had to admit she was a cutie pie. I was excited that I’d finally have a fur baby to cuddle up with. My feathered familiar was not much for cuddling, and seeing as she had a beak and razor sharp talons, I figured it was for the best.

  But I did like to cuddle. Since my boyfriend broke up with me about two and a half months prior, I hadn’t had much action in the cuddling department. It would be a treat.

  I bent down and gave Blueberry Muffin’s tiny little head a pet, careful to avoid the bright pink bow that was fastened to a clump of hair between her ears. “We’re going to have fun,” I promised her aloud.

  She had a silly grin on her muzzle and was still wagging her tail like crazy. As Cora’s familiar, Blueberry can communicate with Cora telepathically. The little pup can also communicate with animals. But since I was neither Blueberry’s witch, nor a fellow beast, I had to guess about what she was thinking. I was guessing it was something positive, like “Yeah we are, Auntie Marley!”

  “Not too much fun,” Cora said sternly to Blueberry Muffin. “I want to hear that you were good for Marley, okay Blue?” Then she turned to me. “Thanks for taking care of her. I hope she behaves for you. I’ll be back on Thursday afternoon at two to pick her up.”

  “Sounds good,” I said. “It’s going to be a busy week, so hopefully Miss Blueberry here won’t mind tagging along with me as I do a bunch of things around the center.”

  “I’m sorry I’m going to miss King Midas' money workshop,” Cora said. “Remember, I prepaid for two rounds of drinks at The O.P.’s happy hour tonight, with money from guest registrations.”

  “Thanks for your help with handling some of the center’s financial stuff, Cora,” I said.

  The truth was, since the center had opened, my organized friend had handled all of the center’s financial matters. She’d given me the login information for the accounting software the week we opened, and I hadn’t used it even once.

  “No problem,” Cora said. “I’m happy to help. And since guests pay just a deposit fee for the workshops, there hasn’t really been much money to deal with, anyways. It’ll start flowing in this year as payments become due. You’ll see! Anyway, I hope this week’s workshop goes really well. Hey—maybe you’ll learn a thing or two!”

  “Ha. Maybe,” I said. The truth was, I didn’t really care if I learned about money from King Midas or not. The reason I’d invited King Midas, the archetypal being, to be a guest speaker at my retreat center, was for the healing of others. I guess I knew that I had some money issues of my own, but I wasn’t feeling ready for, or excited about, working on them. “I think I’m doing just fine,” I told Cora in a dreamy voice.

  Cora eyed the stack of tax bills pointedly. “You blew your inheritance and you don’t know how to pay your taxes,” she said curtly. “So are you sure about that?”

  She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead she said, “Gotta run!” and then she literally started jogging across the lot.

  Chapter Two

  For the next hour or so, I worked on raising my vibes again. I wanted them to be high when I picked up the guests that had registered for the workshop. I picked out a few crystals for my pockets, listened to music, and danced a lot.

  Blueberry seemed to like the music. I caught sight of her bobbing her head up and down to the beat a few times. By two in the afternoon, I knew that the two of us were going to be just fine. She liked Reggae music, so what could go wrong?

  Skili and Blueberry accompanied me up to the portal gate to pick up the fourteen magical guests who would be attending the four-day workshop titled, “King Midas' Magic: How to Create Money and Manifest Magic!” The workshop was designed to be a small, intimate experience of personalized learning. It was my hope that the guests would get a lot out of their time at the Greene Center for Magical Living. I wanted them to depart on Thursday afternoon with a whole new magical outlook on their finances.

  A canopy of bright green leaves almost covered the winding dirt road. Summer comes late and ends early in my little town, thanks to the high elevation. But while it’s around, it’s glorious. Once we reached the gate, we began greeting guests. Skili perched on my shoulder and let out an occasional raspy hoot, and Blueberry trotted in front of me, tethered to my hands by a sparkly pink leash. She wagged her tail at all the guests and kept up a steady stream of barking.

  In addition to the ten magical guests who had registered for the event, we also greeted King Midas and his three travel companions. When I’d reached out to King Midas to ask him to speak at my retreat center, he said that he would if, and only if, he could bring along three travel companions. He said he rarely went anywhere without them. They were his wife, Polly, his brother, The Miser, and his dog walker, June.

  King Midas was a short, roly-poly man with twinkling blue eyes and a rosy, bu
lbous nose. He wore a royal-purple silk top, gray slacks, and a belt that looked like it was made entirely of gold. His head was bare except for a few pieces of gray hair that were combed over a sizable bald patch. I knew, from the research I’d done on him, that he wasn’t an actual king. He didn’t reign over subjects, or really hold any authority at all in the Spirit Realm where he lived. But he used the name King Midas nonetheless, and people in his realm did respect him and his family quite a lot. From what I could tell, the general public looked up to King Midas as a role model—a bit like some wealthy businessmen and women are treated in the Earth Realm.

  He wore blue plastic gloves on his hands. The gloves looked like the type that doctors wear when performing surgery. What’s up with the blue gloves? I wondered. Do they have something to do with his ability to turn what he touches to gold?

  He waved one gloved hand at me and flashed a jolly smile. The flesh of his rosy cheeks bunched up, and his eyes became little happy slits. “You must be the wonderful Marley Greene, magical witch healer, the one and only!” he said. “I’ve heard great things about your center. Just what the magical universe needed—that’s what folks are saying! Well, well, it’s good to be here!”

  He walked toward me with a bounce in his step that made his belly rise up and down. “I’m so very happy to be here with you to impart some wisdom. This new center is the hottest speaking venue in the universe, these days. You have quite a reputation brewing, my girl! I’m looking forward to it.”

  He motioned to his left, where the woman who I assumed was his wife was standing. Like him, she was rather rotund. “My wife, Polly!” he said happily.

  “Hello, Marley,” she said in a wobbly voice. She gave a half-hearted smile and tried to wrangle some flyaway hairs that poured down around her round, pale face. She wore a velour sweatshirt in the exact hue of purple as her husband’s silk top. Her hair was brown and frosted with blonde highlights. Her bright red sneakers had thick white orthopedic soles that bulged out at the soles. I guessed she was about ten years younger than her husband, yet she was nowhere near as energetic as he was. She looked tired, and I thought it might be due to the traveling, or the density of the air, which I’d heard was much heavier than in the Spirit Realm where King Midas and his family lived when they weren’t traveling for speaking gigs.