Page 40 of Wicching Hour

Mom collected her things and left, heading for Gran’s. She said she’d call us to discuss the shared vision once she’d explained the situation to Gran. I think she wanted to be with her so Gran wouldn’t feel cut off from what was happening. I was also pretty sure she needed to talk with Gran about Bracken.

The first thing I did when Mom left was grab the receipt from my worktable and call Melissa’s number.

“Ms. Corey?”

“Hi. Sorry to bother you. Am I on speakerphone?” I asked.

“No, ma’am.” I could hear road noise and so assumed she wasn’t the driver.

“We have a problem.”

“Okay,” Melissa said, clearly wary.

“One of your crew, Milo, poisoned some of my baked goods when he was alone in the gallery.”

“What?” Her voice was an angry growl.

“It’s a lot to explain, much of which I’m not sure I’m allowed to yet. You already know we have a sorcerer problem. Milo and his grandmother are trying to help my cousin. Catherine Swan gave Milo poison to sprinkle on my food. I had a vision, saw a child eat one of my cookies and die. I checked the cookie. It had been poisoned and when I touched it, I saw Milo and his grandmother. I know this probably all sounds ridiculous, but I can assure you?—”

“Ma’am, that’s not necessary. We all know what you can do and that you’re crazy powerful and accurate with your visions. I have no doubts. Firing Milo is easy. What else do you need?”

The tension in my neck and shoulders eased. Declan walked by and rubbed my back. With his werewolf hearing, he always caught both sides of a phone call. “Is there a way of knowing which boxes he packed? If he’s willing to kill innocents, I’m sure he’s willing to destroy my art. I can’t have a box of broken glass arrive at the Winslows.”

“Shi—excuse me. You’re right, ma’am, and it’s the reputation of my company as well.” A very loud growl had me pulling the phone from my ear. “We’re almost back to the warehouse. Did you sense anything amiss with the rest of my crew?”

I thought about it a moment. Closing my eyes, I sorted through all the others I’d met and fed cookies to. “I keep my mental walls up unless they have to come down,” I told her. “No one stood out as problematic—even Milo seemed fine. He was clearly nervous, but I assumed it was because Coreys don’t have the best reputation in the wicche world.”

“Okay. Each member of the crew has a mark that they put on a box they’ve packed. Elise and I are going to open every single box and do a quality check.”

Even I heard the groan of the driver, who I assumed was Elise.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m sorry I have to ask it, but we can’t ship destroyed art to people who paid a great deal for it.”

“Absolutely. And I don’t want my company’s name associated with shoddy work. I’ll call you back when we’re done.”

“Thank you again. Also, can you hold off on firing Milo? I need to hear back from my mom and gran with what we’re doing about this.”

“Understood,” she said. “If it was us, we’d rip his scrawny head off. I get that you guys do it differently.”

“Yeah. We try to keep our head ripping to a minimum,” I said.

“Which is why you have this problem,” she replied. “If you don’t mind my saying, ma’am.”

Declan laughed at that.

“I’m not saying you’re wrong, and please call me Arwyn. Okay. We’ve got a hazmat cleanup going on here. I’ll talk to you later.”

Declan and Bracken had finished clearing out the display case and the tea jar while I was on the phone.

I used a scouring spell on all of it, but worried it wasn’t enough. The tea jar and pastry pans went into the dishwasher, and I donned rubber gloves to wipe down everything with harsh cleansers. When I was done, I still looked at the case with distrust.

“The poison is gone,” Bracken assured me. “It was on the food, not the shelves or glass.”

Nodding, I added the rubber gloves and sponge to the trash bag. “I just keep seeing that little boy, so excited for his cookie and then foaming at the mouth and convulsing in pain. My food killed him.”

“No.” Declan wrapped an arm around me. “Not your food. Swan’s poison. And you saw what was going to happen, so that little boy is alive and well.”

“The idea of putting food back in there makes me really nervous,” I admitted.

---