by Mara Webb
“If you could make it happen, you would be able to find him. You could catch a murderer,” I said.
“What if I hurt you?” he asked, looking into my eyes. It seemed clear that this was his main concern.
“When it happened the first time, you came to my house. You didn’t hurt me then,” I explained.
“You don’t know that I wouldn’t have if I wasn’t interrupted,” he winced. Greta appeared beside me.
“I can help you,” she explained. “Sadie will be safe, and I can guide your transformation so that you can learn how to do it on your own. Although at some point you will need to track down a relative to have them teach you properly,” she chuckled. Miller’s mouth twitched at the corners as if he was tempted to smile but resisting it.
We waited for him to agree to the plan. The gentle nod he gave us was as good as it was going to get. I stepped back and watched as Greta reached out her ghostly hands and placed them either side of Miller’s face, not quite touching him, and she whispered something so softly that I didn’t catch it.
Movies would have you believe that the werewolf transformation involves the human form twisting and contorting violently as the bones elongate and the fur sprouts out of the skin. The movies got it right. I had to look away at points, but Greta floated over to me to say that it wasn’t hurting him and that with practice the transition would become smoother.
In a matter of seconds a creature that stood almost as tall as I did was sniffing at the ground. His gun and flashlight had dropped to the dirt and I grabbed them both just before Miller began to run down the tunnel to our left. I chased after him as quickly as I could, flashlight in hand, hoping that I got there before the wolf did any harm to Link, or vice versa.
The sound of the four giant paws colliding with the earth came to an abrupt stop and then I heard shouting. He must have found Link. I mustered up the last of my energy to run faster. I hadn’t even been here an entire week and I was so immersed in it all that it felt like I’d spent a lifetime on the islands. I was the peacekeeper now, I had to make sure Link was brought to justice and not shredded by a werewolf.
When I caught up to Miller, I realized that I needn’t have worried about Link as it appeared that Ryder had already shot him with a tranquilizer and now had a gun aimed at the sheriff.
“Sadie, stay back,” Ryder yelled. Miller tilted forward and growled.
“No, it’s fine. Put the gun down!” I yelled in response. “Why have you shot him?” I said, pointing at Link who was curled in the fetal position with his eyes closed and a dart protruding from his shoulder.
“I sensed that there was a werewolf in the tunnels, and I ran here to neutralize it,” Ryder explained. “I just got trigger happy and shot him by mistake.”
“Well that’s actually helpful as we’re sure that Link murdered Greta. So, thanks, I guess.”
“We?” Ryder said, raising an eyebrow. “You and the wolf?”
“It’s Miller,” I explained. The wolf grunted at the sound of his name; Ryder squinted one eye as if about to take aim. “Put that gun down right now or there will be consequences,” I snarled. I couldn’t say what those consequences were as I had no idea what I was capable of, although I suppose than in itself was frightening. Ryder looked at me and then back at the wolf.
“Sadie, you don’t understand. We have been eliminating wolves from these islands for centuries, my ancestors have always done it, we were winning. As soon as one came back, I sensed it. It is my job to take him out,” Ryder said.
What was it with all the inherited responsibilities around here? I was a peacekeeper because it ran in my blood, Miller had werewolf great-grandparents, now Ryder was from a long line of hunters. This place was crazy.
“Miller is not a threat,” I insisted.
“Not yet, he’s new,” Ryder replied. “The more time he spends in this form, the more dangerous he gets. You aren‘t safe with him. Sadie, I have to protect you.”
“Protect me? What year do you think this is?” I snapped. Miller took a small step forward; it didn’t go unnoticed.
“Protecting you is part of it, I can’t go into all the details now,” he said, dropping one hand away from the gun to make a hand gesture to beckon me towards him. Miller seized the opportunity and lunged forward. In one giant stride, I reached out to place my hand on Millers back and closed my eyes. I couldn’t let him kill someone.
I saw a glow of silver light and felt as though Greta was with me, she was helping me with the magic that I didn’t yet understand. I felt air rushing past me, the fur in my hand slipping away. Was I falling? It didn’t feel like I was in the darkness of the tunnel anymore.
The scent of the salty sea air was unmistakable. I was lying on the sandy beach beside my home, the canopy of stars above me twinkling silently as I tried to make sense of what had happened. I didn’t know where Miller was, or Link, or Ryder. I didn’t know what had happened to Link’s brothers, or Greta.
All I could say for certain is that I had been underground, and now I was not. What had I done to get here? Where was everyone else? Who was running towards me now? I tried to hurry onto my feet, but the combination of the magic I had used and the swift movement of standing from a horizontal position caused me to become instantly dizzy. I staggered, then fell as the approaching figure began shouting at me.
20
“I don’t know what to tell you, it’s pretty easy,” Effie laughed. She was demonstrating some sort of magic attack by lining up glass bottles on a brick wall outside the café and having me try to fire at them. It would have been easier to do this with a gun like a regular person, despite the fact that I had never used a firearm.
I took aim again and watched as the glass remained intact. The empty bottle did refill with beer, however.
“That is probably a more useful skill actually,” Effie said, running over to twist off the cap and try the liquid inside. “Dang, it’s delicious. I don’t think there’s anything you can learn from me.”
She looked over her shoulder towards the main street. A few moments later Miller stepped out from behind a building and began to walk in our direction, she must have sensed that he was near. The night that I passed out on the sand, it was Effie that found me. She had sensed I was in trouble and ran to my aid, only to find that I had saved myself. Sort of.
I had been put on bed rest by Fitz, apparently as a dentist he was qualified to make that recommendation, but I had protested. He insisted that I lie down, then had turned into a black cat and curled up by my side. His warm body and loud purring lulled me to sleep and I had slept for the better part of a day.
Miller and I hadn’t had an opportunity to speak since the incident in the tunnel, but Effie had been checking in at the station to see what was happening with Link, so had given me a few updates. It looked like I was about to get the full story.
“Hey Effie, could I speak to Sadie alone?” he asked.
“I’m not her manager,” Effie scoffed. “You should be asking her if she wants to speak to you alone.” He audibly sighed, turned his face towards me and raised an eyebrow. I stepped towards him as Effie yelled some words of warning in the direction of the sheriff.
“How are you?” he asked.
“I’m holding up, how about you?” I replied. He shrugged.
“I’m glad to see you’re feeling better. Dr. Barrow, or Fitz, whatever you’re calling that cat dentist, he told me to come back when you woke up. I figured you would want filling in on the case with Link.”
“Yeah, all I know is that I woke up on the beach as you and Ryder were about to kill each other,” I said. My tone was serious, no one could tell me what had happened in that tunnel except Miller or Ryder, and I hadn’t spoken to either of them since.
“Well, when you left, it seems that you forced us all apart. You landed on the beach here, I woke up on one of the smaller islands in my human form, Ryder was nowhere around so I figure he was on another island all together,” he explained.
“I’ve seen him out and about, but we haven’t spoken. I think he has it in his head that I will be the death of you,” he sighed. “Since this new werewolf situation is here to stay, I decided to work my way back through my family tree with more intensity so that I could learn what might happen next. It isn’t just werewolf ancestors that I have to deal with, but guardians too.”
“Huh?”
“The DNA in Ryder that is forcing him to protect you, it’s in me too. Turns out Ryder and I are distant relatives, everyone around here is related to everyone else one way or another. I moved to the island a few years back because I was called back here for a funeral, I think you were there too,” he said.
I thought back to my only other visit to Hallow Haven prior to moving here. A friend of my adoptive mother had died, and she insisted that I join her for the service. As I thought about it now, it would appear that the woman that had raised me was trying to guide me in this direction all along.
“I came and I never left, I met Effie and Kate, they were some distant cousins, and I took it all at face value, learning more about the island and it’s residents over time made me think that I was going mad, but obviously now I know it was true. Every peacekeeper is assigned a guardian, it seems that you might have been given two somehow,” he sighed.
“What does that mean? What is a guardian?” I asked.
“There is a person that will protect you, it is their duty. I worked with Greta as her colleague, but when I met you, I knew that something was different. I tried to keep my distance, but when I pulled you out of the water, I felt a change, as if something had begun. I feel awkward saying this now, but I thought that you were so... you are so—”
“Are the ends of your sentences good?” I teased.
“There is a lot that I don’t know, so I think we will be learning together,” he smiled. “I just know that Ryder will be on my case now, trying to get closer to you and keep us apart. I think Greta was always hoping that Ryder was her guardian, she hung out with him all day long, it would have made her life easier.”
“Why? Are you allowed to date your guardian?” I asked. I almost instantly started blushing. Miller was protective of me, gorgeous and dedicated to his work. It was a winning combination, if you just push the ‘turns into a wolf sometimes’ issue to one side, but hey, we’ve all got baggage, right?
Ryder on the other hand, well he was handsome, outdoorsy and also protective. If my life here was going to involve two jaw-droppingly attractive men trying to spend time with me then I was all for it. A muffled voice on Miller’s radio caught his attention and it seemed he was needed elsewhere.
“Sadie, I have to go, Link is ready for transfer,” he said. I stared at him blankly. “He finally signed a confession to say that he killed Chris Davick in order to fuel the fire with the family feuding, Greta caught on to him and he killed her too. Dragged her through the tunnels underground and buried her in a shallow grave in the cemetery.”
“So the car crash…?”
“Was a set up,” he nodded. “He was the one that drove her car up the mountain path, rolled it towards a tree and beat it with a golf club to make it look like she’d been in an accident. He pushed the seat back too so you would suspect someone taller than him if you realized she hadn’t crashed. He is the one that can move the rocks by the cave, Simon was following him around because he was worried that Link was the one stalking Rosie.”
“Where are you transferring him to?” I asked.
“There is a prison on a small island beyond Port Wayvern, it will be able to hold him regardless of his powers,” Miller sighed. “He is sorry about Greta, if that makes things any easier. He has no regret of killing Chris, but he wished that Greta hadn’t got caught in the middle of it all.” Miller reached out as if to put a comforting hand on my shoulder, but then pulled back.
I suspected he was still wary of what would happen if we touched. The first time we had made contact, he had become aware of his genetic destiny, then when I grabbed him during the fight underground, he was transported across land and sea in an instant. He was probably right to approach me with caution, but it didn’t make me want his hand on me any less.
He smiled, turned and walked away. I watched as he hurried across the sand so was able to catch him looking back at me over his shoulder. I felt like a teenage girl with a crush and it was electrifying. When I got back into the café there was a bouquet of flowers on the counter and Effie was diligently reading the attached card over and over.
“Are you for real?” she barked. “Ryder is sending you flowers; Miller is being all broody and mysterious on beaches and you can summon beer from nowhere. I give up.” I took the card out of her hands and read the neat cursive. ‘No matter what, Ryder.’
There was no kiss at the end, but somehow those four words were enough. I felt as though any flirtatious activity between Ryder, and I had breezed past me unnoticed, but he had run to my aid the night that Miller came to the house as a wolf and he had taken me up on a hike to find Greta’s car. I must have had my head in the clouds.
“Who was Greta’s guardian?” I asked Effie.
“He’s over there, why don’t you take him this cheesecake he ordered then tell him to get out. That idiot had one job...” she hissed, passing me a plate of dessert, muttering about how early it was to be eating so much sugar, and spinning off into the kitchen.
I looked over in the direction she had pointed in and saw the back of a grey-haired man hunched over a newspaper. I carried the plate over and sat down across from him, slid the cheesecake across the table and waited for him to acknowledge me.
“I wondered when you would think to speak to me,” he grumbled, still reading the paper. “I flew back a day or so ago and was expecting that you would be straight over to my house, but nothing.”
“I’m very new to all of this,” I explained.
“Aren’t we all,” he huffed. “I was Greta’s guardian, and she did something reckless, she didn’t wait for me or the sheriff to accompany her on a trip to the outer islands and she’s been killed because of it.” I didn’t like this guy one bit. He was staring through wire-framed glasses at the article in front of him, one hand reaching over the table to pull his cheesecake closer, I grabbed at the plate and pulled it back towards me.
“You don’t get to blame her for being murdered,” I snapped. “Why weren’t you with her? Why haven’t you introduced yourself to me since I got here?”
He looked up and in an instant I recognized his face. He had been at the funeral all those years ago, those electric blue eyes were impossible to forget. His face had also stared down at me from the family tree in my new house. He had spoken at the service, hadn’t he? He must have been close with the person we were burying that day.
“Greta was my daughter, so I can cope any way I see fit,” he said calmly. “If you want to know the truth about your family, the reasons you were sent away and where everyone is now, then I suggest you ask Greta to take you to our house. She lived here for work but would spend every spare night back with us.”
He pulled at the plate again and I let go. I sat stunned. Did I have more family here? Why hadn’t Greta mentioned that her father lived on the island, that meant I had an uncle. Who had we buried all those years ago?
I still had so much to learn.
Ghost Writer
Book Two
1
“Who on earth would listen to this?” Kate laughed. We were sitting in the café after the rest of the customers had left and the radio was playing a folk song about wheat. Effie and I had been ignoring it as we cleared plates and swept the floor, but as Kate was sitting still with a cup of tea it was all she could focus on.
“Change the station then!” Effie teased.
“Oh shush,” Kate sassed back. I looked at the pair of them with confusion. “Sadie, my sister i
s trying to poke fun because we only have one station on the island. If you don’t like it, your only options are to suffer through it or switch it off.”
“Do you guys not have digital radio here? I thought you could get any station over the internet now,” I suggested.
“Digital radio?” Effie said with a smirk. “I suppose we should all hop in our flying cars and jet off to the moon while we’re at it.”
“My sister isn’t in the biz,” Kate added. “We can get some digital stations, but the signal is shaky at best. I know you are new here, but you will quickly learn that we aren’t that well connected to the world. We still have a VHS rental store on the island, that should tell you everything you need to know.”
“In the biz,” Effie snorted. The two of them started to exchange words that were clearly part of some sisterly secret language, it was fun to watch even though I had no idea what was being said.
I hadn’t been living on the island long, but it already felt like home. I had uprooted myself from Virginia to get away from a bad break up, only to find myself discovering that my life had always been destined for something beyond ordinary.
The café I’d bought had been sold to me by forces that were pulling me here.
I’d always known that I was adopted. As far as I knew my only family was the woman that raised me, so when she died I figured I was alone in the world. I now knew that wasn’t true. The previous owner of the café had been my cousin, Greta. She had been murdered and I had inherited her witch powers and her responsibilities. It was still a lot to wrap my head around.
“Are you in ‘the biz’, Kate?” I asked.
“Why yes, yes I am,” she smiled. “I host—”
“She hosts a show in the middle of the night. Her audience is mostly insomniacs and pets that can’t switch off the radio if their owners leave it on by mistake,” Effie teased.