With both my best friend and my cat in a depression and hardly any leads on who took the key, I figured things couldn’t get much worse. I figured wrong. Around five p.m., just as I was closing up the shop, Felicity Bates walked through the door.
She looked bad. Like she’d aged twenty years since I’d last seen her. Instead of storming in with her usual venomous manner, she hobbled in with a cane. Her red hair hung damp and lank, devoid of its usual springy curls. Her skin was sallow. Her clothes hung on her bony frame. I’d only seen her two days ago, and she’d deteriorated quite a bit.
But even though Fluff had told Pandora that she was the victim of a misenchantment, I was still suspicious. She could be the one who stole the key and murdered Mary and was now trying to cover her tracks with a clever aging charm. But why would she come here if she’d already stolen the key?
“Willa. We need to talk.” She hobbled over to the couch and collapsed as if I wasn’t going to kick her out. I wanted to, but I also wanted to hear what she had to say.
Fluff circled around her like a bodyguard protecting a celebrity. Pandora trotted out from behind the counter but kept her distance from Fluff.
“So, we meet again,” I heard Pandora say to Fluff. I couldn’t make out his answer, just meows.
“I expect by now you know what is going on and how serious the situation here is in town,” Felicity said.
“Yes.” I didn’t elaborate on exactly what I knew. I didn’t want to tip my hand to her in case she was up to something.
“As you can see, I am no threat.” Felicity gestured to her aged body.
“It looks that way, but looks can be deceiving.” I cautiously approached the chair that was farthest away from where she was sitting and sat down.
She gave a wry smile. “I can see why you might think that, given that we have been at odds for so many years after you had my son thrown in jail for murder.”
I bit my tongue. She made it sound like I had framed him and he was innocent. The truth was, he was a murderer, and I had only done my duty as a good citizen.
She leaned forward, and I thought I could hear her bones creaking. “I need your help, and I’ve something to bargain for it.”
“That’s nice, but I don’t actually need anything.”
Felicity’s gaze flicked over to Pandora. “Maybe you don’t, but your cat does.”
“You should listen to her,” Pandora said.
I didn’t know if Felicity could hear Pandora, but I didn’t think so, judging by the way she was intently staring at me.
“Okay, I’m listening,” I said.
Felicity reached down and buried her fingers in Fluff’s fur. He purred, and by the shocked look on Pandora’s face, I figured purring wasn’t in his usual repertoire. “I heard from Fluff that Pandora is in a bit of a bind. She can no longer talk to the Mystic Notch cats.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “And what of it?”
“I know how she can remedy that.”
I narrowed my eyes, still skeptical.
“I think we better hear what she has to say.” Pandora’s meows had a tinge of desperation.
“How?” I asked.
Felicity leaned back in her chair and chuckled. “Oh no, my body may be fading, but my brain is still working just fine. I’m not going to give away my secrets. First you must promise that you will help me.”
Darn. Of course, she knew I would never go back on a promise. But I wanted to know exactly what I was signing up for first. “What is it that you want help with?”
“You have to promise.”
“Promise her!” Pandora shouted.
“Okay, I promise.”
“Actually, we’re after the same thing. I was after the key. You were right about that. But I’m not after it so I can bring harm to Mystic Notch. That’s where you were wrong. I have only the best interests of the town at heart and always have, but your sour attitude toward me would never let you see it.”
“Okay, whatever you say.”
“Anyway, we must find the key and the receptacle it opens. If what I suspect is true, then the solution for Pandora and I is the same. She has been the victim of an enchanted tea gone wrong, has she not?”
How had she known that? I doubted that Pandora had told Fluff. The white cat must have found out about Pandora’s communication problems somehow and told Felicity, but how had they known it was a tea? Felicity must’ve seen the startled look in my eyes because her smile widened.
“So, what if she is?” I asked.
“I, too, am the victim of such a thing. I never should’ve gone to Marina Delacroix. But luckily, I know how to reverse it.”
Ha! So, Marina messed up with her teas as well. I made a mental note to tell Pepper. Hopefully, that would lift her spirits and help her regain her confidence.
Pandora leaned forward, interested in Felicity’s every word.
“How?” she meowed.
“How?” I translated for her.
Felicity glanced at Fluff as if for permission to elaborate. The cat nodded. “As you know, the key opens a portal. Normally, you’d think a portal would be a doorway or a grandfather clock, but I happen to know that this particular portal is in a box.”
I glanced at Pandora. We were both thinking the same thing—Robert Frost’s box.
Felicity continued, “Yes, yes, I know. It’s not good to open a portal. All kinds of bad things can happen. But there are certain ways it can be opened, and to take a whiff of portal aroma before anything escapes can reverse a tea potion gone wrong.”
I glanced at Pandora. Could it be true? Pandora nodded vigorously.
“It seems dangerous. What if evil creatures escape?”
“That’s the tricky part. There may be a way to open it slightly and just take a little whiff then close it quickly. I’ve heard instructions have been handed down.”
“I’m not sure I can trust you. You came here the other day looking for something. Maybe you are just back here now looking for the box that goes with it,” I said. “How do I know this is not a trick and that you didn’t kill Mary to get the key?”
“She didn’t have the key,” Felicity said. “Fluff told me the book was torn apart, so whoever killed Mary probably has it. But that wasn’t me, and I can prove it.”
“How?” Of course, I knew Mary’s killer didn’t have the key, or at least they hadn’t gotten it from Mary, but I wasn’t about to tell Felicity that it had been in the box on my shelf at the time. She did seem quite certain that Mary’s killer had taken it, which meant she didn’t know it had been in the box. If that were the case, then she really didn’t have it.
“Gus questioned me about her death. Seems someone told her that I was upset that you sold the recipe book to Mary.” Felicity gave me a look indicating that she knew it was me. “But I actually have an alibi for the time of her death.”
“I’ll bet you do. How do we know that isn’t some sort of magical trick? The cops wouldn’t know to suspect that.”
“Because my alibi is you.”
“Me? How?”
“I was here buying a book from you at the time. I have the receipt. You see, Mary was able to dial 911, and Gus arrived right after the murder. The times are all recorded in her police log.”
“You could have killed her and rushed here to create an alibi.” But the more I thought about it, the more I realized Felicity couldn’t be the killer. She had been mad about the recipe book when she was here, but if she’d killed Mary just before that, she would have already known I’d sold it to her.
“Gus looked in her log. She had found your card in Mary’s hand, and while Jimmy was securing the scene, she rushed over here. The log shows how long it takes to get from Mary’s to Last Chance Books, and it proves that I wouldn’t have had time to kill Mary, change my bloody clothes, and then come here and buy a book.”
I thought back to the day in question. She had been sitting leisurely on the sofa. Not out of breath or rushing. I hated to say it, but I was starting to believe her.
“Okay, if this is all true, what do you want me to do?”
“I know you’re looking for the key, and now you need to also locate the box. I need the key and the box, as does Pandora. All I am asking is that you let me know when you find it. Give me a chance to get a whiff of portal air along with Pandora. I’ve already given you what I had to trade—the knowledge of how Pandora can regain her ability to talk to the Mystic Notch cats. Now, I’m trusting that you’ll keep your promise and notify me when you have the key and the box.”
I sighed. “Fine. But I can’t make any promises about actually finding them.”
“I know. But this is my only chance. All I ask is that you put my number in your contacts and text me if you do find them.”
* * *
Pandora paced the bookstore after Felicity and Fluff left. “I’m not sure we can trust them.”
“Me neither,” Willa said as she frowned down at her phone. “Felicity is the last person I ever thought I’d have in my contacts, but we don’t have any other ideas on how to restore your ability to talk to the cats.”
“If the key really was Robert’s and it opens the box he kept his poems in, that box could be the portal.”
“He described it in detail, so at least we know what it looks like.”
“If only I could communicate with the cats, I could send them out looking far and wide for a box that matches the description.”
“We may have to wait until Elspeth comes back to town next week. Maybe I can tell her, and she can tell the cats,” Willa said.
“A week? I don’t know if we have that long. We can’t risk the person who has the key finding it first.”
Willa glanced out the window. “That’s if we can even trust the information we got from Felicity, of course.”
“I can’t think of any reason for her to make all this up, but we need to proceed with caution,” Pandora said. “She didn’t lie about one thing. There are instructions about opening a portal.”
“There are? That’s good, right?”
“Maybe. Right now, they are buried in a safe place and being guarded by the cats.”
“Can we get them? If we find the key and the box, you could restore your ability without risking too much. I mean, if what Felicity says is true.”
“It won’t be that easy. They are buried deep. It’s going to be a project that you and I alone can’t handle. Unfortunately, I can’t ask the cats about this since I can’t communicate with them. There might be another way though.”
“Oh?”
“Remember Robert said that the box was almost magical for him, but if anyone else opened it, bad things happened?”
“Yes.”
“He may be one who is immune to the dire effects of the portal.”
“So, he can open it without bad consequences,” Willa said. “We might not need those instructions.”
“It’s possible.”
“I’m not sure if we should rule Felicity out entirely, but we do need to start looking into our other suspects. The fact that Fluff was at Mary’s does seem to indicate that they don’t have the key.”
“It does. And she did just give us that tip about the portal air. If that is even true. She looks like crap, though.” Pandora hadn’t sniffed out any trickery on Felicity. She really was falling apart. “And Fluff does seem distraught about her.”
“Yeah, but this whole portal thing seems dangerous. What if it’s really some elaborate trick to let demons out?”
“That’s another reason to message her if we find the key and box. If what she says is really true, then she won’t mind going first.”