The sound of birds assailed my ears and a shudder ran up my spine. Thistle jerked her head at the noise, her eyes going wide as a clutch of crows – five or six of them at least – swooped from the sky directly toward us.
“Run!” I shoved her as hard as I could. “Don’t look back. Just … run!”
“I really hate you!”
Nineteen
Thistle was furious by the time we reached downtown. She rode with me because she’d walked to Lorna’s house, and I had to hear her nonstop diatribe about what an idiot I was for the duration of the trek.
“You’re being a baby,” I complained, studying my arms and glaring at the scratches I found. Landon wasn’t going to be happy when he heard I’d had yet another run-in with the birds ... and that this time it got physical. “We’re fine. Probably.” Something occurred to me. “Birds don’t carry rabies, do they?”
Thistle’s glare was withering. “You are the absolute worst.”
“I thought you reserved that honor for Aunt Tillie.”
“Which should tell you how far you’ve fallen in my estimation.”
I ran my tongue over my teeth and tamped down my irritation. She’d been at the house in the first place because she was worried about me. She had a right to her anger ... mostly. “How about some ice cream?” I decided to switch topics. “That might make you feel better.”
Even though she was angry I could practically see the gears in Thistle’s mind working. “It had better be good ice cream.”
“They have double chocolate chip and hot fudge at the festival truck.”
“Fine. We should probably grab Clove. If we go for ice cream without her she’ll be ticked.”
On that we could agree.
It didn’t take long to talk Clove into closing the store for forty-five minutes — the tourists would return later; they were something of a captive audience — and we ordered heaping bowls of ice cream and settled at a picnic table to talk.
“I can’t believe that happened.” Clove’s eyes were wide. “Why didn’t you invite me?”
“I think we’re telling the story wrong if you feel you’ve been left out,” Thistle replied darkly. “Besides, we had to jump out the window and climb down a tree. That’s probably not safe given your condition.”
Clove jutted out her lower lip. “It’s still not fair. I don’t want to be left out of everything just because I’m having a baby.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” I said. “I’m sure the birds will be back. You can dodge them with us the next time they attack.”
Clove frowned. “I don’t like birds.”
“Nobody does,” Thistle muttered. “They’re like Aunt Tillie ... small, evil and they want to peck you to death.”
I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing, the expression quickly fleeing when I saw Landon and Chief Terry cutting through the crowd. “Oh, geez.”
“What’s wrong now?” Thistle zealously guarded her ice cream bowl, as if I was trying to distract her long enough to steal her treat.
I inclined my chin toward the men. “They’re going to be angry.”
“That’s your problem.” Thistle made a face. “I hope they ground you to within an inch of your life.”
“They can’t ground me.” I was mostly certain that was true. “I’m an adult.”
“Let’s see what happens, shall we?” Before I could register what she was doing, Thistle raised her hand and waved to get their attention. “We’re over here! Hey, Chief Terry! Come over here.”
Several sets of eyes drifted in our direction, causing me to hunch my shoulders. “Why don’t you just take out an advertisement in the newspaper or something?”
“Why would I do that when I can embarrass you in person for free?”
She had a point. I kept my gaze on my ice cream, refusing to look up as they approached. I could sense the moment Landon finally got a clear view of me. His reaction was swift.
“What happened to you?” He slid onto the bench next to me and immediately grabbed my arm to study the scratches. “Bay ... .”
“It’s nothing,” I reassured him quickly, forcing myself to be bold rather than shrink in the face of what I knew would be righteous fury. “We’re fine.”
“Speak for yourself,” Thistle countered. “I’m thinking of going to the health clinic because now I can’t get the notion that birds have rabies out of my mind. I don’t want to be foaming at the mouth at Clove’s wedding. That’s Aunt Tillie’s job.”
I pinned her with a furious look. “Birds don’t get rabies.” At least I hoped they didn’t. “Besides, they barely broke the skin.”
“Birds?” Just as I expected, Landon’s countenance darkened. “What did you do?”
I balked. “What makes you think I did anything? Isn’t it possible that I was minding my own business and birds attacked out of nowhere?”
“No.”
“Well ... .” I didn’t want to admit what we’d done. He would be angry. And, worse, he might arrest me. He hadn’t done it yet – he’d watched others do it a time or two – but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was only a matter of time before he lost his temper and shoved me in a cage.
“We broke into Lorna’s house looking for proof that she’s a dark witch, but we ran into a few issues,” Thistle volunteered, ignoring the fury I directed toward her. “The good news is that Bay managed to free Adam from whatever spell had been cast on him. Or, rather, he freed himself. She commanded him to remove the thread keeping his lips sewn together. The second that happened, we were interrupted and had to jump out of a second-story window.”
Landon started to stand and then immediately sat again. “You jumped out of a second-story window?” His voice carried under the right circumstances ... which apparently included ice cream time at a festival. “What is the matter with you?”
“You’re not my parent,” I reminded him. “You can’t yell at me. I did what I felt I needed to do and I’m not sorry about it.”
Chief Terry cleared his throat to get my attention. “I may not be your parent, but I’m close. I hate to agree with Landon, but ... that’s two moronic things you’ve done in less than a week. Perhaps some ramifications need to be introduced here so you’ll finally learn.”
I worked my jaw. “Fine. Arrest me. Knock yourself out.”
His glare never wavered. “Don’t tempt me.”
“And don’t push me,” Landon added. “I’m angry, Bay. Like ... really angry. I don’t understand why you did this.”
“I was hoping to find proof that Lorna is a dark witch. At least then we would have a direction to look.”
“And did you find that proof?” Chief Terry asked. “Was it worth risking your entire future? I mean ... that’s what you did, young lady. Had Lorna caught you, what do you think would’ve happened?”
I’d given careful consideration to that question and come up with ... well ... nothing good. “We weren’t caught.”
“You were almost caught.”
“By Dani. We could’ve bamboozled her.”
“Oh, well, you could’ve bamboozled her. How great is that?” Chief Terry folded his arms across his chest and stared at the sky. His anger was palpable. “I just don’t understand you sometimes. You’re supposed to be smarter than this.
“I expect Tillie to pull these kinds of shenanigans,” he continued. “Even Thistle to some extent. You, however, are my good girl. You were always a good girl. You make me want to ... .” He broke off and mimed throttling an invisible person. He put a lot of effort into it, to the point his mime would’ve been funny under different circumstances.
I was debating how to respond when Aunt Tillie swooped in. She clearly hadn’t gotten the hang of using the scooter’s brakes because she careened into the table without slowing, offering up a loud “oomph” as she fought to keep from landing in Thistle’s ice cream.
“What the ... ?” Chief Terry grabbed her arm to keep her from falling. “Speaking of people who think bef
ore they act. We were just talking about you. Were your ears burning?”
“I was burning rubber,” Aunt Tillie responded, her face flushed with what could only be described as excitement. “Margaret was trying to catch me, but I left her in the dust. I think she’s still back there sputtering.”
Chief Terry looked like a man who had been saddled with babysitting several of the most obnoxious children in the history of mankind. “Do I even want to know what you did to Margaret?”
“Probably not.” Aunt Tillie’s smile was bright. “What have you guys been up to?”
“Oh, well, I’m glad you asked.” Chief Terry launched into the tale before I had the chance to put my unique spin on it. By the time he was finished, Aunt Tillie was cackling and rubbing her hands together.
“That’s awesome,” she enthused. “What kinds of birds were they?”
“What does that matter?” Thistle asked blankly.
“The sort of birds being controlled have a direct link to the witch controlling them, mouth,” Aunt Tillie fired back. “I’m trying to help you morons. By the way, here’s a free tip on that front: Don’t admit to ‘The Man’ when you break the law. These two might be pushovers, but there will come a point when they arrest you. Trust me. I know.”
I frowned. It was true that she’d been arrested — and more than once — even by Chief Terry.
“You had that arrest coming,” Chief Terry warned. “I’m not sorry about it.”
“You really did have it coming,” Thistle said. “I, however, was just trying to protect my cousin. At your behest, I might add. I’m totally innocent here. See ... I’m eating ice cream. Only the innocent can eat ice cream.”
Landon leaned around me and flicked her ear. “Just shut up for once. This is serious.”
I needed this conversation to move away from laws that were broken and focus on the problem at hand. The birds were becoming a real issue. “Ravens and crows,” I replied to Aunt Tillie’s earlier question. “They were mostly ravens and crows, although there were a few others thrown in for good measure. They came toward the tail end of the … attack.”
“Like what?”
“Um ... .” I was hardly an ornithologist.
“There were a few sparrows and what looked to be a duck,” Thistle volunteered. “We didn’t spend much time hanging around to identify them.”
“A duck?” Aunt Tillie made a face. “That makes sense. They’re pretty much jerks ninety percent of the time. The only time they’re not is when they’re freshly hatched.”
“This is a fascinating conversation,” Landon drawled. “What does the type of birds have to do with anything?”
“I just told you.” Aunt Tillie’s tone was withering. “The types of birds called to a certain energy identifies the energy.”
“And what do these birds tell us?”
“That we’re dealing with a dark witch.” She delivered the line as solid fact. “I wasn’t certain before — I thought Bay was just being Bay — but now I’m convinced that we’re dealing with a dark witch. My bad.”
My bad? I wanted to strangle her. “I told you we were dealing with a dark witch from the start.”
“And you turned out to be right. Fancy that.” Aunt Tillie reached for Thistle’s spoon, but Thistle smacked her hand away. “I’ll remember this moment,” Aunt Tillie threatened. “You’re dead to me.”
“I’m crushed,” Thistle said. “Go back to the birds. We need information and apparently you have some ... even though you were pretending otherwise until three minutes ago.”
“I wasn’t pretending otherwise,” Aunt Tillie countered. “I just didn’t realize how serious the situation was. I thought Bay was being Bay.”
“Stop saying that,” I growled. “That’s not a thing.”
“Oh, it’s totally a thing,” Thistle countered. “I mean ... you’re not as bad as Clove, but you’re a total whiner.”
“Says the woman who thinks she got rabies from the birds.”
“Hey!” She extended a warning finger in my direction. “Birds are horrible creatures. They’re dirty ... and nasty ... and they make weird sounds. Sometimes they look at me funny. I hate that.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. Can we get back to the important part of the discussion? What do we do about the birds? And how do we figure out who the dark witch is?”
“It’s Lorna,” Aunt Tillie replied simply. “She’s the only one who makes sense. You said yourself she came from a dark witch and has been using her powers under the radar ever since.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose to ward off an incoming headache. “You said that Leslie wasn’t a dark witch, that she just made potions.”
“I didn’t say that.”
I was incredulous. “You did.”
“I did not.”
“You did so.”
“I did not. I would remember saying that.”
“That did it.” I moved to stand, thoughts of wrestling her to the ground and making her eat dirt flitting through my head. I didn’t get a chance, because Landon grabbed my shoulder and forced me to sit.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he supplied. “There are witnesses here and I will have no choice but to arrest you if you commit murder out in the open.”
I pouted. I couldn’t stop myself. “Well ... that’s no fun.”
He didn’t smile like he normally would, which told me I was still in trouble. Ah, well, I would have to wear him down with kisses later. If that didn’t work, there was always bacon. I’d purchased a nightgown from a novelty store online two weeks before — it made me look like a strip of bacon … with some rather impressive cleavage — and tucked it away for the next time I was in trouble. It looked like I would be using it sooner rather than later.
“The birds are relics,” Aunt Tillie volunteered. “They’re kind of like spirit animals. The person doing this is calling to the darkest creatures in the vicinity. That just so happens to be birds in this case.”
“Relics?” I furrowed my brow. I vaguely remembered reading about them when Aunt Tillie was trying to enforce regular magic classes when we were kids. “That means they’re more powerful than regular birds.”
“Pretty much,” Aunt Tillie confirmed. “Our witch is imbuing them with power. Until she’s destroyed — or locked up and removed from temptation — those birds will continue to grow in number and power.”
That was not what I wanted to hear. “Well ... crap.” I moved to scratch at one of the marks on my arm, but Landon stopped me.
“We need to clean these,” he said after examining the wounds. “I don’t think you have rabies or anything, but I don’t want to risk an infection.”
“We’ve got stuff at the store,” Clove offered. “I’ll clean them both up when we finish our ice cream.”
Even though he was clearly still angry, Landon took a moment to order my hair. “I would hate for your arm to fall off or anything.”
“Yeah. That would suck.” I rubbed my forehead. “What do you think we should do about Lorna? I mean ... she’s the obvious choice as our dark witch.”
“She is,” Landon agreed. “We don’t have proof of anything, though. In fact, as far as the investigation is concerned, we’re standing in the middle of a clue-barren desert. We have nothing. Lorna was seen outside the blacksmith shop at the time the medical examiner set for Adam’s death. If she killed him, it was in a unique way.”
“Huh.” Well, that put us in a pickle. “So ... what do we do?”
“You don’t do anything,” Landon shot back. “You’re done for the day. You’re going to Hypnotic to clean those cuts and scratches, and letting the professionals do their jobs.”
That sounded unlikely, but there was no way I would argue with him in front of an audience, especially when his temper was so close to the surface. “I already planned to go to Hypnotic,” I promised. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’ve had my fill of birds for the day.”
“We all have.” Thi
stle ran her hand over her forearm. “Besides, we have to get ready for the ritual gathering tonight. We’re supposed to do a blessing ... although I think our mothers have backed off on that now given Clove’s pregnancy. That did turn out to be a convenient excuse.”
I frowned. “That can’t be right. The ritual isn’t happening already, is it?”
“It’s not the big ritual,” Clove replied. “Hazel is hosting tonight. It’s supposed to be a pre-blessing, to make sure the bluff is ready for the solstice celebration and wedding tomorrow. She arranged it with our mothers.”
“Which means that we should all avoid it,” Aunt Tillie suggested. “If Hazel arranged it, it’ll be boring.”
I was maudlin. “It’ll be boring,” I agreed. “But we can’t ignore it. If we do, our mothers will melt down.”
“So what?” Aunt Tillie was full of bravado. “Let them melt down. We should present a united front and let them know we mean business. If we do, they won’t be able to boss us around ... like ever.”
“And why would we present a united front with you after the way you turned on us over Clove’s pregnancy?” I challenged. “You were a fink. You told us never to ally ourselves with finks.”
“It’s true,” Thistle said sagely. “You did teach us that.”
Aunt Tillie’s expression was dark. “I am not a fink. You take that back.”
“If the fink hat fits ... .”
Landon made an exasperated sound, interrupting us before we could launch into a petty argument. “You’re all going to the ritual and you know it. As for Lorna ... leave her to us. I don’t want you guys finding trouble. We’ll handle this case going forward.”
He was stern enough that all I could do was swallow hard. I hated being left out of things, but it was obvious he was in no mood for an argument. I could hardly blame him.
“We’ll focus on the ritual tonight,” I promised.
“And you’ll stay out of the investigation,” Landon prodded.
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