Alchemy and Arson

by Lily Webb

  “I’d love to,” Beau said and offered me his arm again. I took it and as we walked I glanced over my shoulder one last time — and could’ve sworn I saw the blur of a vampire dashing through the woods away from the restaurant.

  It put a smile on my face. I couldn’t wait to see what Marcel captured.

  Chapter Twelve

  Instead of pretending to work and failing, I spent most of the afternoon waiting to hear from Marcel — and researching the werewolves.

  Luckily for me, the Moon Grove Historical Society had digitized the Parapages years ago and made them available free online. There was tons of information about the history and lore of the werewolves generally, along with the role they’d played in Moon Grove’s collective story.

  As I’d already learned, the Council decided hundreds of years ago to open up the borders to any sort of paranormal being, not just witches or warlocks, in order for the town to survive. But interestingly enough, the werewolves were one of the last groups to be permitted inside.

  The rest of their history, however, was even less rosy. Until recently, not even the paranormal groups in Moon Grove knew how to handle or manage the transformation of werewolves during the full moon, which led to them being segregated in their own part of town where no one else dared go, even when there wasn’t any risk — and that was to say nothing of a Blood Moon.

  But considering how often those happened, and how often the town would have to deal with their effects, it stunned me to learn the Council hadn’t come up with a better solution than a curfew. Suspiciously, the article didn’t detail what effects the Blood Moon had on werewolves. But if the official historical record of Moon Grove didn’t have the answer, who did?

  I sighed and pushed back from my computer to rub my eyes. I’d done a lot of investigating but come up with precious few leads. As far as I could find, there was nothing about a Blood Moon that would make a werewolf want to set a house on fire — much less deliberately target the home of a prominent witch like Circe.

  So it couldn’t have been a random attack. The more likely answer was that whoever had torched Circe’s house was someone who knew her or otherwise had a connection to her. There were a lot of moving pieces, but they didn’t fit together in any way that made sense.

  First, there was no arguing the vial stopper I’d found outside Circe’s house was connected to Hypnotic Tonics. It led to Hilda, the shop’s owner, who seemed more than a little odd to say the least, and her assistant, Sage, clearly had a chip on her shoulder about the treatment they’d gotten from Lorelei Riddle and the rest of the Council.

  But the only link I’d found between Hypnotic Tonics and the Council was Tony Romano, werewolf and pizza parlor owner who’d evidently given a loan to Hilda to start her shop and was involved in political negotiations with Circe on behalf of the werewolves.

  But why was Tony Romano of all people chosen to speak for the werewolves? He seemed like he had an uncontrollable temper, to say the least, so how could he negotiate anything without breaking people’s faces when he didn’t get his way?

  I couldn’t shake the feeling I was missing something, but no matter how I turned the info over in my head, I couldn’t make the pieces fit together. Tony suspected that Hilda owed other people money too, which in and of itself was worth investigating. But it wasn’t likely Hilda would give me access to her financial reports, so how else could I find out?

  My cell phone rang on the desk beside me and my brow furrowed when I saw it was Raina. The only reason she’d be calling in the middle of the day was if it related to Grandma. Panicked, I snatched the phone off the desk and smashed the button to accept the call.

  “Hello?” I asked.

  “Zoe, Sugar, it’s Grandma,” Grandma Elle’s drawl came through and I breathed a sigh of relief. If she had the wits to call me, whatever she had to say probably wasn’t urgent.

  “Hey, Gram. What’s going on? I’m at work, I can’t talk long,” I said.

  “I know, I’m sorry to bother you in the middle of the day like this. Listen, I’ve been workin’ through some stuff with Raina since I been here and I think we need to talk,” Grandma said. The relief I’d felt before fell out of my mouth like my spirit had been ejected.

  “That sounds serious,” I said.

  “Now don’t you go gettin’ your panties in a wad, it ain’t worth losin’ your cool over,” Grandma said. “But anyway, it probably ain’t a good idea to be talkin’ about it over the phone, so do you think you could come over here after work tonight?”

  “Yeah, definitely, I don’t have any other plans,” I said — and even if I did, I would’ve canceled them for this. My hands were so slick with sweat I worried I might drop the phone.

  “Okay, good, good. When are ya done over there?” Grandma asked.

  “Punch out time is at five, but I’m sure I can leave a little earlier if you need me to,” I said. I glanced at the clock and my heart sank when I realized it was only three o’clock. Waiting for five to roll around would be torture.

  “No, ain’t no need for that. I don’t need you gettin’ yerself in trouble on account of me again. Just come over when you’re finished,” Grandma said.

  “All right. How are things over there? Are you alone?” I asked.

  “Not, I got Tierney here in my lap, as always,” Grandma said. “Raina’s at work, obviously, but she set me up with some crocheting needles and thread so I got more than enough to occupy my time.”

  I wished I could say the same. At least Grandma’s revelation would give me something to think about other than Circe and whoever might’ve killed her.

  “Okay, good. You need me to bring anything when I come? Any food or anything?”

  “No, we’re good. I’ll see ya in a couple hours, Sugar,” Grandma said.

  “All right. Love you,” I said.

  “Love you too,” Grandma said and hung up.

  I sat staring at the phone in my hand unable to process what happened. For all I knew, Grandma could just be waiting to tell me she was going home and that Raina had figured out a way to make that happen — but there was something in the back of my brain telling me otherwise.

  Thankfully, my computer dinged with an p-mail alert and pulled me out of my negative spiral. I switched over to my p-mail app and gasped when I saw I had a message from Marcel. I had no idea how he got my work address, but I wasn’t complaining.

  With my heart racing, I clicked into the message and a smile the likes of which I hadn’t worn in months cracked my face when dozens of photos loaded. There were a few of Beau and I walking into Pupperoni Pizza, but the majority of them were shot from outside the restaurant looking through the small window into Tony’s office.

  And there was no missing the stacks of cash inside, rendered in beautiful high definition. I wasn’t sure what if anything I could do with the photos, but it reassured me to have them nonetheless. Marcel had made good on his end of the bargain. Maybe he wasn’t so untrustworthy after all.

  I clicked to send a reply:

  >>Me: Excellent work! Anything interesting pop out at you? I got a lot of dirt talking to Tony. I’m not free this evening, but I’d love to meet up to discuss things. Let me know what you think.

  A whooshing sound came from the computer as the message sent. Though I knew better, I stole another glance at the clock — only five minutes had passed. Annoyed and desperate for something to occupy my time, I fired up a game of Solitaire on my computer and hoped Mitch didn’t catch me between now and five o’clock.

  I left the Messenger at five o’clock on the dot without saying goodbye to anyone, not even Flora. Nothing was going to get in my way. I charged up Crescent Street and practically ran the few blocks north to Moonbeam Avenue, a stitch in my side by the time I got to number three. I couldn’t tell if Raina was home, but either way, I didn’t care.

  Gingerly, I knocked on the door.

  “Be right there,” Grandma called, her chair creaking as she stood. A few seconds later, she
opened the door just a crack to see who was there and smiled when she realized it was me.

  “Dang, you didn’t waste no time at all, did ya?” Grandma asked as she opened the door the rest of the way to let me inside. I gave her a hug and when we parted I found Raina sitting in one of the rocking chairs next to Grandma’s, Tierney and her lap. The fluffy cat hissed at me but Raina shushed him.

  “Good evening, dear,” Raina said, smiling.

  “Hey, good to see you,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I meant it. I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d walked onto the scene of an intervention and Raina and Grandma were about to tell me all the ways my bad behavior affected them.

  “Have a seat,” Grandma said as she closed the door and ushered me further into the house. I left the middle of the three rocking chairs for her and sat down on her left.

  “I have to say, I don’t know what to expect here,” I said. Grandma groaned as she lowered herself into the rocking chair and Raina smiled at me.

  “Nor do we,” Raina said.

  “Let’s just get right down to the nitty gritty, shall we?” Grandma asked. I nodded, the suspense killing me. I’d been waiting all afternoon to hear whatever it was she had to say.

  “Alrighty then, I reckon I’ll start at the beginning. Not long after I got here, Raina and I sort of hit it off talking about this that and the other thing,” Grandma started.

  “Right. You’ve never met a person you couldn’t talk to, that much isn’t new,” I said and Grandma fixed me with a disapproving look. Raina chuckled.

  “Anyway, durin’ that process, somethin’ sorta stuck out as not really makin’ much sense,” Grandma said and my body tensed.

  “Like what?”

  Grandma and Raina exchanged looks and Raina nodded as if to tell her it was okay. My heart hammered so fast I thought it might burst out of my chest and run away.

  “Look, I don’t know how else to tell ya this, Sugar, so I’m just gonna say it: I dunno whether or not your parents are actually gone,” Grandma said. I blinked a few times at her, my brain unable to process what she’d just said.

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “While she’s been here, your grandmother and I have been exploring your family’s history as a matter of understanding where you came from and where you might be going,” Raina said. “Of course, I’ve already shared with her the extraordinary progress you’ve made in your own journey in your studies of magic.”

  “Minus the part where I got kicked out of school and my wand was taken,” I said.

  “I was there for that one, Sugar,” Grandma said and I shook my head.

  “I’ve also already informed your grandmother that your family descends from quite an impressive line of witches and warlocks, potentially including Lilith, the Prime Witch herself,” Raina said.

  None of this was news to me; Raina and I had talked it over quite extensively in the time we’d spent together while she was tutoring me in magic.

  “Right, so far I’m following you. But why do I get the feeling we’re about to hit a road bump?” I asked.

  “Because we are. See, here’s the thing. It’s true that your parents are gone, I just ain’t got a clue where they went,” Grandma said and my head spun.

  “That doesn’t make any sense. How can they be gone without you knowing where they went?”

  “It’s complicated, and that’s why I kept it from ya all this time. I kept waitin’ for the right time to tell ya but the right time just never came. Now that I’m here and gettin’ whiplash from seein’ all this magical stuff, I can’t deny the truth no more,” Grandma said.

  My heart hammered in my ears, my blood crashing against the inside of my skull like the waves of the ocean on the shore.

  “Just tell me. After all I’ve come up against here, I think I can handle it,” I lied — I wasn’t at all sure I could handle it.

  “All right, but you can’t say I didn’t warn ya,” Grandma sighed. Raina reached over to squeeze her hand reassuringly, though Grandma wasn’t really the one in need of comfort at the moment.

  “I think all that bullhockey I been feedin’ ya fer years about your parents passin’ away in a car crash is just that: bullhockey,” Grandma said.

  It should have been more shocking than it was, but it wasn’t the first time I’d wondered if Grandma wasn’t telling me the truth about what really happened to my parents. After all, there was a funeral but there weren’t any bodies. Grandma said that was because they were too damaged in the crash, but I never believed it.

  “Okay, then what happened?” I asked. Grandma looked like she was stunned I wasn’t more upset.

  “That’s the trouble, I ain’t got a clue, and the police don’t neither,” Grandma said. “It’s the darndest thing, Sugar, they just disappeared into thin air.”

  “But that’s not possible. Even if there was some magic or something at work, they would’ve had to show up somewhere. Not even witches can just make themselves disappear forever, can they?” I asked, looking to Raina for the answer.

  “Not as far as I know,” Raina said.

  “Wait, back up, I feel like I’m missing a lot here. The police didn’t find anything at all?” I asked, my head spinning.

  “Well, it wasn’t nothin’ they found. Your parents did go on a date together that night, that much about the story is true. But they didn’t come home when they said they were gonna. At the time, I didn’t think nothin’ of it cuz you was still a baby and I knew it’d been a hot Carolina minute since they’d had some time alone,” Grandma said.

  “But?” I asked. Grandma sighed.

  “The next mornin’ I still hadn’t heard a peep from either of ‘em, so I started to get worried. ‘Course, this was back in the days before cell phones, so it wasn’t like I could call ‘em up. Anyway, when the afternoon rolled around and I still hadn’t heard nothin’, I called the police and filed a missin’ persons report,” Grandma said.

  “And what did they find?” I asked though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.

  “They found your father’s car abandoned not far down the street from my farm,” Grandma said and my heart plunged into my stomach.

  “Neither of ‘em was in the car and it didn’t look like there’d been any sorta struggle. The cops tried to start the car but she wouldn’t turn over, so for a long time there the police figured it musta broke down and your parents to walk the rest of the way but never made it home.”

  “Then where did they go? I mean, if they never made it back to the farm and the police never found anything, they could still be alive, right?” I asked, still unable to believe the things I’d heard.

  “I ain’t got a clue. The cops kept searchin’ for about a week, but you know how it goes with things like that. After a while, they gave up because they didn’t find nothin’ conclusive,” Grandma said. “But then the investigators took the car in fer the black light search or whatever and found something in the glovebox. It was a long, knotted stick.”

  “Wait, was it a wand?” I asked and Raina smiled at me.

  “That’s exactly what I thought too,” Raina said.

  “Fer all I know, it mighta been. There was always somethin’ a little off about those two, somethin’ I couldn’t put my finger on. They were marching to the beat of their own drum or whatever,” Grandma said.

  “But you said there were no signs of a struggle. If the car broke down, and if they were able to use magic in some capacity, why didn’t they take the wand with them if they abandoned the car?” I asked.

  “Says the true journalist,” Grandma laughed. “That’s the thing, I dunno. I wish I had the answers, Sugar, but I don’t. I been tryin’ to figure it out for twenty-some-odd years. It never made no sense to me either.”

  “So all this time you’ve been telling me they were dead, they weren’t?” I asked.

  “Well, I wouldn’t go jumpin’ to that conclusion just yet,” Grandma said. “Just because we can’t find ‘em don’t mean
they’re still around.”

  “None of this makes any sense,” I said, slouching back in the rocking chair before I fainted.

  “I know, Zoe, I’m sorry. To her credit, your grandmother didn’t want to tell you any of this because she knew it would upset you,” Raina said. She had that right.

  “But I thought it was important for you to know. I can’t say with any certainty but based on this story and some records I’ve found, I have a strong suspicion your parents may have been attempting to get back into Moon Grove,” Raina said and I bolted up in the chair again.

  “Wait a second, what do you mean back into Moon Grove? That implies they were ever here in the first place,” I said. Raina smiled and nodded.

  “That’s correct,” she said. “While talking things over with your grandmother, I learned your mother’s maiden name is Woods, the same as mine.”

  “Okay, but that could just be a coincidence,” I said, though my anxiety doubled.

  “It could, but there’s only one Ember Woods in all of Moon Grove’s recorded history. Such are the benefits of having a unique name like your mother’s,” Raina said.

  “What did you find out about her?”

  “A birth record for you, among other things. Ember Woods, your mother, gave birth to an unnamed child twenty-five years ago at Willowvale Hospital. The father is listed as Robert Clarke, your father,” Raina said. My head threatened to float off my shoulders.

  I was born in Moon Grove? To a relative of Raina and Circe? How had we not figured any of this out until now?

  “According to the records, your parents weren’t yet married when you were born,” Raina said.

  “That’s true, they didn’t get married until about a year later,” Grandma said, stroking her chin. I’d forgotten she was there.

  “Which explains why we were unable to find anything substantive until now. We were looking for the wrong name in all the wrong places,” Raina said.

  “But why would they leave? They had to have known what life would be like outside the safe zone of Moon Grove for magical folks,” I said.