by Susan Harper
“Monica is helping with some pictures that were damaged in the fire,” Holly explained as she started laying out albums that were burnt into nearly unrecognizable blocks.
“Yikes,” Mona said. “Well, if anyone can fix those, it’s Monica. She’s the potions expert. Nice seeing you again, Grace. I have to head into work. Lenore can’t watch the shop on her own for long.”
“I’ll catch you around, Mona,” Monica said as her sister stepped through the portal. Once Holly had finished laying out the albums, Monica attacked them with the squirt bottle. Much to Monica’s pleasure, the potion worked perfectly and the burns on the photographs slowly began to trickle away and completely disappear, restoring the pictures.
“Monica, you rock!” Holly said.
“Very impressive,” Grace said, watching one album that had been exceptionally burnt. “Aww, how sweet! Is this a picture of you when you were little?” she asked as she flipped through the albums. “You and I looked exactly alike. We even cut our hair the same. Though Mother never would have let me wear something so colorful. She was a very traditional witch, you see.”
“Yes, you’ve told me,” Holly said, grinning and looking over her sister’s shoulder at some of the toothless photographs of herself from her youth.
“Oh, my goodness,” Monica said excitedly, pulling what she assumed to be a picture of Holly and Isaac in their elementary school days. “Is this Isaac? Please tell me this freckle-faced little fella is Isaac.”
Holly laughed. “That’s him all right,” she said. “Cutie, wasn’t he? He’d kill me if he knew I had let you see that picture. Look at those braces!”
“Such an odd thing,” Grace said. “Braces… What are they for?”
“To straighten teeth,” Holly said. “I guess mystics don’t need stuff like that, do they? You can just magic your teeth straight.”
“Of course,” Grace said. “I didn’t even think about mortals having to come up with a solution for something that is fixed so easily with magic.”
“He’s so cute,” Monica admitted. “This makes me think I should get Brian to show me some pictures of him when he was younger. That would be fun. When we found that time coin, we had talked about going to go watch ourselves when we were younger, before Abigail messed it up and sent us to post-Salem days.”
“You went back in time?” Grace asked.
“It was an accident,” Holly said. “But, yeah. We wound up in Boston right before the Split.”
Grace went slightly pale. “Before the Split… That must have been interesting.”
“It was,” Holly said. “Especially since Isaac got dragged along by accident. He only recently found out about the mystic world, and that was because he was accidentally dragged back in time with us. Thankfully, Monica still had one person left on her reveal license, so we didn’t get in trouble with the Sorcerer’s Council because of it. That could have been nasty.”
“Who all have you used your reveal license on?” Grace asked.
“Brian was the reason I got one,” Monica began. “But I also used it for some of Holly’s family—her biological family, mostly. Her Uncle Roczen and her Uncle Weston’s wife, Tora. And of course her biological dad, because he had absolutely no idea about the mystical world even though he was part-immortal.”
“I’ve thought about applying for one,” Holly said.
“Really?” Grace asked. “For who?”
“For my parents,” Holly said. “My adopted parents. It feels weird hiding such a huge part of myself from them.”
“Oh, that’s probably a bad idea,” Grace said, much to Monica’s surprise. “You don’t want them to know about all this, do you? It would completely change their lives. I’m not sure how well mortals handle all this.”
“Brian seems to be handling it just fine,” Monica pointed out.
“Yes, for now,” Grace said. “I just know that it complicates things for them. I grew up in Salem—a place where even the most skeptical of mortals like to whisper about witches and such. And I’ve seen a handful of disappointed witches and wizards who have had to do memory wipes on their friends and loved ones after revealing the truth, because they just can’t handle it. All I mean to say is that you should think about it very hard before you decide to tell Bonnie and George. You don’t know how they will react, and if they react poorly, it could hurt your relationship with them.”
Holly’s cheeks were slightly red. “You really think they might react bad to learning about my heritage?”
“You never know,” Grace said.
“I think they would be fine,” Monica said.
“Yes, because your boyfriend got very excited about it all,” Grace said, flipping through one of the albums as she said this. “Not all mortals react that way, Monica.”
Monica frowned, not really caring for this attitude Grace seemed to have just taken, it was as if she felt like Monica was silly and that she herself knew better. Monica didn’t care for it, and for a moment, she sat in reflective silence contemplating what Isaac had said before about Grace—about him having a funny feeling about her. She wanted to believe he was just being paranoid, but truthfully, Monica felt a bit odd about this interaction herself.
Holly pulled out a picture from one of the albums. “Huh…” she said curiously.
“What?” Monica asked, diverting her attention away from Grace and toward Holly now.
“I just found this picture of Uncle Kyle. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed it before. It’s of him and my mom, and… I don’t know, you tell me. Does it look like they’re on a date?” Holly asked, showing the two of them an older picture of her adopted mom when she had been in her twenties. Sure enough, she was seated close and comfortable with Holly’s adopted father’s brother, Kyle. Their arms were around each other, and Kyle was giving Bonnie a kiss on the cheek from behind. It was not a friendship sort of picture. It was clearly romantic.
“Huh is right,” Monica said. “It looks like a date to me.”
“Did you know that your mom dated Kyle before your dad?” Grace asked.
“No, I didn’t,” Holly said, looking a bit anxious.
“Is it possible that your mom left Kyle for your dad?” Monica suggested. “That maybe Kyle still has an old grudge that a former girlfriend married his brother?”
“Maybe,” Holly said. She seemed deep in concentration for a moment. “You know, Uncle Kyle has always been kind of jealous toward my dad.”
“Your adopted dad,” Grace said. “George, right?”
“Yeah, George,” Holly said. “They’ve always been a little competitive with each other. It mostly came from Kyle. He was always comparing himself to dad. Especially when I was younger. Like everything was a competition. Maybe it stemmed from that?”
“That is certainly a possibility,” Monica said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to show this picture to Brian. He might find it helpful with his investigation.”
“Yeah, sure,” Holly said, handing the picture to Monica. “I’m not sure if it means anything. I have a hard time imagining Uncle Kyle hurting my mom, but if you think it’s worth looking into, then it’s probably worth looking into.” Holly turned to Grace. “Monica’s got a really good gut instinct with these sort of things.”
“Good,” Grace said. “Then maybe she can find out what happened to your mother.”
“That’s the plan,” Monica said, slipping the picture into her back pocket.
9
The day finally came to a close, and Holly left early to go to the hospital. Monica had offered to let her leave earlier, but Holly had chosen to visit her mother during her lunch break as she needed the extra hours under the understanding she would leave about half an hour before closing. Monica appreciated the sentiment, particularly because closing the shop these days was much quieter and lonelier than they had once been. Before, she would have spent this time reminiscing with Abigail about the day’s events, gossiping about Brian and discussing their weekend plans. Now, Monica wa
s left mostly alone with her thoughts. Noting the time and realizing it would be a while before Brian arrived, as they had made plans for after work, she elected to go to the other side.
Monica stepped through the portal in the closet behind the back counter, and after a flash of light, she appeared on the other side of Backroom Books. Here, Mona and her raven familiar were busy straightening up books and chasing away unwanted harpies and gnomes who had made their way into the shop—quite different from the sort of closing duties Monica had just done on the mortal side.
“Monica,” Mona said, glancing over her shoulder after snatching a gnome by his ears. It had been chewing on a book that had been desperately trying to get away and back to its proper spot on a shelf. “Wasn’t expecting you. I thought you and Brian had plans?”
“We do,” Monica responded as Mona threw open the front door and dropkicked the gnome clear across the street before closing it again. She waved her wand, locking the shop as the sign flipped from Open to Closed. “But he won’t be back for a bit. Thought I’d see what you and Lenore were up to. Can’t believe it’s harpy season again.” Lenore was just ingesting a harpy who had played its luck and lost by attempting to pluck out some of Lenore’s feathers. “That can’t taste good,” Monica said to her, and Lenore merely shrugged in response.
“I can sense auras, you know,” Mona said in an out-of-character sing-song voice that Monica did not appreciate.
Yes, Mona could do a lot of things that Monica couldn’t. Mona and Monica were twins, and a common ailment that took place with twin witches was that one would ‘soak up’ most of the shared magic in their mother’s womb. It wasn’t anything Mona could have helped, of course, but this had made Monica into the unnatural witch she was today. Very little magic flowed through her, which was one of the main reasons she had to rely so heavily on potions. Mona, on the other hand, had abilities far beyond what an average witch had. It was nothing compared to an Ibeji, of course, but Mona was natural with a wand and had extraordinary sorceress-level magics that Monica would never dare to dream of. This included the study of auras—the invisible energies that surrounded most living creatures—and it was something Monica rarely liked to discuss. In other words, it was quite difficult to hide one’s true feelings from Mona Montoya.
“I’m aware that you can do that, Mona,” Monica said spitefully, a bit surprised at her own tone. She had never acted even remotely bitter toward her more powerful sister, but she was tensing up a bit at Mona’s prodding.
“You don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine,” Mona said. “But eventually, you’re going to have to talk to someone, if not me. I know you miss her.”
Monica crossed her arms. “How would you feel if it had been Lenore?” Monica asked, knowing that Mona was referring to her increasingly estranged relationship with Abigail.
“I’d probably be acting about the way you are right now,” Mona admitted. “But you do have to admit that the Abigail you know and the Abigail you saw when you all went back in time are two very different human beings. You can’t judge her too harshly, can you? For something she did when she was young and foolish and alone?”
“I suppose not,” Monica said. “I just need this to fester for a bit, I suppose.”
“I never liked her,” Lenore cawed, and Mona waved her wand and made the bird’s wings stiffen up, trapping her on her high shelf. Lenore cawed loudly in defiance.
“Just promise me you will talk to her soon,” Mona said. “You two need to talk it out. I don’t like seeing you like this.”
Monica sighed. “Fine,” she said. “I will.” She waited around for a bit longer before bidding her sister farewell and venturing back to her side of the shop, where she could see Brian waiting for her just outside the window. Monica smiled. If there was one person who could certainly cheer her up, it would be Brian.
She hurried outside, locking up behind her. “So,” he said, smiling. “You texted me. That was new. A witch texting… You’re really catching on to this whole blending in as a mortal thing, aren’t you? Though you might want to be more careful about what emojis you use.”
“Really?” Monica asked. “Is there some sort of double meaning behind them?”
“Always,” he said with a smirk. “But I found it pretty amusing, if I’m being honest. So, you texted that you found something useful?”
“Yeah,” Monica said, reaching into her back pocket where she had stored the old photograph of Holly’s mother and Uncle Kyle.
Brian raised a brow as he studied the picture. She knew immediately that he was thinking the same thing that she had—that Kyle had just bumped his way to the top of their list of suspects. A jealous ex, perhaps? The next thing Monica knew, she and Brian were headed off to meet with Holly’s uncle, who lived in one of the town’s nicer apartment complexes with his children.
They pulled up and had to have the apartment complex’s security officer let them in through the gate, but soon they were parked outside Building B, where there were several multi-story apartment homes. “This is the place,” Brian said as they hopped out of his patrol car and headed to the main floor apartment, ringing the doorbell. Mattie answered the door, grinning up at them.
“Hey, Detective Brian,” Mattie said in a friendly tone, opening the door wide. “Daddy said you were coming.”
“Hey, Mattie,” Brian said in a same tone. “Is he here?”
“He’s making dinner,” Mattie said. “He told me to get the door.”
Monica followed Brian inside, and she watched with a bit of amusement as Mattie darted through the apartment to the kitchen where she and her little brother were dutifully working on homework. In the kitchen, Kyle was busy breading some chicken to be tossed in the oven. “Hey, Brian, Monica. Sorry, I knew you were coming, but I lost track of time,” he said. “Give me one second.”
Monica watched Kyle curiously as he finished with the chicken and popped it in the oven. He hurried to disinfect the counters and wash his hands before telling his children they could go play in their rooms until dinner was ready and that they would go over their homework after eating. Mattie and Mark wasted absolutely no time in darting off, leaving a mess behind on the table for Kyle to clean up before they could sit down and talk. “Thanks for agreeing to let us come out and talk,” Brian said.
“Of course,” Kyle replied. “Anything you need. Though I’m not sure if I saw anything useful. I just grabbed my kids and ran when I realized the house was on fire.”
“Well, we wanted to talk to you about something we came across during our investigation,” Brian said, pulling out the photograph of Kyle and Bonnie when they were younger and sliding it across the table.
Kyle peered at it curiously, though he looked mildly concerned for a moment. “Why are you digging up old pictures?” he asked.
“Looking at all potential suspects and their relationship with Bonnie,” Brian said matter-of-factly.
“I’m a suspect?” Kyle asked.
“Not particularly,” Brian said. “So long as you’re straight with us.”
Kyle went slightly pale for a moment. Monica elected to speak. “How is your relationship with your brother, George? Would you say there is any jealously there?”
Kyle looked somewhat affronted, but he brushed it off. “I mean, maybe…if I’m honest. Not about Bonnie, though. Bonnie and I dated for about a year fresh out of high school. But it wouldn’t have worked out. I was a little annoyed when we were younger and I found out George was dating my ex-girlfriend, but ex is the key word there. I wound up with the love of my life, you know?”
Monica only then realized that she had never met Mattie and Mark’s mother. She looked around curiously.
“I know you did, Kyle,” Brian said.
“Where—” Monica began to ask, but Kyle interjected before she could.
“She passed away a few years ago,” Kyle said sadly. “Cindy. She had breast cancer.”
“I’m so sorry,” Monica said.
�
�I’m doing all right now,” Kyle said. “It was rough going for a while there. George and Bonnie helped me stay afloat. It was hardest on Mattie, I think, not having her mom. Bonnie really stepped up for her. So did Holly, bless her. George helped me to get our house sold, which was really rough, but it had to be done. Couldn’t manage that big place all on my own, and honestly, Cindy was making over half of our family’s income. Even with the life insurance, it was tough going for a while. George and Bonnie helped us land on solid ground again. So, if you’re wondering if I’ve got some sort of bitter grudge against my brother and sister-in-law just because I dated her when we were kids, the answer is no. I don’t think I’d ever be able to thank them enough for all they’ve done for me and my kids after I lost Cindy.”
Monica sank within herself for a moment. Looking around the apartment, you never would have guessed it was lacking a motherly touch. Kyle had stepped up big time for his kids. Pictures hung all over the walls of the woman he had lost—pictures of her with a much younger Mattie and Mark. The refrigerator was covered with drawings and report cards, dinner was in the oven, and it smelled incredible, and the kids played happily in their rooms, respecting their father’s wishes for quiet while he spoke with their guests. He was handling himself well, and from what he was saying, a lot of that was thanks to his brother and sister-in-law for stepping in when he had needed them most. She had a hard time wrapping her brain around the thought that someone who owed them so much would dare try to kill Bonnie.
“I know you are close with your brother and sister-in-law, Kyle,” Brian assured him. “I’ve known your family long enough to be assured of that. I practically grew up with Holly.”
