Witch Oracle in Westerham

by Dionne Lister

  I pulled out my phone and texted her right then and there. If she was up for visitors, I’d go straight there. Going back to an empty house, one that should have held Olivia, was just a depressing reminder. While Ma’am wrapped up the meeting, my phone vibrated with a message. I grinned.

  Hey, Lily. Yes, please come over. I’m bored senseless. I’ve already watched two movies today and dozed for about an hour. I would LOVE some company. See you soon xx.

  “And that’s it for today, team. We’ll reconvene tomorrow afternoon.” Ma’am stood and left via the normal door.

  Will and I stood. He smiled, but there was no kiss or hug, which was fine. I felt just as awkward as he did getting smoochy at work. It wasn’t the place. “See you tonight. I should be home around seven. Maybe I’ll bring some Indian takeaway with me.”

  Yum. My stomach gurgled happily. “Hear that? That’s the sound of a stomach with something to look forward to. See you tonight.”

  Everyone left, and I set the coordinates to my brother’s house on my door, then stepped through. As I arrived in their reception room, I remembered something I’d bought for Millicent. Her friend was having the baby shower in January, which was kind of late if you asked me—what if the baby came early? So I had another present for the baby, but I wanted to give her this now, so she had something to look forward to after the birth, other than the baby, of course. There was also something super special, something I was quite proud I’d thought of.

  I accessed the river of magic. “A present for Millicent is sitting on my desk. Please send it to me post-haste.” It kind of had some poetry about it. I giggled. If magic only worked with rhyme, I would have been in big trouble. An envelope and a rectangular, paperback-sized present wrapped in golden paper with storks flying across it popped into my hand. I grinned, my stomach aflutter. I was so excited to give this to her. I probably should’ve waited for James to be around, but I needed cheering up, and seeing her reaction would definitely go some way to making my day better.

  I knocked on the reception-room door. Millicent answered it, a huge smile on her face. “Lily! It’s so good to see you.” She enveloped me in an awkward hug. I was kind of standing at her side. Baby bumps were an awesome way to reclaim personal space, but you had to sacrifice your body and harbour a parasite for the privilege—yes, it was going to be a lovable, cute parasite, but still.

  “You look gorgeous. And look at how big the bump is.” I grinned. “Not long now.”

  “It’s still a few weeks away, which is too long if you ask me.” She shut the door. “Come on through.” She led me through the living area to the kitchen. It was a gorgeous addition they’d done soon after moving in. It had high raked ceilings with exposed timber beams.

  I sat at the gold flecked, fawn-coloured breakfast bar, on a white stool that spun. I swivelled it from side to side and smiled. “These stools are fun.”

  She laughed. “You’re not the only one who does that as soon as they sit there. You and your brother are so alike in some things, yet so different in others.”

  “Don’t be too hard on him. It’s not his fault he can’t be as awesome as me.” I smirked. She laughed again. “So, these are for you.” I handed her the presents. “You have to open them now because I have to know if you like them… because it’s all about me.” She grinned at my joke, but honestly, where was the fun in giving if you couldn’t see the happiness of the person receiving the present? I loved making people happy.

  She opened the envelope first. “Oh my goodness. Thank you! I’m so going to enjoy this once the baby’s out. My shoulders have been so tight because I’ve had to sleep on my side. If you sleep on your back it’s dangerous when the baby gets this big, and obviously I can’t sleep on my stomach—not that I get much sleep anyway. And James is useless when it comes to giving massages. He gets tired after two minutes. ‘My hands are sore.’”

  I chuckled. “He’s just a big baby sometimes. I’d like to see him carry this bundle of joy around.”

  “Yes, joy. I love it when it kicks, and I talk to it all the time, but the rest of it I can do without.”

  “Okay, so don’t keep me in suspense. Open the next one.” I stopped swivelling the chair and bounced one knee up and down. I even had a little pod of anticipatory butterflies flitting around the bottom of my stomach.

  She tore the paper off—a woman after my own heart; who had time to be careful when there were goodies involved? She chucked the paper on the breakfast bar and looked at the present. She blinked, and two lines appeared at the top of the bridge of her nose. Tears glistened in her eyes, which made me well up too. After a minute, she found words. “How? This is incredible. Oh my God, you used your talent.” She shook her head, incredulous. “This is the best present ever.” She looked up at me, still shaking her head; then a beautiful smile broke out, and it was like the sun’s rays coming through after a storm. She came around the table and gave me another hug. She placed the picture on the breakfast bar so we could both see it.

  It was a picture of James on one knee, looking up at her. She had one hand over her mouth, and joy shone from her eyes as her other hand accepted a small box from him. The scene was backlit by a gorgeous sunset. Windswept long grass surrounded them with the ocean beyond. “But how did you know where?”

  “James, of course. When he called to tell me you were getting married, I asked him a gazillion questions. Imani came with me, for safety reasons, and I took them. My talent has to be good for something other than crime solving. I took a couple of others, which I’ll give you later, but this was the best one.”

  “Well, Lily, I don’t think anything could top that present. Does James know?”

  I grinned. “Nope.”

  “I can’t wait to show him.” She picked the picture up again and shook her head, still disbelieving. Mission accomplished. I’d even forgotten about the mess Liv was in for ten minutes. Poor Liv. I frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  “Just Liv’s situation. One minute we’re celebrating her birthday, the next she’s in jail accused of killing someone.” And my talent couldn’t help. I sighed.

  Millicent cast a bubble-of-silence spell. “Do you think it’s Regula Pythonissam?”

  “I really don’t know. It could be. But wouldn’t they threaten me directly, let me know they’re trying to get to me through my friend?”

  “Maybe they want her in jail before that happens? If they warn you too early, we’ll have a better idea of where to look for clues, and it could ruin everything for them.”

  “I have no idea. James and Will are interviewing some people this afternoon in relation to one of the other similar situations. Maybe they’ll glean something from that?”

  “What exactly is happening? Oh, and would you like a tea or coffee?”

  “A cappuccino would be nice.” I smiled. “There’s a little pulse of power, which isn’t strong enough to grab a signature from, and then something bad happens. All the victims are non-witches. Some guy got torn apart by a tiger this morning.” I shuddered. “But then, some of the other crimes have been mild, like kids spraining their ankles.”

  Millicent magicked a coffee for me and a tea for her. They appeared on the breakfast bar. “Who benefits from the outcomes?”

  I shrugged. “Well, um, I don’t know if anyone benefits from the guy dying this morning. Kate not being around benefits Liv because she won’t have to worry about running into her, but I imagine if she’s that evil, there are probably others who could benefit, but killing someone so they don’t bully you is a bit extreme, especially when Liv has had little to do with her over the last few years. I guess the kid who won the dance competition benefits from the other kids hurting themselves. And the woman dying by Christmas tree….” I made a “who knows” face.

  “The old lady may have been rich. Maybe someone inherited something? It wouldn’t be the first time money was a motive for murder.”

  I sipped my coffee. “But then, there are all these different reasons. There�
��s no commonality. Do you think there’s a witch cursing people for money?”

  “That’s a possibility.”

  Hmm, there was that nudge from my brain again. There was something there, but I was missing it.

  A thunderous boom exploded. The house shook. Magical energy crackled around us and dissipated. We stared at each other. “What the hell was that?” I asked, throwing up my return-to-sender spell.

  Millicent held her baby bump, and worry lines etched her forehead. “A magical attack.”

  Crap. I jumped up and looked out her kitchen window. There was no way I was going outside though, like those idiots in horror movies. “Do you want to travel to the PIB?”

  “No. That’s what they’d want us to do. We’re safe in here. Whatever that was, it couldn’t breach the spells protecting the house. The noise was the powers colliding, but they threw a lot at us—the louder the noise, the bigger the collision. They may have done that on purpose to scare me into travelling, but if they have a catch spell activated, they could send us wherever they want.”

  “What the hell? What’s a catch spell? No one’s told me about those.”

  “They’re almost impossible to do. They take a lot of power, but also, you have to hold the magic in place while you wait for someone to travel, and the spell takes twenty or thirty minutes to set up, so you can’t exactly do it on short notice. Because we know I’m a liability at the moment, with the baby and all, we check for that spell before we leave the house anyway. Hang on.” She shut her eyes and mumbled something, then waved her hands. I felt a ping of magic. She flinched and opened her eyes. “Yep. There’s a catch spell waiting. Scumbags.”

  “That sounds like a complicated spell. Honestly, I should know about those. I’m surprised I haven’t been scooped up already.” I thought of all the times the snake group tried to kidnap me, and Dana’s hatred of me. They’d definitely had plenty of opportunity to grab me travelling from Angelica’s.

  “Don’t worry. I’m sure Angelica has an alarm spell activated for that. We haven’t put one on because we have too many other spells. It’s taking a PIB team energy to keep the spells activated.”

  My mouth dried. And I’d thought I’d had a lot to worry about before. This was making my head spin. “Should we tell James?”

  She nodded and went to the other end of the kitchen, to a small two-seater table against the wall. She grabbed her phone and called James. When she got off the call, she came back and sat at the breakfast bar. “He’s sending some agents around to check the perimeter.”

  “Thank goodness. Can you teach me that spell, the one to check for it?”

  “I’m not sure if now’s the time. It’s kind of like when you check someone’s aura for their defences, like return to sender, only you have to push your magic outwards, past the walls and ceiling, past the house. If any spells are hovering out there, you’ll bump into them. Once your magic touches them, the spell symbol will appear in your mind. You have to be able to decipher them, of course, and you have to be gentle in your prodding. If you hit the magic too hard, it will be like running head first into a brick wall. It hurts, and it’s dangerous. That’s probably why Angelica hasn’t told you about all this—she knows you’d try and help, but without more experience, you might get hurt, and, well, we don’t want anything happening to you.” Her caring smile did nothing to soften the blow from the hammer of guilt for being a burden, or the knife of inadequacy that sliced across my ego. That was one more thing I was determined to learn, but now wasn’t the time—if anything happened to me, it would endanger Millicent even more. We’d just have to ride this out, and I’d get Angelica to teach me later.

  Banging sounded from the living area. “That must be them.” Millicent slid awkwardly off the stool and went to answer the reception-room door. The cavalry had arrived. Thank God.

  After a few minutes, Millicent returned, a uniform-clad Imani in tow. “Hey, love.” She gave me a brief hug. “Just checking things out.” She did a lap of the room, then pulled her gun out, opened the laundry door, and went through. Crap, that made it look way more serious. Normal British police didn’t carry guns, but the PIB were a unit unto themselves. She called out, “I’m just checking out the back garden. Be back soon.”

  My phone rang, and I started, my heart racing. This afternoon was going to be the death of me. So much for trying to distract myself from all the bad stuff. I pulled the phone out of my bag. The name on the screen made my heart gallop out of control. “Hey, B. Have you got news?” I tensed my stomach. Please be good news. Please be good news.

  “Sorry, but it’s not good news.” Damn. He paused, and I swallowed and shut my eyes. “They’ve charged her with intentional manslaughter.” My eyes shot open. “Bail is set at two hundred thousand pounds. Because her parents are rich, they consider her a flight risk.”

  “What the hell? Don’t they know you’re a witch, and you could take her anywhere for free, for goodness’ sake. And intentional! There’s no way she meant to hurt her, let alone kill her. What are we going to do? Are her parents posting bail? Can she come home? I have some money saved up, if her parents don’t have it. I mean, it’s not that much, but maybe we could pool our money or something. Please tell me she won’t be spending any more time in jail while she’s waiting to go to trial. Crap.”

  “I know this is hard, Lily. But we’ll figure this out. Her parents are going to put the money up, and she’s being released into their custody. Part of the bail conditions are that she moves back in with them. She has to surrender her passport, and she can’t leave the country, of course. She has to check in with the parole officers twice a week as well. If she misses an appointment, they’ll issue a warrant for her arrest, and they lose their bail money.”

  My returning breakfast burnt my throat, and tears scalded my eyes. I didn’t trust myself to speak without crying.

  “Lily, are you still there?”

  “Mm-hmm.” I sniffed. My voice came out in a whisper. “Tell her I’ll come by tonight, whether she wants me to or not.”

  “Okay. I’ll stay with her until then, see if we can figure out how this happened, and get the charges dropped or moved to the PIB. I’ll see you at her parents’ tonight.”

  “Okay. Bye.” I put my phone on the breakfast bar and bit a nail. This was turning into a nightmare.

  Millicent placed her hand on my shoulder. “Did she get charged with intentional manslaughter?”

  I nodded, unable to speak. I hated crying in front of people, and I was sure I’d burst into tears if I opened my mouth for any reason.

  “Well, that’s just wrong. But we all know Liv’s a kind soul. We just have to cross our fingers that the team can find some connection to those magical pulses. And, yes, James told me all about it.” She rubbed my back as Imani came in.

  Imani hurried over. “Are you all right, Lily? Don’t worry. There’s no one outside.”

  Millicent shook her head. “I’m afraid that’s not why she’s upset.” As Millicent told Imani what had happened, I listened, still disbelieving. It was like being in the twilight zone. And for once, I had no idea how to fix it. My talent was no help for the first time ever.

  Now what?

  Chapter 7

  After spending the afternoon at Millicent’s, making sure she was okay, and, if I was honest, making sure I was okay, Imani came with me to grab some flowers. She was joining me to see Olivia. We figured that together, we might be able to make some headway. Liv might give us a clue without even realising, as in, something she thought was insignificant might prove valuable. After ensuring the catch spell was gone, we travelled to Imani’s flat and got in her car. We couldn’t travel to Liv’s parents, as they had no idea witches existed, plus we needed to stop off at the shops.

  Inside Parker’s Blooms, enveloped in the heady fragrance of lilies and roses, we picked a gorgeous, colourful arrangement that was sure to cheer Liv up, at least a little bit. The middle-aged woman at the counter was giggling at her dark-hai
red male customer, who had his back to us. “Oh, my. Thank you. I don’t normally like to bother celebrities, but I just had to get your autograph. My brother had a reading at one of your shows about six weeks ago, and everything you said came true!”

  The voice was familiar, and dare I say it, more arrogant than self-assured. “But of course, Miss Parker.” Owen the Oracle.

  Her hand fluttered at her chest. “Oh, you can call me Rosie.” Ha! Rosie owned a flower shop. Who woulda thunk it?

  “Well, it was lovely to meet you, Rosie, but alas, I must depart. I have a hot date.” He turned, and our gazes met. The ever so slight widening of his eyes indicated he recognised me, but he was pretending he didn’t.

  As he walked past, I said, “Do you ever warn people? You predicted my friend’s future, and you failed to mention she’d be arrested for manslaughter.” My mouth dropped open. I had not expected to say that—think it, yes. But that was me, unpredictable even to myself. These scammers who told people’s fortunes needed to be brought down a peg. Scammer, charging thousands of dollars for an airy-fairy service. Yes, people didn’t have to buy into it—literally—but they preyed on people’s vulnerabilities. Who didn’t want to hear life was going to be awesome? Shame he couldn’t have told her to be careful because someone was out to get her.

  He stopped and slowly turned to face me. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?”

  You got to be kidding me. “Not well, but you predicted”—I used finger air quotes—“fortunes at my friend’s birthday a couple of nights ago. And you did a dismal job.”

  The woman behind the counter was blinking rapidly, her face slack as hamster wheels spun in her head. She probably didn’t want a smackdown between her customers, but she had no idea how to deal with the confrontation. Imani tugged my sleeve. “Lily, I think we should just buy those flowers and go.” My cheeks had heated with anger, and Owen’s dark eyes had darkened further—a warning for me to leave it alone?