by Willow Mason
“As if that makes it any better.” She pushed me out to arm’s length and studied my face with the intensity only a loving parent can muster. “No. I want you back in Nelson.”
“Especially with what’s coming up,” Ben said, earning a reproachful glance from my mother. “What? You haven’t told her yet?”
“Told me what?” I disentangled myself and took a step back, checking Lucas and Syd were nearby in case I needed help. They were deep in conversation and I took a moment to enjoy the view before Ben grabbed my hand and brought me back to the conversation.
“Have you noticed your mother’s sporting some new jewellery?”
My eyes flicked to her neck. Same locket. Presumably with the same photos of her parents—my nonny and pop—inside. The same garnet and gold earrings dangled from her lobes as they always did unless she was going swimming whereupon they went straight into her wallet for safekeeping. The same bracelet encircled her wrist. ‘The only present worth a damn that your father gave me,’ as she liked to call it.
Then I saw the sparkling diamond on her finger.
“How beautiful,” I said with a gasp, tipping my head closer to inspect the setting. “I love a princess cut. It looks just like an engagement ring.”
I stared at my own hands for a second, trying to remember which hand the marital rings should go on before giving up. The best I could manage was to narrow it to two options.
My mother smiled so broadly that dimples appeared in either cheek. She extended her hand and cleared her throat. “It is an engagement ring.”
“You’re getting married?” My voice squeaked as a quick bit of mental arithmetic told me this ended a decade of the pair living in sin. “I mean, congratulations.”
“That’s not all.” Ben rocked back on his feet, wriggling with excitement. “Tell her the best news.”
“I think we should wait until we’re settled.” My mother glanced around the yard, frowning at the throng of people still gathered. “This wasn’t how I pictured it.”
“Pictured what?” Ben’s enthusiasm had transmitted itself to me and I grabbed hold of her hand. “Tell me.”
“We’re pregnant!” The news shot out of Ben’s mouth like a grenade exploding. “You’re going to have a little brother or sister.”
Chapter Four
My shock at the news took a full hour to dissipate. Until then, my brain didn’t know what my mouth was saying. It presumably offered many varied forms of congratulations. Certainly, there was a lot of hugging going on.
Luckily, Rosie and Posey heard a rumour on the town grapevine that the police were nosing around my house. They turned up, took one look at the situation, and declared there was no way Mum and Ben were staying in the murder house with a baby on the way.
I had vague memories of expressing a desire for a brother or sister when I was much smaller. Almost everyone at school possessed a sibling and the thought of another tiny human in the house seemed fun. However, my mother had shaken her head at the notion, insisting one was enough.
Now, just as I reached an age where having a baby had started to be a consideration for me rather than a dreaded fear, she’d obviously changed her mind.
“Don’t worry,” Ben insisted as my mind finally cleared. “There’s no way a baby will displace your position in the family.”
“You’ll always be my number one daughter,” Mum agreed cheerfully, patting her flat belly. “Get prepared to boss this one around.”
I hadn’t been worried about that aspect at all. Not until the reassurances came flooding in.
Rosie installed my parents in a sleepout at the back of their property. The addition contained a comfortable four rooms—bigger than the flat I’d vacated a few weeks before.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” Posey insisted as my mother tried to offer payment. “This is just going to waste, otherwise. It’ll be nice to know someone’s making good use of this space.”
“You can sleep on the couch here,” my mother said, reaching over to squeeze my hand.
“I’m fine at home.” There were so many new things to process, I had to have some space.
“But…” Mum’s face crumpled into a concerned expression. “The skeleton,” she mouthed.
“Is too dead to hurt me?”
“You can’t be too careful,” Ben insisted as he opened every drawer and cabinet, investigating the lodgings as if it were the crime scene. “Besides, the twins have offered to make us a full English breakfast, just like staying at a BNB. We don’t want you to miss out.”
Judging from the shade of green on my mother’s face, she hadn’t made it past the joys of morning sickness.
“Why did you bring your kitten along?” My mum collapsed onto the king-sized bed as though she’d just disembarked from a twelve-hour flight. “She can’t be comfortable stuffed down the front of your jacket.”
“I didn’t want the police tripping over her or accidentally locking her inside something.”
“How have you even found time to adopt a kitten? You’ve only been here a few weeks.”
As I thought of everything I’d gone through in that short space of time, picking up a kitten faded in comparison. But I couldn’t tell my mother any of that! “She came with the house. Muffin was Great Aunt Esmerelda’s kitten.”
A trio of light sneezes greeted that news. “Well, I’m allergic to her. How about you leave us alone to settle in and we’ll call to make plans for dinner later?”
The making plans part sounded good. I wish my mother had thought to call me with plans before they’d turned up on my doorstep.
“Sure.” I took a step towards the exit, then squeezed my eyes shut. Although I’d avoided the subject in every phone call home, I wanted to ask my mother about the whole inheritance malarkey. Especially the bit about not receiving notification until it was almost too late.
“Stop squeezing me.” Muffin struggled in my arms.
“Whoops.” Ben scooped her up as she jumped free and made a beeline for the door. “Looks like you’ve got a little escape artist here.”
“Sorry.” I let Muffin sit on my shoulder, out of harm’s way.
“What was all that about?” she demanded as I took the cowards way out and left, waving goodbye to Rosie and Posey. “I thought I was done for.”
“When I get nervous, my muscles tense up.”
“What do you have to be nervous about here?” Muffin glanced back at the lovely rose runner threading through the entrance arch. “It’s far more welcoming than a skeleton stashed in an upstairs cupboard.”
“I want to ask them why nobody ever talked about Esmerelda or being a pixie.”
“Oh, that.” Muffin scooted from one shoulder to the other, before settling her butt into the crook of my neck. “Considering they’d never heard of Brody either, it makes them sound like they’re not even related.”
“Except…” I waved at my hair and pointy features. “We are.”
“Write down what you want to know,” Muffin said with a yawn, as though she hadn’t just woken from a nap after a long night’s sleep. “If you have your thoughts in order, it’ll make it much easier to quiz them.”
“Perhaps.” It sounded like a good idea, but I wondered how much concentration I could muster with the police running through my home and a dead body upstairs. “Do you know who the skeleton belongs to?”
The only reply were the long breaths of a snoozing cat. Hm.
Heading home was the last thing I wanted to do, so I walked in the direction of the library. The talk this morning might have been idle conjecture but a job in such a quiet place sounded divine. Besides, they might even have some old town history in their stacks that could help with the current problem.
“No pets,” the librarian whispered as I approached the front desk. She did a double-take through her thick horn-rimmed glasses as Muffin woke up, stretching. “Wait. Is that Esme’s familiar?”
“Mine, now.” I held out my hand and received a limp-wristed shake
. “I’m Elisa Hamilton. Esmerelda’s great-niece.”
“Great-niece or a great niece?” Muffin asked in a small voice as she rearranged herself, using my hair as a pulley system. “Hey, Patsy. How’re things?”
Patsy pulled up part of the counter and slipped through. “They’ll be terrible if I don’t get you two out of sight. It doesn’t do to set a precedent. Follow me.”
She led us between two high shelves stacked with books and unlocked a side room with an old-fashioned key. The door protested as she shoved it open, the wood squeaking loudly against the frame.
Inside, a table was covered with old books in various states of disrepair. The air was at least five degrees cooler than the main library—enough so I felt grateful for Muffin’s warmth.
“Touch nothing!” Patsy said, one forefinger raised in warning. “These books contain more knowledge than half of the town.”
“Which half?” Muffin asked, using my body as a ladder to reach the floor. “Because if it’s the supernatural side, then I’m insulted.”
“Of course, I didn’t mean you, deary.” Patsy put the large key in her pocket before primping her hair. “Now, who sent you?”
“Nobody sent us.” I stared at my kitten in confusion, but her face held the same nonplussed expression as mine. “I heard there might be an opening for a volunteer librarian.”
“Did you now?” Patsy pressed her lips together and stuck her face uncomfortably close to mine. “And who told you that?”
I pointed to Muffin, my words drying up under the librarian’s intense scrutiny. Her silver hair caught the light from the high window and turned the tight curls into a helmet, ready for battle.
“And?” Patsy arched an eyebrow, staring at my familiar until I crouched to let her run into the safety of my arms.
“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” I spluttered. “My roommate went for a job interview this morning and we got to talking about possible openings and this place came up.”
I suffered under Patsy’s rigorous gaze for another minute, then the woman relented—sitting at the table and waving me into a chair. “That’s okay, then. There’ve just been a few odd things happening around here this morning and it pays to be sure.”
Still completely baffled, I silently nodded. The skeleton at home suddenly seemed more attractive than being seated here.
“Does that mean there isn’t a volunteer role open?” Muffin asked, blinking up at me. “Only, it’d be good to get this one out of the house during the day.”
“So you can nap undisturbed?” Patsy gave her an understanding wink. “We’re always in the market for help, as long as you understand the role will be unpaid.”
I was about to decline the generous offer—another volunteer role far away from this strange librarian would be preferable—when I heard a loud snort from the main room. The floorboards underneath my chair creaked as something gigantic shifted its weight outside.
“Um, do you…?” Patsy trailed off as another snort echoed around the library, this time sounding as though it came from inside our room. She cleared her throat. “Do you hear that?”
Muffin tapped a paw on my hand. “Get some dust ready.”
With a shaking hand, I scraped a few loose flakes into my palm and sat, trembling. The jump as the next snort came a mere foot away from my ear must have been enough proof for Patsy.
“Begone monster!” she shouted, standing and waving her arms. “We have pixie power on our side now.”
I closed my eyes, wishing I had the same belief in my abilities that Patsy did. Pages on the volume nearest to me ruffled in a warm breeze—the invisible monster’s breath.
“If you don’t show yourself, I’ll use my powers to reveal you to the room.” I held the dust to my lips, a scratch card in my mind with the silver paint peeling back. “Whatever trouble you’re up to, you can perform it in plain sight.”
“Who cares about seeing it or not?” Patsy jumped across the table and took hold of my hand. “Whatever this invisible creature is, I don’t want it hanging around my library. How’d you like a dose of poison to breathe in, monster?”
She squeezed her eyes shut and blew the dust from my palm. It fell on the floor, turning from all the colours of the rainbow to a dull grey as it did so.
“Get more,” Patsy yelled, pushing my hand away with disgust. “This thing’s been tormenting me for an hour, trying to get into the archives and steal all of Oakleaf Glade’s secrets.”
“If the universe says no to my magic, there’s nothing more I can do.”
“It’s not the universe turning you down, lovey. You just don’t know how to use the powers you’ve got. Give me some.” Patsy held out her hand, clicking her fingers. “I’ll show this creature who’s the real monster in town.”
With one last snort, whatever presence had been in the room departed, fluttering loose pages in its wake.
“And stay gone,” Patsy yelled after it before turning the key in the lock, trapping us inside the small room. “Now. How about we discuss training you up to do battle in return for some spare pixie dust?”
Chapter Five
“These are the volumes with the most relevant information,” Patsy said from atop a ladder, reaching for the books on the highest shelf. “We keep them up here so no one can happen upon them by accident.”
“What’s wrong with people reading them?” I asked, astonished that the town librarian seemed so intent on keeping people from books.
“Knowledge can be a weapon in the wrong hands,” she intoned with grave solemnity before jumping to the floor. “And we only want it to be a weapon for good.”
“What will this teach me?” I asked, eager for any shortcut. The thickness of the books combined with the teeny tiny writing on the page made me think there weren’t enough hours in a day.
“Loopholes,” Patsy said, dusting her hands together. “All the universal laws in practice in the world can always be got around if you have the right mindset and good intentions.”
“Is this the stuff your library monster was after?” Muffin said, sniffing at the book and wrinkling her nose at the dusty smell. “Seems dangerous.”
“Only if the people on the wrong side of the battle get hold of them.”
“Battle?” I stared at Patsy in mounting horror. “Is there a war on?”
She planted her hands on her ample hips and pursed her lips. “There’s always a war on. Haven’t you heard of good versus evil? Did you think it had died out just because everyone nowadays is glued to their screens?”
“Considering you tried to use pixie dust to kill something before we could find out its intentions, good and evil seem to be relative positions.”
Patsy sniffed and turned on her heel, marching back to the front desk. “That’s the talk that loses wars.”
“If my familiar doesn’t want me reading these books,” I said, following along with trepidation, “then I don’t think I should. Muffin’s got way more experience with pixiedom than I do.”
“And far less than my family.” Patsy opened the book to the last page and pulled out a card, tapping on the last name. “See here? That’s your great aunt. If she didn’t have a problem reading these books, I don’t see why you should.”
The name scrawled on the card could have been anyone. My generation wasn’t into the habit of deciphering cursive and the smudged black pen didn’t make the job any easier. Still, judging from Muffin’s expression, Patsy wasn’t lying.
“Read them and if you don’t want to use the information, don’t.” Patsy shrugged. “It’s up to you. All I’m saying is that if an invisible creature tries to get hold of the most sacred documents in town, it might come in handy to know what’s in them.”
“Is there anything in here that would help us identify a skeleton?”
“Would that be a pixie stored in someone’s upstairs cupboard?”
My mouth fell open as I stared at Patsy. “How did you hear about that already? It only happened a few
hours ago.”
The librarian tapped the side of her nose and appeared as pleased as punch. “I keep my ear to the ground. Nothing’s a secret in a town as small as Oakleaf Glade.” She wrinkled her nose. “Especially when some supernaturals can read minds.”
“You can read minds?” My mouth dropped open, and I wanted to pinch myself. No matter how strange the supernatural world appeared, every day brought a new bunch of weirdness.
“I can’t but many in town can. Considering I’m the town librarian, I’d rather everybody got their information from books, but what can you do?”
“What type of supernatural is Patsy, then?” I whispered to Muffin as I staggered from the building, weighed down with the heaviest books I’d carried since high school tried to rearrange my spine in a permanent curve. “She doesn’t have wings.”
“A book goblin. She hoards novels the same way a jeweller goblin hoards gold.”
“I need one of those charts like they have in the fish and chip shops, with all the fish varieties laid out.”
Muffin gave me a puzzled glance. “You don’t even like fish.”
“No! For supernaturals. Is there anything like that available?”
“Yeah. It’s called a town meeting. Held on the first Monday of each quarter. Everyone has to wear a name and species badge.”
“Really?” My eyes glowed until I saw Muffin sniggering under her breath. “Don’t be mean. And why do you keep avoiding my question about who the skeleton belongs to?”
She arched her back and snuffled at the inside of my jacket. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Every time I ask, you pretend to be asleep.”
It took me a few moments to realise the kitten was at it again. She gave a small whine as something crossed her path in the dream world, then her breath evened into the slow exhalations of sleep.
“Boo!” I yelled to startle her awake.
“Boo yourself,” Maisie said, appearing out of nowhere as usual. “Who’re you trying to frighten?”
“My familiar isn’t being very helpful today.”
