The Halloween Love Spell

by Morgana Best

  “Nothing like that, but I think she’s the murderer. Anyway, I’ll call the police and tell them.”

  “Call me back as soon as you speak to the police,” Thyme said. “I’m in suspense! I can’t wait until you get to the shop.”

  “Sure.” I called the local police station and asked for Detective Bowes. Unfortunately, it was Detective Barrett who answered the phone. “Ms Spelled,” he barked. “What is it?”

  I took a deep breath, at once intimidated. “I think Carol Hope murdered Myles Woods.” Before he had a chance to speak, I continued. “Kayleen, the postal lady who delivers the packages, told me that Myles Woods used to drink an expensive brand of chocolate flavoured instant coffee that he bought from France. Last week, two packages of the same coffee were delivered, but he’d only ordered one package. You can’t buy it in Australia.”

  “Let me get this straight…” Barrett began, but I cut him off.

  “And Carol Hope—I’m sure you know about her; Myles Woods foreclosed on her house, so she has a motive—is exceptionally stingy, but I’m pretty sure she has the same brand of coffee in her house. I was just there for an appointment, and she was drinking chocolate flavoured coffee, and she told me it was very expensive. If you search her house, I’m sure you’d find it.”

  “Look, Ms Spelled, I am sure there are several brands of chocolate flavoured coffee in Australia,” Barrett said, with more than a measure of irritation in his voice.

  I was exasperated. “But what about the two packages of coffee that were delivered to Myles Woods? I figure Carol bought some of it, poisoned at least one of the jars, and then delivered it to him.”

  There was silence for a moment, and then Barrett said, “Okay, we’ll look into it.” With that, he hung up.

  I looked at the phone, said a few rude words, and then flung it down. I was about to call Thyme when the house turned on the TV. “Grandmother, could you please turn that down? I have to make another call.”

  I called Thyme and gave her a brief rundown of what had happened. “I’ll tell you the rest when I get to the shop. I’m leaving now,” I said in conclusion. The second I hung up, the house turned on the TV again.

  I sighed and headed for the front door. I opened it, but there, with her hand raised to knock, was Carol Hope. I gasped, and instinctively stepped backwards.

  “You forgot to take this information on self managed superannuation,” she said, thrusting some documents at me. Without waiting for me to respond, she barged past me into the house. She slammed the door behind her and walked into the living room.

  “How did you find out?” she asked me.

  “Find out what?” I said.

  She pulled a large butcher’s knife out of her shoulder bag. “Kayleen, that nosy postal lady, just called me and asked me how much my coffee cost. Can you believe that? She actually looked in my parcel. How else would she know what was in there? After I take care of you, I’m going to have to take care of her, and goodness knows how many people she’s told!”

  The house must have been engrossed in The Voice, because it was doing nothing so far to come to my aid. “Turn that sound down,” I said to the house, trying to get its attention.

  Carol frowned at my remark, but continued. “It’s obvious you’ve put two and two together and realised I killed him. Kayleen hasn’t figured it out yet, but I’m sure she will in time. Have you told the police yet?”

  “Yes, I have,” I said. “They’re looking for you right now. Your best chance is to leave town as soon as you can.”

  “And where would I go?” she snapped. “Now they’ll find out I killed my husband, too. I didn’t want to kill him, you see.”

  “Of course not,” I said in a soothing tone.

  She lowered her knife for a moment. “No, I didn’t want to kill him,” she repeated, “but eventually he started costing me more than his pension checks, what with all his treatment. Once the finances pertaining to him went into a deficit, he just had to go.” She waved a hand in dismissal. “I smothered him with a pillow.”

  I stood there, rooted to the spot in shock. I knew the house would do something to her—I hoped so, anyway. “So I figure you bought Myles’ brand of coffee, poisoned one or more of the jars, and then resealed the package and put it on his back porch?”

  She nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly what I did. Kayleen told me that Myles was extravagant. She told me all about his coffee and where he bought it, so that’s when the plan started to form. There was plenty of old rat poison at my farm, the one Myles sold out from under me. I only poisoned one of his jars, so I didn’t know how long it would take him to open the jar that had the strychnine in it.”

  I had been edging around to the TV, and placed it between the two of us. She lunged at me, but tripped over Willow, and her butcher’s knife plunged straight into the TV. Sparks and glass flew everywhere. The house gasped as The Voice went off.

  I sensed the house’s fury towards Carol. “Sing!” Had I imagined that, or had the house spoken? The word was little more than a whisper.

  “Sing!” The word came again, still soft.

  Carol was flat on her back. She screamed and thrashed around wildly, her knife stabbing the floor.

  “Sing!” The word was louder now.

  Carol dropped the knife, her hands flung upwards, as if trying to keep off some invisible force. I figured the house was magically crushing her, or at least that was the impression it had given Carol.

  I picked up the knife and backed away from her, and at once called the police. “Carol Hope is in my house and she just tried to stab me,” I said to the desk sergeant. “She’s still here. Hurry!” With that, I hung up.

  I turned my attention back to Carol who was still writhing on the floor, but now she was singing. The more she sung, the less she writhed around, so I figured the house was taking the pressure off her. I could only assume that the house wanted Carol to sing to make up for the fact that she had broken the television and thus interrupted the house’s viewing of The Voice.

  For some reason, Carol was singing the Abba song, Money, Money, Money. Well, I suppose she was an accountant, after all. As I watched her, she struggled to her feet. “What’s going on?” she said in a panicked voice. As soon as she stopped singing, the house pushed her flat on her back again, so Carol at once resumed the song, more loudly this time. I could barely hear the noise of the approaching sirens over her singing.

  I hurried to the door and opened it, beckoning to the detectives who were running up my pathway. Detective Bowes gripped my shoulders. “Are you hurt?” he asked me.

  I shook my head, but handed him the butcher’s knife by its end. He took out a plastic bag and wrapped it around the hilt. “She’s in there,” I said, rather unnecessarily, pointing to the living room.

  Bowes and I went in. Barrett was standing over Carol who was on her fifth rendition of Money, Money, Money. “She confessed to killing Myles Woods and she confessed to killing her husband, too,” I said.

  Barrett pulled Carol to her feet, but she kept singing. “She lunged at me with the knife, but tripped over my cat and hit her head on the television.” I pointed to the shattered screen. “I think she has a head injury, because she fell back on the ground and started singing loudly, and she hasn’t stopped.”

  Carol looked daggers at me, but sung even more frantically.

  I followed them to the door, and smiled as Carol was still singing while being escorted through the rain to the police vehicle. I did a double take when I saw Alder sweeping up the path towards me, looking for all the world like some sort of superhero.

  “If you’ve come to save me, your timing is off again,” I told him.

  “Yes, my timing has been off lately,” he said ruefully. “You’re all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Alder took off his coat and shook the rain from it. As he did, a little box fell out. Alder snatched it up and put it back in his coat pocket with lightning reflexes.

  I was fa
irly certain it was a ring box.

  Chapter 21

  I was in Ruprecht’s house surrounded by my friends. Dawson was there too, which was the reason we were holding our Halloween party at Ruprecht’s rather than at my house. My new TV turning on by itself might be too hard to explain to him. Thyme was yet to have that conversation with him, and I didn’t blame her for being reluctant.

  “It’s good having two Halloween parties,” Camino said. “I know the other one wasn’t actually on Halloween, so it’s good to have the party tonight, since it’s actually Halloween now.”

  We all agreed. Of course, we were going to celebrate Beltane on its actual date, seven days from now, but Dawson didn’t have to know that. This was the first time Dawson had been in Ruprecht’s living room, and he appeared to be in awe. “It’s amazing how you’re given it such a spooky atmosphere for Halloween,” he said.

  We all laughed. “Grandfather’s house is always like that,” Mint said. She was in particularly good spirits, and I wondered if it was due to Detective Bowes. Mint had accompanied me to the police station to give my witness statement. Detective Bowes had laid eyes on her, and then had promptly forgotten any crush he’d had on me. I certainly hoped he wasn’t a player, but he did seem smitten with Mint.

  As usual, Ruprecht’s living room was covered with a myriad of candles, although he had added black and purple candles in the spirit of Halloween. Several pumpkin-shaped, scented candles adorned the big table, which was covered with all manner of Halloween cupcakes.

  Decorative brooms hung on the walls, as did other more esoteric items, the identity of which I could not even begin to imagine.

  “We should make a toast,” Dawson said, lifting his goblet of black brew. Ruprecht had made it, so goodness knows what was in it. It tasted nice enough. We all raised our goblets. “Firstly, we should toast to Amelia’s safety,” Dawson said.

  Alder’s arm tightened around me. After we made the toast, he said, “Honestly, Amelia, you’ve given me one too many frights lately.”

  I laughed. “Oh well, you love me anyway,” I said flippantly.

  “Yes, I do.”

  I looked into his eyes. His gaze was intense, his black eyes mirroring the flickering candlelight.

  The room seemed to freeze. I glanced at the others, but they were all looking away.

  “We didn’t finish our talk the other night,” Alder said, reaching for my hand and squeezing it before releasing it.

  “We seem to be out of wine, or whatever that was,” Dawson said with obvious disappointment.

  “There’s plenty more in the refrigerator in my wine cellar,” Ruprecht told him. “Go through my kitchen, into the corridor, and then take the fifth door on the left. There is nothing else in the refrigerator, so you can’t miss it. Bring back all five bottles—I’m sure we’ll go through them all.”

  Dawson left the room slowly. I figured it was hard for him to move, given that he was wearing a cat skeleton onesie. Unfortunately for him, it was battery-operated and worse still, Camino had the remote. “I think I’ll wait until he’s in the cellar, and then I’ll turn on the onesie lights to scare him,” Camino said with undisguised glee.

  As soon as Dawson was out of sight, Ruprecht said, “It’s a pity Marina went back to Melbourne with Alex and couldn’t come to the party tonight.”

  We all murmured our agreement. “I really don’t like you having to do that Halloween spell for Marina every year,” Alder said, shooting me a dark look. “It’s put your life in danger two years in a row now.”

  Ruprecht waggled one finger at him. “As we have discussed, Amelia has no choice. The agreement was made between Marina’s grandmother and Amelia’s grandmother. It doesn’t seem fair to us now, but that’s kind of irrelevant. Antigone was faced with the same dilemma.”

  “Antigone?” I said.

  The others groaned. Thyme shot me a warning look, but too late. I thought I heard a scream from Dawson in the distance. I looked at Camino, who smiled and stopped pressing the remote.

  Ruprecht nodded. “Sophocles loved to present the conflict between free will and determinism, or in the case of Antigone, between human law and divine law. The king decreed that Antigone must not bury her brother, but divine law decreed that she must. Of course, Amelia is caught in the same moral conflict. Does she continue to do the requested spell each Halloween and possibly endanger her life, in order to fulfil a pact made before she was born?” He went on and on, while the rest of us simply gave up and stuffed our faces with Halloween cupcakes.

  Dawson came back in, struggling to carry the five bottles of Ruprecht’s brew. “What did I miss?” he asked, looking at Ruprecht.

  “Nothing!” we all said in unison.

  Ruprecht smiled sagely. “I was simply remarking that life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”

  Mint offered him a cupcake. Thankfully, he took it. As I pondered on his remark, I realised it was the first philosophical thing he had ever said that I actually understood.

  Dawson raised his glass. “To Halloween!” he said.

  “To Halloween,” we all echoed.

  I wondered what the next Halloween would bring. I certainly hoped it would not be the anniversary of another murder, and I hoped it would not be the anniversary of me being suspicious of Alder once more.

  Still, if that ring box held what I thought it did, by next Halloween my life might have changed entirely.

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  Next Book In This Series

  Spell It Out (The Kitchen Witch, Book 9)

  Spell It Out

  For Amelia Spelled, it's a case of déjà brew when a man dies at a Tea Leaf Reading. Amelia and Camino are among the witnesses. Only trouble is, they were both asleep at the time. Luckily, Amelia is soon brewing up a solution, along with her trusty friends, who are out to prove there is a tea in team.

  When the murderer draws a little too close for comfort, will the house come to the rescue, or is Amelia in for a steep shock? Alder has something on his mind, and this time, it's not solving the murder. Will he spell it out, or will Amelia be left guessing?

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