Pick Your Poison: Cauldron of Crime, #2

By Iris Leigh

Discarding old items could spell ruin for me.

Wayward's Shop of Mysteries is open for business, and I couldn't be more excited. The shelves may be empty now, but they won't be that way for long.

My first spell will change everything, but unfortunately, before I can cast my first spell, things go horribly wrong.

When the residents of Snowton Heights fall ill one right after another, there's one common denominator – a bottle from my shop. Rumors fly that I am behind the mysterious poison. I must clear my name before any more bodies drop.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Iris Leigh
• Release date: Jul 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223224679

Iris Leigh

Iris Leigh stumbled upon the genre of cozy mystery by accident. Since Iris is easily scared she does her best to avoid horror books, tv shows, and films. But dying for some type of mystery without all the suspense to make her heart burst from terror was when someone asked if she had ever read a cozy mystery. Now she has fallen in love with the genre and started to write to bring her stories to life.

Book preview

image-placeholder

Chapter 1

"W hat in the world is that ?" I groaned as the smell of rotten eggs mixed with garlic and paprika assaulted my nose. A gag formed in the back of my throat and I struggled to prevent myself from hurling on the ground. Quickly, I popped the lid onto the bottle in my hand and raised it to eye level to examine it. It was a little vial with liquid inside it just the shade of blue to rival the Seattle sky when it wasn’t in one of its moods. Floating in the liquid were little red and gold specks. Hesitantly, I shook the bottle as I scrunched up my nose. For something that looked so beautiful, it smelled like absolute crap. My grandmother, bless her, must have had been starting to lose her mind when she made this. This was something I wouldn’t even dare set on the shelf in the shop. The smell was so horrid it would scare everyone away, even me. And that was saying a lot, since I owned the place.

Taking great care not to scratch the little glass vial, I set it in the box I’d designated for trash along with ten others all containing the same liquid. I also added five empty bottles to the trash box as well. I wanted absolutely no reminder of inhaling that killer toxin. If I hadn’t come to my senses almost immediately, the CDC would have to be called. Whatever was in that vial was far from usable.

No more nasty rumors for me, I whispered as I rummaged through another box. There had to be something that would be of use in here, instead of turning the town against me, which that liquid was likely to do. A shiver coursed through my body at the thought of being the center of attention again. My fingers brushed against fabric. No rotten egg smell greeted me, just the usual musty smell of something old. Carefully, I removed an item to examine it. It was a wall decoration, one I probably wouldn’t be using judging by the way the material was worn, and the rusty nails that held it all together.

Well hello, Frankie.

A chuckle escaped me, as I turned the decoration around to come face to face with—well, a face. The green skin was a giveaway, but the scars on the head and metal rods in the neck also helped complete the picture of whose head I held in my hands.

And…goodbye, Frankie.

I tossed the head into the garbage bin on top of the rotten egg vials before going back to picking through the box with decorations. With the bulky head gone, a pair of bats sat exposed, two medium-sized ones that almost felt real as I picked them up to examine them. Both had their wings expanded, and strings went from the tops of the bodies down to buttons on the other end.

Mechanical bats?

Curious, I pressed the buttons, causing the bats to jerk to life before their wings glitched out, jerking about wildly before everything just stopped again. I pressed the buttons again, but the bats remained frozen. The skills to troubleshoot why mechanical wings didn’t work were out of my wheelhouse, so the bats joined Frankie and the rotten eggs in the trash.

With the first box intended for trash now full, I reached down to pick it up and place it up front. It would have been easier to use bigger boxes, but I wanted smaller boxes to make them lighter and more manageable, so I wouldn’t have to bother Warren to come over to help me. He had his own business to run, and he had already helped me enough. I could never repay him for his help in figuring out what happened to Isaac Cannon.

With box in hand, I made my way out of the back room, around the counter, and toward the front door to set the set the box down. Once I had gone through several more boxes in the back and had a few more things to take to the trash, then I would make the trip outside. Save on steps and make this cleaning as efficient as possible.

One step closer… I muttered as I looked around the shop, and a million more things to do, I finished as I let loose a sigh. Reaching up, I gripped the wide brim of the witch’s hat that sat firmly on my head. There was no reason to wear it while cleaning, but I wanted to. Like it already filled me with magic. I couldn’t wait till I stood over the cauldron in the back room, making my very first product, finally starting on my journey of becoming a witch, and connecting with the magic I had left behind. It was time to finally present myself to the world as Serafina Wayward, someone who was okay with not being normal. Who didn’t feel the urge to fit into society’s standards as I sold items I created with my own two hands, with my very limited almost non-existing magic in a shop that belonged to my family. Just the mere thought of the future filled me with warmth. All I had to do was embrace my witchy side and actually open the shop.

With a smile on my face, I made my way back to the magic room in the back of the shop, grabbing the nearest box as I pried open the lid. Thankfully, no potions or decorations greeted me this time as I peered inside. Instead, a wave of nostalgia washed over me as I stared at the contents. With hesitant hands, I rummaged through the items, so familiar yet so foreign at the same time. My heart stung as a memory popped into my mind of my grandmother leaning over the cauldron in the middle of the room. She was a little on the short side, so had to use a step stool to peer over the rim if she didn’t want to stand on her tippy toes. And there was me, sitting on the stool beside her, watching her as she worked her magic. The very hat I currently wore as an adult was also present on my head as a child. It would have engulfed my head if not for my grandfather standing next to me, holding the tip of the hat to keep it hovering above my head.

I hadn’t meant to cut off the connection with my grandparents. It was just that I couldn’t be…ordinary…in a family of witches. Everything we talked about revolved around magic. We would link even the most mundane thing back to magic. Did you know that this can be used in so and so? Oh, I remember when I accidentally ate this and made so and so. I frowned at the memory. It wasn’t so bad at first, but it got worse when my two younger sisters grew up. They loved magic, wanted to be surrounded by it, and I was the odd one out that just wanted to fit in at school and be normal.

I had jumped at the chance of trying to achieve my childhood dreams of making it big in New York. At first, I had kept in contact, but it got harder as time went on. My life got busy. I was doing normal things and loving it. The spare time I had to call back home got less and less, and the time difference didn’t help. Or, at least, that is what I used to tell myself. Always promising myself that I would call home the next day, then the next day after that…until there weren’t any more next days. My grandparents died, and I returned home for the funerals. No one blamed me for not staying in touch. Everyone knew life had unique plans for all of us. Yet, whenever I returned home, I told myself I would call more once I was back in the city. I ended up calling less.

A bell jingling interrupted my thoughts as I wiped at my cheeks, removing the evidence of the tears that had landed there. No reason to alarm anyone that there was anything wrong, when it wasn’t something that another person could fix.

One moment! I called as I stood, wiping my cheeks one more time to just make sure. Be right out! Closing the box, I pushed it into a corner. Out of sight, out of mind. It wasn’t the time to go through it just yet. Physically, I wasn’t sure I knew where I wanted to place the items, and mentally, I wasn’t ready. I took a few deep breaths, settled myself, and, with a quick adjustment of my hat, made my way to the front of the shop.

We aren’t open yet, but how can I help… Hello? As soon as I stepped out of the back room and took a few steps forward, I stopped. There wasn’t anyone in the shop other than me.

How odd… I muttered to myself. I was sure I had heard the familiar bell jingle above the door. Might as well take the trash out while I’m here, I said to myself as I walked the rest of the distance to the front of the shop, only to pause as I tilted my head to the side. Weird. First there was the bell jingling and nobody here, and now my box designated as trash was gone. While I had labeled it clearly on the box as trash, I hadn’t expected for someone to stop by randomly and help by removing the box for me. I always appreciated help, even if whoever did me this favor was a little odd.

Too bad they weren’t here when I was cleaning up dust and fighting the bugs in the shop's front.

image-placeholder

Chapter 2

A nother box down! I exclaimed, hoping that cheering to myself would give me the motivation to keep going. After the mysterious box had disappeared, I had sorted through a few more boxes and placed the trash by the front door, but there were still several more to go through as I made my way back to the magic room to start another box. The one I was looking at contained too many memories of my childhood; I wouldn’t be able to go through it right now. And that was okay, because not everything needed to be taken care of right now. I was in no rush, not like in the corporate world. If I wanted to stop and smell the roses, then I could do that.

Turning my attention to another box, I pushed it away from the wall toward the cauldron before collapsing to the floor to get to work again. The flaps of the box were easy to peel back and I stared at the books in the box, a collection of grimoires that belonged to my grandmother. These were her personal ones, and I knew when I opened the pages I would be greeted by her handwriting. Warmth coursed through my body as I touched the first grimoire. She liked to be organized and had things separated by callings instead of trying to stuff it all in one book.

I picked up the first book, a green leather-bound volume that had ridges extending out from the cover, giving it a bumpy feel. It was worn, several decades old, but despite its age, inside it still contained all the beauty from when I first had laid eyes upon it as a child. The magic within the book hummed, covering it in a haze as I continued to stroke it. It instantly filled me with a feeling of calm, almost as if I was walking through a forest on a morning where the weather was cool, there was a slight breeze in the air, and animals were going about their day, unafraid of a human being so close to them.

Should I read you? I asked the book as I felt it continue to hum beneath my fingers. There were other books in the box, and I remembered the colorful collection that used to sit on a shelf in the back room when my grandmother was alive. Despite all the books being in my possession now, they weren’t all meant for me, as a memory of sitting over the workbench with my grandmother floated to the front of my mind.

Why don’t you just put them all together? I asked as I wiggled in my seat, trying to get a better look at the pages of the book that was currently open.

Because I don’t like it that way, she replied, a laugh escaping as she snapped the book shut and set it