Murder on the Oregon Express

Samantha Silver

Blueberry Books Press

Contents

1.
One

2.
Two

3.
Three

4.
Four

5.
Five

6.
Six

7.
Seven

8.
Eight

9.
Nine

10.
Ten

11.
Eleven

12.
Twelve

13.
Thirteen

14.
Fourteen

15.
Fifteen

16.
Sixteen

17.
Seventeen

18.
Eighteen

19.
Nineteen

20.
Twenty

Also by Samantha Silver

About the Author

One

I had always imagined that running a bookstore would be just like any other regular, boring retail job. People would come in, ask for a specific book, and I would point them in the right direction. Then, they would either buy the book or not, but either way they would leave and be on their merry way.

Boy, was I wrong.

I suppose retail is retail. When I lived in Miami, I had worked as a barista at a local coffee shop. I’d had my share of strange experiences and customers, but for some reason, I thought selling books might be different.

It definitely wasn’t.

I had only been the owner of Magical Books for two weeks, since I moved from Miami to Sapphire Village, my biological mother’s hometown. My biological aunt had recently died of cancer–although my Grandma Cee insisted she was killed by Others, a group of shadowy figures who steal witches’ souls. Grandma Cee had convinced everyone to let me take over the bookshop so I would move back to Sapphire Village and be closer to my magical family, which afforded me more protection against the Others.

The rest of the family didn’t seem that bothered about this impending threat, despite Grandma Cee warning us about it constantly. I figured it was the complete lack of any actual evidence that the Others were trying to steal more souls from the witches in Sapphire Village, and I wasn’t exactly worried.

Right now, I had way bigger issues anyway. My first two customers of the morning had been wonderful; a local woman came in to special order the entire collection of Jane Austen novels, and a woman visiting from Minnesota bought her father an old, leather-bound edition of Don Quixote. My third customer of the morning, who was now standing right in front of me, was a little bit different. He was a man in his early forties, with brown hair and deep-set eyes.

“I’m looking for a book,” he said as soon as he walked in, not bothering to even say hello.

“All right, no problem, we have a few of those,” I joked, but the man didn’t even crack a smile. “What book are you looking for?” I asked.

“It was black.”

“Oh,” I said, my eyebrows rising. “Do you know the title?”

“No,” he replied. “I saw a woman reading the book in the park when I was going for my jog yesterday. Every time I ran past her on my loop, she looked like she was laughing at something in the book. It looked funny, so I decided I want to read it.”

I had a sinking feeling about the rest of this conversation.

“So, you have no idea what it’s called,” I confirmed.

“No, I just know that she was enjoying it.”

“Well, I’m afraid I can’t tell you exactly what book it was, but I do have a few books in the store here that are on the funny side,” I said, racking my brain to try and think of which ones that might be. Maybe The Hobbit? I had taken to reading a number of the books that were in the shop when I didn’t have any customers–I had always enjoyed books, but over the past few years I had never managed to make time for them–but I was still very, very far from being an expert.

“But I don’t want those books, I want that specific book,” the man protested. “It was black, and it had white lettering on the cover.”

“If you don’t have any more information than that then I’m sorry to say I don’t know what book you’re talking about.”

“But this is a bookstore! You sell books! I want a book. How hard can it be?”

“To find the specific book you’re after, when all you know about it is that it had a black cover with white lettering? Borderline impossible.”

“Well, you’re terrible at your job,” the man said in a huff, turning on his heel and leaving the store, leaving me half confused, half amused.

“Do you think that guy’s ever going to find his book?” I asked Muffin, they grey tabby who alternated between living at the store, in my apartment above the store, and outside doing his own thing. He was currently lying in the beanbag chair I’d bought for customers who wanted to browse, as he had very quickly decided that the beanbag chair was his new favorite sleeping spot and had claimed it as his own.

I laughed as he opened an eye and then closed it again in reply. I looked at the clock: a quarter to twelve. In fifteen minutes, I was closing up shop early to go down and see my cousin Peaches’ art exhibition in downtown Portland.

Peaches was an artist, and she took a lot of heat over it from members of my biological family–mainly my Grandma Cee and my other cousin Cat–and this was a big moment for her. The Portland Art Gallery was doing an exhibition featuring artists local to the Pacific Northwest, and Peaches had two paintings accepted for submission. So this afternoon, I was closing up the bookstore for a few hours, Cat was leaving her cupcake store in the hands of her very capable employee Maddie, and we were taking an afternoon off to go support Peaches at the exhibit.

I had to admit, I was excited. I hadn’t actually ever seen any of Peaches’ work yet. Of course, that wasn’t incredibly surprising, seeing as I’d only lived in Sapphire Village for a couple of weeks. And on top of that, in the two weeks I’d lived here, I learned that I was a witch–yeah, it turns out magic is real. Who knew? I certainly hadn’t. And on top of that, I got involved in a murder investigation that almost led to me being stabbed to death. That’s totally normal though, the sort of thing everyone goes through when they move across the country, right?

Ok, so maybe not. It had been a pretty intense first few days in Sapphire Village, but now I was ready to settle into my new life here, and that meant supporting my cousin in this awesome opportunity.

As the clock rolled over to twelve, I shut the front door of the store and locked it, changing the ‘open’ sign to ‘closed’.

“Archibald!” I called out. “The store is closed, if you wanted to listen to another book.”

Out of nowhere, a man appeared, only he was slightly transparent. In his late thirties, well, when he had died anyway, Archibald wore the typical dress of the early eighteen-hundreds: black pants, along with a white tunic, and a black jacket on top. His brown hair was slightly dishevelled from his last days spent in bed, sick with–well, to be honest, I didn’t really know what Archibald had died of, and I wasn’t sure if it was something you asked a ghost. I didn’t want to be considered rude by asking.

“Excellent, the uneducated peasants you call customers do not deserve to roam this store while I have yet to finish the works of the undisputed Queen of English literature.”

I smiled to myself. When I first got here, Archibald had insisted that there had been nothing written since the year of his death that was worth reading; that the nineteenth century had been the peak of English literature. And while my Aunt Francine had apparently agreed with him–when I took over the shop after her death there had been no newer books on the shelves–I definitely did not. I had finally convinced Archibald to listen to an Agatha Christie audiobook, since he was incapable of turning the pages of a book, and now whenever the shop was closed Archibald insisted on listening to more books.

He was making his way through her catalogue pretty quickly, and I pressed play on Murder in Mesopotamia on my iPad, which he was around halfway through. Happily engrossed in his book, I grabbed my purse, gave Muffin a goodbye pet that was completely ignored and made my way out the door.

Making my way down Main Street toward the train station, I saw my cousin Cat coming the other way. As soon as she saw me, she jumped up and waved. It appeared that Cat had dressed up for the occasion: she was wearing a simple, 50s-style white dress covered in sleek, black cat silhouettes, and black flats. Her hair was the same shade of pastel purple as always, and she bounded up to me, a smile on her face.

“Ready?” she asked. “I’m excited!”

“Me too, I can’t wait to see Peaches’ paintings,” I replied.

“Oh, that? No, I couldn’t care less about that. I’m excited about taking the train back into Portland!” When she saw the look on my face, Cat laughed. “I’m just kidding. Of course I’m excited about seeing Peaches’ exhibit. But the train is going to be pretty cool.”

“If you say so,” I grinned.

“Oh, are you going to pretend that you’re a big city girl who rides trains all the time now?” Cat asked, sticking her tongue out at me.

“I’ll let you know I took the Metrorail to work every day,” I retorted. “Taking a train isn’t exactly an exciting event for me.”

“Yeah, well, the Oregon Express stopped running like twenty years ago until this week, this is a big moment for those of us who have lived here our whole lives.”

“I know,” I replied. “One day, maybe I’ll even be able to introduce you to this new invention called the automobile.”

Cat punched me on the arm as we made our way to the old train station. We arrived about five minutes later. The old train station wasn’t much to look at; it was basically just a large concrete platform that ran adjacent to the railway tracks. The municipality was considering doing upgrades at some point in the future, but for now, it was just the same old building that had gone out of use in the 1990s.

A couple of weeks ago, the company in charge of a large proposed development in Sapphire Village had promised to start running the Oregon Express once more, linking downtown Portland to Sapphire Village in just over an hour. After the events of the last week, the company moved the schedule forward significantly in order to buy more goodwill in the community, and the first train had run the day before. We could have driven, but Cat and I made our way to the ticket window and bought a round-trip ticket to Portland instead at the locals’ price of $15, just to experience the new train for ourselves.

Now, there were five trains a day running between Portland and Sapphire village, and as one of them pulled up to the station, ready to take us down to the city, I had to admit, it was more impressive than the Miami Metrorail.

Two

The train had four cars, painted red. Panoramic windows stretched from waist height to the ceiling, with very minimal space between them. Cat and I stepped into one of the cars. To our left, at the end of the carriage, was a very spacious luggage area, perfect for storing skis and snowboards. Past the luggage area was a small door leading to the next carriage, and to the right was a door leading to the seating area.

Pressing down on the sleek, stainless-steel handle, I heard the ‘whoosh’ of a hydraulics system and the door opened automatically, leading into a gorgeous interior. The navy-blue carpet underfoot was plush and soft as Cat and I made our way in between the rows of seats. Some rows simply had two seats; others had four, groups of two seats facing each other with a small table in between.

Since there weren’t a lot of people taking this train, Cat and I settled in on opposite sides of one of these tables. Cat grinned as she looked around. “I have to admit, I’m against the new development but these new train carriages look awesome.”

“Yeah, they do. This beats the Metrorail any day,” I replied, nodding.

“If I had to choose between sitting in my car for an hour and fighting for parking, or taking the train, I know which one I’d do,” Cat replied. “I imagine eventually the Oregon Express is going to be very successful.”

As the train slowly pulled out of the station, Cat and I spent a few minutes in silence, appreciating the view. Pine trees lined either side of the track, the rich greens in stark contrast to the azure blue of the sky. About two minutes after we left, the train passed by Sapphire Lake—the deep blue, calm waters almost took my breath away as I looked at it. On the far side in the distance, Sapphire Mountain’s snow-covered peak jutted upwards toward the sky.

“Our corner of the world isn’t too shabby, is it?” Cat said with a smile. I nodded enthusiastically.

“Yeah. I’ve always been a beach-and-sunshine girl, but I have to admit, there’s something about the forest here that’s really pretty.”

“It’s the connection to nature. It feels a lot wilder here than in the city.”

“For sure.”

Just over an hour later the train pulled into Portland. Cat led the way through the downtown streets as we made our way to an old brick building, the kind that would have been a warehouse a hundred years ago. “Here we are,” Cat said.

“Are you sure?” I asked dubiously. This didn’t exactly look like an art gallery.

“Yeah,” Cat said, and as we turned the corner I saw that a large roller door was open, leading straight into the art gallery. The interior of the building was made of the same red brick as the outside, with huge ceilings that were at least fifty feet high. Warm light flooded from lamps on the ceiling, shining spotlights onto the white plaster display walls that had been built around the room, creating a sort of a maze. Every few feet a new painting was displayed.

Cat and I walked in and began to look around. The exhibition had been open for two days, and there were around thirty people mingling around the large space right now. I recognized a couple of people from Sapphire Village, but no one that I knew well.

I made my way toward the right side of the building, admiring the art. There was a nice mix of paintings and photography, with many of the scenes being nature-based.

I was halfway around the first wall when I reached a painting of a fox, looking toward the camera, his little pink tongue licking his nose. The background around the fox was white, and the fox’s fur was made to look like orange pine needles in the fall, fading to black toward his paws. It was stunning, and when I looked at the card below with the author’s information, I was surprised to see ‘Penelope Calliope’ as the artist.

“Do you like it?” I heard a familiar voice ask behind me. I turned and saw Peaches, her long, pastel coral hair tied back in a ponytail, wearing an emerald green cocktail dress. Cat and Peaches were sisters, not twins, but apart from the hair they looked identical. Here, Peaches looked radiant, her eyes shining with excitement as her works were on display.

“This is amazing,” I replied honestly. “I had no idea that you were so good! I don’t mean that to come off as passive-aggressive as it sounded!” I added.

Peaches laughed. “I know what you mean. You haven’t seen any of my work, and since all you’ve heard about it is from Grandma Cee telling me to get a real job, I can understand if you came into this with low expectations.”

“That’s the thing, I didn’t. I really expected your work to be good. But it’s so much more than that! It’s incredible,” I said.

“Thanks,” Peaches said shyly, and a small blush passed across her face. “I’m glad you like my work.”

“For sure,” I nodded enthusiastically. “Has the family come by yet?”

Peached nodded. “Yeah, mom came by the first day the exhibition opened. She started gushing about my paintings to anyone who would listen, and almost got herself kicked out by security for annoying other people,” she laughed.

I giggled. “Well, it’s good that your mom is supportive.”

“Absolutely. She’s pretty much the only one in the family who actually thinks I should do this as a job. Well, her and Cat, but she never admits to it because she’s my sister.”

“Fair enough.”

“Grandma Cee came the other day too. I think my mom made her do it. All she did was complain that her tax dollars paid for all of these artists’ lives, and then she asked me why I didn’t get a real job. She did say that as far as ‘art’ went–the air quotes were hers, not mine–it wasn’t as ugly as most of the stuff in here.”

I laughed as I imagined Grandma Cee doing all that. “After that,” Peaches continued, “mom made her wait outside. Luckily for Grandma Cee there’s an exotic pet shop next door, so she entertained herself for an hour by talking to the birds in there.”

“Well, I for one will be the healthy middle ground between your mom and Grandma Cee. I think your paintings are awesome, but I promise not to bully any other visitors into admiring them.”

“Thanks,” Peaches laughed. “At least someone in this family is reasonably normal.”

I looked over to see if Cat was coming by to look at the pictures, but saw she was distracted. I caught her eye a minute later and waved her over.

“Hey, Cat, check out Peaches’ awesome paintings,” I told her.

“Did you guys hear that weird sound?” Cat replied as she came toward us, ignoring Peaches’ paintings.

“No, what weird sound?” Peaches asked. Cat motioned to where she was standing.

“You can’t hear it over here. But there’s a strange sound coming from one of the vents over there. It’s almost like a hissing noise.”

“Weird,” I said, just as the grate covering the vent Cat had been referring to fell to the floor. It had obviously not been screwed in. Suddenly, something long and black fell out of the grate and began slithering along the ground.

“Snakes!” Peaches hissed, her eyes widening. A second snake fell from the vent as well, and then a third. It was like I was frozen in place. A woman near the vents screamed, and a waiter holding half a dozen glasses of champagne dropped his tray, the glasses shattering as they hit the ground.

“Oh my God, what do we do?” Cat hissed as everyone in the gallery began to run away from the snakes.

“Run!” I shouted, joining the crowd as we stampeded toward the exit. The snakes were slithering around the floor, I looked back to see one coming toward us as we hit the bottleneck in traffic.

“This way,” Peaches said, motioning for us to go in a different direction than the crowd was taking, away from the snakes.

“Can’t we just magic them away?” I asked as we stayed against the far wall, trying not to attract attention. It sounded like someone had fallen toward the front of the doorway, causing the delay in getting everyone out of the room.

“No,” Cat replied. “There are too many non-magical folk in here.”

“I think they’d forgive us,” I replied, but I knew Cat was right. Witches weren’t allowed to use magic in front of non-magical folk, unless it was a life-or-death situation. I knew that rule well, I’d had to use magic just over a week ago when a murderer had tried to kill me.

Suddenly, Peaches let out a small cry. At some point, she’d split up from Cat and I, and was now surrounded by three snakes. They weren’t being threatening, they were just slithering around near her, but I also had no idea what kind of snakes they were or what they would do next.

“What do we do?” I asked, grabbing Cat.

“I don’t know. You’re the one from the south, there are snakes there, you tell me.”

“There aren’t any snakes in downtown Miami,” I hissed back.

Suddenly, one of the snakes began to slither even closer toward Peaches. “I think this counts as life-or-death,” she shrieked, pointing at the snake.

“Peaches, no!” Cat and I both cried out in unison. It wasn’t that Peaches was a bad witch, it was just that her spells had a tendency to do, well, something other than what she hoped for.

I wasn’t completely sure what spell Peaches had been trying for. My assumption was that she was simply trying to move the snakes to the other side of the room so we could get out of there.

Unfortunately, Peaches’ spell moved them all to the rafters. Only, we didn’t notice straight away.

“Where did they go?” I asked, looking around.

“It worked!” Peaches cried out triumphantly. “I did it! They’re gone!”

Suddenly, a snake dropped from the ceiling and onto the floor about a foot from Cat, who let out a blood-curling scream.

I looked up in horror as the snakes began to fall from the rafters and back onto the floor.

“Run!” I shouted, grabbing Cat and Peaches and launching toward the exit. I had no idea if the snakes were coming after us or not. I wouldn’t have really blamed them if they had; it couldn’t be comfortable to fall from that kind of height.

The three of us sprinted toward the door, and as soon as we made it outside, we slammed it shut behind us. We were the last three to leave.

“Are they still in there?” someone asked.

“Of course, they’re still in there,” Cat replied. “And they’re terrifying!”

“How on earth did they get into the art gallery?”

“I’m heading home right now. This is all too much for one night.”

One of the men I recognized as being a manager was on the phone, and a minute later he gathered everyone into a group. His face was pale; evidently the attack of the snakes wasn’t something he was expecting either.

“I just got off the phone with the owner of the pet shop next door. He’s coming over now; he has no idea how some of his snakes could have gotten out of their cages and into our part of the building, but that seems to be the most likely scenario. We’ll be keeping the gallery closed for the rest of the night.”

“Oh my God, you guys,” Peaches said when the man finished talking. “I can’t believe this happened.” Tears began to well up in her eyes.

“Hey, it’s ok,” I told her, giving her a quick hug. “None of this is your fault, it was just a freak thing, and we’re all ok, and that’s what’s important.”

“I made it worse by sending them to the ceiling. I panicked! I thought I had actually done the spell properly!”

Cat laughed. “Well you did the right thing, we managed to get out of there,” she replied. “Although I also know I’m never, ever going in there again.”

“Fair enough,” Peaches nodded. “My art’s in there and I’m not sure I ever want to step a foot in that place again either.”

“One of the trains leaves for Sapphire Village in two hours,” Cat told me. “Do you want to meet at the station? I know a few people in town that I’d like to say hi to, but it’ll probably be pretty boring for you.”

“Sure,” I said. “I’d like to explore the city a little bit anyway.”

We said goodbye to Peaches and Cat and I headed off in opposite directions. I ended up grabbing an Uber to Washington Park, where I wandered through the gardens–the Japanese one was incredible–simply enjoying the scenery for a little while before having to head back to the train station.

At one point, however, I felt a cold chill, as though the temperature suddenly dropped twenty degrees. I looked around, but no one else seemed to be noticing anything.

Confused, and a little bit worried. I looked at my watch. It was time to head back to the train station. I hurried away from the park and quickly grabbed another Uber; I was going to be late if I didn’t hurry.

When I was finally back in Portland itself, I put that weird moment behind me. It was probably nothing, after all.

Three

With the sun setting, the train began to speed away from Portland, taking us back to Sapphire Village. I was looking forward to enjoying a nice, relaxing evening after the excitement of the afternoon in the gallery. Cat and I settled ourselves into a set of comfortable seats, and relaxed while we waited for the train to slowly pull away from the station.

About half an hour into the trip, my stomach began to grumble.

“I’m a bit hungry,” I told Cat. “I’m going to hit up the snack car. Do you want anything?”

Cat nodded enthusiastically. “Oooh, yeah, if you could get me a coffee that would be awesome. I have to head back to the cupcake shop after this and make a bunch of cupcakes for tomorrow; I’m pretty sure I’m going to pass out in the batter if I don’t get some caffeine in me soon.”

“Sure,” I nodded as I got up off the seat and made my way through the train. Cat and I had been sitting in the car at the very front of the train, and the snack car was at the back. As I made my way through the four carriages, I noticed that while there were only about fifteen people on the whole train, almost everyone on it was from Sapphire Village. It seemed that this new train service was already popular with the locals.

Denise Williams, the retired bookkeeper for the hotel, nodded firmly at me. She wasn’t the biggest fan of my biological family and had openly accused Cat of killing her best friend Edith a couple of weeks ago, but her frosty demeanour had thawed somewhat when it was revealed that I was responsible for finding her friend’s killer.

There was Karen, the owner of Pickles’ pizza, with her laptop out and a notebook on her lap, jotting down notes about something while chatting on her phone, and two of the cashiers from the grocery store, who were obviously out on a date together.

There were a few other people I recognized by sight but didn’t really know, like a blonde woman I’d seen around town holding hands with her husband, and a couple of obvious tourists taking a million photos out the window–I definitely didn’t blame them.

When I opened the door into the final car, I was met by the warm aroma of roasted coffee beans. I smiled as I made my way past the small round tables that made up this car, with little round stools for sitting on, rather than the plush, comfortable seats on the rest of the train.

Behind the counter was a plump, nice looking woman who smiled at me. “What can I get for ya?” she asked with a bit of a southern drawl.

I looked at the row of candy bars aligned in a small wicker basket, and noticed the small printed menu that was taped to the ordering counter included muffins.

“Can I please get a carrot-raisin muffin and two lattes?” I asked, deciding Cat’s caffeine idea was a good one.

“Coming right up,” the lady answered, reaching down and handing me a plastic-wrapped muffin, then making her way over to the coffee machine. As she worked on my coffees, I couldn’t help but overhear the conversation between the only two people in the car—a man and a woman, and they were obviously arguing.

They looked to be in their mid-forties, the man had brown hair that was just starting to grey at the edges, and the woman’s thin, narrow face was lined with anger.

“You’re not just cheating me. You’re cheating your children,” she hissed loudly at him.

“I told you, Isabella, I can’t afford it right now,” the man hissed back. “You think I’d do this on purpose?”

“You could afford to take your new plaything to Mexico just a few weeks ago,” the woman named Isabella shot back.

“You’re being irrational,” the man replied.

“Oh yes, just call me irrational rather than address my point. Great work. Why did I ever waste five years of my life with a cheating scum like you? These are your children you’re ripping off. I hope you die,” the woman spat at him, getting up off her stool and storming off into another car.

I turned and focused my eyes on what was going on outside of the train, trying to make it seem as though I hadn’t noticed the embarrassing public blow-up. A minute later, the man slammed his coffee cup down on the table and stormed back out into one of the other train cars.

It didn’t take long before the lady working the counter handed me the two coffees. I paid her and made my way back to the far car where Cat and I had been sitting.

The man was now sitting in the car next to the cafeteria car; he was the only person in it. He seemed to be stewing with anger, sunk deep in his seat, and I made an effort to avoid eye contact, slipping past him and into the other cars.

“Mmm, this is actually good coffee for a train,” Cat said as she sipped her drink. I did the same, greedily unwrapping the muffin and unflatteringly stuffing a good quarter of it in my mouth in one bite.

“Agreed,” I said with a full mouth, and Cat grimaced at me.

“Wow, that’s incredibly elegant,” she said, and I laughed as I swallowed the muffin.

“Yeah, well, I was hungry.”

Suddenly, a muted scream came from elsewhere on the train. A moment later, the harsh squeal of the brakes came on as the train began to slow. Cat and I looked at each other.

“What’s going on?” I asked, and Cat shook her head.

“No idea.”

We got up from our seats and made our way toward the back of the train. It seemed we weren’t the only curious ones; the other two people in our car, the two cashiers from the grocery store, were doing the same thing.

There were shouts coming from the third car, the one where the man I’d seen arguing had been sitting by himself.

“Someone call 9-1-1!”

“Is he dead?”

“Oh my God, he’s been shot!”

Cat and I looked at each other as we made our way with the group of others toward the commotion. When we reached the car in question, all fifteen or so people on the train were huddled around the man, still sitting in the same seat as when I’d passed him a few minutes earlier.

The difference now was that the man was leaning back in the seat, a small hole in his forehead the only indication that he was dead. His eyes stared lifelessly toward the ceiling.

“All right, ladies and gentlemen, please, stand back,” I heard a commanding voice say. The train’s conductor had come out to see what the commotion was all about. As soon as he saw the body, he paused, but only for an instant.

“Has anyone called 9-1-1 yet?” he asked.

“I have,” the blonde woman I recognized by sight replied, her face ashen white. She was still holding her phone in her hand. Her husband’s arms were around her shoulders protectively, his face grim.

“Good. I’m going to have to ask every one of you to leave this carriage and go to the front of the train while we wait for the police to arrive.”

Slowly but surely, all of us started to walk back down to the other end of the train. I looked around at the other faces around me. Isabella, the woman who had told the man she hoped he died, was looking a little bit pale and worried. The two kids who worked at the grocery store looked excited; this was obviously the first dead body they’d ever seen. The tourists were completely stunned, and I saw them whispering to themselves, asking if they should cancel their vacation if this was really such a dangerous area.

We all settled into our separate seats, and were surprisingly silent. No one spoke. We’d all seen the body. We all knew the man on the other side of the train was dead. Suddenly, my blood ran cold as I made a realization: someone in this train carriage had to be the murderer.

I leaned over to Cat and whispered in her ear, “Someone in this car has to be the killer.”

Cat nodded glumly. “I know. I think that’s why we’re all avoiding each other,” she replied, also in a whisper. My heart sunk. I was only a few feet away from someone who had literally just murdered another human being. It had to have happened in the last ten minutes or so, since I’d seen the man, alive and well, as I’d left the snack carriage.

Then it hit me: I might have been the last person–apart from the murderer–to see him alive.

Before I had a chance to really come to grips with that thought, however, the door to the train opened and Chase Griffin, the chief of police in Sapphire Village, walked in. His ruffled brown hair had that just-got-out-of-bed look, and even through the shirt he was wearing it was obvious he spent a lot of time working out. His blue eyes, which twinkled nicely when he was happy, were currently all business as he looked around the car.

“As I’m sure you’re all aware, Brian Armistead has been killed on this train tonight,” he announced. “I want to thank you all for remaining calm during this emergency. I’d like to start by interviewing all of you individually, in the next car over, please. The first person I’d like to speak to is Denise.”

“She’s the one who found the body,” I heard the person in the seat behind me whisper as Denise got up unsteadily from her chair and followed Chief Griffin out to the next train car. He looked over all of our faces once more before following her.

It felt like an eternity passed before Denise came back. Slowly, one by one, Chief Griffin called everyone in the car. Some people took longer than others. Finally, he came back and made eye contact with me.

“Alice,” he motioned, I stood up, taking a deep breath and following him into the other car. Despite my protestations that I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, Cat and Peaches–but especially Peaches–were always trying to hook me up with Chief Griffin. I had to imagine this wasn’t quite the circumstances either one of them wanted us meeting in.

Four

“How are you holding up?” was the first thing he asked me, flipping open his notebook.

“Ok,” I said. “It’s kind of nerve wracking, I guess. After all, not only is there a dead man over there, but one of the people in that car has to be the murderer, right?”

Chase nodded. “It’s the most likely scenario at this time. Denise went to get a coffee, found the body, screamed and pressed the emergency strip between the windows, which automatically activated the emergency brake.”

“And since the train hasn’t stopped since we left Portland, it means that someone who was on the train killed him, and that person is still on the train,” I finished. Spelling it out made it really seem real.

“In all likelihood, yes. The first thing I did was have my deputy check all the doors; the main doors to the train aren’t designed to be opened manually except in an emergency, and the windows can only be opened by breaking them. Deputy Porter tells me none of the doors have been opened.”

“Great. Well, at least your suspect pool is only fifteen people or so. The downside is, I’ve just spent God knows how long in a train carriage with a murderer.”

A grim smile played on Chase’s lips. “Yes. You know, you’ve been in Sapphire Village for two weeks and this is the second body that’s popped up. I’m starting to think maybe you’re bad luck.”

“Well, as long as you don’t think I killed him,” I replied, allowing a smile myself.

“I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you didn’t know the guy.”

“That would be right,” I replied, nodding. “Although I did overhear a conversation he had with a woman named Isabella, who sounded like his ex, a few minutes before he was killed.”

“Oh yeah?” Chase asked, his eyebrows rising and his hand automatically pressing his pen against the paper. I recounted the whole story, making sure not to embellish, and trying to remember the conversation exactly how it happened. After all, she had said she hoped he died. I was pretty sure that was just a turn of phrase, but given what had happened moments later, I couldn’t be sure.

“When I left with my coffee the murdered man was sitting in the seat where he was killed. I tried to avoid eye contact, you know, since we both knew I’d seen the blow-up between he and his ex,” I explained. “He was definitely still alive though. I saw him move, I thought he was shaking his head as I went by.”

Chase’s face was grim. “Thanks for all of this information,” he told me. “Isabella and Brian were married for years. He owns a business in town with a partner, they run an adventure tour company here in Sapphire Village. Brian and Isabella got divorced about five years ago.”

“And now he’s not paying her child support, and apparently has a piece on the side.”

“Yes. Well, I’m sure you’ll hear the gossip around town, but that’s not exactly new territory for Brian, and is the reason their marriage broke up. Although if there’s a current girlfriend, I don’t know about it.”

“Seriously? How do you know that?”

Chase smiled. “I forgot you’re from the city. This is Sapphire Village. Everyone knows everyone’s business here. I honestly don’t know how he thought he’d get away with the affair.”

“Right,” I smiled. “Well, hopefully you’ll find out through the grapevine who killed him. Do you have the gun, at least?”

Chase nodded. “It was under the seat. So rest assured, the murderer on this train has lost access to their murder weapon.”

He asked me a few more questions, then stood up, indicating he was finished with the interview. “Thanks for the information about the fight.”

I nodded. “No problem. I hope it helps. I hope Isabella didn’t kill him, but then, someone in that carriage had to.”

Chase nodded sadly. I realized that he knew almost everyone who had been on the train, apart from the tourists who didn’t have any reason to kill a man they didn’t know. That meant it was almost certain that whoever had killed the man was known to Chase, and I felt sorry for him. It must be hard working as a cop in a small place like Sapphire Village, where everyone knows everyone.

Making my way back to the seat, Cat leaned in close to me. “So? What did he say?”

Making sure no one was listening in to the conversation, I recounted to Sophie the conversation with Chase.

“Hm, so that means someone on the train killed Brian,” she whispered, and I nodded.

“Yeah. Which makes us suspects. Especially since I think I was the last person to see him alive.”

“For sure. But of course, someone like Isabella, or Carl, are much better suspects.”

“Wait, who’s Carl?” I asked.

“Bald guy, forties, looks a little bit like Nicholas Cage?”

“Ah,” I replied, nodding. I’d seen that man when I walked through the train on the way to the café car.

“He’s Brian’s business partner,” Sophie continued. “They own Sapphire Adventure Tours, they started it probably about ten years ago. In the summer they do ATV tours, paragliding off the mountain, bungee jumping, that sort of thing. In the winter, it’s mainly snowmobile tours and backcountry ski tours.”

“He told Isabella the business was in trouble,” I said, recounting the conversation with Brian’s ex-wife.

Sophie frowned. “That would surprise me, but you never know. From what I can tell they seem to be doing pretty good business.”

“Well, maybe he just lied to her since she was getting mad at him for not paying his child support.”

“Yeah, and she has good reason to be mad at him about that, too.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Definitely. It was a huge scandal when it first happened. Five years ago, Isabella was pregnant, and about two months before she had the baby, Karen who owns Pickles’ Pizza found Brian knocking boots with a young ski instructor from Italy inside one of the ski patrol shacks on the mountain. She told Isabella, thinking she deserved to know, and Isabella kicked his cheating butt out immediately.”

“Good for her!” I said, nodding.

“Absolutely. It was all anyone spoke about for months. Of course, then there came the issue of the divorce. Isabella hasn’t got any family in Sapphire Village; she moved here when she was in her twenties from Nebraska or somewhere, so when the baby was born she couldn’t really work. Eventually she got some part-time work in IT at the digital marketing company in town; the owner was local and knew Isabella well and she was a quick learer. He let her bring the baby to work every day, so Isabella was making a living, but she definitely wasn’t raking in the dough. Meanwhile, Brian had all his money from the business, and hired one of those fancy suits from the city to be his divorce lawyer. He actually argued that he didn’t want to take care of the child at all, and that because Isabella kicked him out, he shouldn’t have to pay child support either.”

“Wow, he sounds like a piece of work.”

“Oh, he was,” Cat agreed. “Of course, the judge in their case gave full custody to Isabella, since that was what both parents wanted, but pretty much laughed Brian out of court when it came to his claim that he shouldn’t have to pay child support.”

“And yet now Brian is telling Isabella that there’s no money in the business. But Isabella said that he took his latest girlfriend to Mexico.”

“Wait, Brian has another girlfriend?” Cat replied, her eyebrows lifting in surprise. I nodded.

“Apparently.”

“Well, that’s news to me. I mean, the guy jumps from girl to girl, he was never exactly mister monogamy, but I didn’t know he was dating anyone right now.”

“Maybe Isabella was wrong.”

“Maybe. Either that, or I’m behind on my gossip.”

Just then, Chase came back into the train car, the blonde woman’s husband going back and sitting back down next to her. “Cat?” Chase asked softly, and my cousin got up off the seat and made her way toward Chase for her interview.

I mulled over the facts as I’d just learned them in my head. We had one very good suspect, possibly two. If Brian was telling the truth about the business being in trouble, maybe his business partner blamed him for it. In that case, there would be two people with good reason to kill Brian Armistead on this train. And if I was going to make sure everyone knew Cat and I were innocent, I was going to have to figure out which one of them did it.

Five

About an hour later everyone had been interviewed, the crime scene technicians had arrived and Chase had arranged for a bus to come and pick those of us who were on the train up and take us back to Sapphire Village. Luckily, the old railroad track ran more or less alongside the highway, so we only had to walk about a hundred feet in the woods at night before we reached the road.

During the bus ride back everyone was silent, and when I finally got back to Sapphire Village I went straight back up to my apartment above the bookshop; I was so tired I forgot to put a new audiobook on for Archibald and only just managed to throw some kibble in Muffin’s food bowl before passing out on the bed, still fully clothed.

When I woke up the next day I was both groggy and ravenously hungry; I’d completely skipped dinner the night before. I dragged myself out of bed and to the kitchen, grabbing some cereal and pouring it into a bowl, and when I saw the time on the microwave clock I let out a yelp. It was almost eleven, which meant that in just over an hour I was going to have to be at my Grandma Cee’s place on Brixton Road for our weekly witching lessons.

I’d had no idea when I moved to Sapphire Village that I was a witch, which meant that I never got all the lessons my cousins and other witches who grew up in the witchy world did. Grandma Cee, a short old lady in her eighties that I was absolutely terrified of, insisted that every Monday–my day off–I come to the family home in Brixton Road at lunch time so she could give me lessons to get me caught up to speed.

I had never been late, and to be completely honest, I had absolutely no desire to find out what would happen if I was. Grandma Cee might be a four-foot-tall octogenarian, but I had a feeling that woman would smite me in place if I dared arrive even a minute after the clock struck noon.

I gobbled down the cereal, took a quick shower and changed my clothes, then headed down into the bookstore. Archibald was pacing–well, floating–in circles.

“Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for you all morning!”

“Sorry, I slept in,” I said, grabbing the iPad and quickly trying to open up a different audiobook.

“Well, I find it quite rude to leave a man waiting on his entertainment, especially as I have no way of opening the books myself,” Archibald sniffed.

“You’ve gone hundreds of years without knowing these books existed, surely you could wait an extra two hours,” I replied.

“Ah, but that is where you are wrong! I was able to exist without them before I knew of their existence. But now, now that I know that this strange machine which reads the books aloud exists, and now that I know that it contains the words of a master of the English language, I must devour them as quickly as possible.”

“You do realize you’re running out of books, right?”

“Ah, well, no bother. I will simply wait for Miss Christie to write the next one.”

“Seeing as she died over forty years ago, that seems unlikely.”

Archibald let out a cry of anguish. “Oh, how death takes the greatest of us!” he announced dramatically.

“I have to go, Archibald. I’ll put on ‘And Then There Were None’ for you,” I said, pressing play and then making my way to the far corner of the bookshop.

The floor-to-ceiling shelves were filled with books, but near the bottom of one of the shelves was one titled People and Personalities in Oregon Fly Fishing, 1948 to 1957. Of course, the title was ridiculous, and it was obvious no one would ever read that book. Luckily for me, that was the point.

I tapped the book three times and instantly a large, red glowing hole, about the size of me, appeared in front of me. I shook my head; there was no way I was ever going to get used to this portal to Brixton Road. I took a breath, stepped into the red glowing hole, and immediately felt like I’d been swept away by a tornado. The feeling only lasted a couple of seconds, and when I opened my eyes once more I was in Brixton Road.

Brixton Road felt like someone had turned a Candyland game into real life. Peaches and Cat said it was created by all of the paranormal creatures–witches, wizards, werewolves–that lived in Sapphire Village back in the sixties, and it was obvious that they had been smoking a few joints while coming up with the design for it. The sky twinkled with stars that were nothing like the ones in the real night sky, and tonight it was a soft turquoise color.

I followed the trail of giant, colored dots that created the road – they were soft, walking on them was like walking on a trampoline, past swirly colored trees and grass that was an unnatural pastel shade of green. Eventually I reached a large brown house with a pink roof, the same color as all the other roofs in Brixton Road, with a baby blue tree out front that looked like it was made from cotton candy.

Knocking on the door, I checked my phone. It was still eleven fifty-eight, I’d made it with two minutes to spare. The woman who opened the door reminded me a lot of Ron Weasley’s mom from the Harry Potter books. She was plump, with the same copper colored hair that I had, wearing an old-fashioned checkered white-and-blue dress with an apron on top.

“Oh, Alice, how nice to see you,” Sage Calliope, Cat and Peaches’ mom and my aunt, said when she saw me, taking me into a big hug. “I’ve just got some food ready for lunch, if you’d like to come in and have a bite,” she added.

Before I had a chance to respond, however, the sound of a crackly old voice came out from behind. “Alice doesn’t have time for simple pleasures like food. She’s years behind in her training, if the Others come for her tomorrow and she can’t defend herself because she was busy eating a slice of your pie, how would you feel then?”

“I think at least I’d die happy,” I muttered, causing Sage to swoon over me and take me in a big hug.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re living here with us again. I know you must miss Corrine so much, but I’m truly glad you’re back.”

“Let the poor girl go, we have magic to learn,” the voice said again, and as I pulled away I saw Grandma Cee now standing next to Sage. She was a small figure, but imposing. The scar on her left cheek, her crooked nose and stringy grey hair couldn’t hide the fact that she had likely been a beautiful woman in her youth, although she seemed to be doing her best to hide it. Today, she was wearing a white pantsuit printed with various colored polka dots. She kind of looked like a McDonalds ball pit had thrown up on her.

“Now, come with me, Alice. We need to practice our magic,” Grandma Cee ordered, and I dutifully followed her through the house.

“There will be pie for you when you’re done,” Sage whispered to me as I went past, and I shot her a grateful smile. Cat was an excellent cook, I pretty much lived for her cupcakes now. It was obvious Cat had gotten her cooking skills from her mother, who I was pretty sure was incapable of making a bad meal after having tasted a few of them.

I followed Grandma Cee into the large backyard behind the house, where the grass was that same weird shade of pastel green. I wondered what on earth I was going to learn today.

“All right,” Grandma Cee said. “I am loathe to give praise too readily, your generation simply latches onto it and ignores the need for improvement. But, I must say, last week after you successfully managed to make fire appear out of nowhere and managed to make it dance, I can say you are a gifted witch. It should not be that much of a surprise; your mother was gifted as well. It is why the Others came for her, and it is why when the Others come back, they will come for you. You need to be better prepared than you are. Today, we are going to learn to deal with some of the more abstract sides of magic.”

I gulped. So far, magic had seemed pretty simple to me. I simply had to focus on what I wanted to happen, point my finger at it, and it happened. Abstract stuff seemed like it was going to be a lot harder. And I wasn’t totally sure I needed to know it, anyway. Grandma Cee insisted that the Others were coming back, that it was they that had killed my Aunt Francine and not cancer, but no one else in the family seemed worried. Cat and Peaches said that Grandma Cee had simply never forgiven the Others after they had killed my biological mother, and now saw them where they weren’t, and it seemed that the rest of the family agreed with that assessment. I couldn’t help but not be too worried when no one else in the family was either.

“The first thing we’re going to learn to do is teach you to fly,” Grandma Cee said. “This is basic abstract magic. Watch.”

Grandma Cee grabbed an old, ratty broomstick from the side of the house. She dropped it to her side, and it instantly began to hover next to her. Climbing up onto it, Grandma Cee suddenly darted off toward the night sky. I watched in awe as she gracefully flew in slow, lazy circles above the house. Then, without warning, she did a loop-de-loop, a barrel roll and shrieked with delight as she swooped straight down toward the ground in a nosedive and pulled up at the last second, the grass on the ground waving slightly in the breeze caused by her movements. She might have been an old woman, but she looked fifty years younger on the broomstick. After a minute or so, Grandma Cee floated softly back down to the ground and landed without a sound, pulling the broomstick out from under her. It was back to being a simple cleaning tool.

“Wow,” I couldn’t help but say. “That was impressive.”

“Obviously, I have learned a few tricks in my time on this earth,” Grandma Cee said. “It would be unwise for you to attempt a nosedive, or a barrel roll right off the bat. But there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to fly confidently around the house in a couple of hours.”

“Ok,” I said, and I couldn’t help but feel a little bit excited. Magic was awesome, and I still wasn’t completely used to being a witch. Sometimes I was pretty sure that even now, weeks after finding out that I was a witch and that magic was real, I still hadn’t quite come to grips with it. But still, getting to fly around on a broomstick was even cooler than making things change color or making fire appear out of nowhere. I was going to fly!

My heart pounded with a combination of excitement and apprehension as I made my way toward the broomstick Grandma Cee handed me.

“Now, the key to flying is to really relax your body. If you stiffen up, the broom becomes much more difficult to control. You need to pass your body’s magical energy through to the broomstick. You do that by holding the broomstick, then picturing yourself becoming so light you begin to float. Go ahead, try it.”

Feeling a little bit silly, I took the broomstick and held it horizontally. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine myself becoming as light as possible, then started to picture myself becoming so light that I started to float slowly upwards, like a helium balloon. Suddenly, I felt the familiar flow of energy building up inside of me, then radiating through my fingers.

“Now let go of the broom, slowly,” Grandma Cee said. I did as she asked and opened my eyes. My hand was now a few inches above the broom, which was floating in place. A grin spread across my features as I looked at the floating broomstick.

“Good,” Grandma Cee said with a curt nod. “Climb onto the broom, like you would a horse.”

“Ok,” I said, now feeling a little bit apprehensive. I hooked a leg over the broom and sat awkwardly on it.

“The key to flying the broom is to be gentle but firm, and to really feel the broom. Lean forward slightly to go straight, pull back to go up, push down on it to go down,” Grandma Cee said.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Still, her instructions sounded simple enough. How bad could it be?

Famous last words, right?

I decided that I wanted to float about a foot in the air and do a small circle around the backyard. That would be safe, and a good introduction to broom riding. I leaned forward just a little bit and the broom began to putter along forward, my heels still dragging along the ground. Good! I’d moved on the broom and hadn’t died. This was a good start!

I decided to go up a little bit higher. I pulled firmly on the handle of the broom, but apparently a little bit too firmly. Right away the broom shot upwards, heading straight for the sky. I screamed, wrapping my arms around the piece of wood as it headed skywards. Unfortunately, wrapping my arms around the broomstick only pulled it back further, and before I knew it, the broomstick was completely vertical. I looked down and saw my Grandma Cee looking up at me with a disapproving look on her face, her hands on her hips.

I was going to die, and Grandma Cee was probably going to tell the whole funeral it was my own fault for being a terrible witch.

I knew that if I was going to do anything, I had to get this broom back down to earth. The higher up I got, the more painful my death was going to be when I inevitably fell off this broom. Quickly deciding to change tactics, I forced my body to the left. The broom followed, my lead and headed left, leveling out. Unfortunately, I was now hanging upside-down on the broom, my arms and legs clutching at the wood as hard as I could. Looking down, I was probably three hundred feet up into the air.

I wanted to panic. Every single fiber in my body wanted to scream and cry and thrash about, but I knew that was a sure-fire way for me to die a horrible death. Instead I yanked the front of the broomstick down as hard as I could, sending the broom into a nosedive toward the ground.

As the broom and I plummeted toward the ground, I was of two minds. A part of me was really, really happy that the ground was coming closer. The other part of me really wished it wasn’t coming so fast. My heart leapt into my mouth, like I was on a roller coaster ride as the broomstick plunged down toward the earth. I could see Grandma Cee, she was yelling something at me, but with the wind rushing through my ears I had no idea what. As the ground came closer and closer, I realized we were heading straight for the cotton candy tree at the front of the house.

I tried to pull up on the broom to avoid it, but there was no stopping it. I let out a squeal and closed my eyes as the broom plunged straight into the weird tree, which was, thankfully, fairly soft. It felt like I’d just flown straight into a spider’s web. A huge spider’s web.

I opened my eyes slowly a moment later. Was I still alive? It certainly looked like it. My arm hurt, and my heart was pounding so hard I was pretty sure I’d just taken five years off my life, but I was still alive!

“Are you finished showing off?” I heard Grandma Cee snap from below me. I looked down and saw her standing underneath the tree, looking up at me, her hands on her hips. Next to her were the remains of the broomstick, which had been snapped in half in the crash. I wasn’t going to lie; I took a bit of perverse pleasure in seeing it destroyed.

“Showing off?” I replied. “I wasn’t showing off, I almost died! Also, I’m pretty sure I’m stuck.”

I tried moving around, but the more I moved, the more tangled I got in the cotton-candy like strings that made up the tree. All of a sudden, Sage came rushing out of the house.

“Oh, Alice, I’m so glad you’re ok,” she said, pointing a finger at me. The tree seemed to part, giving me a way to jump the five feet or so back to the ground. I was so happy when my feet touched the grass that I could have reached down and kissed it.

“You should have let her get out of the tree on her own. How will she ever learn otherwise?” Grandma Cee snapped at Sage.

“You shouldn’t have put her on a broomstick on her third lesson,” Sage snapped back at her mother. “I could hear her screams from inside the house.”

“Yes, well, I told her to relax and be gentle.”

“It’s hard to do both of those things when the broom is rocketing you toward outer space,” I retorted. “I’m never getting on a broom again. I almost died.”

“Nonsense,” Grandma Cee said, waving a hand in disgust. “I do not have another broom, and you have destroyed this one, but next week, you will get back on the broom. I would not have let anything happen to you, regardless,”

“I crashed into the weird cotton candy tree!” I practically shouted, pulling strings of light blue cotton candy from my hair.

“Yes, and if you hadn’t I would have stopped you before you’d crashed. I simply thought that the tree might remind you of the dangers of using magic improperly.”

“Come on inside, dear,” Sage told me, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. “I have some pie, it will make you feel better, and then you can head on home. Your magic lesson for this week is over,” she said, glaring at Grandma Cee.

“Only because she broke the broom,” Grandma Cee shouted after us as Sage and I went into the house.

Six

An hour later, after the best lemon meringue pie I’d ever eaten and a few tips on broom flying from Sage, who promised to overlook the next lesson, I took the portal back to my shop. Luckily, I didn’t run into anyone on Brixton Road, and as soon as I made my way back into the bookshop I went straight upstairs and had a shower, washing all the cotton candy that was still stuck to me out of my hair and trying to forget about this new traumatizing experience.

I was never getting on a broomstick again, ever.

I spent a couple of hours watching TV, then the fact that all I’d eaten that day was a slice of pie and a bowl of cereal caught up to me, and my stomach began to growl. Under the guise that I was going to try and get information about the murder, I decided to hit up Pickles’ Pizza, a popular local hangout.

As soon as I stepped out the front door, however, I saw a small cardboard box with Cat’s Cupcakes written in pink flowing script on the side, and a note attached to the top. I opened it and began to read.

Hey, mom texted me and told me what happened with Grandma Cee. I figured you could use a cupcake, but I’m leaving it here since I don’t blame you if you decide you hate our entire family right now. Enjoy! XOX.

I smiled as I opened the box. A delectable, triple chocolate cupcake, topped with actual brownie pieces, stared up at me. Cat was the best. I put the box inside and sent her a quick text, letting her know she was welcome to join me for pizza and I’d be home with it in half an hour.

As I walked down Main Street, it was just dark enough for the old-fashioned, wrought-iron lamps to turn on, giving the old-fashioned village a warm, yellow tinge as the spring evening set in. April was quickly turning into May, and the weather seemed to be getting warmer daily. Summer was definitely on its way.

Pickles, the blue merle Australian Shepherd the pizza place was named after, was lying next to the entrance, begging to be pet from anyone who walked by. I rubbed his belly a few times before going into the pizza place. Making my way to the bar, I placed an order for a take-away Hawaiian pizza, which they made with pulled pork and bacon here. Karen, the owner, was behind the bar. Since it was a Monday, the crowds were pretty manageable.

“So, I heard you’ve gotten yourself mixed up in another murder,” she told me, her long, black braid flipped over her shoulder and running down the front of her shirt.

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly say that,” I replied. “I was on that train though.”

“Yes, it seems everyone wants to experience the novelty of the Oregon Express while it’s new,” Karen said. “Unfortunately for Brian Armitage, he probably should have driven. Then again, so should we. I know it wasn’t the most pleasant experience of my life, seeing that.”

“I hear he wasn’t especially well liked in town,” I said, and Karen laughed.

“You can say that again. Frankly, if Isabella did do it, I hope she gets away with it. After the way that man treated her,” she continued, shaking her head. “I also hope she still had life insurance out on the bastard. She may as well get something out of his death.”

Wow, people in Sapphire Village were not shy about admitting they didn’t like Brian Armitage.

“I heard he was dating someone new,” I ventured, not mentioning Isabella’s name. Karen’s head tilted sideways.

“Really? Who?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “I just heard he had someone new and he took her on a trip to Mexico recently.”

“Well, I know he went to Mexico, he left three weeks ago Sunday and went for about a week, but I didn’t realize he’d gone with someone,” Karen said. “No, as far as I’m aware, Brian Armitage was actually single for once when he died.”

“Oh, ok. Maybe my source got their information wrong.”

“Maybe. It’s hard to think something like that would stay a secret for long in Sapphire Village, but stranger things have happened,” Karen said, handing me my pizza. I thanked her and headed back out toward home, where I found Cat had set out some plates for the pizza and made herself comfortable on the couch. Muffin was nestled up against her, his tummy rising and falling slowly as he slept against my cousin’s leg.

“Thanks for the cupcake,” I told her when I came in. “I’m going to save it for after pizza. It was definitely a pizza kind of day.”

“I don’t blame you. Grandma Cee is insane. She didn’t let us learn how to fly until we were sixteen, saying that we were too terrible at magic. And while she was probably right, we’d been doing magic for eleven years at that point. Trying to get you to fly after two weeks… I can’t believe she did that.”

“I thought I was going to die. Like legitimately, actually expected that I was going to plummet into the ground.”

“Peaches called and said that mom spent the whole afternoon yelling at Grandma Cee for doing something so irresponsible. Is it true you landed in the blue tree?”

I nodded. “I spent like forty minutes in the shower trying to get cotton candy out of my hair.”

“Sheesh. Well, don’t worry. I’m pretty sure my mom’s not going to let Grandma Cee teach you any more magic unsupervised.”

I laughed. “Somehow, I have a feeling that’s not going to stop Grandma Cee. She said the only reason our lesson was over was because I broke the broomstick.”

Cat laughed. “That does sound like her. Well, don’t worry, we’re not all insane.”

“All it takes is for one crazy person to try and teach me to fly on my third day of lessons, watching me almost plummet to my death. I had no idea I was ever going to say this, but thank God for the weird cotton candy tree.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m glad you’re not dead,” Cat told me as she grabbed a slice of pizza and started munching down on it. Muffin looked up at her hungrily.

“Me too,” I replied. “Karen didn’t know who Brian’s girlfriend was either. That seems strange, in a place like Willow Bay.”

“Definitely,” Cat agreed. “Maybe Isabella was wrong, maybe there was no girlfriend.”

“But then why would Brian not deny it when Isabella accused him of taking his new girlfriend to Mexico?” I asked. “That makes no sense.”

“You have to remember that Brian was a total butt. There’s a good chance that even if he didn’t have a girlfriend, he would have strung Isabella along and made her think he did just to make her feel bad.”

“That’s possible,” I said, nodding. “Wow, the more I hear about this guy, the less I like him.”

“If it wasn’t for the fact that someone out there is willing and able to kill people, yeah, I wouldn’t exactly be sad if the murderer got away with this one.”

“You’re not the only person who’s said that to me today,” I replied. It seems people in this town really, really hadn’t liked Brian Armitage. “Now, we need to find out for sure what Brian’s financial situation was.”

“Well the easiest way to do that is to look at his company’s financial records. Luckily, there’s only really one big accounting firm here in Sapphire Village, and they do the accounting for pretty much all of the small businesses who don’t have in-house staff.”

“But how are we going to get access to their financial records?” I asked. “It’s not like we can just walk in and ask to see how much money Sapphire Adventure Tours was making.”

Cat grinned. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

I had a bad feeling about this.

Seven

It took Cat about five minutes to convince me that we had no other options, and we really needed this information, and breaking into accounting offices in the middle of the night was the best way to do it. She won me over eventually by reminding me that I was a suspect in this murder, and I was now implicated in both murders that had happened in Sapphire Village since I’d moved here. And that was especially bad since there had never really been any murders in Sapphire Village at all before I’d come here.

“Fine,” I eventually relented. “But only because you brought me a cupcake.”

Cat grinned. “This is going to be awesome.”

“Oh yeah, I totally love having to commit felonies to prove my innocence in a murder investigation,” I shot back, and Cat stuck her tongue out at me.

“You and Peaches are so similar, she’d hate this idea too.”

“Should we invite her to join us?” I asked.

“Nah, she’s too busy with her art exhibition in the city. Apparently, it’s going really well.”

“Good for her, her paintings are phenomenal.”

“They are. But don’t tell her I said that or I’ll have to deny it. I am her sister, after all. I can’t admit she’s awesome at anything. I have to maintain superiority as the older one.”

“Is that how it works?” I asked, rolling my eyes. “But fine, I promise to keep the fact that you think Peaches is a talented artist to myself.”

“Good,” Cat said. “Now, let’s get a bit of sleep before our awesome adventure.”

“You say adventure, I say felony.”

“Potato, po-tah-to,” Cat replied, lying down on the couch and wrapping herself up in a fleece blanket. Muffin crawled on top of her and settled himself into a little ball, obviously deciding Cat was his sleeping buddy tonight. “Set your alarm for three,” she continued. “We’ll get going as soon as we get up.”

I made my way back to my bedroom, set the alarm for three, then wondered if I was going to be able to sleep at all. It turned out, after that whole ‘almost dying’ thing, my body was definitely ready for sleep. I passed out almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.

When the alarm went off in the middle of the night, I felt surprisingly rested. I had expected getting up that early to be a struggle, but I suppose when you go to bed before eight, getting up at three is still a pretty decent night’s sleep. By the time I got dressed and made my way to the kitchen, Cat was already up and waiting for me.

“All set?” she asked.

“As much as I’m ever going to be. I’m still going on record to say this is a terrible idea.”

“It’ll be fine,” Cat replied, waving away my worries.

“Tell that to me from the jail cell we’re going to be in soon,” I muttered as we made our way down the stairs and into the street.

“If anyone asks, we’re going to go open my shop, I need an assistant today,” Cat told me as I locked up behind us. As we made our way through the empty streets, however, it became evident that wasn’t going to be an issue. The last days of April were ending, and this was the in-between season for Sapphire Village–after the winter ski season, but before the summer rush.

“The owner of the accounting business is Alexis Juneau. She’s a witch as well, although like me she doesn’t spend very much time in Brixton Road. She’s pretty nice, if you ever meet her.”

“I’ll try not to mention the fact that we broke into her business then,” I replied, and Cat rolled her eyes.

“For a city girl, you sure are boring.”

“I think the word you’re looking for is law-abiding.”

“Same thing,” Cat replied as she led me toward the back of a retail shop. Next to the shop’s rear exit was another door saying, “offices upstairs”. Cat pointed a finger at the door and I heard the lock click. She opened it, and we slipped inside after I had a quick look around to make sure there weren’t any security cameras around.

“This is Sapphire Village,” Cat told me as we slipped into the building. “The only thing that happens here is sometimes drunk people pee off bridges. No one breaks into office buildings in the middle of the night, so there’s no need for cameras.”

“I feel like that argument would be more convincing if we hadn’t just broken into an office building in the middle of the night,” I replied.

“This is an exception, it’s important.”

“Oh, well that makes it ok.”

“If you’re just going to whine and not help, then go wait outside for everyone to think you’re a murderer,” Cat replied.

“Fine,” I relented. Cat held out her hand, and suddenly a burst of flame appeared, floating just above her palm. It lit up the room as Cat closed the door behind us. We made our way down a hallway; in the dark, every single shadow seemed to be ready to come out and attack us. Still, I knew Cat would never let me live it down if she realized just how nervous I was about doing something like this, so I kept my mouth shut.

About fifteen feet down the hallway we stopped in front of a glass door, with ‘Sapphire Accounting–Alexis Juneau, CPA’ stenciled on it. The flames danced against the glass.

“Ready?” Cat asked, and I nodded. Cat pointed at the door, and I waited for the telltale click that her magic had unlocked the door. However, the click never came.

Cat frowned and pointed at the door again. Once again, nothing.

“That’s weird,” Cat muttered, looking at her finger. Suddenly, the ground beneath us began to rumble. Cat and I looked at each other worriedly. A split second later my worry turned to horror as I realized what was happening. Somehow, from the other side of the hallway, a giant avalanche of boulders came flying toward us. I opened my mouth to say something, but no sound came out. Cat, noticing my horror, turned to look as well.

“Oh my God!” she cried out, grabbing my arm in panic. We were only seconds away from being completely crushed by this wave of rocks making its way toward us.

“Stand back!” I cried out to Cat, and I ran back about ten feet with Cat on my heels. I knew I had only seconds, and I really, really hoped this worked. Thinking about a hole opening in the ground and swallowing up the rocks, I pointed to the ground in front of us. Instantly and silently a large hole appeared in the ground. Cat and I moved back cautiously as the boulders began to spill into the hole. There were dozens of them, but the hole I’d imagined was huge, and luckily after about twenty seconds, every boulder that had been careening toward us had fallen into the hole and was now lying motionless at the bottom.

“I told you this wasn’t a good idea,” I told Cat, my face ashen as I looked at the rocks that had been only seconds away from killing us both.

“Ok, yup, you were right,” Cat said, and I could see from the ball of flames she was still holding that her face was the same pale shade as mine.

“What was that?” I asked. “How did that even happen?”

Cat peered over the edge into the giant hole, then pointed at it and a minute later it closed again, enclosing the boulders inside of it, making the hallway look exactly like it had a moment before an avalanche of rocks had tried to kill us.

“I think Alexis Juneau didn’t necessarily trust human alarm systems, and so she installed her own,” Sophie replied, glancing at the office door.

“So, what do we do now?” I asked. “We obviously can’t get in there.”

“Well, we know she put the spell on the lock. I wonder if she did the same for the glass window.”

I groaned. “Really?”

“Well at least this time, if we hear the sounds, we know what’s coming.”

“Great,” I muttered, and Cat laughed.

“Don’t worry,” she replied. “I can check and see if there’s been a spell put on this window.” She pointed her finger to the window, but nothing happened. Cat nodded, satisfied. “Good. If there had been any kind of curse or spell put on the window it would have glowed pink.”

She pointed again and the glass suddenly slipped out from the window. Cat pointed toward the wall, and the pane of glass carefully placed itself on the floor against it. Turning to me and grinning, Cat climbed through the large hole in the window, and I followed somewhat inelegantly after her.

After our adventure with the boulders my senses were on high alert for anything out of the ordinary. After all, if a fireball was going to shoot toward us, I wanted to be prepared. But, as we made our way through the empty office, it seemed that Alexis Juneau had figured protecting the door latch was enough.

Cat pointed to the window, where a blackout curtain suddenly appeared out of nowhere over the blinds, and then turned on the light so we could see better. The office was minimalist and tidy, with a single large, mahogany desk near the window, and a large number of white metal filing cabinets against the white walls. A large monitor sat on the desk, along with a plain legal pad, four pens and a phone. There was nothing else on the desk. I had to admit, I was impressed; I was the kind of person for whom seeing any part of the desk at all could be considered a victory.

Cat made her way toward the cabinets as I sat down on the chair behind the desk and turned on the computer. I wasn’t sure why; I figured maybe technology was less likely to have a spell put on it. I figured there wasn’t much logic to that, but seeing as I’d just about been killed by magic a few times the last couple of days, I was pretty happy to avoid it while Cat and I continued to commit a felony.

Just then I realized that my fingerprints were going to be all over the computer keyboard if I started typing on it. I did use my own magic, but only to conjure up a pair of thin gloves. I used them to wipe my prints off the computer’s power button just as the login screen appeared.

“Hey Cat?” I asked.

“Yup?” she said, pulling files from one of the cabinets. Evidently, they hadn’t been protected by magic either.

“Is there a way to magic your way into knowing someone’s computer password?”

Cat grinned.

“Sure there is,” she said. “You have to use more abstract magic though, you have to will the computer to reveal its secrets to you.”

Cat closed her eyes and pointed at the computer. Suddenly, the password appeared in the air above the computer for a minute, the letters and numbers floating calmly in the air: ironman7324

“Ironman?” I asked, my eyebrows rising. Sure, I didn’t know Alexis, but given the state of her office–fine, and the fact that she was an accountant–hadn’t exactly left me picturing her as being a fan of superhero movies.

Cat shrugged. “It makes a great password, no one would ever guess an accountant to like cool things, I guess.”

I laughed as I typed in the password, and sure enough, a moment later the Windows desktop appeared. Cat went back to searching the paper files while I tried to figure out what program might be most commonly used by an accountant. After about five minutes I’d not only found the program, but managed to open the entire contents of the file.

“Hey Cat, I got all the info here,” I told her, and she came straight over. Pulling a USB stick from her pocket, she slipped it into the computer and I copied the files over. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

After the files were copied, Cat and I still decided to have a quick look. Even at a glance, it was obvious that Sapphire Adventure Tours wasn’t exactly raking in the dough. They were bringing in a ton of money–almost $2.5 million the year before–but their expenses were so high that in the end they were left with just a little over $20,000 in profit.

“Yikes,” I said when I saw the figures, and Cat nodded.

“Yeah, that’s not good for sure.”

“Still, do you really kill your business partner over the fact that your business sucks?” I asked.

“You do if you think he’s the reason it sucks. I’d kill you for two and a half mill a year.”

I stuck my tongue out at Cat. “Come on, let’s get out of here before we accidentally trigger another booby trap. I feel like we’re in an urban, boring version of an Indiana Jones movie.”

Cat laughed as she put the files she’d been looking through away; we didn’t need them now that we had the digital version on her thumb drive. “Ok, you’re right. Let’s go.”

I turned off the computer and we climbed back out through the window. Cat used her magic to put the window back into place, and it was like we were never there. As we slipped back out into the streets of Sapphire Village, with the USB stick containing all of the files pertaining to the company safely in my possession (Cat had insisted I take it, since I would have more opportunity to look through it thoroughly). By the time we got back to the bookshop, my heartbeat was dropping back down to something more resembling normal.

That was when I realized it was just after six in the morning, and I had four hours to nap before I had to open the store for the day. Great. Today was definitely going to be fueled by coffee.

Eight

I didn’t even bother going up to my apartment to sleep; I just lay down on one of the comfortable couches I’d set up for potential browsers, set my alarm for fifteen minutes before I had to open the store, and immediately fell asleep. When my alarm went off once more I certainly didn’t feel rested, but I also didn’t feel like a zombie, either.

Dragging myself off the couch I wandered down to Cat’s Cupcakes, which had now been open for almost two hours. When I walked in the tables were already packed, and Maddie, Cat’s awesome employee, was busy working the till while another employee made coffee. Cat was standing toward the door leading into the kitchen, sipping a coffee like her life depended on it. She grinned when she saw me.

“You didn’t brush your hair before coming here, did you?”

“Ohh, great,” I moaned, running my hand over my locks, which were obviously sticking out everywhere. I’d completely forgotten to run a brush through it, or even look in the mirror before going out in public.

“So, you’re obviously going to order coffee then,” Maddie said to me cheerfully, and I nodded glumly.

“Yes, please. Double shot vanilla latte.”

“Good call on the double shot,” Cat said from her spot against the far wall. “I’ll be by later today if I can to look at that stuff we got last night,” she said.

“Sure,” I said. “Pop by anytime. There’s no guarantee I’ll actually be awake though, I’m warning you.”

“Fair enough,” Cat laughed as I ordered a cookies and cream cupcake, complete with cookie dough chunks on top of the frosting. Yum!

Five minutes later I had my coffee, my cupcake in a to-go box, and was making my way back into the bookshop. A part of me hoped there weren’t really going to be any customers today. The coffee was helping, but I’d only been half kidding when I told Cat she might find me asleep in the shop.

Archibald apparently decided he wasn’t going to hang out in the bookshop today, as there had been no sign of him all morning. Muffin, on the other hand, walked in while purring loudly before settling himself on the computer I’d just turned on, the heat evidently winning out over his favorite bean bag chair.

I took out the USB stick containing all the files that we’d taken last night and plugged it into the computer as soon as it turned on. Unlike the last few days, this morning was a little bit grey and drizzly; I imagined my odds of actually getting a customer during shoulder season with weather like this were pretty low.

Sipping at my coffee–and being extra thankful that I’d decided to go for the double shot–I began to look through the records from Sapphire Adventure Tours in more detail.

For the first ten minutes or so, I found myself staring into space constantly. But once the caffeine kicked in and my brain began to function, I started to actually enjoy the work. Of course, it helped that I was pretending that I was the star of one of those TV shows where the investigator on their computer uses her fancy hacking tricks to figure out who committed the crime, and then gets a whole bunch of accolades from the rest of her team.

Ok, maybe I was getting just a little bit delirious from lack of sleep. Just as I was finally starting to get into a rhythm as I looked over the company’s income sources from the past year–almost all of it came from credit cards–a woman who looked vaguely familiar walked into the store.

“Hi,” I greeted her warmly. “Welcome to Magical Books. Can I help you find anything today?”

“Thank you so much, but I’m actually here to help you,” the woman said, striding confidently past the books and to the counter where I was sitting. She was tall, with blonde hair that I wasn’t one hundred percent sure came from a bottle, and energetic blue eyes. Suddenly, I realized where I’d seen her; she had been on the Oregon Express when Brian was murdered. The woman with the husband, and I’d seen her around town once or twice as well.

“Oh!” I said as I made the realization. “You were on the train too.”

“Ah,” the woman replied, nodding. “I was, yes. So were you, you were with Cat. You’re her cousin, Alice, right?” I nodded confirmation as the woman handed me a business card. “Dana Gunter. I’m with Sapphire Digital Solutions, a social media marketing firm based here in town.”

“Oh,” I said, a little bit confused.

“I know you just took over this lovely shop from your aunt, and I saw that you’ve already made some really nice changes to the place.”

“Thank you,” I said, not entirely sure why Dana was here.

“Now, it would be a shame if no one ever saw these awesome changes. That’s where we come in. At Sapphire Digital Solutions we offer packages to allow businesses of any size to grow via social media marketing. We’re from the same generation; I’m sure you know just how much time we spend on our phones these days.”

“Yeah, sure,” I replied.

“Well, why not use that to your advantage? Do you have a Facebook page for the store yet?”

Did Francine have a Facebook page? If so, I hadn’t seen any mention of it.

“Ummm, I don’t think so,” I replied. “I’m really not sure.”

“Well, you need a Facebook page, for sure. With a Facebook page you can reach thousands of potential visitors to Sapphire Village and convince them that they need to come visit this store.”

“Well, to be totally honest, I’m kind of just getting used to things, and how they work,” I told Dana. She seemed nice, and genuine, and enthusiastic about the company she worked for. Very enthusiastic. “I’m not sure I’m ready to deal with things like a Facebook page and social media when I’m still not one hundred percent sure how the point-of-sale system works.”

“Sure, of course I totally understand,” Dana said with an easy smile. “That’s part of what makes our service so cool, is you don’t need to worry about actually doing any of that stuff. We take care of all of it for you, so you can focus on running your business.”

“Do you have an information packet or something?” I asked. “I’m afraid I can’t commit to anything right now, but when things get settled in a bit I might consider it,” I told her. In reality, I wasn’t really considering it. I could run a Facebook page myself, and I honestly wasn’t sure if it would bring me that many more customers, but I also didn’t want to seem rude.

“Of course, Alice. Here you go. This brochure outlines our most popular packages. For a store like yours, I’d go with number 3 if I were you. I’ll let you get on with your day, and I’ll drop by again when things are a little bit more settled for you.”

“Thanks,” I replied, and just like that, Dana was gone. I blinked a couple of times to make sure I hadn’t just imagined the whole conversation, but sure enough I was still holding her business card. Social media marketing managers. The more time I spent running the bookshop, the more I realized just how much went into running a business, rather than simply pouring lattes for people like I used to do.

Sometimes it felt overwhelming, like I was never going to get used to it. I put the business card to one side, making a mental note to ask Cat about the company. Since my cousin was local, and a business owner herself, I imagined she’d have all the lowdown on Dana and Sapphire Digital Solutions.

Still, a little bit of curiosity piqued my interest and I opened the brochure Dana had handed me and had a look at what the package number three that she had recommended was. Package number three was titled “The Niche Store package”. It included a Facebook page, an Instagram account, and a Twitter account. The company’s “social media gurus” would post four updates a month, featuring photos of my store and its wares, which they would come by and take with their professional photography equipment. They would also do a basic search engine optimization treatment to ensure my company’s website was on the first page of Google.

I smiled to myself as I read that; I was fairly certain Aunt Francine hadn’t even built a website for Magical Books. I made a mental note not to tell Dana; I imagined she would try to sell me a website design by her company as well.

Boy, this whole running-a-business thing was more complicated than I could have ever imagined.

Before I got a chance to get my head around the whole conversation that had just happened, my first customer of the day walked in. A nice-looking woman in her mid-twenties, with brown hair and a kind smile, she looked shyly around the store when she walked in.

“Hi there, welcome. Is there anything I can help you with?” I asked.

“This store is amazing!” the woman gushed immediately. “My mom was here last year and told me about this place, she said if I was ever in Sapphire Village I absolutely needed to come here, and she was right,” the woman said, making her way toward the books and looking at them reverently.

“Well, make yourself at home,” I said, motioning around to the chairs that were scattered through the room. Luckily, Muffin was still sleeping on the warm computer, rather than occupying the beanbag chair as he usually did.

“Thank you,” the girl replied. “Sadly, I have to meet a friend for lunch. I am definitely going to buy something though. Do you have anything by the old Romantic poets? I do love Keats and Lord Byron.”

Suddenly, Archibald’s semi-opaque form appeared just above us.

“Are you joking?” he asked my customer scornfully. “Byron was a plagiarist and a buffoon. The man didn’t have a single literary bone in his body.”

I tried not to smile as I listened to the shop ghost rant. Archibald had been a peer of Shelly, Keats and Byron, and he didn’t exactly get along with the latter two. He was convinced that She Walks in Beauty was a rip off from an unpublished poem of his own.

“I do have some,” I told the woman, leading her to the shelf where I knew Francine had kept the poetry.

“It is an insult to my name that this store carries the work of men whose moral character and writing skills were so poor,” Archibald continued. “An absolute insult.”

Archibald’s outrage was pretty funny, but of course, I couldn’t let the woman I was helping know that there was a ghost in the shop who disagreed with her literary tastes.

“This is fantastic,” the woman said, looking through some of the books in awe. “I majored in English literature at Harvard. I just graduated a few months ago, and this is the perfect graduation gift to myself. I’ll buy this one, thanks,” she said. I looked at the title of the book she’d chosen: The Ultimate Collection of the Works of Lord Byron. I smiled.

“Great choice. Byron really is so popular these days.”

“Yes, and for good reason. She Walks in Beauty is one of the greatest poems ever written.”

The sound that came from Archibald’s mouth was more of a howl than anything human. He started ranting about Byron, and how the man stole a shilling from him when he was twenty-two, and how he stole the poem from Archibald, and a whole host of other things that I didn’t quite understand.

I rang up the girl’s sale, thanked her, and she promised me she’d be back for more in a few days.

“Are you done?” I asked Archibald when she left, my hands on my hips. A part of me had found his histrionics quite amusing, but now that he was just shouting practically incoherently it was giving me a headache more than anything.

“The people of today! You understand not what greatness is, and you have been brainwashed by the popularity of a man who died hundreds of years ago. It is a travesty! It should be my name on those books! Mine!”

“Well, unfortunately, history doesn’t often work that way,” I told Archibald. “I’m afraid your old nemesis is going down in history as one of the greatest poets ever.”

“He was nothing more than a common thief, despite his title,” Archibald muttered. “I’m not going to let him get away with this,” he added, before suddenly disappearing. I briefly wondered where Archibald had gone to, and what his plan was. After all, there wasn’t very much a ghost who couldn’t touch anything and who could only speak to a tiny portion of the population could do.

I smiled to myself just as Cat walked into the door. I hoped she only came to chat; I wasn’t sure how much more crazy I could take today.

Nine

“What’s happening?” Cat asked as she walked in, plopping herself down on one of the chairs and closing her eyes.

“Well, so far today I’ve committed a felony, almost been killed by a boulder of avalanches, had a lady come in and try to sell me some social media marketing stuff, and watched Archibald have a mental breakdown because a lady who was a fan of Byron came in.”

“Ah,” Cat smiled. “Did he threaten to go off and make sure everyone knew Byron was a fraud?”

“Well, he said he wasn’t going to let him get away with this, so I assume that’s probably what he meant.”

“Yeah, Archibald does that. I still don’t know where he goes or what he does, but seeing as Byron is still seen as one of the greatest Romantic poets ever, I don’t think Archie’s been that successful yet.”

“I think that one’s an uphill battle for sure. Hey, do you know Dana Gunter?”

Cat grinned. “Let me guess: she’s the woman who tried to sign you up for social media services.”

“Yup.”

“Yeah, I know her. Actually, I did end up hiring her firm to do the social media stuff for Cat’s Cupcakes. Their professional photographers are fricking amazing! They make my cupcakes look phenomenal.”

“Cat, your cupcakes do look phenomenal.”

“Yeah, but whenever I try and take a picture of them with my phone they just come out looking like random blobs. If you’re wondering if the company is legit, they definitely are. Dana can be a little bit intimidating though.”

“Definitely. She’s the first person I’ve met since I’ve come to Sapphire Village who actually seems like they belong in a city.”

“That’s because she is a city girl, like you. She’s from Chicago, originally, I think. She met her husband Henry while on holiday here, and she moved out here a couple of years ago. She worked for some big ad agency or something in Chicago. She and Henry are both magical, but they don’t really spend any time in Brixton Road. She’s definitely the career-focused type. But she’s really good at what she does. Hell, Sapphire Digital Solutions is spreading now; I know she was on a business trip to LA a few weeks ago, I saw her leaving the airport when I came to pick you up.”

“Wow,” I said, impressed. “So she’s a good salesperson?”

“Definitely. She’s pushy, for sure, but she knows her stuff, and the company is good. I’m not saying use them, but if you do decide that you want someone to handle the marketing side of things for the bookstore, they’re a good company.”

“Thanks for the advice,” I told Cat. I was so new to running the bookstore that I didn’t know who was out to rip me off and who could actually help me, and I was thankful to have my cousin there to help guide me along the way.

“No problem. So, have you had a chance to look at the files we, uh, borrowed last night?”

“Borrowed?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “It’s not like we’re going to be giving the thumb drive back.”

“Fine, stole, if you want to be crude about it.”

“That’s a weird way of pronouncing ‘correct’,” I replied, and Cat stuck her tongue out at me. “I kind of started to look at them, but then got interrupted by Dana, and then I had a customer, so not really.”

“Cool,” Cat said, making her way to the computer. I followed her over there, and we started to look over all of the files together. While it started off being pretty fun, eventually it melded into a whole bunch of math, and it didn’t seem like we were getting anywhere.

We went through all of the income section, but most of the income seemed to match with what Sapphire Adventure Tours was charging for their tours, and there weren’t any super suspicious overseas wire transfers or anything like that. Everything looked like it was on the up and up.

As we made our way through the invoices charged to Sapphire Adventure Tours, however, something began to nag at me.

“Hey, do you notice anything weird about these companies charging SAT?” I asked Cat, who shrugged.

“Not really. Why?”

“I dunno,” I said, frowning. “It’s probably nothing. Just something isn’t sitting right with the names. Like, look at the last few invoices. You have invoices from Oregon Cleaning Company Inc, Oregon Snowmobile Mechanics Inc, Portland Cleaning Jobs Inc, Portland Mechanical Services Inc, that sort of thing.”

“Hmm,” Cat said. “You’re right. Those names are a little bit strange. Plus, I’m pretty sure those aren’t the only cleaning companies that they’ve used.”

Cat closed the file we were looking at and opened up a list of all the companies that Sapphire Adventure Tours had received invoices from over the previous year.

There were three different cleaning companies, four mechanics, two office supply companies, four different part supply companies and more. A lot of them were obviously legitimate, big companies, but Cat and I quickly started writing down the names of the others, and eventually we had a list of companies to look into.

“This is weird, something is off about these companies,” I said.

“Agreed,” Cat nodded. She opened up an internet browser window and typed an address into Google. The Oregon business registry website opened, and Cat typed the name of the first company we’d written down into the search. The registered agent was listed as being a law firm in downtown Portland.

“Damn it,” Cat said. “I was hoping the actual owner would be listed, that would make things a lot easier.”

She went back and typed in the second name. The registered agent was, once again, the same law firm in downtown Portland.

I raised my eyebrows. “Well, we might have a pattern here, if nothing else.”

Cat typed in all the names of the companies we’d thought were a bit strange, and sure enough, all of them except two had the same lawyer being the same registered agent.

“Well that’s certainly interesting,” Cat said, crossing the two other companies from her list. “We now have a list of eight companies that all use the same law firm as a registered agent.”

“Portland is small, but it’s not that small,” I agreed. “Something fishy’s going on there. Is there any way to know who the law firm’s client is? Because I’d be willing to bet almost anything that the same person owns all those companies.”

Cat shook her head. “I think short of actually suing them there’s no way to know for sure who owns the company.”

“Great,” I muttered. “There’s something weird going on here though, and the more we look into Brian’s business, the more I think it might be the reason he was killed.”

“Agreed,” Cat nodded. “Peaches in still in Portland because of her art exhibit. I’m going to call her and let her know what we’ve found out.”

“Ok,” I replied, doubtful that Peaches could really do anything that could help us. It wasn’t that she wasn’t a great cousin or artist, just that at this point I figured we’d need someone who could get around Oregon’s privacy laws to figure out who owned those companies.

“Either way, something here stinks,” Cat said.

“Agreed. We need to find out who owns those companies. Maybe it was the other business partner, and Brian found out and threatened to expose him.”

“Exactly. I’d be willing to bet it will end up being something like that. Anyway, I have to get back to the coffee shop. I’ll text you if Peaches finds out anything. I think the exhibition ends today, so she should be back in Sapphire Village by tonight.”

“Nice. If you guys want to come by for dinner to discuss this whole thing I’m making spaghetti,” I said.

“Thanks,” Cat said. “We might just do that. At least, if I haven’t completely passed out before then.”

As Cat left the bookshop, I noticed it was just about lunch time. I quickly turned the sign around to read “closed” and decided to head down to the local café to grab another coffee and a sandwich for lunch.

Coming back armed with a vanilla latte and a Chicken Cesar Wrap, I settled myself in for an afternoon of calmness and relative solitude. After all, today couldn’t really get any crazier, right?

Ten

It only took about an hour before it turned out I was wrong. I had finished my wrap, and the coffee, and was wondering if I could get away with closing the store early and having a little bit of an afternoon nap before Peaches and Cat came by for dinner when Chase Griffin, the chief of police in town, walked through the front door.

“Hey,” I greeted him. “How’s it going?”

He shook his head slowly. If it was possible for a man that gorgeous to look a little bit haggard, then Chase certainly looked it now. His hair was slightly more ruffled than usual, and there were just the beginning signs of bags under his eyes. Of course, when I was that stressed I looked like a character out of a horror movie; Chase just looked like he’d gotten an hour’s less sleep than usual.

“Things aren’t great, to be honest. I’m in the middle of trying to solve a murder, and then I get a phone call from Alexis Juneau telling me someone broke into her office this morning.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed, raising my eyebrows in what I hoped was surprise. “How awful! But why are you here?”

“Well, I went around to have a look, and I canvassed the Main Street to see if anyone saw anything.”

My heart sunk into my stomach as Chase continued. I had a feeling I knew exactly where this was going. Chase continued. “I spoke with Felicia Andrews about an hour ago. She lives in one of the apartments that overlooks Main Street. She said she couldn’t sleep this morning, and she was looking out her window and enjoying the view of the mountain with the full moon being out, when she saw you and Cat making your way down the street, going toward the offices. Now, I’m sure you have a reasonable explanation for it, but I’m wondering if you happened to see anything.”

The ice in my veins suddenly warmed. We’d been seen, but Chase didn’t suspect us at all. Thank goodness. I smiled at Chase, hoping it looked inviting and kind rather than creepy and guilty.

“Of course,” I said, my mouth feeling dry. My voice sounded a little bit too high-pitched to be completely normal, but Chase didn’t seem to notice. “Cat and I were just heading to her shop,” I explained, trying to sound casual. “She messed up her schedule or something and ended up with not enough time to make and ice all the cupcakes before she opened, so I offered to help. After all, she’s been doing so much for me. But no, I’m afraid we didn’t see anyone at all,” I replied.

“What time were you out there?” Chase asked.

“Ummm… probably a little bit after three this morning,” I answered.

“And you’re sure you didn’t see anything? That’s right around when Alexis said the thieves arrived,” Chase said, his eyes narrowing slightly.

“No,” I replied, shaking my head with what I hoped was an innocent expression on my face. “There was definitely no one. Maybe they broke in from the back or something?”

“I guess so,” Chase said, closing his notebook.

“So, the murder investigation isn’t going that well?” I asked. “I thought you had some good suspects.”

Chase gave me a small smile. “Suspecting who committed the crime and actually being able to prove it are two different things.”

“Of course. But you have an idea as to who did it?”

The smile on his face curved upwards. “Surely you’ve seen enough TV to know that I can’t talk about an open investigation.”

“No, no, of course, sorry,” I practically yelped in reply, my face going red, and Chase laughed.

“Don’t worry, I get asked way more intrusive questions by a lot more people than you. I can tell you what I’ve told the press: we have some leads, we’re following those leads, and hopefully we’ll find out who did it soon enough. Of course, it doesn’t help that this is Sapphire Village, and everyone now knows that Brian was killed with his own gun that was stolen from his house about three months ago.”

“Oh, well I didn’t know that,” I laughed, and Chase grinned at me. God, I liked his smile.

“Well, you’re still new in town, so don’t take it personally. I’m sure when you next see your cousins they’ll both tell you. Cat especially will know. That particular piece of information has just been going around today.”

“Look at it this way, at least you know I’m not complicit in the town’s rumor mill,” I told Chase, and he laughed.

“Thanks for the help. I like what you’ve done with the place, as well. I’ll have to stop by for longer one day and have a look. At least this time I had reasons other than customers blaming you for setting them on fire,” he laughed.

“Maybe the third time there won’t be any sort of crime related to your visit,” I replied, my face betraying me by going beet red at the memory. Technically it had been Peaches who had set her hair on fire; I had been the one kind enough to put the fire out. Chase gave me a wave and headed out into the street and I collapsed into one of the chairs. Of course someone had seen Cat and I walking through town at three in the morning. I’d told her we were going to get caught, and now it was surely only a matter of time before Chase figured out that Cat and I were the burglars.

This was definitely not good. Also, no matter how much I tried to shove that feeling deep down as far as it would go, I had to admit I felt bad lying to Chase. I tried to justify it to myself: after all, he was a nice guy, and the local cop. I felt bad because he didn’t deserve all this stress, and Cat and I had made it worse by throwing a burglary at him on top of the murder. Yes, that was definitely the only reason why. But he was just doing his job, and his job involved people lying to him all the time, I justified to myself. After all, there was no way I was going to admit to him that Cat and I were the robbers. Absolutely not a chance.

As soon as I closed the bookstore for the day I made my way upstairs to start making spaghetti for three. Archibald hadn’t returned. Apparently, his plan to make the world aware of Byron being a fraud took longer than eight hours. Muffin, on the other hand, happily decided to join and “help” me out by pouncing on the vegetables as I moved them from the fridge to the counter.

After putting him on the floor multiple times and warning him he wasn’t getting anything if he kept this up, I chopped some onions, peppers, celery and garlic and threw them into the pan sizzling with olive oil just as my phone buzzed. Cat said she and Peaches would be up in a few minutes. They walked through the door just as I added a can of tomatoes to the sautéed mixture of meat and vegetables.

“So guess what I found out today?” Cat asked as soon as she passed the threshold, practically salivating with excitement.

“Brian Armistead was killed with his own gun!” I replied, and Cat’s face fell.

“That’s not fair, how do you know that?”

“How do you know is the bigger question. Chase told me, he said the news is going around town today.”

“Ah,” Cat grinned. “I’m willing to bet that one is Andi’s fault.” Andi was the receptionist at the local police station. “I think someone had a little look at the ballistics report when it came back before handing it over.”

I put a hand to my mouth. “Won’t she get fired?”

Peaches laughed. “Not a chance. The last receptionist before Andi was going through the police files and stealing from people she thought were thieves. A kind of weird Robin Hood type thing, I guess. Andi just looking at the odd report is nothing, especially since everyone in town knew Brian’s gun had been stolen anyway. It was a few months ago, and he complained about it to everyone.”

“I don’t know enough about guns to have recognized the one when he was killed as being his. Besides, that was pretty much the last thing I was thinking of,” Cat said, and I nodded.

“Yeah, I couldn’t tell you what calibre it was or anything either,” I said.

“Anyway,” Peaches said as I made my way to the stove and added some spaghetti to the boiling pot of water, “While you guys rehash information that everyone in town knows, I actually have some interesting information to share.”

I’d completely forgotten about the fact that Peaches was going to try and get information about the owner of the businesses that had been charging Sapphire Adventure Tours.

“Oh yeah?” I asked. Peaches nodded with a smile on her face that closely resembled that of Muffin whenever he managed to get at some food he wasn’t supposed to eat.

“Indeed. The owner of those companies is none other than… wait for it… Brian Armitage.”

I looked at Cat as both our mouths dropped open.

“Wait, really?” Cat asked, and Peaches nodded.

“I’m one hundred percent sure. I actually saw the information on the computer and I didn’t use magic, so I know it was correct.”

“So that means he was embezzling from his own company,” I said slowly, putting the pieces together. “If that’s not a reason for his business partner to kill him, I don’t know what is.”

“We have to tell Chase,” Cat said.

“No, we can’t,” I replied. “If we tell him, we’ll have to admit that we saw Alexis Juneau’s files, and we definitely cannot do that.”

I told the two of them about my visit from Chase that afternoon, and how Felicia Andrews saw the two of us walking through town at three in the morning.

“That old cow has nothing better to do than to spy on people,” Cat muttered crossly when I finished telling the story. “She just sits in her apartment all day watching people.”

“Well, regardless, she saw us. I told Chase that I went to help you out at the store, but I think we need to avoid telling him anything that could possibly lead back to us having broken into the accountant’s office.”

“Fine, you’re right,” Cat admitted. “We can’t tell him.”

“Besides, it’s not like Chase is a bad cop,” Peaches added. “I’m sure he’ll manage to find the information out on his own, and it will probably be easier than causing a flood in an office building.”

I laughed. “Is that what you did?”

Peaches looked a little bit abashed. “I really only wanted to make it look like the sprinkler system malfunctioned. Apparently, I was a little bit… overly enthusiastic. Don’t tell Grandma Cee.”

“You have my word,” I replied with a smile on my lips. “So now, is Carl our main suspect?”

Cat nodded. “I think so, yes. If Carl Green figured out that Brian was embezzling, that’s a pretty good reason to kill him, don’t you think? I mean, we didn’t add up the numbers completely, but it had to be half a million dollars a year, right?”

“At least,” I answered. “Plus, being business partners, Carl would be the most likely person to know where Brian kept his gun, and presumably he would have been in Brian’s home regularly enough to steal it.”

“For sure. And to hang on to the gun for three months before using it, that takes a lot of patience. That sounds like Carl planned the crime, he didn’t just kill Brian in the spur of the moment,” Peaches said.

“Absolutely. We need to speak to Carl, see how he ended up on the train,” I said.

“Why don’t we go on an adventure tour?” Cat asked. “Monday’s just a couple days away, and your bookshop is closed. I can spend a few hours away from the coffee shop; it’s been on the slower side the last week or so anyway. I know Carl really enjoys doing the zip line tours himself, so if we book one there’s a good chance he’ll be one of the guides.”

“Sure,” I replied. After all, I hadn’t really had the chance to do a lot of the standard touristy things in town, and I’d seen a few ads for zip lining. It looked fun, zipping through the forest at over sixty miles an hour, overlooking the gorgeous waters of Sapphire Lake.

“Then it’s settled. Monday we’ll go do that.”

“And Tuesday is the funeral,” Peaches said. “We should go there as well. You know, see what information we can dig up. The gossip mill will be in full effect there.”

“Good plan,” Cat said as I dished up the spaghetti into bowls and topped them with grated parmesan. We now had two viable suspects, one of whom was a lot more suspicious than the other. I was fairly certain that Carl Green was our murderer. Now we just had to prove it.

Eleven

I had never really been an adrenaline junky. I mean sure, once when I was a kid we went to Six Flags, and I’d made sure to ride all the roller coasters, but I was ten years old and who doesn’t like roller coasters when they’re ten. But I’d definitely never been the type to get into extreme sports or anything like that. Watching people do crazy things on YouTube was all the adrenaline I needed.

That was probably why, when Monday came around, I found myself feeling nervous about the day’s planned events. Cat had booked us for a morning adventure, and we were leaving from the main bus loop right off Main Street just after ten.

I had planned on meeting Cat at the bus loop, and made my way there. There were about five other people hanging around, and I assumed they were on our tour as well. As soon as Cat saw me she waved enthusiastically, a huge grin on her face. Evidently, she didn’t share the same fears I did.

“Ready?” she asked, practically bounding over to me.

“Definitely!” I replied, trying to stick a brave smile on my face.

“You’re terrified, aren’t you?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“You look like Archibald.”

“Great. Fine, I’m a little bit nervous.”

“Don’t be, no one has died on these zip lines in a few years.” I looked up at my cousin in alarm, who started to laugh. “Ok, I’m lying. Don’t worry. No one has ever died on one of these.”

“What about being maimed permanently?”

“Nope, never.”

“Maimed temporarily?”

“Nope. Seriously. Zip lines are safe. Safe, and fun! Trust me.”

Well, it certainly couldn’t be worse than my attempt at flying a broomstick, I reasoned as the bus with a large Sapphire Adventure Tours decal on the side pulled up to the bus loop. A tanned guy in his early twenties with shaggy blond hair jumped out of the driver’s seat, wearing khakis and a polo shirt with the company logo on it.

“G’day, welcome to Sapphire Adventure Tours,” he said in a strong Australian accent. “I’m Chazza, and I’ll be one of your guides today. Who’s here for the zip line tour?” he asked, and the small group of people hanging around all quietly muttered yes.

“Great! Please feel free to get on the bus now, and just make sure I get your name before you get on,” he said, grabbing an old clipboard with a list of names attached to it. Cat practically shoved me to the front of the line.

“Alice Calliope,” I said, “and my cousin Cat.”

“Cat and Alice. Welcome! First time zip lining?” I nodded yes. “Well great! You’re going to have a great time, I promise you that.”

I had to admit, Chazza’s enthusiasm was a little bit infectious, and as we sat down on one of the seats on the bus, with Cat taking the one next to me, my nerves began to dissipate a little bit. After all, Chazza wouldn’t be so enthusiastic if he thought he was going to die today, would he?

A few minutes later the others had piled onto the bus as well. There was another couple, and an older couple being treated to this adventure by their son, who insisted they would love it.

As the bus sped toward the zip lining area, I looked out the window and enjoyed the scenery. The bus took a small dirt road that afforded the occasional view of the gorgeous Sapphire Lake. The sun was out in force today, and its rays danced along the water, giving it a shining effect. I absolutely understood where the name came from now.

Ten minutes later Chazza parked the bus and we were led out to the entrance. A large sign welcomed us to Sapphire Adventure Tours zip lining, and standing underneath the sign was the man I recognized as being Carl Green. He had a smile on his face.

“Welcome to Sapphire Adventure Tours zip lines!” he announced. “I’m Carl Green, the owner of the company, here to make sure you have an awesome time! Who’s excited to go fast?”

There were some half-enthusiastic mumbles, no one in the group wanting to be the ones to stand out, but that didn’t stop Carl.

“Great! If you follow me, we’ll get going. It’s only a few hundred feet to the first zip line access area.”

Cat and I stepped into line with Carl as he kept walking. “Hey Cat, what brings you here today?” Carl asked.

“Well this is Alice, my cousin. Since she’s new to town, I figured we should do all the awesome touristy things, and zip lining is definitely one of them.”

“Absolutely! Welcome, Alice,” Carl told me. “How have you been enjoying Sapphire Village?”

“Oh, I love it!” I said. “Other than the murders, of course. I think I recognize you, you were also on the train when Brian was killed, right?” I asked innocently. Carl’s face darkened.

“I was, I’m sorry you had to be there too. That’s a real tragedy. Brian was a good business partner, and a good friend. He’s already missed.”

“Everyone in town is saying Isabella did it,” Cat added. “I can’t believe that would be true!”

Carl shook his head. “I know, it’s incredible, isn’t it? I would have never imagined her to be the type. But even I have to admit, and I was his business partner, Brian was not very good to that poor woman.”

Cat and I looked at each other. So it seemed Carl Green was ready to throw Isabella under the bus. I suppose he had to; other than the two of them there was no one on the train who actually had a reason to kill Brian.

“Do you know if he had a girlfriend?” I asked. “I heard he’d just come back from a trip to Mexico with her.”

Carl’s eyebrows rose. “That’s news to me. Brian was never single for that long, but as far as I knew after he broke things off with that ski instructor from Italy a few months ago he’d been single ever since. Although, he had been acting a little bit more secretive than usual before he died. Brian never kept his girlfriends secret though, he was more the boasting type. He was up to something he didn’t share with me before he died, though.”

I wanted to ask more questions, but we’d arrived at a small wooden house–more like a hut—that was obviously used as the zip lining headquarters. Carl and Chazza told us to follow them inside, where the walls were lined with safety harnesses and helmets.

Fifteen minutes later I was decked out in a whole bunch of safety gear, although I couldn’t help but wonder if the small plastic helmet was really going to do anything if I hit a tree or plummeted to the ground at sixty miles per hour.

We made our way up a ramp to the top of the first zip line. While it was high, the ramp had been built in such a way that it didn’t actually feel tiring at all by the time we got to the top, even for someone like me whose cardio exercise was virtually non-existent. As soon as we got to the top, however, my breath was completely taken away. We were nestled near the edge of a one hundred-foot-high cliff, overlooking Sapphire Lake. The sun shone down on the glistening blue water, contrasting against the deep green of the trees of the forest nearby. In the background was the mountain; I could still see ant-sized people skiing down the snow-covered hills. The music of birds floated up toward us on the zip line platform, and I was just completely overwhelmed by the beauty of it all.

I had always thought I was more of a beach person. However, the view here was making me quickly rethink that opinion. The mountains had a certain allure to them after all.

“Not a bad view, is it?” Chazza asked, and I looked around. I definitely wasn’t the only person admiring the incredible scenery. We spent a couple of minutes admiring the view and taking photos before Carl finally led us over to the zip line.

“Chazza’s going to go first, so he can meet you at the other side,” Carl told us, as Chazza hooked his harness up to a cable on the zip line. He tested the connection, then waved goodbye to us and jumped down, spinning himself upside down as he hurtled toward the ground at a faster and faster speed.

All of a sudden those nerves I’d felt before came flooding back. Then, I also realized that a man I was pretty sure was a murderer was going to be in charge of making sure we made it safely across the zip line rope ourselves. What if Carl had gotten suspicious about our questions? What if he thought an ‘accident’ was a good way to get rid of us?

No, I told myself. He wouldn’t do that. For one thing, it would destroy his business, having the reputation of a man who had killed his customers. Plus, having me die so soon after Brian’s death would make Carl look suspicious. It would be fine. Everything would be fine.

Still, as Carl motioned for me to come over and I let him hook me up to the zip line, I couldn’t help but feel my heart pounding in my chest.

“Don’t worry,” he told me with a smile. “You’ll be fine.” Apparently, I wasn’t very good at hiding my fear.

“Thanks,” I said as Carl told me to lift my feet off the ground. He held the cable, and as I did so, suddenly it felt like I was on a giant swing. And a second later, as Carl let go and I started plummeting toward the ground, it felt like a giant swing that went really, really fast. Everything swirled around me as I clutched the zip line rope; I was pretty sure I was screaming my head off, but I couldn’t hear through the sound of the wind rushing through my ears. Adrenaline coursed through my body; it was absolutely exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. After what felt like an eternity, the zip line slowed down as it reached the other end of the line, where a grinning Chazza was ready to unhook me.

When my legs touched the platform on the other side, they felt like jelly.

“How was it?” Chazza asked.

“Terrifying and awesome at the same time!”

“That’s what I like to hear,” he answered, laughing. “Now, your friend’s coming down next if you want to watch.”

I didn’t need to look up; I could already hear Cat hollering with excitement as she came thundering toward us on her zip line. I grinned as I watched her arrive down to where we were. “Awesome!” she exclaimed. “I’m totally ready to do the next four!”

“Wait… there’s more?” I asked, and Cat nodded enthusiastically.

“Absolutely!”

Forty minutes later we’d done all five zip lines, and I was pretty sure I’d taken at least five years off my life. I was sure my hair was sticking up all over the place, my heart was pounding at a million miles a minute, and I couldn’t stop grinning. Seriously! I had no idea that much adrenaline could be so much fun, and so scary at the same time.

It was so exciting I barely noticed that we never got another chance to talk to Carl, and the next thing I knew Chazza had loaded us all back up onto the bus and we were headed back to Sapphire Village.

“I wonder what Brian was up to before he died that Carl didn’t know about,” I mused as Cat and I sat in two of the seats at the back of the bus, away from the others.

“I don’t know,” Cat mused. “It didn’t sound like a girlfriend. Maybe Isabella really did get her facts wrong, and he went to Mexico alone.”

“But then why not deny it when she confronted him?”

Cat shrugged. “Making the ex-wife jealous? It could be as simple as that, and that really is the sort of thing Brian would have done.”

“I guess,” I replied. “So we know he was up to something, we just don’t know what.”

“Exactly. The funeral is tomorrow. Hopefully the gossip mill in town will give us something we can use.”

I certainly hoped so, but I wasn’t exactly optimistic.

Twelve

The day of the funeral brought more bright sunshine to Sapphire Village. It felt a bit weird, walking to a funeral while the sun’s warm rays shone down on me.

I wasn’t actually sure that Sapphire Village even had a church, but it turned out there was one, down a small side street, nestled in the woods. I had walked, but as I saw the lineup of cars along the road, I knew that most of the town was going to have turned out for the funeral. I inwardly began to chide people for their bloodlust, as from what I’d gathered Brian Armitage hadn’t been the most popular man in town, until I realized that I was essentially doing the same thing.

Pushing the thought out of my head, I made my way to the front of the church. It was a large, log building that would have almost looked more like a cabin than a church if it wasn’t for the huge, ornate wooden crucifix hanging from the front of the building.

All around the entrance people were huddled in small groups, talking to each other as they waited for the service to begin. Checking my phone I realized I was early; there were still twenty minutes before anything was scheduled to start. I looked around and saw Cat talking to Karen, the owner of Pickles’ Pizza. I made my way toward them.

“Hi, Alice,” Karen greeted me, somewhat sombrely due to the occasion. “I’m glad to see you came.”

“Of course, I’m part of the community now, and it seems like the rest of the community has also come out to pay their respects.”

Karen’s mouth formed a grim line. “Or to gossip about who killed him, more like. I’m surprised there hasn’t been some enterprising soul who’s started a pool determining how long it’s going to take before Chase Griffin arrests Isabella for Brian’s murder.”

“Oh,” I replied. “Have you heard anything about there being other suspects?”

“Not at all,” Karen replied, shaking her head. “A few people tried to accuse Carl, of course, being the business partner, but he had no reason to kill Brian. I can’t believe it, myself. I would have never picked Isabella to be the type, but she just seems the most likely suspect.”

The doors to the church opened just then, and the parade of people waiting outside slowly flowed inside, with Cat, Karen and myself being passively dragged along with everyone else. By the time we got inside all of the seating had already been taken. I could see Isabella at the front with her children. She was careful not to meet anyone’s eyes, and from the way she tenderly hugged her children I could tell she loved them very much. I imagined it must not be easy for her to come to the funeral of her ex-husband who had treated her so badly, especially knowing she was the main suspect in his murder, and yet she still did it for her children’s sake.

I really hoped Isabella hadn’t done it.

Eventually the church was completely full; there was no space left even for standing. Looking around I saw almost everyone that I knew from town. Frank was standing somberly against the wall, Karen was only a few feet away from him. Dana Gunter was dressed in all black, handing someone a business card; her husband Henry was standing next to her looking bored. Denise Williams was looking around impatiently, as though waiting for someone to start some drama. Carl Green was sitting in the second row of seats, his head down.

The minister began the service, talking about how good a man Brian was, and a number of other platitudes that sounded absolutely nothing like the man I’d learned about over the last few days. Still, it was a funeral, and the minister certainly couldn’t say Brian was an embezzling philanderer who treated his ex-wife terribly. This was definitely not the time nor place for that.

The service was short, with only Carl saying a few words about how good a friend Brian had been and how he was going to miss him. If Carl knew about the embezzling, I had to admit he was extremely good at hiding it. I was pretty sure I even saw him wiping away a tear as he finished his speech.

As the service finished and everyone poured out of the church, I suddenly felt a rush of guilt. This was a man’s funeral. And yes, I knew that I was a suspect in his murder, and I knew that everyone in town was most likely talking about how I had been involved in the two murders that had happened in Sapphire Village in the short period of time I’d been here–being on the train when Brian was murdered, and finding the body when Edith Chalmers was killed. I still couldn’t help but feel a little bit guilty though at the fact that I was at the man’s funeral trying to get information.

So while everyone else huddled outside to gossip while they waited for the wake to start in an adjacent building, I made my way toward the back of the church, following a path along a gorgeous garden of freshly blooming flowers. While I was only a few feet away from the dozens of people talking, their sound didn’t travel to this side of the building, and I found myself feeling peaceful and serene as I admired the flowers and the first few bees of the season floating from bud to bud, collecting nectar.

As I continued along the path, however, my peaceful stroll was suddenly interrupted by the sound of arguing. I looked back toward the front of the church, but the sound wasn’t coming from there. Looking around, I suddenly noticed an open window in the church; as I made my way toward it, it became obvious that was where the sounds were coming from.

“I think you’re overreacting, Isabella,” a man’s voice said.

“How am I overreacting, dad? I can’t believe it. After everything he’s done to me, after everything he’s done to my children, I find out he had a firearm in his home?” Isabella’s voice was high-pitched, she was practically shrieking.

“This is still America dear, a lot of people have guns,” her father replied. “You know I have a gun, and you still let the children visit me.”

“You keep your gun in a locked safe at the back of a locked closet, dad. There’s a difference between that and keeping a handgun in an unlocked drawer in your desk like Brian did.”

I suddenly heard Chase’s voice. “So you had no idea that Brian even had a gun?”

“No!” Isabella replied vehemently. “Of course I didn’t. Brian was absolutely the kind of man who would just leave something like that lying around. I never would have let my children spend any time in his home at all if I’d known.”

“Pardon me for asking, but I thought that Mr. Armitage didn’t see your children often.”

“Oh, he didn’t,” Isabella replied, her voice venomous. “In fact, I think they only spent one day there. It was when my father had to go to the hospital in San Francisco for emergency surgery. I didn’t want the children to have to see him like that, and my best friend was out of town. I asked Brian, and he agreed to watch them for the day. It was the only decent thing the man had ever done. And now I find out that while my children were in his home he had a gun in an unlocked drawer.”

“That is what he told us when he reported the theft, yes.”

“And the theft was reported after the day my children spent with him?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“If he wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him. I know, it’s terrible to say, and no child so young should have to attend their father’s funeral, but damn if they’re not much better off without him.”

“Thank you for your time, Miss Parsons, Mr. Parsons. I’ll be in touch.”

A minute later I heard a door closing, and figured Chase had left.

“I’m sorry, Issy,” the woman’s father said to her in a low voice. “I’m sorry that my surgery put your children in harm’s way. You’re right, the children should have never been in a home with an unsecured gun.”

“Oh dad, you don’t have to be sorry about anything,” Isabella replied. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Well, it was my gall bladder’s fault, really, and that is a part of me.”

“Don’t be silly, dad. Besides, I suppose it’s all moot, now, isn’t it? The gun was stolen, and Brian is dead.”

“Yes, he is. Come on, let’s go find the kids. They’re not taking it as badly as I’d feared.”

“Probably because Brian was nothing like what a real father should be,” Isabella replied, venom in her voice. I sat down on a nearby bench and idly looked at a couple of flowers while I thought about what I’d heard.

If Isabella was telling the truth, and she didn’t know about Brian’s gun until just now, then that meant she hadn’t stolen it, which meant she couldn’t have been the person who killed him. That put Carl Green right back up at the top of the suspect pool. After all, Brian’s business partner would be pretty high up there on the list of people who had access to the man’s home, right?

I got up and made my way back to find Cat and Peaches. I had to tell them about what I’d found out straight away.

Thirteen

“I think you’re completely right,” Cat said, nodding as I laid out my theory that meant Isabella couldn’t have been the murderer.

“You’re taking this way too simply, though,” Peaches replied. “You’re accepting what Isabella said at face value. What if she knew about Brian’s gun, and she’s the one who stole it, and now she’s lying about knowing it was there?”

“If she did that, though, it meant she would have left her kids in a home with an unsecured gun. You’ve seen her with her kids. Do you really think that’s the kind of thing she would do, especially knowing that Brian wasn’t exactly the greatest dad ever?”

“Maybe she didn’t know at the time. Maybe she heard about it later, and decided to steal the gun to make Brian look bad, and then just hung onto it until she decided to kill him after finding out about his new girlfriend that he took to Mexico instead of making child support payments.”

I had to admit, Peaches had a point. “I don’t think she was lying,” I replied, shaking my head.

“You don’t think she was lying because you like her. And there’s nothing wrong with that, Isabella is a sweetheart. But sweethearts can murder people, too.”

“Great,” Cat sighed. “So really, we’re still absolutely nowhere, and there’s still a chance that Isabella’s going to be arrested for this murder, even though Carl had as good an opportunity as anyone.”

“If only there was a way to make the embezzlement public. Heck, if only there was a way for us to know for sure that Carl knew about the embezzlement,” I mused. “Can magic do that?”

Cat shook her head. “Sadly, not really. It’s extremely hard to magic your way into someone’s thoughts. None of us are strong enough to be able to do it. Grandma Cee maybe could, if she really put her mind to it. And even then, the bigger a secret something is, the harder it is to coax it out of a person’s mind. So while it might be possible for Grandma Cee to find out what he thinks about the Seattle Seahawks, it would be almost impossible for even the strongest witch or wizard in the world to find out whether or not he killed Brian.”

“What’s the point of magic if you can’t even make simple things like that real?” I huffed in reply, and Peaches laughed.

“Look at it this way, it means your deepest and darkest secrets aren’t being discovered by anyone in Brixton Road either.”

“I don’t have any deep and dark secrets. Ok, maybe I cut Alexa Knight’s hair in kindergarten and blamed Jeremy Schmidt for it, but I’d definitely let the whole world know that if it meant being able to find out who the murderer is.”

Cat giggled. “I don’t really mind the whole world knowing my secrets, either. After all, I’m pretty sure Grandma Cee knows all of them anyway.”

“Like that time she caught us smoking pot by the lake when we were in high school,” Peaches said, and Cat groaned.

“Ugh, don’t remind me. She came flying through the woods, screaming her head off. There were six of us, and we were all so scared, we had no idea what was happening when this old lady comes rushing toward us. Leon Ares tried to scramble up a tree, fell off the second branch and broke his arm.”

“And Lawrence Carter straight up ran into the lake.”

“Peaches and I just clutched at each other, terrified. We didn’t know what to do, we just froze. Grandma Cee stopped in front of us, and told us that if the zombie apocalypse came, we were going to be the first to be killed. Then she grabbed us by the hair and dragged us back home.”

I laughed. It absolutely sounded like something Grandma Cee would do.

“She told us she wasn’t even upset about the pot. She was upset about the fact that we were hanging out with an idiot like Leon Ares.”

“I still to this day don’t know how she found out,” Peaches said, shaking her head. “Leon Ares is like Cat and yourself, he’s a wizard who lives almost exclusively in the human world. His grandfather and Grandma Cee were apparently an item when they were young, like a million years ago, and then something happened between them, but now they hate each other.”

“I imagine that couldn’t have been made better by Grandma Cee causing the guy to break his arm?”

“Yeah, that didn’t go down well,” Cat grinned. “Apparently, there were fireworks in the sky that night at Brixton Road, and the next day when people finally dared to come out of their house a couple of the trees near where they had been fighting had disappeared.”

“Wow,” I said, my eyes widening.

“Yeah. I mean, it’s a stupid fight. We both get along fine with Leon, he’s a nice guy. You’ll probably meet him eventually, he works for the mountain now in some kind of management job.”

“But you don’t know why the two of them hate each other?”

“Nope. And if my mom knows, she refuses to tell us, too.”

I smiled to myself as I let my imagination wander. I wondered what could have possibly caused that much strife between Grandma Cee and Leon Ares’ grandfather. Then again, knowing Grandma Cee, I could absolutely see her being the type to hold a grudge for years as well.

When I made my way back to the bookstore, there was a message sitting on the cash register.

“Come to Brixton Road now. You need extra lessons.”

I sighed and considered ignoring the message. After all, it was getting to be late afternoon, I was hungry, I was tired, and I just plain did not want to go try to learn to ride a broom again. But, Cat and Peaches’ story fresh in my brain, I figured it was probably safer in the long run to do what Grandma Cee wanted.

I closed the blinds to the shop so no one could see inside, and opened the portal to Brixton Road. I was actually starting to get used to the weird tornado-like effect that jumping through the portal had. When I finally landed in Brixton Road, everything there was starting to look normal. The only difference today was that the sky was a lovely coral color, not unlike that of my cousin’s hair.

Walking past an exceedingly hairy man known as Keith the Werewolf, I smiled at him and he grunted in return. I wondered if Keith ever spent any time in the regular human world. Somehow, I doubted it. Making my way to the home where Grandma Cee lived along with the rest of the Calliope family, I eyed the tree that had saved my life with gratefulness, although did it have to be so… sticky?

Pausing for a minute before knocking on the door, I finally managed to work up the courage, but before I managed to press my knuckles to the wood, the door opened and Grandma Cee was standing there.

“What are you wasting time for, girl? Come in!” she ordered, and I did as she asked.

“You do remember my rule, don’t you, mother?” I heard a voice say from the other room. “You’re absolutely not to teach that poor girl any more magic without me being there.”

Gratitude poured through my body toward Cat and Peaches’ mom, Sage, as she appeared in the doorway. I had a very strong feeling that with Sage overlooking everything that the odds were a lot better that I wasn’t going to end this lesson falling out of the sky.

“Yeah, yeah, I heard you,” Grandma Cee scowled. “You’re simply going to hold us back by refusing to allow me to teach the girl what she needs to know. Besides, you don’t need to worry, I wasn’t going to teach her how to fly again today anyway.”

“Oh thank goodness,” I muttered under my breath, but apparently not quietly enough. Despite her advanced years, the look Grandma Cee shot me indicated she’d heard me perfectly.

I blushed slightly as we headed down the expansive hall toward the backyard.

“I’m hearing from a few people who have chosen to spend time in the human world that the Others are back,” Grandma Cee said. “Just the other day, I heard that Henry Gunter felt a cold presence around him that he couldn’t explain.”

“I can explain it, mother. It was a gust of wind.”

“You think that boy doesn’t know a gust of wind when he feels one?” Grandma Cee replied. I found it cute how she always referred to everyone as ‘boy’ and ‘girl’; Dana Gunter’s husband had to be at least thirty. “There’s a difference between the Others and a gust of wind.”

“So they feel a bit like Dementors? The Others, I mean,” I asked.

“What’s a dementor, dear?” Sage asked me nicely, a smile on her face.

“Oh,” I replied, not realizing that the witches here had never even heard of Harry Potter. “They’re bad creatures from a series of novels in the human world, about a wizard and his friends. Dementors were the creatures in charge of guarding Azkaban, the wizarding prison. Whenever they got close everyone said they felt really cold, and then they remembered the worst moments of their lives.”

Grandma Cee nodded. “That is partly correct. Whenever the Others appear, they are invisible to begin with. They must be drawn out to be seen, but you will feel them. They make the air around them feel colder to the touch. If you feel cold on a hot day, be careful.”

“But you don’t really need to worry, Alice,” Sage assured me. “The Others are not making a reappearance.”

“If you were so certain of that, why did you agree to have us tell Corrine everything about the Others and bring Alice back to Sapphire Village? She wouldn’t need the family protection if she really wasn’t in any danger.”

“Well, I thought it was better to be safe than sorry,” Sage said, glancing at me almost guiltily.

“It’s ok,” I told her. I actually was really enjoying living in Sapphire Village, and it felt nice to be wanted. I agreed with Sage; it was unlikely that these Others, whoever they were, were actually around and trying to steal our souls or whatever it was that they did.

Still, I couldn’t help but think of the other day when I had felt slightly cold while walking through the village. What if that had been them?

“What are you supposed to do if you do run into them?” I asked. “You know, just out of curiosity.”

Grandma Cee eyed me carefully. “Just out of curiosity, you say?”

“Yes,” I replied, trying to keep my voice even. I absolutely had no idea if the cold chill I’d felt a few days ago was Others coming to try and take my soul, or if it was just my body having a moment of crazy.

“Well,” Grandma Cee replied, “The most important thing you can do to fight off the Others is to have more witches and wizards around you. You see, every witch and wizard has a power sphere around them. It is not something we can feel, or sense, but it is there. Your mother was a very powerful witch. Her power sphere was large, and I suspect yours is as well. For the Others, the larger the sphere of the witch or wizard whose soul they take, the more powerful they become. However, at the same time, when witches and wizards come together, their power spheres become too powerful for the Others to be able to handle, and they are driven away. So the best thing you can do, if possible, is to find other witches and wizards.”

“And that was why my mom had her soul taken, right?” I asked quietly. “She was alone in the car?”

Grandma Cee nodded, her face grim. “Yes, that is why.”

“But what if you found yourself in that situation, where you didn’t have any other witches and wizards to call on? What could you do then?”

“Come to the backyard, and I will show you.”

Fourteen

I followed Grandma Cee with trepidation, Sage following closely behind. I had absolutely no idea what to expect here.

“The most important thing to do if you know you’re encountering the Others is to make them visible to you,” Grandma Cee announced as we headed into the backyard, with its weird, springy, pastel-green grass. “The Others thrive on their invisibility. If you can see them, you can attack them. If you can’t see them, you don’t know where to send your attacks. So the number one thing you must focus on when you encounter them is making them visible.”

“Ok, got it,” I replied. “How do I do that?”

“This is more abstract magic. This is what I was going to teach you the other day, until our lesson was cut short.” Grandma Cee glared at Sage. I didn’t comment on the fact that the lesson was almost cut short by my own untimely death. I didn’t think Grandma Cee would appreciate the comment very much. “It is simple to imagine a change, and to make it happen through magic, when that change is physical. But what if it is not? What if the magic you want to perform is more abstract? How do you do it then?” she asked me, pointedly.

I thought about it for a minute. “Do you have to will it to happen?” I answered at last. I was pretty sure I was completely wrong.

“Yes, that is a good way of putting it. You need to truly want the action you need to happen. And if you are dealing with something that is alive, you need to feel its power. So to answer your question about how to make the Others visible, you need to begin by finding their aura. You need to focus your energy on finding out where they are coming from. When you know, you can will them to become visible. If your will to make them visible is greater than their will to stay hidden, then they will no longer be able to hide, and they will appear before you. That is the same with any other invisibility spell, or other spell that a witch or wizard has placed on themselves or others.”

“Ok,” I replied, nodding. I was pretty sure I understood what Grandma Cee was saying.

“Of course, this is much more difficult to practice than other things,” Grandma Cee said. “If I were to make myself invisible, for example, there is no way you could force me to become visible. I am simply more powerful a witch than you are. I don’t mean to insult you, but you only began studying magic two weeks ago.”

“None taken,” I replied. I was pretty sure literally everyone born with magical powers was a stronger witch than I was right now.

“However, that doesn’t mean there is nothing you can try,” Grandma Cee replied. “Take this spoon, for example,” she said, pointing a finger and making a small wooden spoon appear in her hand. “If I make it invisible, I will be passing my magic to it. That means the spoon will have a faint aura of its own, because some of my magic is influencing it. Turn around.”

I did what Grandma Cee asked, knowing exactly what she was doing. A moment later, she told me to turn back around. As I did so, I noticed that the wooden spoon had disappeared.

“I made the spoon invisible, and it is now somewhere within 50 feet of where I am standing. Find the spoon, and make it visible for me.”

I took a deep breath to center myself. I had a feeling this was going to be a lot harder than it sounded when Grandma Cee was explaining it. I closed my eyes and tried to see if I could feel anything. At first, there was nothing. I felt like an idiot, standing there with my eyes closed, not doing anything. But then, after a moment, I began to feel something. I wasn’t sure how to describe it. It was almost like that tingly feeling you get when there’s a thunderstorm and there’s static in the air. I could feel it coming from a spot about thirty feet away, a little bit to the left.

I began to walk toward it and the feeling got stronger. I could feel the hairs on my arms rising as I made my way toward it.

“She’s a gifted witch, isn’t she?” I heard Sage tell Grandma Cee in the background, but I let the thought pass out of my mind. I made my way to where I could feel the energy was strongest, and I could feel that I was standing in front of it. I opened my eyes, and with every ounce of my being, I willed the spoon to show itself. The energy built up inside of me, and I pointed to the spot on the ground straight in front of me.

All of a sudden, where there had only been grass, the wooden spoon appeared. I let out a cry of triumph. I had done it!

I turned around, and even Grandma Cee was nodding.

“Good,” she said. “But do not get too cocky. Remember, this is a spoon. A human is much, much more difficult to force to reveal.”

“Right,” I said, nodding. I had to admit, I was feeling pretty pleased with myself, and Grandma Cee dampened that a little bit. Still, I hadn’t expected to manage to do it right on the first try.

“All the same, Sage is right. You are a gifted witch. That is both a blessing, and a curse. It is a blessing because you are able to learn what is necessary very quickly, but it also means you will be a target of the Others when they come.”

“Do you really have to scare her like that?” Sage asked, her hands on her hips. “We don’t know when the Others are coming. We don’t even know for sure that they are.”

“Just because you choose to ignore the signs doesn’t mean I’m doing the same,” Grandma Cee snapped. “Would you rather Alice be prepared for when she is attacked, or would you have her cower and have her soul taken like that of her mother?”

“I just think maybe you’re taking things a little bit too fast,” Sage replied. “After all, she’s just learning to be a witch.”

Grandma Cee shook her head. “No. It is not too fast. Alice needs to know these things. Now, Alice, we will try another spell.”

I nodded and mentally prepared myself. I didn’t know if Sage was right or if Grandma Cee was right about the Others coming, but to be totally honest, I kind of agreed with Grandma Cee. If there was a group of weird magical creatures out there that wanted to take my soul, I was absolutely wanted to know everything I could about how to get rid of them.

“Good,” Grandma Cee said, making a cat appear out of nowhere. “Now we will see how good you are at finding invisible creatures that move.”

For the next two hours, I continued to hone my skills. While I had originally failed at finding the cat–although I could sense it was nearby, I had trouble tracking it when it moved–I eventually managed to figure it out. By the end of the lesson, I could see Sage and Grandma Cee were both impressed, and I actually felt pretty good about myself.

“Excellent. Now, I want to teach you a defensive spell,” Grandma Cee told me. “This spell will create a shield around you if you need it; nothing, either magical or non-magical, will be able to penetrate the shield so long as it is up.”

“Ok,” I said, nodding curtly. I was feeling confident. I could do this.

“This spell requires you to feel invincible. You need to truly believe that nothing can get at you in order for it to work. Imagine yourself being invincible, imagine yourself surrounded by an impenetrable bubble, and then allow the magic around you to release. Now, try it, and I will attempt to get through your bubble.”

I closed my eyes and, I was going to be honest, I pretty much pretended to be Sailor Moon. You know right at the beginning of her transformation when she draws a circle with her moon wand? I imagined myself doing that as well. As I was doing it, I could feel the magical energy inside of me building up. I could feel myself becoming more powerful, and I knew it was working.

I knew that no matter what, as soon as I released this energy, nothing could come near me. With all the fury I could muster, I opened my eyes and let the magic inside of me loose. It flew from my body, but unlike the other times, when the energy left me and was gone forever, I could still feel the energy nearby, like a strange buzzing feeling.

Grandma Cee smiled and ran toward me, with much more energy than I would have expected from an octogenarian. When she got about two feet away, I wanted to worry that the spell hadn’t worked. But no, it had to. I could feel it, and I knew that I had to feel invincible for it to really work.

I steeled myself, and Grandma Cee hit an invisible wall. For a split second, I actually saw her cheek pressed against it, her face mashed up against my invisible shield before she fell to the ground.

“Mom!” Sage cried, running toward Grandma Cee. I let the magic dissipate, and I felt the shield disappear. I’d done it! I’d actually done it!

“I’m fine, I’m fine, get off me. It’s not like I didn’t know what was coming,” Grandma Cee muttered as Sage helped her up off the ground. I had to admit, for an old lady, Grandma Cee was incredibly spry.

“That was a good shield,” Grandma Cee told me, nodding. “However, I want you to practice it on your own. You need to be able to conjure it faster. There may come a time when you will only have a split second to be able to activate it.”

“Ok,” I nodded.

“I think that is quite enough training for one day,” Sage said. “For both your sakes,” she continued, as Grandma Cee opened her mouth to protest.

I was feeling pretty tired already, and now run-down would be more accurate. I needed a rest, so I said goodbye to Grandma Cee and Sage, thanked them for the training, then headed back up to Sapphire Village, fed Muffin and fell asleep with him purring in a little ball at my feet.

Fifteen

I woke up the next morning, made my way to Cat’s Cupcakes to get a breakfast cupcake (hey, as a grown woman, I had long since realized I could eat cupcakes for breakfast if I wanted to) and a coffee, then opened the bookshop for business.

About two hours into the day, after selling the entire Harry Potter leather-bound series to an excited woman who said it was her college-age daughter’s favorite book series, I was sitting on one of the chairs, thinking about how to figure out and prove who had murdered Brian Armitage, when Archibald suddenly appeared.

“Oh hello,” I said to him. “It’s nice to see you back. Did your plan to reveal Byron as a fraud and have his legacy erased from humankind go well?”

The ghost looked a little bit dishevelled, if it was even possible. He definitely didn’t look happy, that was for sure.

“No, it did not go well,” Archibald replied. “I had been counting on an old friend of mine in England to be of use, but he didn’t want to hear of it.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.”

“That isn’t even the worst part. I hadn’t been back to England since my death, and do you know what the country looks like now?”

“Cleaner, with less cholera?”

“They have completely destroyed the soul of London! Everything is glass and steel now. Back in my day, the city had character. There weren’t all these men walking around at a fast pace, speaking on those strange new telephones you hold in your hand. People greeted each other on the street. Now the city is a farce.”

“I’m sorry you don’t like the change, Archibald,” I told him. I couldn’t help but wonder if I was in his situation if I would think the same thing. I wondered what Miami would look like a few hundred years from now. Would I even recognize the city?

“And then I made my way to my country estate. Do you know what is left, there?”

“No,” I replied, my heart dropping. I imagined it wouldn’t be good.

“A Tesco! They built one of these supermarket places as they call them on my old land. And not even a good supermarket. This one advertised its discount prices everywhere. It is a travesty! I am ashamed to call myself an Englishman! I will never again return to my homeland.”

“I’m sorry, Archibald,” I told him. And I meant it. It must have been hard for him to go back to the land he hadn’t seen in two hundred years and to see how much it had changed.

“And so, when I was shut down by a former colleague, I decided that I had gone back to England for another reason,” he declared pompously.

“Oh yeah? What was that reason?”

“I went to find the ghost of Miss Christie, who is, if I may say so, perhaps the greatest author to ever be born in England, and the world.”

“Ah,” I replied, hiding a smile, as Archibald continued.

“My plan was to find her, and to convince her that together we could create a bigger, better series. We could continue the adventures of Hercule Poirot! It would be a glory unlike any other!”

“And did it work?”

“Alas, I encountered an old friend of hers who had not yet passed into the other world. He told me that dear Miss Christie was very much at peace when she passed, and that she has been in the netherworld ever since.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I told him.

“Not nearly as sorry as the rest of the world should be. She could have written for eternity!”

“And so you’ve come back here.”

“Alas, what is there left to do in the world except to watch as the standards of the English language continue to crumple?”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, if you want I can get audiobook versions of other books. Again, I’m not going to play them for you when the store is open, but if you’d like at night you can listen to Sherlock Holmes or whatever.”

“Perhaps. Although I doubt that perfection such as that created by Miss Christie will ever be matched by another.”

“You also thought that about literally anything written after your own death, remember?”

“I know that you are mocking me, and yet I have fallen too far into melancholia to care,” Archibald replied sadly.

“Ok, well, let me know if one day you decide you want to listen to something else. Surely it must be more interesting than hovering around here at night when nothing happens.”

“That is true, yes. Although time becomes much more irrelevant when one has an infinite amount of it to deal with.”

“Was that really the first time you’ve been back to England since you died?” I asked. Hundreds of years seemed like such a long time.

“Yes, well, perhaps I allowed myself to reminisce on the world the way it used to be when I read the books of Miss Christie, and I wanted to see how it had changed. She made England sound so quaint and perfect, just the way I remembered it. I wanted to see if it remained that way.”

“A lot of things have changed in the last fifty, one hundred years,” I replied.

“I have noticed.”

“And you see how you left the bookstore and nothing bad happened? You could go traveling! I assume it doesn’t really take any energy for you to go places.”

“That is true. Perhaps I should make an effort to discover the places in the world I have yet to see.”

“After all, you made it to America, this far, in the 19th century! You had to have the heart of an adventurer.”

“I was forced into this trip; it was a political thing. Byron used his influence to have me put on a boat so that I would no longer accuse him of plagiarism. I had no desire to come to this God-forsaken continent.”

“Oh. Well, now that you’re here, it isn’t that bad, is it?”

“It certainly isn’t what London has turned into, that is true.”

“Well, just consider it. There’s a big, wide world out there. You could see a lot of it if you wanted to.”

Just then an older woman, who looked to be in her seventies, walked into the store.

“Hi there,” I welcomed her. “How can I help you today?”

“Oh hello, dear. I was just wondering if you happened to carry a copy of The Canterbury Tales in here. I was told by a friend of mine that you carry all the good literature of old.”

“I like this woman! Chaucer was one of the greatest Englishmen that ever put pen to a page!” Archibald announced.

I smiled at the woman and led her over to the shelf where I knew that Francine had kept four leather-bound copies of the book. One copy dated from the 18th century.

“I do, they’re just over here,” I told her, motioning to the books. “I have four copies, each from a slightly different time period.” I took them off the shelf, mentally thinking to myself that I should buy some small tables for situations like this; it would be easier than trying to hold the books and hand them to the woman all at once.

“Oh, thank you so much, dear,” the woman told me. “If you don’t mind, I’ll just have a look and decide which I prefer.”

“Of course,” I told her. “Take your time. I’ll be behind the counter if you need anything.”

Twenty minutes and a nice conversation later, the woman bought two of the copies of the book–one for a friend of hers who was in a home, and one for herself–and made her way out the door. I had a smile on my face as soon as the woman left; she was so nice and polite, and such a big fan of the works.

“You should have invited the woman back,” Archibald told me.

“I have a feeling Elizabeth will be back at some point,” I told him, using the woman’s name. She had introduced herself at the counter and promised she would return, and I absolutely believed her.

Sixteen

Feeling pretty pleased with how the day had been going, I decided to step out for ten minutes and grab a sandwich for lunch from one of the nearby cafés that was a pretty popular spot with the locals. One bite of their delicious lunch sandwiches and it was pretty easy to understand why.

I loved the BELT with avocado that they did, but today definitely felt like the Hawaiian chicken sandwich. With grilled chicken on ciabatta with house-made teriyaki sauce and a slice of grilled pineapple on top, it was a perfect, light lunch.

I placed my order and then went to sit in one of the small booths they had by the window. My stomach grumbled; I hadn’t realized it was now almost one thirty, and I had completely missed lunch. Since it was so late the café was pretty empty, so I didn’t feel bad taking up a whole booth while waiting for my takeaway order.

Leaning back against the seat I looked out the window, not really thinking about anything, when behind me I heard a familiar voice. It was Denise Williams. She was a pretty well-known figure in town, in fact, she had famously accused Cat of killing Edith Chalmers a few weeks earlier.

She was speaking with another woman whose voice I didn’t recognize.

“I just don’t know what’s taking Chief Griffin so long,” I heard Denise say.

“Oh, I agree,” the other woman replied. “I mean, it had to be Isabella. She may be a sweetheart, but I always say, there’s only so much a woman can take before she snaps.”

“Exactly. The sooner he arrests her, the better.”

“Although, I don’t trust those Calliope girls, either. Weren’t they the ones who found Edith’s body as well? And now they were on the train for this one too. That city girl, the new one, she’s trouble, mark my words.”

“Alice,” Denise replied acidly. “Yes, I agree with you, Belinda. They are trouble, and I can’t say I’d be surprised if they were involved in this somehow.”

“I know her mother was born and raised here, but she’s just not a part of this community, you know? She just spends her time in that bookshop Francine used to own. It’s not right. There’s something strange about her.”

Tears threatened to well up in my eyes, but I forced them back. I wasn’t going to let two cantankerous old women with nothing better to do than to gossip about people they didn’t even know make me feel bad.

“Yes, all this stuff has happened since she came to town. I’m not totally sure I trust her account of what happened with the old mayor, either.”

“And you know the other day, I just happened to look out my window early in the morning, and I saw those two, Cat and Alice, walking toward Alexis Juneau’s office just after three in the morning. It was the night she was robbed,” Belinda added in a conspiratorial voice. So this was the woman that Chase said had reported Cat and me. Of course, I couldn’t exactly take the high road here–Cat and I had in fact gone and broken into Alexis’ office–but no one apart from Cat, Peaches and I knew that.

“She’s simply not part of this community. She’s an outsider,” Denise said, and I had it. The lady at the counter chose that exact moment to call me.

“Alice, your sandwich is ready.”

I could have snuck out of there and avoided the two ladies. I could have just looked at them and made things awkward. But instead, I decided I wasn’t going to let myself get bullied by two senior citizens. I stood up, and casually stopped by their table.

“If sitting in cafés gossiping about people you don’t even know is what you consider being part of the community, then no, I’m not part of it. I’m not part of what you consider community, anyway. I’m too busy living my own life to disparage other peoples’,” I replied, before walking off and grabbing my sandwich.

The far wall of the café had a large mirror on display, and through it I could see both women, sitting there with their mouths hanging wide open. I smiled to myself. I was definitely going to enjoy this sandwich even more than usual.

Sticking it in my bag, I went back out into the street, and decided to take a small alleyway shortcut I’d found the other day. It was essentially a service entrance for a row of shops, but it allowed me to cut out a small bend and take at least fifteen seconds off my total commute time between the bookstore and the café.

Ok, so it wasn’t the biggest shortcut ever. But it was peaceful, and got me away from the crowds. I was making my way down the alleyway when suddenly, a chill came over me once more; the same kind of chill I’d felt when I was in the park in Portland.

This wasn’t good.

My instinct was to panic and flee. Maybe I could run to Cat’s Cupcake shop. After all, Cat was a witch. Being near her would make the Others less likely to attack me, right?

But at the same time, I wasn’t sure this was anything. What if it wasn’t the Others at all, and I was panicking about nothing? I didn’t want to be that witch, the magical equivalent of a hypochondriac. I had to be sure.

Remembering my lesson with Grandma Cee, I closed my eyes and focused my energy on, well, sensing energy. And to my surprise, I felt some! It was about fifteen feet away, blocking the exit to the alley I was in. I supposed whoever it was–whatever it was–was expecting me to walk straight into them.

Well, I had other plans. I focused all of my energy on willing whatever it was to appear, to show themselves. However, I found that unlike with the inanimate objects I’d practiced on, whatever was standing there was actually fighting back. I could feel the energies between us going back and forth as the battle of the wills–or the magic–continued.

Slowly, however, I felt my magic taking the upper hand. The energy releasing from me increased, and I could feel it extending out toward whatever was out there.

Finally, whatever it was let out a blood-curling scream as my magic took over. In front of me appeared a woman dressed in black robes. Her face was covered; I could only make out her gender from the feminine form under the robes, and the long, black hair that cascaded in front of her. Suddenly, she was enveloped in a large pile of smoke.

I quickly used more magic to make the smoke disappear, but when I did, I realized the woman had disappeared as well. I’d gotten such a small look at her, I wondered for a minute if what I’d seen was even real.

Deep down, I knew it was. And I also knew what that woman was. She was one of the Others. She just had to be, it was the only thing that made sense. Grandma Cee had been right. They did exist, and they were coming for us.

I rushed back to the bookshop, my sandwich forgotten. I had to tell Cat about this right away. I had to tell Grandma Cee. The Others were really here, and I didn’t know what this woman was trying to do, but whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

Two minutes later I was rushing through the front door of the bookshop, getting ready to pull out my phone and text my cousin. But instead, I stopped. I wasn’t alone in the store. But this time, it wasn’t one of The Others that had come for me.

It was my Aunt Francine.

Seventeen

“Ah, hello, you must be Alice,” Francine said jovially. She was sitting–err, well, floating–on one of the new chairs I’d gotten for the bookshop. I recognized her from a few photos I’d seen. Interestingly, Francine looked almost exactly like me, if I was twenty years older and a hundred pounds heavier. Her slightly translucent figure was the only thing that gave away that she was a ghost, and not a living, breathing human being.

“Aunt Francine?” I replied questioningly.

“Well yes, that’s me. But you’re so pale. You look like you’ve seen a ghost! Well, I suppose that does make sense, doesn’t it?” she asked.

“No, it’s not that,” I replied. “You’re not the first ghost I’ve seen. Archibald should be around somewhere.”

“Ah, yes, Archie was showing me the ins and outs of being a ghost. I can’t wait until I get to haunt people!”

“And here I thought that awful shortening of my Christian name had died along with you,” Archibald said suddenly, appearing out of nowhere.

“You know Cat uses it as well,” Francine said with a smile. “Embrace it, dear. It’s a term of endearment.”

“I will not,” Archibald muttered. “I don’t need to take this,” he continued, and disappeared. Francine laughed.

“I see he hasn’t changed in the… how long has it been since I died?” she asked.

“Just about three weeks,” I replied. “But how are you here? Some people think you died of cancer. Grandma Cee thinks your soul got taken by the Others. If that’s true does that mean my mom’s a ghost somewhere too?”

Francine looked at me sadly. “Unfortunately, no. I’m sorry. The Others did get to your mother, so there is no chance she’s a ghost.”

“So it was cancer then? Everyone calling Grandma Cee crazy is right?”

Francine grinned. “Why am I not surprised? But no, it wasn’t the cancer that took me either. Come, sit down and I’ll tell you everything that’s happened. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to speak to a human being.”

“What’s been happening for the past three weeks? What happens between death, and when you become a ghost?”

“To be honest, I don’t really know. I remember feeling angry as I was dying, and I swore I’d return, and then I died, and the next thing I knew I was back here. But things had changed in here so much I knew some time had passed, I just wasn’t sure how much. I’m glad to hear it’s only been three weeks.”

I sat down on one of the chairs across from Francine–I would have liked the beanbag but Muffin had claimed it as his own and was happily snoring away on it–as she told me her story.

“I did have cancer. That part was all true. Unfortunately, having magical powers doesn’t make us immune from the curses the natural world has created. I had skin cancer. The curse of our family’s fair skin and red hair.” She smiled. “But the cancer didn’t kill me. The cancer, and the chemotherapy, however, did weaken me enough to make me a target for the Others.

“I knew they were coming. I could feel them.”

“It feels really cold when they’re around all of a sudden, right?” I asked. Francine nodded grimly.

“You’ve felt them, then?”

“Yes. Once in Portland, a few days ago. Then just now, in the alley.”

“It was good that you’ve come back to Sapphire Village, then. If you’d stayed in Miami you would have been a sitting duck. I assume you’ve told Grandma Cee?”

I shook my head. “No, not yet. I didn’t really think anything of the time in Portland, and the other one just happened about five minutes ago. I was going to, I just got home and you were here.”

“Ah, fair enough. By the way, you can eat the sandwich that’s in your bag, if you’d like. Sadly, food is no longer a pleasure I get to enjoy, but I wouldn’t want to deny you the pleasure.”

“Oh, yeah,” I replied, having completely forgotten about the sandwich. “How did you know it was there?”

“I could smell it. I think my senses have been heightened. It certainly feels that way.”

I nodded while I took the sandwich out of the bag. It was still nice and warm, and I dug in while I listened to Francine continue her story.

“They came without warning, one night. Cat and Peaches were at Brixton Road, which meant that I was without any protection from their magic. I was attacked by seven of them. Three, maybe even four I could have taken on myself. But seven? No, that was too many. I was in my apartment at the time, and I knew that I was too weak to make it down to Brixton Road. The Others were going to kill me, and worse, they were going to take my soul. I knew I couldn’t let that happen. I knew that I was defeated then, but there was one thing I could do to help fight them in the future.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“I had to make sure they didn’t take my soul. So, in a last-ditch effort, I grabbed the chemotherapy drugs that I had kept at home–a few times I did the treatments here and had a nurse come in to supervise–and injected them directly into me. I was able to hold off the Others until my body died, and since I died with nothing in my heart except the desire to come back and get revenge on the Others, it seems I got sent back here as a ghost. At least until my vendetta is settled.”

Wow. So my aunt had committed suicide rather than have her soul taken by the Others. “But what can you do?” I asked. “As a ghost, I mean. Like, no offense, but Archibald needs me to turn his audiobooks on when he wants to listen to Agatha Christie.”

“Oooh, you actually got him to listen to Agatha Christie? What did he think?”

“He loves them. In fact, he just came back from a trip to England to see if he could find her so the two of them could write some books together or something.”

“Wow,” Francine said, looking at me admiringly. “You’ve done quick work. I never managed to convince him to read anything written after he died. As for what I can do, well, to be quite honest, I’m not totally sure. For one thing, I thought I could come back and warn the rest of you. I wasn’t sure if anyone would be able to figure out what really happened to me.”

“Grandma Cee did,” I replied. “Although, she is the only one.”

“Great. She’s going to gloat like crazy when I show up and tell everyone that she was right.”

I had to laugh. “Yeah, she will. All your brothers and sisters have taken great pains to tell me that they don’t really believe the Others are coming back right now. Although, maybe a part of them still thought it might happen, since it wasn’t long after you died that they called mom and convinced her that I had to come and live with the family.”

“And thank goodness they did that,” Francine said. I nodded.

“I agree. If it wasn’t for the fact that I knew I was a witch there was nothing I would have been able to do against the Other that came after me today.”

“All right. First things first, text Cat and Peaches. They both need to come here as soon as possible, and then we’re all going to Brixton Road. The Others are here, and if one of them has already tried to attack you, then we need to nip this in the bud as soon as possible.”

An hour later we were all sitting in the dining room at Brixton Road. Francine had come with us; it appeared even ghosts were able to travel through the portal.

“I told you all,” Grandma Cee started after Francince told everyone else her story–Cat, Peaches, Sage and my other Aunt Jasmine and my Uncle Vulcan. “I told all of you it was the Others, but no, you wrote me off as being a crazy old lady, and now Francine has confirmed it and Alice has been attacked.”

“Yes, yes, you’re the greatest, mother,” Jasmine said, rolling her eyes. “Now, why don’t we stop gloating and try focusing on finding a solution?”

“Why did they come after me?” I asked. “Is it because they think I’m weaker?”

“In a way,” Grandma Cee replied. I had to admit, ever since Francine came back as a ghost and confirmed everything Grandma Cee had been saying, I was a lot less inclined to think of her as being an old kook, and looked at her with a lot more respect. “But it’s also because you’re stronger. The reason the Others came after your mother was because she was such a powerful witch. There must have been a lot of them that night to overtake her. And while you don’t have the same experience with being a witch that everyone else in this room has, you are still your mother’s daughter. It has been obvious from the get-go that inside of you lies an innate, powerful magic.”

“I almost died when I got on a broom, though.”

“True, but you also managed to make one of the Others appear on your first try, after only a couple of hours’ practice on inanimate objects that I had made invisible and weren’t fighting back.”

“Plus, you’re already way better at everything except broom flying than Cat and me,” Peaches piped up.

“She’s right. I mean, Peaches is totally hopeless but I’m not that bad, and you’re already better than me,” Cat replied, earning herself a punch on the arm from Peaches. “Ow!”

I supposed they were right. “Great. So they’re targeting me because I’m both weak and strong.”

“Exactly,” Grandma Cee said. “Ideally you should remain in Brixton Road for the foreseeable future. They will come after you again, but they are not able to pass through the portals.”

“No way,” I replied, shaking my head vehemently. “Moving from Miami to the middle of nowhere, Oregon was already enough of a culture shock. I’m not moving again to weird magic land. Especially since we have no idea how long I’d have to stay here for. After all, the Others killed my mom, and that was almost thirty years ago.”

“Alice is right,” Sage said. “It’s not fair to her. We have to figure out how to stop the Others, but we have to keep Alice safe in the human world at the same time.”

“Why can’t they go after someone else?” Cat muttered. “It’s like they always go after our family.”

“It’s because we’re the most powerful,” Grandma Cee replied. “Also, when I was young, the leader of the Others attempted to attack my sister. I stopped them, but they took it rather personally.”

Cat groaned. “Of course you’d be the reason they hate us.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” Grandma Cee replied. “I wasn’t going to let them just take your Great-Aunt Penelope.”

“Ok, we’re getting off track, here. Whatever the reason, the Others are back, and they’re going to come after Alice again. For now, Peaches, I want you to stay with Alice. There’s a guest room in the apartment above the bookshop, you can stay there. That way, there will always be two of you together,” Sage said.

“Sure,” Peaches replied.

“Are you sure that won’t put you out or anything?” I asked.

“Relax,” Peaches said, waving away my worries. “I’ll bring my painting stuff and keep it in the guest room. It won’t be an issue.”

“Good. So we’re settled. Francine, stay behind. The rest of you, go home. Cat, Peaches and Alice, I want you here after work every night from now on so you can learn how to defend yourselves against the Others. It seems my lessons could not have come soon enough.

The three of us having been dismissed, we made our way back to Sapphire Village.

Eighteen

“Are you sure you’re going to be ok?” I asked Cat when we were back in the bookshop, who nodded.

“Yes. The Others haven’t come after me at all. They generally focus on one person at a time. So right now, that person is you.”

“Great,” I muttered.

“What I’m wondering is why they’re coming after so many of us now,” Francine said as she floated next to us. “The last time the Others came they came for Jennie, and then they left us alone for almost thirty years. I would have thought that after they took me that would be it.”

Peaches shrugged. “Who knows? Whatever the reason, I want them out of our lives. They’ve done enough damage to this family.”

“Agreed,” Cat said firmly. She left to go back to her store, and Peaches told me she was going to her apartment to grab her art supplies and be back soon. I found myself in the middle of the bookstore with Francine. Not knowing what to do, I made my way back to the computer and began looking through the Sapphire Adventure Tours files.

It seemed that the conversation between Felicia and Denise had bothered me more than it should. The murder investigation should have been the last thing on my mind, but I knew that no matter how mean-spirited they were, at the same time, they were right. If the murder wasn’t solved, everyone would continue to think of me as the woman who was involved in the only two murders that had happened in Sapphire Village in recent memory. I couldn’t let that happen; I couldn’t become an outcast in town before I even became a part of the community.

I must have sighed loudly or something because Francine floated over.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “You look stressed.”

“I am stressed,” I replied. “I’m worried that if the murder of Brian Armitage isn’t solved, and it’s not definitely proven that I had nothing to do with it, that I’m never going to be accepted here in Sapphire Village.”

“Brian Armitage was murdered?” Francine asked.

“Oops, sorry, I forgot you wouldn’t know about that. Yeah, he’s dead. And Edith Chalmers as well. She was killed a few weeks ago; Cat and I found her body. That’s one of the reasons why I’m stressed.”

I told Aunt Francine everything that had happened with the two murders over the last few weeks. She listened without saying anything until I was finally finished, then let out a low whistle.

“Wow, I go ahead and die and suddenly everyone in town drops dead. Maybe I was the one keeping it all together,” she joked.

“Maybe. But now I’ve been around when both murders have happened, and I already overheard Denise and Felicia talking about how weird it is. If they don’t find out who killed Brian Armitage for certain, well, there’s always going to be that idea out there that I was involved somehow, that it was my fault.”

“I can see your point,” Francine nodded. “But you’re not sure whether or not it was Isabella or Carl who did it.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, all I can say is that it might not be either one of them. I have no idea who killed them though, sorry.”

I smiled. “Thanks, Aunt Francine.” Just then, Peaches came back into the apartment and I ran over to help her with the million things she was carrying.

“Thanks,” she told me. “I wanted to use magic to carry them up the stairs but didn’t want to accidentally destroy everything I owned.”

I laughed, and started telling her that certainly wasn’t an issue, then remembered who I was talking to. Of course with Peaches that was always a risk.

I worked to get her settled into the apartment, then we both made our way to bed. Between the Others hanging around and trying to steal my soul, and the fact that I still had no idea which one of our two main suspects had killed Brian Armitage, I got virtually no sleep at all.

Finally, around five in the morning I decided that if I wasn’t going to be able to sleep anyway, there was no point in staying in bed. I forced myself to get up, groaned as I realized every muscle in my body was sore from a lack of sleep, and made my way downstairs into the bookshop. Muffin was lying on his beanbag, fast asleep, but neither Archibald nor Francine were nowhere to be found.

Did ghosts sleep? I wasn’t really sure. I supposed they probably didn’t have to. But whatever the reason, the two ghosts weren’t here.

I grabbed a book off the shelf – The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie. Eventually my brain was relaxed enough that the book fell onto my chest as I finally managed to get a few hours of sleep.

I dreamt heavily, my dreams influenced by the mystery I’d just read. Travelling to the coast. Cheating on a husband. Murder on a train. As soon as I woke up a few hours later, I sat up with a start. My subconscious had put it all together.

I was pretty sure I knew who the murderer was!

It all made perfect sense.

Isabella had mentioned Brian taking a girlfriend to Mexico. He had come back a couple of weeks ago. Brian had never denied it, but no one else knew about it. How would Isabella know, then? The most likely way she would know was through her job, at Sapphire Digital Solutions, working as an IT person. She was good with computers, she could probably access employee emails. Including Dana Gunter’s.

Dana Gunter, who said she was on a weeklong business trip to Los Angeles, and who came back two weeks ago, as Cat had seen her at the airport.

Dana Gunter, who worked as the social media expert for Sapphire Adventure Tours, so would have had plenty of opportunity to meet Brian Armitage.

Dana, who if she was sleeping with Brian Armitage, would have had plenty of access to his desk and gun. And he would have been more likely to tell her about the gun than most other people.

I didn’t know why she might have killed Brian Armitage, but maybe he had broken up with her. Maybe she simply knew the writing was on the wall. Armitage was obviously a player type. Maybe Dana knew that he was going to dump her, and wanted to get her revenge.

It didn’t matter right now. I knew that I needed to speak to her. Just an innocent conversation; I didn’t want her to know I suspected anything. But if I could figure out why she would have wanted to kill Brian Armitage, I could go to Chase and tell him my suspicions. And I wouldn’t even have to admit to breaking into Alexa Juneau’s office to explain it, either!

Looking at the clock, it was almost ten in the morning. I’d managed to sleep for a few hours. Muffin was still happily snoozing on his beanbag chair. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I rummaged around until I found Dana’s business card and called the number.

“Hello, Sapphire Marketing Solutions,” a friendly voice on the other end greeted me.

“Hi, I’m wondering if I can make an appointment to meet with Dana Gunter as soon as possible,” I replied.

“Of course. Dana is working from home today, but her calendar says she has an opening at ten thirty. Let me take down your details and give you the address.”

When I hung up the phone I had just enough time to go back upstairs and make myself presentable before putting a ‘delayed opening’ sign on the front of the bookstore and heading out.

Nineteen

I was suddenly hit with a wave of apprehension as I stood in front of the Gunther family home. What if I was completely wrong? What if the trips had just been a coincidence? What if I was about to accuse a woman of cheating on her husband who wasn’t doing anything of the sort?

Still, it all made sense. And if I could confirm it, I had a chance of being able to show that Dana Gunther had wanted Brian Armitage killed. As his girlfriend, she would have had easy access, and likely knowledge of the gun in his desk, as well. She could have planned this for months. Maybe she knew Brian was going to break up with her. After all, that seemed to be his M.O. Maybe she wanted to be prepared, to make him pay in case he ever did. Maybe she’d wanted to kill him for that long, and she just hadn’t had the guts to do it. I imagined for most people taking someone’s life would be incredibly difficult. I knew I’d never be able to do it, except maybe in self-defense. Either way, I had to know if my suspicions were true.

Isabella certainly thought so.

I knocked on the door, expecting Dana to answer, but instead it was her husband, Henry. He smiled at me curiously.

“Hi,” I stammered. “Is Dana here? I called her office and they told me she was working from home today. I just wanted to speak to her about a website and some social media stuff for my business.”

“Oh, yeah, of course,” Henry said. “Come on in. Dana has stepped out for a little bit, she had an emergency come up with one of her other clients, but she should be back soon. Can I get you a drink or anything while you wait? Water? Lemonade?”

“A glass of lemonade would be great, thanks,” I replied, shooting Henry a thankful look as I stepped into their home. It was a reasonably sized townhouse, sparsely decorated; it was so clean and tidy it looked like they could take pictures of the interior right now and have them be the perfect photos to put up on a real estate agents’ website.

I wasn’t exactly a slob, but I also didn’t keep my house in pristine condition, either. I was impressed.

Following Henry to the kitchen, I sat down at the dining table he motioned to me as he got me a glass of lemonade.

“So how are you finding things in Sapphire Village?” he asked. “You grew up in… Miami, was it?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “Things here are amazing, thanks. I really love Sapphire Village. I didn’t think I was going to, but I was pleasantly surprised. Everyone is so nice.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Henry smiled. “Plus, I heard you didn’t know you were a witch, that must have been a shock.”

I laughed, remembering that Henry was a wizard himself. “Yeah, that’s certainly been an adventure. I mean, in some ways it’s super cool. Who knew that I could just make things happen just like that? But at the same time, I feel like I’m so far behind everyone else in my magical skills, I almost died trying to ride a broom one day.” I recounted my one and only day of attempting to fly to Henry, and by the time I’d finished, he had tears of laughter in his eyes.

“Oh, man. Yeah, Grandma Cee is an intimidating lady. When I was little we had magic classes, down in Brixton Road. It wasn’t anything official, just our moms all deciding a structured environment to learn magic wouldn’t be a bad thing. Grandma Cee insisted on leading it, but the moms–I’m pretty sure Sage included–decided that Grandma Cee was absolutely not family friendly enough to be in charge of the children’s’ magic lessons. She took it personally, and cursed the mom who took over for the class to gain about a pound a week for the whole school year. Poor Lilianne thought she was just eating too much; I caught her crying one day in the bathroom about it. Then at the end of the year Grandma Cee admitted what she did, and said that any real witch would have noticed they’d been cursed.”

“Wow,” I said, my eyes widening. I knew Grandma Cee was scary, I didn’t realize she’d actually curse people to get revenge for not getting her way.

“And I’m pretty sure that’s not even the worst thing she’s ever done. I’ve heard rumors.”

“Well, I’ll do my best not to get on her bad side,” I said with a smile. “Hey, you were on the train with us that night, weren’t you? When Brian Armitage was killed?” Ok, it wasn’t the smoothest segue way ever, but I figured if Henry was willing to chat with me, maybe he could unknowingly give me the information I needed.

“I was,” Henry said, his face turning grim. “I’m sorry you had to be on it as well.”

“Thanks,” I said. “It was a shock, that was for sure. Did you know Brian Armitage?”

“I did, yeah. He was a long-term local, eventually you’ll get to know everyone who’s lived here their whole lives as well. I mean, I didn’t dislike the guy, but as everyone else around town knows, he wasn’t exactly a good guy.”

“That’s what I’ve gathered from talking to people. I didn’t know him at all. I heard he was quite the philanderer.”

Brian scowled, and I saw his eyes flash with anger for a split second. “That he definitely was. It’s bad character, going around with girls like that.”

“Absolutely, I agree,” I said, nodding vehemently.

“I’ve heard that Brian had a girlfriend, as well,” Henry said.

“Oh yeah? I didn’t know that,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Who was it? There was no one at the funeral who said they were his girlfriend.”

“He was keeping it quiet,” Henry said. “But of course, someone who would go sneaking around into Brian’s affairs would definitely find out about it.”

I suddenly felt that maybe there was a little bit of menace behind Henry’s words.

“Ah, that’s not me though,” I said with what I hoped was an easy laugh.

“No, no, of course not,” Henry said, smiling again. “Although I did hear that you and Cat were spotted near where Brian’s accountant was broken into.”

“Jeez,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “Felicia or whatever her name is saw us walking to Cat’s cupcake shop early in the morning because that’s when bakeries have to start work, and then because we happened to walk past where the break-in happened, she jumped to conclusions and figured we did it.”

Despite my easy tone, I was definitely starting to feel uneasy. Suddenly, everything clicked. Dana was having an affair with Brian, but she wasn’t the one who killed him. Her husband had.

It all made sense. Henry Gunter was a painter, and Brian Armitage had had the inside of his house painted a few months ago, right around when the gun went missing. He must have found out that his wife was having an affair, and rather than confront her about it, he waited for the right moment and killed her boyfriend.

And now I was alone, in his house, and no one else had any idea that he was the one who had done it. I had to get out of here; I had to tell Chief Griffin. Or Cat. Or literally anyone else.

“Well, thanks for the chat,” I said, standing up. “I really do need to get going though, I can always catch up with Dana about the website another time.”

Henry stood up suddenly with me. “You know, don’t you?” he asked, his tone had turned menacing.

“Know what?” I asked, trying to look innocent?

“Yes, I can see that you’re lying. Just like I knew Dana was lying when she told me she was working late. Just like I knew she was lying about business meetings with clients that ran long.”

Uh oh. This was definitely what I had hoped wouldn’t happen.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Dana’s out with a client, you told me that.” I figured if I played dumb enough, maybe he’d let me go.

“Not that!” Henry exclaimed, slamming a fist on the table and making me jump. “You’ve figured out that I’m the one who killed Brian. You and your meddling. That’s why you really came here, isn’t it?”

“Fine, you’re right,” I said. After all, what was the point in denying it? Henry was obviously certain I’d figured it out, and it seemed to make him angrier the more I denied it. Plus, this way, at least I’d get confirmation of my suspicions. “I’ve been looking into the murders because I don’t want people to associate me with the murders, and I figured out you did it.”

Henry’s mouth curved into an exceptionally creepy smile.

“Well, you are right. The bastard dared to sleep with my wife? I made him pay for it. And I’ll make her pay, too, although I’m waiting for enough time to pass that no one links the two of them together. No one knew she was cheating on me. No one knew he was dating anyone.”

“Wrong,” I replied. “I know. And I overheard Isabella talking to Brian just before he was killed. She knew as well.”

“That meddling idiot,” Henry snarled. “Well, I’ll take care of her too sometime. But first, you.”

My heart froze as I realized that for the second time in two weeks, someone was going to try to kill me. The difference was, this time I didn’t have the advantage of magic; Henry Gunter was a wizard as well.

Gunter raised his finger toward me, and I let out a yelp, diving to the side and behind the dining table, which exploded, sending shards of wood into a million pieces all around the room. A piece of wood the size of a pencil lodged itself into my shoulder, making it bleed. I normally would have called it a small piece of wood, but it’s amazing how size perception can change when something is fully lodged inside your body.

I let out a cry of pain as I looked down and saw a small trail of blood oozing from me. More worrying, however, was the sharp pain coursing through my body. If I didn’t have full use of my body, I was never going to make it through this.

But what could I do? Henry was an established wizard. Then, it came to me: fight fire with fire. I didn’t have to win. I just had to be able to defend myself well enough to get out of here.

I imagined the wound disappearing and the pain going along with it. I let the energy burst forth from me, and looking down I noticed my wound had healed. I grinned and looked up at Henry, my confidence building.

“Congratulations,” he said, rolling his eyes. “You managed to do the magical equivalent of putting on a band-aid.” He pointed at me again, but this time, I was ready. I imagined myself being invincible, although this time I did it a lot faster and with a lot more urgency than in the backyard with Grandma Cee. I didn’t have the luxury of time here.

An arrow shot from his finger and was headed straight at me. I opened my eyes just as, once again, I felt the energy bursting forth from me, and the arrow hit the invisible barrier protecting me, falling harmlessly to the ground.

This time I spotted a little bit of worry behind Henry’s eyes. It seemed I was a lot better at magic than he had expected me to be. I silently thanked Grandma Cee for making me go through all my lessons so quickly.

I lunged for the hallway leading toward the front door; if I could make it out into the street I knew I could call for help, plus Henry wouldn’t be able to use magic anymore; the risk of someone seeing was too high.

Unfortunately, Henry pointed to the doorway and it was immediately filled in with bricks. I managed to stop myself before barreling through the bricks, and turned. It was obvious that I wasn’t going to be able to run away, not when Henry could use magic. I was going to have to go on the offensive if I wanted to make it out of here.

Unfortunately for me, it was all too obvious to me that I was still very much a newbie at the whole ‘being a witch’ thing, because I couldn’t think of anything to do. I focused on Henry simply being incapacitated, and pointed at him. Colored sparks shot out toward him from my fingers, but by using a simple shield spell the same way I had, Henry easily avoided them.

“Seriously? You’re going to try and attack me? You’ve been doing magic for three weeks, you’re way out of your league,” Henry jeered. I ignored his comments and focused on what Grandma Cee said: I was a gifted witch. Besides, I was absolutely desperate.

I decided to focus my energies. I imagined ropes coming up from underneath the floorboards and grabbing Henry. Again, I felt the energy burst from me, but nothing happened. The shield must have worked in every direction; I’d hoped that by attacking from below I could avoid it. Apparently not.

Henry stepped toward me. “It’s time to finish this,” he said. He pointed another finger at me, and this time I knew I didn’t have time to get my magical shield up. I jumped to the side and imagined myself re-appearing on the other side of the room. In an instant my perspective of everything changed as I’d moved ten feet and turned a hundred and eighty degrees from where I’d been standing a minute earlier.

“Oh, so you know teleportation, too,” he sneered. I hadn’t realized that was a special thing; I’d just done it the same way I did anything else. Still, I didn’t have time to focus on how cool the stuff I was doing was; I had to get away from Henry.

Suddenly, the fact that I had teleported gave me an idea. I focused on the kitchen cabinets about two feet behind where Henry was standing. Unleashing my magical energy, they suddenly caught on fire, flames engulfing the wood immediately. Surprised, Henry turned to see what the commotion behind him was, and I took the split second he was occupied to strike.

Focusing as hard as I could on Henry being completely paralyzed, I pointed at him and the energy that flowed out of me was so powerful it felt like it was going to knock me backwards.

An instant later, every muscle in Henry’s body went visibly rigid. He stood still for a second before suddenly falling to the floor, landing with a thud, his motionless eyes staring at the ceiling. There was absolutely no way he could cast a spell anymore.

Twenty

The only thing I wanted to do was to break down and cry, but I knew that wasn’t an option. At least, not yet. I used my magic to extinguish the fire on the cabinets, then grabbed my phone from my pocket and called Cat.

“Hey, what’s up?” she answered after two rings.

“Henry Gunter killed Brian Armitage and just tried to kill me.”

“WHAT?”

“I’m at his house, I managed to paralyze him, but I don’t know what to do. I can’t call Chief Griffin yet since I can’t explain why he’s paralyzed without telling him about the magic.”

“I’m on my way. Stay there. I’ll be there in five.”

I did my best to keep it together for the three minutes I had to wait before I heard Cat’s car screeching toward the house. She double parked in the driveway and ran in, immediately taking me into her arms.

“Are you ok?” she asked, as I practically collapsed onto her.

“I’m good,” I answered weakly. “I’m not dead, which is an improvement on where I thought I’d be a few minutes ago.”

“Show me where he is,” Cat said, and I took her to the kitchen and dining room where Henry was still lying, paralyzed.

“I don’t think he’s dead,” I whispered, and Cat went over to feel for a pulse.

“No, he’s alive. Just paralyzed. She closed her eyes for a minute, then pointed at Henry. I didn’t notice anything happen, and a minute later she did it again. Ropes appeared out of thin air and wrapped themselves around his wrists; and a moment later he began to struggle.

“I cursed him so he can’t use his magic,” Cat explained. “The ropes are tied with an unbreakable knot. Come on, let’s go call the police and tell Andi to send Chief Griffin over here.”

Chase showed up five minutes after Cat made the phone call. I explained to him that I came here to talk to Dana about a website for the business–I definitely didn’t want to admit that I’d actually come to see if I could get information about the murder from Dana–and explained that Henry had attacked me.

After Chase sent one of the officers he brought with him in to arrest Henry, he entered the house himself and I followed.

Thankfully, unlike me Cat had realized that the house was definitely in a state that would have been difficult to explain without including magic. She had magically rebuilt the table – although the left it on its side, like Henry had flipped it over in an attempt to get to me, and all the signs of fire in the kitchen cabinets had disappeared as well.

Henry was sitting upright, a scowl on his face, the ropes gone but his hands cuffed behind him.

“Bitch,” he snarled at me as one of the police officers hoisted him up to his feet and led him out of the room.

“How did you overpower him?” Chase asked.

“I got lucky,” replied. “There was a weird sound behind him at one point, it distracted him and he turned around, and I managed to hit him over the head with a large bowl that had been sitting on the counter,” I said, motioning to the broken shards of glass on the floor. Cat really did think of everything.

“You are extremely lucky,” Chase replied. “Although I’m still shocked that he attacked you just for making casual conversation about Brian.”

I nodded mutely. I was all too aware of what feeling like my death was imminent felt like lately.

“I’m going to have to stay here for a while. Can Cat take you home?”

“Of course,” Cat replied. “Please come by anytime to talk to Alice. She’ll be at the apartment.”

If I wasn’t mistaken I saw the flicker of a smile on Chase’s lips as I rolled my eyes. “Cat, do you really think this is the time and place to be trying to set me up with Chase?” I asked her as she led me out of the house.

“Is there ever a bad time to try and set you up with Chase?” she replied, and I rolled my eyes.

“I’ve already told you, I am not interested in dating him,” I said firmly. I had sworn off men after my last relationship. I was all the companionship I needed.

“Please,” Cat replied. “The man looks like Chris Pratt. Of course you want to date him, you just haven’t realized it just yet.”

I sighed as I jumped into the passenger side seat of Cat’s car. I really didn’t want to talk about my relationship history. Just as we were about to pull out, I saw Dana pulling up to the house in her own car, looking confused. I did not envy her for what she was about to find out about her husband.

I had thought she was a murderer, instead she was just an adulterer. She was about to get the shock of her life.

Cat took me home, where we found Peaches happily helping a customer in the bookshop in my absence; it seemed that so long as she wasn’t setting customers on fire, she was actually a pretty good saleslady and seemed to enjoy the work. Plus, being an artist came with devouring all kinds of art as a child, including books, and it was obvious that Peaches had incredibly intimate knowledge of a lot of the works I sold.

She gave us a questioning look when we walked in, and Cat motioned to her to meet us upstairs as she led me past Peaches and up into the apartment, setting me down on the couch.

“You have to tell me everything,” she ordered, and I did. I didn’t leave anything out, and by the time I’d finished retelling the whole story, I barely even realized that tears were running down my cheeks.

“Holy poop,” Cat said, shaking her head. “You’re just having the week from hell, aren’t you?”

I laughed through my tears then, snorting with laughter, which only made me laugh more as Cat took me into a big hug. Peaches came up just then, and Cat gave her a Cliff Notes version of what had happened.

“Oh my God!” Peaches exclaimed. “I can’t believe you just went through that!”

“I think a cupcake would make me feel better,” I said, batting my eyelids at Cat, who laughed and said she had to go back to her shop anyway for a few minutes, but that she promised to return with cupcakes.

“At least we know now who killed Brian Armitage,” Peaches said. “Thanks to you.”

I shrugged. “It was more of an accident than anything. I actually went to their house thinking Dana had done it. I didn’t suspect Henry at all. Not until we started talking. Then I figured it out, and it was too late. I tried to get out of there without making him suspicious, but it seems I have the worst poker face ever.”

Peaches gave me a small smile. “Well, I’m glad you’re safe.”

I leaned back against the couch and sighed. “I’m safe for now. But the Others have already come after me. I’m a lot more scared of them than I am of Henry Gunter.”

“Well,” Peaches told me as Cat returned, a triple chocolate fudge cupcake in one hand and a grin on her face, “you have your family now. We’re going to stick together, and when we do that, there’s no way the Others will win.”

I smiled at Peaches. “You’re right. You’re all amazing. I love being here, and I love you guys.”

My heart swelled with pleasure as I looked at my cousins. I didn’t know what the future held. I was just getting used to being around magic, and now I was finding out that a group of bad magical people were coming to try and take my soul. That was a lot to take in over such a short period of time. But, I felt like I could handle it. With Peaches, and Cat, and Sage and Grandma Cee on my side, I knew I could handle anything.

Over the next few days, everything began to settle down as events began to unravel and the rumour mill in Sapphire Village worked overtime. I figured everyone was trying to gossip extra to catch up on the fact that no one had realized Dana Gunter had been having an affair with Brian Armitage.

The embezzling of his business by Brian Armitage was revealed; Carl Green had no idea it had been going on. Alexa Juneau didn’t, either, until she looked through the files more closely after Brian’s death at Chase’s request. She only picked up on the anomaly when looking at all of the files at once; when the invoices were drip-fed to her by Brian she had never made the connection.

It turned out Brian and Dana had been seeing each other for six months. Henry found out about it by following his wife after he grew suspicious of the long hours she worked, and saw her go to Brian’s home, through the rear entrance. Neither Brian nor Dana had any idea that Henry knew about the affair.

When Henry had been hired to paint Brian’s house, he found the gun, in the unlocked drawer where Brian kept it. He stole the gun and apparently carried it with him everywhere, waiting for the perfect opportunity to kill Brian. When he found Brian alone in the train compartment he settled on then.

Isabella, it turned out, had found out about the affair when doing some routine IT work. Brian and Dana had been using their work emails to keep the affair secret. Isabella, being the woman she was, kept the information to herself, even though spreading it would have made her the star of the Sapphire Village rumour mill for a while, not to mention it would have tarnished Brian Armitage’s reputation even further.

I had to admit, I felt a little bit like an idiot for not thinking of Dana’s husband as being the murderer. But as Cat pointed out, the fact that I’d figured out the affair where no one else had was some pretty good detective work, not to mention the embezzling.

About a week after Henry was arrested Chase came by the shop one morning.

“Don’t tell me I have another customer complaint,” I joked when he entered, and Chase grinned. He was wearing slacks and a nice polo shirt which casually showed off his muscular body. Nope, I was so not going to think about that.

“No, don’t worry. I just came in to see how you were doing the last few days. After all, you’ve had a pretty, uh, interesting reception in Sapphire Village.”

“Thanks,” I replied with a smile. “I’m doing well. I’ve been trying not to think about how close I’ve come to death. After all, the way I see it, I’m just as close every time I go to cross the street.”

“That’s a good way to think of it,” Chase said, nodding. “And the bookshop’s going well?”

“It is, I haven’t even set any customers on fire in weeks,” I joked.

“My mom’s birthday is coming up,” he said, moving towards the shelves. “Anything you’d recommend? She’s a big fan of mysteries.”

“Yeah, in fact, I just recently read this really good one,” I said, moving towards the copy of The Mystery on the Blue Train that had helped me solve the crime.

“Sold,” Chase grinned. “My mom loves Agatha Christie, and this one looks really classy. She’ll love it.”

“I’m glad,” I said, taking the book to the counter to ring him up. “Is your mom local as well?”

Chase nodded. “Yeah. She’s retired now, but she worked as a ski instructor on the mountain for years and years. She and my dad met when they were both working here as ski bums in their early twenties, and they never moved. I grew up here.”

“I guess you’re pretty good at skiing then,” I said as I wrapped the book up and put it in a bag for Chase.

“I’m pretty decent,” Chase said. “How about you? Growing up in Miami I guess you’ve never done it?”

I shook my head. “No, never been on a pair of skis.”

“Well, how about I take you up one day and give you a lesson?” Chase asked, and I felt my face redden. I dropped my eyes to the floor.

“Are you asking me out on a date?” I asked in an almost whisper.

“I’d like for it to be a date,” he said.

“I’m just not ready, I mean, I just don’t really want to get involved with anyone right now,” I said. “I just moved here, I’m just getting used to things.”

“Of course. No problem,” Chase said. “How about as friends then? No romantic overtones. Just one friend teaching another how to ski.”

Friends. I wasn’t sure. On one hand, I was still naturally pretty suspicious. What if he said he just wanted to do it as friends, but then tried to manipulate me into making it more than that? On the other hand, he had also completely accepted my reaction, and didn’t try to change my mind. Besides, Chase didn’t seem to be that kind of guy.

On the other hand, neither had Mike, at first.

Eventually, my brain made the call.

“Yeah, ok. As friends,” I said, managing to meet his eyes and give him a smile.

“Cool,” he replied. “There’s enough snowpack that the mountain will still be open for a month. I have next Monday off, and the sign at the front says you’re closed Mondays. How about then?”

“Sure,” I replied.

“I’ll see you then. It’ll be fun, I promise!”

Chase left the store, but no matter what I couldn’t make the red tint leave my face. Chase was going to teach me how to ski! As friends, of course. But still. I had to admit, I was excited. I just didn’t know if it was because of the skiing, or because of the instructor.

Yup, things in Sapphire Village were definitely getting more complicated. The Others, Aunt Francine being a ghost, and now this. What on earth was I getting myself into?

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 Murder on the Oregon Express 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 third Magical Bookshop mystery, The Very Killer Caterpillar, is now available for preorder on Amazon by clicking here.

Other Magical Bookshop Mysteries

Alice in Murderland (Magical Bookshop Mystery #1)

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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