by Tess Lake
Aunt Cass looked around, counting the number of tourists, firefighters and police officers. Mom touched her on the arm and shook her head.
“There’s too many,” Mom said.
“I can do it,” Aunt Cass replied, raising up her hand.
“No, it’s too late,” Mom said. She didn’t grab Aunt Cass’s arm but rather hugged her instead.
It seemed like time sped up. One moment Big Pie was fully ablaze, the fire raging red, and the next it was dark, the flames extinguished, the firefighters pouring gallons of water into our destroyed bakery. One of the firefighters gave a shout for everyone to get back, but there was no time for any of us to move. There was an enormous crack and then a crashing louder than I’d ever heard as the entire building collapsed in on itself. The firefighters kept pouring water on the rubble, dousing it to ensure there was no chance the fire could spread to the adjoining shops.
The entire family was watching in stunned silence when colored glowing lines appeared around us. The moms started in shock as they appeared. There was a deep red line leading up to the bakery and inside, terminating at I guess the point where the kitchen used to be. There was another red line leading off down the street.
“Is this you?” Aunt Freya whispered to me.
Kira, who had been sitting on the gutter nearby, started crying into her hands. But before I could comfort her, she stood up and ran away down the street. As soon as she was gone, so were the lines.
“I’m going after her,” I told my family and didn’t wait for a response. I took off down the street after Kira, following her around a corner. I heard footsteps behind me and glanced back to see Molly and Luce following. They’d both been crying just as I had, but I could see they were equally determined to find out who had done this and to exact vengeance upon them.
Kira was young and she was fast, but she had nothing on three witches burning with furious anger. Or perhaps she wanted us to catch up to her. In any case, it wasn’t long before Kira stopped and we surrounded her. She was babbling.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do it, I’m sorry,” she said.
“Shh, it’s okay. That wasn’t you,” I said, wrapping my arms around her.
“There was no magic there,” Luce said, pointing back in the direction of the bakery.
The glowing lines appeared around us again. The deep red line that felt like fire stretched away from Kira and me, heading down the street before turning a corner.
“We need to find where that line goes,” Molly said. She rushed off and returned a few minutes later with her car. We piled in and then followed the deep red line down the street.
“Is this a good idea? What if the person doing this sees us?” Kira said. I could see she was scared, terrified even, but there was no way the three of us would let this go.
“We’re with you. We’re going to stay together. You’re safe with us,” I told her.
Kira nodded and then cleared her throat.
“I know I am,” she said softly.
The red line took a looping course through the streets before it finally left the center of Harlot Bay and went up into the rich district that overlooked the town. It finally turned into a driveway of an enormous mansion set far back on the block. It had a white gravel drive leading up to ornate front doors. The red line went through those doors.
We slowed as we drove past the property. There were lights up outside, illuminating the grounds. The house itself was dark except for a single light glowing around the edges of the curtain on the ground floor.
“What do you say? Do we go in?” Molly asked. We drove past the mansion and parked around the corner.
“For all we know, this place is just the next house the arsonist was to burn down. If we break in there we could get caught. Then Sheriff Hardy has to come to arrest us,” Luce said.
“Or this is where the arsonist lives,” I said, looking out the window at the side of the mansion.
“I don’t want to go in there,” Kira said.
Molly was chewing on her bottom lip and clenching her hands on the steering wheel. She was riding that thin edge between despair and fury where all of us were right now. But it was Kira’s voice that finally got through to her. She wasn’t about to make a scared teenage girl break into a mansion in the middle of the night.
“We’ll come back in the day, figure out who lives here, put this place under surveillance,” Molly declared.
By the time we drove back past the front of the mansion, the light on the bottom floor was out. We drove back down through the blackness of the hills and into Harlot Bay, returning to where Big Pie used to stand.
All the while my heart was aching like a sore tooth. Was this what it felt like to be broken? Would I even know? The night was dark, the streets lit only by the streetlamps, but it felt like all the pain of the world was crushing in on us. The moms had built Big Pie from the ground up and now it was gone.
Chapter 22
“Are we breaking the law being here?” I asked.
Jack continued to peer at the front window of the mansion through the binoculars.
“We’re absolutely breaking the law being here,” he replied.
It was the day after one of the worst nights of my life. Jack had come up to Torrent Mansion in the morning. Despite the horrors of last night, the moms had made breakfast for the guests and were generally putting on a brave face. Aunt Cass had retreated to her underground room and locked the door to the bottom part of the house with a spell so strong none of us could open it.
Jack had arrived early. Molly, Luce and Kira were still sleeping. Once we’d returned to Big Pie last night, we’d realized there was nothing we could do, so we’d come home. I’d spent the night tossing and turning, the anxiety only draining away late in the morning. It felt like I’d had maybe three hours sleep.
Jack brought me a file on Sylvester Coldwell that he’d acquired from some of his police friends. It seemed there had been an investigation around Coldwell using aggressive tactics to force people out of buildings that he wanted to buy. The police had stopped short of filing charges when one of the victims had recanted their story and then left town, refusing to participate further in the investigation.
“I think this is our guy,” Jack said to me.
I hadn’t been able to tell him, of course, about the red line that had led to the mansion, but I didn’t have to. The police had Sylvester Coldwell under surveillance and they had seen him visiting the mansion.
So that’s how we’d ended up in an empty vacation house directly across from the mansion, up on the third story, looking out an enormous glass window. Jack had used lock picks to get us in and we’d spent our time watching the place, waiting to see who might enter or leave. It was surprising it was vacant, given it was peak tourist season. My best guess was they wanted too much money for it.
We’d only been there a couple hours, but we’d been taking shifts at the window. I have to say it certainly wasn’t the most romantic way to spend time with someone you liked.
I felt bad that I wasn’t at home to help my family, but there wasn’t really anything more I could do. Big Pie Bakery was utterly destroyed. The city had sent a bulldozer in the morning to push the rubble back so they could block it off and keep passing tourists safe.
If we were going to rebuild, it would take a long time. We hadn’t talked about it at all, but I knew our family simply didn’t have the money. The moms had borrowed against the bakery to help renovate the mansion last year after we’d been forced to move back into it, and then I think they’d borrowed against it again to help transform Torrent Mansion into a bed-and-breakfast. Now all they had was a block of land piled high with burned wreckage with a huge debt attached to it.
“Can you take a turn? I need to visit the bathroom,” Jack said.
I took the binoculars from him and took his place at the window while he walked downstairs. It was all I could do to stop from crying at any random moment. I’d virtually grown up in the ba
kery, working behind the counter when I was six years old, standing on a stool and handing donuts over. That was before my dad left. It had been a fixed point for our entire lives and now it was gone.
My phone rang. Some unknown number, but I answered it anyway. It was Carter.
“I heard about the bakery. I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.”
“Did you find anything else on Coldwell?”
“Not yet. We’re watching a house he visits sometimes, though.”
Carter gave a long, drawn-out sigh over the phone.
“Last night, when someone set fire to the bakery, it seems that someone else took the opportunity to break into the Harlot Bay Times. They took three laptop computers with them. One of them contained all the research that I had gathered. I think it was Coldwell.”
I pinched my nose between my fingers and tried to push back the tiredness that was throbbing in the back of my skull.
“Why do you think it was him?”
“I told him I wasn’t going to be leaving, and he threatened me. Said he’d quote ‘sort me out’ unquote.”
“Sounds like something he’d do,” I said. I didn’t precisely know the legality of the report Jack had acquired from his friend so I kept it to myself. Given that Coldwell had previously threatened people to get them out of places he wanted, it seemed very likely he’d done that to Carter. Stealing laptops, though, was something different.
“I’m going to be leaving town for a little bit,” Carter told me.
“Where are you going?”
“Down the coast. I’ll stay with my sister until my arm is healed. The Harlot Bay Times is going to be shut down until I decide to return, if I ever do.”
I got the sudden absurd idea that Carter was going to ask me to write for the Harlot Bay Times or take it over, but instead he sighed again, said he’d see me around and then hung up.
I resumed focusing on the mansion across the road. The only sign of life in there had been a light flicking on around ten in the morning. So far no one had come or gone.
Jack returned from downstairs, and I gave him the update on what Carter had told me. By the time I was finished, Jack was shaking his head in disbelief.
“So is Coldwell harassing him to get him out, or do you think he knows that Carter has been investigating him?”
“Could be either option or both. I suppose it could be coincidence that the laptop with the research on it was stolen, but given how everything has gone so far I think it must be deliberate.”
We talked for a while, going around in circles, chewing over what we knew. Of course, Jack was operating with incomplete information. He had no idea that there was a witch hidden somewhere in town who was possibly starting fires. He also had no idea that Kira had some power that showed us a line to the arsonist’s next target or where he/she/it lived.
Time dragged on, taking us into the afternoon before finally a black shiny car turned into the driveway and drove up to the front of the mansion. Sylvester Coldwell got out. He went to the front door, opened it and went inside.
“Do you think we should call the police?” I asked Jack.
“Not yet. There is someone else living there, and I want to see who it is. I’m going to keep watching this place until they come out, no matter how long it takes.”
There was something very cute about his determination, but I had to remind myself that Jack was on the hook, too. Whoever had been targeting me had gotten him as well by burning down the house that he’d been renovating.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a message from Aunt Cass, telling me she’d found a possible location on the hidden witch. She asked me to go there immediately and sent the address.
I told Jack I had to go, gave him a kiss on the cheek and then crept out of the empty house and away to where my car was parked three streets away. The address was just on the other side of Harlot Bay.
I drove down through the hills, alternating between chewing over all the evidence and just being completely blank in my mind. I was so tired, the exhaustion of the previous night catching up with me, and it felt like I’d been sad for so long that I was emotionally worn out too. It was getting to the point where I couldn’t even feel sad anymore.
I was sitting at a stop sign, staring blankly at nothing, when that nothing resolved into Kira. She was coming out of the other main supermarket in town carrying a bulging plastic bag full of groceries. She scurried off down the street after loading the groceries into her backpack.
I abruptly decided the time for soft kid gloves was done. We had two suspects for the fires – one was a sleazy real estate developer, but the other was a witch hidden somewhere in town, and I was now absolutely sure Kira was helping her. Even if she was only starting some of the fires, she had to be stopped. I parked my car and hurried after Kira. The streets were packed with tourists, so it was easy to stay out of sight. My intuition was telling me I didn’t need the address Aunt Cass had just sent me.
Kira didn’t look behind herself once. She seemed very determined and focused as she rushed out of the main part of town. I risked a little magic to cast a concealment spell just in case she did look behind her. I was already tired, and the concealment spell certainly didn’t help me stay awake.
I yawned as I followed Kira. We were about three streets from the center of town when she turned at a rusted gate and vanished.
Yup, it was the address Aunt Cass had sent.
I hurried up to the house and looked into the yard. It was unkempt and the house looked like it had been had been empty for quite a long time. Sadly, it is the tale of a dying seaside town. Owners try to sell their houses and fail, and then many simply move away in desperation.
There was an old for sale sign sitting against the fence. Sylvester Coldwell’s greasy smile was flaking and sun-damaged. I went through the gate and up to the front of the house. At the door I let the concealment spell go. It was too tiring to keep it going, and right now I didn’t care if Kira saw me or not. With that, I pushed open the door and marched into the house. I could smell smoke, as though someone had lit a fire recently.
Like the other abandoned house we’d been to, the previous owners had left their furniture behind. I followed the sound of voices, Kira’s and another girl’s. I found them in the living room. It looked like someone had been living there for months. There were food wrappers everywhere. Next to a pile of junk mail I saw ashes, still warm from being set alight. Aunt Cass must have detected that accidental fire.
The girl was digging into the bag of groceries, pulling open a loaf of bread like she hadn’t eaten in days. I didn’t need the flyer with me to know that she was Sophira Barnes. Kira turned around when I walked in.
“What are you doing here? Did you follow me?” Kira said.
I was tired and, yes, there was plenty of anger built up from yesterday and the fire at Big Pie, but it broke my heart when both girls looked at me with fear in their eyes.
“Who is she?” Sophira asked, her voice quavering.
“Her name is Harlow. I’m staying with her,” Kira said. I took a step forward, but Sophira jumped back as though she was afraid I would grab her.
“Don’t come any closer!” she yelled.
The magic around me pushed and pulled, like the wind before a storm hits.
“It’s okay, I’m –”
“Did my dad send you?” Sophira said.
The magic called, and a pile of junk mail on the table burst into flame. The scent of sweet honey hit me.
Sophira was the hidden witch.
Kira whirled around to face her friend.
“She’s a friend, she helped me!”
But there was no getting through to her. Sophira backed away from the pile of burning junk mail, her face a mask of horror.
“I can’t stop it,” she gasped.
I didn’t have the energy for this, but I’d been training with Hattie Stern for a while now, and so I reached for the flame, grabbed it and pulled all of the heat di
rectly out of it. The fire was extinguished immediately and then I was holding a burning ball of hot air. I took a deep breath and lifted it up into the air before slowly releasing the ball of heat. It expanded, and the temperature in the room shot up a few degrees as the ball disappeared.
Once that was done, I took a few more deep breaths and fought the feeling that I wanted to light a fire to do it again. I heard Kira talking to Sophira, but I couldn’t really focus on what they were saying. For a brief few minutes they were simply warm-blooded mammals that I could pull the heat out of. It wasn’t long before the crest of the wave of desire passed and I returned to reality, finding myself sweating and almost shaking with exhaustion. Kira was standing by the bag of food, watching me cautiously.
“That was amazing,” she said when I looked up.
“Ta-da!” I said weakly.
I saw that they’d been making peanut butter sandwiches before I’d arrived, so I asked Sophira to make me one. She did and soon I was gulping it down, feeling like I hadn’t eaten for weeks.
When I finished the sandwich, I was feeling better. The two girls were still looking at me like I might turn into a monster in any moment, though.
“Sophira, I don’t know why you ran away. But you’re starting fires, which is something I have experience with. Come with me to the mansion up on the hill and we’ll look after you. We won’t even tell your dad unless you want us to.”
Sophira looked at Kira for assurance.
“You can trust her.”
“But what’s going to happen? I’m not going back home again. I need to be in Harlot Bay, or the magic escaping is much worse.”
“I’ll introduce you to my Aunt Cass. She’ll help you get the fire under control. We can give you a proper bed to sleep in, and then we can figure out what to do,” I said.