A Whisper of Magic (A Sugarcomb Lake Cozy Mystery Book 5) Read online

  A WHISPER OF MAGIC

  Alaine Allister

  Copyright © 2016 A. Allister

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events depicted are products of the author’s imagination. The cover is for illustrative purposes only. All rights reserved.

  Clarissa Spencer is just an ordinary small town reporter. Except her snarky cat talks to her, her house is haunted and her boyfriend almost certainly thinks she’s insane. Oh, and she has yet another suspicious death to investigate – this time in her best friend’s coffee shop. Aren’t small towns supposed to be boring?!

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 01

  Chapter 02

  Chapter 03

  Chapter 04

  Chapter 05

  Chapter 06

  Chapter 07

  Chapter 08

  Chapter 09

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 01

  “La la-la, da dee-da!” Clarissa Spencer trilled as she got out of the shower.

  She was singing as loudly – and badly – as anyone had ever sung in the history of singing. What could she say? She was just talented that way. That had to be why people laughed whenever she sang. They were just jealous!

  Clarissa slipped on her favorite fuzzy purple robe. Well, she tried to slip it on. She paused and made a face when the tie almost didn’t tie. Clearly it had shrunk in the wash! With a shrug, she gave the tie a good stretch. There. All better!

  She wrapped a big fluffy towel around her freshly washed, long dark hair. She wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror with the sleeve of her robe so that she could see herself. She waved like a lunatic. Then she did a little dance, because why not?

  “Ooh! It’s warm in here!” she remarked, puffing out her cheeks and letting out a sigh in an exaggerated expression of exhaustion. Her long hot shower had been very long and very hot!

  She flung open the bathroom door and leaned out into the hallway.

  Her quaint little craftsman style house really was quite charming. Unfortunately, it needed some updating. Fans in the bathroom would be nice! Clarissa made a mental note of it with a touch of dismay; her to-do list was getting very long and very expensive!

  “Ah, that’s nice,” she murmured. She took in a grateful gulp of cool, refreshing air. Mmm, that was better. Once she was satisfied that she wouldn’t suffocate, Clarissa turned back to face the de-steamed bathroom mirror.

  She picked up her hairbrush from where it was lying next to the sink. She raised it to her lips like a makeshift microphone. Next she struck a sultry pose, just like she was a pop superstar performing onstage. Then she belted out her tuneless little melody once again.

  “La la-la! Da dee-da!” she warbled happily.

  “Are you trying to torture me?” an unimpressed, heavily-accented voice demanded.

  Clarissa jumped.

  She looked down to see Cat, the feline who had moved into her house and refused to leave, staring up at her disdainfully.

  She screamed.

  She wasn’t sure why she was screaming. Maybe it was because she was still getting used to the fact that her cat could talk! That discovery had been quite the doozy! It was especially difficult to remember because the cat wasn’t particularly chatty. It mostly only spoke when it had a demand or complaint.

  And today the cat had a complaint.

  The cat looked exasperated. “You are trying to torture me. Stop screaming!”

  “You startled me!” Clarissa gasped. “What are you doing?”

  “The door was closed earlier,” Cat said, as if that was horrific revelation.

  “I was in the shower.”

  “Yes, but the door was closed. I don’t like it when doors are closed,” Cat said simply. “Didn’t you hear me scratching?”

  “You’d better not have been scratching, you brat!” Clarissa scolded. “What do you want?”

  “Huh?”

  “Well why were you scratching? Surely you must have wanted something?”

  “Not really,” Cat replied. “I just wanted you to open the door.”

  “What is it with you and closed doors? You’re so weird. Now get out of the bathroom!”

  “I’m not in the bathroom. I’m in the hallway,” Cat replied unapologetically.

  “Well go away!” Clarissa ordered, her heart still pounding. “Give me some privacy.”

  “Why, so you can continue making that awful noise?” Cat asked snidely. “You humans are insane, you know that? Don’t quit your day job, because no one would pay to listen to you perform that tuneless rubbish! What’s for lunch?”

  “I don’t know.” Clarissa rolled her eyes. “Do you ever think about anything other than food?”

  “I could ask you the same thing,” Cat shot back.

  Clarissa scowled at the snarky feline’s rude-yet-accurate retort. She pulled her too-small robe tighter. Then she angrily muttered, “Why did I encourage you to talk when I found out you speak English?”

  “Beats me,” Cat replied, stifling a yawn. “The English language is so obnoxious-sounding. It’s almost as obnoxious-sounding as your singing, if you can call it singing. Anyway, I’ll be off napping in the sun. Come find me when you have my lunch ready.”

  Carissa fumed and sputtered at how entitled the spoiled little beast sounded. By the time she came up with a fantastic retort, it was too late. The cat had already sauntered off to find a sunny spot to snooze.

  It was just as well.

  Clarissa was quickly discovering that arguing with a cat was an exercise in futility. There was no winning, because felines didn’t respond to logic. At least hers didn’t. All it cared about was being in charge, eating elaborate meals and sunning itself for hours on end.

  Suddenly there was a rather noisy commotion out on the front porch. It sounded like a large bird or perhaps a small plane had fallen from the sky and crash landed right outside. Obviously it wasn’t Superman. Superman would never crash land!

  Unfazed, Clarissa strolled over to the door. The first few times it had happened, it had startled her. But now those noisy crash landings were becoming commonplace. She knew exactly what had caused the roof-rattling racket.

  Chapter 02

  Just as Clarissa had suspected, she had a visitor.

  The woman sprawled out on the wooden porch was wearing a long, flowing purple sundress and about a dozen necklaces. She looked as though she had been headed to an outdoor music festival and had somehow gotten lost along the way and wound up in a sleepy small town.

  Actually, wardrobe aside, she looked like a slightly older version of Clarissa.

  The two women shared the same high cheekbones, blue-green eyes and full lips. The only real difference was hair color: Clarissa’s was dark while other woman’s was deep red. Even so, it was easy to tell at a glance that they were related.

  “Got distracted again?” Clarissa asked knowingly as she opened the door for her aunt.

  “Never mind,” Matilda grumbled.

  She climbed to her feet and dusted off her bottom, wincing ever so slightly. She brushed her long red hair back from her shoulders and avoided eye contact. She looked a bit flustered, and maybe even slightly embarrassed. It was no wonder.

  After all, she was supposed to be the expert on witchcraft. She was the one Clarissa relied upon to learn how to be a witch. And Matild
a had crash-landed…yet again. If Clarissa’s mentor couldn’t keep her broom in the air, what hope was there for Clarissa?!

  “Come in,” Clarissa said, holding the pretty stained glass door open wider.

  “In a moment,” Matilda replied.

  She seemed distracted as she looked around, apparently searching for something.

  “What are you trying to find?” Clarissa inquired.

  “I’m looking for my – aha! There it is!” Matilda exclaimed triumphantly. She clomped down the front steps and pointed to what she had discovered. There sat her cell phone. It was lying right on top of one of Clarissa’s prized rose bushes.

  Matilda quickly extracted the phone, careful to avoid any thorns.

  Clarissa stared at her aunt incredulously.

  “It’s broken! It bounced off the roof before it landed in the rose bushes, but even so – it shouldn’t be broken!” Matilda huffed after inspecting her phone. “Look at this!” she exclaimed angrily, holding the device up so Clarissa could see it. “The screen is all cracked! Can you believe it? What a piece of junk!”

  “I don’t think phones are designed to be dropped from a flying broomstick,” Clarissa replied, pointing out the obvious. “And they’re certainly not designed to bounce off of rooves after they fall from flying broomsticks!”

  “Well they should be!” Matilda complained. “Now I need to buy a new phone!”

  “You weren’t texting and flying, were you?” Clarissa asked disapprovingly.

  “No, no,” Matilda assured her. “I know how dangerous that is.”

  Clarissa breathed a sigh of relief. “Good.”

  “I was writing a message to a potential match on the dating site I joined,” Matilda announced. Then, upon seeing her niece’s less-than-pleased expression, she repeated, “I wasn’t texting! Emailing is completely different than texting!”

  Shaking her head, Clarissa bit her tongue. Arguing with her aunt was almost as futile as arguing with the cat. Matilda was very quirky and rather set in her ways. There was no point in trying to understand her eccentricities.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” Matilda complained.

  “Do you think you could put your phone away when you’re, you know, airborne?” Clarissa suggested hopefully. “When you were teaching me how to fly on a broomstick, you told me it’s like driving. I’ve lost count of how many times you’ve warned me to be careful.”

  “But you’re a new witch,” Matilda reminded her. “You didn’t discover your powers until later in life. If it hadn’t been for that lightning strike shaking things up, your abilities probably would have been repressed forever! You’re not used to flying.”

  “That’s true, but it’s also not the point. You’ve been driving longer than I have, too. That still doesn’t mean that it’s okay for you to drive recklessly. Besides, why is there a double standard? You would be upset if I was texting – sorry, emailing – while I flew,” Clarissa pointed out.

  “You’d better not do that!” Matilda screeched, her protective side making an appearance.

  Clarissa said nothing. Instead, she gave her aunt a pointed look. Sometimes it was best not to argue. Sometimes everyone could be said with a well-timed scowl. It was a little trick Clarissa had picked up from her sister back when they were teenagers!

  “Okay, okay,” Matilda agreed with a pout. “I won’t email while I’m flying.”

  “Or do anything else on your phone,” Clarissa added, just to be clear.

  The last thing she needed was her crazy aunt taking selfies while she was flying through the air on her broom! That thing really needed a seatbelt…and an airbag. Actually, a self-flying broom would be just fantastic! Clarissa idly wondered if such a thing existed. Probably not, but it would sure be nice!

  “I won’t be using my phone at all,” Matilda said with a mournful look at the cracked screen. “Now I’m going to have to go phone shopping. Ugh!”

  “So what brings you here today?” Clarissa asked, changing the subject.

  “Oh, no reason really,” Matilda said vaguely. “We just felt like going out for some air. It was far too nice of an afternoon to sit at home. The next thing we knew, we were in Sugarcomb Lake! So we thought we’d come by and say hi.”

  All the color drained from Clarissa’s face. Her blue-green eyes wide with alarm, she motioned for her aunt to come closer. “When you say ‘we’ do you mean…?” Clarissa asked quietly, her voice trembling ever so slightly.

  “I mean Victor, obviously. He’s off gallivanting in the woods at the moment. I think he saw a bird he wanted to get a closer look at. But I can go get him,” Matilda offered. “It’s about time the two of you met!”

  Clarissa’s hand shot out to stop her aunt from going into the woods behind the house.

  “Ouch, you’re hurting my arm!” Matilda complained.

  “Don’t,” Clarissa begged. “I know you’re cool with ghosts. I mean, you bought the lamp that Victor haunts at a flea market and never even thought twice about it. But I’m not like you. Ghosts scare me!”

  “You’re being silly,” Matilda scoffed. “Ghosts aren’t scary. Well, I suppose some of them are,” she corrected herself. “But Victor isn’t. Well, sometimes he gets in a bad mood and wreaks havoc. There’s no reasoning with him when he’s having one of his tantrums! But he’s harmless. Well, mostly harmless.”

  “You’re not exactly doing a good job of convincing me,” Clarissa informed her aunt.

  She still felt sick to her stomach. Knowing there was a real live (or was he dead?) ghost floating around in the woods just beyond her house was terrifying! Worse yet was the fact that her very own aunt had brought the ghost with her, as though that was somehow okay!

  Matilda looked crestfallen. “So you don’t want to meet Victor?” she asked, disappointed.

  With an apologetic look on her face, Clarissa shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’m quite ready for that,” she said. Truthfully, she didn’t know if she ever would be. Could one ever truly prepare oneself to meet a ghost?

  Matilda sighed. “For a witch, you’re sure scared of the supernatural!” she chided her niece. Then she softened. “I guess in your defence, you didn’t discover you were a witch until recently. I suppose that’s my fault.”

  “How is it your fault?”

  “I wasn’t around,” Matilda said guiltily. “Your parents didn’t tell you about your abilities – I guess they wanted you to have a normal childhood or something. And when I was in my twenties, I decided to travel the world. If I had been more involved in your life I could have helped you develop your witching skills years ago!”

  “I don’t think Mom and Dad would have appreciated that,” Clarissa pointed out. She still hadn’t discussed her newfound powers with them – or anyone else. Only Matilda and Cat knew. Honestly, Clarissa didn’t quite know how to broach the subject with her parents.

  Actually, Matilda had warned Clarissa not to discuss her powers with any non-witches.

  “Do Mom and Dad know about my powers?” Clarissa asked suddenly. Then another thought occurred to her. “Do they even know that you’re a witch?”

  Matilda’s face darkened at the mention of Clarissa’s mother and father.

  There was bad blood there, though Clarissa didn’t know exactly what had caused the feud. Her parents had been close with her quirky aunt at one time, but not anymore. In fact, it had probably been years since they had spoken.

  Though Clarissa was curious, she suspected it may be best to not drudge up the past.

  “I should go,” Matilda said. “Otherwise Victor is going to tire himself out chasing birds.”

  When Matilda spoke about Victor, it almost sounded as though she was talking about a pet dog. But even though he chased birds and according to Matilda, misbehaved on a regular basis, he wasn’t a dog. He was a ghost. And that, to Clarissa, was utterly terrifying.

  She had embraced a lot of strange things after discovering that both she and her aunt we
re witches. She had made objects levitate and turned the clock backwards. She had concocted truth serums and even had a run-in with a love potion.

  These days, Clarissa was pretty open-minded. She had to be – otherwise she would go crazy trying to explain away all of the unexplainable things she had witnessed! She tried to embrace all of the weirdness in her life, and most of the time she did a pretty decent job of it. But she wasn’t sure she would ever be comfortable hanging out with a ghost!

  After saying goodbye to her aunt, Clarissa went inside. She stood there for a moment, looking around the charming craftsman style home she had purchased from her parents when they had retired to Florida. She didn’t know what she was looking for. She didn’t even fully understand why she was so afraid.

  Quickly, Clarissa locked the door. She didn’t know if doing so actually served any real purpose. Couldn’t ghosts walk through doors – or walls, for that matter? She didn’t know, but she shuddered at the thought.

  Maybe refusing to meet Victor had been rude. Clarissa felt a bit guilty about that. But she was nonetheless glad she hadn’t come face-to-face with a ghost. Her life was spooky enough as it was without adding that to the equation!

  Suddenly there was a crash in the living room.

  Clarissa jumped.

  “Cat?” she called as she sprinted in the direction of the noise. “What did you break now?”

  She discovered a picture frame lying on the floor. It appeared to have fallen off the wall. Glass was shattered everywhere, and it was really quite a mess. Thankfully, Clarissa knew a handy little spell to take care of that. Being able to set time back thirty seconds really was convenient!

  The novice witch hurried to retrieve the potion she needed. She recited a little spell, threw a bit of spice at the clock and just like that, the mess was gone. Clarissa couldn’t help but grin at that. She had lost track of how many times that spell had saved her from having to get out the broom and dustpan!

  Clarissa straightened the picture frame, which was now back on the wall where it belonged. Then she went off in search of the cat.