A Trick for a Treat Read online

  A Trick for a Treat

  Wayfair Witches Book Three

  by A.A. Albright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organisations, places, events and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.

  Text Copyright © A.A. Albright 2017

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

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  Website: https://aaalbright.com

  Table of Contents

  1. Totally Trashed

  2. Jasper’s a Jerk

  3. Potions at Eleven

  4. Jasper’s a Jerk – Again

  5. Little Finny Plimpton

  6. Staring at the Precipice

  7. Which Magic?

  8. Wanda the Genius

  9. Dark Arts

  10. Witchfield

  11. Three Witches Brew

  12. Something Fishy

  13. Good Golly

  14. Carmel Plimpton’s Playpen

  15. The Inner Map

  16. Break Out

  17. Red Herring

  18. Standing on the Precipice

  19. Twists and Turns

  20. A Trick for a Treat

  21. Nothing Wrong With Letting Mammy Fight Your Battles

  22. Swanks

  23. The World is Right Again

  24. Wolfie’s Choice

  25. Three Weeks Later

  1. Totally Trashed

  I stood in front of Wayfarers’ Rest, with Max and Wolfie by my side. Max was grinning in childlike wonder, gazing at the line of laburnum trees along the drive.

  ‘They’re in flower all year long?’

  I nodded, looking up at the yellow pendulous flowers that dripped off the trees like honey. ‘They sure are.’

  ‘And those windows.’ Max shook his head in awe. ‘How old are they?’

  ‘Who knows?’ I followed his gaze to the crown glass windowpanes. ‘Centuries, probably.’ I grabbed his hand. ‘Come on. I’m starving.’

  Wolfie gave an impatient little whimper. ‘Me too. Jasper feeds me three times a day. And he gives me treats whenever I want. And he gives me food off his plate, and passes me biscuits whenever he eats them and ...’

  Max sighed. We’d been hearing about Jasper non-stop since Wolfie arrived in our lives. He was an enormous, fawn-coloured Irish Wolfhound who had been dumped at the dog kennels where Max used to work. Jasper, his owner, had been the one to do the dumping. You would think a thing like that might turn a dog off his owner. Apparently not.

  ‘Jasper’s house is much, much newer than Wanda’s,’ said Wolfie. ‘And bigger.’

  ‘Well, I think Wanda’s house is just about the most beautiful house in the world,’ Max replied. ‘And seeing as she and her coven are your hosts, you’d better be polite.’

  Dizzy, my bat familiar, blew a raspberry in Wolfie’s direction and then asked me, ‘Do you think your mam will have enough mangoes?’

  ‘There’s only one way to find out,’ I said. ‘Come on, let’s go in.’

  Max and Wolfie scampered behind us, Max still gawping at the house. ‘The upper floors are way wider than the lower floors,’ Max said with a laugh. ‘I love it. Ooh, and is that barley growing out back? Talk about pretty. Will it be cut soon? Can we watch the farmer cutting it? Or do you do it with magic? Oh – is there a farmer who cuts it, but with a magical machine?’

  I blinked at the barley, blowing in the slight breeze at the back of the house. ‘It always grows,’ I said, unable to mask the sadness in my voice. ‘And it’s always ripe for cutting.’ Except, I didn’t reply, that we never ever cut it. We left it that way because it was easier to look at a field full of barley than it was to look at the flat ground where my father used to test his brooms.

  I’d been aware that the core members of my coven – my mother, Christine, and Christine’s daughter Melissa – would be here when we arrived. But there was an unexpected addition in the form of Gabriel Godbody – shiny TV presenter during the afternoon, all round nice guy the rest of the time.

  I hugged each of them briefly. ‘Hey Gabriel. I didn’t know you were going to be here.’

  He grinned from me to Max. ‘Are you kidding? I can’t wait to spend more time with you guys. Oh, who is this gorgeous fella?’

  He began to rub Wolfie, who rolled over on the ground in delight. Dizzy blew another raspberry and snuggled into me. To be fair, he had reason to dislike the dog. Their first meeting hadn’t gone too well. Dizzy had almost wound up being a dog’s dinner.

  ‘I guess that must be the famous Wolfie you were telling us about,’ Melissa said with a wide-eyed smile. ‘You were right. He’s enormous. Oh, we’ve magicked all of your things here for you. We’ve made up your old bed, and we’ve got a spare room all ready for Max.’

  My mother pulled me into a big, warm hug. ‘You look a little peaky. I told you we’d help you travel, love.’

  Recently, my mother and I had been among a large group of witches who had their power drained by a warlock called Kilian Berry. He had taken a lot from us both, so she was probably just as exhausted as I was. I let her hold me a little while more before pulling away. ‘I’m fine. Honestly. The thought of coming here gave me a bit of an energy spurt. But y’know what’d make me feel a lot better?’

  Christine raised a dark red eyebrow. ‘Let me guess,’ she said with a smile. ‘It begins with apple and ends with tart.’

  We all filed into the enormous kitchen. They had set a bed up for Wolfie, next to the cat bed by the wood-burning stove. Mischief, my mother’s familiar, stood up and smirked at the dog.

  ‘You’re very welcome in our home,’ he said insincerely.

  ‘Yeah.’ Queenie, Christine’s familiar, sidled up next to Mischief. ‘But first, let’s just get the ground rules out of the way.’

  Max was looking worriedly at the interaction.

  ‘Aw. You’re like a dad who’s just sent his kid off for the first day at school,’ said Melissa. ‘He’ll be all right. They’re all magical animals. They know the score. We should just eat and let them get on with it.’ She pointed to our large kitchen table. ‘Sit anywhere you like, Max.’

  ‘We’ve baked a non-dairy apple tart,’ my mother said, ruffling Max’s light-brown hair. ‘And Emily Caulfield has started making a mean vegan vanilla ice cream, so we bought some of that in town. Or would you prefer custard?’

  Max bit his lip. ‘Ice cream’s great. You shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble for me, really.’

  ‘Nonsense.’ My mother ruffled his hair again. ‘You’re one of the family.’

  As the apple tart was dished up, there wasn’t much noise other than chewing for a while. Dizzy sat in front of me, contentedly nibbling at some mango slices and laughing at the way the cats were treating Wolfie. Even though they all happily kept to their own bed most of the time, Mischief was now sitting in Wolfie’s, kneading it with his claws and saying, ‘What’s wrong, Wolfie? Don’t like sharing?’

  Wolfie wasn’t taking the bait. Instead of claiming his bed, he was hiding around the back of an armchair. Unfortunately, a dog like Wolfie would need a much bigger chair to hide him completely. I felt kind of sorry for him. We’d taken him to Riddler’s Cove to find out why Jasper had dumped him. But so far, all that had happened was that he’d been bullied by the coven cats. This experience probably wasn’t going to be up there with his best.

  ‘Hey Wolfie,’ I called over. ‘How about we all take a walk in a while?’

  He peeped out fro
m behind the chair. ‘I like walks.’

  ≈

  When Wolfie was found at the kennels, he’d been wearing a tag-less collar and tied by his lead to the gates. It was unusual for witches to walk a dog on the lead, which should have been our first giveaway that, although Wolfie was a magical animal, he wasn’t a witch’s familiar. On the rare occasion we had dogs, they didn’t need leads. But judging by how nuts Wolfie was going at the mere thought of a walk, we weren’t quite sure how things would go.

  ‘Maybe we ought to take the lead,’ said Melissa. ‘Just in case.’

  Wolfie nodded. ‘Probably for the best. Jasper says I’m too mad to be trusted off the lead.’

  ‘Aww, bless him.’ Melissa scratched his head and secured the lead. ‘He’s even honest when it goes against his own doggie interests.’

  Wolfie gave her a confused stare, and pulled her out the door.

  It was late afternoon, and a little bit chilly, as we walked through the town. Dizzy had chosen to stay behind and check out the attic of Wayfarers’ Rest. There were a bunch of non-magical bats living up there, but Dizzy assured me that as soon as they met him, they’d be best friends in no time – according to him, even non-magical bats could be quite chatty when they were alone.

  ‘So which way does this Jasper live, then?’ asked Gabriel. ‘It’s got to be the new werewolf enclave up at Hope Cliff, right?’

  Wolfie nodded. ‘It’s a really new house. And fancy. And expensive. Jasper said it cost an arm and a leg. I bet that’s a lot, because I never get to eat the leg off the chicken. Jasper gets that bit.’

  ‘I didn’t even know there was a werewolf enclave within Riddler’s Cove,’ I said as we headed for the coast road. ‘Didn’t it used to be in Riddler’s Edge?’

  Riddler’s Edge, just outside Riddler’s Cove, had a mainly human population, but I remembered visiting vampire and werewolf family friends in smaller enclaves there as a child.

  ‘It’s a recent development,’ said Melissa, giving me an odd smile. ‘Along with the vampire enclave up at Forest Road. All built by none-other than Berry Materialization. Did you just remember the enclaves in Riddler’s Edge now or did someone tell you about them?’

  ‘You’re being weird,’ I accused her.

  ‘No I’m not. But did you? Remember it?’

  ‘Fine. You’re not being weird.’ She really was, but my attention was distracted by the look of upset on Max’s face.

  ‘Seeing as my cousin is commuting to work from Riddler’s Edge every day, I’m guessing there’s no new weredog enclave in Riddler’s Cove just yet,’ he grumbled.

  I squeezed his hand. ‘Things change, Max. Slowly. But they change.’ My super-positive words were making me feel a little bit sickly, to tell the truth. I was just as angry as Max was, but I figured it was more important to make him feel better until I could actually do something about the situation. He was free to stay in Riddler’s Cove as our guest, but he still had to wear a great big ugly Pendant of Privilege, and if he wanted to live here full time, he’d have to move a little bit outside the town, just like his cousin had.

  Melissa pointed across the street. ‘There’s Arthur Albright,’ she said.

  Arthur, my former Tall Tales teacher, was leaving the community hall with a crowd of young children filing out behind him. He waved in my direction. ‘Good to see you, Wanda. Well done on the brilliant test result. And, y’know, surviving yet another encounter with an evil witch.’

  I glanced at the kids. They all looked around five or six. I could sense the ones among them who had already become empowered. But the rest of them weren’t wearing great big ugly necklaces. Instead, they had pretty silver bracelets on their wrists, with a beautiful deep green stone at the centre. ‘A late Tall Tales class?’ I asked.

  He pulled his collar up. ‘In a way. I’m organising the Halloween festivities this year. And I’m running afternoon classes to prepare the kids for all it entails. This lot haven’t done A Trick for a Treat just yet. And of course they’ll have a lot of new experiences later that evening as well. Do you remember your first event?’

  I blinked. ‘No. No, I don’t, actually.’

  Even as I said it, a memory of standing outside the community hall assaulted me. All of the other kids with their bracelets finally off. Me, with my pendant standing out like a sore thumb, unable to see the arrival of our dead loved ones the way the other kids suddenly could. ‘Anyway, I’d better go.’ I rushed off at a quick pace, with Gabriel, Melissa and Max struggling to keep up. ‘See you around.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll see you at the ball, then?’ Arthur called after me. He looked a little confused by my sudden exit. ‘We could catch up?’

  ‘Sure,’ I called back. ‘That’d be great.’

  ‘Are you okay?’ asked Melissa, panting as she grabbed my hand.

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, I just remembered we had bracelets till we were six, that’s all.’

  ‘You just remembered?’ Melissa was giving me the same strange look as she had a few moments before. ‘Like, just now remembered?’

  ‘Well ... no. I thought I remembered something about it before, but I wasn’t sure until now. Anyway, it sucks. That’s what everyone should have. Pretty jewellery instead of that ugly as hell chain.’

  I was suddenly feeling as moody as Max. Luckily, we had Wolfie to lift our spirits. I hadn’t spent much time with dogs, but if he was anything to go by, then I’d been missing out. Everything was amazing to him. A broom-riding witch was a thing of wonder, even though he must have seen thousands of them. A new tree that one of our neighbours had planted had to be sniffed for five minutes and peed on three times. The further we got along the road, the more excited he became. ‘Jasper’s girls walk me out this road,’ he said. ‘I can smell some of their scents now.’

  ‘Girls?’ asked Melissa. ‘Does he have daughters?’

  Wolfie shook his head. ‘Just girls.’ He sniffed the trunk of a sycamore tree. ‘I peed here last week when the one Jasper calls Dollface took me for a walk. And I found a dead frog over there when the one he calls Luscious Lips took me out!’

  He started to run, the lead slipping out of Melissa’s hand. She and Max began to chase after him, and I was just about to follow when Gabriel gasped and nudged me, ‘I think I know who this Jasper might be.’

  ‘Oh?’ I raised a brow, slowing back down to a walk.

  ‘I interviewed the Call of the Wild on Wyrd News in the Afternoon recently. There’s so many guys in that band, and they’re always replacing members when there’s been a fight – they have a lot of fights. But I think I remember their latest bass player talking about how he just bought a place up on Hope Cliff.’ He moved closer to me, making it absolutely impossible for me to ignore the fact that he smelled like cinnamon and pastry. ‘There’s something else, too. They have a bit of a thing, the guys in that band. A bit of an in joke. They all like to get dogs from time to time. They think it’s hilarious, a pack of werewolves owning real dogs. From what I recall at the interview … they’re not very nice to those dogs.’ He glanced at Wolfie. ‘Maybe he’d be better off not finding Jasper. I mean, if he was dumped like that, maybe Jasper just got bored of him. We could be getting the poor dog’s hopes up for nothing.’

  ‘Well, we’re not going to call into Jasper’s house,’ I said. ‘This is just a walk-by. Me and Max want to feel this guy out before we let Wolfie anywhere near him again.’

  I scanned ahead of me. Max and Melissa still hadn’t caught up with Wolfie. The dog was veering to the left, into the driveway of the last house on Hope Cliff.

  ‘Of course, if we don’t get a hold of the dog again,’ I added. ‘That plan might go out the window.’

  Gabriel grabbed my hand and we took off at a run. When we made it to the driveway, we found ourselves staring at the largest house we’d seen in the whole enclave. It was an enormous, square building, constructed mainly from glass and concrete. Except that a lot of the glass was now smashed, and at least a dozen Peacemakers were stal
king the grounds.

  As Wolfie streaked towards them, one of them panicked and pointed his truncheon. Before he could electro-shock the dog, Melissa pointed a finger, countering the spell.

  I watched the bright blue light hover in the air for a moment, and then fizzle out. We caught up to the dog, standing in front of him with our arms crossed as the Peacemakers marched towards us. The one who had tried to electro-shock Wolfie was raising his truncheon again. Melissa, Gabriel and I held up our hands, ready to counter. Just as the Peacemaker seemed about to strike, another one stepped in front of him, put a hand to his colleague’s truncheon and said, ‘I’ll handle this.’

  The Peacemaker took off his helmet and glowered at us. ‘This is a crime scene,’ he said. ‘It’s not Wayfair business.’

  I’d never seen a Peacemaker without a helmet. I don’t know what I expected. He looked like a normal, young guy – maybe twenty-one or twenty-two – with fair hair and flushed skin. His uniform looked almost the same as the others, except that there was a bright silver star on the left side of his grey and black breastplate.

  He took a step closer, looking back at his fellow Peacemakers. ‘They’re all a bit wound up just now, so I wouldn’t argue, all right?’ He glanced at Max. ‘I know as well as you do that you have every right to be here, mate. But just make sure and keep that Pendant of Privilege on full show at all times. Some of my unit are a little bit trigger happy just now. There are a lot of strange things happening in that house.’

  ‘Strange?’ I asked.

  ‘I know you,’ he said. ‘Wanda, right? Listen, Wanda, you’re not very popular with the Peacemakers right now, and this crime scene is our jurisdiction.’

  ‘Oh, I know,’ I said sweetly. ‘Werewolf house. Werewolf enclave. Nothing to do with us. We were just out for a nice walk with our dog. I was only asking out of curiosity. Not often we have crime in Riddler’s Cove.’

  The Peacemaker looked like he was suffering some sort of internal struggle. He stepped closer to me. ‘Jasper Jaunt’s gone missing, all right? And his whole house has been trashed. We thought it was a break-in at first. Until we found the ransom note. And then … well then the house kept getting trashed. While we were in it.’