A Charming Secret (Magical Cures Mystery Series Book 6) (17 page)

She slipped off her shoes.

“What are you doing?” I was trying to buy time. I didn’t know how long it took for the potion to kick in. But the moon was full and the fireflies were going nuts, surely to goodness it had to take effect soon.

She lifted her hand in the air, just like I had seen in my nightmare. I covered my head. She was going to kill me like she did Gwenie.

“What?” She laughed. “You think I’m going to whack you in the head like I did Gwenie?” Her laughter echoed. “I’m going to give you my shoes and I’m going to take yours. Gwenie was supposed to burn up after I whacked her in the head.” She cackled putting her hand over her mouth. “Oops. I let that one slip.”

“So you did kill her?” My eyes lowered. The cast of a shadow was walking up the hill.

“Shhh.” She put her finger up to her lips. “Do you hear that? Someone is coming.” She took the bottom of her shoe and whacked herself in the head. Blood trickled down her temples. She grinned. She let out a blood-curdling scream, “Hurry! She just hit me!”

The shadow stopped and stepped into the light. Petunia had Madame Torres in the palm of her hand and the yellow snake was coiled around her body. Once we made eye contact, she slipped back into the shadow.

“Why? Why would you kill Gwendolyn?” I asked.

“Are you kidding me?” Her words were sharp, angry. “I could never be the sister Petunia wanted me to be. You should know how that is, being the outsider. All this magical gift crap. Well guess what?” The truth potion kicked in. “I’m not a spiritualist. My family was a lot like yours. My mom was like sweet animal whisperer Petunia. And my father was a non-spiritualist. Lucky me. I got the crappy genes.”

I groaned, for good measure, and lifted myself straighter up against the rock.

“It was perfect. Our precious little Gwenie made sure to let me know I was not one of them. Oh I tried being a good sister when Petunia would complain about you. Your slipping in here becoming Village President, ruining her engagement, being so beautiful. And I used it to my advantage. You were the perfect target for me to feed crap to Gwenie. She would protect Petunia at all costs.” She rubbed the blood from the corner of her lips. “What is taking these idiots so long to get up here?”

“How did you do it?” I asked biding time, wondering why Petunia wasn’t stepping in to help me.

“I had to make myself blend in. Gwenie and Petunia know I’m not a spiritualist. Amethyst doesn’t. But my family knew, which made them want to include me in on everything.” She looked back down the hill and turned back to me.

Everything was making sense. All the times I had to correct her for speaking about the magical happenings around Adeline and when she was at the shop and how she used a watchful eye while I was making the potions when the shop was closed.

“I still don’t understand why you did it. Why did you kill her? Why did you want to create havoc?” I asked.

“June, you aren’t very smart.” Peony’s cheeks balled with an evil grin. “I was so sick of playing the outcast of the family. Petunia needed to lean on me. Not a cousin. When I found out she was going to become the Village President, I wanted to be the one to help her. I wanted to give her a makeover, move here and be of some assistance.” Her smile faded from her face. She curled her nose, and squinted her eyes. The blood continued to trickle down her temple. “Gwenie told me I was delusional.  She said my sister would never pick me because I’m not a spiritualist. I was a nobody. A loser.” She threw her head back and laughed. “Look who the loser is now. Her and you. You were the perfect person to frame. Petunia had many reasons to hate you. Since she and Gwenie were so close and Gwenie made my job easy by putting you down, it was hands down a no brainer.”

She had a satisfied look on her face.

“You won’t get away with this.” I glared at her.

She looked back. The sound of footsteps were climbing the hill.

“Hurry! She’s going to kill me like she did Gwenie!” Peony couldn’t keep a straight face as she screamed toward the hill.

The yellow snake slithered around The Gathering Rock and curled around her feet, sending her to the ground.

“What in the hell?” Peony fought against the snake as the snake contorted itself like a coil all the way up and around Peony, stopping as their eyes came face to face. Peony stared. Fear darted out of her eyes.

“We’ve heard enough.” Petunia slipped out of the forest. Madame Torres appeared inside her ball. Her flaming red hair and lips lit up like the fires Peony had started.

“Get this thing off me, sister.” Peony spit.

“That is our dear sweet cousin Gwendolyn. When the autopsy report came back that something blunt, like your shoe, killed her, she couldn’t be cremated right away.” Petunia jutted her hand toward me and helped me up. “A little known spiritualist secret,” Petunia bent down, nose to nose with her sister. “People can come back as animals.” She threw her head back and cackled into the night sky. “I’m an animal whisperer, so of course Gwenie here,” she stroked the yellow snake, “came to visit me, letting me in on the dirty little secret of how jealous you are of me and the spiritual world.”

“Dear sister, it was her.” Peony scowled. “June Heal hates you! She took your presidency away from you! She got engaged on your wedding day taking the spotlight off of you!”

“Enough!” Petunia screamed.

Colton and Oscar raced up the hill.

“Arrest her!” Petunia pointed toward her sister. “For the death of Gwendolyn Shrubwood and arson.”

“Sister! How could you?” Peony fought against Gwenie as she slithered off of her and Colton grabbed her wrists. “I did this for the love of the family.”

“You never loved our family,” Petunia spit.

Gwenie slid her way around the rock and next to me. She curled into a neat pyramid, coming face to face with me. If she weren’t a snake, I’d swear she smiled at me. I patted her on the head.

“Are you okay?” Oscar hurried over to me and took me in his arms. “I was so scared when you went rushing into Mystic Lights.”

“Did she ruin the shop?” I couldn’t bare another store in Whispering Falls going up in flames.

“She’s a rookie.” Colton said, tightening the cuffs on Peony’s wrists. She shrugged her shoulder forward, trying to tug away. “She made some little homemade Molotov cocktail that only exploded in front of her after she threw it creating smoke around her as if she were a spiritualist.”

“I did it for the good of my family.” Peony twisted left and right before Colton put a tighter grip on her.

Raven ran up the hill. “It’s her!” She pointed to Peony. She had a lump of dough in her hands. “Oh.” Relief settled on her face. “You have her.” She held the dough up. By the light of the moon, there was a red heel in the dough. “She wanted everyone to think it was June. On her way to Gwendolyn’s cremation, she stopped in and got a box of Gems saying Petunia wanted them for the midnight ceremony. I didn’t think twice about it until June thanked me for the box she found on the steps of Mystic Light’s cellar.”

“It was perfect to get June to Wicked Good and fight with you so I could set your shop on fire and making it look like she did it.” Peony sang like a bird. The truth serum had completely kicked in.

“Aren’t you so forth-coming.” Colton dragged her down the hill.

“The truth serum?” Oscar grinned. His beautiful teeth gleamed in the moonlight.

“Yes. I thought it was going to be for Amethyst. I had no idea it was Peony until I saw her shoes. Over and over in my nightmare I saw something red come down as the weapon.” I pointed to the shoes lying by the rock. “She was going to stick them on my feet to try to frame me one last time.”

“I’m so sorry, June.” Petunia walked over, the fireflies darted in and out of her hair. “I really didn’t know what to think until Gwenie came to me.” She put her arms out and let Gwenie coil around them, resting her head on Petunia’s shoulder. “She told me everything. I had to wait until I became Village President to stop her. Gwenie told me your plans of coming to Mystic Lights. At midnight last night, I knew I was the president and told Amethyst everything. We pulled Constance Karima aside and explained to her how Gwenie couldn’t be cremated because she had come back as the snake. I couldn’t let my sister get away with it.”

“Please don’t apologize.” I put my arms around her and they hugged me back. “You have to know I would never have hurt you.”

She waved me off.

“There is no need to apologize.” She ran her hand down my arm. “You have made Whispering Falls a thriving community. You add to the village.”

Oscar walked over and put his arms around me. Silently we watched Colton take Peony down the hill, across the street and into the station where she would be held until the Order of Elders came for her, taking her wherever they took the criminals.

Since Peony was not a spiritualist, I wasn’t sure where she would go and I didn’t care. As long as she was far away from me and my family.

“Are you okay?” Oscar asked.

“I’m fine,” I assured him.

I walked over and picked up Madame Torres where Petunia had left her.

I rubbed her ball and held her close to me. Mr. Prince Charming darted out from the woods and did figure eights around my ankles.

“I’m great. Perfect.” A wave of satisfaction swept over me.

I might not have a biological family and it was okay. The family I had was right here in Whispering Falls. My community had become my family.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Ding, ding.
The bell over the door of A Charming Cure jiggled back and forth letting me know someone was here.

“I’ll be right with you,” I called out from behind the partition. I had spent all night at the cauldron trying to play catch up from the last week.

After the whole thing with Peony, Amethyst hosted a congratulations party for Petunia and it was a big blow out. She had food from The Gathering Grove along with desserts from Wicked Good. There was even a band she had come up from her old village in Florida. They played all night and it was the first time Oscar and I had danced, and we did all night long.

The days after the party, Petunia took her rightful spot as the Village President, holding an emergency meeting to cleanse the village from the evil that had lurked there. She even made peace with her sister, Peony, though Peony was going to be locked up for the rest of her life for the death of their cousin. Petunia was so kind-hearted.

The Order of Elders had our spiritual construction crew fix the doors of Wicked Good and Mystic Lights. That didn’t take them any time, but the roof of my shop took a day. It was perfect and brand new like nothing had ever happened.

I had a lot of potions to get on the shelf and I had spent all night getting them done.

“Petunia.” I was happy to see my friend standing near the door. I rubbed my hands down my apron to clean off any residue from the cauldron and walked from behind the counter. “I’m so glad to see you.”

Mr. Prince Charming jumped off the counter, following me across the room. He did his signature figure-eight move around her ankles until she finally picked him up, a few dried leaves falling from her hair onto my floor.

There was a box sitting next to her feet.

“I wanted to stop by before the morning rush.” She rubbed down Mr. Prince Charming’s fur. He purred with delight. “I have a little grand opening surprise for you.”

“Grand opening?” My head tilted.

The sound of hammers came from outside my shop. I moved over to the window. Gerald was waving his hand to the right giving instructions to Oscar and Colton, who were on ladders on each side of my wisteria vine.

“To the right!” Gerald waved his hand. “More, more,” he instructed them. He threw his hands in the stop position. “Right there!”

The hammering started again.

“The village wanted to do something nice for you since we were all a little yucky with the whole fire and death of my cousin.” Her words were sincere and quiet. “You really never had a Grand Opening of the shop and now with a new roof it’s kind of like a new opening. Plus I thought you could use a new cauldron with how great the shop has been doing.” She used the toe of her black lace-up boots and tapped the box on the floor. “We used a little bit of the village fund to get you a new cauldron. It’s supposed to be the latest and greatest.”

“Oh!” My heart filled with joy. I flung my arms around her, Mr. Prince Charming jumped down, growling the entire time he dashed under the red tablecloth of one of the display tables. “You didn’t have to do that, but thank you so much.”

“No.” She hugged me back. I had to tilt my head to the left so the bird’s tail feather sticking out from her messy updo didn’t poke me in the eye. “I owe you a big apology.” She pulled away. Her eyes stared at me. Her face stilled. “I should have never led the lynching mob up the hill. I was upset and angry. I knew in my gut you didn’t or couldn’t hurt a flea and you are my friend. But I needed to blame someone for the pain I was feeling. I’m sorry, June. I really am.”

“Oh stop,” I used my hand to shoo her. “You don’t need to apologize. I know your heart. Thank you.” I bent down to look at the box. “You really didn’t need to do this.”

“From what your Aunt Helena tells me, it’s the best.” She stood with pride on her face.

“You went to Wands, Potions and Beyond?” I was shocked Petunia left Whispering Falls for Hidden Halls, A Spiritualist University where the magic shop was located.

“I did. And you know,” she leaned in. “Don’t tell Gerald, but I couldn’t help but look at the baby section.” She pulled back grinning from ear-to-ear.

“Are you telling me you are?” I questioned hesitantly and pointed at her mid-section.

“Maybe.” She winked and headed out the door. I followed.

Oscar, Colton, and Gerald stood on the sidewalk looking at the big Re-Grand Opening banner they had hammered over the shop door.

Cough, cough,
“What!?” Gerald picked up Petunia and twirled her around and around. Her long black dress flared out with each spin. He stopped, pulling her into a cradle in his arms, taking off in the direction of Glorybee.