by Bailey Cates
“The 33 Curses,” I said, glancing at Andersen.
She nodded. “Yes. I thought I’d killed him, but there he was, staggering down the street at midnight. I saw him heading for the square, but there were people around. I couldn’t do anything. I saw him fall. So I waited.”
I gaped. “You could have saved him.”
“Why would I do that?” she asked.
I ran my hand over my face. Evidently, Nel’s need to be in the Dragoh Society had driven her far beyond the edge of sanity. I could only hope she wasn’t beyond help altogether. My hand dropped as I remembered. “You were on the bench. Reading the paper. In front of the bank on Bryan Street,” I said.
She smiled.
“Why did you want to work at the Honeybee so badly?” I asked. “You went to a lot of trouble, and you had to know we’d find out you lied sooner or later.”
Her head ticked to the side. “You found him. You saw the tattoo. I could tell what you were—magically, I mean—even from across the street. I wanted to keep an eye on you.” Her laugh held no humor. “I sure didn’t expect a whole coven working out of that silly bakery.”
Taite took a step, tugging at her arm.
“Just one more thing.”
He stopped and turned halfway back.
“Greer, Nel. What happened to Greer?” The spellbook club and druids gathered around me.
“He died,” Nel said, looking around at all of us. “He was the one who told me about the summoning spell in the first place, when we were together in Greece.”
I shot a questioning look at Taite. He nodded in response. “We found out about their connection just this evening.”
“Oh, don’t look so surprised,” Nel said to me. “I’m a little older than he is, but we had a good time for a few years. Then after he came back for the funeral and saw me, he guessed that I’d killed his father. Poor man wasn’t very interested in magic, but I needed a power source, and he fit the bill.”
I was afraid to ask. “Power source.”
“When I attacked you. I couldn’t afford to use my power for that. I had to be ready for tonight. Heck, I had to be ready to come into the Honeybee and cover for you. We had an old connection, Greer and I, and so I used him.”
Steve took a step forward. “You used him?”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “I’m afraid she used him up. It killed him.”
“He always was weak,” she said.
“Detective,” Steve growled, “you’d better get this woman out of here before she says another word.”
Taite took her by the arm. “Done.”
“I’ll go with you,” Victor said, looking around at all of us. “So she doesn’t try anything stupid.”
I looked around at the clearing. “We’ll clean up here.”
* * *
The ladies sat in the mismatched chairs in the gazebo, sipping sweet tea and keeping me company while I dug a hole on the north side of the structure. It was early evening; after a long day at the bakery, I’d met the spellbook club back at my carriage house for some heavy smudging. Once again it stank to high heaven of sage and juniper. They’d also helped me cast a deep cleansing spell and re-up the standard protections around the place. A new spell bottle sat on the bookshelf, courtesy of Lucy. Even Mungo was content with the work we’d done.
Steve’s ring still hung from the chain around my neck. While the others packed up our magical paraphernalia the night before and swept away what salt they could, Steve and I went into the Drayton mausoleum to see what Nel had left there. We made a grisly discovery.
Nel had created an altar on a stone sarcophagus on the north side of the room. We lit a couple of the candles there so we could see, and found that her working space held a lot of familiar items as well as a few oddities: a jar containing a black sticky substance that smelled like Limburger cheese, a perfectly preserved skin of a copperhead snake, and…human finger bones.
She’d broken into one of the burial vaults and removed them for the summoning spell. I’d called the police precinct and asked them to track down Detective Taite. He’d called Quinn back in, and they were both interviewing Nel—I had to wonder how that conversation went. When he came on the line I told him about the bones, and he said he’d add a charge of grave robbing to the list. But he couldn’t charge her with Greer’s death, which appeared to be a straightforward heart attack.
On the altar, Steve and I also found the Spell of Necretius, the actual volume Nel had stolen from Dr. Eastmore. It was much smaller than I’d expected, a quarter of the size of The 33 Curses. Thin—maybe ten pages, bound in leather and gilded with gold. It smelled ancient. I couldn’t resist flipping it open. The ink on the yellowed pages had faded so it was hard to read, and from what I could see the language was barely recognizable as English. More like something Chaucer might have written.
“You take it, Katie.”
“I don’t want it!” I shoved it at him.
He ignored my outstretched hand. “If what Taite says is true, you won’t be tempted. Anyone else might be.”
“Pfft. That lightwitch stuff? Please. I’m just as bad as anyone else.”
“Maybe. But not when it comes to magic. Katie, you glowed in the dark. I believe him.”
You glowed in the dark.
But my mind shunted away from the thought. I didn’t want to have a calling, be a lightwitch or a candela or whatever. To suffer the onus of always having to be good. Darn it, I wanted to try a new recipe for lavender vanilla biscotti and grow my little spells in the backyard.
“Fine,” I grumped and stuffed the little book into my bra. He grinned. “I don’t have any pockets,” I said defensively.
“Okay.”
“And while I’m thinking about it—” I reached behind my neck to unclasp the chain. “Here’s your ring.”
He held up his hand. “Keep it. I can get another one.”
I paused, then lowered my arms. Eyed the tattoo on the inside of his arm. “Are you an actual member of the society now?”
He nodded slowly. “They decided to make an exception. Greer had no children, and Lawrence’s sister didn’t, either. At least I’m here, and…ready. We need six.”
I didn’t ask why.
“Nel’s cousin is joining us from Kentucky,” he said.
“So they made an exception for you, but not for Nel, even after her father’s death. That’s pretty crappy, you know.”
“I know. But I’m glad she didn’t become our first female member.”
“Yeah.” I had to agree with that. “You have a point there.”
Now as I shoveled dirt out of the hole by the gazebo, I thought about Lawrence Eastmore planting the Savannah holly tree in his backyard. About how there were six of them, just as there were six members in the Dragoh Society. And I knew about them. Enough about them, in fact, that I didn’t like the idea of being involved with one of them, no matter how he made me feel.
“I think I found someone who can help out at the Honeybee,” Cookie said, breaking into my reverie.
I leaned on the handle of the shovel and looked at Lucy. Her response was a serene smile. I tugged at my gardening gloves and knelt by the hole. “No, thank you.”
“Seriously, you’re going to love her.”
“Uh-huh.”
Mimsey laughed. “You might want to give her a chance. Cookie is good at what I’ve begun to think of as ‘job magic.’”
I looked up at her. The twinkle was back in her blue eyes. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it the last few days. “Okay.” I capitulated.
Bianca rose. “I need to pick up Colette.” She looked around. “It really is lovely here.”
“Inside and out now,” Jaida said, standing. “I have to get going, too.”
Lucy nodded, eyeing my planting efforts. “I think we should all give Katie a chance to settle back in.” She gave me a knowing smile. A smile that said she understood that I needed to be alone for what I was about to do.
Hugs all around, and I walked them out front, Mungo trotting at my heels. “Thanks, everyone. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to sleeping in my own house tonight.”
More hugs, and then the ladies climbed into their respective vehicles and drove off to their own lives. When Lucy’s Thunderbird had vanished around the corner, I turned back to the house. Margie waved from her front porch, and I waved back.
Back by the gazebo, Mungo sat and watched with interest as I lifted the gardenia plant out of the plastic pot and settled it into the hole.
Recipes
Cinnamon Raisin Biscotti
Makes 12 biscotti
1 cup raisins
2 teaspoons cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 eggs
½ teaspoon baking powder
2/3 cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350˚F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or nonstick aluminum foil.
Combine the raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg, and flour and set aside. Combine the eggs, baking powder, sugar, salt, and vanilla extract and beat on medium speed until mixture is light and the sugar is mostly dissolved. Mixing on low speed, add the flour mixture in gradually until it is just incorporated. Do not overmix.
Shape dough into a 3 × 12–inch loaf and transfer to the cookie sheet (or form the loaf on the cookie sheet). Bake for 25 minutes. Remove loaf from oven and reduce the temperature to 325˚F. Allow the loaf to cool for 15–20 minutes on a cutting board, then use a serrated knife to slice it into 12 pieces. Slice either straight across or diagonally, depending on the desired shape and size of the biscotti. Lightly mist the loaf with water first to help prevent crumbling.
Place the slices back on the cookie sheet and bake for another 20 minutes until crispy but not browned. Cool biscotti completely before storing in an airtight container.
If you like nuts in your biscotti, replace half the raisins with slivered almonds or chopped pecans. These are wonderful dipped into coffee drinks or a glass of dessert wine, and are something special with a cup of hot apple cider in the fall!
Margie’s Coca-Cola Cake
Makes one 9 × 13–inch sheet cake
1 cup Coca-Cola
½ cup buttermilk
2 cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup butter
1¾ cups sugar
2 large eggs, slightly beaten
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
Preheat the oven to 350˚ F. Butter and flour a 9 × 13–inch baking pan.
Mix the Coca-Cola and the buttermilk together and set aside. Sift together the flour, cocoa, and baking soda and set aside.
Cream the butter and sugar together on low speed with an electric mixer. Add the eggs and vanilla extract and beat together until thoroughly combined. Add half the flour mixture and combine well. Mix in the Coca-Cola and buttermilk, then add the rest of the flour, mixing until just blended.
Pour the cake batter into the prepared pan and bake at 350˚ F for 30 to 35 minutes until a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool for a few minutes while you make the frosting.
Coca-Cola Frosting
½ cup butter
¼ cup Coca-Cola
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 pound confectioners’ sugar
1 cup chopped dried cherries (optional)
Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the Coca-Cola and cocoa powder and bring the mixture to a boil. Remove from heat and whisk in the confectioners’ sugar and vanilla. Stir in the chopped cherries if you like. The cherries can also be replaced with the same amount of more traditional chopped pecans. Pour the warm frosting over the warm cake and allow to cool completely before slicing.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bailey Cates believes magic is all around us if we only look for it. She’s held a variety of positions ranging from driver’s license examiner to soapmaker, which fulfills her mother’s warning that she’d never have a “regular” job if she insisted on studying philosophy, English, and history in college. She traveled the world as a localization program manager but now sticks closer to home, where she writes two mystery series, tends to a dozen garden beds, bakes up a storm, and plays the occasional round of golf. Bailey resides in Colorado with her guy and an orange cat that looks an awful lot like the one in her Magical Bakery Mysteries.
CONNECT ONLINE
www.baileycates.com
