Ginger of the West

by Meg Muldoon

  He stared at me, and I could tell he didn’t know who I was or where he was. But then slowly, as he caught his breath, recognition set in.

  “Ging,” he whispered.

  He reached out and touched my cheek.

  “I’ve missed you so much.”

  I took his hand, our faces close.

  “I’ve missed you too, Eddie.”

  He blinked hard.

  “You were having a bad dream.”

  “Did I wake you?”

  I shook my head, lying. He sat up. His forehead was damp with sweat.

  “Do you remember what it was about?” I asked.

  He gulped, looking around the room bathed in the soft glow of candlelight.

  “Just a nightmare. The same one I always have.”

  He moved his legs off the sofa, resting his feet on the wood floor. I took a seat on the cushion next to him.

  “It seemed bad,” I said.

  “It was.”

  When I was a kid, I often got nightmares that scared me long after I woke up. Aunt Viv always said it was important to talk about the scary ones, because when you talk through them, you take away all their power.

  “Want to tell me about it?”

  Eddie shrugged.

  “The dream’s always the same. There’s a storm, and I’m on this sinking ship in the middle of the Pacific.”

  “Of course you are,” I said. “All those shipwrecks you loved reading about as a kid have probably forever imprinted your subconscious.”

  “Maybe. But it’s bad. And it’s not just the ship going down in a storm. There’s someone there with me. I’m chasing her through the hallways, trying to catch her before we go under. But every time I get close, she turns the corner and disappears. I only ever catch a fleeting glimpse of her. And she never seems to hear me calling. She’s always running, running, running.”

  He sighed.

  “And I can hear the terrible groaning of the ship as it takes on more water, and I can feel it tipping. And there’s nothing but pure terror. I can’t seem to save her. And I can’t seem to save myself, either. We’re trapped, and all that freezing water’s just rushing in.”

  He rubbed his head, and I could tell he still felt a little bit of that terror, even now.

  “That sounds awful,” I said, resting my hand lightly on his arm.

  “I used to just get the nightmare every once and a while. But now, it’s every few nights.”

  “Have you ever thought about what it might mean?”

  “Probably nothing. Don’t people just have weird dreams sometimes?” he said, stretching.

  A violent gust of wind howled against the house, causing the old wooden boards to groan. Candlelight danced around the living room and flickered as the draft moved its way through the old house.

  Eddie met my eyes.

  “Remember when we were teenagers and how you used to get scared in these summer storms?” he said.

  I laughed a little.

  “Oh, no, no. As I recall, you’re the one who practically hit your head on this very ceiling. Remember that? The storm that tore up the wharf? Aunt Viv had to get you a cup of hot milk boiled with lavender and tell you a story to calm you down.”

  Eddie laughed, and I felt a little lightheaded.

  “Is that how it went?” he said. “I could have sworn it was the other way around. And that I was the one consoling you.”

  “Nope,” I said. “A little wind and lightning never scared me. I’m as tough as the ocean, Eddie Cross.”

  He smiled.

  “I know you are. That’s part of the reason I fell for you in the first place.”

  I gazed into his eyes, and we both were silent.

  All of a sudden, without warning, I felt a burning urge to kiss him. To reach forward and run my hands through his hair. To let this stormy night take us with it.

  And as I looked at him, I saw that same desire there in his eyes, too.

  The sound of my heart thundered in my ears.

  It felt so right. So familiar. Eddie being so close to me, like he hadn’t ever left.

  He slid his hand gently into mine.

  “I still think about that summer, Ging,” he whispered.

  “When you were 13 and scared of storms?” I asked, smiling.

  He shook his head, his eyes intense.

  “Not that one. The one where we fell in love,” he said. “And we spent every day together. And those nights... You meant everything to me.”

  I swallowed hard.

  He’d meant everything to me, too.

  How had something so great fallen apart so badly?

  I brought his hand to my lips and kissed it.

  And then I saw the scar.

  Sometimes it felt as if I carried that scar, too.

  I dropped his hand and I drew in a sharp breath, shaking my head.

  I couldn’t go down that road again with Eddie Cross.

  I stood up abruptly.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean…”

  He trailed off, and even though he didn’t say anything more, I could sense the hurt and rejection in his voice.

  “It’s just that... my life’s a mess right now,” I said. “I’m not even divorced yet. And you know what Aunt Viv’s up against. I mean, we might lose this house. I might even lose the café. My whole life is teetering on the brink of disaster, Eddie.”

  He nodded, but didn’t look at me.

  “Yeah. I get it, Ginger. It’s okay.”

  He cleared his throat.

  “You know, we should get back to sleep,” he said. “It’s going to be a long day tomorrow. And Aunt Viv’s depending on us.”

  I cringed.

  This wasn’t the way I wanted it to go.

  “But Eddie—”

  “Goodnight,” he said.

  “Goodnight,” I finally said, grabbing the candle and quickly walking away in the dark.

  I held back the tears until I made it up to my room.

  I’d hurt him.

  Again.

  Chapter 45

  I dumped the large bowl of creamy ginger lime curd filling out into several graham cracker crusts. I smoothed the velvety tops with a spatula, making three delicious-looking pies, and placed them in the oven.

  It was still stormy, but I was relieved that the electricity hadn’t gone out at the café overnight, and the lights were on when I arrived at five this morning. I had asked Héctor to work in the office to order supplies, and I took over the kitchen, baking up my own kind of storm. I worked quickly, even though I felt sluggish, wanting to get ahead of everything so I could take off the rest of the day and resume the search for the mayor’s killer.

  I hadn’t gotten much sleep during the night, which probably had as much to do with all that wine as it had to do with Eddie.

  After the awkward moment between us, I’d gone back to my room and cried for a long, long time. Though Eddie hadn’t said anything to cause such a reaction, I was guessing that all those unprocessed feelings that I had kept stuffed down inside for years finally bubbled up to the surface. My feelings for Eddie, everything we’d lost, and all those potential years of happiness that had gone down the drain.

  Even by the light of day now, those feelings still haunted me.

  A few hours went by, and while I was moving at record speed, I couldn’t shake my bad mood. I could only hope that the sadness inside wasn’t spilling into the pies and scones and cakes I was making.

  Héctor walked through the kitchen doors.

  “I’ve got all of our supplies ordered for the month,” he said. “I also got the air conditioner fixed yesterday afternoon. It should be good to go now for the summer.”

  “Way to go, Héctor.”

  He nodded.

  “So only 10 minutes until opening,” I said, glancing up at the clock. “Are the customers lined up out on the sidewalk?”

  “Uh, no, not today.”

  I looked up.

  He seemed more concern
ed than usual, a deep jagged line between his eyebrows.

  “Really? That’s odd. All those reporters left town already?”

  “No, it’s not that,” he said, looking at the ground. “They’re all still here. They’ve just gone down the street to Homestyle Bakery instead.”

  “What?” I said, wiping my hands on my apron and stepping toward the window that faced the street.

  He was right. The long line and crowd that was usually out front at this hour was now down the block, across the street.

  I felt nauseous.

  “Why are they all over there?”

  “Well…” Héctor said, shifting his weight between his feet. “Yesterday was a little… strange.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Lots of complaints from the customers,” he said in a low voice.

  “Complaints?” I practically yelped.

  I spun back around to look at him.

  “Héctor, tell me what happened.”

  “People started returning muffins and cookies and scones half eaten, wanting their money back. I gave refunds and apologized, but it kept happening. By the afternoon, the place started emptying out. It was a ghost town by closing time.”

  He sucked in a deep breath.

  “People were complaining in particular about the Ginger Apple Cake.”

  I was having a hard time processing what he was saying. Other than Lilliana, I couldn’t think of one time in the last five years that a customer was unhappy, let alone demanded their money back.

  I wasn’t a prideful person in general, but I stood by the quality of my pastries and baked goods. I knew it was hard to be perfect every time, but my recipes for the cookies, pies, brownies, and bear claws we offered at Ginger’s were all tested and crowd-approved, pleasing fare. Some of them were my grandmother’s recipes, others belonged to Aunt Viv, and some were my own.

  But though they’d come from different sources, I knew one thing – they were all insanely delicious.

  So why all these complaints suddenly?

  Had I lost my baking touch somehow?

  Or was it because of Aunt Viv getting arrested?

  Was everybody boycotting our business?

  I stood there feeling like a gutted fish. Thinking that an empty café inevitably meant an empty bank account, and an empty defense fund for Aunt Viv and—

  I suddenly realized something.

  “Oh, no.”

  I wasn’t the one who had made that Ginger Apple Cake.

  “Sapphire,” I whispered.

  Héctor disappeared and returned with a slice of the culprit cake.

  “I kept this one slice for you to taste,” he said. “It’s from yesterday.”

  I tried a bite and nearly screamed.

  It wasn’t only the over-abundance of sugar that made it so awful. It was everything else as well. The amount of ginger made me gag, and the cake practically disintegrated in my hands, drier than a tourist’s skin after a day at the beach.

  “I don’t know what happened,” he said. “Sapphire’s always been such a natural.”

  But I had an idea about what happened.

  “Whatever else we do today, Héctor,” I said. “We have to keep Sapphire away from the kitchen.”

  Chapter 46

  Even though I was sorry to see the café half empty, I also felt a little relieved. Besides having lost one of my best bakers to Magic Marionberry Scones, we had all been going on eight cylinders for a while and needed to catch our breath. Plus this would give me time later this afternoon to get back to work on helping Aunt Viv. I had gotten a text from Eddie, and we had an appointment set up with Nigel Parks at noon.

  In all the busyness of the morning, I nearly forgot that it was the summer solstice today – the longest day of the year. And while most solstices were something to look forward to, the thought of today’s only saddened me.

  Aunt Viv and I always went up to Eagle Ridge to celebrate the beginning of summer. Now she’d be celebrating it from inside the cold bars of a jail cell.

  I thought back to something she’d said the day she was arrested.

  “It’s going to be a low-key celebration this year, I’m afraid.”

  How had she known that?

  I finished making a batch of berry pies and dusted off my hands on my apron. I grabbed the tea pot and poured myself another cup of Aunt Viv’s Lemon Kickstart Blend – a combination of lemon peel, black tea, orange essence, lemon verbena, and jasmine that could bring a corpse back to life.

  I stole a glance at Sherwood, who was leaning against the wall in the corner of the kitchen.

  My heart skipped a beat as I realized he was against a different wall than last time.

  That was the kind of thing that would have freaked Maddy out – him moving around like that. She would have started touching the St. Michael pendant that she always wore around her neck, whispering prayers.

  I was used to Sherwood adjusting positions sometimes, though. I never knew exactly why he did that, and never caught him in the act of moving. But sure enough, sometimes he’d be in a different spot in the kitchen when I arrived in the mornings.

  I supposed that he was just like a person who had stood in one place for too long. Maybe he got sore and achy and needed to lean in a different direction. Or maybe he was just bored, needing to mix it up.

  Sherwood was probably the biggest mystery of our family. Aunt Viv and I had been able to trace him as far back as my great, great grandmother. But other than that, the particulars on where he had come from, how he had found us – a family of witches – and what made him fall at big, dramatic events, were unknown. Aunt Viv said that her mother told her Sherwood should always be kept near us, respected, and cared for. She also said the old broom was nothing to be trifled with.

  I sipped my tea and went over to the window. Outside, the ocean was a mass of deep gray, which matched the sky.

  The wind had died down a little bit, and the power was back on all over town, according to the local news.

  But there’d been a red sunrise this morning. As blood-red as I’d ever seen.

  And on the summer solstice too, of all days.

  Red sky in the morning, sailor’s warning.

  A sudden loud noise sounded behind me, and I nearly lost my grip on the hot mug. A big splash of tea slopped over the edge and spilled to the floor.

  I spun around.

  It took me half a second to realize where it had come from.

  Something sat at Sherwood’s feet.

  I walked over and picked up the book that had fallen off the counter so suddenly.

  I furrowed my brow, peering at it.

  What was this doing here?

  “Hi, Ginger!”

  I jumped.

  “Sapphire,” I said, spinning around and placing a hand over my heart. “You scared me half to—”

  “Oh, sorry,” she said, interrupting me. “I keep doing that to everybody! I did that to my mom yesterday and she nearly missed a step coming down the stairs at home. She was fine, of course, but man, did she dodge a broken ankle!”

  Sapphire’s energy bounced off the walls. Maybe there was such a thing as being too happy.

  “Sapphire, is your mom still giving you those marionberry scones?”

  “Oh I wish. But I finished those almost the same day. Mom suggested I eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and that’s what I did. They were incredible, Ginger! Oh, but I’m glad you reminded me…”

  She took out the small bottle I had given Joyce along with the scones, shaking it to indicate that it was empty.

  “She says we need a refill ASAP.”

  I brought my hand to my mouth, trying to stifle a gasp.

  The extra elixir that I had made as part of the spell was for when the scones ran out, which should have been next week. But I had also told Joyce that she was supposed to only give Sapphire a drop or two every other day, as needed. The bottle should have lasted for at least a month, maybe two.

 
No wonder Sapphire was so happy.

  And no wonder there were those big black bags under her eyes.

  And no wonder all her baked goods had three times the sugar and twice the salt.

  I took the bottle.

  “I’ll call your mom later today,” I said.

  “Sweet!”

  Sapphire took off her scarf, revealing a pretty pink blouse and yellow cardigan that looked more cheerful than a bird in late spring.

  I couldn’t believe this was the same girl who used to wear ripped jeans and faded t-shirts like a uniform.

  “What do you think of this new shirt?” she said, as if reading my mind. “Do you like it?”

  She didn’t wait for me to answer.

  “It’s the funniest thing,” she said. “I’ve found this new passion in clothes and I find that it’s nearly impossible to stop shopping. I had to take my mom’s credit cards with me yesterday because I maxed all of mine out.”

  “Yeah, you look really nice,” I mumbled.

  “Aw, thanks, Ginger! I’m hoping somebody else in the café notices that too, if you catch my drift.”

  “Drift?”

  Her features lit up brighter than a firecracker.

  “Well, okay. I’ll tell you. I’ve fallen madly in love with Héctor. He doesn’t know. Not yet, anyway. But I really think we’d be great together! He’s so nice and strong. I know some people think he’s a little scary, but I know he’s just a big teddy bear underneath it all. He’s just amazing, Ginger! He’s so…”

  Oh. My. God.

  What had I done?

  Not that they wouldn’t make a fine couple if that was in the cards, but Héctor already had a long-time girlfriend – Melinda. Sapphire had even talked with Melinda a few times when she picked Héctor up from work.

  “…I’m just hoping he works up the courage to ask me out soon,” she continued. “Maybe I’ll just ask him. Do you think he likes me like that?”

  I stood there, flabbergasted.

  I struggled for the right words, but couldn’t find them.

  As Sapphire reached for an apron, her eyes fell on the book in my hands – the one that I had picked up from off the floor moments earlier.

  “Oh good, you found it!” she said.

  I was relieved I wouldn’t have to answer her last question.