Inconvenient Murder: An Inept Witches Mystery (7 page)

“You’re lucky I recently set you on fire. Otherwise I’d really give you hell for wearing those out of the house.”

•

Thursday Night

The drive to her aunt’s house, which doubled as the coven’s headquarters, was only about ten minutes—it was a small island. They’d decided they would ask Hazel to do the aura cleansing spell so they could learn from her.

“That way next time one of us is accused of murder and needs our aura cleansed,” Ingrid proclaimed, “we’ll know how to do it. And maybe we won’t drown or catch on fire in the process.”

Once they were seated in the cozy den of the remodeled farmhouse, having explained to Hazel and three more aunts—the other senior witches in the coven—what had happened, Emily’s aunt made short work of the spell while the aunts looked on. Ruth, Kaye, and Sun were never far away from Hazel. The four sisters seemed to orbit each other. They weren’t all sisters in the biological sense—though some were actually blood related—but neither the coven nor Emily allowed for any distinction. Most of the coven was like family.

Turned out it mattered what kind of sage you used. And also, the spell had to be exact with the right hand motions and words.

Hazel’s face held a shadow of what Emily thought might be worry.

She complained to her aunt. “Why does the language have to be perfectly accurate? It seems like the universe should just get the basic idea of what we are after. It’s not like math.”

Hazel’s eyebrows wrinkled up into her pure white hair, clearly exasperated by this comment. But Hazel blew off the comment, instead looking at Emily with a penetrating gaze.

“Your aura is cleansed, Emily.” Her soft voice turned hard. “But there is something else going on with you. What is it?”

Emily shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

But she’d always been a terrible liar.

“Oh my gosh,” Ingrid said. “She lied to you, doves.”

I didn’t want to go into this, Emily thought.

But Hazel pressed. “Out with it. I can’t help you if I don’t know what the problem is.”

Emily noticed the other faces in the room were all staring at her. Everyone present knew that her problem with magic stemmed from the loss of control she’d experienced when she’d still been in high school. With the death of the boy. But nobody was saying it. Kaye was the only elder in the group who was black, but as she listened to Hazel’s question she looked almost pale. Ruth and Sun were perched on the edge of their seats, arms folded across their chests, waiting for Emily to speak.

Were they waiting for her magic to turn fatal like it had before?

Emily sighed.

Still they stared.

There was no way she was getting out of this.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ingrid and could tell by the set of her shoulders that she was paying careful attention.

Great, Emily thought. Ingrid’s not going to let this one go.

“Fine. I’ve noticed that I’ve got some gaps in my memory.” She leaned back in her chair, relieved to have confessed her trouble yet dreading what would invariably come next.

Ingrid laughed. “You are probably having sex and then blocking it out.”

“Really?” All four elders said at the same time, leaning back in their chairs as if their moves were pre-choreographed. And completely ignoring Ingrid’s comment.

That’s all Emily needed—to be their project. It was bad enough they’d had to come here in the first place, asking for help with such a small spell.

Before they could say anything else, Ingrid interjected. “What kind of gaps? How much are you forgetting? Did you wake up in someone’s bed and not know how you go there? Like roofie gaps? How long has this been going on? And most importantly…”

Emily saw the look in Ingrid’s eyes, and though the tone of her voice had an edge to it, there was only softness in her eyes. She’d thought of it already then. If she had gaps in her memory, what if she killed Owen?

Another deep sigh. Great. If she was going to go down for murdering Owen, she should at least have the satisfaction of watching him die.

“I don’t know how long it’s been happening. Maybe a couple months. I will be somewhere and not remember how I got there. Or I’ll have a shopping cart full of groceries and not remember filling up the cart. You know, gaps.”

“You don’t buy groceries,” Ingrid said.

Emily held Ingrid’s gaze, a silent conversation passing between them. Neither of them spoke again, and before Sun picked up the conversation.

“It was only a matter of time.” She was looking at Hazel, who nodded very matter-of-factly.

“True.”

Ruth stared at Emily, her eyes searching Em’s face. Emily felt a chill move through her. Then Ruth turned her attention to Hazel, nodding.

“Yes. Better that we know.”

They started talking amongst themselves, and Emily couldn’t follow what they were saying. They acted like she wasn’t even in the room.

“I knew it.”

“A couple of months? It is developing quickly then.”

“She doesn’t have much time before it becomes a problem.”

“Would you mind filling me in?” Emily interrupted. “What are you talking about?”

“Filling us in,” Ingrid corrected. “What are you talking about?”

As one, Ruth, Sun and Kaye deferred to Hazel, who nodded curtly as if making a decision and turned to face Emily and Ingrid. She took Emily’s hands in her own and spoke very softly, the way one would speak to someone when breaking the news that a loved one had died.

“You’ve neglected your magic, my dear. And in so doing, you have threatened its very existence. It will not be ignored, you see. The blackouts will continue to get worse as your magic tries to flourish. As you tamp it down, it tries to force its way out. Eventually, you will burn out.”

“Such a shame.”

“Yes, she’s so young to lose her magic.”

“Wasteful, really.”

The other elders spoke more to each other than to Emily or Ingrid.

“Wait. I’ve never heard of this before. A witch burning out from not using her magic? That’s crazy.” Emily pouted. “That’s all I need on top of a crazed sheriff who is out to get me.”

Ingrid bristled. “Hey, now. Watch what you say about my man.”

Emily rolled her eyes.

Hazel ignored their banter. “It’s not crazy, dear. You’ve not heard of it because there aren’t many witches who choose not to use their gifts.”

“But what about Ingrid? She doesn’t do anything with her magic. She’s not having blackouts.” She turned to Ingrid. “Are you?”

“No, if I were,
I
would have told you.”

Emily ignored the accusation.

“Well?” Emily waited for her aunt to answer her.

“But Ingrid does use her magic, isn’t that right?”

“Yup,” Ingrid said. “Every morning when I freshen my face and make coffee. Whenever I buy new heels. But I don’t know anything real witches do.”

Hazel nodded, and the other three elders followed suit.

“You are giving your magic an outlet, and that’s enough. Emily’s is all bottled up. She’s got to use it. Or she’ll lose it.”

They were all talking around her now, and Emily had enough. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

She stood up as if to leave, and Hazel interrupted her.

“How are your feet, Emily?”

Emily paused, turning to look at her aunt. “Oh, the burns? Ingrid put aloe on them. They’re fine.”

“They’re better than fine, Em. Take a look.”

Emily sat back down and pulled of her slippers, socks and bandages. Her feet were perfectly healthy and pink.

“How in the world? That is pretty powerful aloe.”

Hazel shook her head. “It wasn’t the aloe. Ingrid healed you.”

Ingrid’s turn to look pale. “No, I didn’t. I just put the cream on.” She looked at Emily. “I swear.”

Hazel chuckled, laughing at the girls. “Ingrid, you have about as much control over your magic as my eleven-year-old great-niece, Mackenzie. You accidentally healed Emily. It’s not the first time you’ve done something by accident is it?”

Now Emily was irritated, even though she was glad her feet were better. “You mean that you couldn’t do a spell on purpose without catching me on fire, but without meaning to, you healed me? That’s just crazy. As crazy as when you cursed Harrison to not have an erection for a few months.”

Hazel looked sternly at Ingrid, who started laughing at the memory.

“No more curses,” Hazel ordered Ingrid.

After a short lecture from Hazel—and Ruth, Kaye and Sun—about the importance of learning to use her magic, Emily agreed to take home the spell book they offered and both promised that they’d do their best.

Hazel waved from the porch. “Remember, dear. Use it or lose it.”

Emily and Ingrid shut the doors to their car and sneered in unison. “Use it or lose it,” and then laughed hysterically. Like two hysterical pre-teens.

6

Friday Morning

Ingrid watched the sheriff as he walked down the street. His jeans were the perfect amount of tight and his shirt was the perfect amount of snug next to those lovely abs. He was heading to the bookshop, probably to interrogate Emily again. It was possible Ingrid spent too much time lusting after Hotpants.

Em was out. She’d gone for food. Ingrid wanted tacos, and Emily was indulging Ingrid and distracting herself by hunting some up. She hoped Em was feeling chatty with the taco guys because she wouldn’t mind a few minutes alone with Sheriff Hotpants.

She hadn’t gotten him to look at her or flirt with her since they’d found dickhead’s body. It was super frustrating because she really, really wanted him.

Pretty much in every way.

She made her way to the newly installed espresso machine and made a drink for Gabe, using her magic with ease. She could sense that he wanted a froufrou coffee today. Something frothy and almost too-sweet. She warmed her straight black, perfect coffee and turned to him as he opened the door to the shop. The scent of his cologne mixed with the dust of the shop, and she told herself yet again to just hire a cleaner and a bookshop manager.

It was ridiculous anyway. There was no way that she and Em would ever be reliable enough to keep the shop running at a profit. They needed someone uptight like the coven elder, Sun. All full of plans and willing to focus on charts and pie graphs and stuff.

Most of the people on the island knew that there were witches among them. They bought love spells and wart removers from the ones they knew were witches and pretended they didn’t know whenever anyone was around who’d think they were crazy for believing.

“Hello,” Gabe said. Just everything about him was perfect. He had a low voice, gravelly but not deep. Harrison’s voice was deep and low. Too often like a bull. Now, Ingrid found the sound of deep voices irritating. She wondered idly as she looked Gabe over if she ever really loved Harrison or if he was just easy.

But she knew she had loved Harrison.

Even still, the changes she’d made to make him happy made her sad now that he was gone.

“Hello,” Ingrid replied. She handed Gabe the coffee, watched him take a sip, and waited for his grin. It was wide, full, and made laugh lines around his eyes. She liked those laugh lines very much.

He grinned just as she wanted him to. The coffee was as perfect for him as she wanted to be.

“Emily around?”

Ingrid shook her head before explaining. “She’s off for food. She doesn’t cook. Ever. And my kitchen smells like smoke. Though come to think of it, I don’t cook either.”

“Burn your toast?”

“Spell gone awry.” He froze as she spoke, but she wasn’t going to play coy about her magic. She’d pretended she wasn’t a witch for Harrison. It made him uncomfortable. She wasn’t denying an intrinsic part of herself any longer. Not that she wanted to get good at magic. She didn’t. But she wasn’t going to pretend she wasn’t part of the coven and able to set things on fire with her mind. Besides, she really did want babies, and the man needed to know that her children would set things on fire when they threw a tantrum.

“You guys do a lot of spells?”

She knew the question for what it was—a piece of his investigation—but she answered honestly. “I don’t think Emily has done a spell in years. Skin isn’t as perfect as mine,” Ingrid said, “without magic. Nor are high heels as comfortable as mine and clothes as unlikely to experience stains.”

“You could cure disease with magic.” He said it like a question, so she answered.

“Some witches could.”

“But you make your high heels comfortable.”

“I like shoes.” Ingrid took another sip of her coffee. “My makeup doesn’t smear either. We can’t all be geniuses.”

“What were you doing last night?”

Again with the interrogation. That wasn’t how she wanted the flavor of this to be at all. “We were trying to clear Emily’s aura. We’re not very good at magic.”