Read Online The Witching Hour (The Witches Pendragon Mystery Series Book 1) by Julie Sarff - Free Book Online Page B

Hatha breaks off and looks at me to see if she’s got her facts correct. Hatha doesn’t do computers, and she has a tenuous grasp on the concept of a database.
    “No, not a cat scan,” I tell her.
    “An MRI!” shouts Hendra.
    “No, not an MRI. The priest’s diary entries were scanned into the computer and stored in a database. You both are getting your terminology messed up with medical equipment.”
    “It’s because you forced us to watch that idiot show about Dr. Mc Dreamy,” Hendra flails her arms in disgust.
    “Anyway,” Hatha continues, smiling at Claire-Elaine, “It turns out that we know who your ghost is, or at least we think we do. Her name is Charlotte and there were reports of her haunting this house as early as the 14th century, some one-hundred years after her death. Apparently, Lady Charlotte had a very hard life.”
    Claire-Elaine sinks into a chair, turning a ghastly white, looking like a woman who is being haunted to death.
    “Lady Charlotte,” Hatha continues, “was forced into an unhappy marriage with a much younger man –Charles du Mont, the Count of Trisse at that time. He openly cheated on her with a younger woman and then, after only three years of marriage, he poisoned her so that he could marry the younger woman.”
    Sitting in her scarlet-upholstered wing chair, Claire-Elaine makes a slight, moaning noise. “So her initials were perhaps C. L. D.?”
    “I don’t know her middle name, but they could have been, why?”
    “On the windowsill outside the only bedroom at the top of the 11th century turret, there are initials C. L. D. etched into the stone.”
    We witches exchange looks.
    “But,” Claire-Elaine says, coming half way out of her chair, “the initials are etched facing the wrong way, as if someone on the outside was writing them, which would be impossible given the height of that tower. Those initials have been here as long as my husband can remember, but we never knew how or why. In the 14th century that turret was all that there was to Chateau Trisse, so that bedroom would have been the main bedroom at the time.”
    “Sounds like the poor ole’ thing wanted back in after she got chucked out,” Camille gives a small laugh accompanied by a smile so warm, it would cheer up anyone except a mother who’s fretting about a ghost harming her daughters.
    Claire-Elaine sinks back into her chair and stares down at her hands, which are shaking.
    “There now,” Camille mutters, rising from the couch. We witches understand the healing power of touch, so Camille walks around to the back of Claire-Elaine’s chair and puts a hand on her bony shoulder.
    “She needs a cup of tea, Elfie,” Camille addresses me a moment later.
    “Oh…right…I’ll just pop into the kitchen and make some.”
    “No, you mustn’t bother,” Clare-Elaine insists, “The cook’s gone for the evening and I really can’t ask my guests to make tea.”
    “Nonsense,” Hatha says. “All Elfie needs is a kettle. I brought my own special tea, it will help steady your nerves.”
    Claire-Elaine protests feebly, but in the end, she informs me of the kettle’s whereabouts.
    “In the cabinet to the left of the stove,” she mumbles.
    “Good enough, I’m sure I’ll find it.”
    Before I rise from the sofa and head for the kitchen, Hatha leans in and whispers to me. “Brew the tea with the mixture in my black tin. It’s a mixture for courage and strength. And add two drops of the liquid in my silver flask to Clair-Elaine’s cup along with a healthy dose of sugar.”
    I know better than to ask Hatha what’s in the silver flask. If Hatha believes a person needs a certain potion or remedy, then Hatha is always right. I make my way down a stone hallway hung with cheerful, modern portraits of the Count and his family. Reentering the kitchen, I examine its layout with the eye of a renovator. The room is gorgeous. Here everything is modern and well-appointed, with white granite countertops gleaming over