Sugar Coated Hex, page 7
"Oh. Well what was he saying then? You looked ready to bite his head off."
Sheriff Lamoure's voice boomed loudly over the lawn, drawing Riley's attention away from me, thankfully. I didn't know how to answer her question. "We'll break up into groups," Lamoure said, appointing everyone to a different section of forest.
"Trolls will go deep into the forest, towards the fire pits." A group of scaly gray and green creatures eight to ten feet tall grunted and waved. A smaller section of dwarf trolls, a third the size of the first group, made odd gurgling noises that sound like a clogged up drain. Sheriff Lamoure took it all in stride. She grunted right back at them.
"The trolls say that if there are any among you with powerful wizarding skills, you may accompany them towards the pits, but I stress that this job should be reserved for only those with the talent to withstand attacks by grizzly-weres and giant raccoons. The fire pits are nothing to be taken lightly."
There were murmurs through the crowds as a few macho men stepped up to the plate, wanting a chance to prove themselves. A few witches joined them, wanting to prove that they could do anything men could do, in some cases better.
"Fairies, I'd like you to fly around the tree tops. You can move fast and see things from different vantage points. Things that we might miss." The winged creatures fluttered around us as she spoke. They were tiny, sparkly things with wings that were nearly invisible. A few hundred of them could have probably fit into the back seat of a car.
Riley sidled up to them and started clicking her tongue. Conrad and I watched her, fascinated. I had no idea what she was saying, I only knew that it was their way of communicating. Riley, being one-quarter fairy, had been born with the ability to speak to them without ever having had to learn the language. She knew it instinctively. Her mom, Karyn, was the same way. Maybe even more so since she was half fairy.
Riley's father had died when she was just a baby. A vampire hunter had gotten hold of him while he was sleeping in a vacation crypt and staked the poor guy. He never even heard him coming. At least it had been fast.
Riley clucked her tongue a few more times, waved to her mom who was coming towards them, then looped arms with me and Conrad and said, "Okay, let's go."
"Where?" Conrad asked.
"Where Sheriff Lamoure said." I looked at Conrad, who shrugged his confusion at me. "Towards the fire pits," Riley said. "I know where they are. Come on."
Conrad and I exchanged a look. "Riley, the sheriff said only the best wizards and witches should go that way."
"Yeah, well, that's us. I've got crazy good witch skills."
Riley had enormous confidence in our abilities. I wasn't sure it was at all justified. "How about we go towards the water spouts instead?"
"Fire pits sound way more interesting, don't you think?"
"Until today, I didn't even know there were fire pits in there. I don't think I'm the person to go in search of them."
Conrad nodded vigorously next to me.
"Okay, fine," Riley rolled her eyes. "Water spouts it is."
We headed into the forest, Riley leading the charge as usual. Conrad and I tried to keep up with her.
"Slow down!" he finally yelled and she stopped moving so fast. "We're supposed to be looking for clues. We could be walking right by Jackie and not even know it at the speed you're going."
The natural rouge in Riley's cheeks erupted. "Sorry," she said.
We walked a more natural pace the rest of the way. "So what's going on with your grandma?" Riley ventured. "I mean, I'm sure she didn't do it, but why did she have Deputy Anderson's badge in her purse?"
"I wish I knew."
It was funny how the people that knew us best insisted we didn't do it, but no one had a more plausible explanation. How did that badge get in Grandma's purse? Why was she in the forest that night? We walked in silence a few minutes. I was thinking about Grandma sitting in a jail cell, cold and alone. The image made me want to cry.
"Maybe there's a way to help her," I said, more to myself than to Riley or Conrad.
"What?" they asked, they'd been lost in their own thoughts.
"My grandma." My heart skipped a beat as my inner brainworks started to spin. "Look, the guy who ran away from me, AKA the real killer, burned his arm when he was in the forest. I saw it happen."
"He did?" Riley asked, her interest perking almost instantly. "Did you tell anyone that?"
"Yeah, of course. I told Commissioner Burke that night. He told Sheriff Lamoure. It didn't occur to me until just this second, but if I made a list of everyone at the party, I could go down it one by one and check for burn marks myself. If they don't have any, then I could scratch them off the list."
"Last one left is the killer!" Riley said excitedly. Even Conrad seemed excited. We started going over everyone who'd been there, trying to compile a mental list of every guest. We made it all the way to the water's edge before we realized we were there. A giant spout shot up from the ground. It could have rivaled Old Faithful.
"This is getting us nowhere," Riley said. "We should go back and work on your list. Whoever took Jackie wouldn't have taken her here."
"How do you know?" I asked.
"Because it makes no sense. There's nothing out here. Maybe whoever took her is a woman who can't have children of her own. Or one who has kids but doesn't get along with them."
I shivered as an image of Grandma Elspeth entered my mind. I'd heard the stories of my parents' elopement. The rift it had taken years to repair. The hurt. The anger. Was it possible that Grandma still wasn't over it? Her feelings towards my father hadn't changed much. She'd accepted him, but never really made peace with him.
"Hey," Conrad said suddenly, kneeling down beside a thick patch of grass. "What's this?" He pulled something from the weeds and held it out for us to see.
Riley's face went pale. "Is that... a shoe?" she asked.
"A baby's shoe," I corrected.
Conrad stared at it a second before dropping it back to the ground as if it had just burned him. "We'd better get the sheriff."
***
12
The baby's shoe belonged to Jackie. Her parents identified the little pink bows attached to the ends of the shoelaces that they had thought were so cute. Sheriff Lamoure and Commissioner Burke had sent every available search party to the area where we'd found it, but there had been nothing else to find. Other than the shoe, the place was empty of clues.
No footprints. No tire tracks. No anything that could lead the police to anyone or any place. The Campbell's were inconsolable. They demanded that Sheriff Lamoure do something about Elspeth's continued silence.
Since her arrest, Grandma had said very little other than that she was innocent. Most people doubted her statement, including Mary and Harrison Campbell. They'd questioned the sheriff's arrest of her at first, arguing that she was the mother of a dear friend and couldn't possibly be responsible, but after learning that Grandma had been carrying Deputy Anderson's badge in her purse, they'd slowly and surely changed their minds.
They never said anything to us, but it became quite obvious that they were no longer on our side when they went to Cake Bank to purchase pastries as a thank you for all the volunteers searching for Jackie. They'd never even asked us for a cookie. Mary actually went to see Grandma in jail to implore her to tell them where their daughter was at. Grandma had looked sadly back at her and said, "If I knew, I would tell you."
My mom was there now, at the jail. She'd been there to visit Grandma every day since the arrest was made, often leaving me in charge of the bakery. You'd have thought that business at the bakery would have died down since Grandma Elspeth's arrest, but it had actually increased. People wanted a look at the place where The Baby Snatcher worked.
That's what they were calling Grandma now. The Baby Snatcher. They used it the same as a title, like King or Queen.
"I heard that Baby Snatcher Elspeth was making cookies when Sheriff Lamoure arrested her."
"I heard the cookies had blood baked into them, Baby Snatcher Elspeth must like the taste of it."
"I heard Baby Snatcher Elspeth ran out the back door and it took ten men to bring her down."
The rumors were abundant, frivolous, and downright bizarre at times. The worst I'd heard so far had been the one stating that my grandmother was secretly in league with the dragons rumored to live in Fire Forest, and she'd sacrificed Jackie and Deputy Anderson to keep them happy.
It didn't matter that there had never actually been a dragon spotted in Fire Forest. It didn't matter that Grandma didn't actually work at our bakery, she lived in Albany, New York. Why would she be working in Hollow Oak, Iowa? It was hundreds of miles away. Elspeth had been helping us out at Hot Crossed Cakes when the sheriff arrested her though, so that was all anybody could focus on.
It was all rumors and gossip and I resented that business was booming because of it. I'd rather have had everyone go to Cake Bank for their pastries. At least then I wouldn't have felt so icky every time I asked a customer, "Would you like to make that a dozen cookies for one dollar more?" It felt like I was selling out, adding to the stupor.
My dad and our assistant baker, Fawna Merryweather, were here with me, which helped, but as busy as we were I could hardly say two words to either of them all day. We spoke in rushed snippets of conversation. My dad walking past me, a tray of brownies fresh from the oven, "Cici. Brownies. Out." Almost out of breath as he ran from one side of the bakery to the other.
I responded with equally short sentences, "Gotcha. Great."
I hadn't even seen Fawna in the last two hours. She was stuck in back, churning out tray after tray of baked goods, unable to surface for the briefest of minutes lest she risk falling behind, and us having empty display cases. It was a good thing she had the energy to do it. She was nineteen and wanted to be a master baker. She was halfway there, as far as I could tell. Grandpa Perseus was back at our house. He said if we needed him we could call, but me, Mom, and Dad had decided amongst ourselves that he was too upset about Elspeth to be of much use.
He roamed around the house most mornings muttering in rhyme, "Elsie, why you... Elsie, it can't be true." Last night, we'd found him in the garage sleepwalking. He hadn't even eaten any eggplant! He was holding a golf club, swinging it in wild arcs over his head and shouting, "Get away you heathens! I'll protect the golden egg!"
Yes, better to keep him away from the bakery and the town's talk than to put him in front of it.
The phone rang and I grabbed it before anyone else could. At least it would give me a minute to stand still and rest my feet. "Hot Crossed Cakes," I said into the phone.
"Cici, it's mom."
"Hey, Mom, how's it going down there?" She was at the sheriff's station, talking to Grandma and trying to reason with the sheriff as if she could talk Grandma's way out of prison.
"Not well, I'm afraid."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
She sighed. "It's okay. Listen, I'll be a little longer than I thought. Commissioner Burke is coming by in a little while. He wants to talk to me about something so I'm just gonna wait for him."
"Maybe he's got his order ready for the Policeman's Ball."
"Maybe." Her voice was strained. "Anyway, it's probably better for your grandma if I stick around a little while longer," she dropped her voice, "I think she's getting a little batty in The Cage."
"The Cage?" I giggled.
"Apparently, that's what the prisoners call it."
It sounded strange to my ears, referring to Grandma Elspeth as a prisoner.
"How are things there?" Mom asked. She was trying to keep her voice light but it wasn't fooling me for a second.
"Fine," I told her. "Busy, actually. If this keeps up we're gonna need to hire more help."
"I guess that's one good thing that's come from this," she said. I said nothing.
"Cici!" my dad called, waving wildly to me and pointing at a customer. My eyes bugged open.
"Mom, I gotta go."
I ran to Mrs. Quincey, the principal of Hollow Oak Elementary. "Cici, there you are," she said smiling.
"Reese, hi."
I felt a layer of sweat suddenly break out all over my body. My armpits were turning into waterfalls.
"I suppose you're here for the cookies," I said, breathing heavily and trying to hide it. Calm down.
"Yes, our fundraiser is tomorrow. It's going to be our biggest one yet." Something about my expression must have given me away. "They're ready, right?" she asked.
"Oh, yeah. I mean, mostly." I was mentally counting up all the chocolate chip cookies we currently had on hand. We were going to need every single one of them, plus another fifteen hundred more, at least. I saw my dad packing up a dozen for Brian Cooper and wanted to shout at him to stop that. Now. Instead, I smiled at Reese.
"Oh, don't worry, I'll have them ready by tonight. Things just got a little hectic around here. How about I drop them by the school for you first thing in the morning? It'll be easier for you that way, too. You won't have to fit them all in your car. We have a bakery van we can use."
"I hadn't thought of that," she turned and squinted out the window at her car parked across the street. She'd have been lucky to fit a few hundred cookies in there let alone two thousand.
There was a woman staring in at us from behind the glass. I recognized the unicorn tattoo before I recognized her face. Sean's ex-girlfriend. What was her name? Blair. She watched me watch her, which somehow made her even creepier. She smiled, showing too many teeth, perfectly even and straight teeth, like they were all caps.
What is she doing here?
"I don't think two thousand cookies will fit in my Corolla," Reese murmured, turning back to me. "Are you certain you'll be able to get them to the school in the morning? The fundraiser starts at eight."
"Absolutely."
"Alright then, I'll look for you tomorrow. Thanks, Cici." She hesitated before leaving. "If you talk to your grandma, tell her I'm pulling for her." She offered a small, hopeful smile which I returned. It was nice to know not everyone in town was against us.
When she was gone, I ran to our display case and pulled every chocolate chip cookie from the shelf. Groans and cries of "What the..." rang out. My dad looked over at me, his brow scrunched.
"What are you doing?" he asked. It was the first complete sentence he'd said to me all morning.
"Hollow Oak Elementary," I told him. "Fundraiser." I still had no time for complete sentences. His brown eyes widened.
"I'll tell Fawna," he said and ran into the back. By the time I got back there, Fawna had already set up a dozen baking trays and was spilling a pound of sugar into a giant mixing bowl.
"Thanks for telling me," she snapped when I came in. "Two thousand cookies by tomorrow? On top of everything else?"
"Sorry. With everything that's happened, I just forgot all about it." I blinked back some low-level tears that were threatening to ring themselves from my eyes. My mom was counting on me and I was messing up. Bad.
Fawna groaned. "It can be done, but there's not a minute to waste."
She fixed her ponytail and went to grab another pound of sugar. At least I'd remembered to stock up. It was the actual baking that I'd forgotten. I helped her in back until my father called me, desperate for counter help. I ran out front, my head spinning like a yo-yo as I passed back and forth the two halves of our store.
Blair Webster was still staring in through the window. It had been at least an hour. A chill ran up my spine.
"Cici!" my father called. "Cupcakes. Frosting. Help." He was pointing at a tray of cupcakes that had fallen over somehow, frosting everywhere.
"Yeah, just a minute, Dad."
I went to the front door with the intention of asking Blair what the heck she was doing here. The second the door opened, she took off running. I watched her go and shook my head. Weirdo.
When my mom finally got back to the bakery, things had slowed down enough so that we could breathe. There were still customers, but it wasn't the frantic rush it had been earlier. I was in back helping Fawna, who was one-third of the way to our goal. I was going to have to stay here all night to finish, but I couldn't make Fawna do that.
My mom wandered into the back, her apron already smeared with sugar crystals and food coloring. "How's Grandma?" I asked her.
"Holding up." There was a hard pause in her voice that made me look up.
"Mom? Is something wrong?"
"Police Commissioner Burke decided that, under the circumstances, Cake Bank might be a better fit to cater the Policeman's Ball."
My jaw dropped open. I put down the mixing spoon I was holding. Even Fawna stopped long enough to throw my mom a sympathetic look.
"But he already gave the job to us."
"He's changed his mind. I understand his thinking. My mother is locked up in one of his cells. How would it look to the public?"
"Forget the public," I said. "A promise is a promise."
My mom grabbed a mixing bowl and some flour. "Cici, sometimes things don't always turn out the way you think it will."
***
13
I stayed up till three finishing things for Hollow Oak Elementary. My mom helped but sent my dad home at midnight because, she said, one of us had to have enough energy to open up the bakery tomorrow.
When we finally did get home, Sasha and Tiger were curled up in my bed. Tiger opened one eye. "You look tired," he said. He woke up Sasha, made her scooch over, then curled up in the crook of my arm as I fell asleep. Three hours later my alarm went off. I hit snooze. Five minutes later I hit it again. Five minutes after that, Tiger was pulling at the bottom of my bed sheet.
"You need to get up," he said. "Hollow Oak Elementary is expecting those cookies by seven."
I shot up in bed. "Where's my mom?" Tiger pawed at my foot as it moved under the blanket, playing a game with my wiggling toes.
"Sasha is getting her up. I'm working on you. Now you'd better hurry."
I scratched Tiger behind the ears and dressed so quickly I didn't even know what I was wearing. Between us, my mom and I got the cookies loaded up, my dad opened the store, and things went smoother than I would have thought. Mrs. Quincy was pleased with the cookies and the prompt delivery. We helped her set them out on the tables then my mom headed over to the jail. I went back to Hot Crossed Cakes.
