Witching The Night Away: A Cozy Mystery (The Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 3) (12 page)
Read Witching The Night Away: A Cozy Mystery (The Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 3) Online
Authors: Constance Barker
Aiden tsked, and Bailey shook her head slowly.
“You know,” Bailey said, “my father is a quirky sort of guy. He loved that pen. And he only used one brand of ink. He’d order a dozen bottles at a time so he always had some. This little small-time ink maker in Wyoming, of all places. They still make iron gall ink. He likes it because it’s the same kind they used to pen the constitution. I know, he’s a nerd.” Bailey glanced down at Gloria’s shoes. They were the same worn looking pair of gray shoes Piper had described. And there was the blotchy blue stain that Piper remembered.
Bailey pointed to them. “The blue that he liked was very similar to that blue, in fact. What do you think are the chances they’ll match?”
“I have an alibi,” Gloria said.
“That you were out to dinner with a man you avoid going out in public with?” Aiden wondered. “Funny, that.”
“You killed Professor Turner, Gloria,” Bailey said. “And you framed my father for it.”
Gloria shook. Her lips moved, but no words came out. She blinked through confusion and let go of Trevor’s arm. “You’re crazy,” she said. “I wasn’t there. I didn’t… I don’t know how I got the journal, I found it lying around. I could never have…”
Something was wrong. Gloria looked genuinely disturbed. Not even afraid so much as… conflicted. She staggered back. “You’re messing with my head, aren’t you? Making me forget… or remember… no, no, no…”
Bailey opened her mind, and listened to Gloria’s thoughts.
She heard the chatter of a hundred voices all telling stories. Behind it all, a melancholy flute was beginning to play.
“Seamus!” Bailey called.
Gloria closed her eyes for a moment, and then turned when Seamus and another deputy’s boots crunched around the entrance of the cave. She hesitated, glanced at Bailey, and then turned and ran.
Another pair of deputies further up the path, however, tackled her as she passed where they were hidden.
“It’s not much to go on,” Seamus said as the other deputies handcuffed Gloria, and Seamus’ partner handcuffed the unresisting Trevor. “But it might be enough to give Ryan a fair chance.”
Bailey shared a look with Aiden, and then watched as Gloria was marched up the path to town and the waiting car that would carry her to jail.
“I’m not so sure she knew what she did,” Bailey said. “She’s obviously crazy.”
“It does sound that way,” Seamus agreed. He shook his head sadly. “It’s a shame.”
Yes, Bailey thought. It really was.
Epilogue
It took over a week for Ryan to be released. It was a joyful reunion. In the end, the ink from Gloria’s shoe had turned out to have trapped just the smallest hint of blood, as well, and no credit card receipt could be found to support her alibi. Trevor insisted they paid cash, but in the end, it just wasn’t enough. All of it was enough to make her the prime suspect.
More than likely, she wouldn’t end up in prison, though. She was on track to plead insanity. She maintained her story—that she didn’t remember killing Professor Turner and didn’t believe she’d done it.
The worst part was that she very well might have been telling the truth. Bailey felt terrible about it. Gloria wasn’t a charming person, by any means, but she didn’t deserve this—to be used by the Faeries, if that was what had happened.
“It’s not as simple as all that,” Aiden countered. “The Faeries can’t just make you do things. They only find the wickedness in your own heart and magnify it until it takes over. It’s why they’re so dangerous.”
They were gathered, again, at Grovey Goodies. The Coven ladies had gradually become more comfortable with the idea that Aiden and Avery knew about them. They weren’t consistently friendly, by any means, but they were… politely sociable. They were much friendlier toward Piper. Aria was beside herself at the impending baby.
Bailey and Chloe had taken some time to get to know one another on the new level that was developing between them. It was good, Bailey decided. She had questions, still, and she was still hurt, but some part of the old emptiness had begun to fill in around the edges.
They worked closely together in part so that Bailey could learn her part of the spells that would be cast during her next initiation. The second cave awaited, but this time she would have to do more than simply watch the story unfold. This time, Chloe told her, she would unfold part of it herself. It was exciting and a little scary at the same time. But it was nice to work through it with her mother to help her.
“It only serves as a warning,” Chloe said to the crew from behind the counter, “that we have to do everything we can to keep the caves from failing.”
“We must be vigilant,” Francis said. “Watch everyone.”
“We have to be brave,” Aria said. “And stand our ground.”
“It would be helpful if we were brilliant,” Avery said. “And figured out how to fix the caves.”
Aiden nodded slowly. “About that,” he said. “I have an idea. You see, the original spells—”
Piper groaned, interrupting Aiden as all faces turned toward her. She bit her lip, her face screwing up into a pained expression. When she opened her eyes and exhaled sharply, everyone knew what it meant.
“That was not a Braxston Hicks contraction,” she gasped. “That was the real deal. It’s time. Holy crap, it’s time.”
Everyone in the room acted at the same time. Aiden rushed to get his car, Avery and Bailey helped Piper up, and the Coven ladies hurried them out the door and to the sidewalk. The problem of Faeries was forgotten for the moment.
There was only one kind of magic on everyone’s mind for the next sixteen hours, and it wasn’t supernatural at all.
It was merely miraculous.
******
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Prologue
Chloe Minds was supposed to be a mother.
She supposed that in the most technical sense, she was. She’d given birth, at least, late at night, under the insistent, impatient urging of the Crones; who never gave voice to the nature of their apparent worries. Eight years before this moment, and nine months before that, Chloe had known that for her, giving birth wouldn’t be the same thing as being a mother.
The Ritual of the Special Cupcake had quickly become a tradition. At Wendy’s gentle suggestion, Chloe did begin to make them a bit smaller but this somehow only heightened Bailey’s attraction to the little bites—as though they really were made just for her. But then again, they were. Chloe would spend hours perfecting the little delicacies between her other labors, in anticipation of seeing her daughter’s face brighten with glee at the sight of another one-of-a-kind gift.
The gifts were transient in the way all pastries inevitably were, and in a way that was as it should be. Wendy and Bailey likewise shared only these transient moments of connection. She hoped that on some level it gave her daughter a sense of wholeness—even if she didn’t realize she was missing it. Just by looking at her, you wouldn’t have been able to tell that there was anything missing. Wendy was a good mother. Ryan worked long hours, but he was there when he was needed.
So when Bailey ran away from home, at eight years old, and came to the bakery to hide, Chloe didn’t obscure the facts.
She sat watching the pensive little girl—her little girl, with an expression so Chloe’s own that it was like looking back through time—as Bailey ate a muffin. Not a special muffin; she hadn’t been expected. Just one of Aria’s organic, gluten free, sugar free, whole oat monstrosities that only the most dedicated health nuts ate on a regular basis. Bailey didn’t appear to like it.
“I have to tell your parents that you’re here,” Chloe said softly. “You must have known that.”
Bailey gave a world weary sigh and then nodded.
“Before I do that, would you like to tell me why you ran away?”
With pursed lips, Bailey considered this course of action. That, or she was trying to come up with a convincing story. Chloe might have sussed out the truth herself but… touching Bailey’s mind this early might well trigger any latent abilities not yet blossomed; and at her age that would be disastrous.
Finally, Bailey swept her curly red hair meaningfully behind her ear, her newly freckled face becoming gravely serious as she set her shoulders to reveal her motivations. Chloe suppressed a smile, instead assuming an appropriately serious look herself. “I don’t think they’re really my parents,” Bailey said.
Chloe’s heart thumped in her chest. Perhaps she was wrong. Had Bailey inherited her magic? She didn’t sense the girl’s thoughts intruding on her own—but she might well have inherited Chloe’s grandmother’s gift to see possible futures. “What… makes you say that, dear?” Chloe asked carefully.
Again, Bailey had to consider. She wasn’t one to speak without thinking, and according to Wendy she rarely jumped to conclusions. So, she sat quietly, evaluating the evidence.
“Neither of them have hair like mine,” Bailey said after a moment. “And, they don’t look like me. I learned in school that we get one coma… cram…”
“Chromosome?” Chloe asked.
“Yeah,” Bailey said, “that. We get one from our mom and one from our dad… or… anyway, Mrs. Mills said about white bunnies and brown bunnies; and there were two brown bunnies and two white bunnies and… the brown bunnies made more brown bunnies and the white bunnies made more white bunnies and the brown and white bunnies made brown and white bunnies and… there are no red bunnies in my family.”
Chloe had to fight to keep her shoulders from trembling with laughter. It was serious, she could tell that from the way Bailey delivered her lecture on biology. And she wasn’t entirely wrong. Still, Chloe did her best to fix the damage. “Did Mrs. Mills tell you about how some things can get passed to a parent’s children, while some other things might be… hidden for a few generations? If you have a great great grandmother with red hair that you didn’t know—who knows? You might have gotten it from her.”
“Really?” Bailey wondered. This new information undermined her working hypothesis. But she didn’t fight it—she merely attempted to find a place for this information. “That’s… not all, though.”
“Okay,” Chloe said. “Well, what else, then?”
Bailey shook her head, and looked down at the muffin. “I don’t know… just… a feeling. I don’t have it all the time. But sometimes, at night, or when I get home from school…” she trailed off, and shrugged. A moment later she wiped her eye. When she looked up they were wet. “I don’t know, Miss Chloe. I don’t know the words.”
“It’s okay, darling,” Chloe breathed, and came around the table. Bailey didn’t pull away when Chloe put an arm around the girl and hugged her close. She did inhale deeply, though.
And a heartbeat later, she turned and put her arms around Chloe’s waist, and cried. Chloe didn’t, through sheer force of will.
When the spell passed, Bailey picked at her muffin while Chloe called Wendy and Ryan to inform them that their little girl was safe, that she’d come to the bakery. Relieved, they assured her they were one their way.
Chloe hung up, and pressed her head to the wall above the phone as she took cleansing breaths and cleared her mind and heart of the pain. This was the way it had to be. It was her mistake, getting involved with… well, even thinking his name was potentially dangerous; could call his attention. Not that he was even likely to care after all these years. But then again, maybe he would. It was impossible to predict what a wizard did or didn’t care about from moment to moment. Chloe had thought, for instance, that he cared about her. Right up until he vanished into thin air.
When she returned to the dining room of the bakery, she heard Bailey humming a tune. Something familiar—a lilting sort of somber, upbeat melody that Chloe swore she must have heard on the radio recently. Or perhaps in a movie. “What are you humming, Bailey-Bee?” She asked.
Bailey shrugged a shoulder self consciously. “A song.”
“It sounds familiar,” Chloe told her as she sat down across from her daughter again. “Did you hear it on TV?”
Bailey shook her head. “I don’t remember.”
“It’s very pretty,” Chloe said. “Are there words to it?”
“No,” Bailey breathed. Her fingers paused in the act of pinching another bit of muffin off. She stared into some distance behind Chloe, brow furrowed in concentration. Finally, she shook her head again.
“I don’t think it’s very pretty, Miss Chloe,” she said quietly, before she looked into Chloe’s eyes. “I think it’s very… sad.”
A chill spread from Chloe’s spine to the rest of her, and she rubbed her arms. For the next few minutes before Wendy and Ryan arrived, she and Bailey sat in mutual silence, as though listening for some distant music that Chloe, at least, couldn’t hear.
******