The Empty Cradle

by Jill Nojack

  The Empty Cradle:

  A Cozy Witch Mystery

  Maid, Mother and Crone Paranormal Mystery Series: Book 2

  Jill Nojack

  IndieHeart Press

  Kent, Ohio

  Copyright © 2017 by Jill Nojack.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author at jill@jillnojack.com.

  Cover designed by Lori Gundy of Cover Reveal.

  www.jillnojack.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, or institutions, is completely coincidental.

  1

  Maureen Oliver hid her reaction when her son-in-law, Butch, entered the kitchen. She was occupied swaddling her infant granddaughter, whose innocent face soon mimicked the scowl on her grandmother’s. She hurriedly finished wrapping the girl tightly in her pink blanket with the bunnies, blocking Butch’s view as she did; he’d never seen Dahlia without the swaddling.

  Not that he noticed one of his daughters was in the room; he probably couldn’t even tell them apart. Breakfast was all he had an interest in. Even so, she finished her swaddling quickly.

  Jenny crossed behind her to take him his coffee, then moved back to the stove where his breakfast sizzled. Butch should be serving his wife, she thought. He’s the one who got enough rest.

  She kissed her granddaughter on the forehead, then picked her up and carried her to the living room to place her in the center cradle between her sisters, one of whom was now starting to fuss loudly. She picked the baby up and cradled her against one shoulder to soothe her. She loved them all the same, all of the triplets, but she knew their father would see the deformity and not the child. She stood in the arch between the kitchen and living room, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet while she watched her daughter serve his breakfast.

  “Dahlia slept all the way through the night last night, Butch, even though Daisy and Delphie took turns keeping me awake to feed them. That’s amazing for an infant her age. She’s very advanced,” Jenny turned fluffy scrambled eggs onto his plate. Maureen knew Jenny was trying to sound upbeat, but behind the happy tone, she heard the exhaustion.

  Butch grunted and began shoveling down his eggs.

  Maureen shook her head. Jenny shouldn’t have to keep a secret like this from her husband. She shouldn’t have to keep it from anyone; there was no shame in it. Dahlia was just different, that’s all.

  She didn’t want to keep it from her friends in the coven, but if High Priestess Natalie Taylor found out and stuck her nose into it, she’d make more of it than it was. The woman was like that, a pit bull when she locked onto anything, even when she was wrong. The child’s life would be difficult enough without her ending up in the center of a controversy.

  Maureen was sure the girl’s deformity was an accident of genetics. It had nothing to do with the fertility ritual that may or may not have resulted in her and her sister’s births and which may or may not have been the work of a demon. But just to be on the safe side, Natalie Taylor’s sharp beak was getting nowhere near Oliver family business. Even if it meant Jenny’s young family got no support from the community no matter how badly she needed it.

  Maureen’s cell rang, and relief washed through her when she saw the number. She’d know soon enough if the coven of healers she’d researched—all of them surgeons, specializing in both medicine and magic—could help. And she’d also know soon enough if she could afford what they had to offer.

  She answered the phone, walking into her room and closing the door. “Yes,” she said. “This is Maureen Oliver. I’m her grandmother and a practicing witch in the Giles, Massachusetts coven. Did you get the pictures?”

  ***

  “Bellowing bat-winged beasties!”

  Natalie tracked the buzzing fly with narrowed eyes as her hands continued their work grinding ginger in a well-worn stone mortar. She was sure it wore a grin on its not-at-all common housefly face. Although flies descended in abundance on downtown Giles every summer due to the combination of hot, humid Massachusetts weather and a fragrant dumpster behind the Diner of Earthly Delights, it was too early in the year for that plague. Something else was at play here. And she knew exactly what it was; a game that was coming to an end.

  When the pest landed on top of the shop’s vintage brass cash register, she reached nonchalantly under the counter and, with a remarkably smooth and swift motion for a woman with a gray bob and lined forehead, dispatched it with the swatter she’d earlier stowed there.

  Her fellow witches, Gillian Winterforth and Cassie Sanders, turned from their work among the shelves of Ouija boards, tarot cards, herbs, and potions when the hearty smack of the blow reverberated through the shop. They were just in time to watch her stow her weapon back under the counter, then launch the mashed victim into the air with the tip of a finger and a satisfied, “That’ll teach you.”

  Cassie shuddered, her blue eyes scrunching in disgust. “Yuck. Nat, don’t be so gross. Put it in the trash. Don’t leave it in the middle of the floor.”

  “Look again, dear.” Natalie said, one hand moving in an exaggerated flourish toward the murder scene. “Do you see a dead fly?”

  Cassie’s eyes moved to where the small black body had just landed as it vaulted outward and down. When they didn’t find a squashed insect there, she looked back to Natalie with one eyebrow raised, questioning. Behind her, Gillian’s head cocked to the right while they both waited for an explanation.

  “I believe you’ll find the answer just exiting our town’s namesake.” Natalie nodded toward the front door.

  “Oh-h-h-h,” Gillian said, raising a hand to rest with fingers splayed on the side of her face, the word trailing out melodically as she realized who the winged visitor had been. She flipped her long white braid behind her and shook her head, smiling to herself as she went back to straightening the shelves.

  Cassie sprinted to the door as quickly as she could in heels and a short, pink skirt, her long brown hair swaying just above her waist. She stood outside the shop, looking down the street, waved at someone, then walked back inside, smiling. “So William disguised himself as a fly?”

  “Yes. Making a nuisance of himself again,” Natalie replied, as she polished the top of the register with a cloth to remove the spot left by the fly’s messy demise.

  “It probably isn’t a good idea to send him to the statue in the middle of the day,” Cassie said. Anyone could see him letting himself out. He could be stuck in there for hours if there’s foot traffic.”

  Natalie tucked the cleaning cloth into a pocket of her black velvet smoking jacket, keeping it ready for a second use, if needed. “Then perhaps he’ll learn his lesson and stop spying on me.”

  Gillian’s long, flowery skirt swished as she headed behind the sales counter, and Cat pounced and bounced along behind her, his glossy black body landing lightly as he batted at the skirt’s hem. She pulled one of the stools from against the wall and set her well-padded derriere on it, then leaned in to rest on one elbow, and asked, in her gentle British accent, “Trouble in paradise?”

  “As you well know, William and I are taking our relationship slow. A pace which he insists advances more slowly than a glacier, but which suits me just fine. I suspected he’d been spying on me because he’s been anticipating my nee
ds far too well. He always seems to show up at the door with exactly the thing I need.” She looked from one of them to the other. “I know neither of you would be brave enough to supply him with information, so it didn’t take me long to figure it out.”

  Cassie shook her head. “I don’t know about you, Nat. Seriously, is it your life-long goal to be miserable? Take it too slow and well…” Her voice trailed off, then she started again, “He’s doing everything he can to prove that you guys could be happy, including giving himself gray hair and wrinkles when he could still look like a cute twenty-something, but you keep him at arm’s length. Sometimes you make no sense at all.”

  “Says the girl who’s so male-dependent she texts her husband every five minutes because she apparently can’t have a conversation he’s not in.”

  Cassie’s face first registered surprise, then her lower lip started to tremble when the ringtone for a text from her husband Tom played at just the wrong moment. Natalie knew it was likely just the pregnancy hormones making expectant-mother Cassie hypersensitive, but she hurried to say, “I didn’t mean that. Just forget I said it.”

  Cassie’s lip stopped trembling, but the hurt lingered on her face. Gillian went to her and hugged her close, looking daggers at Natalie over the younger woman’s shoulder as she murmured soothing words.

  It was true. She hadn’t meant it. She’d lashed out because of her frustration with her erstwhile boyfriend. Having him back after the fifty years she’d lived without him should make her happy. She knew that. But after a long, solitary life of determined self control, she’d rather be stewed and served up over rice than deal with emotions as confusing as the ones that roiled inside her when she was with him.

  He had absolutely earned that swat.

  ***

  William Stanford looked out in all directions through the small holes that had been drilled at intervals around the head of the statue. When he was satisfied he wouldn’t be seen, he undid the latches and allowed the stern Puritan face of Giles Corey to swing out over the statue’s pedestal so he could hop down to the sidewalk. He swung it shut, and the latches caught again as it closed.

  Fortunately, it was well before the lunch crowd started arriving downtown. There had been no one around except a woman with a wide baby stroller she pushed toward the magic shop on the other side of the street, where his nifty-but-brief turn as a secret agent had been scuttled only minutes before.

  When he looked toward the shop again, his friend Cassie waved at him from just outside the door before she ducked back inside. Gosh, that was no random swatting if she’d come out to look for him; he’d been found out. He knew when he’d started his subterfuge that Natalie would catch on sooner or later; that was half the fun. And sometimes with Nat, it was hard to find the fun. Still, it never stopped him trying.

  None of the women in the shop would have been surprised that it was William buzzing around or even that he’d ended up inside the statue. He’d recently been brought back to life after fifty years of hanging around town as a ghost. No one—not even Natalie, who understood most things magical—could explain how he’d become a genius loci, an immortal djinn who protects the locality he is bound to. The intervention of the Goddess was suspected but had not been confirmed; he chose to think of it as a happy miracle, although he wasn’t sure Natalie shared that view.

  The one inconvenient condition of his new lease on life was that if he “died” or stepped outside the town boundary, whatever force had created him put him back into the statue, whole and sound. The first time it had happened, he’d waited to be rescued for six hours before Cassie walked by on her way to work and heard the clanking as he tapped against the brass with his belt buckle to attract attention. The only Morse code he knew was three shorts, three longs, three shorts, but that was enough. Cassie also recognized the signal for SOS. The city had to take the newly repaired statue back to the restorers after they cut him out. Who knows how Robert explained the request for custom alterations. But as both mayor of Giles and the coven’s high priest, Robert Anderson was good at explaining the inexplicable.

  William could normally get himself out of a tight spot by transporting somewhere else, but his magic didn’t work when surrounded by the statue’s hammered brass. Although he didn’t arrive back in his power-free zone often now that he understood the rules, the hinge and internal latch for emergency use were more than welcome.

  He did a quick check of his wardrobe and found his tan khakis and striped button-down were as tidy as ever. He smirked to himself; it had been fun being a fly on the wall. But he’d better get back to the shop and apologize, or it would be a long time before he was back in Natalie’s good graces.

  She’d forgive him, of course, grudgingly. If she could forgive him for being dead for fifty years, she could forgive him almost anything. And, anyway, he was convinced her frostiness was about something that had nothing to do with him—that’s why he’d been spying. He needed to find out what it was. Whatever was bothering her, it wasn’t going to be easy to get her to talk about it. She’d always been a woman of mystery, even when they were young. He hadn’t even known she was a witch until after he died.

  He crossed the street and started down the walk toward the shop, whistling the first few bars of Sentimental Journey, when he realized the woman in front of him was now struggling to maneuver the buggy, which held three infants, into the shop. He sped up and held the door for her to make her task easier. Her grateful smile lit up merry eyes behind a pair of bifocals as she backed the buggy in. It was a tight squeeze, but it finally squeaked through.

  Gosh, those were three young babies. And definitely not her own. Babysitter or grandmother? He followed her in and found out soon enough as Gillian rushed forward to bend over them and said, “Maureen? Are these the grandchildren?” and then shook her head, saying, “Of course they are. What a goose I am! They’re lovely.”

  Cassie flicked him a wide smile and said, “Hey, William, what’s the buzz?” before she took a place beside Gillian and they oohed and gooed over the babies together, pointing out an adorable this and a darling that.

  Natalie walked out of the hallway, and her eyes snapped to the woman and her charges.

  “Oh. Natalie.” Maureen paled, her eyes no longer merry. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  “Yes. I expect not,” Natalie replied. She hung back from the group, staying behind the sales counter. He walked over to join her.

  “Look, I’m sorry about the air raid. But if you were better at talking to me when things are bothering you…”

  She cut him off. “Yes, that’s fine. Just make sure I’m a no-fly zone from now on.” She didn’t look at him. Her eyes were on the infants.

  Well, that certainly went better than he expected. Especially since what he’d expected was a knuckle sandwich. But why was she so interested in the children? She never gushed over babies.

  The deep commas between her furrowed brows told him she was puzzling something out. He found himself staring at the babies, too. They looked pretty run-of-the-mill to him: drooling, helpless, and totally mesmerizing. He focused harder, then nearly jumped when Nat’s voice rang out with, “They’re awfully big and healthy looking for preemies, aren’t they?”

  Maureen responded with a surprised look, then walked to the counter. She said, “I thought so, too. We think Jenny got her dates wrong. They’re all healthy as horses, especially Dahlia! I have to swaddle her tight so she doesn’t accidentally scratch her sisters.”

  “I see,” Natalie replied. “That’s why you have the one on the left bundled up? The big one?”

  “Yes. She’s full of energy. I expect her to lead them all into scrapes when they’re older. Jenny’ll have to keep an eye on her, that’s for sure.”

  “Hmmm…” Natalie walked out from behind the counter toward the buggy, and put one hand on Gillian’s back and the other on Cassie’s. “Do you mind, dears? I’d like to get a closer look.”

  The two women went back to their
work, and Natalie stood quietly for a time, bent over slightly, looking from one small face to another and then back again. Her eyes lingered longest on the largest child.

  “Yes,” she finally said, “…she’s certainly a big one. Nothing unusual about her other than that, Maureen? She was conceived, after all, through the power of a demon’s magic. You haven’t forgotten that, have you?”

  Maureen, who also leaned in to the buggy at Natalie’s side, smiling fondly at her grandchildren, stiffened. “I told you…Jenny was already pregnant long before I tried to give nature a push with the help of the coven. I’m confident that spell had no part in their births.”

  Natalie straightened and turned to the other woman, who stepped back quickly to make room between them. Natalie leaned in, taking some of that room back, crowding her.

  She growled, “If you see anything out of the ordinary with these children, I want to know immediately. Don’t convince yourself that all is well and keep it from me. You know I’ll find out, and when I do, I won’t go easy on you.”

  Maureen’s eyes dropped to the floor.

  “I mean it, Maureen. Silence could be dangerous. To you. To this town. To these children.”

  Gillian stepped up quickly and put an arm around Maureen’s shoulder; she returned Natalie’s glare. “You’ve got no business frightening her like that. Robert will have words with you before the next full moon if I have anything to say about it.”

  Natalie didn’t back down. She wasn’t afraid of Robert Anderson. Plus, as high priestess of the Giles coven, she had equal power to the high priest, and William knew for a fact that Natalie didn’t care a fig that Robert was also the town’s mayor. He’d never seen her bow to authority.

  Pointing a finger at Maureen, she continued, “One thing out of the ordinary…”

  Then she hurried to the counter, grabbed her red vinyl purse from the storage cubby beneath, and hustled past the buggy and the other witches with it swinging wildly across her forearm. The shop bell pealed as she opened the door and barreled through. Cassie and Gillian looked first to each other, and then to William.