The Witching Place: A Perilous Page (A Curious Bookstore Cozy Mystery—Book 3)

CHAPTER ONE

Alexis Blair stopped the car, letting the engine idle as she looked out the window, admiring the building. The old church in Marshfield, the one she had found while driving home from Incanton about a week ago, was still up for sale. The store that had been housed inside was now gone, and the building stood empty, the For Sale sign out front slowly fading in the sun.

Lex sighed, biting her lip as she gazed at it. In her mind’s eye, she wasn’t seeing the church as it stood; she was seeing a big board above the door with the name of her own bookstore, the door hanging open to reveal stacks of books inside, just waiting to be browsed. The architecture of the church would be the perfect counterpart to the used books, and Marshfield was the perfect spot for it. Just far enough away from her current workplace, A Curious Bookstore, but still an easy drive from home.

Not only that, but the space that had been occupied by Marshfield’s used bookstore—Black, White, and Read All Over—had, so the local rumor went, been purchased by a coffee chain, a national brand that would fill the space with tables and shelves of pastries. That meant there was no local competition either, and the timing was fantastic. The void left by the old store would need to be filled soon, before the local customers all picked up new shopping habits elsewhere.

Of course, there was one sense in which the timing wasn’t perfect at all: the fact that Lex hadn’t yet had time to save up enough money for a deposit.

Lex’s phone buzzed in her pocket, and she quickly grabbed it, seeing her mother’s name flash up on the screen. She sighed and answered the call, putting it to her ear with a sense of foreboding.

“Hello, Mother,” she said. “You’re not calling to cancel on tomorrow, are you?”

“What? Why would I do that?” Miranda tutted on the other end of the line. “I expect you thought you were going to get out of having to spend time with your poor old mother.”

“No, not at all,” Lex said, hurriedly.

“Well, if I’m not wanted, then I’m not wanted,” her mom continued, without pause. “It’s a dreadful thing, being ignored by your own daughter!”

“Mom, no, I just thought that might be why you were calling,” Lex said. “You’re not due until tomorrow, so I didn’t think I’d hear from you. I thought it must be bad news.”

“I’m calling to remind you that I am coming tomorrow, and that you’d best be at the station to meet me,” Miranda said. “That’s now that we’ve established I am still coming. Honestly, Alexis, darling, sometimes I really wonder about you. I don’t know how you manage to get along in your daily life.”

“I manage fine, Mom,” Lex said, closing her eyes momentarily and sinking into her seat. “I’ll be there on time, I promise.”

“Well, good,” Miranda huffed. “I can’t wait to talk some sense into you and get you out of that dreadful little town and back to Boston. Goodbye, darling, and don’t be late!”

“Bye, Mo—” Lex stopped herself, realizing that the line had gone dead. She threw the phone onto the passenger seat and rubbed her forehead, trying to fight down the urge to scream.

Lex checked her mirrors and pulled out into the street again, heading to work before she was late. She met her own reflection as she did so: her black hair cut into a straight bob to her chin, framing a face that right now seemed full of longing. Even though she lived within walking distance of A Curious Bookstore, she had taken to driving there every morning just so she could get the chance to admire the church, and to check that it hadn’t yet been sold.

She drove the short distance back into her new hometown of Incanton, thinking all the while. Somewhere distantly, Incanton’s clock tower struck a quarter to nine, reminding her that she only had fifteen minutes to get parked behind A Curious Bookstore and head inside for work. There was one way in which she might be able to afford the church, as well as being able to set it up with new furniture and décor, and purchase her first stock.

That was by convincing her mother that it was worth the investment.

It was far from an easy task to consider. But ever since Lex’s mom had declared she was going to come for a visit, with the aim of bringing her unruly child to heel, Lex had been unable to stop thinking about the idea.

Miranda Black had not been thrilled with her daughter’s original decision to quit her job at a big publisher, move out of Boston for a tiny seaside town, and start working at a small used bookstore. She had been even less thrilled to learn that Lex only took the job to get both investment capital and experience, so that she could fulfill her dream of following in her father’s footsteps: opening her own used bookstore.

As for her father, if he had been around, it might have been possible to count on his support. But given that he had been missing since Lex was fifteen, there wasn’t a lot of hope for that.

Lex pulled the car into the little alleyway behind A Curious Bookstore and rubbed her hands over her face, trying to get herself back into the right frame of mind for work. She couldn’t be thinking about missing fathers and investment opportunities when she was supposed to be selling books—although it was hard not to, given how nervous she was. Her whole future could hinge on this visit. Still, she owed it to Montgomery, the store’s owner, to put her best foot forward; he had given her more than enough chances out of the goodness of his heart, and she wasn’t going to let him down.

At least, not until the day she had to quit and break the news that she was opening her own store. The very thought of that conversation made her feel sick to her stomach. But she forced herself to get out of the car and move toward the back door of the store.

A shadow moved in front of her as she stepped toward it, making Lex jump; a moment later, the shadow materialized into the form of Hecate, Montgomery’s cat. With a sigh of relief, and putting a hand over her rapidly beating heart, Lex shook her head at the innocent-looking feline. “You nearly killed me,” she said, leaning down to stroke the top of Hecate’s head.

Before she managed it, however, the cat moved her head away, dodging Lex’s hand and then giving her an accusing look.

How can you pet me,

she seemed to be saying,

when you’re already thinking of leaving us?

Lex swallowed that guilt—which was surely imagined; Hecate was temperamental at the best of times, and probably just didn’t want to be touched today—and opened the back door, letting both herself and the cat inside.

“Morning, morning,” Montgomery called out, as he passed through the corridor ahead with a stack of books in his arms. He was clearly restocking the shelves, and his glasses had slipped partway down his nose. With his hands full and no way to push them back up, he looked the picture of a disorganized and busy man, down to the white hair bristling out in all directions from his head.

Lex shut and locked the back door behind her and walked along the undulating warped floorboards of the hall to the main sales room, where Montgomery was resting the whole stack on the counter. He turned to look around, scratching his head with one of the books in his other hand, as if trying to figure out where it went. He was wearing a bright salmon waistcoat today in a watered silk, paired with a bowtie of the same fabric and a white shirt dotted with tiny pink hearts. He looked more suited to a Valentine’s Day store promotion than late July, but that was Montgomery—always just a little odd.

“Do you need some help?” Lex asked, nodding to the pile of books.

“What? Oh, yes, yes,” Montgomery said, glancing down at them. Hecate jumped up onto the counter and he absentmindedly stroked one of her ears as she happily nestled her head against his hand, giving Lex a superior look. “They’re all new, all new. Well, new to us, of course—quite old, otherwise!”

Lex laughed. “I understood what you meant,” she said, taking the top book from the pile and examining the cover. It was a battered copy of a treatise on the healing properties of herbs found on the East Coast, which meant it needed to go in the nonfiction room. “You look a little frazzled.”

Montgomery shot a glance in her direction and automatically began to smooth down his normally neat hair. “I was up half the night waiting for a delivery,” he said, with a tone of regret. “It came at six this morning. Imagine! I could have just woken up at my normal hour and all would have been fine.”

Lex chuckled sympathetically, stepping out of the room to put the book in its right place. She’d never heard of a courier service that set delivery windows in the middle of the night, but then, this was Montgomery. He could always be counted on to challenge expectations.

Lex heard the delicate chimes of the bell above the front door and quickly stashed the book away in the right place on the shelf—which ran in chronological, not alphabetical, order—so that she could hurry back to help with the customer. She heard him, whoever he was, step through to the main room and greet Montgomery by name.

As she headed back through the corridor, she heard him clearly say in a deep and serious voice: “I’m here for the book.”

“Well—that book—it’s not, um, well, it’s not really available,” Montgomery said, after a moment, and there was something in his flustered tone that made Lex rush forward—because it sounded like he was in need of backup.