The Witching on the Wall: A Cozy Mystery (The Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 1) Read online

  The Witching on the Wall

  by

  Constance Barker

  Copyright 2016 Constance Barker

  All rights reserved.

  Similarities to real people, places or events are purely coincidental.

  Prologue

  Wendy Robinson waited nervously by the back entrance to the hospital. The young woman was running late, and Wendy was going to end up late as well. Not that her current patient was in any danger of giving birth right away; she’d just gone into labor, and while Doctor Martin seemed sure the baby boy was on his way Wendy knew it would be hours still.

  She glanced at her watch. Almost eleven pm. Where was she? Maybe she had changed her mind.

  Almost as though that thought had summoned the girl, she appeared around the corner of the hospital, looking carefully around for Wendy or for something else. Wendy went to her, glancing around as well. What they were doing was technically above board—she had the paperwork prepared already—but somehow the young woman’s nervousness was infectious.

  “Are you sure about this?” Wendy asked when she got close. Pleasantries weren’t necessary. They’d both been planning this for almost seven months. “Perhaps you can keep her.”

  The pretty young woman, just eighteen, gave a hesitant nod. “I can’t do it. Not right now, not with… everything going on.” She touched a gentle finger to the parcel in her arms, nudging aside a blanket that protected a tiny baby girl’s face from the cool night air.

  Wendy’s breath caught as she saw the little thing. She was beautiful, just a few days old but born with a shock of bright red hair. Not from her mother, Wendy judged.

  “And… the father?” Wendy asked carefully.

  The young woman shook her head. “He doesn’t know, and I’d like to keep it that way. I’ve read the law; we’re not married. He doesn’t have a say.” She sounded fiercely committed to it. Technically, she was right. Wendy had overseen numerous adoptions under similar circumstances, though she never truly imagined she’d be taking on a child herself.

  She was old, or at least she felt like it. In her forties now, the prospect of having her own child was distant and fraught with potential complications. She and Ryan had put it off, and put it off, and now they were simply past their prime. Without a child in their world, it seemed like there was less and less to keep them tied together like they had been twenty years ago, when they first married.

  “The father may have to know one day,” Wendy warned the girl. “These things… they have a way of coming to light. You know that?”

  Hard faced, the girl looked down at the baby, close to tears. Her voice was tight when she spoke. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Believe me, if it was an option now…” she sighed, shook her head sadly and looked up at Wendy. “But it’s not.”

  “I understand,” Wendy said. And she did. She’d been working with the Coven for which Coven Grove was secretly named for most of her life. She wouldn’t have dared speak about it to the girl, though; even if she could have. But the geas she’d agreed to when she first took over for her own mother as the Coven’s midwife would have prevented her from doing so. Still, the girl knew; that was enough.

  “You’ve been such a friend to us,” the girl said. “I know how badly you want a baby girl.”

  Of course she did. Even the young witches seemed to know everything about everyone. Wendy tried not to let it unnerve her. She should have been used to it by now. “Will she… you know…”

  The young woman shook her head uncertainly. “There’s no way to know yet. She’s my first. So, there’s a good chance of it. If so, you know who to contact. Though, honestly… I hope she can just grow up normal.”

  Wendy flinched at the word. Normal? Why would anyone want to be? It hurt her heart to see the girl so conflicted with her own nature. If that sort of conflict was common, that inner turmoil about who and what she was, then maybe it was better if the baby grew up a ‘normal’ little girl. “I’ll watch over her,” Wendy assured her. “It will be good for her to grow up with two parents… Ryan will be a wonderful father to her. I always thought he would.” Even if he did work too much. But he was so good with children, especially little girls—they loved him, for some reason; maybe for the same reasons Wendy had loved him since grade school. He’d just always had that clever charm about him that drew people in close and winked at them.

  “And you’ll be a better mother than I could be,” the girl said finally. She took a deep breath, and stilled a sob in her throat before she passed the bundle to Wendy’s open arms.

  It was heartbreaking to see the change in the young woman. She looked like she might snatch the child back. If she had, Wendy would have accepted it. She never would have imagined separating a child and its mother; not after she’d seen the joy of a new mother as many times as

  she had—so many she’d lost count. At this point her career was simply a river of joy and gratitude and miracles. That a young witch would give up her baby was unthinkable, in fact; the Coven clung desperately to their daughters, the heirs to their ancient ways.

  It occurred to Wendy that it could be dangerous, taking on this child. There had to be a good reason. But as she looked down into those startlingly aware green eyes, she decided then and there that whatever danger was involved, she would weather it. Instantly, she was madly in love. Maybe, she thought, it was witch’s magic, ensnaring her mind to ensure her loyalty to the child. If so, she didn’t mind. Her eyes brimmed with happy tears, and sad ones, and ones born of emotion too complex to fit into those tiny boxes.

  She handed a pen and the papers to the girl. It was a closed adoption. The papers would be filed tomorrow, and locked away in some bureaucratic vault. No one would ever know unless she and the girl both agreed to let the secret out.

  When the papers were signed, the girl stared at them for a long moment before she passed them back to Wendy, tucked safely in their envelope again. She took a long, sad breath. “I trust you,” she said.

  “I know. It means more to me than you know.”

  “But… I do have to be sure.”

  Wendy nodded. Of course.

  The young woman closed her eyes and concentrated. Her lips moved, and the wind seemed to rise in answer. The clouds thinned, and the stars shined, and their light seemed impossibly clear in the night air, lighting everything around her up with a silver gleam. The whispered words seemed to slip into Wendy’s ears and travel down into her chest where they wound around her heart. They were a question, like one she’d given an answer to years and years ago.

  Wendy didn’t know much about witch’s magic; her particular focus was only on ensuring they had their daughters safely and outside of the hospital. But she knew that the last geas she accepted was done by a woman much, much older than Wendy. That kind of talent and power in a woman so young still… it was impressive, she thought.

  The young woman put a hand on Wendy’s shoulder. “Do you accept the geas?”

  Wendy didn’t hesitate. “I do accept the geas,” she pronounced. And just like that she felt it there, sinking into her, an unbreakable oath never to speak of the girl’s true parentage. In a way it made her sad—every girl ought to know who her mother was. But, then again, Wendy was her mother now. And she would be the best mother she could possibly be.

  She kissed the girl’s cheeks, and they spent a moment admiring the baby again, together. “Oh,” Wendy said, “I should have asked to begin with. Do you… have you named the baby?” Naming, for witches, was a s
acred duty and one she didn’t think she had it in her to take over from one of them.

  There was no need, though. The young girl nodded resolutely. “Yes,” she said. She smiled slightly. “Bailey. Her name is Bailey.”

  Chapter 1

  The phone rang. It rang again, its birdlike ring-tone twittering away while Bailey Robinson watched it and weighed the pros and cons of answering it. But, in the end, she did have a job to do. She swiped Poppy’s name and squeezed her eyes tightly closed as she pressed the phone to her ear.

  “Hi, Poppy,” She said, cheerfully, in hopes that it would somehow mitigate her inevitable ire. Poppy’s resting state of mind was irritation, regardless of what was going on. Everybody in Coven Grove knew it, expected it, and did their best to avoid it if possible. Except Bailey. Bailey worked for the woman.

  “Oh, you bothered to answer your phone today,” Poppy sneered over the receiver. “That’s just wonderful. I need you at the tour office as soon as possible, drop whatever you’re doing.”

  “I can come in about an hour,” Bailey said, eyeing the stack of library returns she’d promised to help her father put away. She was doing more and more of that lately.

  “There are barely eight thousand people in this town and most of them are tourists,” Poppy snapped. “And half the locals can’t read. How busy could you possibly be, Bailey? Do you have any idea the stress I’m under right now?”

  Bailey sighed, and plucked at a red curl that dangled over her forehead. Far as Poppy was concerned, she was the only person who even existed in a fifty mile radius. Maybe the whole world. “I understand, Poppy,” she said. “What’s going on? How can I help?”

  “You can help by getting here,” Poppy growled. “Martha Tells and Trevor Sullivan are coming in today.”

  Bailey blinked, and then stood up from the desk. “Today? I thought that was on Friday, I—”

  “It was on Friday, but they’ve moved the production schedule up and if I make them wait they’re going to pick some other rinky-dink backwoods nowhere and take their money with them so drop whatever you’re doing over there and come help me make sure that doesn’t happen.” She’d gotten louder and louder as she went, and with the last of it Bailey held the phone away from her ear.

  “Okay, Poppy,” Bailey said calmly, trying to keep her boss on an even keel, which was a slim prospect, “I’ll leave right away. We’ll figure it out, okay?”

  “I don’t need a pep-talk, Bailey, I need you standing in my office!” Poppy hung up.

  Bailey shuddered, put the phone down, and rubbed her forehead to massage out the tension that Poppy always put there. She’d go, and soon, but not before she took a moment to recover.

  She sat back down, took a few deep, calming breaths just like her father always told her to do, and tried to clear her mind. Orderly thoughts, he sometimes said, or use to when he talked more, were the key to not losing one’s mind entirely.

  “I know that look,” a clever male voice said. Bailey opened her eyes to see her best friend, Avery, standing between the Fiction and Periodical rows with an armful of books, his thin rimmed glasses slightly askew, his shaggy brown hair barely shy of a mess. He’d be the one taking up the slack for Bailey’s sudden disappearance. “Poppy wants you?”

  Bailey nodded. “You know that reporter I was telling you about? Trevor Sullivan? The one doing the piece on the Seven Caves with Martha? Well, Poppy says they’ve moved things up. They’re coming today. Which just about throws all my plans for rest of the week off and of course has sent Poppy into a blind panic. I swear, I’m not entirely certain Poppy Winters even knows how to have a polite conversation.”

  Avery winced sympathetically. “Ouch. Well, if you were putting money in her pocket I bet she would. The tourist crowd thinks she’s a doll.” He pursed his lips at the stack of returns awaiting Bailey’s attention. “Well I guess that means those are mine now, huh?”

  “You could leave them for me to get them later,” Bailey said, forcing a smile. “That’ll be about two weeks from now, when this whole thing is over. Poppy’s too cheap to hire a real assistant full time.”

  “Too cheap?” Avery wondered. “Didn’t she just get back from Cancun or some place?”

  “St. Maarten,” Bailey corrected. “It was Vegas a few weeks before that. How she gets anything done over there, I can’t fathom.”

  “Oh, I bet I can,” Avery said as he set his small stack of books on a cart and came over to lean on Bailey’s desk. “She doesn’t. You do.”

  “Well, you got to put in your time,” Bailey sighed. “Poppy hates the business. Probably she’d only sell it for a mint, but one of these days I’m determined to have her at least let me take it over.”

  “And give up some of that cash?” Avery laughed. “Try not to hold your breath, Bee.”

  Bailey shrugged. Avery was probably right. But the shop could be so much more than it was. Poppy put in the minimum amount of work and thought into how the tours ran, the souvenirs in the storefront, and cut all the corners she could find. It made her some money, and taking on a full time manager would probably cost some of that—but with Bailey in the driver’s seat, she could double what was coming in. She knew it.

  Bailey loved the Seven Caves. She knew just about everything there was to know about them, but she learned more all the time. They had an enchanting, mysterious quality about them, from the ancient writings and drawings on the walls to the series of fascinating events that had taken place in and around them. They were the cornerstone of Coven Grove’s entire economy—the town itself had grown up around them over the last century and a half and it wasn’t an exaggeration to say that the caves were the heart of the town. Without them, Coven Grove had nothing.

  For a long time, she’d even considered leaving Coven Grove to become an archaeologist. She never had—it was more of an exciting fantasy than a real goal; she envisioned herself unearthing long lost artifacts or legends from their strange, black depths like Indiana Jones. But it was something she day dreamed about from time to time.

  It was the whole reason she’d endured working with Poppy for the last two years. Poppy was self-centered, rude, didn’t give two wits about the caves, and barely knew a thing about them that wasn’t posted somewhere in her shop. Since Bailey had taken over the tours, the number of visitors had more than doubled from week to week, and was still growing. Probably because listening to Poppy gave everyone just as bad a headache as it did her.

  She pulled a bottle of aspirin from the bottom right drawer of her desk, and spilled two into her hand. Best to prepare in advance.

  “Got a headache?” Avery asked.

  “Not yet,” Bailey said around the two pills before she swallowed them and chased them with cold coffee from the mug she’d set down that morning. “But soon. Poppy sets my head pounding within about ten minutes, on a good day. Probably five, on a day like this.”

  “I think she does that to everyone,” Avery agreed.

  Bailey grinned. Sometimes it seemed like her and Avery shared one mind between them.

  “Well, I better get headed out there,” Bailey said. She glanced at the stacks of books on her desk. “Oh… do you mind? I can get them tonight if I need to—”

  “I got them,” Avery said easily. “Don’t worry about it. I suspect I can make sense of your chaos.”

  “Oh, they’re already organized,” Bailey said seriously, pointing to the stacks as she went, “fiction, non-fiction, history, and each of those is broken down and ordered by their DD code, and arranged according to where they go in the stack so you start from the top and this end of the shelf and—”

  “I was kidding, Bee,” Avery giggled. He rolled his eyes in a good-nature kind of way, and shook his head. “Poppy would be lucky to have you running the tour business; you’d have that place running like fine German clockwork from day one.”

  “Well, I’d at least keep the books up,” Bailey muttered. Accounting ‘assistance’ was one of her many chores at the tour off
ice, usually after hours and unpaid as a ‘favor’ to Poppy that she never failed to ask for.

  Bailey stood, prepared to leave now that she was armed with some aspirin and a better humor. As she did though, Avery spoke again. “Oh, and just as an aside, that reporter, Trevor something-or-another?”

  “Sullivan,” Bailey provided.

  “Uh huh, that one,” Avery said, smiling. “He came in early this morning when he got into town, picked up a few books about the Caves on his way through the town. Seemed pretty nice. Very handsome.” He winked. “No ring, as far as I could tell.”

  Bailey wrinkled her nose. “Trevor Sullivan has been on TV since I was little,” she said. “He’s got to be almost twice my age, Ave.”

  “I’m just saying you may get to spend a little time with him and that you should be open minded. He was very charming. You could do worse. Especially around here.” There was a note of genuine dissatisfaction in his voice.

  Avery was cute as a button, in Bailey’s opinion. And he was smart, and well-read; he loved the library the way Bailey loved the Caves. Bailey only helped out here because her father ran the place and desperately needed her help doing it. He had just turned seventy, and refused to retire. One day Avery would run the library himself, Bailey didn’t doubt.

  He also loved Coven Grove too much to move away, even though his own romantic prospects in this little town were slim at the best of times; non-existent more generally. Still, he insisted he wasn’t lonely. “Long as I got you, Bee,” Avery had said before, “I’m happy to live vicariously through you—so you need to find a man, and fast!”

  “How about,” Bailey said carefully, “I let you know how it goes, and you can read into it whatever you like, hon?”

  “It’ll do,” Avery said wistfully. “You better get going, then. Poppy’s probably having an apoplexy by now.”

  She grabbed her jacket and pulled it on. “Poppy was having an apoplexy when she called me,” she said. “Actually, I think she just lives in a constant state of apoplexy.”