Work Like a Charm

by Cate Martin

  I knew how he felt.

  "Look, I wanted to say I'm sorry," I said, and he blinked at me in surprise.

  "You wanted to say you're sorry? To me?" he said.

  "Yes. I said I didn't regret what I did, and in the main, I don't, but I do regret that I wasn't honest with you," I said. "I knew before you even left that I'd be getting into the house no matter what."

  "I see," he said. Again, I couldn't get a read on what he was thinking, which was frustrating. I was usually pretty good at anticipating people's wants and needs. It was a skill that had come in really handy in the diner. I know it's not something most people brag about, but I had been a really good server.

  But now? With Nick? Nothing. I couldn't even tell you if he was the kind of guy who would have a ton of instructions for the cook on just how he wanted his burger done, or if he'd ask me what I thought was good and go with that.

  I leaned in, looking him right in the eyes. Those green eyes with flecks of gold. But I looked past that, deeper.

  "What?" he asked, standing back from the counter.

  "Medium, all the veggie toppings but definitely extra bacon. And cheddar, not American," I said.

  "What's that?" he asked.

  "How you like your burger," I said as the kettle beeped and I filled both mugs with the hot water.

  "How I like my…" he blinked. "What are we talking about?"

  "Nothing," I said, handing him his tea.

  "Suddenly I'm hungry," he said.

  "We might have some sandwiches in the fridge," I said. I turned to open the door, but he caught my arm and spun me back.

  "No, that's fine," he said, setting his tea down but not letting go of my arm. "I think I lost my thread, why I was here."

  "Sorry," I said.

  "Stop that," he said with a mock intensity that was covering for a genuine wish for me to stop apologizing.

  "Okay," I said, looking down at the hand on my arm. He seemed to notice it as well and quickly let me go.

  "I came here to apologize to you," he said. "If you could stop spinning my head around for a minute."

  "Okay," I said, taking a sip from my tea that was still far too hot. I pressed the back of my hand to my burned bottom lip and put the cup back down. "It's really not necessary," I said.

  "It is," he said. "I shouldn't have gotten so pissy with you."

  "I earned that," I said.

  "Well, maybe," he conceded. "But, I know I get a little hardcore with following the rules sometimes. My buddies in Afghanistan called me Boy Scout, and it wasn't really from affection."

  "There are worse things than following the rules all the time," I said.

  "All the time? Blindly?" he countered.

  "But that's not what you did," I said. "Well, I didn't know you in Afghanistan, but today that's not what you did. You were doing the same thing I was, getting someone to see if Mrs. Olson was okay. And like you said, they were already on their way when Sophie called them so really you did the right thing."

  "I should have done the right thing sooner," he said, pulling at his hair a bit too aggressively.

  I remembered what Brianna had said, about how there might have been a spell preventing me from checking on Mrs. Olson. It still didn't feel to me like that was what had happened to me, but looking at Nick and his misplaced guilt, I really, really wished there was some way I could tell him it was all a spell.

  "I don't think there was anything either of us could have done," I said. "I do think it was all over very fast."

  "Yes, that's what the medical examiner said," Nick said. He sniffed then took a sip of his tea.

  "You talked to the medical examiner?" I said. "They did an autopsy already?"

  "No, just an initial examination," Nick said. "They are doing a full autopsy in the morning with a screen for poisons, but she told us she didn't expect to find any. It looked like the object entered the corner of Mrs. Olson's eye and pierced straight through to the center of her brain. Quick and painless, and she may have been asleep when it happened as there was no sign of a struggle."

  "I guess that's good," I said. "As much as any of this can be good."

  "Yes," Nick agreed.

  I took another sip of my tea. "Did you ever locate any next of kin?" I asked as conversationally as I could.

  "No," he said. "I did some searching and so did Nelson. Her husband died when her son was twelve, and then her son died during Operation Desert Shield. She never remarried, and she was the only child of an only child."

  "How terribly lonely," I said. "No wonder she was always in the yard trying to strike up conversations."

  Nick gave a little laugh. "Sorry," he said at my quizzical look. "That's just so you. Linda was out there every day grilling all the passersby and enforcing imaginary neighborhood rules, but you see it as a lonely woman chatting with potential friends."

  "Didn't you see it that way?"

  "Yes," he said, sobering. "Yes, I did. I always made a point to talk with her when I came by. She could be grumpy, but she could also be kind. She was sharp and knew everything about the neighborhood. I'm really going to miss her."

  This time I was the one to reach out and catch his arm, given it a reassuring squeeze. He covered my hand in his and gave me a little smile.

  "So no family at all? Not even distant cousins?" I said as he turned his attention back to the remains of his tea.

  "Not exactly family," he said. "But there is someone she has a sort of legal connection with. Nelson spoke with her briefly and is going to meet with her tomorrow."

  "Suspect?" I asked.

  "Oh, I shouldn't think so," Nick said. "Linda Olson's name was unfamiliar to her, and he had to go over the legal connection a few times before she agreed that it could be a real thing."

  "What's the legal connection? Am I allowed to ask, that is?"

  "Linda died with no will, and her late husband had never had one either, nor her father. The binding document now will be her grandfather's will, it seems."

  "Her grandfather… William Brown?" I said.

  "Oh, you know the name?" Nick asked, frankly surprised.

  "Yes, um," I cast about for a logical reason for me to know this factoid. "He was the original builder of the house."

  "That's right," Nick said. "At any rate, his will left everything to Linda, his only grandchild, but had stipulated that if she died everything would go to some other entirely unrelated person. I don't know if it will even be legally binding after all this time, but Nelson tracked down the person who would be the beneficiary, the grandchild of the original beneficiary. Yeah, who knows."

  He drained the last of his tea then dropped the tea bag into the bucket where we kept things destined for the compost pile as if he too lived in the house and was intimate with all of its day to day affairs. Then he rinsed the mug and set it near the sink.

  I watched him do all this, my mind racing as I knew I was running out of time. There had to be some casual way to get the beneficiary's name out of him, the current one or the ancestor. Either would do. But how?

  Nick was drying his hands on the dishtowel, and I could almost hear the whisper of the last few grains of sand in the metaphorical hourglass slipping away.

  Not that it had worked in the yard, but once more I found myself just wishing really hard. Wishing he would just say the name, or that maybe even it would just pop into my head if I stared at him long enough.

  He looked up at me, startled at the intensity of the gaze I was throwing at him.

  "You okay?"

  "Sorry. Just tired, I guess," I said, blinking.

  Well, that had been just as useless as I had expected.

  "Yeah, I should get out of your hair. I have class in the morning anyway," he said.

  He turned to walk to the back door, and I trailed along behind him, trying not to feel like a failure. I hadn't really had a shot at success anyway.

  Nick opened the back door then the screen door before turning to look back at me. I thought he was
just going to say good night, but an odd look came over his face.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "Hm?" he said as if from far away, then blinked and the strange look was gone. "Wow, don't know what that was. I guess I'm tired too, just blanking out on you."

  "It is late," I said.

  "Yeah," he said, but then hesitated again before leaving. "Look, it's not likely to come up since Nelson is talking to her tomorrow, but just in case she gets curious and comes around, maybe you could keep an eye out?"

  "For the beneficiary?" I said.

  "Yeah. I doubt she will, but just in case," he said.

  "Sure," I said and mustered a smile. "How will I know her?"

  "I expect she'd be the only woman likely to turn up," he said. "But she has dark hair and dark eyes. In the photo, I saw of her online her hair was long and pulled back with a pair of little combs, but it looked like a picture from college so that might not be accurate anymore."

  "Okay," I said. Then, just as he was about to turn away again. "Her name?"

  "Oh, duh, that would help," he said with a grin. "Mina Fox. Her name is Mina Fox. See you tomorrow sometime?"

  He was smiling at me expectantly, and I forced my mouth to turn up at the corners, to form the words, "sure, tomorrow."

  Then I closed the door, leaning back against it and wrapping my arms around myself, hugging myself tight.

  The name had not been familiar to me, but the sounds it had made when he had spoken it out loud had sent a chill through my body, a chill that lingered still somewhere in my bone marrow.

  Just who was Mina Fox?

  Chapter 11

  "What was that name again?" Sophie asked me.

  "Mina Fox," I said.

  Sophie looked at me, then looked at Brianna. Brianna shrugged.

  I had to admit that I wasn't feeling the chill anymore either. Maybe it was just that it was daylight now, although a dim, early morning sun that barely illuminated more than the floor in the attic space where I had found Sophie and Brianna already choosing out 1927 outfits.

  "I'm just thinking, maybe we should go talk to her first before we go back in time," I said.

  "Why? Because you felt a thing?" Sophie asked. She wasn't being mean.

  "She has motive," I said.

  "But you said that Nick said that Nelson said that she didn't know the name Linda Olson when he - Nelson - called her," Brianna said, ticking names off on her fingers.

  "She could have been faking," Sophie said.

  "Which we could get a read on if we just go meet her," I said. "Even if she knows anything, she can give us information about her ancestor that was named in the will."

  "That is smart," Sophie agreed. "It will give us something to go on besides just the locator spell. Not that the locator spell won't work or anything."

  Brianna shrugged. "More leads are always good things. I'll go tell Mr. Trevor we need the car."

  "Hold on," I said before she could head for the stairs. "I had another question. A magic thing."

  "Shoot," Brianna said, although the way she shifted her weight from foot to foot said she was anxious to go.

  "Can you make something happen just by wishing it?" I asked, ignoring the heat in my cheeks. After a mostly sleepless night debating whether or not that was a stupid question I had decided not to ask. Up until just a second ago, that is.

  "Like what?" Sophie asked. "Like, 'I wish I had a slice of death by chocolate cake' and boom! One appears?"

  "I don't think it works that way," Brianna said with a frown. "The laws of physics, specifically conservation of energy-"

  "No, not like that," I said. "Last night when I stayed in the yard, I was trying to make myself see what I saw before when I came back from 1927 on my own. I wanted to see the time bridge."

  "Did you?" Brianna asked, brightening.

  "No, that didn't work," I said. "But then I tried it again when Nick was going to leave last night. I wanted to know the name of the person in the will, but he wasn't telling me, and I didn't want to pry by asking. So I just wished it, really hard. At first, I didn't think it had worked, but then he stopped just before leaving, and he had this weird look on his face. And then he told me her name."

  "The name that gave you chills," Sophie said.

  "Did. Doesn't now," I said, my eyes on Brianna.

  "I don't know," Brianna said. "There are old legends about witches with incredible power, but finding the truth in a legend… I don't know, Amanda. I'd have to have a lot of evidence to believe that. A lot."

  "Which doesn't mean we don't believe you," Sophie rushed to add.

  "No, that makes sense," I said. "It's probably just a coincidence. He came over to tell me things, that was probably one of them. It just felt weird. In the moment."

  "It was a long, weird day," Sophie said.

  "Pay attention to that sort of thing," Brianna said. "Keep a log. Not just when you think you make things happen, but every time you have one of your feelings or compulsions or anything like that. Maybe we can find a pattern. In the meantime, I'll go find Mr. Trevor."

  As usual, when we needed him, he was very easy to find. Scarcely ten minutes later we were climbing into his immaculately clean town car. Brianna had searched for the name Mina Fox online and was typing an address into the car's navigation system.

  We probably could have walked it; I realized as Mr. Trevor drove us halfway down the length of Summit Avenue before turning off onto Snelling Avenue to drive past Macalester College. I had walked this far before, although on that day I was killing time and today was promising to be a busy one. Mr. Trevor turned again onto a residential street then stopped in front of a cute brick home with gingerbread trim sitting comfortably back from the road, tucked under the wide arms of an elm tree.

  "I'll wait here, shall I?" Mr. Trevor said, already pulling a paperback book out of his pocket.

  "We won't be long. Thanks, Mr. Trevor," Brianna said, looking back over her shoulder to check for traffic before hopping out of the passenger door.

  Sophie and I echoed our thanks as we scrambled out of the back seat. It was another chill, overcast day; October was feeling a lot more like November with Halloween still more than a week away.

  Brianna rang the doorbell, and we heard a woman's voice tell us she was coming.

  "Did you call her?" I asked Brianna.

  "No, just found the address," she answered.

  "Maybe she's expecting Nelson," Sophie said, but before I could say anything the door was swinging open.

  At first, I thought we had the wrong house. Nick had said to look for a brown-haired woman with brown eyes, but this woman's hair was all silver and starting to thin and had a brittle look to it. But the eyes behind the thick lenses of her glasses were a deep chocolate brown, and the combs that held back the thinning wisps of her hair were tortoiseshell.

  I tried to speak, but the name wouldn't pass my lips.

  "Mina Fox?" Brianna said instead.

  "Yes, dear?" the woman answered.

  "That's who you are?" Brianna persisted.

  "Yes. Are you from the lawyer's office?" she asked politely.

  "Not exactly," Brianna said.

  "We live next door to Mrs. Linda Olson," I said.

  "Oh. Oh, dear," she said, then fumbled at the screen door handle. "Please, come in. Come in. Oh, I'm so sorry for your loss."

  "We only knew her a short time," I admitted as we all stepped into the house. There was no front hall; the door opened directly into the living room that was somehow overstuffed despite only containing a sofa, two chairs, and a coffee table in between. Behind the sofa was an old cabinet that would probably be a valuable antique if in better shape. It was a nice art deco piece that looked like it had been left out in the rain more than once.

  "I'm afraid I never knew her at all," Mina Fox was saying, waiting for Brianna to clear the doorway so she could close the door against the chill. "It's most peculiar. She had no family at all?"

  "Not that we knew
of," I said.

  "Most peculiar," Mina said again. "Can I offer you coffee or tea?"

  "No, thank you," I said. "We don't want to take up a lot of your time. You're meeting with lawyers today?"

  "Yes, and the police are sending someone to ask me some questions as well," she said, settling herself on one of the poufy chairs then waving her hands until they took seats around her, Sophie in the other chair and Brianna and I on the sofa.

  "Really, it's almost embarrassing. I don't have any need for the money. My own family left me enough to be comfortable, and at 71 with no children of my own I don't need much more than to be comfortable."

  "Pardon us for asking, but do you know how you ended up being named in the will?" I asked.

  "Oh, it wasn't me. At least, not directly. No, it was my grandmother named in the late Mrs. Olson's grandfather's will."

  "William Brown," I said. "We know a bit about him. Historically."

  "Oh yes?" Mina said.

  "Self-made millionaire," I said. "He had the house on Summit Avenue built to his specifications, and it's been in the family ever since. But he wasn't from here originally. He was from out east."

  "Is that so?" Mina said.

  "Yes," I said. "Do you know how your grandmother knew him? Was that also out east?"

  Mina drew in a long breath then let it out slowly. Then she summoned the smile back to her lips. "I beg your pardon. I'm not accustomed to discussing family matters with strangers."

  "I'm sorry," I said. I realized I had been sitting forward as if awaiting the most salacious of gossip and forced myself to sit back against the overstuffed back of the couch.

  "No, this is a unique circumstance," Mina said. "And it's not so much that I don't like to talk about it as that there isn't very much that I know. My grandmother died when I was quite young, and my mother never did like talking about her. My mother was an almost stereotypical fifties housewife, so proper and sensible. Always being mindful of what the neighbors might think. When my grandmother was still alive, she never came to visit. We always went to see her. I almost got the sense that this was a secret from my father. I think she might have told him that her family was all dead. I don't really know for sure. She never liked to talk about it, and since my grandmother died when I was young, it didn't really matter."