Potions and Pastries

by Bailey Cates

  I stared after her, then turned to Lucy. “What’s wrong with my eyebrows?”

  “Nothing, honey. Your eyebrows are lovely.”

  Mrs. Standish peered into my face. “Well, that left one is a little shaggy. Might as well take the woman up on her offer.”

  I felt my face grow warm. Had Steve and Angie heard? They didn’t seem to be paying attention.

  “Here you go, dear.” Lucy held out a bag to Mrs. Standish.

  The other woman took it and said conspiratorially, “I must ask—what on earth makes a simple chocolate chip cookie taste like something the angels sent down from heaven?”

  I looked around as if the walls might have ears. “You promise you won’t tell?”

  She made a zipping motion over her lips.

  Leaning close, I whispered, “We brown the butter that goes into the batter.”

  “Oh!” She shuddered with delight. “That’s ingenious.” Beaming, she paid Lucy and said good-bye.

  “You know she’s going to tell everyone our secret now,” my aunt said.

  “Probably. Better than obsessing over Cookie’s ‘bun in the oven,’ though.”

  Lucy laughed.

  “Or giving me grooming advice,” I grumbled.

  • • •

  We closed the bakery at five, and Ben got ready to leave. “I’m stopping by Sweet Spice to grab my supper, then spending the whole evening camped in front of the television watching the Braves,” he said with a grin.

  “I’m jealous,” I said. “I love their food.” Sweet Spice had fantastic Caribbean dishes.

  Lucy gave him a kiss. “Enjoy yourself, my love. I’ll be home in a few hours, and Colette will be with me. We’ll be sure not to disturb you.”

  He gazed down at his wife with evident adoration. “Don’t be silly. I forgot she was coming over. Do you want me to pick up some extra food for you?”

  Her eyes danced. “Well, if you insist. How about some jerk chicken?”

  “You’ve got it,” he said.

  Bianca and Colette came in then.

  “Hello, young lady,” Ben said to Colette. “I understand you’ll be spending part of the evening with us.”

  “Yes, sir. My mother has a hot date.”

  Bianca bit her lip to keep from laughing.

  My uncle, on the other hand, didn’t hold back. “Ha! Well, you’re in luck, because I’m cooking tonight. And that means takeout from Sweet Spice. How does some jerk chicken sound?”

  “Actually, I prefer their curried shrimp,” the little girl said.

  Ben raised his eyebrows. “All righty, then. I’ll see you two ladies after your egg-dyeing party.” He kissed Lucy again and left.

  Margie and the JJs were the next to arrive. “Hi, Katie! Hi, Lucy!” the twins said in unison as soon as they came in the door. They grinned up at me, identical eyes bright and their cheeks tan from running around in the sunshine. White blond hair like Margie’s stuck out from under Jonathan’s baseball cap, while Julia’s was drawn back into a ponytail that bounced every time she moved her head.

  “Hey, guys.” I gestured to a big table in the corner. “You can toss your stuff over there. Everyone can.”

  The entrance bell jingled. We turned to see Ginnie Black and Nuala in the doorway. Nuala’s eyes were wider than ever in her thin face as she looked around at the group.

  “Come on in,” I said. “We’re just about to get started.”

  Lucy took a step but then hung back as Bianca’s daughter walked over to the newcomers. “Hi, Ms. Black,” Colette said.

  Ginnie nodded. “It’s good to see you. How’s third grade going?”

  “Okay. I like my teacher.” She turned to the older girl. “Hi. I’m Colette. You must be Nuala.” The way she said it, she might have been the older of the two.

  Nuala nodded. “Hi.”

  “Don’t be scared. Everyone’s real nice. And Katie and my mom—” She pointed. “That’s my mom. Her name’s Bianca. She told me you were coming. Anyway, they have all sorts of fun stuff set up in the back.”

  “Okay,” Nuala said with a little smile.

  “Have you ever been in the kitchen of a professional bakery?”

  “Huh-uh.”

  “It’s pretty cool. Come on.” The two girls went into the kitchen. They could have been sisters from the back, with their slight figures and dark hair.

  Jonathan and Julia exchanged glances, nodded at each other, and followed.

  “Well, I guess Colette took care of her own introductions,” I said with a smile. Ginnie had been watching her niece with an indulgent smile. Now she said, “She’s a good kid. A gem in class, and smart as they come.”

  My eyes cut to Bianca. Quiet pride shone on her face.

  I introduced Margie to Ginnie, and they exchanged pleasantries as we followed the kids back to the egg-dyeing stations.

  “Okay, everyone,” I said. “Over there in the corner, we have natural colors set up. Here in front, the regular egg dyes from the store. Then at this end, lots of decorations for the eggs once they’re dry.” I walked over to another counter. “And we have some other experiments to try here.”

  Colette and Nuala craned their necks to see.

  “I thought we could try some tie-dye and marbling,” I explained. “Now, everyone grab an apron and put it on. Don’t worry about staining them—I chose them just for tonight.”

  “Green,” Jonathan said.

  I turned toward him. “Sure. We have green dye.”

  “That’s all I want. Green. Lots and lots of green eggs. All colors of green.”

  Lucy’s head tipped to the side, and I could tell she was amused. “How come?”

  “For the ham.”

  Margie said, “He rediscovered Dr. Seuss on National Reading Day a few months ago.”

  My aunt’s face cleared. “Of course. Sam-I-am. Okay, buddy. Let’s go get you set up with some green dye. How about making some of the eggs striped?”

  Jonathan nodded, the picture of seriousness. “That would be good. As long as they’re green.”

  Margie rolled her eyes and led Julia over to the cups of dye mixed with vinegar that I’d already set up. Nuala and Colette had already started dunking eggs in the metallic versions. Vaguely, I recalled my magpie stage as a tween, when I loved anything that shone or shimmered.

  “You said you have some natural dyes?” Ginnie asked. “I’ve seen eggs dyed with green or black tea. Like that?”

  I nodded and waved her over to the corner. “Like that, only with a few other colors. I did brew up some tea, and I like the results, I guess. Only . . . they’re kind of dull.”

  She peered over my shoulder at the eggs I’d already dipped a few times. “They look like they came from the farmers’ market. Like eggs actual chickens would lay.”

  “Right. That’s it. They’re white eggs that look like brown eggs now, or those green-blue eggs Araucana chickens lay. No wonder they don’t seem like Easter eggs.”

  “Well, Araucanas are also called Easter egg chickens,” she said.

  I looked at her sideways.

  She shrugged. “My mom grew up on a farm.”

  “And your dad?” I asked, stirring the mess of purple cabbage leaves that were soaking in hot water and vinegar. They were supposed to give off a blue dye. Weirdly, the red onion skins produced a green color once the vinegar was added.

  “Detroit,” she said. “Three generations of automobile workers on that side.”

  Putting an egg into a wire holder, I said, “So you’re not part of . . . the . . . uh . . .”

  Ginnie balanced an egg in another holder, then dunked it into a yellow-orange mixture of turmeric and paprika. “The ‘family’? Nope. I’m the black sheep of the Black family. Of my own as well. My parents acted like marrying Finn was the same as running off and
joining the circus or something.”

  “Well,” I said, treading carefully. She seemed willing to talk about her in-laws, but I didn’t want to alienate her. “They do have, er, circuslike aspects to them.”

  I needn’t have worried that she’d take offense, because she laughed. “You mean the sideshows? Ventriloquism and unicycles, shell games and”—she sighed—“fortune-telling. Poor Orla.”

  “Poor Orla,” I echoed, remembering how her face had lit up when she spoke of Nuala. I dipped my egg into the pink dye I’d made from crushed amaranth flowers.

  “As if I didn’t earn my spending money in college with a magic act,” Ginnie said. “They sure didn’t seem to mind that.”

  “Who?”

  “My parents,” she said. “That’s how I met Finn. In Florida.”

  I must have looked confused, because she said, “The magic act. I worked onstage a bit, but I had a street show, too. Made more money working the tourists, you know.”

  Magic . . .

  I sent out a few tendrils of intuition but didn’t get a hint of any unusual magical power. That didn’t mean she wasn’t developing abilities in the Craft. Could she have killed Orla somehow in the process of a spell? On purpose or even by accident like when I’d almost killed Declan? I considered my next words carefully.

  “Magic, huh. So you’re some kind of sorcerer or witch?”

  Chapter 14

  Lucy, who was bent over helping Colette and Nuala decide what kind of ribbon to apply to their drying eggs, heard me and stood upright. The JJs had been carrying on a constant, tumbling commentary on their activities in the background, and it continued unabated as Margie mopped up a mess they’d made on the counter.

  Ginnie blew a raspberry. “A witch? Good heavens. Of course not. I’m a street magician—or was one. Sleight of hand, card tricks, a little hypnotism. That kind of stuff.” She leaned a little closer and grinned. “Some of those skills still come in handy in the classroom, though.”

  “Ah,” I said.

  “Anyway, Finn had a mime act with his sister. We got along right away. Next thing I knew, we were dating. Then we eloped.”

  “Eloped?”

  “Well, my parents didn’t approve of my marrying a mime, and his family didn’t approve of his marrying outside of . . . well, tradition. The exception was Orla. She was great, right from the beginning. John wanted Finn to get the marriage annulled—can you believe that? But Orla stood up for us. For love, she said. She told him we were destined to be together.”

  “Good for her,” I said.

  I retrieved my pink egg and set it on a rack to dry. Then I placed a bottle cap in the bottom of a ramekin, balanced an egg on top of it, and carefully poured dye made from beet powder a quarter of the way up.

  Ginnie watched with interest. “What are you doing?”

  “Ombré egg,” I said. “Saw them on Pinterest. I think that must just be a fancy way to say ‘striped.’ In a few minutes, I’ll add some water to dilute the dye and so it’s halfway up the egg, then do it again and again. When I’m finished, one end will have a dark stripe, and the other end will have a pale stripe, with increments in the middle.”

  “Cool.”

  “Was the fortune-telling more than a sideshow for Orla?” I asked. “I mean, could she really predict someone’s future?”

  “Hm. Maybe. John certainly thought so. He consulted her about any big moves the family made.”

  My mouth turned down in thought.

  “And she gave the family a lot of good advice. They would have missed her. A lot.”

  I paused in stirring the grape juice dye. “Would have? What do you mean?”

  She pressed her lips together and looked over at Nuala. Her niece and Colette had moved on to the tie-dye station, where Bianca was showing them how to wrap eggs in paper towels and dot food coloring on the outsides.

  Finally, she shrugged. “Well, I guess you already know she was looking at going to California.”

  The book she ordered from the Fox and Hound.

  “What did her brother-in-law think about that?” I asked casually.

  “I, uh, I’m not sure he knew yet. He would have gone ballistic, though.” She took out the orange egg, put it on the rack, and reached for another. “See, John was in love with her.”

  Stunned, I put down the egg I’d been about to dunk. “His brother’s wife?”

  Another shrug. “The heart wants what the heart wants. At least I think he was in love with her. He kept asking her to marry him. John couldn’t convince her, though.”

  “Uncle John says he can convince anyone to do anything,” Nuala said as she walked over. Thankfully, she seemed to have heard only her aunt’s last sentence. “He says that’s why business is so good.”

  Ginnie ruffled her hair. “He does say that.”

  Oh, does he, now? Could he convince someone to walk into traffic? How would that work?

  Then I remembered the pocket watch he was swinging in the online photo I’d found earlier. Was John Black a hypnotist? And what about Ginnie? Only moments earlier she’d implied that she used hypnotism in the classroom.

  Nuala peered into the natural-dye pots and wrinkled her nose. “That doesn’t smell very good.”

  My thoughts snapped back to the here and now, and I laughed. “That’s the cabbage. Tell you what. Go grab anything you want from the display case, and it’ll take that smell right out of your nose.”

  “Okay.” She skipped back to Colette.

  I poured more water into my ombré egg and then checked to see whether our earlier efforts were dry yet. I was debating whether to ask Ginnie one more question about the Blacks, but it was risky.

  Well, no one else is going to tell you, so you might as well give it a try.

  But before I could ask it, Colette said, “You know why the Easter bunny lays colored eggs, don’t you?”

  Everyone turned. Nuala shook her head. Colette hopped up on a tall work stool and looked around. “Well, then I’ll tell you the story. See, there was this goddess. Her name was Ostara. Sometimes she was called something else, right, Mom?”

  “Eostre,” Bianca supplied, exchanging looks with Lucy and me.

  “Right. Anyway, Ostara was a spring goddess. She was all about the flowers coming up, and trees getting green, and lots of spring babies. Lambs and bunnies and chicks, you know? Anyway, there was this bird who came to Ostara and said it really, really wanted to be a rabbit instead of a bird.”

  “Wait. Why would a bird want to be a rabbit?” Margie asked.

  Colette shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe the bird just identified as a bunny.”

  Margie looked amused. “Okay. Sorry I interrupted.”

  “That’s all right. So anyway, Ostara took pity on the bird and granted her wish. The bird—who was now a bunny—could still lay eggs, though. And she was so grateful that every year she came back in the spring to lay special colored eggs to celebrate Ostara and spring and baby lambs and flowers and stuff.”

  She hopped off the chair and looked around. “Pretty cool, huh?”

  We all nodded.

  Ginnie said, “I’d never heard that. But I always wondered about that egg-laying rabbit.”

  “I hadn’t heard it, either,” Margie said. “And you did a good job telling the story, too, Colette.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Coopersmith.”

  I was glad Colette hadn’t mentioned—and probably didn’t know—that in medieval times, hares were thought to be witches who had transformed into animal form to take the cows’ milk and could be killed only with a silver bullet. Kind of like werewolves, but way cuter.

  Ginnie looked over at the tie-dyed eggs that were now on the rack. They looked kind of messy, but interesting. Afraid she wanted to try one herself, and I’d lose my chance to talk with her alone, I asked, “Do you mind if I ask you so
mething? About Orla?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You seem awfully curious about her.”

  I smiled, trying for disarming. “What happened to her right out front was, well, strange. Tragic and sudden, but also strange. And it bothers me. Then there were the insurance investigators who came to see Lucy and me.”

  Her hand jerked, knocking an egg off the counter. It hit the floor with a sick, cracking thud. Everyone turned to look.

  “Oh, darn. I’m sorry. What a klutz,” she said.

  I waved away her attempts to pick it up and grabbed a paper towel. “I’ve got it.”

  When I had disposed of the egg, I went back to where she was still standing. She seemed to have lost interest in coloring any more eggs.

  “What did you tell the insurance people?” she asked.

  “Mostly they seemed to want to know whether Orla could have stepped in front of that car intentionally. Lucy and I told them that we didn’t think that was possible.”

  She relaxed.

  “Seems like she had an awful lot of life insurance, though. I mean, five policies?”

  Ginnie grew still. Her eyes probed mine. Then she let out a long breath and glanced over at Nuala. I realized Lucy and Bianca were intentionally steering the others away from Ginnie and me so we could talk.

  “There’s nothing suspicious about it,” she said. “Every one of us has multiple policies on us. It’s one of the ways the family has made money over the years.”

  I blinked. “Insurance fraud?”

  She shook her head vehemently. “It’s not fraud. They are all valid policies. At a wedding, a family member might give the couple the gift of letting them take a policy out on him. Or when a baby is born. Or for any reason. A lot of the families do it. It’s perfectly legal.”

  And perfectly profitable. Did that make it any less of a murder motive?

  My face must have revealed something, because Ginnie scowled and said in a defensive tone, “I don’t know what you’re trying to do. Maybe John is right. Maybe it’s better not to socialize outside the family.”