A Witch Out of Water: Mystic Water Cozy Mystery series, #1

By Lishla Barron

Paranormal cozy murder mystery romance. In Folly Beach, South Carolina, marine conservationist & water witch Amara solves a few murders with the help of Finn, Irish pub-owner (& dolphin shifter), along with her quirky friends, Krish (merman) and Rebecca (Chinese water dragon), and her seagulls.

• Language: English
• Publisher: L. B. Diamond
• Release date: Mar 18, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224506521

Book preview

Prologue

Maeve warned me about the selkie. She said I should keep an eye on her. Which was all well and good, but I had to figure out who she was first.

The selkie, I mean, not Maeve. I knew who Maeve was. She was my boss in a matter of speaking. Or, I guess, in all matters of speaking.

But the selkie turned out to be a woman named Sheena who was in her 50s. Can you call a selkie a woman? They are such strange beings. They seem so almost normal, until they slip that sealskin over themselves and pop into the water. Then they embrace their other half, their animal half that lives in the sea and all conscious thought appears to float away with the tides.

Anyway, Maeve, who prides herself on being cryptic, told me to keep an eye on the selkie – which was fine when I finally figured out who she was, except for the body floating in the water in front of her house.

Chapter 1

My name is Amara and I’m a water witch. Okay, to be fair, I’m a really new water witch. On my 35 th birthday, just as my cousin, Anne, who was the keeper of the keys to our family’s magic predicted – my powers began pooling in my core.

I could feel them there, waiting, but I didn’t know what they were for. I didn’t know I was a water witch until I walked out my front door the day of my birthday and felt the pull of the ocean – and that was a week ago, and only about a day after I moved here to Folly Beach, South Carolina.

I was living and working as a marine biologist in St. Augustine, Florida until after my parents died this past January. Their deaths had been a bit of a mystery which took us – meaning myself, my oldest cousin, Anne, with her husband, Tommy, and one of my younger cousins, Alex – the better part of a week to figure out.

The day after my parents’ memorial service, Maeve approached me with an offer from the M Group to lead my own conservationist team at Folly Beach. Housing was to be provided. This was to be a two-year contract for a very nice sum of money that I couldn’t turn down.

I got to pick my own team to an extent. Maeve had final approval of the two members (Rebecca and Krish) I wanted to bring with me, and she apologized for saddling me with a third member. She said that she didn’t have much choice with the last member of my team. Something about nepotism being a necessary evil at this point – which explained Jill.

Jill was blond (from a bottle), blue-eyed, had a lithe body that was perfect for a bikini, and seemed vapid. We were hoping for more of a personality from her, but it hadn’t surfaced yet. She seemed perfectly content to follow us around, while wearing a string bikini, as if she was always ready to pose for a photo shoot, should that occur.

On the flip side, I had worked with both Rebecca and Krish at my previous position – they were marine biologists like me who went to school in Florida.

Rebecca is a Chinese American who was adopted by Jewish New York parents when she was a year old. She grew up to have a love of Chinese food, sushi, and all the foods from a Jewish deli. She keeps her black hair really short because she said it was too straight and would get into her eyes otherwise. She is a petite 5’2", but works out to be able to help lift dolphins and other sea creatures. She is much stronger than she looks, and she’s excellent at computer research.

Krish’s family moved to America from Chennai, India before he was born. He has shoulder-length dark hair, dark eyes, and after some time in the sun, his skin is a deep brown. He is about 5’8", reasonably lean and muscular, and loves curry. I swear I think he reeks of it at times. He works out daily and can easily bench press 250 pounds. He likes to pick up women almost as often as he changes his clothing. Unfortunately, Rebecca has a crush on him, which I still can’t understand.

Don’t get me wrong, Krish is one of my favorite people, but I don’t see the attraction.

As for me, I’m about halfway in height between Krish and Rebecca at 5’5" – making us an interesting trio. I have long thick chestnut brown hair that gets reddish highlights in the sun, which I invariably braid into a fishtail (pun intended) in the morning. I also have olive green eyes. I’m the palest of the three of us, as I tan and freckle all at the same time, even when I bathe in sunscreen. Rebecca is pretty much free from curves, while I’m curvy all over.

In my 20s, I tried the diet thing because I listened to society tell me that all women had to be a size 2, or they were worthless in this world. I dieted relentlessly, worked out, and was generally miserable. I successfully lost a few dress sizes, had one good meal, and that was it. I finally decided all of it was completely ridiculous. I’m back to my normal size, which is a plus size, and I’m proud of it. If you don’t want to be friends with me or date me because I’m not skinny, then oh well, your loss.

I like who I am. I still work out, but more to lift weights, because dolphins and other sea creatures are heavy when you need to help them out in the water.

Anyway - the three of us moved into 413 East Ashley Avenue in Folly Beach, South Carolina more than a week ago. It was one block from the beach and a few blocks from Center Street where all the shops and restaurants were in Folly. It was a three bedroom, one and a half bath house that had been built in 1955, and was probably worth close to a million dollars at this point.

When you walked into the foyer from the front door, there were two benches facing each other on the right, along with a key holder thing above the light switches. On the left, there was storage under the stairwell. Directly in front of the foyer, a half step up, was the den area with a large television set. In the opposite corner, a large cushy couch was on the left and two reading chairs that shared a reading lamp were on the right. There was a clock on the wall that seemed to tell mostly the correct time, although to be honest I rarely checked.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the full set of Monty Python’s Flying Circus DVDs which came with our rental, and were stashed under the TV. We had watched all of them the weekend we moved in and laughed hysterically.

If you walked through the den, you would walk a half step down to the breakfast nook with a small table and a couple of chairs. There was a door that led to the screened-in porch with a small black metal outside table and chairs, and set of wind chimes that rang when the wind blew.

From the screened-in porch, you could see the rest of the backyard with the outside shower (best to rinse off there instead of tainting the inside shower with sand that would ruin the septic tank), a large picnic table, many beautiful towering different kinds of palm trees, and a bright blue shed that housed the lawn mower and other tools.

To the left of the den was a large table with a bench on one side and a few chairs on the other. You could see the little square kitchen from the den, which had enough room for cabinetry on the left side with the dishwasher, more cabinetry with the stove and oven on the right side, and the old refrigerator in the corner.

In front of the large table was the half bath which also housed a small washer and dryer, along with the circuit board against the far wall. There was a small platform which could be reached by a full step to the left of the foyer, or a half step from where the large table was. This was kind of an open hallway area that had the thermostat against the far wall in the far left corner.

Krish tried to leave his shoes there, but we moved them to the foyer. When he kept leaving his shoes there, we moved them outside until he got the hint.

The stairs were somewhat narrow and a little steep, but thankfully there weren’t that many of them. Most of the house had flooring and tile, except for the bedrooms, which had carpeting.

There was one bedroom at the top of the stairs on your immediate right that had a small closet, a chest of drawers, a queen-sized bed, and a night table. The next bedroom was a little down the hall on the right, with a wardrobe, a king-sized bed, and a couple of chairs with a table in between them. There wasn’t really room for a night table because the king-sized bed took up a lot of room.

The last bedroom was on the left side of the hallway with a small closet that housed the water heater and a few spare pillows, a locked panel against the far wall next to the closet, a chest of drawers, a queen-sized bed, and a night table. Next to the bedroom on the left was the full bath with nice sink and a mirror, wooden shelving for bathroom stuff (like pads, tampons, and condoms), a towel rack, a toilet, and a nice bathtub/shower combo.

There was a door at the end of hallway next to the bathroom which led to the outside deck that had another table set with chairs, and a stairway down to the backyard.

In the front of the house, there was room for two cars. One to the right of the house where the trash and recycling cans were. Another spot was just to the left of the front of the house. We kind of made a third spot in front of the house and ruined the grass because we had nowhere else to put Krish’s little car.

Jill lived with some friends in Charleston near the College of Charleston. Evidently, she received her degree in women’s studies from the College of Charleston.

Rebecca asked Jill once how that enabled her to work with a group of marine biologists on a conservation team, and Jill’s reply was that she was into social advocacy. None of us knew what to do with that response, so we left it alone.

When I said that Maeve approached me with an offer, well, she did, but she asked me to meet her in Seabrook, South Carolina, which is one of the islands near Charleston. I had heard of the M Group, and how they were taking the beach conservation world by storm in the southeast.

Evidently, they were a group of friends who all went to nursing school together, had maintained their friendship over the decades, and liked to vacation together. They normally liked to holiday in Kiawah, which was another little island and more posh than Seabrook, but one of them rented this house in Seabrook, and they bought lottery tickets like they always did the first night of their holiday. Only this time, they won, and they won big.

They bought the house they had been renting in Seabrook as a home base for their newly minted M Group corporation which was to be a way to give back to the beaches they had enjoyed for so long. There were five ladies in the M Group: Maeve, the ecologist, who interviewed me; Morwenna the lawyer; Margot who was a nurse until she retired; Maxine (Max) the corporate director; and, Meredith (Mer) the chemist who worked for the CDC.

I met Morwenna when I signed my contract and Max when I went to review exactly what my position would entail. I think it was Margot who convinced me to sign on. She was at the house in Seabrook while I was waiting for Maeve to get off a phone call.

I had driven up to the house, parked my car in front of the posh two car garage that was separate from the house, and stood on the driveway for a moment. The front porch had two levels to the left of the steps. The first level closest to the driveway had a table and chairs to eat outside. The second level had a porch swing and a couple of chairs.

Margot had answered the door, took one look at me, and said, You must be Amara. Maeve will be down in a moment. She gave me an appraising look, and added, Yes, you’ve come home.

I sat at the kitchen table while Maeve gushed about how she wanted me to work with the M Group, and how I could make a difference. We spoke for at least an hour. Then, I went to the screened-in porch and worked on a puzzle with Meredith. Meredith assured me that she had to work on puzzles while she was at the beach because they kept her synapses firing.

After I had worked with Meredith on her puzzle for half an hour or so, Margot came out to tell me it was time for me to leave. You have to go make arrangements to come here, Amara. This is where you belong.

I thanked all of them for their time, and left. I gave my notice