Charms and Chocolate Chips: A Magical Bakery Mystery by Bailey Cates Read Free Book Online

was that darn bat she’d been holding. Was it actually related to her death, or had she just happened to be holding the origami when she’d been attacked? And what was
wrong
with it, in a metaphysical sense? I’d have to ask Wren if she’d felt it, too.
    Sighing, I wished I could talk to my mother about the whole situation. Lucy was great, as were the other ladies in the spellbook club and my dad, but it wasn’t the same. What if there really was dark magic involved? I reminded myself that my mother wouldn’t have been the right one to talk to about Autumn’s murder anyway. Even if she’d been happy that I practiced magic, she’d still be the same overprotective Mama she’d always been.
    Back home, I opened the door for Mungo and inhaled the spiced fragrance of the fresh-baked bannock cakes with appreciation.
    And then it hit me. I wasn’t angry at my mother anymore. Not for keeping the family heritage of hedgewitchery a secret, and not for being such a pain in the patootie ever since I’d found out about it. I was simply tired of dealing with her stubbornness about magic.
    And I missed her.

Chapter 5
    By the time the doorbell rang at eight twenty, the apple cider was hot and infused with cloves, cardamom, clover honey, and a few black peppercorns. Jaida French stood on my porch, armed with a yellow candle, a bottle of wine, and a worried expression. An attorney by trade and tarot expert by training, she had been teaching me how to incorporate cards of the major arcana into my spell work. Tonight she wore designer jeans and a dark red sweater that glowed like fire against her deep mocha skin. She swept into the living room followed by her familiar, a Great Dane named Anubis.
    Tail wagging so hard I thought he’d put his back out, Mungo launched himself off the couch. The two dogs touched noses. Mungo was about the size of the Great Dane’s head.
    “God, Katie. How awful. How utterly, utterly awful.” Jaida set the bottle on the coffee table and threw her arms around me. Her soothing voice ran over me like caramel.
    I returned her embrace, surprised to feel hot tears stinging my eyelids. “Mimsey called you, too,” I mumbled into her comforting shoulder. She smelled like cinnamon.
    “Of course. She called all of us.” She stepped back and held me at arm’s length, looking me up and down. “I’m so sorry about your friend.”
    I nodded, swallowing the sudden ache in my throat. “Thanks,” I finally managed. “Wren was much closer to Autumn than I was, though.” I thought of her stunned face as she’d careened out of Autumn’s office. “I’m really worried about her. Mimsey said she was going to try to get her to come tonight.”
    “And Wren said she would.” Jaida laid her coat across the back of one of the wingbacks.
    I started to close the door, then saw Lucy’s 1964 Thunderbird convertible pull into the driveway behind my Volkswagen. The top, of course, was up, but I could see Mimsey in the passenger seat, and the tall figure in the back had to be Wren.
    “Grab yourself some cider,” I called to Jaida, and went out to the porch just as Margie opened her front door to take a look. I waved to her. She waved back and went inside. I’d already told her I was having a book club meeting at my house so she wouldn’t die from curiosity when the ladies arrived.
    The three women got out of the Thunderbird and hurried toward me. Honeybee strolled leisurely behind them, the very picture of orange-striped feline nonchalance. Lucy wore a black cloak that reached nearly to the ground and had tamed her mop of hair into a thick braid that fell over one shoulder.
    Mimsey, even shorter than my aunt and considerably rounder, wore a long, poufy down coat in vivid eye-pounding orange. Heckle, her parrot, rode on one shoulder. The septuagenarian was the unspoken leader of the spellbook club, as much as any group as democratic as ours needed a leader. She practiced flower and color magic as well as a bit of