Spells and the Suspiciously Silent (Ebook)

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Format: Ebook
Length: 47,838 Words
Publication Date: October 15, 2024
Publisher: Alorium Publishing

The street was quiet as I rushed forward to open the door to Bee’s Bed and Breakfast, the key ready in my hand. It was well past two in the morning, and the streets were deserted. Behind me, Heather grunted as she wrestled with the wheelchair in the trunk of Chris’s SUV. I unlocked the side door and pushed it open. My heart sank as I stared at the flight of stairs ahead. I had known we would need to get Heather’s mom, Iris, up the steps, but it had been a long time since I had seen them in person. I had forgotten how narrow stairs were in 1920s construction.

I gulped and looked over my shoulder. Chris was leaning into the front passenger seat. Iris had her thin arms wrapped around his neck as he lifted her.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come stay at my place?” I asked. “I have a lot fewer stairs for you to worry about.”

“Don’t you worry about me, Dani. I’ll do just fine.” Iris glared at me with the same green eyes as her daughter. She hadn’t appreciated the offer at the hospital either. “I’ve spent too many nights in a bed that isn’t mine already.”

“It was two nights, Mom.” Heather sighed as she finally freed the wheelchair from the trunk. It clattered onto the sidewalk.

“Two nights too many.” Iris readjusted her arms around Chris’s neck. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind getting me up those stairs. It’s late enough already, and I would like to get some sleep tonight.”

I held the door open wide as Chris strode toward me. I tried not to giggle at the sight. Iris wore a pink nightgown with a yellow duckie print. Her left leg, encased from hip to mid calf in a cast, stuck straight out in front of her. And she scowled the entire way, almost as if she were daring me to make the offer again.

Iris had fallen wrong and broken her femur. The doctors had wanted to keep her one more night, but she had outright refused. Poor Heather had a hard time saying no, and I had a hard time saying no to Heather. Carrying a grumpy woman up the stairs in the middle of the night was not on my bingo card for the day, but here we were.

Chris paused in the small entry hall long enough for me to dart around him and scamper up the two flights of stairs to open the door at the top. I unlocked it and pushed the door open and flicked on the light.

Iris had lived on the top floor of Bee’s Bed and Breakfast for as long as I had known her. She had inherited the row of brownstones from her father and took great pride in them. That pride, mixed with her love of bees, showed in every inch of her home. The original hardwood floors shone in the dim light. Well-maintained antique furniture filled every corner, and the bee-themed art covered the walls. A hexagon bookshelf, reminiscent of a honeycomb, covered the far wall.

I darted into the room and held the door as wide as I could. The door stopped at a ninety-degree angle as it butted up against the yellow-velvet rolled-arm sofa. Chris readjusted on the small landing and walked into the room sideways, with Iris’s pointed foot leading the way.

“You can put me down on the couch,” Iris said.

“Are you sure?” Chris asked.

“You seem like a sweet kid, but the only man who was ever allowed in my bedroom was Mr. Bellerose, and he’s been dead for fifteen years.” Iris patted Chris on his shoulder.

I ducked my head to hide my smile. Only Iris would consider a forty-year-old deputy a sweet kid. It was probably because she had known him since he was a high school student.

Chris smiled weakly and moved around the couch to deposit her gently on its cushions. Heather came in after him, huffing and puffing as she lugged the wheelchair into the room.
“All right, Mom,” Heather wiped beads of sweat off her forehead, as she pushed the chair over and positioned it next to Iris so she could get into it if she needed to. “Do you have your cell phone on you?”

Iris nodded.

I grabbed Chris’s hand and stepped to the side. He squeezed my fingers and rubbed his thumb across the back of my hand. I flushed. Things had been going so well between us, but I felt a little bad roping him into this middle-of-the-night ordeal. While I had a hard time saying no to Heather, Chris had a hard time saying no to me.

“Is it charged?” Heather asked.

Iris pulled it out and showed it to her. “Almost a full battery.”

“Okay. If you need anything—anything at all—you call me. I don’t want you trying to get something off the top shelf and falling again.”

“I fall once, and suddenly you’re treating me like an invalid.”

“Please, Mom.” Heather pinched the bridge of her nose. “You have a broken leg. Just let me take care of you.”

“Fine.” Iris raised her hands. “I’ll call you. Now, I’ve been poked and prodded enough for the day. I’d like to go to bed.”

Heather darted around the apartment, making sure the walkways were clear, while Chris and I waited for her at the front door. She quickly set up the coffeemaker so Iris wouldn’t have to struggle with it in the morning then gave her mom a quick hug before backing out of Iris’s home. We trudged down the stairs, the exhaustion of the day finally hitting us as we filed out onto the sidewalk.

“Are you going to be okay?” I squeezed Heather’s shoulder.

Heather was the youngest of the Bellerose kids. All of her much-older siblings had moved away, and over the years, it had fallen on her shoulders to take care of their mother, who refused to retire despite the fact that she was pushing eighty.

“I don’t know.” Heather sighed.

I pulled her into a hug. She slumped against me, her head resting on my shoulder. “If you need anything, call me. Don’t try to do it all on your own, okay?”

Heather laughed and pulled away. “Don’t worry. Unlike my mother, I know how to ask for help when I need it.”

“And if you need someone to carry her back down the stairs, call me. If I can’t do it, I’m sure I can rope Harrison into doing it,” Chris said.

I blanched. Harrison was one of the tallest men I knew, but he was as skinny as a beanpole.

Chris chuckled. “He may look thin, but he’s wiry. I’ve seen him move his sleeper sofa on his own. And it weighs a lot more than Iris does.”

“Thank you, guys.” Heather pulled us back into a quick hug. “Now, I’m headed to bed. I’ve got to be up in three hours to start baking.”

“You know you don’t have to bake,” I said.

“Maybe you’re right. People come in for the coffee more than the baked goods anyway.” Heather yawned, stretched, then shuffled to the Bizzy Bean, aka Cafe Meow, which sat snuggled between the two sides of Bee’s Bed and Breakfast, and disappeared inside.

Chris slipped his hand into mine, and we walked back to the SUV together.

“Thank you for doing this,” I said.

“You know me.” He pulled open the passenger-side door for me. “I’m happy to help.”

I climbed in. Chris took the driver’s seat and held my hand as we drove through downtown Point Pleasant toward my home. My mind was already focused on going to sleep. I’ll have to be quiet when I get in. Feels almost like I’m the teen, sneaking back into the house. I smiled weakly. My daughter, Grace, had just turned off her lights to go to sleep when I left. Most nights she struggled with her recurring nightmares. I didn’t want to disrupt what little rest she could get.

That late at night, downtown was desolate. There wasn’t a single car on the roadway or pedestrian ambling down the boardwalk. For half a block, it was so quiet it felt as if we could have been the last humans on earth. As we passed Madison Street, the flashing lights of a patrol car parked outside of Abby’s bistro shattered that illusion.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. My breath caught in my throat as the pressure at the back of my head exploded. I gasped, my hand clamping around Chris’s. Every fiber of my being screamed at me to stop. “Pull over.”

“Are you okay?” Chris asked.

I stared wide eyed at the patrol car. Why is it here? My Sight only responds like this when someone has died. I shook my head. Abby was a friend of mine. Please be okay.

We slowed and came to a stop over halfway through the intersection. Chris looked between me, the patrol car, and the sign that hung over the street advertising Abby’s bistro, Eats and Treats. He put the car into reverse, backed up a few feet, and turned onto Madison. He parked next to the patrol car and got out.

Broken glass littered the sidewalk. Bob Wright, the local sheriff, stood a few feet away talking to a man I vaguely recognized from around town. John? I think he owns the Mosaic art shop next door. I stumbled out of the car after Chris. He strode toward Bob, and I trailed after him, my eyes darting around the scene. The pressure in the back of my head was building again. Bright-yellow police caution tape hung across the wide-open doorway of the bistro. I craned my neck to see inside. Every table and chair had been knocked over. Silverware littered the floor. The glass globes that hung over the tables to illuminate the space had been smashed, and Abby’s dessert conveyor belt lay twisted on its side.

Bob glowered at me before turning to Chris. “When you’re done with your date, get back in uniform. We’re going to need all hands on this one.”

Chris didn’t take the bait and simply nodded. Bob wasn’t a fan of me to begin with, and his dislike had only grown the more murders I helped solve.

“We’ve got a body in here,” Deputy Harrison shouted from inside the bistro.

Tears pricked my eyes. Not Abby. Please, not Abby. I clutched at Chris’s arm, and he pulled me into a hug.

“I wonder if Abby knew the victim,” John said. “Poor girl, she ran out of here like the devil himself was chasing her not too long ago.”

I exhaled sharply as the weight lifted from my shoulders. There was a dead body, but it wasn’t my friend. I turned my head to listen in.

“Can you tell me what you saw?” Bob flipped open a notepad.

John nodded. “Like I said, the commotion woke me up. By the time I got outside, it was over. I saw Abby running down the street in that direction. She had another girl with her.”

Bob glanced over at me, and his eyes narrowed. He put his hand on John’s elbow and led him away, farther down the block out of earshot. I gritted my teeth. His dislike of me was wearing on my nerves.

Chris stepped back. “I’m going to go check in with Harrison to see what he needs so I can make sure I come back with the right things, and then I’ll take you home.”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

Chris ducked under the police tape and disappeared into the dark interior of the bistro. I hugged my arms to my body as the chill of the night seeped into my skin. Winter was fading into spring, but at this hour, it was hard to tell. The temperature was still barely above freezing once the wind chill was taken into account. Fortunately, it never got too cold on Whidbey Island. The proximity to the Pacific Ocean kept the Seattle region relatively warm in winter and helped make it bearable in the summer months.

I closed my eyes. Abby ran away from the scene. Does that mean she’s in danger? I focused on the sensations in my body as I asked myself that question. It wasn’t an exact science, but sometimes the Sight gave me insight into a situation. By how the hair on my arms stood up or the pressure in my head ebbed and flowed, I could get a sense of what was or was not important.

My teeth clattered as my whole body shivered. I sighed and stamped my feet against the pavement to warm them. It was too cold to tell the difference between a “that’s important” shiver and an “it’s frigid outside” shiver. I could come back with an obsidian mirror, maybe? Using it to see into the past could be helpful. It would be so much easier if I could force a prophetic dream.

My eyes flew open, and adrenaline surged through my body as the realization hit me. Every time I had had a prophetic dream, an object belonging to the person in danger had been sitting on my nightstand. With Jessica, it had been the carved wooden bird, and with Natasha it had been her pen. I scanned the ground, looking for anything that might belong to Abby. Technically, everything inside the bistro was hers, but I didn’t want to risk putting something unimportant like a menu on my nightstand and end up dreaming about the last customer who touched it.

The ground was littered with broken glass and shattered candle holders. I mumbled the words to the spell that would heighten my senses. Motes of white light swirled out of my mouth and settled over my skin. Every time I cast a spell in public, I was glad only witches could see the lights. Any other observer would only see me mumbling to myself. I clenched my fists as the last of the light settled into my skin as I prepared myself for the sudden onslaught of sensation.

Everything went up to eleven. I squinted against the brightness of the flashing police lights and forced the biting cold on my skin to the periphery. Down the block, John was still giving his statement to Bob. “I didn’t get a good look at the other girl, but she didn’t look familiar. I don’t think she was local.”

I pushed his words aside as well and focused solely on my vision. I scanned the ground, my eyes darting from object to object until my gaze landed on a small golden seashell. It was the size of my pinky nail and had a broken hook on one end. Abby frequently wore a charm bracelet. I couldn’t be sure, but I was willing to bet that it was one of her charms.

I inched closer and knelt down next to it, my fingers messing with my laces as I pretended to tie my shoe. I glanced over at Bob. He had his back turned to me. Chris was still inside the bistro. My hand darted out and snagged the charm from the pavement. My breath caught in my throat, and I tipped forward as my knees went weak. Fear radiated off the charm. I threw my other hand out and caught myself inches before I fell face forward into the glass. Fortunately, my hand landed on the few bare inches of sidewalk.

“Are you all right?” Chris asked.

I looked up as he ducked under the caution tape. “Yeah. Just lost my balance for a second.” I palmed the seashell and slipped it into my pocket. I didn’t know how else to explain my strange behavior. He didn’t know I was a witch, and I wasn’t ready to tell him. Not yet, anyway.

Chris held out his hand. “Are you ready to head out?”

“I’m so sleepy. It’s past my normal bedtime.” I grasped onto his hand as he helped me to my feet. “You better get me home before I turn into a pumpkin.”

“I’ve got to put this in Harrison’s cruiser, and then we can head out.” Chris held up an evidence bag with a bloody chef’s knife inside.

I retreated to the SUV. I sank into the passenger seat and leaned my head against the door. Chris drove me home. I kept my eyes closed, with my hands shoved into my pockets. My fingers slid across the small seashell charm the entire way home. Please work. Please let me dream about something helpful.

• Potions and the Pleasantly Poisoned
• Tomes and the Tangled Trail
• Divinations and the Disappearing Dead
• Hexes and the Haunted House
• Spells and the Suspiciously Silent
• Grimoires and the Ghostly Guest
• Enchantments and the Eerily Ensnared
• Rituals and the Restless Remains
• Charms and the Cursed Coven