She wasn’t going to be happy.
“Um, Christopher, Cade, and Cole,” I told her nonchalantly. She gave me a look that, if looks could kill, would have made me drop dead.
“You invited Cade Blackwater and didn’t give me a fair warning to make myself cute?” she asked, looking down at her gray sleep shirt that had black stars all over it and her black tall fuzzy socks. Her messy bun really pulled the whole look together.
“Abby, if he doesn’t like you for who you are than he is not worth it,” Sadie said in her motivational speaker voice.
It was very moving.
“Stick a sock in it, Sadie,” she said, turning to run up the stairs, but when someone knocked on the door, she turned around and plopped down on the stairs and let out a defeated sigh.
Agnes rolled her eyes and pulled the door open to reveal the Blackwater twins and Christopher.
“What a handsome group of young men. Now, please come inside so we can hear what Malady has to say. I have aged ten years waiting for you boys,” Grandma Misty said, walking into the living room.
“It’s not us aging you, Grandma Misty. You’re aging because you’re getting old,” Christopher said, earning a smack on the back of his head.
We all followed her into the living room and took whatever seats we could find.
“Chris, don’t talk to Grandma Misty that way,” Abigail said, avoiding looking at Cade.
Grandma Misty was stunned by Abigail looking at her. “Thank you so much, my sweet Abigail,” she said, placing her hand on her heart and giving Abby a sweet smile. I think I may have even seen a tear pooling up in one of her eyes.
“No problem, Grandma Misty. And Christopher she already knows she’s old. There’s no need for you to remind her,” she said, making the proud look Grandma Misty was giving her vanish as quickly as it appeared.
“Wow! Abigail, this is a new look for you,” Cole said, whistling and winking at her.
“Some girls can pull off anything,” Cade said, giving his brother a warning look to keep his mouth closed or else.
Abigail pretended like she didn’t hear his statement, but I knew she did and it affected her more than she would let on. My heart went out to my sister, but I kept quiet.
“So, why are we here? Can we get this over with?” Abigail asked, not bothering to show her annoyance at being there.
“The suspense is killing me,” Agnes said, bouncing in her seat as she waited for my news.
I have no clue why she thought it was going to be exciting. If anything she was going to be scared to death after I told her about Earl. I wasn’t going to tell my family about Earl and his past, but if I was going to prove that he was indeed Bobby’ Murderer. If I was going to figure it out, I needed an army of bad witches. Not bad as in evil though because we didn’t roll like that. We weren’t the kind of witches young girls in shiny red shoes dropped houses on.
“There’s something about Earl that you need to know. His name is not really Earl Reeks. It’s Andrew Reeks, and he knew Bobby Matthews. A few years back they were business partners, and everything was going great until Earl ran away with all of their money. Bobby had a private investigator following Earl, and he found him here, so Bobby took the chance of following him here with the excuse of visiting his sister. Now, Earl figured out that Bobby had someone following him, so he poisoned him. Or at least I think that’s how it happened, but you catch my drift. Earl is a dangerous man. And I’m worried about his relationship with Aunt Tilly. Something about it feels unnatural to me,” I told them without taking a breath.
I had to get it out and off of my chest. Each person in that room had a special ability to help me crack the case, and I was going to need them.
“I knew there was something fishy about him,” Grandma Misty said, looking like she wanted to hunt Earl down and using him as an experimental dummy for spells.
“He always stole my yogurt covered raisins, so it’s no shock to me that he’s a thief,” Abigail said, pretending to not be shocked by my information about Earl, but I knew her. She was like my sister, and I was certain that she wasn’t going to be able to sleep while Earl was under the same roof.
“How dare he steal all of your nasty yogurt raisins?” Christopher said, gasping.
“I like you better when you’re a bird,” she told her brother, sticking her tongue out at him. “Hey, Sadie?”
“Yes?” Sadie replied, running her fingers through her hair trying her hardest to mess it up, but it was no use because it kept falling like she had just left a professional salon.
“Are we having chicken tonight? I’ve been craving it all day,” she said, smiling brightly at her brother who practically had steam coming from his ears.
“Yep, we’re having fried chicken,” she said, still trying to mess her hair up.
She needed to give up on that because she had as much chance of not being perfect as I did of being happy. Zero percent chance.
“Sadie, let it go. You’re not going to be able to mess your hair up no matter how hard you try,” Cole said, laughing at the defeat written all over her face.
“Can we focus on the man who may or may not be the murderer that is living in the same house with us?” I asked.
“What do you want us to do?” Grandma Misty asked.
“I want everyone to be on their toes around Earl and pretend to like him. Pretend to support the idea of their wedding. We can’t afford to scare him away. We need him to stay as close as possible, so we can gather information on him. And whatever you do no one is allowed to tell Aunt Tilly anything. We have to prove what he is and what he has done,” I told them, stopping my speech when I heard a car door slam shut.
Everyone I had invited was there. Hoping it wasn’t Daniel or Mason, I jumped up and ran to the window. I saw Daisy Blackwater, the Blackwater twins’ sister and someone I hadn’t ever really taken the time to get to know. walking up to the house with two women One was probably in her mid-fifties and looked just like Daisy, and one was about my age with long blonde hair.
“Cade and Cole, your sister is here, and she has two women with her,” I called into the next room.
Before I could finish the statement, they were both at my side.
“Why is she with them?” Cade asked, looking at the window before both of the twins ran back into the living room.
The front door blew open, and the three of them walked into the house like they owned it. Well, the two that I didn’t know did, but Daisy walked in like she had been forced. She wanted to be anywhere but there, and I didn’t blame her.
“Do you know how to knock?” Grandma Misty asked, sounding as rude as I had ever heard her. She usually forced herself to be as sweet as she possibly could even to the meanest people.
“Where are my sons?” the oldest woman asked, strolling past Grandma Misty like she wasn’t there.
“And who do you think you are? This is our house you better show some respect to my Aunt,” Christopher said, standing in from of the wicked witch before she could get to the living room where her boys were located.
She snapped her manicured fingers and sent my brother flying across the room, but he didn’t have his wings the one time he really needed them.
“Mom, leave them alone!” Daisy cried, causing her super blonde Barbie lookalike friend to turn around wave her hand making Daisy’s voice go away.
“Cade, I told you to stay away from this family. Her especially,” Cade’s mother said, pointing at Abigail. “Have you told her?”
I had no clue what she was talking about, but I could tell by the smirk on her face she couldn’t wait for my sister to hear it.
“No, I haven’t because I’m not doing it,” he said, getting a sympathetic look from Cole and an ear piercing giggle from his mother.
“Tell me what?” she asked, her lip quivering as she looked at Cade.
“Mara, we are going to enjoy this,” the blonde purred while Agnes made faces behind her back.
“My mom wants
me to marry Devin, but I’m not going to do it,” Cade said, walking over and placing his hands on her shoulders.
“Who’s Devin?” she asked, fighting to hold back the tears I knew wanted to stream down her face.
“I am,” the blonde said, putting her hand on her hips. Oh…oh no.
Abigail looked her up and down before looking up at Cade. “She’s beautiful, why wouldn’t you want to marry her?”
“She’s not even close to being as beautiful as you, Abby. I’m not married her,” he told her, making me feel like I was watching a romantic movie and not standing in a room full of witches having a meeting a murderer who wanted to marry my Aunt. Life was so weird sometimes.
“You are marrying her, and that’s final. Now, that’s not the only reason we’re here. We also here to help you solve the murder. We heard the twins talking about it, and we want in,” Mara said, tapping her foot on the hardwood.
“Why would you want to help us?” I asked.
“For the glory, duh,” Devin said, flipping her hair.
Of course, it wasn’t for the right reasons. They weren’t the kind of women who did anything for the right reasons.
But I wasn’t going to turn away any help.
19
The living room floor was covered with bridal magazines. Everyone was doing a great job of pretending like they were excited about the wedding and Aunt Tilly was over the moon.
“I’m so glad everyone came around to Earl and our wedding. He’s a really great guy when you get to know him. He’s deep, you know?” Aunt Tilly asked, looking over at Earl who was fast asleep on a chair in the corner of the room.
He was snoring so loud that when he first started, I thought someone was bulldozing buildings. “He even sleeps deeply,” Abigail said, flipping through one of the magazines. “So, what color are our dresses going to be? Please tell me that you’re going to pick something that looks good with my skin tone.”
“I was thinking that all of the bridesmaids should wear white. It will give everything a clean, crisp look,” Aunt Tilly answered, showing us a picture of a wedding where the bride and all of her bridesmaids were matching in white. “And I think all of you girls should choose your own dress to show your personal style.”
That got squeals from all of us because we all had different taste. I wouldn’t be caught dead in anything my sisters wore, and I knew they felt the same about my pencils skirts and blazers.
“Who’s going to be your maid of honor?” Agnes asked, hoping it was her.
She lived for weddings because they made her feel like she was living in a Hallmark movie.
“Your Grandma Misty, of course. She’s my best friend, so I can’t think of anyone better,” she said, crushing Agnes’ dream and she didn’t even know it.
“Have you asked her yet?” I asked, hoping she had so I didn’t have to worry about her saying no and messing up our plan.
“I did, and she could barely contain her excitement,” Aunt Tilly said just as Grandma Misty made her way into the room with freshly baked cookies and glasses of tea floating behind her on trays.
Ah, the perks of being a witch.
Snapping her fingers, a plate and glass landed in front of each of us.
“So, you’re Aunt Tilly’s maid of honor, huh?” Agnes asked, pretending to not be offended by not being chosen.
“Yeah, it’s like a dream come true,” Grandma Misty said, with a fake smile.
She was trying way too hard. Good thing she wanted to be a lawyer and not an actress because she was a really bad actress.
“Tell us a little bit about Earl,” Sadie said, stacking up the discarded magazines into perfect stacks.
“He grew up in London, and he moved to the United States when he was sixteen,” she said, smiling nervously.
She was drawing a blank. Maybe whatever weird spell she was under had begun to wear off and she realized that was marrying a man she knew nothing about. But what she didn’t know was the very little she thought she knew about him was a lie.
“What else? Where does he work?” Grandma Misty grilled her.
“Um, well, he used to work at some big fancy company, but he doesn’t like to talk about that. Now, he works at McDonald’s, but he just got promoted to manager before we came out here.”
That’s all she knew about her fiancé. That wasn’t like Aunt Tilly. Not at all. A wave of worry ran through me, but she had made her decision, and she was a grown woman.
“Well, he seems like a great guy, and I have to say I’ve never seen you so happy,” I told her, trying to bring her spirits back up.
I needed to be pumped about her upcoming wedding. Not worried that she was making the wrong decision. She totally was, but she didn’t need to know that. Not at that moment anyway.
“Thank you,” she said, glancing over at Earl every few minutes.
“Have you chosen your flowers yet?” Abigail asked, munching on a cookie.
She was dressed in her absolute best because the Blackwater’s were staying in a hotel nearby and could drop in at any moment. She and Devin were in this weird I can dress cuter than you competition. One of them was going to bust out a ball gown on a Tuesday before the competition was over.
“Red roses. They are so elegant,” Aunt Tilly told her without even having to think about her answer.
“Red roses are my favorite,” Abigail replied, giving Aunt Tilly a thumbs up and a smile filled with approval.
Those weren’t easy to come by coming from Abigail Norwood. When she was little, we weren’t sure if she knew how to smile. Our Aunts put her in pageants thinking that would turn her into the sweet little girl they wanted her to be, but they were in for a rude awakening. She was banned from all pageants after she cut up all of the little girl’s dresses and filling their hairspray cans with neon pink spray paint while they were rehearsing.
“I need to go to the florist. Who wants to join me?” Aunt Tilly asked, hopping up and grabbing her purse off of the floor.
“I’ll go,” I offered, mimicking her movements.
I had to use every opportunity I had to find out things about Earl while Daniel did some digging of his own. I had received a text from Daniel earlier in the day that told me he had crossed Oliva Matthews off of the suspect list.
We walked outside and jumped inside of Earl’s truck. It reeked of pork rinds and soda.
We drove into town and came to a stop in front of the local drug store. “I need to run in and grab Earl’s allergy medicine. I’ll be very quick,” she said, putting the car in park and running into the store.
While I waited for her, I got nosy. I rummaged through Earl’s truck. I knew I shouldn’t have, but he had done a lot of things he shouldn’t have. I looked through his dash and was just about to give up when I when I found a picture of Earl with his arm around a very familiar blondes shoulders hid under a million candy bar wrappers and speeding tickets. It was Devin, the super evil blonde that showed up at our house with Mara and Daisy Blackwater.
After the shock had worn off, I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture. Looking out of the windshield, I saw Aunt Tilly exiting the drug store with a bag in her hand. Quickly putting everything back, I tried to act normal, but that was pretty hard for me to do. Normal wasn’t something I had seen much of in my day.
“Ready?” she asked, jumping the truck and bringing it to life. “I’m so excited to order the flowers. You know how I love my garden. I wish I would have time to grow my own,” she said, nodding her head to the beat of some song that billowed lightly from the truck speakers.
“Aunt Tilly, we can conjure up some roses with the snap of a finger, and you wouldn’t have to pay for them,” I told her, hoping she would turn around and go home, so I could show everyone the picture of Devin.
“I don’t want to use any magic to plan this wedding because Earl knows nothing about magic. He didn’t fall in love with Tilly Norwood, the witch. He fell in love with plain old Tilly Norwood. In fact, when we get married I
’m offering my magic up to the Blackwater family,” she told me like it was nothing.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
The Blackwater’s syphoned powers when a witch didn’t want them or had broken the ancestor’s trust.
“Do Cade and Cole know about this?” I asked.
“No, just Mara and that blonde witch that has latched on to her like a leech,” she said, cranking the music up. I guess that was her way of telling me she didn’t want to talk anymore, so we rode the rest of the way to the florist in silence.
If Earl knew Devin than why didn’t Aunt Tilly know her and more importantly why did Earl know a witch?
Things were slowly beginning to fall in place.
Devin had to be the mystery girl who had a connection to my family that none of us were too thrilled about. Earl. He was just at the root of every problem in Cat’s Cradle at that time.
20
“Why are we meeting in your childhood tree house?” Cole asked, looking seriously confused.
I had no clue how my sisters and the Blackwater siblings were crammed into the tree house without it falling to the ground. It was a miracle, or maybe it was magic.
“Because both Earl and Aunt Tilly are home. Listen, Earl knows Devin. I found a picture of them in his truck, and Aunt Tilly told me that she plans to have her magic syphoned the Blackwater’s when she marries Earl. I also think she’s the mystery girl that Bobby told you about. Something more than we thought is going on, and I don’t like it,” I told them, peeking out of the small window of the tree house to see Devin walking our way. “Devin is coming, you guys.”
“It’s like she has a locator spell on me,” Cade said with an annoyed expression.
His mother had already sent out his wedding invitations even though he had repeatedly said he wasn’t marrying that plastic witch. His words, not mine.
“Knowing her she probably does,” Daisy said, disgust contorting her features.
No one in the tree house liked Devin, and we made no secret of it, but she didn’t care, not one bit.
Cursed on the Second Date: A Witchy Cozy Mystery (Cursed Coven Cozies Book 2) Page 10
