Witching There's Another Way: A Cozy Mystery (The Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 4) (12 page)

Chapter 19

The library in this Coven Grove copy was the same as the library in the real Coven Grove on the outside. Inside, however, was a different story. For one thing, the book titles made no sense. As Bailey and Aiden walked through the towering bookshelves looking for Braley, who they were assured would be working there today, they both paused to stare at the spines of the books.

Among the more interesting and nonsensical titles were things like “Music and the Art of Macrame”, and “Contemplations on the Light cast by Shadows”. All of the books had similarly paradoxical or simply unrelated titles, and when Bailey took one of the books—“A Treatise on Volcanic Distempers”—she found that the text on the pages was in a language she didn’t understand. Possibly it was the native tongue of Faeries; but it was just as likely more nonsense.

They found Braley, ultimately, in the back of the library shelving books. When they approached, she held up a finger to forestall them, muttering to herself as she ran a bandaged hand back and forth over the spines of books looking for the right spot to place another one.

Instead of numbers on the labels at the bottom of each spine, there were pictures of faces expressing, in this region, what appeared to be sadness. It was a comical little face, sometimes frowning and sometimes with tears, and sometimes with the mouth open as though wracked by sobs.  Other books in earlier sections had angry faces, laughing faces, or terrified faces. It was some kind of nuanced emotional system of organization.

Braley slipped a book between two others, frowned, took it back down, and reshelved it two books over before she turned to them, and put her fists on her hips. “Can I help you?”

“Yes,” Bailey said. “If you have a moment. We saw you before, at the bakery. I wanted to offer my condolences on the loss of your mother.”

“Oh, that,” Braley said. She put her hands in her pockets. “Well… thank you. We were very close. They arrested Carson, though, so… he’ll get what’s coming to him.”

Aiden cleared his throat quietly. “It’s a terrible thing, a betrayal like that. So very sorry. You’ve been through a lot lately, I suppose. We spoke with your father as well.”

“Betrayal?” Braley asked. “From my father?”

“No,” Bailey said, “no… from Carson.”

“Oh, that,” Braley sighed. “Yes. It’s awful. Who would have imagined he was capable of it? Still, you never can tell with some people.”

“Right,” Aiden said. “Have you spoken with your father? We were the ones that delivered the news and I’m afraid he was rather distraught over it. I’m sure he could use some support right now.”

At that, Braley snorted. “Yeah. Well, he can get it from his wife and his other kids.”

Bailey blinked. “He… has other children?”

“Sure,” Braley said, nodding. “Two. A boy and a girl. I forget their names. I’ve never met them; I’m not even sure they know he’s here. Why did you talk to my father?” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“We didn’t see him at the fair,” Aiden said. “We thought he’d like to know.”

“And you knew he was in town… how?”

Bailey shook off the torrent of questions and worries now tumbling through her mind. “Ah… Ara told us.”

“Of course she did,” Braley groaned. “She does love to gossip. Well, thank you for coming by. I have a lot of work to do, so…” She waited for them to leave.

Bailey wasn’t done, though. It seemed very strange that Braley didn’t seem more concerned that the man she was clearly somehow involved with would do such a thing as what he’d been accused of. “Can I ask how long you were involved with Carson?”

“Involved?” Braley shook her head. “We’re just friends.”

“If you’ll forgive me for saying so,” Aiden said, “it seemed like a little more than that when you were with him at the fair.”

Her face smoothed as her shoulders stiffened a bit. “We were just talking.”

“And why did he give you his watch?” Aiden asked.

She didn’t react, other than to shrug. “I wanted to see it. He won it off the sheriff. It’s old; an antique. I was curious about it. I gave it back to him.” She looked from one of them to the other. “What exactly is it you want to know?”

“After he gave it to you,” Bailey said, running the scene through her mind again, “you left him. Where did you go?”

“You think I went to kill my own mother?” Braley asked, clearly appalled at the suggestion.

“We’re only curious about the course of the day’s events,” Aiden said.

“If you must know,” Braley told him bitterly, “I went to have it appraised. One of the tents set up was an antique dealer. He’s probably left town by now, his next stop is a long way away. We don’t have one in town, so when he’s around, he’s the only person to ask.”

“And?” Bailey asked.

“And what?”

“What did he say?” Aiden asked.

Braley snorted, and then shook her head. “That it’s not that valuable. It’s not really an antique, it’s a replica.”

“Why would you get Carson’s watch appraised in the first place?” Bailey asked. “It seems sort of… inappropriate, doesn’t it?”

“If I wanted to keep it, Carson would have let me have it,” Braley said. “Lately… the bills are piling up. It’ll get worse, now that I’m tied up with that bakery. I thought that if the watch was worth something… it doesn’t matter now, anyway.”

“Carson wanted your mom to sell the bakery,” Aiden said. “Didn’t he? Did he voice any concern or frustration that she might not?”

“I already talked to the sheriff about this,” Braley said coldly.

“Then I’m sure it won’t matter if you tell us,” Bailey pressed.

Braley sighed, and leaned against the book cart. “If he waited for the bakery to close down and the ladies to go bankrupt, he was going to have to pay tens of thousands in fees and inspections, and probably refurbish the place with equipment because the bank would take everything that they could auction off out of it. Carson needed the women to sell to get the best deal. Everyone thinks he could have just waited but that’s because they don’t understand how it all works. Carson told me all about it.”

“So that’s his motive, then?” Aiden asked.

She shrugged. “I mean… there was a struggle, obviously. Maybe they got into a fight.”

“It certainly looks that way,” Aiden muttered.

Braley squeezed her eyes closed for a moment, apparently in some kind of pain. She reached up, and rubbed the back of her head.

“Are you alright?” Aiden asked.

She waved him off. “I’m fine. I was… under a desk earlier after I dropped a book, and bonked my head when I came up too fast. Happens all the time.”

Bailey winced—she’d done it several times herself. After a moment, she frowned. “So… do you really believe Carson did it?”

“I do,” Braley said. “He had a temper. We weren’t involved very long but… once in awhile, you know… he never hit me or anything but he got very angry. He likes getting his way. I wish I could have been there… done something to help.”

“We can’t change the past,” Aiden told her gently. “We should go, then. It’s getting late.”

“Sure,” Braley said. “And I need to close this place up. Good night, both of you. Thanks for… dropping by. Sorry I’m not in a better mood.”

“It’s understandable,” Bailey said. “We’ll see you around, I’m sure.”

As they left, Bailey felt her Doppleganger’s eyes on her back; but when she glanced over her shoulder, Braley was back to her work, shelving odd books based on the odd system of organization.

“Perhaps we were mistaken,” Aiden said as they closed the library doors behind them. “If Carson had a temper, and stood to save money by getting the ladies to sell—well, perhaps he thought he could improve his odds by ensuring Bailey—sorry, Braley—inherited her part before the place went under.”

“Maybe…” Bailey sighed.

“But you don’t think so,” Aiden said.

“I’m not sure.” She pursed her lips, and looked up at the now nearly dark sky. Did they really intend to spend the night here? She worried about what would happen if she fell asleep. The last thing she wanted was to suffer a Rip Van Winkle incident. She rolled the broken link between her fingers, and had a thought. “Let’s see if we can get to Ryan.”

“Any particular reason?” Aiden asked. “I doubt he’ll help us, given that it’s in his interest to win this macabre little game.”

“He’s got press privileges,” Bailey said. “Assuming he’s pretending to be a journalist here.”

“To what end?”

Bailey bit her lip, uneasy about what was ahead but willing to see it through. “I need to see Chloe—Cleo’s—body. And, ideally, the watch she was killed with.”

“Care to share?”

“No,” Bailey said. “Not just yet. I want to see if you end up thinking what I’m thinking.”

“Alright,” he agreed. “Then, let’s find Ryan.”

It wasn’t difficult to find Ryan; he was in the Faerie equivalent of the Coven Grove Daily office, hard at work writing up the story about the murder at the bakery. Bailey wanted to read some of the story, to see if he had the same style that the real Ryan Robinson did, but none the less avoided looking at his screen when they met.

Interestingly, he did agree to go with them to the Sheriff’s department when Bailey suggested that she wasn’t certain Carson was the killer. How much better would the story be if it turned out to be someone else? Someone thus far not suspected?

Given the nature of the game, Bailey thought, Faerie Ryan, like his real world counterpart, was unable to resist scooping that particular story. So he walked with them the distance to the department—it would have been prudent to drive but Ryan never suggested it and Bailey suspected that the cars parked on the street were indeed merely decoration. So the walk took them all together nearly an hour and by then it was well and truly night.

There were strange stars in the sky here. For one thing, they were conspicuously star-shaped; between five and what looked like possible twelve or thirteen points each, they twinkled like cut jewels in the solid black heavens behind them. The moon was out as well, rising into the night, a perfect, silvery crescent that didn’t appear to be in any kind of shadow—as though that was simply how the moon looked over this version of Coven Grove.

Between the stars and moon and the flickering street lamps, there was an eerie light to everything; but not all of it seemed to come from light sources themselves. It was as though everything was cast in some pale illumination that simply permeated the place, much like a nighttime scene from a movie.

There were of course deputies at the station for the overnight shift. One of them approached them after the front desk clerk took Ryan’s credentials and called back—Bailey didn’t know the name of the night clerk at the department in her own Coven Grove, and didn’t know this woman.

“Well now,” Aiden muttered. “That’s interesting…”

Bailey had to agree. Like the coven ladies, and Bailey’s own double, who weren’t as precise in their appearance as the other Faerie twins, the man who met them was recognizable but not a clean copy.

It was undoubtedly deputy Seamus Jackson.

“Hi Mr. Robinson,” Seamus said when he stopped in front of them. “I see you’ve brought guests. You… sure about that?”

“They brought me the lead,” Ryan said. “I think they can both handle it.”

“If you say so,” Seamus said. He turned away, waving the three of them after him. “This way.”

First, he showed them the watch from evidence. “We pulled prints off it, but then again, we found it on the Mr. Carson’s person.”

“The chain,” Bailey said, “it had Cleo’s skin on it?”

“A little bit, yeah,” Seamus said. “And there was a clear impression on her throat.”

“It wasn’t broken?” Bailey wondered.

“Nope,” Seamus said. “We found it like it is.”

A short walk down the hallway later, and he paused at the entrance to the morgue. “Uh… either of you seen a body before?”

“More than I’d like,” Bailey said.

“Likewise,” Aiden assured the deputy. “Please.”

Seamus shrugged, and led the trio in. Ryan looked over the report first, before giving it to Bailey.

When she was done, she handed it to Aiden, and waited for him to see it.

It didn’t take him long. “Ah,” he breathed. “I see.”

Bailey smiled at him, and then turned to Seamus—or, whatever his Faerie name was. “If you’d do me a favor, Deputy, and make a couple of calls? I believe you’ve arrested the wrong person.”

Chapter 20

Avery’s first instinct was to deny that what he was seeing could mean what it very clearly appeared to mean. “Thomas?” He asked, fighting the bile in his stomach. “What… what are you doing here?”

“Technically,” Thomas said, his hands in his pockets as he leaned against a tree, eying the women as he spoke, “I’m helping you save your friends.”

“This is… not the sort of thing you can help with, Thomas,” Avery said. He took a step toward the man.

“Avery,” Chloe said tensely, “don’t.”

“How did he know we were out here?” Fran asked, just as urgently, and clearly directed at Avery.

Avery shook his head slowly. “This can’t… Thomas, you’re not… what are you doing?”

Thomas shrugged. “I have a debt to repay. Several, actually. I plan to repay them all at once. Efficiency, you know? Over rated. But I am a master of efficiency. I’ve had to be, since I was given so little to work with.” He finally looked at Avery. “Not like some of us.”

“Thomas,” Chloe said, “you need to put an end to this. You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

Standing from the tree, Thomas snorted, and tapped his temple a few times, tsking as he did. “Now, now, Miss Minds. None of that.”

Without any warning at all, a frigid wind picked up, gusting so hard that Avery very nearly toppled over. Thomas got it full in the chest as Frances pointed at him, and within seconds he was pressed against the tree, frost beginning to collect on his clothes.

A half second later, the ground near the tree’s roots churned, and thick tendrils of woody roots and vines snaked up to grip Thomas’ ankles. Avery staggered away from the sight, and looked over to see Aria with hands outstretched, fingers clawed toward the sky, her face darkened with concentration.

Thomas was laughing.

He didn’t struggle. But after a moment he stopped laughing and began whistling.

It was the strangest magic that Avery had felt; wild and silvery, with a kind of actinic flavor that he imagined on the back of his tongue; like pressing a nine volt battery to it. The wind curled and slipped away, frosting the nearby trees, while the roots and vines at Thomas’ feet withered. More, the tree behind him blackened.

When he was free, he wasted no time. His voice rose in some discordant melody, a wordless tune in the form of a haunting wail as he spread his hands, curled his fingers and then made a tearing motion before him.

The women gasped. Chloe’s hands when to her ears, Aria’s to her eyes, and Frances coughed and began wheezing, her fingers clawing at her throat.

“Thomas, stop this!” Avery shouted.

Thomas’ song waned to a hum. When he’d stopped, his face was strained with some invisible effort. He turned his gaze back on Avery, but in his eyes there was a look Avery had never seen before. They were wild, and bloodshot. “That… should do it. For now, anyway.”

“What is this, Thomas?” Avery asked, his mind racing. Whatever Thomas was doing, it was taking a monumental effort, that much was clear. So, it was unlikely he could do much more than maintain whatever enchantment he’d laid on the witches—and Avery couldn’t ignore the evidence in front of him.

“What does it look like, Avery?” Thomas sighed. “Magic. Deep magic; the old kind, from before there were even such things as witches or wizards or whatever you’re all calling yourselves now.”

Avery’s stomach twisted into knots. “Tell me you don’t know what you’re doing, Thomas. Please, tell me you’re just following instructions or something.”

“Would that make it better?” Thomas asked. “If I was just a pawn? If I didn’t know?”

Avery kept his feet planted where they were. Without a wand, all he had were simple spells that weren’t much use in this situation. He needed time to think. “Alright… okay, but why? Why help them? Did you take the girl?”

“Did I take the girl?” Thomas laughed. “No. I merely pointed her in a direction. She walked on her own.”

“Christ, Thomas…” Avery shook his head slowly, scanning the ground around them. Maybe, if he could get his hands on a small branch or something vaguely wand shaped… “Do you have any idea how many people you’ll hurt if you do this?”

“I don’t know,” Thomas said, his eyebrows knitting with concern as he considered. “What’s the population of the world right now? Too damn many?” He snorted. “Believe me, it’ll be a better place once the rightful owners come back and clean things up.”

There was nothing in sight that would do the trick, if that would even work. Thomas hadn’t directed any magic at Avery, though—did he know about Avery’s limitations, or did he actually care about him on some level? Too many possible variables to guess about, and gambling wrong at this moment could be a very bad idea.

Thomas was staring at the women again. “They took it away from her, you know,” he said softly. “They all think I don’t know, but I do. Hope? Please. My mother didn’t look anything like Anita, or Rita for that matter. My poor mother… I take it they didn’t tell you.”

“Tell me what? You can tell me, Thomas. What did they do?”

He appraised Avery suspiciously for a moment, and then looked back at the women. All three of them were on their knees now, staring blankly, unmoving. “They took what was rightfully mine, and they did it before I was even born. They can say they didn’t know, but they did. They knew what would happen. Do you know my grandmother never even got to see her daughter? Not until the day she died.”

Avery frowned, and glanced at the witches. “Your grandmother? Thomas, they couldn’t have known your grandmother, they’re—”

“Not them,” Thomas snapped. “The old ones. The crones.”

It rang in Avery’s mind like a bell, clear and loud and terribly sad. “You… you’re grandmother was Esme? The third crone?”

“She was pregnant when they threw her out,” Thomas said. “When they crammed her magic so far down she could never get to it again. Esme didn’t go insane while she was in Faerie—she lost her mind because they took away what made her who she was.” His face twisted with anger. The veins of his neck stood out. “And they did the same to my mother before she was even born. A generational curse. One that my mother spent her whole life trying to beat. She was almost sixty before she gave up. Before she finally settled down, and had me. I should have known her longer; it wasn’t fair—I never did anything wrong.

“But me? I figured it out. My mother gave me more than just her spark—she gave me a head start. She knew where to look, but she could never make it there.” His eyes brightened, and he smiled. “They could only whisper at first, and only when I reached out to them. But whispers were enough. Bit by bit they taught me how to make the most of what I had. And then they told me to come here. They had a plan, and when I help them, they’ll be here and they can take the binding off me entirely. I’ll finally have what I was meant to have. I’ll be the first enchanter to walk the earth in a thousand years.”

Avery’s phone went off. The timer he’d set. About now, the children would be syncing up. The air grew tense, taut as though something were pressing against the fabric of the world.

He had to do something. Thomas was bigger than him, but maybe if he could at least disrupt his concentration, the coven ladies would be freed.

Moving slowly, carefully, Avery bent his knees a bit and dug his heels down slightly into the soft ground.

Thomas, though, noticed. He sighed, and shook his head slowly. “I didn’t want this, just so you know.”

This time, Avery didn’t really hear the sound that Thomas made. Instead, he felt a pressure in his head, and his legs became leaden, growing heavier and heavier until they buckled, his knees slamming into the ground as he fell.

It was hard to breathe, and his sight was starting to go. The background sounds of the forest began to grow distant.

He groped for anything—any object that was roughly wand shaped. It probably wouldn’t matter, but he had to try something. He knew, in theory, a few things he could try if he could just keep his thoughts straight—but thinking was beginning to get hard. All the gears felt gummed up, and he was so, so tired.

Bailey was out there still. And Aiden. He couldn’t let them down, couldn’t let them return to a world he’d screwed up by being blind and incompetent. He felt himself falling forward, and braced himself on his hands. His vision narrowed until his fingers clawing at the earth were all he could see.

His fingers…

With a monumental effort, Avery heaved himself backward, forefinger rigid as he fell onto his back. He jerked his hand this way and that, drawing out a series of platonic solids in his mind’s eye as he muttered with a numb tongue and slack lips, summoning every ounce of will he had left even as it ebbed away.

He’d practiced Leiman’s Inverted Dispel so many times in just this way that once he got into the feel of it, it seemed to flow almost on it’s own. He felt the tip of his finger heat, and then sting, and then blister but the pain only served to draw some of his will back to him to complete the spell.

It clicked into place, sending a ripple of jagged, disruptive magic through the area. The enchantment cracked at the edges and then fell away, allowing Avery to surge to his feet gasping for air. His fingertip throbbed painfully—but he still had nine more not yet injured.

Thomas raised an eyebrow. He was sweating, his shoulders heaving. “Well now,” he said, “that is impressive. Unfortunately, you’re too late.”

In the distance, Avery heard the peal of a horn.