by Amy Boyles
“He did.” I pegged my purse and shucked off my jacket. “Our friend in mourning, Mr. Mobley, even set Garrick on me.”
Cordelia munched on a bowl of Christmas nuts. “Why’d he do that?”
“Because Ellis assumed I stole his dog. Right. I’ve got an entire shop filled with animals. Why would I need one more?”
Arsenal looked at me as if he wanted to say something.
I plopped onto the couch. “Cat got your tongue, dog?”
“I ain’t got nobody’s tongue.” Mattie slinked by. “And I don’t appreciate you saying that, ’cause if I really wanted to have his tongue, I’d get Betty to steal it.”
“That’s a completely revolting thought,” Cordelia said.
“You’re welcome,” Mattie shot back.
“Anyway,” I said, regaining control of the conversation, “Ellis sent Garrick to interrogate me about the dog because Ellis accused me of stealing Arsenal.”
“But now he’s back.” Amelia kissed his furry head. “Why?”
“He probably likes it better here than he does over there,” Cordelia said. “Wouldn’t you?”
Amelia glanced around the room, her eyes bright with wonder. “Sometimes I wish I lived in a house as big as the Mobley’s.”
My brows shot up. I waited, holding my breath to see if anything would happen.
See, Cordelia and Amelia didn’t know it, but they were part genie. Yes, as in wish-fulfilling genie. Several weeks ago their mothers had confided the secret to me. Which meant I was now tasked with taking notes every time either one of my cousins said anything regarding wishes.
See, Licky and Mint didn’t know if their daughters would inherit the talent, but they were also too chicken to reveal the truth to Cordelia and Amelia.
Talk about potential family drama. It was a real pain in my tush as it put me in a difficult place. I promised not to tell my cousins about their heritage, but I also had to spy on them.
Yay, me.
I waited to see if Amelia’s wish materialized. It didn’t. We remained in Betty’s cottage, surrounded by Dr. Doolittle’s furry friends.
“I don’t think this little guy wants to return to the Mobley’s,” Amelia said.
“But what are we supposed to do with him?” I said. “Keep him?”
“Why not?” She scratched his chin. The dog slumped to the floor and rolled over. Amelia proceeded to rub his belly. “See? He likes it here. He hasn’t even yipped once.”
“A Christmas miracle,” Cordelia said drily.
“Hey, y’all, before I forget, we need to come up with a list.” I slipped off my shoes. “A catalog of who went through the tour with us—for Axel. So he can find the murderer.”
“You know he could let Garrick do his job every once in a while.” Cordelia scowled. “So could you.”
I gasped. “Is the person who is often my partner in crime scolding me?”
Cordelia rolled her eyes.
“Don’t be offended,” Amelia said. “She’s ticked that she hasn’t figured out a Christmas present for Garrick.”
“I don’t have one for Axel, either.”
“Axel doesn’t deserve one,” Cordelia said. Amelia and I shot her questioning looks. She hitched a shoulder in total disinterest. “What? He doesn’t. Not the way he ran off.”
“I’ve still got to get him something. Even if it’s a sheet of paper.”
“You could always get him cologne,” Amelia said cheerfully.
“No. I like the way he smells.”
My cousins stared at me. “I’m sure he uses cologne, but I don’t know what and it’s absolute perfection. No need to change it.”
“Glad we got that settled,” Cordelia said. “Garrick could probably use a new leather belt or something. He’d be fine with that. Axel’s different, though.”
I sighed. “I know. If I knew what sort of wizard stuff he needed, I could maybe find something for him there, but otherwise? I don’t know.”
Amelia snapped her fingers. “I know! How about one of those man boxes? You know, the kind that are themed around stuff? Guys always love survival gear. Maybe there’s one based on that.”
Cordelia’s eyes brightened. “I’ve got one better. What if there was an essential wizard survival kit?”
“Or a werewolf one?” I suggested.
Arsenal flipped over and shook his head. Amelia gave him a friendly scratch. “He’s got the strangest tag.”
“Axel doesn’t wear a tag,” I joked.
She shot me an annoyed look. “I know that. I’m talking about the dog. It’s sort of a blue jewel thing.”
“Maybe it’s a tracker and that’s how Ellis found him this morning,” Cordelia offered.
“Maybe. But I’ve never seen anything like it.”
I stretched my legs in front of me. “It’s only a tag, Amelia. Probably something Cookie had specially made. You know, maybe it was the nicest thing she ever did in her life.”
Amelia and Cordelia laughed. “You are going to hell, Pepper Dunn,” Amelia said.
“Probably. But y’all laughed. You can’t be too far behind.” I smiled at them and remembered about the list. It needed to get slapped together pronto. I’d promised, after all.
I clapped my hands. “As much as I’d love to hang out and do nothing but chat, we’ve got work to do. Are y’all willing to help me with the roster of folks who traipsed through Cookie’s house?”
Amelia nodded. “I will help you, cuz. Whatever you need.”
I met Cordelia’s gaze. “And you?”
She shrugged. “What the heck? Might as well.”
I grabbed a notepad from a desk, sat back on the couch and tucked my feet under me. I smoothed the page with my arm. “Okay. How many folks were on the roster?”
“Twenty,” Amelia said. “That’s how it works. Twenty in each group, not counting the guides.”
“Let’s hear names.”
Amelia ticked them off her finger. “Mr. and Mrs. Gabin, the Izard family including their two kids, Paul and Tabitha Odom, the Vanzant family—that’s four. Let’s see, who else?” She shot a look to Cordelia.
Cordelia picked up where Amelia left off. She gave a few more names, and by the end we had twenty.
I tapped the end of the pen to the notepad. “Out of all these folks, who would’ve wanted Cookie dead?”
“That’s easy,” Cordelia said. “All of them.”
I laughed. “Sorry. That’s not funny. But it is. You can’t mean Cookie made that many people angry, do you?”
Amelia tickled Arsenal’s back. “That’s exactly what she’s saying. The Odoms were the Mobley’s neighbors until Cookie started taking over their backyard. Literally taking it over. She used magic to make their property smaller so she could put in a fountain.”
“You’re kidding.” The gonads on some people astounded me.
“Nope, not kidding,” she said. “The Gabins sued the Mobleys for some kind of investment deal that went sour. Then Cookie ticked off Mrs. Vanzant when she accused Edna of ruining her banana pudding at a solstice function.”
My brows hitched. “So you’re not kidding.”
“Nope,” Cordelia replied. “Cookie Mobley ticked off just about every single person in Magnolia Cove at one time or another. I mean, she strapped a neck brace to her throat and made sure the RV was towed—at Christmas. She was a real piece of work. I’m not saying I’m glad she’s dead, but…she wasn’t exactly warm and snuggly.”
“Agreed.” I peeled the page from the notepad, folded it and slid it in my pocket. “Thanks for your help. I’ll give this to Axel in the morning.”
The door blew open. Betty stepped in. Her curly hair looked like she’d stuck her finger in a socket. Her eyes were dazed; her glasses were crooked and barely clutching her face. One strong wind and they’d be blown onto the next street. It got worse—her square black shoes were on the wrong feet.
My grandmother was such a mess I barely noticed the freezing wind scraping across m
y skin. I really needed to check the weather. Was there a front coming?
My cousins and I exchanged frightened glances. We rose at once.
“What happened?” I said.
Betty staggered in. She reached for her rocker. I rushed to it and pushed it across the floor. Betty plopped down. The look in her eyes was full of fright.
Cordelia shook her. “Betty. What is it?”
Betty’s lower lip trembled. I was afraid someone else had died. Panic clawed at me. She had to speak. What could be so terrible that my grandmother was now speechless? “Betty! Talk to us.”
She moved like a robot when she patted my hand. “It was…the candy.”
My cousins and I exchanged a worried glance. Actually, Amelia looked like she was about to burst into laughter.
“The candy?” I said, not understanding.
“It got away from me.”
“What do you mean?” Cordelia said, hitching a brow.
“Go look.”
The three of us stepped outside. “What’s she talking about?” Amelia said. “I don’t see anything.”
I hugged my arms against the cold and jogged down the steps. I stopped, frozen in place. “Uh-oh, y’all. We have a problem.”
“What is it?” Cordelia reached my side. I pointed and she glanced up. “Holy smokes.”
“What’s the big deal?” Amelia paused. “Good night. Y’all, this is worse than the time Rufus wanted to swallow Magnolia Cove up in that bottomless bag.”
It was. As far as the eye could see, red and white striped candy covered each and every house. It dripped over the gutters like fingers and shot past the chimneys to the sky. Our neighborhood was a Christmas mess.
I fisted my hands to my hips. “How in the world are we ever going to clean this up?”
Amelia patted my shoulder. “I don’t know, but we’d better try before what’s left of the decorating committee fines Betty. Then all hell will break loose.”
“We’re on the decorating committee,” I said.
She smiled brightly. “Oh yeah. Well, we’d better get this cleaned up. Grab a mop.”
I poked the air. “I have a better idea. I say we use the bottomless bag to clean it up. Amelia?”
Amelia swallowed. “You want me to risk my job at the Vault?”
Cordelia nodded. “If it means keeping Magnolia Cove from being swallowed by candy canes, yes.”
It was our only choice. The Vault or nothing.
Amelia gritted her teeth. “Let’s do this.”
NINE
Amelia managed to sneak into the Vault and obtain the bottomless bag within an hour, which worked perfectly.
“The roofs are beginning to creak.” I stared at the thick gooey mess of sticky candy dripping off the eaves and chimneys of our neighbors.
“How did Betty do this?” Cordelia said. “She’s usually so on it with her magic. And she wasn’t supposed to decorate other houses. Just ours.” She stared at the homes. Concern washed over her features. “You don’t think she’s losing it, do you?”
Amelia held the bag away from her as if it held a wild cat. “Losing what? Her mind or her magic?”
“Her mind.” Cordelia rolled her eyes. “Come on, Amelia. What did you think I meant?”
“Could’ve gone either way.” Amelia shrugged. “Okay. What’s the plan with the bag?”
My cousins looked at me. “What?”
“The bag was your idea,” Amelia said. “How’re we supposed to use it?”
“I thought y’all might know.”
Cordelia and Amelia shook their heads. “We don’t know how to use it,” Amelia said. “You’re the head witch. See what you can do.”
Okay, well I should’ve known this was going to happen. I make a suggestion and it lands on me to follow through. That was normal, I supposed.
“Give me the bag.”
Amelia clutched it to her chest. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“No. I’m going to figure it out.” My cousins grimaced. “I made the suggestion, and as you said, I’m the head witch.” Amelia didn’t move. I opened and shut my palm. “Look, you’re going to get in trouble if we don’t use the bag and return it to the Vault, so hand it over.”
She did. “Sorry, I just got a little worried.”
“But stealing it didn’t worry you,” Cordelia said.
Amelia jutted out a hip. “Listen, after the time watch was broken and I stole that, not much bothers me.”
On Halloween, Amelia had “borrowed” an incredibly powerful magical object that had proceeded to get broken and thrust us into never-ending Halloween. We eventually got it fixed, but for a while there I was afraid we wouldn’t.
The bag vibrated in my hands. I clutched it tightly and focused on the gooey candy stuck to the houses. That was the only thing I wanted the bag to suck up—just the candy.
The lucky thing was that it looked like all the candy was connected—one thick peppermint strand looped from home to home. Theoretically all I needed to do was open the bag at one end and hopefully it would suck up the candy, acting like a straw.
That was the idea, at least.
I held the bag to the house next to ours and slowly opened the mouth. I didn’t know how much suction force I would be exposed to, and I didn’t want to drop the bag and have it start gulping up the entire town.
So I opened it slightly. I held my breath and watched as the foot-thick striped candy shook from the force of the bag.
Then suddenly, it was sucked up as if a tornado lived inside the sack. The bag slurped and jerked, eating and devouring the gooey peppermint exactly as I’d hoped. It chugged and glugged. I followed the line of candy, walking around to the front and smiling as the bag swallowed the mess that Betty had created.
“I want to hold it,” Amelia said.
“Sure.” I handed the bag to her and watched as my cousin grinned widely.
“This is fun,” she said. “Cordelia, you try.”
So that’s how it went. My cousins and I laughed with glee as we cleaned up our street. Finally, when the last bit had been sucked up, I turned to our cottage.
“Last one,” I said to Cordelia.
“No problem, sweet tea witch,” she said, smiling. Cordelia stood at the base of the porch. The candy made a large ribbon over the roof. It didn’t touch Jennie the Guard-vine, but it hung limply. In fact, it looked like Betty had tried to create a bow on top, but had succeeded in creating a droopy yawning dollop of candy.
No, it didn’t look anything like a bow.
Cordelia splayed her legs and yelled, “Come on, candy. Let’s suck you up.”
She opened the bag. It gurgled and pulled, but the candy wouldn’t budge. It didn’t move. It was like the sticky stuff was cemented to our home.
“Try again,” I said.
“Open it wider,” Amelia yelled.
Cordelia did as she said. The trees shook from the force. The house rumbled, but the peppermint didn’t even shake. The ground beneath me quaked. The air turned frigid. My fingers numbed, but still the candy stubbornly stayed in place.
My hair whipped over my mouth. “You’re going to suck up the town. Close the bag!”
Cordelia struggled but eventually succeeded in closing the sack.
The earth settled, the wind died, but a chill settled into my marrow. “Holy crap! What was that?”
“The power of the bottomless bag,” Cordelia said.
I stalked toward the house. “But why didn’t it suck it up? It took all the rest.” I brushed my fingers over the candy. It was more than simply tacky, some of it stuck to my fingers. “Ew. Gross. But still, I don’t understand.”
“I know why it didn’t come off. Stupid, stupid thing.”
The three of us turned toward the porch. Standing under the single glowing light was Betty. Her arms were crossed, and a deep scowl penetrated her face.
“Why?” Concern filled Amelia’s voice. “Why didn’t the candy come off our house?”
&
nbsp; “Did we use the bag wrong?” I said.
“We didn’t use it wrong.” Cordelia sidled forward. “Something’s going on. Something’s up. Betty, why didn’t it work? It should have. It did on every other home on the block.”
“Because…” Betty’s voice trembled as if she were filled with fear from head to foot. “My powers are broken, girls. They’re broken and I don’t know how to fix them.”
TEN
We sat inside drinking hot cups of cocoa that Betty allowed me to make in her cauldron. Yes, she let me use the cauldron above the ever-burning fire in the hearth.
It was quite the treat. The fire was warm but it never added heat to the house and it burned nonstop. It was never out. Even standing in front of it turning the spoon in the cauldron, the flames felt different—alive, as if they had their own consciousness.
Yes, I know that was ridiculous, but it was almost as if the fire sensed what I wanted to do and helped me create the cocoa.
Y’all are right, I’m probably overthinking this.
“It started yesterday.” Betty sipped her drink. “Something snapped inside of me. I know it sounds stupid, but I could feel it deep down in my bones. Something frayed inside me. I don’t know what, and I wasn’t one hundred percent sure until I worked with the candy. I took it outside to cool because natural chilling is always best. But the consistency never got right.”
She paused. Sipped her cocoa again. Smacked her lips. “Pepper, you would’ve made a great kitchen witch. Kid, you got the stuff.”
“Thank you.” The chocolate was delicious—a dash of cinnamon, cream mixed with milk and dark cocoa powder made for an amazing tangle of flavors on my tongue.
“Keep going,” Cordelia prodded.
Betty stared into her cup. “It never got right. Ever. The candy didn’t do what it was supposed to. Then it spread. I tried to keep it to our house, but the stuff grew and opened. Like a gift, it continued to unfurl. Until finally it stopped. Out of nowhere, it stopped. But when I attempted to make it disappear, it didn’t work. Nothing happened.” Her gaze met each of ours. “That’s when I came in here and saw y’all.”
