The Witching Hour

by Sara Bourgeois

  A few people came and went, but it wasn’t until Thomas McGrath came through the door of my shop that I had my first bite on the line.

  “Hmm,” he began. “Those Peppermint Protections sure do look good. That sounds like something right up my alley.”

  I had to wonder what he needed protection from. Was it his wife? She wasn’t with him that day. Did she kill Regina? Was he worried that he would be next? Did he kill Regina? Was the law the thing he needed protection from? There was only one way to find out.

  “Oh, yes. It’s a brand new flavor,” I said with my sincerest smile. “If you don’t mind me being a silly gossip, what is it you need protection from?”

  “I’m getting real close to finishing that new pesticide I was telling you about,” he said with a big, proud smile as he rocked back on his heels. “But I’m just slightly off with my recipe. If I’m not careful, I’ll end up poisoning myself.”

  “That would be terrible,” I said. “Sounds like Peppermint Protection is just right for you. Can I get you anything else?”

  “Yeah, I’ll take a couple of the Blueberry Bliss and a Pumpkin Prosperity too.”

  As I finished boxing and ringing out his order, I had to wonder if Thomas had killed Regina. He certainly knew how, and with all of the money his wife had given Regina, he had the motive. I wondered if I should ask Thomas if he knew Regina was poisoned. His reaction might reveal his guilt.

  “Thank you for coming in,” I said. “Be careful in your lab. Poisoning is such a huge risk. Regina was poisoned, you know.”

  Thomas didn’t say anything for what had to have been a full minute. Then he shook his head, smiled, and said “Well, what goes around comes around.”

  Then he took his cupcakes and left. I didn’t really think that Thomas was a bad man, but his reactions to Regina’s death were shocking even if she had stolen his money. It made me wonder if he really did kill her.

  The next person to walk into the shop was Jacob Snide. As soon as he was through the door, he made a beeline for the Peppermint Protection cupcakes.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I was shocked when he walked right up to the Peppermint Protection cupcakes and just stared. It was as if he’d been drawn to them in a trance. I took one out of the case and handed it to him.

  There was no need for a box or a bag. I wasn’t even going to charge him for it. It was obvious right away that it was meant for him. It hummed with magical energy as soon as I took it out of the case, and the hum only intensified the closer it got to Jacob.

  “Would you like some coffee to go with that? I’ve got a delicious Italian roast that I think would be perfect.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  I poured the coffee into two ceramic mugs and walked out to a table. Jacob was still standing in front of the pastry case with the cupcake in his hand. I didn’t put the coffee in a to-go cup because I wanted him to stay in the store so I could talk to him.

  “Come on, Jacob. Have a cup of coffee with me,” I said and sat down at the table.

  We were the only ones in the shop and the morning rush was over. I didn’t expect anyone else to come in for a while. I wondered if I should ask him why he felt drawn to my new cupcakes. But I knew I should. I sipped my coffee and tried to start a casual conversation.

  “How are things going at Your Fly’s Open? How is business?”

  He took a bite of the cupcake and relaxed just a little. “Buzz has been on the warpath. He’s been really mad about something, but I can’t figure out what his problem is.”

  “That’s odd,” I said and sipped my coffee.

  “Yeah, and it all started around the time Regina died. He won’t stop talking to anyone who will listen about the evil that Regina brought into the town. He thinks she opened a portal to the spirit world and now bad things are getting through.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. I’d seen it in Regina’s house. At some point, I was probably going to have to figure out a way to close it or contain it. The portal seemed to be letting the spirits into Regina’s house, though, and I had to wonder how Buzz knew about it. Perhaps something had escaped her house and was on the loose in Destiny Cove. I hadn’t heard of anything like that, but I probably didn’t get out enough.

  “That’s a pretty heavy accusation,” I said.

  “Buzz has been extra paranoid lately. I guess I don’t really blame him. I’ve had this feeling like I’m being watched ever since Regina died. It feels like whoever killed her might be after me next. I think that’s why I was so happy to see these Peppermint Protection cupcakes. Something told me to come here. I don’t know what it was. Just a little voice in the back of my mind.”

  “Well, I’m glad you came in,” I said.

  “I’m really creeped out about the whole being watched thing. I think I should buy at least a half dozen of the cupcakes. They’ll keep in the fridge, right?”

  “Yeah, for a few days. You just need to keep the box closed.”

  “I’ll take a half dozen to go, then. I don’t think I’m going to feel safe until Regina’s killer is caught.”

  I completely understood.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Later that day Lila came into the store. Her face was as red as a tomato, and she had a fine line of sweat along her forehead. She was furious.

  Lila stomped up to the counter. “Can I speak with you for a moment?” she asked through gritted teeth.

  “Sure,” I answered. “What can I do for you, Lila?”

  “Those In Love with Lavender cupcakes were crap. They didn’t work at all.”

  I had to decide if I was going to admit that I’d missed an ingredient. I knew it shouldn’t have mattered much. The rest of the spell should have been enough to make it work if it was used on someone who was willing and open to loving Lila.

  “Lila, please remember that I don’t cast love spells. Those cupcakes wouldn’t force something that wasn’t already in the other person’s heart. It just doesn’t work like that. I’m sorry.”

  Lila turned fifty shades of red. “You’re a liar.” She pointed at me and yelled. “You’re a fraud. You’re just as bad as Regina was.”

  Lila turned on her heels and stormed out of the store just as Joe walked in. “What was that about?” he asked when he approached the counter.

  “Some cupcakes she purchased didn’t have the effect she wanted. I’m not sure why it made her so angry, though. I’ve never seen her get mad like that before.”

  “Everyone has been on edge since the murder,” Joe responded.

  “Speaking of which, did you come in about the case?” I asked.

  “Well, sort of. I was also hoping for a Blueberry Bliss cupcake,” he said, eyeing his favorite flavor in the pastry case.

  “Sure. Would you like some coffee too?”

  “Do you even have to ask?” Joe flashed me a smile I wasn’t sure I was ever going to see again. “Why don’t you join me? I went to visit Esmeralda, and I thought I’d fill you in.”

  “Okay. Go have a seat, I’ll bring your cupcake out on a plate and get us a couple of cups of coffee.”

  “Thank you kindly, Ma’am,” he said and tipped his hat to me.

  I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that my heart did a little dance. He’d come into the shop to talk to me about the case, and he was smiling and joking around with me like he used to. It was refreshing given how tense things had been between us since the murder.

  I walked out to the table with his cupcake and then went back to pour two cups of coffee. “Here you go,” I said and placed Joe’s on the table in front of him.

  “So I went and interviewed Esmeralda about the garden,” he said as I took my seat across from him. “She claimed that she had no idea the Aconitum was poisonous.”

  “No, she didn’t,” I said and had to hold back from slapping the table.

  “I asked her if she realized her whole garden was full of poisonous plants.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She sai
d that sometimes she uses them for seeing into the future. Then she asked me to go down to The Seeing Eye so that she could officially read my palm.”

  “Did you do it?”

  “Normally, I wouldn’t. But I wanted to see what she was getting at. I had to know if I could get more information from her by going along with her shenanigans.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “I did. She sat me down at that little table in the shop and did a tarot reading instead of a palm reading. She said something about the spirits guiding her.”

  “Oh, what did the cards reveal?” I probably shouldn’t have cared, but I knew the tarot could reveal important information even in the hands of someone inexperienced or a fraud.

  “I can’t remember all of the cards. You know I’m not really into that stuff, but I do remember something like the Queen of Hearts.”

  “The Queen of Cups?” I asked.

  “Yeah, that one. Except in the deck it looked like it had something to do with hearts, and Esmeralda said that there was a love match in my immediate future.” A slight hint of red heated his cheeks as he told me this.

  Despite the fact that I knew we could never be together, my heart began to beat a little faster. I had to wonder if Joe was talking about me. Did he want Esmerelda’s prediction to be about me?

  “That doesn’t sound like it had anything to do with the case,” I said softly when I couldn’t think of anything else to say that didn’t make me sound like a lovesick schoolgirl.

  “I guess it didn’t, and she didn’t go into any more specifics about my love life,” he said gruffly and then changed the subject. “She did reveal to me why she might have had a motive to kill Regina, though.”

  “What’s that?” I asked, feeling relief wash over me as the conversation moved back to the case.

  “Esmeralda produced a will that showed that she inherited everything from Regina.”

  “That’s shocking,” I said, and it was. It was definitely a reason for Esmeralda to kill Regina, though.

  “I have this weird feeling that the will is fake. I don’t know why. It’s just a gut intuition thing.”

  “I can find out for sure.”

  “How?” Joe cocked his head to one side and narrowed his eyes.

  “You’re not going to like this, but hear me out. Please,” I said and took a deep breath before continuing. “I can summon Regina’s spirit and ask her. I know this because I’ve done it already. She even told me where she’d hidden my Cookbook of Shadows. Not that I’m pointing out that I was right about her stealing it.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “Zoe, that’s crazy,” he said and then stopped and thought about it for a few moments. “Do I even want to know how you are planning to summon Regina’s spirit?”

  “I can do it from inside of Regina’s house, but it will be much easier for me to show you than to tell you.”

  “You know that is technically trespassing. I can’t just let you do that.”

  “We would go in under the pretense of police business, right? That way if people asked questions, you’d have a legitimate answer.”

  “Zoe, I don’t think it would look good if I was seen escorting the prime suspect into the victim’s house.”

  “So I’m the prime suspect now?”

  “I don’t think so, but as far as the evidence goes…”

  “What evidence?” I heard the tone of my voice rising as I came close to losing my temper, but I couldn’t afford to fall apart. I needed Joe to let me into Regina’s house. “I’m sorry. It’s just difficult when you’re being falsely accused of something, but I really think going into Regina’s house will help the case. And it will help you see that I’m not guilty.”

  “I don’t know,” Joe responded. “It’s such a huge risk.”

  “Look, tonight is the dark moon. We’ll go late at night. No one will even notice us going in, and with the dark moon, I’ll have an easier time opening the spirit realm.”

  He thought about it for a full minute before answering. “Fine. I’ll meet you at midnight at Regina’s house, but on the condition that we stop whatever you’re planning if I say we need to stop.”

  “Agreed.”

  I stood outside of Regina’s house feeling exhausted. Midnight was just a handful of hours before I got up in the morning to open the bakery. I was lucky that the next day was my day off, but it was still hard for me to be up so late. I ran my hands over my face and tried walking in place to wake myself up. I needed to stay sharp, but I also needed to avoid drawing attention to the fact that I was standing out in front of Regina’s house at midnight.

  It was a few minutes after midnight and Joe still hadn’t shown up yet. I had to know if the will that Esmeralda gave Joe was real, and I wondered if I should just go in without him.

  “How loooong are we going to stand here?” Ginger whined from inside my bag. “I want to go hoooooome and go to bed.”

  “We’ll give him a few more minutes, and then we’ll go in without him,” I said.

  I waited ten more minutes, and when Ginger started to snore from inside my bag, I decided it was time to go in. I needed to get the information I came for, and then take Ginger home so she, and I, could go to bed.

  Unfortunately, the dark moon made the spirits already in Regina’s house more restless, and I could feel the ones on the other side pushing to cross over. It was like a pulse behind a thin layer of skin. I’d need to be extra careful with my protection circle to keep us safe.

  I went around to the back of the house and walked through the back door. I couldn’t remember if I’d left it unlocked before, but I was thankful that I didn’t have to try very hard to break in.

  My circle was going in the exact same spot I’d used before, but this time I’d brought my most powerful protective items. It was the stuff I only broke out in emergencies. I made the actual outline of the circle with graveyard dirt, and pulled a huge hunk of black tourmaline out of my bag. Ginger roused since she’d been leaned up against the black rock. It would ensure that negative energy bounced off the circle. I also lit clove incense powder to ward off any negativity that made it past the tourmaline.

  I was just about to close the circle and finish the cast when Joe showed up. “You’re late,” I said as he walked into the living room where I’d set up the circle.

  “I was…” He started to make an excuse, and then his shoulders slumped as he prepared to confess the truth. “I’m just not sure about being around you when you’re casting spells and using witchcraft, Zoe. It makes me uncomfortable. How do I know you’re not going to turn it on me?”

  “Joe, you eat my cupcakes all of the time. If I wanted to work magic on you, I could just use those. I would never use my magic on you unless you asked me to do it. I don’t interfere with people’s free will. Can you imagine how much money I could make selling love spells if I did? But, I don’t. I’m so disappointed that you think I would do something like that. It’s like you don’t know me at all.”

  “I’m sorry, Zoe,” Joe said quickly. “I know this is my hang-up, and it’s not your problem.”

  “Well, if you want to stay, you have to let go of the negativity. There are too many things around that will feed off of it and use it to get through to our world.”

  “Okay,” Joe said.

  “I’ll need to purify you, but I won’t do it unless you agree.”

  “I agree,” he responded.

  I grabbed a small vial of saltwater from my bag, said a chant over it:

  Purify his heart

  Set his mind free

  Let him come into the circle

  So mote it be

  Then I sprinkled Joe with the water and invited him into the circle. He took my hand and stepped inside.

  “Please remember that once I magically close the circle, you have to stay inside at all times no matter what happens. You must stay inside the circle until I open it again. Okay?”

  “No matter what,” he affirmed.

 
“If you cross the boundary, you could release the spirits out into the world. You’re going to see some bad ghosts. They are here in the house, but they are still tethered to the other side for the most part. We cannot risk letting them out unfettered. Are you ready?”

  “I am,” he said and took my hand.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I wouldn’t normally have held his hand during the ritual, but it seemed to comfort him. That and I didn’t want to let it go.

  I’d already had a cup of the Datura tea at home, and I had a Thermos with another cup in my bag. I drank it and did the spell to summon Regina.

  Regina’s spirit was weak, but I was able to coax her out from the world between ours and the next. Joe’s hand had clamped down on mine like a vice. I turned to look at him, and it really looked like he could bolt at any second.

  I regretted bringing him into it. Perhaps if I wanted to get him to trust magic more, I should have started with something a little less intense than summoning the dead. The question was whether I should keep going and question Regina, or should I close the circle before Joe did something crazy.

  “You cannot cross the circle,” I said and squeezed his hand back as best I could. “It’s okay. As long as you stay in here with me, we’re safe.”

  The malevolent entities tied to the house began to appear. I heard Joe’s breath quicken. Ginger hopped out of the bag, now terrified into being fully awake, and she began her laps around the circle to strengthen the magical barrier.

  “Regina, I’ve called you here to ask you one thing. All I need to know is if you had a will.”

  “No, I never made a will,” Regina said so softly that it was almost impossible to hear.

  “I’m asking because Esmeralda gave Joe a will that said she inherited everything from you.”

  “It’s a fake,” Regina said. “I don’t know who killed me for sure, but I’d put Esmeralda at the top of the list.”