“This is a load of hogswash.” The woman with him tears my poster in half. “Don’t listen to her, Archibald. It’s a bunch of witchy nonsense. We’ll be sticking with the pub like normal people, and you and Widow Hardcastle and your kind can find another village and—get your cat out of my handbag!”
What’s your problem, lady?Rafe lifts his head, a white lace handkerchief dangling from his mouth.I’m doing you a favour. Your handbag has been infested with ghosts. I caught a particularly wily one. Allow me to banish it to the underworld for you.
He leaps down from her purse, handkerchief dangling from his mouth, and darts away into the bushes surrounding the church graveyard.
“Come back here, you flea-infested moggie!” The woman stomps after him. “I’ll call animal control! I’ll have the police on your tail! Don’t you think I won’t!”
“Oh, dear,” Archibald says as we watch his wife kicking under the bushes. “I hope your kitty is good at getting away with his crimes.”
“Trust me. He’s an expert.”
An hour later, Rafe leaps in the open window, fur mussed and covered in burrs, but perfectly okay.
“What happened to the ghost?” I ask as I look up from my phone. There’s an online auction going on for a bunch of mismatched wooden chairs, and I want them.
“It’s crossed over to the other side.” Rafe shifts into his human form. He starts tearing open the pile of parcels from his online shopping exploits. “With a little help from my teeth. That lady is still out there looking for me. What are you thinking right now? You look despondent. Did Hayes tell you they found Warrick?”
“I’m thinking that this is a bad idea.” I slump in my stool. “No one is going to come here to drink something unfamiliar when they can go across the green to the Rose & Wimple.”
“Once they taste it, they’ll love it,” Rafe says. “We just have to get them to taste it first.”
An idea occurs to me. I push it down.
Rafe tugs a shirt over his head. It’s the exact colour of his eyes and is made of some shimmery fabric that makes him lookexactlyhow a Siamese cat picking out human clothes would want to look. “Your face is all twisted up. It gets like that when you’ve had an idea and you’re excited about it, but you’re trying to convince yourself that it’s terrible.”
“How…how did you know that?”
“Because you do it all the time.” Rafe huffs as he examines the stitching on his new trousers. “He’s not here, Autumn. Don’t do his work for him. Tell me your idea.”
“Okay.” I beam. “We should have a free tasting. We can offer samples to the village before the opening. I don’t have to have the shop ready if we’re just offering a sample. That would help get people excited about the opening.”
“That’s a brilliant idea, and we will do it. Now, on to more important business.” He does a little twirl. “How do I look? If your answer isn’t disturbingly attractive, then I’m afraid we can no longer be friends.”
“You look incredible.” My cheeks heat as I focus on the way the trousers hug his narrow hips and muscled thighs. “Those trousers do a good job of hiding your tail.”
“Yes, well.” He pulls a jacket over top and fusses with the cuffs. “Did you learn anything more about Widow Hardcastle while I was occupied with important ghost-busting activities?”
“Not really. But something’s been niggling at me. Pat’s orchid looks familiar. There’s a drawing of it in my family grimoire. But it’s in a section that’s written in another language.”
Rafe perks up. “I need to see that book.”
I dig it out from under the counter and open it, showing him the botanical section with the plant drawings and strange language. “Look. It’s the same orchid. Whoever added this section is a real old school witch. These are spells or potions with measurements for ingredients listed, but everything’s written in Latin or Elvish or something.”
Rafe takes the book from me and peers at the pages. “I don’t think these are spells,” he says. “These are all orchids.”
“What?”
“You were right about it being Latin. These are lists of Latin names of various orchids. See this one?” He points to a strange flower with long, narrow petals that looks like a spider. “It’s a rare Peruvian orchid, absolutely beautiful, and profoundly rare. Some of them are varieties I’ve never heard of before. These numbers beside them aren’t to do with measurements. I think they’re about costs. And that’s not all. Look at this handwriting. It’s the same as the writing on that document Angela showed us, the one signing over ownership of the shop to me. Old Widow Hardcastle wrote this entry in the grimoire.”
I frown at the page. “I don’t understand. Why has she written a list of orchids in my family grimoire?”
“I haven’t the foggiest.” Rafe turns the page, studying the careful drawings. He points to one with ruffled edges and a prominent orange lip. “My last employer had me come here to steal this orchid. She kept her orchids in a secret hot house in the back room, under the window, and she enchanted the interior to give them the exact conditions they needed to thrive. She had a cat-proof lock on the door, so I never got to go in. When I came back and found her dead, that greenhouse was open and empty, although since no one knew what she was doing inthere, the police never saw the significance. But if she’d been giving away the orchids beforehand, it might have been empty when whoever it was came to kill her—hey, look at this! There’s a tiny section here, in English. I think it’s in your grandmother’s handwriting. It talks about the magic of orchids. Apparently, the flowers are extremely powerful, and they have been used in ancient rituals for protection, for bolstering power, and for immortality.”
I peer at the section he found. I’d missed it because it’s written so tiny that the words all blur together. “Only coven members or people who share their blood can write in the grimoire. My grandmother and Widow Hardcastle must have been in the same coven. But they hated each other.”
“This orchid magic has got to be the key to her murder,” Rafe squeezes my hands. “We’re so close. We need to keep digging. Soon, I’ll be free of this curse!”
I try to smile as he flicks out his tail and dances around the shop, but the best I can manage is a wobbly grimace. Rafe is too busy celebrating his soon-to-be freedom to notice.
