The Witching on the Wall: A Cozy Mystery (The Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 1) by Constance Barker

straightened, and suddenly the urgency that filled her pushed away all other concerns. “Chloe… did you know my mother? My birth mother, I mean?”
    Chloe smiled, a distant, fond memory, but maybe one laced with old hurt, too. “I wish I could say I did,” she said. “It was a long time ago, though.”
    Just as quickly as she’d gotten excited, she felt her hopes fall and crumble. “Well, what do you mean about the whispers, and being noticed? Lately… well I’m hearing whispers again. Only louder and not in the Caves. If anything, being in there gives me a little peace. Up in town, though, and wherever there are people, it gets so loud. My head has been killing me for days now. I’m losing my mind, Chloe.”
    “ Not exactly,” Chloe said. She smiled slightly, not a happy smile exactly, but not entirely sad either. Conciliatory. “You’re just finding other minds, and you don’t quite know where to put them yet.”
    Bailey stared, and then looked at the ground, and finally turned her gaze out over the sea. Well… she’d somehow thought Chloe might be able to help. It turned out she was crazy, too. Maybe it was in the water…
    Chloe chuckled, and put her hand on Bailey’s shoulder. “You’re not far off,” she said. “But it’s not in the water. It’s in the caves. From way back. Old, old magic. Primal, from when the earth was new, and it sort of collects in a few places. These caves are one of those places. I’m not crazy, Bailey and neither are you. The magic here, in these caves—the magic you always believed in as a girl—you were touched with it when you were born. A single seed that took root and grew with you and is finally blossoming.”
    Twenty two. Bailey chanted the number in her mind over and over again.
    Chloe sighed. “Alright. Twenty two.”
    Fourteen.
    “ Fourteen.”
    One thousand two hundred and seventy…
    “ One thousand, two hundred and seventy…”
    Six.
    “… Six. Is that enough?”
    Bailey staggered away. “You… but then you… how…”
    Chloe sighed heavily, and wandered toward the outcropping that was the outer shell of the first cave. She turned when she came close to it, and leaned back against it, her arms folded over her chest. “The gift you have, the gift of Reading, and probably Glimpsing, later on, is the same as mine. Or very similar. It’s a little different for each of us. And for all anyone knows it’s just the beginning; the first of many such gifts. There’s no way to predict it. Especially with you.”
    “ Why especially me? And who is ‘anyone’?”
    The first question, Chloe only saved away with dismissive fingers, but the second she answered with a quiet smile. “Anyone who’s a witch.”
    Bailey glanced up the path, toward town, where Frances and Aria had gone. “So you… and Frances… and Aria, you’re all… you’re witches?”
    “ And you, it seems,” Chloe said. “Yes.”
    “ Are there others?” Bailey asked.
    “ A few,” Chloe admitted. “You’ll meet them, eventually. And there are others, elsewhere in the world, far and wide. Not a great many; there never have been. This world is full of wonders you only ever dreamed of, my love.”
    For a moment, Bailey was small again. “Here’s a special treat just for you, my love.” It had been what Chloe always said to her when Wendy first took her to Grovey Goodies, just days after it had opened.
    What was she so afraid of? This was Chloe. It was Frances, and Aria. Witches or no—she wasn’t sold on that—she knew these women. They were her friends.
    “ What did you think you could find here?” Bailey asked her. “You said you knew Martha from before. Before what? Do you know something about why she died?”
    Chloe stood up from the rock, and shook her head. “That’s what we hoped to find out tonight. The chances of finding anything were extremely small to begin with. The Caves don’t often like to talk, even under dire circumstances.”
    “ They talk?” Bailey