by Ruby Loren
There was the sound of a throat being cleared. I realised Detective Admiral himself had walked in. The muttering began afresh between the ladies, but they filed out of the door after a sharp look from Sean that threatened bad things to come, if they continued their comments. Little did they know, Sean was fully aware of the existence of the supernatural.
“Morning, Hazel,” he said, once he was sure the gossipers were gone.
“What can I do for you?” I asked, smiling a little cautiously at the detective. I wasn’t yet sure how professional we were being with one another today, but it was a good sign that he’d used my first name. That probably meant I wasn’t about to be arrested for suspected murder.
The detective looked over his shoulder before he spoke, which I deduced meant that this wasn’t strictly police business. Interesting.
“I was just wondering if you’re going to be writing about any of this in your magazine?”
It was strange, but I got the impression that this wasn’t actually what he wanted to talk about. “I’ll probably write some sort of report, but I’m not going to get in your way or spread any information that hasn’t been released by the police to the public.” I was careful to assure him of that much, but when he nodded vaguely, I didn’t think he was really listening to what I was saying.
“What do you think about Melissa?” he asked, and I realised that this was what he’d come here to talk to me about.
“She seems very professional,” I replied, unwilling to commit to something that might get me in trouble later down the line - especially when I wasn’t yet sure why he was asking.
He threw me an unimpressed look. “I saw the way you looked at me when she started talking about logical explanations.”
I shrugged. “What did you expect? You brought someone normal into Wormwood - a town where the term ‘normal’ doesn’t really apply. Just look at the disappearances! Do you have any logical explanation that covers what happened there? We both know that there aren’t any dangerous wild animals loose in the area. The only local ‘wild animals’ capable of something like that are shape-shifters, and it might not even be one of them. Or perhaps it was a terrible monster that one of the witches summoned after messing with the wrong spell and it came back to bite them… literally. How is your analyst going to explain that logically?”
“She was only meant to be here for the letters. What else was I supposed to do? Hire a psychic to try to sense the identity of the writer?” the detective bit back.
“You asked for my opinion!”
He walked over to the tearoom area of the shop and sat down heavily on one of the chairs. “This whole thing is a mess,” he confessed, shaking his head. “Why does nothing ever make sense around here?”
After a moment’s pause, I walked over and joined him at one of the small tables. I knew the detective hadn’t come here for a fight. He was probably looking for a friendly local weirdo to bounce the stranger side of this crime off. I was the mug who fitted that description perfectly. “Do you have any leads? I won’t tell anyone.” I smiled brightly to back it up.
The detective gave me a disbelieving look, which I felt was unfair. But he didn’t clam up.
“This case gets stranger the more I find out about it. The drag marks lead into woods, or the forest, in both disappearances, but once you’re a little way in, they seem to blend in with the leaves and just disappear. We haven’t been able to find any trace of either woman. And then there’s the forensic results from the first scene…” He looked sideways at me, clearly deliberating whether to say anything more.
I made my smile bigger, hoping he’d trust me.
After a moment, he sighed. “You knew these women. I’m hoping that you might have a different perspective on the significance of certain details. The blood found at the scene of Helen Regal’s disappearance has been analysed. It’s not human. It’s pig blood.”
I frowned. “What?”
The detective nodded. “Like I said… the whole thing is strange. If it wasn’t for the fact that we now have a second disappearance to take into account, I’d be willing to entertain the idea that Helen Regal might have been faking her own death. Perhaps the pressures of family life had become too much, or maybe there was something else in her life she was running away from.”
I considered the way she’d always half-joked about cursing the class she taught at the local primary school. I could understand her wanting a break from them, but I couldn’t imagine her wanting to leave her partner and their adopted daughter. “She never had anything but positive things to say about her family,” I said aloud.
The detective looked conflicted. “You never know what people are hiding. Still waters run deep.” He shook his head. “Things start to look different when we consider the second scene. After the first analysis came back as animal blood, I was sent a kit to test future blood samples. I was hoping to use it if we found evidence of the container used to hold the blood before Helen hypothetically threw it around in the house and scratched up the place, but when I used it at the scene of the second disappearance… well, it wasn’t pig’s blood.”
I realised what he was saying. “Oh,” I said, my mouth setting into a grim line. “So… it couldn’t have been…?”
“I’m having it fully analysed by the lab, but I’m fairly certain that it’s of human origin.”
We sat in silence for a moment while I absorbed this fresh piece of information. After what the detective had started to tell me about his theory that the first disappearance had been faked, a spark of hope had ignited inside me that this was all just some kind of twisted joke. The stark reality of both women’s probable fates had come rushing back in with the knowledge that the second scene was different.
“Did you hear those women in the shop saying that they think Bridgette’s ghost is to blame for the letters? Maybe you should suggest that to your communication in crime analyst,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.
The detective let out a short bark of laughter. “If ghosts really did come back to haunt us and wreak their vengeance, both Wormwood and Witchwood would be smoking piles of rubble.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You really think it’s that bad around here?”
He ran a hand through his short, dark hair. “I suppose I’m exposed to the darker side of our local communities. It’s a fact that most people are inherently good, but the one-percent has a habit of ruining things for everyone else. If we’re talking revenge from beyond the grave, we both know there’s a lot to go around.”
I nodded. “Right… so, the ridiculous theory remains ridiculous.” I knew I didn’t sound certain, and I was annoyed with myself for that. The issue was, it wasn’t so long ago when I’d not believed that anything outside of the widely accepted realms of the possible existed. I was still undergoing a brand new education and adaptation to this new world… and I still wasn’t sure which fairytales remained fiction, and which were true.
“Plus, there’s a more logical explanation why this isn’t Bridgette’s doing, or potentially anything at all to do with the information she may have held about various Wormwood residents. While Sarah May’s name was in Bridgette’s accounting books indicating that she made monthly payments, Helen’s wasn’t. More to the point, yours wasn’t either. And yet, you still received a letter,” he pointed out.
“I did consider that. I’ve been working off the assumption that the person in possession of Bridgette’s notes has pieced together the information and used it to work out things about other people in town.” I looked questioningly at Sean.
He rubbed his lightly stubbled chin. “So much of this is speculation. Melissa is developing her profile believing that the knowledge of local people comes from someone within the community who has been observing their peers for a long time. Bridgette and her notes would have fitted that description, but some of the letters are coming across like there was guesswork involved. Take Helen’s letter… do you know what it might have meant?”
I
shook my head.
“I asked her partner about it,” he revealed. “He said that the boy mentioned was a rather difficult student, but he didn’t know more than that. Perhaps Helen took some action against him to curb his behaviour?”
“Cursed him, you mean?” I said, dryly. “She might have done something. She used to talk about being tempted to hex the kids in her class. But if she’d ever done something drastic, everyone in the witch community would have found out about it. I also doubt she’d have kept her mouth shut. That’ll be why she wasn’t on Bridgette’s list - because she could never keep her own secrets.”
I smiled at the memory of Helen. In all honesty, she’d been a thorn in my side in the coven and someone who’d annoyed most people she’d met, but underneath it all, she’d had good intentions. Whatever she may, or may not, have done to this pupil, I was certain it wasn’t something that anyone would drag her into the woods and murder her for.
I mentally gave myself a shake. I was assuming a lot. It was just as Sean had said - there was so much that we didn’t know about this mystery… so much that seemed to contradict itself.
“What are you going to say to Melissa about all of this?” I said, hoping a change of subject might help shake something loose in my mind. It just felt like we were tramping over the same ground.
“I’m not sure. I’ve told her about the history of blackmail this town has and the most recent incidents of serious crime. I thought we might be able to take the profile she’s developed and fill in the blanks with all of the added extras we know about the town,” he said and then - unless I was much mistaken - a blush rose in his cheeks. He’d just included me in his statement. Before I could comment, he’d moved on. “I offered her a desk at the police station, but she’s set up shop inside the local bakery. I think she’s getting on very well with the owner.” When he said the last part, he avoided making eye contact with me.
“Oh,” I said, realising exactly what he was implying. I thought it was sweet that he’d wanted to warn me of the competition I might be facing.
I took a deep breath and decided to put my trust in Detective Admiral - the way he was starting to put trust in me. “Just between us, and I mean that - no talking about it around the office coffee machine - my relationship with Tristan is more friends and less… relationship.”
Sean looked confused.
“It’s fake. He was getting more female attention than he could handle at the bakery. I did him a favour by posing as his girlfriend, and he did me a favour by giving me a few business pointers that I badly needed.” I glanced over at the window display when I said it. Prior to my business workshops with Tristan, it had looked like a scene from a horror film. Now it featured some really nice chocolate eggs and the obligatory fluffy bunnies and chicks, who were helping to showcase my Easter tea range.
Sean looked thoughtful. “I did think you were very restrained indeed when it came to public displays of affection.”
“Thanks a lot. I’ll be sure to remember that for my next fake relationship.” Maybe I was being a bit snippy, but I’d never had much luck in love. Somehow, his comments felt like throwing salt on the wound.
“He picked you as someone who’d put off other women. That’s a compliment, isn’t it?” Something that looked like amusement shone in the detective’s eyes. I got the feeling he was playing with me.
“That, or I look like I can beat up the competition,” I muttered, but he had a point. Either I genuinely did look like I could beat down the competition, or… well, I wasn’t sure about the ‘or’.
“Sure,” Sean said, smiling but not meeting my eyes again. I took the opportunity to pull a face at him when he wasn’t looking. I knew what he was trying to imply, but I didn’t want to go there. Especially not when Tristan was, by his account, potentially in the process of finding someone he wanted to be with for real - someone who didn’t live in the weirder half of Wormwood. It wasn’t fair bringing a good man like Tristan into a world of things he would never be able to understand. The man in the chair across the table from me was ample evidence of what grudging acceptance - whilst not being actively able to participate - in the unseen world looked like.
It wasn’t pretty.
“You’re looking at me like I’m a bug on a dissecting table,” Sean said. I realised he’d caught me watching him.
“Like a frog,” I corrected, without thinking, and watched the detective wince when I mentioned the word ‘frog’.
“I should be getting back to work. If I need a local’s opinion, I’ll be in touch,” he said, back to being the very model of professionalism. My mention of frogs had surely reminded him of the time we’d first met and everything that had gone wrong so soon after it.
I just smiled in response. He stood up and walked towards the door. “Sean,” I said, making him turn back around. I picked up a box of tea from the shelf and threw it to him.
He caught it in mid-air and looked down at the label. “Creativi-tea: For out of the box thinking,” he read.
I grinned at him and then, reluctantly, his lips curved up and he gave me the briefest of smiles back.
“I’ll let you know if it works,” he said, before continuing out of the shop and back to the mystery that awaited him and the rest of Witchwood’s finest. If the current crime rate persisted, Wormwood would soon need its own dedicated police force.
I was still half-daydreaming, half-mulling over what Sean and I had been talking about - and the way we’d spoken about it - when Aunt Minerva returned to the shop like a small whirlwind touching down.
I blinked out of my daydream and stood to attention.
She gave me a curt nod by way of a greeting. “Good. You’re here. It’s time we talk about breaking your Aunt Linda out of jail.”
6
Rising Stars
“Don’t stand there gaping like a fish out of water. You’ve been pestering me about this for weeks!” my aunt said in response to my evidently observable surprise.
“You didn’t want to answer any of my questions! I thought you agreed with the Witch Council’s decision to lock her up for life.”
Minerva walked behind the counter and stashed the delivery bags out of sight in their proper place. “Of course I wanted everyone who might be watching us to think that. Do you know how close we were to being locked up with her?” She shook her head. “I always forget that you’re new to this game, but I’m afraid you’re playing it, along with the rest of us.”
“Is this the part where you tell me everything you’ve been keeping from me?” I said, still bemused. I wanted actual answers, not talking down to.
“This is no time to be holding grudges. What I did, I did for both your own good and the good of Linda. Someone needs to keep their head on their shoulders around here.” She flicked her hands up in the air - which was the grand total of Aunt Minerva expressing her frustration. “I’m fairly sure that surveillance will have been relaxed by now. The majority of ill-thought out rescue missions take place very soon after a person is interred. The council will have been expecting something to happen sooner. Our going about our lives as normal will hopefully have made them complacent.”
I considered everything she’d just said. “It’s still going to be pretty obvious who broke her out, even if we do manage it.”
“We shall cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, it is time for us to begin to put a plan into action. I’m still in two minds as to whether to contact the rest of the Grand Coven, or not. The return of the council could be a sign that someone amongst our ranks is not to be trusted.”
I did some rapid blinking. “Grand Coven?”
Minerva looked mildly exasperated. “It’s complicated…” she started to say, but I crossed my arms and tapped my foot in warning.
My aunt glanced out of the shop door at the empty street beyond, and then she looked back into the kitchen and out through the garden, before squinting her eyes to check for any magical interference. Once she was certain that there w
as no possibility of anyone listening in to the conversation, she started talking. “Linda wasn’t acting alone when she turned the council into slime. It takes a serious piece of magic to do that to an entire group of people - especially when they’re one of the most powerful groups of magic users in the country. I think you’ve worked that much out yourself.” She shot me a sharp-eyed look that said my probing magical questions hadn’t gone unnoticed. “In order to succeed, there was a good deal of joint magic and even more trickery.”
“The Grand Coven was responsible?” I was trying to follow along.
Minerva gave a curt nod of her head. “Linda was entrusted with the magic and a plan that was a decade in the making. The Council would have punished anyone they caught plotting against them. The Council would have punished just about anyone they perceived to be doing anything wrong - which was why such action had to be taken in the first place.”
“So… the Council is evil?” I said, hating putting it into such simple terms. I’d done my best to independently research the Witch Council, but my findings had been vague - perhaps deliberately so.
“They’re a corrupt unelected governing body who rule us all with an iron fist and no mercy. So… yes, they are slightly more evil than an elected government. But it makes all the difference.”
I’d expected a speech about how nothing and no one is inherently good or evil, but when you put it like that, it seemed pretty clear cut. “What’s the plan?”
Aunt Minerva looked pained. “It’s become more complicated than we ever planned for. The reappearance of the Council was… unexpected. Unfortunately, they have yet to reveal how, exactly, they managed their miraculous return. Until we can get to the bottom of it, the likeliest scenario is that the Grand Coven has a traitor in its midst. In this eventuality, we would normally be reliant upon the group to use leverage to get Linda out of a situation we collectively put her in. Now, that course of action might be fatal to all involved if the traitor sets a trap.”
