Witching Hex Past Hen
Series: Good Cluck Chicken Magical Mysteries (Book 4)
In Windfall, the past always comes home to roost. And this time, it’s murder.
An antiques dealer comes to Windfall to appraise a valuable estate. Days later, he’s dead. Everyone’s calling it an accident. Tara knows better.
Everyone in town seems to have a reason to want the victim gone. Old grudges. Hidden affairs. Desperate spouses. As Tara digs deeper, she realizes the charming dealer had more enemies than friends, and someone finally decided to collect on years of resentment.
But it’s what Tara finds in her own past that shakes her to the core. A name in her adoption papers. A face in a photograph. And a connection to someone she thought she knew.
With her best friend losing patience, her budding relationship built on secrets she can’t share, and a killer who won’t stay hidden forever, Tara must untangle decades of lies before the truth destroys everything she’s built in Windfall.
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Excerpt
Chapter 1
The smell of cinnamon rolls fresh from the oven hit me the moment I pushed through the back door of Gone With the Whisk. Sugar and butter and warmth. The holy trinity of bakery aromatherapy.
“You’re grinning again,” Henrietta observed from her perch next to the prep counter, fluffing her black Silkie feathers with an air of supreme judgment. “That dopey, lovesick grin. It’s getting egg-stremely tiresome.”
I tied my apron strings and grabbed a fresh pot of coffee. “I’m not grinning.”
“You are. You’ve been doing it for three weeks straight. Your face is going to stick that way.”
“That’s not how faces work.”
“That’s not how brains work either, but yours seems to have turned to scrambled eggs ever since you started dating the sheriff.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Not really.
Dating Ryan West. Officially, publicly, actually dating him. It still felt new enough to make my stomach do little flips when I thought about it. After all the antagonism, the accusations, the slow thaw into grudging respect and then something more, we’d finally gotten here. First date. First kiss. And now we were just together.
It was nice. More than nice.
The back door crashed open.
“Nobody panic!”
A blur of purple caftan and wild orange hair came hurtling through the doorway. Melusia’s sensible orthopedic shoes caught on the threshold, and she went sprawling forward, arms pinwheeling. She grabbed at the nearest surface for balance, which happened to be the cooling rack of fresh croissants.
The rack went one way. Melusia went the other. Croissants flew through the air like flaky golden missiles.
I lunged and caught two. Henrietta dove under the prep table with an indignant squawk. Esmeralda, who had appeared in the kitchen doorway with supernatural timing, simply sighed and extended one hand. Every airborne croissant froze mid-flight, suspended by invisible threads of magic, then drifted gently back to the rack.
Melusia lay on the floor, blinking up at the ceiling. “I meant to do that.”
“Of course you did.” Esmeralda stepped over her colleague and began rearranging the rescued pastries. “Perfect entrance as always, Melusia.”
“I was in a hurry! I had news!” Melusia scrambled to her feet, brushing flour off her caftan. At seventy-three, she was all sharp angles and chaotic energy, like a hummingbird that had been reincarnated as a witch. Her Cheeto-orange hair stuck out at angles that defied physics, and her eyes sparkled with the manic gleam of someone who’d had too much coffee before dawn.
“News that required destroying my croissants?”
“I didn’t destroy them. You caught them. They’re fine.” Melusia waved a hand dismissively. “Besides, I have gossip. Enormous gossip. About the Polk appraisal.”
Esmeralda’s expression sharpened. “Gerald Polk? He’s coming to town?”
“Tomorrow! To appraise Eleanor’s estate. I heard it from Martha Green, who heard it from the executor’s secretary, who heard it from—”
“Melusia.” Esmeralda’s voice could have frozen lava. “We have customers.”
The bell above the front door chimed, as if to punctuate her point.
Melusia’s mouth snapped shut. She gave me a look that promised more gossip later and retreated toward the storage room, somehow managing to knock over a stack of paper napkins on her way.
I pushed through to the front counter with the coffee pot, still processing the whirlwind that was Melusia. She’d been Esmeralda’s partner in magic, if not in business, for as long as I’d known either of them. Powerful in her own way. Also completely chaotic. Her spells worked about seventy percent of the time. The other thirty percent usually involved fire, property damage, or temporary transformations of body parts.
Gone With the Whisk was already filling up with the usual crowd. Retirees claiming their regular tables like they’d staked them out with tiny flags. Construction workers grabbing pastries to go, still trailing sawdust and the smell of lumber. A few tourists who’d wandered in from the Desert Stagecoach Motel, squinting at the menu like it contained state secrets.
The morning light streamed through the windows in golden bars, catching the dust motes floating through the air and making the pink-and-white Candyland decor look almost magical.
Which it kind of was. But the customers didn’t need to know that.
I’d just finished topping off Mrs. Dolan’s coffee when the door opened and Cordelia Lee swept in like she owned the place. Perfectly coiffed silver hair, expensive jewelry, and an expression that suggested she’d just smelled something unfortunate.
She’d been wearing that expression around me for two years now. Ever since the coffee incident.
“Tara.” She said my name like it was a particularly unfortunate skin condition. “I’ll have my usual.”
“Morning, Cordelia. Coming right up.”
I went behind the counter to grab a croissant and nearly bumped into Henrietta. She wobbled on her club foot but managed to look dignified about it. Born with the defect, she’d adapted to her awkward gait with the same stubborn determination she applied to everything else.
“She still hasn’t forgiven you for the blouse thing, huh?” Henrietta’s voice was only audible to me, the telepathic bond between witch and familiar meaning everyone else just heard soft clucking. A familiar was a witch’s magical companion, bonded at a soul level, able to communicate mind-to-mind. Most witches got cats or ravens. I got a two-pound chicken with attitude problems.
“It was one cup of coffee. Two years ago.”
“It was her lucky blouse. The one she wore when she won the slot machine jackpot in 1987.”
I delivered Cordelia’s croissant with my best customer-service smile. She inspected it like she was checking for evidence of tampering.
“The edges are a bit brown,” she announced.
“That’s called ‘baked,’ Cordelia.”
Her eyes narrowed, but before she could fire back, Esmeralda emerged from the kitchen. My boss was tall and statuesque, her wispy gray hair streaked with silver, cat-eye glasses giving her the look of a glamorous librarian from another era. She was also one of the most powerful witches in Nevada, but the tourists didn’t need to know that either.
“Good morning, Cordelia.” Esmeralda’s voice could have chilled ice cream. “I see you’re enjoying our croissants.”
Something about her tone made Cordelia’s complaints die in her throat. She mumbled something that might have been “fine” and retreated to a corner table.
Esmeralda caught my eye and tilted her head toward the back. “When the rush dies down, we should practice. Melusia has some thoughts on technique.”
My stomach tightened.
Practice meant psychometry training. I’d been working on the object-reading ability for weeks now, ever since that first clumsy attempt during the Eleanor Graves case, when I’d gotten a grief-pulse from touching Lila’s painting supplies. The ability was still unreliable. The impressions frustratingly vague more often than not. But Esmeralda insisted the only way to improve was consistent practice.
And now Melusia wanted to help.
That was either going to be very educational or very, very dangerous.
I glanced toward Esmeralda’s office door. Just for a second.
That was where I’d found the photo three weeks ago. The one of a woman who looked exactly like me at twenty, standing next to a younger Esmeralda. I’d wanted to ask about it. I’d meant to ask about it. But every time I got close, the words dried up in my throat, and things between us had felt different ever since.
Esmeralda’s posture shifted, almost imperceptibly. “We’re making progress. Your control is improving.”
“Right. Yeah. After lunch?”
She nodded and headed back toward the kitchen.
The morning rush kept me busy enough that I didn’t have time to think about the photo, or the weird tension, or anything else. I poured coffee, delivered pastries, smiled until my cheeks ached, and listened to Henrietta’s running commentary on the customers.
“That man’s having an affair.” She nodded toward a nervous-looking guy in a business suit. “Look at him checking his phone. Classic guilt.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know everything. I’m a chicken of superior intellect.”
By noon, the crowd had thinned. I wiped down tables, refilled the napkin dispensers, and tried to ignore the flutter of anticipation in my chest. Dinner with Ryan tonight. Our fourth official date, if you counted the time we’d grabbed sandwiches at his desk while he was buried in paperwork.
I counted it.
“Tara.” Esmeralda’s voice came from the doorway to the back. “We have time now.”
I followed her through the kitchen, past the massive industrial ovens and the cooling racks of afternoon pastries, into the small storage room she used for magical instruction. Henrietta waddled along behind us, her club foot tap-tap-tapping on the tile floor.
Melusia was already there.
She’d dragged an extra stool into the cramped space and was perched on it like an excited bird, practically vibrating with energy. The room smelled of cardboard and flour, cluttered with boxes and supplies. Esmeralda had cleared a small table in the center. On it sat a single object: an old teacup, white with faded blue flowers around the rim.
“Ooh, the teacup.” Melusia leaned forward. “Excellent choice. Very emotional resonance.”
Esmeralda gave her a look. “Same as before, Tara. Focus your intent. Don’t force the connection. Let it come to you. Control the flow.”
“But also,” Melusia interrupted, “have you tried the amplification technique I mentioned? The one with the—”
“No amplification techniques.” Esmeralda’s voice was firm. “We’re building fundamentals.”
“The fundamentals are boring. She’s been doing fundamentals for weeks.” Melusia turned to me with the eager expression of a used car salesman. “I have a little spell that could help. Just a tiny one. It enhances magical sensitivity. Makes the impressions clearer.”
“This is going to end badly,” Henrietta observed from her perch on a flour sack. “I can smell disaster. It smells like singed feathers and regret.”
I hesitated. “What kind of spell?”
“Nothing major! Just a little boost. I tested it on myself last week. Worked perfectly.”
Esmeralda pinched the bridge of her nose. “Melusia, the last time you ‘tested something on yourself,’ you turned your left ear invisible for three days.”
“But it came back! Good as new!”
I should have said no. I knew I should have said no. But there was something about Melusia’s enthusiasm that was hard to refuse, and honestly, my psychometry was frustratingly inconsistent. Maybe something could actually help.
“Okay,” I said. “Just a small boost.”
Melusia clapped her hands together with glee. “Wonderful! Now, hold out your hand. Your dominant hand. The one you use for readings.”
I extended my right hand toward her. Melusia’s fingers hovered over mine, and she began muttering under her breath. Words in a language I didn’t recognize, syllables that seemed to shimmer in the air.
My nose twitched. The telltale itch that always preceded magic.
“Melusia,” Esmeralda said warningly.
“Almost done, almost done…”
A pulse of warmth shot through my hand. Then my fingers started tingling. Then—
I looked down and screamed.
My hand was gone.
Not gone as in cut off, but gone as in invisible. I could still feel it. I wiggled my fingers and felt them respond. But where my hand should have been, there was nothing but empty air.
“Nobody panic!” Melusia said, which was becoming a concerning catchphrase.
“She did it again,” Henrietta said with grim satisfaction. “I called it. I absolutely called it.”
“Melusia.” Esmeralda’s voice could have cut diamonds. “That was a partial invisibility spell, not an amplification charm.”
“Was it? Oh dear.” Melusia squinted at my invisible hand with genuine confusion. “I must have grabbed the wrong incantation. They sound so similar in the original Akkadian.”
“Fix it.”
“Of course, of course. Give me just a moment.”
I waved my invisible hand in front of my face. It was deeply, deeply unsettling. “How long does this last?”
“Usually just a few minutes. Unless.” Melusia winced.
“Unless what?”
“Unless I said the permanent version by mistake.”
“The permanent version?”
“I’m sure I didn’t! Probably. Mostly sure.” She patted my shoulder reassuringly with her visible hand. “Let me try the counter-spell.”
More muttering. More tingling. I held my breath.
My hand shimmered back into existence. Fingers, palm, everything where it should be. I flexed them experimentally. All working.
“See?” Melusia beamed. “Good as new.”
Esmeralda closed her eyes for a long moment. “Experimental magic before breakfast. Every single time.”
“It’s after lunch.”
“The point stands.” Esmeralda turned to me with the weary patience of someone who’d been dealing with Melusia for decades. “Let’s try again. Without the boost this time.”
I reached for the teacup. My nose twitched again, and my fingers made contact with the cold ceramic.
For a moment, nothing.
Then the sadness came. Deep, aching grief. But this time, instead of hitting me like a punch to the chest the way it had during my first attempts, it flowed more gently. Still intense. Still heavy. But manageable. I could feel the shape of it: loss, longing, the daily ritual of drinking tea alone when there used to be two cups on the table.
I pulled my hand back. Carefully this time. Controlled.
“Better.” There was genuine approval in Esmeralda’s voice. “What did you sense?”
“Sadness. Loss. Someone drinking alone after they used to share the ritual with someone else.” I paused, trying to articulate what I’d felt. “A husband, maybe?”
Esmeralda nodded slowly. “The cup belonged to a woman whose husband died young. She used it every morning for thirty years.” She paused. “Your impressions are getting clearer. And you didn’t look like you were about to pass out this time.”
“Or turn invisible,” Melusia added helpfully.
“That was your fault,” Esmeralda said.
“I was trying to help!”
“Remember the cleaning spell?” Henrietta’s voice was dry. “When the brooms chased Tara around the stockroom for twenty minutes?”
“That was one time,” Melusia protested. “And they weren’t chasing her. They were enthusiastically following.”
I rubbed my temples. My head was starting to throb, the familiar magical hangover, but it was more of a dull ache than the splitting pain I’d experienced during those first attempts.
Progress. Despite the chaos.
“It’s still exhausting,” I admitted.
“It gets easier. You’re building the muscle.” Esmeralda removed her glasses and polished them on her apron, not meeting my eyes. “This will be useful. When you’re investigating.”
I wanted to say something. To ask about the photo. The woman who looked like me. Why Esmeralda had a picture of her, and why she’d been so evasive about it ever since.
The questions burned in my throat.
But I chickened out. Again.
“Thanks for the session,” I said instead. “Same time tomorrow?”
Something crossed Esmeralda’s face. Relief, maybe. Or disappointment. It was gone before I could identify it. “Same time tomorrow.”
“And next time,” Melusia said brightly, “I’ll bring the amplification spell. The correct one.”
“No,” Esmeralda and I said in unison.
Melusia pouted but didn’t argue.
I stood to leave, and Henrietta hopped down from her perch.
“Chicken,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“I said ‘chicken.’ As in, that’s what you are. Big, clucking chicken.” She fixed me with a look that managed to be both superior and sympathetic. “You want to ask her about the photo. You’re never going to ask her about the photo. Bawk bawk.”
I scooped her up. She squawked in protest but settled into my arms as I headed for the door.
“Come on. I need to get home and change for dinner.”
“Oh, right. Your date with Sheriff Handsome.” She let out a resigned sigh. “Don’t stay out too late. Some of us need our beauty sleep.”
“You’re a chicken. You sleep whenever you want.”
“And I look fabulous doing it.”
By the time I got home, the afternoon sun was slanting through my bedroom window, and I had exactly two hours to transform myself from bakery-dusted employee to date-worthy human.
My bedroom looked like a clothing store had exploded. Three different outfits lay rejected on the bed, and Henrietta was offering commentary from her spot on my pillow.
“Not that one. You look like you’re going to a funeral.”
I held up the black dress. “What’s wrong with black?”
“Nothing, if you’re mourning. Are you mourning?”
I tossed it aside and grabbed the blue blouse instead. Henrietta made a thoughtful clucking sound.
“Better. Brings out your eyes.” She paused. “Not that I care what the sheriff thinks of your eyes.”
“Of course not.”
“I definitely don’t care that he makes you happy. That’s irrelevant to me.”
I buttoned the blouse and checked my reflection. My dark hair was behaving for once, falling past my shoulders in waves that usually had a mind of their own. The blue really did bring out the brown of my eyes behind my glasses. At five-nine, I took up more mirror real estate than most women, all pale skin that refused to tan no matter how much Nevada sun I got. I looked nothing like Mom, who was barely five-two with honey-blonde hair and pale green eyes. People had always assumed I was adopted even before I knew for sure. Good enough.
Mom was working the evening shift at the gas station, so the house was quiet. I pictured her behind the counter, wearing one of her usual outfits, probably something involving neon and ruffles, under her gas station uniform. Her honey-blonde hair was going gray at the temples now. She’d always been petite and energetic, throwing herself into one get-rich-quick scheme after another with the optimism of someone who refused to learn from experience. I thought about her offer, the one she’d made three weeks ago, with an uncharacteristic softness in her voice. We could look at your adoption papers together, if you want. I know you’ve been curious.
I did want. I’d been curious my whole life about where I came from, who my birth parents were, why they’d given me up. And now, with the photo in Esmeralda’s office adding another layer of mystery, the questions felt more urgent than ever.
But not tonight. Tonight was about Ryan. About being normal and happy and not thinking about secrets or magic or the complicated tangle of my past.
I grabbed my purse and headed for the door.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Henrietta called after me.
“You’re a chicken. Your standards are pretty low.”
“I take offense at that. I have very high standards. I simply choose not to enforce them.”
The evening air was warm and dry as I walked to my car, a beat-up Jeep that had cost me way too much and broke down at least once a month. October had arrived, but the desert didn’t cool down easily. The sky was painted in shades of orange and pink, and the mountains in the distance looked purple in the dying light.
Windfall, Nevada. Population: not enough to matter.
Two years ago, I’d come back here feeling like a failure, my flight attendant career in ruins, my life a mess. Now it felt like home.
Funny how that worked.
The drive to Peg’s took all of five minutes. By the time I pulled into the gravel lot, the sky had deepened to violet and the neon sign was buzzing to life.
Peg’s Ham & Eggs was crowded for a weeknight, but Ryan had snagged our usual booth by the window. He stood when he saw me, old-fashioned and sweet in a way that still made my chest warm. His smile could have powered the whole restaurant.
“Hey, you.”
“Hey, yourself.”
He was still in his sheriff’s uniform, which meant he’d come straight from work. Tall, lean, sandy blond hair perpetually in need of a trim, jade-green eyes that crinkled at the corners when he smiled. Two years ago, I’d thought he was a smug cowboy wannabe.
Now I thought he was a smug cowboy wannabe that I happened to be crazy about.
Darlene appeared at our table before I’d even finished sliding into the booth. “Well, well. The lovebirds.” She snapped her gum and grinned. “The usual?”
“Please,” Ryan said.
“Burger and fries for the sheriff, chicken fried steak for the lady, no slaw, extra fries, and two iced teas.” She scribbled on her pad. “You two are adorable. It’s disgusting.”
“Thanks, Darlene.”
“Don’t mention it.”
She bustled off, and Ryan reached across the table to take my hand. His palm was warm and rough, the hand of someone who wasn’t afraid of work.
“Long day?” I asked.
“The usual. Noise complaint at the trailer park. Someone’s dog got into Mrs. Dolan’s garden again. Oh, and I had to break up an argument at the general store over who was next in line.”
“The excitement never stops in Windfall.”
“Tell me about it.” He squeezed my fingers. “How was your day?”
My thoughts drifted to Ashley behind that counter, probably rolling her eyes at the commotion while mentally composing a text to tell me about it later. I should call her. We hadn’t really talked since I’d started dating Ryan, not properly. She’d been teasing me about him for months, and now that something was actually happening, I’d been weirdly secretive about it.
I pushed the guilt aside and focused on Ryan’s question.
I thought about the psychometry practice, the aching sadness of the teacup, the photo I was too chicken to ask about. The invisible hand incident.
“Normal. Busy morning at the cafe. Cordelia complained about her croissant. Melusia accidentally made my hand invisible.”
Ryan blinked. “She what?”
“Long story. It came back.”
He shook his head with a fond sort of exasperation. He didn’t know about the magic. He thought Melusia was just an eccentric old woman who helped around the bakery. But he’d learned not to ask too many questions about the weird things that happened around me.
Small mercies.
Our food arrived quickly. Peg ran a tight ship. For a while we just ate and talked about nothing, the comfortable rhythm of two people who’d found their way past awkward and into something easy. I liked this. The simplicity of it. The way he looked at me like I was someone worth looking at.
“So,” Ryan said, pushing his empty plate aside, “I need your help with something.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Official sheriff business?”
“Semi-official.” He leaned back, running a hand through his hair, a gesture I’d learned meant he was thinking something through. “You remember Eleanor Graves? The historian who was killed a few months back?”
How could I forget? I’d solved her murder. Not that Ryan knew the full story of how.
“Her house is finally being dealt with. Estate stuff, you know. An antiques dealer is coming up from Reno tomorrow to appraise everything. Guy named Gerald Polk, an old local who used to live in Windfall before moving to the city.” Ryan shrugged. “It’s routine, but I told the executor I’d stop by, make sure everything goes smoothly.”
“And you want me there because…?”
“Because you notice things.” He said it simply, like it was obvious. “You’re good at reading people, picking up on details. And I value your perspective.”
Something warm spread through my chest. He trusted me. He actually trusted me and wanted my help.
The guilt came a half-second later. Sharp and familiar.
Because he didn’t know. He didn’t know about the magic, about Henrietta, about any of it. He trusted a version of me that wasn’t the whole truth.
I pushed the feeling down. Not tonight.
“I’d love to come,” I said.
His smile was worth the lie. “Great. I’ll pick you up around nine?”
“It’s a date. A semi-official date.”
He laughed, and the sound was better than cinnamon rolls, better than desert sunsets, better than anything I could have imagined two years ago when I’d stumbled back into this town with nothing but a broken-down car and a bad attitude.
Ryan took my hand again. We sat there in the sticky vinyl booth at Peg’s Ham & Eggs, surrounded by the clatter of dishes and the smell of frying bacon, and I felt happy.
Completely, ridiculously happy.
I should have known it wouldn’t last.