by Ami Diane
As she completed her survey of their surroundings, her eyes fell on a large plastic container with an opening roughly her current height. It took her a moment to realize what the object was, her visual lens distorted by everything several times its normal size.
By the time she realized she was looking at a ginormous ant trap, a dark creature with spindly, articulated legs emerged and headed straight for them.
“Marge, run!”
CHAPTER 21
MARGE DID A double take when she saw the ant the size of a car. Libby yanked her from her stupor, and they ran.
The nearest cover was John’s L-shaped sofa. She hoped the critter would lose interest under its shadow.
It took several minutes of sprinting to reach the furniture. Libby clutched at a stitch between her ribs. A glance back proved her point wrong. The ant, now along with several buddies, stalked them. The leader’s antennae wiggled in the air like extra appendages.
As Libby and Marge plunged deeper into the darkness under the furniture, the kid’s song The Ants Go Marching popped into Libby’s head, upping the horror factor of their situation by several degrees.
“How’s that reverse potion coming, Marge?!”
“I can’t see! It’s too dark!”
Panting, Libby veered them to the left towards the band of light again. Six legs were no match for their bipedal run. She had no idea the suckers could scuttle this fast.
“How many of them are there now?” she yelled as she spared another peek back. The ants were dark shadows scurrying after them. “Don’t they only eat dead things and sugar?”
Marge was barely listening, her head bobbing inside her purse as she tried to see in the dim light, all the while, wheezing for air. She began to lag behind.
Bright light burst around them as they tore into the open room once again.
“Got it!”
Looking back, Libby saw Marge hold a bottle up triumphantly.
“That’s great because we’re about to have company!”
One of the antennae of the lead ant brushed Marge’s shoulder, causing her to scream and nearly drop the anti-potion. She poured on the heat and nearly outpaced Libby as they continued to run.
Marge pulled out the eyedropper, squeezed three drops into her hand, then closed it. She tossed the bottle to Libby who, surprisingly, caught it.
Marge yelled, “Just three drops!” Her voice was deepening and stretching like elastic. Her waist was now eye-level with Libby.
Libby unscrewed the lid while dancing out of the way of oncoming pincers. “I’m buying so many ant traps after this!”
It took some fancy footwork to stay out of their reach as she carefully squirted three drops onto her hand. She screwed the bottle back up, and the ground began to descend. Her stomach plunged to her feet, and her vista shrank rapidly.
When it felt like she was no longer being pulled apart, she blinked then patted her body to be sure all parts had returned to their normal size. She was slightly disappointed to find that her nose had grown to its full shape again.
They stood in a normal-sized living room with a TV that was still large by most standards, but no longer the size of the moon.
Standing in silence, their chests heaved as they stared at each other. Sweat beaded Libby’s forehead. She hadn’t done that much running since her senior year in high school and she needed to fit into her prom dress.
Handing over the reverse potion, she said, “Let’s never do that again.”
“I didn’t know you could scream so high.”
“You’re one to talk. You sounded like Minnie Mouse on speed.” Libby waved off an impending insult. “Maybe we should get what we came for so we can get out of here.”
They moved into the study. It took Libby a few moments to shake off the feeling that she was being chased enough to focus on the room.
A file drawer shook as Marge tugged at it. “Locked.”
“Of course it is,” Libby muttered. When this was all over, after she’d had a stiff drink, she put making an unlocking potion at the top of her laboratory to-do list.
Pulling out the long drawer that was directly under the desk, she shoved aside pencils, paper clips, and sticky pads.
“What are you looking for?”
Libby’s tongue slipped out between her teeth before her fingers felt the objective of her search. “This.” She held up a key that winked in the weedy light from the window.
It fit the filing cabinet, and the drawer clicked open when she unlocked it.
“How’d you know that was there?”
Libby shrugged. “It’s where I keep mine.”
Marge stared hard at her. “It’s no wonder you had someone break in. I suppose you keep a spare for your place under the doormat, too?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Libby rummaged through files. “It’ll be in one of those fake rocks when I’ve had time to get a duplicate made. Are you going to stand there and look pretty or help?”
Marge’s hand plumped up a few spikes of hair. “Why thank you—”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“—I’m really more of an overseer-type.”
“Get that rhinestoned butt over here.”
Marge let out an exasperated sigh before joining Libby, her hips sashaying as she went. They spent the next several minutes digging through bills, paperwork for taxes, old receipts, and manuals for electronics.
“Look at this. He saved his birthday cards from his mother.” Libby probed a thick stack of cards. A band squeezed around her chest, and she quickly passed over them. “Maybe it means he saved the letters too.”
“This them?” Marge held up a folder, the tab unlabeled. Inside were envelopes marked only with John’s name, the tops crudely ripped open.
Reaching in, Libby pulled the contents of one out and found a folded blank parchment. She held it up to the light and was slightly surprised not to see anything.
She’d still been thinking about the invisible ink potion like writing with lemon juice, with traces still evident. But this had left behind nothing.
Doubts started to creep in. Maybe it really was blank.
Marge ripped the paper from her grip and sniffed it. “Yeah, that’s the Secret Sender potion alright.”
Whatever scent she was picking up on, Libby was clueless because she didn’t smell anything, even after she smashed her nose to the paper.
Marge rummaged through her purse again. “On the off chance Steve had kept one of the letters,” she said, pausing to mutter about the receptionist under her breath, “I grabbed my mother’s old potion from storage this morning. I’m not sure about the shelf life and if it’s still potent, but I figure it’s better than whipping up a new batch of the Sender Revealed potion. If I recall correctly, one ingredient’s been banned from the U.S. So, let’s hope this reverse potion works.”
While she’d been talking, she had unstoppered the vial then poured it into one of those small, cheap empty spray bottles typically used to store perfume or water for traveling. She spritzed the potion onto the paper.
Libby held her breath, staring at the parchment harder than she’d stared at a piece of paper in her life, with the exception of that one time Bobby McDougall had passed her a love letter during class in third grade that read, “You smell.”
Young love.
Slowly, letters emerged sporadically, like blades of grass breaking through freshly turned soil. When it finished developing or reversing or whatever, they stared at a hand-written letter in a flowing, elegant script that was at odds with the content.
The sender addressed the letter to John then spewed vitriol of how he was the scum of the earth, that his business was doomed because he was up against the best, and that he would rue the day he stole houses out from under the sender. Then, Stacy had had the audacity to sign the paper.
After scanning the letter, Libby let out a low whistle. “Boy, she really hated his guts. I mean, that bit about hanging him upside down by his toes…�
�� She whistled again. “I would not want to be stuck in a dark alley alone with that woman.”
“I guess she didn’t think she’d get caught.”
“Probably didn’t think the police would have an anti-potion—hey, wait. If John wasn’t a potionist, how would he have seen the invisible ink? Wouldn’t it have been a blank piece of paper for him, too?”
Marge held up the paper in response. Libby wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be seeing, but it soon became obvious. The ink began disappearing again.
“The anti-potion was designed to have a very short decay time. That way, if prying eyes happened upon one of the society’s letters after it had been read, they would see nothing but blank paper.
“My guess is, Stacy spritzed it good right before Steve and John showed up for work.”
Libby’s eyebrows rose. “Well, color me impressed. That’s clever.” Her features shifted. “This is exactly what we need to get Jackson to arrest Stacy, but if the ink just disappears again, then this evidence does us no good.”
Marge’s lower lip caught between her teeth in concentration. “Let me take this and the rest of the letters to my lab. I think if I rejigger the formula, soak the parchment in it, then dry it, the anti-potion will last longer.”
Libby hesitated then handed over the folder. “No pressure, but this is all on you. But, I mean, don’t feel stressed. But seriously, don’t mess up.” They moved towards the door. “Do you want help?”
“Nice try. You’re not seeing my lab or my book.”
“You can’t blame me for trying.”
“Try again, and I’ll hang you by your toes.”
“Shrink me again, and I’ll crawl through your ear and into your brain and make it my personal playground.”
Marge’s horrified expression morphed into admiration. “I like you, Red. You just might make a great potionist yet.”
CHAPTER 22
LIBBY SPRINKLED SALT over the grilled chicken then poked the steamed broccoli to be sure it was cooked perfectly. She was just about to take a bite when Marge’s basement door burst out.
The older potionist wore goggles, her hair askew and singed, with tendrils of smoke emanating from her lab coat. “I did it.”
From the folds of her jacket, she produced a thick, now slightly bubbled, stack of letters. They looked like they’d sat in the rain then had been tumble dried on low which probably wasn’t too far from reality.
Marge sniffed, her eyes falling on the food. “Oh, that looks delicious.”
Libby jabbed a thumb over her shoulder. “There’s some on the stove. I hope you don’t mind me grilling up your chicken.”
Marge plopped into a seat and grabbed Libby’s plate. “I don’t mind at all.”
Sighing, Libby served up another helping and sat again. While they ate, they read through the letters, which turned out to consist of mostly the same diatribe of insults and threats. After the ninth claim of boiling him alive in a cauldron, it all started to sound the same.
“She’s like one of those one-hit wonders, you know?” Libby said around a mouthful of steamed rice. “Keeps playing the same tune.”
“A poet she is not. Why don’t you call Jackson?”
“Because I’m eating.”
“So am I.”
“I don’t have his number.” Libby sipped her water with a smug expression, sure she’d won.
“It’s there on the wall.” The apothecary pointed to a slew of post-its stuck to the wallpaper by her phone. Last year’s calendar hung beside it full of scribbles.
Sighing, Libby scooted back and scanned the post-its. When she finally located the number for the sheriff’s office, she used her cellphone to call rather than Marge’s dubious-looking landline.
A cantankerous woman transferred her to Jackson’s desk, and he picked up a minute later, sounding frazzled.
“What?”
“Uh, you okay?”
“Who’s asking?”
“It’s Libby. Crap, did someone miss their nap?”
He breathed into the phone. “Sorry. I’ve been getting harangued from reporters all day about this case. Someone let it slip that Arlene’s death wasn’t an accident, and the media, if you can call those goons that, are having a field day, claiming we have a serial killer on the loose.”
“Well, I might be able to help.” She mentioned the letters.
“Yeah, Steve told me about them but didn’t have any to show me. You have them?”
“Some, yeah.”
After ensuring that she was still staying with Marge, he said he’d come by to pick them up then the line went dead.
“You know that valerian root you were telling me about?” Libby said as she took her seat again and looked across the table at Marge’s greased-covered face. “I think Jackson could use some of it.”
About ten minutes later, as Libby was washing dishes and Marge had disappeared to change, a knock came at the door. She knew it was Jackson by its authoritative pounding.
Scurrying through the living room and stepping over a snoozing Orchid who’d picked the very middle of the floor for a cat nap, Libby opened the door.
Jackson frowned at her. “Did you look to see who was at the door first?”
“Yep.” She hadn’t.
His ice-blue eyes said he didn’t believe her, but he didn’t comment further. He stepped inside, his khaki uniform an island of neutral tones in a riot of colors that consisted of Marge’s living room. His gaze swept past the fireplace, where, thankfully, Marge had taken away the cauldron.
“So, where are these letters?”
“Have a seat. I’ll get them.”
She ducked into the kitchen as Marge emerged from the hallway, wearing a clean, lime green sweater with crystals in the shape of a palm tree.
Libby grabbed the stack of letters from the kitchen table then exchanged a knowing nod with Marge when she entered the living room again. Over the rest of their dinner, they’d discussed what to say in the most likely event that the deputy asked them how they’d acquired John’s letters.
Libby handed over the stack then sat in one of the overstuffed chairs while Marge stoked the fire back to life. Being early spring, it was still cool enough to warrant a blaze.
The parchment whispered as Deputy Jackson rifled through them, pausing to scan one before moving on to the next. With his eyes still down, he asked off-hand, “How did you get these?”
Marge took up her cue. “He gave them to me.”
Jackson glanced up. “What?”
“He was scared and trusted me. He came into the shop all the time. Anyway, he knew Stacy and I were in the same book club and that I knew her, so he wanted to know if he should be worried. I asked him if I could keep them in case I needed to convince Stacy that what she was doing wasn’t a joke.” She let out a breath before continuing. “I tried to convince him to go to the police.”
“Why didn’t you show me these sooner, like, oh I don’t know, right after he was killed?”
Marge’s head sank, and she played up the old lady, dejected bit perfectly. Libby moved to stand beside the woman’s chair, laying a hand on her friend’s shoulder to really sell it.
“I’m sorry,” the apothecary said. “My mind just isn’t what it used to be. I honestly forgot about them until today.”
Libby squeezed Marge’s shoulder to indicate for her not to go further. Details were good. They sold a lie. But too many were suspicious. What would happen if he were to question Stacy about the letters?
Jackson’s attention returned to the wrinkled papers in his hands. “This is a big lapse in memory, Marge.” He shuffled them into a semi-neat stack, sighing. “My sister called me this afternoon in tears.”
Libby returned to her seat. “Did she tell you why?”
“It was hard to make out, but she said something about messing up inventory. Said that she was going to get fired.”
Marge shook her head. “I’m not firing her. At least, not yet. But she’s on probation
until I can figure out this mess.”
“What mess?”
Marge’s mouth puckered, and she smoothed out her retina-blinding sweater.
“Tell him, Marge,” Libby encouraged.
“You remember that break-in I had about a month back?” When he nodded that he did, she proceeded to tell him how she’d thought nothing of value had gone missing, not even cash from the safe, but they’d recently discovered a large quantity of potassium chloride missing from her ingredients cabinet.
Air hissed out between his teeth as he leaned forward. His hands rubbed over his face and drooping eyes. “You should’ve told me the moment you found out.”
“I agree. We should’ve.”
“We?” His eyes flitted to Libby who scratched her forehead, looking away.
“That was all that was taken?”
“Yes,” Marge said. She explained the log sheet and how there was only one key for the cabinet, and she kept it in her purse.
“Julie swears she locked it,” Libby added, feeling some need to defend the deputy’s sister.
He stood, clutching the letters in his hand. “Thanks for these. If Ms. Blackwood is behind the break-in at your place and Arlene’s and John’s deaths, I’ll get to the bottom of it.” It wasn’t the overconfident promise of a deputy, but the determination of a citizen, friend, and brother.
“Thanks, booger butt,” Libby said, earning a supportive snicker from Marge.
He mumbled something about killing his sister as he shut the door behind him.
Libby sighed. “Now what?”
“Another potion lesson then cards?”
Before today, Libby would’ve jumped at the chance of another lesson. But something about being shrunk to the size where ants were as large as cars gave her pause. “Oh, what the heck? Why not?”
Marge jumped from the couch faster than a kid about to eat sugar, a gleam in her eye. “Perfect. I’ll get the cauldron.”
