Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Murder Board Without a Murder
Gideon
The back room of the Mystic Menagerie smelled faintly of herbs, old books, and whatever Declan had baked that afternoon. Lemon, maybe? I caught the scent the moment I stepped through the doorway, and my wolf perked up.
The weekly Misfit Monsters’ meeting was about to get underway.
Hazel sat in her normal chair, knitting needles clicking steadily as she worked on a bright purple scarf that pooled over her lap.
Tulip had claimed a chair, but someone, I was guessing Declan, had placed a waterproof mat beneath it.
Az lounged nearby with his arms folded, looking like the entire world had offended him. I chuckled to myself, grumpy demon.
Sandy sat cross-legged in his spot, and I was pleased to see that Perry was hovering over near the snack table. I knew being around so many people in a small space made him anxious, but I thought he needed these meetings whether he wanted them or not.
Elwood stood at the front of the room beside the table we used whenever the group met. George the mouse peeked from the pocket of his linen shirt like a tiny gray spectator. And Declan. He stood next to Perry, opening a container that held whatever snack he’d baked for us tonight.
My wolf’s attention sharpened. He smelled sugar and citrus and warm butter. Declan’s baking, no matter what, was becoming one of my favorite smells in the world.
He glanced up when he noticed me and smiled. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
Elwood clapped his hands together lightly. “Excellent. Now that everyone’s here, we can begin.”
Declan slid into the chair beside me, his knee bumping mine under the table, and I smiled at him before I pressed my leg against his. My wolf was pleased at the contact.
Before Elwood could start, Hazel glanced up from her knitting. “Oh, good,” she said. “We can finally find out what happened with the hex.”
Tulip straightened. “Hex?”
Elwood cleared his throat. “Yes, we’ll get to that. But first, does anyone have anything they want to talk about? We do have another of Leon’s festivals going on, which means lots of humans here in our little town.”
Everyone looked around, waiting for someone to go first. Finally, Az rolled his eyes and cleared his throat.
“Fine, I guess I can start. It’s bad enough that I have to deal with all the humans who normally frequent my shop, but during festival week, we get so many people who’re just window shopping.
They come in and touch everything. Why? Why do humans need to touch things they aren’t going to buy?
Now all the books smell…”—he paused dramatically, and wrinkled up his very proper nose like he’d smelled something rancid—“common.”
“Well,” Tulip said. “I stay in my pond far away from them. I stay alert, though, in case any humans get close enough for me to…”
“To do nothing,” Elwood said firmly. “Because we don’t bother the humans. Do we, Tulip?”
She crossed her arms and pouted but mumbled, “No, we don’t bother the humans.”
To my surprise, Perry spoke next. “I had a few of what Az called Karens, but other than that, my weekend has gone pretty good. I like it in my food truck. I have the small windows to take orders and pass out the food, but other than that, I feel pretty hidden inside there.”
Sandy beamed at him. “If you decide to have a food truck of your own, I could work the front for you. You know, like I could be your truck's hype man. I could take orders and hand out the food, and you could just cook. That would be super fun!”
I swear I thought I saw Perry blush at the idea, but he just nodded at Sandy and said, “Maybe someday.”
“Well, I haven’t attended the festival,” Hazel said, primly. “Beer guzzling isn’t my thing, nor is it my Mister’s.”
“And yet you signed us up for Sip and Stretch,” Declan grumbled.
“That’s different, dear. That’s to support my friend Kim’s yoga studio. She’s hoping that maybe if she serves the beer, people will stop complaining about the awful smell of the brewery next door.”
Elwood glanced around the room and waited for a minute to see if anyone else was going to talk, and when no one did, he nodded. “Okay, if no one else has anything they want to share, we can move on to the hex mentioned earlier. Declan, do you want to start?”
The whole group leaned forward in their chairs, eager to hear the gossip. Hazel even stopped knitting.
Declan glanced at me, and I gave him a small nod. From what Elwood told me when they returned, he’d handled himself well earlier at Ivan’s. Better than he realized.
He cleared his throat. “Well… Ivan’s beer was definitely tampered with.”
Declan explained what they’d discovered.
The sour lager. The strange magic woven through the beer.
The hex bag the raven had found outside Ivan’s house.
I noticed he didn’t mention Elwood telling him the raven was his familiar, but it didn’t surprise me.
I’d figured out that Declan needed time to process things before he was comfortable with them, but eventually, he’d get there.
By the time he finished, every person in the room looked concerned.
Every person except Eugene. The shadow imp clung to the corner of the ceiling near the bookshelf. Normally, he lurked there like living darkness, but tonight, he looked… energized. His shadow flickered with restless movement.
Hazel followed my gaze.
“Oh yes,” she said knowingly. “He’s been like that all evening.”
“Why?” Declan asked.
“Because Elwood said the meeting involved a mystery.”
Declan blinked. “Oh.”
At that moment, the lights flickered slightly, and a shadow stretched across the wall. Eugene’s dark shape flowed downward like spilled ink, and then—it changed.
The shadow formed the silhouette of a tiny man in a trench coat. A detective with his hat tilted low, collar turned up, and a magnifying glass raised dramatically.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Tulip leaned forward in her chair.
“Is he… doing shadow puppets?”
Sandy gasped softly. “Oh my gosh.”
The detective silhouette adjusted its hat and scanned the room with exaggerated seriousness.
Declan stared up at the wall, delighted. “Has he done that before?”
“No,” Elwood said.
George popped up out of Elwood’s pocket and began making a chattering noise that seemed to be directed towards the shadow detective, or I guess towards Eugene, since he was the shadow detective.
The detective froze and looked right in George’s direction before nodding enthusiastically.
George scurried down Elwood’s shirt and then down his pants leg before jumping clear and landing on the floor.
He stopped right in front of the detective, stood up on his back legs, then fell dramatically backward, landing on his back, legs splaying out in all four directions.
We all gasped, but George lifted his head, and I swear to you, he winked at us. The freaking mouse winked before dropping his head back and resuming his death pose. The detective used his magnifying glass to examine the dead body.
Elwood let out a deep sigh and then said, “Eugene.”
The shadow detective froze.
“No one has been murdered.”
The shadow puppet show collapsed.
Sandy covered his mouth. “Oh no.”
Tulip reached up and patted the wall sympathetically. “Poor Eugene.”
Declan was still staring at the wall in awe, and I understood why. I’d never seen Eugene that animated before, and I was glad he’d shown that to us. Declan leaned toward me with a quiet smile. “Do you think Eugene’s disappointed there’s no need for a murder board?”
“Very.”
He chuckled softly, and Elwood cleared his throat bringing the meeting back on track.
“As Declan was saying, Ivan’s beer was hexed. The spellwork was crude but effective. Unfortunately, the contents of the hex bag haven’t given us any new leads.”
Hazel pursed her lips thoughtfully. “A young witch, perhaps.”
“Or an idiot,” Az muttered.
Tulip cracked her knuckles. “Either way, we should find them.”
“No hunting,” Elwood warned.
Tulip rolled her eyes.
Declan rubbed his arms. “The magic in the beer felt wrong,” he admitted quietly. “Like something crawling under my skin.”
Several heads turned toward him, and Elwood nodded approvingly. “That’s your instincts developing.”
Declan looked a little embarrassed by the attention.
But I was proud of him. He’d sensed the corruption in the beer almost immediately. For someone who’d only discovered his magic a few weeks ago, that wasn’t beginner’s luck.
“Improper spellwork tends to escalate,” Elwood continued. “Anger or greed-fueled magic is unpredictable. Whoever cast that hex may not understand what they started.”
Az leaned back in his chair. “So the situation could get worse.”
Movement flickered across the wall again. The shadow detective had returned.
Elwood glanced at the wall and shook his head. “Our goal is to figure out who cast the hex before that happens, so we need a plan. Anyone have any thoughts?”
“Is there any way we can see the other entries?”
“Right,” Sandy said enthusiastically. “Maybe Ivan’s wasn’t the only one hexed.”
Declan gasped. “And maybe it wasn’t just the beer.”
We all turned and looked at him, waiting for him to finish.
“Remember how disappointed Malcolm was? He said he mailed his application in plenty of time, but they didn’t receive it. Which is too bad since his was actually pretty good for beer. I didn’t even have to force myself to drink it.”
I looked to Elwood. “A hex to make his application get lost in the mail. Is that possible?”
“Sure. If the witch could get it close enough to Malcolm like she did with Ivan.”
Declan grimaced. “So what keeps witches from cheating like this all the time?”
Elwood shrugged. “Ethics, morals, knowing right from wrong. The same things that keep any creature from doing bad things. Anyway, everyone keep your eyes and ears open. Ravenstone isn’t known for keeping secrets, so if you hear or see anything, let Gideon know.”
Everyone nodded in agreement, and the meeting was called to an end. As the room slowly emptied, I glanced back at the wall.
Eugene’s shadow lingered there, and then for a moment, the detective silhouette returned.
“Eugene?”
The shadow detective formed a cheerful thumbs-up, and Declan laughed.
My wolf stirred uneasily. Elwood was right, magic created out of malice was prone to get out of control, and whoever had hexed Ivan's brew hadn’t been good or ethical.
I didn’t like the idea of a rogue witch causing problems in my town, but with a town full of outsiders and lots of beer, Grady had his hands full keeping the peace, so if someone was going to track down our troublemaker before things escalated, it was going to have to be me.
I watched the wall a moment longer, and the detective faded back into Eugene’s normal form. His first instinct had been a murder board, and I really hoped he wasn’t right.