by Evie Hart
Dax’s lips curved to one side. “Again, you’re trouble. Since I’m here, why don’t you tell me what you’ve found out about the case? Maybe I can help you cross some things off your list.”
“Why would you do that? You don’t want me investigating.”
“I also don’t want another dead body on my hands.”
Touché. “I don’t have any ideas what to do. All I know is that whoever poisoned Betty Lou wasn’t a witch.”
His eyes narrowed. “How do you know that?”
“You haven’t figured that out?”
“I assumed nobody in the witch community would be so brazen as to murder the Head of the Council.”
“Okay, wow, you don’t spend much time in politics, do you?”
“Too much, actually. I guess I’ve never lived anywhere where murdering someone to get their position is something that happens. In my last town, if someone mounted a leadership challenge, they dueled.”
“Was your last town in the eighteenth century?”
He laughed. “It was archaic, let’s put it that way. So you don’t think a witch was responsible?”
I shook my head. “There’s no way. She was poisoned with belladonna, right?”
“Right.”
“A witch wouldn’t mess that up. Witches are fastidious about the usage of it, and—”
“—And would know exactly how to poison someone with it,” he said slowly. “Damn it. Why didn’t I think of that?”
I shrugged. “You’re too busy insulting me, perhaps?”
“More like trying to keep you alive,” he muttered. “So it wasn’t a witch and it was someone who had access to her tea. What about Amelie?”
“Ana-May told me she had an ex-boyfriend who survived the cougar attacks. Could it be him? Maybe he poisoned Betty Lou, and then shot Amelie.”
“The theory makes sense, especially since their break-up was bad, but no, it wasn’t him. We’ve already found him. He’s taken up with another cougar pack and the alpha confirmed that he was on a run with them at the time of Amelie’s death.”
Well, at least that saved me having to talk with Sarah Machlan, the high school boyfriend stealer.
Still, that didn’t stop me from groaning. Now I really had no leads, and I said as much.
“Well, perhaps that might not be a bad thing,” Dax said, standing up. He wiped his hands on his pants and looked down at me. “Avery, I know you promised to find who did this to Betty Lou, and I also know you’re bound to that promise, but I want you to think carefully about what you do and who you speak to. If you get anything that you think is a lead, call me, and I’ll look into it, okay?”
“Are you telling me what to do?”
“I was more leaning toward suggesting.”
I stood up and looked him in the eye. “Then don’t.”
I turned, my hair flicking over my shoulder, and waved a hand to lift the spell on the lake. He winced as the glare brightened and threw his own hand up to shield him from the blinding light.
It was a small victory. A small, petty, pathetic victory, but it was a victory all the same.
Maybe next time, Dax Sanders would think twice about telling a Thorn witch what to do.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE KITCHEN WAS the heart of any home, and that was especially true in the Thorn house. Mostly because given the circumstances, my aunts had packed up their houses and announced they were moving back for the foreseeable future, and they’d dragged Nicole along, too.
Which meant we now had six grown women, one-ten-year-old boy, one ghost grandma, five cats, and a macaw in the house.
It sounded like the start of a really bad joke, except there was no punchline.
And nobody thought to ask me what I felt about having my house invaded. I guess that was family for you.
Right now, all three of my aunts bustled around the kitchen. Aunt Bella was baking bread, Aunt Rose was cooking her famous chicken pot pie, and Aunt Shelly was making peach cobbler and sneaking bits of peach to her familiar tabby cat, Jelly.
Shelly and Jelly.
It sounded like the name of one of those cringey, pre-teen shows on the Disney Channel with the irritating theme songs you still knew the words to ten years later.
TJ was in the living room, yelling at the screen. Apparently, the people he was playing with online weren’t doing what he wanted them to do.
Yes, that was right. Some things transcended the barriers of magic and human worlds. One of those was the PlayStation.
“How did the planting go?” I asked my aunts. “Did Terrence lose his mind?”
“Just about,” Aunt Shelly sing-songed. “When he saw us coming near the greenhouse with a broom, he started yelling and tried to shut the door. Unfortunately for him, he was far too distracted by the broom to use any of his strength to actually close it.”
Aunt Rose rolled her eyes. “You skipped through the grass singing the song from Snow White! The one the damn dwarves sing!”
Nicole snorted into her hand.
“I was trying to get everyone pumped!”
“By singing Disney songs?” Aunt Bella asked, pausing. “Who on Earth gets pumped up by Disney songs?”
“Every twenty-something female at karaoke after a few drinks,” I replied without batting an eyelid. I licked my finger and flicked the page of the book I was reading on deadly nightshades. “Seriously. I could teach you so much about the human world if you’d cross the wards for just one night.”
I’d also kill to see Aunt Bella in a club.
I couldn’t imagine her dancing like a college kid at the end of finals.
As if to prove my point, she sniffed and shuddered. “No, thank you. I’m quite happy here where I can hex my wayward nieces when they run their smart little mouths.”
Nicole and I shared a look.
“Oh, lighten up, Bella,” Aunt Shelly trilled. “You’re so uptight. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you needed to take a leaf out of your daughter’s book and—”
Caw!
Honey swept in through the door and perched on top of the fridge. “Don’t finish that sentence, Shelly.”
“I agree.” Angus pounced up onto the table. “It’ll cause a terrific fight, and I don’t know if my dear heart can take it.”
“Get off before Aunt Rose smites you.” Nicole shoved him unceremoniously off the table.
“I was sticking up for you, you ungrateful cow!”
“Don’t be a jerk, Angus!” Honey chirped from her perch.
“I’ll eat you, you feathered little—”
“Enough!” Aunt Rose snapped, turned around with her wooden spoon pointed at us. It dripped sauce from the pie onto the floor, but she stopped that with a flick of her finger. “If you are not a human being, get out of my kitchen.”
Honey and Angus both shot out of the room at the sight of her glare.
“And y’all, quit your witchin’. Avery, you know damn well Bella is never gonna leave this town, and Bella, stop bitin’ when she dangles a bit of bait in front of you. Shelly, darlin’, it’s not the best idea to bring up Nicole and her heathen ways, so let’s stop while we’re ahead.”
Nicole choked on her water. “My heathen ways? Excuse me!”
Oh, Lord. Here we go.
“What’s a heathen?” TJ appeared in the doorway. “And why is Nicole one?”
“I am not a heathen!” Nicole was so angry I could almost see the steam coming out of her ears.
There would be steam with one quick spell… Although this probably wasn’t the best time to do it.
Aunt Rose waggled her spoon at him. “Never you mind. You’ll find out one day.”
“It’s someone who sleeps around.” Grandma popped into the room dressed in an Eighties outfit. Complete with leggings, a headband, and leg warmers.
“Mama!” my aunts all shouted in unison.
TJ frowned. “Sleeps around? Where? Like the house? On the sofa and stuff?”
“Yes!” Nicole shout
ed, fist-pumping the air. “Exactly that. I sleep around the house.”
“So you’re admitting you’re a heathen?” Grandma grinned.
“I—” Nicole froze. “You’re dead. Shouldn’t you be haunting someone you hate?”
“I would be,” she replied. “If someone hadn’t bound me to this property unfairly.”
I stared at her. “I’m still angry at you. Don’t talk to me about unfair.”
She had the good graces to look embarrassed.
Not that it lasted for long.
She hovered over Bella’s shoulder. “Your bread is done.”
“Go away.” Bella flicked a bit of magic her way and pushed her back. “Have you heard anything from the ghosts yet?”
“I’m not listening. I can’t get rid of Lady Barnacles and her plan for a dang butler. Where’s she gonna find a butler in Haven Lake? This isn’t Downton Abbey. We’re witch royalty, but not actual royalty.”
Nicole snorted. “Witch royalty. Pull the other one, Grandma.”
“We are!”
“In your head,” Aunt Rose replied. “And, as far as I remember, you spent three years tellin’ these girls they weren’t princesses, so they needed to get their grubby mitts off our Jimmy Choos.”
That was painfully true.
“You’re all mean to me! Is this how you treat the head of your family? With disrespect and dishonor?”
“You’re dead!” Angus snapped, reappearing on the table. “Bloody hell, woman! Stop being so dramatic because you know you’re in trouble!”
“What did she do now?” Nicole groaned.
“Avery. She’s in trouble with Avery.”
That she was.
“What did I tell you about being in my kitchen?” Aunt Rose yelled, pointing at Angus. The cat was smart enough to disappear right before sunshine yellow magic erupted from her finger and left a trail of smoke coming up from the table in front of us.
“I need to, um, kill some more zombies.” TJ ran out of the kitchen almost as fast as Angus had disappeared.
Grandma sighed and held out her hands. “Everybody calm down.”
“I will not!” Rose turned her ire to her. “You’ve been in the attic putting ideas in Lady Barnacles’ head. You’ve been bugging Terrence by hiding his watering can, and you’ve been all up in the business of the ghosts in the forest!”
Grandma shrunk back, almost stepping into the counter.
“And you kept a huge secret from Avery and are now expecting her to read a dang book to find out everything she knows without any kind of tutelage while she’s investigating a murder!” Aunt Rose wiggled her finger. “You carry it on, and I’ll visit Betty Lou myself and ask that your binding restrict you to ghost-free zones only!”
The entire room froze.
Nicole grabbed my hand under the table and squeezed it hard. It was one thing for Aunt Rose to snap—she did that on occasion—but for her to lose her temper the way she just had? That was rare, and that meant Grandma had been pushing it a lot.
I expected Grandma to snap back at her, but she obviously saw something in her eyes, because she turned to me instead.
“Avery. You, me, the peach orchard. Tomorrow at eight a.m. I’m going to teach you how to touch that power.” Then she popped out of view.
Great.
Just great.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
EIGHT A.M. CAME around too early.
Who was I kidding? Unless the house was burning down, eight a.m. was always too early.
Not that it stopped my family. On my way downstairs, I’d checked in on Dotty and promised more tuna and cheese to her familiar, Smoky. He only left her side when one of us came to sit with her, and while I couldn’t confirm it, I was almost certain he was doing his business on the roof.
Not even cats could keep their body fluids in for that long. In fact, they were almost worse than dogs. Especially the ones in this family.
Nicole had left at seven to get to the pet store to clean and feed the animals before she had to open at nine. Aunt Shelly and Aunt Bella were at their store getting ready to open, and Aunt Rose had left a note telling me that she was taking TJ to school because she needed to speak with his teacher.
The house was eerie when it was empty. It was so big, and the last couple of days it’d been so full of life since my aunts and cousins had moved back in. As much as I pretended it might have annoyed me, it just wasn’t true.
This was a huge house and a big farm. It was supposed to be full of people.
I filled an insulated takeout cup full of coffee and snagged a cinnamon roll from the middle of the table on my way through to the peach orchard.
The peach trees had been on the property for forever. A lot of my childhood memories consisted of me and my cousins running out here, our parents dragging behind us as we desperately tried to get the biggest peaches.
Before he’d died, Grandpa Francis had always said that he’d give twenty dollars to the kid who could pick the biggest peach, then he’d proceed to weigh every single one of them. I won only once, but I always won the battle for who could pick the most.
Fifty cents per peach—it was the only time of the year I was rich as all get out.
Now, as I approached the trees, I could smell the peaches. They weren’t anywhere near being picked yet, so I was almost sure it was just the memory of the sweet smell.
It was comfortable, but sad, too.
I hadn’t been to the orchard in five years, and I’d never gone so deep that I could see where my parents were buried—or my uncles. There was only so much pain one human being could take, and I had enough of that buried deep down, thank you very much.
Grandma was sitting on an old oak bench, looking up at the trees. “They’ll come soon,” she said. “I can see the first signs of them sprouting.”
I sat next to her on the bench and cradled my coffee in my lap. “You’re right. Then we just have to keep TJ from picking them before they’re ripe.”
She chuckled. “You tell me how successful that is, child.”
“Not very,” I admitted. “Unlike us, he didn’t learn his lesson when he was seven.”
“Sure didn’t, sugar. Unripe peaches are gross. Maybe this year will be the year.”
“You’re more optimistic than I am.” I sipped my coffee and set it on the bench next to me. “Shall we get started?”
“Do you have plans that mean you gotta rush?”
“I still have to find out who hurt Betty Lou. I know I’m missing something in this whole puzzle. I know it wasn’t a witch, but I don’t know why anyone else would want her dead.”
“It wasn’t a witch?” Grandma looked at me with puzzlement all over her face. “Why not?”
“Belladonna,” I said simply.
She nodded, clasping her hands. “Of course. A witch would kill you in a heartbeat.”
“Exactly. Not that it narrows the search down any, of course. And Mary-Jane said it was someone in town as I was the last person after Amelie to cross the town wards.”
“What a pickle,” she mused. “Let me think on that, but first, let’s get this started. On the ground and meditate.”
I groaned as I slid onto the ground. “I haven’t meditated since I was thirteen.”
“Exactly,” she said sharply. “You were sheltered from this power then. I admit, I did you wrong, Avery. I should have taught you this when I was alive just to see if it existed, but I’ll do what I can now to right my wrong.”
I could see the regret on her face. She meant it. “Okay. I’ll meditate.”
I crossed my legs and let my hands sit comfortably in my lap.
“Back straight,” she said softly but firmly.
I pulled my shoulders back and closed my eyes. Despite how long it’d been, meditation came to me like a sixth sense. I fell easily into the rhythmic pattern of breathing in and out steadily and of clearing my mind of all thoughts.
No Betty Lou. No Amelie. No Dax. No belladonna. No silver bullets.<
br />
No death, no deception, no dangerous magic being wielded.
I was safe here. That helped. The Thorn farm was warded to the high heavens to keep our family safe from those who wished to do us harm. Here, in this orchard, at last, I could be free.
“Find your magic,” Grandma said softly. “Reach down and touch it. Let it move through your body until you become one.”
Of course, I didn’t need her to tell me that. I knew it already. That was how meditation worked, but her voice—the familiar, low tones of her strong, accented voice was comforting to me, and it was easy to sink into it.
My magic responded easily. In my mind’s eye, I could see the fuchsia sparks as the magic swirled to life. My entire body tingled as it worked its way through me, tickling at my skin as if it could escape.
It couldn’t. Not unless I allowed it. I had full control over this magic.
“Now that you have it,” Grandma said softly. “I want you to create a circle around you. Make it small and tight to you.”
I sent my magic out. Like a tiny whirlwind, I felt it spin around me, protecting me from everything outside of the space it was creating for me.
“Now, dig deeper.”
“I don’t—”
“Calm,” Grandma instructed sharply. “It’s an extension of your magic, Avery. It’s connected. It is your magic. It’s not beyond your control. Look farther down. Dig deeper. Trust yourself to control it.”
I took a deep breath and steadied myself. It was easy for her to tell me what to do—doing it was something else altogether. The last and only time I touched this magic, it almost killed me.
But I didn’t have control. I was panicking, under stress, completely freaked the hell out.
Now? I was in control. I was calm and at peace. Nothing had the ability to control me unless I said so.
Another deep breath and I dropped back into the meditative state. My magic trickled through my blood, warming my body like a cream-coated hot chocolate in the heart of winter.
I went deeper.
There was nothing.
I focused on my breathing, parting my lips. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out.
