A Drop of Witch (Sweetland Witch Women Sleuths) (A Cozy Mystery Book)

by Zoe Arden

  “That’s right. Paisley must have been the first,” Margaret answered.

  “Who are the other four?”

  “Well, there’s you,” Margaret said, counting off on her fingers. “But you’ll be the last one.”

  “Why the last?” I asked.

  “She merely has to kill the other victims. In very specific ways, I believe, but she’s not after their souls.”

  Every time she used the word “soul,” my heart flopped in my chest.

  “What does she plan to do with... my soul?”

  “The soul is very powerful,” Anastasia said. “I’d say it’s the most powerful thing each of us has inside ourselves.” I’d almost forgotten she was here. She’d been quietly listening to us the whole time. “If you get the right soul, it can restore health, even life. It can make the incomplete complete again.”

  “Even magical powers?” I asked.

  Anastasia nodded.

  “How does it do that?” I asked.

  “Polly would have to feed off your energy in some way,” Margaret said. “My sources told me there’s an old, forgotten ritual she’s discovered that will allow her to do just that.”

  “F-feed off my soul? Not literally.”

  “Perhaps,” Anastasia chimed in. I thought I was going to be sick. I pictured a glowing, golden soul lying on a platter as Polly stood over it with a knife and fork.

  “What about the other victims?” Detective Hudson asked. “Do you know who else Polly intends to kill?”

  “No,” Margaret said. “But I’m working on finding out.”

  It occurred to me that I had made a huge mistake not accepting Margaret’s help when she’d offered it. Clearly, she was more knowledgeable than I’d given her credit for. The sky overhead thundered again as if to emphasize my error.

  “Anastasia,” I said, turning my eyes to her, “have you had any visions?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  I waited for her to go on, but she stood there staring at me. “Well?” I finally asked. “What have you seen?”

  Anastasia had always been a little nutty, but her predictions were spot on. She had the gift of sight. My aunts had told me it was the pixie in her. Apparently, pixies were all gifted seers, though I had yet to encounter any actual pixies here in my time on the island.

  “I’ve seen death,” Anastasia hissed.

  “Whose death?” I asked.

  “Yours.”

  I gulped. Detective Hudson tried to put a comforting hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it off.

  “Anything else?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know how long I have to live?” I asked her.

  She hesitated before answering. “It’s a bit fuzzy, but I believe it’s until the end of the Wolf Moon.”

  Margaret’s eyes widened. “The Wolf Moon?”

  Detective Hudson seemed to have gone a shade paler himself.

  “What’s the Wolf Moon?” I asked.

  “The first moon of the new year,” Margaret replied.

  “You mean in January? This January?” The air around me grew heavy as I breathed it in. Margaret and Anastasia nodded. “When in January?”

  “It begins January seventh and lasts for three days,” Anastasia said.

  “So, I have until January tenth?” I muttered. “Today is December twenty-eighth.”

  “Twenty-ninth,” Margaret corrected. “It’s after midnight.”

  “So, I have less than two weeks to live?” I asked, baffled.

  Anastasia nodded solemnly.

  “Ava, I won’t let that happen.” Detective Hudson took my elbow, but I yanked it away from him and started walking. I’d learned everything I needed to know. Now, I just wanted some time to myself.

  “Ava, wait!” Detective Hudson called after me as I speed-walked down the street.

  “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve been saying that a lot tonight.”

  The night was warm, and I began to sweat as I picked up my pace. Why was he following me, anyway? He was a fool if he thought I was going to listen to anything he had to say now.

  “Ava, I never meant to hurt you. It’s part of my job. Don’t you see?”

  “It’s part of your job to hurt me?”

  He winced.

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  A drop of rain hit my nose and rolled off. I looked up at the night sky and saw black clouds gathering overhead. Detective Hudson was staring up at them, too. He’d followed me all the way to my house and would have to walk back to The Alchemic Stone in the rain if he wanted to get his car.

  “In the morning, I’ll talk to Dean Lampton. I’ll see if he has any new information I can share with you.”

  “What if he does have new information?” I asked him, standing on the stoop to my house. “What if he tells you not to share it with me? Will you?”

  His look was answer enough.

  “That’s what I thought.” I fished my keys from my pocket and unlocked the door. The cool air hit me at once. Someone had started the air conditioner. That was good. Despite the rain, the night was hot. The humidity was making it impossible to breathe, let alone move.

  “Ava—”

  “I have nothing more to say to you.” I turned back to face him one last time. “And by the way, it’s Ms. Fortune to you.”

  I slammed the door on his face as the rain began to fall.

  * * *

  1 2

  * * *

  “Damon, I’m so sorry. Please call me when you get this.”

  I hung up the phone and looked at the clock again. It was straight up noon. How in the witching world could I possibly have slept until noon?

  Because you didn’t get home till two, in bed till three, and fall asleep till four.

  “Ugh!” I yelled and slammed my fist into my pillow. “Of all the days to oversleep!”

  The one thing Damon had specifically asked me to do for him was to be at the ferry with him to greet his mother. And I’d screwed it up.

  “Mama?” a tiny voice asked. I looked down to see Snowball staring up at me from the floor.

  “Hi, Snowy.”

  “Mama okay? Snowball heard shouting.”

  “Mama’s okay. I’m just an idiot is all.” I lay back on my bed and let out a loud groan.

  In the fifteen minutes I’d been awake, I’d sent Damon a dozen texts and called him four times. He hadn’t responded to any of them.

  Snowball jumped onto my bed and rubbed her head against my chin. “Snowball does not think Mama is an idiot. Snowball loves Mama.”

  I scratched her head as she purred away. A moment later, an orange blur leaped onto the bed with us. Tootsie was holding something in her mouth.

  “What have you got there?” I asked, taking it from her. It was a note from Eleanor.

  Going to the Cove. Damon called. He sounded mad.

  —Aunt E.

  Great.

  “Tootsie senses Ava is in trouble.” I stroked Tootsie’s long orange fur as Snowball continued to purr beside my ear.

  “Snowball senses the same,” Snowy said, rubbing her nose against my elbow.

  “Trouble doesn’t quite cut it, I think,” I told them. Although Tootsie was Trixie’s familiar, he had been my mom’s before she died. Because of that, we shared a special bond. Luckily, Snowball had never been jealous.

  “I better get up,” I told my fuzzy feline companions and pushed the blanket back. “Somewhere out there is music for me to face. I better get ready for it.”

  Tootsie and Snowball hopped off the bed and disappeared downstairs. I got dressed and looked out the window. Detective Hudson was pacing the sidewalk. I didn’t see his car. It was either still outside The Alchemic Stone or he’d moved it somewhere to keep up the illusion that he wasn’t stalking me.

  Downstairs, the sink was full of dishes. I looked around for leftovers from Eleanor and Trixie’s breakfast but saw nothing. I ate a stor
e-bought bagel and drank some stale coffee, wondering if the quality of my breakfast was any indication of how the rest of my day would go. I checked my phone one last time for a message from Damon and shoved it into my back pocket when I saw there was nothing there.

  I stepped outside and Detective Hudson immediately sprang up. I could tell he wanted to come talk to me, but he wisely kept his distance. I was still mad. Last night’s rain had stopped but it had left giant puddles over the ground and the sky remained a dark, threatening gray.

  I walked along the sidewalk, heading toward The Mystic Cupcake, before I remembered it was still closed. They were at Coffee Cove. That was fine by me. I could get some real coffee. I altered my path and headed there instead. Detective Hudson stayed across the street, matching me step for step on the sidewalk opposite mine.

  I had walked a quarter of a mile before I finally stopped and turned to face him, keeping the road between us. Tourists drove down the blacktop, looking for parking spaces. They never realized that they could just park their car at the hotel and walk everywhere on the island. They didn’t need their cars. Locals rode bicycles or jogged by.

  “Stop following me!” I yelled to Colt. I mean, Detective Hudson. A few passersby looked strangely at me.

  Detective Hudson leaned toward me, held his hand to his ear, and shrugged his shoulders. As if I was supposed to believe he didn’t know what I was saying.

  “Stop following me!” I yelled again.

  Again, he shrugged his shoulders and held his hand to his ear. This time, he also mouthed the word, “What?”

  I sighed and took a step closer.

  “Stop—” A bicyclist almost crashed into me. I jumped out of the way just in time and looked up to see Detective Hudson attempting to suppress a laugh. “Oh, this is ridiculous,” I mumbled. I walked across the street and joined him.

  “You realize I can see you, right? I know you’re following me.”

  “Of course.”

  He smiled and started walking. I stood there a moment before following him since he was going the direction I wanted anyway.

  “I’m still mad at you, you know,” I told him.

  “I know.”

  “Did you talk to Dean Lampton?”

  Colt sighed. “Yes. First thing this morning.”

  “And?”

  “He wants to stick to the same protocol as before.”

  “I figured that. Dean Lampton’s an idiot.”

  The corners of Colt’s mouth twitched up. We walked on in silence for several minutes, until he started whistling.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Whistling.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “It’s a nice day out.”

  I looked up at the sky. “It’s gray and probably gonna rain again later.”

  “It’s all a matter of perspective. To you, it’s cloudy and dull. To me, it’s warm and the rain is bringing life to thousands of plants that inhabit this island.”

  “True...” I said, sensing a trick.

  “Just like from your perspective, I’m irritating, annoying, and frustrating.”

  “True again,” I agreed. “I like this game. How about we add selfish, crazy, and weird?”

  “Is weird such a bad thing?” he asked. “How many people on this island think it’s weird for a witch to be raised as a human?”

  I bit my bottom lip. He had a point. Most people on this island thought me and my family were a little weird. That didn’t stop them from buying our pastries. Though it did garner the odd look from time to time.

  “From my perspective, Ms. Fortune, I’m keeping you safe. I’m doing my job. I’m making sure that no one else in Sweetland Cove gets killed.” He hesitated before continuing, “I may have had to omit certain things to accomplish my goals, but that doesn’t make me a bad person.”

  “No,” I agreed. “Just a bad friend.”

  He cast a sideways glance at me as we approached the doors to Coffee Cove.

  “If I’ve hurt you, I’m truly sorry,” he said, offering me his hand. I searched his eyes for sincerity and found it in abundance. “Everyone makes a mistake.”

  Mistake.

  The word hung over my head like a noose. I’d made a giant mistake this morning with Damon. Even with the best of intentions, people could still mess up. Slowly, I reached out and shook Detective Hudson’s hand. It felt warm and inviting, just like his eyes.

  “I’m sorry, too,” I told him. “For some of the names I called you.”

  “Did you call me names?” he asked.

  “I might have flung a name or two out there in my bedroom last night.”

  “Well, Ms. Fortune, I’m sure I deserved it.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. And by the way, it’s Ava.”

  “Ava...” he said, my name lingering on his tongue like fine wine. I realized we were still shaking hands.

  I let his go and tried not to blush.

  I pulled open the door to Coffee Cove. “Are you coming in with me?”

  “More coffee?” he asked.

  “More questions.”

  * * *

  1 3

  * * *

  Coffee Cove was packed. A separate counter had been set up for The Mystic Bakery, with a makeshift sign overhead announcing its presence. My father stood at the register, ringing up purchases. A stack of lucky cakes hovered nearby. He waved when he saw me.

  “Hey, honey.”

  “Hey, Dad.”

  Eleanor looked up at the sound of my voice. “Oh, thank the witches. You came to help.”

  “Err, well, not exactly,” I told her. “I just had a few questions.”

  Trixie and Melbourne came out from the back, each carrying a fresh stack of muffins and cookies. “We should have done this long ago,” Melbourne told Trixie, who was looking at him like he was the most handsome man in the world. “Business is better than ever.”

  “Glad we could help,” Trixie said, batting her lashes. I wondered if she was even aware of how she behaved around him. Like a schoolgirl with a crush.

  “Trixie,” Eleanor said when she saw her sister. “Tell Ava she has to help.”

  “Of course, you do. You’re our only niece. That’s what you’re here for.”

  “There are some aprons over there,” Eleanor said, nodding to her left. “Come on. Get busy.” She was getting impatient. “You can ask your questions while you bake.”

  I decided she was right. There was no way I could leave them and my father in a bind like this. Not when the line for our pastries was almost to the door. I pulled the apron on and was shocked to see Colt—I mean Detective Hudson—pull one on, too.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I figured if I have to stay with you, I might as well make myself useful. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

  Eleanor’s and Trixie’s eyes bugged out of their heads. I knew what they were thinking—Detective Hudson had never struck any of us as the “helpful” type. Bossy? Yes. Severe? Sure. But helpful? This was a new side of him.

  “Grab some more of the hazelnut softness cupcakes from in back,” my father barked.

  “Sure thing.” Detective Hudson said and disappeared in back.

  “Ava, go make some extracts,” Eleanor ordered, regaining her composure. She ran into the back, and I followed her.

  “Okay, first though, I need to ask you something.”

  “Fine, but make it quick.” She grabbed some flour and tossed it into a bowl.

  “Polly’s found a way to get her powers back.”

  Eleanor stopped stirring her brownie mix and looked at me.

  “You’re joking.”

  I shook my head.

  “Apparently, she’s found some sort of ancient ritual. One that involves... stealing my soul.”

  There was a loud gasp behind me, and I turned to see Trixie and Melbourne staring at me like they’d seen a ghost.

  “Did you say... your soul?” Trixie asked.

 
“She did,” Colt said, coming out of nowhere and startling me. “I’m afraid it’s true.”

  “So, my question is this. Do you know any ancient rituals that could do something like that?” I asked.

  Eleanor shook her head. “Impossible. A ritual like that would have to go back a thousand years.” Her eyes flicked questioningly to Melbourne, who looked pale even for a vampire.

  “I don’t know anything about it,” he said, but his voice faltered.

  Trixie put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

  “Mel, if you know something that could help...”

  He stared at the floor before finally lifting his eyes. “It’s an old ritual. Even older than I am. Sara Sweetland and Patrick Mistmoor fought against it for years while they were alive.”

  “Sara Sweetland?” I asked, my ears perking up. “You mean the ritual is over twelve hundred years old?”

  Melbourne nodded. “I’m not sure how much further back it goes, but at least that far.”

  “How are the victims chosen?” I asked.

  “I don’t want to discuss this,” Melbourne said, casting a wary glance at Trixie.

  “Of course, this isn’t really the appropriate place,” I said. “Maybe later after you close—”

  “You misunderstand. I don’t want to discuss this at all. Ever.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “I mean, you didn’t take part in the ritual yourself... did you?”

  “No, but... it was a very emotional time in my life.”

  Trixie tried once more to placate him. “Mel, please. It might help.”

  “I said no.”

  He turned toward her, baring his teeth.

  Trixie recoiled from him, and the tension in the room tripled.

  “I apologize for that,” Melbourne said, a look of horror on his face. “I would never... I haven’t... you don’t understand. The ritual you’re speaking of... I was going through an adjustment period. You can see how just talking about it this much upsets me. I must beg you never to bring it up to me again.”

  He turned and left the room, leaving us all shaken.

  “He was never going to hurt anyone,” Detective Hudson said. We all looked at him. “You can tell by the way his fangs were bared. If he really meant business, they’d have been much longer and grotesque. That was more of a fear-based bare.”