The Little Lies (The Great Hexpectations Series Book 1)

by Marie F. Crow

  “Oh, this is where it gets good. Hold on!” Jedrek rushes to drag one of the reading chairs over to the counter. He settles himself before readjusting a time or two for better comfort and sight. “Please, continue.”

  GiGi glares at him. “Are you sure?” she asks. “Shall I fetch you some pillows for your feet or how about a nice virgin?”

  He makes a disgusted sound with her last offer. “Virgins are so boring. Way over valued. Isn’t that right, Janice?”

  He shouts his question with a slight backwards tilt of his head. Until now, he hadn’t even given the slightest of hints he knew they were there. My eyes are pulled instantly to where they have huddled, searching for the one he called by name, but she’s not there. She’s slipped away to wherever they go when I can’t see them.

  “Don’t worry,” he tells me seeing me searching for her. “She’ll come back. Nowhere else for her to go, really.”

  “I’m so over your fucking riddles,” I half whisper with my mental exhaustion taxing my patience level and manners.

  “It’s not riddles, my littlest witch. It’s facts. Facts you just don’t have, making it feel like riddles to you. Which is, in fact, not my riddle, but yours.” Jedrek is pretending to examine his nails, searching for any dirt much like a cat would sharpen their claws.

  “What do you remember about your lessons on magic?” GiGi asks, skipping over the little dramatic scene.

  “Which lesson?” I’m laying my head against the cool glass of the display case with my answer. They are giving me such a headache, I’m not sure even the smoothest of tequilas would be able to chase away the pain.

  “The one about abilities versus affinities?”

  “Abilities are how good one can be at general magic. Affinities are natural born gifts, or a type of magic which answers best to a witch.” I repeat the phrasing as best as my brain allows.

  “Your affinity is one of the strongest. Every spell,” GiGi says with emphasis, “is based on some degree of life and death. Energy, in some form, must always die. You, should you actually take this hocus pocus shit serious, can control it all.”

  “And that makes you either very valuable or very dangerous.” Jedrek finishes for her. “If you did something very bad and suddenly this very dangerous witch is on to you, what would you do? Or, if you wanted to control very bad things, what type of witch would you want to be able to control yourself?”

  “One of the strongest affinities,” GiGi tags in, in some verbal ping pong game of reasoning.

  “I wear pink and trip over air. No one would believe any of that about me,” I tell them with a less than enthused voice.

  “Well, one, that’s just because you’re weird,” Jedrek says with a straight face, adding more judgement than a face should hold. “Two, that’s because she’s kept you hidden. That is until you flopped your first entrance at one of the most powerful watering holes we have. Not the best idea you’ve ever had, Jo.”

  GiGi flips him off and I’m starting to see some of her color return. “She wouldn’t have stayed behind if I had gone. I needed to know if Charlotte knew about anything landing this way.”

  “And you think if she had, she would have told midget witch here?” Jedrek motions in my direction with his question.

  “I thought I was littlest?” I ask with my face half smooshed against the glass from my resting position.

  “You’re sinking by the second,” he informs me.

  “You’re sinking by the second,” I return, mocking him like a toddler until realization hit. “I just sunk further, didn’t I?”

  They both answer in tandem, “Yes.”

  Lifting my head from the glass I tell them both, “Whatever. What you’re both telling me is I have half the supernatural world after me because of who I don’t know and what I don’t know. What I do know is that there’s a source out there, somewhere, that I innocently stumbled upon and they either want it, want me dead for knowing about it, or just plain want me so they can control it? Is that about summed up?”

  They both answer again, once again annoyingly in sync, “Yes.”

  “Great! I better find it before they find me finding it or I’m found out for the fraud that I really am.”

  When they both open their mouths at the same time again, I lift the nearest heavy book and threaten them with it. “Don’t do it,” I tell them both.

  “Feisty.” Jedrek shivers as if my threat provoked a response. His wink tells me otherwise.

  “Does anyone on this lame Scooby Doo team have a plan?” I ask either of them, realizing we just became a very real we.

  “Of course.”

  It’s Jedrek who answers, as it would be.

  “Let’s take my car, though. Yours has that creepy old lady.”

  “Nuh-uh,” GiGi Jo says, crossing her arms to add finality to her refusal. “You don’t really think I’m just going to hand her over to the likes of you?”

  “Well, you did send her into a mystical lion’s den. So, yes. Yes, I do.” Jedrek is holding the door open, making a grand gesture of it even. His mirth is gone. His blue eyes aren’t dancing anymore, but they are drowning in a color of warning. “This is going to get done, Jo. With me or without me, they are coming. We both know it.”

  “I know it, but I fear you more than I do them. I know what they want. It’s what you want which has me worried,” she tells him.

  “Well screw it, I know nothing about what anyone wants so let’s go,” I shout with my frustration of feeling like an ornament in the room versus being allowed to be part of the conversation.

  I don’t wait for GiGi to answer my off-colored declaration. I won’t waste my time asking about any more of their riddles, or their hidden meanings to their observations about my life. We have a little girl to put back in the earth. This I know. This I know well, and as per what the last hour has taught me, it’s about the only thing I do know.

  “Feisty!” he says again when I pass through the doorway.

  “Asshole!” I label him with the same hint of amusement coloring my words. Except I’m not amused. Very much not amused.

  Waiting for him to follow me out, I watch as he becomes the playboy flirt again. Just like my pastels, this act is his armor, his way of projecting how he wants the world to view him. But I saw something different. Whatever is coming has him worried.

  “Who is coming?” I ask, but I hold low hopes of getting an answer.

  Winking at me, he places one finger over his lips. “How do you know they aren’t already here?” he almost whispers it, sending a shiver of apprehension, and something else, along my skin.

  I hear his deep chuckle when I glance around us, trying to see what he sees. Everything looks as it always has. Even down to Ms. Dreberry pretending to sweep the sidewalk in front of her shop as an excuse to snoop on her neighbors. Nothing stands out to me. Nothing screams, or even tugs, for attention. It’s just another day, in a small town, with a little dead girl roaming around. Nothing to see here at all.

  Jedrek doesn’t offer any explanation as to where we are going and I’m following him across the street like a stray, hoping for the best but unsure of where this will lead me.

  Opening the door of a nineteen seventy Camaro, he tells me, “Get in.”

  “This is your car?” My voice doesn’t hide my shock.

  “One of them,” he says with a voice so stuffed with ego it ruins my appreciation of the machine in front of me.

  “And it just happens to be parked right in front of the shop, but you were standing at the house?”

  “I’m not seeing the problem. How about you get in so we can go?” His smile is forced. It’s not for me. It’s for someone, or something, watching us and his little suggestion, as polite as it sounded, was more of a command.

  Before I can turn to see what has him insisting upon our departure, he grabs my arm, pulling me to him in an embrace. I can feel the warmth of his body pressed to mine. I react, stiffenin
g my body in his arms with shock, whispering mentally to a part of me to calm down, a part I’m slightly ashamed of at this moment.

  Tucking his face close to my neck he whispers into my ear, “Get in the damn car.”

  When he releases me, I do just what he asked. Never turning to look at him or what is behind me, I slide into the leather seat confused with my body’s betrayal.

  “Thank you,” Jedrek says with relief before shutting the door of the car.

  I don’t turn my head to follow his path around the car to his door. My eyes do all the work. They watch every motion of his body. The way his black hair flirts with the slight breeze. Even the way he sets his face to stone when he glances around the area one last time, they memorize it all and I hate them for it, but I can’t seem to make them look away.

  Starting the car with its deep rumble, Jedrek thankfully doesn’t start conversation after he slides in. He doesn’t spare the tires, letting our exit become obnoxious. I giggle like a little girl before I can catch myself.

  “What?” he asks again, trying to sound mirthful, but his eyes keep glancing to the mirrors ruining his attempt for casual.

  “How did you just happen to have a car waiting?”

  “Where else would a car be?”

  I do turn to him now. “Where you left it?”

  “Well, that doesn’t seem always practical. Now does it?” Jedrek doesn’t force his mirth now. He’s back to tight smirks and lifted eyebrows. He’s back to enjoying my confusion.

  “You know what?” I hold up my hands, trying to stop a conversation which will only hold more questions than revelations. “I don’t even care. So, you have magic cars? Not even the weirdest thing suggested today.” Settling back into my seat, I cross my arms with the pouting I feel headed my way. “How am I supposed to save the world from mystery people when I’ve just found out there are mystery people?”

  “You’re not,” Jedrek is almost laughing, maneuvering the car through the slower traffic of the streets.

  “Isn’t this what that’s all about?”

  Jedrek is laughing now. Sharp, male sounds of amusement fill the space around me before he says, “My littlest witch, the only thing you’re going to save is the abused dirt around a child’s grave. Maybe the sod, as well, but not the world.”

  “And the source?” My voice is high pitched again, almost shrieking with his dismissal of me.

  Jedrek makes a face of compromise, shrugging his shoulders a little. “The source is my problem, but yes, I will need you to recover it.”

  “Why me? There must be other witches you’re more familiar with?”

  “Oh, I’m very familiar with many witches.”

  The way he says it wrinkles my face with disgust. “That’s not what I meant, but okay, why not one of them?”

  “Long answer or short?”

  “Short.”

  “Fair enough,” he says, shifting the car into a different gear when he merges into traffic. “I can’t make mortals do anything. I can tempt them. Persuade them. But the whole free will thing given to mortals has a bunch of boring fine print I have to follow.”

  “You have rules?”

  “Everyone has rules.” He doesn’t bother to disguise his annoyance. “It’s an understanding, per se. I need a witch to stop a witch, but most witches are aligned with a coven, or house, which means even more rules. You are not.”

  “Meaning?”

  “You have a different set of rules, but basically, and plainly speaking, you can go against any house because you don’t have a house. You’re not aligned or governed.”

  I nod my head as if I understand everything he is saying. “Right. What’s the big deal about what I do?”

  Jedrek sighs, sounding bored, but he doesn’t answer.

  Catching the clue that he is over the Q and A part of our trip, I settle deeper into the seat. “I feel like one of those annoying cast types where she suddenly finds out there’s all this stuff about her that she never knew. Like I’m just going to magically become this thing to save the world.”

  “You’re not going to save the world,” he tells me again with laughter. “You’re going to piss off a bunch of very powerful things, as you call them, which will want you dead or controlled, but saving the world is not on the to-do list.”

  “Or part of the rules?”

  He smiles at me and I hate the little twinge it strums along my skin.

  “Like I said, the rules are different for you,” he repeats with an unusual amount of joy.

  “Why do I have a feeling we are about to break a few?”

  “Because, my littlest witch, we are.”

  “My name is Harper,” I tell him with the angst of a toddler being mocked.

  “Oh, I know your name,” he says, chuckling his deep laugh. “And soon they will know it, too.”

  I want to ask him who ‘they’ are and why ‘they’ matter so much. I want to know why the thought of them angry makes him mentally drift off to some place of amusement. Like a spoiled child, I want to stomp my feet, demanding to know the why me and the why of it all. Out of all the witches he knows, why won’t he tell me why it’s me?

  I want him to tell me why GiGi was casted in such shadows of fear from their meeting, and the riddle filled conversation. How does he know her? What’s their past? Instead, I listen to his amused sounds wondering where the hell my life is going, and if I should have worn better shoes, or maybe even boots, for how over my head we are about to become.

  After riding in a car which would have paid for most of my life’s expenses, forever, the shock of the red brick building we pull in front of shouldn’t have been so jarring. But it is. I’m not only wearing the wrong shoes; I missed the whole wardrobe memo for our little day trip.

  My eyes roam the ivy-covered columns supporting the portico. I can smell the still flowering jasmine with its reluctance to admit the season is changing. The white, waxy, petals seem to stare at me just as hard as I’m staring at the building. They, like me, know I’m out of place with my unkept ponytail and sensible, pastel outfit. Suddenly I’m even ashamed of the panties and the bra I picked purely for comfort with their worn cotton fabric begging to be retired from rotation.

  “Madam?” the gentleman who opened the door asks when I hesitate to exit the imagined safety of Jedrek’s car.

  “Excuse her,” Jedrek mockingly whispers to the man. “She’s a tad shy, but wow, when you get her talking there is just no shutting this one up!”

  Jedrek is laughing at his own joke, making it as if we have known each other forever. The valet doesn’t join the laughter. His face never molds into any visible sign of any emotion. He is standing in a red suit jacket and black slacks, staring at Jedrek with such disinterest, Jedrek may as well be another flower on the climbing vines around us.

  “Tough crowd,” Jedrek says, turning to me with an outstretched hand.

  He is wearing a smile upon his face, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He’s trying to do that thing again where he thinks I can read and understand his hidden clues or messages. It’s flattering, but apparently, I’m not as smart as he thinks I am, or as smart as I’m supposed to be. I haven’t had a clue about what’s going on since meeting him.

  He wiggles his fingers, either coaxing, or close to demanding me, out of the car. Rolling my eyes, I accept his help. The gravel crunches under my feet. Something about the sound seems to be a louder, hidden clue about what is about to happen than any eye contact Jedrek has offered. But it’s not the gravel which has my heart catching speed. It’s not the flowers, or Jedrek, or the valet who now watches me with a blank face, but interested eyes stirring the whispers in my head I always fight to keep silent. There’s magic here and it’s playing with me, tasting me, testing my walls with a curiosity of a living thing.

  “Oh good!” Jedrek almost shouts. “I was afraid she wouldn’t be in today.”

  The valet isn’t fazed by the outburst. He simply o
pens the giant, thick wooden door with its arched frame for us to enter, but my feet are doing that annoying thing where they don’t listen. I’m stuck, frozen in place as this force surrounds me with an almost warning. The owner of this magic is all but pushing me back into the car, removing my walls to my own magic as fast as I can replace them. I’ve never felt anything near this strong, this stubborn before. I’m curious, like a cat willing to risk its remaining lives to discover what’s moving just beyond the door. I want to explore how this is possible, but when I allow the spell in far enough to taste the magic, my curiosity becomes confusion.

  “It’s not possible,” I whisper, as my shock slips from mental observation to verbal dismay.

  “What’s not?” Jedrek has turned to enter the once grand house turned into a spa as if he’s been here a thousand times. “That the witch who just happened to be poking your patience in the graveyard just happens to be here poking it now?” Turning towards me, he smirks, lifting his eyebrows, he says in an exaggerated style, “Shocking!”

  “How long have you been following me?” I almost yell at his back, rushing to catch up to him. I can only imagine the show we are causing to what is normally a very well repeated day for those we pass.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Jedrek is answering me, but that’s all the attention he is sparing for my question.

  He is searching for someone, or something. He twirls his sunglasses by the arm of one side, lost in his observations of the large lobby with its shining hardwood floors and perfectly crisp painted walls. Oversized couches are placed in perfectly random locations, filling the large room with seating for the rich, and not humble about it, in white robes thicker than my comforter. My little unicorn robe seems rather pathetic as I watch the many people float to and from the lobby. My fingers almost itch to reach out and touch one of the soft robes, but years of being the target of social awkwardness keeps my urges safely at bay.

  “Is she here?” I whisper, still watching those around me with what can only be called, robe envy. “Wait. How did you know she’d be here? Do you stalk all the witches?”