by Leanne Leeds
“Once things calm down, I think Scout will as well. I’m sure he’ll make a fine leader for the werebears.”
Aldo sat quietly and stared at me. As he looked deep into my eyes, the silence was punctuated by the rustling of denim as the big man shifted in his seat from one side to another. As if he suddenly came to a decision, Aldo nodded to himself and began to speak.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, ma’am,” Aldo said, a dark look passing over his hairy face. “Scout has never been even half the bear that Chase was, and only a quarter of the man. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if that arrogant sod had something to do with his brother’s death.”
“That’s a serious accusation, Aldo,” Gunther said as he leaned forward.
“I am aware, Mr. Makepeace. My words are not spoken lightly, and it gives me no pleasure to say those words out loud to outsiders. I would not say it if Scout had already been elevated leader as it would be of betrayal of my leader and could mean my death. But he is not leader, and so I can still speak my truth. For another three days, in any case.”
“Do you think that’s why Chase designated Wayland as his executor? Because he suspected that his brother would try and push him out of the way for some reason?”
“It would not surprise me if that were so,” Aldo told me. “Our departed leader’s choice has given us three days to uncover who has betrayed our community so egregiously. We have three days to speak freely, to speak frankly, and to say what we have seen and heard without being concerned about repercussions. Once Scout is our leader, that window of truth will close, and we will owe him our allegiance.”
“Just because Chase designated Wayland as executor doesn’t mean Scout killed his brother,” Gunther pointed out.
“I do think it means Chase thought his brother could be capable of it in the right circumstances,” I told him. “I can’t think of another reason why he would give someone outside the werebear community control of it for three full days.”
“It has never been done before,” Aldo told me.
“We appreciate the information and the trust you’ve shown us, Aldo, in sharing it. Especially considering some of the rumors about me. I do have one more question for you, though. When you asked me to bring the Magical Midway to the Werebear Jamboree, was that your idea?”
“I wish I could say that it was, but alas, it was young Bolt from the Sticky Walls ride. He and I met for elixirs one night, and somehow we got on the subject of the Werebear Jamboree. It was he who came up with the idea, and I thought it was a good one.”
“Did you and Bolt often meet for drinks?” Gunther asked him.
“No, Mr. Makepeace. In fact, that was the first time.”
“I don’t want you to meet with him alone,” Gunther insisted after Aldo left. Red splotchy patches colored my friend’s face as he paced slowly around the seating area. He refused to meet my eyes.
“I didn’t say I wanted to meet with him alone, just that I wanted to meet with him. What’s got into you?”
“The last two times you were around him, he did his elf glamour garbage on you, and that’s dangerous. It’s not safe for you to be anywhere near him right now, Charlotte.”
“You're ridiculous, witch,” Faleena said as she and Anya tumbled into my yurt without bothering to wait for me to ask them in. “Bolt is a member of her circus, you jealous moron. He would never do anything to hurt her. Isn’t that some big sin in your world?”
“I’ve known Bolt for years,” Anya agreed. “He’s a bit boring, but he wouldn’t do anything to hurt Charlotte.”
“You didn’t see what I saw, either of you,” Gunther told them as he turned to face the women. “The night Charlotte moved the midway here, Bolt turned his full glamour power on her. It was so strong that she was dizzy for a good five minutes after he left.”
“That doesn’t sound to me like the elf wants to hurt her, Blondie,” Faleena snickered as she walked over to my cabinet and rummaged through the human wine collection I stored there.
“Please, feel free to help yourself,” I told her.
“Thanks, Charlotte, don’t mind if I do,” the werebear answered brightly. As she grabbed a decanter, she continued. “Like I was saying, Makepeace, it sounds like you’ve got your jodhpurs in a twist because you have some handsome, charming competition, that’s all. Get over it.”
“Competition for what?” I asked her.
“Are you kidding me?” Faleena asked me in response, staring at me as if I’d grown another head. Turning to Anya, she handed the naiad a drink. “Your friend is completely oblivious, Anya. I thought you liked them smarter than that.”
“Charlotte’s not dumb. She just makes sure her focus is on much more important things. Like any powerful woman.”
“Does anyone here realize that in three days time I may be accused of murder? I hate to rain on everyone’s happy hour by focusing on other things, but the clock may be ticking on my freedom here. Can you let me get back to finding out who killed Chase, please?”
“Let me go talk to Bolt as a lawgiver, Charlotte,” Gunther said.
“What the heck, Makepeace?” Anya whirled on Gunther. “You already trying to push Charlotte out of the role she was actually given first? If I remember correctly, her uncle gave her the lawgiver ring. You just snatched it off a dinner table and took it for yourself. Maybe Faleena was right about you.”
“Isn’t that just like a man?” Faleena laughed, and Anya and Faleena clinked glasses in agreement. “I told you, he’s just trying to weasel into her position. Well, probably multiple positions…”
“Hey, watch it,” I snapped.
“Apologies, Charlotte,” Faleena said, laughing.
“I don’t need you to talk to one of my own, Gunther. I’m happy to bring you with me if you want, but I’m not going to avoid Bolt.”
“I don’t trust him,” Gunther disagreed.
“Why should she care if you trust him, Makepeace?” Faleena pointed out. “She trusts him. And he’s a member of her circus. You’re acting like a bit of a controlling twit if you ask me.”
“No one asked you,” Gunther responded in a low, harsh voice I had never heard from him before.
“Why do you even need to go with her? Please, explain to me why the woman cannot handle herself,” Faleena smiled. Gunther ignored her.
“Actually, Charlotte, why are you even going to talk to Bolt? What does he have to do with the Werebear Jamboree?” Anya asked, confused. “He wasn’t even here when Chase was murdered.”
“How do you know that?”
“The autopsy was done,” Anya said, gesturing toward Faleena.
“The murder took place right around the time the Magical Midway arrived. Unless Bolt can teleport, he wouldn’t have had time to make it over to where Chase was murdered,” Faleena said.
“Can elves teleport?” I asked.
“No, elves can’t teleport,” Anya told me, rolling her eyes. “When have you ever heard of a teleporting elf?”
“Bolt was the one that suggested the Magical Midway come to the Werebear Jamboree. Well, he suggested the idea to Aldo, and then Aldo brought it to me.”
“What does that matter?” Faleena asked as she sat down on my couch and made herself at home.
“It may not,” I told her. “It does seem strange, though. I just want to know how he came up with the idea. That’s all.”
“I want to know why he showed up at the scene of the murder,” Gunther added. “He insinuated himself awfully quick into the investigation. He knew right where to be to make the assertions he did, and what to say so Charlotte and I wouldn’t be trusted to investigate.”
“You’re seriously paranoid,” Faleena said and waved Gunther’s direction like she was swatting a fly. “It’s a festival. People wander around. He probably heard the argument and just wandered in.”
“To a wake? How does someone just wander in to a wake?” Gunther asked her.
“It could happen,” Anya said thoughtfully. “
I wandered into a Bear Mitzvah once.”
I stared at her.
“What? You’ve never heard of a Bear Mitzvah?”
“Clearly you are both terrible at this,” Faleena said as she pointed to Gunther and me. “While you’re arguing over who should or shouldn’t talk to the dazzling elf man, neither of you have brought up the person with the most to gain.”
“Who?” I asked as I glanced at Gunther, who was gritting his teeth.
“Your cyclops. Maybe this is a cyclops attack on the werebear fortunes. Or on our lands. That man could take anything we have over the next three days,” Faleena admonished us as if we were children. “If I were a lawgiver, I would be looking at the person that’s already profited from Chase’s death. His ‘friend’ Wayland.”
Once Anya and Faleena left the yurt, Gunther and I stared at each other in sullen silence. He was clearly aggravated about Bolt, and with Faleena’s insinuations about Wayland. I was frustrated by… actually, everything.
This was supposed to be my vacation.
This was not a vacation.
“Stop, both of you,” Fortuna said, sticking her head in my yurt. “I’m going to ask permission to come in but honestly, Charlotte, if you don’t give it to me, I’m coming in.”
“Come on in,” I told her without taking my eyes from Gunther. “What’s up?”
“What’s up is you are both broadcasting your displeasure through a mind megaphone that’s bouncing like two ping pong balls on the inside of my skull,” she said as she stepped between us. “What’s wrong with you two?”
We both spoke at once.
“He doesn’t trust me—”
“She won’t listen to me—”
Fortuna placed her small hands over her ears and closed her eyes while Gunther and I verbalized our annoyances simultaneously. As we spit words over one another and Fortuna continued to guard her ears, our volume slowly lowered and our protestations trailed off.
As the silence reached beneath her hands, she peeled them away and peeked out. Smiling, her posture relaxed, and she grinned at us.
“Awesome, now that you got that out and you realize how silly you both sounded, let’s talk.”
“Why bother when you can just read our minds,” I grumbled.
“That’s not my fault,” Fortuna smiled and thumped her chest. “In fact, I think it’s your fault if you really stop and think about it.”
Gunther and I sat down with Fortuna and shared what had happened that she didn’t know about, and the thoughts we had about our next move.
“What you’re saying feels like the right path,” she said. “You’re still missing pieces, but I think you know that.”
“We haven’t gotten very far,” I admitted.
“I can tell you that Gunther’s right about Bolt,” Fortuna said, lowering her voice. Her eyes darted to the door, and she leaned in. “He’s hiding something deliberately within his mind. Elves can glamour their thoughts the same way that they can glamour others, sort of. When I passed by him an hour ago, it was like a white energy wave rolled over me, and I got dizzy.”
“Are you okay?” Gunther asked. Fortuna waved off his concern.
“It was nothing I couldn’t handle, and I don’t think it was directed at me. I think it was sent out to obfuscate what he was thinking. I know a little about what elves can do, though, and doing something like that?” Fortuna said as she leaned back. “It’s not without effort. I can’t read anything from him.”
“What about Wayland?”
“Oh, Charlotte, that poor man,” Fortuna said as her eyes teared up. “He loved his friend so much, and he’s in so much pain right now over his loss. I can’t believe there’s any way that Wayland harmed Chase Trout, much less murdered him.”
“Any guilt? Could it have been an accident?”
“No,” Fortuna nodded. “He’s also furious at whoever did this.”
“Well, that’s good, at least,” I told Gunther. “Faleena seemed convinced that we should look at him. I think he’d be good to talk to, but it sounds like he’s not likely a suspect.”
“If there’s anyone else you want me to take a peek in, let me know,” Fortuna offered.
“I think we need to talk to some of these folks, first. Bolt and Wayland definitely seem like the best place to start, though I think we should start with Wayland, not Bolt,” I told them.
“Why?” Gunther asked with relief.
“We don’t know enough about Chase Trout right now, and I highly doubt Scout will talk to us at all anymore. I don’t know who you should head-peek. Maybe just keep your mind open, if it’s not too much trouble?”
“Will do, boss,” Fortuna saluted and smiled.
“Don’t do that,” I told her.
“Sorry, boss,” she said and thumped her chest like the lares guards. I imagined whacking her in the head, and she flinched.
“Ow.”
“I’m going to run over to the cauldron and call my father before we go,” Gunther said, standing up. “I just want to give him an overview of what’s happening, especially since it involves Wayland.”
“Okay, we’ll be here.”
“It amazes me sometimes how hard you are on him,” Fortuna told me as soon as Gunther left the yurt.
“What are you talking about?”
“Charlotte, I know that you know how he feels about you,” Fortuna said, placing her hand on my knee.
“I have some telepathic stuff, too, you know. I know what you’re doing with your hand on my knee, Fortuna.”
“I can sense the truth of how you both feel for each other. I can’t help that. I’ve done too many readings in my life to not poke my nose in and give you advice. What I haven’t been able to figure out is why you are pushing him away so hard. You have feelings for him, Charlotte. But you pretend that you don’t. Why?”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” I told her, getting up and straightening my spotless yurt.
“See? This is exactly what I’m talking about.”
I took a deep breath.
“We can never be together. Never. Entertaining any feelings that I may or may not have for that man is pointless when you realize that our lives will never be able to intertwine,” I told her without stopping my nervous cleaning.
“Ever since you became ringmaster, Charlotte, you have been so sure of so many things. Many of those things turned out not to be quite as you thought they were. As you got new information, you changed your perspective. You changed your view of what was possible. I mean, I’m living proof of that.”
I turned around and stared at Fortuna.
“This is different.”
“I don’t think it is.”
“There’s no new information, Fortuna. No new indication that anything is changed from when my parents warned me for the first time not to become involved with him.”
“Your feelings have changed, Charlotte!”
“That’s not facts. That’s not new information. That’s just a… a complication.”
You are such a stubborn person, Samson said as he waddled into my yurt. The cat’s stomach was distended, and it swung back and forth as he walked.
“What on earth happened to you? Are you sick?”
Salmon. Lots of salmon. Amazing, succulent, juicy salmon. Werebears don’t see many cats, and every fireside I visited shared their bounty with me. My belly is full of salmon.
“Your belly looks like it’s about to explode,” I told him as he plopped down in the center of the room on his side. “You’re just going to lay in the middle of the room?”
Can’t jump. Too heavy. Can’t make it to the bed. Drunk on salmon.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” I grabbed the cat and deposited him on the bed. “Better?”
Yes. Must rest. Must digest salmon. Must make room for more salmon.
“Some guardian you are, Samson.”
You’re not dead at the moment, are you?
“Is that your litmus test for guardian succes
s? Is the person I’m supposed to guard breathing? If yes, time for a salmon break?”
Stop talking. Must sleep.
“It looks to me like your super magical guardian protector is going to just be a cat for today,” Fortuna laughed.
“Hey, have you seen Fiona, by the way? I haven’t talked to her in a while.”
“I think Ningul has her in the centaur village. She apparently did not react well to the accusations against you, and he felt it was better to keep her away from the Werebear Jamboree until she calmed down.”
“So, we probably won’t see her until we leave, then? Or until I’m arrested, I guess.”
“Charlotte, you’re changing the subject. We never finished our conversation about Gunther.”
“There’s a reason for that. We don’t need to have a conversation about Gunther.”
Fortuna crossed her legs and her arms while raising her eyebrow. I didn’t know how such a short, pixie-like woman could pull off such an intensely judgmental expression, but Fortuna was definitely coming into her own as a witch. Gone was the shy human just happy to be let into the paranormal party.
“Look, here’s the thing,” I said as I sat down next to her. “Whatever feelings I have for Gunther? They don’t matter. Gunther spent his entire life being the half-human witch that was picked on and ostracized by the witch community.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“He never had a chance to find a partner. I would guess, anyway. Would you date someone that you had to wear sunglasses to look at? Or who constantly advertised that they were something most people didn’t approve of?”
“Well, I probably would, but I’ve always been a bit eccentric. I see a little bit of what you mean, Charlotte, but I don’t think Gunther’s feelings for you are simply because you’re the first female to be kind to him. They run deeper than that.”
“That’s not something you should be telling me,” I said as I turned away from her. “We all have a right to privacy.”