Page 47 of Witch and Tell

“Parents keep an eye on what their children read. If there’s anything to explain, like that cats don’t actually wear striped hats and speak in rhyme, they can,” Mona said. “What’s the big deal?”

“Imagine this,” Wanda said. “A parent determines that reading fiction about cats isn’t what’s best for their child. Then the kid sees another kid carrying around something like”—from her sheaf of papers, she extracted the photocopy of a book cover featuring a cat drinking tea—“like this, and the first kid gets the mistaken idea that cats are perfectly innocent. If one child can check them out, it hurts every child.”

Defiant, Mona slowly unveiled the kitten. The tabby’s eyes were closed, and her tiny paws, with their little pink toe beans, made biscuits as she suckled the bottle. “Cats spread love,” Mona said. “And comfort. They’re beautiful. There’s nothing more soothing than reading with a purring cat on your lap. For some people, they’re the only friends they have. Just because you don’t approve of cats doesn’t mean you have the right to foist your beliefs on everyone else.”

Wanda turned away. She lived alone at the retreat center. Other than Ruth, she hadn’t seemed to make many friends. Perhaps Mona had hit a nerve.

When Wanda turned back, I saw I’d been mistaken. She wasn’t sad; she was enraged. Her eyes bulged, and her face was as red as Lyndon’s prize-winning beet from the county fair. She gulped air as if to speak, but no words came out.

Ruth quickly grasped the situation. “This meeting will be postponed. Wanda, everyone, thank you for your thoughts. We’ll reconvene in a few days.”

She left the podium and led Wanda by the shoulders to a chair. People slowly filed out of the atrium, and I retreated to my office to give Ruth and Wanda privacy. When I reemerged, they were gone, and the library was once again empty.

Ruth wouldn’t delay rescheduling the trustees’ meet ing. By then, I’d have to have a plan. That was, if I wasn’t in jail.

Chapter Twenty-five

The next day at the library, I hid in my office, halfheartedly doing admin work and pondering last night’s trustees’ meeting.

I couldn’t think about a strategy for the trustees’ meeting now—not while a potential arrest for murder hung over my head. If it wasn’t for Ian’s courage in contacting the sheriff’s office, I’d still be behind bars.

Once Roz closed the library for the day, I emerged from my office and waved goodbye to her, then circled the library, drawing curtains and snapping off lights. Thankfully, there were no meetings tonight. I’d have time to think. And plan.

First, I needed to get to the bottom of the identity of the body found in the woods. My working theory was that it was Tyrone Beaudrie. Was I right?

I picked up my phone and called the Wallingford Guest House. “Is Tyrone Beaudrie there?” I asked. “It’s Josie Way.” I winced as I identified myself. After a day of being a spectacle, I was full up.

“Hello, Josie. No, no Tyrone. If you’ll excuse me, Sheriff Wilfred is here.”

I hung up. Sam was at the guest house, and Tyrone was not. Sam was on the same trail I was. How long would it be before he arrested me for killing Tyrone? I had one more call to make.

“Hello, Patty?” If anyone was tapped into the Wil fred grapevine, it was Patty. “Have you seen Tyrone Beaudrie anywhere?”

“Not since yesterday.” Her voice was almost gleeful. “Word is he’s missing. Might even be the body they found in the woods. The sheriff just stopped by the guest house to try to track him down. On that note, how’s life on the outside? Some trustees’ meeting, huh?”

I made an excuse about how I was tired and couldn’t talk, and I dropped to the armchair in my apartment. Rodney leapt to my lap and, purring, circled to lie down.

People had seen me wandering town when I’d actually been home. I’d found Ian lying, dead, on the atrium’s floor—yet it hadn’t been him. Or anyone.

I’d burned Babe Hamilton’s charmed linens in the woods, and a body showed up in the same place a few days later. More than mere human interference was going on here. Bad magic was involved—I felt it. Aunt Beata was behind it. I was sure.

But that didn’t make sense, either. If she’d wanted me gone, why not simply do away with me? According to my grandmother’s letter, Grandma had tied up the bulk of Beata’s power and banished her. Beata clearly had enough magic left to block mine—at least temporarily. She may have been feeding off the magic she’d suppressed in me, as well. Given that her gift was glamour, she could use that siphoned magic to make people— including me—see what she wanted us to see. She could appear as anyone.

I remembered Lise Bloom on the forest path, looking at me with eyes that were oddly familiar.

Fatigue weighed on me, but every hour counted. If Aunt Beata was orchestrating my murder rap, as I believed, she would know I’d been freed from police custody, and she would be planning something to put me away again.

My grandmother thought Beata would come to me to break the spell binding her magic. If so, putting me behind bars wasn’t a smart move. I couldn’t figure it out.

There was only one way to get the answers I needed, and that was to go directly to Beata. I didn’t like it, but if I was going to clear my name and put a stop to the campaign to make me out as a murderer, I was going to have to do it.

Besides, I reminded myself, I was the more powerful witch. Less experienced, but with more raw magic— at least, I should be.

Rodney’s purring practically vibrated within me. Then it stopped. He gazed up as if trying to read my mind.

“It will be okay,” I told him. “I’m not afraid. You’ll see.”

He continued to stare.