by J L Collins
“I don’t, no,” Fatima said. She still didn’t look convinced, but I patted her hand. It was frustrating seeing the concern on her face.
“I know some people. After all, it is my job,” Goldie said. “The first person that comes to mind is Tana Gables. She’s a water witch and a senior at the school I believe. I know this because she’s mentioned it for the past… well I guess you could say eleven years, but you know what I mean. One of the most adamant students at the library, for sure.”
“Oh.” Fatima chuckled, shaking her head. “Oh, I know this one.” She and Goldie shared a knowing look.
Somehow I feel as though I’m missing something.
“A studious woman. I like her already,” I said. “What are y’all laughing at?”
“You should ask Ash. She’s this doe-eyed little thing that’s always coming and pretending to need help finding books. Which you would think she could do on her own by now. She sits around batting her eyelashes at poor Ash,” Goldie said as she fluffed her feathers.
Oh man, now that is the pick-up I need.
“Oh my god, that’s hilarious,” I giggled. “Maybe you should try and hook them up anyway. It’ll help get that permanent stick out of his butt.”
The camper shook with our cackling.
It was so odd to picture a young girl fawning all over Ash, but I guess I could see it. If you looked past the brooding and the quiet demeanor, Ash was handsome in a pretty striking and unusual way. And he had a good heart underneath that hard outer shell.
But then again, I could hardly talk much about anyone’s taste in guys. The last guy that caught my eye ended up proposing to me, planning to elope with me, then cheating on me all in the span of three months. So there was that.
Other options popped up over the course of the conversation. I brought up the tip about Helio being some kind of golden boy when it came to school athletics.
“Drusilla brought up this triathlon thing that’s happening soon. And it sounds like he was a shoe-in. Goldie, you want to check out that angle? We should start with the college kids first, I think, but we want to check every lead. I’ll look into his family, too. At least we can start at the basics until we have those names.”
“You two are a regular Holmes and Watson, you know that?” Fatima mused, rolling her eyes as Goldie and I both stuck out our tongues.
I tossed her an apple with a wink.
“How did you…?”
“…know that you’re hungry? You said you’ve been gone for a couple of hours, I know you eat an early breakfast, and I can hear your stomach growling. See?” I added, fixing a smug grin on my face. “Regular Holmes, indeed.”
9
Boss Lady
If I wasn’t careful, I’d end up with a concussion with the amount of times I kept hitting a wall.
Goldie was an excellent sneak if I was being honest, but even she was having trouble with the task at hand. Trying to find the information inside a pretty tightly lidded case was proving to be more difficult than either of us imagined.
How did I get tricked into thinking this was a good idea? The job, the case, sorry… cases. There must be this intrinsic part of me that secretly likes to make things as difficult as possible for myself.
This was something that was making its rounds inside my head daily for the next few days after our sleuthing efforts began. But I wasn’t one to sit around and mope about things—again with the proper raising my Nan was always going on about.
I accepted the job. I was the one who told myself I needed to dig for the truth, if only to help Fatima. And I was the one who took up Amortencia on her requests. Not that it was so bad to have someone competent working here like Quicksilver, but still.
I sighed, typing up the monthly birthday list Drusilla compiled for me. We were a month behind, so this month was double duty for August and September.
“Okay, Carrie-Lynn with August twenty-eighth to end August, and moving on to September. Michelle coming in hot on the first, Karen on September twelfth, Linda with September sixteenth… And Jerri, looks like you’re the only end of the line for the month with September eighteenth. Virgos? Yikes,” I muttered to myself.
A streak across the floor caught my attention from out of the corner of my eye, and I pushed back from desk, confused.
A gray Persian cat was slowly slinking across the radiator against the window. Its shoulders moved one at a time, its squashed face concentrating on whatever it had its eyes on.
“Uh… Dru? Do we have a mouse problem here?”
Drusilla didn’t bother looking up from her screen. “Not really. Though sometimes Henny likes to play with her lunch and gets carried away.”
“Sorry, what?”
The gray cat pounced, swallowing something brown and furry in a single gulp before I had a chance to process what she’d said. It turned and looked at me in that way that only cats can, before jumping down from the windowsill and trotting out of the room.
“Oh. Oh, wow. I uh, didn’t realize that was Henny,” I said, my eyes still wide. There’s a never a dull moment in a town like this, I swear.
“I’m so sorry, Indie! Henny isn’t usually very vocal, and I guess I never mentioned her being a cat shifter, either. Sometimes I forget you’re the new girl in Charming Springs. That’s not…an issue is it?”
I quickly waved her off. “No, no! Not at all. I was just surprised. Like you said, I’m not exactly used to all of… that,” I said, gesturing to where Henny had apparently scored her meal. “Though I guess I should be pretty used to it by now. Going from living in a place where talking animals don’t exist to well, here.”
She nodded. “No doubt. My god, I can’t even remember the last time I took a trip outside town. Even before the curse, us vamps didn’t get out much. The fangs tend to freak people out.”
I gave her a sad smile. I hated to think of a world where someone as bright and bubbly as Drusilla was seen as a freak, but she had a point. People in the real world wouldn’t understand. I could see the safety in staying somewhere where you’re one hundred-percent accepted.
Unless you’re Fatima, that is. I looked back at the screen, trying not to let myself get too fired up about that over again.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to overhear, but you said you’re new to Charming Springs?” Quicksilver’s soft voice seemed to come out of nowhere. He had a black folio with his latest photos tucked under his arm.
“Yes. I’m that new witch. New to here, new to all of it, really,” I chuckled. This was the first time I’d met someone who didn’t already know who I was. Relief washed over me.
“That’s fascinating. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who’s moved here from outside. We don’t get out much, either. Fairies, I mean.”
“Really? Actually… I guess I could see that,” I said, eyeing the thin and shimmery wings sticking out from behind him.
He nodded. “What’s it like out there? We’ve been asleep for so long, I feel as though we might have missed out on things, but no one talks about that. I’m particularly interested in technological advances. It’s sort of my hobby.”
Drusilla, who had been listening quite attentively, dropped her chin into her hand. I might have missed that my office manager could transform into a cat, but I definitely had picked up on Drusilla swooning over Quicksilver. It was kind of cute considering he didn’t seem to notice.
“A good hobby to have, I’d say. It’s not my cuppa, but it’s pretty important nowadays. Everything advances so fast that’s it can be hard to keep up with all of it,” I said with a nod. “That camera you have there probably has four or five newer versions of it, for example.”
He glanced down at the large-bodied camera hanging from his neck strap, his lips parting in surprise.
“You know what I think?” Drusilla without giving us a chance to reply, “I think we’ve done an excellent job this week. Why don’t we all go out and get some drinks after work? Pokey Moe’s happy hour starts soon!”
; I shrugged. “I’m not opposed to it. I don’t even know the last time I got after-work drinks, actually.” When you work remotely for a college, it hardly presents that opportunity.
But of course she wasn’t looking at me.
Quicksilver shuffled his feet, looking incredibly uncomfortable. “I don’t do drinks, sorry.”
“Really?” she asked, not reading the situation for what I thought it was.
“Dru…” I warned her, turning to him. “That’s okay. We could maybe get an early dinner out if that works with all of us? Henny too, of course.” Not that she was probably hungry.
“Yeah, sorry. I just…” he drew in a breath, “the man-made chemical makeup of most alcoholic beverages can be dangerous, and I don’t personally like to ingest it. I’ve done research and found in my own studies that fairies are particularly susceptible to those specific properties. Fermented vegetation is not an issue, as we can digest all nature materials without problem. But the taste is leaves much to be desired. Personally.”
If he wasn’t careful with all the scientific talk, Drusilla’s ovaries would likely explode. Or was that a thing with vampires?
But I realized something, listening to them discuss the subject further. I had my own source on fairies right in front of me. Not to mention Quicksilver also attended Northern Mountains College. Why hadn’t I thought of this before?
“You go to Northern Mountains, right?” I said, doing my best to act casually.
He eyed me funny. Of course that’s where he went—where else could he go? “Yes?”
“I’ve been thinking about what happened to that poor boy. He was part of the Lunar Kappa Delta fraternity at your school, I’m sure you heard about that.”
Quicksilver’s whole demeanor changed instantly. His tawny skin turned ashy as the color drained away from his face. The muscles in his cheeks tightened and I knew I did not imagine his eyes narrowing as he quickly looked away.
“Helio,” he said softly. “I’ve heard.”
Drusilla gasped. “You knew him?”
He nodded, though didn’t want to meet her gaze. “He’s my best friend.”
Oh no. This was not what I meant by him being my own resource. I sucked in a breath. “Oh my god, I am so sorry. I had no idea.”
“Everyone says that. We’re an odd pair, to be sure. Or we were an odd pair… But we’ve been friends since we could fly. Most people take a look at me and wonder why he hangs out with me. We’re almost nothing alike. It’s never bothered me, though. He had his guys at Lunar Kappa Delta whenever he wanted to do the jock stuff, but outside of that it was the two of us. Well, sometimes Moira tagged along—that’s his younger sister. And whenever he had a girlfriend he wasn’t around as much.” With a hollow laugh he shook his head. “They never lasted long, though. He wasn’t exactly boyfriend material, as the girls always said.”
“It must be difficult to talk about. I regret even bringing it up. I’m sorry, Quicksilver,” I said. Just another case of Indie Warren shoving her foot down her throat.
“It’s okay. Helio was drinking that night, but it doesn’t add up. And he does idiotic things as if he has to prove himself, but this is different.” He sighed. “I know you’re not supposed to talk about the case or whatever Aunt Amortencia asked you to do. I wouldn’t want to get on her bad side over that… but thanks for doing what you’re doing.”
Goldie and I were patently doing a pretty crappy job of keeping our researching to ourselves in-house. I bit my lip and nodded. “Of course. We’ll find things out one way or another. And again, I am just so sorry. Friends are hard to come by once you’re an adult, and we have to hold on to the ones we have.”
He nodded too. “I think I’m going to pass on dinner, if that’s okay with you. I have quite the essay I still need to write tonight for class next week and I’d like to get most of it done before going back down to the hot springs.”
I gave him the rest of the day off to get started on it early, feeling like the worst kind of boss. People weren’t just sources of information for me to use… and I had my first real lesson as the head of a company.
10
Faulty Statement
Once again, my dinner was interrupted with a tap-tap at the door. When Goldie flew in with a very hard to read paper clutched in her beak, I wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“It’s the list, Indie!”
I raised an eyebrow. “The list?”
“Yes.” She dropped it onto my table. “This list.”
I squinted at it. “Am I supposed to be able to read that, or…?”
“Have you ever tried to hold a pen with your teeth and write something? No? Try doing it with a beak.” She snapped her beak at me. “I wanted to get everything down while it was still fresh in my mind. They talked to a lot of people at the school, Helio’s family, and a couple of others.”
The beak writing was nearly illegible but I could sort of make it out. There were easily twenty names. “Oh, wow. Okay, this is great. How in the world did you manage to pull this off?”
“Carefully. The officer at the front desk was on lunch break and there was an officer training thing going on somewhere else inside. Someone was not very smart about keeping things locked down.”
Lucky for us. I grabbed my notebook and pen. “Let’s see if we can sort through them and condense the list down some more.”
The next two hours were all about going over what the list actually said and sorting out who we needed to speak with and who we didn’t. Goldie was already working on setting up some time to talk to Helio’s grandmother and his sister, Moira. My job was to check out the kids at Northern Mountains.
“These names… Cosmo Greyclover, Ridge Mossyflash, Breeze Petalshine… they’re fairies, right?” I asked, pointing to three of the people that went to Northern Mountains and were friends with Helio. They were placed in the innermost circle of people we wanted to talk to.
“How did you know?”
I snorted. “Just a hunch. Okay, so this guy—Ridge? He’s the one caught on camera, right?”
Not only had the feathered ninja grabbed the names from the interview list, she’d also taken notes on a couple of other things we didn’t already know.
She nodded. “He was seen on camera leading some of the partygoers outside, round the back of the campus. There was a note about his statement being faulty, but I don’t know how.”
I tapped my chin. “You know what? I bet that was the same camera they saw Fatima on, too. I wonder if she noticed them that night? Wait.” I looked a little closer at part of the list I must have missed. “What’s this? There are two more names here. Why are they down here by his name? Dogwood and Bay Pines?”
“Oh. I forgot about them. They were two of the people seen with him. And coincidentally enough, they are two of the fairies now struck with the sleep sickness. There was a picture of the fairies who’ve been transferred to the hospital by now. These two were twins.”
My jaw dropped. “What? Okay, my conspiracy theory doesn’t sound so far-fetched now. This is big. And Ridge is in the fraternity? With a faulty statement, this guy is definitely sketchy. I think he’s up first on the list, don’t you think?”
She did, and the next morning I asked Drusilla to keep an eye on the Gazette while I went out to scope the story. I didn’t want her asking too many questions, so I was careful with what I told her. There are some leads I want to follow on a story. I wasn’t lying, at least.
Goldie was understandably perturbed that I got to grill Ridge while she was talking to Granny Rumpleroot, but I told her that she could help with the rest of our shortlist. We just needed to hit this from both sides.
I pulled Big Ben up to the fraternity house with this weird sense of irritation. Maybe it was just me being overdramatic, but my memories of frat houses and parties weren’t leaving me feeling warm and fuzzy about the place.
I admit that I wasn’t prepared for the eerie emptiness of the place when I was first escorted inside by
one of the frat brothers.
It was an impressive Tudor-styled house, with paneled walls and decor that looked like it belonged in some early twentieth-century cigar room.
“I’m looking for Ridge Mossyflash,” I told the young guy with the beanie and goatee.
“He’s probably in the game room if you want to check. It’s down the hall on your right.” He stopped and thought about it for a moment, before leaning in. “Take it from me, even as his LKD bro, I wouldn’t make any bets with him. He’s a sore loser.”
And with that he walked off, leaving me standing there.
Weird warning, but okay.
The hallway was covered in medals, college sports team memorabilia, and almost a hundred years' worth of annual fraternity photos of the men stood in front of the large house.
The last room on the right was without a door, and instead a couple of black curtains hung in the doorway. Judging by the sound of it, a very competitive battle of ping pong was being fought. I slipped past the curtain as quietly as possible, not wanting to make anyone mad by my sudden presence.
Sure enough, the two guys playing took notice and immediately stopped, eyeing me funny.
“Sorry… I’m looking for Ridge?”
“Yeah?” A scratchy voice called out from the other side of the room. He was lounging in a huge bean bag chair with his feet kicked back, eyes trained on the older video game on the screen in front of him. A couple of guys were shoving at each other, trying to outrun the police.
“Hi. I’m Indie Warren—the editor at the newspaper. I was hoping to talk to you in private,” I said, pushing my hood back. Hopefully I didn’t give off that mid-thirties teacher vibe.
Everyone turned to face me, and my cheeks burned at the attention.
Ridge nodded to them all, and they scattered. It seemed he was the senior amongst them, to be able to kick them out like that.