by Lucia Ashta
I was sure they would too. Did that mean Quade and I could share a future without Delise poking her nose in our business at every turn? The thought of being with Quade just became even more appealing…
Everleigh grunted around another mouthful. She was on her second serving of pasta salad and gave no impression of slowing down. “If that woman’s going to attack the town, then it’s only right that the town protect itself by eliminating the threat.”
“Exactly,” Nan said.
A warm preternatural breeze circled me, and I straightened, anticipating what would come next. A hazy glow, much like a small puff of cloud, settled in front of my face. A moment later, Dixie’s disembodied voice spoke from the center of the mist.
“The locator spell is ready. Follow the tug in your gut to the Spanx.” A giggle wafted from the whisper-tell in a visible puff. “Good luck finding the leprechaun.”
The cloud dissolved slowly, until it disappeared entirely.
“Well,” I said, taking another quick bite of my lunch. “That was faster than expected. I’ve got to go.” I speared a few more bites of pasta and shoveled them into my mouth, standing while I chewed. “I need to finish this up before Clyde and Macy get out of school. I want to be there to pick them up.”
Nan waved away the idea. “Let them take the bus. No teenager wants their mom to pick them up from their first day of school. We did the part we had to. Everyone knows the kids are Gawamas. Now let them be.”
But Nan was wrong. I would have loved to have my mom pick me up from school as a teenager. At any age, actually. I wanted to be the mother to my kids that I’d always wanted. I wasn’t perfect, but I was doing a fine job. They knew they could rely on me for anything.
I picked up my plate and walked to the sink. “I’m going to go get them. I didn’t even tell them to take the bus.” I also hadn’t told them to wait for me. Crap, I hadn’t been thinking, complacent in how safe the town was and how easy it was to navigate it.
“Harlow will help them figure out what to do,” Nan assured me. “Besides, Gus needs something to do. He isn’t suited to much else. Driving the bus gives him a job. Let him drive your kids.”
“Gus?” I said. “I don’t remember a Gus.”
“That’s because you were gone a very long time, my Marla. You can’t remember everyone. Besides, we’ve all changed in your absence.”
I couldn’t help but experience her words like barbs lashing against my heart. Had I hurt them how my mom had wounded me? I couldn’t bear the thought! Though I wouldn’t allow myself to regret my actions. Everleigh’s advice still circled my mind, inspiring me not to get bogged down in all the crap that can keep you from really living.
Forcing myself past all the apologies and explanations I wanted to issue, I said, “And this Gus, is he okay to drive the bus?”
Nan scrunched her face at me. “Of course. Why wouldn’t he be?”
“Because you’re making him sound like a big dolt.”
“Ah, well he is that. But he has a love for anything that drives. Driving the bus is perfect for him.”
“Yep,” Shawna said. “It’s probably the only thing he could do.”
And in Gales Haven, everyone was required to contribute to the capacity of their skills.
I slid my plate, scrubbed clean, into the drying rack next to the sink. “Fine. They can ride the bus. But if I find this dang leprechaun before school lets out, I’m going to pick them up, at least for the first day.”
I had an uneasy feeling that I wouldn’t be solving this caper in the next couple of hours despite my intentions. Why? Because nothing had gone smoothly, or at all as I expected it, since I drove my kids through the barrier into town.
Spinning, I took in my aunts. Luanne and Shawna were still eating, appearing in no hurry.
“Aren’t you coming with me?” I asked them. Nan had said they should.
“Nah,” Aunt Luanne said. “We’ve got better stuff to do.”
When Nan didn’t object, I nodded. “All right. I’ll see y’all later, then.”
It wasn’t like Aunt Luanne or Aunt Shawna had done a single thing to really help. I’d probably get this case resolved faster without them.
Without an idea of where to start searching for a Spanx-pilfering leprechaun, I slipped into a light jacket and out the door. Laughter followed me out, and I resisted the urge to find out what they were all laughing at.
The sooner I solved this caper, the sooner I could move on to something less ridiculous. That was motivation enough for me.
Chapter Twelve
I drove around town aimlessly for the better part of half an hour. There’d been no intuitive bursts of inspiration, nor any tugs of any sort on my gut. Other than the occasional gurgling as my body digested Aunt Jowelle’s lunch, my gut was remarkably silent. I was wondering if Dixie’s locator spell even worked when I decided to park and continue on foot.
“Maybe I should go get Wanda,” I muttered to myself as I stepped out of my Subaru Forester. But I didn’t want to ask Wanda to abandon her business when she didn’t truly trust Leonie to hold down the fort.
Nan had said I should bring Wanda along to help me solve this case, but she’d also said the same about Luanne and Shawna. And she hadn’t protested when the both of them decided not to join me after lunch. If I didn’t need them, then I probably didn’t need Wanda either.
Surely I could do this on my own. I just didn’t want to, mostly because I didn’t want to hunt down a leprechaun in the first place.
“Where should I go?” I wondered aloud, hoping I wouldn’t have to return to Dixie’s to figure out how to properly use her spell.
Looking around, I noticed I stood in front of Bab’s Bopping Boopy Bakery. Perhaps my intuition had led me here! I cheered right up. I deserved a treat for all my kickass work since I’d rolled into town.
I was known to say that Bab’s baked goods were second only to Aunt Jowelle’s, but that was only because, in a blind taste test, I wasn’t sure who would win, and I’d die rather than admit that to Aunt Jowelle. The two women were fiercely competitive. The only reason they’d managed to avoid a bake-off was because Aunt Jowelle only cooked in Gawama Mama House and never traded a single thing she cooked.
Aunt Jowelle believed she should never profit from the gift of her cooking, that it wasn’t respectable—though she did barter with her work on the mental body, without bothering to explain what made her two gifts so different in that regard.
Bab thought her magic was hers to use as she pleased and however benefited her most.
There wasn’t a chance I was getting in the middle of this years-long fight. I wanted them both to feed me.
The very moment I pulled open the door to Bab’s shop, the scents of incredible baked goods washed over me, making me inexplicably content. Before even gawking at Bab’s offerings, I promised myself I’d go see Mo Ellen for a spell as soon as possible. I owed it to myself. As soon as Mo Ellen’s spell was active, I was going to eat myself into a carb-sugar coma, and I wouldn’t regret a second of it.
Bab’s bakery was never empty for long. Though it was the lull in the middle of the day, three customers waited at the counter for Bab to attend to them.
“Hey there, Marla,” she called out while she rifled through the display case, lining up a tray of her specialty Enchanted Hearts. Enchanted Hearts were basically her version of doughnuts, except that she used a sprinkle of her magic to shape them like a heart with a heart-shaped hole in the middle. As a teenager, I’d wondered what kind of enchanted hearts had holes in them. Happy hearts were whole, weren’t they? Regardless, I’d wisely kept my trap shut. My sense of self-preservation had always been strong, and Bab’s Enchanted Hearts were mouth-watering delicious.
“I’ll be with you in just a second,” Bab announced.
“Of course. No problem. Take your time,” I said.
Bab eyed me while she continued amassing Enchanted Hearts, and then a Twisty Turtle, on a takeout tray. “Did yo
u already have lunch?”
“Sure did.” I smiled at her. “Just had Aunt Jowelle’s pasta salad.” Then I noticed the way Bab’s eyes seemed to dissect me. “It was great.” My smile trembled as I realized Bab was baiting me, but I didn’t know what to say next.
“Oh, I see. So Jowelle’s food left you unsatisfied?” Bab commented for all her customers. “You had to come to me to satisfy your sweet tooth, didn’t you?”
There was no safe answer here. Already I feared I’d said too much. It would get back to Aunt Jowelle, and then she’d spend the next week cooking up a frenzy just to prove to herself that her cooking was better than Bab’s.
For Bab’s part, she would do her best to ply me with her sugary sweets so I’d take her side.
Visiting Mo Ellen for a spell so I could eat everything I wanted climbed even further up my to-do list. The competitive gleam was bright in Bab’s eye.
The three customers glanced between Bab and me, waiting to see what I’d say. The competition between the two women was no secret in town.
To deflect, I singled out the one customer I recognized. “Hey, Suzy. How’ve you been?”
“Oh, I’ve been great, thanks for asking.”
Bab handed Suzy her tray of goods, and Noreen Bradley’s commercial ledger updated with an audible ching, which echoed its pleasant chime throughout the bakery. Noreen’s commercial ledger was a lesser version of her principal one. It was fully automated, and it didn’t keep track of the big items like houses or vehicles, which the town procured from beyond its boundaries with magically created dollar bills that the council administered for needs that couldn’t be satisfied by Gales Haven’s industry.
An invisible tally of goods received and given balanced out with professional services rendered in an effortless system maintained by a spell nearly as old as the town. Whenever someone got lazy, the council put a proverbial boot to their rear end and the issue was solved. Those were the kinds of problems the council was used to dealing with.
Not this do-or-die crap.
Then I sensed a tug on my intuition … or my gut. I couldn’t tell which. Was my body telling me it was ready for some heart-shaped doughnuts, or was Dixie’s locator spell finally working?
“Bab, sorry,” I called out, interrupting her as she took the next customer’s order. “Do you mind if I go in the back really quick? There’s something I need to check out.”
“What could you possibly need to check out in the back of my bakery?” she asked, swiping several small loaves of bread and stuffing them into her customer’s reusable bags. “It’s clean as a whistle back there. I take great pride in how I keep my bakery running. Unlike others…”
Now that was a low blow at Aunt Jowelle, one Bab definitely knew wasn’t accurate. The two women were equally anal retentive in how they maintained their kitchens. Their attention to detail was well known throughout the community.
I let it slide, pretending I had no idea who she was referring to.
“I’m not questioning you in any way whatsoever,” I said. “Nan sent me on a mission to solve some very minor crimes that have happened.”
The kidnapping wasn’t at all a minor crime, even if the victim was tiny, prickly, and a magical creature. But I didn’t want to alarm anyone. Real crime didn’t happen in Gales Haven, not really.
“I just need to look in the back to see if, um…” I noticed all four people in the bakery staring at me. “Uh, yeah, I need to see if anyone’s in the back.”
Bab shoved the ready order at her customer, the ledger chimed, and she hustled back from around the counter, tightening the strap on her apron. “Are you telling me some criminal might be in my shop?” Her voice, never shrill, was shrill.
The man she’d given his order to hurried out the door. I didn’t blame him one bit. I wished I could do the same. Suzy, however, clutched her baked goods to her chest and watched the scene unfold. Like most Haveners, Suzy liked to be in the thick of the action, collecting details to gossip about later.
“I don’t know if there’s anyone back there or not,” I answered frankly. I couldn’t decide if the urge to inspect Bab’s prep room had anything to do with Dixie’s spell, or if it was just some freak thing, possibly even a made-up feeling. “But if there is anyone back there, it’s definitely not some mastermind criminal. It’d just be a…”
I trailed off, wondering whether Nan needed me to keep a lid on the whole rogue mischievous magical creature wandering loose around our town.
“It’d just be a what?” Bab pressed.
I eyed Suzy and the other customer, whose name I didn’t remember. Both women were hinging on my every word and not bothering to hide the fact.
Pulling Bab close, I whispered, “I’m looking for a leprechaun.”
Bab yanked back, eyes wide. “A leprechaun?”
Suzy and the other customer lapped up the secret. Suzy couldn’t quite contain a smug smile, probably at the thought of how much of a gossip queen she’d get to be later on.
“You’re telling me a leprechaun might be getting all up in my stuff?” Bab called out as she marched back around her counter and through a swinging door into the back.
The door swung shut behind her.
Blinking at the door for a moment, I skedaddled right after her.
“Wait!” Suzy said, but I didn’t, slamming through the door … and straight into Bab, who stood frozen still, staring ahead.
Grabbing Bab to keep her from pitching forward, I looked around her … and also froze.
“What the…?” I whispered, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
I knew exactly what I was looking at, there was no confusing it. But my brain scrambled to make sense of the scene nonetheless.
Bab brought her hands to her sides. “Tell me I’m not looking at a buck-naked leprechaun passed out headfirst in my sugar bin.”
I grimaced. “Ummm. Technically, I don’t think he’s buck naked. I think he’s probably wearing a shirt.” I left out the part about what I suspected the shirt to be made of.
“I don’t see no shirt. All I see is round little butt cheeks where they sure as shit don’t belong.” She paused. “I also see that leprechauns are anatomically correct.”
Yeah, so did I. I whipped my gaze away, fighting the urge to stare. Leprechauns weren’t even supposed to be real, and yet here was one in the flesh—all the flesh.
“You don’t suppose he died in there, do you?” Bab wiped a flour-dusted hand through her peppered hair, leaving a smudge behind. “He isn’t moving at all. How can he even breathe in there?”
“I have no idea. He’s a leprechaun. Maybe he doesn’t have to breathe.” I shrugged, taking in the deep sugar barrel tilted upward at a thirty-degree angle beneath the butcher’s block work surface, positioned for Bab’s ease of baking. She’d probably dipped down to scoop sugar from her bin thousands of times.
Bare skinny legs dusted in orange body hair stuck out from amid the sugar crystals. The soles of his feet were dirty—from walking around barefoot, I presumed.
“I have a mind to murder the little man,” Bab whisper-seethed. “My work area is pristine! He can’t come in here and ruin all that. He can’t mess with my bakery.”
“He must not have gotten the memo,” I mumbled. If I were the leprechaun, there was no way I’d mess with the likes of Bab.
She marched over to a rolling pin that rested on a gleaming copper surface and snatched it up, slapping it against the open palm of one hand. Now, Bab was around Aunt Jowelle’s age, so upper sixties, but Bab still looked like she could pound the living daylights out of a leprechaun—or anybody. Her arms were muscled from all that kneading. Bab didn’t believe in machines making her work easier. Like Aunt Jowelle, everything was homemade, with no shortcuts beyond those her magic provided. Bab’s magic didn’t cover dough kneading. A line of whisks hung from hooks above one of the counters. She even whisked by hand.
“Wait,” I said as Bab reached for the leprechaun’s legs with one
hand, the other holding the rolling pin in the air above her shoulder.
“Do you hear that?” I asked.
“Hear what?” Bab hadn’t even tried to listen, continuing to reach for the creature in her sugar.
“That. Don’t you hear that mumbling?”
This time Bab did listen, but she still shook her head. “I don’t hear a thing, Marla.”
I was definitely hearing something. Straining to listen, I walked toward a large walk-in pantry.
“You’d better not tell me something’s invaded my larder,” Bab said. “If something’s in there too, I’m going to rip this naked creature a new one.”
Doing my best to ignore her and her hopefully idle threats, I advanced on the pantry and placed my ear against the closed door. There was definitely someone in there. I could hear them.
With my heart thumping in my throat, I yanked the door open.
Mindy waddled out, looking unharmed, one of Jadine’s Spanx high-waist briefs—with thigh compression—stuck to her quills. She dragged it behind her though the satin underwear was many times her size.
“Where is he?” Mindy snarled.
“Who?” I asked, though I must have already known.
“The filthy-mouthed leprechaun, that’s who.” She marched across the bakery, brow low in fury, lips pressed against her muzzle. “I’m going to rip him a new one for what he did to me.”
What were the odds that both irate females would say the same thing? I chuckled … until both of them swung their fury on me.
I pointed at the sugar barrel beneath the counter. “There he is,” I told Mindy, not caring one bit that I was bowing to a hedgehog. She looked ready for war, and with Bab as her backup, or the other way around, whoever got to the leprechaun first, I wasn’t going to do anything to draw their ire.
The leprechaun chose the wrong females to piss off. He was about to find out.
Chapter Thirteen
“What’s that hedgehog doing in my kitchen?” Bab accused, swinging her poised rolling pin in Mindy’s direction.