The Halloween Truth Spell

by Morgana Best

  “Come on, I have to speak to you out here,” she said, striding towards huge glass windows. We followed her to a sitting area where she indicated we should sit.

  “What happened?” I asked her.

  She looked around. “Nancy came out of the coma. Actually, the doctor said it wasn’t a deep coma and she might have just been in a deep sleep.”

  “That’s confusing,” I said.

  Camino nodded. “Anyway, they just got her blood results and they’re looking even better than before. I asked Nancy if she knew that Henry had been to see her, but she said she didn’t. She seemed confused.”

  “Would we be able to question her?” I said.

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “Did she seem particularly lucid?” Alder asked.

  “She does now, but one of the nurses on duty today told me that she was confused before she lapsed into the coma. Now they think it’s because her sodium levels were low.”

  “Is that because of the coma?” I asked.

  Camino threw her hands into the air. “Do I look like a doctor? I don’t have a clue, to be honest. One nurse says something and then the other one says the opposite. Maybe, they’re saying the same things and explaining them differently. It’s making my head spin, I can tell you. Oh, and have the onesies done any more damage?”

  “Most likely,” I said, “but we haven’t heard anything because we were at the wake. Were you here when she woke up?”

  “No. When I got here, the nurses said she’d taken a turn for the better.”

  “Was everyone surprised?”

  Camino shrugged one shoulder. “Not particularly. They seemed to take it all in their stride. Anyway, let’s go in and question her now.”

  As we walked into the room, I heard Nancy tell the nurses she was starving.

  A nurse nodded. “You didn’t wake up until after lunch, but I’ll call the kitchen and see if they can send up some soup for you.”

  “Soup!” Nancy exclaimed. “What about a nice cup of tea and some chocolate cake?”

  “I’m not sure if you should be eating anything solid so soon,” the nurse said. She smiled at us and disappeared from the room. It looked as though we were not going to need the fake ID, after all.

  “Nancy, these are my friends and next-door neighbours, Alder and Amelia.”

  Nancy scrunched up her nose. “Wasn’t your neighbour Thelma Spelled? Or do you mean the neighbours on the other side?”

  “Thelma passed away a few years ago. Amelia is Thelma’s niece,” Camino told her. “Alder is her husband. Um, they’re both detectives.”

  The woman shot me a look and then turned to Camino. “Could you raise the bed a little? I want to sit up more.”

  Camino pressed various buttons on the side of the bed, which contorted the poor woman into a variety of positions before finally settling on the correct position.

  “Did you know Henry Vanderbilt visited you when you were in a coma?” I asked her.

  An unmistakable look of shock flashed across her face. “Henry Vanderbilt? Are you sure?”

  “Yes, he’s dead,” Camino said. “Murdered.”

  “Perhaps you could have broken it to her more gently,” Alder admonished her.

  “No point beating about the bush,” Camino said. “Nancy can take the facts, can’t you Nancy?”

  “Yes?” Nancy said in a small voice, clutching a pillow to herself. “Murdered, you say? What happened? Who murdered him?”

  Camino shrugged. “We don’t know, not yet. I was in the room at the time. Rather, I had just popped to your bathroom.” She pointed to the bathroom door. “I drank three cups of tea and needed to use the bathroom. When I came out, he was lying right there on the floor with a knife in his back.”

  Nancy’s jaw hung open. “Are you sure?”

  We all nodded. “I’m afraid it’s true,” I told her. “Apparently, some people in comas can hear what’s happening in the room. Do you have any recollection of those events?”

  “None at all,” Nancy said. “I thought I’d just woken up from a night’s sleep, until Camino told me it had been a couple of days. I had no idea. I don’t think I was in a coma, though. I think I was just awfully tired.”

  Alder and I exchanged glances.

  “Were you good friends with Henry Vanderbilt?” I asked her.

  She clutched the pillow a little more tightly. “Well, yes, we were, but we hadn’t seen each other in years. I’m very surprised he visited me. A lovely boy.” Her eyelids flickered.

  “Do you have any idea who would want to harm him?” Alder asked her.

  “Plenty of people.”

  “But you said he was lovely,” I pointed out.

  “Oh yes. I thought he was lovely, but not everybody else did. Henry didn’t like his brother, and I assume his brother didn’t like him. And then there’s that nurse, Angela Bloom. She works on this ward, you know.”

  “Angela told me the two of them had dated years ago.”

  “Is that all she told you?” I was about to ask her what she meant, when she pushed on. “Henry and Angela dated. That part is true. Henry was young and silly back in those days, so you can’t blame him, really. As much as I don’t condone his actions, many people do things they later regret. He was young and silly,” she said again.

  “Exactly what did he do?” Alder asked her.

  “Henry and Angela were engaged, and then Angela found out he was seeing someone else. He had no intention of going through with the wedding, you see. He was playing a cruel trick on Angela. She was very plain back in those days, and so he asked her to marry him for a joke.”

  “But that’s despicable!” I cried.

  Nancy turned to Camino. “Can I have some more of that water, please?”

  Camino poured some water from a plastic pitcher into a cup and handed to her. She drank one glass rapidly and then asked for another. After she downed that one rapidly too, she added, “Yes, it was most unkind of him, I have to admit.”

  “Was Angela very upset?” Alder asked her.

  Nancy made a snorting sound. “Only a man would ask a question like that. Of course, she was upset! She was very upset indeed. In fact, I’m surprised she didn’t murder Henry on the spot.”

  “Are you aware of anyone else who wanted to kill him?” I asked.

  “Dr Steven Stylish, probably. They had a falling out.”

  “What was that about?” I asked her.

  She shrugged. “I have no idea. I’m tired and I’m hungry.”

  A lady poked her head around the door. “I have a cup of tea and a piece of cake for Nancy Newton?”

  Camino waved her inside. “Come in, come in. This is the right room. Thank you.” She placed the teacup and cake on the mobile tray and wheeled it in front of Nancy.

  Nancy’s face lit up at the sight of the food. “I’m ravenous,” she said.

  As she sipped her tea, I asked, “And is there anyone else who might have had a motive to kill Henry?”

  Nancy looked out the window. “His brother, Bernard, of course. Henry cheated Bernard out of the inheritance, and he was responsible for Bernard’s injuries. Of course, their grandfather, Aurelius Vanderbilt, was a nasty man, a very nasty man.” She shook her head. “He doted on Henry, but he treated everybody else like dirt. He was very snobbish and had a high opinion of himself. Quite sanctimonious.” Her nose wrinkled with disgust.

  I looked down to see an incoming call from Thyme. My phone was still on silent.

  Amelia, you have to get home fast!

  Chapter 14

  “I can’t believe I forgot about the Halloween fair tomorrow,” I said to Alder as he drove me home. “I’m going to be baking for hours, and it’s such bad timing, what with the murder investigation and all the escaped onesies.”

  “Why don’t you leave the baking to Thyme?” Alder asked hopefully.

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Oh Alder, you know my baking has improved! When did I last set something on fire?”<
br />
  “Well…” he began, but stopped speaking when he saw my face.

  “All right then. I do know I still have some room to improve, but I’ve improved a lot since I started baking.”

  “That’s for sure!” Alder said in a heartfelt tone. He said something else which I thought sounded like, “You certainly couldn’t have got any worse.”

  “What was that?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Nothing, nothing at all. Hasn’t Thyme already made a start on the cakes?”

  When I reached home, Thyme was waiting on my front porch. “I’ll leave Amelia in your capable hands,” Alder said, shooting Thyme a significant look. “I’ll drive around town and see if I can find the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. We need to get Camino’s book to reverse the spell. I’ll also keep an eye out for any other onesies. If I capture any, I’ll bring them back here and lock them in the room with the others.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Thyme said.

  “I’m so sorry I’m late, Thyme,” I said. “I completely forgot, what with the murder investigation and everything.”

  Thyme waved my concerns away. “We had better hurry up and get baking.”

  “Sure. Just give me one second.”

  I followed Alder out into the garden, where I pulled him behind a flowering wattle bush so no prying eyes would catch us together. Sure, we were married, but I knew we were married people with more pressing things to do than kiss like hormonal teenagers.

  “Don’t we have more pressing things to do than kiss like hormonal teenagers?” Alder said.

  “Err—nope,” I replied.

  Alder grinned as he pulled me into his arms. We kissed right there, in the afternoon light, the cicadas in their vibrant song all around us. We heard the kookaburras in their gum trees calling out into the coming evening, and the distant roar of cars on the highway adjoining Bayberry Creek. It was peaceful, but it was also short lived.

  Alder stepped away from me and fixed his jacket. “Will you be all right?” he asked, tucking a lock of my hair behind my ear.

  “Why would you ask that?” I replied. “I’m only going to be baking with Thyme.”

  “That’s why I’m asking.”

  “Alder, I don’t know why you’re so obsessed with me being a terrible baker.”

  “Perhaps my obsession with you being a terrible baker is because you are a terrible baker. I love you, Amelia, but let’s not pretend that your talents really come to life inside of the kitchen.”

  “Amelia, stop flirting with your husband. We have work to do,” Thyme called out from the front porch.

  “I have to run,” I said quickly.

  “Maybe you can just supervise.”

  “Goodbye, Alder.”

  “Amelia…”

  I kissed him once on the cheek and darted into the house, Alder’s amused expression lingering in my mind. Yes, he was the most dashing man on the face of the planet, but he truly did have very little faith in my baking. I’m not sure why; I’d only set the kitchen on fire eleven, maybe twelve, times.

  Really, he was totally overreacting.

  I opened the front door and nearly tripped over the cats, Willow and Hawthorn. They ran in front of me with every step I took. “I’ll feed you, but if you trip me over, it will only delay me giving you your food,” I complained to them.

  They were entirely unconcerned and kept running between my feet.

  Thyme had taken the cupcakes she had baked earlier from my large fridge. I pointed to them. “I suppose I should put the frosting on these.”

  She was visibly relieved. “Yes, why don’t you do those and I’ll bake some more.” She pulled flour and sugar from my cupboard and then looked around the room. “We also have the leftovers from the shop. We’ve got more than I thought, after all.” She planted her palm on her forehead. “Sorry to make you hurry back. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “It’s hard to think anything, what with all the dramas we’re having at the moment,” I said. “I still don’t have any clue who murdered Henry Vanderbilt. I also can’t reverse the spell without Camino’s book, and so there are errant onesies running around town.”

  “I passed a witch’s hat on my way here,” Thyme said. “I got out of the car to try to catch it, but it was too fast for me.”

  I gasped in alarm. “Did anyone see?”

  Thyme nodded. “Yes, but they just said it was a good Halloween costume.”

  “We’re lucky it’s Halloween,” I said.

  Thyme waved a wooden spoon at me. “Not so lucky. If it wasn’t Halloween, you wouldn’t have had to do the yearly Halloween spell.”

  I pulled a face. “True.”

  “What are you going to turn those cupcakes into?” Thyme asked.

  “Spiders,” I said. “I’m going to put brown sprinkles all over them and then two tiny mints for eyes. I’m going to use strips of jelly babies for the legs.”

  “That sounds great.”

  “I’m also going to make some orange spiders this year. I’m going to use white frosting and then use orange jellybeans to make the spider body. I’ll use orange jelly babies for their legs. I’m also going to put orange frosting on these chocolate cupcakes and then make black spiders with green eyes.”

  Thyme signalled that she couldn’t hear over the noise of the blending. I turned my attention to the icing. When I had finished the spiders, I said to Thyme, “I’ll just pop out and get my printout of cupcakes I’m going to decorate next. I think it’s in the living room.”

  The house was watching Ghostbusters, the latest film. For once, the volume wasn’t up too high. “Thanks, Grandmother,” I called out. I fetched my list and walked back to the kitchen where Thyme was busily working.

  I held the printout under her nose. “What you think of these ones?”

  She scratched her head. “These looked rather complicated, don’t you think? How do you make them?”

  “I think they can be any cupcake base, maybe chocolate, and then you put white frosting on it and dust it with chocolate powder to look like dirt. I can dissect Tim Tams to make the tombstones, but I’m pretty sure those little pumpkins are marzipan.”

  “It sounds like a lot of work,” Thyme said.

  “You’re probably right. If only we didn’t have so much else going on. I’d really like to have time to make these.”

  Thyme jabbed her finger on one of the other photos in my printout. “This one looks easy enough. You can have a chocolate cupcake as the base and pipe out icing mixture in the shape of a ghost. You can use two little chocolate buttons for eyes.”

  “That it is a good idea,” I said. “I would like to make more cupcakes, but like I said, we’ve got other problems.”

  Thyme nodded. “Besides, we’ve already allocated the decorations for all the other cupcakes.”

  I thought it over. “I did buy some marzipan specially for this,” I said. “You know, I particularly want to make these cupcakes. They’re just pumpkin flavoured cupcakes. I can pipe out orange frosting to make a pumpkin face and I’ll put a little green stalk in the top.”

  “We don’t have any pumpkin flavoured cupcakes,” Thyme protested.

  “I could make some.”

  Thyme’s face went white. “Maybe another time,” she said as she gripped the table behind her. “Why don’t we just concentrate on decorating all these cupcakes first?”

  “You said yourself that we have plenty of time,” I pointed out. I looked in the cupboard. “And I have plenty of flour.” I fetched flour and sugar.

  “But Amelia, we’re going to be selling these cupcakes at the fair.”

  I frowned deeply. “What are you trying to say? My baking has improved out of sight.”

  “I wish it was out of sight,” Thyme muttered.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing.”

  As I measured some flour and sugar into a bowl, Thyme screamed.

  “Oh, that’s such an overreaction,” I said crossly, but then realised
she was pointing to something behind me.

  I turned around to be hit full in my face with a spray of water .

  I wiped the water from my eyes to see a tall creature looming over me. It took me a moment or two to realise it was a onesie. It was, in fact, a white onesie with a silver top from which was an arm that sprayed water. I had no idea why it was attacking me, until Thyme yelled, “It’s a mobile pendant fire sprinkler onesie. Run!”

  Thyme pulled me out the kitchen door and down the hallway with the mobile pendant fire sprinkler onesie in hot pursuit.

  “Help me, Grandmother!” I called to the house, but she ignored me. As I ran past the living room door, I noticed that Chris Hemsworth had just appeared on the screen.

  We staggered out onto the front porch and almost fell over Camino. “Your onesie is attacking me!” I screeched. “Make it stop.”

  Camino, much to my surprise, acted quickly. The onesie faltered when it saw her. As she advanced on the onesie, it backed away.

  “Open the door at the right moment, Grandmother,” I called, running over to turn off the TV. The house shuddered. By the time I ran into the hallway, the TV was back on and Camino was shutting the door.

  “I’ve locked it in the room with the other onesies,” she said. “It wasn’t supposed to attack you.”

  “What on earth was it meant to do?” I asked her.

  Her face flushed red. “I made that onesie to help you.”

  “Help me? It attacked me!”

  “Let me explain,” Camino said. “I made the mobile pendant fire sprinkler onesie for when you bake cakes.”

  “But I didn’t even bake a cake,” I protested. “I was only measuring out the flour.”

  “It’s an advanced preventative system,” Camino said. “I’m particularly proud of my invention. Most fire sprinklers only work after the fire has already started, but I invented one to sprinkle before a fire starts.” She clasped her hands together gleefully. “Isn’t that wonderful!”

  “No!” Thyme and I said in unison.

  “We are soaked through to the bone,” I added. “I’ll have to have a shower.”