Mind Over Magic by Lindsay Buroker

7

It was almostfull dark by the time gritty eyes and an aching back made Morgen give up on her cataloging-and-organizing project. She’d barely made a dent in the mess.

Admittedly, the project might not need to be done—maybe she’d given herself the only kind of task she was perfectly suited for because everything else was too daunting to deal with. But she couldn’t help but think the answer to what the bone clip was, what it did, and maybe even who had made it, could be in the cellar somewhere.

At the least, she ought to familiarize herself with what had been her grandmother’s secret life—at least secret to her family—especially if Amar had spoken the truth and Morgen had inherited some predilection for… witchiness. Witch ways. Witch blood.

Was that possible? If she hadn’t been inexplicably zapped twice today, she would have scoffed and dismissed it all, filing away everything in the cellar as a sign of an odd hobby and possible senility. But as she rubbed her fingertips together, the memory of the electrical buzzes fresh in her mind, she feared there might be something to it.

A blast of worry struck her as Morgen stepped outside, looked around, and didn’t see Lucky. She’d had the doors to the root cellar open while she’d been down there, and she’d heard him snuffling around from time to time, and he didn’t usually go far from her, but what if he’d chased something into the woods and gotten lost? Or what if he’d irked a werewolf who’d decided to eat him?

She glanced toward the two windows in the apartment above the barn, but no lights were on. Either werewolves saw in the dark, or Amar had gone out for a hunt. Or he was skulking around in the dark somewhere.

Morgen shivered. By the fading light, she grabbed Lucky’s dog dish and bag of kibble, along with the big envelope of papers she’d told Zoe about and hadn’t yet read. As soon as she found Lucky, she would go inside and peruse them.

She jogged to the porch to turn on whatever outside lights the house had so she could see more of the yard.

A thwap, thwap, thwap greeted her, and she could just make out Lucky lying on his side on the floorboards. The wood probably held lingering warmth from the sunset.

“I was worried about you, and you were up here napping?”

Thwap, thwap.

“Did you wear yourself out pretending to hunt all day? And had to collapse exhausted on the porch?”

Thwap.

Being a good dog, Lucky didn’t point out that she’d been pretending to research all day and had also exhausted herself.

“Do you want dinner?”

Lucky sprang to his feet and whined at the door.

“I thought so.”

As with treat, dinner was one of the handful of words he knew. And even though he’d never been in this house, his doggie instincts told him that food would be found inside.

In truth, most of what little food she’d brought up was in the car. Since she hadn’t grocery shopped yet, she hoped she would find canned soup or something in the pantry that she could open for herself. She wondered what it said about her that she thought more about provisions for her dog than herself.

To her surprise, a new scent filled the house when she walked in. Tomato sauce?

Had the werewolf—Amar, she reminded herself—cooked something?

Something about imagining the shaggy-haired man standing in the kitchen and stirring sauce over the stove was bizarre. Even when he was in human form, he seemed like someone who should be out in the wilds, springing over logs and crouching in the ferns as he hunted some animal.

Morgen headed warily to the kitchen, not wanting to run into Amar inside. Even if he’d had a rental agreement with Grandma for the barn, it didn’t seem right that he should feel free to wander through her house.

But it was dark in the kitchen before she turned on the lights, and she didn’t hear him clomping around in the house anywhere. Lucky ran around the kitchen table, claws clacking on the beige-and-brown vinyl floor, and didn’t give any indication that he found anything amiss—like a predator crouching behind the couch in the living room.

A window was open, and a distant howl floated in from the woods.

“Guess he’s out getting his own dinner,” Morgen said.

Radishes and carrots freshly pulled from the garden, with dirt still sticking to the roots, lay in a clump on the red-and-white checkered cloth covering the kitchen table. On the stove, she found pasta floating in a ridiculously large stock pot next to a saucepan with spaghetti sauce simmering over low heat. The jar it had come out of rested on the counter and was labeled pepper and sausage medley, but a bowl next to it held a bunch of tomato-sauce covered lumps. The… sausages? There was a dirty strainer in the sink.

“I think I have to give him points for trying, right?” Morgen assumed he’d found the sauce and noodles in the pantry and had made the best of what was there.

Lucky’s tail thwacked against the kitchen table as he pointed his nose toward the bowl of sausage bits.

“Last night, he was threatening to kill me. This is substantial progress.”

Thwack, thwack.

“Of course, he’s expecting me to solve a murder case for him. What happens if I can’t? Or if he was wrong, and Grandma’s death was truly an accident?”

Morgen snorted. Even that story was different from what the authorities had originally reported to her family. They’d said Grandma had died of natural causes. Such as the natural cause that occurred when one’s motorcycle tumbled through a guard railing and crashed into a ravine a hundred feet below.

When she’d found out about the accident, she’d assumed someone had made a mistake on the report. But now, she wondered…

Lucky whined.

“Sorry, you’re right. We should eat it while it’s warm.”

Another howl floated through the window.

“And not think about what he’s eating.” Morgen wondered if Amar was the only wolf around or if there was a pack out there. Wolves traveled in packs, didn’t they? Though there was the expression lone wolf. “Maybe I need to Google wolves and learn more about them.” She poured kibble into Lucky’s bowl. “Or I could call my sister and ask her opinion on all of this. Such as whether I should trust this guy or take the deputy’s suggestion and go back to the hotel for the night.” She dumped the sausages onto the top of the kibble. “Maybe Sian has encountered werewolves before. She spends all that time in tents in the wilds. Do you think Borneo has werewolves?”

Lucky leaned against her leg and gazed avidly at the bowl.

“You’re a lot of help with wrestling with these issues.”

Morgen set his bowl down. His tail wagged vigorously at the extra toppings.

After filling a water dish for him, she cleaned the strainer so she could remove the noodles from the water. She had little doubt that they would be mushy after floating so long, but given that she’d thought she would be eating cauliflower puffs out of a bag for dinner, she wouldn’t complain.

As she ate, she read through the papers in the envelope and found information on the various tax parcels Zoe had mentioned. She was surprised to find a letter from Grandma. Since she couldn’t have anticipated her death, Morgen hadn’t expected anything like that, though at her age, maybe she’d assumed it was coming sooner or later. A date in the top corner was from the previous year.

Dear Morgen, it read. You and your sister are the only of my kin who always shared my love of books—your mother never read much nor cared to learn about her heritage. I trust that when you look around the house, you’ll discover yours, and I hope your curiosity will drive you to learn about it.

Her heritage? The witch stuff?

Morgen rubbed her fingertips again as she read on. I do not believe your sister feels your sense of connection to this place, so it is unlikely she would ever fall in love with Wolf Wood.

Wolf Wood? Grandma had called it that? Not only Amar? Maybe werewolves had always been lurking here.

I remember you reading in the tree branches one summer.

That had been because her brothers had figured out how to lock her out of her room, not because sitting in a tree had been comfortable. She did like nature though, and she’d gone on walks with their dog Angus out here as a kid.

I believe that once you learn the secrets of Wolf Wood, you’ll agree that it must continue to be protected by our family.

“Uh.”

Lucky issued a questioning whine. He’d polished his bowl and was sitting on his haunches, gazing hopefully at the table.

“I’m getting the feeling Grandma didn’t want this place sold.”

And what secrets did the woods have? It didn’t sound like she was referring to the unexpectedly witchy root cellar.

Would Amar know? He had to have traveled all through the trees, but he wasn’t a witch, so would he know what one found interesting? Maybe some special trees grew in the area. Something with medicinal flowers or leaves that could be used in potions or tinctures or whatever witches made and shared with friends—or enemies?

“I think I’m in over my head, buddy,” Morgen said before reading the last few lines.

Lucky put his paws on the table and nudged her bowl with his nose. She admonished him and pushed him back down, though he must have worked up a larger appetite than usual running all over the property. She was out of sausages, so she gave him a carrot to nosh on.

Some dogs liked vegetables, or so she’d heard. Thus far, she hadn’t seen much evidence of it. Still, Lucky chewed heartily.

There are many who desire Wolf Wood for various reasons, the letter went on. Please protect it and maintain it as it is. Amar will help you if you let him. He can come across as gruff and occasionally ferocious, but he also cares for the land. He came from the south, but he’s come to love it as a native. Just don’t irk him, or I can’t speak to what might happen. His kind have tempers.

Best wishes,

Gwen.

Irk him, such as by failing to figure out who’d arranged for Grandma’s motorcycle to crash?

No, she would find that out. And when she did… she could point the irked Amar at the guilty party.

Snuffling came from the floor. Lucky had chewed the carrot into dozens of tiny orange bits and was nosing them.

“I should have known you would make a mess of that. I remember what you did to the blueberries you insisted you wanted last summer.” She probably shouldn’t feel smug that the stain beside the coffee table had never fully come out and that her ex-husband was the one who had to live with it now.

The phone rang. She almost hoped for her sister, that Sian would have somehow sensed that Morgen wanted to talk and called, but it was a local number.

She let it ring several times as she stared at it, her natural proclivity to let unfamiliar calls go to voice mail before deciding if she wanted to return them, but she had a hunch who it might be, and an idea percolated into her mind.

“Hello?” she answered.

“Hello, ma’am,” Magnus Christian drawled. “I just wanted to see how you’re settling in.”

“Fine, thanks.” Morgen knew exactly what he wanted and that it had nothing to do with her settling anything. But it occurred to her that if she listed the house with him, that would be one way to find out exactly who wanted it. Maybe someone had wanted it so badly that they’d been willing to kill for it. Whoever put in an offer right away might be the responsible party.

“Have you had any more time to think about listing the property?” he asked. “I’d be happy to buy you dinner tomorrow to discuss it.”

“Oh? How do you feel about cauliflower puffs?”

“Pardon?”

“Never mind. You don’t have to buy me anything, but I guess I’d be open to hearing about your plans and what we might be able to get for the place.” And who would be willing to pay it…

“Fabulous, fabulous. Let’s meet for dinner at six tomorrow—I insist on treating you—at the Timber Wolf. The locals love that place. You’ll get a great hearty meal, and I’ll give you all the details.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“Looking forward to chatting with you, darling. Good night.”

After Morgen hung up, she Googled the restaurant, having a feeling from the name that the vegetarian offerings would be scant. She was right.

“Ten kinds of steak, venison, elk, bison, and bear. Appetizer of prairie oysters. I wonder if the locals are all werewolves.”

Resolving to eat before she went and to bring back something in a doggie bag for Lucky, she debated if she should tell her plan to Amar. She had better warn him before he saw the listing in the paper. They seemed to have a truce, at least for the moment, but that might change if she started letting real-estate agents wine and dine her.

“I’ll figure out a way to let Amar know without irking him.” She thought of Grandma’s warning in the letter. “That should be possible, right? Just because Jun said I’m as warm and charismatic as a frozen pond in a remote wilderness doesn’t mean I can’t charm a werewolf, right?”

Lucky, disappointed with the carrot, returned to his empty bowl to lick it for a fourth time.