Cupcakes, Crystals, and Chaos Read online

A flicker passed her eyes long enough to keep her silent for a moment. “Victor?”

  “They found your ring on the dead body, I didn’t say anything, but why would they have found it on him?”

  She shrugged and shook her head. “I haven’t spoken to Victor in years, I mean, since at least ninety-nine.”

  “They didn’t say anything about the man, other than he was killed by a giant amethyst crystal.”

  “He didn’t have any children,” she replied. “Certainly not with me.”

  “Do you think it could be Victor?” I asked.

  Celine twiddled her fingers. “We could summon the ghost.”

  “No, mother, we’re not summoning the dead,” I replied. “Besides, we’d need something that belonged to the deceased or it must present itself.”

  She snapped her fingers. “I know, I know, I’m not some new born witch, I know the requirements of summoning a spirit. Well we wait for Victor to present himself.” She snapped her fingers again. “Oh sugar, I was making a pot of green tea.” She vanished once again.

  I joined my mother in the kitchen where she poured two cups of tea. “I had more questions,” I said.

  She added two lumps of sugar into her cup. “Like?”

  “If it is Victor, how did he know you were here?”

  “He had my ring, although I’m easy enough to find if you call.” I wasn’t completely oblivious to the fact she aimed that one at me, I hadn’t called her in weeks, if not months before she’d sent the letter. I liked to keep her at arm’s length because she’d always get me involved in whichever crazy scheme she had going on.

  “And I’ve lived here for years,” I said. “You don’t seem too shocked that if it is Victor, he’s dead.”

  “Death is the one constant in life.”

  I cleared my throat. “But he was murdered.”

  “You seem to know an awful lot about it,” she said before sipping her tea.

  “Only because the detective suspects all the witches in the coven.” I massaged the upper bridge of my nose. “But it still doesn’t answer the question, he had your ring, he was your ex-husband, and he was killed by a crystal.”

  My mother didn’t bat an eyelash. She held her hands out across the kitchen counter, her nails perfectly manicured and painted a dark pumpkin orange. “These hands don’t dabble in the dark,” she said.

  “Well obviously I don’t think it’s you, but—”

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  Never the sound of something good. Peering down the hall to the front door, I noticed red and blue lights flashing, equally never good.

  Detective Hodge stood at the front door. “Good evening, Gwen.”

  “Evening.”

  “I’m here for a Celine Waterhouse.”

  “Celine?” it swelled in my throat. “My mother.”

  “Gwen, who is it?” she called from the kitchen.

  Two large beefy men in yellow high-visibility jackets stormed into the house. “Celine Waterhouse, we need you to come in for questioning regarding a murder.”

  “Who?” I asked the detective in front of me.

  He hummed. “The man who was murdered, we found something belonging to your mother in his possession. We have reason to believe she’s connected with the deceased.”

  “No, question her here, you don’t have to go whizzing around the village with your sirens on and your lights flashing. If it’s questioning, you can do that here.” I stomped a foot.

  “Unfortunately, this has been escalated and we need your mother to come down to the station.”

  “Get your grubby hands off me,” my mother protested as the two men brought her down the hallway. “Gwen, what’s this all about?”

  “I have no idea, but I’ll get to the bottom of it,” I said.

  As the scarf around my mother’s neck unwound itself, I noticed a light emit from a crystal around her neck. “Alternatively, I’ll—”

  “No, I’ll sort this out,” I said, quickly standing before my mother. “Don’t do anything stupid.” I wrapped the scarf back around her, concealing the crystal.

  Detective Hodge smiled. “I wouldn’t be too certain about this.”

  “For goodness sake, she’s in her sixties, you think she could kill a man,” I said, realising moments later that when Oscar tried to defend me with the same approach I wasn’t particularly happy about it.

  “Crime doesn’t prejudice against age.”

  It was too late, they’d taken her. Before she left, she told me she’d be out in a jiffy and Julian needed looking after. I wasn’t keen on either of those.

  Once the police officers had taken my mother, I had to inform the other witches. I told them about what I’d seen in the pictures and how the ring belonged to her, but without a positive identification I could only assume the dead man was her ex-husband, Victor.

  I sat in the conservatory with a lamp shining on my notepad. I wrote ‘Victor’ in the centre of the page, circling it over and over until the ink bled through the paper.

  “Julian is complaining,” August said, sauntering into the conservatory.

  “Is he still upstairs?” I asked.

  He nodded, jumping on the coffee table. “He won’t leave his cage.”

  At least I didn’t have to worry about him flying away. “Don’t wind him up, you’ll make matters worse.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to find out how to get my mother out of jail.”

  He chuckled. “Leave her.”

  A smile touched my face. “If I do that, Julian will become a permanent member of the family.” I drew a line from the circle and wrote my mother’s name. “Besides, I doubt she’ll let them keep her for long.”

  Victor was my mother’s second husband, he was after my father, a man whom she’d married for love. After love came money, it reminded me of the Jackie Kennedy quote she’d one recited to me, except the third time she married wasn’t for companionship, that’s what her familiar, Julian was for.

  “You think she did it?” August asked.

  “I know my mother is a lot of things, but a murderer isn’t one of them,” I replied, drawing a single line from her name and adding the word ‘ring’. “I don’t know what to think right now, nothing is making any sense at all.”

  There was no reason for Victor to be here, let alone showing up dead, but at least if it was him, I’d have a picture of what he looked like before his death. Someone would’ve seen him around.

  August pawed my pen away from the paper. “Get some rest.”

  He was right. I was in no shape to think about this, not while my mother was in the police station, probably giving the officers the run around. It wasn’t like I could find myself sleeping at all with everything on my mind.

  Once I was in bed I screwed my eyes shut, forcing myself to think of nothing but the night. I’d always come back to something, my mind was always working, if it wasn’t about the café, it was about my son, and if not him, then the house, I couldn’t catch a break.

  A sharp psst roused me. “You awake?”

  At the foot of my bed stood my mother. “Goddess!” I budged myself back against the headboard, gathering my duvet around me. “What are you doing?”

  “Don’t worry, nobody saw me,” she said with a wide grin. “It’s no resort, let me tell you that, but I figured it out.”

  “You did?” I flicked the beside table lamp on. “Tell me.”

  She took a seat. “It was Victor, they didn’t want to give too much away, but—”

  I raised a hand. “Please, don’t tell me.”

  “What? All I was going to say was how I charmed them into giving me some information.”

  I guessed I was my mother’s daughter. “Who did it?”

  She scoffed. “I don’t care to find out.” She waved her hand at me. “Anyway. I’d lost that ring they were harping on about, and that’s currently the only connection here, and of course, he’s my ex-husband. The one for money,” she reiterated, like
I’d forget how proudly she boasted during their marriage. “But I know why he’s been stalking me. I figured love potions wore themselves out after a year or so, but I mean, if we married in ninety-five, divorced in ninety-nine,” she counted on her fingers. “Four years should’ve been adequate.”

  “A potion?”

  Letting out a gasp of exasperation, she rolled her eyes at me. “Just a little—little, you know, a fix for him. Anyway, I need to be going back.”

  “No, mother, wait,” I said, throwing my hands on the duvet. “Why didn’t I know about all of this when it was happening?”

  She stood and reached across the bed for my hand. “Oh darling,” she smiled. “You’re a stickler for the rules. If I could have it my way, I’d have already wiped the detective’s mind and none of this would even be an issue.”

  Huffing through my nose, I didn’t know how to respond, although I knew my mother all too well and what she was capable of, but I never knew she’d go as far as spelling a man to fall in love with her.

  “I must be off,” she replied. “I’d asked to go to a private toilet because of hygiene reasons.”

  “And they just—” and before I could finish my thought she was gone. “—let you?” It was a silly question, of course they let her, they probably didn’t have much say in the matter.

  August pushed the bedroom door open moments later. “Who are you talking to?” he asked.

  Sarcasm permeated through my eyeroll. “You’re an excellent guard animal,” I said, turning the lamp off.

  “If you must know, I’ve been by the front door, in case anyone decides to show up,” he said, clawing his way up on the bed. “Then maybe I’ll offer Julian up to them, a free pet to a good home.”

  “Get in bed,” I said. “And it was my mother popping by to tell me about the wonderful time she’s having on her mini holiday.”

  CHAPTER 6

  The following morning, I woke early to root through family albums and find a picture of Victor as a young man marrying my mother. After which I planned to arrive at the café with the coven witches. Noelia was already waiting for me at the café door.

  “Morning,” I said, cradling my book of shadows close to my chest.

  A heavy thunder cried out from above.

  “Am I the first one here?” she asked as I opened the café door with a swish of my wrist.

  I look around. “I think so,” I said. “Come in, come in.” Once I was inside, I placed my book on the metal counter before taking a second look outside to the deep grey clouds above.

  “It’s a horrible day,” Noelia said.

  One-by-one the other witches arrived.

  “Aren’t Ralph and Abi coming in?” Eva asked, dusting rain off an umbrella.

  I shook my head. “I’m closing for a few days while everything blows over, I think that’s for the best.”

  Allegra scoffed, pulling a chair from a table and plodding herself down on it. “You’re not the only one, Pat from the charity shop has asked me not to come in. I mean, I volunteer, but apparently me being there isn’t doing him any good.”

  A slow groan drawled from Tana as she slunk across the counter. “The nursery did the same with me,” she said. “Parents don’t feel comfortable with me around. I’ve been suspended because of the investigation.”

  I worked my way around the counter. “I’m so sorry, we shouldn’t be treated like this.” My first order of business was to make teas and coffees, we couldn’t discuss anything until we had something to drink and a little food to eat. “Rosie might be coming by later,” I said as the women talked amongst themselves. “My mother came to me last night from her cell, she has more information.”

  “She does?” Eva asked. “Well?”

  I busied myself with mugs. “Okay, okay,” I said. “Let me get ready first.”

  Noelia helped plate the leftover cakes; ideal for a morning treat, the sugar rush was required to devour all new information.

  We all sat around two tables pushed together. I placed my book of shadows in the centre and took a seat. “Firstly, it was her ex-husband who died, which we suspected once she was arrested,” I said. “Secondly, I have a picture of him.” Opening my book to an image of him standing with my mother drifted out. “Their wedding day, I think.”

  Eva snatched the image up. “She was a looker.”

  Allegra grabbed it. “He wasn’t too bad either.”

  “His full name is Victor Harrison,” I said. “We can make copies and go around the area asking if anyone saw him.”

  “He’s what—” Noelia thumbed the picture, closing one eye as she stared at it. “Late twenties, thirty in this? What would he have been? Like fifty?” She shrugged, placing the picture on the table. “Can’t image he even looked the same as he did twenty years ago.”

  It was farfetched, but for Noelia she’d just been born when my mother was on her second marriage, but for the people who lived through those years, they didn’t just go by in the blink of an eye, those years were golden.

  After food, we split up different areas of the village. “I’ll take the docks,” I said. “I want to see where they found the body.” Nobody objected to, I was the last one to see it.

  “I’ll take local businesses; the newsagents, the fish and chip shop, the b & b, and ask anyone I see on my way,” Eva said.

  “I’ll take the opposite end of the village near the doctor’s office and police station,” Allegra said.

  “I don’t feel—” Tana began.

  “Of course,” I replied immediately. “If you want to stay here, then you should. Noelia can take any other ground that isn’t being covered, oh and if Rosie shows up, you can fill her in on everything.” Given Tana’s oversensitivity to dealing with people, it wasn’t worth the hassle of her being outside, it was the entire reason she worked with children, emotions were less complicated.

  Wrapped in my long brown trench coat and an umbrella in hand, I was ready to go about asking questions.

  The harbour and the docks were manned by one woman, an elderly woman named Shay, she kept all the records of people and boats that came into Cowan Bay, and it also happened to be the place where the body was found. Given I wasn’t someone who followed the same religion as Shay, I wasn’t considered someone she was happy to help. I knew this from all the dealings I’d had with her over the years.

  Strong salty sea winds blew me in all directions on the walk to the building on the harbour. I sucked back a deep breath, combing my fingers through my hair to keep it straight. I knocked on the glass partition to grab Shay’s attention from the newspaper her nose was stuck in.

  “Yes?” she called, looking over her paper. “Oh, it’s you.”

  “Hello, Shay,” I said, putting on my best smile. “I was wondering if you were here when that body was found?”

  Shuffling the paper, she folded it up. “I might’ve been. What’s it to you?”

  “Do you remember any details about it?”

  Her face shifted as her smile slipped to a grimace. “Poor fella,” she said. “Hear your lot are to blame.”

  I tugged the picture of Victor from my coat pocket. “Was this the man?” I presented the image to her.

  “God knows.”

  “How about, have you seen this man before?” I asked.

  “Could’ve.”

  “His name is Victor Harrison.” I glanced at the image again. “Did he come through here?”

  “Might’ve, but logbooks are for official use.” She unfolded her newspaper. “Sorry I can’t help you there.”

  It wasn’t like I expected much use out of her anyway, but I had to try, she might’ve been feeling particularly friendly today, unfortunately not. “Very well,” I said. It was unlikely he’d have travelled into Cowan Bay by boat anyway.

  “If you need help, you have all that hocus pocus business,” she scoffed, burying her head back in her newspaper. The title of which read ‘DO WITCHES KILL?’ and now I really had seen it all, even the papers were g
oing mad over this.

  I made my way back down to the front of the docks where dewy stones declined into the water. The tide was rising, and the winds were picking up. I hated this type of weather toward the end of autumn. I noticed blue and white police tape in the water and more discarded on the floor.

  Before turning back, a water glistened plastic glittered in my line of sight. Camouflaged in the moss was a green card. It didn’t have the familiarity of any local businesses, mainly because there weren’t many.

  Taking the card, I glanced around to make sure I wasn’t being watched. I dusted it off from any dirt and water to see a gold logo and the etching of a company name, ‘Holden and Son Private Detectives’, and in a small line at the bottom was a seven-digit reference number.

  I slipped the card into my pocket and rushed back to the café to use the phone.

  “Gwen,” Tana welcomed me in. “You have someone here.”

  “Oh, darling, it’s me!” my mother’s voice echoed through the building as she announced herself walking from the backroom. “Did you miss me? Oh, I know you did.”

  I grumbled. “You’ve been gone twelve hours,” I said. “I’d have hoped they’d keep you the full twenty-four before they had to prosecute.”

  She approached me and brushed at the shoulder of my jacket. “Charming,” she said. “Don’t you want to know what I found?”

  “I’d like to know,” Tana said.

  “Well I’m hungry,” my mother replied. “Be a doll and make me something nice.”

  I glanced from Tana to my mother. “I found this, it could be something.” I pulled the card from my pocket. “It’s a private investigator, this is probably how Victor found you.”

  “That or he’s been using magic from one of the many books I left behind after the divorce,” she replied, wagging a finger in the air. “I mean, the man was incredibly intelligent, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that he was brave enough to cast a spell one day and poof locate me.”

  “Men can’t do—”

  My mother silenced Tana with a strike of a hand. “Men can, and have been found to possess magical abilities, of course, they’re not witches,” she chuckled, “but there’s something.”