Potion Problem: A Halloween Helper's Cozy Mystery

by Linnea West

  Diggy took the bag she was holding off of her shoulder and set it down on the bed. Vinnie hadn’t actually seen the Magical Impression Sensor yet, but she was interested to see what it looked like. So far, most of Lavender’s magical objects had looked like things she had picked out of the scrap pile and welded together. They weren’t pretty, but they worked.

  “Promise you won’t laugh?” Diggy asked.

  Vinnie tentatively nodded her head yes, wondering what in the world she would be laughing at. Soon enough, it became apparent. Diggy took out a hard hat that she placed on her head. A metal arm on the top of the helmet bent down and was attached to a piece of plexiglass that now sat in front of Diggy’s face. She strapped the whole thing to her head with a big strap with a buckle under her chin.

  “This is the Sensor,” Diggy said, gesturing towards her head.

  “I can see that,” Vinnie said. “But how in the world does it work?”

  “It works by magic, duh,” Diggy said, rolling her eyes.

  Vinnie resisted the urge to scream and tried again.

  “How do you make it work?” she asked, rephrasing her question to hopefully get a real answer this time.

  “Oh, it’s working right now,” Diggy said with a smile. “You must only be able to see it if you wear it. But I can see like colorful things on here. Like my hands are outlined in orange and when I turn to the door, I can see by the orange around the door that I came in there at some point.”

  “Okay, but what about Thistle?” Vinnie asked. She wondered if it was worth it to let Diggy wear the stupid helmet and have to describe everything to her or if she should just put the dumb thing on herself.

  “Well, I’m not sure because there are two other colors in the room besides mine,” Diggy said. “There is like a greenish one and then like a purple one.”

  Vinnie was only half understanding what Diggy meant, so she knew it was time to put the helmet on herself. She stuck her hand out and Diggy undid the strap, setting the heavy hard hat in Vinnie’s hand. Reluctantly, Vinnie set it on her head.

  Diggy had actually done a pretty good job of trying to describe what she saw. When Vinnie looked at her through the helmet screen, her entire body was ringed in orange. There were faint orange particles in the air and it was like orange was smudged around the door. Her magic was almost leaving a scent behind.

  And there were two other colors around the door and floating in the air, purple and green. One was obviously Thistle, but who was the other one then? Was it someone who was helping Thistle? Or it could be someone who was trying to harm her.

  Either way, they had to find Thistle now and figure it out. That meant she would have to leave the room wearing this stupid helmet and risk running into one of the coven witches. But they only had thirty-five minutes. They had to find her now.

  Vinnie motioned for Diggy to follow her and together, they walked into the hallway. Stopping short in the door frame, Vinnie couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Once they were out of the more private room, though, the air was filled with particles of different colors, all colors of the rainbow. It was like walking in a very colorful fog. Vinnie should have known that each and every coven witch would have their magical impression all over the coven.

  “What’s wrong?” Diggy asked.

  Vinnie undid the chin strap and plunked the hard hat on Diggy’s head as gently as she could, which was pretty difficult with a plastic hard hat.

  “Oh,” came Diggy’s reply.

  Vinnie grabbed her by the elbow and drug her back into the room. She grabbed the hard hat off of Diggy’s head and plopped it on the bed. They needed a game plan because following a whim like that wasn’t going to work.

  “Why don’t we go to the potion room and see which colors are there?” Diggy suggested. “Then maybe we could figure out which color was Thistle’s.”

  She grabbed the helmet and raced out of the room with Vinnie close on her heels. Once they were safely inside the potion room, they shut the door and Vinnie grabbed the helmet, jamming it onto her head. The same purple and green particles were floating through the air, along with a few orange here and there from Diggy. So whoever was with Thistle right now had also been here in the potion room. But that still didn’t tell them if that person was helping Thistle or if that person was the murderer.

  Before she could puzzle about it too much more, Diggy grabbed the helmet off of her head and put it on her own, wanting her own look at things. But she was also left confused.

  “We still don’t know if Thistle is green or purple,” she said. “I feel like this dumb thing hasn’t helped us at all.”

  “It has helped a little because now we can be pretty sure that someone helped Thistle leave that room,” Vinnie said. “Although we don’t know if they helped out of the goodness or their heart or because they are the guilty killer.”

  “I’m not sure I call that help,” Diggy said.

  Vinnie wanted to agree, but she was struggling to look on the bright side of things because if she didn’t, she might just collapse into a puddle of tears. They had just over thirty minutes to go before the suspect that might not be guilty was supposed to be imprisoned and they had no idea where she was. Vinnie didn’t think that the cases they were working on directly affected them getting Lavender back, but she had a feeling that Norhand would hold it against them no matter what.

  Just as Vinnie was going to admit defeat, Diggy collapsed down onto one of the stools and buried her head in her hands. Vinnie knew she had to press on for this girl. Her sobs were heart wrenching, breaking Vinnie’s heart a little more each time one came out of her. She knew she had to stay strong for Diggy.

  “We will figure this out,” Vinnie said.

  She crossed the room and put her hand on the girl’s back. They needed to figure this out and they needed to do it fast. If only Lavender were here to help them. Vinnie sat down and tried to figure out what Lavender would do if she were actually here. This was usually the time that Lavender had some sort of out of the box idea that practical Vinnie would have never in her wildest dreams thought of.

  Vinnie closed her eyes and took a few breaths, trying to push everything out of her mind except for an image of Lavender. She was not only the reason they were doing all of this work, but she was also the other half that Vinnie was missing terribly.

  Suddenly an idea popped into her head. Maybe not an idea, but it was the beginning of one. It was the best they had and they were running out of time, so it would have to work.

  Once more, Vinnie jammed the helmet on her head and strapped the chinstrap tight. This time she was not taking this stupid thing off until she figured out where Thistle had gone and who she had gone with. Even if it meant parading around the coven in this headgear. The coven witches already disliked her because not only was she an ancestral witch, but a non-magical one at that. What did she care if they saw her in this stupid helmet?

  Vinnie took one more look at the colors that they were searching for before she walked out of the door. Diggy followed her out the door and together they started jogging down the hallway of the coven. At first, they didn’t pass anyone, but when they finally saw another witch, she was ringed in red. The next one was ringed in yellow. Vinnie was hoping they would pass by someone who was ringed in either purple or green and if that person was not Thistle, then they would at least know who had helped her out of the room.

  Each witch they passed gave them a disgusted look, as if someone had let a sewer rat into the coven headquarters. Their noses wrinkled up and some even made noises of disgust. Vinnie ignored them all as each one was glowing a different color than she was looking for on the plexiglass screen.

  The two women ran through the corridor by the private rooms, glanced in the potion room, took a look around the living area and then checked the entrance. Each place had a few witches milling about, minding their own business, but none of them were glowing the right colors.

  Running around a corner, Vinnie ran straight into s
omeone else and they both flew backward onto the floor. Vinnie shook herself off, a little glad she was wearing the helmet and a lot glad that falling had become second nature to her. She stood up and brushed herself off before looking up at who she had run into.

  Diggy was helping Ivy up off of the floor. The only problem was that neither of them were ringed in color. Something was wrong with the helmet. As Ivy dusted herself off, Vinnie took the helmet off and started to look it over for some sort of button or switch that would help to turn it back on. She knew it was a prototype, but they really didn’t have time for it to just stop working.

  “Diggy, something’s wrong with this,” Vinnie said. “How do I make it work again?”

  The girl took the helmet and looked it over. After a moment, she discovered the tiniest hidden button on the inside of the helmet that Vinnie had totally overlooked because it looked just like another screw, but apparently it also functioned as a reset button. After holding it for a few seconds, Diggy handed the helmet back to Vinnie with a look of triumph on her face.

  “How did you know that was it?” Vinnie asked as she pulled the helmet back on.

  “I’m not sure,” Diggy said. “I just know my mom and that felt like something she would do.”

  Vinnie couldn’t help but smile at Diggy. Her niece almost seemed like a more practical version of her mother and Vinnie often wondered if the fact that she was raised by twins who basically completed each other’s personalities meant that she was going to become a completely well-rounded adult.

  “Why are you wearing that thing on your head?” Ivy asked pointedly.

  Vinnie turned and looked at Ivy, who was dressed in a black sheath dress with a statement necklace over the square neckline. She was wearing tall, platform pumps so that she towered over both Diggy and Vinnie and her hair looked like she had just gotten back from the salon. Vinnie would have wondered if she always dressed like that to cook in the kitchen of her world famous restaurant, but she was a bit distracted by one other detail.

  Through the plexiglass screen of the Magical Impression Sensor, Ivy was ringed with a faint, purple glow.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Purple,” squeaked Vinnie, hoping Ivy wouldn't catch on. Behind Ivy’s head, Diggy’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates, almost popping out of her head when she realized what Vinnie meant.

  “No, this dress is black,” Ivy said with a scowl. “I figured you hadn’t hit your head because of that stupid thing you’re wearing, but if you can’t even tell colors apart I suppose you might have a concussion.”

  “Oh no, purple is a, uh, code word,” Diggy said, scrambling to find an explanation. “It means she would like something to drink. As Halloween Helpers, we like to talk in code so that people don’t know what we are doing, but it isn’t always important.”

  Ivy’s scowl turned into more of a sneer as she nodded slightly, looking like she only believed them a little bit. Vinnie was glad that Diggy had thought of something to say and she was extra glad that Diggy hadn’t said it meant they had to use the restroom. That was what had popped into Vinnie’s head, but that seemed even more unprofessional than the scene they were already causing.

  “Why don’t I take you back to the kitchen for a cup of tea?” Ivy said. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you a little more. I’d love to hear more about your job and about how the investigation is going.”

  “We really are quite busy…” Diggy started to say before Vinnie interrupted her.

  “We would love to actually,” Vinnie said. “A cup of tea could really help right now.”

  Ivy turned on her heel and started striding across the living area towards the dining room and the hallway to the kitchen. Vinnie had assumed there must be a different entrance to the kitchen that they just didn’t know about, but apparently this long, circuitous route was the only one. The entire walk, Diggy was clinging on to Vinnie’s arm. She was trying her best to comfort the girl and let her know that it was going to be alright.

  As they came into the dining room, Vinnie realized that Plant’s body was still suspended in the air by magic, just hanging in the middle of the room like some sort of chandelier. There were so many loose ends with this case that she just kept forgetting to tie them up. This was probably one that she should have dealt with first though.

  “Are you ever going to move her?” Ivy asked, as if reading Vinnie’s mind. “Or is she some new, gross decoration we have to stare at as we eat our monthly dinners?”

  “I thought you ate in the kitchen,” Diggy said.

  “I usually do, but hopefully soon I can eat out here in the dining room with everyone else,” Ivy said, pulling open the door to the kitchen hallway. “Come on now, we can talk about that more down here.”

  The dim hallway was eerily quiet except for the din of fluorescent lights and a few weird tapping noises here and there. Vinnie didn’t like to watch horror movies, but it wasn’t a stretch to imagine that a horror movie could film a few scenes right here in this hallway. She felt creeped out, like something was about to happen, but she didn’t know what. It was an unsettling feeling.

  Once they entered the kitchen, Vinnie felt a little better. Kitchens were her happy place and the roaring fire and smells of cooking were like calm washing over her. She and Diggy both sat down on rustic wooden stools that were underneath the counter.

  Ivy bustled around putting a kettle of tea on a hook over the fire. Her clothes still made her look totally out of place, looking more like she belonged in a high-powered company board room or at least behind a desk in a big, corner office. But Ivy herself looked totally comfortable in the kitchen. Even though she had said that she didn’t want to be the chef for the coven any longer, she definitely was okay with being in the kitchen right now.

  As the water was heating up, Ivy brought over tea cups, milk, and sugar, setting them down on the table. Then she sat down across the table from Vinnie and Diggy. She looked at both of them in turn, her face totally serious.

  “I know why you are here,” she said. “I know that you didn’t actually want tea. You know that I helped Thistle out of that room and you want me to tell you about it.”

  Diggy’s mouth fell open and Vinnie struggled not to have hers do the same. Ivy must have some telepathy powers which meant that they would have to try to guard their thoughts a little better from now on.

  “I’m not going to lie to you,” Vinnie said. “We did know that you helped her and we were hoping you could tell us a little more about how it happened.”

  “Sure, I can do that,” Ivy said. “But you might not like my story.”

  Ivy sat for a moment, her lips pursed together like she hated what she was about to say. Vinnie waited, not wanting to sway her one way or the other with her story. There was something about Ivy that Vinnie just didn’t trust. She seemed jumpy, like she was nervous about something, even here in her own kitchen.

  “I went to check on Thistle,” Ivy said. “I was feeling bad about the fact that she was trapped all by herself in that room when she basically did us all a favor, so I went to visit her. We sat and chatted for a little while, but then when I got up to leave, she overpowered me and forced me to help her leave the room. I did, but only under duress. Once we were out in the hallway, she ran off and I tried to find her, but I just couldn’t. I think she was feeling guilty and she wanted to get out of there so that she didn’t have to go to prison.”

  Speaking of prison, Vinnie checked her watch. Only twenty more minutes until Thistle was supposed to be transported. Vinnie felt like they were getting closer to Thistle, but she still had no idea where she actually was.

  “Did Thistle tell you that she was the one who did it?” Vinnie asked.

  “No, but she didn’t have to,” Ivy said. “Obviously you guys have her locked up for a reason. And I think her escaping is definitely an admission of guilt, don’t you think?”

  The tea kettle started whistling over the fire and Ivy walked over to the fireplace. Actuall
y, walking was not what she did. Ivy strutted over to the fire. As Ivy walked away, Vinnie heard a strange sound. It was almost like something was thumping the walls faintly. She strained to hear it again, to see if she could figure out what it was, but it stopped happening. Maybe she had just imagined it.

  Ivy took the tea kettle off and poured the water into a teapot, ready and waiting with the tea inside. As she let it steep, Ivy came back to sit with them once more. This time she had a smirk on her face, as if she knew something and was hiding it from them. It didn’t seem like a smart choice to hide something from the Halloween Helpers who were investigating a murder, but it wasn’t like Diggy and Vinnie had been doing themselves any favors by proving themselves to be super professional.

  Vinnie thought she heard that same noise again, but neither Diggy nor Ivy looked like they had heard it. She cocked her head, feeling a little like a dog, and tried to listen for it again. It stopped. Vinnie thought that she must be hearing things. The stress must be getting to her and it was causing auditory hallucinations.

  A smile curled up Ivy’s face. Vinnie could sense that there was a plan brewing inside and she had a feeling that she and Diggy weren’t going to like it.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The wooden stool that Vinnie was sitting on was getting more uncomfortable by the minute, but Vinnie thought that had more to do with the atmosphere of the room than it did with the construction of the stool. The kitchen they were sitting in was slowly becoming less and less friendly, but Vinnie couldn’t put her finger on why. It had a lot of the same things her beloved kitchen at home had. They both had stone floors and big roaring fireplaces to cook over. They had large, wooden counters to work on with stools for friends to sit on while they worked. It had started out so inviting, but something was making it lose that happy feeling.

  “I gave you some information, now I think it’s only fair that you give me some back,” Ivy said.