Old-School Witch Read online

  Nollaig’s eyes began to water. ‘You’re a lot sweeter than you look, Grace O’Malley, do you know that?’

  Grace sniffed. ‘Yes. Well, don’t spread it around. Now, are we having some champagne or what?’

  Nollaig grinned and popped the cork, careful to point it away from all of our dresses. Grace was right – they were truly beautiful gowns. Nollaig’s dress was a dramatic blood red, with a corseted bodice and a train that swept the floor when she moved. Grace and I were in black dresses, trimmed with the same red as Nollaig’s gown. Apparently these were quite typical colours for traditional vampire weddings, the shades meant to represent blood and night.

  As soon as the bubbly was in my glass I took a sip, noting that it was far nicer than what had been on offer at the old school earlier that morning. But even so, I couldn’t help but wonder: had it been the champagne that turned my stomach then, or had something else been at work?

  I shivered. Once again, I couldn’t get that great big stone out of my mind.

  ≈

  After the fitting, Grace and Nollaig headed to the Fisherman’s Friend for the weekly quiz night. It had been my mother’s idea, and in a puzzle-crazy town like Riddler’s Edge, I knew that the tavern would be packed to the rafters. It might have helped matters that my mother had hired Roarke to be the quizmaster.

  I wouldn’t be enjoying the fun and games, though – instead, I’d promised my parents that I’d help out behind the bar. Before I could go, though, I had a four-legged familiar to feed – assuming, of course, that Ron hadn’t already gone through the tuna I’d brought home that afternoon.

  ‘He’d better not have nicked my food again,’ said Fuzz, echoing my thoughts as we walked towards the kitchen. ‘It says a lot about a person, you know – if they just go around taking what they want willy-nilly, then it’s clear that they’re bad to the bone. You wouldn’t catch me doing a thing like that.’

  I arched a brow at the little cat. ‘Really? You don’t take what you want willy-nilly? I doubt that all of the crabs and mice you chase would agree with that.’

  ‘That’s different,’ he said. ‘That’s the natural order of things, isn’t it? But a vampire eating tinned tuna? That’s about as far from natural as it gets.’

  He wasn’t wrong. Sure, vampires ate human food as well as blood, but there had been over a dozen tins of tuna in that cupboard. I was just about to make an unpleasant remark about Ron, but as I pushed open the kitchen door, the nicest sight in the world met my eyes, and all thoughts of the tuna-thief were gone.

  Jared and Pru were sitting at the scrubbed wooden table, their bags thrown on the floor as they shared a bottle of wine.

  ‘Oh my stars!’ I gazed at them both. ‘I am so happy to see you two.’

  ‘See?’ Jared gave his sister a told-you-so look. ‘Didn’t I say she wouldn’t be angry at us for staying away so long? Neither will Mam, I bet. She’ll welcome her prodigal children with open arms, just like Ash is about to.’ He stood up and opened his arms, and then repeated, ‘Just like Ash is about to.’

  I thought of holding out on him, but I couldn’t. I ran into his arms, just like the cocky so-and-so knew that I would. He looked amazing, and he smelled even better. I knew perfectly well how much I’d missed Pru, but I didn’t realise how much I’d missed Jared until he was holding me.

  ‘I was beginning to think you guys had abandoned the wedding altogether. Your mammy made me try on your dress, Pru.’ I looked at her over Jared’s shoulder. She was dancing impatiently, waiting to get in a hug of her own. ‘I mean, it’s beautiful and everything – but it has a train. A train, Pru.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ said Jared, moving away and making room for Pru, ‘I thought I had her convinced to sit this one out with me, but then all that messaging she’s been doing with Greg scuppered my plans.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘The guy’s supposed to be my best mate. Instead he’s making moon eyes at my sister and convincing her to come back for the wedding of doom.’

  ‘Yeah, sure. Blame Greg,’ said Pru. ‘I did go to London to convince you to come home in the first place, didn’t I? If anything, I should be annoyed with you for keeping me away for so long. Who cares if this wedding is the worst idea since … well, their last wedding? Mam needs us.’

  Jared hung his head. ‘I know. I know she does. I just wish she needed us for anything but this.’

  Pru gave him a light punch to the forearm. ‘Good to see you getting into the spirit, brother. And at least now Ash won’t have to wear the flounciest dress in the ceremony.’

  ‘That would not have gone well,’ I said. ‘There are four-inch heels, too. I had visions of tripping over like an idiot and spending the entire ceremony sprawled on the floor with a swollen ankle.’

  ‘Although if you did fall on your face, at least they might call things off,’ said Jared. ‘I mean, Dad would try and cop a feel of your sprained ankle for sure, which would mean Mam might finally throw him out on his ear.’

  While Pru was busy scowling at her brother, I moved to the cupboard, sighing in relief when I saw that Ron hadn’t stolen the tuna again. As I quickly filled a bowl for Fuzz, I said, ‘Y’know, I don’t really get it, Jared. I mean, you lived with your dad for years, but it sounds like you hate his guts.’

  He sat back down with folded arms. ‘Yeah, it probably does. Look, the truth is that when I chose to live in London with dad a couple of hundred years back, it wasn’t because I wanted to live with him. It was because I wanted to make sure he was where he said he was at all times, and not heading back over here to wreck Mam’s head with more of his nonsense. They’ve gotten back together on and off since then, but getting married again? It’s a recipe for disaster. There’s only so many times I can see my mother’s heart broken.’

  ‘Aw.’ Pru ruffled her brother’s bleached-blond hair. ‘You’re quite sweet, really, aren’t you? But Jared, you can’t say any of that to Mam. Because she knows it all already, doesn’t she? And when it comes to love, we’re all like teenagers. If we tell her not to marry him, it’ll just make her all the more determined to do it.’ She turned to me. ‘So let’s change the subject. What’s been going on in Riddler’s Edge? Did they ever find that missing chicken?’

  I laughed lightly. ‘Which one? There’ve been multiple chicken thefts since you left. There’s even been a jeep stolen. Well, actually Mossy just misplaced the jeep and we found it in one of his fields but … it was exciting for all of five minutes. I managed to get a whole page out of it for the paper. But actually, there is something more serious going on.’ I proceeded to fill them in on Ben’s murder, and everything that had happened since.

  ‘So do you guys remember the school?’ I asked when I’d finished.

  Pru looked thoughtful. ‘Y’know, I didn’t have any memory of it until you started to talk about it. Which kind of aligns with Grace’s theory of memory meddling.’

  ‘But who could meddle with our minds?’ Jared pointed out. ‘I mean, we’re vampires. We’re the ones who compel people. Someone would have to be pretty powerful to do it to us.’

  ‘Or pretty determined,’ I said, pulling out my phone and opening up the class photo, pointing to Jack Burns. ‘We’ve tracked down everyone except him. Do you recognise him? The boy – J. Burns. His full first name is Jack. His family haven’t heard from him for decades, and there’s no death record for him.’

  ‘Afraid not,’ Pru replied. ‘Oh, would you just look at that teacher. B. Foyle, the caption says? She looks like a proper hippy – but so was I back then. I used to have those exact same boots in the late sixties.’

  ‘That’s Bella Foyle,’ I informed her. ‘There’s a death cert for her, too. Do you recognise her?’

  ‘No. I don’t remember a single person in this photo. I do remember the school, but only since you showed me the photo. And there’s something vague and niggling in the back of my mind about the fire, too.’

  She handed my phone to Jared, who looked just as mystified as she did.

 
‘Nope. I wasn’t here permanently in the sixties, though,’ he said. ‘Only popped over here every few months, as I recall. But I would remember a teacher who looked like that.’

  Of course he would. Jared was as much of a ladies’ man as his father. Although unlike his father, he didn’t lie, cheat, or steal my cat’s tuna.

  ‘Well, your parents don’t recognise them either,’ I said. ‘No one does. Anyway, I’m heading over to the quiz night, now that Fuzz is fed. Do you guys want to join? Most of the members of the Historical Society are regular quizzers, so I’m hoping one of them’ll slip up and tell me something juicy. Maybe your compulsion skills could help with that?’

  Jared looked at me with interest. ‘The Historical Society, you say? So Miss Eager will be there?’

  ‘Um, she should be, yeah. She’s been to all of the quiz nights my parents have held. Do you know her?’

  Pru let out a raucous giggle. ‘Oh, he knows her all right. And I’ll bet you’re feeling very eager to go along to the quiz night, aren’t you, Jared?’

  ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about. I just want to see if I can join the society. It’ll give me a chance to get some wear out of that sexy archaeologist costume I bought a few Halloweens back. I look great in a hat, so I do.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ Pru gave him a wicked grin. ‘Jared is eager for Miss Eager. Aren’t you, bro?’

  He looked at Fuzz. ‘How are you enjoying your tuna, little buddy?’

  Fuzz sniggered. ‘I’m enjoying the entertainment a lot better. I thought Miss Eager would wear far too much clothing for you. Don’t you normally like your women scantily clad and uneducated?’

  I rounded my eyes at my cat. ‘Hey! I was almost one of his women.’ I glanced at Jared. ‘Did you hear what my cheeky little fuzzball just said?’ I had to ask. Usually only witches could hear familiars, unless those familiars made a concerted effort to talk to others.

  ‘Oh, he made sure I heard,’ said Jared. ‘And you’re right, Ash. I was crazy about you, and you dress almost as school-marmish as Miss Eager. So you see, your little kitty has it wrong. I don’t like scantily-clad women. I like a woman who leaves a little something to the imagination.’

  Pru hugged Jared from behind. ‘You want to take off her glasses, and pull out that tight bun she wears, maybe unbutton her high collar just a little bit …’

  ‘Hey!’ Jared swatted his sister away. ‘We agreed, Pru. Reading your own brother’s mind is not on.’

  10. Q: Is the Murderer in the Room?

  An hour and a half later, I was exhausted. As the quiz went on, the drinks were flowing. I noticed that some of the teams stuck to soft drinks, which was probably sensible. The prize was a slap-up Sunday lunch in the tavern, for every member of the winning team. Anyone who had tasted my mother’s cooking knew it was a prize worth winning.

  Roarke was asking a good mixture of questions, careful to make sure that they were suitable for the humans in the tavern. During his first week, a question about the weredog band known as That Stick is Mine! had caused quite the confusion.

  While the quiz took a half-time break, Roarke’s band – the Powerless Ballad Band – entertained the customers. Roarke was the singer, and his voice was amazing. As he and the band performed, fans of his puzzles threw their underwear onto the small stage. Fans of his singing were far more sedate, asking him for autographs when the performance ended, and politely enquiring if they could buy him a drink. Yes, I thought it might be the other way around, too.

  I’d worked in bars back in my late teens and early twenties, so that I could afford to study. But even the busiest Dublin bars and most raucous of student nights had nothing on this.

  ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you,’ said my mam, bumping her hip against mine as we poured pints, side by side. ‘I had a look at the bookings for that car boot sale. Most of the people selling were human. But the space to the right of the steps was rented by a man called Konstantin de Balfe. A vampire. He lives in Riddler’s Cove now, but I dug into the records and saw that there was a family of vampires called the Balfes living in Riddler’s Edge in the nineteen sixties. The names seem too close to be coincidental as far as I’m concerned. So he might be worth looking into.’

  I smirked at my mother. ‘Congratulations. You now know as much as I do, and you didn’t have Greg’s tech skills at your disposal. So, you’re still not interested in coming back to journalism, then?’

  She shook her head, laughing. ‘Well, maybe I like to get my investigation on every now and then. But I’m definitely happy in the tavern. I need people, Ash. After so long on my own, I need the buzz of this place, y’know?’

  I nodded and said, ‘I get that.’ I really did, too. Before coming to Riddler’s Edge, I’d not had many real friendships. Now, I wanted to enjoy as much time as possible with the people I’d grown to love. Speaking of the people I loved, Jared had managed to sweet-talk Catriona Eager, and he and Pru had formed a team with Catriona and Norma.

  Grace, Nollaig, Greg and Dylan had made a team together. Nollaig had run off on the others once or twice, so that she could hug her two prodigal children (Jared was right – she really did welcome them with open arms) but she was back with the team at the moment, and Greg and Dylan were leaving the table to order more drinks.

  ‘Well hello, Miss Smith,’ Dylan said, as he and Greg approached the bar. ‘You’re looking tired this evening. Maybe you could do with staying somewhere more restful tonight? Maybe somewhere that has quite a bit of minestrone soup left over?’

  ‘You wish. I saw that Nollaig got the ingredients in to make her own minestrone tomorrow, and hers is amazing.’

  ‘Yes,’ he allowed. ‘Nollaig’s soup is definitely superior to mine, but hers does come with a side of Ron. And things can get awfully tense, this close to a wedding. They might be shouting even louder than usual tonight. Perhaps making up louder than ever, too. A bit silly to stay there when I’ve got a lovely, quiet lighthouse, don’t you think?’

  I nodded over to Pru. ‘No need for your concern, Detective Quinn. I’ve got it covered. Pru has promised to compel me so that I won’t hear a single decibel of tonight’s argument – or the making up afterwards.’

  Dylan gave me a casual shrug. ‘Your loss. On an unrelated note, I’m not going running tomorrow morning. And I’ve stocked my fridge with your favourite brand of bacon. It’s a pity I won’t be able to bring you a nice juicy breakfast sandwich in bed, isn’t it?’

  Oh, he really wasn’t playing fair. Instead of giving in to his cruel game, I looked at Greg. ‘Guess what? My super-sleuth mother figured out that one of the kids is Konstantin de Balfe. And she did it without any of your fancy tech. Oh, and Konstantin also happens to have rented a space in her last car boot sale.’

  Greg gave my mother an impressed smile. ‘Wow. So, is this something I’m not supposed to tell Grace about in case she invites you back to the paper again?’

  My mother let out a lilting laugh. ‘Definitely don’t tell Grace. I’m happy cooking and pulling pints. For now.’

  ‘Well, you’re a loss to journalism and to sleuthing,’ said Dylan. ‘But you do pull the best pint in Ireland, so there’s that. It’s good to have the confirmation that Roger or Konstantin or whatever his name is had space in the last car boot sale. It makes it very likely that he was the one who sold the box to Ben. It might even nudge Norma off the top of the suspect list.’

  I crossed my fingers. ‘Let’s hope so. So when are we going to question Konstantin and his wife?’

  Greg and Dylan grunted in unison. ‘Their servants keep telling us they’re not there,’ said Greg.

  ‘If they don’t resurface by tomorrow,’ Dylan added, ‘I’ll try for a warrant. The car boot sale info might mean we actually get one. One way or another, we’ll be questioning Konstantin and Viviana tomorrow.’

  I rubbed my hands together happily. ‘But we, you mean all of us?’

  ‘Of course, Miss Smith. But that’s tomorrow. Tonight, you’re our serving wen
ch. So how about you get me and my good man here two pints, pronto.’

  I gave him a girlish, wide-eyed smile. ‘Pronto … remind me again. Doesn’t that translate as to pour a pint over the head of an idiot?’

  He chuckled. ‘I think you’ll find it translates as the man with the lighthouse is so lonely that he’s resorted to being an idiot just to get your attention. Care to punish the man with the lighthouse? Maybe shout at him a bit? Or throw that drink over his head, if you like? You did once tell me you like me with wet hair.’

  ‘Not gonna happen,’ I said. ‘Because I’m all too well aware that the man with the lighthouse is a weirdo who enjoys that sort of thing. Maybe the man with the lighthouse was even dumb enough to use the word pronto in the hope that it would rile me up. So begone, weirdo. My dad will bring your drinks to your table.’

  As the night wore on, I found myself enjoying the change of pace. I was so used to grilling people for answers, but as long as I was pouring them drinks, they told me things all on their own. It would be a great way to work on future investigations, I thought, but for this one it was proving to be a bit of a bust.

  All of the humans in the town considered Ben a bit of a busybody, just as I’d already figured. But no one seemed to have any real issues with him – certainly nothing worth killing for. And like everyone else I’d spoken to, they only recalled the school once prompted. It was all so incredibly exasperating. If only Roarke could ask the most important question of all: Is the murderer in the room right now? If so, could the murderer raise his or her hand?

  If Roarke could ask that question, I hoped that the person to raise their hand wouldn’t be the woman who was walking towards me right now – because that woman was Norma. She looked as frustrated as I felt, reeling off her team’s drink order with a sigh.

  As I prepared the drinks, I glanced over at their table. Catriona Eager was on her third vodka of the evening, and it was showing. She’d unbuttoned her blouse so that her cleavage was on display, and she’d even pulled out her bun. I could see that she’d shuffled her stool a little closer to Jared’s, and judging by the way his eyes were widening, I suspected there might be a little bit of footsy going on beneath the table.