Murder of the Month

by Tegan Maher

  "That's just idle gossip compared to our other story," I said, glancing at Rae. "This one's important. It applies to us, and we need your help to fix it. Or to at least figure out what's up."

  Her brow furrowed. "Is everything okay?"

  Rae bobbed her head from side to side. "Sorta. I guess it depends on your definition of okay."

  As she related the story, Camille's forehead creased in concentration. I could tell she was trying to look at it from all angles and figure out why something like that would happen.

  One of her jobs at the council was as head of the Oversight Committee, a division that monitored and assisted witches who were having problems with their magic. If anybody had an explanation for what was going on, it was Camille.

  She shook her head and whistled when Raeann finished. "There are a few different possibilities, so let's go outside and try to narrow the list down a bit."

  We made our way out back to the area behind the house that we used to practice magic. We had a collection of items there that, to anybody else, would just look like decorations. A fire pit, a cornhole game, decorative stones in different sizes ... all used to practice our emerging powers. I had two that we couldn’t practice, though, but we weren’t sure what to do about it. After all, it would be rude to practice mind control on family, and stopping time had consequences. That one, we’d decided should be left alone.

  "Let's start with Raeann," Camille said. When Rae stepped forward, we all took a couple healthy steps back.

  Rae smirked at us. "Very funny. What a supportive family."

  "We support you," I said. "We're just doing it from afar ... just in case."

  "First things first," Camille said, ignoring the banter and drawing our attention back to the task at hand. "Give the half-dead petunias in the biggest pot over there a little juice. Just a tiny push to get rid of the wilt, and just the flowers in that pot." There was a smaller basket of healthy larkspur sitting right next to it that I'd been meaning to transplant, and it was close enough that it could easily get caught in the magical overspray.

  Raeann pulled in a deep breath and blew it out through puckered lips, then wiped her palms on her jean shorts and wiggled her fingers like a pianist getting ready to play. When she glanced back at us, we gave her smiles and nods of encouragement. Shelby and I in particular understood exactly what she was feeling, since we were dealing with the same problem.

  Taking care of plants was so ingrained in Raeann that she didn't need to speak any words. Instead, she just pointed at the flower and gave a little poke with her index finger. As soon as she did, the sad, wilted little flowers jumped up, grew to almost double in size, then began to climb over the sides, new vines sprouting from the existing ones.

  Panicked, Rae jumped back and swiveled her head to Camille, who was standing a fair distance back with an arm across her body, her elbow resting on it and her chin in hand.

  She held up a finger. "Give it a minute. I want to see what happens."

  As we watched, the new vines on the petunias sprouted flowers that opened, presenting a brilliant array of purples, pinks, and blues that tumbled over the sides of the pot. After a few moments, they slowed down, and after a full minute or so, they stopped growing and just lay there in all their velvety glory.

  We waited another couple minutes to see if anything else was going to happen, but they looked just like any other super-healthy pot of petunias in full bloom.

  "Huh," said Camille, her brow furrowed. "Do it again with whatever that is in the little pot next to it. The one that's almost dead. Try to tone it down even more."

  Rae huffed. "I barely gave the petunias anything, and look what they did. Normally, that would have barely been enough to get rid of a little bit of wilting, like you told me to do."

  Camille just lifted a shoulder. "Just do it. Focus on what you want, just like you did when you were a kid learning to use your gift."

  The plant she was talking about was a basil plant that I'd neglected. About all that was left was a stalk and a couple sad-looking brown leaves.

  Rather than try from afar as she usually would, Raeann stepped close to it then closed her eyes and reached out to touch the plant. She pulled her hand back after barely brushing the leaves with her fingers. The stalk turned green and leaves began to grow. Within a minute or so, it was just a healthy, regular basil plant. Not any bigger than normal, and not even particularly thick.

  She smiled when it stopped growing.

  "Is that what you meant to do?" Camille asked.

  Rae lifted a shoulder. "It's a little healthier that I was shooting for, but not by much."

  "And how much magic did you give it compared to the other one?"

  "Maybe half. Not even."

  "I see," Camille said in a tone that reminded me of a teacher when you tried to explain that the dog ate your homework.

  After studying the plants as if they were alien creatures, she pointed to a grouping of different-sized rocks that we used to practice precision levitation. "Now make that big rock over there half its size. And focus."

  "I have been focusing," Rae grumbled, but turned toward the rocks and squinted. This was something she could have normally done while talking on the phone or mowing the grass, but so were the plants.

  Again, she went back to the way Addy and Aunt Beth had taught us when we learned to resize objects as kids. She took a couple of deep breaths, shut one eye, and framed the rock between her thumb and forefinger. After another pause, she closed the distance between her thumb and finger by half. It worked, at least sort of. It was more like a quarter of the original size, but at least it was visible.

  She held up a finger toward us when we started to cheer her. "Gimme another minute." Determined, she turned back toward the rock and barely moved her fingers apart when she framed it, and it grew just enough to make it about half the size it had started at.

  We Flynn girls were nothing if not stubborn.

  Poor Rae looked like she'd just finished a marathon, but Camille said, "Again. Put it back to its original size."

  It took Raeann three tries to set it back to rights, but she did it. Still, she had to use the finger-framing technique each time. We hadn't done that since we were eleven. Resizing was one of the first things we'd learned. That was because I'd accidentally shrunk my archenemy Olivia Anderson's shoes when she'd made fun of Kenny Keller's brand new, but off-brand sneakers in the fifth grade. His old ones had been so worn out that his toes had poked through the tops. He was proud as punch of the new ones, not caring that they weren't Nikes or Reeboks—just glad to have something nice that didn’t cramp his toes. Olivia tried to take that happiness from him, and I wasn't having any of it.

  I hadn't meant to do it, but I’d just thought about how I wished she could know what it felt like to have to wear shoes that pinched her feet, and it happened. Thankfully, I hadn't done any damage other than giving her a couple blisters, but I had no idea how to fix it. Changing sizes was bumped to the top of the list that afternoon’s lesson. To be fair, I probably would have done it on purpose had I known the spell because, well, she deserved it.

  At any rate, it killed me to see Raeann revert to beginner crutches just to resize a rock.

  And Camille wasn't done yet. She made her work a little more with the flowers, going back to actually touching the ones she wanted to grow just like she had when she'd been young. Rae was discouraged because she had to use such techniques, but at least she was getting in the right frame of mind, so to speak.

  CHAPTER 6

  WHILE CAMILLE WORKED with Rae, Shelby and I started our own practice sessions, taking on tasks we were trying to master. I'd been working hard on moving things around with my mind because I'd learned a couple months earlier that I could actually crawl inside somebody's head and take over. I'd always been able to communicate telepathically, but that had been the extent of it. Nothing too freaky. Now, we didn't know what to call it other than a weird cross between telepathy and telekinesis.


  And that was only one of the bizarre skills we'd developed. Shelby could apparently control air, though she was still working on that. She'd figured it out when she'd blown the doors off a barn where I was being held captive. At first, she’d thought it was just a matter of her anger boiling over. That much was true, but she'd done a lot more than just slam the doors open with the force of her mind. She'd blown them open. The wind had been incredible.

  It was a slippery skill that took a lot of focus. Lucky for all of us, it wasn't something that manifested randomly like her other powers had before she’d been unblocked, or at least it hadn't yet. So, while she practiced moving pieces of fabric, wood, rocks, and horseshoes that we had hanging around, I practiced straight telekinesis.

  Finally, Shelby and I played a kind of mental soccer with the beanbags from the cornhole game. I'd toss them toward her using my mind, then she'd try to catch them midair and toss them back using her air magic. We were getting good at it, but not perfect. Of course, it didn't help that it always turned into a game of magical dodgeball after a few minutes, either.

  After another hour or so, Camille called us all in, a frown marring her brow.

  We settled in the kitchen around the table with glasses of cold tea or ice water and waited for Camille's diagnosis.

  She shook her head. "I don't know what to say other than that your gifts seem magnified. Have you been feeling okay? Have you hit your head?"

  Beth narrowed her eyes. "You didn't eat any of Coralee's special brownies did you? Maybe even accidentally?"

  Raeann had a mouthful of tea and about choked. When she was done spluttering, she scowled at her mama. "No, I didn't eat any of Coralee's special brownies. And trust me; it's not something you can do accidentally. I heard that since Roberta ate a couple of them by mistake then ate an entire pie at the church social a couple months ago, she keeps them locked in her private fridge in the back."

  Coralee's regular brownies were amazing; they were the one baked good she had perfected. Rich and gooey on the inside and crusty on the outside, with something extra that lent them an exotic flavor. I'd tried to duplicate them, but even with my kitchen magic, I couldn't manage it. Those, she made regularly and sat out for everybody. The special brownies were actually just a rumor, at least until the Roberta incident, and she’d not even fessed up to it then. Though she hadn’t denied it, either.

  Raeann turned back to Camille. "And no, I haven't hit my head or been sick. Everything's been fine. Better than fine, actually. Brew just did its best month ever ... and Dave and I are getting along great."

  I narrowed my eyes when she said that because she'd paused just a tad. Dave was a doctor she'd been dating, and if that man was causing her heartache, I'd have to have a talk with him.

  Camille sighed. "I hate to ask, but may I take a peek inside your melon?"

  Raeann's shoulders stiffened. Camille had the ability to enter a person's mind and poke around. It's how we found out about Shelby's block and that it was gone. The Council had used probers, as they called them, since the beginning of time for a variety of reasons: verifying honesty, stealing information, determining if a person's mind or magic had been compromised by injury or another witch. They had a stigma that, until we'd met Camille, had been justified because of their reputations for being so brutal. They went in, got what they wanted, and got out, sparing no consideration for the witch at hand.

  It's no light thing to let somebody climb around in your gourd, especially when they could monkey around and make changes while they were in there like Camille could. That was another of many probers’ skills. In the space of just a few minutes, you could lose years of memories, or even have them replaced with fake ones if the prober was good enough. Camille definitely was, but she also wasn’t one who would do such a thing, at least to an innocent person.

  Camille waited while Rae considered it.

  Raeann paused for a few seconds, then scooted her chair closer to her and sighed. "Go ahead. We need to know."

  She closed her eyes and Camille touched her temples and closed her eyes, too. Rae cringed a little but then relaxed. Camille's eyes moved back and forth under her lids like she was actually looking around, and her forehead crinkled.

  In less than a minute, she opened her eyes and took her hands off Raeann's head. "I didn't see anything out of the ordinary, exactly."

  "What do you mean, exactly?" Rae asked, her eyes narrowed.

  "I mean, you have a lot of current running through the areas most associated with magic. Nothing bad, and it may be normal for you because I've never examined you before. But ... it's like a disco ball in there."

  "What did it look like compared to Shelby's?" Addy asked.

  Camille considered the question for a minute. "Now that you mention it, there are similarities. Activity is in mostly the same places, and Shelby's is on overdrive compared to most witches too. But I sorta wrote that off to her circumstances."

  On top of Shelby's wonky magical block, she'd been touched by an angel at Christmas. She had a brown mark in the shape of tiny pair of angel wings on her shoulder to prove it, but we had no idea what—if anything—that meant. We didn't know anybody else who'd touched an angel.

  Camille shrugged. "Maybe it's not. Maybe it's a Flynn thing."

  All eyes turned toward me, and when I realized what they were thinking, I shook my head and pushed my chair back. "Nuh-uh. No way. Nobody's poking around inside my noggin just to see if I have the same voltage as everybody else."

  When everybody just kept staring at me, I scowled. "What would it prove, anyway? We've all had weird things happening to us. Rae's just joining the crazy now."

  "Don't be a baby," Addy said, arms crossed as she floated at the head of the table.

  I gaped at her. "I'm being a baby, but it was over your dead body that you were gonna let Camille test Shelby way back when."

  She nodded. "It's Camille; it's different now." Her face softened. "And there's something going on with you girls. So far, we ain't been able to find anything that remotely resembles an explanation. If you're lighting up like a Christmas tree, then we've found something you all have in common."

  Searching all the faces around me, I sighed when even Rae and Shelby looked at me expectantly. I slammed my brows down in a glower. "Fine. Just do it and get it over with."

  "If you go into it with that attitude, it'll hurt," Camille said. "Relax."

  Rae stood up and traded chairs with me, and as I faced the woman who'd become one of my best friends, I did my best to relax. Still, I was a little nervous. There were thoughts and feelings that, though they weren’t bad, were private.

  She smiled reassuringly at me as if she knew what I was thinking. “I’m just checking your voltage, as you put it. Nothing else.”

  A heartbeat after she put her hands on my head, it was like I had a brain-freeze, but then it faded and it just felt a little strange—sorta like somebody was pulling a string through there.

  It was over before I could even find a good comparison, and I was surprised when Camille took her hands away.

  All eyes turned to her.

  "Yup," she said, "Just like Shelby and Rae. I didn't think I'd ever say this, but from a magical perspective, the Flynn witches—or at least these three—are some of the brightest bulbs."

  "Hey!" Shelby said. "That was mean. You never thought you’d say it?"

  Camille smiled. "Kidding! I just couldn't let that one go."

  "Well," said Beth, "at least we know they're normal for them. I reckon that's a good thing, but it doesn't put us any closer to finding out why everybody's gifts seem to be on steroids lately. And it doesn’t tell us if they’ve always been like that or if their hardwiring has changed."

  "No, it doesn't," Addy said. "But there doesn't appear to be a way around it, so the only way to fix it is to move through it. I reckon it could be worse."

  "Really?" Rae asked, stuffing her hands in her pockets. "I suppose making miniatures and extreme gardening are fads right n
ow, but I'm not looking for a new hobby. How could it be worse?"

  Beth shook her head and gave her the infamous think before you speak look both sisters were known for. "You could be losin' gifts rather than gainin' ’em."

  I hadn't considered that, but once she pointed it out, suddenly an occasional broken lamp or shrunken desk didn't seem so bad. I mean, look how nice the petunias were.

  CHAPTER 7

  I STAYED UP LATE MAKING pastries for Brew, and I groaned and hit the snooze when the alarm went off at seven the next morning. I shoved my head under the pillow, just wanting to escape reality for a few more minutes. I did my best to gather my wits and shake the sleep from my brain, but I'd had weird dreams all night that made no sense.

  For the first time in years, I'd dreamed of my dad. That left me a bit out of sorts, but when the alarm went off the second time, I shoved the covers off and swung my legs over the edge. I had to get the pastries to Rae, then I had a hair appointment. Belle was a stickler for being on time, and I didn't want to suffer through the lecture about respecting the value of other people's time for the first half of my haircut.

  I dressed and went through my morning routine in ten minutes flat. Since Coralee was going to be washing my hair anyway, I just did my best to stuff the wild red ringlets under a ball cap and figured it was good enough.

  Snatching my phone off the nightstand, I was happy to see I was a little early; if I hurried, I'd have time to take Hunter a cup of caffeine before I went to face the mavens of meddling. I slid the boxes of pastries onto the seat, then fastened a special harness around them that Matt had designed for me. I was expecting a check from a boarder and grabbed the mail on my way out, then pushed it toward the shop. My bleary brain was looking forward to our date with a latte.

  Hunter had called late the night before to let me know he wouldn't be coming over at all. Since Ida Crenshaw lived by herself, they’d decided to take a look at her place before anybody else had a chance to go in. Unfortunately, she was a stickler for tidiness and all they’d found was a pie plate, a water glass, and a wineglass that she'd already washed before putting them in the dishwasher.