Page 10 of Magic Blooms

nine

I watched with bated breath as Jasmine spun a leaf from the plant in a slow circle.

Lorraine had already flipped the shop sign to closed and locked the door upon entering so the three of us wouldn’t have any interruptions as we discussed what I’d found. Now we just had to wait for Elyria’s local expert on herbs and spices to classify the mystery plant I’d magically manifested.

“Fascinating,” Jasmine murmured as she brought the organic starburst closer to her face.

“Well, can you identify it for us?” Lorraine’s heart thrummed so loudly I could hear it from my place at her side. The rest of the shop fell quiet, seeming to wait with just as much anticipation as we were.

“Sure, I can,” Jasmine answered confidently as she handed the leaf back to me. “It’s ricin.”

“Ricin,” I repeated. “Huh. Where did it come from?”

“From what Lorraine told me on the phone, you. It came from you.” She blinked hard behind her thick oval glasses. “Are you regularly in the habit of using your elemental abilities to pull poisonous plants out of thin air?”

I took a step back. “Poison? Me? No, we don’t use our powers to destroy.

Only help.” I thought back to the storm I’d caused on day one.

That had been an accident, and I’d dealt with the damage, corrected things.

Had I accidentally poisoned one of Lorraine’s guests with my unstable magic?

It didn’t seem likely, but I hated that it was even a possibility.

If it were my fault, this was one accident I wouldn’t be able to fix.

I gulped hard and shook my head.

“Polly didn’t grow that plant until well after Karen Harrison was found dead. It wasn’t her fault,” Lorraine said with far more confidence than I felt.

“Maybe not,” said Jasmine as she picked up the leaf again, took off her glasses, and studied it with her bare eyes. “Ricin is a painful and messy death. I imagine your Karen would’ve ended up going to the hospital. If nothing else, there would’ve been a huge mess to consider.”

She hummed a beat before continuing. “The poison is in the beans, you see. The little things look more like coffee than anything else. But if you take out the capsule surrounding the bean and get at the insides, that’s where trouble arises.

I can’t remember the exact amount it takes, but I do know that just a small handful of beans is enough to kill a full-grown man.

It certainly is easy enough to slip to anyone.

The poison stops cells from making proteins, takes about three days to kill someone with it, if I recall correctly.

But within those three days, like I said, she would most definitely have been showing symptoms.”

I thought back to my one interaction with Karen Harrison. “She was afraid of Oinkers. I don’t think any reasonable person would feel that way. Was it a warning sign we missed?”

Jasmine smiled up at me. “I don’t think overreacting to livestock in Fox’s End would be a symptom. Did she seem pale or weak?”

I shuddered as I remembered her loud screams that tore through the inn. “No. She seemed pretty strong. Strong-willed, too.”

“So either we’re wrong about the ricin being the culprit, or someone used magic to speed up the process.” Jasmine’s words hung thick in the air.

Now that we suspected both magic and plants were involved, I was looking more and more suspicious. I didn’t want to give my new friends time to doubt me. They needed somewhere else to look, and fast.

“We should ask Art about it,” I blurted out.

Lorraine and Jasmine both looked to me with puzzled expressions. “How do you know about Art?”

“When Joshua and I questioned Gerry, he said Art would know the cause of death. And that if we gave Art a few drinks, then he would tell us whatever we needed to know. And possibly some things we never wanted to know, too.”

“You questioned Gerry?” Jasmine asked with an amused chuff. She seemed entirely too happy about this, and the attention just made me uncomfortable.

“I wanted to protect Lorraine. If Gerry did this, then he needs to be punished.”

Lorraine let out a peal of laughter. “Honey, I don’t need your protection.”

“Your dead guest begs to differ,” countered Jasmine drolly.

The elderly innkeeper glared at both of us. “I don’t like how you two keep throwing that back in my face.”

“Assuming that we’re right about how she died, the better question is who would want her dead? Is it a way to get at Lorraine? Did someone have something against Karen? Or is this related to the other bombshell we’ve been given?” Jasmine pressed her lips in a tight line and widened her eyes.

“Bombshell?” I asked, not understanding the use of this word.

They both glanced to me with unblinking eyes.

Oh, now I understood.

“Me? You think I did this?” I faltered as I took a defensive step back.

“I can say with a good amount of confidence that, no, you did not do this,” answered Lorraine quickly. “But that doesn’t mean this isn’t related to you. We still don't know who sent you here or why. Or whether you were followed.”

“I… But I…” I winced and shook my head. If I told them my theory that I’d wound up here for a reason, that I was meant to help solve this, they’d both look at me like I was crazy.

And I couldn’t take that right now. “I’ve already told you that I wasn’t sent here by anyone.

This is all nothing but one big accident. ”

Lorraine seemed unconvinced, but she still didn’t appear to be blaming me, either. “Okay, hun. Whatever you say.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and let out a deep sigh. I needed to come clean about my plans, so that they knew exactly where I stood and for how long. “I still want to get back home as soon as possible, but I’d like to stay until after we solve this.”

I turned toward Lorraine, begging her to understand the purity of my intentions. “You’ve been so good to me in my short time here. I hate the idea of leaving you alone.”

“I’m not alone,” pointed out Lorraine. “I have guests all the time.”

“You don’t have any now,” said Jasmine with a deadpan expression.

“Would you two just hush up? The police will give me the all clear in a day or two, and then I’ll be accepting guests again.

This is a tragedy, no doubt about it, but I’ve got a mortgage to pay.

I can’t take an indefinite leave. Of course, I’ll have to let the next round of guests know what happened and offer them a discount.

I can’t expect the gossips in this town to keep their traps shut about something so juicy.

Still, even if it’s not quite enough, I need to make at least some money somehow.

So shut your traps already.” She breathed heavily, her chest rising and falling with each new breath.

“When is the full moon?” I interjected, trying to take some of the pressure off from my friend.

“It’s in two nights,” said Jasmine with a distracted nod. “I should have all the ingredients we need by tomorrow. But as a reminder, I’ve never done this particular ritual before. There’s a chance we’ll fail and you’ll be stuck here for another month while I work out the kinks.”

A full month more? The thought wasn’t entirely unbearable, but it wasn’t ideal, either.

Already I was changing in ways that no one could have predicted.

If I stayed too long, I doubted I’d be able to return to my normal life back home.

I was different. I’d continue to get more and more so.

Would Dante want a changed Pollyiela? Would my family?

I took a deep breath and locked eyes with Lorraine. “All right then. I guess that means I have two days to solve Karen’s murder. So what do we do next?”