by Amy Boyles
“I guess not, but that was Betty doing crazy Betty things. This is a guinea pig stealing a hairpin.” I turned the simple bit of steel over. “I suppose I’ll have to figure out a way to return it.”
“Hmm, maybe it can help you,” Mattie said. “You never know. It might come in handy.”
I pushed the sharp end through the blazer I was wearing. “I’ll ask Rufus about it. He might know a way to get it back to her without being ripped apart himself. Or maybe I can give it to Sherman. He lives in their camp.”
I rose and grabbed my purse. “Either way, I need to check on the animals at Familiar Place. Make sure they’re all right.”
I headed from my room and out the door. Before I left, I noted that Sherman, being surrounded by so many women, looked slightly dazed and confused.
Part of me wondered if that was the normal look on his face. Something told me that was a possibility.
I strode down Bubbling Cauldron and was only a few stores from my own when I saw a group of Order witches harassing the owners of Castin’ Iron, the riding skillet shop Theodora and Harry owned.
“We’re confiscating all these skillets in the name of the Order,” one witch snapped. “We’ll need them for the skirmish against the werewolves.”
“You can’t take our entire supply,” Theodora said. “We sell to folks from all over the world.”
The Order witch snatched a skillet from Harry’s hands. “We don’t care. We need these, and we’re going to take them.”
The witch raised her hand, and a skillet rose and banged Harry on the head.
“Ah,” he shouted, falling down.
“Harry,” Theodora yelled. She rushed over to him, kneeling beside his hunched figure. Blood trickled from a gash in his head.
“Wait just a minute.”
All heads turned to glare at me. Oh, crap. Had I said that? Why would I butt my nose into someone else’s business?
Was I kidding myself? My entire goal in life was to butt my nose into other people’s business. It was what I did best, it seemed.
“What do you want, Pepper Dunn?” the Order witch snapped.
I steeled myself. This was so stupid, completely ridiculous of me. Why in the world was I about to draw more attention to myself?
I guess because Harry and Theodora were good people. I wasn’t about to watch as good people were hurt. Not while I was living and breathing, that was.
I pushed my way through the throng of Order witches until I stood face-to-face with the head witch.
“I want you to leave my friends alone. Isn’t it enough that y’all have entered our town and demanded that unless I come with you, you’ll put Magnolia Cove on lockdown until you starve us out? But now you have to start taking wares from my friends? No. That is quite enough. These people work hard at their business. Y’all leave them alone.”
The witch sneered. Her lips pulled back, revealing yellow teeth. Ew. Didn’t she brush them? Even if they were coffee stained, I was pretty sure there was a spell to fix that.
“And just what are you going to do about it?” she said.
That did it. Anger rose inside me. Magic unfurled within me, and I could feel ribbons of light unwinding.
As I glared at the witch, her eyes widened. I lifted my hand, and she rose into the air. Her feet dangled as she kicked and screamed.
“What I’m going to do about it is fight every one of y’all if you insist on hurting my friends.”
Magic and instinct seemed to take over. I felt powerful, unstoppable, and for a moment I wondered if I could turn a rock into ice. I loved a good distraction as much as the next person, I recharged my focus, pinning it on the witch.
She gasped for air. “Will you leave my friends alone?”
The witch nodded. She scratched at her throat. I relaxed my hand, and she fell to the ground, landing on her rear end.
I fixed my stare on the rest of the Order. “If any of y’all even think of hurting my friends, you’ll get much, much worse.”
With that, the witches scurried away, including the instigator, though she made sure to spit on the ground in front of me.
“Classy.” I clicked my tongue and remembered Harry. I rushed over to him. “Are you okay?”
Harry smiled weakly. “You didn’t have to do that, Pepper.”
I waved my hand over the gash, and it disappeared as the skin seamlessly wove itself together. The only sign there had been a cut was the thin line of blood that remained.
“Nonsense,” I said. “Of course I had to do that. They were bullying you. I’m afraid this week is going to get worse before it gets better.”
Theodora took my hand. “We’re with you all the way. No matter what anyone says, we know what that old witch wants to do with you and we don’t like it. It’s wrong to take a witch’s powers. If Lacy was any kind of decent, she wouldn’t do it.”
A gentle smile tugged at my lips. “Thank you, Theodora. But I don’t want y’all to bring attention to yourselves because of me. Your safety isn’t worth it. I was here and I stopped them, but they’re dangerous. All of them.”
Theodora nodded in understanding. She helped me hoist Harry to his feet. “We’ll help however we can,” she said. “We’re old, and no one’s going to push us around.”
I considered what she was saying. “In that case.” I leaned in. “I know someone you’ll want to talk to.”
After parting ways with Theodora and Harry, I walked the rest of the way to Familiar Place. The golden key fit snuggly in the lock. As the tumblers turned, I felt a wave of comfort and satisfaction. This store was as much my home as this town.
The door opened, and the animals awoke. The cats meowed, the puppies barked and the birds squawked.
I fed and watered them all and had just pulled the hairpin from my jacket and was inspecting it when the door opened.
“Pepper, I thought you weren’t supposed to go anywhere by yourself.”
I glanced up to see Rufus staring at me.
“What do you expect me to do, stay inside all day while this town succumbs to Lacy and her evil fiends?”
“No.” He crossed his arms. “I expect you to practice your magic. I don’t have to remind you how important this is.”
“First off,” I said, annoyed that he was trying to parent me, “I haven’t seen the animals here in days. They can’t sleep forever. I know that when I’m gone, they go into a sort of magical stasis, but I have to see them. Secondly”—I lifted the pin—“I’m fairly certain this is Slug Worley’s hairpin.”
Rufus’s eyes widened. “How did you get that?”
“The guinea pig brought it to me as a gift.”
He crossed to me and opened his palm. I dropped the pin into his hand. “I’d keep that guinea pig.”
“I agree, but what do we do with it?”
Rufus pinched two fingers together and lifted the pin so he was staring at the shaft. “Have you ever played ghost with anyone?”
I shook my head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Ghost?”
He smiled, clearly amused at my naivete. “Say Slug had something to do with Bee’s death. This pin will allow us access to Slug’s most vulnerable thoughts and feelings. We’ll be able to get her into a state that is relatively sedated, and when she’s there, we can appear to her as Bee.”
Lightbulbs flared in my head. “And when she’s calm enough, she won’t know we’re tricking her. If she killed Bee, then she might just confess to us.”
Rufus snapped his fingers. “Exactly. But we can’t do it without the pin. This is the key.”
It sounded great, but I thought Rufus was forgetting something. “We also need a way to get into the camp, or to at least get Slug away from everyone else so that we can speak with her.”
He rubbed his jaw. “What if…what if we could find a way to incapacitate the entire camp? Make it so that they won’t know what happened.”
My eyes flared. I grabbed his arm. “We put them to sleep. Like in Sleeping Be
auty. In that story the entire castle is put out for one hundred years. Obviously we don’t need that long, only an hour or two.”
Rufus smiled. “If I had to guess, your grandmother would know a spell that could do the trick.”
I thought about Harry and Theodora. “And if I had to guess, we could find volunteers willing and able to help.”
Rufus dropped the pin into my open palm and closed my fingers over it. “Then what are we doing here? We’ve got an enchantment to plan.”
EIGHTEEN
Turned out Theodora and Harry were happy to help us figure out a plan for putting the entire Order camp to sleep.
Before you ask, I did manage to carve out time to work on my magic but only managed to turn a rock into a flower.
Not anywhere close to ice. It was disappointing, but Hermit reminded me that I had to keep working at it. Hardly anything came easily, especially when it came to shifting elements. Or one form of matter into another.
But that had been earlier. Now the sun was burning down the horizon.
Betty stirred the cauldron over the everlasting fire. “The potion is almost done.” She knocked the ladle against the pot and set it on a hook. “What’s the plan?”
Rufus, dressed in black from head to foot, stepped forward. “The plan is someone’s going to have to release the potion at the base of the camp. If we do this correctly, the fumes should overtake everyone in the Order and anyone outside. Whoever releases the potion will also fall asleep,” Rufus added. “There’s no way around that.”
“What about Slug?” I said.
Sherman crossed his arms. “Leave that to me. I’ll bring her back here.”
“Where I’ll rouse her with the antidote,” Betty said.
“That’s where you and I come in,” Rufus said. “I’ll use the pin to keep her in a state that’s not quite awake. You’ll do the Bee glamour, and we’ll see what happens.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
“Then we’ll have a real problem on our hands,” Rufus said. “It has to work or else there’s no telling what Slug will remember or even do to us.”
No pressure. I nodded and smiled brightly, suggesting I was ready for whatever would come.
“Cordelia, Amelia, Theodora and Harry will disperse the spell,” Betty said.
“I’ll go out and rouse them when we return Slug,” Rufus said.
“I’ll have the potion ready by then.” Betty grabbed a handful of dried herbs that hung over the mantle. She crushed them in her hand and dropped them into the cauldron. Then, quick as lightning, she capped the cauldron and took a large step back.
“It’s almost ready,” she said. “I’ve got one more ingredient to add. Cordelia, get me the glass bottles and we’ll ladle it up, add the last ingredient and cork the bottles before any of the potion can escape.”
Within minutes everything was ready. Two hours after darkness fell, Betty nodded to the four who were to go.
“It’s time.”
Cordelia, Amelia, Theodora and Harry left. Sherman, Rufus, Betty and I remained. The seconds ticked by slowly as we waited another hour before we figured the potion had done its work.
Betty nodded to Sherman. “You’re on.”
Rufus rose. “I’ll go with him. To make sure he doesn’t have any problems.”
“Are you sure?” Betty grimaced. “The potion should have done its work, but if you’re caught, there won’t be any saving you.”
Rufus’s gaze flickered to me. “This is much too important for anything to go wrong. I’ll come if you’ll have me,” he said to Sherman.
Sherman extended his hand. “I’d be proud to have you.” Then Sherman turned toward the door and tripped over the rug lying in front of it. A sliver of power shot from his hand, hitting a stalk of herbs fixed to the fireplace and setting them on fire.
Betty cringed. “Well, you’re getting better.”
Sherman wiped a hand down his face. “I’m working on it.”
I smiled warmly at Rufus. I was glad he was going with Sherman. For goodness’ sake, how had this kid managed to survive this long without killing himself or someone else?
Not a question I necessarily wanted an answer to. Once Sherman and Rufus left, Betty slumped into her chair. “We have some time before they return.”
“How long?”
“Maybe fifteen minutes. Hard to say. More than likely Rufus will use magic to get them close to the camp. Then they need to make sure the potion worked, which it would have. Lastly Sherman has to find Slug and leave.”
I folded my legs and sat on the edge of a chair. “I’m nervous, Betty. We’ve never done anything like this before. Did you tell Garrick?”
She nodded. “He wanted to come over, but I told him it would look suspicious. I figured he needed to know what was going on in his town, though.”
I agreed with that. “We have to keep people safe.”
Betty raised her hands. “How can we when the Order is so unstable? They’re full of havoc.” She eyed me. “How’s the training going?”
“It’s going.”
“That’s one thing you’re not going to get out of—this fight with Lacy. Unless she dies first.”
I clicked my tongue. “Know any murder spells?”
Betty shot me a scathing glance. “No, and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“Figures.” I tapped my fingers on the couch, trying to come up with a topic, any topic that would pass the time. “Seems Sherman likes Amelia.”
“Almost as much as Rufus likes you.”
I gave her a pointed glance. “We’re not talking about me.”
“I hope you’re smart enough to realize who you’re supposed to be with.”
I nodded. “I am. I don’t feel the same for Rufus that I do for Axel. We have chemistry, but it’s different. I only wish he could find someone. Then maybe Axel wouldn’t be so leery of him.”
“I’ve got news for you, gal. Axel would be leery of him no matter what.”
I rolled my eyes. “Thanks for that. Not that it helps.”
“Rufus will find his own love one day. He doesn’t need you.”
“I agree.”
“Don’t forget that.”
This was turning into a serious come to Jesus moment. “I don’t need convincing.”
“Remember, Axel and your love for him is the key to truly unlocking your power.”
I studied her. There was definitely something suspicious going on. “How do you know that?”
“It’s the secret of all true head witch power.”
“Loving Axel is?” I said sarcastically.
“No.” She scoffed. “I have heard that once your love is unlocked, a head witch can truly experience what their power is capable of.”
“The closest I’ve come to unleashing true power, Axel was in my thoughts,” I admitted.
“Good.” She rocked back and forth, back and forth, seeming to contemplate something. “Just don’t let Rufus get in the way of your thoughts.”
“He doesn’t,” I snapped.
“Are you sure about that?”
I scratched my scalp, transmitting my frustration with this conversation into that action instead of saying something hurtful.
“Yes. No. There have been times when I haven’t exactly been confused but I’ve felt Rufus’s pull. There have been other times when I’ve been drawn to him but I know Axel is the one for me. Do I feel something for Rufus? Maybe, but it isn’t a feeling that can go anywhere, simply because I don’t see a future with him. I have a future with Axel, a real future. He has asked me to marry him.”
She leaned forward, all interested and stuff. “And what’ve you said?”
“I told him I’d give him an answer when he returns. I actually want to go ahead and tell him, but he wants me to wait.”
“Ah, maybe he’s getting a ring.”
I frowned. “How do you know there isn’t a ring?”
“Because I don’t see one. Simple as that.
If you’d had a ring presented to you, some big flashy diamond, it would’ve been easier to cough out a ‘yes’ to Axel.”
I glared at her. “I resent that. You’re suggesting I’m only in it for the jewelry.”
She shrugged. “All I’m saying is a diamond makes a decision easier sometimes. Not all the time but sometimes.”
I shook my head. “You are something else.”
Betty grinned mischievously. “Ain’t I, though?”
A quiet overtook the room; the only sound was the crackling and hissing of the fire.
“I hope they’re okay,” I murmured.
Just then the door flew open and Sherman and Rufus entered, carrying Slug.
“Hurry,” Sherman said, “get him by the fire.”
I jumped up. “Who?”
“Rufus.”
I reached for Rufus, who was ghostly pale. Sherman settled Slug down, and Rufus slumped into me. His eyes rolled back.
Betty rushed over to us. “What happened?”
“One of the guards showed up. He’d been out of Magnolia Cove on a mission and had arrived back after the potion was released. He caught us trying to get Slug. He hit Rufus with magic and I was able to stop him, but not before this happened.”
“What about the guard?” I asked.
“I knocked him out and managed to work a forgetful spell on him,” Sherman said. “But Rufus…”
Rufus was in a chair beside the fire. Sweat sprinkled his face, and his eyes were closed.
Sherman pulled back Rufus’s cloak, revealing a wound beside his shoulder. Blood ran down his torso.
I shot Betty a worried look. “That looks bad.”
“It was done by magic, you say?” she said to Sherman.
“Yes, magical wound.”
“Pepper, get some cool towels. Your job will be to keep fever from setting in.”
“Done.” I rushed into the kitchen, grabbed a bucket and filled it with ice water. I dunked a few rags into it and hurried back to the living room. “I’ve got them.”
“Get Rufus on the couch. The other witch will have to wait. I’ll keep her sedated until we can get to her, but we need to help Rufus.”
Sherman grabbed Rufus’s head, and I grabbed his feet. Betty worked at the fire. She filled her cauldron with dried herbs and called up a rack full of magical potions and ingredients.
