by Megan Marple
Spell Maven from Spell Haven
The Spell Maven Mystery Series
Megan Marple
Contents
Also by Megan Marple
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
About the Author
MEGAN MARPLE
Spell Maven from Spell Haven © Megan Marple 2018.
Amazon Kindle First Edition.
All rights reserved. No part of this story may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the copyright holder, except in the case of brief quotations embodied within critical reviews and articles.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
The author has asserted his/her rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book.
Also by Megan Marple
Spell Maven Mystery Series Order:
Spell Maven from Spell Haven (Book 1)
Snitch Witch (Book 2)
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1
“Hmm. Not too shabby.”
I folded the newspaper in half until the only thing showing was the Union-Gazette’s front page article, “Cat Called for Jury Duty.” Underneath the black and white picture in tiny print was “Gwendolyn Brady, Head Staff Photographer.” I inspected the shot from different angles, pretty pleased with how it had turned out. Jeremy, the cat in question, was a beautiful Persian. I’d captured him sitting in his owner’s front window, staring out at the world past his comfort zone with utter disregard and boredom. So basically, he was like every other cat. The photo was almost as good as the one I’d managed to snap of Mayor Bellamy chasing after some escaped pigs at the Midnight Pitch Halloween festival last year.
Tossing the Sunday edition of the Union-Gazette onto the coffee table, I reminded myself to high-five my friend and co-worker, Barry. When G, our boss, gave him the assignment, both of us nearly fell over laughing. Only in a tiny town like Midnight Pitch would something like this make the front page.
In the kitchen, Fiona-Leigh was busy fixing herself some sweet tea—a staple in our house at this point. I guess it’s one of those things you just naturally pick up, living in the south.
“I see you’re up, finally. And gosh, it’s only . . . eleven o’clock!” I teased her.
“Aren’t I allowed a little chill time in the summer? School only let out last week, Mom. It’s not like I’m Marina. Her parents let her stay up as late as she wants, and she can get up whenever she feels like it.”
Ah, yes. Because of course she can. “You’re right. You’re not Marina, and I’m not her parents. So how about at least trying for nine-thirty tomorrow, hm?”
I knew she was ignoring me the moment she started humming to herself, but it was pointless to argue. She would get up early enough tomorrow, simply because she hated it when I was the one who woke her up. Maybe that was because I used a glass of ice water. What else can I do? It was fast. I had to hurry up and head off to the paper in the morning, and she was still drooling on her pillow, passed out. It’s not like I had help or anything.
To be honest, I never thought there was a stereotypical single mother. Single parents worked hard to protect their kids and provide for them. We had to be two rational-thinking adults, not just one making it on some nights with ramen noodles for dinner again, when the only thing that got us through was the thought of that bottle of [kind of wine] tucked away in our cabinets. Working hard came with the territory. And I’m not complaining, no way. This is my life, and I’m in a good place now, finally.
Sure, I probably could do with an eyebrow wax and maybe if you saw me walking along Union Road downtown, you’d barely look me over before I guarantee your eyes would slide right past. A plain V-neck to match my flip-flops with a pair of my favorite jeans that yes, I wear even in the summertime. The kind of long brown hair I’m constantly dyeing, without ever doing crap-else with. I mean, yeah, I’m not exactly setting the fashion industry on fire.
Fiona-Leigh stood poised over the kitchen table, a half-eaten apple in one hand and an open copy of The Time-Traveler’s Wife in the other. With her gorgeous red locks that I secretly cried over when she was born, and those adorable freckles scattered across her face like millions of stars on a moonless night, it was a wonder I didn’t stare at her constantly in utter amazement that she came from me. But you know, that kind of full-on adoration tended to fluctuate more once she hit fourteen and started trying to be her own person. The mood swings alone were enough to make me want to tap out and let someone else take the brunt of parenting her for me.
I guess I was similarly ready to gouge out the eyes of anyone who tried to tell me “No” when I was fourteen. Okay, maybe even more ready. But things were a lot different for me where I grew up, and being ready for anything was simply part of who I was.
Who I was. I wasn’t exactly ready for a stroll down memory lane.
“Marina was talking about me coming to stay with her part of the summer. Her parents are only going to be gone a few weeks this month, I think. And then they’ll be home for the rest of it. I could stay in July, maybe! I could pack a whole suitcase and just like, do my laundry there and everything. I’m sure Mrs. Peterson wouldn’t mind,” Fiona-Leigh said as she scratched at a bug bite on her arm. “What do you think?”
What I thought was that there was no way in the world I’d let my daughter spend an entire month away from me, practically unsupervised. Marina has been Fiona-Leigh’s best friend since they had the same teacher in third grade. Out of all the hundreds of playdates, then sleepovers, ninety-five percent of the time it was Marina hanging out over here with us. There were all kinds of different parenting styles, but over the years I’d figured out the Petersons’ way was a lot more “Feral Child” than mine. I guess they didn’t mind letting their daughter “spread her wings,” or whatever, but my daughter’s feet were going to be firmly on the ground, thank you very much.
Jax’s hairy, little white body tore across the room, yapping and snapping at a green tennis ball that was sent flying from the opposite direction. I peeked around to see a pair of yellow eyes regarding me from the shadows of the hallway. The owner of those eyes languidly stretched out into the sunlight filtering in from outside. Oisín let out a yowling yawn, his massive black furry body elongating.
“Looks like someone had another long night,�
�� I commented, watching him lift a large black paw, his claws easily sliding out as he lazily swiped at my favorite new rug. The tiniest of threads came loose, and he eyed it for a moment before looking back at me.
“Don’t. You. Dare.”
He let out a soft mewling noise that one could easily mistake for coming from a kitten, but I knew he wasn’t above going directly against my wishes. It wasn’t the first time, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. When I’d been saddled with his monstrous and silky self, I was determined to take it in stride, but Oisín did not make a good pet.
Not that I would’ve dared to call him that to his face.
In the kitchen, Jax whined when Oisín strode up to him and struck out at his face, hissing and then batting at the tennis ball that dropped from Jax’s mouth and knocking it clear across the room. While Jax was still full of energy, bouncing around as if he were still a puppy, the cat was never in the mood to play. Looks weren’t everything with him, as he was much, much older than he looked.
Jax pawed at his muzzle, but seemed to be okay, his little tail wagging as he set after the tennis ball again.
Shaking her head, Fiona-Leigh sighed, “Osh, you’re such a naughty guy.” She pushed away from the table, dropping her book onto it and tossing the apple core into the new compost bin she’d put together for us. “Why are you so grumpy? It’s not like he’s new here, anymore. At some point you have to be nice to him.” She bent down and moved his large, furry body into her arms, moving him to the couch away from Jax. Oisín was still regarding Jax with a look of pure disgust, his yellow eyes flickering over to me for a moment.
I knew exactly what he wanted to say, so I clapped my hands together and smiled at Fiona-Leigh. “Right. So. Marina’s house, then. I wouldn’t mind a sleepover here and there. Just as long as you don’t plan on being gone for more than a couple of days at a time. And really, ideally, you’d check in with me a couple of times a day. That way I’ll know where—”
“Mom.”
“—of course, and I could even try my hand at some of those egg-less cookies you’re wanting to make, so it wouldn’t—”
“Mom.”
“—be too much of an issue. I mean we both know I can’t—”
“MAMA!”
I stopped short. “What, Fi?”
She blew a fine strand of red out of her face. “You’re spiraling again.”
I blinked. Okay, so maybe she was right. “Sorry. I just . . . I just want to make sure you have a good time. But that you’re safe. And that I can get to you just in case.”
“You always say that— just in case. What do you think is going to happen, anyway? That I’ll be abducted by aliens?” She waved her hands over her head, her eyes wide. “That the town will be overrun by zombies? Nothing ever happens in Midnight Pitch. Nothing exciting, anyway. And I don’t count the 4H Club’s annual 4th of July Jamboree exciting.”
“Well, no. I just. I . . . fine, it’s more for my sake. You know how I get when you’re away from me.” Most mothers might be ashamed to admit something like that to their children, but I was always frank with Fiona-Leigh. At least about my anxiety. I didn’t aim to be one of those helicopter parents. It just sort of happened.
I threw open the kitchen window, glad to see that the weather had taken a turn for the better, the breeze rolling in and bringing with it the smell of an earlier drizzle. Summer in the Georgia mountains could be perfect when the rain was kept at bay.
Fiona-Leigh skidded into the kitchen and poured herself some more sweet tea, sighing as she finished chugging nearly half of it down. “What about a phone?”
I closed my eyes for a moment, reminding myself to breathe. “We’ve already had this conversation, Fiona-Leigh.” Five different times, at least.
I could practically see the gears in her mind turning, formulating the next smoother-than-silk response she was a master of. “And we are continuing the conversation, Mama. It’s an ongoing conversation. Where we each give and take a little.”
“You’re taking more than a little of my patience,” I mumbled.
“Just think about it, though. If I had a phone I could—you could text me or call me whenever you wanted. You wouldn’t have to worry about not getting through on someone else’s phone, because I’d have it on me all the time. And you could even send me those goofy cat videos you like so much. And if you get me one of those new iPhones . . .”
It took everything in me not to laugh. “If I don’t even have an iPhone, what on earth makes you think I’d get you one?” I raised a brow at her, turning to grab a slice of lemon to add to my own glass of sweet tea. “Listen. I’ll admit, I like the idea of you having a way for me to reach you whenever I want. And aside from making you a social pariah for carrying around a beeper at school, I guess the only way for me to do that is to get you a phone.”
The confused look on her face turned too hopeful before I could draw in another breath.
“But. There will be rules that come along with this new phone of yours.” I jabbed my finger down at the butcher block counter-top. “You will keep your phone on you at all times. You will always answer your phone. Immediately. If I call you, and you don’t pick up within five minutes? I’m going to come snatch you up from wherever you’re supposed to be. End of story.”
She was nodding so hard her head nearly bobbed right off her neck. “Okay!”
“I will take it at night, and you can have it back after breakfast in the morning—do not look at me like that, Fi,” I said, catching the pout on her face. “There’s no need for you to be up in bed texting and all that until midnight. You’ll give it to me before you go to bed, and get it back in the morning, like I said.”
Fiona-Leigh gulped down the rest of her tea and straightened up, setting her shoulders back and sticking out her hand in my direction. “It’s a deal.”
I shook it, pulling her in closer. “And no iPhone. Since you’ve managed to pull straight-A’s in most of your classes, I’ll let it slide and get you a smartphone, but the minute I find something on your phone that shouldn’t be there, Fiona-Leigh, I swear I will turn it in for an uglier-than-dirt flip phone, and you’ll not have anything else until you’re out on your own. Got it?”
Oisín yowled as he ran across the kitchen floor, Jax happily barking away as he chased after him, and I folded my arms across my chest.
“Okay. Got it,” she replied, beaming up at me.
I pulled her in for a quick hug and planted a kiss on her forehead, grinning as she groaned and pulled away. “Good.”
The animals ran back into the living room where Oisín jumped up on the mantle, hissing at a completely oblivious Jax. With his hackles raised and his sharp teeth bared, Oisín wasn’t unlike a lion stuck in a tree.
I turned back toward Oisín with a frown. “You really shouldn’t let him get to you like that, you know. He’s just a dog.” I wasn’t surprised at all to hear his soft groan.
From somewhere behind me, Fiona-Leigh snorted. “Yeah, and Oisín is just a cat. That’s what they do.” She waltzed over to the giant black ball of fluff that was Oisín and gently stroked his tail. “But he’s a good guy, and he just needs to be spoiled, that’s all. Right, sweetie?”
This time I snorted, as Oisín purred at her touch, tilting his head into her open palm. If I tried doing that, Oisín would turn right around and stick his butt in my face, tail-first.
The ceiling fan shook as the lights on it flickered, almost as if someone overhead was stomping around. Fiona-Leigh must have seen it too, and she turned her attention to it before meeting my gaze with a curious look on her face.
The air in the room shimmered like the waves of heat roiling outside over the blacktop, and the hair on my arms and neck stood up.
“Mama . . .”
The old instinct to grab for my only defense kicked in, but of course there was nothing there in my back pocket. Not anymore.
Jax let out a howl, barking like crazy and making both of us jump, sending Ois�
�n into another raging hissing fit. A bright circular light in the middle of the room washed out everything around us, heating the air until it felt like we were standing next to a bonfire, and with a loud pop everything was sucked back into the empty space it came from, light and all. The room was left eerily quiet and it all happened so fast that there was nothing to do but stare, unblinking.
Jax barked again, but this time he wasn’t hovering around me but darting back and forth around a new pair of legs.
We had company.
A tall woman now stood in the middle of my living room, most certainly having just appeared there out of thin air. “Oh, shoo, you!” the woman said, waving her hands out at Jax who was still sounding the doggy alarms at her feet, until he let out a loud whimper and scampered over to hide behind my legs, growling.
There was a soft gasp, and at once I remembered my daughter. My daughter who until this very moment, had never even seen the tiniest bit of magic.
Fiona-Leigh swayed on the spot, the blood draining from her freckled face in an instant. It was like watching a tall tree get cut down, falling slowly until she landed in a great whoosh onto our sofa, those feathery lashes of hers fluttering as her eyes shut. And for a split second, in the back of my mind I was thankful that I had the forethought to pick the extra-cushiony gray sofa over the more modern black one in the store.
