The Good, the Bad, and the Witchy: A Wishcraft Mystery

by Heather Blake

  If he existed.

  It was a big if.

  My boots clicked on the paved path as I considered the impact of another murder on village tourism. Experience led me to believe it would only increase the number of visitors, as it had in the past. People were just plain morbid. And a murder in the village around Halloween? The media was going to have a field day with that. If they ever found out that Michael was a witch . . . I couldn’t even imagine the fallout. Fortunately, that wasn’t likely to happen. Crafters guarded our secret closely—and there were magical ways to keep mortals in check if they stumbled on the truth. There was the whole frog thing (used only in the most extreme cases), and I’d recently learned about a spell for a mind cleanse that could erase short-term memories.

  I smiled, thinking a spell like that would have come in handy when I was going through my divorce. I’d have loved to get rid of memories of my ex-husband.

  Then I shook my head. No, I wouldn’t want that. I had to remember those mistakes so I didn’t make them again. My marriage had been one big painful lesson, but from it I’d become much wiser.

  I hoped.

  The twining paths of the village green were littered with fallen leaves, rustling with each step Missy and I took. I stopped to admire a decorative urn full of flowers and plants, all dark in color, including pitch-black pansies and petunias, that helped set the spooky Halloween mood. The black petals reminded me of Harriette’s roses, which reminded me of her party, which reminded me of her cake, which reminded me of Michael, and just like that, I felt the weight of grief on my chest again.

  It didn’t help that a presence was still following me.

  Whump, whump.

  I glanced down at Missy. “Do you feel that?”

  Her dark eyes blinked at me, and her white eyebrows lifted as if she hadn’t a clue what I was talking about.

  If she sensed the presence, she wasn’t the least bit bothered.

  Great. A friendly ghost.

  Michael?

  I could easily picture his smile, and just like that, my heart ached again.

  Missy put her front paws on my knees and bounced. I picked her up, and as she licked my chin, I smiled. The little dog had come into my life almost a year ago after Harper shoplifted her from a puppy-mill-affiliated pet shop in an attempt to bring light to the horrible situation going on in the store. There had been an arrest (Harper’s), additional charges filed (against the shop and the puppy mill), and restitution made (which was why I now owned a Schnoodle). Harper had been sentenced to community service, and Missy (aka Miss Demeanor) had become part of our family.

  The move here to the Enchanted Village from Ohio hadn’t been smooth for Missy, but the longer we were here, the more she settled in. All three of us, actually.

  Truthfully, the minute I arrived, I’d felt at home, at peace. I belonged here. Harper had a harder adjustment, but after she took over Spellbound and moved out of Ve’s house and into an apartment above the bookshop, she seemed much happier.

  Her relationship with village Lawcrafter Marcus Debrowski might have something to do with her current state of mind as well.

  As I set Missy back on the ground, I heard a disturbance from the crowd and turned to see the medical examiner’s van pulling away. Shuddering, I suddenly felt a little weak and grabbed onto the flower urn for balance. My fingertips grazed the velvety petals of a petunia, and I found myself fascinated with the little plant.

  “Pedestrian but very pretty,” a voice said from behind me.

  I jumped, grabbing my heart. Turning slowly, I was fully prepared to see some sort of glowing apparition. Instead, I found Dash Khoury, Trista Harkette’s husband, kneeling on the path. Missy was giving him a fond hello.

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said to me as he scratched her back. His dark eyes held none of their usual warmth.

  Archie, my movie-buff friend, had once waxed on about how Dash looked like an older Oded Fehr, an Israeli actor I knew only from The Mummy (Archie was a huge fan). Although Dash had darker skin and longer hair, the resemblance was uncanny, and Archie always swooned when Dash was around. He had quite the crush on the Terracrafter.

  “It’s okay.” My heartbeat might settle into a normal rhythm by tomorrow. “What were you saying? ‘Pedestrian’?”

  As he stood, easily towering over me, Missy went about sniffing his shoes. “The flowers. Petunias. Pansies. But they’re beautiful.”

  “I’m amazed they’re still alive this far into the season.” The village had already seen a few frosty nights.

  He waggled long mocha fingers. “Magic, Darcy.”

  “Ah.” Right. He was a Terracrafter, a Crafter with a power to grow just about anything, anytime, anywhere. I examined the petunia. “The color is stunning. You don’t see too many black flowers.”

  Long dark hair fell about his shoulders in thick—but tamed—waves. I didn’t know his age for certain but placed him somewhere in his late forties. Crow’s-feet stretched from the corner of his eyes as he spoke in measured tones. “Black flowers are an illusion, if you will. They’re really plants with highly saturated colors. Reds, purples, blues. These petunias are actually a deep purple that gives the appearance of black.”

  Now that he said it, I could see the blush of purple on the blooms. I suddenly thought about the Witching Hour roses and all the awards and accolades they’d received for being naturally black. I wanted to ask Dash about that, but I also recognized that talking to him about his estranged mother-in-law’s flowers might be a bit inappropriate.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Dash asked. “You still look a little pale.”

  “Long day,” I said, “and not enough to eat.”

  “I can get you something from one of the booths . . . ,” he offered.

  “No, no. Thank you.” I tried for a smile but failed. “I don’t have much of an appetite.” I glanced over my shoulder at the crowd and swallowed hard. “I was there when the body was found.” He didn’t need to know all the gory details.

  Dash’s eyes filled with a sheen of tears, and his face turned stony, stoic. He drew in a deep breath. “I warned that boy,” he said under his breath, more to himself than to me.

  Whump-whump-whump-whump. The pulsing around me had kicked up a notch, and I felt a wash of anxiety come over me.

  “Warned who? Michael?”

  He nodded, giving one short quick jerk of his head.

  “Warned him about what?”

  Suddenly, a ringing filled the air. He held up a shaky finger, pulled a phone out of his pocket, and looked at the display. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I have to take it. It’s Trista.”

  He stepped to the side while my imagination ran wild. What had he warned Michael about?

  A few seconds later Dash snapped his phone shut and turned toward me. His face had drained of color. “I have to go.”

  And just like that, he sprinted away.

  I stared after him.

  Looking down at Missy, I said, “What was that all about?”

  She barked.

  Sometimes I wished she could talk, that she was a familiar. But if she was, she wasn’t letting it be known to me.

  My curiosity made me edgy. I made a mental note to tell Nick what Dash had said about warning Michael. Maybe the Terracrafter knew something important about Michael’s death.

  In fact, I hoped it would lead to whoever had killed him, because I hated the thought of a killer on the loose in the village.

  Whump-whump-whump-whump. The anxiety-laced pulsing made me even more light-headed.

  “Calm down,” I said aloud to the presence. “You have to calm down.”

  Whump-whump-whump.

  “Better,” I murmured. Then I realized what I was doing.

  I was talking to a ghost.

  Looking down at Missy, I said, “I’ve lost my mind. Let’s go see Harper.”

  Missy’s tail swung back and forth. Apparently, she agreed with me about my sanity.

 
We walked slowly, and as we approached the shop, I saw Harper standing on the other side of the big display window, binoculars pressed to her eyes.

  Was I the only one in the village without binoculars?

  Harper was tiny, just a smidge over five feet tall. With her cute short haircut, big elfish eyes, and feisty personality, she fit perfectly into this eccentric village.

  A bell jingled as I pushed into the shop. Harper lowered the binoculars and narrowed her eyes on me. “You had something to do with what’s happening across the square, didn’t you?”

  Harper had a strange affinity for anything criminally forensic and was forever envious that I kept finding dead bodies.

  Personally, it was a talent I could do without.

  “I plead the fifth.” I dropped into a cozy armchair and unclipped Missy’s leash so she could wander around the shop in search of Pie, Harper’s kitten.

  “I knew it,” Harper said.

  The store was empty. I assumed all the customers were across the square, gawking at the crime scene. I loved what Harper had done with the shop over the last couple of months. Using Van Gogh’s Starry Night as inspiration, she’d painted the walls a deep blue with swirls of golds and creams. Glass stars hung from the ceiling. One long wall housed what looked to be a haunted forest. A dozen tall black spooky Tim Burton–type trees with hollowed-out trunks held narrow shelves full of books. Above, curlicue branches stretched and intertwined with one another, some touching and spreading across the ceiling. For the middle of the store, Harper had hired Nick, who was a woodcrafter in his spare time, to build shelving made of birch branches. The back wall was covered in three-dimensional iron vines that twisted and turned, holding books at odd angles. The children’s nook had been sectioned off with another set of spooky trees, and I had painted a mural of a forest alight with fairies and elves. The area was filled with miniature padded toadstools of varying shapes, sizes, and colors to be used as chairs or tables. It should have been too much. Too gaudy. But it wasn’t. It was a feast for the senses. All in all, Harper had brought the Enchanted Forest inside the shop, and customers had rightly been enchanted.

  Harper relinquished her spot at the window and sat in the cushy armchair across from me. “Was that a medical examiner’s van I saw?”

  Ignoring her question, I glanced around. “Where’s Mimi?” Nick’s daughter was why I was here, after all.

  “Reconnaissance. She’ll be back soon.”

  I rolled my eyes. Of course Harper had sent Mimi to see what was going on. . . . Her nosiness knew no bounds. I stretched out my legs and settled in to wait for Mimi. After she returned, we’d run to her place, pack an overnight bag, and pick up Higgins, Nick and Mimi’s massive dog, as well. I couldn’t very well leave the St. Bernard home alone all night.

  “What?” Harper said. “I couldn’t leave the shop.”

  Harper had hired a few part-time employees, including Angela Curtis, a woman we’d shared an ill-fated cooking class with a few months ago, but apparently Harper was manning the shop alone tonight.

  “What happened over there?” she asked. “Did a tourist have a heart attack or something? I saw that haunted house. That thing’s terrifying. I almost had a heart attack just walking past it.”

  “The haunted house is called Boo Manor, for heaven’s sake. It’s as scary as a rubber ducky.” It was harmless—designed to be family friendly—but Harper had always been terrified of haunted houses. Honestly, Halloween was her least favorite holiday, which was kind of ironic considering she was a witch.

  “Mark my words,” she said. “It’s a big ol’ den of bad juju.”

  Harper had a knack for sensing bad juju—and death, too. I was surprised she hadn’t sensed the murder.

  “Now tell me what happened!” she said, jiggling her feet.

  Sometimes she was like a four-year-old. “There was a murder,” I said. She was bound to find out anyway. “On the path behind the pub leading to the Enchanted Trail.”

  Harper’s brown eyes widened, and her jaw dropped. “A murder? Who was killed? When did this happen?”

  I fidgeted in my seat.

  “You found the body, didn’t you?” she accused, folding her arms. A pout tugged at the corners of her lips.

  I was never going to hear the end of this. I tried to downplay my involvement. “It wasn’t me. It was Missy who found him.” I pointed at the dog.

  Missy was, at that moment, trying her best to convince Pie to come down from a bookshelf and play with her. So far, the tail wagging wasn’t working on the orange tabby.

  Poor Missy. She received much the same reaction from Tilda, Aunt Ve’s persnickety Himalayan, at home. Maybe she needed a playmate. It was something to think about.

  Harper threw her hands in the air, and her big despairing elfin eyes looked pained. “Why can’t I ever find a dead body?”

  “This from the girl who is scared of Boo Manor?”

  Pointedly, she said, “A dead body isn’t going to jump out at me, is it, Darcy?”

  “You never know.”

  “You’re not making me feel better.” She shifted, trying to get comfortable.

  I couldn’t help but smile. Only my sister would need consoling over not finding a dead body.

  Suddenly, she leaned forward, her brown eyes alight with morbid curiosity. “Who was it? Anyone we know?”

  The lump was back in my throat. “Michael Healey.”

  Harper gasped. “No way!”

  I watched as Pie slowly made his way down the bookshelves to bat a paw at Missy’s head—toying with the dog. Missy was apparently thrilled to be accosted in such a way and bounced happily, much like a pogo stick.

  “He was supposed to have delivered a cake to Harriette Harkette’s party,” I explained to Harper, “but he never showed up. Long story short, the van was in the pub’s lot, with the cake in it, and Missy found the body in the shrubbery. . . .”

  Harper held up a hand, palm out. “Whoa now! What do you mean ‘long story short’? I want details! Lots of them.”

  Of course she did. “I don’t really have any. I saw a bloody sock; then I ran and called the police. Nick said Michael had been stabbed.”

  Harper blinked, then winced as if picturing the injury. “Stabbed?”

  I nodded.

  “Gruesome.”

  I nodded again.

  “Why would someone want to hurt him? He was one of the most personable people I knew.”

  “That’s because he is—was—an Illumicrafter. Amy, too, I guess. Did you know that?”

  She shook her head and smoothed the golden brown hair over her ears. She had an adorable long-layered pixie cut—one I envied. I’d tried the style once years ago and couldn’t pull it off. So I’d grown out my dark hair, and out it remained. The long length suited me—it was perfect for an easy ponytail, and I’d recently added bangs, so it felt like an updated look, even though it really wasn’t.

  I wasn’t all that fond of change, but after the upheaval of moving to the village, I was getting much better at adapting.

  “Really?” Harper said. “I guess it makes sense. Amy is just as bright and bubbly as he is. Was.” She bit her thumbnail. “Does she know yet?”

  I leaned back in the cozy chair, letting some of my nervous energy seep away. The bookshop had that effect on me. It was a soothing place, despite there having been a murder just outside its back door a few months previously. “She should by now. The police sent someone to her place, and Evan and Starla went to make sure she’s okay.”

  “I just can’t believe it. Amy was here earlier, studying for midterms.” Harper continued to chew on her nail; then she tipped her head and bit her lip.

  “What?” I asked.

  “What, what?” she countered.

  Giving up on Pie, Missy came over and hopped up on my lap. I rubbed her ears. “You tell me.”

  “Maybe it’s nothing, but earlier, when Amy was in here, she got a phone call, packed up in a hurry, and rushed off. She droppe
d some of her notes on the way out, but when I yelled after her, she didn’t even turn around. Just kept running down the sidewalk, papers scattering behind her. I did my best to pick them all up.”

  I sat straighter. “What time was this?”

  “A little after seven.”

  Right around the time Evan Sullivan said Michael had left the bakery.

  Whump-whump-whump-whump.

  Not this again. I tried to ignore it. “Do you have any idea who called?”

  She shifted and shook her head. “I’d assumed it was that boyfriend of hers. When he says jump, she asks how high.”

  Fisk Khoury, Dash and Trista’s son. “Really?”

  “It certainly feels that way. I haven’t decided yet if he’s controlling or if she’s just desperate to please him. Little by little I’ve seen a change in her. Gone are her colorful sweaters replaced by black tees. Her once-blond hair is now black with dark pink streaks. That lightness and brightness in her is slowly fading. Even her grades have been dropping. I’ve tried to talk to her about it, but I think he’s her first real boyfriend, and she’s too head over heels to see the dysfunction. I think Michael tried to talk to her about it, too.”

  “I heard he and Fisk weren’t getting along. Is that true?”

  “It might be,” she said slyly. “Where are you getting your information?”

  I rolled my eyes at her lack of subtlety. “Starla.”

  “Ooh, she’s good.” Harper tucked her legs beneath her. “It’s true. I’ve seen Michael and Fisk arguing more than once lately.”

  “About?”

  Whump-whump-whump-whump.

  “I wish I knew. It’s always out of earshot.” She glanced around, her gaze darting here, there, everywhere, finally landing on me. “Do you feel that?”

  My nerves jumped at the word “wish,” but I quickly relaxed. Wishcraft Law prohibited Wishcrafters from granting their own wishes—or granting the wishes of other Wishcrafters. We were plain out of luck when it came to wishing, except when it came to the tried and true methods of wishbones, eyelashes, dandelions, and falling stars. Oh, and magical amulets, which, as I learned, could be dangerous in the wrong hands. “Feel what?”