by Raven Snow
“The Missing Librarian”
Supernatural Witch Cozy Mystery
Lainswich witches Volume 4
Raven Snow
© 2016
Raven Snow
Disclaimer
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. If you have not purchased this book from Amazon or received it directly from the author you are reading a pirated copy. If you have downloaded an illegal copy of this book & enjoyed it, please consider purchasing a legal copy. Your respect & support encourages me to continue writing & producing high quality books for you.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner & are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover images are licensed stock photos, images shown for illustrative purposes only. Any person(s) that may be depicted on the cover are models.
Digital Edition v1.00 (2016.06.15)
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Authors Note
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Chapter One
The ring had been in Eric’s pocket for weeks now, but Rowen pretended not to know. At this point, nearly the entire Greensmith family was pretending not to know. Rowen was a bit impressed, honestly. She had expected one of them to blurt it out by now. After the first couple of weeks, she had almost hoped they would.
Rowen and Eric had been together for more than a year now. She loved him. They lived together off and on. He traveled constantly for work, but he always came back and Rowen was always happy to see him. She was shocked that they were still together, but she was happy as could be.
A proposal, however, might be a mistake. Greensmith marriages were notorious for turning out poorly, and Rowen’s relationship with Eric hadn’t been without its snags.
Eric had a serious problem with the way she had a tendency to throw herself into danger. It was in her nature to get in on the action and solve mysteries when they presented themselves. Rowen had tried to communicate with Eric a little better, but she wouldn’t apologize for doing what she thought was right.
To his credit, Eric had become more understanding about the things she did. He stopped trying to guilt her into changing and tried his best to help instead. Apparently, this was something he was prepared to do for the foreseeable future. He had bought a ring after all.
Rowen hadn’t seen the ring, but she knew he kept it in his pocket. She could see the shape of the box in his front right pocket at all times. Rowen had always been very good at reading people. Most of the Greensmiths were. It came with being a witch. You couldn’t read minds per se, but you could read intentions. This particular intention was broadcasting itself loud and clear.
Were they ready for marriage? Rowen wasn’t sure. Maybe that was what kept Eric from popping the question. Maybe he had bought it on a whim and now he was having second thoughts as well. Rowen couldn’t blame him. Marriage was an absolutely terrifying idea.
Today, Rowen was working in the office of the Lainswich Inquirer. Their paper was busy working on a story about an upcoming town fair. The Fall Festival took place every year in early October when the leaves started to change color. It was still September now, but the festival took a lot of preparation. The people of Lainswich readied for it for months.
Eric didn’t work at the paper, but he had a tendency to hang around when he was in town. This week, he had been hanging around quite a bit. Today, he sat on the sofa in the main office. He kept shooting Rowen looks while she worked, exchanging notes with her cousins on their last publication.
Eric probably thought he was being subtle but he absolutely wasn’t. His hand was in his pocket the whole time, periodically flipping the box everyone knew held the ring.
Even Rose, who was the only adopted Greensmith and less intuitive than the others, knew he was planning to propose. She hadn’t said anything as she was a thoughtful sort. Undoubtedly, she wanted the proposal to be the surprise it was intended to be. Shockingly, most of the family seemed to. No one had said anything to Rowen on the matter, though they did constantly ask how things were going between her and Eric.
Rowen wasn’t quite sure where they stood on the matter, but she could make educated guesses by the way they talked to her. Lately, she had been bombarded with tales of failed relationships.
Her cousin, Margo, talked about her failed marriage with Terry and her off and on again relationship with Eric’s brother, David. That was a solid no from Margo.
Cousins Peony and Willow didn’t usually agree on much as sisters, but lately both of them talked a lot about how they considered marriage a sham. They never wanted to get married, they said. It complicated perfectly good relationships with all kinds of legal red tape. Another solid no from those two then.
Aunt Nadine talked about how she had rushed into marriage. She loved Peony and Willow dearly, but if she had her life to do over again, she would have waited until she had known the man for a few more years. Granted, right after sharing that, Peony rightly pointed out that she and her sister wouldn’t have been born if that had happened. That gave Aunt Nadine some pause. A hazy maybe from Aunt Nadine, then, though Rowen wasn’t about to start factoring in potential children.
Rowen’s mother, Tiffany, worked her murderous ex, Dakota, into just about every conversation she had with her daughter these days. That didn’t make a strong case for marriage so much as it did staying away from relationships altogether. Dakota was a survivalist nut who had murdered two people and attempted to murder several more in a misguided attempt to win her mother back. It was pretty clear where Tiffany stood on the proposal. Either that or she was still pretty traumatized after the whole thing with her ex. Rowen could have believed either.
Aunt Lydia was the only one who seemed enthusiastic about the idea of marriage. She had never been married, but seemed to think people should go ahead and get hitched if that’s what they wanted to do. “Have fun! Be happy! Just live your life; that’s what I say!” Rowen suspected that Aunt Lydia just wanted to help plan a wedding. She would really be in her element there.
Rose was probably the most pragmatic.
She hadn’t really dropped any hints. She had mostly just listened. The questions she asked Rowen about her relationship with Eric were mainly fishing for some sort of response. Was she happy? Did she think he was the one? How did she know she loved him?
Rose was watching Eric thoughtfully now. He must have noticed, because he suddenly stopped flipping the box in his pocket. He withdrew his hand and leaned back on the sofa, fidgeting a bit.
“The two of you can go get some lunch, if you want,” said Rose, looking back at her computer monitor and the word document on which she had an article going. “I know you’re waiting for her to get off,” she added to Eric.
“You sure?” asked Rowen. Rose worked so hard. She hated to take advantage of her. Had it been anyone else, she wouldn’t have thought twice.
“It’s fine,” said Rose, smiling. “I’ll e-mail you what I need you to look over tonight. There’s no reason for you to stick around in the office right this minute.”
Rowen took her up on that. She thanked her and headed across the street with Eric. The Lainswich Inquirer was across from a cheap, little Italian place these days. Until recently it had been a diner, but the previous owner was currently serving time for aiding a murderer—i.e. Tiffany’s ex. It made the Greensmiths’ regular patronage of the Italian place kind of awkward, but what could they do? They served some decent, affordable food.
Eric and Rowen took their usual booth in the back. He wasn’t fidgeting with the ring anymore, which was nice since Rowen didn’t have to worry that he was about to whip it out and just propose. “So, what’s this festival like?” Eric asked, glancing from the menu to Rowen.
Rowen hadn’t bothered to even look at the menu. She knew what they had here. They both did. “Well, they close down the streets. There’s usually live music. They have vendors and some contests. It’s the usual small-town festival type deal.”
“I didn’t grow up with any of that,” Eric reminded her. As the son of a couple of businessmen, he had spent most of his life moving around to various big cities. That was how he lived these days as well. Lainswich was the first small town he had even sort of settled down in.
“We’ll go,” Rowen assured him. “My family goes every year. It’s kinda nice. When the lights go down, they light up pumpkins and people wear masks. It’s not full-out Halloween; it’s just sort of… More pretty than spooky, I guess.”
Eric’s hand slipped beneath the table, likely feeling at that ring again. “So you really like it, huh?”
He was thinking of proposing at the festival, Rowen realized. Oh, no. She couldn’t imagine waiting that long. She couldn’t deal with this awkwardness until then. “Not really,” she said, quickly. “It’s sort of cheesy. This year, we’re writing so many stories about it too. I’ve interviewed so many people about the festival that I’m sort of sick of it already, you know?”
“Ah.” Eric looked back down at his menu, frowning to himself.
Thankfully, the waitress came at about that time and took their drink orders. That put a pause to some of the awkwardness at least. “Have you heard from David lately?” she asked after the server had gone.
Eric looked thankful for a change of subject. He looked up from the menu, finally giving her his attention instead of just acting nervous. “I talked to him this morning, yeah,” he said, smiling and shaking his head. “He’s decided he’s writing a book on his experience with Dakota.”
Rowen raised an eyebrow at that. David and Eric had both been kidnapped by Tiffany’s ex. Rowen hadn’t thought it had left either of them terribly traumatized. “Is it… Is it bothering him?”
Eric snorted. “Oh, God no. He loves telling that story. Apparently, he loves it enough to write a book on it.”
“Is money tight for him?” Rowen asked. She knew that he had left the family business some time ago.
“I don’t think so.” Eric sighed. “I think he just likes the attention, honestly. Anyway, point is, he’s coming back to Lainswich soon.”
“Really?” Rowen wasn’t too surprised to hear that. He never did stay away from Margo for more than a month or two at a time. “So, the excuse this time is that he’s researching his book, huh?”
Eric smirked. “It certainly seems that way.”
Rowen shook her head. “So, does he have any experience writing memoirs?”
“No,” Eric said with a laugh, like the idea that he might was absurd. “I’d bet you anything, he tries his hand at it, gets bored, and hires someone to write it for him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he even gets bored of ‘researching’ the crime. This book is never going to see the light of day.”
Rowen supposed he was right, but she still wasn’t all that upset by the news. “Well, Margo will be happy to have him back, at least.” As much as those two fought, Margo always seemed happier when he was around.
“Do you really think those two make a good couple?” asked Eric, sounding uncertain about it himself.
They had talked about this before. Rowen’s opinion on it changed often. How she felt about David was dependent on how much Margo was complaining about him to her. “He’s better than Terry,” she said, which was the usual conclusion she came to. Terry was Margo’s ex-husband. He had always been a bit of a sniveling stick in the mud. These days, he mostly just loitered around the family making misguided attempts to win Margo back. “As long as they don’t run off and elope, I’m fine with David. Margo doesn’t need to get married again. She rushed into it the first time.”
Eric smiled stiffly, nodded, and looked back down at his menu.
Rowen felt a bit guilty having said that. She hadn’t meant to make an indirect comment about him planning on proposing. She hoped he didn’t think she had meant anything by that. It wasn’t that she didn’t want him to propose. She really wasn’t sure what she wanted. “Not that they wouldn’t make a good couple eventually,” she added, a bit awkwardly. “I mean… I don’t know. I think they make a good couple together, don’t you?”
“Hmm?” Eric looked up again. “Yeah, I guess so. Sure.”
After their very late lunch, Rowen and Eric headed back to the Greensmith house. They had moved out of their trailer and back into the attic. Eric didn’t live there year-round, but she had moved a bigger bed up there for the both of them. Would they move out if they married, she wondered? It felt like sort of a given. They would have to, wouldn’t they?
Except moving out the first time hadn’t worked out all that well. Of course, there had always been the eventuality of Eric heading out of town and back to work hanging over their heads. Would that continue if they got married? What else would he do for a living, she wondered? He could probably start a business venture of his own. He certainly had the money for it. Would he want to, though? That was the real question.
Most of the family was out in the garden. Aunt Nadine and Aunt Lydia had brought out a couple of lawn chairs. They sat while Margo, Willow, and Peony stood. Poor Rose must be at the office all alone.
“Welcome home, love birds,” said Aunt Lydia, waving them over.
“What are you guys scheming about?” asked Rowen, coming across the lawn to join her family.
“We were just out here enjoying the evening,” said Aunt Lydia, feigning innocence.
“And thinking about having a booth at the Fall Festival this year,” added Aunt Nadine.
“A booth?” Rowen repeated. “What are you going to sell?”
Aunt Lydia shrugged. “Oh, soaps, candles, that sort of thing. You know.”
“Potions,” added Willow. “Herb satchels for sweet dreams. Aunt Lydia wants to do this whole crystal ball deal. I think Tarot cards would go over well with a crowd.”
“You can do both,” Peony pointed out.
“I think it’s a horrible idea,” said Margo, looking to Rowen for support.
Rowen had to agree with her. “It probably isn’t the best idea,” she said. “I’m not sure Lainswich is ready for it.”
Aunt Lydia snorted at that. “They know w
hat we are, Dear. I don’t see any point in not getting ourselves out there. It might keep them from whispering about us, at any rate.”
“I’m not sure they’ll ever be ready,” Rowen insisted. “Every time something big happens in this town, we’re at the center of it. It’s better that we just let the commotion from that die down. Let people forget about it. Let them think we’re just quirky.”
“Most people don’t actually believe you have any real power,” Eric offered, stepping into the conversation. “I’m not sure having a stand at a festival would hurt. I know it’s not really my place to have an opinion on this, but−”
“Thank you, Dear,” said Aunt Lydia, giving Eric her sweetest smile. “See?” She gave Rowen and Margo both a pointed look. “Eric thinks it’s a good idea, and he’s practically family.”
“Speaking of family,” said Rowen, remembering the news about David and wanting to share it. She was desperate to change the subject anyway. They could revisit this nonsense about having a stand later since the festival was still a ways off. “We’ve got some good news.”
