by Nova Nelson
There was a clear note of hope in his voice.
“Yeah, Tanner, I don’t remember that. You’re sure it was me?”
He laughed. “Yeah, Nora. I think I know what you look like. Although, to be fair, I didn’t ask to see that birthmark on your inner thigh. Didn’t seem like the right time.”
Ruby glanced up from her book, and I felt my face go red. “No, that … definitely wouldn’t have been the right time. Or place.” I pulled out a chair and sat, staring at my folded hands in my lap. Could I have been there without knowing it? It certainly sounded like possession. And if it had happened while I thought I was asleep, I wouldn’t have even noticed any time missing.
And it might explain why I was so tired …
“What did I—or whoever—do?”
He sighed and his eyes traveled up toward the ceiling totems as he recalled. “You said hello, and when I asked what you were doing there, you said you were just visiting. I figured you got impatient waiting for me to drop by and took matters into your own hands, so I didn’t want to, I don’t know, blow your cover.”
“Hmm …” I furrowed my brow, nibbling on my bottom lip. “That does sound like me. But as far as I know, I was in bed all night.”
Tanner seemed to read my mind. “You think you might’ve been possessed?”
“I suppose it’s possible.”
“Not if you were wearing your staurolite,” Ruby scolded in a singsong voice without looking up from the page.
Shoot. “Right. I mean, it’s not possible because …”
“Don’t lie, dear.”
“Fine. Yes, sometimes I take it off to sleep. It just gets tangled, and it’s not that comfortable.”
Now Ruby did look up. “You know what else isn’t that comfortable? Being possessed. It can be incredibly uncomfortable, and if you’re not careful, you’ll end up tangled in an investigation for a murder you committed.”
“Good golem,” I said. “I hear you loud and clear. But we don’t know I was possessed. And I couldn’t have murdered anyone last night because there wasn’t a murder last night, right Tanner?”
He cringed. “Actually, there was. But we’re pretty sure we know who did it.” He paused, then hastily clarified, “It’s not you.”
“Oh good.” I let out a heaving exhale. “Even if I was possessed, which”—I addressed Ruby for the next bit—“we can’t confirm I was,”—she rolled her eyes—“why would any spirit go to all the trouble just to have me pay the Bouquets a visit?”
Tanner shrugged. “Beats me. And it wasn’t both of them. At least, I didn’t see Hyacinth. It was just you and James.”
“Just me and James alone?” I asked, beginning to dread what might have happened without me knowing.
Tanner nodded.
“In case you’re wondering,” I assured him, “I have no memory of anything happening, and in normal circumstances, I would never … not with James Bouquet, for fang’s sake! He wears sweater vests! Even in the summer!”
“I know, I know,” he said. “It’s a terrible fashion choice. I didn’t assume you had or would.” But I remembered the distant look on his face from earlier, and it was clear he hadn’t actually been so sure. He dragged a hand over his face and kicked out his feet. “I gotta tell you, I’m really stumped, Nora.”
“Me too,” I said, returning to the sausages with a firm nudge to Grim’s side to try to break him of the greasy spell he’d fallen under. “I haven’t even told you the latest development.” Then I went on to fill him in on what had happened in the rain the day before with James.
“Wait, he followed you? And then when you approached, he just took off?”
I plated up the sausages, setting both Grim’s and Clifford’s on the table until they could cool slightly. “Yep. What do you make of it?”
“Twenty tines,” he said, borrowing a phrase from the were-elk deputy, “I think I’m even more stumped now than I was before. You think he was trying to put a spell on you to make you swing by his place later?”
“Ew, I hadn’t thought of that. But no, because James is just a werewolf, and they can’t do that kind of magic.”
Tanner cut his sausage into bite-size pieces to let it cool then quickly became almost as impatient as Grim and stuck the first piece onto his tongue. He sucked air in and out rapidly before he could say, “Then cut me down and call me stumped, because I’m all out of guesses.”
So was I, and by the time the four of us has finished our breakfast (Tanner’s dinner, really), he was clearly on the verge of falling asleep in his seat.
While I offered him my bed to crash in, he said he’d prefer to go home, get cleaned up, and pay Monster a little attention before she retaliated for the neglect and destroyed another set of his curtains.
I walked him out onto the porch. The rain had picked up again, obscuring the late morning sunshine. I wasn’t used to such dreary weather lingering, and it had the effect of blurring the passage of time when it looked like twilight all day long.
Tanner pulled me in close, his eyelids at half-staff, and I tried not to think about the grime on him after a long shift. I buried my face in the crook of his neck and he still smelled like Tanner, all rosemary and sage. Except now the scent of cherry pie was conspicuously absent. “Do me a favor,” he spoke, his warm breath on my hair.
“Mm-hm?”
He leaned back so he could look me in the eye. “Don’t go to the Bouquets’ house while I’m sleeping. Something strange is going on over there, and if last night was any indication, you’re just as susceptible to it as anyone. And you have a lot of powers people might want to use for their own gain. Maybe trouble will find you, but at least don’t walk straight into it, okay?”
He knew me too well. “Fine.”
“Just for a few hours,” he begged. “I’m dead on my feet, and the only way I’m going to get a wink is if I know you’re being safe.”
I sighed. “Okay. But if you really were dead on your feet … we could probably spend more time together. You wouldn’t have to work because you wouldn’t need to pay rent or eat.”
He groaned. “That sounds surprisingly tempting. Of course, if I were dead, we wouldn’t be able to hold each other anymore.”
Actually …
But he didn’t know. He had no clue that I’d discovered a way to return good old Roland O’Neill to his body.
Granted, I still had no idea how exactly it worked.
Now wasn’t the time to explain that, so I simply said, “Yeah, never mind then.”
He laughed. “It was a great plan otherwise. No other flaws,” he said sarcastically.
I planted a kiss on his lips, but he wasn’t going to let me get off that easy. He pulled me close, his strong arms pinning mine to my sides, as he kissed me like we hadn’t seen each other in years.
Almost every kiss with him was like this, and I wasn’t complaining.
“Promise me,” he said, pointing a sharp finger at me as he grabbed his umbrella where it leaned against a wooden porch beam.
“I promise.”
He opened his umbrella and disappeared into the rain.
Man, it would feel pretty terrible to renege on that promise. I hoped it didn’t come to that.
Chapter Sixteen
Jane sniffled into her iced tea. “He still hasn’t come home. I’m just … I’m just worried something’s happened to him.”
As we sat at a table near the bar at Franco’s Pizza, Jane’s old workplace before she returned to Medium Rare, guilt gnawed at me. I still hadn’t told her about what I’d seen through the Bouquets’ living room window.
I told myself over and over again that it wasn’t relevant. As far as I knew, it had nothing to do with the reason Ansel was still missing. That was likely due to the fact that he’d attacked three witches at Sheehan’s and was wanted by the police.
But really, I just didn’t want to see her even more devastated, and the hint that he might be carrying on an affair with Hyacinth would do nothin
g much outside of that right now, other than possibly getting Hyacinth’s hide kicked by Jane.
Plus, I’d gone this long without telling her. If she got upset, which seemed inevitable, and Ansel wasn’t around to aim at, I might also be caught in her warpath.
“Ansel’s a big guy. I’m sure he can take care of himself. Maybe he just needs a little more time. Who knows, maybe he just, you know, got caught up in the anti-witch sentiments and went too far and now he’s out running in the Deadwoods as a bear trying to get his head on straight …” I cringed, knowing it was a stretch, but that was the only story I could come up with that painted him in a positive light, so I decided to double down. “Anyone can fall under the spell of hateful rhetoric now and again. It doesn’t make him a bad person if he got carried away. Nobody was killed. So, as long as he comes around, all’s well, right?”
Her misty eyes cleared, and her sorrowful voice sharpened to a point. “Are you kidding me, Nora? This whole restaurant smells like a beef lasagna made sweet love to a chicken alfredo, and I can still smell the unicorn swirls you’re slinging my way.”
Well, at least she was back to her normal no-nonsense self, even if it was only temporary.
“She’s not kidding about the first part. It’s like a pasta honeymoon suite in here. If they don’t bring the meatballs soon, I can’t be responsible for my actions.”
I nudged Grim hard under the table with my boot. “Hush. Can’t you see we’re having an emotional moment up here? Control yourself for once.”
“If it ain’t the cauldron calling the grim black! Suddenly you’re the queen of self-control? Tell me, did you earn that title before or after you and Mr. Tortured snuck off into the Deadwoods together. Or was it closer to the time when Roland McLoverboy spent every night in your bedroom?”
He was never going to let me live any of that down, was he?
“Sorry,” Jane said, mistaking my silent conversation with Grim as offense. “I shouldn’t snap at you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “You’re under a lot of stress. I’m not gonna take it personally.”
Trinity fluttered over on her fairy wings to drop off our food, and I took one look at it (and got one whiff) and knew that it—and the current events—would go down a lot better with a glass of wine.
Just one. While Jane was trying hard to hide it, I knew she was only two drinks away from a complete emotional breakdown. One drink, though, might be helpful.
“Be right back,” I said, standing. But before I made for the bar, I added, “Don’t let Grim get his snout within a yard of my plate.”
Jane nodded and Grim grumbled underneath the table, acting like the few minutes of waiting until his meatballs cooled off might actually be the death of the death omen.
Behind the bar, Donovan was cleaning up, preparing for the dinner crowd in a few hours.
“How’s she doing?” he said before I could get out a hello.
I sighed, sliding onto one of the barstools. Around him an assembly line of glasses moved through the air as he scrubbed, rinsed, and dried them with little effortless flicks of his wand. “Not great, and I don’t blame her. Ansel is screwed.”
Donovan gazed over my shoulder at his former manager. “Poor thing.” Then he turned his attention to me. “Picking the wrong partner can happen to anyone. You would know.”
I rolled my eyes. “You read the paper today?”
“Are you asking if I know the Safe Haven laws passed? Because believe me, I do.”
“You think anything will actually change?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I think it will.”
“But it’ll only be different if businesses start banning people based on what type of creature they are. So maybe no businesses will. I mean, I know Medium Rare won’t, if it ever gets to open back up, and Sheehan’s wouldn’t, assuming it passed its inspection yesterday. And Franco’s Pizza hasn’t.”
“Mmm.” Donovan squinted uncomfortably, shaking his head slowly. “Dunno about that.”
“What do you mean?”
He reached below the counter and pulled out a thick sheet of paper, sliding it over to me so I could read it.
No Weres Allowed on Premises
Supported by the Safe Haven laws.
“What the hellhound?” I spat. I stared at him wide-eyed as he reached forward and slipped the paper back toward him and under the bar again. “Working a double today. Saw it on the front door when I got in first thing this morning.”
I couldn’t believe it. “Did Donny put it there?” Donny Franco owned the place, though he hardly came around. Apparently, this was reason enough to make the effort.
It was only the first day since the law had passed. It was as though people had been waiting for the option to ban certain creatures. Because, obviously, they had been.
Donovan shrugged. “Don’t know. I assumed so. Doesn’t seem like him, but I don’t honestly know the guy that well despite having worked for him for years.”
“But he’s a faun! That’s practically a were-creature.”
Donovan’s eyebrows shot up. “Don’t let fauns hear you say that. Echo Chambers may be the proudest of them all—too proud to even refer to himself as a faun rather than a satyr—but they like to imagine themselves as better than weres. They come from completely different realms, for one. Werewolves and a few other were-creatures are native to Eastwind, but fauns aren’t. I mean, it obviously doesn’t matter now. Besides, I’ll just keep taking these stupid signs down until whoever gives up. If no one enforces the ban, which I’ll make sure no one does, then it’s like it doesn’t exist.”
“But Jane used to work here,” I hissed, leaning close so as not to be overheard. “How could anyone who knew her and worked with her say her kind isn’t allowed?”
“You’re asking the wrong guy, Nora. I’m the one who took the sign down, not the one who put it up.”
I sat back in my seat. “Sorry, sorry. I’m glad you did, too. It was me that suggested coming here when she wanted to grab lunch. I can’t imagine if she’d seen it …”
“What are you two eating?” he asked.
I told him, and he poured Jane a sauvignon blanc and me a Zinfandel. “On the house,” he said, nodding at the drinks.
Sometimes Donovan wasn’t half bad. “Thanks,” I said, smiling gratefully.
“Just hers,” he said. “Not yours.”
I scowled at him and brought the drinks back to the table.
“Oh good,” she said, when I set hers down. “I was just thinking I could use one, and since Sheehan’s is still closed …”
“Really? Is that what you heard? It didn’t pass inspection?”
Grim nipped at my calf underneath the table, and I jerked my leg away before grabbing his plate of meatballs and setting it on the ground for him. They were probably too hot to eat, but I couldn’t protect him from himself all the time.
“Guess not. I passed Kelley Sullivan on my walk over here. He was on his way to Atlantis Day Spa with his girlfriend since he had a day off.”
“Did he say why they failed?”
“Oh yeah,” said Jane, twirling the noodles of her shrimp alfredo onto her fork. “Alfred Paleroot found a tiny witch snare on the inside of the door to the women’s restroom. Apparently, Fiona was livid. Kelley said he thought she was about to curse the guy, her face was so red. She swears up and down she’d checked the women’s restroom before he came and didn’t see anything.”
“Of course she didn’t,” I said. “There wasn’t anything there.”
Jane sipped her wine, then said, “Ya think? That slime bag carved the witch snare himself. It probably wasn’t even a real one. He’s always struck me as too stupid to know how to pull off any advanced magic like that.”
Her mind must have landed in the same place as mine had—that her husband had been complicit in completing one that almost got me, Donovan, and Eva fried to a crisp—and she fell silent, turning her attention to her meal.
I wanted to
say something to make her feel better, but what was there to say?
Nothing. I’d already tried to make her feel better and she’d called me on it immediately.
Well, if there wasn’t anything I could say to make her feel any better, maybe there was something I could do.
I had to get to the bottom of what was going on in Eastwind. Of course, that meant I would break my promise to Tanner.
He had to know that would happen, though, right?
I’d pretend he did.
Chapter Seventeen
My plan to pay the Bouquets a visit would have to wait a bit longer, because before I could slip off unnoticed after my late lunch with Jane, I needed to attend my lessons with Oliver and Ruby.
As always, Oliver was scheduled first. But midway through his lecture about gravitational waves, he paused, stared at me directly, and said, “Are you listening to any of this?”
I blinked. “Yeah. I’m listening to all of it. I have nothing else to listen to.” It was true. The parlor was silent outside of the occasional crackle of Ruby turning the page of her book from her chair in the corner or Clifford, whose old age meant his body had seen better days, issuing a loud snore before he woke himself up and rolled over into a new position.
Oliver shook his head minutely. “It’s just … I know most students find this fascinating material, and astronomy is especially important for you, but … is it?”
“What?” Had Oliver just questioned the Coven’s curriculum? Who knew how many years they’d spent going over each lesson with the fine-toothed comb of bureaucracy!
He looked shocked at himself. “I don’t know. I guess I just question how much use I am here. You’re a Fifth Wind. I’m just a West Wind. I don’t know anything about your magic. I’m totally undertrained for this. And it seems like nothing I’ve done has ever helped you when you really needed it.”
“Hey,” I said, leaning toward him across the table. “Cheer up. You helped me at the library the other week. If it weren’t for you, I might not have known how to take on the love spell.”