by Silver Nord
“Wait… you caught her trying to blowup your shop?” Sean looked genuinely horrified. “With a real bomb?”
“It looked real to me, and she behaved as if it were real. I’ve only the mayor to thank for my shop and house not being a smoking pile of rubble at the moment. Not to mention what would have happened to the people and animals inside it at the time…” I still felt white hot rage whenever I thought about what would have become of them. I just wished the mayor hadn’t made all of the evidence vanish.
“Can’t you get her to confess? She’s not even hiding her actions anymore! The mayor might have scared them enough to stop the robberies and vandalism, but she’s still out to get me and my family. They’re after my father’s secret weapon.”
Sean rubbed his temples. “Again, I’m not sure how much I want to ask you about that. I thought your father was dead?”
“Not as dead as I was led to believe,” I said, dryly. I suddenly wondered if he’d want his house back before discarding the thought as ridiculous. I didn’t want the burden of the derelict property anyway.
Sean shook his head. “When did life get so complicated?”
“The moment weird things started happening in Wormwood,” I answered with the ghost of a smile. Even as I said it I looked around the bakery at the many tourists, including an elderly couple who were indulging in an inappropriate display of public affection - even by my open-minded standards - and the ghost hunting trio who were running an EMF reader over a Cauldron Cake. The strange were definitely here to stay.
“I have got a confession to make,” Sean said whilst I kept scanning the room thoughtfully. “I do actually think your aunt was framed. It seems unlikely that she sent those things to the police station when it’s clear she doesn’t wish to turn herself in. That leaves only two options that I can think of: someone sent them to frame her, or to point us in the right direction.”
“Someone with access to a very personal letter written by my aunt,” I reminded him.
“Yes, I uh… do believe that Amber Leroux might have been capable of doing such a thing, but there is once again a distinct lack of evidence. I can only hypothesise that she had a grudge against Minerva, something which you claim has continued.”
“I think trying to blow up the shop counts as holding a grudge.”
“There’s something else, too…” Sean continued, looking so sheepish he might as well start chewing grass. “It turns out that the Scorpions have a history of extortion and trickery. There have been claims made against members of their gang long before the group turned up in Witchwood. I’m only sorry I didn’t look into their past sooner. I just thought they were an antisocial nuisance. They’re especially good at getting valuable items away from desperate widows.” He shot me a sympathetic look and raised his eyebrows. “It’s not legal, but things like that are hard to prove when the widow gives an item away willingly, before realising she’s been scammed. It’s a tough one to prosecute. Unfortunately, that’s the way of the world.”
“Maybe it’s better if I don’t mention that to Minerva,” I said, suddenly certain that my aunt should keep her illusion. At least her fiancé wasn’t alive to disappoint her or claim otherwise. So long as the real killer got what was coming to him or her (but almost certainly her) justice could be done with a minimal amount of maiming - as directed by the mayor.
“It’s small wonder I’ve never settled down,” Sean suddenly mused, surprising me by sharing something so personal. In the past, I’d have been flattered and even hopeful that he might be telling me that because he felt a certain way. Now I feared that I’d been bumped into a friendship position with the awful Amber somehow taking the lead.
“What do you see in her?” I asked him, wanting to get this straight. “She’s a criminal! Even you can’t argue against that.”
For the briefest of moments, Sean looked utterly bewildered. “You mean Amber?”
I inclined my head.
“We’ve been over this. I’m polite and sympathetic in a professional capacity to a woman who has lost her husband in tragic circumstances.” He even had the nerve to hold my eye contact whilst telling me that definite half-truth.
I sighed and decided to give up. Whatever bee Sean had in his bonnet over Amber, I knew she’d pulled the wool over his eyes. She certainly couldn’t have shown him the ruthless and cruel side she’d shown me. “Tell me this, Sean… did anyone see Amber on that bus?”
“I’m still comparing witness statements, but the early signs would suggest she wasn’t there,” he confessed, looking torn and confused. “I still can’t see her motivation. She’s almost certainly the one who hatched the plan with her husband to defraud Minerva Salem. It’s not the first time they’ve done it. I can’t see why she’d kill him over something they’d plotted.”
“But you do think that she might have framed Minerva for her husband’s death… which means she had to know about it in advance.” I raised my eyebrows compellingly.
Sean’s forehead lined with thought. “It’s a possibility,” he agreed. “But I’m still investigating…”
“…every avenue,” I finished for him, just like old times. Hearing it said in the here and now made it infinitely more frustrating. “Whatever you figure out, Sean, it had better be fast. The festival is nearly here, and if someone doesn’t do something to stop that, none of this will matter anyway.”
“Always look on the bright side of life,” he said, bemused.
I just shook my head and left him to his doughnut with its false frog and passionless passionfruit centre.
“Pssst, Hazel! Come into the kitchen!” Linda called to me when I abandoned the man I’d thought I could rely on to do the right thing.
I followed behind my overly cheerful aunt, feeling like I had a storm cloud hovering over my head. I turned the corner into the kitchen and saw an astonishing sight.
Hemlock was sitting on a stool by a large black cauldron, stirring the vat of bubbling liquid with a large ladle and singing to himself. “Hubble, bubble, toil and trouble…” On the shelf above the cauldron, Artemis crouched, peering down into the shimmering depths.
“Hemlock! You can’t let Artemis sit up there, he might fall!” I said, rushing over to rescue the kitten from misadventure.
“So what if he fell? It’s character building,” my familiar protested.
I plonked Artemis down on the slightly safer ground, having received two bright red scratches for my trouble. Honestly, some kittens just didn’t want to be helped.
“That’s what you get for being a know-it-all,” Hemlock told me before resuming his singing.
I turned to Aunt Linda with the question written on my face.
“I needed some extra help from someone who won’t go running to tell the enemy about our plans,” she explained.
I glanced back at Hemlock. “What makes you think that? He’s got loose enough lips to sink an armada’s worth of ships!”
“Everything has its price,” my cat informed me. “A low, low price of cheese strings.”
I went back to ignoring him.
“I had to. We were running out of time and the cakes were selling really well today, so I couldn’t justify leaving June alone,” she said, referring to the young baker’s assistant Tristan had employed.
“What is it?” I asked, thoughts of the mayor claiming to be omnipresent swirling in my head. I checked the room just in case and discovered Linda had already put up so many protection spells it was a wonder an alarm hadn’t gone off and security guards descended from the ceiling when I’d entered the room. With a bit of luck, this room was invisible to the mayor.
“It’s the recipe that’s going to get the town evacuated. Minerva and I discussed it at great length in a soundproof room that was far too small for both of us.”
“They were in the broom closet and wouldn’t let me in,” Hemlock complained. “Then, when they did let me in, they didn’t let me out again straight away. No one cares about my needs!”
I rolled my eyes and tried to get back to the important details. “What recipe?”
Linda rubbed her hands together. “I suggested cooking up a good old fashioned zombie curse. That always gets a panic going. It’s almost guaranteed to ruin any party you want sabotaged! But then we remembered that zombies aren’t exactly famed for their intelligence, fast movement, or their ability to turn back into their old human selves. Plus, there’s the brain eating thing. We thought that might end up causing a disaster just as big as the one the mayor is planning.” She smiled cheerily, like there was absolutely nothing wrong with what she’d just said.
“Minerva suggested a scaring potion. That’s a fun one. It makes everyone in town believe there’s something scary lurking in the woods, or another miscellaneous scary place. The tension builds until the villagers flee the imaginary scary thing. The only catch is there’s genuinely something scary lurking in the dark in Wormwood, and the people around here don’t always react the way you’d expect to things like that. I told Minerva she’d probably be doing the mayor a favour. Tourism would treble!”
“Please tell me you came up with the perfect solution?”
“Then, we came up with the perfect solution,” my aunt confirmed. “A hemorrhagic fever with a near 100% fatality rate.” Linda paused for effect and to enjoy the look of abject horror on my face. “Tough crowd! We settled on something good. But… you’ll just have to wait and see what it is!” She giggled.
“I’d rather know.”
“Nonsense, you’re the most suspicious one of all of us! The mayor will definitely be keeping tabs on you. If you don’t know when or what is going to happen, he won’t either.”
“I suppose so,” I said, grudgingly. After everything I felt the Salems had kept concealed for me, even ‘for my own good’, this felt a bit like flinging salt at an open wound.
“Ha! I know something you don’t. Now we’ll see who’s good at keeping secrets,” Hemlock gloated. I watched as Artemis climbed back up on the shelf and resumed staring down at the bubbling liquid.
It seemed that there was no battle I was destined to win today.
The door to the Salem Apothecary swung eerily in the strange breeze that had sprung up when the afternoon had started to fade.
I felt a strange prickling feeling down my arm as I walked down the High Street and realised the hairs were all standing up on end. The entire street was deserted, even though I knew the town was packed full of tourists.
Something didn’t feel right.
I looked around for shimmering air or tears, fearing some terrible monster was lurking and had begun devouring people, but there was nothing. Just more silence.
With a growing sense of foreboding, I finally noticed the swinging door and the way the ‘Open’ sign had been flipped around and was hanging at a crazy angle. I quickened my pace and soon discovered I was running full tilt when I neared the shop and saw the disarray that lay inside.
“Aunt Minerva! Erebus!” I called into the dim interior when I pushed the door fully open and realised it was swinging because one of the hinges was nearly broken. It wasn’t the only thing that had fallen to pieces. Glass crunched beneath my feet when I entered the shop and dried herbs and teabags littered the floor. Someone had trashed the place.
“Aunt Minerva?” I called again, a lot less sure of myself. That was when I saw the envelope, far too crisp and white against the destruction that surrounded it.
I walked over to the shop counter and tore it open, not even pausing to consider if it was cursed. A letter fell out. My stomach twisted at the words written there.
We have your aunt. Bring us the weapon by sundown, or she dies. We’ll meet by the tree in the woods with the heart carved into its trunk. You know the one.
Come alone, or she dies.
I felt sick when I read the words about the tree in the forest. Somehow, Aleister had known I’d been lying. He’d known that I’d spoken to my father.
I wondered how much more he knew.
It was then I heard a noise, like the low grumble of an aeroplane in the distance. It was ominous and alarming.
It was also familiar.
“Erebus!” I called.
The sound stopped.
The next moment, my fearsome hellhound strolled down the stairs and into the shop. He stopped in his tracks and looked around in shock, as if he couldn’t believe this had all happened whilst he’d been snoozing the day away.
“I can’t believe you let this happen whilst snoozing the day away!” I told him.
He sat down, still looking entirely baffled by the events he’d missed. Then, after a moment of hesitation, his tail began to wag in an apology.
“I’m surrounded by idiots,” I muttered, walking over to my hellhound and giving his head a good scratch. “What do you say we ignore the guidelines on this message and go and raise a little hell at sundown?”
14
Like A Ghost In The Wind
“So, let me get this straight… you’re supposed to be coming on your own and bringing along a weapon you have no idea how to find?” Jesse whispered as we tiptoed through the trees with the sun dipping in the sky. I was the leader of the strange parade with a devilish deity behind me, followed by Hecate and Erebus, who were being ridden by Hemlock and Hedge respectively. Artemis was riding with Hemlock. I’d petitioned for Artemis to be left behind with Aunt Linda, but Hemlock had claimed he’d be more useful coming with us. I hadn’t pushed too hard to find out why.
“Even if I did know where the weapon was, I wouldn’t hand it over to this despicable group,” I growled, pushing a bramble out of my way.
Jesse nodded and ducked when I let it whip back towards him. “Good for you. I can’t help but notice, but this seems more like the detective’s bag than mine. Correct me if I’m wrong, but kidnapping your aunt and demanding a ransom is illegal, right? Shouldn’t he be here to do his self-righteous arresting thing?”
I looked across at Jesse.
His expression cleared with understanding. “Oh, I see. You’re not looking for legal justice. This is personal.” He grinned. “I like it. So, what is the big plan?”
I shot him another look.
“Ah… the old ‘make it up as we go along’ ruse. A true classic,” he acknowledged, before tilting his head at me. “It’s not that I’m not flattered to be asked along on this rescue mission, but I didn’t expect to be included by you ever again.”
I felt my mouth twist. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that these are desperate times. Anyway… perhaps seeing you with me might make my father reconsider his running and hiding strategy and persuade him to show up and display some responsibility… or even just show up,” I said, admitting the way I felt for the first time. How could he have stood by watching and never bothered to intervene all of these years? I thought I now understood what was at stake, but I couldn’t help the way I felt.
I lifted a hand for absolute silence when we neared the edge of the clearing that contained the heart-carved oak tree. The lengthening shadows made it easy to pick out the group gathered around it. Even though their identities were obvious to everyone in Wormwood, the gang still chose to wear their balaclavas. It was probably supposed to be intimidating, but it just made it easier to identify Minerva, sitting against the tree trunk with her arms bound behind her back and a gag over her mouth to stop her from muttering any spells.
“She’ll be here soon,” one of the balaclava wearers muttered.
“We should have tried this from the start, but it was kind of fun letting loose whilst knowing that the police can’t do a thing about it. I’d like to shake that crazy mayor’s hand, right after we’ve got the heck out of this town,” another contributed. “I don’t like the way things are going here. Root gave us this ultimatum for our own good. We get out tonight, or we don’t get out at all.”
I pricked my ears up at that. It would seem that Aleister Root was definitely monitoring the situation in Wormwood, but he wasn’t go
ing to lift a finger to help the town. It was abundantly clear that he wanted to save the weapon and sacrifice the town.
“Hey… is your niece always late to important occasions?” the first man asked, nudging Minerva with his boot. She shot him a withering look, but aside from that, she looked… bored.
“She seems fine. How about we leave her to it? She can handle them,” Jesse whispered, tugging at the collar of his v-neck when he looked at the weapons the group carried.
I nudged him in the ribs. “Don’t try to slink out of this. You owe me… forever,” I added, considering how Jesse had interfered with my life from the very start.
“At least it’s not a very long forever,” he consoled himself.
I nudged him harder.
“They’re a sneaky group. This area is not technically part of Wormwood. It’s right on the edge of the boundary with Witchwood Forest. They’re gambling that the mayor won’t notice what’s happening on the edge of his kingdom.” And they’re probably right, I mentally added, thinking of the way that access to Wormwood was an easier task if you went through the forest. It just took more time. The invisible barrier hadn’t got a hold out here, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was because the trees had their own magic that twisted and turned - working both with and against the barrier.
Now was not the time for musings like this.
“Diversion team… go!” I whispered to the hellhounds and their feline riders. “Follow the plan. No improvising,” I added, directing that remark at Hemlock.
“I never improvise. I always plan my acts of rebellion way in advance,” he informed me.
“No acts of rebellion either,” I hastily tacked on. Dealing with Hemlock was like dealing with a lawyer who specialised in legal loopholes. You practically needed a contract to get him to reliably do anything.
Jesse and I watched as the invisible hounds trotted away and the cats slunk after them, just two more black shadows in the early evening light.
