Witches & Words Read online

  Witches & Words

  A Library Witch Mystery

  Elle Adams

  This book was written, produced and edited in the UK, where some spelling, grammar and word usage will vary from US English.

  Copyright © 2019 Elle Adams

  All rights reserved.

  To be notified when Elle Adams’s next book is released, sign up to her author newsletter.

  Contents

  Witches & Words

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Thank you for reading!

  About the Author

  Witches & Words

  It's the new year in Ivory Beach, and Rory is nursing a broken heart after Xavier's abrupt departure from town. A distraction comes in the form of a batch of new tourists visiting the library, but when a holidaying stranger returns a rare book to her family and is then found dead, Rory finds herself in hot water again.

  Handling rare books is second nature to Rory's family, but this one has a little more personality than Rory is used to. Not only is it refusing to divulge its secrets, the killer might still be lurking among the hotel's other guests. When Rory meets fellow witch Blair Wilkes, visiting from the town of Fairy Falls with her boyfriend Nathan, Blair offers to use her unusual magical talent to help Rory to get to the bottom of the mystery.

  Complicating matters, the Reaper returns to town along with his terrifying boss. Working with Xavier again might be the only way for Rory to solve the murder, but more than her heart is in danger this time.

  Can Rory solve the mystery, repair her relationship with Xavier and stop the killer before he strikes again?

  1

  Fireworks exploded across the midnight sky, to the sound of cheering from the crowd gathering on the seafront. Even the persistent drizzle couldn’t dampen our spirits, and neither could the high tide, lapping at the edges of the pier and the walkway bordering the beach.

  My cousin Estelle and I stood among the crowd on the walkway, watching the shower of sparks merge into the image of a shimmering unicorn etched against the night sky.

  “I bet that’s giving Cass ideas,” I remarked as the unicorn broke into a gallop across the starry backdrop. Estelle’s sister stood closer to the beach than the two of us, with Aunt Adelaide keeping one eye on her to make sure she stayed out of trouble.

  “Happy New Year!” cried a few hundred voices, followed by more cheering.

  Estelle and I wore thick layers beneath our biblio-witch uniform—black cloaks decorated with the silver emblem unique to our family and hats crammed on top of our curly red hair—but the chill found its way into my cloak all the same. The two of us looked similar enough to be mistaken for sisters, though Estelle had inherited her curvier figure from her mother, while I had Mum’s willowy figure and Dad’s paler face and freckles.

  Next to us stood Alice, who worked in the pet shop, and Zee, who owned the bakery and had brought a bag of cookies and other delicious baked goods. We munched companionably as we watched the fireworks, a magical barrier protecting us from the spray of the sea crashing against the sand. Two more unicorns joined the first, galloping beneath the crescent moon until they reached the place where the sea and the sky became one.

  “They say you have to make a wish when the first star of the new year appears,” Estelle said into my ear.

  “The first falling star,” Zee corrected. “It doesn’t happen every year, but you have to say your wish aloud, or else it won’t come true.”

  “Exactly,” said Alice. “Reckon we’ll get lucky this year?”

  Estelle nudged me. “We might.”

  The fireworks masked all the stars from view, but my good mood faded a little as I considered I might wish for.

  I had so many reasons to be grateful. A year ago, I’d been stuck working the New Year’s Eve shift at the bookshop where I’d been an assistant for the three years following my dad’s death. My boss, Abe—who would have opened the shop on Christmas Day if he could get away with it—had ordered me to arrive first thing in the morning to pick up a delivery, so I hadn’t even stayed up until midnight to see the new year in.

  If I’d travelled back in time to that day to tell my past self that within a few short months, I’d learn that I was part of a family of biblio-witches who had a gift for making words come to life, I’d never have believed it. Let alone that I’d lose that awful job and move to my family’s enchanted library in the coastal town of Ivory Beach. Not only did I have a new family and home, I even had a wand of my own—my dad’s old wand, no less, which he’d left behind when he’d moved away from the magical world to marry my mum.

  Life was almost perfect… except for one thing. No matter how many times I tried to banish his image from my mind, I couldn’t forget that a few weeks ago, I had been dating—or thought I’d been dating—Xavier, until he’d left town without so much as a message or call. All I’d found was a note from his boss, consisting of a couple of terse sentences: We have left town. Do not contact my apprentice again.

  I’d always figured that the Grim Reaper’s apprentice dating a human wasn’t common, but Xavier had never acted like it was a big deal. That he’d just taken off with no explanation had left me feeling wrong-footed and confused, even though I was the one who’d caught the Grim Reaper’s attention by refusing to walk out of Xavier’s life in the first place. Forbidding me from having a relationship with his apprentice was the least of what the angel of death could do to me, I knew, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.

  Aunt Candace hadn’t helped matters, with her constant hints that our ill-fated relationship would provide the perfect plotline for a tragic love story. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for my aunt to take real-life inspiration for the novels she penned, but when she’d brought her notebook to the table at Christmas dinner, Aunt Adelaide had threatened to turn it into a Yorkshire pudding. Being mentioned in the dedication of the novel based on my dad’s life story—though not by name—was quite enough publicity for me, thanks.

  I pushed the thought away and smiled up at the firework display above, now dominated with a dozen unicorns wheeling across the darkness. Unicorns were a good omen, right?

  Estelle tugged on my elbow. “My mum wants us.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The two of us edged out of the crowd towards where Aunt Adelaide stood on the road behind the beach. At her side stood a tall man wearing a long dark coat that blended into the surrounding darkness, a hood obscuring his face.

  “This man wants access to the library,” said Aunt Adelaide. “I wouldn’t ask either of you to volunteer, but I think Candace must have used an earplug charm to block out the fireworks.”

  That didn’t surprise me. Aunt Candace had refused to come and stand in the cold and had instead opted to stay in the library and work on her novel. The library was supposed to be closed until noon tomorrow, so there must be some special reason this guy wanted to get inside. I squinted at the stranger, trying to make out his features. He wore a long, hooded coat buttoned to his chin, which wasn’t that unusual, considering the weather, but made it hard to make out anything about him apart from his height.

  “I need to get to the library and return a book,” he said, his voice low and raspy. “Can one of you help me out? It’s urgent.”

  Estelle looked as perplexed as I felt. “Urgent?”

  Returnin
g a book wasn’t generally a life or death matter. Okay, the head of late fees was Sylvester, our temperamental talking owl familiar, but even he’d taken the night off.

  The man turned to Aunt Adelaide, and said in a low voice, “It’s a time-sensitive loan.”

  Aunt Adelaide’s brows rose. “Is that so?”

  “Yes,” he said, his voice solemn.

  “What’s that mean?” I whispered to Estelle.

  “Time-sensitive?” said Estelle. “Some books get a little restless when they aren’t returned on time… oh, no.”

  “What—?” I broke off, following her gaze. Cass’s red hair shone in the moonlight as she waded into the ocean, her dark cloak billowing behind her in the water.

  Aunt Adelaide swore. “I’ll get her out of there. One of you can handle this gentleman’s request, can’t you?”

  Estelle opened her mouth to volunteer, but I stepped in. “I’ll do it. I don’t want you to miss the start of the year.”

  If I had to admit it, I had another motive: if a falling star made an appearance, I didn’t want anyone to hear me voice my wish aloud, even my family and friends.

  “If you’re sure,” she said. “Ask Sylvester to help you find the right section. He’ll grumble at being disturbed, but he understands time-sensitive deadlines. Just make sure the book ends up where it’s supposed to be before time runs out. How long do we have?”

  “Twenty minutes,” said the man. “Thank you.”

  “No problem.” I waved goodbye to my cousin and walked with the hooded stranger towards the towering shape of the library dominating the town square behind the clock tower.

  The library never failed to steal my breath away, especially lit up with lanterns as it was at night. Its stained-glass windows shimmered under the light of the fireworks, and inside were five stories of towering shelves arranged like a layered wedding cake, along with countless doors and staircases and secret passageways. A staircase off the left-hand side of the lobby led into my family’s living quarters, while the shelves immediately behind the front desk contained lists of where all the books were to be shelved, and instructions for dealing with the particularly dangerous ones.

  If the hooded stranger was impressed by the library, he didn’t say so. There was no sign of Aunt Candace, nor Sylvester. I had no idea what the owl did with his free time, but he’d be annoyed at me for dragging him out of sleep to deal with a book when he’d been promised the night off. I’d start by calling my own familiar.

  “Hey, Jet,” I called. “I need your help.”

  “Hello, partner!” cried Jet. The little crow swooped down to land on the desk, his glossy black wings gleaming in the light of the floating lanterns above our heads.

  I turned to the hooded figure beside me. “Where’s the book I need to return?”

  “Here.” He reached into one of the deep pockets of his coat. “It’s still early enough to make the deadline.”

  “Just about,” said a bored-sounding voice from his pocket. “Get on with it, numbskull.”

  I startled. After living in the library for a month, I’d almost learned to stop jumping when random voices came out of thin air, but when the wizard pulled a thick leather-bound book from the pocket of his hooded cloak, my mouth fell open.

  “Quiet,” he said to the book. “I told you I was returning you on time.”

  “You’re cutting it close,” said the voice, which without a doubt came from the book itself. “It’s almost midnight.”

  “The book talks to you?” I said.

  “Isn’t it annoying?” he said. “It’s fixed with a sentience spell and jinxed to start wailing if it’s returned late. The rest of the time, it chatters away like it’ll shrivel up and vanish if it isn’t the centre of attention.”

  “You talk all the time and nobody’s trying to lock you up,” growled the book. “Bloody hypocrites. Hey—let me go!”

  The wizard held the book out to me, and I braced myself for it to bite or burn me or sprout wings and fly off—all of which I’d experienced at least once in the last month. When you worked in a magical library, you learned not to question the impossible. But I’d never met a book that talked back before. Thankfully, the book’s bark seemed to be worse than its bite, because it didn’t move an inch when I took it in my hands.

  “Thank you,” said the man. “Thank you so much.”

  “Don’t think anything of it.” I laid the book on the desk, wincing when it gave a loud, derisive laugh. “Jet, can you help me find the right section?”

  The little crow flew down to land on the desk beside me. “Of course, partner!”

  “Wait, you’re leaving me here with that inexperienced little witchling?” said the book. “It’s an outrage!”

  Just my luck to get the book nobody else wanted to deal with. Jet flew in circles above the book while I consulted the long roll of paper on the desk to see which floor I needed. “Third floor… okay. We’re going up.”

  Since Sylvester hadn’t deigned to show his face, I picked up the book and tucked it under my arm. The book didn’t like that a bit. “How dare you place your hands on me, witchling! I’m older than you are, and I deserve respect.”

  “I’m just doing my job,” I muttered. “If you don’t like it, it’s not my problem.”

  “Talking to inanimate objects is the first sign of madness.”

  The book kept up a steady stream of complaints all the way through the lobby to the spiralling staircase. Already regretting volunteering to shelve it, I used my wand to cast a light spell—the first spell I’d asked Estelle to teach me after I’d acquired my wand—to illuminate the stairs. Then I began to climb.

  When I reached the third floor, I lifted the book to my wand’s light to read the number on the spine and found nothing but an unfamiliar symbol. Frowning, I turned it over to look at the front. More symbols filled the space where the title was supposed to be.

  A sudden rush of suspicion zipped through me. This wasn’t the first time I’d encountered a book containing an unreadable magical code. In fact, I had another in my bag right now—the journal my dad had kept before his death, which neither I nor my family had ever figured out how to translate. I couldn’t tell for sure if it was the same code or just a similar one, but alarm bells started ringing in my head at the sight of the symbols on the cover.

  “What’re you staring at?” said the book.

  “You’re speaking English,” I commented. “Yet your cover isn’t written in any language I know.”

  “I couldn’t get very far by speaking in Ancient Hebrew, could I?”

  “Can you speak Ancient Hebrew?” I eased open the book, which slammed closed on my fingers. I gave a startled yelp and yanked my hand free. Ow.

  “Keep your nose out or I’ll bite that next,” the book said.

  I shook my throbbing hand. “That wasn’t necessary. What language is that on your cover?”

  “How should I know? I can’t read.”

  Honestly. “Is your owner a vampire?”

  “None of your business.”

  On the day of my introduction to the paranormal world, three vampires had barged into the bookshop where I worked in search of Dad’s old journal. While my aunts had scared them off and one was now in jail, the other two vampires were still at large. My aunt’s ex, Dominic, had mentioned that the three were members of a society who searched for lost artefacts, and for some reason, my dad’s journal was on their list. I’d been doing my best to put the vampires out of mind, but the familiarity of that symbol on the book’s cover was difficult to ignore.

  “Are you going to shelve me or not?” asked the book. “Because I’m going to start screaming after ten past twelve, and it’s already five minutes to midnight.”

  “Are you dangerous?” I asked.

  The book laughed nastily. “It’s a little late for you to be asking that question.”

  Oh, wonderful. “If you mean me harm, I can dispose of you.”

  “You’d destroy the p
roperty of your own library?”

  Okay. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. Sure, the book kept yapping and biting my fingers, but that didn’t mean it was evil. My aunt wouldn’t have let it into the library if it were likely to cause any of us harm. Granted, it wouldn’t share sensitive information about its own content, but the same could be said of most books beyond my novice level, and I could always ask Aunt Adelaide later. I’d shelve it, wash my hands of the problem and go back to celebrating the new year.

  I flipped the book over to check the back cover, and the entire book turned inside out, revealing blank yellowed pages on both sides.

  “Hey!” I said. “I need to know where to put you. I can’t do that if I can’t read your spine.”

  “Where to put me?” the book echoed. “You can put me down, for a start.”

  “Nice try, but I bet you’ll start screaming if I put you anywhere other than your proper place when the deadline hits.” I walked past the Magical Creatures Division in the hope of finding a signpost marking the ‘Annoying Talking Books Division’. The books on the shelves broke into a chorus of snarls as I passed by, and the book in my hands growled back at them.

  “Glad you’re making friends,” I said to the book, walking on towards a number of rooms marked with X symbols. I wouldn’t learn to deal with those until I reached the next stage of my biblio-witch training, and if this particular book needed to be placed in one of them, I’d just call in Sylvester to help me. Not that I wanted to witness an argument between the book and the owl—though Sylvester was possibly the only person here who could out-argue a talking book.