“I suppose I’ll have to stay here,” Gran said, “as Karmen knows me.” And then she turned to me. “But I think you should take Margaret Twigg. Margaret may be the only witch who can keep this one in line.”
I wanted to take Margaret Twigg along about as much as I wanted to face down a witch who’d pretty much tried to murder me, but Gran was right. Rafe and Sylvia were strong and powerful, but they weren’t our kind.
However, when I called Margaret Twigg, she didn’t pick up.
We’d go without her.
Chapter 10
I hadn’t warmed to Karmen, the Wicked Witch of Wallingford, and I’d definitely been wary of a woman who’d sell hexes that caused the amount of damage poor Violet had sustained, but I hadn’t thought she would try to murder me. I still didn’t understand why she would. She had to know there were going to be consequences.
And the consequences were on their way.
I was glad that Rafe and I were driving separately from Sylvia, because it was really important we got there first. Sylvia in the Bentley would, with any luck, arrive after me and Rafe in the Tesla.
I found my hands were trembling with the combination of rage and trepidation. I didn’t enjoy having enemies. Yet, somehow, I’d managed to get myself a deadly one. Margaret Twigg had been warning me that dark forces were coming. Was this what she’d meant?
I’d imagined a big confrontation between good witches and bad witches, not that I would be the victim of a single, mean witch. What had I ever done to Karmen? When I voiced this idea, Rafe looked at me.
“Maybe she’s jealous.”
“Jealous of me?” It was ludicrous.
He shrugged. “A woman who will work that hard to look eternally young and beautiful might be overcome with rage seeing your actual youth and beauty. She could never quite recapture a bloom like yours.”
Okay, I bathed in the compliment for a bit, the way I’d roll around in a scented, warm bubble bath. Then I took in what he was really saying. “But if she had killed me, she had to know that Sylvia would come after her.”
“She may not know exactly what Sylvia is capable of. In fact, she may not know that Sylvia is undead.”
It was true enough. We hadn’t exactly advertised the fact, and we’d done the tea mug switching thing. Still, there was something about Sylvia that screamed, “Do not cross me.”
But maybe the Wicked Witch of Wallingford was so confident of her own powers that she believed she could take Sylvia. Maybe she’d assumed Sylvia would taste the elixir, not knowing that Sylvia didn’t need it.
One way or another, it was showdown time.
As we grew nearer, I spotted a car coming towards us in the other lane. I didn’t know why I looked at it. I’m not one of those people who loves cars so much they like to pick out makes and models as they drive by. It was an inborn instinct. That power that people kept telling me I had and that I was working to try and control.
The car drove by, and as I looked into it, I saw Margaret Twigg. Her face looked peculiar. Set and hard and angry. Well, that part wasn’t peculiar, except that normally she only looked like that when she was looking at me.
“That’s Margaret Twigg,” I said aloud.
“Not that surprising. This is the main road back to Oxford.”
“Huh, I wonder what she was doing out here.”
I directed Rafe to Karmen’s house, and as we pulled up, he looked around. “I remember this pub. I used to frequent it back when Sylvia was still making films.”
It was always weird when he gave me glimpses of his past, something he was doing more and more now that we were committed to each other.
I said, “It belongs to a witch now.”
He nodded. “It did then, too. But the beer was excellent.”
The lights were on in the old pub but not in the house. I said, “Let’s take a trip down memory lane. You can see what the old place looks like now. No doubt Karmen is mixing up more of her magic potion for skin creams.”
He said, “Question her carefully. Remember, we want to know why she tried to kill you.”
Now that we were here, I didn’t even want to go inside. I felt like a coward. All I wanted to do was get rid of that poison and forget the whole incident had ever happened. But I knew I couldn’t do that. I had to stop this woman from trying to kill other witches. It was bad enough when she’d made both Violet and Felicity Stevens so sick, but what was in that box would have killed me. Not cool.
Rafe obviously sensed my hesitation. “Do you want me to go in alone?” His voice sounded calm, but I saw the way his fingers tightened. I worried that his love for me might make him more revengeful and less cool than he thought he could remain. That made me brave enough to get out of the car.
“Let’s do this thing. We have to make a pact. Just because she tried to hurt me doesn’t mean that we hurt her. Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
“You may need to remind me of that again. The thought of her hurting you makes my blood boil.” He turned to stare at me. “And I’m relatively cold-blooded.”
I took his hand, and we walked forward. I knocked on the door, but there was no answer. I could see Rafe was about to break it open, but I stopped him.
“I have an unlocking spell.” I was always so pleased when I had spells at the ready that I had memorized and knew worked.
I closed my eyes, whispered the words that would unlock the door and heard the quiet click of the lock. I turned the handle and opened the door. The lights were
