“Let’s hope so,” I said distractedly. I turned and walked back to the counter.

  “I have a big favor to ask you,” I said to David. “I need to run over to Tessa’s. Do you mind watching the shop?”

  “Not at all. Actually, may I suggest you take the rest of the day off? Maybe get a nap?”

  I laughed. “Maybe. Thanks, David. I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

  The Good Eats Grill was busy, with over a dozen customers seated at the bar enjoying gourmet fare like potatoes au vin and mushroom bourguignon alongside familiar favorites like mashed potatoes, cole slaw, and baked beans. I took the only empty seat and was soon greeted by a sweaty, red-faced Tessa.

  “I knew when I picked you up this morning that you’d need a pick-me-up. Something of the greasy variety.”

  She produced a basket of crackling onion rings and a small bowl of her signature dipping sauce.

  “This weather will be the end of me,” she said, setting down a stack of napkins and a glass of sweet tea. “The rain doesn’t help with the heat at all! Everything’s just more humid.”

  “What do you think about taking a break,” I said, nibbling on an onion ring, “and heading out to the lake for a bit?”

  Tessa narrowed her eyes.

  “Is this about us playing detectives? You have that look on your face...”

  “Sure is.” I grinned. “These onion rings are amazing, by the way.”

  Tessa groaned.

  “Alright everyone,” she shouted, waving at the patrons seated at the bar. “We’re closing up in ten so let me know if any of y’all need a doggie bag.”

  She swatted away the wave of complaints this announcement provoked and began cleaning the grill. I munched on the onion rings, watching raindrops run down the soot-smudged Good Eats Grill window.

  “So,” Tessa said, once the last of her customers had left. “What’s at the lake?”

  “Windermere Manor. We’re going back to the scene of the crime.”

  Chapter 13

  “Let’s leave the car here,” I told Tessa. We were about half a mile from Windermere Manor, driving through a stretch of lakeside road that was flanked by thick, viney trees. Tessa pulled off the road and turned off the car.

  “What is this?” she asked. “Some sort of stealth mission?”

  “Sure is.” I said, climbing out of the car.

  We walked into the woods, just far enough off the road to stay out of sight, and began walking toward Windermere Manor. The rain had dissipated as we were driving and the afternoon sun shone down in slits through the trees, washing the green tones of the forest in golden light. Tessa swatted at flies and tripped over stumps as we walked, cursing everything from the squishing moss underfoot to the sheets of kudzu that clung to the trees. I urged her on with promises of fresh produce.

  “Strawberries,” she muttered, flicking a mosquito off her arm. “I want all the strawberries you’ve got. I’m going to make jam...it’s going to be legendary, Sam. I have the recipe all planned out...”

  She went on about sugar, boiling points, and pectin for the next few minutes. It seemed to distract her from the minor perils of the outdoors. She was just getting around to bread pairings when we spotted the dark outline of Windermere Manor though the trees.

  “So what are we gonna do,” Tessa whispered as we crouched behind a moss-covered log. “Stake it out for a bit?”

  I pointed to the shimmering, pearl-colored Mercedes parked in front of the manor.

  “Lily’s home. We need to figure out some way to get her to leave so we can look around.”

  Tessa scowled at me.

  “What’s gotten into you?” she asked. “And, more importantly, why are we sneaking around like a couple of teenagers playing ding-dong ditch?”

  “Mr. Lichen said something that got me thinking.” I said, studying the front gate. If we could manage to climb over the gatehouse wall...

  “Mr. Lichen,” Tessa repeated. “You mean the guy who brings a chicken everywhere he goes?”

  “It’s a rooster,” I said. “And yes.”

  Tessa rolled her eyes. “Sam, darling, that man once made off with a full barrel of the brewery’s pale ale. Rolled it right down Main Street hollering something about how “the beer fairies” had to be appeased.”

  “He gets confused,” I admitted. “But he was going on about something...bad...about the Windermere house. And he mentioned Ronald Williams. Maybe he’s heard something we don’t know. Could be a lead.”

  “He’s been listening to some kids, is all,” Tessa scoffed. “Rumors of Windermere Manor being haunted have been around since before the war.”

  “Maybe it is.” I suggested.

  Tessa looked skeptical. “I pity the souls who got stuck haunting the Windermeres. Who are you calling?”

  “Mara,” I said, putting my cellphone to my ear. Mara and Lily were yoga buddies...she would know what to say to get Lily out of the house for a bit.

  As it turned out, Mara was just then putting the final touches on the memorial article that the Goodsprings Gazette was preparing to print about Amelia. I explained the situation and she, after reminding me that I shouldn’t take the words of “the crazy chicken man” seriously, (for lawd's sake it's a rooster...he's got s teeny tiny ding-a-ling) agreed to text Lily and ask her to run into town to review the final article.

  Within minutes we saw the front door of Windermere Manor swing open and out stepped Lily Windermere. Lily, in a chic powder-blue dress with her platinum hair folded into a sleek knot, looked like the spitting image of Amelia when she slid into her Mercedes.

  “I might not see eye-to-eye with them,” Tessa muttered, watching Lily’s car disappear down the road. “But I have to admit...those Windermere ladies have style.”

  “Let’s go,” I said. “While the gate is still open.”

  Tessa and I scurried out of the woods and ran through the front gate of Windermere Manor just as it was about to close.

  The manor rose up in front of us, imposing and regal with its dark columns and sharp-peaked roofs. The windows were dark amber glass and old-fashioned oil lamps lined the front porch, framed by splashes of soot. The front doors were easily over ten feet tall, with large gilded knockers shaped like seahorses. Their bulbous eyes glittered with polished blue stones.

  We walked around the perimeter of the house for a few minutes, inspecting the meticulous landscaping between the house and the surrounding wall. Amelia had created a veritable oasis around Windermere Manor, with sparkling pools, fountains, and decorative koi ponds making up most of the landscape. The back of the house was adorned slightly more modestly, with rows of rounded hedges and slow-trickling water features. We glimpsed the top of a pear tree and a trellis heavy with fat, purple grapes behind the high stone walls of the Windermere gardens. I wasn’t sure what exactly we were looking for and sincerely hoped I would know it when I saw it.

  We made our way back around to the front door, where Tessa rang the bell and knocked a few times. When no one answered, she tried the handle. Locked.

  “What now, detective Greene?” Tessa nudged me.

  “Not sure. I didn’t think this far, honestly. I suppose we can just start walking around, see if we can find anything around here.”

  “I have a better idea.”

  Tessa was grinning. I noticed that her skin began to assume a shimmering, mirror-like quality.

  “Tessa, no!” I gasped, but it was too late. Within seconds she had shifted into her wild form, a bright orange dragonfly. She zoomed around my head, whirring happily into my ears.

  “Trespassing is one thing,” I scolded, waving her away. “But I’m not about to let you break into the Windermere house.”

  Tessa the dragonfly darted up, just out of my reach, and began flying in circles overhead.

  “Okay, no, I can’t exactly stop you,” I conceded. “I suppose.”

  The dragonfly disappeared, zipping off toward the roof of Windermere Manor in a thin, zig-zagging streak of fiery orange. She hovered over the chimney for a few moments, a speck of shimmering light above the chimney crown, then dove straight down.

  I peered into the front windows, but I could see only shadows through the warped glass. I looked around nervously, jumping at the sounds of the forest and lake, growing more worried by the second that Lily Windermere was going to drive right back through the front gate at any moment. A clicking sound made me jump and I looked at the front door just in time to see Tessa’s smirking face emerge from inside Windermere Manor.

  “Come on,” she said, beckoning me over. I shuffled over to the open door and slipped inside.

  The entrance hall of Windermere Manor, a sweeping marble expanse that curved up into two grand staircases, stretched out in front of me.

  “Wow,” I said. “It’s even bigger than I remember it.”

  “Too big,” Tessa snorted. “No one would have this much house if they had to clean it themselves.”

  She had a point. The manor seemed even bigger from the inside, with wide hallways that branched off into countless rooms. Tessa and I moved through these in silence, peering into doorways and around corners. We passed a ballroom lit only by a few sparse rays of sunlight that poked around the corners of heavy blue drapes, a library strewn with an assortment of Persian rugs, and a sunny parlor filled with antique chairs and portraits of Windermeres long gone.

  We turned a corner and followed a narrower passageway into one of the kitchens. With the exception of the brand-new butcher block counter tops and polished stone floors, the room looked almost untouched by time. A massive, flame-licked brick oven dominated one side of the room and hanging bundles of cured meats, garlic, and drying herbs filled the other.

  “Jamon iberico,” Tessa muttered, inspecting a strong-smelling bundle. “How predictable. This is what happens when you have more money than taste.”

  “What would you put in your kitchen,” I asked, suddenly curious. “If money was no object?”

  “Hmm,” Tessa tapped her chin. “Saffron, of course, since I can never find it here for less than a king’s ransom. And truffles. Ooh and enough bottles of Roussanou brandy to fill a hot tub.”

  She started opening cupboards and drawers, peering inside and criticizing the contents.

  I wandered over to the herbs, standing on my tip-toes to sniff at the bundles that had been bound with twine and hung upside-down to dry. There was rosemary, mint, sage, dill, lavender, and...

  I paused beneath one bundle. I took a deep breath, drawing the scent into my nose. It was familiar, yet...wrong somehow.

  “Maraschino cherries,” Tessa muttered disgustedly from halfway inside a cupboard. “What a joke...”

  I took a few steps back to get a better view of the bundle. The fronds split and puffed at the tips and released a sickly, musty smell. I remembered one of the rhymes my grandmother taught me while we gathered herbs.

  Fennel is fine,

  But leave its brother behind.

  If it pretends to be yarrow,

  You may be in peril.

  But if it smells like carrot,

  You can bear it.

  I inspected the fronds. It wasn’t fennel, that was for sure. Queen Anne’s Lace? No...

  “Hemlock,” I spoke without thinking.

  “What’s that?” Tessa walked over, a half-eaten apple in hand. I pointed up at the bundle.

  “The rest of these are culinary herbs, but that is poison hemlock.”

  “Interesting,” Tessa said, not sounding even remotely interested. “What spells use that?”

  “Nothing nice. Malicious magic...curses, banes...things like that.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past Amelia to have been using black magic,” Tessa said, reaching out to poke the bundle. I caught her hand.

  “Poison hemlock is called that for a reason. We should probably keep our hands to ourselves.”

  “You’re the expert, Sam,” Tessa conceded. “Which begs the question...what was our favorite water witch doing dabbling in herbalism? Isn’t that more your thing?”

  “I suppose. But there’s usually no harm in learning another magical discipline...if you practice safely.”

  I myself have been known to try my hand at telekinetics, though I don’t have a fraction of the natural talent for it that Mara possesses. My greatest achievement has been rolling an orange off the side of a table...and gravity did most of the work there.

  “Come on,” Tessa grabbed my arm. “I want to see the upstairs. Maybe we’ll find the rest of her wicked witch toolkit.”

  I followed reluctantly, still jumping at the slightest sound. The upstairs was mainly an assortment of ornate bedrooms, most of which looked as if they hadn’t been used in years. We wandered through a few of these, looking around for other evidence of black magic. I paused at the doorway of a massive corner office that had a spectacular view of the lake below. The office itself was beautiful, as all the other rooms had been, but something about it made my stomach knot up.

  “Oof,” Tessa shivered, joining me in the doorway. “That’s a hard-working air conditioner. It’s freezing in there.”

  “That’s not the air conditioner,” I said, stepping into the office cautiously. My ears started to ring and I felt goosebumps rise on my neck and arms.

  “Black magic,” Tessa whispered, coming to the same realization I had. “Oh, that prickles something fierce.”

  She made a face, hunched her shoulders, and folded her arms. It wouldn’t do her any good...the taint of black magic is such that it feels like it’s crawling on your skin. At that moment, I wanted more than anything to turn tail and run out of the room.

  “Let’s get this over with,” I said through clenched teeth. “You search the bookshelves, I’ll look through the desk.”

  Tessa nodded, looking pale. I started to rummage through the desk, pulling out files and feeling around the drawers for false backs and bottoms. If Amelia had been practicing black magic, she would have hidden it well. If one of us had found out she would have been expelled from the coven straightaway.

  “I think I found something,” I heard Tessa say quietly. She had cleared a spot on one shelf to reveal a small safe. To the non-witch, this would probably look like any other safe—metal door, keypad, lock...but Tessa and I noticed the symbol immediately. On the bottom right corner of the safe door, where you might expect a logo mark to be engraved, was a small silver medallion worked into the shape of a chalice—the symbol for water magic.

  Tessa and I stared at the safe for a moment, unsure what to do next. A nauseating wave of black magic rolled out from the direction of the safe, making both of us shudder. Tessa reached out and pressed a series of buttons on the keypad, but nothing happened.

  “What did you try?” I asked.

  “Her birthday,” Tessa shrugged. “I remember the date because she ordered a cake from me last year. She had me remake it three times.”

  “Hold on...” I said, noticing something. The keypad that Tessa had pressed had an odd seam where it connected to the safe door. I gripped it with the tips of my fingers and wiggled it back and forth. Sure enough, the entire keypad popped off after a couple shakes.

  Behind the false keypad there were three overlapping circles etched into the keypad. These were surrounded by six smaller circles inscribed with symbols. A magical lock.

  “OH, GREAT,” TESSA HISSED. I leaned in to inspect the etching and immediately regretted it. The closer I got to the safe, the worse I felt. I backed away, covering my mouth and nose in a vain attempt to avoid the rancid smell of black magic emanating from the safe.

  “Any chance you know the spell to open it?” I asked, my voice muffled behind my hand.

  “That’s the symbol for fire,” Tessa said, squinting at the safe. “And...that’s salt, I think. And I reckon that pirate-looking thing means death. Which is just lovely.”

  “We can check my library,” I said slowly, trying not to retch. “Grandma Greene had a few books on locks and wards. No use getting sick sticking around here.”

  Tessa nodded, pressed the false keypad back into place, and replaced the books she had moved when revealing the safe. We crept out of the office, back down the stairs, and to the front door.

  “I’ll lock up,” Tessa said. “And go back out the chimney in wild form We don’t want to frighten Lily by leaving the door unlocked.”

  “You’re going to wild form again? Do you have the energy?”

  Tessa shrugged. “I should be fine. Take my keys, though...you might need to drive us home. And by home I mean straight to your shop for a complimentary restorative juice.”

  “Alright, then,” I said, giving her a quick hug. “Be safe.”

  I went outside and closed the door behind me. From the front porch I could just barely see over the wall, out onto the green waters of the lake. The reeds on the lake shore swished in the slight afternoon breeze, casting puffs of pollen into the air. A flock of long-legged birds fished in the shallows, dipping their beaks and pulling out tiny silver fish.

  I stepped off the porch and looked back up at the house, just in time to see a tiny speck of orange rise from the chimney. Tessa, in her dragonfly form, descended lazily, skimming the rooftops of Windermere Manor before coming to a halt a few feet above me.

  “Well done,” I told her, offering a finger. She landed on it, batting her filmy wings to maintain balance. “Can you shift out now or do you need a moment? Tap once for now, twice for later.”

  Tessa the dragonfly raised one of her tiny legs and tapped twice on my fingernail.

  “Alright then. But don’t get mad at me if I dent your car.”

  Despite my disclaimer, the trip back to town was without incident. Tessa the dragonfly rode perched on the dashboard of her car, flicking her wings disapprovingly whenever I fumbled with the stick shift. We pulled up to Happy Blendings, where Mara was waiting on the front porch, an open laptop and half-empty Mango-Getter on the table in front of her.

  “Sam!” she jumped up when she saw me emerge from the car, “Lily just left...it was terribly awkward...I had to work in some mistakes into the article last minute just so we’d have something to correct. I kept her busy as long as I could...now can you tell me what on earth is going on?”

 

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