Twistchapel Witch Cozy Mystery Box Set: Books 1-4 plus Christmas Short Read online

  “I want to support Sophie,” I said, using a lint roller on my black dress. Random cat hair always seemed to appear on my outfits, too. “It’s not easy going to your father’s funeral. Even if you were never that close to him.”

  “Didn’t she yell at you to get out of her house the last time you saw her?” asked Bart, taking a break from him paw.

  “That’s… That’s just something friends do to each other from time to time,” I said, absentmindedly pushing a few black locks of hair behind my ear. At least, I hoped that was something friends did.

  “Are you sure it isn’t because you feel guilty about getting her husband busted?”

  “I don’t feel guilty about that,” I said firmly. “He was a murderer, and was going to kill me, too.”

  A few days earlier, I had confronted Sophie’s husband about the murder of his father-in-law. It hadn’t gone exactly as I planned, but with the help of the new detective, Drake Robinson, it had ended well.

  “You really don’t think he’ll tell the cops that you’re a witch, by the way?” asked Bart.

  “I don’t. First of all, they wouldn’t believe him. Second of all, on the off chance they did, I could just tell everyone the truth about him being a werewolf.”

  Sophie’s husband made it abundantly clear he didn’t want his family or anyone else to know that he was a werewolf. When he initially came at me with a knife, I had to expose myself as a witch by summoning a ball of light, the only spell I knew. Luckily, he bought my bluff that I could summon silver if I so wanted to. As I said, things hadn’t gone exactly as I planned.

  Bart nodded and went back to licking his paw. “Those are good points. Still, it’s gonna be weird.”

  “Probably,” I admitted. I set the lint roller down and looked myself over one final time. I thought I looked nice, without standing out too much. “Ready to go?”

  “Pass.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m not going,” said Bart. “Cemeteries give me the heebie jeebies.”

  “But you’re a ghost,” I said. “How can you be scared of cemeteries?”

  “I’m not a ghost, I’m a familiar,” said Bart defensively, place a paw over his chest. I appeared to have offended him. “I’m also not scared. I just don’t like them. Good things never happen in cemeteries.”

  “You always complain about a lack of excitement, though,” I prodded.

  “You think a funeral is going to be exciting?”

  “Last time I went somewhere without you, someone died,” I pointed out.

  “No one is going to get killed at a funeral,” scoffed Bart.

  I sighed and grabbed my bag. It didn’t matter. If he didn’t want to come, he didn’t have to. “I should only be gone for a few hours. Wait for me to get back before you watch The Real House!”

  “Yeah… I’ll totally wait for you,” said Bart, looking away.

  “It’s just a few hours!”

  Bart made an unconvincing noise.

  ***

  Twenty minutes later, I pulled in to Twistchapel Cemetery. I hadn’t been here in ages, and couldn’t help but be impressed. Twistchapel had become a town nearly 200 years ago and the main cemetery in town had always been a thing of beauty. The grounds keepers took their jobs very seriously, constantly maintaining the graveyard regardless of the time of year, or how many visitors they expected to have. Several intersecting walking paths cut through the cemetery, showcasing the elegantly cut statues, gorgeous floral decorations, and hundred year old gravestones.

  The funeral was set for late in the day, nearly dusk. I got out of my car and made for the funeral home, clicking my key fob’s lock button continuously. I didn’t hear the successful beep until I was nearly at the door. I really needed Bart to teach my a spell for locking my car. Maybe there was one to just fix the key fob? I’d take anything at this point.

  “Zoey!” called out a familiar voice.

  I turned to see one of my oldest friends, Bridgette Simpson, along with her husband Dan. She ran over and gave me a hug. “I’m so glad you’re okay!” she whispered.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Drake told us about your scrape with death,” said Dan. I should have guessed. Dan and Detective Drake were friends from college, and I suspected that Dan and Bridgette were trying to make something happen between the detective and myself.

  “I wasn’t really in that much danger,” I lied.

  “I can’t believe you figured it out, when Drake couldn’t!” said Bridgette. “That’s got to be embarrassing for him, huh?”

  “I… I guess I didn’t think about it that wa-”

  “Oh, don’t worry about it,” she laughed. “Men like it when we are better than them at the things they love to do.”

  “I don’t know about that one…” I mumbled, as Dan closed his eyes and shook his head.

  “Do you think you’re going to get more involved with solving crimes?” asked Bridgette.

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged. “I wasn’t really planning on it. You never know with the store. Today things could be fine, but tomorrow there could be a bunch of issues that need my attention.”

  “Things are always fine there!” insisted Bridgette.

  Bridgette was not only one of my oldest friends, but also one of my cashiers. I owned Foster’s Market, named after myself, and had been running it for several years now. While she was right, and business was going very well, I was apprehensive to be gone too often. The main reason I was so involved with the last case was to get my butcher, Thomas Rollin, out of trouble.

  “We’ll see,” I said.

  “Bridgette and I need to go say hello to a few other people,” said Dan. “You can sit with us, if you’d like.”

  “I probably will, thanks,” I nodded.

  The two left as I looked around the funeral home. I was surprised by how many people were there, to be honest. Mr. Spinner, Sophie’s father, had not been a very well liked man. He was known for being harsh, and occasionally unfair, at the bank he worked at. Most of the crowd were older than me by a couple of decades, and were probably contemporaries of the loan officer when he was younger.

  Looking for Sophie, I walked by a small room off to the side of the main hall and looked inside. A few people were inside of it, talking quietly. I saw Sophie in the back, holding her children close to her, talking with the pastor. This probably wasn’t the time to try and say hello. Maybe I should just wait until after the service. I moved out of the door frame as a middle aged woman tried to leave the room.

  “Miss Foster, is that you?” asked the woman.

  “It is!” I smiled, giving the woman a quick hug. She was a few inches shorter than me and quite a bit more portly. I recognized her as a frequent shopper at my store. Her glasses would always stay fogged after picking up something from the frozen section, and she would never wipe them before getting to check out. It was something Bridgette always found very amusing.

  “How have you been?” she asked.

  “Pretty good, how about you?” I asked the woman, who’s name I could not remember for the life of me.

  “I’ve been doing well,” she nodded. “A bit bored, but that’s life.”

  “Excuse me, Maggie,” said a short man, trying to work his way around the woman I was talking to.

  “I’m so sorry!” she said, getting out of the doorway.

  That’s right! Her name was Maggie Davis.

  “Remind me what you do, Mrs. Davis,” I said.

  “Nothing really, which is the problem. I’ve been retired for years now, and haven’t found much in the way of hobbies.”

  “Must be nice to not have to worry about money, though!”

  “It is nice,” she said as we made our way into the chapel. The room was packed with chairs, nearly all of them already taken. “I always hated working, so I suppose I should be more grateful about the boredom. Rumor has it that you have found a new hobby.”

  “I have?” I asked, horrified. Ho
w could she have known my new obsession of The Real House, the best reality show on TV? Was it Bridgette? I knew I shouldn’t have told her.

  “Sleuthing, is it not?”

  “Sleuthing, yes!” I said, breathing a sigh of relief. That was close.

  “I’ve got some friends in the back that are saving me a seat, so I should really be off. I’d love to hear more about your new hobby sometime,” she said, pulling out a card and handing it to me. “Feel free to call me anytime to tell me about your adventures.”

  I glanced at the card, which aside from her phone number simply said Maggie Davis, Retired. Why even have a business card?

  “Definitely,” I lied, putting the card in my bag.

  She gave a wave as she made her way to the back.

  “Is that Fog Glasses?” giggled Bridgette, walking up next to me with Dan.

  “Her name is Maggie,” I clarified. “And yes. She wants me to tell her about all the sleuthing adventures I’m having.”

  “That sounds fun. Are you going to do it?”

  “Probably not.” It wasn’t that I was opposed to telling people about myself, although it wasn’t something I normally did. The issue was more that it would be hard to explain how I came to certain conclusions without using certain keywords like witch, werewolf, and invisible cat that teaches me about magic. If I went around talking around those facts, people would probably notice holes in my story.

  The pastor walked in, and made his way to the podium. Sophie and her kids came in as well, heads hung low, and sat down in the front row.

  “It looks like it’s about to start. Where are our seats?”

  “Follow me,” said Dan, guiding us to a set of seats in the middle of the room.

  Chapter 2

  “What a beautiful service,” said Dan, getting to his feet. Everyone around us was beginning to stand and mill about.

  “It really was,” sniffed Bridgette, mascara marks all down her cheeks.

  “You might want to run to the restroom before talking with people,” I said politely.

  “I know, I probably look like a mess. I didn’t even know Mr. Spinner that well!”

  Sophie and her kids were off to the side, thanking people for coming. Now was probably an appropriate time to say hi.

  “I’d go with you to the restroom, but I think now is my chance to talk with Sophie,” I said.

  “No problem,” she said, grabbing Dan and pulling him with her.

  “We’ll see you later, Zoey,” laughed Dan over his shoulder.

  I got in the short line to talk with Sophie, thinking over what I should say. Sorry I’m a big part of why your husband got arrested? I'm sorry you’ve been married to a werewolf without knowing it?

  Before I knew it, I was next up. Sophie’s eyes widened as she saw me, and for a brief second I was worried she would yell. Instead, she grabbed me in close for a hug.

  “I’m so sorry about Jeff,” she said. “I can’t believe he would try to hurt you.”

  I wasn’t expecting that.

  “I-It’s totally fine,” I said, hugging her back. “I’m really sorry about your dad.”

  “Thank you,” she said, letting go of the embrace. “Thank you for coming, too. I’m sorry the last time we saw each other I yelled at you. If it wasn’t for you coming back and confronting Jeff, who knows if he would’ve hurt me or the kids.”

  “He loves you all very much,” I said. “I’d like to think he wouldn’t do anything to harm you.”

  She didn’t seem convinced but nodded her thanks.

  I looked over her shoulder, searching for what else to say. Out of the door, in the middle of the crowd, a man made eye contact with me. He was smiling, wearing a black suit, and had his blonde hair up in a ponytail.

  I tensed up. I had seen him a few days earlier at the police station. Bart and I got a weird vibe from him, and he was gone before we could have Drake identify him. What was he doing here?

  “We’ll talk again soon, okay?” I said to Sophie, giving her another hug.

  “Thanks again for coming,” she said as I walked after the ponytailed man.

  The man, seeing me on the move, turned and filtered through the crowd. I tried to keep pace, politely trying to get around the throng of people filling the corridor.

  I made it to the front door, looking around for where the man went. I assumed he would be going to the parking lot, but I couldn’t see him there. Glancing around towards the graveyard itself, I saw the man calmly walking down a path, away from the funeral home. There weren’t any roads down there, which means he wouldn’t be able to get away if I kept up with him. I picked up my pace and chased after him.

  Following him up a hill, I noticed he was keeping the same distance in front of me. He didn’t appear to be moving any faster than before. It probably had something to do with the Other.

  He suddenly broke away from the path and started walking in between gravestones. It seemed like he was heading for a particular location. I continued after him, but was starting to question how wise this was. I had no idea who this guy was, or even if he was necessarily paranormal. Also, all I knew how to do was summon a ball of light… not the best defensive option. If Mr. Ponytail ended up being hostile, getting further and further away from the public wasn’t ideal.

  He suddenly cut to the right, behind a giant mausoleum. If I wasn’t careful, he’d slip out of grasp. I jogged as best I could to keep up, rushing around the mausoleum.

  I bounced off of someone and fell down.

  “Back off!” I shouted up, trying to get to my feet.

  “P-Pardon me, Miss!” came a shaky voice.

  I looked up and found, instead of Mr. Ponytail, an elderly man with a hand over his heart and panic all over his face. I looked around for the man I was chasing, surely he was still nearby.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry!” I said, getting to my feet. “I was chasing after… uh…”

  I didn’t really know how to explain it was a man with a ponytail that I’d only seen twice. The old man waited as I decided where to go with this.

  “Um… my… my boyfriend,” I said. “Did you see him, by any chance? He was just here. Hair up in a ponytail. Black suit. Always smiling like he knows something you don’t.”

  “I haven’t seen anybody over here, Miss,” said the old man, starting to calm down.

  Drat. I probably lost him.

  “He must have gone in another direction. Not a biggie,” I said.

  “You own that nice grocery store near Main street, right?” asked the man.

  “That’s right,” I smiled, reaching my hand out. “I’m Zoey Foster.”

  The man took my hand and shook it. “Travis Thompson. You have such a lovely store. I don’t always make it down there, but I’ve never had a bad experience.”

  “That’s great to hear,” I smiled.

  “Especially that cashier of yours… I think he name is Charline?”

  Of course. I will never understand what the customers see in her.

  “Yes, Charline. One of our best,” I said, trying my best to fake enthusiasm. “Were you here for Mr. Spinner’s funeral?”

  “No, no, I was um… visiting a loved one” he said, fiddling with his wrist watch. The watch was distractingly pretty, with gold plating and a diamond facing. “Unfortunately, I never knew the man very well. Terrible what happened to him.”

  An awkward silence fell upon us. I kind of wanted to know what loved one he was visiting, but that seemed like it might be a little forward after having just bumped into him. Literally.

  “I like your watch,” I said. “It’s a shame people don’t wear them like they used to. People just look at their cell phones if they need to tell the time.”

  “Thank you,” he said, a smiling spreading on his face he looked down at it. “I’ve had this watch for many, many years, now. It’s probably older than you are.”

  “I doubt that,” I laughed. “Did a loved one get it for you?”

  “No, I got it for my
self the day I started my factory. I keep it to remember all the good times I had there,” he said, glancing down at the watch again. He hopped back a bit. “Look at the time! I’ve really got to get going.”

  “Nice meeting you, Mr. Thompson,” I said.

  “Travis, please,” he smiled, walking by me and back towards the funeral home and parking lot. “I’ll be sure to say hello the next time I’m at Foster’s Market!”

  “Looking forward to it,” I said.

  I wandered through the graveyard some more, looking down at the various stonework. There was really no reason for me to stay out here, now that Mr. Ponytail had vanished, but I didn’t want to walk back so close to Travis. Might as well spend some time looking around at some of the graves.

  A weird tingle ran down my back, as if someone was watching me. I turned around and looked over at the mausoleum. Was Travis coming back? I walked over to it and checked around the side.

  Nothing. Weird, the feeling must have been nothing.

  I turned back around to the gravestones I was looking at, and let out a small scream.

  Just a few feet away floated a middle aged woman. She was a translucent blue, similar to how Bart looked, but a human. She was a petite woman with her hair drawn back in a bun. Her face was stern, and she stared right at me. Something about her was familiar, but I couldn’t quite figure out what.

  We stared at each other for a moment.

  “Hello?” I asked.

  The ghost stared at me.

  “Can you understand me?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if ghosts could talk, or if they could understand the living. Probably something I should’ve discussed earlier with Bart.

  The ghost floated slowly towards me.

  I looked around to see if there was anyone watching. When I saw there wasn’t I summoned a ball of light in my palm and reached it out towards the ghost.

  “Stay back, I’m a witch!” I said.