Chapter 22
The phone startled me awake at eight a.m. The woman on the other end was speaking so rapidly that I didn’t catch her name or the reason for her call.
“Excuse me?” was all I could manage as I tried to extricate myself from a convoluted dream in which I was stuck back in Merlin’s time.
“I’m sorry. Let me start again,” the woman said, clearly making an effort to slow down and speak more distinctly. “My name is Natalie Catapano. Your aunt Matilda and her companion drove onto my front lawn the other day?”
Uh-oh. I’d given the Catapanos my phone number instead of Tilly’s, in an effort to stay on top of things. “Yes, of course, Mrs. Catapano,” I said, “how can I help you?”
“It’s beautiful, absolutely magnificent,” she blurted out. “Tony and I, well our mouths fell open when we looked outside this morning. We can’t get over it. How on earth did your aunt arrange all this? And in so little time. She must have had a crew of elves working here all night. Didn’t even wake us. Or any of our cranky neighbors. It’s nothing short of magic.”
“I’m so pleased to hear you like it,” I said, thinking they’d hit the nail on the head. No one could have set the Catapano’s landscaping to rights so fast without a healthy dose of magick. “I’ll be sure to let my aunt know.”
Natalie wasn’t ready to let go of the subject yet. She gushed on for another few minutes in mind-numbing detail, ending with a request for the name of the company Tilly hired.
“I’ll ask her to give you a call,” I said. New Camel was about to have another murder to solve. But this one would be a cinch.
* * *
I left for work early, intending to stop first at Tilly’s house. I didn’t call to say I was coming, because I wanted to catch her off guard. Instead I was the one surprised that no one was home. I drove on down to Main Street where I found her car parked in front of our shops. At least she and her accomplice weren’t off somewhere getting into more trouble. I pulled up behind her mustang and played a brief, but spirited, game of “catch the cat” with Sashkatu, who was feeling unusually chipper. After opening Abracadabra, I set Sashki on the floor and the two of us marched straight back and through the connecting door to Tilly’s place. I’d been so preoccupied that I hadn’t immediately noticed the smells of baking. Baking was my aunt’s go-to when she was overwrought, worried, or depressed. Over the years, the level of her baking frenzy had proven to be a fair measure of the state of her nerves. That day I put it at seven out of ten.
There were trays of pastries and scones cooling on every available surface. Merlin was watching the action from a stool at the entrance to the kitchen. Sashki rubbed his face against the sorcerer’s pants leg, then curled up around his feet, the smell of baked goods making his tiny nose twitch with anticipation.
“Good Morning, Mistress,” Merlin greeted me as if nothing were amiss. But then his perspective with regard to magick was worlds apart from mine.
“Is it?” I replied, sidling past him to enter the kitchen at the same moment the oven timer started to chirp. I stepped into Tilly’s path as she turned away from the sink to answer its call.
“Kailyn,” she said, clearly not as delighted to see me as she usually was. The timer kept chirping for attention. “Excuse me, dear, I have to see to the strudel.”
I stood my ground. “I got a phone call from Natalie Catapano this morning.”
“Oh really?” Her voice was a full octave above its normal range. She looked from me to the oven and back again, like a criminal trying to decide if she should make a run to save the strudel. When had she started baking strudel for her teas anyway?
“She’s thrilled with how beautiful her yard turned out,” I said.
“Isn’t that nice?” Tilly stepped to the side to get around me, but my reaction time was too good. “Kailyn,” she said impatiently, “the strudel is going to burn.”
“According to Natalie, the work was done so fast and noiselessly, it was nothing short of magick.”
“It wasn’t my doing,” Tilly said with a defeated sigh. “Let me get the strudel out, and I’ll tell you everything.”
I went back to my shop to wait. Sashki stayed with Merlin. Big surprise. When Tilly came to talk, she was holding a plate of apple strudel as a peace offering, wizard and cat close behind her. She set the plate on my counter and collapsed into the chair beside it, looking exhausted. “I meant to take care of the Catapano’s landscaping the proper way,” she said. “I got some estimates, but the numbers were staggering. You’d think we drove a semi through the gardens of Versailles.”
When she paused, Merlin picked up the narrative, no hint of apology in his tone. “Matilda was so upset, how could I not take pity on her? It is simply not in my nature to stand by and do nothing in someone’s time of distress.”
Since it was pointless to argue with the man, I turned back to my aunt. “Why didn’t you come to me? We could have figured something out together. Now Natalie will be telling everyone in the county how you transformed her yard overnight. And by the way, she wants the name of the company you hired to do it.” The color drained from Tilly’s face.
“And how would you go about helping her with that?” I asked Merlin, who was clearly stumped.
“I could . . . we might . . . there are a number of spells and potions that can fiddle with one’s memory. But they can be tricky.”
Wow, why didn’t that suggestion calm all my fears? “There’s also her husband’s memory,” I pointed out. “And the memories of all the people who happen to see the property or speak to the Catapanos.” Not even the great Merlin could hope to stuff this particular genie back in the bottle.
Tilly was wagging her head in silent misery, possibly realizing for the first time how deep and muddy a hole she and her Clyde had dug for us. The ringing of my phone provided them with a chance to retreat to the warmth and sweetness of her shop. A tour bus was scheduled to arrive soon anyway, and there was nothing to be gained by rehashing the matter ad nauseam. When I picked up the phone, I found Ronnie on the line.
“Kailyn, I need to talk to you,” she said grimly. “In person.”
“I have to speak to you too,” I said, wondering what grave, new problem had landed on her doorstep and, by extension, mine.
“An early dinner at The Caboose?” she suggested. We agreed on five-fifteen at the restaurant, which was technically in an old train car, not a caboose. Of far more importance was the fact that they made the best burgers, fries, and shakes in the county and quite possibly the state. Minutes after clicking off the call, the tour group descended on New Camel. It was a lively bunch of women from the Boston suburbs who kept me jumping, which was exactly what I needed in order to make it through the workday.