A Cold Case in Spell by J L Collins

Author:J L Collins [Collins, J L]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-05-28T16:00:00+00:00

14

Ye Olde Guru

For a ‘Ye Olde General Store,’ the place was pretty big.

The whole place was made up of wood—wood beams, wood stairs that led up to the second floor, wood tables and displays, wood signs, and wood racks.

There were dozens of small aisles full of all sorts of different things. Food and household supplies were off to one side of the store, while practically everything else was off to the other. Upstairs, I could make out even more items through the railing that overlooked the rest of the store.

If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought I was walking into a large Cracker Barrel—minus the biscuits and cornbread.

As far as I could tell, the place was empty. Huh. At least it was nice and toasty in here.

I slipped off my hat and tucked it into the pocket of my coat, shaking my hair out. To the right of the door was a small stack of plastic baskets just like you’d find at any grocery store. Funny how they looked so out of place here. I grabbed it and began making my way through the aisles.

I was lucky to find most of what I needed, plus a few extra things to help get the creative juices flowing. Exactly what I needed not just for the novel, but for the sleuthing too.

“Oh, yeah,” I whispered to myself, grinning like an idiot while I chucked a box of Oreos into the overflowing basket. With no room for anything else, I took my signal to head to the front counter.

I put the basket down to lean over the counter. Nope, no one was back there, either. I lightly tapped the brass bell to get someone’s attention.

“Just a minute!” a man’s voice called out from behind a heavy black curtain in the back of the shop. Moments later a familiar face appeared, flustered at first until he saw me.

“Whoa, I wasn’t expecting to see our newest witch in town. How are things going?” Prince, the water magic representative on the Special Council, stood with a small bucket in his arms.

“Hi,” I said, slightly bewildered. The Special Council seemed to have it out for me, but I didn’t see any evidence of malice in Prince as he strode up to the front counter and gave my hand a shake.

“Picking these up?” He nodded to the basket while he unloaded a box full of plastic lighters into a wooden bowl by the cash register. “You might want to think twice about some of it.” He nicked the Oreos from the top of the basket. “Most of these things are way past their expiration date.”

As if to prove a point, he opened the bag to reveal the funkiest and stalest cookies I’ve ever seen in my life.

“Oh no,” I groaned. “And I was just thinking about the crème filling, too. My Granddaddy had this special hack where he stuck a fork between the cookies and dunked the whole thing into a glass of milk. Pure heaven.”

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