“Help!” I screamed but only a croak came out.
Nobody would hear me on the deserted street. Was this a carjacking, a kidnapping, or both? I had always felt safe in Westwick Corners.
Until now.
“Shut up and drive,” the voice whispered. The grip on my throat loosened slightly.
It was hard to tell from a whisper, but the voice sounded strangely familiar. Although my hands shook, I managed to put the car in gear. I kept my foot on the brake and racked my brain for a way out of the situation.
Should I try to fight off my assailant? Honk the horn? I had never been taken hostage before. I stalled for time, trying to figure out what to do.
“For crying out loud, Cendrine! Do you really have to shoulder-check twice?”
I sighed in relief as I pried the bony fingers from my neck. Aunt Pearl only called me by my full name when she was mad at me. I had no clue what I had done to anger her.
Probably nothing.
“How did you get in my car?” I asked.
“Don’t act all surprised. I’m a witch, after all. And you’re late, as usual. I’ve been freezing my butt off waiting for you for almost an hour. What took you so long?”
“I had work to finish up. We never made plans, did we? Why did you break into my car? I hope you didn’t wreck the—”
“Stop interrogating me, Cen. We’ve got a job to do and it’s not going to take care of itself.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Aunt Pearl. I’ve already got plans.”
“Not with that sheriff boyfriend of yours, you don’t. You know he’s not working late at the office like he said, don’t you?”
“Stop trying to stir up trouble. Too bad if you don’t like him. He’s not going anywhere.”
“Oh, I know where he is, Cen.” Aunt Pearl held a finger to her lips. “Don’t ask me because I can’t tell you. I’m sworn to secrecy.”
I wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of asking. “Anyway, I’m on my way over to Lombard Wines to help Antonio bottle his wine for tomorrow.”
“Don’t make like saving Antonio was all your idea. You know that’s why I’m here.”
“Uh, no…I didn’t.”
“You always take credit for everything. Put this junk heap in gear and let’s go.”
Aunt Pearl now sat beside me in the passenger seat, looking larger than usual in her puffy down jacket. Underneath she wore her purple velour tracksuit, and on her feet were running shoes. She stared straight ahead.
I had no recollection of her climbing into the front seat so I suspected she had placed a spell on me. That was a blatant violation of WICCA rules, but Aunt Pearl could care less.
I was also certain that I had come up with the idea to help Antonio on my own but decided that it wasn’t worth arguing about.
I sighed. “I’m not taking credit for anything, Aunt Pearl. I am glad that both of us are helping Antonio. That should make things go a lot faster.”
Ten minutes later we were at Lombard Wines, freezing half to death inside the huge cavernous building that doubled as a tasting room and a fully functional winery. The heat had been turned off, and it was so cold that my breath formed vapors as I talked.
The winery appeared to be in even worse shape than when I had visited yesterday. Overturned barrels and stacked wine cartons were scattered throughout the tasting room, some blocking the aisles that led to the winery’s large stainless-steel wine vats. Trails of muddy footprints soiled the polished cement floor. Footprints led to and from the front entrance and to the rear of the building, where stairs descended down to the basement wine cellar.
The whole scene was chaotic, the complete opposite of the normally spotless winery.
I shivered. It seemed even colder inside the winery than outdoors. Antonio had probably shut the heat off to save money.
The lights still shone overhead so at least the power hadn’t been cut. I suspected that was coming soon.
Antonio Lombard sat on a barstool at the winetasting bar, his back to us. His shoulders were slumped, his elbows rested on the bar.
“Antonio! Get your butt in gear!” Aunt Pearl’s voice echoed in the cavernous room.
Antonio jerked up and spun around, startled. “What do you want?”
He was unshaven and his hair seemed to have turned gray overnight. Instead of his usual golf shirt and khakis, he wore an old white t-shirt with wine stains over faded jeans that had ripped knees and frayed hems. He wore flip flops instead of proper shoes. He looked as neglected as the winery. I had never seen him like this.
“Uh, we’re bottling wine, remember?” Judging by the state of the winery, he hadn’t remembered. “Tell us what to do.”
Aunt Pearl tapped her foot impatiently. “I haven’t got all day, Antonio. Do you want our help or not?”
Antonio either didn’t hear or else pretended not to. He gazed dreamily off into the distance.
“This is ridiculous! You drag me all the way over here and he’s totally ignoring us.” Aunt Pearl tapped her foot impatiently. “Time is money, Cen.”
“I didn’t drag you here. You broke into my car, remember?” I already regretted letting her come with me. “Can we focus on Antonio instead of arguing?”
“You always have to get the last word in,” Aunt Pearl muttered.
I pressed a finger to my lips and spoke in a low voice. “Antonio’s not himself, Aunt Pearl. I’ve never seen him like this. He’s either distracted, depressed, or…I don’t know. Something’s wrong and I can’t quite put my finger on it.”
Aunt Pearl laughed. “Something’s wrong? You’re a hoot. Took you a while to figure out that Antonio’s totally lost his mind.”
We waited for Antonio to get organized for the better part of an hour but his attention was focused elsewhere. He would pour a wine sample from one of the large stainless-steel vats only to set his glass down without tasting it. His lips formed words with no sound. He ran from the vats to the bottling area, then did an about-turn as if he had forgotten another task. He ran downstairs to the cellar. A minute later he reemerged empty-handed, only to repeat the process all again.
I wanted to help him, but he wasn’t making it easy. He had worked so hard to keep the Lombard Wines family business going these last few years, yet he always had the worst luck. He seemed completely overwhelmed. He was stuck in a loop.
We were stuck too. I’m a witch, not a psychologist. I wanted to help but was at a loss on what to do.
Aunt Pearl’s high-pitched voice pierced the silence. “Antonio—stop the insanity! What the heck is wrong with you? Pull yourself together!”
Antonio’s hands flew to his head. He covered his ears with his hands as if to drown out Aunt Pearl’s voice. He shook his head slowly back and forth, mouthing ‘no’ to some invisible foe. “I’m trying to think but…it’s all so overwhelming.”
Aunt Pearl marched across the floor to Antonio before I had a chance to stop her.
She faced him and clamped a boney hand onto each of his forearms. She shook him and yelled into his face. “Hey! Snap out of it!”
I rushed over to stop whatever was about to happen. “I don’t think—”
“Stay out of this, Cendrine,” Aunt Pearl growled. “I know what I’m doing.”
Aunt Pearl’s temper was about to get the better of her, and Antonio already had a lot going wrong. We had only one goal, and that was to get his wine bottled and ready for the festival.
Last-minute wine bottling wasn’t ideal, but it was our only option. Without bottles, corks, or labels, it was pretty much impossible to get everything together, even for a witch. In theory, I could conjure up these things, but witchcraft for profit was strictly forbidden, even if it was to line another person’s pockets.
Lombard Wines had operated in Westwick Corners for generations. All that was at risk because Antonio Lombard was unraveling. I feared that his winery was about to go belly up.
I was still unclear about the exact problems Antonio faced. This year’s grape harvest had been excellent, and Antonio was an accomplished winemaker, so there should have been lots of activity to crush the grapes and ferment and clarify the juice in the large vats. But in order to do that, the previous year’s wine had to be removed from the vats and bottled. That task hadn’t even started yet, and it was that wine we needed for the wine festival.
The Lombard wine wouldn’t bottle itself. Antonio’s future depended on a good showing at the annual Westwick Corners Wine Festival. His future also depended on Aunt Pearl releasing her grip from his forearms, which had turned white due to lack of blood supply.
Antonio wore a pained expression, but he didn’t flinch. He knew that any show of weakness would only make Aunt Pearl dig in deeper. He was twice the size of my ninety-pound aunt, yet like the rest of us, was deathly afraid of her.
“Aunt Pearl! You’re hurting Antonio!” I approached them and slowly pried Aunt Pearl’s hands from his arms. I probably should have kicked her out of my car after she attempted to strangle me. Aside from almost giving me a heart attack, she was slowing things down. No doubt she had an ulterior motive for being here.
I kept my voice calm. “We’ll get this done together. But first things first. Where do you keep the bottles?”
Antonio sighed and lowered himself into a chair. He pointed to a bunch of boxes behind the bottling table where Aunt Pearl and I had been standing. “Over there.”
Aunt Pearl pulled out the boxes and checked them one by one. “No bottles here, Antonio. These boxes are all empty.”
Antonio frowned. “That’s strange. All my bottles seem to have mysteriously disappeared.”
“You begged us to help, but you never even bothered to check your supplies?” Aunt Pearl threw her hands in the air. “They didn’t disappear by themselves. Admit it, Tony. You forgot to order them.”
Antonio hated to be called Tony. Aunt Pearl was purposely getting him all riled up.
“I think I have more bottles down in the cellar,” he said.
“Fine, I’ll go check.” Aunt Pearl walked toward the stairs that led down to the wine cellar.”
Antonio got up from his seat. “I’ll do it. You can’t get in. The cellar has a biometric lock. The only way to unlock the cellar is with my fingerprint.”
“Oooh…fancy,” Aunt Pearl said mockingly. “Did you spend your money on that instead of bottles?”
Antonio ignored her and walked to the rear of the building, where a wrought iron spiral staircase led downstairs to the wine cellar.
“I’ve got to see this.” I followed behind Aunt Pearl as we headed down the steps to a small landing that faced the heavy steel cellar door. A large oak barrel had been placed by the door, leaving only enough room for Antonio. Aunt Pearl and I waited on the bottom steps while Antonio unlocked the door.
Above the door handle was a fancy-looking lock with a number pad and a glass square. It looked fairly new, and I didn’t remember seeing it before. It had been a year since I had last been down to the wine cellar.
Antonio punched several keys on the number pad before pressing his index finger on the glass. The lock made a clicking sound as it unlocked. Antonio turned the handle and opened the door.
“I have to enter the security code first. Then the biometric scanner reads my fingerprint. It’s supposed to flash green, but the light burned out,” he said. He stepped into the large cellar and motioned for us to follow.
Aunt Pearl paused at the door to study the locking mechanism. “It’s broken already?”
“I’ve got the technician coming on Monday to replace the bulb. The door still works fine, it’s just the light. Isn’t it cool? It will only unlock with both the security code and my fingerprint. It’s theft proof.”
“You don’t need that kind of security in Westwick Corners,” I said.
“I’m not so sure about that, Cen. Lately things have been going missing. Little things, like a bottle of wine here and there, and every once in a while, a few tools. I just feel better having the wine locked up. This lock is impossible to hack.”
Aunt Pearl arched her brows. “Oh really? I bet I could crack it. Give me the instruction manual, and I’ll decode this thing like nobody’s business. I’m pretty tech-savvy, Antonio. I can probably even fix the light in a jiffy. If I wasn’t retired already, I’d be a hacker for hire. Companies would pay me the big bucks to identify all their system vulnerabilities.”
Antonio laughed. “Sorry, Pearl. I seemed to have misplaced the instructions. I’m hoping the installer will leave me another copy when he comes.”
“Focus, Aunt Pearl,” I whispered. “We don’t have time for distractions. Or witchcraft.”
Aunt Pearl scowled. “I’ll spend my time however I like. Oh, and one more thing…I don’t take orders from junior witches!”
Thankfully Antonio was out of earshot a few feet away. He knelt beside a case of wine, squinting at the fine print on the box.
The air in the wine cellar was cool, damp, and musty. It was modeled after the underground wine cellars in France, complete with arched stone walls and a cave-like atmosphere. It had an Old World feel but was only a few years old. The underground cellar had been excavated and built at the same time as the winery building. Both would have cost a great deal to build, at least several years’ worth of winery profits. That was probably when the Lombard Wines’ financial problems started. The Lombard family business simply wasn’t on a scale large enough to justify such a grand building. Floor to ceiling racks extended fifty feet in each direction, built to hold oak barrels where the wine was aged. Last year they had been full. Now they were mostly empty.
“Pretty slick.” Aunt Pearl scanned the cellar’s empty racks. “Except there’s nothing in here worth locking up.”
“Not even the empty bottles we need to bottle the wine.” My heart sank as I scanned the room. “Where are those, Antonio?”
He shrugged. “Like I said, things are always going missing around here.”
I pulled out my phone to call Mom but reception was poor inside the wine cellar. I headed back upstairs and called her, filling her in on the details.
Mom said, “Whatever Antonio needs he can have. I’ve got cases and cases of extra bottles. I wouldn’t even have a vineyard if it wasn’t for Antonio’s help in getting us started a few years ago. You tell him he can have anything he needs.”
“Thanks, Mom. I’ll be right over.”
“No!”
I was confused. “What? Why can’t I drop by—”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “It’s not a good time right now, Cen. I-I’ll explain later but don’t come home right now. Send Pearl over.”
“Okay, but—”
But Mom had already disconnected. She was acting very strange and I had no idea why.
Was I imagining things, or was the whole town going crazy?