by Ami Diane
A couple of hours and a few burn marks later, a green liquid the color of the contents of a newborn’s diaper bubbled in the cauldron. Libby checked on the potion before returning to the coffee table that was serving as their card table.
She yawned, hoping Marge would pick up on the hint this time. “It’s getting late.” She stared enviously at the couch that was her bed.
“One more hand.”
While Marge shuffled the deck, Libby asked, “You sure that potion over there will grow hair?” Her gaze traveled to the woman’s shortly shorn scalp.
“Yep. A couple of washes with the stuff and you’ll have hair to your waist.”
“I don’t want hair to my waist.”
“Well, then, keep your half on hand in case you get a bad haircut.”
Again, Libby’s eyes flicked to Marge’s hair.
“My half’s going in the shop,” Marge continued, dealing cards. “I can’t stock the stuff fast enough.”
As Libby splayed out her hand, she allowed herself a moment of contemplation. It had been a long day, and, looking back, the events seemed to unfold from afar like watching them in a movie. This was her life now, warts and all.
Soon, Stacy would be arrested, charged with the murders of two good people, and Libby could settle into some semblance of a normal life. Of course, her normal would involve making potions and having conversations with her pets.
As if reading her thoughts, Orchid stretched in Libby’s lap where she snoozed idly. Nearby, Jasper wobbled sideways in a dance that said he was not pleased with his current accommodations and that these good-for-nothing-humans refused to give him treats.
Yep, she could get used to this new normal.
“What are you waiting for, Red? The second coming?”
Libby scooped up the cards she’d been dealt. “You’re going down, old witch.”
CHAPTER 23
SOMEONE WAS POUNDING at the door. Libby stumbled out of bed, forgetting that she was sleeping on Marge’s couch. Her shin hit the coffee table, and white-hot pain shot up her leg.
Cursing, she hopped on one foot, stumbling towards the door. “I’m coming.” Good lord, what time was it?
When she whipped open the door, she was surprised to see Shelly Crane, the book store owner, standing there, her face flushed. Behind her was a backdrop of gray sky.
Without preamble and so much as a good morning, she swept past Libby into the living room, carrying a salty mist in her wake.
“Come in,” Libby said to the empty threshold before shutting the door.
“Where’s Marge?” Shelly asked before ducking down the hallway and calling the apothecary’s name.
Rubbing her eyes, Libby fumbled for her phone. It was eight o’clock in the morning. They’d overslept. She felt like she had a hangover, only one caused by a late night of games, strong tea, and not at all alcohol-related.
She vaguely remembered it was Monday and hoped Julie had opened the apothecary shop without the owner before she remembered the assistant was on probation.
She went into the kitchen and put a kettle on the stove to make coffee in the French press. A moment later, Shelly dragged Marge in by her shirt sleeve.
“Where’s the fire?” Marge grunted.
Libby took a secret, sick pleasure in seeing the woman tired, her makeup smeared. Maybe from now on, she would think twice before coercing Libby into staying up late, all in deference to her pride which had been wounded when Libby had won several hands in a row.
“I’ve been calling and texting you. Why haven’t you answered?” Shelly wrung her hands.
“I’m pretty sure her phone can’t get texts.” Libby settled into a chair that creaked. Her legs, sore as a result of all the running from giant ants, protested equally as much. “Signals in morse code? That, she could get.”
Marge gave her the finger before resting her forehead on the table. A moment later, snores came from the Formica top.
Shelly shook the potionist by the shoulder. “Didn’t you hear? They arrested Stacy for murder!”
Marge shot up, and Libby ignored the tea kettle that began to scream.
“When?” Marge asked at the same time Libby said, “About time.”
After clearing her throat, Libby amended her statement. “I mean, it’s about time they caught the killer.”
“Can you believe it? Stacy!” Shelly said, ignoring Libby. She continued to stand there in her tan slacks and sensible shoes, squeezing the life out of her hands. “I know she hated John, but to go so far as to kill him… But that’s not the worst of it.”
She paused a moment to collect a breath. “She’s been charged for Arlene’s death, too!” She dropped into a chair, spent. “Can you believe it? One of us killing our own. What’s this going to do the society?”
Libby stood, her mind turning, as she moved the tea kettle to a different burner. Had Jackson found something to connect Stacy to the potassium chloride theft?
“How did you hear about this?” she asked.
“One of the PMS members works in the sheriff’s office.”
That was convenient. “And you’re sure Stacy got charged in Arlene’s death, too? Did this member happen to hear what the evidence was?”
“She said they found a syringe in her home with traces of something in it. Some chemical. I guess that’s how Arlene was killed. Oh, Marge, I’m so sorry.” Shelly reached a bony hand across the table. “Here I am, prattling on about the society when you must be in an awful state.”
“Actually, I’m doing alright. It’s nice to finally have some answers, you know?” Marge looked out from mascara-smeared raccoon eyes, and Libby saw a peace settle in them.
Shelly stood. “Well, I got to make the rounds. We’re having an emergency meeting tonight to discuss our options. It’ll be at Greta’s barn.”
“Options?” Libby finally moved from where she’d been rooted to the floor in front of the stove and poured hot water into the press.
“Yes. We need a contingency plan in case Stacy squeals about the society.” Shelly’s hair brushed her shoulders as she shook her head. “We’ve never dealt with this level of possible exposure. We all might have to close up shop for a bit. We’ll see.” She swept out of the kitchen, saying she’d see herself out.
Marge stared at the table’s semi-glossy surface. When the coffee had finished steeping, Libby pushed the plunger down in the press then set a chipped mug in front of Marge before pouring.
“You need something stronger than tea this morning.” As she poured herself one, she said, “I guess that’s that, then?”
“Hm? Yeah, I guess it’s over.”
“Looks like I can go back home.”
“Looks like it.”
Neither woman moved, and a silence settled over the room like a blanket.
“Still,” the older potionist said, meeting Libby’s eyes for the first time that morning, “I’d feel better if you took that defense potion with you. Who knows what outdated potions Arlene had in her stock. Besides, she wasn’t really the type to make any of the defensive variety.”
Libby nodded her thanks and poured copious amounts of buttermilk—the closest thing she could find to creamer—into her coffee.
“You’ll stay for breakfast, of course?”
“Of course. Who do you take me for?”
Libby stared at the corrugated metal walls, at a loss of what to do for the first time since her arrival in Oyster Bay. There was always unpacking and greenhouse work. Also, there was that toilet in the hallway that needed relocating. Yet, somehow, she found herself in Arlene’s lab—her lab now.
After leaving Marge’s house, it hadn’t taken long to settle Jasper and Orchid back in, both pets eager to get back home.
Home.
After a contented sigh, she floated from table to table, tidying up the laboratory. When she reached a neglected one, the purpose of which she had yet to determine except as overflow for beakers and small cauldrons, she came across the loose leaf recipe she’d notic
ed her first time in the underground room. She had forgotten about it.
Picking it up, she scanned the ingredients. The parchment was missing the information box denoted in all the other recipes in the potion book, and it lacked a title, which she thought strange. Arlene clearly hadn’t finished it. What had she been working on those last days?
Before, when Libby had scanned the paper, it had seemed like reading a foreign language. Now, when she looked at it, it still went over her head, but less so.
Most of the ingredients were exotic and the instructions called for a cauldron, as well as an intricate distillation process for extracting the essence of the tubular-shaped leaves of Allium paniculatum, which Libby typically called, pale garlic (not that garlic).
One of the backbone ingredients in the base layer caught her eye. It called for human skin cells and several drops of blood from the one who intended to ingest the elixir.
Libby’s eyebrows knitted together in a deep frown. What in the world?
Her eyes traveled over the ingredient list a second time, and something niggled at the back of her brain with recognition. She’d seen many of these ingredients before. In Marty’s notes. This potion, whatever it was, had been what Arlene had risked secrecy to make.
Reaching into her pocket for her phone, Libby’s hand bumped the defense potion Marge had made her take. She pulled out her cell but found, unsurprisingly, that she had no reception in the underground metal box.
Stacy had stolen these same ingredients and was trying to make the same potion. If anyone could make sense of it, could guess its intended purpose, it was Marge.
She wasn’t going to text her a picture of the parchment, as tempted as she was, not only because the woman probably wouldn’t know how to view the image, but also for security reasons.
She’d just have to call and see if Marge could stop by after work. Laying the paper back where she found it, she climbed the ladder one rung at a time then knocked on the plate before she hit her head on the steel. Been there, done that.
Ivy dragged the manhole cover aside, and Libby landed in the gravel of the greenhouse. While metallic scraping filled the air as Ivy replaced the cover, a shadow moved outside the opaque wall of the greenhouse.
“Jackson?” Libby called out because the outline was tall and lean.
The rusty steel plate finished settling behind her, and she realized too late that the figure wore a hat.
Richard Hayward strode into her greenhouse and pointed a gun at her.
CHAPTER 24
LIBBY SUCKED IN a breath, and it felt like her heart stopped beating.
Richard scanned the plants, his face pinched in that sour expression he wore. “Where is it?”
Her voice shook. “Where’s what?”
She wasn’t sure if she should put her hands up. It’s what they did in movies, but he hadn’t said anything, and she wasn’t going to ask. What was the protocol for being held at gunpoint?
“The recipe.”
Recipe?
She swallowed, trying to wet her parched throat. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
Without breaking eye-contact, she tried to recall what tools lay in her vicinity. All she could think of was the trowel she’d used to dig up garlic bulbs, but as pointy as it was, it was no match for a gun.
The rest of the implements that might serve as a weapon were on the shelves in the corner—the corner which Richard currently occupied. Curse her organizing skills.
Her breath hitched. No, she had another option. The trowel wasn’t the only defense she had at hand.
She still had Marge’s potion in her pocket. God bless that crazy woman and her paranoia.
“The Everlasting potion or whatever you’re calling it.” He took a menacing step closer, the gravel shifting beneath his shoes.
“Say what, now?” Despite her circumstances, she was momentarily distracted by his comment.
“The Fountain of Youth. The ageless potion. Whatever you want to call it. I know that woman made it, and I know you have it.”
Libby, though listening, was simultaneously strategizing. She needed to stall. “You know, I’m still going through all of Arlene’s stuff and sorting—” he raised the gun “—but I might have seen something like that. I’m assuming it gives someone long life or eternal beauty as the name implies?”
His chin dipped in a subtle nod.
“You sure that’s something you want? I mean not the beauty part, although, I’m not judging if it is. Just—”
“Shut up. It’s not for me. It’s for my wife.”
“Your wife?” While she’d been blathering, her hand had been lowering towards the pocket.
“She’s dying,” he said. “Cancer. Keep your hands up where I can see ‘em.”
Drat.
“I’m really sorry to hear about your wife. I met her a few times at Marge’s shop.”
“Yes. Why she’s going to that witch doctor, I’ll never know.”
Libby wanted to point out the hypocrisy of that statement, that Marge was a potionist and that he was after a potion, but she didn’t think this thought best voiced with a weapon still pointed at her. Maybe later, if there was going to be a later, that is.
What was she thinking? There was going to be a later. Her mother still needed justice. This man, with his trench coat and hat, would not be her end. She raised her chin defiantly.
Richard’s hat dredged up Jasper’s comment about Arlene’s killer having a “nest head,” and the puzzle clicked together.
The raven hadn’t been referring to Stacy’s frizzy hair but to the reporter’s hat. If Libby squinted—and if she’d been a little bit drunk—she could see how the top of the fedora resembled a nest.
“You killed Arlene,” she whispered as the realization settled in. Then louder, “But why?”
He stared, his eyes dark pools of anger and pain, and he didn’t deny it.
“Just so you could get that potion?”
“She wouldn’t give it to me. Even after I told her it was for my ailing wife. She said it wasn’t ready. She had to do more trials or some such nonsense.”
“How did you even know what she was working on?” Even Marty, who had been assigned to spy on Arlene, only know the potion master was collecting ingredients but had had no clue as to what they were for.
“That witch Marge let slip to my wife that Arlene was close to making a supplement that would help her a great deal. Maybe even cure her. Said it would be the medical breakthrough of the millennium.
“The missus told me that, without knowing anything about the AWC or witches—”
“Potionists,” Libby corrected, then immediately regretted it when the journalist’s face turned purple.
“When Arlene refused to hand over the potion, I killed her. I thought I could find her lab and take the potion myself. But I never found the stupid entrance. So, naturally, I went through Marty’s notes on Arlene. They’re a bumbling mess. Worthless, really, but they did reveal all the ingredients she was buying up.”
This fresh information swirled around in Libby’s mind. “But they found the syringe at Stacy’s.” Her brain was still struggling to accept that Richard had killed Arlene and not Stacy.
“That was easy enough. You’re not as quiet as you think you are. The missus overheard you at the Bayside Seafood Depot. She overheard you blaming Stacy for the break-in at the apothecary shop, and I saw the perfect scapegoat. It was easy enough to put the syringe in her place, and everyone knew of her animosity towards John. I’d say it was a stroke of genius and luck, really.” His chest puffed out.
“But how did you get into the cabinet?”
“With the key from that vapid girl’s desk.”
“And John?”
Behind Richard, a form crept low outside the greenhouse, appearing as an opaque silhouette as Richard had. Her first hope was that it was Jackson coming to save the day. She needed to keep Richard distracted.
“He found me searching the property. Tol
d me he’d call the police for trespassing.”
“So, you killed him?” The figure had nearly reached the open door. She just had to keep Richard from turning around.
“Didn’t mean to. I just wanted to knock him out, but then he started yelling.”
“So, you choked him?”
Just then, the figure outside of the greenhouse stepped into the doorway, and Libby’s heart dropped to the ground. She’d never been more disappointed in her life, including that time she’d asked for a GoGo My Walkin’ Pup for Christmas and had gotten a sweater instead.
Marty’s shoes crunched over the pebbles, causing Richard to jump sideways so he could see who this newcomer was while also keeping Libby in his purview.
When he saw Marty, he relaxed. “What are you doing here?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing.” Marty’s voice trembled, but his eyes never wavered from his co-worker.
“She has a potion that could cure my wife.”
“I heard. You really killed the old lady and that realtor?” He took a step back as if seeing his fellow AWC member in a new light.
“I would do anything to keep my baby alive.”
“But we’re not like that. We’re not like them.” Marty shot a wild finger in Libby’s direction.
Libby wanted to object to the journalist’s implied accusation that all potionists were bad, dark, and murderous. Then, she thought of Stacy.
“You just want to help your wife,” Libby said. “I get that. But all you had to do was ask. There’s no need for this.” She indicated the gun still pointed at her chest. “If this potion cures cancer or could help a single person—are you kidding me? Of course, I’d hand it over.
“But Arlene was right in being cautious. Suppose the potion isn’t ready, and it made your wife worse or turned her into a walrus or something? I’ve experienced first hand what happens when they go awry. Yesterday, I was this big.” She held up her fingers, indicating the miniature size she’d shrunk to. “Can you believe that?”
“Enough talking. Take me to your lab.” Richard’s eyes swept the greenhouse walls as if searching for an invisible door.
