“What can I do for you today?” I asked, my tone polite even though I wanted to be anything but.
“I’m not here for business purposes, I’m afraid,” she said. “It’s about something more personal.”
My face didn’t betray any of my real emotion. “Oh?”
“It’s... well, it’s Priscilla, from the Black Cat Café.”
That surprised me.
When I saw her walk in I’d assumed it was to lambast me about being a murder suspect. Perhaps try and drive me out of town or something. But her demeanor didn’t support that in the slightest, and she didn’t actually seem to be hostile at all.
“What about her?” I asked.
“Well, the thing is, she’s been talking to her customers...” she said, letting her words trail off while she looked at me, as if asking for permission to continue.
“About anything in particular?” I asked.
“She’s been saying—I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Aria—but she’s been telling people that, well...”
“What?”
“That you... killed Fletcher.” Mrs. Honeywell put a strained expression on her face, as if reporting this news was particularly hard for her.
“WHAT!?”
I didn’t mean to shout that loudly. I’m not a very shouty person at all, generally. But I was just so surprised, so shaken, by what she said that I couldn’t contain it. It just exploded out of nowhere.
Mrs. Honeywell took a step backward.
“Sorry,” I said, “I didn’t mean to shout. I just wasn’t expecting to hear that, if you know what I mean?”
“Quite, dear,” she said, her features relaxing again now.
“How long… or who has she been speaking to? And do you know why she’s been saying this?” I asked.
“I’m afraid I don’t know too much. I was in her café, and I couldn’t help but overhear Priscilla, talking to several different people, and each time the topic of the murder came up, well, she mentioned you as the ‘prime suspect,’ as she put it.”
Slowly, I shook my head. Unbelievable.
Priscilla was someone I was fond of. All this time, I’d told myself that her partner, Nora, was someone to avoid—but it seemed like Priscilla was just as bad as her, if not worse. At least Nora was mean to us to our face. But Priscilla?
I’d spent so much time in her café, and she’d been so kind to Kiwi that I regarded her as a friend. To be told that she was now telling other people that I was a suspected murderer was something else.
“It’s just that, well, she’d told me that you had been saying the same thing, Margaret.”
Now she was the one who looked shocked. “She said what?”
“She said that you were telling people I was under suspicion.”
“Really? And you believed her?” Mrs. Honeywell looked outraged and I immediately began to feel guilty. I wondered why I had so readily believed Priscilla.
]After all, it was she who’d canceled the order, not Mrs. Honeywell.
“I’m sorry. I just thought that she and I... that we were, well, friends.”
Margaret Honeywell shook her head slowly. “I’d be wary of being friends with Priscilla. She’s a liar. Always has been. Always will be.”
“Really?” That was something I hadn’t known, or even considered. As I generally avoided gossip, I must have missed out on hearing Priscilla’s lies, I figured.
“It was a long time ago that I found out about her,” said Mrs. Honeywell with a sniff. “A long time ago. But I’ve not trusted her since, and I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could fling her.”
I nodded. “Well, thank you for letting me know, Mrs. Honeywell. I appreciate knowing, even if it is rather upsetting.”
She tilter her head at me, a satisfied look on her face now as if her duty was done.
“I didn’t think it was fair, Aria. You all the way over here in your shop, oblivious, while Priscilla is telling everyone who will listen that you’re a killer. Didn’t seem right to me.”
I nodded at her again, gratefully. “Thanks again. Would you like some tea or something?”
She shook her head. “No, I just had a coffee in... you know. I’ll leave you to it dear. Try not to let the rumors get you down!”
What on Earth was I going to do now? With Priscilla bad-mouthing me to everyone in town, how long could I hold on to my business?
The Black Cat Café was one of the hubs of the town—hubs of gossip. If Priscilla really was saying bad things about me to everyone who came in, then it wouldn’t be too long before I wouldn’t be able to keep the lights on.
“Snack time!” screeched Kiwi.
Or the parrot fed.
I glared up at him. “How can you be hungry at a time like this?”
“What?” he asked, injured.
“Didn’t you hear what she just said? Now Priscilla is telling everyone I’m a murderer!”
“I heard. It’s terrible. It makes me feel terrible.”
“Yeah.”
“And when I feel terrible I feel hungry. Snack?”
I didn’t know whether to laugh at Kiwi or just plop down in the corner and cry.
Still, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that sitting around hiding from problems does little to solve them.
From underneath the counter I pulled out a bag of cheese puffs and the largest mug I had. I filled a tea infuser with the calming chamomile and lavender mix, and dropped the infuser in the mug and filled it up with hot water.
“Aria,” said Kiwi between crunches.
“Yes...”
“You need to find out who killed Fletcher, and fast.”
Although the flavor hadn’t fully diffused, I took a sip of the steaming hot tonic.
“Yes, Kiwi. We’ve been trying to do that, remember? But we’ve gotten nowhere. Worse than nowhere. We’ve embarrassed ourselves with Jack, and annoyed the mayor.”
“And your Mom,” pointed out Kiwi helpfully.
“Yes. And Mom.”
“Why don’t you go back and talk to the spirit again?”
“Don’t you remember what happened last time?” I asked him.
He lifted up his wings. “I’ve got a good idea!”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t get caught this time.”
I laughed into my tea mug. “Thanks, Einstein.”
“Einstein?” He cocked his head. “I’m Kiwi.”
Another giggle, another sip. My life was falling apart and I was laughing into my tea while I took advice from a parrot.
A talking parrot, admittedly, but still, it didn’t make me look that much better, did it?
“If Jack catches us there again, I’ll be in real trouble.”
“Yep.”
“He’ll arrest me! Put me in handcuffs and drive me through town in the back of his police car.”
“Handcuffs!” shrieked Kiwi.
“Yep,” I said, shaking my head at the imagery. That could definitely not be allowed to happen.
“You’ll be in his handcuffs one day...” he said.
“Not if I can help it!”
“...it’s just a matter of time until he mans up!”
I picked up a cheese puff and threw it at Kiwi’s head. He dodged it like a pro and then swooped onto the floor to snatch it up from where it had landed.
“Five second rule,” he said, cocking his head at me. And with that, Kiwi took flight to the front of the shop, landing in front of the door where he waited for me to open it. “Coming?”
Chapter 22
We sat in my car, parked up near the path that led to Hazel Crane’s cottage.
“Are we really going to do this?” I asked Kiwi.
He gave a loud shriek of confirmation.
On the one hand, I was worried about having let Kiwi talk me into this again; on the other, what else could I do?
If I was going to save my business, we needed to get to the bottom of the mystery of who killed Fletcher Davenp
ort as soon as possible.
Everyone kept telling me to leave it alone, to leave it to the police—but where was that getting me? Nowhere.
Things were just getting worse and worse; more and more people were going to hear the rumors and gossip about me.
It wouldn’t just be the business.
It would be my whole life that got affected.
I didn’t want to be one of those witches that mothers always warn their children about. I could hear it already: Stay away from her. She’s a bad witch. Murdered an old man just for a dress and clean got away with it...
“I’d rather stay home and watch Ironside and Matlock,” said Kiwi, “but we need to save your business!”
I nodded at him. “That we do. I didn’t think you were interested in the bridal business, though.”
He cocked his head at me. “I’m interested in keeping a home that’s well stocked with snacks!” he said with a screech. “No business, no cheese puffs.”
I smirked. There was some truth to that, though I imagine if everything did go wrong, then Kiwi would quickly find another source for his snacks.
“Let’s hope she’s in a good mood,” I said.
Kiwi nodded at me. “And watch out for cats.”
We were going to go back to speak to the spirit again, and this time get some answers out of him.
But in order to do that, we needed to get some more Wolfsbane from the only supplier in town: the wicked witch of the west, as I was beginning to think of her, Hazel Crane.
After exiting the car, I took a few deep breaths of what I thought of as ‘outside’ air before we started on the forest path to the witch’s cottage. Once we were off the road, and into the woods, the air seemed different somehow. It must be to do with Hazel’s magic, but it was really quite unsettling.
Kiwi perched on my shoulder as I walked, sitting as close to my head as possible so that he was constantly rubbing against my cheek. The little creature was scared of these woods, and of Hazel, and it was for good reason.
The walk seemed a little shorter this time. Perhaps because we were now familiar with it and so walking more quickly. Soon we rounded the bend to see the fairytale cottage just ahead of us.
“Smoke!” said Kiwi.
And sure enough, this time there was a trail of smoke, winding its way out of the cottage’s chimney up into the sky where it seemed to join a cloud that was far, far above us.
It looked like the smoke may actually have caused the gigantic cloud. An idea I normally would put down to an optical illusion, but with Hazel I wasn’t quite so sure.
Hsss!
I jumped and whipped my head around.
“Cats!” screamed Kiwi. “Cats everywhere!”
With a hop, Kiwi jumped from my shoulder on to the top of my head.
That was a lot more comfortable for him than it was for me. His talons clutched my scalp for balance and he extended his wings with a little flutter to hold his position steady.
I glanced to my left and saw he was right.
The source of the hiss was a little cat, barely more than a kitten, that had been crouching inside a small bush next to the path. Its two little green eyes stared out at us, furious at our intrusion.
To the sides of the path, there were three more sets of green eyes, staring at us, these more with curiosity than rage.
“Up up up!”
I looked above my head and saw two more cats sitting on branches overhanging the path. One of the cats was crouched on a limb. Its front paws were extended and its hindquarters raised like it was about to pounce.
“Come on!” I said and broke into a trot. Having a bird on my head was bad enough, adding a cat as well would be really too much.
We scurried down the rest of the path, past the twine lines that were still set up between the trees, though this time they had nothing hanging from them.
When we reached the front door I turned around and scanned behind us, checking to see if the cats had chased us. There were none to be seen, so I turned back to the door and rapped my knuckles on it smartly three times.
“Get down,” I hissed to Kiwi, who quickly hopped back to my shoulder. I didn’t want to look too ridiculous when Hazel saw us again.
The door slowly swung open, and I peered inside.
Hazel was on the other side of the room. She was facing the wall, seemingly staring intently at a mounted fox’s head.
I put my head inside the doorframe. “Hello? Can we come in?”
Hazel spun around with the speed and grace of a ballerina, and immediately started to walk toward us at the pace of a Terminator. I gulped.
She had a strange way of approaching us, walking at that brisk pace, which made me think she was going to barrel right through us and march off down the path into Sequoia Bay, or possibly just keep going until she got to Canada. Instead, she stopped right in front of us with a jarring halt.
“What?”
“Hi, again,” I said to her.
She gave me a blank look.
“It’s me, Aria Whitmore, and—”
“I know who you are, dolt.”
“Right. Of course, sorry.”
I stood there.
She stood there.
She kept the same expressionless look on her face for a few moments before finally she raised her carefully-shaped black eyebrows at me, giving me a look that expressed a complete lack of genuine curiosity, but a solid dose of annoyance at the intrusion.
“We will read your tarot,” she said to me, finally.
I took half a step back in surprise. “My tarot?”
She nodded. “If you want more Wolfsbane—”
“Wolfsbane!” screeched Kiwi.
“If you want more Wolfsbane, then you will let me read your tarot first.”
I shook my head. “I really don’t like scrying or fortune telling.”
“I didn’t ask whether you liked it, did I, dolt?”
I shook my head again.
“I am telling you what we’re going to do. I’m going to read your tarot, then I’m going to give you some Wolfsbane.”
We looked at each other for several seconds.
Hazel’s pronouncement had sounded as if she was as open to negotiation as a brick wall. If we really wanted to go and talk to that spirit again, we’d have to let Hazel play her little game.
“Right. Okay then,” I said, “I’ll let you read my tarot.”
Like two striking cobras her hands whipped forward and squeezed my shoulders.
“Let me? Let me? People pay a lot of money to have their fortune read by me.”
I managed to stop myself from screeching when she grabbed me. Kiwi didn’t, letting out a call that half-deafened me. Though it did not seem to faze Hazel, who didn’t register it at all.
“I’m sorry, Hazel.”
“Don’t be sorry, be Aria.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Instead of answering, she squeezed my shoulders hard, spun around, and walked across the room.
Her way of movement alarmed me. If you looked at her legs, they moved much as most people’s do. But if you looked at her torso, or her head, she seemed to be moving far too quickly when compared to the speed her lower half was strolling at. It was like the top half of her was flying while the lower part was pretending to walk like a normal person.
And a normal person Hazel Crane was not.
I shook my head to clear it. It must be a trick of the light, I supposed, what with it being significantly dimmer inside the house.
On the other hand, as a not-so-normal person, could Hazel Crane actually be a killer? Did she have something to do with Fletcher’s death?
“COME!” she shrieked, without turning around to look at me.
My heart squeezed—I wondered if she could read minds, in addition to scrying and fortune telling.
No, that couldn’t be.
Hazel Crane was just a slightly odd witch, that was all. She probably played up her eccentricity to get
more people to “pay a fortune” to get their tarot read by her. That was all, I told myself again—no way could Hazel Crane be a killer.
Following her somewhat hesitantly, we approached Hazel who was still turned away from me.
As we arrived, she spun around again like a Dervish.
Immediately, her arm was out and an incredibly long finger was pointing toward a wooden chair.
Meekly, I sat down on the chair, which was in front of a small wooden dining table. Hazel sat down on the side of the table next to me.
“Why are you here, Aria Whitmore?”
“For—”
“AND DON’T SAY WOLFSBANE!”
With a jerk, I sat up straight and tried to stop myself from shaking. Kiwi nuzzled into my neck, just as unnerved as me.
“I’m here because I want to find out who killed Fletcher Davenport, and the only way I can think of to do that is to talk to his spirit. I don’t know what else to do, Hazel.”
She ran her eyes over me as if that would tell her whether I was telling the truth or not. She gave a grunt that I took to be some kind of indication I’d passed her little test or whatever it was.
“Why don’t you let it go? You could let your policeman friend handle it. The handsome one.”
How did she know about that? Still, the town was full of gossips so perhaps one of them was friendly with Hazel. It could even be my mother. While they weren’t friends, they did know each other.
“I hope he does solve it. But I need it to be solved soon. Real soon. It’s hurting my business. People are accusing me of being the killer.”
“You’re a witch. You could earn money plenty of other ways,” Hazel said, brushing a strand of her red hair away from her tanned cheek as she said it.
“I like my business. I enjoy it. I get to help people. I get to see them on the happiest day of their lives!”
While I was speaking, I suddenly had a vision of Nina and Rick while I was saying happiest days of their lives and had a brief moment of doubt. Would they have the happiest day of their life? I wasn’t so sure.
“Getting involved with the dead is risky business, Aria Whitmore.”
Was that a threat? Did Hazel have an ulterior motive for not wanting me to investigate this murder?
A Wedding to Die For- Wedding Bells and Magic Spells Page 15
