The Witches Three Cozy Mysteries 4-6

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

"She's got a gun!" Stuart cried as other officers started flowing in through the trees. I leaned into my knees to keep Charlotte pinned down, but I raised both my hands as a dozen men surrounded me with their own guns aimed at me.

"She took it from one of you," I said. "She shot me."

Stuart looked skeptical, but he was standing on the right side of me. McConnell on my left grimaced.

"Get off her!" Stuart commanded.

"Don't let her get away," I said. "She's the killer."

"She's just a kid," one of the other officers said.

"Get up!" Stuart said again.

"If she runs, she'll disappear," I said. "She knows this house better than any of you."

"Pull her off the girl," Stuart said. Two of the officers holstered their weapons then took hold of my arms, pulling me back off of Charlotte.

Who immediately popped up and bolted for the house.

"Catch her!" I screamed, but no one made a move to stop her. They were all still aiming their guns at me. "McConnell! Go after her! Don't let her get away!"

"Isn't that Mary's kid sister?" one of the other officers behind me asked. The other turned to answer him, and while their attention was momentarily off me, I slipped out of their hands and ran after Charlotte.

Charlotte let out a very convincing scream of terror that ended in panicked sobs. She ran faster towards the door off the patio, but the adrenaline surging through my body gave me a burst of speed. By the time her hand was on the doorknob, my hand had caught the back of her dress.

She shrieked in panic as if I were about to kill her.

Then hands were on me again, pulling me back until the back of Charlotte's dress slipped from my grasp. But my fingers still had a hold of something that snapped.

I was flung down onto the cold patio flagstones, and once more I had the breath knocked out of me.

Then I was buried under half a dozen bodies, all grabbing my arms and legs and holding me still. Too many of them were on top of my chest, and I was already laboring to breathe. I was going to be smothered.

My consciousness was slipping away when I blinked and found myself in the world of threads. All of the officers piled on top of me, their own threads glowing invitingly. I could move them aside with just a few tugs and pulls.

But I didn't. They didn't understand what was happening and had jumped to the wrong conclusion, but only because Stuart had led them there. And looking at his form now I saw that he wasn't being actually malicious. He just had his baseline suspicions of me set way high, so high that everything seemed to reinforce them in his eyes.

But something under that pile of police officers was glowing in the way only magical objects glowed. Not the key; Brianna had that. And not my wand, lost in the snow.

The necklace. I had torn it from Charlotte’s neck when I had grabbed at her dress, and I had it still, clutched tightly in my hand even as I fought to breathe. Definitely magic. Who had given it to her? What had it been meant to do?

That last question I could make a guess at. Our spells hadn’t found Charlotte or any sign of her angry, dark heart. Not after she had seen us on the stairs. At some point after that, she must have met another witch. A gift-bearing witch.

I looked to Charlotte. She had moved to the inside of the doorway but was still there, watching me struggle under all those bodies. And I could see her so clearly now.

Her threads were like snakes, a writhing dark mass of twisted, tangled aims. Maybe part of her did believe she did what she did for the sake of her sister. But I could see that deep down that wasn't really true.

She had wanted to kill. It was a desire she had nursed inside herself for a very long time. She had only been waiting for an opportunity. And she had seen it on the balcony when Ivy made such a tantalizing target. Only a little push was needed. With the McTavets involved with each other, Edward and Thomas scuffing, and Coco so blinded by the lights she had lost track of where Charlotte was even standing, it was all too easy.

Then she had gone after Thomas. And then after me.

Next would be Coco. I could see it there, the blackness she was pouring into the threads that connected her with the girl who had been meant to be her friend.

I felt at the threads that radiated out from her form. They were loathsome to touch, but I swallowed down my revulsion. I had to do something, but what?

If I reached inside her and severed those threads, would her desire to kill Coco end?

Maybe, but the desire to kill someone would remain. Those dark threads ran all through her form, strangling the few light ones she still had left. I didn't know how I could take the darkness and not kill the light.

I did know how to stop her heart. And maybe she deserved that. But maybe there was a way to save the light inside her that didn't rely on magic. Maybe she could get some help. I doubted she'd ever be an upstanding, contributing member of society, but some small measure of redemption could still be found for her.

I was still holding those dark threads, uncertain what to do when I suddenly had the acute feeling that I was being watched. There, in the world of webs, eyes were on me.

I expanded my awareness, first back towards the time bridge. When Juno failed to appear, I went wider, encompassing the house, the block, the neighborhood.

I found no one, and yet I still felt watched. Someone, or rather several someones, wanted to see what I would do.

I looked down at Charlotte's heart threads there in my hand. It would be so easy.

But Coco had asked me for justice. And a summary execution without a trial was not justice.

I released the thread and moved away.

The watchers drew closer around me. I couldn't see them. They weren't part of the web of threads, and yet I felt them there. What strange new magic was this?

Then, one by one, they winked out. One of them, neither the first or the last to disappear, first reached down and somehow plucked the glow of the necklace from out of my hand.

When the last was gone, I realized that as much as I had tried to keep count, I had lost my place somewhere. I had no idea how many they were, not even an approximation. The harder I tried to focus on it, the more random the number my brain threw back at me.

I couldn't narrow it down more than to say it was more than one, less than infinity. Clearly more magic at work.

I settled back into my body and opened my eyes to find I was still under a pile of bodies, although my body hadn't been moving the entire time my awareness had been in the world of webs.

"Get off her!" McConnell was yelling. "You're going to crush her. Can't you see that she's innocent?"

"Let her up but cuff her," Stuart said. The weight of their bodies moved off of mine, and someone helped me to sit up. I would have preferred lying down a bit longer. My whole body felt bruised, and the blood from the bullet graze across my cheek had gotten all over my face while under the hog pile.

I opened my hand, but the necklace wasn’t there.

"Don't let Charlotte go," I said. My voice came out hoarse, little more than a croak, but McConnell heard me. He looked towards the house in alarm, and I waited for him to say that she was gone.

"We've got her, Amanda," Otto said. I raised my head to see him and Edward coming out of the house, each holding one of Charlotte's arms. She struggled against them, but they held her fast.

"This is nonsense," Stuart said. "She's just a kid."

"You don't think she's strong enough to throw Ivy over a railing? Come hold this arm, then," Otto said as Charlotte pulled him nearly off his feet.

"But why?" Stuart asked.

"She's crazy," I said. "Have her evaluated. I'm sure you'll find she's not sane enough to stand trial."

"Don't listen to her!" Charlotte shrieked, nearly pulling both men off their feet as she struggled to free herself. "Don't you know what she is?"

"Yes," Coco said. She was standing in the snow between Sophie and Brianna, the footprints behind them leading back to the parlor window. Coco looked ineffably sad. "You told them before, but they didn't believe you."

"She's a witch!" Charlotte yelled, trying to point an accusing finger at me. Otto changed his grip on her arm, twisting it up behind her back.

Stuart looked at me as if trying to see if this were true.

"She did say so before," McConnell told him. "She told the chief. Apparently, she caught these three doing spells at the top of the steps."

"Before the murder?" Stuart asked.

"No, after," he said.

I held my breath, but my fingers were tingling as if I could feel the threads without even moving to that other level of consciousness. If things got bad, I might need to do something drastic to get us all out of there.

But Stuart only handed me his handkerchief and made a little gesture towards my face.

"They are witches!" Charlotte screamed. "I can prove it! She has a wand! I threw it over there in the snow. Go find it! You'll see I'm telling the truth."

Stuart gave a nod to two of the men who scuffled off through the snow to search. Of course, there were lots of ways to explain away a polished bit of wood, including denying it was even mine, but the idea of yet another stranger touching it was threatening to bring the nausea back.

Then Brianna caught my eye and patted the beaded bag she was holding clutched tight to her belly. I could see the shape of her wand in there. But of course, it would have the same shape even if there were two wands in there. She gave me a nod and held up two fingers as if she heard my thoughts.

"What's going on here?" the chief demanded as he and Reilly pushed past the struggling Charlotte to step out onto the patio.

"It was Charlotte," Coco said, pointing at her friend. "She's the one who pushed my sister off the balcony."

"That isn't what you told us before," Reilly said sternly.

Coco drew herself up taller and stepped up to him. "I was in shock. I remembered someone pushing me, but I couldn't remember who. But I remember now. It's all clear. I swear it."

"That might not be enough to convict her," Reilly said to the chief.

"She had a gun," I said. "She took it from one of you. She tried to shoot me."

The chief blanched at the sight of me, but Reilly just asked, "why?"

"She blamed me for Ivy choosing Thomas over Edward," I said.

"But why would she care about that?" he asked.

"Because her sister loved Thomas," I said. "But she didn't really need a reason. She just wanted to kill. Have a psychologist examine her. I'm sure this will never even go to trial."

The chief had a thoughtful look on his face, and although he said nothing, I was pretty sure I knew what he was thinking.

Charlotte telling everyone we were witches had been a really bad idea on her part. It was pretty ironic; the one thing that made her look instantly crazy in everyone's eyes was actually the truth. I would've laughed if my whole body hadn't been hurting so much.

"Let's bring this party back inside," Reilly said. "Bring her to the library for questioning. Fitzpatrick, call into the station for a meat wagon. No reason to keep the bodies around now. Oh, and Coco, your mother has been looking for you. Can you two bring her inside?"

Brianna and Sophie glanced at me, but at my nod, they agreed, and the three of them went back into the house.

"Here," Stuart said, dropping to one knee to unlock the handcuffs around my wrists.

"Thank you," I said. He gave me a curt nod then followed the others back inside the house.

"Let's get you inside as well," Edward said, slipping his hands under my arms to lift me up onto my feet. He reached up to touch my face, but I flinched away. "Sorry. Are you still bleeding?"

"I have no idea," I said.

"Edward, why don't you get some hot water and a cloth from the kitchen? I'll get Miss Amanda settled by the fire in the parlor so she can warm up," Otto said.

"Yes, of course," Edward said. But he didn't let me go until Otto had a hold of my other arm. I would've complained, only I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be standing for long without the support.

Otto led me into the parlor and put me in a chair by the fire, tucking a blanket around my lap then going to shut the window.

"I should just get home," I said. "Clean, dry clothes. Not party clothes. Surely the police are letting us leave now."

"Let him fuss over you a bit," Otto said, sitting down in the chair opposite mine.

"I really don't think that's a good idea," I said. "After everything that's happened, it would be cruel to let him entertain false hopes."

"Do you know what you look like right now?" he asked.

"No," I said. "What difference does that make?"

"You look like you were hit by a truck. Twice," he said.

"I think it might have been three times," I said.

"Three, then," he said. "Only proves my point more."

"And what is your point?"

He glanced toward the door then scooched his chair as close to mine as it could get. "You were hurt badly. I'm guessing she had a gun on you. We heard the shots, and I know it wasn't you firing any of them. That's not your style."

"Yes, we both know my style," I said, but he cut me off.

"That's what I'm saying. Your life was in danger, but you handled it without doing… that thing you did before," he said. "Which I'll always be grateful for, and don't you ever think any different. But if that thing that you did is the reason why you insist on this wall between you and Edward… well."

"It's not the only reason," I said.

Otto opened his mouth to argue, but he didn't get a chance to say a word. Edward bustled in with a basin of steaming water and a stack of cloths on a tray, Sophie and Brianna both fast on his heels.

Between the four of them, I was quite thoroughly fussed over. But between the aches all over my body and the turmoil of my mind, I couldn't really enjoy it.