Hat Trick

About Hat Trick

Blythe Fairfield is finally getting the hang of her weird new life.

She owns a tea shop on Main Street. She’s dating the sheriff. Her late great-aunt’s notebooks are slowly teaching her what kind of witch she is, and her familiar has mostly stopped acting like tolerating her is a personal sacrifice.

Mostly.

Then the Cauldron Hollow Fall Festival rolls into town, and a dead body turns up behind the vendor trailers before the booths are even open.

The victim was a quiet leather worker traveling with the festival vendors. No enemies. No debts. No obvious connection to anyone in town.

At least, that’s the story everyone wants to tell.

As the festival barrels forward with tourists, bear sightings, and town gossip, Blythe starts tugging at threads nobody else seems to see. And somewhere between the funnel cake, fake smiles, and festival chaos, someone decides Blythe needs to stop asking questions.

Permanently.

It doesn’t help that Sheriff Paine is pulling away for reasons he refuses to explain. Or that Pippin keeps insisting being a Tallowmere should be enough to solve every problem, intimidate every enemy, and possibly improve Blythe’s posture.

But Cauldron Hollow has secrets it doesn’t show the tourists, and this one has been waiting twenty-four years to come due.

Blythe is about to learn there’s a big difference between a man running from his past and a man waiting for it to find him.

Sometimes the trick isn’t what’s in the hat.

It’s what’s been hidden in plain sight all along.