Misadventures of a Tongue-Tied Witch: Boxed Set Humorous Witch Series

by Livia J. Washburn

  He looked down at where the door jamb was splintered a little from the intruder hitting it. “But he broke in.”

  “I know. I d-don’t care.” I pointed at the revolver lying on the floor. “He had a g-gun. He might have another one.”

  He cocked his head slightly to the side as he said, “You don’t want me to get hurt.”

  “Well, of course not.” I paused. “We still need to work together to get our pparents out of that trap.”

  That wasn’t the only reason, of course. The idea of Donovan getting shot or even worse made my heart pound so hard it felt like it was going to burst. Even though I hadn’t known him all that long, relatively speaking, I just couldn’t imagine the thought of the world without him in it.

  But I wasn’t going to tell him that, and besides, practically speaking, I did still need him around to help me rescue my father from that bleak realm where he’d been marooned. Where I had marooned him, although I didn’t want to think about it like that.

  Donovan looked toward the far end of the hall and said, “Well, it looks like he’s gone now. I heard him galloping down those stairs. What did he want?” He looked at the way I was clutching the book and my laptop. “He’s a warlock! He was after the book!”

  “I don’t know that,” I said with a shake of my head. “My computer was on the t-table, too, and so was my phone. He could’ve just been a b-burglar.”

  “You mean an armed robber,” Donovan said. His expression and his tone were grim. “Burglars just break in and steal while you’re gone.”

  “Whatever you want to c-call him, he’s g-gone now.”

  “We should call the police.” Donovan frowned for a second and then shook his head. “Well, maybe we don’t want to do that.”

  “Not unless we want to answer a b-bunch of questions. That might g-get awkward.”

  “Yeah.” He came into the room and pushed the door closed behind him. It wouldn’t latch because of the damage to the jamb, but at least it wasn’t standing wide open anymore. “You’re sure he didn’t hurt you.”

  “He never laid a ffinger on me.”

  Technically that was true. It was the door that had hit me and almost knocked me down. I didn’t see any point in telling Donovan about that and making him even more upset than he already was.

  He picked up the gun, took the bullets out of it, and then put it in his pocket as he came toward me. “If anything ever happened to you…”

  He was close to me now, close enough to put his arms around me. I didn’t pull away or try to stop him. My heart was still pounding pretty hard, and to tell the truth, it felt good to have him hold me. It didn’t mean anything, I thought. It was just one person comforting another for a moment after something troubling had happened.

  Besides, both my computer and Eamon’s book were between us. We couldn’t get too close as long as I was holding them.

  I let a little time go by, then said, “I d-didn’t expect to see you this early. And I thought you’d p-probably just call me.”

  He stepped back and said, “I would have if I hadn’t really had anything new to tell you.”

  “Does that mean you do have new information?”

  He nodded, smiled, and said, “I didn’t have to get in touch with the private detective agencies. One of them got in touch with me. I think I know where the falcon is, Aren.”

  Chapter 9

  That took me completely by surprise, but before I could ask him any questions, I heard the door to Beth’s room open. I looked around and saw her emerge from her bedroom, yawning. Her short blond hair was toused from sleep.

  “Hi, Donovan,” she said. Then she looked at me and asked, “Did something happen out here a few minutes ago? I thought I heard some sort of commotion – ” She stopped short, probably because she had noticed the bowl and the spilled oatmeal on the floor…which Matilda was calmly helping herself to, by the way. “Did you throw a bowl of oatmeal at Donovan?”

  “Did I…?” I couldn’t believe she would ask me that. I wasn’t the sort to go around throwing temper tantrums. “Of course not! Somebody b-broke in.”

  “Broke in?” Beth’s eyes got big with concern. “Aren, are you all right?”

  “Yeah. But the d-door’s not.”

  She came over to look at the damage. “What did the guy do, kick the door down?”

  “No, he hit it with his shoulder. I had already started to open it.”

  “Why would you do that?” Donovan asked.

  “Because I th-thought he was you.”

  Donovan shook his head and said, “I didn’t get a very good look at him, but I really don’t think we resemble each other all that much. That guy looked like he ought to be on America’s Most Wanted.”

  “I just wasn’t thinking, okay?” I was starting to get a little irritated now. “I’ll p-pay to have the door repaired, Beth.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” she told me. “It shouldn’t cost much.”

  “No, it’s m-my fault – ” I stopped, realizing there really wasn’t any point to the argument. Whatever a handyman would charge for a repair job like that, it was probably more than I could afford. So I just nodded and said, “Okay, thanks. But I am sorry.”

  “Forget it. Should we call the police?”

  “I’d really rather we d-didn’t. Unless we need to for the insurance…”

  Donovan said, “The company that owns the building is the one that would have the insurance for something like this, and you’d be better off just paying to have it taken care of yourself. Otherwise the landlord might turn around and sue you for negligence. The whole thing would be more of a hassle than it’s worth. Why not just let me handle it? I know a guy who can replace that jamb before the day’s over and do a good job of it.”

  “That makes sense to me, and I’m sure Taylor won’t have a problem with it,” Beth said. “Thanks, Donovan.” She yawned again. “Now that I know I wasn’t dreaming, I think I’m going back to bed. Unless you need me for something, Aren…?”

  “No, we’re all right,” I told her. I wanted to hear what Donovan had come over to tell me, and I thought maybe it would be a good idea if we were alone when he passed along the information, even though Beth knew what we’d been working on.

  She gave us a wave and retreated to her bedroom.

  I said quietly to Donovan, “You don’t want the cops here any more than I d-do.”

  “That’s exactly right. No point in having to answer a bunch of potentially awkward questions. Especially since I, uh, technically committed fraud this morning, although there wouldn’t be any way for anybody who responded to an attempted armed robbery call to know that.”

  “Fraud?” I repeated. “What did you d-do?”

  “Pretended to be my mother.”

  I narrowed my eyes as I looked at him and said, “It seems like that would be p-pretty hard to do.”

  “Well, yeah, in person. But not on-line. People pretend to be somebody they’re not all the time. Check out any of the dating sites if you don’t believe me.”

  “No need, I b-believe you. What happened?”

  He gestured toward the book and the laptop and suggested, “Why don’t you set those down? I don’t want you to drop your computer and break it. In fact, give me the book.”

  I hesitated before handing it over, but only for a second. I had become rather possessive where that old volume was concerned, maybe because I was the one its author had traveled through time to visit. But in fact it belonged to his mother, not me…although I would have been willing to bet there was a good chance Sharon Cole had stolen it from whoever had it before.

  We sat down on the sofa and Donovan said, “I got an e-mail this morning from one of the private detective agencies. Or rather, my mother did. It came in on one of her accounts.”

  “You’ve been getting your m-mother’s e-mail?”

  “I thought something important might turn up.” He smiled. “And it looks like I was right.”

  “You know
her p-password?”

  “Please. Not to be smug here, but we’re talking about my mother. She may be a powerful witch, but I’ve probably forgotten more about computers than she knows. There’s no amount of security she could set up that would keep me out.”

  “I’m surprised she doesn’t have some c-company responsible for things like that.”

  “She does, on the computer she uses for business. But she wouldn’t trust them with her personal correspondence. My mother doesn’t have the most trusting nature in the world.”

  I could have said something snide about that, but I figured it would be better if I didn’t.

  “She trusts me, though,” Donovan went on. “When she gets back, she may be upset that I went poking around in her cyberspace, but I think she’ll forgive me. After all, we’re just trying to rescue her. And it’s not like I found anything embarrassing, anyway.”

  “She’s not a member of some b-bondage e-mail group? Whips and chains and b-black leather?”

  He looked like he didn’t know whether to be offended, amused, or grossed out. He settled for amused. He chuckled and said, “Actually, the only thing I found that surprised me is that she gets daily updates from a website devoted to sharing needlework patterns. I never saw my mother doing needlework in my life. Maybe she did when she was a little girl. Anyway, she got an e-mail this morning from the head of a private detective agency in Dallas. It said he had a report for her and asked if she wanted him to mail a hard copy or send her a PDF. I answered as her and told him to send the PDF.”

  “That was smart,” I said.

  He reached into his shirt pocket and brought out a small flash drive attached to a key chain. “I know,” he said as he took the cap off the drive and inserted it into a USB port on the side of my laptop. “I saved the report on here.”

  I leaned forward. It took only a few clicks to open the file. When it came up on the screen I started reading.

  This was a preliminary report saying that the object in question – without mentioning exactly what that object was – was believed to be located in Las Vegas, Nevada.

  I looked at Donovan and said, “V-Vegas?”

  “Keep reading,” he told me.

  Evidently the agency had sent out a description to its contacts all over the country. Previous sightings hadn’t panned out. Subsequent investigation had determined that the reported objects were not the one the agency was seeking.

  “He says he’ll forward p-photos as soon as they’re available,” I pointed out. “Did you find any pictures on your mother’s computer of the things they found before?”

  Donovan shook his head. “No, she must have deleted them when they turned out not to be what she was looking for.”

  “You mean Cearul.”

  “Well, that’s what we’re hoping for, anyway.”

  I reread part of the document and said, “According to this, the f-falcon is in a casino in Las Vegas. The Shamrock Casino.”

  “Yeah, the Shamrock,” Donovan said. “If that’s not an Irish connection, I don’t know what is.”

  “But how did such a p-powerful magic talisman wind up in a casino, of all places?”

  “Who knows? Remember, we said it could have passed through the hands of all sorts of people during the past ten centuries, and most of them probably had no idea what it was. More than likely they just thought it was some sort of novelty item that came from their grandfather’s attic or something.”

  “We’re lucky nobody ever took it on Antiques R-Roadshow.”

  That made him laugh again. “That would have been something, wouldn’t it? If that had happened, there’s no telling who would have seen it and realized what it was.”

  “The detective who sent this to you sounds pretty c-confident they’ve got the right one this time. He says it matches the description p-perfectly. But he doesn’t say exactly what the description is.”

  “No, and I couldn’t find any e-mails on my mother’s computer going into that,” Donovan said. “She may have visited the agencies in person when she hired them. She’s always traveled a lot, and I didn’t always know where she was or what she was doing.” He paused. “That bothered me some when I was a kid, but there were always nannies and housekeepers and tutors around, so I figured I was just as well off.”

  I didn’t quite believe that. No nanny or housekeeper or tutor could make up for a child not having his parents around. I was tempted to ask Donovan where his father was back then, but I decided it would be better not to. The story might be a painful one for him, or a complicated one, anyway, and we had enough complications in our lives right now. Best to focus on one thing: finding Cearul.

  “When do you expect to get the p-pictures?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “The detective doesn’t say. I guess whoever his contact is in Vegas was going to take them and e-mail them to him. So it shouldn’t take long, but I guess it depends on where the bird is and how easy it is to get a picture of it.”

  That made sense, but logic didn’t do anything to curb my impatience. I kept thinking of my father being trapped in that other realm. It had seemed like a bleak, lifeless place, what little I had seen of it, but I had no real idea of what dangers might lurk there. Nor did I know how quickly or slowly time passed for those who were stuck there. Even though only a few weeks had gone by in our world, to them it might seem like endless years already.

  “I hope it doesn’t take long. I want to b-bring them home.”

  “Me, too, Aren.”

  “Can you access your mother’s e-mail account from here?”

  He smiled and said, “You know, I probably can. Scoot over and I’ll give it a try.”

  I slid to the side so he could get to the computer easier, but I didn’t go quite far enough. His right hip wound up pressed against my left hip. I could have moved some more, but then it would have been obvious that I was trying not to have us touching. That would have made it seem more important than I wanted it to, so I stayed where I was as he logged on to his mother’s e-mail account.

  After a moment he shook his head. “No photos yet,” he said. “But I’ll keep checking. In the meantime we can go back to our translating. We want to be ready to try the spell as soon as we find the talisman.”

  That sounded reasonable enough. It was also reasonable for me to clean up that spilled oatmeal, which I should have done before now. I stood up to do that, and while I was at it I asked him, “Can I get you some c-coffee? Maybe something to eat?”

  “Coffee sounds great, and you know, I’m not sure when I ate last. Not this morning, though, because I forgot about everything else as soon as I saw that e-mail.”

  “And my breakfast g-got interrupted. Why don’t I fix us something else? Maybe an omelette.”

  He grinned. “Sounds good to me.”

  I felt disturbingly domestic as I went into the kitchen to cook an omelette and pour coffee. That was the sort of thing I’d be doing if Donovan had spent the night, and I was determined that wasn’t going to happen.

  When I came out of the kitchen fifteen minutes later with a couple of plates, I found Donovan examining the damaged door jamb. He looked over at me and said, “This shouldn’t take too much to fix. I’ll run home later and get my tools.”

  “I thought you said you knew a g-guy who could repair it.”

  “I do.” He poked himself in the chest with a thumb. “Me. You didn’t know I’m an expert carpenter, did you?”

  “When we f-first met, you told me you were a mixed martial artist,” I reminded him. “Then you admitted you watch it on TV. I guess this means you watch do-it-yourself shows, t-too.”

  “No, actually I’m pretty good with a hammer and nails and wood glue,” he insisted. “You’ll see. That door will be as good as new by this afternoon. Better than new, because we’ll put a protective spell on it when I’m finished.”

  Talking about how we first met reminded me of how he had set up that meeting and used magic on me without me knowing it. It wa
sn’t a good memory, and it sort of deflated the good mood that had come over me despite everything that had happened.

  A tone chimed from my computer and provided a welcome distraction.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Donovan said as he pushed the door closed as much as it would go. “I changed the settings on your computer to check my mother’s e-mail every five minutes.”

  “No, that was a g-good idea.” I set the plates, each containing half of an omelette with ham, cheese, tomatoes, and bell peppers, on the coffee table, then went back to the kitchen for our coffee.

  When I returned to the living room, I could tell right away by Donovan’s attitude as he sat hunched forward on the sofa that something had happened. He turned his head to look at me and said, “There’s an e-mail from the private detective with three jpegs attached.”

  “Did you l-look at them?” I asked as I hurried to the sofa and set down the coffee cups.

  “No. I wanted to wait for you, so we could look at them together.”

  “You didn’t have to d-do that.”

  “I figured it was only fair. Like it or not, we’re a team.”

  Did he like it? I wondered. Did I?

  That thought occupied my brain for only a second, though, as I sat down beside him, close enough that our hips touched again. I didn’t care. I wanted a good look at those photos. I nodded to him and said, “Go ahead.”

  He opened the first attachment. As the picture filled the screen, I caught my breath. A powerful shock of recognition went through me, even though I knew I had never before laid eyes on the object in the photograph.

  The bird was so lifelike I halfway expected it to spread its wings suddenly and soar into the air. The eyes above the sharp predator’s beak were dark as midnight and shockingly intelligent. The feathers were glossy, and yes, they were green, not emerald at all, but rather a deep shade of hunter’s green. Still, it was a very unusual coloring for what was unmistably a falcon.

  “That’s him,” I whispered, more moved than I had expected to be. “That’s Cearul.”

  Chapter 10