Murder in the Mansion Read online

  I turned to Levana. "Have you ever heard of this before?"

  She wrinkled her forehead and thought for a minute before she shook her head. "No. I've heard of vampiric witches—ones who could suck the magic from other people or creatures, but never one that could pass her powers on to others. And even the vampiric ones have to use incantations and prepare in advance." Her brow creased with worry. "It's best we keep this to ourselves. If word got out that Shelby might have that kind of gift, there would be a line of witches from here to the Otherworld tormenting her for a boost."

  "Like we even really know any other witches besides Moira and TJ," Raeann said.

  "You'd be surprised how fast word of something like that would get out," Levana said. "Has Camille been having the same side effects?"

  I lifted a shoulder as I frothed my milk. "I'm not sure. I haven't talked to her much in the past month. She's been busy tying up loose ends."

  "Surely she would have mentioned it though."

  "You'd think," Rae said. "Might not hurt to call her though."

  Levana pulled in a deep breath, concern still etched on her face. "It's just my opinion, but I'd advise against it. Keep it between us."

  "Camille's discreet," I said. "She'd never do anything to hurt us."

  Levana gave me a pointed look. "I realize that, but I also know she's a company girl. She'd tell the council, at least Aurora Darkmore, if for no other reason than to defer to her experience, just like you have mine. Even assuming Aurora kept it to herself, what if somebody was to overhear? Or pick it out of her mind just like you read Coralee's?" She shook her head. "No. I think you should just leave it alone."

  Rae and I agreed, but there was still a little sliver of doubt in my brain. Camille may understand exactly what was going on, but Levana made me second-guess my urge to talk to her about it. Especially with Shelby leaving for college, I didn't want to take even the slightest chance of putting her at risk, no matter how much angel juice she had pumping through her veins.

  Levana narrowed her eyes at Raeann. "It's not just Noelle who's experiencing weird power bursts, is it?"

  Rae's face flushed with guilt. "What makes you say that?"

  "Because I just realized you've asked me to cast the cleaning spells the last few times I've worked with you, and the plants are looking sad."

  Rae sighed. "Fine. Yes. I've been a little wonky for the last couple of weeks. The last time I cast the cleaning spell, the broom practically scrubbed the polish off the tile and the mop slung dirty floor water all over the place, it was going so fast. Plus every possible cleaning tool in the place went nuts. All the bar towels jumped out of the buckets, then made a mess tryin' to clean up after each other, and the Magic Erasers about scrubbed the paint off the walls. I decided maybe it would be good to just chill for a minute until the effects wore off. I don't even want to try givin' any energy to the plants, even though the poor little plant in my office desperately needs a boost."

  "Are you kidding me?" I asked, slamming my hands on my hips. "Why in the name of little green apples would you not tell me about that? I mean, I knew you were having a few break-through bursts, but I didn't know you'd stopped using magic altogether."

  She looked down. "Because you've had your plate full. You're worried about Shelby, and things haven't exactly been easy for you with Hunter, either."

  As bad as I hated to admit it, she was right. Hunter was having problems reconciling himself with the fact that I'd almost died and he couldn't have done diddly-squat about it. His pride was smarting, was all, at least according to Bobbie Sue and Coralee. Well, that, and he worried about me. It would pass, but for the time being, things were a little tense when it came to anything magical.

  "Still," I said, a mix of irritation and hurt creeping through me. "That's not something you should have kept from me."

  "I know," she said. "I'm sorry. I just figured it'd work itself out. That was just a few days ago. It seems to be getting worse instead of better, though."

  "Well what matters is that you know now," Levana said. "I don't know what good it will do, but at least you're in the same boat. And I can handle the magic around here for a while, Raeann. What I'd suggest you do is practice. It sounds like your problem may just be a matter of learning your new settings, just like you had to do a few months ago."

  She turned to me. "You've always been telepathic. Did you ever put much effort into learning how to read minds?"

  I shook my head. "It's not something I've ever been interested in, but I don't think I have the same problem as Rae. When I actually tried to do it, I couldn't."

  "You know just as well as I do that magic is instinctual at first. It comes in fits and starts whenever it wants to. You had to learn how to use and control your powers and call to your magic when you first came into it, right?"

  I smiled, remembering the first time my baking magic—which is my personal gift—had kicked in. I'd made cupcakes for Flynn Farm's annual Easter egg hunt. The way it works is that my baking magic adds a little extra something to the flavor, and maybe the essence. Whatever I feed magic into tastes just a little bit better than it normally would, and whoever eats it feels a little happier, too. I can control it now, but when I was twelve, not so much. I'd made ten dozen cupcakes, and before fifty people had even shown up, all the goodies were gone and people were all euphoric and clamoring for more.

  Basically, I'd gotten them high on magic cupcakes.

  Aunt Addy still referred to it as The Great Cupcake Doping, but that's when she'd gotten serious about teaching me how to use my magic.

  "Plus," Levana continued, turning to Raeann, "feeding exactly the right amount into a spell becomes second nature, so if, as I suspect, your powers are amplified, then you're adding WAY too much juice. Practicing will help you adapt."

  Raeann groaned. "I just got a handle on the power-up that the powers that be gave me before the battle." She raised a brow. "Which we still don't understand."

  Levana raised a brow. "That all started after Shelby got the angel mark. You were there that night, too, and you both gained new gifts afterward. I mean, you were a witch in the presence of an actual angel. There's no precedent for that, or at least none that I've ever heard of. Maybe she gave you both a boost, along with Shelby."

  Rae and I looked at each other. We had both gotten some new skills after that, even though Shelby was the only one that got a mark—a little birthmark-like spot on her shoulder shaped just like a set of wings. I felt like a dimwit for not considering that already.

  "That’s as good an explanation as any," Rae said. "I mean, she did tell Shelby she was meant for great things, so she must have known something about the future. And it all fits with the time line. Maybe she knew we’d need all the help we could get."

  "At this point, it doesn't much matter what caused it," I replied. "What matters is what we're going to do about it, and I think Levana's on the right track. We just need to learn to manage them."

  Because that would be easy-peasy, just like everything else had been for the last year.

  CHAPTER THREE

  "HEY, NOELLE," SAID a familiar voice from behind me as I walked toward my shop an hour later. I smiled as one of my favorite ghosts—or people, for that matter—floated up beside me.

  "Hey, Angus!" I looked around, surprised to find him alone. "Where's Trouble?"

  He scrunched his whiskered face. "She's meetin' with Addy. They're talkin' about some sort of project your aunt's organizin'. It's about as exciting as watchin' paint dry. I figured I'd come hang out in town until they're done 'fore they roped me into doin' somethin'. Addy seems to think I have some pull with a certain segment of our population, but I've told her that's a load of horse hockey. I just get along with folks. That don't mean they listen to me. Especially not considerin' how I acted in life."

  I drew my brows together. Angus had preferred his breakfast—and all other meals for that matter—in the form of a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag, and his favorite place t
o sleep had been the park bench. Despite that, he was one of the kindest, most decent people I'd ever known. He always showed up to hang the town Christmas lights or hide the Easter eggs in the park, and most of the time he was even sober. And many a person in need had found loose steps tacked down and shaky railings fixed with no expectation of payment. That’s just the kind of person he was.

  I scowled at him. "Angus Small, I won't listen to you talk that way about yourself. You're well respected around here by both the livin' and the dead. Just look at that."

  I pointed to the bench that sat in the park across from my shop. After we'd found Angus frozen behind a yard Santa a few Christmases ago, we'd dedicated his favorite bench to him. The sun glinted of the brass plaque and he smiled a little.

  "I always thought y'all did that as a joke," he said, scratching his silvery whiskers.

  I smiled. "The location may have been a little tongue-in-cheek, but the sentiment was true. You were—are—part of the heart of the town. Addy knows what she's talkin' about, so if you don't wanna end up being the chair of some post-life popcorn committee, you're doing the right thing steering clear."

  He gave a sharp nod. "Don't I know it. And once that woman gets somethin' into her head, she's like a bulldozer."

  He wasn’t wrong.

  I slid the key into the lock of Reimagined, my upcycle shop, and Angus floated through the wall ahead of me. I was barely through the door when Erol, the guy who used to own the place but now haunted it, swept in on me, hands on the hips of his khakis—sorry, chinos. I'd had no idea there was a difference until I'd made the verbal fashion faux pas several months before.

  "Where on earth have you been?" he demanded. "There's a Flea Market Flip marathon on, and it started two hours ago!"

  I held up my hands. "Whoa there, Trigger. I was at two of the handful of places I'm always at. You could have popped in and asked me to come change the channel. Or Coralee's just next door. She would have done it for you, too."

  He was wringing his hands, and his silvery form was almost vibrating. That wasn't caused by missing a few episodes of a show he'd already seen a dozen times.

  "What's really got your knickers atwist?" I asked, flipping through my mind for a possible reason behind his distress. He could definitely be a drama queen, and snark was his middle name, but he was rarely short-tempered.

  He swept down close to me so that we were on the same level. "Norm and Sammie didn't come home last night!" he exclaimed, wringing his hands, then took back to the air, pacing. "Oh, Noelle, I just know somethin' terrible’s happened to them."

  Norm was his pet rat, and Sammie was Norm's girlfriend, a cute little black-and-white rat Norm had met more than a year before. Back when Erol was alive, he'd had a tough go of it in Keyhole. Hank had tormented him on a daily basis, sending his goons in to collect "taxes" and generally making his life as miserable as he could just because Erol was gay. Since my ghostly friend was an introvert to begin with, he hadn't made much of an effort to go out and about to make friends because of the added layer of anxiety. Therefore, Norm had been his only real friend.

  "I'm sure they're fine," I said, trying to push back my own worry. "Maybe they went to visit some of Sammie's family or something."

  I grasped for some other logical reason for their absence, but came up empty. I'd never known them to stay out all night, and I didn't even know if Sammie had any family. They were rats, so it wasn't like she'd ever mentioned them.

  Erol shook his head and ran his translucent hand through his hair. "They would have still come home. They always do."

  "And you're absolutely positive they didn't just sneak in then out again?"

  He turned an acerbic glare in my direction. "Of course I'm positive. I was here all night, and look," he said, pointing toward the cozy little house I'd made for them from an old milk crate. "They didn't eat the crackers you laid out for them before you left yesterday."

  I worried my lip, unsure what to do. Goldfish were their favorite snack; they never left so much as a crumb of them behind.

  "Have you looked for them?" I asked, and he looked at me like I'd lost my mind. A couple seconds later, indecision and guilt drifted across his features.

  "No, I haven't. I was so worried waiting for them, that it never occurred to me leave."

  That surprised me because he was one of those folks who saw a problem and looked for solutions. He wasn't typically a hand wringer. Well, he sort of was, but he usually did it while he was doing something proactive.

  "I'm gonna call around and see if anybody's seen them. You go search their typical spots." He needed something to do.

  "Okay," he said as he faded out. "Call for me if you hear anything."

  I had a special order for a headboard and footboard made from old barn doors that I needed to finish, but finding Norm and Sammie came first. I didn't have too many people to call, considering I'd just been to the two places they were prone to frequent, but I figured I could put out a BOLO on them.

  I called Coralee, Shelby, and Raeann, then remembered that they liked hanging out at Anna Mae's antique store. I needed to talk to her about going to some sales that weekend anyway, so I picked up my phone and speed-dialed her.

  "Hey, Noelle," she said when she answered. "I was just thinkin' about you! Are you still up for going to those sales over in Eagle gap Saturday? It'll get your mind off ... well, you know."

  Her words sent a whole cascade of emotions over me. Shelby, Cody, and Emma were leaving for college Sunday, and I was doing my best to think of it as a good thing rather than walking around under a black cloud of worry and depression. I was only winning the battle about half the time.

  "I'm definitely up for it," I said, knowing I’d do better keeping busy than rattling around with nothing to do but focus on it. "I'm out of material and need to get some stuff made up for the fall fair. That's gonna be on top of us before we know it. Listen though, that's not the only reason I was calling. Norm and Sammie didn't come back to the shop last night and Erol's beside himself."

  "Hmm," she said after a second. "They were here a half hour or so before I closed, but I gave them some pumpkin seeds and they went on their merry way. I haven't seen them today at all."

  I sighed. She'd been the last person I could think of to call. "Well if you see them, can you tell them we're worried and give me a call?"

  "Sure thing, sweetie. Are you down for a girl's night tomorrow? It's Wine Wednesday. Bring Shelby so we can all spend some time with her before she leaves."

  "That sounds really good, Anna Mae. I'll talk to you later."

  “Oh, and do you want me to come early Sunday to help you decorate and get ready?”

  We were having a going-away party to send the kids off. That way, everybody could be there to say goodbye, and we’d have one last normal afternoon before they officially moved out and on their own.

  “That would be great, Anna Mae. Thank you.”

  After hanging up, I wasn't sure what else to do. It wasn't like I could go checking the seats at the theater, where they liked to scavenge for popcorn. I could see it now—“Sorry to interrupt your matinee, folks, but have you seen two rats? They like to pilfer in the seats for snacks.”

  I may as well scream fire and get it over with.

  And I had no idea where they spent the majority of the rest of their time, anyway. The only reason I knew about the theater was because Addy’d seen them there and gotten onto them. They were rats—it wasn't like they could talk and tell us about their favorite hangouts and activities.

  I tapped my finger on the desk, unsure what to do. I cast a glance toward the back room, where the barn doors sat was waiting for me to turn them into a headboard and footboard. The woman was picking it up Thursday, and I still didn't have the old paint sanded off them yet.

  Since I was out of options, I figured I may as well get some work done.

  I turned the radio on and slipped on my mask before grabbing the sander. I almost had one door done when Erol
returned, defeated.

  I turned off the machine and pulled my mask up. "No luck?"

  He shook his head and sighed. "Nope. I feel like I should be out scouring the town, but I have no idea where to actually look."

  "Same here," I said. "I called around, and as far as I can tell, Anna Mae was the last to see them."

  Dejected, he turned back toward the front room. "Can you change the channel for me? Maybe it'll help distract me, or clear my head so I can think of other places to look."

  After flipping on the TV for him, I grabbed a bottle of water from the kitchen, then glanced at my phone. I was meeting Hunter at four, and we were going to grab pizza and take it to the farm, then have a game night with the kids. Shelby was going out of her way to spend time with me, and I didn't know whether she was doing it for me, or because she was as sad to be leaving as I was to see her go.

  As I sanded and polished, my mind flipped through a hundred memories, both good and bad, that we'd made over the years. She'd been sixteen when Addy had died. Since our mom had been killed in a car wreck when she was only three, our aunt was the only mother she'd ever known.

  She'd taken it especially hard and had rebelled for several months after, which had made my own adjustment period even harder. In addition to mourning our aunt, I'd suddenly found myself the sole guardian of a grieving teenager. Shelby'd also been having problems with her magic at the time, which is how she ended up meeting Cody.

  It had taken both of us almost dying to snap her out of her wild streak, but once she'd straightened up, we'd quickly gotten closer than we'd ever been. I smiled when I thought of the million times we'd ridden the horses together, and the times—yes, plural—when we'd gotten into one scrape or another and almost died, and even of the endless nights we'd spent at home, sharing one of grandma's afghans while eating popcorn and watching scary movies.

  When I realized those nights weren't endless after all, it felt like somebody squeezed all the blood out of my heart. Her room was going to be empty. She wasn't going to come thundering down the stairs, or grouch at me when she had to get up early, because neither of us were morning people. Her dirty clothes wouldn't be in the bathroom floor, her mud-caked boots wouldn't ooze barn muck onto the hardwood in the parlor. I thought of her laughing eye roll when I'd say something corny, and her head on my shoulder when we were curled up on the couch. Those were all gonna be gone forever, and I was gonna be alone.