The Cat Jumped Over The Moon
Witches of Castle Falls, Book 2
Phaedra Weldon
Caldwell Press
Dedication
For all the Mama D’s in my incredible family…
Summary
The Ghost Watchers are in town for Castle Falls’ annual Halloween Festival, bringing with them unwanted exposure for the small town of unconventional conventionals. Especially when one of their crew turns up dead.
The TV show’s leading researcher, Ginger’s former boyfriend, is the main suspect. Will Ginger’s need to prove his innocence put her and those she loves in mortal jeopardy?
ONE
I made a face at the catastrophe that, up until a few seconds ago, had been a small, potted, well-maintained English ivy. Mama D had kept the plant for years. It thrived in a plastic hanging pot by the front door. I remember thinking when I was younger, that it lived off air because I’d never seen her water it.
“Ginger!”
My shoulders came up to my ears as I winced at the tone in Mama D’s voice. Max, my new cat familiar, jumped off the counter and scurried out of the room, successfully throwing me under the bus.
Traitor.
I slowly pivoted and met the unctuous stare of my grandmother in the doorway of the shop. “Hi.” I waved. It was a small wave.
But she wasn’t looking at me. No…she was looking at the mess behind me. I stepped out of her way as her cane tapped harshly on the dark tile.
She pursed her lips as she examined it and then looked at me. “Care to explain what you were trying to do?”
“Well, I, uh…” I felt nine again, back when I used to explain all weird things that happened around me. I stopped myself from shuffling my feet and straightened my shoulders. “Max and I were practicing. You know, working together. After all, he’s my familiar now. He amplifies my power, and so you can see I wasn’t really prepared for what was going to come out so I didn’t really know how to pull back when it—”
“Got away from you?” Mama D was still looking at me. Sideways.
I put my hands behind my back. “Yeah.”
She looked back at what was no longer the front of her shop with two windows and a door with a simple hanging English ivy. Gone were the windows, and the door, hopefully still behind the wall of thick, rustling ivy as it covered everything from corner to corner and floor to ceiling.
“Where are my windows?”
“Hopefully with the door.” I swallowed. “Behind the ivy.”
“You haven’t told it to stop, Ginger. That’s how I knew what you were doing. It’s moving under the door and creeping up the side of the house.”
Oh my stars! I held brought my hands out in front of me, closed my eyes and immediately connected with the plant. Connecting was the easy part. Controlling—that was a broom of a different wood. I told it mentally to stop. But I could still hear it. I screamed at it in my head, but it was still moving.
“Ginger, just yell at it.”
“I am yelling at it.” I opened my eyes but held my hands out.
She shook her head and held out her own arms. “Like this.” Then she turned and took in a deep breath. “Stop growing, you stupid plant!”
I felt the plant stop. It wasn’t so much like the squealing of brakes on a car, but like the crack of distant thunder. And…I had an instant headache. I put my fingers to my temple.
“Sorry,” Mama D said as she lowered her hands. “I forgot you were still connected. But you felt that?”
“Yeah. I think you cracked one of my teeth.”
“That’s the power you have to command. Plants communicate by feelings. Emotions. And sound. Emotion can be carried through sound.”
“You mean like how music can make a plant grow?”
She held up a finger but continued facing the wall of ivy. It was a lot darker in the room, although it was midmorning, October the sixteenth. “Or it can destroy it.”
“You mean the old experiment with classical music versus rock and roll?”
“Precisely. And remember, as a Hedge Witch, you can connect to the plant on a level a regular cowen can’t. You don’t need to shout at it. You can still deliver the same intent and emotion with thoughts. You just need practice. Just”—she looked back at me—“not in my shop?” With that, she held out her arms, her cane clutched in her right hand, her eyes closed.
My jaw dropped when the vines started folding in on either side, quickly and neatly revealing the two windows. The openings formed perfect rectangles that settled and stilled along the borders. Then Mama D lowered her left arm and held the cane out in front of her. The vines did the same thing, revealing the door. But instead of revealing just the door, it cleared itself away from the space above the door as well, revealing Mama D’s favorite plaque.
It read, There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. William Shakespeare.
She was about to say something when the door opened. Mama D and I stepped back as Dr. David Flanagan stepped through. He was my boyfriend and a vampire. And yes, vampires can be out in the sunlight. Well…vampires like David, that is.
He was dressed in nice pants, leather shoes, a white shirt and sports jacket, and stopped just inside. He looked from me to Mama D and then back to me. “What? Did I do something wrong?”
“No.” I blinked and waved at him to come to me. We hugged. I loved hugging him. He was warm and strong and tall and… Sigh. Gorgeous. He also had a musky smell that I found intoxicating. I assumed it was part of his also being a shapeshifter. “It’s good to see you—but shouldn’t you be at work?”
“Hello, David,” Mama D said as she shut the door and then ambled to the counter as she continued in a deeper tone, imitating David’s voice, “Hi, Mama Donahue, how are you? You look good today.”
David turned red as he left me to put a hand on Mama D’s arm. She turned and hugged him. “I’m sorry. I forgot the rules. I greet you first, then my girlfriend.”
“Age before beauty,” Mama D said as she patted his arm. “But Ginger’s right—it’s ten thirty on a Wednesday. Didn’t you two just see each other last night?”
“Yes, ma’am, we did.” David stepped back to me and kissed my forehead. “I came by to tell Ginger I’ll have to break our lunch date.”
I looked up at him and gave him a boo-boo lip. I mean, yeah, I was disappointed, but he was a doctor, so I understood. “Busy?”
“Yeah. Dr. Helena’s in Westminster helping them out, and she won’t be back till this afternoon. So I’m assisting Dr. Munch with two autopsies.”
“It amazes me that a general practitioner works with the dead,” Mama D said as she moved stuff around on her counter. “Wait…you’re a vampire. No it doesn’t.”
I smirked at her and noticed David was staring at the wall of ivy.
He pointed at it. “That’s new.”
“A gift from your girlfriend, a.k.a. overpowered Hedge Witch.” Mama D shook her head. “The windows and door are my handiwork.”
David’s gaze lingered on the ivy before he tore it away and looked at me. “You made it grow like that?”
“Not on purpose.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Max and I were practicing. Together.” I looked at the two of them and realized they both wore the same expression. “We’ll get it under control. I promise.”
“Mmhm,” Mama D said before she opened the register and started her morning money check. Most businesses put their cash in vaults or safes overnight to protect it against thieves. Not Mama D. She kept it in an old register, circa the Stone Age. The thing seemed to like my grandmother, and preferred opening up just for her in the morning.
It hated me. Literally refuse
d to open.
I took David’s hand to bring focus back to him skipping our lunch date. And to me and not the ivy or my lack of magical control. He looked at me with those beautiful blue eyes, and I realized I could forgive him anything. “Will I see you tonight?”
“It’ll be late. And if something happens, I’ll let you know.” He leaned down and pressed a kiss to my lips.
The bell of the door jingled and then, “Ew. Stop. Not in a place of business.”
I knew the voice. I’d lived with its owner all my life.
Melody Blackstone. My older sister and owner of Past & Future Times Antiques in our little town of Castle Falls. Just last month she’d lost her business partner, Carmine, to a murderer trying to find The Book of Ill Deeds. That’s a book created by a witch and used by the Hunters to discover, find and catch those supernaturals who commit acts of evil. They’d somehow lost it and it ended up in Castle Falls. Three people lost their lives to that book, and the murderer’s name was in the book. Of course, he’d been arrested and incarcerated in the cowen justice system. And the book was never recovered.
That was because I was the only one who knew where it was. And I wasn’t telling anybody. Not even David.
That same murderer had kidnapped Melody and held her in his family’s decaying mansion on the edge of town. He’d threatened Melody’s familiar, Twinkle, which kept her under his thumb. He’d believed Melody knew where the book was. Once I figured out where Melody might be, as well as our killer, I’d sent David out to the mansion to rescue her. He’d told me later he’d really only rescued the cat. Melody could take care of herself.
I’d figured since then Melody would like David. You know, warm up to him. After all, she was an animal lover, and David was a shifter as well as a vampire. His wolf form was sooo adorable. Big. But adorable.
But David had noticed, as well as I, that as September turned into October, the chill in the air wasn’t entirely the weather. As David and I saw more of each other, Melody’s tolerance of him had all but disappeared. It wasn’t as if she were overtly rude—
Well… Yeah, she was.
She’d demanded he leave Mama D’s house one night when she’d come over for dinner and found David there. David had been the one who cooked for everywhere. Melody abruptly had an excuse to leave after our granny read her the riot act about the house belonging to her and she could have whomever she wanted stay in it.
I hadn’t seen much of her since that night. I didn’t visit the antique store that often—I didn’t actually have a house to decorate with furniture, since I was mooching off Mama D for the time being. Until I figured out what I wanted to do with my life.
I could feel David tense next to me as he turned and faced Melody.
One thing about my sister—she was a Stevie Nicks fan. No. Scratch that. Fiend. The woman ate, drank and breathed anything related to the singer/songwriter. She even dressed like Miss Nicks. Which worked for Melody because she had that long face, large brown eyes and perfect lip shape. Not to mention her red hair wasn’t as fiery or brassy as mine. So she kept it bleached, or dyed, or something, just the right color. Melody dressed in flowy clothing, lots of jewelry and boots all summer long.
And if you walked into her antique shop, you’d be hard pressed to hear anything other than music by Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac, or Buckingham Nicks.
Usually Melody was a happy woman. Always bubbly. Tried to find the positive in everything. But this morning her expression looked strained and there were lines pulling her perfectly painted lips down. She wore her black velvet boots and something flowy under her velvet shawl. The day was overcast and I could see the wind blowing the trees outside.
“Good morning, Miss Blackstone,” David said. After it was obvious she had a problem with him, he’d reverted to using only her last name. I tried to get him to stop that, but he insisted he would when she got over whatever her problem was.
“Good morning, Dr. Flanagan.” She didn’t look at him directly. She never looked at him. She looked around him, over him or at the floor. And that just infuriated me.
The ivy on the wall behind Melody twitched as parts of it began growing again, so I tried again to cut off my emotions before we all ended up wrapped in English ivy. “Good morning, Melody.” I tried to keep my tone pleasant. “What brings you here so early this morning? And without Twinkle?”
“He’s still in bed,” she said, and looked around David at me. Her eyes narrowed. “I need to talk to you.”
The sentence hung in the air between us.
“Awkward,” Mama D said from behind the counter.
“Well.” David sighed and turned back to me. This time he took me in his arms and gave me one of those really awesome kisses, the kind that made my knees weak. And he kept kissing me until we both heard Melody give a frustrated sigh.
He’d done that on purpose.
He released me and touched my cheek. His blue eyes flashed gold for a moment, a hint of the wolf inside of him, and he smiled. I could see his fangs had started to appear. “I’ll let you know about tonight.”
“Be careful.” I squeezed his hand.
He smiled at me, then looked over me at Mama D. “You have a good morning, Miss Donahue.”
“You too, David. Oh, and if you come back, can you pick up another one of those chocolate pies from Mavis? She always puts more whipped cream on it for you than me.”
“Sure.”
Mavis Mulroney owned the best bakery in town. Magpies & Muffins. And she was also Mama D’s self-declared rival and arch-nemesis. Rival and nemesis for what had never been made that clear to me. Not sure I wanted to know, either. In the month I’d been back in Castle Falls, I’d found their verbal sparring a bit humorous.
And annoying.
David turned and nodded to Melody. “Miss Blackstone,” he said, and then left the shop.
I refocused on my sister. “What in the stars is your problem, Melody?” I might have pitched my voice a bit high. Burt, Mama D’s bat familiar, came gliding into the shop from the door and landed on his parrot stand by the counter.
“I don’t have a problem,” Melody said with a smile, and then her worried expression changed. “But I really do need to talk to you. And Granny.”
“Uh uh.” I held up my finger as Max trotted back in the room. He probably figured the coast was clear, since Mama D hadn’t turned me into a toad for growing the ivy. I glanced down at him sitting at my feet. “You are going to spill it right now.”
“Spill what?”
“What is up with you and David? Why don’t you like him? Why do you give him the cold shoulder all the time? I mean, come on, Melody. He rescued you.”
“He rescued Twinkle.” She pursed her lips. “And for that, I will be grateful.”
“And?” I waited.
“What?” she said.
Mama D sighed behind me. “You might as well tell her, Mel.”
I slowly pivoted to face my grandmother. “Tell me what?”
“I—” Melody started, and I whirled back to face her. I was getting dizzy. “I did a card reading on your doctor.”
I blinked and put my hands on my hips. “This is about a card reading? You’re treating him like crap because of something in your cards?”
“It wasn’t just something.” Melody bit her lower lip. That wasn’t a good sign. “I’m not a fan of vampires, Ginger. You know that.”
“You’ve never told me why.”
“Because that’s personal. And you know it’s my way to consult the cards when I’m unsure of what to do. So I did a reading on him. In fact, I did several readings, at different times of the day and with different packs of cards.”
Silence. “And?”
Melody looked very uncomfortable. “The cards say that David’s dual nature is going betray you.” She straightened her shoulders. “Or worse, get you killed.”
Oh.
TWO
“You made that up,” I said. It was out of my mouth before I could st
op it.
“No, I didn’t,” Melody said, shaking her head.
“She didn’t,” Mama D echoed from the register. “She took a picture of the reading and sent it to me.”
I looked back at Mama D, then to Melody. “Which means what? His dual nature? He’s a vampire and a shifter. It’s not an odd combination—”
“No, but it is unique,” Melody said. She put up a hand when I opened my mouth to protest. “I didn’t say it was a bad combination. But the cards don’t lie—”
“Wait,” I said in a voice a little louder than hers. “The cards might not, but the interpretation is always up for debate. Even I know that. You’re looking at things through your own perspective.”
Melody opened her mouth, then shut it and pulled it into a thin line. I’d made her think, and I knew that was the first step on the road to finding out what it was about David that unnerved her.
“How about we put David and his nature aside for the moment?” Mama D said.
I tilted my head down and looked my sister through my eyelashes. I mean, seriously, David had saved her familiar’s life. He’d risked his own to help her. And this was how he was being treated? I was a little upset with Melody. “I agree with Granny. We put David aside. We’re seeing each other. I really like him. And he makes me happy.”
“And he can make a fantastic shrimp portofino!” Mama D said.
“Oh brother,” Bart said from where he hung upside down on his perch.
I thought about Max and looked down. He was still there, by my feet, looking up at us. “No comments?”
He shook his head.
“What’s up?” said Mama D, stepping out from around the counter and ambling to the front door. She turned the sign from CLOSED to OPEN. The wind pushed dried leaves and pine straw around outside, and I shivered. The October chill was something I’d sort of forgotten about, having lived in Los Angeles for several years.
The Cat Jumped Over the Moon Page 1
