A Familiar Tail Read online

  “But you are saying somebody might not want me here, because I . . . my magic might be able to see what they were really up to?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Gran told me. “If murder’s been done . . . Annabelle, you have to leave. You could be in danger.”

  Alistair jumped back into my lap, and I wrapped my free arm around him.

  “No, Gran,” I said firmly. “I’m not running away. I’m going to stay and figure this thing out.”

  “I love you, Annabelle Amelia. Whatever you do, it has to be because you want it. But you have to be careful, dear. The craft is a force for great good, but only when the intention of the practitioner is good.”

  “What you send out into the world comes back threefold.”

  I couldn’t see it, but I knew she was nodding again. “Promise me you will be careful.”

  “I promise, and I’ll call you back really soon.” I paused. “Uh, Gran, when Ginger was tracing the family history, she said she found an Innocence Blessingsound in, um . . .”

  “Oh. Yes. She would. Well, no point in not saying it, I suppose. The family did originally settle in Salem, and yes, we left during the trials before anyone in the family could be called out.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Anna . . .”

  She was going to apologize again, and I found myself smiling. “It’s okay, Grandma. Really.”

  “Do you mean that?”

  “If I don’t, I will soon. I love you. I’ll call tomorrow, okay?”

  We said our good-byes and I hung up and hugged Alistair. Alistair put up with this for a while and then slithered down to curl up in my lap and resume his important napping. I scratched his ears, because that’s what you do with a cat in your lap and I’m only human, even if he wasn’t only a cat.

  Which got me thinking about the other strange animal I’d been seeing recently.

  “So, Alistair . . . That yellow bird, the one on the sill? It really was a familiar, like you, and Julia’s dogs?”

  “Meow,” said Alistair, which I took to be an affirmative.

  “Swell.” I sighed. “Well, what do we do now, big guy? Get a spiral notebook and a number two pencil and an apple for the teacher at witch school?”

  Alistair jumped back down to the floor and padded over toward the window. I blinked, and he wasn’t there.

  I probably swore. I know I jumped to my feet and pushed the curtains back and stared out at the moonlit lawn. I watched a plump shadow slide across the grass and jump up onto the fence that separated McDermott’s garden from the Hawthorne house. Alistair paused on the fence and I know he looked up at me. I could feel it in the pricking of my thumbs. Then he jumped down onto the far side and disappeared. Possibly literally.

  I knew what he was telling me. If I really wanted to figure this out, I needed to get myself back into Dorothy’s old house.

  19

  DESPITE THE (BY my standards) late night, I woke up bright and early. The sun flooded in through the windows. Alistair was nowhere in evidence, but there was a warm cat-shaped dent on the spare pillow next to me, which said he’d come back sometime during the night.

  I got up, showered, dried my hair and pulled it back into a ponytail. This was definitely a comfort-clothes day. It called for soft old jeans, a loose red V-neck T-shirt and the scuffed flats. I even unearthed my Red Sox cap from Thing One. Then I stuffed my laptop, sketchbook and purse into my backpack. I also made sure I had the wand. What a difference a day makes.

  I’d fully intended to slip out the front door without being noticed, but luck was not with me. When I got down to the entrance hall, Valerie was already there, setting a fresh vase of cut flowers onto a table covered with colorful brochures for local attractions.

  “Good morning, Anna,” she said as she wiped her hands on her apron. This one was bright pink and read QUEEN OF ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING. “Did you sleep okay?”

  “Yeah, I did. Thanks.”

  We stood there, and all kinds of awkwardness stretched out tight between us.

  “So,” I began. “Which of us is going to say, ‘Uh, about last night . . .’?”

  Valerie laughed, and at least some of that tension dissolved. “I think that’s my line.” She adjusted the angle of the vase on the table. The bouquet wasn’t simply cut flowers, I saw. Rosebuds and leafy apple branches and some spiky things I didn’t recognize were mixed in with delphinium, foxglove and rosemary. The vase was covered in pale green and gold Celtic knotwork. In fact, it reminded me a lot of the one Alistair had broken back in Midnight Reads.

  “Redecorating for the season?” I asked, casually, of course.

  Val glanced past me, making sure no one was coming down the stairs, before she said softly, “I’m resetting the broken wards. The vase and the herbs serve as a point of focus for the protective spells that keep the house safe from harmful influences or magic.” Footsteps sounded overhead. The other guests, who presumably were not all into the witch thing, were stirring. Val glanced at the ceiling. “Let’s take this into the kitchen, okay?”

  McDermott’s kitchen was huge, and where it wasn’t black and white it was stainless steel. It also smelled wonderfully of bacon and cinnamon. We caught Roger in the act of pulling a tray of muffins out of the top oven.

  “Morning, Anna. Early riser? Great. Sit. Food.” He hoisted the tray in our direction. This morning, his apron read COFFEE: IF YOU’RE NOT SHAKING YOU NEED ANOTHER CUP. Clearly these two were collectors. “Coffee?” he asked as he flipped the tray over so the muffins tumbled into a towel-lined basket. “Bacon?”

  “I can see why you fell in love,” I said to Val as I climbed up on one of the kitchen stools.

  “Can’t believe I got to him first.” Val did not try for a stool but lowered herself into an armchair that had probably been brought in from the great room.

  Roger immediately brought over a muffin on a napkin and set it next to her. “How are you doing?” Val smiled and nodded. He laid a gentle hand on the curve of her belly. I realized that the terrace was really lovely. So were the checkered curtains and the sunbeams on the spotless white floor.

  “Okay, Anna.” Val laughed. “The public display of affection is over. You can look.”

  “Just giving you guys the moment,” I said, magnanimously, I thought.

  Apparently Roger did too, because he set a plate of muffins and bacon down on the counter in front of me. “First course,” he said. “Eggs up in a sec.”

  I bit into the crispy bacon, noting idly that the perfectly golden brown muffin top was thick with streusel. Which was all wonderful, and just what I needed, but how were we supposed to talk magic and spooky cats and murder with Val’s doting husband in the room? I poured myself coffee from the big silver carafe on the counter and tried to think of excuses to get Val someplace more private. Maybe something about my bill . . . ?

  Before I could come up with anything, though, Roger waved the spatula in our direction. “Go ahead. Talk witch stuff. Not going to bother me.”

  “You know?” I admit there may have been a dropped jaw here, and perhaps a tiny bit of eyeball bulging, but that was no excuse for Val to start laughing again.

  Roger confined himself to a smile. “Of course I know. Val told me about her practice before we got engaged.”

  “I couldn’t have married him otherwise,” said Val. “I didn’t want to have to hide who I am.”

  “I admit, it was a lot to take in, and it took a while to accept the real magic.”

  “True craft,” said Val and I together. We stared at each other.

  “Jinx!” she said.

  “Seriously?” I felt my smile slowly fade.

  Val snickered. “No, but you do owe me a soda.”

  “What I was trying to say,” interrupted Roger firmly, “is that I know what you’re going through.” I have no id
ea what kind of look came over my face at that moment, but Roger grimaced. “Okay, maybe not all of it, but I do know some part of what you’re going through.”

  “It’s just all so different. I’ve spent my whole life trying to hide what happens to me.”

  “Yeah.” Val sighed. “We both know about that too.” She smoothed her hand across her belly. “Which is why I was thinking . . .” She looked from Roger to me as she did, gauging our reactions before she’d even given us anything to react to.

  I gripped my cup. I could already tell I was not going to like this. So could Roger.

  “What is it you were thinking, Val?” he asked carefully.

  “Don’t look like that. I was just thinking that since we now know for certain that Dorothy was murdered, we should go back into her house and find some kind of definite proof Kenisha can use to get her lieutenant to open the case up. That’s all.” She added this calmly, like she’d never heard the words “breaking and entering” in her whole strawberry blond life.

  It seemed that Roger had heard them, though, and he’d heard them enough to be more than a little freaked. “Valerie, you can’t be serious. You . . .” He bit down on whatever it was he was going to say and turned back to his pan, turning off the burner and carefully scooping scrambled eggs onto the waiting plates.

  “I know, I know,” Val said in answer to whatever it was Roger hadn’t said. “But what else are we going to do? It’s only a matter of time before Frank sells the house or something, and then any chance we have of proving the murder even happened is gone. Besides, Alistair has already let Anna in. He wouldn’t do that unless there was something important in the house, right?”

  “Maybe she’s already found it,” said Roger. “You told me she got Dorothy’s wand.”

  “But there still might be something else,” said Val stubbornly. “We won’t know until we look. Really look.”

  I was all set to agree with her until I saw the look in Roger’s eyes. He’d raced straight past simple worry and was headed toward heartbreak. A black hole waited underneath this conversation. It was old and deep and I had absolutely no idea where it came from.

  “I know you’re open about your practice, Val.” Roger was straining to keep his words even. “But you know and I know very few people believe in the reality of your magic. Somehow I don’t think any local judge is going to be all that sympathetic if either of you try to say, ‘It’s all right—the cat let us in.’”

  Val probably answered him, but I wasn’t paying attention to her. I was paying attention to the prickling sensation in the back of my neck.

  “Uh, ’scuse me,” I said. “Roger, could you check the back door?”

  Roger frowned, but he did open the door to the terrace. There sat Alistair, bolt upright on the welcome mat with his tail wrapped neatly around his paws. As Roger looked down, the cat sauntered inside and jumped up onto the stool next to mine, and then onto the counter.

  “Hey!” shouted Roger, outraged.

  I picked Alistair up and put him on my lap. “Are those eggs ready yet? I think somebody wants breakfast.”

  Roger gave me a plate, and I put it on the floor. Alistair meowed, leapt heavily down and started eating.

  “That can’t be good for him,” grumbled Roger, although I wasn’t sure if it was because he was really worried about Alistair’s health, or annoyed because I’d given his perfectly cooked eggs to the cat. “He should be eating cat food.”

  “Tell him that.”

  “You should be eating cat food.”

  Alistair didn’t even look up.

  “That’s what you think, puny human,” I translated.

  “Yeah.” Roger sighed. “Got that. Thanks.”

  “You two do realize it’s not a coincidence he showed up just when we were talking about searching Dorothy’s house?” mumbled Val around her mouthful.

  “You mean breaking into Dorothy’s house.” Roger slid the rest of the eggs onto two fresh plates. “I’m sorry, hon, but I can’t go along with this one.”

  They exchanged a long look, the kind that’s filled with layered, telepathic communication. I sat there wondering what I wasn’t hearing and, unlike Alistair, letting my eggs get cold.

  “What should we do, then?” asked Valerie at last. “Sit around and wait for . . . whoever it was who breached the wards to make another magical attack on Anna?”

  “It’s okay,” I said to them both. “I have an alternate plan.”

  “You do?” The relief in Roger’s face was as real as the heartbreak had been a moment before. I could have said my plan involved motorcycles and light sabers, and he would have thought it was swell.

  “I’m going to talk to Frank Hawthorne today,” I said. “Hopefully, he’ll let me back into the house.”

  Val frowned. “Any reason why he should?”

  “Because I’ve got his aunt’s magic wand and her missing cat,” I said. “And because when I told him Dorothy had been murdered, he believed me.”

  20

  FRANK HAWTHORNE TURNED out to be an easy man to find, even on a Sunday. Since I knew he was the publisher for the Seacoast News, all I had to do was look up the paper’s address. My only experience with newspapers was as an occasional reader, but I was fairly sure any small paper would have a small staff. So it made sense that the guy in charge would put in a lot of overtime.

  I decided to leave the Jeep at McDermott’s and walk downtown. First, because it was a gorgeous day, and second because I’d been sitting enough lately that I was starting to feel distinctly blobby. Plus, I wanted time to plan what I would say when I actually faced Frank Hawthorne. Can you let me back into your house so I can see if I pick up any more Vibes or clues about your aunt’s murder? lacked a certain something.

  The Seacoast News occupied the second floor of a converted brick warehouse overlooking the river. As a workspace it was fairly bare-bones. The desks were all cheap, industrial and probably secondhand. Whatever start-up money there was had clearly been lavished on the laptops, outsized monitors and, at my count, four different printers. Men and women—or maybe I should say boys and girls because some of them looked like they were still in high school—worked the keyboards, flicking through windows and sites with dizzying speed. A kitchen space took up one corner and the aroma of fresh coffee mixed with Portsmouth’s morning breeze where it drifted through the open windows. The only decorations on the bare brick walls were framed enlargements of Seacoast News front pages hung between movie posters for classics like All the President’s Men and Sweet Smell of Success.

  The photo over Frank’s desk was a big black-and-white portrait of a solemn-looking man in a suit who I suspected was the legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow.

  Frank was not wearing a suit, dark or otherwise. He had on a blue BOSTON STRONG T-shirt and khaki pants. A brown sports jacket with, I promise you, real corduroy patches on the elbows hung on the wooden stand behind him. He was frowning hard at a yellow legal pad and he held the receiver of an ancient, industrial beige telephone between his ear and his shoulder, until he saw me.

  “Annabelle Britton,” he said as he set the receiver back on the cradle. “Speak of the devil.”

  It was not the greeting I’d been hoping for, but it was understandable. “Frank Hawthorne,” I answered. “Good morning.”

  “Casing the joint?” His tone was so bland and his face so serious, it actually took me a minute to be sure he was joking. I decided then and there I should never play poker with this guy.

  “Nah. Robbing a newspaper is like robbing a church. Not a lot of return for the trouble.”

  The corner of his mouth quirked up, reluctantly. “I see you have grasped the essentials of modern journalism. Can I help you with something?” He gestured toward the folding chair in front of his desk. “I suppose it’s too much to hope you want to take out an ad.”

  “Sor
ry.” I hitched up my backpack strap and glanced around at his staff, who were all busy trying to look like they were not sneaking glances. “Um, it’s personal business. Maybe we should go somewhere . . . else?”

  Frank gazed across his exposed-brick domain, and apparently he saw the same thing I did—an open room full of potential busybodies, aka journalists. He glanced at the little space behind him that had been partitioned off for a conference room but discarded that possibility out of hand.

  “Do you drink coffee?” he asked. “There’s a terrific place right around the corner. Northeast Java.”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  Frank got to his feet and grabbed his jacket from the stand. “Magda, hold the fort, would you? And text me if anything comes up.”

  “You got it, Chief.” A young Latina woman with sandy brown skin and waving black hair who I assumed was Magda snapped a quick salute.

  “Chief?” I quirked an eyebrow as we headed down the stairs.

  Frank shrugged. “People who want to be journalists love drama.”

  “Never would have guessed.”

  • • •

  NORTHEAST JAVA TURNED out to be a little coffee shop on a riverbank lane that could only loosely be called a street. What it actually was, was an honest-to-God cobblestone walkway that stretched down a flight of steps from the main square. Nothing but a handrail and a three-foot drop separated the street from the river. A shadowy and entirely too intriguing vintage shop waited on one side of the coffee shop, and Annabelle’s (no relation) Ice Cream on the other. If you didn’t know the café was there, you would easily miss it. It was cramped and had a low ceiling and a chipped door with the hours painted on it, but no sign. The abandoned appearance was not helped by the stack of wooden crates piled by the door. But the warm and wonderful odor of fresh roasted coffee swirled out from the open door and let you know you’d stumbled across something special.

  “What can I get you?” Frank pulled out a wrought-iron chair from one of the tiny round tables that perched on the uneven paving stones and gestured for me to sit. A flock of sparrows quickly assembled on the river’s guardrail, in case we might be about to drop any interesting crumbs.