by M. J. Caan
“I didn’t. I swear I didn’t. I’ve never even met your son before. I have no idea what he and that other woman were talking about.”
“Oh, I believe you. I can tell when I’m being lied to.” Something in her tone caught Torie’s attention.
“Well, I am hopeful that if the police can identify that mystery woman on the recording, they can help solve your son’s accident.”
“Oh, that woman? That’s no mystery. That’s his cousin. She’s Hattie’s daughter. She’s as mean as my son was. Those two are always conspiring and up to no good. Bad eggs from the moment they were born. They have a special resentment for witches, so that’s probably why they were plotting about you.”
Torie looked at her, mouth hanging open.
“You…know?”
“Of course I do. I’ve lived in this town my whole life. I knew what you were the minute I met you.”
16
Before Torie could digest what Effie had just said, the back door opened and Fionna walked in. She was carrying Leo playfully in her arms, and as soon as she saw Effie, she held the dragon close. Leo saw Effie standing there in her nightgown and began to squirm and hiss.
“Oh, is that your cat again?” asked the older woman. “May I please pet him?” She held out her hand in Leo’s general direction and took a small shuffling step towards them.
“Uh, maybe not just yet,” said Torie, motioning for Fionna to take him back outside. “He takes a while to warm up to people.”
“Of course. Finicky little beasts those cats are,” said Effie.
Again, Torie noticed the difference in the older woman. While her steps were shuffling, she seemed far steadier than she had previously. The tremor in her arms was gone and there was something very alert in her eyes and features as she spoke. Torie made a mental note to have Glen come check her later in the day.
Fionna quickly darted back out the door, one arm around Leo’s struggling body, her other hand over his snout, as tiny wisps of smoke could be seen escaping between her fingers.
“Effie, what else do you know about this town?” asked Torie. She walked over to the woman and gently took her arm, leading her to a seat at the kitchen island. “Would you like some tea? I was just about to have a cup.”
“That sounds lovely, dear,” she said, settling into her seat.
Torie poured two cups of steaming water and added two teabags. “I’m sorry, I only have Earl Grey, but I’ll add a bit of lemon and honey if you’d like.”
“Oh no thank you. I don’t like to dilute anything I put into my body.”
Torie paused at the woman’s turn of phrase, but then slid the cup to Effie, watching as she slowly picked it up, placing one tentative fingertip into the brew to gauge how full the cup was before taking a sip.
“Oh, this is excellent, Torie.”
Torie took a sip of her own tea before diving back into the topic that had left her momentarily speechless.
“So, Effie, what do you know about Singing Falls?”
“Well, I know the average yearly temperature, the shops that are tourist traps, and when it was founded, if that is what you mean.”
Torie frowned. “No, that isn’t what I meant. You said you knew I was a witch. What else do you know?”
“Oh that.” Her tone sounded almost dismissive. “If you mean do I know that there are all kinds of creatures living here in town, walking around in human form, then yes, I know all about that. But they’ve always been nice to us here in town, so I was always of the mindset, live and let live.”
That was good for Torie to hear, especially since her other houseguests consisted of a werewolf and a squirrel shifter.
“And it doesn’t bother you? What I am?”
Effie took another sip, shaking her head. “Not at all, dear. Witches are people too, right? I mean, you’re not like those half-human creatures.”
There it was again. The tone that Torie had noticed that would sometimes sneak into the elder woman’s voice.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say such things. I’ve lived here all my life and I love this town. It’s been good to me. Just that lately, there seem to be so many half breed creatures.”
“Half breed?” queried Torie, not liking the older woman’s choice of words.
“You know; half human and half animal. At least that’s how they were explained to me all those years ago.”
“Well, that isn’t exactly the truth. They are called shifters. They are members of the supernatural community that can change forms; from human form to whatever their animal shape may be.”
“So…half and half.”
Torie pursed her lips. “Well, the way you say it is kind of demeaning, I think. Like saying someone who is of two races is a…half-breed.”
Now it was Effie who frowned. “But isn’t that what they are?”
Torie wasn’t about to wade into that and decided to change the subject, trying to hide her annoyance. “What can you tell me about your niece? The woman that your son was on the phone with?”
Effie huffed, and Torie was pretty sure that if her eyes weren’t milky gray, she would have seen them roll back into her head at the mention.
“Her name is Tilda. She is Hattie’s daughter and only a year younger than my Terry. Growing up, they were always inseparable those two. Always together plotting something.”
“So, you grew up with your sister? Here in Singing Falls?”
“Yes, that is correct. We were both born here. We both married young, probably too young. Nothing good came of those relationships, however, and they didn’t last. I guess most people would say that if we hadn’t gotten married neither of us would have had them kids. So some people might say that was a blessing. Some people.
“But anyway, we raised them here, doing the best we could. But those two were always up to no good. They were always so jealous, trying to fit in where they couldn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“With the townsfolk. You know, if you see something every day long enough, and you constantly think it’s better than you, eventually you start to want to be like it.” She paused, sipping her coffee, her gray eyes peering far off into a black distance. “That was always Terry and Tilda. Wanting to be what they never could be. Most folks in town didn’t know about all the supernaturals running around; but we did. We had a maid that was a half-bre— I’m sorry, shifter. She tried to hide it but one day we caught her, changing into a fox and slipping out the back to go play in the woods with her kind.
“When Hattie confronted her, she admitted to what she was. That was when we found out about more of their kind all over town. And the kids knew, because they were in school with some of the offspring of these…shifters. So they were exposed to it early on. And that was when the seeds of jealousy started to be sown in their hearts. They wanted to be able to turn into animals too, couldn’t figure out why they couldn’t. We told them it was because they weren’t born to it; they were born from us and we were pure human.
“I think that was when they started to resent us for not being able to give them something no one should have.”
Torie was shocked at what she was hearing. She had always seen the supernatural community and the humans of Singing Falls living together in harmony. Other than the few isolated incidents over the last few months, the town seemed to be nicely integrated. But what Effie was saying made her believe that there was an underlying current of distrust beneath the calm veneer.
“So, did your children ever act on their jealousy?”
“Oh, they tried. They’d bully some of the smaller children, but one time Tilda’s smart mouth got her nipped by a coyote pup. You’d think that would have taught her a lesson, but no. You know what those two did after she got bit?
“They sat around in Tilda’s room for a month, waiting to see if she’d turn to a coyote on the next full moon. Their plan was, if she changed, she was then going to bite Terry and make him one too.”
Effie laughed at a memory that
Torie found sad and unsettling.
“They had no idea how it worked. None of us did. Still, the older they got, the more disturbing their behavior became. They became obsessed with that part of the community. And when they were teens, that’s when they discovered that witches lived among us, and that opened a whole new world to them.
“They figured they could learn magic and eventually find a way to turn into animals.” She shook her head, recounting the tale. “That’s when we knew it was time to take action. We didn’t know anything about your kind. But Hattie found some of the books they were studying. Black conjuring; magic practices that would chill your soul. We decided the best thing to do would be to separate them. So Hattie moved out west with Tilda, and I stayed here with Terry. We hoped that would stop all the nonsense, and it did. For a while.
“Tilda was always the leader of the two of them, so without her influence, Terry got in line quick and let all that supernatural nonsense go. But then recently, before he locked me away, I would catch him on the phone whispering to someone late at night and I knew who it was. I confronted him, and that was when…well, that was what got me remanded to my room.”
“I am so sorry, Effie. I can’t imagine what you must have been through.”
She shrugged. “It’s a good test; being given more than we think we can handle.”
“Effie, do you remember any more about what happened? What led your son to…do what he did with you? When we found you, you seemed rather out of it.”
There was a glint to the older woman’s eyes that told Torie she had indeed remembered something.
“Yes, my wits are coming back to me. I was so tired and hungry when you found me. But yes, now I remember. Terry was saying that he had found something. That he had a collection of some sort that would grant him everything he and Tilda could ever want. He just needed one more thing to make it complete.”
Torie shivered, thinking of the contents of the gilded boxes.
“Do you know what that one thing was?”
Effie shook her head. “Not at all. Truth is, I didn’t want to know. I wanted no part of it, and I told him as much. I told him I was going to call Hattie and tell her what was going on as well, and he became very upset at that. That was when he locked me in my room. I tried knocking on the door, constantly pleading with him to let me out. He was afraid that someone would hear me so one day he put me in my bed and read some weird words out of a book. That was the last thing I remember…until I woke up with you and your friends.”
Torie was nodding. Somehow, the mayor had figured out a way to cast a spell and had used it to bound his own mother to her bed.
“Thank you, Effie. You’ve helped me a lot.”
“Oh, it’s no bother. I like having someone to talk to, and you’ve been so nice to me.”
“Well, you’re welcome and yes, I have to admit it’s been nice having you to talk with as well. I miss that.”
She stopped, her voice trailing off. It was the first time she had admitted to herself that the reason she liked having Effie around so much was because she reminded Torie of her own mother. She would give anything to be able to speak with her again, and the fact that the mayor had done this to his mother made Torie’s blood boil.
“Well, Effie, I’m going to call my friend Jasmin with this news, and then I’m going to call Glen over to check on you. Is that okay?”
“You mean that nice lady doctor? Of course. I like her.”
“Glen isn’t a doctor, but she’s great at what she does. She and Fionna make an amazing couple.”
Effie’s eyes grew wide in surprise. “Couple? As in…you mean they are…together?”
“Yes, and they are very happy.”
Effie scrunched up her nose and her mouth twisted to one side. “Just be sure she wears gloves.” She pushed her cup away and held out her arm. “Could you be so kind as to help me back to my room?”
Her remark had struck a nerve with Torie, but she didn’t say anything. Effie was older and came from a different generation, she reminded herself. She could only imagine the changes the elder woman had been a part of in her lifetime. Some things were probably easier for her to accept. Still, she made a mental note to talk all this over with Jasmin.
She helped Effie back to her room, made sure she was comfortable, and headed back into the kitchen, her mind still processing all that she had been told.
The sun was high in the sky when she stepped out onto the patio. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, just a swath of blue as far as she could see. It was shaping up to be another perfect, Carolina day.
There was a commotion to her right, and she turned to see Leo giving playful chase to Fionna. She had shifted to her squirrel form, and the two of them were racing around the furniture playing what looked like a game of supernatural tag. She laughed as they raced up to her, Fionna shifting back to human. She stood next to Torie, bending over to place her hands on her knees as she caught her breath.
“This little guy has way more energy than I do,” she said.
Leo sprinted up Torie’s arm to rest on her shoulder, his tail whipping lazily about.
“Good job wearing him out. What say we go put him down in my room, and then see what’s keeping Jasmin and Max.”
Fionna agreed and they all went back into the house. Just as they were about to head to Torie’s master suite, the front door opened at the same time they heard the garage door open. Jasmin walked in from the front and Max and Elion entered from the back.
“Finally,” said Torie. “You’re not going to believe what I found out.”
“And you’re not going to believe what we found,” said Max. He greeted the women just as Elric came down the stairs to join them. “We found out what really happened to the mayor. He was definitely murdered. By a supernatural.”
17
Before more could be said, Torie held a finger to her lips. She walked down the corridor to Effie’s room and peeked in on the sleeping woman. Then, she eased the door closed and headed back to her guests.
“We have to keep it down. Effie has ears like a bat and knows a lot more about what’s going on than we gave her credit for.”
“What do you mean?” asked Jasmin. “How much more?”
“Well, she knows I’m a witch for one thing, and she knows about shifters living in the town for another.”
No one said anything as they all headed into the large kitchen.
“Here, give me Leo,” said Fionna, lifting him from Torie’s shoulder. “I’m going to go and put him away. I have a sneaking suspicion that this conversation is about to take a turn I’m not anxious to hear.”
She gave Elion a look that let him know she still was not comfortable in his presence before leaving the room.
“I don’t think I will ever win that one over,” said Elion.
“That one? You haven’t won this one over yet,” said Jasmin, giving him a steely glance. “But what were you able to find out about the mayor, and why do you think his killer was a member of the supernatural community?”
“I did not say the killer was a member of your community. I just said that they were a supernatural. The mayor was poisoned as we suspected. The residual amount in his tissue sample was one I recognized but have not come across in many centuries.”
Something about the way he said ‘tissue sample’ made Torie’s stomach turn over.
“So, what is it?” she asked.
“It is a derivative of the Colombian poisonous tree frog,” said Elion. “They are beautiful animals that secrete a poison so lethal that it can kill an adult man almost instantly.”
“So, you’re saying he was killed by…a frog shifter?” said Elric.
“No. I said the poison is derived from the frog. But it has been greatly enhanced to do what it did to the mayor. It was a controlled dose that was time delayed in its action. The poison itself was far more powerful than what would occur in the frogs. It came from something that shares the frog’s DNA structure but has evolv
ed in a completely different manner. Plus, as I said, it was time delayed and targeted only to interact with the man’s brain so as to appear he died of natural causes. That implies the manipulation of some form of magics.”
No one said anything as the information Elion had just laid on them seeped in.
“Elion, were you able to determine how long the delay was?” asked Jasmin.
The vampire shook his head. “Not exactly. But judging from the way the toxin is breaking down, I would say it was injected into the mayor about twelve hours before his death.”
“So, we are looking for someone with access to poison from a creature that we have no idea what it could be and the means to magically control it. Great,” said Jasmin. “Where do we even start with that?”
“Well, maybe it ties in to what I found out,” said Torie. “I found out who the mystery woman on the phone is. Her name is Tilda, and she is Effie’s niece. She’s the daughter of her sister, Hattie.”
She let that sink in before continuing.
“And get this. She’s a bad seed who is obsessed with magic and shifters.”
“Whoa,” said Jasmin, pulling up a seat. “Why don’t you start from the beginning and tell us everything you learned.”
Ten minutes later, Torie had relayed her conversation with Effie, minus certain parts relating to terms that the elder woman used for certain members of the community.
“Well, things just got a little more interesting,” said Jasmin. “So, we’re looking for the mayor’s cousin. Do you think she is in town?”
“My guess is yes,” said Max. “If they were planning something, then it makes sense.”
“But if that were the case, why would she not have been with the mayor? From what Effie said, they were pretty much inseparable,” answered Torie.
“First things first. We can’t find her if we don’t even know what she looks like. I don’t remember seeing any family photos at all when we were at the mayor’s, do you?” Jasmin looked to Torie.
“No, now that you mention it. But it’s probably time that we tell everyone what we did find.”
