Crystals and Criminals

by Lily Webb

  Umrea inserted herself between Astra and me, which I wasn’t sure was necessary, but it couldn’t hurt to be cautious. When we entered the Council chambers, the other twenty-five members were deep in conversation at a huge round table. A massive map of Moon Grove lay on its surface. Heath glanced up at the sound of our entrance, but when he saw who I’d brought with me, he charged on with the conversation to excuse me and keep everyone else from asking questions.

  Though I wanted to know what the Council was talking about, I had to deal with Madame Astra first, so I nodded to Umrea to escort her down the hall to my office. Astra stepped inside first, but Umrea stopped me when I tried to pass.

  “Do you want me to come in with you?”

  “No, it’s okay. Whatever else she might be, I don’t think Madame Astra is dangerous.”

  Umrea fixed me with a look that said she didn’t agree and growled. “I don’t trust her.”

  “Neither do I, but I don’t think she’ll tell me what I want to know while you’re standing there glowering at her.” I also didn’t want anyone else around in case she dropped more cosmic truth bombs on me, but I chose not to tell Umrea that. “I’ll be fine, I promise. But if you’re that worried, you have my permission to burst in here all Rambo style if you hear anything concerning.”

  The slits of her eyes narrowed. “I don’t need your permission for that.”

  “Right, well, anyway, if you’ll excuse me,” I said and closed the door in her scowling face.

  “You have nothing to fear from me,” Madame Astra said before I turned around. “Well, no more than anyone else does.”

  “Yeah, yeah, everyone’s afraid of the truth, yadda, yadda. I used to be a reporter, lady, tell me something I don’t know,” I said as I put my broom away in the closet and strode around her to make myself comfortable in my desk chair.

  I gestured to the chairs opposite me. “Don’t just stand there. Have a seat, you’re making me nervous.” I had to play it cool with her. I couldn’t afford to let her rattle me again, no matter what she might say.

  She flashed a cool smile and sat. “Better?”

  “Much.”

  “Good. Now, how can I help?”

  “I’m glad you asked. Like you guessed, I just came from speaking to Carter Norwood.”

  Her expression darkened and she placed one hand on top of the other in her lap. “And?”

  “He swears he didn’t attack your shop, and I’m inclined to believe him.”

  She toyed with one of the many rings on her fingers while she hesitated. “I see. So, you think it’s more likely I’d murder the woman offering me millions of dollars, then hire someone to torch my shop, thus destroying my business and livelihood? You have quite the active imagination, child.”

  “I never said you had anything to do with it.”

  Astra harrumphed and turned her gaze from the window she’d been staring out of to my eyes. “Then what exactly are you saying? Forgive me, I’m lost.”

  “I meant what I said: there are things that don’t add up.”

  “Such as?”

  “Carter told me it relieved him to hear you’d struck a deal with StarForce. I think he meant it.”

  “That wasn’t how it seemed to me.”

  “Well, how things seem and how they are don’t always match. I think I know that better than anyone these days,” I said, thinking of the myth about my parents I’d bought into for the last sixteen years that Astra herself had shattered.

  “Indeed. And what did Mr. Norwood have to say about the plot his sister hatched to remove him from the company?”

  “It didn’t come up,” I said and held her gaze. Hopefully, she couldn’t also read minds to see I’d lied.

  “How convenient. Well, I can’t speak for you, but I can’t think of anyone who’d have a stronger motive to murder Ms. Norwood and attack me.”

  “Really? Because I’ve had the feeling for a while now you haven’t told me everything you claim to know.”

  “That’s perceptive of you,” she said flatly. I couldn’t tell if she meant it or if it was an insult. Either way, I didn’t care. “And what is it you think I’m withholding?”

  “What’s the deal with your crystal ball? I find it hard to believe someone would want to steal something that allegedly means so little to you and possesses no magic.”

  “You said it yourself, it was a warning shot. Mr. Norwood — or whoever else you think might’ve taken it — wanted to silence me.”

  “Maybe. So, let’s follow that to its logical end: Can you think of anyone else who might do something like that to keep your lips zipped? Anyone at all?”

  She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “As I’ve said, I can think of many people.”

  “Then name one. I’ve got all day to wait,” I said and kicked my feet up on my desk to prove the point.

  Finally, she cleared her throat and broke eye contact. “Holly Craft.” I almost toppled over in the chair. Of all the names that could’ve left her lips, Holly’s was the last I expected to hear.

  “What? You’ve given Holly a reading before?”

  “Yes, long ago. More than one, in fact.”

  “But you’ve only been in Moon Grove for a few days,” I said, confused, but as soon as the words left my mouth, I realized what she meant. “You met her in Starfall Valley, didn’t you?”

  She nodded. “Exactly.”

  “Wait, back up. How long ago was this?”

  Madame Astra’s eyes rolled up toward her forehead as she did mental math to remember. “I can’t say exactly, but I’d guess it was about two years now.”

  I gulped. That meant the two of them met around the time of Holly’s firing and exile from Starfall Valley. “I bet I can guess what she wanted to ask the stars about.”

  Madame Astra lifted an eyebrow. “Oh? I didn’t realize you had the gift.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t. I spoke to Holly a couple days ago after Rowena’s death to ask her about what she’d seen.”

  “Poor thing. What did she tell you?”

  “That a couple years back, she got fired from Starforce Technologies for stealing from the company. Starfall’s council snapped her wand and exiled her for it. She wanted to know what would become of her and her kids, didn’t she?”

  Madame Astra nodded. “Yes. Over several sessions, I divined a better life for her here in Moon Grove, and I told her as much, but she seemed reluctant to take my advice. Then she missed one of our appointments, and I never saw her again.”

  “Until you came here.”

  A smirk appeared on her face. “Yes. Imagine my surprise when I learned she was working with Rowena. Not even I saw that coming.”

  “So, your magic has limits?”

  She shot me an annoyed look. “As I told you previously, I’m an interpreter. Even the best among us can read a message incorrectly.”

  “Or fail to receive it in the first place?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Is that why you didn’t see the attack on your shop coming?”

  The annoyance written plain on her face deepened. “If I had, do you think I would’ve let it happen?”

  She had a good point there. “Probably not. But we’re losing track of the point: Why would Holly want to silence you? She freely shared the story about how she got thrown out of Starfall Valley with me, so I don’t think she’d have any reason to worry about you telling anyone. And what use could she have for your crystal ball?”

  Madame Astra went back to toying with her rings. There was something else she wasn’t telling me. I didn’t need to see the future to know that. “You’re hesitating,” I said, and her eyes jumped back up to meet mine. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  She sighed and shook her head, making her curly hair bounce. “I don’t think Holly wanted to silence me. She had another motive. Do you remember my three rules for readings?”

  It seemed like a bizarre question, but I played along. “Uh, I think so. Don’t interrup
t, don’t touch the ball, and don’t freak out if what the stars say isn’t pleasant. Does that sound right?”

  Madame Astra nodded. “Good memory. Do you know why I implemented the second rule?”

  Now that she mentioned it, I didn’t. She claimed the crystal ball itself held no magic, so what harm could a random person touching it do? “Not a clue.”

  “That crystal ball has been in my family for generations, passed down to those with the gift of a third eye. It may not hold any magical power, but it holds tremendous sentimental value to me, and if something happened to it, it would devastate me.”

  “Okay, so did Holly touch it or something?”

  “Yes, and right in front of me. She seemed drawn to it, like a moth to flame. She couldn’t help herself, so she jabbed it with her finger. The ball jolted her, and she nearly knocked it off the table in shock. It mortified me, and that’s why I implemented the rule.”

  I couldn’t blame Holly. As mystifying as the ball’s swirling insides were, they were also mesmerizing. Had Madame Astra not explicitly told me to keep my paws off it, I might’ve reached out for it too.

  “Wait, I thought you said the ball doesn’t have any magic? How could it have jolted her?”

  “That wasn’t the whole truth.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  She continued, unfazed. “The ball has complicated powers. Despite how long it’s been in my family, none of us really understand it. I hesitate to call it magic.”

  “If it’s not magic, what else could it be?”

  “I believe it’s the spirits of my ancestors whispering in my ear from beyond the Veil.”

  I raised my eyebrows at her. “That sounds magical to me.”

  “Without the gift, you can’t understand what I mean.”

  Though it took monumental strength, I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at her condescension. “I guess not. But none of that explains why Holly would want to steal the ball from you.”

  Madame Astra raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t it? Carter told me yesterday during our meeting that he’d had to let her go along with some others. She knows my ball is valuable, and now she’s without a job again. Remember, she has a history of theft when her back is against the wall.”

  Her assessment wasn’t wrong, but the pieces still didn’t fit. For starters, Holly couldn’t use magic — a fact that Heath himself had confirmed to me — so how could she have put together the combustible concoctions used to torch Madame Astra’s shop? More than that, I genuinely believed Holly when she said how much Rowena meant to her, so I didn’t see Holly having the motive or ability to kill her.

  Regardless, I realized I needed to track Holly down to talk to her again, if for no other reason than to rule her out definitively. I couldn’t prove it, but I also couldn’t shake the feeling that Madame Astra still wasn’t telling me the entire truth, and probably wouldn’t today no matter how hard I pushed.

  I lowered my feet from my desk and brushed the dirt off the surface. “Thanks for the info, Adele. This has been a good chat. How’s your leg doing?”

  “As good as new,” she said, though I could tell she knew I didn’t really care. “How’s your stomach?”

  I froze and gave her a quizzical look. “Sorry?”

  “You asked on my app last night whether you were getting sick. I told you to take care of your health for your sake and for those depending on you, remember?”

  It disturbed me that she seemed to know everything submitted to her creepy app, but I tried not to let it show on my face. Instead, I nodded. “Yeah, and?”

  Madame Astra chuckled and shook her head. “You still haven’t figured it out, have you?” I sat staring at her, my mind racing but still not connecting the dots. She stood slowly and placed her hands on her stomach. “Be careful, Ms. Clarke. If I were you, I wouldn’t want to do anything that might jeopardize my baby’s health.”

  She turned on one heel, her robes swishing, and left me sitting in my office with my head spinning. A hand instinctively found its way to my stomach, which was doing sickening flips, and rested there.

  Chills raced across the surface of my skin like currents of lightning, and for the first time since my reading with her, I realized what Madame Astra and my body had been trying to tell me all along: I was pregnant.

  Chapter Thirteen

  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to catch my breath — or stop my mind from racing. Suddenly, all the blanks had filled in: The food that’d turned my stomach, my faulty mind reading, my backfired spell, the cryptic warning from Madame Astra’s app that others were depending on my health…

  Heath had said it wasn’t unusual for a witch or warlock to have problems with their magic when they felt under the weather, but I didn’t have a cold — I had another life growing in my stomach. As much as I didn’t want to believe it, as much as I couldn’t believe it, I knew in my gut Madame Astra wasn’t lying.

  She’d been trying to clue me in all along. Back when she gave me a reading, she showed me a picture of Beau and me in each other’s arms, and Beau looked like he was crying — but they were tears of joy, probably because he’d just learned that he would soon be a father.

  Despite trying to hold it together, my tears came anyway as a flood of emotions washed over me. Beau would make a fantastic dad — I had no doubt about that — and his parents would be great grandparents, but what about my side of the family? Grandma Elle was all I had left, and literally no one in the world knew where she was right now. And that said nothing about my own ability to provide for a child — especially given how often I liked to get myself into physical peril.

  The image of my mother and father I’d seen in Madame Astra’s crystal ball swam into my mind, making my heart lurch. I knew better than most the pain of losing parents, and the thought of potentially leaving my baby motherless gutted me. Beau, Heath, and pretty much everyone else I knew had been warning me to slow down, to take care of myself, but I never saw much of a reason to — until now.

  I wiped the tears from my eyes with the back of my free hand, rubbed my stomach with the other, and made a silent vow: No matter what came my way, from here on out I’d make sure that what happened to me as a child would never happen to my baby. He or she would grow up to know and love both of her parents and the wild, weird world of Moon Grove they called home. I’d never try to keep their magical heritage or any of their family ties away from them — they would know exactly who they were, where they came from, and how they’d gotten there, unlike me.

  The pledge prompted a realization: Madame Astra had also predicted that once news of this broke, it would bring Grandma Elle back to Moon Grove from wherever she’d gone, something that even I could’ve predicted. Nothing would thrill Grandma more than to know that Beau and I were going to have a baby together.

  A soft knock on my doorframe made me jerk my head away from my stomach. Heath stood there wearing a concerned look. “Zoe? Is everything okay? I saw Madame Astra leaving, so I thought now would be a good time to fill you in, but if it’s not, I can come back later.”

  “I’m fine. Better than fine, actually,” I laughed through my tears and constricted throat. I hadn’t planned for Heath to be the first person I told, but then again, I hadn’t planned to be pregnant either.

  Heath entered the office and closed the door softly behind him. “What does that mean, exactly?”

  I rubbed my stomach and beamed at him. “I’m pregnant.”

  Heath’s eyes turned as wide as the moon and he rushed to throw his arms around me. “Oh, Lilith! That’s fantastic news, Zoe! Congratulations!”

  I hugged him back, never more grateful to have someone like him in my life than I was in that moment. “Thank you. You’re the first one I’ve told.”

  Heath thrust me out at arm’s length and searched my face. “You mean Beau doesn’t know yet?”

  “No. I just found out myself.”

  Heath’s brows furrowed, but he quickly put two and two together
. “Is that why you brought Madame Astra back to your office?”

  “Actually, no. I wanted to talk to her more about the attack on her shop, and she dropped that bomb on me before she left.”

  “And you’re certain she’s right?”

  I nodded. “Beyond a doubt. It explains everything. My weak stomach, my wonky magic, everything.”

  Heath’s smile widened, which I didn’t think was possible. “I’m so happy for you both. You’ll make a fine mother, Zoe. Perhaps the finest.”

  Blush flamed across my cheeks. I didn’t share his confidence, or at least not yet. “You’re just saying that.”

  “No, I mean it. Do you know how far along you are?”

  “No clue.”

  “Well, I suppose that’s what the Healers are for, right?”

  “True, but I don’t want to go to the hospital right now. What was going on out there when we walked in?”

  The smile on Heath’s face vanished, replaced by a grimace. “We don’t have to talk about that now. I don’t want to ruin your good news.”

  Rather than quell my curiosity, he only increased it. I reached for his forearm and squeezed. “What is it? Whatever it is, I should know.”

  He nodded solemnly. “Yes, you’re right. You are the Head Witch, and not even a pregnancy can change that. It’s about Ms. Craft.”

  “Oh no,” I groaned. “What happened?”

  “Well, that’s the trouble. We don’t know yet. Her children called the police this morning to report her missing.”

  My free hand instinctively shot to my stomach. “Dear Lilith… How many does she have? How old are they?”

  “She has an eighteen-year-old son, Torin, and a fourteen-year-old daughter, Cassia. It was Torin who called to tell the police his mother hadn’t come home after work last night.”

  My heart clenched as I realized why. “She didn’t come home because she’d just gotten fired.”

  Heath raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry?”