"We're looking out for your safety, Liv," I said. "If anything happened to you, I'd never forgive myself."
"I'm not sick," she said stubbornly. "Maybe I'm crazy but I'm not sick." With that she burst into noisy tears that tugged at my heartstrings.
Suddenly the air was thick with thought probes. They gleamed silver and gold as they encircled Liv's slender body, forming a glittering corona around her head. Lynette, Janice, and Bettina had silently teamed up and were performing Sugar Maple's version of a Google search. Was Liv pretending not to see them or were they truly invisible to her? And, more important, how were we going to find out without revealing the truth about Sugar Maple?
"She's like a blank slate," Janice said. "I'm not picking up any history at all."
"There must be something." I tried to ignore the latest round of chills racing up my spine.
But Lynette and Bettina came up empty too.
I would have launched my own set of thought probes but I didn't want to do anything that could even remotely harm my baby. Thoughts probes sometimes turned out to be a two-way street.
"She must be magick then," I reasoned. "All humans have histories."
"And so do magicks," Janice parried.
"Keep an eye on things," I said. "I'm going to see what's on her registration form."
Not much, as it turned out, beyond the usual name, address, payment info, and list of workshops requested.
LIV JENSSEN
BOX 411
GRANITE NOTCH NH
A zip code, a New Hampshire phone number, marked paid by money order.
I don't know what I expected to find. We don't ask for references or numbers to call in case of emergency. All we need to know is that you're a knitter or want to become one.
"She passed out again," Lynette said as I re-entered the front of the shop.
I was treated to the now familiar sight of the curvy blond lying splat in the middle of the floor. 'What happened this time?"
"Penelope leaped onto her lap and the second she placed her hand on the cat's fur, she was gone," Lynette offered.
"She picked up Penny's vibes big time," Janice said. "I mean, there were sparks flying everywhere."
"What are we going to do with her?" I asked as we carried her over to the sofa near the hearth. "We can't hold her hostage."
"Well, we can't let her go tonight either," Janice, mother of five, said in full maternal mode. "Not in this condition."
"Maybe we should call someone," Bettina suggested, "and let them know she's here and we're taking care of her."
"Call who?" I asked. "There was nothing on her registration form."
"Family," Bettina said. "Friends. Co-workers. Someone must be waiting for her to come home."
"We can check her cell phone," I said. "See who's number one on her speed dial."
"Don't bother." We all jumped at the sound of Liv's voice. "There's nobody to call."
Chapter Three
Even though I'm magick I don't have extra-sensory perception and yet somehow Liv’s confession didn't surprise me at all. Her loneliness was palpable to me. I felt it deep inside my bones, familiar as the sound of my own voice.
"I didn't come here to make trouble," she said. "You know how much I love Sticks & Strings. I just wanted to take a few more design classes but this time--" She stopped dead and fell silent again.
"But something happened when you saw me, didn't it?"
She nodded. "I told myself I was going to stay away but it was like I was hearing voices telling me I had to see you and as soon as I did I just knew you were pregnant and--" She stopped abruptly, face flaming redder than her scarf. "I sound crazy. I swear I'm not. I normally don't go around feeling pregnant women's bellies."
"You said something about danger and the baby," I prodded gently.
"I don't know any more about the future than you do. I only see the past."
"You did say it, honey," Janice chimed in. "I heard it with my own ears."
"No," she said, shaking her head vigorously. "The baby's not in danger. Don't say that."
They were the words I wanted to hear but for some reason I still wasn't feeling the love.
"Do you have a blood sugar problem?" Lynette asked. "That would explain the passing out."
Sometimes there was simply no explaining Lynette.
"This room is so noisy." Liv looked past Lynette and into the middle distance. "Why is it so noisy in here?"
Noisy? We didn't even have the music system up and running. The only sound was Penny's rumbling snore from her favorite spot deep in the basket of self-replenishing roving.
"Too many people talking," Liv went on. "I can't understand anything they're saying."
Behind her Lynette circled her index finger next to her temple in the universal "this chick is crazy" sign.
My good friend was wrong. Liv Jenssen wasn't crazy. She was here for a reason and I needed to find out what that reason was before it was too late.
**
What was the point of living with the chief of police if you couldn't take advantage of his position every now and then?
Luke MacKenzie is the 100% human love of my life and the father of my unborn baby. Six months ago he showed up in Sugar Maple to investigate the murder of a politician's mistress and sparks flew when we met. Literally. Dazzling white and silver sparks sizzled in the air between us when our hands touched and in that moment our mutual fate was sealed.
Now he was our top cop as well as the only resident full-blood human in town. Not everyone is thrilled with adding more homo sapiens to our collective gene pool but in my experience love is even stronger than magick. Slowly but surely the villagers were getting used to the stranger in their midst and I wanted to believe that one day soon he would be fully accepted as one of our own.
I dashed next door to the former pet shop that served as the Sugar Maple police station and let myself in without knocking. Luke was on the phone and typing two-fingered on the computer keyboard in front of him. He shot me the kind of smile that made my bones melt and moments later the phone and computer were both forgotten and I was in his arms as silvery sparks of dazzling light radiated from us.
"So workshop week is finally over," he said, pressing warm kisses along my throat. "I feel like I haven't seen you since the whole thing began."
"And you're not seeing me now," I said, laughing as I extricated myself from his embrace. "We have a bit of a ...situation and I need your help." I asked him, very casually, if he would run a background check on Liv Jenssen while I waited.
"For what? Mismatched dye lots?" Clearly living with a knitter had rubbed off on him.
"Not funny," I said. "Would you just do it for me, please?"
He fixed me with the cop stare. I don't like the cop stare. It always makes me feel like confessing to things I hadn't done.
"What aren't you telling me?" he demanded.
"She told everyone I was pregnant."
He didn't look half as upset as I'd figured he would be. "You're a sorceress," he reminded me. "Your best friends are a witch and a shapeshifter. Why would a little human ESP set off your alarm bells?"
"Humor me," I said. "I'm in my first trimester."
He ran her plates for me and five minutes later we had some answers.
"She's a psychic," he said. "She's worked with the cops in New Hampshire and Massachusetts and been pretty damn successful at it."
"They hire psychics? I thought that was a TV thing."
"A lot of departments do but they don't exactly shout it from the rooftops." Another few clicks of the mouse. "And she was telling the truth: she has no family. They were wiped out in a fire when she was in middle school. A neighbor pulled her out and saved her life."
I knew the rest before Luke told me. Liv had bounced from foster home to foster home until she hit eighteen and aged out of the system. When most kids were still sheltered under the family umbrella, she had been on her own in a world that sometimes ate its young for breakfast
just because it could. She was too old to have benefited from the red scarf donations herself but I would bet my stash she wore that scarf in support of it.
"So what is it you're not telling me," he said, clearly still in top cop mode. "Do you think this woman is dangerous?"
I shook my head. "No," I said. "I don't think that at all."
The top cop expression softened and he got up and pulled me into another embrace. "There's enough trouble out there already, Chloe. Don't go looking for more."
He might as well have told me to quit knitting.
Chapter Four
“She might be magick after all,” Janice announced when I slipped back into Sticks & Strings.
It took a second for the words to sink in. “I thought you said that was impossible.”
“I still think it’s impossible but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”
“What happened?” I asked as I glanced around the shop. Liv was sitting on the sofa near the fireplace, working on the Aran sweater she had started during class while Lynette and Bettina tried to pretend nothing weird was going on. Unfortunately they weren’t doing a very good job of it and spirals of energy spun at their feet. “I was only gone twenty minutes.”
“Well, this time it only took nine,” Janice drawled. “Sugar Maple’s been outed. Either she’s magick or we’re in big trouble.”
Apparently Liv saw dead people. Lots and lots of dead people drifting down our streets, sitting on our front porches, wandering through the yarn shop and playing catch on the front lawn of the Sugar Maple Inn. The Inn is a major stop on the Spirit Trail which means we have a steady stream of visitors who have left the corporeal world behind. The first time Liv noticed them two years ago she figured her imagination was working overtime but the visions persisted. Then last year one of the Revolutionary War spirits broke ranks and suggested a tumble under the Toothaker Bridge.
“That's right around when she quit coming here,” Janice noted.
"Who could blame her," I muttered. “Does she see spirits anywhere else?”
Janice shook her head. "Not so far. Just here.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I didn’t really expect an answer.
I was half-sorceress by blood but for most of my life I was fully human in all the ways that mattered. I didn’t begin to see Sugar Maple as it really was, spirits and all, until I fell in love with Luke and my powers began kicked in. Whatever she was, Liv was way ahead of the curve.
“She’s going to stay the night,” Janice said. “The wooziness comes and goes and night driving around here is bad enough if you’re not used to it.”
I shot her a look. “Not to mention there’s a full moon.”
She grinned back at me. “Not to mention our resident were-family will be out and about.”
“I don’t have a good feeling about this,” I said. “What if she isn’t magick? We’ll have exposed Sugar Maple to an outsider.”
“We’ll do a memory wipe at the town limits,” Janice said, snapping her fingers for emphasis. “She won’t remember a thing.”
We both knew it wasn’t quite that easy or half that simple but for the moment it was all we had.
There was no way I could squeeze another body into my cottage. Elspeth, our resident troll house guest, seemed to fill all the available space. Janice suggested we put Liv up on the sofa right there in the shop and I agreed. Janice and I would keep her company. We figured there was safety in numbers. Danger often came in very unassuming packages.
I called out for pizza and we settled down to some serious knitting. Okay, so maybe this time the word “knitting” was a euphemism for “pumping Liv for information.” Short of group therapy I don’t know of a better way to get to know someone than to sit down and knit with them There’s something about the rhythmic click of the needles as they form stitches, the feel of the yarn moving through your fingers, the beautiful colors and textures all around you that makes you drop your guard and let your true self shine through. Even the quiet ones sooner or later reveal something.
With Liv it took years instead of hours but that evening it finally happened.
“I always loved this town,” she said as I took a seat opposite her. “It’s one of the few places where I don’t feel like an outsider.”
“Even with all the ghosts hitting on you?” I asked, maintaining a light tone.
“Even with all the ghosts," she said. "I feel more like myself when I’m here than when I’m anywhere else.”
She talked a little about being the outsider, the kid who got picked on in school. It was something we all understood, but I’m sure I wasn't the only one who wondered what being more herself actually meant. Liv Jenssen didn’t possess otherworldly Fae beauty or a problem being outside when the sun was shining but beyond that her lineage was anyone’s guess.
“You work as a psychic,” I said. “My--our chief of police ran your plates and found out you’ve done some work for the cops in New Hampshire.”
“You ran my plates?” She didn’t look very happy about it and I felt slightly embarrassed but the truth was I would do it again in a heartbeat. "Then I guess you want to know why I moved around so much."
"I didn't know you moved around," I said.
"Not a very good report," she said. "Thirteen moves in eight years usually sparks a few questions."
"I'll bite," Janice said. "Why did you move so much?"
"I know why," Lynette said and suddenly so did I.
"I wasn't a good neighbor," Liv confirmed with a rueful smile. "Things tend to happen around me."
"The kinds of things you can't explain," I said and she nodded.
"Televisions stopped working, internet connections went down, strange voices in empty rooms, car alarms in the middle of the night..." She forced a laugh. "And that's just the fun stuff. I would've tossed me out too."
It had happened to her mother and her mother's mother before her. Every time they tried to settle down and plant roots in another town or city, the same thing would happen and they would be on the move again.
"And yet," she continued, "when I'm here I feel almost like I belong. Like I don't have to look over my shoulder every thirty seconds." Her eyes filled with tears and she glanced away. "Like I can stop running long enough to breathe."
I looked at Janice. Janice looked at Lynette. Lynette looked at Bettina. There was little doubt that we were on the same page.
I took a deep breath and prayed my Hobbs ancestors would guide me. "There's a reason you feel comfortable in Sugar Maple," I said.
And then we told her everything.
Okay, I take that back. We didn't tell her everything but we did tell her enough to compromise the town and ourselves if she ran out of here before we could erase her memory.
"So what is it you're saying?" she asked, sounding remarkably calm for a woman who had just digested three hundred years of magickal history in five minutes. "You're all witches and warlocks?"
"We don't say warlock anymore," Janice corrected her. "The men objected."
"They said it was sexist," Lynette explained.
Poor Liv looked like she was waiting for the punch line but, of course, there wasn't one. Not when it came to the truth about Sugar Maple.
"And we're not all witches," Lynette went on. "I'm a shapeshifter."
"I'm Fae," Bettina joined in, "but taking human form so we can talk."
Liv turned toward me.
"I'm a sorceress," I said before she had a chance to ask. "I'm descended from Aerynn."
Liv's eyes widened. "The woman who led everyone out of Salem."
I nodded. "My father was a full-blood human so it's taken me a while to come into my magick." I gave her the condensed version of Luke's arrival on the scene six months ago and how love had triggered my inner sorceress. "I'm still getting my legs under me but so far, so good."
"I'm not a sorceress or a witch or a shapeshifter," Liv said. "I still don't understand where I fit in."
My frie
nds and I exchanged glances. Right or wrong, we were about to change Liv Jenssen's life forever.
"Actually," I said, "We think you might be one of us."
Janice explained that some of the original settlers moved on from Sugar Maple and established safe havens in upstate New York, northern Maine, and parts of eastern Canada where they still thrived today.
"I was born in upstate New York," Liv said, leaning forward with excitement. "My grandmother was from Calais, Maine near the Canadian border."
"Ding! Ding! Ding!" Janice rang an imaginary bell. "Ladies, I think we have ourselves a winner."
Chapter Five
Lilith is a beautiful Norwegian troll who serves Sugar Maple in two capacities: as both our librarian and unofficial historian. If Liv Jenssen's background was connected in any way to ours, Lilith was the one who would know.
She came over as soon as she closed the library for the night. I always felt a little happier when Lilith was around, a little calmer and safer, and her soothing presence seemed to have the same effect on Liv.
"Is Jenssen your father's surname?" Lilith asked after we'd exchanged pleasantries.
"My mother's," Liv said, coloring slightly. "I never knew my father."
"Matrilineal," Lilith said, nodding. "Norwegian, right?"
"For generations."
I had no idea where this was going but I trusted Lilith implicitly.
"She's magick!" Lynette exclaimed, sounding as excited as a child on Christmas Eve.
Lilith didn't answer. She took Liv's hands in hers and closed her eyes while we watched and waited. I'm not sure what we were expecting but this tranquil scene wasn't it.
"Did your mother ever mention anything to you about your family's gifts?"
"We never talked about it. I think she was ashamed."
"Or afraid," Janice said. "It's not always safe to be different."
"I'm sorry," Lilith said, "but I'm not picking up any magick."
"You're kidding!" I burst out. If Liv Jenssen wasn't magick, we were all in big trouble. "That's impossible. The signs are all there."
"Actually they're not," Lilith said in her gentle voice, "but if you give me ten minutes back at the library I think I can tell you what is there and it's every bit as wonderful."
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