Spellbinding Starters

by Annabel Chase

  “Yes. Quinty designed them. Have you met him?” Calliope asked.

  “Not yet.” Judging from the size of the town, I imagined there were hundreds of residents I still hadn’t met.

  “Quinty’s an elf,” Darcy said. “He’s a little unpopular with the other elves. They tend to be purists. They don’t like to mix magic with their handiwork.”

  I shrugged. “Whatever works.”

  As much as I disliked heights, the bicycle remained close enough to the ground that I didn’t feel too anxious.

  We arrived at my office much faster than if I’d walked.

  “Thank you so much,” I said, scooting off the backseat. “I’ll have to look into one of these. It’s pretty handy.”

  Calliope rang the bell on her handlebar. “See you around, neighbor.”

  I went inside to greet Althea. She was on her knees, mopping up a puddle on the floor.

  “Everything okay?” I asked.

  “I knocked over your coffee,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I’d even gotten an extra shot of confidence in it this morning because of your big day.”

  I grabbed another dish towel from the nearby counter and handed it to her. “You’re so thoughtful.”

  “I’ll go grab you another one as soon as I clean up this mess.”

  “Thanks, Althea. You’re the best.”

  “Should I get one for Mumford, too?”

  “It might be cold by the time he gets here.”

  She craned her neck to look at me. “He’s already here.”

  Oh.

  “In that case, I guess you should. No extra shot of anything for him.” I needed him to be as authentic as possible today.

  I swept into my office and, sure enough, Mumford was seated across from my desk, reading the newspaper.

  “It’s nice to know newspapers are alive and well here,” I said.

  “Are they not in the human world?” he asked, closing the paper.

  “Not anymore.”

  He made a thoughtful noise at the back of his throat.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked. “Ready to get this over with?”

  He rubbed his hands together. “Very much so.”

  I dropped by handbag onto the desk and went over to inspect him. “Let me have a look at your neck. Your bandage has come loose again.”

  I lightly gripped the edge of the cotton pad.

  “Leave it,” he snapped, and jerked his head away. “It’s fine.”

  “It isn’t fine,” I scolded him. “You can’t have the bandage hanging off during the trial. It will be too distracting.”

  I resumed trying to adhere the bandage, but it fell to the floor.

  “Oops, sorry.” I was about to scoop it up when I noticed the swelling had reduced significantly. “You know what? I don’t think you need the bandage after all. The ointment has worked wonders.” I’d have to thank Boyd the next time I saw him.

  “Good. Can we get back to business?” he asked, trying to move me back toward my desk. “Your propensity for distraction isn’t one of your best qualities.” Mumford seemed to find my invasion of his personal space offensive all of the sudden.

  “You’re grumpy for someone who’s about to be acquitted,” I told him.

  I picked up the bandage off the floor and noticed something stuck to the cotton. I recognized it immediately. A splinter of wood, painted black. As nonchalantly as I could, I returned to my desk and opened the top of my handbag.

  “I think you’re going to do really well today.” I continued to chatter, trying to keep him focused on my words rather than my actions. “Now if I can just find a working pen—silly me, I mean a quill, don’t I? I’ll never get used to Spellbound.”

  “You seem to be coping fine from what I can see,” he said. “You’ve got all variety of handsome males interested in you. What’s that like? To have the attention of someone you find desirable?”

  I slipped the wand out of the handbag and quickly tucked it into my back pocket.

  “Are you talking about Begonia?” I asked casually.

  His chin jerked upward. “What do you know about Begonia?”

  “I got the impression you liked her,” I said. “That’s all.”

  My act of casual interest apparently wasn’t good enough. Mumford launched himself across the desk, snarling like a rabid animal. His horrible, disfigured hands clutched my throat and squeezed.

  “Think you’re clever, do you?” Spit flew from his enraged mouth and landed on my cheeks. If I weren’t so frightened, I’d be totally grossed out.

  “What…are…you…doing?” I choked out.

  “You know I gave Begonia the emerald, don’t you? Don’t deny it.”

  I couldn’t deny anything when I couldn’t speak.

  “And you found the splinter, didn’t you?” he demanded, continuing to throttle me. “I knew it was still in there. I could feel it, but I couldn’t get the blasted thing out.”

  He was slowly crushing my airway. It took all of my focus to stay conscious and reach a hand to my back pocket. If I could no longer speak, how could I possibly do a spell? Then I remembered Lady Weatherby’s lesson. The witch’s will is just as important as the wand and the incantation. I had to try. There was no other choice.

  I whipped out my wand and shoved it into his stomach. In my head, I shouted, Red and black/major blowback.

  Mumford shot backward, straight over the desk, and slammed against the far wall. Pieces of drywall cracked around him. He slumped over and slid to the floor.

  I stayed behind the desk, but continued to hold out my wand for good measure. I hoped he stayed unconscious. I didn’t think I could do any spells more powerful than Blowback. I was lucky I managed that one.

  The door to my office flew open and the sheriff galloped inside, followed by his deputy and Boyd, the druid healer. They saw me with my wand outstretched and shifted to the object of my wrath, noting Mumford on the floor beside them.

  “Are you okay, Miss Hart?” Sheriff Hugo asked.

  His deputy removed a pair of shining golden handcuffs from her belt. Enchanted, I assumed. Astrid slapped the cuffs onto Mumford just as he regained consciousness.

  “Yes, I’m fine.” My throat burned, but I was still alive and relatively unharmed.

  Mumford glared at me from beneath hooded eyelids. “You’ll regret this. Remember, you’re trapped here now, just like the rest of us. When I get out, I will find you.”

  “What makes you think you’ll ever get out?” Astrid asked. “Murder and theft? You’ll be lucky to escape the death penalty.”

  “He’ll need a new lawyer,” I said. “I think I’m officially disqualified.”

  The sheriff snarled at Mumford. “I don’t know that a lawyer is necessary anymore.”

  So things worked a little differently in Spellbound. Not much of a surprise really.

  Boyd crossed the room to examine my neck. “You’re bruised.”

  Gently, I touched the sore spots. “He tried to choke me.”

  “Allow me.” Boyd rubbed his hands together and placed his fingertips on my neck. He closed his eyes and hummed until the pain began to dissipate.

  “How did you do that?” I asked.

  “Ancient druids have our own special brand of magic,” he said. “You’ll learn, once you’ve been here longer.”

  “Thank you,” I said, stretching my neck from side to side. “What made you come here anyway?”

  “I received the rest of the test results from Mumford’s office visit. The test showed traces of pizzazz, found in certain brands of fairy paint. It made me suspicious so I called Sheriff Hugo.”

  “I found the splinter in his neck when I went to fix the bandage,” I said. “I went to retrieve my wand, but he saw me. I only pieced it together at the last second. Seeing the splinter was the nail in the coffin for Gareth’s murder.” I winced at my choice of analogy.

  Mumford laughed bitterly. “I’ll never tell you where I’ve hidden the rest of the jewels.�
�

  “You may change your mind after spending a few minutes alone with Astrid,” Sheriff Hugo said with a smile. “She can be a tough interrogator.”

  Mumford paled at the sight of Astrid cracking her knuckles.

  “I’ve been meaning to practice my methods of persuasion,” Astrid said. “Now I have the perfect opportunity.”

  “Will you tell Begonia that I did mean for her to have the ring?” Mumford asked me.

  “She won’t care,” I said. “Not when she hears that you killed Gareth. Begonia liked Gareth.” It seemed that everyone did.

  Sheriff Hugo looked at me. “So the splinter was from the missing support post in Gareth’s house, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Gareth must have figured out that Mumford really had stolen the jewels and confronted him in the foyer of his house. He never expected Mumford to pull a stake on him. They struggled and Gareth must’ve managed to skim Mumford’s neck with the support post.”

  “So where’s the weapon, Miss Clever Wand?” Mumford asked. “No weapon means no physical evidence.”

  “The splinter is the physical evidence,” I said. “We already know you burned the murder weapon in Gareth’s fireplace, and then took the body to the woods so no one would suspect Gareth was killed at home.”

  “Only he didn’t realize at first that a piece of evidence was lodged in his neck,” Boyd said. “No wonder he got an infection.”

  “I tried to dig out the splinter on my own,” Mumford admitted. “But I couldn’t get it.”

  “And you made the wound worse in the process,” Boyd said, and shook his head. “Did you even bother to wash your hands before you rooted around in there?”

  I wrinkled my nose in disgust.

  Astrid forced Mumford to his feet. “I look forward to our conversation,” she said. Mumford looked far less happy about it.

  “I’ll be sure to tell Lady Weatherby about your successful spell casting,” Boyd said. “You know, put in a good word for you.”

  I needed a good word put in for me if I wanted to be allowed back into the academy. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  Boyd smiled. “Don’t mention it.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  I was recovering at home in bed when Sedgwick alerted me to visitors.

  Are you decent? he asked.

  “You’re not blind,” I replied.

  But you’re wearing those fuzzy clothes, he said. I have no sense of their propriety.

  “They’re pajamas. It’s fine,” I said, and then added quickly, “unless it’s Demetrius or Daniel.”

  Despite the warning, the knock on the bedroom door startled me. I was relieved when Laurel’s head poked through the crack.

  “Emma? Can we come in?”

  “Of course.” I sat up and smoothed my hair.

  “We heard about what happened with Mumford,” Sophie said. “Are you okay?”

  “Never better,” I said. “Tiffany didn’t let me down.”

  “Tiffany?” Laurel queried.

  “That’s what I’ve named my wand,” I said.

  They exchanged glances.

  “What?” I said. “I named my car, too. I name things. That’s what I do.”

  Begonia made herself comfortable on the edge of my bed. “When did you realize that Mumford was the killer?”

  “I think my subconscious was already trying to tell me, but I wasn’t listening. When I saw the splinter, something clicked into place.”

  Laurel plopped beside me on the other side of the bed. “So the goblin was the killer and the thief. Two crimes. One criminal.”

  “Gareth had figured out Mumford was the thief,” I said. “That’s why Mumford killed him. He committed one crime to hide another. Because of the hefty sentence for theft, he probably felt it was the worth the risk to silence Gareth.”

  “Bummer,” Begonia said. “And to think I defended Mumford when people bullied him.”

  “You were one of the reasons I put it together, actually,” I said. “I remembered that he’d mentioned you in one of our first meetings. And then you received one of Deacon’s emeralds from the burglary.”

  “Good thing I’d already given it to you,” Begonia said. “I certainly wouldn’t want anything to do with it now.”

  “So what’s next?” Millie asked. “Are you going to stay in bed all day?”

  Laurel tugged on my arm. “Get dressed.”

  “And come with us if you want to live,” Begonia said, in a terrible attempt at an Austrian accent.

  I stared at her. “Did you seriously just reference The Terminator?”

  She merely gave me a coy look and shrugged. How could she possibly know lines from a 1980’s movie?

  “Come on, Emma,” Sophie urged. “We have somewhere to show you that’s far more interesting than your bedroom wall. You don’t want to miss this.”

  Thirty minutes later, I was barreling across town in Millie’s blue jalopy. I’d begged them not to take me on a broom because I’d had enough near death experiences in the past twenty-four hours.

  We continued out of town and eventually parked near a remote hillside. “Where are we?”

  “You’ll see,” Millie said cryptically.

  I followed the girls to the side of the hill. Sophie placed a palm on the dirt and muttered an incantation. A door appeared and she smiled at me over her shoulder.

  “Welcome,” she said, and we went inside.

  “You have an underground lair?” I asked in disbelief, surveying the room in wonder and admiration.

  To say the room was cavernous was an understatement. The walls were lined with books and there were plenty of seating areas, including beanbag chairs, couches, and recliners. A huge gilded mirror hung on the feature wall.

  “Technically it belongs to the coven,” Millie said. “But it’s a designated place for younger witches to get away from the older generations. We are the only four who know the magic words to unlock the door.”

  “And now we’re going to share it with you,” Begonia added, and slung an arm along my shoulders.

  A large basket in the corner of the room caught my eye. “Do you still play with dolls?”

  Four guilty faces looked back at me.

  “Not exactly,” Sophie said. “Laurel, why don’t you show her?”

  Laurel reached into the basket and produced a puppet of…

  I gasped. “It’s Lady Weatherby.” The likeness was astounding.

  The other witches laughed as I rushed over to examine the contents of the basket. There was a puppet for every major witch in the coven. I placed Weatherby’s puppet on my hand.

  “Now Miss Hart,” I said, imitating Lady Weatherby’s clipped tone. “Stop embarrassing this coven with your amateur performance.”

  “Sometimes we use them as voodoo dolls,” Begonia admitted.

  “You stab them with pins?” I asked.

  “No,” Sophie said. “We cast little spells on them. Small curses that they wouldn’t necessarily attribute to us.”

  “Like a new wart on the nose,” Laurel said proudly.

  I laughed. “So these weren’t passed down from other witches?”

  “No,” Millie said. “We made these ourselves. The older witches think we’re not very powerful, but we’re far more capable than they realize. And we prove it all the time. They just don’t know it.”

  “Wow,” I breathed. “Remind me not to get on your bad sides. If I see a puppet of me in here, I know I’m in trouble.”

  “We don’t torture them every day,” Begonia said. “Only if they are being particularly annoying.”

  “Or like the time Ginger muscled her way in on your date with Ivan, the werewolf,” Sophie said to Millie.

  Millie plucked out the red-haired puppet and showed it to me. “I put itching powder on the puppet’s head. Ginger scratched her head all night. Ivan thought she had fleas and kept his distance.”

  “Thank you so much for sharing this with me,” I said. For the first time
, I felt like they trusted me. That I was truly one of them.

  “Oh, but there’s more,” Begonia said, and gestured to the oversized mirror.

  “That is pretty,” I admitted. “But not as cool as torture puppets.”

  Begonia closed her eyes and performed a low chant. Then she pointed her wand at the mirror and it began to glow.

  “Is it a teleportation device?” I asked.

  “Of a sort,” Sophie replied.

  I continued to watch as the beveled glass turned black and then an image appeared. An image I recognized.

  “Arnold Schwarzenegger?” I couldn’t believe my eyes. The mirror was some kind of magic television.

  “We watch all sorts of movies and television from the human world,” Millie said. “But we keep it quiet. We know the coven wouldn’t like it.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because they’re not fans of the human influence,” Sophie said. “You guys have kinda ruined nature and our powers are steeped in nature.”

  “Hey,” I said. “I’m one of you, remember?” And I always recycled.

  “If you tell us what you want to watch, we can find it,” Laurel said. “The spell is simple.”

  My head was spinning with ideas. “You really are more capable than they give you credit for.”

  Sophie twirled a Meg puppet above her head. “Just because I can’t do the Blowback spell without a hitch doesn’t mean I can’t do anything right. They don’t seem to get the fact that some of our talents lie in other areas of witchcraft.”

  It would probably be the same for me. After all, I wasn’t even descended from the same coven. We already knew my familiar was an owl, not a cat. Who knew what else we’d discover about my abilities?

  “Who wants popcorn?” Begonia asked. She pointed her wand at the coffee table and an overflowing bucket of popcorn appeared.

  “This is definitely going to be my favorite place,” I said, and popped a kernel into my mouth. It was salty and buttery, just the way I liked it.

  “Are there any movies you recommend that we might not have seen?” Sophie asked.

  My lips curved as an idea came to mind. “Have you watched any human movies about witches?”

  They shook their heads.