The Case of the Love Spell Read online

  “Since I figured out that I need to track down a killer, and I seem to be the only one who is serious about finding them!” I snap.

  I think I’m stressed. And overwhelmed. And tired, and hungry. Running—and okay, walking—ten miles will do that to you.

  Not to mention, I’m worried about my cat.

  “Listen,” Marley says. “We know you’re under a lot of pressure. And Turkey’s illness isn’t helping matters.”

  “No, it’s not!” I say, placing my head into my hands and then slumping back onto the couch.

  “I saw a dead man!” I wail, while still covering my face. “I can’t get it out of my head! And then Turkey gets sick, but Buttercup can’t operate because stupid Chris thinks he’s better than everyone else so I have to track down a vampire who can kill a deer with his—”

  “Hey,” Marley says, stopping me mid-sentence. “Penny. Take a deep breath.” I feel her sit on the couch next to me and place a hand on my back. She speaks while rubbing circles on my back. “We’re here to help,” she says. “You’re not in this alone.”

  I take a deep breath. Whew. I needed that. Did I just have a panic attack? I feel all shaky. I take another deep breath.

  Cora sits down on the couch on the other side of me. “Tonight’s the full moon,” she says. “The book says that it’s a time for a full moon ritual. We decided that tonight will be the perfect night to cast the Love Spell. If we do it right, it will help us become more powerful. That ought to help the investigation, don’t you think?”

  I peel my hands away from my face, and look from Marley to Cora. “I suppose that would be good,” I say. “What about Annie?”

  “She’s in the van,” Marley says. “I’m parked out front. Come on.” She stops rubbing my back and stands up. “Let’s go,” she says. “We packed hot water, but it’s not going to stay hot forever.”

  “Hot water?” I ask.

  “For the potion,” Cora says. “Annie also packed brownies and lemon squares.”

  “For the Love Spell potion too?” I ask.

  “No,” Cora says. “Just for snacking on.”

  Mmm. Snacking. Now we’re talking.

  Cora is looking around my messy apartment. “Now, where’s that cauldron you were mentioning at our meeting? I came up to help carry it to the van.”

  “We’re bringing the cauldron?” I ask.

  “Hell, yeah!” Marley says. “What else would we mix the potion in?” She gives a little chuckle. I laugh too. I’m feeling better now that my friends are here.

  “Okay...” I say. “Cora, the cauldron is in that box on the countertop.” I point. “Let me grab some layers. You said we’re going up Hillcrest Mountain?”

  “To the very top,” Marley says, solemnly.

  Well, dang. She’s right, it does get colder the higher up into the mountains you go. Even though it was sunny and hot today, the temperatures could get very chilly up on the peaks after the sun has gone down.

  With brownies and tea on my mind, I hurry to the bedroom. I’m as quiet as I can be as I search through my drawers for a sweatshirt and long pants, but despite my efforts, Turkey wakes up.

  “Penelope?” He says, weakly.

  As soon as I hear his voice, I go to the edge of the bed and cup his cute little furry face in my hands. I plant a kiss on his nose. “How are you feeling?” I ask.

  “Terrible,” he says.

  “Hang in there,” I beg, before his eyes seal shut once again.

  I return to my dresser, pull out a black cardigan, and tiptoe from the room.

  Out in the living room, my friends are standing by the open door. They seem as eager to get this show on the road as I am. Cora has the cast iron cauldron under one arm. I reach for the string of pearls and loop them over my neck before we all step out of the apartment.

  Of course, this is just my luck. Just as we are making our way down the narrow walkway that leads to the front of the building, who should be coming in the other direction, headed for his apartment, but Chris Wagner?

  I avoid eye contact. I am still angry with him for dismissing my input earlier today. He shouldn’t have arrested Buttercup in the first place, but more than that, he shouldn’t have been such an insensitive jerk to me while he was at it.

  Cora passes by him, and then Marley.

  “Hello, Chris,” Cora says politely as they pass.

  “Christopher,” Marley says with a nod.

  I’m the last one in our little line. I hold my chin up and stare straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge him.

  “Ladies,” Chris greets all of us as one. “You’re looking... black tonight. Off to burglarize someone?”

  He laughs at his own joke.

  I don’t think it’s very funny. “No, we’re not. But that probably won’t stop you from arresting us for a crime we didn’t commit,” I say.

  He sighs. “You’re still upset, I see,” he says.

  I don’t answer.

  He speaks. “Penny, we had to arrest Buttercup. All of the evidence points to her. We even did the DNA testing on the rope that was found in her rubbish bin. It has Gunther’s DNA all over it.”

  “So?” I ask.

  “So, she’s the one. She’s the killer. Don’t be upset just because the PD solved the case before you could.”

  “That is not why I’m upset!” I cry.

  Marley gives my arm a gentle tug. I look at her. She motions with her head towards the parking lot.

  I turn back to Chris. “I can’t stand here and debate this with you,” I say. “We have somewhere to get to.”

  “Are you guys going to a poetry slam or something?” Chris asks as we begin walking away. “Why are you all dressed in black?”

  “We don’t have to tell you!” I call over my shoulder, and then follow the girls around the corner, out of Chris’s view.

  I spot Marley’s van, and in the back window I can see the puffy white cloud of Annie’s hair. The sun has sunk below the horizon line, and little stars are starting to pop out in the night sky.

  For the second time that day, I find myself in the passenger seat clinging to the grab bar as Marley navigates the tight hairpin turns of Hillcrest Pass.

  This time, we don’t stop at the Terra Mansion. I see lights on as we pass, which means that Ken and Lucy are probably still there.

  The road becomes narrower and steeper once we pass the mansion. It’s clear that it hasn’t been traveled in quite some time. Some of the ruts in the road are so deep that I begin to question whether Marley’s van is going to make it.

  “Is this thing built for roads like this?” I ask, bracing one hand against the dashboard as we all pitch forward after an especially aggressive dip in the road.

  “No,” says Marley.

  “Is it going to make it all the way up?” asks Cora.

  “I guess we’re going to find out,” Marley says, grimly.

  “Woo hooo!” Cheers Annie from the back seat. At least one of us is enjoying this white-knuckle drive.

  About twenty switchbacks later, we reach the tippity top of the pass. Marley pulls off onto a narrow rocky strip on the side of the road, and we all climb out of the van into the night air.

  It is cool up here. I give myself a hug and rub my arms up and down, trying to ward off the chill. Off to the right of the road, there is a little rocky bluff. It is the last level area of rock before the land starts to descend down the other side of the mountain. I step off of the road, out onto the bluff.

  It’s a wide ledge. I step out to the edge of it. The whole town of Hillcrest is spread out below us. Little pinpricks of light, thousands of feet below, line up in a grid-like patterns of peach, pink, yellow, and white. Our little town looks so peaceful and beautiful from up here. The sky stretches out overhead, a midnight blue ceiling complete with sparkling stars and a glowing white orb of a light: the full moon.

  I’m gazing up, now, at the moon. I’ve never felt this close to it.

  “Beautiful,” Cora says, si
ghing as she speaks. I realize she’s standing at my side. I look over and see that all of us are now out here on this ledge.

  “Why have we never done this before?” Asks Marley.

  “It’s absolutely stunning!” Annie exclaims, gleefully. She sounds as giddy as a child. “I love it up here. I feel so... alive!”

  They’re right. It’s hard to believe that this is where we live. The night sky all around us is one that we have access to every night, yet most nights I don’t even bother looking up.

  “I think this is a good place for our first spell, don’t you, ladies?” Cora asks. She’s setting down the cauldron in the middle of the rocky ledge.

  Annie has a teapot in one hand, and a thermos in the other. Marley is holding a grocery bag bursting with supplies.

  “Let me go get the book!” I say. I jog back to the van and grab our trusted copy of the ASBW. When I return, my friends are looking at me with expectation.

  I open up to the Love Spell chapter, and begin reading aloud. “The first thing that you must do when you are ready to cast the Love Spell is to choose the right circumstances for your efforts. You must align your timing with the Earth’s timing. The full moon offers excellent energy for the Love Spell, and will support your efforts rather than hinder them. Of course, you can perform your spell under any moon, but the full moon is best.”

  “Check,” Annie says, appreciatively looking up to the night sky.

  “Right, we’ve got that,” Marley agrees. “Keep reading, Penny.”

  “Okay.” I move my finger down the page, locating the place where I left off. “Then it talks about gathering up supplies. We need... let’s see...” I quickly read over the list. “Dried raspberry leaf, the juice of a blood orange, dried hyacinth petals, unpasteurized clover honey, purified water, a candle, boiling water, a lute...”

  “Yeah, we’ve got all that...” Marley says. “Except for a lute. All I could find was this penny whistle.” She pulls a penny whistle from her bag and holds it up.

  Annie reaches for it, brings it to her lips, and gives a little blow. A high pitched tweet carries out through the void around us.

  “We are so well prepared!” Cora says, happily. “We are going to nail this!”

  “I hope so!” I peer at the book, squinting down at the words. The moonlight illuminates the page just enough for me to be able to read. “Now it says... let’s see...” I scan ahead over a wordy section about proper methods of water purification until I get to the next item action.

  “Okay, here we go. ‘Next, light the candle,’” I read aloud. “Each member of the coven now takes her place around the candle. At this point, the naked fire dancing will begin. While one witch plays the lute, the entire coven shall dance around the candle—”

  “Wait... did that say naked?” Cora asks.

  I trace my eyes back over the words. “Right. It says it here. ‘The naked fire dancing.’”

  “Do we really have to be naked?” Marley says. “It’s kind of cold up here.”

  “We have to do this in the buff?” Annie asks. “Well, how do you like that?” She gives the whistle another little blow. Tweet!

  “Umm... okay,” I say. “Are you guys ready for this? I guess we have to strip down now.”

  Up until now, I’ve been all for performing the Love Spell. I want to step into my powers as a witch. I like it up here on this mountain, and I like being with my friends. Most of all, I like the idea of digging into the brownies that I’m sure are wrapped in a sweet little package and tucked in that grocery bag that Marley’s been toting around.

  But... naked? Do we really have to get naked?

  “We can do this, right?” Cora sounds like she’s trying to talk herself into it. “I mean, we were born naked. We’re all women. We all have the same bits and pieces.”

  “Right,” Marley says. “This is natural. We’re out here, under the full moon, in nature. It’s just the human body... there’s nothing wrong with it.”

  “My bits and pieces are a tad wrinkly!” Annie says, letting the whistle hang down at her side. She looks as uncertain as I feel.

  “It’s okay. There’s no judgement here,” I reassure her, reassuring myself at the same time. “This will help us get closer, as a coven,” I say. “It’s a... bonding exercise.”

  I reach for the bottom of my cardigan and begin unbuttoning. I can’t believe I’m about to get naked out in the open with my Knitting Circle.

  It’s been one hell of a day.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Annie is unlocking the door to the Death Cafe. “It will be warmer in here,” she says.

  “Yes, much. That wind up there was getting on my nerves!” Cora says.

  I don’t remember any wind, but I’m eager to empathize with Cora. “Me too,” I say. “And it was almost impossible to read the spell directions without any lamp light.”

  “Plenty of lamps in here!” Says Annie.

  “This is good,” says Marley, pulling out a chair and sinking into it. She quickly gets to work emptying the contents of her grocery bag out onto the table in front of us. “Now we have chairs and a table too. It was going to be hard to do what we needed to out on that jagged rock.”

  It turns out, none of us actually wanted to get naked.

  “Who needs naked fire dancing?” I ask, reaching for a tin-foil wrapped package that Marley has just set out on the table. I am sure it contains the brownies I’ve been promised. “I think the Love Spell is going to work just the same without the naked fire dancing.”

  “Me too,” Cora says. She sounds extremely relieved.

  I think we all feel relieved.

  I finish opening the package. Jack pot! I pull out a thick, double fudge brownie. “We’re just not the kind of coven that does that kind of thing,” I say, before biting off a hunk of chocolaty goodness.

  “Nope,” Annie agrees. She reaches for the thermos and unscrews the cap. “I think our water went cold,” she notes. “I’ll boil up some more.”

  “Thanks,” Cora says. “Penny, are those the brownies? All that traveling has stirred up my appetite.”

  “Mine too,” Marley says, following Cora’s lead and reaching for a brownie.

  Soon we’re all munching away, clothed and happy. Cora reaches for her knitting tote, which she left sitting in the corner. She has several sets of spare needles and she sets them out on the table, along with balls of yarn. I set aside my brownie and pick up a pair of needles and a ball of yarn.

  “Now this is more like it,” I say with a grin, as I begin casting on.

  Annie returns to the table with the boiling water. I’ve deposited the book on the table top, and Cora stops fussing with her own knitting and reaches for it.

  “Now,” Cora says. “Where were we? Oh right... the naked fire dancing... skipping that part and now...” She pauses as she reads ahead. “The next part is really simple,” she says. “We brew up this potion.... Which basically looks like tasty tea, and we drink it.”

  “Hang on,” Marley says. “Let’s at least light the candle.”

  “I’ll give us some background music,” Annie says. I think she’s become fond of the penny whistle.

  “Cora, if you read me the ingredients, I can add them to the cauldron,” I offer, setting aside my knitting for the moment.

  “Great,” Cora says.

  Soon, we’re working like a well-oiled machine. Marley lights the candle in the middle of our little table. Annie plays a light, merry tune. She’s definitely improvising, because sometimes a string of notes comes out that sounds totally off and random, but somehow she always manages to get things back on track. Cora reads off the ingredients, and I scoop and squeeze them into the waiting pot. Marley stirs in water as I keep piling more and more into the pot, and soon it’s full.

  “Done!” I say, after Cora reads off the last ingredient.

  “Whew!” Annie exclaims, leaning back in her chair. “Who knew playing a penny whistle would be so exhausting! I’m going to have
to build up some stamina if we plan on doing this every full moon.”

  We all laugh.

  Cora lifts the cauldron up and tips it so that the liquid within pours out into the teapot. Next, she ceremoniously divides the liquid out into four waiting mugs.

  “This is exciting,” I say, as she hands me the mug.

  I bring it to my lips, but before I can take a sip, Cora stops me.

  “Penny, wait!” She says. “Don’t drink just yet. There’s one final part—we have to say the spell out loud... all together.”

  “Oh. Okay.” I lower the mug.

  It takes us a moment to work out the logistics, but soon we’re all bunched together in a little huddle, reading over Cora’s shoulder. In unison, we speak:

  “In love we give

  In love we live

  Let love shine through

  For we are true

  In all honesty we proclaim

  Now, inside, we light the flame!”

  With that, we raise our glasses.

  I don’t know the proper etiquette for imbibing a potion, so I begin by sipping it tentatively. It’s delicious! Because we’ve prepared it with so much care, the water has now turned lukewarm. The sweet-and-sour tea slides down my throat and into my belly.

  Our words seem to vibrate through the air around the interior of the cafe. Inside, I feel the tea becoming absorbed into my system. It tastes good, and feels even better.

  Though I started out sipping the brew in a ladylike fashion, this quickly turns to gulping it down. It’s so good! As I polish off the last sip, I start to wonder: Is this spell really as powerful as the ASBW promises?

  I have a feeling that I’m about to find out.

  Chapter Fifteen

  How does one get ready to a dance that they really don’t want to go to, when one’s date happens to be a vampire?

  This is what is going through my mind as I mount my town bike on Friday morning. I already have a dress, the little black vintage cocktail number from Bess’s shop, so I think I’m all set in that department. But I think I need a gun.

  Max could be dangerous, and I’ve signed up to spend an evening with him. An entire evening! I want to be armed.