The Perfect Ten Boxed Set

by Dianna Love

  “June? Are you okay?” Eloise popped up from the Singing Pettles row and wiped her hands on her apron.

  “Hmmm” The Singing Pettles had their leaves to the sun. “Laalaa.”

  I shook my head. “I’m never going to get used to this life.”

  Eloise put them in the basket on the ground with the other ones she had picked.

  “I can only pick them once a week or they give me a headache with all that singing.” She laughed and walked towards me. “You look frightened. Are you okay?”

  “Okay?” A shadow of annoyance crossed my face. “You know I’m not okay.” I stomped my foot.

  “I’m not a toy!” Madame Torres screamed from my bag.

  I opened it and stuck my face in it. “Shut up!” I snapped the flap down, and looked at Eloise. Tears streamed down my face. “I’m not okay! A couple of days ago I was just a girl with a quirky mom who sold fake homeopathic remedies at a flea market and was the most wonderful best friend in the world.”

  Eloise put her hands out for me to take.

  I shook my head and walked backward a few steps. “No. I’m not okay,” I said through gritted teeth. “Now I’m a girl that has some kind of power. I see people when they really aren’t there. I have an angry crystal ball in my bag. My cat steals. Not only am I accused of being a murderer, I’m being framed. I don’t know who or what I am!”

  I fell to the ground with my head in my hands.

  “Um. . .can you take it easy during your nervous breakdown?” Madame Torres’s voice was muffled.

  Eloise bent down and held me. She sat there with me while I cried. This entire situation had finally gotten to me.

  “I shouldn’t have run away.” I took my purse off my shoulder and pulled Madame Torres out. I held her up to Eloise. “I stole this.”

  Eloise smiled. “Hi, Madame Torres.”

  The ball glowed the normal green. “Well, well. Look what June dragged in. Where in the world have you been?”

  “Banned.” Eloise took the ball, and then picked up the basket of Singing Pettles.

  “I hate to break up this little reunion, but I need some help.” I stood up and brushed the dirt off my clothes. I picked up my bag and put it back on my shoulder.

  Eloise had a great idea. “Let’s go have a Ding Dong.” She continued her conversation with Madame Torres as I followed behind to the Gazebo.

  Eloise sat Madame Torres on the table next to the Singing Pettles. They hummed away happily.

  “Do you mind?” Madame Torres’s eyes shot in the directions of the basket. “They give me a head-ache.”

  I couldn’t help but smile as I ate my Ding Dong. Madame Torres was a pain-in-the-butt. Thank God she wasn’t in human form.

  “Tell me what is going on?” Eloise set the basket on the other side of the gazebo. They still let out a low hum, but nothing like before.

  “I have a plan that I put into motion with Oscar’s Uncle Jordan.” I told Eloise how I was going to go to the lake because I had the nightmare about the next victim being me. “I wanted to tell you just in case it doesn’t work out, and the killer kills me and Jordan.”

  Eloise wrung her hands as she paced back and forth. “I don’t like this idea.” She picked at her short red hair.

  “I need some of that truth serum that you and Darla gave Izzy that time.” If I could give some to the killer, they’d sing like one of the Singling Pettles and confess to everything.

  The heavy lashes that shadowed her cheeks flew up. “How did you know about that?”

  “Darla’s journal.” I patted my bag.

  “I don’t think that would be a good idea. You never know what someone is going to say.” She looked away.

  Madame Torres’s head went from one end of the globe to the other trying to keep up with our conversation.

  “Eloise, I need you just like Darla needed you.” I pleaded with her. She was a crucial part to ending this madness. “I have to hear them confess to murdering Ann and why. I fear that the answers to the death of my parents relies on the confession.”

  “I don’t know.” She spread her arms out in front of her and sprinkled hot pink dust into the air. The rows of plants bloomed to their fullest. The colors lit up the garden like a rainbow.

  I took my phone out of my bag. “It’s eleven o’clock. I have one hour until I meet Jordan.”

  “They are going to have my head if this backfires.” She drew her arms in and pointed towards Whispering Falls. “They will come after me with burning torches.”

  “No. No they won’t.” This was going to work. If I was going to rely on my intuition like Darla told me to, everything was going to work out if everyone did what they were supposed to do.

  Eloise’s cloak swooshed around her as she drew her hands into the air. A clap of thunder rang out, but the stars in the sky were as bright as the day.

  She rushed through the garden picking several different plants and flowers. She gathered them in her palm over the top of the cauldron. With one blow from her lips, the flowers turned into a pile of dust. She brushed them into the cauldron and stirred until it bubbled over.

  “Hand me a bottle.” She pointed toward the gazebo windowsill. “Anyone will be fine.”

  I grabbed the purple one with the star cap. It seemed the most appropriate.

  Eloise took it from my hand and scooped up the overflow of the cauldron. She cast her eyes on me. “Use this with extreme caution. I suggest you take a bottle of water and add a couple of drops. Only a couple of drops.” She wiggled her finger back and forth. She repeated, “Only a couple of drops.”

  Carefully I placed the bottle in my bag and grabbed a bottle of water from the table.

  “Mr. Prince Charming, you stay here with Eloise and Madame Torres.” I didn’t want him to see if anything happened to me. I knew that Eloise would take care of him. “Please return Madame Torres if something goes wrong.”

  “No you won’t. I’m not going back in some glass case or dark closet.” The ball lit up bright red.

  Eloise grabbed me by the shoulders and drew me close to her. “Keep safe sweet, sweet, June.”

  I held onto her words as I made my way into the dark night, through the woods and around the rock. I could see the lake as clear as day.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  My heartbeat echoed so loudly that I was sure it could be heard all over Whispering Falls. Patiently I waited in the woods for Jordan’s signal. I sat down in the grass and reached into my bag to get Darla’s journal and my phone. I used the phone’s keypad light to read a page in the journal.

  “I thought Otto’s job as a police officer was getting to him after he told me about the people that have come to visit him. He said someone was sitting next to June, but I didn’t see anyone. I told Eloise about it and she didn’t make me feel any better. She believes that Otto is a medium, which means that he’s a Fairiwick. That would be devastating to him. He loves Whispering Falls and couldn’t imagine being banned.”

  “Medium?” I whispered. Wasn’t that when people saw dead people? Did my dad die because someone found out he was a Fairiwick?

  What about me? Did that mean. . .I drew back and threw the journal in my bag. Had the mysterious shadow been a spirit? Was I part medium? Did the killer only want to kill off the Fairiwicks and found out who I was?

  Fright and sheer agony pierced my soul. I was living someone’s life, but not mine. . . not the one I knew. I grabbed my phone and stood up. It was ten after midnight and I hadn’t seen Jordan’s flashlight signal. Just when I was about to put my phone in my bag it vibrated.

  “June, where are you?” The text from Oscar had a big red exclamation on it as though it was urgent. “We need to talk.”

  Talk? At midnight? Either they had the council meeting and he was going to put me in jail or he was looking for me because he was the killer.

  I didn’t respond. Either way, he’d find out where I was soon enough.

  I’d give Jordan another ten minutes.
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  I unscrewed the cap off the bottle of water. I used the light from my phone so I could see what I was doing. Carefully I held it between my legs and took out the potion.

  One, two. I counted the drips of the serum as it went into the water. I replaced the cap on the water and shook it up.

  Off in the distance I saw a quick two flashes. Jordan was here. It was time. I wished I had a few more seconds so I could eat a Ding Dong. It might be the last time I tasted the delicious goodness.

  Instead, I stood up with the water bottle in my hand and putting one foot carefully in front of the other, I walked towards the lake.

  The ground became mushy the closer I got to the edge of the water. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was how Ann felt before she took her last breath.

  The lake was still, the water didn’t move. It lay like glass. The moonbeams shone off the water into the clearing. The silence rang in my ears and the only thing I could feel was the beating of my heart.

  I looked around to see if I could see anything. The fireflies played in the distance. They seemed to chase each other in circles and then in a straight line. Suddenly they darted into the night.

  “We’ve been out here for about an hour.” Jordan whispered.

  “You scared me.” I dropped the bottle. “Go back and hide. Let’s give it a little while.”

  “Maybe you didn’t see your nightmare right.” He picked up the bottle.

  I looked out onto the lake. I shook my head and recalled the vivid images from my nightmare. “No. It was my bracelet, I’m sure of it.” I turned back around. “NO!” I screamed and smacked the water bottle from his lips.

  “What? I’m thirsty.” Jordan’s eyes grew dark and he stepped backwards. “I think you are losing your mind.”

  Just like a spotlight, the moon shone down on the ground between us, exposing Jordan’s footsteps in the soggy mud. It was the same shoe print I found where Ann was killed and under my windowsill from the Cape Cod.

  “Oh, no.” I drew in my breath and put my hands up to my mouth. My intuition nagged me. “You killed Ann?”

  “What? What did you say?” He ran toward me. His hand reached out as I tried to run.

  The mud was like quicksand. I couldn’t move. The harder I tried the more my feet dug into the marsh.

  “Where do you think you are going, June?” He smiled, the evil showed in his eyes. He picked up the bottle and drank the rest of it before he crushed it in his grip. “Killing someone always makes me thirsty. But none of the others brought me a drink. Thank you.” He threw the bottle in the lake.

  None of the others? I only knew about Ann.

  Like the water rippled from the effect, chills rippled throughout my body with each word that escaped from his lips. I tried to pull up a foot, but I was already buried to my calves.

  “You psychics are all like. You think you can rule the world. Especially the Fairiwicks.” He paced back and forth, not getting too close. He knew I was stuck. “Do you know what it’s like being the outcast in a family, June?”

  I shook my head. He drew a gun from underneath his shirt and waved it at me.

  “My brother, my parents, we were part of a village out west. We were all banned because I didn’t have any powers. I was the runt.” He jabbed himself with his gun. “Do you know what animals do with runts, June?”

  “They get rid of them?” My voice quivered.

  “Yes, June. They get rid of them. And that is what the village did to me. They got rid of me, making my family hate me. Shun me.” He swayed the gun towards Whispering Falls. “And now I’m going to get rid of all of them.”

  “But Oscar and I love you.” It was worth trying every emotional tactic I could to get him to let me go.

  “You did, until you found out the truth.” He plopped down in the grass with the gun pointed straight at me. “Your father heard I left the village out west from my brother and his crazy fairy wife. They came looking for me and I used my best magic on them.” He held his gun up and dropped his head between his legs. “This gun is my magic.”

  A tear fell down my cheek. He had killed my father.

  I reached down while he wasn’t looking, dug in the mud and untied my shoes. The truth serum was setting in. He was spilling his guts. I slipped my hand into my bag and turned on the record button. He might kill me, but there was a chance that someone could find my phone.

  I slipped the phone into the grass right before he looked up.

  “It was priceless. They all came ‘to talk,’ but I knew better. They wanted to kill me.” He stood up and came closer. He held the gun to his chest. The mole between his thumb and finger was exactly like the one from my nightmare. I knew what fate had in store for me.

  “The fat one, Ann, she was Oscar’s nanny. She ran and I couldn’t find her. I had no idea where Whispering Falls was until dear sweet Oscar wanted to move here.”

  “Did you kill my mother?” I had to ask before he killed me. She was so young to die of a heart attack.

  “Darla. Beautiful Darla.” His fists clenched. “I had no idea who she was when you moved into Locust Grove. By the time she moved in, Oscar was settled. He had so much promise.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I thought he was like me. You know. . .the runt.”

  “I had no intentions of hurting anyone else until Darla found my little box of voodoo dolls.”

  I gasped. All this time I thought it was Oscar who made them.

  “What? Do you think I could let her live after she knew exactly what they were?” He threw his head back and laughed. “I let her live until you were older, then you could take care of yourself. So I watched you mix all those remedies, only you could never get them right. I figured you could live because you weren’t a crazy one. And Oscar is too dumb to be a police officer so when he wanted to move here, I let him.”

  “Seeing Ann was icing on the cake. So I stole your charm bracelet because we both know you sleep heavy when you are dreaming and after I killed her, I put your bracelet in her hand.”

  “It was all too easy. I made sure everything was done at night so no one saw me.”

  He was wrong! My eyes darted back and forth looking for the fireflies. Of all nights the teenagers decided to go to bed early? They were nowhere to be found.

  “That smudging thing with Gerald was priceless.” His laughter rang out. “I didn’t have a hand in that, but that was great.”

  “I’m glad you find it amusing.” The adrenaline rushed through my body. I tapped my leg with my fingertips. There had to be a good time to run. “Why me? What did I do to you? Are you going to kill Oscar?”

  His breathing deepened. His jaw line flexed and became rigid, as he chose his words carefully. “Oscar is dumb. If he did have powers, which he doesn’t, he would screw it up. You…” he pointed the gun towards me again, “you are a smart one. Without you around, I can keep Oscar. He won’t last long here. Especially after I pick them off one-by-one.”

  He was crazy if he didn’t think one of the spiritualists was going to figure out it was him. And to think that I thought Gerald or Oscar had something to do with this.

  Jordan put his gun back in the waist of his pants and slowly walked towards me. “It’s time, June. Now you be a good girl.”

  I jumped out of my shoes and ran. His footsteps were thunderous behind me.

  “Help! Help me!” I screamed into the night air. I felt his hands grab at me. I flung my wrist when I felt his touch. My bracelet snapped and flew into the lake. Without hesitation I ran faster, but not fast enough.

  Ouch! I crumbled to the ground as Jordan grabbed a handful of my hair. He thrust my helpless body to the edge of the lake and in one swoop he had my head under water just like my nightmare, only this time I was living it.

  I reached behind me smacking the air hoping I would make contact, but come up with air every time. I grabbed his hands that were holding me underneath. My nightmare played in my head as I flailed about. Something was differe
nt. I didn’t have on the bracelet on like I did in my nightmare.

  I flailed more, kicking my legs. With every kick, my head bobbled above the water. I gasped for more air. Just as I was about to give up, I felt a rough tongue on my foot, and then Jordan’s hands released me.

  Without looking, I dragged myself out of the water and gulped for air.

  Hiss, hissssss. Mr. Prince Charming had jumped up on Jordan’s back and stuck to him like glue. Jordan was running in circles trying to get him off.

  “Get him!” The glowing green ball from afar was making its way across the meadow. The moonlight shone on Eloise and Madame Torres.

  “He has a gun!” I mustered up every ounce of energy in my body.

  Eloise sat Madame Torres on the ground. A clap of thunder rolled over Whispering Falls as Eloise drew her hands together and blew. Lime green dust shot like a bee out of her hands and into Jordan’s eyes.

  He let out a blood-curdling scream and fell to the ground.

  “Over here!” Petunia called out into the darkness. I watched as the fireflies led the pack of spiritualists.

  They did go for help. The teenagers went to get help.

  “Oh my God. June?” Oscar ran over to me and brushed my wet bangs out of my eyes. He glanced over at Jordan who appeared lifeless just a few feet away.

  “My phone.” I pointed in the direction of where it was. “Get my phone.”

  Oscar reached into the deep brush and got the phone. He handed it to me before he saw Jordan lying in the thicket.

  “Oh my God, Uncle Jordan?” Oscar ran to his side. “What happened?”

  Oscar grabbed Uncle Jordan and placed him in his lap. Streaks of light shot from his eyes, “What did you do?” He glared at me.

  “I didn’t do anything. He is the killer! He has a gun!” I screamed, and pushed the button on my phone to play back everything that happened.

  Jordan’s words twisted and curled into the night air. He sat with his shoulders slumped, completely silent.

  I looked around at Izzy, Gerald, Petunia, Chandra, and Oscar as the recording rang in the dark. Jordan was only able to move his eyes. They darted from side to side.