Witchy Worries

by Nic Saint

  “Oh, I’m too old for that kind of nonsense,” said Paloma, though she seemed to enjoy the compliment. “Are you married, young man?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I am,” said Eric, and took his husband’s hand and squeezed it. “This is my sweetheart right here.”

  Paloma’s smile disappeared, and I could see the words forming in her mind. Off with their heads! She clamped her lips tightly shut. This sort of thing would obviously not be tolerated in China.

  “So what are your plans?” asked Gran. She’d brought a basket of my pumpkin spice cookies and was doling them out. She didn’t find a lot of takers, though.

  I gratefully took one. “Well, we’re going to try and make sure Haymill stays crime-free,” I said.

  “Lofty ambitions,” said Sam appreciatively. “And how exactly are you going to do that?”

  I shrugged. “We’ll do what we do best: snoop around and make sure that the bad guys are caught doing whatever bad things they do and handed over to the police.”

  “I like that last part the most,” said Sam.

  “I knew you would,” I said, taking a bite of my cookie. I almost chipped a tooth.

  “I think you’re on to a great thing here, girls,” said Auntie Leigh. “You have my blessing.”

  And to show us she meant it, she handed each of us a medallion. It depicted a balding man with a cherubic face. He looked like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. “Who is he?” I asked.

  “That’s my master,” said Leigh proudly. “Master Dam Dam. Wear this medallion at all times. It will protect you from harm, and guide your step in the right direction, wherever it will take you.”

  “Pretty neat,” said Strel. “Thanks, Auntie Leigh.”

  “You’re welcome, honey. It’s the least I can do for my girls.”

  “Is this the guy who sells that hundred-dollar water?” asked Sam, leaning in to take a gander.

  “I can see you’re not a believer, Sam,” Auntie Leigh said. “That water is blessed by a holy man.”

  “No offense, Auntie Leigh,” said Sam, “but why does a man who doesn’t eat and who lives in a cave need all that dough? I thought he was completely detached from all material possessions?”

  “Master Dam runs a foundation,” Leigh explained. “The money goes to the Dam Foundation.”

  “And what does this Dam Foundation do, exactly?” asked Sam.

  “The Dam Foundation does a lot of good. It’s a charity that does… charitable things…”

  “Oh, I’m sure the Dam Foundation does damn good things,” Sam returned jovially.

  “It’s a sham!” suddenly a voice yelled from the door. “It’s all one big sham!”

  “I beg your pardon?” Auntie Leigh asked, jerking up as if stung.

  I saw that Tisha Lockyer had arrived. She was pointing a finger at me, for some reason, and yelled, “This whole neighborhood watch business is a sham! They’re going to put a spell on you—all of you.” Her finger pointed from person to person. All those present shuffled uncomfortably in their seats.

  “Mrs. Lockyer,” said Sam, getting up. “I think you better return home now.”

  “Watch out for the witches!” Tisha yelled as Sam took her arm and led her out. “They’ll destroy you like they destroyed me! They’ll make your husband do the horizontal mambo with the AA queen!“

  “The what queen now?” asked Erick, looking interested.

  “The A-queen. Must be some queen,” said Flavio appreciatively.

  “Maybe now would be a good time to put a spell on her,” I whispered to Gran.

  But Gran merely smiled and patted my arm. “Already taken care of, honey.”

  “What was all that about?” asked Brandi Bluff. “What was that woman raving about?”

  “She just found out that her husband was having an affair with his AA chapter leader,” Gran explained. “She’s a little distraught, that’s all.”

  “Oh, the AA queen,” said Erick, disappointed.

  “I would be distraught if my husband were banging his AA chapter leader,” said Brandi. “If I had a husband, that is. Luckily, I don’t.”

  “In China this kind of thing would not be tolerated,” Paloma piped up. “A husband having an affair? Off with his head!”

  “I like this China of yours, Mrs. Peach,” said Flavio. “They do run a pretty tight ship over there, don’t they?”

  “Oh, yes, they do,” Paloma confirmed. “They don’t stand any nonsense. Not like here in the States, where everything goes.” She leaned into me, and dropped her voice an octave. “Be severe, my dear. Be very severe. And if you need help bringing the bad ‘uns to justice, you know where to find me.”

  “Oh, I do,” I assured her. “Thanks for the support, Mrs. Peach.”

  Though I wasn’t sure we were ever going to need her support. Chopping people’s heads off wasn’t exactly our style, nor was it Sam’s. He returned moments later and we shared a look of understanding. Tisha Lockyer was home safe and sound and wouldn’t crash our meeting anymore. Not that it really mattered, as the meeting at this point wasn’t really a meeting at all. People started chatting amongst themselves, drinks were served, and soon the place was abuzz with a pleasant chatter. The first meeting of the neighborhood watch hadn’t exactly been a success, but at least we’d had our official launch. And as I moved my chair closer to Sam’s, I was happy to see Stien smiling again. She was chatting animatedly with Auntie Leigh, Gran and Renée, who probably had a lot of crime-fighting tips to share. Well, maybe not crime-fighting tips, but at least tips on how to get over a crush on a certain actor.

  The best remedy would be to chop off his head, of course, as I was pretty sure that in China they wouldn’t tolerate actors ignoring their dates on the red carpet. But that seemed like a pretty harsh punishment, especially for a man with such great pores.

  As the evening wound down, I couldn’t help darting an occasional glance at Dunlop. He didn’t look like a cold-blooded killer. Then again, as Sam had said, nobody did. Was he our guy? Or was it Stanley Chariot, the hipster accountant with the iWatch alibi? I had absolutely no idea. What I did know was that sooner or later we would get our man, just like the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We might not be royal, or Canadian, or mounted, or even police, but we got the job done. And sometimes we even did it dressed like Disney princesses, which was more than could be said about the Mounties.

  Chapter 31

  That night, we decided to patrol the streets before going to bed. We were, after all, the neighborhood’s first line of defense against the dark forces of evil, and the citizens of Haymill depended on us to act as a shield against the bad men out there. And the bad women, of course, though for some reason crime statistics reveal it’s mostly men who misbehave. Must be all that testosterone run amok.

  “Sam talked to Dolphus today,” I said as we idly roamed the streets.

  “And? What did he say?” asked Strel.

  “Nothing special. Same thing he told us. How he and Johnson were secret besties and public enemies.”

  “And he believes him?”

  “Sam doesn’t believe anyone,” I said. “He’s a cop. He called Johnson’s manager and he confirmed that this whole Johnson/Dolphus feud was nothing more than a PR stunt. So yeah, he knows it’s true.”

  Stien sighed. “We’re really nowhere on this case, are we? We don’t have any suspects to speak of.”

  “Well, we have that accountant,” said Strel.

  “And we have Dunlop Ward,” I added.

  “No, you don’t. I have Dunny, not you. He’s my boyfriend, so he gets a free pass.”

  “A free pass for murdering people?”

  “Dunny is not a murderer,” she said laughingly. “He told me so himself.”

  “Ugh. Of course he did! He’s not going to confess, is he?”

  “I’m sure Dunny would never lie to me. Besides, I’ve ruled him out, which means you’ve ruled him out, too. That’s how democracy works.”

  “Not exactly,” Stien sa
id. “Democracy is where the majority decides. And you’re not the majority.”

  She frowned. “I don’t get it. I thought democracy was this cool thing? And now I can’t even give my boyfriend a free pass? This sucks!”

  “You can’t give a suspect in a murder case a free pass, honey,” I said. “That’s not how it works.”

  “Well, I’m doing it anyway. So back off, cause Dun is my dude.”

  Until she met the next dude, and then he would be her dude, I thought, but decided not to argue. If Dunlop really was the killer, we would find out soon enough. And to be honest, I thought Stanley Chariot was a much better suspect than Dunlop.

  We passed a dark alley and stared down the creepy space. From where we stood, we could see dumpsters, all kinds of debris that had been dumped on the street, a black cat that was stropping its back against a brick wall, and a bum making himself comfortable on a piece of cardboard, a paper-wrapped bottle in his hand.

  “Um, this is an eyesore, you guys,” I said. “A blot on the neighborhood. We probably should do something about it.”

  “Yeah, but what?” asked Stien.

  “We should inspect it,” said Strel. “See if there are any criminals doing… criminaly stuff.”

  The back part of the alley wasn’t visible from where we stood, as the streetlight didn’t reach that far. It all looked very creepy and dangerous.

  “You’re probably right,” I said. “We should probably inspect it. And ask that gentleman with the liquor bottle to move elsewhere. It really doesn’t inspire a sense of safety and security.”

  Something stirred deep in the alley, and we took a step back. It was almost as bad as staring into the pit of doom, and I had no intention to risk my life checking out that alley.

  “We are the neighborhood watch, you guys,” said Stien. “If we don’t do something about this alley, who will?”

  “Um… the police?” Strel suggested. “I mean, they have guns, right? If something suddenly leaps out at them they can protect themselves. What do we have? Nothing! I don’t even know karate.”

  She was right. Sam had once told me that I needed to get a gun and take shooting lessons. I was starting to see that maybe he was right. At the very least I should take a class in self-defense.

  “Look, maybe we should get our gun permit first,” I suggested. “Once we’re armed to the teeth, we can come back and check out this alley.”

  “There are a lot of alleys around here, honey,” said Stien. “If we’re going to skip them all, what kind of neighborhood watch are we?”

  “The careful kind,” I said decidedly. “Come on. I don’t like the sight of this alley. We’ll do it some other time.”

  My sisters readily agreed with me, and we walked away, leaving danger and mayhem to be faced some other day.

  “Why don’t we ask Gran to teach us a few spells for these kinds of situations?” Strel suggested. “I mean, she wants us to be safe, right? She wants us to be able to protect ourselves. I’m sure she’ll be more than happy to supply us with a few nifty little tricks to keep danger at bay.”

  “I think you’re right,” said Stien. “We should at least have, like, a basic spell kit at our disposal, just in case we run into trouble. It’s the prudent thing.”

  “You know Gran,” I said. “She’ll never give us our powers back. She’ll just say we’re going to make a mess of things as usual.”

  “What mess?!” cried Strel. “What mess could we possibly make?”

  Stien and I shared a look. “A big mess,” she said.

  She was right. For some reason, each time we used our powers, things started to go wrong. Stuff got blown up, buildings got heaped on top of other buildings, people were cloned a hundredfold, and demons suddenly reared their ugly heads out of nowhere. It wasn’t pretty. In fact it was safe to say that the neighborhood was probably a lot better off without us using our powers. A lot safer for people to walk the streets at night if we didn’t weave our magic wands and bring disaster upon them.

  “At least we should be able to cast our one spell,” Strel argued. “To solve this case?”

  I stared at her. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, we have our suspect, right? This accountant guy? We know he did it. Now all we need to do is make him confess. So why don’t we find the right spell, and do just that?”

  “Hey, that’s not such a bad idea,” said Stien.

  “Don’t sound so surprised,” said Strel. “I have great ideas, too, you know.”

  “Occasionally,” Stien admitted. She turned to me. “Are you sure Stanley Chariot is our guy?”

  “Pretty sure,” I said. “He got into a huge argument with Johnson, and he obviously bears a grudge against the guy.”

  “He could have gone over there to demand restitution,” said Stien.

  “Resti-what now?” asked Strel.

  “Restitution. Compensation for damages suffered, both physical and moral. And when Johnson refused to give it, he lost his temper and shot him.”

  “That’s a very plausible scenario,” I agreed. And since we didn’t have any other suspects, and Dunlop was off-limits on account of the fact that he was Strel’s dude, we were stuck with the guy.

  “So why don’t we sneak into Gran’s room again?” Strel suggested. “We find the spell we need, and make Stanley tell us the truth. We record his confession, give it to Sam, and that’s it! Case closed.”

  It sounded so simple it was tempting to go along with it. There was only one problem.

  “We will have to get past Gran again,” I said.

  Strel grinned. “No, we don’t. She’s still at the Puppy Power, chatting with Leigh.”

  Chapter 32

  We passed Puppy Power, to make sure that Gran was still where we’d left her and she was. Delighted, we hurried home. As before, Stien was our lookout while Strel and I snuck into Gran’s room to look for the Book of Secrets. Unlike last night, this time the book quickly revealed itself, and we shared a happy smile. It was located on the coffee table, simply lying there, like one of those coffee table books filled with pictures of artistic nudes or the history of the buildings of New York.

  “You know what I’m starting to think?” I asked Strel while we leafed through the book.

  “Duh. How am I supposed to know what you think? I’m not a mind reader, Edie.”

  “I’m thinking that it isn’t Gran who’s granting us access to the book but Fallon herself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that there’s a good chance Gran doesn’t even know we are here. Maybe it’s Fallon who’s deciding that it’s time for us to find this spell.”

  “That would explain why we find the book each time we need it,” said Strel. We stared down at the empty pages, and suddenly, just like the last time, words started filling the pages. It was a spell to seek the truth when no truth is offered.

  “Just what we need!” I cried.

  We quickly memorized the spell and closed the book and got out of there before we were caught.

  We shared the spell with Stien, and then called an Uber to take us to Stanley’s loft in Williamsburg. We arrived shortly after midnight. Perhaps a little late to be paying house calls, but now that we’d come this far, we were not about to turn back. So I rang the bell and Stanley’s sleepy voice sounded.

  “Mr. Chariot. Hi. It’s Edie Flummox again. Remember me?”

  “How can I forget?” he asked tersely. “Do you know what time it is?”

  “Five minutes after midnight and forty seconds, Mr. Chariot,” said Strel helpfully. She paused. “Forty-one seconds—forty-two seconds—forty-three—”

  “We just want to have a chat about the Rico Torrent thing,” I said.

  “Who’s that?”

  “The guy I was talking about earlier? The road rage thing?”

  “Oh, him. Come back some other time. It’s late. I need to sleep.”

  “I brought my sisters with me,” I said, desperately looking for a way to
prolong this conversation.

  “That’s just great. Tell them I said hi. Also tell them that I don’t open my door to strangers after the clock strikes midnight.”

  “We’re not strangers,” said Strel. “We’re your friendly neighborhood watch.”

  “Not of this neighborhood we’re not,” Stien muttered.

  “He doesn’t know that,” Strel hissed.

  “Look, you’re strangers to me, so beat it.” There was a click and he was gone.

  “That went well,” said Strel.

  “Yeah, not so well.” I stared up at the building. The Thai restaurant on the ground floor was closed, but the building did have one of those fire escapes that don’t quite reach the sidewalk. If we could only clamber up, maybe we could sneak into Stanley’s apartment and unleash our spell.

  “Why don’t we try to go inside through there?” I asked, pointing at the fire escape.

  “I don’t know about this,” said Stien. “This is breaking and entering. And breaking and entering is a crime. We’re supposed to solve and prevent crime, not become criminals ourselves.”

  “We’re not criminals,” said Strel. “We’re trying to catch one, and he’s not allowing us to.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “We have to get a confession out of this guy. Let’s try to get up there.”

  Stien, who was the tallest, jumped to reach the lowest rung and pulled down the ladder. Next thing, we were climbing up the fire escape until we’d reached the second floor and were looking into Stanley’s window. I could see the huge trestle table with the big Apple computer, and tried to jimmy the lock on the window. It wouldn’t budge.

  “Maybe we should simply break it,” Strel suggested.

  “We can’t!” Stien cried. “That’s destroying private property. That’s a crime. Our second offense!”

  “No, it isn’t,” I said. “Once we break in, then we’ll commit our second offense for the night.”

  We were huddled on the fire escape and desperately staring inside Stanley’s apartment. If anyone saw us from the street, they might call the police. It was imperative we got in. And then I saw that a window in the next room was open a crack. If only we could reach it, we might be able to open it further and get inside. Problem was, the window was beyond the scope of the fire escape. And since we were witches but not acrobats or monkeys, that seemed like a tough proposition.