Spirits, Pies, and Alibis

by Nicole St Claire

  “My bracelet!” I held out my arm for Sybil to see, but the fiery glow was gone. “It was glowing, and it felt like it was on fire.”

  Sybil ran the tips of her fingers along the links, finding nothing. “It feels perfectly normal. You’re sure it wasn’t just a pinched nerve or something?”

  I rubbed my wrist with my other hand, but the pain had subsided. The silver links of the bracelet were cool to the touch, and there wasn’t so much as a red mark on my skin. Had I imagined it? The way Sybil was looking at me, it seemed likely it was all in my head. Still rattled, I stooped to retrieve the book, dropping it twice in the process. As I straightened up, I heard Auntie Sue call my name. I tucked the book under my arm and headed out of the stacks with Sybil following behind.

  “Here you are,” she said, placing a thick folder on a small study desk in the archive area. “I hope it has what you’re looking for.”

  I set the history book on the table and reached for the tattered, gray folder, which had the word Confidential stamped across the front in red ink. Even a quick flip through the pages was enough to reveal the sensitive nature of the documents inside, which included bank statements, real estate records, and more. “You couldn’t possibly have had these in the library this whole time.”

  “Technically, they’re not in the library now.” When I frowned in confusion, she continued. “You’ve heard of glamor magic?”

  “Yes, Sybil explained it. It’s, like, making people look good, or feel good about things, or something, right?”

  “Sort of,” Sybil corrected, no doubt as much to prove to her grandmother that she understood the concept as to make certain I did. “What I tried to say was it’s altering the perception of things.”

  “Exactly,” her grandmother agreed. “In this case, I’ve altered your perception of a stack of blank pieces of paper so that when you look at them, you see the information you need.”

  “You mean, you can get any document from anywhere, at any time?”

  Auntie Sue tilted her head slightly to one side. “Well, there are some limits. For one thing, the replicas have to be in close proximity, at all times, to the witch who cast the spell, which means they can’t leave the archives room. And second, the spell only lasts about an hour, so you’ll need to read them quickly.”

  “And after an hour?” I asked her.

  “They go back to blank sheets of paper. And you’ll have to jot down notes or commit what you need to memory because they can’t be photocopied or photographed.”

  I flipped through the pages again and nodded. It would take every minute I had available to make it through them, but I was fairly confident I could do it. “Thank you.”

  “Good luck,” Auntie Sue said.

  “Yeah, good luck,” Sybil chimed in as she gathered her things and prepared to leave. “I’ll leave you to it.”

  I took a seat and eagerly dug into the files. Wherever the documents had come from, and whatever magic had temporarily allowed me to view them, reading them gave me important new insight on the altercation I had witnessed at the airfield. Curtis and Mr. Levine were business partners, with Curtis having invested nearly a million dollars in the Papagayo Development Initiative over the past two years. From what I had gleaned, their venture to turn a defunct coffee plantation in Costa Rica into a series of luxury vacation condos was seriously behind schedule and bleeding money.

  Then it hit me. The value of Curtis’s investment was almost to the penny the amount that was missing from the Strong Corp. accounts. Doug wasn’t the embezzler. His favorite nephew was.

  I would have liked to have done more digging, but time was almost up. The documents had already begun to fade a little at the corners, and soon the pages would be blank. I scooped them up and handed the folder back to Sue Ellen.

  “Did you find what you needed?” she asked.

  “I did. Thank you.” I lingered at the desk a moment. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course, dear.”

  “That magic you did, getting the documents to appear, is that really something I could learn to do?”

  She nodded. “It might be different, mind you. Every witch’s talent manifests differently, so a kitchen witch would have one way of going about it and a glamor witch would do it another way, but it would serve the same purpose in the end, if that makes sense.”

  “I think it does,” I replied, though my heart felt heavy. I doubted I would ever master whatever recipe I needed to work magic like she had done, and I had no idea what other types of witchcraft there even were, let alone what might work for me.

  “Did you want to check out your book before you go?” She pointed toward the history book I’d left abandoned on the study desk. I’d been so caught up in my sleuthing that I’d forgotten about it.

  “I suppose I will.” I went back to retrieve it, wondering if I would feel the burning on my wrist again when I touched it, but I didn’t. It behaved just like any ordinary book, which is probably because it was. Sybil must have been right. I’d pinched a nerve, and my imagination had gotten the better of me. The only thing of importance was the new puzzle piece the book contained.

  Lillian Bassett, whoever she was to me, had disappeared in 1929 from the waters surrounding Pinecroft Cove precisely as Mother would do nearly eight decades later. There had to be a connection, but what could it be? As much as I dreaded delving into the details I’d been shielded from for so long, it was getting harder for me to deny that I needed to know exactly what had happened to my mother fifteen years before.

  Despite the intense summer sun outside, a chill remained with me as I got on my bike and began the ride home. It had nothing to do with the weather. The time was approaching when I would need to ask Auntie Sue to share those newspaper articles with me after all, though if I had my way, I was determined to ignore it for as long as possible. As I rounded the bend and the Pinecroft Inn sign came into view, a massive, black bird perched on top. He let out a loud caw, intensifying the cold I felt all the way to my bones. My mother’s mystery could wait, I reminded myself. It’s not like she was following me around and insisting I solve it, unlike another ghost I knew. From what I could tell, Douglas Strong’s spirit didn’t seem likely to let me forget that he had a job for me to finish.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When I returned to the inn later that day I checked immediately for signs of Gus, hoping the little guy had returned but was disappointed to find the foot of my bed empty. My elation over the discovery I’d made at the library soured at the memory of the role I’d played in whatever it was that had happened to him. In need of a head-clearing walk, and maybe a chance to scout the property for him, I went out the back door and strolled across the grass toward the water until I reached the path that circled the cove.

  Although the area around the town square had been a hive of activity, the restaurants and public beaches overflowing with people, Pinecroft Cove remained tranquil in the late afternoon. Technically, the shore path and rocky beaches were open to the public, but if you didn’t have a house that opened up to it, the cove was well hidden from view. The typical Summerhaven vacationer might spend a week on the island and never catch a glimpse of it. I counted two sailboats and a kayak navigating the calm waters. Beyond that, I was alone.

  It was the time of day my mother had most enjoyed being out on the water, when the sun was low in the sky and the air still pleasantly warm. I’d sailed with her countless times, and though I’d only been a child, I could attest to her being an expert at it. How she’d fallen from her boat and drowned on an otherwise clear day had been the greatest mystery surrounding her disappearance and presumed death. A sudden squall that caught her unaware was the official story, but I knew better. Someone had told her to jump.

  Shortly after we’d arrived on the island that final trip, right around the time my grandmother became ill, my mother started hearing things. Sometimes she’d come into the room where I was and ask me if I’d said something, only for me to tell her no.
Sometimes she’d swear she heard a whisper when I was sure it was just the wind. I’d assumed at the time it was nothing, or maybe just the stress of Grandma being sick. Looking back, I wondered if it had been something else, something unseen from the magical realm, that had plagued her. But my mother had never told me we were witches, and I had no idea why. I turned my head away from the sparkling, still water, not wanting to remember any more.

  The sun’s brilliant reflections had left spots in my eyes, so when I first saw the shadowy figure creeping through the low-growing blueberry brambles, I assumed it was my vision playing tricks on me. I blinked and rubbed my eyes. At first, I thought it was gone, but then I saw a black, catlike tail flicking between the leaves a bit farther on. It was furry and familiar.

  “Gus?” I said, clicking my tongue against the roof of my mouth to call him, not that he was the type of cat who responded to that type of thing. As expected, the tail slipped back into the brush. Convinced it was him, I followed the sound of rustling until I came to an outcropping of sand just before the start of a steep rock trail I’d never seen before. It looked impossible to access and even more treacherous to climb. I was about to move on without exploration when I heard the distinctive sound of Gus’s meow. I turned my head in the direction it had come from and saw a sliver of gray that marked the opening in the rocks.

  Scrambling up the rocky passage, I spotted the first stone step, almost completely obscured by fallen branches. I moved the largest one aside until there was room for me to pass. A pebble slipped into my sandal and lodged itself in my heel, but I shook my foot to dislodge it and continued to climb. I smelled the garden before I saw it, a strong whiff of wild roses that rode on the back of a light breeze. With just a few more steps I had reached it, a hidden garden at the edge of the woods with its circular gate built of stone, whose tall arch dripped in those small white blooms that produced the heady scent.

  I approached the circle slowly, pausing in the center of the gate to run my fingertips across the rough, cold granite blocks. I could almost feel an energy emanating from them, buzzing through my fingertips and up my arm. I pulled away, but though it was unexpected, the sensation wasn’t unpleasant. Beyond the gate was the most glorious garden I had ever seen. Flower beds full of delicate pink foxglove, radiant yellow zinnias, and dusky English lavender stretched along each side of an expanse of velvety green grass. I could just make out the outline of a house at the far end of the garden, a sturdy New England saltbox that lacked the pretension of the neighboring houses. Mindful that I was trespassing, I skirted closer to the tree line to avoid being seen.

  Although the garden was warm and sunny, the chirping of crickets reminded me that dusk was approaching. I needed to get home, but as I turned to go, I caught sight of a cat’s eye glimmering in the shadow of a tree, so I pressed on. Gus was well ahead of me, but he’d moved to walk along the center of the trail so I could see him clearly. I had no idea where I was headed, and the deeper I went into the woods, the more it dawned on me that following a cat I’d frightened out of a window only a few hours earlier might be a stupid move on my part. My aunt’s cat seemed the type for revenge.

  I walked for a good five minutes, maybe more. Despite trying numerous times to overtake him, the distance between me and my feline guide remained constant. Just as I’d become pretty sure I was doomed to follow Gus through the woods for eternity, the trees gave way to an expanse of perfectly manicured green lawn. The hulking house in front of me was all too familiar, even if the angle I was viewing it from was not the usual one. Somehow, I’d ended up at Cliffside Manor.

  The path from the woods had deposited me behind the pool house. A few yards ahead of me was a row of shiny metal trash cans, and on top of the one on the far right side sat Gus. Normally the smug expression on his face would have filled me with annoyance, but at that moment I was so grateful he was alive and unharmed that my first impulse was to pick him up and kiss him between his fuzzy, black ears. I refrained. He was a cat after all. With claws.

  Instead, I tiptoed toward him as slowly as I could manage, not wanting to frighten him again and end up chasing him all the way back through the woods. I was just inches away from him, arms extended to scoop him up, when he hopped to the next trash can, causing the one he’d been standing on to topple over and fall silently onto the grass. The lid popped off and went rolling toward the woods.

  I chased after it, and as I dived to grab it, I was temporarily blinded by a bright light aimed at the woods. I froze, breathless and certain I was about to be discovered, until I realized the light was coming from an automatic motion sensor that was mounted on the side of the pool house. I let out my breath, grabbed the lid, and returned to the line of bins. Gus had remained on his perch the whole time, watching me with what I assumed was amusement.

  As I straightened up the overturned can, something bright purple on the ground caught my eye. I picked it up and found that it was a small mailing box that had become partially buried in the soft, muddy ground. It had been hidden from view until Gus upset the trash can. Most of the address label had been torn off, but I could still make out a logo of two squiggly lines that looked a little like a ladder. More important, the return address was intact and bore the name Curtis Strong. I might not have known what was in the box, but whatever it was, there was no question I was taking it with me.

  I turned to retrieve Gus, but he was nowhere in sight. Big surprise. “I swear, cat,” I muttered, “you will be the death of me.” At least he was unharmed, and I trusted he would find his way back to the inn when he got hungry. No one could resist Aunt Gwen’s cooking, not even a mischievous cat.

  I returned along the path I’d come, turning the little purple box over and over in my hands to study it as I went. I gave it a shake, but no sound came from inside. It wasn’t heavy, either, which would have made me wonder if it was empty, except the edge had been carefully sealed with a strip of tape for mailing. How had it ended up half buried behind the pool-house trash?

  I was so deep in thought I scarcely noticed when I reached the hidden garden again. I strolled across the center of the grassy path without bothering to look around me, until the shocking boom of a man’s voice brought me to a sudden halt.

  “Hey!” he called out, a shadowy figure emerging from the house. “What are you doing in my garden? Do I need to call the sher—oh, Tamsyn. It’s you.”

  “Hi, Noah.” Was there any doubt that of all the people in Pinecroft Cove whose garden I could have chosen to trespass through, it would be his? I struggled to speak calmly, wishing I could sink into the nearest flower box and disappear. “This is your garden? It’s beautiful.”

  “It’s my mother’s. I take care of it for her while she’s away.” The melancholy tone beneath his words reminded me his mother was in poor health, and I knew he must be more worried than he let on.

  “I’m sure she appreciates it,” I told him, lacking the words to express the sympathy I felt.

  “It’s her favorite place in the world.” The softness of his smile as he spoke of her made his eyes twinkle and my heart flutter. “Look, I’m sorry for yelling earlier.”

  “It’s okay. I shouldn’t have been cutting across your grass like I own the place.”

  “It’s just that ever since a botanical garden opened not too far from here, I’ve had lost tourists traipsing through right and left, thinking this was it.” He paused, his expression betraying confusion as he looked in the direction from which I had come. “Although they usually come from the opposite way.”

  “Oh, yeah. Um…” I fidgeted with the box I was holding, searching for an explanation that would go over better than I was just on my way back from rummaging in your cousin’s trash.

  “What’s that you’re holding?” Noah’s eyes narrowed, and he reached out as if to take the package. “Is that from My Family Tree?”

  “Is it?” I had no idea what that was, but I held the box out to get another look. Before I realized what was happening, Noah pluc
ked it from my hand.

  “This has my cousin’s name on it,” he said with a hint of accusation.

  “I can explain,” I assured him, although I was no closer to coming up with a convincing story than I had been three seconds prior.

  “Maybe we should go in the house. I have a feeling this might take a while.”

  I followed him along the path to the house without arguing because, let’s face it, he wasn’t wrong.

  If the exterior of the dwelling was typical of a modest New England home, the interior was anything but ordinary. The walls were sheathed in a naturally warm wood paneling, and a large fireplace of faded, red bricks stood prominently against one wall. The ceilings soared to cathedral height with exposed beams, and at the top of the staircase an open landing revealed shelves packed with old books.

  Two dark leather sofas were grouped on a worn woolen rug with a Native American design, and it was there that Noah led me. I chose a seat, and he took the one opposite me. As I crossed my legs, I could feel my foot beginning to twitch with nervous energy.

  My throat had grown thick, and I cleared it more loudly than I had intended before I began to speak. “Noah, there’s something I think you need to know. Remember the money I told you was missing from the Strong Corp. accounts?”

  “The money you said Uncle Doug embezzled?” He shot me an incredulous look. “Yes, I think I remember that.”

  Right. Of course, he would remember me accusing his dearly departed relative of a crime. “I guess the good news is that I don’t think he’s the one who stole it. The bad news is I think it was Curtis.”

  “Curtis?” Noah’s left eyebrow arched in a way that made his usually symmetrical face jarringly lopsided. “I assume that’s why you—what, exactly—broke into Cliffside Manor and snooped around this evening?”