Chapter 12
Ebony was having a strange day. It was a Friday and technically the end of the working week, but that didn’t stop it from being strange.
She’d finally figured out this whole public-transport thing and had settled on walking to work instead. She’d found a route that managed to get her from her own door and up to the dusty top-floor of the Vale Police Department in 45 minutes. And while once upon a time, she wouldn’t have ever bothered walking such a distance, this was no longer a strategy she could afford to enjoy. It had taken her three days to realize that if you knew how long it took to walk somewhere, you had to give yourself that much time plus a little extra in order to make your appointment. No longer could she rely on some handsome wizard zooming past on his Harley, just in time to whip her across town.
Despite having finally calculated the distance and time it took to walk to the police station, she was late again that morning. She didn’t allot enough extra time for the extraordinary. Despite no longer being a witch and consequently being incapable of sensing or overtly attracting the magical – that didn’t mean she wasn’t a magnet for the weird and unexpected. It just meant the weird that did come her way wasn’t waving a wand, chanting spells, or throwing lightning bolts. That still left a whole universe of mundane-strange to get all up in her face.
On one street corner, while she silently walked past – her pink polo shirt and Christmas red-and-green slacks making her stick out like a nude in a nunnery – a couple burst out from the restaurant behind her. They proceeded to stand either side of Ebony as they all waited for the lights to change, and continue their incredibly loud domestic.
“Well what do you want?!” the woman in tights and a puffy chiffon top screamed at the man. “You don’t know, do you?”
The man, who was wearing a well-cut suit, but whose breath smelt like cheap and nasty alcohol, scoffed. “Sorry?” he snapped, hand patting his chest like a one-armed gorilla asserting dominance. “I don’t know what I want? Are you for real?”
Ebony stood there, concentrating on the set of traffic lights.
“Of course I’m for real, you idiot,” the woman spat back, her large hoop-earrings dangling around her neck like insects around a light.
“You’re not hearing me,” the man said, louder than a fog horn. “You don’t know what you want,” he repeated.
The woman rolled her eyes, crossing her arms with such a labored expression it seemed as if she was dragging shut giant, cast-iron gates. “Mark, you’ve never known what you want.”
With that, the lights changed, and Ebony shot forward like a horse at the races.
Must beat them, she thought with primal urgency. She didn’t want to be dragged into this hilariously uncomfortable fight.
So Ebony powered on, thinking the worst was behind her, when she made it to the police department. Before she could spring through the doors, she was dragged into another pointless dispute that had nothing to do with her.
A homeless woman, with a wild crop of perennially unkempt hair, rushed up to Ebony and put a hand on her sleeve.
Before Ebony could look around and ask what she wanted, a uniformed officer marched up, expression as pained as a man who’d just lost his house, his dog, and his leg.
“Look,” he shook his head, “You need to start behaving.”
“Behaving?!” The woman snapped around with a wide-eyed gaze that looked like the tracking lock of a homing missile. “Don’t you tell me how to act – I haven’t broken the law!”
The officer took off his hat, scratching his head with a quick, tired move. “Yet. But you’ve got to calm down. If you want this case looked into, you’ve got to cooperate,” the man sighed heavily, “Ma’am,” he added as a hasty afterthought.
“They stole my stuff!” The woman’s wild hair matched each wild dip and turn of her head as she emphasized her points with the body language of a snake.
“I know, and we’re looking into it. We really are. But the way you are behaving now, you have to ask yourself – what do you want?” The man took a peculiar pause. “Is this what you want? Do you want to be arrested for being a public nuisance, or harassing a police officer? Or do you want us to do our best and contact you when we know anything? It’s your choice.”
Somehow, inexplicably, the woman’s hand remained on Ebony’s arm throughout the entire conversation – as if Ebony was a still, silent, and steady rock that could easily be used as an anchor. And even though Ebony couldn’t have helped but hear their entire talk, being tied to the conversation by the woman’s gnarled hand forced Ebony to take even more heed.
What did the woman want? That was a peculiar way to put it. Surely, it would be better to point out she was walking the fine line between public tanty and public nuisance. Why ask her what she wanted?
The situation quickly resolved itself or, rather, Ebony extricated herself and finally managed to make it to work – only a tiny ten minutes late.
Then her odd day, well… it just kept getting odder.
She was stopped on the stairs by Frank. Ebony’s father’s birthday was coming up, and Frank wanted to know what to get him.
“What does he want?” Frank asked, his frail frame somehow managing to lithely stand on two steps without the strain crumpling him in two. “What does he really want, Ebony Bell? I’ve known your father for some time, but I can’t keep getting him pens for his birthday.” Frank laughed in a way that summed him up perfectly – through his nose in rounded hiccups that pulled at his aged skin like rain hitting plastic wrap.
Ebony shrugged. “Get him… a book, or a watch, or a pen – he likes pens.”
“Come on, Ebony Bell,” Frank shook his head, “You can do better than that. There must be something he really wants?”
“I guess, but I don’t know what it is. I always just give him a basket of random books so he can pick and choose, or find something he didn’t know he wanted.”
The conversation quickly petered out, and Ebony ascended the stairs to her new peaceful lair. She was starting to think of it as a home away from home. The equivalent of a comfy jacket she could climb into to escape the weird, cold world around her.
She’d dusted on Tuesday sometime – going down to the cleaning closet and dragging a broom (even though she hated them), a mop, and various other cleaning implements up to her new office. Though she was technically meant to be reading the files and not cleaning them, she’d justified it by pointing out to Ben there was enough dust in the room to kill an entire convention of asthmatics. Ben had grumbled, but she’d done it anyway.
By Wednesday, when Ebony had actually sat down to start reading the files, as her actual job specified – she’d found them quite interesting. She wasn’t a history buff, and she hated paperwork – but these spoke to her in a different language – the language of stories. Each and every cold case was like an unfinished novel, crying out for a poignant resolution that usually left Ebony completely invested in it by the end. How did they all fit together? Who had been responsible for the crime? What had happened to the victim afterward?
She pulled file after file out from their homes in the shelves, tenderly opening each one and leafing through the case-summaries, reports, and photos inside. Once upon a time, as a witch, she would have been able to sense the magic coming off them, and she would have read it like you would the files themselves. The magic would give an added layer of meaning to the situation – revealing previously hidden details, motives, and themes as if the person were able to step into each photo and search the scene on their hands and knees with a looking glass in hand.
Now, without a drop of magic at her disposal, all Ebony had was her memory, her intuition, and her imagination.
She looked at the pictures in each case, looked at the suspects and victims – and tried to see if she could remember any of them. She attempted to draw patterns between the crime she’d experienced in her own tenure and the crime she was reading about now.
She started to make thre
e piles on her desk. One for cases she had no clue about; one for cases that fanned her interest; and one for cases she had a strong feeling about. There were only two cases, so far, that she was sure she could give worthwhile information on. That being said, she’d only managed to sort through a single box on the cold cases shelf so far.
The day was beginning to wear on, even though it took her some time to notice it. It wasn’t until the long beams of light struck her desk, illuminating her glass with a soft sparkle, that she realized the sun was setting. She looked up to the windows before her desk and watched for several minutes as the dusk seeped down from the mountains, as if the dark were a liquid pooling into the city from above. It was beautiful, haunting, and silent.
With a sigh, she stood up, grabbing her bag and turning from the beautiful windows at the last moment. The combination of the move and the last dregs of light drew her gaze to one of the boxes on the shelves. The last light of day struck the box all at once, maybe bouncing off the reflective surface of the floor, or something. How it was happening didn’t matter. All that mattered was the curious sensation in her gut.
She walked up to the box, bag still on her arm. She leaned down so she could see the name written across the cardboard haphazardly in a big black marker.
Grimshore.
She frowned, getting closer to the box and running a hand over the name, as if giving the letters a chance to reassemble.
Grimshore. That’s what it said.
Before Ebony could pull the box out and discover what was inside, she heard the sound of feet pattering up the stairs, then a muffled curse as someone ran into something.
“Ebony,” Ben called from across the room, “Are you in here? And if you are, why on earth aren’t the lights on?”
Ebony stood up. “Ben? What do you want?”
She heard Ben fumbling around in the dark until he finally hit a switch. The great big lights strung along two perfectly straight, parallel lines across the ceiling, all turned on with a buzz and a click. “I’m here to take you home, kid.”
“Oh,” Ebony turned her gaze back to the curious box, “I was going to stay a little longer – there’s more to do.”
Ben gave a gruff laugh. “I don’t think so. It’s 8:30 already.”
“It is?” She was surprised. Though she academically knew the sun went down at about eight these days, she hadn’t put the two together.
“Yeah, so you’re going home,” Ben said with finality.
Ebony didn’t shift her gaze from the box. She wanted to know what was inside. Why would there be an entire box sitting in the cold cases section with the name Grimshore written across it? Was it referring to the family, or something else?
What with all the things happening to Ebony this past week, she’d almost forgotten about her fiery conversation with her father. She’d told him she’d been dead sure Miss Cecilia Grimshore, the cowering woman from the crypt, had been up to something. Her father had encouraged her to investigate it, as best and as legally as she could.
Now Ebony remembered. She remembered the way that woman had screamed as the book of spells had been kicked from the man’s arms. She’d shrieked, not from fright, but from something more like anger.
The more Ebony thought about it now, the more things didn’t fit….
She heard Ben start to make his way toward her. “I’m going to give you a lift,” he said with a sniff. “I’ve heard about some of your recent spectacular experiences with public transport, and I’d rather take you home myself.”
She was torn between the conversation and the overwhelming urge to tear open the box and see what was inside.
“Whatever you are doing now can wait until Monday,” Ben cautioned, as if in reply to what she was thinking. “Right now, you should go home and get some rest.”
Ben finally appeared around the corner, his face a picture of kindness but determination. “So, you coming?” Ben cast an eye over the files on her desk, then back to her.
“I have to go to Harry’s first.” Ebony smiled politely, trying to damp down the urge to stay here all night and devour this box completely.
“I figured. The old codger mustn’t be too happy with all the time you’re spending away from him.”
“Not too happy at all.” She fixed her bag back onto her shoulder, making it comfortable. “Okay,” she said with a breath, trying to put the box out of her mind. She’d come back to the box first thing on Monday. She might even get here early. “I’m ready to go.”
Ben nodded and led the way.
…
It didn’t take her long to make it back to Harry’s. After she plunged a hand into the bowl of sweets on her counter, tossing several to Ben as a thank-you for the lift, she was finally alone again.
She pottered for several minutes, tidying up books and talking to Harry.
“You wouldn’t believe the week I’ve had, Harry, you just wouldn’t believe it.” She picked up a box and shifted it to one side, making a wider avenue for customers to walk toward the red banana lounge at the back of the store. “It’s just been so… different.”
Harry didn’t reply, or perhaps he did, but Ebony couldn’t pick up on it any more. If he’d chosen to speak to her through the whirling dust motes sifting through the air, she couldn’t hear. If he’d spoken through the creaking old floor boards, again, she wouldn’t be able to make it out.
She wasn’t magical any more.
No, if Harry wanted to talk to her, he would have to speak.
So she continued on in silence for a while, puttering while she muttered and sighed to herself. The edge was gone from her week. And though she still resented it, she was starting to become used to not having magic.
Still, she felt adrift, lost in an ocean that was too large, too deep, and too everywhere to get away from. Perhaps a better way to describe her current state was not one of being comfortable with her lot, but one of resignation. She couldn’t change it, could she?
As Ebony leaned down to shove some books onto a shelf, she heard the door open gently and the bell tinkle several times.
Confused, she bolted upright. She’d left the closed-sign on, right? And she’d locked the door behind her? Was it Ben? Was it her dad?
She strode into the center of the store. She still had a book in her hands and was clutching it far tighter than it needed to be held, her knuckles popping against white flesh.
“Umm, hello?” someone said from the vicinity of the counter. The voice sounded female, old, and about as threatening as a kitten in a cage.
Shaking her head, Ebony walked toward the counter, loosening her grip on the book when she caught sight of the woman – an old dear in a light coat, a sweet hat, and beige granny-shoes.
She sucked in her lips and tried for a smile. “Sorry,” she said, flicking her gaze to the door, about to tell the woman the shop was closed. But Ebony stopped. The shop-sign had been turned to open, and the door was quite clearly unbolted from the inside.
Rather than jumping to the conclusion that the woman had broken in from the skylight above and then bolted downstairs to unlock the door and turn around the sign, Ebony simply shook her head.
Harry.
Even though she didn’t have any magic at the moment, Harry still had plenty – more than enough to shift around the things in his store. He would have opened the door and turned the sign over as a punishment for Ebony for being so absent in the past week.
She looked brightly at the dear old lady while keeping the curse she wanted to hurl at Harry shut tightly behind a smile. “How can I help you?”
“Oh no, you can’t help me,” the old woman said with a sweet chuckle. “But I can help you.”
Ebony tried to look polite, but her brow scrunched with confusion. “Sorry?”
“I’m here to help you.”
“Ah… I don’t think I need any help.” Ebony cursed Harry louder and louder in her mind. Not only had he left the shop open at nine o’clock at night, but he’d let in a nutte
r.
“I’m from the Church of Wanting,” said the woman, pulling out a pamphlet from a pocket and depositing it on the counter.
Ebony sighed. Well this was great. Now she’d have to find a polite way of telling the lady she wasn’t interested, sending the old-timer out into the night – probably to trip over in the dark, or get mugged.
“The Church of Wanting is an ancient sect,” the woman started to get rolling like a boulder down a hill.
Really? Ancient? She’d never heard of it.
“We believe the Creator gave man one single gift and one single curse – wanting.”
“Wanting?” Ebony repeated, not because she wanted the conversation to go on, but because the entire concept seemed incongruous. Sects like this were always about blind faith and complete devotion.
“Yes. To want is a gift, and yet it is a curse.”
“I don’t get it. If it is simultaneously a curse and a gift, wouldn’t it just cancel itself out?” Ebony asked, her magical knowledge coming to the forefront. She may have lost her actual ability to sense and conjure magic, but that didn’t mean she’d forgotten about the Lore. And if you cursed and blessed the same thing at the same time with the same power – they both canceled each other out.
The woman put up a gloved hand and nodded sagely, as if she got this question all the time. “It is a curse when you do not know what you want and a blessing when you do.”
Once again, Ebony had no interest at all in keeping this conversation going. She wasn’t in the mood to be proselytized to. But there was something about the odd way this woman was describing things, that irked Ebony. “That’s not the usual way people see it.” Her face tightened as if she were having a hard time explaining something simple to a child. “Surely, it’s a blessing when you get what you want and a curse when you don’t get what you want.”
“Oh no, dear.” The woman shook her head emphatically. “That’s just silly. Because sometimes you get what you want and realize you don’t want it. In which case, what you wanted wasn’t what you really wanted, so getting what you wanted was a curse.”
“Okay, say I want this lollipop.” Ebony reached over and grabbed a blue lollipop from her bowl. “I’ve got it now, and I’m feeling pretty good about it – which is a blessing.”
The woman shook her head. “It’s all in the pamphlet. But really dear, it’s knowing what you want that’s important. The getting of it is the second step. It’s the knowledge that’s the blessing.”
Ebony sighed, feeling tired from her day, her week, and her general condition. She didn’t want to have this conversation now, especially when the woman was quite obviously mistaken. Trying to convince her of it, however, would be impossible. “Look, thank you for your time.” Ebony tried for a concerted smile. “But I’m actually just about to close.”
“Oh of course, dear, it’s very late,” the woman said earnestly, then smiled a very friendly, very grandmotherly smile. “You have a good weekend though. And I’ll leave the pamphlet here for you.” She patted it down onto the counter. “Good bye, now!” She gave a cheerful wave and walked out the door.
Ebony shook her head, not grasping what had just happened, but too tired to care. She quickly marched over to the door and locked it, taking the open sign off completely.
“Thanks for that, Harry,” she quipped as she tossed the sign onto the counter. “Just what I needed.”
Harry didn’t respond.
She drew a long tired breath. Okay, enough of today. Time to go home.
She’d have to walk. And though her house was remarkably close to the shop – it would still be dark outside.
You’ll be fine, she told herself with a bare smile. “I’m going home now, Harry, you have a good night.”
Harry responded by tipping over a box of books in the corner, several heavy tomes spilling out and piling over Ebony’s feet.
She rolled her eyes. He was like a child who didn’t want to be left alone and who knew the best way to punish his parents was to destroy their stuff. Still, at least he was communicating with her, she realized as she stooped to pick up the books.
She looked down at the books as she gathered them into her arm and piled them neatly onto the counter. They all had decidedly odd names, like “Death in the Middle: When You can’t get from the Beginning to the End,” and “What a Girl Wanted,” and “What do you Want? A Powerful Self Help Guide to Writing Yourself Anew.”
Ebony frowned. Obviously Harry was playing some kind of a joke on her. She’d never seen these books before, and judging by their ridiculous names, they probably weren’t real to begin with. Just strange tomes Harry had conjured up to make some kind of point.
What that point was, she didn’t care. She didn’t have the energy to deal with today any more. So Ebony finished arranging the books and quickly marched out the door, locking it behind her, but still remembering to give the door an affectionate pat.
She walked off into the night, her arms closing around her in an effort to keep the cold out. But no matter how much she tried to huddle into herself, she couldn’t shake the feeling of cold that settled in her stomach as if she’d just swallowed a kilo of ice.
As she turned down the lane-way that cut across to her street, the chill only grew thicker – more smothering, as if she were buried deep under a snow drift with little chance of ever escaping.
It wasn’t until she was halfway through the dark lane-way that she heard the heavy steps behind her.
Thud, thud, thud.
Witch's Bell Book One Page 12