by Willow Mason
Never one for public speaking, my throat went dry, but I nodded.
“It’d also help if you bring along your transformed boss.”
That was a feat I was less sure I could perform. “He doesn’t know about witches any longer.”
“Tell him it’s a surprise barbeque in the woods.”
“I think that would put him off even more than the thought of witches.”
Glynda sighed and shifted down a gear as we neared home. “If we’re going to erase Beezley’s memory spell, we need time to examine him in detail.” She paused while pulling the car alongside Beezley’s house. “To get your magic back will require an awful lot of paperwork from me…”
“I’ll get him there.” Porangi gave a solid yap of approval, pawing at the passenger side window. “You might want to prepare some way to keep him in the circle once he arrives though.”
“I’m sure we can do that.” A crooked smile rose on Glynda’s face at the idea and I pushed my mind firmly away from dwelling on what it might mean.
The front door was locked, indicating Beezley had taken himself off somewhere else for the day. I entered the house with a light step, stopping short when I saw the changes.
All the surfaces were clean and shining. I’d never left anything long enough to get dirty, but I also wasn’t obsessive. The kitchen had been in such a state when I first arrived, my already moderate standards of housekeeping had slid down a few steps.
Clean, not tidy. That was enough for me.
Now, the house gleamed like a polished geode and I was afraid to step on the carpet with its neat vacuumed lines. The relief of finding Beezley gone was immediately overtaken with fear of putting a step wrong. Was the man a certified neat-freak? When I reached my bedroom, I sagged against the doorframe, ecstatic to find it was still in its usual morning mess, awaiting the arrival of someone with enthusiasm to tidy the duvet and transport clothes to the washing machine.
“Don’t, Porangi,” I chided as the dog attempted to tear a pillow apart. “I can’t afford to get kicked out of here. Harriet’s sofa might sound like a cool option for one night, but my back won’t appreciate it for longer than that.”
I discarded my shoes and inched through the house on stockinged feet to reach the kitchen. So much clean. So much shine. My head ached at the sight of it.
The fridge appeared to have been dragged through a garden. Fresh vegetables and fruits crowded out most of the shelves. I had to hunt to find my half-empty container of dip. Unable to locate the matching box of crackers, I glumly settled for a few cut-up carrots to act as transporters of the reduced-cream treat into my mouth.
A note lay on the sidetable. Gone to work. Back at five.
Work? I shook my head and crept back to the safety of my room. After a tussle between making the bed or crawling back into it, I decided everything would be easier to handle after a nice nap.
“Porangi! Get away from the decorations!”
The chihuahua ignored me, tugging on a large glass ball until it shattered in his mouth.
“Your dog’ll get hurt if you’re not careful,” a stern-faced man said, shooing Porangi in my direction. “If you want to take him through the town centre, you should have him on a leash.”
I picked the dog up instead, nodding my thanks to the man and examining Porangi’s mouth for any stray shards of bright red. “Why do you keep trying to get into trouble?” I whispered while walking hurriedly away. “The decorations are for admiring not chewing.”
Between the bag of books I was returning to Harriet and an armful of squirming dog, it was a relief to reach the library without further incident.
“Did you even crack the covers on these?” she asked, rerouting the stash to the correct shelves.
“We didn’t need to,” I admitted, wrinkling my nose. “Since the mermaid in question turned out to be just as duplicitous as anyone who’d want to hunt her.”
“I love these old legends.” Harriet stroked a leather-bound cover before tucking the book away in its home. “It’s a pity half of them aren’t true.”
“Sounds to me like that’s a good thing.” I tugged at Porangi’s tail when he seemed set on growling a short volume on broom riding into submission. “Could you imagine a world where there was double the number of supernatural creatures? My life has been far too dangerous with the small selection we have.”
“But ghosts and goblins sound fun.” Harriet wiggled a book at me, full of brightly coloured illustrations of things that existed solely in the author’s mind. “A magic toadstool would be just the thing I need as a pick-me-up.”
“Isn’t the magic mushroom enough?” I pulled Porangi away after he gave a test nibble to the bookshelf. “What’s a toadstool going to do that’s so wonderful?”
“It says here, it’ll set you on a course for the future that exactly fits your talents and skills.”
“Great. Another guidance counsellor. I had enough trouble ignoring the one at high school.”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t have. Given how much mischief you get into going your own way.”
“Nothing to do with me,” I whispered into Porangi’s fur. “My mother taught me to ignore anyone’s advice if it didn’t fit with what my gut told me.”
Harriet didn’t say anything, but I could read her expression well enough. And where did that get her?
Seriously, the witches in Fernwood Gully were rude to a fault, even when they didn’t open their mouths.
“I met my father,” I said, surprising myself with the statement. Harriet’s expression changed but not enough. Someone had already told her. Given my hazy memories of my arrival home after the world’s most harrowing day, perhaps it had been me.
“What’s he like?”
“He is, hands down, the person least interested in getting to know me I’ve ever met. Absolutely ignored me.”
“Sounds like a total pillock.”
“Yeah.” I let Porangi down as he attempted to gnaw my wrist as though it was a bone. “It’s probably where I get it from.”
Harriet giggled, then giggled harder as she put hands over her mouth to stop the sound. “Probably,” she managed to sputter after a minute spent laughing at my expense. “You are a right pillock sometimes, too.”
Porangi ran to the door and jumped up, yapping with excitement. “I think that’s my cue to leave. How did a night with your new houseguests treat you?”
“Marlon and Binky left this morning on a bus to Christchurch,” Harriet said. “Between them falling asleep the moment they arrived at my house to their abrupt departure, we exchanged all of three sentences.”
“He’s a man who’s had a very rough time,” I said, gathering Porangi up before heading out the door. He squirmed and wriggled so much, I guessed it might be time to follow the admonition and put him on a leash. Then he could tug my arm off instead of trying to nip it to death. “I hope he finds comfort wherever he’s going.”
“Given how adoringly he stared into Binky’s eyes, I think as long as his tortoise is beside him, he’ll cope.”
I wished I felt that way about Porangi. My chest ached with a deeper grief, suggesting it was another relationship causing the most problems, but I didn’t want to go there. Not yet. Not when my nerves were shattered from a million other things.
Beezley was still absent when I got home and I searched through the garage, thinking I could fashion a makeshift lead for Porangi until I could get one at the store. In a small catch-22, I wasn’t ready to take him into a pet store without a lead, but I couldn’t buy one without going inside. A rope would have to do.
A strange pattering sound greeted my ears as I let myself back into the house through the connecting door. It sounded like rain. One step into the lounge showed me how right I’d been.
A sprinkler sat in the centre of the room. Drops cascaded in a fan pattern, watering the lush carpet from one side to the other.
Water dripped down the walls, soaking into the already sodden carpet. The computer
sat in a puddle on the desk. The television looked like it had just stepped out of the shower.
Everything was ruined. Porangi stuck his head in through the doggie door, tongue hanging out as he admired his handiwork.
I pounded after him, stopping just long enough to turn off the garden tap. Porangi barked in joy and ran away, occasionally stopping to check I was still following. His tail wagged. The silly mutt was enjoying himself.
My mind blanked out in anger, backed up by fear. I needed to catch the dog, tie him up, and clean the mess in the house before Beezley got home.
The long muscles in my thighs twitched, and a stitch dug into my side, but I ignored them. My anger fuelled me past the pain threshold, catapulting me out the other side.
“Get back here,” I yelled, startling pedestrians as I sprinted past them. A lady pushed a shopping trolley into my path, and I jumped over it like an Olympian hurdler. “If you keep running away from me, you’ll just be in more trouble!”
A shopkeeper, drawn by the ruckus, stepped neatly into Porangi’s path and scooped him up mid-stride. Tears of exhaustion streamed down my face as I came to a grateful halt, taking the chihuahua out of his arms.
“He seems a nice dog,” the man said, patting Porangi on the head and earning himself a trio of barks. “I hope you’re not going to do anything stupid.”
The warning penetrated. My anger waned. He was a loyal familiar with a head injury. Whatever ‘bad things’ he did, the blame couldn’t be laid at his door. No matter how much I wanted to.
“You’ve got me into so much trouble,” I whispered, giving the chihuahua a pat. He cuddled into the curve of my neck and I closed my eyes for a second, letting the warmth of his body cool down the heat of my rage.
I thanked the shopkeeper and set off home, the weight of everything I’d need to do to clean up slowing my feet. The yellow pages were about to get a battering. Even if I could soak up the worst of the damp with towels on the floor, there was still a thousand other things to do.
“Beezley better have insurance,” I muttered as Porangi tried to launch himself out of my grasp. I readjusted my grip, not about to let him cause more havoc. With a short interlude at a bus stop, I realised my improvised lead wouldn’t work. Online shopping it would have to be, while Porangi stayed confined in my room.
My heart turned to ice when I turned into the street and saw Beezley’s car parked in the driveway. I hadn’t made it halfway up the path before the door slammed open and his enraged face peered outside.
“Do you see how much damage you’ve caused?” he yelled, making me cringe backwards.
“I’ll clean it all up, I promise.”
“No, you won’t. I’m not letting you or that dog into my house ever again. Contract or no contract, this is no longer where you live.”
He slammed the door in my face as a locksmith’s van came to a halt behind me.
His first call hadn’t been to the insurance company or a cleaning firm. It had been to a service who’d make sure I was locked out.
Porangi seized his moment, jumping to the ground while I stood frozen. My heart broke with grief that my strongest relationship had ended so abruptly.
Instead of remaining calm and picking the chihuahua up again, my blood boiled. “Do you see what you’ve done?” I screamed into the startled dog’s face. “Get out of here. I never want to see you again!”
Chapter Fourteen
“I’m so popular lately, it will go to my head,” Harriet declared when I turned back up to the library a few hours after leaving it. “You’re welcome to the spare room for a few nights until you sort things out with Beezley.”
A few days sounded years short of the required time to ‘sort it out’ but I was grateful for the offer. “Do you need any help here? I’ve got tonnes of free time to kill.”
“How about you go find your dog?”
I’d told Harriet a brief and slightly self-serving version of what had happened with Porangi but guessed now she’d seen straight through me. “Okay, I’ll try, but that little blighter can run a lot faster for a lot longer than me. He’s probably halfway to Christchurch by now.”
“So long as that’s where he’s headed, it’s okay. If he’s gone back to The Briary though…” She shivered.
“Why would—?” I broke off, rubbing at my forehead where globs of sweat appeared by magic. “I doubt he’d go back there.”
“Until you know for sure…” Harriet waved me out the door.
I asked at the nearest corner to Beezley’s house, getting a few noncommittal grunts in answer to my question. From there, I tried the main road, getting a positive reaction to Porangi’s description from the road south. Good. At least Harriet’s prediction could be put to bed, though I was no closer to finding him.
When I walked past the police station, DI Jonson knocked on the window and beckoned me inside. With a shrug, I gave up the dog hunt and gladly entered the cool airconditioned office. “Did you need me for something?”
“Adam Beezley paid me a visit this morning,” the DI said with a pained grimace. “I thought you were in regular touch with him via email.”
The small ruse had been enough to earn us a few investigative jobs and I nodded. “He’s back in town, although his memory seems spotty.”
The DI snorted. “You can say that again. I think he tried his best to cover it, but the man’s got a gap from when he last walked out of this office until this morning when he walked back in. It’s like he time-jumped or something.”
“I’d fall on the side of ‘or something’ in that scenario.” I gave a shrug as nonchalant as I could make it. “Maybe he had a bad shock or hit his head. Total amnesia is rare but there are lots of cases of partial wandering about.”
Jonson pursed his lips in a display of scepticism. “I’ve given him an appointment with our station doctor, Jamieson, to see what light he can throw on the situation.”
Although I knew he wouldn’t discover anything untoward, I still felt uneasy. “If you don’t need anything else…?”
“I do. Some of my junior officers are working a case involving Archie Belham. I believe you’re the one who discovered his body.”
My stomach protested, and I put a steadying hand on my abdomen. “That’s right.”
The DI tapped on his keyboard and read the screen. “It says here, you took ownership of his dog, a chihuahua?”
“Yes. Although he’s gone walkabout.” An understatement. “That’s why I was outside. I’ve been searching for him all over town.”
“Oh, pity.” He jabbed at his keyboard again a few times, then turned back to me. “They were hoping he could lead them to some of Archie’s possessions.” Jonson tilted his head to one side, narrowing his eyes. “Did you know Archie was actually the town Santa?”
“Yes, I’ve heard that on the grapevine.”
“His neighbours insist he worked on presents for the children all year, but the house is completely empty.”
I gaped at him, feeling another knot tighten in my soul. “Somebody stole the presents?”
“Not at all. His house was the workshop, but it appears he may’ve stored the gifts off site. The officers were hoping the dog could lead them to a storage facility or lockup somewhere in town. His records don’t indicate he rented anywhere, but we’re hoping all his efforts didn’t go to waste.”
“If I find him, I’ll give the station a call to let them know. Anything that gets him out of the house for a bit will be a blessing.”
Jonson gave me a strange stare but flicked his hand to dismiss me. I had my hand on the door when an idea occurred to me. “We did have a surprise party planned for Beezley,” I said, the lie grating on my ears. “If you see him tomorrow, would you be able to send him out to meet us?”
I felt sure Jonson would say no but his eyes gleamed. “A surprise, eh?”
“Nothing fancy. Just a barbeque out in the woods. We’re meeting by the stone circle.”
The inspector shouldn’t know wher
e that was but if he told Beezley, I hoped he might find his way there, navigating through his subconscious. If not, I could wait by the edge of the woods with Harriet and kidnap him.
“I’ll tell him.” The DI sat back in his chair, forming a temple with his fingers. “In fact, I’ll make it an order.”
“That would be much appreciated.”
“If it means I get my best detective sergeant back with his memories where they should be, I’m game to try anything.” Jonson arched an eyebrow at me. “I trust you’ve got his best interests at heart.”
I did but goodness knows what was running through Glynda’s mind when she made the order. There’d been times in the past when my idea of what she had planned didn’t tally neatly with the reality, but I didn’t have any option.
With no magic and no psychology degree, I couldn’t help Beezley on my own. “Of course.”
I headed out of the station in a better mood than I’d entered. Porangi remained at large but I figured the chihuahua could take care of himself even if I failed to find him. He’d managed up to now.
Still, rather than crawling back to Harriet’s, licking my wounds, I grabbed my car and cruised the streets with my eyes peeled. Fernwood Gully was so small, I must have trawled each road four or five times before I gave up and headed back. If Porangi didn’t want to be found, there wasn’t much I could do about it.
“Glynda’s getting twitchy,” Harriet warned me once I stumbled through her door. “There’re too many witches telling too many stories for her to keep everyone in line. If she doesn’t wrestle control at the coven meeting tomorrow, the entire community could shatter.”
“So much for a merry Christmas,” I whispered. “No Santa. No mermaid. No coven goodwill for the coming year. I think it’s time we called our losses and just look to start fresh at New Year’s.”
“You’re meant to be a PI, aren’t you? Why don’t you run a trace on where our Christmas spirit’s gone?”
I was lying flat on my back and couldn’t be bothered sitting up, so just poked her with my big toe. “I can tell you where it’s gone. Brianna and Lucinda ate it all up in return for a new pair of sexy legs.”
