The Patsy's Patsy Read online

  “He just meowed with a closed mouth!” Nellie whispered behind her hand, holding in another giggle fit. “That is so cute!”

  The young girl’s soft shrieks of adoration amused Maggie to no end. It was nice to see Nellie so excited and to watch the girl’s eyes glimmer with curiosity about herbs. In fact, Maggie decided there and then to teach Nellie a thing or two about herbalism, should she be interested.

  Bramble’s eyes shot open and he jumped up, licking at Maggie’s fingers. The fine green herb dusted his whiskers as he chewed wildly at it.

  “He loved it! Wow! What is it, Miss Corey?” Nellie asked.

  “Catnip. As you can see, it really nips cats!” Maggie joked with a wink. “Come look here. I’ll show you what it looks like before it is ground up.”

  Maggie and Nellie skipped over to the table where several leafy herbs were strewn out for Maggie to prepare her potions, casually known as products.

  “I am going to make Bramble some catnip tea. What do you say?” Maggie suggested.

  Nellie was positively jumping up and down. “Yes, yes! You have to show me how to do all this stuff, Miss Corey!”

  Maggie felt a warmth in her chest, her heart welcoming some positivity regarding her vocation. It was unusual these days to have a child interested in things like herbalism, so Maggie jumped at the chance to introduce Nellie to the joys of kitchen work, as she called it. The two stood discussing herbs while making Bramble’s tea. The black cat hopped and coiled about their ankles as they discussed the process.

  Some locals and regulars came into the store and looked around. Maggie sold a few shampoos and soaps while Nellie busied herself in the back with herb grinding. Bramble was on the table by now, happily looking on in anticipation.

  The afternoon sun was getting exceedingly hot when a group of bored teenagers sauntered into Corey’s Herbs and Simples. They always liked browsing Maggie’s products when they had nowhere else to go, but this time they seemed to actually be looking for something on her shelves.

  “Aw man, look,” one girl said to another. “Witch hazel. That’s you, bitch.”

  “Cool!” the girl answered, looking at the bottle with great interest. She looked up and saw the striking blue eyes of the shop owner watching her. “Oh,” she smiled at Maggie, “my … my name is Hazel, you see.”

  Maggie chuckled. “Ah! Okay, I get it.” She folded her arms over her chest, briefly glancing back at the very busy little Nellie. “What are you guys looking for? Anything I can help with?”

  The one boy nodded, flicking back his ridiculously outdated emo bangs. Traces of eyeliner darkened his lids and his nails showed the remnants of black nail polish. He bounced as he walked, probably some sort of prance to his kind, Maggie reckoned.

  Looking rather wary of who was listening, he asked Maggie, “Do you have any Green Demon?”

  “Green Demon?” she frowned, running through her memory files in her head. “Demon as in devil?”

  “Yeah, like that,” he sniffed.

  “I … don’t think so. I have never heard of it before. What is it?” she asked, trying to sound interested instead of judgmental.

  He shrugged, his eyes quickly darting to his friends. “Just an energy enhancer. The latest craze for sports performance, that’s all. No worries.”

  Maggie had to practice her tact, so she did her best not to sound snide.

  “Oh that’s great. What kind of sport do you do?” she asked with a smile, trying to look interested while she actually wanted to burst out laughing at the skinny emo’s claim. “I love sports myself, you know.”

  “Um, uh …” he groaned, trying to think of a feasible sport that he could pass for.

  If he says wrestling, I am going to laugh like a banshee, Maggie thought to herself.

  “I do, uh, cross-country and some gymming, you know, to keep fit,” he stammered while his friends scoffed and giggled from a distance.

  “Ah yes, I can see that. You’re very athletic,” she smirked. Maggie could not help herself. It was too good a setup to just let it slide.

  The boy seemed embarrassed, but he quickly flicked his hair and said, “Okay, well, thanks. We’ll try somewhere else.”

  “Okay then,” Maggie grinned.

  “Thanks, Miss Corey!” One of the girls waved as they left the shop.

  “Anytime!” Maggie cried. Under her breath, she added, “Tell Tarzan there not to overexert.”

  She was perplexed by the request. Not only had she never heard of the product, but the fact that they would think that her shop stocked it only aroused her curiosity.

  When they returned to the house after locking up for the day, Nellie and Bramble were firm friends. In fact, they looked inseparable now that she had treated him to catnip soup. The long day was done, but the heat prevailed. Even the roses looked tired when Maggie crossed her garden gate. The sun was still high above the horizon, as it was during the summer months, but the smell of jasmine and apple blossoms scented the humid air.

  They were having some iced tea on the porch when Carl arrived to pick up his daughter.

  “Thanks so much, Maggie,” he said as he ascended the steps.

  “You’re welcome. She is an absolute delight to have around … and a very good worker,” Maggie smiled, giving Nellie a high five. She turned to face Carl. “You, however, look like the day kicked you in the …”

  “Yes,” he quickly interrupted what would no doubt be a colorful phrase from Maggie. “My day was quite horrible and the heat only made it worse.”

  “Sit down. Have some iced tea, Sheriff,” she offered.

  He looked bushed. His curly dark hair clung to his glistening skin and sweat patches darkened his armpits and chest. Besides the telling signs of physical fatigue, Carl Walden’s eyes looked battle weary. His shoulders drooped as he took a deep breath.

  “Don’t hug Daddy, honey,” he told his daughter when she came to cuddle. “I am all sweaty and gross.”

  She ignored his warning and jumped on his lap, flinging her arms around his neck.

  “Hey, Dad,” she said defiantly and kissed him on his perspiring cheek.

  “So disobedient,” he smiled at her. “You have no respect for orders, just like Miss Corey over here.”

  Nellie and Maggie laughed, looking at one another with a naughty look of silent alliance.

  “Oh!” Maggie suddenly broke the moment. “Carl, do you know what Green Demon is?”

  “Green what?” he asked as he took the glass from her.

  “Green Demon. Some kids came into the shop today asking for Green Demon. I’d never heard of it, so I wondered if you were familiar with it,” she explained. “They said it’s an energy supplement of sorts.”

  He gulped down the entire glass. Once he caught his breath, Carl shook his head.

  “Nope. Never heard of it either,” he admitted. “Maybe it is a new thing, I don’t know. Kids these days will drink battery acid if it promises them better performance.”

  “Yeah, but these kids did not look like candidates for the Olympics, though,” she speculated, addressing nobody in particular. “Weird.”

  3

  Bramble knew it. Nellie knew it. Carl knew it.

  Once Maggie Corey was curious about something, she was like a pit bull with a locked jaw. Now that she had heard of Green Demon, the amateur sleuth found it impossible to relent in her search for its identification or origin. She hated to admit that she liked the name—perhaps some throwback to her family’s old trade—so the substance haunted her.

  Bramble had to know why Maggie was cooking up a storm, and not just for him this time. For the last two days, she had been gathering and buying enough to prepare a small feast.

  “Is there a shindig I don’t know about, my dear?” he finally had to ask.

  “This weekend Bella and David are coming to pick up the last of Bella’s stuff in Hope’s Crossing, so I invited them over,” Maggie explained. “It is only the nice thing to do, after all. I mean, they are
coming to pack up stuff and haul it back to Boston. They’ll be so tired and hungry.”

  “And since they are young and hip, Maggie Corey probably has a barrage of questions, right?” he winked.

  “You know, you downright scare me sometimes, Bramble,” she conceded. “Not only are you good at reading my signals, but you seem to have immense powers of deduction.”

  “That is why I am your familiar,” he replied matter-of-factly. “That is my job. Familiars and witches are a team, almost siblings. Nay, twins! The one extends where the other ends.”

  Maggie looked at her beautiful black cat adoringly. It was true. He was much more than just a guide or a friend. Bramble was her partner in everything—the shop, her home life, her decisions, her craft, and even in actual crime. Like that time when he’d appeared in her jail cell when she was wrongfully arrested.

  When the weekend finally arrived, Maggie was elated to receive Bella and David as her guests. They parked their car and trailer in her yard and were astonished at the spread she offered.

  “You are too good to us, Maggie.” Bella smiled and hugged her.

  “Damn, girl, did you rob the supermarket?” David teased when he saw the mad amount of food Maggie had made.

  “No, they actually let me in now,” Maggie winked, evoking a roar of laughter from her friends. It was not too long ago that David had had to chauffeur poor Maggie around. Hardly a month back, he’d had to make purchases on her behalf from the supermarket that banned her for being a murder suspect when the whole town turned on her. Her innocence did not matter to the blind followers of the town fathers, but David and Bella had stuck with her.

  After they had eaten themselves into a stupor, the three relaxed on the porch with a few beers. They were staying over at Maggie’s the night before their trip back to Boston, so there was merriment and lots of drinking. The tipsier Maggie became, the more desperate she was to ask about the substance.

  “Hey, you guys,” she said a little loudly. “Have you ever heard of Green Demon?”

  “I hate superhero movies,” Bella groaned in her inebriation.

  “That’s not a superhero. I’d know if it was a superhero. I know them all,” David educated the two women. “What is it, Maggie?”

  “That’s just the thing,” she answered. “I don’t know. I thought to ask you two, since you might have heard of it in Boston. Sounds like a city thing.”

  “So you don’t know what it is, but you assume it’s a city thing?” David asked in a high- pitched voice that affirmed his confusion.

  Maggie shook her head. “No, man. I know it is a substance used as an energy supplement …”

  “Thank you!” he cried. “So you do know what it is!”

  “Dave, shut up!” his fiancée cackled. “Let her talk!”

  “These kids asked if I had any at the shop,” Maggie continued. “No idea though. Never heard of it before.”

  “Energy supplement, huh?” David scoffed. “Sounds shady.”

  “That is what I thought,” Maggie agreed. “So I need to know what it is, exactly, that they think I sell at my store.”

  David stood up, bottle in hand. The other hand was open and outstretched.

  “Okay, all right, listen,” he announced, having a bit of trouble standing steady. “I am an expert computer nerd. Let me see if I can find it somewhere online, okay? Let me … let me use my expertise to find out what it is.”

  David was not drunk yet, but he was well on his way. He was at that stage where one feels invincible and helpful and Maggie and Bella had to chuckle about it. Maggie played along with David’s ego.

  “Please, Dave, if you could, I would so appreciate it,” Maggie coaxed.

  “Totally,” he replied proudly. “I’m going to do it right now, in fact.”

  Maggie tried to stop him.

  “Uh, you can do it tomorrow, David,” she started, but Bella put her hand on Maggie’s arm and shook her head.

  “Not going to happen,” Bella said. “He is a lot like you when it comes to smelling blood, if you know what I mean. Just like you, once he smells blood in the water, that shark has to find where it comes from. Let him do his thing. Maybe he will drink less if his mind is occupied.”

  By the time Maggie responded to Bella, David’s lean frame had already appeared back on the porch, laptop in hand.

  “Now,” he declared as he sat down, “I can’t find it on common Google, but I can run an extensive web search for you, using one of my crawler programs.”

  “Wow, I’m impressed,” Maggie smiled.

  David’s eyes pierced the LED screen as he typed maniacally. He seemed to lock out the outside world as he entered his data for the search while Maggie looked on in fascination.

  “Now, see, I haven’t a clue about computers,” she admitted. “I can do the basic stuff, but that is it.”

  “Me too,” Bella giggled.

  “Okay, so now we just let it do its thing. Give it some time to spy,” David announced, settling down to finish his drink.

  The three of them settled back and before long, Bella came out with the inevitable question.

  “Why don’t you come visit us in the city?” she asked Maggie, who was stroking her cat on her lap.

  “I would love to, but to be honest, I have developed an aversion for the city,” Maggie explained.

  “Why?” David asked. “That’s where the money is; where the life is.”

  Maggie sighed. She felt obliged to elucidate her reasons, since her new friends had been so good to her in the past. More so, they needed to know a bit about her past to make sense of the choices she had made.

  “My dream was always to open my own restaurant in the city. My best friend, Billie, was going to do the money side and I would be the chef,” Maggie started. “Of course, it didn’t work out.”

  “Why? You are a sublime cook, Maggie! I would eat at your restaurant every night,” Bella flattered her.

  Maggie shrugged. “Thanks, love, but my ex-husband made my life a living hell and Billie helped him.”

  Bella and David gasped.

  Maggie continued, “Gareth’s brain stopped developing when he was about eight, if you know what I mean. He thinks he is Fabio or something. A child with a severe case of narcissism and codependence. Of course, all Billie could see was his tanned body. She has never been very good at seeing men beyond their physical power.”

  “Sounds like he belongs in this bloody town,” David scoffed. “The brain capacity of these morons sounds about right for your ex.”

  “God help us!” Maggie groaned.

  “So he cheated on you?” David had the high voice again. It happened every time he was amazed or aggravated by something and Maggie found it adorable. “He screwed your best friend? My God, Maggie, I ain’t hitting on you, girl, but who the hell would cheat on you?”

  “I agree. It is clear he is a moron of note,” Bella agreed, holding her beer bottle up in a salute. “He doesn’t deserve you, Maggie. He deserves someone like my late mother. After all, he sounds like my late father.”

  Her voice was filled with disdain at the mention of her parents; her mother, the very woman who had tried to kill her even after years of subjugation, and her father, the alcoholic tyrant.

  “Damn straight he deserves an old bitch from this town,” David hissed. “Hope you left him well in the dust, girl.”

  “Funny you should say that, actually,” Maggie said. “Right now, as we speak, that rat is in Hope’s Crossing, looking for me.”

  Again, her guests gasped in surprise.

  “Why?” David asked.

  “Like I said, his god complex has him believing that I will give him a moment of my time at all. Son of a bitch actually thinks I will take him back! Can you believe that?” Maggie said, scoffing. “I am just glad he is unable to find me.”

  “Lucky,” David nodded.

  “Wait, wait,” Bella scowled as she considered the statement. “How can he not find you? This one-horse town is so sma
ll, you can find someone if they fart.”

  Maggie was alarmed. How could she explain it? There was no way she could expose herself as a witch to her friends, let alone tell them that her house was warded under spells to keep it undetectable.

  “Oh, that’s just because he is drunk practically all the time,” Maggie quickly clarified. It was not untrue just because it was irrelevant in this case. “He couldn’t find his own ass if he wasn’t looking at it in a mirror the whole time.”

  They all laughed, picturing the scenario, but when the chuckles ceased, Bella was still not entirely satisfied with Maggie’s vague answer. She said nothing, though, sensing that Maggie probably did not want to talk about it.

  4

  A few days later, Maggie was marveling at how much money she was making with her business. Yes, it was tourist season, but her sales had skyrocketed by almost two hundred and fifty percent in the last two weeks and she found it amazing.

  “Did you do something, Bramble?” she asked the lazy feline.

  “Something how?” he inquired innocently.

  Speaking through a clenched jaw to maintain secrecy, Maggie replied, “You know, something magical, something. It is unbelievable how much profit I am making with the store, so I was just wondering if you did a money spell or something.”

  Bramble had reason to sit up. He had to clarify something to the misguided Maggie.

  “My darling child, familiars do not engage in spellcasting, only in assisting spellcasters in whatever they might need for their magic,” he explained.

  “But you are a magical creature, right?” she made sure.

  “Yes, I am as magical as unicorn turds,” he bragged for some reason, “but that doesn’t mean I am a practitioner, like you. I have the knowledge from ages of assisting witches to do their craft, but I myself am not a witch. Witches cast. Familiars assist.”

  Maggie’s eyes were fixed in one place as he spoke, so that she could memorize the order of things properly. No matter how successful her previous attempts had been thus far, she had to remind herself that she was little more than a novice at this magic stuff.