by Zoe Arden
"Wilma and Polly are headed this way," she said excitedly, forgetting her anger in lieu of fresh gossip. The door chimed a second later and Wilma and Polly walked in. Polly was frowning like she didn't really want to be there.
Eleanor and I forced smiles on our faces. "Hi, Wilma," Eleanor said and nodded. "What can we do for you two today? Care to try our hazelnut cinnamon temptations?" She held out our sample tray for them but Wilma shook her head.
"No, thanks. Look, I have a favor to ask." She glanced at Natalie then stepped closer to Eleanor. I moved in closer, too, so that I could hear better.
"What could you need from us?" Eleanor asked.
Trixie came out from the back room with my father, who had a hot chocolate mustache. They both paused when they saw Wilma, who started to blush.
The truth was, Wilma had asked a lot of favors from us in the past. When she'd first arrived on the island, she'd had no idea how to bake so much as a sugar cookie. She'd opened her bakery and had almost failed when her lack of baking skills came out. Everything she'd learned since then had stemmed from the crash course we'd given her. Sure, she'd taught herself a lot since then but without our initial help, she'd have left Sweetland with her tail tucked between her legs.
"I heard a rumor this morning," she said and Natalie's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. "Otis is planning to throw another ball. Sort of a do-over."
I could tell by Eleanor's and Natalie's reactions that neither of them had heard a thing about this.
"I was hoping that if that's true," Wilma continued as Polly pretended to examine her fingernails, "that you'd maybe... I mean, could you..." She was stumbling over her words, acting flustered.
"Oh, for witch's sake," Polly finally said. "My aunt wants to know if you'd be okay with us making the centerpiece cake since you already had your shot."
Wilma looked embarrassed but nodded.
"Oh," Eleanor said. She looked at Trixie and my dad, who both looked startled. "Why, um, I suppose... we should talk it over first, I think. Can we let you know?"
Wilma sighed and tried to smile.
"Told you," Polly said and spun on her heels, exiting the bakery. When she was gone, Wilma looked at all of us sorrowfully.
"I would never ask, it's only that business hasn't been so good for us lately. People are still a little wary of Polly as it turns out, and it's bringing out the worst in her, I'm afraid." I had to admit that Polly had seemed a lot easier to like when she'd first gotten out of Swords and Bones. It had only been a few months but already she was starting to act like a temperamental child. I supposed it was hard to change if people didn't let you change.
"I thought if we made Otis' cake, it might help. People might see it and be interested in trying us out."
I hated to admit it but my heartstrings were getting tugged pretty hard. I could tell my family's were, too. Even Natalie looked a little misty.
"Of course, you can," Trixie said, jumping ahead of Eleanor in the conversation. She shrugged when Eleanor looked at her. "Can't she?"
Eleanor sighed. "Of course. I'm sure your cake will be lovely. If the rumors are even true, that is. Otis hasn't said anything to us yet."
The door chimed just then and Damon came in, looking haggard. There were bags under his eyes and his hair was a mess. There was scruff on his chin and it looked like he hadn't slept in a week. He looked at all of us, hesitated for just a second, then said, "Betsey's missing. I need your help."
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CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
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"She's been missing since the ball," Damon said, running a hand nervously through his hair. Eleanor and my dad had shooed Natalie and Wilma from the store and taken Damon into the back room. "I can't find her anywhere. No one can."
"Have you spoken to her mother?" Eleanor asked.
"Yeah. She hasn't seen her either. I think something's happened to her. Maybe whoever killed Randall..."
"Don't think like that," I said, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder.
"That's what Sally said," Damon replied, his hands still shaking.
"You talked to Sally?" I asked, interested. "No one's seen her or the others since the ball."
"They're staying with me. They had to. They got kicked out of their hotel and no one will rent a room to them." He let out a sigh. "I'm not happy about what they did, okay? But it's my mom and her friends, so don't judge me."
"Hey, I wasn't judging," I said.
He was more defensive than usual. He slapped his hand against his head. His face was pink.
"I should never have let Betsey leave like that," he muttered.
"Let me call Colt," I said. "He can help."
Damon looked hopefully at me. "You think he will? He and I have never exactly gotten along."
"Doesn't matter. This is what Colt does, tracks people down." I thought that was only a part of what Colt did but I didn't tell Damon that. I wanted him to feel better; he seemed wrecked.
Colt came down to Mystic right away. Luckily, he was on the island and not at COMHA's headquarters. He asked Damon several questions then started making phone calls. Eleanor, Trixie, and my dad went back out front to handle new customers coming in but I stayed in back with Damon.
"If anything happened to her I'll never forgive myself," he said.
"You really love her, don't you?" I asked. I hadn't realized the depth of his feelings for Betsey until now. Maybe he hadn't either.
"I just want her to be okay," he said, his voice cracking.
A half-hour later, Colt came in. He paused when he saw me sitting within an inch of Damon, my hand on his back. I glared at him. He knew what was going on; I was only trying to comfort Damon and didn't need his petty jealousy right now.
"No news," Colt said, taking a seat opposite Damon, who let out a heavy sigh. "I called Dean Lampton and added her name to our missing paranormals folder. Her face and name are out there now. If any of our field agents see her, we'll hear about it."
"Do you think she's dead?" Damon asked, his eyes red.
"Do you think she's dead?" Colt asked.
Damon shrugged, shook his head, shrugged again.
"That seems like a pretty big conclusion to leap to," said Colt. "It's only been two days." He paused a moment. "The last time you saw her, you had a fight as I recall. What happened after you followed her out?"
Damon looked up at him. "Huh?"
"Betsey left the ballroom and you followed her. What happened?" His voice was low and steady, soothing but artificially so. The way you sounded when you wanted to give an impression of calm but were feeling the opposite.
Damon blinked. "Nothing. I couldn't find her."
Colt pursed his lips together, and I suddenly realized what he was doing. He was trying to interrogate Damon without his realizing it. He thought Damon had something to do with Betsey's disappearance! Damon realized it, too, and stood up, his face a mask of anger and grief.
"I had nothing to do with this," he snapped. "I've been looking for her since that night."
"Well, we have only your word for that, don't we?" Colt said.
Damon looked ready to punch Colt. "The next thing you'll say is that you think I killed Randall."
"Did you?"
I dropped my jaw. Damon's eyes bugged out of his head. He turned and left the room. "Call if you hear anything," he muttered to me on his way out. My family hurried after him.
"What's wrong with you?" I demanded once Damon was gone. "How can you interrogate him like that? He obviously didn't have anything to do with this."
"Are you sure?"
"Of course, I'm sure."
He shook his head. "I don't know. So much is going on right now, I guess I'm suspicious of everyone. Maybe I overreacted."
"Maybe?"
"Okay, fine. I shouldn't have questioned him like that. But he was the last one to see her alive as far as
we know. And we haven't had any luck tracking down Randall's killer. The last people to see him alive were you, your aunts, your dad, Lottie, and Natalie. And Renee, of course, but we've already ruled her out."
I paused. "Does that mean you haven't ruled out the rest of us?"
He laughed. "You and your family, sure. But Lottie and Natalie..." He shrugged. "Not completely."
I couldn't quite get a grip on what he was telling me. Did he really think that Natalie and Lottie could be killers? Hadn't I wondered the same thing, though?
"And then I've got Dean to deal with, and the silly Witch's Council."
"What about the Witch's Council?"
"Oh, Dean's got some crazy idea about getting rid of MAPP. He wants to erase all their memories."
"You mean everyone in the group?"
"That's right. Most of them have had some type of paranormal experience that led them to join MAPP and hate paranormals in the first place. He thinks if COMHA gets rid of those memories, MAPP will dissolve."
I hated to admit it but it actually kind of made sense.
"The Witch's Council found out what he wants to do and is planning a protest. They don't think it's right to manipulate memories like that, even in humans. Dean needs the rest of COMHA's delegates to go along with it, and the Witch's Council thinks if they make enough noise, he won't get the votes he needs."
"What do you think?"
Colt shrugged. "I really don't know at this point."
Eleanor poked her head into the back. "Otis just called," she said. "Wilma was right. The ball's been rescheduled. I told him about the cake and he's agreed to let them make the new one." She started back out. "Oh, and he warned us that he just got an advisory. That windstorm we were expecting got upgraded. We're closing early today. Gotta batten down the hatches at home. This one's supposed to be bad."
"Worried about the windstorm?" he asked, putting an arm around my waist and pulling me close.
I shrugged. "I'm from New York, where there are scarier things than wind."
He laughed and kissed me gently on the lips. "By the way, I checked all those cameras we confiscated from Renee and her friends."
"And?" I asked hopefully.
"No sign of that picture of you. In fact, the pictures that were on there were all dark and mostly blurry. These women are most definitely not photographers."
"Hmmm..."
"Quit worrying about it already," he told me. "I'm sure that photo Renee took is long gone by now."
Eleanor's voice called to us from out front. "Come on! We gotta get a move on!"
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CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
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The windstorm was bad but not as bad as people had feared it would be. It was actually a lot like the ballroom had been after MAPP was chased out of it. The town was messy but nothing had broken except for a few stoplights, which were already being repaired. By the end of the day, things would be back to normal. Eleanor and Trixie had reinforced Mystic's windows and doors before leaving last night, so the bakery hadn't suffered any. The same couldn't, however, be said for the large oak tree I was currently standing in front of on the outskirts of Whisper Crossing. It wasn't actually the tree that looked hurt, it was the treehouse in it.
Whisper Crossing was the midpoint between Sweetland Cove and Mistmoor Point. It was surrounded on all sides by a large forest, generally referred to as Whisper Forest. The forest stretched for miles, part of it surrounded by ocean. Of course, Heavenly Haven was an island. It wasn't hard to find ocean when you wanted it.
Whisper Crossing was considered neutral territory between our two towns. There was an old feud that stemmed back hundreds of years ago when Patrick Mistmoor married Sarah Sweetland. Sarah fell off a cliff not long after they were married. Whether you thought it was suicide or murder depended on where you lived. I'd found out not long after moving here that Sarah had actually been cursed. Another witch had loved Patrick but he'd rejected her. She had cursed Sarah and all her descendants. Sarah had a child before her death; it was kept a secret for centuries. It turned out that I was one of Sarah's descendants. Hence the curse was always hanging over my head, though most days I thought whatever the curse had been must have dissipated by now. Except for my mother's death, my life had been pretty good. Perhaps my mother had been the last of the curse's victims.
I pushed the thought from my mind even though it was difficult. Whisper Crossing always brought back thoughts of the curse. Sarah Sweetland's headstone was the largest in the cemetery that sat atop the hill that made up the peak of Whisper Crossing. A giant stone angel watched over the entire land. I could just make out the tips of its wings from my spot in the forest, then I moved and the high treetops covered my view.
I let out a long sigh and looked up at the treehouse I was about to climb up to. Not all fairies lived in trees, just the majority of them. They liked to be high up, or so Lucy had told me when I'd texted her asking if she knew where to find them. Turned out she knew exactly where Betsey's mom lived. It was just one of those random facts that Lucy knew. She had her own brand of gossip, which included making an effort to know everything about everyone who lived on the island, whether they resided in Sweetland or in Mistmoor. She often likened her job at the coffee shop to that of a bartender. People walked in looking to get high on caffeine, she fixed them up and sometimes ended up listening to their problems.
"I need coffee. My boss has got it in for me and I need to be awake."
"Coffee, please. My kids are sick. I've been up all night."
"An extra shot of espresso, if you don't mind. My in-laws are coming."
Lucy had become something of an expert in knowing who everyone was and what their problems were. Although fairies didn't usually come looking for coffee, she had learned enough working there to tell me where to find Georgia LaGrange, right down to the exact location of her tree. The ground beneath the tree looked like a mess but the rope ladder that led to the top seemed to be just fine.
I tugged on it to make sure and set one foot on the first rung. When it didn't give out, I started climbing. The ladder led up to a ledge like a patio or deck that surrounded the entire treehouse. You could stand on the ledge without worry of falling off. I had to admit, it looked pretty secure.
I wasn't entirely sure what to expect when got up there. I'd lived on the island a year and although I'd met a number of goblins and a few vampires, I had yet to meet any fairies. At least, not full-fledged fairies. Betsey was only half. Her father had been a wizard.
I'd been told that fairies were tiny little things but the treehouse seemed built for a person of my size. Maybe that was because Betsey, although on the shorter side, wasn't too far off from the height of an average witch.
I knocked on the door and held my breath. The entire house was set into the tree top as though it had grown out of the tree rather than being constructed there. Branches sprung out and around the wooden structure as if supporting it. The house itself resembled something like an upscale log cabin with leaves sticking up out of the rooms. I thought it was just the type of thing I'd have seen on the Discovery Channel when I lived in New York.
The knob turned. A woman with pale hair the shade of Betsey's answered. She stood staring at me with sparkly, bright pink eyes and snow white skin but for the most part she looked like any normal witch. An ageless witch. She could have been twenty or fifty; it was impossible to tell.
She was probably about five feet tall, which was on the short side, but I'd been expecting something more like Tinker Bell—a six-inch woman with wings. But I saw no sign of wings anywhere. I wondered suddenly if my image of fairies had been colored solely by what I'd seen in movies and television growing up. Except for those pink eyes, which seemed to almost see right through me, I might have thought she was just a witch.
"Hello," she said, smiling politely.
"Um, hi."
I realized that I hadn't thought this out very well before coming over here. I'd spent most of the night listening to the wind howl, thinking about Betsey and Randall and trying to put it all together. Were they connected? Was Betsey lying in a ditch somewhere, her heart having stopped as Randall's had? For the sake of her mother even more than Damon, I hoped not.
"I'm Ava. Ava Fortune," I said. "I'm friends with your daughter, Betsey. Well, sort of. We know each other."
Georgia LaGrange looked me up and down. "Do you want to come in? The place is a mess but I can make tea if you like. Earl Grey?"
"Sure, that would be nice. Thanks."
She opened the door for me and I stepped into a living room that smelled like the oak tree it was furnished out of. I breathed in the scent and almost sneezed. When I unsquinched my eyes, I saw that Georgia was smiling at me.
"Sorry about the dust," she said. "The wind messed everything up last night and I'm still sorting it out."
I looked around and saw that her living room was strewn with leaves and papers. Books had been ripped off shelves and the couch cushions had been split open so that polyester stuffing lay around the room like snow.
"Wow, the storm really got you bad, didn't it?"
"I'm afraid so." She stepped into the kitchen; it looked like any normal kitchen but smaller. The whole house had that type of feeling—everything in it seemed normal, just smaller. It gave me an odd sense of being out of place.
"So, what can I do for you, Ava?" Georgia asked. "Betsey's not here at the moment if you're looking for her."
"No, I wasn't. I mean, I am, I just..." I shook my head, trying to clear it. Why was it so hard to ask a few simple questions? "No one's seen Betsey in a few days and I wondered if you knew where she was."