The Artist's Alchemy Read online




  The Artist's Alchemy: A Marley the Witch Mystery (Book #3)

  Amorette Anderson

  Published by Amorette Anderson, 2020.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  THE ARTIST'S ALCHEMY: A MARLEY THE WITCH MYSTERY (BOOK #3)

  First edition. June 21, 2020.

  Copyright © 2020 Amorette Anderson.

  Written by Amorette Anderson.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  King Midas’ Magic | A Marley the Witch Mystery (Book #3)

  Also by Amorette Anderson

  Chapter One

  “I don’t get it,” my friend Cora said as she leafed through a stack of papers in her hands. “Half of these registrations are for guests who have careers in the sciences.”

  She pulled one form from the stack. “Take this one, for example. This guy is a professor of quantum mechanics at Eseleve University in the Spirit Realm. There’s a note on the bottom of his form that says: ‘Looking forward to learning more about how matter can be transformed on a subatomic level.’”

  She looked up from the paper, and scrunched up her nose. “But the other half of the guests are artists, expressing excitement about learning more about art.”

  I was starting to feel nervous.

  A month ago, the doors opened on my magical retreat center, the Greene Center for Magical Living. My friends and witch-sisters, Cora, Penny, Annie, and Azure, and I were gathered at our little town’s only bar, the Other Place (or the OP, as we call it) for happy hour. Our intention was to have refreshments while ironing out some last-minute details about the weekend-long workshop that was fast approaching. It was due to start tomorrow, so our meeting was a bit last minute. Cora’s observation about our registered guests concerned me.

  “Well, it’s a workshop about art,” I said, “but I guess that’s cool that some hard-core scientist types want in, too. Maybe they want to branch out.” My tone was laid-back, as usual, though I did feel nervous on the inside. I was used to being the chill one in our group, and even in my upset state, I was probably the least stressed person in the room.

  I think I have my loves of massage therapy, relaxing reggae music, and my yoga practice to thank for that.

  Penny gave me a confused look. “Marley, wait a sec—this weekend isn’t about art. It’s about science. Alchemy is the science of transforming matter. Guests are going to geek out on sciency stuff... right?”

  I shook my head. “No, not at all. The weekend workshop is called ‘The Artist’s Alchemy: How to Transform the Way You See the World.’ It’s about how looking at life like an artist can change our experience, and make us more magical. Our guest speaker is an artist named Asti, remember? She’s an award-winning painter.”

  “Oops,” Penny said. She was starting to blush. “I may have made a tiny, itsy bitsy, really really small boo boo with our marketing material.” She held up two fingers an inch apart, and seemed to shrink in her seat.

  My friend, Azure, who was sitting across from Penny, rolled her eyes. “What now?” she asked.

  Azure’s a fashionista. Her blue eyes were lined with electric-blue, sparkly eyeliner that matched the hue of her hair, and made her eye-roll extra dramatic. She waited expectantly for Penny to go on.

  We all followed Azure’s lead and looked at Penny.

  Penny grimaced.

  Penny and I go way back. I’ve been her best friend since we were five-year-old tykes, which is a long time given that we’re both in our late twenties now. Out of my entire coven of witch sisters, I think I’m the one with the most patience for her. Well, Annie, being seventy with years of wisdom at her back, has a good deal of patience, too. But Azure and Cora tend to get frustrated with Penny, and they’re not very good at hiding it.

  Penny held up her hand, as if defending herself against their accusatory glares. “Hang on—before you guys get all ‘Penny what now?’ on me—let me just say something. This is a very minor error that can be fixed no problem. It’s no big deal, really. We can patch this up before the weekend starts. I mean, it’s Thursday. Guests aren't arriving until tomorrow, so we have, like... I don’t know, twenty hours or something before we have to—”

  “They’re arriving tomorrow, Friday, at noon,” Cora said primly as she glanced down at her sunshine-yellow sports watch. “And it’s now almost seven p.m.. That means we have seventeen hours to fix whatever mistake you made, not twenty.”

  “Fine, seventeen hours,” Penny said. “Plenty of time... I think... maybe....” She looked at me apologetically.

  Like I said, usually I’m a pretty chill person. But when it comes to my retreat center, it’s sometimes hard for me to remain cool as a cucumber. That’s because my gran, Catori Greene, came to me in a vision and told me that it was my purpose to have a magical retreat center on the land that I inherited from her and my grandfather. For the first time in my twenty-eight years of life, I felt like I had a true calling, and I wanted to do my best at it.

  I really cared about the Greene Center for Magical Living. I wanted it to succeed. The weekend retreat that would start tomorrow was only our second event that we’d ever hosted. A failure could really set us back, big time.

  Despite the upset I felt, I tried to keep my voice even as I responded. “Why don’t you just tell us what happened, Penny,” I said. I was happy with how gentle my tone sounded.

  “Okay.” She reached up and pulled on one of her brown curls. It stretched long and then bounced back into place. “Marley, you know how we all decided to ask Turkey to do some marketing for this weekend?”

  “Sure,” I said. Penny’s familiar, a cat named Turkey, was a genius when it came to advertising.

  “Well, I asked him,” Penny said. “And he informed me that he was booked through July. He even showed me his schedule, and it made my head spin. He literally has every hour of time accounted for, for the next, like, hundred months. He even blocked out two hours a day for reading books in the basement library. He’s become obsessed with studying books about ancient, secret, magical knowledge.”

  “It’s April, Penny,” Azure said. “July is four months away.” She pinned Penny with a disapproving glare.

  Penny lifted her chin. “I was just speaking metaphorically about the hundred months,” she said.

  “That wasn’t a metaphor, it was an exaggeration,” Azure shot back.

  Thankfully, Annie interjected. “Ladies,” she said. She had to raise her voice, thanks to the country song that started blaring from the jukebox in the corner of the bar. “Bickering will get us nowhere. Penny, why don’t you go on. Turkey couldn't do the advertising for us, so...”

  “So I took matters into my own hands,” Penny said. “And I did some advertising myself. I didn’t know the whole title of the workshop, but I knew it was about alchemy, so I just made up my own title and description. I called it: ‘Advanced Alchemy: The Serious Scientific Study of Transforming Matter’ and posted everywhere I could think of. You know, on the InterRealm Net. Warlock forums, Mer-people communities, InterRealm travel sites. All the online places where m
agical beings hang out. Only...” Her voice drifted off.

  We all groaned.

  Her blush intensified. “I guess I messed up, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah,” Azure said. “You put up a bunch of false advertising.” She shook her head as she picked up her mug of tea and sipped it. Her off-shoulder silver top was the fanciest piece of clothing in the entire bar, and it stuck out amidst a sea of faded plaid and earth-toned jackets like a sore thumb.

  Though it was happy hour, and everyone in our little mountain town was drinking alcoholic beverages (mostly mugs of beer), my witchy friends and I had ordered tea. Yes, the waitress had looked at us like we were weird. And yes, we were used to that.

  We were all used to being magical oddballs in our little box-canyon community of Hillcrest, Colorado. The fact that soon after sitting down at the table we all pulled out knitting didn’t make us fit in any better at the bar, given that most people were either chatting or dancing. However, we simply didn’t mind the stares or occasional comments that were tossed our way. We loved to knit whenever we had a coven get-together.

  In addition to tea, we’d also ordered pie. It was the only dessert option on the bar’s limited menu. I picked up my fork. Our meeting really wasn’t going well, but at least I could distract myself with a bite of goopy, syrupy, cherry filling and a not-so-flakey crust.

  “Well, that explains our guest list,” Cora said. She picked up her stack of forms and tapped the bottom edge against the table so that all the papers formed a neat stack. “I guess we’d better put our heads together and try to fix this. Any ideas?”

  Her short blonde hair, which was pulled into a sporty ponytail at the top of her head, twitched as she quickly looked around the table. Cora’s in her forties, and the mother of triplets, yet she has the physique of a much younger woman thanks to her fitness obsession.

  Annie set down the shawl she was working on and spoke up in her usual grandmotherly tone. “As you mentioned, Cora dear, we only have seventeen hours before guests begin arriving. Our hope is to fill the center to capacity with each workshop, and that means having twenty-five guests in attendance. If we announce that the workshop is indeed about art, the scientists might cancel. That would cut our guest list in half, which would be quite against the point, if you ask me. We’ve worked hard to prepare for this weekend; I don’t want to see our efforts wasted.”

  Azure frowned. “But if we don’t say anything, and we let the scientists come to the workshop under the false idea that it’s going to be a weekend focused on science,” she looked pointedly at Penny, “then we’re going to have about a dozen severely disappointed guests.”

  Cora bobbed her head up and down in agreement. “Totally disappointed,” she said. “Imagine all those scientist types in a lecture about painting... They’d be bored out of their minds! Plus, in the magical universe, scientists and artists are notorious for not getting along with one another. Silas has told me all about the rift. It’s been going on for quite a while.”

  “They don’t get along all that well here in the Earth Realm, either,” Annie said.

  I swallowed my pie and washed it down with a gulp of tea. My witch sisters all looked upset, and that made me even more uncomfortable than the idea of a bunch of disappointed, bored scientists starting arguments with artists. “Maybe this isn’t so bad,” I said.

  I paused, and my friends all looked at me. “Maybe the Universe wanted these scientist-types to be immersed in art for the weekend,” I suggested. I wasn’t sure if I believed that, but I wanted to ease the tension at our table. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s tension. I went on. “It won’t be the end of the world for them to take a class on painting... Maybe this can still all work out.”

  As my friends murmured agreement, a movement at the far end of the small bar caught my eye.

  It was my boyfriend, Justin, lifting an amp and setting it on the little wooden stage. One of his bandmates, Byron, was at his side. They were laughing and joking with each other. I grinned at the sight of my handsome man. He’s tall, lean, and easy on the eyes. His hair is shaggy, his dark eyes burn bright with inspiration, and his smile is authentic and relaxed. All in all, he’s got a musician vibe that wafts off of him like strong cologne, and I find it super attractive.

  The sight of Justin and Byron joking around reminded me to try to lighten the mood at my end of the bar, too. I smiled at my friends. “Let’s just approach this weekend with a relaxed attitude and see what kind of fun we can have,” I suggested.

  Penny lifted her mug of tea. “Cheers to that!” she said with a grin.

  Cora smiled, too. “You’re right, Marley. I guess this isn’t the end of the world.” Her brows popped up “Oh! I just remembered, we had a cancelation.”

  She reached for her purse, which was yellow to match her sporty watch, her headband, and her bright running shoes. Cora’s the queen of coordination. She usually even manages to coordinate her chihuahua Blueberry Muffin’s accessories with her own outfits. I honestly have no idea how she manages to pull it all off, given the busy home life she has. I mean, caring for triplets is hard enough, but to make matters more complicated, her triplets have budding and often mis-managed magical abilities.

  She rummaged around in her purse and then pulled out her phone. As she tapped the screen, she said, “I was checking the center’s admin email account, and I saw that we had a message come through from one of our Earth Realm guests. Hang on a sec, just let me log in...” Her perfectly manicured nails flashed as she tapped on her screen.

  I finished the bite of pie I was working on and then wiped my mouth with a cloth napkin.

  “We have an email account?” I said.

  Cora nodded. “Of course we do.”.

  “Since when?” I asked.

  “Since we opened, last month,” Cora said. “I realized that it would be an efficient way for guests to contact the center with questions. I mean, Marley, you can’t give out your personal email or phone number. You’re running a business, remember.”

  “Right, a business...” I murmured.

  Running a business was entirely new to me. Before opening the Greene Center for Magical Living, I was a massage therapist. I suppose that was, in a way, running my own business, but really it came down to showing up at people’s houses with my portable massage table and then working for an hour or two. Sure, I had to set up the appointments, but I was pretty casual about it. This whole retreat center thing was on a whole new level, and most of the time I felt like a kid who couldn’t swim, yet had been thrown into the deep end of the town pool.

  Thank goodness I had friends around to give me a helping hand. Plus, I’d even hired two employees. That helped, too.

  Cora went on. “Here it is—it’s from a guy named Morris Schulz, and he says he’s sorry to inform us that he has to ask for his deposit back. He writes—‘When I registered for this weekend's workshop I was under the impression that the lectures would be about the science of alchemy. However, I have since then discovered that it is about art, which I have zero interest in. Therefore, I won’t be attending.”

  “Unicorn poop,” I said quietly. Then a little bit louder I added, “At least it’s only one guest. Um... how do we refund a deposit payment?”

  Cora waved her hand. “Don’t worry about that, Marley. I can handle it. I’ll just cut him a check, magically send it to the return address on his form, and then pop into the accounting software and make a record of it.”

  “Thanks Cora,” I said. It was the first I’d even heard about the accounting software, so I was very grateful for Cora’s help.

  “One cancelation isn’t bad,” Cora said. She shifted her attention to a clipboard that was on the table next to the registrations. “So, last two items on our list: the dance on Saturday night, and the lunch-hour concert at noon on Sunday. Marley, is Justin still available to handle the music for Saturday night?”

  I nodded. “He said the band can’t play live, but he’ll come up with a good
playlist that the guests will love. And the band can be there on Sunday to play for us.”

  Annie smiled as her knitting needles clicked together. “I just love the Hillcrest Funk Collective! Can’t wait to dance!” she said happily. She wasn’t even looking at her shawl as she spoke, yet I was sure her knits and purls were flawless.

  Cora gave a quick nod. “Great. That's taken care of.” She loaded her papers, clipboard, and knitting into her large purse, and then stood. She lifted her purse and her windbreaker off of the back of her chair and then started putting her jacket on. As she shouldered her purse, she said, “I’d better get home. Silas has been with the babies all evening.”

  “I’m going to head home, too,” Annie said with a yawn. “I’ve got to be up at four, you know!”

  Annie runs the town’s only coffee shop, and is always at work by 5 a.m. I didn’t blame her for wanting to be in bed. I looked over at Azure and Penny. “Are you guys going to stay for Justin’s show?”

  The reason we’d met at the bar instead of our usual meet-up spot, Annie’s café, was because my boyfriend Justin and his band, The Hillcrest Funk Collective, were going to perform. Even though I knew that the next day was going to be busy, there was no way I was going to miss the live music, even if it meant staying up late and being tired in the morning.

  Azure placed a few bills on the table. “I’ll cover the tea and pie,” she said as she stood, “but I can’t stay. I have to teach an early yoga class tomorrow.”

  I eyed Penny. “You and me, sister?” I said.

  She nodded. “I wouldn’t miss a live performance by the Funk Collective!” She lifted her mug of tea. “I’m gonna go trade this tea in for a beer. You want one?”

  Of course I did.

  “Yeah!” I said happily. I felt relieved that the meeting was over, and eager to have a drink and forget about the stress of the weekend ahead.

  Chapter Two

  It turned out that drinking and dancing until two in the morning wasn’t the best way to prepare for a busy day of work. On Friday morning I slept in, and totally ignored some of the duties that I probably should have attended to, like getting the spa ready, double checking that the rooms were spotlessly clean, and making sure my two employees were feeling ready for the weekend’s events.