by Mara Webb
The sea air rolled across the hills and reminded me of beach holidays as a kid. It was calming. I hadn’t even notice that we were approaching a house until Miller coughed to get my attention. It was small, like a cottage almost. As we walked into the house we both had to bow our heads to avoid colliding with the beam above the door.
“I bet this isn’t what you imagined my place looked like,” he laughed. “It’s getting dark. I would love to give you a proper tour and everything, seeing as I have been in your house a dozen times already, but the moon is gonna be doing its thing soon.”
“Sure,” I said, following him through into a room off the hallway that was empty apart from the cage he had described. “Well this sure is a sad sight.”
“Yeah,” he chuckled. There was no other furniture in the room, the window was sealed off with a thick black blanket that he had nailed to the wall and he had left a few snacks inside the cage, presumably to ward off any violent hunger than might show up. “I could do with reading about how my werewolf ancestors dealt with it all, but for now it’s this.”
Miller removed his shoes and unbuttoned his shirt. I couldn’t help but stare at the bronzed skin beneath, looking away just as he caught me staring. He dropped onto all fours and crawled in.
“Are you sure about this? Do you have your cellphone to call me in case you need anything?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m sure. Thank you for this, Sadie. I promise that I will try and get a handle on things, I just don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“I know.” I closed the door behind him and clicked the padlock shut, slipping the key into my shorts pocket. “Do you want me to stay for a while?”
“You’ve got stuff to do, don’t worry about me. I mean, if you see a big dog-looking thing running at you then do worry about that,” he grinned. I reached through the bars to rest my hand on top of his.
“This is weird, but I am still excited about this cliff-top dinner you have planned,” I laughed. “I’ll be back soon.”
I was barely at the front door when Greta appeared beside me and started talking at a thousand miles an hour.
“Word on the street is that now Mrs. Hall is dead too!” she began. “Which is a big problem, right? Like, how does this affect the ritual that is happening? Where is Jake’s body still? How do we find a body when it could be on any one of the islands or even in the ocean!”
“Slow down!” I insisted. “I have this letter, I need to match the writing to something, but I don’t know where to start. I was going to see if it matched the notes in Jake’s apartment.”
I unfolded the letter from my pocket and held it out for Greta to read.
“What is this?” she asked, staring curiously at the note.
“A love letter to Jake’s wife,” I replied.
“Looks like some crummy song lyrics to me,” she huffed. I looked again at what I was holding; it was the piece of paper I had taken from Max’s desk. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the love letter and crouched down to smooth them both out on the ground next to each other. The handwriting was the same.
Was Max having an affair with Jake’s wife?
15
Greta accompanied me all the way back to the main part of the high street. Miller’s house hadn’t been all that far away from the places I recognized, and with my cousin guiding the way, the journey was short. It seemed that Greta had plenty of opinion’s about Effie’s ex-boyfriend. Now that he had been revealed as the key part of the whole problem we were facing, she felt free to let all of those suppressed thoughts loose.
“Honestly, I always knew she could do better than him. The whole island knew that he was a leech, but Effie was so enamored that she wouldn’t hear our warnings. We figured we should just let it play out,” she moaned. “When he tried his hand at some magic though, that was when we knew that something had to give. Luckily Effie recognized that Max was waving the biggest red flag of all time and got out of there.”
I walked in the direction of The Guitar Yard. Now that we were under the glare of the streetlights, I could see that the high street was still buzzing quietly into the night. No one seemed phased by Greta floating beside me, but I wasn’t sure how many people could actually see her.
“What about your love life?” I asked. “Did you date any crazy people that are going to show up as some super villain in a few weeks?” I smirked, waiting for Greta to give me sass back. It didn’t come.
“Probably best we don’t delve into that right now…” she muttered. “Where are we headed anyway? Where’s your guardian?”
“Look up,” I said, gesturing towards the moonlit sky.
“Ahh, gotcha. What about Ryder?”
“He is probably hiking around in the mountains looking for something to blame Miller for,” I shrugged.
“You aren’t getting along? Honestly, I would have given my left arm for Ryder to look at me the way he looks at you, I can’t get my head around the fact that you haven’t proposed to him yet,” she laughed.
“I mean, he’s cute for sure,” I said. “But I have to work with Miller almost every day. Ryder seems to hate him, so it puts me in an awkward position.”
“I don’t see why that means you can’t give him a sneaky kiss when no one is looking,” she winked. She lifted her hand up to receive a high-five then obviously thought better of it as my hand would have passed straight through her.
I stood facing the store façade of Jake’s business. A sound behind me caught my attention and I turned to watch the islanders going about their business, despite the hour.
I always thought it was huge cities that were famed for having a twenty-four energy, but here on this island there were people shopping and eating hours after the sun had set.
There was a guy in a floral short-sleeved shirt, tan shorts and flipflops walking hand in hand with a woman in a fur-trim coat and snow boots as they turned to step into a restaurant. How could they be dressed so differently for the weather? It was such a strange place.
“Are we going in?” Greta asked. She began to float through the crime scene tape and into the building. I wondered for a moment why the tape was still there. Hallow Haven didn’t have any CSI team on the way, there would be no one checking out the store for forensic evidence. Maybe they just had to leave it up until the glass was repaired.
I ducked under the tape and followed her through the open door. Had it been left open like this? Obviously with the windows smashed up it was hardly necessary to close the door as potential thieves could climb inside anyway, but I don’t remember the door being open.
“This place is creepier at night,” I muttered. “I know there isn’t a dead body in here anymore, but it’s still spooky.”
“Are you frightened that the people that stole Jake’s body might come back and get you?” Greta asked.
“Well I am now, thanks!”
I walked through the store to the back stairs that led up to Jake’s apartment. I wouldn’t get the opportunity to speak to his wife about this place now, we wouldn’t know why this was a secret he hid from her. Unless…
“Hey, how come I haven’t seen Jake’s ghost anywhere?” I asked.
“Hmm, well I suppose that—” she cut herself off mid-sentence as footsteps creaked in the apartment above. Someone was up there.
I paused on the stairs, reluctant to climb higher as there was obviously an intruder in the building. It couldn’t be Jake, because even if his ghost had shown up, it wouldn’t be making any noise when he walked. Unless he was now some sort of zombie. Great. Now that idea was lodged into my head and my imagination was getting ahead of itself.
“What do we do?” I whispered.
“You’re the peacekeeper! You go in there and tell them they shouldn’t be snooping around a dead man’s house! You have authority,” she replied.
“So did you, and you got murdered because you approached a killer by yourself without your guardian!” I squeaked.
“Good point,” she nodded. “We
ll if someone tries to kill you then I will spook them big time and you can run back out the door, deal?”
“Hello?” a voice boomed. The apartment door was open slightly and clearly the conversation between Greta and me wasn’t as quiet as I had thought. “Hello, who’s there?”
“Oh!” Greta grinned. She suddenly rushed up the stairs towards the door and then I heard a lot of noises that sounded like shrieking, laughter and panic all rolled into one. What?
I ran up after her, not for a second thinking that there could be a madman in the apartment with a bayonet or a shotgun. I was pleasantly relieved to see what was going on, then immediately confused.
Standing in the middle of Jake’s apartment was Walter Alden, my uncle. He was also Greta’s father, so they were having a moment. They had a strange relationship; he had been her guardian but had been absent when she went exploring by herself and was killed as part of some family feud on one of the outer islands.
I didn’t know if they had seen each other since her murder, or where he had been since his housekeeper had reported the whole family missing.
“What are you doing here!?” I blurted. My voice put an abrupt end to their enthused conversation. Walter was a grey-haired man with a short, dense grey beard and a stern brow. The last time we had met he had been so serious; curt in his responses and less than happy to see me. He was smiling from ear to ear with Greta by his side. Had I misjudged him?
“I could ask you the same thing! Oh, what a pleasant surprise!” he beamed. “You know I couldn’t have predicted that my day would end like this, I mean I could have, obviously.”
What did that mean?”
“Why are you in Jake Hall’s apartment?” I asked. “Where have you been this whole time?”
“All in good time,” he replied. He stepped sideways to the sofa and collapsed down into it, then patted the seat beside him. “Come and sit with me, I hear it’s been busy.”
I was hesitant, but Greta nodded her head towards her father. She suddenly faded into the air and disappeared, leaving Walter and I alone.
“You shouldn’t be out at night by yourself,” he cautioned, some of the severity returning to his face for a flash. “I know Greta was with you, but she can’t defend you as well as your guardian can.”
“I have two guardians actually,” I mumbled.
“I heard, yet neither of them is with you. What’s that about?” he scolded in a fatherly way.
“It’s a complicated story,” I replied.
“Ah yes, the moon. I suppose you have one guardian in chains somewhere for the safety of the island, right? What about the other?”
“I don’t actually know where he is,” I confessed.
“Sadie, believe me when I say that, well I don’t mean to worry you, but there are people around here that would gladly do you harm. The outer islands can be a lawless place, some families are out for global domination, some are squabbling about fishing restrictions and others are arguing about hedge size.
“People turn to you for guidance, diplomacy and justice. You will win more friends than enemies, I’m sure. But you must be careful,” he warned. His face softened with a smile and the wrinkles around his eyes deepened. He had thick, black framed glasses, but I could still see the familiar crystal blues behind the lenses.
“You still haven’t told me why you are here?” I said, finally sitting down beside him.
“Well, Jake and I have a history,” he sighed.
“Are you about to reveal yourself as his killer? Because that is going to make for a really uncomfortable conversation,” I smiled.
“Oh no, goodness no. I didn’t kill him. I heard about what happened and I couldn’t stay away any longer. We’ve had our ups and downs, but I never expected that this would be the end of the story.”
“Are you going to elaborate? Or do I have to keep prodding?” I teased.
“Jake was in love with your mother. Always had been, from the day they met at school probably right up to his last breath,” Walter said, looking away from me as he spoke. He was staring through the window to the glow of the high street and in the silence, I could just about hear people laughing down on the sidewalk.
“They were together?” I asked.
“No. You see, your mom had her sights set on a different guy. Jake watched on as she fell in love and married someone else, his heartbreak was obvious to everyone. He would send her love letters every day for years, poems, flowers, songs. He didn’t stop sending them even after she moved away from here, even after you were born. He himself got married, but the letters didn’t stop.”
“Did his wife know?” I asked.
“I’m sure she did, at least on some level. He has so many letters here that are draft versions of ones that were sent to the house. Tapes of songs he wrote, too.” He handed me a cassette and I recognized the word ‘Nobody’. He had sent in the song to Kate’s competition that we had all loved so much.
“I felt bad for the guy,” Walter continued. “But I told him to back of so many times. He was head over heels for her, he’s been living with a broken heart his whole life.”
That would have made him perfect for the sacrifice ritual. Urgh. It still felt weird to be talking about my real mom. She was such a foreign concept to me; someone I had never met and had no memory of. She was real, she had lived on this very island, but then something had happened, and she’d left here and given me away.
A sudden burst of music blasted out from behind sofa and caused us both to flinch. Walter, more prepared than me, leapt onto his feet and turned to face the sound. He had his hands raised as if he were preparing to engage in a fist fight.
“Show yourself!” Walter yelled. I stood up too, wondering what my move would be if someone rushed at us. I knew I had magic, but I wasn’t skilled with it yet. Walter would have to defend both of us. Why hadn’t I let Ryder know where I was going?
There was a radio on the nightstand beside the bed, nestled among piles of notebooks. A silver figure emerged in the dark corner of the room and stepped forward into the light. I recognized him instantly as Jake. His ghost was here.
Walter lowered his arms into a neutral position, but I remained tense.
“Do you hear this?” Jake asked. “I can’t believe it.”
He pointed to the radio and I glanced quickly at the wall clock. It was time for Kate’s show at The Trident, this was an entry for Battle of the Bands. The voice was familiar.
“Don’t think that I’ll forget, that binding choice you will regret, I’ll do whatever it takes because I know what’s at stake,” the band sang.
“I wrote that for her, I wrote everything for her!” Jake sobbed. “You look just like her you know.” He was staring right at me now and I realized that the words the band were singing were lines from one of the love letters Jake had written. It was Max’s voice. I gasped as I put two and two together. Max had stolen Jake’s words for his own song.
“Exactly,” Jake sighed. “But it’s going to get worse. They are back at that clearing on the hill and we have to stop them before they kill again.”
What on earth was going on?
16
Jake announcing that the band were back up on the hill made everything feel even more real. Not only had Max and his buddies set up the clearing with the intention of carrying out some dark magic ritual, it seemed that they were trying to do more.
The radio continued to play as I desperately tried to form a plan in my mind. Kate’s voice began speaking as the song trailed off. “And as you know, I hate that song. But thanks to many faithful listeners calling in to request it every twenty minutes, I’ve been forced by the owner of the station to play it again. Are you happy now?” she barked.
“What do we do?” I asked. Jake looked back at Walter for an answer, but Walter was looking at me with a blank expression. He shrugged apologetically.
“I don’t really know what’s going on, what clearing is he talking about?” Walter asked.
; “Oh yeah, I forget that you weren’t here. Didn’t Greta fill you in?” I said.
“She was just here for a few minutes, but I haven’t spoken to her in days,” he replied.
“Some humans are trying their hand at dark magic to propel their music into the mainstream so that they can get famous. It sounds ridiculous, I appreciate that, but that’s what’s happening. They had Effie’s book and—”
“The black one with the gold on the front?” Walter asked. I nodded. “That’s all I needed to know. Come on.”
“Wait, you want to go up there with just the two of us?” I said. This felt like a situation where Kate and Effie would be needed. I didn’t actually know if they were good with their magic or if they would be able to make any difference to our attempts to stop the ritual, but they seemed confident enough.
“No, we should take your guardian,” he replied.
I paused. It would have to be Ryder. I wasn’t sure how to contact him if he wasn’t in the store, and it would be crazy for a hiking place to be open at this time of night. But the time didn’t seem to be stopping any other business on the high street, so maybe there was a chance.
Walter and I thundered down the stairs into The Guitar Yard, raced toward the door and faced down the street towards ‘Opt Out’, Ryder’s workplace. Even from a distance I could see that the lights were on.
“This way,” I instructed, my feet pounding on the sidewalk as we hurried. It was only a hundred yards or so but mixed with the adrenaline rush that was flooding my system I was rendered almost breathless. Ryder was hanging crampons on the wall when we entered, and I could see the concern in his eyes when he saw us.
“Sadie?” he said. “Wha- what’s happening?”
“We need to get back up to that clearing, right now,” I wheezed, clutching my side as a stitch kicked in. “Can you get us there? I don’t know if I can do it in the dark.”