Murder, Magic, and Moggies

by Pearl Goodfellow

  “There wasn’t anything in Nebula’s place—from plants to cosmetics to shampoo—that had any lavender in it.”

  I felt a letdown that brought my bad mood back a little. “That’s it?”

  “Hey, I can see some rock-for-brains constable making the argument that the stuff I kept smelling was just some of Nebula’s makeup regimen,” Shade said, sounding hurt. “I thought that was an important detail to bring up.”

  While I stirred the honey into the milk, I said, “And, it is. I just…”

  I shook my head as I pulled out one of my smaller mason jars.

  “I just wanted it to be more,” I admitted while I poured the mixture from the bowl into the jar. “I want to show David that having me on this case with him is an actual help.”

  “Millie’s right, you know,” Shade said with a tease back in his voice. “There ARE easier ways to get a date with a guy you want to go out with.”

  I made like I was going to lunge at him, but I was grinning as I did so. Shade chuckled as he took off across the room. Then I heard a crash in the front. I groaned at the sound because I knew it could only mean one thing.

  As I was walking towards the front, Shade yelled, “Hey, don’t forget to cap the mason jar!”

  I nodded and quickly did just that. I took the jar with me as I went back up front.

  The second I saw the scene in front of me, I immediately put the pot below the counter. It wouldn’t take long for me to remake Grandma’s tea but it would be a major pain in the ass if Jet busted it in one of his catnip fueled scamperings.

  The clock told me that we had been open for business for about ten minutes. Millie was doing her best to catch Jet or at least spray him with the “kitty discipline bottle,” as she called it. He was too hopped up on his morning dose of catnip to sit that still. The golem, on the other hand, was stock-still, her eyes tracking Jet’s movements. The cleaning supplies were in a corner behind the corner to my right.

  I was just walking forward to deal with the situation when Jet darted in front of the golem. With speed I didn’t know she had, the golem grabbed Jet and held him up.

  “Hey!” Jet shrieked. “What’s the idea, you big, clay galoot?!”

  “Millie,” the golem said, holding Jet up in the air between them.

  My most hyper cat’s eyes widened as Millie took aim with the water bottle. In the ensuing onslaught of mist, Jet wasn’t able to get free from his captor’s grasp, no matter how much he wriggled to get free.

  “Hey! Stop! Quit it!” he yelled as he got finely sprayed. “This isn’t funny!”

  A few feline titters from the stairwell apparently disagreed with him.

  “Given how much antipathy you have towards golems, Hattie,” Onyx said as his laughter died. “I must say that this one fits right in.”

  I winced as my self-appointed therapist said that out loud. The golem blinked in confusion as she finally dropped Jet, who took off for some corner to dry off.

  “You hate golems?” she asked me.

  “I hate how you think,” I admitted. “People treat you like expendable servants, soldiers, protectors and you just DO IT. No questions, no second thoughts, the master’s orders are the only things that matter to you.”

  “Then, why am I here?” the golem asked, the confusion still on her face. Somehow, that was worse than the outright hate my words would have done to anyone else.

  “The chief of police is an old friend of mine,” I said. “I’m doing this as a favor to him.”

  The shop bell rang as someone came in.

  “Morning, Hattie!” Ursula Bradbury, a fortyish matron who tried dressing like she was still thirty, said. “Do you have that little something for my Harlan ready?”

  “Just behind the counter,” I said, grateful for the distraction. “I’ll be just a minute.”

  Ursula gave me an indulgent grin as I went to the counter. Then she frowned as she looked at the floor.

  “That’s the most peculiar looking mud I’ve ever seen,” she said, pointing to just under the golem’s feet.

  My eyes widened. Jet’s scratching must have pried some of the golem’s clay flesh loose from her hands.

  I hoped that Ursula would just stop there. She wasn’t a bad sort as people go. But on top of being Unawakened, she was a natural born snoop and gossip. But of course, she had to spot the gouges on the golem’s hands.

  “What’s wrong with your skin, dear?” she asked. “It almost looks as though—“

  The words were suddenly cut off as she froze in place. Eclipse was right in front of her on one of the shelves, staring deep into Ursula’s eyes.

  “Unless you want my Oblivascatur spell to erase her entire memory of the last week,” Eclipse said urgently. “I suggest you hurry with the cleanup.”

  The golem took the hint. She stamped the clay into the floor, making it look merely muddy with her shoes. Millie got down on her hands and knees with a cloth and the water bottle to wipe it up. As soon as the golem had walked to the back, I told Eclipse, “Now.”

  Ursula shook her head and said, “Where am I? How’d I get here?”

  “You walked, Ursula,” I said with forced cheer. “You came to pick up that order for Harlan…?”

  “Oh yeah, I was!” Ursula said quickly. Nice to know that Eclipse hadn’t destroyed too much of her memory.

  “I’m sorry, Hattie,” Ursula apologized. “Maybe it’s just because I’m getting older. But I can’t for the life of me remember anything past getting out of bed this morning.”

  “Might be catching what Harlan had,” I suggested, pulling out the mason jar. “It could be playing tricks with your head.”

  “Well…anything’s possible,” Ursula admitted. “Just glad I paid you in advance. It would have embarrassing as hell if I forgot the money I needed to pay you, wouldn’t it?”

  I confessed this was so and we indulged in another minute of meaningless small talk. I breathed a sigh of relief as soon as she was gone.

  “Why are you called Hattie?” the golem asked behind me.

  The question caught me off guard. Without turning around, I asked, “What business is it of yours? Isn’t your sole mission in life to follow orders and not stick your nose in other people’s private affairs?”

  “Hattie,” Millie said with some alarm as I felt a strong hand grab my shoulder. The hand spun me around, and an equally strong forearm pinned me to the counter. The golem’s eyes were blazing with slow burning anger.

  “You are not my mistress,” the golem growled. “Nor do you wish to be. Therefore, I can ask whatever questions I want of you.”

  “Easy,” Millie said, stretching a hand over the counter to grab the golem’s shoulder. “Hattie’s just a little sensitive about the name thing is all.”

  “She does not appear to be a sensitive person to me. She gives off a most insensitive essence,” the golem, whose face was mere centimeters from mine, said through gritted teeth. I could only swallow and stare back.

  For a few seconds, I wasn’t sure if Millie’s attempt to defuse the situation was going to work. But the fire finally banked in the golem’s eyes, and I was able to breathe again as the forearm came off.

  “Well, it’s official,” Eclipse said from his perch on the shelves. “Despite their susceptibility to mind control, Oblivascatur does not work on golem's.”

  Looking at Eclipse, the golem asked, “What you called ‘Oblivascatur’ that is what you did to Ms. Ursula earlier?”

  “Surely was,” Eclipse admitted.

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Protection,” Eclipse explained as he jumped down. “The Coven Isles has quite a few ordinary people living here. None of them ever need to know about the witches, magic and less safe aspects that dwell in their midst. The Burning Times were proof enough of that.”

  “And, that is the law?” the golem asked.

  “Correct,” Eclipse confirmed. “Licensed practitioners like Hattie and folks in the know like Millie are charged wit
h this secrecy per the legal code of these isles.”

  The golem nodded. “Mistress Nebula mentioned that once. When I cut my hand with a kitchen knife in the presence of an Unawakened one. Mistress did some kind of hex, so the person would not know who or what I was.”

  “Okay,” I said, wanting to get this day back on track. “As educational as this has been, I need to get started on the morning deliveries.”

  I rubbed my throat a little as I went to the back and grabbed Grandma’s broom. Putting it next to the door, I fetched my picnic basket, which I had modified for deliveries with some leather shoulder straps. I pulled all the prepared orders from a cabinet just below where I stored my ingredients. All the orders of the day were stored in mason jars, pouches and envelopes, depending on the order, and clearly labeled by Millie the day before. All of them went into the basket with a unique rubberized section for the mason jars to keep them from rolling around and breaking.

  The golem was standing next to the door as I went towards it.

  “What is your real name?” she asked.

  By Brigid, she’s getting annoying.

  “Hattie Jenkins, just like it says on the sign up front,” I said, pointing towards the front.

  “That is a known name,” the golem countered. “True Names are different.”

  I walked past her, snatching the broom on the way. I didn’t look back as I closed the back door behind me. It was the best way I knew how to handle the situation. My temper had nearly provoked hers twice already. No point in finding out if the third time was going to be the charm. As I took off I wondered if David had made a mistake in keeping the golem around me.

  Chapter 7

  The rest of the morning, I did my best to focus on the deliveries. On the surface, I was mostly successful. None of my customers noticed anything amiss, or if they did, they kept it to themselves. But, my mind was on the crime scene I’d stumbled onto yesterday. I kept going over every detail in my head, looking for something; anything that could point to the killer. Well, either the killer or the thief. The jury was still out on the motives of the as yet unknown person I had seen in the Scrye spell.

  I still hadn’t come up with anything new by the time I made my last delivery to Cathedral Isle. It was getting close to noon by this point. I was contemplating talking things over with Millie to get a fresh perspective when something big, black, and glossy landed on my broom handle just before I was about to bank right toward Gless Inlet.

  It was a raven, roughly the size of the golem’s hands, with unblinking and insufferably penetrating beady eyes. It opened its large beak, and said in clipped and perfect English: “We need to talk.”

  Its message delivered, it took off in the direction of Glessie Isle proper. I sighed and started flying in the same direction, veering slightly left toward the Gorthlands. Only one person I know in the entire Coven Isles uses that particular messenger: The Witch Fearwyn.

  Even in daylight, the Gorthland swamps were an intimidating place to visit. Stagnant, inky-black water made up most of the landscape here. Tortured, twisted tree stumps broke the surface of the dark ooze, seemingly embalmed in agonized configurations. Lily pads littered the sodden ground, and fast growing moss crawled over every organic surface. Alligators — and, Brigid knows what other creatures — surfaced from the glittering black liquid bogs to take a breath of sulfurous swampy air. There were a few patches of moist earth scattered here and there, but those that were dry enough not to leave mud on your shoes were even fewer. It made me glad that I was visiting Portia Fearwyn by broom, and not on foot. Judging from the raven’s flight pattern, she wasn’t home at Gaunt Manor. That could only mean she was at the caves.

  The sounds of the swamp were constant, the wildlife making enough noise to rival any big Mainland city in its cacophony. Grandma always told me that this was a good thing. It’s only when things get quiet in wild settings that you should start to be afraid. But somehow the sounds of insects, pixies, and other less identifiable things always sent a chill up my spine here. The trees made that chill ever worse. At first glance, they seemed to be just regular living trees that were a bit more stunted and bent than their forest counterparts. But for those of us who know the ways of magic, you could feel their presence, and almost feel assaulted by their penetrating stares.

  Though I knew I was in no real danger, I found myself wishing that I had one of The Infiniti with me; even Fraidy. Coming alone to even the outskirts of the caves was never something I relished, and then I only did it out of respect for Mrs. Fearwyn and her friendship with Grandma. All in all, this place was a perfect home for the former.

  I was surprised to see Mrs. Fearwyn on the porch of her monolithic home in the center of the swamp as I flew in. I could glimpse the caves just a little behind her house: Gaunt Manor. The raven, its mission accomplished, dipped its wings in salute to its mistress before flying on. The ground in front of Mrs. Fearwyn’s dwelling was one of the few dry patches around, so I put my feet to it without hesitation.

  Mrs. Fearwyn was dressed in formal black robes, which seemed to swallow up her thin and contorted body shape. She was much like the dead tree stumps that poked silently from the surrounding marshes. I had been coming around her since I was nine and I’d never seen her wear anything else. It struck me how much like the old Halloween stereotype of a wicked witch she resembled, right down to her stern frown. Her skin was sallow and waxy and stretched impossibly thin across her skeletal face. Her nose was a cruel beak, and her eyes had the darting hawk-like cleverness you’d expect from a very experienced magical arts practitioner. Though they may say otherwise, I was fairly certain that the way Portia Fearwyn looked was the real reason people suspected her of more harm than she had actually yet been proven to do.

  “Miss. Jenkins,” she said by way of greeting, which was as much as I was going to get.

  “So, what did you want to—“ I began to ask.

  Mrs. Fearwyn cut me off with a raised hand. “Not yet.”

  The bog to my right suddenly … 'exploded' might be the right word. The water burst upwards like a geyser, belching out a figure into the air. Said figure landed on the patch next to me with a thud and an oof. I had to spot the John Lennon glasses to realize that it was David.

  “Now,” Portia said, waving a hand towards the black mahogany door. “We can begin.”

  David coughed up some swamp water as I helped him to his feet. Once he was steady enough to stand on his own, he began wiping his glasses down with his soaked sleeve without any success. I blew out an impatient breath and handed him a dry, clean handkerchief I kept in my back pocket.

  Mrs. Fearwyn shrugged and went inside ahead of us Confident that we’d follow in due course.

  “So, how did you get here?” I asked.

  “Raven came by my office,” David explained, looking at the lenses to be sure that they were finally clear. “It just said that we needed to talk and had a teleportation charm attached to its leg.”

  “And, on that giant leap of faith, you decided to take a ride to who knows where?” I asked, incredulous at his bravery/stupidity.

  “I had some of my people trace down the destination point,” David said as he put his glasses back on. “They determined it was somewhere in the Gorthland swamps. If I don’t return within an hour and a half, my people are going to come by here and have a word with Portia Fearwyn.”

  “And, how friendly a word is it going to be?”

  “That would depend on her,” David admitted, doing his best to shake off the rest of the swamp water. “Now, if you’re done with Twenty Questions, I think our hostess is still waiting for us inside.”

  “Fine,” I said, grabbing him by the elbow as I tugged him with me. “But, we’re riding back to the precinct on my broom.” I pretended that this was a bit of an inconvenience for me, but in reality, my mind was telling me I couldn’t wait for this interview to be over, just so I could be next to him again.

  I left my broom on the porch with my other hand
just before going inside. I pitied whoever or whatever was dumb enough to risk Mrs. Fearwyn’s wrath by touching it or anything else on that porch.

  The inside was much neater than the outside would have you believe. The facade of the monolith was overly busy with carvings, with an army of tortured-looking gargoyles clinging to every pillar and eave. Witchmoss hung from every outdoor balustrade, and the lead light windows were smeared with years of swampy offerings. Giant hunks of ornate masonry, crumbling and patinated with time and marshy elements were strewn in front of the edifice, some barely visible, as they sunk dangerously low in the thick marsh. The porch was imposing, and its Arabian geometry was apparent only from the shafts of greenish light that pushed through the mathematical pattern of tiny glass pieces that framed the open entrance way. Rivulets of dark water sank to the bog floor from mysterious origins atop the building. Being a major Dr. Who fan (long before it was cool), Millie always compares Mrs. Fearwyn’s research facility to the Tardis. Dark mahogany ceiling, walls, and parquet floors dominated the sitting room we just entered. The noonday sun barely penetrated the canopy of the swamp outside, so even less natural light came in here. An assortment of thick, pillar candles was lit around the room to compensate for the low visibility. Various Goya and Geiger prints dominated the walls, adding an unsettling vibe to our surroundings. The subjects in the artwork all seemed in different states of agony. Most had an uncanny resemblance to Portia. I guessed that these horrific bunch were the old witch’s ancestors. There was a heavy door on the back wall of the kitchen that I spied through the parlor we were in. I noted it was barred by a heavy padlock as we passed. I remembered that door from my childhood years. To this day I didn't know what the old witch kept in there. I suspect my Grandmother knew, but she would never tell me, even if I pushed it.

  Mrs. Fearwyn was standing by the bay window, where a table had been laid out for tea. She gestured towards the nearest seats, and we took them. David’s eyes darted around the place with unease, as if some demon was going to step out of the room’s copious shadows to give him grief. I was calmer about it. Sure, the swamps outside were scary. But this outsourced laboratory of Mrs. Fearwyn’s was the safest place I knew on the whole isle. It was rigged with so many charms and spells and magic manholes, that if Portia ever needed a career in security, I'm quite certain she could secure one based on her home safety alone. Still, the rest of the furniture in the room lent itself to a creepy scene of cobweb covered sofas, and chaises.