by Madelyn Alt
“And Marcus. We were just leaving the apartment complex at the time.”
“Trouble?”
I shrugged. “The usual. She’s going to demand to know what’s going on.”
“If you don’t call, she’ll be calling here again shortly.”
“Don’t I know it.” Better to get it over with quickly. Like pulling off a bandage that is more sticky tape than anything else. One tooth-gritting rip and Bob’s your uncle until the next time.
Customer traffic had been nonexistent this morning, which was fairly typical for a Tuesday, so after a resigned sigh to relieve my tension, I dialed the number for home, the same number it had been throughout my life. I was hoping I’d get lucky, that she would have stepped out to one of her many ladies’ auxiliary meetings and I could tell her I did call her back, buying myself a little bit of time. But that would be a postponement at best, and it wasn’t happening this morning anyway—Mom picked up on the second ring.
“Margaret Mary-Catherine O’Neill, it is about time you called me back.”
“Hi, Mom, I love you, too. Are you having a nice day?”
“There is no need to sass me, Margaret. What on earth were you doing at that place this morning? And how do you get yourself into these situations?”
And there it was, as expected. The defining characteristic of my relationship with my mother. Some days, some months, things were better, but whenever anything went wrong, it always came back to this. “Well,” I said, doing my best to keep any hint of annoyance out of my voice because that only added to the tension that always simmered between us at some level, hidden or not, “in answer to your first question, I went to the apartment complex to sign a lease for an apartment, and in answer to your second question, how does anyone get themselves into any situation? They wander in. Innocently. You know. Things just happen.”
“To you, Margaret. Things seem to always happen to you.”
I sighed.
“I worry.”
“Mom, it’s an apartment building. How could I possibly have known the manager was going to run into trouble of this kind?”
“What were you doing looking for an apartment anyway? You already have an apartment—which you don’t even live in, I might point out—and a place to stay with this Marcus fellow of yours, even though you don’t need it because home would be a much better place for you while you’re recuperating.”
“It’s fine, Mom.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I was looking for an apartment for a couple of reasons. One, because Steff is getting married and won’t be living in Stony Mill for much longer”—Sob!—“and two, because I felt like a change might be in order, since she won’t be living at my apartment building anymore. There won’t be any reason for me to stick with the apartment I have. I just thought it might be the perfect time for a little change,” I said again.
“If you need a place to live, I don’t know why you don’t just move home. You know we have the room.”
Eep! Um . . . No. Not. Never. Not in a million years. “You probably should save it for Mel,” I told her. “She might need it.” It had been only weeks since Mel had been unceremoniously and rudely, well, dumped, for lack of a better word, by her cretin husband, Greg Craven, a family law attorney who specialized in divorces and personal estate management and who now seemed determined to use his experience against her. Maybe he’d locate his misplaced family values before it was too late, but it didn’t seem likely. Mel had been hanging tough in the family home in the pricy Buckingham West subdivision with the four daughters Greg seemed to have forgotten about, but who knew how long that was going to last. Regardless of community property law, the plain fact was, things were expensive, Mel had five mouths to feed including her own, and she didn’t have a job. I just hoped she had found a really good lawyer who wasn’t one of the cretin’s cronies-in-law.
“Hm. Well, as much as I hate to admit this, you might just have something,” Mom admitted. “Things have been tense. All Greg’s fault. He won’t talk to her except through his lawyer. Why does he even need one, since he’s one himself?” she fussed.
“I don’t know.”
“It’s like the Greg we knew all this time wasn’t the real Greg at all.”
“Hopefully Mel’s attorney steers her right. Any man who would leave his wife at the birth of their newborn twins without a word of explanation deserves to be taken for everything he’s worth.”
“Yes, well, let’s get back to the subject at hand. We were talking about you. What on earth, Margaret? How does one go from looking at an apartment to being a witness to yet another murder? I don’t know what this town is coming to. It’s almost like Lucifer himself has decided to take up residence here in Stony Mill and is just digging his spurs into the unwary.”
The Devil came down to Stony Mill? Seemed to me he’d have a lot more fun in a bigger, better playground, but who was I to judge?
“I didn’t witness a murder. I mean, Marcus and I happened upon the poor man, but we didn’t witness the murder.”
“You—? I think I’d better sit down for this.” And I heard her breath huff out of her through the mouthpiece, just to let me know she wasn’t simply being overly dramatic.
“Are you all right, Mom?”
“I would be if my oldest daughter would keep her nose out of trouble.”
“Now, Mom. You know that’s not fair.”
“What happened to the arrangement you had with this Marcus person?” she asked, ignoring my claim. “Trouble already?”
Maybe it shouldn’t have bothered me so much to hear the whisper of hopefulness in her voice. It was no secret that Marcus wasn’t, at least by outward appearances, everything my mother hoped for in a man friend for her oldest daughter. But it did. “No, Mom. Not trouble already. Not trouble at all. Things are going really well.”
“Then why get a new apartment right now?” she persisted. “You’re already living in sin together. Not much more damage can be done as far as that’s concerned.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Oh, you know what I mean. And stop changing the subject. Why get a new apartment now?”
I sighed. I didn’t really think it was any of her business, but how do you say that to your mother? “Because,” I admitted finally, “he is putting things off because of me being there with him.”
“What sort of things?”
“Important things. Geez, Mom! Do you have to know everything?”
“Now, Maggie,” she said, switching to the more familiar tone to soften me up, “you know I am just concerned about you. And with good reason, I might add.”
Hm. “I’m fine. It’s not like we had anything to do with the apartment manager or his death, you know.”
“I’d like it noted, I didn’t say that you did. But think of the way it must look to other people. And this isn’t the first time you have somehow become embroiled in the unfortunate actions of others. Combine that with your boss’s . . . reputation.” The emphasis on this last word left no question whatsoever to her meaning. “You must see why others would look askance.”
“No one would even notice, Mom.”
My mother sighed. “Oh, Margaret. You just don’t understand. This is a small town.”
Didn’t I know it.
“Now, what about this apartment? Did you already sign a lease? Does your father need to find someone to get you out of it?”
“I’ve got it handled, Mom. Honest. You don’t need to worry.”
“I wasn’t worried at all until I saw you on the area news report in connection to a murder.”
All right, fine. So I could kind of see how that might be a little worrisome. “Sorry. It wasn’t my intention to be on TV at all. It’s not like I was dying to be interviewed or anything.”
“Yes, well, see that you aren’t dying to do anything,” she snipped archly. “It’s bad enough that my daughter is involved on the fringes of any of these . . . incidents. You keep you
r eyes open. I don’t want to have the sheriff knocking on my door in the middle of the night one of these days.”
“Don’t worry, I don’t plan on it,” I said, laughing . . . but was there an edge to my voice that even I didn’t want to acknowledge. Could anyone really feel completely safe these days? When normal, everyday people were biting it throughout the normal, everyday courses of their lives? For all of Reverend Martin’s fears about Liss, it struck me as deeply ironic that none of the murders our town had endured had involved the supernatural or witches or magick in the slightest. And still the good reverend and his followers could not see that what they really should fear was the secret darkness hidden deep within themselves and the people they knew.
“What will you do, then? If you aren’t going to be staying with Marcus?”
“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. “Things happened so fast with this apartment, and then to have this happen as well . . . well, it threw a wrench into the works, and all of my plans came crashing in. Don’t worry, though. I’ll think of something.”
What that something was, though, that was the question. The problem never left my mind for long as the workday passed us by in a flurry of lunchtime customers, decorating Liss’s conceptual serenity space, logging in new inventory, and shipping out Internet orders. I held down the fort while Liss carried out the preparations for the special ritual she would perform to reenergize the protective wards she had placed on and around Enchantments. Marcus texted me just after lunch to check on me, bringing the problem straight back to the forefront of my mind. What was I going to do? I found myself flipping through a copy of Magick for Practical Uses to find a good example of a house spell that I could customize and make to serve my own needs. With the new moon, it was the perfect time to lay my wishes on the line and state my needs and hopes and dreams.
At least Tara and Evie’s arrival after school brought a much-needed distraction. Liss had disappeared up to the loft to gather supplies and prepare for her protection ritual. All I had been doing was worrying and mulling and worrying some more anyway, and the two girls had a knack for brightening up the space with their schoolgirl antics and intense energies. Tara Murphy was Marcus’s teenage cousin, and a wild child if ever there was one. With her chunky ink black hair and bright eyes, slim build, and feisty attitude, she was approaching womanhood and her senior year in high school with the same vibrancy of spirit she applied toward everything. What that meant, in most cases, was a smartass wit that left some adults cold . . . but they didn’t know her biggest secret: that deep inside, where few dared to look, her bluster disguised a heart as soft and sweet as one of Annie Miller’s caramel custard cups. It was just that a person was well advised not to let her know that you knew.
Evie Carpenter, on the other hand, didn’t care who knew she was as sweet and empathetic to the sufferings of others as all get-out. She was an unrepentant earth angel and a powerful, developing psychic with connections that put my paltry attempts to shame. With fine golden hair stretching in loose waves to her waist, and a temperament to match, she was as stereotypical in appearance as they come. But Evie wasn’t ready to shoehorn herself into anyone’s molds. She was already hard at work blasting her mother’s notions of what a good daughter should be by using her mother’s own rules to assert her independence. I for one was glad to see her having some success with her efforts to become her own person. After having spent so many years straining against my own mother, it was heartening to me to know that Evie could escape that same limiting fate if she wanted to.
Tara’s backpack made a dull thud as it hit the scarred antique wooden counter. “Hey, Fluffs,” she said breezily. Coming around the corner, she peered over my shoulder and read a bit. “Ooh, whatcha cookin’?”
I pulled the book away from her reach and held it protectively against my abdomen. “Do I read over your shoulder?”
She held her hands up. “All right, all right, sheesh. I was just asking. No need to get your panties in a twist, Fluffs.”
Fluffs, Fluffster, Fluffmeister, and any number of other variations on a theme with Pagan meaning were her favorite nicknames for me. Labeling me a Fluffy Bunny Pagan from day one had been her fairly derogatory way of observing and calling me out for my preference for acknowledging only the light in life, which to badass Tara’s dark faery perspective meant I was leaving out a very important part of the universal balance. And who knows, she could be right. But I was far more comfortable with lending energy to the good in the world. It didn’t mean that I couldn’t see the darkness that kept nudging at us, searching for purchase, and name it for what it was. I just refused to cater to it. Since Tara had gotten to know me better, the nickname had softened into a way of expressing ironic affection. At least most of the time. One could never be one hundred percent certain when it came to Tara.
She sauntered over to the café counter as Evie, who had been trailing behind her, seated herself on the counter with a little heave-ho and a wiggle. Reaching into the glass case, Tara pulled out a pair of white chocolate chip cranberry cookies, jumbo size, and grabbed two paper napkins from the neat stack by the tea boilers.
“I mean,” she said, handing Evie a cookie and a napkin, “it’s no skin off my freckled nose if you want to read up on magick but not practice it regularly. I’d be happy to leave you to your fumbles if you want. Otherwise, I was going to offer to help you out.”
Evie giggled. “You know, Tare, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you admit to your freckles. You usually pretend they don’t exist.”
Tara stared her best friend down. “Yeahhh. Keep it up, Evil. You want to keep that cookie or not?”
Evie made the zipping motion over her lips and held her cookie protectively. But it didn’t stop her from grinning broadly at me as soon as Tara’s back was turned.
“And you can wipe that smile off your face, too,” Tara grumbled without turning around.
I shook my head, marveling at their simpatico connection. “How did you know she was smiling?” I asked her.
“I could feel it,” she said with a shrug. Like it was no big thing. And with Tara and Evie, it wasn’t. “So, the whole apartment thing didn’t work out?” she asked. “You decided not to take it?” At my questioning stare, she shrugged. “Uncle Lou mentioned it.”
No use pretending she hadn’t seen the spell I’d been reading about. I set the book down on my lap. “Actually, I did decide to take it after a call from the manager last night, telling me there was someone else interested in it and could I please make a decision right away so that he would know what to tell them.”
“Oh.” Tara looked at me, waiting. “So, why do you need a Home Finding Spell?”
“Well, it could be because I changed my mind. Or, it could be because your cousin and I stumbled over the manager’s dead body this morning when I went to sign the lease.”
Tara blinked. So did Evie.
“Well, not stumbled, per se,” I continued on as though this were the most normal conversation in the world to be having, and there I was having it for the third time that day. “He was in the pool, after all. Swimming with the fishes. But not. I didn’t see any fishes in the swimming pool. Only the dead manager.”
“Wow,” Tara mused, staring at me. “And here everyone keeps insisting that working out is supposed to be good for you. I’ll take my chances with vegging out in front of a good video game.”
“He was actually dead?” Evie squeaked, her faint eyebrows arching high. “And you found him?”
“Yes to both questions,” I confirmed. “It was not fun.”
Evie held out her hand toward Tara, palm up and fingers waggling expectantly. “By the way, Tara . . . A-hem. I think we’re forgetting something.” She wiggled her fingertips some more.
Grumbling under her breath, Tara dug in the pocket of her backpack. She pulled something out and tossed it at Evie. It landed on her lap with a green, fluttering trajectory—a folded dollar bill. “You know, I should know better th
an to bet Evie when she has one of her feelings,” she told me. “Dumb of me. We heard the sirens this morning, and she swore it was another murder.”
I gave them the short version of the details I had mentioned earlier to Liss. It seemed easiest that way.
“What are the odds?” Evie asked to the store at large.
I didn’t know, but it seemed to me that the odds of it happening in Stony Mill were getting better and better all the time, and that worried me.
“So, old Tom is probably fit to be tied that you’re involved in something like this again, huh,” Tara observed, as spot-on as usual.
It wasn’t a question. It didn’t need to be. “He certainly wasn’t thrilled to see me there,” I admitted.
“Who do they think did it?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. The guy felt a little off to me, but what can you do? A lot of people give off that kind of energy.”
“Off? Off how?” Evie mumbled around the crumbs of a big bite of cookie. She turned red and swallowed hard. “Sorry. Bit off more than I could chew.”
Some days, I felt much the same way. “I can’t explain it, really,” I told her. “Seedy, a little bit, maybe?”
“Who would have messed up the guy’s office that way?” Evie puzzled. “Seems to me if someone wanted to rip the guy off, they wouldn’t have broken the computer. They would’ve sold it.”
“Well, obviously whoever did it meant to demolish the computer,” Tara said. “Think about it. No one would have just smashed it unless they had a reason to.”
“And it was new, too,” I added. “The guy hired Marcus to rebuild the old one into a supercomputer. Through Big Lou,” I told Tara. “Your dad actually knows the guy from his club.”
“Maybe the guy had enemies somehow,” Evie suggested.
Tara rolled her eyes. “Well, obvs he had enemies if someone was willing to kill him, Evester.”
“What do you know about the guy, Maggie?” Evie said, ignoring Tara’s teasing jibe.
“Not much,” I admitted. “He did have an argument with a tenant while I was there. The guy—Hollister—was pretty hot under the collar. Lou had to take him down the block to cool off. He looked like he would have liked to throttle Locke. That’s the manager, Locke.”
