by Amy Boyles
My brow crinkled as I thought. “You think someone is trying to distract us? Why?”
Axel glanced beyond the porch out into the street. “So that we won’t be looking when they take whatever it is they really want.”
“But what could they really—”
Axel’s gaze cut to mine. In unison we said, “The Vault.”
I shot up. Axel followed.
“Of course,” I said. “It makes sense. If you want to steal something from Magnolia Cove, the only place you would be looking would be—”
“The Vault,” Axel finished. “That’s where all our treasures live.”
He took my hand, and without telling anyone where we were going, Axel and I ran off.
It felt good to be outside, running at full speed with Axel beside me. Like old times. Like we were a team.
Listen to me—I sounded like I’d already given up. Like I’d accepted the fact that Axel would never truly recall what I meant to him. Well, that simply wasn’t true. He would remember. He had to.
Otherwise…what good was hope? What was the point waking up each morning and trying my best if things weren’t going to change? If they weren’t going to go back to normal?
I had to fight. I expected it of myself, and I had to do it—for Axel’s sake. I had to fight for him even though he didn’t share the same feelings for me.
A tear slid down my cheek at that thought. The cold made it feel like an icicle on my skin. I knuckled it aside and blinked away the others that appeared.
I would not buckle under this. I couldn’t. My strength was my ally.
Up ahead the Vault’s entrance loomed.
No. I grabbed Axel’s shoulder. He stopped and panted. “The door’s been broken.”
He said it first. I nodded.
Axel pinned my shoulders with his hands. “Stay here.”
“No. I’m going in with you.”
He shook his head. “I know you want me to remember you, but I won’t be able to remember you if something happens to you.”
“That doesn’t make sense. How does something happening to me have anything to do with your memory?” I argued.
“It just does.”
I knocked one of his hands from my shoulder. “I’m going in. You don’t know me, but if you did, you’d realize that you telling me to stay and being all manly never works with me.”
“You’re going to do what you want? You’re bullheaded. Is that it?”
I tweaked his nose. “You’re figuring it out. Maybe your memory is coming back after all.”
“It’s not.”
I shrugged. “Well, I’m going in with you, like it or not. Ready?”
He sighed and shook his head. “I don’t have a say in this, do I?”
I winked. “Now you’re getting it. No. There’s nothing you can say or do that will change my mind.”
“Okay, then. Stay behind me.”
I stepped around him and headed toward the entrance. “I’ll stay beside you. How’s that?”
Axel caught up in a flash. “I’m not sure I like this side of you.”
“Get used to it.” I flashed him a grin. “This is my best side.”
Our conversation died as we neared the entrance. The doors had been smashed open. The cavernous inside was flooded with darkness.
Axel gripped my arm and squeezed tightly. “Stay close.”
He didn’t have to worry about that. A shiver ran down my back. Though I was worried whoever had done this was still inside, I was more worried about Erasmus Everlasting, the keeper of the Vault.
“Erasmus may be here,” I whispered.
Axel nodded as if he’d already considered that. My heartbeat hammered against my ribs. I took slow, steady breaths in an attempt to calm my heart, but it didn’t work.
Axel’s arm shot out, and he threw me a dark look, telling me again to step behind him.
Since there wasn’t room for both of us to pass through the door side by side, I begrudgingly complied with his request.
Part of me wanted Axel to know I was a tough cookie, that I wasn’t some simple girl getting married for the heck of it. I hated how this entire scenario made me question who I was to Axel, what I meant.
Of course this man knew I wasn’t simple. I’d tamed the beast in him. That nugget was worth something—I knew it was.
I stepped coolly behind Axel as we crossed the threshold. The entrance was dark and quiet. Not a sound filled the antechamber except for the scuffling of our feet.
A light flared to life in Axel’s palm. He released the ball into the air, and it floated to the ceiling before brightening.
The light filtered down, illuminating the room.
I sucked air. The room was a mess. Broken debris lay scattered across the floor. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The doors leading to the magical objects had been breached.
I started for the door to see what had been stolen when a scraping sound caught my attention.
“There,” Axel said.
A bookshelf lay on the floor. The sound came from beneath it. Axel and I rushed over. With the latent werewolf strength in him, Axel lifted the bookcase and threw it across the room.
My eyes widened. I’d never seen him so strong before. Was he always like that and he simply never needed to call on the power in his muscles?
Before I had time to fawn over him, coughing came from beneath a mound of broken wood and pottery—the decorations on the shelving.
“Erasmus,” I whispered.
With our hands Axel and I shoveled the mess away, revealing a dusty and hurt Erasmus.
White powder coated his gray dreadlocks and face. He coughed again, and I gently touched his cheek.
“Erasmus?”
His blue eyes blinked open. He stared at me for a moment before recognition washed over his face. “Pepper,” he said with relief. “Axel. Thank goodness you’re here.”
“You were attacked,” Axel said.
Erasmus swallowed. His lips and tongue moved stiffly. “I didn’t see the face. He wore a mask, but he attacked me and went inside.”
“Are you hurt?” I asked.
Erasmus shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Do you know what he wanted?” Axel asked.
“Help me up.”
We did as he said, shoving away more and more debris. When he was on his feet, Erasmus stared at the doors. At first his expression was a mask, but then anger simmered on his face.
“I don’t know what he wanted,” Erasmus said, “but I will go through every single object and find out what’s missing.”
“We’ll help,” Axel said. “Even if it takes all night.”
Erasmus’s gaze darted to me. I nodded. “Even if it does.”
Chapter 14
My entire family, as well as Garrick and Sherman, helped go through the magical objects one by one.
Luckily Erasmus had a list and map, and of course Amelia was familiar with much of the Vault since she worked there.
“What I don’t understand is how someone got through the doors,” I said to my cousins as we entered a room that looked to be filled with nothing but scrolls. “They’re supposed to be magically sealed.”
Amelia’s head popped up on the other side of the shelf in an empty spot. “They are sealed. I think whoever did this,” she dropped her voice, “overpowered Erasmus.”
I ticked a scroll off my checklist. “But how? How could someone overpower him?”
“If they were fast, they could,” Cordelia said as she worked down her own list.
“How fast?” I said.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Werewolf fast. Another kind of fast? Magically fast?” Cordelia pointed in the direction of the smashed front doors. “We have an entire crowd of people in our town that aren’t from here. They’re staying longer than they should.”
“Because of me,” I said quietly.
“No.” Amelia shot Cordelia a scathing look. “It’s not because of you. They want to
see you get married.”
“But that might not even happen. Not for months,” I said. “We still haven’t solved Axel’s memory problem.”
Cordelia rolled a scroll over, noted the title on the wax seal and checked another box on her sheet. “Then we need to tell everyone to leave. Close off the town again. For the safety of everyone.”
I suddenly had a pounding headache. My cousin was right. Either Axel and I married now or we told everyone to go home. We couldn’t risk anyone else getting hurt.
Obviously it was possible that the threat came from inside our town, that whoever had hurt Erasmus and broken into the Vault was someone who had been living in Magnolia Cove, but part of me doubted that.
The only person I thought was capable of that sort of destruction was Rufus, and he had been reformed of his bad ways.
Which meant Cordelia was most likely right. It was time for me to face facts. Axel was not about to be changed back to the Axel I knew and loved anytime soon. This memory loss thing was sticking like hot wax to skin.
“I’ll tell Garrick,” I said, “that it’s time to make the announcement. If you’re not a witch or part witch, you have to leave until the wedding is rescheduled.”
Amelia’s face crumpled. “Oh, Pepper.”
I shrugged, trying not to look too hurt. “It’s okay. Really. It’s fine. Everyone would be leaving by now anyway. I can’t risk anything else bad happening to anyone or to our town. This place means too much to me.”
“Still,” Amelia said, “I know it hurts.”
My lower lip threatened to tremble, but I bit down on it until it was steady. “I’ll be fine. Really. Everything will be just fine.”
It’s amazing. Sometimes I can say words and believe them. Other times I say them and the meaning in them falls flat.
This was one of those instances.
We finished up our portion of the Vault and met Erasmus and my family in the main hall.
“Everything is accounted for,” Erasmus said.
Garrick shuffled from hip to hip. “Doesn’t make sense. That’s a lot of manpower and energy used to break into here and then not swipe a thing.”
Erasmus scrubbed a palm down his face. “Unless whatever it was that they wanted wasn’t here to begin with.”
We stood silently, each of us locking gazes with another. Erasmus’s words fell heavily on me.
“This is where some of the most dangerous objects that we know of exist,” I said. “If something was going to be stolen, it would be here.”
Axel turned to the Vault keeper. “Are you sure that nothing was taken?”
Betty tapped the paper Erasmus held. “We went over it three times. Nothing, and I mean nothing was swiped.”
Axel rubbed his hands together. “Then that only means one thing.”
“What’s that?” Sherman said.
“Whatever the thief was looking for, it’s not here. In the Vault. It’s somewhere else.”
“But what could they want?” Amelia questioned.
Garrick pulled down his fedora. “That’s just what we need to figure out.”
After Betty and Erasmus fixed the magical locks on the Vault and repaired the doors, we all got ready to leave.
As we were walking away, I caught up to Garrick and pulled him aside. “You want to talk?” he said. “Walk with me.”
I hesitated.
He nodded, acknowledging the worry on my face. “We’ll let everyone get ahead of us. How’s that?”
“Good.”
Axel looked back and motioned for me to go with him. I waved him off and pointed to Garrick. His gaze cut to the sheriff before he nodded and walked on.
My heart cracked in two at the sight of him easily leaving me behind.
“Whoever did this,” I said, “it’s probably one of the guests for the wedding.”
Garrick scratched his chin. “Oh, you think so?”
“I was thinking—do you think we should announce that the wedding’s off, because clearly it is, and tell everyone to leave?”
Garrick was quiet for a moment. The only sound was the leaves crunching under our feet. He pointed up to the starry sky. “Look at all those stars. They burned out years ago. Did you know that?”
“Yes,” I said, not bothering to keep the bite of frustration in my voice. “I think everyone learns that in sixth grade.”
“Seems to me that even though they’re gone, they had a purpose. Or still do have a purpose. Don’t you think?”
“To light our way?”
He nodded. “To do just that. To shine a light in the darkness.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, “and how does this relate to what I’ve said? Wait. Let me guess. The wedding shone a light on someone who was bad to begin with, but their badness came through anyway because they attacked the Vault.”
“And Erasmus,” Garrick said. “But that isn’t what I was going to say. I was going to say that even though they’re gone, we’ve still put meaning in them. And I’m worried.”
I frowned. “About what?”
“About whatever it is that person is actually looking for.”
“That’s what Axel said, but we don’t even know if what they’re looking for is here.”
Garrick nodded. “Either way we need to find out. A man was assaulted tonight. I don’t take that lightly.”
It sounded like he was suggesting I did. “I don’t either, Garrick, but I’m saying if we tell everyone it’s time to leave and put the shields back up, then this problem may be solved.”
He stopped and faced me. Anger filled his eyes. “And what about next time the shields are down? What do you think will happen then?”
I scoffed. “Maybe nothing.”
Garrick shook his head. “No. All of this has happened for a reason.”
“Of course it has. I’m just trying to stop it from continuing!”
Garrick’s eyes widened in surprise at my outburst.
I cringed and shut my eyes tight, wishing I could close out the world. “I’m sorry; it’s just, someone has all the power. All the control and I can’t figure out who it is. They’re trying to take my future and they’re also trying to steal from our town. I feel lost. Vulnerable.”
Garrick stared at me for a moment before saying, “Get over it.”
My jaw dropped. “What?”
“Get. Over. It.” He squeezed my shoulder in sympathy, I suppose to ease the sting of his words. “I know you’re dealing with a lot, but have you ever stopped to wonder that maybe somebody is possibly targeting you?”
I shook my head. “But it’s not me that was affected. It was Axel.”
Garrick nodded. “Exactly. It wasn’t you. They want you messed up, wounded and freaked out. It’s possible that the attack on the Vault was only a distraction. To get everyone more on edge, more worked up. More freaked out. About everything. So that when they make their real move, we won’t be expecting it. Or we’ll be so worried that we won’t see what’s really going on—what the actual target is.”
“That is some screwy logic.”
Garrick nodded, a sober expression making his face stony. “Some folks are just screwed up.”
“So what are you saying? Are you telling me that you’ll gladly tell the visitors it’s time to go so we can start putting this behind us?”
Garrick smirked. “You know I can’t do that. I wish I could, but that’s off the table. I need your help.”
I reeled back. “My help?”
A slow smile spread across Garrick’s face.
“I do not like that look. You look like the cat that ate the canary.”
“Maybe I have eaten the canary,” he said.
“I get the feeling I’m the canary.”
Garrick draped an arm over my shoulders. “Let’s just say I think you’re going to be a big help to me in all this.”
I slipped out from under his grasp. “You usually tell me to leave well enough alone. Maybe that’s how I want things to stay this time.”
>
“No way.” He shook his head. “In fact, all you have to do is keep doing what you’re doing.”
I bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean? Keep doing what I’ve been doing?”
“You’re upset about Axel losing his memory. You’re trying to figure out who possibly could have spelled him—if he’s been spelled, that is. You look like a lost puppy.”
“I resent that,” I said.
“Resent it all you want, it’s true. You keep on looking like a lost puppy and trying to find the culprit. Talk to people. Interrogate them. Bother them like you normally do. Whoever is behind this has probably already contacted you. Reached out in some way.”
Garrick paused. “You think a woman is behind Axel’s problem, don’t you?”
I glared at him. Garrick’s theorizing was starting to get on my nerves. Like, seriously. He was saying how he knew I was basically a scatterbrained crazy woman about Axel, and that half the town knew it, too. It wasn’t exactly the sort of confidence-building talk I would have preferred to have.
But of course I had been the one to approach him.
Now I seriously regretted it.
But in answer to his question, I said, “I suppose that’s true. I think a jealous woman spelled Axel, yes.”
“She might have a partner.” Garrick rubbed his chin. “Erasmus saw a man. That much we know is true. It could be the whole jealousy thing is part of it, but she’s got a man somewhere in the background. Might even be a friend.”
I locked gazes with Garrick, studying him. Garrick’s dark eyes were filled with determination. It was then I realized just what he was asking of me.
I gasped. “You want me to go out there and spy for you. To figure out who did this and hand them over so we can hopefully help Axel and put this person behind bars. Is that it?”
Garrick rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “When you put it like that, it makes it seem like you’re doing all the work.”
“As basically an undercover agent for you.”