Wonder Wand Way (Witch of Mintwood Book 10) Read online

  She had known I was chasing her. She had wanted me to.

  I had played right into her hands.

  As she lifted her hand in a single wave, anger tingled through me. What was she doing in Mintwood anyway! Where were the Witch Hunters when I needed them!

  Fury boiled in my veins.

  “Come on. Forget about her for now,” said Charlie. “She’s only trying to annoy you, and you’re letting her succeed.”

  Now it was Charlie’s turn to tug on my arm. She led me back to the reception desk, and we were just walking past it, heading for the door, when the librarian looked up.

  “Are you coming tonight?” she asked.

  “Coming to what?” I asked, pausing on my way out. I was barely able to pay attention, I was still so angry at Ellie.

  “Are you coming to the protest? We’re going to gather outside the Babbling Brook Barn. We got the proper permits and everything. Mrs. Sounds didn’t like it, but too bad for her,” said Mrs. Snicks.

  A lump formed in my throat.

  “I’m not sure I can make it. I’ll try,” I said.

  “The county really doesn’t want any more developments. Now is the perfect time to protest. Before ground has been broken, deals can be gone back on or canceled. Once they start building, blocking the project is going to be a lot harder,” said Mrs. Snicks. “We must act now! Don’t worry. We have extra signs for you.”

  “We really have to go,” said Charlie, saving the day by getting me out of there.

  As we hurried back to the Beetle, I was having trouble breathing. Charlie kept shooting me sympathetic glances that only served to annoy me.

  “That wasn’t ideal,” said Charlie, looking at me sympathetically.

  “How is it this gala was scheduled and none of us heard about it sooner?” I asked.

  “I don’t think it was planned that far in advance,” said Charlie.

  “Maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t,” I muttered.

  But I couldn’t let myself think about it any more today. We had a lot to do.

  “I need to spend the afternoon at work,” said Charlie. “I’ll meet you back home later, and we can decide what we’re doing tonight. We have to come back into town for the meeting, but after that I’m not sure,” she added carefully.

  What she didn’t want to say was that we might not go to Bright Lights. If I decided to join the protesters, I’d be doing that instead of cleaning out old furniture in dark corners. Greer also wouldn’t be joining us at Bright Lights this evening, because she was going to the gala with Deacon.

  Thinking about that made me realize that I needed to get home and talk to her as soon as possible. There was a lot to fill her in on.

  Above all, I wanted her thoughts on whether someone would commit murder over a movie.

  Given how terrible some the movies I’d seen had been, I figured at least Paws would.

  Chapter Nineteen

  We spent the afternoon quietly. Charlie left for work. Greer spent a lot of time outside with Charger, who really enjoyed chasing after sticks. Greer wasn’t good at throwing them, but even she could fling dead wood far into the air when she felt like it.

  Charger had clearly agreed to lower his stick-throwing standards as long as Greer would just keep doing it.

  I badly wanted to make progress on at least one thing today; it would help balance out all the things that were depressing me. After seeing Ellie, I especially wanted to be doing more to solve my witchy problems. I felt like I should be out hunting the Witch Hunters or the dark witches. That is, doing something proactive.

  The fact that there was a protective fence sparkling around the edge of my property had started to annoy me. The fence reminded me that there was something I needed to be protected from, and I just didn’t agree with that. At least not as a permanent thing.

  I needed to see Josephine and Scarlett again. I had been avoiding coven meetings recently, but that would have to change soon too.

  “Are you really going to a town meeting about kittens?” Greer asked as she came clattering into the house. Charger looked at her with his tail wagging. “Yes, those little rodents that you like to chase,” said Greer to the dog.

  Actually, Charger didn’t really like to chase them. He liked to stare at them. She wanted to be the cats’ best friend. Unfortunately for his, cats rarely reciprocated. Usually they wanted to take a swipe at the bigger animal’s nose.

  “Yes, we most definitely are,” I said. “We have to find out what’s going to happen to them. Charlie also thinks it might give us a good chance to see if there’s anything else going on around town that we should know about.”

  “What exactly does she mean by anything else going on around town?” asked Greer, who was busying herself getting fresh water for the dog.

  “Well, there’s Ellie and there are the Witch Hunters. Charlie thinks that either or both of them could be at the meeting tonight,” I said.

  “I don’t think any of them would be fit to take care of kittens. We should definitely keep an eye out,” said Greer dryly.

  We clearly had an unspoken agreement not to mention Greer’s plans for the evening.

  When it came time to head into town, I decided to leave Paws at home. He didn’t feel like coming anyway; he was being judgmental in the extreme about the kittens. He didn’t want to have anything to do with supervising them or keeping track of their fate.

  Despite Mintwood’s small size, the town was a constant surprise. Town meetings were usually held in the town hall, and attendance was usually sparse. The only times when it wasn’t were occasions when there was significant town drama for people to be up in arms about.

  The last time I could remember when a town meeting was packed was when Mayor Clabberd was up for re-election. I was about to find out that the other time when everyone came to a town meeting was when there were kittens to be cooed over.

  The room was overflowing. Charlie made a face when she saw me, displeased by all the excitement. It was a good thing that Greer was busy that evening, because if she had seen all the kitten enthusiasm she would have walked straight back out. Closely followed by Paws, if he had come in the first place.

  “Hey! This is madness,” said Liam, walking up to us. “I didn’t think there’d be this much excitement about a few cats. Not only that, but with the gala tonight, the cool half of the town is already busy somewhere else.”

  “They wouldn’t take stray cats we found anyway,” Charlie scoffed.

  Liam quirked his eyebrow at her. “You might have a point. They’d probably want super fancy kittens. Are cat breeds a thing?”

  “Sure. There are the ones without fur . . .” I started.

  Really, I didn’t have a clue. “Oh,” I said, suddenly remembering, “there are Maine Coon cats. Those are cool. They’re big and fluffy. I’ve met a couple in my life.”

  “I guess what I’m really wondering is whether people are picky about their cat breed,” said Liam.

  “I’m sure some people are,” I said. “Maybe color too. I think that’s fine. You can have a favorite breed.”

  Coming from a small town in Maine where the farmer down the road had a cat who had kittens and that’s how we got pets, I was entirely out of my depth in this conversation.

  “Basically, the more households that have cats, the better. You know they’re good people if they have a cat.” Liam was on a roll.

  “I’m allergic. Does that make me a bad person?” Charlie wanted to know.

  “Heavens no! I mean, I want to see proof that you’re allergic, but otherwise no! You’re just as terrible a person as you were before.” Liam laughed and Charlie grinned at him.

  Sad to say, the pleasant banter only made me miss those of our group who weren’t there all the more. From Greer to Deacon to Hansen, this would have been more fun if they’d been present.

  Yes, yes, I was working my way around to mentioning Jasper.

  Obviously.

  Also present at the meeting was a lit
tle tribe of kittens, who were being looked after by Helen, the postmistress. They meowed and strolled around the cat container she had brought them in, bringing oohs and aahs from every direction.

  The meeting started in a haphazard way, mostly because people were impatient and yelling questions.

  “We’re looking for temporary housing for them. They’re old enough to be away from their mother and their siblings. We don’t need them all to go to the same place, but we do need them to find homes, and quickly. We just don’t have the capacity to care for the little beasts. I mean the dear creatures,” the mayor explained.

  “Why would anyone want a cat? I much prefer dogs,” said Lindsay, a local artist, whose obnoxiousness was perfectly illustrated by the fact that she had come to a meeting about finding homes for cats for apparently no other purpose than to sneer at cats.

  Lindsay had once flirted with Jasper, which had made me like her even less. I had felt pretty smug when he barely took any notice.

  Why she had to be one of the crowd at this meeting I had no idea.

  But now she was reminding me of my lost love. I glared at the back of her head.

  Meanwhile, more people just kept arriving.

  “The Mayor is going to be so angry if this is the best attended meeting all year,” said Charlie with a considerable amount of glee.

  “Speaking of,” I said.

  The Mayor was just coming in through a side entrance. He had clearly been in his office, and as usual he was dressed all in white and carried a shiny black cane in one hand. He was followed by Mrs. Barnett and several members of the Town Council. I couldn’t help but notice that only about half of them were there. We all knew where the other half were.

  “Welcome. Glad to see such a big turnout. If I had known all I needed to do was offer up free kittens, I would’ve had some at the budget meeting a couple of months ago,” the mayor joked.

  Some people laughed appreciatively, others looked quite serious.

  Mayor Clabberd surveyed the room. He was extremely good at taking a reading of what was going on amongst his constituents.

  “Tough crowd. I can see that some people have turned up to make sure those kittens are well cared for. Or else,” said Liam out of the side of his mouth.

  I looked around. He did have a point. Several people were at this meeting whom I had never seen in town before. They looked stern.

  “Have you been a pet sitter for any of these people?” Liam asked.

  “A couple. There’s Mrs. Mews, the woman I was pet sitting for when Gracie Coswell went missing. Her cat Lily was pretty spoiled, if I recall. Mrs. Mews herself was rather strange, for that matter. Still, she took good care of her pet.”

  “Do you think she’s here for another kitten?” Liam seemed fascinated by the ins and outs of pets, pet owners, and their characteristics.

  It looked an awful lot like Mrs. Mews was fixing to take the best care of all of the kittens, too. She was clutching an oversized handbag, just perfect for taking home a bunch of tiny new pets. On her coat I could see a little framed pin. The picture on the pin was a kitten.

  “I’m so glad we came to this meeting. Who needs a movie theater in town when we can see people fight over kittens?” said Liam gleefully.

  “That’s horrible. I don’t want anybody to fight over them, I just want them to go to good homes,” said Charlie, who was starting to look a bit uncomfortable. All the bodies had made the space hot, and Charlie hated to sweat.

  “Of course they’re going to go to good homes! When there are so many options, that’s the only outcome,” said Liam confidently. “We are definitely living in a town filled with Cat People. My mother always says that’s why she chose to live here in the first place.”

  I wondered if that was really what she’d said, and whether it was really true. What I thought she really meant was that she chose to live in Mintwood because she was a witch. But she couldn’t say that to Liam, because he wasn’t in on the secret.

  “Does your mother want a kitten?” Charlie asked.

  Liam shook his head sadly. “She thinks I’d get too attached.”

  “What does that mean?” Charlie was instantly fuming on Liam’s behalf.

  “She thinks I’d try to take the kitten on walks and stuff. I can’t necessarily tell her she’s wrong,” said Liam sadly.

  “What’s wrong with taking a cat for a walk?” I asked.

  Liam shrugged. “It isn’t really done. But when I have a better handle on the costume shop, I’m going to get two cats. Then they can come to work with me and meet the customers. I’ve always liked the idea of having a shop cat.”

  “You’d have the best shop cats,” Charlie confirmed.

  Mayor Clabberd banged a gavel. “Let’s bring this meeting to order!”

  The town hall meeting over kittens was everything I could have hoped for and much more. Mrs. Mews was fixing to take all of the kittens herself. Turned out Helen the postmistress also wanted a kitten. So did ten other people. Most just wanted one or two. All but one had been cat owners before.

  The real kicker was when Ms. Ivy got involved. When Ms. Ivy wanted something, she usually got it, and she wanted these cats. In a town full of cat ladies, she was queen. She had three, two of which were perfectly normal and lovely.

  “I already have three! I perfectly understand cat care!” she said.

  “Three is plenty! Let someone else have a go!” rumbled one guy.

  “The world does not have a shortage of cats,” said Mrs. Barnett.

  “Maybe the world doesn’t, but apparently people in Mintwood do,” said Lindsay.

  “Need. More. Popcorn. These cats are going to live like princes,” said Liam gleefully.

  In the end, after a lot of dickering, the mayor stepped in to solve all the problems. He never hesitated to tell us that his problem-solving ability was one of the reasons he was a good mayor, and he was bent on proving it tonight.

  It was decided that Ms. Ivy would get three and Helen would get three. When the truth really came out, Mrs. Mews didn’t actually want any more cats, because “dear Lily” would be upset about it.

  No one wanted to mess with Helen the postmistress, because she was in charge of the town’s mail and could cause chaos if she chose. Besides, she was loving and responsible, and according to Liam would make an excellent cat owner.

  Several people tried to work Mayor Clabberd around to explaining how the cats had been found. They clearly wanted to hear from Charlie and me about Bright Lights. But to my great relief, the Mayor wasn’t having it. No way was I going to get up and speak in front of all of these people.

  Thus concluded the most unusual town meeting of the year.

  Chapter Twenty

  The meeting lasted even longer than I had expected. Delaying us even more, pretty much everyone wanted to speak with us on our way out the door, especially the long-time residents, who were terribly curious about the cinema.

  Charlie and I would have been glad to tell them everything they wanted to know, but we also wanted to get home and go to bed.

  Also, I couldn’t help but feel guilty about not going to the protest. I wondered how many people had showed up, but even for Mrs. Snicks I just hadn’t been able to bring myself to do it.

  Jasper would have seen me there, and then what? Would he have considered it a betrayal? I couldn’t really figure out how he would have reacted. He knew I valued my right to protest, but then again I hadn’t gone, so how much did I really value it?

  I guess I just didn’t believe strongly enough in the cause, especially since—in the absence of concrete information about what the planned development actually was—I didn’t even know what I would have been protesting.

  I wasn’t sure what I hoped to hear from Greer about the party. Part of me secretly hoped it had been the absolute worst time ever. Knowing Greer, there was a good chance she’d say that no matter what. Not because she’d be worried about my feelings, though; my friend was simply not a fan of partie
s.

  Then again, there was a chance that she’d have had fun. What then?

  I was filled with mixed emotions. At the very least, I’d get to read an account in the next day’s Caedmon Chronicle. Charlie’s nemesis always wrote clear, well thought through articles about parties and events, not that I was going to say that to Charlie. I wasn’t so upset that I’d gone crazy.

  At least not yet, anyway.

  Because we’d been late getting into town, we’d had to park far away from the town hall, and we had a good walk ahead of us to get back to the car. Cars lined both sides of the street as we walked, but by the time the Beetle came into view there was no one else around. I didn’t feel lonely, because Charlie was chattering along as we went, all excited about how tonight had gone.

  Charlie always thought drama made for good articles, and she had every intention of doing a write-up of the evening’s deliberations about the kittens. She had big plans for it.

  “I’m glad all the kittens are going to happy homes,” I said.

  “I’m glad everyone could agree in the end,” she said. “It really was a team effort. They are all so cute! I wish I wasn’t allergic!”

  “I don’t think Paws would have forgiven us if we had gotten a kitten for the farmhouse,” I said.

  One of the ghost cat’s great joys was watching the real mice scurry around. It was maddening that he couldn’t catch them, but he still found it endlessly entertaining. If we got a real cat, we would take some of that great joy away from him.

  Greer probably would have advocated for it.

  “We could just add it to all the other stuff he isn’t going to forgive us for any time soon,” Charlie laughed.

  I laughed too. She did have a point.

  Just then I shivered, even in my jacket. The weather was cold and gray, and I told myself that was partly to blame for my poor mood.

  Then again, Jasper was mostly to blame for my poor mood, and I really wanted to get home and hear all about the evening from Greer. I just hoped she’d have enough energy left to tell me everything that had happened.