Cookies and Clairvoyance (A Magical Bakery Mystery) - Softcover

Chapter 1

Uncle Ben gave one last twist of the screwdriver, removed the electronic bell that had been attached to the front door of the Honeybee Bakery for over two years, and climbed down from the stepladder with a smile of satisfaction. He strode to where Aunt Lucy stood behind the register and kissed her on the cheek. After handing her the small black box, he turned back to retrieve his tools and take them out to his truck in the alley.

My aunt turned to me and held up the box with a grin that gently crinkled the skin around her gray eyes. “I sure won’t miss hearing this every time someone comes in.”

I was restocking the display case with pecan rolls and gingersnaps. “Me, too, but you have to admit it’s a good problem to have,” I said, carefully arranging a row of cookies at the back of a tray. “Being so busy that the bell above the door was always ringing, I mean.”

“A good problem indeed.” She slid the contraption that had chimed thousands of times into the pocket of her hemp apron. “But it was getting to be downright distracting.”

My aunt was originally from the tiny town of Fillmore, Ohio, just like me, but she’d lived in Savannah for decades. Though they were sisters, Lucy was quite different than my perfectly coifed and buttoned-down mother. She looked like the gracefully aging hippy that she was – gray-blond hair stuffed into a messy bun, a brightly embroidered smock from Oaxaca worn over a long cotton skirt, Birkenstocks on her feet, and not a speck of makeup on her cheerful face.

Oh, and she was also a witch.

Then again, so was I. Not that I’d had any idea of my hereditary powers until I’d moved to Savannah from Akron over two years ago to open the Honeybee with Ben and Lucy, but she’d soon filled me in.

That had been interesting.

You come from a long line of witches, Katie. Our family specialty is called hedgewitchery. It’s one of the gentler branches of magic. An affinity for herbal lore, herb craft, and a heck of a green thumb. All of which you possess. Pure magic in the kitchen.

I’d spluttered and denied the very possibility, of course, but after a while I realized my gifts were why I’d always felt a bit different, like an outsider, and I warmed to the idea. Soon I delved into learning more about the Craft and began working with my aunt to add a sprinkle of benevolent magic to our baked goods.

Lucy and I were old-school herbal witches like the women who used to cross the literal hedges that surrounded villages in the old days to gather healing plants for teas and other cures. Hedge was also metaphorical and could refer to the veil between this plane and the next. My aunt had introduced me to a group of women who practiced various kinds of witchcraft, a loose coven of sorts that we called the spellbook club, and they’d graced my life with wisdom, friendship, and support. We actually did meet to talk about spell books each month – and occasionally practice a little magic together, of course. For the first time in my life, I felt like I truly fit in.

Once the display trays were filled for the next wave of treat-seeking patrons, I paused to take a sip of sweet tea from the sweating glass by my elbow and surveyed the bakery. It was the typical lull between the lunch rush and people’s need for an afternoon influx of caffeine and sugar. Only a few customers were avoiding the sticky July heat in the air-conditioned atmosphere.

Arthur, our resident author, stared moodily at his laptop screen and sipped minty green tea over in the corner. Two firefighters in uniform traded sections of the Savannah Morning News back and forth over cups of coffee and plates that now held only crumbs. In the reading area, three women perched on the poufy brocade sofa and chairs, hunched over an array of papers spread on the coffee table and murmuring about budget numbers and fundraising needs. In the window beyond them sat Lucy’s orange tabby – and witch’s familiar. Honeybee the cat had inspired the name of the bakery, and now she lazily watched the pedestrians going by on Broughton Street outside. My own familiar, a Cairn terrier named Mungo, was snoozing in the office off the kitchen, as he did most every day I worked at the bakery.

I went over to the firefighters’ table and gathered up their empty plates. Both men worked at firehouse five, known as Five House, with my fiancé, Declan McCarthy. Randy was the younger of the two, as well as stockier. He was handsome in a chiseled way, with dark eyes and dark hair. He’d been dating one of the spellbook club members for a few months now. Scott, a tall man with salt and pepper hair, a deep mahogany complexion, and a calm demeanor, was his superior officer as well as his close friend and mentor.

“How were your scones?” I asked.

Randy leaned back and grinned at me. “Awesome, like always.”

Scott nodded. “Good stuff.”

“Can I bring you anything else? More coffee?”

The older man shook his head and stood. “Thanks, but I’ve got to get going. Better load up a box with a dozen assorted pastries. We just finished our forty-eight, but I’ll drop it back by the station for the new shift.”

I grinned. “Deal.”

“I’ve got it,” Lucy said from behind the counter, and began to fill a box with an assortment of baked goods.

Scott went to pay, and I asked Randy, “How was your shift?”

“Boring. A minor wreck, a kitchen fire, an elevator rescue, and a bunch of building inspections.” Then he brightened. “But there was that dumb guy who set his siding on fire when he was barbequing hot dogs.”

“Glad you got in a little excitement.”

He didn’t seem to notice my wry tone. A boring shift was what I hoped for every time Declan went to work.

The two men left, and I cleared their table, wiped it down, then went to retrieve my sweet tea.

Standing beneath the tall blackboard where we listed our menu selections for the day, I inhaled the scents of sugar and spice, hints of rosemary and cheese, fresh sourdough bread, and beneath it all the undercurrent of coffee beans. Fans hung from the high ceiling, lazily moving the cooled air around a bit more. Ben had chosen the music for the day, and Ella Fitzgerald quietly drifted down from the speakers up in the corners. Behind me, our part-time employee, Iris Grant, hummed to herself over the bowl of muffins she was mixing.

Well, she wasn’t exactly humming. She was murmuring a gentle incantation to invoke the benefits of the spices in the recipe. Fresh out of the oven, those muffins would join the other pastries in the case for the afternoon surge of customers, and, like the other pastries, would offer a little extra oomph – in this case physical and mental energy from the burst of fresh ginger they contained. Just the ticket for making it through until five o’clock.

Iris wasn’t exactly a witch, per se, but she was learning. In training, you might say. Her feet shuffled in a subtle two-step, which told me she was in a good mood. She was eighteen and a student at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Her chin-length hair boasted mermaid purple and yellow streaks, and a series of piercings ran along the outer edges of her ears. The moment I’d met her, I’d recognized her innate power.

Almost everyone has the power to work magic. Spell work is simply a way to harness one’s intuition and intention in a focused way. But Iris was an old soul, and I felt she had more of a gift than most. The other members of the spellbook club had agreed. When she’d asked for a job at the Honeybee, taking her on as an apprentice was a no-brainer.

I took another swallow of sweet tea and allowed my eyes to close in contentment as the syrupy liquid spread coolness down my throat and into my chest. A sense of peace settled over me and—

“Katie Lightfoot!”

My heart stuttered as my eyes popped open.

“Wake up, honey! I need my daily sugar fix! And I want to hear all about how your wedding plans are coming along. Is your mother still in town?”

“Hello, Mrs. Standish,” I managed with a glance at the now silent front door. Maybe getting rid of the bell hadn’t been such a good idea after all. She had been one of our first customers and was still possibly our best, but with her huge personality, swirling caftans and loudly printed turbans, Edna Standish took a little getting used to.

“No, Mama left last week.” I stopped there and tried to keep my smile from looking too tight.

My mother and I had clashed repeatedly over details of my wedding in another month. She’d tried to convince me to have the same color scheme, flowers, and even bridesmaid dress design as the last wedding she’d insisted on planning for me – the one that fell through at the last minute when Andrew-the-jerk came down with an incurable case of cold feet. Thank goodness he had, of course, because Declan and I were far better together than Andrew and I ever could have been. But no way did I want anything about my actual wedding to reflect my almost wedding.

This time around, I was ditching tradition whenever it didn’t fit with what I wanted for my big day. A few of my attendants were married, and a local judge would marry us instead of Pastor Freeman, who, believe it or not, Mama had actually offered to fly to Savannah. As for my attendants’ dresses, they were all free to wear the colors and design they wanted, with the caveat that those colors be on the pastel side. Since the ladies I’d chosen ran the gamut from a pregnant twenty-something to an octogenarian, one design for all would have been folly.

If I hadn’t converted my unused, fluffy-white wedding dress into a zombie bride Halloween costume a couple of years earlier, I wouldn’t have put it past Mama to suggest that I wear that. As it was, I’d chosen a simple form-fitting design made of pale plum-colored lace and opted out of having a veil. The shade suited my auburn hair as well as subtly tapping into the notion of royalty.  After all, what woman doesn’t want to feel royal on her wedding day?

Gossip extraordinaire, Mrs. Standish didn’t need to know all of that, however. And she didn’t need to know my father was flying into Savannah the next day, either.

The Honeybee typically had two kinds of customers. There were the hit-and-runs who came in for a goodie and a drink in a to-go cup, and there were the loungers who stayed a while. Edna Standish was a bit of both. A prodigious eater, she came in nearly every day for a bag of something sweet to take home, but she typically stayed to chat for anywhere from a few minutes to an hour. I personally thought she tried to time her visits for when we were slow, so she and Ben, both extraverts to the max, could gossip and chat without interruption.

Now Mrs. Standish stood with her hands on her hips surveying what we had on offer. Slightly behind her and to her left, her companion, Skipper Dean, hovered in the shadow of his considerably taller paramour. He sketched me a smile as she boomed, “We’ll take a half-dozen of the daily special to start. I wish you had those red velvet whoopie pies on the menu all the time.”

I raised an eyebrow at Lucy, who nodded. We’d been talking about adding them to the daily roster just that morning.

Ben had returned from stowing the ladder and now stepped forward with a waxed bakery bag in hand. Our logo of an orange tabby cat was printed on the side. He smoothly put her order in the bag and held it out. “Here you go, Edna. What’s new?”

Lucy and I exchanged another glance. How much could be new since their half-hour-long conversation the day before?

“Well, I tell you, Ben,” she said in her voice that was designed more for outdoors than indoors. “I’m feeling a little down. This is the anniversary of my poor husband’s death.”

My uncle nodded, sympathy all over his face. “Oh, my dear. I’m sure it’s a very difficult day. Will you be visiting his grave?”

“He’s in the family tomb over at Bonaventure Cemetery. And yes, the skipper and I stopped by this morning to leave flowers.” She sighed. “So sad that he was taken so early.”

Skipper Dean patted Mrs. Standish’s arm, and she leaned into him. He subtlety braced himself with one leg to keep from being knocked over as she smiled down at him. “Thank goodness I found love with this sweet man.”

I stifled a smile. Some vanilla scones from the Honeybee had paved the way for their meeting. Not a love potion – we didn’t do that kind of thing. Our spell casting had been more in the way of opening a door for love and companionship to enter Mrs. Standish’s life when she had been feeling particularly lonely.

Lucy cleared her throat, which had its intended effect of bringing me back to the problem at hand. Or rather, Mrs. Standish’s current problem and our ability to mitigate it.

“We have some chocolate mint cookies right out of the oven,” I said. “Would you like to try one?” The cocoa nibs in the cookies would help ground her, while the crunchy bits of peppermint candy and a healthy dose of peppermint extract would help lift her spirits.

“Would I!” She eagerly took the proffered treat and took a big bite. Her eyes grew round. “Oh, my. You ladies have outdone yourself with that recipe. Fresh, light, and not too sweet.”

“Perhaps you’d like a glass of jasmine sweet tea,” Lucy suggested. “I can whip some up in a jiffy.” Jasmine was a good antidote to stress of all kinds.

However, Mrs. Standish shook her head. “No, thank you dear. We really must be going. But I’ll take half a dozen of these delectable specimens as well.” She crunched into the cookie again with vigor.

“That good? Perhaps I should try one, then.” A man I hadn’t seen – or heard – stepped out from behind her. Kensington Bosworth wore a light linen suit, a pale-yellow shirt open at the collar, and huarache sandals. An oversized gold ring flashed as he removed the pair of round wire-framed sunglasses that perched on his button nose to reveal small, pale eyes peering at us all with interest.

“By all means, Mr. Bosworth.” I handed him a mint chocolate cookie with a quick glance at the door. Not having the bell ring every time someone came into the bakery was going to take some getting used to. “Skipper Dean?” I asked, offering Mrs. Standish’ companion one as well.

He shook his head and patted his middle with a smile. “Thank you so much, darlin’, but I have to watch my girlish figure, you know.”

Mrs. Standish hee-hawed a laugh at that and gave him a squeeze.

Kensington Bosworth took a bite of cookie and gave her a sideways look that didn’t hide his disapproval. She grinned at him, and I realized she was aware of her effect on his more delicate sensibilities and found it amusing.

“So good to see you, Kensington,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “Did you ever follow up with Randy Post? For your security system, I mean.”

He nodded gravely. “Indeed. He has already completed the work. Most satisfactory.”

“Hmm. Good to hear that.” She gazed at him serenely.

After several seconds, he cleared his throat. “Well, then. Yes. Thank you for the recommendation, Edna.” He turned to Lucy. “I came in for a loaf of ...