Table of Contents
Berkley Prime Crime titles by Madelyn Alt
THE TROUBLE WITH MAGIC
A CHARMED DEATH
HEX MARKS THE SPOT
NO REST FOR THE WICCAN
WHERE THERES A WITCH
A WITCH IN TIME
HOME FOR A SPELL
For Josh and Rose, whose dedication has now paid off.
As if we ever thought otherwise!
Congratulations, dearhearts!
And for Matt and Lindsey. You know why.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
the mirror crackd from side to side;
The curse is come upon me,
Cried the Lady of Shalott.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
Chapter 1
To the world at large, I am Margaret Mary-Catherine ONeill. A good Irish name for a good Catholic girl, strong, sturdy, steadfast, true to the religion that was bestowed upon me at the moment of my birth.
Most of the time, though, Im just Maggie, a somewhat neurotic, normal, everyday kind of girl, living large in a small, conservative Midwestern town.
Notice, I did not say normal town.
Because my beloved hometown of Stony Mill, Indiana, is as far from normal as you can get these days. But hey, so long as we keep pretending that everythings still hunkydory around these parts, pilgrim, none of that should matter. Its appearances that make you or break you.
Right?
But it is hard to gloss over murder. Especially when month after month the body count kept rising. Unrelated, all of them, but still sordid. This town evidently carried a lot of secrets.
Always with the secrets.
There was more to the sense of something being very wrong in townlike all the paranormal stuff that didnt even register on most peoples radar. But as an empatha person of heightened sensitivities, both intuitive and physicalI was especially atune to extrasensory signals. Had I really been oblivious to it prior to meeting my boss, mentor, and good friend Felicity Dow, aka Liss, owner of the superfab boutique Enchantments? In the last not-quite-a-year, with the help of Liss and the N.I.G.H.T.S., the ghost-hunting group of friends I had hooked up with in my pursuit of understanding the supernatural events that had been haunting our town, I had made a kind of uneasy peace with the forces that seemed to run as a dark undercurrent through neighborhoods and residents alike. Why it was happening, well, I couldnt pretend to have an answer to that, but perhaps with enough study, understanding would follow.
At least I had some truly great friends to walk the path toward understanding with me... including my lovely new boyfriend, Marcus Quinn. Marcus, whose dark and dangerous good looks had once unnerved me as much as they attracted me, even as I tried to deny said attraction. Marcus, whose inner beauty far outshone his outer deliciousness. Was it true love? Meant to be? Were we MFEO? I think we are all looking forward to finding the answer to those scintillating questions.
Stay tuned...
I am Maggie ONeill, empath, intuitive, and sometimes witchy nice girl, and this is my story.
Life... happens.
The worn bumper sticker on the aging, oversized sedan taking up the lane in front of usus meaning Marcus and mecaught my eye as we made our way across Stony Mill proper bright and early that Monday morning as we moved into September. Boy howdy, I thought as my mouth formed a wry grimace. Did it ever. Case in point being the solid lump of a cast that had been my boon companion for the last four weeks. All seven hundred and fifty pounds of it. Seriously. What did they put in these things?
Life had happened to me when I stepped down wrong on a step at Stony Mill General while visiting my little sister Melanie on the maternity ward andpainfullybroke my ankle. Life had then happened to Mel herself when her perfect world shattered into a million jagged little pieces around her when her husband of six years abruptly shocked us all by leaving her and their family, now four daughters strong as of the birth of the twins. None of us, not even Mel herself, had seen that coming. To be honest, life seemed to keep happening around all of us in Stony Mill an awful lot lately. Or should I say, death? Murder, to be more to the point. The multiple murders that the town had endured in previous months had certainly been a shock to the towns nervous system. Once a quiet, unassuming town of friends and neighbors who knew one anothers comings and goings (not to mention the goings and comings), Stony Mill was changing before our very eyes. Whether it was fate, karma, unerringly bad timing, or just plain, dumb luck, for this town life and death seemed incontrovertibly tied.
That morning Marcus and I were on our way to the X-ray lab at that self-same hospital for follow-up shots of my ankle, and I was sitting on the edge of the bench seat of his old pickup truck with anticipation. Dr. Dan Tucker had written up the orders for the follow-ups. When hed been reminded that I had lost my family practitioner last December under less-than-auspicious circumstances and hadnt yet felt the need to find a new one, hed volunteered to keep an eye on my ankle situation throughout my healing process. Such were the perks of having a doctor in the family. Besides, he kind of owed me for having hijacked my thirtieth birthday party in order to propose to the love of his life and future wife, my longtime bestie, Steff. At least thats what Steff insisted. And who was I to complain if Dan didnt seem to mind?
We pulled into the circular drop-off zone at the front of the hospital, and Marcus set the emergency brake before coming around the truck to help, but I was too quick for him. I slid from the seat and down onto both feet, including the Casted Glory, which didnt go beneath his notice.
Hey, he protested, youre supposed to wait for me, Miss Independent.
I made a face at him. Im fine. Look. See? I can stand. I mimed a little tap dance, quickly smothering a wince when the foot-in-place movements brought a small jab of pain.
Not quick enough. My lovely honey of a mans dark eyebrows raised, and he took my hand and placed it on his arm. Pointedly. You push things too fast.
Fuss, fuss.
Someone has to look out for you.
I smiled to myself, recognizing the stubborn angle of his jaw. Protective. But not overbearing. Well, then, how about you hand me my crutches so we can get this over with?
If he knew I had been practicing putting weight on my casted foot, testing out a few steps here and there with my arms outstretched for the next handhold like a toddler taking her first tottering wobbles, he might be a little less forgiving of me pushing myself. But what he didnt know wouldnt hurt him. To appease him, I dutifully took the crutches in hand and let him guide me through the rotating door and down the hall to the X-ray department.
The X-ray process was over within minutes (one of the benefits of living in a small town, I supposethere is rarely a line of any length unless its at the Friday night game at the high school)... which was a good thing, since Minniemy foundling feline and the best friend a girl could havewas waiting for us in the shade with the windows down. I left my phone number at EnchantmentsIndianas finest mystical antique shop, where I could often be found tending counterand my personal cell number with the woman in blue scrubs behind the desk, and moments later we were out the door and on our way.
