He squeezed a talon into my shoulder again. Truth was, I was pleased to see fog rolling in. Thanks to my mother’s genes, I'm a water witch. Anything to do with water can help enhance my abilities. Rain, snow, hail, and even fog—after all, fog is just confused water that thinks it can fly.
As we approached the house, misty tendrils wrapped themselves around us, a cool, damp blanket. I felt my senses tingling. Something wasn't right. The energy from the trees seemed to weigh heavier as we got closer to the house.
"Do you really think this is a good idea?" I whispered to Kiwi.
"Something does feel funny in the air tonight," he said, ruffling his feathers.
"Should we go back? Why not just leave it all to the police and let the chips fall where they may?"
"Sure. Let everyone think you're a murderer, lose all your customers, and then be unable to buy any more cheese puffs."
"Ha ha, very funny. And I hope you know cheese puffs are way, way down on my list of priorities. Right at the bottom."
"I assume that by ‘bottom’ you mean ‘top.’ Now get going, let's try and solve this mystery."
We marched up the driveway, the brief moment of levity boosting our courage, until we reached the house itself.
"If we can't find a key or an open door, we’re leaving, okay?" I said to Kiwi. I did not want to have to actually physically break into the house by smashing windows or other means.
“Look under the flowerpot," said Kiwi with a wave of a wing.
I looked at the large granite flowerpot he’d indicated suspiciously. What would be the chances? I felt around in the dark for a sign of a key.
“Nope,” I said.
He waved his other wing impatiently. On the other side of the front door was another, matching granite flower pot. I crossed over to the other side and reached behind it. Immediately, my fingers fell upon a large metal key.
“How did you know it would be there?” I asked incredulously.
“We familiars have our ways…” he said vaguely.
“No, seriously. How did you know. Have you been here before?”
“Here? Before? No. I saw it on TV.”
“You saw what on TV?”
“Keys behind the flowerpot. On Ironside.”
“Ironside? Since when do you watch Ironside? And that’s just a TV show!”
He gave a loud sniff, apparently insulted that I was so dismissive of his learned expertise.
I put the key in the lock and gave it a twist. Sure enough, the well-oiled lock swiftly opened with a satisfying, though alarmingly loud, kerthunk.
With a push, the door swung open and I gasped. On my shoulder, Kiwi flapped his wings rapidly, not quite taking off, but ready to flee at a moment’s notice.
Something was wrong here.
When I had visited before, the house had a lonely, sad aura around it, but nothing like this. There was more at work here now. There was something else bringing in a dark, sad, energy to the building. Like something from long ago awakened.
Had the death of Fletcher unleashed something long dormant, or was this just his spirit, expressing its dismay? Last time I was here, I had cast spells of protection around me that blocked a lot of my senses. Perhaps I had just missed all this before.
Under my breath and with a wave of my fingers, I cast another spell of protection, something that would give us warning if we were approached—either physically or by spiritual forces.
"This was a bad idea," said Kiwi quietly in my ear.
"It was your idea," I whispered back to him.
"I don't think so," said the infuriating bird.
"Well, we’re here now. We’ll just have a quick look around. See if there's anything the police missed."
"If we must," said Kiwi in a small voice.
First, we went into the living room where I had sat drinking tea with Fletcher not long ago. The room looked physically the same, though it felt very different. Whereas before it had an old, lived-in feeling, now it had the sense of abandonment. Like it was not just Fletcher that was gone, but like life itself had been cast out from the house, becoming a place only for the dead.
"What an awful house," said Kiwi.
"It wasn't always like this," I told him. "It used to feel more alive."
"Until the murder," said Kiwi, really emphasizing the murder.
"Let's look upstairs next," I said, as we stepped out of the living room after a fruitless look around.
"Upstairs?"
He had a point. Fletcher had been killed in the basement. We both knew that the basement was where we had to look.
But I really didn't want to go down there. Searching the living room, heading upstairs—I wanted to do whatever I could to put off going downstairs.
"What's that?" asked Kiwi.
"What?"
“Shh!”
I listened keenly, not just with my ears, but with my other senses too.
At first I got nothing.
I held my breath, and then...
Oh, no.
I heard it.
"Is that…?"
I nodded my head. I swallowed. I tried to stop myself from shaking.
"That's crying," said Kiwi, his voice quiet and scared.
"And it’s coming from downstairs."
It was. The sad, wailing cry, so faint we could barely hear it, was coming from the basement.
Chapter 10
Kiwi kept fluttering his wings, his grip on my shoulder uncomfortably tight while he worried.
“Are you sure you heard something?” he asked me.
“You heard it first,” I reminded him.
The wailing sound that we had heard had faded away, but it had not been a figment of our imaginations. While Kiwi and I had a strong bond, it didn’t extend to shared imaginings or hallucinations.
Nope. We’d both definitely heard something below.
“Maybe it was a rat,” said Kiwi, hopefully.
I rolled my eyes, but Kiwi, perched on my shoulder, couldn’t see that.
“Rats don’t wail. They…” I searched for the word.
“See? You don’t know.”
“Well, I know they don’t wail like a ghost!”
Kiwi let out a sniff.
“It’s now or never, little friend,” I said.
Kiwi hopped off my shoulder onto the floor. “Never sounds like the better option to me.”
“Yep. But we’re here now and we’ve got to see it through.”
With a shake of his little feathered head, he puffed up his chest.
“All right, let’s do this!” he said, feigning confidence.
“Ready to wallop some ghosts?” I asked him.
He gave me a grim nod. “I came here to beat up ghosts and eat cheese puffs. And I’m all out of cheese puffs.”
I pondered mentioning to him that I still had another bag of the snacks secreted away, but didn’t want to distract him.
“Let’s go, tough guy. Do you want to go first, to protect me?”
“Well, I suppose, if you think—”
“Or do you want to bring up the rear in case we’re ambushed from behind?”
Kiwi muttered something under his breath.
“Or, how about you hop back on my shoulder, and then you can be ready for trouble from either direction.”
Without replying, he jumped into the air and fluttered onto my shoulder. “Here goes...” I said as I twisted the doorknob. The door gave a loud creak when I pulled it open, as if it were rarely used. I reached inside and flipped the light switch.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then a light began to flicker before finally bursting to life in a painful flash. The basement had four large strip-lights, which together filled every corner of the dusty old room with a harsh brightness.
I turned to see Kiwi squinting and blinking.
“Come on,” I said, and began the descent down old but solid wooden stairs.
The brightness of the light contrasted gratingly with the coldness of the r
oom. It wasn’t just the cold of being under the earth; there was also a spiritual aspect to the chill of the room. I shivered.
“Cold down here,” said Kiwi.
“Yeah,” I said softly, “there’s something down here.”
“Don’t say that!” he said urgently, nudging his head against mine.
“Not something living. A spirit, I think. It must be Fletcher…”
I crept down until we reached the bottom, an unfinished concrete floor. The basement was largely empty, but along the walls there were a few unmarked boxes and a few outdated pieces of furniture that had been put down here for storage. Across the room from us was a small doorway, leading into a second room.
“Over there,” I said, pointing.
“That’s where we’re not going, right?” said Kiwi in my ear.
I almost snickered but there was something about the place that stopped me.
The coldness. The feeling of loss and pain and... loneliness? I wasn’t quite sure yet. What I was feeling was at the limits of my senses and I didn’t quite have a handle on what—or rather who—I was dealing with.
We walked across the concrete floor to the empty doorway and the darker room beyond. The switch I had flicked had not turned on any lights in that second room.
“Oh! Look...” said Kiwi.
“What do you see?”
“That room. There’s... something there.”
There was something there, but I couldn’t quite get a grasp on it. But perhaps Kiwi had.
“What can you sense?”
“No, look. There’s a light coming from it.”
I raised my hand above my eyes to shield them from the harsh light coming from the ceiling, and focused on the room beyond. He was right. I had been so busy trying to feel out auras and spiritual signs I’d neglected to simply look with my regular old eyes.
There was a faint glow coming from the room.
“Let’s take a look,” I said.
The sound of agreement from my shoulder was not an enthusiastic one.
When I reached the doorway, I peered in. This room was smaller than the first, and although there were lights on the ceiling, they were not turned on. Different switch, I supposed.
On the floor was the outline of the pentagram and circle, as well as further chalk marks that must have been left by the police.
But that wasn’t what caught my attention.
On the far side of the room, a few feet back from the far wall, there was a faint luminescence.
When you see a glow like that, with no visible source, it’s generally something magical—or at least spiritual. I recognized this glow immediately. We were in the company of a deceased spirit.
Whispering under my breath and quickly turning in a circle, I cast a spell of protection around us. You have to be careful with spirits.
“Fletcher... is that you?” I said, softly and calmly. When a spirit has had an ‘upsetting’ exit from the world of mortals, they can be confused, angry, in shock, afraid, or any other myriad of emotional states that make them unlike their old selves.
There was no response.
I spread my arms out and made myself more available to the spirit world, though careful not to let anything else in.
“Fletcher. It’s me, Aria. I came to see you a little while ago…”
The glowing light faded a little.
“Please, I want to help you. Can you come forward? Can you show yourself?”
The light flickered a little, but nothing else happened.
“Maybe he doesn’t want visitors,” whispered Kiwi.
I shook my head.
“That flickering, I think he’s trying to communicate,” I said to Kiwi before turning back to the light. “Fletcher? Please try. Please try and show yourself, or speak to us.”
Nothing happened. The light remained resolutely still.
I took another couple of steps forward, toward it.
“Something must be stopping him,” I said over my shoulder.
Kiwi gave me a confused look.
“Usually, recently deceased spirits have no problem manifesting themselves. But I think there’s something wrong with Fletcher, something hindering him.”
I gently reached my hands out toward the light, feeling the threads and wisps of magic in the air, trying to get a handle on what was wrong.
“Oh,” I said, softly. I breathed in deeply. I took another deep breath and used a hand to wipe my eye.
“What is it?”
“Sadness... just, sadness,” I said, almost sobbing. I was being overwhelmed by the emotion of the room, and of the spirit. “What happened to you?” I asked the spirit.
There was no response at first, and then another wave of bitter sadness rolled out from the spirit across the room. I wiped my eyes.
“It... he can’t communicate, Kiwi. He can’t tell us anything right now.”
“Is there something you can do? Some... spell to help him?”
“Nothing we can do safely. If I cast a circle to open a link to the spirit world, we might not be able to control it. The risk would be astronomical if there was really a demon summoned here recently. If it was just this spirit, it would be fine, but... there’s more, I can feel them, at the very edge of my senses. Maybe they’re holding back and waiting for an opportunity to burst through.”
“Umm. Yeah, I don’t think you should do that. No demons today, please,” said Kiwi.
I returned my gaze to the dim and fading light of the spirit. “Fletcher, even though you can’t speak now, I want you to know, we’ll find out who did it!”
The spirit’s light flickered again. Acknowledgment? Gratitude? Confusion? I couldn’t get anything.
“It’ll be okay,” I said, softly, to the spirit of the murder victim. “We have to go now, but we haven’t forgotten you. We’re going to help.”
It was impossible to tell if my words were received gratefully, but after I’d finished speaking the light slowly faded, darker and darker until, finally, it was gone.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
“That’s the best thing you’ve said all day!”
“Come on,” I said, running my fingers over his feathered head. “I think we earned ourselves some hot cocoa.”
He tilted his head at me.
“Some what?” he said with disgust.
I giggled.
“Well, maybe I’ll find a different treat for you.”
Chapter 11
I’d vacuumed the shop, smudged the air with sage, and unbolted the front door. I was determined to put on a brave face, not to lie low or cower away. I was innocent, for magic’s sake, and I was going to behave like it.
When everything was perfect, I marched over to the front door and proudly flipped the sign from ‘CLOSED’ to ‘OPEN.’
The sign was still swaying gently back and forth when the door flew open, the poor thing once again bouncing off the stopper against the wall. What was wrong with people lately?
I jumped back so the door didn’t hit me, and was open-mouthed and in shock at the sudden explosive opening of the door when the customer walked in.
Well, half the customer.
It was Rick Wellington, alone, and he did not look pleased. I gulped.
“Good morning,” I said with false cheer. Inside I was all butterflies. Was he storming in to cancel? Would he spit out some drivel about New Yorkers not shopping from murderers? With how cutthroat they seemed to be, you’d think he’d welcome it…
“Oh, I’m sure it is a good morning in your little world, isn’t it?”
“Err...”
“Don’t umm and err me. You know exactly why I’m here.”
Oh no.
“Mr. Wellington, I assure you, I’m not a suspect! I have nothing to do with the murder, really. Please, I—”
“What? Murder? I know you’re not a murder suspect, you nitwitted woman. But you’re still a suspect!”
“Wait, what?”
“I sus
pect you of being a con artist! A scammer! A huckster, a rogue, a scoundrel, a thief!”
I swallowed. What on Earth was he on about?
“Mr. Wellington, I’m—“
“Yeah, yeah, caught red-handed. You won’t bluster your way out of this!”
I squeezed my eyes shut tightly for a moment and willed the little calming mementos I had in the bag behind the counter to bring me some peace. I could barely feel them from my place in front of the door though.
Rick Wellington whipped a white piece of paper out of his pocket.
“Look at this!”
I looked. Ah.
It was an itemized list of what Nina and I had agreed on, so far, for the wedding. The clothing items, the decorations and so on.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” I said.
“Oh, that’s right. Play the fool now. First you tell my wife you’re a bigshot businesswoman—then you try and pull the wool over my eyes pretending you’re a ditz!”
My face had paled except for my cheeks, which I could feel burning scarlet. My hands were squeezed into trembling fists by my side.
“Would you like a cup of herbal tea? Perhaps lavender...?” My thought was that if he calmed down a little, we might be able to get to the bottom of whatever had upset him.
His eyes flew wide with incredulousness.
“Oh, sure, great,” he said, and I began to turn to begin preparing a brew.
“NO!” he yelled. “I wasn’t serious. I know that’ll just go on the tab too, won’t it? Herbal teas, fifty dollars? Right? Huh?”
Was that it? Money?
“I’m sorry, Mr. Wellington, but are you here about the bill?”
“God have mercy. Give me strength. Finally some sense out of your mouth. Of course I’m here about the bill. What the hell do you think you’re playing at? You see a couple of rich, successful, good-looking New Yorkers and you decide to try and fleece them? Well, I’ll tell you one thing, us big city folk know when we’re being had.”
Calm, Aria, calm. Breathe in. Breathe out.
“Mr. Wellington, I think there’s been a misunderstanding. All I’ve done is let your wife know what her options were. She made all the decisions. She chose every item on that list, and I can assure you, none of them have been marked up.”
A Wedding to Die For- Wedding Bells and Magic Spells Page 7
