by Ruby Loren
“Half the town also saw you try to take credit for cracking the case,” Sean replied.
I watched the good humour evaporate, like water on a hot car bonnet. I’d known that a truce between the two men wouldn’t last long.
“Where did this all happen?” I said and pulled a face at Sean when he looked pained. “Jesse is right. If you don’t tell me, the next person to walk in here will. Isn’t it better you share the facts rather than the rumours or gossip that will no doubt start flying? Anyway, I thought I was your local knowledge expert. I might have something to contribute.”
“I doubt it. We literally caught them redhanded,” Jesse unhelpfully commented.
“Literally?” I said with a raised eyebrow. That would definitely paint a picture when paired with the blood at both scenes of disappearances.
“Figuratively,” he self-corrected, but the amusement never left his face.
“Ms Kirkus was about to post a letter through the door of Jane Spiney’s book shop. We were alerted by Daryl Hex, who was painting outside. He saw Emma and asked if she wanted him to give the letter to Jane, not realising what it was. When she was flustered, he got suspicious… and we came to see what the fuss was about,” Sean explained. “When I saw the letter, I recognised the printed style of the envelope and bagged it up.”
“He actually carries little plastic evidence bags around with him,” Jesse cut in. “Isn’t that cute?”
Sean ignored him. “A lot of people have received these letters, so there was a bit of a scene when the onlookers realised what was happening.”
“But I calmed them all down, so it was fine,” Jesse contributed.
Sean looked pained, which was a sure sign that Jesse had actually helped iron things out. He was just loathe to admit it.
I knew the feeling.
“I can’t believe I didn’t see any of it,” I said, looking out through the shop window across to the other side of the street. Jane’s magical bookstore was only a few doors down from the Salem Apothecary. I didn’t have a direct line of sight to it, but I was surprised I hadn’t heard the sounds of uproar… or felt any magical fallout. Members of the supernatural community around here weren’t known for their restraint against those who’d wronged them - especially with the knowledge of Bridgette’s blackmailing practices still an open wound.
I looked at Jesse and he just smiled back. I thought he’d done more than just calm the crowd. He’d used his devil’s charm.
“Now that she’s been found out, I hope the two missing women can be located,” Sean said, but his voice stayed grim.
I shot him a questioning look and his mouth set into an even harder line. If I was reading it correctly, the blood at the second scene had come back as human - just as he’d suspected. Whatever had happened to Sarah had probably been fatal.
I tried to imagine cheery Emma murdering Sarah in such a violent and bestial way and couldn’t imagine it. In fact, I couldn’t even imagine her wanting to say such nasty things to so many people in town. I’d always considered her one of the friendlier members of my coven. Sure, I could be pretty liberal with that term (I applied it to anyone in the group not actively plotting my downfall) but Emma had always seemed… sweet.
It just went to show - you had no idea of the darkness that lurked inside some people. Wormwood seemed determined to prove that to me over and over again.
“You don’t think she did it?” Jesse said, reading my expression. Sean looked curiously at me, and I blushed under the scrutiny.
“I’m sure that if you caught her delivering the letter and you find out that she was the one who wrote it, then she must be guilty,” I said, trying for neutrality.
“But you don’t think it’s in fitting with her character?” Sean pressed, looking genuinely interested.
“I’ve been wrong before,” I pointed out.
“You’re only human,” Jesse said with a smirk that made me want to curse him… if I could. He’d been just as clueless as I had both of the times we’d been fooled by someone who’d seemed normal and respectable on the surface.
“Now we have the suspect in custody, everything should start to come together. This case has reached its conclusion,” Sean said, smoothing over everything.
I looked into his grey eyes and saw a dangerous flicker of hope there. He was really banking on it being this easy. I hated to be a Debbie Downer, but in my experience… ‘simple’ was not something that applied in this town.
“You should get back to your investigations,” I said - charitably, in Jesse’s case.
“I certainly will. You’ll be able to read all about my findings in my new online magazine covering the mysteries of Wormwood and the work I’m doing to unravel them. I’m thinking of branching out to a print version,” Jesse said.
I felt my mouth drop open.
“I should be going,” Sean said. With such swiftness that it was nearly supernatural, he managed to slide right out of the shop, making his escape from the situation that was about to develop.
“Alone at last!” Jesse said when the detective had left. That stupid smile on his face seemed like a permanent fixture. I thought it annoyed me so much because it implied he always knew something that I didn’t… and no amount of persuading was going to convince him to share it.
But there was always threatening.
I’d have to try it sometime.
I stuck my hands on my hips. “You’re doing this deliberately, aren’t you?”
“Doing what?”
“Trying to compete with my magazine!”
“Oh, that,” Jesse said, trying to arrange his features into a mask of innocence.
He failed.
“A bit of healthy competition never harmed anyone,” he tried. “A man’s got to make a living…”
“Not by taking someone else’s!” I protested.
He crossed his arms and raised his dark eyebrows at me. “Surely if you believe your magazine is good, you have nothing to fear. You’re the more established brand. I’m just the plucky newcomer. If anything, the odds are stacked in your favour.” He sidled over to a display of ancient and faded dreamcatchers and flicked a finger at one of them. I was honestly surprised when it didn’t dissolve into dust. “Unless you don’t think Tales from Wormwood is up to scratch…”
“It’s more that I don’t think it will be a fair fight…”
Jesse’s smile widened. “No need to put yourself down! But thank you for the compliment. It means a lot.”
“…because you’ll find a way to cheat,” I finished.
Jesse dramatically pointed a finger at himself, miming disbelief. “Moi? You’re the one with the powers everyone thinks is special.”
“But you’re the one who can make deals to benefit himself. Making weapons appear doesn’t really help me to influence my magazine readers, does it?”
“Firstly, I’m offended that you would think such a thing of me. And secondly, it’s not my fault that you can’t think outside of the box enough to use your given talents to your advantage.”
“Let me guess… you’d run round town with a sword, intimidating people into reading your magazine?”
Jesse looked shocked. “What a violent mind you have! I just meant you might give some free tea samples away with the magazine and boost readership, whilst including some effective advertising for your tea range.”
“That’s…” I trailed off. That was a darn good idea. And I hated Jesse for having thought of it before I did.
He grinned.
I resisted the urge to pull whatever weapon needed to dispatch a devil out of nonexistence and brain him with it.
“Anyway, the magazine is still just a small idea I’m working on. I think it might be more effective if we were to work together. Perhaps with a monthly feature on my cases in your magazine, accompanied by a small advert for my private detective business?” Jesse suggested.
“Fine,” I agreed, knowing that this entire conversation had been leading up to this point. He’d known I�
�d refuse if he’d led with it. At least this would get him out of my hair… and my business.
“You’re okay to write it up, aren’t you? I’ll send you my Vlog videos and you can do it all from that. Great! I look forward to seeing your account of how I solved the letter epidemic in next month’s magazine. Ciao for now!” Jesse said, practically skipping back across the shop and out of the door.
I was left with a headache and the feeling that I’d been manipulated exactly the way he had wanted me to be.
A slim black cat wound its way out from behind a bookshelf, before plumping itself down and proceeding to stare at me with yellow eyes. I was reminded of the eye colour I shared with Jesse, and felt irrationally annoyed by it.
“Haven’t you moved out yet?” I said to Hedge, my elusive black cat who’d arrived with Hemlock. It was only recently that I’d discovered he was attached to Jesse and working with him. The most annoying thing of all was that Hedge seemed to be doing a better job of being a familiar than my own familiar. How unfair was that?
The quiet black cat carried on staring.
I crossed my arms. “If you’re wondering whether or not I’m going to do what Jesse asked and write that article. Then the answer is…” I said an expletive that I hoped would make it back to Jesse’s ears. With an all too smug air, Hedge trotted off to go about his sneaky business. I watched him go and wondered if I’d won or lost.
Knowing Jesse… I’d probably lost.
“Look at him slinking around like some kind of big shot,” Hemlock commented, appearing from beneath the shop counter. “Just because he got lucky with his magician doesn’t mean he has to act so high and mighty about it. It’s sickening, don’t you think?”
“Hey! I’m right here!” I couldn’t believe Hemlock was complaining to me about me.
Hemlock looked up at me. “So you are. Man, I need to make some new friends,” he said, before trotting away to do questionable things.
I threw my hands up in the air in the empty shop and made a small sound of frustration. At least the case has been solved, I thought, trying to placate myself.
But I couldn’t have been more wrong.
The whispering started when I called a coven meeting that night.
Two witches had disappeared and a third had just been arrested on suspicion of sending nasty letters and being involved in the disappearances. You would have to be blind to think it didn’t have something to do with the group. As the high priestess, it was my duty to get to the bottom of what was going on.
“I can’t believe they arrested Emma,” Ally Paulson said when she arrived at the Salem Apothecary five minutes earlier than the time I’d told everyone. “She’s such a sweetheart! Emma would probably apologise to a flea if it bit her.”
It was a strange way to describe someone, but in Emma’s case, I knew what Ally meant. Blonde-haired and with some very quirky fashion sense, Emma worked in the local library and spent the rest of her time looking after her rabbits. She certainly didn’t conjure the image of a psychopathic killer who’d clawed up the walls of properties and left a violent trail of gore in their wake - so messy that they were still being talked about as animal attacks. However, appearances could be deceptive, there was no smoke without fire… you got the picture. In Emma’s case, being caught with one of the letters was certainly a lot of smoke… and maybe some fire. Was that how the analogy worked?
“I’m hoping we can put our heads together and try to make sense of recent events,” I said, trying to be pragmatic. The last thing I wanted was for sides to be taken and fingers to be pointed. That would help absolutely no one.
So of course, that was exactly what happened.
Heather was the next witch to arrive at the coven, but she hadn’t come on her own. She’d taken Tara, a young witch, under her wing in the past, but this time it wasn’t Tara who accompanied her. It was Hannah Regal.
I said a careful hello to Hannah and then looked questioningly at Heather. She was the most senior member of the coven, and I was interested to hear her reasons for bringing the daughter of a missing witch into the circle of witches, who might have been harbouring the person guilty of causing her mother to go missing in the first place.
“She got her talents early,” Heather told me. “That was why Helen and Daryl decided to adopt her. She lived with other adopted parents until she was twelve. Then her powers started to manifest. Even though normal humans can’t see magic, they felt its effects. Fortunately, someone at the adoption agency these parents had originally got her from recognised the strange happenings for what they were and put the word out. Helen and Daryl took her in as their own in order to teach her how to control her powers. I think it is only right that we carry on her education by welcoming her into the fold. It’s what her mother would have wanted.”
“Yes, of course,” I said, somewhat stiffly. I understood what Heather was saying and wanting to do, but did she have to bring Hannah along right now, to this very meeting? I was about to conduct the grand inquisition!
I pulled myself together and smiled at the dark-haired teenager with gently slanting eyes. She had green magic blossoming around her. “Welcome to the Wormwood Coven, Hannah. We’re happy to have you here.”
Heather shot me a knowing look that said this was part of a plan. The best I could guess was that she was hoping having Hannah around might guilt trip anyone keeping anything back into telling the truth. I was still worried I was going to come across as the bad guy.
Instead of starting an argument, I went to help Ally with the tea and waited for the others to arrive.
“It’s pretty obvious what’s happening. Hazel can’t stand competition. She’s taking out anyone who stands against her,” Aurelia announced when I’d broached the subject of the disappearances and Emma, and then asked for any constructive ideas going forward on what we might be able to do to help the situation.
I frowned at Aurelia but was saved from answering by Heather.
“Be quiet, young lady. If that were true, you’d have been first on the list.”
I realised I was nodding along and stopped myself. As much as I detested Aurelia, I was supposed to guide the coven with as much impartiality as I could muster. “Two of our number are missing and one of us has been arrested in connection with some recent poison pen letters. Does anyone have any rational ideas about what might have happened?”
“That depends if there’s someone from the police listening in or not,” Rebecca said, surprising me with the bite in her voice. I hadn’t expected her to side with Aurelia and her cronies, but it was obvious that a recent stunt I’d pulled was still causing the coven to mistrust me.
I took a deep breath. And then another one. “I hope that this matter is as resolved as the local police believe it to be, but just in case there is something that has not been accounted for, does anyone have any ideas pertaining to the recent unusual events?” I was amazed that I sounded so calm.
“Emma can’t have done it. She was just too sweet,” Rebecca said, talking as though Emma was dead and buried. All things considered, I didn’t think the librarian was the one we should be talking about in the past tense… but I told myself to stop thinking so negatively.
“The way I heard it, it sounds as though both Sarah and Helen were attacked by something with a similar method of attack to that of a wild animal,” Heather spoke up. The room hushed as soon as she said it and everyone turned to look at her. As the oldest and most respected member of the coven, when she spoke, you stayed quiet and listened. Heather garnered respect I could only dream of. I knew it had to be earned. “Is that correct?”
I realised she was addressing me. “Yes,” I grudgingly confessed, realising that I could hardly deny what I knew to be true - even though it was obvious from the looks of surprise in the room that it hadn’t been made public. I glanced at Hannah and figured she’d been the one to share her knowledge with Heather.
“It was the first thing I thought when I found… when I found them both
missing,” I finished, awkwardly. “There were scratches in the walls that looked like claw marks and the dragging…” I trailed off, remembering Hannah’s presence… and the fact I was not supposed to be sharing case details. I weighed it up against the potential benefit of someone in the coven being able to draw a parallel with something in the past, or perhaps just straight up knowing what the heck was going on in town at the moment. I decided it was worth bending the rules.
Fine.
Breaking the rules.
“I believe we are left with a few possibilities based on what you have told us, Hazel. The first is that our neighbouring shape-shifters have a rogue shifter on their hands.”
There was general muttering in the room when she said it. I kept quiet, thinking about the pig’s blood at the first scene. I wasn’t going to share that information, but I thought it made the wild animal theory unlikely. But a shape-shifter could have faked the gouge marks at the scene. Plus, Sarah May was a different matter.
Heather raised a hand for quiet again. “It has happened in the past, but, I do not believe it is likely this time. We’ve all heard stories about the person who is in charge of keeping the shifters in line, and I am certain that if a shape-shifter did have something to do with the disappearances, she would have already acted.”
I nodded my agreement. I’d met January Chevalier, the leader of the Witchwood shifters. I knew at least some of what she was capable of, and I did not think she’d let any rebels slip her notice.
“I think we should move on to a more likely possibility,” Heather said, pausing to take a breath. “It was a hellhound.”
There was stunned silence in the kitchen… and then pandemonium.
“Quiet!” I shouted, when flapping my hands and asking nicely failed to have any effect at all.
I turned to Heather, not feeling as fond of her as I usually did. That little pause for breath had felt contrived. “Would you mind explaining why you believe hellhounds might have dragged two members of our coven away?” I raised my eyebrows at the elderly psychic.
She blinked at me. “Haven’t you heard of them?”
