Snitch Witch

by J L Collins

  “Mm-hm! Got it!” I shouted a little louder this time. “I’ll remember that in case the HOA ever come knocking.”

  This didn’t seem to sit very well with my rude neighbor. She pursed her thin lips at me, raising one shoulder with an air of indifference before turning on the spot and heading back inside.

  “So. About dinner,” Sully said, once the screen door had slammed shut behind Gladys. “Are you in? Or do you and Fiona-Leigh have other plans?”

  Seeing the look on his face only reminded me of the day in the woods. Where Sully took in the truth about me and still accepted it the best that he could. I didn’t know whether that magic leak was a blessing or a curse. Would I have been better off not ever knowing how he would’ve reacted? That was something I still wasn’t sure of.

  I sucked in a quick breath. The magic leaks. Shoot!

  Even though I’d just spoken with him this morning, I had totally forgotten to check in with Uncle Gardner about him looking into the leaks.

  The best alternative was to do some looking around myself. As much as I wanted to pretend I had the time to keep up with and do the smaller things like taking care of the grass—or the unholy abomination to the HOA, as Gladys so lovingly put it—there were much bigger things I needed to focus on. I glanced past Sully, hearing the sound of the school bus’s airbrakes at the corner.

  I lightly smacked myself in the forehead in front of him, mainly because I really did feel like an idiot for not remembering the magic leaks. “You know what? I just forgot that I have to go grocery shopping today! I did tell Fi that we could make dinner together tonight.”

  Sully’s eyes narrowed even more suspiciously. “Oh yeah? Is there anything in particular you need? I’ve got a pretty full fridge and pantry.”

  I bit my lip. “I need um, salt. And uh . . .” I began, realizing how dumb an answer that was since of course he’d have that. “Pasta shells.”

  He nodded. “Okay, no problem. What kind do you need? I have whole wheat, your basic shells, oh, and I have some really delicious gnocchi if you’d rather do that. Depending on your recipe.”

  Gnocchi? What the heck was that? “Oh, well I actually need special salt.”

  “Special salt?”

  “Yeah, the uh, colorful kind.” Wasn’t there a special salt like that? My brain was too sluggish to flip through my limited grocery items knowledge to figure it out. The only special salt I knew was black salt for protection that you could buy in bulk at the Apothecarium.

  “Pink Himalayan salt, maybe?”

  I quickly nodded. “Yep. That’s the one! You don’t . . . happen to have that on hand, do you?”

  Sully studied my face for a moment before shrugging. “No. I mean, I find that sea salt is a pretty good substitute for that, which I do have, but if you absolutely have to have the Pink Himalayan . . .”

  He knew I was full of it. I could see it in his eyes. And I couldn’t exactly blame him.

  But we both knew what my answer was going to be. “It’s a pretty important ingredient. I wouldn’t want to mess it up, knowing my already debatable cooking skills.”

  “Oh.” He looked over his shoulder as the girls’ conversation reached our ears. “Maybe another time, then. I’ll let you get back to your errands.” He held my gaze for a moment longer before turning and meeting up with Marina and throwing his arm over her shoulder as they said goodbye to Fi.

  I hated lying to him. Absolutely loathed it. In a perfect world, I could just come clean with Sully and I wouldn’t have to withstand those knowing looks, or keeping him at arms’ length.

  But this wasn’t a perfect world, and it would only get worse if I didn’t do something about it.

  18

  Weekend Getaway

  The nice, cool shower did me no good. All I could think about was the disappointment etched on Sully’s face. I just couldn’t shake it. I towel-dried my hair and slipped into the big fluffy robe Fiona-Leigh had saved up her money and bought me for Christmas last year, desperate to feel better. I even debated sliding my feet into some fuzzy socks until I remembered it was the temperature of the sun outside, and probably the robe would be plenty warm enough.

  “Everything okay?” Fiona-Leigh was sitting at the kitchen table, fishing her hand into a half-eaten bag of pretzels.

  “Please get the backpack off the table so it doesn’t scratch,” I said, realizing just how grumpy I sounded. “And yes. I’m fine.”

  She raised an eyebrow at me, not at all convinced. “Okay then. You sure you don’t want to talk about it?” She paused, giving me room to do so, then sighed. “Are you at least going to tell me how things are going in Spell Haven?”

  “They’re going. Not very far unfortunately. And not only that, but I forgot to check into something when I was there earlier. Now I have to turn right around and go back.”

  “Is that all?”

  I stared at her. “What do you mean? Isn’t that enough?”

  “Mom. I saw you and Sully. And you look like someone just hurt your dog. No offense, Jax,” she quickly added, ducking down to give Jax—who was curled up around her feet—an extra couple of pats.

  Rolling my eyes, I flipped my head over until I managed to pull my hair into a rather wet and messy bun on top of my head. “It’s nothing, Fi. He was just inviting us over for dinner.”

  “Really? Yes! Go Mom!”

  “No. No Go Mom. I told him we couldn’t. Actually . . . I made up a rather lame story about needing random ingredients from the grocery store. Something called Pink Albanian Salt or whatever.”

  “Seriously? Mom, come on. We can’t even have dinner with them? So you just planned on coming back and then ditching me again?” A fine line creased between the freckles on her forehead as she shot me an accusatory look. “You won’t even give yourself the chance to spend time with him, as much as you want to.”

  I slumped against the edge of the counter. This would be the perfect occasion for some of Aunt Bee’s sweet hyssop tea. “It’s not that simple, and you know it. There are bigger things to take care of than having dinner with Sully. I have to help with the murder investigation. I’d like to check in and see where the case on the missing spell book is going, and I completely forgot to ask Uncle Gardner about him looking into the magic leaks that have been happening here. There’s just too much to do.”

  She rolled the bag of pretzels back up and shoved them back into the pantry, Jax at her heels. “I guess I’ll go grab an extra set of clothes then. Again.”

  Ouch. I had to hand it to her… the girl sure knew how to twist the knife in deep.

  “Okay. Fine. Why don’t we do this? You can come with me this weekend. We’ll stay with Uncle Gardner and Aunt—”

  “I want to stay with Erie.”

  “Well, I don’t know what she’s up to this weekend and I’m sure her and Houghlin have plans—”

  “Aunt Bedelia’s, then.”

  I stared up at the ceiling, willing myself to keep my patience. “Whatever you want. If it’s okay with her.”

  She narrowed her dark blue eyes at me. “Can I skip school on Monday?”

  “What? No!” I spluttered. She was good, but she wasn’t that good.

  “It’s a half-day anyway! Then I could spend some extra time with you before I went back on Tuesday. Maybe you could show me around the Athenaeum? I know you’ll be busy most of the time anyway, so I’ll pretty much be on my own . . .”

  Okay. So maybe she was that good. My parent’s guilt rose up like a sad, sad snake in the back of my mind, chiding me for practically abandoning my kid. I grit my teeth. “Fine. We’ll come back first thing Tuesday. But we’ll have to leave extra early.”

  As much as I wanted to be angry at her for conning her way into skipping a day of school, I couldn’t help but smile back at her as she picked up Jax in her arms and waved his little paws at me—both of them making ridiculously cute faces.

  “Thank you, Mama,” she said in the same baby voice she reserved for him.

/>   “Mm-hm. Don’t think you’ll be hanging out doing whatever you want, though. Aunt Bee will put you to work, believe me.”

  She grinned even harder. “Fine by me.”

  It took me until we finished getting ready for the long slog back up to the gateway, flashlights packed for the hike in the dark, before I realized something was missing. “Uh, where’s Oisín?”

  “I let him stay here. He said he didn’t want to be carted around in that torture cave.”

  I frowned. “Torture cave?”

  “His carrier.”

  That definitely sounded like Osh. “Okay, but where is he? I just checked his bedroom and he wasn’t in it. When was the last time you saw him?”

  She tapped her finger to her chin. “Yesterday before I left for school in the morning. I put Jax in his pen since no one was home at Sully’s and I had to go to school. I felt kinda bad, and told Osh that I would get him some fresh salmon from the sushi bar next time we go if he stayed put and kept Jax company.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “Two tuna rolls and a whole salmon filet, not just the sushi roll. Then we have a deal.”

  Leave it up to Oisín to disappear in the middle of everything else going on. “Well, I hope he plans on coming home within the next hour because I’m locking up and he won’t be able to get in otherwise.

  “Did someone say tuna rolls?” a silky voice called out from down the hallway. “Sorry. I was getting my beauty sleep. You people are awfully loud, you know.” Oisín plopped his furry butt down by the threshold, his tail flicking back and forth.

  The weekend was a complete blur. And just as Fi had called it, I was so busy with bouncing back and forth between the library and the MARC, digging into the case files and looking for any information that could explain the magic leaks that I barely had time to spend with her. It dug at my insides, but at least I knew she was enjoying herself. Each night before we went to sleep in Aunt Bedelia’s guest bedroom above the Apothecarium, she’d regale me everything she did that day.

  I laid in bed, exhausted, but smiling at the excitement in her voice as she told me how the entire Children of the Moon Society had somehow contracted the same rash and they filled up most of the shop waiting around for Aunt Bee to finish mixing up enough tinctures to help them all.

  She was dozing in and out of the story toward the end, her eyes drooping shut over and over again until I heard her soft snoring. Yep. The plan in the morning was definitely to spend some quality time with her. I owed it to her.

  A fitful sleep hadn’t exactly been my cup of tea, but not only had training at the Academy taught me how to work on minimal sleep—so had being a single parent.

  “Come on,” I said, pulling a groggy Fi up out of bed the next morning. “Let’s get some breakfast before we head to the Athenaeum.”

  Her eyes widened in surprised. I could see myself in their reflections. “Right now?”

  I nodded. “No time like the present.”

  “Sweet! I can’t wait to check out some of the books Erie recommended to me. ‘Hedgewitchery - Eye for Herbs’ and that huge reference guide to animals native to Danann!”

  “I bet Erie never told you that she discovered one of the species in the book. The Potentias Worm.”

  A look of awe overtook her face as she slid out of the bed. “Whoa. That’s insane. She did tell me about how one time she was out studying one of the breeds of wildcats that live in the forest. I don’t remember what the name was—something we don’t have in our world. But apparently it can turn nearly invisible…”

  Without meaning to, I checked out of the conversation as my mind took me elsewhere, picturing the same old evidence and reports I’d been staring at. She was waving her hand in front of my face, snapping me back to the present.

  “Hello? Anyone home?”

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, ashamed at how easy it was for my eyes to glaze over. It was like there was a steady program of constant information running at all times in the back of my brain. I couldn’t get rid of it, but it was definitely becoming more of a nuisance.

  Fiona-Leigh nudged me with her shoulder. “It’s okay. But maybe we can go to the Athenaeum for a little while and then you can go out and relax on your own if you want. I know you have like a million things going on right now.”

  Her understanding meant more to me than I could ever say. I leaned against her, pulling her in for a squeeze. “Thank you, honey. I appreciate it.”

  19

  A Big-Mouth’s Gamble

  “This place is straight out of Hogwarts.”

  Fiona-Leigh perched on the edge of one of the dark wooden benches that were placed here and there throughout the Athenaeum’s main lobby area, her face the picture of utter awe.

  “Well, I don’t know anything about Hogwarts, but this is just the tip of the icecap,” Erie laughed, leaning over the oracle desk in hopes of finding Zoya. “Well, she’s not back here. Maybe we should just go ahead and start browsing. Come on, Fi. I’ll show you one of my favorite places to kick back.”

  I hid a reluctant smile at the way Erie had used the nickname I gave Fiona-Leigh, nodding for the two of them to go on ahead without me. “I think I’m just going to look for Zoya in case you see anything you want to borrow.”

  Erie grinned. “Plus, your mom probably wouldn’t approve of me showing you the Colossus of Crises. It’s full of some pretty dark stuff,” she spoke in a staged whisper. “But I think we can get away with it.”

  “I heard that.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Sh! We better get going before she catches on,” she whispered again, turning to wave to me. “We’ll meet back here in say, an hour?”

  “Mm-hm. Your concept of an hour is far different than mine.” This was true, but only because I sucked at time management. In a weird fluke, Erie was pretty impeccable with it.

  She shrugged and yanked Fi up from the bench. “Let’s go.” They disappeared down a long aisle of books in the Stories & Mythologies section.

  From somewhere inside the library (or maybe even the walls themselves) rang a loud ancient-sounding bell. How was it already noon? I knew Aunt Bee kept us a little longer than I’d wanted, fixing us what amounted to a four-course breakfast. My stomach was still full of sausage and hash that it was a wonder I hadn’t rolled down the steps to the main shop.

  I peered over the front desk as Erie had done, double-checking for Zoya. Sometimes she could be hiding without even really meaning to. Half-banshees were small enough to be mistaken for an older child if you weren’t looking properly.

  Pulling out my wand, I swirled it in front of the desk, whispering a soft incantation, until a little electric blue bird formed from the tip of it. “Fly free little bird. Fly free and find with whom I’d like a word.”

  It let out a shrill tweet before soaring into the air, off to find the unassuming librarian. Twitter has nothing on me.

  I was surprised to see that no one seemed to be around, not even the other two librarians that were under Zoya. After what happened with Rourke, it was a bit shocking not to see more overall security other than the Shadow Hands Uncle Gardner had placed outside to keep watch around the grounds. I didn’t feel the usual deep magic that was woven into the atmosphere around the Athenaeum. I frowned.

  A few more minutes passed before I gave up, deciding instead, to take a walk along the main street. As much as I loved the library, I’d been in and out of stuffy older buildings for the past couple of weeks. I needed some sunshine—and the cool breeze that was still a month away in Midnight Pitch.

  “Just a quick stroll,” I said to myself, pushing open the heavy doors until the bright sky left me shielding my eyes.

  Some people hurried down the street while others were strolling along like me, in no rush to get anywhere so soon. The beginnings of the market were right around the corner from the library. Further down the other end, began little stone cottages dotting the green landscape here and there. A family of dwarves were outside the nearest cottage
, the parents lying in small hammocks while their two older sons were busy cutting the grass and weeding the garden. Dwarves were well-known for their metalsmithing and woodworking skills. In fact, my wand and several others were handcrafted by dwarves. They worked hard, so you couldn’t exactly disparage the

  m for wanting a break on a beautiful day like this.

  I snorted, watching the father sipping on something fruity-looking out of a tall glass.

  Actually… that didn’t sound like a bad idea. And I knew just the place to go to get my sweet and fruity fix.

  Walking in the opposite direction toward the market, I smiled and waved at some of the more familiar faces.

  Frida, a werewolf woman who I knew from her days working with my mother at the Apothecarium, gave me a quick hug. “So good to see you, liebe. I had heard you were back in town. And with a beautiful daughter as well! The two of you will have to stop by my stand. Fresh from the vine, grapes and Bludhaven watermelons!” she said in her thick accent.

  “Of course! I’d love to,” I replied, giving her a quick wave before continuing on.

  Down the road some, Arcas’ bar, Harm’s Charm did not appear to be open yet. I groaned, wishing I could magic myself one of those delicious strawberry and dragon flower daiquiris he used to make me years ago.

  “Gwen!” A deep, rumbling voice shouted from behind me.

  I grinned as I turned around, nearly barreled over by the nine-foot tall beast himself. There was nothing quite like get squished against a minotaur. “Hey stranger. I was just coming by to see you,” I said in between short huffs of breath as he hugged me a little too enthusiastically.

  Arcas’ bull-ring moved with the loud snort he let out. “Coming to see me? To what do I owe this pleasure?” I knew he was just teasing me. His dark eyes crinkled in the corners.