Owl's Fair (The Owl Star Witch Mysteries Book 2)

by Leanne Leeds

  Ayla popped straight up, her disheveled hair sticking up in every direction. Clutching her coverlet to her chest, she glared at me. “Just because someone doesn’t want to go running at the butt crack of dawn doesn’t make them a worse runner.”

  “It does make them late to a marathon,” I pointed out. “When do you think those things usually start, anyway? After shopping and brunch?”

  “Not this early!”

  “Sometimes, it’s even earlier. Yes, sometimes it’s slightly later. But the one you’re running today?” I gestured toward the clock. “It starts in five minutes, with or without you.” I gave her a pointed look. “I invited you to join me, remember?”

  “So?”

  “So you go when I go. This is Florida. It’s hot and humid, and it’s easy to get dehydrated if we run too late in the day. Right now, the sun’s just barely coming up. It’s the best time of the day to run.” She stared at me with glassy, resentful eyes. “Look, I’ve extended the invitation, and I told you I was going to try and wake you up just once.” I held out my hand. “This was that attempt. From here, you make your own decision.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I’m going on my run in five minutes. Whether you’re there or not.”

  I was still stretching along the back porch railing when Ayla stomped out. Her disheveled hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, and she was dressed in a heavy tracksuit that would, within minutes, likely cause her to overheat. “Don’t you have a pair of shorts and a tank top?” I asked her.

  “You’re not wearing one. It’s chilly,” Ayla complained sullenly. “If I wear shorts and a tank top, I’m going to be cold.”

  “If you wear that, within a few minutes, you’re going to be really hot.”

  “Quit ordering me around! I know what I’m doing!”

  Oh, boy.

  She didn’t, but I would not argue with her. Her expression told me she was stuck in a teenager’s snit and not likely to listen to reason.

  “Have you stretched?” I asked her.

  “I’m ready whenever you are,” she answered without answering.

  I paused for a second and considered her. On the one hand, I was doing this to teach her a lesson. Not a mean lesson, mind you. Ayla’s overconfidence was something she would need to learn to rein in before it got her into trouble. I knew this from experience. I also knew she wouldn’t be able to run three miles consistently. I’d seen her get winded running a half block.

  But I didn’t want her injured. If she didn’t warm up her muscles before starting, there was a chance that could happen.

  “What are you waiting for?” she snapped at me, glaring.

  Then again, maybe a pulled groin muscle would cause her to think twice before bragging mastery of something she’d never done before. “Nothing at all. Let’s go.”

  I started with a slow jog toward the driveway and winced as Ayla’s feet pounded the cement hard and fast in an attempt to overtake me. “Ayla,” I said over my shoulder. “This isn’t a race. We’re going running together. Slow down”

  “I can totally beat you!” she told me enthusiastically as she passed me on the driveway. Her thundering, stomping steps made me wince for the joint pain she would feel when she was my mother’s age if she kept running like that. “Bet you can’t catch me!”

  “Ayla, you know the saying ‘this is a marathon, not a sprint’?” I asked, keeping my steady pace. “Marathons require slow, steady, relentless pacing.” She kept running like a bat out of hell toward the street, and I gently accelerated my own pace to catch up with her. “If you’re trying to sprint, you can explode your speed, try and go as fast as you can, but a marathon? You want to keep a gentle, steady pace—Ayla!”

  Ayla’s frenetic, bouncy steps brought her to the road faster than I’d anticipated, and she’d careened into it without looking. The sedan drove at a reasonable speed toward the main street, but Ayla still nearly ran dead in front of it.

  My shout got her attention, and she stopped at the last minute, scrambling to back up as the car’s brakes screeched. The momentum propelled her forward, sliding on the gravel, and she nearly toppled over—stopped only by another runner coming in the opposite direction at just the right time to grab her.

  “Are you all right?” I heard him ask as he pulled her toward the curb, her back to the car that almost hit her.

  Ayla looked more shaken than I’d ever seen her, and she stared at the man as if bewildered by the turn of events. Behind her, a businessman jumped out of the stopped car. The poor man looked horrified. “I am so sorry, she just came out of nowhere! Honey, are you okay?” The businessman reached Ayla the same time I did, both of us looking to the jogger—who was politely but expertly examining Ayla for injuries.

  “I don’t think she hit anything; she’s just gotten the daylights scared out of her, that’s all,” the man told us both. He turned to me. “I take it she’s yours?”

  “My sister,” I answered, nodding.

  “I am so terribly sorry,” the businessman repeated. “I have kids of my own about her age, and…I’m just so sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t see her sooner. Are you sure she didn’t bump into the car? I didn’t hear any clunks but—”

  “I didn’t hit anything,” Ayla whispered, her cheeks pink with embarrassment. Her chin was down, and her eyes glued to the black asphalt. “I’m sorry. I was showing off for my sister, and I wasn’t looking where I was going.” She raised her eyes up and looked at the driver. “I’m really sorry, mister.”

  As annoyed as I was at her behavior, Ayla’s reaction reminded me how young she was. I tamped down the desire to explode at her for her reckless behavior. “The important thing is that nobody’s hurt,” I said (sounding remarkably like my Aunt Gwennie).

  The driver and I exchanged information in case it was needed, but I assured him I didn’t think it would be. He reluctantly returned to his car and drove to work—most likely hoping his day would get better.

  “You two training for the Forkbridge marathon?” the runner (who’d saved my sister from being smashed into a pancake by an Oldsmobile) asked with a smile. He looked kindly at Ayla as if attempting to disarm her embarrassment and soothe her nerves with charm.

  “Yes. Okay, no. I’ve never run before,” my sister admitted, her cheeks turning pink again. “I mean, I’ve run like across the backyard and stuff. I thought I could run three miles easy.” Ayla looked apprehensively at me. “My sister didn’t think I could do it. And maybe she was right. I didn’t even get out of the driveway.”

  “Well, you got out of the driveway,” he laughed. “That was part of the problem. You ran out of it just a little too fast.” Ayla’s cheeks went from pink to red, and she shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. The man crouched down and looked up at her. “I am training for the marathon, but it took me a while to work up to it. Most people start smaller, like a 5K. Then a 10K. Then, maybe, a half marathon. A full marathon is a pretty big deal, and they’re not easy. You got off your couch, though, so you’re already in the game.”

  Ayla raised her eyebrow. “But aren’t there long and short marathons?”

  “A marathon is 26.2 miles, Ayla,” I told her.

  The man looked up at me. “You run?”

  “I run, but I’ve never done a marathon.” Unless you count listening to my mother’s lecture on what I should do with my life as a marathon. In that case, I have. Many of them. “I just run for exercise, to clear my head.”

  He nodded and stood up. “Jason Bishop,” he said, extending his hand.

  I reached forward with my gloved hand. “Astra Arden. This is my sister, Ayla.”

  “Nice to meet you both.”

  Jason was tall, with a slender runner’s frame, and dressed in a tight tank top and shorts. His brown hair had sun-bleached highlights I was sure were natural, and his clean-shaven face had a boyish charm to it—even though I was pretty sure he was close to my age. “I run this route every morning, but no one else do
es, so it’s usually pretty solitary. To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t mind some company,” he said with a friendly smile. “Shall we?” Before we even agreed, he was moving his limbs to warm his muscles.

  Ayla looked at me, her face nervous and her eyes frightened. “Do you still want to even go?” There was a short pause. “I mean, with me?”

  “Of course I do. I wasn’t the one that was almost hit by a car, though. Do you feel up to it?”

  My sister stared back at me, her expression torn.

  Jason stopped stretching and put his hands on his hips. “I could totally understand you not wanting to go today, considering what happened. Only the toughest of the tough could get up after that near-catastrophe and just do what they intended to do as if nothing happened,” Jason told Ayla, his eyes twinkling. “Those people? They are super rare. One in a million. Hardly ever find them.” He stretched his arms wide as if he were a windmill. “Most people don’t bounce back so easily, so don’t feel like you have to—”

  “I’ll do it!” Ayla chirped and flapped her arms to mimic Jason’s graceful sweeping motions. “I just have to warm up first!”

  Oh. Right.

  Now she has to warm up.

  “Hey, hey, you want to do it a little slower than that,” he said as he stepped forward to help. Before he laid hands on my thirteen-year-old sister, he looked over at me with a questioning look as if silently asking for permission.

  I was impressed and nodded.

  Then he turned to her, stepped slightly closer, and asked, “May I?”

  Ayla thought for a moment and then nodded.

  My sister made it half a mile from the house before she gave up.

  And to be honest?

  I think that was a quarter-mile further than she would’ve made it had the handsome Jason Bishop not been coaching her the whole way.

  “It hurts so much!” Ayla wheezed as we walked halfway up the driveway. “My thighs feel like they are on fire! My feet are so hot! Everything is all sweaty, and it feels so gross! Why does anybody do this!”

  “It’ll get better,” Jason told her. “It’s hard at first, and it doesn’t seem like it feels good, but trust me, Ayla, if you keep at it? Eventually, it feels great. And it’s good for your health—mentally, physically. I hope you stick with it.”

  “I think you’re a massive liar,” she told him, her face glum. Then she whirled on her heel and sauntered up the driveway toward the house, muttering to herself.

  “For her first time, she did great,” Jason told me once Ayla was out of earshot. “It’s hard to keep up a good attitude when your leg muscles are on fire.”

  “You’re really good with kids,” I told him. “This is the first day I tried to get her to run, and I couldn’t get her to stretch or drink water or not sprint. But you? You’re a natural.” He smiled appreciatively. “You must have kids.”

  “Twenty-seven of them, in fact,” he laughed.

  I was not shockable, but I have to admit that statement shocked me. Jason laughed at my expression, and I raised my eyebrow. “Just how much of a player were you after high school, Mr. Bishop?”

  “I’m a teacher at Forkbridge Junior High,” Jason said, gesturing toward the center of town. “No kids of my own, but I get a new batch every single year, and every single year one of them forces me to up my game. Just when I think I have it all figured out, I get that one kid that’s decided they’re going to be the one to trip me up.”

  I smiled. “And do they?”

  “Only a few times.” He shrugged with charming nonchalance. “Like I said, each new class comes with new lessons.”

  Jason and I stretched as we spoke, cooling down as the sun rose full in the eastern sky. He looked up, and suddenly, he was startled. “Wow, is that an owl?” Squinting toward the top of the trees, he pointed. “You see it?” Yeah, I saw it. “That’s just crazy. It’s just staring at us.”

  “Is it now?” I asked distractedly. “Interesting.” I made a mental note to myself to talk with Archie. That bird needed to give me some privacy when…Nope, scratch that. Just needed to give me some privacy.

  Jason marveled at Archie’s steady focus on the two of us for a few more minutes and then stood up. “Well, I need to get home and get a shower. School starts early for teachers. If the kids had any idea how early, it might make them stop complaining about their own schedules.” I nodded. He paused for a moment as if thinking about something and then said, “Since I’m training for the marathon, I’m running every morning now.” I nodded again. He smiled. “Same time tomorrow?”

  I hadn’t intended to run every day, but suddenly, that didn’t sound like a bad idea. “Sure, same time tomorrow. Do you want me to leave Ayla home? She might slow you down, especially since you’re training—”

  “Not at all! I’ll make sure to do the lion’s share of my intense running before I meet up with the two of you. I can use the last bit of running as a cool down.” I nodded. Jason stuck his hand out again to shake. “It was very nice to meet you, Astra.”

  “You, too, Jason,” I responded (without a nod this time) and shook his hand. “And thanks again for keeping my sister from becoming a large, overconfident stain on the asphalt. I’m not sure how I would’ve explained that to my mother.”

  “I’m sure her overconfidence stems from seeing her older sister as a representation of the incredible woman she has the possibility of becoming,” he told me just before he turned around and ran off gracefully.

  I stared after him, my mind blank as I absorbed his last comment.

  “That sounded like flirting to me!” Archie yelled down from the top of the tree.

  “Oh, shut up,” I muttered, too low for the ow1 to hear, and went inside.

  By the afternoon, you would think Ayla had spent the morning being tortured by medieval elves that suspected she stole one of their treasures.

  “I don’t want to move,” Ayla moaned. She lay on the couch in the great room, her feet up on the armrest, moaning, and whining. “Everything hurts. Everything. Why does anybody do this? No one should do this.”

  “You think it hurts now?” I called from the herb room (where I was doing Ayla’s stocking chore). “Wait until you wake up tomorrow. The worst soreness is always the morning after. Make sure you eat bananas today. The potassium will help. Maybe Althea has something better. We’ll have to ask her after her shop shift.”

  “This gets worse?” she asked, her voice panicked. I didn’t answer, focusing instead on neatly stacking the frankincense in the storage room, so Aunt Gwennie didn’t complain. After a few silent minutes—punctuated every so often by moaning—Ayla called, “Is Jason going to come tomorrow if we go?”

  “He said he’d swing by at the end of his run if we’d like to do the last few miles with him.” I closed the stocked cabinet and opened the empty one below. “The best thing for you as a runner is to get used to running every day if you can. Eventually, not much soreness at all. If you skip a day or a few, though, it’s harder to start up again.”

  “He was super cute,” my younger sister said.

  “Uh-huh,” I answered noncommittally.

  “How could you not think he’s cute?”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t think he was cute.”

  Suddenly, a door slammed. “Astra! Astra, where are you?” Ami shouted, sounding panicked.

  “I’m in the herb room putting away the frankincense that just came in,” I shouted. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, but I was doing reading for Alice Windrow, and that card came up,” she shouted as she skidded into the herb room. “You need to come quick!”

  Chapter Four

  “She’s super into all the psychic stuff, so you can just tell her what’s going on, and she’ll totally get it,” Ami said as we hurried into the shop. The tinkling of crystals from the dream catchers hanging from the ceiling and the heavy scent of lotus incense didn’t touch Ami’s visible anxiety. “I told her I was going to get you.”

  Al
ice Windrow stood near a small wishing fountain next to the cashier station. She held the glowing star card held gingerly between her thumb and forefinger as she scanned the shelves of candles. “There must be a candle in just this color,” she told Aunt Gwennie. “I mean, if I’m special enough to get a card like this, there has to be a reason.” Alice waived the card in the air. “Just look at how cute it is! All sparkly and golden!”

  My aunt, her face pale, stood behind the smartly dressed woman. She glanced toward me, her eyes pleading. “What do I tell her?” she mouthed silently.

  “Alice, this is my sister Astra,” Ami said. “The card is glowing because Astra—” Ami’s face twisted in frustration. “Well, maybe I should let her tell you.”

  “You didn’t tell her anything?”

  Ami shook her head no.

  It’s funny how we all were in this together whenever it wasn’t super important, or there wasn’t something hard to do. As soon as things got a little tricky, or it was time for someone to deliver bad news? This was all my thing.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Alice,” I stepped around Ami and waited for the woman to turn. She didn’t. “Alice?”

  The distracted heiress plucked a small container of lucky oil off the shelf next to the candles. “Oh, I need this,” she murmured cheerfully, continuing her shopping with reckless abandon—ignoring me and the turn her life was about to take. “I can’t believe none of these candles match that glow, but the oil will work. It has that same golden hue to it.”

  “I think you’re going to need more than lucky oil,” I told her seriously.

  Her eyes flitted from point to point, settling nowhere.

  Aunt Gwennie stepped forward and took the oil from Alice. Then my aunt gently grabbed her arm and turned her to face me. “I’ll keep this up at the register for you, but I think you need to talk to Astra. And Alice, please listen carefully to what she has to say.” She frowned with a curious squint. “Promise me you’ll pay attention, Alice. That card is a serious message.”