Be Careful What You Witch For (A Family Fortune Mystery)

by Dawn Eastman

  He shook his head. “No, I haven’t seen him since the reception for Rafe.”

  “Is that so?” Vi said. She turned her narrowed eyes in my direction at the opposite end of the table.

  “Weren’t you out with Clyde the night she found him?”

  Tom blushed and stammered. “N-no. I heard about Lucan from . . . work the next day.”

  Mom crossed her arms and stared at me.

  Seth took a deep breath but I put my hand on his arm to stop him from wading into this situation.

  “I was with Mac that night,” I said.

  “I knew it!” said Vi. She had one finger in the air. “I knew something was up with you two.” She leveled the finger in my direction.

  “Finally,” Alex whispered next to me.

  “Oh, Clyde. This is good news,” Mom said. “The cards always said you were meant for each other.”

  Tom turned in his seat to glance toward me down the table. “You and Mac . . . are together?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, where is he? Why isn’t he here helping us?” Vi said. She turned to Mom and said, “We’ll have to invite Lucille over for dinner.”

  I sighed and Seth patted me on the shoulder.

  * * *

  In the restroom, grateful for a few minutes away from the mayhem in the dining room, I let the water run and washed my hands slowly. I didn’t look up when the door opened and someone else came in the room.

  I caught a streak of black out of the corner of my eye and then felt someone standing very close behind me.

  “I don’t know what your problem is, but you can just back off,” she said.

  I looked up to meet her eyes in the mirror.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Morgan.”

  “You went snooping around in the woods and found a charm. The police are trying to link it to me.”

  I held her gaze and didn’t respond. But her presence so close behind me had my heart pounding in fear.

  “I didn’t kill Rafe,” she said. “I . . . wouldn’t hurt him.”

  “Then you have nothing to worry about.” I tried to step around her, but she blocked me.

  “I think I have you and your gang of amateur detectives to worry about. You’re all running in circles trying to find someone to blame for this. I think the police need to look at the people Rafe had threatened, and it wasn’t me.”

  “I don’t have any control over what the police are doing.”

  She gave me a flat stare in the mirror.

  “Who was Rafe threatening?” I asked.

  “For one thing, your friend’s brother was right. Rafe did kill their parents.”

  “What? How do you know about that?”

  Her slow smile showed she was enjoying this. She took a step back and I turned to look at her.

  “At least he thought he killed them.” Morgan shrugged. “He never got over it. He cast a spell and the next day their car crashed.” She stepped up to the mirror to trowel on more lipstick.

  “Rafe thought a spell killed the Wards?”

  She nodded and blotted her lips on a paper towel.

  “He liked to test out the spells that were in his mother’s grimoire. He was convinced that that one really worked.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said.

  She shrugged. “I didn’t say I believed it.”

  “Why did you lie about being at the ceremony?”

  Her face went blank. “Who says I lied?”

  “You just did. You said the police linked that charm to you.”

  “No, I said they were trying to. If that’s their only proof, I have no worries.”

  I held my hands out. “Then why are you in here threatening me?”

  She blinked. “I’m not threatening you. I’m trying to help you. Rafe made some enemies along the way. He ran his coven like a dictatorship. I’m not the only person he exiled. Ember and Bronwyn moved all the way to Traverse City to get away from him. They look all sweet and earth-mother-y, but looks can be deceiving.”

  Diana had said they were above all the drama in Grand Rapids. So, why were they here today with Morgan? And why was she throwing them under the bus?

  Morgan continued, “And he was always fighting with that church group. They’ve been at each other for years.”

  “The gang that showed up at his memorial?”

  Morgan nodded. “He and Bea Paxton go way back, and none of it is friendly.”

  The door swung open at that moment and Morgan turned on her heel and brushed past the woman, who flattened herself against the wall and stared as Morgan stalked back out to the restaurant.

  I nodded at the woman, who scurried into a stall. Morgan had given me a few things to think about. It was true that I had been looking at the case mostly in view of how to prove Dylan’s innocence. We’d been focused on finding other people who could have had opportunity, but I didn’t know enough about Rafe to know who he might have ticked off.

  I went back out to the dining area wondering whether it would be best to let the police do their job. But pulling my family off the scent might prove to be more than I could handle.

  36

  Sunday morning, after we walked the dogs, I left Seth with his computer and told him I had some errands.

  Mostly, I needed to think. I had too many mysteries, and not enough insight into any of them. Now that Dylan was out of jail, I felt less urgent about figuring out who killed Rafe. Vi’s concerns about a roving lunatic aside, I felt like I needed to deal with some mysteries closer to home. Neila’s confessions yesterday had been eye-opening but none of it explained why my mother was so against my seeing her that Vi had to go behind her back to get me up there. I understood the recluse excuse, but I didn’t understand why she was venturing into town after so many years of self-imposed exile. She must have been trying to get close to Rafe’s memorial the night that Mac had driven her home. But why was she causing trouble with Howard and Millie?

  I turned my Jeep up the now familiar gravel driveway toward her house. I had grown accustomed to the desolate look of the house, but this time it seemed shut down. I realized the difference was that on my first couple of visits I had smelled wood smoke from her chimney. It was absent this time.

  My knock seemed loud in the small clearing and I listened carefully for sounds from within. It was silent. I knocked again and started to get worried. She was over ninety, after all. I had stepped off the porch with a plan to go to the back door when I heard the front door swing open.

  “Hello, dear. I’m moving slowly today.” She attempted a tired smile that didn’t make it to her eyes.

  “Hi, Ms. Whittle. I . . . wanted to check on you after our talk yesterday.”

  She nodded and swung the door open.

  Her house seemed colder today, as if the life had been leached out of it. She led me back down the hall to the kitchen, as usual. There was no fire today, as I had surmised while still outside.

  “Can I get you anything?” she asked.

  I shook my head no, and she settled slowly into her chair.

  “Ms. Whittle, I spoke with Millie and Howard last week.”

  She perked up a bit at this news. “Oh my. Millie doesn’t like me very much.”

  “She thinks you’re trying to steal Howard.”

  The deep laugh that erupted seemed out of place coming from such a tiny person. I smiled along with her.

  “She does get ideas,” Neila said.

  “You’re not trying to steal Howard?”

  She shook her head. “No, I just wanted to talk to him. We were . . . involved . . . a lifetime ago, but that’s been over for longer than you’ve been alive.”

  “That’s about what Howard said,” I agreed. “Can you tell me why, after all this time, you wanted to talk to him?”

&nb
sp; She sighed and gestured for me to sit. “He was Rafe’s father. I thought he should know that I had found our son. And that he had died.”

  “I’m sorry. Did you get a chance to tell him before Millie came in?”

  She shook her head. “No, and then I had second thoughts. Maybe it would be kinder to let him think . . . whatever it is he thinks. Sometimes the truth isn’t as kind as hope.”

  I took a deep breath. I wasn’t sure now whether I wanted to know the answer to my next question, but I plowed on anyway.

  “I came to ask you about something else as well. I know you may not want to talk about it, but I really need to know what happened between you and my mother,” I said, and leaned my elbows on the table. “You must have known her if you and my grandmother were as close as you say.”

  Neila glanced at me and looked away. She sighed and seemed to crumple into herself.

  “I gave your mother some bad news a long time ago and she’s avoided me ever since.”

  My chest squeezed as I realized the kind of news she must have shared.

  “You think my mother will outlive one of her children?”

  Neila nodded and wouldn’t meet my gaze.

  “Do you know which—”

  She held up her hand and shook her head.

  “I don’t know which child it will be. I hope that I’m wrong. I’m sorry, Clytemnestra.”

  “Well, that explains a lot about my mother,” I said. I thought about her overprotectiveness, her insistence that I use my abilities to protect myself, her vocal disapproval of my choice to go to police academy. She must have been concerned I was in constant danger.

  “When did you give her this news?”

  Neila watched me for a moment. “When you were just a toddler. I don’t even think you were talking yet. Your grandmother and mother brought you and Grace to see me. Your grandmother had a knack for reading faces and picking up on subtle things. She knew I’d seen something and badgered me until I told her.” Neila hugged herself and pulled her shawls more tightly around her shoulders.

  I sensed there was more and waited.

  “Your mother gathered up you and your sister and left. I haven’t spoken to her since then. Agnes brought you here sometimes, but I never saw Grace or Rose again.”

  * * *

  I left Neila’s house and drove slowly back toward home. It was one of the few times in my life when I wished I had just let things slide. Neila was right—sometimes it’s better not to know. I thought about my own premonitions and how they were just gloomy predictions of doom. I knew that because I hadn’t honed the talent, or ever fully tested it, I tended to interpret the dreams in the worst light possible. Last summer I had been sure that Mac was in danger and things hadn’t turned out that way at all. My efforts to protect him had only complicated matters.

  These dreams about Seth really bothered me. I couldn’t tell if they were related to what had happened to Rafe, or whatever was going on with Seth in New York, but it seemed pretty clear to me that he was in danger and that I would be useless as a rescuer.

  Seth. We’d left things undecided the day before. We had to make a decision, and soon. I pulled into my driveway and shut off the car. I wondered if, when we were done talking, I would feel the same about his truths as I did about Neila’s.

  I found him camped out in his room, dogs watching his every move as he ate chips and clicked away on his computer.

  He looked up when I came in. “Hey,” he said, and smiled.

  I moved some clothes off the only chair in the room and sat.

  His smile faded to a wary line.

  “We need to talk about your plans for going back to New York.”

  He clicked rapidly on the keyboard and then folded up the laptop.

  “’Kay.”

  “You can’t just do your homework through e-mail for the rest of the year. You have to be in classes.”

  I was surprised when he nodded. “Yeah, I know. I looked into transferring to Crystal Haven High.”

  “What? Do your parents know?”

  “Kind of. I told them I didn’t want to continue at my own school. A lot of the kids I was with in elementary school go to boarding school now. There are some really good ones, and my mom and dad have mentioned it a bunch of times.”

  “Boarding school? That’s what you want?”

  “No, not at all. But I told them it would be no different than if they sent me to boarding school. They couldn’t really argue with that.”

  I sat back and narrowed my eyes at him. “When were you and your mother planning to tell me you had moved in?”

  He grinned. “Now seems good. Dylan’s out of jail, the Fall Fun Fest is over, so I guess we could talk about it.”

  I started to wish I hadn’t gotten out of bed that morning.

  “Your mom is okay with you going to CH High?”

  He lifted a shoulder and tilted his head. “She went there.”

  “That’s different. She lived here.”

  “Yeah, that’s why I want to move here. I can’t take it in New York. There’s just too much noise, and I’m not talking about traffic. The animals there are . . . well . . . pushy.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

  “How are they pushy?”

  “They’re constantly complaining about the noise and the other animals and it’s just too much. I can’t think when I’m there. Ever since last summer when I heard Baxter, I just can’t shut it out. I’m not ready to tell my parents about it. I thought maybe you could help me.”

  I understood his situation only too well, but I hadn’t figured out my own methods yet. How was I going to help him? Then I remembered the dream. Maybe this is what I was supposed to save him from. New York has a lot of tall buildings. Maybe it was saying I needed to rescue him from New York. Did my sister cackle like a witch? Was I saving him from his own mother?

  I must have spaced out for a moment because Seth had gotten up to come snap his fingers in front of me.

  “I asked my mom if she would let me stay through till the New Year and see how it goes. I can register at CH High and they can talk to my old school about which classes I should take.”

  “I’ll talk to your mom and we’ll see what we can work out.”

  Seth’s smile told me he thought this was a done deal.

  37

  Monday morning Seth and I had just returned home after walking the dogs when a black Tahoe pulled into the driveway. I squinted at the glare shining off the windshield and waited.

  Skye hopped out and walked toward us.

  “Hi,” she said and bent to pet Baxter. Her hair fell and covered her face. Baxter wagged his whole body and acted almost as besotted as Seth. Tuffy glowered from under his ponytail until she turned to him and rubbed his ears.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  Skye pulled a file folder out of her messenger bag.

  “I was talking to Diana at work and she told me I should bring these to you.” She held the file out to me.

  “What is it?” Seth asked.

  She bit her lip and wouldn’t meet my eyes. “It’s Rafe’s family tree.”

  “What?” I snatched the file from her and flipped it open. It was the same diagram I had seen last week when we searched Rafe’s house. “How did you get this?”

  She glanced nervously at me and stepped a little closer to Seth.

  “I went back after the police left last week. I wanted to see if they had found this.” She pointed toward the file.

  “You took it?” I tamped down a surge of guilt at having stolen Rafe’s grimoire and the knowledge that I would have taken the family tree as well, if it had been there when I went back.

  She nodded. “I knew it was important to Rafe and that he didn’t want anyone else to see it. He wouldn’t even let me look at it, and I was do
ing research for him.”

  Seth bounced on his toes and rubbed his arms. “Can we talk about this inside?”

  We went in the house and dealt with the dog treats. Baxter would be both spoiled and in another weight class by the time Seth left. If he ever left.

  “Tell me what this is about,” I said when we were settled in the living room.

  Skye took the file from me and laid some papers out on the coffee table.

  “This is Rafe’s family tree according to his grandmother. See the signature in the corner? That’s Amity Leal.”

  Seth and I leaned forward to look.

  Skye continued, “According to this diagram, Rafe’s grimoire was passed down through the female side of his family, and because he was the only child, he received it from his mother. These notes here show the passage of the grimoire down the female line to Rafe.”

  Seth and I nodded and I wondered where this was leading. I knew Rafe had the grimoire, as did everyone else. It was how he had claimed his leadership role in the coven.

  “This is the part that gets weird. When I showed Diana this family tree, she showed me this other one.” Skye reached into her bag and pulled out a copy of the genealogy chart from the back of Dylan’s book.

  “It looks the same to me,” Seth said.

  Skye nodded. “It’s almost the same. However, the one Diana has clearly shows that Rafe was adopted.” She pointed to the dashed line linking Rafe to his adoptive parents.

  I nodded. “Did you know he was adopted?”

  Skye shook her head. “He never told me. As I said before, he had an interest in Neila Whittle and her family tree. That’s what we were working on. He never told me why, just that he had a personal interest.”

  Seth pointed to the diagram Skye had taken from Rafe’s house. “What’s this other part?” He pointed to another branch that came off the marriage between Rafe’s great-grandparents.

  “That’s what I wanted you to see,” Skye said to me. “This shows that there was another branch of the family, but it went through the son who died in World War II.” She pointed to the notation. “And down to this person.” Her finger landed on a circle with the name Monica.