The Witching Flavor (A Cozy Mystery Book): Sweetland Witch

by Zoe Arden

  She turned her head to ask someone a question and I saw William Carney—an old beachcomber who had lived on the island all his life—sidle up to the punch bowl and pull a bottle of rum out of his shirt pocket. William was an interesting sort. He considered the beach his home and knew everything about everyone. I was pretty sure he had a house somewhere in Sweetland, but I'd never seen him anywhere other than the shore. He tipped his rum into the punch bowl and was off again in a flash.

  At least now I knew why Trixie was so interested in the punch.

  I turned to the first couple I saw walking past me. That just happened to be Sweetland Cove's librarian, Pennyweather Kelso, who was walking hand in hand with Melbourne Hammond.

  I didn't know Pennyweather well. She'd always struck me as a little stuck up. Maybe it was the shoulder-length pageboy hair she went to such trouble keeping straight. Or the way she kept her glasses pushed low on her nose so that she had to peer over them at everyone she spoke to. Honestly, though, it probably had more to do with the fact that she was simply a librarian. A book snob who thought that those of us who didn't stick to the classics were beneath her.

  Melbourne, on the other hand, had a kind word for everyone. I'd never heard Megan or Lucy say so much as one negative thing against him. He was the owner of Coffee Cove, where Lucy and Megan both worked. His complexion was so pale it was almost eerie, and his eyes were so dark it was like looking into midnight.

  "Excuse me!" I said a little too loudly. They both jumped. "Have either of you seen Lucy?"

  Pennyweather patted her chest dramatically. Her thin frame shook as she pushed the glasses back up her nose. "Oh, Ava. You scared the horseflies out of me."

  "Sorry," I said. "So? Have you seen her?"

  "No," Pennyweather said, trying to move past me.

  "What about you?" I asked, turning to Melbourne. His hairline, which had remained thick even into his early forties, blended with the shadows in the dance hall. He wasn't a bad-looking man.

  "Sorry," he said. "Haven't seen her. Isn't she around here somewhere, celebrating?"

  "No. Lucy disappeared when the lights went out earlier."

  "Yeah, I saw that. I just assumed she'd snuck off with some boy somewhere."

  I tried to smile. I couldn't shake the feeling that something was very wrong here. I thought of the shadowy female figure I'd seen in back.

  "Have either of you seen anything strange? Shadows? Or... or zombies? Or... vampires?" I couldn't think of anything else to say and was just spewing out random ideas.

  Melbourne's already pale face suddenly whitened that much more.

  "No," he said snidely. "Nothing like that." He walked off in a huff, leaving Pennyweather behind him.

  She rounded on me. "Why must people keep persecuting other creatures? Vampires are good people. They just have a... a medical condition. It's not their fault." She turned and ran after Melbourne.

  Oh. My. God. No way. Impossible.

  Aunt Trixie went walking by. I grabbed hold of her shoulder. She wobbled slightly as she turned toward me.

  "Aunt Trixie," I asked, "this might be a stupid question, but... are vampires real?"

  Trixie let out a loud laugh, and my shoulders relaxed. I was being ridiculous. I'd misinterpreted Pennyweather's reaction.

  It took a full minute for Trixie to get her breath back. I thought the punch had gotten to her just a tad.

  "Ava," she finally said, "that's not a stupid question, just a silly one. Of course, vampires are real." Then she continued on her way as if blood-sucking undead monsters were the most natural thing in the world. Maybe on Heavenly Haven, they were.

  One thing was certain—I still had a lot to learn.

  * * *

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  .

  .

  .

  * * *

  * * *

  .

  I woke up with my heart pounding. Sweat ran down my face in rivers. I carefully reached for my lamp, afraid that whatever I'd been dreaming about had followed me into the darkness of my room. I couldn't feel the switch to turn it on.

  "Warthogs!" I said as I knocked my lamp off the nightstand. My bedroom door squeaked open, and I heard the soft pitter patter of tiny feet.

  A moment later, Snowball jumped into bed with me and the lights came on. She purred loudly as she nuzzled her head against my arm, tickling me with her whiskers.

  "Snowball heard Mama yell. It was dark inside. Snowball helped."

  "Thanks, Snowy," I said, petting the white kitten who was quickly maturing into an adult cat. In the few months I'd had her, I'd seen her grow from the size of a baseball to the size of a football. "How'd you turn the light on, anyway? I didn't hear you cast a spell."

  Snowball's answer was to lick the tip of my thumb before attacking my feet under the blanket. It took a full hour before I fell back to sleep again. I tried to remember what had been chasing me in my dream but had no luck. It was all mist and shadows.

  In the morning, I woke up feeling like I'd spent the night on a cement cot. My back hurt, my head hurt, and I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt so tired. I reached for my phone, which I used as an alarm clock, hoping to see a text from Lucy.

  Nothing.

  Beneath the phone, though, was something strange. Six red rose petals lay on my nightstand. I tried to remember whether they'd been there last night when I'd woken up from my nightmare, but everything had been so dark. Snowball was still sleeping at my feet. I shook her gently.

  "Snowy, do you know where these came from?" I asked, holding the petals up for her to look at.

  Snowball looked sleepily at me. "No, Mama," she said and laid her head back down.

  There was a soft knock on my door then Eleanor's voice. "Ava? Are you awake?"

  "Yeah, I'm awake. You can come in."

  She pushed the door open. My dad stood beside her, looking grim.

  "How'd you sleep?" he asked.

  "Not great." I shrugged. "You?"

  "Not great either," he replied.

  I was still holding the rose petals.

  "Hey, Eleanor, I don't suppose you know—"

  Trixie came rushing up the stairs. "What's taking so long?" she called as she bounded into my bedroom.

  She was wearing a neon green tennis skirt and a white t-shirt that said, Outta My Way. I had no idea where all her energy was coming from. By the time we'd gotten home last night, it was almost midnight, and Trixie had been on her twelfth glass of punch.

  "You're still in bed!" she cried accusingly.

  "Yeah, I just woke up. Why?"

  Eleanor raised a hand to shush Trixie. "Zane—" her face turned red, "I mean Sheriff Knoxx, has organized a search party to go out looking for Lucy this morning.”

  "You mean she's still not home?" I cried.

  "No. I'm afraid not."

  I pulled the covers back and set the petals back on my nightstand. "When does it start? Where do we meet?"

  "Just get dressed and meet us downstairs," my dad said. He was dressed in jeans and a light button-down shirt that highlighted the bags under his eyes.

  I was glad he'd decided to stay on Heavenly Haven after the summer had ended. He'd taken a leave of absence from his job as a line cook in a New York café, but I knew our old apartment was still in place. Ready for one or both of us to return to it, should we decide that life on Heavenly Haven wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

  I thought that after twenty-one years of hiding in a big city, my dad needed to know that apartment was still there for him if he wanted it. A sort of comfort blanket. I couldn't blame him. After Jon Pratt had killed my mother, and he'd subsequently killed Jon, he'd had to leave Heavenly Haven with me in the middle of the night, terrified that Jon's family might come after me. That kind of fear was hard to let go of.

  Five minutes later, I was downstairs.

  "We're starting at the park just west of Pixie Punk," Eleanor said. "Zane figured that we should start close to the plac
e where she went missing."

  This time, Eleanor didn't blush when she referred to Sheriff Knoxx by his first name. I didn't understand what she was being so weird about it for, anyway. I was sure she didn't call him "Sheriff" in private. Or did she?

  I texted Damon, asking him to come meet us, but got no response. By the time we got there, it looked as if the entire town had shown up. Even some of Mistmoor Point was here. Felicity Redfern, co-owner of the Cakes and Creations bakery in Mistmoor, waved at me. Her boyfriend, Sheriff Lincoln Maxwell, stood next to her, looking grim. It was obvious he was here to help, not take charge.

  "Before we begin," Sheriff Knoxx said, "I want to go over a few rules."

  A group of teenage warlocks stood in the crowd next to us. They snickered loudly as Sheriff Knoxx talked about walking in a straight path and keeping our eyes open for anything, no matter how trivial.

  "It's important that we do not veer off on our own. Stick to the path I give you and we'll be able to cover more territory in a shorter amount of time."

  "Speaking of short," one of the teenage boys chortled, "why is Knoxx so tall? I thought goblins were supposed to be like midgets or something."

  "He's only half-goblin," another boy said. "His mother was a warthog." There were more snickers.

  Eleanor's face turned beet red. She lifted one finger next to her ear and swirled it in a clockwise direction. A second later, both warlocks' faces began turning orange. A minute later and their heads had turned to pumpkins.

  "What the weasel?!" they cried. The rest of their friends laughed and the boys took off running.

  Eleanor leaned over and whispered, "Zane is only one-eighth goblin. And there's zero warthog in him whatsoever."

  "Serves them right," Trixie chided.

  My father stood silently by. He looked lost in thought. I nudged him, hoping for a smile.

  "Did you see those guys, Dad? Aunt Eleanor turned them into pumpkins."

  He smiled at me, but it didn't reach his eyes. He always looked that way when he was thinking about my mother, Lorabelle. But I knew better than to ask.

  "Do you see all the humans here?" Trixie murmured. "It seems like more and more of them know what's going on in Sweetland. With the paranormals, I mean. Especially since that whole thing with Slater and Polly."

  I bristled at the mention of their names. Slater had killed three people over the summer and tried to pin it all on me. Polly had helped him. Even though she hadn't killed anyone herself, she'd been just as guilty. At least in my eyes. I still couldn't believe she'd gotten off so light. A year at Wormwood Work Camp and stripped of her powers forever. I supposed that for a witch, though, that was the worst thing that could happen.

  Polly's mom, Anastasia, had only lost the use of her own powers for six months. She'd learned what her daughter was doing and failed to report it. In a way, I could sympathize. When my dad broke out of jail last summer, I hadn't reported his whereabouts to anyone.

  "You know, the Witch's Council really should get together with the Council on Magic and Human Affairs and change the law," Trixie was saying now. Her blond hair was pulled into a high ponytail, the same as me. If you didn't know us, she could almost have passed for my mother.

  "What do you mean?" I asked her.

  "That silly law about humans not knowing anything about witches. Except for a few special exceptions like Dr. Dunne and Damon. By the way, where is Damon? Shouldn't he be here?"

  "I texted him," I mumbled. I didn't want to get into the part about us arguing last night or Aunt Trixie would want details. I tried changing the subject. "So you think the councils should let humans in on our secrets?"

  "Look around. They already know. They're just playing dumb. Besides, it's only the tourists we need to be careful with."

  I paused and tried to objectively take in the sights around me. I had to admit, it did look like the humans knew what was up. It was the way they kept eying witches and wizards, picking us out of the crowd one by one, then whispering to each other. I was just glad I could finally tell the difference between us and them. It had taken me forever to learn to see the tiny gold flecks in witches’ eyes. We all had them, but you'd only notice if you knew they were there.

  "I agree we should declare a new law that the humans on Heavenly Haven can be in the know," my dad said, "but not necessarily the rest of the world."

  I agreed with my dad. Look how different Damon treated me knowing I was a witch. I turned my head just then and blinked, thinking I was hallucinating. There he was. Damon strode toward me with a sheepish look on his face.

  "Hey, Eli," he said to my dad. "Nice day for a golf game, huh?"

  My dad nodded, looked at me, and gave us some space. He always knew when I needed it.

  "Hi," Damon said.

  "Hi."

  I refused to go first. He was the one who'd acted like a warthog.

  He let out a loud sigh. "I'm sorry about last night. I was a total jerk."

  Just hearing him say that soothed me. "I'm sorry, too," I told him.

  We looked at each other a moment before he dipped toward me and kissed my cheek.

  "I don't care that you're a witch. Just sometimes, I guess..." He shrugged. "It's hard. My mom won't come back here because she's afraid to. Because of what happened to my uncle. She doesn't think I should stay here, let alone date someone... like you."

  "Oh," I said. Sometimes I forgot that Jon Pratt—the man who'd killed my mother—had been Damon's uncle. Slater, who'd turned into a serial killer last summer, was his cousin.

  "I just... I don't know. I miss her, I guess."

  "Why don't you visit her then?"

  "It's complicated."

  Sheriff Knoxx blew a whistle, jarring my attention away from Damon. "Okay!" he yelled. "Let's move out!"

  The search for Lucy had begun.

  * * *

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  .

  .

  .

  * * *

  * * *

  .

  "This doesn't seem like a park," I said to Damon as we moved side by side in a straight line. "More like a forest."

  Damon grinned. "Didn't you see those swings back there? And there was a merry-go-round, too."

  "Where there's a merry-go-round, there's a park," I agreed.

  "Precisely. You're finally starting to understand how witches think. Took you long enough."

  I stuck my tongue out at him and instantly regretted it. Damon was six years older than me. The last thing I needed to do was make him think I was still a child.

  "What exactly are we looking for?" Damon asked. "I mean, Sheriff Knoxx isn't expecting to find, like..."

  "Like what?" I asked.

  To our right, I saw Eleanor walking with Sheriff Knoxx. She matched him stride for stride. They kept shooting furtive glances at each other. Even during a crisis, they couldn't hide the fact they were smitten.

  When Sheriff Knoxx wasn't making eyes with Eleanor, he was scouring the area. I admired the way his eyes moved from corner to corner and treetop to snake hole, looking for the tiniest clue.

  "...like a body?"

  Damon's words caught me off guard.

  "What?" I demanded, rounding on him. "Did you just say... just ask if..." I felt my cheeks redden. We'd just made up and already I was furious with him.

  "I only wondered whether the sheriff thought the situation was, you know, dire."

  "Don't be ridiculous!" I snapped. "It's only been twelve hours. Of course, Lucy's still alive!"

  Brenda and Vincent Lockwood, Lucy's parents, were walking slowly down the path near ours. Brenda Lockwood looked at me and let out a long sob. Her husband shot me a nasty look. I bit my bottom lip.

  Crud.

  I'd have to remember not to be so loud. Even if Damon was being a total warthog.

  "Sorry," Damon whispered, lowering his voice as well. "I was only asking."

  "Well, don't ask again. We'll find Lucy. Alive."

  Megan w
as trailing just behind her parents. Conner was nowhere to be seen, and I wondered if she'd given him his walking papers the previous night. I didn't particularly blame her if she had. What girl in their right mind would want their boyfriend crushing on their older sister?

  "Hey, Megan," I said, stepping away from Damon for a second. I figured a little breathing room between us couldn't hurt.

  "Hi," she mumbled. Her eyes were cast down at her phone. She wasn't even looking where she was walking.

  "How are you doing?" I asked, hoping to stir the conversation. Megan and I weren't exactly friends on our own, but she was my best friend's sister. We were friends by association.

  "I feel terrible," she said. Though I had to wonder just how terrible she felt when her attention seemed wholly focused on her Witchmobile screen rather than trying to find Lucy.

  "I'm sure we'll find Lucy." I hesitated. She still hadn't looked at me. I wondered what was so fascinating on her phone that she couldn't tear her eyes away from it. I tried to sneak a peek and all I saw was a video of a cat flying through the air. It landed on a couch and bounced off. Megan laughed.

  Is she seriously watching stupid cat videos right now? When her sister is missing?!

  "Erm," I said, trying to think of the right thing to say without offending her. We all processed things in our own way. Maybe this was Megan's. "I don't suppose you ever saw Lucy last night then, did you? Or maybe Conner saw her?"

  Her head finally snapped up. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Nothing," I said. "I was just asking."

  She pulled absently at the ends of her long, molasses-colored hair.

  "I've been up all night crying," Megan snapped at me. "I don't need to take this from you." She walked off in a huff, her phone still in her hand. For someone who'd been crying all night, her eyes looked surprisingly clear. I decided we were all on edge today and I should just let it go. Same with Damon.