by Raven Snow
“Shake Your Green Thing”
Supernatural Witch Cozy Mystery
Harper "Foxxy" Beck Series Book 2
Raven Snow
© 2016
Disclaimer
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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.
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Digital Edition v1.02 (2016.04.13)
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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
Preview of “A Murder Most Rosy”
Authors Note
Books by Raven Snow
Chapter One
Rolling to a hasty stop in front of my boulder-shaped bouncer, Jeb, I let the flashy disco lights shimmer over me. “Where’s Stoner Stan?”
“Probably in the bathroom, Miss Foxxy,” he replied, keeping his gaze straight ahead, muscles tensed and ready for trouble.
“I’m glad I got you to stop calling me ‘Harper’ at work, but it’s ‘Foxxy.’ Not ‘Miss Foxxy,’ ” I told him, running my fingers through the neon green Afro plastered to my head.
“I’m sorry, M— Foxxy.”
Nodding, I left my employee of few words by the door. Since Stan was MIA, the concession stand was unmanned, leaving the paying customers to go without the essentials, like alcohol and pizza. The old mushroom lover was costing me money.
Though irritated, the magic of the Funky Wheel, a disco skate rink passed down to me from my father in his will, kept me from really getting steamed about Stan’s disappearance. There was something about the rinky-dink, torn-up place that tugged at my heartstrings.
It wasn’t actual magic, of course. In fact, the roller rink was one of the few non-magical buildings in Waresville— commonly referred to as “Wheresville,” the town no one can find. A tourist trap established just after the bad business in Salem, the founders had wanted the town to be a safe place for witches and magic lovers.
To an extent, their dreams were realized. Waresville was the most witch-friendly place in the US, namely because our economy depended on it. Without the magic stores on every corner, the spooky tour buses, and the conventions, Waresville wouldn’t have made it past the 1800s.
My grandmother, a descendant of the original founders, was just one of the many witches in the town who took advantage of this arrangement. She owned a prosperous magic shop just across the street— Hane’s Magic Shoppe.
By extension, I, too, was a witch. But, as my grandmother liked to constantly point out, I was a disgrace since I was a witch who didn’t practice. To add further insult to injury, I refused to work at the shop, opting to run the Funky Wheel instead, a place grandmother refused to visit on principle.
I rolled by the office, not entering. “Go home, Amber!”
“I’ll just stay a few more minutes— 'til closing,” she said, and I could almost hear her twitching.
“Don’t make me come in there, young lady,” I said. “I’m too busy shaking my groove thing.” Starting back towards the concession stand, I narrowly avoided a patch of purple duct tape-patched carpet. “I’ve kept you too long already.”
“It’s the weekend,” she argued, but I knew she’d pack up and leave. She was just as afraid of her mother’s wrath as I was.
Hiking up my already short shorts, I crouched down under the sink grabbing the cleaning supplies. Turning off the lights behind the stand, I wiped the surface of it down.
The music died down, and people started piling out. Middle-aged customers wore their boogie outfits— an absolute rule of my father’s, but more of a guideline for me. As a lot of my patrons were too-cool-to-care high school kids, I wasn’t going to lose their business by trying to force the funk on them.
Jeb came up behind me as the last of the skaters were leaving. “I’m heading out to Hardie’s, Miss Foxxy.” He blinked, watching as I wiped down the counters. “Is that detective coming?”
Jeb knew Detective Wyatt Bennett’s name, partially because he was the one who arrested my bouncer a couple of weeks ago for a murder he didn’t commit. An all-around know-it-all, he was also my—something. We hadn’t really defined it yet.
“I fail to see what that has to do with anything.”
“You only clean the counters when he’s coming over,” Jeb pointed out, a little pout forming on his face.
Ignoring Jeb’s justified dislike, I said, “That’s because it’s Stan’s job to wipe down the counters.”
“Stan never wipes down the counters.”
Throwing the dirty rag back under the sink, I made a face. “You’d be hard pressed to find a task in his job description that Stan does do.”
“Is stinking up the bathroom with his weed in the job description?” Jeb leaned against the counter, falling out of his mean, bouncer persona.
“Don’t know. Dad hired him in ’91— I was three and down in Miami.”
Despite our complaining and Stan’s lack of work ethic, I’d never fire him. Just like Jeb and I, he was a little off-kilter, not quite fitting into the town where everyone had a cauldron or a white picket fence. Some of the over-achievers, like my grandma, had both.
At the Funky Wheel, though, we had a home. It was a place where we could belong that was just as strange as us. Jeb, Stan, and I— even Amber, though it was more temporary for her— we’re part of the Funky Wheel family.
I let Jeb run off to his second job at Hardie’s, the hardware shop down the street, and I ran into the closet bathroom to check my hair. About halfway through the door, the smell of Woodstock thick in the air, I realized I was wearing a bright green wig. There was nothing to fix; I was already funky fresh.
Skating outside,
the air was nippy for Florida, but I didn’t even notice, I raced over to the police car that was idling in the parking lot.
Upon opening the door, heat washed over me, inviting me to get in and sit down. Even hotter than the car, Wyatt Bennett smiled at me, and my heart did a little flip-flop.
Never one to be caught without an impeccably put-together suit on, he was wearing a green one with a thick tie. Wyatt’s short, brown hair was worn in a severe, military style, and his jawline was sharp enough to cut, but his pale blue eyes sparkled at me.
He pulled out of the parking lot, heading toward the main road that went through the town. “You don’t have to go with me, you know. It’ll probably be pretty boring— for you anyway.”
“Nothing’s boring when I’m involved,” I said, putting my bare feet up on the dash. “I guess this is your version of porn, right? Watching a whole bunch of people come into town, learning every miniscule detail about them.”
A detective by design, not just desire, Wyatt loved to know absolutely everything about everything. He was a walking encyclopedia about the town, and everyone who’s ever even thought about crossing the Waresville boundary line.
“Regular porn does the trick, too, just so we’re clear.” His words were light, but he was already pulling out a pair of binoculars, having parked right on the side of the road just moments before.
I swiped them from his hands, then dangled them a few inches from his face. “You’re not serious.”
“I need to see faces.”
“I’m dating a Peeping Tom.” I beamed at him, changing the subject. “With the Witch Week festival going on, the force must have you pretty busy— safety measures for all the newcomers and all. Wanna talk about it?”
“No,” he said, grabbing the binoculars back, “but that was a good try.”
Ever since I’d taken a murder case into my own hands, running off to confront a killer without him, Wyatt’s mouth was sewn up tighter than the girdle of a Baptist minister's wife at an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast. Not a word that involved his job or police matters would grace his lips, no matter how hard I pushed.
I figured he felt guilty that he’d encouraged me to an extent, letting a crucial piece of evidence slip while we were on a date. Little did he know, I would’ve dived in head first with or without his help; Jeb’s freedom had been on the line.
Also, I was coming to realize that I was nosy and incapable of letting anything go.
“Sure you’re not going to enter the Witch of the Year competition?” Wyatt asked, trying to nudge the conversation in a different direction.
It worked.
Scowling, I said, “I’d rather give up pizza for the rest of my life. Even my grandmother agrees it’s a glorified beauty contest. She’s pushing hard for me to do a couple of the magical competitions, though.”
“Beauty contests aren’t all bad,” he said, grinning over at me. “I’d love to see you in the calendar they do with the winners.”
Those calendar shoots, all witch-themed, would’ve made a centerfold blush. And while I did parade around in booty shorts and skates, I’d only debase myself in the name of that funky groove.
“I just bet you would.” Lips twitching, I shoved his binoculars up to his face. “What if Cooper got ahold of it?”
Cooper, Wyatt’s ten-year-old son, was a bit of an oddball. He hardly had any friends, spending most of his time idolizing his father, solving TV mysteries, and over-excelling at elementary school. Besides Wyatt, he was quickly becoming my favorite person in Waresville, the weirdo in me recognizing the weirdo in him.
“He might like you even more,” Wyatt said, laughing.
I sighed, staring up with dreamy eyes at the night sky as it turned to day. “Then we’d run away together, and you’d have no one but yourself to blame.”
“So, no calendar then?”
I laughed and kissed him just because I could. His lips were soft, and he tasted like mint. My hand fisted around his tie, but I broke the connection before things got out of hand. We had newcomers to catalog, after all.
Chapter Two
In Town Square’s large parking lot, a stage had been set up to host all the festivities. Most of the time, this area was littered with tour buses, ready to take moneybag tourists to all the haunted places and magic shops around town.
Just behind the stage was a small, empty office building that had belonged to my accountant— a man who’d been ritualistically killed by his mother a few weeks ago. Since Matt hadn’t left it to anyone and it was vacant, the town council had decided to use it as dressing rooms and a backstage area for the festivities.
Though it wasn’t even noon yet, the whole town was packed into the space in front of the stage, joined by at least one hundred tourists. Vendors from the local restaurants were set up in a large square around the people, a heady mix of smells surrounded us on all sides.
There was music playing, filling a non-existent silence as townspeople chatted with the tourists about who they were supporting in the Witch of the Year competition. It wasn’t the kind of quality jams that you could find at the Funky Wheel, but I swayed to it as I waited for Wyatt to get back with our corndogs.
“Are they going to hex each other?” Cooper, who looked like a mini Wyatt, asked.
“No, they’re just going to argue over whose boobs are bigger.”
His eyes widened. “Dad says I can’t say ‘boobs.’ ”
“Did he say that I couldn’t say ‘boobs?’ ” I asked.
Cooper mulled it over a minute. “I guess not...”
Whew. What a relief.
I scanned the crowd, looking for Oliver— my best friend— or my grandmother— my worst nightmare. Neither showed themselves amongst the throngs of people, but I knew they were there. Oliver would never miss an event this large, for gossip purposes, and Grandma was too wary of other witches to stay away.
“Do you like my dad?”
I ruffled his dark hair, which his father had spent a good chunk of time getting to lay flat. “Not as much as you do, Coop. But then again, it’s physically impossible for anyone to love him that much.”
A smug look crossed the little twerp’s face. “I didn’t say ‘love.’ ”
“And neither did I.” Flicking his nose, I said, “And if you don’t want an atomic wedgie, you won’t mention the L word to your father.”
“Mention what to me?” Wyatt asked, appearing from behind us and making Cooper and I jump.
We said “Nothing!” simultaneously, and then guiltily grabbed a corndog. But while Cooper wolfed his down, I ate like a lady— if only to prove that I wasn’t completely on the same wavelength as a ten-year-old boy.
Wyatt chuckled, not pressing, and wrapped his arm around my waist. His fingers tucked into the pocket of my jeans and we all looked up at the stage as a blonde woman almost as tall as me came on.
Well, two of us watched the stage. When I glanced to my left at Cooper, his eyes were on me, a hunger in them that was tempered by a bit of sadness. He swiftly shifted his gaze back to the stage.
I wanted to put my hand on his shoulder and squeeze, but I didn’t, because I knew that look all too well. My dad had never been a part of my life, and I’d spent most of my childhood wishing for that second parent, the other half to complete my mom. It wasn’t till I’d inherited the Funky Wheel that I’d gotten that second parent, but it was almost a couple decades too late.
Like me, Cooper wanted another parent to fill the hole his mother had left when she took off when he was five and never came back. Unfortunately, I’d only been dating his dad for a few weeks. And even though— or maybe because— I liked Cooper a lot, I couldn’t be his mother.
Not if I might have to take it all away.
The bubbly blonde interrupted my thoughts. “Good morning, witches and wizards!” She beamed down at us. “As most of you know, I’m Belinda Clearwater, last year’s Witch of the Year!”
Her voice grated on my nerves, and it was then that
I recognized her from the previous festivities. On one of the nights when there’d been no competitions, she’d come into the Funky Wheel for all of twenty minutes. The witch screamed at me about the state of the bathrooms and over the fact that there wasn’t a salad on the menu.
For the record, I knew the bathrooms were disgusting, and we didn’t serve salads because I didn’t trust dishes with lettuce as the main ingredient.
Still, she’d left a bad taste in my mouth and a scrape on my fist when I’d clocked her in the jaw.
“Her bruise has healed nicely,” I muttered, earning a puzzled glance from Wyatt.
Belinda opened the ceremony with a flourish of her curvy body and everyone applauded. On principle, I crossed my arms over my chest, but I was just as excited for the contests and entertainment to begin the next week. That night, there was going to be a local rock band playing onstage. They were a bunch of teenagers and were sure to make me feel old, but still.
As Belinda walked off the stage, a pink, bedazzled phone dropped out of the back of her cowboy boots. There was no point in shouting, as she wouldn’t hear me over the crowd, so I just watched, seeing if anyone was going to pick it up.
When she disappeared into the office building and everyone started to dissipate to get ready for tonight’s party, I sighed.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I yelled in Wyatt’s ear, slipping away from the two.
I grabbed the phone off the stage and followed Belinda back into the building. While my accountant had owned it, the offices had been filled with gray and hardwood. Now, each one was customized to each contestant, like personal trailers in Hollywood. Never let it be said that Waresville didn’t take its Witch Week seriously.
Belinda’s room wasn’t hard to find, as it was the only one that looked like the color pink had been sick all over it. She was sitting in her chair, slightly slouched over her vanity.
