by Raven Snow
“The Witch’s Will”
A Witch Cozy Mystery
Dark Lake Chronicles Book 2
Raven Snow
© 2018
Raven Snow
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner & are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Products or brand names mentioned are trademarks of their respective holders or companies. The cover uses licensed images & are shown for illustrative purposes only. Any person(s) that may be depicted on the cover are simply models.
Edition v1.0 (2018.09.05)
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Special thanks to the following volunteer readers who helped with proofreading: Renee Arthur, Dick B., Sue Fay, Brenda Rodgers, Jim T., and those who assisted but wished to be anonymous. Thank you so much for your support.
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Authors Note
Books by Raven Snow
Chapter One
“Come out here so that I can see,” said Ms. Poole with an exasperated sigh.
“No,” said Lady for the third time.
Another sigh from Ms. Poole. “It can’t be as bad as all that. Come out here and let me see or you’ll be out catching slugs tonight.”
Lady winced. She knew Ms. Poole wasn’t kidding. She had to work if she wanted to continue living under the woman’s roof. That meant bending to her every whim. It had been humid lately, and that meant slugs all over the sidewalk and lawn and, sometimes, sticking to the Fisherman’s Inn itself. Lady hated them. The thought of touching one made her skin crawl. The week before, one had gotten in through her window and she’d had nightmares of them squirming over her in her sleep ever since. Unfortunately, Ms. Poole loved the things. She said they were useful. For what, Lady couldn’t really say. It was probably something witchcraft-related. Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails. Maybe she was making a little boy out in the shed.
“Fine.” Lady opened the door to the dressing room but didn’t step outside of her little cubicle. She didn’t want anyone seeing her. The outfit Ms. Poole had picked out was downright puritanical. The collar buttoned up all the way to her chin, and the stiff black skirt nearly touched the floor. She looked like a younger, blonder Ms. Poole.
Ms. Poole’s gaze traveled up and down her employee. “I don’t see what the problem is. This looks very nice, very nice indeed.”
“It doesn’t really… look like me.”
Ms. Poole rolled her eyes as if that particular issue hadn’t even crossed her mind. “We’re going to a funeral. Looking fashionable should be the least of your concerns.”
“I’m not worried about looking fashionable.” Okay, maybe Lady was a little worried about looking fashionable. “I’m worried about drawing attention to myself at a bad time. I mean, you look normal in this kind of getup. I’ll stand out like a sore thumb. That’s really not what we’re going for, right? I need to look respectable.”
“And you do look respectable. You look like my protégé.”
“I look like a miniature version of you!”
“Which is ideal.” Ms. Poole turned and called out to the elderly owner of the small boutique they were in. “Do you think you could hem the skirt before we leave?” Ms. Poole turned to Lady again. “Put on the shoes so she can hem the skirt, girl.”
The shoes in question were little better than the outfit. They were black and heeled and pointy at the toe. They were quintessential witch’s boots. The best thing she could say about them was that at least she could probably pair them with outfits other than the one Ms. Poole was buying for her today.
Lady hadn’t realized that working for Ms. Poole meant attending funerals for people she had never met. Two days prior, Ms. Poole had announced that they were attending, like some might announce receiving an invitation to a fancy party. “We have a funeral to go to two days from today. Lucette Antonie has passed away.”
“Who’s that?” Lady had asked with a yawn. It was quite early, and she was only half awake.
“An old colleague. She owes me money, and I intend to collect.”
As it turned out, the late Lucette Antonie had arranged it so that only people who attended the funeral were permitted to come to the will reading and receive what she had bequeathed to them. “How do you know she even left you anything?” Lady had asked, which had earned her a dark look from Ms. Poole.
“She’s too proud for that sort of thing,” Ms. Poole had said, though she didn’t sound so sure.
Fast forward to the boutique and Lady let Ms. Poole buy the outfit for her. At least she didn’t have to pay for it. That was a small blessing. Now if she could just find some way out of wearing it to the funeral. She hoped no one she knew would be there. That was probably an odd thing to hope when going to pay your respects, but she did.
***
“Ooh, did you go clothes shopping?” Otsuya was at the front door of the inn when Lady and Ms. Poole returned. Lady had hoped to slip into her room first thing and leave the outfit there. She really should have known that she would have no such luck.
“What are you doing in here?” Lady answered Otsuya’s question with an question of her own as she headed for her room.
“I was manning the front desk while Ms. Poole was away.” Otsuya more or less lived at the inn as well. She had a room of her own on the second floor.
“No one asked you to do that.” Ms. Poole frowned at Otsuya. “In fact, I would rather you didn’t.”
“Well, no one came by anyway.” No one ever seemed to come by the Fisherman’s Inn. Aside from the few people that were always staying, business was dead. No one really visited the town of Dark Lake. “Seriously, Lady. Is that a new outfit? Let me see.”
Otsuya slipped into Lady’s bedroom before she could do anything about it. “It’s not really an outfit-outfit.”
“What’s an outfit-outfit?”
“It’s just for a funeral. I’m not going to, like, wear it again after tomorrow.” At least, Lady didn’t plan on wearing it again if she could help it.
/> “Let me see.” Otsuya wouldn’t back down until the clothing had been removed from its bag. Once she laid eyes on it, she began cackling with laughter.
Lady threw the clothes onto her bed. “See? This is why I didn’t want to show you.”
“No!” Otsuya exclaimed through tears. “It’s great! I love it! I need an outfit just like it. It’ll be a new fashion trend around Dark Lake. We’ll all be little Ms. Pooles.”
Lady groaned and flopped down on the bed. She glanced to the door as Lion pushed it open a crack and made his way inside. Lion was her orange tabby cat. He’d been left at the inn while she was out shopping. With a pathetic mewl, he jumped up onto the mattress beside her. He was making an effort to look cute. It almost always worked. It was hard to say no to that fuzzy little face. She scratched him beneath the chin. “So, are you going to the funeral?” Lady asked, keeping the conversation going with Otsuya.
Otsuya stopped laughing. Her dark brows came together, and a slight frown tugged at her usual smiling expression. “Funeral? What funeral? Who died?”
“I just mentioned it, like, a second ago.” Lady found it hard to believe that Otsuya was so clueless as to have forgotten already. “It’s all Ms. Poole’s been talking about for the last two days.”
Otsuya shook her head. “I haven’t heard about it.”
“Yeah, you have.” Lady was sure Otsuya had been in the room when Ms. Poole was talking about it at least once. It had been during breakfast. Otsuya opened her mouth, but Lady beat her to it. She didn’t want to argue the matter with her. “Anyway, yeah, there’s a funeral. It’s, um…” She groaned. “I forget her name. It’s a stupid name. Lucette! That’s it. Lucette Antoinette or something.”
“Antoinette?” Otsuya frowned, considering the name. “I don’t know any— Oh, could it be Antonie?”
“Hm… Yeah. That sounds more like it. Lucette Antonie.”
“I don’t think I know her.”
“Then how did you know the last name?”
Otsuya shrugged. “Antonie is a common name in Dark Lake.” She said like it should be common knowledge. “They led the founding of this place. That was ages ago, obviously, but they’re still super influential. They own a lot of the real estate in town. Do you still have that book you got from the library?”
Lady was struck silent for a few seconds. “What book?” she asked. She sounded completely unconvincing even to her own ears. Otsuya wasn’t supposed to know that she had a book from the library. Crispin, the guy who ran the Dark Lake library, had warned Lady that Otsuya had a bad habit of stealing books. That was why Lady had taken care to keep the one she had checked out tucked away under her bed when she wasn’t reading it.
Otsuya rolled her eyes. “I know he loaned you the book about the history of Dark Lake. I found it when I was snooping around your room. Relax! I’m not going to take it from you while you’re reading it. That would be rude.”
“Why were you snooping around my room.”
Otsuya cleared her throat, avoiding the question. She went down on her hands and knees. “I’ll just, ah, get down here and grab it myself.”
“Seriously, why were you snooping around my room?”
“I was just looking for Lion! Relax. Here, let me show you what I was talking about.” She was trying to change the subject. She hopped onto the bed, the bulky tome taking up a larger portion of the mattress than a lone book ever should. “Let’s see.” She started flipping through the pages. She did so quickly, as if she was very familiar with that particular book. She may well have been if the library was a place she frequented despite Crispin’s better efforts to keep her out.
“Don’t go in my room when I’m not here.” Lady felt the need to drive that point home before they did anything else.
Otsuya gave a huge sigh. “Fine,” she said. “Now look here.” She pointed at a page in the book. Big bold letters spelled out Antonie. There was a black and white picture of several people in old-fashioned dress all standing in front of the lake. Most of them looked to be women, given their skirts. There were two men out of the seven standing in a row. Founders of Dark Lake, read the caption.
“And here.” Otsuya pointed at a picture a little further down the page. “Have you ever seen that house?”
Lady looked at the house in question. She had glanced at it just a moment beforehand but hadn’t paid it much mind until Otsuya told her to. It was a large gothic manor nestled on a hill. It could easily be the setting of an old horror film. It even had turrets and spires. It might as well be a castle in Lady’s mind. “No? Why? Should I have?”
Otsuya shrugged. “Probably not. I guess you wouldn’t really have reason to go out that way. The whole area is sort of overgrown now. I think the family prefers that. Keeps them away from prying eyes.”
“You’re telling me that place is still standing?”
“I’m telling you the whole family still lives there… Well, not the whole family, I guess. A lot of them live there, though. I know I would! I mean… Gosh, isn’t it pretty?”
Pretty wasn’t the right word for it. “The upkeep must be expensive.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Is the family rich?” Lady recalled that Ms. Poole had insisted Lucette owed her money. Wealthy people usually didn’t owe anyone other than banks money, did they?
“Dunno that either. I know a couple of them work.”
“Where?”
“Hmm.” Otsuya had to pause and consider that question for a moment. “Well, there’s Shannon. She works at the police station.”
Lady remembered Shannon. She worked at the Dark Lake police station as their receptionist. That seemed like an odd line of work for a wealthy person.
“I’m not sure if her daughters work or not,” Otsuya continued. “I know that Dom works a lot of odd jobs around town.”
“Dom?” Lady repeated the name. There was more alarm in her voice than she liked. Dom was short for Dominicus. Dominicus Antonie. What an unfortunate name. “Is this, like a different Dom, or—”
“No, it’s the same Dom. I only know one Dom, and I think you only know one Dom around here, so… Yeah. Same Dom.”
Lady wasn’t the biggest fan of Dom. When she had first met him, he had been off-putting to say the least. He was a big, intimidating guy that had a penchant for spray painting creepy white eyes all around town. Lady had been sure the eyes were some kind of gang thing, but they turned out to be sigils. Whatever sigils were. Lady was new to witch stuff, and sigils seemed to be a part of all that. Dom said they were connected to his third eye. They helped him see what was going on in Dark Lake.
“I don’t think he lives there, though.” Otsuya went on. “Dom, I mean. I don’t think the Antonie family likes him much. If I remember right, he got disowned when he was pretty young.”
“What for?”
Otsuya raised her shoulders in yet another shrug. “I dunno. I dunno a lot of things. It’s not really my place to pry about sensitive stuff like that.”
Lady snorted. Otsuya implying that she wasn’t the sort to be nosy was ridiculous. “So, does that mean that Shannon is Dom’s mother?”
Otsuya shook her head. That much she seemed to know, at least. “Naw, his mother died a long time ago. Shannon is just his aunt.”
“Oh. What about his father?”
“Dunno. I know Shannon’s husband is the mayor. I’m not sure who Dom’s dad is, though.”
“The mayor.” Lady repeated the title. “So, she’s married to the mayor, she lives in a huge house, and she works as a receptionist.”
“Maybe she doesn’t wanna be one of those, watchamacallit, er— idle rich. Yeah. She doesn’t want to be an idle rich person. Maybe the job is for fun.”
Lady couldn’t imagine a world in which she found the idea of working fun. “I wish I was rich and idle.”
“Lady, get out here!” called Ms. Poole. She wasn’t a woman who shouted. It was more like her voice had an unnatural way of carrying. It was just that
commanding. “You need to get back to work on cleaning out the storage room!”
Lady sighed. “Guess I’ll have to settle for being busy and poor.”
Chapter Two
The funeral was a surprisingly large affair. Lady’s one wish was that there wouldn’t be many people around to see her in the outfit Ms. Poole had picked out for her. She definitely didn’t get her wish. There were so many people that the funeral home parking lot was full. Ms. Poole switched seats with Lady. She made her drop her off at the door and then drive away to find parking. Lady settled on a shopping center a couple of blocks down. She had to walk all the way back to the funeral home in her pointy-toed boots and long skirt. She was hot and uncomfortable, but at least the day was an overcast one.
“Excuse me, Ms. Poole.”
Lady heard a familiar voice at her back. She didn’t turn immediately. They hadn’t called her name after all. It took her a few seconds to realize someone was teasing her. With a deep breath to steel herself, Lady stopped walking and turned.
It was Destiny. She was walking at a trot, like she was trying to catch up with Lady. She was dressed a lot nicer than she dressed when she worked at the marina. She had on a dark red top and black dress pants. Lady was used to her showing a lot more skin.
“Hey,” Lady said, trying to make the greeting sound like she was actually happy to see her. She failed.
Destiny picked up on her bad mood. “Cheer up. It’s not like someone died.” Destiny smirked. “Sorry. A little dark humor there. I didn’t really get along with old Mrs. Antonie. She was kind of racist. And by kind of, I mean totally racist. Did you know she had a boat? She paid to have it serviced regularly but wouldn’t let me touch the thing. She never mentioned anything to me, but the boss said it was because she thought I’d steal it. Seriously. How do you even steal a boat in a freakin’ lake?”
