Pawsitively Betrayed

by Melissa Erin Jackson

  Neither one replied for a while.

  “To start, I think we need to come up with another alarm spell to put on the shop,” Aunt G said. “Something that will either specifically keep Penhallows out—regardless of whose face they’re wearing—or at least warn us if one of them is nearby. We lucked out with Kieran if only because he was so sloppy. Though I suppose he always wanted us to know he was around. The Penhallows are either getting craftier, or Kieran just wasn’t that careful.”

  The idea of dozens of face-changing Penhallows being in town, slowly driving Amber mad was … well … maddening.

  “We’ll also need detection and protection tinctures so we’re not caught unawares when we’re beyond the walls of this building,” Aunt G said. “Something that’s tailored specifically to Penhallows would be the most useful.”

  “That awful-tasting protection tincture you made us drink when Kieran was here …” Willow said. “Wasn’t that one made to work against Penhallow attacks?”

  Aunt G wrinkled her nose. “I may have fibbed. It was the most powerful tincture I had that protects against a magical attack, but it wasn’t Penhallow-specific. The fib kept you girls from being more worried than you already were.”

  Amber grumbled to herself but didn’t say anything. It was all such an Aunt G-like thing to do, it wasn’t even worth the energy to be upset about it.

  “I have a few witch friends in Maine I can call to see if they have any ideas,” Aunt G said. “Do you think Zelda Rockrose might be able to help?”

  “Maybe,” Amber said. After a moment, she voiced the thing that had been weighing on her since the moment she’d realized the reality of the situation. It just made her a little nauseated to say out loud. “Should I keep the shop closed until we know it’s okay to let anyone back in?”

  It was the safest option, even if this was the absolute worst time of the year to do it.

  “Probably,” Willow said softly.

  Amber slowly stood, found her cell phone, and sent texts to Ben and the Bowen sisters, letting them know that due to an emergency, the shop would be closed until further notice. She assured them that she would still pay them for the days they’d been scheduled.

  “We’ll figure this out, little mouse,” Aunt G said after Amber just stood rooted to the spot, staring at nothing. “For now, we should get some sleep. Goodness knows what tomorrow will bring.”

  Chapter 4

  At the crack of dawn Sunday morning, Amber found herself back inside The Quirky Whisker. She had been awake since four. Her usual Penhallow nightmares had been replaced by ones about Melanie, her face ghostly pale as she begged Amber not to let the same thing that had happened to her happen to Henrietta.

  The shop looked just as she’d left it. Aunt G and Willow had placed three layers of alarm spells over the doors and windows before bed last night. A bell would have gone off in their heads had the alarm been tripped, so Amber knew everything was likely okay, but it took a sweep of the shop before the knot of tension in her chest would fully unfurl.

  Reluctantly, Amber walked to the front door and stared at the chalkboard sign hanging there. The board was one of the few ways Amber flexed her magic muscles on a daily basis—aside from the toys, of course. The logo was a bespectacled, top-hat-wearing cat who always had a cheery expression on his whiskered face. With a quick often-used incantation and the swipe of her hand, Amber could change the message and the expression of the cat to provide a unique welcome message for her customers each day.

  She plucked the board off the door, then turned her back to Russian Blue Avenue to shield her actions from view. The cat looked his jolly self as he gripped the brim of his top hat in two claws and winked out at his audience.

  With a resigned sigh, she uttered the spell and swiped a palm over the board. The cat went from jolly to forlorn. His eyes were downcast, and his hat slipped a little low over his brow. Next to him were the words: “Sorry. We’re closed for the rest of the week.”

  Amber hung the sign back up, her heart heavy.

  Around seven, she gave Zelda Rockrose a call, hoping the woman could offer some suggestions on how to create Penhallow-specific spells. Zelda didn’t answer, so Amber left her a quick message.

  At opening time, Amber made calls to both of the parents who had purchased the toy bears and let them know that the toy may be defective and that she would like to issue a refund.

  The first parent arrived half an hour later. Russian Blue Avenue was already bustling with people, many of whom were carrying bags adorned with the logos of other shops nearby. The sight panged her. She glanced across the street and marveled at how the line outside Purrfectly Scrumptious seemed to get longer every day, even this early in the morning.

  While Amber tended to the parents today, Aunt G and Willow would remain upstairs. They had told her that they didn’t want to be in the way since this was such an emotionally charged time, but Amber suspected they were using skills both magic and non-magic alike to rid the studio apartment of the evidence of the exploding bears.

  Amber unlocked the door for the woman waiting outside and hurriedly ushered her in.

  “I thought you were closed!” someone called out. “Is the sign wrong?”

  “Still closed!” Amber said. “Sorry.” She quickly locked the door after the woman.

  Claire Petrie had moved to Edgehill about a year ago, from what Amber could remember. She’d first bought one of Amber’s toys during the festival the year she and her family had moved here, and she’d been buying a new one for her daughter every few months since then.

  “Thank you so much for coming by,” Amber said. “Did you bring the toy with you?”

  Claire fished the bear out of her purse. “What kind of defect does it have? I … uhh … heard Sally Long claim her bear exploded?”

  Amber took the unmarred bear from Claire and gave his little plastic snout an absentminded pat. “Well, sort of. I believe some of the wiring got too hot and then most of the bear … uh … melted.”

  Claire winced. “Sally likes to exaggerate, so I figured ‘exploding’ had to be hyperbole. I really appreciate you offering a refund on the off chance something might be wrong with this one. Wendy loves these toys; she’ll be sad we had to return this one.”

  Amber rounded the counter and made her way to the cash register. “Better safe than sorry. We’re actually going to be closed for the next few days while I assess all of the toys. I’m a little nervous about so many out-of-town folks possibly picking up a defective toy. They won’t be as easy to recall if they leave Edgehill.”

  Claire nodded, but Amber could tell by her creased brow that she thought Amber’s decision was a touch dramatic. Amber didn’t want to get into the whole “and a Penhallow might be trying to destroy my business from the inside” thing.

  After Amber had issued the refund, she said, “I’m working on some Here and Meow exclusive toy cats this year. I’d like to gift one to Wendy when they’re ready. What’s her favorite color?”

  “Oh, that’s so sweet,” Claire said as they made their way to the door. “Green.”

  Amber definitely needed to find a better shade than “seasickness.” “Green it is.”

  An hour after Amber had seen Claire out, the second parent arrived. The interaction went much the same as the first. Paul was a bit grumpier about the whole thing than Claire had been—clearly Sally had gotten to him, too—but he was more upset about how much his son Kyle had screamed his head off when Paul had explained that the toy had to be returned.

  While she held open the door for a retreating Paul, a few more customers asked Amber why the store wasn’t open. It hurt to turn away so much potential business during the busiest part of the year, but as soon as she reminded herself that any one of these curious potential shoppers could be a Penhallow trying to gain access to her shop, she no longer felt bad about closing and locking the door.

  She’d just heaved out a long, weary sigh when her cell phone rang. Fishing it out of her back
pocket, she hoped she’d see Jack’s smiling face staring up at her. He’d be able to calm her down. Instead, it was an unfamiliar, out-of-state phone number that scrolled across her screen.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Hello, dear.” It took Amber only a moment to recognize the voice as Zelda’s.

  “Sorry it took me so long to call you back this morning,” Zelda said. “I’m guessing you’ve already heard, though. It can’t be a coincidence, given the hubbub.”

  Amber stilled. “Hubbub?”

  “Oh,” Zelda said, then cleared her throat. “Kieran Penhallow escaped from prison late Friday night.”

  The day after he’d called her. “Escaped?”

  “Yes. My daughter said the witch community is in full panic mode,” Zelda said. “There are a few witch guards at the prison, and since my daughter is in law enforcement herself, she’s friends with a few of the guards. From what the guards have been able to glean, a witch got him out.”

  Amber didn’t know what to say. “He just called me the other day.”

  Zelda hmmed. “Did he now?”

  Amber couldn’t put a finger on what it was about Zelda that sent off little trilling bells of alarm for her. While Amber wanted nothing more than to have more witches she could confide in, she knew that confiding in the wrong witch could spell untold trouble. Perhaps Amber just had trust issues in general these days. What Amber really needed was to get Zelda Rockrose and Gretchen Blackwood in the same room—Aunt G would have Zelda figured out in a hot second.

  “You don’t have to tell me what he phoned you about,” Zelda said after the silence stretched on. “From what I hear, it was a big to-do. All the electricity in the place shut off at once and the backup generators never kicked on. Staff and prisoners alike were placed under sleep spells, which started to wear off while the electricity was still out, so when staff came to, they had to navigate the place in the dark. They didn’t know if any of the prisoners had escaped.”

  Amber swallowed. “Did they? Other than Kieran, I mean?”

  “Just him,” Zelda said. “And the spells on the staff wore off before the ones on the prisoners did. Little bits of glass were found in various rooms, so it’s believed the witch or witches threw vials of sleep tinctures. If crafted and then thrown just right, sleep tinctures can be used like smoke bombs. One smashed vial could knock out several people within seconds of the tincture making contact with the air. Anyway, by the time they got the electricity up and running again, all the cells were checked. Every door was still closed and locked—including Kieran’s. But he was gone.”

  When Kieran had called Amber three days before, he had dropped the bombshell that his powers had come back. His powers were changed, though. His magic was no longer the tainted, cursed thing that had warped his mind and turned him into a monster with an unquenchable thirst for more power. He’d said that his powers felt cleaner now. He’d said that Amber, when she had severed his connection to magic, hadn’t stolen away his magic so much as healed him.

  Kieran had been careful not to use words like “witch” and “magic” on the phone call with her, as calls were recorded. But if there were witches on staff at the prison, who knows who could have heard what he’d said—or what he may have blabbed freely to someone else—causing that information to result in a prison break.

  “Do they have any idea who got him out?” Amber asked. “Is it possible he got himself out?”

  “I’m not sure how he could have gotten himself out of locked cell when he’d been stripped of his magic.” Zelda’s tone implied she was worried about Amber’s mental state.

  So the news about Kieran’s magic being healed hadn’t become widespread knowledge. Amber decided to keep this information to herself for now.

  “As far as I know … uh … Neil Penhallow is his closest living family member,” Zelda said.

  Amber bristled at the name of the man who had killed her parents.

  “But anyone even loosely related to his immediate family would want him out,” Zelda said. “News has gotten around about how you cured him of his curse. Perhaps it wasn’t a Penhallow who had an interest in him. He went from being a very powerful witch to being a relatively normal magic-free human—this is a first. Kieran is a curiosity for many right now.”

  Amber felt deeply unsettled by all of this.

  After a brief bout of silence, Zelda said, “So I gather there’s a different reason why you called me?”

  Putting aside her reservations, Amber told Zelda about what had happened recently both with the toy bears and with Henrietta.

  “Oh my,” Zelda said, drawing the last word out. “Honestly what troubles me most is that this is all coinciding with Kieran’s escape. The Penhallows are no doubt making their play.”

  Amber just wished she knew what that play was. “Do you have any idea how we could craft spells or tinctures that would be Penhallow-specific? My business is effectively shut down until I can find a way to screen who comes and goes, and who I interact with in town. I don’t think anyone would keep sabotaging items from my shop; I believe they wanted my attention more than anything. Which they have. But now I need a way to know who’s a Penhallow wearing a false face.”

  “They could be wandering town with their own faces, too,” Zelda said. “If their natural form is a stranger to you, a mask isn’t necessary.”

  Amber groaned.

  “I have an idea, though,” Zelda said. “A spell for clarity should work, but it would need to be tailored. Unfortunately, the only way to assess whether or not the spell worked would be to test it on a Penhallow.”

  Amber sighed. “I can get my sister started on something. She’s not as skilled as the Penhallows are at glamours, but she’s pretty good.”

  A little part of Amber hoped Kieran would call her back soon. While he’d been cursed, he’d tried to kill her. She still had nightmares about that encounter on a weekly basis. And yet, the intellectual part of her knew that the Kieran who had called her three nights ago, trying both to thank her and to use careful language, had been the real Kieran. Not the crazed, power-hungry man who had terrorized herself and Edgehill.

  If he could somehow be a buffer between herself and the rest of his cursed family, she would welcome him back to Edgehill without question.

  But if his cursed family had already gotten to him, was it possible that they could undo the work Amber had done? Could they reignite the curse in Kieran—like a once-dormant ember, stoked back into a raging fire?

  “That sounds like a good start,” Zelda said. “I’ll put out my own feelers here and check in with my daughter as often as I can. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”

  “Thank you,” Amber said. “Oh! Think of a code word we can use so I know it’s you the next time we talk.”

  “Butterscotch toffee,” Zelda said without hesitation. “It’s my favorite.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Stay safe, dear.”

  As Amber hung up, she wondered if it was already too late for that.

  Chapter 5

  For the next few hours, Amber and Aunt G worked on Amber’s Here-and-Meow-exclusive toys while Willow scoured all their grimoires for a suitable clarity spell. She would then use that as a starting point for a more complicated spell geared specifically toward witches wearing a glamour. Given how often Willow uttered profanities and then paced the small studio apartment while pulling at one—or both—of her long braids, Amber guessed it wasn’t going well.

  When Amber’s phone rang just before noon, the grin that spread across her face as she saw who it was was both embarrassing and involuntary.

  “Ohh, it looks like the baker is calling …” Aunt G said, waggling her eyebrows suggestively.

  Amber snatched up her phone, stuck her tongue out at her aunt with all the maturity of a teenager, and then made her way to the stairs.

  “Tell Jack I say hi!” Willow called out from behind her.

  Amber answered the call just as she reached
the Employee Only door at the base of the steps. “Hey, Jack.”

  Sound-dampening spells had become a permanent fixture on the building at this point, so she at least felt comfortable talking freely.

  “Hey, Amber,” he said, his voice hushed. She pictured him huddled in a corner of Purrcolate, trying to avoid being overheard by his brother Larry, or their newest employee, Sabrina, who had developed a pastime of embarrassing Jack about Amber at every opportunity.

  “Are you talking to your giiiirlfriend?” she could imagine Sabrina asking, causing Jack’s cheeks to turn as red as the raspberries baked into his scones.

  Amber didn’t hear much in the background, so maybe he was hiding in a quiet section of the parking lot.

  “I’m hearing all kinds of Quirky Whisker rumors today,” he said. “What’s going on over there? Is it true you had to shut the place down because the whole toy section caught on fire?”

  “Good grief,” Amber muttered, then told him about the exploding bears, Henrietta’s coma, and Kieran’s prison escape.

  “Wow,” he heaved when she was done. “How is your life this exciting? And what are you doing with boring old me?”

  Amber flushed. “First of all, you’re not boring. Second of all, if you actually are boring, then boring is very attractive.”

  “Oh stop, you flirt,” he said, laughing softly. Then he lowered his voice a little more as he said, “So, uh, do you think Kieran is on his way … here?”

  Amber hated how quickly worry overtook his tone. A big part of why Jack had asked Aunt G to wipe his memory a few months ago was because Jack had witnessed what Kieran was capable of. With only the aid of his magic, Kieran had nearly choked Amber to death. Jack had felt so powerless in the wake of it, that in his terror, he’d requested to have it all purged from his mind. Instinctively, Jack wanted to be able to protect Amber from people like Kieran. When he realized he couldn’t, he took the chicken’s way out by making himself forget his own non-witch shortcomings.