Aconite and Accusations Read online

  It would seem that the mayor was no longer avoiding me. Instead, he wanted to rub his victory in my face.

  I was still glaring and wishing I could curse him into oblivion - or at the very least with baldness - when a crowd of excitedly babbling tourists wandered by. I recognised them from the busloads who’d arrived yesterday. The mayor opened his arms wide in greeting, smiling a perfectly white smile before he launched into what was no doubt a charismatic speech. I expected him to give them a big welcome and then send them on their way with a hired lackey, but to my surprise, he whipped a flag out of his pocket and walked across the street with the horde following him. He was giving the tours himself.

  Worse still, my shop was the first stop.

  “Good morning, Hazel. It’s a pleasure to see you,” Gareth Starbright said, all smiles and happiness. He turned to face his audience. “Hazel is an outstanding citizen of Wormwood. Her family business is one of the best in town. She makes wonderful herbal teas and is also responsible for our famous Tales from Wormwood magazine - your local source of all the best news and gossip.” He winked in my direction when he said it, as if sharing some private joke.

  I resisted the temptation to see what kind of weapon would jump into my hand if I reached for it. As much as I was starting to feel that - in this case - violence may actually be the answer, I knew it wouldn’t do any good. The mayor had already demonstrated that everything just bounced straight off him. For now, I would have to smile and play along with this ridiculous charade.

  “What a lovely surprise to see so many smiling faces!” I said, trying to fight the sick feeling that crawled inside me. “I’m so pleased that the recent brutal murder in Wormwood Forest hasn’t put you all off from staying in our town.” Ha! There were other ways to win this petty game.

  The mayor’s sunny expression slipped for a second. “Murder?”

  “You didn’t hear?” I was surprised. Our town was not exactly known for keeping its secrets quiet for long. Murder spread better than any other gossip I knew. How had the mayor missed hearing about it? Come to think of it… I genuinely hadn’t heard anyone in town whispering about the body in the river. I’d left Sean and his team to gather evidence and remove the body and that was the last I’d heard of it.

  I frowned. That was strange.

  “Who died?” one of the tourists asked, looking way more curious and way less horrified than I’d hoped.

  “I’m not sure,” I confessed. “The police haven’t announced it yet.” It was only now that I wondered if Sean had managed to get the body out of the river and back to Witchwood safely. I hadn’t heard from him since. My fingers twitched over my mobile phone in my pocket. I should have checked he was okay.

  “That’s very disturbing. I trust an investigation is ongoing?” The mayor looked genuinely troubled by my sudden announcement.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. Was he really bothered by a murdered corpse turning up when he was days away from a town full of them? To my surprise, I discovered I believed him - but not for any good reason. Gareth Starbright wanted the tourists to stick around. A murder was not good for business.

  Or at least… it wasn’t supposed to be good for business.

  “Cool… is that part of the tour?” someone said.

  “I didn’t know there was role-play involved! Are we going to solve the murder?” another asked.

  The mayor immediately looked brighter. “We’ll just have to see how events unfold,” he said with another wink in my direction. “Hazel here has quite the reputation for solving mysteries. I’m sure she’ll keep you up to speed during your time spent in Wormwood.”

  I felt my fingers ball up into fists. The body in the river had been bad enough, but now the mayor was heralding me as the leader of the non-existent murder mystery game. I was going to be hounded from dusk to dawn with little time left for doing the important things in life… like figuring out a way to stop the mayor from inviting monsters from another dimension into the town. I doubted they’d mix well with the tourists.

  The mayor indicated that the group should explore the shop on their own and gather all of the tea they’d surely be wanting. Once the tourists had scattered, he sauntered over to the shop counter and leaned against it like we were two good friends.

  “How’s business, Hazel? It looks like you’re doing very nicely. The tourism drive is going well! I think my Midsummer’s Eve Festival is going to be a huge success.” He smiled brightly.

  “Business is good,” I confessed, willing to give him that much credit. “It’s a shame it won’t last.”

  The mayor shrugged. “We must all make our sacrifices for a greater cause. Some things are just inevitable. Would you rather save a single town, or the entire world?”

  “That depends how you define ‘save’,” I muttered, thinking dark thoughts about the mayor’s ‘good intentions’. It’s a known fact that power corrupts. The mayor had slipped over that ledge a long time ago.

  “My dear Hazel…” He leaned in even closer. “I’ve already won! No amount of tales about bodies in the forest will stop me now.”

  I looked coolly back at him. “It wasn’t a tale, and if I were you, I’d be asking my tourists if they know anything about it. The dead man wasn’t from around here,” I said, inspired by our present company. Something chimed within me, whispering that I’d hit the nail on the head. This had something to do with the strangers in our town.

  “Ah well, at least I can rest a little easier knowing that this place was going to the dogs anyway,” the mayor said with a shrug. “You’ve got to admit, Wormwood’s had rot at its core for a while. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of your pals who decided to take out their twisted, murderous urges on a tourist.” He tutted. “A fresh new start is exactly what this town needs, and it’s coming.” He grinned. “It’s coming soon."

  Fortunately, that seemed to be all he had to say on the matter. It was with some relief that I finished serving the last of the tourists and the perverse procession continued on its way to bother the next business owner living on borrowed time. I frowned, wondering whether I should warn Aunt Linda, who was working at the bakery today. I decided against it. She’d probably do something far worse if I actually gave her time to prepare.

  It was then that I heard a giggle and the sound of something falling and breaking, followed by more giggles.

  “Hey!” I called, realising that there was someone lurking in the shop. “Are you supposed to be with the tour?”

  Three heads appeared around the side of a shelving unit.

  “We don’t want to follow the tour around. It’s for people interested in boring stuff like history and tourist junk. We’re not here for that,” a young man in his late teens said, stepping out into view. He had dark hair and a nose with a crook in the end that made it look as though he was constantly turning it up at people.

  “What are you here for?” I said, drawing magic into my hands just in case.

  His two companions joined him out in the open, revealing themselves to be a young woman, who looked as though she was probably the twin of the first young man, and another man in his early twenties.

  He was the one who answered my question. “We’re ghost hunters. We’ve come to uncover the haunted secrets of Wormwood. And we’re not leaving here until you give up the ghosts!”

  3

  A Whirlwind Romance

  “Give up the ghosts?” I said, utterly baffled.

  “We heard Wormwood was all kinds of spooky. We’re here to document paranormal phenomena. Did you know that there have been lots of unexplained events in this town? Most recently, there was a strange electrical storm spotted hanging over the town hall…” the young woman said, brushing her brown fringe back from her face and looking excitedly at her companions.

  “How unusual,” I said, unimpressed. That strange electrical storm had been an incredibly annoying deity trying to smite anyone who disagreed with him.

  “We’re hoping to catch some of the
phenomena on record,” the eldest boy with striking dark red hair continued, holding out a videocamera. “Only… it doesn’t seem to be working right now.” His face was puzzled. The young woman reached out and patted him on the shoulder consolingly, smiling breathtakingly at him. Even when she looked back at me I observed that he was still watching her, his eyes bright and shining.

  “It’s probably just another one of the strange happenings in Wormwood,” I said neutrally, knowing full well that videocameras never properly operated in town. In fact, a lot of electronic items could play up from time to time. I’d always put it down to magical interference… quite probably caused by the spell that had been woven into the river.

  “We’ll have to use old-school techniques instead. We’ve got tape recorders and all sorts,” the younger man said, mirroring his twin’s actions by brushing his fringe back from his forehead. They both needed a haircut in my opinion, but it was probably a fashion that was all-the-rage with teenagers.

  “So… have you seen any ghosts?” the young woman enquired. “I’m Delia by the way. This is my brother, Toby, and he’s Harry,” she said, gesturing to the teen and the young man in turn.

  “Hazel Salem,” I replied, even though the mayor had already gleefully introduced me. “I’m afraid I haven’t personally ever seen a ghost,” I told them. My eyes widened at the sight of a red collar floating across the shop floor… or rather - what would look like a floating red collar to these ghost hunters.

  Delia frowned and turned to look. I cleared my throat loudly to get everyone’s attention back. “Actually, I just thought of something!” I announced before my brain hurried to come up with something good. “My Aunt Linda told me loads of stories when I was young,” I invented. “She’s lived in Wormwood for most of her life. She’s been here so long, I swear sometimes it’s as though she’s one-hundred-years old,” I said, tongue firmly pressed into my cheek when I thought about my aunt’s actual age, which was only a couple of years short of that figure. “I’m sure she’d be able to point you in the right direction. She works at The Bread Cauldron Bakery. You can get some lunch there, too.” Hopefully, Aunt Linda would cotton on quickly and invent a far better tale than I’d managed. Somehow, I knew she’d do just fine.

  “Thanks for the help. I promise we’ll give you a credit in our final documentary,” Harry said in such a grandiose manner I struggled not to laugh. Instead, I managed a gracious smile and assured them I would be honoured. They were young and full of hopes and dreams and I had no problem at all with them chasing them.

  “How long are you staying in town for?” I asked, suddenly worried for their safety.

  “A few days. We were thinking about going to the festival, but…” Harry trailed off, looking at Delia for approval.

  She made a sound of annoyance. “It sounds pretty fuddy-duddy. That mayor is, like, so cheesy. He looks like the man on the cleaning commercials who tells you that the dirt is gone in a flash, you know?”

  I snorted before I could help myself. It was just too accurate, even down to the ominous air of unhinged evil the TV cleaning men exuded.

  “I’m sure the festival will be incredibly boring. Not much happens around here,” I said, trying not to think of the recent murders, magic, and general mayhem.

  “What about the body you found?” Harry asked, looking curious.

  Darn it. I’d forgotten I’d shot my big mouth off about that.

  “Oh, it was probably just an accidental drowning,” I said, trying to shut out the image of the violent slashes in the leather jacket. “Wormwood Forest can be a strange place. I’m sure the poor man lost his way and fell in the river.” So long as DCI Admiral didn’t hurry to put out a press release, I could pretend I wasn’t any the wiser.

  “The forest sounds cool. Are there ghosts there? Don’t hold out on us. You write that cool magazine, don’t you? You know loads about ghosts! We found back issues in the library when we went to do research last night after the bus came in,” Toby said, looking smug, like he’d somehow trapped me the way he’d planned all along.

  That sentence about giving up the ghosts suddenly made a lot more sense.

  “Oh… you read the really old issues, right?” I said, wishing the ground would open and swallow me up.

  My early work had been published before I’d discovered that magic was real. Looking back, I knew exactly why my magazine hadn’t taken off the way I’d anticipated. I’d filled it with all kinds of nonsense that everyone in town knew wasn’t real… including wild ghost stories about Wormwood Forest. Little did I know, those stories had mostly been invented by witches and magicians from the past who’d wanted to keep normal folk away from their midnight rituals.

  “We should definitely check out the forest,” Delia said, looking delighted.

  “Hnnngh!” I muttered, thinking of all the thin places and the occasional loony magician - not to mention the corpse in the river that definitely hadn’t fallen in and drowned. “Why not just start with the bakery? Aunt Linda knows lots about the haunted buildings of Wormwood,” I said, trying to emphasise the fact that the non-existent ghosts were far more likely to be in town than out of it.

  They looked unconvinced.

  I inwardly sighed. “You should check out the graveyard. Everyone thought there was a vampire buried there not so long ago,” I said through gritted teeth.

  It did the trick.

  “Wow! That sounds like the perfect stakeout place!” Harry said, before glancing around the shop with sudden interest. “You have some really neat things here, by the way. You could almost be a real witch.” He winked at me as though sharing a joke.

  “Only for the tourists,” I said, winking right back.

  “I like all of the teas. Do you make them yourself? Mmm, cardamon and chamomile,” Delia said, picking up a christmasy blend I wasn’t expecting to sell much of at this time of year.

  “You know your tea,” I commented with a smile.

  She shrugged self-deprecatingly. “When we’re not ghost hunting, the three of us work at a big, fancy garden. We see a lot of flowers. I work in the gift shop, which mostly consists of shoving boxes of flowery tea on the shelves,” she admitted. “But yours seem way, way better.”

  “I thought there’d be loads of ghosts at a National Trust property like Arden Manor,” Toby muttered. “It’s the only reason I applied for the job of apprentice groundskeeper.”

  Harry ruffled the younger man’s hair. “You’re just lucky you landed such a great boss, who also happened to have a ton of ghost hunting gear. You love your job!”

  Toby smirked. “I can’t even get away from you when we have time off.”

  Harry rolled his eyes. “Trust me, I feel the same,” he said, his gaze alighting on Delia for several seconds, before he asked for directions to the bakery.

  I wondered if she knew he was in love with her.

  As I watched them walk towards the door I couldn’t resist adding: “Watch out for the mayor. He’s been known to shoot laser beams from his eyes at visitors who stray from the tour!” I’d hoped the joke would lighten my mood, but could I be sure that he couldn’t actually shoot lasers from his eyes? The mayor’s exact powers (beyond being indestructible) remained unknown.

  As a final thought I looked out of the window at the disappearing trio, squinting as I used witch sight.

  It was just as I’d thought.

  They had about as much supernatural ability between them as a cheese sandwich.

  I nodded, satisfied that I’d palmed them off on Aunt Linda. With a bit of luck, she’d realise they were completely normal non-magical people and give them plenty of stories to chase, without putting themselves in too much danger. Bad things were coming to the town, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t important to look out for those who didn’t know what they’d walked into. For their sake, I hoped that Wormwood turned out to be a flop for their phantom hunt.

  I was about to call DCI Admiral to check he was all right when the door to the sho
p opened and he walked in, looking a far-cry from his usually neat self. Mud streaked his charcoal grey suit trousers and his dark hair had leaves and twig fragments scattered through it. To add to the overall look of disarray, his face had a couple of dirty smears across his cheeks and there appeared to be ivy poking out from the collar of his shirt.

  “What happened to you?” I asked, genuinely wondering if he’d been caught up in some terrible accident.

  “Can you believe that I’ve been trying to get into Wormwood since seven o’ clock this morning?” he said in response.

  I did some mental calculations. “Did the road appear to be shut again?”

  He frowned. “No. It was more like there was no road at all. Wormwood now seems to be a settlement in the middle of a close to impenetrable forest. I couldn’t even find it when I started walking!” He gestured to himself - not that I needed any help judging how his walk through the forest had gone.

  “I suppose the barrier must be getting stronger.”

  “You think?” he said, looking mightily peeved. “This whole thing is an absolute nightmare. First we have to carry a body for what felt like miles through the woods, and now I get lost in a forest in South East England. It’s ludicrous!”

  “Well, magic can distort distances…”

  “I know what magic can do!” he said, a red hue appearing in his face, before he took several calming deep breaths and it dissipated. “I’m sorry. I just wasn’t banking on it taking so long for me to get here today. I’ve been trying to contact you since yesterday.”

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket and glared at it. The signal appeared to be full, but there was clearly something weird going on. I shouldn’t have been so surprised. If Wormwood was in the process of being cut off by an invisible barrier, it was logical that it would also interfere with communications with the outside world.

  “I, uh… found a few things out about the man in the river,” he said, glancing around the shop to check there were no listening ears. His eyes fell on Erebus’ collar for a moment and he did some rapid blinking and head shaking. He cleared his throat. “Is Minerva Salem here?”