Witching There's Another Way: A Cozy Mystery (The Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 4)

Witching There's Another Way

by

Constance Barker

Copyright 2016 Constance Barker

All rights reserved.

Similarities to real people, places or events are purely coincidental.

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Prologue

Chloe Minds was supposed to be a mother.

She supposed that in the most technical sense, she was. She’d given birth, at least, late at night, under the insistent, impatient urging of the Crones; who never gave voice to the nature of their apparent worries. Eight years before this moment, and nine months before that, Chloe had known that for her, giving birth wouldn’t be the same thing as being a mother.

The Ritual of the Special Cupcake had quickly become a tradition. At Wendy’s gentle suggestion, Chloe did begin to make them a bit smaller but this somehow only heightened Bailey’s attraction to the little bites—as though they really were made just for her. But then again, they were. Chloe would spend hours perfecting the little delicacies between her other labors, in anticipation of seeing her daughter’s face brighten with glee at the sight of another one-of-a-kind gift.

The gifts were transient in the way all pastries inevitably were, and in a way that was as it should be. Wendy and Bailey likewise shared only these transient moments of connection. She hoped that on some level it gave her daughter a sense of wholeness—even if she didn’t realize she was missing it. Just by looking at her, you wouldn’t have been able to tell that there was anything missing. Wendy was a good mother. Ryan worked long hours, but he was there when he was needed.

So when Bailey ran away from home, at eight years old, and came to the bakery to hide, Chloe didn’t obscure the facts.

She sat watching the pensive little girl—her little girl, with an expression so Chloe’s own that it was like looking back through time—as Bailey ate a muffin. Not a special muffin; she hadn’t been expected. Just one of Aria’s organic, gluten free, sugar free, whole oat monstrosities that only the most dedicated health nuts ate on a regular basis. Bailey didn’t appear to like it.

“I have to tell your parents that you’re here,” Chloe said softly. “You must have known that.”

Bailey gave a world weary sigh and then nodded.

“Before I do that, would you like  to tell me why you ran away?”

With pursed lips, Bailey considered this course of action. That, or she was trying to come up with a convincing story. Chloe might have sussed out the truth herself but… touching Bailey’s mind this early might well trigger any latent abilities not yet blossomed; and at her age that would be disastrous.

Finally, Bailey swept her curly red hair meaningfully behind her ear, her newly freckled face becoming gravely serious as she set her shoulders to reveal her motivations. Chloe suppressed a smile, instead assuming an appropriately serious look herself. “I don’t think they’re really my parents,” Bailey said.

Chloe’s heart thumped in her chest. Perhaps she was wrong. Had Bailey inherited her magic? She didn’t sense the girl’s thoughts intruding on her own—but she might well have inherited Chloe’s grandmother’s gift to see possible futures. “What… makes you say that, dear?” Chloe asked carefully.

Again, Bailey had to consider. She wasn’t one to speak without thinking, and according to Wendy she rarely jumped to conclusions. So, she sat quietly, evaluating the evidence.

“Neither of them have hair like mine,” Bailey said after a moment. “And, they don’t look like me. I learned in school that we get one coma… cram…”

“Chromosome?” Chloe asked.

“Yeah,” Bailey said, “that. We get one from our mom and one from our dad… or… anyway, Mrs. Mills said about white bunnies and brown bunnies; and there were two brown bunnies and two white bunnies and… the brown bunnies made more brown bunnies and the white bunnies made more white bunnies and the brown and white bunnies made brown and white bunnies and… there are no red bunnies in my family.”

Chloe had to fight to keep her shoulders from trembling with laughter. It was serious, she could tell that from the way Bailey delivered her lecture on biology. And she wasn’t entirely wrong. Still, Chloe did her best to fix the damage. “Did Mrs. Mills tell you about how some things can get passed to a parent’s children, while some other things might be… hidden for a few generations? If you have a great great grandmother with red hair that you didn’t know—who knows? You might have gotten it from her.”

“Really?” Bailey wondered. This new information undermined her working hypothesis. But she didn’t fight it—she merely attempted to find a place for this information. “That’s… not all, though.”

“Okay,” Chloe said. “Well, what else, then?”

Bailey shook her head, and looked down at the muffin. “I don’t know… just… a feeling. I don’t have it all the time. But sometimes, at night, or when I get home from school…” she trailed off, and shrugged. A moment later she wiped her eye. When she looked up they were wet. “I don’t know, Miss Chloe. I don’t know the words.”

“It’s okay, darling,” Chloe breathed, and came around the table. Bailey didn’t pull away when Chloe put an arm around the girl and hugged her close. She did inhale deeply, though.

And a heartbeat later, she turned and put her arms around Chloe’s waist, and cried. Chloe didn’t, through sheer force of will.

When the spell passed, Bailey picked at her muffin while Chloe called Wendy and Ryan to inform them that their little girl was safe, that she’d come to the bakery. Relieved, they assured her they were one their way.

Chloe hung up, and pressed her head to the wall above the phone as she took cleansing breaths and cleared her mind and heart of the pain. This was the way it had to be. It was her mistake, getting involved with… well, even thinking his name was potentially dangerous; could call his attention. Not that he was even likely to care after all these years. But then again, maybe he would. It was impossible to predict what a wizard did or didn’t care about from moment to moment. Chloe had thought, for instance, that he cared about her. Right up until he vanished into thin air.

When she returned to the dining room of the bakery, she heard Bailey humming a tune. Something familiar—a lilting sort of somber, upbeat melody that Chloe swore she must have heard on the radio recently. Or perhaps in a movie. “What are you humming, Bailey-Bee?” She asked.

Bailey shrugged a shoulder self consciously. “A song.”

“It sounds familiar,” Chloe told her as she sat down across from her daughter again. “Did you hear it on TV?”

Bailey shook her head. “I don’t remember.”

“It’s very pretty,” Chloe said. “Are there words to it?”

“No,” Bailey breathed. Her fingers paused in the act of pinching another bit of muffin off. She stared into some distance behind Chloe, brow furrowed in concentration. Finally, she shook her head again.

“I don’t think it’s very pretty, Miss Chloe,” she said quietly, before she looked into Chloe’s eyes. “I think it’s very… sad.”

A chill spread from Chloe’s spine to the rest of her, and she rubbed her arms. For the next few minutes before Wendy and Ryan arrived, she and Bailey sat in mutual silence, as though listening  for some distant music that Chloe, at least, couldn’t hear.

Chapter 1

“Stop singing!” Bailey giggled, pointing at baby William’s scrunched face. She nudged Avery in the ribs, and grinned up at him sympathetically. “I don’t think he cares for it.”

“Everyone’s a critic,” Avery muttered.

Piper chuckled at the two of them. “Maybe he just doesn’t care for show tunes.”

“It wasn’t a show tune,” Avery sighed. “It was Taylor Swift. Shake it off? Do either of you ever turn on a radio?”

“My repertoire includes basically the soundtracks to PBS and Nickelodeon,” Piper sighed. “And that’s not likely to change anytime soon.”

Avery looked to Bailey for support, but she cleared her throat and put her hands up. “I solemnly swear I have never listened to a Taylor Swift song from start to finish…”

“Isn’t there some rule about how your magic will fail if you tell lies?” Avery asked suspiciously.

“Not to my knowledge.” Bailey smiled at him, and then put her hands out. “Now give me that baby or I’ll turn you into a frog.”

Avery rolled his eyes, but handed over the bundle of squirming cuteness.

It had been three months since William was born, and  just days after Ryan Robinson, Bailey’s father, had been exonerated after being framed by Gloria Olson for a murder he didn’t commit—and one that Gloria might not have realized she committed. Since then, Coven Grove had been calm. The tourist season hit a peak, and that peak began to wane until, nearing winter now, it had gotten to a gentle trickle that would eventually die out over the winter holiday season.

Aiden Rivers, the current owner of the Seven Caves for which Coven Grove was nominally well known, had begun to take over about half the tours both to give Bailey plenty of time off, and to take a more active role in his own business.

With much of that time off, Bailey spent long hours above Coven Grove’s bakery, Grovey Goodies, which doubled as the sanctum of the local Coven. There, as the junior member of that coven, she worked hard to learn the ancient ways of witchcraft from her three elders, Francis Cold, Aria Rogers, and Chloe Minds—who was, Bailey had learned about the same time her father was arrested for murder, Bailey’s birth mother.

Piper’s new baby couldn’t have been born at a better time, as far as Bailey was concerned. Checking up on Piper and visiting the baby had been convenient excuses for everything from skipping lessons with Francis—they were the most excruciating lessons and entirely worth skipping—to avoiding any conversations with Chloe that threatened to stray too far away from the academic and into the remotely emotional.

And, Bailey knew, that wasn’t fair. But she couldn’t help it yet. Eventually, she knew, she would have to make peace with Chloe, and find forgiveness. In a way, she had begun that process. In another way, she was far, far from finishing it.

Holding a three month old baby held a special kind of magic all its own, though. Little

William blinked up at her with his nearly black eyes, and wiggled his nose, and experimented with his facial muscles—smiling, scowling, yawning, scrunching—and drove all other cares and concerns from Bailey’s mind.

“Can you… tell what he’s thinking?” Piper asked quietly. “I always wonder…”

Bailey glanced up at her friend. She bit her lip. Piper had no magic of her own, so it wasn’t likely that William would have any. Though, it did happen—it had happened to Avery, who was apprenticed to Bailey’s boss. Still, that was exceedingly rare. So Bailey opened her mind to baby William’s presence, gingerly, and listened.

There was nothing to hear. At least, no real thought the way that adults had them. It was all input at this stage—sights, sounds, smells. The texture of the soft blanket he was swaddled in. The taste of the air, and the texture of his gums against his exploring tongue. There was feeling, though—something like trepidation, or uncertainty.

Bailey giggled, and looked back at Piper. “Probably he won’t have thoughts until he learns words. Right now he’s just a bundle of sensations. And, maybe a little worried about something.”

“Impending poo,” Piper sighed. “Probably. At this age, that’s pretty much his whole life. Pooping, and preparing to poop.”

“God I miss being a baby,” Avery said. He bent over William. “Stay this way. You have no idea what you’ve got till it’s gone.”

William grunted, and stuck his tongue out momentarily before he sighed deeply, for an infant.

“Exactly,” Avery said. He looked up at Bailey. “Wise beyond his years already. Who knows,” he mused, and looked back at Piper, “maybe he’ll catch the wizard bug.”

Clearly, it was meant to be a joke. But Piper’s face paled just a bit and her smile was forced. “Yeah,” she muttered. “Maybe he will. Who knows, right?”

The silence that descended was tense, breached only by William’s occasional attempts at noise. Eventually, Bailey handed him back to his mother. “Well,” she said, “I should probably get back to work. Both of us.”

“Those books won’t shelve themselves,” Avery said. “Though, for the record, if I can sorcerer’s apprentice that place I totally will.”

“Didn’t that end in disaster?” Piper asked.

Avery shrugged. “You gotta break a few eggs.”

“Right,” Piper said as she began to work the strap of her shirt off her shoulder in advance of William’s grasping for food. “You two are welcome to come visit whenever you like. I think Gavin gets back from his mother’s house this evening. I’m sure he’d like to have you over for dinner. Especially after having Riley all day.”

Avery bit his lip. “Uh, I’ll have to take a rain check.”

“More class time with Aiden?” Bailey asked.

He smiled, and shook his head. “No. Thomas Hope got in this morning. He’s up at Rita’s old place sleeping it off, probably but… we’re going to go have dinner later.”

“Thomas and Avery, sitting in a tree,” Piper sang, in a high pitched mockery of a child’s

voice.

Avery narrowed his eyes at her. “We absolutely will not be doing anything in a tree.”

“Does he… know about Rita?” Bailey asked.

Avery shook his head. “Nope. And Francis already gave me the third degree, so, you can save it.”

“Francis,” Piper repeated.

He nodded slowly, a distant, haunted look in his eyes. “Yeah. She’s scary.” That was really all that needed saying.

“Well you’re still invited, Bails,” Piper said.

Bailey winced, and tugged at a lock of hair that wasn’t caught in her pony tail. “I… have plans, too. With Aiden.”

“And, I’m leaving,” Avery said, exasperated. “Try not to let Bailey’s indecision drive you insane. It’s known to happen. I’m pretty sure Faeries had nothing to do with Gloria, she just got stuck in a conversation with Bailey over Aiden.” As he said this, he pecked them both on the cheek, and saved William’s for later while he suckled. When all the goodbyes were said, he left.

Piper raised an eyebrow. “So…?”

Bailey jerked a thumb over her shoulder at Avery. “I’ve had a few talks with him about Aiden. I think he’s done.”

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Piper sighed. “You’ve explained it,” she added quickly when Bailey’s eyebrows rose and her lips parted to deliver another lecture. “I just don’t see why it’s that important. Aiden seems like a good guy. I don’t think he’s after some… crazy… super magic or whatever.”

“A throne of Medea,” Bailey offered helpfully.

Or, not that helpfully. Piper laughed, and rolled her eyes. “Yeah. That. Geeze, I guess I’m sometimes glad I’m not really a part of your world. Way too complicated. The worst I have to worry about is that Gavin habitually gets the wrong kind of milk and makes his coffee too strong for my taste.”

She looked up at Bailey when Bailey didn’t respond right away.

Bailey’s face looked about as pained as she felt. She didn’t have to say why. At this point, Piper knew.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she said, shifting William a bit. “I know I’m part of your personal world, and I want to be a part of it—and you a part of mine. I mean the… you know the other one.”

It was a conversation they’d had several times now. It didn’t need to be had again. Just the reminder of it was enough to drain the room of warmth a little.

“I should go,” Bailey said. He hugged Piper carefully, and Piper returned it with one arm. “I’ll come see you again soon.”

“I should be out in the world in another week or so,” Piper said. “So if I don’t see you before then, I can finally come hunt you down.”

“Promise?” Bailey stood from the couch.

“Scout’s honor,” Piper said. “Go; give tours, moon over your wizard crush. Save the world, or something.”

Bailey laughed, but as she gathered her things and left Piper’s house, the reality settled on her, as it often did when she was alone with her thoughts—or with Aiden, who was single minded in his life’s purpose at times.

There had been no activity from Faery, that they knew of, in the last three months. Things were quiet. They had been quiet before Professor Turner, the archaeologist who had nearly cracked the caves’ secrets, was murdered by Gloria Olson. Before that, it had been quiet until Gloria tried to steal one of the three Keystones that secured the magic of the caves—both its function as a kind of intelligent spirit, a ‘genius loci’, as well as its function as a lock on the door that separated this world from the world of Faery. Just because it was quiet, didn’t mean there was nothing happening, or nothing about to happen. At this point, they knew that all too well.

Up until Martha Tells was murdered, more than six months ago now, it had been quiet in Coven Grove for close to a hundred years.

Quiet didn’t mean much anymore. If anything, it was somehow more stressful when it was quiet than it was when something awful was happening. Now that Bailey knew that potential was lurking just under the surface of everything, she couldn’t stop looking for signs and symptoms of the turmoil beneath what she could see with her eyes or sense with her gift—those things told her that Coven Grove was just a pleasant little town on the rocky coast of Oregon, population seven thousand. Well, seven thousand and one, as of three months ago, she supposed.

Her instincts, though, told her a different story. Those screamed at her to be alert, to be watchful. Because any day now, that turmoil was going to boil over, crack the veneer of Coven Grove, and prove that it had never really been quiet in the first place.

All along, there had been a war song playing in the distance that no one could hear until it was too late.