Page 56 of A Spell of Midlife Mayhem

My aunt eyed me with interest. ‘Something’s different about you. What’s up? Have you had a few Proseccos?’ She paused. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be at work?’

‘Something terrible happened. A visitor to the house was murdered.’

‘Blazing carbuncles!’ Her expression changed to one of concern, and she put her book down. ‘Are you all right, Heather?’

I took a deep breath and exhaled. ‘I’m sad about it, but I coped. Someone killed the poor man in the library with a candlestick. The police are at the house now, investigating. They sent everyone home.’

‘Farting familiars! Luckily, it wasn’t you they got. Why was he killed?’

‘No one knows for sure, but a witch’s spell book he was studying at the time was stolen, along with his handwritten notes, so that’s probably the reason.’

‘What spell book?’ Now Aunt Ruth’s interest was piqued. Her eyes brightened and widened with curiosity.

‘I only saw it for a few seconds. I intended to get photos of several of the interior pages, but it’s too late now.’

‘And someone killed the unfortunate man for it? It must be valuable. Or important.’

‘He told me he couldn’t read it himself, but it apparently contains spells, some of which are powerful.’ I hesitated. ‘They include healing spells. That’s why I wanted to take photos. To see if any of those spells might help you regain your mobility. If you can read them, that is.’

Aunt Ruth’s eyebrows went up, but she kept her voice level. ‘I probably can. I’m well versed in witchy language. But I can’t cast any powerful healing spells without my magic mirror. Without it, I’m reduced to casting simple domestic spells or the equivalent.’

I let this sink in for a minute while my stomach twisted with guilt. ‘You didn’t need me to come over and help you around the house, did you?’

‘No, but with your mother gone, I needed to get you over here so I could teach you about magic, now that you’re coming into your menopausal witchy awakening. I couldn’t leave it any longer.’

That was ambiguous. ‘You couldn’t leave it any longer because I needed to learn soon... or because you thought you wouldn’t be around to teach me later on?’

She looked away. ‘That’s a discussion for another time. It’s moot now, anyway. I can’t teach you any of the advanced stuff until you’ve mastered the basics, and we need to get hold of that witch’s spell book too.’

My head spun. ‘You’ve lost me, Aunt Ruth. You said you couldn’t use the spell book without the magic mirror.’ Which I broke. I internally cringed with shame.

‘Ah, but we need to have the spell book so we have something to trade with the warlock for getting the magic mirror repaired.’

Now I got it. I absolutely had to find the spell book for Aunt Ruth’s sake. ‘But the spell book belongs to Chirtlewood House. I can’t give it away. I’d be fired. What about copying it?’

‘Yes, that’s the plan. I didn’t mean we’d give away the original. We only need to borrow it for a while.’

‘Okay.’ Something in Aunt Ruth’s expression rang alarm bells in my head. ‘Making a copy is difficult? Is that what you’re not telling me?’

‘It’s problematic. We can’t just pop down to the print shop to have it photocopied. That will only produce blank pages. There’ll be strong witchy protection in place, for sure.’

‘So, we need powerful magic to copy the spell book?’

Aunt Ruth nodded. ‘That’s the only way. And, at the moment, I can’t do it myself.’

Fuuuuck.

‘We’ll have to let the warlock do it,’ she continued.

Now it made sense. He would fix Aunt Ruth’s magic mirror in return for making a copy of the spell book to keep for himself. Then, with her magic mirror repaired, Aunt Ruth could copy it too and see if the healing spells within could help her walk again.

I breathed a sigh of relief. We had a plan. Find the spell book, find the warlock, get the magic mirror fixed, Aunt Ruth heals herself. Those are the ducks to put in a row. Several complicated—if not impossible—ducks, but I’d line them up somehow.

Aunt Ruth changed the subject. ‘How did your date with Raven go?’

I shook my head, exasperated with the memory of it. ‘It went well, up to a point, anyway. He... sort of... disappeared on me. I haven’t seen him since. It was weird. Is there... uh, is there something special about Raven?’

‘Ah, I wondered if this might come up.’ Aunt Ruth nodded vigorously. ‘All I’m going to say is: talk to him about it and keep an open mind.’

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