5 A Charming Magic

by Tonya Kappes

  Rowl, rowl. Mr. Prince Charming batted at an old stone. He rubbed his body to the right, turning and then rubbing his body to the left, pawing it in between. Rowl! He screeched wanting our attention.

  “Your bag and your cat are going nuts.” Gerald pointed out that Madame Torres was glowing a bright fiery red.

  “Oh.” I pulled her out and sat her between me and Gerald.

  She showed us Main Street in Whispering Falls. The geraniums that hung in the baskets were lifeless, the dark sky was grey, the streets were empty.

  Gerald groaned.

  I looked in horror. It wasn’t the same city I had left. Petunia was right. Everything in Whispering Falls was dying.

  Madame Torres scanned the stores and zeroed in on Magical Moments. The beautiful flower bodice was no longer vibrant with colors. It was brown and the flowers had fallen on the ground in a puddle.

  “No! I didn’t do it!” Oscar was being cuffed on the inside of the shop by Colton. “I would never hurt anyone!” he screamed. “I’m putting in a security system for Arabella.”

  Mary Lynn was behind him. Her small balled-up cheeks were stained from the tears dripping out of her eyes. She stood in silence as they took Oscar away. To me that was a sure sign she knew who was behind this whole mess.

  A couple of spiders scurried across the floor. There were spider eggs all over the floor, breaking open faster than Colton could step on them. The color creations in Magical Moments were dying by the second. Closely I watched spiders barely touch a leaf, instantly killing the flower.

  “I’m telling you! Find June Heal! Find Arabella. She is the one who hired me!” he shouted, jerking his body to the left and right.

  “You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet,” I gasped recalling Faith Mortimer’s Whispering Falls Gazette headline.

  “What?” Gerald shook his head and eyed me like I was crazy. “Ezmeralda is behind those Vermillian Spiders!” Gerald voice was loud and boisterous.

  “The headlines. Faith told us about the eggs. She was warning us about the spiders.”

  Mr. Prince Charming continued to bat at the stone.

  “Stop that crazy cat of yours!” Gerald demanded.

  Madame Torres lit up again, grabbing our attention.

  “Oscar Park, you are hereby under arrest for the—” Colton threw Oscar in the Whispering Falls jail cell and slammed the door shut.

  “What?” I grabbed the glass ball and shook it. “What did he say?”

  Madame Torres went black.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  I slumped back down. Defeated. Angry. Sad. Bitter. All the emotions twirled around my insides knowing there was nothing I could do.

  “June?” Gerald’s voice was a little less rigid and more tender. “June?”

  Slowly I lifted my head.

  “Arabella help us,” Gerald told her.

  “I snuck in here. If Mom or her minions find me, I will be right with you in there.” She crawled around on the ground searching for anything to open the cell doors to let us out.

  He rubbed his mustache before reaching over in the darkness to grab his top hat. His hand ran along the rim knocking off the dirt and placed it back on his head. “We are Dark-Siders. I have always lied to Isadora Solstice. But you, when you came, you gave light to my world. There is nothing but darkness and sadness here. My Arabella is talented.” His eyes caught mine. They bore deep to my soul, stirring my intuition. “She is a medium. She can talk to the spirits who have left this world.”

  “You mean…” I held back tears forming in my eyes. “You mean she can see Darla? You can see my mom?” I asked with an urgent voice.

  Without saying a word, she nodded.

  Mewl. Mr. Prince Charming hadn’t stopped pawing at the stone.

  “Only an Ancient Goth could bring Vermillian Spiders out of Azarcabam.” Gerald was putting two-and-two together. “Which means that Ezmeralda not only used her wicked powers but she used her own daughter to bring harm to all of Whispering Falls.”

  “Ancient Goth?” There were so many new things I was learning about the spiritual world. Why on earth did Isadora Solstice appoint me as the Village President when I clearly knew nothing about the spiritual world?

  “I’m afraid it is a wedding gift from my wife, Ezmeralda.” Gerald hung his head, defeated, broken.

  “And she was punishing you by hurting Petunia?” I asked and crawled over to where Mr. Prince Charming continued to pace back and forth.

  “Yes,” he whispered. “I have been trying to get the divorce from the Ancient Council and with Mary Lynn’s help.”

  “Does Petunia know any of this?” I asked and ran my fingers along the edges of the stones. Mr. Prince Charming sat, a proud look on his face.

  “No.”

  “Is that why you wanted to wait to have the wedding?”

  “Yes.” His one-word answers were making everything so clear. “She doesn’t know about Arabella either.”

  “Oh.” My finger must’ve triggered a secret passageway. The stones fell to the ground in crumbles, exposing a light tunnel.

  “Got it!” Arabella held a key up in the air. She quickly unlocked the cell door. She pointed to the secret passageway. “We have to go that way though. The front of the castle is filled with guards and cheering crowds.”

  “Cheering crowds?” I asked.

  “They love a good hanging here.” She held her hands in the air doing a gesture of a hanging. “You, my dear, are next in line,” she warned as her eyebrows cocked.

  Gerald jumped up behind me and grabbed Arabella in a big hug reminding me of the scene I had witnessed in the back of The Gathering Grove where they were hugging. Now I knew why Arabella was telling him that he couldn’t go through with the wedding.

  All of us looked deep in the tunnel. The cobwebs were thick, which meant no one had been down there in a long time.

  “Let’s go!” I motioned for them to come on as I threw my bag over my shoulder. “Today is not a day I planned on dying. I have to get back and save Whispering Falls.”

  “And Oscar?” Arabella smiled.

  “Especially Oscar.” I smiled back in a peace-offering kind of way.

  “Wait.” There was caution in Gerald’s voice. He put his hand out, motioning me to move out of the way. He stepped into the hole and took a closer look at the webs. “If these are Vermillian webs, we will not make it out alive.”

  I shivered. “No!” I yelled after Mr. Prince Charming who darted right on in.

  “It appears to be fine. We can go.” Gerald smiled for the first time since I had seen him.

  Without another word, we followed my precious fairy-god cat through the underworld of Azarcabam. The tunnel ended right on the outskirts of town, exactly where I had started. There was the old locomotive waiting for us.

  None of us looked back as we each stepped aboard the old rickety hunk of steel, taking a seat on the red velvet benches.

  We held on to the sides as the train’s wheels turned and creaked along the rails. The dangling tassels hit the passenger windows in a rhythmic back and forth motion. Mr. Prince Charming curled up and closed his eyes.

  “Now what?” I asked Gerald, but was afraid of his answers.

  “Well,” he rubbed his hand down his face. “We have to find Ezmeralda. She holds the key to ending this.”

  “Exactly how do we do that?” I asked knowing good and well I wasn’t going back to Azarcabam any time soon.

  “The only way for Arabella to live in Whispering Falls would be to get the permission of the Ancient Council, which Ezmeralda sits on as the Ancient Goth. That has to be my number one goal.” His lips thinned. Sadness stood on his face. “I will have to say goodbye to Petunia. Ezmeralda will never grant me a divorce, nor will she let Petunia live if I ask for one.”

  “How can we stop her? How can we get her to grant the divorce?” There had to be some way.

  “There are ways. But we have to capture her, which is hard to do since she is a
teletransporter.” Gerald’s words only confirmed my worst nightmare; Ezmeralda was not going to go down without a fight.

  “I’m sorry I accused you of doing all of these things.” I felt like I needed to clear the air before the train dropped us off.

  “I’m sorry too.” Arabella reached out and squeezed my hand.

  “Here is the ring.” I opened my bag. The ring didn’t seem so important any more.

  “Ring?” Gerald was confused.

  I reached in my bag and felt around for the vintage ring from Bella’s Baubles I had found in Gerald’s room back in Azarcabam.

  Once I found it, I held it out in my palm.

  “Where did you get Petunia’s ring?” he asked.

  “I found it on the floor of your room back in Azarcabam.”

  “Ezmeralda,” he whispered. “She must have gone to see Petunia and took it off her finger. When Arabella told me to get the ring, I thought she saw Petunia looking at it. She said Petunia wanted it. It’s your ring?” He sounded more confused.

  Something didn’t add up. I didn’t tell him that Arabella had seen me in Bella’s and overheard me tell Bella that I wanted the ring. I decided to keep it to myself.

  “No. Not my ring.” I smiled.

  The train came to an abrupt stop. We held onto the edges of the bench and swayed back and forth along with the tassels until it was safe to stand. The door flung open and the stairs descended.

  Mr. Prince Charming ran out before Arabella, Gerald and I got our footing to stand.

  “I guess we are home.” Gerald walked over to the steps and looked out.

  “Home.” Arabella nodded. “That sounds and feels nice.”

  We were in the wheat field where it all started. The wheat swooshed with the night wind. In the distance, the sky was still dark and grey over Whispering Falls. The deadness filled the air.

  “How do we breathe life back into the village?” It might seem like a silly question, but it was a necessary one.

  “We have to get Ezmeralda to confess.” Gerald declared like it was going to be easy as pie.

  “How do we do that?”

  “We wait.” Ahem, he cleared his throat, buttoned up his coattails, and straightened his shoulders. With his head held high, he took the first step off the train with me and Arabella following closely behind.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  “Welcome to Whispering Falls, A Charming Village,” read the old beat-up wooden sign that stood in the middle of the wheat field. I smiled. Reading those words sent a joy through me.

  “Are you ready?” I looked back at them. He was again the vision of class as he stood in perfect posture. It was the only Gerald I knew before my little trip to Azarcabam. Arabella was as beautiful as ever.

  Without a word between us, they nodded, not looking at me, but across the wheat field.

  I touched the wooden sign. The field parted. The brick pathway appeared. We took our first steps, knowing the path would lead us straight to Whispering Falls.

  There wasn’t a word spoken between us as we got closer to the village. The grey clouds had darkened to an almost deep black. My cottage was eerily silent as we passed it.

  Gerald announced. “I have to get to Colton and clear all of this up.”

  My intuition hit me. A deep-rooted fear sent a chill to the depths of my bones. What if Colton didn’t believe us? What if we couldn’t get Ezmeralda?

  “How do we get Ezmeralda here?” I shuddered to hear his answer.

  He stopped at the top of the hill, looking down on Whispering Falls. He turned to me and placed his hands on my shoulders. “She loves a good fight. She’ll be here. June,” he chose his words carefully, “when you came to Whispering Falls, we knew you were the one who could move the spiritual world forward. You were the chosen one. As a member of the village council, I encouraged them to vote you as the new President because I thought you would be able to bring the two spiritual worlds together.”

  Without asking questions, I knew he was talking about the Good-Siders and the Dark-Siders.

  “You made the initial steps and closed some of the distance by making Whispering Falls a joint community.” He smiled. “It was everything we had hoped for. But there are Dark-Siders who will never want that day to come. They are still looking for the Ultimate Spell that is held deep within the Good-Siders.”

  The Ultimate Spell. I groaned remembering how I had already had to battle one Dark-Sider over the spell that would bring the spiritual world to an end.

  “You know as well as I know, if the ultimate Dark-Sider got their hands on the spell, it would be all over for us.” Gerald was giving me a warning.

  “Do you mean that Ezmeralda could be the ultimate Dark-Sider?” My mouth dropped. My gut told me the answer before he confirmed it.

  “Yes.” He dropped his hands. We both turned toward Whispering Falls, taking in what can happen if the wrong sorts of spiritualists come to the city.

  “Do you think Ezmeralda is here?” I knew these questions stung him to his core, but they were questions I had to ask.

  “I don’t know.” He held his arm out and pointed toward the village. “That is what you and I have to find out.”

  “I can get her here,” Arabella chimed in. “I will go back and live my life as a gypsy if it means saving Whispering Falls from her.”

  “No!” Gerald gasped, breaking down into tears and grabbing his daughter.

  “Let’s just see how things go.” I began the journey into the city like I had done every single morning over the past year. Plus I knew the police station like the back of my hand since I had spent so much time there with Oscar when he was the police chief.

  A couple of fireflies darted around us, which clued me in that it was night time in Whispering Falls. The fireflies were the teenagers in the spiritual world who were taken from us at a much too early age. Their souls came back in the form of the fluttery little lighted creatures.

  “Go on.” I batted at them. I didn’t want them to break our undercover. If Colton or anyone saw them, they would know the nosy teens were up to something.

  The station was dark. I motioned for Gerald and Arabella to follow me. I looked around for Mr. Prince Charming, but I didn’t see him. The carriage lights that lined Main Street were dimly lit, not the vibrant glow that used to light the way for our magical village.

  There was a tiny basement window in the back of the police station where I used to sneak into Oscar’s apartment when I would bring him a morning coffee or a good morning kiss. We always left it unlocked and since Colton lived with Ophelia above Ever After Books, I knew the only person in the jail was Oscar, leaving us full access to the apartment I was sure no one had touched since Oscar had left.

  I was right. The window was still unlocked. I pushed it up and started to climb in. Once inside, I looked out at Gerald who was much larger than I.

  “If you think I’m going to try to fit in that hole, you are crazier than I thought you were, June Heal.” He took his top hat off, held it to his chest and drummed his fingers on it.

  “Hold on.” I held my finger up and let Arabella slip in behind me. “I can let you in the door.”

  I shut the window back, keeping it unlocked of course, and flipped on the light switch. The basement apartment was exactly how Oscar had left it. After all, when he denounced his spiritual heritage, the Order of Elders, including Mary Lynn, immediately stripped him of his gift.

  Abruptly I stopped when I saw the picture Chandra had taken of Oscar and me on our first Hallow’s Eve parade in Whispering Falls. I was looking straight at the camera with a big grin on my face. Oscar’s arms were around me and he was kissing me on the cheek.

  I touched my cheek with one hand and used the other to stroke the picture before I stuck it in my bag. It was a memory that couldn’t be taken away from me, even though Oscar didn’t remember it.

  “That’s so sweet.” Arabella stood behind me.

  “No more time to waste. He’s up there waiting
to be rescued.” We made our way up the back steps that led to the office part of the jail, including the cell where Oscar had to be.

  “June Heal, I’ve never been so glad to see you.” Oscar gripped the bars on the cell door. “Get me out of here. I’m never coming back to this crazy town again. And this means I’m not doing your alarm system.” He pointed at Arabella.

  “Shh,” she warned him. He glared at her.

  I didn’t say a word. I looked out the front windows to make sure there wasn’t anyone outside who could see me.

  “My mom was here. She knew you were coming. She waited.” Arabella picked up a jar of Vermillian Spiders that was unopened. “She isn’t going to let my dad marry Petunia and she isn’t going to let Petunia live. And she is planning on killing the entire village.”

  “You’ve got that right.” The voice came from the deep darkness of the air.

  “Show yourself,” I demanded.

  The light switched on. I knew the woman standing before me.

  “What the hell?” Oscar stumbled back in the cell with his mouth wide open.

  “Nice to see you again, June Heal.” She put her hand out for me to shake.

  My eyes narrowed. Her power was so strong. There was nothing I could do to her. I was helpless.

  “Do something June!” Oscar screamed.

  “Like what? Kill her with my intuition?” I quipped.

  “My daughter. My dear dear daughter. Yes, you helped me out more than you know.” Her voice dripped, a smile crossed her face. “I came to your little shop, June, which is very charming. I had to see exactly who we could pin this little murder on since there was no way I was handing over my family to the likes of a tree hugger.”

  Her laughter, soaked with evil, filled the station.

  “Since you seemed so jealous of my dear cheating husband and his filthy friend, it was a no brainer.” She swept across the room in her cloak and veil. The black onyx jewels dangled around her face. There was an onyx ring placed on her ring finger. Much larger and prettier than the little vintage one from Bella’s. “After all, you don’t have anything to live for. Right dear?” She looked over at Arabella.