She might also be Spithilda’s murderer.
Chapter 15
“I don’t think the Chief wants to talk to you, Hattie,” Amber’s voice sounded nervous like she was afraid David was going to catch her on the phone with me. “He’s really cheesed off about this afternoon. I mean, you called him a horses’ –“.
I interrupted her mid-thought. “I know, Amber. I know, I know, I know. And I’m really beyond sorry for it. And I’m sorry if I said anything that may have messed up his mood for your date tonight.”
“Aw. That’s really sweet, Hattie. Look, I, uh, know you kinda have a little thing for the Chief, and I don’t want things to be weird.”
A little too late for that one, kiddo, but appreciate the thought.
“We’re just good friends, is all. Really. No harm done” I offered in a monotone voice. My heart was plummeting into a cavern of darkness.
“Me think she doth protest too much,” Carbon quipped from his spot on the hearth. He was feeling much better since he drank the Cronewort Tea. I could tell by the temperature in the room. I was going to have to start taking off some clothes. “Seriously, Amber. He’s a really great guy. Just take care of him.”
Argh, this hurts!
“Oh, don’t worry. I will,” Amber agreed cheerily. I tried not to wince, only glad she couldn’t see me over the phone.
“So, do you think I could talk to him?” I asked sweetly.
“You can’t, Hattie. I mean, if you could you could, but the fact is, he’s not even here. Said he had to get out of the office for a bit. I think he’s picking out wine for our date tonight. I’m making him a nice, home-cooked meal. At my place.”
Salt. Wound.
I mentally slapped myself in the back of the head.
Okay, Hattie. Get a hold of yourself. Remember. You just want what’s best for David.
“Well, can you give him a message, please?”
“Sure thing! Whatcha got?”
“Please tell him I think I have a break in the case. I need him to meet me at Portia Fearwyn’s as soon as he can. I’m headed out there now.”
“Oh, Hattie! You know Chief Trew said you’re off the case!”
“But, Amber. I’m this close to finding out who killed your Aunt. Don’t you want the person responsible behind bars?”
Amber sighed a cavernous sigh. “You have no idea!”
“So, you’ll tell him?”
A few moments of terse silence passed. Finally, she answered.
“I don’t think it’s the best idea, Hattie, but okay. I’ll tell him.”
“I appreciate it, Amber. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.”
“You got it. Bye.”
“Bye.”
“Are you sure we all have to go?” Fraidy moaned as I loaded the cats onto the broom. “It’s dark. And I don’t like the dark.”
“Yes,” came my curt reply. I decided against letting my least brave cat in on our final destination. Things could go really sideways at Portia's and, the way I saw it, there was safety in numbers. Even tuna-eating ones.
I lifted Fraidy onto the end of the broom. It was a tight squeeze, but the birch pole was just long enough to accommodate me and all my kitties. Well, almost all of them.
“Where’s Gloom?” I scoured the courtyard looking for my furry cloud of pessimism.
“Dunno,” Shade shrugged. “Last I saw her; she slipped out of the room before Onyx’s Linda Blair moment.”
“Oh!” Fraidy wailed. “Why’d ya have to go and mention that movie, Shade? I just started liking pea soup again!”
I gave Shade a baleful stare. “Seriously, guys. No more horror movies.”
“Awww, boss lady.”
“I’m serious, Shade. Or you’re going to start paying for Fraidy to go to psychotherapy. Well, we can’t wait around for Gloom any longer. She can catch up.”
I mounted the broom, and we headed out for Portia’s manor.
I had to agree with Fraidy. I didn’t like the dark either. At least, not impenetrable, sinister murk that cloaked Portia’s home. Even the sound had gone dark. No bullfrogs chirruped in the nearby marsh. The crickets struck mute. The wind, dead.
Even the morbid jingle of Portia’s bone wind-charms would have been preferable to this uneasy quiet. The gloom of the atmosphere was absolutely cloying. I felt a little queasy.
The cats dismounted from the broom one by one. I felt the familiar, needling prick of Fraidy’s claws as he clutched my leg. “Don’t worry, Hat. I’ll stick close and protect you.”
“’Stick’ being the operative word,” Jet scoffed.
“Come on guys, this way.” I motioned up the walk, toward Portia’s front door.
“Naw! I know a shortcut!” Shade shouted gleefully and shot off into the shadows.
“No, Shade!” I called after him. “Wait!”
But, he had already melted into the dark.
Sure hope Portia hadn’t replaced those chives just yet.
I looked up the front path, its termination swallowed by the dark. I gulped.
At that moment, the moon, waning gibbous now, broke out from behind the suffocating clouds. I smelled something verdant, fresh and bright. Like a just mowed lawn. I glanced over at Portia’s pokeberry plant. Some of the stems had been stripped bare. Small, beads of weeping moisture indicated where each vandalized leaf had once lived.
“These leaves have been harvested recently,” I noted in a hushed whisper.
“Didn’t you say Verdantia had been expecting a delivery from Portia at the market?” Midnight asked.
“Yes, but if she had gathered her harvest, why didn’t she make the delivery?”
“Knock, and we’ll ask her,” Carbon suggested.
I knocked the solid wood three times.
“Avon calling,” Fraidy giggled nervously.
“Really?”
“I’m trying to bring some levity to the moment.” he said with no humor whatsoever.
“She’s not answering,” Midnight observed.
“Knock again, Hattie,” Onyx suggested. Once again, I let my knuckles drop three, sharp raps on the door.
Still nothing.
“Try the door,” Eclipse said. For a split-second, I had a half-a mind to tell Eclipse to make me forget why I came here. I could go back home, change into my fat-pants, brew a nice cup of Grammy’s Sleepytime drink, and go to sleep.
I can sleep when I’m dead.
I grasped the large rod iron handles and depressed the thumb-piece. The latch gave a muted ca-chuck sound and I pushed the door wide. I guess I half-expected Shade to jump out and yell “surprise,” but my break-in artist was nowhere to be found.
“H-h-hattie?” Fraidy stuttered. “Why do you keep coming back to this place…on purpose?”
I didn’t have a definitive answer for him, so I just kept my mouth shut. We entered the house and started down the long, parquet hallway.
Talk about déjà vu.
We passed the shredded portrait of Atropa Belladonna, Fraidy’s finely-tipped daggers still digging into the flesh of my leg
“What is that?!?” Fraidy shrieked.
I was about to explain when I realized it wasn’t Atropa’s mangled countenance that had so bothered my frightened feline. One of the long-legged cellar spiders was scurrying towards us. It seemed more in a hurry to leave than to cause us any distress. Judging from the trickle of blood down my leg, I wasn’t certain Fraidy agreed.
“It’s just a Daddy Long-Legs. I’m sure it’s not going to bother you.”
“Well, that’s pretty funny, because I’m quite bothered right now.” Fraidy rasped in between trying to slow his breathing.
“What are we looking to accomplish here, Hattie?” Midnight asked
“Portia may not be the most pleasant person,” I began.
“Preach! Yep!” Jet raised a paw.
I ignored him. “But, she is a very skilled witch. And she also happens to be a licensed Fae practitioner. I’m hoping sh
e can help me make a Fairy Ointment.”
“What? In case a Brownie gets a boo-boo?” Midnight quipped. He put a paw to his belly, as it jiggled with his tittering at his own joke.
“Not that kind of ointment. A Fairy Ointment would give me The Sight. I would be able to see if someone in Gless Inlet is a fairy using a glamour. And, I’d be able to see who’s using that portal to and from Mag Mell.”
Onyx shook his head. “Tread cautiously, Hattie. Many tales have been told of those who took The Sight without permission from the Fae and were left blinded by their arrogance.”
“Duly noted,” I replied. We entered the kitchen. I thought surely we would find Shade waiting in the shadows, but the room was empty. The great wooden door with it’s deep and desperate claw marks, however, stood wide open.
I heard Fraidy gulp. “You don’t think Shade went in there do you?”
“I think that’s exactly where he went,” I replied. I moved toward the open door, cats in tow. I stepped on the first stair and braced my hand against the door. My tiny fingers were swallowed in the deep furrows of Rad’s claw marks.
It was my turn to gulp.
“Shade? Miss Fearwyn?” I called. I thought I heard a muffled grunt.
“Did you hear that?” Midnight asked, ears pricked, on the alert. He looked behind us.
“Miss Fearwyn? Is that you? Shade!” I leaned a bit further in and squinted into the darkness of the cellar.
“Guys? Your cat eyes are way better than mine at seeing in the dark. Can you see anything down there?”
Obligingly, the cats moved in tandem to the edge of the top landing and peered down below.
“No, Hat, we don’t…”
I didn’t hear the rest of Eclipse’s statement, as my feet had somehow tangled up in themselves on the top step. It was a little difficult to hear over the sound of my own scream as I sailed down the flight of stairs and into the swallowing black. Bringing my terrified kitties crashing down with me.
“Mee-YOW!!!” Fraidy caterwauled his distress at having landed, quite unceremoniously, on top of something with sharp, bony edges. Given that it was Portia Fearwyn’s basement, I didn’t want to suggest to him that pretty much anything could be down in this dank, dusty, musty hole.
“What is this?” he cried. “I can’t see a thing!”
A soft rustle filled the air above our heads.
Jet’s muffled voice came from under something. “Knowing Portia, it’s probably a coffin.”
“A c-c-coffin?” A tremolo wobbled Fraidy’s reply. His voice dropped to a frightened whisper. Another wave of gentle rustling and snuffling undulated above us. “I thought Portia was just a witch. You think she could be a – a vampire too?”
“Or, it could be a skeleton,” Eclipse suggested matter-of-factly. “Over the years, any number of souls have ventured out here to Gaunt Manor…and have never been seen or heard from again.”
Fraidy’s teeth chattered. “A s-s-skeleton? Do, skeleton’s you know, like, writhe and move and wriggle?”
“You’re on top of ME!” Shade’s muffled grumble could be heard, rather irritated, from underneath Fraidy’s can. “Wasn’t bad enough that insensitive woman tossed me down here like the recycling, but you guys have to dump yourselves on top of me too? Talk about adding insult to injury, man.”
“Shade?” I pawed around in the dark for my missing kitty. My wandering hands found him in the murk, and I gave him a happy squeeze.
“Me-yowf! That’s a sore spot, Hat.”
“Oh, I'm so sorry. I gently set him on his feet.
“S’ok. Chicks dig scars.”
Well, this was ridiculous, fumbling around in the dark. And no way was I taking a chance on Carbon lighting a blaze. Who knew what was down here? The whole place could go up like a Roman candle. I fumbled around in the pocket of my cloak.
“Illiuminet!” I whispered, holding Grammy Chimera’s old wand. The tip of the intricately carved length of apple wood glowed with the insistence of a collapsing star. My hands were shaking, and my heart was doing a rumba on steroids.
“Furrrr-reaky!” Jet let the epithet loose, long, slow and cautiously as his neck craned upward. The light from the wand tip had illuminated the dark ceiling above. A ceiling which seemed to be…moving.
“Those…um…those aren’t bats, right, guys?” The furry, leathery mass was moving all right, and I could only hope they weren’t the blood sucking variety. But, Jet’s bat concern was short lived; trumped by the sight of the wand.
Carbon’s eyes grew wide as saucers. “Is that Chimera’s wand?”
Onyx nodded. “I haven’t seen that since, since…”
“Since she passed away.” I finished the thought for him.
The amorphous light spell sticking to the tip of the ancient wand washed the cellar in a warm, radiant glow.
“But, boss,” Jet muttered under his breath, hardly believing that the wand was in my hand. “Does this mean…”
I knew his question. It was the same question that was on each and every one of my present cats’ minds.
“No. It doesn’t mean that I’m ready to dive into the deep end of the magic pool just yet.”
Seven sets of furry shoulders slumped. I know it’s The Infiniti’s job to nurture and guide each generation of Opal witch to her magical destiny, and, well, I guess my continued reluctance to fully embrace my heritage meant that…well, to them, it meant they had failed.
“Well,” Fraidy began. “What does it mean, Hattie?”
The heavy clink and clang of chains dragged in a darkened recess of the shadows.
“It means Seraphim Joyvive knows that she’s about to come up against some powerful enemies and she had better have more than Chamomile tea to defend herself.” A raspy voice cracked and heaved, breath wavering, then faltering.
“Holy Himalayas! Who…what…is that?!?” The cry of alarm was from Fraidy, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that all seven cats clutched to me as they tried to identify the owner of the brittle voice.
I turned the illuminated wand in the general direction of the sound.
It was none other than Portia Fearwyn, dirty and huddled against a cobbled wall. She looked even gaunter than usual, her cheeks sunken and emaciated. Her eyes were red and bloodshot like she’d not slept in the last forty-eight hours. She didn’t resemble the formidable, powerful Gloomy Arts practitioner that had come to be feared and avoided. Rather, she looked like a spent, haggard old woman, ready for Midnight Hill’s Retirement Ward. Her typically stern features tempered by an emotion I’d never known Portia to be capable of.
Fear.
Her thin, bony wrists were hanging from the iron shackles bolted into the wall behind her. I guess now we knew why she had missed her delivery to Verdantia’s. I scrambled to her side, wiping some of the dirt from her face, and looking for the key to release her. I noticed then, in the light of the Apple Wand, two towering steel doors built into the wall adjacent to Portia. There were no handles, no locks, no other regular-door accoutrements. Where the doors met in the middle, the gap between them was barely perceptible, the doors’ pristine edges met so perfectly. A thin wisp of steam, or fog was curling out of the barest of gaps at the bottom of the imposing portals. I thought that this cellar was a guarded secret. These two imposing steel doors were like a secret wrapped in a secret.
What the Tartarus?
I turned my attention back to the clearly stricken lady of the house.
“Who did this to you, Portia? Was it the same person who tossed Shade down the stairs?”
“Oh, no,” Portia shook her head. “You completely misunderstand the situation.”
I paused. “I don’t get it.”
“No one did this to me. No one else locked me up. I,” she paused. “I did this to myself.”
Chapter 16
“Blast! I'm a screwy rat. Blast! I'm a screwy rat. Blast! I'm a screwy rat!” Fraidy had been pacing nervously since we had gotten back to The Angel Apothecary with
Portia. Dead Spithilda's nonsensical blurb from the kitchen seance had become the anxious cat’s mantra as he paced back and forth across the floor. Millie had abandoned her post assembling the shop’s Ghent display sign to help prepare a calendula ointment for the raw, angry welts on Portia’s wrists. We might have been able to do it at Portia’s, but her attacker had destroyed her herbal stores once Portia was a prisoner in the basement. And if there were any hope of Portia creating a Fae ointment, she would need the stores in my shop.
CALENDULA SALVE
1/4 cup dried calendula petals
1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons of beeswax
15 drops of chamomile essential oil
10 drops of lavender essential oil
Heat calendula petals and olive oil in a crockpot or slow cooker on low for approximately 2 hours.
Pour the oil and calendula flowers very, very slowly through a piece of cheesecloth secured to the top of a glass measuring jug or similar. Fasten the cheesecloth with an elastic band. Pouring slowly will limit the possibility of overflowing hot oil.
Pour the freshly strained oil into a heavy saucepan. Grate in the beeswax and heat the mixture on low until the wax has melted. Let the mixture cool for about 10 minutes and then add the essential oil. While the mixture is still fluid, empty into clean, small glass jars (amber or cobalt) and allow to cool. Once cooled, cap the jar, and keep refrigerated for up to one year. An excellent salve for rashes, skin irritations, cuts, burns, grazes. Also, perfect for baby -- but, if making for your little one, then limit the essential oil to 10 drops.
As I dabbed a bit of the healing salve on an unusually swollen section of abraded skin, I felt compelled to ask Portia what exactly had happened. “So, you locked yourself in the shackles?”
“Not just any shackles, Hattie. Iron chains.” I bandaged the wounds on her hands, and she rubbed them gingerly. “Thank you., that feels much better already.”
“Iron is one of the few ways to ward against the Fae. I shackled myself in the irons for protection.”
Murder, Magic, and Moggies Page 33
