by Zoe Arden
"Why didn't you say something?" she asked, angry. This was just like him.
"I wanted to make sure you weren't followed."
She rolled her eyes. "Of course, I wasn't followed. Why would anyone want to follow me? What is this about, anyway?"
"I need your help."
The moonlight reflected off his pale skin, making him look almost ghostly. She shivered and wrapped her arms around her body.
"That's what your letter said, but that's fairly vague. Help with what?" Her throat had gone dry. She licked her lips and forced her voice to remain calm. The last thing she wanted was for Mack to see how nervous she was around him.
He looked around before answering, as if checking to make sure they were really alone. "Someone's after me," he finally said, his voice just above a whisper. She had to step closer to hear him.
"After you?"
Her heart was pounding in her chest. She didn't like this. She wasn't one of those people who found late-night meetings and clandestine affairs exciting. She liked order. Bill gave her order. Mack had always given her chaos. Well... maybe that wasn't fair. The chaos had only begun in the latter part of their relationship. When they'd first started dating, things had been perfect.
"I have something," he said. "Something... dangerous."
"If it's dangerous," she said, "then maybe you should get rid of it."
"I wish I could."
"Why can't you?"
He paused before answering and took a step closer. "This thing I have," he licked his lips, "I've had it for some time now. I can't just let it go."
"Wh-What is it?" she asked, not entirely sure she wanted to know.
"I can't tell you," he said.
"Then why are we here?"
"I need you to hide it for me. Just for a while." He reached into his coat pocket and began to pull something out.
Natalie stepped back, already shaking her head no. "Whatever it is, I don't want it."
He paused, his hand still in his pocket. She could see part of a box poking out.
"It won't hurt you," he said. "Not in and of itself, anyway. And no one will know that you have it."
"What if someone figures it out? What if whoever's after you decides to come after me?"
"They won't."
"How do you know that?"
"Because anyone who knows me knows that you and I broke up a long time ago. It's been over a decade, and we haven't talked once since. You'd be the last place they'd expect me to hide anything." He exhaled. "They'll assume I've got it stored at the bar or at my house."
"Why don't you just give it to a friend?"
"I don't have many friends these days," he said. "And none that I can trust."
"If you can't trust them," she said, "then they can't be much of a friend."
He smiled. "You always saw right through me."
"I never saw through you, but you saw through me plenty," she snapped back, feeling irritated. She wanted to get home. This whole thing was making her nervous. Why had she agreed to meet him to begin with?
Because you always cared for him, even if you didn't love him. She pushed her inner voice out of her head and tried to clear her thoughts.
Mack's smile faded away. "You read me better than anyone before or since you."
She felt herself blush and looked away.
"I'm married now," she told him. "I have two children. I don't have time for games."
"This isn't a game."
"Well, I don't have time for secrets either, and it's certainly one of those." She paused and looked at him. "I never could abide your secrets, especially toward the end."
"Natalie, please..." he said. "You're the only person I can trust right now."
"Yet you can't tell me what it is you want me to hide?"
He shook his head. "It's for your own protection."
"What if I open the box?" she asked defiantly. "If I'm hiding something for you, then I want to know what it is. I have a right to know what I'm getting myself into."
Mack hesitated. "You're right."
He withdrew the box from his pocket. It was about the size of a book, though the shape of it wasn't right for a book. It was too rectangular. He peeled back one corner.
"Wait!" she suddenly shouted. "Don't!"
"I thought you wanted to know what it was."
"I changed my mind. I don't want to know. Don't tell me anything else. I need to leave. Now. Whatever it is, I don't want it." She took two steps in the opposite direction.
"Natalie, please... I don't have anyone else."
"I'm sorry," she told him, glancing back over her shoulder. "I hope you get out of whatever jam you're in, but you'll have to do it without my help."
She hurried away from him before he could try and change her mind. If he tried hard enough, he probably could. That, more than anything, bothered her. The idea that even after all these years Mack could still get into her head and convince her to do whatever he wanted was upsetting. She'd thought she was past that.
She shot one last look at him over her shoulder as she hurried home. He was still standing on the dock. She could make out his outline, but his face was hidden in darkness now. She was glad of it. The last thing she needed to see right now was his face. If she saw that hurt look in his eyes, she would probably have changed her mind and gone back to him.
As it was, she saw nothing that could affect her, and by the time she got home, any guilt she'd felt at turning him down was gone. She'd left it behind her at the docks, and it was only when going to sleep that night that she felt it prick at her heart. She turned to Bill then and kissed him hard, surprising him.
"What was that for?" he asked.
"I love you, that's all," she said.
He paused, a shadow crossing his face. "I love you, too. Everything all right?"
She nodded. "Everything's fine."
She turned out her light and went to bed, but she could still feel Bill's eyes on her in the darkness. Eventually, he'd settled back and fallen asleep. He began to snore an hour later. Natalie knew the time because she was still awake, her eyes wide open as she stared at the dark ceiling of their bedroom.
It was not until dawn that she finally fell asleep, and even then she did not sleep soundly. She dreamt that something was after Mack—a monster. It almost had him just as she'd woken up. The image did not fade as most dreams do; it stayed with her throughout the day.
It was only later, when she went for some chocolate fudge happiness brownies at The Mystic Cupcake, that it began to fade, and all thoughts of Mack left her mind. Even then, they weren't really gone, just hidden.
She hated secrets, and hidden things bothered her more than anything, probably because they scared her. You never knew what shadows might jump out at you from the darkness. She wished she'd never met with Mack at all. If he tried writing to her again, she would just have to throw the letter away. She wouldn't even read it. She'd be curious, but she could live with curiosity. What she couldn't live with were those shadows.
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CHAPTER ONE
"Eleanor! Trixie!" I shouted, unable to hide the excitement I was feeling.
Eleanor Rose poked her head into the back room of our bakery. "Ava? Did you call?" Her blond hair fell across her eyes and she swished it away with one swipe of her finger. "Are you finished?"
"I think so," I told her, pushing my own blond hair behind my ears. I could feel my smile widening and knew I must have looked like a kid at Christmas. Heck, I felt like a kid at Christmas. If my new extract worked as planned, it would change the lives of witches everywhere.
"Should I get your dad?" Eleanor asked.
"What's he doing right now?"
Eleanor looked over her shoulder back into the main part of the bakery. "It looks like he's helping Natalie Vargas decide between chocolate fudge happiness brownies and caramel calming snickerdoodles."
I sighed. Natalie always had the hardest time making up her mind about things. She was also the world's bi
ggest gossip and had a tendency to linger in the bakery until she'd overheard some juicy piece of information that she could then spread around Sweetland Cove like wildfire.
"He could be out there all day with her," I said. "Why don't you and Trixie come back here, and I'll give you a demonstration?"
Eleanor nodded and spun around.
"Wait!" I shouted, a new idea springing suddenly to mind.
What am I thinking?
The biggest gossip in Sweetland Cove was just outside these doors. If I went out there and gave a successful demonstration in front of Natalie, every witch in Sweetland Cove would be at Mystic Cupcake in the next hour demanding our new extract. We'd have a bestselling product in an instant.
The only trick was that I couldn't just sell the extract as it was—undiluted in a small glass bottle. It was far too potent like this. Most witches wouldn't know what to do with it. Undoubtedly, someone would take the extract and smear half the bottle over their face in an effort to get the desired effect. Then her skin would probably melt off or she'd break out in hives as big as bee stings and end up in Sweetland Hospital. And I, of course, would be the one to get blamed.
No no no. We'd have to prepare it properly first. Add it to some cookies or brownies or cakes and get everything baked before the crowds started forming. Since Eleanor was the cake expert, she could be in charge of deciding which flavored cakes my new extract would work best in. Trixie Rose, as frosting expert, could offer her own advice regarding buttercreams, whipped creams, or a simple glaze. I was sure she'd have just as much input on flavors as my father and I would, but I was an extract expert and my dad... well, he was sort of a jack-of-all-trades. Eleanor would have the ultimate decision. My dad could be our taste tester.
First, however, I had to show them what I'd invented.
Eleanor was still standing in the doorway watching me. "Well?" she asked. "Shall I get them or would you prefer that I stand here all day?"
I rose from my seat. "I'm going out there."
I sneezed suddenly and almost dropped my extract. Eleanor gasped. My nose itched to sneeze a second time, but I fought it back. There was a small medicine-style cabinet nailed to the wall just above my workstation. I opened it and grabbed an allergy pill. I wasn't about to risk ruining my extract just because of an uncontrolled sneeze. I blew my nose and turned back to Eleanor.
"Okay, let's go," I said.
Eleanor's eyes rounded. "Are you sure this is the best idea? Natalie's out here. I mentioned that, right?"
"Yes, but if my extract works like I think it will, then we're going to want to get the word spread. Who better to do that than Natalie?" I paused. "Just think of it... Ava Fortune's Wrinkle Reducer. It's a goldmine."
Eleanor frowned. "Are you sure we shouldn't test it out of sight first? Remember what happened with that wart remover you created?"
I rolled my eyes. The last thing I needed was reminding about that disaster. I'd broken out in warts for a week. Dr. Dunne over at Sweetland Hospital had had to consult with Dr. Wallace over at Mistmoor Hospital, all the way on the other side of the island, in order to come up with a way to remove them.
The outcome had been me drinking a disgusting concoction that looked like mud but which they had assured me contained a variety of green juices, fish eggs, mildew, and I don't know what else—I'd told them to stop explaining it to me after they'd mentioned mildew—every hour, on the hour, for twelve hours straight until the warts were gone.
"This won't be like that," I assured my aunt.
Eleanor pursed her lips together but said nothing else on the subject.
I went out into the main bakery where we displayed all of our items and smiled at Natalie and my father. Aunt Trixie was busying herself with refilling our display case of peppermint patty peppy bars, which were steadily becoming one of our bestselling products. The peppy powder in our peppermint bars would give you the same amount of energy you'd get from drinking ten cups of coffee but without any of the side effects. There would be no crashing afterward, and you would easily be able to fall asleep when the time came.
"Hi, Natalie," I said.
Natalie jumped about a foot in the air. "Don't scare me like that!" she yelled. "You shouldn't be sneaking up on people. Don't you know that's rude?" Her brown hair was frizzy this morning, which was weird. Usually, she was pretty good about keeping it slicked back even with two kids and a husband to keep her on her toes.
Trixie, Eleanor, and my father all looked from her to me. I shrugged.
Natalie wasn't normally so jumpy, either. In fact, she was quite the opposite. As the town's biggest gossip, she knew how to hold her own. She was an expert at getting information out of people even when they didn't want to tell her anything, and you didn't want to question her about the authenticity of her rumors. If you did, she would roll her shoulders back, hold her head high, and say in the haughtiest voice possible that everything she said was the absolute truth so far as she knew it. If a mistake had been made, then it wasn't her mistake.
"Sorry," I said to her. "I didn't mean to make you jump."
Natalie's uneven smile suddenly brightened. "It's okay. I didn't sleep well last night. Maybe I'm a little on edge. I've got bags under my eyes, and I'm sure I must look like a mess."
That was just the opening I needed.
"I have something that might be able to help you," I told her and held up the glass vile that contained my new extract.
Natalie's eyes widened. Whatever fatigue she was feeling quickly left and was replaced with intrigue. "Is that a new extract?"
"Sure is," I told her.
"What does it do?" Natalie asked.
"She won't tell us," Trixie said with her hands on her hips. She glared at me from the display case she'd been filling. "Says it's top secret."
"I don't know how she expects us to help her when she refuses to tell us what she's up to," Eleanor said. "I can't even begin figuring out what sort of cakes to make for her extract until she tells me what it is." She was frowning deeply but there was a playful glint in her eye.
Aunt Trixie was wearing bright purple tights with a daffodil yellow dress that made her look like something out of a coloring book. Her dress nearly matched the color of her hair, which was an even brighter blond than my own. It was one of the things my aunts and I had in common—long, blond hair that shined no matter the time of day or year, though the exact shades varied slightly. My mom's hair had been the same blond as mine, or so I was told. She'd died when I was just a baby.
Aunt Eleanor was dressed in a long, flowing, layered skirt of deep green that made her look like a gypsy. She had on big, gold hoop earrings and a dark purple shirt that couldn't have been more different from Trixie's nearly neon purple tights.
My dad stood by, watching us, fully aware that at times like these it was best to keep his mouth shut.
"Eli Fortune," Trixie said suddenly, turning to him. "Tell your daughter that she can't keep secrets from us. It isn't right. You're her father; she has to listen to you."
My dad laughed. "Ava stopped listening to me when she was ten years old. She's twenty-two now, and if I can get her to listen to me tell her about my day, I'm lucky."
"I listen to you when you talk," I told him. "I just don't take directives." Eleanor laughed. "Anyway, I don't have any secrets. I've finished the extract, and I'm about to demonstrate it for you, so be nice before I change my mind."
I stuck my tongue out at Trixie, who retaliated by sticking her tongue out even further.
Eleanor rolled her eyes. "Children," she muttered.
"I'm only five years younger than you," Trixie said. "And you're—"
"Don't say it," Eleanor said quickly, stopping her. "Women over forty don't like to be reminded of their age."
"I'm over forty," Trixie said.
"Barely. You're a baby in comparison me."
"Which brings me back to my new extract," I told them. "With this, you might be flaunting your age rather than hiding it."
/> Eleanor, Trixie, and Natalie all scoffed.
"I doubt that," Trixie said.
"So, what is it?" my dad asked. He was a few years older than Eleanor, though he hadn't quite hit fifty yet. It suddenly occurred to me that he might be interested in this as much as they would be. I'd been thinking so much about how it would affect women, that I hadn't considered men. But men got wrinkles, too, after all.
"It's a wrinkle remover," I said, beaming at them.
"A wrinkle remover?" Natalie screeched, delight in her voice. She was only in her thirties and didn't have any wrinkles so far as I could see, but I supposed that didn't much matter.
"Not just a wrinkle remover," I said. "It should also get rid of crow's feet as well as dark circles and bags." And blemishes, I thought but didn't say. I was still working on perfecting that particular aspect of it.
"It's a miracle in a jar," Trixie shouted. She hurried toward me and attempted to snatch it out of my hand.
"Uh-uh. Not yet," I told her, holding it back. "This is some of the most potent stuff that I've ever made. I want to demonstrate it for you first before I go setting it loose for anyone to use."
"What's the worst that could happen?" Trixie complained. "I lose too many wrinkles and look twenty years younger instead of ten?"
"Remember the wart remover," Eleanor said and Trixie settled down.
"All right, you first," Trixie said.
I drew in a deep breath and got ready. It was now or never.
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ALSO BY ZOE ARDEN
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LINK: Standalone Novella : Cake Spell Disaster
<< Sweetland Witch Series >>
Book 1 : Witch Cake Murders
LINK: Book 1 - Witch Cake Murders
