Chapter 13

The pessimistic mood continued when we got back to Flora's house and found Maude, Margot and Isobel elbow-deep in grimoires.

"Is she going to help?" asked Maude as we walked through the door.

Tilda and I grabbed a seat before answering.

"She's dead," Tilda stated, obviously deciding that being subtle was not the way she was playing today.

The three women stopped and stared at us, with identical disbelieving expressions, then all three spoke at once. "What...How?"

"We found her body in the basement," I said. "It looked like some kind of ritualistic murder." Not that I'd personally ever seen a ritualistic murder, or any murder for that matter.

"Are you sure?" asked Maude.

I tried to push down the feeling of nausea as the memory flashed through my mind. "We're sure."

"I took photos," volunteered Tilda. While she went looking for her laptop, I noticed the slightly green tinge to the women's faces and felt sorry for them. If just the thought was making them sick, the reality was going to ensure they never ate again.

Tilda brought back her laptop and I ensured I was seated as far away from the screen as I possibly could.

"Oh, Helen," Maude gasped as she touched the screen. She looked over at Tilda and me. "She was a sweet woman once. She loved holding you, Tilda. All she wanted was a family, but she got twisted up and all she could see was her hurt and her anger." Maude sighed and wiped her eyes. "It should never have ended like this."

Tilda tapped on the screen. "I took the photos for the symbols. I've never seen them before, and I thought you might recognize them."

Maude squinted at the screen. "I'm not familiar with them." She turned to Margot and Isobel. "How about you?"

The two women shook their heads.

"I feel like I've seen them," said Margot, "but I can't remember where."

I indicated the piles of grimoires in front of them. "Maybe in one of these?"

Margot shook her head. "No, I'd remember if I'd seen them this morning. I have a feeling that this memory is decades old."

"Whatever they mean, you can be sure that it's dark magic," Maude said, seriously.

Even with no magic knowledge, I would have been able to guess that. The symbols written in blood and the murdered witch were a dead giveaway.

"This is not working," Maude muttered. She looked up. "We can't do this alone. We need to bring in the rest of the coven."

Isobel slapped her hand on the table. "No, we can't. It will make Flora vulnerable. We had a plan. We should stick to it."

Maude stood up. "Yes, we had a plan, but that was before we found out this was a curse. When Flora got sick, we thought it was an overdose. We were wrong about that. We made a list of family members to contact and we couldn't get any help. What we've been doing hasn't been working. We need to find information fast. You know every witch has their own grimoires. Surely in one of them, there is something that can help us." She took in a shaky breath and said what we were all thinking. "We're running out of time."

"But what if the person who did this is part of the coven," Isobel said, desperation in her voice. "We could be inviting more trouble in."

"That's a risk we're going to have to take." Maude said.

I could see that Isobel was completely against the idea and her concerns were valid. Margot watched the two women with a concerned expression on her face.

"Very well." Isobel stood up and clasped her hands. "We need to make sure one of us is with Flora at all times. I'll continue to stay by her side for now."

Maude looked over at me. "Are you okay with that?"

"Uh, sure," I stammered. I was still getting used to the ease these women accepted the belief that I was Flora's next of kin. Maybe when this was all over, I'd think about getting a paternity test.

"Excellent. Tilda, you need to let everyone know there is a meeting this evening. Attendance is compulsory."

"On it," Tilda said as she grabbed her phone.

Maude rubbed her hands together and glanced at the laptop. "We are going to need to show these symbols to everyone tonight, but these photos are a bit too..."

She waved her hands in the air as if she didn't quite have the words to describe how utterly terrible and distressing they were.

"I'm quite good with computers," I said. "Let me see what I can do with them to hide the body."

"Are you sure?"

I could tell Maude was not thrilled with the idea of me having to spend too much time looking at these images. I was with her one hundred percent, but I had already seen the worst of them. If we could save others from that horror, while still getting the information we needed, it would be worth it.

As I worked on the images, I tuned out the murmurs of the women working around me. Before I knew it a couple of hours had gone past and I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up and found Tilda with sympathy in her eyes.

"How's it going?"

I stretched my arms above my head and arched my back as I realized how much it was aching. "I'm done. I've probably been done for ages, but I've been tweaking the images to try to get them as clear as possible."

Tilda looked over my shoulder. "Thanks for doing that. Most of the coven wouldn't be used to something that gruesome, and the original images were pretty confronting. This will make it easier for them to focus on the symbols, rather than the fact that someone was murdered in town."

"Even with these pictures I don't think that fact is going to be lost on them," I murmured.

"Do you want something to eat?" Tilda asked suddenly. "I think we need to get out of here, just for a little while, before the meeting starts."

"Is it all set up?" I asked, stifling a yawn.

Tilda nodded. "Yes, as you can imagine we've been fielding calls from people wanting to know what was happening before everyone else."

Seems human nature was the same everywhere.

"Sure, something to eat would probably be a good idea."

Tilda raised her voice. "We're going to go eat at the diner. Anyone else want to come?"

Margot raised her head. "I'm in."

"How about you?" Tilda asked the two remaining women.

Maude and Isobel didn't even bother raising their heads as they shook them.

"We'll see you at the meeting house," Tilda said as she hustled me out of the door, Margot following close behind.

* * *

Despite the fact I had only been there once before, the diner was starting to feel comfortable to me. I was beginning to get used to the various paranormal races. I couldn't name all of them, but I was unlikely to run screaming down the street anymore. I smiled as Tilda pulled out her cone of silence stone. I know that probably wasn't what it was officially called, but it was how I was going to refer to it. Even though it seemed we had the weight of the world on our shoulders, we ate our meal in silence. It was as though we couldn't handle putting our fears into words. I didn't mind as it gave me an opportunity to simply watch Walker Bay on a normal day. It wasn't until we were finished that the conversation started again.

"How are you doing with everything?" Margot asked in what was obviously a rare burst of sympathy.

"I'm surprisingly okay," I said. "If you take away the whole paranormal aspect, this place is just like everywhere else."

"I know it might be hard to get your head around sometimes," said Tilda. "But we're just normal people. We love our families, we hang out with our friends, we drink too much coffee." She glared at Margot. "Some of us watch too many murder documentaries."

"They're educational."

Tilda shook her head vigorously. "Watching one every now and then is educational. Binge-watching them all weekend says you have issues and I am never turning my back on you."

Margot took a sip of her coffee. "Probably a good move."

"See, you have to stop saying things like that. There's a reason people see you as the odd one."

Margot raised an eyebrow. "I don't mind being the odd one. It means I'm being honest."

"No," said Tilda. "It means you scare people because they don't know what you're going to do next."

Margot opened her mouth. I was disappointed when her phone rang, and she shut it. I was kind of interested in what her response was going to be.

"Everything okay?" Tilda asked when the call finished.

Margot gave a small smile as she tucked her phone back in her purse. "Isobel wants to attend the meeting tonight, so she's asked me to watch Flora."

"I could do it," I volunteered. "There is no real need for me to go to the coven meeting."

"No," Margot said quickly. "You should attend. Maybe you'll see something we're missing." She looked over at Tilda. "Keep her quiet and don't let her do anything stupid."

Because stupid was what I would be going for in a meeting full of witches. I intended to make myself as invisible as possible.

As Margot walked out, I turned to Tilda. "Is she really as bad as you say?"

"You're the one she kidnapped. What do you think?"

She had a very good point.