A Charming Secret (Magical Cures Mystery Series Book 6) (16 page)

“How could you say that?” I asked. “I have all the evidence pointing to Amethyst. We just have to catch her.”

“Have you really let your intuition guide you? Madame Torres and Mr. Prince Charming can only take you so far.” She warned, “I feel it’s only a matter of time before they find you. They are busy now sorting through Wicked Good, asking Raven many questions of why you were there. I believe she’s covering for you. But I’m going to walk the streets. You,” she pointed at me, “need to get in touch with your spiritual side and let it guide you. Not your head. Not your heart. Not physical evidence.”

I gulped. She was right. I was letting my emotions get in the way of my duties.

“You need to stay put.” She wasn’t letting Oscar off the hook. “Colton will have you locked up in no time for helping her.”

“Understood.” Oscar took me by the hand and we followed Eloise to the front door. We watched her dart into the night.

“I’m going to lay down for a minute,” I said to Oscar.

My leg felt better, but it still ached a little. We walked over to the couch in front of Eloise’s fireplace. With a flick of his wand, Oscar lit the logs inside and sat down on the couch, pulling me to him.

“Think back to Adeline and her visits here.” Oscar pulled me closer, I laid my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. “I’m not so sure she isn’t the killer. After all, you did put her boyfriend behind bars.”

I gulped. It wasn’t too long ago, her boyfriend had been convicted, thanks to me. But she was past that. We were past that. Weren’t we?

All of Adeline’s visit came back to me. There wasn’t anything signaling me to her knowing how everything around Whispering Falls worked. She was always a good friend. Never asking questions. Accepting me for who I was.

“No, no,” I begged. My weak hands batted at the flames surrounding me. The yellow snake curled his body around my legs. Tighter and tighter. I fought. The grip the snake had on me cut off the circulation to my legs. The red weapon was above me, trying to come down on me like a hammer shattering the tile beneath me. I crawled back on my hands, scooting on my butt, with my back against The Gathering Rock. The snake pulled. The red weapon missed. The yellow serpent pulled again, this time longer, harder. I gasped. I wanted to protest, but my lungs were filled. I could feel my time was coming to an end. The evil one had won. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the killer’s feet stood at my head. Red strappy heels.

“No!” I flung my hands in the air. Oscar grabbed them and held me tight. I fought him. He held tighter.

“June, shhh,” he whispered into my hair. “You were having a nightmare.”

I stopped failing. My chest heaved up and down. Every inch of my skin crawled with fear, anger, and desperation.

“Oscar!” I broke out of his grip. “The snake. The snake was trying to save me. Amethyst. She wears red heels. The weapon is the heel of her shoe.”

“Slow down. What snake?” he asked. “Shoes?”

“The snake that was here last night while we were on the gazebo. The yellow snake.” I shook my head.

“There was no yellow snake.”

“There had to be. The snake saved Madame Torres tonight. The snake is trying to save me. But from whom?” I tried to go back into my memory. “Mystic Lights!” I jumped up. “We have to go to Mystic Lights.”

“We aren’t going anywhere.” He pulled me back down.

“We have to.” I broke from him again. “My nightmare,” I recalled the red weapon shattering the tile floor. “The next fire is going to happen at Mystic Lights. If I go, you can be in the background and see it’s Amethyst for yourself.”

“I don’t know, June.” Oscar shook his head and wrung his hands in front of him. “Aunt Eloise told us to stay put. And if it doesn’t work, you and I will both be going to jail for a very long time.”

“She also said to follow my intuition. And it’s telling me to go to Mystic Lights.” I looked around, not knowing which way to head back to town. “And what do we have to lose? We can’t hide out the rest of our lives. You and I both know the spiritual world is too powerful not to find us.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Oscar didn’t question me when I told him I had to go to A Charming Cure before we went to Mystic Lights. My gut told me Amethyst was written all over it. She was the one who wore red shoes and there was no denying my nightmares showed vividly her red heels.

“Did you get a chance to see the autopsy report?” I asked Oscar.

“Colton did tell me about it.” Oscar went ahead of me in the tunnel between Eloise’s tree house and my shop. He waved his hands in the dark, clearing the cobwebs. He didn’t have the touch like Eloise to light our way, so we went blindly. “Why?”

“Do you think the hole was as big as the bottom of the heel of a woman’s high-heeled shoe?” I asked.

“He said it was the size of a bullet. But there was no bullet in her head when they did the autopsy.” Oscar took the steps leading up to the shop one by one, making sure I was okay behind him. “I guess a shoe could do it, but the killer would have to be pretty strong.”

So maybe my shoe theory could be way off, but it was better than thinking she was poisoned by my IBS cure or a June’s Gem.

“But if she was poisoned by a June’s Gem, then maybe. . .” I shudder to think about the truth of what I was about to say. “Someone left me a box of June’s Gems at the steps of the cellar. Raven said it wasn’t her. She was also at the other end of Gwenie’s distaste. Raven is a Dark-Sider and she doesn’t take criticism too well.” I gulped and took Oscar’s hand as he helped me out of the underground path and into the storage room of A Charming Cure. “Do you think Raven’s Dark-Sider ways have come back?” I asked, remembering how bitter and angry Raven was when I met her when I attended Hidden Halls, A Spiritualist University.

“I don’t know.” Oscar shut the trap door and moved the rug back over top it. “You and I both know that anything is possible around here.”

There was no time to spare.

“Can you go to the window and make sure the moon is still full?” I asked Oscar.

He didn’t hesitate. He rushed to the window and pulled back the curtain. I went to my shelf of ingredients.

“The lights of Glorybee are on,” Oscar said. “It looks like Amethyst and Petunia are in there.”

“Good. I need her to see us when we walk over to Mystic Lights.” I couldn’t have planned it any better.

“Just like that. We are going to walk across the street?”

“Yes.” I sucked in a deep breath and continued touching the bottles one by one. “Slippery elm, adder’s tongue, cloves, drawing powder and,” my finger glided across the bottles as I plucked what I needed, “agate stone.”

I set the bottles down next to the cauldron and flipped it on.

“Is it full?” I asked uncorking all the ingredients. In order to get my potion of truth serum to work, a full moon was best. Not that I didn’t believe in my spells, but having a little extra oomph wasn’t going to hurt.

“Yes.” Oscar’s voice escalated. “Yes. It’s a full moon.”

“Great.” I grabbed the agate rock and placed it in the bottom of the cauldron. “Can you come over here and help me?”

He rushed over. “What can I do?”

“You pick up both of those bottles,” I instructed him and I had the other two in my hands. “On the count of three, dump them in at the same time.”

“Okay.” He was focused on the cauldron. The agate stone was already smoking, waiting for the ingredients to do their thing.

“One, two,” I said as Oscar squeezed his eyes shut, “three.”

Together, we poured in the entire contents of all four bottles on top of the stone. The ingredients swirled and twirled. Oscar barely opened his eyes, just enough to see what was going on.

“Shoo.” His eyes opened wide. “I thought it might be another blast.”

“No.” I pointed to the ladle. He handed it to me. “This is a truth serum. I’m going to stick it into a June’s Gem and when we go to Mystic Lights, I’m giving it to Amethyst. I know she is going to be there. I can feel it.”

“I sure hope you are right because if you aren’t. . .”

I put my finger up to Oscar’s mouth.

“I am.” There was confidence in my words. She had to be there. I was counting on it.

Slowly I stirred the mixture. The bubbling, glowing, viscous mixture was black, but glowed crimson. I continued to picture Amethyst in my mind. Basil scent curled into the steam, knotting my stomach. Basil was the sure sign evil was lurking.

The cauldron shut off, letting me know it was ready. I reached on the counter for the box of June’s Gems that were left at the cellar steps. They had to be from Amethyst. Was it her calling card? I wondered.

Using the end of the ladle, I made a small hole in the bottom of each June’s Gem. I inserted just enough of the truth serum to get a confession. I replaced the hole with the icing, using my finger to smooth it back over.

“How do you know to do all of this?” Oscar leaned on the counter. Amazement in his eyes.

“I have no idea,” I said, which wasn’t a lie. “I’m doing what Eloise said. Rely on your gift. My intuition.”

“I hope it works.” He shook his head.

“Stop saying that.” I replaced the June’s Gems in the box and shut the lid. “Are you ready?”

“As I will ever be.” Oscar put his hand out for me to take. I did. He squeezed it. Our eyes met. It was time. We were going to do this together and it felt right.

Before we left, I grabbed my phone and texted Peony.

It looks like Amethyst is at Glorybee. Can you meet me at The Gathering Rock in about twenty minutes with the bottle? I’m going to draw her there and expose her!

Peony quickly sent back:
I will be there. Twenty minutes!

Yes.
I texted her back.
I’m heading over to Mystic Lights and will lure her to the rock.

I put my phone back in my bag and stood at the door.

“Are you ready?” I asked Oscar.

He responded with a big kiss.

The old air swooped in around us when we opened the door. My adrenaline was pumping and not even the cold air was going to stop me.

My cloak edges dragged the pavement. The wind howled through the empty tree branches. Oscar’s footsteps echoed down Main Street.

“June!” Petunia called out under the full moon. “June!”

Oscar’s hand squeezed mine. We kept our eyes forward and headed up the steps of Mystic Lights. The door was slightly ajar. We paused, looking at each other.

“It’s a sign.” I gulped. “She’s in there.”

In the blink of an eye, the explosion happened before we could step inside. Through the smoke, the red heel of a woman’s shoe came hammering down between us. I knew it had hit Oscar when his hand went limp in mine.

I ran to the back of the shop where Izzy’s office was, cradling the box of June’s Gems. I looked back. The killer must have held a potion for the explosion and threw it at us because the shop was not on fire.

“June! Come out!” I heard Petunia call into the shop.

One of Izzy’s crystal balls lit up. Colton was out front helping Oscar to his feet. Oscar was rubbing his head. He was okay, but I was in here. Another crystal ball showed Raven in her shop looking over the damage of the fire. While another one showed Amethyst back at her Treesort putting out more June’s Gems.

Anger boiled in me. If my plan for her to come to me was not going to work, I was going to her.

Before I knew it, I ran down the basement steps and through the cellar door in order to escape from anyone seeing me. I ran around the backs of the shops and when the shadow of the clouds slid over the moonlight, I crossed the street.

I took a quick glance down Main Street and focused on the front steps of Mystic Lights. Oscar was sitting up and talking to Colton. If he was okay, I could continue on with the plan. Petunia was also standing near them.

I scurried up the hill, stopping at The Gathering Rock to catch my breath.

“June? Is that you?” Peony walked out of the woods. “Oh my God.” She hurried over. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I assured her. “Did you bring the potion?”

“Yes. And I think you are right about Amethyst.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I just saw her run to Treesort after something exploded. She must be running away so no one saw her.”

The smell of basil filled the midnight air. I slid down The Gathering Rock. I put my hand on the ground. My mind went dizzy and the air thinned. Out of the corner of my eye, the yellow snake slithered down the hill toward Whispering Falls.

My eyes slid toward Peony. I couldn’t focus as she rambled on and on about why she thought Amethyst was the killer.

“Are you okay?” She sat down next to me. Her long dress swooshed around her. In a quick second, I could see the red shoes she was wearing. “You don’t look so good.”

“Can you hand me the box?” I asked reaching for the box from Wicked Good. “I’m diabetic and I need a small pinch.” I lied.

Peony didn’t waste a second. She opened the box.

“You can have one too,” I sounded like I was exhausted. “I have to have my strength in order to confront Amethyst.”

Peony picked up a June’s Gem. She held it toward me. Then stopped. She took a big bite. I closed my eyes when my breath was suddenly taken out of my lungs. My eyes opened, focusing on Peony’s shoes.

She followed my eyes and looked down. The tips of her shoes were sticking out from underneath her long dress.

“So,” she adjusted her dress to cover up the shoes. “You are diabetic?”

“Yes. I need just a pinch.” I lied. She knew I saw her shoes. My gut told me. “If you don’t give me a bite, I can die.” I reached toward her and she shifted backward.

“You know and I know I can’t give you a bite.” She lifted the chocolaty cake back to her lips and sunk her teeth deep into it, taking in the truth serum. “I would have if you hadn’t seen my shoes, but I just can’t take the risk now.”

“Why? Why did you do it?” I asked, acting as though I were about to pass out.

“It doesn’t matter. My lips are sealed.” She grinned. “Help! June is going to kill me! Help!” She screamed over her shoulder. Her shrill voice echoed down the hill. “I’ve got her up here!”