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“Ricinus communis,” one officer stated with a proud tilt of his head. “Or more commonly known as the castor bean plant. The seeds are processed to create the highly toxic substance we call Ricin. We have our guilty party.”
“Baloney,” Grammy Jo said, throwing her gloves on the ground. “That’s my castor oil plant.”
Aunt Piper grabbed her mother’s arm and huddled in close to her. “It’s for healing!”
Blythe bounced up next to them, her curlers bobbing on top of her head. “Yeah, you’ve got the wrong guy, bucko.”
“Well, tell it to the court. You’re under arrest, Josephine Brunick.”
The cop took out his handcuffs and Aunt Viv began to wail. Raven stepped in front of her, shielding her from view. The backyard erupted in noise that succeeded in disrupting a flock of geese on the edge of the lake. They took off in a flurry of feathers, their honks adding to the noise.
My attention darted to Momma Tula’s bedroom window. She was going to hear this if we didn’t quiet down. And the last thing she needed was to witness this scene. Everything was falling apart.
As the cop read Grammy Jo her rights, I turned to Ian. This was all his fault. “You’re not serious! Grammy didn’t do it. This isn’t right.”
He shrugged, looking as hopeless as I felt. “I have to take her in, Hazy. The court will straighten this all out. I promise.”
Never in my twenty-five years of life did I imagine my Grammy Jo would someday be taken away in handcuffs. I watched them lead her away, her garden hat still tied to her head. My legs began to tremble with the effort of standing, so I stumbled to the stone garden bench and sat down.
“Hazel, what do we do?” Blythe kneeled in front of me and took my hand. “What do we do?”
I thought hard about Allen White and his lifeless body lying in that garden. I thought about Angie Pine’s letter and Laura Blight’s reaction to our questions. Andy Jenking’s and his bag of fertilizer. I thought about the potion I’d poured into Allen’s tea. The painting of the dead rose and his face.
Something about this didn’t make sense. Grammy Jo would’ve never used ricin. I doubt she even knew how to make it from castor beans. It couldn’t have been in the tea.
But then, how could Allen have been poisoned? As far as I knew, he hadn’t eaten or drank anything between the time he stopped by my shop and the time of his death. There had to be something we were missing. A clue.
“Blythe!” I popped off the bench, gripping her hand tight. “Tell me you still have that rose you cut from Allen’s garden.”
She stepped back, hesitating. “Yeah, it’s drying in my journal.”
“Go get it.” I ran toward the kitchen and pulled Grammy Jo’s spell book off its shelf. Cracking its ancient spine, I sped through the pages, desperate to find the one page we needed.
Raven came up next to me. She managed to calm down her mother and send her back upstairs for a nap. “What are you looking for?”
“A potion,” I mumbled. It was here, I knew it was. Only a couple days ago, I’d flipped through it. The pages turned through a dozen more spells and I found my target. “Here! A detecting potion.”
Raven looked down at the page and then back at me with confusion. “Why do you need that?”
“I’ve got it!” Blythe slid through the doorway, her journal in hand.
“Great!” I snatched it from her and carefully pulled the rose from its pages. It was still red and slightly dried, crushed into a flat impression of Mr. White’s magnificent blossoms. “We need the rest of these ingredients and Grammy’s backup cauldron. Help me get it started.”
Maybe they thought I was having a nervous breakdown, because they didn’t press me for any more answers. Instead, they gathered the witchy ingredients needed to complete the spell. A spoiled egg, a branch of oak, a dash of Ceylon cinnamon, and a few other more exotic ingredients we kept on hand.
Soon, the cauldron was boiling above the newly repaired stove. I stood back to admire its healthy orange glow. Maybe I was finally coming into my potion skills.
“If this works correctly,” I explained to my cousins, “then the water should turn black once we put the rose in the cauldron. It’ll only take a few seconds.”
Raven nodded solemnly. “Okay, let’s get on with it.”
Gingerly picking up the rose by its stem, I dropped it in the boiling water. We leaned over the edge, waiting for the transformation. The water burped orange bubbles, but nothing happened. Not even a blip of black. My gut clenched.
“Are you sure we did it right?” I ran to look at the potion book. “Maybe we didn’t stir it right.”
Grammy had been right; I was useless at potions. Not even a simple detecting spell would work for me. I wanted to kick and scream, shooting magic out my fingers at the antique family photos hanging on the walls. But that wouldn’t work either. I was terrible at projecting.
“Hazel, look.” Blythe pointed at the potion.
