Alice in Murderland

Samantha Silver

Blueberry Books Press

Contents

1.
Chapter One

2.
Chapter Two

3.
Chapter Three

4.
Chapter Four

5.
Chapter Five

6.
Chapter Six

7.
Chapter Seven

8.
Chapter Eight

9.
Chapter Nine

10.
Chapter Ten

11.
Chapter Eleven

12.
Chapter Twelve

13.
Chapter Thirteen

14.
Chapter Fourteen

15.
Chapter Fifteen

16.
Chapter Sixteen

17.
Chapter Seventeen

18.
Chapter Eighteen

19.
Chapter Nineteen

20.
Chapter Twenty

21.
Chapter Twenty-One

22.
Chapter Twenty-two

Also by Samantha Silver

About the Author

Chapter One

The weather as I stepped off the plane at Portland International Airport matched my mood exactly: miserable and low, with dark clouds that threatened to open up and drench the world.

I didn’t want to be here. I was a Miami girl, born and bred. When the weather dipped under seventy degrees, I was cold.

It was fifty-two in Oregon right now. In the middle of April. I shivered as I made my way through the airport to collect my luggage. The cute, sleeveless sundress I was wearing made me look adorable, but it also made me feel freezing cold. I regretted not having bought a cardigan or something to put on top of it.

I’d never wanted to move to Oregon, anyway. I liked Miami. I had a life there. I had family, I had friends. Sure, they were more the type that you called up to go party with than the kinds that would sit with you with a tub of Ben & Jerry’s when you broke up with your boyfriend, but still. I had a job, too. Ok, so the job kind of sucked, but nobody has an awesome job they absolutely love when they’re twenty-six. And there were worse ways to spend a day than perfecting latte art, right?

My mom had called me out of the blue a week ago with a phone call that changed my life completely. I’d known I was adopted my whole life–my mom and my birth mother had been best friends, until my birth mother died in a car accident and mom and dad adopted me. They’d raised me as their own, unable to have children themselves.

What I didn’t know was that my birth mother’s family still kept in touch with mom from time to time. One of my biological aunts had died, and she had left me the old bookshop she ran in a small mountain town in Oregon. I didn’t want it. I mean sure, I enjoyed reading. But running a stuffy old bookshop in a town of six thousand people where the water took the form of snow for half the year? No, thank you. I was definitely more the relax-on-the-beach type than the throwing-myself-down-a-mountain-on-skis type.

Of course, when I told my mom that, she wasn’t happy. “You’re not doing anything with your life, Alice. You’re stuck in a dead-end job, your friends still take you out to party like you’re nineteen, and you’re obviously miserable. Go to Oregon. Take over the bookshop. If you hate it, you can always come back. But for goodness’ sake, I hate seeing my daughter like this. I promise I’ll come visit you as often as I can. But you need to do this. Please.”

I sighed, knowing my mom was right. As always. I eventually agreed to go to Oregon, but only for a year. And if I absolutely hated it, I was coming back sooner. There was something weird in my mom’s voice when I told her that, though. It was almost… relief. I wondered if my mom wasn’t trying to get me away from her, and that only made my mood worse.

That was how I ended up sitting in front of the luggage claim rack at Portland airport, near tears as I watched the empty carousel turning in circles. Everyone else on my flight had left, luggage in hand, and the pretty flowered suitcase I’d bought for this trip a week ago was nowhere to be seen.

My eyes stung as I made my way to the lost luggage counter and made my claim. I had never felt so alone in my life. My mother had exiled me to this strange place. My friends were in Florida. My family was in Florida. Even my suitcase had abandoned me.

I left my information with the clerk, who assured me my luggage was most likely going to be on the next flight and would be delivered to my address as soon as it arrived, and went to sit down on a bench while I waited for my ride. Apparently one of my cousins, Catherine, was on her way to pick me up. I took out my phone and opened up Instagram while I waited. My friend Betsy was spending the day on the beach, going by the picture of her legs that looked like hot dogs, and the warm, hot sun beating down on the sand beneath her beach towel.

It only served to make my mood worse, and I closed the app before I made my way over to departures and booked the next flight back home.

Before I had too much of a chance to dwell on how much I didn’t want to be here, however, a voice that was way, way too perky for my mood right now interrupted me.

“Well, you must be Alice!”

I looked up, and my mouth dropped open. Standing in front of me was a girl with wavy, pastel purple hair that reached down to her shoulders. She was about five feet eight inches tall–an inch or so taller than me–and wearing cat-print leggings with Converse sneakers and an oversized sweatshirt of a cat vomiting up a rainbow on a space background.

“I’m Catherine,” she said. “But everyone calls me Cat.”

“Gee, I wonder why,” I said, standing up. As soon as I did, Cat took me in a giant hug. I froze in place for a second before awkwardly returning the hug.

“Sorry,” she said as she pulled away. “We’ve just all been so looking forward to see you. I can’t wait until you’ve met everyone. But oh! You’re freezing. Where’s your suitcase?”

“Lost in the vortex that is Miami-Dale International Airport,” I replied, managing a smile. “It’s ok, it should be here in a little bit.”

“Nonsense,” Cat replied, immediately taking off her sweatshirt and handing it to me. Underneath she had on a long-sleeved shirt with a picture of a cartoon cat riding a bicycle, but the bike’s wheels were made of yarn.

“Oh no, it’s ok, I’m fine,” I replied quickly. It wasn’t that I was a fashion snob or anything. As far as I was concerned, people could wear whatever they wanted. I was totally fine with that. It was just that I, personally, didn’t want to be seen in public wearing the rainbow puking cat sweatshirt.

“Come on,” Cat replied. “It’s fine. I’m wearing a long-sleeved shirt and you look ridiculous wearing a sleeveless sundress in this weather.

I was too polite to point out to Cat that I was going to look even more ridiculous wearing her sweater, so I simply accepted my fate and slipped it over my head.

“Great,” my cousin said. “Now, let’s go to the car. The family sent me down to be the one to meet you, since I’m the one who spends the most time in Sapphire Village. I blend in best with the humans, and I’m the most skilled at driving a car.”

“Wait, what do you mean you blend in best with the humans?” I asked, but Cat was already striding off. I struggled to catch up to her, and a few minutes later she led me to a sky-blue Mazda 3. I slipped into the front seat, thankful that I was now away from any prying eyes that might see me wearing the sweatshirt that made me look like a crazy cat lady.

“I’m so glad you’ve come to take over Magical Books,” Cat told me as she slipped into the driver’s seat. “I hope you’re fun. It’ll be nice to have someone else feel the wrath of Grandma Cee. Peaches is so prim and proper, she never gets in any trouble and it’s annoying.”

“Wait, so we have a Grandma named Cee who’s a terror? And someone else named Peaches? Is she another cousin of mine?”

Cat looked at me side-on. “Wait, your mom didn’t tell you anything about us?”

“No,” I replied, shaking my head. “All I know is that one of my biological aunts died and left me the bookshop. That’s all she told me.”

Suddenly, Cat put the car into gear and the tires squealed as she sped out of the parking lot like the cops were after us. If she kept this up, I was pretty sure the cops were going to be after us.

“Woah!” I shouted, grabbing the frame of the door, as if that could possibly save me in the fiery wreck I was about to die in. “Slow down!”

“Relax,” Cat said. “I know how to drive. I got my license, and everything.”

“Where did you get it from, a box of Cheerios?” I replied as we took a corner so sharply I was sure I felt the two wheels on my side of the car actually leave the ground. “Please!” I begged. “I don’t want to die in Oregon!”

“Fine, you’re no fun after all,” Cat said, slowing the car down to only ten miles over the limit as we pulled onto the highway that headed toward the mountains.

“I might not be any fun, but at least I’m alive and not having fun,” I grumbled. “What were you saying about the family? I don’t know anything about anyone.”

“Well, you’re going to be in for a bit of a shock then. One of your aunts did die, but she didn’t leave you the bookshop. She didn’t have a will at all. We all just decided you should have it, especially since I’m the only one who really lives in Sapphire Village full-time, and I already have a cupcake shop to run. Cat’s Cupcakes. It’s cute, right?” She continued talking without giving me a chance to answer. “But really we just needed you to come closer to the family. You were safe with the humans up until now, but dark times are coming and you need the protection of the family. At least, that’s what Grandma Cee says. I personally think the old lady is crazy, but she convinced mom that you had to come back. That was why Corrine sent you to live with us. We can help to protect you.”

“Why do you keep mentioning ‘humans’?” I asked. “And what’s all this stuff about protection? I live in Miami, not Baghdad. It’s perfectly safe there.”

Cat looked at me again, with a slightly strange expression on her face. “Oh. You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?” I was starting to get frustrated. It was like Cat was speaking in a completely different language.

“You’re a witch,” she replied, completely seriously.

Chapter Two

Great. I had gotten into a car with a crazy person. Maybe this wasn’t my cousin Catherine at all, but just someone at the airport who had seen me as an easy mark and was now kidnapping me.

“I’m a what?” I asked. Maybe I’d misheard. Maybe it was a crazy misunderstanding and she’d called me a bitch. On the other hand, I wasn’t sure calling me a bitch was any better.

“You’re a witch. We’re all witches. Well, the boys prefer wizard. But everyone in the family has magical powers. You included.”

Nope, it wasn’t that I’d misheard. I was in a car with a crazy person. How did I even know this was really my cousin? How did I know we were on the right road? Oh God, I’d been kidnapped. This crazy woman pretending to be my cousin was going to take me to her underground lair and do ‘magic’ on me forever, wasn’t she? And I was wearing her weird cat sweatshirt.”

“Stop the car!” I said, starting to sweat.

“What? Why?” Cat asked.

“I’m going to puke!” I shouted. “Stop the car or I’ll puke all over everything in it.”

Cat slammed the brakes down so fast my face flew forward and the seatbelt stopped me about an inch away from slamming straight into the dashboard. Still, the car was stopped, and that was the important thing.

I jumped out of the car and began to run down the highway. Unfortunately, it appeared that it wasn’t exactly rush hour. There were no other cars coming.

“Help!” I cried all the same, running down the road.

“Alice! What are you doing?” Cat called, coming after me. I looked and saw her running toward me, and I knew I had to get away from her. She was taller than me, and looked fairly athletic. My only shot was to lose her in the woods. I ran into the forest, desperate to get away from this crazy woman.

I made it about fifty feet in before my feet got caught on a giant tree root I hadn’t seen and I fell to the ground, letting out a squeal. Cat was on top of me in minutes. Rather than grab me, though, she full-on sat down on my back while I writhed beneath her.

“Let me go! You’re insane!” I shouted at her.

“You know, in hindsight, I can see why you would think that,” Cat replied calmly. “You genuinely had no idea that you’re a witch, did you?”

“I’m not a witch! You’re not a witch! There’s no such thing as magic! Let me g—“

I stopped midsentence as the tree in front of me suddenly turned bright pink.

“No such thing as magic, did you say?” Cat asked. I looked at her; she was pointing at the tree in question. Then, she snapped her fingers and the tree went back to normal. I stared up at her in awe.

“That had to be a trick. You planned this, somehow.”

“Yes, I totally planned for this to happen right here, in this forest you ran into, in a tree next to the root you happened to stumble over.”

She had a point. “Are you going to struggle if I get off you?” Cat asked, and I shook my head. She stood up and I sat upright, looking at her in awe.

“Do something else,” I said. “Prove it. Prove it’s magic.”

“Ok,” Cat said, and she pointed to a small robin sitting on a tree branch above us. Suddenly, the bird began to grow. I stared in awe as it became the size of an owl, then an eagle before finally Cat snapped her fingers again and the bird shrunk back down to its regular size.

He sang a song at us, then flew off, as though annoyed that we had used him as a test subject.

“That can’t be real.” Magic didn’t exist. Sure, me and all my friends spent our eleventh birthdays waiting for a letter to come from Hogwarts and were incredibly disappointed when no owl ever came, but now that I was nearing thirty, I’d long since let that dream go. And yet, I couldn’t explain what I’d just seen in front of me as anything other than magic.

“It is real, Alice. And you can do it, too.”

“No way. No. I can’t do magic. I’m twenty-six years old, don’t you think if I could do magic I’d know about it by now?”

“Well, you don’t know how to do it yet,” Cat said. “I promise you, I’m not a crazy person. Come back to the car, we’ll go up to Sapphire Village and I’ll show you a world you never imagined existed. Literally.”

“Fine,” I said. “But I swear, if you take me to some creepy looking house in the middle of the woods, I’m out of here.”

“Deal,” Cat replied with a grin, holding out a hand and helping me to my feet. I looked down and saw my pretty sundress–and Cat’s sweatshirt–were now covered in dirt from my fall.

“I’ll wash this before I give it back to you,” I told her.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Cat replied, pointing at me. In an instant, the stains were gone. I gaped openly as I looked down at my now pristine clothes.

“Wow. Well, that should make laundry day less annoying,” I said, and Cat laughed as she led me back out of the woods. My head was spinning. Magic was real? It couldn’t be. The rational part of my brain said that was impossible. And yet, there was proof. It was right there. You can’t fake making a robin the size of an eagle, and then changing it back again. Maybe I was the crazy one. Maybe I was dreaming.

We got back into the car and drove the rest of the way to Sapphire Village in silence while I thought about everything I’d learned. When we passed a sign saying we were ten miles out from the town, Cat looked at me.

“You’re going to like Sapphire Village,” she said. “I know this is a lot to take in. Ok, I don’t really know, since I grew up knowing I was a witch. I can’t imagine how confusing it must be to discover magic for the first time now. But trust me, everything will be fine. It sounds crazy, but Sapphire Village is the sort of place where nothing exciting ever happens anyway.”

“Look out!” I cried suddenly, and Cat slammed on the brakes. The car screeched to a halt, and not a moment too soon.

There was something lying in the middle of the road, and it looked like a person! On the other side of the road, parked on the shoulder, was a new silver sedan with the driver’s side door open. Cat threw the hazard lights on her car and the two of us got out.

“Wow, it’s Edith Chalmers,” Cat said quietly as we moved toward her. “Mrs. Chalmers? Are you ok?”

There was no blood on the road, nothing to indicate that anything bad had happened to her. She was lying face-down on the road, almost like she’d passed out. I leaned down to feel for a pulse. She was still warm, but no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t find a heartbeat.

“I think she might be dead,” I said to Cat, who immediately pulled out her phone.

“Well I’d be lying if I said it was a shame, but we still can’t leave her here. I’ll call the police chief in town,” Cat said. While she was on the phone I looked down at the woman. I didn’t really know what to do. I’d never seen a dead body before. Honestly, it kind of just looked like she was sleeping. I was half tempted to take off the sweatshirt and give it to her as a pillow, but of course, that was completely pointless now.

I realized there was nothing I could do for her. I walked toward her car and took a peek inside. There was no one else inside. The car was in pristine condition; a to-go coffee in the cup holder being the only sign that this car hadn’t been driven straight off the lot.

“Why did you say her death isn’t a shame?” I asked Cat.

Cat shrugged. “If you knew her, you’d understand. Edith was the head of a group in town, called the Renaissance Crew. They’ve been working on trying to get the council to expand the town through a new proposed development. Most of the town is against the idea, and Edith was pretty vocal in her hatred for all of us.”

“Why don’t you want the town to expand?”

“You’ll understand when you see Sapphire Village. It’s like a quaint little reminder that nice places in the world still exist. Edith’s plan involved building a six-story, five-star hotel in the middle of town, a water park that fed directly into the lake, a go-kart track and a small amusement park, as well as a mall to invite more businesses into town. It would completely ruin the vibe of the small alpine village which we’ve done so much to cultivate.”

Before I had a chance to reply, a police car drove by with its lights on, but siren off. It pulled over to the side of the road and out climbed, hands down, the hottest guy I had ever laid eyes on. He had ruffled brown hair that made it look like he just got out of bed, two days’ worth of stubble and a confident, almost arrogant strut that came from a man who looked good and knew it. I was practically salivating just looking at him.

“Ok, Cat, what’s going on?” the guy asked my cousin. “What is this about Edith Chalmers being dead?”

“Yes,” Cat replied, motioning to the body. “I was just driving my cousin Alice back up to Sapphire Village when we saw her just lying there in the middle of the road and stopped.”

Chief Hot Stuff leaned down and took Edith’s pulse, then nodded. “She is dead. You were right to call me. I wonder what happened.”

“Heart attack?” I offered. The woman didn’t exactly look young. If I had to guess, I’d have put her in her early 70s.

“Or maybe a stroke, those are more likely,” the man replied, nodding at me. “So, you’re Jennifer Calliope’s daughter. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Chase, the Chief of Police here in town. Which basically means I’m full-time, while the other guy works part-time.” He grinned, and the smile lit up his whole face. This was a gorgeous man right there.

“I’m Alice,” I managed to stammer out without embarrassing myself. “This isn’t my sweatshirt, I borrowed it off Cat,” I added. “It’s a lot warmer in Florida right now.”

“I kind of figured,” Chase replied. “It’s definitely Cat’s style. Anyway, I’ll let you ladies get on your way. I’m going to have to close off part of the road here. If you could come by the police station this afternoon I’ll take your statements. It was nice to meet you, Alice.”

“You too,” I replied, flashing him a smile I hoped screamed ‘sexy’ and not ‘deranged lunatic’. I didn’t know why I bothered. My last relationship had ended badly, to say the least, and ever since that day two years ago, I’d sworn off men for good. Cat motioned for me to get back in the car and I did, and we kept going for another three miles or so until we reached Sapphire Village.

“Everyone’s going to want to know about Edith’s death,” Cat told me. “This is the biggest thing to happen in this town since, well, since your aunt died three months ago. We don’t really do exciting here in Sapphire Village. So just don’t be surprised if you meet people and the first thing they ask you is about the death.”

“But how will anyone even know I was there?” I asked, and Cat laughed.

“Oh, you’ll see. Nothing ever stays secret for very long here. We like to joke that gossip is a year-round sport here. I guarantee you someone who drove past will have seen the two of us and told someone else, who will have told six someone elses, and so on and so forth.”

“Great,” I replied. I didn’t know how to react to this. I’d grown up in the big city. People didn’t generally care what other people did with their lives. Sure, I gossiped with coworkers a bit, but that was it.

“I’ll take you to the bookshop first,” Cat told me. “There’s an apartment above it that you can live in, which is nice for you because it’s rent-free.”

“Sure,” I replied as we reached the welcome sign. I hadn’t even reached the town yet and already my life had been turned completely upside down. How much weirder could today get? It turned out the answer was ‘a lot’.

Chapter Three

I didn’t really know what to expect when we reached Sapphire Village. From the way Cat had described it, I supposed I was imagining something stuck in the 1800s–thatched roofs, horse-drawn carriages and elderly women carrying cans down to the local pump for water.

Instead, it was like stepping into a quaint European alpine village, with a distinctly modern touch. Since the main part of Sapphire Village was pedestrian-only, Cat parked her car in a free parking lot near the entrance to Main Street, and we made the rest of the journey on foot. The buildings that lined the main street were obviously built in the last 30 years or so, but were decorated with quaint wooden shutters. Wrought-iron lamps lined the road that ran through the main street. On the edge of the street were flowerbeds in full bloom, with rock walls offering both a pleasing sight to the eyes and a place for weary wanderers to sit at will.

Most of the buildings were three stories tall: with retail offerings on the bottom and apartments and hotel rooms on top, it left plenty of space for visitors to Sapphire Village to spend the night. The shops were all quaint and privately-owned; there was no hint of anything remotely resembling the golden arches of McDonalds here.

Instead we walked past a café from which the smell of roasting coffee wafted temptingly, a souvenir shop with a postcard stand out in front showing Sapphire Lake–the main attraction around here I supposed, a shop making handmade chocolates with a fountain of smooth milk chocolate in the window, and finally, a dark bookshop with some old volumes in the window. A painted wooden sign above the door read ‘Magical Books’ in flowing gold script. It was charming, in an old-fashioned kind of way. Cat stopped in front of it and took out a key, unlocking the front door.

“If you’re a witch, can’t you just use a spell or whatever to make the door open?” I asked.

“Yes, but we don’t use magic in public. Can you imagine the freak-out if someone saw?” She moved to the back of the store and turned on the lights, and I gasped.

This wasn’t your typical Barnes and Noble type bookshop, with a Starbucks in one corner, and glossy paperbacks everywhere. No, this bookshop–which I supposed was now my bookshop, was way cooler than that.

The majority of the books were on the shelves that lined the two side walls, floor to ceiling–and the ceiling was at least fifteen feet high—with one of those old-fashioned ladders on rungs to reach the books on the higher shelves. The back wall consisted of a large counter, with an old-style till and a few extras for sale like bookmarks. The books were all leather-bound volumes of classics. Instead of The Girl on the Train I saw Don Quixote, Homer’s Iliad, Gulliver’s Travels, The Canterbury Tales, Dante’s Inferno and more.

Making my way toward the shelf on my right-hand side, I let my hand glide carefully over the leather -bound books. “This place is amazing,” I told Cat, who was smiling next to the counter.

“Amazing does not even begin to describe the sheer genius contained in the pages here, my dear,” a male voice with a strong English accent suddenly said. I let out a squeal and turned around to see who it was, but there was no one there.

“Stop it, Archie,” Cat scolded. “Alice only just found out about magic, so show yourself before you scare her even more.”

“Do not desecrate my Christian name with that horrid nickname,” the voice said again. I pressed myself against the bookcase. Who on earth was Cat talking to? Suddenly, a man appeared in front of me out of nowhere. He had black hair and an incredibly pale face, wearing a black coat under which was a white shirt with a humongous, over-sized collar.

“What the…?” I asked, my eyes widening.

“Do not scare yourself, my child. I am simply a ghost. I cannot do anything to you even if I wanted to. Not physically, anyway. I am perfectly capable of haunting. But as you seem to appreciate the books, however crude and uncreative your language, you are fine with me. God knows the people of this day and age cannot appreciate the works of old.”

“A ghost. Of course. Of course there are ghosts. Oh my God,” I said, and Cat laughed.

“Sorry to kind of spring that on you, but yeah, ghosts exist. Archie here… sorry, Archibald,” Cat said when she saw his grimace, “was born in the sixteen hundreds or something.”

“I entered the mortal world on the fifteenth day of January, in the year seventeen hundred and ninety-two, and departed it thirty-nine years later, on the tenth of July,” Archibald corrected.

“Whatever, details,” Cat said. “He was alive a long time ago, and now he hangs out here and acts like a princess whenever customers come in who don’t have what he feels is good taste in books.”

“My tastes are impeccable,” Archibald replied. “I was a peer of Percy Shelly, George Byron and John Keats.”

“Yes, and you and Byron hated each other, I know,” Cat said, rolling her eyes.

“He was jealous of my work. And of John’s. He had the fame because of his title, but we had the talent. She Walks in Beauty was a complete rip-off of a similar poem I had written, but not yet published.” Archibald sniffed, and I couldn’t help but smile at the centuries-old rivalry which he apparently hadn’t let go. There was something a little bit endearing about the weird old ghost.

“So now you’ve met the resident of the bookshop. Or one of them, at least,” Cat said, looking around.

“Please don’t tell me there’s a second ghost,” I told Cat, who laughed.

“No, don’t worry, nothing like that. The bookshop’s other resident is a grey tabby named Muffin, but he’s shy. You might not see him for a few days; he comes and goes as he pleases from a kitty door out the back. Just don’t panic if you suddenly see a cat in here, that’s normal.”

“You know, since I’ve landed in Oregon, what, two hours ago now, I’m pretty sure the most normal thing that has happened is the discovery that a cat lives in this shop. Unless you’re about to tell me the cat is a tiger, and that he eats people.”

Cat laughed. “No, none of that. Just an ordinary grey cat. He’s a little bit fat, and he likes my cupcakes. I always make some extra mini cupcakes for Muffin; I make them with a bit less sugar so I feel less complicit when I see him struggling to fit through the little cat door.”

I laughed at the visual. “So, all this is the store?” I asked. Apart from the two shelves lining the wall there were four other smaller shelves in the middle of the store; all still carrying the same old leather-bound volumes. The shelves made the inside of the store feel a little bit cramped, and I couldn’t help but feel maybe a chair or two would be more inviting.

“Yeah,” Cassie said. “Our Aunt Francine loved old books. This place was never going to make a million bucks or anything, but visitors love the quaintness of it, and they like to buy books as gifts. We get a lot of the super-rich who come here in the winter for their skiing holidays, so everything sells eventually, even the $500 first editions Francine would get from time to time.”

“Wow,” I said. “And this is all mine now?”

“Of course,” Cat said. “You’re family, after all. Even if you don’t really know anything about us. As I said, we discussed it, and everyone agreed. Besides, no one else from the family spends much time in Sapphire Village. They all prefer Brixton Road.”

“Where’s Brixton Road?” I asked, confused.

“Oh, don’t worry about that for now,” Cat said, waving a hand. “You’ve had enough crazy for a little while. Come on upstairs, I’ll show you your apartment, and then we’ll go over to my cupcake shop and eat something.”

“Sounds good,” I said. I definitely liked the idea of cupcakes. Behind the counter was a wooden door, which opened onto an old, rickety staircase.

“It only sounds like you’re going to fall through every time you take a step,” Cat called out as she bounded nimbly up the wooden slats. “Aunt Francine weighed like, at least two hundred pounds and they never broke.”

I was a lot more cautious than Cat as I made my way up the steps, but sure enough I made it to the top without the stairs collapsing underneath me. Thank goodness for small mercies. Cassie unlocked the plain wooden door at the top of the steps–this time she did it by pointing at the door–and walked in, with me following closely behind her.

I was pleased to say Aunt Francine had good taste. The two-bedroom apartment was modern enough, and pleasantly decorated. The walls had a few framed paintings of mountains, the brown leather couch was adorned with a couple pillows with moose silhouettes and the large windows let the light in, giving the place an airy feel. The eight foot ceilings helped, too.

“If you have your own furniture you want to bring in that’s fine, I’m sure we can find somewhere to send her old stuff,” Cat told me.

“No, no, I don’t have anything. This is fine, I really like it.”

“Yeah, Aunt Francine really liked living among the humans. I like this place. It’s a lot like her. Organized, efficient, but warm.”

“I’m starting to wish I’d known her,” I said as I made my way into the master bedroom, where a queen-sized bed with bear-print fleece sheets and a brown duvet sat, invitingly.

“Well, never say never,” Cat said. “Her ghost might still be around. I don’t know. Sometimes it takes a few weeks, even months for the ghosts to show.”

“So, does everyone who dies become a ghost?” I asked. I had to admit, I was curious about the particulars. Cat shook her head.

“No. Most people go to the other side—whatever happens there. But if someone dies and they still have unfinished business left on earth, they tend to become ghosts.”

“What about Archibald?”

“I’m pretty sure at this point he’s staying out of spite. When he died he was angry with Byron, since Byron used his powers as a Lord and had him sent on an expedition to the New World, where he caught tuberculosis and died. But then Byron died, and I don’t know what’s been keeping Archibald going, but he seems happy here. He enjoys yelling at the customers who can’t hear him.”

“That doesn’t seem like a very happy existence to me,” I replied.

“You’re not a bitter artist born in the seventeenth century who doesn’t understand why Byron’s works are studied in literature classes and yours aren’t.”

“That’s true,” I laughed. “Wait, can he hear us up here?”

“He can technically go where he wants, but Archibald never comes up here. In fact, he rarely ever leaves the bookshop at all, as far as I know. He’s been there since the day it opened. Francine thinks his ghost had just been roaming the woods around here before then.”

“Wow. So, you think Francine might come back as a ghost?”

“If she has unfinished business, yes. I don’t know if she did or not. She didn’t have any kids; a lot of ghosts simply want to see if their child becomes the superstar they’d dreamed of their whole lives, that sort of thing. But you never know, she might make an appearance one day. If she does, you’ll recognize her. She looked like an older version of you, if you were a hundred pounds heavier.”

My heart tightened a bit at Cat’s words. I’d never heard anyone say that to me before. Having been adopted, I didn’t know I had any living relatives. There was no one to tell me I looked like my mom, or my aunt. My straight red hair had clashed against my mom and dad’s black curls. Hearing it now for the first time made me feel butterflies in my stomach.

“So, this is the place. Here are the keys,” Cat said, handing me a ring with four keys on it. “One for the business downstairs, one for the apartment up here, one for the mailbox at the post office and one for the parking garage under here. You’ll probably eventually want to buy a car; there are only three buses a day that go to the city in each direction. Now,” Cat said with a smile. “That’s enough time spent here. Let’s go get some cupcakes.”

“Sounds good to me,” I replied with a grin as we headed back down the stairs.

Chapter Four

“Did that woman who died on the road have any family?” I asked Cat as we walked toward her cupcake shop, further down the street.

Cat nodded. “Yeah, she did. Her husband died a few years back, but she has a daughter. It’s too bad; Olivia is the nicest woman you’d ever meet. She’s a photographer with a gallery here in town. But Edith was seventy-four, and given how bitter and angry she was all the time, I’m surprised it took that long for her heart to give out.”

“How do you know it was a heart attack?” I asked Cat, who turned at me and grinned.

“I guess you think it was a murder, right? You’re such a city slicker. This is Sapphire Village, things like that don’t happen here. A tourist got stabbed back in the eighties during a drug-fuelled party once, and that’s the only time there has ever been a suspicious death here. It just doesn’t happen.”

“Still, you never know,” I shrugged. “Hold on,” I said as we passed a winter clothing store. The windows in the front advertised an end of season sale, up to 60 percent off. “I need to get a jacket, right?”

“The sweatshirt isn’t that bad,” Cat said, sticking her tongue out at me, but she followed me into the store.

“I’m just saying,” I told Cat as I browsed a whole bunch of colorful light jackets that looked like they would be good for the cooler weather, “I’m not sure we should just assume it was a heart attack. You say she was the head of a group in favor of a controversial project; you never know what extent people will go to make their side win on things like that, especially when money’s involved.”

“We’ll see, I guess. But I’m almost certain it’s going to end up being a heart attack, or something similar. Things like murder just don’t happen in our sleepy town. How about this one?” Cat asked, holding up a gorgeous baby blue jacket.

“Yes!” I declared, trying it on. I pulled off the sweatshirt and handed it back to Cat. “Thanks for letting me borrow this,” I told her.

“Anytime,” Cat replied as we made our way to the counter to pay for the jacket, and as we went back out into the street I finally didn’t feel like everyone was staring at me. Now, at least, they were all staring at my cousin. The crazy cat sweatshirt combined with her pastel purple hair certainly made her stand out.

When we reached the end of the main road, it was obvious we were in the central ski area. Rather than passers-by carrying to-go coffees and slowly admiring the view, the people wandering around this end of the village had skis on their shoulders, helmets on their heads and were making their way toward a large red gondola ready to whisk them up to the top of the hill.

Across from the gondola entrance was a small group of about five shops, and the one in the middle had a beautiful modern, pink sign reading ‘Cat’s Cupcakes’ in cursive script.

We stepped into the warm interior and immediately I was taken aback by just how inviting this place was. The sweet scent of baking wafted through the air, the espresso machine at the far end of the counter whirred away and the low hum of conversation from the people sitting at the dozen or so tables gave the place an incredibly lively feel. In a pink-and-white striped display case next to the counter at the far end of the store were about a dozen different flavors of amazing-looking cupcakes.

Moving to Sapphire Village suddenly didn’t seem like as bad an idea as I first thought. I let my mouth water as I tried to make the incredibly difficult decision as to which cupcake I was going to buy while Cat waved at the woman working behind the counter.

“Alice!” she called out a moment later. “Come meet Maddie. She’s the reason this store actually makes money,” she told me, and I smiled at the girl. She had a nice face, rimmed with curly blonde hair that reached just above her shoulders.

“So, what can I get ya?” the girl asked, motioning at the cupcakes. “Cat’s too kind, of course. She’s the one who’s here at four every morning baking the cupcakes, and the reason it’s so busy all the time, since everyone in the Pacific Northwest knows that they have to stop at Cat’s Cupcakes if they’re in the area. It’s practically a state law.”

I laughed, trying desperately to make a decision. “Well, I’ll definitely have a hazelnut latte,” I said. “I’m just not sure about the cupcakes. They all look so good. I’m sure you hear that all the time.” There were luscious red velvet cupcakes, with white cream cheese frosting piled high and little red sparkles on top. There were strawberry and cream flavored ones topped with fluffy cream cheese and fresh strawberries. There were s’mores flavored ones topped with toasted marshmallow fluff and pieces of graham cracker. Everything looked incredible.

Maddie smiled. “If you want, I can surprise you with a flavor.”

“Sure,” I said happily. “You’re way more of an expert than I am, saves me having to make the decision. I pulled out my purse to pay but Cat waved my hand away from my purse.

“Absolutely not,” she said. “Consider it my welcome treat.”

“Thanks, Cat,” I told my cousin with a warm smile. Despite her weird taste in, well, everything except cupcakes, I liked her already.”

“There’s a table free by the window there, if you want to go have a seat. I’m going to deal with a few things at the back of the shop and I’ll meet you there in a minute,” she replied.

I made my way to the table in question, which was right next to the window and overlooked the ski resort. I was surprised people were willing to ski in this weather, it had to be around 38 degrees or so, and the snow would have been soft. Still, people seemed to be happily skiing down the mountain. Just as I began to think that at least it wasn’t raining, the sun poked through a cloud, its rays illuminating the town and making it look even more magical than before.

Maybe magical wasn’t the best word to use to describe things anymore, now that I knew magic was real. I still felt a little bit light-headed even thinking about it. I was pretty sure part of my brain was still denying that any of that had happened. And yet, another part of me knew it was true. Cat had made the robin huge, and then small again. Archibald had appeared out of nowhere. He was a ghost. An honest-to-goodness, real life ghost.

I wondered how hard it was to do magic. After all, I should be able to do it, right? I had to ask Cat after this, when we were alone again. I wondered if Cat would give me lessons. What if I was awful at it, though? What if I accidentally messed up a spell and did something bad? Could they take away my magical powers? Who would they be? Was there a Ministry of Magic like in Harry Potter, a group of people that oversaw people with magical powers?

I suddenly realized I had a ton of questions about magic, but before I got a chance to go through all of them in my head, Maddie came by with a steaming cup of coffee and a gorgeous salted caramel cupcake. The cake was chocolate, the frosting caramel, with a salted caramel drizzle on top. My mouth began to water just looking at it. She placed a red velvet cupcake across from me in Cat’s place.

“It was nice to meet you,” Maddie told me.

“You too, thanks,” I replied. Everyone here was so friendly. Maybe I had spent too long in the city, where everyone kept their eyes down and if the cashier at the grocery store told me to have a nice day, that was the extent of the talking I did to strangers outside of work.

I ignored the coffee for a moment, lest my taste buds stage a coup. Taking a big bite of the cupcake, I closed my eyes and leaned back in the chair as my mouth discovered nirvana. It was the perfect mix of sweet and salty. The cake was light and fluffy, without being too sweet.

“You look like you just had an orgasm,” Cat said, interrupting me mid-bite.

“Give me one more bite and I might just get there,” I replied, laughing. “This is the best cupcake I’ve ever had in my life. And I’m not just saying that so you’ll give me free cupcakes for life. Although, if that is something you would consider, I would definitely take you up on it.”

Cat grinned. “Family eats free here. Seriously. We Calliopes take care of each other.”

I felt a wave of appreciation flowing through me. “It’s so nice of you to do that. I can’t believe how nice you’re being to me right off the bat. After all, I’m basically a stranger to you guys.”

“Not for long though. You’re here now, and that’s the important thing. Plus, trust me. There’s enough crazy in our family that free cupcakes are definitely not going to make up for it.”

“I don’t know, you could probably freak out and try to stab me right now and I’d still think it was worth getting more free cupcakes.”

“Well I’m not sure they’d let me keep baking them from jail, but I get your point.”

“Do you use magic to make them taste this good?” I asked, and then lowered my voice “Like, the real magic?”

Cat shook her head. “Sadly, no. Not directly, anyway. A lot of us witches have skills that seem to be enhanced compared to the regular humans. My skills seem to be in the cooking arena. But I don’t cast a spell on the cupcakes before they go into the oven or anything. The fact that I’ve probably baked around half a million cupcakes in my life probably helps as well.”

“Cool,” I said. That was too bad; my culinary skills were limited to making macaroni and cheese, it would have been nice if I could eventually point my finger at food I’d cooked and turn it into a five-star meal instead of barely edible mush.

Suddenly, someone at the front of the store cried out. “You! Catherine Calliope!” It seemed like maybe things weren’t as boring in Sapphire Village as Cat had made them out to be.

Chapter Five

I turned toward the door to see an angry woman who looked to be in her sixties or so storming toward us. With salt-and-pepper hair, a wool sweater and scarf, and blue jeans with nice black boots, she looked exactly like I would expect a retiree in the mountains to look . Apart from the fact that she looked like she wanted to strangle my cousin, of course.

“Yes, Denise?” Cat asked casually, taking a sip of her coffee.

“You killed her! You killed Edith!”

At this pronouncement, everyone in the cupcake shop stopped talking, and the entire focus of the room was changed to this new conversation between Cat and Denise.

“I most certainly did not.”

“I heard that you found the body.”

“That part is true. I was driving back to Sapphire Village, and Edith’s body was lying in the middle of the road. It looked like she knew something was wrong, got out of her car to try and get help, but didn’t make it very far before collapsing.”

“You say that, but I know you killed her. I’ll make sure that young police chief has you arrested.”

Cat laughed. “You wish. Edith probably just died of a heart attack. That shrivelled up old heart of hers had to give out sometime; goodness knows it was incapable of feeling anything other than spite.”

A few people in the room gasped at Cat’s words, and Denise smiled.

“I’ll have you know Edith’s death is being declared a homicide. And I’ll prove you did it.”

At this news, Cat’s eyebrows raised. “Well, I guess I lose that bet then, Alice. It might have been a murder after all. I suppose if anyone in this town was going to be murdered, it would be Edith. Thanks for the information, Denise, and for so kindly sharing it with the rest of the patrons in my café. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m getting to know my cousin.”

“No. I do mind. Edith was my friend, and you killed her.”

“You keep saying that; if you come back with proof rather than a completely baseless accusation maybe I’ll bother responding. If you don’t have anything else to say, get out of my store.”

“I’m going to tell Chief Griffin right now. I know it was you. I don’t know how you did it, but I won’t let you get away with this,” Denise spat at us. “You and your whole family. You’re all bad people!”

“Hey, you don’t even know me, I’m new here,” I shot back. I didn’t know this lady, but I didn’t like her. Cat didn’t seem like the type that could murder anyone. Of course, earlier this morning I thought she was going to kidnap me and keep me in her basement or something, but that was before I realized she wasn’t kidding when she said we were witches.

“If you’re a Calliope, you’re bad news. It’s in the genes.”

“Yes, we’re the awful people who inconsiderately interrupt an entire café’s patrons by going on crazy rants at people in public,” Cat replied calmly. “Please leave my store. If what you say is true I imagine Chief Griffin is busy and wouldn’t appreciate me having to call him to have you removed.”

“Fine,” Denise spat, waving a finger in Cat’s face. “But this isn’t over. I know you did it. And I’ll prove it.”

With that she turned on her heel and stormed back toward the door. At the table closest to the door, however, was a little girl, maybe two years old, sitting in a high chair. Just as Denise stormed past, the girl laughed and threw her mini cupcake onto the floor; it landed right in Denise’s path. Denise stepped on it, and the rest looked like it happened in slow motion.

She threw her arms out in an attempt to balance herself, but it was no use. Waving her arms around, her right leg that had stepped on the cupcake slid out from underneath her and shot up toward the ceiling. Denise let out a shriek as her body mass plummeted toward the floor and she landed with a loud thud on her rear end.

The whole room was silent except for the laughter of the little girl, evidently delighted with what she’d done.

“Oh my God! Ashley!” the girl’s mother cried out while scrambling out of her chair to help Denise, who pushed the woman’s hand away.

“Get off me, and control your devil’s spawn!” she hissed.

“I’m so sorry!” the woman cried out, but Denise only snorted in reply.

“You’re lucky I don’t sue. That dumb kid could have crippled me!”

“Hey,” someone else called out. “She’s a child. Leave her alone.”

Denise replied by flipping the man off and left the restaurant. As she turned and went to the door, my eyes widened as I noticed Denise had actually landed on the mini cupcake, and the cupcake and frosting had stuck to the back of her jeans, leaving a large white spot on the back, looking a little bit like a fluffy rabbit’s tail. I threw my hands up to my mouth to cover the laugh that was threatening to come out. As I looked around the café and saw a number of smiles, it was obvious that I wasn’t the only one who had noticed.

When Denise had finally left, I turned to Cat, who was grinning.

“I’m surprised she didn’t threaten to sue me.”

“She might just go straight to the lawyer.”

Cat shook her head. “Nah. Not a chance. This is such a small town, if she sued me for this she’d become a pariah and she knows it.” I couldn’t help but notice that Maddie rushed over to the table with the little girl, and gave her a brand new cupcake, on the house. I smiled.

“Who is she, anyway? I gather she was a friend of Edith’s?” I asked.

“Yeah. Denise Williams was Edith’s best friend, and also in favor of the new development. She just retired last year, but she used to be a bookkeeper for one of the hotels here in town. She’s always been just as delightful as Edith.”

“That was going to be my next question; is she always that nice?”

Cat laughed. “Pretty much. Denise and Edith had their little group of friends, people who think they’re too good for the rest of us. Basically, if you don’t own one of those expensive chalets in one of the small neighborhoods off Main Street, you’re obviously too poor to live here, and don’t deserve their attention.”

“Wow, what a great attitude to have about people,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “Why does she think you killed Edith?”

“Last night there was a meeting of the city council, and one of the topics that was going to be spoken about was whether or not the new development should be granted preliminary approval. I went, along with about four dozen others, to lend my voice to the ‘aw hell no!’ side of things, and Edith and I might have gotten into it a little bit,” Cat replied with a grin. If there was one thing I’d noticed about Cat, it was that she didn’t back down to a bully. I could just imagine her and Edith getting into it.

I lowered my voice. “You uh, didn’t actually kill Edith, did you?”

Cat burst out laughing. “No, of course not. The lady was annoying, sure, but there are a lot of annoying people in the world, and if I killed all of them I’d probably be in jail by now.”

I grinned. “Sorry, just had to check.”

“Seeing as you ran away from me thinking I was kidnapping you this morning, I’m not entirely surprised you asked.”

“You seem pretty relaxed about the fact that I thought you were a crazy person.”

“Most people around here do, I don’t take it personally,” Cat replied with a wink. We finished up the cupcakes–Cat managed to prod me into getting another one to take back for later, although I didn’t argue too much–and we made our way back down Main Street, with Cat acting as my guide.

By the time we got back to the bookshop the sun was starting to set; Archibald was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Muffin, so Cat and I went straight back up to my apartment.

“Thanks for showing me around today,” I told her. “And for the cupcakes.”

“No problem! The pizza place I showed you is open until ten, I’d recommend just getting delivery from there and worrying about groceries tomorrow.”

“Will do. I meant to ask, where did the name Pickles’ Pizza come from anyway?”

Cat grinned. “Pickles is an Australian Shepherd the owner rescued, he likes to hang out in the front of the shop in the summer, so the owner eventually changed the name.”

“Awwww,” I smiled. “I also wanted to ask you about the magic. Umm, how many people, exactly, are witches? Is it like, the whole town? Or just certain people? Or just us?”

“Oh, it’s definitely not everyone. There are about a thousand witches and wizards that live here in Sapphire Village. So about 20 percent of the population. A lot of them, like the rest of our family, prefer to live in Brixton Road rather than venture out into the actual village, though. There’s only a couple hundred like us, who live primarily among the humans.”

“Where is Brixton Road, exactly? I looked for it on the map of the village, but didn’t see it.”

Cat gave me a sly smile. “I’ll show you tomorrow. I think you’ve had enough adventure for one day, don’t you?”

“Actually, being kidnapped by a crazy person, shown that magic exists, finding a dead body and being yelled at by an old lady accusing my cousin of murder is pretty par for the course for me,” I replied, getting a laugh from Cat.

“Maybe it’s you. The trouble’s following you from the city and making its way to Sapphire Village. I’ll see you tomorrow, if you haven’t burned the town down by then.”

“Thanks again,” I said to Cat as she left. When she was gone, I realized just how quiet the apartment seemed. The only sound was that of the fridge humming. At my tiny bachelor apartment back home I could always hear the sounds of the partygoers in the streets, horns honking, and sirens going off. Here, there was nothing. And on top of that, my suitcase still hadn’t arrived. I had one dress, my new coat, my iPad, my phone, my Kindle and my wallet. That was it. It was going to be a long night.

Chapter Six

I played around with my iPad for about an hour, replied to my mom’s email asking me if I got there safely, watched some YouTube videos and browsed Facebook for a while. I checked out my aunt Francine’s TV, but there was nothing good on the basic channels, which was all she had. Luckily, it was a smart TV, so a few minutes later I had Netflix loaded up.

My stomach began to grumble a few hours into a Portlandia marathon–after all, I only lived about ninety minutes from the city now–and rather than get delivery I thought I might venture down to Pickles’ Pizza and check the place out for myself.

I bounded back down the stairs, out the front of the bookshop–there was still no sign of either Archibald or Muffin–and back out into the street. With my legs still completely uncovered, and my jeans still in the lost suitcase, I rushed down the street toward the pizza shop.

Despite the cold, I quickly slowed down to appreciate how incredible the village looked at night. The shops all emitted warm yellow light from their storefronts, and Christmas lights decorated the trees despite the fact that it was long past the holiday season. Flags advertising the latest festival blew softly in the wind, and red-cheeked people walked slowly past, absorbing the atmosphere as I was doing.

Pickles’ Pizza was only about a five-minute walk from my apartment. I entered the rustic log-cabin style restaurant and was immediately blasted with warmth. At the back, an open wood-fire pizza oven cackled as workers were busy assembling their pizzas.

“Hi, can I find you a table?” a hostess asked me.

“Can I just order a pizza for take-out, please?” I asked.

“Sure thing, here’s a menu for you to look at. Just place your order at the counter when you’re ready,” the lady told me. It only took me about three minutes to decide on the Hawaiian–pulled pork and pineapple, with bacon. Yum!

I made my way to the counter, ordered my pizza, then sat down at the bar to wait for it to cook. I nursed the glass of water the barman gave me while I waited and half-heartedly began to watch the NHL playoff game on TV between two teams I didn’t recognize.

“Excuse me,” I heard a voice say at my side. “Aren’t you Cat Calliope’s cousin?”

I turned and saw a man who looked to be in his early forties, just beginning to bald, with a kind face looking at me.

“I am, yes.”

“I thought so, I saw you with her in the cupcake shop this afternoon when Denise came by. I’m Frank Harding.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” I said, shaking his extended hand. “Alice Calliope.”

“You must be Jennie’s little girl. So sad, what happened to her. I heard you were coming back to take over Francine’s bookshop. That’s a tragedy as well. Cancer takes the best of us. Well, I just wanted to welcome you to Sapphire Village. Don’t worry about Denise; she’s mostly bark and very little bite. Those of us who think with our brains and not our mouths know that Cat never would have killed anyone.”

“That’s very kind of you to say,” I replied. “Has it been confirmed, then, that Edith was murdered?”

Frank nodded. “Yes, the coroner’s office released the information a couple of hours ago. Apparently, they suspect poisoning.”

My mind immediately went to the coffee cup that I’d seen in Edith’s cup holder. My heart pinched a bit when I realized it was the same kind that Cat used for take-out coffee at her cupcake shop.

“Oh, that’s too bad,” I said. “There’s no good way to die, of course, but a heart attack is much better than murder.”

“Absolutely,” Frank said. “And don’t let it scare you off from our little town. There hasn’t been a murder here since the eighties, it’s perfectly safe.”

“Thanks,” I said with a smile. “I grew up in Miami though. As long as it’s just the one murder, it’s still probably significantly safer than back home.”

“Oh yes, Sapphire Village is really very safe. I’ve lived here my whole life and I still don’t lock my front door when I’m home.”

“Of course it’s safe,” a woman chimed in from behind Frank. “I am surprised though. Most of the town is opposed to the new development, but I didn’t think that would be a reason to kill her.”

“What is this new development?” I asked curiously. Cat had mentioned a little bit about it, but I wanted to know more.

“The company that owns the ski resort wants to turn Sapphire Village into a year-round resort. Right now, during the winter the main attraction is the skiing, and in the summer people go to the lake, or use the bike paths around town. But Sapphire Mountain Resort wants to add a whole host of new things. They want to add a water park, a go-kart track, a giant hotel in the middle of town and a mall on the outskirts. They’re projecting an extra 2 million people will visit Sapphire Village per year,” the woman explained. “They’re calling it the ‘Renaissance’ project.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of extra people,” I said. “Won’t that be good for the economy here, though?”

“Well yes,” Frank answered. “But it will also bring a whole lot of problems. For one thing, the village will lose a lot of the quaint charm it current exhibits.” I could definitely see that; this wasn’t the kind of place where you wanted to see a mall, or water slides. This was a little piece of nature nestled into the mountains, where you went to get away from it all. “Also, there are a lot of logistical factors as well. We have limited homes here; all those extra tourists are going to want to be served by people, but we don’t have enough housing for all of them. Also, you saw the road on the way in. It’s an old, ratty, two-lane highway. When there’s an accident, we’re completely cut off from everyone; there are no other roads. We’re just not set up for such a large expansion. It would essentially double the size of our town, which already gets pretty busy on weekends.”

“You say all that, Frankie, but doesn’t tourist money put food on your table,” the woman behind the bar said. She looked to be about the same age as Frank, with long black hair tied back in a braid that ran down her back.

“Sure, Karen, but when you can’t find enough people to serve your customers and people end up waiting an hour for a pizza, they’re not going to be coming back to Sapphire Village again, and even if they do they’re not going to come back here.”

“Well, that’s a problem I’ll face when we get there.”

“If we get there. I hope that wasn’t why Edith was killed, though. I might be opposed to the new development, but I certainly don’t want those who aren’t have their voices silenced.”

“You knew Edith just as well as the rest of us, Frank,” Karen replied. “You know she was so annoying that half the town wanted her dead.”

“Yeah, but there’s a big difference between wanting someone dead and actually doing it,” I said, and Karen nodded at me.

“True. I can’t see someone killing Edith over this, though. After all, she’s just one voice in favor of the expansion.”

“One voice who yelled and shouted to be heard above the din, and then berated anyone who disagreed with that voice,” Frank said.

“That’s true. Well, I’m sure Chief Griffin will find whoever did it. He was in the marines, you know?” she said to me, and my eyebrows raised.

“I didn’t know that.”

“And he’s single,” she added with a wink. I felt a blush crawl up my face.

“Oh I’m not... I mean, I’m single too, but I’m happy that way,” I managed to stammer out, and Karen laughed.

“Sweetie, half the married women in this town would suddenly become single again if Chase Griffin showed an interest,” she told me with a wink. “He’s gorgeous. No shame in that. Just letting you know the lay of the land, if you’re interested.”

“Thank you,” I managed to reply. “I’m happily single though.”

“Maybe it’s better that way. Chief Griffin has been back in town for three years and hasn’t had a girlfriend since he’s been back. A total waste, if you ask me. Anyway, here’s your pizza.”

“Thanks,” I told her. “It was nice to meet all of you,” I said to Karen, Frank and the other woman.

“You too, Alice,” Frank said. “It’s good to have another Calliope in town.”

I left the pizza place with a bit of a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. I’d only been here for a day, but already it felt like I belonged. Miami had been great. I liked the beaches, I liked the atmosphere, all of that. But this was different. I already had a sense of belonging to the overall community here. And it felt good.

Making my way back to my apartment, I saw my suitcase waiting for me on the front step of the bookshop. Thrilled that I finally had the rest of my belongings, I grabbed it with my other hand and awkwardly made my way into the shop. I didn’t see Archibald. However, as I made my way up the steps to my apartment–I was getting more and more confident that they wouldn’t collapse under me at any moment–I suddenly heard a little meow at my feet. Looking down I saw a grey tabby looking up at me with sad little eyes.

“You must be Muffin,” I said to the cat, who meowed again, shifting his eyes to the pizza box I was holding. “Ah, that’s what you want,” I said with a smile, opening the door. Muffin ran into the apartment, and when I got to the kitchen he was sitting on top of one of the stools at the breakfast bar, his tail slowly wagging, patiently waiting for his own piece of pizza.

I found some plates in the cupboard and put a slice of pizza on one of them before heading back to the TV. Muffin dutifully followed me, and gobbled up the piece of pulled pork I gave him like he hadn’t eaten in days.

“You’re a nice little kitty, aren’t you?” I asked, and in reply Muffin placed a paw on my leg, looking up at me with those little eyes that screamed “feed me your pizza!”

After our shared dinner, Muffin curled up next to me on the couch, and I stroked his fur until I fell asleep right there on the couch with him.

Chapter Seven

I woke up early the next morning and ate the extra cupcake Cat had given me the day before for breakfast. It was incredible, and single-handedly made moving to Sapphire Village worth it. Looking outside, the sun was shining today, with the temperature in the low 30s. It blew my mind that it could be that cold out when the sun was shining, but I threw on some jeans and my new jacket, and made my way outside to wander around the village.

An hour later, with Muffin fed (I had found some cat food in the cupboard, but he did manage to convince me to give him some leftover pizza as well), I waited for Cat to show up. She made her way to my place just after ten in the morning. Today she was wearing Converse sneakers, a pair of jeans and a white sweatshirt with a cartoon cat on it that had “Show me your kitties” written on it in big black letters.

“I was thinking we should go down to the police station and give our statements,” Cat told me.

“Oh, yeah, of course. I completely forgot we had to do that!” I exclaimed.

“Don’t worry, if it wasn’t for the fact that it actually was a murder I’m not sure Chief Griffin would even care.”

“I don’t hear a ‘you were right Alice, and I was wrong, I totally didn’t think it was a murder’,” I teased, and Cat stuck her tongue out at me.

“Fine. You were right. You’re bringing all your bad city habits with you. We can walk to the police station from here, it’s not far.”

“It seems like everything around here isn’t far,” I said. “Hey, by the way, I’ve never actually run any kind of business before, so is it all right if I ask you questions while I try and figure out how the bookshop works?”

“Of course!“ Cat replied as we started walking down Main Street. “Honestly, the timing worked out pretty well. Usually April and May are the low seasons, so there aren’t as many tourists about. Things will start up again in mid to late June when the weather gets nicer, so you have a few months to kind of settle yourself in and get used to things before they get busy.”

“That’s a relief,” I said with a smile. A few minutes later we turned off the main road and found ourselves in front of a modern-looking, low building which housed City Hall on one side, and the police station on the other. Cat and I entered the police station and found ourselves in a single-room office, with a receptionist who looked to be about my age sitting at a desk by the entrance, playing Solitaire.

“Oh, hi Cat,” she said with a smile when she looked up. “Who have you brought with you today?”

“This is Alice Calliope, my cousin.”

“I heard you were moving back to Sapphire Village!” the receptionist exclaimed. “It’s nice to meet you, I’m Andi. I’m guessing you’re here to see Chase?”

“Yeah, we need to give our statements to Chief Griffin about what we saw yesterday, since we were the ones who found Edith’s body.”

“Did you hear she was murdered?” Ali whispered in a conspiratorial tone.

“I did, it’s been officially announced, you don’t need to whisper anymore,” Cat teased.

“Well, it’s still crazy, isn’t it? I mean here! In Sapphire Village. The worst thing that’s happened since I’ve worked here, was one drunk tourist from England deciding to punch another drunk tourist in the face. And I’ve been here two years now.”

“I agree. Never seen anything like it.”

“Well, if you want to go in, Chief Griffin’s in his office at the back. We had the coroner visit this morning! I’d never met him before. He looks like he has one foot in the grave already, if you ask me.”

Cat laughed. “Thanks, Andi. We’ll do that.” I smiled at her as the two of us walked past and toward the back of the large room. It turned out there was an extra office in the room; it was tiny and tucked away, which was why I hadn’t noticed it when we first walked in. Sitting at a plain metal desk, going over some papers, was Chase Griffin, the man who would easily win the contest of America’s Sexiest Police Chief.

Even now, with his brow furrowed in concentration, Chase looked more like he belonged in an episode of Hawaii Five-0 and not working as a chief in a small town in the mountains of Oregon.

“Knock, knock,” Cat said as we walked into the office, and Chase leaned back in his chair.

“Ah. Cat and Alice. Good to see you.” I couldn’t help the fact that my stomach fluttered as he remembered my name. Get a grip, I scolded myself. He remembers your name because you found a murdered body. Besides, you’re not interested in him.

I was very, very happily single, I reminded myself. The memories of Tim, my ex, still felt raw sometimes. Still, it didn’t mean I couldn’t admire what was available, I told myself.

Chase motioned for us to sit in a couple of the plain chairs in front of his desk. We did as he asked.

“So,” he started, pushing the paper he was reading to the side. “I assume, because this is Sapphire Village, that you both know Edith Chalmers was murdered?”

Cat and I both nodded.

“Ok. Well, I can also confirm that she was poisoned.”

So, the gossip in town had been right.

“The thing is,” Chase continued, “the coroner fast-tracked the toxicology report. She was poisoned with destroying angel mushrooms.”

Cat inhaled sharply next to me. “Sorry,” I asked. “What’s a destroying angel mushroom?”

“It’s a poisonous mushroom that grows at the base of oak trees here in Oregon,” Cat replied. “They’re very poisonous, eating just a little bit can be fatal.”

“Exactly,” Chase confirmed, nodding. “An ounce, to be precise, is all a person needs to ingest for it to be fatal. The medical examiner thinks that she ingested a decent amount, however, as the heart attack which ultimately killed her only happened three days after the symptoms began. According to people who knew her she had been complaining of abdominal pain for a few days, but thought it was simply the kidney stones from which she suffered occasionally. When her liver began to fail that morning and she noticed her eyes were going yellow, she told her daughter she was going to the hospital in Portland. That was where she was headed when she died.”

“Wow,” I said. “That doesn’t sound like a nice way to die.”

“No, it really wasn’t,” Chase confirmed. “However, I do need to ask Cat about how often Edith ate at her restaurant.”

“You’ve gotten a visit from Denise,” Cat replied. “She stormed into the café yesterday and accused me of murdering Edith in front of everyone.”

Chase smiled, and I noticed that when he smiled he had small dimples in his cheeks. Some people just nailed the genetic lottery, and Chase was one of them.

“She did,” he said, almost apologetically. “I just want to get your statement out of the way. Has Edith been to your café in the last few days?”

“Yes,” Cat replied. “She liked my cupcakes more than she hated me.”

“Having tasted your cupcakes for the first time yesterday, I don’t blame her,” I said, and Chase smiled my way. I liked how he smiled at me. No, I couldn’t think that way. I was sworn off men. Even men who had served in the marines and looked like an action hero.

“Ok, was she in your shop three days before she died?”

“I’m pretty sure she was, yes. She always pays with her Platinum Amex card, making sure to flash it around every time she pulls it out, so you’ll be able to look up the details pretty easily.”

Chase nodded. “Good. Do you want to tell me about the yelling match you had with her the day before that?”

Cat suddenly looked a bit embarrassed. “Ok, yeah, I lost my cool a little bit with her then, didn’t I? But, to be fair to me, she did call me a whore.”

Chase raised an eyebrow. “I heard you called her a whore first.”

“I did, but that was different. I called her a corporate whore, selling out the town for a mall on the outskirts. Besides, we might have fought, but I didn’t kill her. I swear.”

“Ok, thanks,” Chase said, but I couldn’t help but feel like Cat was still a prime suspect in the murder. After all, Cat had a public fight with Edith Chalmers the day before the woman was murdered? I wasn’t a cop, but I knew I would consider Cat a suspect if I was. I was worried. I’d only known her for a day, but I liked my cousin. I didn’t want her to get into trouble.

Suddenly, I heard a man’s voice behind us.

“Sorry to interrupt, Chief, but I just wanted you to know Janet has scheduled a press conference for five o’clock this afternoon,” the man said.

“Thanks, Len,” Chase said. “Hey, while you’re here, this is Jennie Calliope’s daughter, Alice, who just moved back into town.”

“I heard from Frank this morning that she was finally here. Welcome,” the man said, holding out a hand, which I shook. He was in his fifties, with a bit of a pot-belly and losing most of his hair but trying–badly–to hide it. “I’m Len Forbes, the mayor here in Sapphire Village. I went to school with your mom; we were in the same grade growing up and we studied American Literature together in college. Such a shame what happened to her, but I’m glad you’re back here now.”

“It’s been really nice to be here,” I said with a smile. “Everyone’s been so welcoming.”

“I’m happy to hear it. Well, I’ll leave you here with Chase. Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, you too,” I replied.

“Getting to know everyone in town?” Chase asked with a smile, and I nodded.

“Definitely. Word spreads fast around here. It seems like everyone I run into already knows who I am.”

“That’s definitely Sapphire Village for you. There aren’t any secrets here. Well, at least, there weren’t up until a few days ago, anyway.”

“I’m sure you’ll find the person who killed Edith Chalmers,” I told him.

“Of course you will, Chase,” Cat confirmed.

“I will. It bothers me that someone in this town went to that extent, though. Cat knows what I mean. Whoever killed Edith is almost certainly someone who knew her, which would likely make them a local. When you know everyone in a small town like this one, it’s hard to imagine that any of those people could kill someone.”

Cat nodded. “Yes. It’s definitely not good.”

“Now, I have to have you two go over exactly what happened when you found the body yesterday, for the report,” Chase said, and Cat and I settled in to go over what had happened once more.

Chapter Eight

“I can’t believe you’re a suspect in the murder!” I blurted out as we left the police station.

“It’s ok,” Cat said. “I didn’t kill her, and Chase isn’t a complete moron, not like the old police chief. It’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure? Because you had an argument with her the day before someone fed her poisoned mushrooms.”

“I’m sure,” Cat smiled. “Now, what did you want to do today? I see your suitcase showed up. I can help you get your place ready, or if you want you’ve been invited to have lunch with the rest of the family at Brixton Road.”

“That sounds nice, actually,” I said. “I’m a bit nervous, but honestly, I kind of want to meet the people I’m biologically related to. I’ve never really had a family. All mom’s family lived in New England, and we only saw them once every few years. I was never really close to any of them. And of course, dad left when I was five.”

“Well, you’ll find that our family is a little bit crazy,” Cat said. “And that’s probably not what will surprise you about Brixton Road the most.”

“Where is Brixton Road, anyway?” I asked. “I looked it up on Google Maps last night and nothing showed up. And it’s not like it should be hard to find, this whole village has like fifteen streets, tops.”

Cat grinned. “Yeah, Brixton road isn’t exactly on Google Maps. It’s a bit more than just one road, as well. Come on, I’ll show you.”

More confused than ever, I followed Cat, but we just ended up back at the bookshop.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “I thought we were going to Brixton Road.”

“We are,” Cat said. “The entrance–at least, the entrance you’ll use the most–is in here.”

I shook my head and followed Cat into the bookshop. She made her way to the bookshelf on the far right side of the wall.

“I do hope you’ll never re-open this shop,” Archibald said suddenly, appearing out of nowhere. He was sitting – well, floating – on top of the counter right now.

“Why’s that, Archibald?” I asked curiously.

“All those people without any taste. Those who know nothing of the greatest works in the English language, who search for books written by people with names like ‘Tom Clancy and J.K. Rowling.”

“There are ghosts in J.K. Rowling’s books,” I replied. “In fact, they’re all about magic.”

“And I imagine they’re all factually incorrect. Not that I would know, I refuse to read anything written after the year of my death; English prose has truly gone downhill since then.”

“Oh you love being snooty at the customers,” Cat told Archibald. “Francine used to enable you, too. And you’re out of luck, Alice is re-opening the shop soon enough. Now we’re going to go into Brixton Road, are you coming?”

“Are you joking? Of course I’m not coming.” Suddenly, Archibald disappeared.

“He hates Brixton Road,” Cat said. “Everyone at Brixton Road, since they’re all magical, can see him, and he’s not exactly a people person.”

“Gee, you don’t say,” I grinned.

“See that book there? On the third shelf at eye level, titled ‘People and Personalities in Oregon Fly Fishing, 1948 to 1957?” Cat asked.

“Yeah,” I said, laughing. “Surely there are zero people on the planet interested in that topic.”

“Exactly,” Cat said with a grin. Tap the book three times.

Feeling foolish, I nonetheless did as Cat asked. As soon as my finger touched the book a third time, there was a loud creak. The bookcase in front of me suddenly opened up, and a large glowing red circle appeared in front of me.

“Go on in,” Cat encouraged.

“Uh, definitely not,” I replied. “What on earth is this? Some crazy magical portal? I’ve seen the Twilight Zone. I’m not going in there first.”

“Fine,” Cat replied. She stepped forward, as if she was going to enter the portal first, when suddenly she grabbed my hand and pulled me in with her. I let out a shriek as the two of us fell into the portal.

As soon as I hit it, it was like a tornado had started right there inside the bookshop. The air began to swirl all around me, so strongly that I couldn’t see anything. I was half expecting to see a cow fly past when, just as suddenly as the swirling wind began, it stopped.

When I finally dared to open my eyes again, my mouth gaped wide open. We were standing in the middle of a tiny town–there seemed to be about three streets–that looked as though it was designed by a five-year-old.

It was a bit as if a game of Candyland had come to life. In front of me was a sidewalk, but it wasn’t made with regular bricks. Instead, the bricks were round, and every color of the rainbow, like giant M&Ms. Red, blue, pink, green, purple, brown… they were placed haphazardly around, with the parts around the round colors being white. The houses were all brown, with white trim and pastel pink roofs. The grass growing from the lawns was such a pastel colored green it was almost unnatural, as were the flowers that peeked out of the flower beds.

The trees were strange as well; rather than having leaves, like normal trees would, they looked more like giant mushrooms, with swirled patterns like peppermint candies, in a variety of colors.

The sky here wasn’t blue, either; it was more of a pinkish-purple, the kind of color you get when the sunset is absolutely phenomenal. Stars twinkled bright, despite the fact that it was the middle of the day, and none of the constellations looked like any I recognized.

As I looked down the street I noticed about four people walking. One was obviously a witch, tall and lean, with black-and-orange stripped leggings, a pink tutu, a shirt made entirely of bright red sequins and a black witch’s hat. I couldn’t help but stare just a little bit. Maybe by witch standards Cat wasn’t a weird dresser at all. One man with so much facial hair he looked more like Chewbacca than a human walked past us and nodded, Cat smiled back at him.

“That’s Keith,” she told me when he went past. “He’s a werewolf. The full moon just ended, he’ll be looking a lot more human in a day or two.”

“Oh,” I said, not really knowing how else to react. A werewolf? Really?

“Come on,” Cat said. “Let’s go over to my mom’s place.”

I followed after Cat. The colored bricks were actually really soft, it was a little bit like walking on a trampoline rather than a road, and Cat and I half-walked, half-jumped down the street, turning left onto one of the two side streets, until finally we reached a large brown house. It had the same pink roof as all the others, with a decoration out in front that looked like a giant Christmas tree made out of cotton candy. The baby blue color didn’t look the least bit natural.

“This is my mom’s place here in Brixton Road,” Cat told me.

“Why is it called that? What is this place?” I asked, looking around. Everything about it was so weird. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before.

“When a few witches originally settled in Sapphire Village, they created Brixton Road, which was originally just the main road, hence the name, as their own little sanctuary, away from the humans who can’t use magic. We’re actually in the middle of the forest, technically, although to non-magical creatures this place is completely invisible. Satellite images don’t pick it up, and if a person managed to wander through to where we are now, they would simply be turned around by the magic without realizing it. The portals can only be accessed by people with magical powers, and they’re built in the homes or workplaces of magical beings. Mine is inside the walk-in fridge at the back of the cupcake shop. Some magical creatures, like me, spend most of their time in Sapphire Village. Some, like Keith we just walked past, almost always stay in Brixton Road. Most of our family prefer to stay in Brixton Road, but my sister Peaches splits her time pretty evenly. You’ll see her around more than anyone. Also, I should warn you. Our grandmother is not easy to get along with.”

“Ok,” I gulped, suddenly wondering if this was a good idea after all. I suddenly found myself feeling incredibly nervous. I was about to meet my entire family. Cat was all right, but she was just one person. And a pretty fun one, at that. But inside this house were a whole bunch of people who shared my genetic makeup, and I didn’t know any of them.

“Come on,” Cat said, and I followed her into the house. She didn’t bother knocking, just walked in.

Chapter Nine

“Mom! I’m here, and I brought Alice with me!”

Not a split second later it sounded like a whole herd of elephants was making its way toward the front door. I prepared myself for the onslaught, but rather than elephants, I was met with about a dozen witches and wizards, all of whom suddenly enveloped me with hugs, kisses and introductions.

“Oh it’s so nice to finally see you again!”

“You’ve grown so much!”

“Of course she’s grown, Jasmine, you dunce, you haven’t seen her in almost thirty years.”

“Don’t call me a dunce!”

“Don’t act like a dunce!”

“Ladies! You’re in your fifties. Stop bickering like a couple of teenagers. Set a good example for your niece! Your daughters are a lost cause, we don’t know if Alice is as well, yet,” said a voice from the back. I strained my eyes to see a woman who was barely four feet tall and at least in her eighties, looking every inch the typical witch. Her grey hair hung down the side of her face in strings, her nose was crooked and a large scar covered some of her left cheek. Despite all that, it was obvious that earlier in life she would have been quite beautiful.

“Hey!” I heard Cat protest.

“That’s not fair, I’m nothing like Cat,” announced another woman about my age, who looked exactly like Cat except that her hair was a light pastel coral color, halfway between orange and pink.

“I wasn’t talking to you now, was I girls?” the old lady replied.

“No, but you were talking about us. And it wasn’t nice.”

“Awww, did Grandma Cee hurt your feelings? Well, maybe if you were better grandchildren, I wouldn’t have to.”

“I run my own business!” Cat argued.

“Yes, and if I ask you to do anything more complicated than a simple enlargement spell you wouldn’t have a clue how. You’re a witch, not a human. Act like one!”

“Yeah, Cat, you’re a witch, act like it,” Peaches fired to her sister, sticking her tongue out at her.

“And you never learn your spells properly!” the old lady fired back at Peaches. “I’d feel so bad for your poor mother having to replace all the panes of glass you accidentally make disappear while trying a simple cleaning spell, except that it’s her relaxed parenting that allowed the two of you to be such mediocre witches in the first place!”

My two cousins looked so abashed at the scolding that I was half tempted to laugh out loud.

“Mom!” cried out a pretty, plump, friendly looking witch with fiery red hair wearing a rather unflattering blue-and-white checkered dress that looked like it belonged on the set of Little House in the Prairie. Surprisingly enough, I immediately noticed that she had exactly the same blue eyes as I did, on top of the same color hair. My heart raced a little bit at this realization; I’d never known anyone that I could share genetic traits with.

“Alice is here for the first time; you can pretend to be nice for at least thirty seconds before you scare her away from us forever, right? Alice, it’s lovely to meet you. I’m Sage, Cat and Peaches’ mom, and your aunt. The octogenarian horror here is my mother, Cassiopeia–but almost everyone calls her Grandma Cee—but don’t worry, her bark is a lot worse than her bite.”

“Grrrrrrr,” Grandma Cee imitated, showing her teeth, but Sage ignored her.

“This here is your Uncle Vulcan, and your other aunt Jasmine,” Sage continued, motioning to a tall, stern looking man with reddish-brown hair and a blonde woman with the same face as Sage, but who was tall and skinny. They both smiled at me.

“It’s so lovely to finally meet you,” Jasmine said. “You look so much like Jennie did at your age.”

“You really do,” the man said, nodding. “I’m glad you’ve decided to come back to your roots.”

“Come on, come on, let’s get all of you to the table, I bet you haven’t eaten anything all day,” Sage said, herding us all into a huge dining room. The house had looked like a decent size from the outside, but the interior was absolutely enormous. The dining room was easily bigger than my entire apartment back in Miami; with a large, dark wooden table in the center capable of easily fitting at least fifteen to twenty people. Matching chairs surrounded the table, which was the obvious centerpiece of the room. A large, old-style chandelier hung down from the ceiling, but also had strings of crystalline lights extending outwards toward the far reaches of the room, toward the gorgeous, dark-panelled-wood walls. It felt like we were in the middle of a castle in the Black Forest, about to sit down for a royal feast.

The table was bare, apart from the place settings for everyone.

“Do you need any help in the kitchen?” I asked Sage, but she laughed friendlily in return.

“Oh dear me, no. Thank you, though. Everything’s all set; I just need to bring it out.”

“At least let me help with tha—” I started, when suddenly Sage pointed her finger at the dining table and what seemed like at least fifteen dishes appeared all of a sudden, like magic. Well, I supposed it really was magic, wasn’t it?

“Oh my God,” I said, staring at all the food laid out on the table. There were pork chops, mashed potatoes, gravy, Brussels sprouts sautéed with bacon, honey and sesame coated carrots, at least four different salads and enough wine to keep a small Italian village happy for a night.

“It’s just a small family lunch, nothing special,” Sage told me with a smile.

“This looks amazing,” I replied. “Oh my God.” I didn’t dare to admit to Sage that most of my cooking skills consisted of nuking a Lean Cuisine in the microwave for dinner most nights.

“Well thank you, you’re too kind,” Sage said, sitting down at the table. Everyone else followed suit.

“I’m sitting next to Alice,” Grandma Cee said. “I want to get to know what kind of person my granddaughter is.”

“The kind who really, really likes pork chops,” I said, grabbing a piece and putting it on my plate. Cat laughed from her seat on the other side of me.

We all ate in silence for about five minutes or so, with the occasional murmur of appreciation of the food aimed at Sage. I had to say, it was probably the best meal I’d ever eaten in my life. I realized where Cat’s cooking skills came from now; her mom was hands down the best cook I’d ever met in my life.

“So,” Grandma Cee finally said. “What did the woman who raised you teach you about magic?”

I shrugged. “Honestly, nothing. Until I met Cat yesterday, I didn’t know magic was real. I’m still not sure it’s sunk in.”

Grandma Cee nodded. “I suppose that was probably for the best. She was protecting you, after all.”

“Protecting me?”

“Yes. It’s time you knew the truth. Your mother wasn’t killed in a car crash. She was hunted, killed by a group of dark witches and wizards who steal the powers of other magical beings to make themselves more powerful.”

“What?” I whispered.

“The woman who raised you, Corrine, she knew the truth. Your mother had told her, just before she died. She was not really supposed to tell her, but she knew she was in trouble. She had seen some of the Others following her, and knew it was likely she would be their next victim. She asked Corrine to take care of you, to take you far away from here and to raise you as a non-magical human as best she could if anything happened to her. That night, she was driving when she was ambushed by the Others. They left her body, and it was reported by the humans that your mother died in a car crash, but that was not the case. Her soul, her powers, was taken by the Others.”

“Do we really need to be telling Alice all of this?” Vulcan asked quietly. “She’s young, and she’s so new to the magical world.”

“That’s why it is important, and that’s why I’m telling her everything,” Grandma Cee snapped to her son in reply. “The Others are the reason we called Corrine and got her to convince you to come back here. You are no longer safe in the human world. The Others are back, and they are coming after our family again. When Francine was killed by them a few weeks ago, we knew. Our family protects us, but only when we are together as a group. That is why you had to come back. The more Calliopes that are together, the more powerful we are and the less likely they are to succeed. We lost Francine because of her stubborn refusal to accept that the Others have returned. We will not lose you as well.”

“Grandma Cee is exaggerating,” Sage said to me reassuringly. “We don’t know for sure that Francine was killed by the Others. We did call Corrine and ask her to convince you to move back here just in case she was, but we don’t have any proof.”

“Well she sure didn’t die of cancer like you’ve been going around telling everyone,” Grandma Cee snapped in reply. “Face facts, Sage. The Others are back, and they want more bodies. Why do you think most of the residents of Brixton Road are spending less and less time in Sapphire Village?”

“Because you’ve scared them into thinking their lives are in danger,” Sage replied.

“I’ve lived through three invasions from the Others, I know when they’re around,” Grandma Cee replied. “Now, because I’m the only one who recognizes the coming danger, I’m going to have to be the one to take care of all of this. Alice, when we’re finished eating, you’re coming with me. I’m going to teach you some basic spells. It’s about time you learned a little bit of magic; you may need it one day to save your life.”

I gulped, and as we finished eating, a stony silence permeating the room, suddenly the delicious food felt like sandpaper in my mouth. I was just coming to terms with the fact that I was a witch. Now all of a sudden, I had to worry about groups of other witches trying to kill me for my powers? Surely Grandma Cee had to be senile, or something. Maybe the rest of my family just put up with her to humor her in her old age. My biological mother had died in a car crash. That was what I’d always been told. That had to be the truth.

Right?

Chapter Ten

After we’d finished eating lunch, Sage did all the dishes with a simple flick of her fingers, and Grandma Cee took me out the back to learn how to do some magic.

“Cat, Peaches. You both are coming too,” Grandma Cee ordered.

“What? But you’re just going to show her basic spells,” Cat complained. “I know how to make things change color already.”

“Don’t you play smart with me, young lady. You don’t practice your magic nearly enough. Don’t think I don’t know that.”

“I don’t want to either, I made plans for this afternoon.”

“If you could do a magic spell on the dishes without making half of them start dancing, I’d tell you to keep your plans. But, you can’t, so cancel them. This is more important. In fact, I blame myself for your lack of education. Your mother does not keep onto you nearly as much as she should.”

“Fine,” Peaches muttered, rolling her eyes. “But when you start begging for great-grandchildren and asking me why I don’t have a man, remember this moment, where you took away my social life by making me do basic spells once again.”

“Consider it getting to know your cousin,” Grandma Cee replied.

“My cousin and I can’t have children,” Peaches replied. “Unless you’re hiding something,” she added to me with a wink, and I laughed.

“Nope, sorry, definitely not physically possible,” I replied.

“Good. Then we’re sorted. Everyone into the backyard.”

We left my aunts and uncles in the house and made our way to the backyard with Grandma Cee. She was surprisingly spry for her age, and practically bounded into the yard with the energy of a woman at least forty years younger than what she actually was.

“Don’t worry,” Cat whispered to me. “Basic spells are actually pretty easy.”

“Yeah, they teach them to us when we’re like four years old,” Peaches whispered from my other side. “You’re not going to have any problems at all.”

Despite my cousins’ words of reassurance, I still wasn’t completely sold on this idea. Still, I didn’t see that I had any other choice. And to be honest, a little part of me was excited.

This was magic! I was going to learn to do real spells!

The backyard was nothing like I imagined. That same, weird pastel-green grass covered the huge expanse of at least an acre. There were a few of the weird swirly-colored trees here and there, but mostly it was just regular grass. We walked through it and I noticed it was soft; much softer than what I was used to. This grass almost felt like sinking your feet into a pile of nice, warm sand on the beach.

“All right, ladies!” Grandma Cee barked out, like an army general speaking to new recruits. “Line up!”

“We’re already in a line, Grandma Cee,” Cat replied.

“Don’t get smart with me, young lady!” Grandma Cee said. “Now. First things first, we’re going to teach Alice a simple color changing spell.”

Grandma Cee pointed at the grass, and all of a sudden a white plastic lawn chair appeared, one of those cheap ones that no one ever seems to buy and yet everyone seems to have.

“Make this blue,” Grandma Cee ordered Cat, who rolled her eyes, pointed her finger at the chair, and instantly it was a pretty shade of baby blue. My mouth dropped when I saw it; really seeing magical spells being performed was still a novel experience for me.

“Good,” Grandma Cee nodded sternly, like a private school teacher from the fifties begrudgingly being forced to accept that a student got an answer right. She pointed at the chair and turned it white again. “Now, you do it, Peaches.”

Peaches scrunched up her face and pointed at the chair, but rather than turn blue, the chair seemed to melt, until it was only a puddle on the ground.

“Arrrgh,” Peaches said, while Cat snickered next to her.

“Well, water is also blue, that should count,” Peaches muttered unhappily. Grandma Cee shook her head as she pointed to the puddle of water, which turned back into a white chair just a moment later.

“Truly you are the most dangerous of all the witches,” Grandma Cee told Peaches. “Even you do not know what spells will come from your fingers.”

“I don’t know what I did wrong,” Peaches cried. “I really did try.”

“You need to truly picture the chair being blue before you point,” Grandma Cee replied. “Focus on the chair, focus on the change, then send your energy toward it. Try again.”

Peaches blushed slightly then squinted toward the chair once more, pointed at it, and this time it changed into a nice navy blue color.

“There. See? That wasn’t so difficult, was it? At least it shouldn’t be, for a woman in her mid-twenties.”

Peaches blushed again. “Now, your turn, Alice.”

“Ummm, I don’t know what to do,” I said awkwardly.

“Look at the chair. Picture the chair in the color you want it to change. Truly picture it in your mind. Then, use the energy inside of you, point to the chair, and it will become blue.”

“Ok,” I said, feeling a little bit stupid. I looked at the chair and imagined it looking like a nice, sapphire blue. After all, I lived in Sapphire Village now. To my surprise, as I did so, I felt energy welling up inside of me, like I was a tiger ready to pounce on my prey. It was like the feeling of adrenaline coursing through me, getting ready for me to do something scary.

I pointed at the chair and instantly felt the energy releasing from my fingers. It was like all the adrenaline coursed straight through my arm and out from my outstretched finger. I gasped as suddenly the chair instantly transformed from white to a perfect Sapphire Blue.

“Good,” Grandma Cee said, nodding. “That is an excellent start. You are already better than Peaches, and she has been doing magic her whole life.”

“Hey,” Peaches argued. I gave her a sympathetic look and mouthed a ‘sorry’, but she just shook her head.

“No, it’s ok. My magic is all over the place. I know that. I can’t even practice by myself because I never know what chaos I’m going to unleash on the universe.” Her shoulders drooped.

“With that attitude you certainly aren’t going to get anywhere,” Grandma Cee scolded. “Take some pride in your work, woman! Make an effort! Next spell: make the chair double in size. This time, Alice goes first.”

My heart leapt into my throat as I looked at the imposing plastic chair. You can do this, I told myself as I focused on the chair and truly imagined it doubling in size. Straight away I felt that same feeling of energy building up inside of me, and when I pointed to the chair, the energy coursed out of me through my finger and the chair began to expand, like it was filling with air, until it had more or less doubled in size.

“Good,” Grandma Cee nodded. “Very well done. She pointed to Cat, who did the same spell easily, and Peaches managed it on the first try herself. She squealed with delight as the chair grew in size, and nothing weird happened.

“Now,” Grandma Cee said. “Since it is obvious that Alice has a natural ability as a witch, I want to try a more difficult spell. “I want you to change this mouse into a basketball.”

She pointed to the ground, and with a little squeak a mouse appeared, scurrying around the ground, sniffing as though wondering how on earth it got here.

Cat stepped forward, focused on the mouse and pointed. There was a small popping sound, and the mouse disappeared. It was replaced with a basketball, but it wasn’t completely correct. It was about half the size it should have been, and the ball had whiskers, a little pink nose that sniffed around and a tail coming out the other side.

Peaches snickered and Cat shot her a look. “You’re probably going to mess it up worse than I am,” Cat shot at her. Grandma Cee pointed at the basketball and in an instant it had turned back into the mouse.

“I do not believe that basketball was NBA regulation,” she told Cat, who shrugged. “Now, Peaches, it’s your turn.”

Peaches looked at the mouse for an extra moment before pointing at it. Suddenly, Cat and I gasped. The mouse did turn into a basketball, and it did grow, only it was now bigger than the house!

“Oh my God!” I said, looking skyward to see the top of the ball. Suddenly, it began to bounce by itself. It bounced over the house and onto the street. Screams came from the street as the ball began to terrorize the residents of Brixton Road.

“Ohhhh noooo,” Peaches cried, and I couldn’t help myself, I burst out into laughter. As Grandma Cee pointed her finger at the basketball, which had quickly turned back into a mouse and been brought back into the backyard, Cat and I were practically rolling on the ground, tears were running down Cat’s face while Peaches looked more embarrassed that I knew it was possible for one person to look.

“Well,” Cat managed to say between gasps of laughter, “I think you went a little bit too big on that one, Peaches.”

“I can’t believe I actually did that,” Peaches said.

“It is a miracle that your magic doesn’t accidentally maim people, or worse. I’m absolutely going to be giving all three of you more lessons in the future. Now, Alice. It’s your turn. Try not to create something out of a horror story like your cousin did, please.”

“I’ll try,” I said, my voice sounding more like a squeak than anything else. Looking at the mouse, I tried my best to picture a basketball. A perfectly sized, normal looking basketball.

A second later, as the energy released from my finger, the four of us all gasped. Sitting right there, in the middle of the ground, was an orange orb with a thousand tiny pores and black lines around it. I had turned the mouse into an absolutely perfect basketball.

“Wow,” Peaches said. “You’re definitely showing up the two of us.”

“Absolutely,” Cat said. “Most people don’t learn how to transform living objects until they’re at least ten years old, so having about four of five years of experience casting spells.”

Grandma Cee nodded. “Yes. You are a very gifted witch, Alice. That will come in handy when the Others come.” I definitely didn’t miss Peaches rolling her eyes at Grandma Cee’s mention of the Others, and I wondered if it was really something I needed to worry about. I quickly decided that for now, I was going to worry about not embarrassing myself in the middle of my first magic lesson.

“Now, turn it back into a mouse,” Grandma Cee ordered. I focused on the basketball, thought about it turning back into a mouse once more, and a minute later the basketball had turned back into a squeaky little grey rodent.

“I can’t believe you’ve mastered living-to-object transformation on your first attempt,” Cat said, looking at me with awe.

“The fact that you call that mastering shows just how far you have to go, young lady,” Grandma Cee said to Cat, then she looked me up and down.

“You are well and truly Jennifer Calliope’s daughter. Your mother was a very gifted witch, which was why she was one of the ones the Others went after. You will come here at least once every week, and I will train you in the magical ways. Your cousins will have their lessons separately, as it is obvious that the skills in the basics that come to you naturally still elude them.”

“Ummm, ok,” I replied. I was pretty sure my face showed just how terrified I was of this idea. Grandma Cee was intimidating even with my cousins here, I wasn’t sure how much I was going to be looking forward to lessons with her on my own.

“Good,” Grandma Cee said with a curt nod, ignoring my obvious discomfort, before turning on her heel and heading back into the house.

“I’m sorry, guys,” I said to Cat and Peaches. “I didn’t mean to show you guys up or anything.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Cat replied.

“Definitely,” Peaches agreed. “Grandma Cee has always been super tough on everyone. I almost never use my magic anyway, and Cat mostly just knows how to do things that are actually practical for daily life with magic, like loading the dishwasher and making dinner.”

“Honestly, the fact that you’re so good at magic is great, it takes the pressure off us,” Cat said, and I smiled. “Now come on, I bet you’ve had enough of Brixton Road for one day, let’s go back to Sapphire Village.”

“That sounds great,” I said. While I liked Brixton Road, and it was great getting to know the rest of my biological family, it had been quite the exciting afternoon. Maybe it was the spells I’d tried, as well, but I was starting to feel incredibly tired.

We went back into the house and said goodbye to everyone. Cat promised to bring me back for another family dinner the following week, and we made our way back through the streets of Brixton Road until we reached the area where we’d come in.

Everything had looked so amazing when we’d first stepped into Brixton Road that I hadn’t even looked to see what the portal looked like. But now, it was perfectly obvious. There was a large green square, like a small park, and every ten feet or so was a different colored portal. There were probably fifty portals in total, each one a different color. I recognized the red as being the same shade as the portal in the library, and made my way to that one.

“Where do all the other portals go?” I asked Cat.

“To wherever the residents of Brixton Road set them up to go,” Cat replied. “That pink one over there is mine, it leads to the walk-in fridge at the back of my shop. The blue one in the corner leads to Keith the werewolf’s chalet, it comes out in the middle of his fireplace. Last year mom decided to visit him when he was sick and hanging out in Sapphire Village and she got a nice burn on her leg before jumping out of the fire.”

“Wait, so all of these are open for anyone to use whenever?”

“Well, the other end has to be open to let someone through. So, if you leave the bookstore side closed, no one can come in that way.”

“Ah, gotcha,” I replied, nodding. “So do we just walk through this portal as well?”

“Yup!” Cat said. “After you.”

I took a deep breath and stepped into the red glowing portal. The same gust of air swirled around me, whipping my hair around my face, and when it dissipated and I re-opened my eyes we were back in the bookshop. A moment later Cat was standing next to me. She tapped the book about Oregon fly fishing personalities once again and the portal disappeared.

“Now no one can come in through this portal until you re-open it,” she said. I thanked Cat, who waved no problem and told me she had to go check on her store. A minute later I was standing in the middle of the bookstore, alone once again, my thoughts swirling. I knew that today had happened, but it was so completely unreal I figured it was going to take my brain a little while to really come to terms with it.

Chapter Eleven

The first thing I decided to do when we got back was take a nap. Whether it was doing spells for the first time, or just the mental exertion required to come to terms with just how magical Brixton Road was, or the stress of meeting my entire biological family for the first time, I knew my body was exhausted. I stumbled up the steps and collapsed onto the couch, falling asleep almost instantly.

By the time I woke up it was almost four o’clock, and judging by the rumbling in my stomach, I was hungry. I still had leftover pizza in the fridge, but seeing as I hadn’t really eaten anything remotely healthy since arriving in Sapphire Village, my body was starting to crave something with actual vitamins in it.

I quickly checked to make sure the grocery store was still open, and seeing that I had another hour to go until it closed, I slipped out of the apartment and made my way down Main Street until I reached the grocery store.

I wasn’t going to lie; a part of me expected the small-town store to have about two aisles worth of food, a bit like those big gas stations. But to my surprise, it was legitimately a large grocery store, with about eight different, decently sized aisles of food, as well as a nice selection of fresh meats, fruits and vegetables.

I grabbed a cart and started adding some staples to it—potatoes, onions, green peppers—when suddenly I heard someone behind me.

“Excuse me; are you Jennie Calliope’s daughter?”

I turned to find myself face to face with a woman with sandy blonde hair that reached her shoulders. She had one of those square, authoritative faces, and that confident air about her that women who managed to do everything always had. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find out she was the head of half the local groups and committees here in Sapphire Village.

“I am, yes,” I replied.

“I’m Susan McInnis,” the lady replied, holding out a hand, which I shook. “I knew your mother; she used to babysit me when I was little. I’m glad you’ve come back to Sapphire Village.”

“Thanks,” I said with a smile. So this was the woman Frank said was in charge of the group that opposed the Sapphire Village expansion.

“Listen, I know you’re new in town, but there’s a proposal to build a new development in town that would completely destroy the spirit of Sapphire Village, and destroy the town that your mother grew up in. I’m the head of Keep Sapphire Village Quaint, the main group opposed to the project. Most of the town is behind me on this. If you’re interested, you can come to any of our meetings. We meet once a week to discuss how we can best stop this project from continuing, in one of the meeting halls at the library. The next meeting is tonight. Please feel free to stop by,” Susan told me, handing me a brochure that had obviously been printed on a home computer.

“Ok, thanks for the invitation,” I told her. This lady was intense.

“It’s extremely important that this project does not go through,” Susan impressed upon me. She was still holding my hand where she had put the pamphlet. “It would destroy this town completely.”

“I’ve heard that from a few people,” I managed to say. “I’ll come to your meeting tonight.”

“Good,” Susan said, seemingly satisfied. She let go of my hand, and I began to breathe normally again. “I’ll see you then.”

My head spun slightly as Susan McInnis went on her merry way. Had I just had my first conversation with a murderer? It seemed that Susan was a good suspect, and I had to say, while pretty much all of my crime experience came from watching bad TV shows, Susan definitely seemed like the kind of person who would kill for her cause.

I finished up my grocery shopping, grabbing a fruit smoothie from the fresh smoothie stand in the middle of the store, and then looked at the flyer. Maybe it would be a good idea to go, and to see who else might have killed Edith Chalmers. After all, I was pretty sure that Cat was still a suspect, and I didn’t want her to find herself in a sticky situation. I’d been invited to this meeting, the least I could do was go and check out the lay of the land, right?

Carrying my groceries back to the apartment, I put them away. Feeling both productive and pensive, I decided to make my way downstairs to the bookshop and start getting things ready for the re-opening, with me as the new owner.

Muffin was sleeping in a little cat bed under the counter, happily snoozing away, dreaming of chasing mice or whatever it was cats dreamed about. I turned on the computer at the counter and began to look at the inventory of books Francine had owned.

Luckily, the whole setup was pretty easy to understand. She had one supplier, from whom she ordered all of her books online. The login information was kept in a handy Excel sheet.

Looking at the inventory, it seemed most of Francine’s books had been published before 1800. She was a big fan of Jonathan Swift and of the old Greek masters. Sales weren’t great, but they weren’t awful, either. On the other hand, there were so few books that had been published in the last two hundred years on this list, I had a feeling I was going to be able to make sales rise without too much trouble.

I scanned through the website of Francine’s supplier and looked at what options were available. Vasile’s Wholesale Books mainly sold fancy-looking, leather-bound or just cool looking volumes of books, and promised next-day delivery. I ordered some of anything that I thought people these days might be interested in that still fit the vibe of the store, and by the time I was finished, I’d spent over two grand on a whole slew of new books, including an entire collection of Agatha Christie books in cool-looking hardcover that made the books look antique, a leather-bound series of the Harry Potter books and some incredibly painted hardcover collections of the Lord of the Rings books, as well as first edition Jane Austen novels.

By tomorrow, this bookstore was going to carry books that were more along the lines of what people read these days, while still keeping the antique vibe that made it so cool.

I looked around the store as well, thinking of myself as a customer. If I came in right now, there were tons of books available, but there wasn’t really any browsing space. The main walls made up such an imposing, impressive bookshelf; it made me think that the smaller bookshelves in the middle of the store looked a little bit sad compared to it. Plus, if I got rid of those, it would make everything feel so much more open.

Taken in by my sudden stroke of genius, I found some boxes in the back and began to pile up the books on the shelves inside of them. Muffin made his way over after about five minutes, meowing at me, probably complaining that I was making too much noise and disturbing his nap.

“I promise, Muffin, when I’m done with this new plan of mine, there’ll be a ton of new places for you to sleep on comfortably,” I told him. I looked at the books, then looked outside. The windows were still covered up; no one from the outside could see in. I wondered if magic couldn’t make this a lot easier.

I focused on one book on the shelf; an old tome of Voltaire books that had been translated into English. I imagined the book floating into the cardboard box in front of me, and then as I felt the energy build up inside of me, I pointed at the book and focused even harder.

The book wiggled in place for a second, and then calmly floated directly into the box. I had literally only moved a finger.

“Yes!” I cried triumphantly, while Muffin glared at me, unimpressed with my triumphant outburst. “Whatever, you just wish you could do that,” I said to the cat, sticking my tongue out at him. He replied by yawning in my face, curling into a ball and closing his eyes. Ok, so he wasn’t super impressed by my newfound ability to use magic. But I certainly was!

I giggled to myself as I moved the next book with magic as well. There was something so intensely satisfying about seeing myself move the books with magic.

In reality, it probably took a lot longer to move all the books with magic than it would have to simply pile them up by hand. But by the time I was finished, I was incredibly proud of myself. I was using magic in my day-to-day life to make things easier, and it was working!

With the shelves now empty, I looked at them to see how to take them apart. After a few attempts I’d figured it out, and decided it was too tricky to try and do with magic; after all, this wasn’t really my store–or at least, it still didn’t feel like it–and I didn’t want to permanently break the shelves.

An hour later I’d dismantled all the shelves, and taken them and the cardboard boxes filled with books to the storeroom at the back of the shop. Now, the only thing in the store was the floor-to-ceiling shelves against the walls.

Making my way back to the computer, I opened up Amazon. I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

Half an hour later I had an order for new beanbag chairs, nest chairs and loungers that were going to take the place of the shelves; in a few days this store was going to be inviting for anyone who wanted to have a seat and enjoy a book for a while. I’d also gotten a few Edison coil lightbulbs for the lights; it would add to the ambiance of the shop, I thought.

I gazed around the now empty-looking room. It didn’t have as much stuff in it, but the more open plan made everything look a lot more inviting. I had spent the whole afternoon working on setting things up the way I hoped would set the shop up for even more success, while keeping the framework that Francine had worked so hard on intact.

Filled with a serene sense of accomplishment, I checked my phone and noticed with a start that it was almost seven o’clock–the meeting Susan McInnis had invited me to, for the people looking to stop the development from going ahead–was starting in fifteen minutes, and I had no idea where the Deer’s Tail building was. I opened up Google maps and found that luckily, it was only about five minutes away, across the street from Cat’s Cupcakes.

I grabbed my purse, gave Muffin a pat, and headed out the door.

Chapter Twelve

Once I made my way to the Deer’s Tail building, which it turned out was one of those hotels that are made up of small apartments for holidaymakers, I followed the signs toward the Jefferson Room, which was a large conference room on the ground floor.

The room hummed with the sounds of people idly chatting to each other as I walked in. Looking around, I estimated there had to be around thirty, maybe forty people in the room. Along the back was one of those plain folding tables set up with a stainless steel coffee container, a dwindling pile of Styrofoam cups next to it, and some donuts, along with some mini cupcakes that had obviously come from Cat’s place.

I made my way to the table, taking a mini vanilla cupcake and a cup of coffee, and tried to see if there was anyone here I recognized, so I didn’t look like the person who came to this meeting just for the free cupcakes. Luckily for me, sitting in the back row of seats that had been organized, facing the front of the room where a lectern currently sat vacant, were the back of two heads. One was pastel purple, the other a coral color. I smiled. Surely there couldn’t be two sets of people in Sapphire Village with hair that color.

I slipped into the seat next to them and said hi to Cat and Peaches.

“Oh, hey,” Peaches replied. “I didn’t know you were coming tonight.”

“Neither did I,” Cat said. “I was going to tell you about it, but then I figured you had probably had enough Sapphire Village crazy for one day.”

“I ran into Susan McInnis in the grocery store, and she gave me a flyer and told me to come tonight,” I explained, and Cat grinned.

“That doesn’t surprise me. She’s pretty intense. She works as the science teacher at the local high school.” Cat scrunched up her face. “I still have nightmares about biology class with her.”

“Oh yeah,” I said, my mind suddenly whirring. A science teacher, especially one who taught biology, would probably know about poisonous mushrooms, right? Exactly like the kind Edith Chalmers had been poisoned with. Plus, with Edith being in charge of the group in favor of the new development, and Susan McInnis being so opposed to it, she had motive, right?

Before I had much of a chance to think it through any further, Susan herself stepped up to the podium at the front of the room and tapped on the microphone.

“If everyone could please take a seat, I’d like to get started in a minute,” she said. The crowds of people hovering by the snack table slowly made their way toward the chairs. I saw Frank, the man I’d met at the pizza shop the other day. He caught my eye and waved with a smile, which I returned, as he made his way to the front row and sat down.

“Why are you here, anyway?” I asked Peaches. “I thought you mostly lived in Brixton Road.”

“Oh, I do,” Peaches replied, nodding. “But I come to Sapphire Village a pretty decent amount. I do my art down at my place in Brixton Road, but I like to spend most of my free time with the humans. The family can be a bit overbearing. I know that Cat is opposed to the new development, and that’s good enough for me. Plus, on top of that, I come here for the drama.”

I wanted to ask Peaches what she meant by drama, but before I got a chance to, Susan began to talk.

“All right everyone, thank you for coming once again to our weekly meeting,” Susan said with authority. Her voice boomed across the room so powerfully she barely even needed the microphone. I could definitely see her being a teacher, and not the kind that would take any sort of crap from students. “I want to start off this meeting by telling you that, as I’m sure you’re all aware, Edith Chalmers was killed the other day.”

There was a low murmur in the room, but looking at all the faces around, no one seemed particularly perturbed by the fact that one of the residents here in town had been murdered. Maybe there were more suspects in this room than just Susan.

“And I must say, that is excellent news for our cause,” Susan continued. Ok, so she wasn’t the type to pretend to grieve. I had to admit, I wasn’t the most sentimental person ever, but that seemed callous, even to me. “After all, Edith was one of the main proponents in favor of the new development, and with her gone, I expect the organization of their group to be in much more of a shambles. We need to act fast. We need to act as one. Now is the time to pressure the politicians in this town to do the right thing and deny the permits to ruin the charm of Sapphire Village.”

Spontaneous applause broke out through the room as Susan took a breath. Looking around, every face in the room was smiling, all eyes on Susan. She had everyone in this room captivated with her words. They were obviously all extremely opposed to this new development. I hadn’t realized just how fanatical a lot of the town was about the topic.

“Now, our esteemed Mayor has asked me if he could speak to our group. He’s willing to take questions and concerns after he makes his presentation,” Susan said, glaring around the room. I could see how she wouldn’t exactly be a students’ favorite teacher. “I realize that the Mayor’s position is different to ours, but please show him respect while he tries to convince you that his incorrect opinion about the project is the right one. Ladies and gentlemen, Len Forbes.”

Rather than the rapturous applause that had greeted Susan’s previous words, as the Mayor made his way to the podium, only a few scattered people clapped half-heartedly. The man obviously wasn’t the most popular person in the room right now.

Len, to his credit, didn’t seem in any way perturbed by the frigid welcome he’d received by his voters. He walked up to the podium, adjusted the microphone, and then flashed a large smile at the crowd. Peaches leaned over to me.

“Four weeks ago when he was last here someone threw one of Cat’s cupcakes at him,” she whispered, and I giggled. It seemed like a waste of the world’s greatest cupcakes, though.

“Hello, everyone. I want to thank you all for allowing me to speak again at your meeting. I’m well aware that everyone in this room disagrees with my position on the proposed development in Sapphire Village, as I am in favor of it, but I hope you’ll allow me to explain to you some new information that we’ve received from the developing company that will hopefully change your mind.”

He paused and looked around the room. I wondered if he was truly trying to seem personable, or just trying to spot any food being thrown at him before it got to him. “As most of you know, I’ve lived in Sapphire Village my whole life. I grew up here. I moved to Portland to go to college, and even then I still spent my summers here, working for the National Parks Service. I moved back here straight after college to take over my family’s business, and eight years ago I ran for city council for the first time. Now I stand here, as your mayor, telling you that I absolutely would not ever do anything that I think would be damaging to this town. I know how special it is, as much as all of you do.”

“Then why destroy it?” someone called out from the crowd. I looked over and saw Peaches and Cat grinning. This was evidently the drama they had come for.

“I absolutely don’t want to destroy Sapphire Village; I want it to thrive. By building more amenities to bring tourists here, we’ll be increasing the amount of money being brought into the town from elsewhere. But I understand that a lot of you have issues with the development.”

“Traffic already sucks on weekends!”

“We don’t need a mall!”

“We’re a small town, don’t sell us out to a big corporation.”

It seemed the people at this meeting were keen to share their opinions before waiting for the question and answer portion of the meeting.

“I want to address the traffic issues, that’s why I came here tonight to speak to you,” Len said when the shouts finally died down. “I have spoken with Artemis Corp, and they’re willing to build a large parking lot south of town and fund shuttle busses to lead from there to the resort itself. This should alleviate a lot of the parking problems from people coming up on day trips.”

To my surprise, everyone in the room suddenly started paying attention. It seemed this announcement was a big thing. Buoyed by this newfound–if not acceptance, at least a lack of hostility–Len continued. “They’ve also agreed to a fund that would increase the fleet of busses currently serving Sapphire Village from ten to twenty, meaning we’ll be able to run busses on routes 1 and 2 every ten minutes at busy periods.” Murmuring began throughout the room, it seemed that the people were pleased with this new development.

“Thank you, Mayor Len,” Susan said, coming back up to the podium and practically shoving him away from the microphone.

“But Susan, I wasn’t finished,” he protested. “I was going to take questions.”

“I’m afraid we’re on quite the tight schedule tonight and can’t afford to allow you to answer questions,” Susan continued, as Len, looking confused, was led away from the podium.

“She’s afraid he’s actually going to change people’s minds,” Cat whispered to me.

“Will he?” I asked, and Cat shrugged.

“Maybe. The traffic issue is a big one. If they’ve found a way to solve that, a lot of people’s worries, especially those who live on the western end of town off the highway, will be alleviated.”

“Now,” Susan said. “I want to thank our Mayor for appearing here tonight, and remind you all that there are far more issues relating to this development than just the traffic issue.”

“But that’s a pretty big one,” Frank said from his spot in the front row. “You do have to admit that. I for one would like to hear the rest of what the mayor has to say.”

Before anyone had a chance to respond to Frank’s comments, however, the doors at the back of the room burst open. Denise, Edith Chalmers’ best friend, stumbled into the room. She leaned against a post as she tried to make her way toward the front of the room.

“Is she…” I asked, and Cat nodded.

“Drunk? Yes, definitely.”

“You murdered her!” Denise shouted at no one in particular. “You murdered Edith because she disagreed with your stupid ideas about the new development.”

“Denise,” Susan said sharply, like she was disciplining a student interrupting the middle of class. “This is a private meeting. Please, this is neither the time nor the place for baseless allegations.”

Peaches and Cat were grinning at each other; this was obviously the drama they had come here for.

“Of course that’s what you’d want people to think,” Denise slurred as she leaned against a chair at the back of the room to stay upright. “I thought the harlot with the purple hair did it. I told Chief Griffin she did it. But I was wrong! It was you, you conniving old hag. You had a meeting with Edith the day she was poisoned. And you brought her cupcakes from the purple one’s store!”

Evidently Denise was too drunk to remember–or care about–Cat’s actual name, but that wasn’t what anyone was thinking about. Every single eye in the room was on Susan as her mouth opened and closed once or twice before finally, she spoke.

“Yes, Edith and I had an appointment for that day. Edith texted me that morning, asking me to meet her urgently. I went to her house, despite the fact that I had to cut short a meeting with our mayor to do so, and she wasn’t there. I imagine it was a simple prank. End of story. I did not poison her, and Denise, you’re embarrassing yourself by going around causing scenes and accusing people of murder without any proof. Now please, leave before I’m forced to call Chase Griffin.”

“Puh-lease,” Denise slurred. “I would love for you to call him, so he can arrest you! And the cupcake lady! You’re all murderers!”

Frank suddenly got up from his seat and made his way over to Denise.

“Frank,” she said, recognizing him. “What are you doing here?”

“I was attending this meeting,” Frank replied. “Come on, Denise. I promise you, I’ll make sure Chase Griffin knows about this meeting. For now, let’s make sure you get home safely.”

Denise looked like she wanted to protest, but eventually let herself be led off by Frank. They left the room, and everyone sat in mostly stunned silence for a minute, before Susan finally took over the microphone once more.

“My apologies for the disruption,” she said. “Denise is obviously upset over the loss of her friend, and I think perhaps it would be wisest for all of us if we concluded this meeting here. We will see you all next week.”

The low murmur of people talking amongst themselves began, as I looked at Peaches and Cat. “Looks like she still thinks you’re the murderer.”

“Yeah,” Cat said darkly. “It’s annoying, too. I’ve had people come into the shop asking me if this is where the murderer works. It sounds like she’s getting into the ear of everyone in town. Hopefully now she’ll move onto Susan as her main suspect.”

“Well it sounds like she’s a good suspect, if she was supposed to meet with Edith the day she was poisoned.”

“No way,” Peaches said, shaking her head. “Mrs. McInnis is the community rock. Like, I hated her in high school, she kept confiscating my phone, but I definitely couldn’t see her killing anyone.”

“Maybe,” I said, but as an outsider to the village, I didn’t have the emotional connection to the residents that my cousins did. I figured I could probably see things more impartially. Cat looked at me shrewdly.

“You’re going to try and figure out who did it, aren’t you?”

“What? No!” I replied, hoping my voice didn’t betray my total lie. Peaches grinned.

“Of course she is. She’s lying, I can tell that from a mile away.”

“Well, you’re not going to be able to figure it out without our help,” Cat said. I opened my mouth to protest, but she held up a hand.

“Nope, you can’t say no to us. We’re your cousins.”

“You’re a suspect in the murder!” I protested all the same. “You can’t try and solve it.”

“That’s exactly why I should try and help you solve it.”

“And I’m just coming along because this will make a hell of a story when we solve a murder!” Peaches exclaimed excitedly. “After Cat’s finished work tomorrow, we’re going to work together and we’re going to find out who killed that mean old woman.”

I sighed. I supposed I had no choice. Peaches and Cat were definitely going to join me in my hunt for a murderer. I was suddenly wondering if maybe this wasn’t the best idea.

Chapter Thirteen

I woke up the next day knowing that late that afternoon, Peaches and Cat were coming over to help me figure out who had murdered Edith Chalmers, so people would stop thinking Cat did it after Denise’s rumor spreading.

After sleeping on it, I decided maybe it wasn’t as bad of an idea as I’d initially thought. After all, Peaches and Cat both knew everyone in Sapphire Village, whereas I was brand new to the place. They also knew who had magical powers and who didn’t, whereas I would just completely be guessing.

But first, when I heard the knock of the UPS guy at the front door, I smiled to myself. This was redecorating day!

I signed for all of the packages and dragged them into the room. Muffin made an appearance, sniffing the boxes suspiciously. Suddenly, the white figure of Archibald popped out of nowhere, and I jumped about three feet high.

“Oh my God!” I exclaimed. “Can you, I don’t know, warn me or something before you do that?”

“Oh, I apologize, is my being dead inconveniencing your life?” he replied.

“Well, you don’t have to appear out of nowhere like that. You could call out first, or something,” I grumbled in reply as I took out my keys and used them to cut the tape on the top of the boxes.

I pulled out the bean bag chair from the first box and decided to place it on the right hand side of the room. Muffin sniffed it carefully, then pounced on it, sinking deep into the beans and lying there contentedly, his legs sticking out in every direction.

“So I take it you approve,” I told Muffin with a smile.

“What in the heavens is that monstrosity?” Archibald asked. “And what happened to the rest of the bookshelves?”

“I took the rest of the bookshelves apart last night; I wanted to make the store look more open.”

“What an incredible waste of space,” Archibald argued, shaking his head.

“And that monstrosity, as you call it, is a bean bag chair.”

“A what?”

“It’s a round fabric chair filled with small beans that move around your body. It’s comfortable, it feels like you’re lying on a giant pillow.”

“I weep for what humanity has become,” Archibald replied, shaking his head. “Sometimes I wish I wasn’t a ghost, so I could remain ignorant to the depths of depravity that our species has reached.”

“Really? You… ghosted… through two world wars and bean bag chairs is where you draw the line that humanity is beyond saving?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“War! War always has a reason! Your second World War was started because of those French idiots forcing extreme reparations on the Prussians.”

“We call them Germans now, and I think England was involved in that as well.”

“Regardless, there was a reason for the wars. Someone did not wake up in the morning and simply decide to invade another country; there was always years of buildup and pressure. But this! This… beanbag chair, as you call it! There was no pressure. There was no need for this. It is a horrendous lump of fabric. A waste of valuable resources.”

“All right, well, call it what you will, but it’s comfortable and it’s staying, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” I said. Archibald harrumphed, and floated off into a corner to sulk. I grinned to myself at the ghost who seemed to think bean bag chairs were the world’s worst invention while I assembled the other four chairs that I’d ordered. By the time I was finished, Muffin was still sleeping on the bean-bag chair, and the shop definitely looked a lot better.

I took out the Edison coil bulbs, climbed up one of the ladders that ran along the bookshelves, and spent ten minutes replacing all of the existing bulbs. Apart from the ceiling bulbs there were a few exposed bulbs that had been put in the shelves, where there were no books. It was a cute look. When I was done, I gazed upon my handiwork and grinned. I had to admit, the store looked a lot friendlier. The bulbs cast a nice, warm glow over everything, and the chairs gave people a place to sit while they browsed. The place definitely hadn’t looked bad before, but now it was positively perfect!

All I needed was the new shipment of books that I’d ordered.

As if on cue, there was another knock at the door. I had no idea how long it was going to take for Francine’s supplier to send the books over, but I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be less than twenty-four hours. And I certainly wasn’t expecting the man who delivered them, either.

I was thinking they’d come by FedEx or something, and a dude in his thirties wearing cargo pants and a bored expression on his face would be standing in front of the store with some cardboard boxes. But instead, when I opened the door, I got almost the complete opposite of that.

The man standing in front of me was wearing a full three-piece, black and white suit. He looked to be at least in his seventies, with thinning grey hair gelled back against this scalp. His eyes were deep and black, his noise pointed, and as he smiled at me, his canines were so sharp I could barely stop looking at him. They were practically fangs.

Suddenly, I realized the truth–he was a vampire! There was a vampire here, on my stoop, with a giant wooden box in front of him. No, you idiot. Vampires aren’t real. Then I remembered. I was a witch. I’d seen magic. Heck, I’d performed magic. I’d seen a werewolf. This man could very well be a vampire. Who was to say they didn’t exist?

My next thought was what on earth do I do? I didn’t have any silver bullets or anything. Before I had a chance to shut the door and run away in panic, however, the man simply pulled out a clipboard.

“You must be Alice,” he said with the slightest hint of an Eastern European accent. “Francine told me you would most likely be taking over the store when she died. I was sorry to hear of her passing, and thrilled that you are willing to take such good care of the store which she so loved. Here are the books that she ordered. If you could please sign the form, I shall be on my way.”

“Oh,” I replied, staring at the box. It was full of the books that I’d ordered, presumably. Maybe this vampire wasn’t out to get me after all. “What’s your name?” I asked him.

“I am Vasile. I have collected books for… years. I now sell the most precious versions of literary art to bookshops who appreciate good quality reading materials. I look forward to working with you, Alice. Do you need help getting the box into the shop?”

“Ummm,” I started. The box was huge, and if it really did have all of the books I’d ordered the day before, it had to weigh a ton. A part of me wanted help, but at the same time, Vasile looked to be so old that I wanted to say no and struggle with it on my own rather than make the old man struggle to help me. But, before I had a chance to deny, Vasile laughed.

“Do not worry, young Alice. I only appear to be weak.” Without another word, he leaned down and picked up the box with ease, carrying it into the store. I could only look on in awe; it had to weigh a ton! When he set the box back down, the floorboards underneath creaked in protest. I signed the clipboard to say that I’d received the books. Looking at the sheet, it seemed that Vasile had three other orders to deliver that day. And if I wasn’t mistaken, they were deliveries to Canada, South Africa and Japan. Surely that couldn’t be right?

“Thank you,” I told him, still a little bit shocked.

“You are very welcome,” he told me. “If you ever have any questions about the books, please, do not hesitate to ask. You can contact me through my website anytime. It is truly the greatest invention of the past six hundred years, the internet.”

That seemed like an oddly specific number. “Thanks, I will,” I replied with a smile as I led Vasile back to the door. It was then that I suddenly noticed there was no delivery van or anything nearby. I wondered how on earth Vasile had gotten here, and how he was going to leave, when I saw him look up and down the street carefully. There was no one there, so he turned around, crossed his arms over his chest and winked at me, and suddenly disappeared! I gasped, then noticed the black bat flying off into the distance from the direction of the store.

That couldn’t be… surely not. Surely Vasile couldn’t actually be a vampire. And yet, in the last few days, I’d learned magic was real. Werewolves were real. Half the things I’d been told as a child were false were actually true. I made a mental note to call my mom; I needed to know if she knew who my biological mother really was and had been hiding it from me for all these years. Because all of this was, quite frankly, a lot for someone who was closer to thirty than they’d like to admit to take in.

I made my way back into the bookshop.

“Is that zounderkite from the Romanian Country gone?” Archibald asked when I came back in.

“If you mean Vasile, then yes. What on earth do you mean by zounderkite though?”

Archibald harrumphed. “I suppose all of the good insults have gone out of use these days. A Zounderkite is an idiot whose conduct leads to stupid mistakes.”

“I didn’t get that feeling from Vasile at all,” I replied.

“Well, an Englishman would be able to do what he does better,” Archibald replied.

“Ah,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Well, he brought over my book delivery.”

“Well, so long as you ordered nothing by that idiot Byron,” Archibald muttered.

“No, nothing like that. I got a whole number of newer books. Agatha Christie, JRR Tolkien, Jane Austen, that sort of thing.”

“Literature in the English language peaked in the early nineteenth century,” Archibald sniffed. “I do not know why you would waste your time ordering inferior books. Your aunt knew much better.”

“Yeah, well, my aunt doesn’t pay my bills,” I replied. “Besides, books nowadays can be pretty good. Tolkien is an absolute master.”

“My day was the peak of literature,” Archibald replied.

“Have you even read anything written in the last century?” I asked.

“Why would I even want to?”

I rolled my eyes. “How can you know it’s not good writing if you don’t even bother reading it?”

“I simply know.”

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll load up some Agatha Christie novels on my iPad, and you can listen to them then.”

“Listen to a book?”

“Yes, it’s called an audiobook. Seeing as how you can’t turn the pages of the book yourself, that’s what you’re going to have to do.”

“This idea gets more humiliating by the minute,” Archibald complained.

“Oh come on, you can’t have read a book in hundreds of years, surely you miss it.”

“Fine,” Archibald finally agreed. “I have missed the written word, although I am not convinced that there has been anything written after my death that is worth reading.”

“Ok, let me set it up,” I told him. Ten minutes later, Archibald was floating on the counter while a nice voice began to read out “Murder on the Orient Express” to him while I shuffled books around, making space for my new additions. When I was finally finished, I looked at my handiwork with pride, Hercule Poirot having a conversation in the background. I checked the time on my phone and realized I was supposed to meet Cat and Peaches at Cat’s Cupcakes in fifteen minutes. We had a murder to solve!

Archibald seemed pretty engrossed in his audiobook, so I put some food out for Muffin, who still hadn’t moved from his spot on the beanbag chair, and made my way back out into the street.

Chapter Fourteen

When I got to the cupcake shop, there were five minutes to go before closing; the only people left in the place were Cat, Peaches, myself and a couple sitting next to the door just finishing off their coffee. Cat was behind the counter, and I couldn’t resist ordering a strawberry cheesecake cupcake. Cat put it on a plate for me and I took it to the corner table where Peaches was sitting, tapping away on her phone.

“Oh, hey Alice,” she smiled at me as I sat down. “Are you excited for tonight? I know I am. I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“That’s because you spend your entire life just sitting on your phone refreshing your Instagram feed,” Cat teased as she came over and slipped into a third chair at the table, wiping her hands on her apron. “Seriously, mom’s going to start bugging you to go back to college or something soon.”

“What mom doesn’t understand is that this is the twenty first century, and that I use my social media accounts to make money,” Peaches sniffed. “It even pays my rent, most of the time.”

“I think mom would like for that to become ‘all of the time’ pretty soon, seeing as you’re twenty-five now.”

“It will. If you keep this up, when I’m making millions a year, I won’t share any of it with you.”

Cat faked a pout, then leaned back in her chair. “So I was thinking we should go find out what Edith was doing the day she was poisoned.”

“We already know what she was doing,” Peaches pointed out. “She had a meeting with Susan McInnis. She even admitted to it.”

“Sure, but that meeting, if we believe Susan, was last minute. She surely had other things to do that day. If we find out what they were, we find out who else might have had the opportunity to kill her.”

I nodded. “I think that’s a good idea. I think Susan is still the best suspect we have, but if we can show that she’s also the only person who had the opportunity to kill Edith, then that makes the case against her even stronger.”

“Ok, so we just go knock on a grieving family’s door then and ask to interview them all about their dead relative’s movements the day she was murdered,” Peaches said, rolling her eyes.

“Gee, if I knew you were going to be this unhelpful I wouldn’t have invited you to come,” Cat replied. “We’re not going to see Edith’s family, we’re going to go see Belinda Powers.”

“Who’s Belinda Powers?” I asked.

“She was Edith’s secretary. Edith ran a small bookkeeping business here in town. It’s true, Edith was poisoned on a Wednesday; she would have been at work then,” Peaches replied.

“And I have it on good authority that she’s over there now, diligently going through all of Edith’s things to make it easier for the kids to deal with the estate.”

“Good,” I nodded. “I think we should go talk to her.”

I finished off the last bite of my delicious cupcake, savouring the cream cheese icing over the strawberry flavored cake below, and the three of us got up, locked up the store and made our way back out into Main Street.

“Edith’s business is above Pickles’ Pizza,” Cat explained as we headed that way. “There are a few small businesses that have offices up there, like a couple real estate agencies.”

Sure enough, Cat and Peaches led me toward a side door next to the entrance to Pickles’ Pizza that I hadn’t noticed my first night there. We entered a small hallway that led to a flight of stairs, taking us up to a small office building. A changeable placard at the top told us that Chalmers Bookkeeping was in office C. We walked down the hallway until we reached it, and Cat opened the door.

The office was definitely small; probably only around two hundred square feet. There was a receptionist’s desk next to the door, with three black metal cabinets behind her; the type that every single office in the world had somewhere. At the back window was a bigger desk, with a large monitor and ergonomic keyboard. A squat, aging woman with grey frizzy hair but a friendly face – the kind of person you just know is the kind of person who spoils her grandchildren – sat at the computer typing away. She looked over toward us when she heard us enter.

“Ah, Peaches, Cat. To what do I owe the pleasure?” She looked over at me. “I’m Belinda,” she told me, holding out a hand.

“Alice Calliope,” I said with a smile. “My biological mother, Jennie, used to live here.”

“Oh, Jennie, of course. So sad, the car accident,” Belinda said, making a clucking sound in the back of her throat. “Well it’s lovely to meet you, Alice. What can I do for you young ladies today?”

“We were hoping you could tell us what Belinda was doing the day before she died,” Cat said, not beating around the bush at all. “Denise said she made a last-minute meeting with Susan McInnis, and we wanted to know how true that was. After all, Denise has been going around accusing me of poisoning Edith.”

“Well that’s just ridiculous, isn’t it?” Belinda huffed. “I’ve known you your whole life; there isn’t a chance in hell – pardon my language – that you would have done this to Edith.”

“I know,” Cat said. “I mean, I know Edith and I didn’t get along because she was in favor of the new development, but I never would have killed her. I’m just trying to find out who might have so Chief Griffin stops looking at me for it.”

“Well I’ll have a nice chat with that young man if that’s what he thinks,” Belinda said. “But in the meantime, of course I can tell you what she did that day. In fact, it was a bit of a strange day.”

“Oh yeah?” Peaches asked.

“Yes,” Belinda nodded slowly, looking skyward as if replaying the day in her head. “She did have a meeting with Susan McInnis, but it was very last minute. And there was something strange about it, too. Edith had gone out that morning and had breakfast, I don’t know who with. But when she came back, she was very agitated. She went straight to the computer, and typed away at it for a while. I asked her what the problem was, and she told me nothing was wrong. Then, she told me I was welcome to take the rest of the day off. Just as I was leaving I heard her on the phone with Susan, asking her to meet up later that day.”

“Do you know where she ate breakfast?” I asked. Belinda shook her head.

“No. No, I’m not sure. But I know she had the eggs benedict; she’d spilled some Hollandaise sauce on her shirt.”

“Ok, thanks,” Cat said. “And you have no idea who it was she had breakfast with?”

“No, sorry. She didn’t tell me, she just texted that she was going to be coming in a bit later than usual, and then when she got here she mentioned breakfast but didn’t say with who.”

“Thanks, Belinda,” Peaches told her. “We appreciate the help.”

“You girls come and find me anytime if you have any more questions,” Belinda told us. “I’ll be working here for a few more days, but after that you should be able to find me at home anytime. Either here or at Brixton Road.”

“Thanks,” Cat told her with a wave, and we made our way back to the street.

“Brixton Road? Does that mean Belinda’s a witch, too?” I asked. Cat nodded.

“Yes. She actually lives just two houses down from us. That’s how she knows us so well. Sapphire Village is small, but Brixton Road is even smaller.”

“How can we tell if someone’s a witch or not?” I asked. “I had absolutely no idea until she mentioned Brixton Road.”

“It’s hard, for sure,” Peaches replied. “A lot of the time there isn’t anything definitive. You just kind of have to know.”

“So there isn’t any witchy intuition thing I’m missing out on by having been raised away from the magical world?”

“No, no, of course not,” Cat told me. “You’re a completely normal witch, don’t worry.”

I grinned as I thought about how there was absolutely nothing normal about being a witch. “So what restaurants in town serve eggs benedict?”

“As the connoisseur of eggs benedict in this family,” Peaches announced, “I can tell you that there are four. One of them only does breakfast on weekends between March and June, and one of them is owned by Susan’s son, so there’s no way Edith would have gone there to eat. The third one is a bit out of town, but the last one is just down the street at the Sapphire Diner. They do all-day breakfast, as well, so I hope you brought your appetite, because Belinda just told us what we’re having for dinner tonight.”

Despite the cupcake I’d eaten not long ago, my stomach began to rumble. It was then that I realized that I’d gone the entire day without eating while I busied myself setting up my new bookshop. All-day breakfast at the diner sounded good to me!

The Sapphire Diner was down a side street, about a two-minute walk from Edith Chalmers’ office. It was made to look like an old railway car, with a bright red exterior and neon lights advertising milkshakes, burgers and fries.

“That looks really cool,” I said admiringly as we walked up a couple of steps and entered the restaurant.

“It is, isn’t it? This rail car used to be part of the Oregon Express, a train service that ran between Sapphire Village and Oregon twice a day until about twenty years ago. They decided it wasn’t making enough money. The owners bought the restaurant car, which already had a full kitchen installed, and made this diner,” Cat explained.

When we walked inside, it was almost like stepping back in time, in a good way. The lighting was old-fashioned, with bulbs hanging from the ceiling. Wooden tables lined the sides of the car, with each table getting a view out the window. The seats were nicely upholstered in red velvet, and a waitress donning a cute little old-fashioned train captain’s outfit led us to a table and handed us menus.

Two minutes later, another girl, dressed identically to the first one, came over to take our drink orders.

“Hey! Cat, what a nice surprise, I haven’t seen you in ages. What can I get for you three tonight?” she asked us with a friendly smile.

“I’ll have a diet Coke,” Peaches ordered.

“Regular coke for me,” Cat added.

“I’ll have an iced tea please,” I ordered, and the girl smiled.

“Hey, Amanda,” Cat said before she could leave.

“Yeah?” she asked Cat.

“Did you happen to be working here five days ago, in the morning?”

Amanda rolled her eyes. “Of course I was. All I do is work these days. My dad says that until I decide what I want to do with my life and get accepted to college I have to earn my keep around the house.”

“Ugh, I know the feeling,” Peaches said, giving her a sympathetic smile.

“Right? So yeah, I was here. Why?”

“Did you see Edith Chalmers eating breakfast with anyone?”

Amanda slipped into the booth next to Cat, her eyes glistening with excitement. “Yeah, of course I did. Who knew she’d be dead three days later? You’ll never believe who she was with, either.”

“Who?” I asked, almost breathlessly. I really wanted to know the answer.

“Ernest Forsyth.”

Peaches and Cat’s eyes widened, while I just looked around from face to face, blankly.

“Who?” I finally asked.

“The head of the company in charge of the new development,” Cat replied. “His company also owns the majority of the ski resort here.”

“Maybe he’s the one who killed her,” Amanda said breathlessly, getting back up off the seat. “But yeah, they were here together then. They looked like their conversation was serious, too. They always stopped talking whenever I came over to ask if they needed a coffee refill or anything. I did overhear a snippet of their conversation though. They were talking about which councillors were going to vote at the city council meeting to make the project a reality.”

“Cool, thanks Amanda,” Cat told her. “Anytime. I’ll be back with your drinks in a minute.”

Chapter Fifteen

Five minutes later, Amanda had come back with the drinks, and taken our orders for a late dinner. Cat, Peaches and I put our heads together and began to discuss what we’d just found out.

“So Edith had breakfast with Ernest Forsyth. That’s big news,” Peaches started

“Well, it’s not that big,” Cat replied. “I mean, Edith was in charge of the group of citizens who wanted the project to go ahead. It would be naïve of us to assume she and Forsyth never spoke.”

“I guess. But still. What if he was the one who killed her?”

“Why, though?” I asked. “After all, Cat’s right. He was the developer of a project Edith was in favor of. What reason could he possibly have to kill her?”

Peaches shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe Edith found out something that Forsyth didn’t want her to. Maybe she was blackmailing him. Maybe she just changed her mind.”

Cat squawked out a laugh. “Edith Chalmers, just change her mind? Seriously, Peaches. The blackmailing idea is way more realistic.”

“Fine. So go with the blackmail idea. Either way, we know that Ernest Forsyth had breakfast with Edith the morning she was poisoned, and we already know he’s not a good man.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“Have you ever met a rich person who was a good person?” Peaches asked. “I mean really, really rich.”

“I don’t actually know any super rich people,” I replied, shrugging.

“Well, they’re not. In general, they’re awful people, and Forsyth is no exception.” Peaches’ face darkened.

“You’ll have to excuse Peaches, her artist friends have convinced her that socialism is the one true form of government,” Cat joked, and Peaches flipped her off.

“He made a fortune by bribing officials to allow him to cut down old growth forests in Oregon, and by the time he got found out, while a few politicians had their careers ruined he was already so rich that he wasn’t really affected. He runs a conglomerate out of Portland now, but keeps a place in Sapphire Village. And one at Brixton Road,” Peaches replied.

“Wait, he’s a wizard?” I asked.

Cat nodded. “Yeah. A lot of us suspect that he used a bit of dark magic to make some of his money and influence people to do things for him. He’s definitely not a good dude.”

“So if Edith found out something about him, you guys don’t think he would hesitate to poison her?”

“Definitely not,” Peaches said darkly. “I could see him murdering someone who would get in the way of his new deal for sure.”

“So our next step should definitely be to go talk to him,” I said.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Cat replied glumly. “I was really hoping we’d get away with not having to do that.”

“Well, we can always give up now, and you can worry about going to jail for a while,” I teased, and Cat sighed.

“I suppose that is the lesser of two evils, isn’t it?” she answered with a wry smile. “Fine. We’ll go see him. He’ll be in Brixton Road at this time of night. He has a portal that goes from his office in Portland straight there. Everyone else in Brixton Road only has portals to Sapphire Village but no, Ernest Forsyth had to be special,” Cat added, rolling her eyes.

Just then, Amanda arrived with our food and I dug into my French toast with fresh berry coulis and whipped cream. After all, if we were going to go confront a potential murderer, I was going to need to get my energy levels up.

An hour later, I felt like a whale. A very happy, very full whale.

“Can you roll me out of this booth please?” I asked Cat, who laughed.

“I’m so stuffed; I don’t think I have the strength to.”

“Well, I guess I live in this seat now,” I replied. “It could be worse, at least from here I can order food until I finally die.”

“You two realize you didn’t need to eat all the food on your plates, right?” Peaches asked, looking at the two of us scornfully as she packed away the take-away container which held half of the omelette she’d ordered.

“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?” Cat asked in reply. “Then again, we’re talking to someone who ordered an egg-white omelette at the diner, you’re obviously not a fun person to begin with.”

“Well for one thing, I’m going to live past the age of forty-five without my heart giving out. And for another, I actually still fit through the portal to get us to Brixton Road,” Peaches replied.

“Maybe, but I got sweet, sweet French toast. What’s the point of life if you’re not going to eat French toast?” I asked, and Peaches rolled her eyes.

“I’m not sure they have a lot of French toast served in prison, seeing as that’s where Cat might be spending the rest of her life if we don’t figure out who killed Edith. But it’s good to see your priorities are French toast over your cousin.”

“Hey, I just met her a few days ago,” I joked.

“I’d hit you for that comment, but I think I’m in a food coma. And to be honest, I’d probably pick this French toast over me, too,” Cat replied.

“You’re both ridiculous. Come on, get up. We have to go see Ernest Forsyth.”

With a little bit more grumbling, Cat and I finally got up, and we left the diner.

“Should we use the entrance at the cupcake shop?” Cat asked, and Peaches nodded.

“Sounds good. I can leave my leftovers in the fridge while we’re there. Plus, that’s closer than my place or the bookshop.”

The three of us made our way back to the cupcake shop and Cat unlocked the door. We walked into the back and Cat opened the door to a huge walk-in fridge. The cold air instantly made goosebumps form on my forearms.

“Why are we in here?” I asked as Peaches carefully put her dinner leftovers on a shelf next to an industrial-sized vat of butter.

“This is where my portal to Brixton Road is installed,” Cat said, reaching up to the top shelf. She picked up a container of raspberry jam and put it back down, then did it again, and a third time. As soon as she put the jar down for the third time, a round portal opened up right in front of us, same as the one that had appeared in my bookshop. The only difference was, this portal was bright pink.

“I’ll go first,” Peaches said, stepping into the portal. As soon as she touched the pink glow, she disappeared.

“After you,” Cat said to me, and I took a deep breath and followed my cousin. Once again, I felt air whooshing around me, like I was stuck in the middle of a tornado. Then, just as quickly as it had started, the whooshing stopped, and I found myself back in the same little area of Brixton Road that held all the portals to get back to Sapphire Village.

“Why does this place look like it was designed by a unicorn who pukes rainbows?” I asked as I followed Peaches and Cat down the street. I just couldn’t get over how pastel everything looked.

Cat laughed. “The original witches and wizards who created Brixton Road did it in the mid-60s, and we’re pretty sure when they designed it they had been smoking things that still aren’t legal in this state.”

“No kidding,” I replied, looking up at the sky, which was now alternating between a baby blue and pastel purple color, with twinkling stars all around.

“You get used to it though. Trust me. Also, when you start using magic regularly, Brixton Road is nice because you don’t have to worry about non-magical people seeing it happen.”

Cat and Peaches stopped suddenly in front of a large house, which was imposing despite the fact that it looked like it was built out of marshmallows. I felt this strange urge to run straight into the wall and see if it would just bounce me back off.

The path leading up to the house was made of large, round circles that looked like they were made of gold. I was almost worried we were going to get yelled at for walking on them as we made our way to the front door and Cat pressed the doorbell.

Rather than the traditional ‘ding-dong’ noise, however, the first few notes to ‘Thunderstruck’ by AC/DC blasted through the house. My eyes widened as I looked at Peaches and Cat.

“Yeah, he’s a little bit… eccentric,” Cat replied.

“If the woman wearing a shirt depicting a cat dressed up as Xena, Warrior Princess riding a fire-breathing unicorn with lightning in the background thinks this guy is eccentric, well, I just don’t even know what to expect,” I said as the door opened.

Greeting us was a man who looked to be in his fifties, balding, and scowling at us. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, showing off his beer belly, and had on leopard-print pants and a black fedora. He certainly did make Cat’s fashion choices look almost normal.

“What?” he growled at us. This certainly didn’t seem promising.

“We want to talk to you about Edith Chalmers,” Cat said boldly, refusing to cower in front of the man’s obvious distaste of our mere presence.

“Yeah? You aren’t the police. What do you want to know about her for?”

“We know you had breakfast with her the day she was poisoned. So, that makes you one of the prime suspects for actually poisoning her. So either you can help us find out who actually killed her, or you can sit around waiting for Chief Griffin to figure out you’re a suspect and come knocking,” Cat told Forsyth. He considered her words for a minute, and then opened the door.

“Fine. Come in, then,” he scowled, walking further into the room.

The house had seemed large from the outside, but the interior was just straight-up palatial. There had to be some magic involved in the building of the houses in Brixton Road; they just seemed so much larger inside than they did from the outside.

The entrance hall in Ernest Forsyth’s home had to be the size of a football field. Marble floors, marble walls, a shining crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling and ancient Greek style statues adorned the room. Honestly, while I was pretty sure the guy was going for a classy look, it was so overdone it was definitely more along the lines of gaudy.

We walked through the entrance hall, which seemed to take us five minutes, and into a sort of library. Except, rather than having any actual books on the shelves, there were a number of plush couches and a single Kindle sitting on a pedestal in the middle of the room. I had nothing against e-books myself; in fact, I read on my iPad all the time, but to use this as a library seemed just wrong somehow. I wondered what Francine, who had obviously loved books, would have thought.

Peaches, Cat and I sat on a long, overstuffed, maroon colored couch while Forsyth chose a dark green velvet chair, which creaked under his weight. “So. What are you here to bug me about?” he asked.

“What did you and Edith talk about at breakfast the other day?” Cat asked. I was more than happy to let her take the lead in this interview; this didn’t seem like the kind of guy I wanted to spend any time around. He pointed his finger to the desk next to him and a big glass of whiskey showed up. Picking it up, he took a sip. There was no offer of a drink coming to the three of us, evidently. This guy definitely didn’t keep up with his manners.

Taking a long sip of the amber liquid, Ernest Forsyth looked at the three of us.

“We discussed the remaining steps that need to be taken in order for the Sapphire Renaissance project to go ahead.”

“Ok, what were those?” Cat asked.

“And you’re sure that whatever we discussed had to do with Edith’s death?” Forsyth asked, looking to each of us. The three of us nodded.

“Fine. After all, it’s not like this is super sensitive, secret information. My company has already received approval from the state to use some of the state lands for the project. We’re in negotiations to purchase that land right now, and I don’t foresee any problems. Once that’s finished, I need to get approval from the city council here in Sapphire Village. A majority of them have to agree with the project. I don’t expect that to be an issue either.”

“Who’s on your side right now?” Peaches asked.

“Delaney, Melnichuck and Helm.”

“That leaves Price, Frenette and Palm against, making it a tie.”

“And the mayor has the tie-breaking vote. He’s on my side. The project will pass the final council vote, that isn’t even up for debate.”

“So then assuming you’re right, what happens then?”

“There are a few more plots of land I’d have to buy, this time from private citizens and companies. They’re not developed or anything. There’s just the forest out the back of the Hallman farms, the large plot of land on the far side of Sapphire Lake where the water park is going to go and some of the area out by the bottom of the ski lifts on the far side of the mountain. After I’ve bought all that land–and I already have agreements with the owners to purchase at a certain price–work can start straight away.”

“And at that point there won’t be anything anyone can do about it,” I replied. “So basically, anyone who wants to do anything would have to do it before the city council makes their decision regarding the permits.”

“Exactly. And there won’t be any changes in anyone’s votes. The lefties who are opposed to it will stay that way, the reasonable people who see what a good impact increased tourism will have on Sapphire Village, who embrace capitalism, will vote correctly. The mayor will cast the deciding vote, and the project will go ahead.”

“And you’re not at all worried about what the huge increase in visitor numbers will to do the infrastructure in this town? Traffic is already bad enough here for such a small town, especially on weekends.”

“Well, I can let you in on a little secret if you’d like. This won’t be announced until a press conference tomorrow, but my company will be buying new trains for the Oregon Express, and we’ll be re-starting the service as soon as we get the council approval for the project. With an express train between Portland and Sapphire Village, a lot of the traffic should disappear.”

“That’s far from the only issue,” Cat muttered.

“No, but you’re wrong. You’ll see. Besides, we’re not here to talk about the merits of the development. That’s going ahead regardless.”

“So that was the only thing you spoke about with Edith Chalmers at breakfast?” I asked.

“Yes. I outlined for her what the next steps were, and she told me that she would do whatever she could with her group to make it easier for us. She even insinuated that she might be able to convince Ellie Price to vote in favor of the development; then we wouldn’t need the mayor at all. Although personally, I can’t see that dumb hippie changing her vote. That’s literally all we spoke about. It was all business. Nothing there I can think of that would have been a reason to kill her.”

“Hm, ok, thanks,” Cat said, and the three of us got up off our chairs and made the long trek back toward the front door. Five minutes later we were back in Sapphire Village, sitting at a table in Cat’s empty café, discussing what we’d just learned.

Chapter Sixteen

“There was nothing there that counts as a reason to kill Edith Chalmers,” I sighed, cupping my hand in my chin.

“I know. Unless he’s lying to us. Which I definitely wouldn’t put past him,” Peaches said.

“Yeah, that guy sure was something,” I replied.

“I don’t think he was lying to us, though,” Cat said. “I mean, the guy’s creepy and weird, but he’s also a good businessman. He’s not a total idiot. He knows that he was seen having breakfast with Edith the morning she was poisoned. If we can figure out who did it, well that gets him off the hook.”

“Assuming he didn’t do it,” Peaches said.

“Yeah, but why would he? As he said, Edith was on his side. She was even trying to get Ellie Price to change her vote to make it even more certain that Forsyth was going to get his stupid development approved.”

“I think we should talk to her,” I said. “After all, what else is there to do, now? We’re out of leads. Maybe Ellie Price can give us some insight.”

“Good plan,” Cat nodded. “I’ll text the two of you tomorrow, I’ll set up a meeting with her.”

“Try and make it sometime for when people don’t really buy books, ok?” I asked. “I’m re-opening the bookshop tomorrow.”

“Ooooh!” Peaches squealed. “That’s exciting! I’ll come in and have a look in the morning.”

“I would too, except some of us have actual jobs,” Cat said. “I will come by when I get a chance, though.”

“I have a job, too. You’re just jealous that mine allows me the freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I want. I am an artiste, perhaps I will take inspiration from Alice’s re-opening.”

I smiled as I saw Cat roll her eyes at her sister. “You’re both welcome whenever you can make it, obviously.”

“Do you mind if I tell the family? They might even venture into Sapphire Village to have a look.”

“Of course! That would be nice. I made a couple of changes, but I think I kept the spirit of Francine’s store pretty well.”

After a few more minutes of chatting the three of us left the store and went our separate ways. It was starting to get late, and I was expecting to be accosted by a cat waiting for his dinner as soon as I walked through the door. Instead, I found myself accosted by a hundreds-of-years-old ghost.

“It ended! The book ended, and I had no way to listen to the next one! This machine of yours is a travesty!” Archibald practically whined, floating around me in circles like an overly eager puppy.

“So I take it you liked the book, then?” I asked with a small smile.

“It was… all right,” Archibald admitted. “I would like to confirm by listening to a second book. I dislike the fact that Hercule Poirot is a Frenchman, but seeing as he had the good sense to move to England I suppose I can look past his nationality.”

“Ok,” I smiled, making my way to the iPad and loading up Death on the Nile for Archibald. “But Poirot is a Belgian, not French.”

“They are, quite frankly, exactly the same to me.”

“Ah,” I said, a twinkle in my eye. “I can understand that. After all, you Irish are all the same to me.”

“Ugh!” Archibald sputtered. “Do not call me an Irishman ever again!”

“So long as you don’t refer to Poirot as a Frenchman, then,” I replied, sticking my tongue out at the ghost. I didn’t know why I bothered; Archibald had carried his old English superiority complex for hundreds of years, my pointing out the irony to him now certainly wasn’t going to make a difference.

“Just put the book on, woman!” he ordered, and I shot him a look. “Please,” he added hastily, and I pressed the play button on the iPad. The narrator’s crooning voice began to tell the story of two English best friends.

I looked over at Muffin, who was still sleeping soundly in the bean-bag, although now he had curled himself up into a little ball. “Do you want dinner?” I offered, and he opened one eye to look at me, then closed it again. “I’m not bringing it to the bean bag,” I warned. Instead, I made my way to the cupboard where Francine had kept all of Muffin’s food and put it in a bowl for him. About two minutes later, when he realized I wasn’t going to bring the food over to him, Muffin got up, stretched, and made his way to the bowl, happily gobbling down his dinner.

I smiled and said goodnight to Muffin, giving him a pat, and Archibald, who, fully engrossed in his new audiobook, grunted a reply, and went up to the apartment and straight to bed. After all, it had been a big day, and tomorrow was going to be even bigger.

For the first time since I’d moved to Sapphire Village, I set my alarm on my phone. Eight in the morning gave me enough time to get dressed, shower, give Biscuit some breakfast, find some breakfast for myself–even though when I woke up I found I was still completely full from dinner the night before–and get the store ready for the new grand opening.

I wasn’t going to lie, there were definitely a whole bunch of butterflies going off in my stomach. After all, while I’d been an assistant manager at the coffee shop I used to work at, that was more of a job title in name only; making coffee still made up the bulk of my duties. And yet, now here I was, running a bookstore as the only employee. Everything was on me. I’d never worked in sales before. What if I was terrible at it? What if I ran the family’s bookshop out of business?

As every worst case scenario possible flew through my mind, the clock ticked closer to nine. As soon as it hit, I unlocked the front door and propped it open with a flower pot. It was a beautiful spring day in Sapphire Village, even the Miami girl in me had to admit that. The temperature was already well into the fifties, and the sun shone down onto the main street, giving everything a nice warm glow.

“Why won’t you give me another book to read?” Archibald complained when I made my way back into the shop.

“It’s not good for the customers,” I replied. “I want nice, soft, classical music on. It fits the mood of the store better. I’ll put another book on for you when I close, how does that sound?”

“I would like to listen to another book now, rather than in however many hours you see fit. I’m your elder, you should obey me.”

“You’ve gone hundreds of years without reading Agatha Christie books, I’m pretty sure you can go another eight hours,” I replied, rolling my eyes. I smiled to myself as Muffin crept into the room and made his way back to the bean-bag chair. It seemed he had definitely found his favorite place in the whole shop. A ray of sunlight shone through the window and onto the chair, and Muffin spread himself out contentedly in the light. Archibald muttered about the new generation of people not having any respect for their elders, then went off and did whatever it was the ghost did when he wasn’t in my store.

As for myself, I made my way to the back counter and familiarized myself with the point of sale system as I waited for the first customer to make their way through the doors. It was a pretty simple system, and after a few practice sales, I was fairly certain I’d be able to handle a customer coming in.

I didn’t have to wait as long as I’d expected, either. At quarter past nine a woman dressed in skinny jeans and a coat that was way too fancy for a ski resort, along with three-inch heels, made her way into the store.

“Well, isn’t this just lovely?” she drawled in a southern accent. “I must say, this store is absolutely gorgeous.”

“Thank you,” I blushed, as though I’d come up with the entire concept myself. Still, even though this had been my aunt’s pride and joy, I had made some changes and I was proud of them as well. “Is there anything I can help you find?”

“Oh no, dear. Thank you. I’m just going to have a look around, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course. Please let me know if you need anything,” I replied, my heart pounding in my chest. I felt like I was sixteen again, when I’d gotten my first job as a cashier at the local grocery store. I’d spent my entire first shift after my training trying to meld into the background, hoping that customers with their carts wouldn’t see me and would assume that my station was closed. I sat at the counter and waited while the lady browsed for about five minutes, then finally picked out a first edition copy of Voltaire’s Candide and put it on the counter.

“My daughter studies French literature at Stanford,” she told me. “She’ll love this.”

“Oh, absolutely,” I replied, ringing up the sale and then carefully wrapping the book in tissue paper before putting it in a plastic bag, then a recycled brown paper bag stamped with ‘Magical Books’ on the side.

“Thank you so much,” I told the lady with probably too much enthusiasm as she left. Still, I didn’t care. I’d made a sale! My first sale ever in this new bookstore. I knew that I’d taken orders for probably thousands of coffees in the past, but this was definitely different. This sale came with a sense of accomplishment! And it hadn’t been that hard, either. Maybe I wasn’t going to be too bad at sales after all.

My second customer of the day, unfortunately, blew my good mood out of the water.

Chapter Seventeen

She walked in around half an hour after my first customer had left. Wearing Lululemon pants and a long-sleeved athletic top, the woman looked as if she was heading toward the gym. She looked to be around 40, with her platinum blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail and a Louis Vuitton purse at her side.

“Hi there,” I said, a smile on my face. “Can I help you?”

“This is a bookshop?” she asked, looking around.

“Yes,” I replied, resisting the urge to ask her how she figured that one out all on her own. After all, there were literally thousands of books in here. “Are you looking for any title in particular?”

“I have a flight back to Los Angeles in six hours, I want the new James Patterson book, the Women’s Murder Club one.”

“I’m afraid I don’t carry James Patterson,” I replied. “This is more of a niche bookstore. However, if you like mysteries, can I interest you in Agatha Christie, or perhaps Sherlock Holmes?”

The woman scrunched up her face. “Ugh. All that old stuff. No, absolutely not. What kind of bookstore doesn’t carry the paperback I want anyway?”

“Well, we’re not exactly your local Barnes and Noble, Magical Books is more of a place to get collectors editions or older books.”

“Is there anywhere in town that is willing to sell me what I want?” the woman snapped.

“I’m not sure,” I replied, trying to stay polite. “I’m afraid I just moved here a few days ago, so I don’t know the village really well yet.”

“Well what kind of use are you?” she snarled. “First you don’t carry one of the books that every bookshop on the planet should have, and then you can’t even tell me where I can go to buy the book for real? Thanks for nothing,” she replied, stalking over toward one of the bookshelves. “What kind of crap do you have here, anyway?” she muttered.

I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I wanted her looking at those books, as I didn’t really trust the woman, but I also didn’t know how to politely kick her out of the store, either. She really didn’t seem like she was going to buy anything.

Suddenly, the woman grabbed a couple of books off the shelf and knocked them to the floor. She looked at me and a small smile curled on her face.

“Oops, sorry,” she said sarcastically as I rushed over to grab the books she’d knocked over.

“Hey, those books are worth more than your stupid hair extensions,” I heard a familiar voice say from over by the door. I picked up the books–luckily there didn’t seem to be any damage done–and looked up to see my cousin Peaches standing in front of the door, her hands on her hips. The woman whipped around as well.

“Who are you?” she snarled. “Mind your own business.”

“I was just walking by when I heard you being a total butt to the woman working in this shop. So, I thought I’d come by when I saw you throw those books on the ground on purpose.”

“So? It was an accident. You can’t prove otherwise.”

“Oh, I don’t need proof to know you’re a horrible person, I’ve met you for more than a minute. Now get out of this shop and leave this poor woman alone.”

The woman stuck out her lower lip. “Make me.”

“Seriously, lady?” Peaches exclaimed. “You’re like, what, fifty? Stop acting like you’re in high school.”

“I am not fifty, that’s insulting!” the woman replied. I watched the exchange silently, not knowing if this was about to turn to blows, but incredibly curious as to what was going to happen next.

“Yeah, well, either way, you’re old enough to know better. Now get out of here.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll make you.”

“I’d love to see you try,” she snarled, taking a threatening step toward Peaches. Peaches suddenly lifted her finger, and I gasped as the woman’s hair began to smoke, and then suddenly burst into flames.

“Uh oh,” Peaches said, looking terrified.

“What on earth…” the woman started, putting her hand to her hair. When she realized what had started happening, she began to scream. “Oh my God! I’m on fire!”

I stared in a combination of awe and horror as the woman began to run around the room, screaming her head off, an increasingly thick trail of smoke following behind her.

“I can fix this,” I heard Peaches mutter, but I shook my head at her. Peaches was definitely not someone that I wanted to see try and fix her magic.

I stared at the woman and imagined a pile of water falling onto her. I imagined it as hard as possible, then waited for a split second until she was in the middle of the room, away from any books, and pointed my finger at her.

A torrent of water appeared out of nowhere and fell onto her, the cries of panic being washed away into gurgles as the fire was extinguished. A minute later the woman stopped. She was completely drenched from head to toe, but at least she wasn’t on fire anymore. That was the important thing, right?

“What the hell did you do to me?” the woman sputtered, water dripping from every inch of her and pooling onto the floor of the shop.

“Your hair caught fire on one of the bulbs in the bookshelf, and she saved you,” Peaches said, coming up with a quick explanation that didn’t involve magic.

“I look like a drowned rat!” the woman spat at me, and this time, I couldn’t stop myself.

“I think it’s an improvement,” I replied. I thought the woman was going to attack me, but instead she turned on her heel and strode toward the door. “I’m going to the police! You’re going to pay for this! You set my hair on fire, and then you assaulted me with the water! My clothes, my Louis Vuitton bag! They’re all ruined!”

A minute later, she was gone. As soon as the woman was out of earshot, Peaches burst out laughing.

“Oh my God! I didn’t even mean to set her hair on fire, I was just trying to make her extensions fall out! But her reaction!”

“She’s going to the cops, Peaches! How are we going to explain it?” I asked, suddenly starting to panic. Chase Griffin was going to come over here, ask me how and why we set a woman’s hair on fire, and then he was going to arrest us, for sure.

“Relax, Alice. There’s no proof for anything she’s said. We’ll just say her hair caught fire from one of the bulbs, and that you put it out with some water. It’ll be fine.”

I looked down at the large puddle of water on the floor. At least it hadn’t touched any of the books. And it was true; the woman probably did deserve something bad to happen to her after how rude she had been.

“You have to be more assertive with rude people,” Peaches told me as she put the books the woman had dropped back on the shelf.

“What about that whole customer-is-always-right thing?”

“Well, she was never going to be a customer. Not someone like that. And besides, that only applies to employees. You’re the boss now, you can be as rude to idiots as you want.”

“I’m starting to see why you work as an artist instead of around people.”

“Well hey, at least you accept that what I do is work. That’s more than I can say about the rest of the family.”

I laughed. “By the way, I really like what you’ve done with the store,” Peaches added, motioning around. “It looks great!”

“Thanks,” I replied with a smile. “I was worried you guys would all be mad that I’d changed things in Francine’s shop.”

“Oh God no, not at all! It’s your place now, to do what you want with. Besides, Francine was really cool and into books and stuff, but a lot of what she liked was just so old. I like that you’ve added Harry Potter to your stock, and stuff like that.”

I was about to reply when all of a sudden Chase Griffin walked into the store. It should be illegal for the man to enter places without a warning sign; he was so stunning he almost took my breath away when I first glanced at him. Chase looked around, nodding approvingly.

“I like the new décor,” he said, looking at me, and I felt a flush begin to crawl up my face. Stop it, body, I scolded myself.

“Thanks,” I said. “But you’re not here to check out my new re-opening, are you?”

“No,” he replied with a small smile. “Unfortunately. There’s a woman who just visited the police station telling me that you set her on fire.”

Peaches rolled her eyes. “That lady was overreacting. Alice didn’t set her on fire, she was being an idiot and her hair touched one of the light bulbs and caught on fire. You’ll notice from the water on the ground that we also put the fire out, too. Not exactly the actions of a wannabe murderer.”

Chase smiled at Peaches. “Yeah, I figured it was something like that.”

“She wasn’t exactly the nicest person to you either?” I asked. “Just before she did it she had been purposely knocking books off my shelves because I didn’t have the James Patterson paperback she wanted.”

Chase rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I can definitely see that. Ok, thanks ladies. Maybe think about getting a lamp shade for that bulb. You know, try not to set anyone else on fire until at least the second day you’re open,” he added with a wink to me, and again I felt a blush crawl up my face.

“Oh, you’re not supposed to set customers on fire?” I joked. “Sorry, this is my first time running a store; I guess I’ll learn that sort of thing with more experience.”

“I might just be a simple small town cop, but getting the police called on you within two hours of opening generally isn’t the best business decision,” Chase joked in reply.

“Sorry you had to come out here,” I said.

“No, she’s not sorry at all, Alice is happy to see you,” Peaches replied, and I shot her a glare. “But that lady really is awful.”

“I’ll go settle things down with her now,” Chase said. “Don’t worry, I’m not charging you with anything. Accidents happen, and you obviously had a good reaction time and put the fire out quickly. In a room full of paper, that could have gone very bad, very quickly.”

“And I’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again,” I said, removing the bulb that we had pretended caused the fire.

“I’ll see you ladies around,” Chase said, waving as he left.

“Don’t hesitate to come back!” Peaches called after him.

“What on earth was that?” I asked her when he left.

“Oh, like you don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?”

“The tension between the two of you! It’s like being in the middle of a Tesla experiment, there was so much electricity flying around here.

“That is so not true,” I stammered, feeling the blush crawling up my face once more. “Besides, I’ve sworn off men. I’m not interested. I had a bad experience, and I don’t want to repeat it.”

“Something tells me there’s no way Chase Griffin would give a woman a bad experience, if you know what I mean,” Peaches said seductively, and I rolled my eyes.

“Well, let me make one thing clear: I am so not interested in Chase.” And I wasn’t lying. I absolutely, one hundred percent was not in the market for a new boyfriend.

“I saw the way you reacted when he looked at you.”

“A girl can window shop without wanting to buy the goods,” I replied, sticking my tongue out at her, and Peaches laughed. Just then, her phone buzzed.

“Cat says that we can meet with Ellie Price in 45 minutes if that’s ok with you.”

“Sure,” I replied. “After all, I’ve made one sale, and had one customer go to the cops. I’m not exactly drowning in sales here.”

“Sorry about that,” Peaches said sheepishly. “I wasn’t planning on setting her on fire; I just wanted her extensions to fall out. I figured the embarrassment would make her leave. It’s a good thing you’re way better at magic than Cat and me. How are you that good, anyway?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea. Up until like three days ago, I had no idea I had any magical powers at all.”

“Well, I’m glad, personally. If it wasn’t for you being here, Grandma Cee definitely would have found out about this, and I’d be in for even more lessons. Mind if I hang out here until we have to go meet Cat?”

“Sure,” I replied, motioning to the groups of new chairs I had set up. “As long as you promise not to use any magic on any more customers.”

“Deal,” Peaches grinned.

Chapter Eighteen

We met Ellie Price at Cat’s Cupcakes, where Cat had kept a table in the back for us. She was nursing a coffee and a mocha cupcake–my mouth watered at the sight–and Cat waved at us when we came in.

Slipping into the seats across from her, Ellie smiled at me.

“You’re Alice, Jennie Calliope’s daughter, right?”

I nodded.

“You have her eyes. I knew your mom well, we were the same age and were good friends growing up. I was sorry to hear about her death, but I’m glad you’ve decided to come back to live here.”

“Thank you,” I said, warming to Ellie instantly. She was tall and lanky, with sandy blonde hair that framed her friendly face, and blue eyes that twinkled as she spoke.

“So, what did you ladies want to talk to me about?”

“We were speaking with Ernest Forsyth last night,” Cat said, and Ellie’s face turned into a scowl.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. He had a meeting with Edith Chalmers the day she was poisoned, we wanted to know what they spoke about. He said that Edith told him that she thought she could actually get you to change your mind on the project.”

The scowl on Ellie’s face quickly turned into a laugh. “Oh, dear. Edith, rest her soul, was so incredibly insistent. No, there was never any chance that I was going to change my vote. In two weeks we vote, and I have been one hundred percent certain since the start that if I were ever to vote in favor of the Sapphire Renaissance project I would leave the town in shame forever.”

“So there was no chance you would change your vote?” I asked.

“None at all. I’m the head of the Sapphire Wildlife Protection Group. This town and the development already causes enough conflicts with black bears, deer and other wildlife. The Renaissance project doesn’t take into account the severe impact it would have on the wildlife in the area, which I am entrusted to protect. On top of that, the housing issue in this town is not being addressed and will only get worse–businesses have a hard enough time finding employees now because of the lack of housing supply. I know they plan on introducing shuttle busses and they just announced the re-opening of the Oregon Express to help with traffic, but I’m not sure that will alleviate all the problems.”

“So why would Edith think that you might change your mind?” Peaches asked. Ellie smiled.

“She came to see me about a week ago. She told me about the new plan for shuttle busses from a large parking lot south of town. She also told me that she could get Forsyth to agree to a new refuge for animals. I was completely non-committal, especially since I wouldn’t expect Forsyth to follow through on a plan like that at all, but I see Edith was a little bit liberal with her explanation of my reaction.”

“Hmmm,” Cat said, obviously dejected.

“You girls are trying to figure out who killed Edith, aren’t you?”

“Is it that obvious?” I asked sheepishly, and Ellie’s eyes twinkled.

“You’re young, you live in a small town where nothing interesting ever happens, and Denise already accused one of you of being the murderer. It’s not hard to figure out that you’d want to play detective.”

“I guess this is the part where you tell us it’s a bad idea?” Peaches said.

“It is a bad idea. Chase is a former marine; he’s much more adept in handling people willing to kill others. But, I also don’t expect the three of you to stop just because I’m telling you to.”

“Good, because we’re not going to,” Cat said, making Ellie smile once more. “Unfortunately, we are out of leads.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll think of something. If you have any more questions, please, don’t hesitate to ask. I have no idea who might have killed Edith, unfortunately.”

“I can tell you it wasn’t me!” Cat said.

“I believe you,” Ellie replied. “I just hope Chief Griffin figures it out before the three of you do. No offense, he’s just much better equipped to handle murderers.”

“None taken,” I said. “It was nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Ellie said, taking her leave. The three of us sat at the table and said nothing. We all knew we had absolutely no idea what to do now. We were out of leads, and out of ideas.

“So we have no proof that Susan killed Edith, and no real reason for her to do so,” Peaches said.

“Yeah,” I replied. “I want to know why Edith thought it was so important to talk to Susan that day.”

Cat shrugged. “Who knows. Maybe she just wanted to rub in the fact that she thought Ellie was going to change her vote.”

“Maybe,” I said, but I was unconvinced. A few minutes later I made my way back to the bookshop–along with a delicious salted caramel chocolate cupcake for energy–and sat down at the counter while I waited for the next customer to make their way into my shop. I really hoped my next customer wasn’t going to go straight to the police after leaving my shop.

I took out a notebook and made a list of everything we knew about Edith Chalmers’ day when she had been poisoned. There had to be something we were missing, and I didn’t know what. No matter what I thought about, I couldn’t get past the fact that immediately after having breakfast with Ernest Forsyth, something made Edith Chalmers make an immediate appointment with Susan McInnis, and made her give her secretary the rest of the day off.

Going over my notes, there was one thing that stuck out to me: the names of the people Ernest Forsyth had to buy land from before the deal could go forward. He hadn’t mentioned their names, but he had given us enough information that I figured if I made my way down to city hall I could probably find the owners.

I sent Peaches a quick text, asking her if she was around. Three minutes later she made her way into my shop.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Do you mind watching over this place for a few minutes?” I asked. “I want to go check something out. It’s probably nothing, but it has to be done during business hours. I’ll pay you.”

“Sure,” Peaches replied, grabbing a book off the shelf and making herself comfortable on the small loveseat I’d bought from Amazon. “Don’t worry about paying me, what’s family for?”

“Thanks,” I said, shooting her a grateful look. “Just for that, I’m not even going to make a joke about not setting anyone on fire,” I said, and Peaches laughed as I made my way back out into the streets of Sapphire Village. I was in such a focused hurry that I barely noticed the warm sun glowing on my exposed skin, a feeling I just absolutely loved back in Miami.

A few minutes later I was standing in the entrance to the city hall side of the building shared by the municipality and the police department, with an older woman with grey hair sitting at a desk reading a romance novel.

“Yes, dearie?” she asked, looking up when she noticed my presence.

“Hi,” I said nervously. I hadn’t really thought through how I was going to ask for this information. “I’m wondering if you can tell me who owns a few plots of land here in Sapphire Village.”

“Well of course, dearie,” she replied with a smile. “Do you have the address for them?”

“Well, not exactly,” I replied shyly. “I mean, I know what plots they are, I just don’t have an exact address for them.”

“All right, well let’s see what you have, and maybe I can fill in the blanks for you. After all, I have been doing this for a long time.”

“Thanks,” I said, pulling out the notebook where I’d written down everything from the conversation with Ernest Forsyth. “There’s the large plot of land on the far side of Sapphire Lake,” I started, and the woman nodded and wrote something down on the notepad next to her. “Then the forest behind Hallman Farms.” Again, more scribbling. “And finally a large plot of land on the other side of the mountain from the ski lifts. I’m afraid that’s all I have, sorry.”

“That’s all I need, I know what plots you mean,” the lady said, typing quickly on her computer. A couple of minutes later, she handed me a post-it note. On it were three addresses, and below them, the registered owners.

The forest behind Hallman farms was owned by Robert and Patricia Hallman. The plot behind the lake, which didn’t even have a street address, only a lot number, was owned by a company called Annabel Lee Incorporated. And finally, the large plot of land behind the ski lifts was owned by Forrester Incorporated. I thanked the woman for her time and made my way back to the shop, where Peaches was still happily reading away.

“Mind if I hang out here?” she asked. “I’d never actually read Sherlock Holmes before, these stories are pretty fun.”

“Please, help yourself,” I said. “Just try not to set any more of my customers on fire.”

“I said I was sorry,” Peaches laughed, a blush crawling up her face. “Did you find out what you needed?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know if it means anything yet, though,” I continued, making my way to the computer. I typed the name of both companies into Google, and found that Forrester Incorporated was a forestry company that owned a number of random plots of land in the mountains, presumably with the intention of eventually cutting down the trees on them. Annabel Lee Incorporated, however, was more mysterious. The company had no online presence, and when I did a search for the registered owner it turned out they were using a law firm as a proxy. However, I figured it was a pretty safe bet that Annabel Lee was the owner’s name.

“Nothing good?” Peaches asked, peering over the top of her book.

“No,” I replied, shaking my head. “I feel like I’m just chasing the wind around. I thought for sure that if I’d found out who owned the companies that it would suddenly put everything into place. But no dice. Do you know an Annabel Lee?”

Peaches frowned. “No, the name’s not familiar. Is it someone from Sapphire Village?”

“Not necessarily. I guess it could be someone from Portland or elsewhere. It’s the name of the company that owns one of the plots of land Ernest Forsyth needs to buy.”

“Well, I still think Susan McInnis did it.”

“Possibly, but she said that Edith wasn’t there when she went to meet her.”

“So? She lied. Simple as that.”

“Maybe. But wouldn’t it be easier to lie and say that she did meet with her but didn’t poison her? At least then on the off chance someone had seen them together there would still be plausible deniability.”

Peaches shrugged. “Maybe. I mean, even if you’re right, as you say, we’re completely out of leads and ideas. Maybe Ellie Price was right. Maybe it is a better idea to just leave things to Chase Griffin. After all, he’s a cop. He knows what he’s doing. He’s definitely not an idiot.”

“Yeah,” I said half-heartedly. I still wasn’t convinced. After all, what was stopping Chase from thinking Cat had done it? She had just as much motive as Susan McInnis, and I was worried for my cousin. Still, Peaches was right about one thing: I was completely out of leads, and had absolutely no idea what to do next.

Chapter Nineteen

By the time four o’clock rolled around, I had all in all had a pretty successful day. Three more customers had come in throughout the afternoon, gushing about how gorgeous the store was, and two of them ended up buying books from me. Sure, I had only made three sales in total, but I was proud of those three sales. And I found that I was actually enjoying running the store. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be as bad as I thought.

Around ten minutes after four, Grandma Cee and Sage walked into the store. Sage was dressed almost exactly like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, and yet she looked far more normal than Grandma Cee, who was wearing what I could only describe as a poncho with sleeves, that reached down to her knees, made from what appeared to be shag carpet. Apparently fashion sense ran in the family. Was Peaches the only person I was biologically related to who actually dressed remotely normally?

Sage burst into a huge smile as soon as she entered the shop. “I absolutely love what you’ve done with the place,” she exclaimed. “Oh it feels so much more open and inviting than when Francine had this shop. There’s so much more light!”

“Why does it smell like burning hair in here?” Grandma Cee asked, wrinkling her nose. Peaches, who was still sitting on the chair reading her book, carefully moved it up in front of her face, and I hid a smile.

“Just a little incident early this morning. Don’t worry, it’s not permanent,” I replied.

“Oooh and you got some new books!” Sage exclaimed, making her way to the leather-bound version of Harry Potter. “I told Francine for years that she should update her stock list, but she always insisted on keeping the old books only.”

“Yes,” Grandma Cee finally said, looking around sagely and nodding. “I also approve of the changes you have made to Francine’s shop, Alice.”

“Thank you both,” I said, feeling a blush crawl up my face. I hadn’t really realized it until just then, but I was actually quite thankful that Francine’s mother and sister both approved of the changes I’d made. It made me feel like I wasn’t coming in here and intruding on their family by changing what Francine had done before she died.

“Now,” Grandma Cee said. “Have you been practicing your magic?”

“A little bit,” I replied honestly. “I managed to pack up the shelves that were in the middle of the store using magic. And also I, uh, fixed a bit of a situation by making some water appear out of nowhere.”

Behind Grandma Cee, Peaches was doing her best to meld into the couch and avoid being noticed.

“Good. The Others are coming. You will need to be prepared, Alice. The Others are not to be trifled with.” I saw Sage roll her eyes as she turned to the bookshelf as Grandma Cee continued. “And I see you have a permanent customer in the form of your cousin. I suppose sitting in a bookshop and reading is as close to working as she gets.”

“Hey,” Peaches said, opening her mouth to protest.

“No, no,” I interrupted. “Peaches was just here because I asked her to help for a little bit while I ran an errand.”

Grandma Cee’s eyebrows rose. “I offered to pay her,” I continued.

“I hope she refused!” Sage said from her spot by the bookshelf against the right hand wall, where she was looking at the new titles I’d brought in.

“She did,” I said.

“Good. Family helps out family. No matter what Grandma Cee says.”

“That kind of attitude is why Peaches doesn’t have a real job,” Grandma Cee scolded her daughter.

“We all have a different calling in life,” Sage replied. “Peaches’ is art. And, as her mother, I choose to support her. You know, the way family should.”

“There’s a difference between support and delusion,” Grandma Cee replied.

“You already had children to parent, now let me parent mine,” Sage said to her mom, who shrugged.

“Fine. I’m just trying to help.”

“You’re trying to meddle, there’s a difference. Anyway, we weren’t talking about Peaches, we were talking about what a beautiful job Alice has done with the shop.”

“It is an improvement,” Grandma Cee ceded. “I like it. I think the store will continue to do well under your control.”

“Thanks,” I replied. “I’m glad you like it. I was a little bit worried that you would hate it, and think I was ruining Francine’s hard work.”

“Oh, sweetie, of course not,” Sage said, coming over and enveloping me in a nice, warm hug. “This is your place now. You do what you want with it.”

I smiled as I looked around the room. In Miami, everything had always been my mom and I. She didn’t have any family. We were an island of two. And yet here, for the first time ever, I was starting to feel like I truly had a family. A family that fought like crazy and dressed even more insanely, but also a family that supported what I had done to the store. Cat had introduced me to Sapphire Village. Peaches had a set a woman’s hair on fire when she tried to wreck my store. Grandma Cee was trying to protect me from some probably imaginary ‘Others’ who stole witches’ souls, and Sage was supportive of every choice I ever made.

My heart was filled with warmth, even as Grandma Cee and Sage continued to admire the store. A couple minutes later, Frank walked in. His friendly face burst into a smile when he saw Sage and Grandma Cee.

“Ladies!” he exclaimed.

“Ah! It’s Frank Harding!” Sage said, rushing over and taking him into a big hug. “I haven’t seen you in ages! How have you been?”

“Yeah, good thanks. Just working, getting a bit of skiing in sometimes. I heard today that Alice had re-opened the bookshop, and I thought I’d come by to have a look. It’s amazing,” he said approvingly, moving toward the shelves. “I love what you’ve done with it, Alice. Oh, and have you brought in some more books?” he asked as he inspected the titles.

“Yes, I thought adding some more modern works to the store while keeping the same feel to the titles might draw in some more customers,” I explained, and Frank nodded.

“Good for you. Francine was always opposed to newer works. She said her friend Archibald agreed with her, although I never met the man.

I smiled “Oh, he’s slowly changing his mind as well. He’s a new Agatha Christie fan.”

Frank grinned. “There we go! Anyway, while I’m here, can I buy this book? My daughter’s graduating from college with an arts degree and she’s always loved poetry,” he said, handing me one of the new titles I’d ordered from Vasile.”

“Oooh isn’t it wonderful? You’re already making sales on your first day,” Sage practically squealed in the background. I blushed slightly at her motherly pride as I carefully took the book up to the counter for Frank.

“Obviously, this comes with the ten percent local’s discount,” I told him as I rang up the sale. Taking some tissue paper from under the counter, I placed the book face-down on the paper, and found myself looking at the back cover of the book, which listed in gold script all of the poems featured in the book. My eyes immediately settled on the bottom poem. Annabel Lee.

“Is something wrong?” Frank asked.

“No! No, of course not,” I said, forcing a smile on my face as my mind whirled at a thousand miles a minute. Everything was starting to come together in my mind. I wrapped up the book, placed it in a bag for Frank and handed it to him with a smile. “I hope your daughter enjoys this,” I told him.

“Thanks, Alice. It’s really nice to see you up and running,” Frank told me as he left the shop, waving to Sage and Grandma Cee.

“We had better leave you to your business as well,” Sage said. “It’s so nice to see you. Come by anytime,” she told me before the two of them left once more. As soon as they were gone, I started pacing around the room. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I was almost certain I knew who the murderer was.

“I need to go out again,” I told Peaches. “Can you keep the store open until five?” I asked, glancing at the clock. It was four thirty. I could always wait half an hour.

No, no, I couldn’t wait. I knew who the murderer was!

“Sure,” Peaches said. “What’s going on? You’re pacing worse than Muffin does when he knows you’re hiding food from him.”

“I think I know who the murderer is,” I told her. “I have to go tell Chase.”

“Who is it?” Peaches asked, but I was already out the door at that point. I practically sprinted down to the police station, and entered the building. Unfortunately for me, it was completely empty.

Chapter Twenty

“Chase?” I called out as I made my way through the building. My voice sounded hollow. The place was empty; even the receptionist wasn’t at her desk. Everything felt eerie. I wondered if maybe I should leave and come back when suddenly I heard a voice behind me.

“Can I help you?”

I jumped about three feet in the air and turned around to find myself facing Len Forbes, the mayor. He also happened to be the man I thought was the murderer.

I could feel the blood draining from my face. I was in here, alone, with a man that I was fairly certain had killed Edith Chalmers. I plastered a smile on my face, hoping I was looking reasonably normal.

“Oh, no thanks Mr. Forbes,” I replied. “I was just going to ask Chief Griffin if he’d had any more problems with a customer of mine from this morning who came in to complain about me.” I hoped my voice sounded more stable than it felt.

“Ah,” he replied with a smile. “For one thing, please call me Len. Mr. Forbes is my father. So, this isn’t about the murder investigation at all? After all, you did find the body.”

I shook my head. “No. I found the body, but obviously I’m leaving everything else to the authorities. After all, that’s what they do. All I do is sell books, and I’m not even good at that yet.”

Len laughed and I almost began to relax a little bit. Maybe he believed me. I could only hope. I had to find Chase. “That’s interesting,” Len continued. “Because I was speaking with Bertha earlier and she told me that a young woman with red hair who looked exactly like a young Jennie Calliope came by asking about the owner of three properties here in Sapphire Village.”

My blood instantly ran cold. Of course, being the mayor, Len worked only meters away from the woman who had given me the information. And I’d forgotten that gossip was basically a national sport in small towns.

“Oh, that,” I replied, trying to play it off as nothing. I really wished I’d taken the time to tell Peaches who I thought the murderer was. “I was just reading up on the new development. You know, being a good citizen and all. I figured since I live in Sapphire Village now I should probably learn about the big things impacting the town.”

“Is that right?” Len asked, his eyes narrowing despite the smile staying on his face. Ever the politician. “Because if you ask me, I think you’ve been snooping around, trying to figure out who murdered Edith Chalmers so your stupid cousin there doesn’t get the blame for it.”

“Everyone knows Cat didn’t kill Edith,” I protested, jutting out my chin. Len laughed, but it was a cold, hard laugh filled with no pleasure at all.

“Of course Cat didn’t do it! I did!” he announced. There it was. Confirmation. “But that doesn’t surprise you at all, does it?”

“No,” I replied coolly. If Len Forbes was telling me that he had killed Edith Chalmers, it meant he didn’t plan for me to leave this room alive. There was no point in denying it anymore.

“Tell me, before I kill you. How did you figure it out?”

“I should have realized sooner. It was really when Frank bought the Edgar Allan Poe book of poems from me and I saw that one of them was called Annabel Lee.”

“Yes, the name of my company.”

“I had assumed that the person who owned that company was just a person named Annabel Lee, but it was a strange name. When I saw it was a poem by Poe, I knew that it had to be someone who was into literature, and then everything came together. When we first met you said that you had gone to college and studied American Literature with my biological mother.”

“Yes,” Len said. “I always was a big fan of Poe.”

“And then I realized what you said at the meeting, that you worked in the National Park in the summer. That means you’d know a lot about the mushrooms that might be used to poison someone.”

Len’s lips crept up into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Yes, indeed.”

“But I couldn’t put it together until I knew why you would want to kill Edith Chalmers. After all, Ernest Forsyth told us that you were in favor of the project, and so was Edith.”

“And the damned woman was going to ruin everything,” Len snapped. “Forsyth mentioned the name of my company to her. Edith has been doing my taxes for years. I always thought I kept my company names out of my records, but I must have let it slip through one year. I was talking with Susan when she got the frantic phone call from Edith. She told her that she had been meeting with Ernest Forsyth, and had found out about a conflict of interest they needed to speak about immediately. I told Susan to go and meet her, but before she had a chance to I called Edith to my office, telling her it was important and I needed to see her straight away. I went into the woods behind the building and found one of the mushrooms. There were some brownies in the office that my secretary had brought for everyone the day before. I sliced one open, put the finely chopped mushroom cap inside of it, then put it back so it looked completely normal.”

“What did you tell Edith the important thing was?”

“Edith has a son who has always been getting into trouble. I told her that Susan McInnis had called me that morning and told me that his behavior was growing worse, and that she will be pushing to have him expelled from school. Edith was horrified; I knew her well. I knew she would avoid Susan McInnis for the next little while simply out of shame. A few hours was all that I needed. Six hours later the symptoms began, and I knew Edith would be in too much pain to tell anyone what she had found out.”

“And by the time she realized her liver was failing and she needed to go to the hospital, it was too late. She was in so much pain she didn’t bother with telling anyone what she’d found out.”

“Exactly.”

“So you get to keep the deciding vote for whether or not the development goes ahead, and when it does, Ernest Forsyth pays you a fortune for the block of land your company owns.”

“It’s a pretty little deal, isn’t it?”

“I can’t believe you killed Edith Chalmers because she found out about your conflict of interest.”

“Oh, can’t you? It’s perfect. No one suspects me. Everyone knows Edith and I were on the same side of the development. Your cousin had that public fight with her the day before, and everyone knows Susan went to see Edith the day she died. I can even confirm it; I was with Susan when she got the call requesting a meeting.”

I shook my head. “But you won’t be able to explain my death.”

“I won’t have to,” Len said, his cold smile exposing his teeth. “Your body will be found by someone else; no one will know who killed you.”

“This is a police station, there have to be cameras around here.”

“This is a police station in Sapphire Village. There are cameras in the holding cells, but none in the main part of the building.”

Great. This was not looking good for me. My heart began to race as reality was starting to set in. Len Forbes was about to murder me. He pulled a Swiss Army Knife from his pocket and popped it open. The blade was small, but I was well aware it was big enough to kill me. As he stepped threateningly toward me, I took a step backwards, heading deeper into the building. Maybe if I led him far enough back I could run away, or something.

Anything.

Before I got a chance to think through a plan, however, Len lunged at me. I let out a squeal as I stumbled backwards, desperately trying to avoid his knife. My eyes were fixed on the blade as it slid past me, only inches away from my abdomen. I turned around and began to run, but immediately my foot caught on the leg of a chair and I fell to the floor, hard.

Pain radiated from my ankle; I was reasonably sure I’d sprained it. Len’s lips curled into another creepy smile as he made his way toward me. I began to scamper backwards, mainly using my hands, but I knew it was useless. I was completely trapped. There was no way I’d be able to put pressure on my foot; I wasn’t going to be able to run away from him.

I was finished, for sure.

Chapter Twenty-One

“It’s pointless to try and get away,” Len said, coming toward me. He was taking his time with this, like he was enjoying it. This guy was a straight-up psychopath.

I tried to think of how I could get away. If I pulled out my phone to call for help, not only would I be putting someone else in danger, but I knew Len would immediately attack me. That wasn’t an option. I could try and get up and see how far I could run on my sprained ankle, but looking down at it I could already see it swelling; given that fact and how much pain was radiating up my leg, my bet was it wasn’t weight-bearing.

I was out of options. Len suddenly let out a cry and lunged down toward me with his knife. I rolled out of the way and he swore loudly as his knife made contact with the linoleum floor rather than my skin. I started to crawl back toward the door as quickly as I could, but Len quickly got up and ran in front of me, blocking my way.

He brought the knife down toward me; in a second he’d stab me in the back, and there was nothing I could do about it.

I closed my eyes. This was it. Ellie Price had been right; we shouldn’t have tried to find the murderer. I was going to miss my mom. And yet, I realized, as I sat there knowing I was about to die, I realized I didn’t regret coming to Sapphire Village. Despite the fact that it had led me to my death, I actually liked this place. I liked Cat, and Peaches, and Sage, and even Grandma Cee.

Suddenly my eyes widened. I was a witch! In the panic that can only come with knowing you’re about to die, I’d completely forgotten about my magical powers.

I looked up and focused on the knife. I imagined with every ounce of my being that it was about a hundred times smaller, no bigger than a thumbtack. A rush of energy flew from my fingers and an instant later the knife that Len had been holding so threateningly fell from his grasp and to the floor, now completely useless for murdering anything bigger than an ant.

“What on earth?” Len stammered, looking down at the knife, confusedly. “What did you do?” he said, coming toward me threateningly. I couldn’t help but notice a small gleam of fear in his eyes, however.

“What?” I asked innocently. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Good,” he replied. “Well, there’s more than one way to kill you.”

He came toward me, his arms extended. He obviously meant to strangle me to death. I smiled this time. I had a secret weapon. He could try and kill me all he wanted, but as long as I still had use of one finger, I could always use magic.

For a split second, he looked unsure. Maybe it was my smile; whereas a minute ago I’d been running for my life as best I could, now I was holding my ground and looking ready to fight back, despite the fact that I was still on my knees; unable to hold up my own body weight on both feet.

I pictured the desk next to Len sweeping over and hitting him, then pointed at the desk, focusing on that image as hard as I could. He let out a cry of horror as the desk immediately swept to the side around two meters, hitting him in the hip and knocking him to the ground.

“What are you doing? How did you do that?” Len asked in horror as he got up off the ground. He started coming toward me again, but this time, he looked more apprehensive about it. I just smiled.

“I’m not doing anything. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re crazy!” he shouted, pointing at me. “You’re completely insane! You’re a witch, or something. I don’t know how you’re doing this, but you are. That’s enough!” he shouted, lunging toward me. I moved to the side and with a single fluid motion pointed to a computer monitor, which flew up into the air and hit Len Forbes on the back of the head. He fell to the ground, unconscious.

“What’s going on here?” I heard a voice say from the front of the room. I turned and saw Chase Griffin standing in the doorway, his hand on his gun in its holster. I had never been so happy to see someone before in my life.

“Oh thank God!” I exclaimed, and before I could say or do anything else, I burst into tears.

“Alice, what happened?” Chase asked, making his way toward me. He saw Len Forbes lying unconscious on the ground, and his eyes widened.

“He tried to kill me,” I said through tears. “He killed Edith Chalmers. I figured it out, and I came over here to tell you. He saw me coming in, and he tried to kill me.”

I began to shake as reality began to set in and my body started to process just how close I’d come to being killed today.

“Ok,” Chase said, taking out his handcuffs and cuffing the unconscious mayor in front of us. He then sprang into action, making his way to a cabinet on the other side of the room and pulling out a blanket, wrapping it around me. “I need an ambulance at the Sapphire Village police station, now,” he said into his radio, then looked me up and down.

“Are you hurt?”

“My ankle is sprained, I think,” I said, motioning down to my leg. Chase bent down hurriedly and had a look; despite the size of his hands his touch was gentle, his fingers like velvet against my skin. I inhaled sharply as he touched the swelling; I could see a faint outline of a purple bruise already developing on my ankle.

“That’s definitely a sprain, at least,” he said. “There’s a medical clinic a few blocks away, you’ll have to get X-rays done there. Can you tell me what happened?”

I nodded, and recounted the events of the previous few minutes–looking at the clock, it had all taken less than fifteen minutes. It had felt like an eternity though. Chase’s eyes were filled with concern. As soon as I got to the part about the magic, I stopped. What was I going to do? I couldn’t tell Jake that I was actually a witch.

I closed my eyes and pictured the shrunken Swiss Army knife. I imagined it being back to normal size, felt that now-familiar rush of energy flowing through me, and when I opened my eyes again it was back to normal.

“Are you all right?” Chase asked, and I nodded.

“Yeah. Sorry, I just felt a bit light-headed there for a second.” I then explained how I managed to hit the knife out of Len Forbes’ hand, how he pushed the desk to block my way out of the building and eventually I managed to get behind him and hit him over the head with the monitor.

Chase nodded and wrote the whole thing down, luckily believing my story completely. Just then the paramedics arrived. Chase motioned them over, and I immediately had my blood pressure and heart rate taken.

“I think she’s slightly in shock, and she needs a doctor to look at her ankle. It’s likely a bad sprain, but it might be broken,” Chase told the EMTs, one of whom nodded. At that moment, Andi, the receptionist, walked into the room, carrying one of those brown boxes that salad bars use, and sipping from a bottle of Pepsi. She had obviously been out for lunch, which was why no one had been in the police station.

“Thanks, Chase,” the man told him, and the next thing I knew I was being loaded up into the back of the ambulance and whisked down to the tiny hospital in Sapphire Village that was usually–going by the number of skis and snowboards I saw out the front–used for ski related injuries.

Chapter Twenty-two

I was taken into the main room for triage. It really was a small hospital; there were about a dozen beds against the wall, and a nurse came in, took my vital signs, checked me over to make sure I hadn’t been stabbed without noticing, or something, and then told me someone would be by shortly to take me to get X-rays done on my ankle.

As soon as she closed the privacy curtain and left me alone with my thoughts again, I felt the tears well up in my eyes. I had come so close to dying. If I hadn’t remembered at the last second that I was a witch… heck, if I hadn’t been a witch at all, I wouldn’t be lying in this hospital bed with just an ankle that hurt.

Suddenly, the privacy curtain was pulled back and Peaches and Cat both came straight in.

“Are you ok?”

“You’re not dead are you?”

“What happened?”

“Why didn’t you tell me who it was before you left?”

I held up my hands and despite everything, couldn’t help but laugh. Cat and Peaches were so incredibly concerned, each one of them had come to one side of my bed and were now looking at me like I was about to die at any minute.

“I’m fine,” I replied. “My ankle is sprained, and Chase thinks I might have gone into a bit of shock. But don’t worry, I’m not going to die on you anytime soon.”

“Good, Grandma Cee will probably try and make me take over the bookstore if you do,” Peaches joked, and Cat reached across the bed and punched her.

“Ow!”

“Don’t joke about that! Alice almost died! Chase said the mayor tried to kill you?”

“Yup,” I nodded, and spent the next ten minutes recounting once again what had happened, lowering my voice to just a whisper when I told my cousins about the magic.

“Wow,” Cat said, shaking her head when I was finished. “I can’t believe it.”

“I know,” I replied. “And to think I thought you were trying to kill me when you picked me up from the airport. I had no idea that an actual murderer was going to try and murder me instead.”

“I just can’t believe it was Len,” Peaches said thoughtfully. “I mean, he was actually a decent mayor. And a decent guy, I thought. Apart from the whole murdering people part.”

“Agreed,” I said. “I thought he seemed like a good mayor as well.”

Just then a technician opened the curtain, holding a wheelchair. “Sorry ladies, I’m going to have to take Alice here for a trip down to the X-ray machine, I’ll have her back for you in a few minutes.”

Half an hour later it was confirmed that my ankle was just sprained and not broken, I had orders to ice it, stay off my feet and rest, as well as a brand new pair of crutches that I had to use for at least a few days.

Cat drove Peaches and I back to the bookshop. As soon as we entered, Archibald appeared.

“It’s after regular business hours in this century, you’re late!” he announced in a huff.

“Sorry, Archibald. Did my almost getting murdered get in the way of your Agatha Christie listening time?” I replied.

“I’ll have you know that it did. For the previous seventy-two minutes I could have been enjoying the dulcet tones of the narrator as she leads me through a quaint mystery. But alas, you were not here as promised to set up the strange contraption that reads the book to me.”

“I was busy solving a real-life murder.”

“That is of no interest to me,” Archibald replied.

“No, obviously not,” I muttered as I made my way to the back counter and found the iPad. I pressed play on the book for him, and Archibald happily floated around the iPad like it was a sacred shrine.

“You’re a horrible ghost, Archie,” Cat shot at him, but he ignored her, absorbed in his new book, as the three of us headed back to the apartment. It took what felt like fifteen minutes to get up the steps and into the apartment. When I finally made it up to the top I was sweating profusely and panting.

“Well, I guess I’ll live in this apartment until I can walk again,” I announced, and Cat laughed.

“You can slide back down the stairs on your butt, that’s probably easier than trying to use the crutches.”

“Yeah, but if that happens, I’ll never make it back up the stairs without having a heart attack.”

“Ok,” Peaches said. “You hang out here. I’ll go out and get some pizza. I think if there was ever a reason to get pizza, catching a murderer and almost being killed by him is a pretty good one.”

“Agreed,” I laughed. “Thanks, Peaches.”

Cat helped settle me down on the couch and turned on the TV, leaving an old repeat of How I Met Your Mother on while we chatted about the events of the day.

“I wish you would have called me before going to see Chase,” Cat said.

“Oh, you wouldn’t even have wanted to go tell him,” I replied, sticking my tongue out at her. “You would totally have tried to convince me to go confront Len Forbes and then we would have been in exactly the same situation.”

“Maybe,” Cat grinned. “But at least then it would have been two against one.”

“Yeah, it’s a good thing I remembered I was a witch in time. Hey, what is the policy on doing magic in front of non-witches?” I asked.

“Generally, don’t do it. Unless it’s life-or-death, which this obviously was. You managed to come up with a good story, if you hadn’t, there are wizards out there from the Paranormal Protection Unit who would have come in and erased or changed memories enough so that none of the non-magical folk would remember the magic being used.”

“Cool, so witches have like, their own version of the cops.”

“Yeah, but they’re not nice people. We like to avoid bringing in the PPU as much as possible.”

“So, I’m not going to get in trouble for using magic in front of Len?”

Cat shook her head. “No, definitely not. Don’t worry about that.”

Just then the door to the apartment opened. “Hey, guess who I found,” Peaches announced coming into the room, the aroma of pizza wafting toward us. Standing behind her, still in his work uniform, was Chase.

“Hey,” he said, smiling. “I ran into Peaches on the way back from the pizza place and she insisted that I come back here and join you guys for a slice of pizza.”

I shot Peaches, who was conveniently avoiding my eyes, a look. “Yeah, of course,” I replied. “Help yourself.”

“I won’t stay for long, I just wanted to see if you’re doing ok.”

“I am, thanks. The ankle isn’t broken, just a bad sprain.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Len’s in the holding cell, he’ll be taken down to Portland tomorrow where he’ll stay until the trial. When he woke up he started raving about you making his knife shrink, and pushing the desk into him. He started calling you a witch.” My face went pale. “I think he might try for an insanity defense. It won’t work though. He admitted to everything when I told him what you’d said. He’s going away for a long, long time.”

“Great,” I said, the blood coming back to my face. Of course, Chase wasn’t going to believe Len’s stories about the magic.

“Anyway, I’m sure I’ll see you around. Since you’ve been here you’ve found a dead body, had a customer complain you set her on fire, and were almost murdered inside the empty police station.”

“That’s me, I bring excitement everywhere I go,” I deadpanned, and Chase laughed.

“Well, try to avoid dead bodies in the future. Finding, or becoming them. Setting annoying people on fire I can live with.”

I laughed, and a few minutes later Chase said good night and left the way he came. “By the way, why is your iPad on and reading Agatha Christie downstairs?” he asked.

“Oh, Muffin, the cat, likes it. Make sure not to let him out when you leave,” I said.

Chase shook his head in disbelief and headed down the stairs. Peaches and Cat were both grinning at me as he left.

“What?” I asked.

“He totally likes you.”

“He does not. I bet you basically forced him to come here.”

“Nuh-uh! I did not!”

“Yeah, right. Besides, I’ve told you both before, I’m not interested.”

“Sure,” Cat grinned, grabbing another slice of pizza.

I knew that there was no convincing them, and we settled in to watch a bit of TV before Cat and Peaches left, promising to be back first thing in the morning. As I settled into bed that night, Muffin making his way into the room and snuggling up next to me, I realized that I truly belonged here in Sapphire Village. Sure, I had loved Miami. But this place was special. Despite the fact that I’d almost been murdered today, this place really, truly felt like home.

Also by Samantha Silver

First of all, I wanted to thank you for reading my book. I well and truly hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as I loved writing it.

If you did enjoy Alice in Murderland I’d really appreciate it if you could take a moment and leave a review for the book on Amazon, to help other readers find the book as well.

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Want more of Alice’s adventures? The second Magical Bookshop mystery, Murder on the Oregon Express, is now available on Amazon by clicking here.

Other Magical Bookshop Mysteries

Murder on the Oregon Express (Magical Bookshop Mystery #2)

The Very Killer Caterpillar (Magical Bookshop Mystery #3)

Willow Bay Witches Mysteries:

The Purr-fect Crime (Willow Bay Witches #1)

Barking up the Wrong Tree (Willow Bay Witches #2)

Just Horsing Around (Willow Bay Witches #3)

Lipstick on a Pig (Willow Bay Witches #4)

A Grizzly Discovery (Willow Bay Witches #5)

Cassie Coburn Mysteries

Bombing in Belgravia (Cassie Coburn Mystery #2)

Whacked in Whitechapel (Cassie Coburn Mystery #3)

About the Author

Samantha Silver lives in Oregon with her long-time boyfriend, her Jack Russell terrier named Kilo, two cats who like to help her type by lying across the keyboard, and the occasional foster. When she’s not playing mom to all these animals, Samantha is either writing the mysteries she loves, volunteering at the local animal shelter, or watching Netflix.

You can connect with Samantha online here:

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