Cozy Mystery: Cake Spell Disaster (A Haven Witch Woman Sleuths Book) COMPLETED

ONE

"Things are going well, don't you think?" my mother whispered to me between bites of peppermint pistachio joy cupcakes.

"I'd say so," I replied, looking around the large, elegantly draped room at the hundreds of smiling guests who had turned out for the mayor's anniversary party.

Our cookies, cupcakes, and pastries filled every table in the room. Guests who weren't eating the buffet of meats, veggies, and sides were scarfing down all of the goodies Mom and I had created for this event.

Mayor Singer and his wife, Tazzie, had rented out my brother, Grayson's, restaurant for the evening. The Golden Goose was a favorite among Heavenly Haven's elite witches, though I had to admit the favoritism was confined to the Mistmoor Point side of the island. You rarely saw anyone from Sweetland Cove over here.

Our two sides had a long-standing rivalry dating back 1200 years, when Sara Sweetland married Patrick Mistmoor. Not long after their marriage, an affair was discovered. Their marriage broke apart, and their family and friends took sides. Whose side you landed on dictated which side of the island you lived on. We preferred not to mix unless absolutely necessary. The saddest part of the story was that Patrick and Sara both died within days of each other. Sara threw herself off a cliff, and Patrick died from a broken heart—or a guilty heart—depending on who you believed.

"Amelia!" Tazzie Singer cried, running up to my mother and taking her in a bear hug. Tazzie was a large bubbly woman of sixty with gray-brown hair and sparkling brown eyes to match.

"You've outdone yourself!" Tazzie said, kissing my mother's cheeks before turning to me. She scooped me in her arms and squeezed me until the air left my lungs. "Felicity, you're a gem. I can't thank you both enough."

I blushed but my mother took the compliment with ease.

"Thank you," Amelia said. "You both deserve it. Forty years of marriage is not easily come by these days."

Mayor Singer came up beside his wife and shook our hands. Even his bushy mustache, which stretched almost from ear to ear, couldn't hide the fact that he was beaming like a kid on his last day of school.

"The cake you made, Amelia... it's, well, it's incredible." He turned his head, overcome with emotion, and gazed toward the center of the room.

The cake my mother had painstakingly created stood twenty feet tall and almost as wide. There were forty layers, one for each year of marriage. Rich velvety buttercream frosting wound its way up in alternating shades of rose red and snow white. Perfect for a February wedding anniversary.

Inside was soft moist cake the color of bright cherries. My mother was the only baker I knew who could produce a color like that without using artificial dyes. She had a secret blend of natural and magical ingredients that, when combined, created the most spectacular colors you would ever see outside of a rainbow.

Each layer of cake depicted a different year in the life of the mayor and his wife. The vignettes had been hand painted by my mother using edible paint. The bottom layer illustrated when they'd met. The second layer showed his proposal. Each scene brought you closer and closer to the top layer, which showed them as they were today. An older, balding mayor held out his hand to an older, but still beautiful, Tazzie. Their arms stretched across the top layer, connecting in the middle. On the top of the cake stood an exact replica of the couple—in edible sugar form, of course.

"Now, I can't take all the credit," Amelia said. "Felicity helped with everything. I couldn't have done it all without her. And Grayson is supplying the dinner and use of his restaurant. We're just supplying the dessert."

"Yes, and all due respect to your son, everyone knows dessert is where it's at."

Mayor Singer winked at us as the band started up a new song. He took his wife's hand and spun her out onto the dance floor. I spotted their twenty-five-year-old daughter, Kayla, watching them from the other side of the room. She was smiling and talking to Grayson.