by Mara Webb
Oliver and Effie exchanged looks once again. The smile on my face died down and I was left with a solemn look.
“I know what it all sounds like, but it’s true. Your face is on this family tree because you are the next in line for the role. Once Greta died it became important that you were located and brought back here to restore normality. Obviously, you have been oblivious to our world because you have been living in Virginia all this time.
“Surely you have heard about the existence of witches over there though, I didn’t think they had been erased from Virginian history,” she said.
“I heard about the witch trials; I know the first accusation of witchcraft was actually made in colonial Virginia before Salem. But it’s all crazy, right? Like, the witch hunting and the executions, wasn’t that just a way for people to murder folk they didn’t like in their village?” I said, nervously smiling as I recalled some of the bizarre history of my home state.
“Yeah, the people that weren’t liked were the witches,” Oliver replied.
“Look, the first thing we need to address is that you are a witch and you always have been. With the loss of your cousin Greta, the responsibility of your family blood line falls to you. You aren’t the last one left, just the next in line that’s all,” Effie added, as if that provided any comfort.
“Next in line for what?” I asked.
“That’s a talk for another time, just get on board with the witch stuff first. Yeah, the witch trials were a hot mess, and they were mostly false accusations thrown at people that had annoyed someone in the town, but it all got started because one witch exposed their magic and the whole thing unraveled. That isn’t the point, you’re a witch, got it?”
I nodded at Effie and began to grow more curious as to what else was about to be said. I just had to play along until one of them started laughing and confessed that it was all a joke.
“Oliver was just trying to get a few statements for our newspaper, but obviously got over excited and made some bad decisions. I’m sure he was more curious as to whether Greta had any clues about who murdered her,” Effie said.
The bright colors in her hair seemed duller today, duller than they had been even half an hour ago. It was almost like her head was adorned with strands of mood-ring stones that were changing depending on the tone of the conversation.
“Well the word is that the body they found had been shot through the chest, and I highly doubt she crashed her car, walked a few dozen miles then shot and buried herself in the cemetery,” Effie scoffed. I remembered the ghost of Greta showing me her bullet wound, had that all been real? I was losing my mind.
“She... she told me that I needed to help her,” I stuttered. I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth, but apparently, I was agreeing to buy in to this fantasy.
“She must think it’s related to magic,” Oliver said. Effie nodded in agreement.
“Look, Greta was sort of the diplomacy queen around here, that’s part of why we needed you to take her place. Without Greta there is a chance that all of the treaties that have been signed over the years will go ignored, unenforced or willfully broken. Kate already said there was graffiti on the island, we can’t pretend that it hasn’t already started,” Effie explained.
“So you want me to figure out what happened to Greta, catch the bad guy and make sure that everyone on this island, and all the neighboring islands, agrees to uphold whatever they’ve already agreed to?” I laughed.
“Basically, yeah,” Kate said, shrugging in a ‘sucks to be you’ sort of way.
“The magic community sort of govern themselves, we have our own laws and are held to those by our resident peacekeeper,” Oliver explained. “As of, like, a week or two ago, the peacekeeper is you. You’ll be able to team up with Miller and work on this case together, he already knows the deal.”
“Miller knows about magic? Will he think I’m a witch too?”
“It’s not a dirty word, Sadie. Being a witch is great, it’s usually fun and the whole island lives in harmony, but it’s because of people like Greta. You have a lot of weight on your shoulders and there is so much you don’t know yet. One step at a time,” Effie grinned.
Effie reached into the pocket of her black jeans and was rummaging around for a few seconds before she found what she was looking for.
“Here, you’ll need this,” she said, passing me a ring with a huge piece of amber held securely in a silver setting. “It’s for protection and if you need to head out to the other islands you will need all the help you can get. Miller has a gun but... just make sure you keep this on at all times.”
I slipped the ring onto the middle finger of my left hand. I could have sworn the center of the amber was slowly swirling like molten rock, it was almost imperceptibly slow. There was a knock on the door that lead to the beach, someone was waiting on the sand for us.
“That will be Miller now, are you ready?” Effie asked. I said nothing, how could I know if I was ready for this?
8
“Sadie, good morning,” Miller said as I opened the door. Oliver and Effie had made their exit back through the café kitchen and I was standing alone in the hallway in front of the very attractive sheriff.
“Good morning,” I replied. We were both inspecting the other, he was trying to avoid staring at my bare legs and I was watching his lower lip as he spoke. I had been in a relationship for such a long time that apparently I had forgotten all social skills and thought that I was acting normally.
“Is there something on my face?” he asked. My cheeks flushed pink.
“No, you’re perfect... I mean, you’re good, nothing, there’s nothing on your face,” I flapped. Let the earth open up and swallow me. He was smiling but I could tell he was embarrassed on my behalf. I was radiating an awkward energy and he must have thought it was contagious based on the distance he was maintaining between us.
“Have you been told what’s happening today?” he said. I didn’t want to be the one to say what I had heard. I still wasn’t sure this wasn’t a prank, something elaborate, maybe they were hazing me. Could I really say to Miller, ‘Oh, well a ghost told me last night that I need to solve a murder with my witch powers’ because he would walk away and never look back.
“Something about Greta?” I said, avoiding saying anything that a crazy person might say.
“I mean, the peacekeeping side of it all,” he prompted. The way his upper body was leaning towards me reminded me of a flower twisting towards the sun. He wanted to suggest that he was in on the witch prank, that’s what I was surmising from it, so I decided to stop fighting it.
“Oh yeah, Effie told me about the witches on the island and the treaties,” I smiled.
“Good, well I’ll try to explain some of the more memorable clauses between the various clans as we head over to Port Wayvern,” he said. He turned to begin walking away onto the beach and I stepped out of the house to join him. I realized I didn’t have any keys, money or my phone and turned back only to find a small, over-the-shoulder purse with a metal clasp shaped like a bee. It was hanging on hooks in the hallway that I hadn’t previously noticed.
As I grabbed it, I heard the jangle of coins. Inside I found my phone, a handful of cash, some change and the house keys. I swung the bag over my shoulder and pulled the door closed behind me. Miller had a head start and I jogged to catch up. The flip flops that I had worn to breakfast might not be the best choice for a day out solving crimes and pretending to be some sort of witch detective, but it was too late to do anything about it now.
I was sure I’d seen a show where someone had boarded a flight to an island and then they thought they had all landed and lived a whole lifetime in a strange, isolated place, until it became apparent later on that they had in fact crashed into the ocean and it had all been a dream. The more seriously everyone took this ‘witch’ thing, the further from real I felt everything was.
It would make sense for my brain to do this to me, to play this trick. I had
watched so many shows as a kid about teenage witches or kids going to magical high schools that it only made sense that, when my flight from Virginia crashed into the water, my mind created a fake version of the world in which I did make it to Hallow Haven and suddenly was a witch that could see ghosts. Totally predictable, almost boring really.
We continued up the beach and no one had spoken in a while. The café was growing smaller in the distance, until we followed the curve of the island around a corner and the café disappeared from view entirely.
“Have you found any fossils yet?” Miller asked.
“Excuse me?”
“This coast has become popular with fossil collectors recently. If you grab any of the bigger rocks and hit them with a hammer, they often reveal some ancient creature that’s been locked inside. I have a couple of the spiral ones from when I’ve brought my nieces out here,” he explained. He smiled as he spoke about his family and I couldn’t help smiling along with him.
“Ammonites,” I said.
“Bless you?” Miller joked in confusion. “What did you just say?”
“Ammonites. That’s what the little spiral fossils are called.”
A look of interest came over his face. “Well, you really learn something new every day.”
“Where are we headed now?” I asked. The gentle rise of fall of the land had erupted into the huge cliffs that towered over us. These must be the cliffs that Wes had driven along when she brought me to the café, learning the geography of this place was going to take a while.
“There’s a small marina just up here and we have our own boat,” he explained.
“The police have their own boat?” I said, impressed by the budget of a small island department. It occurred to me that it probably wasn’t a giant yacht, and of course this police department had a boat, only a fraction of the people they policed lived on this main island.
“Not the police, us,” he clarified. “It is almost always necessary that you join an officer on a trip out to the islands. The people that live on the other islands have no interest in speaking to me or anyone from my department. You are the one figure that they will respect.”
It still made no sense to me and I felt like I had been asked to complete a puzzle and was being given random pieces one at a time that I couldn’t put together.
“Miller,” I said, running ahead of him and turning back so that he would stop walking. “Could you just pretend that I have no clue what you’re talking about? Act as if this whole island is a completely foreign concept to me, because at the minute I think you’re all talking total nonsense and I think you all need medicating.”
He looked at me for a second and ran a hand through his hair, his eyes squinting as they looked out at the shimmering ocean.
“Sadie, I can’t tell you everything because I’ll get in trouble,” he began. “It has to come from one of your own, if I am the one to fill you in then I’ll be accused of trying to corrupt you by the outer islands.”
I folded my arms and stuck out a hip to emphasize my lack of patience with him as no one had given me a straight answer since I arrived.
“All I can tell you is that you come from a blended blood line, you have humans in your family tree which gives you enough clout to keep the humans on the islands happy, but most importantly you have a connection to some of the strongest witches this island has ever known. The families here generally keep to themselves; it’s all arranged marriages and carefully planned unions to keep blood lines going, your family wasn’t like that.”
“So, the human and witch parts of my family history make me the peacekeeper?” I asked.
“Exactly. Your family was forged on connections, marriages weren’t pre-determined or designed on the basis of alliances, but because people wanted to be together. Almost every family on the islands has some part of your family history and this uniquely places you as the official voice of reason that everyone around here will listen to,” he smiled.
“I think that’s our boat,” I said, pointing down the beach to a guy that was jumping and waving at us.
“I’m sorry that I can’t tell you everything right now, it’s a messy, twisty, weird situation and there is so much more to say about it, but we need to run to get to that boat because he will leave without us,” Miller said. He stepped to the side of me and started to run along the sand and I stood frozen for a second as my legs tried to remember what they needed to do.
I had my arms up in the air as I ran, like I was walking on a high wire and needed them for balance. I must have made quite a sight as people at the marina were pointing towards me and I could feel their gaze on me. “I’m wearing flip flops!” I yelled defensively, but that didn’t matter. If what Miller had said was true, then I was worth staring at.
A peacekeeper. I was a peacekeeper. I played with each word that he had said, jumbled up the sentences to see if there was any other way to interpret it all. No. Multiple people had said that I was a witch, and no one appeared to be joking. Shouldn’t I have a broomstick and a big, tall hat? Where was my dark, spooky house and the cobwebs?
By the time I reached the boat, Miller was already onboard. The guy that had been waving offered me a hand so that I could step off the small wooden pier and join them. My name was being whispered like a breeze through the trees, like my entire existence was enveloped in rumor and intrigue. I was so regular that it bored even me.
“She’s here, after all this time, an Adler. They’re not gone.”
“I’m going to need you to wear this,” the boat’s captain said thrusting a life jacket in my direction. “If anything were to happen to you then I’d be in the deepest of trouble. Oh, and you can have this one, it probably still floats,” he added as he passed Miller one that didn’t seem to fasten at the sides.
“See what I mean?” Miller smiled. “You’re top dog around here.” The boat slowly pulled away from the shore and then picked up speed. There were some rope loops on the inside of the boat along the benches where we were sitting. I put both hands through the closest loops and steadied myself as the boat began bobbing up and down over the waves. Miller seemed able to sit still without holding on at all.
“Port Wayvern is close, it won’t take long,” Miller yelled. I could see from his face that he was shouting at top volume, but I only just heard him over the sound of the engine and the water crashing into us. The ocean wasn’t choppy, but there was still some turbulence. I had never been a huge fan of water, possibly something I should have considered before moving to an island.
The main island was so beautiful from this distance and I could spot the café nestled into the sand as if it had sprung from the earth. There was a balance of greenery and beach, flat spots and cliffs. The crystal blue water was postcard perfect and just as I was wishing I had brought a camera out here, the boat turned.
We had gone out from the island into the deeper water and were now headed towards an island that I hadn’t seen before. The plane I had taken had come in over the water, and the beach my house and café were on had a view of that same water. It appeared that the other islands were all on the other side.
The boat was headed towards a mass of land that had dark sand lining its beaches and more bare rock than the main island. I could see a small boat dock coming into view and could feel the relief that this boat ride was almost over.
If all of this was true, if I was really a witch that was now in charge of keeping peace and order among the people of these islands then this was going to be my first day on the job. I needed to look into the circumstances surrounding Greta’s murder and bring the guilty party to justice, whatever justice looked like around here.
There was a small group of people waiting for us on the shore and I tried to compose myself. Fake it until you make it, right?
9
Wes was in the welcome party on Port Wayvern. He assisted me out of the boat when we pulled up to the dock and the people around him were smiling and clapping as I walked onto the beach ahe
ad of Miller. They didn’t seem interested in his arrival at all.
“Sadie, pleasure to meet you,” a man said, thrusting a giant hand in my direction for me to shake. “I’m Link Conerty, head of the Conertys.”
It seemed weird to have a hierarchy within a family, I mean, usually it is pre-determined by age, but he couldn’t have been much over forty and he likely had older relatives.
“Good morning, Link. Thank you for the welcome,” I said. My handshake left much to be desired, I go for the ‘clearly-isn’t-into-it' approach of trying to shake once with a loose grip and then pulled my hand back to get it free. My handshake carries no authority.
“We’re sorry to hear about Greta, to die up in those mountains is a wild way to go but she did love hiking, so I guess...” Link began.
“Oh, she was shot actually,” I announced. The group on the shore gasped and I realized I had let slip some information that they hadn’t been aware of.
“Who would do such a thing to an Alden?” a small woman asked. It was truly mind boggling to hear my last name spoken of with such fondness as if we were some noble, presidential family.
“Sadie is here to learn about the communities that she is now involved with as well as begin the investigation into Greta’s murder,” Miller explained. There were a few nods of heads, but it didn’t seem that they were looking at Miller at all, as if he wasn’t even there.
“Then come this way,” Link gestured. “I suppose you are keen to see that we still have our treaties, is that right?” He was looking at me, so I looked at Miller who nodded.
“Yes, treaties,” I smiled. We walked off the sand and onto a sidewalk that snaked around a small collection of buildings and businesses. We walked up to a bamboo hut that was bigger than any other building on the street and stepped inside.