Get with the Potion

by Samantha Silver

  It took a second or two for the events of the day before to come flooding back to me, and to realize that this was just Vinnie.

  “Ok, we’re going to lay down some ground rules,” I said, sitting up and causing him to jump off me and onto the mattress. “First of all, no waking me up.”

  “Second of all, I need to be let out for breakfast at a reasonable hour,” he countered. I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and checked the time.

  “Oh my God! It’s just after seven thirty.”

  “Yeah, as I said, a reasonable hour.”

  “How is seven thirty in the morning a reasonable hour?”

  “Are you kidding? The sun has been up for half an hour, at least.”

  I groaned and grabbed my pillow, stuffing it over my head and flopping back down onto the mattress. A second later, I felt Vinnie’s feet on me once more.

  “Aren’t you getting up? The day is getting away from you. They didn’t tell me that my witch was the laziest on the planet. Besides, I’m starving.”

  “Fine,” I muttered, forcing myself out of bed with a big yawn. I supposed maybe Vinnie had a little bit of a point. Not that I was ever going to admit that to him. I threw on some clothes and let him out, casting a protection spell above him so that he stayed dry despite the rain.

  “Now, this is the life,” he said, munching happily on grass while I watched from the doorway, hoping his breakfast wouldn’t take too long so I could get back into the nice, warm shed. Why did I have to get a familiar who just wanted to eat the lawn?

  After about ten minutes, Vinnie had had his fill, and he strutted back into the kitchen.

  “So, what are we doing today?”

  That was a good question.

  “You are going to stay here for a while. I need to go to the Academy and have a chat with one of the wizards there. And after that, well, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure. I have a few leads to follow when it comes to Danielle’s death. Grandma’s revelation that Jon Gress had seen Danielle in the hospital the day before and that he told her what goes around comes around was certainly something, given the timing. I think I need to speak with him.”

  “And why exactly can’t I come?”

  “Because the Academy and the hospital aren’t familiar-friendly.” Ok, I wasn’t entirely sure that was true. Familiars were banned from classrooms, and while I’d certainly seen a couple at the hospital, never a goat. Did anyone else in town even have a goat as their familiar?

  “Fine. So I get to suffer because of species-based prejudice.”

  “You do. Plus, I don’t trust you not to head-butt the witnesses I need to speak to. Trust me, it’s important that I solve this case, because I don’t think you want to be locked up in Spellcatraz with me.”

  “Wait, they gave me a witch who’s a criminal?”

  “No. I didn’t do anything wrong. But I’m suspected of murder, and I’m trying to make sure that the enforcers don’t end up arresting me.”

  Vinnie let out a bleat. “Well, that just figures. They couldn’t give me someone normal. I had to get the witch who’s all messed up. Come on. Let me come with you. I promise I won’t head-butt anyone without your permission. And besides, I’m a great icebreaker. People love goats, don’t you know?”

  I supposed he had a point. Goats were definitely making a comeback in the cute animals category lately, and Vinnie was so small it wasn’t like he was particularly threatening. Although I had a feeling his skull was as hard as concrete and that being on the receiving end of one of those head-butts wouldn’t be particularly pleasant.

  “Fine,” I finally conceded. “You can come. But I’m warning you, if you disobey anything I say or head-butt anyone, you’re coming right back home and you can spend the rest of the day on the couch here.”

  Vinnie bounded around my legs happily, and I had to smile. He was absolutely adorable when he hopped, with all four legs coming off the ground at once and his little body tilting at different angles as he jumped.

  “Horray! We’re going on an adventure. Time to solve a murder. Maybe I didn’t draw the short straw after all.”

  “I’m definitely not the short straw,” I replied, his enthusiasm overriding any negative feelings I might have had over that implication. “Now come on, let’s get going. We have to find Jon Gress before classes start.”

  The two of us wandered over toward the Academy, with a spell keeping me dry, and stood underneath an awning near the entrance. It had been a good call to bring Vinnie, after all; he was the perfect icebreaker, with witches and wizards both coming over to give him pats. He was definitely a fan of the infinite attention, and I had the opportunity to ask about Jon. I didn’t know him and had no idea what he might have looked like. Luckily, a witch patting Vinnie pointed him out to me.

  Jon Gress looked like a thirty-year-old in an eighteen-year-old wizard’s body. His facial hair was fully grown, his hair thick, and his shoulders broad. I had to look skyward to get a good look at him, and I had a feeling all the girls in school would have been clamoring to date him.

  “Jon?” I called out, and he turned to look at me.

  “Yes?”

  “Listen, I’m Ali Everwood, and I’m wondering if we could have a chat for a few minutes.”

  His brow furrowed. “About what?”

  “Danielle Dashwood.”

  “Sorry, I have to get to class.”

  He sidestepped past me and went through the doors. I paused for a split second, made a decision, and followed after him. I rushed to catch up and grabbed him by the arm. He stopped to look at me. “Look, I don’t want to talk about Dani, ok?”

  “You can either talk to me, or I can go to the enforcers and tell them all about how you threatened to kill her twelve hours before she died.”

  Jon’s face paled, and he stopped, considering my words. “How on earth do you know that?” he hissed at me. “You couldn’t have known that. We were alone in the courtyard.”

  I smiled smugly. “I have my sources. Now, are you going to come answer some questions for me, a private citizen with absolutely no authority, or do I have to go find Chief Enforcer Loeb and tell her what I know?”

  Jon sighed. “Fine,” he said. “Let’s go talk in private.”

  “Outside,” I said, motioning toward the door. After all, Vinnie was still out there, and while a part of me was concerned for his safety, another part of me simply didn’t trust him not to get into any trouble without me around.

  For the first time in my life, I was going to have to be the responsible one.

  The two of us made our way back out to find a few more students huddled around Vinnie. We moved away from that group to where we could speak privately, more or less.

  “How do you know about what I said to Dani?” Jon asked, obviously shaken up by the fact that I knew about it.

  “Maybe it wasn’t quite as private as you thought,” I replied. “I told you, I have my sources. But I’m willing to keep the information to myself.” Actually, the truth was, I was definitely going to tell Chief Enforcer Loeb what I knew. I trusted her, and finding the killer meant proving I wasn’t the one who had done it. But Jon didn’t need to know that. “Now, tell me what happened between you and Danielle the night before she was murdered.”

  Jon sighed. “She was at the hospital. She had just been released. I was there visiting my grandmother, who had a fall the day before and had broken her hip; they were applying the bone-healing salve, but as she’s so frail, it’s going to take about a week to fully heal. I hadn’t seen Danielle in almost a year, not since she poisoned me.”

  “So you think it was her as well?” I asked. “Not that I’m saying it wasn’t. I just don’t know. I fully believe she had it in her.”

  Jon nodded. “Yeah, it was her. It couldn’t have been anyone else. I don’t have any enemies. Sure, I have disagreements with people, but nothing like this. Danielle and I dated for two years, and I decided I didn’t want to be with her anymore. So I broke it off. I didn�
��t think anything of it, and two weeks later, I got sent some chocolates anonymously in the mail. I ate them, which in hindsight was pretty dumb.”

  I hid a smile. Sure, eating strange chocolates mailed anonymously was probably not the smartest thing to do, but to be totally honest, I probably would have done the same thing. Jon continued. “I popped one of the chocolates in my mouth, and the next thing I knew, I was in the hospital, with the healers telling me I’d ingested poison and just about died. If my brother hadn’t been home and heard me collapse, rushing me over there as fast as he could, I probably wouldn’t have made it.”

  “Wow,” I said, my eyebrows rising. “So it wasn’t some sort of half-strength potion, either.”

  “No, it was designed to kill,” Jon said. “I know that. I told the enforcers that. The problem was, none of it was ever able to be traced back to her. They couldn’t prove anything. My parents wanted to move, to start over somewhere else, but I insisted that I wanted to stay in Mt. Rheanier. All my friends live here, and my life is here, and honestly, I didn’t want a crazy ex to cause me to uproot my life completely.”

  I nodded. I could understand that for sure. But then, I was the kind of person who’d have stayed in Mt. Rheanier just to spite Danielle, if I’d been in that situation.

  “So you saw her the day before she was killed?”

  “That’s right. She was being discharged, and I don’t know what had happened to her, but she was shouting to anyone who’d listen that Ali had ruined her life, and that she was going to be sorry. That’s you, right?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. I caught her bullying one of your classmates and put a hex on her; boils developed all over her face and apparently it took a while before the healers were able to fix it.”

  “Right,” Jon nodded. “Well, she was pissed, and I knew it was serious. So even though I knew it was a stupid idea, and even though I had been doing my best to avoid her in the months since we’d broken up, I had to say something. I couldn’t let her do the same thing to someone else.”

  “So you followed her into the courtyard, stopped her, and threatened to kill her,” I said with a small smile. “There’s a bit of irony.”

  “I’m starting to see why people want to kill you,” Jon said to me. “No offense.”

  “None taken. But that’s what happened, right?”

  Jon sighed. “Essentially, yeah. I told her she had to stop, and that if she did anything to you, I’d kill her myself.” It was interesting how Grandma Rosie left that part out. Or maybe the squirrel hadn’t gotten into the courtyard in time and had only heard the end of the conversation. It had to be the latter; Grandma Rosie wouldn’t want me dead, obviously, but she also wouldn’t be the type to try and protect me by hiding that information from me. She would have flaunted the fact that she knew Danielle wanted to kill me over my head if she’d known.

  “And let me guess, you didn’t kill her.”

  Jon shook his head. “No, I didn’t.”

  “Do you have an alibi for when she was killed?”

  “I do, actually,” Jon replied. “It was right around five in the morning, right?”

  “That’s right,” I nodded.

  “I’d gone to England for an advanced potions course Professor Kaminek recommended to me. When it was five in the morning here, it was early afternoon there, and I was in the middle of a class based on the theory behind the use of rosemary in potions.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, that’s good.”

  “It was a good course. I mean, I didn’t want Dani to die. But at the same time, I have no doubt that she expected me to die when I ate those chocolates, and she only didn’t try a second time because every enforcer eye in town was focused intently on her. She would have killed someone eventually, and I can’t say I’m sad that someone got to her first. But whoever did it, it wasn’t me.”

  I nodded slowly, taking it all in, when Jon asked me a question. “It wasn’t you who did it either, was it?”

  “No,” I replied. “Although everyone in town seems to think I did.”

  “Well, you’re not the type to coat your words in honey. That can’t help,” he said with a bit of a smile, and I flashed one back at him. I had a feeling there was a bit of respect behind those words.

  “Yeah, that’s kind of been a running issue my whole life.”

  “Look, if I knew who had done it, I would tell you. But it wasn’t me. And to be totally honest, I’ve heard what people have been saying about you and I know I can’t make you do anything, but I’d really appreciate it if word didn’t get around about what I’d said.”

  I nodded. “Don’t worry about it. I know how small towns work. They won’t hear it from me.”

  I had a sneaking suspicion Grandma Rosie had already told half the town, though.

  “Thanks,” he said to me with a nod. “Appreciate it.”

  With that, Jon Gress turned back toward the Academy, and I left wondering how much of what he’d told me was the truth.

  Chapter 20

  “So do we know who the murderer is yet?” Vinnie asked as I led him away from the Academy and back toward town, holding my wand above us with a protection spell cast to keep the rain from falling on us. I knew a few witches who preferred to enchant an umbrella to follow them around when it rained, but I was a bigger fan of the invisible protection afforded by this spell.

  “No, not yet,” I replied. “The problem is, Danielle had too many enemies. I don’t know which one of them hated her enough to want her dead, and I’m running out of leads.”

  “So it wasn’t the guy you were talking to?”

  I shook my head. “I’ll look into it to confirm, but no, it seems he has a solid alibi. Which is unfortunate, since he’s the only one who threatened to kill Danielle in the twenty-four hours before she died.”

  “You should let me head-butt all of your suspects. That’s a great way to get information. People are terrified of goats like me.”

  “You faint every time something remotely scares you,” I replied with a skeptical look. “Are you really sure everyone is terrified of you?”

  “Please. It’s not fainting. My muscles all contract and stay that way for about twenty seconds. There’s a difference. Besides, it’s a problem with my genes. I can’t help it. I would like to get over it. It makes me seem like a pushover when the reality is I’m quite a powerful goat in my own right.”

  “Well, maybe one day you won’t faint when you get scared,” I said to him. Honestly, a part of me did sympathize with Vinnie’s struggle. I really wanted to be a witch who didn’t put her foot in her mouth at every possible opportunity, and yet it seemed ingrained in my genes.

  I blamed Grandma Rosie for that particular piece of genetic material.

  “Ok, so you don’t know who did it? What’s next?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said slowly. “I do want to confirm Jon Gress’s alibi. I also think I should tell Chief Enforcer Loeb about what he said. Although she’ll probably have heard it already if Grandma Rosie has told everyone in town. Still, there’s never a good time to pass up the opportunity to talk to an enforcer and see how much information can be had.”

  “I’m always up for a good interrogation of the fuzz,” Vinnie replied.

  “And for the use of slang no one has been using since the nineties?” I replied with a smile.

  “Whatever. You don’t know how hard it is keeping up with modern terminology when you’re a goat. We can’t use Facebook or Instagram or anything. No opposable thumbs. Or phones.”

  “Right,” I laughed. “Alright. You’re welcome to come and help me see what kind of info we can get from the enforcers.”

  The two of us made our way along the street to the town hall. A light fog had settled down low in the valley, just above the trees, giving the whole town a real ethereal look. It was classic Washington weather and I absolutely loved it.

  Well, I could have done without the rain. But still, I was definitely a fan.

  Arriving at town
hall, the shifter out the front looked at Vinnie suspiciously. “What business do you have at the town hall today?”

  “We need to speak with Chief Enforcer Loeb.”

  “And what do you need to speak with her about?”

  “We have information that might help lead to the discovery of Danielle Dashwood’s killer.”

  The shifter paused. It was the same wolf shifter as the other day, and I couldn’t help but notice him looking at Vinnie with a look of relish. I took a tiny step closer to my familiar, just in case.

  Finally, the shifter decided the risk that I was lying wasn’t worth the risk if I was telling the truth, and he sent me up to the second floor to the enforcers’ office.

  “Chief Enforcer Loeb has gone out on business, but she should be back soon,” he assured me. “Please wait in the main area until she returns. It shouldn’t be long.”

  “Thanks,” I said, leading Vinnie toward the large staircase at the center of the building. We made our way up the steps and turned into the large open-plan office that served as the headquarters for enforcers in Mt. Rheanier. At the far end was Chief Enforcer Loeb’s office, with the door closed and, I assumed, warded against any intruders.

  Not that I wanted to intrude. This time around, I was fully willing to make my presence known. The last time I was here, I had snuck in at night, having used a potion that made me impossible to smell or see by shifters, until Jack showed up and caught me snooping. Luckily, he let me go with just a warning, but I figured I should probably let some time pass before I tried the same trick again.

  Of course, this time around, things were different. I didn’t have a lack of suspects in this case; I had altogether far too many. I needed to narrow things down, not make my list bigger.

  Looking around at the enforcers in the office, among all the shifters I spotted Jack leaning over Andy’s shoulder, pointing something out to him on a computer at a table in the far corner of the office. Since wizards weren’t usually enforcers—that job fell almost exclusively to shifters—the wizard enforcers automatically fell to the bottom of the totem pole and so always ended up with the worst positions.