“That’s racist,” my familiar muttered, sulking.
“Tell you what,” I said, trying to cheer him up. “How about I promise that tomorrow, no matter what we do to investigate, you can come along with us?”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” my cat said as he stalked out of the room. “Time to train to get ready.”
A part of me didn’t want to know what Mr. Meowgi considered martial arts training. As long as he didn’t break anything, though, I supposed that was good enough.
“Is Amy going to be able to make it to the funeral? Sara asked, and Ellie shook her head.
“No, she’s working all night. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if Lita goes and asks Amy to accompany her, in which case we might see her there.”
Twenty minutes later, Ellie and I had finished making the potion - by which I meant Ellie made the potion, while I watched and took notes, as it was a significantly more complex potion than the one I had already made - and the three of us spent the afternoon relaxing before our long night ahead.
As the sun began to set, Sara, Ellie, and I got ready to go to the elf funeral.
“You want to wear all white,” Ellie explained to me. “While witches and wizards follow the human tradition of wearing black to funerals, elves wear white exclusively.”
“Thanks, good to know,” I said as I put away the black blouse I was planning on wearing.
When we all left the house, I was wearing a simple sundress that I had bought at Randy Tonner’s clothing store when I first arrived in Western Woods, whose color I could change by tapping it with my wand, making it now a pure white. Given as it was still mid-summer, and the heat wave in the Pacific Northwest seemed to show no sign of slowing down, it was definitely refreshing to be able to wear this outside.
I expected us to head downtown somewhere, but to my surprise, Ellie and Sara immediately turned off the road and onto the path that led to the forest.
“Where is this funeral taking place?” I asked.
“The elves have a sacred tree in the middle of the forest. It’s completely white, and they scatter the ashes of all of their dead around it. That’s where we’re going,” Ellie explained.
Great. We were going to have to wander through the forest at night again. That was definitely not my favorite thing. Even though this forest wasn’t particularly scary - in fact, old spirits called Hotaru came out when it was dark and gave light to mark the way - I still wasn’t a huge fan. Maybe it was because I’d seen too many Forbidden Forest scenes in the Harry Potter movies.
Instead of following the path that Ellie and I had taken the other day, we quickly cut to the right and followed a new, unfamiliar path for about a mile. Eventually, we reached a clearing, about half the size of a football field, where sure enough, a large, white tree with golden leaves that grew from the branches. Around the tree, on wooden stakes were golden plaques, about a half dozen of them.
“Are those the grave markers for the elves that have died?” I asked, and Sara nodded.
“Have there really only been six elves from here who have ever died?” I asked, my mouth agape.
“That’s right,” Ellie said. “Lorondir is the first one in fifty years. Just after World War II there was a duel between another elf from Western Woods and one from the east, and the other elf won. That was the last time we had an elf death.”
All around us were elves dressed in white robes - tall, solemn, and graceful.
“Do you see Farawir?” I asked, and Sara nodded. “He’s over there.” She pointed towards an elf who was rather on the shorter side compared to his brethren – only a touch over six feet tall – with black hair that reached just past his shoulders. His blue eyes were like steel; whether it was because he felt no guilt over killing his father or because he was simply holding in his grief, I wasn’t certain.
“Next to Farawar is Lorondir’s sister, Elawa. She’s one of the ten female elves in town.”
“Wow, there really aren’t a lot of females, are there?” I asked. Elawa’s eyes were red-rimmed; she had obviously been crying.
“No, not at all. Elawa works as a bookkeeper, which is basically the lowest job an elf can get, but she’s quite friendly and bubbly – for an elf, anyway – most of the time,” Ellie explained. “I know she and Lorondir were close – they had coffee every Wednesday morning before work at Hexpresso Bean, and she took care of him domestically, getting his groceries and doing his laundry, since Lorondir and his wife divorced hundreds of years ago.”
I was only half-listening, my attention turned fully on to Farawir. He had moved away from his aunt now, and was making his way towards the white tree. He placed a single hand on it, and if I wasn’t mistaken, a single tear fell from his eye and onto the ground below. A second later, he seemed to have composed himself, and he made his way back to his group.
As more and more people gathered around, I spotted Chief Enforcer King at the outside of the group. There were no chairs or anything; this was definitely different to the wizard’s funeral I had attended less than a week earlier.
Slipping away from Ellie and Sara for a moment, letting them know I’d be back, I made my way towards Aria King. I hadn’t seen her since I had gotten away from the murderer last time around, and I wanted to thank her.
“Chief Enforcer King!” I said, and she turned. With her long, copper-blonde hair and brown eyes, it was obvious from the start that Aria King was a lion shifter.
“Tina,” she said with a smile. “How are things going? Are you healing up alright after last week?”
I nodded. “Absolutely. I didn’t have more than a few scratches and some sore muscles for a few days.”
“And Mr. Meowgi?”
“Thanks to Sara’s mom, he’s back to his normal self. Listen, I wanted to thank you for your help that day. It’s good to know that the bad guy is behind bars.”
“Absolutely, not a problem. Though in the future, I’d prefer it if you left the law enforcement to, well, law enforcement. And that includes this most recent murder,” she said, motioning towards the white tree. “I know your friend Sara was the one taking Lorondir on her broom when he died, but that’s no reason to be involving yourself.”
“Oh, don’t worry, we have no intention of investigating his murder,” I lied, crossing my fingers behind my back. The look Aria gave me was one of total disbelief.
“Right. Of course you weren’t. You just so happened to go to the law firm and speak with one of the lawyers there.”
A blush crawled up my face. “Well, um, you know, while we didn’t know if Sara was a suspect or not…” I stammered, my voice trailing off. I was definitely not great under pressure. Ellie would have come up with a smooth lie straight away, I was sure of that.
“I can tell you that at the moment, we haven’t ruled anyone out as a suspect completely, but that doesn’t mean you can investigate yourself.”
“Wait, but if Lorondir was poisoned, how could Sara have done it?”
“How do you know he was poisoned?” Aria asked, her eyes narrowing at me, and the blush in my face turned a deeper red. I was probably doing a pretty good tomato impression right about now.
“Sara may have accidentally overheard you telling one of the other Enforcers,” I mumbled.
“Of course she did,” Chief Enforcer King said. She didn’t look mad; if anything she looked a little bit bemused. “Anyway, while the fact that Lorondir was poisoned may be correct, we are looking at anyone who had contact with him that morning as being a suspect, and eliminating them as quickly as we can.”
“Did you know that his son, Farawir, has fallen back into a gambling addiction in the last month?” I asked. After all, seeing as Chief Enforcer King knew that we had been investigating, the least I could do was give her what information we had found out. The important thing was that the killer be discovered.
Chief Enforcer King raised an eyebrow. “Thank you for the information. As this is an ongoing investigation, I can neither confirm n
or deny what I do or do not know, but I appreciate you telling me what you’ve discovered. I do hope this will be the end of your investigating.”
I nodded meekly. “Right.”
At least now we had confirmation of the poisoning. Someone had slipped something to Lorondir the morning of his death, going by what Chief Enforcer King said. Now we not only had a method of death, but also a bit more of a timeline.
Chapter 12
About five minutes after I left Chief Enforcer King and made my way back to my friends, the ceremony began. There was no pastor, or priest, or anything of the sort. Instead, about a dozen elves, including Lorondir’s son and his sister, joined hands and made a big circle around the white tree. When they began chanting, the idle viewers like us stopped talking and spread out in a circle as well.
I couldn’t make out the words they were saying; it was definitely a different language. Elvish, I supposed. Making a mental note to ask Amy what the elvish language was called, before I made yet another social faux-pas, I watched, riveted, as the song of the elves got louder and louder, their chanting rhythmic and calming. I found myself completely transfixed as the elves stood in their large circle, before suddenly they stopped, and Farawir stepped forward. He stood directly in front of the large white tree, and wordlessly, he knelt to the ground for a second, coming back up holding a large urn.
For a moment, Farawir whispered to the urn, then took off the top, dropped it on the ground, and held the urn above his head.
At that very instant the wind picked up, and a gust swirled around, almost like a miniature tornado, taking the ashes and lifting them up high, spreading them through the forest.
Amy had told me that elves had a kind of magic that was very connected to the earth, and I knew better than to imagine that gust of wind was in any way natural.
A final gust of wind whooshed over the head of the onlookers, and the elves all took a single large step back before turning away from the tree and making their way back over to the crowd.
It appeared the funeral – or whatever this ceremony was called – was over.
The crowd began to mingle once more, with everyone making their way over to the grieving elves. Ellie, Sara, and I joined in with them. After all, just because we had come here to get a look at Farawir ourselves – and to see if Jordan Black was here, although none of us had noticed him yet – didn’t mean we couldn’t pay our respects as well.
Eventually, we made our way towards the family. Farawir was the first we spoke to.
“Sorry for your loss,” I said to him, my words earnest. I knew all too well what it was like to lose a parent, and I figured even if you were hundreds of years old, it wasn’t easier. And I didn’t know he was the killer; there was a chance it was Black.
“Thanks,” he muttered, not looking me in the eye. “Appreciate it.”
I moved on to Elawa, Lorondir’s sister.
“I’m so sorry,” I told her, and she clasped both my hands in hers.
“Thank you for coming. You’re the new witch, aren’t you?” I nodded in reply. “You would not have known my brother, but it means so much to me that you came all the same.”
“Of course,” I replied before moving on; there were a lot of people in this line.
“It was good of you to come,” the man next to them said to me. “I echo my sister’s sentiments.” So this was Lorondir’s brother.
“I only wish we could have met under better circumstances.”
“As do I, dear witch. As do I.”
After we passed through the crowd, the three of us made our way to the edge of the woods.
“That was a beautiful ceremony,” Ellie said. “I’d never seen an elf funeral before.”
“Do they use their language much, the elves?” I asked. “Is it called elvish?”
“Elfin,” Sara replied. “And no, it’s very ceremonial these days. I think way back when they used to speak it regularly among themselves, but now they just stick to English like the rest of us. They’ll still speak it if they really don’t want to be eavesdropped on, though.”
I nodded. That made sense.
“So what do we do now?” I asked. “Head back and wait for the invisibility potion to be ready?” I looked warily towards the woods. The sun had definitely set now, and the last glimmers of light were fast disappearing. I wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible.
“What was that?” Ellie asked suddenly.
“What was what?” I replied, looking into the woods instinctively.
“I saw something – someone – in the woods over there,” Ellie said. “Follow me.”
“Great,” I muttered as Ellie stormed into the woods behind us, not the least bit worried about going into the creepy forest at night after some sort of mystery creature.
Sara followed in after her with only a split-second hesitation, and I sighed. I didn’t want to gain a reputation as being the wussy one in the group. Then again, I also didn’t want to get eaten by whatever random creatures lived in there.
Still, the fear of my peer’s ridicule outweighing my fear of death – what was wrong with me? – I followed after Sara, hoping that we were just going after a deer or something.
“You! Stop!” I heard Ellie cry out from about fifty feet in front of me. There was a commotion, then I heard Ellie’s voice once more: “Lightning cracks, and you stop in your tracks.”
A man’s voice shouted in frustration, and as I caught up to the other two, I saw them walking towards a man who was definitely Jordan Black. He squirmed in place, obviously trying to move, but it was like his feet were cemented into the ground.
“What in the name of Nanook have you done to me?” Black growled, and the hair on my arms stood on end, even knowing that he was trapped by Ellie’s spell.
“We need you to answer some questions. Then we’ll let you go,” Ellie said, her wand still pointed directly at Jordan Black. He let out a low growl.
“And why should I answer your questions?”
“Because otherwise you’re going to spend a whole lot of time stuck here in this forest,” Ellie said. “And remember, in running from me you veered pretty far off the path, so who knows how long it will be before someone else comes this way looking for you?”
Black looked from one of us to the other, and I tried to put on my most threatening expression. I probably looked like I was just trying to hold in some bodily functions instead, but oh well.
Eventually, realizing that there was no way he was going to get out of there without Ellie undoing the spell, he sighed. “Fine. What do you want to know?” He asked in his thick northern English accent.
“Did you kill Lorondir?” Ellie asked.
“What? No, of course I didn’t.”
“Well, it’s not obvious to us. After all, he did get you convicted of murder.”
“Nah, those twelve idiots on that jury did that. Lorondir put up a good defense.”
“A good enough defense to get you convicted?”
Black laughed, but it was a dark and humorless laugh. “You don’t get it, do you? Lorondir knew we were cooked. There were no two ways about it. They had so much evidence a freaking squirrel could have won that case. So he purposely screwed up. The man was a bloody brilliant lawyer, he managed it so no one noticed, and gave me instructions to give me new lawyer after I was convicted and had to appeal. And it worked! He was a brilliant elf. I’d never seen anything like it.”
“Wait, so Lorondir knew he had screwed up?” I asked.
“Of course, it was his idea. And hey, it worked, he got me off.”
“So why did you come here now?” Sara asked.
“I wanted to thank him. Two days ago was the final appeal the prosecutor could make to have my case re-evaluated, and they threw it out. I’m a free man forever, thanks to him.”
Great. There went our motive, right out the window, if Black was telling us the truth.
As if she was reading my mind, Ellie said, “How do we know you’re not l
ying about this?”
Black shrugged. “Have to take my word for it, I guess. But I’m telling you, I had no ill will towards Lorondir. I’m sad he’s dead; it’s why I came to his funeral today. I figured no one would really want to see me around here, so I hid in the forest, but I did want to see the ashes being released. He was a good elf. He was a much better elf than I am a shifter, if I’m honest.”
“That really doesn’t seem like that high a bar to clear,” Ellie said, raising an eyebrow, and Black growled at her.
“Hey, I’m telling you what you want to know, aren’t I?”
“Why did Lorondir destroy his reputation for you, though?” I asked. “I mean, it might have gotten you off the hook, but it also meant he looked like an idiot, and the guy did have a reputation to uphold.”
“Oh, the old elf had been thinking about retiring for ages,” Black said. “I think he did it in a way to reduce his workload. I guess he figured if people thought his legal mind wasn’t what it used to be they’d look elsewhere, and he could sell his stake in his firm and retire.”
“So who would have wanted him dead?” Ellie asked. “Got any thoughts on that?”
Black shrugged. “Wouldn’t have a clue. This is my first time in Western Woods, and I don’t know that he had any problems with anyone. Got along well with his siblings, and his son, from what I heard from him at the trial, but it’s not like he gave me a list of people who were out to get him.”
Ellie nodded. “Ok, thanks.”
“Now, you gonna let me out of here?”
I could practically feel Ellie toying with the idea of leaving Jordan Black out here for the night, but eventually, she pointed her wand at him and cast the reversing spell, releasing him from the bonds.
“Bloody crazy witches,” Black muttered. “I’m out of here.” And without another word to any of us, he darted back into the forest, back towards Western Woods.
Chapter 13
Two Peas in a Potion Page 7
