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

by Zoe Arden

  * * *

  THANK YOU

  for reading my book and

  i hope you have enjoyed the story.

  The Witching Flavor is Book 2 in Sweetland Witch Series.

  If you have enjoyed reading The Witching Flavor, I believe you will be interested in checking out the next book.

  The next book targeted release date will be 24th June.

  In the meantime . . .

  If you have enjoyed reading The Witching Flavor, I believe you will be interested in checking out the previous book: Witch Cake Murders.

  I have enclosed a sneak preview of Witch Cake Murders.

  Is FREE on Kindle Unlimited. (around 330 pages)

  Check it out below . . .

  "Let me ask you something," Brendan said. "You're a witch. Why do witches like human men?" He was looking at me so earnestly I felt compelled to answer him. I just didn't know what to say.

  "Um..." I stammered. "I don't know. I grew up around humans, so I guess I'm just drawn to them." I looked back through the glass patio door at Damon, who was dancing with Megan again. Brendan followed my gaze, looking miserable.

  "Love sucks," he said, then shoved the purple stem he'd been twirling into his pocket and skulked off. I turned back to the stars and sighed.

  An earth-shattering scream rose into the night, making me jump.

  Through the patio door, I could see a crowd gathering around the perimeter of the room. A woman was screaming. I hurried inside. The crowd had opened up, leaving two people in its center.

  Felicity stood there, her mouth hanging open. Campbell was dancing around her, his hands flying unnaturally through the air. His head was tilted at an odd angle and his tongue lolled out the side of his mouth, like a thirsty dog. He was making strange grunting noises that almost resembled words.

  "He's drunk!" someone yelled.

  Campbell swung his hips around and bumped into Felicity, who stumbled away from him.

  "All right, all right, break it up," Felicity's boyfriend Lincoln said.

  Lincoln was the sheriff of Mistmoor Point, and the crowded parted for him as he came through. Even if he hadn't been a sheriff, I suspected the crowd would still have parted for him. At six feet tall with bronze hair and blue eyes, he made quite a figure in the middle of a crowd.

  "Okay, Campbell. Time to go home," Lincoln said, clamping one hand down on his shoulder.

  Campbell yanked Lincoln hard, sending him flying across the room. Everyone gasped. Campbell stopped, looked around, then let out a strange gurgling sound. He fell to the floor. His face was bright blue.

  Felicity hunkered down next to him. She gave him one hard shake then looked up at the rest of the room, her mouth gaping.

  "He's dead," she cried. "Campbell's dead!"

  Who would be next?

  * * *

  PROLOGUE

  Eli raced through the house, grabbing everything he could. Two suitcases were open on the bed. Ava was sleeping beside them. She made a soft cooing noise as she slept. Her feet began to move like she was running, which was silly, because she couldn't even walk yet.

  What will I tell her when she's old enough to understand?

  He pushed the thought from his mind. That would come later. For now, the important thing was to get her out of here. His wife was dead. The man who'd killed her had been turned into a gooey pile of gunk just outside his front door. The only thing that had remained of the killer after Eli cast his oobleck spell was a button off the man's coat. For some reason, metals and plastics didn't respond well to oobleck spells.

  Ava began to cry softly. Eli pulled another pair of socks from his drawer and went to her. He touched Ava's forehead. "Calmnetico," he whispered. A soft orange glow emanated from his fingertip, instantly settling her. Eli didn't know how humans survived parenthood without the use of charms and enchantments. Wouldn't babies just cry all night long without an appeasement charm?

  "There, there," Eli said, stroking Ava's bright yellow hair. It was growing fast. She wasn't even one yet and already her mother's blond locks were evident on her head. Lorabelle would have loved to see how they grew out.

  Eli sighed and turned back to his packing. He didn't know when the Council on Magic and Human affairs would come for him—no one knew what he had done just yet—but the Council had ways of finding things out. He didn't intend to wait around and find out whether they would listen to reason.

  Eli had killed a human. The same human who had murdered his wife. He could tell the Council it was self-defense all he wanted, but if they chose to believe it was revenge, there'd be little he could do. He'd tried to tell them once before that Jon was dangerous, but they hadn't listened. Now Lorabelle was dead He would never entrust his life or the lives of those he loved to the Council's hands again.

  Eli looked at a large painting of a boat at sea that hung near the bed, considered it, then tossed it into the suitcase along with Ava's clothes. It had been one of Lorabelle's favorites. Maybe Ava would like it one day.

  "Expando," Eli said, directing the stream of magic from his fingertip toward the suitcase.

  There was a flicker of light. The suitcase remained the same standard size on the outside, but the inside had grown two feet wider and three feet deeper. Eli took several of Ava's baby toys and stuffed them in at the bottom.

  A loud thump sounded from the hallway. Eli turned and held his breath, waiting. What if Jon had brought friends? He stepped in front of Ava, ready to defend her. Even if it meant his own death.

  A lock of blond hair spilled over the edge of the doorframe and a moment later Trixie and Eleanor's heads were visible. Trixie's head sat atop Eleanor's, like a totem pole. Behind her, her body hovered several feet off the ground. Her round face and wide blue eyes opened even wider when she realized Eli had seen them.

  "Oh!" Trixie cried. She toppled over Eleanor and fell into the room.

  Eleanor scrambled in after her, pulling her sister to her feet.

  "I keep telling you not to hover over me like that," Eleanor scolded her younger sister. She wiped the back of her neck, where Trixie had left her footprint. "I am not a step stool. What is this goo you got on me? You have no knack for hover charms."

  Trixie smoothed her bright blond hair behind one ear. "And you have no knack for..." She tried to think of something, but Eli could see she was struggling to come up with anything Eleanor was bad at.

  "...for making peppermint cake!" Trixie cried triumphantly. She cleaned her shoes with a towel, wiping the goo off them.

  Eleanor looked so affronted by Trixie's insult that Eli had to stifle a laugh. He would have thought Trixie had called her a dim-witch.

  "My peppermint cake is to die for!" Eleanor cried, holding her head high.

  "It's too dry," Trixie said, wrinkling her nose.

  Eleanor bristled. "What does a frosting expert know anyways? I'm the cake expert!"

  Ava's blue eyes fluttered open, and she began to cry.

  Eleanor's blond hair swiveled around her face, creating a halo. It reminded Eli of Lorabelle. If you'd never met the three of them, you would still have known they were sisters just from their hair color. No other family in the witching world had hair so golden and bright it almost hurt the eyes to look at.

  "Now look what you've done," Eleanor chided. She went to Ava and picked her up, holding her the way Lorabelle used to.

  "What I've done?" Trixie cried. She looked at Eli as if asking him whether or not he could believe this.

  "Eleanor," Eli said, reaching out for Ava. She reluctantly handed her over. Eleanor turned to the suitcases, noticing them for the first time. Her eyes slowly moved around the room, taking in the missing items.

  "You're leaving," Eleanor said.

  "I am," Eli replied.

  Trixie looked from one to the other, her eyes bouncing back and forth like she was watching a tennis match. With her lime-green stockings and matching hat, it looked like she was there to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. A human holiday that Eli had nev
er fully understood.

  "Wait. What?" Trixie asked now. "You're leaving? As in you and Ava?" She started shuffling her feet in an odd jig she did whenever she got nervous or excited.

  Eli nodded. He'd known this would be hard. He'd hoped he could sneak off the island without saying goodbye. To anyone. He'd left a note to be delivered after he was gone and entrusted it to Tootsie, his wife's familiar. He supposed the note was irrelevant now.

  "Eli, please don't do this," Eleanor begged. Her eyes reminded him far too much of his recently deceased wife.

  Eleanor was dressed in the same somber colors she'd worn for Lorabelle's funeral today. Funerals and their drab colors were a human custom that had been adopted by witches and wizards centuries ago when they'd begun living side by side. Only, of course, there were some slight differences. Human funerals didn't typically involve turning silverware into penguins and feeding people happiness-infused lava cake.

  Eli shifted his feet under Eleanor's gaze. Ava squirmed in his arms, too young to understand that he needed her to remain still. Too young to care about anything that was happening right now. He would make sure that she never knew about any of this. Ever.

  "I don't have any choice," Eli told them both. "The Council has probably already sent someone for me."

  "What are you talking about?" Eleanor asked. Lorabelle had been older than both of her sisters, but Eli had always thought Eleanor acted the oldest. "Why would the Council send someone for you?"

  Eleanor and Trixie stared at Eli a full minute before a light clicked on in Trixie's eyes.

  "Oh, my roses!" Trixie exclaimed. "Eli! You didn't!"

  Eleanor looked at her younger sister, utterly perplexed. "Didn't what?"

  Trixie sighed and tossed her hands in the air. "I thought you were supposed to be the smart one." She turned back to Eli. "How? When?"

  "About an hour ago. An oobleck spell."

  "I thought you were going to let the Council handle his capture," Trixie said.

  Eleanor's eyes widened. "You killed Jon?"

  Eli nodded. "He was waiting for me when I got home with Ava. He wanted to finish what he started."

  "Wait a second..." Trixie’s face scrunched up like she smelled something bad. She looked down at her shoes. "Did you say you used an oobleck spell?"

  "It was the first thing I could think of," Eli told her.

  "Ew," Trixie said, grabbing the towel and wiping her feet more frantically with it. The goo was sticking to her shoes like glue.

  "Eli!" Eleanor cried, finally catching up to Trixie. "That's disgusting! Do you mean to tell me that this stuff Trixie got on me is... Jon?" She grabbed the towel from Trixie and started wiping the back of her neck, rubbing it raw.

  Eli decided he'd packed enough. He laid Ava carefully on the bed and closed their suitcases.

  "Floatisio hovero," Eli said, casting his charm. The suitcases floated ahead of him in the air. He picked Ava back up and hugged her to him.

  "But the Council won't fault you for Jon's death," Eleanor pleaded. "Not after what he did to Lorabelle. Not if he tried to kill you, too."

  "It wasn't me he was after," Eli said, holding Ava more tightly to him. "It's not safe for her here."

  "We would never let anyone hurt Ava!" Trixie cried.

  "Never!" Eleanor agreed.

  "Besides," Trixie chimed in. "If Jon is dead, then who's going to hurt her? She's safer here, in Sweetland Cove."

  But Eli was already shaking his head. "Lorabelle wasn't safe."

  Trixie and Eleanor couldn't argue that.

  Eli expelled a long breath. "Jon has a child. A wife. Friends."

  The sisters knew what he was getting at. Revenge was a sticky mess.

  "But where will you go?" Trixie asked, her bottom lip pouting out just like Lorabelle's used to do.

  "How will we find you?" Eleanor asked.

  "You won't," Eli told them. "I'm taking Ava somewhere... Somewhere with so many people, no one will even notice us."

  "Like the city?" Eleanor asked, hoping for a clue. But Eli kept his lips sealed. This was it. Sweetland Cove was no longer his home.

  Eli allowed Eleanor and Trixie to kiss Ava one last time before he left for the ferry docks. He had just enough time to catch the last one out. From the mainland, it would only be a short plane ride. No one would ever find them. Ava would be safe. And she would never, ever know the truth.

  * * *

  CHAPTER ONE

  I woke up on my twenty-first birthday expecting to feel different.

  I looked in the mirror, checking for crow's feet and smile lines. Nothing. I could hear my mother's voice in my head, laughing and tsking me for being so silly. She sounded like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. I'd adopted that voice for my mother when I was six and saw the movie for the first time. Since I had no frame of reference, I'd figured that voice was as good as any.

  A knock sounded outside my door. "Ava, we're going to be late."

  I looked at the clock on my nightstand and groaned. When I'd graduated high school I'd thought I'd be writing bestsellers or starring on Broadway by now. Something... special. Different. Not working as a waitress at the same New York City diner my father was a line cook at.

  I opened the bedroom door. My dad stood there smiling at me and holding a small box.

  "Happy birthday!" he cried.

  I smiled and took the box from him.

  "Thanks, Dad. You didn't have to—"

  "Don't even say it. Of course I did. I'm your father. My daughter is turning twenty-one today. The least she deserves is a... well, open it and find out."

  He was grinning like the Cheshire Cat. Yellow curls fell across my eyes and I pushed them away. I quickly undid the ribbon my father had tied around the box and tore the paper open. Inside was a sterling silver necklace. I stared at the pendant. A solid silver witch's hat.

  Oh my God.

  Any time I'd expressed even the slightest interest in witches or magic since I was a kid, my father had always gotten angry. Growing up, I hadn't even been allowed to dress up like a witch for Halloween. It had taken three years of begging before he'd even allowed me to go trick-or-treating. And then he'd followed me and my friends from house to house, not letting me out of his sight for an instant. He'd even walked up to the doors with me. It was the last time I'd been invited trick-or-treating.

  "It's beautiful," I told my father, still uncertain about its meaning. Maybe this was his way of telling me he considered me an adult now.

  "It... it was your mother's." The words croaked out of him.

  "This was Mom's?" I looked at the pendant again, more closely this time.

  My father never talked about my mother. The most he'd ever told me about her was that she'd died in a plane crash when I was only a year old. I'd grown up terrified of flying. Maybe that was why I'd never left New York.

  Despite wishing for some adventure in my life, I'd decided long ago that the city was big enough and busy enough that I didn't need to go anywhere. I could find plenty to do right here. Besides, I could never leave my dad. What would I have done anyway? Work as a waitress in some other diner in a less interesting city?

  I hugged my father tightly.

  "I love it. Thank you."

  I took the necklace from the box and put it around my neck. My father fixed the clasp for me, and I looked in the mirror. The witch's hat shined brightly even in the dim lights of my bedroom.

  "Why did..." I was dying to know why my mother had a witch's hat for a necklace. Was she into the supernatural? Fantasy? Was her favorite movie The Wizard of Oz? What did it mean?

  My father sensed the question on my lips. "She just thought it was pretty," he told me and left it at that. I opened my mouth again, more questions rising in the back of my throat, but my father turned and went back down the hall.

  At work, everyone wished me a happy birthday. Lance offered to take me out for a drink after my shift. "You're twenty-one. It's a rite of passage. I went through it two years ago o
n my birthday. Now it's your turn."

  Lance smiled widely at me. His brown eyes worked to charm their way in. I was tempted to say yes, but I could feel my father's eyes on us from the kitchen. My dad didn't like Lance. Actually, my dad didn't like anybody. If I went out tonight, he'd only stay up worrying.

  "Thanks," I said. "Maybe some other time."

  The morning rush ended and the noon rush started. I kept checking the clock, wishing I could somehow make time spin a little faster. Around three, just an hour before my shift ended, two women came into the restaurant. They looked almost identical, with their bright blond hair twirled high in a bun. It was almost the same shade as mine.

  They were both in their forties, though I could tell one of them was just barely so. She was dressed like she'd paid one too many visits to the local thrift shop. Bright pink jeans and a matching hat were accentuated with long loopy earrings, a bright yellow shirt, and a sparkly vest. The other woman, clearly her older sister, looked like a subdued gypsy. She wore dark grays and blacks with silver bangles and large hoop earrings. They looked around the restaurant, searching for someone. Their eyes stopped on me.

  I moved to the right, thinking they were looking at the menu behind me. But their eyes followed me. They were staring so intently at me I began to blush. Maybe I had something on my face? I snuck into the back room and did a quick makeup check. Everything looked in order.

  "Hey, Ava," Judy said, coming up beside me. She did a quick mirror check of her own, straightening her apron. "There are two women out there asking for you."

  "For me?"

  "Yep. Except they called you Ava Fortune instead of Stone. But they described you to a tee. Actually," Judy turned to me, giving me a quick once over, "they kinda look like you. Relatives, maybe?"

  "I doubt that," I told her, making my way back out front. My father and mother had both been only children. Judy followed me and pointed out a booth. The two women who'd been staring at me sat there expectantly.

  I got two glasses of water and made my way toward them.