Purls and Potions, page 1
part #5 of Vampire Knitting Club Series
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
A Note from Nancy
Also by Nancy Warren
About the Author
Introduction
Lucy’s first love potion goes horribly wrong Romances get tangled But worse, someone dies!
Romance is in the air on Harrington Street, Oxford. Detective Inspector Ian Chisholm is finally showing interest in Lucy, though the members of the vampire knitting club aren’t too thrilled to have the police hanging around so close to Cardinal Woolsey’s yarn shop. Up the street at Frogg Books, shop assistant Alice is in love with her bookish boss, Charlie, who doesn’t seem to notice.
Lucy’s trying to become more proficient as a witch and when her cousin Violet talks her into brewing up a love potion to bring Alice and Charlie together, it seems like a harmless way to improve her craft.
Until someone dies. Is Lucy’s love potion more deadly than cupid’s arrow? Or is there a killer on the loose?
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Praise for the Vampire Knitting Club series
"THE VAMPIRE KNITTING CLUB is a delightful paranormal cozy mystery perfectly set in a knitting shop in Oxford, England. With intrepid, late blooming, amateur sleuth, Lucy Swift, and a cast of truly unforgettable characters, this mystery delivers all the goods. It's clever and funny, with plot twists galore and one very savvy cat! I highly recommend this sparkling addition to the cozy mystery genre."
Jenn McKinlay, NYT Bestselling Author
“This was such a well written, fun story that I couldn’t put it down.”
Diana
“Fun and fantastic read”
Deborah
Chapter 1
Frogg’s Books on Harrington Street was exactly what a bookshop ought to be. The walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves displaying novels, both popular and literary, non-fiction suitable for both Oxford students and the casual reader, and a colorful selection of children’s titles. Cozy armchairs were tucked in quiet corners, inviting the customer to sit and browse.
It was across the street and up the block from Cardinal Woolsey’s, the knitting and yarn shop I owned in Oxford. My cousin, and part-time shop assistant, Violet, and I walked up on that February morning with a definite purpose in mind.
We wanted to recruit Alice Robinson, the bookstore assistant, to come and teach knitting classes in my shop. I’d have taught them myself except that I was probably the worst knitter who ever owned a knitting shop. Vi could knit, but she claimed she couldn’t teach.
Alice seemed like an excellent choice in a knitting teacher. She was soft-voiced, kind and turned out beautiful work. I’d been exposed to the best, since I was so often the recipient of the gorgeous sweaters, shawls, coats and scarves knitted by my friends in the vampire knitting club that met in the back room of my shop. Still, for a living woman who hadn’t had hundreds of years to perfect her craft, Alice was pretty darned good with the needles.
Also, she was nice. I’d had some shady characters end up in my shop and what I liked about Alice was that she didn’t seem to be a soul-sucking demon, a murderer, or a thief. Excellent qualifications in someone working with the public.
I’d wanted to offer knitting classes to patrons with a pulse for sometime now but I’d needed to find the right teacher. Since discovering that Alice had taught at her last job, in a knitting shop in Somerset, I’d been keeping an eye on her. Sure, I didn’t want to steal the assistant out from under the nose of Frogg’s Books owner, Charlie Wright but, frankly, Charlie so rarely saw what was under his nose that I doubted he’d notice if she stopped coming in.
Violet and I were doing some undercover sleuthing, feeling out whether Alice might be amenable to teaching classes one evening a week and on Sunday afternoons. If she worked out, she’d earn some extra money and get an excellent discount on anything she purchased from Cardinal Woolsey’s.
We walked into the bookstore and I took a moment to look around. I loved the colorful displays of wool in Cardinal Woolsey’s, a patchwork of rainbow shades that made actual knitters long to buy patterns and wool and get started.
I felt the same longing when I came in here. The books all called to me, begging to be read. If I had time, I’d curl up in the empty armchair in the corner with a brand new novel and read a few pages before taking it home with me.
There were a couple of people browsing. Charlie Wright was at the counter near the back of the shop. It was the cash desk and his work area. He was seated, reading a book. I suspected he read every single volume that came through his door, sublimely unconscious of customers, noise, or boxes to be unpacked.
I knew he was thirty-four, because he’d told me when we’d chatted at the most recent meeting of our local shop owners’ association. As far as I knew, he’d never been married. Like me, he lived in the flat above his shop, though I suspected his was quieter than mine, since I lived above a nest of vampires, including my grandmother, who often came to visit in the evenings.
He appeared to be a man whose friends were his books. He had thick, dark hair that flopped down on his forehead as he bent over reading. He turned a page and pushed his reading glasses up onto the bridge of his nose with his index finger.
He wore a pink shirt, though it was that shade of pink you get from absent-mindedly putting something white into the wash with something red.
Alice was unpacking a box of novels onto the display table at the front of the shop. She was doing a Valentine’s Day theme, so they were all love stories, both classic and modern. She wore her dark hair French braided and then coiled at the back, though a few wispy ringlets managed to escape and curl around her heart-shaped face. She had clear gray eyes behind large glasses, a straight nose and full lips. I’d never seen her wear cosmetics.
She hand-knitted her own cardigans and sweaters and while the work was exquisite, I always felt that she knitted the pattern one or two sizes larger than necessary. This meant that all her sweaters were baggy, so she must have liked them that way. Under her sweaters she wore crisp blouses done up to the neck and longish woolen skirts with sensible low-heeled shoes. She looked like a combination between a schoolgirl and a middle-aged matron.
I guessed her to be about five years older than my own twenty-seven. Unlike the shop’s owner, she’d glanced up when the bell rang announcing new customers. She put down the books she was unpacking, in a neat stack on the table, and came forward with a smile. “Lucy. Violet. How nice to see you. Are you looking for anything special or just browsing?”
She had a clear, pleasant voice and there was something comfortable about her. I knew she was the perfect choice to teach my beginner’s class. I was very keen to get a good teacher as I planned to take the class myself.
“I want to talk to you,” I said, “Whenever you have a minute.”
She glanced around. “We’re not that busy. How can I help you?”
Her face softened when she looked at Charlie Wright. No doubt she believed her feelings were known only to herself, but everyone in the neighborhood knew she was in love with Charlie. Everyone except Charlie himself.
I was extra sensitive to people’s feelings, being a witch, but her yearning was so strong I could hear it, like a soulful sigh.
I explained to her that I was starting classes and I wanted her to teach them. She seemed taken aback by the idea and turned her gaze from Charlie to me. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m very busy here.”
I emphasized the hefty store discount and that we could work around Frogg’s schedule.
“I don’t know. I like to be available, in case Charlie needs me.”
I wanted to tell her to stop being a doormat, to accept that Charlie treated her like an old and comfortable pair of slippers. But I understood a little bit about unrequited love and so I kept my peace. “Talk it over with Charlie and let me know,” I said.
“Yes. Yes, I will. And thank you for asking me.” Since we were there anyway, I decided to buy one of the novels Alice was unpacking. It looked like a very satisfying love story. Vi, meanwhile, wandered around the non-fiction shelves, emerging with a book about local herbs.
By that time, Alice was helping a customer choose books for her grandson’s birthday. We took our purchases to the back. As I placed my book on the counter, Charlie glanced up. He blinked a few times. Charlie had gorgeous blue eyes, and a charming smile when he bothered to use it. If he’d been room décor, he’d have been shabby chic.
“Ah, Lucy, very nice to see you.”
“Thank you, Charlie. Nice to see you, too.”
That was the extent of our scintillating conversation. He grew more animated when he rang up Vi’s purchase, telling her how much she was going to enjoy her herb book and that if she took the guide with her to the botanical gardens, she’d be able to see a number of the plants mentioned in the book. He obviously knew a lot more about local weed
While they shared tales of foraging for mushrooms in the Chilterns, I noticed a poster hanging on the wall, advertising the upcoming visit of celebrity author, Martin Hodgins. I was very interested to see he was doing a talk at Frogg’s Books as I’d recently been involved in helping him get the credit for work that had been stolen from him more than forty years earlier. In the process I’d nearly been killed, but I’d also found a good friend in his daughter, Gemma.
Beside that was a poster asking if anyone had seen a missing Cardinal College student. Since Cardinal College was a block down on Harrington Street I took a moment to study the photograph. The student’s name was Sofia Bazzano. She was a very pretty girl with long, curly brown hair. It was a casual photo that showed her with a drink in her hand and a laugh on her face. According to the poster she was twenty-one years old and last seen two days earlier. Her roommate had reported her missing when she hadn’t returned home. She was a stranger to me, but I memorized her face so I could keep an eye out for her.
The mushroom conversation seemed to be winding down, so I said, “I’m very excited to see Martin Hodgins speak.”
Charlie glanced at the poster and then at me. “You’d better get here early. It’s going to be standing room only, I imagine. But, have you heard the news?”
“What news?”
“His publishers have announced that Martin Hodgins has a new novel in the works.”
I was so delighted I clapped my hands. “I knew it. I was sure he’d kept on writing, even if only for his own pleasure all those years.”
“It seems you were right.”
I was about to say goodbye when I noticed another poster sitting on Charlie’s desk, presumably waiting to be put up on the board. It was for an upcoming play. Cardinal College was putting on A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
He followed my gaze. “You wouldn’t like to post one of these in your shop, would you? Cardinal College is my old college, you see. I help out with their big production every year, my way of giving back.” He shrugged. “Midsummer Night’s Dream isn’t the meatiest of Shakespeare’s plays, perhaps, but done well it can be very amusing. Ellen Barrymore will be directing.”
My eyes opened wide. “The Ellen Barrymore?”
“Yes. She teaches acting at the college. We were very lucky to get her, though, sadly this is her last year. She’s going to be the artistic director of Neptune Theatre in London’s West End.”
Ellen Barrymore had made a name for herself on the London stage when I was a little girl. Gran had taken me to see her play Nora in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House back when we were studying that play in high school. However, she’d gained much wider recognition when she was cast as an alien hunter on American television in the late 1990s.
After that she seemed to make some bad choices, or perhaps there weren't any better available, in any case, her career seemed to dry up. I mostly saw her on guest spots on TV and bit parts in Indie movies.
“She’s here? Working down the street?” I squealed, as excited as a fan. Which I was.
“Yes. She was a student there, twenty-five years ago now. I’ll be her assistant.”
“You’re going to be an assistant director?” I don’t know why this surprised me so much.
He seemed to be as surprised as I was. He cracked his self-effacing grin. “I won’t be telling the actors what to do, or anything. My job will be to get them there on time, standing in the right spot on stage, and make sure everyone knows their lines. That sort of thing.”
Alice came up, then, and rang up the grandmother’s book. When the older woman left, Alice said, “I’m helping, too.”
Of course she was. Anything to be near Charlie. She glanced at her watch. “It’s nearly eleven. I’ll get the coffee on.”
He sat back down and found his place in his book. “Lovely.”
She gazed at him, lovingly. I could feel how much she wanted to stroke his head. “And I made carrot cake. Your favorite.”
“Yes. Excellent,” he said, without looking up.
Once we were outside, Violet said, “It’s an epic tragedy the way that girl pines for Charlie.”
“I know. And he’s so clueless. Does he even realize that she bakes him fresh cakes every day?”
“Honestly, I think you could substitute a robot with brown hair and he wouldn’t notice the difference so long as he got his coffee on time.”
“Poor Alice.”
Vi stopped and put a hand on my arm. “Lucy, I’ve got the most marvelous idea.” She sounded so enthusiastic that I grew nervous. “Remember how we talked about you working on your potions?”
Violet was a much more experienced witch than I and she was always pushing me to go deeper into our craft. My problem was that my magic was powerful, but not always under my control. I preferred to stick to small spells within my comfort zone.
There was a tidying up spell that I really loved.
Actually, she’d talked about it and I’d nodded and pretended I was interested. True, she’d brewed me up a potion that healed my aches and pains, but I preferred the safety of something I could purchase at a drug store—which, since living in the UK, I’d learned to refer to as a chemist.
The idea of me cooking up something that another person might drink gave me cold shivers just thinking of everything that could go wrong.
I’d looked at some of the potions in my grimoire, good for things like curing boils and easing childbirth. It wasn’t like following a recipe in a cookbook and ending up with a Cordon Bleu worthy meal. The ingredients in one of the potions included bloodroot, mugwort and nettles. I knew the resulting brew would look like sewer effluent and probably taste worse.
Vi looked altogether too excited for my liking. She said, “We’re going to cook up a love potion that will make Charlie fall in love with Alice.” She heaved a sigh of happiness. “You’ll love it. It’s like matchmaking with herbs. Brewing up a happily ever after.”
With my luck, instead of cooking up eternal happiness, I’d give Alice and Charlie a case of dysentery.
Chapter 2
We walked back into Cardinal Woolsey’s and there was Detective Inspector Ian Chisholm trying to choose between forest green angora wool and a brown merino.
Meritamun, the three-thousand-year-old Egyptian witch who was my other assistant, was diplomatically agreeing with everything he said in an effort to help him choose. It wasn’t working. His eyes lit up when he saw me.
“Ah, here’s Lucy, now.” I had a feeling he’d been putting off making a decision until I got there so he could see me.
I got a little fluttery seeing him unexpectedly. He’d kissed me right before Christmas and since then we’d been out on a few dates. We always had fun, but I think we were both wary of getting involved too fast. I, obviously, had a lot of secrets I couldn’t share with a sharp-eyed detective. I was a witch, for one, and my downstairs neighbors were a nest of vampires.
He had issues of his own. Chief among them, his job. He could be called out at any time and when he was working a case he did it with a zeal and determination that I admired even as it meant he sometimes cancelled our dates at the last minute.
However, there was a warmth in his eyes when he looked at me that told its own tale. I probably had a similar expression when I returned his gaze.
He held out the two skeins of wool he was debating. “My auntie insists on knitting me another jumper. I’ve told her I don’t need one, but she says it gives her something to do.”
I completely understood how he felt. The vampire knitting club kept me supplied with new things to wear nearly every day. I couldn’t turn down their gifts and hurt their feelings. I displayed and sold what I could, and wore as many of the sweaters, scarves, hats, socks and dresses as I could. I was running out of closet space.
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