“Are you ready for this, Mrs. Twiggs?” I asked.
“Yes, Terra dear.” When she pulled the drawer open, it was worse than I thought. There was nothing. The chamber was empty. “Where’s the body, Terra?”
Mrs. Twiggs went up to the security guard. He pulled his earbuds out, his eyes still twinkling from the enchantment. “Dear, you’re missing a body. Mrs. Lund. Contact Detective Willows, and we were never here,” Mrs. Twiggs said.
“You were never here,” he repeated, smiling before reaching for the phone.
Mrs. Twiggs waved her hand over the surveillance monitors, erasing any record of us entering the building or leaving it.
Chapter 27
What About Albert?
“She’s gone, Terra,” Mrs. Twiggs said with a bemused air.
“She can’t be a witch, Mrs. Twiggs, or a human.”
“Terra, that leaves a lot of choices in between doesn’t it, dear? I felt what you have, the awakenings in the wood and even in downtown Asheville. The good and the evil. We’ve thrown a pebble into the pond of magic, and the ripple has gone out. How do we find her, Terra?” Mrs. Twiggs reached in her cloak pocket and felt the leather pouch that Mrs. Owen had given her. “Terra, we have to try the premonition potion again. We have to know what’s coming our way, and we have to find Mrs. Lund.”
We hurried to the Leaf & Page, which was ablaze with light. “That’s funny. I don’t remember leaving the lights on.” Mrs. Twiggs fiddled with her key at the door. She unlocked it and called out for Albert. She screamed in horror when she saw his picture shattered on the floor. “Albert,” she screamed again with no response. Then we glanced around the room to find it in complete disarray. Books were thrown off shelves, tables overturned. The only clue left behind was the smell of electricity, a burning copper taste in my mouth, a singed smell in my nostrils. The smell that a ghost leaves in its wake but not a friendly ghost. “How can this be, Terra? I enchanted the store. Albert kept watch. Where is he? Where’s Albert?” Mrs. Twiggs strained to hold back her tears.
“They took him, Mrs. Twiggs. The ghosts took him.”
“Why? Terra, he can’t defend himself. He doesn’t know he’s a ghost.”
“Mrs. Twiggs, take me to the Fillmore.” I hoped that Bradley might have some answers.
We rushed out the door and headed to the Fillmore. Bradley greeted us, never moving from attention as the guests, some alive some less than alive, walked into the hotel. “Little miss,” he said with a smile. “You’re back. And you brought a friend.”
“This is Mrs. Twiggs. Her husband, Albert Twiggs is missing,” I said.
“Yes, of course.” He nodded politely as a guest went by. “I’ve had occasion to exchange hellos with Mr. Twiggs. A fine gentleman, speaks the world of you, Mrs. Twiggs.”
“Have you seen him tonight?”
“No, little miss. I have not, then again I’ve been so busy with all the new arrivals,” Bradley said.
I looked around, hoping to see Albert. I saw ghosts both new and old, more than I’ve ever seen, not just entering the Fillmore but strolling the streets around Pack Square. Some garbed in today’s wear, others in gilded-age finery. Across the street by the fountain I saw one such apparition in his evening coat, opening and closing his pocket watch. The rocking chair man, his soulless dark orbs staring through me from across the street. Mrs. Twiggs couldn’t see him. The ghosts couldn’t see him. Only I, a witch, could see him. He was a familiar from another world. Mrs. Owen had traveled to another world and brought him back. He snapped his watch shut after counting thirteen times. He smiled a toothless grin. Then he climbed up the side of the Jackson Building, crawling like a maleficent spider on all four appendages, a shadow darting along a serpentine web, and then he was gone.
“Terra, what are you looking at?”
“All the ghosts. I thought I saw someone I knew.”
“Little miss, I almost had forgotten that soldier boy was back. I told him he might try the Leaf & Page to find you. I told him it was one of your favorite haunts,” Bradley said with a smile and wink.
“Thank you, Bradley. Please let me know if you hear from Albert or the soldiers,” I told him.
“Of course, little miss.”
We turned and went back to the car. “It’s too late to go back to the cabin.”
“Terra, I have to be at the store for opening.” Mrs. Twiggs’s way of dealing with tragedy was to stick to her routine. I respected that.
“Mrs. Twiggs, are you okay? Are you okay to go back there?”
“Yes, I hope whoever took Albert does come back,” she said with a steadfast look. I almost felt pity for the criminal who would have to deal with the wrath of Beatrice Twiggs.
We spent the rest of the night cleaning up the mess at the Leaf & Page, Mrs. Twiggs doing most of the work. I did what I could. My first priority was making the store safe from intruders. I should have known better than to leave it unprotected with all the activity around Asheville. I underestimated the power of the black magic that was rising. Albert was no match for his captors, and they had broken right through Mrs. Twiggs’s enchantment spells. The only person that could have stopped them was Abigail, and she was in no state of mind to battle the apparitions that had taken over. She was not ready. She was still a girl. I walked along the top of the bookshelf, eying each spine until I reached the book I sought. It was a book on Appalachian folklore. The pages were worn and tattered, but they held the answers we so desperately needed. The mountainfolk had fought dark spirits for hundreds of years in the Carolinas. By trial and error they came across spells and potions that only the most advanced witches would know. Agatha Hollows knew the people living in these mountains understood the power of the woods. I grabbed the spine of the book with my teeth, pulling at it until it fell to the floor. Mrs. Twiggs turned around. “This is what we need, Mrs. Twiggs,” I said.
She picked up the book and sat by the fire. “With all the spell books and witches’ potions we have, you want us to rely on human folklore?”
“Folklore is based in truth. The spirits we are fighting come from these woods. The creature that took the form of Mrs. Lund and the ghost that took Albert they’re from these woods. They have been dormant until we woke them with our white magic. They are as much a part of these mountains and woods as you and the coven are.”
“Very well, Terra.” Mrs. Twiggs ran through the receipts, as the Appalachian folk called them. Following their advice, she gathered sage and burned it in each corner of the room. She laid salt at all the windows and doorsteps. When she had finished, she placed the frame that held Albert’s image and his ghost over the cash register. It was five thirty a.m. Friday, which meant muffins. Mrs. Twiggs let in the others, the stray cats and dogs from the alley. When they were done feeding, she opened the store for the humans. It was a slow day—some usual customers, a few out-of-towners looking for first editions and specialty teas. As we were about to close, Detective Willows pulled up and squeezed himself out of his unmarked police car. By his solemn look, I thought he was not here for pleasantries.
“Oh, Detective, I was just closing,” Mrs. Twiggs said as he came in the front door.
“Beatrice, I’m here on official business. We need to talk. Can we sit for a bit?” Detective Willows said, his face distressed.
“Of course.”
He sat at one of the small café tables in the dining room.
“Can I get you anything? I think I have some muffins left or scones.”
“No thank you.” He pulled out his notebook. “I have to ask where you were last night around ten p.m.”