“It is.”

  “Did something happen to Jemima?”

  “No. Her friend and William’s friend, Felicity Stevens, is dead.”

  Horror and shock hit first. Then guilt smote me. “Dead? But I was out with them last night. She was fine.” Mostly.

  “Well, she’s dead now.”

  I had to tell him. “Rafe, I think she’s the one who put the hex on Violet.” I gulped. I couldn’t seem to get enough air. “And then we reversed it, only when you reverse a hex, sometimes it’s stronger, and, ohmygod, we killed Felicity Stevens.” The last bit came out somewhat hysterical.

  “Why would Felicity Stevens put a hex on Violet?” And then there was the tiniest of pauses before he said, “Jealousy?”

  He’d caught on a lot quicker than I had. “I think so. When they invited me to go for drinks last night, I thought they wanted to be my friends. But when I got there, Jemima was at a dinner meeting, so it was me and Felicity having a tête-à-tête, and she absolutely grilled me about William. What he liked, what he was looking for in a wife. She told me she’d fallen for him, and she seemed pretty set on separating William from his work as a butler.”

  “William is so much more than a butler,” Rafe said, sounding annoyed.

  “I know that. I’m just saying, I think she had a plan. Somehow, she found out about William’s financial position. Not from me. I never said a word. She already knew he was rich. I think Jemima must have told her.”

  “How very indiscreet. I must say, I didn’t care for Felicity Stevens, but I wouldn’t have imagined her to be so ruthless.”

  “I guess she saw Violet as a potential rival and was so determined to clear her way to William that she put a hex on my poor cousin.”

  “Even with the hex being reversed, it doesn’t entirely explain why she’s dead.”

  “Sure, it does. You saw the written message. Grow ugly, wither and die.”

  “Isn’t that awfully quick work? From what I’ve seen of these things, they’re not meant to act so quickly. People like to watch their victims suffer. As the verb wither would suggest.”

  He had a point. Violet had been a few days on the first stage. “Maybe when we made it more powerful, we also sped up the time frame?” I was guessing here, but it made a strange kind of sense. “I need to know more. I’m going over there.”

  “Don’t do anything foolish, Lucy. I’ve got contacts within the police, as you know. Let me find out all I can. In any case, they’ll never let you near the place.”

  “I should at least check on Jemima. She must be devastated to lose her best friend and in her house, too.”

  “Hold on an hour. Until we know more.”

  “I can’t go to work.” I felt like my skin wanted to jump away from my body, like it didn’t want to be wrapped around someone who went around accidentally killing people.

  “I’ll get Clara and Mabel. They can run the shop for one day.”

  In fact, I knew they’d be delighted.

  We ended the call, and I poured myself another cup of coffee and settled back in front of the TV, hoping for more news. Meanwhile, I was thinking furiously.

  The hex. Was it really powerful enough to kill a woman?

  Rafe seemed doubtful, but he hadn’t been in that circle. I recalled the power I’d felt surging through my arm and the way that my athame had glowed. Maybe the blast of power that pulverized the goat skull had taken the hex to its next and final step.

  Nyx jumped up on the couch and rubbed her head against my arm.

  “I’ve never needed your help more, my little familiar. Please don’t abandon me for a better witch. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I want to be a good witch. I do.”

  She rubbed against me again, and I felt her warmth. Then she settled beside me, and I began to feel calmer. Soon, my breathing slowed. It was Nyx, I knew it. She’d helped me like that before.

  Okay, now that I was a little calmer and oxygen was finally getting to my brain, I needed to do something. I couldn’t sit on the couch watching the breaking news keep breaking over and over. There wouldn’t be an update for a while, and Rafe would have it long before the media.

  I looked at my phone. I could phone Margaret Twigg, but I wanted to see her face. If she watched the news, she probably already knew Felicity Stevens was dead, but she wouldn’t know it was the hex that killed her. I wanted to stand in front of her when I asked exactly what she’d done. What she’d led us to do. Violet was part of this too. And Aunt Lavinia.

  I called Violet next. Before I could say a word, she moaned. “Oh, Lucy. I’m really not well enough to come into work today. Being hexed, I feel like I’ve had a bad flu for a couple of days. I really feel quite ill and so exhausted. I wouldn’t be any good to you in the shop.”

  Normally I’d have rolled my eyes at her attempt to get out of a day’s work. But today I had other things on my mind. “Violet, Felicity Stevens is dead.”

  I heard her yawn, and I suspected I’d woken her up. “Felicity Stevens? Who’s that?” Then, after another yawn, “Oh, that rude girl who has her claws into poor William.”

  At least it was some consolation to think that she barely knew the woman she’d damaged. I said, “I’m pretty sure that Felicity Stevens is the one who hexed you.”

  “Well, I certainly didn’t warm to her. The way she was going after William was sick-making. But why would she put a hex on me?”

  I went through my theory one more time.

  “You think she was jealous of me and William?” She sounded more energetic all of a sudden.

  “It’s all I can come up with. Did you two have any kind of a run-in? Apart from you generally not liking her, is there anything I don’t know?”

  “No. Well, you saw her. She treated me like I was the scullery maid, which annoyed me for a start. And you should have seen her at that dinner. She was all over William. Came in the kitchen to compliment him on his food, my arse. She was fluttering her eyelashes and rubbing his arm as though she was polishing him up to put on her mantelpiece.”

  I thought she wasn’t far wrong there.

  “He seemed to like it, though. Men are such fools. When I was out front serving dinner, I’d have sworn she had her eye on the Italian, but he had absolutely no interest in her. He was more interested in Jemima Taft. So, having failed upstairs, Felicity Stevens decided to try her luck downstairs.”

  “With William.”

  She paused for a moment. “I think she succeeded, too. I got the idea that they were dating.”

  I hadn’t told Violet that I knew they’d begun seeing each other.

  Then she yawned again. “Wait, did you say she was dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “You mean actually dead? All breath gone from her body?”

  “Yes. That kind of dead.” I hadn’t even asked Rafe about his butler’s reaction to the news. “Poor William. I never even thought to ask how he was in all of this.”

  “I can’t imagine he was fond of that woman. She was so obvious.”

  I didn’t share with Violet that I thought William had led a rather sheltered life for a man of his age. Instead I said, “Do you think Felicity saw you as a rival for William’s affections?”

  There was a long pause. Long enough that I knew she was either thinking about this very hard or trying to come up with the correct response. Finally, she said, “Possibly. We were sharing a joke when she came in to compliment him about the food. You know how he is. I think he had his arm around me, and the pair of us were laughing.”

  I could picture it like a scene from a movie. If this had been a movie, they’d have been just about to kiss when the rival walked in on them. Then they’d spring apart, blustering around, pretending they hadn’t had that moment. Maybe the reality wasn’t that far off.

  “You’re sure that’s all you were doing? Sharing a joke? You weren’t kissing or anything?”

  “No. We’re professionals.” Then she sighed. “Besides, I don’t think William sees me that way.”

  Actually, I thought perhaps he did. Or had. But given Violet’s wretched dating history and the fact that William had never made a move, I decided to keep my mouth shut. It’s amazing how often that’s a good idea.

  “Violet, I think that hex killed her.” Then I told her about the scales and the claw and the dragging foot.

  Violet, being Violet, said, “The hex? But I never meant to hurt her. I was only giving her back her own hex.”

  “I know. But the one who guided us and told us what to do was Margaret Twigg. I think that you and I and Aunt Lavinia should go back and confront her. We need to know exactly what we were sending back.”

  “I don’t want to see Margaret Twigg.”

  “Believe me, I don’t, either.”

  Especially as I was pretty close to accusing her of hexing a woman to death.

  Chapter 18

  “I’ll fetch you and Aunt Lavinia, and we’ll go together,” I said to Violet.

  “Do we have to?”

  “Violet, a woman’s dead.”

  “All right. I don’t want to say it served her right, but people who mess with dark magic should know what they’re getting into.”

  Apparently that rule about not speaking ill of the dead had passed my cousin by.

  I picked up the two witches, and we headed to Margaret’s place. Aunt Lavinia was shocked and didn’t argue with me when I shared my theory that the hex had killed Felicity Stevens. Somehow, I’d hoped she’d explain why it was impossible.

  We pulled up at Margaret Twigg’s cottage. Even in daylight, it looked uninviting. And the mistress of the house kept up the uninviting vibe. When she opened the door, she looked as though we’d interrupted her in the middle of something that she’d much rather be doing. Like shrinking heads.

  “What a surprise,” she said, the unwelcome implied. “What do you want?”

  “We need to talk to you about that hex,” I said.

  She let out her breath in a huff. “I can see that Violet is fully recovered. What more do you want?”

  She didn’t invite us in, but I walked forward until she had no choice but to forcibly stop me, which she was perfectly capable of doing, or giving in. For a moment, I thought she’d choose the former, but in the end she just took a few steps back and let us in.

  “I’ve very little time. You’d better come into the kitchen.”

  Something was bubbling away on the stove smelling delicious. Great-Aunt Lavinia sniffed the air appreciatively. “Are you working on a new spell?”

  “No. Rosehip jam.” And she went back to stirring the fragrant, bubbling mass.

  “We’re here to talk about the hex that you reversed,” I said.

  She glanced over at me. “I reversed? I think we all did.”

  “Margaret, what did you do?”

  She looked both puzzled and offended. “You were right there. You know perfectly well what I did. We reversed the hex that was put on Violet and very successfully too, I might add.”

  “Too successfully. The woman who put the hex on Violet is now dead.”

  I could tell she was surprised. Her eyes narrowed. “Are you certain?”

  “Of course, I’m certain. It was on the news this morning.”

  “But the other night you didn’t even know who had put the curse on Violet.”

  “I was with her last night. I saw it begin to work. Her skin went scaly, her fingers turned into claws, and by the end of the evening, she was dragging her foot along behind her.”

  Margaret appeared to consider my words. Finally, she nodded. “That could be the hex. Of course, it could be many other things too. Some kind of a neurological condition perhaps.”

  I stepped closer. The steam coming up from the bubbling pot put a mist in front of Margaret’s face. “You know it wasn’t a neurological condition. We killed that woman.”

  “Oh, don’t be dramatic. The hex wouldn’t have worked that quickly. They take their time.” It was what Rafe had said, too, but I’d seen how fast Felicity went from flushed to scaly.

  “Margaret, I asked you before. I’m asking you again.” I pulled out my phone and pulled up the picture of the three of us at drinks only the night before. It hurt me to look at the picture of us looking so cheerful, drinking champagne as though we had everything to celebrate, when one of us would be dead the next morning. I showed her the picture. “Did you sell this woman a hex?”

  She peered at the photo. “No. I’ve never seen either of those women before.”

  “Then where did she get it?”

  “I’m not the only witch who sells hexes.” She stopped stirring for a minute and stepped back. “I have seen something similar to that before though. It’s a witch who keeps very much to herself. She sells them, lives over in Wallingford.”

  “Why didn’t you say?”

  “I didn’t think it mattered.”

  “But the curse said wither and die. I carved those words into that black candle. Is that why Felicity is dead?”

  “Oh, don’t be so dramatic, Lucy. It said get ugly, first. These things take time. You saw it with Violet. It was several days, and she was only just beginning to wither.”

  “Are you saying given a few more days, Violet would have died? And now we reversed the curse and sent death to a woman we didn’t even know?”

  Margaret looked unsure of herself. It was so rare that that worried me even more. “Frankly, I didn’t expect you’d have so much power. When you pulverized that skull to dust, you may have added more potency to the hex than I had anticipated.”

  I sank back against her counter, almost clinging to it to keep upright. On some level, I’d worried that this would be the answer. Now the cowardly part of me wished we hadn’t come here.

  “I killed that girl.” First do no harm, the words echoed around in my head. “I’ll go to jail.”

  Margaret Twigg came over to me and put her hands on my shoulders. For the first time, she looked at me like an ally rather than an enemy. “No. You won’t. We look after our own. We four were all part of this. We’ll stand by you. If that woman was foolish enough to buy a curse intended to kill another woman, it’s she who’s responsible for the consequences, not you.”

  Easy words to say. Impossible for me to believe them.

  I shook my head. “I have to go to the police.”

  “And say what? That you’re a witch? That you cursed a woman to death?” She gripped my shoulders tighter now. We were no longer allies. She was back to being an adversary. “You will not. You’d set witchcraft back a hundred years. We live peaceably now. Don’t start people thinking we spread evil in the world. I won’t have it.”

  “She’s right, Lucy,” Aunt Lavinia said, speaking for the first time.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “She’s not right. If I caused a death, I have to pay the price.”

  Aunt Lavinia said, “Then let the coven decide on an appropriate course of action. Not the Oxford police.”

  “They’ll see the scales on her body and her claw hands,” I reminded them.

  Margaret shook her head. “Probably not. With death, the signs of the hex should have disappeared.”

  “For sure?”

  “I said ‘probably.’” Her words were tart, but I could see she was shaken.

  I glanced at the phone still in my hand and our three smiling faces. “They’ll soon find out I was with Felicity last night. One of the last people to see Felicity Stevens alive. I won’t have to go to the Oxford police,” I told them. “They’ll be coming to find me.”

  Chapter 19

  I promised Margaret I wouldn’t do anything rash. I didn’t want to, anyway. I had to think about this. And I wanted time to prepare myself in case I was arrested. I needed to organize someone to look after Nyx. Someone to look after the shop. I needed to talk to Rafe.

  As I left Margaret Twigg’s cottage, the need to see Rafe grew. I called him and discovered he was still at the manor house. William would be there too. I wanted to tell them what had happened with the witches.

  We were a silent trio as I drove my cousin and aunt home. Aunt Lavinia got out at Vi’s cottage, and neither of them invited me to come in.

  Rafe had sounded grave when he said to come right over. As I rolled into the drive, the tame peacock, Henri, came forward to greet me. He seemed to have slimmed down since I had last seen him, but he most happily and greedily took the pellet from my hand that I offered him. Then he strutted off. I walked up towards the main doors of the manor house with a heavy heart.

  It was Rafe who opened the door to me.

  “How’s William?”

  “He’s in shock, I think.”

  He took my chin in his hand. “You look so troubled, Lucy.”

  “It’s my fault. I killed that woman. I’m sure of it.” He went to speak, and I stopped him. “I got this amazing power, and it shot down my arm and through my athame and it destroyed that skull. Margaret Twigg said she hadn’t expected me to have such power. I didn’t mean to, but I think I made the hex too powerful. We reversed the hex and sent it back to Felicity Stevens. But it was too strong, Rafe. It killed her.”

  “You didn’t kill Felicity Stevens, Lucy.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  His expression lightened. “I do. Felicity Stevens was murdered.”

  Between the relief at finding I hadn’t killed her and the horror that that laughing young woman who’d wanted to marry William had been murdered, I stood frozen for a minute.

  Finally, taking my hand, he led me not into the drawing room where we usually sat but into the kitchen. William was sitting at the table. Olivia sat beside him, looking concerned.

  “William,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

  Rafe was right. He did look shocked. He glanced up at me with blank eyes. “It’s the oddest thing. I’m having trouble taking it in. She was so alive. And now she’s gone.”

  I went to sit on the other side of him and put my hand on his. “Did you care for her very much?”

  He shook his head. “No. That’s the worst part, I think. I was going to tell her we couldn’t see each other anymore. She was a nice woman. Jolly. Good company. But I couldn’t picture her fitting into my future.”

 

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