by Amy Boyles
I fisted Axel’s jacket in my hand. “I might faint.”
“I’ll catch you, but then I’ll have to kiss you. Probably on the neck.”
I laughed and watched the scene. That horrid smell trickled up my nose again. “What is that?”
Axel’s brow pinched together. “It’s some sort of magic. It’s on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t quite remember. I’ll have it in a second.”
“You said it wasn’t good.”
“It’s not.” He raked his fingers through his dark hair. “But I can’t remember how.”
“Behold,” Shelly cried, “I’ve successfully transmuted a human into an animal without the use of blood magic and without the use of any glamours. This isn’t an illusion. This is real.”
The crowd gasped. There were some murmurs of sorcery, but mostly everyone seemed as shocked as I was.
“And now,” Shelly announced, “I will return this toad to her normal state, and she can attest to the purity of my potion.”
Shelly raised the vial. “Time to transmute!”
But then she stopped. She clutched her chest as if she was in pain. Shelly shook it off and held the glass container high once more.
“I will change her!” Shelly crumpled in half, bending at the waist as if in agony.
“The smell,” Axel said.
“What is it?”
Axel grabbed my hand. “It’s a shifting spell. It allows the user to use a poppet to bring harm to someone.”
“A poppet?” I’d never heard of such a thing.
“A voodoo doll. Someone’s trying to kill Shelly. Come on!”
Axel and I raced across the platform to the other side, trying to reach Shelly. Axel chanted under his breath. He lifted his free hand and gestured. The air shifted, and symbols and shapes lit the air. I’d seen him do that one other time, but never before that. It was like Axel’s magic had changed after he’d left Magnolia Cove.
The crowd wove together. Axel and I fought to get through.
A thick black cloud erupted where Shelly stood. The crowd of witches gasped and recoiled. The smoke was so thick it was impossible to see. I coughed and gasped.
Axel yanked me through the crowd. By the time it cleared, we had reached Shelly Seay.
She lay motionless on the wooden platform, staring vacantly up at a sky that was quickly turning to twilight.
Betty, still in toad form, sat beside Shelly’s limp body. Bo, Shelly’s other half, draped himself over her.
“Shelly! Shelly!” He glanced upward. “No!”
I pressed my face against Axel’s shoulder. It was impossible to not realize that Shelly Seay was very much dead. But that wasn’t all.
The vial that would turn Betty to normal had disappeared.
SIX
Sheriff Garrick Young got the scene contained quickly. He roped it off and made sure no one could escape while his officers searched madly for the potion vial.
But it was gone.
And by gone, I mean long gone.
No one could locate it.
The officers spread out and questioned everyone on the scene, but it appeared as if the vial had up and vanished at the same time that Shelly Seay had been murdered.
Yes, murdered.
Axel and I stood off to the side. I was holding Betty in toad form. She blinked up at me with her yellow eyes as if to say, When in the blazes is someone going to change me back?
“As soon as we can.” I swiped a finger over her head. “We’ll change you as quickly as possible.”
Garrick strode by. He was tall and lean and wore the usual outfit of the Magnolia Cove police, which started with a wide-brimmed fedora, though Garrick’s was battered and worn. He also wore a vest, dark jeans and cowboy boots. All the other officers wore leather dusters. It appeared Garrick had left his at home.
“Young,” Axel said.
Garrick tipped his hat to us and stomped over. “What in hell’s bells happened here, Reign? I’ve got a woman dead for no reason and a potion missing. For God’s sake, this is a potion contest, not a blood magic one.”
Axel’s gaze swiveled from side to side to make sure no one was listening. “Someone used a poppet.”
Garrick’s eyes nearly popped from his head. “A poppet? Are you sure?”
“It’s been a long time since I’d smelled the scent, but there was no doubting it. Sulfur and earth. Pepper caught whiff of it, too.”
I nodded. “Course I didn’t know what it meant, but I smelled it.”
Garrick tapped his fingers on his hips. “This ain’t good.”
“No, it isn’t,” Axel said. “Someone used a poppet, and if I had to guess, they crushed Shelly’s heart.”
“We’ll do an autopsy.” Garrick scratched his jaw. “You don’t happen to know of anyone who uses them, er, poppet thingies, do you?”
Axel shook his head. “No one I’m aware of.”
“Sure would make the investigation easier if you did.”
“Sure would. But I don’t.”
Garrick nodded. He took a couple steps back. “If you hear of anything, let me know. I’ll be investigating.”
Axel tipped his head. “So will we. We’ve got a woman stuck in a frog’s body, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
Garrick’s gaze shifted to Betty. “We’re looking for the potion, Ms. Craple. We’ll find it.”
As soon as Garrick left, I grabbed Axel’s shirt. “That’s what they wanted. The potion.”
“Most likely. Shelly probably kept it under lock and key. This was the killer’s only opportunity to snag it, so they did.” His jaw clenched. “There’s over two hundred people here. Two hundred witches. That’s a lot for Garrick to sift through.”
A sly smile tugged on my lips. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
He nodded. “Let’s start talking to folks.”
Bo sat at a table, a blanket thrown over his shoulders. Poor guy was probably in shock.
“Hey, Bo,” Axel said as we approached. “I’m sorry about Shelly.”
Bo nodded sadly. “She was my everything. I would’ve transmuted into a worm for her.”
“Course you would’ve wanted to come back,” I said knowingly. “No one wants to stay a worm forever. I mean, that doesn’t sound like a very good life. All you’d be doing is sifting through dirt, doing worm things. Ew. Definitely not fulfilling.”
Bo said nothing. I guess my joke was lost on him. Perhaps now was not the time for jokes.
“Listen,” Axel said, “Shelly turned you into a frog, right?”
“Toad,” Bo corrected.
Axel pressed his foot into the leg of a chair. “Toad. Right. Sorry. But she did, didn’t she?”
“Yes,” he said stiffly.
In one fluid movement, Axel sat in a chair across from Bo. Bo’s gaze flickered to Axel as if he was mostly bored and Axel seemed to just barely catch his attention.
“Here’s the thing.” Axel leaned in. “Whoever killed Shelly took the potion that will turn Betty Craple back to her true form.”
“A short, angry woman?” Bo said.
I stifled a laugh. Betty as the toad glared at me. I transformed the laugh into a yawn. “So tired. Hard to believe how tired I am.”
Axel rapped his knuckles on the table. “We need to return Betty, which means we’ve got to find that potion. Unless,” he emphasized the word, “you know the ingredients.”
Bo raked his fingers through his spiky hair. “Sadly, I do not know how Shelly constructed the potion. I never watched her. It was top secret.” He pointed to the toad. “Betty knows. She watched. But as for anyone else with the knowledge—that’s it. Just those two.”
Axel rubbed his jaw. The answers he wasn’t getting weren’t helpful. “Where were you when Shelly died?”
Bo pointed to a spot on the stage. “Beside her.”
“That’s right,” I said. “I remember seeing you. Bo, you wouldn’t happen to know of anyone who wanted to hurt Shelly, do you? Anyone at all?”
Bo rubbed his sagging face. He looked exhausted, poor guy. “You heard what happened when she took the stage. People hated her. They called her a sorceress. If you want to find out who or what killed her, I suggest you start by talking to the people here.”
Axel leaned back in the chair and smoothed his hands down his jeans. The sun had set, but someone had lit orbs of witch lights around the park. It was also unseasonably warm, thanks to a spell by some of the locals. It meant we could stay outside a little while longer. After all, it was January.
“One last question,” Axel said.
“Yes?” Bo raked his fingers through his hair.
“Know anyone who uses poppets?”
Bo threw his head back and laughed. “Poppets? You’ve got to be kidding.” But when Bo searched Axel’s very serious face and found Axel not to be joking at all, his expression sobered.
“I don’t know anyone who uses them.” Bo cracked his knuckles. “That’s such old magic and never taught anymore that I don’t know the first thing about it.”
“It’s easy enough to find if you want to learn about it,” Axel said.
“I’m sure, but it’s not the sort of craft I’ve ever been interested in.” Bo leaned forward and stared at Axel. “But if you’re asking me who you should question next, the most likely person who would know about something like a poppet would be Saltz Swift, the potion master himself.”
“Why him?” I absentmindedly stroked Betty’s toad head.
Bo’s gaze flashed to me. “Because for one, he teaches at the school. He would have access to all sorts of old spell books. I’m sure plenty of them would discuss poppets, even if they aren’t taught. The other thing is that he was jealous of Shelly.”
“He was?” That was news to me.
Bo nodded. “Desperately jealous of her. When he stole her position, all the kids hated him. They despised his method of teaching. He was never able to garner their respect like she did. So he hated her.”
“Who’d you hear that from?” Axel said.
“Shelly.”
I almost rolled my eyes. Of course the person who was kicked from her job would then turn around and spew that the new guy was hated. It sounded more like Shelly was jealous of Saltz than Saltz was jealous of Shelly. Besides, Saltz still taught at the school. And what about their supposed affair? Where was that information?
“Was Shelly still teaching somewhere?” I said.
“She tutored privately,” Bo said. “She left the school a couple of years ago. They had moved her to teaching witch defense, and she didn’t enjoy it as much.”
Axel rose. “Thank you, Bo. I appreciate your help.”
“Anything else I can tell you, let me know,” Bo said. “I need to know what happened to Shelly. I loved her.”
“We want to turn Betty back into Betty,” I said.
Bo’s gaze flickered to the toad in my palms. “I wish I could help you, but like I said, I don’t know the potion. But I tell you what—I’ll look through Shelly’s things and make sure she didn’t leave a second vial somewhere. If she did, I’ll bring it to you.”
Axel handed Bo a business card. “Here’s my number.”
We left Bo and headed back to collect my box of vials. The park had thinned out, only leaving smatterings of people here and there. They were doing as I was about to—collect their potions and go. All of them. And one person had the potion we needed.
But where were they and who were they?
“Axel.” I felt a bubble of fear rise in my chest.
“Yes?”
“What are we going to do about Betty?”
He was silent. Silence was never good. It didn’t bode well for what he would say next, so it was no surprise when his next words were, “I don’t know.”
I cringed. “That’s a horrible answer. That’s like saying maybe we’ll figure it out.”
“It’s not a maybe.” His fingers slid over my palm. “We will figure it out. It’ll be fine. We’ll get Betty back to normal.”
“Are you sure?”
He stopped walking. I stopped. He turned me to face him. A strand of hair fluttered over my eyes. I really needed shorter bangs.
He brushed it away. “We will solve this. I have lots of spell books that can help.”
I grimaced. “But it wasn’t a spell that did this. It was a potion.”
“Have you tried talking to Betty?”
Wow. What a way to turn the tables. “No,” I admitted. “I haven’t even thought about it.”
“Try,” he said gently.
I stared at the toad and closed my eyes. I didn’t have to close them, but I thought it might help.
Betty? Betty, are you in there?
Silence greeted me.
Betty, can you talk to me? We need to recreate the potion that Shelly used to transform you. Can you help us?
Silence.
Do you know the recipe?
I waited, listening for any blip or even a whisper. I focused so hard I thought I might pop a blood vessel. She had to be in there. I mean, Betty could jibber jabber with the best of them. There had to be part of her that could communicate with me. Just had to be. I knew she was there. All I had to do was listen.
But still nothing.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw things. We had to help my grandmother. There was no telling where Shelly’s potion had gotten to. It could be in another state by now.
If there was one thing I’d learned about magic, it was this—the best way to break a spell was to use the original spell to do it. Trying to meddle with someone else’s magic was difficult. Meaning, trying to break a spell someone else had cast was next to impossible.
And working around it was even worse.
We needed the original spell like nobody’s business. To do that, I needed Betty to talk.
Talk to me! Betty, you’ve got to talk to me or else we can’t help you!
I waited a few more seconds and then exhaled. My shoulders slumped, and I wanted to sink onto the ground and melt. Anything would be better than facing what I was about to admit.
Anything.
Axel rubbed my shoulders. “Well? Do you have an answer?”
“Yeah, I’ve got an answer.” I didn’t even try to hide the bitterness in my voice. “I’ve got an answer and it isn’t good.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t hear Betty.” My gaze locked on Axel’s. “I can’t hear her so we can’t create the potion. She’s trapped as a toad unless we can recover it.”
SEVEN
Axel took me, my box of vials and Betty home. “I’ll search through my books tonight and see if I can find anything that will help her.”
I nodded. It was the only response I could muster. I was numb. This day had started out rough and had gone horribly wrong.
“Okay,” was all I managed.
Cordelia and Amelia had taken Hugo and Mattie home, which was good because it was late. I trudged up the porch steps, barely greeting Jennie the Guard-Vine. The plant gave the toad a good sniff before unwinding to allow us in.
A tall man with gray hair greeted me upon entering. I immediately recognized him.
“Hello. I’m Bean—Ben Vink. Bean’s my nickname.”
“Pepper Dunn.” I set the box on a table and plucked Betty out. “Where’s Amelia?”
My cousin entered from the kitchen. “Oh, Pepper, you’re home.”
“Where’s Cordelia?”
Amelia hitched a shoulder. “Upstairs. My dad heard about what happened and called.”
“I wanted to stop by, make sure the girls were all right.” Bean slid his fingers through his hair. “My brother wanted to come as well, but after Cordelia’s initial reception…well, he decided to wait it out.”
By initial reception he meant frigid response. Cordelia had made absolutely no bones about the fact that she wasn’t the least bit interested in getting to know her father. She could care less about him.
In Cordelia’s mind,
her father had abandoned her. According to her mother, however, that wasn’t exactly what had happened.
But it wasn’t my place to throw myself in the ring and get involved.
Amelia’s gaze lit on the toad. “Is that…?” She gasped. “Is that Betty?”
I nodded. “Sure as silk it is.”
“Oh no.” Amelia lifted the toad from the box. “How are we going to turn her back?”
I shook my head sadly. “I don’t know. We don’t have the potion. Axel went home to work something out. He’s hoping he can find something in one of his spell books.”
“Let’s hope.” Amelia nibbled her bottom lip. “Where would the town be without her?”
I shook my head. Tears pricked my eyes. I had no words. None.
“Well, she never liked me,” Bean said. “Amelia told me what happened to her, but I was hoping she’d be back to normal when you returned. Even though she didn’t care for me when I was younger, I had hoped she’d mellowed with age.”
“Betty mellow?” I said. “You must be thinking of another Betty Craple.”
Bean chuckled and rose. “It was nice seeing you, Amelia, but I should be off. Pepper, nice to have met you, officially.”
Amelia gave her father a stiff hug, and he left.
As soon as he was gone, I turned to her. “Are you crazy? Did Cordelia know he was here?”
Amelia shook her head. “I made sure she was asleep.”
“You mean you spelled her.”
“Not exactly. Just made her some tea that might or might not make her tired.”
“You know how she feels about her dad and uncle. She would’ve roasted him alive if she’d caught him here.”
Amelia threw up her hands. “And what about me? Don’t I get a say-so?”
“Yes, you do. But I suggest you meet up with him somewhere other than here—at least until Cordelia’s anger calms so it’s more like ashes instead of a full-on wildfire.”
“They’re my dad and uncle, too.”
I raised my hands in surrender. “I know that. I’m only trying to help.” I raked my fingers through my hair. It was all so frustrating. I wanted to strangle the air.
My gaze settled on Betty. “Anyway. This isn’t what we need to focus on. We’ve got Betty here. Betty as a toad. Let’s make her comfortable for the night. Get her some water, dirt, a box. Whatever she needs.”
