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ChapterSeventeen
ALIENOR
Oh shit!
I stare from Grandma to Aggie, my heart around my ribcage like a clipped pegasus. Ropes of tension wrap around my chest until I’m struggling for breath. What happened to Norbert’s body?
Grandma purses her lips and glares at me as though demanding an explanation.
With a forced laugh, I say, “What do you mean? I wouldn’t burrow into a compost heap.”
Her eyes narrow. “Why do you look like you have something to hide?”
I gulp, my gaze darting toward the counter.
There’s no sign of the hound. I hope to the goddess he stays hidden. I know exactly what’s happened with the compost heap. The Boogie Man must have watched me bury Norbert from the shadows and decided to dig up his body.
What if he’s planning to parade the corpse somewhere public? If anyone sees it, the Magical Council will order a forensic report. That’s when their enforcers will discover traces of my magical DNA all over Norbert. There’ll also be hundreds of witnesses to verify that we had spent the afternoon together.
Fuck.
I need to persuade the Boogie Man to give me back Norbert’s dead body.
“Alienor,” she says, her sharp voice slicing through my panic.
“Whatever happened to the compost heap, it wasn’t me.” I walk around the counter, step over the slumbering hound, and pick up my bag. “But I’ll go home and clean the mess.”
“No need,” she says with a delicate sniff. “I repaired the damage with a spell and erected a shield. No one will tamper with my beautiful compost again.”
Aggie strides forward with her hands on her hips. “Now that you’ve finished telling her off about the compost, you can give me back my broomstick.”
Grandma’s cheeks turn pink. She mutters something to Aggie, but the roar of blood between my ears muffles her words.
Right now, the Boogie Man could be framing me for a murder he committed. He wants me dead by any means, even if it’s via execution.
Aggie grabs the broomstick with both hands, but Grandma won’t let go. While the two of them play tug of war with its shaft, I reach down and pat the hound on his shaggy head.
“We’re going home,” I murmur.
He rises to his feet and follows as I edge around the counter, trying to avoid the notice of two witches fighting over a secondhand method of transportation.
The broomstick shudders and liquid spurts out of its tip, filling the air with the scent of tree sap.
Warm droplets splatter on my face. I wipe my eyes and grimace. What kind of broomstick leaks fluids? Someone needs to take it back to the manufacturer. Better still, a bonfire.
Grandma and Aggie are too busy bickering to notice me leaving, and I’m not about to announce that I’m abandoning my post to cover up a murder.
The hound and I jog down the street in silence. At this time of the morning, the roads are filled with traffic. Witches fly overhead on broomsticks, and those who can afford magically charged cars take to the streets.
I cross the road that leads to Grandma’s driveway, nearly bumping into an old man on a bicycle reading his newspaper, while the hound snaps at his back wheel.
As I pass through the ring of trees that make up the boundary wards, the hound barks.
I turn to find him standing on the other side of the trees.
Bending down, I place my palms on my knees. “Come on, boy.”
The hound sits.
