by Zoe Arden
"It was the first thing I could think of," Eli told her.
"Ew," Trixie said, grabbing the towel and wiping her feet more frantically with it. The goo was sticking to her shoes like glue.
"Eli!" Eleanor cried, finally catching up to Trixie. "That's disgusting! Do you mean to tell me that this stuff Trixie got on me is... Jon?" She grabbed the towel from Trixie and started wiping the back of her neck, rubbing it raw.
Eli decided he'd packed enough. He laid Ava carefully on the bed and closed their suitcases.
"Floatisio hovero," Eli said, casting his charm. The suitcases floated ahead of him in the air. He picked Ava back up and hugged her to him.
"But the Council won't fault you for Jon's death," Eleanor pleaded. "Not after what he did to Lorabelle. Not if he tried to kill you, too."
"It wasn't me he was after," Eli said, holding Ava more tightly to him. "It's not safe for her here."
"We would never let anyone hurt Ava!" Trixie cried.
"Never!" Eleanor agreed.
"Besides," Trixie chimed in. "If Jon is dead, then who's going to hurt her? She's safer here, in Sweetland Cove."
But Eli was already shaking his head. "Lorabelle wasn't safe."
Trixie and Eleanor couldn't argue that.
Eli expelled a long breath. "Jon has a child. A wife. Friends."
The sisters knew what he was getting at. Revenge was a sticky mess.
"But where will you go?" Trixie asked, her bottom lip pouting out just like Lorabelle's used to do.
"How will we find you?" Eleanor asked.
"You won't," Eli told them. "I'm taking Ava somewhere... Somewhere with so many people, no one will even notice us."
"Like the city?" Eleanor asked, hoping for a clue. But Eli kept his lips sealed. This was it. Sweetland Cove was no longer his home.
Eli allowed Eleanor and Trixie to kiss Ava one last time before he left for the ferry docks. He had just enough time to catch the last one out. From the mainland, it would only be a short plane ride. No one would ever find them. Ava would be safe. And she would never, ever know the truth.
* * *
CHAPTER
ONE
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* * *
"Happy birthday."
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I woke up on my twenty-first birthday expecting to feel different.
I looked in the mirror, checking for crow's feet and smile lines. Nothing. I could hear my mother's voice in my head, laughing and tsking me for being so silly. She sounded like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. I'd adopted that voice for my mother when I was six and saw the movie for the first time. Since I had no frame of reference, I'd figured that voice was as good as any.
A knock sounded outside my door. "Ava, we're going to be late."
I looked at the clock on my nightstand and groaned. When I'd graduated high school I'd thought I'd be writing bestsellers or starring on Broadway by now. Something... special. Different. Not working as a waitress at the same New York City diner my father was a line cook at.
I opened the bedroom door. My dad stood there smiling at me and holding a small box.
"Happy birthday!" he cried.
I smiled and took the box from him.
"Thanks, Dad. You didn't have to—"
"Don't even say it. Of course I did. I'm your father. My daughter is turning twenty-one today. The least she deserves is a... well, open it and find out."
He was grinning like the Cheshire Cat. Yellow curls fell across my eyes and I pushed them away. I quickly undid the ribbon my father had tied around the box and tore the paper open. Inside was a sterling silver necklace. I stared at the pendant. A solid silver witch's hat.
Oh my God.
Any time I'd expressed even the slightest interest in witches or magic since I was a kid, my father had always gotten angry. Growing up, I hadn't even been allowed to dress up like a witch for Halloween. It had taken three years of begging before he'd even allowed me to go trick-or-treating. And then he'd followed me and my friends from house to house, not letting me out of his sight for an instant. He'd even walked up to the doors with me. It was the last time I'd been invited trick-or-treating.
"It's beautiful," I told my father, still uncertain about its meaning. Maybe this was his way of telling me he considered me an adult now.
"It... it was your mother's." The words croaked out of him.
"This was Mom's?" I looked at the pendant again, more closely this time.
My father never talked about my mother. The most he'd ever told me about her was that she'd died in a plane crash when I was only a year old. I'd grown up terrified of flying. Maybe that was why I'd never left New York.
Despite wishing for some adventure in my life, I'd decided long ago that the city was big enough and busy enough that I didn't need to go anywhere. I could find plenty to do right here. Besides, I could never leave my dad. What would I have done anyway? Work as a waitress in some other diner in a less interesting city?
I hugged my father tightly.
"I love it. Thank you."
I took the necklace from the box and put it around my neck. My father fixed the clasp for me, and I looked in the mirror. The witch's hat shined brightly even in the dim lights of my bedroom.
"Why did..." I was dying to know why my mother had a witch's hat for a necklace. Was she into the supernatural? Fantasy? Was her favorite movie The Wizard of Oz? What did it mean?
My father sensed the question on my lips. "She just thought it was pretty," he told me and left it at that. I opened my mouth again, more questions rising in the back of my throat, but my father turned and went back down the hall.
At work, everyone wished me a happy birthday. Lance offered to take me out for a drink after my shift. "You're twenty-one. It's a rite of passage. I went through it two years ago on my birthday. Now it's your turn."
Lance smiled widely at me. His brown eyes worked to charm their way in. I was tempted to say yes, but I could feel my father's eyes on us from the kitchen. My dad didn't like Lance. Actually, my dad didn't like anybody. If I went out tonight, he'd only stay up worrying.
"Thanks," I said. "Maybe some other time."
The morning rush ended and the noon rush started. I kept checking the clock, wishing I could somehow make time spin a little faster. Around three, just an hour before my shift ended, two women came into the restaurant. They looked almost identical, with their bright blond hair twirled high in a bun. It was almost the same shade as mine.
They were both in their forties, though I could tell one of them was just barely so. She was dressed like she'd paid one too many visits to the local thrift shop. Bright pink jeans and a matching hat were accentuated with long loopy earrings, a bright yellow shirt, and a sparkly vest. The other woman, clearly her older sister, looked like a subdued gypsy. She wore dark grays and blacks with silver bangles and large hoop earrings. They looked around the restaurant, searching for someone. Their eyes stopped on me.
I moved to the right, thinking they were looking at the menu behind me. But their eyes followed me. They were staring so intently at me I began to blush. Maybe I had something on my face? I snuck into the back room and did a quick makeup check. Everything looked in order.
"Hey, Ava," Judy said, coming up beside me. She did a quick mirror check of her own, straightening her apron. "There are two women out there asking for you."
"For me?"
"Yep. Except they called you Ava Fortune instead of Stone. But they described you to a tee. Actually," Judy turned to me, giving me a quick once over, "they kinda look like you. Relatives, maybe?"
"I doubt that," I told her, making my way back out front. My father and mother had both been only children. Judy followed me and pointed out a booth. The two women who'd been staring at me sat there expectantly.
I got two glasses of water and made my way toward them.
"Good afternoon," I said, setting down the glasses. "Welcome to Stuff
ed." They were sitting side by side instead of across from each other the way people usually did.
The women grinned at me and shot each other a look. The younger one actually elbowed her sister.
"Hello, Ava," said the older woman.
"Um," I said, feeling like I was the punchline of some unknown joke. "Do I know you?"
"We've met before," she said. "Though it's been a while—"
"Quite a while," her younger sister interrupted.
"—since we've seen you."
I put my pen down and bit my bottom lip.
"We met you on the island," the older woman said. She sounded cautious. Like she was feeling me out.
"Manhattan?" I asked.
"Heavenly Haven."
"Oh," I said, laughing. Understanding clicked in my brain. "You're mixing me up with someone else. I've never been out of New York."
The sisters frowned and shot each other a worried look.
"Do you need another minute to look over the menu?" I asked. They were starting to creep me out. It was the way they kept looking at me. Like I was famous or something.
"I'll take pumpkin pancakes without the pumpkin, please," the younger woman said.
"The same for me, please," said her sister.
I stared at them. "So you want... pancakes?"
The women whispered to each other like they were conferring on some big secret.
"Yes, pancakes," the older one replied, nodding her head. "Plain. No pumpkin. No villeroot. And some hot tea, if you have it."
"No what?" I asked.
"Villeroot. My stomach just can't handle it this late in the day."
"Er, okay. No problem." I scratched it down on my notepad and turned toward the kitchen.
"There's the birthday girl!" Billy, one of the line cooks, shouted. "Hey, Eli. Tell your daughter she should be out partying, not working at this dump." There was a general murmur of agreement from the other two cooks, but my dad's lips tightened.
"Listen to this order," I told the guys. I thought even my dad might find this funny. "Pumpkin pancakes, hold the pumpkin." There was a round of laughter. "And no villeroot," I said, smiling. "The woman's stomach can't handle it this late in the day." There was another round of laughter.
"What the heck is villeroot?" Billy asked, wiping his forehead with a towel.
I shrugged.
"No idea. I'm pretty sure it only exists in that lady's imagination."
I looked toward my dad to see if he was laughing, but he wasn't there.
"Where'd Eli go?" Billy asked.
He'd just been standing here. How did he sneak away? I hadn't even seen him leave the kitchen. I shrugged and grabbed two mugs for tea for the pumpkin ladies.
I pushed the kitchen door open and stopped in my tracks. My dad was at the pumpkin ladies' table. His face was scarlet, and his eyes had narrowed to black slits.
He stood in a heated discussion with the women. The pumpkin ladies turned their eyes to me, looking grim, then slowly rose from their booth. They left the restaurant without a word.
"What was that about?" I asked my dad, setting the mugs aside.
"What?" he asked.
"Those women. What were you talking about? Who were they?"
"No one," he snapped. "Crazy customers. Nothing new." He pushed past me and made his way back to the kitchen.
I wanted to follow him. I was dying to know who those women were. My father spoke to people as little as possible. To strangers? Almost never. The fact he'd actually left the kitchen... that he actually seemed to know them... floored me.
I cleaned off the table the women had been sitting at, running through everything that had happened in my head. I was sure I'd never seen them before, yet... there had been something vaguely familiar about them.
Under one of their water glasses lay a tip. I scooped the bill up, preparing to pocket the single in my apron. My mouth dropped open. It wasn't a single. I stared at the bill, unbelieving. A hundred dollars? All I'd done was bring them water.
I flipped the bill over, looking for signs that it was fake. Written on the back of the bill in black marker were the words, "Happy birthday, Ava."
* * *
CHAPTER
TWO
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* * *
" We're witches. Just like you."
* * *
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The day after my birthday was my swing shift. Our boss had thought he was doing me a favor by having me start at three in the afternoon instead of eight in the morning. He'd probably figured I'd be out all night drinking and would enjoy sleeping in. Little did he know Dad and I had spent a quiet evening in, eating cupcakes he'd picked up from Frodo's and watching old movies.
It had been nice, but it had also been... routine. We always watched old movies and ate junk food. That was my dad's definition of a great time. Every celebration. Every Friday night. Old movies and junk food. I was twenty-one and acted like I was forty-one. Sometimes I felt like the most boring person alive.
I'd had so few friends growing up. Dad had always treated me like I was an egg that could crack at any second. I think one of the reasons I'd been so enamored with witches when I was little was because they could fly away on their brooms and go wherever they wanted. Do whatever they wanted. I touched the necklace around my neck and wished, not for the first time, that my mother was here.
When Dad left for his morning shift, I took the rare opportunity of being alone in the apartment to sit outside on our balcony with a cup of coffee. Eight floors up, we had a lovely view of the park across the street. I liked to watch the people in it. I tried to imagine where they were going or what their lives were like.
The sun was shining brightly. Summer was just getting started. A robin fluttered through the air past our balcony. I watched it swoop down from the sky and set itself on a low tree branch. Just below the tree branch, something caught my eye. I blinked to make sure I wasn't seeing things.
The pumpkin ladies from the diner stood there. They were looking up at me. The younger one grinned and waved broadly as if trying to get my attention. Her sister's eyes widened in disbelief. She pinched the younger woman's arm and raised her pointer finger at her. A puff of blue smoke flew from her fingertip.
My jaw dropped open and hot coffee dribbled over my chin. I dropped my mug. The cup toppled to the ground and broke into four large pieces. I wiped myself off with a napkin and picked up the pieces. When I looked up again, the women were gone.
I kept looking out of my window the rest of the morning. Part of me hoped I'd see them again. There was something just a little off about them. Something strange yet... fascinating.
On my way to work, I kept looking behind me, certain the pumpkin ladies were there. I replayed what I'd seen over and over in my mind and convinced myself I'd imagined the blue smoke. People didn't shoot smoke or anything else from their fingertips. That was impossible.
I hadn't imagined them though. The pumpkin ladies had definitely been there. And they'd been looking for me.
When I got to work, we were swamped with the late afternoon rush. I barely had time to say hi to my dad before jumping on my first table. Every time the door chimed I looked up, half hoping, half expecting to see those women. Every time I was disappointed.
When four o'clock hit, my dad clocked out.
"I'll keep dinner warm for you," he said and got out of there before the dinner rush could hit.
I hadn't worked swing shift in a while. I think the last time had been when I was sixteen and had started at the diner part time. The second I turned eighteen and didn't have school anymore, my dad had secured me a spot on the morning crew. He'd worked at Stuffed for years and was a favorite of our boss, who was more than happy to oblige. Mostly because my dad never took time off, never came in late, and never once in his fifteen years there had he asked for a raise.
When I was fourteen, I'd realized most of the kids I went to school with had parents who were t
eachers or lawyers or nurses or... something more than just a line cook. I'd asked my dad why he didn't try to get ahead. Maybe become head chef at a fancy restaurant. Or better yet, open his own diner.
"Flying under the radar is the only way to stay safe," he'd told me. I thought that about summed up his life. Safe. Boring. Tiresome.
I sighed as the last of the evening rush filed out of the restaurant. Three more hours to go. The diner closed at eleven and by midnight we'd all be gone. By one, I could be in bed. And tomorrow I would start all over again.
The pancake ladies didn't show themselves all night. But around the time we turned the diner's lights off, I began to feel someone watching me. It was the icky, creepy feeling that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. I kept looking around, thinking maybe Lance was checking me out—it had happened before—but he was busy sweeping the floors.
I shook the feeling off and grabbed the last of the trash. The alley was dark and stinky. Only a sliver of light made its way between the buildings, casting strange shadows on the side of the trash can. It was the type of place location scouts noted for use in horror movies. The type of alley where dead bodies were likely to turn up and ghosts were likely to make their first but not last appearance.
I threw the trash bags into the bins and spun quickly back toward the door. It was locked.
"Crud," I said, banging on it from the outside. As if anyone could hear me through the brick walls and heavy metal door.
There was only one way out of the darkness. I turned toward the only opening the alley offered and began trekking toward it. A pinpoint of light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. I could go around to the front doors and Judy or someone would let me in.
I was halfway down the alley when two figures stepped out of the shadows, blocking my only exit.
I stopped walking. Zillions of slasher flicks ran through my mind. I knew better than to wait and see if Jason Voorhees would brandish his machete at me. I reversed toward the locked door. Maybe if I banged hard enough someone would hear me after all.
