Mintwood's Magical Map Read online

  Mintwood’s Magical Map

  (Witch of Mintwood, Book 12)

  by

  Addison Creek

  Copyright © 2019 by Addison Creek

  Cover Design © Broken Arrow Designs

  This novel is a work of fiction in which names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, places, or events is completely coincidental.

  License Notes

  Thank you for downloading this eBook. This book remains the copyrighted property of

  the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

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  Chapter One

  Hansen Gregory’s handsome face was terrified, even the half of it I could see. His strong jaw protruded from the gag that covered his mouth; his deep blue eyes were wide and staring at me. For a moment I wasn’t even certain he recognized me. He started to try and say something, but Josephine cut him a slicing glare and he immediately subsided into silence.

  Josephine was twirling her wand idly in her hands, periodically tapping it menacingly against her palm. There was a deadly pulsing in the room. I was so overwhelmed with shock that I was momentarily speechless.

  Josephine was the witch of Caedmon. She was impeccably turned out and favored the color maroon. Scarlett had a sweet face that at the moment was pale and pinched. Her normally curly brown hair was frizzing.

  The fact that Hansen was a resident of Josephine’s own town had clearly not saved him from being bound and gagged.

  If I was lost for words, Hansen was downright petrified.

  The first thing I did was to go for Hansen and start untying the gag. When both the other witches protested, I glared at them. “He can’t stay like this! Are you kidding?”

  “He’ll yell and draw attention. Of course, I can spell against that,” said Josephine.

  Surprise flickered in the reporter’s eyes, then died.

  “You won’t yell, right?” I asked Hansen, hoping against hope that he’d have the good sense to agree. I would fight my way out of here with him if I had to, but I preferred to be easy, civil, and adult-like instead.

  You know, after the kidnapping.

  Hansen nodded quickly and I pulled the gag out before Scarlett or Josephine could say anything more. Just so the ladies felt better, I left him tied up.

  For now.

  But I didn’t like it.

  “You’re a witch?” Hansen gasped. I could see the questions swirling behind his eyes, his mind moving in a hurry through the possibilities.

  “Not a word out of you,” Scarlett said, pointing an angry finger at the Caedmon Chronicle reporter, who was also my friend.

  Hansen swallowed but kept quiet. I could feel his eyes on me as I turned to Josephine and asked, “What on earth is going on?”

  Josephine shrugged and Hansen continued to keep quiet. To fill the void, I started talking. It has always been a fault of mine to talk when I should stay quiet, but I couldn’t help it. As the Witch of Mintwood living with a ghost cat, it took a lot to surprise me. But I was officially surprised, and I needed to know how Hansen and the two witches had gotten into this situation.

  “We’ve been looking for Hansen for hours!” I cried. “Charlie actually thought something was wrong! We told her she was crazy, but it turns out she wasn’t! I want an explanation and I want it now. Why have you kidnapped Hansen, of all people?”

  I braced my hands on my hips and glared at the other witches. When there was still silence I said, “Is it because of the articles? He wrote a couple of poorly researched articles that most people chalked up as fluff, and this is what he gets?” I demanded.

  “Hey!” Hansen scoffed. He didn’t like his articles being accused of being poorly written, poorly researched, or poorly anything else, even if it would save his life.

  “Silence!” said Josephine imperiously. But to be fair, she was now looking a bit nervous. She didn’t have a despicable bone in her body, and I wasn’t surprised to think she might be having second thoughts about what she’d just done.

  Hansen closed his mouth again, looking less upset than when I’d first walked in. I promised myself to tell my ghost cat, Paws, that someone found my presence comforting, even if the cat himself did not.

  “Enough people believed them. More than that, he refused to stop,” said Scarlett.

  “What do you mean he refused to stop?” I asked suspiciously.

  Now it was Hansen who looked a little nervous.

  “I may have paid him a visit. Politely told him that I thought the articles were nonsense,” said Scarlett. “I thought that would be the end of it.”

  “Why didn’t you stop?” I asked Hansen, who was still reluctant to say anything.

  “You can explain yourself. Just don’t raise your voice,” said Josephine impatiently.

  “After she left the Chronicle office, I may have followed her,” said Hansen.

  Scarlett gaped at him. “You never! I didn’t know I was being followed!”

  “I’m good at my job,” said the reporter. He looked at me for emphasis.

  “Cocky and headstrong! All you reporters are alike,” scoffed Josephine.

  “What did you see when you followed Scarlett?” I asked, my voice taking on an edge.

  Hansen noticed my change in tone and looked less confident than he had a moment before.

  “Well, eventually she went out that night. She went to this cute little house. In the back it looked like a witches’ gathering,” he said.

  Scarlett and Josephine were staring at him with open horror. Scarlett looked especially upset, probably because she’d just led Hansen to Madame Rosalie’s coven. Dame Geraldine also wasn’t likely to be pleased.

  “After that I didn’t know what to do. It was the biggest story I’ve ever come across,” Hansen went on, his voice taking on an excited edge that he quickly dampened when Josephine gave her wand a particularly hard tap on her palm.

  “I didn’t mean any harm,” he hastened to add. “I’m a reporter. I go where the story takes me.”

  “To the back room of a shop, bound and gagged,” I offered.

  He shrugged. “Occupational hazard.”

  I rubbed my temples. A headache was definitely coming on. Hansen was giving me a pleading look, but there was nothing I could think to say.

  “Let me get Charlie,” I said. “She’s been worr
ied sick. I’m going to untie Hansen, but he isn’t going anywhere. Are you?”

  The witches knew I had human friends, even if they didn’t like it, so they weren’t surprised at the mention of Charlie.

  “Definitely not,” said Hansen. “I clearly have no defenses against all of this,” he added.

  “Is that okay with you?” I asked the other witches.

  “I suppose so,” grumbled Scarlett. “Pretty sure he deserves to be tied up just for following me, never mind the rest.” Scarlett liked the outdoors, but she was a bit flighty. She only paid attention to what was happening in the moment. She had probably gone to see Hansen, told him what she wanted, and actually thought that was the end of it.

  Turned out it was only the beginning.

  “I’ll be back soon,” I said. “Don’t do anything while I’m gone.”

  “We only kidnap one reporter a week,” said Josephine.

  I had to looked at her to confirm that she was kidding. Even then I wasn’t entirely sure.

  “You all right here?” I asked Hansen. Color was returning to his cheeks and he looked more interested now than scared.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “I think getting Charlie is a good idea. I don’t want her to worry.” I appreciated that Hansen wasn’t worried about my being a witch, and that he was confident in who he had always thought I was.

  I headed out the store’s front door, Hilary the cat eyeing me from her perch in the window as I went. I got into my Beetle and drove home much faster than I normally would.

  Seriously, what was the world coming to?

  I took the long driveway to the farmhouse as fast as I dared and found Charlie pacing the wide, rickety old front porch. Even though I couldn’t hear the creaks, I was sure the porch was protesting Charlie’s steps. I reminded myself once again that I had to get it fixed at some point, lest it fall down.

  Since it was broad daylight, the ghosts who occupied the grounds of the old farmhouse where I lived with my two friends were barely visible. But I could still make out Paws, perched as usual on the apple crate under the window into the living room. His head was turning right, then left, then back again as he watched Charlie pace.

  As soon as she heard the hum of my old car coming up the driveway, Charlie careened off the porch and ran toward it so hard she nearly slammed into it.

  “There’s still no word from Hansen! I’ve call the Chronicle so many times they’ve told me to stop calling. They’ve told me to stop calling before, but it was always for a story and I always ignored them! They’ll let me know when they hear from him! Lemmi, something is definitely wrong!”

  Charlie looked desperate, but as usual she was immaculately dressed. She was wearing a sky blue cardigan and yellow slacks, with her blond hair pulled into a high ponytail and a dusting of blush and ballet flats completing the look. When she ran off the porch she was careful to avoid the mud puddles.

  I didn’t respond to her frantic wail. All I said was, “Get Greer.”

  Charlie’s eyes widened, but she turned around to head back inside without saying a word. Before she had even gotten back to the porch, Greer came out carrying Charlie’s purse and squinting into the bright sunshine.

  My two roommates could not have been less alike. Greer had on a white T-shirt, loose, light-washed jeans, and very old shoes. She was pulling on a black jean jacket as she came. She worked as a bartender and she was dating her high school sweetheart.

  How she knew something was wrong I had no idea, but she headed directly for the car.

  “Did you find him?” Charlie breathed, pelting around the car get slide in next to me.

  Still looking down at us from his perch on the porch, Paws now got up, yawned, turned around a couple of times, and went back to sleep. I promised myself to tell him everything later, when he was more visible and it was less imperative that we get back to the shop quickly. I didn’t want any of the three people I’d left behind getting any ideas.

  “I found Hansen,” I said, as Greer got to the car.

  Charlie let out a little wail.

  “He okay?” Greer asked.

  “Yes. For now,” I said grimly.

  Greer looked at me in shock and quickly got in.

  “Are you going to explain what’s going on?” Charlie asked in a tight voice as we headed down the driveway.

  “It’s probably best if you just see,” I told her.

  Charlie nodded once and stayed quiet, uncharacteristically cooperative. Greer handed her the bag she’d brought and Charlie pulled a sandwich out of it.

  “You’re going to eat lunch now?” I asked.

  “It’s for Hansen,” Charlie said stiffly. “He’s been missing for a long time. I thought he might be hungry.”

  I nodded. “That’s very nice of you,” I said.

  “You didn’t find him in the woods, did you?’ she asked.

  I told her that I hadn’t. I didn’t tell her that finding him in the woods – alone – would have been preferable.

  When we reached the small block of shops that included Josephine’s place, Charlie didn’t understand at first. Then she swallowed hard. We got out and headed inside, Greer swearing under her breath and Charlie glaring at her.

  “What? I spend my time at a bar. You expect me not to swear?” Greer asked, incredulously.

  “I expect you not to cause trouble,” said Charlie. She looked as tightly wound as I had ever seen her, and that was saying something. Greer must have read that as well, because she fell silent.

  Charlie looked ready to jump across the seats and tackle her. Greer might be bigger and stronger, but no one wanted to be tackled by an angry Charlie Silver.

  “What in the name of . . .?” Charlie demanded as she stomped into the back room and found Hansen sitting on some crates. “What’s going on?” Her knees nearly collapsed when she saw that Hansen was tied up. She started forward, then she stopped next to me and looked at me helplessly. Then she started forward again. Behind her Greer was stone-faced.

  “They didn’t like what I was writing about them,” said Hansen. He wasn’t rubbing his wrists, but it was only a matter of time before Charlie found out that he’d been bound and gagged. At that point, tiny armies of fury would march from her eyes and shoot at the witches. Not ideal, given that Charlie herself wasn’t a witch. I braced myself for the moment.

  “You know what he was writing about us! We decided to take matters into our own hands,” cried Scarlett, looking bewildered. Maybe they had honestly thought I’d be pleased by this turn of events.

  “What exactly were you going to do with him?” Greer asked dryly from the door. She was leaning against it with her arms crossed, the perfect picture of casual judgment. It was a look that I had seen many times before.

  Josephine stayed quiet, while Scarlett raised her chin. I instantly got worried. “What?” I said again. Even Hansen was looking concerned.

  “We notified the Witches’ Council. He’s to go before them tomorrow night. Madame Rosalie will decide his fate,” said Josephine.

  Hansen’s eyes went wide. Charlie didn’t look terrified, she looked furious. “You’re going to turn him over to a bunch of other mean witches? Are you joking? You can’t do that!”

  “It’s already done. Once we got Hansen here, we notified the other witches. They’re expecting him at the stone circle,” said Josephine stoutly.

  Hansen had gone several shades paler. These two were one thing, and he knew me. A bunch of other witches implied something entirely different.

  He was afraid.

  He was right to be.

  Chapter Two

  In an ideal world I would have had the opportunity to speak with Scarlett and Josephine alone after we got Hansen untied. Unfortunately, since we had come in one car, that wasn’t possible.

  “Where is he going to stay until tomorrow night? Do we have to put a spell on him so that he doesn’t run?” Scarlett asked.

  Charlie had always liked Scarlett and Josephine. She hadn’
t spent a lot of time with them, but when she had they had gotten along well. Now she bristled.

  Hansen wasn’t speaking, because it had been made clear to him that he wasn’t allowed to. That left Charlie to defend his honor. “He isn’t going to run. No one needs to babysit. Anyhow, this is ridiculous. I don’t understand what he was doing here in the first place. Where is your phone?” Charlie asked Hansen.

  Hansen’s eye slanted toward Josephine, who grumbled as she reached into the front of her colorful robe, pulled out his phone, and handed it to him.

  Charlie’s mouth was working, but no sound was coming out. “Is anyone going to answer my questions?” she asked. I could tell from the way she was looking at me that she was already suspecting that there was more to the story than she had heard so far.

  Scarlett solved the mystery for her. Apparently not realizing that it was inappropriate to kidnap humans and hide them in the back of stores, Scarlett said, “I think we should just tie him up again.”

  This led to an outcry from Greer and Charlie in chorus. Scarlett flinched. Meanwhile, Hansen ate the sandwich, not seeming the least bit concerned about being held overnight. Maybe he thought it was some weird social experiment. Maybe he was good at roughing it. Most likely he had faith in Charlie’s ability to get her way. He might also, I worried, be filing this story away in the back of his mind to splash across the papers one day.

  “You had him tied up?” Charlie could barely breathe. I don’t believe dragons are real, but if they were I would not have been surprised to see Charlie go and find one to set the place on fire. She looked that furious.

  “That’s a crime,” she said.

  Josephine shrugged. “Not in our world. According to the coven, if our secrecy is compromised we can stop at nothing to protect who we are. Under no circumstances can we allow ourselves to be discovered. That includes puff pieces by a reporter. No one can ever know.”

  “He was never going to find proof until you gave it to him by revealing yourselves,” said Greer.