Up until Martha Tells was murdered, more than six months ago now, it had been quiet in Coven Grove for close to a hundred years.
Quiet didn’t mean much anymore. If anything, it was somehow more stressful when it was quiet than it was when something awful was happening. Now that Bailey knew that potential was lurking just under the surface of everything, she couldn’t stop looking for signs and symptoms of the turmoil beneath what she could see with her eyes or sense with her gift—those things told her that Coven Grove was just a pleasant little town on the rocky coast of Oregon, population seven thousand. Well, seven thousand and one, as of three months ago, she supposed.
Her instincts, though, told her a different story. Those screamed at her to be alert, to be watchful. Because any day now, that turmoil was going to boil over, crack the veneer of Coven Grove, and prove that it had never really been quiet in the first place.
All along, there had been a war song playing in the distance that no one could hear until it was too late.
Chapter 2
BAILEY ARRIVED AT THE Tour Office for the Seven Caves just a few minutes before the most recent tour finished. The place was deserted at first, which was to be expected this time of year. There was rarely a wait for tours, and the hours when they could happen were prominently displayed. Already, they were doing about half the tours they had been only a month ago.
She shivered out of her coat and hung it up on the rack in the office before she sat down at the desk to check on their numbers. At first, Aiden hadn’t been comfortable with her poking around the office computer—that was, until his quarterly reports were due to the IRS, and he wasn’t quite certain what to do about them. A powerful wizard Aiden was—an accountant, he was not. Apparently, tax laws were just slightly more complicated than the arcane formulae wizards employed to work their magic.
The previous owner, Poppy Winters, had been a horrific person, up to the point where she murdered Martha Tells. If there was any Faery influence there, Bailey hadn’t known it at the time. Poppy had murdered Martha over what she considered to be the most precious thing in the world. Money. Maybe because of that obsession, however, Poppy had not only mastered the art of keeping track of the company’s income and expenses down to the penny—she’d taught Bailey how to do it as well.
The end of the next quarter was approaching, and using the same system Poppy had once used for her taxes—with the addition of a complete reporting of the company’s income, which Poppy had always carefully avoided—Bailey had Aiden on track to file on time. So far, it was going to be one of the best quarters in the company’s history, thanks in no small part to the recent murders connected to the Caves. Nothing brought out the tourists like a good murder, apparently.
Bailey sighed as she finished the reports tabulating the current tax bill. She closed her eyes. Just under the surface...
When the back door opened, the bell above it ringing loudly, she startled, and nearly jumped from the chair. The bells seemed to ring longer than they should have, carrying some tune, almost. But that went away, drowned out by the soft patter of voices coming up from the back door that led to the path down to the Caves.
Aiden’s was among them. “We recently had an archaeologist in town,” he was saying. “Professor Turner.”
“The one that was murdered by the reporter?” A man asked.
Bailey bristled a bit. It was still a reflex to step up to Ryan’s defense when the subject was raised. A moment later, of course, she remembered that Gloria, too, had been a reporter. Ryan’s story was published locally, and had gained some national attention—but it was Gloria’s story that had blown up the media for a full week from coast to coast. Coven Grove was gaining something of a reputation.
“Sadly, yes,” Aiden confirmed. He came into sight with a small group—a family, Bailey thought; mom, dad, and two young boys that looked to be somewhere between six and eight. Aiden smiled when he saw her. “Aha, and may I introduce the other tour guide for the Caves, Miss Bailey Robinson. If you have any other questions that I didn’t address—or you want a much more thorough answer to something I did—then she’s the resident expert. I bow to her expertise.”
The children all but bolted into the wider room, which was dotted with souvenirs, postcards, and all manner of merchandise; some of which had been here for years under Poppy’s inexpert and lazy approach to selling them.
One of the children was humming something. A familiar tune, though Bailey couldn’t think what it was from. She didn’t get a chance to ask him before his father approached her. “You’re the girl that found Martha Tells, isn’t that right? I think I remember you from the paper.”
Given his tone, he didn’t realize just how traumatic finding a dead body actually was. Bailey tried to keep that in mind as she smiled sadly. “Um... yes. That was me.”
“Is it true she got bashed in the head with—”
“Charles,” his wife scolded. “Leave it.”
“Did you... enjoy the caves?” Bailey asked to change the subject. “Is this your first visit?”
Charles’ wife cut him off before he spoke again. “I came here about... three years ago? We’re from Eugene. I just love all this old writing and stuff, you know? There’s good energy here. You can just feel it in the walls of the cave. Do you know if this place is a healing vortex? I bet it is. I’m very sensitive to these things, always have been.”
“Sheila, she doesn’t care about your new age mumbo jumbo,” Charles said.
Sheila shot him a patiently irritated look, and then waved a hand at him. “Men just don’t understand,” she said, her voice lowered as though her husband wasn’t standing right there. “They’re not intuitive like woman are, am I right?”
Bailey couldn’t muster a response. Instead, she tried to give a noncommittal laugh that just ended up sounding tortured. “I, ah... wouldn’t know about any healing vortex. My best guess is that the paintings in the caves are sort of a long term, generational art project by some of the local first nations peoples.”
“Even the hieroglyphs?” Sheila asked skeptically.
“People got around more than we sometimes imagine,” Bailey offered.
“It was aliens,” Charles announced. “That one drawing, with the big lady? Her head is too big, and she’s got all those stars around her. Probably an alien visitor from another world, that’s what I think. You think it could be aliens?”
In a larger group, the people with these kinds of theories and questions rarely spoke up. Alone, though, if they got you cornered, they were a bit braver. Bailey just shrugged. “Well, you know... I wouldn’t write off any explanation too easily. Aliens or... energy vortexes. You never do know, right?”
Charles and Sheila both nodded knowingly.
“Any other... questions?” Bailey asked hesitantly. No telling what other cans of worms were waiting to be opened.
Both children closed on them, each holding a souvenir. One of them held up a sea shell with something painted on it, the younger brother had a picture frame, one of Bailey’s creations. She smiled at the two of them—but especially the one who’d picked up the picture.
“Mom,” the older one said, “I want this!” he was a skinny kid with a mop of messy brown hair in need of a trim, his skin sunbaked, his eyes dark and intelligent. He glanced at Bailey and then pointedly avoided looking at her again. “Please,” he added quietly.
Bailey glanced at the other child, this one paler, his blonde hair still wispy, and adjust his age in her mind down to perhaps four or five. He was swaying from side to side, humming that tune still.
She squatted down to his level and pointed. “Do you like that picture?”
The boy only nodded shyly and continued to hum and sway.
“Use your words, Xylian.” It sounded like Gillian, but with a Z instead of a G.
“Xylian,” Bailey repeated, curiously. “That is a... unique name.”
“We wanted to give our kids something special, you know?” Sheila provided
by way of explanation. “Names no one else has. My oldest here is Barrigan; we call him Bear for short. When they turn sixteen they can pick new ones, of course. Names are just real powerful, you know?”
Bailey did, but she suspected this woman didn’t quite grasp what that really meant. “Well I think it’s a very special name,” Bailey told the young boy.
He still didn’t answer, or even seem to notice she was there.
“Where did you hear that song?” Bailey asked him. “It sounds really familiar. Very pretty.”
Xylian didn’t answer in words. Instead he held up the picture in his hands. It was a photo Bailey had taken of the door painting in the seventh cave.
“He’s so creative,” Sheila says. “He probably just came up with it on his own, you know? He’s tapped into something deep, this one. My little—Bear! Put that down or so help me!”
Bailey nearly fell over when Sheila snapped at her oldest son, and whipped around expecting him to be climbing up a display or something. Instead, he was sullenly replacing a cheap little bobble head, one of several that had nothing at all to do with the Seven Caves, back on it’s shelf.
“Maybe I should get you guys checked out,” Bailey suggested as she stood.
After that, she tuned out most of what Sheila and Charles had to say—it consisted mostly of admonishments to their children. Xylian, however, continued to catch her attention with his humming and crooning. Maybe his mother was right—he was just a creative child, who came up with some interesting melody on the fly. If that was true, she hoped he would pursue music as a career. He had an almost haunting sensibility for it. The tune never seemed to repeat, and sounded like some mix between a waltz, some epic movie theme, and a funeral march. Sad, but beautiful.
“So do we... pay you, miss?”
Bailey snapped out of it, looking up at the woman who was holding cash out in Bailey’s direction. “Oh, sorry; yes.”
While Bailey took the cash and made change, she nodded toward Xylian. “He’s got... quite a talent, doesn’t he?”
“Oh, what?” Charles asked. “The humming?” He waved thick, hairy fingers. “That’s just the latest. He paints, too, and makes things in play dough and clay. Sheila lets the kids run wild and do pretty much whatever they want.”
“I’m fostering their creativity, Charles,” Sheila sighed. “It’s exactly what they do in those Montessori schools, and those kids grow up to go to places like Yale and Harvard, just like your brother’s kids, so you can criticize my parenting skills when our boys are the next president and vice president.”
Charles refrained from further criticism at the moment; though Bailey doubted that would last.
She waved to the little family as they withdrew, finally. “Come back any time,” she said—not as loudly as she sometimes did, but she did say it.
Xylian paused at the door, looked at Bailey for a moment, and then smiled as he waved to her.
Any other time, it would have been adorable.
This time, however...
Bailey could have sworn there was something almost... malevolent about it.
The door closed, the moment, passed, and Bailey shook her head slowly as she left the counter and made her way into the office.
“Healing vortexes,” Aiden said, his clipped near-British accent giving the words an odd sound when Bailey flopped into the chair across the desk from Aiden’s. “Aliens, too. You know, we could leak some rumors and I just bet—”
“No,” Bailey said. “Please, no. I’m not opposed to people believing that instead of the truth, but... I’m just not sure I can take whole crowds of people like those two.”
“The kids weren’t so bad at least,” he said. He tugged at his tie to loosen it—always, Aiden wore an immaculate three piece suit; so far never the same one twice—and then unbuttoned the top button. “The older one had all sorts of good questions. The younger one didn’t speak much after the third or fourth cave. He just started that weird humming.”
“You know,” Bailey said, “he just gave me the creepiest look, just now when they left. I hope he’s just a genius and not a serial killer waiting to happen because that was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen a little kid do.”
The two of them laughed together, and as it died out Bailey gestured at the computer. “I got our third quarter stuff caught up. I can’t imagine there’ll be that much more to add, but it should be easy enough.”
“You are a lifesaver,” Aiden announced, “I’m quickly beginning to be unable to imagine life without you.”
Bailey blushed despite knowing what he meant. Maybe it was the accent.
Not that there wasn’t history between them. And something else. What was it about the prohibition against their getting involved that made it so, so difficult not to?
“Any... news of the babe?” Aiden asked.
“He’s fine,” Bailey said. “You should... well, Piper wouldn’t mind if you visited with me. If you wanted to meet William, I mean.”
Aiden waved a hand too casually. “Oh... I’m rubbish around infants. Plus I’m sure Piper doesn’t consider me... well I’m not sure what she considers me but I assume it isn’t a friend. Not in the meaningful sense, at any rate.”
It was difficult to correct him. After all, he hadn’t known Piper very long—or Bailey, for that matter, or even his apprentice, Avery. But it was different among the three of them. They had magic. It connected Avery and Bailey to Aiden easily enough. But that wasn’t the case with Piper.
Maybe, though, in time...
“I understand a certain young man has come to town?” Aiden asked. “Avery has been talking of little else. I take it they’re...?”
“Complicated is what they are,” Bailey sighed. “Ever since Avery was thirteen, when Thomas first came to visit. Or at least, that was when they met, I think. They first... you know... when Avery was seventeen. Since then he’s been permanently moon eyed, but he won’t leave Coven Grove.
“Not that I want him to,” she added quickly. “It’s just... sometimes I think Avery is worried that if he and Thomas ever tried to make a real go of it, you know... it wouldn’t work out or something, and then he wouldn’t have either their weird, transient relationship or the fantasy of more.”
Aiden stared. “I... see. You’ve put a great deal of thought into this.”
She shrugged. No use denying it. “I want Ave to be happy. He’s more than just a friend. He’s family. I don’t know that he can be in a town like this. But as long as he’s here... well, all he knows is that it doesn’t work in Coven Grove. Finding out it doesn’t work out there?” She shrugged. “That’s what he’s afraid of.”
“It’s a shame,” Aiden said. “He’s a brilliant young man. I know several similar minded—”
Bailey’s phone rang at the same time the office phone did. She and Aiden answered their respective phones, but it was, effectively, the same call. For Bailey, it was Ryan.
“Where are you?” he asked. He sounded grim.
“I’m at the tour office, we’re just about to close up, I think. Why? What’s up?”
“Dala Kendleston just reported her daughter missing,” Ryan said. “I interviewed her for the paper, got a picture. You haven’t heard?”
Aiden was muttering some question about what a child looked like. When Bailey glanced at him, Aiden mouthed ‘Seamus’—one of the local Sheriff’s deputies; the one who had helped them catch Gloria and get Ryan’s name cleared.
“Uh, no,” Bailey said, turning her attention back to the phone. “We’ll keep an eye out—”
“No,” Ryan said, “there’s details. Um... your kind of details.”
Bailey’s heart sank, and her stomach tightened as she straightened her back and caught Aiden’s eye again. He looked just as crestfallen as she felt. Seamus must have said something to tip him off.
“Okay,” Bailey said. “I’m with Aiden. Where are you?”
“Headed to the library to write this article, but you two meet me ther
e,” Ryan said. There was a beat. “Makes me think about... well, I love you. That’s all. Come soon.”
Bailey hung up, and Aiden did as well a moment later. He sighed.
“It was a quiet three months,” Bailey said.
Aiden snorted as he stood. “Yes,” he said. “I’m sad to see it come to an end.”
Chapter 3
AVERY’S PHONE CHIMED, and in response he reached into his pocket and flicked the ringer off. “Sorry,” he said to the man sitting across from him, looking dressed for an occasion. “I should have switched it off before. Forgot.”
Thomas Hope smiled the sort of smile that melted everyone in a ten yard radius, and shook his head, his hands resting on a menu as the deep, amber-brown pools of his eyes surveyed Avery’s embarrassed expression. “Don’t worry about it, Ave,” he said, his voice the perfect shade of baritone. “You can check it, if you want.”
“Whatever it is,” Avery assured his date, “it can wait. Um... so do you... know what you want?”
Thomas smiled again, this time with a hint of mischief. “I do.”
“From the menu, I mean,” Avery managed to say.
It was like this every time. Thomas dropped in from Portland to visit for a couple of weeks, and the two of them spent the first several days dancing around the subject, pretending they’d just met for the first time—again—and catching up. When they ran out of things to catch up on and couldn’t keep themselves apart any longer...
“Pretty sure I order the same thing every time,” Thomas said, tapping the Sandbar menu. “Nobody out east makes chowder or crab cakes like this place.”
“It’s a coastal thing.” Avery’s phone buzzed in his pocket again.
Thomas followed his glance. “Really, it’s okay,” he said. “If it’s an emergency—”
“I have no doubt I’ll hear about it later.” Avery took a deep breath, and released the growing tension in his stomach. This was his time. His and Thomas’.
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