Undercover Coven (Sister Witchcraft Book 3) Read online

  Undercover Coven

  SIster Witchcraft book 3

  J.D. Winters

  Dakota Kahn

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Mailing List

  Also by J.D. Winters and Dakota Kahn

  About the Authors

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental. All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

  Copyright © 2017 J.D. Winters and Dakota Kahn

  Cover images from Shutterstock.com

  First Edition January, 2017

  Created with Vellum

  Chapter 1

  Being both all grown up and a witch, you’d think that going into a conference with a teacher wouldn’t make me a nervous wreck. You’d think I’d have all the confidence in the world, having both already defeated that dreadful demon called “high school”, and having knowledge of secret powers that most people couldn’t even dream about.

  You’d think that. I would have thought it too, until I saw the note that my little sister Lucy tried to hide from me, written in a sickeningly familiar hand.

  “2:00 — please come see me about this girl — Mrs. Higginbottom.”

  That name. I had been out of high school 6 years and had skipped out of town almost as quickly as I’d left school to try to find success south in Los Angeles, where I’d worked for some very scary people in Hollywood. Not witch scary, more, I could fire you on a whim just to see you squirm, scary.

  But even having braved that, the thought of looking into the pinched and mean face of Mrs. Higginbottom made me feel like I was 16 again and itching to play hooky, to run away and never have to face fifth period English again.

  So I was double mad at Lucy, who for a while seemed to have been settling down into life here in Lafay. She’d gotten into some group at school and had actual friends. In typical teenage fashion she hadn’t brought many around to Sibyl’s where we were staying, nor to the tea shop where I spent my days and Lucy spent free afternoons when I needed the extra hands.

  She’d tried to sneak off to Los Angeles a time or two, but she had no car of her own and Lafay had rather limited options for bugging out: one bus stop, right in the center of town so everybody could see if a certain young lady who looked and often dressed like a Powerpuff girl come to life was bouncing up and down on the seat, excitedly waiting for the bus. Then they’d give her older sister and guardian a call to come and get her.

  “What did you do?” I said, when I’d found the note innocently stuck inside the book cover of her physics text. I wasn’t snooping — mothers snoop and I’m not Lucy’s mom. I was out and out spying.

  “I didn’t do anything, it’s not my fault the old crone has a stick up her…”

  Lucy cut herself off on my warning look. Working on film crews in Los Angeles was like working on a ship: they all swore like sailors. Sibyl, our dear older sister who was so graciously letting us stay in her house with her husband and her pair of rug-rats was very, very strict about language. Whatever laxness Lucy might have picked up down in L.A. was not going to fly here.

  “She’s not bringing me in for no reason. What is it?” I said.

  Lucy was a teenager, so her naturally buoyant personality was at constant war with the sullen silence and moodiness teenagers develop by birthright. Moodiness won, and she just shrugged.

  That was all I got out of her until the next day when I closed up the tea shop and headed to the high school. It was like driving into the distant past, even if that distance was just some six years. Gosh, I wished for just today Sibyl would become Lucy’s legal guardian and take over for me.

  After all, she was the president of the PTA. She could have used some of that pull to help keep Lucy, and now me, out of trouble.

  Right?

  Lucy was sitting on a chair outside of the Principal’s office, swinging her feet back and forth. When she saw me, she gave me a small, tight little smile, and stood up.

  I wore mostly what I’d had on in the tea shop — a smart cornflower blue blouse, designer jeans, and after removing my pink work apron, I’d put on a tapered blazer that wouldn’t have been out of place at a business meeting. However much I didn’t feel like a grown up here in Lafay High, I was going to look it.

  The door to the Principal’s office opened, and old Mr. Aberdeen stood there, filling out the entire doorway with his large frame. He’d been the football coach when I was going here, and I don’t think we’d had a single interaction in all my four years of high school.

  My first instinct was to ask him, “Why in the world do football coaches become principals so often?” which would have been so stupid. So I just smiled and shook his hand.

  “Miss Auclair? You’re not her mother,” he said, making it sound a little like an accusation.

  “Oh gosh, no, thank Heaven. I’m Lucy’s sister, and her legal guardian.”

  I kept my smile plastered on like a mask, even as I saw some thought rise like an air bubble through the consciousness of the man in front of me. His eyes went a little wide just as his brain got the memo. He remembered the Auclair family, what happened to my parents.

  He probably wanted to say something about how terrible the accident was, about how he was sorry, as if it could mean anything these many years later. As if bringing it up would do any good.

  I charged ahead, babbling so he wouldn’t try to fill the silence.

  “Boy, the school looks just the same as when I went here. It wasn’t that long ago, but I thought it’d look all different, you know? Are we going into your office? I was never sent to the Principal’s when I was in high school, so…”

  My chatter petered out just as I stepped into the Principal’s office for the first time and saw Her. Ramrod straight in her chair, as if she’d had a ruler attached to her back. Or that stick that I didn’t let Lucy mention…

  Mrs. Higginbottom, who looked like a normal person that had been put on a rack and got all stretched out, glared at me with her too long face and, I swear, sneered.

  “Mimi Auclair,” she said, without any inflection.

  “Hello, Mrs. Higginbottom,” I said, my voice suddenly weirdly solemn.

  “You’re responsible for the girl?” she said, pointing at Lucy who had just come in behind me. Lucy’s natural bounce and smirk switched off immediately, drawing her inward.

  “I’m Lucy’s legal guardian.”

  “Hmm,” Mrs. Higginbottom said, and I could hear the unsaid ‘goes to show’.

  “Good, we’re all here,” Principal Aberdeen said. He seemed happiest when stating the obvious.

  “Will someone please tell me what this is about?” I said, sitting down on one of the two chairs set out in front of the Principal’s desk.

  Mrs. Higginbottom crooked a thickly-penciled eyebrow.

  “So she’s kept it from you?” she said, her voice full of insinuation.

  “Now, now, Mabel. We’re all friends here,” Principal Aberdeen said. He smiled at me. “Now, it
seems that Lucy here has an imagination, and—”

  “She publicly insulted me, Mr. Aberdeen, and the entire staff of Lafay High,” Mrs. Higginbottom said.

  “Just telling things like they are,” Lucy said, defiant, but also in a low voice that she did not want to carry across the room.

  “What did she do? Lucy, why don’t you tell me?” I said.

  “A book report,” Lucy said, flatly.

  Higginbottom scoffed. “See? Dishonesty in every breath. She did not do a book report, she told a slanderous story about why she should not have to write a book report.”

  It was time for my eyebrows to go up. Lucy was… the word “wild” implies a lot of things that I don’t think would be true about her. She didn’t stay out up until 3 in the morning with boys, she didn’t get arrested or steal cars, or anything like that. But she liked to think of herself as a rebel (as long as she could be a rebel wearing cute clothes) and acted out accordingly.

  “What was the book?” I said.

  “The Awakening,” Lucy said, with complete disdain.

  I remembered that book. Or I remembered that I had read it. Like most high school reading, I remembered it mostly as something I had to do, an obligation. The second I was done taking tests or doing reports, everything I’d ever thought about it had flown right out of my head.

  “Okay, and what was your report?”

  “She said—” Mrs. Higginbottom started, but Lucy jumped in ahead of her.

  “ ‘A Real Awakening: How I Uncovered the Lizard People’s Conspiracy to Make Us Read Bad Books.’ A report by Lucy Auclair.”

  I wasn’t going to laugh. I knew laughing would be bad and make it look like I was being a bad guardian to my little sister. This was serious business, so I coughed for a few seconds to cover up my giggles.

  “What?” I said, all innocence and light.

  Mrs. Higginbottom bared her teeth at me.

  “A lizard. That’s what she called me, and the staff of this school, and even…” She paused dramatically, then she swallowed like she could barely conceive that someone would be so low… “Even the school board. That’s an elected body. This girl is questioning our democracy.”

  “I don’t think it’s as dramatic as all that,” Principal Aberdeen said, his smile getting a little weak.

  “Oh no? Oh, no?” Mrs Higginbottom was practically out of her chair with anger.

  “What were you thinking, Luce?” I said.

  She rolled her eyes. “I was expressing my creativity.”

  “That was not the assignment!” Mrs. Higginbottom practically screeched. “I know how to develop minds and nurture the young spirit, and it requires you to do just what you’re told.”

  “Okay, it looks like it was all just a misunderstanding,” Principal Aberdeen said, happy to have completely missed the point. “Little Miss Auclair, you’re going to have to do the assignment the teacher gave you, okay? And maybe an apology.”

  “What?” Lucy and Mrs. Higginbottom said at the same time.

  “I want her out of this school. This Auclair girl shows no respect.”

  The way she said “Auclair” made my back stiffen.

  “Look, isn’t that going too far?” I said. “Lucy did something silly, and she’ll make up for it. But kicking her out of school, you know… that’s throwing out the baby with the bathwater.”

  “Who’re you calling a baby?” Lucy said, genuinely irritated.

  But Principal Aberdeen was happy enough. “Good, that’s settled. She’ll redo the assignment, three days detention, and I think this was a productive meeting, thank you ladies all so much.”

  Whatever faults Aberdeen had, he was certainly decisive. We were all saying goodbye and out of his office before we quite realized the meeting was over.

  Mrs. Higginbottom looked at us as we stepped into the hallway, scowled, and said, “I may have to accept another report, but it is up to my discretion how to grade it. Don’t expect to pass my class this, or any, semester.”

  She turned, and scurried down the hall, like some form of irritated animal.

  “Wait…” I said.

  “Oh, she’s such a friggin’ nasty old crone!” Lucy said, intentionally shouting the last bit so it would resonate down the hall and after the evil teacher.

  “Well…” I started.

  “And you were no help! ‘Did something silly’? I was making a statement. I was standing up for myself. I—”

  “Called the staff lizard people.”

  “It’s a metaphor. For them being cold-blooded, inhuman, and the complete enemy of every real human being inside of that room. Gosh, I thought you’d understand!”

  And then she was stomping off, slinging her backpack up on her shoulders, muttering to herself as she growled down the hall the opposite the way Higginbottom had gone.

  I stood there on my own, staring, mouthing occasional words, and wondering, really, what the heck just happened. Being a witch and a grown up should have given me some complete, ideal way to deal with this situation.

  Mostly, I just wanted to go back to my tea shop and eat cupcakes until I felt better.

  Chapter 2

  “Aren’t those for the customers?” Kashmir said, flicking his tail disdainfully as I started to peel the wrapper off my third cupcake.

  “Taste testing,” I said, mouth full.

  He meowed, something he does when he wants to keep his thoughts private, then he leaped from the counter to a shelf behind, where some tea sets were for sale. Nobody ever bought them (in fact, they were old stock from when my long-missed grandmother ran the shop) and nobody probably ever would buy them, but I still cringed every time that cat leapt up between them. I was sure one of these days his cat nature would take over from his supernatural familiar nature, and he’d just shove one of the delicate porcelain tea sets off of the shelf.

  Instead, he stood between them like a statue, his black tail wrapped daintily around his front paws.

  “Anyway, it’s just five minutes until afternoon tea. You need to make yourself scarce,” I said to Kashmir. “We don’t want anyone thinking a cat is shedding all over the pastries.”

  Kashmir gave me a sniff, bounced down from his perch and slinked into the back of the shop. He was annoyed with me and not just for simple cat reasons. Kashmir had been with the shop when Grand-Mere had run it, and he was her familiar then, just as he was now mine.

  He found the shop, the human interactions and the money making that (sometimes) went along with it to all be complete distractions from what was really important — namely, magic.

  Specifically, finding the great and powerful book of spells, the Grimoire of Circe. It was Kashmir’s obsession.

  What was my obsession? An even split between making the perfect cup of tea, and drowning my sorrows in cupcake batter and a sugar haze.

  The former would have to take precedence now, because I had customers at the door the instant I turned the lock, and flipped the sign around to “Open”.

  Almost before the lock was completely spun, a quartet of cuddly ladies came marching through the door in a flurry of chattering and laughing. They weren’t old, exactly — the oldest had just hit the big 5-0, while Beth, the youngest, was in her mid-40s. But they seemed to be, and had been their entire lives, old ladies in training.

  “Out of our way, Mimi, we’re red hot!” Lana, the oldest, said, storming into the room, her three sisters in tow. It was a warm day, but they were still wearing their uniform of big, soft-looking sweaters and sweatpants. Kari, the second sister, had a deck of cards in her hand, and she was shuffling them mid-air.

  “This is going to be the end of you, Lana. Your streak ends today!” She pushed past me, in a friendly way, not rudely, and clambered down on the nearest chair, the one surrounding the big table in the middle of the tea room. It had room for eight people, and the sisters only numbered four, but I wasn’t about to tell them to move.

  They were my steadiest customers. In fact, they were my only steady
customers, guaranteed to at least come in for afternoon tea, if not to also greet me in the morning when I open up for the breakfast crowd. Their name was Groves, but around town they were called The Secret Angels for their constant, often unsung charity work. Every week they seemed to come up with some new desperate need for the community that required their immediate attention.

  That might make them sound like busybodies, but they’re not, really. Just sweet ladies with some time on their hands, wanting to do good.

  Tina, the third sister, smiled at me as she went past. “I’ll round up our orders for you, darling,” she said, circumnavigating the table.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Um, we’re a little short of cupcakes today.”

  She beamed at me, and I finally got a chance to see what was on her sweater. It was puzzling — the sweater itself was purple, and there was a strange pattern across the chest — just a rectangle with some orange color inside of it.

  The mystery became clearer as I saw Beth’s sweater — a similarly colored rectangle, except this ended with a pair of back legs and a tail that swished upward. If Beth was the rear, Lana would be the front, and I wasn’t surprised to see a cat’s face looking smugly from her sweater, head cocked, ears angled forward.

  “You had to get those sweaters custom, I assume?” I said. “Or is there some store that sells clothes for four people to wear in tandem?”

  But I don’t think they heard me. Cards were on the table, and they were engaged in some serious (if good-natured) trash talking as whatever game they were engrossed in started.

  I sighed, went back behind the counter to pick out the teas I knew they would want, and got to being a tea proper mistress. I had a couple of different kettles that heated teas at different temperatures (because different tea is better steeped at different temperatures, don’t you know) and had my back turned when the bell above the door went ring-a-ding to announce a new customer.