Murder, Magic, and Moggies

by Pearl Goodfellow

  “Hattie,” he said, sweeping me up in a hug that made me forget everything for the briefest of moments. “You're having a tough go of it, eh?”

  Shade, from a shadowy corner he was hiding in, let his eyeballs show in the dark and gave me a quick grin before vanishing again.

  Berry had been left to hold the broom and seemed a little offended that I was considered a higher priority than her. She strutted toward us, flicking her hair all the way. “It’s good to see you have such concern for the simple folk of this hamlet, David.”

  I cast a baleful stare, which just made her smirk. But I felt David stiffen at her remark, which told me that this shameless hussy had crossed a line with him too.

  “This ‘simple' person has done more for the Isle of Glessie in the last few months than the Talisman suits have done for the last few years,” he snapped as he looked over his shoulder. “Yet another reason I love Hattie like my own kid sister.”

  I winced at the word 'sister' which just made Berry’s smirk a little wider. So, all this time I'd been fooling myself? David loved me like a sister?

  “Believe me when I say, David, that I’m doing my best to stay uninvolved,” I said, hoping to steer the conversation back on track as David and I let go of each other.

  Berry tilted her head and shrugged her shoulders. “Bad luck can happen to anyone, sure. Nothing I’ve seen tells me you planned for any of this.”

  Her smirk turning into a full-fledged smile that would do credit to a Disney villainess, she then added, “But you have to admit…this really doesn’t look good for you.”

  I felt my self-control slip another notch at the insinuation. “Talk to Bradford if you honestly think I had something to do with all this. He’ll tell you the first time he saw me was when I came to his aid, at my back door here.”

  I motioned toward the back of my shop, where Bradford had been struggling just minutes earlier.

  “So?” the bimbette snapped with a sneer. “All that means is he never saw you while he was being held captive.”

  Looking up as if a thought had just struck her, she added, “Still, given your single status and the fact that he was in more than a vulnerable state, perhaps he came to see you for some much needed, ahem, comfort."

  That did it. I may take such jibes from my cats, but they (mostly) mean well. Raquel Berry had just insulted me for the last time. Somehow, the spell that Shade had performed earlier leaped to the front of my brain in an angry rush. Before I realized what I was saying, the Reforma incantation left my mouth and landed on Berry’s vocal chords.

  Her invincible smile crumbled when she realized that the words she was attempting to bestow weren’t coming out. She tried again, her hands flying to her throat this time. Her eyes grew wide as saucers as she furiously sucked in air, trying to breathe through the phantom blockage. But no matter how hard she tried, no sound was given to her mouthed words. Raquel began clawing at David, who had been momentarily distracted by one of his constables just as I was unleashing the incantation on her. She furiously pointed at her neck and then turned her finger to me, mouthing hysterical, silent words.

  “What did you DO, Hattie?” David spat out in alarm.

  “Exactly what it looks like, David,” I said, the fire of my anger blazing in my eyes. “I am done being her verbal punching bag.”

  After a quick look around to confirm no one was watching this drama, he told me, “You need to stop this…NOW.”

  “Not until Ms. High and Mighty agrees to lay off the nasty remarks,” I asserted. “Otherwise, I’ve got no problem making sure this spell lasts the full month it was intended for.”

  “Are you TRYING to get yourself in more trouble than you're already in?” David snapped, his voice hissing like a burst steam pipe. “You’d have been in jail five seconds after pulling this stunt with Mayor Fog…and he’s a bigger jerk. So…why don’t you just recant what you've granted Raquel, and we can all pretend this didn’t happen?”

  Berry’s head was nodding up and down so fast that it reminded me of one of those Mainland bobblehead toys you see on the dashboards of cars.

  “Just remember this the next time you have something to say to me,” I said, holding out my hand. Feeling the strands of the spell’s power, I cut the invisible chords around Berry’s throat with a squeeze.

  Berry gasped in shock and relief, saying, “Oh, Goddess, Oh, Goddess, Oh, Goddess," on repeat. David discreetly checked her over and whispered in her ear, apparently trying to calm her.

  By then, the enormity of what I had done hit me. I felt the anger come back…only this time, it was self-directed. Not only had I used magic -- which I was against performing with all my being -- I had used it against another merely to satisfy my own insecurities. Less than a few hours ago, I had never heard of that charm, much less know how to use it. My anger reignited, but this time it was aimed at Shade. He had been the one to show me that spell in the kitchen when he used it to douse the flames in the oven. I marched right to Shade’s hiding place, grabbed him by the nape of the neck and held him up.

  “You knew this would happen!” I snapped, as I pinned my quaking cat with a blazing stare.

  “I sort of…could have…might have known it could prove useful, yeah,” Shade said, uneasy to be on the receiving end of my wrath. “But tell me she didn’t deserve it and I’ll call you a liar.”

  And there it was. Shade had handed me the tool, but the decision to use it just now had been mine. Grandma Chimera’s words echoed in my ears: “The price of magic is always responsibility. You and no one else is bending your will to the outcome you desire.”

  I put Shade down and sighed, feeling miserable that I'd gotten so irate with him. It wasn't his fault. He only ever had my best interests at heart. God and Goddess, would this day ever end? I wasn’t sure I wanted to see the ending of it, only because I feared I might do something else completely out of character.

  "I'm so, so sorry, sweetie." I reached for him and held him close, kissing his fluffy exposed cheek. Shade turned to face me, and gave me some of his own kisses, as he gently licked my cheek.

  After what seemed like hours of tossing and turning in my bed, I finally gave up. What I had done to Berry kept haunting me, mocking my attempts at maintaining a still mind. Even the civility I got from her as I gave my statement to her and David did nothing to make me feel better. It actually forced me to feel a whole lot worse. Raquel didn't have to be polite to me after what I'd done to her.

  “Want to talk about it?” Onyx asked as I threw back the cover.

  I put my legs over the edge of the bed, and Onyx leaned into my back, rubbing the length of his body against me affectionately.

  “I can’t believe I did what I did tonight,” I said. “What if I used a really nasty spell on her instead of—“

  “What happened, happened, Hattie,” Onyx said, curling around my hips on his way to my lap. “The only question is how you deal with it. Thankfully, the error you made was something you could take back This time. Remember it the next time you feel so moved by a rush of passion.”

  I nodded and gave my head kitty a thorough rubdown of his head, inspiring a lot of purring.

  “I still say that you were too nice,” Gloom rumbled, her voice half-asleep.

  “Counterproductive, Gloom,” Onyx admonished her between purrs.

  Gloom grunted in reply and took a deep enough breath to go back to sleep.

  “Seems Shade is taking the fallout of this little episode every bit as hard as you are,” Onyx said, breaking from his purrs to give me a meaningful look.

  “The only reason he’s not hiding out with Fraidy is that it’d still be way too close to me,” I pointed out, thinking about how he had opted to stay downstairs with Carbon for the night. “He as good as said that he knew I’d use what he showed me earlier.”

  “Do try to forgive my Lothario of a brother,” Onyx said. “And also yourself.”

  I was still contemplating that when another one of my kitties sudden
ly jumped on top of the sheets. Given that the midnight hour had struck about an hour and a half ago, it could only be our dead-of-night rambler.

  “Got some big news, guys,” Midnight said with a grin on his face. Making himself into a loaf of bread shape, paws, and tails tucked in to form the perfect loaf. Only his head moved, as he looked at each of his listeners. “Bradford Obonyo was taken to Crow Isle before his escape.”

  “I knew that already, sweetie,” I groaned. “It was one of the few things he was able to tell me before the cops arrived.”

  The grin fell and Midnight gave me a soul that would have been worthy of his sister Gloom. “Oh? And did you know that he was taken by a shady bunch of private operatives who were acting on the orders of somebody here on Glessie?”

  Remembering what Shade had told me earlier about the mayor, I asked, “Who was giving the orders? Or does your source know, at least?”

  “Yeah, well, about that…” Midnight said, sitting up to scratch behind his ear in uncharacteristic nervousness. “I’m kind of actually the source of this info for once.”

  “How’s that, brother?” Onyx asked, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

  “Hey, it’s not every night you get roped into an honest-to-goodness rescue mission of some worthy citizen,” Midnight said. “Besides, I know you would have been heartbroken if Mr. Obonyo wasn’t around to provide books you can romance, Onyx.”

  “Wait, back up,” Gloom snipped, apparently awake again. “You, the leading supernatural gossip of Glessie, was part of a rescue of Bradford Obonyo?”

  “What were you THINKING?!” Fraidy whined from under the bed. “What if you’d gotten hurt? Or dead? Did you think for a moment that just maybe some of us would have tried to help out?”

  Then, clearing his throat, he added, “Not that I would have volunteered for something that dangerous if I didn’t have to, but…”

  “There was no time,” Midnight assured him. “Per our information—which I got from a very trustworthy Swampgumper who’d spotted them the previous night—they looked like they were going to pull out anytime. I HAD to move.”

  “So how did he get from Crow Isle to my back door?” I asked.

  “All I can tell you right now is that you need to give Portia Fearwyn a call,” Midnight said, nodding towards my bedside antique phone.

  I gave him a disbelieving blink. “Say that again?”

  “You heard me,” Midnight said.

  “Look, going by Gaunt Manor in the daylight is nerve-wracking enough,” I objected. “Calling her at her home at this hour—“

  “Hattie,” Onyx said. “You can either make the excuses, or you can listen to what my brother here is saying and just get it over with. He's obviously not giving this information just for the hell of it. There is no third option here.”

  Onyx walked over to Midnight and gave my rescuing kitty a pat on the back. I nodded wordlessly.

  “I guess you have the phone number?” I asked Midnight, hoping that it was a detail he’d forgotten. He hadn’t.

  Half a minute later, the phone at Gaunt Manor was ringing for the first time in…well, I’m hardly qualified to guess at how long it had been. Ms. Fearwyn picked up on the third ring.

  “I take it that Mr. Obonyo made it to your shop safely?” she asked by way of greeting.

  Licking my lips, I said, “Yes…yes, he did, if a little bruised and bloodied.”

  Portia hummed for a moment before saying, “Given the rather awkward position you were put in yesterday, I must apologize for bringing more trouble your way. But, to date, you might be one of the only people I can trust.”

  I might have been flattered ordinarily, but my head was thoroughly muddled with confusion as I tried to work out what was going on.

  “Do we have any idea who Bradford’s kidnappers were?”

  “I have my suspicions,” Ms. Fearwyn said. “But I lack facts. He was taken to Crow Isle, as I'm sure you already know from Midnight."

  “He told me about it,” I confirmed. “I passed it on to Chief Trew in my statement. But the name is all I know.”

  “It’s a very inhospitable place,” Portia warned. “According to a…acquaintance of mine, it had once been the final refuge for the now-extinct Dragon Moth. The species died out when they literally burned up the last of their own food supplies. The environmental degradation from the moths' flames was so severe that Crow Isle was deemed a ‘no-go’ area for tourists. And it was already a practically impossible-to-get-to location in the first place."

  “But there must be a way to get there or Bradford, and his kidnappers wouldn’t have—“

  “You don't say,” Portia interjected, sounding amused by my lame deduction. “Getting there by boat would have been out. The local fishermen from Phlange tell horror stories of the inhospitable waters that surround Crow. Air travel is also a non-starter due to in-place magical protections.”

  “So how does one get there and who would have access?” I asked, feeling my frustration rack up a notch.

  “Find the answers to those questions, and you will find Mr. Obonyo’s kidnappers.”

  “Is there any way this could tie in with Druida Stone’s death?”

  “Ask the questions," Portia stated crisply. And then the phone was disconnected.

  A tiny silvery missile caught my eye as the projectile sailed through the air toward me. I managed to catch it and realized that I’d been tossed a delicate silver pendant. Midnight’s grin was back on his face, which told me that he’d been the one who had thrown it my way. I gave the charm on the pendant a closer look and saw a sword on a globe with a rainbow overhead.

  “You found this on Crow?” I asked my kitty while Onyx looked over the trinket in interest.

  “Popped it off one of the kidnappers when we were making our little getaway,” Midnight explained. “Figured it might be important later.”

  “You have no idea,” I said slowly. “This is the Heimdall Global Services logo. Could Raquel Berry have been the one who was on Glessie giving the orders for Bradford's abduction?” God and Goddess, how I wanted that to be true!

  “I don’t know any more than what Portia or I just told you,” Midnight said. “But who knows if the Berry insufferable chick was behind it?”

  “It’s something you can sort out in the morning, Hattie,” Onyx admonished me. “Right now, given the very trying day you’ve had and the fact that your herbal business still needs your attention, sleep would most certainly be helpful.”

  He didn’t need to finish. Ironically, getting this new clue was enough for my body to finally relax enough to feel like it was ready for sleep. I crawled back under the covers, put Midnight’s find on the nightstand and was out like a light within seconds. If the cats played ping-pong while I was sleeping, I was blissfully none the wiser.

  Chapter 15

  For some reason, I didn’t feel any of the exhaustion I thought should have been present when I awoke in the morning. I spent the first part of my day preparing all of the most urgent deliveries. I eyed the list of deliveries for the last time, gathering up the ingredients needed for Hagatha Jinx's order of 'Safehouse,' a highly effective, all natural, antibacterial serum. Hagatha was, in all likelihood, on a massive cleaning binge at her already spotless abode. It would be no surprise since she probably needed to do something to keep her mind off her absent husband and son. Aurel and Orville Nugget, deep in Strands hell, wouldn't be home for a while yet. I wondered briefly if Shadowlands Institution was, in fact, a more peaceful place for Aurel to be. Hagatha was more than content to berate her beleaguered husband publicly, and usually for such harmless offenses as an untied shoelace or an errant crumb on his shirt. Aurel and Hagatha's domestic disputes could be seen as comical, given that the overbearing woman was a mere 4 feet, 2 inches tall. That Aurel was as long as she was short, made their scenes even more humorous. Seeing a woman of such elven stature shout up into the face of a 6' 5" giant was quite an extraordinary sight.

  I pulled a clean amber
, glass bottle from the shelf and began blending the oils. Their heady combined aromas lifting my spirits while I worked.

  Safehouse (known on the Mainland as Thieves Blend)

  20 drops of Lemon essential oil

  17 drops of Clove essential oil

  10 drops of Eucalyptus essential oil

  8 drops of Cinnamon Bark essential oil

  6 drops of Rosemary essential oil.

  I carefully added the required drops of each oil to the amber bottle. I capped it quickly, accurately labeling the vial with a handwritten description. I knew that Hagatha would likely dilute the oil with distilled water, but I wanted to remember to remind her she could use it neat on the countertops if she felt some serious germ-battling was needed.

  I packed my basket and headed out the door, knowing full well I should be heading straight to the station to let David know about the new intel and the pendant that Midnight brought us last night. But, given the current circumstances, I figured it was best if I looked like I was doing my best to stay uninvolved. I didn't need to complicate David's life by getting myself mixed up in the whole saga once more. But, then again, if David found out I had this information, I'd be in heaps more trouble. I made a snap decision and did the right thing for once.

  “It’s open!” David’s voice answered at my knock.

  David's eyes looked over the rims of his glasses with a combination of surprise and unmasked irritation. Apparently, he hadn't quite gotten over last night's shenanigans by yours truly.

  “If you’re looking for Raquel, I’m afraid she’s unavailable for this morning’s spellcasting practice,” he said as soon as I shut the door behind me. “She’s running down some of the forensic evidence we found at the back of your shop and seeing if she can dig up more on Druida Stone than what we know so far.”

  “That might be a good thing, given what I found behind my shop this morning,” I said, slanting the truth a little to protect Midnight. I opened my hand to reveal the pendant.