Ghostly Garlic

by Ami Diane

  Two people exited the vehicle and approached the warehouse nearest them.

  Libby, Marge, and Max stole up the dock. The sound of their footsteps over the damp planks was dulled by the water lapping at the pylons below. By some stroke of luck, the entrance the AWC members were aiming for was on the south side of the building, visible from their angle.

  When the two members drew near, Marge made an abrupt turn and looked out over the bay. She lazily tugged at one of the crab pot lines, as if she’d been there for hours. Meanwhile, Libby had taken to leaning against the railing, holding Max’s leash, with an expression of boredom on her face.

  “Like I was saying,” Marge began loudly, “you got to bait with raw chicken. A nice head of salmon will do the trick, too.”

  The two members, both men, shot the duo wary glances but didn’t engage. Libby made a point of ignoring them and bent to pet Max, softly telling the canine to be sure to sniff the new humans.

  As the coalition members ducked into the building, she caught their profiles. Neither looked familiar. She asked Marge who they were.

  “One’s a grocer at the supermarket, but I don’t know his name. Not sure who the other person was.”

  “What about Max? Did he recognize their scent?”

  After listening intently to the various sounds Max produced, Marge shook her head. It was strange for Libby to hear the whines, sniffs, and grunts from the animal, yet not have the words interpreted in her head.

  They didn’t have to wait long for more members to arrive. At first, they trickled through the door, sparing a glance at the strange fisherwomen nearby. However, as it came closer to eleven o’clock, several arrived at once.

  His tail wagging, Max managed to pick up all of their scents, one after another. None of them was Bea’s killer.

  There were a few familiar faces, none of which Libby could attach a name to, with the exception of Marty. He scuttled towards the door, his head on a swivel, obviously searching for them.

  His eyes snagged on the duo in their disguises, and confusion clouded his face before he recognized Max. The journalist yelped as if bitten and darted through the dark doorway. If it weren’t for the fact that he was more terrified of his counterparts than he was of the potionists, she would be concerned he’d give them away.

  When an older gentleman around Marge’s age ambled near, his shoes dusting the ground in a lazy lope, the apothecary hissed under her breath.

  “That slimy, sleazy, good for nothing—”

  “What?” Libby asked, dividing her attention between the stranger and Marge. “Who is that?”

  “Ol’ Tom.”

  It took a moment for the name to shake loose from their recent conversation. “Your mechanic?”

  “The very one.” Softly, Marge made a noise that wasn’t unlike a growl which drew a curious look from Max. “Well, he’ll get no more business from me.”

  Libby turned away and coughed to cover a smile then said seriously, “Try to see it from their perspective. We can do things that look like magic to those outside our circle.”

  “And that justifies their actions?”

  “No,” she replied tentatively, “but it’s something to keep in mind. They aren’t completely wrong in thinking potion-making is dangerous.

  “You said it yourself: there are bad potionists out there. I mean, look at the sort of trouble you and I get into, and we have the best intentions.” Images of their afternoon spent slipping a potion into Bruce’s coffee flashed through her mind. “Okay, mostly good intentions. But I’m imagining the damage someone with ill intentions could do…” She shivered.

  Marge agreed, albeit reluctantly. “There have been a few over the years who have done some awful things, like kill a roomful of people. So far, our community’s been lucky and been able to cover it up, like telling the media it was a cult and such. Of course, it’s more challenging to explain away when there aren’t bodies, in the case of Mallory Jenkins a few years back turning her knitting club into bunnies. That was a bit tougher to invent a backstory to.”

  “I’m sorry, what now?”

  Marge’s hand flew to Libby’s arm, her fingers digging in. Libby followed the woman’s wide-eyed gaze. At the side of the warehouse, a figure in a tan uniform strode confidently to the door. Libby’s breath caught in her chest, and time stood still. Jackson was one of them?

  As the figure turned to open the door, she caught sight of a paunch and leathered skin. The breath hissed from her lungs, and she felt her blood pressure dropping.

  Marge’s mouth hung agape, and she stared at the building long after Sheriff Cooper had gone inside.

  “You didn’t know he was one of them?”

  Marge shook her head. “We’ve suspected for a while that someone in law enforcement must be a member, but I never thought it’d be the sheriff.”

  “You don’t think he knows Millie is one of us, do you?” Surely they knew who all of the members of the Potion Master Society were. “Oh, gosh. He’s probably been watching her this whole time. Marty had said they follow us to our meetings. That’s how they know the locations. What if he’s following her?”

  “Easy, Red. I bet he likes having one of us closes to keep tabs on us.” But the way the dim light caught the apothecary’s hands kneading her jacket belied her words. “This is not good. Not good at all. We have to tell the others.”

  “Later. Right now, let’s focus on Max. Was the sheriff’s scent familiar?”

  The dog, whose nose had been twitching in the air, made a few whining noises.

  “No,” Marge interpreted.

  Libby’s shoulders slumped. So far, their evening had been bust, at least in terms of trying to identify the killer. In terms of visiting the creepier part of town and gathering AWC intelligence, it was a notch in the win category. They now knew the faces of at least fifteen coalition members.

  After fifteen minutes lapsed with nobody showing up, Libby glanced at the time on her phone. The meeting started a half-hour ago.

  “I doubt anybody else is coming,” Marge said.

  “Strange that only half showed up.” A breath later, Libby added, “I wish we knew what they were saying.” The words slipped out before she remembered who she was with. “Wait, no—Marge!”

  The woman was already tiptoeing forward. Muttering profanities under her breath, Libby brought up the rear, and Max’s nails clicked over the wood behind her. Ahead, Marge zig-zagged in a serpentine pattern, moving from hiding spot to hiding spot, while Libby strode in a straight line, shaking her head.

  The building sagged as if it had just let out a great sigh. A couple of times, a gust of wind beat the opposite side, and she could swear she heard it groan.

  When they reached the shadow of the building, Libby fumbled along in the dark for a broken window or crack in the metal, anything that would afford them a peek inside. Beside her, Marge pressed her ear to the wall.

  She frowned. “It’s too thick. I can’t hear anything.”

  “What about the potion?”

  “What potion?”

  “The…” Libby made several hand gestures in the air, some of which even she didn’t know the meaning, ending with a telephone to the ear. “That telephone one you told me about. With the string and the tin cans, only there are actual bugs instead of cans—which I still don’t understand the purpose of, but whatever.”

  “Telephone.”

  “Yeah, that.” Libby turned her palm up, expectantly.

  “Oh, I don’t have it. That’s Caroline’s recipe. That blasted woman won’t share it, only brags about it.”

  Dropping her hand, Libby crept a few paces away and located a cracked window approximately fifteen feet up. Voices poured out, but their words were muffled.

  She beckoned Marge over then searched for something to stand on. A stack of pallets teetered several yards over, but they were broken and would make too much noise if moved.

  Bottles clicked in Marge’s handbag as she rooted around inside. A
moment later, she brought out a small glowing elixir and squeezed out two drops—one in each of her ears.

  She handed it to Libby to do the same. Libby hesitated only a moment before deciding that if Marge hadn’t had a reaction yet, then she was probably safe. It felt like warm wax squirming through her ear canals.

  Pressure built in her eardrums akin to riding in an airplane climbing to a higher altitude. Her ears popped when she yawned, and the pressure stopped.

  What followed were the most intense sounds she had ever experienced. A distant buoy on the bay was like a foghorn. Marge’s breathing sounded like a radiator on its last leg. The drip of Max’s saliva was equivalent to the percussion section of a marching band.

  The onslaught was a sensory overload and resulted in Libby covering her ears, praying to go deaf. Even with her ears still covered, Marge’s whispering beside hit at a volume that sent her reeling.

  “You hear what they just said?” Concern etched the older woman’s features.

  Libby had been so distracted by her heightened sense that she’d momentarily forgotten the reason for it. The elixir most likely brought Marge’s hearing, who was half-deaf without the potion, to within nominal range, whereas it had intensified hers to nearly unbearable.

  Slowly, Libby pried a finger at a time away until she could parse out words from inside the building while still blocking out the ambient noise of the night.

  “…doesn’t feel it’s safe to come tonight,” one of the AWC members was saying. “The hacks in my department are watching him.”

  Marge mouthed that that was the sheriff’s voice. Most likely, he was talking about Brent. Libby peeled away another finger from each ear.

  “Your guys don’t think he had something to do with that witch’s death, do they?”

  “A couple of them do,” the sheriff replied. “But I’ve ordered them to cast a wider net, so to speak.”

  “Them devil worshipers are trying to bring down a good man,” someone countered.

  Libby worshiping the devil was news to her, and she tucked this information away in case she needed to use it at a later date, like drawing pentagrams to scare them away.

  A murmur of agreement arose.

  “Can you do anything, Sheriff?” By the pinch in Marge’s expression, Libby guessed the voice belonged to her mechanic, Ol’ Tom.

  “Not without looking suspicious myself.”

  “I wonder who really offed the old broad,” another said. This was met by a chorus of chuckles.

  Libby’s hands, which were still partially covering her ears, curled into fists. Marge flipped the wall off in the general direction of the coalition members.

  “It was probably one of their own.”

  “Well,” Sheriff Cooper cut in, “they can kill each other off for all I care. But make no mistake, gentlemen, it’s getting serious. This is a silent war, being fought in the trenches of our homes, our churches, and our businesses. The group must be stopped.”

  A round of “here, here” followed this statement.

  “The death of that old coot, although not unwelcome, is a setback. Brent reported that she had been close to a breakthrough.”

  There was shuffling of feet and a few murmurs.

  “How’s that?”

  Someone cleared their throat. “Some of us aren’t comfortable with using their magic. We think it opens the door to the devil.”

  The sheriff cleared his nose, and something wet splat on the ground. The noise made Libby’s stomach roil, and she was grateful she couldn’t see them at the moment.

  “And I told you, we may not like it, but we need that potion. We’re limited now in our observations, but imagine if they couldn’t see us. They wouldn’t know we followed them to their hidden labs. In one fell swoop, we could destroy their witchcraft and dismantle their network once and for all.”

  Libby swallowed. Not only was the group that was so against potion-making planning to use a potion to destroy PMS, but the very fact that they didn’t have the potion nor know Beatrice had actually succeeded in brewing it informed her they didn’t know who the killer was. Based on Marge’s strained expression, a similar thought had occurred to her.

  But what if one of them had done the deed and hadn’t confessed it to the group? Of course, that would be something to brag about, wouldn’t it?

  Thinking, she glanced down at Max. According to his nose, none of the members had had the killer’s scent.

  Although sheltered by the warehouse, the wind coming in from the ocean sent a chill through her sweatshirt. She was considering calling it a night and retreating with their crabbing gear when an SUV pulled past the building. It parked on the north side which Libby thought strange since the warehouse entrance was on the south side.

  Her ears pricked up, listening to the distant footsteps of the driver as they approached the building. Instead of circling to the south side, the man stopped at the north side, and the sound of a door opening on rusty hinges groaned in the night.

  Libby’s eyes widened, and she whispered, “There’s another entrance?”

  Marge swore. “Were you counting how many went in this way?”

  Libby shook her head. “Maybe a dozen?”

  Based on Marty’s offhand comment about the group’s number and her rough estimation of how many had used the southern entrance, it was highly probable that others had entered the old building unseen via this new entrance. This meant Max hadn’t smelled all of the members.

  She worried her lip. “I need to see inside to know how many we missed.”

  “It’s too dangerous.”

  Libby looked up and down the length of oxidized corrugated metal that consisted of the outside of the warehouse. The handful of windows were all approximately fifteen feet off the ground.

  Would it be too risky to peek through the door?

  She decided it would be incredibly stupid, but it was the only way to know how many they’d overlooked. Marge must’ve seen the decision on her face because she stopped Libby.

  She held a finger up before unzipping her monstrous purse. Weedy light from the distant street lamp glinted off a glass vial, but Libby recognized the label.

  Defying Gravity.

  Looking from the benign liquid to the window high above, she wrestled with several thoughts. How would she get back down? What’s to stop her from floating away like the table had? Above all of these, though, was the curiosity of what it might be like to fly.

  As she grabbed for it, Marge danced it out of reach. With a warning glare, she breathed out, “Just three drops. No more. I really don’t know how it’ll interact with all of this.” She waved her hand at Libby’s appearance, emphasizing her profoundly enlarged nose.

  Libby nodded and swiped the potion. It tasted vile, like earwax and ash.

  “What-why did you drink it?” Marge stared at her. “It’s supposed to be topical.”

  Too late did Libby recall the apothecary instructing Shelly to put a single drop on her skin. “Oh, yeah. That’s good because it tastes like—” what it tasted like, Marge would never know because Libby’s feet left the ground.

  Her jaw clamped shut to muffle a scream as her arms wheeled about for some semblance of control. Quick as a flick, Marge grabbed Libby’s foot—largely due to the fact that Libby had just kicked her in the head than any quick reflexes.

  “Hold on to something,” Marge was saying, searching their surroundings.

  “To what?” Libby hissed. Her arms swam through the air to emphasize her point.

  “Hm, right.” Keeping a firm grip on Libby, Marge inspected their vicinity but quickly gave up her search. Then, she snapped her fingers and jogged over to their crabbing gear, pulling Libby through the air.

  It took some finagling, but she managed to maintain her hold on Libby while tying off a crab line to her foot. The material was thicker than fishing line, but that didn’t quell Libby’s fear that it would break.

  For added strength, the apothecary doubled it. Satisfied, she
released Libby to float freely over her head. She gave a smirk.

  “Are you enjoying yourself?” Libby’s voice was at least two octaves higher than normal.

  “Very much.” Guiding her like a balloon at a carnival, Marge pulled her towards the warehouse, humming under her breath.

  “I hate you so much right now.”

  It required several breaths and even more swear words before Libby breathed in a way that wouldn’t cause hyperventilation. The ride felt like swimming but without any control, much how she imagined astronauts felt in zero gravity.

  When they reached the building, Marge fed out the line until Libby floated near the broken window. Libby groped her fingers along the wall to guide her to the sill which was still out of reach a few inches above her head.

  Looking down, Libby whispered, “A little higher.”

  Marge let out the remaining line, stood on her tiptoes, and held up her arm, giving Libby every bit of slack she could.

  Grime-covered glass from the partially broken window obscured her view, so she fixated on the jagged hole roughly the size of her head. Stale air poured out as she squinted into the darkness.

  Flashlights bobbed about in a moving dusk. The men stood in a loose circle, their faces illuminated, their backs in shadow.

  She quickly counted eighteen. Accounting for Brent—who was absent—and a few who probably couldn’t make it, she guessed Max had missed sniffing out six members.

  She searched their faces. Those who’d come through the south entrance had done so in poor lighting, and she’d made an effort not to be obvious by staring at them. However, she was able to identify the dozen she’d seen enter based on their clothing. This affirmed her original estimation that they’d missed six.

  Her grip tightened on the sill. How could they get Max to smell these other members?

  A blinding light shot pain in her retinas as a flashlight pointed directly at her.

  “What the—someone’s out there!”

  Libby ducked, but it was too late. “Marge, run!”