Mornings were supposed to be my time. A chance to sit quietly in my satin robe, sip my coffee in peace, and mentally prepare for the day. None of which was possible when the sink was full of dirty dishes and the hall smelled like something had crawled inside and died last night.
Jenny had stuck a note to the old mint-green fridge with a novelty “Witch Crossing” magnet.
Good morning, A!
Sorry about the dishes. I’ll get those when I wake up.
Could you do me a favor, pretty please? Someone stabbed a harvester w/a magic knife. T says it was prob. Irish, made of silver and iron. Is that enough for you or your contacts to find the stabber?
Thanks!
-J
Even Jenny’s handwriting was unbearably chipper, with big loops and swirls. I always expected to find a heart dotting everyi.
I tossed the note into the recycling bin.
A cool breeze carried fresh air and the twittering whistle of a goldfinch into the kitchen. The window above the sink had been closed when I came in. The house must have noticed me wrinkling my nose at the stench.
I appreciated the gesture, but I had a hard time trusting a building with a mind of its own.
The first week after I’d moved in, the house had done its helpful-home bit while I was taking a shower. It turned up the vent and adjusted the showerhead and even heated the towel I’d set out.
We’d had strong words about boundaries that day. I wasn’t opposed to a little consensual voyeurism, and I’d been with more than one lover who could be described as a “brick house,” but even I had limits.
The coffee maker gurgled to life.
“Don’t you dare,” I said sternly. Opening windows was one thing, but messing with my coffee was a crime punishable by extreme violence.
The machine fell silent. After one final glare, I began making a pot of dark roast. Then, while that brewed, I started working on the dishes.
My thoughts drifted to Jenny’s note. A silver-and-iron knife wasn’t much to go on. You could order magic weapons on the internet these days if you knew where to look. I was a PI, not a miracle worker. Also, I wasn’t a PI anymore, having retired more than a decade ago.
I still renewed my license each year, but I had other things to focus on these days, like keeping Second Life Books and Gifts in the black. The three of us were equal partners on paper, but without me keeping an eye on the books thatreallymattered, we’d be bankrupt in a month. Jenny lacked the focus for the day-to-day details of running a business, and as for Temple, these days he was doing well if he remembered to wear pants.
I finished the dishes, poured a mug of coffee, and headed back upstairs to get dressed.
Fashion was a weapon, one that could be wielded for offense or defense to control people’s reactions, how they saw you, what they did and didn’t focus on.
I’d toned things down significantly since my younger days, back when keeping a target distracted and off-balance could be the difference between taking down a young necromancer and getting turned into a walking corpse.
I selected a pair of tight jeans with a black leather belt, a white V-neck shirt that showed just a hint of cleavage, and a brown blazer. For shoes, I went with comfortable sneakers. I was tall enough without heels, thank you.
It was a look that should command attention without costing me respect or undermining people’s impression of me as a normal human businesswoman.
Back downstairs, I closed and locked the hall door that separated home and shop, then straightened theEmployees Onlysign behind me.
I lit a couple of sandalwood incense sticks, one on each side of the shop. I didn’t love the smell, but tourists expected these things. And it was a hell of a lot better than harvester stink.
Why would anyone attack a harvester?Because they’re a dumbass with a death wish. But even dumbasses had motives. Dumbass motives, but motives nonetheless.
Harvesters were notoriously solitary, so that motive wasn’t likely to be personal. No jilted ex or angry business partner out for revenge. They had no possessions to steal, and I wasn’t aware of any magic that required harvester parts as components. Could someone be after a trophy?
Maybe I was overthinking. It wasn’t like people needed much of a reason to try to kill those of us who weredifferent.
It was a long time since we’d seen supernatural trouble around here, mostly because people like me tended to keep our heads down. For a town of forty thousand, Salem had more than its share of “unnatural” people and things that old Cotton Mather would have happily burned at the stake.
It hadn’t started that way. The witch trials in the late 1600s were bullshit, nothing but old-fashioned human mob mentality mixed with a hefty dose of sexism and superstition. If there were any real practitioners in the area back then, they’d stayed far clear of that mess.
