Page 5 of Big Witch Energy

“I’ve known Willard a long time,” Caroline told her. “If the creepy whispering stops—sorry, Sally, but it’s true—he’ll probably forget the cake stands exist by Monday. He’s a nice man, but…unfocused. Speaking of, Riley, what are you staring at?”

“That’s weird,” Riley said, squinting at an etching framed on a nearby walnut sideboard. She crossed to pick it up. It was ink on paper, the iron ink so old and faded, it looked almost purple-blue behind the old glass. It looked vaguely familiar, like pieces she’d seen in childhood explorations of the attic at the family tavern, The Wilted Rose.

“Huh, I think my mom sold them to him, to be honest,” Caroline said. “Willard went through a framing phase in the nineties. He asked people to bring in whatever historical documents they could find in their attics and started framing them in the acid-free preservation stuff. Mom found a bunch of these sketches at the Rose. She’s not the sentimental type. Also, they’re not particularly well-done.”

“They’re not that bad,” Alice insisted. Caroline arched her brows, making Alice concede. “They’re not great.”

Riley peered down at the glass. “That’s Shaddow House.”

“No, it’s not,” Caroline scoffed. “The architecture’s all wrong.”

“Yeah, it’s a different façade, but look at the windows,” Riley insisted. “That weird sort of bay window that seems to hang off the east wing for no reason?”

Caroline blinked at the rough sketch. There were some similarities to the basic structure of Shaddow House, but it just didn’t look like the house she’d been looking at her entire life.

“The house has been changed so many times over the years, we could be looking at the original design,” Alice said.

“Who knows how many times it was designed and redesigned? Maybe this is something the original architect suggested?” Caroline asked.

“Or maybe an architect who got chewed up and spit out along the way,” Riley observed. “There’s a signature at the bottom, sort of.”

She pointed to the bottom right of the sketch. It looked like four tiny squares arranged into a cube. The date was obscured by some sort of damage to the paper. It looked like seventeen-eighty-something.

“If I was going to hide a mystical doodad, that’s where I would put it—under the doorway. Doorways have magical significance,” Riley said. “See, this is where it would be helpful if Plover could come along on these little field trips. He could tell us whether this is a legit theory or two-a.m. ramblings.”

“So you’ll take the cake stands, but not the framed pieces?” Alice asked.

“The cake stands are haunted, the framed pieces aren’t,” Riley said. “My moral fiber is flexible, not absent.”

“Wait, you’re going to come back to a store the day after you rob it?” Caroline asked.

Riley nodded. “Technically, this is burglary, and yeah, it’ll throw Celia off my trail. Who comes to a store the day after they steal from it?”

“So, you admit that you’re committing a major felony,” Caroline said just as Alice asked, “You’ve never seen a single episode of a police procedural, have you?”

“OK, then it’s settled,” Riley said, clapping her hands. “I’ll take these two. That leaves one for each of you.”

“I don’t think you’re picking up on my tone,” Caroline said as Riley carried two of the heavier cake stands to the door. “Also, should we trust the clumsiest person in the coven with two of the cake stands on an icy sidewalk? Including Sally’s favorite?”

“I’m not the clumsiest,” Riley began to protest. When Caroline and Alice turned to stare at her, she pouted briefly. “Fine.”

“I’ll take this one,” Caroline said, wrangling the handblown lid out of Riley’s hand. “Give the base to Alice.”

“She’s right. That is my favorite,” Sally told them. She eyed Riley speculatively. “How clumsy are you?”

“It was one extremely old, expensive Moorcroft vase. One. And it wasn’t even haunted!” Riley grumbled, before handing the base to Alice. “It was Plover’s favorite, though.”

“I think the two of us have a better chance of carrying one and a half cake stands each, than you have with the one in your hands,” Caroline retorted, as they headed toward the door.

“Uh, ladies, the candles,” Alice noted, gesturing to the remarkably well-lit shop. She pointed to the floor, where the foul blue gel was puddling at their feet. “And the mess.”

Riley bit her lip as she surveyed the fake-fruit-scented lake forming around their feet. “Yeah, that’s gonna take a while.”

***

It did take a while to scrape the blue splatter from the floor and their feet, but fortunately the unnatural-scented gel seemed to want to be removed. Like it was sentient.

Caroline was never buying another scented candle, ever. Also, Willard was going to have to air out the shop for days.

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