The Witching Hour (The Witches Pendragon Mystery Series Book 1) (13 page)

September comes to close with a violent rainstorm. Outside the wind howls so badly that Sheila feels compelled to bring Merlin inside.

“We can’t have a goat in the house,” Hendra screams at the sight of him entering our main salon. She yells even louder when Merlin starts to eat the crocheted doily she is working on. And then she yells all the more when a small black cat strays in through the door that Sheila and Merlin left open.

“Oh, la chatte noire,” Monique hums at the sight of it. “I suppose it has sought us out, with a most important tale to tell.”

“Just as long as it saves it for another day,” Hatha says, busily doing a crossword puzzle on a small table by the light of an oil lamp.

“The cat can go where it wishes, but you must put the goat back out in the shed,” our heat witch adds a second later, and with an “ah ha!” she attacks her crossword, vigorously scribbling a word.

“I’ll take him back out as soon as the storm passes,” Sheila asserts, although this doesn’t please Hendra, who, unable to rescue the doily, crosses her arms with a loud harrumph of a noise.

“Come now, Hendra, it is the crafting hour. Aren’t you going to join in? We are making stuffed bears for the children in the cancer ward up in Tours. Here, grab some stuffing…” Monique starts in.

“I’ll stuff the likes of you…” Hendra mutters under her breath, sitting on our 17th century empire sofa, another one of Elfie’s dumpster dive finds which is badly in need of reupholstering.

“A hex on you and a pox on your house,” Monique spits at Hendra, and ambles back over to her squashy pea-green chair.

“So he left then, did he Noelle?” Hatha asks me quietly from the table where she works on her crossword, her pince-nez glasses glinting in the lamp light. I have to say, Hatha read Manon and I the riot act only a few days ago, yelling at Manon for using the potions, and me for using a hex. (Thank heavens Hatha doesn’t know about Sheila and I putting drops of
The Persuader
in the
Chocolate Surprises
or I might have been completely banished from the house.) Hatha’s punished us with leaf duty. That is, every night, after we return home from work, we’re to rake up every fallen leaf before we can have our dinner. That doesn’t sound like much of a punishment, but the leaves in the backyard come up to my knees, and more fall from the trees each day. Not to mention that after I finish up with the chocolate shop each night, I am exhausted.

“Yes, he did. Hugo left. But before he went, I found out he had been one of Etienne’s little henchmen. He had been part of the Satan-worshiper wannabes, which is why he had a pentagram tattoo. He sat in my cauldron in a bunch of bubbly water, trying to rub it off. He was worried that he wouldn’t go to heaven with it on. I told him I didn’t know much about the Christian heaven, but that it sounded like the Christian Savior was a very forgiving sort. Right then he stopped wailing ‘muur deer’ midstream and just faded away with a little wave. That was three days ago, and he hasn’t appeared since… so I’m pretty sure he’s satisfied now that Lucien is behind bars.”

“And I ask you my fellow witches, how did we ever become mixed up with so many frightful people?” Hendra mumbles now stuffing Monique’s pile of plush bears with an obscene amount of force. If she pushes any harder, their tiny, fluffy heads will pop off.

“How did we become mixed up with that Satan-worshipper Etienne, that horrible Count, his awful ex-wife, and now this murderer Lucien? How did we get mixed up with all of them?”

“Well, at least they are all in prison,” Monique mumbles, always able to find the bright side.

Hendra stops what she’s doing, puts down her vastly overstuffed bear and crosses her arms again. She sits on the sofa thinking through it all and harrumphing at strange intervals. It makes it hard for me to concentrate as I take a seat beside her on the couch and try to thread my own needle to help stitch together a plush bear. As I finally get the needle threaded, Beatrice calls us for dinner. Sheila protests that with the impending storm it’s not safe for Merllyd out in the shed. It’s true that shed is rotting away, built of wood from over a century ago. There’s a brief back and forth between Hendra and Sheila on ‘the proper places for farm animals’ before Hatha raises a hand and silence him.

“Put him in the broom closet for tonight, if you must,” she instructs.

A few minutes later, we all file into the dining room. Elfie and Manon, who have been working in the bathroom, come in looking cross. Apparently, they are disagreeing on exactly how to lay out and cut the tile. Monique eyes them, covered in a white layer of dust from their t-shirts to their grubby jeans, and tsks, “You are both unacceptable for dining. Go put on your finery.” They pay her no mind.

No sooner do we all shuffle into the kitchen to wash our hands and return to sit down at the table than the electricity in the entire house goes out.

“Damn,” Elfie says.

“You watch your mouth,” Hendra shouts at her.

“Looks like that idiot man couldn’t even get the electricity right,” Elfie huffs in reference to Etienne. “I’ll go check the fuse box.”

In the meantime, Camille and Beatrice light the candles on the table and Hatha retrieves her oil lamp from the parlor. Elfie comes back a few minutes later, mumbling something about the electrical box being a mess.

“We’ll have to call an electrician tomorrow…”

We all groan at this.

“A different electrician,” Elfie adds. “There are other’s in Amboise who I am sure are perfectly respectable people. And who knows, maybe Merllyd will open the portal and whisk us all home tonight.”

“One can only wish,” Hatha sighs deeply and attacks the nut roast that Beatrice has set before her.

“What? You would leave us here all alone?” pouts Francine as she comes floating through the dining room wall to take up her seat at the table. She’s usually dressed in a yellow gown, but tonight, she’s somehow changed her clothes and is aglow in a shimmering green 1950’s style prom dress.

“Yes, Francine, someday we’ll leave. Someday we’ll return home. You and Lizelle need to think about moving on as well. We’ve talked about it hundreds of times,” Hatha says gently as Hendra takes the tray of nut roast from Hatha’s hands.

“I know, I know,” mocks Francine, who by the look of things, died when she was sixteen or seventeen. “We need to seek out the light. You tell us that
all
the time.”

“I wonder what the Fine Feral Forest of Fosse is like without us,” Monique sighs wistfully.

“I wonder how Merllyd is doing with so many foes about and the evil Sorceress Morgaunse breathing down his neck,” Beatrice adds. For a moment, our minds transcend the problems of the modern world, and it’s as if we are all back in the forest. I picture us sitting on our rushes, eating porridge, wrapped in warm woolen blankets. This image is so real to me that I feel if I breathe in, I will smell all the crisp scents of the forest –the wet earth, the trees, the tall grass that grows along the river.

“I wonder if Merllyd will ever be able to put Magda Pendragon on the throne and return Anglia to peace,” Monique sputters and my view of the forest swirls away.

“What we have done in the past couple of weeks pale in comparison to that fight,” Sheila states wisely as she places down a tray of roasted vegetables in the middle of the table.

“Poor, tiny girl,” I murmur with regards to the Princess Pendragon.

“If ever I go back, I will join the ranks and fight for the Princess,” Monique shouts crazily and wags her fork about as if it is a tiny sword.

“Sister Monique, you know we witches don’t fight. We do not enter into the politics that surround us,” Hatha states gently.

“Then I will renounce my witchdom and join the ranks!” Monique shouts quite seriously, her pointy hat scraping the chandelier overhead causing it to swing.

“Bite your tongue!” Hendra shouts.

“I will fight too,” comes a small voice. “For the Princess, that is.” It’s Manon, tiny little Manon, who is barely larger than the Princess herself.

“I will fight too, we Picts are excellent in battle,” says Sheila and there’s a flash in her eyes. Now, for the first time ever, I can picture her quite clearly dripping in blue ink, battle ax in hand, flying across the highlands.

To my surprise, their sentiment is echoed by Beatrice, Elfie and Camille.

“Witches, what are you saying? Are you saying you will enter into what very well may be a war?” Hendra asks as if we have all spoken blasphemy. “Have you lost your collective minds? Don’t you know we witches heal? We help, but we don’t fight. Isn’t that right, Hatha?”

Hatha stares at us all her eyes shining. “Perhaps we witches have sat on the sidelines for too long…” she mumbles and moves a lump of nut roast around her plate with her fork.

“You can’t be serious?” Hendra questions as if she has never heard anything so scandalous.

“I have learned in the last few weeks that we witches are capable of many great things. Perhaps the others are right, Hendra dear. Perhaps the time has come to stop sitting on the sidelines of the war in Anglia.”

Hatha opens her mouth, looking like she’s going to make a sharp retort, when the doorbell rings interrupting the tense conversation. Who on earth is calling at this hour? Beatrice hops up to answer the door and I am surprised when she returns to tell me there’s a young gentleman at the door.

“He says he’s a doctor. I do believe he’s come calling…he wants to talk to Noelle and he’s got a dozen roses in his hand.”

“One of those butchers from the hospital?” wails an indignant Hendra, “Thank heavens they didn’t chop up our dear Manon and try to stitch her back together. Don’t answer it, Noelle, those choctors are dangerous.”

“It’s doctors, with a ‘d’, and they aren’t dangerous, they did a bangeriffic job on our dear Manon,” I say, pushing back my chair. Slightly embarrassed, I make my way to the front door. Sure enough, the doctor who ratted me out for eavesdropping is standing there with roses in hand, dressed in a fine suit, his black curls falling enticingly around his face.

“You must forgive my behavior at the hospital,” he mutters and hands me the roses. “I came to apologize and to ask if you might consider having dinner with me some time, Madam Fosse …Noelle…may I call you Noelle?”

What a strange sensation I feel come over me. His smile makes me feel warm. His eyes…sweet Eostre…his emerald eyes; for a moment I am drowning in them.

Why yes, I think to myself, I would love to go out with him to dinner. I would love to kiss those beautiful red lips. Maybe we witches do date. Yes, yes, yes!

“You may call me Noelle, but I’m sorry, I don’t date,” I say a half second later, remembering myself. I hand the roses back to him. He looks immensely hurt.

“Please try to understand, it’s just I can’t. I am…I am a member of an order. I am a Sister of Perpetual Patience,” I say by way of explanation and shut the front door.

Back at the table everyone eyes me suspiciously. Will I be the first witch to forsake the sisterhood? I have to admit I was sorely tempted when I looked into those beautiful eyes.

“Well?” Hendra huffs as I sit back down, placing my napkin on my lap.

“Well what?” I ask.

“What are your intentions?” Hendra asks suspiciously.

“Well, he is a fine gentleman, awfully handsome. Surely no one would begrudge me if I were to go on a small date with him.”

Hatha lets out a gasp.

“But I won’t be able to go on a date with him, because that would only lead to another and another. And…” I hesitate dramatically, “I fully declare for Magda Pendragon.” To emphasize the point, I throw down my napkin on the table like it is the proverbial gauntlet.

“When we go back, I will fight too. Hatha is right, we have sat on the sidelines too long. We have allowed Mordred and Morgaunse to kill Arthur. We will not allow them to kill his young daughter,” I state firmly.

There is a moment of silence and then Hendra smiles, “Here here!” she pounds her fist on the table. “I agree! I agree! That’s it then, we are decided. We will be more than healers when Merllyd opens the portal. When we go back, we will fight for Magda Pendragon.”

“When we go back, we will fight!” seven voices echo hers, and we hold up our glasses in salute.

Caught up in our enthusiasm, Francine and Lizelle declare for Magda Pendragon as well.

“Nine witches dark as night. Nine witches will return the light.” Monique chants in Latin. Although we have no idea what she means, we eat on, happy as larks, and we don’t finish dinner until well after the Witching Hour

A Brief Word about the Author

I
AM A HAPPILY married mother of two. Although, I do suppose there is some give and take when it comes to marriage, if you know what I mean. For instance, I did not know about the DISHWASHER OPTIMIZATION RULE before I was married. Here’s the thing, if I put a fork in the dishwasher, my beloved will come along behind me and remove the fork, and then put it back in the dishwasher in some sort of OPTIMIZED fashion. Not only does he do this, but he will give me a disbelieving look and may even grunt as if to say, “What the hell? Seriously, what the hell, by now you should know EXACTLY where the fork goes in the dishwasher.” I find him in the kitchen at ten thirty at night rearranging all the dishes I have already put in the dishwasher. In the deepest, darkest recesses of my mind it does not even occur to me that there is an optimization plan for the dishwasher. You put the dishes in, poof, they come out clean. Now that is not to say that I am not down with the Obsessive Compulsive Thing. I am down with it. I steal chalk. That’s right, chalk. It’s not that I want the chalk per se; it’s that when I am done lecturing, I swoop up everything in my path and deposit it into my bag out of fear of losing my keys. When I get home after a class I look in my bag and it is FULL of chalk. I take the chalk back, free it, and go on about my business...

Thank you for reading this book. I realize my humor may not be for everyone so I appreciate you taking the time. Indie authors do it all on our own (with the help of my editor and proofreader of course), so if you like what you’ve read please tell a friend or leave a review.

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Other books by Julie Sarff

The Sweet Delicious Madness Cozy Series

The Hope Diamond

The Heir to Villa Buschi

The Treasure of Croesus

The Knotty Bride

(These last three books have been combined into a book bundle – The Sweet Delicious Madness book bundle, books 2-4)

The Royal Biography Cozy Series

The Prince and I

The Prince’s Secret

The Witches Pendragon Series

1.The Witching Hour

2. Something Whiskered This Way Comes (Coming Spring 2016)

Magda Pendragon: Heir to …….Arthur (Coming November 2015)

Murder at Mudswell Manor (Coming Winter 2015)