1 Mardi Gras Madness

by Alison Golden

  “Everyone believes in different things,” Roxy said, trying to smooth the atmosphere over.

  “People around the world have used magic for thousands and thousands of years,” Sage said. “Since the beginning of time. Whole societies have depended upon it. Look at the Ancient Egyptians, for example.”

  “Why would I do that?” Nat said dismissively.

  Roxy looked up to the sky.

  To her surprise, Sage actually laughed gently. “You haven’t done any in-depth research into magic throughout the ages, have you?” she asked Nat.

  “No, I have not,” Nat retorted.

  “Have you read a single book on magic?”

  “Well, no, but…”

  “Exactly,” Sage said smoothly. “You’re simply projecting your uneducated prejudice onto me, without even knowing what you’re talking about. And we are supposed to be friends, Nat. You’re devaluing the foundation of my entire existence. That is not what friends do.”

  Roxy found her heart beating faster. “I don’t think she meant to…”

  “Nat knows exactly what she’s doing,” said Sage, her voice getting harder. The light caught her eyes and Roxy could see tears reflected in them. “Magic is my life. Magic saved me from…well, let’s say I haven’t had the easiest life. Magic is why I’m here today.”

  Nat dropped her head and stared at her combat boots.

  “And because Nat is stressed about this situation and her own precarious status, she starts picking a fight with me to let off some steam.” Sage drew herself up to her full height. She was nearly six-feet tall. “Hear this, Nat. You need to be more aware of your feelings and be honest about them. The more you hide and suppress them, the more they come out in toxic leaks like this. You have hurt me with your words, very deeply. But I will choose the higher road.” Her voice wobbled. “I’ll see you all later.” She hurried away, her golden robes swishing.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ROXY COULD HEAR her heart beating against her chest. She and Nat walked on in silence, neither of them wanting to talk about what had just happened. Soon they found a bench, and Nat flopped down on it. Roxy joined her. They both stared across the rippling river for a while.

  “She’s right, you know,” Nat said eventually. “I am worried about being found out and deported and this whole murder thing. I knew what I was saying was hurtful, but there was something in me that just kept pushing on and on, wanting to keep going until she got mad at me. But Sage never gets mad. Not really. ”

  Roxy couldn’t understand what Nat was talking about. The idea of riling someone up until they got upset seemed both pointless and abhorrent to her.

  “Now she’s gone off, I feel kind of relieved,” Nat said. “But also horrible. Because she’s really upset now.”

  “Maybe you could go after her and apologize?” Roxy suggested. “She’s probably at the magic store.”

  “How ironic,” Nat said, shaking her head.

  Roxy watched a cloud being carried by the wind through the cold, blue sky. “Do you really believe what you said about magic?”

  Nat sighed. “I don’t know. Like Sage said, I don’t know anything about it, really. I guess I’m a skeptic, but I haven’t looked into it. Not properly. It just seems so, oh I don’t know, pie in the sky, airy-fairy.”

  “I’ve never really come across it before,” said Roxy. “I don’t know if I believe in it, but it is interesting. Since I’ve been here, I realize there are a lot of things I don’t know about. My life has been…sheltered.”

  Nat laughed, but not unkindly. “That’s why I left England. I was born in London’s East End and my parents have worked hard all their lives. They wanted the best for me but our ideas of what that looked like were different. I was expected to go to university, get a clean, respectable office job, get married, have 2.3 kids or whatever, and a mortgage, preferably on a house in the suburbs. To them that was success, but just saying that bores me, let alone doing it for the rest of my life.”

  It sounded lovely to Roxy, but she could appreciate it wasn’t for everyone. “You wanted more adventure.”

  “Yep,” said Nat. “I got a nanny job here. My plan was to travel afterward. Go to India. Australia. Thailand.” She laughed again, but it was hollow.

  “You could still, couldn’t you?”

  “Yeah, I think so. But since I’ve overstayed my visa, I’m guessing they’ll never let me back into the US once I leave.”

  “Oh.”

  “When I do leave or get deported, I’m going to be leaving for good. So, as much as I want to explore the world, I’m not sure I can bring myself…” Nat looked around. “New Orleans has become like home to me now. And Evangeline’s like…not my mum exactly, but oh, I don’t know, my crazy great aunt, or something. I don’t want Evangeline’s to get shut down.”

  “Me, neither,” said Roxy. “I’m already feeling attached to the place, and I’ve only been here a couple of days.”

  Nat gave a smile tinged with a little sadness.

  “Sage is very wise,” Nat said. “The magic stuff aside, she just is magic. She knows a lot of stuff. Before I met her, I’d never be here talking to you about emotions and stuff. I’d be somewhere down there…” She pointed to a bridge. “Probably under there, drinking away my sorrows, sure that no one would understand, and that I was the only person in the world with problems.” She laughed at herself. “Sage is very wise.”

  Roxy smiled. “She does seem like a very special person.”

  “Yep,” Nat said. She got up from the bench. “Let’s go find her, and I can tell her what a total idiot I am.”

  Roxy stood and gave Nat a side hug. “You’re not a total idiot.”

  “Oh, really I am,” Nat said raising her eyebrows.

  “We need to make a plan,” Roxy said firmly. “A plan of how we’re going to find out who really killed that developer. I feel sure Johnson will try to pin the murder on Evangeline, and that’ll ruin everything as well as be a terrible miscarriage of justice.” Roxy felt a great sense of loyalty toward these people already. “If he isn’t going to investigate fairly, then we will.”

  Nat looked at Roxy in surprise. “You’re feistier than I thought,” she said.

  Roxy smiled back, remembering something her old English teacher had said. He’d been the only teacher who hadn’t treated her as if she were invisible. Roxy, you’re soft on the outside, but steely underneath, where it counts. Roxy had never believed him but now, she felt it. It was a rush. “Thanks,” she said to Nat.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  SAGE TOOK NAT’S bumbling apology outside the magical supply store very graciously. In fact, she threw her arms around Nat’s shoulders and squeezed her tight. “You know I love you, don’t you, honey?”

  Nat sniffed and swallowed hard. She bent her head into Sage’s robed shoulder. She was the type to hold back tears at all costs, stiff upper lip and all that. “Yep,” was all she could manage.

  As they walked their way back to Evangeline’s, the silence between them was companionable and restful after the emotional drama of earlier. The air was cold, but Roxy found it exhilarating. It chilled her cheeks as clouds cast a dark canopy over them, threatening rain. Sage had bought some strongly fragranced incense and even unlit, its mysterious musky smell wafted up from the paper bag she held and made the air around them sweet and unusual.

  As they walked through the streets of the city, past a mixture of old, traditional buildings and flashing neon signs, Roxy felt something that she never had before. A sense of purpose, perhaps? A mission? A quest? But not only that…she felt a kinship. A shared goal. It struck her as she fell into step beside Nat and Sage.

  For the first time, Roxy felt like she belonged. She felt like she mattered, that she was part of something bigger than herself. She stopped thinking in any sort of longing, tugging way about her ex-boyfriend. Instead, she wondered, “What on earth was I thinking?” And, quite miraculously, she stopped worrying and desperately craving security
and stability. It was ironic that here, in a city she didn’t know, with people she had just met, in an accommodation that could fall through at any moment, with the most uncertain future she had ever faced, she felt the safest she ever had.

  Finally, Nat spoke up as they walked past a diner, and the air around them became thick and warm with the forceful smell of burgers and fries. It was so strong; it even drove away the scent of the incense that permanently swirled around Sage. “Oh heck, I’m starving,” Nat said. “Let’s grab some lunch here.” She slipped her phone out of her pants pocket. “It’s two o’clock already. I doubt Evangeline will be up to cooking today. I’m certainly not.”

  Sage, a vegetarian, ordered herself a portion of fries. Nat got a cheeseburger, fries and a milkshake. Roxy, meanwhile, realized that she’d barely nibbled at her beignets that morning, and there was a dull ache in her stomach. The events of the day had distracted her, but as whiffs of fast food assailed her, her hunger made itself known, and she felt slightly nauseous. She ordered a chicken burger and fries combo that came with a soda. The food arrived in minutes, and they carried their trays to one of the laminated tables. It was safe to say this was not one of New Orleans’ finest eating establishments, but Roxy didn’t care. Right then, something cheap, familiar, and fattening seemed the best option.

  None of them said much until their food was mostly eaten. Roxy’s mind wandered back to the case. “How are we going to prove to Johnson that it’s not Evangeline? I’m sure it’s Mara Lomas. I mean, come on, it’s clear she thought he was having an affair, and she threatened him—out loud and in public. She said he needed all the protection he can get. How on earth can Johnson think it was Evangeline? It’s a total open and shut case.”

  “One would think so,” Sage said with a grimace. “But knowing the story between that man and Evangeline, I wouldn’t be so sure.”

  “Aha! I knew there had to be history!” Roxy exclaimed. “When he questioned me, he was acting like he loathed her. Why is that?”

  Sage blew a stream of air out of her mouth and adjusted her golden robes. “Evangeline’s always been quite an activist. That lady is tough, I tell you. When she believes in something and knows she’s right, she’ll hang on to the very end. It’s actually most unlike her to have given in to this developer. It’s sad, really. I think it’s because her eyesight is deteriorating, but anyway, she’s been a thorn in Johnson’s side for years.”

  “In what sense?” Roxy asked.

  “Hey!” Nat interrupted. “Look!”

  Roxy turned to see Nat pointing at the TV on the wall. It was showing local news.

  MURDER, it read at the bottom of the screen. There was a female reporter standing in front of the cordoned-off cemetery. Blue lights flashed. Police swarmed everywhere behind her.

  “Hey, would you turn it up, please?” Nat said to the young woman behind the counter.

  The woman pressed her lips together and flicked her mousey brown ponytail with annoyance, but she complied with Nat’s request. It was an old-fashioned boxy television, and the woman, who was quite short, had to reach up on tiptoes to press the volume button.

  “The wife of the deceased is currently assisting police with their investigations,” the reporter said, her hair blowing about her in the breeze.

  “Aha!” Nat took a delighted sip on her milkshake, her eyes lighting up. “Well, there we go. Johnson has seen sense after all. ‘Assisting with investigations’ always means guilty as heck. It’s just that they’re not quite ready to charge her.”

  Roxy had been imagining Evangeline rattling around in jail, the other prisoners taking advantage of her as her eyesight got worse and worse. She frowned as she sipped on her straw, even though her soda was long drained. “I certainly hope you’re right,” she said.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THEY CONTINUED TO stare at the TV even though the news report had moved on to more upbeat topics. The channel was now showing footage of the carnival celebrations.

  “You know, I don’t think Mara did it,” Sage said.

  “Of course she did,” Nat scoffed.

  But Roxy wasn’t so quick to dismiss Sage. “What makes you say that?”

  Sage looked straight at Roxy, her dark eyes flashing. “My intuition.”

  “Oh, for goodness…” Nat began, then seemed to remember their earlier argument and rushed to say, “Well, I mean, well, you know, I…” She couldn’t find anything with which to elegantly finish off her sentence so she sighed and her shoulders slumped. “Sorry.”

  “Not to worry, sugar,” Sage said. She threw Nat a wink and patted her hand.

  Roxy’s mind began to whir again. She had never ever trusted her intuition. In the past, she’d always felt too anxious to have any. Her decision to come to New Orleans had been unique in that respect. Until that point, when faced with choices, she’d always gone for the safest option with the least potential to go wrong. Now, however now, feeling much more relaxed in New Orleans among her new friends, the strange gut feeling she had, the fluttering that told her, No, something isn’t quite right here, stood out. She wondered what it could mean. If Mara hadn’t killed the developer, then who had?

  “Let’s go,” Nat said. “Now that they’ve caught that dead man’s crazy wife, maybe Evangeline will think about keeping the guesthouse open. I want to persuade her.”

  “You know she can’t afford to keep it going,” said Sage, as they tipped their tray contents into the trash. “It’s been running at a loss for ages.”

  “Yeah, but Sam said he’d buy it off her,” Nat said breezily as if the deal had already been sealed. “And Louise is our backup. As annoying as she is, if she keeps the guesthouse open, I’ll be her best friend for life.”

  Roxy laughed. “And maybe there’ll finally be a steamy romance between her and Sam as they run the guesthouse together. It’d be like something out of a book.”

  Nat snorted. “In her dreams.”

  “She’s alright,” Roxy said as they walked back out onto the street.

  “No, too old, too cougar,” said Nat. “And she keeps totally embarrassing herself.

  “She is suffering,” Sage said. “I would say both her first and second chakras are severely out of balance.”

  Roxy saw Nat open her mouth, then close it again. Instead, she let out a huge happy sigh, swinging her arms as they walked. “Well, looks like that dumb Johnson won’t be sniffing around for much longer. Let’s go home and persuade Evangeline and Sam and Louise or any combination of the above to keep Evangeline’s open.”

  When they got back, they found that Evangeline was not in the mood to be persuaded to do anything, however. They found her sweeping the dining room and humming a furious tune, her lips pursed tightly together. Roxy saw her roughly wipe away a tear from her cheek.

  Sam was in the corner bagging up tablecloths for laundering. He gave Nat a cautionary look as they walked in, but Nat ignored him.

  “Did you see Mara Lomas has been arrested, Evangeline? We’re all off the hook. You can relax. So promise me you’re going to keep this place, and I won’t get deported.”

  “She’s not been arrested, just taken in for questioning,” Evangeline said, not looking up from her sweeping. “And your immigration status has nothing to do with me. I helped you out when I didn’t have to, so I don’t appreciate you trying to put a guilt trip on me, Miss Natalie.”

  “Don’t call me that,” said Nat. All the confidence had seeped out of her voice.

  “Now, there’s things to do,” said Evangeline, “and you’ve been out for far too long. You can begin by tackling that stack of teacups in the kitchen.”

  Nat pressed her lips together and walked away to make a start on the cups, accompanied by a lot of banging and slamming.

  Evangeline sighed. “I’m being horrible, aren’t I?” she said to Sage.

  Sage placed a hand on her arm and said in a quiet, kind voice. “Perhaps you’re not quite embodying your best self.”

  Evangeline b
urst into tears. “I’m sorry, Nat, cher,” she said, going to the kitchen door and speaking through it. “I’m just so very upset about the guesthouse and if everything’s going to work out. Don’t take old Evangeline so seriously. Don’t take it to heart, cher.”

  She pushed the door open and went into the kitchen, wrapping a surprised Nat up in a big, warmly reciprocated hug. Roxy and Sage exchanged glances. Despite their bickering back and forth, Nat and Evangeline were clearly quite fond of one another. But, oh the tension. Roxy was fit to wilt.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  AFTER THE SECOND emotional reconciliation in as many hours, Roxy needed a break. She headed to her room. Nefertiti was on the stairs, attending to her complex self-grooming regimen. As soon as she saw Roxy, she sprang to her feet and wound her fuzzy, fluffy self round and round Roxy’s ankles.

  “Hello, beautiful girl,” Roxy said, leaning down to tickle her under the chin.

  Nefertiti purred loudly, then padded up the stairs alongside her owner.

  “You like it here, don’t you?” said Roxy before sighing emphatically. “Me too. I’m going to find a way to get us to stay here, Nef.” She turned to look at Nefertiti’s cute squashed up face. “We might have to do a little investigating, though. Oh, oh!” Roxy suddenly found herself knocked off her feet as she turned the corner of the stairs and fell sprawling across the staircase.

  “Oh no!” Louise said. “Sorry!” Her voice was thick as if she had been crying. She was sitting on the stairs looking out of one of the old stained glass windows, her knees pulled up under her chin.

  “It’s okay,” Roxy said, grabbing onto the stair rail to pull herself up. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

  Louise wiped mascara from under her eyes, where it had begun to run in black streaks carried by her tears. “Are you hurt?”