Page 54 of Witch and Tell

“What does it smell like?”

“Violets.” She nodded. “Yes. You know how some flowers seem to give up their scent just before they die? Like that. Violets in water that should have been changed days ago.” Lise took a moment to digest her discoveries. “Out there in the woods. Beata. Could she be my mother—or yours? You heard her. Was she playing with you?”

“My grandmother told me Beata had a child who would be about our age. That’s all I know.” There was a sympathy between Lise and me, a vibe that could be explained by DNA—or simply by the fact that we both had unearthly abilities. “I wouldn’t believe anything she said.” I drew a deep breath. “But I wouldn’t not believe it, either.”

I’d unleashed Beata’s full power, and Lise’s. As the image of my aunt crossed my mind, the house’s windows shook and walls whistled, as if a powerful wind had encircled the mansion. Eyes wide, Lise grabbed the edge of her chair. The books hummed in bass notes and whispered warnings, and a chill like a December ice storm dropped over us.

Beata would destroy lives now that her magic’s potency had been restored. My throat tightened as I understood that my life would be the first. There was no way she’d let me go free. I had the power to release her magic, yes, but I also had the power to bind it again, and she knew it.

Lise sat back, her eyes closed, probably lost in the world of her own new abilities.

“Lise,” I said, “I need you.”

“I know.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

Islept only five hours that night, but despite the whirlwind chaos of my thoughts, it was a hard sleep. The book on my nightstand was more evidence I would have to work fast:The Perfect Storm.

Beata would not rest until I was silenced. I wasn’t sure precisely what was up her sleeve, but I knew it would have to do with pinning Tyrone’s murder on me. Which meant I had to find his killer first.

My first thought was that Beata was responsible for Tyrone’s death, but almost as quickly as I had the thought, I dismissed it. Without her full magic, Beata would have had to kill him the way a non-witch would, and she wasn’t physically strong enough to subdue him. Besides that, Beata was an opportunist. My grandmother’s letter had portrayed her as someone who capitalized on the people and opportunities around her—not someone who instigated them.

The books’ contentment with having Lise among them had morphed to simmering foreboding. Despite the sun flowing into each room as I pulled open the faded brocade curtains, the library’s mood kept me on edge. Even Marilyn Wilfred seemed to telegraph alarm from her portrait above the atrium’s entrance.

“Everything okay?” Roz didn’t even lift her fingers from her keyboard as she talked, but she did toss a glance my way.

“So far,” I said. “Want the ceiling vents lifted for a couple of hours?” After lunch, when the sun had traveled farther west, the conservatory would be flooded with sun and heat. Right now, the breeze off the river was cool.

Roz shut her laptop and turned to me. “What do you mean, ‘so far’?”

“Just that.” What else could I say? That my aunt, an evil witch to whom Roz had unknowingly rented her trailer, was on my tail? That the stranger wandering town had a magical sense of smell? That I was being framed for murder?

Her eyes narrowed, and she reached for her fan and flicked it open with the skills of a showgirl at the Moulin Rouge. “What’s happening that I don’t know?”

I shrugged.

“Are they going to throw you in the clink again?”

My shoulders dropped. “I hope not. Why?”

A moment passed, then two. Roz turned to her laptop. “Something is brewing around here, and I have a bad feeling about it. I’m not normally given to intuition, but I have the creeps, big time.”

“Yes,” was all I said.

“You’re not out of woods on the murder rap. Then there’s the follow-up trustees’ meeting. Have you come up with a presentation?”

The trustees’ meeting was the last thing on my mind. What good would it do if I was in jail? I hedged. “I’ll get to it.” I pulled up a chair. “You’re plugged into the grapevine. Is there any word on who killed the man found in the woods?”

“You mean, besides you? Orson’s taking odds at the tavern, and you’re the favorite as the murderer, eight to one.” She turned quickly again to her computer.

“Roz! You didn’t. You put money on me, didn’t you?”

She spoke, eyes on her keyboard. “I’m sure it was self-defense. Or a moment of passion. It’s not like you’re a natural born murderer. But look at the evidence: Sam dumps you, Tyrone makes up to you then hits on someone else. You’ve been seen going to the woods. You were looking for Tyrone the night he died. What are we supposed to think? All we need is your fingerprints on the murder weapon, and it’s a done deal.”

I’d thought I couldn’t feel any worse. I was wrong. I was also certain Beata had already come to the same conclusion about the fingerprints. “Has the body been confirmed as Tyrone’s?” I wouldn’t take Beata’s word.

“Dental records match up. Besides, who else could it be?” Roz said. “He’s missing, a body shows up. Two and two make four.”