by Bella Falls
“And the beautiful wrought iron fences and designs all over the area have been returned to their decorative purposes instead of being used to broadcast the corrupted magic that oppressed them in the first place,” finished Mama Lee.
Peyton rose from her seat with slow deliberation. “I have been aware of the unfair treatment of other magical beings all of my life. Mother revealed the secret to me about the spell that kept them subjugated when I came of age. I had been trying to figure out a way to break the magic for some time now, as have a few others.” She turned around to give credit to some of the witches sitting behind her. “If you have found a way to abolish the draconian enchantments, then you have my deepest gratitude.”
Pretty words from a pretty girl. Either she was the greatest actor in the world, or my gut instincts were pushing me in the wrong direction.
“It took great effort from several different sides.” Nana nodded acknowledgment to Mama Lee and John D as well as the nearby agents of IMP and inspectors from WOW. “And now, those of you who live here will have to learn how to incorporate any magical being who chooses to stay as equals. The days of ‘witches only’ are over.”
Loud high-pitched cheers and claps erupted from the back of the room. Agent Giacinta gestured for the hotel staff to join the rest of us. David took Mason’s vacated seat and Blythe moved down to allow Molly to sit next to him. With a little rearranging, the fae staff sat amongst us, not in the back of the crowd.
Even while under house arrest, Nana managed to help take down corruption. Admiration and love for my grandmother swelled in my chest until I thought my heart might burst. If I could ever end up being half the witch she was, I’d consider myself lucky.
“Right, now that we’ve established what’s happening on a bigger scale, we still have Priscilla’s death to solve.” Nana turned to face me. “The floor is all yours, Charli.”
Chapter Twenty
My stomach dropped when everyone’s attention turned to me. My grandmother gestured for me to stand up. With reluctance, I pushed out of my chair and approached her.
“I don’t know what in tarnation kind of operation you’re allowing to go on, Agent,” the chief spit out, his mustache twitching at the ends from his frown. “But I, for one, have no intention of giving any credence to what this young woman has to say. She’s not in law enforcement and she’s kin to one of the suspects.”
While his outburst broke the focus on me, Agent Giacinta addressed the angry chief, and I pulled Nana aside. “What are you doing? This is your show, not mine.”
My grandmother stroked the back of her fingers down my arm with affection. “I may have been working things on the outside, but I never for a second doubted your skills in working the investigation from the inside. In fact, I counted on it.”
“But I didn’t do it alone.” I glanced back at my friends.
I saw the seat David now occupied, wishing I had Mason there for back up instead. Lee, Alison Kate, Lily, and Lavender sat forward in their seats, waiting for me to speak. Blythe gave me two thumbs up and mouthed, “You can do it.”
Nana reached down and took my hand in hers. “No, you weren’t alone. But you figured out how to utilize everyone to the best of their abilities, and I would bet you have an idea who did everything if you calmed down and believed in yourself the way I do. You don’t need your unique magical talents to be special, Charli. You already are just by being you.”
I raised my eyebrow. “Okay, now you’re laying it on a bit thick.”
“But it’s true, Birdy. Now, go get ‘em.” She squeezed my hand three times and let me go.
Agent Giacinta floated close to the chief to keep him in line. I surveyed all the faces staring back at me until my eyes rested on Peyton.
A strange calm settled inside me, and I took a deep breath. “What strikes me as odd with this particular murder is that, for the most part, not one person has truly mourned over Priscilla Ravenel Legare’s passing. That speaks volumes about who she was to many people.”
Peyton fidgeted in her seat, and I kept her in my peripheral vision to observe her reactions to my statements.
“While asking around to get a bit more context about who she was,” I continued, “one person told me it would be easier to come up with a list of people who didn’t want her gone.”
Murmurs rippled through my small audience. A few of the local witches whispered to each other behind their hands. Not one person denied the statement.
I paced at the front. “Now, some of my history about Priscilla is unclear. For example, I don’t know how long she has dominated the Charleston witch community nor do I know when she started terrorizing it.”
Meg, who sat next to Peyton, glared at me with anger burning in her eyes. She clung to the daughter’s arm with a firm grip while Peyton hid her eyes with her hand.
Moving down the aisle with slow steps, I stood at the side of a few Charleston witches. “But I do know that some of you had gotten to your end point. You wanted her gone from her dominant position over you. And therefore, you plotted to take her out.”
The one sitting next to Frances sprung out of her seat. “We were trying to help the magical community at large. All we wanted was to change how things worked in our city. We were tired of having to do everything she asked, and we did have a plan to make her step down. But none of us are killers. We wouldn’t do that to Peyton.” She collapsed into her chair and raised a hanky to her face to wipe away the tears rimming her eyes.
Her friends comforted her and shouted their own protests to killing Priscilla. I held up my hand to stop them. “I think you had strong motives to want her removed from her position, but I agree. You didn’t have any reason to want to end her life. Although there was someone who recently had a fight with Priscilla and may have wanted to take care of the problem before Priscilla could take care of them first.” I took a step sideways to bring Frances into view.
With a stoic expression, the witch stood to face scrutiny. She matched my gaze. “You’re right. Context does give a better understanding of things.”
Since she understood who I was and who I was related to, I could finally push her to reveal more. “In your altercation with Priscilla at the Hyperion Hall a couple of months ago, what was the cause of your fighting?”
With nowhere to go and too many people surrounding her, Frances didn’t protest or avoid answering. “Prissy knew who I sided with and had decided I would be the weakest link in the group to betray them and tell her everything they’d planned to force her out of her position months before that. She threatened to blackball me, not just from our magical community here, but all up and down the Southeast coast. Charleston is my home. My family’s home. I couldn’t leave. So, I played the subservient victim and did anything she asked until I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“What happened that particular night at the hotel hall?” I pushed.
“I tried to use her own tactics against her. I told Prissy that if she didn’t stop and step down, then I would reveal the dirty secret she would never want others to know. At first, she didn’t believe I knew anything, but as I spilled all of the details to her, she blanched, and for a split second, I thought I’d won.” Frances’ eyes flitted to Peyton sitting a couple of rows in front of her. “I’ve never been sorrier about revealing what I knew for my own advantage. It brought more suffering than it needed to, and Prissy didn’t fall for it. She called my bluff, knowing I couldn’t actually go through with the telling of it all. So, I remained her favorite witch to punish.”
“And all that punishment went away when she was killed,” I concluded. “Your problems disappeared the second Priscilla took her last breath.”
Frances wrung her hands in front of her. “I don’t deny that. But I do deny having anything to do with her death. I was nowhere near her that entire night.”
“But did her death require the killer to be near her? To know that, we’d have to know the examiner’s findings. Chief Huxley,” I walked to the fron
t of the audience. “What was the cause of death?”
The head warden crossed his arms and slumped down in his chair. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”
Agent Giacinta snapped her tiny fingers, and one of her agents wearing a suit stepped forward with a file in his hand. “It states on the coroner’s report that the victim died from a constriction of the airway, causing a blockage of oxygen. Death from suffocation.”
“And does it state anywhere in the report what might have been the cause of the constricted airway?” I asked.
He flipped through the pages a couple of times. “No. There’s a note here that says, ‘Poison,’ with a question mark but no further findings.”
“No tests were run on the body? No toxicology examinations of her blood to determine the cause?” I pressed, anticipating his answer in the negative.
Suspecting someone had hindered justice and knowing it were two different things. With unspoken permission from Agent Giacinta, I towered over the chief where he sat. “Is it possible there was no discovery as to the cause of death because someone in a high position had the murderer all picked out. No need to find real evidence if the suspect is handed to them on a platter.”
Chief Huxley sat up. “Hey, I’m not the one on trial here.”
“If you were, we all know what your verdict would be,” I challenged. “Is there anything you would like to add that might enlighten us as to why you wouldn’t want to find the actual killer?”
The chief threw his chair back and faced me. “Hey, I had every reason to detain your grandmother. Witnesses heard her threatening words earlier and she was seen pursuing Priscilla and her daughter to the second floor. No other evidence was found to conclude she wasn’t the murderer.”
I pointed to the floor beneath us. “There are two witnesses downstairs who never had a chance to give their testimony. David, what did they tell us when you and I met on the roof?”
The half-dryad pushed his hair out of his face. “Fleet saw her,” he pointed at Nana, “not entering the upper level of the hall. Instead, she went to the bathroom. The pixie and her brother Flit witnessed the mother and daughter fighting in the grand ballroom. But not her. Someone might have known that from the beginning if anybody paid us fae any attention.” He slouched lower in his seat, and I appreciated Blythe offering him immediate comfort for his efforts.
“Nana, why had you followed Priscilla and Peyton in the first place?” I had yet to ask her the reasons behind the actions that got her into trouble to begin with.
“Peyton had been kind enough to push her mother into offering me an apology for her behavior during the first panel,” my grandmother explained. “Priscilla all but apologized, which didn’t make me happy. When I saw Peyton follow her mother upstairs, I thought I could address my issues with Priscilla and bury the proverbial hatchet once and for all. And I recognized family strife when I saw it. I thought maybe I could save the daughter from a fight with her mother if I were present.”
“And why didn’t you interfere once you were there?” I followed up.
Nana sighed. “Family business is just that. Their business. In the end, I didn’t think me sticking my nose in would help Peyton at all. And I realized how futile it would be to try and force Priscilla to be nicer.” She glanced at Peyton. “I will always wonder what I might have prevented had I stepped in despite my instincts.”
“And without the testimony of the pixies, it was just your word that you weren’t there in the same room or with Priscilla moments prior to her death.” I finally addressed the one who met every single criteria. “Which leaves us with one person who had direct access to the victim. And out of anybody else here, the one who gained the most by her death.”
Peyton popped up so hard, her chair fell over with a thud. “I didn’t want my mother dead. I just wanted her to stop being so rigid about her rules and to bring an end to how she ran things.”
Meg rose to join her at her side. “You did nothing wrong, pet.” She rubbed Peyton’s back.
“No, can’t you see? Mother’s behavior caused all of this to happen. If she would have been more like you, kind and caring, wanting to help others instead of using fear to rule over them, then she wouldn’t have had so many people who went against her. Myself included.”
Agent Giacinta winged her way closer. “Then are you offering a confession?”
Peyton’s entire body began trembling. “I-I think I did want her gone. Deep down. I might have even said it out loud a few times. But I could never…I would never…But if I didn’t do it, then who would have?”
“Shh, don’t you worry.” Meg stroked Peyton’s hand. “I’ve always promised you everything would be okay. A girl as pretty as you deserves a beautiful world full of possibilities, not gates and cages.”
Peyton covered her mouth with her other hand, a tiny cry squeaking out of her. “No,” she whispered. “Tell me you didn’t.”
Like a rush, the whole puzzle came together. I had thought I was better than the witches in Charleston who ignored the fae and other magical beings who were thought of as being lesser. But I had fallen into the same pattern, completely ignoring one more being who would benefit the most from Priscilla’s death. Or rather, the one who would kill to give the daughter-of-her-heart the life she thought she deserved.
“Meg,” I uttered, surprised and resolved at the same time.
Peyton waved her hands. “No, no. It was me. I did it. I confess.” Her lips quivered, and she stepped in front of the brownie. “Take me. I’m the one who killed my mother.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Meg gently pulled on Peyton. “It’s okay, child. Everything will be okay.”
The distraught young woman crouched down so she could address the brownie at her eye level. “Why?”
Running her gnarled fingers through Peyton’s hair to push it away from the pretty girl’s face, Meg’s lips spread in a peaceful smile. “Because I couldn’t let her try to shame you and keep you from living the life you want. Now you can love whomever you choose without any consequences.”
Peyton broke into uncontrolled sobs, and she fell to her knees, burying her head into the brownie’s body. Meg patted her on her back and whispered soothing words to the broken girl.
“Mi dispiace, but we will need your full confession,” Agent Giacinta interrupted, regarding the scene with remorse.
“I know,” uttered the brownie, consoling Peyton until she quieted her. “For the record, the only regret I have is not having the courage to do what I did sooner. And I’m real sorry about your involvement, Ms. Goodwin.”
I recalled her telling me to untangle the web from before. I hadn’t expected her to be the spider in the middle of it.
“Why would you kill her at all? If she was a terrible boss, then you could have left like your sister did. Why stay if Priscilla was worthy of being murdered?” I asked.
Meg helped Peyton sit back down in her chair. Once her charge was safe and secured, the brownie addressed the rest of us. “I stayed because of my love for Peyton. When this child was born, I thought maybe her presence would soften Priscilla. Help her to want to make the world better for her own offspring. Instead, it increased her desire to gain more control. She saw Peyton as an asset for her to use, not as a daughter to care for. So, I loved her doubly as much to try and make up for her mother’s shortcomings.”
A soft whimper from Peyton interrupted her. Meg moved to stand beside her, petting her head while she continued. “Priscilla did her best to break Peyton’s spirit. She never let her go very far away, even forcing her to attend the college right here in Charleston despite my girl getting a full scholarship into the state university in Columbia.”
Peyton sniffed and tried to pull herself together. “I wouldn’t have even applied if it hadn’t been for you pushing me. And my life would have been far grayer if you hadn’t made sure the sun shone on me once in a while.” Fueled by sudden desperation, the young woman stood in defiance. “You can’t arrest
her. You just can’t.”
Nana spoke first. “I’m sorry, Peyton.”
Agent Giacinta moved in closer and beckoned her agents to follow. “We will have to accept your nanny’s confession.”
Peyton placed her arms around Meg’s shoulders. “She isn’t my nanny. She’s…she’s my family. She’s all I have left in the world.” Tears streamed down her face. “This is all my fault. Mother and I had a falling out when she found out I was seeing a guy from Beaufort who was half-brownie. He reminded me so much of you, my sweet Meg.”
For the first time, the brownie’s calm demeanor broke. “Thank you, pet. But I fear your choice angered your mother even more. It was as if you were choosing me over her, and she would never let you get away with that. She would have terrorized and bullied you until she’d broken you, and I couldn’t live with myself if I allowed that to happen. I couldn’t stand by and watch her reshape you into a mirror image of herself. I couldn’t let you become your mother.”
Peyton took her turn to console the brownie. She cupped Meg’s chin in her hand. “She was never my real mother.”
The brownie broke down and snatched Peyton in her arms, gathering her in an embrace. The two of them held on tight to each other until they had no more tears to cry.
Sniffles and utterances of pity spread throughout the room. I shuffled over to Nana, losing the battle to hide my own emotions. “Isn’t there something we can do?” I whispered.
“I don’t think so. Even if she committed the crime for noble reasons, she still killed somebody,” Nana admitted. “Life sometimes isn’t fair.”
Meg gathered her wits about her and pushed Peyton away from her. “What have I always told you?”
Peyton dabbed her finger under her eye to catch a stray tear. “To live my life to its fullest and to the benefit of others.”
