Work Like a Charm

by Cate Martin

  I knew that continuing to grind away wasn't doing me any good.

  I heard footsteps slapping on the sidewalk, coming towards me, and lifted my head, pushing my hood back as I saw Nick heading my way. I only really grasped how angsty I had been being in that instant when those green eyes met mine, and my mood changed like he had somehow flipped a switch in my mind.

  Wow, had I been wallowing fruitlessly in negativity.

  "Nick!" I said. "So good to see you! I've been back for days but so busy all the time. I guess you're probably busy too. How's police academy going?"

  On some level, I knew I was talking way too fast. At least I didn't blurt out loud that I had been looking out the windows every spare moment I could find, hoping to see him jogging by with his grandfather's Irish setter Finnegan keeping pace beside him.

  "Fine," Nick said, but he wasn't. The worried lines on his forehead were working overtime, deep and furrowed, and I felt bad for not noticing it when he had walked up to me.

  "What is it?" I asked. "Oh no, not your grandfather?"

  "No, no, he's fine," Nick said. "It's Mrs. Olson. Have you seen her lately?"

  "As a matter of fact, I haven't," I said, and felt a rush of guilt. I had been so consumed with my attempts at activating my magic I had completely forgotten my own worry about Mrs. Olson. "I wasn't sure if that was odd since it's so much colder now than it was before I left."

  "I don't know," Nick admitted. "Usually I only stay with my grandfather in the summertime. This is my first autumn here. But I'm so used to seeing her. I feel like something might be wrong,"

  "I feel it too," I admitted. "Does she have anyone to check in on her? Family or someone who comes in to tidy up or something?"

  "I'm not sure," Nick said. "Her husband and only child both passed, but maybe there's a cousin or something. I don't know. Maybe I'm panicking over nothing." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, long enough to spill over his forehead now. "No, I don't think it's nothing. Is it nothing? I'm used to trusting my gut."

  He was looking at me like I could somehow tell him whether he was being irrational or not.

  Maybe I could.

  "You know what?" I said, catching his arm to lead him back down the sidewalk. "This is silly, both of us worrying about this. Let's just go up to her house and knock on her door. We'll both feel better when she answers, even if she takes us to task for interrupting her stories."

  "I knocked before," Nick said, but let me pull him along. "But that was a couple of days ago."

  "Let's check again, and if she doesn't answer we can plan next steps from there," I said.

  "Like what?" he asked, glancing sideways at me. As usual, those eyes made little shivers run up and down my spine. Rather like I expected my own magic would feel if I ever tapped into that.

  "Oh, the usual," I said. "Peeking in the windows, pawing through her trash. But we'll start with knocking on the door."

  Nick laughed, and somehow that sound just evaporated the last dregs bit of my dark mood and lifted the cloud of exhaustion off my brain.

  If only there were some way to get Nick to pitch in with the whole magic thing. I just knew with him there cheering me on I could do anything.

  Alas, the whole being a witch with no magical powers thing was hard to explain. He would just think I was crazy.

  But at least in the meantime, we could solve a little mystery together. A little missing persons case to put on his resume, and him not even out of police academy yet.

  But I was probably getting ahead of myself. How much could really follow a simple knock on a door?

  Chapter 6

  I glanced over at Nick walking beside me with his hands buried deep inside his jacket pockets. He looked even more down than I had been feeling before he had shown up.

  Maybe I could cheer him up?

  And, you know, not dwell on the fact that seeing me hadn't filled him with joy in the same way I had been filled seeing him.

  "Thanks for doing this," he said before I could come up with anything to say. "I know I could just go up and knock on her door again myself, but I'd rather have some company. I'm glad you're back."

  "I've been back for about a week," I said. "I guess we've been missing each other."

  "Yeah," he said, sounding distracted.

  "Police academy must keep you busy," I said, but he just shrugged. I was starting to feel like I was needling him for information. "So I guess this is where I live now," I said instead. "It's a big change for me."

  "It's a cool place," Nick said, making some effort to hold up his end of the conversation. "Lots of history."

  I almost laughed out loud. How little he knew how close that history was.

  "I lived my whole life in that town. The place where I was born, the apartment I lived in, the schools I attended and the diner I worked in were all within walking distance of each other. Now, I don't even know where the closest library is."

  Nick looked up as if he could spot such a building. Then he took his phone out of his back pocket and poked at the screen as we walked. "Take a right on Kellogg and walk down towards the river. It's about twenty minutes away."

  I grabbed his wrist a bit too eagerly to see the map on the screen. I had a smartphone, but the maps app frequently had a hard time figuring out where I was and what direction I was facing. Like I needed any help in getting lost.

  "Thanks," I said.

  He was grinning at me as he put his phone away. "Clearly libraries are important to you."

  "We actually have one in the school, but hardly any fiction," I said. "I'm jonesing."

  "The school?" he said.

  "The house," I said. "It used to be a school. There's still a little plaque by the front door. MISS ZENOBIA WEEKES' CHARM SCHOOL FOR EXCEPTIONAL YOUNG LADIES."

  "So you have a library full of books to learn how to be charming?"

  "Something like that," I said, feeling my cheeks turning pink. Perhaps he'd write it off as from the chill in the wind.

  "Well, don't overdo it," he said, glancing over at me again. "You already have more than your fair share, no need to rub it in."

  "That's just small town politeness," I said, my cheeks heating even more.

  "I've been to lots of small towns," Nick said. "Politeness is just charm on the lowest setting."

  He was looking at me again, and I was getting flustered. So flustered, in fact, that my hand was starting to reach for the wand tucked in my back pocket to have something to fidget with. I caught myself just in time, shoving my hands into my front pockets to keep them out of trouble.

  A sudden memory washed over me, dinner with the Schneidermans in their home with Mr. Trevor. Mrs. Schneiderman was the closest thing I'd ever had to a grandmother, so perhaps it hadn't been so odd when she asked me if I had met any nice young men in St. Paul. I had stammered some reply about only having been in the city for a few days and being very busy, which prompted more waffling and spinning as I had begged Mr. Trevor not to tell them that there had been a murder on the property and I certainly couldn't tell them about the magic. Which led Mrs. Schneiderman to conclude that I was pretending to have been busy but had in fact been deeply smitten with someone. So much teasing for the rest of dinner - heck, for the rest of the week - and the constant paranoia that Mr. Trevor would let something slip.

  Not that Mr. Trevor had any reason to know what I was feeling. Surely I wasn't such an open book.

  Was I?

  "So, you were moving as well?" I said, perhaps a bit too forcefully.

  "Yes, into my grandfather's spare room. Which is really his office, but he doesn't work anymore, and it has a pullout couch," he said.

  "I hope it's a nice one," I said.

  "Not really," he said. "There's a bar that runs right under my shoulder blades. Yeah, I mostly just sleep on it in couch form. A bit cramped, but really not too bad."

  "I bet your grandfather appreciates the company," I said.

  "He does," Nick admitted with a nod. "But it's bet
ter for me as well. I was staying with some friends from high school. They have a loft over a bar downtown. Lots of space and they would have been happy to have me forever, but it was really not a good fit for me."

  "Too loud?" I guessed.

  "That," he agreed. "But also…" He seemed to think twice about what he was going to say, scrunching up his face as if the words he was holding back pained him.

  "Tell me," I prompted.

  "They're my friends, and I love them, but they're just sort of coasting through life. Minimum effort, you know? They're perfectly content, but after my time in the military, I like having a schedule. I like getting things done, going to bed knowing something got accomplished. Not that I'm doing anything so awesomely important or anything."

  "I get you," I said.

  He looked over at me again, and my stupid stomach did that flip over thing again. "I believe you do," he said.

  He wouldn't stop looking at me, even when I dropped my own eyes.

  Then, to my relief, we finally reached Mrs. Olson's house.

  Well, mansion really.

  "Shall we?" I said, and we jogged up her front walk to her door. Summit Avenue was an eclectic mix of architecture. The charm school was an American Queen Anne style, while the condos where Nick and his grandfather lived was modernist of all things. Mrs. Olson's place was Richardsonian Romanesque. Not a style I liked; it was built to tower over you and make you feel small, and presumably make the owners feel bigger.

  As forceful as Mrs. Olson's personality was, she didn't really seem like she fit in that house. But back in 1927, I had met her grandfather, William Brown, the man who had had the house built to his specifications. It was almost like I could feel his spirit inhabiting the place, looming over me. Especially standing there on the front porch where I had met him before.

  I half expected him to answer the door. My hands twisted together as I listened for footsteps to approach after Nick rang the bell. But the house was silent. Nick rang again, leaning on the button a bit. Then he knocked.

  He had a very official, police officer on duty sort of knock. I kind of admired it.

  But still, there was no answer. Nick turned to me with a shrug. The worried lines were back on his forehead.

  "Mrs. Olson?" I called, cupping my hands over my eyes as I tried to peer into the little decorative window in the door. I couldn't see a thing. No lights were on, and the day outside was too overcast to be of any use illuminating the hallway.

  "Maybe a different window," I said, jumping off the porch and into the plantings that I realized too late had been put under the windows as a thief deterrent.

  "Careful," Nick said.

  "Yeah, it's a bit scratchy," I said. That first jump in had left red streaks all over my hands, and it took a bit of time to free my clothes from every snagging thorn. But I pushed my way closer to the house rather than back towards the yard where Nick was watching me.

  "Nothing," I said, over and over again as I worked my way from window to window.

  The back door was, not surprisingly, locked. Nick tried knocking and calling for Mrs. Olson, but there was still no answer.

  I lifted the lid on the trash bin at the bottom of the back stairs. There was only one neatly tied bag at the bottom of the bin. I had no idea how much Mrs. Olson usually threw away, or even when the pickup was.

  "Now what?" I said as I let the lid close with a bang.

  Nick ran a hand through his dark blond hair. "I guess we wait a few days and try again."

  "That's it?"

  "Do you have a better idea?" he asked, not remotely sarcastically.

  "Maybe one of the windows is open," I said, although I hadn't noticed any on my way around the house.

  "We can't go in there without some sort of reason," Nick said.

  "Why not?" I asked.

  "The law?" he said. His expression was part amused, part suspicious like he wasn't sure if I was kidding or not.

  "Of course," I said.

  "There's got to be a way to find out who her next of kin is," Nick was saying as I edged up close to another of the windows and tried once more to catch a glimpse of anything inside. "If they don't live close enough to let us in, maybe we could just get permission…"

  I cupped my hands around my eyes, but it didn't help. Nothing inside but darkness.

  The darkness bothered me. It felt too intense. Like it was a physical thing. I kind of wanted to see what would happen if I pointed my wand at it.

  Probably nothing. Anyway, I didn't remotely want to do that with Nick standing right behind me.

  Still, the feeling that something was deeply, profoundly wrong was so strong it was making my whole body tingle.

  It wasn't as strong as my compulsion feelings. I wasn't being driven to enter Mrs. Olson's house. But I knew in my bones that I had to get inside.

  "Amanda?" Nick called, worried.

  "Something is not right," I said as I left the window to stand by him at the bottom of the back steps. "It's not right. It didn't feel right the day I came back, but I ignored that. It feels even more wrong now. Really, really wrong."

  "I agree," Nick said, although I doubted he was feeling the same thing I was.

  "We have to do something," I said.

  For a moment I could see that he was tempted. He looked up at the back door, and I could see him doing a sort of mental calculation of what it would take to kick that door in.

  Then he shook his head as if coming back to his senses. "I'm going to find her next of kin," he said.

  "Can't we just pretend we heard something suspicious? Like a scream or something?" I asked. I was hugging my hoodie close around me - it felt like the air had dropped about a dozen degrees since we started knocking on the door - and he could tell I was complete serious. Serious, and worried, and upset.

  But, even so, he wasn't a rule-breaking kind of guy.

  "I'm going to talk to Nelson. Even without next of kin, he should be able to get some patrol officers to do a welfare check," he said. I remembered Nelson. He was already a cop. He had been kind enough when Cynthia had died on our back step, but he would be even more by the rules than Nick, I knew.

  A fat drop of rain splatted right in the middle of my face, rain that was just on the verge of becoming ice.

  Then the sky opened up, and we were both pelted with sleet.

  "I'm going back to my apartment to call," Nick said, pulling his hood up over his head. "I'll let you know the minute I hear anything, okay?"

  I nodded, pulling up my own hood.

  But the minute I burst in the back door of the charm school, I was yelling for Brianna and Sophie. The only two people who would possibly take my gut feeling seriously.

  Chapter 7

  The rain had completed its transition to icy sleet, but I could no longer feel it. Brianna easily expanded her invisible umbrella charm to cover the three of us as we walked back to Mrs. Olson's front door.

  I had expected to have to do some convincing, but apparently the look on my face had made any explanations totally unnecessary. I had found Sophie first, making herself a cup of espresso in the kitchen, and before I could utter a word she had yelled for Brianna, taking my arm and leading me to the front door where we met Brianna running down from the library.

  "It might be nothing," I said as we huddled together on the uneven concrete of her front step. Back in 1927, it had been pristine, but the decades between had been hard on it and it badly needed replacing.

  "I trust your feelings," Sophie said.

  "What feeling did you have?" Brianna asked.

  I shrugged. "Just a sense of wrongness. Do you feel it?"

  They both closed their eyes for a moment. Brianna opened hers first with a sad little shake of her head. Then Sophie opened hers a moment later to give us both a pensive look.

  "It is something," she said. "I'm not sure what, but the normal flow of magic around this house is… snagged."

  "We need to go inside," Brianna said and knocked briskly on the
door.

  "No one will answer," I said. Sophie glanced at one of the windows then looked at me. "I couldn't see anything before, but it's darker outside now."

  "No need," Brianna said. "I can get us inside. But brace yourselves. I'm going to have to drop the umbrella charm."

  Sophie and I pulled our hoods up. I thought I had braced myself, but the sudden pelting of cold rain was icy enough to make me gasp out loud. Sophie, less accustomed to the cold being from Louisiana, made an even more miserable sort of sound.

  Brianna said a word that sounded like Latin then tapped her wand on the front door. We heard the lock inside sliding open, then the doorknob turned, and the door swung away from us, disappearing into the darkness of the front hall.

  "Hello?" I called as I stepped inside, hugging myself to stop my shivering. There was a smell in the air, sweet but putrid. I didn't like it.

  Sophie stepped in beside me, and we took a few cautious steps further into the front hall. I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the grayish light barely passing through grimy windows. The hall was dominated by a grand staircase, a balcony on the second floor overlooking the checked tile floor we were standing on.

  I could imagine party guests gathered here, drinks and hors-d'oeuvres in hand, all laughing and talking then falling silent as someone appeared at the top of those stairs to make their grand entrance.

  I just couldn't imagine that person being Mr. Brown. I had never met his wife. She had died long before we visited him in 1927, but I had rather gotten the impression she had never lived in this house. Perhaps he had intended to marry again and had never gotten around to it.

  I doubted Mrs. Olson had ever gotten much use out of the grand staircase either. The intricate carvings in the wood of the balustrade were coated with dust to the point where I couldn't figure out what they were supposed to even represent. The largest in the central position looked like some kind of coat of arms, a shield with fleur-de-lis topped with a knights' visored helmet and with dramatic billows of ribbon behind all of it.

  Sophie and I both jumped as the door behind us shut with a slam.