Whacked by Witches, page 10
part #3 of Witch Itch Cozy Mystery Series
The clerk, Sonya, dropped three scones in a paper bag. "Harriet's not here. I'm not sure where she is. She texted me to open up this morning and to handle lunch too. Maybe she's at the clinic."
Sitting in the car, Abby sipped the coffee and took out her phone to call the clinic and asked if Harriet Dill was there.
"Haven't seen her," came the curt reply from the nurse.
Abby decided to call Harriet. It went straight to voicemail and she left a message. Harriet could be on her way to the diner or the clinic. But why wouldn't she answer the phone?
Fearing something might have happened to her, Abby tapped Harriet's address into her GPS, but then remembered the signal could get distorted in the mountains.
Sipping the coffee, she walked back into the diner and asked Sonya for directions to Harriet's house. "Let me write it down for you. It's a cabin way back in the woods," Sonya said, sketching out a map and directions for Abby.
Driving east into the sun, Abby noted the directions and was glad she'd asked for help. Four miles later she spotted a sign, like the one Sonya had drawn on the map, and turned down a one-lane road. No wonder Harriet had a pickup truck.
The car bounced along the dirt and crushed gravel road with the forest folding in around her. A half mile later she spotted Harriet's log cabin, sheltered by a sturdy oak with a twisted branch skirting just above the roof.
Climbing out of the Volvo, Abby glimpsed a swatch of yellow flitting around the tree and realized it was a bird.
A curious bird that kept dipping down toward Abby, then fluttering upward again. It happened again and again as she moved toward the front door. Her lips twitched into a slight grin when she spied the doorknocker: a miniature cast iron skillet.
She reached for it, but was caught off guard by an explosive bang.
With a scream, she instinctively raced back to the safety of her car, her nostrils assaulted by a foul odor. Hiding behind the Volvo's trunk, she yelled, "Harriet!"
Silence. She called out again for Harriet then noticed plumes of greenish-black smoke coming from behind the cabin.
She followed a path around the cabin with the foul odor growing stronger and the smoke thicker.
Thirty yards behind cabin stood a shed. A second blast, slightly more muted than the first one, sent flakes of ash flying out of a side window.
"My stars! My stars!" yelled Harriet as she stomped out of the shed, ashes clinging to her cheeks and a gooey gel hanging from her chin.
"Are you all right?" Abby said, rushing toward her.
Harriet glowered, blistering mad. "I can so easily infuse the food at the diner with positive energy, but, try to brew a hex-breaking potion"—she brushed the gooey gel from her chin—"well, you can see the results of that."
The swath of yellow suddenly landed on Harriett's shoulder; the angry bird tweeted with furious indignation.
"Oh, hush now. I'm okay." She turned to Abby. "This is Carly, my familiar."
The parakeet chirped what had to be a polite greeting to Abby, then resumed her angry tweeting at Harriet. "Enough, Carly. Calm down. I know it was stupid, but I had to try something. Mr. Steed needs me to break the hex."
She swiped the goo from her chin with the back of her hand. "Carly knows better than to stay close to me when I'm experimenting with potions."
Carly pecked at a congealed glob stuck in Harriet's hair. "Stop it, Carly. This potion can't break a hex but it still might poison an itty bitty thing like you."
Harriet turned to Abby. "What's going on? Why'd you come all the way out here?"
"I need your help." Abby described the mysterious tourist in the trench coat and what Sheryl had said.
"She left by the back door?" Harriet gnawed on her bottom lip, pondering. "That is odd."
"I can't help but think it's incredibly suspicious. I'm wondering if she might be..." her voice trailed off.
Harriet said, "From your expression, I'd say you believe this woman might be a scout for the Dark Flyers."
"I can't shake the feeling," said Abby.
"If she is a scout, she could have been watching Mr. Steed. And me. And you, Abby. But why pick on him? Why curse him with Dim Fever?
"If it were me, I'd pick on you. Abby, or me, not a frail old man who doesn't even ride his broomstick anymore or cast any spells of importance. Why put the hex on him?"
Harriet's face darkened. "Unless the scout had orders to try it out on someone here in Moon Water, and he was the most available guinea pig."
The parakeet chirped into Harriet's ear. "That's a good idea, Carly."
The bird flew off Harriet's shoulder, a glint of yellow winking against the azure sky.
"Carly volunteered to ask our feathered friends to watch the streets for this woman."
Harriet turned to a patch of foliage and fingered a large leaf from a Hergenia plant that had been brushing against her shoulder. "Thank you," she said to it as she gently pulled off a mottled leaf. "The plant has given me an idea, Abby. Come with me."
They entered the malodorous shed. Fires blazed under three different cauldrons. Abby pinched her nose.
"It's the sulfur. I added too much. I should've remembered it's combustible with snakeroot."
Harriet replaced one of the cauldrons with a new one. "Since you haven't consciously learned to control the powers within you yet, perhaps I can fashion a Hergenia brew and combined it with a spell which might help you reach below your conscious mind."
She shredded the mottled Hergenia leaf into the cauldron and sprinkled powdered belladonna, ground lobelia, then poured in three cups of a liquid she told Abby was infused with snakeroot and a dash of palm seed.
As the potion bubbled, it emitted a gossamer steam.
Harriet flicked her hoop pine wand and chanted "audaxes, audaxes, audaxes."
Abby watched the steam turning darker and then rising up several feet before making a sharp turn toward her. "Breathe it in, Abby, and focus. Visualize the blue sparks, then see those sparks traveling down your spine and shooting out of your fingers into a steady stream of controlled energy."
Three times they tried the spell and Harriet chanted "audaxes" over and over, but nothing happened.
No blue sparks flashed inside Abby or flowed from her fingers.
"It's me," Harriet lamented. "I'm not powerful enough to command the energy to materialize."
In frustration, she stirred the simmering potion in the cauldron with her wand.
It was not a wise move.
When she withdrew the wand, it shriveled in her hand. "Nooo!" she cried and dropped it. The few inches that remained of the hoop pine wand tunneled into the ground.
Harriet dropped down to her knees, digging furiously trying to reach it, but the wand was faster and burrowed deeply into the ground to escape.
Harriet gave up. "Oh, the poor thing. It's probably digging its way to the earth's core to get away from me. I'll have to apply for a new one and that's always a hassle."
Abby hadn't received a wand yet. Selene told her the Wand-A-Maker preferred to wait until a newbie had been certified and licensed before creating a signature wand. Plus, there was the concern that Abby's unusual gift of energy might discharge into the wand, making it powerless or turn it to ashes.
Hours later Abby returned home and immediately showered to get the sulfurous odor off her skin and hair, then she made herself an omelet to offset the sugar pumping through her bloodstream from the scone earlier in the day.
She heard a tap on the window, saw Lulu waving to her and opened the front door.
"I couldn't find you so I drove myself to the clinic." She sniffled. "He's worse, I think. The nurse wouldn't let me stay long. He didn't recognize me, Abby.
Just then Lulu's phone vibrated in her pocket. She answered it. "Hello, Patty Rae. You got my message?"
Abby stood waiting as Lulu listened to her friend then thanked her and disconnected. "Well, that's a bummer. Trench Coat didn't stay at Patty's or the Eclipse Inn. I need coffee."
Abby waved her inside. "I'll make a pot."
Lulu followed her. "Did you find anything juicy in Brenda's diary?"
"More of the same. Revenge fantasies centered on Ravenna. We should turn it in to the sheriff."
"We should, but first, we should take a trip to Fedderton. Forgot the coffee. Let's go now." She pulled a silky black turban out of her pocket and tugged it over her hair. "You drive."
The motels in Fedderton yielded nothing of interest. No one had checked in matching the description of Trench Coat.
Their last hope was the Langhorn Lodge. At the desk, the clerk quickly dismissed their inquiry. "Our guests value their privacy and so do we."
Abby tried to inject another question, but the clerk sniped, "Go away or I'll have you escorted out."
Lulu started to insist on speaking to the manager when Abby touched her arm. "Shh. Look."
Leaving the Lodge restaurant were two women. Camille, in a clingy charcoal outfit with a silver crossbody purse, was on the right. On the left was an older woman, her hair a similar shiny black like Camille's.
"Is that the woman you saw in the bookstore?"
"She's about the same height and weight." Lulu frowned. "I didn't see her face clearly. I told you I need new glasses. But Trench Coat's hair was dark blonde. This one's a brunette."
Ducking into an alcove, they watched the pair exit the Lodge.
Following them at a distance, Abby saw Camille drive off in her white SUV while the older woman strolled off down the sidewalk in the opposite direction.
Abby and Lulu followed her at a distance. Two blocks later, she turned a corner and they quickened their pace to catch up.
When they reached the corner, they didn't see her. "Holy crickets. Where'd she go?" said Lulu.
Abby scanned the street, which ended in a dead end. The brunette wasn't on the sidewalk and there was no alley to duck into or any shops or houses to enter. The only building was a warehouse with an entrance at the far end of the street. The woman had vanished.
Abby's eyes narrowed. "I have no idea." She did, in fact, have an idea, and wished she could explain the conclusion she had just reached. The vanishing woman was a witch and that meant there were two scouts for the Dark Flyers in Moon Water.
Lulu was subdued and quiet on the trip back to Moon Water. She finally said, "I swear that woman vanished into thin air. I saw her turn the corner, Abby, and logic says she should have been there on the sidewalk, but she wasn't. Unless she's some sort of magician—and even then, those people have to use diversion for their antics. She should have been right there in front of us, Abby. I cannot fathom how she wasn't."
Abby's stomach churned. She wanted to explain to Lulu, to spill what she knew or thought she knew, and tell her own secrets. Magick is real. There are good witches and bad witches.
"I'm getting this feeling you are not as baffled as I am.
Abby tried to shrug it off. "Well, think of all the people who've seen UFOs or ghosts. That's some strange stuff. Maybe there are UFOs. Maybe there are ghosts. Maybe there is an enchanted realm that interacts with—with us in this so-called normal world, and maybe some people have access to it and simply can go invisible or vanish when they want to."
"That's ludicrous."
"Is it? Who really knows?"
Lulu snorted. "Buttercup, are you going all Shakespeare on me? 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, blah, blah, blah'."
If only I could tell you Lulu, and perhaps I will someday because I'd love to take you for a ride on my broomstick some moonlit night.
A smile tipped Abby's lips. "My favorite from the Bard is 'By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes."
"Speaking of wicked," Lulu murmured, looking into the side mirror, "guess who I see."
Coming up behind them was the sheriff's Jeep. He tapped the horn.
Abby slowed down and veered to a stop on the almost non-existent shoulder. She powered down her window as Ethan Moser's long legs carried him to the Volvo.
Before he could speak, Abby blurted out, "We found Brenda's diary and it's filled with revenge fantasies. She hated Ravenna."
"That's why I stopped you. I wanted Lulu to let me in her house to retrieve the diary. Brenda gave me a full account of it. Do you have it with you? The diary?"
Abby plucked it out of her handbag.
Lulu leaned forward to address the sheriff. "You think she did it, Moser?"
He, of course, didn't answer the question. Instead, he hefted the diary. "Thanks for this."
Abby gulped and said, "Ethan, I saw you at the Langhorn. It looked like you were following Camille. Why? Is she a suspect, too? If she's not, she should be."
His jaw tightened and he tipped his wide-brimmed hat. "Good day, ladies."
Watching him hurry back to his car, Lulu clucked her tongue. "Buttercup, I can see right through him. And you. There's a thing there."
"No. There's no thing." Abby veered onto the road. What if he wasn't following her?
With her hands clenching the steering wheel, she stared straight ahead. What if there's a thing between him and Camille?
Chapter Nineteen
Bubsy was snoozing on the maple-leaf-patterned couch, when she got home. His ears perked up at the sound of her boots on the hardwood. "Jill left with Devon. Something about a job at a gazebo. I hate that boy."
"Devon? Why?" she said, toeing off her boots.
"He patted my head and tried to pick me up. I hissed and chuffed, and that got him to back off quick."
Abby settled on the couch next to Bubsy. "I guess he likes cats."
"I'm not a cat."
She couldn't resist teasing him. "You look like a cat."
That silenced him, although his tail battered the couch cushion in a display of persnickety exasperation.
"I tried to reach Harriet, but she didn't answer. I have a question, an important one. Maybe you can answer it."
"Try me."
"Do you know if witches can make themselves disappear?"
His tail stopped beating the cushion. "You mean into thin air?"
"Exactly."
"Translocation is a skill generally restricted to a high ranking adept, but a complete disappearance, no, I don't believe that's possible. Objects can be disappeared, but, despite how movies portray them, witches can't simply vanish."
"What's translocation?"
"Popping from here to there. Usually limited to three pops."
"This wasn't translocation."
Abby described the events in Fedderton. "The woman was on the sidewalk and then—wham—she wasn't."
"I can't answer this for you. In the hierarchy of enchanted beings, I'm on a lower rung. You would have to talk to Selene."
"I'd like to talk to her, but so far she's still incommunicado." Abby found her cell, phoned Harriet again, and once again left a voicemail. "Any word from Selene? When will she be back in town?"
She set the phone down. "I'm so baffled right now. I know something is up but I can't figure it out. I need your help, Bubsy."
"You need my help? When you have that human, Lula."
"It's Lulu and you know it." She suppressed a chuckle. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you sound a teensy bit jealous."
"Not in the least." His pink tongue shot out and he raised a paw for a casual lick. She waited. Finally, he looked at her. "I'm listening."
"I can't get my head around this, even though some part of me knows Ravenna's death is connected to what happened to Mr. Steed. I don't see the link between the two events. It's a muddle to me. All I have is questions. Who put the hex on him? And why?
"Was it the woman in the trench coat? Sheryl saw her slipping out the back door. I find that suspicious."
"Very suspicious," he agreed.
"And Lulu said the woman she saw was a blonde. The vanishing woman I saw in Fedderton was a brunette."
The cat sniffed. "Hair is changeable."
Abby lifted a strand of her curly red mane. "Some hair is," she said, referring to his formula for straightening her unruly hair that had failed.
Bubsy disregarded the gibe. "You need to take this step by step. Look at the first aberrant event: Ravenna getting whacked. The first question is always the same. Cui bono? Who benefits?"
"Camille benefits. She inherited the manor."
"And you saw Camille with the Vanishing Brunette twice, which means you need to find out how they know each other."
"I think they're both Dark Flyers, that's how they know each other."
"Okay. But thinking isn't proof. Look for proof. And you also have to go back to cui bono. Is there anyone else who benefits?"
"Well, um, Brenda, I guess. If you count emotional satisfaction, as in the church mouse gets revenge."
The cat scratched an itch. "Forget Brenda, for now. Who else was there at the manor that night?"
She cocked her head. "Edwina and Hank Holcombe, and Gilbert Inglewood who is obsessed with Camille. I guess he could have killed Ravenna at the behest of his girlfriend."
"He had opportunity since he was there at the manor. And his Camille obsession gives him motive. Sounds like I've nailed it for you."
Chapter Twenty
Abby spent hours searching online for information on Camille Capra. There was none. Not a blip.
Jill came home, fixed tomato and mayo sandwiches for both of them and then left with Devon. "I'll be at the gazebo. We're still decorating," Jill called out.
Abby waved, her attention consumed by the search. Later, as frustration overwhelmed her, she pushed out of the chair and stretched her legs then decided to go out for a run to clear her head.
After changing from slippers to sneakers, she grabbed her parka. It was getting cold now as it was late in the day with sundown approaching.
According to Lulu, last year's snowdrifts and bone-cold weather had appeared in early November. So far this year, the weather was tolerable with only a day or two slipping below freezing. Of course, it was now December so it wouldn't be surprising for an Arctic front to slap a hard freeze on its southern neighbor. That was worrying since the protection potion Bubsy had her make was affected by a change in temperature.
