The Witch and the Dead (4 page)

T
he cause of death.

The phrase was still foremost in my thoughts a few hours later as I carried a moving box toward my new house.

In front of Terry's place, I carefully scooted around a cluster of tourists gathered on the sidewalk in front of Archie's cage, glad I'd decided to leave Missy and Annie at Ve's for now. It was hard enough to navigate with just the box.

Archie was singing “Climb Ev'ry Mountain” in appropriately dramatic fashion and winked at me as I passed by.

Which reminded me that I needed to talk to Evan sooner rather than later about finding Archie some sort of role in the play. Knowing Archie, he undoubtedly wanted a lead. Knowing Evan, he wouldn't give it to
him, even if it had been a play about a chatty scarlet macaw. The two had a bit of a love/hate relationship.

I had an idea for something that Archie would be great at, but getting Evan to agree to it might be tricky. I wasn't above begging, however.

A police car rolled by, and I wondered how long it would take to learn how Miles was killed or why his body was in Ve's garage. She and Marcus had gone to the police station to answer questions, and Harper had tagged along for moral support. I had high hopes Ve would be cleared soon enough. As far as I was concerned, my first step in making that happen for my aunt was talking with Dorothy Hansel Dewitt.

Unfortunately, discussions with Dorothy rarely ended well, so I wasn't looking forward to the conversation in the least.

I glanced ahead and noticed a pickup truck parked in my driveway. The vehicle had been a familiar sight over the past few months since it belonged to Henry “Hank” Leduc, the contractor who'd been in charge of renovating my house. He stood at the truck's tailgate, one hand on his toolbox, the other on his hip. He wasn't alone.

I slowed my steps, watching the pair carefully. Hank, the nephew of Terry Goodwin, looked a lot like his uncle. Which was to say he looked a lot like Elvis. If Terry was a dead ringer for the singer, Hank could pass as a decent impersonator. In his mid-thirties, he had the same dark wavy hair, prominent jaw, high cheekbones, and full cheeks as the famous musical icon. Under the brim of a ball cap, heavy-lidded blue eyes intently studied the woman next to him. A woman who happened to possess eyes even bluer than his own.

Starla Sullivan, one of my best friends and Evan's twin sister, had her hands shoved into the pockets of her
coat as she talked to Hank a mile a minute while rocking on her booted heels. Her long blond hair was tied back in a simple ponytail that swung as she continued to chatter and flash broad smiles. A camera hung from her neck, and a purple multipocketed waist apron was tied around her hips. As owner of Hocus-Pocus Photography, she often roamed the village as part of her job, snapping pictures of tourists that they could then purchase at her shop at the other end of the square. She also freelanced for the
Toil and Trouble
, the local newspaper.

By the looks of her, she was either flirting shamelessly or asking a favor.

I leaned toward the latter, but I wasn't certain. Even though Starla had been dating Vincent Paxton, owner of Lotions and Potions, a bath and body shop, for nearly a year now—and they cared for each other deeply—they had some issues. The first and foremost being that he was a mortal and she was a witch. Her main craft was as a Wishcrafter, but she was half Bakecrafter, too. The exact opposite of her brother.

And Vince wasn't just a mortal; he was a Seeker, a mortal who was obsessed with witchcraft. When I first met him he had been convinced—despite the Craft's best efforts to keep itself a secret—that witchcraft truly existed and wanted nothing more than to become a witch himself. After becoming a suspect in the murder of another Seeker, he'd cut back on talking about witches.

And since dating Starla, he'd toned down his obsession even more, but he hadn't stopped Seeking completely. Every once in a while he tried to engage one of us in a conversation about witches. We always shut down the talk quickly. Telling a mortal of our powers, even accidentally, was a huge violation of Craft law, and the penance was often the loss of powers.

Despite Vince's desire to become a witch, he was out of luck. Crafting was hereditary. There was no way to become a full witch without having been born with magical abilities. Vince
could
be adopted into our culture, albeit with no powers, if he married Starla. But only if she was willing to give up her own magic in exchange for telling him.

Many Crafters opted to share the Craft secret when marrying a mortal because the price of lying to someone you truly loved was too high. My mother had told my father; Nick's former wife, Melina, had told him. But so far Starla wasn't willing to make that sacrifice, but she was growing more and more weary of keeping the secret.

Neither Hank nor Starla noticed me as I approached.

“Hi there,” I said tentatively, giving both a quizzical glance as I placed the box on the ground. “Everything okay here?”

“Everything's great, Darcy,” Hank said. “I just stopped by to finish up the punch list.”

Hank was a witch, with Manicrafting being his primary ability. As a Mani, he could work magic with his hands, and he put his talent to good use with his construction company.

“And I,” Starla added, “was on my way over to Ve's when I saw Hank. I made a quick detour so I could attempt to sweet-talk him into joining your scenery crew. He'd be a natural at building the sets for the play.” She smiled at him, a thousand watts of enchanting charm. “But he hasn't given me an answer yet. What do you say, Hank?”

So it
had
been a favor she'd been asking. He hadn't stood a chance, poor guy. I was pretty sure there wasn't a man alive who could say no to Starla's smile.

Hank didn't prove me wrong.

He tipped his head back and laughed. “Okay, okay. I'll do it. Tomorrow afternoon?”

“Two o'clock at the playhouse,” she said, her face alight with happiness. “You've already missed the initial meeting of who's who and what's what, but that's the boring part anyway.”

“Hey!” I protested.

She said, “You know I'm right.” Then to Hank, she added, “Don't forget to bring your tools.”

“Actually, we have tools,” I explained to him. “We have all the supplies you'll need.”

Starla smiled that enchanting smile again. “But I bet Hank's tools are better. He's probably more comfortable with them.”

I slid her a look. She didn't notice because she was still grinning at Hank.

Maybe she'd been asking a favor
and
flirting.

If so, it was going to make the gathering tomorrow a bit awkward, as Vince was going to be there as well.

“I'll be there.” Hank smiled back at her, a long, lingering look, then turned to me. “What's going on at Ve's?”

Starla said, “Someone told me an ancient burial ground was found in Ve's backyard, the bones of old witches that had been burned at the stake.” She shuddered dramatically. Archie would have been proud.

This village and its gossip were impressive at times. “It was the garage. Bones yes, witches no.” I explained to them about finding the skeleton.

“Who is it?” Starla asked.

“We don't know for certain, but we think it's Ve's second husband, Miles Babbage. He disappeared shortly after they eloped thirty years ago.”

“Poor Ve,” Hank said.

I nodded, because I didn't want to get into the dynamics of the relationship.

“What happened to the guy?” Hank asked. “I mean, why was he in her garage?”

“Million-dollar question,” I said.

“Did you say Babbage?” Starla asked.

“Yeah, why? Do you know a Babbage?” Starla would have been a baby when Miles disappeared, and the surname was unfamiliar to me. There wasn't another Babbage in the village that I knew of.

She said, “No, I don't think I do. I just feel like I know that name somehow. I can't place it, though.”

“Well, if it comes back to you, let me know. I've been asked by the Elder to investigate the matter.”

Frowning, she nodded.

All the Crafters in the village knew I worked for the Elder, but not many knew the Elder was my mother. Starla did, but Hank did not. The order of secrecy was in place to protect the Elder's powers from being used or abused, but now that I knew who she was, I suspected the directive was created to protect her family as well.

Starla said, “If anyone can figure it out, you can, Darcy. Your track record speaks for itself.”

“Thanks. I'm hoping it's an easy case, for Ve's sake.”

“Give her my condolences, will you?” Hank said.

I had the feeling Ve would be receiving lots of condolences she didn't want. “I will.”

He closed the tailgate on his truck, then turned to me and handed me a key ring. “Your keys. I'm done here, so I won't need them anymore. Just call if anything comes up.”

“I can't thank you enough,” I said, meaning it. Four months ago my house had been a dilapidated mess. Hank and his crew had practically rebuilt it from the ground up, using a little bit of magic along the way. Okay, a lot of magic. The house had been a disaster.

“You're welcome. I've got to head out, but like I said, call if you need me. See you tomorrow.”

Starla and I waved as he backed out of the driveway.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Starla turned to me. “Okay, Darcy Merriweather, what's really going on with the bones in Ve's garage? Because I know you well, and you didn't tell us everything. I want all the details.”

S
tarla did know me well.

She said, “I heard something in your voice earlier. What's the real story?”

I picked up the box at my feet; then I motioned for her to follow me into the house. As we slowly walked, I quickly told her about Miles' sketchy history, the mysterious elopement, and Ve's dislike of the man.

“That doesn't bode well for Ve, does it?” she said softly.

Painted a dark purple with gold lettering that visually popped, the beautifully carved
AS YOU WISH
sign hung from a bracket on one of the front-porch columns. The sign had been moved from Ve's to here, where I'd added one alteration. A smaller version of the original now dangled from a chain attached to the bottom of the sign. Its golden letters read
BY APPOINTMENT ONLY
.
When I took over the company, I decided the days of drop-in clients needed to end.

“On the surface it doesn't look good for Ve, but hopefully there will be some kind of evidence that will clear her name right off the bat. That way the police can focus on other possible suspects.”

The front door opened into a wide entryway flooded with sunlight. To my left, Craftsman-style pocket doors closed off my office space, keeping As You Wish separate from the rest of the house. To my right was a wide set of turned wooden stairs. They were protected by an aqua-and-cream floral carpet runner in a subtle daisy pattern that would hopefully not only keep the treads safe from the dogs but the dogs safe from the slippery steps. In the angled nook below the staircase, Nick had designed and crafted custom bookshelves. Currently the shelves were empty, and I couldn't wait to fill them. When Nick moved in, we planned to add a couple of upholstered chairs and a side table from his current house to the space.

I'd been moving in slowly over the past couple of weeks and was still getting used to this new space. Tonight was to have been the first night I slept here, but now with what had happened with Ve, I wondered if I should postpone that. . . .

As if reading my mind, Starla said, “Are you still planning to move in here today?”

“I don't know. I'm leaning toward staying with Ve, at least for the weekend.”

“She probably shouldn't be alone.”

I nodded. “I'm also hoping that during that time she'll elaborate on why she's afraid the case will be solved.”

“It is rather odd that she wouldn't want to know what happened.” Starla looked around the entryway and
said, “I know I've said it a hundred times, but this place is incredible.”

I placed the box down on the area rug near the door. This space had once been the main living room, which had been relocated to the back of the house, in the new addition. “Hank works a special kind of magic.”

Hank and his crew had outdone themselves, creating something I didn't even know I'd wanted. He'd taken my ideas to add “an addition” and Nick's suggestion of “more windows” and Mimi's plea for a “reading nook” and he designed a dream home.

My and Nick's and Mimi's dream home.

Even though everything was brand-new in here, the design had kept much of the original Craftsman-cottage feel of the old house. Unlike the original, however, most of the ornate woodwork was now painted a soft white, with only a few natural-wood touches, like the floor, Nick's shelves, and the butcher-block top on the kitchen island.

Tall flat-panel wainscoting decorated the hall and stairway, the white panels contrasting beautifully with the creamy sand-colored paint. There was a storage closet and a small powder room at the end of the hallway on the right, just before the hallway ended, opening dramatically into the vaulted main living space.

“He really does work magic,” Starla said as she followed me down the hallway, our footsteps echoing on the sun-soaked oak floor. “He's amazing.”

I turned and looked at her head on. I lifted an eyebrow.

Redness bloomed in her cheeks. “What?”

“What, what?” I asked, teasing.

She darted past me into the kitchen. “Why are you staring at me that way?”

“You like him.”

I knew her well, too.

“Like? Who? Hank?”

“Of course Hank.”

She adjusted her camera strap. “I don't know what you mean.”

Oh boy. I dropped my voice and singsonged, “You really li-i-i-ike him.”

Her cheeks now flamed red. She opened her mouth, closed it. Finally, she said, “He's just a friend. Vince . . .”

I grabbed the teakettle and filled it with water, and then set the kettle on the stovetop. “How is Vince these days?”

As I waited for her answer, I crossed the room and grabbed two mugs from the built-in hutch behind where she sat at the island, which was one of my favorite pieces in the house. Nick had designed it and Hank had built it. While the rest of the cabinetry in the kitchen was ivory white and the countertops a sparkling gray-and-white quartz, the island stood out with its deep Nantucket blue base and its dark butcher-block top.

Starla sighed. “He's . . .”

Grabbing two tea bags from one of the four colorful owl-shaped canisters on the counter, I waited for her to finish. Mimi had chosen the ceramic owls, and I loved them almost as much as I did the island.

When Starla didn't answer, I faced her and prompted, “He's . . . ?”

She turned her hands palms up as she shrugged. “Things have been a little strained lately.”

I knew. “Has it worsened?”

“I've been thinking about going to see the Elder about him.”

Even though she knew my mother was the Elder, she still referred to her as such. Old habits died hard. “Why?” The kettle began to hiss. “What happened?”

“I think he's Seeking again. A lot. I'm starting to question whether he ever cut back at all.”

We all thought he'd changed his ways when he fell for Starla. And maybe for the most part, he had.

Except for the Seeking.

I had personally gone to bat for Vince, convincing him to stay in the village after he and Starla hit a rough patch last winter.

I didn't want to believe I'd made a mistake believing in him, but I was starting to think I had.

It made me feel sick to my stomach.

She went on. “He keeps wanting to take pictures of me. I have to recite the Lunumbra spell every single day now. I've always memory-cleansed him in the past when my photos didn't turn out, because of all his questions. Now I wonder if he's been taking pictures of me when I didn't realize it. Why else would he be so fascinated with taking my picture?”

The spell was the one that allowed Wishcrafters to be visible on film and video. As she explained, I went about gathering spoons and napkins, and because I didn't have a sugar shaker yet, I put the whole sugar-filled owl canister on the island. “It's a good question.”

“And lately I've been finding witchcraft books in his house,” she went on. “Not just one or two but ten, fifteen. I've seen Web pages bookmarked on his computer for witchcraft sites. And not only that, but sorcery sites as well.”

The kettle whistled and I quickly pulled it from the heat and shut off the flame. The witchcraft fascination was one thing, because Vince wasn't likely to find anything related to our particular Craft. There was very little out in the world related to our kind of magic. I think Harper had found the only book in existence about it, hidden in the basement of the bookshop, and she had that one under lock and key.

Sorcery, however, was another matter altogether. Much of it was dark magic that anyone could practice with no rules. And it was powerful. Extremely.

This was a disturbing twist.

“Do you think he's been using any of it?” I poured water into the cups and steam plumed. “The sorcery?”

“I don't think so. I mean, I'd feel it, wouldn't I? A disturbance in my force, or something like that? I think it's just a matter of time, though. But right now, that's not the most upsetting thing about this. . . . As you know, his birthday was a few days ago.”

I smiled. “That's upsetting?”

“It's what he
wanted
for his birthday, Darcy.”

I sat on a stool. Ordinarily I'd have wiggled my eyebrows and teased her, but her demeanor told me this wasn't a laughing matter. “Oh?”

“He bought two of those DNA kits that trace ancestry and wanted me to do one with him. I couldn't. I'm not sure anything wacky will show up because I'm a witch, but I can't take that risk. Crafting is hereditary. There has to be something within us that's not quite normal. Vince and I had a huge fight about it because I refused to take the test. He's not just a Seeker, oh no. He finally admitted to me that he's convinced he's a witch—or, in his words, a ‘warlock.'”

Crafters didn't use that description for males within our society. “Witch” was used universally. “Did you try to talk him out of it?”

“Not really. I was too scared that in the heat of the moment, I would say something that as a
mortal
I shouldn't know. I was hoping that ignoring him would work, but then he went off and hired Glinda to help him trace his ancestry.”

Glinda Hansel was a former village police officer turned PI. We'd once been adversaries but were slowly
piecing together a strange sort of friendship. As a witch herself, surely she wouldn't string Vince along. . . .

“I'll talk to her,” I said. “See if she can convince Vince to let this all go.”

“I was hoping you'd say that, because you know I don't want to do it. Talk to her, that is . . .” Starla bit her lip. “She finally apologized, by the way. In person. With flowers. And what looked like actual remorse.”

“She did? When?”

“A few weeks ago. She said she was trying to make things right in her life and had a lot of regret for what she'd done to me. She said she'd been wrong, plain and simple, and that she was very sorry.”

Glinda didn't like to admit when she was wrong, let alone apologize.

“Did you accept the apology?” I asked.

Glinda had made her bed, so to speak, with Starla last January. It had been an emotionally painful experience that had taught us all some valuable lessons.

“I did. Darcy, you know I forgave her a long time ago, but it was nice to get the apology. What she did to me . . .” She took a deep breath. “Although I didn't agree with her methods, of course, when I put myself in her shoes and looked at that situation through her eyes, I could understand—a little—why she'd done the things she did.”

It was part of Starla's inner magic—her ability to look outside herself, her feelings, and understand someone else's point of view. It was one of the things I loved most about her.

“But,” she went on, “I'm not sure I'll ever be able to be friends with her. I'm not entirely sure how you're able to do it.”

We'd had this conversation before. I'd been afraid Starla would see my relationship with Glinda as being
disloyal, but Starla had set my heart at ease. I laughed. “It's getting easier.”

“She does seem different lately. You think it's Liam? Or Mimi?”

Glinda had fallen in love with Liam Chadwick, Starla's former brother-in-law. They lived together with their dog, Clarence, who was a lovable golden retriever. As for Mimi . . . when they'd first become friends, I fully believed Glinda had insinuated herself into Mimi's life solely to get closer to Nick, as she'd had a crush on him at the time. And maybe that had been true. But somewhere along the line, Glinda had come to love Mimi deeply, and Mimi loved her like a favorite aunt.

“Love is powerful motivation to change. But I like to think she finally recognized she wasn't the person she wanted to be and decided to live a different life.”

“I hope that's true. Because to truly change who you are, it has to come from within.”

I nodded.

“Anyway,” Starla said, “if she can convince Vince to drop this witch-hunt of his, I'd like her a little more.”

Smiling, I said, “Sounds like it's been rough between the two of you lately.”

“We've been fighting constantly, and not just about the witch stuff. It's wearing on me.”

Starla added a little bit of sugar to her tea and dunked her tea bag mercilessly. “His Seeking isn't necessarily a secret, but I highly suspect he believes I'm a witch and is looking for confirmation.”

Suddenly chilled, I held my mug between my hands for warmth. I didn't know what to say.

“And not only that,” she added. “I'm now questioning whether he's always suspected it. Is it why he pursued me so relentlessly? Was I so desperate to be loved again that I was blind to his true motives?”

“No,” I said firmly. “Don't even think that. There's
no question that Vince is a complicated person, but if there's one thing I know for certain about him, it's how much he cares for you—whether you're a witch or not.”

She sighed. “I don't think I can be in a relationship where I'm going to have to be constantly on guard. Is he going to try to get my DNA some other way? Is he going to pluck a hair or test my toothbrush?”

If he was on a quest, I wouldn't put it past him. Seekers tended to have one-track minds.

With a spoon she scooped up the tea bag, then wrapped the string around both, effectively wringing out the bag. She placed the spoon on a napkin and looked at me, her sky blue eyes filled with confusion. “I don't know what to do.”

“If you take his Seeking out of it, how do you feel about him? Do you still love him?”

She slid her mug from side to side between her hands. “I'll probably always feel something for him, but . . .”

“What?”

“I'm just not
in love
with him anymore. In fact, I've been thinking about it, and I don't even like him very much these days. I don't think I can be with him anymore
and
keep the secret that I'm a witch. And if I have to choose between the two, I choose being a witch.” She held my gaze. “And I think that tells me all I need to know about the relationship, because if I truly loved him, heart-and-soul loved him, like I did with Kyle, then there wouldn't be a moment's hesitation to tell him the truth about the Craft.”