Witch Way to the Bakery

by Zoe Arden

  "Good. Then give me two weeks."

  "Two weeks and then you'll go? No matter what happens with Ava?"

  "That's right."

  Dean nodded. "All right. I accept." He went back to his desk. "Now come and sign these contracts."

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  CHAPTER

  ONE

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  "Oh, please," Lucy Lockwood shouted sarcastically, a loud giggle escaping her throat. "Zulubar is the goblin king. You think he's lonely? Do goblins even get lonely? I bet he's got women throwing themselves at his feet, ready to smear ketchup on his peanut butter sandwich or whatever it was you said they ate."

  I shook my head and suppressed my own giggle. "Mayonnaise, and I hear it's quite good." Lucy made an icky face. "I'm just saying that every time I've been down there to see him, he's never with anyone."

  "He's surrounded by people constantly." Lucy tilted her to the side. "Well, not people. But you know what I mean. His own people. Goblins."

  "Yes, but they're not really with him. They're more like following him. It's not the same thing."

  "Well, meddle if you want, but I'd keep my nose out of it."

  Aunt Eleanor's head shot up. "No!" she shouted. "No meddling." She turned to me. "Ava, honey, I love you. You know that. Like you were my own daughter. But if you mess up the Goblin Ball for us, I'll kill you."

  "I'm not going to mess up anything," I reassured her.

  "Do you know that this is the first time an outside bakery has ever been asked to cater the Goblin Ball? Do you know what an honor that is?" Eleanor spied a cookie that was ready to tumble off the display tray it was sitting on. She set aside the cake she'd been decorating and straightened it.

  "I do know," I told her, "because you won't stop talking about it."

  Eleanor blushed. "Well, it's just such an honor."

  Trixie, my slightly ditsier, slightly younger aunt, blew a lock of blond hair out of her eyes. "I think they only asked us because of you and the sheriff," she said to her sister.

  Eleanor looked back up from the cake she'd resumed decorating. "That's not true!"

  "Then why ask us? Why not ask Sweets n' Treats or one of the bakeries in Mistmoor?"

  Eleanor shook a spoonful of frosting in the air. "Because the Mystic Cupcake is the best bakery on the entire island, not just in Sweetland Cove."

  "Heavenly Haven only has a handful of bakeries on it to begin with," Trixie said.

  "Precisely, and we're better than any of them."

  "I don't disagree but you've got to admit that being married to a man who's part goblin has its advantages, at least in this case. Don't you think?" When Eleanor said nothing, Trixie turned to me. "Ava, you agree with me. Tell her."

  I blinked. "I... uh... I think that I'd better check on my dad. He's been in the back all day, for all we know he could be burning the brownies and adding caramel to my raspberry syrup." I paused. "Actually, that sounds good, doesn't it? Maybe we should try that."

  "Good job," Lucy whispered to me. "Better to distract them than take sides. Even though Trixie's right."

  Eleanor looked at us. "What was that?"

  "Nothing," Lucy said.

  I made my way to the door leading to the back room where we did most of our baking and decorating and collided with my father, who was pushing through from the other side.

  "Ouch!"

  "Ava! I'm sorry," he said, putting his hands on my head and holding me steady long enough to look at my face. "Are you seeing double?" he asked, holding up two fingers in front of me.

  "No."

  "But I think I am," a woman's voice said from behind my father. Sadie Belle stepped out of the back room looking worse than when she'd gone in there. She was holding a tissue in one hand and her wand in the other. Her nose was so red it almost matched her hair.

  "You're not feeling any better?" I asked her.

  She shook her head.

  "I'm just going to take Sadie home," my dad said, slipping his arm around her waist so that she could lean on him. She put her wand into the pocket of her cardigan. She must have used an expansion charm on her pockets because I couldn't even see the tip of it poking out.

  "Good idea," Eleanor said.

  Sadie sneezed just then... right into a plate of cupcakes that Trixie had left sitting on the counter.

  Sadie's pale face turned as red as the rest of her. "I'm so sorry," she said, sneezing again.

  "It's all right, dear," Eleanor said, taking the cupcakes and throwing them into the trash. She shot my father a look and cocked her head toward the door.

  "Right," my dad said. "We're going." He gently helped Sadie toward the door, stroking the back of her neck as they moved.

  "I should never have come down here," Sadie complained, her short hair bobbing up and down as she sneezed a third time. "I've just been working so much at the hospital the last couple of weeks I haven't had much time to see Eli. I thought today... achoo!"

  Her lone tissue wasn't enough to cover the job this time.

  "I'll get you some more tissues," Trixie said, hurrying to the back room for a box.

  "Don't bother," Sadie said and pulled out her wand. "Tissue compari-ah-ah-ah-choo!" A raw steak appeared in her hand just as she let out the loudest sneeze of all. Sadie made a face and handed the steak to my father. She was a vegetarian.

  "I'll just put that in back," my dad said and hurried off with it.

  "Tissue compari..." Sadie tried again. This time, she managed to get more of the words out before sneezing. "Comparianunu-ah-ah-ah-choo!" A giant pillowcase materialized in her hand. She looked over at us. "That was closer, at least."

  I nodded as Trixie and my father returned with a box of tissue each. They handed them to her.

  "Thanks," she mumbled, blowing her nose. "It's so embarrassing. Even with my wand, I'm having a hard time conjuring anything."

  "You're sick," my father said, kissing the top of her head.

  "I know. And I'm supposed to work tonight, too."

  He frowned. "You're not going in to work like that. You can't. You'll only make yourself worse." His face scrunched up, and he let out a big sneeze.

  "Sounds like you're catching whatever she's got," I told him.

  "I'm fine," my dad said. “Just allergies."

  "If you go in to work, you'll make everyone who's already sick that much sicker," Lucy added.

  Sadie paled. "You're right. I'll call Dr. Dunne and let him know."

  She blew her nose again, a loud honk that seemed to go on forever.

  "I'll bring you some soup later," Eleanor said. "Just go home and rest."

  Sadie nodded and let my father lead her outside. The bell above the door chimed as they made their exit.

  "Poor thing," Eleanor said. "I hope she doesn't get Eli sick, not that I'd blame her, of course. It's only that with the Goblin Ball coming up, we can't afford for him to go taking off."

  "I'll brew him up something to ward off a cold," Trixie offered.

  "No, your brews always come out bitter," Eleanor said.

  "No," Trixie countered. "Your brews are the bitter ones. Mine are sweet as honey."

  "That's because you try to hide the bitterness by adding an entire jar of honey to one little cup. Even then, the bitterness still comes through."

  "Whatever honey I add is in there for its health benefits and nothing more."

  "That's what you—"

  "Ahhh-CHOO!"

  Sadie's latest sneeze was so loud we heard it even though she was now outside. We all looked out the window and saw her drop to the ground.

  "Sadie!" I shouted, worried something was wrong. I ran outside, followed by Lucy and my aunts. Sadie wasn't lying on the ground though, she was kneeling on it. My dad was at her side.

  "Are you okay?" I asked.

  She looked up. "I dropped my keys down the sewer grate," she said, shaking her head. "I really can't do anyth
ing right today. I should never have left the house this morning."

  She fumbled with the grate for a minute, trying to pull it up, but it didn't budge.

  "I'll get them for you," my dad said, already starting a spell to retrieve them.

  "No, no, I can do it," Sadie said and whipped out her wand again.

  "Maybe you shouldn't," Lucy said.

  I looked quickly around to make sure no human tourists were around. This was exactly the type of thing they weren't supposed to see. All forms of magic were off limits to humans, especially magic involving wands, which most witches and wizards didn't need. Unless, of course, they had a bad cold.

  "What's the spell?" she muttered, scratching her head. "Hovero-keys-um-ini-ah-ah-ah-choo!" she shouted. Nothing happened. Her keys remained stuck beneath the sewer grate. She sighed and turned to my father just as a crack of thunder sounded in the sky. We all looked up and saw a massive gray cloud begin to form.

  "Uh oh," my dad said and quickly uttered his own incantation. Sadie's keys jumped out of the sewer and into his hands. He handed them to her. "Better wash them off when you get home." He helped her up and hurried toward a taxi, which only the tourists ever used. "I'll be back soon as I can," he called over his shoulder to us, opening the door to the cab for her.

  "Let's get inside before we get soaked," Eleanor said as the rain started. It poured out of the clouds like someone had just turned on a showerhead directly over us. I sniffed the air, it smelled... strange. Like boiled cabbage.

  "What is that?" Lucy asked, wrinkling her nose.

  "I don't know."

  "Come on," Trixie said, tugging at my sleeve. I followed behind her, my eyes never leaving the sky. There was only one rain cloud in it, and it was right over our bakery. Everything else was dry. The rest of the sky was blue.

  "That's weird," I muttered and pulled open the door.

  * * *

  CHAPTER

  TWO

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  "What just happened?" I asked my aunts back inside the bakery. The sound of the rain was almost deafening as the drops collided with our building.

  Trixie and Eleanor were shaking off the water that had doused them. We'd only been under it for a few seconds but Eleanor's blond hair was matted to her head. My own blond hair was in a wet ponytail that made me feel like a horse who'd been caught out in the rain all night. It wasn't hard to imagine the smells of a barn either, considering the strange scent that was still lingering in the air.

  "What do you mean?" Eleanor asked. There was another crack of thunder and a flash of lightning. The rain beat hard against our front windows. "My, it's really coming down, isn't it?"

  "Look!" I said, pointing outside. "It's not raining anywhere else, just here. Above the bakery."

  Eleanor and Trixie moved to the windows, looking out. Lucy and I joined them. It wasn't just raining now, it was pouring cats and dogs. If it went on like this for too long, I was afraid the street in front of our store might flood.

  "Look to the right," I said, elbowing Eleanor and indicating a dry patch of street. It was hard to make out through all the rain hitting the glass but if you looked long enough and kind of squinted, you could see it.

  "It's completely dry in front of the jewelry store. And the thrift shop across the street is dry, too. The only rain cloud in the sky is right over the Mystic Cupcake."

  "She's right," Lucy said, her jaw hanging open. "The business next door looks dry as a bone. Look, you can see where the flowers in their flowerbed aren't even moving. If it was raining, they'd be shifting around under the weight of the water."

  "That's right," I said.

  Trixie frowned but Eleanor only clucked her tongue. "It's nothing. Sadie just conjured a rain cloud when she was trying to get her keys. That's all. It's a simple mistake. Poor thing was sneezing so much she didn't know what she was saying." She walked away from the window like it was no big deal.

  I didn't know what to think.

  "A raincloud?" I asked. "You can conjure something like that?"

  "Of course," Eleanor said. Sometimes I forgot how much I was still learning about being a witch. Most witches grew up surrounded by other witches but I'd grown up in the city, surrounded by humans. I hadn't even known I was a witch until a couple of years ago. Most witches my age had been trained from the time they were born; my training hadn't started until I was twenty-one.

  "It's not easy to conjure a rain cloud," Trixie said. "Well, it's not usually easy. Sadie must be a very powerful witch, even when she's sick."

  Suddenly, the bakery turned silent. The noise we'd been hearing all around us ceased and it was as if we were in a deep cave somewhere, completely unaffected by the outside world. I looked around, trying to figure out what had just happened.

  "The rain stopped," Lucy said.

  I looked at the window. "You're right. That was fast. What was that? Five minutes?"

  "Seven, tops," Lucy said.

  "Since when do storms disappear that quickly?" I asked her.

  We both turned to Eleanor. "Well," she said, her cheeks going pink. She cleared her throat. "It's not usual for a rain cloud to disappear so quickly but then nothing about this morning has been usual, has it?" It was almost like she was trying too hard to ignore the importance of what had just happened.

  "That smell is still here, though," Lucy said.

  "What smell?" asked Eleanor.

  "You don't smell that?" I asked her. "It smells like boiled cabbage."

  "Or rotten meat," Lucy added.

  "Or manure," Trixie said. We all made faces.

  Eleanor pressed her lips together. "Oh, that. I smell it. That could be anything, though."

  Trixie snorted. "You'd think with the smell and the rain and everything, that Sadie conjured a dark spirit instead of a rain cloud." She laughed like the idea was funny but Lucy and I exchanged a look.

  "Is that possible?" I asked Trixie.

  She stopped laughing.

  "No. I mean... well..." she said, biting her bottom lip. My aunts and I all tended to do that when we got nervous or were thinking too hard. It was one of the many traits we shared, along with our bright golden hair. "I suppose."

  "You suppose?" I asked and felt my eyes bug out of my head. "You mean, she really could have conjured a dark spirit?"

  "Don't be ridiculous," Eleanor snapped. "There's no way Sadie conjured a dark spirit."

  "But the smell... and the rain cloud," Trixie said. "Those are signs."

  "That smell is probably coming from the back room," Eleanor snapped. "You probably made a bad batch of frosting."

  "Hey!" Trixie shouted. "For all we know, you made a bad batch of cookies."

  "You take that back!" Eleanor shouted. "I've never burnt a thing in my life."

  "Except for the first fifty times you tried to make strudel."

  "Strudel is a very difficult recipe," Eleanor said. "And that was two decades ago. What have I burned since?"

  On that, Trixie was silent. Eleanor folded her arms across her chest and nodded triumphantly.

  "My dad could have burned something," I said, much preferring the idea that the strange smell was somehow our fault than the notion that a dark spirit was roaming about the place.

  Lucy was looking at us all dubiously. "I don't know," she said.

  "Don't you need to be getting back to Coffee Cove?" Eleanor asked.

  Lucy looked at her watch. "Oh, my roses, my break ended five minutes ago." She jumped off the counter she'd been sitting on and hurried toward the door. "I'll text you later," she called to me over my shoulder.

  "And you need to get to Beggars Forest," Eleanor said once Lucy was gone.

  "Beggars Forest?" I asked. "What for?" Beggars Forest was a dark, magical place on the edge of town. The trees were so thick there you could hug one and not even touch your fingers. Not many people went there. The humans who came to the island tho
ught it was haunted.

  Eleanor let out an exasperated sigh. "Are you serious?" she asked, her hands on her hips. "King Zulubar?"

  My mouth dropped open. "Oh, my roses, I almost forgot. Our meeting!" The goblin king had scheduled a meeting with me for this afternoon. He wanted a progress report on the catering job he'd hired us for. As it turned out, goblins had very specific food requirements. Sure, they bought pastries from us every now and again but they'd never asked for anything so specific as chocolate caramel cupcakes with leeks and mugwort extract. It was proving a challenge to come up with some of their preferred flavor combinations and still make them taste good.

  "I'm on my way," I told Eleanor.

  "And don't you dare say anything to him about his being lonely," she scolded.

  "So, you admit that he's lonely then?"

  Trixie giggled.

  Eleanor's face turned red.

  "I admit no such thing. I only meant that you should keep your opinions to yourself. Especially since that's all they are—opinions."

  "Aye, aye, sir," I said and gave her a little salute.

  She rolled her eyes. "Oh, go on and get out of here already," she said but I saw a smile creep up on her lips.

  "Don't worry," I told her as I set my apron on the counter. "I'll be good."

  * * *

  CHAPTER

  THREE

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  I decided I'd better drive to Beggars Forest rather than walk as I'd intended. I was running a little behind and didn't want to be late for my meeting with King Zulubar. My past interactions with the goblins had always been nerve wracking. So, getting stuck in traffic was the worst thing that could have happened.