Chapter 7
“What say you?” Merlin sputtered indignantly. “I am required to prove who I am?” I’d clearly taken him by surprise. Replete with Oreos, he had allowed himself to relax in spite of his current predicament of time and space. We were still seated around the kitchen table, our cups empty, with the exception of Tilly’s, and the plate picked clean of cookies.
“My apologies,” I scrambled to explain, “but before I invite you to stay here with me, I need to be sure I can trust you. The world is not a safe place today, in spite of how much we may have progressed since your time. In many ways, it’s a lot more dangerous. In the past, you had to come face to face with the person you killed. Today someone on the other side of the world can steal your identity or blow up a city with the push of a button.” Having lived hundreds of years before the discovery of basic electricity, Merlin was clearly having trouble understanding the concept. Before we got bogged down, answering endless questions, I tried another tack. “You told me earlier that you would show me your magick,” I reminded him.
“Everything has a price,” he grumbled. I wasn’t sure if he was referring to the awful state of the modern world or the cost of proving himself to me, but it didn’t matter. “Since I do remember agreeing to a display of my abilities,” he went on, “so be it.” He pushed his chair back and got to his feet. “Is there anything in particular you’d like me to do?”
My aunt sprang up from her seat, more nimbly than she had in years. “Glamour me.”
“Tilly wait,” I said, grabbing her arm as if that might actually stop her.
She pulled her arm free of my grasp and turned to Merlin. “Can you make me look like a fire-breathing dragon?”
I cringed. What if he couldn’t reverse the spell, and she had to live the rest of her life appearing that way to the world? It would be a whole lot worse for business than having her psychic powers abridged. “Why not start with something simpler?” I suggested. “The poor man should have a chance to warm up. After all, he’s probably got the worst case of jetlag in history.” I went for the laugh, knowing that it was easier to win Tilly over with humor than with argument. While she mulled it over, I grabbed the napkin holder from the table. “Merlin, would you please make this look like a vase of flowers?”
Merlin looked from Tilly to me and scratched his head, clearly trying to decide to whom he owed his allegiance. Although he’d landed in my store, nearly destroying it in the process, Tilly of the red hair won out. “I’m perfectly capable of a little glamouring before I rest,” he said with a bit of pique. And right then I realized my mistake. I’d challenged his machismo in front of a female admirer. Not much had changed in that respect, between his time and ours.
“Wait, don’t you need your wand?” I knew I was grabbing at straws, but I hadn’t seen one in his possession, so it was worth a shot.
His wooly eyebrows gathered into a frown. “I was whisked away from home so abruptly that I didn’t have time to take anything with me. I suppose I should be grateful I wasn’t naked at the time. No matter. The wand is helpful, but not always essential.”
Not always essential—hardly words that engendered confidence, but they didn’t seem to diminish Tilly’s enthusiasm in the least. She was grinning from ear to ear like a kid going to the circus for the first time. Since I was out of arguments, I zipped my lips. If ever I could have used my mother’s input, this was it.
“Should I be standing or seated?” Tilly asked. “I don’t want to ruin the chair with my claws or scales.”
“You won’t actually be a dragon,” I reminded her. “You’ll just appear that way to anyone looking at you.” I glanced at Merlin for corroboration, but he was staring into space, mumbling a string of words I didn’t understand. He looked up finally with a satisfied expression, turned to Tilly and began the foreign sounding incantation. When he was finished, nothing had changed. Tilly was still Tilly in her floral muumuu. I thanked whatever angels were watching over us. Prematurely, as it happened. A moment later she morphed into a large, green dragon with flaring nostrils and malevolent yellow eyes. As fearsome as the creature looked, it was impossible to take it seriously, not just because I knew it was my aunt, but also because it was still wearing her muumuu, which could now pass for a bib. I started to giggle, which clearly irritated the Tilly-dragon. She opened her mouth, exhaling a flash of fire. It was getting way too real for me. “That’s it, Merlin, enough,” I said. “Reverse the spell.”
Merlin had his head in the pantry. “Might there be more of those cookies?” he inquired.
“No, but I can go to the store and buy more of them, after you change my aunt back into herself.” I knew how to drive a hard bargain.
“Yes, yes, very well.” He left the pantry grudgingly to focus on the Tilly-dragon. He recited the spell. This time I knew to be more patient and wait a bit for the results. A minute passed and then five more. Merlin tried rewording the chant. Nothing happened. I was getting more worried by the second.
“Aha,” Merlin said. “I know what I did wrong.” He tried again, and again we waited. Still nothing. I wondered if I could be convicted for the murder of someone who’d technically been dead since the Middle Ages. Twenty minutes later, Merlin was frustrated, and I wasn’t sure if I was more angry or scared. If this had been a film set, we would have been up to “take” thirty-two. The Tilly-dragon must have been awfully thirsty, because she sipped the rest of the distasteful tea, an act that looked ridiculous, given her present state. But I was all out of giggles.
After a brief respite, during which Merlin paced around the kitchen muttering, he stopped and threw his hands up. “How could I have forgotten to reverse the last phrase?! What has befallen my memory of late?”
“You knew you had memory problems, yet you still thought it was a good idea to try this?” My anger and my voice had reached the boiling point.
“I forgot,” he responded. “That is what forgetting is about, after all.”
“Do you remember what to do now?” I could have won an Oscar for keeping my temper under control.
“Behold,” he said with the renewed confidence of a showman. On take thirty-two, he nailed it. A minute later Tilly was back to herself, asking if I’d taken a picture of her as a dragon. A picture? I’d been too busy worrying about her well-being to think of it. I’m not proud to admit that I lied and told her the camera wasn’t capable of capturing such powerful magick.
“Have I passed your test?” Merlin asked with aplomb.
“Yes, you have.” I’d thought about saying “no” to shake him up a bit for what he’d put me through. But the truth was that he had proven himself. I’d never met any witch, wizard, or sorcerer who could have done what he did, mistakes notwithstanding.
“Then might I lie down for a while? I believe I do suffer from that lagging malady you mentioned.”
“You’re welcome to rest at my house too,” Tilly said sweetly before I could answer. “I have two empty bedrooms; you can have your pick.”
Tired as he seemed, Merlin perked up at her offer. Had he been a dog, I’m certain that his ears would have stood at attention. “And where might that be?” he asked.
“The next block, but I have my car here.”
“If it means getting to ride in one of your modern conveyances, I cannot refuse your kind offer. What a remarkable day this has been.”
Tilly turned to me, happier than I’d seen her in days. “You don’t mind, Kailyn, do you?”
I didn’t have the heart to object. It stung a little that Merlin picked her over me, but only until I’d had a moment to think about it. The last thing I needed was the additional time and work he would add to my already complicated life. He wasn’t a friend who’d dropped by for the weekend. We had no way of knowing how long he would be staying or, for that matter, if he would ever be able to return home. “No, of course not,” I was able to say with complete honesty.
I saw them out to Tilly’s car, a snazzy red Camaro she’d purchased on a whim two years earlier, despite the fact that she’d had some difficulty climbing in and out of the car in the showroom. To her credit, I never heard her utter a single word of regret or complaint about it.
As I waved them off, I heard the phone inside ringing. I ran in, colliding with the cats who were assembled at the door, hoping for Merlin’s return. They scattered, tripping me and making it more difficult to avoid stepping on any paws. After I made it through the gauntlet without inflicting injury, the cats resumed their vigil at the door. They had a long night ahead of them. Sashkatu had retired to the top of the living room couch. From there he could keep an eye on the foyer in comfort. I grabbed the phone off the table beside the couch.
“I’m so glad you’re home,” Elise Harkens said in response to my hello. Her voice was so thin and raspy, she sounded as if she was being strangled.
“What’s up” I asked.
“I don’t know if you heard . . .”
“Heard what?”
“The killer used Jim’s gun to murder him. So now I’m—”
“Elise,” I interrupted her, “why don’t you come over to my house so we can talk?” Given this new evidence, Duggan might have put a tap on her line. Elise arrived ten minutes later, looking more distraught than she had on the day Jim died. I picked my way through the cats to open the door for her, then led her around them into the living room. When we sat on the couch, Sashkatu took umbrage at having his space invaded. With a plaintive yowl, he climbed down from his perch, using my body as a stairway to the floor and whacking me in the nose with his sturdy tail on the way. It was probably intentional, but this was not the time to scold him.
“Tell me what happened,” I said to Elise.
“Whenever I think things can’t get any worse, they do,” she said, tearing up.
“Maybe it’s not that bad,” I said, worried that it was. “Did Jim keep the gun at home or in his office?”
“As far as I know it’s always been in the house. When Jim bought it nine, ten years ago, it was at the time of those break-ins around the area.”
“I remember that. Didn’t the police eventually catch the guys who were responsible?”
“Yes. Luckily, Jim never had to use the gun against an intruder. I’d almost forgotten about it until today. Knowing that Jim’s killer is still on the loose, I figured I should keep it handy, you know, in case he tries to come after the boys or me. When I went to get it out of the lockbox, it was gone.”
“Did Jim ever lend the gun to anyone?”
“No, that would be illegal. He would never do it. But he lost the key months ago and never got around to buying a new box.
“Then we have to assume the killer broke into your house to steal the gun.”
“To frame me, right? Why else would someone do that?”
I tried to come up with another possibility, but nothing else made sense. “How many people knew you kept a gun in the house?”
Elise thought about it for a minute. “A few, unless Jim mentioned it to people when I wasn’t with him. I’ll make a list of the people I’m aware of.”
“It’s a start. Did you report the gun stolen yet?”
She shook her head. “I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure out when there might have been a break-in, so I don’t sound like a complete lame-brain when I talk to them. Who wouldn’t know when they’ve been burglarized?”
“Do you always arm your security system?”
“We used to, when we first got it, also around the time of those burglaries. But after everything died down, we didn’t put it on unless we were going out of town. I mean, this is tiny New Camel.”
I understood her point. Living in New Camel, you felt safe. It was easy to forget about crime. If you weren’t a member of my family, that is. Whether there was crime, war, or peace, we relied on protective wards for security. “Vigilance is the price we must pay for the powers that make us different,” my grandmother used to say. “Never forget, Kailyn, we have not always been welcome.” Not long before she and my mother died, they’d had a basic alarm system installed, because our magick had become too unpredictable.
“The killer must have stolen the gun recently,” I said, thinking out loud. “He would have wanted to minimize the odds of Jim realizing the gun was gone. And when he stole it, he would have been careful not to mess up the house in any way that would have raised a red flag. Think back a couple of weeks. If the killer made any mistakes, they were probably small ones. Something you might have attributed to Jim or the boys.”
Elise shook her head. “I never came home and found the door unlocked or the—” Her hand flew to her mouth, her eyes widened. “I know when it happened. Ten days ago I found one of the big kitchen windows open. I assumed it was my cleaning lady’s fault, because she sometimes forgets to close and lock all the windows after she cleans them.”
“But that actually could have been the cleaning lady’s fault. So we still need some other clue to corroborate the fact it happened that day. Something small, a book out of place or items switched around in a closet, a drawer not closed all the way.”
Elise’s brow furrowed. “Wait—I blamed my boys for tracking mud onto my bedroom carpet right after it was cleaned. They swore they hadn’t been in there, but I didn’t believe them,” she added sheepishly.
“Mud? I don’t think we had any rain that week though.”
“No, but our sprinklers were on and they make the flower bed under the kitchen windows muddy.”
“Here’s the problem,” I said. “If I’m right, the killer wouldn’t have left any evidence of being in the house. He would have cleaned up after himself.” And I’d been doing so well up to that point. So much for trying to fill Nancy Drew’s big shoes.
“The dirt was smeared as if the person tried to clean it,” Elise said. “It’s a lot easier to get up when it’s dry. It vacuums right up. If you try to wipe up wet dirt, it leaves a mess.”
Maybe there was still hope for me as a sleuth. “It could be the killer knew that, but didn’t have the time to hang around and wait for it to dry. He left, hoping you wouldn’t tie the mud to the break-in. And he got lucky. Was there mud anywhere else in the house?”
“I didn’t see any, but the other floors are ceramic or hardwood, way easier to clean.”
“All right, now that we’ve pinpointed the day it happened, you’ve got to call and report the theft.”
“I know,” Elise said miserably, “but it’s sure going to sound like I’m making the whole thing up—a lame attempt at a defense if ever there was one.”
“Think of it this way: once you report the gun stolen, they’ll have to investigate it and then maybe they’ll find the real killer.”
“Oh, I’m sure they’ll go through the motions. But in the end, there’s a real possibility I’ll go to prison, and my boys . . .” Tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. I handed her the small box of tissues from the coffee table in front of the couch. She pulled one out and dabbed at her eyes and nose with it. Then she set the box down next to her as if she thought she might need another one soon. I tried to think of something comforting to say, a reason to be optimistic, but nothing came to me. She was the one to break the silence. “When I called, it wasn’t just to tell you about the gun,” she said, absently kneading the tissue in her hands. “I wanted to know if there’s a spell or potion that would make the killer come forward and confess, or . . . or one that would help Duggan find the guy? Would Aunt Tilly be able to read the killer’s mind if she were in the same room with him?”
Elise and I had never spent much time talking about my family business, hers either, for that matter. Because of the large age gap between us, it wasn’t until the last six years or so that we’d become close adult friends. During that time, I’d taught her some spells and whipped up some potions to help with a variety of things, from bee stings to her difficult mother-in-law. We didn’t see it as odd or any different from asking a friend for help with algebra or advice on how to catch a guy’s attention.
I put my hands over hers, hating to dash her hopes. “I wish it were that simple,” I said. “If it were, I would have already done it. I can’t cast a spell on an unknown individual and I doubt Duggan would be willing to let me practice magick on him for any reason. Unfortunately, Tilly can’t read a person when there’s something they’re trying to hide.”
Elise managed a half-hearted smile. “That’s what I thought, but I had to ask. I had to be sure.” We talked for a few more minutes about how the boys were doing, before she left to get back to them. To reach the door, she had to pick her way around the cats as if she were trying to avoid land mines.
The sound of the door closing drew Sashkatu out from wherever he’d been nursing his snit. He made his way directly to me and began weaving in and out of my legs, which generally meant he wanted my attention and would keep it up until he’d communicated his desire. I looked at my watch. Evening had snuck up on me. The other cats were still fixated on the door and the memory of Merlin, so it had been left to Sashkatu to remind me about dinner. I lined up their dishes on the counter and filled them with kibble and canned tuna with assembly-line efficiency Mr. Ford would have found impressive. Then I set five of them on the floor with fresh water. The sixth one I took into the first floor powder room for Sashkatu and left him to chow down in private. The smell of food had finally drawn the other cats into the kitchen.
I opened the refrigerator, looking for inspiration for my own dinner, but there wasn’t much there to inspire even the most creative chef. There were a couple of eggs, a lone apple, and a container of Chinese takeout that had to be at least two weeks old. I tossed it in the garbage, afraid to peek inside. Okay, that narrowed down my choices. Dinner was going to be an egg with an apple for dessert. No matter what new calamity tomorrow had in store for me, the day would also have to include a trip to the grocery store. I was cracking the egg on the side of a small fry pan when my mother popped in for a visit.