One Last Spell Vol 1 & 2 Paranormal Witch Cozy Mystery & Romance

by Snow, Raven

  "You'd have liked that, wouldn't you?"

  "Zelda," Jessica reprimanded me. "Please."

  I stopped talking and backed off, letting Jessica continue the questioning as I wandered around the building. It was just as I'd remembered it. Not a lot had changed in the past twenty years.

  I spun around when I heard Jessica asking the man about the group’s policies. "You don't believe people like Helen should be in this town, do you?"

  "I don't think they should be anywhere. They are an abomination.

  Sinful. But I didn't kill her. As I've said to you already, I never even met her."

  "A few minutes ago you said you barely recognised her name. Now you sound like an expert on her. Which one is it, Mr Beasley?"

  His face twitched as he stammered for an answer. "I just heard rumours about her, that's all. We all did. But that's all. I had nothing to do with her death."

  I took a step closer to him. "But you're glad that she’s dead, right?"

  He set his lips in a thin line as he glared at both me and Jessica. "To be honest, yes, I am." He shot a look at me. "Women like her deserve whatever they get."

  Jessica flipped her notebook shut. "Thank you, Mr Beasley. We'll be in touch."

  We walked out as I muttered to Jessica. "Now I'm going to try everything possible to get my powers back. That man is going to go down for what he did."

  Chapter Five

  When a witch loses her abilities, it's a little like a mortal losing one of their five senses. I felt as lost and helpless as if I'd lost the ability to see, touch, smell, taste, or hear.

  I sat down on my sofa and brought my feet up before I buried my face into my knees. I should have never taken them for granted, I thought, rocking backwards and forwards gently. One little scare, one little threat, and I run away and hide. Now I've caused my greatest power to disappear.

  How could I have been so foolish?

  There was a buzzing noise, so I brought my face up and looked down.

  My phone screen flashed with a message from an unrecognised number.

  Frowning, I picked it up and unlocked the screen.

  "Hi, Zelda, this is Josh from the station. Jessica gave me your number."

  I shook my head. There she went again, playing matchmaker. You'd have thought she'd know better after last time.

  I couldn't get involved with a cop again...Could I?

  I slowly looked back at the screen. His texting skills seemed to mimic his real live conversational skills. The text was long and incoherent till it got to the important bit at the end.

  "Do you want to grab coffee sometime this week?"

  ***

  "Hi, Hal," I said, entering the diner as the bel chimed above me.

  "Zelda," he said, beaming at me. "You're back to being a regular again. Wel , I'm pleased. We missed you around here." He pulled out two menus and led me to my usual table. "I assume you're meeting Jessica here?"

  "Um," I said, sliding into the booth. I looked around the restaurant.

  Josh was still nowhere in sight. I was early, though. "Not Jessica, no.

  Another friend."

  The bell at the door jingled again and Josh walked in, a dark coat over the top of his uniform. He smiled as he saw me and headed over to the table. "Ah," Hal said, “say no more.” He gave me a wink and left as Josh sat down.

  He grinned across the table at me. "Glad you agreed to meet me so quickly," he said, raising an eyebrow as he picked up the menu.

  "Figured I'd bite the bullet," I said.

  "Ah, so it's like that, is it? Just want to get our date over and done with."

  "We'll see."

  Hal came back and we gave our orders. Even though we'd planned to just meet for coffee, we each gave a food order as wel —two grilled cheeses.

  Hal gave me another wink as he returned to the kitchen. I shook my head at Josh. "People in this town kinda have a habit of getting too involved in other people's business."

  "Is that why you've stayed away so long?" Josh asked.

  I wondered how he knew about that. Likely Jessica had just filled him in. I wondered what else she'd told him...

  Hal dropped our coffees off and got out of the way quickly this time, with no more winks.

  "So, Jessica tel s me that she's brought you into some big case as some kind of psychic consultant?" Josh stirred his creamer into his coffee as he eyed me unsurely.

  "Some kind," I said, keeping my eye on him as wel . It's always hard to predict how a person is going to react to the topic of the paranormal, even something as innocuous as a psychic. If he couldn't handle that, he would never be able to deal with the fact that I was a witch, would he?

  He raised an eyebrow, but there was a twinkle in his eye. "Any luck so far?"

  I placed my arms down on the table and looked at him, tilting my head to the side. "I'm not sure I'm supposed to discuss details of this case with you."

  He nodded, still stirring his coffee. "Fair enough. I am only a lowly, ignorant uniform cop after al . You probably outrank me."

  I smiled at him and took a sip of coffee. "Nothing wrong with being in uniform. Being a detective isn't all it's cracked up to be. Just ask Jessica.

  Sleepless nights, stress all day...I don't know how she does it."

  "Have you two been friends long?"

  I waited a moment and then nodded slowly. "Since school," I said. I cleared my throat and changed the subject. "So…you planning on sticking around in Castlerock?"

  Josh nodded. "I like it here. The people are nice. I like them." He picked his coffee up and gave me a grin.

  I kept my head turned down for a second, not wanting to show any embarrassment. "How long have you been here now?"

  "Two weeks. Or so."

  "Huh." I picked my coffee up and took a sip. "That's not so long. Just wait ‘til the day-to-day boredom of life in this town kicks in. You might not want to stay for much longer after that."

  He gave me a cheeky grin. "We'l see about that. Something tells me I'm going to want to stay for a while."

  ***

  The mood was a little tense in the car as Jessica and I drove to the house where Helen Blackmore had lived. From the look of it, you wouldn't imagine it was the sort of place a witch would choose to live. Far from gothic, it was a plain white weatherboard house with an empty front lawn and a neglected garden out the back.

  "Maybe she wasn't a witch, after all," I murmured as we climbed out of the car. Jessica was still silent as she undid her buckle and climbed out.

  Shutting the car door with a heavy thud, she finally spoke up. "Hey, when were you going to tell me about your little date?"

  "It wasn't a date.It was..." I struggled to think of an alternative explanation for what Josh and I had been doing. "All right, it was a date, then." I turned away and walked down the curb towards the empty house.

  Jessica stood there firmly. She crossed her arms and stared at me with her mouth open wide. "Zelda Montana. I can't believe you would keep this from me." I'd thought she'd been staging mock outrage, but one look at her face told me she was genuinely offended that I hadn't shared the news with her.

  "Sorry, Jess," I said, turning back towards her. "I just...wanted to see how it went first, I guess."

  "And how did it go, then?" She final y joined me on the curb, and we headed towards the house.

  We each stepped through the gate and began the surprisingly long walk up Helen Blackmore's front path. "It went...fine," I said.

  "That's informative."

  I sighed. "Thought Josh might have already filled you in. After all, you did give him my number. And you seemed to have told him al about me."

  "Are you mad about that?"

  I'd been a little annoyed at the time, but I wasn't mad, no. Especially not, considering how wel the date had gone.

  "Because, Zelda, I was only trying to help you."

  "I know."

  We reached the front door, but Jessica stopped to look at me before she opened it.
"It's not like I told him everything about you."

  I nodded. "Well, I assumed you didn't tel him I was a witch." We each burst into quiet laughter, but after a few seconds I stopped. I shook my head. "It seems funny, but think about it. How can I have an actual, real relationship with the guy when he doesn't know who— or what— I really am?"

  Jessica grew quiet as well. "As long as he knows the important parts, Zelda. Being a witch is only one aspect of you. Besides, you don't have your powers anymore, anyway, remember? So if you're worried about lying to him, or concealing something, there's really nothing to hide."

  I let out a long sigh. "I suppose that's a good point." Usually, my relationships with men had been complicated by this big, unspeakable secret hanging over us. But maybe with Josh it could be different. Now that I, technical y, had nothing to hide.

  A voice inside me told me it wouldn't be that easy. Once a witch, always a witch. Besides, there were other things Josh could discover about me that could make him run a million miles in the other direction.

  "Zelda?" Jessica said, interrupting my chain of thoughts. "Are you coming in?"

  She was standing on the other side of the threshold. I looked up and nodded, pausing before I took a step into the abandoned house.

  "We've looked over the crime scene a hundred times, of course,"

  Jessica explained as she took careful steps around the room, her feet heavy on the creaking floorboards. "But now that you're on the case, maybe you'll notice something we've missed." Jessica stopped and looked at me. "After all, you know what to look for."

  "I'm not sure about that." I murmured, creeping around the room which had once served as a living room to Helen Blackmore. It had been a while since I'd been at a crime scene. I shivered, and it wasn't just the cool air blowing in from outside that was sending a chill down my spine. There was something not right in that room. I wasn't sure if it was my mortal senses or my witch senses telling me that.

  I glanced up at the empty ledge above the fireplace—no photos there or anywhere else. "She didn't have any friends or family, did she?" I asked, looking back over my shoulder at Jessica, who was still walking around the perimeter of the room.

  She shook her head. "No one. Which didn't help with our investigation."

  I looked around the empty room. I felt sad thinking about Helen, dying there all alone. Assuming her secret was true, she died having no one to share it with. I glanced over at Jessica, her long blond ponytail bobbing up and down as she took notes in her notepad. At least I had her, someone I could trust.

  Did Helen have anyone like that in her life? "There must be someone out there who knew her, or knew something about her," I said.

  Jessica looked up from her pad. "No one," she said. "She isolated herself, you know." She sighed. "Just like another witch I can think of."

  I sighed. "Yeah, well, I'm trying to be a bit better at the whole socializing thing. It's just been difficult since...you know."

  "I know. Anyway, is anything in this room helping you at all? Anything sticking out to you?"

  I shook my head slowly. "No, not that I can see. But there is a creepy feeling I am getting."

  "Not too surprising, considering somebody died here."

  "It's not just that..." I murmured. "There's something in this house." I stood up straight. I thought about it for a second. "There's definitely something here. I can feel it."

  "Zelda..." Jessica said slowly. "Do you think you're...getting your powers back?"

  I sighed. "I'm not sure if it's that or just a hunch."

  A gust of cold air suddenly blew the door shut, and Jessica and I both jumped as we turned to look at it. "I wonder if it's going to snow again,"

  Jessica said. "The news said we were done with snow."

  "The news lies," I grumbled. "You know that."

  Jessica started to shiver. "There's definitely a chill in here. I can feel it, too. But I think it's just the cold air, Zelda. I don't think you need psychic powers to be able to pick up on that."

  I kept looking around the room, waiting for something to jump out at me. Eventually I had to agree that Jessica was probably right. There was nothing in the room apart from a sofa and an empty fireplace. She'd been right when she'd said this was an impossible case. "Where to next, then?" I asked.

  Jessica shrugged. "Your suggestion is as good as mine. We could go have another chat with Beasley. He was definitely hiding something."

  I agreed. Beasley and his organization of “concerned citizens” had tried to get me thrown out of town, and I knew they would have tried to do the same to Helen if they'd believed the rumours about her. "Okay, let's go, then," I said, heading towards the door.

  "Hold up," Jessica said. "I'm just gonna use the bathroom."

  I shot her a look of horror.

  "The bathroom isn't a crime scene!" she said, defensively. "Besides, I am busting. I can't hold on."

  "Fine. I'll wait here."

  I walked around the room again while I waited for Jessica to finish her business. As I circled the room, I reached my hand out and traced it along each of the walls, all cool to the touch, even the side on the front of the house, which was made of bricks.

  Absentmindedly, I walked to the fireplace and leaned against it. After a few seconds, I looked down in shock. "Surely the fireplace isn't lit," I said, staring down into the ashy crevice. I frowned. There was no sign of embers or fire.

  "What is it?" Jessica asked, walking back in.

  I was kneeling in front of the fireplace. "Someone's been here, Jessica." I looked over my shoulder at her. "Recently."

  Jessica frowned. "They can't have. This is still a sealed crime scene."

  "Yeah, well that wouldn't stop squatters, would it?"

  Jessica walked over to me slowly, looking down at the fire. "There was no sign of entry, though. The door was locked when we came in, and there're no broken windows." She looked around the room. "And there's no sign that anyone was in here."

  "Then why is the fireplace warm?" I asked. "It's been recently lit.

  There's loads of warmth coming from it."

  Jessica kneeled down on the ground beside me. "Let me see," she said, sticking her hand into the crevice.

  "See?" I said. "It's hot."

  Jessica stared at me like I had lost my mind. "It's not hot, Zelda. It's stone cold. As cold as the rest of the building."

  "Don't be silly," I said quickly, sticking my hand back in as wel . "How can you not feel that? The heat is rising from this wood like the fire’s only just been extinguished." I picked up a piece of wood to try and show her.

  "Ouch!" I cried, dropping the wood on the floor. "It burned me."

  Jessica gave me another "you must be crazy" look. She gingerly reached her hand out and touched the wood, looking half-worried that it might burn her, as well, if she wasn't careful.

  She let out a little sigh of exasperation as she touched it, and then picked it up in a tight grip. "See? Not hot."

  "Are you messing with me, Jessie?" I asked, stil nursing my smarting hand. "I'm telling you, someone has been in here today. How else could the wood be hot?"

  "No one's been in here. The wood isn't—" Jessica stopped and dropped the piece of wood. "Oh my goodness," she said, staring down at it.

  "What?" I asked, still wincing from the pain. I wanted to get some ice on my hand before it started to blister.

  "Zelda," she said. "Don't you realize what is happening here?"

  I shook my head. "There's something wrong with your sense of temperature? You're a robot who can't feel warmth? What?"

  Jessica gave me a long, heavy look. "Zelda. Your powers are coming back."

  Chapter Six

  In my rush to get in the back entrance of Castlerock Police Station, I almost bowled Josh over.

  "Whoa, hello, stranger," he said, grinning.

  I remembered I hadn't replied to his last few text messages. "Um," I mumbled, scratching my head. "Sorry I haven't replied to you. I've been..."r />
  "Busy working on the case?" he asked.

  I pulled a face. "Honestly?" I looked up at him. "Yes, I have been, but it's not just that. I've been..."

  He nodded his head. "Ignoring me."

  "Not on purpose," I said. "There's just...a lot you don't know, Josh."

  "So tell me."

  I looked up at his face. He looked so kind, so open, so trusting. How could I tell him the truth? I looked over my shoulder to see if Jessica had caught up yet. She'd parked a block away, as usual, and she'd told me she'd go through the front entrance and distract Harry while I entered through the back door.

  Josh stared at me. "Why don't we go for a coffee? I'm on a break."

  "I'm not. I'm sorry, Josh, I just don't have time."

  "Later on, then?"

  I let out a sigh of frustration. "You don't know about me, Josh. You don't know the truth about me. If you did, you would run a mile."

  He frowned. "I wouldn't, Zelda. There's nothing you could tel me that would change my mind about you."

  I looked down at the ground. "This is something most people can't handle. It's something even I can't handle most of the time."

  Josh cleared his throat. "Now you're scaring me a little, to be honest.

  You're not a serial killer, are you?"

  I looked away from him. On the other side of the building, I saw Jessica finally entering. "I think you've spent too much time chasing killers, Josh."

  He nodded and smiled a thin smile. "I wish. I spend most of my time chasing after noise complaints. I haven't seen enough things in this job to make me cynical yet. But you can still tell me what your big secret is."

  He was staring down at me so earnestly that I wanted to just blurt the truth out to him right there on the steps of the police station. Maybe I could trust him. Maybe things would be different this time. "All right," I found myself saying, as I nodded. "Let's go for dinner tonight. I'll tell you then."

  Josh grinned at me. "I look forward to it."

  "I'l text you the details," I said, pushing through the door. "But right now I've real y got to go."

  Jessica was giving me a look as I finally walked in. She pointed to the evidence room. "There. Now," she mouthed to me.