by Lily Webb
“I suspect because they had you. Maybe they wanted you to have a relationship with your grandmother and a normal childhood, or as normal as they could provide until your magic awoke,” Raina said.
“Do you think that’s why they tried to come back? Was I showing magical signs even at that young of an age?” I asked.
“Again, based on your lineage and what I’ve seen you do with your magic since you’ve gotten here, I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest,” Raina said.
“But what about my father? Was he magical too?” I asked.
“Please,” Grandma scoffed. “Don’t get me wrong, I love the boy to death, but that idjit was about as magical as my big toe.” Raina snorted.
If that was true, I wondered what he thought of my mother’s abilities — or if my mother hid them from him until after my powers started manifesting in ways she couldn’t excuse.
“Do you think he knew about Mom’s magic then?”
“Who the heck knows? Until your mother got pregnant, I didn’t really see hide nor hair of your parents,” Grandma said. “They moved out of Lumberton to Charlotte, or so they said, but I never got invited to their house or nothin’ so I dunno if they really lived there or not. They coulda been livin’ here for all I know.”
“But you never had any clue either or both of them were magical?” I asked Grandma. She shrugged.
“I mean, sure, strange things happened around your mother, but I always took ‘em as a coinkydink,” Grandma said.
“Like what?”
“Just lil’ things. She always seemed to be one step ahead of me like she was readin’ my mind or somethin’,” Grandma said.
“That sounds familiar,” Raina said, smiling at me.
“Whaddya mean?” Grandma asked.
“She probably was reading your mind, Grandma,” I said. “I can do it too.”
“Oh, how lovely. I don’t really wanna think about what kinda trouble that could get me in,” Grandma said, blushing. I chuckled.
“But what about my mother’s parents then? Who were they?” I asked Raina. Raina sighed and shook her head.
“That’s the one missing link. There’s no birth record for an Ember Woods here, which probably means she was born elsewhere,” Raina said.
“You mean in another magical community?”
“Possibly, or in the non-magical realm,” Raina said. “Though rare, it does happen from time to time.”
“Raina and I have talked this over ‘till I was blue in the face lookin’ fer other details. I dunno anything about your mother’s family, Sugar. I never met ‘em, she never talked about ‘em. It was almost like she didn’t want ‘em to exist,” Grandma said.
Maybe she didn’t. If they weren’t magical, she might’ve been embarrassed by them, or maybe they’d rejected her when they’d learned who and what she was. Had she woken up one day to magic slapping her in the face like I had? Or was it like the slow creep of puberty, the changes growing more and more evident until she couldn’t hide them anymore?
I might never know, and that was the hardest part to accept.
Grandma reached for my hand, startling me, and when I looked up she was smiling at me somberly.
“I’m sorry, Sugar. I know this is a lot to lay on ya, but I couldn’t keep it from ya no more. It didn’t feel right now that you’re here and learnin’ all this magic and whatnot. You need to know who and what your family is,” Grandma said. I squeezed her hand.
“It’s okay. It’s a lot to process, but I’m glad you told me,” I said. “It clears so many things up.”
“I reckoned it might.”
“Zoe, now that we have your grandmother here and we know who to look for in the records, we’ll find more information. I’m sure of it,” Raina said.
“Right, of course,” I said, hearing my words from outside myself. I needed some air to clear my head. I had so many questions but I knew none of them had answers so I bit them back.
“You okay?” Grandma asked. I nodded.
“I’m fine, I’m just overwhelmed,” I said.
“Maybe we should leave things here for now,” Raina suggested.
“Good idea,” I said. I sat staring at the wall, unable to think straight.
“You sure you’re okay, Sugar? I don’t want you to—”
An explosion tore through Raina’s house, cutting Grandma off. It shook all four walls, rattled dust from the ceiling, and rocked our chairs in the aftershocks. Tierney howled and darted under the nearby sofa, leaving scratch marks on Raina’s arms.
“What in Lilith’s name was that?” Raina asked as she stood and hurried to the window to look outside. I was on her heels, but I couldn’t see anything. Frustrated, I tore out of the house and a hand automatically clapped over my mouth when I saw all-too-familiar green flames hundreds of feet away licking and lashing at the darkness — in the vicinity of Hypnotic Tonics.
Another fire was the last thing I needed.
“Stay here, Grandma!” I shouted.
“Are you pullin’ my leg? I survived them green flames once, I ain’t gettin’ nowhere near ‘em again!” Grandma shouted back.
“Zoe, wait!” Raina called and reached for my arm to stop me, but I yanked it away and dashed down Moonbeam Avenue toward Crescent Street, desperate to get to Hypnotic Tonics before anyone else did.
Chapter Thirteen
Glass popped and liquid sizzled as a roaring emerald blaze consumed Hypnotic Tonics. The windows were blown out, the lawn littered with glass, and even the yard ornaments were melting like candles on a cake.
I felt helpless, not for the first time since coming to Moon Grove. Thanks to the flame spreading like a contagion and my lack of a wand to defend myself, I didn’t dare get too close. Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about Hilda and Sage trapped inside.
What on earth happened? Had one of their alchemical experiments gone wrong? It was the only explanation I could think of, but that didn’t mean it was the right one. Regardless, the police and the magic medics would be on the scene in a matter of seconds, so I had to act fast if I wanted to find anything that might point me in the right direction.
Careful to avoid touching anything that was already ablaze, I darted around the building to the back and gasped when I saw Sage on hands and knees. Coughs racked her entire body like her lungs were on fire as she crawled away from the shop.
I ran to her and had just crouched down when another explosion rocked the building and sent me tumbling backward into the grass. Dazed but determined, I forced myself back up and wrapped Sage’s arm around my shoulder to carry her away. Her feet dragged in the grass and her head lolled against my shoulder, but somehow I managed to get her to safety.
Together, we slumped down into the grass under a tree some thirty feet away from the raging flames. I watched in horror as the frame of the building collapsed in on itself, belching a gust of scalding air and green embers onto the nearby buildings. If the firefighters and police didn’t arrive soon, the entire street might burn down.
“Zoe?” Sage coughed as she stirred back to life.
“Yes, it’s me. Are you okay?” I asked, frantic.
“I think so,” she croaked, rubbing her throat that must’ve gone raw from smoke inhalation.
“Do you remember what happened? Anything at all?” I asked.
“No, I was working in the back room and the next thing I know everything’s on fire,” Sage said. Then her eyes went wide and she tried to claw away from me back toward the store. “Hilda! She’s still in there, we have to do something!”
I seized her robes, which were charred and reeked of smoke, to hold her back. The last thing I needed was for her to go Rambo trying to save someone who was most likely already gone.
“Sage, no! It’s too dangerous, we have to wait for the fire department,” I said. Sage let out a howl somewhere between crying and anguish until her voice went out. She fell back into my arms. “You have to tell me if you saw anything. It can make the difference h
ere.”
“I swear, I didn’t. I was in the back room taking stock of everything we needed to replace after the day’s sales and then everything turned to fire,” Sage said, tears glistening in her eyes thanks to the eerie green light from the fire.
“What was Hilda doing?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I think maybe she was working on a new formula. We’ve been toying around with a new recipe for the last few days,” Sage said.
“What kind of formula?”
“The kind to put out fires like this,” Sage sobbed as she realized the irony of it all. “After the horrible fire at Councilman Woods’ house, Hilda was obsessed with creating something that could put that kind of fire out if it ever happened again.”
Her words twisted in my side like a knife.
“You said you were having trouble with it. What kind of trouble?”
“It was volatile. We tested it in the smallest batches possible first in a magically-controlled environment in case anything right wrong, so I don’t know what happened, but it must’ve been an accident. It had to have been an accident,” Sage said.
I opened my mouth to ask another question but didn’t get the chance because a gang of witches and warlocks in red robes rocketed overhead, their wands drawn and held at the ready as they formed a circle around the blaze. Fire Chief Blaine Hart was at the front of the group and I took some small comfort in knowing he’d dealt with this recently and knew which mistakes not to make twice.
“Are they going to save her?” Sage muttered, several of her fingers between her teeth.
“They’ll do everything they can,” I said, though I didn’t have much hope. If it was true Hilda was in the middle of the shop working on a formula when the explosion happened, surrounded by all the other combustible formulas on sale...
“I don’t believe this,” Sage said. That made two of us. I hoped against all hope that this latest fire was truly the result of an accident, but it didn’t look that way. Circe’s house had been deliberately torched by Wild Fyre and it couldn’t have been a coincidence that Hypnotic Tonics was now alight with the same contagious green flames.
“Are you sure it was an accident?” I asked. Sage pushed out of my arms to glare at me.
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” she shouted, her face twisted in anger. “Why on earth would Hilda set her own shop on fire?” Sage asked.
That wasn’t what I meant, though it was an interesting theory. Hilda did owe a lot of money to Tony, so what if she decided to burn the place to cinders so she’d never have to pay it back? Or better yet, what if she had some sort of insurance policy on the shop she was trying to collect? People had done crazier things than this for an insurance payout.
“Good question,” I said.
“Listen to yourself, you sound crazy!” Sage said. She pointed at the blaze and the firefighters swarming around it. “Who would do this to themselves?”
“Well, maybe it wasn’t her,” I said, looking Sage directly in the eye. She stared back like she didn’t understand, but when it clicked she looked like she might lunge at me.
“You think I did this?! I nearly died!” Sage’s shouted.
“I didn’t say that. I just raised the question,” I said.
“And that’s about all you’re good at, isn’t it? Trouble is, you’re asking all the wrong ones,” Sage said. “Meanwhile, my entire livelihood is burning to the ground and my mentor is probably dead.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“This was Hilda’s entire life, and I wanted nothing more than to follow in her footsteps. I would never have thought about hurting her or the shop,” Sage said.
“Okay, then who did? I already know you and Hilda had some unsavory connections, to say the least,” I said.”I know Hilda owes Tony Romano a lot of money to pay back the loan she got from him to open the shop.”
Sage looked like a deer in emerald headlights as the fire raged in the whites of her eyes.
“You obviously already know, so there’s no sense in denying it. That part’s true,” Sage said. “But I don’t think it was Tony who did this, not after what happened today.”
“Which was?”
“Tony isn’t the only one Hilda owes money to for the shop,” Sage said, staring at me like she was looking right through me.
“Who else?” I demanded, crawling closer to make sure I heard.
“Lorelei Riddle,” Sage said. The fire roared as it consumed the last remnants of Hypnotic Tonics but still couldn’t drown out the din of the thousands of thoughts running through my head.
“What?”
“You heard me. Lorelei Riddle, the same Councilwoman who was intent on making sure we never opened our shop, gave Hilda money for what she considered research and development,” Sage said.
“Her family’s loaded, but given the legal trouble her daughter’s in no thanks to you, money’s drying up fast. So Lorelei gave Hilda a startup loan in exchange for a slice of the future profits,” she continued.
“I don’t understand. Why would Lorelei give you money and then try to shut you down?” I asked.
“Maybe she got scared word was going to get out. She came into the shop earlier today shouting. She wanted to know how you found out about her breathing down our necks, and she wasn’t happy when I told her you’d come in poking for information,” Sage said.
My throat tightened. If Lorelei came into Hypnotic Tonics to put the squeeze on Hilda and Sage, that meant she was afraid of me and the questions I was asking — but why?
Probably because she didn’t want me to find out she had financial ties to Hilda and Hypnotic Tonics. I wasn’t intimately familiar with the laws and regulations in Moon Grove, but I found it hard to believe there weren’t any prohibitions against Council members investing in businesses that could create a conflict of interest.
“Why are you just telling me now about Lorelei’s loan to Hilda? Don’t you think I might’ve liked to know that sooner?” I asked.
“Because I knew you thought Hilda killed Circe, and I wanted to protect her. I was sure that once you got on the trail of whoever was actually responsible for the fire, you’d leave us alone,” Sage said.
“And you think Lorelei is the one responsible for both of these fires?” I asked.
“Her daughter is a convicted murderer, so I wouldn’t be surprised,” Sage said.
A chill rippled through my entire body and Sage fell silent as she watched the firefighters desperately trying to stop the fire from spreading. They flitted around the blaze like moths to a flame, never close enough to touch it, but close enough to make me worry.
Hilda was in much more debt than I knew. Tony wasn’t lying when he told me he suspected Hilda owed money to people other than him, but I never would’ve guessed Lorelei Riddle had a role in any of this.
Did she just think the shop’s profits would be a quick way to refill her coffers when she agreed to give Hilda the money — and then had second thoughts when the business came under scrutiny? Or was there something else going on? It was next to impossible to say.
Fire Chief Blaine Hart touched down in front of us. He held his broomstick in one hand and it was so small next to his massive, muscular frame that it looked like a child’s toy.
“Zoe, what are you doing here? Are you okay?” he asked, recognizing me immediately. I nodded.
“I’m fine, but I’m not so sure about her,” I said. “This is Sage Snow, she’s the apprentice in the shop.”
“Have you saved Hilda? Is she okay? I need to see her,” Sage said, borderline hysterical. “I don’t know what I’ll do if she doesn’t come out of there.”
Blaine looked at me with concern on his face and I knew it was too late. Hilda was gone.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Snow, but I don’t think there’s anything we can do at this point,” Blaine said and Sage howled. I wrapped my arms around her and Blaine regarded us like he didn’t have any idea what to do.
“You always seem to
be in the wrong place at the wrong time, Zoe,” Blaine said. Yeah, no kidding. “Did you see anything?”
“No, I felt the explosion from a few blocks away while I was visiting with my grandmother and I ran here as fast as I could. I found Sage crawling through the grass and helped her get away,” I said.
“And what about you, Ms. Snow? Did you see anything before the fire started?” Blaine asked. I held my breath and waited to hear whether or not the story Sage told him would match the one she’d told me.
“No. I was working in the back room when all of a sudden there as a booming sound and everything turned green. It knocked me down and I crawled my way outside,” Sage said. “But it had to have been an accident, some tonic or another gone wrong.”
That wasn’t what Sage implied to me. Maybe Lorelei Riddle had decided she wasn’t going to make her investment back and needed a way to get rid of the evidence that she’d ever been involved with Hypnotic Tonics in the first place.
“I understand. We need to get you both away from here, it’s not safe,” Blaine said and motioned to one of the other firefighters who was still circling the blaze and casting protective spells on nearby buildings to keep the fire from spreading.
A witch with long dark hair soared out of the air and landed beside us. She smiled at us like everything was going to be okay, but I had a hard time believing that.
“This is Lena, one of my best crew members. She’s going to fly you both to the hospital,” Blaine said.
But as he spoke, a flash of red and blue lights mixed with the green of the fire and I sighed as I realized the police had finally arrived — and though I had no idea what took them so long, after everything Sage told me I was grateful they’d dragged their feet. Still, if I knew Police Chief Mueller half as well as I thought I did, there was no way he’d let anyone take Sage anywhere until he got her story on record.
“Or maybe not,” Blaine sighed, eyeing the police cruiser as it squeaked to a stop along Crescent Street. Mueller and Officer Ewan Barrett, Flora’s boyfriend, stepped out of the vehicle. Both wore grim expressions as they stared at the blaze.