by Maeve Hart
When I’d told Granny about the noises, she’d told me they were poltergeists and nothing to worry about. Back then I imagined poltergeists were cute little animals running around the roof. It was only when I was a teenager that I learned what a poltergeist was and I had never stayed at Granny’s again until this day.
Would I still hear scratching tonight? Would the dolls come to life and kill me? I was glad that it wasn’t anywhere near the full moon. At least I now had control over when I changed into a wolf. I sank down onto the single bed. The last time I had spent a night in a single bed was most likely right here in this room. Bouncing up and down on it, I could tell it was comfortable and I was grateful for that.
I headed out to help Granny with her spells, hoping I wouldn’t be putting hexes on people I didn’t know.
“Have you had something to eat today?” I asked.
“I didn’t feel like eating anything, but Flora made me. She made me a toasted cheese sandwich, with butter on both sides of the bread. She made it with the new sandwich iron I bought the other day.”
Mmm. I was starting to get hungry. “Good.” Rubbing my hands together, I said, “I’m ready for the spells.”
“Help me up.” Granny reached both hands toward me.
I cringed, looking at her banged up knee, which looked badly swollen. Once she was on her feet, I followed her as she limped to the spell room.
“Are we going to do a spell on your new friend’s wife to make her come back to him?”
“I know you’re joking when you say he’s my new friend because you know I don’t like men.”
“You said he was okay.”
“And yes, we are going to get his wife back for him because he’s paying me to do it, Ms. Smarty-Pants.”
I giggled. “I’d be interested to see if she comes back to him.”
“You’ll have to lose that attitude if you’re going to help with the spell. Of course she will come back to him. Now, where’s my black book?”
“Is that it over there?” I pointed to the end of the counter.
“Ah, that’s it. Now, let me see what we’re up to. The first one we have to do today is for the cat.”
“A cat wants you to do a spell?” It wouldn’t have surprised me if that had been true, but Granny was angrily shaking her head at me.
“Of course not!” she snapped. “A woman has taken a cat from a neighbor because they weren’t looking after him. She doesn’t want the old owners to get him back. The neighbor’s children are cruel to the cat. They’ve even purchased a large dog and according to my customer, the cat and the dog do not get along at all.”
“And we’re about to do a spell so that the old owners don’t find the cat?”
“Precisely.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Okay. How do we start the spell?”
“I’ve already given her some oils to anoint his collar and now we shall do a candle spell.” Granny walked over and opened a large cupboard to reveal candles of all shapes, colors, and sizes.
“Sit down, Granny. I’m supposed to be doing everything for you, remember?”
“Okay.” Granny sat down on the stool next to the counter. “If you look in the cupboard, you’ll find a black cat-shaped candle.”
I saw something black at the back of one of the shelves and pulled it out. “I’ve got it.” I showed Granny.
“Good girl.”
I giggled at Granny treating me like a five year old child. I had to admit I was having fun. “Now what do we do?”
“Just a moment, I’ll have a look at my notebook to be sure.”
“Not the Book of Shadows?”
“I only enter things into the Book of Shadows on the full moon. Anyway, I don’t keep my notes and scribbles in it.”
“Well, why not? I thought that’s what it was for.”
“You’re right. I should make all my notes in the back, but my notes just look so messy sometimes. Maybe I could put the notes in the back.”
I held my tongue. Maybe the bump on her head had affected her hearing. I’d have to watch for other signs that she wasn’t well. “That sounds like a good idea. Do I need to find anything else?”
“Yes. It will be in one of the drawers over there.” She pointed a long, bony finger at a set of drawers near the end of the room.
“What am I looking for?”
“A blue book.”
“Is this it?” I held it up.
“That’s the one.”
I handed it to her.
“We need to anoint the candle with my special vinegar. I make it out of various herbs. It protects against theft and also injury.”
Would it be theft if the legitimate owners got their cat back? I wondered. “Okay, where will I find that?”
“On the shelf near the window. ‘Four Thieves’ is what the label will say.”
When I pulled it off the shelf, Granny showed me how to rub the oil onto my fingertips and how to anoint the candle.
She continued, “All the while you need to picture in your head that the cat will be safe and happy and away from his original owners.” As though she’d read my mind, she said, “I don’t want you to think about the previous owners and whether the cat would be better off with them.”
“Okay, I won’t.”
After a few minutes of concentration, Granny said, “That will be enough.”
“What do I do with it now?”
“Place it on the altar and when we’ve got all the other spells ready, we’ll light them all at once.”
After I had placed it on the corner of the altar, I turned around to face her. “Do you do all your spells with candles?”
“Almost all spells—something being burned works well.”
“Why?”
“Because fire transforms things and once something goes under fire, it’s never the same. Fire transforms things just as our intention transforms things.”
I went back to stand by Granny. “What now?”
“Wash your hands, of course. The oil on your fingers can’t contaminate the other spells that we’re about to do.”
Now it made sense that there was a sink in the room. While I washed my hands in the spell room sink, I tried not to look at the Alpha shifter’s remains. When I had spilled them weeks before, it had led to me changing into a shifter.
“I must admit it’s all very interesting, Granny.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you these past twenty-five years.”
I looked at her and frowned. “I’m thirty-two.”
“Great Chapel! What does that make me?”
Wiping my wet hands, I said, “You’re ageless. That’s what you are.”
“Yes, I like to think so.”
“How exactly did you fall this morning?” I asked her.
“I was pushed, Destiny.”
I gasped in horror. “Who by?”
“Not a physical person, a spirit.”
I looked into my grandmother’s green eyes to see that she was serious.
“Really?” I asked.
“Yes.” She gave a sharp nod of her head.
“Have you told Flora and Mom?”
She shook her head.
I thought about the dreadful dolls in my room. Maybe one of them had come alive and pushed her over.
“Why would you have been pushed?” I asked.
“The spells change the course of the natural ways. Do you see? Not everybody’s going to be happy about things changing.” Granny looked up at the ceiling. “I’ll need to up my protection around myself and my house.”
“How do you do that?”
“There are many ways. I’ll have to talk to my coven and see what they suggest would be the best way.”
“You still have a coven?” She hadn’t talked about a coven in years.
“Yes, I do, although Flora and Fauna don’t attend the meetings any longer. They prefer to be solitary witches.”
“How do you know it wasn’t a real person who pushed you?”
>
“There was nobody around. That’s how I know.”
I looked around at all Granny’s potions on her shelves. “Do you have truth serum, Granny?”
A smile tugged at the corners of her pink lips. She pointed her head toward a shelf. “The red bottle up there.”
“The small one?”
She nodded and blinked rapidly. “Yes.”
“Is that truth serum in there?”
“It is.”
“How does it work?” I asked.
“You want to try it and see how it works?”
“Okay.” I pulled the bottle down, hoping I’d soon have some answers.
“Now give it a shake. And then dab a little bit on my wrist and ask me some questions. Any questions you want.”
I took a gulp and did what she said. She offered me her wrist and I put some on her.
“Ask away. That’s all you need.”
“Did you try to kill Don?”
“Yes, I shot him with a poisoned dart mixed with urine and Puff Adder venom just like you thought.”
I gasped. “Is that true?”
“Yes.” Granny started laughing.
“Why is that funny?”
“It’s funny because this is just peppermint oil. It’s not truth serum at all. I’ve never had any truth serum about.” Granny rose to her feet and stared at me. She wasn’t laughing now. “You wouldn’t leave things alone. You kept asking and nagging. You should’ve let things be. He was awful and he—” She looked right at the bottle of the Alpha’s remains. I knew she was going to say that he stole some of the remains.
“Granny, why did you kill him?”
“I told you why. He came around here causing trouble. He was nothing but trouble and he deserved to die.”
“No one deserves to die.” I had to stop myself from asking how she was certain that Donald touched the remains because she had no idea it was really me. What would she do to me if she found out I was a shifter and I was the one who’d touched the bottle? Jacques was right about Granny. All I wanted to do was get out of there.
“It was convenient that his sister also tried to kill him on the very same day. But whatever she did to him caused him a faster, less painful death. I saw her going into the building as I was leaving.”
I held my stomach and felt I was going to be sick. Not only did she kill the Alpha shifter, Jacques’ grandfather and her own lover, she admitted to killing my fiancé.
I backed away. “Granny, that’s just wrong.”
Granny walked toward me. “Who’s to say what’s right and what’s wrong? Things like that are just social constructs. I prefer to live by my own principles and write my own rules.”
“I don’t know if I can forgive you. I’m leaving.” I walked into the bedroom, pleased that I wouldn’t be sleeping in the same room as the creepy dolls and clowns. I grabbed my bag and headed to the door. Granny came out of the spell room and followed me.
“But I had a fall. You have to look after me. You told Flora you would.”
“I’ll call her and tell her I’m sick and can’t look after you.” I walked out the door and closed it behind me. I made my way through the garden and out the gate, and then I kept walking.
I called Aunt Flora and told her that she or Mom would have to watch Granny because I was feeling sick. A small lie was something I didn’t feel any guilt over compared to what I’d just learned my grandmother had done. Flora told me she’d arrange something and I ended the call. My next call was to Jacques.
Thankfully Jacques didn’t say, ‘I told you so.’
I felt safe in the helicopter next to Jacques, heading back to the compound. It was Granny who’d used the venom to try to kill Don, and Jennifer had poisoned him with the strychnine.
Jacques put his arm around me. “It’s all over.”
I rested my head against the hardness of his shoulder. “I know.”
“The mystery’s solved and we can start our lives together. That is, if you’re ready.”
Looking into his eyes, I said, “I’m ready.”
He grabbed my hand and held it. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I am. I am totally.”
He turned his head and lowered his lips to mine. I was ready to surrender myself to him completely and become his shifter mate.
“Will you marry me, Destiny?”
My breath caught in my throat. “Really?”
He chuckled. “Don’t look so shocked. I was thinking of an exciting or unusual way to propose, but that would’ve taken planning and time. I want you to be mine as soon as possible.”
I nodded, pleased he wanted to marry me. I hadn’t been certain he’d want to do that rather than simply live together. “Yes, of course, I’ll marry you.” I flung my arms around his neck and held him tight.
He took hold of my arms and loosened my grip so his lips could once again meet mine.
When we finished kissing, he whispered, “We’ll get married on the ninth week of the new year.”
Something that Granny had once said came into my head. “Under the full moon the walls are the ninth week.”
He pulled away from me. “So you know?”
“Know what?”
“What did you just say?”
“It’s something Granny said once. I’ve been trying to remember it.”
He put his hand to his chin. “Yes, I recall you saying she said something similar.
I think that’s what my grandfather said to her before he died.”
“Is it a code?”
He looked beyond me, out into the night sky. “It means something, but I’m not certain what. He was trying to get a message to me—to his descendants.”
I felt uncomfortable again. Nothing was settled. “We still don’t know how Don knew about you or who sent those notes of his to me.”
“Sometimes in life, Destiny, we can’t know everything about everything.” He brushed his fingers against my cheek and I looked into his dark eyes.
“This is something I need to know, Jacques. I can’t rest until I know. Aren’t you worried that if Don knew about you, other people must?”
He sighed. “Yes, it worries me, but life must go on. We’ll find out somehow, but in the meantime you must feel better that we know your grandmother and Jennifer both poisoned Don?”
“I’d rather it hadn’t happened, and I’m not glad that they did it, but I’m glad we found out. And it was good they didn’t think I had anything to do with his murder. But, Jacques, I feel we’ll never be safe until you know who knows about you and the pack.”
“That’s the life we live, Destiny. There’ll always be enemies for people like us. Humans don’t understand us.” When I was silent, he added, “I’ll make that my promise to you. I will find out and I’ll find out before our wedding day. Will that make you happy?”
I smiled. “Thank you.”
“But I have to warn you, we’re never safe. We always have to look over our shoulders and be on our guard against threats to the pack. Can you live like that?”
“I have to now, and as long as I’m with you, I know I’ll be safe.”
He pulled me close to him. “You’ve made my life complete.”
“We belong together,” I said, glad that I’d finally found the one I was meant to be with.
He leaned into me and when he softly growled against my ear, I couldn’t help but giggle.
The End
Thank you for reading my book, Poor Little Witch Girl.
I hope you enjoyed it.
Stay tuned for Book 3, ‘The Witch Get Witcher.’
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Other books in this series:
Book 1 Think and Grow Witch
Maeve Hart
About me:
I love mysteries and I love an unexpected twist at the end. I set myself a challenge to write a cozy mystery series a
nd that’s what I’m doing. I’ve had a varied life and have flipped flopped from here to there never living in one place for long. Now I’ve settled in a small coastal town with my spoiled pooch, my computer, and a high-powered coffee machine.
