Thorn to Die

I sprinted back to look. A dark black cloud spread across the surface of the cauldron and enveloped the entire liquid.

“What does it mean?” Raven asked. “It’s a detection spell, but what are we detecting.”

A smile pulled at my lips. I leaned back and let go of a huge breath of air. “What that means, my dear cousins, is that Grammy Jo couldn’t have poisoned Mr. White.”

They both stared at me expectantly.

“It means that the rose was the poison. The rose is what killed Allen White.”

Chapter 15

We watched silently through the window as Aunt Piper and Aunt Viv huddled together on the cold stone bench. Their arms were wrapped around each other, drawing comfort from their closeness.

“So, let me get this straight,” Raven said with a sigh. “Now you think Andy Jenkings is the murderer? Because the rose was poisoned with ricin?”

I shook my head. It couldn’t be any clearer. “Yes! Don’t you remember that bag he was carrying the day we went to talk to Laura? He didn’t want us to see it. I’ll bet you anything it was full of ricin.”

Blythe left the window and began to pace the floor, slowly nodding her head. “You know, it does make sense. Laura was so nervous. I’ll bet she knows Andy killed him and she’s too scared to tell the truth.”

“Think about it.” I hopped up on the counter and held out two fingers. “Andy hated Mr. White for two reasons. One: he’s obsessed with water waste. Two: as long as Allen was alive, he couldn’t be with Laura. That’s two motives. He knew Mr. White was obsessed with his prize-winning roses. So he went down and sprinkled ricin on them. After returning home from my shop, Mr. White goes down to check them out. He can’t resist – they’re too perfect. He sniffs them. Boom, he’s dead.”

It all laid out perfectly in my head. The painting, the eerie feeling we got from talking with Andy, even Blythe’s vision about the letter pointed us toward the roses.

“If that’s the case, how do you prove it?” Raven leaned on the counter across from me, folding her arms over her t-shirt. Without her dark lipstick, she appeared almost pale. “I don’t think Ian will let Grammy go without some hard proof.”

She was right. We had to prove Andy did the poisoning. We had to find his stash.

Blythe dangled her foot over the fence, balancing on her tippy toes. She paused and put her foot back on the ground, shaking her roller-free head. “Guys, I don’t think this is a good idea. I’m getting a bad witchy vibe here.”

Raven rolled her eyes and grabbed Blythe by her tiny waist, neatly depositing her on the other side of Andy Jenking’s knee-high wooden fence. We both followed, despite Blythe’s nasty evil eye.

“If it really was a bag of fertilizer he was holding, it’d probably be in the shed,” I told her. No need to bother with the main house until necessary. “But we’ve all got to do this together.”

Our first stop was the old lean-to shed in Andy’s backyard. An ancient and crumbling building, it had plenty of weathered wood and overgrown bushes holding it together. Allen White’s yard backed up to his and from this vantage we could see the hedges surrounding the prize rose garden. It would’ve been only too easy for Andy to wait for Mr. White to leave, sprinkle the ricin on the roses, and then watch for his victim to come wandering back. He had a clear view of the entire crime scene.

“He’s not very organized, is he?” Blythe commented after stepping over a strewn pile of logs.

She was right. Andy’s backyard looked worse than at Brunick Manor. While Grammy Jo tended to go with nature’s flow, Andy just let things grow wild. It made his whole yard and the back of his cream colored Cape Cod style house appear broken down. He might’ve been concerned about water waste, but he certainly wasn’t concerned about cleaning up the mess in his yard.

“Doesn’t seem like the type of guy to keep fertilizer handy,” Raven said. She sunk her heels into a soft mole hill and swore. I wanted to comment, but now was not the time to lecture her on her shoe choice. “I’m guessing he’s morally opposed to gardening in general. Half the vermin population of Uriville have taken up residence in his yard.”

Assuming Raven could get a reading off of the animals living beneath Andy’s soil, she was probably being overwhelmed with the thoughts of hundreds of the little blind animals. Mole tracts disrupted half the yard, creating little black furrows that zigzagged back and forth.

“Come on guys.” I trudged ahead to the shed. The sooner we found the bag, the sooner we could get out of here. Andy Jenkings hadn’t struck me as a patient sort of man. I didn’t want to find out how he’d react if he found us snooping around.

A tiny tin light hung above the door to the shed. Electricity hummed through the dying lightbulb as it flickered and waned. I wrenched the door open and it dragged against the ground. Raven and Blythe looked around my shoulders as we peered inside. It was too dark to see anything. Even the noonday sun didn’t reach far enough inside to illuminate the contents.

“Guys, we've got to hurry.” Blythe bounced on her toes. “Andy could come out here any minute.”

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I looked over my shoulder. So far, no signs of life coming from the house. The yard was overgrown enough that even if he were to look out his back window, I don’t think he could’ve seen us through the bramble. Still, Blythe was right. We needed to get what we came for and get out of there.

Snapping my fingers, a flame appeared above my fist. It was a trick I’d learned a few years ago and it had come in handy several times since then. Blythe oohed and awed at the little magic trick as if she was a five year old at a birthday party.

“I wish I could do that,” she said sadly. “But I just can’t get it right.” She snapped her fingers, creating nothing but a couple of sparks.

Raven tried as well, but couldn’t even do that. She shrugged and gave up rather quickly. “Grammy Jo says each witch has her talents. I guess that’s not one of mine.”