Vervain and a Victim

by Ruby Loren

  I nodded, genuinely considering the possibility. Now that I knew magic was real, Wormwood’s reluctance to join the rest of the South East’s high property prices was starting to make more sense - especially when there was a group of witches who didn’t want that to happen.

  “We also go on outings. A few weeks ago, we had a lovely lunch at The Bread Cauldron Bakery. Tristan is such a sweetheart,” Ally said, her eyes growing misty for a second. Uh-oh, I could add Ally Paulson’s name to the long list of fans of Tristan Coltrain.

  “It’s not all stuffy stuff,” Helen contributed, unintentionally offending everyone who’d spoken before her. “We’re quite a modern coven, really. We often go on retreats in Wormwood Forest and stay in a cabin in the woods. It’s wonderful, and right on our doorstep! We were talking about going somewhere else this summer. Maybe somewhere in Ireland. There’s supposed to be some wonderful magical energy there.”

  “I think we should go back to the cabin nearby first. It will be Hazel’s first time,” Zoe contributed with a kind smile in my direction.

  “When are we going to address the obvious? There’s a vampire in town,” Aurelia drawled, looking bored to tears by this conversation.

  “I’m not sure that there is,” I spoke up, drawing many looks for daring to speak against the sister of the ex-high priestess. Not much had changed in the Wormwood Coven.

  “Please share the benefit of your great experience of vampires with us,” my enemy continued, with a sideways smirk directed towards Adelaide.

  This was going to be so much fun. I could already tell.

  “Bridgette was killed in the daytime and found before nightfall,” I said.

  “Maybe…” Aurelia started to contradict me on principle, but she trailed off. “What are we going to do about it? The police are already unfairly targeting us!”

  “Maybe it’s because this coven has a history of trying to do nasty things to people? No offence,” I added, taking a leaf out of my Aunt Linda’s book. A lot of shoe-shuffling went on around the room. I hadn’t intended to poke the hornet’s nest, but here I was with a big stick.

  “Natalia said you were the one who found the body. I bet you pointed the police right to us.” The air was starting to crackle in this room, and I could sense the pressure of power building. I should probably try to curb this gung-ho attitude I’d suddenly developed. It was going to get me hexed. If that happened, it would be very apparent that I couldn’t use the magic I had floating around me.

  “Oh, do be quiet, Aurelia. Even if she did, we deserved it,” Heather cut in, silencing Aurelia with a sweep of her hand.

  Even Aurelia listened to Heather.

  “The police haven’t come to me, just Natalia,” Aurelia said triumphantly, as if this was something I’d wanted to hide.

  “And me!” Ally piped up.

  “I think we all know why that is,” Heather finished, nodding respectfully at me.

  I took a deep breath and decided to let the argument go. “We should all be careful. Someone murdered Bridgette Spellsworth, and they’re still out there - maybe even living amongst us.”

  There were mutters all round again, but this time, they sounded agreeable.

  “What else did you see when you found the body?” Zoe, the witch with the pink streak in her hair asked, sounding morbidly curious.

  “I’m not at liberty to reveal anything that the police haven’t already released. I wasn’t even the one who found the body. Jesse Heathen was already there when I arrived.”

  “You could have doubled back,” Aurelia suggested, parroting a familiar argument at me. Jesse and I definitely needed to have words about what he was telling my enemies.

  “There is one thing that struck me as weird… but I don’t know if I should say,” I said, deliberately teasing the group, knowing that it would distract them from Aurelia’s bile spitting. I did my best to look conflicted whilst inwardly congratulating myself on the idea I’d had.

  “We’re your coven now,” Jane Spiney told me with a smile that I definitely wouldn’t have taken as anything other than false.

  “There was something left at the scene of the crime. It was a small cauldron and a silver coin. A big old fashioned coin.” I pressed my forefinger and thumb together to demonstrate. “Does anyone know what it might mean?”

  “Where, exactly, did you find the body?” Heather asked, leaning forwards with interest.

  I’d been right to ask the coven. They knew something.

  “Up on the Devil’s Jumps. She was on the first hill.” Surely the police wouldn’t mind if the location was shared? Who was I kidding, both Jesse and I had already bent the rules so much they probably didn’t even resemble rules anymore. The only question left to answer was who would shoulder the blame.

  “Interesting.” Heather looked thoughtful. Everyone focused their attention on the old witch to hear what she had to say. “There used to be a local legend. If you took a silver coin and an old cauldron to the top of the Devil’s Jumps and hid it under the smoothest rock you can find, come morning, a new cauldron would be in its place. Over the years, I believe the magic rock worked for other items, too. People swapped blunt knives for sharp new ones, and so on. It sounds to me as though Bridgette was up on the rock to get herself a new cauldron. Was it an old one you saw?”

  I examined my memory. “I’m not sure,” I confessed. I wouldn’t have known an old cauldron if I saw one, unless it had a hole in the bottom.

  “I tried to swap a broken Playstation once,” Rebecca announced.

  We all looked at her.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “It was replaced with a working console… but it was a Chinese no-brand knock-off.”

  We all considered that.

  “I guess the devil doesn’t do brands,” Emma said.

  “His loss,” Victoria commented, apparently automatically, because she didn’t look up from her phone. I concentrated for a second and could just make out light pink magic travelling from her face down to the screen. I wasn’t sure exactly what she was doing, but I was willing to bet that using magic to influence things on the internet was definitely classed as misuse.

  “Are you going to catch the killer again?” Emma asked me, looking curious and nervous at the same time.

  “I didn’t really catch anyone last time,” I confessed. “It was more like wrong place, wrong time.” Or was that right time, right place? It probably depended how you looked at it. I knew which option I leaned towards. I’d nearly died.

  “I think it’s terribly irresponsible to try to catch a criminal when you aren’t qualified to do so,” Helen announced, sharing an opinion that no one had asked for.

  “Are you going to write about it in the magazine?” Ally stepped in, covering up Helen’s weird comment.

  “I think I’d have to be crazy not to,” I said, smiling around. I may not feel like I fitted in with this group, but I would do well to remember that I was a local businesswoman. I needed to keep potential customers as sweet as possible.

  Starting from now.

  “I look forward to reading it,” Heather said, in a way that suddenly made me want to curl up and run away from writing forever. Heather Law read my magazine? I’d never considered whom my readership might include before. And to think I’d been writing about stories I didn’t even believe for the first five months of the magazine…

  I shook the self doubt from my head. No matter what I’d done in the past, all that mattered was what I did now, and the changes I chose to make in the future. I would be a better writer. It didn’t matter what I’d written before.

  “I think it’s time we had that vote, before things go sideways again,” the older witch said.

  There were murmurs of agreement.

  I looked around the room. What vote? Had I missed something?

  Heather cleared her throat. “I nominate Hazel Salem to be high priestess of this coven. All in favour raise your hand and say ‘I’.”

  I loo
ked around in shock as nearly all the hands in the room went up.

  “All against, say ‘I’.”

  Aurelia, Adelaide, and Victoria lifted their hands and said ‘I’.

  I was too surprised to react.

  Heather smiled. “It’s settled. Hazel Salem is the new high priestess of the Wormwood Coven.”

  7

  In an Eggshell

  I sat slack-jawed in shock.

  The only thing that brought me back was the sound of someone laughing. I looked up at the skylight above the lounge and saw Hemlock rolling around with mirth. It hardly boosted my confidence.

  “I really appreciate the gesture…” I began, trying to think of a way to tactfully say ‘No way’ without also giving away the fact that I knew pretty much zero about magic and couldn’t even make basic spells work for me.

  “It’s about time this coven had a Salem in charge again. When your grandmother was here, she was the high priestess, a long, long time ago. Even your aunts were part of the coven before you came along and they disappeared off the face of the earth. Perhaps they could return, if a couple of spaces were to open up.” Heather turned her beady eyes towards Aurelia, Adelaide, and Victoria.

  “I’ve never been in a coven before. I don’t know how to be a high priestess,” I said, opting for the honest approach that also kept my secret safe.

  “We are all here to support you,” Emma told me. “For what it’s worth, I think you’ll make a great high priestess.”

  “You can’t be much worse than the last one we had,” Zoe added, drawing a vicious glare from Aurelia. She smirked back in return. I got the impression that Zoe could handle herself when it came to facing off against the Ghoul family.

  “I’m sure I speak for almost everyone when I say we’re all really excited to see what you bring to this coven,” Heather concluded, smiling warmly in my direction.

  I felt as though my stomach had suddenly filled up with snakes. This was not supposed to have happened. “It’s… it’s a great honour,” I said, feeling numb. My aunts had wanted me to come here to learn more about what it took to be a witch. Now I was in charge of the whole group. Talk about the blind leading the blind!

  “Excellent! I think we should end the meeting here. I know we are all anxious to get home and begin our private reflections for Ostara,” Heather said, clapping her hands together and making everyone jump out of the stupor they’d slipped into.

  “Is anyone else going to the bakery tonight? There’s a special Ostara festival evening,” Ally said, her hands fiddling with the buttons on her blouse.

  “Tristan lost my patronage the moment he lost all of his sense,” Aurelia said, not even looking my way.

  I felt my mouth twist with annoyance. On the plus side, I knew I wasn’t the only one in the coven who found her tiresome… and even though I doubted my career as a high priestess would be a long and prosperous one, I was sure I could manage to kick Aurelia out of the coven, prior to being found out myself.

  I suddenly realised everyone was looking at me, waiting for me to speak.

  “Thanks for inviting me to this coven meeting tonight and, uh… making me your leader. I’ll see you all next week?” I tried.

  “At your house?” Ally prompted.

  “Yes! Exactly,” I agreed. At least then my aunts could be around to help me out of the mire of trouble I’d somehow waded into.

  I smiled around at everyone in turn, even those who’d voted against me. See? I could totally do this! Out of the corner of my eye I could still see Hemlock rolling around up on the skylight, laughing to himself.

  For once, I thought my familiar was the only one seeing sense.

  Tristan looked up and smiled at me when I walked into The Bread Cauldron Bakery. Several women, who’d been crowding around him, looked back in my direction. I watched their own cheer vanish.

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t have come,” I whispered to Tristan when we’d hugged and kissed each other on the cheek. We may be in a fake relationship, but we’d both agreed that public displays of affection were unnecessary. I still wasn’t sure if I was disappointed about that, but Tristan and I were friends, and this arrangement was working out fine so far.

  “Rabbit bun?” he said, offering me an iced Chelsea bun in the shape of a rabbit, complete with an orange moulded icing carrot.

  I took it. “I definitely should have come,” I agreed with him.

  He laughed. “That’s the Hazel I know and love. Are you still okay to help me out tonight? Things are even busier than I expected when I took bookings for this event. Everyone has turned out in droves!”

  “In spite of the vampires,” I said, looking sideways at the loaves of garlic bread Tristan had stocked in the front window of the counter.

  Tristan grinned. “You’ve got to take whatever business you can get in this town.”

  “I’m starting to think you’re right about that.”

  “Oh, per-lease. Get a room already. You two are enough to make me want to pull my eyelashes out,” Hemlock said from down by my feet. This was one of those times when I was glad that I was the only one who could hear him.

  “Does your cat want a cake?” Tristan asked.

  “Yes,” Hemlock said.

  “You know, animals shouldn’t really be in the shop.” My fake boyfriend told me with an apologetic look on his face.

  “That’s a shame.” I looked down at Hemlock with a smug smile on my face.

  “Cake now, or I wreck this joint!” he threatened. Before I could consider how to avoid a ridiculous scene that might involve me arguing with my cat, Hemlock jumped up and snatched the bun out of my hand. “Yoink!” he said and fled out through the door.

  “Even my cat bullies me,” I told Tristan with a mournful smile. I would deal with Hemlock later. “We should get to work,” I said, eager to take his mind off the weird thing that had just happened. I could see that his other bakery assistant was becoming overwhelmed with people clamouring for the special treats on offer.

  “If you could get on the teas, that would be great. I’ll compensate you, I swear,” Tristan said, already rushing towards the kitchen to get more stock.

  “With money?” I jokingly called after him.

  “No chance!”

  I was still smiling when I took tea orders and delivered them to various tables. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits, and the scent of spring was in the air - thanks to the fresh bunches of flowers and herbs tied around the place. I’d helped Tristan out with the herb choices. I’d also suggested a new spring blossom tea special, which was selling nearly as well as the hot cakes!

  It seemed like everyone who was anyone was at The Bread Cauldron Bakery tonight. I even noticed the town’s mayor, Gareth Starbright, sitting at a table in the corner with a stranger. Strangers were fairly unusual in Wormwood. The only new faces we tended to see around town were the few eccentric tourists who visited for the ‘experience’. But this man didn’t appear to be here to buy charms and hexes, or to have his palm read. He and the mayor were locked in conversation. I couldn’t help but wonder what they were talking about that looked so serious on a cheerful spring evening.

  Being the journalist that I was, I decided to try to find out.

  It wasn’t hard to look busy whilst getting close to the mayor and his guest. There were tables that needed clearing and orders that needed taking. I kept one ear pinned back whilst I took a drinks order, and then I took my sweet time tidying up the empty cups and plates that one table had left behind.

  “Do we have a deal?” I heard the mayor say in a low voice to the man across the table from him.

  “You know it’s not as simple as that. I’m a facilitator, not an executioner.”

  “I don’t care. I just want it done. You know what I can afford,” the mayor bit back. There was a hint of panic in his voice. He was in trouble.

  The stranger sounded amused. “You brought this situation upon yourself. Reneging on a deal is hardly the way to make anyone want
to work with you again.”

  “It will be different this time. I didn’t know…” the mayor said, and then stopped talking. I felt his gaze fall on me and hurried away with the plates. I knew I’d been pushing my luck.

  I didn’t look back. When I felt that enough time had passed, I glanced at the table and discovered they were getting up to leave. I blinked and looked at the pair with witch sight. No trace of magic showed around the mayor, although I knew that didn’t mean he didn’t possess any. The stranger, however, was different.

  He didn’t have the colourful strands of magic around him, but there was definitely something there. It reminded me of the place in the forest where Zack Baden had been murdered over a summoning sigil. Energy had been sucked away in that place. It was a dead spot, just like the one around this man.

  I shivered and the stranger looked my way. His pale blonde hair was cropped dangerously short on the sides with a neatly side-parted top. His eyes looked black in the dim light of the bakery, and when he looked at me, I felt the same sensation of energy being drawn away from me that I had felt in the forest that time.

  He smiled politely in my direction. I realised I was staring. I made my mouth curve up in response and nodded. At least I wasn’t the only girl who’d gone slack-jawed over the stranger. He was tall and sported some impressive biceps. He’d dressed in coated black jeans and a vintage Scooby Doo t-shirt. The impression was both intimidating and unnerving, especially when combined with the energy void that encircled him.

  As I watched him walk out of the bakery and into the night, I couldn’t shake the strange feeling that I’d just come face to face with a predator.

  When I saw Detective Admiral standing outside the shop door the next morning I assumed I was in trouble. I prepared myself for the worst - walking out of here in handcuffs - and bravely answered the door with a friendly smile.

  The detective looked at me for a long moment. I felt myself holding my breath, as I waited for the inevitable explosion.