“But she did know she was kidnapping an innocent woman, a mother of two, to get her hands on a magic amulet.”
Bentley said nothing. I understood how he felt. The idea of bad people going to Hell was a righteous one, until it was a sweet little old lady with delusions of cheap, effortless global travel.
I opened my palm and looked down at the clump of ashes.
Ashes.
The ashes made me think of the town map Maisy Nix had given me to pass along to my aunt. The burned map that my aunt had probably used to perform a type of location spell.
Something in the back of my mind tickled. I remembered something my aunt had told me during our last chat, about the ashes of her deceased friend, and how the ashes had become animated.
“Bentley!” I jumped to my feet. “I’ve got an idea.”
“What is it?” He stayed where he was.
“Get up here with me, and stop playing hard to get.”
He snorted. “I’m not playing hard to get.”
“You’re standing there, half in the attic and half out. It’s like a metaphor. I am standing here right now, looking down at an actual metaphor.”
“I’m a metaphor?” He tilted his head to the side.
“Detective, get a clue. I like you, and you like me. I think that was very clearly demonstrated a little less than one hour ago. I couldn’t see perfectly, but I could see well enough.”
He cleared his throat and looked down.
“I’ve never had a boyfriend before,” I said. “Let alone one who’s a vampire. I’m willing to give it a shot if you are, but you need to know I’m not going to be half in. I’m never half in. With me, it’s all or nothing.”
He nodded but stayed where he was.
“Well?”
He slowly walked up the steps. “All or nothing,” he said. “You can count me in, too.”
“It’s about time.” I was so relieved I nearly laughed.
He walked over to where I stood, next to the half-melted iron chair and the pile of ashes. He looked down at my clothing. Had he always been so tall? He was positively looming.
“You look like Cinderella,” he said softly.
“Because I need Prince Charming to rescue me?”
“No. Because you’re covered in ashes.”
I snorted. “So are you. I wonder how that happened?”
He opened his mouth, as though he was about to explain how it had happened, but stopped himself.
He looked down into my eyes. “You were saying something about a plan?”
I worried that my plan might sound stupid when I said it out loud, but it didn’t.
Bentley said it was worth a shot.
* * *
I took the tiny wooden doll representing Veronica Tate from one pocket, and the flexible model glue from the other pocket.
I coated the doll in glue, then rolled it in Krinkle’s ashes.
Bentley worked at the same time, pulling the tables containing the model of the town away from the walls of the attic and reassembling them in the center.
I held the ash-coated doll in my palm, took a steadying breath, and cast my animation spell on it. Then I placed it on the model, on a street near the edge of town.
Bentley and I leaned forward to watch what would happen next. He put his hand on the small of my back. The heat and weight of his hand gave me confidence. The spell would work because it had to. We had to find the Tate woman, and Corvin.
Bentley inhaled sharply. Something was happening.
The doll was moving. It wavered and swayed, but didn’t walk.
Bentley, being the sort of cool vampire boyfriend who didn’t state the obvious, said nothing.
We waited another long moment. Why wasn’t the doll walking? I’d cut the base so the legs could move independently of each other.
I straightened up and looked around as I searched my memory for another spell that might help.
The peaked ceiling reminded me of the Pressman attic, and the little bookwyrm who’d died a hero. The bookwyrm had caused me nothing but trouble, up until I’d needed it. Bookwyrms weren’t supposed to be so lively, but I’d made mistakes when handling the dough. By treating it in such a friendly manner, I’d given it life. I’d transferred Animata, which was much stronger and wilder than any simple animation spell. My worst mistake had been joking about giving the bookwyrm a name. I’d talked about calling it Henry, which was the name my former neighbor Mrs. Pinkman had used for sourdough bread starter she kept growing on her counter. The bookwyrm reminded me of the sourdough starter, plus he’d had a Henry sort of face.
You must never name that which should not be named, Aunt Zinnia had warned me. Naming things gave them power. Life. Animata.
Suddenly, I knew what I had to do.
I leaned forward again and breathed a name onto the ashy doll. “Temperance Krinkle,” I said. “You are no longer Veronica Tate. You are no longer a carved piece of wood. You are alive, and your name is Temperance Krinkle.”
The doll, once named, changed. The wide-brimmed hat that Veronica Tate always wore while walking dogs turned into a mass of curly white hair. Her arms grew longer, and looser. She was no longer made of carved wood, but of something else. She looked left and right, then wobbled forward, taking one step, and then another.
Bentley removed his palm from the small of my back and grabbed my hand. He was the sort of cool vampire boyfriend who, when a spell took hold, didn’t exclaim that something was working.
The doll, Temperance Krinkle, picked up speed as she ran through the main streets of the town.
Bentley squeezed my hand tighter.
“It’s working,” I exclaimed, proving that I was the less cool one out of the two of us. No surprise there.
The doll was running at full tilt, near the edge of town, when suddenly a hole appeared in the model right in front of her. The hole was dark and deep, and had definitely not been there a moment earlier. The ashy doll tried to stop herself, but inertia is a magic of its own. She tumbled down into the hole, screaming a tiny scream as she fell.
The hole closed up instantly, like a giant eye blinking shut.
Bentley and I straightened up, turned to each other, and exchanged a wide-eyed look.
His jaw moved, but he was speechless.
“I can try again,” I said. “We have plenty of ashes. As for the doll, I can use anything. I could use a wooden clothespin, or I could—”
“No need,” Bentley said, cutting me off. He narrowed his eyes. “I saw where the doll was going.”
“Me, too. Straight to Hell. I don’t think giant holes open in the ground and take people to Disneyland.”
He lifted my hand and squeezed it near his chest. “Remember how I told you I spent some time underground?”
“Yes.” I gave him a sidelong look. Had he been to Hell? No. That was a crazy idea.
“I was in a crypt,” he said. “And now I know why Krinkle’s perfume was so familiar. I must have smelled it down there, inside the crypt. She must have visited the site before I did, when she was putting her plan together.”
“Are you saying...?”
“We found them,” he said. “You found them. Thanks to that spell of yours.”
“We found them,” I repeated, my voice croaking. My eyes hurt. We’d found Corvin. He would be reunited with his family soon. Chet and Chessa would be so relieved.
“I’ll take it from here,” Bentley said. He kissed me quickly, on my forehead. “You should go home.”
“No way. I’m going with you to the crypt. You might need my help.”
“You can help me by checking on Zoey. She was working at the museum today, right? We don’t know how Louis Williams got that gemstone out past the security measures. You need to make sure Zoey’s okay, and everyone else at the museum. We have no idea how far this thing spread.”
“Right,” I said, feeling both grateful and annoyed that Bentley had been the one to think of my daughter first. Zara tries to be a good
mother, she really does.
“Zara?” He looked into my eyes.
“What?”
“Today is a good day,” he said. “This is what victory feels like. We won.”
Then he kissed me again, this time on the lips.
Chapter 35
ONE DAY LATER
I hummed happily to myself as I added croutons to a giant wooden bowl filled with romaine lettuce. I diverted one crouton into my mouth for a sample taste. It was crunchy, pleasantly salty, and just garlicky enough. Who knew you could make your own croutons? Or that they tasted better than the crumbled salty chunks that came in packaged salads?
I’d never made my own croutons before, but since my only task for dinner that night was to prepare a Caesar salad, I’d gone all out. And by all out, I mean I made the croutons and dressing. The lettuce had been prepared by Ribbons the Wyvern, who’d taken great delight in “eviscerating” the heads of romaine. He had been less than pleased by my insistence he wash his talons with dish soap thoroughly, but he’d come around, even appearing to enjoy his bath in the kitchen sink. Boa had watched the proceedings in horror. Take a bath willingly? Her tiny feline mind had been blown.
Both of them had left me alone in the kitchen to finish up the salad.
I heard the front door open. My daughter called out, “Hi, honey! I’m home from work!”
“Hi, honey!” I called right back. “I’m in the kitchen, slaving over a hot stove for you.”
She came into the kitchen and peered over my shoulder into the huge bowl. “Ribbons made lettuce entrails?”
“He sure did.”
“I hope you made him wash his weird little hands.”
“I did. It was a whole thing.”
“Aww. And I missed it.” She grabbed a crouton and crunched it. “These taste different.”
“That’s because I made them. From scratch. Did you know croutons are made from sliced bread? Now that I know how easy it is, we’ll be having croutons on everything.”
“Crouton pizza?”
“Sure. And crouton stir-fry.”
“Crouton mashed potatoes,” she said, getting excited.
“Croutons on spaghetti, served in the bath tub on the tub plate.”
She snagged a few more from the bowl and munched them happily. “You could mix these with a tub of popcorn and Skittles, for movie night.”
“Genius idea!”
She ate a few more. “Speaking of genius, I noticed all that moss is gone from our roof. That was a good idea you had, talking loudly about getting a big, heavy handyman to scrape around up there. It looks like our house took the hint and got rid of the moss on her own.”
“Our house is female?”
Zoey gave me a duh look, then asked, “How was work today?”
“Not bad.” I stifled a yawn. “It’s hard to focus on basic job duties after two hours of sleep and a big adventure the night before, but it’s also kind of a relief. I’m glad I’m not a full-time investigator, like...” I hesitated to say his name. Earlier that morning, I’d cast some unintentional magic when saying his name. Our Pop Tarts had suddenly flown out of the toaster with giant hearts burned onto the fronts and backs. Zoey had teased me mercilessly.
She smirked at me, knowing exactly why I hesitated to say his name, then asked, “What about Frank? Did he talk about you-know-what with his sister?”
I was relieved for the change of topic. The only thing more embarrassing than talking to my daughter about my lack of a love life was talking about the existence of one.
“She’s not a chicken,” I said.
“That’s good, I think.” Zoey held up both hands. “But I’m trying hard not to judge. People should be whatever they want to be, even if it’s a chicken. Is she even a shifter?”
“Yes. They had the talk, and it turns out she’s...” I’d gotten Frank’s permission, from Bellatrix, to share our family’s secrets with each other, but I made Zoey wait for it. “A swan.”
Zoey gawked. “I remember Frank saying his sister has weird chicken feet, like our bath tub. And that when they were kids, he used to call her an ugly duckling. But it turns out she’s a swan?”
“I know. Isn’t it ironic and wonderful? Bellatrix didn’t even know. One day she was in her regular human form, not a care in the world, hiking through the woods with her dog, an adorable yet useless little rat terrier who wouldn’t know what to do with an actual rodent if it jumped out and performed a musical number from Chicago—” I rubbed my forehead. “Now I’m picturing a mouse in a top hat, singing Mr. Cellophane.”
Zoey waved a hand impatiently. “Back to the woods! Frank’s ugly duckling sister and her little dog were walking in the woods, and then what?”
“When suddenly, a bear lurched out of the woods and came right at her.” I puffed up my chest and stood on tiptoes, making myself big and scary. I roared in a deep gruff voice, “I’m a big hungry bear, and I’m gonna eat you, because I’m a bear, and that’s what I do.”
Zoey blinked at me, less impressed at my storytelling by the minute. When Frank had done a similar performance for me earlier that day at the library, I had been in hysterics. That man knew how to tell a tale! All those years as the Wisteria Public Library’s children’s librarian had not gone to waste.
Zoey said flatly, “Then what?”
“That was when the fear triggered her latent magic, and she turned into a swan,” I said in my regular voice.
“Like what happened to me,” she said.
“Except she didn’t even know magic ran in her family. At least you had your grandfather as a frame of reference. Frank’s sister didn’t have a clue! And suddenly there she was.” I waved up and down my body. “Full swan!”
“She must have been so surprised.”
“Not as surprised as the bear, who immediately fled the scene.”
“What about the dog?”
“The dog barked at the swan until she changed back, about two hours later, once the shock had worn off.”
Zoey let out a sigh. “I’m glad the dog didn’t have to make a noble sacrifice and get eaten by the bear.”
She reached into the wooden bowl for more croutons.
I spanked her hand. “Leave some for dinner with the Moores,” I said. We had been invited to a backyard barbecue with the family next door, to celebrate Corvin coming home safely the night before. As for any lingering effects of having been abducted, he seemed to have taken it all in stride.
Luckily for Veronica Tate’s sanity, the kid had remained in his dog form throughout the entire kidnapping ordeal. It saved Veronica the shock of her life, plus she got to avoid a complimentary mind wiping from the DWM.
Corvin told his father it had been easy enough to not blow his cover, and that being down in the tomb hadn’t been so bad. He discovered that he enjoyed spending time underground.
The woman, Veronica Tate, had not fared as well. Two days and two nights below ground in a dark tomb, with only a few survival supplies left behind by her kidnapper, had severely tested the woman. No sooner had Bentley freed her from the tomb than she began yelling about how she was going to sue the entire town, including the incompetent police force, the cemetery where the tomb was located, and anyone else she happened to make eye contact with. When one of the paramedics offered her hot chocolate, she threatened to sue him because the cocoa was too hot.
Some people showed their gratitude for being rescued from a tomb in a funny way.
Next to me, Zoey sighed. It was a weightier-sounding sigh than seemed warranted by merely having to stop eating my croutons, delicious though they were.
“Sigh a little louder,” I said. “I don’t think the whole town heard you.”
“Mo-om,” she said, breaking my name into two syllables to show her annoyance.
My mom senses tingled.
Hang on, I told myself, sensing a mood change in my mercurial sixteen-year-old. Zoey was about as easygoing as a kid could be, but she did have her moments, and she was going
through a lot of changes. Between the introduction of her genie father, her first job at the museum, and the early stages of romance with the kid in the caveman costume, she had a lot going on. Plus the shifter thing, the witch thing, and regular teen hormones.
“What’s going on?” I asked gently. “Hard day at the museum, scraping gum off benches?”
“No. Well, yes, but that’s not the worst part about today. The worst part is I already know about the Moore family’s big news.”
She reached into the bowl and took a crouton. I took one as well, and waited for her to tell me what was bothering her so much that she was sighing loudly and making my name two syllables.
“They’re leaving town,” she said.
“A vacation?” I munched another handful of croutons. “After everything they’ve been through lately, that’s probably a good idea.”
She gave me a serious look, her hazel eyes drooping at the sides. “They’re leaving town,” she repeated, enunciating each word carefully.
Leaving town. The news hit me with an internal thud. “No,” I said, but I already believed it. Zoey wouldn’t joke about something this serious.
“Corvin told me,” she said.
“When? Did he come see you at work today?”
“No. Just now. Before I came in the house. He jumped out of the bushes and barked at me for a while, then we talked.” She grabbed another handful of croutons. “He said his dad has a new job somewhere else, somewhere far away from here.” She turned her back to me and sniffed. “I can’t do this,” she said. “You’ll have to go to dinner without me.”
I didn’t say anything. There were no words that could offer comfort. Not yet, when the news was so fresh.
“Why?” She choked back a sob, her back still to me. “Why get attached to people if everyone moves away? Why bother putting down roots at all?”
I reached out to pat her shoulder.
She pulled away from my touch as though it was cursed. She whirled around to face me, her eyes red and her expression furious. “This is your fault,” she said. “You had to move us here, and you let me get comfortable. You told me things were going to be good. Do you call this good?”
I felt a tug inside my mind, and then Ribbons’ voice. “I would not want to be in your human shoes right now, Zed.”
Wisteria Witches Mysteries Box Set 3 Page 81
