Halfway Hexed (4 page)

Cookie called out from the front that she was leaving for the day and reminded me to lock up after my meeting.
As if I’d forget
, I thought with a roll of my eyes. I glanced at the clock and wondered if Mercutio, my feline supersidekick, was awake yet. As an ocelot, Merc’s basically nocturnal, so he’s only up during the day on a need-to-fight basis. When I’d left in the morning, he’d been asleep in a tree in Zach’s yard. Since it was quarter to five, Mercutio was probably awake and hunting by now. I hoped he didn’t leave Zach’s. I didn’t want a lot of neighbors seeing him. Jenna Reitgarten had had it in for Merc ever since he helped me burgle her house—which I should add we’d had a really good, life-and-death reason for doing. Not that I could explain that to Jenna. Not that I wanted to explain. The less I ran into her, the better.

I moved quickly around the display table, wiping away excess chocolate. I arranged the sculpture so that it was perfectly centered, then admired the brook. I’d dusted sugar crystals on the white chocolate, so the faux-white water sparkled. It looked magical, and I hadn’t even used magic. I couldn’t help but smile. I was sure they were going to love it. I took off my soiled apron and tucked it away before I washed my hands. I was just finishing when I heard the bells.

Here we go.

I poked my head out. “Come on back,” I said to the first woman through the door. She was tall and built farm-girl solid with close-cropped auburn hair. I recognized her face from around town and wondered if she was Sue, the accountant, who’d called to hire me. I eyed the sculpture once more. The base was three feet in diameter, and one of the tree trunks was almost two feet tall with a pair of sparrows on one branch and a blue jay on another. I’d handcrafted each piece of chocolate bark, each stone, each flower, and each patch of moss and grass. It was a masterpiece.

As the ladies filed in, I smiled and stood up straighter. Then I spotted the pair bringing up the rear. Lucy Reitgarten, who still had a henna stain on her forehead from when I’d had to save her from a passionflower-potion poisoning, stalked in with her sister-in-law Jenna. They each wore a polo shirt and khaki pants. They also wore matching scowls. I exhaled heavily, my moment of triumph melting like semisweet chips in a double boiler.

“Hi, there,” the leader of the group said. “I’m Sue Carfax. This is Mindy, and I think you know Lucy and Jenna.”

I nodded to the group, looking them over. Jenna was blond, and if she wrote a cookbook it would be called
The Anorexic’s Guide to Not Eating
. Her sister-in-law Lucy had high cheekbones, thick eyebrows, and dark brown hair peppered with gray. Mindy was a dumpling with legs, and her cherubic face should’ve been cute except for the small, unfriendly eyes. She must’ve been a Fish-and-Fowl member from one of the neighboring towns because I didn’t recognize her.

“This is quite a work of art,” Sue said with false cheer.

I took a few steps back so they could circle the sculpture. The silence dragged on for several moments, then they began murmuring to each other. Behind my back, I clenched my fists. If they made up some excuse to not pay me or were overly critical, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to keep from shouting at them. My run-in with Jenna two weeks ago over the price of a cake I’d made had already cost me my job.

“Well, it’s really lovely,” Sue said. A little of the tension in my shoulders eased. “That’s a great catfish,” she said, pointing.

“Thank you,” I said with a careful smile.

“Did you go to one of the creeks around here for inspiration?”

“Nope. Zach’s got copies of
Field and Stream
at the house. And I used the Internet.” I went to my tote and took out my file of clippings and pictures. They passed them around.

“So, what’s your plan for this hummingbird?” Sue asked, tapping the edge of the wax paper.

“I’m going to tack a piece of clear fishing line into its back and suspend it from this branch,” I said, indicating the lowest one. “The beak will point down into this blossom.”

“Makes sense,” Mindy said. “But we were wondering . . .”

“Yes?” I asked, nodding encouragement.

“Is there another way you could make the bird airborne? Not for the public to see, but for us—right now.”

I cocked my head. “What did you have in mind?” Clear fishing line would be pretty much invisible. I supposed a thin wire could be used, but I didn’t think it would be as good.

“We were thinking you could do a trick,” Lucy said.

“A trick?” I echoed.

Four pairs of eyes stared at me, and I felt my face warm.

“A magic trick,” Mindy said.

Uh-oh.

“Or maybe you’d call it a spell.” Jenna’s voice rang out clear and sharp. An accusation.

They know! No, they can’t. They suspect. Don’t panic,
I thought, panicking. “It’s a chocolate bird,” I said slowly and carefully. “It doesn’t fly.”

“Couldn’t it levitate? If you helped it?”

“No, it couldn’t! I’m a pastry chef, not a magician.” My heart thumped in my chest.

“We want you to try,” Jenna said, taking a step toward me. Lucy moved, too. I stood my ground, refusing to let them back me into a corner.

“I’m not trying anything. You hired me to do a chocolate sculpture. That’s it.”

“Look,” Lucy said. “Jenna saw you practicing with a magic wand. And I remember you chanting when you threw that mixture on us—”

“My brother works at Glenfiddle, and he said you shouted some weird poem before splashing the poison on him,” Mindy said. “Then he passed out. What was in that Tupperware?”

“Was it blood-based?” Sue asked.

“Blood?” I asked, wrinkling my nose. Why would they guess there’d been blood in it? Had they done research? I needed to throw them off-track. But how?

“Witch’s herbs?” Lucy asked.

This is not good.
My mind reeled.
I saved lives. I shouldn’t end up in trouble for it after the fact.
More evidence—as if I needed any—that life isn’t fair.
What would Bryn tell me to do?
“Look I really can’t talk about that night.”

“Are you in league with the devil?” Sue demanded.

I gasped. “Of course not!” That was going too far. God and I are on good terms.

“Satan, be gone!” Sue said, taking a menacing step forward. I pushed her away.

Lucy thrust a small gold cross at me and shouted, “That it may not hear the voice of enchanters casting cunning spells!”

“Oh God, my lord, smash their teeth—” Mindy said.

“Smash their—all right, that’s enough. Get out!” I said, pointing to the door.

“Get her!” Jenna ordered. Then they knocked me down and piled on top of me.

“The fallen shall not rise,” Sue said.

“I didn’t fall. I was pushed!” I snapped. We were a mass of scratching fingernails, kicking legs, and tangled hair. I didn’t want to hurt any of them, so I didn’t actually hit anyone with a closed fist. In retrospect, that was a mistake. I should’ve treated them like any killer werewolf or vicious faery that I’d fought the past two weeks. But hindsight is twenty-twenty and foresight is more like twenty-two-hundred.

With my wrists, ankles, and lips duct-taped, all I could do was glare at them when they picked me up and carried me to the back door.

I shouted against the tape. It came out sounding something like, “Mm-errrr-mum-hu-mmurma.” Predictably they ignored my garbled protests. I squirmed and struggled until they dropped me, making me bang my butt and left elbow on the tile floor. Scowling and snarling, they picked me back up.

“Stop moving! You’re only hurting yourself,” Lucy snapped.

“That chocolate sculpture is really great, by the way. It’s going to make a wonderful focal point for the fund-raiser,” Sue said.

What the fudge? They were still expecting to use my work? Not if I had anything to say about it. Unfortunately, at the moment I really didn’t, but I shouted against the tape anyway.

“If you cooperate, maybe you’ll be free in time for the fund-raiser. Wouldn’t that be nice?” Mindy said, sweet as a Stepford wife.

I flailed until they dropped me again. My left butt cheek was going to be one big bruise tomorrow.

Jenna leaned over and grabbed my arm, squeezing hard. “That’s enough,” she hissed.

I glared at her.

“You brought this on yourself, you know,” she said as they lifted me again. “We’re taking you into custody on behalf of DeeDAW.”

Who?
“Uutt?”

“Defending Duvall Against Witchcraft. DeeDAW,” Jenna said triumphantly as they dropped me into a car trunk. “Now be quiet in there.” With that, the lid whumped shut and plunged me into darkness.

My very first chocolatier’s commission, and the clients turned into witch-hunting kidnappers! Apparently, my plan to keep my regular life as a pastry chef separate from my new life as a witch wasn’t going to work out as well as I’d hoped.

Chapter 4

I rolled around the trunk, curling into a ball, trying to get my duct-taped hands around my butt and legs so I’d have them in front of my body. It was like a Cirque du Soleil contortionist audition gone wrong.

Sweating and cursing behind the duct tape over my mouth, I wasn’t in the best mood for company when a greenish orb of light signaled the arrival of Edie, former flapper, former witch, and full-fledged family ghost.

“Surely not,” she said dryly and eyed me with those almond-shaped peridot eyes.

I wriggled like a fish on a hook, some strands of hair plastered to the side of my face, as I tongued the tape over my mouth. If Edie was planning on mocking me, I had to get the tape off so I could get in a retort or two. I continued trying to wrestle my arms to the front of my body.

“What do you want?” I garbled against the tape. I knew it was unintelligible, but it made me feel better anyway.

“Kidnapped by the PTA brigade? Several of whom are dressed in bad shoes and worse lipstick,” Edie said, clucking her tongue. “No part of the face should ever be painted yellow-orange,” she said with a phantom shudder. I did agree that Sue’s lipstick had been kind of pumpkinish. “Someone at the department store really should’ve intervened.”

I stopped to pant as I finally got my bottom wedged between my forearms.

“And them getting the best of a McKenna.” She shook her head, her waved black hair gleaming in the metaphysical light. “Now that you’ve come into your powers, we really have to get you properly trained.”

I dragged my straining arms around my legs, twisting painfully to get my wrists past my ankles. I groaned, jerking my arms forward.

“Well done,” Edie said with a smile. “That can’t have been easy for someone with your flexibility . . . or lack of it.”

I rolled my eyes and yanked the tape off my mouth. “I’m the normal amount of flexible for a human being who still has a skeleton.” I gnawed at the duct tape around my wrists. “I need to carry a knife,” I mumbled, making faces at the unpleasant taste of the adhesive.

“And perhaps a spell or two,” Edie said mildly. “In my day, I’d have brought them to their knees. I must try to remember that Depth of Despair spell, so I can teach it to you.”

“Whythehelldoesducttapehaveto be so sticky?” I complained.

“As interesting as your Houdini routine is, I did have a specific reason for visiting.”

I rubbed my arms together furiously, loosening the tape bit by bit. “What’s up?” I asked before chewing again on the tape.

“I saw Melanie.”

I froze. My momma and her twin sister had been incommunicado for months. “Where is she? Are they okay?”

Edie waved an elegant hand toward mine to encourage me to continue trying to escape. “I suppose that depends on how you define
okay
. She’s healthy, but she’s neglected her powers terribly.”

“What about Momma?”

“I’d like to let Melanie explain everything. Before she can come home though, she’s rather in need of my help.”

“Then go help her! What are you doing here? Wait. Just tell me. Did she find Momma? Does she know if she’s okay?”

Edie gave an exasperated sigh. “All right. I’ll tell you. Marlee found what she was looking for.”

“Her lost love?” I asked excitedly.

“So she calls him. Though how any witch worth her salt could fall in love with a member of the fae is beyond comprehension.”

I smiled. “Well, the fae are awfully pretty in some cases,” I said, thinking about Bryn and his one-quarter selkie genes.

“In any event,” Edie said tightly. “Marlee’s in Faery, and she can’t come home if she hopes to keep him. So she’s stuck there . . . by royal decree.”

I gasped. “How long does she have to stay?”

“I don’t know. Time passes so differently there. Melanie had no idea they’d been gone so long. To her it felt like a couple of weeks.”

“Huh.” I got my right hand free of the tape. “Is Momma happy though? Did Aunt Mel say?”

“Yes, apparently she’s pleased with her descent into—”

“Well, I’d like to meet him. My dad.”

“Absolutely not! They must never know about you. The fae are extremely possessive. Narcissistic. Petty. Nasty.”

“Hey, I’m half. Remember?”

“You’re a witch,” Edie said firmly, making me think that it wasn’t only the fae who were possessive. “Did you know that in the Never, no other magic exists? So Melanie depleted all hers when she went in after Marlee. Now she’s risking life and limb doing a series of power spells just to get back to normal. And that’s why she needs me. I can do the sort of research that she can’t. Ghost gossip. No one knows history better.”