Witch Way to the Bakery

by Zoe Arden

  "Guess?" Trixie cried. "There's no guessing. "It's here, and it's not letting up."

  "Two people are dead now," Eleanor said. "We have to examine this from a fresh perspective, I think. What do we know for sure?"

  "For sure?" I said. "We know we gave Sadie those cookies with the banishment charm. We know they seemed like they worked. We know they didn't."

  "We know the dark spirit isn't in Sadie," Eleanor countered.

  "Are you sure your banishment spell was... um..."

  "Are you asking me whether or not I'm sure I didn't make a mistake with the spell?" she asked, irritation slipping into her voice.

  "Yes," I said, rounding back my shoulders. "You're a wonderful witch and an excellent baker but everyone makes mistakes."

  "Not me," Eleanor said. "At least, not about this. I'm positive. My spell was sound."

  I bit my bottom lip. "So, then where does that leave us?"

  "It's possible the spirit started out in Sadie and then jumped into someone else," Trixie said.

  "That's true," Eleanor replied.

  "Whoever is harboring the dark spirit now is almost certainly the same person who you saw at Whisper Crossing the other day," Trixie said. "They were probably trying to kill you, and when they failed, they decided to kill someone else instead."

  "But why Red? What do him and the tourist who died have in common? Anything?" I asked.

  "Not so far as we know," Eleanor replied.

  We stood silently around for a minute, thinking. "Coffee!" Trixie suddenly shouted. We both looked at her.

  "Coffee?" Eleanor asked.

  "Don't you remember?" Trixie said. "When the tourist was killed, there was something else lying near his body other than the cupcake wrapper."

  "A spilled coffee!" I said. "I remember. She's right. I could smell it. It was Coffee Cove's vanilla latte."

  "How do you know it came from Coffee Cove?" Eleanor asked. "All vanilla lattes are the same."

  "Not Coffee Cove's," I told her. "They add a dash of lavender to theirs. It's what makes theirs so good."

  "Lavender?" Trixie asked. "You mean, that's what I've been tasting in my Brass Monkeys all this time?"

  "I think so."

  She cocked her head to the side. "Huh. I never realized."

  Eleanor ignored her. "So, you think the thing that Dave Harley and Red both had in common was the Coffee Cove?"

  "So far, that's all we've got to go on but yes."

  I could tell she was thinking. Her brows drew tightly together, and she kept licking her lips. "Maybe whoever the dark spirit has possessed works at Coffee Cove." She shot me a meaningful look.

  "Wait a second... you don't mean... Not Lucy!"

  "Think about it," Eleanor said. "Lucy was there the day Sadie accidentally summoned the spirit. She was there at the cliffs with you. She was there when Red died."

  "Yeah, but the day at the cliffs I saw someone physically standing at the edge of the cliff when Lucy was down at the bottom with me."

  "Maybe that's just what the dark spirit wanted you to think you saw," Eleanor said. "Heck, maybe it was the spirit itself you saw standing there with the cloak. It could've exited her body for a short time and left her alone with you."

  "But..." My mind was spinning. "I don't know," I finally said, unconvinced. "If Lucy had really been possessed at any point, wouldn't I have known? Plus, Lucy is a very strong witch, she's not weak or sick or anything."

  "She works a lot," Eleanor said. "She could be stressed and tired. That alone could do it."

  "I don't know," I said again. "Are you sure you're not—"

  The door chimed, and Elwin Muster walked in. He smiled shyly as we all turned to look at him.

  "Hi, Elwin," Trixie said.

  "Hi, Trixie, Eleanor, Ava." He nodded to each of us. Elwin was always very polite.

  "Can we get you something, Elwin?" Eleanor asked.

  "No, thanks. Well..." he scratched his head, "maybe. I was hoping you might be able to give me a few answers."

  "Answers?" Eleanor asked. "About what?"

  He removed a plastic baggy from his pocket, along with a peer of tweezers. He opened the baggy and used the tweezers to remove a cupcake wrapper. It was white with dark sparkles and a black rose embedded in the bottom.

  "Do you recognize this?" he asked. "Is it one of yours?"

  "No," I said automatically. "It's not one of ours."

  "Where did you get that?" Eleanor asked.

  "We found it under the victim's body last night," Elwin said.

  "That was under Red's body?" I squealed. If it had been anyone else, they probably would have caught the tone in my voice or the uncertainty in my eyes but Elwin wasn't quite like that. He wasn't dumb but he wasn't a brainiac either.

  "Do you know where it came from?" Elwin asked. "We're trying to determine whether it has anything to do with Red's murder."

  I exchanged a look with Eleanor.

  "No," I told Elwin. "No idea at all where that came from. Never seen anything like it before."

  * * *

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FOUR

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  The next day, Trixie, Eleanor, and I finally decided that the only way to figure out where that cupcake wrapper had come from would be to return to Mistmoor Point and Creams, Cakes, and Creations. And this time, I wouldn't leave until Edith or Blossom gave me a straight answer.

  I knew that they'd been holding something back the other day, and I knew now what it was thanks to Snowball. They were after our job catering the Goblin Ball. If they would send Nightshade to spy on us, what else might they do? Maybe they thought if enough murders happened in Sweetland Cove, the goblins would want to use a bakery from Mistmoor Point instead. It sounded like a silly argument to me but who knew how the mind of a criminal worked?

  Eleanor told me to bring Lucy on the trip.

  "You want me to be alone with a murderer?" I asked, looking at her like she was crazy.

  "The only way to tell whether Lucy's infected or not is to spend time with her," Eleanor said. "She won't kill you. I don't think. She's already had plenty of opportunities and hasn't yet."

  "Besides," Trixie chimed in, "she's only killed people when there were lots of witnesses around. She hasn't killed anyone when she's been alone with them. It would probably draw too much suspicion."

  That was a good point, actually, though I hated to admit it. Lucy was my best friend but the last thing I wanted right now was to be anywhere near her.

  "Fine," I said, though I wasn't happy about it. I texted her but she couldn't go until tomorrow. That suited me just fine. It also gave me time to do some more research. I told my aunts I was going to the library—we were still slow thanks to the Coffee Cove murder—and they had no objections to my stepping out for a while.

  Sweetland Library was quite large for such a small town and boasted some of the best collections of paranormal books in the United States. I tracked down several books on dark spirits and began searching through them, looking for something that might help. I knew Lucy had said she'd already scoured the Internet but sometimes an actual book was better than anything you might find online. Books were supported by facts. Online articles could have been made up with rumor. With so many false facts reported online, it was sometimes impossible to tell the real facts from the made-up ones.

  My finger stopped on a paragraph in a book called Witches and Spirits: The Good, The Bad, And the Warty.

  My eyes popped out of my head. I reread the sentence. Once possessed by a dark spirit, the body of the possessed has fourteen days to purge itself of the spirit or it shall forever be inhabited by it.

  I did a quick rundown of the time that had passed since Sadie had accidentally summoned the spirit and counted just under two weeks.

  "Crud," I muttered, shutting the book. If the spirit had been inside Lucy or Sadie or whoever for that long, chances
were rising that they would stay in them forever.

  I stood up to check the book out and bumped into Colt.

  "Ouch," I said, smacking my nose into his chest. I shook my head out and he stood there smiling at me. No, not smiling. He was trying to smile but it came out looking forced and strange.

  "Hi," he said. Someone shushed us from a nearby table. "Hi," he repeated, a whisper.

  "Hi, what are you doing here?" I didn't mean to sound unhappy to see him, I only wanted to hurry up and get the book checked out, so I could show it to Eleanor and Trixie.

  "I went by the bakery. Eleanor and Trixie told me you were here. Can we talk?"

  I hesitated. "Now's not really a good time," I said.

  "Please. It's important."

  I sighed and nodded.

  "Thanks," he said, ushering me toward the very back of the library. We took a couple of seats at the most secluded table the Sweetland Library offered, and I braced myself for whatever it was he wanted to say. My heart was hammering. I was terrified he was going to ask me for my answer and I wasn't quite ready to give it to him yet. Even though I knew in my heart that I wasn't ready to get married, I also knew that telling him that would hurt him deeply. I just wished there was some way for me to ease the blow.

  "Look, Colt, before you say anything..." I began.

  He took both my hands in his.

  "No, Ava. You need to listen to me first, please. I... There's something I need to tell you. Something I've been keeping from you."

  "I know," I told him, the words out of my mouth before I realized it.

  "Y-You do?" he asked, shock washing over his face. I didn't know what had made me say it, I guess I was just tired of dickering around.

  "Yes. I overheard you on the phone with Dean not long ago. You were talking about keeping something from me and... I overheard the whole thing. I'm sorry."

  "Wow," he said. "How long have you known?"

  "Not long. A week, maybe."

  "And you didn't say anything? Is that why you've been acting so weird? I thought it was all because of the marriage thing. I guess I was wrong, though, huh? Are you mad?"

  "Mad?" I asked, confused.

  "Yeah, that I'm leaving."

  "Leaving?" I asked, even more confused. "Where are you going?"

  His eyes stopped and fixed on me. "I thought you said you overheard everything."

  "I meant that you were keeping something from me. I didn't know what it was. I thought it had to do with the murder cases." I paused, my throat choking up. "You're leaving? Like... leaving Sweetland Cove?"

  He let out a sigh and dropped his head into his hands. When he raised his head again, his face was drawn.

  "That's what I've been trying to tell you, Ava. That's what I wanted to talk to you about... why I proposed."

  "What? Why? I don't understand."

  "There's a lot I still can't tell you," he finally said. "I shouldn't even be telling you this but I couldn't just leave without saying anything."

  My heart wasn't just thudding now, it was drumming a fast march as I sat in my chair and my eyes began to well with tears.

  "Dean is sending me out on special assignment."

  "Assignment? Where? To do what?"

  "Away from Heavenly Haven. Undercover."

  "But—"

  "I can't tell you why. Not exactly. Dean didn't even want me to tell you that much."

  "Is it dangerous?"

  "Yes."

  "Will... will you be back?"

  "I don't know. I hope so."

  "Colt, if there's something—"

  "Just listen to me for a minute. I'm not supposed to talk to anyone while I'm gone. I'm not supposed to let anyone know where I am. I'm supposed to disappear."

  "But how will I know if you're okay?" I screeched. Several people shushed me.

  "That's the thing. If you were my wife, then Dean could keep you informed. He could tell you whether I was alive or dead."

  My chest heaved at the word—dead. Colt dead.

  "Could I go with you? Maybe I can help."

  "No. That is, not right away. But if I got into a spot where I was safe... where it would be safe for you to see me... then maybe we could arrange something. But only if we were married."

  I was staring at the tabletop. Colt's hand reached under my chin and tilted my head back. Tears were rolling down my cheeks. "Ava, I love you. I don't want to lose you. If you marry me, I can write to you. I can find a way to stay in touch while I'm gone. If not... Dean will make me sever all ties with you and anyone else on this island."

  "But you'll still be back eventually," I said, my voice thick.

  "Maybe. But there's a chance that after this undercover assignment, I might be reassigned somewhere other than Heavenly Haven. If we were married, Dean would have to send me back here, or at the very least let you go with me to wherever I was sent."

  "When are you supposed to leave?" I asked him.

  "Next Tuesday."

  My heart lurched. "Tuesday? Are you crazy? You can't leave Tuesday, that's less than a week."

  "I know. Which is why I need your answer sooner rather than later."

  "Jeez, way to pressure me," I snapped, suddenly angry.

  Colt cringed. "No pressure. I just... whatever your answer is, I'll accept it."

  "Can't you just quit?" I asked.

  He laughed. "I can but this is my life's work. I don't know what I'd do without you but I don't know what I'd do without COMHA, either. And this assignment is important. It's not just about me, it's about..." He looked around and leaned across the table, his mouth so close to my ear that I could feel his breath. Still, when he spoke, he was so soft I could barely hear him.

  "There are paranormals that are in jeopardy. Their whole race could die."

  My eyes widened. He pulled away from me. An entire race? How could I tell him not to go when an entire race was on the line? I couldn't be that selfish. I wished he could tell me what the race was but I didn't think I should ask. He'd clearly broken several rules already just telling me as much as he had.

  Now my head was hurting. I rubbed my temples and told myself to relax. That this wasn't the end of our relationship; it couldn't be.

  Colt leaned back and reached into his pocket. He set a small blue gift bag on the table.

  "What is that?" I asked. "The ring?"

  "No. The ring is with me. Safe. If you want it, you just let me know. This... this is just because I saw it and thought you'd like it. No strings attached, just for you because I love you."

  I opened the bag and peered inside. "Oh!" I cried.

  "Sssh!" several whispered voices boomed back at me.

  The tears that had begun to subside resumed now as I pulled a miniature version of the Empire State Building from the bag and held it in my hands.

  "The other day at dinner, you said you missed New York. I thought this might help." He hesitated. "Do you like it?"

  "I love it," I told him. "Thank you." I kissed him right there in the library, not caring if I made a spectacle of myself. Everything else was forgotten.

  "Wow," he said when I let him up for air. "I should buy you gifts more often."

  "This isn't just any gift," I told him. "It's the perfect gift."

  * * *

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FIVE

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  "Why are we going back?" Lucy asked. "They didn't tell us anything last time, what makes you think this time will be any different?"

  "I don't," I told her. "That is, I don't think they'll volunteer anything new but that's why we're gonna have to figure out a way to get it out of them."

  "How are we supposed to do that?"

  "I don't know." I shot her a look as I drove the car toward Mistmoor. I'd shown my aunts the passage in the library book about a dark spirit staying in a person forever, and they'd been extremely worried to learn that. Frantic, alm
ost. Seeing them like that made me that much more freaked out but I was trying not to let it show.

  I was keeping a close eye on Lucy, looking to see if anything seemed out of place. Maybe her eyes would turn black for a split second and I'd miss it if I wasn't watching. Or the blood could drain from her face. Or she could grow fangs. I didn't know what might happen, only that something was bound to if she was really possessed. So far, I'd seen nothing out of the ordinary.

  "Watch the road!" she shouted suddenly.

  I turned my head and saw that I'd been paying so much attention to Lucy, I hadn't paid any to the road. I was headed right toward a tree. I turned the steering wheel hard to the right, and Eleanor's car went careening out of control. We spun in circle after circle, too scared to scream. The car finally came to a stop at the bottom of a small hill. Amazingly, the car didn't crash into the hill, instead it sort of rode up along the bottom of it like a skateboarder riding along the edge of a curb. The car tilted up sideways ever so slightly and slowed down.

  When it finally stopped, smoke spurted out of the engine and Lucy let out a long, shrill scream.

  "Are you crazy!?" she shouted, jumping out of the car.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine but you've clearly lost your mind."

  "I haven't lost anything," I said, feeling guilty and defensive at the same time. "It was just an accident."

  "Some accident. You almost killed us."

  I looked at the car, which was still steaming but looked otherwise unscathed. "I'm sorry," I said again.

  "From now on, I drive on any and all road trips." Lucy was looking at me a little less like she wanted to kill me but still breathing fast.

  If there was gonna be any time when she just might actually kill me, now would probably be it.

  "What are you doing?" Lucy looked confused.

  "What do you mean?"

  "You're... wincing. Are you hurt?"

  "No," I said. "I'm fine."