by Bella Falls
Horatio winced. “I confess, the thought did occur to me, although they could also be taking their cue from the twin red-headed brothers in the films being shown at the theater in the town hall. They are most amusing in their hijinks. I can attempt to curtail their shenanigans, but with me not having any magic of my own, I am not sure how effective a scolding from a humble troll such as myself would be.”
“Perhaps that's a job for the substitute spell permit class teacher,” I said. I asked Horatio to help me find the classroom, and he walked me to the door.
The noise emanating from the room should have alerted me to its location. I peeked inside with trepidation. Kids sat on top of desks and talked fast and loud. Some of them possessed spell phones and texted each other, laughing at whatever they wrote with their thumbs.
Horatio gave my back a slight push. “I wish you luck in your new endeavor, Charli. For this and the other challenge.”
I paused in confusion. “What challenge?”
He winked at me. “Honeysuckle is indeed a small township, and someone considering taking up residence in an empty storefront does get noticed. However, that is a conversation for a later time. Your students await.”
Taking a deep breath, I centered myself and forced my nerves to stop producing butterflies. I plastered on a wide grin that hurt my cheeks and faced the daunting task with as much bravery as I could muster.
The second I entered the room, all the students stopped talking and stared at me. My cheeks lit up like fireballs, and I rushed over to the desk at the front of the room, knocking over the chair behind it. So much for a smooth entry. I searched the table for the promised lesson plans and found a folder with detailed notes and worksheets for the students to fill out while I lectured.
Figuring out my lack of confidence in a matter of seconds, the students went back to talking and ignoring me. All except the Mosley boy who’d shot the spell at me, sitting in the back row and trying to be invisible.
I coughed. “Um, hey, y’all.” My voice came out barely louder than a mumble. Clearing my throat, I tried again. “Excuse me, but I’ll be your teacher for this session of the spell permit course. You may call me Miss Goodwin. No, that’s too formal. Maybe you should call me Charli since I’m not that much older than you. Except that makes it sound like I wanna be your friend, and it’s not that I don’t, but I’m really supposed to be your teacher…”
I trailed off, aware that maybe only one or two of the students were paying me any attention. One of the girls in the front row popped a bubble of gum and focused on her spell phone. Irritated, I snatched it out of her grip.
“Hey,” she called out.
“You can have it back after class.” Now I sounded like an old unicorn’s fart of a teacher. The phone dinged, and I checked the message out of sheer habit, reading the words, I hope this hex doesn’t miss its mark. Tag, you’re it with this zapping spark.
A jolt of energy burst out of the phone and stung my hand, and I almost dropped the phone. “Ow! What was that?”
The noise in the room stopped, and all the students stared at me. Yet none of them volunteered any insight as to what in tarnation happened.
I held up the device and waved it around. “I want to know why this phone just zapped me.”
The kids looked at each other, and a couple shook their heads in warning to the others to maintain silence in solidarity.
If they wanted to play dirty, they were messing with the wrong witch. I flipped the phone open again and checked to see who sent the last message. “Eric Mosley.”
The tall kid who’d accidentally hexed me on Main Street groaned and raised his hand. “Yes, ma’am.”
I stifled a smirk, knowing he owed me. “Explain what your text means. Or what it did.”
Murmurs of concern erupted, and the poor boy defended himself. He reassured the others and quieted them down. “I sent a spell through the phone with a text. There’s something about how they operate off the magic of our town that makes it possible. I told my cousin about it down near Atlanta, but their phones work differently.”
Holding the device in the palm of my hand, I stared at it. “How did you send a spell through a text?”
Eric’s cheeks reddened, and he succumbed to the pressure of the other kids not to say anything more.
“Listen,” I said in a louder voice. “This class is meant to prep you to take your spell permit tests. We can do this the hard way or the easy way. The hard way is for me to hand out worksheets for you to fill in and take notes while I drone on and on for an entire hour. Or someone can show me how you send a spell through the phone, and we’ll come up with a better way to study.”
One of the Tiller twins rolled her eyes and raised her hand. “I can show you.”
I had a fifty-fifty shot at guessing which identical twin she was. “Thanks, Anna.”
“I’m Emily,” she retorted.
Her very-similar-looking sister pointed at herself. “I’m Anna.”
“It’s my phone,” piped up the girl in the front, who I remembered was their cousin Helen.
Emily shrugged her shoulders. “Then you show Miss Charli.”
Helen took the phone back. “Who do you want me to text?”
I didn’t even hesitate. “Why don’t you send one right back to Eric.” Today might be my first and last day I was allowed to teach, but I’d make it worth my while.
The girl hesitated, thinking about how to explain the process. “First, you think up the spell you want to send. So far, we’ve found you can’t do anything really big or expect too much. About all that’s reliable is to hit someone with a tiny spell.”
“And how do you do that?” I asked.
Helen paused with her fingers hovering over the keys. “You come up with what you want the end results to be. Then you think about how to create a spell to make that happen. Type in what you want and will it to happen with intent. Then press Send.” She thought for a moment, snickered, and typed something in. Showing me her phone, she hit the green button.
A buzz from the back of the room alerted us to Eric’s phone receiving the text. He raised his hand. “Do I have to read it?”
“I think since you sent one to her, it’s only fair,” I challenged. “And while you’re at it, as long as Helen’s okay with it, you can read it out loud.”
“Oh, I’m okay with it.” Helen turned around in her seat to watch him with the rest of the class.
Eric flipped open his phone. “You think I can’t spellcast something big. Let’s try it out, oink like a pig.” When he finished the last word, he opened his mouth to talk and only oinking noises came out. The effect lasted a couple of seconds before it wore off, and the boy laughed along with everyone else.
I took my own spell phone out of my pocket, wondering who I might try this new skill out on. Lee would want to know about the students’ ingenious use of spell phones immediately if only because he enjoyed a good prank. I’d send something through to Mason, but if he was on his way back to Honeysuckle, I didn’t want to cause him to have an accident or anything.
“We’ve been calling it hexting. You know, a combo of hex and texting?” explained Eric. “You’re not going to get us in trouble, are you?”
Having the fate of the students in my hand was an awesome power. At the same time, I couldn’t help but put myself in their positions. “No, as long as nobody is really getting hurt. Zapping someone or sending a small transformation spell isn’t a big deal. The second any of your pranks get out of hand, you have to stop them. They won’t let you even apply for your spell permit.”
One of the kids sitting in the middle blurted out, “I don’t know why we have to take the test anyway. We’ve been using magic here since we were little.”
I really should take attendance so I could know everyone’s name. “Yes, but you want your permit so that you have your first license and so you have the ability to use magic if you’re ever not in our special town. Just because we’re a little more isolated an
d free to be ourselves doesn’t mean we don’t need to learn control.”
Anna raised her hand. “What if we don’t plan on ever leaving Honeysuckle, miss?”
At one point in my life, I’d thought the same thing. I liked my hometown and couldn’t think of any reason why I would want to leave it. Due to my disastrous engagement to Tucker, I changed my mind so fast that I left without telling anyone. “Even if you stay here all your life, you need to follow the rules. That goes for just living here or to make sure that your magic never hurts you or anybody else.”
“But why?” pressed her twin, Emily.
I hoisted myself on top of the teacher’s desk and swung my legs. “The best answer I can give you is that magic has consequences. Y’all know that if you use more than a little at a time that you get hungry or really thirsty. That’s because we can’t use an infinite amount of it. Also, spells themselves have consequences. It’s why we have different categories you get tested in, including defensive spells.”
“But there are bad spells, too, like in the wizard movie, right?” Eric chimed in. “I mean, there are ones that are forbidden but the villains use them all the same.”
I had to give his question a lot of consideration. Furrowing my brow, I blew out a big breath. “Yes and no. Even a simple spell can be used against someone for a bad purpose. I think it comes down to intent. And if the intent is a really evil one, then I think once the spell is cast that it takes a bigger toll on you.”
Helen mumbled, “Like that guy who died in your uncle’s house?” She avoided my surprised gaze, but I couldn’t fault her for stating the truth.
“Yes, kind of like the guy who died at my house.” It was a simplistic answer for a very complicated explanation.
Ashton Sharpe had died by his own hand, ingesting his own poison rather than dying by the death curse my great-Uncle Tipper had accidentally placed on me and that had finally found its correct victim. But the truth existed in my answer. The evil he’d done through spells and potions had eaten away at him.
Helen looked up at me. “Were you scared?”
“Yes.” Better to be truthful than to lie in this case. “But I think I did the best I could in that situation. And maybe the take away from all of it was that in the long run, I needed to be true to who I was and trust myself and my magic. Which is something I hope you’ll learn from our short time together.”
I clapped my hands to break us out of such dark thoughts. “I think we have the beginnings of a good discussion, which is how spells work. We’ve seen how hexting works once we broke it down. Why don’t we try some other simple pranks and see if we as a class can come up with a good explanation to the test question, ‘How does spellcasting work?’”
I pushed the detailed instructions and worksheets out of the way and scooted further onto the desk, crossing my legs and waiting for the students to clear their seats to the side of the room to give them space to work. Their enthusiastic faces and participation were my reward, and when they told me at the end of our time that they couldn’t wait for the next class, my heart almost burst with pride.
Eric stayed behind for a brief moment. “I wanted to say that this is the most fun I’ve ever had. But also I learned a lot about how to think my way through a spell before casting it.”
“Good.” I patted his arm. “Maybe next time, you won’t be the literal pain in my behind.” We both laughed and walked out of the classroom. He ran off to join his friends, and I sent my very first hext to Ben, the self-proclaimed king of spell pranks.
Chapter Nine
Filled with energy to burn and a pinch of self-satisfaction, I directed my bike to Main Street. I didn’t count on the fact that while I was teaching the kids, I was also learning a whole lot at the same time. It had been ages since I thought about the basics of spellcasting, and there were a couple of techniques that the students had come up with I wanted to try with my tracking talents.
Although my time with the class refreshed me, it also renewed my determination to get the investigation of Duke’s murder under better control. If Big Willie couldn’t do it and Mason wasn’t here, then someone needed to figure things out. Taking my own advice, I remained true to myself and parked my bike at the back of the old diner, prepared to do whatever it took to do a thorough investigation.
Raising my hands in front of the back door, I tested to see if a wardens’ protection blocked the entrance. Nothing repelled my reach, and I gripped the door handle. Feeling lucky, I turned it to the right and found it unlocked. With caution, I entered the storeroom and made my way into the galley kitchen. A general hush and lack of lights in the space suggested I was alone. Finding a switch on the wall, I flicked it once. Light illuminated the remnants of the crime scene through the kitchen’s pass-through window.
I’d tried myself to redirect my thoughts from the murder, forcing myself to ignore the compunction to follow the rabbit down the hole of too many ideas. But now that my mind had permission, theories broke through the dam one after another. Based on what I knew about Duke, the problem wasn't who wanted to kill the chef. The question I needed to ask was, who didn't?
From what I'd watched at the Hawthorne’s house, any number of people could have issues with him. If he stole with ease from others to pad his business, how many people had been victimized? His rudeness warranted irritation, but maybe he took it too far with one of the servers or pixies? Or Shelby? Perhaps other choices Duke had made caught up to him in the end.
I entered the main room and scoured the area to find any evidence. Dark red stained the wood floor, marking the faint outline of where Duke’s head had rested. It frustrated me not to have a direct line into the investigation because of Big Willie’s stubbornness. If Duke was hit on the head, had the wardens found the weapon used? Did they determine that the head injury was the cause of death? There were too many questions and nobody to help me find the answers.
I crouched down to investigate a bit of dust around where I’d found the body. I swiped my fingers through it, and studied the smut up close. Green flecks floated in the air when I wiped my thumb against my skin. I knew one Honeysuckle Hollow citizen who that might belong to.
“I’ve already got Sassy on the suspect list,” a deep male voice cut through the silence. “And one of these days, you’ll learn not to break into a crime scene.”
All thoughts about the murder evaporated, and I leapt to my feet, running toward the voice. Throwing my arms around Mason, I hugged him close. “You’re home.”
His stiffened body melted into mine, and he embraced me long and hard, rocking me back and forth and rubbing my back in slow circles. “It's good to see you, too, Charli.”
“Where have you been?” I muffled into his shoulder, hiding my face so he wouldn't see the sudden tears leaking out of my eyes. It caught me off guard how his mere presence punctuated how much I'd missed him. I sniffed and tried to compose myself, pulling back.
He smiled down at me. “Remember the phoenix feather I obtained to help solve your Uncle Tipper’s demise?”
Matt had hinted back then that the cost was more than Mason let on. “But I thought you said it was payment for favors you had already granted?”
The detective shrugged. “I may have left out a detail or two. Something that rare required more favors on their end than mine. They called in their chips and I had to go.”
I waited for him to elaborate on who they were. He shook his head in refusal and continued.
“When the sheriff called me back, I was already on my way. Something in my gut told me that you couldn’t stay out of trouble, despite my orders to Zeke to watch out for you and Sheriff West’s promise to me you would be staying out of things this time. What changed?”
Missing you and what we do together, I thought. “Hey, I almost made it a whole twenty-four hours.”
“I’m surprised you survived that long. Big Willie said under no circumstances were you supposed to help me.” Mason lifted his eyebrow.
My excitem
ent waned. “Does that mean you’re sending me home?”
I waited for him to erect the inevitable wall to keep me out. But Mason stepped forward and brushed a strand of my hair behind my ear with such gentleness that a single shiver danced down my spine. “The last few days, I've been pushing against authority and breaking a few rules.” He paused and flashed me a devilish grin. “It feels good to be a little bad.”
I took a better look at the man in front of me. His clean-shaven appearance gave way to stubble. It broke the mold of his by-the-book image, looking less like a detective and more like the criminal. The hot gleam in his eyes melted my insides into jelly.
“Who are you and what have you done with Mason?” I swallowed hard and licked my lips.
His eyes dropped to them and lingered. “Let's just say I took advantage of my time away to think some things over.”
What things? I wanted to scream at him, but grabbed onto any shred of control to stay cool. “Okay,” I managed in a breathy voice.
He brushed another strand of hair away from my face. “You look…different,” he murmured, studying me.
I swallowed hard, ignoring the flaming heat in my cheeks. “I let Ali Kat give me a makeover.” His attentive gaze made me squirm. “Is different a good or bad thing?”
Mason studied my appearance like an experienced detective. “Good. Definitely good.”
The air around us crackled with tension, and my knees shook. I grabbed onto his arms to stay upright, pulling our bodies closer. His breath hitched, and he cupped the back of my neck. Leaning in, the hot air of his breath caressed the line of my jaw, on my neck, and up to my ear.
“Not yet and not here,” he whispered, his lips brushing the sensitive lobe. With a sigh, he pushed my shivering body away.
He was right, a crime scene was no place for unexpected flirtatious banter. The new distance cooled the heat between us, and I cleared my throat. “So which is it? Am I staying or going?”
