by Mara Webb
“The point is, yes I work for the radio,” Kate added. “It’s actually a ton of fun and it’s a welcome break from serving pizza to people on the high street.”
Kate worked at ‘Pete’s Za’, and Effie worked with me at ‘The Sand Witch’. They were my unofficial guides into the world of witchcraft. My dead cousin, Greta, was filling in the blanks as she was haunting my new house. I could see ghosts too, it was weird.
“Do you get to meet celebrities?” I asked. Effie began laughing as she picked up a mop to clean the floor.
Her hair was lavender on one half of her head and pink on the other. The color of her bangs changed just above her nose. Both her and Kate had such interesting hair, I wondered how long it would be until I felt brave enough to add a pop of color to my locks.
“Not exactly,” Kate mumbled.
“Kate, take her with you,” Effie hollered from the far side of the café. “Show Sadie around the station and let her push a few buttons. The peacekeeper should know about every part of the island, right?”
I was still getting used to that title. Peacekeeper. That was me, the peacekeeper witch of Hallow Haven. Before me, the role had been filled by Greta. Hallow Haven wasn’t just one island, it was a group of them and each one had its own unique history.
Rivalries were deeply entrenched between the families here, the main island acted as neutral ground, but the smaller islands were occupied by territorial witches and humans. It was my job to keep the peace, make sure treaties were adhered to and diplomatically oversee the activities here.
There were police here of course, it wasn’t a lawless place. The problem was that many of the islanders wanted to be governed by a witch, not the human police. It seemed that I was from a family that had both witches and humans in it; my family tree acted as my credentials for the job.
I had seen a couple of the islands and met a few of the witch families, but I still knew so little about my own heritage. This was a learning curve that was shooting straight to the sky.
“Are you up for that?” Kate asked.
“Sure, do you need me here?” I asked Effie.
“I could have my magic clean this place like that,” Effie replied, clicking her fingers. “But sometimes I like to zone out and do it all manually. It gives me longer to chat to you two, as if I don’t see enough of my sister already. You guys go, I’ll lock up.”
“Thanks, Eff,” I said. I took another stack of plates through to the kitchen and loaded them into the dishwasher before following Kate through the door of the café.
The Sand Witch was the best beach café around, and also the only one. It was built right on the sand and had a steady stream of customers lining up every morning. Even in the short time I had been here, I was starting to recognize people and remembering their breakfast orders.
My arrival had also proved to be a selling point, Effie told me that the sales had increased since I got here as people were dropping in to see what the new peacekeeper was like.
The night air was warm and humid. The sun had set over an hour ago, leaving the beach to be lit up by the stars above us and the faint glow of activity from the high street.
“Are you and Miller official yet?” Kate asked.
“Official?” I said, blushing slightly. “I don’t know… it’s complicated.”
“Complicated? How is it complicated? The hot sheriff is besotted with you and he is obviously a total smoke show. You are the envy of every woman on the island,” Kate smirked.
“Kate! He’s your cousin!”
“Second-cousin!” she corrected. “That doesn’t mean I can’t see that he is the closest thing we have to Ryan Gosling. My eyes still work, Sadie. Come on,” she laughed.
“He’s cute, obviously,” I smiled. “He has a lot going on right now, we haven’t hung out much recently. I haven’t seen him for a few days actually.”
“He’s probably writing you a love song,” Kate said, matter-of-factly.
“What?” I scoffed.
“The station is this way; I’ll explain when we get there. My show is a special one tonight.” We walked down an alley off the main street in town, turning again and again until we reached a wooden door under a rusty streetlamp.
“This looks like the opening scene of a horror movie,” I said, looking anxiously over my shoulder to see if we were followed. Kate knocked three times, then paused, before knocking twice more.
“Secret knock,” she winked. The door swung open and we stepped inside. “What’s up Scott? How’s the leg? Annie! Looking good tonight girl!”
Kate was waving and high fiving people as we walked along a corridor. Everyone seemed thrilled to see her, then they spotted me. They all looked stunned and began whispering among themselves.
“Come on guys, she puts her pants on one cloven hoof at a time, just like everybody else,” Kate teased. The others laughed and then went back to whatever they had been doing before we walked in. “Let me show you something.”
We walked into a small office that was lined with cork boards; hundreds of fliers pinned up advertising past events. The desk had a large piece of card with ‘Battle of the Bands’ elegantly written across the top. The dates were for this week.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“About what?”
“This! The competition! They used to run it every year, but it fizzled out for some reason. I asked if we could bring it back and they said yes!” Kate grinned.
“What we actually said was…” Scott groaned from the doorway, “that you could bring it back as long as you agreed to do all the work. I’ve put in hundreds of hours listening to songs recorded in people’s bathrooms, I can’t take anymore.” He smirked at us both and Kate playfully punched him in the arm.
“Scott, it can’t be that bad,” she laughed.
“It can be, and it is,” he smiled. “We live on an isolated group of islands; do you know just how many songs about sand you are gonna get because of this?”
“You have an airport, don’t people travel?” I asked.
“Ha!” Kate and Scott both guffawed.
“That airport is for tourists,” Kate explained. She looked up at the time on a wall clock. “Oh shoot, I’m supposed to be on air in two minutes!” She grabbed me and pulled me past Scott and through another door.
The room we were now in was obviously the studio. There were microphones on pivoting metal structures hanging from the ceiling, multiple computer screens and a desk covered in buttons. Someone had fitted a strip of blue lights around the edge of the desk that made the whole thing glow like a spaceship.
“Goooood evening Hallow Haven, you are listening to The Trident with me, Kate Knockout. Let’s ease you into the show with a little flute piece that I don’t know the name of,” she crooned. She pulled the headphones back off her head and let out a sigh. “Well that was close. Whoops, mic was still on,” she laughed, pushing a button.
“Kate Knockout?” I said, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah, everyone has cool, alliterative names when they present on the radio. Scott’s name on here is just ‘Single Scott’, he really wants a girlfriend. I picked Knockout thinking it sounded edgy, but I didn’t take into account that the ‘K’ in knockout is silent, so it doesn’t sound alliterative. Oh well. I’m gonna announce the Battle of the Bands tonight, it’s gonna be nuts.”
“You’re announcing it now? It’s so late!” I said.
“Sadie, my show is on through the weirdest part of the night. They said it could only run this year if I took over and this is the only time I can do it! Trust me, enough people on the island listen that word will get around. I have some posters to put up tomorrow too.”
The air over my right shoulder started to feel cold. I turned to see the hazy outline of Greta, my dead cousin, forming behind me. Seeing ghosts was strange, but thankfully she was the only one I’d seen so far, no scary specters had visited me yet.
“What’s up, man?” Kate cheered. “Long time no spook.
”
“I’ve been busy,” Greta explained. “Who knew that being dead would mean being more active than when I was alive?”
“Are you here for the Battle of the Bands?” I laughed. “You could write something really fantastical about the afterlife.”
“You don’t even want to know what the afterlife is like,” she sighed. “But yeah, I know Kate is excited about it. I’m here to support. Go get ‘em, Knockout!”
I gave Kate an encouraging high five as the flute solo was drawing to an end and the sound engineer on the other side of some soundproof glass began waving frantically.
“You’re back with Knockout, and I am about to deliver the most epically awesome news of the year. Brace yourselves. The Battle of the Bands is back, baby! If you are a budding musician looking for your break, this could be the moment you’ve been waiting for.
“We are giving one lucky winner the opportunity to have their song played on prime time, a full day in a recording studio paid for by us, and a headline slot at the music festival weekend. This is huge! To enter, you need to submit a recording of an original song to us, either through the mail or via the website, and we will be judging with non-other than our very own resident peacekeeper, Sadie Alden!”
I almost fell over.
“What?!” I mouthed at her.
“Oh you guys, she is so excited to hear your stuff. Tell your friends, tell your parents, tell your weird neighbors. The competition is officially open!”
The phone on the desk was covered with a number of buttons that were now all flashing with incoming calls.
“Oh boy, you’re in for a rough week,” Greta laughed. “I was roped into this once, I probably should have warned you.”
“How bad can it be?” I said.
I was about to find out.
2
After spending half an hour listening to Kate answering phone calls live on air, I had left the studio and wandered back home. My house was attached to the café on the beach, and Effie had already locked up and left by the time I arrived.
I had crawled into bed and set my alarm for the morning. I knew that we had a big day of baking ahead of us, so I wanted to get an early start. It wasn’t my alarm that woke me up, however. Someone was knocking on the door.
I opened one eye and strained to look at the clock on my nightstand. It seemed my alarm hadn’t gone off, it had to be Effie knocking to see where I was.
“Oh, shoot,” I muttered. I yelled, “Coming down now!” as I rushed around getting dressed. The island was humid almost all of the time. Thankfully the house had air conditioning, but as soon as I stepped outside, I would be hit with the heat. I put on the shorts that had almost become my uniform for the café, and a t-shirt.
I tried to remember what Greta had taught me about using my magic for trivial things, like hairstyling. Standing in front of my reflection, I focused on the tangled mess that was sitting on my head. The scrunchie floated away from me and my hair became suddenly straight and up in a perfect ponytail.
“Thanks!” I whispered gratefully to the ceiling. Maybe there was a witchy god up there, looking out for me.
I sprinted down the stairs and realized that the knocking was coming from the front door, not the door that connected my house to the café. It didn’t make sense for Effie to have walked out onto the sand and around the entire building. My hallway had a door out onto the beach, and one into the café kitchen. Who was knocking then?
I pulled the door back and saw Sheriff Miller standing there in all his uniformed glory. He hadn’t shaved in a few days and his beard had grown in dark, making his face look even more chiseled than before.
“M…Miller,” I stuttered.
“Hey Sadie, sorry to bother you so early,” he said. “You’re needed off the mainland; we have an incident.”
Miller had discovered that he was my guardian, something about my arrival had triggered some mystic, genetic destiny for him and we were both still trying to figure out what that meant. Well, figuring out that and the fact that he was a werewolf. It was complicated.
“Incident? Like what?” I said.
“I’ll fill you in on the boat. I went to the café first to look for you, so Effie knows we have to go.”
“Okay,” I muttered. I wanted to ask a million questions, but it seemed as though he wanted to walk in silence. Unfortunately for Miller, that was when Fitz decided to show up. Fitz was my familiar and one of the strangest creatures I had ever met.
“Good morning, gang!” he purred. He was a cat, or at least he was a cat right now. He could shift between forms and apparently chose to live half of his life in human form as a dentist. I know; weird.
“Hey, Fitz,” Miller said.
“Where have you been?” I asked. “I’ve been leaving cream out for you and you haven’t visited in days!”
“Sadie, Sadie, Sadie,” Fitz laughed, weaving between my legs as I walked along the sand. “A busy guy like me can’t be tied down to one plate of cream, I’ve got dairy suppliers all over this island.”
“Is that a euphemism for something?” Miller smirked. It was the first smile I’d seen on him today and I felt better for having seen it.
“Sheriff, I don’t know what you are implying! A few people on the island think I’m a stray, so they feed me up and give me tickles. Mrs. Winter doesn’t even know she is giving tuna flakes to the man that fitted her veneers last week!”
“I thought you were supposed to be helping me with my magic, Fitz,” I said. He looked up at my stern expression.
“Oh yeah, I forgot that you are new to all this. Eesh, my bad. I am such a scatter brain when I’m in cat form. How about I hang out with you all day today? I don’t have any patients until tomorrow afternoon,” he purred.
“It is so freaky that you are my dentist,” Miller laughed.
“It’s pretty freaky that you turn into a wolf under the full moon, but I don’t hear anyone making fun of you!” Fitz grunted. There was a moment of silence as Miller stopped walking and stared down at Fitz, clearly working through a series of responses to find something appropriate. He thought better of it and turned to keep walking towards the marina.
“Where are we headed?” I asked.
“Wilmore,” Miller replied. It meant nothing to me as a name, but Fitz seemed to have a strong reaction to it. I had only visited two of the islands off the mainland so far. The others were much smaller and required less supervision, apparently.
“Oooh, oh this is going to be crazy,” Fitz said, leaping about like a grasshopper. “Oh Sadie, are you ready for this? I should have brought a camera… oh wait!” A polaroid camera appeared in front of Fitz and he slipped the strap over his head and wore it like a necklace. “I don’t want to miss a second of this. Wait until Mrs. Winter hears about this one!”
“Fitz, this stays private or you don’t get to come,” Miller instructed.
“What is Wilmore?” I said, still confused. No one answered as we were almost at the boats. Miller ran into a small hut on the beach to sign the travel book. It was an old-school way of tracking people’s movements which had been rendered almost totally useless after we discovered that there was an underground tunnel network connecting the islands. Miller was probably the only one still using it.
“Wilmore is the island where Greta’s father lived. We’ve been called over by your uncle,” Miller explained.
Now Fitz’s reaction made sense. I had met my uncle in the café a few days after I arrived. He had been Greta’s guardian, and now he was my best chance of finding out about my family. He had told me that if I wanted to find out the truth then I needed to head to the family home, but I hadn’t been brave enough to go yet. He must be taking matters into his own hands.
“Don’t tell me we are taking that thing,” Fitz sulked. Miller was already climbing into a small rowboat that didn’t look sea-worthy enough to get us there without sinking. I could hear his shoes splashing in a shallow puddle of water inside it, that wasn’t a good
sign.
“This, or you swim,” Miller smiled at Fitz.
“It’s a good job you’re cute, I doubt you’d get half the attention you get now if you were relying on your personality,” Fitz jibed back.
I was skeptical about the boat too, but Miller seemed confident enough, so I climbed in and sat on the horizontal plank opposite from him. Fitz leapt in from the sand to avoid stepping into the shallow water of the sea and landed on my lap.
“Can’t we take the motorboat?” I asked.
“I already checked; it looks like the boats are all out for the day with some tourists looking for swordfish. I have been on this island for years and I’ve never heard of anybody seeing one, but good luck to them!” Miller chuckled. “I’ll row us there, don’t worry.”
“We could take turns,” I offered.
“Shhh,” Fitz hissed. “Let him do the work! Jeez, I didn’t realize you needed training in magic and how to get people to do stuff for you. My first piece of advice would be: turn yourself into an animal. That way you get all sorts of strangers telling you that you have a gorgeously glossy coat and a button nose, you get food for free and you are usually warm enough all the time.”
“Great advice,” Miller grumbled.
“Is this because of the werewolf thing? Do you not want us to mention the werewolf thing? Let me know if you want us to not be bringing up the werewolf thing because we could totally stop. It must be crazy that you are a werewolf though, right? I mean, you have been a werewolf the whole time, but you were just dormant until you met Sadie. Dormant, like a volcano. Hey, did you know that more than 80% of the earth’s surface is volcanic in origin? I read it on a candy wrapper.”
“Fitz,” I pleaded. “Let’s maybe enjoy the sound of the water or something other than your voice.”
“Water sounds gross, but fine,” he grumbled. He turned around on my lap a few times then curled up in a ball to rest. Miller had finally begun to row us away from the shore and I felt the tension subside. Fitz had said the word ‘werewolf’ about forty times already today and it was now the elephant in the room, or rather the elephant in the boat.