by Tess Lake
“I won’t write anything until you say, I promise.”
Sheriff Hardy walked away, leaving Carter and me standing there together.
Despite the shock of this new development I hadn’t forgotten what I’d read this morning.
“You suggested that I was having an affair with Zero Bend?”
“I had a source,” Carter said.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Well, you definitely ran through town in some sort of drug haze. Hundreds of people saw you.”
“If you had bothered to do some basic research, such as asking me a question, you would know that was because I accidentally drank some drugged milk that had been placed in Zero Bend’s house by his manager, Fusion Swan. Have you decided to become a brainless gossip columnist? One of those people who makes up garbage in a desperate attempt to earn money?”
Carter gave me a hard look and I was glaring at him in return, and then his face fell, the mask slipping away.
“The paper isn’t going very well. I was angry at you and I wrote that stuff and suddenly we sold a lot more copies.”
It was a rare moment of truthfulness. I didn’t get to answer it, though. The chained children appeared in the middle of the street, walking along, some of them crying, followed by the man with the whip. They only appeared for a few moments, but by the time they vanished, so had Carter.
Chapter 16
I took a detour again past the warm and happy corner. After standing there for a few minutes I felt better so I took an even larger detour back past Traveler, where there was a line of tourists out the front door. Molly and Luce didn’t even have time to look up out the window to see me. They needed to hire some staff pronto.
I walked back to the office. The only strange thing I saw from the past was a flock of bats, maybe one hundred or so, flying across the city heading towards Truer Island. They vanished as soon as they passed out over the beach.
At the office, I threw myself into work again. It was still playing in the back of my mind that I hadn’t seen Holly since we’d traveled to Truer Island. Maybe she’d forgotten all about me and moved on. Somehow, I doubted it. I could only hope she wasn’t feeling scared and alone somewhere.
I was getting ready to go home when the sheriff called me.
“We picked Franklin up and we searched his room. I think we got our guy.”
“That’s good,” I said.
“I’ll let you know once we have something else,” Sheriff Hardy said.
I drove home, reaching for some kind of relaxation, but it was out of my grasp. Yes, I was a bit nervous about seeing Jack tonight. Yes, a family dinner was always a roll of the dice as to who might end up cursed, but mostly it was Franklin Cordella. I couldn’t convince myself that he was a murderer. From what Jack had told me, he’d been traveling for the last few years, living in various seaside towns. The receipts I’d found in his room backed that up. So what was the story? He’d murdered Holly and her father and then had come back to town once the bones had been dug up? What did he hope to achieve by killing me and Carter? Surely that would create more problems than it would solve. I arrived home as my cousins did. They were tired but not as exhausted as yesterday.
“Fewer customers today. Thank all that is great and wonderful in this world,” Molly said.
“I know you two have boyfriends already but you gotta help me out. If Aunt Cass or any of the mothers put the thumbscrews on Jack, do we have any way to distract them?”
“I saw Aunt Cass walking up the back of the property with a teenage boy this morning,” Luce offered.
“A teenager? What were they doing?”
“I didn’t follow them. He was carrying a box.”
“Fireworks. I saw Aunt Cass get a delivery. She must be storing them out there somewhere.”
“There is absolutely no way I’m going to bring that up to save you,” Luce hastily added.
“Okay, fine. Come on, there’s gotta be something else.”
“I don’t think we have anything,” Molly said.
“You kidding? When they suddenly discover that we were out at the lighthouse, you want to go with ‘I don’t have anything’?”
“Well, Mom has still been going out to yoga multiple times a week. We never did find out whether she was actually going to yoga or sneaking out to see someone,” Molly said.
“How are they going to find out we were at the top of the lighthouse?” Luce asked, worried.
“How do they find out anything?”
Between showers and getting changed we racked our brains, but we didn’t have anything else we could use to deflect our mothers in case it came to it.
At best we had Aunt Ro going to yoga multiple times a week and the possibility of throwing Aunt Cass into it by talking about the fireworks.
Given that Mom said they’d been planning to launch fireworks every week or so it was entirely possible that she already knew about it.
In short, if anything went off the rails, we were screwed.
It appeared the moms had finally gotten the message about telling us what to wear because we didn’t receive any further instructions from them. We all chose T-shirts and jeans.
We walked down to the main house and found a skinny teenage boy hanging out in front. The apprentice, I assumed.
“Can we help you?” I asked.
His face lit up like it was Christmas.
“Do you have any facts about Cass?”
He pulled out a notepad.
“She has really great teeth,” I said, smiling at Molly. She poked her tongue out at me.
“Oh, I knew that already! But thanks for reminding me!”
He scribbled down something on his pad.
“Don’t you think she is the greatest? She knows so much and is right about everything!”
“Um… sure.”
We backed away and went inside to find Aunt Cass watching television in the lounge.
“Don’t bother asking,” she said as soon as we walked in.
“I have to ask. That kid out there is in love with you or something.”
“It’s not love. He’s convinced I’m right about everything. Which I am.”
“Oh, really? How much did you overdose him?”
Aunt Cass pursed her lips at the television before finally sighing.
“He’s a lot thinner than I remembered. He was supposed to eat a piece and then take the rest to work to share. It’s not my fault he can’t follow instructions!”
Molly and Luce crept away to search for food in the kitchen.
I sat down beside Aunt Cass and lowered my voice.
“I’ve been seeing more things from the past. They look like they’re real now. I saw a bunch of kids in chains being whipped by a man.”
Aunt Cass finally looked away from the television. “We’re going to be out on Truer Island soon enough. You’ll need to spend some time in the cave.”
“Why are we going to be out on Truer Island?”
“It’s not my secret to share,” Aunt Cass said.
“Spill it.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Fine. She wanted to be annoying? I could play that game too.
“Aren’t you interested in how it went with Hattie?”
“No.”
“She has a nice house.”
“I don’t care. Stop talking to me about her.”
“I think she had a daughter and granddaughter there.”
Aunt Cass pointed her finger at me.
“That faint rumbling you hear in the distance is the sound of a thousand terrible things that will be coming your way if you say one more word about that witch.”
Gulp.
She was serious.
“I need to be going now,” I said and backed out carefully.
I went to the kitchen to hang out and perhaps steal a little food, but the moms were busy working on an epic dinner and soon we were thrown out to the dining room. We were talking a bit about
Traveler and their coffee sales when Will, Ollie and Jack arrived at the same time. Molly and Luce immediately grabbed and passionately kissed their boyfriends. Jack and I smiled at each other and he gave me a very chaste peck on the cheek.
We had no time to talk before Mom rushed in and started ordering us around.
“Harlow, you and Jack over here. Molly and Ollie there. Will and Luce here. Aunt Cass, dinner is ready!”
We all sat in our assigned seats. Molly and Luce had one hundred percent of their attention focused on their boyfriends and I knew both of them would be useless if this night went off the rails. That’s okay, I could fend for myself.
Mom rushed out as Aunt Ro bolted in and placed bottles of red and white wine on the table before running back to the kitchen. The sound of the bottles hitting the table must have summoned Aunt Cass, who finally made her way to the head of the dinner table. Her appearance finally stopped Molly and Luce from doing what could only be described as “canoodling.” She gave both Will and Ollie a look that froze them in their seats.
“You two better act like gentlemen,” she said, pointing her finger at both of them.
“We do,” Will said.
“We are,” Ollie said.
“Don’t let yourself be waylaid by wicked women,” Aunt Cass said.
“Wicked women?” Molly said. “Look who’s talking!”
“I’ll have you know that I am the epitome of virtue,” Aunt Cass said.
Molly snorted in disbelief. “More like the epitome of breaking the law,” she said.
As they went at it, I grabbed a bottle of white wine and filled Jack’s glass and then mine.
“Are they always like this?” Jack whispered to me.
“This is just a warm-up. Wait till they really get going.”
By the time Molly and Aunt Cass had finished up (Aunt Cass promising serious consequences and Molly snorting at her in disbelief again) Mom and my aunts emerged from the kitchen with dinner.
Mom was carrying a deep roasting dish of dry-rub chicken thighs. They were crispy and brown and smelled incredible. Aunt Ro was carrying a giant spinach salad that had almonds and Parmesan flakes. Aunt Freya carried out a deep dish of scalloped potatoes in a rich cheesy sauce. I was instantly hungry.
“Dinner! Serve yourselves!” Mom announced.
Everyone piled up their plates, too focused on the food to get into anything right away. Although, Molly and Aunt Cass did have a little scuffle over the ladle for the potato scallops.
Just as we started eating Mom frowned and looked out the front door.
“Who is that out there?”
“No one. Ignore him,” Aunt Cass said.
Mom ignored that and went out the front to find the apprentice. She dragged him inside and made me and Jack move down one place. She put him in the seat directly next to Aunt Cass. We had a round of somewhat awkward introductions. The apprentice was Ryan and he was very much obsessed with Aunt Cass. He couldn’t stop himself from smiling at Aunt Cass, and for her part she kept drinking wine, eating food and not looking at him.
Molly, seeing an opportunity to take on Aunt Cass relatively risk-free, stepped straight into it.
“Why were you waiting out in front of our house, Ryan?” she asked.
“Well, I realized that Ms. Torrent has such a wealth of knowledge to share and I don’t want to miss a single moment of it,” Ryan said, a rapturous look on his face.
“Really? What do you like about her in particular?” Molly said.
“She’s so clever! All of her ideas are wonderful and she’s knows everything about everything!”
“That’s enough, now. Remember, you need to eat your food, otherwise you might not be able to work,” Aunt Cass said.
Ryan took the time to scribble this down before turning to his food, but Molly wasn’t finished yet.
“Didn’t Ryan quit a few days ago because you kept telling him his work was terrible?” Molly asked.
“Didn’t your pants used to fit you better?” Aunt Cass sniped back.
“Okay! We have an announcement!” Mom said, leaping up. She picked up her wineglass and dinged it with her fork even though we were all already looking at her.
“The day after tomorrow the Torrent Bed and Breakfast team is participating in the Gold Mud Run on Truer Island. So is the Traveler team, accompanied by the Harlot Bay Reader team.”
She smiled at us as though we had understood what she was saying.
“Did you sign us up for the Gold Mud Run?” Luce finally asked.
“Yes, the whole family is going. It’s going to be fun!” Mom said.
“What? I haven’t done any training!” Molly protested.
“We have Traveler to run. We can’t do it,” Luce added.
“You are doing it because we have entered you and this is a family thing and family sticks together,” Aunt Ro said, pointing a finger at her daughter and Luce.
I was about to protest when I realized this was more than some promotional opportunity for the Torrent Mansion Bed and Breakfast and Traveler and my little online newspaper. My family were also taking me out to Truer Island so I could get through this Slip witch power that was getting progressively worse.
“Well, you girls are doing it. Maybe we should too,” Jack said, looking at Will and Ollie.
“I’m game,” Ollie said.
“Me too. It’ll be awesome,” Will said.
“We’ll come up with a team name,” Jack said.
The conversation went off on about a hundred different tangents after that, Molly and Luce putting up progressively weaker defenses against competing in the Gold Mud Run. I mainly focused on eating my dinner (which was absolutely delicious) and drinking wine.
Ryan finished his dinner and spent the rest the time staring rapturously at Aunt Cass.
Soon the meal was over and we took our dessert outside. The moms had made honeycomb ice cream served in waffle cones.
We went outside and broke off into groups. I found myself once again with Jack out in front of the mansion, looking over Harlot Bay. Last time we had been here it was because a growth spell had gone seriously awry and we’d accidentally grown a jungle in the dining room. Aunt Cass had cast a tiredness spell on the men to send them home so we could deal with it. Hopefully this time there wouldn’t be any such interruption.
“So, what’s the deal with Aunt Cass?” Jack asked, biting into his ice cream.
“You know those kids shows where there is some evil genius and every week they have a different scheme or plot? That’s pretty much her deal.”
Jack laughed, throwing his head back and looking up at the stars. For a moment I had the urge to step closer to kiss his neck just where the stubble ended. I held that back by taking a bite of my ice cream.
“It’s weird. It seems like your cousins are a little scared of her but at the same time trying to bait her.”
I couldn’t tell Jack we were witches and curses were a problem so I had to settle on a much lamer excuse.
“Aunt Cass has her ways of getting back at people, so me and my cousins have our ways of getting back at her.”
“It’s a perpetual circle of revenge? She gets you, you get her, she gets revenge, you get revenge for the revenge, that sort of thing?”
“When we were teenagers, she once altered all of our clothes so we couldn’t fit into them so we would think we were fat. Believe me, she’s no innocent,” I said, leaving out that she had actually done it with a magic spell.
I took a quick glance around and saw the moms had gone back inside. Luce and Molly were with their respective boyfriends on the veranda, and down from them Aunt Cass was looking out into the darkness with Ryan next to her, scribbling down something on his notepad.
Okay, if I was going to kiss Jack properly, this was the moment. I took one last bite of my ice cream for some courage and looked at Jack. He looked back at me, the stars above gently glimmering in his eyes. I took a step towards him, my heart thudding in my chest, and then a
nother. He moved towards me but as I reached out to touch him, a wash of magic suddenly hit me from behind and Jack let out a tremendous yawn.
“I’m so sorry, I really have to go. See you tomorrow at the run.”
“What?” I managed to say before Jack was gone. I turned around to see Will and Ollie making similar excuses and Aunt Cass pushing Ryan towards Will and ordering him to take Ryan home. In less than a minute flat we were left out in front of the house, bereft of any men. The three of us marched over to Aunt Cass.
“What did you do that for? There is no jungle growing in the dining room this time!” Molly said, stamping her foot.
“If you play with fire you get burned,” Aunt Cass said.
“I didn’t play with fire!” Luce protested.
“Me either!” I said.
“Collateral damage is an unfortunate consequence of war,” Aunt Cass said, looking directly at Molly.
“You’re not going to get away with this,” Molly said, shaking a finger at Aunt Cass.
“I already did,” she replied and then walked away, heading inside the mansion. As soon as she slammed the door behind her, Molly let out a frustrated sound and kicked the ground some more.
“That old woman needs to be strangled!” she said, kicking up a cloud of dust in frustration.
“You’re the one who was stirring her up. Why didn’t you leave her alone about Ryan?” I said.
“Because this is war and if you see a weakness you lunge for it.”
“Well done. So you lunged and now my boyfriend is driving down the hill and so is yours. Harlow was just about to kiss Jack,” Luce said.
“Were you really?” Molly said, her angry mood suddenly vanishing.
“Maybe. I was thinking about it,” I said.
“You should have told me you planned that. I would have saved poking Aunt Cass until later.”
“So if I want to kiss any boys I need to give you a number of hours’ notice, do I?”
“It would probably be best,” Molly said.
Our night abruptly over, we walked back to our end of the mansion. Luce looked up the Gold Mud Run and all of the different obstacles on her laptop.
“Do you realize this is more than sixteen miles long? There are twenty-five different obstacles this year. In one of them you jump into a huge pool of ice water. Not cold water. Literal ice cubes and water together. I don’t want to do that!” Luce said.