by Mara Webb
A silver lining to her problem which had resulted in a very profitable business, she now earned more in a month that most do in five years. She frequently contributed to a personal finance forum for magical folk that I read occasionally and she had no reservations about discussing her success.
Once I had typed in the name of the book and completed the payment, I received an email to let me know that I should receive the audio files soon. Meanwhile I searched for the Theban alphabet online and tried to memorize a few of the shapes, it was so different to what I was used to reading that my forehead was starting to ache from squinting.
‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘L’ looked so similar on the image that I was studying that I feared this would be my first failed assignment. I couldn’t comprehend any other university requesting that a second-year student become a fluent reader of a near-extinct language. To get this done within a few weeks would take more time than I had to spare.
My cell phone started to vibrate, and I snatched it off the counter quickly. Brent had sent a series of messages, each one with a name. I appeared to have somehow missed his first message that simply said, ‘why?’ in response to me asking for information about his ex’s but after a lengthy period of silence from my end he must have decided to just oblige.
There were five names. ‘Nancy Bandsworth’, ‘Cassandra Thomas’, ‘Joanne Moss’, ‘Gemma Wilson’, and ‘Penny Benson’.
My hands started to type a number into my phone without needing instruction from my conscious mind, before I knew it, I had called Ryan as if on autopilot. “Hello?” he answered.
“Hi, I have the names of the other woman that we needed,” I said. I hadn’t given myself the time to process that I was going to have to delve into my boyfriend’s past and might find out things that I didn’t want to know. Although, as one of his ex’s was currently haunting my house, how much worse could it get?
“Okay, well I’ll be there in a minute or so anyway…” He sounded a little confused.
“Be where?”
“At your place, you text me to say you had a ghost trapped upstairs.”
“No, I didn’t,” I replied. “Quin?” I watched him try to slip out of the room unnoticed. “Have you been using my phone?”
“You left it unlocked so I thought I would just mention to Ryan that you had a ghost, actually I text everyone in the council. Not Brent though, I’m not stupid. Boy, could you imagine if he came over and saw Joanne’s ghost in a little prison upstairs, he would be furi—”
“Stop using my stuff!” I shouted. It was like having an annoying, needy little brother that also left fur all over the furniture. “I’ll see you soon then Ryan, don’t give Quin any fuss when you get here. He needs a time out.” I could faintly hear the engine from Ryan’s car over the protesting ghost in my bedroom.
I wondered what the plan was now, she hadn’t even known she had been killed. If I had to guess, based on what she could remember, then something must have struck her head and that’s how she died. Ryan’s sister, Sophia, was the town pathologist so he might be able to corroborate the story if he had talked to her about it.
I waved a hand in the direction of the entryway of the house, “Patentibus!” I commanded. The door swung open to reveal Ryan standing on the top step with his hand raised in preparation to knock. “Come on in, make yourself at home, don’t mind the screaming,” I joked.
“Who is it? Quin just said ‘ghost’ he didn’t specify,” Ryan asked.
“Joanne! The dead woman from the roof of my car is now trapped in some magical box and I am still the target of her rage for some reason. Any chance Sophia clued you in to a cause of death?” Not that knowing how she had been murdered would get us much closer to figuring out who did it. All I had so far was a ghost and a list of names.
“Head injury she thinks. That’s the most obvious thing about the body anyway, she is checking for other wounds and anything suspicious in the blood. Sometimes it isn’t a complicated cause of death though, so head injury is the working theory. Word on the street, and by street, I mean specifically this street, is that a few of your neighbors saw blood in her hair.
“It’s almost impressive considering that her hair was jet black.” I was amazed by the amount of information he had managed to gather in such a short amount of time, but the gossip mills in the town worked quickly. He wouldn’t have had to probe hard.
“She mentioned that she had been standing outside the house and felt a sudden pain in her head, so it checks out. Brent sent the names of his ex’s over too, so what do we do with them?” I asked.
“We need to build a bit of a profile for each one, nothing crazy, just try to figure out how the curse has affected them and where they were last night. It is the kind of thing that the police would do if they had the first clue where to look, I think they are probably going to be so focused on you that they won’t venture out onto other suspects.”
Ryan’s words were concerning but it wasn’t news to me, the fact that even Brent was under the impression that I might be the killer alerted me to the opinions of the entire police department. If I didn’t help them point the finger elsewhere then I would be in big trouble.
Ryan muttered something under his breath and a large whiteboard on wheels appeared in the kitchen. He wrote down the names at the top of the board and created columns beneath them that we would populate as we went along. Under ‘Joanne’ he drew a little cartoon engagement ring.
She was the source of the trouble. He also wrote ‘dead’ as if either of us needed reminding. “Right,” he said. “As Brent text Nancy’s name first, should she be the first one we visit? I’m pretty sure she lives on Sophia’s street; they had a book club running for a while but after Sophia had the baby, she’s not had the time to read. Your car or mine?” He asked smiling. Mine was still impounded.
9
Ideally, I would be able to calmly peruse through my closet and select a more appropriate outfit for an evening visit to a stranger. The weather had turned to a bitter chill that was cutting against the skin, but with Joanne still protesting from her spiritual restraints I decided it was best to use a little magic instead.
Vestitus!” I exclaimed, standing tall in front of the mirror in the entryway. My wand was upstairs, and I didn’t feel like paying another visit to Joanne just yet. During the boredom of the summer months I had been trying to practice using my magic without it. So far, I had managed to boil the kettle and accidentally change the color of my eyebrows, but it was certainly getting easier.
I watched as the thin cotton t-shirt that I had changed into after the council meeting morphed into a thick sweater, fluffy socks formed around my bare feet and my knee-high boots appeared on the floor beside me.
I had been intending to change my jeans also, but it seemed that stronger magic was required for that and I only managed to add a small embroidered bat onto one of the front pockets, I wouldn’t win any fashion awards tonight. Edith began to fade into view over my shoulder. Her familiar face was comforting, at least she wouldn’t accuse me of murder today.
“Loving the jeans, Nora,” she said. I was crouched over to zip up one of the boots when her voice had echoed out from the glass and I immediately toppled over.
“You’re…you’re talking! What’s happening?” I stuttered. Before she had been killed, we had spoken frequently over the phone, then as her paranoia set in, we became keen letter writers. I hadn’t heard her voice in such a long time that the shock of the sound of it caused my hands to tremble. Edith in her ghost form had never frightened me, but this was the first time I had been terrified by her.
“No idea! Quin was talking to me in the mirror this afternoon and then, all of a sudden, I felt this tingling in my throat. I made a sound as I tried to ease the discomfort and I hadn’t realized that the sound wasn’t just in my head. You know those weird throat noises people make and you never know how loud it is for everyone else.
“Well anyway…Quin started twirling all around like h
e does, and we chatted for about forty-five minutes, he was telling me about a singing octopus on the TV. I didn’t know what he was talking about,” Edith laughed a little and the sound of it was like coming home.
Tears rolled down my face with delight as I unleashed all the frustration and sadness I had been holding on to since her murder. We could finally speak again. I would never need to regret not having the opportunity to say goodbye, because now we could communicate every day just like we had before. I was a fraction less alone in the world I was so grateful. Ryan walked out into the entryway and waved to Edith.
“I hope you are taking good care of my niece. Mr. Hughes,” she said.
“The very best care,” he replied, completely unphased by her sudden ability to speak. “Are you ready?” I gave a shaky nod and we turned towards the door.
“Would you like me to try and calm the hysterical ghost upstairs or should I leave that to you?” Edith asked.
“You can give it a go. Quin was the one to break the news of her passing and let’s just say he wasn’t tactful about it. She will probably be upset for a long time.” She shook her head in acknowledgment of how much of a nuisance Quin could be. “We have so much to catch up on, I don’t even know where to start. I have to head out but wait up for me! Wait, do ghosts sleep?”
“Go!” she encouraged. There would be time for the question and answer session later, right now we had to try and hunt down a murderous woman under a curse who was probably going to target me too at some point. I was trying not to dwell on that part too much.
Ryan’s red car with the black stripes was parked on the curb just beyond the yellow tape that surrounded my driveway. He jogged ahead of me to open the passenger door and I slipped into the seat and fastened the harness.
As he was travelling around the hood at the front, I stared out at my house that had been the location of two dead bodies since I had moved here. I wondered if this had been a common occurrence when Edith had lived here alone, or was I attracting all this death?
“What are your ex-boyfriends like?” Ryan asked as he turned the key in the ignition. I hadn’t even notice him sit down behind the wheel, his voice made me jump. “Do you think you could pick out the murderer from your past?”
“Well I only ever really dated one person before Brent and that was my husband. As I am now divorced, you can guess how well that went. Gregg was unfaithful and Brent has lost all faith in me, so maybe I’m the killer in their stories with other people. What about you?” I asked.
I suspected that this evening might end with another outpouring of his feelings for me, but this time I felt like I might welcome it. Brent had been brought to a fork in the road in our relationship and he had verged away from me. I should be with someone that had my back, but could I really be angry with him when all the signs were pointing to me?
“Well I have not been married, I think I just haven’t dated the right one yet,” he said. My head began to swirl as I stewed on the fact that he didn’t say that he hadn’t ‘met’ the right one, just that he hadn’t ‘dated’ the right one. I was getting ahead of myself.
Ryan continued. “I would like to think that I’m not the ex-boyfriend with the reddest flags surrounding them, but you’re always the villain in someone’s story, right? I think my longest relationship was just shy of a year, we dated in law school. She got bitten by something on a camping trip and then I literally never saw her again. I mean, that’s what she told me. I think I got ghosted, or she turned into a wolf. Your guess is as good as mine,” he laughed.
“So, she wasn’t the one then?” I prodded.
“Doesn’t ‘the one’ usually want to be in a relationship with you?” he quipped. He had a point. Within minutes we were pulling onto the street that his sister lived on. Just at the point where we would usually turn onto her driveway for game night, Ryan kept going.
A few houses further down the road he pulled over and pointed to a house with a few lights on in the windows. I had lost track of time since the screaming that had started the day, and somewhere in those lost hours, the sun had set.
“Do we just knock on the door and say, ‘Hey, are you crazy too? Do you remember murdering anyone outside my house last night and then letting me take the blame?’ or is there a more solid plan?” I enquired as he reached for his door handle.
“Is there ever a solid plan? Let me handle the questions, I can use the lawyer card if she gets suspicious and she probably won’t know who you are anyway so just pretend you are my assistant. Easy peasy. Well, that is unless Brent has gone around telling all of his past lovers about today’s events.”
Something about the term ‘lovers’ didn’t sit right with me; it was an unpleasant sound in my ear like nails on a chalk board. Did I have the strength of mind to walk into this and not bombard myself with unkind comparisons?
Comparison is the thief of joy, isn’t that what they say? No matter what they look like on the outside, Brent was not in a relationship with them anymore. He was with me, he planned to marry me, or at least he did.
We stepped out onto the ground and walked up the paving stones that lead to Nancy Bandsworth’s front door. Through a small glass section in the garage door I could see a parked car visible by the streetlights. Would there be anyone else in the house? Ryan lifted a hand to grab the huge door knocker, but as he tried to lift it the door creaked forward. It wasn’t locked, or even closed properly. My witch intuition was telling me to run. Ryan, however, stepped forward.
“Do you have your wand?” he whispered back to me.
“No, I thought this was just going to be a few questions!” I exclaimed.
“Stay close,” he instructed. The amount of defense magic I could perform using my hands alone couldn’t protect me from a paper cut, so if there was some evil force lurking in this house then I would be done for.
The hallway was dark, but a light on upstairs allowed us to see that the room was empty. We edged closer towards a door on our right and Ryan pushed it open suddenly, maybe to surprise whatever might be hiding in here.
I noticed that he had his wand raised, he must have been anticipating an attack. My stomach started to ache with the need to leave, my intuition was screaming at me to get out of there, but I couldn’t go without Ryan.
The room we had entered was the lounge. It looked like it had been ransacked, the TV was damaged, and shards of glass were scattered about across a central rug. It looked like the coffee table had been broken with force.
A large shadow loomed over the fireplace, growing taller and spreading up the chimney breast area of the wall. I turned just in time to see a figure running towards the front door. Ryan ran after it and I followed him, trying to match pace, but we both missed whoever it was. They were gone.
Ryan walked down the hallway and cautiously made his way through the next door. It was hard to know whether we needed to be more, or less afraid now that the shadowy figure had left. Whatever it was, it was gone. Did that mean all danger had gone too? Or was something else lurking in this house? Just then Ryan gasped.
Danger was definitely still here.
I stretched up onto my tiptoes to lean over him, even without the light on I could see enough. The light from the moon was shining through the back window and glistening off the blood that had pooled across the kitchen floor. A body lay still on the tiles and I had a strong feeling that this was the woman we had come here to see. Ryan bent down to check her pulse and dropped his head, he turned back to me and parted his lips to tell me what I already knew. She was dead. In the distance, but rapidly approaching, was the sound of sirens.
We needed to get out of there quickly.
10
“Let’s go out the back, my car can meet us in the next street,” Ryan said, pointing to the door leading from the kitchen into the back yard. I was sure that Ryan had the ability to transport himself to a different location, but he had his car parked outside a crime scene and it would probably be easier for us to drive away.
I had only managed to use transport magic twice before and both times I had needed my wand nearby, or at least Quin, to enhance my magic. Escaping on foot was our best option.
The kitchen door was solid wood across the bottom half and the top half was made from a pane of glass with a delicate lace drape that had been secured at one side to allow maximum light in during the day. There had been drapes like this in my childhood home and my mom made it part of her evening routine to do a tour of the house and cover every window to keep out the night.
She said it made her feel cozy, it had become something I did at my home on Charm Close and now I understood. I felt the same pride that she had, walking around the property I owned and shutting it down until morning. I wondered if Nancy had been in her kitchen to do the very same thing.
The door was locked, but Ryan shouted, “Resigno!” and the door swung free, he pulled it inwards and ran out into the yard. As I started to move after him, he turned to shout, “lock it behind you.” This caused me to start twisting my body too soon in anticipation of my next move and the pocket of the jeans I was wearing got caught on the latch. It jolted me backwards as I had been moving too quickly and I heard the soft sound of stitches tearing.
“Stupid embroidered bat pocket,” I moaned to myself as I released my embroidered pocket from the door frame and turned fully to secure the house. Once the door was locked, I ran down the small steps and out onto the grass behind Nancy’s home.
There was a BBQ area set up on the decking by the kitchen window and a swing set on the lawn, did she have a family? Had we walked in on the murder of someone’s mother? That idea seemed to make everything worse.
My eyes scanned the yard for Ryan who was now climbing over the back fence. “You have a real skill for making us look guilty,” I hissed across the grass. “Was there really no better way to do this? Couldn’t we just say that we came here to speak to her and found her like that?”
