by Nova Nelson
Bloom nodded along. “Brilliant. Not only do you create a sense of chaos, but when it stops, you create a frame and throw focus to the first turning point of the story.”
Ruby glanced at Clifford who looked equally as confused by the Sheriff’s sudden enthusiasm, and he tilted his head left and right.
When Bloom locked eyes on the Fifth Wind’s skeptical expression, she said, “What? Okay, fine, you got me. I used to be a bit of an actor myself.”
“Really?” Bitania said, her bug-like eyes growing even larger.
Bloom appeared uncharacteristically bashful. “Well, yes. There wasn’t much else to do in Heaven to pass the time. Theater is alive and well up there. Of course, they prefer moralistic productions. The scripts have to be approved through a tedious bureaucratic process to make sure the message aligns with the shared beliefs of the ruling angels. Many of the plays feel more like propaganda than art, but still, I found ways to weave genuine emotion into it.”
“Perhaps our troop ought to perform in Heaven next!” Bitania turned to the rest of the fairies who fluttered up and down momentarily in excitement.
“Oh yes!” Bloom practically cried. “And you can get up there because you have wings!”
This had certainly taken an unexpected turn, and Ruby was fairly certain that if they wanted to return to some of their main points of questioning, the responsibility for doing so fell squarely on her shoulders.
She cleared her throat. It took doing it twice before anyone noticed. But when they did, she addressed Bitania. “Why didn’t you come forward to law enforcement right after the incident? You say you were all present on stage, so even if we discovered that Bron Danann and Dalora Greyborn were both, say, pushed, none of you could be implicated. You all have alibis.”
The lead fairy pressed her plump lips together and turned her gaze to the floor. “We were, um, afraid.”
“Afraid?” said Ruby.
“Yes. We aren’t exactly in town, um…” Her attention turned to Bloom. “Oh, I hope you won’t arrest us for this. But we don’t have the proper signatures to work in this particular realm. The process takes so long, and it’s quite cost prohibitive for our group. Please don’t deport us!”
Bloom waved that off casually. “I wouldn’t. People come and go from Eastwind plenty. It’s impossible to keep track of everyone even if they do file the correct paperwork. Those applications have to go through the Parchment Catacombs, and more often than not, they get lost forever.”
“I know many places aren’t kind to outsiders,” Bitania went on.
“True. And if you do go up to Heaven,” Bloom replied, “I suggest you follow the appropriate protocol for entry. They care about that sort of thing. But down here… Well, most of our problems are caused by the people who were born and raised here.”
Bitania nodded but didn’t appear entirely assured.
It seemed to Ruby like the perfect opportunity to escape, so she stood quickly before conversation could pick up again. Even Bloom looked momentarily taken aback by the abrupt move, but she adjusted quickly and got to her feet as well.
Bloom and Ruby said their goodbyes and promised to catch the final show the following Saturday.
And then the angel, the psychic, and the hellhound departed the Ram’s Head Inn.
Ruby waited until they were a safe distance away from the Outskirts before voicing her burning suspicion. “They have something to do with it.”
Bloom chuckled. “I couldn’t agree more. I’ll speak with Magnus Taerwyn tomorrow and let you know what he says.” After the courtesy and enthusiasm Bloom had shown in the hotel room, Ruby thought they would disagree, but perhaps she’d simply underestimated the angel’s acting chops.
Bloom said, “See you at the Emporium on Saturday at around, oh, eleven fifty?”
Ruby grinned. “It’s a date.”
Chapter Fourteen
Ruby knew it was a dream, but that wouldn’t stop her from indulging it. She and Ezra were lying on their backs in the grass just outside Erin Park as unicorns grazed in a nearby pasture. The sun was setting and lit the sky with a burst of tropical colors. They were young again. Well, she was young again. Or maybe in this world, she’d never aged, she’d chosen differently, chosen a life with him.
But how long would it last? What would be the cost?
She found that she didn’t care. After all, it was a dream. She could indulge this deep fantasy thoroughly now and think about consequences later.
“Ruby,” he said from beside her, and she found that they were holding hands. Wasn’t that just delightful?
She turned her head to face him, feeling the soft grass caress her cheek. “Yes?”
He sat up suddenly, and she did the same, though with a bit less urgency, keeping her gaze locked onto his.
The sky overhead went dark, and his eyes grew large and urgent. “You have to go.”
“What?”
“You have to go!”
“No, I want to stay here a little longer.”
“No! You have to wake up. Go now!” On the last word, he pressed a hand to each of her shoulders and shoved her hard. The moment the back of her head hit the ground, her eyes shot open and she was back in her bedroom.
Thick malevolence crashed into her like a tidal wave a moment before the spirit at the foot of her bed lunged for her.
She hardly had time to react before the woman’s fingers were around her throat. And to Ruby’s horror, the fingers had a solidness to them. Not completely, but enough to cause much distress to her windpipe.
Ruby coughed, gasped for air, tried to fight the entity, but each attempt proved futile as her hands went straight through the ghastly apparition. How was this possible? But there was no time for questions now.
She had to find a way to banish this thing before she passed out.
She tried to scream, but she couldn’t manage the air for it.
The angry entity gnashed her teeth and yelled and grunted as she continued to strangle the life out of her victim. The leering face was so close to hers, it filled Ruby’s diminishing field of view. Wide eyes, swollen with a madness, translucent hair whipping around her face like the snakes of Medusa, nostrils flaring with a primal rage.
Ruby’s vision tunneled further, and she knew she didn’t have much time.
While she couldn’t loosen the woman’s grasp, she could still move freely around the bed.
She glanced at her bedside table but found nothing of use. Just last night’s empty teacup and a novel. But wait! Didn’t she still have an old staurolite pendant in one of the drawers…?
Her limbs felt heavy from the lack of oxygen, and even as she reached for the drawer, she knew she wouldn’t make it before the tunnel closed in on her. The screaming of the spirit would be the last thing she’d ever hear. Oh, what a tragedy!
But then another sound cut through.
A growl.
Clifford leaped clear across the bed, crashing into the spirit and managing to pin her in his terrifying jaws.
She screeched and let go of Ruby’s throat, and before Clifford’s front paws had even reached the floor on the other side of the bed, the spirit had vanished.
The room was silent save for Ruby’s choppy gasps.
Clifford climbed up onto the mattress and sat next to Ruby, staring down at her. His hackles were still entirely raised. “Are you okay?”
She was particularly grateful for the psychic connection between them right now, when speaking felt so impossible. “Yes. Well, no. But I will be. I just need a moment.”
Clifford gently placed a heavy paw on one of her arms. “Take your time. I’ll be right here.”
She focused on her breathing, trying to slow it, smooth it out. She was still at risk of passing out if she didn’t manage to get a steady flow of oxygen back into her brain.
How had that thing gotten through her wards? She didn’t have as many in her bedroom as she did in the parlor, but she still had plenty. Whatever it was, it was a po
werful entity to be able to bypass the protection she had in place and manifest solidly enough to shut off her air supply.
She glanced at the clock on her bedside table. Usually, the strange spiritual occurrences that awoke her from her sleep happened during the three o’clock hour. But to her surprise, it was only a few minutes past midnight.
She stared up at her familiar who kept a close watch on the exterior wall. “Did you see what it was?”
“Not clearly,” he replied. “But I think it had wings.”
Chapter Fifteen
It was amazing how a single night of poor sleep could wreak so much havoc on her now that her thirties were a thing of the past. When Ruby had caught sight of herself in the mirror on Friday morning, the bags under her eyes had practically shouted at her. But what could she have done about it? A spirit had attacked her. A strong spirit. A frighteningly strong spirit. She was lucky to have caught a single wink after that.
But with Clifford standing watch, she’d managed to doze off around sunrise, and one hour of sleep was better than none.
She had firmly decided that today wasn’t the day to spend any substantial time looking at herself in the mirror. There wasn’t a point, anyway. After over four decades, she knew what she looked like, more or less. And as much as she would have liked it to, jabbing and fretting over her least favorite features hadn’t changed them one bit.
After she set out making her morning tea, she found she was the kind of tired that had no appetite. But she cooked a breakfast of scrambled eggs and sausages anyway; Clifford had earned it.
The hellhound didn’t look much worse for the wear, but she knew he would never show it if he did. She couldn’t have asked for a more dutiful familiar.
It was as Clifford was licking the last of the grease from the griddle (in all reality, the last drops were probably long gone, and he was simply zoning out) when Ruby sat down and wrote out a message to Sheriff Bloom.
But before she sent it off, she paused. As she’d lain awake the night before, the attack and the case with the bell tower were absolutely connected in her mind. But now that she thought about it, she couldn’t be sure. After all, she was a psychic medium. Being surrounded by ghosts with grudges was half her job. Just because Clifford had seen wings and the entirety of The Rambling Mummers had wings didn’t mean there was some sort of connection. Plenty of perfectly unconnected people of Eastwind had wings. It was a very normal thing to have, statistically speaking.
Should she even bother Bloom with it? Was it simply a distraction from the more important tasks at hand?
She didn’t realize Clifford had stopped his obsessive licking until he spoke to her. “She won’t be mad if you tell her more than she needs to know. She will be upset if you keep something important from her.”
“I didn’t invite you into my thoughts.”
“You didn’t have to. I could tell by your body language.”
She frowned at him. She could hardly be mad at him for being observant when that was one of his best qualities.
“Your Insight is always better at night,” he went on. “You don’t filter as much, and it can speak to you better. Don’t let your conscious mind stamp it out.”
“You think the attack is related to the case?”
“I don’t see how it could be. But I know you felt sure of it last night, and that’s good enough for me.”
It meant a lot to have someone around who could say such things when her own self-doubt began to act up. If she’d had any more breakfast food, she would have tossed it his way there and then.
Nearly twenty years of having the gift of Insight, and she still doubted that little voice inside of her. How many times would she have to learn the same lesson again?
“You’re right, Cliff,” she said aloud, folding up the letter. “I don’t know why yet, but I do think the two things are related. Thanks for keeping me honest.”
Regardless of the possible connection, she had an urgent errand to which she must attend. One that couldn’t wait until the next day. Not if she wanted to get a proper night’s sleep, which she very, very much did want.
Her tired body felt twice its normal weight as she and Clifford made the walk from her home to Ezra’s Magical Outfitters. Her vanity cried out for some makeup before seeing Ezra, but she hadn’t owned any since coming to this town. And besides, Ezra had very little room to comment on her aging process when he didn’t even have the nerve to embark upon the ungraceful and occasionally humiliating metamorphosis himself.
Ezra greeted her with a grin, as always, from behind the front desk when she entered his store, and she forced a wan smile and waved.
“What can I help you with today, beautiful?”
She glanced back through the front windows at Clifford, where he’d decided to remain outside. He enjoyed the outdoors more than a shop like Ezra’s that suffocated him with magic. If she’d requested it, he’d have been by her side, but he wasn’t needed. “Wards. I need more wards.”
Ezra’s expression became serious as he hurried over. “Something happen?”
“Oh yes, I’d say so. But nothing Cliff and I can’t handle.”
Mostly Cliff.
He stopped only a few feet from her and the concern in his eyes grew. “Ruby, is that…” He pointed at her neck, and instinctively her hand flew up to cover it.
“What?” she asked. Swirls. She should have looked in a mirror before coming.
“It looks like bruising,” he said. “Did someone try to strangle you?”
She took a step back for space. “As I said, it’s nothing Cliff and I can’t handle.”
He took the hint and didn’t push, but instead immediately hustled over to one of the shelves in the back and returned with a black-velvet lined tray full of small objects.
She inspected his selection. For all of Ezra’s minor moral faults, she could never say he didn’t know his magic. There was a small pile of carved wooden beads, each carrying on it a different rune. Beside that ran a rainbow lock from a unicorn’s tail, three copper beads, five jet beads, a heavy piece of malachite carved into a pentagram, and what looked very much like a dried crow’s foot.
Yes, she could do some great things with that haul.
“Am I missing anything?” he asked.
She considered it. “Do you have any iron charms?”
He grinned despite his lingering concern. “Do I!”
He left the tray atop the nearest glass display case, in which his most expensive items were housed, and returned a moment later with a handful of iron objects.
“This one will do nicely,” she said, grabbing the large iron railroad spike. “Not the most beautiful of the objects, but I’d like to see her get past it!”
“See… whom?” he asked quietly, as if the low volume meant he could sneak it in past her better judgment to get an honest answer.
“No one. Yes. I’ll take all this.” She waved her hand over it.
She was already brainstorming the best configurations to hang at her bedroom window as they walked over to the ledger. He pulled out a satin bag for the collection and as he rattled off the name and price of each one, his words appeared in the various columns of the ledger’s yellowed pages.
Quickly, Ruby realized she might have overspent. “I don’t know that I have all the money on me at the moment, but you know I’m good for it if you just want to make a note and I can come back and pay the rest later.”
Ezra glanced up at her, the malachite pentacle in his hand. “No.”
“No?” Her eyebrows shot up.
“Look at you, Ruby. Your neck is bruised and, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but there’s a burst capillary in your left eye. Whatever happened to you last night was serious. I’m not letting you pay for any of this.”
“Ezra,” she warned.
He shook his head as he said, “I won’t hear of it, Ruby. Not from you. I’m not exactly hurting for business lately, if you haven’t noticed.” He put the last of her
haul into the satin bag and pulled it closed with the drawstrings. “What’s the point of having money if you can’t use it on your friends?”
She almost said, “savings for old age,” but while he was being so generous, her desire to needle him for his life choices fizzled out.
“Fine,” she said. Then she softened her tone, adding, “And thank you.”
“One condition,” he said.
Of course there was. “And that is?”
“You go straight to the Pixie Mixie after this and you use your money there. I know you wouldn’t be caught dead at the healing house for something so minor, but Stella ought to take a look at you.”
It was an easy enough condition to agree to, so she did. And once she had her things and had awkwardly thanked Ezra again, she met Clifford out on the sidewalk and told him of their next destination.
“He’s a good man,” Clifford said.
“I hate it, but you’re right. At least he’s good to me. Anyone else, and he might have sensed the desperation and doubled the prices.”
“Did you remember to get iron?”
“But of course.”
Chapter Sixteen
Sheriff Bloom had only assigned herself a single stack of paperwork to get through that day, and then she would track down Magnus Taerwyn, the other elf Liberty Freeman had mentioned to Ruby as a possible close friend of Bron Danann. While she didn’t have Insight like Ruby, Bloom still had plenty of intuition built from a millennia of data points, and that intuition was telling her that Magnus wasn’t in any immediate danger. At least not until The Rambling Mummers’ production in the Eastwind Emporium the following day.
The work was moving slowly today, mostly because the letter she’d received that morning from the Fifth Wind was taking up much of her mental space. Ruby had been attacked. Outside of that fact, little of what she’d mentioned made any sense to Bloom. And then the already confounding letter had concluded with, Don’t worry too much about it, though. I just thought I’d mention in case it had anything to do with our ongoing investigation. I don’t see yet how it would, outside of the possible fairy connection, and I know you can’t act upon something that flimsy. Anyhow, Clifford and I have the situation under control, and, truly, there’s no need to worry. You have enough on your plate as it is and I’m just fine.
