Chapter 20
Chapter twenty
Willowmere sparkled in the afternoon sun as we finally arrived back home. So much had happened during these few days that it felt strange to see the town unchanged.
Ange’s car stood outside the Blue Moon. Reina ought to have returned too. The crazy coven was about to be reunited.
My friends came by just before dinnertime.
“Where is it? Can we see it?” Ange asked.
“See what?”
“The grimoire. Ms. Vine told us everything about your secret mission.”
“Not very secret then,” I pointed out.
Harper swallowed. “We were a little worried, so she made us hold hands and send you good vibes.”
Maybe that explained why I'd been able to create all these new spells in my head; I'd received unexpected support. “It’s fine, and I appreciate that. What’s the point of having a coven if you don’t include them?”
I made sure the entrance door was securely locked before I led them into the library. The backpack sat underneath my desk.
Ange, Reina, and Harper all glanced past it. I punched the air in triumph. The magic worked.
My friends stared at me.
“Abracadabra.” I bent and retrieved the backpack. Before I took out the grimoire and the spell-book that had led Fay astray, I placed small quartz stones (purchased, not dropped into my lap by a grateful crow) in a large circle.
“You need to space them evenly.” Ange rearranged the stones.
Harper held up her hands, with her palms towards the circle. “I’m ready.”
I deposited the grimoire in the circle.
“It looks so old,” Reina said. “What is the metal for? To bind its powers?”
“That’s possible. I don’t know, at least not yet.”
“Where’s the key?” Harper asked.
I shrugged. “It didn’t come with one. Maybe it’s for the best.” I took out the notebook and placed it next to the grimoire.
“Summons and Spells, From A Student of Magick”, Ange read. “That sounds spooky.”
“You can say that again.”
My crazy coven listened with bated breath as I told them everything that had happened in Crystal Springs.
Cosmo stalked around, as if to emphasize his part.
“But the books are harmless now?” Reina asked.
“I’ll try to keep them hidden, unless Ms. Vine has other instructions for me.”
I returned the two books to the backpack.
I trusted my friends absolutely, but I had no intention to reveal the hidden lair to them.
Too much knowledge could be dangerous when it came to dealing with witches.
I was grateful that Cosmo kept me toeing the line.
Should a bad witch come along, there would be nothing to target my friends for.
I shook off those gloomy thoughts. “I bought something in Crystal Springs that reminded me of you, Harper. Well, of all of us.”
I fetched the shopping bag from Words, Swords, and Wonders and took out the buoy. “Unwrap it,” I said to Harper.
She opened the brown paper. “That’s pretty.”
Our fingers touched as I took the wrapper. The glass buoy flickered.
We all leant closer. Harper clasped my hand.
The buoy began to glow. A hand became visible. On its third finger, a topaz ring gleamed. Then the picture faded.
“What on earth is that?” Ange asked.
I shook my head.
“I’m not an expert.” Reina studied the now perfectly ordinary seeming buoy. “But if I’m right, you’ve brought home a crystal ball, and it gave you and Harper a puzzle to solve.”
“It’s called scrying,” Ange the Wiccan said. “Whoever said midlife is boring hasn’t met us.”
“More magic?” I waited for a physical reaction. My body remained at peace. I touched the crystal ball. It stayed stubbornly vision-free.
Harper touched my hand. The buoy flickered.
“I wish I had a manual.” My gaze flitted to Cosmo who slowly blinked at me, twice.
I smiled. I’d mastered so many weird things already, adding a crystal ball to my witchy arsenal couldn’t faze me. Bex Merriweather, witch for all seasons, that’s who I’d become.
“Let’s take it upstairs and figure out what this means,” I suggested.
Cosmo shook his head.
Ange grimaced. “Sorry, I’ve promised Nick we’d have dinner together.”
“We’ve got to dash too.” Harper watched the buoy with growing fascination. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure this scrying thing out another time.”
When my friends had gone, I hid the grimoire and the other spell-book in the lair behind the floor-to-ceiling bookcase at the back of the library, renewed the cloaking spell, and added the quartz stones for good measure.
I took the buoy and carried it upstairs, with Cosmo by my side.
“You realize what this means.” His tone made it obvious this was a statement, not a question.
“Not exactly.”
“You’re coming closer to unleashing your full powers. Your aunt had books to inform her what people needed from her.”
“I’ve filled that role for months now, including doing the job of the police,” I pointed out.
“And now you’ll be able to do it even better.”
My heart sank.
He rested his paw on my leg. “Cheer up. Crystal balls don’t necessarily mean murder. It’s as likely that they’ll show you something that’s lost, or people you have to bring together. Harmless stuff, but important nevertheless.”
I cheered up again. “That sounds better. It’s much more fun to be a good witch when I bring joy, peace, and harmony to Willowmere. We’ve had more than our fair share of murder.”
I lifted the crystal ball and set it on a sideboard. Surely, I imagined the little titter that followed my statement.
***
A note from the author:
Inner peace. Outer harmony. Another murder…
Bex and Cosmo return in Treachery and Talismans. You can pre-order it now!
Meanwhile, I hope you've enjoyed meeting Adriana and Genie Darling, who first started me on the paranormal mystery path. They have their own series too.
Here's how it all began, in Genie and the Ghost.
Chapter One
“Watch out!” A shrill shriek followed the order. I slammed the door to the cloak room or what I’d taken for the cloak room shut.
“I’m so sorry.” Dahlia Schuyler, a slight septuagenarian with white hair piled up becomingly on top of her head and a black dress that put my own blue affair from the sales at Macy’s to shame, peered at me with concern.
“I should have put a warning sign. Not that Petey would ever do any harm, but the sweet boy can be a bit excitable.”
Indeed. Not to mention that parrot droppings might not exactly be the thing to greet you guests with at a party, or rather soiree as the invitation had stated, I thought.
“I hope he didn’t scare you.” My hostess gave me a probing look, as if to gauge the extent of the damage the shock might have done me.
“Not at all. I like animals.” I hovered, my coat over my arms. It would have been wiser to stay in line to hand the garment to the elderly manservant at the door, but since I planned to spend as little time as possible without being impolite I’d thought it wise to find out where the coats were kept. Or in this case, weren’t.
Dahlia raised her hand and the manservant relieved me of my burden. “If you’ll allow me.”
I graciously nodded to him and followed my hostess to the ball room where the main action took place.
As soon as I entered, a gasp escaped me.
I’d never set foot in here before or even spent more than a few weeks in my ancestor’s hometown of Cobblewood Cove, but ten foot ceilings, crystal chandeliers and period furniture did not feature in the itself not too shabby Darling villa three quarters of a mile away.
Everything here was in incredible taste and probably the real deal, as far as I could tell.
“You must be the niece.” Thin hands mottled with age clasped mine and a powdered cheek briefly came close enough for a fake kiss.
“I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Primrose Schuyler, Dahlia’s sister.
I’m sorry I forgot your name. It comes with the years, I’m afraid.
” Apart from the golden hues of her coiffure she resembled her sister to a striking extent.
Her laughter held a nervous edge. It must be irksome for any woman to admit you’re temporarily at a loss, especially when you and your sister practically run the social register.
Not to mention the local museum, which was the reason I’d sacrificed an evening with a good book and a cat on my lap.
But the Schuyler sisters were too nice to poke fun at.
Rich and kind was a rare combination in my experience.
I gave her my best smile, one that conveyed admiration and respect as well as a touch of familiarity.
After all, they’d once plied me with lemonade and a bandage for my skinned knees after I’d overestimated my rollerblading skills.
“Great-niece, and it’s Genevieve, but please call me Genie.
Everybody does.” I had my mother to thank for a name hardly anyone could pronounce, an accent and vocabulary that were all over the place or rather map, just like I had to thank her for this evening.
“Genie. I’m so sorry about your great-aunt. You remind me of her.” Primrose sighed.
So did I. My great-aunt Lottie, who’d recently gone to her just rewards, had been as eccentric as they come, with a passion for quilting.
She’d even created her own special funeral quilt which she was buried with.
It must have taken her months, if not years, to hand-stitch satin birds and squirrels onto the tiny squares but then she’d lived to a ripe old age.
Although the house had technically come to my mother when I was little, nobody would have dreamt of turfing out my great-aunt.
Or her acreage of quilting materials and tapestries (another passion of hers).
It would have been cruel, apart from the fact that my parents, and I with them, changed countries every couple of years.
My mother had never lived in the house since her wedding day, and moving Lottie in had been both an act of generosity and a way to have someone who loved the place taking care of it.