Chapter 24 #2
“Hey! That’s my husband you’re kissing!” Sal exclaimed, but his indignant shouts soon gave way to jealous pleading. “Me next! Me next! I give good kisses, too! I bet my face tastes better than his. I use a special moisturizer, you know—Ah! That tickles! Arthur, it tickles!”
“Please, Martha. You don’t need to do this,” Arthur said through the layer of scarf still covering half of his mouth. His left arm could move a little. If he kept her talking, he could tear through the fabric. Maybe.
Martha shook out her hands. “It’s good to be back.
I’d forgotten how powerful I really am. You know,” she said, smiling down at Arthur, “the first time Ambrosia stole from me, Wil and I had no idea what she’d done.
She told us it was a ritual to bind ourselves together for life.
We were just kids. Then, I couldn’t cast anymore.
We didn’t realize it was Ambrosia’s doing until much later, since Wil never lost her magic.
I even went to Ambrosia for help. She’d done all this research, you know.
She said it was something to do with moon phases and coming of age.
She tried to pass off her new powers as some kind of adulthood glow-up.
” Martha rolled her eyes. “She really has been a fraud all along.”
“You said the first time…What about the second?” Arthur asked, doing quick math in his head. If the spell lasted ten years and Ambrosia had stolen Martha’s magic when they were only teenagers, that meant she’d done it again.
“The second time, she drugged me.” Martha shrugged, the motion slightly self-conscious as though the memory wasn’t something she liked to think about. “That was a little easier to figure out. And then her coven took off, and I knew for sure.”
“Why be her accountant, then?” Sal asked. He’d stopped trying to fly and was glaring up at her.
“The long con,” Martha said. “I knew Ambrosia wouldn’t ever suspect me of turning on her.
She stole my magic and then pretended to be my friend, but she’s not the only one with a good poker face.
I did her taxes and sucked up to her. I acted like I couldn’t remember what had happened to me, like I’d accepted that my magic ebbed as I got older.
It’s what Ambrosia wanted me to believe, so of course she bought it. ”
If he hadn’t been tied up with an enchanted scarf, Arthur would’ve felt a great deal of sympathy for Martha. Ambrosia had been an awful friend to her, and too self-centered to notice—or care about—the pain she was causing.
“You were ready the third time, I see,” Arthur said.
“Hardly,” Martha laughed. “But when Wil told me her suspicions, that Ambrosia was going to return and do it again, I wasn’t about to be caught unaware. I didn’t have any magic to fight her off with, so that wasn’t an option.”
“How’d you do it, then?” Arthur had now wriggled his pinky and ring finger free of the scarf, not that it did him much good. He needed more time.
“I used her greatest flaw against her, obviously.” Martha smirked, eyes glazed over as she accessed the memory.
“Ambrosia’s never had enough. Even when we were children, she always wanted to have the most Halloween candy and the highest grades and the biggest birthday party.
I just needed to give her someone with more power. ”
“Brody.” Arthur exhaled the name, barely a whisper. “You’d do that to Wilhelmina’s son? I thought she was your friend.”
Martha’s lips twitched into a frown. “It’s not like I killed him or anything, just gave him a gentle nudge to join the coven so Ambrosia would set her sights on him instead of me.”
“He’s fine, by the way,” Sal spat out. “My glorious husband figured out your little plan and stopped Ambrosia at the last minute!”
“I am glad he’s safe,” Martha said. “That’s why I talked to you this morning. I’ll admit, I thought you’d catch on sooner, but you got there eventually and that’s what matters.”
“Seriously?” Sal lifted his head, chin digging into Arthur’s chest as he spoke. “You couldn’t have just told us what was going on? Would’ve saved us a lot of time.”
“Not without implicating myself, although I suppose that’s all moot now.
” Martha finished tidying the room and dipped into the attached bathroom to retrieve her toiletry bag.
“Anyway, I suppose I should thank you. No one should have to go through what I have. And now, no one else will. Brody is safe, and Ambrosia will take the fall for Lola. Her coven will crumble with no leader and no funding, and that will be the end of that.”
“Why did you kill Lola, then? Was it just to have a crime to pin on Ambrosia?” Arthur hoped it wasn’t that. It was terrible to be killed at all, but to be murdered for the sole purpose of framing someone else…it felt so random, like Martha could’ve picked almost anyone.
“It was your fault, actually,” Martha said with a sickening smile. “You brought Rumble to Lola.”
“She realized the cat was Wilhelmina,” Arthur said. “Who you thought Ambrosia had killed.”
“I did think that, yes.” Martha’s smile was sad.
“I love Wil. But when she came around asking to see financial records…Well. I didn’t think she’d be savvy enough to spot my own crimes.
I’d been skimming off the top from the beginning.
When Wil disappeared, I thought that problem was solved.
Lola threw a wrench in it, right as I was about to make my move. ”
The full picture emerged, and Arthur felt the rush of adrenaline that came with a mystery solved.
“If Lola had turned Wilhelmina into a human again, she’d be able to talk and tell Ambrosia about your plan.
What I don’t get is why not just leave? You could’ve emptied the accounts and made your escape without doing any of this. ”
“Not if I wanted my magic back. Even if Ambrosia picked another witch for her ritual, I’d be powerless unless I stayed here in Trident Falls through sunset on the solstice.
But now that I have my power, there’s no need for me to stick around.
Killing Lola bought me enough time, and it was a pretty big nail for Ambrosia’s coffin.
” She smiled, her gaze going distant. “She’ll hate prison so much. ”
“Hang on,” Sal said. “How did you know what Lola discovered?”
“I was in a meeting with Ambrosia when she got the call.” Martha let out a mean little laugh.
“She was always forgetting about me. Treating me like furniture when she wasn’t making demands of my time and expertise.
Ambrosia took the call on speaker, and I heard everything.
Lola said she’d found Wil but was too panicked to say more over the phone.
They arranged to meet. I stole a potion that Ambrosia had already activated, used some oleander to poison it, and dropped by her tent to talk about Al Capone. ”
Upon hearing his name, the little dog barked happily.
“Spiking her tea was easy,” Martha said. “She was so shaken up. I made her some chamomile and offered to add a calming potion from Ambrosia to it.”
Arthur continued to scratch at the scarf with his left hand, but the threads were too sturdy. If only she’d chosen something gauzy to tie them up with.
“You shouldn’t have let her write Wilhelmina’s name in the journal,” Arthur said, to keep her talking more.
“What? Oh, that. I didn’t. I didn’t realize she’d written it in the notebook until you two came to visit.” She sighed heavily. “When I planted the journal in Ambrosia’s yurt, I didn’t bother to check the contents. An error on my part, but it worked out in the end.”
“Shame I didn’t put it all together sooner,” Arthur lamented.
“Don’t beat yourself up.” Martha zipped her big suitcase closed, then walked to her closet.
She withdrew a soft dog carrier and set it on the ground.
Al Capone shied away, and Arthur hoped the dog would distract her long enough for them to get free.
Martha tossed a treat into the carrier, though, and Al Capone fell for it.
He hurried inside, and Martha closed it. She glanced around the room.
“I think that’s everything I can’t replace with my very flush bank accounts. Now, where did I leave those stakes…” Martha rummaged around on a high shelf.
“I hope you’re talking about the delicious kind of steak,” Sal said, wriggling against Arthur ineffectually.
“I don’t think she is,” Arthur said softly. “Sal, if we can’t escape—”
“Arthur, if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years—through all the trials and tribulations, the ups and the downs, the boring soirées and quite tasteful orgies—there’s no bind I can’t get out of,” Sal argued.
Arthur wished he could believe Sal, but they were stuck fast. If this was the end, he couldn’t let the last thing either of them said to each other be about orgies. “Sal, I want you to know meeting you was the best moment of my life, even if it took me a while to realize.”
“Don’t do that tearful goodbye thing.” Sal struggled harder as Martha withdrew a long piece of sharpened wood from the shelf. “It’s not over yet.”
Arthur swallowed, blinking hard. He redoubled his efforts to tear the scarf.
If only he could slip out of it somehow.
Martha’s steps grew closer. He felt distant yet all too present, like he was fragmenting.
The sensation was familiar—the same as when Ambrosia had caught them in her yurt.
He felt insubstantial, like he might drift away on a breeze.
Maybe he was having some sort of panic attack.
“I really am sorry about this,” Martha said, standing over them, stake raised. “But I can’t let you stop me now.”
She knelt, arms high, the tip of the wood aimed at Sal’s back. In one sharp motion, she drove the stake down.