Chapter One
Phoebe Cabot arrived in Bridge Haven, Illinois in the dead of night in the pouring rain, which was about how all of her new enterprises began. But the following morning was glorious, sunny and blue skied, the puddles on the stepping-stone path to the workshop the only clue that the thunderstorm had ever existed. She carried a broom in one hand and a bucket of cleaning supplies in the other. According to Linda Sue (her mother), it was time to put Aunt Edna’s house up for sale.
Lavender bloomed in the kitchen garden next to the house, the fragrance mild on the breeze. There was also larkspur, or maybe that was monkshood. Phoebe had no trouble imagining her late-but-not-lamented great-aunt growing it with the intention of poisoning anyone who crossed her—such as people who laughed out loud when she claimed to have magical powers.
Some of the stones on the path to the workshop had heaved over the years, waiting to trap an unwary foot. Edna’s husband Archibald would have seen to them, but he’d been gone for ten years now. Phoebe smiled at a childhood memory: Archibald teaching her to use demons’ names instead of swear words. Linda Sue was opposed to swearing and Edna was opposed to saying demons’ names without taking elaborate precautions, so it was the perfect way to annoy them both at once.
She watched her step as she went. It would be just her luck to break her ankle doing a good deed. Well, okay, Linda Sue was paying her to do it but still.
The door to the workshop balked when she pushed it, but she managed to wrangle it open. A musty scent of dust and mold greeted her. She rested the broom against the wall, then propped the door open with the bucket of cleaning supplies, hearing Linda Sue’s voice in her head as she did so. You know you’re just going to trip over that, darling.
She kept the bucket where it was, tempting fate, then switched on the overhead light, a single bulb in a hanging socket. Incandescent, because Edna didn’t hold with newfangled nonsense like compact fluorescents or LEDs. It didn’t do much to illuminate the darkness.
A small window was set in the wall on the other side of the workshop. The curtain rattled on rings as she drew it aside, and the shade rolled up without grumbling, but the window latch stuck and she broke a nail forcing it open. She chewed the broken fingernail down, watching the dust motes dance in the sunlight, eyeing the wooden shelves overloaded with boxes of miscellaneous household clutter and half-used candle stubs, grimacing at the swags of cobwebs hanging from the corners, noting the pentagram chalked on the floor. Where did a person even begin?
A glitter on the work table caught her attention. Crystal vials, a small collection of them in a carved wooden box, possibly worth something if she washed them up and sold them on eBay. She picked up the box but it was heavier than she expected and slipped right through her fingers. The vials hit the concrete floor and shattered into grains like sand.
“Oh, in the name of the unholy Selenius Minor!” she snapped. Other than the house itself, it was probably the only thing of value that Edna owned. “Damn it all!”
A sharp bang sounded, like a screen door slapping shut. A puff of acrid black smoke billowed up from the floor.
She sneezed, eyes watering from the pungent smell. The liquid in the vials must have created a combustion of some sort. In the last years of Edna’s life, Archibald hadn’t been there to keep the more dangerous chemicals out of her hands. Phoebe looked for a scorch mark on the concrete but didn’t see any. She waved away the smoke and reached for the broom.
That was when she saw the creature standing by the open door. She couldn’t help herself. She let the broom clatter to the ground, dropped to her knees, ruffled the Jack Russell terrier’s ears, and crooned, “Aren’t you a good girl?” whereupon the dog lifted its leg and Phoebe instantly corrected herself.
“What a sweet boy!”
The tiny terrier barked and wagged his tail. He was a classic Jack Russell, white with brown markings, with a compact body and a flat head, weighing a grand total of maybe fifteen pounds. She swept him up into her arms so he wouldn’t step in the broken glass and cut a paw.
His pink tongue darted out and licked her cheek. Something jolted through her like an electric shock and she pulled away, startled. He gave a brief yip and licked her again, making her laugh.
“Where did you come from, sweetie? Edna didn’t have any pets.” She checked for a collar, but he wasn’t wearing one. The irresponsibility of some pet owners astounded her. Still, the dog seemed happy, well-fed, and well-groomed. Jack Russells were supposed to be very intelligent and full of energy. Maybe he’d slipped out of his collar and gotten loose from his house.
He was warm and heavier in her arms than she would have supposed from looking at him. She shifted him to her hip, reluctant to put him down and have him run away. It would be so easy for him to get hurt.
She’d check with the neighbors to see if anyone recognized him. Then she’d call the Humane Society and the local vets to find out if any anxious pet owners were looking for their lost dog. If that didn’t work, she’d put an ad on Craigslist.
Three minutes with the dog and I have a better plan for his life than my own.
“Come on, sweetie,” she said to the dog. “Let’s get out of here.” She closed the workshop door behind her with a click.
The terrier wagged his tail again. She could swear he was smiling.