Weird Wedding at Wonky Inn: Wonky Inn Book 3 Read online

  Weird Wedding at Wonky Inn

  Wonky Inn Book 3

  BY

  JEANNIE WYCHERLEY

  Copyright © 2018 Jeannie Wycherley

  Bark at the Moon Books

  All rights reserved

  Publishers note: This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and for effect or are used with permission.

  Any other resemblance to actual persons, either living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of very brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Sign up for Jeannie’s newsletter: http://eepurl.com/cN3Q6L

  Weird Wedding at Wonky Inn was edited by Anna Bloom @ The Indie Hub

  Cover design by JC Clarke of The Graphics Shed.

  This book is dedicated to

  Heaven Riendeau

  Thanks for providing inspiration!

  and to the real Marc Williams

  Ditto!

  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

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Wonky Continues

  Add Some Magickal Sparkle

  The Birth of Wonky

  Please?

  The Wonky Inn Series

  Also by Jeannie Wycherley

  Coming Soon

  I’m not sure what first alerted me to the fact I’d found my second corpse in less than six months.

  It might have been the faintest whiff of something a little meaty floating towards me on the early autumn breeze. Or, it could have been the stony silence emanating from the cottage in front of me. The sweet little building, so still under the balmy autumn sun, appeared to be holding its breath, waiting.

  The day had started wonderfully. I’d taken delivery of one hundred beautifully printed invitations and ventured out to deliver them. Pausing on the front step of my wonky inn, I’d breathed deeply, allowing the fresh air to fill my lungs. Unusually glorious weather for the time of year bathed the grounds of the inn in autumnal sunshine, the sun shone from a brilliant blue sky, the air warmer than you’d generally expect in October in the south-west of England.

  Having abandoned my jacket at home, I now strolled from door to door around the village of Whittlecombe to personally invite the local inhabitants to the grand re-opening of Whittle Inn on the 31st October.

  Halloween.

  Well why not?

  With the help of the Wonky Inn Clean-up Crew and together with my great grandmother and namesake, Alfhild Gwynfyre Daemonne—quietly referred to as Gwyn by me—everything was spick and span, freshly painted, and shining like a new pin. There were still some—actually many—last minute touches to attend to, but at last here I was, just a fortnight away from all I had dreamed of since first inheriting the inn from my late mother earlier in the year.

  Whittlecombe is a small village. Throughout the wider area we had a population of approximately two hundred and fifty people, but within the actual village itself, there are probably less than forty houses. Twelve of those are cottages tied to my inherited estate, along with the general stores, the café and the post office.

  As you’d expect the residents were comprised of a mix of folk: families, older retired couples, and people living alone. I’d either met or knew most of them by sight, thanks to my regular forays to Whittle Stores and the post office, and of course, invitations to events held in the village hall. I recognised that some of the locals thought of me as a bit of an oddball but given that the inn had been in the Daemonne family for centuries, and we had always been witches, I guessed they were used to it by now.

  It was my intention to ensure that the re-opening of Whittle Inn was a community occasion, something that everyone could enjoy. To that end, I was organising a party on the evening of the 31st for the adults in town to join me, if they so wished, for drinks and nibbles and a bit of music from my resident band of ghost minstrels, the Devonshire Fellows.

  Luppitt Smeatharpe could hardly contain himself he was so excited. Gone was the sobbing spirit whose tears had ripped my heart asunder only a few weeks before, and in his place, a joyous and talented musician, who filled the inn with subtle harmony and happy Elizabethan dance music.

  Well, usually.

  To be honest it could get a bit much if I had work to do, or needed to concentrate, and the repetitive beats of Napier’s drum seemed to drive Gwyn slightly crazy, but then again, I suspect Gwyn was actually already a little crazy. Nonetheless, I’d set boundaries in place for Luppitt and his friends, and told them they could only rehearse between 10 am and 7 pm. Outside of those times they needed to take themselves into the centre of Speckled Wood, well away from civilization.

  The thought of my forthcoming party had me feeling a little thrilled myself. Re-launching the inn was a big deal for me, and simultaneously my heart skipped, and my stomach rolled. I really couldn’t wait to get all dressed up and play ‘hostess with the mostest’, but at the same time I couldn’t help worrying that nobody would attend my party and the inn would open to the sound of silence.

  No party can ever be complete without the perfect mix of guests, and to that end I was hoping to have plenty of locals attending, so we could all get to know each other better, and they could feel proud of the vital role the village had played in the long history of the inn.

  And that’s what brought me to Whittle Lane, and my dozen terraced cottages, painted in pastels and lined up like pretty maids all in a row. My friend Millicent Ballicott, a witch in her sixties, lived a few doors up, in Hedge Cottage with her dog Jasper, and I knew the inside of her home quite well. All twelve cottages dated from the early eighteenth century and were small—basically two up and two down—although these days all of them now had a bathroom extension behind the kitchen where the coal store and outside lavatory would once have been, and a few had a double storey extension.

  Number 8, or Primrose Cottage as it was called, was in dire need of a lick of external paint, and new windows. I knew from a previous visit, when I’d gone along to introduce myself as his new landlord, that it belonged to an old gentleman by the name of Derek Pearce. He had struck me as a quiet man, not given to socialising much, but he had seemed pleasant enough. He kept the inside of his cottage clean and neat and as I’d explained to him when we’d met, I fully intended to refresh the outside of the cottage the following spring. The inn had taken much of my time, attention and finances, but now that we were ready to open, I could start planning to take care of my other responsibilities.

  As with the other cottages on Whittle Lane, Primrose Cottage had a tiny iron front gate that came up to mid-thigh on me, and then a small patch of walled front garden. Derek had planted several rose bushes in his patch, and although they needed a prune, the late blooming roses in yellow and peach were a joy to behold. Their fresh subtle scen
t caused me to pause and enjoy the moment.

  Hard to believe that just six months previously, I’d been choked daily by car and Tube fumes in the smog of London, while commuting with millions of other people, many of whom seemed to have sprayed themselves liberally in expensive but synthetic perfumes and colognes. Nothing you could buy over the counter smelled as heady as the countryside after a sharp shower of rain in my opinion. I had fallen in love with the countryside in a way I had never imagined I would.

  So, taking the moment for myself, I bent my head to the roses and took a deep sniff, and that’s when I caught the tiniest whiff of something not quite right.

  Not being able to place the smell, and not being overly concerned in any case, I took the few steps to the front door, tucked under a pretty gable, and reached out to knock.

  The door opened a crack as my knuckles met the wood.

  “Hello Mr Pearce?” I called.

  No reply.

  “Mr Pearce?” I repeated, more loudly. Some of the older tenants in these houses could be a little hard of hearing, and some struggled to see.

  This time when there was still no response, I swung the door open a little more. There was every chance the old man was perfectly alright, and I didn’t need to feel concerned. Perhaps he was in the back garden hanging out his washing or tending to his begonias, who knew? Maybe he had left the door open by mistake. But there was always the ‘what if?’ What if he had fallen and needed help? What if he had drowned in the bath?

  While I didn’t like to go inside unannounced, I figured it would be wise to check on him.

  Feeling rather like an intruder, and with guilt sitting heavily in the pit of my stomach, I tip-toed quietly into the front room, grimacing at the idea I was trespassing. Everything seemed to be in order, and I was about to call out again, when I heard the faintest of whimpers coming from behind a closed wooden door.

  Clutching my pile of undelivered invitations, I scampered over and pulled the door towards me, expecting to find a cupboard, but instead discovering the entrance to the narrow uneven stairs up to the first floor. A small Yorkshire Terrier dog stood on the first landing, where the stairs turned out of view, shivering with fear, its ears flat and pulled pack, panting hard.

  “Hello, sweetheart,” I crooned. “What’s the matter?” With my free hand, I reached out towards the tiny animal, but it shrank away from me. I pulled my hand back, startled.

  “It’s okay, baby,” I said, keeping my voice low and calm. “You’re alright. No-one is going to hurt you.”

  I climbed the first step, talking quietly, and then another. “Where’s your Dad? Is he up here?” I wanted to call out to Mr Pearce once more, but I was worried that I would scare the dog again, so I inched towards it, crouching over to make myself smaller, soothing it with quiet words, until I could have bent down and scooped it up.

  From around the corner of the landing and to my right, there came a buzzing noise, much like I’d expect an angry hornet to make, rapidly followed by a loud clattering. This would be the direction of the front bedroom presumably. The dog yelped and shot past me, jumping down the stairs and hightailing it through the open door at the bottom. I turned, meaning to go after it and ensure it was safe, but the clattering came again, and the buzzing seemed louder and more insistent.

  Scarcely daring to breathe, I took the last three stairs in quick time, then paused, inching my head to peer around the corner, frightened of what I would see. The bedroom door stood ajar. Mr Pearce lay sprawled on the floor next to his perfectly made bed, one hand outstretched, a few feet away from my own location.

  He wasn’t moving.

  That was bad enough.

  But lifting my eyes away from the old man, I took a second to focus on something bobbing around in the air at shoulder height.

  A small red globe, threaded with gold.

  No larger than a cricket ball, it spun round and around, throwing gold glitter in the air and buzzing with angry intent. The same instant I understood exactly what I was seeing, it launched itself at me.

  I ducked and screamed at the same time, scattering my invitations all over the floor, to taken aback to cast a spell to protect myself. It flew around me in a circle, as quick as a flash, and as I gazed up at it in horror, it hovered in front of my face, inches away from my eyes. Then with a final angry zipping noise it launched itself at the closed bedroom window and catapulted itself through, smashing a hole as it went, the glass splintering like a spider’s web. By the time I’d clambered back to my feet and dashed to the window, it had gone.

  The Mori.

  I had hoped we—Wizard Shadowmender and his friends who had turned out to help me—had vanquished them during the Battle of Speckled Wood, but I think in my heart of hearts I had always known we hadn’t run them off for good.

  Now I stood at the window, perplexed by what I could see, and examined the almost perfectly spherical hole in the glass, before remembering the man on the floor. I turned back to Mr Pearce.

  It was too late for the old man. He lay on his back, his head cocked at an awkward angle, and his eyes wide open. It might have been my imagination, but his features appeared fixed in an expression of dread. Tentatively, I reached out trembling fingers to touch him. Cold.

  I pulled my hand back with a gasp of dismay.

  He’d been gone a while.

  I knew better than to touch anything else.

  With my eyes darting left and right, worried that there might be other threats from The Mori around, I slid quickly down the stairs, intent on my making my way back out onto Whittle Lane and the salvation of Millicent Ballicott’s cottage just a few doors down, but the whimpering of the Yorkshire Terrier halted me in my tracks. I couldn’t leave it here; the poor thing was as petrified as me.

  Following its cries, I found it cowering by the back door. I scooped it up and hugged it to my chest, then in double-quick time ran back through the cottage and the front garden. This time, the thorns from the rose bushes reached out with malevolence to scratch at me.

  Seconds later I was banging on Millicent’s door and without waiting for a response, bursting in on the sanctity of her front room.

  “So what aren’t you telling me?” DS George Gilchrist fixed me with his all-knowing blue eyes and stared at me with piercing intensity.

  I tried to avoid his gaze, but sitting knee to knee, across from each other at the mini-dining table, in Millicent’s miniscule kitchen, I really didn’t have many options.

  I shrugged. “It’s pretty much how I told you. I was delivering the invitations. The door was open. I went in. I heard the little dog crying, and when I investigated I found poor Mr Pearce upstairs.” I shuddered, remembering his face.

  Gilchrist raised his eyebrows. “Yes that’s what you said.” He waited for me to continue and when I didn’t, he stood, and quietly closed the kitchen door, shutting Millicent—who was currently comforting the Yorkshire Terrier while Jasper, her lurcher, looked on impassively—out from our conversation.

  He returned and took his seat, taking my clammy hand in his dry one. “How’s your arm?” he asked.

  “It’s much better, you know it is.” I smiled, his touch warming me through. Since the incident at the inn, when I’d been attacked by Martin Toynbee, George had been keeping tabs on me. We’d even been out for drinks and dinner once or twice, and to the cinema too. I was enjoying his company.

  “Good.”

  He squeezed my hand and I looked across at his handsome face, his eyes soft, his mouth curled in a gentle smile.

  “You don’t think Derek Pearce died of natural causes, do you?” I asked, keeping my expression neutral.

  George shook his head. “No. I have to be honest, I don’t. Now, my colleague out there,” he cocked his head in the direction of the Pearce cottage, “is working on the theory that something came through the window, maybe a cricket ball or something of that size, and the shock caused Mr Pearce to fall and suffer a head injury. Perhaps a broken neck.” George
narrowed his eyes at me. “That’s his thinking. It’s not mine.”

  “What’s yours?” I asked, attempting a light tone.

  “Whatever broke that window did so when it exited the cottage, not when it entered. It’s basic police work. The glass is on the outside. The velocity of the object caused the glass to fall outwards as it burst through the glass.”

  “Okay.” I swallowed.

  “So am I supposed to assume that Mr Pearce threw a cricket ball through the window in the seconds before he died?” George’s expression darkened. He didn’t like to be taken for a fool. “I don’t think so.”

  “That doesn’t seem likely, I agree,” I said and the DS’s face fell.

  “You know more than you’re letting on.”

  “George—” I began.

  “I know you’re a witch. I’ve accepted that, haven’t I?” He waved jazz hands at me, palm up. “You told me all about the ghosts. I’ve met a few, including Gwyn—”

  “You lucky man.”

  “She’s not that bad,” George protested in her defence. I rolled my eyes. For some reason my great grandmother, Gwyn, and George, were getting on very well. “I believed you, didn’t I?”

  I had to give him that. “Yes, you did.”

  “So give me the benefit of the doubt. Why not tell me the whole story of what went on in that cottage earlier? Were there more ghosts?”

  I sat back in my chair and scowled. “If I tell you, you may believe me, but nobody else will. Your superiors will think you’re barking.”