Scraping a thumb under my eye to keep my tears at bay, I finished my story. “I was shunned. Told to pack my bags and leave because I was no longer like everyone else.”
“Baba Yaga, The Imperial Empress of All Things Witch, booted her butt out without so much as a thank you for keeping that poor kid calm and alive. Little Peyton would be dead if not for Stevie. I told that stupid bunch of crusty old bones as much when I called council, but they wouldn’t listen. Not that Peyton’s testimony helped Stevie’s cause any. His mother coached him to say nothing happened, and I’ll swear that’s what she did on my dying breath. None of the good Stevie did mattered. Not a dang shred of it. So essentially, they said it was her own fault the Wingnut Warlock stole her powers. I told them to stick their witch powers in their dusty you-know-wheres and I left, too. Not a chance in seven hells I was letting Stevie go off alone.”
I still couldn’t believe the ruling. I know the council’s claim I didn’t follow protocol was true, if not completely ludicrous. I did refuse to leave Peyton alone with his fears and his tyrannical father.
But to dismiss that disgusting piece of garbage after meting out a punishment so severe, from the afterlife no less? I was still blown away by Baba’s disregard for my years of service with not an infraction in sight.
“This Baba Yaga, she’s your ultimate…ruler? What do you call the leader of the witch world, anyway?”
“Misguided? Stupid? Meaner n’ a snake cornered in a crawlspace?” Belfry quipped.
I tapped one of my familiar’s ears, chiding him. “Knock it off, Belfry. Don’t speak ill of her because she’s essentially still your leader.”
I didn’t know what to think about Baba’s stance. That she’d sent me away was so unlike her…
But that Belfry had chosen to stick by me meant more than he’d ever know. He’d left his world, his friends, his life behind the same way I did. But I was ever so grateful he’d jumped into my purse without my knowledge and come with.
“Anyway, yes, she leads our community. And while I disagree with her kicking me out of Paris ten thousand percent, I understand the pressure Peyton’s mother put on her. I don’t have to like it, but it wasn’t as though I could have done much about it. Shunned means there’s literally no way back in unless I become a witch again. It’s sort of like an invisible fence I can’t climb over.”
“And you miss it?”
Closing my eyes, I nodded. “I miss my friends. I miss helping people on the other side the most, though. I miss it like I’d miss a limb. Anyhow, I left and came back here. I’ve never lived anywhere else—so choosing Ebenezer Falls felt right. But after yesterday, I’m thinking maybe Mars is the ticket.”
Win barked a laugh, the vibe between us easing from intense to more relaxed. “Mars is bloody hot, Stevie. Besides, we made a deal. A deal you can’t break because your strict code of ethics says you can’t. As for the rest of it, I say bollocks. A pox on the loathsome lot of them!”
“Hear-hear to poxes!” Belfry cried.
“You don’t need any of them, Stevie. You have a home and enough money for five lifetimes. So do you feel better for telling me?”
I actually did, and I couldn’t help but tease Win because of it. “You know what would really make me feel better?”
“What’s that?”
I smiled coyly. “Telling me how you died. Were you on a crotch-rocket, racing along an opening drawbridge trying to escape the bad arms dealer, saw an opening on a big oil tanker in the water ahead that turned out to be the Exxon Valdez, thought there was a slim chance you could stick the landing, but because your timing was totally off, you fell to your watery death in the Pacific Ocean?”
“My timing is never off,” he offered dryly. Which meant, he wasn’t going to tell me today. “Now, lovely lady, we brush ourselves off, pick ourselves up and get to the business we need to attend. We have to clear your good name and any further suspicion of wrongdoing, but more importantly, we have a killer to catch in order to free up your taco-buying privileges. So our first order of business? Connecting you with a lawyer I have on retainer, on the off chance Sardine comes looking for you again.”
I giggled, rising from the seat, the heavy weight in my chest easing. “Sandwich. His name is Sandwich.”
“Everything is a blur after mayonnaise and sardines and vomit.”
“Speaking of Sandwich, he told me something interesting. I don’t know if you heard, but he said Madam Z had been strangled.”
“Wait! Shhh!” Win ordered, making me stand up straighter at the urgency in his tone. “Madam Zoltar! It’s smashing to see you. You look lov—What’s that, Madam Zoltar?”
There was a pause as the wind howled and the rain fell, one I strained into as I rigidly stood at attention while I waited for a communication from MZ.
Win made me jump when he blurted an astonished, “Cluck-cluck?”
“What?” I asked. “Are you hearing her right?”