Batter and Spells

by Zoe Arden

  "Beach cakes?" I asked. "That's not an extract, is it?"

  She nodded enthusiastically. "I wanted to see if I could come up with something that would make people feel like they were at the beach, even if they were just in their own home."

  I bit down and the initial sense of ocean water washed over me immediately. I tasted salt water and taffy. It felt like I was lying on the sand with the sun beaming down on me. I opened my eyes. "That's amazing," I said.

  "Thank you. It took me months to perfect." I could tell that Trixie and Eleanor were equally impressed. They wandered slowly around the shop, absorbing the different styles of cake and her intricate ways of decorating.

  I finished my cupcake and went to join them, but Wilma stopped me. "You haven't spoken to Tazzie Singer today, have you?"

  "No, why?"

  "I just wanted to make sure that we're on the same page, you and I."

  "What page is that?" I asked uncertainly. There was something about the look in her eyes that made me wary.

  "I told the police the truth about that knife the other day. I don't need you or your friends to go making trouble for me when I've just gotten settled here. It's not easy being the new girl in town."

  "It's not like I'm going to spread rumors about you or something, if that's what you mean."

  "Are you sure? Because just today someone told me that there was one going around that I had a grudge against Tazzie when I'd never even met her until the party."

  "If someone said that, it wasn't me."

  Had I really thought that Wilma was likeable? Right now, she was about the most unlikable person I'd ever met.

  "I'm sorry," she said, suddenly bright and chipper again. "Hold on, let me get you something." She went behind her counter and opened a cabinet. A moment later, she returned with a s'mores cupcake, with toasted marshmallow frosting. "Friends?" she asked.

  I didn't want to make waves with someone so new and obviously popular. "Sure," I said, taking the cupcake. I bit into it. My teeth crunched against something hard in the center of the cake. It was so hard, it actually hurt my tooth.

  "Ow," I said. "What the heck is that?"

  "What's wrong?" Wilma asked, frowning.

  I looked closely at the cupcake. Something dark and pointy was sticking out of the center of it. I pulled on it and out popped a rusty-looking nail. I looked at Wilma, my mouth gaping.

  "Oh, dear," she said. "How did that happen? Thank the witches you got that and not a customer, I hate to think what might have happened."

  She took the nail from me and threw it in the trash. "I do hope we can keep this between us," she said so softly I had to strain to hear her. "I'd hate for people to get the wrong ideas about me." Her eyes blackened. Her lips tightened. "After all, us bakery witches need to stick together, or bad things might happen. Don't you agree?" She winked darkly at me and returned to her cupcakes.

  I blinked, incredulous. Either I was crazy... or Wilma had just threatened me.

  * * *

  CHAPTER

  NINE

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  Eleanor needed to talk to Sheriff Knoxx about the DJ they'd hired for their wedding. Bill Vargas Sr. was an operations manager by day, a DJ by night. Natalie Vargas, his wife, was one of Mystic's best customers, so when she'd suggested Bill, Eleanor had jumped on the idea.

  Today, though, Eleanor had finally gotten to see a sampling of Bill's work when he came by Mystic for a half-dozen muffins. There had been no one else in the store. He'd put a record on his turntable, turned his hat around backward, and started bopping to bad eighties music like he was in a John Hughes’ film.

  Eleanor had been horrified. I think we all had. Even my dad had shot Eleanor a look saying, "Are you sure about this guy?"

  Bill Vargas was not what one pictured when thinking of a wedding DJ. He seemed to have no concept of the type of music people liked. This was a mess that needed fixing fast. She ripped her apron off the second he was gone and told Trixie and me that she was going down to the sheriff's station.

  "I'll go with," I said, thinking Colt might be there. His father's sentencing was days away now. I'd had little opportunity to see him as he made some last-minute efforts to get his father a reduced sentence. He still harbored hopes that Russell might end up on parole instead of someplace like Swords and Bones. I didn't want to burst his dreams, but that seemed highly unlikely to me.

  I was hoping for a chance to run something by him, like what had happened with Wilma. I'd told Trixie—Eleanor was too high strung for me to tell her anything that might make it worse—and she had said it was probably an accident.

  "One time, I baked a rubber band into a chocolate java cookie. Your Aunt Eleanor almost choked on it. I didn't hear the end of it for months."

  I still didn't see how a rusty nail could accidentally end up in a cupcake unless someone placed it there. Maybe Wilma had a whole stack of them hidden for her enemies. I needed to hear Colt's thoughts on the whole thing. I just hoped he wasn't still irked at me.

  I'd made the unfortunate mistake, the other day, of making a bad joke. "If your dad ends up at Swords and Bones, he'll probably be the only one there who's actually used both swords and bones in his day to day life. I bet there's a special cell somewhere for vampires just like him."

  I don't know what I'd been thinking, saying that. I guess I was tired and trying to lighten the mood. I just wanted to see Colt smile; it was turning into such a rarity these days. Instead, he'd looked at me like I was nuts and I'd quickly apologized.

  Aunt Eleanor mumbled to herself on the way to the station. Colt wasn't there when we arrived. He was in Mistmoor helping Lincoln. It was rare for Mistmoor and Sweetland to help each other out like this, and I hoped it might lead to better terms between our two towns.

  The centuries-old feud between Sweetland Cove and Mistmoor Point ran back to my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, Sara Sweetland, and the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death. Her husband, Patrick Mistmoor, had been blamed, a curse had been placed, and my family had battled to keep the curse out of our lives ever since.

  It was kind of a long story that I was still piecing together myself. All I knew was that trouble seemed to follow me and my family wherever we went, and Sweetland and Mistmoor hadn't been quite the same since. Of course, that was twelve hundred years ago. You'd have thought our two towns might've lightened up since then.

  The sheriffs' departments were the only locations on the island that seemed immune to the feud. Sheriff Knoxx and Lincoln didn't care about those sorts of things. They thought the whole feud was silly. Lincoln's girlfriend, Felicity, agreed. When Mayor Singer had been alive and running things, he'd been part of the small team that had decided to try and bridge the gap between us. Too bad he was gone. He would have loved to have seen Sheriff Knoxx and Lincoln working so closely together, not to mention Colt, who was the only member of COMHA to take up residence on Heavenly Haven.

  Eleanor stamped into the sheriff's office like she owned the place. Considering she was about to marry the sheriff, she kind of did.

  "Zane, I have terrible news," she said, quite melodramatically. Eleanor wasn't prone to theatrics. The wedding brought out another side in her, though. Hopefully, it would go away after the wedding was over.

  Sheriff Knoxx looked up from his desk, alarmed. "What is it?" he asked, running over to her.

  She gripped his arms tightly, her eyes misting over.

  "The DJ I hired for our wedding... he's terrible!"

  Sheriff Knoxx blinked at her a moment then let her go. "Is that all? You scared me. I thought someone was hurt."

  "Hurt?" she screeched. "Someone is hurt! Me! We have three weeks left. How am I supposed to find another DJ now?" She threw her hands into the air and banged them on his desk when she brought them back down.

  You'd have thought the situation was life and death by the way she was
carrying on. When Otis walked in carrying a large manila envelope, Tadpole on his shoulder, Sheriff Knoxx turned to them with a gigantic smile.

  "Oh, Otis. I'm glad you're here. I, uh, needed to talk to you and Tadpole. Alone."

  Otis looked confused. "You want to talk to Tadpole?"

  "Yeah. He, uh..." The sheriff was squirming under Eleanor's gaze. No doubt he was wondering what had happened to the sweet, sane woman he'd proposed to. Later, if I had the chance, I would tell him all women acted like this before a wedding. There were entire TV shows devoted to it.

  "You okay, Sheriff?" Otis asked.

  "Yes, Otis, thank you." He spied the envelope in Otis’ hands, excited for anything that might serve as a diversion. "What have you got there?"

  "Oh," Otis said. He'd almost forgotten he was holding it. "I found this on my desk. It has your name on it."

  Sheriff Knoxx took the envelope. There was something about the large, black block lettering that looked familiar. Sheriff Knoxx's eyes widened when he read what was inside.

  "Otis, do you know who sent this?"

  Otis shook his head.

  "What is it?" Eleanor asked, her grief over the DJ issue temporarily forgotten.

  Sheriff Knoxx looked at her. I could tell he was debating whether or not he should say anything. Ultimately, he decided that giving her something else to focus on was safer than allowing her energy to remain on the wedding DJ.

  "The person who sent this claims that Mayor Thomas has been getting blackmailed."

  Eleanor and I exchanged looks.

  "By who?" Eleanor asked.

  "Thaddeus Black."

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  CHAPTER

  TEN

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  Mayor Thomas was not happy.

  He stood alternating between his hands on his hips and his arms folded across his chest. "Now see here," he said, trying to sound authoritative. "I have nothing to hide. I have never been blackmailed in my life. It's preposterous."

  He was loud, boisterous, and not at all convincing.

  Sheriff Knoxx looked around his office, pulling open drawers and closet doors.

  "I tell you there's nothing here!" Mayor Thomas yelled. He was clearly shaken.

  Eleanor had initially tried to help Mayor Thomas relax.

  "It's nothing," she'd assured him. "It's only that the sheriff has to check out every lead he gets, no matter how absurd."

  Mayor Thomas had looked more irritated than ever after that. He was pacing the floor now, watching the sheriff and Otis like a hawk. Elwin Muster had disappeared into a back room. No one was entirely sure what they were looking for. Otis just mumbled "evidence" whenever Mayor Thomas asked them.

  "Evidence, what evidence? I tell you there's nothing here."

  I lingered on the outside of the office, watching the overall scene as it unfolded. The only reason that I'd been allowed in was because Eleanor was here. I'd managed to convince Sheriff Knoxx that she was more likely to stay relaxed if I was with her, and she simply refused to leave his side until they'd sorted out the DJ issue.

  I texted Colt:

  WHERE R U? WE R SEARCHING MAYOR THOMAS’ OFFICE.

  He'd texted back, HAVE FUN.

  Have fun? I'd hoped for a better response. A little more insight, like whether Colt thought that Thaddeus was really a blackmailer. Colt was almost as frantic as Eleanor had been the last couple of weeks. I hoped the stuff with his father was resolved soon. I wasn't sure how much more I could take.

  "Sheriff?" Elwin said, walking past me into the room. He was holding something in his hands.

  "Yes?"

  "I found these, uh, in the, uh, closet. I thought they might, you know, be pertinent." He handed Sheriff Knoxx a stack of letters still in their envelopes. Mayor Thomas’ face paled when he saw them.

  "Where did you find those?" Mayor Thomas demanded of Elwin. "Now see here, that's personal property." He tried to grab the letters back from Sheriff Knoxx but failed.

  The envelopes, about a half dozen of them, had already been opened. Sheriff Knoxx pulled them out one at a time and read them. Eleanor and I crept closer, trying to read over his shoulder. Sheriff Knoxx turned away from us so that we couldn't see.

  "Those letters aren't mine," Mayor Thomas said. He was blushing. "I mean, they were sent to me, I admit that, but... but..." He looked around the room, from Sheriff Knoxx to Otis to me, and suddenly took off running. Sheriff Knoxx tossed the letters on the desk and ran after him, followed by Otis and Elwin.

  "Don't let him get away!" Sheriff Knoxx yelled. I was tempted to follow them, but the letters caught my eye. They were sitting right there...

  Eleanor and I couldn't help ourselves. We walked slowly over to the desk and each took an envelope. What had Mayor Thomas been so eager to protect? Eleanor's eyes bulged slightly in their sockets when she scanned the first letter.

  "Oh, my roses," she said. "Ava, what does yours say?"

  "It's from Thaddeus," I told her, reading through it quickly. "He says that he knows about Mayor Thomas and Tazzie. That if Mayor Thomas wants to make sure this stays between them, then he should pay him..." I blinked, thinking I was misreading this, "fifteen thousand dollars."

  "Mine's the same thing," Eleanor said, "only ten thousand."

  "Mayor Thomas doesn't have that kind of money."

  "If this is true... if Mayor Thomas and Tazzie Singer had some kind of relationship... why keep it a secret?" Eleanor asked.

  "Unless the relationship started when Mayor Singer was still alive," I said.

  Eleanor looked at me, horrified.

  "An affair?"

  I shrugged. "I like Tazzie, but... people make mistakes."

  There was a knock on the door. We jumped guiltily and put the letters back down on the desk. Hadley Miner stood at the door.

  "Hello," she said uncertainly. "Um, I was looking for Sheriff Knoxx. I was told he might be here."

  "He is," I said. "He'll be right back, he's just... chasing down something. What are you doing here?" Hadley pretended to be very interested in the ugly green table lamp to her right.

  "I just... I got something in the mail this morning." Hadley twiddled her thumbs nervously. She was having trouble looking at us. "Normally, I'd ignore something like this. I mean, it can't be true, but given the circumstances..."

  "Circumstances? What circumstances are you talking about?" I asked. Then I noticed the manila envelope in her hand, the same black block lettering scrolled across it.

  "Is that another threat against Tazzie?" I asked.

  She shook her head.

  "No, it's just..." She sighed and pulled something from the envelope. It wasn't a note; it was a picture. Eleanor and I looked at it.

  Tazzie Singer stood in the photo with her hair flying out behind her, a strong gust of wind blowing against her and the man she was kissing. He was holding his hat to his head while he kissed her. They looked happy. The man was Mayor Thomas.

  Hadley shrugged. "It came this morning. There was a note with it; it said to give the photo to Sheriff Knoxx or else."

  "Or else what?" I asked.

  "Or else something bad would happen to my mom." Her face was sour, grim. "I'm sure it's just a joke, but my mother's older, not in good health. Even if someone only meant to frighten her... I don't want to get anyone in trouble, I just don't want anything to happen to my mom."

  "You haven't done anything to feel guilty about," Eleanor reassured her.

  There was a series of loud noises from outside. A moment later, Sheriff Knoxx reappeared. "We got him," he cried triumphantly. I could almost see the goblin in him as his square jaw set into a grin. He suddenly noticed Hadley there, the picture she'd shown us back in her hands. Sheriff Knoxx grabbed it, his eyes widening.

  "Where did you get this?" he demanded.

  "It was sent to me," Hadley said, showing him the envelope with her name on it. Otis
was suddenly in the doorway. A very frustrated-looking Mayor Thomas was with him.

  "Sheriff Knoxx, Mayor Thomas says he refuses to come down to the station with us and answer our questions."

  Sheriff Knoxx turned to him. "It's too late for that."

  "What do you mean?" asked the mayor.

  "I mean, Mayor Quinn Thomas, you don't have a choice anymore. You're under arrest for the murder of Thaddeus Black."

  * * *

  CHAPTER

  ELEVEN

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  Word traveled fast. It always did. Only this time, it ran through both Mistmoor and Sweetland like wildfire. Neither town wanted to believe it was true, yet both towns decided it was undeniable before even hearing the facts.

  Thaddeus Black was a blackmailer, but a noble and kind-hearted blackmailer. The curse removal business had left his mind weak, addled with darkness. He desperately needed to get away from the evil that he had so bravely faced in his youth. He did the only thing he could think to do, forge a new career as a blackmailer.

  He knew that Mayor Thomas and Tazzie were having an affair, even while her husband was still alive. He'd blackmailed Quinn, unbeknownst to Tazzie. Quinn had more money than Tazzie, plus the people of Mistmoor loved her. He thought it would be dangerous to blackmail her. Mayor Thomas, however, already had a spotty reputation.

  Mayor Thomas had paid the ransom at first but finally grown tired of it. He stopped paying. Thaddeus threatened to come forward with his information, and Mayor Thomas had killed him.

  That was the official story according to the rumor mill. According to Mayor Thomas and Tazzie, none of that was true.