Hallow Haven Cozy Mysteries Bundle Books 1-3

by Mara Webb

  “Wh—” I gasped.

  “Oh, hey Sadie,” the police officer smiled. It was as if we hadn’t had a confrontation on this very hill hours earlier, like it was all water under the bridge.

  “What are you guys doing?” I asked. I was lying on the rock and had a terrible feeling that I wasn’t here for a social visit.

  “Well we tried our ritual with Jake, it didn’t really work. Or maybe it did, but not quick enough. Then we tried it with the wife,” Max explained. I was already so irritated that he had referred to Mrs. Hall as ‘the wife’, that I was struggling to pay attention. “But you obviously came and interrupted the whole thing. Now it looks like there is some last-minute entry to the contest and he’s gonna pull the rug from under us.”

  “But who would know better what to do than the peacekeeper?” Tim said. “You don’t want there to be any more trouble, do you? So why don’t you help us get what we want and then everything will be good again?”

  “Yeah, just let us win this thing, get rich and fly off on a world tour on our private plane. You’d never have to worry about us again!” Max smiled.

  “Your plan is to just ask me if I will ignore that you killed two people?” I said.

  “Well technically we only killed Jake, or rather I did,” Max nodded. “Evie actually killed herself. Tim and Evie were sort of together, it was part of the plan so that Jake would find out and become heartbroken and then we could use his tortured, artist soul for our spell. It turns out he was in love with someone else anyway, and then Tim broke it off with her and she took an overdose.”

  “Yeah, that one was rough,” the police officer nodded.

  “Where are the bodies? Where are they both?” I asked.

  “We just put them at Tim’s house,” Max replied. “We figured we could give them a proper burial later on, you know, to be respectful.”

  “You think anything you’ve done is respectful?” I huffed.

  “I had some feelings for Evie, I’m not a total monster,” Tim said defensively. “I wrote her letters! I even tried to write her a love song during one of our jam sessions a few weeks back, didn’t I?” he asked Max. Max nodded in agreement and I realized that it had been Tim’s handwriting on the scraps of paper on Max’s desk.

  “Wait, so you were dating Evie Hall before you met Kate?” I asked. “Did you think what would happen to you if Kate found out about this? If I were you, I’d be begging to be in jail right now. When Kate gets her hands on you, oof!” I was smiling now.

  Something shiny flew through the air above us and hit a tree behind Max. The four of them turned to see what it was, a crossbow arrow. It was wedged into the trunk of a tree, just beneath a Dictaphone that was balanced in a nook. Ryder stepped forward from the tree line with his crossbow aimed at Max, the other three turned to run before stopping abruptly.

  A large silhouette was patrolling the clearing, it was snarling and growling enough that none of them wanted to get any closer.

  “Now that we have your confessions, you guys are done,” I said, sitting up on the rock with my legs dangling off the edge.

  “Hang on a second,” Max said, holding his hands up in surrender. “I think there’s been a mistake. I’m sure that Effie, my dear sweet Effie, will tell you that she gave me the book and that I was just following orders. I swear, she made me do all these things. She threatened me! If anyone is dangerous on this island, then it’s—”

  “You snake!” Effie screeched as she ran towards him. “I can’t believe I even thought that we might get back together! You dirty liar, you thief, you… you killer! How dare you try and blame me for this! You stole my book!”

  She was batting at him with a big stick and he was cowering. “Okay, okay!” he pleaded. Tim was looking nervous, and understandably so. Kate had just stepped into view beside Ryder. It was clear from the look on her face that she was furious, and that Tim was the focus of that anger.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw the beastly silhouette transform into a human one and Miller walked towards the group. He pulled handcuffs out of his back pocket and began to restrain the police officer, then the drummer who had never introduced himself.

  Max was still being screamed at by Effie.

  “Aren’t you going to arrest me?” Tim asked. “Don’t you think I should be in a big, concrete prison cell?”

  “Oh no, you get a head start,” Miller smirked, gesturing towards Kate. “I’ll let Kate have a little conversation with you first, and I’ll come and drag you down to the station later.”

  “Wait, what?” Tim said. Kate began charging at him with her eyes red like fire. He screamed and started to run towards the trees. I’d hate to be him right now. More police officers approached and took the men in handcuffs away, finally prizing Max away from Effie’s verbal assault and taking him too.

  Ryder looked at me, then back at Miller. Did he know that we’d kissed? There was a sadness in his eyes as he turned and walked away down the hill. Before I could consider saying anything to him, Miller came over to hug me close.

  “Easy tiger,” I laughed in his ear.

  “When you disappeared, I thought that I’d done something wrong. Maybe I’d scared you away and you’d zapped yourself to another one of the islands. Kate and Effie came barging into the café, they’d sensed something was up and knew just where to look for you,” he explained.

  “What about the tape recorder?” I said.

  “I think Ryder put it there under Walter’s instructions,” he replied. Music started to boom from the beach down below and we both looked towards the sound.

  “We should be down there,” I smiled. Miller leaned close to kiss me on the forehead and I felt the world go quiet for just a second. I wanted to linger in the moment a little longer.

  As we walked down the hill, I could hear Scott’s voice over the microphone announcing Doe as the winner of the competition. The response from the gathered crowd was a mix of cheers and whistles, with a few groans from the other contestants that had lost.

  I wondered what Damon would think of his newfound fame. I had suggested he play to the crowd at the music festival with his back to the audience, that way they would never see his face. Somewhere I could still hear Tim’s yelling as Kate continued to scream at him.

  These islands were strange and often dangerous, but they were never boring. I still had so much to ask Walter about. I needed to know more about my family, about the magic I now possessed and the islands that I now had to protect.

  A boom roared out into the sky and Miller grabbed my hand, pulling me down to the ground as he shielded my body. Screams echoed from the beach. It sounded like a cannon had fired into the air. It boomed again. Somewhere across the water, on one of the outer islands, it seemed war had broken out.

  What now?

  Witch in the Water

  Book Three

  1

  Another boom roared. Miller was still covering me with his body as the sound of panic echoed across the beach, but then a familiar voice shouted my name.

  “Sadie! There you are,” Kate laughed. I looked up from under Miller’s arm and saw my friend standing tall above us. “It sounds like you guys are about to be busy. They haven’t kicked things off like this in a very long time, truly one for the books this one!”

  “Why are you laughing?” I said, muffled by the weight of the officer who was still shielding me. I wriggled and struggled against his limbs so that I could stand up, I could sense that he was on edge trying to figure out what was making the sound.

  “I’m laughing because you guys are acting as if there are planes dropping explosives onto the island,” she laughed. Kate’s emerald bangs had grown out a little and kept falling over her eyes, it meant that she kept awkwardly flicking her head to the side to shake them out of her way. The rest of her hair was jet black. Her and her sister loved hair dye equally.

  “What is making that noise then?” I asked, looking over at the smoke billowing out from one of the distant isl
ands across the water. “Is there a fire? Do they have gas cannisters over there? Is it a volcano?”

  “Oh man, you city folk,” she scoffed. “I thought you knew that most of the families on the Hallow Haven islands are low key at war with every other family. We get to live on the main island because we are all neutral parties, for the most part…”

  Her eyes glazed over, and she got lost in a daydream, her lip curling like a dog snarling at the mailman. I guess she was secretly feuding with someone too.

  Even though I’d only lived her for a short time, it felt like a lifetime ago that I’d boarded the flight from Virginia that brought me here. My first few days had been more action packed than the decades that had preceded them, and it hadn’t slowed down since.

  I’d found out I was a witch, that I had family here and that I was the peacekeeper for the whole group of islands. It was all quite a shock after growing up with my adopted mother as a regular, human woman. The peacekeeper was a role that was handed down through my family and the previous peacekeeper, my cousin Greta, had been murdered for interfering with one of the many feuds that consumed folk around here.

  I’d bought a café on the beach and thought I was buying myself a one-way ticket to an easy life. I was way off the mark with that one. Miller, the sheriff that presided over the islands, had been taking me down to the beach to watch the winner of the local Battle of the Bands performing on stage. Even the radio contest had ended with fighting and a murder. The whole place was very dramatic.

  “Sadie! There you are,” Effie shouted. Kate’s sister was now barreling towards us from the sand and her colorful locks were shining brighter than ever in the fading sunlight. “Did you guys hear those explosions?” she asked.

  “The ones that made the ground shake?” I asked. “Yeah, yeah we heard them very clearly,” I replied sarcastically.

  “Alright, well I was just checking,” she smiled. “Honestly I hear random explosions so often now that I can sometimes just tune them out. It’s like if you lived near an airport, I guess you’d just be able to ignore the sound of roaring jet engines after a while.”

  “It’s kind of a problem that everyone thinks this amount of petty fighting is normal,” I sighed. “But I guess I have to go see what’s going on.”

  “It’s getting dark though,” Miller said.

  “Every night, like clockwork,” Kate teased, high fiving her sister as they both laughed at Miller’s expense.

  “You know what I mean. We’d have to cross the water fast to get there before it’s totally pitch-black outside,” he explained.

  “I’m sure you can get the fast boat over there,” Effie said. “You guys are the sheriff and the peacekeeper! Just because the last time you tried to leave the island your boat sank, doesn’t mean that would happen again…probably…”

  “On that reassuring note, let’s go,” I smiled.

  “Hey, both of those islands have tiny hotels. I’m talking bed and breakfast level, maybe even just a few hammocks actually,” Effie grinned.

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” I nodded. I had no idea how that would work, me staying overnight on one of the outer islands. As the peacekeeper, my every move was monitored by the people that lived in Hallow Haven. If I stayed somewhere other than the main island, then it would look like I was showing preference to one family and then the other families would get annoyed. It would open a whole can of worms.

  Miller went to reach out for my hand again but thought better of it as we weren’t alone. Kate and Effie were my closest friends on the island, no doubt, but they would make fun of us mercilessly if they realized our relationship had progressed. We hadn’t even really been on a first date yet, but that wouldn’t matter to them. We wanted to keep our secret for a little while longer.

  That was obviously easier said than done. Kate was something of a mind reader, one of the bonus powers she had alongside her general witch stuff. She looked at both of us and her eyes grew wide. I could see that she was about to blurt out what she had learned from my thoughts, but I shook my head. It was a silent request to keep it to herself. Surprisingly, she nodded and didn’t say a word.

  “Sadie! There you are,” another voice called out. This time it was Ryder. “Did you hear those explosions just now? I thought maybe it was… oh,” he said, trailing off. I knew what he was about to say. Ryder and I also seemed to have a connection, some strange magical force that pulled me towards him. It was a weird love-triangle that I was caught in the middle of.

  I had chosen Miller or was at least in the early stages of choosing. Both of them were my guardians; a role that was thrust upon them by their genetic destiny. Or so I’m told. Greta’s guardian had been her own father, my Uncle Walter. Somehow, I’d hit the jackpot of being protected by the two hottest guys around. What a shame.

  Ryder had no doubt been about to tell me that Miller had set off a bomb or something. If anything went wrong around here, Ryder jumped to the conclusion that it was Miller’s fault. There were a few reasons for this; the first was possibly due to the fact that both of them were trying to date me and it was a rivalry thing, the second and more obscure reason was because of what Miller was. More specifically what Miller became under a full moon.

  Miller was a werewolf. Ryder came from a family of werewolf hunters. The dilemma here was obvious, but I was trying to keep everybody calm about it. I knew that it was taking a great deal of strength for Ryder to overcome the urge to shoot Miller on the spot, he truly believed he was a danger to the community. His main concern, however, was that he thought Miller was a danger to me.

  As my guardian, Ryder was compelled to protect me. The fact that I was now romantically pursuing a werewolf was naturally problematic for him.

  “You were about to blame me for those explosions?” Miller asked.

  “Well, if the shoe fits…” Ryder mumbled.

  “What? That doesn’t even make sense!” Miller replied.

  “Alright, enough!” I said, pressing my hands to my face in disbelief that they had turned this around into another argument. “Can you both just focus on the fact that there is something bad happening in that direction?” I pointed out across the water. “Not everything is about you!”

  “She’s right. Neither of you are the center of the universe,” Effie smirked. “You hotties really think you run the whole world, I’m sick of it.”

  “Yeah!” Kate cheered, reaching out for another high five with her sister.

  “Can everyone focus?” I said. “Look, Miller, we need to get to the boats. Ryder, can you run over to the police station and tell them where we are going?”

  “Where are you going?” Ryder asked.

  “That’s a good point, I don’t actually know,” I sighed.

  “Over there you have Green Holt and Skerry,” Effie explained. “Two islands that are obnoxiously close together and the people on each island hate the people on the other one. Standard stuff around here.”

  “Great, well Ryder can go and relay that information to the rest of the police and we will head out before the sun is fully down,” I said.

  “What should I do?” Effie asked. “Just kidding, I’m headed back to the café. Kate you coming?”

  “You bet! After the day I’ve had I could use a waffle the size of my head,” Kate smiled. They both skipped off arm in arm and I turned back to see Ryder staring at me.

  “I don’t like this,” he muttered. Of course he didn’t. I was running off to some tiny islands with his love rival.

  “I know, I’ll be careful,” I smiled. Ryder jogged up the high street towards the police station and Miller and I started to power walk to the beach.

  “You’ve not visited Green Holt or Skerry yet, have you?” Miller asked. He was in better shape than me, so was able to hold a conversation while moving quickly without sounding out of breath.

  “Boat…” I wheezed. The twilight hours on Hallow Haven were no cooler than the rest of the day. It was hot and humid here almost all the time a
nd to be running in this heat was borderline torturous.

  By the time we got to the marina the explosions had stopped. Miller ran into the little wooden booth on the sand to grab the keys to the powerboat and sign ourselves out. No one else was still filling out the logbook, but Miller was trying to keep it going.

  It had been designed to track movement of people between the islands in an effort to reduce the fighting, but there was a tunnel network underground that connected them, and it turned out people could sneak about down there without anyone knowing.

  He hurried back out of the booth with the keys jangling in his hand. The powerboat was bobbing gently in the water just off the dock and Miller tugged the rope line to pull it closer. He jumped down into it, then turned back to take my hand.

  I grabbed onto him to steady myself as I jumped into the boat beside him, but as soon as our skin touched, I felt a jolt of electricity. It had happened before, but each time we connected it seemed to get more powerful. It knocked me off balance and Miller had to grab onto my waist with his other hand to stop me stumbling overboard.

  I wanted to kiss him, but the thundering boom of another explosion reminded me that we were on a time crunch. I’m sure, at some point, there would be a perfect opportunity for us to go out to dinner or something. Now just wasn’t it.

  We made eye contact for a moment, then he released my hand so that he could unleash the powerboat. Soon the engine was rumbling beneath us and Miller steered the bow towards the open water.

  There were so many smaller islands off the mainland, and I had only visited a few of them. Each was so unique and housed both witches and humans alike. We’d had to travel around the main island slightly to bring Green Holt and Skerry into view, and as we approached, I had a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. What were we about to uncover here?

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