A Charming Spell (Magical Cures Mystery Series) by tonya kappes Page A

lips. There was something strange going on here. I knew Mr. Prince Charming was up to something. “He’s a nosy old thing.”
    “Aw,” Colton blew me off. “All cats are curious. I have one myself. So you are a . . .”
    “Homeopathic shop.” I smiled taking in the atmosphere I had created. I was very proud of A Charming Cure and how well it had blossomed over the past year.
    “My mom is going to love coming here.” He walked around picking up a few bottles here and there. “She’s an Intuitist and Curist?”
    “Me too!” There was excitement bubbling inside. I had never met anyone else like me. “I hope she comes to visit.”
    “As a matter of fact,” he pulled up the cuff of his uniform sleeve and glanced at his watch, “she will be here in about nine hours.”
    “Very cool. Where are you from?” I followed him around as he browsed the shop. There were so many things that I didn’t understand about my gift and I’d love to pick his mother’s brain.
    “We are transferring from the village out West.” He nodded like I knew where he was talking about, but I didn’t. “This job came available and I came out here to interview and put Officer Gandolf in place as an interim.”
    That made a lot of sense. All of the swapping out of Oscar to Gandolf was around the time I was appointed Village President and Izzy Solstice was still in charge. She would be able to give me all the details of when Gandolf was leaving and Colton would be taking over.
    “I hope you like it here.” I ran my hand along a couple of tables as we passed. Eloise must’ve missed a little lint when she was dusting.
    “I’m sure I will. It was great until the big murder.”
    “What is the latest on that?” That wasn’t prying. I was the president and needed to know.
    “Since you are authorized in the investigation,” he lowered his voice, “there was a trace of poison found on the ends of the darts. And the book that the poison instructions came from was from Ever After Books, which puts Ophelia Biblio as our number one suspect.”
    “Oh.” Suddenly I was regretting getting Mac involved in the case. I walked up to the counter and shuffled a few things around. The cauldron was a mess and I wasn’t looking forward to cleaning it. On second thought, it hadn’t been working all that great since Ophelia put it back together and a new one would be nice. It would go on my list of things to get when I made it over to Wands, Potions, and Beyond.
    “We checked out the records of all the books sold and no one bought that book.” He leaned up against the counter. Our eyes met. He smiled. I looked away.
    Meow, meow . Mr. Prince Charming pranced around the shop with his tail waving in the air. I almost wanted to strangle him.
    “There was one thing that didn’t add up.” He shuffled his feet.
    “And what was that?” My intuition told me that he was holding something back.
    “I shouldn’t say anything because I didn’t even mention it to Gandolf yet.” He bit the corner of his lip.
    “I’m not going to say anything. We have to work together.” I encouraged him to tell me, not because I had to know, but because I was curious.
    “Gandolf is old school Crystallamancy.” He referred to Gandolf’s spiritual ability to read crystal balls, which would tie the link between Izzy and Gandolf. I bet they were old friends from crystal ball school and she was in a pinch to have a new sheriff so she probably called on her old friend. “He sees things black and white.”
    I nodded.
    “He thinks Ophelia had to have killed Mr. Primrose because the book was from her shop, the darts were found in front of her shop, where she and Mr. Primrose just so happened to have had a big public fight.” His voice dropped. His eyes dipped down with concern. “See, that is where he isn’t seeing the broader picture.”
    “You have to admit his logic is good.” When Colton presented the facts, they did point right at Ophelia.
    “Now you aren’t