Potions and Pastries

by Bailey Cates

  “Or someone pushed for it. Orla’s family, or maybe the insurance company.” I told him about our visit from the insurance investigators that afternoon.

  “Five policies? That’s crazy,” he said.

  “No kidding. It makes you wonder—”

  “Hey, hon, I’m sorry to cut you off, but we just got called out. But I thought you’d want to know the ME didn’t find evidence of a heart attack or any other condition that could explain why Orla walked in front of that car.”

  “Oh. Wow. Okay, thanks.”

  I heard a ruckus in the background, and Declan said, “Gotta run. I’ll try to call later. Bye.” And he hung up.

  His call had given me even more to think about as I mixed up the brownies and poured the batter into the pan. Then I dribbled the peanut butter topping on top and drew a skewer through it to create a swirly pattern and distribute it more evenly with the dark chocolate goodness beneath. As I worked, I pondered what I knew so far about Orla’s death.

  It wasn’t much. She’d died suddenly, right in front of Lucy and me, and without any kind of warning. She’d had no reason that we knew of to step into the street, and I absolutely believed she hadn’t killed herself intentionally. I’d listed the possible ways someone could have killed her to Jaida, but they were all long shots. I mean, what kind of magical spell could make someone walk into traffic? A voodoo curse, maybe?

  Maybe it wasn’t anything but a simple accident. I racked my brain. Maybe Orla suffered from attention deficit disorder and stopped talking in the middle of her sentence because she suddenly thought of something else. Or saw something across the street. Or someone. Maybe she’d lost her balance or slipped on the edge of the curb. I hadn’t seen the exact moment when it happened, but it was possible.

  Except . . .

  Lucy would have noticed something like that, and she hadn’t. The look she’d reported seeing in Orla’s eyes before she stepped off the curb had really disturbed my aunt. Add in Mungo’s behavior, the warning I’d received from my ghostly grandmother, and Declan’s/Connell’s assertion that there was something suspicious about Orla’s death, and I really had to believe she had somehow been killed.

  When I’d sneaked a look at the Firststate Mutual investigators’ file on Orla, I hadn’t seen how much each of the life insurance policies on Orla had been for. Still, several people were going to receive at least some money as a result of her death. And she’d been on the way to see a lawyer. Had it been the one who specialized in insurance cases? What had that been all about? Had she been trying to find a way to cancel one or more insurance policies on her own life?

  Fern O’Cleary, Finn Black, John Black, Nuala O’Cleary, and Aiden Black.

  Not Taber O’Cleary, but presumably, he would benefit from anything his wife, Fern, inherited. Plus, his daughter was the beneficiary of another policy. Mimsey said Ginnie Black was married to Finn, so she’d benefit, too. My unpleasant encounter with John Black earlier that evening would have put him smack-dab in the middle of the suspect list even if he hadn’t been one of the five beneficiaries. And what about his son, Aiden, whose only claim to fame so far was that he’d been sued for shoddy concrete work?

  I put the brownies in the oven and went up to the loft. This time, I chose an unopened deck of Rider-Waite cards that I’d purchased for spell work rather than the Kitchen Tarot I loved so much. Another spread wasn’t going to tell me anything about Orla’s fortune, but I wanted to see what the cards said regarding whether I should continue to look into her death.

  Back in the living room, I settled on the couch. Mungo jumped up beside me and watched with interest as I opened the deck. As I shuffled the stiff cards, I deepened my breathing and tried to calm my mind. When I felt ready, I formed a clear question in my head.

  Will I discover the truth about Orla Black’s death?

  I laid three cards out on the trunk that served as my coffee table.

  The first card, which represented the past, was the Star. Hope, renewal, inspiration, and the five senses. The female figure on the front had one foot on land and one foot in the water—practical abilities and common sense on the one hand, and intuition and inner resources on the other.

  Well, that fits me to a T since I moved to Savannah and began practicing the Craft. A down-to-earth witch, that’s me.

  The middle card, for the present, was the Hanged Man. Surrender, restriction, attainment of knowledge, letting go . . .

  And sacrifice.

  I stared at the upside-down figure hanging from the tree of life for several seconds.

  It’s not a negative card. It’s an opportunity card, one that may mean finding the truth. Sooner than later. At least that’s what Jaida had taught me.

  Sighing, I took a deep breath and tried to think positive. Then I turned over the third card and stopped cold. The Tower stared up at me. The white tower had flames shooting out of the windows, and people were leaping out of them, falling headfirst toward earth.

  Danger. Crisis. Change. Destruction. Lies discovered through shocking truth. But ultimately liberation as a result of all that. For me? For Orla? For someone else entirely?

  I silently cursed the murkiness of divination and my lack of skill with it. With a sigh, I packed the cards back into their box and rose to check on the brownies.

  They were cooling in the pan when a knock sounded on the door. I opened a shutter and looked out the window to see Margie waving at me from the front step. She lifted a ginormous bottle of pink wine and waggled her eyebrows. Grinning, I unlocked the door, and she blew in.

  “Hey, darlin’. I know your lover boy’s gone for the night, and I didn’t want you to get lonely.”

  “That’s sweet of you,” I said, immediately heading into the kitchen for glasses.

  “Oh, who am I kidding? I need to take advantage of Redding being home for a whole week. He loves spending all kinds of time with the kiddos, and I love that he’s doing it. I need a break sometimes, too, you know.” She stooped and scratched Mungo on the head. “Hey, sweet pea. How’s the dog’s life?”

  He grinned up at her and panted.

  “And here I thought mothering was effortless,” I said.

  “Ha!”

  “Actually, you do make it look that way. You’re a great mom.” I placed the glasses on the coffee table, along with a plate of still-warm brownies.

  She grinned. “Thanks. But right now, I’m going to let Redding be a great dad while I have a drink with my friend. Maybe two.” Then she spied the brownies. “Oh, you’re kidding. Not the peanut butter kind.” She picked one up. “Mm. Still warm? You knew I was coming?”

  “I had a feeling.” I gave her a little smile, unwilling to admit I’d made an entire pan of brownies for myself.

  I gestured toward the couch, but she plopped into one of the wingbacks, put her half-eaten brownie on a napkin, and reached for a glass. As she poured her favorite libation, I scooped up the deck of tarot cards to put on a nearby shelf.

  Not before she saw them, though. “Oooh! Do you read tarot, Katie?”

  “Not really,” I hedged, accepting the glass filled to the brim with sweet pink wine. I took a quick sip so it wouldn’t spill.

  “Well, you must, if you have the cards and all.”

  “I just like to get hints about things,” I said, reaching for a brownie. “Sometimes a card will make me think differently about a situation, you know?”

  She nodded and took a healthy swig. “Sounds good to me. But does that mean you won’t read my cards?”

  I sighed. “Bad idea. I’m not exactly qualified.” Despite Jaida’s training, I wasn’t lying. Heck, I apparently wasn’t even good at reading my own.

  “Please?” She raised her eyebrows in playful supplication.

  “What kind of reading did you have in mind?” I asked.

  She looked blank.

 
“Do you have a question that you want answered?” I clarified.

  “Oh. Let me see. . . .” Her forehead squinched in thought. Then her face cleared, and she beamed at me. “I guess there’s nothing I’m too worried about.”

  “That’s great!” I said, and started to put the cards away.

  “So I think I just want to know my future.”

  My lips parted in surprise. “Your whole future?” I rolled my eyes. “Sure, Margie. No problem.”

  She grinned. “Okay, how about just next week?”

  “Maybe you should just call dial-a-psychic,” I said.

  My friend sobered a little. “Come on, Katie. It’s just for fun.”

  I considered. “Okay, I’ll do a quick three-card reading.” After all, if that was all I was ready to do for myself, how could I presume to do a more elaborate spread for Margie?

  She shrugged and swallowed some wine. “M’kay.”

  I handed her the cards. “Shuffle.”

  She set down her glass and shuffled the deck with the surprising expertise of a dealer in a Las Vegas casino. Then she handed it back to me and retrieved her wineglass.

  Taking a deep breath, I laid out the cards. This was the first time I’d read for anyone besides myself or Jaida as part of my tarot instruction.

  Quickly, before I could back out, I laid the three cards on the coffee table. Then I turned the first one up. It was the Ten of Cups.

  I smiled.

  “Ooh. Is that good?” she asked.

  “This is your past,” I said. “And here I see a happy family.”

  She blew a raspberry. “That’s not very interesting.”

  I gave her a stern look. “To those people who don’t have a happy family, it’s more than interesting. It’s the holy grail.”

  Margie blinked, then looked pleased. “You’re right. That Redding and I and the kids are happy as clams isn’t news, but I really need to pay more attention to being grateful for it.”

  “Every day,” I said.

  “Every day,” she agreed.

  I turned over another card. It was the Judgment card.

  She frowned. “That doesn’t look good.”

  “Hmm. There are a lot of meanings, of course, and I’m no expert. But have you been thinking about making a change in your life lately?”

  Her eyes widened. “How did you know that?”

  I shrugged and stayed quiet. If she was happy with her family, it wouldn’t be anything to disrupt that.

  “I’ve been thinking about getting a part-time job now that the JJs are in school. I thought maybe my mother-in-law could watch Baby Bart a few times a week if I find something that I like.”

  I couldn’t help but grin. I was doing pretty well for a neophyte. “Sounds good. Let me know if I can help.” Feeling cocky, I turned over the third card.

  It was Death.

  “Oh, no!” Margie said, standing so suddenly her pink wine sloshed in her glass.

  I waved my hand. “Stop it. Death can be a great card. Sit.”

  She sat but still looked pensive. “I don’t know how death can be a good thing.”

  “Well, it can be death of a situation you want to get out of—”

  “I don’t want to get out of my situation!” she wailed.

  Grabbing her glass, I filled it again. “Drink this and listen to me. The Death card simply signifies change.” I didn’t mention how big the change might be.

  “Change?”

  I nodded. Then I had it. Tarot wasn’t always about the huge things. “It might just be that you end up getting that part-time job you mentioned.”

  Visibly relaxing, she grabbed another brownie and sat back. “Whew. You had me worried there for a minute.”

  I gathered up the cards and returned the deck to the box. Then I took it over and put it on the shelf. No more readings for me tonight.

  Margie cocked her head as I came and sat back down. “You seem kind of down tonight. Is everything okay?”

  “Sure,” I said, then paused. “Well, actually, there was an accident in front of the Honeybee yesterday. I guess I’m a little shaken up about it. A woman was killed.”

  Her eyes grew round. “Oh, Katie, that’s terrible! Tell me it wasn’t someone you knew.”

  I grimaced. “Actually, that’s why I had the tarot cards out. Her death made me think of them. See, she was a fortune-teller who worked down by the riverfront. Orla Black. She was one of our customers.”

  My neighbor was staring at me. “She died in a car accident?”

  I blinked. “You knew her?”

  Her head slowly bobbed. She looked down at the wineglass in her hand, then lifted it to her lips. After she swallowed, she said, “A little. One day a few years ago, my sister and I had lunch together. Afterward, we walked along the river, and Ms. Black was there. On a lark, I had her read my fortune. Oh, Katie, she was wonderful!”

  “She could be quite theatrical,” I agreed.

  “No, that’s not what I meant. She told me I was pregnant.”

  I leaned forward. “And you were?”

  Margie nodded. “Baby Bart. It was too early for me to even think such a thing.” She blushed. “I’m pretty sure he was conceived just two nights before she told me.”

  “Wow.” I sat back and took a drink of wine myself.

  Margie stayed for another hour, but bringing up Orla’s death had taken the fizz out of the evening. The wine bottle was nearly as full when she left as when she arrived. Outside, she lifted a hand in farewell. “The JJs are super excited about the egg-coloring party tomorrow night.”

  “It’ll be fun,” I called to her as she crossed my driveway to her house. Then I went inside to see what else I could find out about Irish travelers on the Internet.

  And to very carefully avoid the image of the Death card that lurked in the back of my mind. Everything I’d told Margie was true. Or could be true. But usually the Death card boded more than just change. It predicted transformation on a large scale. Sometimes that transformation was for the best—and sometimes it wasn’t.

  Now I understood Orla’s predicament when it had come to telling her clients’ future. What if it was something they didn’t want to know? And what if you didn’t know enough to properly interpret the bits and pieces that came from the cards or anywhere else?

  From now on, I’m sticking to good old spell magic. This divination thing blows.

  • • •

  I had a restless night fraught with dreams of tarot cards with no faces and the roar of car engines. At three thirty, I finally rose, dressed in running clothes, and stretched. Soon I was out on the street, pounding through my neighborhood in the cool darkness. Stars still glinted overhead in the deep velvet of the sky, fading from view near the almost full moon. It hovered above the horizon, its oblique light sufficient to illuminate the patches between the streetlamps.

  A dog barked. A raccoon family perched along a front fence, the mother and two cubs my sole audience. There was no traffic, no cooking smells, only the fading fragrance of dryer sheets from someone’s late-night laundry binge and the slightest hint of woodsmoke from the ashes of a hearth fire.

  The silence quieted my dream-scrambled brain, and soon my steady footfalls triggered a flood of endorphins. By the time I’d completed my favorite four-mile loop, my mind was clear and my mood considerably brighter.

  I showered and fixed Mungo’s and my breakfast while my short hair air-dried. Luckily, he liked steel-cut oatmeal as much as I did. He preferred a splash of milk, while I added banana, roasted cocoa nibs, and smoked sea salt to mine.

  A little before five, we were bopping downtown, the windows down in the Bug and rock music rolling out of the speakers. At the bakery, Mungo trundled into the office to go back to sleep on his club chair. I flipped on lights, found the same station I’d been liste
ning to in the car, set the volume on the stereo system a little louder than we kept it during business hours, and started preheating the ovens.

  When I was a little girl, Nonna had once told me that whatever happened, it was up to me to decide what to do with it. So for now, this morning, I was going to enjoy doing the work I loved so much in my very own bakery.

  Chapter 11

  “So how do you want me to cut out the centers?” Iris asked. “I could try a sharp paring knife.”

  “Here, try this,” I said, handing her a one-inch circular cookie cutter. “It should be about the right size.”

  “Okay.” Carefully removing the top knot off the muffin-sized brioche bun, she gently worked the cookie cutter down into the center and drew out the core to leave a tidy pocket. Then she reached for the pastry bag of lemon curd and piped the hole full of creamy goodness.

  “Put a little more inside,” I said, peering over her shoulder. “It will give the top something to adhere to.”

  Sure enough, when she put the top of the brioche back, it stuck nicely.

  “Do I smell cinnamon?” she asked, sniffing the core she’d just removed before popping it in her mouth and slowly chewing. “Yep. Cinnamon,” she mumbled around the rich mouthful. “Ummy.”

  “Cinnamon for healing and love, and lemon for . . . ?” I prompted.

  She swallowed. “Lemon for purification and protection.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Cookie!” I heard Lucy greet our friend.

  I waved from where Iris and I were working. “Hey.”

  “I’ll start your breve,” my uncle said from behind the espresso counter.

  “Hi, Katie. Oh, no coffee for me this morning, Ben. I’ll have herbal tea today.”

  “Really?” he asked. Cookie was known for her coffee consumption.

  “Ginger, if you have it,” she said.

  “Uh, sure,” he said.

  “Thanks!” Cookie called as she wended her way back to the kitchen.

  Having worked at the Honeybee for a few months soon after it opened, she appeared right at home as she leaned against the wall by the apron hooks. Today she wore a slightly longer skirt than usual and a sleeveless tie-dyed tunic. Her hair was woven into a loose braid that fell over one shoulder.