“She’s not happy about it at all, and she’s let me know about it too. But I can’t see why that would lead her to take my spell journal and then go around doing these kinds of things.” He motioned to the articles now spread out on the table. “Truthfully, I don’t think she’s capable of such things. Her beef is with me, not them, and these people could have been hurt.”
Maybe Fran wasn’t capable, but there was always her daughter too. And Shyla had been known to pull some mighty well thought out pranks in her day. Pranks that had gotten her into trouble more than once.
Why she would try to frame Archie with them, though, was beyond me. At least right now. But it had been a long day. It was quite possible that I was missing something.
Patricia leaned back in her chair. “Okay, everyone. I think we’ve done what we came to do. And, for now anyway, I’m convinced that Archie is innocent in all this.” She gathered up the articles and envelopes and put them back into her purse. “I think I’m ready to go home now.”
That made two of us. I looked over at Archie before I stood. “I want you to think long and hard about any meetings you've had in that office of yours lately. Or any times when maybe you had people in the building and left your desk for even a brief restroom break. Jot the names down. I think we’ll need to take a closer look at all of them.”
I took a deep breath and then spoke my fear. “I could be wrong, but I think whoever is behind this is just getting started. And eventually, it’s going to end badly.”
I DROPPED PATRICIA off on my way home. Sapphire had left with Archie, so that was one less stop to make. Still, by the time I made it home, it was almost bedtime for all the little kidlings.
The downstairs was deserted, so I sat my bag and keys on the entry table by the door to my apartment and then climbed the steps. As I climbed, a strange and unfamiliar voice trailed down past my ears. The shiver that immediately chased down my spine told me exactly who that creepy as all get out voice belonged to. Sassy, the ventriloquist doll.
Oh, I knew that technically it was Nancy’s altered voice, but she was very good at making it sound wooden. Just like what one would expect a creepy as all get out doll to sound like.
I really had issues with Sassy.
Issues enough that I almost turned and headed back downstairs. But it was too late for me. I’d been seen.
“Auntie Opal! Come and watch my new magic trick!” Mason was more than a little enthusiastic when it came to his little magic tricks. And no, there wasn’t a single ounce of actual magic to the tricks at all. Which, by my way of thinking, made them even more impressive. The boy was getting pretty good at it too.
The only trouble with watching his new trick was going into the room where Sassy’s voice was coming from. She’d been in the house for over a week, and I still hadn’t had to come face to face with her. Looked like that time had come.
Squaring my shoulders, I stepped into the kids' playroom. Sure enough, Nancy and Sassy were sitting on a stool in the corner. Well, Nancy was sitting. Sassy was resting on Nancy’s lap. Another shiver down my spine. I really wasn’t handling this Sassy thing very well. But I had my reasons.
For what it was worth, the doll didn’t look all that terrifying. Not much like the doll from my youth at all. The one that still to this day gave me the occasional nightmare.
I still didn’t want her out of her case any more than was absolutely necessary, though. I wasn’t about to take chances. And she was what she was, even if she wasn’t quite as scary looking. Maybe, now that I thought about it, that made her even scarier. It was always the ones you didn’t suspect, wasn’t it?
This one had short, curly flame-red hair and honest to Goddess freckles. Almost cute. Almost. If I could get past the fear.
There, I admitted it. I was afraid of the dang thing. Happy now? I wasn’t. Not by half.
“Give me a minute to get it ready, okay?” Mason asked.
“Take your time. I ain’t going nowhere.”
I stole another glance over at Nancy. She grinned and then lifted one of the doll’s arms to wave at me. I tried my darndest to stifle the shudder that followed, but I don’t think I was all that successful.
Nancy giggled. “Auntie, meet Sassy.” She looked down at the doll. “This is Auntie, Sassy. She’s also my mom now, but I still call her Auntie.”
That was something we’d never really discussed before. Her name for me. We’d settled on Auntie while the adoption work was still going through. Now though... well, Nancy brought up a good discussion point.
“Just for the record, I’d be okay with Mom too.”
Nancy’s smile faded as she tilted her head at me. “You would?” Then she hesitated. “Would Ruby mind, do you think?”
“Why on earth should your sister mind if you want to call me Mom?”
She swallowed, staring hard into my eyes. “Do you think she really thinks of me as a sister?” Her voice was so low and hopeful, I could barely make out the words.
“Well, of course, she does. Because that’s what you are, you know. And I have the paperwork to prove it too.”
“That’s, well, kind of cool actually. Are you sure you wouldn’t mind?”
I knelt down in front of her. “I am your mother now, Nancy. I might not have given birth to you, but I couldn’t love you any more even if I had. You’re my daughter, and I’m your mom. Forever.” I paused a beat. “You can still call me Auntie, if that feels right to you. But I just wanted to let you know that Mom works for me too.”
She nodded. “I’ll think on it, okay?”
“You do that. Either way you decide, I’m fine with.”
“I’m ready now,” Mason said.
I turned to find the boy with a bath towel safety-pinned around his neck, cape style. I had to bite my tongue pretty dang hard to keep the laughter in.
He had pulled out the small round table to the center of the room. On top of the table was a hat. A very suspicious-looking hat, but a hat.
“And now, the great and powerful Mason will attempt to pull a bunny from this simple and very ordinary hat.” He reached down and carefully picked up the hat, turning it toward me so that I could see it was, indeed, empty. Then he sat it back down, stretched out his arms, and picked up a little stick that I was assuming was his magic wand.
Waving the stick over the hat, he mumbled. “Abercadaber and kazam!” Then he laid the wand down and reached into the hat. It took him a second or two, but when the hand came back out of the hat, it was holding a bunny.
A tiny stuffed bunny, but a bunny.
I clapped and laughed. “Well done, Mason!”
He grinned at me. “Thanks, Auntie. Want to see it again?”
“I think it’s about time for bed, Mason, don’t you?” That wasn’t me talking. I glanced back to the doorway. Kimberly was standing there smiling at him. “You were much better that time, Mason. Your practice is helping.”
“Can’t I practice a little more? We don’t have school tomorrow. Please?”
She looked at me. “What do you think, Opal? Another half-hour?”
“Okay by me. A boy’s got to practice.” I winked at her, then turned back to Mason. “But about that cape...”
His grin faded pretty quickly. “Yeah, I know. But Halloween is too far away, and all the capes online are too expensive.” He grimaced. “Or too cheesy looking. I want to look professional.”
Kimberly gave a sigh. “You know I’d make you one if I could, sweetie, but Mommy isn’t good at sewing.”
I scratched my neck, thinking. “Might be time to bring out the old sewing machine in the closet downstairs. I think I could whip you up a cape before the big show.”
“Really?” Mason’s eyes brightened.
I nodded. “Yup. And I might just have the perfect material for it too. Leftover from a costume I made years ago for Ruby. There just might be enough for a cape. I’ll dig it out tomorrow, and you can tell me if you like it, okay?”
He ran over and threw
his arms around me. “Thank you, Auntie!”
Reaching down, I ruffled his hair. “It’s the least I can do to help out my godson.”
The kids went back to practicing their acts. I know I should have stayed to watch Nancy work with Sassy. That would have been the motherly thing to do. But I wasn’t quite ready for that yet. Baby steps.
Kimberly followed me back downstairs to fix baby Pearl’s nighttime bottle. “Everything go okay with the sheriff?”
What could I say to that? “I guess so. It looks like someone might have something out for Archie. We’re going to have to look into that. But that’s for tomorrow. No one died, or found a body lying around, so that’s something, anyway.”
“Let’s hope it stays that way. I think this family has had enough excitement over the past few months to last a lifetime.”
She wasn’t wrong. Being the Goddess’s favorites wasn’t always a peaches and cream kind of thing. It came with its own special little flavors of danger and stress too.
Kimberly laid baby Pearl down on her little play mat and went to pull a bottle out of the fridge. “I hope you don’t mind, but I invited Gray over tomorrow. He’s promised to help Mason with his act.”
Uh-huh. And I was pretty sure that part of the visit would be used to get to know Mason’s mom a bit better too. But that was okay with me. Gray seemed like a good guy. I almost want to tack on for a werewolf to that sentence. But that just doesn’t seem right. He was a good guy. Period. Or at least he seemed to be. Nothing had come up to say otherwise yet. And from my one encounter with his wolfy side, he was a good werewolf too.
Of course, I had no proof that the wolf had actually been Gray. But then I didn’t really have proof that the world was round either. Still believed it, though.
“You do get that this is your home, right? You can invite whoever you want over. Whenever you want. I trust you.”
She smiled at me. “Thanks. But I still like to run it by you first. But you weren’t answering your phone earlier, so I took a chance. I just wanted to make sure it was okay with you.”
“And now you know. I’m okay with Gray.”
Man and wolf.
Chapter 7
Sunday was the one morning every week we all got to sleep in. No school, no work, just a lovely day of rest and relaxation.
I just wish the rest of the world got that.
It was barely seven o’clock when my cellphone went off. I reached over and glanced at the screen. Patricia. I’d added her into my contacts last night. I liked to know who I was answering a call from.
“Please don’t let this be bad news,” I said. I’m not much of one for normal hellos and goodbyes. I liked to get right to the meat of the conversation. Especially this early in the morning and before I’d had my coffee.
“Well, it sure as heck isn’t great news, I can tell you that.”
I swung my feet over the side of the bed and sat up. “Okay, I’m ready now. What’s happened?”
“Whoever is doing this has gone from notes in my mailbox to phone calls. My phone went off five minutes ago. If the caller is right, Opal, this one is bad.”
I closed my eyes and said a brief prayer to the Goddess before asking the next obvious question. “How bad?”
“A barn burned to the ground. And, Opal? There were children in the loft when the fire started.”
Oh, Goddess no.
“They got out okay. And with no major injuries too. Thank the Goddess they had a cool dad that had put in a zip line from the loft. If it hadn’t been for that zip line, there would have been injuries for sure. Maybe even more than that.”
Yeah, barn lofts could be pretty dang high. Old Grayson had been protected by a Mineheart spell, chances were good those kids wouldn’t have been quite so lucky.
“We’re still on the same page that Archimedes isn’t involved, right?”
There was the briefest of pauses. “For now, yes. I really can’t see Arch doing something like this. But Opal, just for the record, he didn’t seem quite right last night, you know? He was... off... somehow.”
“But not this off, Patricia. Not by a long shot. The caller give you the address to this barn?”
“Oh yeah, and something else too. They wanted to know when our council would take action.”
That made me sit up a bit straighter. “They mentioned the council by name? Could you tell anything about the caller? Was it a man or a woman?”
“Yes, and no. Yes, they mentioned the council by name, but no, they disguised their voice through some kind of device. Couldn’t even tell if it was male or female.”
“They’re upping their game.”
“Big time.” There was a pause. “I’m headed over to the farm to see if I can locate that spell mark and maybe find something that will point in any other direction than Arch. You want to ride?”
“Am I coming to you, or you coming to me?”
“This one is on the other side of Oak Hill, so you might as well come to me.”
“Think we should call Archie and see what he has to say?”
“No. Not until I know more. This has me really bugged, Opal. Why would the man be brazen enough to keep a spell journal out in the open like that? I know it was in his private office, but still. You don’t just leave those things out like that. It doesn’t sit right with me.” Another, longer pause. “And I don’t think it will sit well with the council either, should they become involved.”
She didn’t have to say the next sentence for me to get the point. Sooner or later, the council would find out, and then things would get tricky. We needed to solve this situation before that happened.
“I’ll be there in half an hour.”
Half an hour didn’t give me time for a shower. They’d just have to accept me as I was. I gave my armpit a quick sniff and added deodorant, just in case. I’d for sure need it with what we were going into.
Then I threw on a pair of fleece-lined yoga pants and a long-sleeved tunic and walked as quietly as I could up the stairs. Lucky for me, I knew which ones creaked and which ones didn’t. You learn these things pretty quickly when you live in a house as old as mine.
As I had thought, Kimberly was in baby Pearl’s room, getting her dressed for the day. She looked up as I came in.
“I sure will be glad when Pearl learns the meaning of sleeping in.”
I smiled at her. “She will. But it will take a few years. I’d take her, but I have to go out.”
Her eyes widened. “Another call from the sheriff?”
“No, but just as bad. Witch business. And even worse, family witch business.”
She nodded. “I see.” She hesitated. “You know if I can do anything to help, I will, right?”
I nodded. “Thanks. But if you can handle the kids today on your own, that’s enough of a help right there.”
“Not a problem. They’re my kids, after all. Nancy is more grown-up than kid, you know.”
Oh, I knew. But I was working on that. Everyone deserved the opportunity to be a kid. Even if that meant having a ventriloquist’s doll. Even at the thought, I glanced over my shoulder toward the short hall to the kids' rooms.
“I’ll have my phone with me. You run into problems here, call me.”
“We’ll be fine. Go on. But remember Gray will probably be here when you get back. We’re doing a picnic lunch out by the meditation garden. If you get back in time, I hope you’ll join us. You can invite the sheriff too, if you want. I will have plenty of food.”
“Sounds good to me. We’ll see how things shake out this morning.”
Then I turned, walked back down the stairs, grabbed my purse and keys, and left.
THERE WERE STILL VEHICLES at the barn when we got there. The big fire truck had already left, but the fire marshal’s SUV and a sheriff’s vehicle were sitting in front of the barn.
Well, what used to be a barn. Right now, it was just a big pile of smoking wood. Not much had survived that one.
“Dang it,” I said to Pat
ricia. “I was kind of hoping the law wouldn’t have been brought in already. I don’t like dealing with the ones I don’t know.”
She grinned at me. “Don’t worry. I’ve got this one. They know me.”
That was news to me, but I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Did make me wonder how they knew her, though. Then I remembered her past. Once a cop, always a cop. At heart, anyway.
I followed her over to the men standing off to the side of the barn. They didn’t even seem to notice our approach. That’s where Patricia and I differed. She walked straight up to them. If I hadn’t been following her lead on this one, I’d have checked things out first. Taken advantage of their inattention to learn as much as I could before they noticed I was there.
But when I saw the deputy’s eyes light up when he saw Patricia, I realized that might not be an issue after all.
He held up one finger to her, then quickly finished his conversation with the other two men. After that, the fire marshal headed back to his vehicle and left, and the other man—I’m assuming the owner of the barn—started back toward the big farmhouse we’d passed on the way.
The deputy walked over to us. “Hey, Patty. It’s been too long.”
“Yeah, we need to do something about that. You need to come over and see my new digs. It’s pretty sweet.”
“If that’s an invitation to come over for some of your awesome meatloaf, I’ll take you up on it.”
She laughed. “I guess I can throw a meatloaf and some mashed potatoes into the offer.”
“Any chance of some of those cheesy stuffed mushrooms too?”
Patricia tapped his arm. “Don’t press your luck.”
A quick glance between the two of them showed me that there was definitely something between them. Maybe not as well-formed as what was between me and my sheriff. But something. For one thing, Patricia looked a lot younger than her years right now. Love, or shoot even the beginnings of true like, can do that for a person.
He glanced behind him at the barn. “I take it you’re here for this and not to renew our friendship?”
Witch Reborn Box Set: Books 1-3: Includes Gemstone Coven Holiday Shorts 1 & 2 Page 22
