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

by Leanne Leeds

  “You must,” Ebony told me.

  “No way.” To be fair, my ministry outfit would protect me from the worst of any alligator attack, but my shoulders and face were exposed, and that would hurt. Althea, meanwhile, was unprotected. “Not a chance.”

  “I assure you. You will be safe. You and your sister,” Ebony, the pixie’s seer, told me as she held out her hand. “We can help you if you can’t get in on your own. The alligators won’t attack you. They live here with the understanding that they cannot attack the two-legs.”

  I stared at her outstretched hand with an eyebrow raised.

  “Unless we tell them to,” Amethyst murmured.

  I remained unmoved by their assurances.

  Althea leaned in. “Astra, we need their help. Someone has to trust first.”

  The purple-haired pixie scowled. “We were the ones to trust first, Althea of the Arden clan. We have brought you here to this sacred place. Or did you forget,” Amethyst told her with a mocking bow. She laughed suddenly for no apparent reason. “No wonder Pistachio dismissed you as a concern to his plans. The world revolves around you, and you take no one else’s motivations into consideration.”

  “I find it ridiculous that a pixie is calling me self-involved,” I said pointedly.

  “We are self-involved because we have to be, witch,” Ebony told me with warm sincerity that seemed to come out of nowhere. Her skin, a dark umber, made her wide eyes striking in the lightless jungle as she looked at me. “No gods to protect us. We have only ourselves to rely on, ourselves and our leadership.” She shifted, her eyes drifting down. “And our leadership is—”

  “Not here,” Amethyst told Ebony sharply.

  I looked at the rickety boat again and sighed.

  Lazy heat trails drifted up from the small pool at the very center of the island. Undersized flames danced within teeny, low ledges carved from tall rock walls surrounding the water. It gave the small area an ethereal glow.

  Well, small to us at this size. I could spy tiny homes tucked beneath arched rocks no higher than my ankles.

  I walked toward the heated reservoir and peeked over. I could see the smooth rock bottom in the shallow, clear water. It shimmered, dazzlingly, with moonlight as if the pool was lined in reflective quartz. Every once in a while, a burble punctuated the silence.

  “This is our spring. We call it, in your language, the moon pool,” Ebony explained, her voice proud, as Althea and I stared. “Pistachio would never come to this island or within these walls. This pool is designated for women only. The leaves above cover it when the sun rises and reveal it only when the moon climbs the sky.” She turned and smiled at it as if it was an old friend. “Please, as sisters, have a seat around her magic and be made welcome.”

  “Is it a healing spring?” Althea stared into the water with wide-eyed fascination. “Have you ever used the water in magic? Does it have magical properties? Healing properties? Mineral properties? Has sunlight ever touched it at all? Like, directly, I mean, because the moonlight really is sunlight just reflected.”

  Ebony smiled at Althea and her rapid-fire questions, but Althea didn’t notice. My sister was too busy examining every aspect of the pool with her eyes.

  “It is lovely, isn’t it?” Ebony sighed.

  Suddenly, my sister looked up, her expression apologetic. “I’m sorry. I know we’re here for a totally different reason, but that thing? That thing is absolutely amazing. It’s like a cave pool only…um, not.”

  “It is, I suspect, why our ancestors chose this place. There will be time to answer your questions, little sister.” Ebony gestured toward the other pixies. They moved into a circle around the bubbling hot spring at a slight movement of her hand. “I can see in your eyes you have a tie to elixirs of magic, yes?” Althea nodded excitedly. “I am not just a seer for the pixies. I have some talent in seeing—”

  “Could you two maybe have your hot spring appreciation night another time?” I asked the pixie testily. “I have two people back in my house acting like they were doused with a love drug, and one of them could be dead within forty-eight hours. I’m not trying to be rude”—actually, I didn’t care if I was rude or not—“but I don’t have time for this.”

  “What two people?” Amethyst Cloudspirit asked me sharply. “Talk, witch, before I drown you in that—”

  “Sister, let us keep this a safe, civil place,” Ebony told the pale warrioress sharply, her hand lightly resting on the pale woman’s forearm. “It is the sacred moon well of women, and they are women even if they are not pixies. They deserve temporary sanctuary here by virtue of that.” She paused. “Without threat.”

  Awesome.

  Feminist, philosophical pixies with Tolkienesque speech patterns.

  I sighed.

  Bless your heart, Florida.

  Amethyst’s muscled body arched toward Ebony protectively. The two stared silently at one another, and I could practically feel the overly aggressive woman wrestling with her will and the temptation to defy the seer. Finally, the hostile pixie jerked her chin once in agreement and looked at me expectantly. “You were saying?”

  “I wasn’t, but the two people are Detective Emma Sullivan of the Forkbridge Police Department and Alice Windrow—who I think you already know.”

  “That means there are now four,” Ebony murmured, frowning.

  “Four what?” I asked.

  “Oh, no.” Amethyst stepped in front of Ebony, her staff leaning out toward us. “I asked the first question this evening, and I still haven’t received an answer. Do not mistake the seer’s hospitality and generosity for capitulation to your agenda. Before we go any further, I want to know what you are doing here. Why have you come here, and what do you want?”

  Whatever smoothing over Ebony had tried to do since we set foot on this island, Amethyst was still coiled like a spring. Beneath her outward submission to the seer’s request for a peaceful conclave, the purple pixie was just looking for a reason to pop. Amethyst Cloudspirit agreed to allow this conversation to take place. Sure. Still, I could feel she was ready for it to turn in a different direction at any moment.

  She wasn’t the only one.

  The light from the pixie-sized fires around the bubbling pool allowed me vision enough to take in the six paranormals confronting us. (Though black light would’ve been just as effective considering their hair was a variety of neon shades that would spice up a laser tag game.)

  The other four looked to Amethyst and Ebony as the leaders and spoke little. I suspected none of the four would make a move without permission from one of them, and I quickly shifted my focus to the principal pixies.

  Since we’d entered into this small enclosure without a ceiling, Ebony’s demeanor had become almost worshipful. Even if the pixies didn’t have gods to protect them, the seer’s reverence for this hot spring seemed as fervent as any religious zealot’s devotion. Her aversion to violence in this place, in my estimation, was genuine.

  That left Amethyst Cloudspirit.

  Her leadership over the other five women was clear but not quite as simple in this place. Amethyst, while still in charge, was deferring to the seer pixie.

  As long as that dynamic held, we were safe.

  At least until I set off the vibrantly purple-headed pixie.

  I relaxed my stance and dropped my hands, making sure they were visible. “I was investigating the sabotage of construction equipment at the site on the edge of your territory—”

  “In our territory,” Amethyst corrected.

  “Yes, well, you don’t have a map showing what you think you control, so I’m doing the best I can,” I told her with a friendly smile she didn’t seem convinced was friendly. “I came with my sister because the callout was for Emma, not me—but she’s in no condition to be seen out in public by anyone. We ran into your chieftain earlier today, and since then, she’s—”

  “Overly enamored with him?” Ebony asked.

  “An ardent admirer of Pistachio Waterflash?�
� Amethyst added wryly.

  “Acting like a lovesick crazy person whose brain flew the coop?” the pink-haired pixie chimed in.

  The dusky orange-red glow of the tiny flames illuminated the pixies’ features clearly. If I was looking for surprise at this revelation, I wouldn’t find it. I crossed my arms. “I take it you all are familiar with this phenomenon?”

  “It is still your turn, witch,” Amethyst reminded me calmly. “Finish your story, and then we will decide if we will tell you ours.”

  My shoulders tightened. “That wasn’t the agreement.”

  Amethyst’s eyes narrowed. “This is our sacred well. We decide what the agreement is.”

  Oh, I don’t think so.

  “I just told you I know two human beings that have been cursed to have a crush on your smarmy chieftain, none of you look surprised, but you still won’t answer my questions or tell me what the heck that’s about?” I asked defiantly—in complete opposition to my original plan not to provoke Amethyst Cloudspirit.

  “You need to answer their questions, Astra,” Althea told me calmly. I turned and stared at my sister in surprise. I’d often heard the same note of determination in my mother’s voice. Still, I’d never heard it duplicated so precisely by anyone else. “We are in their sacred space as guests. For that alone? As an apology for the intrusion?” She shrugged. “Tell them what they want to know.”

  I clenched my teeth and stared at the serious girl half my age giving me orders in the field. If some new recruit in my division had spoken to me this way back at the ministry? In front of someone we were interrogating? I would’ve had them cleaning bathroom floors with a toothbrush for a month.

  A magic toothbrush.

  That cleaned nothing.

  “It’s the only way, and you know it.” Althea’s green eyes were penetrating as she looked into mine. “We don’t want to war with the pixies.”

  “The child is wise beyond her years,” Amethyst commented with amusement.

  A half an hour later, Ebony nodded. “We had heard tell of your star card power, but did not believe it. I have never heard of such a thing. A goddess long thought to be dead, her power reincarnating in another. Gifted by another goddess.” Her dark face was alight with interest. “Fascinating. Truly fascinating.”

  “Astraea was the daughter of the dusk and the dawn,” Amethyst said. The other four pixies nodded in agreement. “It is powerful magic you hold,” she added grudgingly.

  “I don’t know that I have any extra magic because of it,” I shrugged. “So far, all it seems to have gotten me is a smart-mouthed owl and a job with the police department. Which, to be honest, is kinda cool.”

  “The owl or the job?” Althea asked with amusement.

  “Both. Or either. Or neither, depending on the day. Anyway, that’s the story.” I leaned back on the rock and stretched. “I know a pixie sabotaged the site, but I don’t know why. I know something’s happened to Emma, and I don’t know why. I know Alice Windrow’s life is threatened by something, but I don’t know what.”

  “Well, you don’t seem to know much. The goddess Athena chose you for this job?” Amethyst’s voice cracked like a whip. “She must have very few followers left if you are the best she could do.”

  “We can’t all be seven inches tall and live in a swamp,” I retorted.

  “Are you planning on swimming back to land?” the pixie responded in a harsh, suspicious tone of voice.

  The two of us leaned forward to stand up.

  “Stop it, both of you,” Ebony said sharply. “The witch has kept her commitment to us to tell us the story. As a seer, I tell you I sense that she is telling the truth and has told us all that she is aware is important.” Ebony looked at Amethyst. “Despite our reputation, we are not children. I will not have a schoolyard brawl at the moon pool. Do not be vengeful to one who does not deserve it.”

  “We don’t know that she doesn’t.” Amethyst’s eyes were aflame with frustration.

  “Until you know that she does, keep your commitments, warrioress.”

  I leaned toward Althea. “When you’re a hammer, every problem you come up against looks like a nail.”

  Amethyst’s head turned, and she glared at me.

  My sister stared at me with disappointment. “You really can be aggravating, you know that, sis?” Her voice held the echo of my mother.

  I winked.

  “Astra of the Arden clan, I ask you not to deliberately provoke Amethyst.” Ebony smiled kindly. “In times like these, she is easily provoked, and it is she who can best tell her story simply.” The seer’s face clouded. “It is difficult for me to separate the images I see in the pool from things that have happened. She can tell you what is. I can tell you what might be.”

  “As your sister suspected, we have broken with our chieftain,” Amethyst began, her hands balling into fists. “Pistachio Waterflash has disgraced our clan. He forced water from the sun pool into pixie dust. He created…well, a monstrosity of magic designed to manipulate human women.”

  “He calls it sun dust,” Ebony added. “We urged him, begged him, to leave the humans alone. To stay out of their affairs. But with the Witches’ Council gone, he sees no one that may tell him no.” Her face twisted with hatred. “I do not know what he wants with these women or why he has turned them into worshipful servants like a god of old. But it is an atrocity and an immoral twisting of what we are.”

  “There are four women he’s done this to?” I asked.

  Amethyst nodded. “If what you say is true, Emma is the fourth. We knew of Alice. She, I believe, was the first—an easy mark, since she was already a follower.”

  “And the other two?” Althea asked.

  “We know of them, but we only know the identity of one,” Amethyst told me.

  Ebony nodded wearily. “Meryl Hawkins, a reporter with the—”

  “Forkbridge Gazette. Yep,” I sighed. “I’m familiar.”

  Althea and I stared at each other.

  Chapter Twelve

  “That purple-haired pixie was just insufferable,” I mumbled.

  “I can see why you would feel that way about it,” Althea responded.

  I glanced over. “About what?”

  She opened her mouth to say something more but then glanced back at me and snapped it shut.

  “Come on, tell me what you mean.” We were driving along Beacon Street back toward the house after finishing our confab with the rebel pixies. The evening didn’t go how I’d planned, but we did get more information about the pixie drama than we’d had to start. That was a good thing. And I didn’t get into a fistfight with Amethyst Cloudspirit, so that was a win, too. “I mean, anyone would find her annoying.”

  “No, I don’t think just anyone would find her annoying.” I could feel my sister’s eyes on me. “I think you found her annoying—but like I said, that’s not surprising. I read somewhere that the people who annoy us the most often exhibit the things about ourselves—”

  “Oh, hold on a minute. I’m nothing like that pixie,” I told Althea hotly, shooting her a look of incredulity. “I’m the complete opposite of that woman.”

  My sister stared at me. “Yeah, okay.”

  “She’s arrogant, and jumps to conclusions, and seems to deal with everything more aggressively than she needs to. She’s got no patience. No subtlety. No finesse.”

  “Yeah, nothing like you, Blunty McBlurtness.”

  I stopped talking and gripped the steering wheel.

  After a bit, Althea leaned down and emptied her pockets of unused potion bottles into the duffel bag at her feet. Once done, she clicked on the radio and turned it up. The Pixies “Where is My Mind” filled the Jeep.

  Althea tapped her fingers with no sense of irony.

  It was late when we returned to Arden House.

  “How are they?” I asked Ami, pointing toward the two women curled up on the couch asleep. “They’re safe, at least.” Emma snored loudly. “And still breathing.”

&nbs
p; “Physically safe, sure. But as far as getting their minds back? Well, let’s just say Alice seems to be going further and further down the rabbit hole, and Emma’s right there with her.” Ami moved toward the back of the couch and looked down. “I did readings for them both trying to figure out what’s going on, but I don’t think the cards help with this. The Tower came up over and over again.” Ami turned and rolled her eyes. “It’s like, tell me something I don’t know.”

  Althea gave Ami a sidelong glance. “I think we had better luck.”

  “Oh?”

  “There is a war between the pixies. A group of female pixies is challenging Pistachio Waterflash and his right to rule—though I’m not sure he knows that yet. They claim that he’s used their sun pool water and pixie dust to come up with some kind of Ecstasy-like drug.”

  “Ecstasy?” Ami’s face showed her adorably innocent confusion.

  “It’s a psychoactive drug that produces altered sensations, increased energy, empathy, and makes people want to jump into bed with anyone that smiles at them.” She shuddered. “Feels good, I guess, but it’s nasty stuff. People take it at clubs, and it turns them into hippies that love everyone.” Althea wrinkled her nose. “They can also dance for hours like coked-up Wall Street bros on a binge,” Althea explained. “I only call it ecstasy-like because the sun dust appears to produce that overwhelming ‘love everybody’ effect, at least.”

  “How do you know anything about coked-up Wall Street bros?” I asked Althea, surprised. Ami acted like Rapunzel locked in a tower half the time, oblivious to the real world. I assumed Althea’s experience of the world was similar.

  My sister snorted with amusement. “I’ve seen every Law & Order ever made. Potions don’t involve a huge amount of concentration once you’ve got it down, so I keep it on in the background. I’ve seen them all, some twice,” she said. “And I mean every one of them. Including SVU, Criminal Intent, LA—”