by Emery Belle
Oceans & Potions
A Magic Island Paranormal Cozy Mystery, Book Two
Emery Belle
OCEANS & POTIONS
A Magic Island Paranormal Cozy Mystery
Book 2
By Emery Belle
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© Copyright 2018
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
For my husband.
Come what may.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Afterword
About the Author
Chapter 1
“Surprise!”
A blast of sound, accompanied by a shower of orange and blue sparks, greeted me as I pushed open the door to my dorm room, nearly knocking me off my feet.
“What’s going on?” I asked in alarm, grabbing the doorframe to steady myself as Glenn, Garnet, and Hunter cheered and clapped, and Monty spun around in a circle on his chain, grinning madly.
“Welcome home, Wren!” Garnet squealed, her auburn hair flying behind her as she launched herself at me and jammed a paper party hat onto my head.
I winced as I readjusted it, still feeling the effects of spending nearly two weeks in the hospital following my near-deadly encounter with Percival, The Islander editor-slash-raving-lunatic. Although I’d been almost up to snuff in the days immediately following the attack, his spell had left one or two nasty side effects that had taken a while to fully wear off—the doctor who had been caring for me was still sporting a nasty bruise from where I’d wacked him square in the face with my bedpan. My recently used bedpan, to be exact.
Glenn, the grandfatherly man who had guided my entry to Magic Island, a paranormal community set deep in the Pacific Ocean where I’d lived for only a few short weeks, hurried forward on his stubby legs and planted a noisy, wet kiss on my cheek. I squinted as I took in his ensemble—today, he was sporting a turquoise and lime-green checkered polo shirt that didn’t quite cover his ample stomach, purple leather pants that left little to the imagination and must have taken an entire tub of butter to slide into, and a magician’s hat with a live bird chirping on top. Carefully keeping my eyes above belly button-level, I gave him a long hug, blinking away tears as he patted my back gently.
“You’re a hero, Wren,” he whispered as the bird sang its agreement. “Not many people could have stood up to a powerful wizard like that and lived to tell the tale, especially not a level zero witch like you. I told you when we met that I believed you were destined for many great things, and so far you have done nothing but prove me correct.”
He pulled away from me, his eyes misty, then cleared his throat, whipped off his hat—the bird squawked but managed to stay upright—and produced a brightly wrapped package. “Just a little welcome-home present,” he said, grinning as I immediately tore off the wrapping paper and a small red flower fell into my hand. “It’s a fire blossom,” he added as I turned it over and examined it closely.
Garnet let out a small gasp of surprise and sidled over to me, reaching out a tentative finger toward the flower’s delicate petals. “I thought these were extinct,” she whispered, almost reverently, then flinched as Glenn smacked her hand away before she could touch the flower.
“There are a few plants left in existence, but they are exceedingly rare. If anyone but the intended recipient touches the petals with their bare hands, the magic is gone,” he scolded, and Garnet took a few steps back, shame-faced.
Hunter stepped forward and made a move to put a comforting arm around her shoulder, but stopped mid-air, his cheeks reddening, as Monty let out a sharp wolf whistle and Garnet looked around in confusion. I glared at Monty, who winked back and swung his chain in a wide circle, his head bobbing manically.
“What does it do?” I asked Glenn, bringing the tiny red flower up to my nose and giving it a tentative sniff. Its scent—slightly burnt and musky—reminded me of the time my first foster family had taken me camping in one of Oregon’s many breathtaking pine forests. That night, lying beneath a canopy of stars with my arms above my head and enveloped by the heady aroma of marshmallows roasting over an open flame, had been one of the happiest of my life.
“Melt the petals on your tongue, and the fire blossom brings the bearer one gloriously happy day,” Glenn said with a reminiscent smile, his electric-green eyes sparkling with some far-off memory. After a few moments, he sighed happily and turned his attention back to me. “In time, my dear, you will learn that magic—true magic—cannot be found at the end of a wand or in the pages of a spellbook.” He folded my hand over the flower and clasped his fingers over mine, his eyes warm and dreamy. “Use it wisely.”
Then he clapped his hands, and the bird on his hat nearly toppled over again. “And now, let us indulge ourselves in some of the finest treats that Magic Island has to offer!” He wiggled his fingers in the air, and a picnic table appeared in the middle of my dorm room, groaning under the weight of dozens of plates of food, most of which I couldn’t immediately identify.
“Try the candied mushroom pie,” Garnet said, slicing off an enormous hunk of gray gelatin that wobbled precariously on top of a cloud of marshmallow fluff and handing it to me. “It’s a Moon family recipe that’s been passed down since the time the island was first settled.” She passed equally heaping portions to Glenn and Hunter as I stuck my fork tentatively into the gelatin, which began to bubble.
“Excuse me,” Monty said haughtily as Glenn and Hunter exchanged dubious looks behind Garnet’s back and poked at their own slices, “but I believe you have forgotten someone.”
He opened his mouth wide and unfurled his long tongue, then gave Garnet an expectant look. She hurried over to him with a slice of pie and began forking it into the shrunken head’s mouth with an expression of distaste. He rolled his tongue around his teeth to catch every last drop of the pie, then smacked his lips thoughtfully for a few seconds before he stopped suddenly, his red-veined eyes bulging, and began spewing chunks of gelatin from his mouth.
“Villain!” he cried, his gaze swiveling to Garnet as he rattled on his chain so hard I feared it would break. “Lady of death! Beautiful scoundrel! Oh, those green eyes may be more breathtaking than the fields of Ireland but they hold murder in their depths.”
“Is there a problem?” I asked, rolling my eyes. With everyone’s attention now diverted, I shoveled my pie into the vase of singing petunias on my nightstand that also served as my alarm clock; they immediately wilted and began weeping softly.
Monty gave a hearty sniff, then pursed his lips and spat out one last gob of mushroom gelatin, which landed on Hunter’s newly polished shoes. “She is clearly trying to do away with us,” he said, sounding highly affronted. “Only the devil in disguise would serve me such poison. In my day, if the cook brought that to the dinner table, he would immediately be sent to the dungeons, quartered, and hanged.” Swiveling on his chai
n, he peered into the corners of the room. “Does anyone have a sword I could borrow? And perhaps an arm?”
“Enough,” I said, throwing out my hand to stop a snarling Hunter from lobbing Monty across the room while simultaneously offering a comforting smile to Garnet, whose entire body seemed to have drooped like week-old lettuce. Glenn looked down at his own plate, now empty save for a few crumbs, gave an enormous belch, and patted his stomach in appreciation as the button on his leather pants strained against his skin.
“Apologize, Monty,” I hissed at the head. He turned his nose up and looked away, deliberately ignoring me. “Apologize,” I repeated in my softest, most dangerous voice, “or I swear on your missing limbs that I’ll send you straight back to Lazar’s shop tonight. If you’re lucky, you may even arrive back in time to catch a few more leprechauns trying to make away with the fake gold coins.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You wouldn’t dare.”
I folded my arms across my chest and narrowed my own eyes right back at him. “Try me.”
“Fine.” Monty drew in a long-suffering sigh, muttered a few choice words beneath his breath that I couldn’t quite make out, and swung on his chain to face Garnet, who stared back at him, stone-faced.
“Miss Garnet Moon,” he said, his voice dripping with sweetness, “I’m terribly sorry that you tried to send three innocent people, and one especially innocent head, to their deaths tonight with that foul thing you called a dessert. May the Goddess Luna strike me dead with her staff should another bite of that gray goop dare to approach my lips—it would be a much kinder way to depart this earth than being force-fed such a monstrosity.”
“Say that again, you wrinkled little beast, and I’ll—”
In his haste to throttle Monty—though how he planned to do that, given Monty’s decided lack of neck, I didn’t know—Hunter knocked over my purse, which I’d dropped on the floor upon my return from the hospital. The contents scattered everywhere, and Garnet dropped to her knees to begin gathering them up while I pushed Hunter into the opposite corner of the room, away from the now-smirking Monty.
“Hey, Wren,” Garnet said, frowning as she swung her long hair over one shoulder and examined an envelope that had slid across the room and wedged itself under my wardrobe, “isn’t this the message Lady Winthrop sent to your hospital room the day after you arrived? You did open it, didn’t you?”
Gasping, I clasped my hands to my cheeks. “I completely forgot!” I moaned, hurrying forward to grab the envelope from her hands. “I meant to, but between Sebastian’s visit, and the incident with the bedpan, and wondering where the man in black had—”
I stopped short, suddenly remembering that no one else in the room knew about the mysterious man who had been following me since my arrival on the island and who had saved me from certain death at Percival’s hands. Our conversation in my hospital room had been interrupted by Sebastian’s arrival, and I hadn’t seen my savior since then… much less discovered his true identity and reasons for spying on me. Of course, that hadn’t stopped my thoughts from drifting to him constantly in the two weeks that had passed, and some of them, admittedly, had been less than pure.
I shivered and pulled my sweater tighter around me, then noticed the others’ curious gazes on me and hastily ripped open Lady Winthrop’s note to cover up the awkward moment. Though I’d been expecting—or perhaps hoping—that it merely contained her wishes for my speedy recovery, the further I ran my eyes down her elegant cursive, the further my stomach sank into my knees.
Dear Miss Winters,
Despite your heroic actions in the offices of The Islander Gazette, it is my deepest regret to inform you that, due to your unauthorized and illegal use of your training wand, which is subject to strict regulations under Section 95, Item Z of the International Association of Magical Beings’ Code of Conduct, you have been automatically sentenced to immediate banishment from Magic Island and all of its territories.
However, in light of the events surrounding your use of the training wand, I have submitted a formal appeal to Lord Macon and the High Court asking them to reconsider the inflexibility of the law, and I am still awaiting their final response. In the meantime, you have been granted permission to remain on the island temporarily, and when you are feeling well enough, to resume your studies and position at The Islander. I urge you to lie low while the High Court considers your case.
Yours,
Lady Brunhilda Winthrop
“Oh no,” I whispered when I had finished reading, letting the note flutter to the floor. “I can’t believe it.”
“What?” Garnet’s eyes were wide and fearful as Hunter picked up the note and scanned it. I remained rooted to the spot, my mind frozen in disbelief, barely able to register her soft gasp as she read it over his shoulder. Even Monty had stopped smirking and was watching me warily, his lips pressed into a thin line.
“There’s no way they can do this,” Hunter said, his voice tight as he passed the note to Glenn. “We’ll do whatever it takes to stop it, Wren… We’ll form a picket line, pass around a petition… Once the people of Magic Island find out about this, they’ll rally around you, I’m sure of—”
“It won’t matter,” Glenn interrupted softly. “The High Court—or, I should say, Lord Macon—puts little stock in popularity contests. All the signatures in the world won’t alter Wren’s fate if they decide to uphold the law.” He conjured up a squashy armchair with a wave of his hand before sinking into it heavily. “And Lord Macon is a purist. He takes great pride in being a powerful agent of the IAMB and won’t change his mind lightly, especially when dealing with someone he seems to…”
He trailed off, avoiding my gaze, but I didn’t need for him to finish to be able to fill in the blank. Lord Macon wouldn’t change his mind when dealing with me, someone he seemed to detest, for reasons that completely baffled me. He’d displayed an outward disdain for me since the moment we’d met, when Glenn and I had appeared before the High Court to protest a discrepancy in my magical status a mere half hour after I’d stepped foot on the island. I knew that if my fate was in his hands, I stood little chance of forgiveness. I might as well start packing my bags now.
The party broke up shortly afterward, with Hunter, Garnet, and Glenn all murmuring words of comfort to me on their way out the door that did little to soothe my fraught nerves. Though I’d only been on the island a few short weeks, it had quickly come to feel like home to me, especially since there was nothing waiting for me on the mainland. Unless, that is, you counted a job that made me want to gouge out my eyeballs, an ex-boyfriend who was about to marry another woman, and… nothing. There was nothing else. There never had been.
“I’m all alone,” I whispered, tears springing to my eyes as I dropped onto my bed and buried my face in the pillow. Monty made soothing sounds as sobs racked my body, until eventually I hiccupped myself into stunned silence and sat up, blotting at my swollen face with the sleeve of my sweater. Then I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders, silently vowing to fight the charges against me. I would win. I had to. My happiness depended on it.
“That’s a good girl,” Monty said approvingly, correctly interpreting my sudden shift in body language. “Besides,” he added, batting his long eyelashes at me, “you’ll never be alone, Wren Winters. You and I are bonded now. When you removed me from my last residence at my request, you were agreeing to provide a suitable, loving, and comfortable home of my choosing for me from now until the end of eternity. It’s in the contract.”
“Contract?” I asked, bewildered. “I don’t remember signing any con—”
“Not all contracts are signed in ink,” he said sagely, then cut me off with a fierce look when I opened my mouth to argue. “Thou doth protest too much.”
He swiveled his eyes around the room. “Now be a good lamb and cut me a second piece of that candied mushroom pie. I’ve been dealing with its nutty aftertaste for some time now, and I must admit I’ve grown rather fond of it.”
Chapter 2
I felt surprisingly calm when I stepped into The Islander newspaper offices the next day and took in the new carpet and fresh paint job that undoubtedly covered the scorch marks from the aftermath of my encounter with Percival’s wand.
“Wren!” Glinna squealed in a high-pitched voice when I tiptoed past the front desk, trying in vain not to draw too much attention to my presence. She fluttered toward me, her wings glittering softly in the overhead lights, and was just reaching for her ubiquitous pouch of fairy dust when I grabbed her in a spontaneous hug to prevent her from dumping it over my head. Again.
“Gee, Wren, I missed you too,” she said, sounding both surprised and delighted as she returned my hug with a bone-crushing one of her own. “And a certain someone has been a little lost around the office without you,” she added, lowering her voice conspiratorially and offering me a sly wink as she not-so-subtly tipped her head to the right. I turned to find Sebastian hovering by the water cooler, his hands shoved into his pockets, his eyes roaming my face.
I could feel my cheeks heating as I made my way toward him, stumbling slightly over my own feet. When I reached his side, I could practically taste the tension that simmered between us, making the air difficult to breathe.
“Hey,” he said, breaking the silence and giving me an easy smile, his dark hair falling over one eye. “Fancy seeing you here.”
He took a step toward me, arms outstretched as if for a hug, then seemed to think better of it and dropped them back at his sides. I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief; there was no denying Sebastian’s charm and good looks, not to mention how helpful he’d been while I’d worked to track down my predecessor’s killer, but Garnet’s words of warning still rang in my head whenever I was in his presence. Steer clear, she’d told me. He’d left countless shattered hearts in his wake, and there was no reason to believe mine would be any different.