by Zoe Arden
"Ava, what's he talking about?" Eleanor asked, looking at me. Her eyes had narrowed and a deep line ran across the bridge of her nose.
"Um," I said, bouncing on my feet like Trixie. I had no idea that the sheriff would find out the wand I'd given him wasn't mine so quickly.
"Ava, you don't want to get your Aunt Eleanor in trouble, do you? The wand is registered in her name?" The look in Sheriff Knoxx's eyes implored me to confess.
Aunt Eleanor? My breath caught in my chest. I'd lost the wand, not her. Everyone was looking at me. I took a deep breath and exhaled.
"That's not my wand," I confessed.
Eleanor's mouth fell open, and Trixie began cheeping like a baby chicken.
"What do you mean that's not your wand?" Eleanor asked. "I saw you give it to the sheriff last night."
"Yeah..." I said, looking around the room. Tootsie entered from the back and sat watching me with his large gray and green eyes. He raised one paw and motioned for me to go on.
"I found it," I finally told them. I didn't want to get Lucy into trouble. I'd already ruined our friendship, but that didn't mean I couldn't at least cushion her part in all of this.
Sheriff Knoxx took a step toward me. My first instinct was to back away, but I held my ground. For the first time since meeting him, I realized how gray his skin was. Smooth but gray. Like a dull toaster.
"You found it?" he asked with such skepticism I wondered whether or not goblins could read minds.
"That's right," I said, daring him to question me. I hoped I sounded braver than I felt.
"When?"
"The other day," I said, trying to be as vague as possible.
"Wait a second! Wait one cream-whipping second!" Trixie yelled. She raised one hand in the air like a student answering a question. "Ava, if that's not your wand, then whose is it?"
"Lucy Lockwood," the sheriff answered for me.
"Lucy!" Trixie and Eleanor cried together.
"Ava, where's your wand?" Eleanor asked.
My throat went dry as dust. "I-I... I lost it." I'd never had such a hard time getting words out before. I felt like I'd let my aunts down.
"When?" Trixie asked.
"The day I arrived," I said, lowering my eyes so I wouldn't have to see their disappointment. "I'm sorry. I didn't know you could get in trouble for it."
"Oh, Ava. You should have told us," Eleanor said, patting my shoulder. "We could have run a trace charm. But those only work within the first twenty-four hours of losing something. After that, they're useless."
Tears began to well in my eyes.
Sheriff Knoxx stepped close enough to me so that I could smell the garlic heavy on his breath. What had he been eating?
"It's very convenient that you happened to lose your wand when a wand was most likely used to kill both David Buyers and Campbell Price."
"I thought you said David died from cake poisoning," I cried.
Sheriff Knoxx stuttered. "W-well, yes, at the time, that was how it appeared."
"And how does it appear now?" Trixie asked, her voice dripping with acrimony.
"That a very inexperienced witch cast a spell incorrectly... or a very powerful witch cast a spell perfectly."
"Make some sense," Trixie yelled. "One minute you say Ava's miscasting spells. The next you say she's casting them perfectly. Which is it?"
"Dr. Dunne has ruled out cake poisoning. For now. All he's been able to find in Campbell Price's stomach was love potion cake. That alone shouldn't have killed him. There are signs that someone may have used a lunacy spell."
Trixie and Eleanor gasped.
"While that type of spell wouldn't kill a witch or wizard, a human is another matter altogether," Knoxx said.
"So, Ava's cakes aren't killing people!" Eleanor cried, exchanging a relieved look with Trixie that wasn't exactly flattering. They hadn't really thought I was responsible... had they?
"We're not ruling anything out just yet. Dr. Dunne is checking to see if David Buyers also had love potion cake in his system. If so, we may have found a link between their deaths. In the meantime, wandistics has come back telling me that Lucy's wand was definitely not the murder weapon."
"Good, then I can just give this back to Lucy," I said, reaching for the wand.
"I'll give it to Ms. Lockwood," the sheriff said. "I have a few questions for her as well. In the meantime, I intend to locate your own wand. Your real wand. So far, we have two human deaths, and the one who stands to gain the most from it is you."
"Me?" I asked. "I barely knew David and Campbell."
"It doesn't matter. They're human. And you are the only one I know with a clear grudge against humans."
"What are you talking about? What grudge?"
I saw Eleanor and Trixie's eyes widen. Their mouths were moving before I heard their voice. "Sheriff Knoxx," Eleanor said. "Please, we haven't—"
I cut her off, too irritated with Sheriff Knoxx to care. "Why would I have a grudge against humans?" I demanded.
He cocked his head to one side. "Don't you know? Ms. Rose... it was a human who murdered your mother."
* * *
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
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* * *
He's not breathing. …
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I stayed in the back room all the next morning, refusing to come out even when Trixie made a plate of triple-fudge tranquility brownies and left them sitting on the front counter.
Around noon, Eleanor and Trixie both came back there, where I was still going over Magical Herbs and Plants: Volume 1.
"Ava," Eleanor said softly.
I'd been so engrossed in reading up on boxie quills that I hadn't even heard them come in. Apparently, boxie was one of the deadliest plants in existence. The reason they were so coveted was because of the pearls I'd seen growing from the purple stem. Inside each pearl was a tiny seed. When ground up, that seed could supply you with almost limitless power.
But there was a catch.
The type of power it supplied differed for each person. For one witch, it could mean the limitless ability to read people's minds. For another, it could be the ability to breathe underwater. For some unlucky witch or wizard, it could simply mean the ability to sneeze at one hundred miles per hour.
The boxie extract that had to be created from the seeds could only be handled by the most powerful of witches. Only five in existence had ever been known to use boxie quill without any negative side effects.
"Ava," Trixie said again, louder this time.
"Oh!" I jumped in my seat, forgetting for the moment I was mad at them. "What are you two doing back here? It's noon. Isn't the lunch rush on?"
Eleanor and Trixie shook their heads sadly. "Business has been a bit... slow today," Eleanor said.
"How slow?" I asked. They exchanged a look. Clearly, they didn't want to tell me.
"Can't you trust me enough to be honest with me? First, you hide my mother's murder from me, now you won't even tell me how business is. A business that you want me to be a part of."
Eleanor's cheeks reddened. "We've had one customer so far."
I stared dumbfounded. "You mean, like one this lunch hour?"
She shook her head. "No. One customer... today."
My jaw hit the floor. "Oh, my roses. Your customers hate me!"
I slammed the book shut and jumped off the stool.
"They don't hate you. And it's not your fault!" Eleanor cried. "Sweetland Cove is just naturally distrustful of newcomers."
"Yeah. Especially when that newcomer is the harbinger of death."
"You know, trust works both ways," Trixie said.
I stopped pacing the room and looked at her.
"You didn't trust Eleanor and me enough to tell us you'd lost your wand. Maybe you can trust us enough to believe it when we say the business will be all right."
My face flushed. "I was embarrassed. It was my first day on the isla
nd. I didn't know either of you very well yet. I didn't know how you'd react."
"We understand," Eleanor said. "But if you're going to be staying with us... indefinitely... we all need to open up a bit more, I think."
I nodded my agreement. "So, can I ask you something then?"
"Of course," Eleanor said. "Anything."
"Where did you disappear to at the party the other day? After Campbell collapsed. And why do you have boxie quills in your shop when they're so deadly?"
"Boxie quills?" Trixie asked, looking alarmed.
I could tell I'd asked the two questions they had least expected. And least wished for.
Eleanor cleared her throat. "Ava, Trixie and I—"
The bell chimed above the front door.
"A customer!" Trixie cried and grabbed Eleanor's arm. They ran from the room before I could ask anything else.
What are they hiding?
I sighed and opened my book again. A moment later, Trixie poked her head through the door.
"Ava," she said hurriedly. "Margaret Binford is here."
"Who?"
"Margaret Binford. She heads the Sweetland Cove branch of the Witch's Council. She's here with Lottie and Paisley Mudget. They have urgent witch business. Can you watch the counter for us?"
"Sure," I said, gladly setting the book aside.
Out front, a woman in her fifties with snow-white hair and deep violet eyes looked me up and down. "So she's the one people are in such a fuss over," she said as if I wasn't even in the room.
"Ava, this is Margaret Binford."
"Hello," I said. Even though this woman was throwing daggers at me, my father had brought me up to be polite.
Margaret was flanked on either side by two women in matching green dresses. They were both about forty with large bulbous noses and stood no more than five feet three inches high. I had to blink twice before I realized I wasn't seeing double. I was looking at twins. As Margaret moved toward the door, they followed suit.
"Are you coming, Eleanor? Trixie?"
My aunts threw me an apologetic look and followed the women outside. I had to remember to find out more about this Witch's Council. If they could make Trixie and Eleanor drop everything, they must wield a lot of power.
I stood leaning against the counter, inhaling the scents of vanilla, cinnamon, and chocolate. Tootsie and Rocky had stayed home today, so I was alone in the store. It was only a few minutes before my mind began wondering.
What was it that Eleanor and Trixie were still hiding from me? They'd managed to evade my questions about the boxie quills and their whereabouts at the party—for now—but that didn't mean the answers weren't here, waiting for me to discover them.
I began opening drawers and cupboards, not entirely sure what I was looking for, only knowing there had to be something to explain their secretiveness. Hiding my mother's death had been one thing. I didn't like it, but I could at least understand it. They were just trying to protect me. But leaving the party? And the boxie quills?
My head snapped up.
Boxie quills.
Was it possible I'd been mistaken? Had I seen something that only resembled a boxie quill? Or perhaps they'd gotten a special order from a witch who was trying to harness the plant's power. Maybe if I could find their catering book, it would give me some answers.
I went into the back room, grabbed the bakery's catering register from its place on Eleanor's desk, and took it back out front. I opened it to the first page.
"One wedding cake," I read. "White with peonies and happy extract."
The second line recorded an order for two dozen trays of Heaven on Earth cookies for a charity event. The third a blueberry cake with waist-slimming extract and vanilla buttercream frosting.
There was one line I had to read five times to make sure I was understanding correctly.
"Tomato cupcakes with black pepper frosting?" I muttered. "Ew."
I scanned each line, looking for the magic words that would help me fit everything into place, but there was nothing.
The bell above the door chimed. I looked up, expecting to see Trixie and Eleanor, and instead found myself looking into sapphire eyes that stood against a backdrop of soft, golden skin.
"Damon!" I said, then blushed at my outburst. I'd just been surprised to see him. I put on my best smile and went around the counter to greet him.
"How are you?"
He was looking at the floor.
"I... I'm sorry about Campbell. I know he was your friend."
Now he was staring at me. His eyes looked sort of glassy and he wasn't saying a word. I knew he didn't like me, but there was something off. "Um... is everything okay?"
"Ooohlabaga."
I stood looking at him, thinking I'd misunderstood whatever he'd said.
"I'm sorry?" I asked.
"Ooohlabaga," he repeated.
"Er... is that a type of herb?"
Suddenly his hands flew into the air. He started running around the store in circles like he was doing laps around a gym.
"Damon?" I asked, worried now. "What's happening?"
I reached out an arm to try and stop him, but he ran past me so quickly he almost pulled my arm out of its socket. I had no idea where his energy was coming from.
"Kaddywalkmeout," he yelled, jumping onto the counter. I'd never seen anyone jump so high so easily.
"Damon, get down from there!" There was definitely something wrong with him. I only wished I knew what it was.
His face was turning a dark orange. He finally jumped off the counter, then picked me up and swung me over his shoulder caveman style.
"Damon!" I screeched, beating on his back with my hands. "You put me down now!"
Something inside him must have clicked because he set me on my feet. I was just inches from his face. His eyes were wild but alive. I'd never seen anyone look so untamed.
"Damon, let me help—"
My words were cut off as his lips covered mine. I was so surprised by the kiss that all I could do was stand there, mouth open. Then his heat melded with mine. My toes began to tingle. I could taste chocolate and cinnamon on his breath. Damon's lips were soft. They brushed against me like a wave just touching the ocean shore.
Then it was over. My breath caught in my throat as Damon pulled away from me.
"Oh, my roses," I murmured. "Damon, I..."
"Doreyme lalala," Damon said, flailing his arms in the air. His mouth opened in a wide "O" and breath hissed out of him. He stomped his feet three times then dropped to the ground, not moving.
"Damon...?"
I knelt down beside him and shook him hard, my heart pounding. "Damon? Are you all right?"
I shook him harder, and his nostrils flared once before his chest stopped moving.
"Oh, my witching world," I gasped. "He's not breathing."
* * *
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
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he doesn't like inexperienced witches. …
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The Sweetland Hospital was warmer than most others. The walls were painted a soft cream color instead of bright white. The floor tiles were the deep brown of dark chocolate, with hints of blue and purple. Together, they created an interesting mosaic of color that somehow soothed the senses. Even the overhead lights seemed tinted with soft pinks and blues, diffusing the overall harshness of the place. It was almost comfy.
I had used the hospital's courtesy phone to call Aunt Eleanor and Trixie. For the first time, I missed my cell phone and made a mental note to look into getting one of the witch-specific phones my aunts had mentioned.
Eleanor, Trixie, and I all stood huddled around Dr. Dunne, who was reading from his report. Sheriff Knoxx was nearby. He'd arrived about two seconds after the ambulance carrying Damon. He kept glancing from me to Eleanor. He caught me watching him and his cheeks turned pink. He scowled.
"First things first," Dr. Du
nne said. His voice was loud but not offensive. Round spectacles sat atop a slightly hooked nose. His thinning hairline added to his fatherly look. Despite knowing he must have been close to fifty, his brown eyes sparkled in such a way I would have believed he was ten years younger.
"Ava," he said, looking at me. "Understand one thing. You saved Damon's life today."
My mouth dropped open. Eleanor and Trixie looked at me with newfound pride. Sheriff Knoxx grunted.
"I didn't do anything, really," I said, blushing.
"You told me you forced the juice from a cacti airium plant into his mouth, is that correct?"
"Yes." I'd remembered the silver flask of juice Tootsie had gotten for Aunt Trixie when she had a fit after eating my first batch of cupcakes.
"It was your quick thinking that is the reason Damon is alive now. If you hadn't have done that..." He shook his head and looked at Eleanor. "You have a very smart niece here."
"If anything, she has two smart aunts," Sheriff Knoxx said, his voice gravelly. "No doubt Eleanor has taught her well."
Eleanor looked at him and smiled then turned back to the doctor.
"Now for the bad news," Dr. Dunne continued.
"This is what I was waiting for," said the sheriff.
Dr. Dunne held his breath. His lips were silently moving. I thought he was counting to ten.
"Damon Tellinger's stomach was filled with love potion cake. The same cake I found in Campbell Price."
"Aha!" Sheriff Knoxx said, delighted. It was like he'd just solved the case.
"Only," Dr. Dunne continued, "that is all that I found. There are no signs of a lunacy spell like there was with Campbell."
"What about David Buyers?" I asked. "Did he show signs of a lunacy spell?"
Dr. Dunne sighed. "After going back and rerunning some tests, it appears that whatever killed David and Campbell were similar, if not identical, spells. However, I did not find any trace of love potion cake in David's system."
