The Witch and the Dead

Book 7: Wishcraft Mystery

by Heather Blake

Genres: Mystery; Cozy Mystery; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

When Darcy moved to Salem, Massachusetts, she never expected her life to change as drastically as it did. But within a short time, the Enchanted Village has become her home, its mystical residents have become her family, and As You Wish, the personal concierge business formerly run by her Aunt Ve, has become her calling. Still, the time has come for change, and for Darcy to move out of Aunt Ve's house.



Darcy's belongings are stashed in Aunt Ve's garage, alongside a mess of memories, forgotten possessions, and, to both Ve and Darcy's horror, a pile of old bones. It turns out they belong to Ve's long missing second husband. Now Darcy must unpack old secrets to solve a cold case and make sure that her aunt isn't looking at a spell behind bars.

Release date: October 4, 2016

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 320

Sample

Chapter One

It was one of those crisp New England autumn days that begged for hot chocolate piled high with whipped cream, a good book, and a cozy spot in front of the fireplace.

Beg as the day might, however, this witch didn’t have time to indulge at the moment. I glanced at all the plastic bins and cardboard boxes that needed to be relocated from this space to my new home and pushed up my sleeves. My dream of curling up in front of a fire tonight was never going to happen if I kept dragging my feet.

As much as I tried, however, I couldn’t seem to get going. I flitted from one side of my aunt Ve’s garage to the other, accomplishing little as early-October sunlight filtered through grimy windows, spotlighting every dust particle in sight.

As well as my hesitance.

I wasn’t known for procrastinating, but today as I transferred all the belongings I’d been storing in this space to my new house two doors down the street, I was taking my sweet time.

My puttering had nothing to do with actually moving the twenty or so boxes and assorted bits of my previous life and everything to do with leaving behind Aunt Ve and the house I’d lived in since arriving in this village a little more than a year ago.

Today was moving day. Tonight, I’d sleep in my new bed, under a new roof.

I’d eventually have to deal with the emotions lurking under the surface, but for right now I fortunately had help with the move: My younger sister, Harper, and my aunt Ve had both volunteered to assist with the process.

“It should all go!” Velma “Ve” Devany said, tossing her hands in the air. “All of it.”

She wasn’t referencing my belongings, though I suspected the ghostly outlines left behind by my moving boxes had triggered the desire to banish everything else from the garage as well.

“A yard sale! Tomorrow, just in time for the weekend crowd.” Spinning around, Ve faced me, her golden blue eyes alight with sparks of purpose. Her coppery hair was pulled back in its usual twist, but she’d accented the style with a red bandanna. It was tied in a knot at the top of her head like Rosie the Riveter’s. Round cheeks glowed with good health as Ve pushed up the sleeves of her white long-sleeved thermal henley and then bent to cuff the hems of her denim overalls. She was in her early sixties and had more energy than I’d ever possessed.

“I think she means it,” Harper stage-whispered to me, a trace of horror hovering in her voice.

“Oh, I mean it,” Ve stated firmly. “Think of all the space I’d have in here if it were empty. I could turn the garage into a craft studio!”

“You don’t craft,” Harper pointed out as she wrestled a tall box into the driveway. The box was almost as big as she was. At just five feet, twenty-four-year-old Harper personified Shakespeare’s line, “though she be but little, she is fierce.” Her brown eyes glinted in the sunlight as she looked back at us. “Well, not in a studio kind of way.”

Technically we were all Crafters, witches with a unique set of abilities. My family happened to be Wishcrafters, who could grant wishes, but there were dozens and dozens of other witchy varieties that lived and worked among oblivious mortals here in the Enchanted Village. This charming neighborhood of Salem, Massachusetts, was a tourist hot spot . . . and the place I now considered home.

“Fine,” Ve said, relenting with her quick response to the truth of the matter. “How about a yoga studio?”

Shooting her arms out to the sides for balance, she placed the sole of her right foot on her left inner knee, attempting, I presumed, the tree pose. Her arms windmilled wildly as she swayed to and fro. I resisted the strong urge to shout “Timber!” as I grabbed hold of her to keep her from tipping over.

Flicking me a wry look, she said, “Maybe not yoga.”

“Maybe not,” I agreed.

“Well, I’ll think of something.” With a sweeping wave of her hand, she added, “But first, this all needs to go.”

By “all,” she meant the decades of flotsam that had been stashed and stored in the massive garage. Floor-to-ceiling stacks of boxes, bags, trunks. Christmas and Halloween decor. A tattered love seat and other assorted furniture, dust-covered bookshelves, and side tables. Simply sorting through everything could take weeks. “Maybe it’s best to wait until spring for a yard sale,” I suggested.

By then this particular flight of fancy of hers might pass.

I hoped.

“No, no.” She strode over to a clothing rack stuffed with zipped dusty black garment bags. “An impromptu yard sale is just what I need to take—”

Abruptly, she bit off her words, and I swallowed over a sudden lump in my throat.

To take her mind off the fact that I was moving out.

I sent Harper a pleading look. She gave me a sympathetic nod and said, “You know what could occupy your time, Aunt Ve? Helping me. Marcus’ parents arrive back in the village tomorrow morning, and we’re supposed to have dinner with them tomorrow night.” She pressed her hands together, pleading. “Help me figure out how to get out of it. Please.”

With a grateful smile I said, “Tomorrow night? You mean you’re not going to the auditions for the play?”

One of my best friends, Evan Sullivan, was directing his first musical at the village playhouse, The Sound of Music. Evan was understandably nervous. Though he had a fondness for the theater, as half Bakecrafter his true gift was creating delectable miniature delights at the Gingerbread Shack, his boutique bakery. To bolster his confidence, he’d recruited some friends to help with the production. As I couldn’t sing or dance, I had been assigned to lead the scenery team. We’d already had our introductory meeting, and tomorrow afternoon we would commence with building the sets at the large scene shop inside the playhouse. Afterward, I’d agreed to help Evan with auditions.

He’d bribed me with devil’s food mini cupcakes.

He knew exactly how use my weaknesses to his advantage.

“I don’t sing,” Harper said with a shudder. “Or dance. Though if it gets me out of that dinner, maybe I should reconsider. It would be less humiliating. What time are the auditions?”

“Four to seven,” I said, watching her carefully. After Harper had moved to this village and become the owner of the Spellbound bookshop more than a year ago, her confidence had grown by leaps and bounds. It was rare to see her nerves on full display. 

Looking crestfallen, she said, “That won’t help. The dinner’s at eight. Maybe I can come down with scurvy or something by then.”

I laughed. “Scurvy?”

“I’ll take anything at this point. The Debrowskis don’t like me as is, and you know how I get when I’m nervous. I’m bound to spill or break something.”

I tried to reassure her. “They like you.”

“No, they don’t,” Harper returned, perfectly calm and absolutely serious.

I picked up a plastic bin. Its label said only bedroom. Sheets and blankets, I figured. “Of course they do.”

Ve unzipped a garment bag. “No, Harper’s right. They don’t. They don’t like any of us.” She’d said that as though it was common knowledge. “I’m sure they’re having a full-sized cow that Marcus fell for Harper in the first place.”

Harper looked at me with a smug smile. “Told you so.”

She loved being right.

Still disbelieving, I stared at our aunt. “Why don’t they like us?”

I knew the Debrowskis by sight, but I had never officially met Penelope and Oliver. They’d retired from their law firm a few years ago, handing it over to Marcus to run once he graduated from law school. The pair traveled a lot, spending hardly any time at all here in the village. A few weeks here and there. I hadn’t yet had occasion to run into them.

“That Penelope has always been a jealous prune,” Ve said, wrinkling her face to resemble the dried fruit. “She fancies herself a free spirit and was always most annoyed that I could grant wishes while she had to practice law. Not that I blame her. I’d be jealous, too. Law is so dreadful. She’s a Crosser, you know. Half Colorcrafter, half Lawcrafter. Despite Color being her predominate Craft, her father threatened to cut her off if she didn’t join the family law firm. She almost flunked out of law school but somehow managed to graduate.”

Witches who had parents with differing Crafts inherited both abilities; however, one ability was definitely stronger than the other. We called these witches Cross-Crafters, or Crossers, for short.

“Well, the free-spirit thing explains her love of ­bohemian clothes,” Harper said dryly.

“Don’t let her bother you,” Ve advised. “Just focus on that man of yours and all will be well.”

Color rushed into Harper’s cheeks. “He’s not mine. . . .”

Ve met my gaze and we both burst out laughing.

Harper, who until she met Marcus had compared marriage to a prison sentence, shot us an annoyed look. She then picked up another box and carried it out to the driveway, stomping the whole way. She hated being wrong about anything. Especially about strong beliefs such as marriage and lifelong commitments.

Ve unzipped another garment bag and laughed as she pulled out the frilliest wedding gown I’d ever seen. “Well, lookie what we have here.” She held it up to herself, nearly poking her eye with a wayward ruffle. “It’s the dress I wore to my wedding to Godfrey.”

Cloakcrafter Godfrey Baleaux owned the Bewitching Boutique here in the village and had been the third of Ve’s four husbands, the one she once referred to as a rat-toad bottom dweller. She didn’t call him that anymore. Not often, anyway. I considered him family. An uncle of sorts, though he liked to claim he was my fairy godfather. He’d rescued me from more than one fashion disaster.

“Did Godfrey design that, Aunt Ve?” Harper turned to me. “Because if so, maybe you shouldn’t let him be in charge of your wedding dress, Darcy.”

I couldn’t imagine that dress was one of Godfrey’s creations. He preferred classic, timeless fashion. That gown was . . . neither. “Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself? I’m not even engaged.”

“Yet,” Ve and Harper said in unison, both with big smiles.

I couldn’t help smiling, too. Police Chief Nick Sawyer and I had been dating for more than a year, and a few months ago we’d had the Talk. I knew a proposal was just a matter of time, and thanks to a slip of the tongue by his teenage daughter, Mimi, I knew he already had the ring. The anticipation of what he had planned—and when—was killing me. Part of me wondered if he was waiting to pop the big question at the housewarming party next weekend, but then I immediately ruled that out.

Nick was rather private. He wouldn’t put such a special moment on full display in front of our family and friends. And I wouldn’t want that, either. It should be just the two of us. . . .

“Honestly, I don’t know what he’s waiting for,” Harper said. “Do you want me to talk to him?”

“Definitely not,” I said. “He’ll ask when he asks.”

Harper harrumphed.

I grabbed a box and set it next to the others in the driveway, near a spot where my dog, Missy, lay stretched out in a puddle of sunshine. The mini schnoodle—half mini poodle, half mini schnauzer—watched us with sleepy eyes.

She’d been extra tired lately, and I was starting to worry. I added making an appointment with the local vet to my to-do list. It probably wasn’t necessary, but I didn’t want to take any risks with her health.

Glancing at my watch, I noted that Nick was due here soon to help move these boxes. My new place had been recently renovated top to bottom, which included adding a new stacked-stone fireplace in the family room addition. I had high hopes that Nick would end up with me in front of that fireplace tonight. . . .

“No, no, this was all me, my design,” Ve said, eyeing the dress with pity. “The fact that Godfrey still married me despite this atrocity rather proves how smitten he had been with me. Perhaps I shouldn’t have divorced him.” She tsked.

“I thought you two hated each other by the end of the first year,” Harper said.

“That’s true,” she said thoughtfully. “But I don’t hate him now.”

Aunt Ve had monogamy issues.

And loneliness issues.

With my moving out of her house, I had the feeling she was casting a wide net to replace my daily presence in her life.

“Don’t forget about Andreus,” I reminded my aunt. “Isn’t he coming back to the village this weekend? He’ll have your days occupied in no time.”

“And nights, too,” Ve mused with a wiggle of her eyebrows.

Harper clapped a hand over her mouth and said through spread fingers, “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“You and me both,” I added.

“Oh, you two,” Ve said with a laugh. “He’s a good man.” She paused. “Mostly good.” Another pause. “He’s a man.”

Charmcrafter Andreus Woodshall was the director of the Roving Stones, a traveling rock-and-mineral show that visited the village several times a year. Despite the fact that he was the scariest man I’d ever met, he and Ve had hit it off the last time he’d been here. Whether he was good or bad was one of those questions that had yet to be fully answered. From what I knew of him, it was a mixed bag. He was a complicated man.

Ve frowned. “But he’ll be leaving again soon enough. He has only a week off before traveling to a show in Florida.”

“Live in the moment, Aunt Ve.” Harper sounded more cheerleaderish than I’d ever imagined she could.

Lifting her chin, Ve smiled. “You’re right, Harper. That’s exactly what I should do.” She moved aside a dusty bookcase and wiggled behind it. “And the first order of business is to get this garage cleaned out for that big yard sale tomorr— Oh. Oh dear. Oh my.”

“What is it?” I asked, watching her face lose all color.

“What? Did you find the veil that went with that hideous wedding dress?” Harper asked, chuckling. “I can only imagine what that looked like.”

One of Ve’s hands flew up to cover her mouth as she stared at something deep in the recesses of the garage. “No. No veil.” Over her shoulder, she said in an unnatural high-pitched voice, “Darcy dear, would you please give Nick a call?”