by J L Collins
Probably knowing how futile the argument was, Ash gave up and pulled his traveling cloak around him tighter, whistling a slow mournful tune that sounded like it was straight off of a video game soundtrack.
“Going on a quest, are you?” I liked to tease him about his general LARPer appearance that didn’t fit in with most of the rest of town. While everyone else looked like they were living in modern times, Ash was stuck in a time warp that paired the Edwardian era with causal nerd. Luckily for him, he could pull it off without anyone saying a word.
Except for me, that is. Because what good was having a supernatural friend without some teasing?
The booming gong of the town’s clock tower marked ten o’clock on the dot as chuckled. I was just about to comment on his need for a sword when something large and flailing fell from the sky, colliding with the snowy embankment not even fifteen feet ahead.
I shrieked, scuttling backward as Ash grabbed hold of my shoulders to steady me.
The crumpled heap of what was definitely a person lie still, buried in the snow.
2
A Fan Fave
This was not my first encounter with someone having fallen off a tall building in town. I looked at Ash, but he was just as confused as I was.
“I think Davy needs an intervention,” I said, my nerves teeter-tottering. Davy Gold was one of the few phoenixes that took up residence in Charming Springs, and he was also a total drunk. It was almost routine at this point for him to show up dead somewhere before bursting into flames and being reborn again.
Ash and I both took a few steps closer, wary. I wasn’t exactly in the mood to singe my hair off. Not after I just finished re-dyeing it my favorite blue.
Across the road, a couple of concerned citizens watched on as Ash leaned down to get an even closer look.
“This isn’t Davy. He’s not even a phoenix… he’s a fairy.” He dropped to his knees, pushing away the snow and feeling around for a pulse. “And he’s dead.”
My breath caught in my throat. “But, but wait. Fairies don’t reincarnate like phoenixes do, do they?” I already knew the answer but gasped anyway when he shook his head.
With chills running down my spine, I did the only thing I could. I looked across the road and waved my hands over my head. “Help! We need help!”
Snow. Gossamer wings crumpled. Flashing lights blurring down the road.
The night didn’t get any better and reality seemed to tumble right into my sleep. It took me long enough to finally close my eyes, so when I woke up even the sun sneaking in between the blinds wasn’t enough to get me out of bed.
I slogged through getting ready, somehow managing to run a brush through my hair and a toothbrush across my teeth. My breakfast tasted like sand in my mouth. My head was pounding.
I just couldn’t get the image of the fairy lying dead in the snow out of my head. Ash and I had stayed until the ambulance came to take the poor guy in, but we both knew it was too late. He never really talked about it, but I knew Ash had some sort of psychic way of knowing the fairy was dead before even confirming it for himself.
I’d seen him agonize over houseplants around the library, groaning whenever one of them would look a little worse for the wear. One time I asked him why he was talking to one of his peperomias and he nearly bit off my head. It was doing so well and now it’s dying, all right? Why are you worrying about what I’m doing when you should be reading the next volume of Ancient Magics for the Novice?
Locking the camper door behind me, I made my way through the path I’d cleared a few days ago that led to the Charming Springs Gazette building. What better way to dive into a new job than to park your house outside of it to use the utilities for free?
I knew Drusilla wasn’t due to be in for at least another hour, so I pulled out the keys to the place and let myself inside. The newsroom was noticeably emptier without her bubbly self.
I made my rounds, checking out most of the things she’d shown me yesterday including Henny’s office. She wasn’t in yet either it seemed, which was honestly fine with me. I didn’t mind having some of my own time to get used to things by myself in the morning.
I brewed some tea in the break room, careful not to look too closely at the small coffee machine on which Drusilla had slapped a post-it with her name and a smiley face.
“See? This won’t be so bad,” I said as I settled down at my desk. “Of course I have no idea what to do now, but baby steps.”
Someone cleared their throat behind me and I jumped, hot tea sloshing all over the side of the desk. “Jesus!” I quickly grabbed the laptop just in time and threw a dirty look at my new companion. “Seriously? Now you’re pulling an Ash on me? Sneaking up on me like some sort of silent ninja?”
Goldie cackled as she lazily circled around me, her large white wings holding the rest of her body up with ease. She winked one luminous gold eye at me. “Good morning to you, too. And I’ll take that as a compliment. I’d be a pretty rotten owl if I couldn’t sneak up on my prey.”
Touché. “Yeah, yeah. Good morning. What are you doing in here, anyway? Did I accidentally hire you or something?”
“Pfft. You can’t afford me. I thought I’d drop in and see how your first real day on the job was going.” She took a look around, her head swiveling eerily on her neck, and looked back at me. “Did I interrupt your busy schedule?”
I scanned the room, focusing on what I was looking for until I found it. Extending my arm out in the direction of an old scarf piled on top of another desk, I wriggled my fingers and focused on moving the lighter element of all—air. Like tiny little sparks across my nerves, my magic shot out to connect with the air, sending a current of it to scoop the scarf up and sail it back toward me. I grinned when it dropped directly on to the desk.
“Show off,” Goldie mumbled.
Wiping up the mess of tea, I laughed. “More likely, you just flew in fresh from The Coop after another rousing will-they, won’t-they with your cute friend. What’s his name again?”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “As if you don’t know.”
“Oh, right. Maverick. Seriously, that’s such a falcon name, too,” I laughed.
“Well I didn’t choose his name, Mathias did.”
“Who?”
I’d honestly lost track of half the people or familiars Goldie talked about. When you’re the town Messenger, it’s kind of your job to know everyone but that didn’t mean I had to as well.
She clicked her beak at me impatiently. “Really. Mathias is the fire magic elder, remember? He’s on the Special Council. Maverick is his familiar. Surely I’ve mentioned that?”
“Ah, that Mathias. Weirdly intense guy.”
“Maverick says he’s very powerful, and it takes a lot of control to have fire powers to begin with. You also have to be incredibly smart and powerful to be a familiar to one of the elder witches or wizards, too.” she said, sounding like she was talking in the middle of a daydream.
I never thought I’d see the day where I’d be rooting for a snowy owl and a falcon to get together.
“Going back to your original question, I really did drop by because I figured you were pretty busy with the news about the fairy. Ash told me the two of you were the ones who saw him first.”
I nodded. “It was kind of hard to miss him. He nearly fell right on top of us.” I bit my lip, guilt welling up inside me. “Okay that was harsh. Sorry. The whole thing has been pretty haunting, to tell you the truth. You’d think after having a brush with death before I wouldn’t be so sensitive about it. I don’t even know his name.”
“Helio Rumpleroot. A senior at Northern Mountains College who was throwing a party at that ridiculous fraternity house, and apparently a pretty well-known guy amongst the fairies,” she said, dropping down on to the desk with a soft hoot. “You know. One of the popular kids.”
I frowned. “We ran into a bunch of those guys not even ten minutes before. Or I should say they ran into us. They came out of nowhere, yellin
g and knocking into one another. Of course they were all drunk off their butts. I figured it was some kind of frat initiation thing.” I booted up the old laptop, tapping a pencil against my chin. “It’s so sad. He couldn’t be more than what, twenty, twenty-one?”
Goldie shrugged her wings. “Probably. Young and in excellent health, too. A lot of people are talking about what this means for the End of Summer Races later next week. I guess he was supposed to compete. You know there’s already a crowd of people outside the clock tower with flowers and pictures? Young girls hugging and crying, some of his frat brothers skulking about trying to console them like predatory creeps. And I would know—I am a predator after all.”
I raised a brow at her. “Back up. What are the End of Summer Races?”
“Oh right, yes, I guess you wouldn’t know what that is. It’s an annual triathlon they do right in between seasons. Not that we really get seasons here anymore. It’s based on athletics instead of magic, which is nice for those who aren’t as magically inclined. Apparently Helio was a fan fave with the fairies.” She nudged me as I sat forward. “Looks like you have your first story to cover, huh?”
That hadn’t even crossed my mind, to be honest. “Guess so. I’ll have to ask Drusilla how to set up the obituary column.”
“No, no. I mean story. There must be more to this than he simply fell from the sky and died, right? Why did he fall? How did he fall? Was it the fall that killed him or something else?”
I rolled my eyes. “The kid’s been dead for not even a full twenty-four hours and you’re already at it with the conspiracy theories? That’s a new personal record for you.”
She took flight again, landing on an exposed beam overhead. “As if you weren’t already wondering for yourself. You’re going to need to question things a little more if you want to be a reporter, Indie.”
“I’m not… ugh. Wait, where are you going now?”
She swooped back down and around me, ruffling my hair. “Out for breakfast. I’ll bring you back a dead lemming.”
3
Can’t Miss It
The hardest part of starting a new job is usually getting comfortable with the people you now work with, but I was quickly learning that wasn’t the case here at the Gazette.
Drusilla was perfectly capable of handling things on her own, and Henny, well… she did her own thing, whatever that was.
I, on the other hand, was completely lost. Half of the paper’s resource information was written out in a dusty old ledger book while the other half was typed up in a scattered document that was in no particular order. It was a mess of someone suddenly typing up any new sources and other important information and not bothering to type any of the old stuff.
I frowned as I thumbed through the ledger full of what I really needed. I would have to type all of it up myself which was fine, except I hated menial work like that. One of my least favorite things to do for my classes was running grades through the system and having to double-check behind myself. In other words, repetitive work gives me the hives.
In the middle of hour two of reorganizing everything, I was sure I was going cross-eyed. Time for something new.
Lost in my tedious task, I hadn’t even realized that even Henny was in the main newsroom, which meant that all three of the Charming Springs Gazette employees were in one spot.
I stood up and clapped my hands together. “I don’t know about you ladies but I’m in need of a good stretch. So let me welcome you both to what is our first daily check-in, something that I think will help us be very productive and on the same page with one another.” Why do I feel like I’m leading the English Department’s boring weekly conference?
Drusilla breezed over with a notebook and a wide-eyed look on her face. Her hand shot in the air.
“You—you don’t need to raise your hand, Drusilla. We’re all adults here.”
“Sorry. I was just going to say that I think it’s a great idea. Beatrice always thought they were pointless, but I kept bringing them up, hoping she’d listen,” she said, slowly lowering her hand.
Beatrice Wimberly hadn’t been known for being the easiest person to deal with, so finding out she hadn’t listened to her top reporter’s suggestions felt pretty on brand for her.
“I want to make sure everyone has a voice. I’m well aware that I’m the new person on board and that you two are the ones who know what you’re doing. No changing things that work, none of that. So if you have any more ideas feel free to speak up.”
Henny stayed put, listening from her desk with a blank stare directed at me.
“I do actually have something to tell you,” Drusilla said slowly, rereading over her notebook. “One of our sources emailed me about the death of Helio Rumpleroot. I was already looking into setting up the obituary with his surviving family but one of them gave me a tip. There was some strange sort of adhesive found on his wings as the ambulance tried to resuscitate him. They weren’t sure what it was, but it was something that stuck out to the family.”
Obviously even a fairy falling from the sky to his death isn’t natural, so of course it was concerning. I’d already been wondering about why he didn’t use his wings to save himself before he hit the ground. “That… makes a lot of sense, actually.”
I pulled out a small notebook from inside the desk and grabbed a pen. Rusty as they were, the gears were turning in my head. “Is there anything else in the email? Toxicology reports? Anything like that? I’m sure if Chief Putnam knows about the adhesive he’s probably already interviewing everyone saw last saw Helio. We should look for that list—see if we can follow up with any potential witnesses and anyone the police spoke with. It might—wait. What?”
Drusilla winced, playing with the edge of her skirt. “We don’t exactly have free reign with that kind of information. Chief Putnam isn’t a fan of the Gazette getting involved with police business.”
I blinked. “Sorry, what? This isn’t just police business—a man just dropped out of the sky and died. A man that’s supposed to be able to fly.”
“Oh, I know. But Chief Putnam refuses to give us any information, much less wants us to put it out for everyone to read. He and Beatrice had some kind of arrangement, but she was the only one allowed to talk to him about anything that the police were involved with,” Drusilla said as she stood back up, shrugging.
Nope. I already had certain feelings about the chief of police as it was, and this wasn’t helping any. Chief Putnam came across as incredibly petty and one donut shy of a dozen. It didn’t exactly surprise me that he tried to push his weight around, but it wouldn’t make my job any easier.
“If foul play is suspected then he can’t just keep us from reporting. If need be, I can bring him one of the copies of the U.S. Constitution I keep in the camper. Hand me a highlighter, I’ll put a little circle around it. You can’t miss it—it’s the first amendment,” I said, folding my arms across my chest. “A story like this is exactly what journalism is all about. The town needs to know if there’s something more to what happened to Helio. And it’s our duty to tell them.”
A smile broke across Drusilla’s pale face. “I’m with you. It will be difficult, but I think you’re right. It’s our duty to break the news, and this is big news.”
Henny made a noise that almost sounded like ‘hear, hear.’
I shut down my computer, glad for the confidence boost and the time on the clock. “Right. Well, then. Good talk everyone. First thing in the morning we go in, guns blazing and talk to the chief!”
4
Hop Down
“Where is this place?” I muttered to myself, squinting at the street map while stopped.
Thanks to Goldie’s keen eye and wings, I had an idea of where Chief Putnam was roaming around. According to her, he was patrolling the Silver Nest nestled in the deepest part of the valley.
Once I found it I turned into the small neighborhood, scanning the place for the police cruiser. Thankfully it didn’t take long. About halfway do
wn the main road, the car’s flickering red and blue lights caught my attention. Chief Putnam’s hat was immediately recognizable against the snowy yards stacked up neatly in a row.
I slowed to a stop across the road from him, squinting. “I wonder what this is all about?”
He was nodding along and taking notes on a notepad, standing between what appeared to be two foxes, both of them standing their ground on the cleared sidewalk.
Throwing Big Ben in park, I slowly rolled the window down, wincing as it squeaked. Whatever was going on here didn’t look like it needed any intruding on my behalf, so I was staying back until it was cleared up. But as any good reporter would do, I listened in… just in case.
Chief Putnam crossed his beefy arms. “Gentlemen, there’s no need for the fur to fly. I’m sure there’s a way for you two to see eye to eye on this, right? Eric? Jack?”
Neither of the fox shifters spoke, instead growling at one another, their teeth bared.
Yikes. I’ve done my reading on shifters in the library and I’ve asked my friends more about them, curious about them. Ash, Fatima, and Goldie have hinted around about them making them sound like quick-tempered but generally loyal types.
How many different types of shifters are there? Well, I still haven’t quite put my finger on that one even after living here for over two months.
“I’ll tell you what. You two do what you need to do, but fighting isn’t going to get a lick of anything solved. Eric, when you use your snowblower, make sure it’s not sending all the snow into Jack’s yard. And Jack, if that happens, try calmly talking with your neighbor there instead of grabbing a shovel and shoveling all of your snow into his yard,” Chief Putnam said.