by Tess Lake
“I can see you’re struggling with it. Don’t worry, I sometimes do too. You pretend to be someone else for long enough and then one day you become your mask. You know what I mean?”
I nodded and sipped my tea so I didn’t have to say anything. Of course I knew what he meant. I’d done exactly the same thing when I’d left Harlot Bay and gone out into the world. I was no longer Harlow Torrent, Slip witch with a magical, indestructible talking cat. I was Harlow, sorta writer, college student, then dedicated employee, easygoing girlfriend. I’d played that role well, right up to the point where the magic hiding inside me had lashed out and burned an entire apartment complex down.
“It’s a bit like professional wrestling. It’s real wrestling, they’re pushing and jumping and fighting, but it’s all choreographed for entertainment. Holt and Zero were going to do a joint sculpture. A sort of bury-the-hatchet type deal. We’d make up, best of friends, and then a few months down the line we’d start feuding again. Some of the other sculptors are in on it too.”
“So the competitions are all rigged?”
“No, they’re real. We all want that money and prestige. But a lot of that other stuff is all for show. Including most of the fights we had.”
He looked down at his cup and a tear streaked down the side of his nose.
Hmm . . . most of the fights. I could see that he was hiding something.
Well, hiding something more than secretly being an entirely different person.
“Do you know who might have killed Holt?”
“His real name was Andrew,” Hamish whispered, staring at his drink.
“I found footprints in the warehouse. Were you there?”
Hamish nodded and then took a deep breath, wiping away the forming tears.
“I went down to check the butter the night before—you know, make sure the sizes, temperatures were all good. I didn’t know Andrew would be there. The place was empty, which was weird, and then I heard this chanting.”
Chanting? This didn’t sound good.
“Did you see who it was?”
“I called out, because that’s what Zero Bend would do, and they stopped. I couldn’t understand what they were chanting, either. It was all echoey, didn’t sound like any language I’ve ever heard before. I looked around and that’s when I found Andrew. He was dead already. I stepped in the blood, saw the ice hammer, freaked out completely. I knew I couldn’t call the police because they’d never believe it wasn’t me. I bolted out of there and came back here. I was going to make an anonymous call, but . . . I don’t know, I couldn’t. I got drunk instead and by the time I sobered up, you’d found him.”
I nearly added and was immediately suspected of murdering him but managed to hold back. He should have called the police. The killer might have still been in the area, but I could understand why he didn’t. My first impulse had been to run, too.
I filed chanting away—I didn’t really want to deal with what that might mean right then—and circled back around to whatever Hamish was concealing. I couldn’t think of a better way to put it, so I just blurted it out.
“You said most of your fights were fake. You had real ones?”
“I had a girlfriend . . . it didn’t last. A while later she became his girlfriend. We were out drinking one night and suddenly we’re punching each other. Stupid.”
There was no good way to change the topic to the model I’d seen earlier, so I just went for it.
“When I was waiting for you, I saw a girl come in here. She looked like a model. Tall, blonde.”
“Kachina, my girlfriend. Probably picking up something. She’s staying at a hotel in town.”
“Do you think it’s possible someone is still drugging you? I saw Fusion Swan buying drugs.”
“Sorry, what?”
I put my down my cup and stood. As I did, a rush of warmth swooshed up my legs and into my head. It felt so comfortable and good. I needed to talk to the family, find out what this chanting might mean. I knew it was important, but I was starting to not care in a big way.
“I’m gonna find out who did this and you’ll be okay. You need to tell the police, though,” I said.
Well, that’s what I think I said. My mouth was feeling all funny. Hamish looked at me, frowning.
“Are you okay?”
His face stretched out, his mouth opening up bigger and bigger, and before I knew it I was swimming toward the door. I burst out into the sunlight. It was singing at me.
Was I drugged?
I didn’t get to answer myself. The ground turned soft like marshmallow, and everything went all melty.
Chapter 23
Lights resolved themselves into my bedroom windows. I opened my eyes to find myself in bed, with Luce and Molly watching over me with concerned expressions, Adams asleep near my feet.
“Don’t freak out,” Luce said immediately.
“Why would I freak out?”
I felt tired and a bit sore, like I’d been running.
“It’s nothing to get upset about. That’s what you need to remember,” Molly said.
They were really starting to freak me out now.
“What happened? What did I do?”
Molly and Luce shared a look. I knew that look well. It was the it’s-bad-but-we’re-going-to-try-to-soften-the-blow-although-you’re-going-to-discover-the-truth-in-the-end look.
“It’s not a big deal. Not many people saw,” Molly said.
“Saw what!”
“Some people saw. What about that tour bus?” Luce asked.
“I’m trying to make her feel better,” Molly hissed at Luce under her breath.
“Oh. Um . . . yeah, no one really saw. We found you before too much damage occurred.”
Luce looked down at the floor.
“Both of you are going to get severely karate-chopped if you don’t tell me what you’re talking about!”
They shared another look and then Molly sighed.
“Okay . . . you were in the fountain.”
“Naked,” Luce added.
“Undressed. But I’m sure for only a little while. Dancing and splashing.”
A memory of shaping light flashed at me. I was too hot, had to take my feathers off . . . oh no.
“Tell me precisely what happened.”
“Well, the sheriff called and said you were in the fountain dancing. We drove down, rescued you and came back here. Aunt Cass gave you a potion, you went right to sleep.”
“The fountain? The one in the center of the road near the town hall? That’s like a ten-minute drive from here. I was naked that whole time?”
“We can’t be sure when you took your clothes off. That’s something for the police to piece together.”
“The police?”
“You stole a bunch of iron nails from Ptolemy’s Hardware. Told Daisy you were fighting elves. She knew something was wrong with you, so she called Sheriff Hardy. Not to arrest you—to make sure you were okay.”
“When was this?”
“About four. Maybe a bit later. Why?” Molly asked.
I tried lifting my head, expecting dizziness, but none came. Whatever Aunt Cass had given me had worked.
I’d seen Zero Bend, now Hamish Reynard, near lunch. Then I was in the fountain at four. What happened in the missing hours? Who had drugged me? I couldn’t believe it was Hamish. He’d mentioned he’d suspected his old girlfriend of drugging him. Was she in town at all?
“I didn’t do anything else? Rob a bank, kidnap a pony?”
“Why would you kidnap a pony?” Luce asked.
“It was a figure of speech.”
“You shouldn’t kidnap any animal, and especially not ponies.” Despite her on-again, off-again war against Adams (who was Suspect #1 in the Case of the Missing Socks and Other Miscellaneous Crimes), Luce was an animal lover through and through. Even imaginary ponies getting kidnapped was terrible.
“Not as far as we know. Stealing nails and then the naked dance. Quite a few of those tour
ists had cameras.”
Molly had clearly given up on trying to make me feel better about it.
I pulled back and sheets and jumped out of bed . . . to discover I was wearing green stockings, a green top and a green skirt that stuck out like flower petals around my waist.
“You may have rented a sunflower costume at some point. You insisted on putting it back on when we got you out of the fountain. The sunflower head part is still in my car,” Luce said.
I looked down at my green feet. So I had tea with Zero Bend, got drugged, rented a sunflower costume, sometime later stole some nails and finally stripped down to dance in the fountain?
I couldn’t remember any of it. Everything was a confusing blur of light and sounds. I’m pretty sure I thought I was a bird at some point.
“Someone drugged me. They were probably trying to drug Zero Bend and got me by accident. We need to talk to him and get the police to his house to test all the food in his kitchen.”
Molly bit her lip. Luce mimicked her.
“Seriously—there’s more?”
“Zero Bend is missing and . . . someone burned his house down.”
“Probably not you,” Luce added quickly.
“This is the worst week of my life,” I groaned into my hands.
Before I had a chance to get out of my ridiculous sunflower costume, my mother and aunts burst into the room, followed by Aunt Cass at a much calmer pace.
“Harlow, what have you been doing?” Mom cried, rushing over to grab me in a bone-crushing hug. Again I went through the wringer of hugs.
“Someone drugged me. I don’t normally dance naked in fountains of my own volition.”
I saw Molly and Luce both shaking their heads at me and realized too late what I’d done.
“What you mean dancing naked in the fountain? You were naked in the fountain?” Mom asked.
“Just a figure of speech. I’m not sure what I did while I was drugged. Probably not much at all.”
“Why are you dressed like a plant?” Ro asked.
“I’m not. This just happens to be some green clothes I own.”
“Who drugged you? Was it that boy?” Mom said.
“Jack? No, he didn’t have anything to do with it. I was at Zero Bend’s.”
I gave a very brief and much censored version of my visit to Zero Bend. I figured I would keep the fact that he was British to myself. By the time I’d finished, my mother and two aunts were fuming.
“He drugged you! I’m going to curse him so hard he’s going to regret it the rest of his life!” Mom said.
“No, don’t do that! I can’t be sure it was him. Just because it happened at his house . . .”
Zero Bend had told me he’d thrown his previous model girlfriend out of a third-story window into a swimming pool because he suspected that she was keeping him drugged. After she was gone, he’d sobered up. I’d seen Kachina visit his house just before Zero Bend had come home. Was it possible that she had drugged something in his house? Maybe the milk he put in my tea?
Giant pieces of a puzzle suddenly clunked into place. Maybe Fusion Swan was drugging Zero Bend so he would act out and do crazy things. Kachina might even be working for Fusion Swan. Given that I had no memory of what I’d done while I’d been drugged, perhaps that was what was happening to Zero Bend. Maybe he was the graffiti artist spray-painting his name all over town. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t asked him about it. Maybe the drugging also meant that he’d burned his own house down.
“Well, she’s fine. I’m too busy for this. I’m not to be disturbed,” Aunt Cass announced and left the room.
I decided to follow her lead.
“As you can see, I’m perfectly fine. Sheriff Hardy is going to investigate, and I’m sure he’ll get to the bottom of it soon.”
“Hmmf,” Mom said.
“I’m sure Lamont will get to the bottom of it. He is very good at his job,” Aunt Ro said.
“You need to stay here to rest, and that’s the end of it,” Mom said.
I raised my hands. “I completely agree. I’m just going to stay here and watch television and recover.”
“We need to get back to the bakery. Business is suddenly booming,” Aunt Freya said.
“Us too, the Butter Festival and the murder have drawn a lot of tourists,” Molly added.
Within a few minutes it was just me and Adams sleeping on the end of my bed. I changed out of the sunflower costume—Molly had brought the head in and put it behind the sofa where our mothers wouldn’t see it—had a quick shower and then did exactly as I’d told them: I sat on the sofa and turned the television on. Adams came to sit beside me and soon started purring as I rubbed his ears and scratched his neck.
I’d clearly lied when I’d said Sheriff Hardy was going to get to the bottom of it. He didn’t even know yet that I had been drugged. He may have suspected it, though.
I was sitting there thinking about calling the sheriff when my phone rang in my hand. It was a call from the police station.
“Hello?”
“Harlow, it’s me. Part of Zero Bend’s mansion burned down. One of the neighbors said that she had seen you come to visit him. Do you know anything about what might have happened?” Sheriff Hardy asked.
The moment of truth. If what I suspected was true, perhaps some of the products in the house were drugged.
“I did go there this morning, and after I had a cup of tea with Zero Bend, things started to get quite strange. I think I was drugged. I don’t remember much after that, and then I woke up at home.”
“I suspected as much. I know you Torrent girls are wild, but when I heard someone in a sunflower costume had picked up a display of sunglasses and carried it three blocks before dropping it off at the library, I figured something odd was happening.”
Sunglasses? Library? What had I done?
“I saw Zero Bend’s girlfriend go into the house and leave before he got home. Maybe she knows something about it. Yesterday, I saw Fusion Swan meeting with that red-haired weasel man and probably buying drugs.”
“Okay, thanks, Harlow. I’ll let you know if we find out anything else. We’ll get the lab to test all the food in the house.”
“Sheriff? One more question—do you know who started the fire?”
“Well, my bet is on Zero Bend at the moment, but once we found him, he gave us a good alibi. He was witnessed going into his girlfriend’s hotel not long after you met with him. The hotel manager said he looked drunk, but that’s the way he looks most of the time. We think the fire started after that. We don’t really know the cause. It looks like it started in the kitchen. Maybe something was left on the stove and it took a bit of time to get out of control.”
He ended the call, leaving me only feeling marginally better. So I was drugged and presumably ran away, and then sometime after that, Zero Bend came back into town to his girlfriend’s hotel. Then the fire got out of control. I remembered Zero Bend making tea on the stove. Could it be as simple as leaving a kettle sitting on a gas burner?
I sat there for the next two hours or so shuffling pieces around in my mind and feeling random pain in my body. Whatever I’d been doing while I was drugged, it certainly seemed to have taken a lot of exertion.
I had dinner alone and watched TV alone. I messaged my cousins to ask when they were coming home but didn’t get any response. They only stayed open late if there were enough customers. Maybe all those Butter Festival tourists and their coffee machine were keeping them busy.
At about nine o’clock, when I was in the kitchen peeling an orange and pondering whether to have an early night, a car came roaring up the road to our house. My cousins burst into the house like a tornado.
“Wehavetostopthekiller!” Molly declared.
“What?”
They’d obviously been talking about the murder and had concocted some plan, but I honestly couldn’t understand a word they were saying. Molly and Luce were pacing up and down, talking at the speed of light. Imagine hummingbirds
and then give those hummingbirds a sophisticated coffee machine that makes incredibly delicious but incredibly strong coffees.
“Wecan’tjustletsomeoneelsegetkilled!” Luce blurted out.
“You need to slow down, I can’t understand you,” I said from behind the kitchen counter.
“Noyouneedtospeedup!”
Molly blurred over to stand at the counter.
“Quick quick, give me a piece of orange oh my gosh why are you so slow right now?” Molly said, twitching.
I gave her a piece. She gulped it down and resumed high-speed pacing.
“You guys need to cut back on the coffees. One a day, maybe.”
Luce pointed her finger at me.
“No deal, Harlow. That coffee machine is the bestthingthateverhappened to us.”
“I thought you called it a death machine?”
“Bestthingever!” Luce proclaimed, turning so sharply she was almost a blur.
“The killer is going to strike again. We have a responsibility to stop them,” Molly said.
“The police are working—”
“It’s magical, Harlow. That means we should do something. That’s what witches do.”
One of Molly’s favorite statements, “that’s what witches do” has been invoked in the past to include drinking too much tequila on Mexican independence day, eating way too many sugar skeleton heads on Day of the Dead celebrations and . . . hmm, we really seem to celebrate a lot of Mexican stuff.
My phone rang. It was Sheriff Hardy again.
“Do you know Harmonious Twang? She’s one of the competitors in the Butter Festival?”
A sinking feeling activated.
“Yes, I know of her.”
“She was renting an apartment in town. Neighbors reported fighting. There are signs of a struggle and now she’s missing. We found some blood in her room. We think she’s been kidnapped.”
“Do you think it was same person who killed Holt?”
“That’s a working hypothesis. I was wondering . . .” He paused as though trying to work out how to phrase it. “I was wondering if you or your sources might have any ideas where we should look to find her?”