by Savannah Mae
Lyra’s breath caught.
“Hello?” Calliope called out. “Is someone there?”
They heard what sounded like humming coming from somewhere below.
“Hello?” Lyra called out.
The humming grew louder. The telltale sound of someone approaching sent chills up their spines. They clung to each other, each quivering as the sound grew louder, more ominous in the dark of night.
“I don’t want to die,” Calypso managed through chattering teeth. “I have my whole life ahead of me.”
Lyra sniffled, but dared to ask a question, “What do you want with us? We don’t have much, but we’ll give you everything we do have if you’ll let us out of here.”
“That’s funny,” a woman’s voice responded. “You’ve never offered to give anyone anything before. Now, you want to give me the shirt off your back? Why? Because you’re desperate?”
Calliope released her grip on her sisters’ arms. “I know that voice,” she whispered.
Lyra swallowed hard and asked another question, “Since you obviously know who we are, why don’t you tell us who you are?”
The woman chuckled as she flipped on a dim light in the far back corner of the warehouse. “You mean you haven’t figured out who I am yet? Shocking. I thought for sure you’d have this all worked out already. Isn’t that your claim to fame? You can solve all the world’s problems with your magic coffee and your oh-so-delicious sweet treats. That’s what my folks always told me. They’d say, ‘Renee, don’t be so hard on yourself because your abilities haven’t kicked in yet. They will someday. Just you wait and see.’ Well, I waited and waited and waited some more. I wanted to use my abilities to help my parents. I bet you didn’t know this because you were so busy sucking up all the oxygen in every room you ever went in, but my parents struggled to get by. Sure, they had their cleaning business and it did okay, but it never did the kind of business your coffee shop did.”
Lyra and her sisters were dumbfounded by this shocking revelation. They had no idea Renee was a witch.
She pointed a flashlight up toward them, grinning at the expressions on their faces. “I knew I’d get you. I always told myself it would happen. Of course, I never imagined it’d be anything like this.” She glanced around the room. “Who would? Nope. I thought when I left Jinx Cove, I’d go to Hollywood and make a name for myself, so I could come home and help dig my parents out of debt, but it turns out, Hollywood wasn’t interested in what I had to offer.”
Calypso swallowed her fear and asked, “What did you have to offer them?”
Renee’s tone changed. She hissed, “More than you ever gave me credit for. You thought we weren’t that special. Remember how you used to berate my father if he parked on your side of the street? You acted like you owned the whole town. You scared off our customers and made all that noise about those ugly curtains you used to have in the front window. It wasn’t his fault that you chose the worst possible color combination ever. If you didn’t have such bad taste, you wouldn’t have ended up with hideous curtains.”
Calypso remembered several run-ins she’d had with them, but she never believed they’d lead to years of anger.
“I didn’t know you were a witch. How did that happen? I knew your mother when she was a little girl. She wasn’t a witch.”
“That shows how much you know. My mother, her mother, her mother before her, they were all witches, but unlike you, they didn’t need to flaunt it. In fact, my mother did everything she could to keep that our little secret. You see, my father didn’t understand, so she abandoned the idea of that lifestyle … for him. You’d understand that if you had ever married,” Renee said.
Calypso forgot she wasn’t in any position to challenge Renee, but she didn’t let her unfortunate situation stop her. “You, young lady, or whatever you are, don’t get to tell me anything about what I have or haven’t done. I chose not to marry. Do you know why? Because no one is deserving of all I have to offer the world. As for whatever your problem is, get over it. No one ever did anything to your parents. Who cares if we made more money? Not everyone could afford to have their clothes made by expensive dressmakers.”
Renee shot back in a rage, “We were fine until you told everyone in town that my parents ruined your décor with ugly curtains!”
Calypso couldn’t help but laugh. “You’ve mentioned those curtains twice now. They couldn’t have been too ugly because you can’t stop thinking about them.”
Lyra nudged her. “Stop. She’s serious.”
“No, she’s not. She’s whining about nothing. I never did anything to sabotage their business,” Calypso defended herself. Something occurred to her then. “Are those men – I guess, one man and a tiny, little chicken – friends of yours? Are they from here too? What did I do to them?”
Renee pulled a lever and the cage started to lower to the ground, jerking them as it moved. “No, they’re not friends. By the way, if you don’t reverse that spell within the next two minutes, we’ll pack up our gear and head out of town. We have a nice, new car begging for us to take a long road trip.”
“It’s not mine, is it?” Calypso asked.
Renee chuckled. “No, afraid not. I said new. Your car is a piece of trash. You’re lucky we didn’t have it crushed at the junkyard.”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“Try me,” Renee challenged her.
The large metal door clanged as it opened.
Lyra tried to coax Calypso into silence. “Don’t forget the goal. We want to get out of here alive.”
Lights from what looked like several different vehicles shone in the warehouse, exposing Renee. She held a gun in each hand. Both pointed at their cage.
It finally lowered to the ground with a loud thud.
“Help!” Calypso yelled. “Please, help us!”
Renee moved closer to them, the guns still aimed at them. “Be quiet. No one knows you’re here. By the time they figure it out, we’ll be long gone.”
“Help!” Calypso yelled again.
Renee shouted, “I told you to be quiet!”
A man stepped out of one of the vehicles with what looked like a shotgun in his hand.
Lyra grabbed her sisters’ hands and began to cry.
Calliope pulled her hand away. “No. I won’t let this happy. We’ve survived this long. I’m not about to let the dressmakers’ daughter do us in. We didn’t ruin their business. Our coffee shop is a success because we worked hard every single day to make it a success.” She pointed her finger out of the cage at Renee. “You, young lady, don’t get to blame your woes on us. We’ve never done anything to deserve this. I liked your parents. I miss not having them around.”
“Do you know why they’re not around these days?” Renee asked.
“You told us they were enjoying retirement in Florida,” Calliope said,
The man with the shotgun stepped forward. When he came into their complete view, they realized it wasn’t a gun he had in his hand after all.
Lyra breathed a sigh of relief. “Why in the world do you have that? What were you going to do with it? Pour flour on us?”
In his hands, he held a large funnel.
“Detective Randall?” Calliope rubbed her eyes. “Isaac, is that you? Please, tell me you’re not in on this charade.”
He shook his head. “I’m not, but I guess we know who is.” He placed the funnel on the hood of a car. “Detective Honey, it’s over. You don’t need to do this.”
She fell to her knees. “Why are you here? You shouldn’t be here?”
He inched closer, his hand hovering near his gun. “You know why I’m here. You had to know I’d figure it out.” He glanced over his shoulder and nodded. “I have to admit, when your prints came back on that funnel, I was confused. I tried to come up with different scenarios in my mind. I thought since you were old friends, that maybe you’d spent some time in the kitchen at the coffee shop, but when your prints also showed up on the back door, I knew that could
n’t be a coincidence. I have to give it to you, though. You played it off well. You weren’t even out of breath when you ran into the office to tell us that Abracajava had been broken into. It didn’t even occur to me to check the dispatch records until this morning. I know exactly what time you ran into to give me the message because I was just about to leave for the day. I keep a log of my hours in my notebook and I’d just written down that it was 8:47 p.m. Their phone call to dispatch wasn’t made until 9:23 p.m. How did you know the coffee shop had been broken into before the call was made?”
“You ransacked our shop?” Calypso seethed at the thought of it. “I’ll tell you right now, you will clean up that mess and replace anything that comes up missing.” Her eyes lit up. “Now that I think about it, I don’t recall seeing my brand-new Viking six-burner stove with double ovens and a grill top, red, of course. What did you do with it?”
Renee snorted, “What are you talking about? There’s no Viking oven in your kitchen.”
“Well, of course not because you took it,” Calypso said.
Renee lunged forward, then, stopped as Isaac moved closer.
“I wouldn’t do that. You don’t want to add more charges to yourself. Let’s end this peacefully. Let these women go, tell us where your brothers are, and let’s end this thing. Right here and right now,” Isaac suggested. “No one has to get hurt. Enough damage has already been done. You know how these things work. If you work with me and come clean, I can help you. If you don’t, things will only get worse. It’s over.”
She sniffled, her bottom lip quivering. For several agonizing seconds, no one moved a muscle.
Someone emerged from another car outside the warehouse. A man with long legs and a muscular build emerged from behind the glaring glow of the headlights.
“Renee, do as he said. Please, baby,” Anthony said as he came into full view.
“Baby?” Calypso asked. “Oh, don’t tell me this is your husband?” She turned to look at Renee, but she wasn’t focused on anyone but Anthony.
He continued to cajole her. “Come on, sweetheart. You don’t have to do this. It’s over. You’ve said your peace.” He inched closer and closer to her as he spoke.
Her shoulders shook violently as tears swam down her cheeks. “It’s not over. They bought the dress shop and turned it into an old lady nightclub. It’s hideous. You should see what they did to it.”
He nodded as he approached her with tentative steps. “I know. You told me. They have bad taste, but they make a mean cup of coffee, so there’s that. Right?” He winked at her before he her grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him, locking her in a bear hug. The guns fell to the ground and Isaac and his deputies swarmed in to retrieve them and secure handcuffs around Renee’s wrists.
She didn’t resist. She didn’t do anything other than cry.
When the commotion was over, and Renee’s rights had been read to her, Isaac escorted her to an awaiting squad car and closed the door behind her.
“Hey, is someone going to get us out of here? We need to find that chicken before someone finds it and throws it in an oven,” Calypso said.
“Chicken? Which one of her brothers are you calling a chicken? It seems to me they thought themselves pretty brave when they kidnapped the Montoya girls,” Anthony said.
Eddie and another officer pulled tools out of the trunks of their patrol vehicles and broke the lock on the cage.
Lyra, Calliope, and Calypso tripped over each other to get out.
“Those guys were Renee’s brothers?” Calypso asked. “Where are they? I’ll kill them. I used to give those little snots free cookies all the time. I even shared a few recipes with them, so they could make their own. One summer, I let them hang out at the shop and taught them a few harmless spells. And this is how they repay me?”
“You taught them spells? Which spells?” Lyra said as she brushed the dirt and dust off her clothing.
Calypso’s eyes went wide. “Uh-oh.”
“What now?” Calliope asked.
She started to tiptoe away, but Anthony stopped her. “Wait right there. An ambulance is on the way.”
She gulped. “Okay. I’ll tell you, but first you have to promise me you won’t get mad.”
Calliope and Lyra folded their arms in front of themselves, prepared to listen to what they could only imagine would be news they didn’t want to hear.
“Do you remember the incident at the convention when everyone got upset with Lola about … Well, who can remember what it was about? It doesn’t matter,” she said.
“I remember. The Florida group accused her of sabotaging their stay. Something about her pouring truth serum all over their hotel room and in their luggage,” Lyra said.
“It was powder,” Calliope chimed in, then, gasped as the full-picture of what happened came into view in her mind’s eye. “Powder like the powder that was poured all over our shop.”
Lyra gasped.
“You taught those boys how to do that? How could you? Why?” Calliope clutched her chest. “Do you know how dangerous it was to do that? What if they had used that on their family or friends?”
“We only used it once,” a man’s voice came from behind them.
The officers drew their weapons.
“Who is that? Come out with your hands where we can see them!” Isaac ordered.
Anthony moved around the Jinx sisters to block them with his body. “Don’t do anything crazy.”
The man stepped into view. He held the chicken in his arms. “I won’t. I just want to know what you did to my brother?”
Anthony glanced over his shoulder at Calypso.
She shrugged. “Oops, but he deserved it after what he did.”
Isaac blinked slowly, dumbfounded by this revelation.
Anthony said, “I’ll explain it to you later.”
He nodded. “I hope so. Now, listen to me. This is over. Your sister has been placed under arrest. We need to take you in.”
The young man, barely recognizable to the sisters with his facial hair and an athletic build, shook his head. “No. We can’t go to jail. I didn’t mean to do it. It was all her idea. She said we wouldn’t get caught.”
“Earl Jr?” Calypso asked as she moved around Anthony to get a closer look. “My, it is you, isn’t it? Who would’ve thought you would grow into that big head of yours? If I didn’t know any better, I’d almost call you presentable.”
Calliope groaned, “Not now. Did you forget he’s the reason we’re in this fine mess?”
“But that’s Little Earl,” Calypso protested. “We haven’t seen him since the day we got into a shouting match because Big Earl parked his clunker in front of our shop and scared off customers.”
Earl Jr. sighed.
“Wait a minute. Didn’t that happen right before they moved out of town?” Lyra asked. She didn’t wait for a response. “Yes. Yes, it did. I remember. We’d just returned from that convention – the one you and your friends from Mystic Meadow-“
“Hold on. Did you say Mystic Meadow? Isn’t that where those girls are from?” Calliope asked.
Something clicked in Lyra’s mind. “It is. You and your ornery Mystic Meadow friends had that tiff with the Florida group. We ended up having to leave early because of it.”
Calypso nodded. “Yeah, and when we got here, Big Earl had taken over the whole block. There were moving trucks parked in the middle of the street. The movers had boxes lined up all over the place. We couldn’t get in the front door, so I went over and asked him to move his junk or I’d put a spell on him and make everything he ever owned disappear.” She stopped and gulped as the realization hit her. “Now that I think about it, we never saw them again.” She looked at Earl Jr. with sympathy in her eyes. “They didn’t move because I yelled at them, did they?”
He shook his head. “Nope but that didn’t help the situation. It was just the final stray. After that, we moved to L.A. My mom thought they could make some Hollywood connections, maybe design dresses for t
he stars and turn our bad luck around, but that never happened. They lost almost everything. If it wasn’t for …” He stopped.
“For what?” Calypso asked.
He struggled to keep the chicken in his arms. “For a witch. She came into our new shop one day and asked if my folks would make her some special outfits for a big event she’d planned. That turned out to be such a success, she sent all her witch friends to order dresses from us. We did okay for a while, then, something happened.”
“What happened?” Lyra asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. I’m not sure my folks ever told us, but before we knew it, they’d packed up all our stuff again and took us to Florida. The rest is history.”
“What about Sugar Plum Fairy Princess Honey? What’s her problem? She was just a kid when you moved out of town? Why is she so mad at us?”
He pointed to the chicken. “I can’t tell you anymore until you undo that. He didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t want any part of this.”
“But did also didn’t do anything to help us when you put us in that cage,” Lyra reminded him.
“We didn’t do that. That was Renee. She did that on her own,” he explained.
“What about what happened to the Montoya girls? That was you, wasn’t it?” Isaac asked.
“No. Yes. It was an accident,” he said.
Isaac walked over to him while he was distracted and handcuffed him. “How do you figure kidnapping a pair of girls was an accident? Did you accidentally take their car and then accidentally tie them up and throw them into the trunk of a car you stole from Calypso? I’m sorry, but your story makes no sense.”
Calypso snapped her fingers and said, “Be a boy.”
The chicken squawked, then, disappeared and a young boy appeared in its place.
“No. I meant, be a man,” she said.
The boy vanished, and a shirtless man appeared. Stunned and clearly out of his element, the man pushed himself to his feet and bolted for the exit, but Eddie blocked him with a swift drop-kick move.
“Not on my watch,” he said with a smile.
