Snuffed Out (Book 2 in the Candlemaking Mysteries) (24 page)

One of my favorite things to do with a
freshly-dipped candle is to twist it. The wax needs to be warm and
flexible for this technique, so it works best on a brand new
candle. Take the warm candle and place it on a hard surface, then
use an old rolling pin to flatten the middle part of the candle.
You need to press firmly here to get the wax flat enough for a
pretty twist. The flattened section should be about half an inch
thick after it’s rolled out. Pick the candle up, grasp the top edge
of the flat section with one hand and the bottom of the flattened
area with the other. Work quickly here, because the wax is cooling.
Gently twist the candle into a spiral until you’ve got a shape you
like, kneading it as you go along.

Another fun thing to do with freshly-dipped
candles is to braid them, just like Harrison and Mrs. Jorgenson do
in the book. Take two or three freshly-dipped candles and put them
on a flat surface. Then, starting from the bottom, plait them into
a braid as you go. It’s as easy as that. Squeeze the candles
together gently before they cool, then check the bottom to make
sure it fits into a candleholder.     

These candles are beautiful to burn, if you
can bring yourself to do it! Don’t worry, though; the great thing
about candlemaking is that you can always make more. Have fun, and
don’t be afraid to experiment. Happy candlemaking!

Cranberry Muffins

I’m a big fan of muffins like Millie makes,
especially cranberry ones around the holidays. The recipe is simple
to use and fills your kitchen with a wonderful aroma as well as
yielding baked treats that taste great.

Ingredients

1 egg

3/4 cup milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil (I like to use
canola)

3/4 cup cranberries, halved

2 cups all purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

This recipe makes about a dozen muffins. I
like to use cupcake sleeves in my muffin pan to make cleaning up
easier. Heat your oven to 400 degrees. Beat the egg, then stir in
the milk and the oil. After that, add the cranberry halves to the
liquid. Mix the dry ingredients together, then add them to the
liquid, using a sifter. Stir just enough to moisten the flour, and
don’t worry if the batter is a little lumpy. Fill the cups about
halfway to three quarters full. You can sprinkle the tops with
sugar before you put them in the oven if you like them a little
sweeter. Bake until the muffins are golden brown—about 20 minutes
should do it—then enjoy.

And now, a peek at DEATH WAXED OVER, book 3
in the Candlemaking mysteries.

DEATH WAXED OVER

By Tim Myers

Chapter 1

I didn’t hear the shot that killed Gretel
Barnett, even though her life was extinguished just fifteen feet
from where I stood. There were too many other explosions filling
the air, happy merriments celebrating New Conover Founder’s Day. It
would have been tragic enough if she’d been a random face in the
crowd, but there was something that made it infinitely worse.
Gretel was my chief competitor, selling candles and supplies two
miles from my own candleshop in Micah’s Ridge, North Carolina. From
the way things appeared, I was going to be running short of wick
myself if I didn’t come up with who had snuffed out her flame.

Two weeks earlier, I’d finally worked up the
nerve to tell my lone employee, Eve Pleasants, that At Wick’s End
was going to have a vendor’s table at the New Conover celebration.
I delayed sharing the news as long as I could, knowing that she
would most likely take it with less than gracious acceptance. I
owned the candleshop, along with the rest of River’s Edge—a former
warehouse and factory now converted into a complex of shops,
offices and my apartment—perched on the edge of the Gunpowder
River. But I was less than the master of my own domain, though I
cherished At Wick’s End, with its aisles full of waxes, wicks and
molds; racks of tools and pots; shelves of powders; tubs of gel and
sheets of honeycombed wax. Most of all, I loved the candles.
Whether squatty and fat or long and tapered, shaped like stars or
bowls, poured into teapots or watering cans, I found beauty in them
all. My Great-Aunt Belle had left me the property, along with a
hefty mortgage and the legal stipulation that I couldn’t sell the
complex until I’d run the candleshop for five years. I never could
have imagined that I’d so quickly grow to love the place.

My Great-Aunt had also left me Eve, an
older, dour, heavyset woman with a knack for candlemaking and a
disposition that forced me to tiptoe around my own business most of
the time. She was my erstwhile assistant and would-be candlemaking
conscience, and little by little, we were finding a way to work
together.

We weren’t there yet, though. She took the
news about like I’d expected. “Harrison Black, I’ve told you before
that we never bothered with that fair. Belle and I didn’t believe
the return on our investment would be worth the trouble and the
expense.”

“
We’re not doing it for the
profit,” I said. “At least not strictly for that,” I added, knowing
that the bottom line was crucial to keeping my shop
afloat.

“
Then why put ourselves
through it?” she asked.

“
With the new candleshop
opening in town, we need to make our presence felt. Let’s face it,
we’re probably going to lose some customers, and they have to be
replaced.” Flickering Lights—our new competition in the form of a
candle franchise that covered the world—was about to open a store
in Micah’s Ridge. Located in the revitalized downtown business
district, it was declaring itself an upscale version of At Wick’s
End all over town. The owner was named Gretel Barnett, a
no-nonsense older woman with stylish silver hair and a trim
waistline. She had introduced herself a month before opening her
shop, coming into At Wick’s End, studying the place with a sharp
eye, then declaring her intention to open a candle franchise of her
own. At least no one could say she had skulked into town. I didn’t
like being portrayed as the thrift version of candleshops in the
area, but so far I hadn’t been able to do anything about it. The
Founder’s Day Celebration was my chance to make a statement of my
own, and I wasn’t about to let it slip by.

“
Do you honestly think it
will help our sales here enough to matter?” Eve asked.

“
It will increase our
profile locally, since New Conover’s not that far away, and I’d say
that’s pretty important. You told me when I first came to At Wick’s
End that you and Belle used to do these street fairs all the
time.”

“
It was always more your
Great-Aunt’s desire than mine.”

It was pretty obvious the direction our
conversation was taking, and there was no way I was going to endure
an entire day at the fair listening to her litany of complaints.
Inspiration suddenly struck. “Eve, you don’t have to go. You can
keep the store open while I’m there.”

“
You can’t run a booth by
yourself, Harrison.”

There was no way I was giving in that
easily. “I’ll get Heather to watch it for me if I need to step away
for a minute or two. We’re setting up side by side.” Heather Bane
ran The New Age, her self-described serenity shop filled with
things like crystals and personal pyramids. Heather’s place was
right next door to my candleshop at River’s Edge, and she was
participating in the fair as well.

Eve huffed once, then said, “I don’t suppose
there’s any way to talk you out of this, is there? Very well, if
you insist, I’ll help you do it correctly.”

“
You know, I think this way
is actually better,” I said. “We might even make a profit if you
stay here and keep the shop open.” If Eve was waiting for me to
tell her I couldn’t do it without her, she was going to be
disappointed. Over the past few months I’d gotten pretty good with
the basics of candlemaking, and there weren’t many questions at the
shop I couldn’t answer on my own, not that I was ready to run the
place without her. Eve taught several of our classes at night, and
I was the first to admit she handled group sessions better than I
did. Still, my income for the store through teaching exceeded hers,
and would continue to do so as long as I had my star student, Mrs.
Jorgenson, a rich dilettante who had suddenly taken a passionate
fancy to candlemaking. Together, we’d explored one-on-one basic
candlemaking techniques for rolled candles and dipped ones as well.
We’d touched briefly on pouring candles, but Mrs. Jorgenson had
recently told me she’d like to get back to that technique before we
got into gel candles, and with what she was paying me for private
lessons, she could certainly dictate our schedule if she wanted to.
It was almost a crime to charge her so much for something I enjoyed
doing, but I had to constantly remind myself that I was in business
to make money.

From her expression, it was pretty obvious
that Eve was wavering, so I decided to end our discussion. “Then
it’s settled. You keep At Wick’s End open for our regular customers
during the fair, and I’ll see what I can do about getting some new
ones.”

Before Eve could protest any more, the bell
over the front door jingled and Pearly Gray, retired psychologist
and current handyman to all of River’s Edge, said, “Harrison, I
need a moment of your time if you can spare it.”

A smooth escape was exactly what I needed.
As I walked over to him, I asked, “What can I do for you,
Pearly?”

He frowned, then said, “I hate to do this to
you right now, but I need a break from my duties.”

Pearly hadn’t taken a day off since I’d
inherited the River’s Edge complex, and I had no idea what
arrangements for vacation he’d made with Belle. “How much time do
you need? We could probably spare you for a week or two if we had
to.”

He looked startled by the offer. “Goodness
no, it’s nothing like that. I just need tomorrow off. I have to
help a friend.” He said the last with his gaze downcast, and I
wondered what kind of help he’d be supplying, but it was none of my
business.

“
That would be fine,” I
said.

“
Thank you, Harrison.”
Pearly grabbed my hand in both of his and shook it vigorously.
After he was gone, I realized that he was much more enthusiastic
with his thanks than he’d needed to be. What was Pearly up
to?

No matter. I really didn’t have time to
delve into my handyman’s private life. I had a table display to
prepare for the event, just one more task I’d never attempted
before in my life. There was one thing I could say about running At
Wick’s End: just when I thought I had a handle on things, something
new popped up to show me just how wrong I was.

I’d finally gotten Eve to accept the idea of
the Founder’s Day table by asking her opinions on my display plans,
and I thought I had her won over when a frown shadowed her
face.

“
What is it now?” I asked.
“Have you thought of another objection to the idea?”

“
It’s not that. Look who’s
coming in.”

I turned to see Becka Lane, my onetime
girlfriend, rush inside At Wick’s End. Her lustrous blonde
hair—usually perfect in appearance—was tousled, and one edge of her
blouse was coming out of her short skirt’s waistband. My sarcastic
comment died in my throat when I saw her face, though. There was a
look of pure, raw fear in her eyes that startled me with its
intensity.

“
Becka, what is it? What’s
wrong?”

She rushed toward me, then glanced back at
the door. “That man...he’s back. He’s after me. Harrison, you’ll
protect me, won’t you?”

“
Protect you from what?” I
looked out the bay window in front of the shop, but I couldn’t see
anyone nearby. “Becka, there’s nobody out there. What are you
talking about?”

She nearly screamed. “Go look for yourself.
I’m telling you, he’s out there.”

I picked up a large wrought-iron candle
stand by the door and walked out of the shop, scanning the parking
lot and walkway in front of the complex. Aside from an elderly
couple looking in the windows of the new antique shop and a group
of young women going into The Pot Shot pottery, there was no one
around.

At I came back inside, Becka grabbed my
shoulder. “Did you see him? Did you?”

“
Nobody’s out there,” I
said.

“
Harrison, he must have
ducked into one of the shops. I’ve never seen his face; he always
hides in the shadows. I’m telling you, he was there a minute
ago.”

I led her to the office in back, offered her
my chair, then took Eve’s regular seat. “You need to take a deep
breath and tell me what’s been happening.” Becka wasn’t my favorite
ex-girlfriend, not after I’d learned about her argument with my
late Great-Aunt Belle just before she’d died, but we’d meant
something to each other once, and I couldn’t turn my back on that.
It would have probably been easier to help a stranger, someone I
had no history with, but regardless of what had gone on before
between us, I couldn’t abandon her now.

“
It started last week,” she
said softly. “At first I thought it was just my imagination, but I
kept getting this creepy feeling that I was being watched, you
know? He’s not going to be content just shadowing me, I realize
that now. He’s trying to engage me in something, but I don’t know
what to do about it.”

“
Are you saying he’s done
something more direct?” I asked.

“
Harrison, I’m not imagining
this. I wouldn’t. He’s stalking me, I know it.”