Third Time is a Charm

by Cate Martin

  "It wasn't me," I said. "Nick, you know me. I wouldn't do that."

  "Then who did?" he demanded. "Who else knew about it?"

  "Wait, so the wardrobe is gone too?" I asked.

  "Um, Amanda," Sophie said gently from where she and Brianna were standing in the doorway. "We know where the wardrobe is."

  "Since when?" I asked.

  "Since we just went upstairs and found it in the library."

  "What?" I asked.

  "You stole evidence?" Nick asked.

  "No," Brianna said. "It wasn't there when I left that room an hour ago."

  "Amanda," Sophie said. "This means someone got into the house while we were gone."

  "That's supposed to be impossible," Brianna added.

  "Because of magic?" Nick asked. "A time portal thing?"

  "Amanda!" Sophie gasped as if shocked. "What have you been telling him?"

  "Everything," I said. "I can't do this secrets thing. Sorry."

  "And who have you told?" Sophie demanded.

  "Who am I going to tell?" Nick said, throwing up his hands. "No one would believe me. I'm the crazy guy always asking the insane questions!"

  "Actually," I said, unable to stop the words from coming out of me, "if they don't remember the body they probably don't remember the questions."

  "That's not the point," Nick snapped.

  "What is the point?" Sophie asked with a dangerous calm. Her arms were folded with no wand in sight, but she was looking at Nick with real menace.

  "That's the point," Nick said, pointing at my throat. "You all are meddling in things that are going to get you hurt."

  "That's our business," Sophie said.

  "That's our calling, actually," Brianna said.

  "Is it?" Nick said, looking at me.

  I really wished Sophie and Brianna would go back upstairs. This conversation was hard enough.

  "It got out of hand this time," I said. "You're right; what I was snooping into wasn't our area. I've learned my lesson."

  "I've learned my lesson too," Nick said. He sounded so weary, even more than I felt. And ineffably sad.

  Sophie caught Brianna's sleeve and guided her away from the kitchen.

  "It's for the best," I said. "I understand."

  "What do you understand?" Nick asked. "I don't understand anything."

  "You can't be with me," I said. "You have a career to focus on, and I keep messing that up. And I can't be with you. It's too dangerous for you."

  "That's not what I was going to say," Nick said.

  "Well, I said it then," I said. I felt hollow on the inside, like my sad little heartbeat was echoing in some vast cavern, never to be heard by others.

  "Is this calling of yours supposed to be dangerous?" he asked. "I mean, isn't there some safer way for you to do it? One that doesn't involve so many one-on-one confrontations with evil?"

  "I don't know," I said. "I don't think so."

  "No work-life balance?"

  "Not for me," I said.

  "So you'll always be alone?"

  "Of course not," I said. "There are three of us."

  "You know what I meant," Nick said. As his anger had diminished, he had drifted closer and closer to me. I didn't look up, but I could feel the warmth of his hand on the back of my chair, not quite touching me. "I had your back before. I promised I always will, didn't I?"

  "Did you?"

  "Maybe that bit was just in my head," he admitted. "But I meant it."

  "I can't do this," I said.

  "I still want to be with you," he said. "I want to face danger with you. I mean, it would be nice if I understood it all more. I don't want to be blind-sided all the time. But surely we can work something out?"

  "No," I said. "You don't understand."

  "What don't I understand?" he asked with a sigh.

  "The danger I have to protect you from is me," I said.

  He stood dumbstruck for a moment. Then he gave a final, oh so final, nod to his head and went out the way he had come in.

  I wanted to drop my head down to the table and cry, but I didn't get the chance.

  "I'm sorry, Amanda," Sophie said.

  "I'll be okay," I said.

  "I know you will," she said softly. "But right now Brianna and I really need you upstairs."

  That was right. That damned wardrobe still had to be dealt with.

  Chapter 21

  "Do you know how it got here?" I asked as I walked with Sophie up the stairs.

  "Not how, not exactly," Sophie said. "Brianna is going ballistic about that. But we know who. Or at least you do."

  "I do?" I repeated. I might be too tired for this. It had been a long, long day.

  "Here," Brianna said, rushing up to me the moment we were in the library. He put a slip of paper in my hands. I looked past her at the wardrobe standing right in the middle of the open space at the front of the library in front of the doors to the porch.

  It looked perfectly ordinary, just as before. The idea of blinking into the web world to examine it made every weary bone in my body cry out against it and I let it go.

  There was always tomorrow.

  I unfolded the slip of paper. The stock felt familiar, and I half expected to see the words "Je suis désolé" again. But the writing was different, more loopy, less refined.

  "Fixed it for you. Love, Evanora," I read out loud.

  "Who's Evanora?" Brianna asked.

  "A witch I ran into in 1927," I said. "She was with Tommy. He was supposed to turn me over to her employer after he was done interrogating me and Otto. I'm not sure he ever intended to."

  "And who was her employer? Another gangster?"

  "I don't know. I don't think so," I said. Then I looked right at Brianna. "She took my wand from me. She touched it with her hands."

  "Your wand!" she cried.

  "You lost it?" Sophie asked.

  "No, I still have it," I said, patting the place on my coat where I could feel its length. "But it's not the same. I don't know if it ever will be."

  "We can make it better," Brianna said. "Not the same, but not as bad as it is now. It's bad?"

  "I can't stand to touch it," I said, and my vision started to blur.

  "What did she fix for you?" Sophie asked. "Does she mean the wardrobe?"

  "No," I said, and fished through my pockets until I found the other note. "The sisters kept their respective wardrobes hoping to hear from each other, I think. But the time spell was unstable. When I found the wardrobe in 1927 it was empty, but I closed the doors and reopened them, and that was there. Whichever sister sent it, I don't think it was ever received."

  "How sad," Brianna said. "I suppose burning the other wardrobe made the spell even more unstable."

  "Maybe," I said.

  "Do you know what she did mean by fix then?" Sophie persisted.

  I wanted to rub some of the tension out of the back of my neck, but the merest touch had me hissing with pain, and I had to desist. "I think I do. Nick said the body was gone, the one from the wardrobe. And there is no sign he ever existed here. The records are gone from the police station, and no one remembers seeing him but Nick."

  "Do you know what kind of spellwork would be required for that sort of spell? To make so many people forget?" Brianna asked.

  "I imagine it's a lot," I said.

  "But she didn't touch Nick," Sophie said. "That's deliberate."

  "I know," I said. "I won't be seeing Nick anymore. Hopefully, I can keep him out of this. Whatever this is."

  "What do you think this is?" Sophie asked.

  "She's calling me out," I said.

  "What did you do to piss her off?" Sophie asked.

  "Nothing. She was gone long before I lost control," I said. "But when we met, it was like she already knew me. And she wasn't surprised to see me."

  "Did she look familiar to you?"

  "No. I'm not even sure I would recognize her again if I saw her now. I think she had some sort of glamor. I remember at the time
I could look past it and see her, but I was sure the men with us couldn't. And now the details are gone from my mind as well."

  "She seems proficient at forgetting magic," Sophie said.

  "We should keep track of this," Brianna said, rushing to the shelf where she kept stacks of empty notebooks. She pulled one down and took it to her table to start scribbling in it.

  "If there were witches running around St. Paul in 1927 with that kind of power, Miss Zenobia would have known about it," Sophie said. "I would have thought she would have stopped it."

  "Maybe she's no more from 1927 than we are," I said.

  "Oh dear," Brianna said. "That complicates things." She turned to a different page in her journal and made a notation there.

  "So she fixed people's memories, but not the wardrobe," Sophie said. "Not a time witch?"

  "Probably not," I said. "I didn't look at her in the web world. She left in a hurry."

  "To see her employer," Sophie said. "Who could be anybody. Another witch. Maybe one with time powers. Maybe Juno herself."

  "I doubt that," I said. "I've tried calling to Juno several times, and she's not answering me."

  "Why were you calling out to Juno?" Brianna asked.

  "To see if she would answer," I said simply. "She didn't. She's lying low."

  "Or she's gathering others with more freedom if less power," Sophie said. "If she forms a coven of her own and challenges us, we might lose control of the bridge."

  "Juno is the bridge," I said.

  "Exactly," Sophie said.

  "They want to free her?" Brianna asked. Sophie nodded. "But what happens if they succeed? The bridge will just be gone or what?"

  "We need to start researching that," I said. "And checking the school archives for any hint of other witches roaming the area in 1927 and what their agenda might be."

  "If they aren't from 1927 the school won't know," Brianna said. "The protective spell will work for them the same as it does for us. They'll just see an empty building, and the students in the building won't see them at all."

  "Why did she take the body?" Sophie pondered. "Why wipe the memories? What does she gain?"

  "It gets me out of potential legal trouble?" I speculated. "Unless she's being sarcastic with the 'love' bit, she thinks she's doing me a favor."

  "That makes sense, actually," Brianna said. "Juno must still want to recruit you. To get you on her side, she'll be sure to keep looking out for you."

  "And separating you from Nick," Sophie added grimly. "She wants you isolated."

  "But she isn't," Brianna said. "She has us."

  "I'm not talking about that," Sophie said. "I'm talking about the more complicated Nick emotions."

  "I don't have time for those," I said, a bit more fiercely than I had intended. "None of us do, right? We have a job to focus on here, and I've been lacking focus. That changes."

  Brianna gave me an encouraging smile then added more notes to her journal.

  "Maybe it's not that," Sophie said, her voice low so Brianna wouldn't hear. "I appreciate what you're saying, and as far as emotional entanglements and our calling goes, I totally agree. Short-term, anyway, we need focus."

  I nodded and was about to admit that I knew she had left someone of her own behind, but there was something else going on in her eyes, some other thought.

  "I'm just worried the reason she wants to separate you from Nick is that in some way we don't understand yet, we're going to need him. Maybe Juno doesn't want him on our team."

  "If it seems like that's true later, I'll bring Nick back in," I said. "But for now, it's just us three."

  "And that's good enough for me," Sophie said.

  "Us three plus Mr. Trevor," Brianna piped up. "I know it's after midnight, but I could really use some brain fuel."

  "Did someone say my name?" Mr. Trevor asked as he came into the library wearing a belted robe over his pajamas and slippers on his feet but bearing a tray of tea, cookies, dried fruit, and nuts. "I do believe some of this might be brain fuel," he added.

  "It's perfection," Brianna said, helping herself to some of the tea. "You say you're not magical, but I swear your psychic."

  "Are you psychic, Mr. Trevor?" Sophie asked before biting into a cookie.

  "As interesting as that would be, I don't think the three of you realize how loud you talk when you're excited about something. And my room is just beyond that wall."

  "Sorry," we all said at once.

  "No need," he said, waving off the apology. "If you're awake, then there is work to be done. And if there's work to be done, it's my job to, er, fuel it. Have a productive night, ladies."

  "Good night, Mr. Trevor," we all said.

  "Divide and conquer," Brianna said, consulting her notes. "I'll look into what kind of witch could slip in here without us knowing and find us some better wards to keep it from happening again. Sophie, you hit the archive journals. Start in 1927 and look for active witches then, but once you're finished with that just start at the beginning and search them all for any mention of the name Evanora."

  "And me?" I asked.

  "I'm afraid for you it's the same as always," Brianna said with a regretful smile. "We need to understand time magic. For the sake of maintaining the bridge, we need to know all we can. But you're really the only one who can tackle that."

  "I'm on it," I said, and took a handful of smoked almonds before going back to my little alcove of books. The book Brianna had wanted me to start with was still there on the top of the pile, waiting for me.

  I scooped it up as well as my own journal and brought them to the far side of the library to curl up in one of the window seats.

  It was still darkest night beyond the glass, but in a few hours, it would be dawn. And I just knew I would still be awake to see it.

  I was just settling in with a blanket tucked around my legs when something caught the corner of my eye, something fluttering out in the night. All of my nerves rang loudly in red alert, and my hand started inching towards my wand.

  But it was just snow. I laughed to myself and forced myself to relax. I was getting pretty jumpy if the sight of a few flakes was enough to have me ready to try flinging spells.

  I let the book wait for a few minutes more, watching the sparse flakes grow in size and number as they danced under the street light below.

  Winter was finally starting, and it looked like it was going to be just as magical as anything we three witches could conjure. I watched the glittering drifts join together to form a proper blanket of snow, until the last bit of ugly bare ground was covered in sparkling flakes. Then I turned my mind back to my book.

  This time in the wrestling match between me and this book, I was going to be the victor.

  Coming Soon!

  The Witches Three will return in Old World Charm, out on May 14, 2019 and available for preorder now!

  When nothing and no one holds you to the present, why not celebrate the new year 91 years ago?

  So think Amanda Clarke and the rest of the Witches Three. They head back in time to ring in 1928, drinking bootleg champagne with the wealthiest members of St. Paul society, honest businessmen and gangsters and those who dwell where those categories overlap.

  But when a surprise wedding engagement announcement becomes an even more surprising murder of the bride-to-be, the Witches Three find themselves wrapped up in yet another mystery.

  Because even if it's not your time era, when the chief suspect is your close friend, you don't opt out. Or so says Amanda Clarke.

  "Old World Charm", Book 4 in the Witches Three Cozy Mystery series. If you're a fan of Amanda M. Lee, N.M. Howell, or Amy Boyles, this mélange of magic and murder mystery is sure to charm you.

  Old World Charm, Book 4 in the Witches Three Cozy Mystery Series!

  Free eBook!

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  About the Author

  Cate Martin is a mystery writer who lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

  Also by Cate Martin

  The Witches Three Cozy Mystery Series

  Charm School

  Work Like a Charm

  Third Time is a Charm

  Old World Charm (coming May 14, 2019)

  Charm his Pants Off (coming July 2019)

  Charm Offensive (coming September 2019)

  Copyright © 2019 by Cate Martin

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover design by Shezaad Sudar.

  Cover images by Aarows via Dreamstime.com.

  Ratatoskr Press logo by Aidan Vincent.

  ISBN 978-1-946552-89-1

  Created with Vellum