Page 1 of Witch and Tell

Chapter One

Lalena’s text was urgent: I need to see you. Can you meet me at my place?

I wasted no time setting asideThe Body in the Library, the Agatha Christie mystery I was rereading, and locking my apartment in the old servant’s quarters in the Victorian mansion that served as Wilfred’s library.

My cat Rodney trotted ahead of me as I hurried down the hill on foot. It was a warm day, the kind of August afternoon in which Oregon excelled. The breeze through the woods smelled of pine needles, and the sky was rich blue and streaked with clouds, like the Florentine endpaper in leather-bound novels.

Rodney’s sleek black form darted through the tidy double row of trailers that made up the Magnolia Rolling Estates and passed under the rosebushes surroundingLALENA’S PALM READINGS HEREsign. I rapped on her screen door and opened it to find her at her kitchen table, her head flat on its linoleum surface, tarot cards splayed around her.

“Lalena? I got here as soon as I could.”

Rodney dashed through the door to greet Lalena’s terrier mutt, Sailor. He jumped to the couch and batted Sailor’s head before settling next to him.

“Josie.” Lalena raised her head. The colorful scarf she’d wound around her head and her vivid lipstick didn’t distract me from her unwashed hair and tired eyes. “Thank you for coming. Help yourself to iced tea.”

I poured each of us a glass from her refrigerator and joined her at the table. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s about Ian. I don’t know what to do.”

Ian Penclosa was Lalena’s boyfriend. They’d met less than a year ago when he moved to town to open a rare books stall in Patty’s This-N-That. They were an unusual couple—Lalena, bubbly and open; Ian, shy and intense—but it had been love at first sight. On walks through town, Lalena kept a hand on Ian’s shoulder while he maneuvered his wheelchair through the streets.

“What happened to him?” I asked.

“We haven’t talked for two days.”

I leaned back in relief. “That’s all? You had me worried.”

She raised her head and leveled a sour look at me. “Two days is an eternity. We’re soulmates, Josie.” She collapsed on the table again but held up a tarot card. “This morning I drew this. The Ten of Swords.”

I took the card from her fingers. It featured a man flat on his belly, stabbed through his back with an armload of swords. It was hard to put a positive spin on this one. “Maybe he’s getting acupuncture?”

“It means death. Termination. Something bad has happened.” She snatched the card from my fingers and threw it on the floor, where it skittled to a stop under the refrigerator.

I tried again. “It’s still a new relationship. Maybe he’s having a little freak-out. Maybe he just needs to back off for a while before moving forward.”

“That’s not it,” she said. “Just last week we were talking about what it would be like to grow old together.” Her gaze took a faraway look. “We were going to take a cruise on the Bosphorus. Ian had been studying the pagan religions of Turkey.”

This would be par for the course for Ian, as a dealer in books on parapsychology and the occult. For his birthday breakfast, Lalena had fried hash browns shaped like pentacles.

“Maybe all you need is a good talk. Clear the air,” I said.

“Look how well that worked for you.”

Ouch. Lalena was right, although she’d never know the details. Since I’d told Sam, Wilfred’s sheriff and my boyfriend, that I was a witch, our communication had collapsed. I was heartbroken.

She reached across the table and touched my hand. “I’m sorry. That was low. Have you heard from Sam lately? I know he’s been out of town.”

I looked at the tabletop and shook my head. Sam was in D.C. on an art theft case, but he had a phone and computer. Still no response to my texts and calls. “We’re not here to talk about me.”

She straightened and rubbed her throat as if a lump were forming there. “It’s worse than I’ve made out. Ian….”

I nodded. “Yes?”

“Ian won’t talk to me at all. I reach out, nothing.” Anguish crept into her voice. “I don’t know what’s wrong. I don’t know if it’s me, or if something’s happened to him.” She pulled her phone from the counter behind her and tapped its screen. “He left me this message the day before yesterday.”

Ian’s voice came from the tiny speaker. “Lalena . . . listen, I’ve got to go. I’ll be in touch. Take care.”

“That’s it.” She set the phone face down on the table. “I don’t know what to make of it. It’s not so much that he had to go somewhere, but that he wouldn’t tell me about it.”