by Ellery Adams
She had to call the sheriff. She had to tell him that Lazarus Harper was here in Miracle Springs.
Chapter 14
In life, the monsters win.
—George RR Martin
A ringing sound jolted Nora awake.
The darkness in her bedroom told her that it was too early for her morning alarm. Even in the dead of winter, a weak light slipped through the curtains, confirming that it was time to get up. But there was no light now. Nora’s sleep-glazed eyes saw only blackness.
As the noise persisted, she realized that it wasn’t the bugle call of her alarm but the harp notes of her ringtone. She fumbled for the phone and brought it to her ear.
“Sorry to call so early, but I wanted to tell you that Lazarus Harper is in the drunk tank,” said Hester.
Propping herself on one elbow, Nora glanced at the clock. It was just past five, which meant Hester was calling from the bakery. “What happened?”
“Last night, after you couldn’t reach the sheriff, dispatch radioed Jasper. He was on patrol and started searching for Harper’s truck right away.”
“I was there for all of that. What about after I left?”
There was a thump in the background followed by several quick bangs. “Another deputy kept an eye on Celeste’s place until Harper was found. That didn’t take long. After leaving the parking lot, Harper stopped at a gas station to buy a six-pack. The clerk didn’t want to sell it to him because it was obvious that Harper was already buzzed. But the clerk was just a kid and Harper scared him, so he sold him the beer and then called 911 to report a possible drunk driver. By the time Jasper pulled him over, Harper had already chugged two beers.”
“Oh, man.”
“His blood alcohol content was through the roof. He could barely string a sentence together, so no one could question him. Isn’t that annoying?” Nora heard the slap of bread dough striking the counter. “When the sheriff asked Harper what he was doing in Miracle Springs, Harper laughed and said he wanted to go skinny-dipping in our magic water.”
Nora groaned in frustration. “He didn’t mention Celeste? Or CBD oil?”
“Nope. But Jasper’s shift starts at seven, and he’s not going to let Harper leave the interview room until he talks. At least he can’t hurt anyone. Celeste is safe.”
Nora thanked Hester for letting her know and asked her to call back later with any updates. She then flopped back onto her pillow and waited for relief to sweep over her. When it didn’t come, she assumed there’d be no closure until she heard that Harper had been found guilty of killing Bren to get back at Celeste.
As the first hints of daylight seeped into her room, Nora pulled the covers up to her chin. She couldn’t sleep, but she wanted to stay in the warm nest that was her bed a little longer. Closing her eyes, she rested in her silent, cozy room until six o’clock. At that point, she put on her well-worn slippers and plodded into the kitchen to brew coffee and write a to-do list for the day.
When she showed up at the Gingerbread House an hour later, Hester met her at the back door with a puzzled look. “Sheldon already got your book pockets.”
“Actually, I came to see if I could deliver Celeste’s muffins. It saves you a trip, and I can see how she’s doing today.”
Hester smiled and waved her inside. “It’ll be a light load because she would only let me bake one flavor. Last night, she said that she was getting up early today to make banana oat muffins. If they go well, she’ll try two different kinds tomorrow. She’s hoping that after today, she won’t need my help anymore.”
“Wow. If Celeste bakes every morning and keeps the shop open until six every evening, her days are going to be super long.”
Hester handed Nora a large bakery box and said, “Maybe focusing on work is the only way she can manage her grief. If she uses her energy to help people, that energy might come back around and help her too.”
“I like that idea. By pouring yourself out, you can be filled up.” Nora walked to the door and propped it open with her backside. She paused for a moment, hypnotized by the sight of Hester rolling a ball of dough into a paper-thin circle. The kitchen was full of sunlight and the aroma of baked bread, and Nora knew she could spend hours watching her friend work.
Wisps of cinnamon and toasted pecans escaped from a gap in the bakery box lid, breaking Nora’s trance. “Good luck today, Hester. I’ll tell all of my customers to buy a tin of your shortbread cookies while supplies last.”
“And I’ll tell mine to buy a steamy Highland romance from you while supplies last. Is there a better pairing than books and cookies? One hand for your book. One hand for your cookie. Life is good.” Hester pointed at Nora with her rolling pin. “Don’t forget to take pics of the sidewalk display. I’m dying to see it.”
After promising to send an image, Nora headed to Soothe.
Across town, merchants were sweeping stoops and cleaning glass. The cheerful faces of pansies peered out from flowerpots. Arrangements of Indian corn and pumpkins added color to the window displays.
Soothe wouldn’t be open for another two hours, so Nora walked to the back of the building, intending to ring the bell at the delivery door. But when she left the alley and rounded the corner of the building, she saw a man in a black hoodie standing directly in front of Celeste’s door. His legs were spread shoulder-width apart and his right arm was raised as if he meant to knock. He wasn’t knocking, however. He was marking the door with red spray paint.
Hearing her approach, the man shot her a startled glance. In that moment, Nora saw that he wasn’t a man, but a teenage boy. She had just enough time to notice the shadow on his upper lip, the constellation of acne on his chin, and the hate in his eyes before he turned and ran.
“Stop!” Nora shouted. “I know who you are!”
She didn’t bother chasing him. He was far too fast, and the empty threat she’d hurled at him had been ineffective.
Wishing that she really did know the boy’s name, Nora examined his handiwork. He’d written SATAN’S in crooked block letters. Below this word, he’d started to write a second word beginning with W.
Nora stared at the lava-red paint. If her anger had a color, it would be lava red.
“It’ll wash off!” she shouted. “A little paint won’t make her leave! She’s staying! I’m staying! This is our town!”
Shifting the bakery box to one hand, Nora pulled on the door. It swung open with a creak of hinges.
She stepped inside, already planning her call to the sheriff’s department. But the moment the door shut behind her and she was alone in the cold and empty foyer, the space above her pinkie knuckle tingled.
“Oh, no.”
Gripping the bakery box, Nora bolted up the stairs to Celeste’s apartment. The door was cracked, but no sounds escaped from inside.
Nora dropped the box and pushed the door all the way open. “Celeste?”
When no one replied, Nora hurried into the kitchen. She froze on the threshold, shocked by the chaos within. Her eyes scanned the broken crockery, scattered soil, trampled plants, cracked eggs, shattered jars, globs of jam, and a flattened carton of milk.
“No, no, no no,” Nora muttered as she snapped out of her stupor and picked her way over chunks of glass and glossy rivers of olive oil and blackberry wine.
In the living room, she skirted around the toppled bookshelf and jumped over a mound of gutted pillows before running to the bedroom.
Celeste was lying on the floor, curled in the fetal position. Her face was contorted in agony. Her eyes were closed.
Nora pressed the emergency button on her phone and dropped to her knees next to Celeste. As soon as she heard a voice on the other end, she shouted that she needed an ambulance and gave the address to the apartment above Soothe. When the dispatcher asked for clarification as to the nature of the medical emergency, Nora put the phone on speaker mode.
“I don’t know,” she said in a shaky voice as her gaze moved down Celeste’s body. “There’s no blood,
but she’s in terrible pain. She’s really pale, and I don’t think she can move. Her cheeks are bruised. Celeste? Can you hear me? Where does it hurt?”
Celeste opened her eyes. They rolled in their sockets as if she couldn’t control them. Nora thought she heard a sound escape through Celeste’s parted lips.
Lowering herself until her face was next to Celeste’s face, Nora repeated her question. Celeste’s reply was a strangled gurgle. A death rattle.
“Is she breathing?” asked the dispatcher.
Celeste’s breaths were shallow, liquid sighs. Each weak exhalation had a putrid smell. There was vomit in her hair and a line of spittle dripped from her mouth onto the floor.
Swallowing the terror rising in her throat, Nora squeezed Celeste’s hand. “Help is coming. Just hold on.”
Celeste struggled to fix her eyes on Nora. Her pupils were tiny pinpricks, and the blue irises shimmered with pain.
“Too late.” Her words came out as a wet lisp.
“No, they’ll be here any second. You’re a Juliana. You can do this.” Nora’s voice broke. “You’re so strong.”
Nora used her sweater to wipe away her tears. She didn’t want to cry. She wanted to be calm and comforting. But she didn’t know how. Not when she was lying next to a woman caught between two worlds. As still and pale as the marble she used to carve, she already looked like a ghost.
Nora pushed Celeste’s damp hair off her forehead and caressed her cheek, avoiding the purple bruises that darkened the skin on both sides of her face. The bruises were shaped like fingertips. “What happened to you?”
Celeste’s eyes pleaded with her. “Don’t let him . . . get book . . . he sells . . . lies.”
The words had taken the last of her strength, and Celeste’s chest deflated once she’d pushed them out. But they weren’t enough. They didn’t explain why she was dying. Or why Bren had died.
Nora stroked Celeste’s face. “A man did this to you? The same man who hurt Bren? He wants your book of spells?” When Celeste didn’t respond, Nora cupped the back of Celeste’s sweat-soaked neck and begged, “Please. Don’t let him get away with this.”
Celeste seemed to swim back to the surface. There was a fierce light in her eyes as she gasped, “Wolf . . . wolf . . . bay . . . not spells . . .”
“Is he the reason you left Still Waters? Were you trying to protect the book? And Bren?”
Celeste could only manage a slow blink.
“What’s his name?” Nora asked even though Celeste was probably beyond hearing. She seemed to be receding deep inside herself to a place where she felt no pain. A place of weightlessness and light. A place where her daughter waited.
“If you tell me his name, I’ll stop him. I promise.”
Celeste’s lips trembled. It was barely more than a twitch, but Nora put her ear up to Celeste’s mouth.
Wisps of air and noise drifted out of the dying woman’s throat. The words were so faint that Nora almost didn’t catch them, but as every cell in her body homed in on these fragile sounds, the words sank into her like raindrops on sand. She heard, “Book . . . in . . . room.”
And then, Celeste was gone.
Her spark of life had winked out, leaving the room feeling colder and emptier.
* * *
When the paramedics entered the apartment and shouted for her, Nora didn’t respond. She didn’t look up when they rushed into the bedroom to find two women on the floor, facing each other. One woman was dead. The other was crying into her hands, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed.
One of the paramedics touched Nora’s arm and said, “We need to examine your friend, okay?”
He helped her sit up.
Nora hugged her knees and stared at Celeste. “Too late,” she murmured. “We were all too late.”
Suddenly, McCabe was there.
He sat down next to Nora and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. He didn’t speak. He just sat very close and rubbed big, slow circles over her back.
As he watched the paramedics check Celeste for signs of life, Nora turned to the sheriff. She studied his frown lines, the bracket around his mouth, and the broken capillaries on the side of his nose. She saw a tiny scar just under his left brow and another on his jawline, close to his ear. As she looked at him, she felt the quiet strength in his presence. Grant McCabe was solid. He was a rock. Something to grab hold of when the world tilted.
McCabe read the need in Nora’s eyes. He slipped an arm around her waist and gave her a comforting squeeze.
She put her head on his shoulder. He smelled of Ivory soap and coffee. The heat from his body added to the blanket’s warmth, and Nora began to feel a little less at sea.
Deputy Andrews came into the room. When he saw Celeste, he let out a low moan of dismay. He looked at his boss, sitting on the floor with Nora, and asked, “What should I do?”
Instead of answering, McCabe turned to Nora. “Are you ready?”
Nora thought about it. Was she ready to leave Celeste? To tell McCabe what she’d seen and heard? To let him and his team get to work? To do what she could to help catch a killer?
After placing a hand on Celeste’s arm in a wordless pledge, Nora said, “Yes.”
* * *
Miracle Books always opened at ten in the morning. Monday through Saturday, Nora unlocked the door at ten o’clock on the dot. For over five years, she ran the business on her own without closing the shop for any reason. Not even sickness.
Of course, there were times she longed to take a two-day weekend, have a leisurely lunch at a restaurant, or spend the day at home, reading. But these times were rare. Nora loved her bookshop. And though her heart hurt, and she was still in shock over Celeste’s death, she needed to be in her shop. She needed to lose herself in the business of selling books. She needed soft conversations and the hiss of the espresso machine. She needed to tap register keys and stack credit card receipts. She needed to pull books from shelves and slide them into bags. Miracle Books was the only place she could bear to be, so that’s where she went.
Nora had called Sheldon before leaving McCabe’s office and was relieved to hear that all was well at Miracle Books.
“I really want to see the sidewalk display, but I should probably come in through the back,” she’d told Sheldon. “If one of the protestors insults Celeste, I’ll snap, and you’ll spend the rest of the day by yourself because I’ll be in jail.”
But when Deputy Fuentes announced that he’d be escorting her to Miracle Books, Nora decided to honor Sheldon’s request.
Now, as Deputy Fuentes drove down Main Street at a snail’s pace, Nora gazed out the passenger window and marveled over the number of people milling about on a Friday morning.
“I’m going to park here. We’ll get there faster walking.” Fuentes pulled into a spot right in front of Soothe, and he and Nora got out of the car.
Nora’s heart lurched when she saw a woman peering into the shop while a man and a little girl waited by the statue of Juliana. The girl, who was five or six, was clearly beguiled by the marble woman.
“What happened to her wing, Daddy?” Nora heard her ask.
“I don’t know, sweetheart.”
The girl threw her arms around the statue’s thighs, embracing the cold stone. “Can she still be an angel if she only has one wing?”
Her father said, “Absolutely. Her heart makes her an angel. Not her wings.”
I wish Celeste had seen this, Nora thought.
Celeste had been so proud of her familial legacy. All those women named Juliana. All those healers.
Healers. Not angels. Not witches. Women who healed.
Not spells.
Celeste’s words were repeating on a loop in Nora’s head. If the symbols on the Potion Page weren’t spells, then what were they?
He lies.
She had to be talking about the man with the tattoos on his arm. He’d torn Bren’s house and Celeste’s apartment apart in search of what? More pages like the one left und
er Nora’s mat. An entire book of old pages. Celeste had said “don’t let him” and “get book.” Who was him?
Wolf.
Was this a man’s name? Part of an avatar or online identity? Or was there something in Celeste’s apartment with a wolf on it? Something that would reveal the man’s identity. Nora didn’t remember seeing anything like that, but Celeste could have kept it well hidden.
These days, when Nora thought of wolves, she thought of Connie Knapp and her pack of female fearmongers. And now here they were, standing on the sidewalk in front of Miracle Books. They held signs with inflammatory slogans like, PROTECT OUR KIDS! MORAL FAMILIES DON’T SHOP HERE! I CHOOSE WHAT MY CHILD READS! BAN SATANIC BOOKS!
It hurt to see former customers waving these signs. The hurt was personal, but Nora also felt pain on behalf of the books she sold. Those incredible books. After what she’d been through that morning—after seeing Celeste die—the condemnation of her beloved books was too much for Nora.
She went lightheaded, stumbled, and nearly fell, but Fuentes’s hand shot out to steady her. Keeping hold of Nora’s arm, the deputy barreled his way through the knot of protestors.
“You can’t be in the street!” he bellowed. “I see your foot on asphalt, and you’ll spend the day in lockup. You know the rules. You’re only allowed on the sidewalk.”
“There isn’t enough room!” someone complained.
“No touching the bookstore’s display or the merchandise. No going inside the store!” Fuentes continued. “You have the right to a peaceful protest. On the sidewalk. If you prevent customers from entering the business, I will place you under arrest.”
The crowd was smaller than Nora expected. Clumped together, waving their signs and shouting, thirty people seemed more like fifty. Though they yelled louder as Nora passed, their words didn’t reach her. She was deaf and dumb to everything except what she saw in front of the bookshop.
Steph and Sid had taken a few pieces of cardboard and transformed them into magical portals. Five towers of shimmering color invited readers to wander into a fictional world.
The first phone booth had become the wardrobe leading to Narnia. One door was partially open, giving the viewer a glimpse of a snowy landscape, a lamppost, and a smiling Mr. Tumnus.