Witch Hunt

by Cate Conte

  I shifted my attention to the woman. Her hair was long, halfway down her back, a light brown shot through with blond. Light bangs brushed her forehead. I couldn’t see all of her face at the moment, so I waited in rapt fascination for her to turn my way.

  And when she did, I gasped out loud.

  A younger version with different hair, sure, but it was Fiona. There was no doubt.

  My eyes flew to Josie. “What is this? Where did you get this?” I picked up the phone. Immediately, the picture disappeared. I shook it, frustrated, but the normal Apple apps had returned. “What app was that?”

  “Vi,” Josie said gently. “It wasn’t an app. I’m showing you a scene from your childhood.”

  “But how can you . . .” I sat back, feeling that dizzying rush again that had become all too common in the past couple days. I tried again. “What do you mean?”

  Josie leaned forward and rubbed the stone on one of her rings. That staticky sound filled the room again, and I watched, awed, as two of my large raw amethysts literally levitated and moved to the other side of the room.

  My gaze traveled from the rocks back to her, not quite believing what I was seeing.

  “I’m a witch, Vi,” she said quietly. “I’ve known who you were this whole time. And I know Fiona. She is, unequivocally, your mother. And I know it’s hard to get your arms around that, but you have to trust me.” She leaned forward and took my hand again, but hers was grasping now. Urgent. Her eyes were dark and serious. “And you have to trust her.”

  CHAPTER 32

  I don’t know what shocked me more—the idea that I was a witch, or the idea that Josie was. And that she knew Fiona. And that she somehow had a video of me as a little kid, probably before videos were even a thing.

  What the goddess was going on here?

  “I know it sounds crazy, Vi.” Josie still held on to my wrist, a little harder than necessary. “But you have to listen to me. Trust Fiona. I’m not going to pass judgment on the family drama, but she’s always loved you. All of them did. They just . . . disagreed on how to do it best.”

  “But,” I began, and was interrupted by the bell on my shop door jingling. I muttered a curse as Josie pushed off from the counter.

  “I’ll take care of it,” she said. “Think about what I said.”

  “You didn’t really say anything,” I muttered. I waited until she was engrossed in the customer, then I went out back, pulling the curtain so I had privacy. Then I paced.

  I hadn’t felt this agitated last night when my long-lost mother had appeared on my doorstep. This seemed like more of a betrayal. Josie had known this crazy story this whole time, if it was true. Which also meant my beloved grandmother, and my father, had both lied to me about the biggest defining moment in my childhood. It seemed like everyone around me had been keeping secrets from me my whole life. And it felt really lousy.

  I still wasn’t sure about trusting Fiona, even on Josie’s instruction. I was a pretty trusting person, but this whole thing just felt weird. And how could I trust someone who walked out on me and didn’t return for twenty-seven years? I had to unpack that baggage when there was less going on. In the meantime, there was a murder to solve, and something else Josie said had me on alert. I had no idea why my mind chose to focus on this piece among everything else she’d just thrown at me, but it was the one I could actually, maybe wrap my head around.

  She hadn’t babysat Presley last night.

  Which in and of itself wasn’t a huge deal. Syd could very well have some backup babysitters for when Josie had other plans. No, it wasn’t only that.

  She’d said Syd wasn’t at Anna’s paint party. And since she was there, she would know that for a fact.

  So why would Sydney lie about that? Unless she’d been up to something she didn’t want anyone knowing about. It could have something to do with that guy Rain, and she was embarrassed about it for some reason. Maybe she thought aligning herself with a rabid environmentalist wasn’t good for business. But why lie to me? I wouldn’t say anything about her personal life.

  No, it would have to be something pretty serious for her to lie about it.

  And some serious things happened yesterday.

  I pushed the thought out of my head as fast as it came in. What was wrong with me? Syd hated Carla, sure, but she was as likely a killer as I was. Was I that desperate to save myself that I would throw my friend to the wolves?

  My phone rang, jolting me out of my thoughts. I glanced at the number and sighed, both annoyed at the interruption but glad to see that it was Carissa Feather, one of my contacts from the local metaphysical community. She was a multitalented musician who did drumming circles and also played singing bowls. I’d hired her to play them at the healing circle. I hoped she wasn’t canceling on me—it would take me forever to find a good singing bowl person. I picked up, trying to force some normalcy into my voice. “Carissa. Hey. Are we still on for the circle?”

  “Of course we are! And what timing. This is amazing, Vi!” Carissa’s voice bubbled through the line, completely overpowering me. Her personality was so big there was often little room for anyone else when she was around. It was good when she was putting on a show, but in regular life it could be overwhelming.

  “I’m sorry, what’s amazing?” I asked. I could picture her on the other end, sitting in her studio with all her singing bowls, her mass of blond hair piled on top of her head, feather earrings brushing her shoulders.

  “That woman’s murder! Listen, there’s a new medium in the community. Her name is Lilia Myers. She moved to town about a month ago. I heard she’s good. We should invite her to the circle. Maybe she can get in touch with Carla’s spirit and find her killer? That would bring a ton of people in! Are you charging for entry?”

  I felt the blood drain from my entire body. For a moment I couldn’t even find words, but I knew Carissa would probably take that as affirmation that she was on the right track. “Carissa. What are you talking about?” I stood and moved to the other side of the room. “That’s insane. We can’t let that happen. Do you have any idea how . . . inappropriate that is? Do not invite her. Promise me. And no, we aren’t charging! This is a healing circle.”

  Carissa huffed out a breath. “Inappropriate? If the cops haven’t arrested anyone by then the whole community is going to be up in arms. This is a healing circle. How much more healing could it be to find a killer?”

  “Carissa.” I closed my eyes, willing my patience and usual good nature to make an appearance. “I am not falsely accusing anyone of murder based on a medium’s message. That’s not something to mess around with. And it gives us all a bad name if it goes awry, no?”

  “We wouldn’t be falsely accusing anyone,” Carissa argued. “A name may not even come through. But imagine if it did? And she was right? We’d be heroes. They’d make TV shows about us.”

  “No, they’d make TV shows about her. And I’m not looking for a TV show for anyone at my expense. This is Natalie’s and my gig and we’re not inviting a medium. This is a healing circle, not a freaking séance.” I cringed, thinking of Carla’s accusations about a séance the day she died. Little did she know she might become the subject of one. “Got it?”

  “Oh, Violet. You’re such a killjoy sometimes,” Carissa scoffed. “You know it’s going to come up.”

  “I don’t care if it comes up. We can add it into the healing circle as something we need to address in order to help the community. Otherwise, we aren’t talking about it,” I said through gritted teeth. “And if you even utter a word about this medium to anyone, I’ll cancel the whole thing. Understood?”

  Silence on the other end. Then, “Fine,” Carissa said, huffing a bit. “I’ll see you Friday.”

  Maybe I was getting better at the assertive thing. I disconnected and took a big breath, then tossed my phone on the desk. I looked around for the black cat, but he or she was nowhere in sight.

  I had to get out of here. I needed to find Syd and clear this up. Sitti
ng here speculating wasn’t helping either of us. And I wasn’t the type to ignore the elephant in the room. I wanted to get him safely home to where he belonged.

  I grabbed my coat and bag, shoved the curtain aside, and strode through my shop. Josie was still with the customer. I could see her looking at me in my peripheral vision, but I ignored her and made for the door.

  Just as I reached it, my door opened and Rain, the model-bridge-head guy himself, stepped in. He paused in front of me and shot me a brilliant smile.

  “Hello, Violet. I really wanted to check out your shop.” He looked around, nodding approvingly. “Tell me, from where do you source your stones?” He lifted his eyebrows at me, clearly hoping to get into an environmental discussion.

  I wasn’t in the mood. And since I took my job and my shop extremely seriously, of course I paid attention to where I got my stones. Crystal sourcing was an extremely controversial topic, and one that didn’t get much attention—or thought—from consumers as a general rule. But for people like me, whose living depends on the quality of my products, making sure I had quality stock was a no-brainer. I’d been doing detailed research on geology and mineralogy for years, and I’d become quite familiar with mining practices in every region from which my dealers bought stones. Additionally, when I purchased, I took into account the lapidary practices in each—the way the stones are cut, polished, and generally handled—as well as the socioeconomic situations in certain countries. I had a small stable of people from whom I bought stones, all of whom I trusted implicitly.

  But I resisted snapping at him, because it struck me that I could potentially tease some information out of him about Sydney. I forced a smile. “I have a small group of trusted sources, in some cases the mine owners themselves. If you’re interested in a particular stone, we can certainly discuss its origin.”

  He blinked at me. Obviously he hadn’t expected me to have a ready answer to that. “Oh. Well, good for you. I hear you do one-on-ones?”

  I nodded.

  “Can I get one?”

  That, I wasn’t expecting. “You want a consult?”

  He nodded.

  I did a quick tuning in to see what his energy was like. Not surprisingly, it was off. I could feel confusion, defensiveness, and some level of anger vibrating in the air around him. I focused on a spot in the center of his forehead, looking for a glimpse of his aura and, not surprisingly, saw dark browns and muddy greens above his head. Deception and something about relationships. The right side of him was surprisingly absent of color, which told me there was a large, abrupt change or some kind of transformation going on.

  He still waited for an answer. The low hum of Josie’s and the customer’s voices provided the only backdrop.

  “Sure,” I said. “Have a seat.” I pointed at the chair I’d recently vacated.

  Rain went over and sat. Josie shot me a curious look, but said nothing.

  I came over and sat across from him. “I’m going to tune in to your aura and your energy,” I explained. “I already got a good picture of yours when you came in, but I’ll do it more consciously. After that, I’ll ask you to tell me a bit about what’s going on.”

  Rain nodded, appearing fascinated.

  I did another scan of his aura. This time I got a glimpse of violet on his right side, which made sense. This side was all about what the person was calling into his or her future, and violet represented things like collective knowledge and wisdom, and also someone who could think globally. It fit with his profession.

  “What’s your chief complaint?” I asked.

  He thought for a moment. “Family,” he said finally.

  I felt some sympathy for him, given my own struggles. I definitely got it. “Secondary?”

  He flushed a little and mumbled something about a relationship that was sort of a relationship but not really and he needed to figure it out. Clearly he didn’t want to talk about it, but it was fine—I didn’t need my clients to talk to assess their needs.

  “One second,” I said, and got up to peruse my cases.

  I was immediately drawn to Botswana agate, a beautiful bluish-gray stone. The antidepressant stone. After another moment of focus, rose quartz came up. A beautiful heart-chakra healing stone. Hematite for grounding. And finally, agate, to heal emotional trauma and transform negativity.

  I collected the stones and brought them to Rain with a velvet pouch, presenting them with a flourish. “Your prescription.”

  “Cool.” He reached out and touched the agate.

  I explained each one to him and how to use it, then placed them in the bag. He accepted it gratefully.

  “This is awesome. Really. Can I give you a hug?” I was too surprised to say no, so he did. “This means a lot. Thank you, Violet.”

  “Anytime.” I watched as he turned to go, then slapped himself in the forehead.

  “By the way. I didn’t see any of my protest flyers here that I gave you yesterday. Would you be able to put some up?” He reached into his backpack and pulled out a stack. “I really want to make sure people know about the protest tomorrow. It’s gonna be epic.”

  “Sure,” I said, taking the flyers from him and glancing at them. I hadn’t even paid attention to them yesterday.

  Meet at Wildflower Park at 3 p.m. Wednesday to protest the UNETHICAL bridge project that will ruin North Harbor’s environmental footprint for years to come!

  Underneath was a picture of the current railroad bridge, along with a crude drawing of where the new bridge would go and what would be destroyed in the process, with more bold letters and arrows pointing to certain spots in or near the river. Childish at best, but it got the point across.

  “I’ll put some on the board and keep them at the counter. Is Sydney helping you distribute them?”

  He narrowed his eyes, but not before I saw something dark pass through them. “Who?”

  “Sydney. The woman you were with in the alley last night near the police station.” I smiled pleasantly.

  His expression changed to one of deep concentration. “The alley. Ah, yes. Nice girl. I heard about her tiny house and was hoping she could tell me more about it. I want to buy one in the next year or so. Great information.” He saluted me. “Thanks for the awesome reading, and for your help with the protest. I hope to see you there.”

  And he turned and walked out the door.

  CHAPTER 33

  I watched him go, the contradicting lies bouncing around in my brain like one of those ping-pong-ball arcade games on steroids. Syd said she’d bumped into this guy on the street while she was on her way home from the paint party, and he’d needed directions. A party she hadn’t even been at.

  Rain said he’d been asking Syd about her tiny house. If that was true, it meant he knew her at least a little bit. Enough to know she operated her business out of a tiny house. Granted, it could just mean he’d heard about it from someone, or even gone to the door and met her while he was looking for protest-minded people.

  But there seemed to be a lot of lies surrounding Syd’s evening. Which reminded me that I’d been on my way to talk to her and had been derailed.

  Luckily Josie was with another customer, so I didn’t have to offer an excuse. I hurried out the door, pulling my hat out of my bag and tugging it over my hair. I had a different scarf on today, a turquoise one with silver threads shot through. It wasn’t as fluffy as my pink one, but it would have to do. I pulled it around my face and cut through the alley to the back of my building, then crossed the street to Charlie’s barbershop and the infamous parking lot.

  Syd’s “house” was there, parked as usual. I had to admit I had no interest in tiny homes—or owning any home for that matter, aside from my grandma’s. I was plenty happy renting an apartment. But Syd’s was adorable. It looked like a little tree house nestled in an urban jungle. The wood paneling was rustic enough to give you a sense of being at an upscale camp. She had star-shaped lights strung up around the roofline, and a sign in the shape of an old-fashione
d dress fastened to the door that proclaimed you were about to enter Yesterday.

  Inside was just as lovely. There was one long room when you stepped inside where she kept most of her clothes, and one room in the back reserved for accessories—shoes, scarves, jewelry. The small bedroom area was part dressing room and part specialty room, reserved for her vintage wedding dresses and evening gowns. Aside from a bathroom, a tiny section she’d curtained off for her office, and a tiny kitchen area that doubled as a play and nap space for Presley, that was the whole house. The experience was amplified by the tasteful decor. Syd had a knack for creating an old-time, classy vibe infused with eclectic, present-day touches that gave you the impression you were suspended delightfully between two worlds, and could choose the one into which you wanted to step, and stay.

  I went up the front step and twisted the handle.

  Locked. I knocked, wondering if she’d just closed to eat lunch or something, but only silence came from within.

  What the heck? It was as much like Sydney to be closed during the day as it was like me to be. Unless Presley was still sick. But she hadn’t mentioned that this morning. I pulled out my phone and fired off a text.

  Where are you?

  I pocketed my phone and went up to Charlie’s door. When I got closer, I saw that he’d already seen me. In fact, he stood in the window and watched me.

  I pushed the door open and stepped inside. “Hey, Charlie.”

  “Miss Violet,” he said with a nod. “Need a haircut?” One side of his mouth lifted in a grizzled smile.

  “No, thanks. I’m looking for Syd. Do you know where she is?”

  He shook his head slowly. “Hasn’t been to the shop today, not that I’ve seen.”

  “Really.” She’d told me this morning she was on her way here. I looked back outside at the tiny house, but she hadn’t magically appeared. “And you haven’t talked to her?”

  “Nope. She doesn’t report in to me, usually.”