Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
The Magical Scientist
Declan
“Get back! Get back!” Elwood shouted, nudging me back until my ass hit the kitchen counter. It was just in the nick of time, too, because a heartbeat later, a dazzling purple cloud erupted over the kitchen table with a loud whoosh.
Then Elwood was back at the table again, with George chattering excitedly on his shoulder.
“Okay, come on,” Elwood waved me forward.
Before tonight, if someone had asked me to describe my grandfather, I would’ve said Elwood was a hippie with a strong connection to the earth and nature.
But now? Seeing him with his long hair hanging around his face in a tangled mess from all those whooshes, smudges of soot on his cheeks, and weird navy-colored stains around his fingernails, I’d have to add that he had mad scientist tendencies.
The only things Elwood was missing were a lab coat and protective goggles, which, given what we were doing and how many things had whooshed, he really should be investing in. I made a mental note. It was never too early to think about Christmas presents.
Elwood grabbed a clear stone from the table and shoved it into my hand.
“Now, it’s your turn. What can you pick up?”
Inching closer to the table, I curled my fingers around the quartz until the jagged edges dug into my palm.
Elwood insisted I use it. He said it was supposed to enhance my abilities, but I didn’t feel anything change.
I swore I got a better reading on the growlers without all the purple sparkly clouds and crystals.
The growler—this one had belonged to Donny Pace—lay on its side in a large glass baking pan. Last week I used it to make a batch of brownies. This week, it’d been seconded to scientific and magical experimentation. Had Elwood used all his pots and pans for stuff like this?
I didn’t want to ask, but I was definitely going to buy my own equipment tomorrow. No one wanted residual magical gunk in their cake.
The purple cloud was settling over the table now, and soon it’d wink out of existence. I had to act quickly. I reached forward and, using my hand with the quartz, I stirred the cloud over the brown glass bottle. My magic poked and prodded it.
I didn’t feel anything.
I did it again.
Was I doing it wrong? The purple vapors were thinning. We were running out of time.
I grabbed Elwood’s hand and pressed the stone into his palm. “You try.”
Elwood swept his hand through the cloud. His eyebrows rose, and he hummed. Then he did it again. Then, in a little pop, the purple cloud was gone.
“There was nothing on that one,” Elwood said, confirming my own results. The results I hadn’t trusted.
How long would it take for me to get the hang of this? I mean, I knew it’d only been a few weeks since I found out I was magical, but if it was a part of me, shouldn’t it come naturally? Babies learned to roll over and crawl all on their own, so it seemed like magic should work the same.
Elwood crossed to the nearest kitchen chair and collapsed into it.
“Are you okay?” I rushed to his side.
He waved off my concern. “How many other items do we have to check?”
“Just one.” The box I’d collected from Leon was empty, but Malcolm's still remained. I’d left his until last because his submission hadn’t actually been in the competition.
But Elwood had asked the brewer to drop it off so we could compare it to the others.
The postmark on the envelope containing his application showed it’d been mailed in plenty of time, just like he’d said.
But it’d obviously been rejected, unopened, with Return to Sender scribbled across the white paper.
The growler was still sealed. “But we can wait until tomorrow. It’s been a long day. ”
As if in agreement, George fell to his back on the table. His little paws twitched in the air like he was in the throes of death, just like they had in his little show with Eugene the night before. Who knew a mouse could be so melodramatic?
Elwood glanced at the clock on the stove. “Is there something going on with the festival tonight?”
“The panel discussion,” I said.
I’d originally hoped to get there before it started, but the start time had come and gone while we’d been testing the growlers and applications.
If I hurried, I could still make it to some of the meet and greet.
I had questions, particularly after what Elwood and I had discovered today.
Tonight’s event was the perfect opportunity to ask them.
And Gideon had said he’d be there.
I hadn’t seen him since this morning, and I missed him.
Which was ridiculous. There’d been times when Josh was away for work for days and I hadn’t missed him the entire time he’d been gone. Yeah. That said a lot, didn’t it?
Which reminded me… Josh was in town. I really doubted I could avoid him all week, but I would do my best.
A contract with a big brewing company was a good gig for him.
I was surprised Josh had been able to get it, but he’d probably used projects we’d worked on together on his proposal.
I bet he was panicking about now, trying to figure out how to do everything on his own.
No wonder he’d been texting nonstop. Josh always was a lazy asshole, eager to delegate rather than dive in and get things done.
I should probably tell Gideon about Josh being around. If Gideon found out I knew and hadn’t told him, he might think I was trying to keep it a secret. And I wasn’t. I didn’t want any secrets from Gideon because secrets led to lies, and lies sucked.
A noise at the window drew me out of my head.
Licorice bobbed her head when our gazes caught. I didn’t know how I knew it was her and not some other random raven, but I did.
“Go on,” Elwood said. “Let her in.”
She jumped off the windowsill and took to the air when I cranked the window open, then she circled back and landed in the opening. I brushed my finger over the glossy feathers on the crown of her head.
“Hello, Licorice,” I said. “I said we’d hang out, didn’t I? But I’m not sure I have time now.”
“Oh! You named her! You’re already bonding. And so intuitively, too,” Elwood said. Ha… so that was the magical equivalent of a baby rolling over. Good to know. Then he smiled at her. “Hello, Licorice. It’s lovely to meet you properly.”
Licorice’s head tilted one way, then the other, as she studied him. Then she hopped inside, landing first on the counter, then, with a little flutter of her wings, she jumped to the back of a wooden chair by the table. Her black talons curled around the top rail.
Wait. Should she be inside? I had a friend in high school who had finches, and those little guys shit something like six times an hour. A raven’s would be a lot bigger. That’d make a big mess. She really, really shouldn’t be in the kitchen.
“And this is George.”
My grandfather’s mouse was standing on his hind legs. His little nose was wiggling as he sniffed the air. And now that I was thinking about how dirty animals were, George shouldn’t be in here either. In fact, why wasn’t the floor covered in mouse droppings?
Licorice extended her wings, as if she was going to take flight. Oh God. Ravens ate mice, didn’t they?
“Stop!” I shouted.
Three sets of eyes turned my way. I rushed forward and scooped George from the table. The little guy squeaked. His tiny heart pounded against my fingers before I hastily gave him to my grandfather. At least he didn’t shit on me.
“What are you doing?” Elwood asked as George scrambled into his shirt pocket. The mouse only poked his head out enough to glare at me.
I waved between George and Licorice like it was obvious. Elwood’s gaze followed the motion, but his forehead was creased like I wasn’t making any sense.
“We don’t want Licorice to E-A-T George.” I spelled it out. I didn’t want to offend my new familiar, and I suspected she could understand English.
Elwood burst out laughing. George, who now had his whole head out of the pocket again with his little paws curled over the edge, and Licorice both stared at me like they weren’t sure if they should be offended or dismiss me as a stupid human.
Familiars lesson one: they can spell.
“Licorice won’t eat George,” Elwood assured me as he wiped his eyes with his thumb.
“No?” I wanted to ask about the cleanliness situation, too, but after my little misstep, I decided to hold off for now. I didn’t want to risk offending Licorice again so soon.
“No.” Elwood shook his head. His eyes still danced with amusement. “But now that I know you’ve started to bond with your familiar, we should try a little more magic.”
The meet and greet was supposed to start in fifteen minutes. I wasn’t going to make it, was I? But I couldn’t deny I was curious if Licorice’s presence changed anything for me.
“Why don’t you take the growler, and I’ll test the application?” Elwood said. “You seem to be better at detecting the magical interference with the beer than the paper.”
“Okay.” I turned to Licorice. “Do you want to help me? But I’m warning you, I don’t really know what I’m doing.”
She bobbed her head. Then something strange happened. Well, stranger than magic and familiars and hexed beer. Somehow, I knew she was eager to try. It didn’t feel like a guess or intuition or anything like that. It felt like she’d told me, without actually telling me.
“Are familiars telepathic?” I asked.
“To some extent,” Elwood agreed. “They can’t speak in sentences, but they can communicate with their witch.”
“Huh.”
“Okay. Let’s finish this up, then we’ll have the full picture.”
Working magic with Licorice at my side wasn’t drastically different. It wasn’t like everything suddenly made sense or that I could snap my fingers and have all the answers. But the spell work went smoother. The process felt easier.
I didn’t think this kind of magic was ever going to be my forte, but it didn’t feel so foreign now either. Then again, I’d also helped Elwood do this same spell several times already.
In a surprisingly short amount of time, Elwood and I had finished our individual investigations. This time, I hadn’t second-guessed myself when nothing appeared in my testing.
“I didn’t find any evidence of a hex on the growler,” I said when my latest purple cloud dissipated.
“Interesting.” Elwood stroked his beard. “Because the application had definitely been hexed with the same magical signature as the others.”
I glanced at the clock. That last test hadn’t taken nearly as long as the others. I could still make it to the library if I hurried.
“Thank you, Licorice.” I stroked her soft feathered back. Then I turned to my grandfather. “I need to get to the library before everyone leaves. I want to see if any of the other brewers found hex bags around their breweries.”
Elwood nodded. “Good idea.”
I started to tidy up our supplies.
“Don’t worry about this. I’ll cleanse the tools and put everything away.”
Part of me wanted to stay for that, but if I delayed too much longer, I’d miss my chance to talk to the brewers. I fired off a quick text to Gideon to let him know I was on my way, then rushed to get ready.
All the while, I couldn’t quit thinking about what we’d found. Elwood called our results interesting, but I called them a magical smoking gun.
The one out-of-town application hadn’t been tampered with, and neither had Roy’s.
But every other local competitor had been hexed, one way or another, and all by the same hex maker.
Malcolm’s submission hadn’t even been presented to the judges.
And it looked like Tessa had only won third because someone had to, and her flat ale was apparently less offensive to the judges than Ivan’s sour lager.
There was only one conclusion: Roy had used hexes to eliminate all the competitors he’d known about.
All we needed to do now was find the proof.