Pawsitively Cursed

by Melissa Erin Jackson

  Amber fought an eye roll. “Can we go up, Carl? Do you know if my aunt is okay?”

  “Your aunt?” He frowned. “I’m so sorry, ladies, but I can’t let you up there. He made that real clear. ‘Carl,’ he said, ‘don’t let anyone up here. I mean it. It’s an active crime scene.’” He chewed on the inside of his cheek. Softly, he said, “I’m real sorry. If you wait in the lobby, I’ll have Chief Brown come talk to you right away.”

  This couldn’t be happening. A crime scene?

  Willow’s grip on Amber’s hand clenched so hard, Amber yelped. When she turned to her sister, her lips were moving quickly, though no sound came out. A spell. What on earth was she doing? Was she really going to use her magic in a hotel full of people? In a hotel where Owen Brown was surely just a few hundred feet away?

  The same Owen Brown who, two weeks ago, had seen Amber use her magic. He knew her secret. It had been a long, long time since a human knew her secret. Her palms sweated.

  Carl let out a muted grunt. Amber’s attention snapped back to him. His eyes had glazed over. Then, without a word, he started down the steps again as if he didn’t see them. Amber and Willow quickly let go of each other’s hands so Carl had an unobstructed path down the stairs. He slowly trudged forward like an unseeing zombie.

  “What did you do to him?” Amber hissed after he’d made it to the bottom of the steps, turning her attention back to her sister.

  But Willow was nearly to the top of the staircase. Amber scrambled to catch up with her.

  “Simple manipulation spell,” Willow said, large brown eyes scanning the three hallways—one to either side of them, and one straight ahead. “He currently thinks he’s sleepwalking through his apartment. He’ll snap out of it when he makes it outside and will be quite confused, so I suggest we hurry.”

  Amber blew out a breath, a headache forming.

  “This way,” Willow said, turning right.

  They had just reached the open door of Room 18, Aunt Gretchen’s room, when Amber heard Chief Owen Brown’s voice. “There’s nothing we can do for her now. We should get a hold of the coroner as soon as possible. I don’t have the faintest clue what killed her.”

  Willow let out a strained whimper.

  Amber swayed and grabbed the doorjamb to keep herself on her feet. “Aunt Gretchen?” she choked out, running into the room. To hell with Chief Brown and what he thought of her. This was her family.

  But no sooner had she bolted into the room, she came up short, breath whooshing out of her. Not because of what she saw, but what she felt. The air was thick in this room. It felt sticky almost, like walking into a wall made of spiderwebs.

  The second the comparison came into her mind, she remembered something her aunt had told her earlier that day. That you could feel when a Penhallow had used their twisted, cursed magic. Amber felt the sticky remnants of it now.

  Had a Penhallow come to Edgehill just as Aunt Gretchen had warned her? But she’d said the witch had been coming for Amber. Had her intel been wrong?

  In the space between the window and bed, Amber’s gaze snagged something on the floor. A pair of feet in sensible black shoes, toes turned out so that the inner ankles rested on the plush beige carpet. That’s all she could see—a pair of lifeless feet.

  A massive wall of man stepped into her path and she sucked in another breath as she looked up into Chief Brown’s irate face. “I can’t imagine what you’re doing here, Miss Blackwood. That fool boy Carl wasn’t supposed to let anyone up here.”

  “This is my aunt’s room,” she managed, feeling more than a little annoyed that her voice cracked on the last word.

  The reality of the situation seemed to dawn on him then and the creases in his forehead smoothed out. “Oh, Amber, I thought you knew …”

  It was true then. Willow let out a pained sob somewhere behind the chief. Was this really happening to them again?

  “Can I at least see her?” Tears welled in her eyes.

  Chief Brown gently grabbed Amber by the arms before she managed to make it past him.

  “Let me go!”

  “Amber!” he said, shaking her slightly. “It’s not her! It’s not your aunt. It’s a maid. She was in here to bring your aunt extra towels. We don’t know where your aunt is. I’m sorry. I … I thought you were with her and knew it wasn’t her.”

  Amber sagged against him. “Oh, thank God.” Then she pulled away when it dawned on her that she just callously said she was glad someone else had died instead of her aunt. “I didn’t mean … I just …”

  “It’s fine,” he said. “But this is still a crime scene, and I need you out of here.”

  “Right. Of course,” she said. “I’m sorry for barging in here.”

  A look she couldn’t describe passed across his face. Was he remembering what he saw? Her using magic to stop an object in midair?

  “What in the blue blazes is going on here?”

  Amber suddenly felt light as a feather, and she grinned at the chief, unable to help herself. She peered around his frame and spotted her aunt in the doorway, a bag of food in her grasp from a nearby Chinese take-out place. Willow squealed and threw her arms around her, almost knocking the woman off her feet.

  When Amber’s gaze met her aunt’s, she willed her to know what she was thinking. You were right.

  Aunt Gretchen’s expression hardened, one that confirmed what Amber already knew.

  A Penhallow was in Edgehill.

  Chapter 6

  Though Aunt Gretchen offered a very compelling argument about why she should be allowed to take her suitcase with her, the chief told her that since the room was now an active crime scene, it meant her suitcase was an active piece of evidence until it was cleared. So, with only her bag of Chinese food in her possession, Aunt Gretchen followed Amber and Willow out of Room 18. The expression on Chief Brown’s face told Amber she would be hearing from him one way or another, likely sooner rather than later.

  An active crime scene. The phrase repeated in Amber’s head like the chorus of an annoying pop song. An active crime scene.

  It meant the maid hadn’t suffered from some freak medical condition. It meant her death had been deemed suspicious. The non-witch Edgehill police force had no way of knowing about the sticky-magic residue left by the Penhallow. Amber had only seen the maid’s lifeless feet, her inner ankles lying flat on the carpet. Whatever had happened to her resulted in her falling face-down. What had been done to her body?

  Had what happened to her been meant for Gretchen? Wrong place, wrong time for the maid? Or a message?

  I’m here. You’re not safe.

  “You’re staying with me,” Amber said, looping her arm through her aunt’s as she steered them toward the stairs. “Because I’m assuming you won’t go back to Portland.”

  “Absolutely not,” her aunt said, only a slight waver to her voice. “Not now.”

  Once they made it down the stairs, Amber spotted both Connor and Jack waiting in the lobby, hands shoved into the pockets of their jeans, both looking ten shades of confused. They weren’t speaking to one another, though their silence didn’t seem tense.

  Jack noticed her first and broke away from Connor to meet them halfway across the crowded lobby. He smiled warmly at her aunt. Amber wasn’t sure if the two had ever met before this. “I’m so relieved to see you, Gretchen. You had us all worried. Is everything okay?” That second question was angled at Amber.

  “I think so,” Amber said, though the knot in her chest still hadn’t unfurled. “It … it was a maid.”

  Jack winced. “Any idea what happened?”

  “None,” she said.

  “You’re that nice young man who makes those sinfully delicious scones,” Aunt Gretchen said by way of greeting. It was also her superpower to be able to talk about anything other than the elephant in the room. Even if the elephant was bright pink, wearing a hat, and doing a jig.

  “That’s me,” Jack said. “I don’t know if we’ve ever formally met. I�
�m Jack Terrence.” He held out his hand.

  Aunt Gretchen shook it, then gently patted the back of it with her free hand. She looked over at Amber and winked. In a stage whisper, she added, “He’s a cutie. I’ll drink a tincture with his name on it tonight.”

  Amber knew her aunt was just trying to distract her, but she still couldn’t help the flush of color that rose into her cheeks—a color that was no doubt the same shade as the dress she wore.

  At the same time that Jack said, “A what?” Amber said, “Oh my God, please don’t do this now.”

  Aunt Gretchen grinned, then quickly turned her attention to her left. “Willow, love, stop picking at my food.”

  “Sorry!” Willow said. Amber glanced over at her just as the tail end of an egg roll disappeared in her mouth. She licked her fingers.

  Connor, shamefaced, held the Styrofoam container in his hands, the lid flipped open and resting against his chest. His open palms had been fashioned into a table to better aid in Willow’s food thievery. He glanced at Gretchen. “I didn’t know it was yours.”

  “Girl is a bottomless pit,” Gretchen said.

  Willow fastened the container’s top and pulled the plastic bag up around it. She looked up at Connor, then away, taking the bag from him. “Sorry we ruined your birthday.”

  “Far from it,” he said, smiling softly at her. “We spent many a night at the Sippin’ Siamese in high school. It was like old times. Didn’t realize how much I missed it until tonight.”

  “Underage drinking, Willow, really?” Aunt Gretchen chided, but there was no bite to her tone, implying she’d been well aware of Willow’s many rebellious exploits in high school.

  Amber watched as Willow and Connor fidgeted in front of each other. She wondered how he was going to get back to his friends, assuming they were still at the bar.

  “I can take you ladies home and then take Connor back to the Siamese …” Jack offered.

  Everyone in their little group looked mildly disappointed with this suggestion, though it was the most logical one.

  “Sounds good,” Amber said, mustering up the best approximation of a smile as she could.

  They all filed toward the Manx’s front door. Amber, with Jack just behind her, had just reached the doorway when the sensation of someone watching her set the hair on the back of her neck on end. Was the witch still here? She glanced over her shoulder, scanning the crowd as if someone would be wearing a nametag that read, “Hi, I’m a Penhallow. I’m cursed and want you dead.”

  Her gaze snagged on Chief Brown standing in the middle of the staircase, currently giving a dressing down to Carl, who stood in front of him, head lowered. The chief looked up suddenly, his dark eyes narrowing when he spotted Amber. His lips pursed into a thin line.

  She quickly broke eye contact and made out the door after her family.

  Jack pulled in front of the Quirky Whisker ten minutes later. The inside of the store was dark, its knickknacks and oddities a series of smudgy shadows behind the glass. On the opposite side of the street, a faint glow of light shone in one of the back rooms of Purrfectly Scrumptious. She wondered if it was Betty Harris or her husband, Bobby, who was still there at this hour. She suspected it was Betty, and she pictured her bent over a freshly baked cake, applying an elaborate series of fondant layers. There would be flour splashed across her apron, and a smear of colored frosting on one of her dark cheeks.

  Amber, Willow, and Gretchen had been squeezed into the back of Jack’s car, Connor up front. Willow helped Gretchen, who seemed a little unsteady on her feet now, out of the car. Nerves? Shock? Was her illness, whatever it was, getting worse?

  Amber had been sitting behind Jack and got out now, then stood awkwardly by his open window. She’d had fun with him on this not-date, however brief it might have been. “Thank you for dropping us off.”

  “Of course,” he said, temple resting against the headrest as he looked up at her. “Let me know how she is in the morning.”

  She didn’t have his number. She didn’t have Connor’s either, but at the moment, his attention seemed to be squarely focused on Willow and Gretchen. “I could call you, but …”

  Jack flushed. “Right. Uhh …” He fumbled in his pockets to get his phone. Amber rattled off the numbers and he programmed her in, immediately calling her so she would have his number too.

  She couldn’t tell from here if Connor was bothered by any of this. Was she bothered by any of this? Was Jack? What in the world was happening tonight?

  Rounding the front of the car, she waved at the two men. Connor had an elbow stuck out the window, and his gaze flicked between Amber and Willow several times, his mouth drawn down in a slight frown. So perhaps he did feel as strange about this evening as she did.

  “Have a nice night, guys,” Amber said. “Thanks again. And happy birthday, Connor.”

  “Yes, happy birthday, Seven!” Willow said.

  Eyes wide, he froze for a second. Then he laughed. “You weren’t supposed to remember that!”

  “I remember all,” Willow said, tone ominous, followed by a wicked grin.

  Connor laughed and shook his head. With another wave from both men, the car pulled away from the curb.

  Aunt Gretchen looked from Amber to Willow and back again. “Which one of you likes the brown-haired nerdy one again?”

  Amber groaned, fishing around in her clutch for the keys. “We have more important things to discuss.”

  After letting them in, Amber locked up behind her. She stared at the lock, thinking about how Aunt Gretchen had used her magic to unlock it. What would stop a Penhallow from doing the same? How much safer were they here than Gretchen had been at the Manx? At least there had been more people around there. They were nearly isolated here. Amber’s hands shook and she balled them into fists. “Do you two think you could ward this place to kingdom come?”

  Assuming, of course, that a Penhallow hadn’t already been here. The only good thing about the use of their cursed magic was that it left a trace any one of them could feel. The Quirky Whisker, at least for now, felt untouched.

  “I haven’t needed to use one in quite some time, so I’m a little rusty,” Aunt Gretchen said. “But we can salt the entryways at the very least.”

  “I can layer an alarm of sorts on the doors and windows too,” Willow said. “I have a tincture I was experimenting with when I needed proof that my roommate was eating my food in the middle of the night. Turns out she was a sleep-eater. Ate a whole box of cereal—dry—at three in the morning once.”

  Aunt Gretchen chuckled. “If we each add a strand or two of hair to it, we’ll feel it if someone we haven’t given permission to enters this place.”

  Amber was out of her depth here. She’d never attempted a protection spell. She’d never had a reason to even consider one. Nevertheless, she helped her aunt and sister collect the materials they needed to get started. She felt more like a lowly apprentice helping her masters work, than a witch worthy of all this fuss.

  Could she even be sure that Aunt Gretchen’s intel was correct? Was the Penhallow after her at all? Yet, she supposed, the Penhallow could have tracked Gretchen down in Portland if she truly had been the target. Was Amber in the Penhallow’s sights as some kind of Darwinesque plot to take out the weakest link before working their way up the Blackwood chain? Was eliminating Amber only the beginning of their plan?

  After Gretchen and Willow had secured the downstairs, they went up to the studio. The cats didn’t act remotely freaked out, which was another sign to Amber that the Penhallow hadn’t been here. Yet.

  Aunt Gretchen salted windows, muttered protective spells, and created tinctures. They worked well together, her aunt and sister, using terms and mentioning ingredients Amber was unfamiliar with.

  Within an hour, both Willow and Gretchen were changed—Willow magicked a pair of Amber’s pajamas into something that would fit Gretchen comfortably—and passed out on the bed, the cats curled up between them.

  Amber had insist
ed on the couch despite their protests, partly because she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight. Not after a Penhallow had, presumably, tried to kill her aunt.

  Slowly, she crept off the couch and padded to her window seat, peering out at her unfinished family home far out on the horizon. The burned areas had been removed, but the house had yet to be completed. A place where whatever knowledge she might have gained about the Penhallows had gone up in smoke. It wasn’t as if she could pop over to the library and check out a stack of books on witch family legacies. Not accurate ones, anyway.

  She tipped her head back to rest on the wall behind her, then gazed at her sleeping aunt and sister. Gretchen knew—had always known—more about the Penhallows, but she’d kept that information close to the vest. Amber had asked and asked, but was shut down time and again. Even now, Amber saw the hesitation in her aunt’s eyes. Remembered how deftly the woman had steered clear of the subject as much as possible tonight.

  The conversation Amber originally had with her aunt came back to her, and her attention snagged on the same thing it did the last ten times she’d replayed it in her head. “Maybe we should pay Edgar a visit.”

  Why now?

  There were too many unanswered questions. Her magic thrummed. It needed an outlet. She’d heard of restless leg syndrome—was there such a thing as restless magic syndrome?

  She needed to get the heck out of her studio before her magic erupted and leveled the building.

  With a final glance at her sleeping family, she silently climbed off the window seat, changed into jeans and a sweater, grabbed her shoes and purse, and made her way down the stairs in bare feet.

  Her aunt wouldn’t talk to her about her parents and the fire and the Penhallows? Fine.

  She’d find answers herself.

  Chapter 7

  Amber had just reached the front door—shoes now on her feet and purse strapped over her shoulder—when someone behind her said, “And where are you going at this hour?”