Magical Midway Paranormal Cozy Series Books 1-3

by Leanne Leeds

  “Charlotte?”

  “Just give me a minute to catch my breath, Gunther,” I told him as I stretched on the bench.

  “No problem. You did great fixing all that stuff. They’ll get over it.”

  “I shouldn’t have had to fix anything, and there shouldn’t be anything for them to get over. That was a ridiculous mistake on my part.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Gunther said as he sat down next to me. “I kind of like the trees on the paths. It really gives this whole place a different feel, you know? Like you brought the forest into the fairground.”

  “I did bring the forest into the fairground. Into yurts, into beds. Anya almost throttled me when she found a big tree stuck in the middle of her king-sized water-bed.”

  “She’ll get over it. You got it all fixed up.”

  The midway inhabitants shuffled toward the gate and the Werebear Jamboree. It was strange to see the carnies and paranormals walking in clusters toward another festival for a change. They looked just like the humans that came to see us, though they streamed in the opposite direction.

  Suddenly, the low murmur of the crowd was shattered by the sound of a furious roar.

  “Is that normal?” I asked Gunther. Another roar, and then another filled the air.

  “I don’t think so,” he said, leaning forward. The stream of paranormals that had been headed toward the festival moved back toward the Magical Midway like a wave that receded from the shore. “We are lawgivers, maybe we need to check that out.”

  I nodded as Gunther grabbed my hand, and we ran toward the angry sound.

  Bears surrounded a tree in a half-circle. There must have been fifty or sixty crowded against one another. A man with a gray beard and glasses hung, impaled, on a branch.

  He was dead.

  “What happened here?” I asked as we ran into the circle. Before I reached the end of my question, the gathered bears in humanoid and shifted form fell silent and turned on me.

  “Our leader is dead, clearly,” a large man I didn’t know informed me. “Who are you and what business is it of yours?”

  “That’s the witch!” a male voice yelled from the crowd.

  “We’re lawgivers,” Gunther told him, holding up his hand to show the man the ring. “How did this man become impaled on a tree? Was there some kind of accident?”

  “Have you ever heard of a bear accidentally becoming impaled on a tree, lawgiver? What kind of stupid question is that? Someone stabbed him with a branch.”

  “That’s the other witch!” another man from the crowd hollered.

  “Of course they are witches! They’re lawgivers. The witches wouldn’t allow that ring on any non-witch hand. I’m not an idiot, Fargo,” the huge man snapped, and then turned back to Gunther and me. “I am Scout, and this impaled werebear is my brother Chase. We are… were the clan leaders of the Werebears.”

  “Your family are the leaders?” I asked.

  “My brother was clan leader. Now, my brother is dead as you can plainly see,” Scout said as he made his way down the embankment toward us. “I am now rightful bear clan leader. As their rightful leader, I say you have no business here!”

  “Yeah, get out!” a voice called from the crowd. Growls followed.

  “I mean no disrespect, sir, but we are lawgivers. I think we’re required by our position to help with situations like these,” I told Scout. “Your brother is impaled on a branch five inches thick and three feet long. That doesn’t happen by accident.”

  “No. You are right, witch, it probably did not happen by accident. It could happen by magic,” he growled. “Weren’t you tossing around one-hundred-year-old trees like toothpicks less than an hour ago? Maybe you tossed one in the wrong direction. Accidentally,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. The surrounding men and bears nodded and closed the circle around us.

  “Maybe on purpose!” another yelled from the crowd.

  “She’s a ringmaster, she could kill anyone she wanted!”

  “And make it look like an accident!”

  “Who would stop her? They don’t have to follow the law like we do!”

  “Charlotte, I think we should let these folks handle this on their own for now,” Gunther said as he grabbed my arm. “They know where we are if they need help.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone, not even accidentally!” I told them as they gathered even closer, ignoring Gunther. “I was meticulous when moving the trees. There was protection built into the relocation spell! Even for the trees themselves!”

  “Clearly not,” Scout sneered as he pointed to his brother and advanced on me. “You don’t care one whit for other paranormals. It would mean nothing to you to fling a branch at my brother, accidentally or otherwise.”

  I stared at the large man with a thick wooden branch sticking out of his chest. He was impaled to the trunk of the tree, but it was clear that the branch thrust into the leader came from someone he was facing.

  “When did you find your brother?”

  “I’m not answering any of your questions, witch. And if you don’t leave, I’ll make sure these bears get you out,” Scout growled at me.

  “Charlotte, you need to go,” Gunther whispered urgently.

  “I can’t be hurt here, Gunther,” I told him and shrugged him off. “We need to figure out what happened.”

  “You’re not helping here,” Gunther said as he eyed the slowly advancing bears. “You need to go. Let me see if I can calm the crowd down.”

  “You can be hurt. I’m not going to leave you here!”

  “I’ll be fine. I’m not a ringmaster, and they don’t see me as a threat. For whatever reason, at the moment, all their anger is focused on you.”

  I turned back to the crowd and sampled their thoughts and energy. Gunther was right. All the bears’ anger, mistrust, and suspicion were focused clearly and completely on me while Gunther’s presence barely registered on them. I couldn’t understand why.

  “Okay, okay. Meet me back at the Magical Midway.”

  As I gathered myself to teleport back to my yurt, a woman at the very edge of the clearing caught my eye. All around me faces were angry, grief-stricken… She looked smug as our eyes met.

  I rubber-banded the half-mile back to the midway and manifested in the branches of an evergreen tree that had taken up residence in my sitting area.

  Chase Trout was a significant leader to the werebears. Since he was murdered, all the bears will be out for blood.

  “Samson is right. Are you absolutely sure there is no way you could have accidentally impaled him on that branch?” Uncle Phil asked. As he caught sight of my expression, he held up his hands. “I’m not accusing you of anything, dear girl. But accidents do happen, and you have been having a problem with the placement of trees today.”

  “Okay, I’ll admit that I screwed up moving the Magical Midway to its new location. All of you talking to me and chattering at me was stressing me out,” I told Uncle Phil. “While I may not have remembered to clear all the trees from where we would land, I always make absolutely sure to put in the safeties so that no one will be hurt. That’s not something I forget.”

  “If she hadn’t, we would’ve had a lot more paranormals impaled by trees,” Fortuna pointed out. “At least a third of us wound up with our faces buried in needles or leaves, but no one had a scratch.”

  “That’s true for the major move, but did you remember every single time you moved a single tree during cleanup?” Ningul asked. “I’m not accusing you of anything, either, but that was a lot of chances to make a mistake.”

  “I agree, but I know I didn’t move that tree, and even if I did, that wasn’t what killed him.”

  “How do you know?” Fiona asked.

  “It was huge. The tree was one hundred feet or more. I never moved anything that big individually. Most of the trees that I moved from the Magical Midway were new growth trees. Much smaller. I think the largest one I moved may have been twenty-five feet high?”

 
“She’s right,” Gunther said as he walked in. “I was with Charlotte the whole time she was moving trees. I never saw a tree that massive.”

  I’m tied to you every moment of the day and night, Charlotte, Samson reminded me. I am one hundred percent sure you did not move that tree, and you did not kill, accidentally or otherwise, Chase Trout.

  You couldn’t have mentioned that before?

  No one asked me.

  “Samson just said that I definitely didn’t kill the werebear leader.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not like we can hear him,” Fiona said as Samson hissed at her.

  “I did hear him, and Charlotte is correct,” Uncle Phil said.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Fiona said. “Oh, forget it.”

  “The trust you all have in me is heartwarming. Really. In any case, the branch that the leader was impaled on wasn’t from that tree. The tree was an evergreen, and the branch was clearly oak-like. It was pinning him to that tree like someone flung a branch at him at high speed.”

  “What’s the situation over there?” Uncle Phil asked Gunther, ignoring me. My face burned red.

  “At the moment? Just a lot of assumptions,” Gunther said. He walked around the center table and sat in a chair at the opposite end from me. “I don’t know that the Forest family talked to anyone regarding the Magical Midway coming here. The circus does not seem that welcome. At least if the new leadership is any indication.”

  “Not wanting us here and accusing Charlotte of murder are two very different things, Gunther,” Uncle Phil said. “How did she become the target of their suspicion so quickly?”

  “I don’t really know,” Gunther answered. “Scout Trout—”

  “Scout Trout?” I asked. Gunther nodded.

  “The Trout family are the clan leaders of all werebears. Scout Trout is the one you met. Chase Trout, the deceased, was his older brother. In any case, Scout does not trust ringmasters, lawgivers, or the Witches’ Council. Charlotte is all three, so suspicion immediately fell on her, I guess.”

  “You’re three of those things, too,” I pointed out to Gunther. “Why me and not you?”

  “I’m two out of three,” he responded. “And I didn’t tussle with trees this morning.”

  “Well, there’s nothing they can do to her, anyway,” Fiona said as she reached out and patted my hand. “She’s pretty much indestructible.”

  “I don’t think my physical safety is the main concern in this situation,” I told Fiona. “The whole point of coming here was to get the werebears on our side. Build bridges between paranormal communities, allow the town paranormals to get to know us and start tearing down the prejudices between us. The bears thinking I killed their leader does exactly the opposite of what we were trying to achieve.”

  “There’s another complication,” Gunther said quietly. “The werebears are going to convene their own inquiry panel in three days. If they decide to indict Charlotte, I’m obligated as a lawgiver to respect their decision. I’ll have to arrest her.”

  “That means handing me over to the Witches’ Council,” I told him.

  “You can’t do that!” Fiona shouted.

  “If we’re going to follow the rules and laws and we’re not going to be corrupt, we might have to,” Gunther told her. “I don’t want to, but to not respect their decision would go against everything Charlotte and I have been trying to champion. We can’t just bend the rules when it suits us. That’s something the Witches’ Council would do.”

  “She’s not going to achieve anything if she’s in prison, Gunther!”

  “You know, there was a reason we just made our own rules,” Uncle Phil told Gunther, and then he sighed. “You children and your high ideals. You just painted yourselves into a corner with them.”

  “Look, we have three days,” I told Uncle Phil. “We know that this accusation is probably coming from the prejudice we’re trying to fight against. It has to be. The best way to fight against it is to find out who killed Chase Trout, and why. Show the werebears we’re on their side.”

  “That may be extremely difficult to do if the entire werebear community thinks you just killed Chase Trout,” Gunther said.

  “Yeah, well, it's not like we haven't dealt with difficult things before,” I told Gunther with a shrug.

  Despite my shrug, my blood pressure rose even as my heart sank.

  Barely any time had passed between now and the last crisis. With each phase of the moon, my life got more and more complicated.

  3

  I stood in front of Jeannie's Snack Shop and gazed out toward the Werebear Jamboree. Many large, powerfully built werebears gathered in clusters just outside of the Magical Midway entrance talking to one another. Many of those werebears stared at me, but no one crossed into our fairground.

  None looked friendly.

  “You know, there's a lake right at the bottom of the mesa,” Anya said as she came up behind me. “I can suck the whole lot of those accusatory bears right down the slope with one good wave.”

  “You can drown a bunch of werebears with a gigantic wave coaxed out of a mountain lake, but your sister couldn’t get a water snake to go fast enough to slip up my nose?”

  “I’m better than my sister. Besides, there was poison in the water. The poison makes the water far harder to control. Water doesn’t like to be used that way,” she told me as she watched the groups of werebears at the gate.

  “But it doesn’t mind being turned into a gigantic wave to wash away a bunch of bears?”

  “I know, seems strange, doesn’t it? Alexa sends her regards, by the way.”

  “That’s a little… weird. I would have thought your sister still hated me. How’s she doing?”

  “Her cell is nicer than my yurt, so she’s managed to lower her rage toward you.”

  “That’s good to know since it looks like I may wind up in the cell right next to her.”

  “That would be an irony, wouldn’t it?”

  “Here you go, Charlotte,” Jeannie said, sliding me a slice of wish-granted Costco pizza and a soda. “I think it’s just about perfect now. It took me a while to figure out the key to it. Lots of cheese. Lots and lots of it.”

  I took a bite of the cheesy concoction and shuddered at the familiar greasy warmth. “Iss good, ‘fank you,” I told her, my mouth stuffed full of mozzarella.

  “All the choices you have here, you eat that?” Anya shuddered. “You are such a creature of habit. And I don’t mean that in a good way. Your habits are incredibly boring.”

  “Boring can be good.”

  “Speaking of boring,” Anya said as she pointed toward the gate. “The blond boy wonder is back.” Anya’s vocabulary had expanded to include many phrasings from Batman, an old show I had introduced her to. I had manifested a tablet so I could stay connected to some of my old, familiar guilty pleasures.

  “What’d you find out?” I asked him as he walked up.

  “Not much, actually,” Gunther answered. “No one’s really talking to me. Scout said that the inquiry will be handled the way any other werebear inquiry would be handled. He politely informed me that they no longer have any procedures to incorporate lawgivers in their investigations.”

  “Scout? You’re on a first name basis with the new werebear leader? The same one that is accusing Charlotte of murder?” Anya asked him suspiciously.

  “It’s called building rapport,” he told Anya. “I can’t find out any information if they don’t trust me. If they don’t trust me, I can’t help Charlotte.”

  “It seems to me that whenever you’re around, Charlotte winds up getting in some kind of trouble.”

  “Yeah, but that’s only because he’s always around,” Fortuna said as she walked up to us. “I get the feeling that Charlotte could get herself into pickles all by herself just fine.”

  “Why would Charlotte put herself into a pickle? How would she even shrink herself that small?” Anya asked, looking confused.

  I rolled my eyes.

>   “Look, I can’t stay here hiding for three days and just wait for them to come for me. If Gunther’s not finding anything out, we need to go out and talk to people.”

  “Faleena!” Anya shouted at a large, round woman as she waddled through the Magical Midway gate. The woman was wrapped in brown leather accented by what looked like bearskin. A werebear wearing actual bearskin seemed a little bit horrifying, to tell you the truth. “Faleena Hobb! I hoped that I would see you at this fish fest!”

  “Anya, my friend,” the large woman called as she shuffled up to our group. “I had no idea that you were at the same circus that is headed by the ringmaster suspected of killing our leader.”

  With a shock, I realized she was the smug woman from the clearing.

  “I didn’t kill anyone,” I told the woman.

  “No doubt the truth of whether you did or did not matters a great deal to you. I don’t believe the inquest will bother being concerned with such a piddly thing as truth,” the woman responded rolling her eyes. “Once our inquisitions turn upon someone, they rarely turn away.”

  Okay, maybe that’s just her personality.

  “Werebears are either remarkably talented at spotting guilty parties, or ridiculously corrupt in punishing innocent people, then,” I responded. Anya laughed at my observation, but the woman’s eyes narrowed in her pudgy face.

  “I have no doubt it’s the latter, but it’s not like anyone on the Witches’ Council cares one whit or another. They just take the people we hand over and deal with them in whatever way they feel they should. We don’t cause them any issues.”

  “If it works for you,” I told her, gritting my teeth.

  “Well, it works for me. But then again, I’m not suspected of any crime at the moment. I imagine if I were in your position I would feel quite different about the whole thing. I suppose you think there’s nothing they can really do to you, so you’re probably not worried at all.”