"Could you not be a bit more careful?" she chided. "I've got a meeting after this."
"Sorry," I said and began to remove all the pins, my measurements now completed. "Are you and Rick going to view another property?"
She shifted her gaze away from me to stare intently at my bookcase.
"My meeting's not with Rick," she said finally, shuffling her feet uncomfortably.
"No?" I asked, pulling out a final pin.
"No. It's a... I've got... Oh, when will the dress be ready?"
Her question was phrased as if it were a thought that had just crossed her mind that instant. But that's not what it sounded like to me. What it sounded like to me was that she needed a quick topic change.
Was she meeting a man? Was she meeting a property developer? Was she meeting the property developer—the one I'd seen with the mayor?
"These adjustments won't take long. They're only minor. I could have them done by tomorrow."
"Right, good. Now, let me get out of this and I'll get out of your hair."
While Nina changed into her regular clothes, I couldn't help but think about who she was going to meet.
Did it have some connection to the Davenport property? To Fletcher's murder? Was marrying Rick the only sacrifice she'd made or was there something more... something more recent?
"Hello?" said Nina, waving her hand in front of my face.
I blinked and faced her with a start. I’d been lost in a world of my own. Nina was back in her 'street' clothes and had left the dress hanging up in the fitting room.
"Sorry! I must’ve been lost in thought… Now, try not to lose too much more weight before the wedding. We don't want to have to make any more adjustments to the dress!"
She cocked her head at me like the thought was absurd. Not the thought of losing more weight, but that we should be concerned about having to make more alterations. Probably because she wasn't the one who had to do it.
"How do I look?" she asked.
I blinked. She wasn't in the dress anymore, so what did it... oh.
"You look lovely," I said, and it was true.
She wasn't dressed formally, but the figure-hugging (and no doubt designer) jeans and simple white blouse that was tight in just the right place gave her a look that while not flirtatious was certainly one that could be appreciated.
She grinned at me. "Thought so," she said. "Now, you have yourself a wonderful day."
"You, too."
Nina brushed a strand of hair out of her eye and gave me a smile so charming it was like she was practicing for someone else.
As soon as she left the shop, Kiwi fluttered down to the counter.
"Well," he said.
"Well what?"
He cocked his head at me. "Aren't you going to follow her?"
"Follow her?"
"Dream house? Sacrifices? Mysterious meeting?"
I tapped my chin like I was considering it.
I wasn't, of course. I'd already made up my mind. "Well, if you think it's a good idea..."
He nodded his head up and down repeatedly while bouncing from foot to foot. I grabbed my keys from behind the counter and quickly hurried out after Nina.
Chapter 18
I locked the door behind me and then froze in place. I glanced left and right surreptitiously to see if anyone was watching me.
I was almost insulted to realize that no one was paying me the slightest bit of attention. They didn’t understand I had turned myself into a spy; they just saw regular-old-Aria, locking up her shop to go to lunch by herself.
Nina was already more than a hundred yards away down the street.
I started to follow her in the direction of the Black Cat Café, doing my very best not to stare at her as I did so.
Trying to walk normally is difficult. Usually when we walk, we just do it. But if you’re conscious of it, if you’re thinking walk normally, walk normally, walk normally, you become startlingly inept at a skill you learned as a baby.
It’s also hard not to stare while you’re busy trying to walk as normally as possible while following a target. I tried to amble down the street without a care in the world, paying little attention to Nina, but I felt like I couldn’t have been more conspicuous if I tried.
“Don’t stare, Aria,” I said to myself under my breath.
“I beg your pardon?” came a voice.
I turned and panicked. Mrs. Honeywell!
“Sorry! Just talking to myself! Must rush!”
I scurried away from her before she could ask me where I was hurrying to—a question for which I had not prepared an answer.
Sequoia Bay’s downtown area is rather small, and soon Nina was well past the Black Cat Café, Sunflowers, the post office, the town hall, and all the rest of it.
At the edge of the town, she took a left turn to leave the main thoroughfare onto a smaller road.
I frowned to myself. That road didn’t lead anywhere.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. All roads lead somewhere, but this road passed a few old country cottages before heading to a dirt parking lot, from which sprung a couple of hiking trails and a short walk to an ocean view lookout.
With Nina now around the corner I didn’t have to worry about her seeing me for a little while. I began to think about what she could be up to.
I had expected her to go into the café for her meeting, and failing that, disappearing off in a car. A distant third possibility would have been the post office or town hall. But going to a quiet parking lot, out of town, well that was odd.
What if she’s going to meet that developer?
Could it even be a tryst? Was she looking for a richer replacement for Rick, before he had her locked in matrimony for good?
When I turned at the junction to continue following Nina, she was quite some way ahead of me still. She was just rounding a bend in the road, which would protect me from her gaze should she turn around. I hurried after her.
By the time I rounded the bend, Nina was still well ahead of me.
She certainly was a fast walker. Despite traveling quickly, I wasn’t making any ground on her. She was approaching the dirt parking lot that was a popular place for hikers to start out. It was also a popular spot for high schoolers with cars to hang out long after the hiking part of the day was over.
Was Nina going to the parking lot for the same reason the high schoolers did?
As I hurried after her, I tried to think of a good excuse in case I got caught.
The best I could come up with was that Nina had inspired me with her weight loss, and I too was going to try lots of walking to lose weight.
She was shallow enough that she might believe it, though meeting all the way out here would seem quite unlikely. I decided to hold it in reserve while I thought of something better.
As I approached the turn into the parking lot, I slowed my pace. I crouched down, and peeked in. Nothing.
No cars, no people. Nina wasn’t meeting anyone in the parking lot.
I quickly hurried in and scanned the lot. There! At the far end, by a large wooden signpost marking the trails, was Nina, heading onto one of the hiking paths.
“What’s she doing?” I said to myself.
I glared down at my shoes, a pair of Mary Janes, which were not designed for serious walking. Goodness, I hoped she wasn’t going far.
I hurried across the parking lot, doing my level best to avoid the large puddles and muddy patches scattered throughout.
When I got to the head of the hiking path, I frowned.
Nina was walking along the Ocean Trail, a path that led along a long ridge, parallel to the sea.
It’s a lovely walk, when the weather’s nice, because of the stunning views. Unfortunately, the reason for the stunning views was that there was little to obstruct your line of sight once you were up on the ridge.
That meant that if I followed her up there, she’d be able to see me whenever she turned her head.
There would be no hiding away.
What’s more, the trail was quite rough and I was most certainly not equipped for it. I didn’t even have any water with me.
Nina on the other hand had a small backpack with her, which was no doubt loaded with supplies.
Perhaps some nice sandwiches, and a flask of hot coffee, maybe a little cake and a few almonds. An apple, maybe an orange and... I realized with a start that I was hungry. I was hungry, unequipped, and I’d be highly visible if I followed Nina.
“Looks like it’s the end of the road, Aria.”
When I’d locked up my shop, I’d had visions of following Nina to the Black Cat Café, and then slipping into a booth behind her to listen to her conversation while I stuffed my face. I did not envision hiking the Pacific Trail, with my stomach rumbling and apparitions of sandwiches and cake dancing before my eyes.
Nina was striding off into the distance now, her pace brisk and her destination nowhere in sight.
I couldn’t follow her.
But I knew someone who could.
* * *
Parrots can’t frown, but Kiwi can make a pretty good attempt.
“But Aria, there are seagulls up there.”
“It was your idea to follow her,” I pointed out.
“It was my idea for you to follow her. I’ve got... things to do,” said Kiwi, while twisting his head left and right as if looking for a plausible task to engross himself in, all while staying safely inside our shop.
“Come on, be a friend, just go and see what she’s up to.”
Kiwi sighed loudly.
“We’ll have cheese puffs for dinner...”
“Hurry up and open the door!” he yelled as he flew across the room.
I just about had time to snatch the door open before he soared through the doorway and disappeared outside.
As soon as he was gone, I immediately began to feel guilty, worrying about what could happen to him. He could get lost, he could get stolen, or he could be attacked by a mob of angry seagulls.
I shook my head to try and clear it of my useless worrying thoughts, prepared myself some lavender tea, and took out Nina’s dress to begin the alterations.
“If there even is a wedding,” I muttered to myself.
It was almost time to lock up for the night when Kiwi finally returned. He announced his presence by pecking at the door and screeching loudly to be let in.
“The wanderer returns,” I said as he hopped inside.
He gave another loud squawk and flew up on top of the bookshelf.
He squawked loudly again as he settled.
“Where did she go? What did you learn?” I asked, pacing up and down below him.
“Seagulls! Thousands of them!”
I stared up at him, waiting for something more. Something useful.
Instead, Kiwi began to screech loudly.
“And?”
“And I learned how to imitate a seagull,” he said, before screeching again. And again. And again.
“That’s enough!”
He gave a kind of parrot-smirk, pleased at getting his revenge for being asked to carry out such an arduous task.
“You’re a wonderful seagull impersonator. But what about Nina?”
“Oh. Nina.” He shrugged his wings. “I couldn’t get too close. She knows me, remember.”
“Yeah, she took quite a shine to you. I was thinking of maybe giving you to her as a wedding present.”
He shrieked an angry, loud yell.
“...unless you hurry up and tell me what you found out.”
Kiwi fluttered his wings, shook his head, and glared down at me.
“She walked along the path a long way, to where it met another path coming from another parking lot.”
“And...”
“And she met someone there.”
“Who?” I asked.
“A woman,” he said.
“Who? Which woman?”
“I don’t know who she was. I didn’t want to get too close. My feathers kind of stand out, you know.”
“What did she look like? What did they talk about?”
Kiwi gave another seagull screech. I glared up at him.
“What?” he said innocently. “That’s all I could hear. Seagulls screeching and screaming and shouting. Couldn’t hear a thing they said.”
“So all you saw was that she spoke to a woman? That’s it?”
He bobbed his head up and down. “At least, I think it was a woman.”
With a sigh I let myself collapse into an armchair.
“What are we going to do, Kiwi?”
“Scry!”
“You think so? But I’m no good at it. And you can’t trust what you see...” I was tapping my chin thoughtfully while I listed the reasons I wasn’t going to do it. Even though I already knew I was.
“Should we go back to Hazel’s?” I asked. “She has a lot more talent than me...”
Kiwi’s screamed response was all I needed to hear in that regard.
I giggled. “Okay, okay. Well, let’s go upstairs and I’ll give it a go.”
Kiwi nodded his head up and down, somewhat contented.
When I turned twenty-one—a significant age for witches—my mother gifted me an ornate crystal ball. I thought it was rather showy, and a little impractical—Hazel used a mirror which was both more portable and more practical for actually looking at things. A crystal ball distorts what you’re looking at.
But Mother liked things to look the part. Style over substance. Kind of like her.
I placed the ball in the center of my dining table. I sat at one end, and Kiwi sat perched on the back of a chair at the other end, looking on curiously.
“See if you can see me!” he said.
I glared at him. “I see a gift in your future...”
He hopped up and down and fluttered his wings in excitement.
“Yep. I see you in a box. Gift-wrapped. The card on the front says Nina—”
His angry squawks drowned out the rest of my teasing.
“Oh, come on. Let’s begin,” I said to him.
He settled down and watched me intently, while I muttered a couple of incantations to get myself warmed up.
I ran my fingers lightly over the crystal ball to start with, and then when I had a feel for it, I pushed my palms up against it and then slowly spread them apart, creating a small window between my thumbs, and it was here that I focused my gaze.
“What do you see? Well?”
“Shh!”
Fog. Gray, featureless fog. Or it could be a cloud, I supposed. Either way, it wasn’t revealing anything of use.
“All I can see is fog,” I said slowly.
“You’re doing it wrong. That’s a weather forecast,” said Kiwi with a snicker.
I frowned but didn’t answer him. Something was happening. The fog slowly parted, swirling and drifting away to reveal an image.
“Oh...” I said.
“What?” asked Kiwi.
“Oh... oh no.” I pulled my hands away from the orb and pressed them against my pale cheeks. This was very bad indeed.
“What do you see!?”
I just shook my head.
Kiwi cawed loudly to make sure he had my attention. “What is it? What did you see?” he asked urgently.
I had to breathe deeply several times before I could muster a response.
“Something bad’s coming, Kiwi,” I said to him.
“Yes, but what did you actually see?” he asked again while hopping up and down. “Did you see me? Will I be okay?”
Typical. His first concern was himself. If I hadn’t been so upset, it would’ve been funny.
“No, I didn’t see you. I didn’t see you at all.”
He lifted his wings and put them on either side of his head, like he was clutching it. “No Kiwi!?”
“I mean you weren’t in the vision. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
“Then what did you see?” he asked, his voice still wrought with consternation.
&nb
sp; “I saw a river, but it was no ordinary river. It was red.”
“Blood red?”
I nodded. “Yeah, a river of blood. And above that, soaring above it was a big flock of black crows.”
“Uh-oh. Does that mean what I think it means?”
“What do you think it means?”
“Death!” he shrieked.
“Yep!” I said, both my voice and body shaking. I never should have tried scrying again!
Chapter 19
“We have to protect ourselves,” said Kiwi, flapping up in the air before dropping down again in agitation.
“Come on!” I said to him, before opening the apartment’s front door to hurry down the thirteen stairs to the shop below.
Kiwi fluttered down after me, landing on my shoulder when we reached the bottom. I opened the door to the shop.
“Do some magic!” yelled Kiwi.
“What magic?”
“Anything! Protect us!” he said and squeezed his talons against my shoulder, hard.
What to do, what to do?
My heart was beating at a million miles a minute and Kiwi’s screeching, screaming, cawing, and digging into my shoulder weren’t helping matters.
“Sage!” I said.
“Sage? Sage!”
“It’ll help clean out any bad magic.”
“There’s bad magic too!?” said Kiwi with a screech.
I had no idea whether there was bad magic around us, but with Kiwi panicking too I wasn’t stopping to think.
I grabbed a small cauldron and some sage from the cupboard behind the counter and set it smoldering with a match.
“Get all the corners!” said Kiwi, ordering me around from atop his temporary perch on my shoulder.
We walked around all the edges of the shop, making sure the smoke reached all the corners, before heading back upstairs and doing the same to my apartment.
“Are we safe now?” asked Kiwi.
“I don’t know!”
He flapped and cawed in my ear. “Do something else! Protect us!” He followed the command with another shriek in my ear.
Half deafened in one ear by Kiwi’s constant screeching, I could feel my blood rushing through my body as we hurried up and down, back and forth in panic. After the sage, I decided to burn some incense as well—not jasmine this time, but a few magic sticks I kept around for emergencies.
A Wedding to Die For- Wedding Bells and Magic Spells Page 12