This definitely seemed like any old paranormal town, and a part of me wished I had been invited here instead of sneaking in because it had been ages since I’d had really good gelato, and the window of the gelato shop was plastered with lists of magical awards and prizes they had won.
“Let me guess, you’re getting hungry,” Kyran said, and I could practically feel him grinning at me.
“Hey, you should be too if you see all this stuff,” I replied.
“We need to find somebody casting a spell. I think we should split up; not only will that allow us to cover more ground, but we won’t need to worry about getting split up by accident.”
“Agreed,” I said. “It also has the advantage that if one of us gets caught, the other won’t.”
“I didn’t want to say that, but yeah,” Kyran replied. “Why don’t we meet at the start of the trail, where we came out and first looked at the bay and the town, in, say, two hours?”
“Sounds good to me,” I said. “Good luck. And thank you again. Honestly, it means a lot to me that I’ve even gotten to see this place, and it’s definitely not what I had expected.”
“No problem. Just remember that you might not actually be from here,” Kyran said. “Don’t get too far ahead of yourself.”
“You’re right. Okay, see you soon.”
Obviously, I didn’t see him leave, but I could practically feel that he was gone a few seconds later, and I took a deep breath of sea air and steeled myself, ready to get down to business.
The first thing I had to do was find somebody casting a spell. And it had to be somebody who wasn’t on the sand, since I had to be able to hide the fact that I was there.
My eyes immediately turned to the café. They were just opening up for the morning, with the witch pointing her wand at the doors and allowing them to open magically. Okay, so I had missed her casting the spell. I was too far away to hear what it was she was saying. However, I figured there was a good chance that she was going to use another one during the day, or maybe that one of the people baking or making coffee would use a spell.
Thinking myself super smart for coming up with this plan, I strutted down the main street toward the café. This was seriously the most adorable place in the world, and I wondered why the coven of Titan was so secretive when they could have gotten so much money from the outside world if they let people come in as tourists. After all, there was a reason people in the human world loved going to Hawaii on vacation.
As I continued toward the café, I kept a constant eye out to make sure I didn’t accidentally run into anybody. After all, that was more important here than ever. At all costs, I had to make sure that nobody knew about my presence. If I was caught, then that was it. I had no idea what was going to happen to me, but from everything I had heard, none of it seemed good.
By the time I reached the front door of the café, only about two minutes later, the first customers of the day had begun to arrive. Evidently, this was a very popular spot for morning coffee and a bit of breakfast.
Unfortunately, the inside of the shop used their limited space very efficiently. Almost every square foot of floor space was dedicated to either a table or chair, and as I made my way toward the back of the room and the counter, where I expected it was most likely that I would overhear somebody casting a spell, I had to turn sideways to avoid hitting a couple pieces of furniture. This was definitely less than ideal for somebody who was trying at all costs to hide their presence here. At the counter, the witch who had opened up was taking an order from a tall, older wizard whose wife was seated outside at one of the patio chairs.
“We’ll have two mango papaya juices, two big breakfasts, and two magical fruit muffins, please,” the man ordered.
“Of course, Mr. Kawai,” the witch smiled at him. It was interesting to think that while I didn’t beat an eyelash at the fact that it was a witch taking orders and serving at a café, all of my friends probably would have considered it the strangest thing ever. After all, in the magical world, it was fairies who were the designated hospitality front line, and while I thought the entire concept was ridiculous and people should be able to do whatever they wanted to do, I supposed that in a town like this, where only witches and wizards lived, there were no other options.
I also couldn’t help but pay attention to the witch’s features. She certainly didn’t look identical to me, like Karen Voda had. But I felt like maybe we had the same nose, and our eyes were the same color? Or maybe I just wanted that to be the case, and I was seeing things when there was nothing to be seen. That was definitely the far more likely option, realistically.
The older man shuffled past me, and I had to breathe in as I pressed myself against the wall, hoping that he wouldn’t move a couple of inches to the left and accidentally graze me as he passed. Luckily, however, he passed by without a second thought, and I paid close attention to the witch who had taken the order, hoping that she was about to cast some sort of spell—literally any spell—so that I could listen in and eventually try it myself.
“I need two big breakfasts,” the witch called out toward the back of the kitchen. She made her way to one of the cabinets and pulled out her wand. I held my breath in anticipation, ready to listen in on whatever words she might use.
To my dismay, however, it appeared the witch who worked at the café was pretty skilled, as she didn’t need to use her words at all. The muffins floated out from the cabinet and onto a couple of waiting plates without issue.
I couldn’t help but wonder if I was looking at Kilokilo’s equivalent of Amy. After all, she was the only witch I had seen so far who also managed to cast spells without using words.
Frowning, I realized that there was no chance that I was going to be able to hear a spell cast by this witch. I had to get to the back, to the kitchen, and hope that whoever was working there wasn’t quite as good with their magic as the woman working at the front.
Luckily for me, the door between the back counter and the kitchen was made up of a bunch of hanging beads, like the sort you would expect to see in a human world shop owned by a woman who read Tarot cards and palms, and whose shop was always filled with strange candles and incense.
The curtain only reached about three quarters of the way down, and there was a solid foot and a half of space between the bottom of the curtain and the floor. It was going to be a tight fit, but I was pretty sure I could make it through without jingling any beads. I just had to make sure that I did it when the witch at the counter was occupied, so that I didn’t risk having her try and go to the back at the same time as I was sneaking through.
I was in luck; at that moment, a young witch dressed for the beach came in and strode straight up to the counter.
“Hi, Isabel,” the witch greeted the woman. Obviously, this woman was a regular here.
“How’s it going, Frankie?” the witch replied. This was my chance; the two of them looked like they were about to chat for a little while, so I slipped behind the counter, sliding behind Frankie, and made my way to the corner and the door that led back to the kitchen.
As quietly as I possibly could, I dropped to the floor. I began to do an army crawl with my hands, trying to keep my head as low to the ground as possible as I slid underneath the curtain.
I was fairly certain I wasn’t even breathing as I slid under the curtain. I began to wonder crazy things, like if my butt was too big and was going to hit the curtain. Maybe I should’ve hit the gym a lot more or said no to my third cinnamon bun of the day a couple more times. Was my sweet tooth going to be responsible for me being caught in the middle of the world’s most secretive paranormal town?
Chapter 24
Luckily, I slid through without triggering the curtain, big butt and all. Beyoncé would be proud. As soon as I made it safely over to the other side, I stood up and quickly found a place to semi-hide, next to the large walk-in fridge. It was a little bit of empty space, and I figured it was the least likely spot for the cook, a short, stocky old wit
ch, to come over randomly.
Looking around the kitchen, everything looked significantly cleaner and more organized than anything I had ever seen in a human kitchen. The bowls on the top shelf were even organized by size.
The witch in front of me was busy cooking away, mostly by hand, which was a little bit frustrating. But then, I supposed if she did use her magic, she looked like the type of witch who had been doing this for so long that she wouldn’t need to say the spells either.
I frowned to myself. I was going to have to do something to convince these ladies to use some magic that I could listen in on, but what was I going to do?
Looking at the ingredients the witch had in front of her, I noticed that the eggs she had pulled out were perched precariously on the edge of the counter. This was my chance; there were at least two dozen of them, and there was no way she was going to want to clean them up on her own. Besides, there was also a chance that she would want to save the eggs, and perhaps reverse their fall.
Yes, knocking over that box of eggs was definitely going to be the opportunity I was waiting for. But I was going to have to be sneaky about it, since boxes of eggs didn’t randomly fall over for absolutely no reason.
I started off by moving the eggs closer and closer to the ledge every time the witch turned her back. It wasn’t by much; only a fraction of an inch or so every time, but eventually the eggs got so close to the edge of the counter that it was definitely believable that they could fall over at the slightest nudge.
The next part of my plan was going to be the most dangerous. I stood at the edge of the counter while the witch was working, only a few feet away. I held my breath for fear that she might sense the air from my breathing, that’s how close to her I was. I waited until the perfect moment, when the witch reached over toward the eggs to grab a stick of butter without looking away from her mixing bowl.
I grabbed at the edge of the egg carton and moved it another fraction of an inch over, causing it to drop to the ground. Straightaway I jumped back; not only did I not want to get any egg on me, but I wasn’t sure what would happen if something did fall onto me while I was invisible. Would the egg also go invisible, or would it stick to me and betray my presence, since eggs aren’t supposed to float in the air in the shape of a shoe?
I made a mental note to ask Amy what would happen in this situation, but luckily for me, I was not about to find out the answer firsthand.
“Oh, drat,” the old witch muttered to herself, pulling out her wand. “Titan the powerful, Titan the great, clean up this mess.”
Straightaway the eggs on the floor scurried over to a garbage can and went inside, leaving the floor looking good as new while the witch muttered about waste and made her way to the walk-in fridge to get another container.
I grinned to myself. Titan the powerful, Titan the great, clean up this mess. I could definitely remember that. Even so, I pulled out my phone, opened up the notes app, and wrote down the spell that I had just discovered. Looking at the clock, I still had about ninety minutes left before I was due to meet Kyran, and I wondered what else I could find out about this mysterious coven now that I knew a spell to try.
I found it interesting the way the spell sounded; I knew that not all of the spells of the coven of Jupiter always rhymed, but that was definitely one of their main defining features. Most of them did, and it was quite lyrical. Listening to the spell of the coven of Titan, it seemed a lot more brusque and jarring, and much less, well, magical.
Still, if these were the spells from my coven, I was going to have to learn them.
After a couple of minutes, I had the opportunity to slip back out of the kitchen and into the main part of the café. Having done so, I looked around and saw that almost all of the patrons were sitting outside, enjoying the sun on the patio. I went out and found a group of four old witches at a table, and I immediately knew that these were the witches that I wanted to eavesdrop on. The way they were huddled close together just screamed that they didn’t want anybody to eavesdrop on their conversation, but what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.
I didn’t even know what kind of information I was after. I supposed I really just wanted to know whatever I could about this coven and its inhabitants. After all, I was fairly certain that I was a member of this coven, so wasn’t it natural for me to want to know whatever I could about it?
I couldn’t help scanning the faces of all four elderly women for any sign of resemblance to myself. They did all seem a little bit too old to be my mother, but maybe my biological mother had had me late in life. That was always a possibility. Still, as I scanned their faces, I didn’t really see any major similarities between them and me. I supposed I hadn’t accidentally found my biological mother after all.
“I can’t believe Karen is actually going through with this broom riding competition thing,” one of the old women started. “With the way things are going now, our coven should be doing its best to keep a low profile.”
“I agree, Polly,” another one of the witches replied. “It’s imprudent. The coven of Titan should be doing its best right now to be forgotten, not be drawing attention to itself. Especially her.”
“Did you hear that there was a murder in Desert Plains? One of Karen’s fellow competitors,” the third witch said. “Leanne, do you think that could be him?”
The second witch, who had agreed with Polly, shook her head. “No, Jen. I did hear about that death, and I heard from Karen that the Chief Enforcer there thinks it was poison.”
“Well, it wasn’t him this time,” Jen said. “You’re right, I don’t think he would use poison either. That was the one thing he never really mastered as a young wizard, wasn’t it? You would know, wouldn’t you, Heather? Didn’t you teach him potions when he was a young lad?”
“That’s right,” Heather nodded. “He was always bright, I have to admit that. Perhaps not bright in the traditional sense, but the skills he had with a wand were absolutely something to behold. And he could remember spells in an instant. He did have his weak points, however. As you say, his potions had always been terrible. I remember once when he was only eight years old, all the other students were making potions to make plants grow. Even little Andrew Hawewe managed it, and we all know that he isn’t exactly the fanciest wand on the shelf. But everyone took their potions outside when they were done, and went to the row of baby palm trees that had been planted the year before. I lined up all the witchlings and wizardlings and told each of the little ones to pour their potions on one of the trees. Straightaway, they all grew as if twenty years had passed. Even Andrew’s tree shot up and was six feet tall by the time he had finished.”
“But not his?” Leanne asked in a hushed voice. All three women were now fixed on Heather, following her every word. I had to admit, I was too.
Heather shook her head. “No, not at all. In fact, as soon as he poured his potion on the tree, it shriveled up and died right there in front of all of us.”
“That’s why there’s a tree missing in the row of palms at the Academy, then,” Polly said, and Heather nodded.
“Yes. I could never walk past that row of trees without thinking about that moment,” she explained. “It wasn’t just that his potion was so bad it didn’t work. His potion did the literal opposite of what it was supposed to, and I think it was more than just his bad magic. I mean, sure, he wasn’t good at potions. He never was. But this was more than that. This was a potion that was supposed to sustain life, and it did the very opposite. It destroyed life. If that’s not a metaphor for him, I don’t know what is.”
Jen shuddered in her seat. “I think the only thing we have going for ourselves now is the fact that none of the other covens seem to be aware of his work yet.”
“That will come, though,” Polly said. “Someone like that, something like that, can only stay hidden for so long. Eventually, the other covens will discover that he exists, and then their wrath will come down on the coven of Titan.”
I had so many ques
tions. So many things I wanted to ask. Who was this they were talking about? What was he doing that was so bad? Why did no one else in the magical world seem to know about him? But I couldn’t ask any of those questions, obviously. I could only sit in and listen to the old witches’ conversation and hope that eventually they would get around to answering my questions.
“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if he does something to come out into the open sooner rather than later,” Heather said. “I know people change, but when he was a child, he needed attention. He craved it more than anything.”
“He certainly got it after what he did to his poor daughter,” Polly said, shaking her head. “What kind of monster murders his own child?”
The three other witches nodded solemnly in agreement. The more I heard about this mystery guy, the more intrigued I got, but at the same time, the more terrified I got, too. After all, it sounded like he wasn’t in jail but was out terrorizing the magical world. Jen even thought that he could have been behind Jack’s murder.
“We do need to stop talking about him,” Polly said. “His magic is so powerful, I wouldn’t even be surprised if he could listen in on conversations taking place here in Kilokilo.”
“You would think that after breaking out from jail he would do his best to stay as far away from here as possible,” Heather said. “I agree, though. We stop talking about him, and we stop talking about her as well. It’s for the best.”
I wanted to scream out at the witches, ask them what they knew, tell them to keep talking and to go back to the basics, the part of the conversation that I had obviously missed. Then, glancing at my phone, I realized it was high time that I made my way back to the trail to meet Kyran. Maybe he had had more luck, and maybe he had found out more about this mystery man than I had.
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