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  Elise, Jerry and the boys were already at Tilly’s house when we arrived. “I guess you ran into traffic on your way here,” she said, hugging me.

  “It was one rough block.” I kissed my aunt and admired her wild new paisley muumuu that was a party all by itself. I gave Merlin a kiss on the cheek that left him flustered.

  “These days people are entirely too free with their affections. It’s most unsettling.”

  Tilly gave each of us something to carry—paper goods, drinks and things to nibble on—and led the way out to the back patio, where the sun held the promise of warmer days to come. Zach and Noah put their phones down to play volley ball. Merlin had installed the net, resorting to magick when the ground proved too compacted for him to dig. As a result, it seemed that the net was now a permanent structure. Tilly worried it would raise her taxes. None of us had an answer for her. To be safe, she made us promise not to ever mention it to anyone.

  “You’ll never guess who called me,” I said when there was a pause in the conversation.

  Tilly took a handful of potato chips from the basket she’d placed on the little glass table beside her chair. “Valerie Duncan.”

  I laughed. “Hey, no fair. You just plucked that out of my head.” Tilly didn’t admit or deny the charge, but she never could keep a straight face when she was caught doing something improper. Everyone wanted to hear what Valerie told me, so I spent the next few minutes repeating it for the second time.

  Jerry drained his beer. “Did you ever find out who hired those goons to kidnap you?”

  “Monroe sent them to scare me into shutting down my investigation.”

  Elise laughed. “They had no clue who they were dealing with.”

  “It might not be as good for our investigations, but I’d prefer it if she kept a lower profile,” Travis put in. “Too many people hear about super sleuth here and the bad guys will up their game when they go after her. All it takes is one mistake, one miscalculation…”

  “There’s always a party pooper at every party.” I gave him a wink.

  “It doesn’t take a detective to figure out why Liam stabbed his sister in the back,” Tilly said. “He probably couldn’t have done it facing her. But here’s my question: why did that bio-whatever scanner indicate Liam was in the office when he wasn’t?”

  “Liam’s firm was using the scanners primarily to keep strangers out. So everyone had to scan to get into work, but didn’t have to when leaving. Liam scanned in, then left and drove down to New Camel where he had a lunch date with Ava. He killed her, then drove back up to his office in Buffalo and left with everyone else at the end of the day.”

  Zach and Noah challenged Travis and Jerry to a game of volley ball.

  “Didn’t anyone notice that Liam was gone for most of the day?” Elise asked me.

  “Apparently it wasn’t unusual for the CPA’s to be out in the field from time to time. Home visits were a service the firm offered their wealthier clientele. Besides, Liam wasn’t exactly a social butterfly. He kept to himself, never formed any close friendships with his colleagues.”

  The calls and laughter from the volley ball game drew our attention. It was a fight to the finish—muscles and experience against youth and enthusiasm. Youth won to the men’s dismay. By then Zach and Noah had had enough, so Elise and I were recruited. We gave it our all, but Travis and Jerry pulled it out at the end, salvaging their male pride. When it was time to fire up the grill, another male dominated sport, Tilly was happy to hand over the tools and prep the sides in the kitchen. I ran home to feed Sashkatu and company and was back well before the food was ready.

  An hour later, we’d all overeaten. Merlin’s normal pallor had taken on an edge of green. “I think he’s finally reached his limit,” Tilly said. “I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

  Since Jerry hadn’t yet been given clearance to the Wilde family secrets, I took the wizard aside with a question that had been nagging at me. “Is there any chance we could move the ley lines back into their original position with magick?”

  Merlin frowned. “On one hand, I suppose it might be possible. But on the other, it could cause a worse disruption in the entire matrix of ley lines. They’re interconnected in complex ways that not even I fully comprehend.” I suspected as much, but I needed to hear it from him.

  At eight thirty we piled into our cars and headed to the town park to watch the fireworks. Merlin was stretched out on the couch recovering from too much of everything. Tilly claimed she was too tired to go. She would enjoy the networks’ coverage of the spectacular shows in Manhattan, DC, and Boston from the comfort of her home.

  * * * *

  My cats were not fans of fireworks. They spent every July Fourth cowering in the basement. Sashkatu, who’d grown deafer with each passing year, was finally able to take the holiday in stride. But he grumbled when he felt the reverberations that shook the house with each rocket blast. He probably chalked it up to human nonsense. What were more highly evolved creatures like him to do?

  Travis had the next day off, so he was able to spend the night. I awoke to a tingling in my shoulder. Since it was still dark out, it couldn’t be the cats wanting breakfast. And it wasn’t Travis who was sleeping soundly beside me. I decided it must have been a dream and turned over to go back to sleep. The tingling started again, this time accompanied by whispers. I opened one eye to find two energy clouds floating beside the bed.

  “Come,” Morgana said softly as she and Bronwen moved to the bedroom door. There was no point in ignoring them, they wouldn’t give up and leave. I dragged myself out of bed and padded downstairs after them. “We didn’t want to wake Travis,” my mother said once we were all in the kitchen. I sank onto one of the chairs, wishing I were Travis.

  “We’re pleased to see that he is back in the fold,” said Bronwen.

  “Is that why you woke me?”

  “Not at all,” she replied. “I just wanted to start out with a pleasantry.” Uh oh. Words like that were guaranteed to shake the last vestiges of sleep from my brain.

  “It occurred to us that it won’t be too long before you turn thirty,” Morgana said.

  “Since I still have a few years before that, couldn’t this little meeting have waited at least until daylight?”

  “From our cosmic perspective, that’s no more than a second or two,” Morgana said, taking the high road instead of calling me out for my attitude. Whatever they needed to tell me was important enough for her to turn the other cheek—assuming energy clouds had cheeks. “What if we’re whisked away to the next—”

  “Morgana!” my grandmother cried, cutting her short.

  “What? I was just going to say the next thing—before we were able to warn her.”

  “Warn me? Warn me about what?”

  Bronwen nudged my mother aside so that she was floating directly in front of me. “Somehow or other we never mentioned this to you when we were incarnate.”

  “I thought your grandmother was going to take care of it,” Morgana said, “and she thought I was handling it.”

  “What is it? What did you forget to tell me?!” I heard the irritability in my voice and immediately regretted it.

  Bronwen’s cloud flickered red at the edges. “You needn’t get snippy. I dare say you’ll miss us when we can no longer pop in for a visit.”

  “Sorry.” She was right. I would miss them. Most of the time anyway.

  “That’s better.” The red faded from her cloud. “What we failed to tell you is that whatever powers you may possess must be exercised at least once before you turn thirty or you will lose them forever.” I sat up straighter in the chair as if that would help me better understand what she was saying.

  “But what if I have powers I’m not even aware of by then?”

  “Not to worry,” my mother said. “You won’t miss what you’ve never had. As it happens,
there is one ability you’ve mentioned, but haven’t as yet tried.”

  “Time travel.”

  “Precisely. We understand that you may be afraid of trying it. Who wouldn’t be? Lord knows you could encounter any number of problems, like not being able to find your way back home.” Not helping your cause, Mom.

  “But if you intend to set things right and take Merlin back where he belongs,” Bronwen added, “you’ll need to start addressing the matter sooner than later.”

  “Okay, I get it.”

  “One last thing,” Morgana said. “I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that you look peaked. You young people don’t assign enough importance to the restorative powers of sleep.” It was a good thing she and Bronwen said their goodbyes and winked away before I finished counting to ten.

  I sat in the kitchen for a while longer, trying to sort out my feelings. In the end, I realized my mother and grandmother were right about time travel, but for the wrong reason. Fear was holding me back. Only it wasn’t the fear of becoming lost in time. It was the fear of losing Merlin from our lives. He’d driven us crazy and made our lives chaotic during the past year, but he’d also managed to insinuate himself into our hearts. If our lives would be more serene without him, they would also be a lot less colorful. I would heed the warning about losing skills left untried. That didn’t mean I had to take him back. But should there come a time when he wished to go home, I’d be prepared, although reluctant, to accommodate him. Should he choose to live out his life with us, history might note that the legendary wizard simply vanished one day.

  Acknowledgments

  Bringing a book to the public may not take a village, but it does take a team of dedicated professionals. My thanks to Michaela Hamilton and her team! A special thanks to the artists who captured Sashkatu so perfectly and created all the beautiful, eye-popping covers!

  Don’t miss the next delightful book in the Abracadabra mystery series…

  This Magick Marmot

  Coming soon from Lyrical Underground, an imprint of Kensington Publishing Corp.

  Chapter 1

  Tilly stood in the doorway, surveying my bedroom. Dresses covered the bed, shoes littered the floor. I was standing in the middle of the mess in my bra and panties, no closer to a decision than I had been thirty minutes earlier. Sashkatu, who had no interest in fashion or human dilemmas, had fallen asleep on the high ground of my pillow, safe beyond the tide of clothing. The five younger cats had run for their hidey holes when the second dress hit the bed.

  “I expected to see you all decked out by this time.” My aunt sounded disappointed. “If you don’t get moving, you’ll miss the whole cocktail hour.”

  “You just want to hear the reunion gossip when I get home,” I teased her.

  She lifted her double chin in mock indignation. “I’ll have you know that I merely wish to learn how everyone is doing in their fields of endeavor, who married whom, and how many little ones they have.” In her defense, I couldn’t think of a single time she’d relished hearing ugly gossip, with the possible exception of Beverly. But I couldn’t fault her there.

  She moved a few of the dresses aside and sat on the edge of my bed. “It’s not like you to be this indecisive. Any one of these frocks will look smashing on you. But that isn’t the real problem, is it?” She arched one eyebrow at me.

  She was right of course. From the day back in January when I received the first email about my ten year high school reunion, I’d been dealing with a mixture of nostalgia, curiosity, and dread. Now that the Welcome Back Dinner was upon me, dread had claimed top billing. It thrummed in my veins like the background music in a thriller. I’d considered skipping the entire weekend, but that wasn’t a practical solution in a town the size of New Camel. If I didn’t show up for the reunion, the reunion would come and find me.

  I plucked a red-and-white flowered sun dress off the bed and shimmied into it. I would look festive even if I didn’t feel that way. “This reunion is going to be like reliving the terrible night of the prom.”

  “Ten years is a long time. I guarantee you that most of the kids won’t bring it up or even think about it.”

  “That’s almost worse. My gut still tells me Scott didn’t have to die that night. The police investigation didn’t go far enough.”

  Tilly patted the bed beside her. “Come sit here so I can zip you.” I sat. She zipped.

  “He and I were friends since first grade, Aunt Tilly. He was never a risk taker. His voice was always the voice of caution.”

  She took my hands in hers. “There’s no way to pursue it after all this time. Memories grow fuzzy and unreliable. Scott is at peace. You need to find a way to let it go, dear girl. Now,” she continued in a more Tilly-like tone, “that dress is simply begging for those red patent leather peep-toe sling backs. If I didn’t have arthritis and bunions, I’d be strutting around in them every day.” An image of her strutting around in a muumuu with my shiny red heels on her feet made me smile. I kissed her cheek.

  “That’s more like it. My work here is done.” She consulted her watch and sprang to her feet so quickly that I heard her knees pop and creak. She winced, but didn’t complain. “I’d best get home before Merlin runs out of patience waiting for dinner and orders a dozen pizzas.” That wasn’t hyperbole. We’d been down that particular road before.

  * * * *

  Half an hour later, I slapped on what felt like a serviceable smile and walked into the lobby of the brand new Waverly Hotel. It had opened just two weeks earlier. All the finishes were high end, so dazzling and bright they made me a little dizzy—like looking into the headlights of oncoming cars. I sank into one of the elegant armchairs and waited until I felt properly anchored to the ground again. I had no problem finding the room where the cocktail hour was being held. All I had to do was follow the noise.

  The reunion invitation had specified that the Friday night dinner was strictly for alums. It was described as a time to catch up with old friends without boring spouses and significant others. Saturday night would include everyone. Travis had beamed with relief when I told him he wasn’t expected to attend the Friday night shindig—his word.

  When I walked in, the cocktail hour was already in full swing. A highly polished bar ran the length of the room, the shelving on the wall behind it filled with gleaming glassware and liquor bottles of every shape and color. Small tables were scattered around the rest of the space, but no one was seated. There was too much catching up to do.

  Before I could take another step into the room, two of my close friends from kindergarten through high school spotted me and shrieked like adolescents at a boy band concert. They rushed over to me, trying not to spill their cocktails on the way. Seeing them brought back a rush of good memories that made me glad I’d come. They’d both gone to colleges out west and stayed out there. At first we’d tried to keep our relationships going by email, phone, and a few cross-country visits, but it became clear to me early on that life was pulling us in different directions, the threads that had drawn us together as kids unraveling as we spread our wings.

  Genna caught me around the shoulders. “The third musketeer!” My mother had dubbed us the three musketeers when we entered elementary school. None of us had known what it meant until third grade when Genna bothered to look it up.

  “One for all and all for one!” Charlotte cried, stumbling in her stilettos and plowing into me. Instead of pressing her cheek to mine, she came in hard and we smacked cheekbones. She grabbed on to Genna for balance, her drink splashing everywhere. We all would have gone down in a heap if not for the silent spell I remembered from childhood:

  We stand up tall; we do not fall,

  I know we have the where-with-al.

  The spell stopped us on our downward trajectory, suspending us in midair for a split second before reversing our course. As soon as we approached vertical, our equilibrium kicked b
ack in. It all happened so fast, I was probably the only one who noticed the blip. If someone had seen it, they were apt to blame the alcohol.

  When we didn’t hit the floor, my pals dissolved into giddy laughter and I joined in. Genna was breathless. “I was sure we were going down.”

  “It’s the alcohol,” I said, “it messes with your inner ear and how you perceive things.” They were both inebriated enough not to question it further.

  “Are you okay?” Charlotte gingerly touched the spot on my cheek. I pulled back, surprised by the pain. “We have to get this girl some anesthetic,” she said threading her arm through mine and steering me toward the bar.

  Genna ordered me a club soda and lime. “That’s not going to make her feel better,” Charlotte protested. Genna reminded her discreetly that I couldn’t drink. As far as anyone knew, I abstained due to stomach issues.

  I hated to lie, especially to close friends, but I was forbidden from telling anyone about our magick. There were few exceptions. “It’s for our safety,” my grandmother Bronwen had explained when I’d railed against the restriction as a child. Since it only took a little alcohol to loosen Charlotte’s lips, I realized now that my family had been right to enforce the rule.

  “I’m sorry I forgot,” Charlotte murmured. “Sorry about your cheek too.” Her tone was so pitiful and out of character that it bought us another round of laughter.

  “Hey, I’d know that laugh anywhere.” The voice came from behind us. I turned around to find Adam Hart grinning at me. His face was fuller, his hairline starting to recede. He had been my first boyfriend in high school. I recalled a movie date, a dinner date, a few dates studying, and a couple of kisses I’d had to initiate. He was that shy. No hearts were broken when it was over—perfect first boyfriend material.

  Genna and Charlotte excused themselves and left us to chat. When I asked Adam how he was doing, he held up his left hand with its band of gold and pulled out a picture of his two young daughters wearing tutus and ballet slippers.