Aconite and Accusations

by Silver Nord

  I recognised one of them as the ghost hunter, Toby, but the second was an unwelcome surprise. Hannah, one of the youngest members of the Wormwood Coven, was the one leading the chanting. When she saw me, her expression grew grim and baleful.

  “Get out of there now!” I said, directing my words at her, furious at what I was seeing. I’d made several allowances for Hannah’s reckless behaviour since she’d joined the coven in the wake of her mother’s tragic death. I’d made sure she was cared for and welcomed, and she’d decided to repay me by playing a cruel trick on non-magical innocents. Worse than that… she was breaking witch law.

  “You kids had better listen to her. She’ll set the detective on you. They’re good friends…” Jesse contributed good-naturedly.

  “What?!” he said when I glared at him, peeved by the way his supportive words came with added innuendo. So much for him being sorry about causing trouble! He was already trying to cause even more.

  “Go! Go!” Delia shouted. The four young people fled from the graveyard, laughing as they went.

  I watched them go and discovered my fists were clenched. I released them with a sigh. Was I really going to blame them for messing with things they didn’t understand when I’d literally just done the same thing to catastrophic effect?

  “Kids will be kids,” Jesse said, mirroring my thoughts.

  I watched them run off into the fields beyond the graveyard still laughing. A rueful smile appeared on my lips. Being shouted at by a grownup whilst you were up to no good was a rite of passage. It was almost amusing to find myself in the role of the nasty grownup who won’t let the young people have any fun. When had I become so serious?

  I wouldn’t have found it funny if I’d known the terrible consequences of letting them get away.

  My Aunt Minerva was still avoiding me when DCI Admiral entered the shop the next morning.

  Aunt Linda had listened to my story of what had happened with fascination, before shaking her head when she’d heard that Amber hadn’t been there. Minerva had just left us to it and made herself some tea before going to bed early.

  “She’ll get over it,” Linda had assured me. “Minerva’s never been one for violence. I understand that these things happen sometimes. You did what you thought was right!”

  “Even if it turned out to be wrong?” I’d replied, but in truth, I had already come to terms with my mistake. There’d been guilt on all sides, and I’d taken what Jesse had said to heart. I couldn’t take the weight of everything bad that happened in Wormwood on my shoulders. I had not been the one who’d kidnapped Minerva, and I had not been the one who’d been about to pull the trigger. There’d been no other choice, and if I had decided to let the kidnappers win, where would we be now? I’d have lost an aunt and kept an adversary. I was done with being the nice guy and losing.

  I was still thinking about that and wondering how I could apply the same principles to deal with the mayor and his farcical festival when Sean arrived.

  “Someone has gone missing. It’s probably nothing, but… this is Wormwood we’re talking about,” he announced, looking harried.

  I felt my stomach flip over when I realised he could only be talking about the men who’d been eaten by the monster. I should have known that Amber would report them missing! I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t even considered that there would be a price to pay for what I’d done. “I have a confession…” I started to say even as Sean continued talking.

  “It’s Hannah Regal. Her foster parents contacted me when she didn’t come home last night. Apparently, she’s been staying out late and acting up, but she always came home before morning.” He frowned. “A confession?”

  “I may have something to do with her running off,” I said, quickly changing what I’d been about to say. “I shouted at her when I saw Hannah and three ghost hunters in the graveyard messing around with candles and chanting. It was harmless teenage stuff, mostly…” I took a breath. “It’s just… Hannah, does have magical ability. I think she wanted to mess with some normal people and give them a bit of a scare. I might have overreacted.”

  “What exactly happened?” Sean asked, looking mildly concerned.

  I gave him my account before remembering there was a major plot hole where I’d failed to explain what I was doing by the graveyard in the first place. Fortunately, Sean was so distracted by the disappearance that he didn’t even ask.

  “They ran off into the fields?” He rubbed his chin. “I wonder where these ghost hunters are now. I’ll have to check with the hotel the tour-package company has been putting everyone up in.” He pulled out his mobile phone and muttered about the lack of reception. I walked behind the shop counter and pulled out an ancient copy of the yellow pages before handing him the landline.

  “No calls are getting through to anywhere beyond Wormwood, but you should be able to call the hotel,” I said, repeating something that made no sense at all. The laws of logic did not apply.

  I shook my head when I thought about how close we were to the brink of destruction. It was like living next to a collapsing cliff and going about your daily business, pretending that your house wasn’t about to fall into the sea.

  “They haven’t been seen and they aren’t answering calls to their room,” Sean confirmed when he put the phone back down. “It looks like they’re missing, too. Do you think something might have got them?” He raised his eyebrows, not wanting to say the word ‘monster’ out loud.

  I was about to shake my head and say that the mayor would have stopped it if it had happened inside the town boundary, but some selfish part of me whispered that it wasn’t a good idea to tell Sean too much about the mayor’s new policy. I still didn’t know how I was going to tell him about what had happened to the Witchwood Scorpions, or what sort of action he’d be forced to take against me.

  “We’ll find them,” I said, trying to sound more positive than I felt. We needed a win. “I’ll show you where I last saw them.”

  I was hoping for a happy ending.

  I should have known better.

  15

  Big Cat Sighting

  “I’ve found one!” Sean shouted from somewhere near the fields where I’d last seen the ghost hunters and Hannah.

  “And I’ve found a delicious abandoned takeaway,” Hemlock said from the long grass. “Mmm, three-day-old kebab, if my tastebuds are correct. What do you think, Artemis?”

  “What are you doing here?! I told you to stay behind! Wait… you brought Artemis with you?” I said, scarcely able to believe Hemlock had followed me all this way with a kitten in tow just to root around in old takeaways. He must have really woken up with a desire to get on my nerves today.

  “You said I should be more responsible! I’m showing him what it is to be a cat.”

  I growled under my breath. Hemlock wasn’t even a real cat. By all accounts, he was actually a mythical raven. I stalked through the grass to tell him to go back home. I was starting to get a bad feeling about these quiet fields. The silence here was not the good kind you experienced when you were out in the countryside. It was the shocked sort of silence that comes just after something terrible happens and everyone forgets to breathe.

  “Hazel!” Sean called again. Something in his voice told me that what he’d found fitted that description perfectly.

  “Who is it?” I said as I slid down the steep bank that divided the fields and woods from Wormwood River. The water rushed by merrily, a strange juxtaposition with the body lying next to the water.

  “It’s Hannah Regal. She’s been stabbed, multiple times,” Sean told me, his face grim. “The body’s still warm. We were only just too late.” He swore and clenched his fist, looking furious.

  I looked down at the promising young witch and felt anger boiling up inside me. “I wonder where Amber Leroux is right now?” I said before I could help myself.

  Sean shot me a silencing look, but he didn’t reprimand me. “We need to find the other missing teenagers and make sure they’re fi
ne.”

  “Of course,” I said, realising I’d lost sight of the real mission. Making sure that the ghost hunters were safe was the first thing to do. I was really slipping when it came to doing the right thing. Or perhaps you’re just jealous and won’t admit it, my inner voice told me.

  I looked at Sean when he scanned the surrounding trees and concluded that my inner voice was correct. I was making all kinds of illogical decisions whilst avoiding the all too obvious answer. I could drink all the Green With Env-Tea I wanted, but it didn’t stop me from knowing the truth.

  I was in love with Sean Admiral.

  The sunlight burst through the clouds and shone down in a dappled glaze of light, illuminating the detective’s chiselled, serious face as I finally accepted it.

  “Sean…” I foolishly began without thinking through what I was about to say or the awful timing of it.

  He looked at me like he was waiting for something intelligent to come out of my mouth.

  “Sean!” I said again, pointing to the figure emerging from the bushes.

  Blood streamed down the side of Toby’s face, and he looked dazed and confused.

  “What happened?” I asked him, rushing over to see how serious it was. The blood had mostly dried, but even when I managed to pry Toby’s hand away from his cut, bruised face, it was hard to see how bad the wound was. “You’ll live,” I decided after a few moments.

  “I was attacked,” he said, spitting the words out along with some more blood. “They got me from behind. I didn’t see, but… I think that Delia might be in trouble. It happened sometime this morning. We’d stayed out overnight for some fun…” His eyes suddenly widened with horror when he laid eyes on Hannah. “What happened to her? We got separated. There was something in the woods…” He shook his head again. “You’ve got to make sure my sister is okay, please,” he said, his eyes growing wider still.

  “Is Harry with her?” I asked, still trying to understand what had gone so terribly wrong for them.

  “Was it something human that attacked you?” Sean added and got his own wide-eyed stare from the traumatised teen.

  “What else could it have been? I got hit with a stick, or something. It was kind of dark earlier this morning… I didn’t see who it was. We were all together and, it’s like I said… there was the sound of something crashing through the undergrowth, which spooked us. We split up and I ended up with Hannah.” He shook his head and rubbed the congealing blood. “That was when I got hit really hard with something from behind. I turned around and tried to fight. I think I made contact… but I lost my grip. I heard my sister screaming, and then maybe Harry was shouting something. He sounded angry, but I didn’t see. I got hit again and everything went black. I thought I was dead.”

  He looked up at us, his eyes more focused now. “Please. You’ve got to find her. I think… I don’t know what I think. I woke up and didn’t know where I was. Then I heard your voices…and…and…”

  I looked at Sean and the knowledge that we had to find Delia and Harry as fast as possible passed between us. Toby may or may not know how his witness testimony sounded, but mystery ‘something’ in the woods aside, I thought the real murderer may have been lurking under our noses all along.

  “I heard Harry arguing with Delia when the others were gathered around the candles in the graveyard. It looked pretty heated. I think he has feelings for her,” I said in an undertone, quiet enough that Toby wouldn’t overhear. “She might have rejected him. You know how strongly teenagers can feel about things like that,” I said, trying to ignore the way my own heart was pounding in my chest when I looked at Sean. Now was really not the time. Another life was in danger. I only hoped we weren’t already too late.

  “We’re running out of time,” I said, making my eyes flick across to the still-warm body of Hannah

  “This young man is injured,” Sean pointed out. “He can’t come with us and I can’t leave him on his own.”

  “I’ll be fine. Just save her,” Toby bravely said, turning away to avoid looking at Hannah’s still body.

  I pulled a pained face at Sean and he nodded. These were desperate times, and we couldn’t waste time standing around talking about it.

  “Let’s go back up to the field,” Sean decided, realising that it was cruel and dangerous to keep Toby around the body of his fallen friend. It was obvious that he was in shock.

  I helped him up the steep incline, and it wasn’t long before we were back in the sunlit field with its sickening silence.

  “I think I was attacked somewhere over in that direction,” Toby said, pointing to the distant line of trees that ran parallel to the river. “Or maybe further that way.” His face screwed up in distress. “Please find her. Please!”

  “I’ll go,” Sean said, starting across the field.

  “No way. You can’t go alone,” I told him, catching him up in two steps. “If Harry is the one behind it all… he’s got tricks up his sleeve. Jon Leroux was not a pushover. He was fatally dosed with poison before his killer got his kicks and dumped him in the river. He’s got a method and a preferred killing ground. Don’t underestimate him.”

  “Hazel, someone has got to stay. I can handle it. Jon Leroux didn’t have the same knowledge of his killer that I do. I won’t get caught out.”

  I bit my lip before spitting out what was really worrying me. “Maybe not… but Toby also spoke about something moving through the trees. Something scary enough that they fled. If it’s still out there, I need to find it just as much as we need to find Delia and Harry. More lives may be at stake than we realise.”

  “We can’t leave him!” Sean repeated.

  “Hemlock!” I called.

  Two green eyes appeared above the yellow grass.

  “Toby… Hemlock and Artemis are going to keep you company whilst we’re gone. They’ll keep you safe,” I said, knowing how weird that probably sounded to this non-magical human. “Do you like cats?” I asked, hoping that he would just stay out in the sunshine with them and sit quietly.

  “I love cats,” he replied, stretching out a hand to Hemlock.

  I glared at my familiar. He grudgingly let himself be patted on the head.

  “Urgh. This guy has clearly never stroked a cat before in his life,” he complained, but when I looked at him seriously, he blinked in a way that I prayed meant he was going to do what I’d asked of him.

  “There’s no more time,” I said to Sean, before we abandoned the injured teenager and ran across the field to end the killing spree that had struck the tragic town of Wormwood.

  I slapped a hand on my forehead as I remembered a fleeting piece of information whilst running across the meadow. “I don’t believe it. All this time, I thought it was Amber because of her pest control poisoner reputation and, well… because she’s a really nasty piece of work. When the ghost hunters first came into my shop they said they all met working at Arden Manor. I didn’t think anything of it, but I’ve just remembered I’ve read about that garden in Helping Herbs Magazine. As well as growing many medicinal plants, Arden Manor is known for its inclusion of toxic varieties, in an effort to raise public awareness and understanding of both the dangers and the correct way to handle plants that can trip up the unwitting and unwary. It was a really interesting article.” I shook my head as Sean looked exasperated by my longwinded explanation. “I’ve only just remembered that the article specifically mentioned that they include aconite in their ornamental planting. It’s no wonder Harry knew what it was and what it does. He works as a groundskeeper!”

  “Delia! Delia!” Sean shouted, before turning to me even as he kept running. “You can’t stop every single bad thing from happening. You can’t see every detail and recall it at the right moment. We’re only human, and sometimes it’s best to let what you missed go and focus on what you can do. We are going to save this young woman. We are not going to fail,” he said through gritted teeth, saying it as much to himself as to me.

  “Delia!” I shouted, joinin
g him in his efforts as we crossed into the edge of the thin woods that surrounded the river. “We should follow the river. Harry seems to be drawn to it.” I had no idea why Wormwood River had even permitted him to get so close. Or perhaps it was the distinctly non-magical part of his nature that meant he was somehow immune to the powerful ‘go away’ feeling it gave to anyone magical.

  I’d observed at the start that the ghost hunters had about as much supernatural ability between them as a cheese sandwich. I was ashamed to admit it, but it had made me underestimate them. Perhaps Wormwood River had made the same mistake.

  Suddenly, Sean motioned for me to be quiet. I tiptoed faster to catch up with him and soon heard raised voices coming through the trees.

  “Please! You don’t have to do this…” the female voice said as we got closer. It was only too obvious that she was crying as she pleaded with someone.

  “I do. I have to do this,” the male voice came back, sounding just as fraught. There was a terrifying and desperate note to it that sent chills running up and down my back. “Is this the reason why you’ve been pushing me away all this time? Because you knew the truth all along?”

  I looked in horror at Sean and crept forwards faster. It sounded like the situation behind the trees was escalating, but we couldn’t risk alarming the unstable Harry. Two bodies were two too many. Sean reached out and pulled me close to him when we crested a small hill and discovered we were looking down towards the river again.

  “Please,” Delia said again, reaching out to Harry.

  He pushed her hands away. “Was anything you ever said to me real, or were you just scared all the time? Did you think if I got too close…?” He shook his head. When she reached out, he grabbed her wrist and held it tightly.

  Sean hissed in alarm.