She took a deep breath. “He thinks Rafe killed my parents.”
I pulled my hand away and stood up. “Is he serious?”
“He claims he has proof. He came back this week to confront Rafe, not for the festival.”
I didn’t like where my thoughts were leading me. If the bread had been doctored with peanuts, Dylan had been given multiple opportunities to do that. He’d been with Diana for the whole week.
“Do you know if he ever did confront Rafe?”
She shook her head. “He says they never had the chance to talk alone. He says Rafe was avoiding him. It’s certainly true that I didn’t see much of Rafe this week while Dylan was here.”
“Has he told you what this proof is?”
“It has something to do with a grimoire that my father found just before he died.”
“A grimoire?”
Diana rolled her eyes at me and huffed. “A Book of Shadows? A spell book?”
“Oh, like the one you write all your spells and potions in? Isn’t it just a notebook?”
Diana got up from the couch and went into the kitchen. She returned holding a spiral notebook, its pages stained, the cover filled with doodles.
“This is my working notebook, or grimoire. I write down the mixtures of herbs and the words to say for different spells. If I come up with something I like, I add it to the family grimoire. It’s kind of like a family recipe book. Ours has been passed down for five generations through my mother’s side. In my family it always passed to the oldest daughter.”
“Why haven’t you ever shared this with me before?” I sat on the couch again.
Diana shrugged. “I sort of figured you knew we had one, and I’ve shown you some of the books I’ve used in the past. But, mostly, because it’s supposed to be a secret.”
“Still, old secret books are the kind of thing you tell your best friend . . .” I was mostly kidding but should have known better and realized Diana would take me seriously in her current mood.
“It’s not like you ever expressed an interest in anything Wicca.” She sat down, hard. “Your mother acts like I’m either crazy or deeply misguided most of the time, and Vi has been secretly asking for the lottery numbers for years. She seems to think I can do a ‘winning spell.’” Diana’s face got pink and her hair seemed to get bigger, and curlier.
“I was just kidding. Calm down.” I reached for the notebook and then stopped myself. “May I?”
She nodded and handed it over.
“First of all, my mother looks at everyone as if they’re crazy or misguided. She looks at me like I’m crazy, misguided, and ungrateful. Try living with that.” I thought for a moment. “There’s really nothing to say about Vi.”
I flipped through the book, which was filled with Diana’s perfect printing. She’d even sketched some of the plants she used. When I got to a spell about how to see your future, I flipped it shut.
I took a deep breath. “I’ve been keeping something from you as well.”
She took the book back and waited.
“I’ve noticed a few times in the past, when you’ve done spells with me, that they seem to cause the dreams.”
“You mean those dreams?”
I nodded. Diana knew how I felt about my psychic abilities. The dreams and occasional visions came unbidden and were, frankly, unwelcome. I had been trying for years to get them to stop. It was the main argument I had with my family—they thought I was throwing away a gift. Like a singer who wouldn’t sing, or a star pitcher who preferred knitting to baseball. Mom and Vi, who wished they had inherited my grandmother’s talent, constantly nagged me to “focus on my gift.” What they didn’t understand was that rather than feeling empowered by the knowledge, I felt helpless. The dreams were always bad news and I had never been able to change the outcome.
“Oh, Clyde. I’m sorry. I only did spells with you for protection. I never did anything meant to bring on your dreams.”
“I should have told you, but it didn’t come up that often.” I grabbed her hand. “You can’t tell anyone about this. If my mom and Vi get wind of it, they’ll become Wiccans. Can you imagine the spells Vi would come up with?”
Diana laughed. “They would certainly put their own spin on it.”
“But what does this grimoire have to do with Dylan and Rafe?”
“Dylan claims that Rafe and my dad had a fight about a grimoire my dad found. You remember my dad had the used bookstore and he was always haunting garage sales and estate sales for old books?”
“Sort of.” What I mostly remembered about Elliot Ward was his sense of humor. He loved to tell jokes followed by a deep, rolling laugh that forced you to join in no matter how terrible the joke.
“Rafe was at our house for dinner about a week before my parents died. I wasn’t there, but apparently the three of them were drinking and reminiscing. Dylan was outside shooting baskets and came in for a Coke. They must not have heard him come in, because he overheard them arguing about a book.”