by Tess Lake
“Oh yeah or when you say can you get that book off that high shelf and it’s not really that high and then he does and then your fingers touch and then complications ensue and then he becomes your boyfriend,” Kira said in a rush. There were some footsteps outside my hospital door and then Fox appeared, returning with the coffee Kira had asked him to fetch.
“There he is. Okay, Harlow, stay strong H-bomb, whoops bomb, sorry,” Kira said. Fox waved goodbye to me and then Kira grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the room.
It was two days since the bomb had detonated, two days since I had awoken with my ears ringing in the back of an ambulance, looked across and seen Jack covered in blood staring back at me. Both of us had appeared far worse than it was. Superficial wounds from the explosion and bits of concrete that had hit us. We’d both been kept in for observation. Jack was down the corridor from me and today we’d be going home. There had been a constant stream of visitors since I’d awoken. The moms and cousins and Aunt Cass at first obviously, fussing around me and then Jack down in his room, and then Sheriff Hardy. Incredibly they’d managed to get Viola - real name Mary - and also Hans to the hospital and save their lives despite the fact both of them had been poisoned with an exotic frog toxin.
Viola had almost died but Hans had survived perhaps because he had just recently been poisoned with the same toxin and had built up some resistance. I told Sheriff Hardy the full story, everything Viola had said, that she was merely doing to Hans what he had done to her, and then how Hans had said there must’ve been a bomb underneath the building. Sheriff Hardy had taken all that information away and then returned a day later telling me that, in fact, thirty years ago there had been an explosion at a theater where Hans and Viola had been working. Viola had been directing a play, Much Ado About Nothing, and something had exploded under the theater. People had died and ultimately she’d received the blame. They’d had a gas tank that was to belch out a burst of flame at a pivotal moment, in a wild interpretation of the play. The official report said that it exploded because safety protocols had not been adhered to.
With Hans leaping straight to there being a bomb underneath the theater it appeared he had made a confession of sorts and that investigation would be reopened.
Viola had awoken raving mad at Hans but also genuinely confused about what she had done. Sheriff Hardy had told me that she couldn’t understand why she’d set the bomb that she’d known would have killed all the people inside the theater. He said that she initially only intended to poison Hans, to kill him, and that was all. The motivation for it was the autobiography and the cruel things he had written about her, how she’d been nothing to him. She’d always suspected that he’d sabotaged the gas bottle and caused the explosion, but after having her career ruined she had vanished, content to leave that pain in the past until Hans’s autobiography had come out and smashed her into the ground once more. It was then that she had donned the guise of Henry G, making herself up as an expert costumer and joining Hans to work for him to look for her moment to exact her revenge.
Sheriff Hardy had known about the salamander. We of course had told him and it was my belief that the influence of it had magnified her emotions and perhaps even led her to take her extreme course of action. Sadly, it was all something that we had to keep secret. The facts of the case, if you took the magic out of it, were that someone set a bomb under a crowded theater and that hundreds of people were very lucky not to be dead. It ultimately didn’t matter whether magic had influenced her. The law would move its course and she would go to prison, Hans probably closely behind her.
Sheriff Hardy and his men had searched Viola’s rented house and found numerous glass terrariums full of frogs and snakes. Viola had been feeding the frogs a particular diet to make them poisonous. She’d then used this to poison Hans, and later, Olivia.
Poor Olivia… I hadn’t seen her ghost since I jumped down the secret trapdoor. The salamander had affected her, causing her to fall in love with Henry G. They had found her diary, including an entry where she had decided to go to his house to declare her love for him.
Viola wasn’t speaking about it so we could only assume Olivia had discovered the frogs and snakes and Viola had poisoned her to stop her revealing her secrets.
It was a horrible mess. The salamander was just an animal, albeit a magical one. There was no malice or intent behind it. It just was… and from that, Olivia had ultimately died. It was again a serious reminder: magic was not to be trifled with or underestimated.
There were still threads not tied off. Who were the strange people filming the theater who were clearly wearing disguises? I didn’t know and honestly, after being almost blown up, I didn’t care. I had enough other things on my mind. The papers going missing from the Library. Hattie appearing younger than she apparently was (I was having trouble keeping that in my mind). Coldwell and the Mall.
Change had also come to the Torrent Mansion. Aunt Ro had moved out to live with Sheriff Hardy. I hadn’t been home yet so I didn’t know what that would be like.
That reminded me: the moms, Aunt Cass and their respective lover boys. Me, Molly and Luce hadn’t forgotten about them but in the rush of everything hadn’t had the opportunity to fully drag them all over the hot coals, as they had so often done to us. It was going to be fun.
I was checking my things when I heard a knock on the door.
“Come in,” I said. It was Marcus, the music director.
“Good to see you up and moving,” he said and gave me a smile.
“It was a lot of luck is all,” I said.
Marcus stood there for a moment and then cleared his throat. He looked down at his feet.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell anyone earlier. I mean, I suspected that Henry G was someone in costume. I didn’t care that Hans was poisoned and no one really got injured by the sandbags, and I guess by the time the snake turned up I thought it was just ridiculous rather than incredibly deadly. I don’t know, I was playing detective. I smuggled in the water balloons to dump on Henry G because I thought he was wearing a costume and if I could get him wet it would reveal it. That obviously didn’t work,” he mumbled.
“He’s caught now - or, she is. I suppose sometimes it’s best to let the police handle these things,” I said, feeling like the largest hypocrite in the world.
“Did you hear the kids have been putting the play on in the park?” Marcus said, changing the topic.
“Kira tells me it’s been sold out, although there are no tickets,” I said.
“It’s amazing. I’ve been playing on the electric keyboard connected to an amp system. It is an incredible performance,” Marcus said.
When Jack appeared in the doorway, Marcus said hello and goodbye all in one moment and then left. Jack was covered in tiny cuts on his face and neck. There were also some on his body that you couldn’t see under his shirt. I certainly didn’t look any better.
Jack hugged me and looked down at his shoe, which was untied. He knelt down and did it up, again bending on one knee in front of me. Then he looked up and took my hand. “Harlow Torrent, will you…”
“You gotta stop this joke buddy, or you’re going to be thankful that you’re in a hospital,” I said laughing.
“Will you help me up off the floor?” Jack teased. I pulled him up and then squeezed him close, although not too hard because both of us were still a little sore.
We headed out of the hospital, going out a back exit to avoid any media that might still be hanging around. Molly and Luce had told me that Carter had run wild in his paper spinning up all kinds of conspiracy theories and the truth was that the reality was probably crazier than his conspiracies. Someone from thirty years ago came to get revenge and then almost succeeded in their plan.
We were driving back to the mansion in Jack’s truck when he looked over at me and said “You have a secret lair, don’t you?”
It was such a surprising question that I laughed and then quieted down.
“Yes, actu
ally I do, it’s in a cottage up behind the mansion,” I said.
“I figured as much,” he said. We drove in silence for a bit and eventually we reached the mansion, parking at our end of it. The family had all come and gone at the hospital and they were now back at work. Molly and Luce were at Traveler handling the coffee side of business. They had told me on a visit they weren’t cut out for the cafe lifestyle and so Peta was going to take the cafe over, rename it, and they were going to run it still with the businesses connected. Peta had given me an open offer to take a job with her too. The three of them were still on the hunt for a guitarist with just the right amount of scruffiness.
The moms were back at work at the bakery and Aunt Cass had returned to the Chili Challenge. The protesters had left after the opening night of the Taming of the Shrew had been shut down, apparently choosing not to care if a bunch of teenagers were putting on the same play in a park. So it was just Jack and me when we got back to the mansion. We walked inside to find Adams on the sofa watching television and beside him, a beautiful blonde cat with vivid green eyes. She was wearing a diamante collar that looked very familiar.
“Oh, hey, Adams, who is this?” I asked.
“I’m Butterscotch,” the blonde cat said and then blinked her green eyes at me.
Jack and I stood there for a moment in stunned silence before finally he spoke. “Two talking cats, awesome, wow,” he said.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said, feeling like I had intruded on a date. We dropped our bags and I grabbed Jack’s hand, and we exited out the door, making our way around the side of the mansion and up towards the cottages behind. It was only when we were around the corner that we burst out laughing.
“Can you believe it? Adams has a girlfriend! Did you see her? She’s beautiful. How did he pull that off?” Jack said.
“Hey, he’s still my cat. He’s handsome, he could get a girl like that,” I said, laughing. We kept walking up behind the mansion and then I realized I was in fact leading Jack towards my so-called lair. I guess now that he knew I had one I might as well show it to him.
“Okay, so I’ll show you the lair but please remember that I’m your girlfriend and you love me, and that I am not crazy, even though it looks crazy,” I said. We came up to the cottage and I opened it and Jack followed me in. There was the wall of crazy in all its convoluted glory, the desk with Juliet’s journal sitting on top of it.
“Wow, this is crazy,” Jack said, looking at the wall. We only stood there for a minute before he grabbed my hand and pulled me outside, closing the door behind him.
“Let’s not worry about that stuff right now. I think we should just enjoy ourselves and sit out here on the grass until Adams’ date is over,” Jack said and then we started laughing again at the idea of two cats on a date. He was walking down the hill toward a patch of sunlight that was shining through the trees when he kicked a stone and then turned around to face me with a grin.
“Okay, excellent, I’m very impressed with your witch powers. Well done, you got me,” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
“This stone here. It even looks old, bravo,” he said. I walked over to where he was standing. There, sticking out of the ground was one of the cobblestones much like the one I’d found that had the word ‘Lost’ inscribed on it. This one had something different. It said ‘Jack’.
“Oh and there’s another one - ‘Took’ - and one more - ‘Witch’.” Jack turned towards me with a smile.
“Jack took witch. Are there meant to be more? Jack took witch to get ice cream? Jack took witch to get married?” he said. He was grinning at me thinking it was some enormous joke that I was playing on him, but all I could feel was icy cold running down my spine, seeming to freeze the blood in my veins.
“There’s another one I found that said ‘Lost’ on it. It’s not me doing this,” I said.
“So what is it meant to say?” Jack said, confused. “Jack took witch lost?”
The day was sunny, birds chirping in the trees and some butterflies fluttering around but the glacial cold that had taken hold of me crept up my body and constricted my throat. I could barely whisper the words that had rearranged themselves in my mind.
Lost Witch Took Jack.
Thanks for reading my book! More witch stories to come. If you’d like an email when a new book is released then you can sign up for my mailing list here. I have a strict no spam policy and will only send an email when I have a new release.
I hope you enjoyed my work! If you have time, please write a review. They make all the difference to indie Authors.
In the next book authors descend on Harlot Bay like a plague…
xx Tess
For a complete title list visit www.TessLake.com
Torrent Witches Cozy Mysteries
Butter Witch (Torrent Witches Cozy Mysteries #1)
Treasure Witch (Torrent Witches Cozy Mysteries #2)
Hidden Witch (Torrent Witches Cozy Mysteries #3)
Fabulous Witch (Torrent Witches Cozy Mysteries #4)
Holiday Witch (Torrent Witches Cozy Mysteries #5)
Shadow Witch (Torrent Witches Cozy Mysteries #6)
Love Witch (Torrent Witches Cozy Mysteries #7)
Box Sets
Torrent Witches Box Set #1 (Butter Witch, Treasure Witch, Hidden Witch)
Audiobooks
Butter Witch
Treasure Witch
Hidden Witch
