Safiya gave Ivy a tiny bag, a sachet she’d called it, and told her to place it so that it touched the box. The sachet would absorb the jinx—not remove it, but copy it—and Safiya could then work on breaking it, and since she already knew all of Rufus’s passwords and codes, this jinx of his might even prove pretty easy.
Of course, this all meant that Ivy needed to get into Hunter’s condo again. And soon.
She swallowed as she reached numbers 439 and 440. Their mailboxes were just outside in a small cluster, and she started folding papers and sliding them in, keeping an eye on Hunter’s door, but movement further up caught her attention.
Penny was sitting on the balcony on the top floor next door, furiously scribbling on some pages in her lap. Ivy finished with the fliers and took a few steps closer to the building. She hesitated, then raised a hand and called up to the girl.
Penny’s head shot up, and when she saw her, she smiled and grabbed the railing. “Did you like the cookie I made you?”
“It was beautiful and delicious.” She did not add that it also may have almost killed her. “I wanted to say thank you.”
“You’re welcome!” Penny giggled. “Can we go swimming yet?”
The air was cooler for longer in the morning, and the sun seemed to set earlier each night, but Safiya said they didn’t close the pool for the fall or winter in Avalon Estates. Sirens, at least, were a lot heartier than that. “That’s up to your mom, but the pool’s still open,” she said hesitantly, not sure what she meant.
She was squinting up at Penny, the sun high in the sky, making it harder to see, but Ivy noticed that Penny’s face looked different outside. The scars weren’t as bright against her dark skin, and at this distance, had she not known, Ivy wasn’t sure she would have noticed them at all.
“Okay! I thought the wolfies broke it!” Again she laughed, and Ivy thought about Evan and his comrades making a fuss with the sirens in the pool a few days prior.
Then the door to 440 opened, and Hunter emerged from his condo. She smirked. It worked.
“Penny, come get your snack!” The little girl perked up and shot through the open sliding door, then she popped back out and shouted a farewell to Ivy before disappearing inside again.
Perfect, thought Ivy, as she watched Hunter take the steps two at a time down to where she stood. He was dressed like he was about to go for a run, his arms bare and—she swallowed—defined. She stood a little straighter and swept her hair over her shoulder, flashing him a bright smile. “Well, hey there.” God, she sounded stupid.
But Hunter was grinning too, and he asked about her hand as well as her stomach. She hesitated at that, and he explained that his parents heard from Safiya that she’d gotten food poisoning from the board member’s dinner last week. So, they talked about her when she wasn’t around, eh?
“I feel great actually, no idea what that was.” If flippancy could sound forced, she knew it certainly did.
“What’s this you’re delivering?” He took one of the fliers. “Ah, yes, the election. So who do you plan to vote for?”
Caught off guard, she cleared her throat. “Oh, well, I think the correct answer is your dad, right?”
He snorted, giving her back the flier. “Uh, probably not.”
“No? Why do you ask then?”
“I’m just interested because you’re so new. Your opinion of people isn’t exactly tainted…yet.”
“So ominous.” She tried to bat her eyelashes, but she noted he was skirting around the question.
“Well, if there’s anything I can help with—”
“Actually,”—she lifted up onto her toes as she stretched out the word—“I do kinda need some help, but, oh,”—she looked him up and down and pouted—“You look like you’re about to go to the gym.”
“No, I can help. Whatever you need.”
She smirked; that was a quick answer. “I’ve been out walking for a while now, and I kind of need to…pee.” Ivy mentally slapped herself in the forehead. There was probably a better way to say that, but it was already said.
Hunter, however, didn’t seem fazed, and was more than happy to let her into his condo and show her where the bathroom was. After she washed her hands, she pulled the sachet out of her pocket. It was a tiny, satin thing, small enough to fit into her palm, with a draw string at its top, and it was empty. She wrapped her fingers around it tightly, took a breath, and went back out into the living room.
Hunter was sitting on the couch, his phone in hand, and didn’t see her emerge into the room. She stood there silently for a second, her eyes darting between him and the bookcase where the box was, still on the shelf where he placed it after showing her, blessedly at a reachable height now. As she considered her options, he became aware of her presence and jumped to his feet. “Everything come out okay?”
Ivy laughed. “Yes. Fine.” Then she looked to the bookcases again. “Um, you know, when I was here last time, I thought I saw a book…” She let her voice trail off as she wandered over to them. She put herself between his line of sight and the shelves then slipped the sachet behind the box and grabbed the closest book in one graceful movement. “Yeah, this is it!”
Ivy held up a well-worn copy of The Wasn’t and Willn’t King: The Tale of Deyvan Duras by someone whose name she could not pronounce even in her head.
He walked up to her and took it with care, the cover worn and corners bent. “It used to be my favorite when I was a kid. Well, I guess it still is. You recognize it?”
She did not, but then she supposed she probably did see it when she was there before. “Kind of?” There, that wasn’t a complete lie, at least.
“It’s an English translation.” He flipped through the pages, yellowed and stiff. “My grandmother gave it to me when I was six, probably a little young for the content actually, but she’d read it to me every time she visited. When I was a little older, I used to read it before bed almost every night.”
Ivy felt her stomach knot at the lie she was about to tell. “I feel like someone read me that when I was really little too, but I can’t remember exactly.”
Hunter held onto the book a second longer, then handed it to her again. “Do you want to borrow it?”
Ivy used a ginger touch to take the tome back. “I’d love that.”
They stared at each other for a long moment until Hunter cleared his throat. “Well, I guess, I should let you—”
“Oh, uh…” Her brain started to swim. She had to get the sachet back, but he was standing right beside her. Very close, in fact. So close she could—well, that was an even more distracting thought. Then something clicked. “Do you have anything on poisons?”
“Huh?” His brow furrowed.
“You know.” Ivy took him by the bicep. It gave her a moment of pause, hard under her hand, and then she came back to herself as she steered him to the other case where she remembered seeing the academic-looking books. “Something about toxic stuff.”
The moment Hunter knelt down at the other shelf, she went for the sachet. The satin bag nearly popped out from between her fingers, puffy now as if it were full of air, and she scrambled to stuff it into her back pocket. Her heart was racing when he stood back up.
“I don’t have much left, I already lent some things out.” Hunter handed over a rather thick book called The Witch’s Encyclopedia of Herbs and then another, thinner tome with an unmarked spine and trees embossed on the cover. “Most of the good stuff is at my parents’ house. Not that we, ya know, cultivate those things. Not in large quantities anyway.”
Ivy made a mental note of that and thanked him with enthusiasm she was using to cover up her nerves.
“Is there something specific you’re interested in? Do you need to, like, take someone out?” He wiggled his eyebrows, no idea how inappropriate, or perhaps apt, the joke actually was. He probably would have been put off by the shocked look on Ivy’s face if he hadn’t also attempted to lean against the bookshelf at that moment. It wobbled, and his fac
e blanched as he failed to keep everything upright. A figurine of a cardinal lurched off one of the higher shelves and went careening for the floor, but Hunter threw a hand out and snatched it out of the air. Apparently his bout of clumsiness was waning.
“Nothing like that.” She smiled, and it felt too wide on her face. “I want, uh…I want to be extra careful what with everything Oakley’s bringing into the house. Don’t want to touch the wrong thing and end up covered in a rash.”
“Well, if you do,”—he pointed at her—“I guarantee I’ve got a cream for that.”
She opened her mouth, teetering on the edge of asking him if he’d apply that one too. She ended up just biting her lip and looking down at her shoes, mumbling, “Anyway, thanks for these.”
The two headed back out and down to the street, saying their goodbyes. Hunter took off at a jog, and she headed the other way toward the next set of mailboxes, but then she heard his voice calling to her, and she turned. He was jogging backwards now, still headed away but slowly. Surely he would fall any minute. “Hey, I was wondering if maybe you wanted to—”
“Yes!” she called back, and he slowed even more. She groaned quietly to herself and cleared her throat. “I mean…yes?”
“I just thought maybe sometime you might want to eat…food…with me?”
Ivy’s lips were twitching upward, and she could only nod back vigorously.
“Great!” He gave her two thumbs up then quickly put them away. “I’ll get your number from Saf.”
“Okay!” She was still nodding, hugging the rest of the fliers and the books against her chest as he turned, expertly avoided the fire hydrant inches away, and jogged off. It was only when he was out of sight around a corner that Ivy let her smile break fully over her face, but that wasn’t enough, so she did a little hop in place and squealed.
“Ooo!” Penny was hanging over the balcony railing again, a half-eaten apple slice in her hand.
Ivy’s face went bright red. “Hello, again, Penny.”
The little girl tossed a piece of paper over the ledge. Whether it was her fantastic folding job or something more magical, the page landed just on top of the stack of fliers in Ivy’s hands, and she flattened the picture out to look at it.
The two people in the drawing looked suspiciously like Ivy and Hunter. They were kissing against a brown and orange background with little orbs of soft yellow scribbles glowing around them. If she hadn’t been so embarrassed, she would have thought it was very cute.
“Penny!” Ivy glared up at her, but the girl just giggled and ran back inside.
Chapter 23
Five sets of eyes were turned on Ivy, the conversation around her coming to a full halt. She wasn’t sure how long the board members of Avalon Estates had been staring at her, but when she felt the collective ire of the group, her blood went cold.
Safiya’s eyes flicked down to Ivy’s hand where she was fidgeting with her pen, tapping it against her notepad, the sound deafening in the sudden silence. She stopped, apologizing in a whisper. The board members turned back to one another and continued. Ivy sighed—she just couldn’t help it. She had spent the last two days taking notes, making digital copies of old files, and cleaning out a storage space on the second floor of the clubhouse, and nothing—not even the choir practice that Mrs. Jiang led every Tuesday and Thursday or the meditation session she’d accidentally walked in on, challenging Calla and a few of her vampire kin’s mental discipline—had been a good enough distraction. Her date with Hunter was going to happen that night whether she liked it or not.
And she really wanted to like it, it was just that the circumstances were iffy. She’d been with Travis for three years—which was two years and eleven months too long—and she hadn’t been excited about a date in just as much time, but knowing that she would be carrying with her a spell Safiya had written to break the jinx on that blue box made her skin crawl.
It also didn’t help that the board members were fighting with one another for little else, it seemed, than for the sake of arguing, and Ivy hadn’t had an actual decision to write down in at least ten minutes.
“Look, we’re not getting anywhere here,” Safiya admitted, shaking her head. “Ms. Bicchieri wants roses, Mr. Proctor wants lavender, and we aren’t coming to a consensus, so I say we ask Oakley which will do better in the space and build off that. What do you say?”
Calla glared at Alastair, daring him to concede first. The man scowled back. Unstoppable vampire, impenetrable warlock.
“Why wait for the gardener,” Calla lilted, not looking away, “when we’ve got our own sylvan right here?”
Ivy sat up straight. “Oh, plants aren’t really—”
“Ms. Sylvan has her own responsibilities,” Safiya cut in. “And she’s not here to take sides. Oakley will not be advised who wants what, he’ll be giving his opinion unbiased. I’m requesting a vote on this now.”
“And I gol dang well second!” Tharman banged a little fist on the table, and it shook.
“Aye?” Safiya raised her hand. Alastair agreed, and Ivy marked it down with majority.
“All right, next is the fence.” Ivy took the cue to hand out copies of the list she’d gotten from the dwarves who’d done the perimeter check. Safiya went over the details with the board, highlighting the places that needed aesthetic work and at least one place where there was recent structural damage, and Ivy’s mind began to wander again. She could wear her black dress, she supposed, but Hunter had seen that, and it sort of had memorial vibes now. Then there was the outfit she’d worn out with Evan, but it had its own vibes. Plus it was getting colder.
“You’ll destroy the lake,” Mrs. Jiang’s normally pleasant voice cut through her thoughts.
“Centaurshit.” Tharman leaned back in his chair. “The boys have already patched up some of the spots, ain’t no reason to go stopping em now!”
“And have the old bricks and all your trash tossed into the water? I think not.”
Safiya pinched her nose, sliding her glasses up its long bridge. “Tharman’s crew have been the wall’s masons for years.”
The siren tutted. “Never so close to the edge of the lake.”
“Well, if it hadn’t been expanded, maybe the ground wouldn’t a-given up that tree.”
“Bob needed more space,” she said offhandedly.
“Oh, Bob needed more space? After a hundred years suddenly the ole boy’s havin a growth spurt?” Tharman was getting red in the face. “I ain’t never even seen Bob, and now he needs more space!”
“Well, that is the nature of lake monsters, Mr. Beryleaxe.” Mrs. Jiang’s lips were pursed.
“The vote to expand the lake two months ago already passed.” Safiya cut the air with her hand between the two. “We’re discussing the fence now. The fence that must be repaired before the full moon, might I remind you all.”
A thick silence spread over them. That would be for the lycans, of course, and there wasn’t one on the board to speak up anymore.
“Let us do it ourselves,” Mrs. Jiang finally said, the sweetness returning to her voice. “My girls will of course respect the waters, and we can reach out for assistance when needed.”
“Fine. You’ve got two weeks to get it done.” Safiya pointed at Tharman. “The rest of these issues are yours.”
“Fine!” Tharman crossed his stubby arms. “But when the wolves smell blood don’t come runnin to me!”
Safiya shook her head. “And that brings me to my last bit of business, the final list of eligible voters in the community. Since it’s been so long, I wanted to verify it was complete and includes everyone who’s turned eighteen.” She handed out copies.
“Eighteen.” Calla grinned. “So young.”
“Indeed.” Alastair rubbed his chin. “Should we consider an amendment? Wouldn’t twenty one be a bit more appropriate? Twenty two even?”
Safiya placed a hand on the top of Alastair’s list, pressing it down into the table, forcing him to look up at her. “The
charter is the charter, Mr. Proctor. It will remain eighteen.”
The fire in the witch’s eyes even made Ivy pause. Alastair simply sniffed in response and reviewed the names. There were quite a few Vlceks.
“If there are any discrepancies, let me know, but I was very thorough.”
Despite some more grumbling, the meeting concluded without any bloodshed. Ivy took her notebook and went to find Oakley per Safiya’s direction to settle the great roses versus lavender debate. Her brother was bent over a thick row of hedges, presumably pulling weeds and talking to himself which wasn’t all that unusual.
But when she announced herself, he fell backward with a gasp which was sort of unusual. “Whoa, you okay there, buddy?”
Oakley’s eyes darted around as he scrambled back to his feet, not allowing her to help him up. The unflappable Oakley was suddenly a bit paranoid.
She huffed, growling through grit teeth, “How high are you right now?”
Oakley looked back at her quickly, then his body relaxed. “Not at all, Ivy League.” He settled dirty, gloved hands on his hips and sighed. “That might be the problem.”
“Well, you’re supposed to be sober at work anyway. And don’t call me that.” She flipped open her notebook. “Listen, we need a decision for the flowers in those new traffic calming plots for Cedar Road. Roses or lavender?”
Oakley glanced down at the hedges beside him, forehead wrinkled in consternation. “Roses or lavender? In the traffic calming plots? Cedar Road?”
She stared at him, hard, while he repeated her question into the bush. “Yeah?”
“I’m going to have to think about it,” he told her slowly, glancing back up.
The Association Page 16