Free Spelling Mistake (The Kitchen Witch Book 4) by Morgana Best

children, then perhaps she was here for something to do with them.”
    “It’s entirely possible,” Ruprecht admitted. “We’ll need to find out if she’s here with their children, and if there’s some sporting event or suchlike that they might be attending. If not, then I find her presence in town rather suspicious.”
    “What about Laurence Burleigh?” Mint asked. “He takes over Scott’s job, and I heard it’ll be a permanent position. The Mayor himself told me that they won’t be advertising it. That’s a huge jump in pay. Still, it seems like a tenuous motive.”
    “Perhaps Laurence had a different reason for wanting to kill Scott,” I said. “He was full of venom when he mentioned Scott this morning. Ruprecht, I can’t say that I w-i-s-h that the murderer will be revealed, can I? Then the entity will reveal it.”
    Thyme chuckled. “I wondered why you spelled the word.”
    I shrugged. “Just to be on the safe side.”
    Ruprecht held up one finger. “No, Amelia, that would be the worst thing you could do. You need to remove that word from your vocabulary for the time being.”
    Camino pulled off her cane toad head. It left every last piece of her hair sticking skyward. I did my best not to laugh. “I was suffocating under there,” she said sadly. “I won’t be able to sleep in it. I should’ve bought that long-nosed bandicoot onesie when I saw it online the other day. It should be much more comfortable to sleep in. I’ll buy you one too, Amelia, for your birthday.’
    “That’s so kind of you, but my birthday isn’t for a long time,” I said hopefully. “A very long time.”
    Camino waved my concerns away. “So you haven’t seen Fred again recently?”
    “No, he hasn’t been around since this morning.” At least, I hoped that was the case. Had Fred in fact made Alder kiss me? I was fairly certain he had, but I had to put that out of my mind for the minute. “Ruprecht, have you made any progress on finding out anything about Fred?”
    He shook his head. “Sadly, I haven’t. Summoning is always easy, even for the most unskilled or novice person, but banishing a spirit is quite another matter.”
    I took a deep breath. “Alder showed me his collection of witchcraft books. After what we read, we think that Fred is a haint. Ruprecht, is there any chance that the word ‘haint’ appears as a spelling mistake in the text, in addition to the error you found?”
    Ruprecht hurried to his feet. “Let’s have a look.” He carried the book to Camino’s dining room table, where he opened it.
    Ruprecht took an awfully long time poring over the Book of Shadows, even by his standards. After what seemed an age, he jabbed his finger at the book. “There! That word there should be aiunt , Latin third person plural active indicative of the verb aio , ‘I affirm.’”
    “Sorry, I didn’t understand a word of that,” I admitted. By the looks on the others’ faces, they didn’t either.
    “In a nutshell, the word should be aiunt , meaning ‘they affirm,’ but instead it is haint . Granted, one is a verb and one is a noun, but I can explain the syntax of the sentence to you in detail.”
    Mercifully, Camino prevented him. “No, none of us would understand you, if I’m honest,” she said quickly. “Are you saying that Amelia has summoned a haint?”
    Ruprecht nodded solemnly.
    “That’s not good, right?” I said. “So Fred’s a haint?”
    Ruprecht nodded again. “Yes, he’s a haint, and no, it is not good. Far from it.”
    “How do we get rid of him?” was my next question.
    “I don’t know. I’m not aware of anyone banishing a haint, simply protecting oneself from one, warding one off.”
    “How?” we all said at once.
    “Traditionally by the color blue. Haints are supposed to have an aversion to the color. Have you ever seen those Southern homes where the porch ceilings are painted a pretty blue-green or light blue?” He looked at each of us in turn, and then pressed on.